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Chapter Text

Harry turned at the sound of a knock on his door. 

“Ready to go?” Hermione asked. 

“Not really,” he replied. “But we might as well get it over with.”

His lips curled up in amusement as the woman huffed and rolled her eyes.

“Ron said the exact same thing,” she clucked. “Honestly.”

“It’s Malfoy,” Harry pointed out. “You can’t tell me you’re actually looking forward to going.”

He tried not to laugh as several expressions quickly crossed Hermione’s face, conveying exactly what she was thinking even as she tried to find the best way to diplomatically frame it. 

“We always learn something new,” she settled on. “And I was thinking…” She waved a sheaf of papers she was holding in a hand. “Besides, I thought you said that Malfoy’s been tolerable?”

“Tolerable. Friendly maybe, but it’s not like we’re ever going to be good friends. I’m sure the only reason he’s invited us is because we’re the only other dragel Circle he knows.”

“You know that’s not the case,” Hermione reproved, her lips pursing ever so slightly. 

Harry made a face and flapped a hand because yes, he technically did know. After they had mutually saved each others’ lives a few times during the final year of the war—and then from Azkaban a few weeks later—Draco Malfoy considered Harry to be a friend and Harry hadn’t really put an end to those thoughts because … it was nice to have another Submissive dragel to talk to. He, Hermione, and Ron would have been lost without Malfoy and his Circle, and Harry knew it. 

Dragels stuck together, and dragel Submissives even more so.

Plus, even he had to admit that since the end of the war and forming the start of his Bonded Circle, Malfoy had changed for the better and wasn’t as insufferable as he’d been during their Hogwarts years.

Like he said, tolerable. 

But he was never going to admit that they were friends out loud. 

So instead, he changed the subject and gestured at the papers in Hermione’s hand. “You were thinking what? What do you think they can do with that? Do you really think we’ll be so lucky that they can identify them?”

“Maybe. Or maybe give us a reason why you’d be dreaming about random people in the first place, especially considering…”

Harry made a face. “Considering the last person I kept dreaming about was Voldemort? These aren’t the same type of dreams.” He reddened and was very glad that he had never dreamed about Voldemort in that way. 

“Even so, you’re having repeated dreams about people you’ve never met before whenever you sleep and it’s preventing you from getting any decent amount of restful sleep. Something’s going on and they might have an idea what it is.”

Harry whined, because he really didn’t want to tell Malfoy or Malfoy’s Bonded that he was basically having non-stop wet dreams about complete strangers that he had never met or seen before. There’d been a few dreams about individuals that didn’t go down those roads, but the vast majority of dreams were very intimate ones.

And Harry knew deep down that these were actual individuals, not just something his mind was coming up with. The dreams were much too detailed, to the point where he could recall their faces when he was awake and had managed to extract the memories and use a few spells to draw those faces on paper.

Papers that Hermione was now holding. 

“I thought we were leaving?” Ron asked, Harry’s whine attracting his attention as he made his way up the stairs of Grimmauld Place. “Are we not leaving anymore?” When a second whine slipped out of Harry’s throat, he hugged the shorter man from behind. The whine turned into a small chirr of contentment as the Submissive relaxed into the embrace. 

“We’re leaving,” Hermione said. “We were just talking about this—” She waved the sheaf of papers again.

“Tell her it’s a bad idea,” Harry muttered. “They don’t need to know about those.”

“They probably should, if it continues,” Ron hedged. “But I don’t know if it’s going to be that sort of thing today. They said something about an anniversary…?”

“The one-year anniversary of their bonding,” Hermione confirmed. “And they had a few other announcements.”

“We didn’t have a party for our anniversary,” Harry muttered, turning in Ron’s hold to face the Pareya. Ron’s Fire element meant that he was always great for cuddling and snuggling, especially for Harry, whose body temperature tended to be on the cooler side. 

“Because none of us like hosting or entertaining, especially not like Malfoy does,” Ron pointed out. “I preferred our way of celebrating.”

The tip of Harry’s ears pinked. Given all that they had been through and all three of them had inherited as dragel, it was no surprise that the three of them had Bonded once Harry had been comfortable enough to start considering forming a Circle. The first few weeks had been a bit awkward as they adjusted to the change in their relationships and Harry still had bouts of shyness every so often about those particular changes, especially when it was referred to so bluntly. “I did too,” he agreed, because it had been a very good night. 

“It can’t hurt to bring them, just in case,” Hermione was saying.

Harry slumped ever so slightly and he nudged Ron with an elbow when he felt the other dragel stifle a laugh at his reaction. There would be no winning this one, he could tell. “Fine,” he reluctantly agreed, and started to come up with schemes that would keep everyone distracted enough that the pictures would never come up.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out what Malfoy’s announcement was. While the other Submissive’s Pareya were normally indulgent and made sure he never had to lift a finger, both of them had developed an intensity about them that was practically smothering. Malfoy’s Alpha and Beta were hovering in ways that they normally never did and, as cliche as it was, Malfoy seemed to have a glow about him.

It was impossible to miss the signs.

Malfoy was pregnant.

“Couldn’t even be bothered to bring a gift basket?” the blond asked when Harry finally finished saying his hellos to everyone else and made his way to join the other Submissive on the sofa where he was lounging. 

“Would you rather some apples from the Burrow’s orchard or fruit from the nearest Muggle supermarket?” Harry asked evenly. Fruit was an acceptable gift between Circles, but Malfoy was picky about where his food came from and he doubted that had changed since the discovery of his pregnancy—in fact, it was probably worse now. 

True to form, Malfoy scrunched up his nose.

“Congratulations,” Harry tacked on belatedly. “I didn’t know that was something you were interested in.” In fact, he decidedly remembered being taught that it was better not to add children into the mix until he had a full Circle. With just his triad and two Pareya, Harry doubted that Malfoy’s Circle was complete—but it was more complete than his own currently, because Harry didn’t even have the rest of his triad yet. 

“It hasn’t been so bad, helping Mother and Andromeda with Teddy,” Malfoy said quietly, glancing softly at where the toddler was playing out in the garden. “And it’s sooner than what’s traditional, but the others were … enthusiastic about the idea when I brought it up. Though I think some of them just thought it was a good way to get me to agree to go to Nevarah.”

Harry stilled. “Nevarah?” he repeated carefully. 

It wasn’t the first time he had heard about the sanctuary realm for dragels. Molly Weasley was originally from there and still had family there, so it had come up a few times as the Weasleys were recovering from—everything. From learning all the secrets both the matriarch and patriarch had kept, from breaking the bindings that had been placed on all seven children, from the blood purgings that followed to rid them of their Blood Traitor status. 

All of them had already gone to Nevarah, to try and get a new start after it all. Even Bill and Charlie, who were too old to inherit by the time everything came out in the open, even Percy, the most reluctant of the group, because even though the Weasleys were Fire elements, they also had inherited their mother’s talent for Family Magic. The only one who had stayed behind was Ron and Harry knew the Pareya would go in a heartbeat if given the opportunity. It hadn’t been possible for Ron to go when the family had first left for Nevarah, because he was nearly as public a figure as Harry in the wizarding world and their disappearance would have been too suspicious. But the trio had retreated from the public eye as things calmed down after the war and it was probably a possibility now. 

If Malfoy and his Circle went, it was likely that Narcissa, Andromeda, and Teddy would go too. Harry wouldn’t have anymore dragel connections on Earth, so going with them was probably their final chance. 

He wasn’t sure he wanted to go to Nevarah, though. He couldn’t say how he knew, but he knew he wouldn’t find what he wanted—what he needed—in Nevarah.

“We’re leaving in a couple of weeks,” Malfoy was saying. He rolled his eyes when he noticed that Harry was only half-listening. “At least acknowledge you understand what I’m saying. I’m not going to go around, handing out calligraphed invitations.”

“Yes, yes, I understand,” Harry said, irritation flashing briefly in his eyes. 

“Then you’ll consider it?” Noticing that Harry was starting to frown, Draco continued. “More dragels, more options for finding Bonded,” he pointed out. “Not to mention that it’s safer than that dreary old place you’re staying at right now. You’d probably sleep much better than you have been lately.”

“Not you too,” Harry sighed. His apparent lack of sleep was the first thing Draco’s two Pareya had commented on when they exchanged their greetings. And here he thought he’d covered up the dark circles under his eyes… “I’m not struggling with sleep because I don’t feel safe.”

“Well, it can’t be nightmares unless you lied to the others about having those under control.”

“They’re under control!” Harry said heatedly. He used to have a substantial number of nightmares after the Battle of Hogwarts, especially about those last few weeks of the war, but over the past year, he’d had them less and less until he was averaging one a week. And as he’d had them less and less, they’d been replaced by the other dreams. Even as he thought about those particular dreams, the tips of his ears started to turn red. 

Draco sat up a bit straighter and wicked amusement glinted in his silvery eyes. “Oh, soulmate dreams is it, then?”

Harry arched an eyebrow. The term was vaguely familiar, probably something he had learned in the first few weeks after the war, when he was being bombarded by everything else dragel-related by Draco’s Bonded after they’d realized that he had known nothing. “Soulmate dreams?” 

Chapter Text

“When two individuals share any sort of soul connection, especially when one has activated their side of the connection, it is said that they’ll dream of each other,” Terius said. “These are known as soulmate dreams. The theory is that the dreams bring you closer together and give you an introduction, so when you finally meet the other individual in person, there’s already a connection there and you’re both more willing to embrace and seal the soul-bond. Generally, the closer the individuals are to each other, the more intimate the dreams are.”

“They must be pretty close then,” Harry grumbled under his breath. Nearly all of the dreams he had been having lately had been of that sort, which was why, although he had been sleeping, it hadn’t been restful sleep. 

Terius gave Harry a mildly exasperated look. The Pareya had been one of the trio’s main mentors when it had been discovered how little they knew about dragels and their inheritances, but he wasn’t necessarily the sort that was suited to be a teacher. “I said generally. I would have thought you would have picked up by now that there are exceptions to everything when it comes to our kind and our magic.”

“Believe me, I definitely picked that up.”

Terius sighed. “I suppose it’s not surprising that you’re having soulmate dreams, given your Nameless talent. You bought some time with your first couple of bondings, but it seems like your magic has decided that you’re ready for more Bonded. Be thankful that it’s only dreams right now and it seems to be mostly dreams of the good sort.”

“…there’s a bad sort of soulmate dreams?”

“If your Intended soulmates were in grave danger or mortal peril, the reactions on your side could potentially include black-outs and seizures. Or you would share in their pain in the dreams.”

Harry frowned and shivered, a reaction which prompted Ron to shift and sit closer to him, hair flames flickering gently. “There’s been a few of those,” he admitted reluctantly. “Starting the past few nights.”

“Then my recommendation will be to find them as soon as possible. It’s very likely that once you start looking for your soulmates, the dreams will stop, since the dreams are mostly supposed to be a prompt to start your search.”

“Right, I’ll get right on that,” Harry drawled. “Except I’ve got no information. No names and the dreams don’t exactly give any details about where they could be. I only know their faces.” Though to be fair, all of them were very attractive faces. He definitely wouldn’t be forgetting or overlooking any of them in a hurry. 

He could maybe try a portal, but again, he didn’t know any names. And besides, that would only work if they were on Earth. If they were in Nevarah or on another realm, he would be out of luck. 

He whined out a small apology when Hermione reached over and pinched the top of his ear, silently reminding him that they would likely need the others’ help and being snarky to Terius could potentially make them less likely to do so. 

“There’s a spell I will teach you,” Terius said. “It will give general locations, but I should warn you that it lacks pinpoint accuracy. It’s a starting point, not a map. It also identifies only one at a time, which is why I’m teaching it to you, so you can cast it as many times as you need.” The weight of his stare was heavy. “Am I right in believing that you have no desire to go to Nevarah?”

Harry’s shoulders slumped. “No, I don’t want to go,” he admitted and gave Ron an apologetic look. “Maybe someday but right now, everything in me is saying that it’s not the right time.”

“Then your Intended soulmates are likely on different realms and not in Nevarah. Depending on the realms involved, travel between realms can be difficult and you’ll likely require the assistance of someone that specializes in that type of travel, such as a Realmwalker.”

“We can call in a few favors and get one to accompany you,” Malfoy’s Alpha said, from his position behind Terius. He had been going through the papers with each Intended’s face. “If you don’t mind stopping in a few additional realms, I have someone in mind that could be a good fit. He can be a bit grumpy, but no grumpier than Terius here, and he’s very capable.”

Terius flushed red. “Alpha,” he protested softly.

For politeness’ sake, Harry averted his eyes for the next moment to let the two sort things out and then gave his answer. “That would be appreciated.”

“Soul-bonds are relatively rare and you’re fortunate to have multiple, especially without having a soulscream or a soul-cry. When you find each other, treasure what’s between you.”

Harry held back the urge to shrug and instead directed his attention to Terius again as the Pareya prepared to teach him the spell. With his particular Nameless talent, he wasn’t so surprised that he would have multiple soul-bonds. 

“So we’re not going to Nevarah?” Ron asked carefully once they were back at Grimmauld Place. His voice was mostly neutral, but he was a Fire element and his hair-flames would always reveal if he was unsettled. Even if his hair hadn’t burst into flames, Harry would still have been able to tell the Pareya was unhappy with that bit of information. 

He exchanged a glance with Hermione. He had quickly run his thoughts by her when Ron was making sure Grimmauld Place was still secure after they came back and she’d agreed with him, but there was still the possibility that Ron would take his idea poorly. 

“You are, we’re not,” he said slowly. 

“What?”

Harry inched closer and nuzzled at Ron’s neck before speaking. “You hated it during the war after we left Grimmauld Place and started moving around so much trying to find those horcruxes,” he explained. “Being away from your family. And you’ve been miserable since they left for Nevarah and we had to stay behind. I know you’ve been really worried about George especially. We’re probably going to be moving around a lot again and it’s not fair that you miss this chance to go to Nevarah. So… you go there while me and Hermione find the others.”

“You … you’re leaving me?”

Harry’s heart lurched as he heard the crack in Ron’s voice. “No,” he said quickly. “Definitely not. You can come with if you really want to but I was just thinking … We’ll most likely end up in Nevarah once we find everyone. We’ll need a home. If you go to Nevarah ahead of us, you can find and set up a home for all us instead of us trying to figure that out at the end. I’d much rather that than have to rely on someone for a few weeks or months while we find a place.” The idea of not having a place to come back to that was entirely his—theirs—was grating on his instincts and he knew that Ron would understand that. 

Really, it was the perfect solution. Ron would get to go to Nevarah and be with his family and indulge his Pareyic instincts to set up a home for their soon-to-be-growing Circle and Harry would still have someone he trusted at his back while he searched for his Intended soulmates. 

“I don’t like it,” Ron muttered into Harry’s neck. “They’re probably all trouble magnets, just like you and Hermione.”

“Probably,” the Submissive agreed. 

“And Hermione’s probably going to be so busy studying everything and asking so many questions that she’ll forget to take care of you and herself.”

“I will not!”

“And you’ll probably end up in some ridiculous situation, like being kidnapped by Vampires or accosted by harpies.”

“Anything’s better than a basilisk or an acromantula.”

“But thank you.”

Harry hugged Ron tight and quickly gestured for Hermione to join them because a group hug in this case was preferable than just a normal one. “For what it’s worth, I’m really going to miss you,” he said. “We’re really going to miss you,” he amended when he caught sight of Hermione’s look. “And we’ll check in as often as we can. Definitely whenever we find someone, so we can make introductions, or when we change realms.” He would agree that soul-bonds were precious things, but Ron and Hermione were his first Bonded and his best friends and their bonds were just as important and special. 

“Where’s the first place you’re going?” Ron asked. “The spell worked?”

“The spell worked, though it just gives coordinates. Terius figured out what realm they were to. Hopefully the next time I have to do it, that Realmwalker knows how to interpret the coordinates because they were all just numbers and letters to me. It’s called Elara’s Carpathian.”

“Like the Carpathian Mountains that border Transylvania?” Hermione asked. 

Harry stared at her in disbelief. “How do you even know that?” he demanded, before deciding he really didn’t want to know the answer. 

Ron groaned. “Promise me that you won’t get kidnapped by vampires if you run into any in Transylvania.”

“I promise not to get kidnapped by vampires,” Harry recited. He pulled away slightly. “Should we go start planning our house?”

“Let’s.”

Chapter Text

A couple weeks later and it was time to leave. 

Everything had been packed, most of it marked to go with Ron to Nevarah. Harry and Hermione made use of her beaded bag with its undetectable extension charm again to store the things they were taking with them, but a few things—like his invisibility cloak and the papers that held pictures of his Intended—went into his mokeskin pouch. 

Using several glamour charms, Hermione had braved Diagon Alley, mainly to restock her books, though there was unsurprisingly little about other realms. There was a bit more on magical creatures, but after reading the propaganda published about dragels, they all knew to take such information with a grain of salt. 

They said their goodbyes in private that morning, very thorough goodbyes that Harry was sure he’d be feeling over the next few days. 

He was reluctant to be leaving, but at the same time a thrill of excitement was running through his veins. After so many incidents during his Hogwarts years due to Voldemort, it had been weird to have next to nothing happen since the war ended. But now there was another adventure, another mystery—and hopefully no life-or-death stakes involved. 

Shortly before noon, they apparated to where Malfoy and his Circle had been staying. With all of the protections and wards on the property, their destination point was outside, just in time to be caught in the pouring rain. 

“If there’s one thing I won’t miss, it’s all the rain…” Ron grumbled, immediately casting a few umbrella charms, which were quickly followed by drying charms on the trio. 

Hermione frowned, looking up at the sky as the thunder rumbled ominously. “Odd time of year for a thunderstorm.”

It was, but Harry was more concerned with getting everything inside with the other luggage as soon as possible so they could also get inside and stay dry. 

Despite the drying charms, he clung on to Ron, taking advantage of one last opportunity for the next few weeks to relish in the heat and warmth the Pareya radiated. 

“About time,” Malfoy remarked as they finally joined the others. 

“Be thankful you’re pregnant, because otherwise I’d jinx you,” Harry retorted. 

“You could try.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Hermione shaking her head. 

“Just in time,” Malfoy’s Alpha stated as he entered the room. “Your escort only arrived a few minutes ago himself.”

As he spoke, a stranger entered the room.

And yet, they weren’t a stranger at all, because Harry had seen the dragel before—in his dreams. He was tall, slender and ridiculously pale, his skin almost translucent and speckled with silver and lavender scales. Long snow-white hair was intricately braided and tied back to frame a sharp, angular face and piercing violet eyes. 

There were other details, details that his dreams hadn’t shown him. The man was dressed in ragged black and silver robes, the shabby clothes looking odd when compared to the large metal belt that held tiny phials of different potions and liquids and jewelry that held several void stones and precious gems meant to store magic or work as conduits. In one of his hands, he carried a tall, black staff that held a large yellow eye on its top. 

“Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Ronald Weasley, this is Riven Cairothe, Mage of the Storm element, Realmwalker, Spellweaver,” the Alpha introduced them.

Harry tried not to glare at the Alpha, because he now understood why the dragel had insisted on taking care of all the arrangements. He hadn’t thought any of the others would recognize the faces of the Intended he had dreamed, but apparently they’d recognized at least one and decided to blindside him with that fact. 

He cast quick glances to either side of him to check Ron and Hermione’s reactions, since they had helped him transfer his memories to the papers, had seen the several faces. They looked surprised as well, but pleasantly so.

Riven Cairothe, on the other hand, showed no sign of recognizing Harry.

Interesting. Harry had assumed that both individuals had soulmate dreams, but if Riven didn’t recognize him, then apparently not. 

Maybe it was for the best. Mages were typically among the last to join a Bonded Circle, he’d been taught, and Storm types were particular about courting, preferring to court instead of be courted—or at least, they preferred to be courted on their own terms. And Harry didn’t even have a full triad yet. It was just him, a Submissive, Ron, a Pareya, and Hermione, an Advisor. 

But he was on his way to building his Circle. And even if Riven hadn’t dreamed of him, Harry had dreamed of Riven, suggesting there was some sort of soul-connection there. He would get to know the Mage and maybe, just maybe, by the end of their travels, the Mage would be willing to stay. 

Riven frowned. “I was told there would only be two.”

“Ron’s going with the others to Nevarah,” Harry replied, reaching instinctively for the Pareya and a happy sound escaping him when strong arms wrapped around his waist. “It will be just me and Hermione.”

The large group left first, after Harry got the chance to say goodbye to Teddy and to Ron again. He fussed as equally over them as they fussed over him, and his heart ached slightly as blue light flared, marking the portal to Nevarah. He knew it would only likely be a few weeks and what they were doing was necessary, but he would miss them.

“They said you had a mission of your own?” he overheard Hermione ask Riven. 

“Every millennium or so, Fabrine mass in great numbers and launch attacks on many realms, Nevarah included. The Realmwalkers monitor the levels of Fabrine and report in if there’s anything unusual. They’ve grown in significant numbers recently and there’s been rumors of the Immortals waking, so I’ve been tasked to verify those rumors, particularly for the Immortals that do not sleep in Nevarah. They protect Nevarah in times of great need, so if they’re awake and migrating towards Nevarah, it’s a sign that the prophecies are about to come true.”

Prophecies. Great…

“How many do you have to check on?” Harry asked, turning to join the conversation. 

“There’s twenty or so Immortals in general, but some of them reside on Nevarah and have shown no signs of waking yet. Roughly a dozen reside outside of Nevarah, but there’s only a handful I have left to verify.”

Harry debated about asking if the ones he’d checked so far were awake or not, but after a minute, he decided that he didn’t want to know. He already had soulmates to find and worry about. 

He asked a different question instead. 

“Do any of them happen to be on Elara’s Carpathian?”

Chapter Text

Elara’s Carpathian turned out to be a realm fairly close to Earth, which is how Harry discovered another limitation to the spell Terius had taught him—it would focus on the Intended soulmate that was physically closest to him. It wasn’t necessarily the best thing in the world if he had Intendeds that were in grave danger, but thankfully so far, there hadn’t been anything in his dreams that suggested that. There had been a few troubling dreams, but nothing about them suggested grave danger or mortal peril—yet. 

Unlike the group that had left for Nevarah, traveling with Riven didn’t mean traveling by portal or any other means that Harry and Hermione recognized. Elara’s Carpathian and Earth were connected in some fashion, so whatever Riven did, it seemed like parting a curtain and simply stepping into the next realm, even though Harry was fairly sure it required an impressive amount of spellwork and traversing several different planes of existence. He vaguely pitied the Mage whenever they next sat down to eat or take a break, because already he could see the gleam in Hermione’s brown-gold eyes that meant she had questions. 

They stepped into what appeared to be a decent-sized village, very picturesque and reminiscent of Hogsmeade, in Harry’s mind. If he hadn’t attended Hogwarts and had that as a reference point, it would have been like stepping into another time. 

Yet, as picturesque as it was, an eeriness also hung over the village, wedged as it was among the mountains. It would be so easily demolished if there was an avalanche or a rockslide and Harry wondered how long it would take for help to come if that ever happened. He eyed the steep mountains that hung over the village warily. There was a dangerous feeling about them and he was fairly sure he saw shadows flickering in the foliage that graced them—shadows of beings too fast and too large to be human. And yet, there was something on those mountains that beckoned to him.

“Lodgings and food first?” Hermione suggested as she also scanned the immediate area. At first glance, it seemed to be a realm friendly to all sorts of creatures—she could sense other dragels around besides their odd trio, there were a few individuals with furred ruffs that suggested a were-creature heritage of some sort, several pale figures that hinted at vampire heritage, and other sorts of beings that she couldn’t immediately place. Maybe Elves?

Harry nodded absently. Riven simply grunted and started striding forward, toward the village center and away from the mountains, leaving the other two to follow him. Harry reluctantly did so, casting a look back at the mountains as he trotted to keep up. 

“Have you been here before?” he couldn’t help asking Riven, since the Mage seemed to know where he was going. 

“A few times,” Riven answered tersely. 

“Anything in particular to know about this realm?”

“Yes. Don’t go wandering off on your own.”

Harry resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the advice and fell back a step or two to walk next to Hermione—a good choice when they passed by the local library and she slowed down, dragging her feet. “Later,” he said, needing to all but drag her away lest they lose sight of Riven. “Lodgings and food first.”

“But—”

“Lodgings and food first,” he repeated firmly. “Your own idea, remember?”

He grinned when Hermione huffed and rolled her eyes at him.

Riven’s destination was an inn that also functioned as a tavern, near the far side of the village, in the area that was furthest from the mountains—well as far as they could get surrounded by the large, looming formations. Harry and Hermione were far behind the Mage by the time the inn came into sight, distracted as they were by the various sights, but the older dragel still waited for them before entering, even holding the door open and letting them enter first.  

“Again?” the inn owner asked when he spotted Riven. “I thought you vowed never to come back after last time.”

“Technically the mayor told me never to come back,” the Storm dragel replied. “I never said it myself.”

“Well, you’re in luck because we got a new mayor last year. We’ve only got one room left, so if you’ll be needing more, I can’t do anything for you.”

“One room’s fine,” Harry and Riven said in unison. When violet eyes flicked in his direction, Harry’s cheeks pinked. 

The innkeeper chortled, but thankfully didn’t comment. “Fifty coins,” he said instead.

Riven frowned. “That’s twice the price of last time.”

“Call it a security deposit, against the damage I know that’s likely to happen.”

“You said that last time as well—and you doubled it then too.”

“Well maybe if you didn’t have so many meltdowns—”

“I do not have meltdowns, I’m always in perfect control—”

“So the destruction that just happens to follow in your wake?”

Harry coughed to hide a laugh, and the two men abruptly seemed to realize that they had company.

“Meals are included with the price, of course. Go have something to eat while someone makes sure that the rooms are to your … specificities and you’ll be notified when they’re ready,” the owner said. 

“Specificities?” Hermione asked as Riven accepted the charmed passkey offered to him and turned away, heading toward the tavern part of the building.

“Storm-specific grounding and reinforcement spells, extra-strength privacy wards, that sort of thing,” the Mage answered. 

“Since you’ve been here before, what do you recommend to eat? We’ll have whatever you want to order.” Harry said, interrupting before Hermione could ask the several follow-up questions he knew she had. If she started asking questions before they got settled, it would be a long time before they ate. 

And he may or may not have had an ulterior motive. 

Riven had been in the process of claiming a private booth when Harry had spoken, but the question made him pause and furrow his brow. Harry took the advantage of the opportunity to duck under the taller dragel’s arm and slip into the seat, smiling to himself when Hermione claimed the seat on the opposite side, taking up much more space than she needed to ensure that the Mage sat next to Harry instead of her. 

“…you want me to order for you?”

“If you don’t mind,” Harry said. “You probably know what’s best to eat here, after all.”

“There’s no allergies to worry about,” Hermione added, though she sent Harry a look that meant she didn’t think he was being subtle at all. 

He gave the tiniest shrug of his shoulders in response, because he wasn’t trying to be subtle. 

As much as he gave Malfoy grief for being picky about where his food came from, the truth was that Harry could be just as picky at times. It was a Submissive thing. They wouldn’t eat something if it didn’t come from somewhere or someone they trusted, either choosing to make their own food or trusting that their Bonded or family would make sure anything offered to them was safe. 

By letting Riven order the food, Harry was making it very clear that he trusted the Mage as much as he would trust Ron or Hermione. By not raising a fuss, Hermione was supporting him and making it clear that Riven had her trust as well. 

It was good to know that they were on the same page. 

The Storm dragel’s brow was still furrowed as he made his way to the counter to order their meal. 

“As not-subtle as that was, I think you’re going to need to be more direct than that,” Hermione said quietly. 

“Probably,” Harry agreed. “But not right now. Maybe in a few, once he’s gotten to know us and maybe have the idea cross his own mind.”

The tavern’s speciality was meat pies, though Riven had also managed to procure a fruit pie and several fruit turnovers for dessert—a small detail that had Harry’s dragel instincts purring in his mind. As a Nameless Submissive, he gravitated towards fruit as a source of sugar and he definitely appreciated that such a preference had been kept in mind, especially because the tavern served other desserts that would have been more sugary and were definitely more popular with the other customers. 

While Harry enjoyed dessert and getting to know Riven, Hermione took the opportunity to gather more information, which she reported back every so often. 

It wasn’t promising news.

There were other dragels on Elara’s Carpathian and in the village itself, but the vast majority of them were part of Bonded Circles with vampire connections. Unbonded Gheyos passed through every now and then on missions, but once they ventured past the village limits and into the mountains, they never came back. Not in the past decade or so. 

No one that ventured beyond the village and into the mountains came back, unless they had vampire blood. Especially once night had fallen. 

Once they were finished, darkness had fallen over the village—the days were split equally on Elara’s Carpathian, half day, half night. Many places were in the process of closing for the day and Harry wanted to at least try and go an entire day without getting involved in some sort of incident, so they didn’t venture into the darker parts of the village. 

Their room was ready, however, so the decision was made to settle in for the night.

Harry grinned when he saw the room. One room, perfectly suited for a small dragel Circle, which meant—one bed. 

Riven groaned to himself when he realized the mistake that had been made. His own mistake of course, because he should have realized that the innkeeper would have made assumptions. Usually when dragels came in a group to this particular village, they were Bonded. “I can conjure another bed.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, there’s not enough room for that,” Harry said. “Besides, Hermione and I don’t mind.”

“We don’t,” the woman agreed. 

“And if I mind?” Riven asked, a hint of growl in his voice. 

“There’s a chair,” Harry pointed out. He’d been tempted to vanish it, but he didn’t want to force Riven into anything he really didn’t want. So he’d left it as an option, and just hoped that the other dragel wasn’t that stubborn. 

Knowing his luck, however, Riven probably was. Given Ron and Hermione, and even himself, Harry definitely had a type. 

Well, he’d figured it out, one step at a time. 

“I’m going to take a shower,” he decided. “Or a bath. Whatever they have here.” He would give Hermione some time to talk Riven around, because if she couldn’t convince him that it was okay, then they were probably out of luck—for that night. 

Luckily, when he was finished and came out of the bathroom, Riven was sitting in the bed, under the covers, writing something in an over-large grimoire. He was as far to one edge as he could get, well away from where Hermione was settled in, but Harry would take it. 

With a grin, Harry claimed his spot—right in the middle. 

Chapter Text

Harry woke at an obscenely early hour of the morning, but despite the early hour, Riven was already long gone. 

The Mage had left a note saying that he was completing his task—answering the unspoken question of whether there was an Immortal on Elara's Carpathian—and that when he got back, they could start their search. Until then, he and Hermione were not to wander. 

Harry made a face as he read the order, sensing that was going to become a recurring theme for the next few weeks. 

Hermione was still soundly sleeping. which meant Harry had three options—go back to sleep, go get breakfast, or stay in the room doing nothing and be bored out of his skull. He could maybe call Ron but that ran the risk of waking Hermione up—a dangerous proposition, especially if she was in a deep sleep. 

Falling back asleep was unlikely, so breakfast it was. He would even be a good Bonded and bring food back for Hermione. 

For breakfast, he grabbed a spot at the tavern's bar and listened to others' chatter as he devoured several fruit turnovers-—freshly made—and a large mug of tea. The popular topic of conversation seemed to be the local markets, which were supposed to be spectacular. 

As he ate, a plan started to form. There probably wouldn't be many opportunities to buy a courting gift for Riven without the Mage himself being around. He should take the opportunity while he had it, especially if the markets here were so popular. 

It wouldn’t be wandering if he had a very clear destination and goal in mind. 

Once he was done eating, he arranged to have a breakfast platter sent up to Hermione—along with a note, telling her where he was going—before he started the walk to the other side of the village where the markets were. 

On the way the called Ron. Inter-realm communication could be tricky, but thankfully, the message bubble went through.

“Already?” Ron asked, as soon as they connected. 

Harry snorted. “No, not already. I just wanted to see if you settled in okay. It’s not the same when it’s just me and Hermione.”

“Yes, everything went smoothly on our end. Mum was disappointed you come with. Be prepared to be smothered when you finally do show up. I’d say that it’s been nice and quiet without either of you here but—”

“Things are never quiet around your family,” Harry finished, smiling softly. 

“And there’s more now,” Ron told him. “So many more. There’s definitely going to be no shortage of help, once I find a property we’ll like.” There was a vibrancy about the Pareya, a warmth in his voice and a shine in his eyes that told Harry he had definitely made the right decision, sending Ron on to Nevarah ahead of them. 

They talked a bit, Ron filling Harry in on some preliminary details he had picked up, mostly about how Nevarah was laid out and the different sections. Finding Riven so early on had been a surprised, but it was a detail that was helping them narrow down things—Nameless, Fire, Storm. They could at least decide on a neutral area instead of one of the more element-specific sections. 

And of course, talking about that and the adjustments they would make for Riven and potentially other elements led to talking about the Mage himself. It was early enough that there was barely anyone on the streets Harry was walking down, but he threw up privacy wards around him and the message bubble … just in case. 

Harry briefly explained his plan to the other man, but one of Ron’s questions drew him up short.

“How do you plan to pay if you find anything you think will be a good courting gift?”

“I … hadn’t gotten that far yet,” he said, face pinking. Riven had paid for the room at the inn with coins, but he hadn’t gotten a close enough look to see if those coins were the same as the galleons, sickles, or knuts used by the wizarding world. Given they were on a completely different realm, he doubted the currency would be the same. 

“I’ll figure something out,” he decided. Maybe he could arrange a trade or they could figure out the equivalent of the coins he did have. After all, the galleons had gold in them, so they were probably worth something. Or worst case scenario, he would wait a day or two before buying. He didn’t exactly want to go back to the inn due to lack of money—the point was to look for his Intended and to do that, he needed to actually go out and see and talk to people. 

It still wasn’t wandering, because he had a destination and a goal in mind. 

He said goodbye to Ron when he reached the market. Once again, he was reminded of Hogsmeade, but instead of students everywhere, those around were beings and creatures of too many types and species to count. 

The faces he’d been dreaming about for the past several weeks were practically engraved in his mind, but none of them matched the ones he saw at the market. And while there were many things being sold at the market, ranging from local food and delicacies to souvenirs and trinkets to high-end wares and even blades and weapons, none of it seemed appropriate for Riven. He spotted a few things he might pick out for Hermione or Ron, things he would probably come back for, but nothing for Riven. 

The end of the markets also marked the edge of the village boundaries, the start of a mountain path only a few meters away. Harry glanced at the sky. It was overcast and the sun wasn’t out, but if he had to guess, it was nearing mid-day. It would probably make sense to return to the inn, to meet up with Hermione and see if Riven had returned yet. He doubted it, because he had a feeling the Mage would be storming—heh—through the market to drag him back to the inn if that was the case. 

He turned back toward the village, but before he could take too many steps in that direction, he paused, his brows furrowing. He tilted his head back toward the mountain path, listening carefully.

It was distant, barely audible, but he could hear someone crying for help. 

Someone young. 

Dammit.

The smart thing to do would be to go get some help, some back-up, but if there was a child in trouble, he wasn’t sure they had that much time. 

The others were going to kill him—or at least the lectures he would get would be so painful, he’d wish he was dead. But he couldn’t just walk away. 

Harry shot off a message bubble to Hermione, quickly explaining the situation and requesting that she get help. The spell embedded in the bubble ensured that it wouldn’t let itself be ignored. Then, he turned back fully, stepping foot outside of the village and onto the mountain path. 

The door to the dungeon cell clang shut as the body that had just been thrown inside scrambled to his feet. 

Harry glowered and spat off an insult, but his captors paid him no heed. Instead, they moved on to the next dungeon cell and pulled a pale, limp figure from it—female this time—before proceeding to drag her up the stairs to the main floor of the castle he had been brought to. 

There had been a child crying for help, but it had been a trap. Harry had approached, getting close enough that he wouldn’t easily be able to retreat if something went wrong, and then he had seen a flash of fangs. His arm was still bleeding sluggishly from where the small vampire had dug its fangs in. 

Where there was one vampire, there were more, and it had been impossible to defeat the odds he was faced with. Overwhelmed by the numbers, Harry had been unceremoniously brought to the castle where he was now imprisoned.

No vampires lingered in the dungeon, but Harry didn’t attempt any spells to unlock the cell doors. He could already feel the dampeners around the entire dungeon, preventing him from accessing any magic, wizard or dragel. Even if magic could be used, he was sure that precautions had been taken against those types of spells. 

Aside from the blood the child vampire had taken during the initial attack, none of the others had attempted to drink from him, leaving Harry to wonder just what exactly they wanted. 

What they wanted from all of their captives, because aside from the one they had just emptied, every cell in the dungeon was full. 

“Feast time,” someone said. Their voice was weak, but the dungeon was quiet enough that the words were clearly heard. 

“Feast time?” he echoed faintly. “What do you—” He hadn’t finished asking the question when a piercing, drawn out scream came from the floors above. 

He scrabbled at his ears, trying to block out those terrible screams, the sounds of a young woman begging for her life. Sounds that he had desperately wished to never hear again after—

Hermione…

His back was lodged firmly in a corner of the cell, cool metal bars pressed against one side of his body. His entire body was trembling, his hands pressed firmly against his ears in an attempt to block out any and all sound. It hadn’t worked completely, but it suppressed enough sound that he could hear his pulse racing, his heart frantically pushing blood through his veins. 

He jerked violently when something cool gently gripped his shoulder and he spun to face the bars that separated his cell from the next one, pulling his hands away from his ears, one reaching futilely for a wand that he no longer carried with him when he spotted a pale hand reaching through the bars. 

The dungeon was dark, but his eyes were adjusting and the two beings in the cell next to him were pale enough that he could see one shove the other away from the cell bars.

“What part of don’t touch him did you not understand?” a woman demanded in a deadly-sounding hiss. 

“What right do you have to tell me what I can and can’t do?” a man snapped back. 

“I’ve got every right, you little—”

“And there they go again,” someone else muttered. 

Harry took a few seconds to regather his composure, before letting out a single, careful chirp. 

The bickering in the cell next to him abruptly stopped. 

“Dragel?” the man asked quietly.

“Yes,” Harry replied. He examined the pair in the cell next to him as best he could in the dim light. They were roughly the same height, both taller than him. The woman had dark hair tied up in a high, long ponytail and there were dark smears on her pale, shimmering skin—smears that Harry suspected were blood from cuts all over her body. The man was blond, his hair on the long side and unkempt, and he held himself in a way that told Harry he had been injured—repeatedly. Two pairs of red eyes, one more pink-red than the other set, tracked his every movement. He could sense that neither were pure dragel, but each had some dragel blood in them. 

“Submissive,” the woman realized, and cursed softly. “Bonded? Ideally with an Alpha or ACE that’s going to come running to your rescue?”

“Pareya that’s currently off-realm and an Advisor,” Harry answered. “What’s…what kind of situation have I ended up in?”

The answers came from around the dungeon. 

“Nothing good.”

“The food kind.”

“Vampire politics.”

“A deadly one.”

“A little bit of everything,” the woman said. “Sound off!”

Each cell had a number and the stories came, according to number. Most being held were villagers who had passed the village boundaries onto the mountain path and fell into a trap similar to the one Harry had walked into. The castle was home to a vampire on the Vampire Council, one that viewed the village as nothing but a blood source for him and the rogue vampires he commanded. The village itself had sanctuary wards that kept out any who meant harm to those within its boundaries, but anyone that went into the mountains was fair game. When someone new was brought in for the vampires to feed on, the weakest prisoner was always taken out and fed on until they were bled out. A few being held had come to bring the vampire lord back under control because other realms had started to take notice of the situation, having lost citizens of their own, but so far, he had proved too strong. 

Harry’s heart ached for the woman he had seen dragged out, the one who was no longer screaming. It sounded like an awful way to go. 

He was an idiot. He definitely deserved the painful lectures that came his way. 

But something didn’t make sense. “Council?” he asked. “I thought the vampires were led by an Empress.” Terius and Draco’s Alpha had mentioned that the Vampire Empress hadn’t been seen in recent centuries, supposedly because she was mourning the loss of her beloved Childe, but she still remained in power. 

“We are,” the blond man in the cell next to him growled. “Her Childe carries on her rule as King as she sleeps, but some weren’t satisfied with that and tried to take power for their own. They created a Council and as he deals with one, the others—” He gestured around vaguely. “They take advantage of the opportunity.”

So not in mourning then. Just asleep. 

Hm. 

The only stories left to tell were the pair in the cell next to Harry. 

It was odd that there were two in that particular cell when all of the others only held one individual.

“And you two?” he asked. “Did you come to deal with him?”

The woman scoffed. “The Vampire Council sent word to Nevarah that they were planning on attending the Hunt, but didn’t give any numbers. The Royals suspected a scheme because it’s been centuries, and it came from their Council. There were too many unknowns. I was sent to verify what was going on and give numbers on how many vampires to expect for the Hunt. Others were sent, but never came back. I was … the fourth? They’ll know now that there’s someone betraying Nevarah’s Gheyos on this realm.”

“Or you just slipped up,” her cell-partner muttered. “Just admit it. Miss Perfect wasn’t perfect and made a mistake. They chose the wrong spy.”

His comments received a hiss in reply and Harry grimaced as claws were noisily dragged over metal and stone.

“Stop calling me a spy!”

“You just admitted you were spying!”

Harry sighed and cleared his throat. 

The man’s red eyes glowered, an eerie sight in the dim light, but he gave his story. “My loyalties are to the Empress and her Childe, our King. I delivered a message to this castle’s master warning him of the fates he was tempting and he set his horde on me after taking offense to my blood. He would have let them kill me but for deciding he wanted to try and break me first.”

“Break you?”

“He’s vampire, she’s Dark Fae, little one,” the individual in a cell across the way said. “They’re betting which will kill the other first, since the two are natural enemies. Truthfully, it’s a miracle neither has yet but the fear of the death that awaits the survivor of that final fight must have been enough so far.”

“This so-called Council has no authority over me, they can’t dictate my kills or force me into anything,” the vampire snapped.

“I was trained by the Black Dahlia herself. I won’t bring shame upon her training by letting instinctual grudges control me!”

No, it wasn’t a miracle that they hadn’t killed each other yet, but the reason for it wasn’t any of the reasons they had given. Harry chirped again to cut through the bickering that followed and inched closer to the pair. 

The vampire mirrored him, edging closer as well, until he was cut off by the Dark Fae positioning herself protectively between the two. Harry tried not to roll his eyes at all the posturing and flash of fang. He turned away ever so slightly to reach for his mokeskin pouch and open it. 

“Stand down,” the vampire ordered, voice tight. “It’s insulting that you think I’m a threat to—”

“If you really think I’m about to let a starving vampire anywhere near my Intended—”

“—my Intended.”

For a moment, the two stared at each other, puzzled by the other’s statements. They both had recognized Harry, probably from the soulmate dreams, but apparently it hadn’t crossed either of their minds that Harry would be soulmate to both of them. 

Harry pulled out two papers and held them out. One held the face of the Dark Fae, while the other held the face of the vampire. “I came to this realm searching for my Intended soulmates,” he said. “Plural. I’ve got several more of these that I’m looking to find, based on the soulmate dreams I’ve been having. I wasn’t really expecting to be lured into a trap or kidnapped or find anyone in the process, but I guess these things have a way of falling into place. I’d say it’s nice to meet you, but I still don’t know your names yet. I’m Harry, by the way.”

There was silence for a heartbeat, before soft snickers came from other cells in the dungeon. 

“Calla,” came an eventual answer. “Gheyo Queen.”

“Tedeo. Gheyo Prince.”

So not only would he have a Dark Fae and vampire in the same Circle, they were also a ranked pair. Seemed about right, with his luck. He didn’t know much about Gheyos and how their internal hierarchies worked—he had only been taught the basics about the rank in a more general overview—but he knew enough that Queen and Prince were not dominant ranks. They came more toward the end, not the beginning. 

Definitely his sort of luck.

But he didn’t dwell on that too much, because going through his mokeskin pouch had given him an idea of how to escape. 

The door to the dungeon opened, letting in a stream of bright light from the floor above. A single vampire came down, carrying buckets of something. 

Food time for the prisoners, with a few exceptions. 

Tedeo didn’t get anything, because those that were trying to get him and Calla to attack and kill each other were hoping that being starved of blood and food would push him closer to that edge. As the newest and freshest prisoner, Harry was due to be the supper that night, so he wouldn’t get anything either to make him less likely to fight as he was brought out of his cell. 

He held his breath and remained as still as possible, hidden as he was under his invisibility cloak. It couldn’t hide his heartbeat from being heard, but they’d made plans for that. Already all of the others who had gotten food were making a ruckus with complaints and being as loud as possible, to cover up the other smaller sounds that Harry might make.

The vampire distributing food looked into Harry’s supposedly empty cell with a baffled look on his face, as no one had ever tried to escape, let alone actually managed it. After a minute, he opened and entered the cell, intent on examining each and every shadow and dark spot that Harry might have hidden himself in, especially the corners. 

When he got close enough to one particular corner, Calla lunged for him, trying to grab a limb and drag him through the bars of the cell. She was swift enough to actually succeed in pulling part of his arm through, ripping at it with claws, and the scent of blood drifted through the air. 

Harry took advantage of the chaos and the open cell door to slip out of his cell and into the other empty one that the dead woman used to be kept in. There he waited, until the vampire managed to free himself and abandon the dungeon for a safer area of the castle. It was lucky that he had changed cells, because the door to his old cell was slammed shut in the process. 

“Think he’s going to tell someone?” he murmured when the door to the dungeon closed. 

“He’s a coward and an escape on his watch would look bad,” Tedeo said. “He won’t say anything and will hope that the next shift gets the blame. But just in case, better move quickly.”

Harry slipped out of the second cell and darted to the very back of the dungeon where the runes were etched that suppressed all other magic in the dungeons. He just had to destroy one of them, to disrupt the whole array.

With no magic to use, destroying the rune was difficult and involved slamming a stone into it over and over, chipping away at the edges. It would have been easier if there had been keys to try and steal… It took longer than expected, and any moment he expected someone to come running to see what the commotion was about, but he was determined and the magical backlash told him when he succeeded. 

He pushed himself into a sitting position, slightly dazed, but grinned to himself when he heard the other cells door opening, as they weren’t protected against basic unlocking charms. Their captors had relied too much on the runic array that kept other magic from working and hadn’t taken other basic precautions. Sloppy and arrogant.

Slender but strong arms lifted him from the ground and passed him to another individual, who clutched him tightly. 

“Quickest way out is up and to the right,” Tedeo said, deep voice rumbling in the chest Harry’s head was resting against. 

“You do that if you want,” Calla said. “I’ve got something to find before I go. I’m not leaving Lily behind.”

Lily? Why was she talking about his mother?

Tedeo sighed. “Even if it means facing a horde of vampires by yourself?”

“You say that like it’s something ominous, but that just sounds like a good time to me.”

Harry heard the clicking of boots and when he turned, Calla was stalking away, ponytail swinging to match her stride. 

“She’s going to get herself killed,” Tedeo muttered. 

“Then we might as well catch up and see if we can delay it,” Harry said, before he started squirming. He hadn’t forgotten how injured Tedeo had looked when he had first looked the man over and he’d gathered that the other vampires had been gradually breaking bones and adding to his injuries to make him more tempted to go after Calla as the closest blood source. “I can still walk.”

“This is a bad idea.” But Tedeo set him down and barked out the directions to get out of the castle to the others, before following in Calla’s tracks. 

“Probably,” Harry agreed.

They caught up to the Dark Fae easily enough, since the magical backlash had definitely attracted the attention of others in the castle and Calla had to fight her way through several groups of vampires, slowing her down. Beheaded bodies and streaks of fire and ash marked her path, making it easy to follow.

When they caught up, her pink-red eyes were now as red as Tedeo’s. “If he dies, you die,” she told the other Gheyo. “Stay out of striking distance.”

Tedeo grumbled under his breath but slowed down a fraction, tucking Harry against his side after pulling a dagger off of a fallen vampire in case any of the horde managed to get through Calla.

But a well-trained Gheyo was a marvelous thing to watch, especially against opponents who were barely trained or had limited training just against their own species. Few that she was coming up against knew how to fight, especially once she got a blade in her hands, and it became more like a bloodbath than anything else. 

Though it did make Harry wonder how she managed to get captured in the first place…

“Do you know how to use any blades?” Tedeo asked, almost absently as his red eyes scanned for other threats—like the vampires giving orders to the cannon fodder they’d encountered so far.

“I’ve used a sword a few times.”

The Gheyo grunted and picked up the next sword he saw, passing it over to Harry. “In case we get separated,” he said. “Don’t stab me with it.”

There were a few responses that came to Harry’s mind but then they went through a doorway, ending up in a large ballroom, and anything he wanted to say promptly fled and left him nearly swallowing his tongue.

That was … a lot of vampires. And way in the back, sitting at a table on a raised dais, was who he assumed to be the vampire lord. 

Tedeo grunted in surprise. “Would have expected him to not be in the middle of things,” he said at Harry’s questioning look. “But it appears subtlety is not his strong suit.” He glanced at the horde again and his red eyes flashed with anticipation. “This could be fun.”

Harry didn’t necessarily agree, and he gripped the sword he was holding tighter. 

Chapter Text

Bodies were piled high around the ballroom, but there seemed to be no end to the vampires intent on attacking them. How were there still so many left?

Harry was sure he was more of a hindrance than a help, and if they were still alive when this was over, he was definitely going to ask Calla or Tedeo or someone for lessons on how to use a sword properly. He had gotten by with Gryffindor’s sword against a basilisk and horcruxes, but a horde of vampires was definitely a different matter. 

But his Gheyos were more than holding their own and the odds that had looked so formidable when they entered the ballroom no longer seemed so impossible.

The only downside was that the vampire lord had yet to move, had yet to lose that smug, confident look on his face.

Harry snarled and was satisfied to hear three snarls echo in response, though one was more distant than the other two.

Wait, three snarls?

Instinctively, he threw himself back, dragging Tedeo with him. A split second later, the air split where he had been standing, several planes of existence parting to let Riven and several others pass through. 

Scowling, the Mage struck his staff against the ground, bright streaks of lavender lightning sparking up and around him. A shockwave reverberated through the room, putting most flat on the ground, and Harry clutched Tedeo tighter as he struggled to keep his balance in the face of so much power.

Calla dropped back at Riven’s appearance, taking a protective position over both Submissive and Gheyo Prince. She had gained another sword at some point, one that was currently dripping blood and hoisted over her shoulder in a careless manner as she tossed the first away. “Back-up?”

“In some form,” Harry replied quietly. Three others were accompanying Riven, but of those three, he only recognized Hermione, who was glaring quite fiercely at him. The other two were vampires. But with Riven around, they at least had a way out, no matter what happened next. 

The two new vampires glided forward while Riven and Hermione dropped back a few steps. Harry grimaced at the fierce, unhappy looks on both their faces, but it was nothing unexpected. He’d known he would definitely be in trouble when those two got their claws on him again. 

What was unexpected was how Riven pulled a dull red stone from his robes and promptly shoved it in Tedeo’s mouth and forced the vampire to chew on it. 

“Bloodstone,” Calla explained, and arched a brow as she stared down at Harry. “Yours?”

“Hermione, my Advisor,” he introduced. “And Riven, the Realmwalker we’re traveling with.” He kept one eye on Tedeo and was amazed to see how pale grey skin took on a more flesh-colored tone and the dirty blond hair seemed to shed the dirt and grime and take on a healthier appearance. He patted at both Gheyos. “Calla, Tedeo.”

Hermione opened her mouth to say something, but before she could, one of the other vampires—the female one—spoke. 

“Thank you for your assistance, Master Realmwalker. My Childe and I can handle things from here. This realm will not be a pleasant one for a while, so I recommend that you continue with your travels without lingering. Once I have made my opinions clear here, I will continue on to Nevarah and fulfill my duties there.” Quiet and ethereal as her voice was, it was laced with power and magic, and Harry sensed it was just a fraction of what was at her disposal. 

Instantly, he knew who she was. Elara, Empress of all vampires and one of the Immortals Riven had been sent to check on. 

No, not check on. He’d been sent to awaken them, if they were not awake already. 

That meant the male vampire at her side was probably her Childe, the Vampire King. Given the panicked look on the vampire lord’s face on the other side of the ballroom, he hadn’t expected either of them. 

“Indeed, we’ll be leaving now,” Riven growled, glowering violet eyes daring any of the others to protest. 

Well, Harry definitely had no reason to protest. Leaving right then was something he was very much okay with. 

“There was something about a lily?” Tedeo said as he steadied Harry on his feet. 

“Got her,” Calla agreed, sheathing her sword and showing the flower engraved on the hilt. “I’ve worked hard to wield this blade, I wasn’t about to leave her behind.”

Harry held in a laugh at the look on Tedeo’s face and he stepped away, trying to get closer to Hermione. If he could endear himself to her a bit, maybe the lecture he knew was in the future wouldn’t be so blistering painful. 

Her brown eyes widened and a panicked look on her face as she stared at Harry.

No, not at Harry himself. 

At something behind him.

He turned, caught a glimpse of something small coming straight at him, and the last thing he knew was the feeling of fangs in his neck. 

Waking up was not a pleasant experience. Harry’s neck ached, the room smelled of chemicals and sterile equipment, and there was a steady beeping sound somewhere in the distance that he wanted silenced by any means necessary. 

Reluctantly and slowly, he blinked open his eyes, already knowing he was in some sort of hospital or healing wing. His head was turned to one side, so when his vision cleared, he was facing toward the side of the room and was entirely unsurprised to see Hermione in a chair, a book opened on her lap. 

“Where?” he whispered, wincing when speaking even that one word proved to be painful. 

“Neo-Atlantis,” Hermione said, marking her page and closing the book she’d been reading. “A few hours ago. One of the vampires—a turned one, and a child when they were turned at that—attacked you and managed to tear into your neck. They also managed to do a fair amount of damage to Tedeo when he intervened, and he wasn’t in the best condition to begin with, so Riven took us to the closest realm that had a qualified dragel healer.”

“Neo-Atlantis?” Harry repeated. 

Hermione frowned at him. “Stop that,” she said. “You shouldn’t be talking for a bit.” She reached over and fumbled a bit until she pressed a button on the side of his bed. “Yes, Neo-Atlantis, though technically I think it’s the original Atlantis.” She held up the book she was reading. “A history of the realm. Atlantis was a peninsula, cut off from the rest of the world by a mountain range. Well, volcanic range. There was an earthquake, which triggered an eruption, and the civilization started to slide into the sea. But the magical users came together and managed to save it by separating it from Earth and essentially creating a new realm, which is why no one has ever been able to find it.” Her eyes gleamed as she talked, her pace almost too quick to understand, but Harry had plenty of experience with Hermione when she got like this. 

Unfortunately, he also knew that she was just getting started. He couldn’t talk and there was no one around to interrupt her. 

“Most of the magical users died in the process and after a few centuries, magic died out altogether, but they were much more scientifically advanced than elsewhere on Earth and they’ve continued down that path. Especially in terms of healing. Technically time runs the same as it did on Earth—same year, same day, same calendar—but some of the stuff they’ve got here, the scientists on Earth haven’t even dreamed of yet. They’ve set up agreements with other realms to exchange healing techniques, which is why there was a dragel healer here.”

Harry pushed himself into a sitting position, green eyes widening. “There’s no magic?” he rasped, before clutching at his throat. Why did it still hurt so much if they were so ahead of things in terms of healing? When the pain in his neck faded away, he waved one of his hands at the infernally beeping machine and his eyebrows furrowed when the silencing spell worked on it. 

“Magic still works,” Hermione said. “There’s just no magical Atlanteans. The gene that carries magic wasn’t passed on.” Her forehead creased. “Or something about nanos affecting it. I’m still a bit lost on that part.” She huffed. “Not that it seems to matter. They act a bit superior to everyone else, like they think their science makes them better than our magic.”

Harry rolled his eyes, not very surprised. Everywhere, every place, there would be something like that, unfortunately. 

“Tedeo?” he asked slowly.

Hermione frowned. “I don’t know. The dragel healer—Healer Grimwood—stabilized you first because the neck wound was the worst and got you to a point where natural healing is supposed to take care of the rest. Tedeo was taken to a separate room. I heard something about internal injuries and she wanted to get to him as fast as possible, before the Atlantean healers could. I’m under strict orders to keep watch and make sure none of the Atlantean healers give you anything or do anything involving blood or needles. Again, it’s something about nanos, but no one has really explained that part yet and there’s nothing in this book.”

Harry gestured at the button Hermione had pressed. 

“It’s supposed to let someone know you’re awake. Again, Healer Grimwood’s orders.” She looked like she wanted to say more, but instead, she reached over and pressed the button a second time.

Still, no one came. 

Instead, shouting erupted from the hallway. 

The two dragels exchanged a look and Hermione carefully slid off her chair and tiptoed over to the door, sliding it open a fraction so they could hear the argument better. 

A woman was doing most of the shouting. 

“—dragels. Seeking a dragel healer! They’re my patients—you had no authority! I’m perfectly capable! Not everything has to involve your stupid, blasted, infernal nanos. If you had asked, I could have told you that they were only going to make things worse!”

Hermione sighed and slid the door shut. 

“Healer Grimwood?” Harry rasped. 

“Stop talking,” she said again. “Wait until you’re healed more before you keep asking questions.” She paused. “Actually, if you can talk, you can swallow.” She sat on the side of the bed and held out a wrist. “Take some. I think it will speed up the healing.”

Blood and sugar, Harry remembered. Normally he would be more reluctant, but he had plenty more questions and his neck still hurt. Plus, if the healers were arguing to the point of shouting, things were spiraling out of control and Harry wanted to be closer to full strength if they decided to take those tempers out on him. 

As he was drinking, the door slid open and he heard the sound of a throat clearing. When he straightened up and licked his lips clean, his eyes flicked in that direction and he startled at what he saw.

A strong jaw, defined cheekbones, and a sharp nose were set in a light brown face, framed by neatly trimmed brown-black hair. Against the darker skin and dark hair, light jade-colored eyes stood out. The man himself was a few inches shorter than Ron and had a stockier build, though he was taller than Hermione and Harry, and probably even Calla and Tedeo. 

But Harry remembered the eyes the most, eyes that were accompanied by a smooth, pleasant-sounding voice that whispered sweet things in his ears.

He groaned, a sound that was quickly followed by a disgruntled chirp. “Healer Grimwood?” he asked, because of course his Healer would be another Intended soulmate. It seemed that now he had started his search for them, he was coming across them quick enough that he barely had time to breathe.

No wonder Hermione had seemed reluctant to say anything. 

But next to him, her body was stiff, and she seemed just as thrown off as Harry himself was.

“No, my name is Dalton Hartwood. Pareya rank. But Zola—Healer Grimwood—sent me to fetch you. She’s … decided to resign from her position as visiting healer and is taking her patients with her, believing they will not be safe if they are left behind.”

“Tedeo?” Harry asked, and brightened a bit when he realized that his throat was starting to hurt less when he talked. The blood, as little as he had, definitely helped and his dragel healing was starting to pick up. 

“Your other Gheyo is getting him, accompanied by Healer Grimwood, to make sure that the discharge goes smoothly. Your Mage is ready and waiting for a location to be decided upon.”

Three realms in only a few hours. Four in only a day or so. Harry wondered if that was a record, even for Riven.

“Well, he’s got the magic to burn,” Hermione remarked, and patted Harry sympathetically on the leg. That alone told him that he was definitely in for it at some point. Even if she didn’t seem inclined to lecture him anymore for his recklessness, he would still have to deal with Riven. 

Dalton approached the bed and crouched down so he was closer to Harry’s level. “Do you mind?” he asked. “You’re still healing and, from experience, it can take a few hours to adjust to the gravitational pull and properties of a realm when you first arrive. Carrying you will be quicker.”

No, Harry definitely did not mind. Quite the opposite, in fact. He even took the opportunity as Dalton picked him up to sneak in a few nuzzles, wanting to burrow into a scent that reminded him of a summer garden in full bloom.

Four Intended soulmates, and he had yet to fully claim any of them as his. His instincts were definitely not happy about that fact and now that he was awake and getting close to full strength again, they were determined to fix that problem. Like Ron needed to be around his family to make full use of his talent for Family Magic, it seemed that to use the full breadth of his Nameless gift, Harry needed his soulmates with completed bonds around him. 

Dalton cradled his body gently against his chest, a soft, steady purr encouraging Harry to relax. “Your Mage said Nevarah was out of the question for a while, so we’ll go to Crestia,” he said. “I have a cousin we can stay with for a few days, get things settled and sorted out. Relatively isolated, plenty of space, lots of food and creature comforts, nice big castle to explore once everyone’s recovered.”

Harry chirped happily, because the picture being painted in his mind was a perfectly pleasant one. Definitely one he wouldn’t mind, as long as…

He craned his neck once they were in the corridor to search for the others and chirped again when Dalton immediately adjusted his hold on Harry so he was more propped up and could see more easily without straining his neck further. He easily spotted Riven and a few doors down, he could see Calla exiting a room, holding a pale Tedeo and accompanied by a tanned woman with dirty blond hair dressed in burgundy and white robes.

The Gheyo Prince did not look well. In fact, all of the help the bloodstone had done back on Elara’s Carpathian seemed to have been reversed—his skin was dangerously pale, edging toward grey, and seemed to be covered in oil and grime, and there was a metallic sheen to his red eyes. His entire body was shaking, and even as Harry watched, a seizure started.

The healer beside him cursed and Harry jerked in surprise as she brought Tedeo’s wrist up to her mouth and ripped it open with her fangs.

“Zola!” Dalton barked.

“It’s the only way to get rid of the nanos and you know it, Dalton!” she retorted, head twisting to face in their direction. There was a fierce look in her bright purple-green eyes. “Idiots! Insufferable, arrogant, lazy—”

“Healer Grimwood, there’s no need to be so insulting!” another woman, this one dressed in white and blue, said from a different area of the hallway. “The nanos are perfectly safe. They were designed for dragels specifically and targeted for his injuries. They were targeted for his specific injuries, they were not all-purpose nanos like the first generation ones had been designed to be.”

“Except he’s not pureblood dragel and even when the nanos are targeted, they’ve still failed to self-destruct in a good number of cases when even the slightest thing is off!” Zola snapped. “Not everything can be fixed with nanos, you nitwits! You may be willing to experiment on your patients, but I’m not and I had everything perfectly under control—you had absolutely no right to interfere as you did and if you continue to interfere, I’ll make sure to file reports not just with the advisory councils, but also with the inter-realm courts!”

“Will he be okay?” Harry asked, worried green eyes not leaving Tedeo’s shaking form and the wrist that was gushing blood. Why wasn’t anyone trying to stop the bleeding?

“He’ll be fine,” Dalton soothed. “If anyone knows how to get rid of the nanos, it will be Zola. The entire reason she came here was to study them, after all.”

“What’s the deal with these nano things?” Harry wanted to know. 

“Dalton! Leaving now! Before I actually do break my Oaths!”

“I’ll have her explain it to you,” Dalton murmured as he stepped forward. “She’s the better one for that job. I just write the papers and the incident reports.”

Before the earthquakes and volcanic eruption that caused Atlantis to break away from Earth as its own realm, the Atlantean scientists had created bioengineered nanos to treat injuries, cure illnesses, and generally keep individuals in optimal health. The scientists invented them in hopes of finding non-invasive ways to heal, to prevent the need for surgery. The first nanos repaired injuries using blood and would surround viruses or bacteria to remove them from the body. Unfortunately, the original scientists were lazy and aimed for a one-size-fits-all approach for nanos, instead of developing nanos targeted to specific diseases and injuries. The nanos that were supposed to self-destruct once their mission was done never ended up destroying themselves because there was always something to fix in a body, including aging and basic things like sun damage to the skin. Also unfortunately, by using blood, that meant the nanos required more blood than the human body could produce, which meant regular blood transfusions had been needed. 

Until Atlantis broke away from Earth. A few survivors with the first generation nanos had been left behind in the destroyed parts of the civilization, forced to rejoin the rest of the world, and to gain that extra blood, the nanos gave them fangs and the more enhanced senses of a predator. They even developed abilities like mind control. Basically—a vampire. Science-based, non-magical vampires, which explained the rumors that occasionally flew around the wizarding world about such beings. 

On Neo-Atlantis, they continued working and tweaking the nanos to fix such … quirks, and programmed various batches so the nanos could be introduced not only to humans, but also to other beings and species. But success wasn’t linear and problems with the nanos still cropped up, especially once magic was involved. The Atlantean scientists and doctors collaborated with healers from other realms for such projects and experiments, which explained why Zola and Dalton had been there. 

Many of the details went over Harry’s head, but he sat quietly and listened as Zola alternated between ranting and explaining, since that was the only way he was allowed to remain by Tedeo’s side as the Healer worked. He himself was supposed to be resting and not over-exerting himself, which he was pretty sure was the only reason why Zola allowed him in the room in the first place—to keep him under her strict, watchful eye. 

Castle Helios was exactly like Dalton had described—relatively isolated, comfortable, and perfectly suited for their little group. Eventually it would be a vacation destination, but the castle was currently in the last stages of renovation and the only other occupants was another small Circle comprised of a Bonded triad and two Pareya. Their hosts left them mostly alone, since Dalton’s cousin Vance was in the process of writing a paper and two of the others were writers by trade and dealing with edits, which both claimed were awful, horrible, fearsome things. 

The only downside was that he had yet to do anything about his newfound soul-bonds, all five of them—because as it turned out, Zola was also one of them. Harry hadn’t wanted to leave Tedeo out of a bonding night, so he’d decided to wait until the Gheyo was cleared before sealing any bonds. 

A Gheyo Queen, a Gheyo Prince, a Pareya, a Healer, and a Mage, along with the Pareya and Advisor he already had. It was shaping up to be quite the Circle. 

Still no dominant ranks, though. 

Harry probably should have planned that better. Maybe. But he definitely didn’t have any regrets, even if there might be a few headaches in the future. 

Chapter Text

Harry growled under his breath as he searched through the castle gardens. He’d been hoping Riven was somewhere outside because of the storms—and because he was nowhere inside—but no luck. The storms must have been because Violet was agonizing over her edits or her temper was flaring. That was the bad thing about having multiple Storm elements in the same area—it was hard to figure out which storms belonged to whom. 

Clapping reached his ears and he turned his head. Calla was approaching—or rather, sashaying—with a cheery look on her face. “What’cha doing?”

“Looking for Riven,” Harry replied. “I haven’t seen him since yesterday.” While he’d mostly been confined to bed the past few days, he’d still been able to go down to the main dining room for meals and would see the Mage then. It had been odd to not see that glowering, grumpy face at breakfast that morning and, with Zola giving Tedeo what would hopefully be a clean bill of health, Harry gone in search of the other dragel since they hadn’t really gotten the chance to talk since Elara’s Carpathian. 

Not that Harry thought he would enjoy that first conversation, but he wanted to get it over with sooner rather than later. 

Calla’s mouth twisted, ever so slightly, and Harry’s green eyes narrowed, immediately knowing something was up. “He’s not here, is he?”

“Said that as long as we were staying on this realm for a bit, he had business to take care, and that he’d be back in a few days. And he left some very specific instructions to be followed while he was gone.”

“Such as?”

“You’re not allowed outside alone and if anyone finds that happening, we’re to drag you back inside, kicking and screaming if need be. I got the sense that he was worried that you’d get into trouble only he could get you out of if you went anywhere alone.”

Harry huffed, not sure whether to be offended or amused. He could see where the Mage had gotten that idea after their most recent adventure, after all. 

“So since I found you outside alone, how would you like me to drag you back inside? I can think of a few different ways that would work.”

“I’m sure you can,” Harry replied, adjusting his stance. If they were going to play that particular game, he wasn’t going to make things easy. “Your choice.”

With those two words, he turned and started to run, figuring there were a few places in the gardens that would make good hiding places. Unfortunately, he didn’t get further than a few steps before he felt arms wrap around him and his body being lifted. 

He whined as his body was folded over Calla’s shoulder, a hand coming up to rest on one of his cheeks. The Dark Fae whistled cheerfully as she pivoted on her heels, turning to go back into the castle.

“It was a good try,” she said, hand patting his rump. “But you telegraphed your moves. I’ll give you a few tips.”

“Is this where I start kicking and screaming?” he asked, feeling his face flush. 

“You can. Or…”

“Or?”

“It will be faster if we skip that part and maybe we can get a head start on some other things before the others get around to joining us.”

“Slightly tempting. But how do you know we’ll get there first?”

“Because a certain Prince was being a difficult patient when I spotted you outside and it’s going to take a while before they finish and then they’ve been tasked with getting a couple of bookworms out of the library. Do you really think they’re going to manage all that by the time it takes me to walk up a couple flights of stairs?”

Harry laughed. “If they do, it would certainly be a miracle I never achieved, and that was when there was only one of them.”

Chapter Text

The message bubble popped as the conversation ended and Ron promptly buried his face in his hands and let out a long-suffering sigh. 

“You’re going to suffer, but you’re going to be happy about it,” he muttered to himself. 

“Well, that’s a bit morbid for a motto.”

Ron’s head shot up and he glared at George, who took the look as an invitation to enter his room and sit on his bed. 

“Not a motto,” he reluctantly explained. “Just something between me and Harry from back when we started taking Divination in third year.”

“What’s the trouble magnet done now?”

“Want the long version or the short one?”

George laughed. “Is that even a question? Always the long version. It’s not like we’re going anywhere this late at night.”

Ron huffed in amusement, because it was true. He had planned on going to bed, but then Harry and the others had called. 

So many others. The last time he had talked to Harry and Hermione, there had maybe been Riven to consider, but now, only a few days later, there were four others. They’d gone from three to seven almost overnight and while Ron knew that seven was on the small side for a normal dragel Circle, it was almost overwhelming how quickly it had happened. And he wasn’t even physically involved in the situation. 

He filled George in on the situation, and ended by ticking off the final tally. “Nameless, Storm, Shadow, Air, Earth, Fire. At least it makes figuring out what plot of land to buy easier.” He sighed again. 

“At least—” George yelped as Ron threw a pillow at him. “What was that for?”

“Do not say what you were about to say,” the younger Weasley hissed, hair bursting into flames. “No one is saying that out loud!”

“But—”

“No! Do not,” Ron said sharply. “That is not getting voiced out loud. Ever. I made Harry promise not to get kidnapped by vampires, and what was the first thing to happen? He’s going to end up giving whoever our Alpha ends up being white hair within the first decade.” A few seconds later he groaned and buried his head in a pillow, because he had made a second joke at that time. If that one came true, maybe he should consider seeking out the Kadels for some testing or training… if one didn’t find him first. 

He shuddered and changed the subject. “Want to come with me tomorrow?” he asked. He’d been between a few possible plots of land and had set up an appointment to formally make a decision on one and purchase the land the next day. 

“Are you going straight there after to start building?” George asked.

“Maybe not build, but at least start laying the wards and protections and mark out a few places. I’ve got ideas on what things should look like but I want to get to know the others more before I actually start the construction spells.” One call that was half explanations and introductions and half Hermione lecturing Harry for being so reckless and impulsive wasn’t enough to get a good gauge on what the others would prefer to have in their home. 

He startled when a message bubble appeared, signaling an incoming call from Crestia. From Dalton, specifically. 

“Looks like you’re not the only one with those sorts of thoughts,” George remarked, getting to his feet. “I’ll leave you to your Pareya bonding.”

Ron groaned and threw his other pillow at his brother. “Do you have to make it sound like that?”

Buying the plot of property went smoothly, though actually signing the documents and exchanging the money made Ron feel like throwing up. It was the biggest purchase he’d ever made in his life and finalizing it felt so … official. So adult-like. 

But, as much work as it was going to take, it would definitely be worth it to have a home, to have somewhere they could build a family, like his parents had done with the Burrow. 

“Sure you’ll get it done in time?” George asked from beside him, surveying the property. 

“Our family is Pareya heavy and I’ve lost count of how many offers to help I’ve gotten,” Ron said. “I have a feeling that at times, it’s going to be more of too many claws at work than too few.” 

It was just a matter of starting. 

By the time the sun was setting, the foundations—both physical and magical—had been laid. A rather decent start, in his opinion. It had gone much more smoothly than Ron had expected, mainly thanks to George’s help. It was a keen reminder that his brother hadn’t just built their business from scratch, they’d also built a lot of the actual storefront. 

Somehow, in the process, he’d committed to opening up a new store with George in Nevarah, once they were more settled. It was odd, making plans for the future, especially since it was a far cry from the professional Quidditch career future he’d always imagined. But it also felt fitting in a way. 

Before leaving, Ron wandered the property, reinforcing the wards with a subtle touch of Family Magic, ensuring that the only ones who could get through were Bonded, Intended, or part of his family Circle in some way. He also included a Pareya-specific touch that would tell him which of his Circle were currently on the property, something that he assumed would be helpful in the future given the vast size of the property. 

Not that he was expecting anyone soon. For the next few weeks, it was just going to be him.

Which was why it was so surprising that in the middle of the night, the wards alerted him to a presence entering the property. 

A presence, not an intruder. 

One that lingered near the west side of the property, near the small pond that was included on the land and where the river marked the boundary. 

Ron rolled over in his bed and groaned into his pillow for a moment, before reluctantly getting to his feet and grabbing a robe so he could go and check things out. Apparently curses didn’t need to be spoken out loud to come into existence…

“Only you, Harry James Potter, only you…” he grumbled. 

Chapter Text

Harry stuck a hand into the bowl and frowned when it came up empty. He rolled to his feet, empty bowl in hand, and made his way out into the corridor, dodging several sets of hands that tried to pull him back down, protesting his movements. 

“My turn to get more,” he insisted, because almost everyone else had run down to the kitchens to get more snacks at least once already. It was also his own stomach demanding more food, so it felt more fitting that he should get it instead of any of the others. 

It also gave him a chance to check on Zola, who hadn’t joined them in playing cards, stuck inside as they were by the wind and the rain. 

For once, the weather couldn’t be blamed on a resident Storm element. Riven had yet to return, still finishing his task on Crestia, and Cypher and Oscar, the Alpha-Beta pair of the Circle who managed Castle Helios had dragged their Circle on a trip that was likely to be half vacation, half ghost-hunting to give their various writers a change of scenery. 

Harry wandered down to the kitchen after confirming that the rooms they were staying in was empty.

There, he found Zola, looking flushed, harried, and sweaty, dirty blond hair tied up, away from her face and flour covering her entire front, including a few smudges on her face. Cooling batches of cookies covered nearly every piece of flat surface, while there were mixing bowls and dishes piled next to the sink, waiting to be washed. 

Well, that explained the never-ending supply of snacks. 

“Should I be worried?” Harry asked, setting the bowl he was carrying on a stool. “What are you doing?”

“Getting out some energy, reverse engineering a recipe. Idle claws and all that.”

“Explain that last bit?”

Zola blew a strand of loose hair that had escaped her bun out of her eyes. “Something my gran said. Idle claws end up breaking laws, so keep them busy breaking eggs instead.”

Harry’s lips twitched. “I take it she bakes a lot?”

“Side effect of growing up in a Culinary Circle,” came the reply. “She usually baked to take her frustration out on dough instead of her Bonded. I never understood until, well…” She shrugged.

And Harry understood what she was trying to say. Calla and Tedeo. They weren’t stuck in the same cell anymore, but there was still a lot of snarking between the pair and a sliver of tension that couldn’t be explained away as testing each other as Gheyo Queen and Gheyo Prince. Some of it could maybe be classified as ‘Gheyo business’ and not having a more dominant rank in their hierarchy but Harry also suspected that some of it came down to one being Dark Fae and one being vampire. 

At least they were careful not to use blades—so far. 

“It’s a lot,” he agreed, tone mild. 

“They need a King. Or an ACE, but a King would probably work better.”

“I’m willing to find one—or both,” Harry said, because as recently as his past few bondings were, he’d already felt that niggle in the back of his mind, the urge to find more. He’d also started dreaming of feathers and red eyes and a rainbow of colors, which probably meant that his soulmate dreams were starting again. “Just, you know…” He gestured vaguely toward a window. “I also have no idea how to read the coordinates that spell gives, so can’t really ask if there’s another way to get to the next realm.”

Zola scowled and Harry huffed in amusement when she sprinkled silver and violet edible glitter into the next batch of cookie dough before violently mixing it all together and nearly slamming the little balls of dough onto the baking sheet. 

“Want some help?” he asked. 

Purple-green eyes glanced over to meet his green ones. “Are you any good at taste-testing? Because there’s one ingredient I can’t figure out in this recipe.”

“Probably not,” Harry admitted. “But I’m good at eating.”

Zola let out a long, drawn out sigh and blew another strand of hair out of her face. “Good enough,” she decided and whirled around to pick up a pair of cookies from one cooling batch. “Open up.”

Harry grinned. 

Chapter Text

Harry was talking with Hermione when Dalton knocked on the door.

“Riven’s back,” the Pareya said. He hesitated. “He has a Gheyo with him. A King, I think.”

Harry’s eyebrows narrowed, but he nodded and went in search of his two Gheyos, who were hopefully not trying to kill each other—even if it was under the disguise of training and practicing with their blades. 

Thankfully they weren’t outside on the lawn, which had been the easiest place for them to train without having to disrupt too much else. He found them in one of the bedrooms the Circle had temporarily claimed as theirs and tried not to think about the very fresh bite marks he could see on both of them. Or stare too much at the copious amount of bare skin he saw, because that could easily lead to other things and he wanted to figure out what was going on first, before his Gheyos could distract him that way. 

“It wouldn’t surprise me,” Calla remarked when he told her about Riven’s return and his companion, redoing a few straps and buckles on a fresh Flexisuit. “He’s a Mage and most of them are aware of basic Gheyo dynamics since their rank likes pairing up with us. And it would be the sort of thing he would do, taking matters into his own claws like that. We’d have gotten around to asking eventually, if the next realm or two didn’t turn up an ACE or King. He was probably finding the lack of any dominant rank unnerving.”

“I haven’t heard any complaints,” Harry said softly. 

“Because there haven’t been any yet,” Tedeo said, showing no signs of moving or getting dressed from his position, sprawled on the bed with the sheets draped over his lower half and only his lower half. “It’s all so new and fresh. But a few more months or weeks, and the lack of a dominant rank will show. There’s tradition for a reason.”

Calla rolled her eyes. “Tradition’s boring.”

“So neither of you will mind?” Harry asked, interrupting the budding argument.

“As long as they have a good blade to their name and aren’t an awful fit,” Calla decided. “But Riven’s not stupid. I doubt anyone he would bring is incompetent. Ragged robes aside, he’s got good taste.”

Riven had very good taste, Harry silently agreed a few minutes later. The Gheyo accompanying him was of the conventionally handsome sort—actually, now that Harry thought of it, he had yet to find an unattractive dragel—with waist-long dark blue-to-dark purple ombre hair that sparkled with what he knew to be fairy dust and eyes that seemed to be every shade of blue in the galaxy.  

“Ooh, can I take back what I said earlier?” Calla asked, a playful smirk dancing on her face. “I definitely want to take back what I said.”

The other Gheyo made a face at her. “Hello to you too, Calla. What sort of chaos have you gotten yourself into now?”

“The best sort of kind. What are you doing here?”

“You two know each other?” Harry asked, glancing between the pair of Fae. 

“Nyx, Gheyo King.” The introduction was accompanied by a relaxed, careless sort of bow. “Cairothe bailed me out of the holding cell I was in, in exchange for a favor.” His multi-hued blue eyes glanced over at the Mage. “If I still owe you a favor, can I go back to my holding cell?”

“No,” Riven grunted. 

“He was Training King, when Dahlia was my Training ACE,” Calla explained. “At least for a time. Until he decided to do a trip through the Pits and she took on Wikhn. Tell me, is a holding cell on Crestia a step up or a step down from the Pits?”

“Pretty sure I could figure out a way for you to make your own conclusions about that,” Nyx threatened with a smile on his face. His gaze switched over to Harry and he jerked his head in Riven’s direction. “Someone said you needed a Gheyo King to fill in for a bit.”

“And you’re offering?”

Harry was unprepared for the flirtatious look that entered the Fae’s eyes, or the suggestive smirk. 

“You know, I just might be.”

They ended up in a small guest study, going over contracts. Luckily, with his experience as a Training King, Nyx had templates for contracts already prepared in case those skills were called on again. Harry and his Circle weren’t looking for that specifically, but it was an analogous enough situation that a lot of the clauses could transfer over. 

Harry never knew that Gheyos required so much paperwork. 

And they were keeping the terms as simple as possible, with Calla and Nyx going over most of them. The key point Harry had needed to agree to was whether Calla and Tedeo had permissions to—play around—with Nyx and if so, to what extent.

Maybe there was a point to Tedeo’s comment about tradition being there for a reason. If Harry had been courting and bonding in the traditional order, he’d already have an ACE and a King and he probably would have been spared such a mortifying conversation. It wouldn’t have even crossed his mind that some Gheyos would need more adventurous companions outside of what their Suite could provide. 

But he couldn’t deny that Nyx would be a good fit. He was a Night Fae, trained to work with Dark Fae like Calla and his multiple trips through the Pits meant that he had worked with all sorts of halfling Gheyos before. If Calla and Nyx had overcome the tensions between their two subsets of Fae, eventually Calla and Tedeo could get to that point too, especially under an experienced King like Nyx. 

Especially if he could use his full set of experience, including the sorts of things that polite company referred to as “Gheyo business” and “Suite responsibilities.”

So, Harry had eventually agreed, specifying just Nyx for now and anyone else had to be on a case-by-case basis.

“Next one,” Nyx said, glancing down at the document. “Options to extend or make permanent.”

“Which means?”

“Basically if you want to keep open the possibility that he joins the Circle permanently,” Calla said from beside him, her voice quiet in Harry’s ear. Her pink eyes focused on Nyx. “I thought you weren’t looking to settle down?”

“I usually keep it in anyway because never say never,” he replied easily. 

Harry frowned. “It’s just… I don’t know what the other ranks will be. I don’t know if there’s another Gheyo King already or not.”

Nyx shrugged. “Just because it’s in there it doesn’t mean that things need to become permanent at the end. Most times it doesn’t. There won’t be any hard feelings on my end.”

Calla prodded Harry gently with a claw. “You should show him the pictures,” she said. “In case he recognizes anyone. Several trips through the Pits means he knows a lot of Gheyos and that might answer your concerns.”

She had a good point, so Harry fetched the pictures and spread them out on the desk, pushing the yet-to-be-signed contract off to one side.

“Know any of them?”

After a moment, Nyx tapped at one. “Vaguely familiar. Not the face, but there’s something about the eyes.” He tapped another one. “Battle Elf, so that one’s probably a Gheyo, but I don’t know them.” His blue eyes drifted and a mischievous grin crossed his face. “Him, though. Him, I know.”

Chapter Text

The doors burst open and a tall figure with long blue-purple hair sashayed through them. Behind Nyx, following more slowly, Harry rolled his eyes at the showy entrance.

The Night Fae hadn’t given him any information about the dragel he’d recognized from Harry’s pictures, but within several hours, he had gotten a location—Grecia, a realm with well-established trading agreements with Nevarah and Crestia. 

And so they departed Castle Helios and Crestia for the next realm, thankful that Grecia was a realm friendly to dragels, since not all of them were. At least in that respect, Harry’s luck was running strong. If he got through this with only having to rescue Calla and Tedeo from a bad situation, he would consider everything to be a very successful mission. 

Nyx strode through the pub, seemingly already knowing where to go. There was a wide, mischievous grin on his face, one that hadn’t really faded since this all began. “Cap!” he called, approaching a slim, dark-haired figure. “Cap, oh dear Cappy.”

The other man gave the Gheyo a withering glare, dark eyes tinging green ever so briefly, though Nyx didn’t seem to notice it. Harry snorted when Nyx tried to claim one of the chairs, but Cap idly kicked it away and unbalanced both seat and Gheyo. 

“You’re a menace,” Cap said flatly. “You said you had a lead on something and that it would be worth my while. What did you find?”

“The rarest of the rare,” Nyx agreed cheerily. “Your soul-bonded Submissive.” He reached out for Harry, beckoning him over. 

Surprise flashed across the other man’s face, before his dark eyes narrowed and a tinge of green flickered through them again. 

The green was very interesting, Harry decided. Usually when it came to Shadow elements, the colors associated with them were black and red and sometimes grey.

And Cap was a Shadow element. A Shadow Pareya, to be more specific, Harry easily picking out the rank now that he was closer. He had the traditional dark hair, dark eyes, and pale skin of a Shadow element, not to mention the coat made up of shadow familiars draped over the back of his chair. 

“Hi,” he said a bit awkwardly, moving to sit down on the third of four chairs around the table. 

The look on the Pareya’s face softened considerably as his gaze lingered on Harry, a hint of familiarity present in his eyes. “Hello.”

“So you’ve also been—”

“Yes. But it’s very good to finally meet you in person.”

Harry’s cheeks pinked, remembering some of the things from his dreams, and he briefly wondered if each individual had different dreams or the soulmate dreams were shared. 

“Well, this is—” Whatever Nyx was going to say was cut off by his chair tipping backwards, the Gheyo nearly falling back. He caught his balance and scowled at Cap. “Would you stop that?”

“If you’re going to stick around and keep making comments, I’m not going to make any promises.”

“How did you two meet?” Harry wanted to know. There was a history there, that much was obvious, but they seemed to be an odd pair, even down to the very basics—Pareya and Gheyo. 

“I procure ingredients for my Clan,” Cap told him. “It brings me off-realm a lot of the time and generally, it’s just easier to travel with a Gheyo. Nyx here takes up some of the contracts we offer occasionally.” As he spoke, he idly poked at the tablet assigned to the table. After a moment, he pushed the tablet to the side. 

At Harry’s look, the Gheyo shrugged carelessly. “Inter-realm travel is the easiest way to burn off the certain sorts of magic my affinities attract,” he explained. “Mostly quick trips that are less than a week. Sometimes longer if I need to lay low in the Gheyo sections for a bit.”

Somehow, Harry wasn’t surprised by that last bit. 

“What Clan?” he asked. 

“Nightshade.”

“Foremost experts in poisons and antidotes on Nevarah,” Nyx elaborated. “Many of them are Healers by trade.”

Harry glanced at Cap, who simply shook his head. “Medic training and coursework, but nothing further than that. Some of my certifications may have lapsed, since I haven’t bothered keeping up with some of the qualifications due to traveling so much. I’ve always preferred the travels and negotiating and occasional foraging more than all the other  things.”

“Someone ordered a round of drinks?” a waiter asked, coming up to their table, carrying a tray.

Harry blinked absently at him for a minute, before realizing that must have been what Cap had been doing on the tablet—ordering drinks. For all of them. 

Well, he couldn’t say he was opposed to the idea, getting to know someone over drinks. There was a reason it was a common choice for dates. With a small smile, he accepted the drink Cap pushed in his direction and noted with slight surprise that it was one of his preferred drinks. Clearly, the Pareya had finely honed instincts if he’d been able to pinpoint that in only a few minutes. 

Next to Harry, Nyx was peering at his drink suspiciously, eyeing it every which way and sniffing it cautiously. Every so often, he would glare at Cap through narrowed multi-hued blue eyes. 

The Pareya completely ignored the Fae’s actions, turning his full attention on Harry instead. “I don’t imagine I’m the first, if you’ve already hooked up with the likes of him,” he said, tilting his head in Nyx’s direction. “Tell me about you and them?”

“It’s kind of a long story,” Harry said, taking a sip of his drink. 

“I finished up my business here a few hours ago,” Cap stated. “I’m in no rush to go anywhere else.”

“Just remember, you asked.”

For the next several hours, they talked, swapping stories, Cap reordering every so often. After a while, Nyx got up and went to the service counter, getting his own drinks and food, leaving the one the Pareya had gotten for him completely untouched. Harry didn’t think much of it, until they were getting ready to leave and the table was being cleared. 

Belatedly, it clicked in his mind. Nightshade. Poisons and antidotes. The Fae’s suspicion over something that he hadn’t ordered and he hadn’t seen prepared. The subtle, amused looks Cap had occasionally flicked in the Gheyo’s direction. 

“You didn’t actually poison his drink, did you?” he asked as they were leaving.

“No, but I’ve tried in the past. It’s good to keep him on his toes.”

Harry couldn’t help but laugh. 

Chapter Text

“Cap—that’s got to be a nickname, right?” Hermione asked. 

Cap was sitting on the floor, legs sprawled, lounging in front of a roaring fireplace. Nearby, there were a few shadows of his that were trying to merge with the shadows that the flames cast. “Yes,” he said simply, in a bland tone of voice that made Harry peer suspiciously at the Pareya. Sure enough, there was a stubborn green tinge in Cap’s otherwise dark eyes. 

Hermione seemed to spot it too, because her mouth pulled down in a frustrated grimace. “You’re not going to tell me, are you?”

“Nope.”

“You’re practically challenging her to find it out,” Harry pointed out. 

Cap leaned back, resting on his forearms. “I have no issues with that. I just don’t use my full name and don’t plan to use it ever, so I don’t go about telling it to others.”

“What about the Hunt? Registrations and measurements and all that?” Dalton asked.

“Never debuted or participated. Any changes are submitted through paperwork, not in person.”

“So you don’t mind writing it down.”

Cap gave the other Pareya a sharp smile. “Do you really think I’d make it that easy?”

Dalton laughed. “I already have a fair few guesses,” he said with a shrug. 

“Nightshade, right?” Zola asked, settling down beside Cap, back to the fire. When he nodded, she gave him a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. 

“You too?” Hermione asked the Healer, frown deepening. 

“Educated guess,” Zola said. “Nightshade Clan has a few naming conventions, usually preferring those related to botany or poisons. If Cap is part of the actual name, then there’s two main options and given the sheer stubbornness right now, I’m inclined to say it’s the worst of the two.”

“I’ve got a cousin named Arsenic,” Cap mentioned. “You can imagine the fun they had growing up.”

Harry winced, because yes, he definitely could imagine, very well aware of how cruel kids could be. 

Hermione grumbled to herself and started digging through her beaded bag, specifically looking for a few books that might help her, silently accepting Cap’s challenge. 

A few minutes later, Harry brightened when Riven and the Gheyos returned from burning off some spare energy and magic. He waved a piece of paper in their direction. “Coordinates!” he announced, having cast the spell to find his next soulmate while they were gone. Maybe in the future he would come back to Grecia, but he—or rather, Nyx—had found Cap, whose business on the realm was finished, and he was eager to move on, because the sooner he’d located everyone, the sooner they could go to Nevarah and he could reunite with Ron. 

As nice as the fireplace was, it wasn’t the same as curling up next to a Fire element and the warmth they exuded. 

Speaking of, they still needed to call Ron and introduce Cap to him. 

“Elvenside,” Riven said, taking the paper from Harry and glancing at the coordinates. 

“Another Gheyo then,” Nyx remarked, sprawling on the bed, pulling Tedeo down with him. Harry gave him a puzzled look before he recalled the King had identified one of the pictures as a Battle Elf. 

Hermione swatted at the pair of Gheyos, huffing in frustration. “I’m calling Ron,” she decided. “It’s in one of the books I sent with him.”

“You mean you didn’t pack your entire library in there?” Harry teased. 

“Well, it’s not like I expected I would need an encyclopedia on Earth botany while traveling to different realms!”

“You have a—you know what, forget I was going to ask that.” Of course she had a botanical encyclopedia somewhere. 

As always, the first few minutes of the call were a flurry of greeting and introductions. When they actually got to the reason behind the call, Ron, like Harry, had the good sense not to ask why Hermione had such a book. He just started the process of trying to locate it among all their packed things. 

“What do you even need it for?” he wanted to know. “What am I looking up?”

“Plants from the Nightshade family,” Hermione told him. “See if there’s any starting with C-A-P-.”

“Capsaicin?” Ron offered. “That’s the stuff that makes things spicy, right?”

“Nope,” Cap said. 

“Capsicum,” a deep voice said on Ron’s end from somewhere out of sight. 

Harry sat up straight, especially as Ron turned bright red and his hair burst into flames. “Who was that?”

“What’s that, Mum? I’ll be right there!” 

“RONALD WEASLEY!”

The message bubble burst, ending the call and setting off a flurry of activity as Hermione tried to get subsequent messages to go through, now thoroughly distracted by the new mystery presented. 

In the midst of the chaos, Harry slipped off the couch, shifting to take Zola’s spot and lean against Cap, purring as the fire warmed his back. Until they really started fighting, Harry was content to not get in the middle between his two friends and Bonded. “Capsicum, huh?”

“Only on official paperwork and sometimes not even then.”

Harry laughed. 

Chapter Text

The problem with trying to find a Battle Elf in Elvenside, Harry realized, was that the majority of the realm’s population were Battle Elves. Sure, there were the other types of Elves—Royal Elves and Magecraft Casters, but they were in much smaller numbers compared to their Battle Elf counterparts. Even knowing the element—Air—wasn’t particularly helpful in this case, because Elvenside was home to one of the larger populations of Air Battle Elves. 

Normally, the chances of just coming across his soulmate in such a heavily populated area would be slim at best. But given everything that had happened so far, Harry trusted his magic. Soul Magic was a powerful thing, after all. 

When Riven didn’t seem to be in a rush to disappear shortly after arriving on realm, Harry correctly assumed that this was a realm where the Mage didn’t have an Immortal to check on. So when the decision came to split up into smaller groups and wander the city for a bit, Harry decided to drag Riven along with him and Cap. 

There were a few protests from Riven, mostly about unnecessary wastes of time, but there was a reason Harry had also paired up with Cap. The Shadow dragel was a Pareya, not a dominant rank, but he could make Nyx fall in line, which meant the rest paid attention as well. If Riven wasn’t just grumbling for the sake of grumbling, Cap would be the best one to wrangle the Mage.

They ended up at some of the outdoor markets, walking through the various vendors and stalls. Dalton, Zola, and Hermione had gone in the direction of the academic part of the city, unsurprisingly, while the three Gheyos had planned on hitting the Fae-friendly areas, even though Tedeo had looked less pleased than the other two about that. 

They chatted and browsed, with Harry keeping one eye on what Riven was looking at, because he was still trying to figure out a possible courting gift for the Mage. It was long overdue, especially because he wanted some way to broach the subject about courting and their soul-bond. He didn’t mind waiting, but it was troubling that Riven hadn’t acknowledged its existence—he didn’t even seem to be aware of it, which was difficult to comprehend with how powerful and trained Riven was when it came to such things.

He wouldn’t buy anything today, though. That would be too obvious. He would come back in a few days—he or Cap, because the Pareya was definitely taking note of such things as well. 

Harry’s head turned and something caught his eye. 

Well, maybe he would get something today. 

He changed directions to check out the small storefront. There wasn’t much advertising and limited items were on display, but some of the spells protecting it were dragel in nature, which stood out among all the Elvish magic. The store itself sold blades, which wasn’t unusual in a city so heavily populated with Battle Elves, but unlike the other ones Harry had passed, this store sold matching sets of blades in numbers greater than two or three. 

“Gilded Wing Armory,” Riven read, since he’d been very insistent on not letting Harry out of his sight if he was going to be accompanying the Submissive. His violet eyes narrowed. “The name’s familiar.”

“They’ve got a few locations across the realms,” Cap said. “Nevarah being one of them. Assist Circles like them because the quality is consistent in their locations and if you have a blade from them, they making getting repairs or replacements easy enough. Military Circles like them because they can get bonding sets, even outside of Nevarah where the idea isn’t as common.”

“Bonding sets?” Now that was an intriguing idea. Getting bonding gifts was inevitable, he knew, and he already knew Dalton and Ron were coordinating on getting bonding jewelry, but blades as a bonding gift hadn’t crossed his mind.

It made sense, though. The Gheyos would like them and he knew that Cap and Zola and likely Riven would use them for work purposes.

“Want to go in?”

Instead of answering, Harry pushed the door open. 

There was another customer in the shop, a woman that looked more suited to going to a ball or royal function than shopping in the local markets in a high-necked, fitted dress with pale pink, green, and grey skirts that started to flare at the waist. An armored dress, Harry realized after a moment, spotting the areas that had been reinforced for additional protection. The fabric in the skirts was similar to dyed chainmail too, he noted. 

“Looking at bonding sets,” he heard Cap say when the armory’s assistant appeared to greet them. 

“How many are you thinking? We typically do increments of five, but if you have a more specific amount in mind…”

“Harry?”

Harry quickly did the math in his head. Based on his dreams, he was searching for twelve, but that didn’t include him, Ron, or Hermione. And it didn’t include the possibility of Bonded he would have that weren’t his soulmates. “Twenty?”

He caught Riven giving him a bemused look out of the corner of his eye. “Wouldn’t fifteen be enough?”

“Definitely not,” Harry said, trying to keep the dry tone out of his voice. He wasn’t sure he was successful, because Riven still had that bemused expression on his face. 

The assistant pulled out several different options of blades they could provide in such a number and Harry drifted over to look, even though he didn’t have a clue about what to look for in a blade besides that it needed to have a sharp edge and not break on its first few uses. Cap and Riven had a bit more input, helping him narrow it down to three possibilities, but they weren’t Gheyos and wouldn’t have that sort of experience in picking out a new blade. 

“You should go for the second set,” a husky voice interrupted from off to Harry’s side. He turned slightly to see the woman who had been in the store when they entered. There was a wrapped package in her hand, showing that she was done with whatever errand she had, but for whatever reason, she still hadn’t left. Instead, she had made her way over to join them, using her considerable height—she was taller even than Riven—to see what Harry and Cap were looking at over their heads. 

Harry’s brow furrowed ever so slightly as he got a good look at her face. It seemed familiar somehow but he didn’t recognize her. The pale green eyes were distinctive, though. The heavy make-up she wore highlighted the color and the color alone was unusual enough when most Elves of the Air element had silver or blue eyes. 

“Why the second set?”

“Traditional, classic style, designed for multiple types of use. If something ever happens to one you have, it’ll be easier to get a replacement and you won’t have to worry about the armories no longer stocking that particular blade after a certain amount of time. The first one is a limited run, so getting replaced would be more difficult. There’s also enough room to engrave something, whether it’s protective runes, a name, or a crest. The third one is thinner, so I’d be worried about any engravings impacting the integrity of the blade, even if the potential for that happening is small.”

“We wouldn’t be getting anything engraved today,” Harry said, brow furrowing further. 

“You can always bring them to be engraved later,” the assistant said. “Eromi, go! You were going to be late when you stopped in and now you’re definitely going to be late!”

The woman made a face but turned away. “Worth it!” she called over her shoulder as she headed out the door. 

“I’ll believe it if you tell me that again the next time you come in!”

Harry couldn’t help but smile at the exchange. “The second set,” he decided. 

Chapter Text

A few days later, the blades were due to be picked up and Harry and Hermione found themselves wandering the markets, looking for the armory’s small storefront. 

Except Harry hadn’t been paying as much attention as he thought he had and a good portion of the markets didn’t look familiar. Not to mention, Hermione and him had taken a different route to the markets than a few days earlier because they’d gotten sidetracked by the smells coming from several food stalls. 

“We’re lost, aren’t we?” Hermione asked after nearly an hour of searching. 

“Probably,” Harry reluctantly admitted. “It looks familiar but—” He shrugged. 

“Ask for directions?”

Harry made a face at the idea, but he nodded. However, when Hermione moved to go do that, he held a hand out and stopped her by grabbing her arm. “Not them,” he said quickly. 

The woman gave him a mildly impatient look. “Then who?”

“Two doors down, pale green robes,” he said. He’d just caught a glimpse of part of their face, bent over as they were in the dim light of a covered stall, but the moment he’d seen it, he knew. 

“Is that…?”

“I think so.”

What followed next was a series of pushes and shoves exchanged between the pair, Hermione wanting Harry to make the approach and that first meeting, while Harry wanted more time to prepare for those introductions. 

Unfortunately for him, Hermione had always been a force to be reckoned with, especially once she set her mind to something. And she was clever. In their tussle, she’d managed to position herself so that Harry was between her and the Gheyo and each step back brought him closer and closer, until he practically tripped over himself so as not to trip into them.

A slender hand reached out to steady him, gripping carefully. Even before Harry straightened and looked up, he knew the face he would find. 

But as familiar as the face was from his dreams, the pale green eyes set in that face were doubly familiar, because he had seen them both in his dreams and in person, only a few days ago. 

“You!”

They were wearing a robe instead of a dress, not as much make-up, and their hair was less styled than a few days before, but it was the same customer from the armory that had helped him make a final decision on which set of bonding blades to get. They had to be the same person, because Harry found it a bit hard to believe that there would be two Elven-dragels in the city with the same color eyes, the same almost-absurd height, and the same silver-blonde hair. It was a bit hard to tell if the facial structure was the same, but then again, they had been wearing a lot of make-up a few days before. 

They gave him a slightly sheepish smile. “Hi again.”

“Wait, again?” Hermione asked, coming up to the pair. “You met before then?”

“The armory a few days ago,” Harry explained briefly, before turning back to the Gheyo. “I thought there was something about you then but I…” He trailed off. “You looked different.”

“I got roped into playing dress-up by my younger sisters,” they explained with a small shrug. “I do apologize for not saying anything then, but like it was pointed out then, I had places to be and I was already late. And I was a bit thrown off myself. But I’ve been staking out the place, waiting for you to come back.”

“I still can’t believe I didn’t realize then,” Harry murmured. “Wait, staking out the place? Are we close then?”

The Gheyo tilted their head. “Just down the street.”

Harry groaned. 

“Are you late to anything now? Because we might need an escort back or we might get lost again,” Hermione remarked, then promptly skipped a few steps back as Harry lunged in her direction, aiming to cover her mouth before she said anything more. “What, can you really say that you know the way back? After practically covering the entire market just to find this place?”

“Hermione!”

“No, nothing. Tell me the destination and I’ll bring us home.”

Harry stumbled over his feet, thrown by the words. Bring us home. Bring us home. As if it was simply that simple. 

“Eromi, right?” he asked, vaguely recalling the name. 

The Gheyo’s smile widened. “Yep. Eromi, Gheyo Princess. My blades are yours—both the old ones and the new ones.”

Harry laughed as it hit him. Right, the bonding blades. He’d managed to get one of his Gheyo’s inputs on the gift after all. 

Chapter Text

For a few days, they lingered in Elvenside, settling in with Eromi and introducing them to everyone—including Ron and the not-so-surprise he was trying to keep. Harry had a fairly good idea what it was—and he knew that Hermione had dragged it out of the Pareya the first chance she got without him around—so while he was curious, it was one mystery that he was willing to let go for another few weeks, until they finally got to Nevarah. 

With Eromi around, one thing quickly became clear over those few days—Harry needed some taller Bonded. All of his Bonded were taller than him, since as a Submissive he would be the shortest in his Circle, but none were as tall as Eromi, not even Riven. Normally it wouldn’t be an issue, but Eromi also liked to borrow everyone else’s clothes. 

Riven was shorter, but he was the closest in height to Eromi. And the Gheyo Princess had clued in quickly enough that while Riven wasn’t officially Bonded or Intended, there was a soul-bond there and Harry was intent on courting the Mage, which meant his clothes were fair game. 

At least it gave them an excuse to double the Mage’s wardrobe, so he wasn’t wearing the same old ragged ones all the time. Plus, clothes or armor were one of the traditional courting gifts among dragels. The others may have chosen the robes, since Harry was a bit lost on the finer details, but he always ended up being the one to actually give them to Riven. 

Each time he did, the Mage’s brow would furrow adorably in faint confusion and he would give Harry a long, assessing look, as if he wasn’t quite sure if the gift also being one of the traditional courting gifts was just happenstance, or if the Submissive actually meant it in that way. Each time, Harry hoped the subject would be broached, but each time, Riven never ended up asking or saying anything. 

So things continued as they were—on that front, anyways. Just in a different realm. 

“This looks fun,” Zola remarked, crossing her arms in front of her. 

“Not the word I would use, but okay,” Tedeo said.

“I think she means it,” Dalton murmured as he surveyed the barren, dusty street Riven’s magic had brought them to. He stifled a cough as hot, dry air stirred up the debris and dirt in the immediate area. 

“How?” Hermione wanted to know. 

“Medical tents,” the Pareya pointed out, gesturing at the dull green canvas structures. “Burgundy and cream uniform means dragel healers. She’s probably already thinking about picking up a disaster rotation while we’re here.”

Zola huffed. “Would it be so bad if I was? Most inter-realm assignments involving disaster relief are always short-handed. Even if it’s just for a day or two, I’m sure they could use the help.”

Harry traded a look with Hermione. “We’ll all help,” he decided.

Embryise was a nice mountainous region, with lots of nature, wildlife, and interesting food.

At least, that’s what all the travel information said. At the current moment, it was a bit hard to believe any of that, because there had been a large, devastating earthquake that had triggered equally devastating landslides on several of the mountains, landslides that had buried multiple towns. Large portions of the area that Harry could see were desolate and barren.

Not to mention the heat and the wind. There was something unnatural about it, and from the way Riven was scowling off in the distance and the way Dalton, Zola, and Eromi started looking particularly drained, Harry wasn’t the only one that noticed. 

Their first stop was to the tent where the Healers were based, since many of them were also responsible for finding survivors and excavating them from under all the debris and rubble. The Healers were overworked, but it was a good place to get information about what sort of helped was needed and where. After a while, Harry left Zola and Dalton there. The Pareya didn’t have any of the needed training, but he was particularly good at wrangling difficult Healers—there was a reason he had been paired up with Zola before she had left for Neo-Atlantis, and it wasn’t just because she needed someone to help collaborate with her on any research papers that came out of her rotation there. 

There wasn’t much when it came to extra resources or housing—everywhere was stretched to its limit—but that didn’t mean they were unprepared. On his travels, there were some ingredients that Cap ended up foraging rather than buying or there were some places he couldn’t stay in town and needed to camp on the outskirts instead, to avoid drawing attention to himself. Eromi too frequently traveled to the more uninhabited places on Elvenside and always had a travel pack with them. Between the two, the growing Circle was able to set up a small campsite near the main Healers’ tent and had enough to last them a few nights without having to rely on anything that had been sent for the survivors. 

Once that was established, the rest of them split up as well. Cap joined Zola and Dalton, since his Shadow element meant he was more suited for excavating and finding survivors in the caved in portions underground and his Medic certifications meant he could treat the ones he found. Harry was unsurprised when Riven decided to go investigate the source of the unnatural heat and wind and to see what magical protections needed to be repaired or renewed around the area, but he was glad when the Mage dragged Nyx and Calla with him without having to be encouraged to do so. That left him and Hermione with Tedeo and Eromi, the group of four helping with various odd tasks that needed being done. 

The physical work was hard, but sometimes the memories were even harder. Every so often, Harry would see the rubble of a fallen stone building or someone sitting on the ground or on a broken step with a lost, vacant expression on their face and for a few heartbeats, he would be back at Hogwarts, that day after the final battle. 

When Hermione noticed, she forced Harry to take a break and had Tedeo stay with him, even as she was called back to her own temporary duties. The Gheyo sat next to Harry, not saying anything but a warm, comforting presence nonetheless. 

He didn’t know how long it was, but at some point, a heavy, blanket-like piece of fabric settled over his shoulders and another person sat on his other side. Tedeo stiffened, but Harry trusted the Gheyo and took his lack of protest to mean that the other individual was safe, even though he was fairly certain they weren’t Eromi or Hermione or any of the others. 

It took a few minutes, but eventually Harry recognized the cloth over his shoulders as one of Riven’s robes. The scent of cedar and sage was reminiscent of Eromi and when he lifted up his head, he saw the Gheyo Princess off in the distance, no robes in sight even though they had been wearing them earlier in the day. Instead, they were dressed in a Flexi-suit that was a few inches too short on their arms and legs—likely one of Tedeo’s that had been resized, though resizing charms could only go so far. 

Hazy, purple smoke blurred his vision. “If I don’t have to cook, I volunteer my wardrobe to be pilfered whenever.”

A small laugh burbled out of Harry, because it was such an absurd first sentence. He turned to look at the stranger sitting next to him, a woman with blonde hair and silvery-blue eyes and who appeared to be practically all bone and sharp angles. A long, gold-tipped, white ceramic pipe was tucked into the corner of her mouth. 

“I’ve been waiting for you,” the woman said. “Thought I was going to have to take matters into my own claws a few times, especially after I made up with Madison, but then the others showed up here a few days ago and I knew you wouldn’t be too far behind. Celia Kadel, Pareya.”

Kadel. Seers. 

“Harry Potter,” he replied. “Others?”

Chapter Text

“The next time I hear about someone having difficulty locating their Intended soulmates, despite the dreams, despite the various spells to try and find them, I’m going to have them contact you,” Riven remarked, his brow furrowed as he looked at Celia as she settled in with Cap and Dalton, the three Pareya feeling each other out and dividing various duties and responsibilities between them. “Maybe you can get them to fall into each other’s laps too.”

“Does that happen often, others having difficulty with such things?” Harry asked. He was tempted to reach up and rub the furrow out of Riven’s brow, but he had a feeling the Storm dragel wouldn’t appreciate it, so he just gestured to that area of his face instead. “Your face is going to get stuck like that one of these days.”

He grinned at the sharp look Riven gave him. 

“Aunt Maia says hello,” Celia called absently. “And that if she has to have a discussion with you the next time you return to Nevarah, neither of you are going to enjoy it.”

Calla chuckled as she sat next to Harry. “Kadels,” she murmured quietly. “So much fun.” She turned to him. “I heard she was talking about others?”

“Mostly fragmented visions,” Harry said. “Blood and bone and blue fire and that I won’t come across them on the main paths.”

“Sounds like a Gheyo. Time for an ACE finally?”

Harry let out an amused huff. “You make it sound like I’m doing this on purpose, delaying trying to find any dominant ranks. But yes, probably. ACE or a Joker. Those are the only ranks left.” But he couldn’t help sliding his eyes over to Nyx, who was lounging between Tedeo and Eromi and talking very, very sweetly to the pair, in a way that suggested he was trying to talk them into something or he was up to no good—or both. 

His stomach flip-flopped for a moment. The fact was, he had four pictures left and needed to find at least his three dominant ranks—Alpha, Beta, and ACE. If he assumed that three of the four pictures were those ranks, then there was still a fourth individual where the rank wasn’t immediately clear. 

A large part of him hoped the fourth individual wasn’t a Gheyo King, that he could make things permanent with Nyx. Sometimes the Night Fae’s dirty mouth left him bright red and gave him plenty to think about, but he was growing accustomed to those sorts of things and he might actually miss them if Nyx went his own way once they made their way to Nevarah. 

Hopefully for this, his good luck held and didn’t turn bad.

The next day, Harry went with Riven, Calla, and Nyx, since Celia was convinced he wouldn’t find his Intended soulmate in town—the “main path” as she called it. When he left, Hermione and Celia were bickering about the Kadel gift of Future Sight and how it functioned, as well as its quirks and limitations. She was much better than she had been in third year, but his old friend still had a lot of issues with Divination and its validity as a course of study. 

Actually, he was a bit relieved to not be going with them, because he had a feeling that discussion was going to last all day. 

Though, he wasn’t particularly thrilled when he realized that Riven and the two Fae’s destination was in several tunnels underground. Earth wasn’t his element or one of his affinities, so being underground wasn’t something he found comfortable to begin with, and he was even more apprehensive because Embryise was a realm that had just recently experienced earthquakes and landslides—not things anyone should be underground for when they happened, and based on what he had learned yesterday, aftershocks hadn’t been ruled out yet. 

“This is spooky,” he grumbled. 

Ahead of him, Calla glanced back, then turned her head toward the dark tunnels. “Really?”

Harry made a face but reluctantly took a few steps forward. 

“Most of the protection spells they laid around here were buried deep underground,” Riven explained, looking just as unhappy as Harry was. “From what I’ve gathered so far, when the slides happened, the spells protected the people at the expense of itself. Good magic, but to repair or recast them, we have to go where they were initially placed.” After a moment, the Mage strode forward, Calla at his heels. 

“Give me your hand,” Nyx said, dropping back a few steps as they followed the other two. The Night Fae turned and walked backwards, taking the Submissive’s hand when he held it out. From his fingertips, a rope-like strand of magic appeared, something that he wrapped several times around Harry’s wrist. The glittering magic faded after a minute or so, but Harry still the thread of it on his wrist. “There, now we can’t be separated.”

“Thanks,” Harry said with a soft smile. He took another look at the tunnels ahead of them. “At least tell me there’s no giant snakes down there.”

“I feel it’s pretty safe to say there’s no giant snakes down there, but it sounds like you’ve got a story to tell there,” Nyx said cheerfully. “Share?”

“Just remember that you asked…”

“I think we miscalculated,” Harry said a while later, finally taking in the general lack of sound in the black tunnels. 

“How so?” Nyx asked, a few steps in front of him. 

“You and I can’t be separated because of this—” Harry waved his wrist about and felt the magical thread connecting them tug a bit. “But we can be separated from the other two.”

“That’s not really a miscalculation,” Nyx replied. “They took different ways a few turns back, where the tunnels split up. We separated yesterday as well. It’s easier to cover more ground that way. But this one seems to be turning up nothing, so we can head back if you want.”

“Are we at the end?” Harry asked. “Or is there more left?”

“There’s more, though I’m not sure how deep these go.”

“Might as well continue on,” Harry decided reluctantly. “Don’t want to miss something because we didn’t go far enough.”

“Alright. Is it my time to tell a story now, if we’re trading them? I’ve got several involving chimeras.”

Harry couldn’t help but laugh.

Eventually the tunnel system they were in started leading upwards to the surface, to a second entrance. Harry had to take a few minutes in the shadow of the tunnel, adjusting to the bright light and hot dry air again. When he did, he frowned at the sight before them. 

If he thought the rest of Embryise was barren, it had nothing on this desolate wasteland of a place. There was nothing in front of them aside from dry, cracked ground, not even debris from the landslides. He glanced over at Nyx and the Night Fae’s normally unconcerned expression had faded, the Gheyo drawing one of the two blades he carried as he registered some unperceived threat. 

“I take it you didn’t come across this place yesterday?” Harry asked quietly. 

“Nope,” Nyx replied. “But I don’t think it’s an accident that we ended up here. I thought I felt it yesterday but it’s much more noticeable now—there’s a lure here.”

“And lures are?”

“Not good.” Nyx seemed like he would have elaborated but never got the chance to continue because a loud, eerie wail pierced through the air. 

They turned together, and Harry took a few steps closer to Nyx as he took in the sight of a pack of creatures barreling toward them. They were hideous things that moved impossibly fast on all fours, though they had a slight humanoid shape to them. Their skin was a dark grey and patchy, as if some areas had decomposed to show what was underneath. Where their eyes should be, there were glints of blood red orbs. As they drew closer, so did the scent of death and carrion. 

Nyx cursed and passed the blade he was wielding to Harry. “You don’t want them close enough that you can use your dagger,” he said, drawing his second blade—the cursed blade counterpart to his blessed blade, the one that Harry now held. 

“What are they?”

“Ghouls.”

There were hundreds of those creatures, even if Harry had a hard time classifying them as ghouls himself. They definitely weren’t the sort of ghouls he had learned about in Defense Against the Dark Arts, but he was sure if he asked Hermione, he would hear something about wide classifications of creatures and how definitions weren’t the same in other places. 

If he ever got the chance to ask. However, he wasn’t sure what the odds of surviving were at the current moment. Hundreds of ghouls against the two of them didn’t seem like great odds, but he’d also thought the same when it was he, Calla, and Tedeo against all those vampires and even a few years earlier, when he and Dumbledore faced down an army of Inferi. 

Inferi. Undead. 

“Fire?” he called out to Nyx. He didn’t have his wand, but he could use the blades he purchased as a bonding gift as a focus object, and as a Submissive, he could draw on Ron’s Fire element. 

“Wouldn’t hurt!”

Harry grappled at his side for the blade and even as he pulled it free, the words to cast the spell were already on his lips. He moved in a circle, hoping to create a ring of fire around him and Nyx. 

It worked enough, if only for a few minutes to give them a reprieve and regroup. 

“Good thinking,” Nyx said, pulling Harry into a one-armed embrace, striking out with his other arm to take care of a ghoul who had made it through the flames. He cursed again. “Any other ideas?”

He didn’t, but thankfully he didn’t have to answer. Above the wailing racket the ghouls were making, Harry distantly heard the howling of a hound, one that seemed to be rapidly coming closer, based on the increasing volume. 

“Duck!”

He yelped as Nyx abruptly dragged him down to the ground, the Gheyo shielding his body with his own. “Don’t look,” the Fae hissed in his ear, but Harry couldn’t help but peek. 

It was a bit difficult to make out through the flames, but Harry was able to make out glimpses of a white canine-like figure tearing through the ghouls, each bite leaving gaping wounds burning with blue fire. Further back, there was a great, looming robed and masked figure swinging a blood red scythe. 

“You’re looking,” Nyx grumbled in his ear. 

“You told me not to look. After the past few weeks together, what did you expect me to do after you said something like that?” Harry replied unapologetically. “Help or new threat?”

“A Reaper and its hellhound is always a threat.” But after a few minutes, when the wailing of the ghouls faded away, Nyx allowed Harry to sit up. 

The Submissive yelped when he turned and was face to face with a massive hound—or what he assumed was a hound. A bony nose nudged his cheek and he was sure that if the creature wasn’t all bone and blue flames, it would be happily licking his face as it wiggled and tried to squirm its way onto his lap. “Hi?” 

Chapter Text

As the hound continued to nudge at his face, Harry tried not to grimace at the putrid smell on the its breath. He patted it carefully, not quite sure what to make of feeling smooth, cool bone instead of fur or feathers. As he did so, his green eyes wandered over to the large hooded, robed, and masked figure—a figure that was quickly shrinking to a more human height. As the figure shrank, the robes and scythe faded from view, replaced by black and crimson armor. The Gheyo’s face remained hidden from view by a dark mask, edged in gold and framed by dark red and purple feathers. 

Beside Harry, Nyx laughed under his breath. “Blood and bone and blue fire,” he muttered as he got to his feet. 

Harry blinked, startled by the Fae’s comments, and glanced up at the Gheyo King. But he remained on the ground, pinned in his position by the over-eager hound. 

“Blood Raven,” Nyx greeted the approaching Gheyo. He received a nod in return before the other Gheyo looked at the hound and a long-suffering expression flashed through dark eyes. 

“Kaspar, you ridiculous creature. You’re worse than a puppy,” Blood Raven growled, hauling the hound off and away from Harry. The hound growled in return and promptly started chewing on the Gheyo’s covered arm and hand. Blood Raven attempted to shake it off, but to no avail, and Harry had to stifle a laugh because the scene practically ruined the Gheyo’s intimidating, dignified, nearly unapproachable air. 

Now that he was free, Nyx helped Harry to his feet. “Harry, let me introduce you to Lord Hadrian Maruke, Blood Raven, the Blood Title for the Shadow element.”

Harry didn’t know much about Gheyos, mostly just what his had told him about the Pits and the fighting season and the complaints about paperwork, but Terius Baronsworth had given him, Ron, and Hermione an overview of not just the rank, but also about Blood Titles and their various responsibilities to their element. “Thank you for your help,” he said politely, then grunted as Kaspar the hound escaped from Hadrian’s grip and barreled into him, nearly knocking him to the ground again. 

“Kaspar!”

“Remember I said that the eyes were familiar, but the face wasn’t,” Nyx said as he wrapped an arm over Harry’s shoulder. With his free hand, he gestured to Hadrian’s face.

The ACE gave the Night Fae a sharp look. “What’s this about my eyes?”

Harry knelt down and buried his face in Kaspar’s neck, trying not to groan. 

“…and that’s how we ended up here,” Harry said.

During the course of the conversation, they had migrated away from the hot, dry air, scorched earth, and the remains of the ghouls and back towards the tunnels and its cooler shade. He was currently sitting, braced against one of the tunnel walls, Kaspar’s large head in his lap. 

“Do you have these pictures with you?” Hadrian asked quietly from his spot against the tunnel’s other wall. 

In silent answer, Harry pulled the remaining four pictures out of his mokeskin pouch and spread them on the ground so Hadrian could see the four faces, though laying them out was a bit difficult when Kaspar refused to move his head. The hellhound’s bone tail wagged, hitting the ground noisily when Hadrian’s picture was set on the ground. 

“I can’t say I’ve been having these dreams of my own,” Hadrian said as he dragged the picture to him. “When you’re a member of Death’s Courts, if you dream, they’re usually of a much more unpleasant nature, and as a Blood Title, I have blocks in place to limit the unexpected happening. If they’re not prepared, being bonded or even contracted to a Blood Title can be … difficult. But it’s hard to dispute proof like that. It’s been years since anyone but Kaspar has seen my face without a mask.”

Harry’s heart ached at the admission, because it sounded so lonely. 

“Are all the others soul-bonds so far?” Hadrian asked, a bit abruptly. 

“No, technically Ron and Hermione aren’t,” Harry said. “And Nyx here isn’t.”

“I’m contracted,” the Night Fae explained. He was leaning against the wall next to Harry, too on edge to sit. “They needed a more dominant rank—still do.” Harry made a face when Nyx gave him a pointed look, because it wasn’t like he’d been avoiding the dominant ranks on purpose. That’s just how things had worked out so far. “I’ve got the option to stay on permanently and bond in, if a different Gheyo King isn’t found and there’s … compatibility.” 

Harry’s eyebrows arched at the subtle challenge in Nyx’s voice. 

“I asked, because Kaspar comes with me as a pair and that’s non-negotiable,” Hadrian said quietly, getting to his feet. “He’d probably take up a Companion rank, since he’s more hellhound than dragel.”

“I’d be open to that,” Harry said, patting Kaspar’s bony head. 

Hadrian snorted. “You say that now, but he hasn’t started talking yet. You might think otherwise then.” Despite his words, there was a fond tone in the ACE’s voice. Through his mask, Hadrian gave Nyx a considering look. “However, he might be your type if this is the King you’re considering.”

Nyx straightened from his relaxed position. “There might be a different King coming along,” he warned, though the expression on his face brightened and there was a flicker of interest in his multi-hued blue eyes. 

“Doubtful,” Hadrian murmured. “Assuming one is Alpha and one is Beta, there’s only one other and he’d take up a Joker rank, not a King rank.”

Harry glanced at the remaining three pictures. “You’re familiar?”

“Unfortunately. There’s only twenty of us, so it’s hard not to be. But since he’s a Joker, we’ll be able to figure out an arrangement.” Hadrian stepped across the tunnel to stand in front of Nyx, making the height difference between ACE and King impossible to ignore. “Which means the King position is still unclaimed and I’m open to a compatibility check. Yes?”

The apprehensive look on Nyx’s face turned into a lascivious grin. “Yes,” he agreed, pulling aside Hadrian’s mask. 

Harry straightened and he watched with interest as Hadrian pushed the smaller Gheyo up against the wall, capturing his lips in a fanged, open-mouthed kiss. His attention was locked, so much so that he barely noticed the weight of Kaspar’s head in his lap disappearing until a slender, pale arm was draped over his shoulders. “Well, I’d say they’re compatible. Should we try a compatibility check of our own?”