Sand brushed against his skin, riding the wind of his magic that he'd surrounded himself with. The mages had hidden themselves within the sandstorm that raged around him, and the eye that he was forced to create just to see only made him a target. The ground at his feet groaned, and he leapt into the air just as rocks burst form the sand and hungrily snapped at him.

That would have taken his legs off.

The mages weren't playing.

Neil sank back into the raging storm and slipped his hood and mouth cover over his face. If he didn't shield himself, the sand got in his mouth, ears, and eyes. The sandstorms in the Sol territory were god awful and he searched them for Talamayas. Unlike him, this man was a scorpion in the sands, hidden until he stung, and when he moved, it was to kill.

The man also had natural camouflage with his skin that matched the sands like he was made up of its granules. With his sand cloak over his pitch hair, Talamayas just disappeared into the terrain in a way that showed why his territory was rarely invaded. Neil himself stuck out like a sore thumb with long blindingly bone-white hair, and skin as light as an apricot.

Heat crawled over his form in a gust, giving him just enough notice to throw up a wind shield as the explosion rocked the desert. Power rushed past him, bringing searing sand with it, and then like everything burst of energy, it bounced back. It broke Neil's shield and he was yanked forward several feet into the sand.

Damn Talamayas never pulled his punches. His ally had found their adversaries, but the Sol leader was going to take him out with them. Neil spun his wind to get a better view of the area, weaving his magic through the sands and pushing them back so he could see several yards to each side. There was nothing there, but he was sure he'd heard something.

Bubbling. Like water boiling or magma bursting. At his feet, the soaked sand sputtered, giving him just enough time to utter a fowl curse before the ground gave and pulled him under the sands.

An aquifer.

How fortuitous for that shit mage. Neil choked on mud and sand as they squeezed and rung him out like a towel. The constriction was agony and so tightly wrapped him that he couldn't cast any spells. Sure he was going to black out, light burst over him and a hand grabbed his arm. Talamayas yanked him back out and hopped to dry sand, dropping him so he could cough out chunks of mud and growl in frustration as he tried to get it out of his eyes.

"That looks awful," Talamayas was blurry, but Neil could just make out him cringing.

"You didn't think to mention that you had underground water reservoirs?" Neil gagged on the taste of mud.

"How do you think I keep my humans alive?" Talamayas chuckled but dropped it to turn ahead of them. "Holy fucking hell," Talamayas cursed as the sands rose up

They rolled and crashed like waves until the final volley of power sent the sand crashing down on them. Neither of them intended to be crushed, and Neil pummeled the wave with wind from both hands as Talamayas did the same with his flames. It was too heavy to stop fully, and they had to dart to the side as the far end collided with the dune. Where they now stood, the brunt of the wave shimmered in a massive wall of murky glass.

"Remind me to never piss off any mage generals," Talamayas groaned, and then he screamed.

It was not a sound Neil heard often from Talamayas, considering the stoic man he was, but the only reason Neil didn't scream was because he didn't see what was coming. Water. It washed over the wave of glass from the aquifer and it brought with it just as much mud as it had before.

It swallowed Talamayas whole. His fire magic couldn't hold itself against earth and water magic. It smothered his flames like a child would pinch out a candle. Neil, however, spun his wind around him, and he'd be damned if he didn't take one of these damn mages down. A whirlpool of the foreign magic rose up with his magic, and he lifted himself into the air to dive straight for the light energy just beyond the glass wall.

Taking no detours, he crossed his arms in front of him and punched straight through it with his elbows. As he passed, he picked up the shards of glass into his wind and ran straight for the mage. His direct attack threw the man off guard, and Neil had the satisfaction of the fear in the man's murky navy eyes as he hurled the glass at him.

Shard by shard, it tore the man's skin, and the scent of blood flooded the air. Once, such a storm of the aroma would have driven him to madness in hunger, but not anymore. Now, he had something worth growing for, someone he needed to stand on his own two legs and support.

For Silvia, he would conquer anything, and he relished the crack of bone as he thrust the side of his leg into the man's ribs and sent him flying, already shredded from the glass, several yards. Just as his glee uplifted him, something hard cracked him upside the head, and he fell. Dry sand swallowed half of him as the world spun, and he passed out.

It had to have been some time later that he opened his eyes, because the sands were no longer swirling around him and he was lying on something soft. To his left Talamayas came into the room with a wet towel from a shower, but a frown was deep set on his face.

"We lost again, didn't we," Neil turned grumpily on his side in the infirmary bed.

"Fuck you, you piece of shit!" A voice came from one of the other bed.

Neil full on laughed at the agony in those words as he sat up and looked over to Tide Cascade. The mage was healed already, but he rubbed his arms and backed away when Neil looked at him. Shaded under his short Navy hair, the man's deep ocean eyes vibrated with his displeasure. The man's once lavish, navy, mage-general uniform that frothed at the edges with pearl white was torn asunder, and he had a cloak wrapped around him.

"Please, you tied to crush me in an earth coffin," Neil growled.

"I tried to crush you in an earth coffin," Forest Copse argued, his blue eyes glowing with amusement as he sat on a chair and brushed the remains of sand out of his long brown hair. "Tide just provided the water to weaken the ground. Good job though, Neil. You scared the living shit out of Tide, so you've gotten much better than when we started training." Forest was Silvia's father and the man had a heart just as soft as hers. In the absence of the woman Neil loved, Forest had filled much of the time training and educating him

"I'm considering killing you both right now," Talamayas said with his arms crossed, and his blood red eyes hyper focused on Forest. "You've both gotten much stronger than any mage generals have a right to be."

"That is true," Forest said, regarding Talamayas with worry.

"Tala won't touch either of you. Please don't take his words to heart, Forest," Neil said, elbowing his closest ally. "Vampires and mages have just never trained together before, and for good reason I suppose. Your magic has grown exponentially since you started training here, Forest, and it worries Talamayas."

"It is sort of invigorating." Forest smiled genuinely. "To see what sort of power I'm capable of when I'm stoked by constant pressure from your dark magic. We started this to train you, Neil, but there have been interesting benefits for Tide and I."

"You just enjoy it because you normally aren't the one who gets diced," Tide growled, rolling his dark eyes over Neil's.

It was a threat, but Neil couldn't help the smile that curled his lips. Silvia's uncle looked so much like her, from his short navy hair to his identically colored dark eyes. Even the way he scowled reminded him of Silvia and he ached to see her. They were supposed to meet this evening, and he'd sufficiently worn himself out during the day so he could sleep comfortably by her side all night.

"You get your fair share of hits off on Neil, Tide," Forest responded, and Tide smiled to that. While the Cascade general wasn't friendly to vampires, per se, they got along when it mattered, which was all Neil needed. The diplomatic relations between the Arcs and Copse and Cascade mages had also improved over the last year.

"I've got two nice cells downstairs for people who bury me alive," Talamayas growled low, dark magic sparking off him as he sat in a chair next to Neil's bed.

"Talamayas. It's daytime." Neil slapped his arm. "Quit getting so sensitive about Forest and Tide besting you two on one at your weakest. We all know you'd decimate them at night. That's why we train under the sun only, remember?" Neil's words sank into Talamayas' skin, and he rolled a smirk over to Forest.

"Come back tonight for a rematch?" Talamayas taunted.

Forest let out a huff of air as a smile lifted his lips. "No thank you. Being in the Sol territory has terrified me since Neil suggested it, and though I've grown accustomed to your hospitality, I'd rather not linger."

"That's a shame," Talamayas dropped his smile for a genuine frown. "Wren likes you, and the man is constantly gloomy all the time, walking these halls like a damn ghost, sighing and yearning for anywhere else. You company... eases him somewhat."

"I'd want to leave too if you tortured me for half a century," Tide said, shivering on his hospital bed. "I'd take being sick every day rather than hang out here."

Wren Song was a powerful mage that had resided in Talamayas' dungeon for nearly fifty years. Talamayas had tortured him every waking moment of his life for the crime of killing the Sol mother. Mothers were the ones whose blood ran though the main line of vampires, and they were utilized to change people of worth to lower the risk of the change not taking and killing them. The woman had also been Talamayas' human mother before he's been changed, so the man had been understandably bitter.

Bitter enough to drag every single Song mage in front of Wren and torture them to death while forcing the mage to watch. Wren had protected Silvia when they'd infiltrated Angelus and then helped her cousin and Neil's new fledgling to safety. Freedom had finally been his, but then the sickness had started. After half a century in a dungeon saturated with Sol magic, the man could no longer survive without its flow surrounding him.

It was truly pitiful the situation the man was in.

"Unfortunately, the sickness presents in fits that leave him immobile and barely conscious," Talamayas said with a sigh. "On top of that, he is nocturnal from years of it, and no one likes him here. It's like having a huge feral rat roaming around that you can't get rid of because it's too big to kill."

"I'm not a rodent," Wren said, coming back into the room.

Neal stiffened from his sharp ash eyes narrowing of Talamayas, but the Sol leader paid him no mind as he mage put an elbow on his head and leaned on him. The mix of red and orange hair that the Songs had sent panic through any vampire who saw them because it was quite unique for their clan. The Song mages had the ability to whisper into the air and attach chains to vampires' souls, dancing them like puppets until their insides liquefied from the invasive light magic.

It was quite gruesome.

Both Talamayas and Wren had legitimate reasons to despise each other, but they looked so calm as they stood side by side. Wren ran a hand over his red hair and slipped it behind his ear. The man had kept it just long enough to touch his chin, but it had gotten longer over the last year without a haircut. Neil wasn't sure if the length had been from Talamayas cutting it to keep it out his face during torture or preference, and he wasn't sure he wanted to know.

"How is everything at home?" Wren asked Forest, continuing to use Talamayas as an armrest, now leaning his chin on his hand.

"Are you sure that's safe?" Forest asked the question no one in the room was going to dare ask.

"What? Leaning on Tala? I snuggle this needy fuck half the–"

Talamayas slapped a hand over Wren's mouth and Wren let out a slow sigh until the man removed his hand.

"I mean, yes, absolutely terrified with our nonaggression blood contract that says he can't harm me and vice versa," Wren groaned.

"You two seem, chummy for enemies." Forest tilted a smile, and Talamayas' frown deepened.

"I do not snuggle him," Talamayas growled.

"Well, my people murdered a bunch of his, he murdered all of mine, and we can't kill each other, so I've settled for slow emotional torture," Wren said with a whistle of amusement. "At first I did it as a joke, insisting that if I wasn't close to him I'd get violently ill, when in reality, being in the castle worked just fine. I'd cast all sorts of spells that hummed through the castle and kept him from sleeping until he let me sit in his room. Then when I kept casting them, he yanked me to the bed and held my hands still so I couldn't use them for spells.

"Couldn't sit there for long doing nothing, so I fell asleep. Woke up with the damn man wrapped around me and with his fangs at my neck. Damn near funniest thing I've ever seen when he woke up, saw me, and threw himself off the bed with a screech. The man didn't sleep for days and when he finally passed out, I crept back into his room and crawled into his bed. I think he almost cried that time when he woke up and couldn't get away from me.

"It was fun for a time, but unfortunately he's gotten used to me in the last couple months and just seeks me out when he sleeps and drags me off to bed with him. Tala likes it better that he isn't surprised when he wakes up, and now I'm stuck as his permanent stuffed animal, which I suppose is appropriate return torture for what I did. I reap what sow, I guess."

"Why are you here, Wren?" Talamayas asked, slipping out from under his elbow. "I thought you went back to sleep after healing Tide."

"A letter came from the Copse territory that I don't think anyone wants to read," Wren said with a frown, handing it down to Talamayas.

"I feared this," Forest said with a groan, rubbing his temple with his hand.

"Feared what?" Neil asked with concern. The possibilities flooded his mind and none of them were good.

"Silvia was supposed to have already arrived in the Copse territory, but she never did this morning. I was going to meet her after our training, but I never got word of her arrival from Alec or Idus who are still waiting. What did the Void Complex say? Some excuse?"

"It says that Silvia is indisposed and cannot visit as promised. They said they will follow up with you in a couple weeks." Talamayas growled and ignited the paper with a small flame spell.

Neil's heart sank, but before he could disappear into the sheets, Forest came to his side. The man gave him a sort of half hug, and Neil didn't mind leaning into him. All of the Copses had the same magic flowing through them, infiltrator or not, and it was soothing to have around as a small Band-Aid for a wound that was growing larger each and every day he was unable to see her.

"If she isn't here, she likely can't come back, Neil," Forest explained, which was appreciated because he knew little about how battlefield mages were organized up north. "It's likely she got caught up in a mission and is infiltrating with her comrades and made it back late, or perhaps the north became restless and they need her to hold the violence back until it calms. Either way, if she is not back in a couple weeks, I'm going up there and dragging her back myself."

"Thank you, Forest," Neil said the words, but the depression had already sank its way into him. It had been more than a year and he himself was getting restless. The Copse general likely knew that and was only going to do so to keep Neil from getting himself into trouble. As different as they were, Silvia's father had accepted him, and Neil was glad to have him.

Hopefully Silvia was okay.

What had happened to her?

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Word Count: 2918