Chapter 27: The Gathering Storm

  Brother Aldric stands in the monitoring chamber, watching patterns of light flow across crystalline surfaces that have occupied his attention for thirty years.

  The gathering signal has been broadcasting for three weeks now. Steady pulses reaching through the network, touching every sanctuary and every vessel with the capacity to hear. He's tracked the responses—signatures activating in locations long thought dormant, movements through the Deep Roads that suggest survivors emerging from hiding, convergence on a point the Order has been trying to locate for four centuries.

  The Heart. The center of everything the founders feared.

  He should feel alarm. Should feel the righteous urgency that drives his colleagues, the certainty that what's happening must be stopped at any cost.

  Instead, he feels something closer to wonder.

  "You're still watching." Brother Marcus's voice cuts through the chamber's humming quiet. "Observing. Cataloguing. As if this were some scholarly exercise instead of an existential crisis."

  Aldric doesn't turn from the display. "Knowledge is never wasted. Even when the subject is threatening, understanding it makes us more capable of response."

  "Response." Marcus moves to stand beside him, his gray robes rustling with barely contained irritation. "The Council meets in an hour to authorize direct action, and you speak of response as if we have the luxury of measured consideration."

  "Haste makes errors. The founders themselves warned against precipitate action."

  "The founders also instructed us to prevent the Awakening at any cost. They didn't anticipate four centuries of failure to locate the Heart." Marcus's voice tightens. "They didn't anticipate vessels actually completing the gathering."

  Aldric finally turns, meeting his colleague's eyes. Marcus is older, more senior, bearing symbols of rank that came with decades of service. But rank doesn't equal understanding. Rank doesn't provide the insight that comes from thirty years of studying the people they've called enemies.

  "Tell me, Brother Marcus—in all your years of hunting vessels, have you ever spoken with one? Not interrogated. Spoken. Asked questions and listened to answers."

  "I don't converse with subjects. I process them."

  "Then you don't understand what we're facing." Aldric moves to a shelf where ancient texts lie in careful order. "I've spent three decades with them. Watching. Learning. Trying to comprehend what the founders feared so deeply. And I've concluded that they were wrong."

  The silence that follows is heavy with implications.

  "Heresy," Marcus says finally.

  "Scholarship. The distinction matters." Aldric selects a text, one he's studied countless times. "The founders believed the Awakening would destroy the world. They built our Order around that belief, dedicated centuries to preventing it. But they were working with incomplete information."

  "They were the ones who fought the first vessels. Who saw what unchecked abilities could do."

  "They saw war. Conflict between groups that happened to include vessels. And they attributed the destruction to the vessels themselves rather than to the circumstances that created conflict." Aldric opens the text to a familiar passage. "Look at what they actually wrote. 'The vessels' power, when unified, threatens to overwhelm all natural order.' But they never define what they mean by unified. Never explain what natural order is being threatened."

  "You're playing with words."

  "I'm reading them carefully. Something our Order stopped doing generations ago." Aldric sets down the text. "I've touched vessel minds during extractions. Thousands of sessions over thirty years. You know what I've found?"

  Marcus doesn't respond, his expression fixed in disapproval.

  "Fear. Hope. Love for their families. Grief for everything they've lost. The same emotions we carry. The same desires. The same fundamental need for connection and meaning." Aldric's voice softens. "They're not monsters, Marcus. They're people. People we've been torturing and hunting and destroying for four hundred years because our founders couldn't imagine any other response to power they didn't understand."

  "Power they rightly feared."

  "Did they? Or did they simply fear what they couldn't control?" Aldric gestures toward the monitoring display, where points of light show vessel activity across the network. "Sixty-seven survivors gathered at the Heart. Children among them, according to our readings. Old men and women who've spent their entire lives hiding from us. Is this the army that threatens humanity? Is this the overwhelming force the founders warned against?"

  "Numbers mean nothing when awakened power is involved."

  "And what is awakened power? In thirty years of study, I've never seen a vessel do anything more destructive than a trained soldier with conventional weapons. Their abilities are subtle—communication, sensing, connection. Nothing that would overwhelm natural order." Aldric shakes his head. "The founders were afraid of what they couldn't understand. And their fear has driven four centuries of atrocity."

  "Careful, Brother." Marcus's voice has gone cold. "What you're suggesting borders on treason."

  "What I'm suggesting is that we've been wrong. That the Awakening isn't destruction—it's transformation. The restoration of knowledge and connection that was lost when we began the purges." Aldric meets Marcus's eyes without flinching. "I'm suggesting that if we attack the Heart, we're not preventing a catastrophe. We're committing one."

  The Council meets in the grand chamber, twelve brothers arrayed around a table that has hosted four centuries of decisions.

  The room itself speaks of power and permanence. Stone walls lined with tapestries depicting the founders' victories, each woven scene showing vessels as monsters, as threats, as enemies righteously defeated. Portraits of previous Council leaders hang between the tapestries, their painted eyes seeming to judge everyone who enters. This is a space designed to remind those who gather here of their sacred duty, their place in a lineage of protectors.

  Aldric takes his seat among the junior members, his position reflecting years of service but not the influence his knowledge should command. Thirty years of study, and still he sits below brothers who have never once questioned what they were taught. Marcus sits at the head of the table, his rank earning him the authority to guide the discussion, his gray robes marked with the particular symbols that denote his status.

  "The situation is unprecedented," Marcus begins, his voice carrying the particular gravity of someone who knows his words will be recorded for posterity. "For the first time in our Order's history, vessels have successfully activated the Heart. The gathering signal is broadcasting across the network. Survivors are converging from communities we didn't know still existed. If we don't act soon, they may complete the mechanism."

  Murmurs ripple around the table. Aldric watches his colleagues—some eager for action, practically vibrating with the chance to finally strike a decisive blow. Some cautious, worried about overextending their forces. Most simply following wherever Marcus leads, because following is easier than thinking and thinking risks uncomfortable conclusions.

  "I propose we deploy three strike teams immediately. One through each major Deep Roads access point we've identified. Overwhelming force, designed to eliminate all vessels before they can complete their purpose." Marcus's eyes sweep the table, daring anyone to object. "The founders gave us clear instructions. Prevent the Awakening at any cost. That cost is now due."

  "At any cost." Aldric speaks before he's fully decided to. "Including the children in that gathering? The elders who've never harmed anyone? The survivors whose only crime is being born with gifts they never asked for?"

  "Brother Aldric's sympathy for subjects is well documented," Marcus says smoothly. "Perhaps he'd like to explain why we should risk humanity's safety to spare creatures our founders identified as existential threats."

  "Perhaps I'd like to suggest that our founders were working with incomplete information and cultural biases that colored their conclusions." Aldric stands, knowing he's crossing a line he can't uncross. "I've studied vessels for thirty years. Extracted from thousands. Documented their abilities, their limits, their fundamental nature. And I've found no evidence—none—that the Awakening poses a threat to humanity."

  "Your documentation is subjective interpretation, not fact."

  "My documentation is the most comprehensive research the Order has ever conducted. And it concludes that vessels are people. Not weapons. Not threats. People with gifts that we've spent four centuries trying to suppress because we didn't understand them."

  The chamber has gone very quiet. Aldric can feel the weight of every eye on him, can sense the shift in the room's atmosphere from routine Council business to something else—something that will be remembered, discussed, judged long after this meeting ends.

  Brother Calden, seated to Marcus's left, clears his throat. "Brother Aldric's research has been valuable to our understanding of vessel capabilities. His methods have helped us develop more effective extraction protocols." A pause, carefully measured. "But understanding an enemy is not the same as sympathizing with one. We can appreciate his scholarship without accepting his conclusions."

  "Conclusions based on evidence," Aldric responds. "Conclusions that any honest scholar would reach after reviewing the same material. I'm not asking you to take my word—I'm asking you to look at the data. Thirty years of observations. Thousands of documented interactions. Not a single instance of the catastrophic power the founders warned against."

  "Perhaps because we've prevented them from reaching that level of power," another brother suggests. "The extractions weaken their abilities. The isolation prevents coordination. Our methods are working—that's why we haven't seen what the founders described."

  "Or perhaps what the founders described was exaggerated. Shaped by fear and the violence of war rather than careful observation." Aldric gestures toward the monitoring display visible through the chamber's doorway. "I've watched vessel activity for three decades. Their gifts are subtle—emotional sensing, long-distance communication, enhanced perception. Nothing that could 'overwhelm natural order.' Nothing that threatens humanity's existence."

  "The Awakening might change that," Marcus says flatly. "Your observations are of suppressed vessels, vessels we've deliberately kept weakened. Unleash their full potential, and we don't know what they might become."

  "Exactly. We don't know. And rather than learn, rather than observe and study and understand, you're proposing to slaughter sixty-seven people—including children—based on fears four centuries old and completely unvalidated."

  "The Awakening," Aldric continues, "based on everything I've learned, is a restoration. A reconnection. The scattered descendants of an ancient people becoming whole again, sharing knowledge and memory that was lost when the purges began. That's not destruction. That's healing."

  "Healing." Marcus's voice drips contempt. "You'd have us believe that four hundred years of Order wisdom is wrong? That our founders—who witnessed the vessel wars firsthand—didn't understand what they were fighting?"

  Sister Helena speaks for the first time, her voice carrying the careful neutrality of someone who hasn't decided where she stands. "Brother Aldric raises valid questions about the basis for our mission. Perhaps a more measured approach—observation before assault, understanding before elimination—might serve our interests better."

  "The time for observation has passed." Marcus's voice cuts through whatever hope Helena's words might have kindled. "The gathering is happening now. The mechanism is activating. Every day we delay, we risk allowing them to complete their purpose."

  "A purpose we don't actually understand," Aldric interjects. "In thirty years of research, I've never found a clear explanation of what the Awakening actually does. The founders feared it, but they never documented precisely why. We're preparing to kill children based on ancestral terror, not evidence."

  "Evidence." Marcus slams his hand on the table. "The evidence is four hundred years of our Order's existence. The evidence is the founders' testimony, passed down through generations. The evidence is every vessel we've ever captured, carrying power that grows stronger the more of them gather together."

  "I'd have us consider that our founders were frightened men making decisions in the middle of a crisis. That their judgments were shaped by the violence surrounding them, not by careful study of what vessels actually are." Aldric looks around the table, meeting each pair of eyes. "I'd have us ask whether we want to commit another massacre based on ancient fears that may have no basis in reality."

  "The founders gave us our mission."

  "The founders gave us a mission based on what they believed to be true. But belief isn't truth. And four centuries of hunting haven't produced a single piece of evidence that the Awakening is actually dangerous." Aldric's voice rises. "We've killed thousands. Tortured more. Broken families and destroyed communities and built an entire institution around the principle that an entire people deserve extermination because of what they might become. Don't we owe it to all those victims to be certain we're right?"

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  The silence stretches. Aldric can see uncertainty on some faces—Helena's, Calden's, a few others who have occasionally voiced their own questions in private conversations. But uncertainty isn't enough. Not against Marcus's absolute conviction. Not against four centuries of institutional momentum.

  Then Marcus speaks, his voice flat and final: "The Council will vote. Those in favor of immediate deployment against the Heart?"

  Hands rise around the table. One by one. Until Aldric is the only one who hasn't moved.

  "The vote carries. Deployment begins at dawn." Marcus's eyes fix on Aldric with cold satisfaction. "Brother Aldric's objections are noted for the record. His future participation in Council matters is suspended pending review of his loyalties."

  "My loyalties are to truth."

  "Your loyalties are to subjects you've spent too long studying. Perhaps some time away from research will remind you where you belong." Marcus gestures to guards at the chamber's edge. "Escort Brother Aldric to his quarters. He's confined until further notice."

  Aldric doesn't resist as they take his arms. Resisting would accomplish nothing except giving Marcus an excuse for harsher measures.

  But as they lead him from the chamber, his mind is already racing.

  Three strike teams. Deployment at dawn. The Order moving against sixty-seven survivors, including children, based on fears that four centuries haven't validated.

  He has until dawn to decide what kind of person he wants to be.

  His quarters are comfortable as prisons go.

  Books line the walls—texts he's collected over thirty years of research, records of observations and conclusions that the Order will probably destroy once they realize what they contain. Volumes in ancient languages that document vessel history before the purges, when they lived openly and their gifts were celebrated rather than feared. Journals he's kept since his first extraction, careful notes on every session, every subject, every moment that made him question what he'd been taught.

  A bed that's seen him through countless sleepless nights of study. A desk where he's written papers no one wants to read, reports that get filed and forgotten because their conclusions don't align with what the Order prefers to believe.

  He moves through the space like a man saying goodbye. His fingers trail over book spines he's memorized, pause at the window where he's watched countless sunsets, linger on the small objects that have accumulated over three decades of life in this room. A stone from the mountain where he first understood that vessels could feel fear. A pressed flower given to him by a child who didn't survive her first extraction. A cup, chipped at the rim, that belonged to a brother who died believing everything the Order taught him.

  On the desk, a small carving—a wooden bird, wings spread for flight, crafted by hands that have been imprisoned in darkness for forty years. Jorick made it. Asha's father. He carved it during one of Aldric's visits, saying nothing, just working the wood with fingers that had long since memorized the shape of the knife. The movements were precise despite his blindness—muscle memory from decades of practice, the hands remembering what the eyes could no longer see.

  Aldric had watched him work, fascinated by the quiet concentration, by the way the wood seemed to come alive under those scarred fingers. This was a man the Order had blinded, imprisoned, separated from everyone he loved. A man who had every reason to hate, to rage, to give up.

  Instead, he carved birds.

  When Aldric asked why a bird, Jorick had smiled with eyes that couldn't see anymore. The smile had transformed his face—for a moment, the scars and the suffering had faded, and something younger had shown through. Something that remembered what hope felt like.

  "Because they leave," he'd said. "They don't stay in cages."

  Aldric had accepted the gift and felt something shift in his understanding. Not about vessels—he'd been questioning that for years. About himself. About what it meant that he could hold that carving and feel something other than clinical interest. He'd felt something closer to grief. Closer to shame. The realization that he'd spent decades studying people as subjects when they were simply people—trapped, suffering, refusing to stop hoping for freedom even after everything that had been done to them.

  The window looks out over the mountains where the Heart lies hidden. Somewhere in that stone, sixty-seven people are preparing for an assault they might not survive. They don't know what's coming—can't know, unless Ren picks up the Order's movements through the network. And even if she does, what can they do? Sixty-seven survivors, including children and elderly, against the concentrated might of an organization that has been perfecting the art of hunting vessels for four centuries.

  Including the one they call Asha.

  He's never met her. Never spoken to her. But he knows her through the network records, through the vessel they call Mira who fights even when fighting should be impossible, through thirty years of tracing bloodlines and connections. He knows that her mother used to sing before the extractions took her voice away—beautiful songs in a language the Order has been trying to destroy since the purges began. He knows that her father carves birds and dreams of skies he'll never see. He knows that her brother has never known anything except walls and fear, has grown up on stories of a sister who might be dead or might be free, has carried a hope that should have been impossible.

  Morning star. The lineage that carries the key to the Awakening. The bloodline the Order has been hunting with particular intensity because they fear what it represents—not just power, but the possibility of unity. The possibility that scattered, broken, isolated individuals might become something more.

  And now she's at the Heart, trying to complete something the Order has spent four centuries trying to prevent.

  Aldric picks up the wooden bird, feels its weight in his palm. Such a small thing. Such a small kindness from a man who had every reason to offer none. Jorick had nothing to gain from that gift—nothing material, nothing strategic, nothing that would help his situation or advance his interests. He'd simply seen someone who was beginning to question, and he'd offered a reminder of what was worth believing in.

  Freedom. Hope. The possibility of leaving cages.

  Aldric moves to his desk, pulls out materials he's been gathering for years. Documents about Order operations, facility locations, security protocols. Information that could cripple the organization's ability to hunt vessels if it fell into the right hands.

  He's been preparing for this moment without knowing it. Collecting pieces of a choice he wasn't sure he'd ever have the courage to make.

  The Order raised him. Trained him. Gave him purpose and community and a sense of belonging to something larger than himself. Brothers Marcus and Calden taught him to read. Sister Elena held him when his mother died. This institution has been his family since he was seven years old—longer than some of the vessels he's studied have been alive.

  Everything he is, he owes to the organization that's now ordered his confinement.

  But everything he's learned tells him they're wrong.

  The Awakening isn't destruction. It's transformation.

  And transformation isn't something to be prevented. It's something to be witnessed. Something to be part of, if he has the courage.

  He begins writing. A letter, addressed to no one in particular, explaining what he knows and why he's choosing to act. A record of his research, condensed to essentials. Coordinates and access codes that could help someone reach the facilities where vessels are being held. Maps he's drawn from thirty years of tracking movements through the Deep Roads.

  When he's finished, he gathers the pages, seals them in a waterproof case, tucks the wooden bird in with them, and approaches the window.

  His quarters are on the third floor. Not an impossible drop, but not a safe one either. The mountains beyond are treacherous, full of dangers that claim lives every year.

  He thinks of Elena, who used to bring him honey cakes on his birthday. Of Marcus, who once saved his life during a training accident and never let him forget it. Of all the brothers and sisters who will call him traitor after tonight, who will speak his name with contempt, who will erase him from the Order's history as completely as they've erased the vessels' history from the world.

  He's giving up everything. His name, his rank, his relationships, his identity as a Brother of the Order. After tonight, he'll be no one. An enemy of the only family he's ever known.

  But the Deep Roads are out there. Entrances the Order knows about and some they don't. Paths that could lead a careful traveler to the Heart, if they knew where to look.

  Aldric knows where to look. He's been mapping vessel movements for thirty years.

  He opens the window. Cold air rushes in, carrying the scent of pine and stone and something else—something electric, like the charge before a storm.

  The gathering signal. He can almost feel it, even without vessel blood. The call that's bringing survivors together from across the continent.

  *Come,* it seems to say. *We are here. The gathering has begun.*

  Aldric takes a breath. Looks back at the room that has been his home for three decades. Sees the books and the bed and the desk where he's written truths no one wanted to hear.

  Then he climbs out the window.

  Not because he's certain. Not because he's unafraid.

  Because some doors, once opened, can't be closed again.

  And he opened this one the moment he accepted a wooden bird from a blind man and felt something other than what the Order taught him to feel.

  The drop is worse than he expected, but he survives it. Limping, bruised, but alive.

  His ankle screams when he puts weight on it—not broken, he thinks, but badly twisted. The ground here is uneven, rocky, covered with a thin layer of snow that crunches under his feet despite his best efforts at stealth. Every step sends pain shooting up his leg, but he keeps moving. He doesn't have time to rest. He doesn't have time for anything except putting distance between himself and the building where guards will soon discover his empty room.

  He moves through darkness toward the tree line, clutching his documents, following paths he's only ever traced on maps. The Order's patrols are focused on the main routes—they don't expect anyone to flee through the mountain wilderness. They don't expect one of their own to run toward the enemy instead of away.

  The forest closes around him, dark and cold and full of sounds that make his heart race. He's spent thirty years in libraries and extraction chambers, not tracking through wilderness. Every snapping twig sounds like pursuit. Every rustle in the undergrowth sounds like hunters closing in. But he keeps moving, orienting himself by stars he memorized from charts, following a path that exists only in his mind.

  The snow grows deeper as he climbs. His gray robes—the robes he's worn for thirty years, the symbol of everything he was—become soaked and heavy, dragging at him with every step. He should have changed into something more practical. Should have planned this better, gathered supplies, thought through the logistics of survival in these mountains.

  But there hadn't been time. The Council vote, the confinement order, the knowledge that dawn would bring deployment—everything had compressed into a single moment of decision. Jump or don't. Run or don't. Choose the truth you've discovered or the lies you were raised with.

  He'd jumped. And now he has to live with the consequences.

  A stream appears in the darkness, black water running fast over smooth stones. Aldric wades across, gasping at the cold, his boots filling with water that will freeze if he stops moving for too long. On the other side, he pauses to check his documents—still dry in their waterproof case, still intact, still carrying everything he knows about the Order's operations and the vessels they've been hunting.

  If he dies in these mountains, that information dies with him. Sixty-seven survivors at the Heart will face an assault they're not prepared for, and no one will warn them in time.

  He can't let that happen.

  Aldric has no illusions about what he's doing. He's betraying everything he was raised to believe. Abandoning colleagues who trusted him. Becoming the very thing the Order has always warned against—a sympathizer, a traitor, a threat to everything they've built.

  But he's also doing something else.

  He's choosing truth over loyalty. Understanding over fear. The possibility that four centuries of persecution might end not in triumph but in reconciliation.

  The morning star is rising. The Awakening is coming.

  And somewhere in the Heart of the ancient network, sixty-seven survivors are preparing for a future the Order has tried to prevent since before any of them were born.

  Aldric doesn't know if he'll reach them in time. Doesn't know if they'll trust him when he arrives—a gray robe walking into their sanctuary, carrying information that might be genuine or might be a trap. Doesn't know if anything he carries can make a difference against what's coming.

  But he's seen the alternatives. Four centuries of them, documented in the records he's spent his life studying. Four centuries of hunting and torture and systematic destruction of a people whose only crime was existing. Four centuries of children taken from parents, families torn apart, entire communities erased from history.

  The Order calls it protection. Defense of humanity against a threat that might never materialize.

  Aldric calls it murder. And he's done being part of it.

  The night is cold, and he has no supplies except the documents and the wooden bird and the clothes on his back. By morning, Marcus will discover his escape. By noon, hunters will be tracking him through these mountains. By nightfall, he might be dead in a ravine somewhere, his information lost, his betrayal meaningless.

  But he keeps walking. One foot in front of the other, following stars he learned to navigate by during expeditions he thought were serving the Order's purposes. Following paths his mind has traced a thousand times while his body remained safely within those walls.

  His twisted ankle throbs with every step. The cold seeps through his wet robes, settling into his bones, making his teeth chatter despite his efforts to clench his jaw. He hasn't eaten since the Council meeting, and his body is beginning to register the lack—a trembling weakness that has nothing to do with fear and everything to do with basic human needs he's been ignoring.

  But he keeps walking.

  The wooden bird is still in his pocket. He can feel its weight against his leg, a constant reminder of why he's doing this. Of the blind man who carved it, patient and unbroken after forty years of darkness. Of the woman whose mind they tried to destroy but couldn't. Of all the vessels he's studied, extracted from, documented in reports that reduced their suffering to data points.

  They were people. They are people. And people don't deserve what the Order has been doing to them for four centuries.

  But he knows he has to try.

  Because some truths are worth dying for.

  And the truth he's learned in thirty years of study is this: the people his Order calls monsters are just people.

  People who deserve a chance to become whatever they're meant to be. People who have survived four centuries of persecution not through violence or conquest but through hope and connection and the stubborn refusal to stop believing in each other. People who have built communities in hiding, raised children in darkness, passed down knowledge and stories and dreams from generation to generation despite everything the Order has done to erase them.

  The Awakening won't destroy the world. Aldric is certain of that now—more certain than he's been of anything since he first put on these gray robes as a boy of seven. The Awakening will transform it. Will restore what was lost when frightened men made decisions they called righteous. Will reconnect scattered fragments of a people into something whole.

  And the Order is marching to prevent that. Three strike teams, authorized by a Council that wouldn't listen, led by a man who has never questioned anything he was taught. Hundreds of soldiers, trained for decades in the art of hunting vessels, moving toward sixty-seven survivors who include children and elders and people who have never harmed anyone.

  Aldric has to reach them first. Has to warn them. Has to give them whatever chance his documents might provide—facility locations, security protocols, the patterns of Order operations that might help them survive what's coming.

  He doesn't know if it will be enough. Probably it won't. Probably the Order's forces will overwhelm them no matter what intelligence he provides. Probably the Awakening will fail, and four centuries of persecution will continue, and everything he's learned will mean nothing.

  But probably isn't certainly. And as long as there's uncertainty, there's hope.

  He learned that from the vessels themselves. From Jorick, carving birds in darkness. From Mira, fighting even when fighting should be impossible. From a hundred others who kept believing in freedom even after freedom had been taken from them.

  Hope isn't weakness. Hope is survival. Hope is the thing that keeps you walking through frozen mountains when every rational calculation says you should give up.

  The storm is gathering.

  Aldric walks toward it, carrying everything he knows, hoping it's enough. Hoping that thirty years of asking questions will finally mean something. Hoping that a wooden bird carved by a blind man in a cell can somehow point the way toward a future that doesn't require more children in more cages.

  The gathering continues.

  And the dawn is finally, impossibly, near. After four hundred years of darkness, the morning star is about to rise. And whatever that rising brings—transformation or destruction, reconciliation or war—Aldric has chosen his side.

  He walks through the cold and the dark, toward people he's spent his life studying as subjects and has finally learned to see as family.

  The human family. The family that includes everyone, regardless of the gifts they carry or the blood that flows in their veins.

  The Order taught him to fear that family. To hunt it. To destroy it before it could threaten the natural order.

  Aldric has learned better.

  And learning, he's discovered, is worth any price.