This Isn't About Reya

Chapter Thirty-Five

The Ram was sitting at his desk when the door across the room opened and a man entered unannounced. He knew that only one man would be so bold.

"Svetlar," he hummed. "How are you this morning?"

The White Admiral strode past the desk and to the window behind the Ram. The Ram did not look up from his work at his desk.

"I'm well, my liege," Svetlar replied. "And yourself?"

The Ram sighed, scanning the hardlight documents in front of him one last time, and stood. He turned and came to stand next to Svetlar at the window. "I find myself growing more and more tired every day, Svetlar."

Next to him, the White Admiral nodded knowingly and continued to inspect the city from their vantage point. "You've exhausted yourself as of late, my liege."

The Ram clasped his hands behind his back and shrugged. "There is much work to be done, now, as there always is. I suspect my weariness has more to do with age than burden."

Svetlar quietly scanned the city for a moment before responding. "You are not so old yet, my liege."

"Hmm," the Ram hummed. He turned from the window and returned to his desk. His fingers hovered over some of the documents for a moment before moving towards the near left corner of the desk. There laid a golden pocket watch, engraved in Cyrillic runes, it's chain slithering over and around it in a heap of elegant metal. He picked it up and rubbed an armored thumb over the face of the watch, listening to the soft grating of metal on metal. Then he set it back down on the desk and picked up the documents once more.

"I am older than you think, my friend," he said to Svetlar after a long silence.

Svetlar turned from the window as well and settled into the chair across the desk from the Ram. "With all due respect, sir," he said, shifting his body around until he was comfortable, "I know exactly how old you are. You aren't so old yet."

The Ram chuckled softly, reading one of the reports in his hand. "It is not so much the time as the distance."

"Ah," Svetlar breathed. He leaned back in the cushioned chair and crossed his legs, his arms resting with dignity on the arms of the chair. "In that case, I imagine we have all grown much older over the past few years."

The Ram nodded, his eyes glued to the reports. "Our dear friend at the Tower of Knowledge has made sure of that," he murmured.

"Damn him." Svetlar's fingers wrapped themselves tightly around the end of one of the arms of the chair.

"I'm sure God already has."

"Do we even know where he is right now?"

"No," the Ram said quietly. "No one does."

"No one ever does."

The Ram finished reading his reports in silence and set them down on the other side of the desk for Svetlar to read. As the White Admiral picked them up, the Ram sat back down in his chair with a weary sigh.

"The Redeemed have certainly been busy doing something," Svetlar said as he read over the hardlight sheets.

The Ram nodded. "The question is, what?"

"Mhmm," Svetlar hummed. "What about the boy? Dmitri? He must have some information for us."

"Dmitri has been silent for almost a week now. And with the Professor missing, we have no way of contacting him."

"What about the other Archangels?"

The Ram shook his head helplessly. "Stasja and Petrova are in the outer colonies investigating the disappearances there and are out of our reach. The Quoc Quyet boy is still on the Red Dune Planet. The rest have gone silent along with Dmitri."