The next guard, Lenne, three years older than Aelus, who had been in the unit for four years and had a reputation for being the quietest person in any room she occupied, was standing with her eyes pointed at the Devourer through the shield wall. Not at it exactly. At the distance beyond the shield where it sat. Her expression was not afraid. It was the expression of someone thinking about something they had not finished thinking about and were aware they were running out of time to finish.Verath looked at her.She looked at him.She said something m,low, just for him, not for the line."Seren.” She said. A name. Just a name.Verath looked at her for a moment. At the specific quality of the way she had said the name, the specific way a name is said when it is not just a name, when it is the compressed version of a very large number of things that have not been said and now cannot be said."I know.”He said.She looked back at the Devourer.He moved on.He walked the full line and wh

Then at the army.Then he reached inward.‘’’Emperor Dragon.’’’‘"I see them."’ The Emperor Dragon said.‘’’What is this? Why are there thousands of dwarfs…’’’‘’’"Look at their eyes."’ The Emperor Dragon said.Asta looked.At the approaching soldiers, close enough now, close enough for details. The armour, the weapons, the formation. And the faces, and in the faces…The eyes.Grey.Not the natural grey of dwarf eyes, which had a specific quality to them, a depth, a texture, the grey of stone that had colour in it. This grey was different. Flat. Uniform. Every soldier, every face, every pair of eyes that Asta could see from this distance carrying the same specific flat grey, the grey of something that had replaced something else.‘’’That's not natural.’’’ Asta said.‘"No."The Emperor Dragon said. ‘"That is the Grey Eye. An ancient technique, listed in the forbidden records under a different name but that is the common name for it. It reaches into a person's consciousness and rep

"’They're being mind controlled, look at their eyes! Look at their eyes and you'll see it's not them!’"Mira looked at the nearest dwarf.At the face. At the eyes.The grey was flat in the way that eyes are not flat. Eyes, normal eyes, any eyes, even eyes that are doing nothing in particular, carry something in them that comes from the person behind them. A quality. A presence. Something that says there is a specific consciousness generating this face and these eyes are part of that face.The grey had none of that.The grey was the grey of something that had replaced that quality rather than expressed it. Flat. Uniform. Like the light that should have been there had been taken out and something colder had been put in the space."Yeah." Mira said.She looked at Roderick."Their eyes are grey." She said. "Like stones. Not like actual eyes at all."Roderick looked at the nearest dwarf.At the flat grey."’Asta!’" He yelled.Asta looked back from the horse."’What are you doing?! Wh

The second Devourer emerged with the quality of something that had been there the whole time, patient in the dark, waiting for the moment that required it to be present. It moved into the clearing from the opposite direction of the first, and the specific geometry of where the two of them were relative to each other and relative to Asta and relative to the chief and the staff was not accidental geometry.Two of them.Both oriented at him.The chief on the ground between them, still shaking.The staff in the ground, still pulsing.Asta looked at the first Devourer.Then the second.Then the chief.Then the staff.Then at the Emperor Dragon,not outward, inward, the direction he always looked when looking at the Emperor Dragon.‘’'Two of them.’’’ He said.'"Yes."' The Emperor Dragon said.‘’’'And I need to break the staff.'’’'"Yes."' The Emperor Dragon said.‘’'Which means I need to deal with both of them first.'’’'"Yes."' The Emperor Dragon said.‘’'Simultaneously.'’:'"Yes."' Th

"Who are my parents?"Jabber said it again.Not louder than the first time, if anything quieter, the specific quiet of a question that has stopped being a question and become a demand, the volume dropping the way volume drops when something underneath it has gotten heavier.The black-cloaked Loki got to his feet.Not fast. Not with the urgency of someone who had been knocked down and needed to get back up before the next thing happened. Slowly, deliberately, the way someone rises when they have decided that the standing is meaningful and the slowness of it is part of the meaning. He straightened to his full height, Jabber's height, in Jabber's body, wearing Jabber's face and he looked at Jabber with the flat ancient purple of eyes that had nothing of performance in them."Don't listen to him."Eren's voice. Firm, present, carrying the specific urgency of someone who had been watching a situation develop and had arrived at the point where being urgent about it was the only remaining o