AZMET DISTRICT, TSIRA TERRITORY, NAPIX EMPIRE

FOUR STANDARD DAYS EARLIER

"One person can always make a difference." The head scribe gestured to the embossed words on the wooden tabletop between him, his subordinates, and a Messenger. The motto had no shortage of inscriptions for him to point to—in the interwoven bars of the front door, on various pieces of jewelry—so frequent as to be rote and meaningless.

Xlack's hands shook, fingers numb. His Kinetic grip wouldn't last. Maybe clinging to the ceiling hadn't been such a great idea. How long would these old men keep talking?

"Our previous Protector was elderly and wise enough to know when to mind his own business," the head scribe wheezed. He wouldn't be the head scribe much longer. Xlack pictured him scraping out broken down litterbugs in the bowels of the sanitation department.

"There aren't enough Protectors for every city to claim one of their own. Be grateful you were given one at all," Messenger Pim Mianlan countered. His face was like a skull, eyes and cheeks sunken, nothing like the blunt visages of the officials to whom he spoke or the subtle curve of Xlack's features.

The head scribe sniffed and folded his hands on the table. "Our current Protector is a child, and Azmet is a distinguished district."

"The most distinguished on the Napix homeworld, some would say," his underling added. His medallion clinked against his wide belt as he leaned forward.

The three scribes lounged on dark divans. Mianlan sat cross-legged in a chair, perpetual scowl deeper than usual. Maybe he didn't like this new restaurant that occupied the bottom floors of this district's tallest tower. Maybe he found its open floorplan and rustic décor distasteful. Maybe it annoyed him that a basket of steaming breadsticks on every table filled the air with a warm, yeasty aroma, or that the din of happy customers made it difficult to hear. Maybe he didn't like the company.

Xlack would very much have liked one of those buttery breadsticks. Sweat gathered on his brow and dampened his hanging, pale curls. If it were to drip onto the scribes' table a story and a half below, he doubted they would notice. Even if they did, they'd forget they were inside and raise their umbrellas.

"We have gathered a petition." The head scribe offered a glass pane to Mianlan, and columns of text appeared as the document loaded. "We wish a more experienced Protector be assigned to Azmet."

Xlack scowled. His grip failed, and his breath snagged in his throat as his hands fell from the ceiling. His knees followed, and he concentrated on keeping his shins and ankles attached to the boards above. As he hung upside down, a sleeping bundle of pewter and black scales tumbled from his pocket.

Xlack caught the beastling around his middle. As a fan's tilted blade swiped beneath four dangling paws, the beastling wiggled, onyx eyes wide as his slender tail whipped his savior's wrist.

"Rell, shh," Xlack mouthed. He pulled the beastling to his chest and winced as needle-like claws dug through his jacket.

Below, Mianlan glanced at the offered screen. "Xlack Ekymé has been your Protector for a year n—"

"Don't say his name, or he'll show up," the official sitting left of Mianlan snapped. As his gaze darted to every corner, the fringes on his pentagonal hat swung wildly.

No one ever thought to look up. To be fair, these officials' ridiculous hats made that difficult.

With a smirk, Xlack curled into a ball and reunited his hands with the ceiling's mosaic of dark and light slats. His hold slipped once, twice, knees and toes shaking. Organic materials like wood, even long dead and highly polished, were difficult for his Kinetic Talent to manipulate.

Snorting at the indignity of such an unstable resting place, Rell plodded onto Xlack's belly and squeezed his pudgy feline body beneath the jacket's slanted hem.

"Calm down. The shipment of contaminated goods we arranged will keep that little Protector tied up with datawork the rest of the day."

Xlack finally got both hands pressed against the ceiling. Had no one ever told the head scribe his voice was annoying?

If your nose isn't stuffed up, don't purposely sound like it is.

Mianlan's loose garb and bulky scarf made him look like a lumpy bag of vegetables plopped in a chair. "What if a legitimate crisis struck while he was busy with trifles you made up?"

"This is Azmet District." The head scribe huffed. "Who would dare threaten us?"

If Xlack somehow survived landing on his neck in front of these lard-brains, the shame would kill him anyway. He slid one hand in front of the other, knee following as he crawled toward a truss that supported the fans. It seemed a better place to await the moment to reveal his presence.

"An alert and competent Protector is what maintains that status quo," Mianlan lectured.

The scribe to his right bit a breadstick, and the crunch of its flaky crust echoed in Xlack's ears, mocking him for having been too busy to eat today. His stomach growled.

Surrounded by warmth and darkness, Rell answered it with a purr, and tiny claws kneaded Xlack's gut.

Xlack stopped, cheek trapped between his teeth to bar any sound.

Mianlan continued, "Xlack Ekymé is the Lead Protector's favorite. You're idiots, and this petition of yours will only succeed in insulting them both."

As Mianlan stood and gave a slight bow, Xlack's elbow nudged the lump in his jacket. Punctuated by a hiss, claws fully extended into his abs.

Xlack lost his grip on the ceiling. As his heart dropped to his toes, he pulled his legs in, tucked into a flip, and landed in a crouch atop the scribes' table. The impact's hollow thud called every eye in the room.

At least he landed on his feet. He could call this a good entrance.

Plucking one of the breadsticks from the basket alongside his knee, Xlack straightened. "For once, I agree with Messenger Mianlan."

With his face concealed behind a cloth napkin, the scribe to his left scrambled backward off his divan and ran for the door. "I told you!" His fear was frozen dew on Xlack's skin, a wispy trail visible to his Mind senses.

The head scribe sat mouth agape, double chin quivering. Beside him, his underling backed away and swiveled into an empty chair at a nearby table, where the other occupants stared at him with a mixture of frowns.

"You might not be aware, but monitoring everything in the district includes monitoring you," Xlack explained, "and you sure seem to not like that. What is it you don't want me to see?"

The head scribe's jaw flapped, but no sound emerged.

Rell peeked out from the bottom of Xlack's jacket. His velvety nose twitched in search of the buttery scent. As he spotted the breadstick in his master's hand, his soft-scaled, floppy ears perked, and his dark gaze zeroed in on his quarry.

Holding the bread like a conductor's baton, Xlack knelt closer to the shivering man. "Here's how this is going to work: You'll return to your office. The title 'Head Scribe' belongs to whichever of your kind I think does his work the best, and there are several beating you at the moment. I'd suggest working really hard today."

Rell slunk along Xlack's arm, tail waving as he stalked his prey.

The head scribe's mouth closed, and a delicate shine spread over his eyes. "You don't have to make this personal."

Xlack's gaze narrowed on the petition. "You made it personal with this."

The screen rose from the head scribe's hand, then shattered with a firework's boom. A yelping Rell dove under Xlack's forearm. With his claws stuck in the sleeve's underside and head tilted, he tracked the glitter raining on the scribe's lap.

"Try something like this again, and it won't be the screen that falls to pieces."

The head scribe gulped and nodded quickly.

Xlack bit his bread. It tasted as heavenly as it smelled and had a satisfying crunch with an inside that melted in his mouth.

Everyone still stared.

"That was it. Get on with whatever you're doing." With a dismissive wave, he hopped off the table.

Rell was the first to obey, resuming his climb on Xlack's arm, but the sleeve kept bunching at his master's elbow. Face scrunched, the beastling roared, but the small sound was lost in the crowd's growing chatter.

Mianlan waited, a specter with crossed arms and a disappointed glint in his pale eyes. His robe hung long enough to brush the ground, and his gait made no sound. If he had feet, Xlack had never seen them.

"Falling from the ceiling? You should be able to cling better than that."

Xlack ripped off a chunk of bread and held it out to Rell before shoving the rest in his own mouth. "I didn't fall."

Rell snatched the piece and scrambled to his master's shoulder, where he could stretch out and nibble at his prize. Mianlan never gave him food and was therefore beneath his notice.

The condescending slant of the older man's sparse, wiry brows steepened. "How long did you maintain your hold before shaking like someone freezing to death?"

Xlack winced. "You saw that?"

"I didn't have to." Mianlan pivoted, glided to the restaurant's lobby, and ventured left up a wide staircase. Though old and worn, the steps shone with frequent cleaning and made no sound under him. "I'm going to my room. If you have time to lurk about on ceilings, you should try completing the assignment I gave you yesterday."

Xlack followed, and the bottom stair groaned as it took his weight. Gaze on his feet, he hurried past it. "Messenger Mianlan, if I hadn't been here, would you have signed that petition?"

Mianlan paused, and a long sigh escaped as he turned. "Azmet is a large, influential district. I don't believe it should have been given into the hands of an incompetent child, but it's not my decision."

Xlack's eyes narrowed in a crooked frown, jaw tight. "I'm not a child."

"An adult can control his Talents." Mianlan resumed his glide up the stairs. The sinking daystar peeked through a window on the landing ahead and rendered him a silhouette.

"I know plenty of adults who can't do what I can." Xlack stared at his hands. They were the same gray as the wooden stairs, the color of titanium without the metallic luster. Dozens of paler scars marked nicks and cuts healed too quickly.

"Do you wish I didn't expect so much of you?"

No, Mianlan's austere methods were effective in pushing Xlack to perform at his best, and he needed that extra practice as one of the few with multiple Talents. It was hard, though, to live up to his ideals at all times, never caught off guard, never allowed to make a mistake without having it shoved in his face.

If Xlack lost his position as Protector of Azmet District, the shame would drown him. His father's face, so proud at his graduation, would droop with disappointment, and Mianlan would still scowl.

"You told my father I should be held back, that caring for a district would put me behind in my studies, but it's been a year, and I've proven you wrong. I'm stronger than—"

Mianlan whirled, leg swiping at the side of his student's knees. Xlack jumped, then twisted as his ankles were swept to the side. His feet hit the wall and bounced into a kick. As his toes brushed Mianlan's bicep, the older man let the strike turn him. Xlack's intended punch retreated into a block. A second jab was swatted away.

His shoulders hit the junction between stair and wall. Xlack lost focus, arms flung wide. Mianlan's hand clamped beneath his jaw, skin on skin above the high collar of his jacket. A chill radiated from the contact, as deep as a chasm and hungry as a black hole.

Hissing and fangs bared, Rell leapt at Mianlan's wrist, but the teacher scooped him out of the air. A pale sheen spread over the beastling's pewter scales. The inky spot over his rump took on a hematite gleam as he collapsed on Mianlan's palm, one forepaw hanging over his thumb.

Xlack flung a hand at Mianlan's elbow, but his numb fingers weighed as much as the planet. Even his thoughts were an icy sludge, urging him to curl up and sleep like Rell.

"You are supposed to become a legend. You can't afford to display weakness."

"Is this a 'yes'?" Xlack whispered. "You would have signed the petition?"

Releasing him, Mianlan backed away, and Xlack sat up with a gasp. His heart pounded. His fingers flexed and cracked.

"Just because I believe a cause is right doesn't mean I'll sign my name to it." Mianlan sighed and slid Rell into his master's outstretched hand. "The identity of Azmet's Protector has nothing to do with me."

No, Xlack supposed it wouldn't matter to an old Messenger with a rare Talent who had no intention of caring about the commoners of this district. He wasn't sure how much even he mattered to Mianlan.

He wanted to be someone his mentor would remember, though. He wanted to be known for the choices he made and the things he did, not only because he carried the surname Ekymé.

Not following as his teacher again resumed his trek up the stairs, Xlack kept his gaze on his pet. The side of his thumb stroked the beastling's back, and scales darkened beneath his touch. With a grunt, Rell snuggled further into Xlack's palm.

"Your name on that petition would have meant as much as ten thousand others." Xlack's voice was a brittle, broken leaf floating on the wind, and he hated it.

"To some."

A hollow series of beeps sounded, and Xlack pulled a nail-sized card from his pocket. As it unfolded into a flat device just larger than his hand, he scanned its screen.

"I have to go." He got to his feet and started after his teacher. "I did finish that boring ice sculpture thing you wanted, though. It's in the coolbox."

Mianlan shrugged. "It was imperfect, so I destroyed it. Your assignment remains incomplete."

Xlack blinked several times. He had worked hard on that. "It was exactly like yours."

"Mine didn't have lumps, and the lines were of an even thickness."

Xlack crossed his arms as much as he could while holding a beastling in one hand and a datapad in the other. "You're too picky."

"I could do that simple of a task at age five. How old are you again?" Mianlan already rounded the next landing. Instead of a window, this one had another inscription of the 'one person can always make a difference' motto. "Do it correctly this time."

Xlack didn't move. "You couldn't cling from the ceiling at five years old. Still can't, even though you're four hundred something."

He never would, either. Mianlan's Talent was not Kinetics, though it was related.

A phantom color clouded the old man's gaze, same as the crackling chrysolite over gray Xlack always saw in his own reflection. On his teacher, it looked like cataracts. "What I can't do is irrelevant."

"Right, because I'm supposed to be the legend."

Mianlan leaned over the rail and rapped his student on the forehead with a pinky that felt more like a steel rod. "Never give way to doubt. If you don't believe in your goals, you won't work toward them, and if you don't work toward them..." The teacher's wispy brows lifted.

Xlack sighed. "They never happen."