***
Lucifer stepped through the portal and into the Arnessan throne room. Archimedes followed and pushed him forward. Everyone else was still frozen. He passed Persephone on the pew, and ascended the steps to where Elandril smiled, Rosaline hid her face behind her hands, and Sariel reclined in laughter.
“What should we say?”
Archimedes shrugged and shook his head. “Doesn’t matter.”
The scene came to life as Persephone fell face first into the floor, and Sariel’s laughter filled the room.
"Are you okay?" Lucifer asked Persephone.
"It feels like someone just punched me in the back," she said.
He remembered Archimedes' entrance.
“You were just over there,” Sariel accused his brother. “How did you …?”
But his question was stopped short by Elandril and Rosaline going into convulsions.
“What the hell is wrong with them?” Lucifer asked.
Persephone rammed into him and tripped over the stairs as she groped along the ground to locate her brother. She found his chest first and then his face. He was curled into a ball and groaning. Beside him, Rosaline was doing the same as she tore at her loose fitting clothing.
“Forced relearning,” Archimedes said.
“Like in the Certamen?” Sariel asked.
“They just lost thousands of members.”
Sariel turned on Lucifer. “What did you just do?”
Lucifer held up the bear and tried to find the words.
“The anomaly has destroyed Uldram,” Archimedes said.
“Uldram had millions of elves in it,” Persephone said. “This is terrible! How did this happen?”
Lucifer and Archimedes eyed each other.
“A device was activated inside the Elven Primal,” Lucifer said.
“It obliterated everything around Uldram and sent a cloud of cosmic dust across millions of light years in seconds,” Archimedes said. “We’ve lost everyone in the three sister cities. Uldram Major, Uldram Medium, and Uldram Minor.”
“The trade delegations were waiting for Elandril’s ceremonial singulus,” Persephone said. “We’ve just lost half of our government.”
“I’m so sorry,” Lucifer said.
She looked up at him without seeing him. “I curse the day you were born.”
“This was not all his doing, my child,” Archimedes said. “I handed him a device and in the exchange,” he lied, “the creation mode was triggered. I should have enabled the safety mode and properly guided him in its usage. This was my fault.”
“You were supposed to stop the anomaly,” she said. “Not cause it!”
“I’ve contained and erased the anomaly. It was jettisoned into a void pocket far away.”
Persephone closed her eyes and put her hands on her cheeks. Her eyelids flinched as her eyes flitted behind the thin layer of skin, and then they opened again. She breathed heavily and stroked her brother’s hair.
“What did you see?” Sariel asked.
“War …” she said. “Death … but also new life. This will eventually free my sister’s son from his prison, but Jehovah is coming …”
“We’ll make this right,” Lucifer said. “Batarel and I will find a way. If Jehovah is coming to take your primal, we will stop him. You have my word.”
“I’ll take care of my brother,” Persephone said. “And make sure Rosaline recovers. You three have work to do. Leave us.”