Horizons of the Heart

By Melange
Copyright© 2013-2014 Melange
All Rights Reserved.

Synopsis

Jaden and her friends revisit the town of their first adventure, Carrick Field, and then continue the chase across the Olman countryside. Upon arriving in Tarad, the border town where Oleander grew up, they hatch a cunning plan to make a suspect man talk.

Flashback: Before braving the Outside world, Alisan spent her youth training her voice to become one of the best singers in Ral Sona.

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Chapter 25: Bridge of Memories, part 2

ALISAN

The songs trickled through the winding chambers of the Songshapers' Hall like spring rivers down a mountainside. Sparkling voices giving form to legends of beauty and love. The acoustic qualities of the building returned the effort put into each word tenfold, turning even a bated whisper of an autumn tryst into a crescendo of forbidden kisses.

Inside one of the singing chambers stood a young elf with white-gold hair and emerald eyes, almost purebred of the western tribe with skin mostly unbronzed by the sun contrasted with the simple grey of a shaper's apprentice. At her side was her teacher, another Seren elf clad in the skyblossom blue of the songshapers, patterned with darker blue and white details to give an impression of a cresting wave moving across her gown as she walked.

«Start anew. Explore the room this time. Paint with your words. Paint a picture in the minds of your audience. Let your song reach out.» The teacher punctuated each sentence with a twirl of finger in the air, like a conductor would lead an orchestra with her baton.

«I will attempt to do so, Maestrix. » Alisan cleared her throat and took a deep breath to focus herself.

«Attempting suffices for warriors or wisdoms humming along from off the stage. You, my dear, will be ON that stage. You will be a shaper. Shapers do not attempt. Shapers excel! » That hand stopped waving around in the air and touched the young elf's cheek with some fondness. «So excel, Alisan Summercross.»

«Yes, Maestrix,» she said.

Alisan took another breath to fill herself with the air countless songshapers before her had used to bring life to the legends, and poured as much emotion and power as she was able into each syllable. She brought each peak in the cadence higher and higher, as if to take the listeners above the clouds, and dived into every valley like a falcon striking a fleeing prey. She felt hoarse and drained after she finished the last chorus.

Catching her breath, Alisan looked up at the impassive teacher who had just looked at her silently throughout the performance.

«It was better, yes, but still room for improvement. Remember, Alisan: your voice is your brush, the minds of your audience the canvas, and each word off your lips is a stroke. Be sure to paint richly and fearlessly.» The maestrix nodded more to herself than at her pupil, and then turned with a swish of her gown, leaving the young elf to herself in the room and the echoes.

Alisan slumped down once she was alone. She had given it her all, her best, and it had only been passable? She knew she was fortunate to get the personal tutelage of the maestrix, but sometimes she just wanted to let her song be heard without the long ages of tradition and form weighing down on her. Her hands plucked at the unadorned, wide sleeves of her gown. How could something so loose still feel like shackles?

The echoes of song began to abate slightly as more and more of the other apprentices finished with their daily lessons, and musical voices were replaced by smattering of conversation. Classes were over for the day. With a huff Alisan pushed herself to her feet from where she had been sitting against a wall, feeling the vibrations from the great building through her body.

When she entered the wide, arched corridor that connected the many singing chambers to the grand performance hall she quickly ran into the other young elves also headed out. Most of them were walking in groups, smiling and laughing, talking about anything and everything.

«Stop dreaming, Lemon, or stand clear. You bar the path of your betters.» The voice came from one of the raven-haired Cealon, the dark tribe. He stood taller than Alisan by more than a hand, and had those firm and clearly defined features that made her heart skip a beat.

There was enough room to walk around Alisan, but that wasn't what this was about. Tricherion had been nothing but rude to her ever since it had been known that the maestrix would be tutoring Alisan rather than his sister. Nobody knew what made the maestrix of the Songshapers pick one apprentice over another, but every ten years she selected a single young woman and helped her bring out the best in her voice. Without fail, everyone who had been guided by the maestrix reached great heights within the Ral Sona society, hand-picked virtuosos mentored by the first among the songshapers.

Even though Alisan was happy that she had been granted this honour, she felt like it had set her on a path apart from the rest of the apprentices. Sometimes she wished that there had been a maestro during her lifetime, rather than a maestrix, and that the honour had gone to someone else.

«Pay him no more mind than a whirling leaf, Summercross,» came a voice from her side, soon followed by a friendly hand ruffling her hair. The hand belonged to an amber-blonde young man closer to her height.

Her sullen look turned annoyed as she began brushing her hair down with her fingers, but she couldn't help but smile anyway.

«So, they finally allowed you to roam unchecked once more, Tinris?» She turned to see the mischievous grin of her childhood friend.

«They had nothing to hold me on this time. I just had to sit through Exarch Sunstorm giving me The Talk again. 'Respect the sanctity of the hall of ancients. Do not release any more frogs into the wisdoms' bath. Avoid voicing radical political opinions during the high noon sermon.' Nothing I have not heard many times before.» Her childhood friend rolled his eyes.

«How did fate ever favour you for wisdom caste, Tin? You are not acting very wisely.» Alisan shook her head with incredulity, but couldn't help but laugh a little.

«Wisdom is more than seeing the road already taken, Summercross. It is also seeing when it is time to find a new, better way. Ral Sona desperately needs change. You know this. I know this. Everyone knows this. We are stagnant like a marsh pond. Just look to the Outside. The human nations swallow each other up, exchange ideas, flourish. Just compare any two of them. Olmar and Etria? Such differences!» He shook his head with a smile, as if imagining what it might be like should the elves take after the humans.

Tinris had hooked his arm with Alisan's as he drew them out of the Songshapers Hall, and into the brisk air of the nightbloom court. The slender, darkly blue flowers had their crowns closed under the sunlight, turning the petal paths surrounding the great Hall more green than blue this time of day. Once night had fallen those flowers would open up and embrace the moonlight.

«You should be careful of what you speak, Tin. That sounds quite revolutionary to me. That aside, there is nothing wrong with harmony,» Alisan said, as much to herself as to her friend. That sort of talk would get Tinris forced out of the wisdom caste, and end up with him carrying old books for the Wordshapers.

«Harmony is a goal, not a place to be. If you exist in harmony, then per definition nothing can change for the better. When nothing changes, you have decadence and stagnation.» Tinris spoke with the passion of an idealist.

«So you wish for winter to replace summer?» A change for the worse. Alisan turned on her friend, hands on her hips. She had heard him say many strange things as they grew up, but these last couple of years he had become even more outspoken.

«I want things to change so that they can reach a new point of harmony. The human lands are... dynamic! We could learn a little from their example!» Tinris had that special gleam in his eyes that she recognised from many times before. He was a believer and a seeker, always looking for answers in a society that had already reached a verdict on the world many generations ago.

«Like war? And... religious persecution? Hate and envy?» Alisan dug for the worst qualities she had heard about the Outside.

«In exchange for arrogance and isolationism? Maybe we would be better off with some of that.» He tilted his head a little to the side. «Also, let us not delude ourselves: hate and envy exist everywhere. Harmony, if you would call it that, does little to hide those qualities in the People. You merely have to look at your friend Tricherion back there.»

«I am so happy you were not chosen for Ruling Caste, Tin. You would have made a horrible senator.» She could not imagine someone like Tinris leading the Two People into the days ahead.

«'Truth never hurts',» her friend said, citing an old song.

Alisan snorted, but felt strangely uplifted. She could feel the winds of change beginning to stir the leaves in the Eternal City.

As soon as the town came into view, so too did the large stone bridge that waited further up the stream. It looked all the more impressive with the setting sun lighting it from behind. Beldenth span, or the old bridge as the locals just tended to call it, was a massive thing that managed to reach across the entire Odar.

Why the town hadn't sprung up around the bridge proper, using it to trade more easily across the river, was anyone's guess. There were as many theories as there were people asked. The original nobleman of the area was superstitious of something that predated man's presence in the midlands. A landowner refused to allow other people to settle next to him. There lay a curse upon any who tried to live in the shadow of the old bridge. One even claimed that it was the sound of the stones singing in the wind that drove people to move away from the bridge and settle where those voices couldn’t reach.

Maybe that was part of the beauty of the old bridge. It spanned not only two countries, but also an infinite amount of fantasies. Since there were a thousand dreams about it, none were truer than the other. Of course, some scholars claimed that the bridge was in fact created by Orcs during the height of their civilisation, but most people that actually lived outside the ivory tower of academia knew that 'civilisation' and 'orcs' were mutually exclusive. Orcs may have a rich culture, but in the end they were barbaric and tribal, and the only thing they had managed to build that could last aeons was their reputation.

Carrick Field was a village grown into a town when none had expected it to, and it showed. You could almost see where the original streets had been and where some of the immediately surrounding farms had been absorbed into the community. Some of the storehouses looked very much like old barns and a few of the houses sat askew against the winding streets, slightly too large for a regular town building. It gave the entire area a rustic feel to it, despite hosting as many people as it did. Where some cities had surrounding walls, or clearly marked edges, Carrick Field was like a man who had knocked over his tools at a table, spilling them across the room. It was a town that didn't as much clearly begin or end, as it you could follow its trail to the centre.

More than anything, however, Carrick Field was regarded by many as the breadbasket of Alband. The country was mostly hills and forests, great for timber and mining, but poor for farming. Only towards the south edge, bordering on Olmar, did the countryside eventually open up enough for growing anything. That was also the reason why Carrick Field had never became a larger city, according to some. With its close proximity to a bridge as well as being right by a river, it could have been exporting its goods everywhere. But to whom? Olmar certainly didn't need it, consisting almost completely of the same fertile meadows or large steppes. Tier already got most of what it needed from the town of Risan down the coast in Olmar, or from the nearby, small farming villages on that side of the border. No, Carrick Field sent it goods almost exclusively up the roads to other parts of Alband, its docks sitting mostly empty, except for barges crossing the river and the occasional river-runner from the borderlands or a leisureboat from Tier. Ironically, this arrangement may have been what eventually allowed Alband to hold out against the North during their several wars. There was just no way for the Northmen to cut off the supplies that came in from the south, feeding the Albander army.

Jaden didn’t care that much about the history of this community however, but couldn't help but feel a certain nostalgia as they stepped off the boat onto the docks on the Alband side of the river. In many ways, this had been the beginning of her story. For the longest time she had felt it had started with a single step outside the walls of Talraman, when she had begun her long road on a desperate quest. This past year and a half had changed that thought, however. Her story had truly started here, when an especially crowded evening had forced a young mystic and an Olman street-rat to share their table with a group of adventurers.

She absentmindedly patted her horse's neck as their steeds were led from The Sweet to solid ground. No, there was something welcoming about Carrick Field. The sprawling town opened up its arms to her, welcoming a lost daughter home.

Rhyce looked thoughtful when he set his boots down on the well-worn road by the docks. His instincts told him that something was awry, but he couldn’t pinpoint what. It was a vague sense of wrongness just out of his mind's eye.

Black feathers fluttered as a pair of crows left the embrace of the sky and landed on a low branch of a nearby apple tree. One of them turned its head sideways, a small black eye watching the people going about their business in the street. The other turned its beak into the wind, letting out a squawk.

"Feel it too?" Rhyce asked, his face tilted slightly into the breeze, as if catching a faint smell. He had noticed the sensation, but it was too subtle for him to be sure. Either it was too far off, which was good, or it had not yet sunk deeply enough into the town for it to matter. There was little he could do about it at the moment, however. The archer merely added this place to the many others he kept a watch over. He was stretching himself thin.

He took a moment to feel the wind again. Maybe he had just imagined that oily scent, hidden among a thousand other presences? No, the archer didn't make mistakes of that kind. Not anymore. The only question was whether it was something old, or something new?

"Carrick Field. I can't believe I actually missed this place a little," Jaden mused as they passed through the street leading away from the docks. People were headed home as evening had begun to settle over the town, and she saw more than a few people exchanging greetings as they met in the streets. It felt much more relaxed now, compared to then. She smiled as she remembered the stumbling beginners they had been back then, two years ago. Carrick Field had been a crucible for all of them.

"I really can't believe it. I hate this place," Oleander shuddered. It had been her first true adventure, as well. She just had to go through a worse experience than the rest of them, due to her being the one of slimmest build.

"There probably is no cause to worry, little fox," Kellen tried to reassure the small woman. "We put an end to the Kynian hive. With no queen, they had to retreat."

"Easy for you to say. You weren't in there, wading in the... the slime of the birthing chamber!" The redhead looked at the large Northman with fierce accusation. It had been Kellen’s idea, after all, to send her into the heart of the hive to find out more about what their insectoid foes had in store for the town.

"You were the only one small enough to fit into the access shaft, Red. That aside, it was a long time ago." Stann sometimes had the memory of a duck or a drunkard – water didn’t need to bother. Still, there was something comforting about the idea of being able to leave bad experiences behind like he did.

"I'll never be able to forget it..." Oleander grumbled, crossing her arms as she kicked a small stone on the street. "Do we have any real reason to stick around here?”

"It might be worth to inquire into the local trading circuits, to see if anyone has seen or heard of the people behind the operation we uncovered in Farcrest," Mirena explained with her normal, unruffled patience. “We’re doing more here than just crossing a bridge of memories, Oleander.”

"Ugh. Fine ," the small redhead groaned.

"Our first great adventure together,” Jaden tried to force some cheerfulness into her voice, as she explained to the somewhat perplexed Alisan what the rest were talking about.

"If you call chitinous chittering in the dark 'an adventure'," Oleander disagreed.

"The mandibles..." The mystic had been down the tunnels, as well, with Oleander and Rhyce. Jaden remembered the claustrophobic feeling when they had tried to run, and the sound of the Kynians’ call when they began to hunt the intruders.

"I thought we agreed we wouldn't say the 'm'-word again!" The Olman girl reminded her pointy-eared friend of the unspoken promise they had made once the Northmen had pulled them up out of the narrow chimney-like passage, covered in yellow slime and stark horror.

"Hard to think it's been over a year since last time, hasn't it?" Stann said to nobody in particular. Having left the docks, they were now gathered at one of the trade squares of Carrick Field. From here, a number of streets shot off at angles defying any city planning.

"Indeed. It almost feels like yesterday when we first met you two here," Mirena looked around for something familiar to orient herself by. If they were going to get anything out of their visit here before everything closed for the night, they would have to be quick about it.

"Wasn't it that tavern over there?" Jaden pointed to a building showing a weathered sign of a chalice wearing a crown. The Count of Cups.

"It was just the two of us back then," Oleander smiled a little. The bruise on her cheek had turned into a mostly yellow blotch. "It was just luck that the place was so filled up that Mirena and the boys asked to sit down by our table."

"You know, we're coming up on Tarad next, probably..." The black-haired mystic mentioned, looking at the redhead for any reaction. While Carrick Field had been the beginning of Jaden’s story, Tarad had been the start of Oleander’s.

"Yeah." Oleander looked away briefly, her raincloud grey eyes betraying her feelings more than her carefully neutral face did.

"How do you feel about that?" Jaden couldn’t help but wonder.

"I don't know. Can you ever really go home again?" The redhead had a faraway look to her for a moment, but then shot Jaden a wry smile. "What would you feel if you ever returned back to that wizard mountain of yours?"

"Fear, mostly," the mystic immediately blurted out. "But I think I know what you mean. You don't bring the same set of eyes back."

While the mystic and the Olman streetrat were reminiscing, their friends kept their eyes on the matter at hand. The sky was already turning into its evening palette, and soon most people would head home.

"Let us sort out where we will stay before we take advantage of what little daylight remains to pursue any leads that might be available to us here." Mirena looked at the sign of the Count of Cups, knowing that it offered rooms for travellers.

"If you're in a hurry to get out there, I can talk with the keeper of our old tavern here, Mirena," Kellen offered, hefting his bags from where they had been tied to his saddle. The shaggy Northern horse snorted and shook its head, glad to be relieved of the extra weight.

"That would be wonderful. Thank you, Kellen," the knight said with a small smile.

"Speaking of which: What kind of... arrangement are we using now?" The rune seeker tactfully avoided pointing out what had thrown off their usual rooming dynamics.

"Oleander, would you mind sharing a room with Alisan this evening?"

The redhead touched her cheek briefly, making no indication of feeling any pain from the half-healed bruise. Oleander’s eyes darted toward Jaden, where they stayed for but a moment before she looked back at the knight.

"Yeah, okay," she mumbled.

"Good. I leave the rest to you, Kellen," Mirena turned back to the large Northman with a nod.

"Aye, milady," Kellen replied with an amused half-grin and ducked into the tavern. Not many doors were made tall enough to allow him inside without bowing. Kellen argued that it kept him humble, and that it made people assume he was being polite; not that the rune seeker was anything but, most of the time.

"Jaden, why don't you come with me?" The knight suggested, rather than commanded, but the results were often the same. "You seem to have a hidden talent for helping people talk, and we might need that trick if the sort of people I imagine we will run into feels, let us say, less than willing to share what they know."

"Alright," Jaden didn't argue. Even after leaving the boat for solid ground, the vague sense of nausea hadn't left the mystic. Rather, she instead felt a slowly growing sense of urgency.

"If we are picking teammates, then I shall select our little fox!" Kellen proclaimed, slapping a large hand down on the Olman girl's shoulder. He had stopped just inside the Count of Cups, and had reached out to grab the redhead before she wandered off.

"Huh? Me? Don't you usually go with Bear?" Oleander looked up at the much taller man.

"Indeed, but today I will need your keen nose for finding rare things. I have an idea or five for tracking our quarry," Kellen rumbled conspiratorially.

"Fiiine. Just as long as it doesn't include me climbing down some sort of access shaft." The redhead shook a fist at the magician.

"I promise nothing, Oleander." The rune seeker laughed merrily, effortlessly dragging the small woman into the tavern.

Stann chuckled as the redhead was pulled along on his cousin's latest project. The winter warrior had been involved in countless of similar undertakings in the past, ever the bemused assistant to Kellen's various experiments into the realms of magic. Since he was apparently getting the evening free, he turned to the remaining members of their group to see what they had in mind.

"Well, I guess it's just us then, Rhyce, Alisan," Stann turned around but couldn't see the archer. Beneath the tavern sign dangling in the breeze, there were just the pale elf and he.

"The man with the bow left earlier," Alisan explained, pointing down a smaller side road, little more than an alley. "I believe he brought our steeds to where they would spend the night."

"Really? Then it's just you and me, is it?" The Northman grinned widely and waggled his eyebrows. "Didn't you say you wanted to show me how to dance?"

"I seem to have made such an offer, yes," the elf admitted hesitantly. "I would first make use of the establishment's bathing arrangements. There were little in the ways of conveniences aboard the boat."

"Aw, that's alright, Sunny. I was mostly making fun," Stann laughed, not expecting a fine lady like the elf to spend her free time with a brute like him.

"On the contrary. I fully intend to deliver upon my promise. Meet me outside the stables after nightfall." The elf gave a resolute nod.

"Really? Huh." Stann blinked, his imagination running ahead of him. By the time the fantasy had reached its inevitable conclusion, he found himself alone in the streets of Carrick Field, painted in dusk. "Well then, old Bear. Let's see if we can be useful still."

With that, he turned towards the town and shrugged. He didn't have any of that fancy magic, or a knight's way with words. What could he do, that the others couldn't do better? He just had his sword, his courage, and a heart full of good intentions. Sometimes that was enough. Stann adjusted the sword hanging from his belt, and headed off down the streets of Carrick Field.

"So, how do you feel, Jaden?" Mirena finally asked, after having glanced at her mystic friend several times during the last couple of minutes.

"Rena, I love you like a sister, but if you all keep asking me that question I'm going to scream," the mystic warned the knight.

"I'm sorry. We're... I am just concerned about you. You have been through some... significant changes. It is not surprising if the full impact-" Mirena began to say.

"Seriously, I'm alright. I've dealt with the idea of this for more than a year. It's only this last week or so that you guys have been aware of it." Jaden envied her friends, in a way. They probably remembered her better than she did, herself, at this point.

"You're right, of course." The knight gave the mystic another sidelong glance. "I've been noticing a change in how some of the others relate to you, however."

"Everyone's been treating me differently. Even Rhyce, who barely spoke two words to me before. He actually started to... no, that's not for me to speak about," Jaden remembered how the archer had bared parts of his soul to her in Farcrest. It was hard to see the turmoil that raged beneath that stoic facade.

"Changing the subject, then," the knight said with an understanding smile that turned into a speculative look. "How long has it been since you fought anyone with your sword?"

Jaden let her hand touch the pommel of her longsword she kept at her hip out of habit. She had spent a lot of time as a young boy in Talraman training with the rest of the older children, learning how to use weapons for when magic didn't do the job. Anyone who sought to be a protector of the mountain could never allow themselves to be caught without the means to do their duty.

"It was only last week, really, when I fought the... some other magicians in Farcrest," Jaden remembered facing down the blue-streaked behir mystic in the tunnels under the city, and later when she and Rhyce had to run from Nerak Taseno and his Drowning Dark. But both times, she had relied on her magic rather than skill of arms. Looking at her bare hands, she almost missed having her gloves when her eyes came upon the red brand across her right palm. "I guess it's not been since Redwall, when I, uh, borrowed your blade to fight the demon there."

"I remember that, yes," Mirena got a little thin-lipped at the reminder of when a winged demonic being had swept down and stolen her paladin's sword.

"But that wasn't a real fight either, to be honest. Amu- the demon, she didn't really fight back. I guess it was when we escaped from the cult in Tier?" Jaden looked sideways, trying to remember all the fights they had been in these last couple of months.

"I believe you were unarmed at that time, as well? If you have not had practice with your sword for over a month, especially with the changes you have been through, you could end being hurt - or worse - if you tried to fight as you did before." Mirena eyed her friend from the top of her hair, to the tip of her toes. "For one, you are somewhat shorter now, aren't you? Perhaps only a few inches, but even that would be enough to alter your fighting form."

"Okay. I see what you're saying, Rena. Maybe I have been relying on magic too much lately, and the mountain knows these things are throwing off my stance," Jaden tugged at her bodice, which sent an unwelcome jiggle across her top. Before Tier, when the drift had still been manageable, she had accounted herself as a competent swordsman, able to stand next to Mirena or Stann and not feel like she would be a liability. Jaden had probably been better than Rhyce in a brawl, if only just. Now, however, if she tried to rely on her old training she would most likely make an embarrassment out of herself.

"Just something to keep in mind, my friend." The knight touched the mystic's arm with sympathy. With the other, she gestured towards the waiting town. "However, if we want to see if there have been any further signs of the ones we seek here, we should begin before everything close up for the night."

Things didn’t have to be all that complicated. That's a philosophy that had suited Stann just fine most of his life. He left the complicated things to people better suited for it, like his cousin or the clan chieftain, or his mother for that matter. Stann didn't like dressing things up. The world was strange enough without adding another layer of trouble to it. That's why Stann sometimes wondered why his friends were making things harder for themselves by all that second-guessing themselves and planning so far ahead. There was no way of truly knowing what tomorrow would bring, after all. It was much better to just go with it.

Take, for instance, Carrick Field. A perfect example in Stann's mind. His friends wanted to see if there were any signs of those smugglers - no, slavers - they were after. And what did they do? They started talking about seeing the count, of all people, or maybe checking if the merchants knew anything. Kellen even spoke of conducting some sort of magical ritual to find the trail of some substance the rune seeker claimed was exuded by a certain kind of creature that had been moved by the slavers. That, right there? That was overcomplicating things.

Why not just go to the ones who would be involved in it, on the local scene? Merchants? Maybe, but they wouldn't talk. The count? He was too far above it all, and wouldn't know anything. The farmers around the town? They would be far too busy with their fields right now to get involved in anything that took them away from their homes. No, the people who would know about this would be the ones who didn't have anything else to go to, the ones who would take your silver and ask no questions. The winter warrior turned his feet toward the cheapest tavern he could find, and then headed across the street from it to the hovels and shacks where those who couldn't even find the coin to drown their sorrows would be.

Following his gut, he stopped where a man in worn clothes and even more worn eyes sat watching the world pass him by. Not quite a beggar, but less than the person he might have been twenty years earlier, the man looked up from his makeshift seat of an old crate with the question plain on his face. What do you want, stranger?

"Might I could trouble you, friend?" Stann said easily, nodding in that way men do to each other, showing recognition for one another.

"What kind of trouble?" Most other people would have said how they weren't looking for trouble, but the man on the crate must have felt how even trouble might be better than where he was right now.

"Heard about anyone moving things they didn't want the constabulary to know about? Out of the elf forest?" The Northman nodded towards the west, where the wildlands waited far away.

"Always stories about dreamweed or feypoppies coming along the trade roads,” the downtrodden man replied cautiously.

"What about anything in chains or cages?" Stann asked.

The man scratched his beard and gave Stann a sidelong look. He had the kind of eyes that had seen things. Stann recognised that look. He had seen it from old veterans in the warriors’ longhouse back in Strom.

"Might have seen, might have not." He leaned forward on his crate, elbow resting on a knee. "This is where you make me an offer, Northman."

"Would five marks help you find your words, friend?" Stann counted out the silver coins in his hand.

"That they might. Be an old girl, goes by Jina. Far as I know, she worked the old soldier's trails through the Albar. Sometimes helped people move quiet-like from one end to the other."

"Is Jina still around? Where could I speak with her?"

"These days, I've seen her at the Singing Bear more often than not." The man motioned with a thumb down the street.

"Here are your coins, friend. Be safe." The winter warrior put the coins in the man’s palm, rather than simply dropping them there like a wealthy nobleman might do for a beggar.

"As ever."

The interior of the store smelled like leather and oil, and the lingering afternoon heat made it almost oppressively stuffy. Jaden idly browsed the shelves and tables with the displayed wares, but generally just hanging back to let Mirena ply her ways with the owner, a middle-aged mixed Albander-borderlander woman who looked like she'd rather close up and head home than talking with these last-minute patrons.

"Who? 'Toben'?" The owner ran a thumb along her thick, dark honey-brown braid that went over her left shoulder. "Do you mean old Tobbin? He's a shepherd who comes in from time to time to get his boots mended, or get sell skins and pelts."

"I'm quite sure it is Toben, out of Olmar? Since you're here right at the border, you might have run into him for one reason or another?" Mirena pried more subtly than her mystic friend would have had the patience to.

Maybe it was the strong smells and the bad air in the store, but it made Jaden's already hurting stomach feel worse. Her thoughts wouldn't stay in any one place for long. She was restless, tired and irritated all at once. Despite the heat, a part of her longed for a hot bath. Just to immerse herself in liquid fire and let herself be carried away on the scalding waves.

"Olman, eh? Come to think of it, wasn't there a Toben involved in that cheese business down there, somewhere? Veren or Tarad, I don't recall where."

"Veren cheese? They make some of my favourites," the knight shared with an easy smile.

"I guess I'm supposed to support the local sheep's milk cheeses, but I do love a slice of Veren Sharp every now and then," the older woman agreed.

Perhaps it was the talk about food, or maybe just the queasiness of the long boat ride catching up with her, but it suddenly became too much for Jaden. She felt something cramp up inside and hurried out of the store with a mumbled apology to her friend.

Fortunately, Jaden didn’t have to look long. One good thing with the Albander was their fondness for cleanliness, and public lavatories were available in most towns or villages, not like in Tier where you had to find an inn or bathhouse – paying for their full services, of course. She quickly shut herself into one of the small privies. She fought with the belt and her trousers briefly before sitting down. Only then did she allow herself to start shivering, letting all those feelings catch up, everything she had kept to herself. It hurt, but she had been hurt worse before. She gritted her teeth and decided she could live with this.

These matters were never easy to figure out, even among the Lacunai themselves. Most of them had a drop or two of another race, or something else, in their blood which made many biological matters more of a guesswork than not. The people of the mountain learned not to take anything for granted, and to expect anything. Maybe it wasn't so strange then, that she and Lilya didn't entirely follow the human cycle? Their mother's side of the family had always had a great deal of elven influence, who were seasonal rather than monthly.

Jaden washed her hands thoroughly with the water provided by a bucket to the side, hoping this would be the last of it for a while. Though, if her sister was any guideline there might be another day or two of this awfulness. How could she have ever teased her sister about these things? As an afterthought she channelled a whisper of her salamander’s magic, turning the stained cloth she left behind into ashes.

When Jaden left the lavatory, she almost ran into Mirena who was waiting outside. The look on the knight’s face was one of concern when their eyes met.

"Are you-"

"Rena, don't you dare ask me how I'm feeling again. Not now. Especially not now." Jaden shut the wooden door with deliberate firmness, her fingertips leaving smoking trails as her fiery touch lingered for just one more heartbeat.

"...Very well." Mirena inclined her head and tactfully let the matter drop. "I was unable to make much more headway with mistress Tenfield, nor her daughter-in-law who had spent some time across the border a couple of years ago. Whoever this Toben character is, he's not one of high profile."

"He probably likes it that way." The black-haired mystic folded her arms, more to do something with her hands than anything else.

"True. I'm afraid evening snuck up on us however. The stores are closing and we will most likely not find many more to talk with right now. Let's head back to the tavern and see if the others had better luck." Mirena turned half-way to the side and gestured in the direction where the Count of Cups awaited them at the far end of the street.

Jaden gave the lavatory another look, and then nodded at her friend. No doubt she would feel better tomorrow. A good night's sleep would sort her out.

The faint music reached Stann's ears even before he pushed the door completely open. Smells of stale beer, sweat and broken promises wafted at him as he made his way around the many round tables. The place was all but packed to the rafters with people from all those walks of life that hadn't been leading to fame, fortune or even dignity. Still, there was a certain kind of camaraderie among the patrons of the Singing Bear tavern.

Next to the bar sat an ash-blonde woman and strumming a lute in a melody the Northman vaguely recognised as an Albander military marching beat. She wore a wool shawl that covered most of her face, but failed to completely hide the scar that went across her throat. Stann dropped a couple of copper bits among the few other coin in the bowl next to her, earning a wordless smile for his generosity.

"Get you something, Northman?" The keeper flipped over a mug from the counter and jerked a thumb at the shelves behind him, showing a display of mixed hard drinks. Stann looked like he could afford the good stuff more than the other clientele.

"Got any of that Olman applejack?" Stann eyed the varied selection.

"Yeah. Have a friend of a friend working at a place just south of the river." The keeper poured some of the jack into the mug, and accepted the coin in return. He turned the silver mark over in his hand with a raised eyebrow. "Planning on doing a lot of drinking tonight?"

"With a friend. Wonder if you've seen her here lately? Jina. Trailhunter," the Northman asked.

"Yeah, that's her over there," the keeper pocketed the coin and indicated a table towards the other wall. His hand went back to the bottle of applejack. "Want to bring the entire thing?"

"Good idea. This is enough to cover it?" Stann dropped a couple of more coins that never hit the countertop before disappearing into the keeper’s pocket.

The keeper didn't say anything, but just tipped his cap and went back to busying himself. Whatever business the stranger had with Jina was none of his.

The winter warrior grabbed the bottle and two cups, and pushed past the crowd to the table the keeper had shown him. There were three people there, deep in drinks of their own. Two of them were women, but one looked too young to be woodwise, and wore the clothes of one who worked the street corners rather than the forest trails. The third was a bearded man, apparently asleep with his hands still clutching a jug of cheap rotgut.

"Hey, girl. Why don't you help greybeard here home. I bet he won't wake up until noon as it is." Stann suggested as he set down the bottle and the mugs on the table.

"But I have to-" the younger woman objected, glancing at another table, where a tattooed man was playing cards and smoking a pipe.

"No you don't. Not tonight." The tall Northman just shook his head.

"Yeah, okay." She fidgeted for a bit before giving the sleeping man a small shake.

While the girl, barely a woman, helped the old and mostly senseless drunkard to his feet, Stann settled down on one of the spare stools and began to pour the drinks. Throughout the whole exchange, the woman called Jina had been watching them with the kind of muted curiosity of a bystander who had forgotten how to care.

"Lot of trouble to go through, speaking to old Jina," she said, as Stann handed her one of the mugs.

"Don't sell yourself short, missy." The Northman flirted back. She wasn't really his type, and also a good ten years older but wore them like they were twenty. "But tonight I want you for your brain."

"Should've said that before you started ruining what little is left with this stuff," Jina grimaced at the strong drink, but held out her cup for a refill.

"I hear you sometimes help people through the woods?" Stann asked, putting the bottle down again after giving each mug a good spot of the apple brandy.

"Not as much these days, but a while back my friends and me did a lot of just that." Jina leaned against her chair and let her head roll back with a nostalgic look in her eyes.

"What happened?" Stann couldn’t help but feel sympathy for the woman.

"Got too greedy." Jina’s expression sharpened like she had tasted something sour.

Stann just pushed the entire bottle over towards Jina, who took it. Instead of immediately pouring another drink, she began to turn it around in her hands, looking at her own distorted reflection on the glass.

"We were good guides, you know. Never asking for too much. Used the quick trails, too. None of those loopy things to shake more coin out of the rubes." The woman tapped the table with a finger as she tried to make her point heard over the din in the tavern.

Stann made an encouraging sound.

"When something is too good to be true, usually turns out it is." Jina looked at the cork on the bottle like it was a fond enemy. "Month or so back, a man with gold in his pockets wanted us to help his wagon train through the Albar. Had the look of a nobleman to him. Spoke with Farcrest crispness, you know? City nobles."

"Go on," he said, urging Jina on.

"He wasn't alone. No-no. He had a number of people to guard the wagons, led by an Olman rough-hand who kept using some elfwords, all of them armed with those odd sickle-knives. The Olman did most of the talking while the nobleman just looked smug. That ain't unusual, of course. There was this hooded figure lurking by the wagons, though. Everyone seemed to look back at that one whenever there were any decision-making to be done, but I never saw hoody doing nothing but polishing that fancy brooch of theirs. Silver, like an oak leaf, see? Wouldn't mind having one of those myself." Jina cleared her throat, touching the simple bronze clasp that kept her dustcloak fastened. Her eyes lost their dreamy look, and instead turned angry. "But they also had Borderlander pathfinders! Bloody bluescarfed menaces. You don't bring scouts and trackers on a secret trail. Then it's not your trail anymore. But my friends, they only heard the sound of gold. They wanted the big pay, not thinking about tomorrow."

Stann took the bottle from her hands, and poured them another round.

"Then what happened?" He asked.

"I had bad feelings about the entire thing. Like a voice you couldn’t quite hear, singing to you. I tried to warn them, but they wouldn't listen. Ever since that Enold's gang got rooted out by a paladin contingent a couple of years back we've been pretty reckless. No, they ditched me here and took the job anyway. Never saw them since. Way I figure, the caravan killed them all and buried them somewhere in the great forest. Good riddance, I say. Good fucking riddance, you greedy idiots."

Jina trailed off, shaking a little as tears made their way down her cheeks. She wiped them away with the heel of her hand.

"What about that caravan? Was there anything odd about their cargo?" Stann steered her back to the present.

"The entire thing was all kinds of odd. I learned long ago to trust my gut instinct, and at that time it was yelling at me to fear those wagons like the plague. Get away from those wagons and that awful singing." The woman spat on the ground. "Gave me a bad feeling, right? Like rotten fruit. Looked normal enough, but you could tell that if you got too close, all you'd end up with was a mouthful of regret."

"Did they cross using the bridge or the river barges?" He nodded at the docks just down the street, where they had stepped off The Sweet only an hour earlier.

"Don't know. I wasn't there when they came across. But they hid at a known travellers' camp outside the village to the west, so I figure it was by ways of the span." Jina shrugged a little. The drink was getting to her, and her voice was slurring somewhat.

"Could they've been coming from further up the river?" Stann asked. The Odar snaked its way all the way to the coast in the east to the mountains in the west, making a natural, meandering line between the northern parts of the continent and the southern.

"I guess. But there would be no telling where they cast off or dropped anchor. The old river has a dozen hidden nooks and crannies along its run, and that's just in the midland and coastland regions. It gets even harder to tell in the borderlands." Jina had slumped down a little by now, drink and memories both wearing on an already tired heart.

"Good talk, Jina. For what's it's worth, those caravan people will have bad things coming to them." Stann promised. If he had any say about it, there would be some old-fashioned Northern justice done if he ever laid hands on those men.

"Won't bring my friends back, but maybe they'll rest easier. Kuros knows I won't." She shook her head. “I still hear that damn singing…”

When Stann left, the last he saw of the old trailhunter was her reaching for the bottle with a defeated expression.

As refreshments were brought to their table, Kellen cleared his throat to get the attention of his friends. Next to him stood the keeper, a kind-looking Albander man with a trimmed moustache and polish rag slung over a shoulder. He was scratching at his head a little at the sight of such a diverse group.

"You're welcome to stay here, of course, but your group are how many? We're about half full, you see." The keeper nodded at the rest of the room. Many of the tables were full. During the late summer and the harvest period, a lot of people were drawn to the larger towns to take part of the commerce that naturally sprung up around that time.

"We're seven," Stann held up a hand showing all fingers, and then only a moment later added two more from his other hand. He had to set down his mug of beer first, which was a hard thing to do on a warm summer evening.

"Well, we've got three singles and three doubles left. You can divide those among yourselves however you want. I'll check in with the kitchen while you talk it over."

"Hey, Rhyce? Two of us have to share rooms. Do you want to stay in my room so you won't have to listen to my ugly cousin snoring?" The warrior turned to the archer with his offer.

"You both snore,” Rhyce replied with his usual directness.

"Maybe, but he snores worse!" Stann looked triumphant.

"You both snore worse,” the archer insisted.

"How is that- That doesn't even-" Stann looked puzzled, while the archer snatched the keys from the keeper's hands when the man returned to take their orders.

"Can I have one of the single rooms?" Jaden asked her friends. "You know, for... obvious reasons?"

“That should be fine,” Kellen agreed. “In fact, why don’t each of us magicians take a room for ourselves, so that we can do our rituals in private tomorrow? I would welcome the privacy and… silence.”

“Unless there are any objections, I find that to be a good idea,” Mirena joined the discussion. She had been exchanging some words with one of the maids, who was now issuing some orders into the kitchen and then began hauling buckets of water towards the back of the inn. "Well, I am going to take the opportunity to enjoy a bath. It'll be three warm days riding along the dusty plains of Olmar before we will reach Tarad."

"Women and their bathing. More than once a week is a waste of good water. Am I righ, Kel?" Stann grinned and leaned back to bump his cousin on the arm with a fist.

"This conversation has all the makings of a trap," the older of the Winterheart men hunched down and used the cover of his current book as a shield against bad decisions.

Mirena was the spirit of generosity, however. Instead of falling for the temptation of the obvious come-back at the warrior's comment, she turned to Oleander, Alisan and Jaden.

"Would any of you like to accompany me?" She said, looking at the other women.

"It seems as a good suggestion," the pale elf stood up. Her wide-sleeved, off-white dress showed some definite wear from their days on the road. It was clearly not made for travelling in this fashion.

"Uh, Rena, I... We shouldn't..." The mystic got flushed with both embarrassment and anger. Mirena had included her just like she had Oleander and Alisan. Like a girl.

"The bathing room has several tubs, Jaden," the knight said with an amused expression. "We don't have to share."

"I'll, uh, wait until you're done. I've got things to... do." Jaden looked around a little, patting her pockets and clearing her throat.

Alisan blinked nonplussed, tilting her head a little to the side.

"Picture of a silver-tongued demon, you," Oleander snorted but got up to join Mirena and Alisan. This way she didn't have to nick the good soaps from the knight like she usually did anyway.

Jaden gave the redhead a good look at her tongue before the other women left for the baths.

More drinks and light snacks were brought to their table while they waited for the food to be prepared. They’d told the kitchen to take their time since the women would no doubt linger in their baths. Stann had wandered over to a local card game, and was quickly offered a chair for the next hand. By the sounds coming from that table now, the warrior was already half-way into a re-telling of their first adventure here in Carrick Field. It was a story Jaden had heard too many times before, especially since she had been there when it happened.

The rune seeker had dived into his books. Kellen wasn’t a fast reader. He was the sort of man who would read a sentence over and over, twist it and turn it in his head to try to divine every ounce of wisdom from each word. He treated books like fine liquor or a good play, giving it his undivided attention. Rhyce had stayed only for a short while, before mumbling something on his way out of the door.

"Hey, Kel?" Jaden turned to the only person left at their table. A strange feeling had gnawed on her ever since the Northern magician had mentioned rituals earlier.

"Hmm?" Kellen looked up.

"Can we talk hypothetically for a moment?" The black-haired mystic pushed some loose strand back over her ear, and then immediately combed it down with her fingers to cover the points on both sides.

"My favourite way of discussion." The rune seeker carefully placed a slip of leather between the pages to mark his spot in the book, before turning his attention to the black-haired mystic. "What subject are we almost talking about?"

"Magic, of course." A mystic and a rune seeker had little else in common, after all.

"Of course." There was a subtle change in the large man's expression as his mental gears changed in preparation for what was ahead.

"All magicians perform meditative rituals," Jaden stated.

"False. All recognised traditions affiliated with the Convocation of Magi do, in one way or another, and many that are not part of the compact are bound by this habit. But not all. The dwarven eldritch smiths of the Brass Clan make no such regular preparations, for instance, although it could be argued that the process when they perform their craft is a meditation in of itself. Also, the untrained magicians – the Ashan - who never became inducted into any tradition also have no unified method of regulating their magical energies.” Kellen used the old Estal word for the undisciplined. Even though he didn’t speak old imperial himself, many of the words appeared in a wizard’s vocabulary. “One of the reasons why many fear the untrained, since it can lead to... unfortunate meltdowns."

"Uh." Jaden blinked, her line of thought entirely derailed by the Northman's sudden lecture.

"But for the sake of this discussion, let's assume these are just the exceptions, and that magicians - as a rule - all perform ritualistic maintenance." The rune seeker leaned back to nonverbally hand over the ball.

"Yes. Please. Lets." Jaden felt a little out of her depths when the conversation turned to this level. The Lacunai kept a close watch on the other traditions, but didn’t spend much time teaching the ways of the other groups to their initiates. The young first had to learn to listen to the will of the mountain.

"Then go on." Kellen made an encouraging motion with a hand.

"Right. So, rituals. Do you know about any circumstances that would alter the... result of the preparation ritual?" The mystic didn’t truly know how to put what she was thinking into words.

"Hypothetically?" Kellen rumbled while stroking his moustache.

"Yeah, sure," she lied.

"Hmm. One analogy that has been used, sometimes, to explain the rituals to our more mundane brethren is that it's like a soldier keeping his weapons and armour in good condition. That is, of course, a gross simplification. More accurately, it would be a gardener watering and seeding and weeding his patch of land. By doing so, he can be sure that what he desires will grow, and that it will be good and strong. Without it, something would still grow, but it might not be what he intended. Neglect the garden for too long, and nature reclaims it, as well as the house and the gardener himself. Magic is a powerful force, not to be disregarded as a simple tool."

"I heard a similar explanation from one of my masters.” Viskeri had favoured the sculptor and clay analogy. “But, what if that gardener went on a trip for a while. And what if, when he got back, he saw that the garden was still in order. Everything was fine?"

"Are we still talking hypothetically?" Kellen gave the young woman whom he called his little brother a steady look.

"Why wouldn't we be?" Jaden put up her best blank-faced look. It wasn’t lying. Not really.

"Why indeed. Well, the first thing that springs to mind would be that either the magician had an exceptionally ordered mind where arcane erosion would take longer than usually to set in. Or, he would be so magically weak that the erosion isn't strong enough to damage the psyche to begin with. In any situation where the willpower is greater than the magic-power, there would be resistance to erosion."

"That makes sense." Jaden wondered which of the two she was. Was she that strong willed? Her magic strength wasn't particularly weak or strong. When compared to the other initiates she had studied alongside back home in Talraman, she had been in the middle of the span. While she had been very good at siphoning techniques, and been allowed to perform her spirit quest slightly earlier than most, she didn't have the raw power that others had. She still only had two pacts to her name, after all. When had Lilya managed to get her third? How far was Jaden behind her sister?

"Did that answer your question?" Kellen saw that Jaden’s attention was wandering. Those golden eyes looked sideways, out of a window.

"Yeah, kind of. Thanks, Kel." Jaden roused herself with a small shake.

"Anytime, little brother." The rune seeker opened his book once more and was just about to move the bookmark away from the page when he looked up from underneath bushy eyebrows and gave the mystic a pointed look. "You know you can talk to me about anything that might be on your mind, right?"

"I do. I know. Thank you, big guy," Jaden smiled genuinely and touched the large Northerner's hand briefly before getting up.

The warm water made the room slightly steamy. The bathing room had no windows for privacy reasons, instead only a chimney-like vent to let all the warm and moist air out between uses. It was a large enough room, with five wooden tubs set a few paces apart. There were a number of separation curtains that could be pulled along rods jutting out of the walls, to provide even more personal space for the individual bather.

Oleander sat at a stool next to her tub, drying her hair with a towel. It usually dried by itself, but ever since she decided to grow it out more it had started to stay wet for long enough to annoy her. She paused in her rubbing motions to glare out from under the rumpled cloth at the elf and the knight, both who wore their hair long yet didn't seem to share her problem. Instead Mirena just continued combing her long, brown hair with a relaxed expression. Alisan's hair appeared to more or less take care of itself. Elven wizardry, no doubt. Pointy-eared cheaters, all of them. Oleander blew a few red strands out of her face. At least the elf woman was closer to her in other ways. Both of them were slim, almost entirely flat, much unlike the Tierin knight who filled out the towel wrapped around her. Oleander sighed and wondered if it'd be nice to be less small. Sure, it might make her usual athletic lifestyle harder, but maybe some people would notice her more if she had a little extra to show?

"Jaden seems to be a very self-conscious person." Alisan mused out loud, rousing the redhead from her introspection.

"I guess?" Oleander replied.

"She did not join us for a bath, and now she asks for a single room. Is it because of her half-blood nature? I am not a judgemental person, in those matters. I would have welcomed sharing a room with her."

"Well, it's like this, Creampuff," the redhead leaned forward to explain. "Jaden is really a guy."

"I see," Alisan nodded slowly.

"Do you?" Oleander asked.

"No. Not at all." The elf looked confused, with her nearly white eyebrows drawn down in consternation. "Why is Mirena laughing at us?"

Despite the heat of the summer evening, Rhyce kept his hood up as he walked along the back streets of Carrick Field. The sound of wings announced the arrival of the two pairs of eyes that kept a vigilant watch from high above. One landed on a nearby roof while the other caught an updraft and soared away.

Arriving at an intersection, where an alley split off into two coming from one of the larger squares of the east side of the town, the archer saw a group pass by just a few yards away. A man and a woman, holding the hands of their children. Probably heading back home now that evening were getting closer. The mother was carrying a basket, with a blanket and an empty bottle showing. The son was telling his father a story. Rhyce pressed himself flat against the wall and shut his eyes, but even if he couldn’t see, he still heard. He could still hear them.

In his mind, he was holding the hand of another boy. Eyes just like his looking up, happy. Had it been that long ago? Why did it still feel like yesterday?

A noise came from around the corner. Something falling over with a crash. Rhyce leaned out from his hiding place and saw the boy on his knees, a barrel fallen on its side with rainwater spilling out. The boy was holding his leg. Had he fallen, trying to balance on the barrel? Showing his father what he could do?

A scrawny-looking man hurried into the alley from the other side, shouting, making more noises. What had they done? Why did they break his things? The man grabbed the boy’s arm, thrusting a finger at the father. Harsh words. The girl hid behind the mother. The happiness and safety was gone from their eyes.

Rhyce didn’t even remember stepping out of the shadows. One moment, he was just standing there with his hands on the scrawny man, holding him with an arm locked behind his back pressed up against a window. The man’s face made a squeaky sound as it pushed against the glass.

“Go. Leave,” the archer said to the parents. “Take good care of them. You don’t know how precious what you have is.”

They didn’t question him, only mumbled their thanks and hurried away. Rhyce pushed the man to the ground and stared at him for a while. With a kick he sent him on his way, too. In another direction, into the darkness of the alleyway where they belonged. Rhyce tugged the hood further down, and followed.

Soon the smell of blood and death caught his attention, and he followed the trail to a storefront. Through the window, he could see a dour-faced woman work at the sheep carcasses with her butchering knife, the broad blade dripping with each heavy-handed chop. Along the open window were a number of dried flowers, possibly to bring a more pleasant smell to the room. Or maybe it was for the passer-by’s benefit? The borderlander narrowed his eyes when, among the innocuous flowers, he noticed a twig of hemlock in each bundle. An untrained eye might have thought of it as parsley or fennel. He had seen it before, back in Tier. Was it a coincidence?

A motion in the corner of Rhyce's consciousness made him step back into the shadows of an alleyway, blending with the surrounding urban landscape. It was just a group of children playing, chasing a ball that bounced along the dirty street. His second pair of eyes took to the air, searching for a new sign of that sensation that had brushed across his inner world when they had entered the town, and after watching the young boys disappear around a corner, Rhyce turned and headed away as well.

How do you track that which is invisible? By the sound of its passing. How do you follow that which makes no noise? By the impressions it makes in the world. How do you find that which is not of this world? By not being fully part of it either. Rhyce's hand ached.

He looked to the darkening skies, his eyes peeling away the cover of the evening to show the two black birds that circled high above.

"Widening pattern. Indirect signs of taint. Dead cattle, plants, trees. Go. Seek." He turned east and reached even further, the faintest whispers from allies he had left to watch and wait. "Seb. Compare scent with grey house, on hill that stinks of perfume. River King. Watch prisoner. Pepperbell. Oceanside slaughterhouse. Hemlock?"

Rhyce felt his heart clench tight, and could taste blood in his mouth. When he coughed again, he felt some of the wetness stick to his hand. His head was pounding. It wasn't wise to stretch so thin, to try to reach too far. He didn't have the training or the power. He had the will, but it would only take him so far before something gave out. It was too late to change that now, however. Ashan. Untrained. But not undisciplined. He clenched his hand tightly, ignoring the pain in his palm and in his body.

"Go and do," he said to the wind as much as to himself. Don't stop. Just do.

The Boathouse

River King padded along the planks of the pier, past the two-legs and into his castle. There was an offering of fish waiting for him by his bed, which was as it should be, but at the moment he had something that needed doing.

He slipped into the place with the many tall places for him to sit, where by one of the royal scratching posts was his target. A two-leg sat by the post, its front paws still tied. It smelled like a predator, wounded but dangerous. It wasn't doing much at the moment, but if it did, River King would be there to see it. He jumped up on one of the boxes and settled down to stare at his prisoner. As an afterthought he flexed his claws, just to make sure they both knew who was in charge here.

Farcrest

"Get back here, ye foul mongrel!" The nice man who gave Seb food said with his outdoor's voice when Seb ran out of the house so many strangers kept visiting.

Seb didn't like leaving the house alone. He liked the nice man, but he liked his master more. When the master said Seb needed to go smell something, then Seb would go and smell it.

It was a long run to get to the hill where it smelled like flowers and bubbles instead of woodsmoke and dizzy-water, but when Seb got there it wasn't hard to find the grey house the master wanted to him to smell.

Seb ran his nose around the ground outside the house for a very long time. Eventually, a nice person opened a door and almost ran into him.

"Why, aren't you a cute one? Yes you are!" The nice woman spoke softly, and scratched Seb behind an ear. "But you don't live here, do you? You run along now."

Seb caught a whiff of scents from inside the house, enough for the master to be happy. Seb barked a farewell and turned to run back home.

Tier

There were too many feet stomping far below. It was much better up here, on the ledges, on the rooftops and the walls. Pepperbell jumped gracefully from the windowsill to a wall that ran alongside one of the streets. She twitched her whiskers, and then strutted along with her tail held high. She knew all the secret paths. She was a mistress of the rooftops. At least as long as those two black ones weren't here. Pepperbell hissed angrily. They had escaped her for now, but there would always be another time. Oh yes.

She poked her head over the tiles and peered down at the houses by the water. One of the buildings was broken. This was where The Speaking One had wanted her to go. She snuck down to the ground, careful to not put her paws into anything she didn't want to lick clean later. With a skip and a hop she climbed around on the rubble, digging up the old scents. Yes, this was just like the Speaker said. Poison-green.

It was a little strange. When they were on the road, it felt fine to sleep next to one another around the fire. Nobody questioned this. But once they came to a town, and could rest at a tavern or inn, it suddenly felt wrong to sleep in the same room as other people. If Jaden shared a room with any of the men, she would feel self-conscious when she undressed for bed. In the same vein, sharing with a girl would seem just as strange. Just like being in the baths with them. She wasn't one or another, one foot in either world, yet part of neither.

Jaden sat down on the bed in the single bed room, feeling a sudden stab of loneliness. Her hand ran across the fabric of her backpack, her fingers plucking at the clasps. It wasn't the same pack she had brought with her from Talraman. That one she had lost while running for her life through the Khuul Barrows in the Etrian desert. She missed it, and the Talram clothes she had kept inside it. It seemed like she lost clothes all the time, like the world slowly stripped thin layers of her identity away. What would be left underneath?

She began to unpack her new clothes, silks and fine cottons from the seamstresses of Farcrest. Her hand touched against something rougher at the bottom of the bag. A pair of wool trousers she hadn't had the heart to throw away. Her man trousers. Her last pair. She rubbed her fingers on the solid cloth, missing that sturdy feel of it. Nothing like the flimsy leggings she wore these days.

With a sigh, she stuffed the trousers back into her pack, and instead looked at her small collection of blouses, vests and jackets, as well as the number of backless tops she had been cajoled into buying. Admittedly, the knowledge that these wouldn't leave her bare to the world if she needed to manifest her spirit-form was reassuring. She had to unlace her bodice before she was able to peel off her slightly sweaty yellow, apron-like top. She set both items aside, to be washed by the maids working at the inn.

The feeling of air against her bare chest made her skin prickle, sending just another reminded about how different her shape was these days. With a disgusted grunt she grabbed one of the blouses from the stack of clothes and shrugged into it. Her hands began to automatically lace it up.

Jaden paused as the laces were drawn tight. Had she always been unable to lace it all the way to the top? Why would she have bought a blouse that would leave this much skin bare, this much... exposure? If she added the bodice to this, it would push everything up into a very generous display, almost swelling out of the half-cups worked into the supporting garment. She couldn't have grown bigger, could she?

The mystic almost caught herself looking around, even though she was in the room by herself. It was silly, but somehow it still felt wrong to touch her own body too intimately. So she squeezed her eyes shut and pretended that she wasn't blushing as she set her palms on the soft mounds of her breasts. Were they larger than before? Was it just her imagination? Ever since she had turned her ability to siphon magic against the demon of Redwall, Amucia the Lectii temptress, it had caused her changes to accelerate in leaps and bounds. Almost as if it had fed the spirit within. After she had been forced to manifest her spirit-form in Tier, while fighting the Sons of Husk, there had only been small swells. Easily hidden by baggy clothing. But after Jaden had briefly stolen the power of the demon, there had been much more waiting for her in that department after she had shed her spirit's form. Now, they just felt swollen and sore. But that would pass, she imagined. At least for now.

Suddenly, the door pushed open, causing a brief gust of wind to rush through the open window.

"Hey, Jaden? The girls are done in the bath now. The coast is clear if you want to- WOAH!" Stann managed to duck back so that the thrown boot didn't hit him. Instead it bounced against the opposite door with a loud thump.

"BEAR! Shut the door!" Jaden all but shrieked.

"Oh!" Stann eased the door almost closed, allowing a small sliver open so they could talk. Even with the door between them, he still turned around to keep his back towards the mystic. The glimpse he had gotten, though… "Uh, sorry about that. Didn't know you were already getting ready for your bath."

"I wasn't... I mean, sure. Yeah. Just... just don't barge in unannounced again, okay? I could've been wearing even less." Jaden pulled at her straining blouse to get it further down to cover her bottom, but that only threatened to have her spill out of the top.

"Promise?" The warrior's voice had a wide grin to it.

"Bear!" She complained loudly while looking around for her trousers.

"Yeah, yeah. Don't get your ears in a twist. Want me to tell the maids to heat up more water for you?"

"No, it's alright. Just have them pour the tub. I'll handle it myself." At the moment, her face felt warm enough to boil water by itself.

"If you say so, firebug." Stann gave the door a few thumps with his palm in affirmation, and then pushed it shut completely.

Inside her room, Jaden sunk down to the floor with her back to the bed, clutching the trousers in her hands. Her heart was pounding and her eyes stung. It didn't make any sense. She shouldn't have to hide anymore, but she still did. Why would she care if anyone saw, now? Stann wasn’t afraid of anyone seeing him the way he was born, so why should Jaden be? If she was a man, she should act like one. All this... shame didn't do her, or anyone else, any good.

Jaden remained on the floor for a while, her fingers idly picking at the trousers. Finally, she dried her face on the hem of her blouse and got up. She was going to have a bath, and a very manly one at that. Whatever that meant. She grabbed her towel and headed out the door.

After a second, she came back inside the room and got her sword as well. If you were going to man-bathe, there were no half measures about it.

It was a little later, while Oleander and the other women were still up in their rooms getting into a fresh change of clothes. Rhyce had returned as quietly as he had left, with as little of an explanation. It was almost as if he didn’t expect anyone to notice he had been gone, but instead settled down into the chair he had left earlier. None took notice the fresh, dark droplets on the sleeve of his leather jerkin.

"Did you see Jay when he got out of the bathing room?" Kellen looked at the men around the table, stroking his moustache in thought.

“Yeah, she wasn’t in there very long.” Stann grinned back, shaking his head a little. "Also, she doesn't know how to wrap herself in those towels as well as the girls do, does she?"

"Well, there's that. But he was also holding his sword. Had a bit of an expression, too. Should we be worried about another Bathhouse Incident? I don't want this to turn into Etrana all over again." Bits of masonry and torn metal had rained over the surrounding blocks back then.

"Maybe she was just making sure none of the local yokels got any ideas into their heads? I know I sometimes bring a dirk into the bath, in case of cult assassins or Skinwalkers." Stann turned his beer cup around in his hands. "We live strange lives, cousin."

"Sensible," the archer agreed with a nod. He approved of being ready for eventualities. Having your weapon outside your reach could mean the difference between life and death.

"While I agree in theory, the moment I hear an explosion I reserve the right to say 'I told you so'." The rune seeker rapped his cup on the table.

"Noted," Stann accepted the terms, and waved over one of the maids to give the table a needed refill.

It was near closing time, with most of the honest-working patrons already on their way to the door, when Jaden and her friends all found themselves seated around one of the tables in the mostly empty common room.

"Well, it was worth a try. Sadly, we didn’t manage to find out anything new about the people moving these poor creatures from their homes in the wildlands to whatever end they're being sold into," Mirena spoke with carefully managed disappointment. She put a great deal of trust in her ability to negotiate her way through the mercantile scene, and when etiquette fell short, she could always rely on people's respect for her authority as a knight of the Five Temples. But today she had been unable to either cajole or command what they needed.

"As soon as I can perform my reversed drawstone ritual on a few more places, I should be able to triangulate a number of points to show what path the slavers used while transporting their cargo. We know for a fact that they carried a dryad at one point, and those fey leave a trail for us to follow if we look for the changes their presence made in the vegetation or soil." Kellen never used few words when many would do just as well. He also seldom spoke hastily, but instead rumbled on in an endless exposition of his thoughts or intentions. The rune seeker spoke like a historian writing a book. Given Kellen's excellent memory, maybe he was.

"Well, at least the day wasn't a complete loss. Stann, did you discover anything while you were off on your own?" Mirena turned to the warrior.

"Oh, I don't know. I got into contact with a woman who met with the slavers at one point. Her friends and she works as forest guides. That is, they help people use the old paths the Alband military used during the times we last invaded them. She turned their offer down, feeling that they were no people she wanted any business with, but her friends felt otherwise. They went without her, leading the slavers through the hidden backways, and that was the last she saw of either of them." Stann was speaking casually the entire time, like it was no big deal.

Oleander shut her mouth with an audible click of teeth. Her surprised expression, mirrored by most of the others, quickly changed to a triumphant grin. She thrust one of her small fists into the air.

"Street smarts: one, wizards and rich people: nought. Take that, book-readers!" She turned slightly to show how she was on Stann’s side, while pointing with both hands at the rest of the table.

"Don't say 'book-readers' like it's an insult, Ollie," Jaden complained to the redhead sitting next to her. "Also, you didn't do any of that."

"I didn't have any time to! Kel needed me to ferret out a local potter who could sell us some of that special clay our giant wizard friend likes to use." Oleander shot a look at Kellen, whose hands still bore stains from working with the clay. "He's such a dirt-snob. 'Just use normal clay', I said, but no~. He had to use the special kind."

"It has a much better capacity to host the enchantments, little fox," the rune seeker explained.

"But, Ollie, if you helped Kellen the entire time... doesn't that mean you were on Team Wizard, instead of Team Street-smarts this time?" Jaden put a hand to her mouth like she was shocked at the realisation.

"What? No! I can do both. Everyone benefits from my wise counsel." Oleander stuck her tongue out at Jaden. "Also, what did you do? All I saw was you standing around and looking constipated. Were you magicking?"

"No..." The mystic really hadn't contributed all that much. She had followed Mirena along since that seemed to mostly involve sitting. Though sitting or standing didn't seem to do that much of a difference for the discomfort that had been her most unwelcome companion for the last couple of days. Her clothes felt too tight, and there was a headache lurking just out of sight. At least she now knew she didn't have food poisoning, like she had thought, but she didn't really have any appetite either. If she had her way, she would just crawl back down into the tub of really hot water, or curl up in a bed somewhere. That’s what Lilya used to do, anyway.

"Please, let Stann continue," Mirena asked of the bickering two, turning the conversation back on track.

"Truth be told, there wasn't all that much to it. Jina said she barely had a chance to actually see their wagons, since she met with them at the edge of town." The winter warrior spread his hands in defeat. "However, she could tell me a few things about the people she was talking to. Their spokesman had a west-Olman accent; you know the kind where they use some elf-words in their talk."

"You said 'spokesperson', not leader. Was that intentional?" Mirena followed up.

"Yeah. She got the impression one of the others was actually the one pulling the strings, but they wore a hood. She also saw a couple of borderlanders wearing pathfinder neckerchiefs. They hung back from the rest, trying to look inconspicuous."

"That Sorun-touched cant is almost exclusive to Tarad and the surrounding area. You don't hear anyone using it further away from the edge of the wildlands." Oleander had lost some of her own Tarad brogue over the year and a half since she and Jaden had left seeking adventure elsewhere. It only came up when she was talking very fast, or was upset. Jaden felt that it sounded cute.

"And that hooded figure could've been anyone," Kellen concluded. "Did this woman notice anything else about these people?"

"Well, she told me two more things that stuck to me. One: aside from the Tarad man and the posh-sounding Alband wagonleader, there was that hooded figure, the borderlanders, and a couple of Olman knifemen. She said that their blades were curved, almost like sickles."

"The Iron Ring! That makes sense, in a scary sort of way. That guy at the cartel's boathouse, Savus? He was one of them. I knew I recognised that style," Oleander exclaimed loud enough that people across the common room shot looks their way. She didn’t care, though. Her mind was abuzz with the things she had heard about the secret guild of thieves and assassins, growing up in Tarad. The things she had seen crept up from half-forgotten memories, too. There had been a time when she didn’t think twice about checking the pockets of a recently dead body dropped off in an alley.

“That could be important, Oleander. We will get back to that in a moment. Stann, was there something else?” Mirena tried to keep the discussion going in an ordered fashion.

"Yeah. Second: that hooded one had a silver brooch shaped like a leaf. Not sure if it’s important, but Jina clearly felt it was worth mentioning."

The rest were silent, standing and thinking about if they had seen anything like that before, and in what situation. Alisan was the first to raise her head. She had a distinctly uncomfortable expression on her face.

"Did that brooch appear as an oak leaf?" The pale elf spoke with her lilting accent, but the trepidation was clear in her voice.

"Yeah, I think that's what she said. Was that important?" Stann looked around to see if anyone were connecting dots when he wasn’t.

"If it was, then the mysterious hooded person was a member of the wordshapers of Ral Sona." There was something close to sadness touching Alisan’s features. She had found a clue she had been looking for, but didn’t like what it meant.

"I'm sorry, Alisan. We knew that there had to be some connections back to Ral Sona for an organisation like this to be able to do what they do. At least now we know where to begin." Mirena put her hand on the elf's arm, giving the other woman a reassuring squeeze. Alisan didn’t look especially comforted.

"What is a 'wordshaper'? Some kind of wizard?" Oleander asked nobody in particular.

"They're like librarians, I guess. With a little bit of teacher and artist added to the weave," Jaden explained, having visited the libraries of the grand elven city when she had been a younger boy. The wordshapers had been the custodians of the vast knowledge of the ageless elves.

There was a period of silence, only interrupted by someone taking a drink or moving in their chair. Oleander slowly pulled the crust off a piece of bread in one long strip.

"I believe it is time for us to put our heads together," Mirena announced once silence had returned to the table.

"Where do we stand, what do we know?" Stann clarified. It was something both of them had experience of from their respective martial backgrounds, to gather everyone up and make sure they were on the same page. "Who wants to start us off?"

"Well, I was there at the beginning... with Jay," Oleander spoke first. She kept tapping her fingertips against the table while she talked, a nervous habit she couldn't seem to get rid of. "We saw these cages being brought into a warehouse in the Farcrest harbours, and Jay said there was magic in them."

"We were curious, so we decided to look a bit closer," Jaden continued, speaking softly. It was a painful day for her, reliving the moments when she lost her face. "When we got into the storage house, we found a great number of captive creatures, ranging from tasslewyrms and dracones to bluewings. They even had a dryad still holding on to the remains of her tree."

"That poor girl," the redhead mumbled, recalling the dying forest spirit.

"That's when we began looking into the operation," Mirena took over, reaching out to put her hand on Oleander's. "The people who handled the warehouse and shipping out of Farcrest were Delev and Orist of the trading company of the same name. There were a number of discrepancies that showed up when we began investigating them, however."

"Like how they managed to keep mystic enforcers on their payroll," Kellen weighed in. Sorcerers were one thing. Several businesses made use of the Arcane Order's services at one point or another, but the Lacunai Mystics were, as Jaden often pointed out, not for hire.

"Also, how they managed to transport captive, intelligent beings through Alband without raising any alarms. Unlike Etria or Gion, Alband don't condone or tolerate slavery. While you could argue whether tasslewyrms are truly aware, there's no doubt about dryads," the knight concluded.

Alisan nodded vigorously, and splayed her fingers on the tabletop, feeling the grooves in the wooden planks.

"My friends and I have become aware of similar strange events happening in Ral Sona. Despite the wildland concord, it seems as if someone is making incursions into the fey reaches for exploitative reasons. That is why I elected to follow the trail that led me to Farcrest, and the same warehouse." The elf summarised her journey briefly. "Up until now, however, we had only our suspicions about how deep the corruption went."

"While it is not absolute proof, Stann's witness - this Jina woman - described what could be the pin of a Ral Sona 'wordshaper'. Alisan? Would a wordshaper have the influence to authorise and conceal any operations inside the feylands?"

"No. The wordshapers are a part of the same caste as I, but keep and care for all knowledge for the good of the two people. They have no practical power, such as those of the ruling caste. It is possible that a member could apply political influence, however, in some way." The pale elf spoke hesitantly, still a little unnerved by the turn of events.

"Well, it's a start. We can go to the library there and see if anything looks out of place," Stann nodded. He wouldn’t know what to look for, but that’s why he kept his ugly cousin around, after all.

"That should not prove too much of an obstacle. The wordshapers are reluctant to leave their halls of knowledge, and asking for a one who has recently departed the city should narrow our search," Alisan readily agreed.

"We also know that whoever is running this make use of small-time smugglers along the Odar route. We ran into one of them by the cartel's boathouse who claimed that he was there to shift the blame toward the cartel. He also mentioned working for a man named Toben of Tarad." Kellen picked up where they had left off, moving them along to the present day.

"While it is not much, some of the merchants here confirmed knowing of a Toben in Tarad, a cheesemaker by profession. Anyone you know of, Oleander?" Mirena turned to the redhead, who had been a little quiet ever since hearing about the involvement of the Iron Ring.

"Not really my old scene, but I doubt it'll take long to find someone like that once we get there," Oleander replied. She was already starting to think about ways to go about it. Some of them might even work.

"We have parts of the 'how' and the 'where', even some of the 'who'. Following up on these, we can only hope to find the 'why' and 'when'." The rune seeker ticked each item off on his sausage-like fingers, looking at his friends while he did so.

"Next stop: Tarad."

The tall, thin man walked along the side streets of the town as the sun began to settle behind the mountains, allowing the night to rule once more. His hand was never far from the satchel at his side, touching the treasure that was his once more. It had been painful to be separated from it for so long. It had made many things very inconvenient. His caress awakened the energy stored within the idol, many years of careful harvesting for the lean days that would inevitably follow the bountiful ones.

As their magic intermingled, it made him aware of the living caches he kept around the world. It was a surprise to notice how there were two receptacles within immediate reach, when he had expected only one. Still, once a particular soul was chained to his phylactery, its body was free to continue with whatever it had previously been doing. It was entirely possible that one had decided to move to this town.

With measured steps he made his way back to the place where he had been residing during his extended stay in the town. Shortly after his bony knuckled knocked upon the door, it swung open to reveal a face stained with both sweat and suspicion. Once the matronly woman saw who was waiting at her door, she stepped back to allow him entry through the back-door into the place where she performed her art. Long slabs were laden with sheep carcasses, and from the rafters there were countless unplucked fowls dangling in a slow dance macabre.

The smell of salt and blood was heavy in the butcher's workshop, and the only light came from a couple of thick tallow candles in the iron chandelier. The candlelight made the suspended flesh cast strange shadows along the walls.

"Harvester. You return," said the woman, wiping her hands on the dirty leather apron that protected her simple, dark grey wool dress from the worst of her trade.

"My original business here is concluded, Ageada. I wonder if this would be a good community in which to begin my work anew?" The tall man considered the town and its people. It might be enough.

"I am your servant, as were my grandparents before me, Harvester," the woman performed a rough curtsey, as the stiff apron would allow. "There arrived a message while you were out, however."

"Then show me," Jeddhar commanded with his painfully dry voice.

The woman, Ageada, walked over to a slab left empty except for a foot high object covered with a canvas. Upon removing the cloth, the pigeon in the cage woke up and began cooing. Deftly, she opened the hinged side and took a hold of the bird with a careful but firm hand. She stroked the pigeon to calm it down as she joined the nethermancer by another table.

"It bears the markings of your own cabal, Harvester," Ageada said. The bird still had the small green and gold ribbon around a foot.

"Then some of my men survived the... purge. That is good to know. Let us interpret the message." With that, Jeddhar took the bird from the woman's hands, and put it down on the table. The pigeon had stopped cooing, and moving. Instead it lay completely paralysed, and didn't make a noise as the nethermancer turned it over on its back, exposing its belly to his fingers.

Jeddhar performed the haruspicy with an almost bored expression, the practice long since routine to one such as he. Once he had exposed the entrails of the bird, he ran his bony fingers along the various passages in the flesh. Yes, this was indeed sent by one of his. It was a warning. The ones who had put fire to his home in the golden city were headed in his direction even now.

With a disgusted grunt, Jeddhar flung the ruined pigeon from the table with a swipe of his arm. It took time and effort to set up a cabal, to get into the practice of the rites and sacrifices, to build a power-base. He would be far too vulnerable if a paladin showed up so soon. Carrick Field was not for him. Not today.

"Bad news, Harvester?" Ageada asked, having been a faithful enough a servant to dare do so. She knew that the Harvester before her was unlike the others. He would not waste the useful if there was another way, and she had been very useful for the Sons of Husk.

"Inconveniences seem to haunt me this season." The nethermancer straightened up, his head nearly reaching the chandelier. "I shall have to leave immediately. You know what you need to do, Ageada, just like your grandparents did when I recruited them."

"I serve the inheritors, always," the heavy-sat woman grabbed the cleaver from the slab, and gave the nethermancer a bow as the tall man left her abode. Those who were sworn to the Husk like her would serve in life or in death.

The morning arrived with a warm southern wind coming from across the wide river. It was almost as if the skies themselves were beckoning, a quiet call on the breeze.

When Jaden’s opened her eyes, she thought for a moment that she had left the oil lamp burning throughout the night, the room was so bright even with the shutters and curtains both closed. Then, between one blink of the eyes and the next, that strange illumination faded to the hidden dawn light she had grown up expecting from a morning. She sat up, rubbing her eyes, the oddity soon forgotten when years of habit reasserted itself.

Jaden had kept the conversation she had yesterday in mind when she had prepared for bed, and left a small bag lying on the bedside table near the lamp. She picked at the knot holding the strings drawn shut and finally spilled the contents into her lap while sitting with her legs tucked to the side on the bed. There was the red candle, a focus for the fire of her salamander. There was the small, empty jar with the lid screwed tight, a symbol of the missing air of her breathstealer. Finally, there was the brass chain. She felt each link as she ran it through her fingers. It was a representation of her bond with her spirit. She hated that chain.

Carefully, she placed the candle and the jar on each side. If she ever added more contracts, they would form an increasingly obvious circle around her, but for now there were just two. Maybe it was time for her to consider another pact? The chain she kept in her hands. The spirit would not be placed with the contracts, after all. Those bonds were much too different.

Jaden closed her eyes and looked for the source of her magic within. She had always imagined it like standing on a peak of the mountains, surrounded by a raging storm. Little by little, she pulled clouds from those roiling skies and sent them toward the burning beacon that was the candle, or the greedy maw that was the jar, until the sky was calm and clear. At least, that was how she had done it for many years, ever since forming her first contract with Valignat the Salamander. Today, when Jaden looked inside, she found only empty skies with hardly a cloud. The chain felt warm in her hands.

When she opened her eyes, the wick of the candle had lit, and the air inside the jar had turned a smoky grey.

Breakfast had been a quick and simple affair. The keeper and serving maids had rolled a big pot around on a clever wheeled table, scooping up porridge for any of the guests who felt like eating. To their credit, it was actually quite good, with pieces of apple and berries found inside. Jaden even felt like having a second portion, her stomach being much more cooperative today, but one look at Alisan made her put her bowl down.

The mystic didn’t know if anyone else noticed since there was a lot of talking around the table, but as they ate she saw Rhyce drop his spoon twice, before finally using his other hand. After that, he kept his left hand underneath the table.

Once they were finished, it fell on Stann and his cousin to see to their horses. The knight and the pale elf had retreated upstairs to fold their freshly laundered clothes, leaving Jaden, Oleander and Rhyce to find something else to do until it was time to leave.

While Carrick Field was no Farcrest, and certainly no Tier, it still had some stands and shops offering sweets or useful knickknack for the traveling person. Oleander had stopped by one of the salesmen by the street, exchanging some copper bits for a parcel of raisins. All in all, the town hadn’t changed all that much since they were here almost two years ago.

"Remember back when Kellen told us about how the Horrors just spill out from strange rifts into our world? After what we saw down there in the tunnels, I couldn't sleep right for weeks." Oleander ate a handful of the sweet, dried fruit, pointing in the general direction of where they had descended into the underground last time.

"They're called portals, but yeah, it was just like he said. I wonder what the Kynian's home plane could be like?" Jaden had read a great deal growing up. She knew about some of the other worlds, like Living Arcadia or the Myriad Nethers.

"All the riding we’ve been doing makes me wish we could use one of those portal things like the Horrors do, and just plop out where we need to go." The redhead made a big wavy gesture with both arms, like she was parting the veil of worlds to allow her passage.

"Portals don't work like that, Ollie. They only bridge different worlds together. You can't travel across the same land using them, sadly enough. Otherwise Talraman wouldn't need a skyspire, or even a single horse." Not for lack of trying. True point to point transport using magic was one of the most sought after dreams of many a magician, right next to everlasting life or turning lead to gold.

"Why's that?" The redhead asked more for the sake of asking, not because she was planning on learning anything.

"Oh, we've got portals to all kinds of places in the citadel." Part of Jaden screamed at her for revealing Lacunai secrets, but by now she was so tired of listening to that voice. It felt too good to finally share things with her friends. "It is how we're able to keep in touch with the other planes where beings like our spirits come from. Sometimes we get visitors from those realms, too."

"What's the strangest thing you ever saw?" Oleander was chewing and talking with her mouth full of raisins.

"They didn't let children near any visitors most of the time, but I remember seeing one of them on the main courtyard when Lilya and I were playing on the walls. It was a large, blue man with six arms and four faces." Jaden held up a hand to show how tall that visitor had been. She even went tiptoe a little. Maybe it was her memories making it bigger than it had been, but she felt that it had dwarfed even someone the size of Kellen.

"He had four heads?" Oleander had stopped chewing and just stared at the mystic.

"No, four faces. One on each side of his head." Jaden pointed at her own ears and neck, showing where the faces had been.

"Okay. That's strange alright."

"To be fair, I had grown up seeing people manifest into all kinds of magical creatures. I wasn't all that worried about yet another blue person walking around, when our babysitter could turn into a fifty-foot long sea serpent." The black-haired mystic couldn’t help but smile a little. Aunt Sabel had always said that she wouldn’t let any strangers hurt them, but if they hurt themselves, she would just laugh at them.

Eventually, they had made their way back to the Count of Cups, where the rest of the group were already waiting and talking. Kellen was tightening the straps on their packs so that nothing would fall off. Once Jaden and Oleander got close enough they noticed Rhyce slipping out of an alleyway and falling in behind them. He must’ve walked off at some point during their little stroll.

"We should go see how that farmer is doing today," Oleander said suddenly as she was checking her horse. "Hammot? Hannok? Something like that. You remember him?"

"Eh," Stann hesitated, grimacing a little. "I'm not sure that's a good plan, Red."

"What? Why? We saved him and the town from the horrors!" Oleander ducked down to look at the Northman from underneath her horse’s neck.

"We also turned his largest field into a sinkhole, as well," the warrior reminded her.

"That was Kellen's fault. Besides, how else could we destroy the hive? It was honeycombed under his entire farm!" The redhead made wiggly gestures with her fingers, like she was digging passages through the air.

The rune seeker just looked around, trying on his best innocent expression. Finally, he just cleared his throat and went back to putting bottles of Northern beer into his saddlebags. He had found a kindred spirit with the keeper of the Count of Cups last night, and been delighted to discover a small cache of kulsu behind the counter.

"Try telling that to the man who lost an entire harvest." Stann shook his head.

"Not all of it. He still had those cucumbers, right?" Oleander argued.

"You really want to go pay our respects to a man who had nothing to eat but cucumbers for two years?" Jaden had the most unfortunate mental image as those words left her mouth.

"Ew. Okay. Maybe we'll give it a pass." The redhead made a gagging face, and let the matter drop.

Alisan had watched the exchanged with an amused expression, slowly becoming used to the group’s particular brand of humour. She stroked her horse’s mane, which was just as pale as she was.

“On that note, I guess we don’t have any real reason to linger here?” Stann changed the subject.

“Not unless we want to keep digging into whatever those people might have done while passing through. I suspect that would quickly turn into an exercise in futility to search for month-old clues in the entire county, though,” Mirena said as she tugged on her riding gloves. “No, the best we can do is to follow up on that name we got from the man in the cartel's boathouse. Let's hope that this Toben of Tarad can tell us more."

"If we can find him. All we have is a name," Jaden muttered. It felt like such a longshot.

"Sometimes a name is enough," Oleander countered with a cheeky grin.

"'Don't worry about wet feet, until you've reached the river'." Rhyce spoke like he was quoting someone old and wise. Or maybe it was just him being Rhyce. He had his hood up like he was expecting rain, even on a clear late summer morning like this.

"We can just use the bridge, Rhyce," Oleander said, pointing to the southwest where the great old stone bridge was just visible from the town.

"He wasn't talking about this river, Oleander."

It was an ancient thing, the Beldenth Span. A bridge older than the countries it brought together. Older, even, than the empire that predated those countries. It had been there when the kingdoms of man first came to the eastern side of the continent. The style of its architecture was much different than the modern bridges closer to the coast. Unlike those, there was no drawbridge that could be raised to allow boats with masts to pass underneath. Instead, this stonework bridge arched proudly and high, like an old man refusing to let age bend his back. At its highest point it would stand high above any building in Farcrest, and even most in Tier. The bridge sank two enormous support pillars into the wide Odar river, creating the vague imagine of a giant holding the separated pieces of land together with each arm while standing in the middle of the river.

As they began their ascent, they sat off from their horses to spare the poor animals the extra exertion on a warm summer day. The incline was steep enough that it would take a skilled driver to get wagons down in one piece. Climbing to the top of the bridge took a good while, and they all wordlessly agreed on a short rest once they had reached the apex. Their quick pace turned into a slow stroll where they could enjoy the breeze on their faces.

"Beldenth Span. Does that mean anything in elvish, Jay?" Oleander brushed some of her red strands out of her face.

"I'm not sure, actually. Alisan?" Something tickled the mystic’s mind. It was more of a feeling than a memory, walking across this bridge.

They were made out of glass, in that other place, where the river ran in the sky.

"According to the stories it was the name of the earth elemental. The elves of the old realm asked her to guard this river in return for them driving the demons out of the southern mountains. Belane duan Beldenth. Beldenth, the thankful land, her arms wide." Alisan spread her arms while talking, pantomiming how the stone spirit reached across the river.

"That was almost a Kellen moment there, Ali," Oleander joked with a grin. "He tends to quote the history books as well."

"Kellen is a very wise man, and you are fortunate to share his words," the Alisan replied with a raised index finger.

"What demons?" Jaden asked. The southern mountains Alisan talked about must be the Isanduar peaks, where Talraman silently watched the lower lands from its place closer to the clouds.

"That is a story I do not know, Jaden," the pale elf confessed. "If curiosity still blooms when we arrive in Ral Sona, there may be those who will tell you what I cannot."

The bridge was simply massive, however. It was hard to imagine how something of this size could have been created by any means other than magic. The blocks of stone were impossibly large, each able to eclipse any of the houses in Carrick Field, shaped into the arc of the bridge with barely any seam or gap. It was an effort to create something grander than the hands that had brought the rocks, a long-lasting testament even if the message itself may have been lost to time.

They tried to recreate what their gods had shown them. Bring a little piece of that place here. Empyreal memories.

As they approached the crest, Jaden looked to the west at a spectacular view. On a clear day one could see as far as the wildlands, maybe even the Shelmot Plains further to the northwest, and far beyond that the Erbor Mountains rising up from the land like great hands that had once reached for the sky but were now worn dull by the turn of ages.

Jaden let her hands rest on the low stonework wall that protected travellers from some of the breeze. It was worn smooth by countless years of rain and wind, but many details still remained. It had an ancient feel to it, built too strong for elven design, and too lofty for dwarven architecture. The mystic could almost feel the echoes of the proud people that had left this silent reminder of their greatness to the world. It was among the last of its kind.

It wasn't appreciated. They were cast aside and forgotten, but even now they seek the mountains to live as their gods did.

"The air here is so fresh," Jaden thought out loud. It was almost like standing at the walls of Talraman, looking at the world so far below. Her fingers ran across the carved stone. The low walls of the bridge had decorative shrine-like statues at even intervals, showing weathered figurines carved into the stone. Whoever or whatever they had once shown, had been worn away by the rain and the wind. Something in the shape of the remaining details reminded her of the mountain home of the mystics. It almost looked like some of the stonework inside the citadel. But Talraman didn't have bridges. There was no use for them.

Their gods won't listen. Their gods have forgotten almost everything. Almost.

The Odar ran strong below the bridge. Perhaps not as swift as closer to its source where the river fell down the mountainside, but it flowed with a relentless strength. If anyone fell from the bridge, they would not be able to escape the embrace of the water. No, they would be carried half the way to Tier before the river lost enough momentum for a man to be able to fight the currents. Jaden wondered how many had decided to end their lives with a leap from where she stood right now. It would be so easy to just lean too far over the edge, look deep into those rushing waters so far below, and let go. She didn't know what to make of that feeling.

Do you feel like a god?

"Don't you feel cold standing in the breeze like this?" Stann stood next to Jaden, but she hadn't seen him coming.

"Eh?" Jaden woke up from her reverie. How long had she gazed out across the landscape?

"That jacket of yours hardly looks warm enough." The Northern warrior reached out and put his arm around her shoulder in a way he had done many times before, but the brotherly camaraderie felt slightly off.

"Thanks, you big bear. I hadn't noticed, really." Jaden didn't push him away. She had pushed too many of her friends away. Ever since Tier she had been afraid of letting anyone come too close, or they would see what she had become. A touch would break through the illusion. To touch was to know. But now, everyone knew. There was a certain liberty in truth. She could appreciate the value of it.

"No kidding. You're really warm! If we were still in Etrana, I'd offer you a glass of iced punch. Are you using your magic to ward off the chill of the wind?" Stann didn't appear bothered by the weather. What passed as winter in the Midlands was considered a mild spring day in the North. He probably just felt that it was bracing.

"No magic. I guess it's just who I am."

"C'mon, little brother. Let's not linger up here. We've got many miles to go before Tarad. It'll be slow enough going using the smaller roads waiting at the foot of this behemoth."

Jaden was happy to let Stann lead her away from the edge. Whenever she stopped for too long, strange thoughts began to appear in her mind. It was better to keep busy, keep running. As long as she did something familiar, she could remember her real face.

"By the way, Stann? Do you have any idea why Alisan's taken to speaking with me in Sorunese again? She stopped doing that once she realised I wasn't an elf."

"Heh. Funny thing, that, eh?" Stann scratched his beard a little, clearing his throat. "You know how those elves are. Strange people."

"Stann..." Jaden’s voice took on a warning tone.

"Have you heard Kel tell that story about when he met some of those old elf magicians?" The warrior changed the subject. "It was when he and I spent some time in Radent. This was a couple of years before meeting the rest of you, of course."

"Bear, what did you say to her?" The mystic made a fist and shook it close to the warrior’s face.

"Nothing! Honest!"

Looking back, something about the situation made Jaden remember the words that had set them on this journey. The dracone had spoken about how it had experienced passage over both land and water. If the slavers had brought it out of the wildlands on a wagon and crossed the Odar using the old bridge, when would it have experienced riding the river? Maybe the slavers brought the creatures out through the north side of the wildlands, into the borderlands, and made use of the Odar to ferry them down the stream to some other hidden dock near Carrick Field?

But, no, that couldn't be right. Jaden hadn't spent that much time in Ral Sona before, but one thing she had picked up on quickly - the north wildlands belonged to the fey. The elves of Sorun fiercely protected the deep forest from any outsiders. There were children’s stories in both Olmar and Alband about a woodsman who wandered too deeply into the faerie forest to cut down a tree. When the man left the forest, he was immediately apprehended by elves, taken before a tribunal to answer for his crimes against their ancient laws. It was meant as a warning to keep children from wandering too deeply into the woods without their parents, but looking at how closely the elves policed their borders, one couldn't help but wonder if there were more than a few grains of truth in those legends.

The past holds many answers. Just like it did for you. Just like it did for me.

From where the Beldenth Span set them down in Olmar, to the western edge of the open land, it was a journey that would take several days. Olmar didn't have much in the way of forests; nothing one couldn't walk through in an hour at most, anyway. No, Olmar was gentle hills and those endless plains. Much of the regions along the river and the roads were farmland and tiny settlements too small to be called villages, but further south and to the east were where the vast Tagen Run began.

The Run was a vast steppe that the wild horses of Olmar called their home, and mankind was only grudgingly tolerated. It was also in the deep steppes where the mesas showed up, rising up from the otherwise flat landscape. The Tagen pegasi who lived at the top of those highland plateaus were considered by some as the representation of the spirit of the Olman people. The pegasus banner had been the rally-point when the country had risen up against the Second Empire.

When night arrived, Jaden and her friends had made good distance into Olmar. Rather than seeking the open plains of the horses, their destination was in the other direction: toward the Sorun wildlands, and the town that waited at the border of the elven forest.

They had all but unpacked for the night when Oleander poked her head out of the slightly thicker shirt she changed into once the sun had set.

“Hey, is it my turn to cook tonight? It feels like forever since it was my turn last,” she asked.

“Ah, no! No. It’s… it’s Jaden’s turn tonight, isn’t it?” Stann looked at the mystic pointedly.

“Oh, right! Yeah. I think so, yes.” Jaden agreed, nodding enthusiastically. “You just go back to what you were doing, Ollie. I’ll handle this.”

Alisan looked bemused by the exchange, but didn’t inquire further. Humans were strange, after all.

Later on, once the rest had gone to bed, Stann sat and poked the fire with a branch during his watch. There was a different set of wildlife to be concerned about down here. Back home in the North, he would have been alert for signs of bears, boars or wolves. Here, in Olmar, there were wild dogs or leopards. Also, where there would be the threat of orc raiders in the Northern Lands, or maybe a roaming troll, there was a chance that some tribes of gnolls had migrated further into the land from the south. Stann doubted that there would be any of those hyena-men this far up in the civilised portions of Olmar, but one could never be certain. That's why they had set up their regular watch, with Jaden going first to take advantage of that elven nightvision, followed by Rhyce. When the archer had kicked the Northman awake hours later, Jaden had risen at the same time to answer the call of nature and headed out into the night to take care of things.

Stann gave the fire another thoughtful poke when he felt the wind change direction slightly. There was an odd smell coming from the night, almost like blood. Maybe there were leopards close by, having a midnight snack on some unfortunate calf?

After a while, there was a rustling that announced the return of the mystic into the circle of light cast by the small campfire. Jaden was wiping her hands very thoroughly on a piece of rough cloth, little more than a rag, really. When their eyes met, her face flushed for some reason, and she looked away.

"Oh, hi," Jaden mumbled, and made her way to where she had been sleeping.

"It's nothing to be ashamed off, little brother. It's something we all do," Stann chuckled at the awkwardness of the black-haired mystic.

"I very much doubt you've had to deal with this," was the muffled reply as she crawled back into the comfort of her blankets.

The warrior merely continued laughing to himself and shaking his head. Jaden had always been a little bit of a bellyacher, complaining about discomforts when they were out in the wilds. Maybe it was because of how the mystic had grown up in a city where magic was as commonplace as steel, and warm water or a hot meal was just a snap of the fingers away. Stann could hardly imagine what Talraman must be like. He hoped he would get a chance to see it at least once. Even if their little brother was not the image of the feared Lacunai shapeshifters of legend, he had to admit that he was impressed by the idea of a martial nation like that.

He sat for a while, just looking at the fire. For some reason there was something nostalgic about this particular night. Stann let his eyes sweep across the camp. The sleeping figures made him smile. Maybe the night felt like this since he could spend it with his family. That was what they were to each other, now. Everyone had a reason to be here, and none of them could return home. In this great, vast world, he felt fortunate that he had found these people, these wonderful, infuriating and crazy people. Stann sent a heartfelt, thankful thought to the Stormfather who had seen fit to bring them all together.

It was barely midday when a small settlement showed up on the great fields of Olmar. The signs of an upcoming community had been there ever since they packed up their camps that morning, with increasingly organised farmlands and neat rows of apple trees in large orchards. Eventually the country road took them into the heart of this rural hamlet, Rillend's Green.

It was a small place, hardly enough to call a village to be truthful. It was more of an overgrown farm where additional buildings had just been added until it no longer was just a single family's home. Still, there was something between a tavern and a communal dining hall wall to wall with a large building that smelled strongly of apples. A colourful sign of a winged horse adorned the place, and the sound of people eating and talking reached out into the one-wagon-wide dirt road.

After making sure that travellers were welcome to stop and rest for a bit, Jaden and her friends sat down next to the locals by the long tables that took up most of the floorspace inside the humble Winghoof tavern.

Ambar, the keeper of the Winghoof and a cousin to the heir of the plantation, was all too happy to share the story of the place with strangers. The large-bellied man fit the stereotype of a jovial innkeeper down to wiping his hands on his smock and gesturing with a wooden ladle while he talked. Jaden didn't really listen to what was no doubt a thrilling tale of heroic farmers and their struggle against the land to bring the best apples to the mouths of children everywhere. Instead she stared out of the window at the gently waving fields of golden wheat.

Lately, her ability to concentrate had come and gone unpredictably. Right now she doubted she would have been able to perform her focusing rituals to prepare or distribute her magical energy among her pacts. The realisation made her think, however. How long had she performed them so irregularly? Of course, she hadn't been using her pacts that much lately, so there had been no imbalances to satisfy, but the rituals were a fixture in any magician's life. It should be a daily preparation to handle energies beyond the mortal shell. Priests used prayer to connect with the shared power of their faith, rune seekers reacquaint themselves with each piece in their collection, sorcerers meditated on the core focus of their arcane power. The Lacunai mystics took the time to strengthen the bonds to their contracts, as well as touch the spirit within. It was something every magician had to regularly do, but what Jaden had been neglecting more often than not lately. There was a risk in going too long without observing your rituals, of course. For a mystic, ignoring your pacts for extended periods would weaken the bonds, or even annul them completely. And there was always the risk of erosion.

“What’s this cider? It’s really good!” Oleander’s voice cut through Jaden’s thoughts. The redhead was waving a goblet at the keeper.

“Locally produced, missy. If you develop a taste for it, I can see about getting you a few bottles before you leave. Spread the word, eh?" Ambar winked at the young woman, and trundled off to make sure he would be good on his word.

"I just might!" Oleander called after the keeper.

Jaden pushed the noise of the eating and drinking people out of her head as she tried to focus on the connections she had nurtured with her salamander and breathstealer allies. Of course, they were still there, as strong as ever. In fact, the bonds showed no signs of degeneration, however little. It was as if something was maintaining them in her absence. A chill went down Jaden's spine when she realised that something or someone else was influencing her magic.

Don't worry about that now. The next crossroads is almost upon us. We can still save them all.

“Thank you, and good night now,” said the keeper of the Count of Cups as he pushed the last of his regulars out through the door. There was always one or two who had nothing better to do that to spend their evenings deep in their cups. Those were always the ones who took the most convincing to get off their chairs and go home when it was closing time.

He cleaned his hands on the threadbare towel he kept in his belt, and was just about to lock up when a figure showed up outside the door.

“Look, neighbour, it’s late and I’m closing. Come back tomorrow, will you?” He called through the closed door.

“Just asking a question, one countryman to another,” came the hoarse reply.

Since the figure outside made no effort to force his way inside, the keeper sighed and opened the door enough to hold a conversation. Hopefully it wasn’t a beggar again. He had every sympathy for the poor, but he had a hard enough time making ends meet as it was.

“Fine. What can I do for you?” The keeper asked.

“You had some people staying with you earlier this week. Motley group. Northmen, a short Olman girl, a knight and an elf?” The stranger described an unusual group, speaking with an accent that wasn’t entirely Albander. There was a touch of Olman in it, the keeper could tell.

“Yeah, what about them?” The keeper leaned on the doorpost. He definitely remembered that bunch. Especially after one of the elven girls had tried to keep a towel around herself while also wielding a sword. Heh. Elves.

“Did you happen to overhear where they’d be going next?” The stranger held up a hand and with a twist of his fingers brought a coin into the light. The glint of a gold crown caught the keeper’s eye.

“Yessir I did,” the keeper said without hesitation. When someone came asking with that amount of money you did what they asked of you, because they had either enough power or enough motivation to make your life difficult if you didn’t. “They mostly sat by themselves, but I kept hearing them talking about Tarad and the elflands. Sounded like they were heading into the big forest.”

“How long ago was this?” The stranger handed the keeper the fat, golden coin.

“Oh, I’d say about three days now?” The keeper thought back. Yeah, that’s when one of those Northmen had told all those stories, too.

“Three days?” The man turned away and muttered to himself. “By Antodus, how did they get here that fast?”

“Mind if I close up now, neighbour?” The keeper tapped the door pointedly.

There was no reply, as the stranger had left as suddenly as he had appeared. The keeper took another look at the coin in his hand, just to make sure he hadn’t just imagined everything. The coin felt heavy in his hand. Good, solid gold.

At the edge of the forest, as a self-proclaimed last outpost of humanity before the untamed wildlands swallowed everything in sight, sat Tarad like a fat toad on a rock. It had grown into a sizeable town from the trade out of both Sorun and Talraman, since it was in the enviable position of being the closest settlement to both the elves and the mystics.

It was a very neat arrangement: the elves wanted little in the way of human goods, but didn't mind selling various handcraft to the Midlands. The mystics, on the other hand, didn't have many finished products for sale, but instead traded ores and gems for basic goods like grains or fabrics. That way, Tarad had a great import-export scheme going on where everyone won, although Tarad perhaps won a little more than the rest.

Strangely, however, was despite the wealth that flowed through the town, it still couldn't quite manage to lift itself from its dirty roots as a frontier outpost. Little of the gold that ran through the community actually stayed there, but instead went to fund the merchant houses' enterprises in the larger cities elsewhere. Tarad was but a channel, not the source, and as such the residents was left to fight over what trickled down.

“Home, sweet home,” Oleander mumbled to herself as they rode into the town at the fringe of the wildlands.

There were three major roads leading into Tarad. The first was the imperial road from Olmar's capital of Radent, the solid stone road worked to allow the empire's troops quick travel across their lands. Even after the fall of the second empire, Olman engineers kept the road in good shape since it helped the Olman grain wagons across the big steppes that dominated the nation. The second road was the old mountain path that snaked its way up the side of the Isanduar Mountains until it reached the hidden fortress of the Lacunai. Finally, there was the Sonaleum, the road that reached out of the forest to connect the elven lands to the rest of the world. There was some debate whether the mountain road or the elven path was the older of the two. Today, only the elves would know for sure.

Aside from those large three veins of commerce, there were many smaller country roads that ran through Tarad, mostly used by farmers and herders moving their produce or animals in from the smaller villages to sell on the markets or deliver to the trading companies.

To Jaden, there was always something subtly wrong about Tarad. She had grown up on a mountain, and one look out through the windows or over the walls surrounding Talraman showed how far up from the rest of the world the fortress was. Tier had its soaring towers. Even Farcrest or Etrana had hills or elevated areas. Tarad, on the other hand, was flat. There were no tall buildings, there were no heights or lows. To Jaden and, she suspected, many travellers, it made orienting yourself in the town very difficult. It was easy to get turned around or lost if you tried to take shortcuts between districts. At least, that was how she had ended up running into trouble the first time she had been here. Some of that trouble had even followed her when she left. Jaden glanced at the redhead who was looking as lost in reminiscence as the mystic was.

"First time advise for visiting Tarad, Ali? Keep a hand on your beltpouch and an eye at the alleyways," Stann told the pale elf. "I'm not saying that you're going to get robbed the minute you turn around, but there's a lot of people here who prey on those who look a little lost or vulnerable."

"It seems as if I passed through this place before, when the Sona Sonorous troupe set out for Farcrest," Alisan reminded them of how she had ended up in the same city as they, but then shot a glare at the winter warrior. "Do I appear as to be vulnerable to you?"

"Hey now, I know that you keep knives squirreled away in that dress, somehow, but the muggers don't." Stann raised his palms in a sign of surrender.

"That will be their regret to savour, not mine." Alisan reached into her wide, long sleeves and touched the handle of the slim dagger she kept hidden there for protection. When she had first met the Northern cousins, she had been close to attempting to stab her way out of that situation. Though, admittedly, there were times she still felt like pulling her dagger on the rude one with the long hair.

While the two of them were bickering, Mirena had sat off her warhorse and was considering the town. Unlike most of the others, she had never been there before. That meant going in unprepared, and that more than anything was something the knight didn't enjoy. That also meant that she would have to rely on the experience and judgement of her friends to guide her. That in of itself wasn't anything new: the group usually deferred to whomever had previous understanding or relevant background regarding any particular situation. When they delved into dark and forgotten tombs, Kellen and Oleander lead the way, and Rhyce called the shots whenever they had to go cross-country. Kellen and Jaden were, of course, their resident experts in matters magical, even though the mystic had a little more niched knowledge. Mirena's own temple training had not gone too much into the theory of magic, since priests channel intent more than they weave spells.

In this particular setting, however, she suspected that Oleander and Stann would take the lead. The redhead for obvious reasons: this was her home turf, after all. Arguing against Oleander in Tarad, would be like someone trying to tell Mirena how things are done in Tier. It would either be amusing or insulting, depending on the delivery. As for Stann, the boorish Northman had a special knack for empathising with the common folk. He had that uncomplicated charm that made some people open up.

"Do you have any contacts you can tap about this Toben fellow, Red?" The winter warrior kept an eye on the people on the street while talking. He was heeding his own advice about not letting your guard down in Tarad.

"It's been almost two years since I upped and left with nary a word, Bear. Still, I remember a couple of faces who used to be savvy to the back alley whispers." The redhead wore an expression that was hard to read. Somewhere between caution and comfort.

"Will you be better off without us, or do you need back-up?" Stann offered, patting the pommel of his dwarven-made sword.

"Let's just say I'm going places where paladins shouldn't be," Oleander looked at Mirena while smirking. "No offense, helmet-hair, but some of those horse-thieves would make you smite-happy."

"Now I'm starting to become concerned," the knight said, but kept her face calm. "Just promise us that you will be careful."

"I'll offer something better than that: I'll take Rhyce along!" Oleander pointed at the archer, who just looked away from the sky and nodded at her, silently.

"Very well," Mirena trusted in the borderlander's ability to keep the redhead out of too much trouble, or at least help her get away with it if need be. "Is there anything you would like for us to do meanwhile?"

"I have a couple of tricks rattling around my bone-box, actually, but it all hinges on if I can get my mitts on the dark of things around here."

"You're slipping into local tongue, Red." Stann noted. It was like a switch had turned in Oleander’s head, and the almost two years of polishing away that brogue had vanished.

"Being back does that to me. Better I get into the spirit of it, else I'll stand out too much." Oleander had subtly changed her stance. Suddenly, the redhead wasn't the cheerful girl they knew so well, but someone who would make them check if their beltpouches were still there.

"While you do... that, the rest of us will find a place for us to stay while we're here. Any recommendations?" Mirena tried not to think too much about what her friends got up to while they were out of her sight. She trusted that they tried to make the world a better place, in their own way, but sometimes their methods didn’t agree with her.

"For an idea I'm starting to take a shine on, I want you to set yourself up posh as can be. See if the Silver Staff have any rooms,” Oleander motioned with her thumb over a shoulder, pointing somewhere in the town.

"I think I remember that place," Stann said, scratching his head. "Didn't we pass that up for looking too pricy, Kel?"

"We were on a... budget at the time," the larger Northman harrumphed and looked away.

"Because you spent our gold on old maps! We had to eat porridge for a week," the warrior grumbled.

"That was many years ago, cousin. Let bygones be bygones."

"The Silver Staff is one of the finer establishments in Tarad?" Mirena asked Oleander while the two Northmen settled their differences with frowns and knucklecrackings.

"THE finest. They wouldn't even let a ragpicker like me through the door back when." The redhead made a face. "Anyway, they cater almost exclusively to the rich merchants who come here to check on their businesses. That's what I need you to appear as, okay?"

"Wealthy businessowners? I believe I could act the part," Mirena said with a smile. It was almost ironic, the amount of use she got out of the upbringing she had fought so hard to leave behind. Her father would be either indignant or proud if he saw her now.

"Oh, and just in case: go in as two different parties. Maybe it won't be necessary, but it's good to lay down the groundwork early," Oleander added as an afterthought.

"What are you plotting, little fox?" Kellen rumbled with suspicion deep in his voice.

"I bet you'll figure it out in good time," she said with a sly wink.

"Hmm... This is starting to sound like Etrana all over again,” the rune seeker deduced.

"Maaaybe."

"Telum preserve us." Mirena looked to the skies for strength.

"Garda's fires!" Jaden moaned. She did not want to be reminded of what had happened in the Etrian capital last summer.

Rhyce reached up into his hood to pinch the bridge of his nose.

"Stormfather's beard!" Stann actually sounded a little happy about it, though.

"It appears as if I am without context yet again?" Alisan wondered out loud, but looking increasingly resigned about this fact.

“In that case, I will go on ahead to make the arrangements at this Silver Staff place. You can meet up with me there once you’re done with your investigations,” Mirena offered, stroking the neck of her grey charger.

“Alrighty. It’s up the main road here, then head left by the central square with the shrine along the guildhouse street until you see this big place with sunflowers at the front. At least, I always remembered them growing sunflowers during the summer,” the small Olman woman said, providing the direction.

“Thank you, Oleander. Why don’t you come along with me, Alisan? Between the two of us, we should be able to make an adequate impression on the proprietors,” the knight smiled and waved at the elf.

“I will make every attempt to assist,” Alisan said, but then her honest face turned into a frown. She had been looking across the street at the stands selling elven artwork ever since the group came to a stop where they were. “It might be for the best, as well. I am restraining myself from berating these… these traders who claim to be selling genuine elven artefacts.”

“Yeah, you don’t want to buy anything from them,” Oleander agreed. “Random twigs with feathers and beads glued on. They’re just shaking the big-city rubes for their silver.”

Rhyce tapped Oleander on her arm, nodding towards the town. Throughout the previous exchange he had been more focused on the movement of the people walking around them, especially the many children who seemed to run around unattended by their parents.

“We should go,” the archer said with that low voice of his.

“Yeah, you’re right. Meet you later at the Staff!” The redhead made a quirky half-salute before turning to lead Rhyce away into the streets of Tarad.

“I’ll look around a little, too,” Jaden said and handed over her pack and reins to Stann. She didn’t want any company for what she was planning.

Once the mystic too had disappeared across the street, glancing over her shoulder every so often to see if her friends were still watching, Stann turned back to Mirena and the rest.

"What do you think Red is planning?" He asked, frowning a little as his imagination began to paint unhappy pictures in his mind.

"Well, do you remember that thing we did in Etrana last summer? With the visiting Illume of Mon Sirdek?" Kellen replied, stroking his moustache in thought.

"Wait, are you talking about the bathhouse con? Jaden ended up blowing half the building apart." Mirena looked alarmed. She had to do a lot of explaining with the local temple after that debacle.

"Well, I’m sure we can work around him this time, don’t you?" Kellen made it seem reasonable with that calm, deep voice of his.

"Do you think it could work? With the necessary changes, of course?" Stann looked at his cousin with a similarly thoughtful expression. When they narrowed their eyes like that, the fact that they were blood kin showed very apparently.

"I am hesitant to ask what is being plotted?" Alisan wondered with a worried voice.

"Don't worry, Lemon. Just play along," Stann’s concentrated face broke into a half smile.

"Keep calling me that, and I will offer you many causes for worry, perot," the pale elf shot back without missing a beat.

"So, how do you suggest we do this?" Mirena turned to Kellen with her question.

"Bear, you and Alisan will be the Ashgelds this time. Mirena and I will take the role as the Essengars. Will you be able to handle that, Mirena?" The rune seeker said, thinking back on the ill-fated attempt to do something similar back in Etrana. It was a good plan. It had just… fallen apart due to circumstances out of their control.

"I believe so. There's nothing in the paladin code that prohibits me from acting like a spoiled wretch, and a certain amount of snootiness is even approved of in some situations,” the knight replied wryly.

"Look more down your nose at us when you say that, Rena, and you'll be spot on." Stann grinned.

Heather switched hands on the pestle. She had been grinding dried herbs for the better part of an hour now, and there was a red mark in her palm where she pushed the pestle into the mortar. The dried foxglove petals weren’t quite the fine powder she wanted them to be, yet, so she went back to work with a sigh. It was important that the powder was even, so that each dose could be weighed reliably. Making medicine for chest-pains was a tricky thing. Too little, and the customer would come back and complain. Too much, and the customer… wouldn’t come back at all.

The jingle of the doorbell gave her a much needed respite. She pulled down the scarf she had over her nose and mouth, and headed towards the bead curtain that separated the workshop from the storefront.

“Hello, honey,” she said once she saw who her customer was. It wasn’t all that rare to see one of her kind show up in Tarad, or in Heather’s store. “Anything I can help you with?”

“Uhm. Yes,” the black-haired elf woman was blushing furiously. “You see, I have this friend. No, wait. I mean…”

“Take your time, sweetie,” Heather said as calming as she could. At least the elf was speaking Trade. She hoped this wasn’t another girl looking for a love potion. “Is it an illness?”

“Ah, no, not exactly,” the customer gestured towards her stomach. Lower stomach. Heather didn’t think the girl could go any redder. “It’s a… womanly issue?”

“Are you pregnant, girl?” Heather leaned forward on her counter, giving the other woman a frank look.

“What? No! No, no-no.” The elf made frantic, protesting gestures. “It’s the other thing. Before. With the blood?”

Heather rolled her eyes and shook her head with a smile. Elves. It was hard to tell how old they were. If this one had been human, Heather would have thought her more than old enough to have become used to the monthly business. She waved the girl over, and went to a shelf where she kept her treatments for common ailments. This one was always in demand.

Something quiet came over Oleander while she and Rhyce walked the streets of Tarad, stopping at some stores to see who was managing it these days, or looking into the side streets, the hidden backbeat of Tarad. Despite how she had just disappeared one night nearly two years ago, there were a number of people who remembered her with varying degrees of fondness. Some had thought she had been killed by some gangmember she finally pushed too far, others believed it had been the law that finally had caught up with her.

With all those negative expectations of her, Oleander’s smile turned more and more forced as the day went on. Whether it was out of stubbornness, or a need to show Rhyce that she was still the queen of her city, she pushed on to the next old contact. Whenever she even hinted at how she might be interested in the Iron Ring, the group of assassins they suspected being in league with Toben and the other slavers, everyone turned her away. Nobody was going to make enemies of the assassins. Clearly Toben’s name was associated with the group at some levels, since mentioning his name made some people shifty-eyed as well.

Their break came once Oleander took a chance to visit an old friend. Delphine had eventually taken on managing a tavern of her own, a nice and quiet place called the Cat’s Moon sitting close to where the old mountain road met with the outer edges of the town.

After exchanging a fond embrace, Delphine, now with a few grey strands in her strawberry reddish-blonde hair, filled Oleander in on how she didn’t as much own the tavern as she oversaw it. Every week a couple of men came by to pick up their share, as well as a protection fee. Delphine looked clearly upset and angry as she spoke about this, clearly caught up in a web with no way out. It was from her that Oleander confirmed how Toben ran his operation from behind the front of a cheese producer here in the town, a place on the east side with the innocuous name ‘Golden Wheels’. Oleander promised that she’d look into Delphine’s situation and definitely come back and see her again while she was in Tarad.

One of the national pastimes in Olmar was horseracing. If this Toben was involved with not only the assassins, smuggling and racketeering, he would no doubt have his fingers in the gambling and betting scene as well. Following that hunch Rhyce accompanied Oleander to one of the racing stables that they had spotted on their way to the Cat’s Moon. If Toben’s enforces were taking protection money from businesses around this part, maybe the people at the stable could tell them anything that Delphine might have left out.

This turned out to be another dead end. Either the stablehands truly knew nothing, or they weren’t talking, but Oleander wasn’t going to start a fight to find out. At least, not now.

One of them did mention how he felt that the redhead looked a lot like one of his favourite riders in the Radent scene of horseracing, enough to be his little sister or something.

“What's his name? Les-whatsname, Lys-something. Anyways, fella rides like the wind. Never seen the like on horseback. Can outride the sun, that lad could," one of the tanned horsetrainers said, pushing his wide-brimmed hat back.

On their way back, the redhead saw another familiar face from across the street. She was about to hurry on when she was recognised.

"Aunty Lea!" the boy no more than eight years old called out. The child's parents looked a bit startled at the sudden outburst, and then regarded the Oleander and Rhyce with some interest, clearly wondering how their son knew these strangers.

Oleander smiled a little sadly at the boy, and shook her head a little. She and the boy exchanged a long look, before the he slowly nodded and turned back to his parents, who led him away.

"Did you know that boy, Red?" Rhyce asked with uncharacteristic curiosity.

"I was his big sister for a couple of years. I'm happy he found a home. So many of us didn't." Oleander got something haunted in her eyes for a moment, before chasing it away with a fake smile.

"Friends can offer a sense of home if you let them," the archer said as they watched the family disappear down the street.

On their way back they took a shortcut through one of the alleys. Oleander felt a tingle down her spine as all the twists and turns of the hidden routes in the Tarad hidden from the upper class. There, a window ledge she had grabbed to pull herself up to the roof. And there, the loose plank in the fence that a child or a starving girl could squeeze through. It was all starting to come back to her. In a way, Tarad had never left her, even if she had been away for a while. The old toad still sat in the back of her mind.

Halfway through the alley she looked up and saw a silhouette against the setting sun. It was familiar, but at the same time it was not. That long, black hair was caught by a breeze, just like the time before.

“Well, this takes me back,” Jaden said, looking up and around as well.

“Yeah. You know, Jay, this could actually be where it happened,” Oleander agreed, walking closer and feeling her heart beat a little faster.

“Did you know, Rhyce? This was where I first met Ollie.” Jaden brushed some hair out of her face, maybe to hide a small blush Oleander saw all too well. Her elven prince.

The difference in expectations was apparent right from the start. There was even a young man right by the entrance who opened the door when Mirena and Alisan swept into the establishment. The knight carried her head high, and seemed to project the infamous Tierin better-than-thou attitude, and managed to make each step sound like the shake of a coin-heavy purse. Alisan held a paper fan to cover her face and refused to touch any surfaces, as if it would pull her down in rank. It didn't matter that they were wearing their riding clothes; it was all in the bearing.

Neither of them gave the doorman the slightest appreciation, or even notice, but instead bore down on the clerk manning the front desk. The gangly man brushed back his thinning hair and put on a genial smile, recognising well-paying customers when he saw them.

"My ladies, welcome to the Silver Staff, the finest resort in Tarad!"

"Which isn't saying much," Mirena sniffed as she waved a finger around as if trying to point everywhere at once. "What happened to this burg? Did a giant step on it?"

"I'm not sure what you mean, milady?" The clerk raised an eyebrow in surprise.

"Of course you don't. Anyway, my husband and I require your best room. Something with a nice view of the water, on your top floor of course."

"Madam, this is... this is Tarad. There are no large bodies of water within days from here." The clerk looked a little confused. "And, ah, this is a single floor building. But we will prepare our finest chambers for you, of course."

"What? That is outrageous. I demand to see the owner!" Mirena made her voice climb a little towards the end.

"...I'm not sure what he will be able to do, madam," the clerk shrank back a bit.

"Fine! I shouldn't have expected anything else from such a backwater place. Also, find some manner of... lodging for our servants, a remarkably surly porter and our little maid. She can fit in a breadbox." The knight held up her hands a foot or so apart.

"Yes, of course, madam. How long will you be staying?" The man shook himself a little, but touched the quill to the inkwell and prepared to take note in the ledgers.

"That's none of your business."

"It kind of is," the clerk mumbled, but sent a couple of girls ahead to open up the finer rooms for the wealthy and unreasonable guest. "Our north suite is available at your pleasure. If you would want to refresh yourself in your chamber, we can send up water? Perhaps we can offer some chilled punch and cake afterwards?"

"Hmpf. We shall see about that!" Mirena turned sharply on her heel to follow the maids.

The clerk shook his head again, muttering something else under his breath before turning his attention to the other woman by the desk.

"Ahem. Apologies for the wait, milady. I wrongly assumed that you were in the same company as the other... lady. Welcome to the Silver Staff. How may we serve you?"

"Ta don nelima ken," Alisan spoke from behind her fan, never blinking.

"Milady? Do you speak Trade?" The clerk enunciated with a slow, clear voice.

"Lai," the elf said dismissively, showing the back of her free hand.

The clerk looked heavenwards for strength, invoking a short prayer to Melat, the god of judgement, before motioning for the elf to wait while he went off to find someone in their employ who spoke Sorunese.

When Alisan knocked on Mirena's door many minutes later, she barely made it inside before both of them dissolved into giggles.

“I felt so bad for that poor man,” Mirena confessed, dabbing a napkin to her eyes. “The worst part is, I’ve actually met people like this. I based my performance on the wife of one of my father’s Etrian trading partners.”

“It seems as if we owe the speaker for this sanctuary a measure of extra coin as an expression of our apology,” Alisan managed to say after she caught her breath from laughing.

When it was time for lunch, they took their meal in the small adjoining dining section of each suite. If they were going to masquerade according to Oleander’s plan, they would have to take care not to be seen too much together. In Tarad, certain secrets travelled far and fast.

Rhyce and Oleander had been put with Kellen and Mirena’s party, partly because of how the rune seeker and the knight had more luggage than Stann or Alisan, but also because of the sad truth that many Tierin tended to hire cheap help from Olman villages.

While they were eating, the redhead stopped cutting through her omelette to ask what was on her mind.

"Rena? What did you say to those people? When one of the maids here showed me to the room I share with Rhyce, she wouldn't stop giving me these pitying looks." Oleander didn't know whether to feel proud or ashamed of her friend. "She even gave me a quick hug, mumbling what a poor girl I was, and to stay strong."

"Why, I only - how did you put it? - 'laid down the groundwork'? There won't be any doubt in their minds that I'm a spoiled noblewoman with a princess complex." Mirena did a little toasting gesture with her glass.

"How is that any different from normal?" Oleander teased.

"Did you discover anything while you were out earlier?" The knight kept from rolling her eyes, and instead moved on to the more pressing subject.

"We dowsed the location of Toben's place, and the chant had how he's most likely the same cutter our friend at the boathouse mentioned." The redhead popped another slice of the omelette into her mouth, and continued talking while chewing. "I'll have to give it a solid skulking, make my mind up about the place."

“During the night. Fewer eyes, fewer ears,” Rhyce said with a nod.

"We also need to sit down, everyone together, and plan our next step.” Mirena tapped the table with a finger.

"We should probably make use of another locale for that," Kellen suggested with his deep, rumbling voice. "At least if we want to keep up the pretence of being separate parties.”

"Alisan?" Jaden asked, putting down her knife and fork from cutting a sausage into bite-sized chunks. Like the other part of the group they enjoyed their dinner in the dining nook of their large chamber.

Jaden, with her regrettably elvish features, looked the part of a handmaiden from the elven lands. Stann had also not voiced any objections to playing a part that required him to have two elven women as his personal entourage.

"Yes?" The elf looked up from meticulously slicing an apple into evenly sized portions.

"I've been asked to tell you by the staff how they're very sorry, but they couldn't find any 'genuine, Bul Isran, first-season tapped starblossom oil'. They're happy to provide any of the house's soaps at your convenience, however."

"Alas, a pity," the pale elf jokingly lamented.

“Don’t let the role go to your head,” Jaden reminded the other woman with a lopsided smile.

“Oh, but that season has already arrived. Jaarat enan tarmolan tama,” Alisan tittered in haughty Sorunese, striking a bit of a pose as far as sitting down by the table allowed her.

“What did she say?” Stann leaned in closer to Jaden, his plate still half full with the good, Olman beefsausages and a yellowish, spicy sauce.

“Direct translations are a bit unreliable, but basically she’s going on about how she’s the queen of the castle,” the mystic gave Alisan a laughing snort, happy that the elf was at least enjoying herself in this strange turn of events.

The next morning allowed Jaden and her friends to do some light rumour-gathering among the townspeople, many of who were all too happy to gossip if given the right incentive or sympathetic ear. While Mirena and Alisan had gone their separate ways to get props for their respective roles, Stann managed to get into a conversation with a grandmother sitting by one of the wells, and had to be rescued by his cousin before the old dear could go into details about what all her other grandchildren were up to these days. While they were trying to stay separated as much as possible, they had arranged to bump into one another around midday to make sure any new developments were passed around.

"Did you notice? A lot of women around here are named after flowers," Stann turned to walk backwards so he could follow a group of young women with his eyes. They were carrying baskets of leatherworking tools, with their hair held back with scarves.

"That's pretty traditional," Oleander said. "Olmar is mostly fields and meadows. Lots of farmland, right? It's not strange that girls end up with names of pretty flowers in places like these. Just like my name!"

"The oleander is poisonous," Rhyce added.

"What a coincidence," Stann said with exaggerated surprise.

"Shut up!" She shot back.

"I like your name, Ollie," Jaden said in support of the redhead. She couldn’t imagine the short Olman girl as anyone but Oleander.

"See? Jay's on my side!" Oleander pulled Jaden closer by the crook of her arm.

"That's because she's trying to get back in your good graces, Red." Stann laughed, shaking his head at the girl’s antics.

"He just has better taste than you, grizzly-face!" She countered, holding her chin up more than was usually necessary to look the tall Northman in the eyes.

"Actually, did we decide on a pronoun for Jaden yet?" Kellen derailed the argument with a question that had been on his mind for a while. Categorising things was very important to rune seekers.

"I'm right here, guys..." Jaden complained.

"Okay - do we call you he or she?" Stann turned to the mystic for an answer.

"He. Definitely he. I'm a man, remember?" She said. Inside, she tried to remember what her face looked like. It was becoming so very hard to do.

Stann let his eyes drop down at the obvious counter-arguments on Jaden's chest. The mystic blushed a bit at the unabashed leering, and pulled her vest tighter. It didn’t actually make things any better, especially since the bodice already kept the relevant things quite pushed upwards.

"Stop that!" Jaden demanded, stomping with a foot.

"I'm just reminding myself. Don't mind me," Stann said grin, earning him a light punch on the arm.

"On the other hand, a lot of Olman men are named after metals or stones. Two lads who helped me with my first private expedition was a pair of Olman brothers named Ferran and Kapar, and they kept talking about their uncle Dimond." Kellen continued as if the scene in front of him wasn’t taking place. His eyes were a bit unfocused, his mind looking backwards rather than at the present.

"Speaking of names, your sister’s called Lilya, right?" Oleander wondered out loud.

"Yeah?" Jaden stopped ineffectually punching Stann for the time being. The loss of bulk and strength was really annoying at times. If she manifested her spirit form, she could really teach him a lesson…

"Meaning 'lily'? And you're 'of jade'. Another Olman-style name. That's a funny coincidence," the redhead commented, waggling a finger at Stann.

"I guess. I hadn't really thought about it." The mystic crossed her arms, not really interested in etymology at the moment.

"Hey, what are we going to call you now? Jade? Maybe Jadyn, with a 'y'?" Now it was Oleander’s time to show a big grin. Were they teasing her as a tag-team act, now?

"Ugh! You’re as bad as Stann!” Jaden threw her hands in the air. “How about Jaden? It's my name. It's the only thing I was allowed to keep."

"You kept your friends," Kellen reassured, putting a huge hand on Jaden’s shoulder.

Stann’s expression turned from amused to sombre and he nodded. Like his cousin, he knew all too well what losing one’s place in the world felt like.

“Speaking of which, everyone remember to come to that little tavern we saw near the southern edge of the town. Red vouched for the keeper there, so we should be able to talk freely.” The warrior nodded down the road.

Before they split up again, taking separate routes back to the Silver Staff or heading off to continue investigating some angle to their current undertaking, Oleander stepped in front of Jaden. The mystic glanced to the sides, wondering if the redhead had one last joke she wanted to make at her expense. Instead of that, they just looked at each other for an increasingly awkward period of time.

"Hey, Jay? Do you like boys or girls now, by the way?" Oleander suddenly asked.

"What kind of question is that?" Jaden was caught off-guard, feeling heat rise to her cheeks.

"A rude, straightforward one, I imagine?" The redhead seldom let those things stop her.

"Well, I can't argue with that." Jaden crossed her arms, then uncrossed them, and then grabbed her hands behind her back. She didn’t know what to do with them. She settled for fidgeting with the hems of her blouse.

"So?" Oleander leaned forward a bit, clearly not letting the matter drop.

"I... don't know. I've been a little preoccupied with myself to think too much about other people like that, more or less."

"But... you liked girls before, right?" There was a strange determination in the redhead’s raincloud grey eyes.

Talraman encouraged its youths to couple up, since those who experienced the mystic drift might eventually develop fertility problems. While it was not actively prevented, there was a clearly marked disapproval of those who stepped outside the conventional sexualities. The mountain needed its children, after all.

Towards the evening Jaden and her friends reconvened at the Cat’s Moon, the little tavern run by someone who knew Oleander from before. Delphine tactfully avoided their table unless they called for anything. When they had entered the tavern, Oleander had a brief word with the older woman, who returned a determined but grateful look.

Everyone had been busy that day. They had early on discarded the idea of a frontal assault like they had with the cult in Tier. In the golden city, Mirena had been a paladin hunting apostate magicians practically on the temple’s doorstep. Here, very far away from Telum’s main temple, her authority was significantly reduced. Even if that would not be a consideration, there was still the fact that if they turned this into official temple business, with a paladin leading an armed charge, it would scare the real perpetrators into hiding. They wanted whoever was behind this to feel safe, to stay in the open, and that meant going about things a little differently.

Their group had in essence been split into three parts: the two public sides with Mirena and Kellen in one, and Stann and Alisan in the other. Oleander would be leading Jaden and Rhyce to handle the real objective of their visit here in Tarad. While the others had been establishing their covers during the day, Jaden and her group had been surreptitiously checking out the cheesery. Oleander had even spent some time last night on the rooftops around that place to get a better feel for what they were up against. Jaden had inspected the surrounding area with her mystic’s sight, but there were no concentrations of threads of magic, or any other trace of enchantments at work. She didn’t know what Rhyce had done to keep busy during the day, but assumed it had been something involving staring grimly at some unfortunate person until they started talking.

"Let me introduce ourselves. I am Keldor Essengar, and this is my lovely, terrible life companion Renata. We're too rich to behave like reasonable people," Kellen said with an affected, overly cultured voice. Anyone could see without a doubt that he was a Northman, so the Kasman accent he was feigning sounded very much out of place.

"In a Tierin fashion, we investigated our target thoroughly. Kellen here, or I should say Keldor, has a lofty goal of cornering the elusive cheese market in Tier. He believes how introducing an unknown into the scene will give him the opportunity he needs," Mirena explained, giving some background to their roles.

"I'm a visionary," Kellen admitted, taking a gulp from his beer.

"So, we asked the chef here, as well as some other taverns, who were supplying them with cheese. Many claimed that they only bought theirs from Veren, but the truth was that the majority were instead buying the local cheese cheaply and passing it off as real Veren Sharp." The knight sniffed disdainfully. That kind of shoddy business practice would never stand in Tier. The exposure would be immediate, and the scandal would be devastating.

"Which gave us the blackmail material we needed to get an introduction with the cheesemaker this evening, as it turns out," Kellen concluded.

"I feel like such a hero right now," Oleander laughed. "Preventing a monster uprising in Carrick Field, stopping the Skinwalker of Etrana, demolishing the deathcult in Tier, and now... cheesemailing the assassins' guild in Tarad?"

"Moving along,” Stann picked up the introductions of roles. “We are the wonderful Ashgelds, wealthy investors out of Etrana. I'm Ristan, and this is my dear wife Alina."

Alisan coughed into her water, holding a napkin to her mouth while Oleander slapped her back.

"Huh. She did the precise same thing when I introduced her to someone earlier." Stann wondered out loud, but then shrugged and went back to explaining what they had been up to. "What we did wasn't that complicated, really. Alisan and I sat ourselves down by the table in the middle of the feasthall-"

"Dining lounge," Jaden corrected the winter warrior, answering the brief frown with a small shake of her head.

"-and just started talking loudly about how well our investments in the wineries in Imesh are paying off, and how it was a pity there were no similar things to spend our gold on here in Tarad."

"You were talking loudly about Coastland business practices, Alisan?" Mirena looked with curiosity at the elf.

"It was mostly Winterheart sharing his words," Alisan confessed.

"Anyway, it didn't take long for a fellow businessman to join our discussion-"

"You're not really a businessman, Bear," the mystic reminded the warrior.

"He could be in the business of bears?" Oleander suggested.

"-telling us about how Tarad in fact did have good investment opportunities." Stann pushed Jaden enough to make her bump into the redhead. "He asked what we were interested in, so I replied that I enjoyed enterprises that produced things, like wines or cheeses. According to him, we were in luck since Tarad had both a cheesery and a brewery making a name for themselves."

"That man enjoyed his voice almost as much as Winterheart does," the pale elf commented.

"Either way, he claimed he could get us a tour of the cheesery if we wanted. We took him up on his offer, of course." Stann lifted his mug of beer to show how he was done talking, feeling pretty good about himself.

"Well, that means that both of our covers have a reason to be at the cheesery this evening. We will attempt to keep the attention of as many as possible to give you three the time to get some privacy with Toben." Mirena spoke with a calm voice, even as her friends where teasing each other around her. She was a peaceful island in a stormy sea.

"You should probably rehearse your acts before going, but don't be afraid to let the dice roll. We won't know how gabby this Toben is," Oleander said with a shrug.

"How do you plan on getting in there?" The knight asked.

"Leave that to me, helmet-hair. It's not my first time sneaking into places, you know." The redhead stretched her arms above her head, and then cracked her knuckles with a satisfied sigh.

"Jaden, send us a far whisper the moment things get too far out of hand. We'll be just a few rooms away," Kellen reminded the mystic.

"Let's hope we don't have to blow the entire place up," Jaden said with a self-deprecating smile. At her friends' studied, innocent looks she added, "c'mon, I know what everyone's been thinking this entire time. This won't turn into another Etrana, I promise!"

"How did fortune forget you in Etrana?" Alisan asked Oleander, who was hiding her grin behind a hand.

"That's a story for another time, Creampuff, but it's a funny one!"

When it became time to plan their respective parts of tonight’s adventure, Oleander’s group were left with the table as the others went to use a storeroom in case they needed to act out some parts. Northmen acting things out tended to draw the wrong kind of attention even this far from upper Alband where tensions were still high.

"Alright. We're Team Sneaky,” Oleander explained, sitting at the edge of the table. “The other guys are Team Distraction. They're going to-"

"Distract everyone?"

"Shush, Jay! I'm explaining the plan here." The redhead threw a piece of bread at the mystic.

"Sorry. Go on." Jaden brushed some crumbs off her shoulder, hoping that none had fallen down into her front. She kept finding things there while undressing for bed.

"Like I was saying, their job is to keep everyone's eyes on them while we sneak into the back and shake Toben until sweets comes out." Oleander made a jostling gesture in the air.

"What, we go in there and beat everyone up?" Jaden felt confused. If that was their plan all along, why not just bring all of their friends for safety?

"There's a finesse to this, Jay. We almost beat them p. Actually beating them up would make them resent us. Almost beating them up will intimidate them! So, we go in teeth bared and shock them into spilling the shinies,” Oleander said, grinning too widely in that way that showed teeth, rather than mirth.

"So, we want to be as threatening as possible. Is magic alright?" The mystic imagined that using her Breathstealer to incapacitate the toughest-looking thug in the room would send the right kind of message.

"I'd be disappointed if you didn't use it. Actually, use your battleshape and offer to torch the place! That'll make them listen," Oleander made some whooshing noises, striking out with her hands.

"It's called mani-"

"And you, Rhyce? Don't actually put any eyes out with those arrows of yours, okay?" The redhead turned her head and pointed at the archer.

Rhyce simply nodded. He would play along. He had already a good idea what to expect.

Oleander hopped off the table and began to arrange cups, cutlery and other things on the table into a rough floorplan of the cheesery. The entire building as made up of several sections connected with corridors. The main areas were the production room and the storage room, but there were also several smaller rooms that might or might not play a role in the various mysterious steps of turning milk into cheese.

"So, Team Distraction will be active on the working floor here," she pointed at an apple next to a handkerchief. Then her hand moved over to a pair of forks. "This is the passage that'll take us to the storage and any secret rooms hidden in the back. We don't have to actually pass through the front section at all, since I saw a roof shutter we can use to drop directly into the back area. Guess they have to let out the smell of fermenting milk somehow, eh?"

Jaden had an unpleasant memory of crawling around on roofs and dropping into places. She shook the feeling off and tried to pay attention. Say what you would about the presentation, Oleander actually knew what she was doing about orchestrating break-ins.

"What's this leaf here represent?" The mystic pointed at the dry leaf next to the forks.

"That's just a leaf, Jay. I don't think anyone's watered this flower in a week."

“This seems very embarrassing to me,” Alisan said from behind the hands she held to her face.

“We saw it several times when we recently visited Etrana. It’s quite popular among the wealthier echelons to have an elven concubine. Why, Gildlady Sulasha Dran had two young Seren men attending her at all time to show her wealth,” Kellen rumbled on.

“Though not wealthy enough to afford the lads some shirts,” Stann snorted.

“It’s a sad state of affairs when young elves leave Sorun to see the world, but end up in indentured servitude due to debts,” Kellen reminded his friends about Etria’s positive stance on slavery. “Of course, they’ll outlive their bond-owners and can eventually return to their homeland.”

“Be strong, Alisan. It will only be for one night,” Mirena put a comforting hand on the pale elf’s shoulder.

“And light will follow darkness,” Alisan grudgingly agreed.

“Wonderful. Now, come here again,” Stann said, waving her over. “This time, drape yourself more… expressively on my arm.”

“Fortune has truly forgotten me,” the elf lamented, but did her best impression of a vacant-eyed girl, twirling her hair around a finger.

Mirena and Kellen did their best to keep from laughing as the warrior and the elf sauntered back and forth like they owned everything they laid their eyes on. Stann even added a little cheeky swagger as if he was just about to break into a jig. It was so over the top, but that was the point.

“Do you remember your part, ‘Renata’?” The rune seeker asked the knight.

“Oh yes. I will be complaining. A lot.” Mirena had to dig pretty deep to find that spoiled little child her temple training had done such a good job of scouring from her. A part of her almost looked forward to their performance tonight.

As the night finally draped its velvet shadows over the low city at the fringe of the wildlands, the wind started to pick up a bit. The summer season in Olmar was usually warm and calm, but with autumn waiting impatiently by the gates the halcyon days turned to leaf-tumbling gusts chasing across the open steppes.

Jaden sat crouched as comfortably as she was able to on the rooftop next to her two friends, tying back her hair with a yellow ribbon. The usual leather string had been stuffed together with the rest of her remaining older clothes after one too many had commented on how strange such a rough accessory looked next to her Kasman-styled silk blouse and short fine wool jacket. In fact, added to her Marsander sailor’s trousers her outfit looked all over the place. That suited Jaden just fine, since that was what she felt like at the moment.

“Why are we on this rooftop, rather than, you know, where we need to be?” The mystic asked the leader of their small, sneaky group with a hushed tone.

Oleander had made them climb up on a building across from the Golden Wheels cheesery, where they had perched for the past several minutes in relative silence, aside from some smalltalk.

“Obviously, it’s to add some vantage. Also,” the redhead clamped a hand down on Jaden’s head and turned it towards the street below them, pointing with her free hand. “There’s that guy. He’s been walking around here for a while now, every so often.”

“Patrolling. Guard,” Rhyce said with a low voice. Maybe it was the moonlight casting his features in silver, but he didn’t look so good.

Before Jaden could ask the archer about how he was feeling, noises approached from the street leading towards the centre of the town. They crouched down lower, but could still see the two carriages clattering down the paved street. One had the look of the finest a local wagon service could offer, the other was clearly a private carriage sporting a guild mark on the doors. As the wagons came to a stop outside the cheesery, the drivers hopped off, almost racing to see who would be able to let their passengers out first.

Out of the private carriage climbed a longhaired Northman wearing white coat reaching below his knees and flat-top Etrian hat. He reached up to the carriage and helped a pale-haired elf in a gossamer dress down. She teetered a bit in her impractical shoes before wrapped her arms around his offered arm. Last out was a portly man with Tierin looks, his dark brown hair carefully slicked back and his moustache waxed to a point.

“She really does look like a creampuff,” Oleander mumbled.

Out of the other carriage stumbled a giant barely restrained by his puffy, vermillion Kasman shirt. It had small gold-thread knot decorations that, from a distance, made him look like a huge strawberry. Him leaving the carriage made it sway as if on a ship at sea. Once it had come to a rest again, a woman with long brown hair done up in an elaborate weave held with both pins and ribbons gracefully exited. She wore a strict, high-necked dress that could only be in style with strict orphanage governesses.

The doors to the cheesery opened, letting out a rectangle of light into the darkened cul-de-sac framed by large buildings. A foreman-looking person stepped out to greet both parties. By his body language alone, it was apparent that he was more than a little surprised at getting not one, but two, visits. The Tierin man who had arrived with the private wagon walked up with his arms open wide, and started a friendly conversation. Soon, both parties were allowed into the cheesery proper.

“Where did they get those outfits on such short notice?” Jaden wondered in a whisper. “Also, why did they take carriages here? It’s not even a fifteen minute walk from the Silver Staff?”

“Oh, how little you know of the world, Jay. Rich people don’t walk,” Oleander said with a smirk.

When they looked back down again, they saw motion towards the corner of the building. A pair of feet belonging to an unconscious body was dragged into the shadows of the alley. Shortly afterwards, Rhyce looked out from around that corner, and then up at the roof across the street.

“Wait, how did he even get over there?” Jaden looked to their side where the archer had been just moments before. At least, she thought he had been. It wasn’t as if Rhyce had contributed much to the conversation.

“I don’t know. He’s sneaky when it suits him,” Oleander murmured, sounding almost a little jealous. She exchanged a look with the mystic. “Well, I guess that’s our queue, though. Let’s get over there.”

They both carefully made their way to the side of the slanted rooftop where they had left the ladder. Quickly, they slid down the rungs and darted across the street into the darkened alleyway to join the archer. When they got there, they saw how Rhyce had pushed some crates up against the wall to form a rough set of stairs for them to climb. As they had discussed earlier, their plan was to sneak in through a shutter on the roof. Oleander had spied a side entrance when she had scouted the place last night, but peeking through the keyhole had shown armed guards. While there was no doubt they could likely overpower a couple of guards after breaking through the door, doing so would draw the attention of everyone in the vicinity, distraction or no distraction. This called for a measure of finesse; a touch of Oleander.

Climbing some stacked crates and barrels was an easy task. Doing it quietly, though, was another thing entirely. It took them more time than any of them would admit to make it up to the roof of the cheesery without causing a ruckus. The redhead and the archer gave the mystic a mildly reproachful glare once she finally pulled herself over the ledge.

“You’re as graceful as a drunk pig, Jay,” Oleander commented.

“I’m plenty graceful. I’m agile. But you try climbing with these stupid things on your chest,” Jaden hissed.

“I actually do have those things on my chest too, you know.”

“What I mean is, they’re… yours are…” The mystic’s face went red as she gestured at their respective bosoms.

“Yes? What about mine?” Oleander crossed her arms and went a little thin-lipped.

“Compare later. Focus on the job,” Rhyce interrupted before their voices rose too high. The archer indicated the shutters a bit further along the rooftop. Next to it sat a crow by itself, peering at them with its head turned to the side. It must have seen an insect, because it tapped its beak against the shutter planks.

Once they were gathered around their way inside, Oleander knelt down to inspect the lock. It would take some precision work to get to it, since it locks from the inside, but it was nothing the redhead hadn’t dealt with a number of times before in one way or another. She unrolled her leather bundle where she kept her favourite tools, and ran a finger across the various needle-like prongs and hooks before selecting two.

"Okay, once I get this open I want you to go down first, Rhyce. Make sure the immediate area is secure," she instructed while she wiggled her slim steel tools through the cracks in the planks.

The archer nodded, and adjusted his quiver. It was covered with a lid and kept close with a string loop around a small hook, keeping the arrows from falling out when he was climbing or running.

The redhead soon had the latch open, and the borderlander dropped down into the dark corridor below with a soft thud, rolling and drawing his bow in one smooth motion. They waited a few heartbeats. Finally, Rhyce raised an open palm into the faint light trickling down through the open shutter.

"Alright, Jay. Now you." Oleander held out her hands to help her friend down.

Jaden thankfully took her hands, and eased down through the roof access. For a moment she dangled ten feet above the floor, only kept up by Oleander's firm grip on her hands.

"How are you this heavy, Jay?" Oleander whispered.

"I'm not- Shut up!" The mystic shot back, and wriggled free.

Jaden dropped down the last distance and crouched into the landing. She noticed with some pride that she had been almost as quiet as Rhyce. Maybe she wasn't as hopelessly clumsy anymore now that she had some more experience with her new form? Perhaps it was possible to get used to all the swaying and jiggling? Or at least desensitised.

While the mystic was getting her bearings, a light thump announced that the redhead had joined them. The three of them crept down the corridor that would be going parallel to the larger halls. It was most likely used as a passage to keep out of the way of the main bustle during busy hours, and by the looks of it, an improvised storage area. The corridor was littered with stray boxes and barrels, rolls of waxed canvas and other useful things in the everyday cheesemaking process.

They carefully made their way past a couple of doors that stood slightly ajar, allowing them to quickly glance inside and make sure Toben wasn't in another room for whatever reason. So far, every door after the first had led to either storage areas for aging, or a room with a big, open oven and many shelves. Whatever this whole operation was, it seemed to genuinely produce cheese. Had they been given a false lead?

The final door led into an adjoining antechamber with the barred door Oleander had scouted earlier that day. Breaking through the door would definitely have been possible, but would have alerted everyone inside. As it was right now, only two men stood with their backs toward the corridor, playing dice on a table. There was a small keg of beer on the table, next to a number of cups. The barrel had a broken arrow embedded into the wood near one of the iron hoops. One of the men seemed frustrated by his luck, or the lack of it, and bashed the table with a fist.

Oleander exchanged a look with Rhyce and Jaden, and then tapped the archer on the arm, nodding at the two unwitting men, holding a finger to her lips. With a nod, Rhyce drew one of his knives, weighing it in his hand carefully and judging the distance between him and the men. With a satisfied nod, he drew his arm back and then whipped it forward in an overhead throw. The knife handle struck the taller of the two men in the back of his head with a dull thud, bouncing down on the ground and soon followed by the man collapsing.

Before his friend had fully registered what had happened, turning to look at why the fellow was falling over, Oleander had dashed forward like a small, red blur. She kicked the man in the back of his knee, and as soon as his balance went out, she jumped up and slammed the side of his head down into the table with a crunch that made the cups fall over and roll around in half circles.

Jaden listened intently for any sign that the brief, one-sided struggle had alerted anyone to their presence, but there were no shouts, no sounds of weapons being drawn. She gave her friends a thumbs up, and then moved towards the third door in the chamber. Opposite of the barred entrance, was a smaller door, similar to the one they had entered from the side corridor. She listened briefly, and could hear murmur on the other side, but couldn’t quite make out what was being said.

The mystic glanced at the others, and saw how Rhyce had a look of concentrating on his face. He seemed to look at the wall near the ceiling, and after a while there was a faint squeaking sound coming from the rafters. Jaden looked up, and noticed how one of the roundest rats she had ever seen was precariously perched on a beam. The rat, fearlessly obese, chittered at them for a few moments before waddling back into the shadows most likely in search for more cheese to gorge itself on.

Oleander and Jaden exchanged a shrug. It was a weird, random thing, but compared to their lives in general it didn't measure up to most things they've seen. Rhyce, however, first indicated the area beyond the door and held up both hands, showing three fingers on his right, two on his left. He nodded towards the door. Oleander readied one of her dwarven-made daggers, holding it with its heavy point down. Jaden slipped out of her jacket and tied the sleeves around her waist, leaving her back showing mostly bare skin. She adjusted the jacket to make sure she could still draw her sword without it catching on anything, and then nodded that she was ready.

”So, you can see how I am somewhat… surprised by this visit, yes, Ambrose?” The foreman nodded at a nearby worker, who came over to push the doors shut. “I knew to expect the, ah, lovely Essengars here, of course. But you and your… friends? Not so much.”

It was a very large area, the main working floor of the Golden Wheels cheesery, and even at this time of the evening it was surprisingly noisy. Wheelbarrows squeaked, barrels thumped and tools clanged.

“Certainly, but what is life but a series of events and opportunities to be had or lost? You, my friend, have an opportunity here. These fine, fine people came all the way from Etrana! Why, they’re ever so interested in your product here, and might look to invest in the business if properly impressed!” Ambrose sidled up next to the foreman and put his arm around the other man. “Listen. We’ve been friends a long time, Ruben. Just give them the show-and-tell, alright?”

“Don’t make me regret this, Ambrose,” Ruben growled under his breath just loud enough for the other to hear, but then put on a mask of polite demeanour as he turned to the guests.

While the two had been conferring, both groups of guests were looking at the operation proceeding around them. There were at least ten people doing something or other at any given time. For all intents and purposes, it looked like a genuine workspace.

“Ahem. Yes.” Ruben, the foreman, cleared his throat. “Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the Golden Wheels cheesery – the finest producer of cheese in west Olman.”

“Happy to be here,” Stann swaggered up and shook the foreman’s hand eagerly.

“Yes, well. It’s an honour to have people from so far away. We’re delighted at the opportunity to extend our services to… Etrana, was it?” Ruben turned to look at Kellen, standing rigid in his vividly red shirt. Ruben suddenly didn’t look as sure of himself. “And, uh, Tier? Telasero? … Strom?”

“Indeed,” the rune seeker replied, unhelpfully.

“Can we just get on with it? You know I don’t like being around the plebeians, dear,” Mirena whined, holding her dress up from touching the floor.

The foreman went on explaining some of the cheesery’s background, how it was built by two men with a dream and a lot of hard work, and how it now exported a lot of its production to Radent and the surrounding villages in the east. Ruben puffed himself up, and continued by claiming that they were also the main suppliers of cheese to Talraman.

The foreman brought them along on a small tour of the place, pointing at the large casks and explaining something to his guests. Going by his body language, whatever it was must be much more exciting than anything that should be going on inside a cheesery.

While that was going on, Kellen took the opportunity to wander off and talk to a man wrapping the finished, dried and aged cheeses in wax cloth for transport. The man saw the huge rune seeker approach, and straightened up with a surprised expression. He wiped his forehead, and then his hands, on a towel he kept slung over a shoulder.

“Evening, good man. Do you think I could ask some questions about your operation here?” Kellen rumbled as he towered over the other man by more than a foot.

"Sure. I mean, there’s not much to tell.” The man scratched his head, and then gestured to the main floor. “What we make is almost as good as the better known Veren cheeses."

"Almost as good?" The Northern magician raised a bushy eyebrow.

"I'm not going to toot our own horn here. That Veren stuff is delicious. The ones we make here is alright, mind you, but it's no Veren Sharp." The man shrugged.

"May I try some?" Kellen nodded at the tray of round cheeses waiting to be wrapped.

"Sure, help yourself."

The rune seeker pulled the knife from his belt, and cut a thin wedge out of one of the smaller wheels. He popped the slide in his mouth and chewed deep in thought for a while. Kellen made a contemplative grunt once he swallowed.

"How did you like it?" The dark-haired worker put the cut cheese aside, so he wouldn’t wrap it by mistake.

"It was good, I guess. It was alright." Kellen nodded slowly. He had tasted better, but also worse.

"What did I tell you? Decent enough cheeses." The man dropped another finished wrapped wheel into a large sack.

"But no Veren Sharp," Kellen concluded.

"No sirree, it's not," the man shook his head.

Meanwhile Ambrose stood with Stann and Alisan, as well as Mirena, when the various steps of cheesemaking were explained to them in great detail. Stann appeared honestly interested in the process, even to the point of asking some follow-up questions. When Kellen made it back to them, he was greeted by Mirena complaining about how time-consuming every step was.

“Is this part really necessary? Couldn’t they skip right to the next stage? They could make more cheese that way, and our profit would increase.” The knight waved her hand in the general direction of the large wooden casks sitting to the side of the room.

“No-no, you see, it’s important to let it mature properly. You know all about maturity, don’t you, dear?” Kellen replied, patting her arm patronisingly.

"Ta saron lai en renen bina molan en nirido ken," Alisan singsang while looking with ill-concealed horror at the large vats around the work floor.

"My little snowflake says she is very impressed by your operation here," Stann translated with a big grin. He had no idea what she had said, but he was betting none of the others did either.

“Is this just a single area? I saw a couple of doors when we first entered,” Kellen asked the foreman, pretending that he didn’t hear the seams on one of his sleeves starting to tear drawn tight as it was over his thick arms.

"Ah. Well. Beyond that door are some rooms where we can treat the cheeses with heat or smoke to give it certain characteristics, and another room where we can age the cheese for extra flavour." Ruben pointed towards the far end of the open work floor. There was a slight tightening around his eyes, however.

"Did you hear, dear? They lock their cheeses away until they're of the proper age. Why didn't your father think of that?" The rune seeker said to the knight with a wide smile.

Mirena took a calming breath, and forced her hands to unclench. She knew that they were just playing roles, and that Kellen had not meant anything by that comment. Still, it had hit a little too close to home. Literally. She kept the fake smile on her lips, but there was no hiding the dangerous glint in her eyes. A worker who was carrying a small crate of wrapped cheeses did a double-take and backed away a few steps.

Ruben led them closer to the casks, waving away one of the workers who was attending them.

"Oh my! The smell! Don't you clean those big barrel-things?" Mirena waved a hand in front of her face, and then plucked a lace handkerchief from her sleeve to hold to her nose.

"Why, of course not! That's one of the secret ingredients in the whole process, ma'am!" The foreman protested.

"...horrible, disease-inducing moulds?" The knight let the kerchief drop enough to give the foreman a questioning look.

"Well. No. Wonderful cheese-generating moulds. You see, they're an integral in how the cheese becomes, well, cheese,” Ruben tapped the side of one of the large wooden barrels.

"Fascinating. Can we have a look at the something that's in the process of... cheesifying?" Kellen stroked his moustache as he leaned closer.

"Curdling, but yes. Come over here. We're just about to tap the whey out of this tub." Ruben waved the worker back, who approached with thin smile. At the foreman’s gesturing, the man pried a lid open with his knife.

Despite themselves, the group moved closer to peer into the opened barrel.

"This doesn't look like cheese,” Mirena sounded doubtful.

"No, that's cheese curd. You need to press it to remove as much water as possible. Then we take the lumps, shape them into blocks and take them to the hot room,” Ruben said, pointing over the one of the doors.

"Interesting. But how do you know if is ready for the next step?" Stann wondered out loud.

"Ah, well, you see, we use these scoops to take up a sample to inspect the quality before we drain the barrel." The man took a small ladle and dipped it into the thick, milky substance.

"May I?" Kellen shouldered past his cousin with a small noise of tearing fabric.

"Of course, sir." Ruben handed the rune seeker the ladle.

"Hmm. Indeed. And this one is almost ready?" The large Northman asked after inspecting the curd.

"Yes, yes. I would give it another couple of days to sit, though." The foreman held out his hand for the ladle, but was left standing there. He looked to either side, and then sighed a little.

"Honey, are you quite done playing with the cheese? I'm exhausted, and this place smells,” Mirena complained in a voice that went a little shrill towards the end. A part of her was surprised how much like her mother she sounded.

"We will leave when we are finished with the tour. I find this very interesting. Which is more than I can say about you." The rune seeker gave the knight a quick wink that their guide couldn't see, and then handed the ladle to Ruben.

"What? I never!" Mirena puffed herself up indignantly. "If you like the cheese so much, then you can HAVE it!"

The knight grabbed the ladle from the stunned man and threw the scoopful mess at the tall Northman. It hit him square in the chest, dribbling down in soft chunks.

"Why, you loud and ungainly woman! Is this the gratitude I get for dragging your family out of poverty?" Kellen shoved his hand into the opened tub of unfinished cheese, parts of his straining shirt ripping in the process, and tossed the handful straight at Mirena. The expression of horror on the knight's face was probably genuine, as the mess splattered across her fine gown.

Mirena gasped loudly and looked around for something else to throw. The men around them had stopped working, and just stared at the spectacle with mixed concern and amusement.

"Sirs! Madams! Please, stop what you are doing!" The foreman held his hands to his hair with a distraught expression, looking at the chaos exploding around him, calling in vain for his guests to control themselves.

"And this is for calling me a LEMON!" The elf hit the younger of the two Northmen straight in the face with a fistful of soft cheese curd.

"Live by the cheese, DIE BY THE CHEESE!" Stann yelled and grabbed a ladle of his own, hanging from one of the other nearby casks.

Rhyce had the black bow in his hands and took position next to the door. At his sign, Jaden began to pull the door open, using it as cover if someone was waiting for them. Oleander crouched down, readied to spring at anyone if the chance presented itself.

When the door opened enough, they saw five men with their weapons drawn, all running towards them. Suddenly, they veered off, heading down into an adjoining passage that had to connect with the main area of the cheesery. Jaden quickly pushed the door shut, and turned to her friends.

“What was that?” She asked.

“Not sure. Maybe the distraction is working better than we thought?” Oleander offered hesitantly.

“An opening. Move,” Rhyce relaxed his grip on the bowstring and nodded at the door.

When they opened it again, the corridor was empty. A quick glance to the side when they hurried across showed a slightly ajar door at the end of the other passage, letting in the sound of some kind of struggle.

“Should we go help them?” Jaden wondered, pointing towards where their friends were likely fighting against a dozen armed men by now.

“Got our mission. Let’s finish it.” Rhyce shook his head, but kept his attention towards the side passage in case the thugs would return that way.

At the end of this corridor was a door much like the one they had come through from the guardroom. The archer got an intense look once more, and then held up a hand with four fingers raised. Jaden took another bracing breath, and they repeated their earlier positioning.

As the door swung open, they saw a spacious room that must have been used as a workshop before the Iron Ring moved in. The walls still had racks with woodworking tools, and the floor was strewn with sawdust. But instead of workbenches were tables with papers, maps and loose coin spread out. There were four men in various stages of readiness around the room, as well. The one sitting on a simple chair at the other side of the room looked older, but somehow harder than the rest. He was wearing a leather jerkin and a rider’s trousers, his greying hair hanging down enough to give him the look of a shaggy dog. The other men had knives and larger blades hanging from their belts. Something about their stance made Jaden think of soldiers or mercenaries. Men who had seen blood and death.

Rhyce’s hands became a blur, drawing and firing quicker than the untrained eye could follow. The first arrow nicked the hand of the closest man, making him drop his strange sword even as he was drawing it. The blade had several notches along its back, made to catch and break the opponent’s weapon. The next two arrows went through the man’s wide trousers, pinning his clothes to the ground, but not without drawing some blood in the process by the look on the man’s face.

Jaden began to draw an imaginary line through another of the men, who had sickle-like knives readied. Before she could call upon her breathstealer’s pact, however, another arrow whizzed past her shoulder, clipping the man in the arm and made him spin around. A second shot struck the outside of the wrist, and his knives clattered to the floor.

Oleander kicked sawdust in the taller one's eyes, grabbing on to his neckerchief and swung herself up on his shoulders just like mounting a horse. When he reached up with an arm to fling her off, she twisted it with the elbow against her thigh until it threatened to break. Locking that arm against her body, she held the edge of one of her many knives against his neck.

"Shave and a throat-cut, guv?" Oleander grinned and pressed the knife a little against the skin to make her point.

The man squirmed for a few seconds more until he slumped a little and shook his head very carefully. There was a clanging noise as his own swordbreaker hit the floor, next to his friends’ blades.

While the one Oleander was sitting on was under control, the other two bodyguards began to reach for more knives even as they kicked over the tables as cover against the archer. The one Rhyce had pinned simply tore through his trousers, leaving large shreds still stuck to the floor.

For a moment, everything seemed to slow down for Jaden. It was as if she could see how this fight would end. Bodies on the ground, decorated with arrows. As long as these men thought they could win, they would fight to the death. There needed to be a show of uncompromising strength. Strength in all things, strength above all things. At this point, what more could the spirit do to her? There was little else to lose.

“Alright. You win,” the mystic whispered, and allowed the force inside her to be free.

We don’t have to fight

Jaden let her human form disappear within the fiery embrace of her spirit. Where had been a blackhaired elfin woman, the next heartbeat was a redskinned demon with her wings spread wide and the ebony tresses parted by curved horns. Only the golden eyes remained the same. The fire inside of her could not be contained, and motes of the nether flames danced around her like fireflies. The mystic in her fully manifested form turned those golden eyes toward the leader of the Iron Ring, and pointed at his heart with a crimson finger.

"Stand down, or be destroyed." It was the only warning issued by the protectors of the mountain before they engaged with the enemy. If ignored, they would not hesitate to kill. Jaden was no protector. In another life she might have been, but lies had never come as easy to her as now.

She could see the fire reflected in their eyes. There was fear there, as well. Jaden hoped she would never get used to seeing that look. The middle-aged man brushed his matted, grey hair back from his face, backed up against the wall.

"Woah! Hold your horses!" He waved toward the three who had dismantled his personal guard. "I'm not calling for any trouble with you mystics. Nothing is worth all that grief, not again."

"You have been dealing with someone you shouldn't have, Toben of Tarad," Jaden said as she walked closer to the man, her palms each balancing a small ball of flame. The tail moved sinuously behind her, like that of a prowling tiger. "But the enemy of our enemy could be a friend. Do you wish to be our friend, Toben?"

"This quickly turned into a very literal 'demon you know, demon you don't' situation. Or maybe rock and a hard place." The older man seemed to weigh his options for a little while. "I'm pretty certain those people will see me buried if I talk."

"Do you expect anything less from the mountain?" The mystic held out the flame on her palm, like offering a gift.

"No, ma'am. I'm just thinking about which way would be the worst to go." Toben couldn’t seem to take his eyes off the fire.

"I can have protectors here before word of your actions reaches the ears of our enemy. Or you could seek refuge at the doors of the citadel itself," Jaden felt some of the fire creep into her voice. The fire made everything sound so reasonable. The fire made everyone listen.

"Rotting ravens. Well, alright. They will probably hear about you having been here anyway, so no matter what I do, my fields are scorched." Toben wiped his face with a kerchief from his sleeve. It came away a little greasy, but left him looking somewhat cleaner. "Alright. Alright, already. My chips are with you guys."

"You have chosen wisely, Toben." The mystic stopped in front of the man, who held his calm remarkably well under the circumstances. She could hear the clatter of the tables as Toben’s guards ducked to the sides. Jaden let the flames die down and assumed a nonthreatening stance with her wings folded back. "Tell us about your previous masters."

"I wouldn't have called them that. Business partners. Controlling, senior business partners. Kuros' hand, were they ever controlling." He edged away from where he had been pressing himself against the wall, pulled the chair upright and practically fell down into it. Jaden merely followed him with her eyes. "Never saw too many of them in person. They always used messengers except the first few times, to 'nurture the relationship', as they called it."

"Tell us about the middleman," Jaden demanded.

"Elf. Real elf, not like you - no offence," Toben added.

"No, thank you. Go on." The mystic felt vindicated.

"He had dark hair, a little bit like you, but kept it very long. All the way down his back. Pale as a moonlight lily, though. Spoke slowly. He was picking his words like a harvest feast judge selecting the best apple pie." Toben had that unfocused look in his eyes, when a person thinks back at something in the past.

"Did he give you a name?" Jaden followed up.

"Sure. He went by Valshon. Didn't know if you wanted it, since names are easier to change than your coat. He kept rubbing his left hand, though, like there was something wrong with it." Toben mimicked the gesture, running his hand over the other.

"Anything else?" The mystic resisted the urge to extend her wings. It felt very good to let them stretch out completely, but the room was just barely wide enough to allow that.

"Only that they are very keen on increasing the songwood market in the coastlands, and even to Marsantias. Really, really keen." Toben rubbed his grizzled cheek with an uncertain look in his eyes. "As in, 'willing to lower their prices' keen."

"Their goal isn't to make money, but to unload their stock on as wide a market as possible?" Jaden looked at her friends for any thoughts.

"That sounds... sinister," Oleander said, and stopped flipping her knife end over end.

"Who sends the deliveries to you?" The mystic turned back to the leader of the gang.

"It's a logging group who works out of the wildlands. They're Olman, but they've spoken about the elves pulling the strings. You'll find their camp at the edge of the forbidden area. They must have some sort of deal with the wildwardens." Toben shrugged a little, indicating that he neither knew, nor cared, about that part of the arrangement.

"Your assistance have been noted, Toben of Tarad," she said, starting to turn away to leave the room.

"So, you'll send some of your heavies to make sure those pointy-eared freaks don't do anything to me? Right?" Toben called after her.

"Of course," Jaden lied.

The door opened enough for the four of them to be shoved outside. The man was breathing heavily, with a lapel of his shirt torn and his hair in disarray. Despite this, he tried to remain dignified as he spoke to them.

"We will find our sponsors somewhere else. Thank you. Do NOT return to us, please," Ruben flashed a still smile that was just showing his teeth. With that, he slammed the door shut. They could even hear the bar thumping down on the other side, as an afterthought.

Stann wiped some of the cheese curd out of his ear as he looked at his cousin and the two women.

"So... you think we bought them enough time?"

"I know not of what you speak, Winterheart," Alisan dabbed her décolletage with a handkerchief, trying to get the bigger chunks out of the top of her dress.

"You know, Rhyce's team? The real reason we came here this evening?" Stann reminded the elf.

"I... seem to have forgotten that in the midst of our battle," she admitted.

"You mean, our dairying-do?" The warrior paused and looked expectantly at the others, smiling widely.

Kellen covered his face with a hand at the pun, his chest barely covered in the torn remains of the proud, red shirt. It had been woefully small for a man of his remarkable size, but the only one they had been able to find on short notice.

"Kellen? Can you tell if they are still inside?" Mirena managed to look like she wasn't dripping whey and bits of cheese.

The rune seeker fished up one of the smooth stones from his many belt-pouches and grasped it in a huge hand. His face hardened in concentration for a moment, before he began slowly turning clockwise. Eventually, he came to a stop facing away from the cheesery.

"They're northeast of us, close enough to still be within sight the town, but more than a half mile away, moving south at a slow pace. Most likely they're taking a scenic route back to the Staff in case they are followed," Kellen theorised as he put the runestone away.

"Good. Now, it is summer and we're in Olmar, covered in cheese. We will soon be utterly foul-smelling if we don't go get cleaned up." Mirena set off at a brisk pace, the others quickly joining her.

Minutes later, the door opened once more, and Ambrose the merchant was pushed out into the street. He looked as if he had been the recipient of many harsh words. The foreman Ruben stood in the lit doorway and glared at him.

“Ambrose. We are no longer friends. Goodnight!”

Later, all of them sat or stood around the sitting room table in Stann and Alisan’s suite, clearly intended for fewer than seven people. Jaden looked with curiosity at those who had been on the distraction team. They were all newly bathed, and in fresh clothes, and seemed to avoid looking at each other.

“I sent you a far whisper as soon as we left the place. Didn’t it reach you?” Jaden asked the rune seeker.

“It probably did, but some of the… uh… distraction strategies were louder than others. I’m sorry Jaden, but I must’ve missed it,” Kellen confessed, rubbing the back of his neck.

"You must have kept them very distracted. We had no problem getting into the back and shaking down Toben. Most of his assassins weren’t even there. Good plan switching back to your old clothes. It might make you less recognisable," Oleander said, poking Stann’s shoulder.

"Actually, we had to change. Our other outfits were... impaired.” Mirena looked uncomfortable, brushing back some still-wet strands of hair.

"This is where I'm going to ask what you actually did to distract them." The redhead leaned forward across the table on her elbows, resting her chin on her hands.

"We staged a food-fight," the knight admitted.

"..." Jaden had no words.

"We're so heroic," Oleander deadpanned without blinking.

"So." Stann wiggled a finger inside his ear. He could still feel something stuck in there. "Was this whole song and dance worth it?"

"Definitely. Toben was clearly involved with providing transport as well as getting rid of anyone too curious about the whole affair." Jaden remembered the body buried behind the Cartel’s boathouse. Toben’s people were efficient and ruthless.

"What, like us?" Stann let his hand fall down to his belt. It was a subconscious gesture, checking the sword.

"He would likely try, sure, if he wasn't convinced we're agents of the mountain. I may have led him to believe that we're a group of Lacunai enforcers,” Jaden allowed herself a small smirk. It felt strangely rewarding to manipulate people like that.

"Jay was very impressive," Oleander added, and then made her voice sound all gruff. "'I will destroy you!'"

"I didn't say-" Jaden protested.

"We also got a description and a name of Toben's main contact. A male dark elf named Valshon, but that might have been a cover. Toben said that the elf's left hand was strange, somehow." Ollie held up the hand in question and wiggled it around.

"Val shon? That appears as ‘blood gold’. Bloodmoney. I offer that this name is a false one," Alisan furrowed her brow as she spoke, clearly not liking the connotations of the name.

"Well, it's something, at least. If this is the same elf that the woman in Carrick Field saw, we shouldn't have too much trouble finding a dark elf librarian with an iffy hand who makes a habit of traveling," Stann said, leaning back in his chair.

"Does this sound like someone you know, Alisan?" Mirena turned to the elf with her question.

"No, it seems as if this one is a stranger to me as well. But as you say, not many blossoms share these petals. His face would not be one lost among countless stars." Alisan nodded slowly. There couldn’t be many that fitted that description.

"Either way, Toben and his gang won't likely be doing any more business with this Valshon person and whoever works for him. Toben's convinced that the elves are coming after him now that he ratted them out,” Oleander said and tapped the table with a finger to emphasise her words.

"Well, that's one less string attached to this mess. The next logical step is to follow the leads back to Ral Sona. Once we have our hands on Valshon, we should be able to get some real answers." Kellen was leaning against the wall to allow other people to sit instead.

"The hand that moves the pieces still bows to the head." Rhyce waited to speak until the rune seeker was finished talking. Even with his quiet voice, everyone could hear him just fine.

"You think Valshon is just another pawn?" Mirena asked the archer.

"There are larger forces at work," Rhyce said ominously.

"O-kaay," Stann said after they had sat in silence for a little while. "From our side of things, we didn't learn much new. Aside from how to make really average cheese."

"I seem to have seen deeper roots than that. I learned many things during our dance, Winterheart. You never spoke of your sisters before." Alisan glanced sideways at the winter warrior.

"How did you know I have sisters?" Stann blinked in surprise. He was pretty sure he hadn’t mentioned any of his kin to the elf.

"You fight a woman like you do," Alison said, as if that explained everything.

"That doesn't make any sense at all." The younger of the Northmen scrunched his face up in confusion.

Jaden remembered the conversation she had overhead during their voyage up the Odar. The elven method of understanding someone by watching them move was fascinating. There was nothing like it among the Lacunai.
Understanding was not necessary; there was only obedience. Wisdom was knowing what the will of the mountain was, not why it demanded what it did. Instead of encouraging movement, the Lacunai practiced meditation. Become as the mountain, still and clear. Rise above the clouds of doubt and empty questions.

Had the Lacunai way worked for Jaden? She had tried meditation. She had tried to reach that focus the teachers had spoken about, but it hadn't been her way. Jaden realised that she felt most at harmony when she acted. That was when she could leave her doubts behind. There had been clarity during the fight with the demon of Redwall. There had been purpose when she faced off against the cultists in Tier. Could this way of understanding be the key, where the teachings of the mountain had only offered another wall?

"We could sneak away during the night?" Stann suggested. Jaden must have missed a portion of the conversation, because she didn't know what they were talking about.

"Wouldn't it look suspicious if both parties checked out at the same time?" Kellen countered.

"Not if we wander off one by one without our traveling gear. I can stay behind, gather up our belongings and meet you by the stables," Stann offered.

"Stann Winterheart, you are NOT throwing any bags out of the windows," Mirena said with a firm voice.

"It'd still look strange come morning. We might as well enjoy these nice beds and head out early. Stann's group can head out at first light along the Radent road, and then swing around up over town and meet us closer to the border?" Kellen had a faraway look, as if he was imagining a map of Olmar.

"Of course you volunteer us for the early group, ugly cousin," Stann grumbled.

"It's because the Ashgeld cover is based in Etrana. It would be logical for you to take an eastbound road. Doing so, you'll need the extra time to be able to catch up with the rest of us," Kellen explained, crossing his arms.

"Since when did logic dictate our actions?" Oleander chimed in.

"Then my and Kellen's group will saddle up about an hour after sunrise and ride slowly until we're together once again," Mirena latched on to the half-formed plan before her less organised friends could demolish it.

"Is all this actually necessary, or are we just being overly paranoid?" Jaden wondered. She was pretty sure she had Toben and those Iron Ring knifemen cowed. There was something nice about that.

"A little caution is a good thing," Mirena reminded everyone, not just the mystic.

"Also, just because you can't see them, doesn't mean they're not watching you!" Oleander added.

Before Mirena left Stann and Alisan’s suite, she stopped by the elf and put a hand on the other woman’s shoulder.

“I apologise for spilling a pail of whey over your dress, Alisan,” the knight said with a small laugh and a shake of her head. This evening would not be soon forgotten. “I meant to wash the smile off Kellen’s face. I suspect he was using some rune to deflect a number of my attacks.”

“Your words are embraced and returned in spirit. It was a truly strange series of circumstances.” Alisan still had a bit of a lingering shocked look.

"At least we got the two of them to bathe. That's an upside." Mirena allowed herself a small wistful sigh, and added, "but I'm not sure those stains will ever wash clean. That gown seems destined for dirt. Mud, blood, cheese."

"It did present you most favourably," the elf said, nodding slowly.

"I feel that I should also apologise for dragging you into our strange adventure, Alisan."

"It seems as if I chose this path. Had one asked me this morning if I envisioned myself being slathered with cheese, I would most likely have called them mad, but the artist in me can appreciate your talent for... improvisation." She looked sideways at the men standing a bit further away. "Also, parts of it were cathartic."

"May I ask you a question?" Mirena wondered.

"The path is open."

"You say 'seems' a lot. You have a noticeable accent, so I'm wondering if it's you being unaccustomed to Midland Trade, or if it is for some other reason?" The knight only had rudimentary experience with the elven language, so she could appreciate how hard it must be for someone of that culture to learn Trade.

"Oh! I had not noticed. The use of absolutes is considered somewhat harsh as shaped through Serecean. We often speak of opinions or possibilities instead." The pale elf smiled slightly impishly. "It seems as if I have many things to learn, yet."

"We're glad to have you with us, Alisan."

Do you remember running?

The walls of the corridor loomed above her as she ran, her footsteps echoing too loudly. The carvings along either side seemed to snarl and twist in the corner of her eyes; living, accusing things. She didn't know why she was running, but she knew that if she stopped they would find her. So she kept running, with the white cloth of her scant dress whipping behind her.

The door at the end of the hallway opened up into a wide balcony overlooking a grey sea of clouds. It was so familiar, somehow, but at the same time seemed so wrong. She could hear her heartbeat thunder in her ears, and her breath joined the rest of the steaming clouds. Was it cold?

She looked down at her hand. It was clutching three green gemstones, cut into prisms. They seemed to glow with an inner fire, but surely that was a trick of the strange light. She knew they were important. She knew she had to keep running.

A feeling more than anything she could hear warned her that her time was running out. She had to keep moving. She had to leave. Leaning over the balcony, she saw only a short drop ending with the roiling clouds, breaking against the outer walls like misty waves. Was there anything waiting below? Was there ground, or just endless clouds?

Her hands moved by a will other than her own. Slim fingers held up one of the prisms in the air. Upon releasing it, it still hung suspended by thin, green energy filaments connecting it back to her hand.
That inner light began to pulse brightly, like a tiny twinkling star. Or a heartbeat. Cast in that flickerlight her hands moved once more, weaving those energy strands into an otherworldly, floating arch. A portal.

The light of the first prism dimmed, almost died away entirely, as the portal drank its power. A window had opened; a door into another world, with different clouds. It was way out. She stepped through, and spread her wings.

Remember

Jaden awoke with her heart beating quickly. The bed sheets were soaked with sweat, and she was tangled up in the blanket. She pushed the matted mess of her black hair out of her face and took several calming breaths. Why was she so upset? Had it been a bad dream again? She tried to remember, but could only think of clouds for some reason. At least it hadn't been those dreams about fire again. She had dreamt about that all too often lately.

With a groan, the mystic pushed herself up enough that she could peer out through the small window. For a moment, she panicked, thinking that she had overslept. It looked like daytime outside, but strangely devoid of people. Then, between the blink of her eyes, the sky was dark again with predawn half-light beginning to touch the horizon. She blinked several more times, and rubbed her eyes. The world remained in the expected dark hues.

Unwinding the blanket from around her waist and legs, she climbed to her feet and pulled the tunic over her head. Mirena had pointed out several flattering nightdresses during their visit at the seamstresses in Farcrest, but Jaden had put her foot down firmly. Instead, she had demoted her old training tunic to a new role. Large as it was, comparatively speaking, it still fit very strangely. the neck tended to slip over a shoulder and it was tight around the chest and hips while very roomy at the waist. Even if it was long enough to reach down mid-thighs, it always seemed to hitch up as she tossed and turned while sleeping. Still, it was her tunic. It still smelled like her old self. His old self. She held up the tunic to her face and remembered all the hours spent on the courtyard in the cold mountain air, practicing forms, striking the target. A lifetime ago.

With reluctance she threw it aside and slipped on the strange apron blouse, tying it behind her back and then reaching for the shoulderless bodice. It was strange the things one could get used to, she thought, as she fitted the supporting garment around her waist and pulled it up until it cradled her bosom.

Once Jaden was fully dressed, adding her short and light summer jacket as well as the loose-fitting leggings, she left her small servant's room and headed to where Stann and Alisan were uneasily sharing a suite. Apparently, the Northman had taken to sleeping on the carpet by the sitting area while the elf had pulled the thin curtains on the large canopy bed. It was an arrangement that apparently worked for them, if only just. The mystic knocked on the door and then slipped inside, not wanting any early-rising maid to notice her and ask questions.

Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness and she easily spotted the large man snoozing next to a small couch. Kellen could probably use it as an armchair, while Mirena and Oleander would be able to share it as long as they didn't mind rubbing shoulders.

For once, Stann wasn't snoring. He was sleeping on his stomach with his head turned to the side, his wheat-blonde hair spread out in an unruly fashion. Jaden couldn't help but sneak closer, and knelt down next to the sleeping warrior. There was something oddly... gentle about his dreaming face. Stann did everything wholeheartedly, and often very loudly. This wasn't the first time Jaden had seen him asleep. They had shared rooms many times before, or slept closely together by a campfire, but she had never really looked at him like this.

Jaden had a sudden impulse, and reached out to brush some of that hair out of the Northman's face. It was a good face. A strong, honest face. A few nicks and scars, souvenirs of adventures and signs of his seemingly endless bravery.

"Stann?" She whispered, running a thumb along his cheek.

Stann turned his head a little and made a low noise, slowly waking up. Once he opened those sleepy, blue eyes, they remained unfocused for a moment before they saw Jaden. He blinked and rolled over on his side.

"Huh. I could get used to waking up like this," he said in a hushed voice, and then yawned like a big bear. "What time is it?"

"Just before dawn. We should get ready." Jaden stood back up.

"Yeah, okay. Give me a moment." Stann sat up, his blanket falling off to show that he wasn't planning on changing his sleeping habits just because there was a woman in the room.

"Garda's fires, Stann! Really? Put some trousers on!" Jaden hissed, covering her eyes with a hand.

"I'll make you a deal. I'll do that, if you go wake Ali," the warrior jerked a thumb over at the big bed.

"Deal!" Jaden stood up and all but ran over to where the elf was sleeping.

When she got closer, she could clearly see movement behind the curtains.

"Ali? Are you awake?" The mystic called out to the figure on the other side.

«I prepared myself to rouse early,» Alisan replied in soft Serecean

«Then why are you still in bed?» Jaden wondered. It even looked like the elven woman was dressed already. She had apparently brought her pack into the side of the bed she wasn’t using.

«It seems as if someone prefer to rest clad only their own confidence. I decided to seek shelter until someone presents themselves more appropriately.»

«Good call. He's becoming presentable as we speak.» Jaden dared a quick look over her shoulder, enough to see that Stann was tightening the belt around his trousers.

«While I doubt that, I can hear him dressing, at least.» Alisan snorted a little.

It was well on its way to noon before Jaden, Stann and Alisan had caught up with Mirena and the rest some distance west of the town. Their stomachs were making complaining noises, and as soon as they were all together once more, Stann brought out the large iron pot so they could get some porridge cooking.

There was little smalltalk during the meal, and it wasn’t until after they started to pack their camping gear away that Oleander turned to where Jaden had been sitting. There was something she needed to say. Coming back to Tarad had only made it so much clearer to her.

"Where did Jay go?" The redhead looked around, but couldn't see the black-haired mystic anywhere.

"He headed towards the hills to the east, saying something about how you should be able to see the southern mountain range on a clear day from there." Kellen pointed straight over her head without having to raise his arm much.

Oleander looked towards the southwest, but the forest stretched out and hid anything else from view.

Harmony. What was that, anyway? When thought and form were as one. When feelings and reality coincided. When mystic and spirit moved in unison.

Jaden held out a hand and looked at it, backlit against the sunlit sky. It was slimmer than before, the hand that she remembered while growing up. Years of training with the sword had earned the beginnings of callouses, but where had once been those rough parts was now only smooth skin. She moved her arm across the heavens, as if to push the clouds away. Harmony in motion, harmony in emotion.

Don't fight me

Jaden closed her eyes and tried to feel… something. It was said that the greatest and most powerful mystics were those who had attained a synthesis with their spirits. An apotheosis of magic and flesh. These legendary magicians were regarded with awe among the Lacunai. Every child of the mountain was taught their names. It was an ideal to aspire to. The mountain only demanded your best.

Jaden let herself stop and just reach out with her senses across the swaying fields and hills, rich with grass and painted with flowers. The wind made it seem like a gentle dance. What was dance, if not an expression of emotion? A soundless song. She opened her eyes and watched the song of the world in all its silent majesty.

A journey and a dance both begin with a single step.

Jaden breathed in, and let her body sing.

It was the strangest feeling, this heightened awareness of the world around her, and her own movements. The air parted around her like water in the stream, like a river in the sky, as each step brought her closer to where she needed to be. It felt so close, like the divide was barely a world apart. It was like chasing an afterimage, just out of touch, but always within reach.

"Are you dancing?" A voice reached Jaden’s ears, making her open her eyes once again to see Oleander watching her from a short distance. The redhead had a strange expression, as if she didn’t know whether to be amused or amazed.

Yes

"No," Jaden replied, lowering her arms to her sides.

"Then... what are you doing?" The redhead hugged herself a bit. It wasn’t cold, with the summer sun kissing the fields around them.

"I'm trying to find something." Jaden wasn’t sure what. There were so many things she didn’t feel like she could put in words.

But we're not there yet

"What are you looking for?" Oleander stepped a little closer.

"Harmony."

Harmony

They stood on the small hill for a while, surrounded only by the endless green steppes and the light of the sun. The breeze pushed around them, almost as if it was urging them on.

"Jay? I'm sorry for how I've been treating you." Oleander bit her lip a little, first looking down, then back up to meet Jaden’s eyes.

"That's okay. You've been dealing with a lot, too," Jaden suddenly felt a little self-conscious, and rubbed an arm.

"It's just... I've..." The redhead struggled with the words.

"I understand, Ollie. It's okay, really. I was a bit upset back in Tier, but, I don't know... coming back to Carrick Field, and Tarad - especially Tarad - it felt like-" The mystic trailed off.

"-like coming back full circle?" Oleander completed the sentence.

"Yeah."

"I guess we needed that. I guess... all this running around, fighting monsters and adventuring, it was easy to forget how it had all begun? When it had all just been for fun." Oleander clasped her hands behind her back, swinging a little from side to side.

"It was never just about fun for me, Ollie,” Jaden reminded her about why she had left the mountain in the first place.

"I suppose." Oleander sighed, but the small smile never left her lips.

Jaden sat down on the grass, first folding her legs to the side, then pausing and pointedly sitting cross-legged instead. She patted the fresh green next to her, looking up at the redhead.

"Come here, Ollie. Let's just be for a little while, okay?"

Oleander's slight smile turned into a full grin as she plopped down next to the mystic, bumping shoulders with her friend a bit.

"You goofball. Did you really come all the way out here to dance and look at the clouds?" The redhead leaned in on Jaden, looking up at whatever she was seeing in the sky.

"I like clouds. Back home, there was so much sky all around. It seemed like... on a clear day, everything was just blue." Jaden let herself fall backwards into the grass, her hair splashing out around her like an inkblot on a green page. "Like this. Just the sky and the sun. But clouds made it seem like the sky was close enough to touch."

Oleander lay down next to her mystic friend, their fingers almost brushing. Jaden was silent for a while, just watching the sky. Oleander wanted to ask so many things, but she knew she had to be patient, for Jay's sake.

"After Redwall, after all of that mess," the golden-eyed mystic began. "I tried to imagine if I could be a... a girl. A woman. To live as one, I mean."

"That week was such a blur for me. Between the demon and the curse, I was only half sure what was real or not." Oleander didn’t want to remember the dreams she had during that time. They made her sick, just thinking about them.

"That's a familiar feeling," Jaden sighed. "The thing is, for a while there, I could. If only for a little bit, I could see my whole life stretch out before me like a... an immense painting. It was as if I had a glimpse of how my life would be different now. Now that I'm like this."

"I don't know much about this wizarding business, Jay. Did you really see the future?" Oleander pushed herself up with an elbow, turning to face Jaden.

Jaden shook her head.

"There's no way to see the future, Ollie. Master Vis-, uh, one of my old teachers once told me how there wasn't even any such thing as time. It's just something we talk about to give us a point of reference. In more ways than one, the future simply does not exist." Jaden made an abstract gesture with a hand, that really didn’t make things any clearer.

"So, it was all a dream, then?" The red-haired woman tilted her head a bit.

"I guess so."

"You know, Jay?" Oleander looked out the meadow.

"What?" Jaden turned a little so she could see the redhead easier.

"I believe in the future." There was something rebellious in the way Oleander was staring at the world.

Jaden didn’t know what to make of that, if anything. Instead, they went back to lying in the grass and watching the sky. At some point, they had to get up and get back to the others, but something made them stay for a little while longer.

"I guess it's nice to take a look at the sky, sometimes." Oleander said after a while, breaking the silence. With her other hand, the one that wasn't almost touching Jay's, she pointed up at the heavens.
"Those clouds really do look like they're just out of reach."

"I know what you mean. Up here on the hill, with no houses in the way, it's like I could reach from one horizon to the other," Jaden stretched out an arm in a sweeping gesture across the heavens. Just as her hand reached the apex it bumped into Oleander's. For a moment, their hands were entwined. Just two hands in that endless blue. Then the moment passed, and each withdrew their hands quickly.

"Jay..."

"I'm sorry, Ollie."

"No, it's just... I need to tell you something." Oleander rolled over on her side so she could watch Jaden. "Ever since... actually, I don't remember when I first realised it. I always thought you were good looking, and-"

"Ollie, you don't have to-" Jaden started to protest.

"Let me say this, Jay. I need to say this. When we sat together in the harbour, and I fell into your arms, I really wanted to tell you. I wanted to say it for a long time, but there just wasn't a good time for it." The struggle inside Oleander was all too apparent on her face.

"And then all this happened," Jaden motioned at her body.

"I guess it had already happened; only I didn't know it yet, huh?"

"Yeah, it was all pretty much done by then." The changes had begun the moment the mystic had joined with the spirit, but each manifestation had only sped the process up that much more.

"I don't know what I feel now, Jay. I don't know if I can feel the same way as before." Oleander looked so sad.

"Because I'm a... because I look like a girl now?" Jaden said. It wasn’t really a question. It was just a statement on how it was at this point.

"Yeah. I like you, Jay. I really, really do. But it's not the same." The redhead clenched her hands.

"I'm not a boy anymore." It felt like Jaden’s mouth was betraying her, by allowing those to be said.

"I hate this," Oleander teared up, grabbing Jaden's hand again. "I hate looking at you and remembering how good it felt to be in your arms."

"I'm so sorry, Ollie."

"It's not your fault. I don't hate you." She squeezed her eyes shut and moved a little closer, enough to rest her head on Jaden's shoulder. The black-haired mystic was really warm. "Maybe in time I can... I'll feel differently."

"It's okay. I don't blame you." Jaden put an arm around the redhead's shoulders, feeling her tense up just a little before relaxing again. "I have no idea what my heart wants either, right now."

"Do you still... like me?" Oleander mumbled, sounding so vulnerable.

"I always liked you, Ollie. Even when you were annoying or stubborn, or just stupidly heavy." Jaden felt how Oleander was shaking a little with quiet laughter. "I have no idea if I'm drawn to men, women or both. I've seen some who I liked looking at, some I thought were beautiful, but it didn't feel the same as when I was ogling someone as a boy."

"Well, you won't have any trouble finding someone when you make up your mind," Oleander said as she looked down across her friend's body. "I mean, I can't actually see your feet from here."

“Shut up,” Jaden said with a smile.

“Can YOU see your feet?” Oleander countered.

"They're not that big! Rena said we're about the same size."

Oleander looked up again with her chin resting on Jaden's shoulder, their eyes only a few inches apart.

"Well, first, helmet-hair is pretty 'blessed' as well. You know how she looks in her laced-up dresses! Second, either she was lying to you, or you've grown since she made that statement. If you tried wearing one of her dresses now, you'd be hauled off by the guard for exposing yourself." Oleander moved her fingers through the air in a walking gesture.

"Not everyone's into big chests, Ollie." Jaden said, very aware of the redhead so close against her. Oleander was a slim girl. Together with her size, she was often mistaken for a younger woman than she really was. Since her lifestyle kept her amazingly fit, she didn't have a lot of the plump curves a woman might grow into either, but what she lacked on her chest she made up for with naturally wide hips and a well-toned behind. Something her tight leggings showed off more often than not.

With a suddenly determined expression, Oleander drew herself up to face Jaden directly.

"Let's kiss, Jay,” she said.

"Uh..."

"I need to find out if-" Oleander began.

"Okay." Jaden quickly agreed.

The redhead moved closer to Jaden's lips, close enough that they could feel each other's breath. She felt their bodies press against one another, the softness and the warmth of the woman underneath her. The push of the bosom, the silky fabric of the blouse, the heat from underneath the skin.

Oleander's grey eyes met the rich, golden eyes half closed. Jaden's lips parted slightly, and slowly the two women met. Tastes and sensations passed between them as their breaths joined. The redhead frowned a little, and threw herself into the kiss more. The body underneath her felt so warm, like she had been standing in the centre of the sun. One of her hands went up along Jaden's stomach, with her fingers finding their way underneath the blouse that partially covered the breasts. Jaden could feel her heart beginning to beat faster, her breath coming more quickly. Then, suddenly, her lips went cold as they were abandoned.

"Ollie?" Jaden opened her eyes.

Oleander sat straddling Jaden, her arms hanging along her sides. She had a strange expression on her face, and while she was breathing quickly as well, there were some tears in her eyes. Jaden could see her visibly starting to quiver.

"I don't know, Jay. I just don't..." The tears began to tumble down her cheeks.

"It's okay." Jaden reached up to try to stop the rainfall from those cloudy grey eyes.

"No, it's not! I dreamt of this moment for months. You and me, together like this. But now, it's just..." A look of utter frustration passed across Oleander's face. "I want you so badly, but this doesn't feel right."

Jaden sat up as well, and pulled the redhead close in an embrace, this time not as a lover, but as a friend. The heat inside her began to abate, trickling out of her and into the ground. The smell of violets grew stronger.

"It's alright. Ssh. Let it out." Jaden stroked Oleander’s hair over and over, just holding her as the smaller woman shook with tears.

The redhead hung onto Jaden as if she was a raft on a vast, dark sea. They stayed together for a long while, even after the tears had dried to the summer sun. Eventually, Oleander's grip eased up and she sat back, taking a number of large breaths.

"What are we going to do, Jay?"

"Let's head back to the others. They must be wondering about us by now." Jaden looked past Oleander, toward where they had set up camp earlier. They had been gone for quite a while.

"No, I meant about... us." Oleander touched her chest.

"I don't know, Ollie. I felt something when we, uh, just now." Jaden felt a slight blush coming on at the memory. She could still taste the other woman on her lips. The fierceness, the loyalty, the incredible drive to make the world give her what she wanted. The taste of Oleander.

Oleander just looked at Jaden, and then glanced down. At first it was bashful, but then the corners of her mouth started to turn into a grin.

"I can see that you were. You're showing." She was smirking a little despite her red eyes.

"What?" Jaden saw two points through her blouse. "Oh!"

Jaden bent down and picked up the vest she had folded under her head, and shook it out before slipping it back on. It was probably too many layers for a warm late summer day, but it was nothing compared to the heat inside her.

"Let's take it one step at a time. There's no telling what tomorrow might bring,” she said and held out her hand to the redhead.

"Okay, Jay. Lead the way."

Far from now. In days unseen, in a place lost between:

At the shores where the waves of the ethereal sea break,
as the faint lights of the suns wane when the night awake,
the shadows loom over Arakash.

Silently the dark bid the blind stars to rise,
and silent moons pass the eyeless skies,
yet more silent still is grim Arakash.

Whispers that the Myriad set free,
by the gaze of the Watching One be,
hidden by dark Arakash.

Song of the nether, the voices left unsaid,
where those unsung by fate bled;
shall fade away in dread Arakash.

The vast cathedral of dark stone sprawled like a twisted, living thing, half swallowed by the roiling mists where the ethereal clashed against the nether. Arakash. Spires jutted at angles like arrows from the still warm flesh a slain beast and domes rose like swollen boils. Arakash, where the denizens of the watching one dwell. A large stone bridge reached out into the mists, carried by nothing except the will of the master of this place. At its far end, it expanded into a large circular platform surrounded by four jagged pillars where chains jangled voicelessly in the spectral winds. In the midst of this were two figures. One was dark and tall, clad in robes seemingly fashioned out of scraps of pale leather and large metal plates covered by writing. The other, kneeling with her head lowered, wore but a few lengths of cloth no larger than a shawl that wrapped around her red skin. Her wings were folded close to her back.

"Arise," the tall, dark one commanded, gesturing with a hand that ended with claws. In its other hand, it held a large book etched with forbidden symbols. The book opened as if by itself, pages turning until it found a certain passage. The words glowed when the demon passed its claw over them. "Is this the name you have chosen for yourself, handmaiden?"

"Yes, farseer." Unlike the other handmaidens, she had already been given another name long ago. A secret name she hadn't told anyone.

"It is indeed a suitable one for a scryer. May your gaze extend past either horizon, in the service of our master." The farseer shut the book of names with a fateful thud. It was done.

"May it be so." Ashomi Kian curtsied with her red wings spread low to the ground. She would embrace this new name. It would be her guiding light. Taking the name was the first step on the journey she had planned. The song in her heart would keep her from forgetting.

(With apologies to Robert W Chambers)