Page 49 of Returned to the Vissigroth (The Vissigroths of Leander #6)

M yccael's office was filled with tension. Zavahr had asked for this meeting. Which meant he wanted something. And I already knew neither Myccael, Darryck, nor I would like it.

He stood near the center of the chamber, keeping a stiff posture, his eyes taking in the luxury of the room. The large fireplace, the wall entirely made of glass, allowing a view into the garden, where now and then some people could be seen enjoying the early morning.

Zavahr's robes looked too clean for someone claiming to dig in ancient dirt; then again, I might have been projecting, because he was a Zuten, and I wasn't too happy with them right now.

He could have just cleaned up for the meeting with Susserayn Myccael.

Admittedly, my mood was foul. I burned to leave this place and be alone with Daphne.

I wanted to take her to Hoerst and renew our soul-binding vows.

Darryck leaned against a far column, arms crossed, one leg bent in casual indifference. But I saw the tension in his jaw. He was just as eager to leave as I was. Only he was eager to lead the war against the Eulachs and Renegades, whereas I wanted to go home and enjoy my mate in peace.

Myccael, standing to my right, hadn’t moved since we entered. His arms were behind his back. His jaw locked tight. Whatever patience he’d walked in with was already gone.

“I’m not asking for unlimited excavation rights,” Zavahr said. “I’m asking for controlled access. Another twenty meters down. There are preserved walls in that chamber. Filled with Zuten markings we’ve never seen before. They deserve to be studied.”

“They deserve to be buried again,” Myccael replied, voice cool but not quiet. “Before you wake something we can’t put back to sleep.”

“That’s our history,” Zavahr snapped. “We have a right to it.”

“That history cost us hundreds of lives, and that’s not even taking into account the weapons that may still be in Renegade hands,” Myccael answered.

“Who knows what horrors may still be underground, waiting to be unleashed, and you want to chip away at it with data pads and spades like it’s just another buried city. ”

“It is another buried city,” Zavahr hissed. “Your gods don’t get to dictate our science.”

Myccael’s eyes sharpened. “Be careful, Zavahr.”

Zavahr scoffed. “Careful? Why, because your gods will strike me down?”

I stepped forward just slightly, my shadow falling across the floor between them. Myccael didn’t need me, but sometimes the presence of two vissigroths made even the proud pause.

“My gods,” Myccael said slowly, “are the reason you’re standing here at all.”

Zavahr scoffed. “This again. Susserayn, with all due respect, you’re governing with superstition. You’re holding back science, history, and the answers we’ve been looking for.”

Myccael stepped forward. Just once. Slowly. “You’re not looking for answers. You’re chasing power you don’t understand.”

“That’s not your decision to make.”

“It is when you’re on my planet,” Myccael said flatly. “And when your curiosity threatens every life on it. You and your people are a protected minority across the Fourteen Planets. You enjoy rights because I grant them. Do not mistake tolerance for weakness."

Zavahr’s eyes locked on my son’s, and for a moment, neither of them spoke. Rank momentarily disappeared. They were just two men, staring each other down in a room where peace had always been a choice, not a rule.

Zavahr's jaw flexed. “You wouldn’t strip us of our rights over dirt and stone.”

Myccael didn’t blink. “Try me.”

That was when I stepped forward again.

My voice stayed level as I interjected. “Do you really believe the Zuten built their cities with no understanding of what they were hiding? You think you’ve uncovered ruins. But what you’ve found is a lid. And you’re begging to pry it open.”

Zavahr’s gaze shifted to me, and I met it without blinking.

“Keep digging,” I said, “and when the mountain breathes fire, you’ll be the one left holding the torch.”

Darryck pushed off the column, finally joining us. “You were warned,” he said. “And if warnings aren’t enough, well… we vissigroths have always been good at delivering consequences.”

Zavahr opened his mouth, then closed it again. When he turned and strode out of the room without a word, the door groaned shut behind him with the sound of something final.

Silence lingered between the three of us. Finally, Darryck exhaled slowly. “He’s going to try anyway.”

“I know,” Myccael agreed darkly. “Let him. The gods are watching.”

And so were we.

"Well, if there is nothing else—" my excuse to leave the room was interrupted when a dragoon knocked and entered.

"I beg your pardon, Susserayn, the human engineer, Claudia, is here."

"Send her in."

There went my chances for a quick escape. I had no idea why Myccael had sent for Claudia, but since he had also ordered Darryck and me here, I guessed that it was nothing good, and I would be here for the foreseeable future. Damn.

Claudia entered with the same clipped efficiency I remembered from her last visit, her long coat swept behind her, and in her arms, she carried a flat, matte-black palmtop. Larger than anything we used on Leander. Almost ceremonial in size, as if the device itself had gravity.

Myccael stepped forward. “Claudia,” he said with a nod. “Thank you for coming. My father and Darryck—” he gestured to each of us, “—have been brought up to speed. As much as we can be.”

Claudia offered a respectful bow of her head, then placed the palmtop on the wide stone table at the room’s center. “I’ve pulled everything we could decrypt from the vault servers buried under the mountain,” she said. “Much of it is corrupted, but a few threads survived. You should see this.”

She touched the screen. It came to life with a quiet pulse of light. The image that appeared took the air from my lungs. Not rock. Not ice. Not the jagged peaks of the Pyme range I had known all my life. Ney, before me lay a city. Sprawling. Shimmering. Alive. Bigger than anything I had ever seen.

The river was the only thing I recognized, winding like silver through the valley. But instead of cliffs and glaciers, it flowed between towers of glass and curved stone. Parks. Monorails. People.

People who looked like us.

“Leanders,” Darryck murmured.

“Zutens,” Claudia corrected gently. “But yes… biologically, you’d be indistinguishable. This was the city that now lies beneath the mountains. From end to end. Stretching across the entire Pyme range. Centuries old, at least. Maybe more.”

Myccael leaned forward, brows knit. “This… this was here? Before the migrations? Before Oceanus?”

Claudia hesitated. “I’m not an archeologist. All I can say is that the servers were local. The city stood here once. Whether the Zutens originated here or came later… we don’t know.”

“And we don’t need to,” I said grimly.

She tapped again. The image changed, showing sleek buildings now, walls that seemed to hum with power. Some sort of energy grid glowed along their bases.

“They were advanced,” Claudia said. “Far beyond pre-spaceflight Earth. Especially when it came to weapons systems, biology, and gene manipulation.”

Another swipe. Weapons filled the screen, some handheld, some mounted. Some so large they had to be stationary. They were sleek, filled with what I now recognized as Zuten writing and symbols. Their beauty stood in stark contrast to their lethality.

Myccael’s jaw tightened. “And what were they preparing for?”

Claudia gave a small, brittle smile. “That’s the unfortunate part.”

She brought up another sequence. Images—hazy, slightly degraded—showed creatures. Twisted and massive. Their eyes gleamed with unnatural light. Their limbs were heavy with muscle and bone, jaws edged with jagged teeth, glistening with saliva.

“Eulachs,” she said. “Genetically engineered by the Zutens to serve them.”

My stomach turned. I recognized the hunched gait. The mouth full of razors.

“They tried to domesticate them,” she continued gravely.

“But they failed. Miserably. The Eulachs were barely more intelligent than predatory beasts, but what little they had was enough to make them more dangerous in their hunger. Their aggression soon overruled empathy—assuming they ever had any to begin with. And worse… they multiplied. Rapidly and uncontrollably. Like rats, eh, I mean kevvats . ”

Darryck raised a brow. “Kevvats?”

“A rodent from the southern belt,” I said. “They breed every four days, chew through anything softer than stone, and bite off their own tails when cornered.”

“Exactly that,” Claudia said dryly. “Eulachs became an infestation. They killed people just for sport, destroyed infrastructures, and were a menace that put everyone in danger.”

Darryck snorted, "Sounds like the Eulachs we know."

“So what did the Zutens do?” Myccael asked.

“They made something worse,” Claudia said, and the next image chilled the room.

The image was of one of the Super Eulachs we had encountered. It looked very much like an Eulach, but was taller and looked even meaner. What was more disturbing, though, was the intelligence that hovered behind the menacing eyes.

“These were the Mol’zulak. Super Eulachs,” she said. “Created to hunt and kill their weaker cousins. Bio-engineered with enhanced strength, speed, and a rudimentary strategic mind.”

“They look organized,” I said, watching the footage. “Coordinated.”

“They were,” Claudia confirmed. “Thankfully, the engineers made them all male, so no natural reproduction. Any attempt to breed with Eulach seffies resulted in non-viable offspring.”

Darryck snorted. “Small mercy.”

“They couldn’t breed,” she continued, “but they could lead. And they did. Instead of exterminating their intended targets, they took command of the Eulach swarms. Stole weapons. Coordinated assaults. Cities fell. The Pyme valley became a war zone.”

Images flickered again. Scenes of towers burning, civilians fleeing across bridges, bodies in the streets.

Bombed out high rises. People fleeing on foot, by boats, by the dozens, hundreds.

They poured onto the river, driven by their need to survive.

Their faces were filled with terror. The pictures told stories I knew all too well and had never wanted to see again. I saw us in them. Saw our history.

“These are the ancestors,” Myccael said quietly. “These… are the ones who became the Leanders.”

Claudia nodded. “According to the logs, yes. This was the beginning of the end for the Zuten.”

A final set of images faded in. Something massive descended through the smoke. I felt myself squinting to see the image better before I recognized him .

Even pixelated, the shape of the dragon was unmistakable.

“Grandyr,” I said.

“He wasn’t alone,” Claudia said. “There were others. Dragons, plural. They came. They scorched the land, burned what was left of the cities to ash. Nothing was left but rubble and smoke.”

We watched as the sky turned to fire.

“In time, the rubble became the Pyme mountains. The surviving Zutens swore never to touch such technology again. They believed it had cursed them. They renamed themselves. Rebuilt. The Leanders were born from that vow.”

She stepped back from the screen. Silence enveloped all four of us. Claudia seemed as mystified and overcome as we were. From what I’d heard about human history, theirs was as full of war as ours.

After a long pause, Myccael turned to me. Then to Darryck.

“We could send teams,” he said. “Try to find more. Trace where they came from. Whether they were from Oceanus, or?—”

“Ney,” I said immediately.

Darryck nodded. “Twice we’ve touched Zuten legacy. And twice it nearly destroyed us.”

“Some secrets,” I said, “are buried for a reason.”

Myccael looked down at the screen one last time. The image of Grandyr still hovered, his wings spread wide over the burning valley.

“Then let’s finish what he started. Let it burn,” he said, turning the screen off. "I want it all destroyed. Any weapons, any books, anything that talks about the Zutens. I want legions out in the wastelands to hunt down every last Renegade. Every last Eulach." He turned to Darryck.

"As you wish, Susserayn, it will be my honor to take command of this." And then, with a wink, he grinned and added, "As long as you take Thalia's wrath, brother."