Published at 3rd of October 2023 12:01 pm

Chapter Bonus 6: In Which the Ranger Springs a Trap

This chapter is updated by NovelFree.ml

It was all falling apart.

Nazralind stood in the center of what had days ago been a tiny hamlet—not a proper village, but a cluster of houses where four families lived and worked the surrounding fields, out here near the very edge of the island. Everyone was gone, hopefully fled; at least, she’d found no bodies. Nothing remained of the houses but charred, burned-out husks.

She’d seen the aftermath of housefires before, they weren’t uncommon in Fflyr dwellings, stuffed with paper and fabric as they tended to be. Sometimes the heat could be intense enough to crack akorshil beams, but usually one just had to clean out the ash and rubble, repaint and maybe replace the roofing. Here? These homes were destroyed, burned to fragments. The kind of heat it took to shatter akorshil planks to this extent ruled out accidental fire, or even a hasty raid. Someone had taken the time to liberally and strategically apply asauthec before setting it alight.

“Naz,” Ismreth said quietly but urgently, her boots crunching amid the charred debris as she approached. Nazralind steeled herself; this was no time to crumple under the pressure. The more dire things were, the more important it was that she remain composed and in control. It was exhausting. “No sign of him?”

“Clearly not. It looks like we’re really on our own, now.”

“He might still be alive, just escaped the damage,” Ismreth offered. “Coridon could outmaneuver the Clans if anyone could.”

Which didn’t help them, because he wasn’t here. Whatever move Nazralind came up with next, it would have to be without the aid or even advice of the only professional who’d ever backed her campaign. But there was no point in dumping more mud on Ismreth’s spirit by saying it our loud.

“How’s it look out there, Izzy?” Good, her voice didn’t quaver.

“It’s…bad.” Ismreth was trying to put on a good face, clearly, but she didn’t feel the same pressure to project strength. She wasn’t the leader. “Just like this, all over. The Ardwych, Llian, Thloch and Yffleward farms, gone. Burned out with asauthec. Three more hamlets this size, too.”

“Are the people…gone? There no sign of anybody here, have we found what happened to them?”

“It seems they were allowed to go. Master Llian is dead, Naz; Master Thloch and his son are nursing rapier wounds. They all tried to resist. The ones who fled were let go.”

Nazralind started to reach for her own face, then forced her hand back down. Control; her strength was their strength. She couldn’t afford to be mortal. Instead, she pictured the locations described on her mental map.

“The other hamlets. Where?”

“The little one on the bladegrass border closest to our base, one between the Yffleward and Thloch farms, and the crossroads on the eastern edge of Clan Thelflyn’s land.”

Her breath caught. “That’s…an encirclement. Except for the last one. They’re pushing inward.”

Ismreth nodded, her face grim and hollow. “And slow enough to make it obvious. They mean to converge on Flynswith and burn out our allies.”

“We have to—”

“Nazralind. It is too obvious. This is bigger than Clan Thelflyn could organize alone; other families are involved. Possibly even yours. It is aimed at us, and it is a trap!”

“I wasn’t proposing to meet the Clansguard in a pitched battle! If we can at least warn our friends in the village—”

“Do the obvious thing we would do, that we are clearly being goaded into doing? They know who’s helped us, Naz! That’s who they’ll be watching, ready to pounce if we show our faces.”

“What do you want me to say?” she demanded. “We started all this, Ismreth! These people are in danger because of us. How can we abandon them now?”

Ismreth didn’t flinch from her gaze. “And we can finish all this by walking into the trap that gets us all dragged back to our families. Is that the order you want to give? Because… I don’t know if the girls will obey it. They can all see what this is.”

Nazralind stared at her. “Will you?”

She still didn’t flinch, but the long pause hung heavy between them.

“If that is your order,” Ismreth said finally, “I’ll carry it to the others.”

The elf forced herself to breathe, to think. Outward stillness was a poor substitute for inner calm, but she made do. Instinctively she wanted to be aghast, enraged. Their entire purpose for everything they’d done was to help the people of Dount in their oppression; this retaliation against them was happening because of her and her followers. And now they wanted to turn their backs on the people when the need was most urgent? It took scarcely a second’s thought, though, to see how cruelly unfair she was being. Just as they had put these people in this situation, she had put the other young ladies following her where they were by recruiting and inciting and leading them. Pushing them into a course where they would lose their own freedom and suffer the punishment of their Clans was just the same problem from a different angle.

The rock and the hard place. No matter what she did, someone—many someones—to whom she had pledged her aid and solidarity would have to be abandoned to their fate. It was…intolerable. Above all else, Nazralind couldn’t stand to abandon anyone. Not since the night of her own escape; she’d sworn never again to turn her back on someone. And now, she’d been backed into a corner from which she couldn’t see any outcome but to fail everyone. Everything.

In that light, it was grimly clear. Her failure had already happened; now to face the consequences. It was a trap. They were not going to be able to aid the villagers no matter what they did. How could she possibly ask her girls to sacrifice themselves for nothing?

“You’re right.” Nazralind shook her head. “What’s everyone’s position?”

Ismreth looked a bit relieved. “Outside the encirclement, for now. When I checked in with everyone I warned them all of the pattern; I don’t think anybody’s reckless enough to charge in and get caught, but we should group back up as soon as possible. They’re all trying to find and aid the civilians who fled their homes outside the area being attacked.”

“So they’ll be moving farther from the hot spot, not closer,” Nazralind murmured. “There’s that, anyway. Okay, Izzy, I have one more thing I need to try. I need you to link back up with everyone, gather the group.”

“Where?” There was new tension in Ismreth’s voice, as if she half expected to be ordered back into the fray.

“Sister Maeflyn’s chapel.”

“Everyone? That’s awfully close to Olumnach lands, Naz. If their Clansguard find a whole group converging…”

“Right, we can’t afford to stay there long, but it’s far enough outside the area being hunted. We need a meeting place and that’s one spot we’re not being actively looked for.”

Ismreth nodded. “Okay. There’s one other thing you should know, Naz: I haven’t found them myself, but several of the fleeing villagers I spoke to talked about somebody looking for us. For you, specifically.”

Nazralind sucked in a breath, along with the scent of soot. “Someone…new?”

“Not the Clans, I don’t think. It’s the same pair, a young highborn woman and a big muscular woman who looked like an adventurer or bandit. Apparently they’ve roamed around this part of the island as much as a person can in the last three days or so—all over the Flynswith area. Asking leading questions about our gang, and several people told me they specifically asked if an elf was with us.”

In her current state, the stab of hope that pierced Nazralind’s heart was almost painful; she was grappling with too many emotions as it was, and pushed that aside.

“What do you know about them? Any description beyond that? Has anyone tried to…deal with them in any way?”

Ismreth shook her head. “People have universally been afraid to interfere with them. When I pressed nobody said they did anything aggressive, one goodwife even insisted they were very polite, but… The highborn girl was described as brown haired but very pale and with brown eyes, high enough in rank that most sensible lowborn wouldn’t antagonize her. Also the other woman’s supposedly as tall and strong-looking as a man, and a strong man at that. And both are armed.”

“Okay.” Nazralind drew in a breath and let it out slowly. “All right. One more thing to watch out for.”

“What should we do if we come across them?”

She chewed her lip for a second. Hope was a poisonous thing… And this was no time to take risks.

“Be careful. Find out who they are, if they’re not hostile. Then arrange a meeting later in a neutral place and ditch them. These…may be allies. Possibly even someone I know. But right now, I’m not willing to risk anybody’s life on the chance.”

“Yeah, we have enough problems. Okay, I’ll make sure everybody knows that, too. Can I help with your next task, Naz?”

“I think it’ll be better if I try that one alone. It’s a detour, but I’ll still probably reach the chapel ahead of you by the time you’ve gathered everybody up. I’ll see you then, Izzy. Be fast, but be careful.”

Ismreth stepped forward to catch her in a brief hug. “You be more of both, young lady.”

“C’mon, when am I not?”

“Ugggh. Don’t even joke.” The other woman backed up and raised her head. “Ayy yi yi yi!”

Behind Nazralind, Newneh raised her head from where she’d been crouching behind the husk of a farmhouse, recognizing the voice. But it wasn’t Nazralind’s voice, so she didn’t fully emerge. Ismreth’s own Haddi did, the gwynnek bursting out of cover behind a stand of bladegrass in the near distance and charging right into the village.

Ismreth vaulted deftly into the saddle as Haddi skidded on crouched legs to lower her body, then kept on running with her rider without ever having fully stopped. The woman raised her arm to wave as they dashed away, and then she was gone around a rise in Dount’s rolling terrain. They hadn’t had as easy a time staying concealed as they would have in the western part of the island, with all the khora, but there were abundant places to hide practically everywhere on Dount. Also, for the same reasons, the really dangerous bandit gangs were in the west, and Nazralind hadn’t wanted to contest their territory on top of antagonizing the Clans.

Especially since events had proved she couldn’t even successfully do one of those things, let alone both.

“C’mon, Newneh,” she murmured, swinging a leg over the gwynnek’s neck, “let’s go get in some more trouble. Hepep.”

Hope was a luxury that often proved too expensive to sustain, and Nazralind had grown adept at stomping it out of her own heart even as she tried to share it with others. Thus, she wasn’t surprised or even really disappointed by the results of her meeting with the goblins at the one underground access she knew of that was outside the shrinking noose her enemies were closing on the village of Flynswith. Begging for aid from that disc-pinching schemer Maugro had always been a tragically long shot, one so obviously pointless that it was a testament to her desperate situation that she even bothered.

Even so, while the goblins had refused to sell her any tactical information on credit, she’d come away with surprising gains.

Her “debt” with Maugro had been squared, for one, by some third party who preferred to remain unknown. Even if the goblins refused to sell her any data on Clan maneuvers that might get her out of this mess, that was a ray of sunlight through the clouds; if he’d sold her out to any of her opponents, either the Clans or just a rival bandit gang, in her current beleaguered situation that would mean the end. The headsman’s axe had been forestalled, but she was still on the chopping block. No word on an exploitable weak point in the tightening noose, nothing on the mystery pair apparently hunting her. But it was a chance to live another day, if she didn’t blow it.

Plus, while Maizo was not about to offer his employer’s stock in trade for free to someone already in debt to them, he had given her advice based on the information he couldn’t sell her.

“Gather your girls and hold out a few more days, yer Ladyship,” the goblin had said. “This guy who bailed you out? He’s the real business. You might’ve fucked up royal, but he’s got a real chance to pull off what you were tryin’ to. Keep yourselves alive long enough for him to get in touch, and then take the deal he offers. That’s my recommendation, a gift from me to you.”

It was good that it was just Maizo and not his employer; had Maugro insulted her efforts that was she might have kicked his head right off. It was even worse because he wasn’t wrong. Fucked up royal, indeed.

All of this she put aside as she drew within sight of the old chapel and dismounted her gwynnek just over the rise.

“Yi shasha hep,” she softly instructed Newneh, patting her neck. The bird croaked very softly, affectionately bumped Nazralind’s shoulder with her beak, and then hunkered down in the shadow of the large bush beside which they’d stopped. Early in her campaign, as she was establishing a base and recruiting her first followers, Nazralind had considered dispensing with the system of traditional gwynnek calls; aside from the trouble of teaching the whole series to new recruits, they weren’t exactly subtle, particularly the shrill, warbling cries used to summon the birds from a distance. Ultimately it had worked more in their favor than against them, though. Nobody who hadn’t been formally trained in traditional Fflyr gwynnek riding—which was most people by far—could interpret the calls, and thus wouldn’t understand what the gwynneks were being told to do.

You could summon a really well-trained horse, but you couldn’t instruct it to flank and attack your enemies from behind.

Nazralind approached the chapel slowly, on foot, keeping low and to the shade of the thick bushes and bladegrass which grew here. It should be a safe location, as far as she knew, but after the events of this week she was making no assumptions.

The abandoned temple was no longer as overgrown as it had been, thanks to Sister Maeflyn’s gradual effort, but still didn’t look like much with its missing roof and broken walls. It stood in the shadow of one of the only surviving clumps of khora this far east, a relic from before this part of the island had been mostly cleared for agriculture—which had happened so long ago there were no remaining records of when it was. The chapel probably wasn’t that old, but what remained visible of its architectural style matched neither modern Fflyr structures or those of the old Savin colonists. Most immediately relevant was that it was easy to sneak up on; rubble and overgrowth provided excellent cover.

Almost immediately her caution was validated; she could hear faint voices from the temple itself. The vast majority of the time there was no one in the chapel save the eccentric lone priestess who had chosen to make it home and gradually reclaim it from the wilds. Sister Maeflyn had always been discreet, and it stood to reason her curious endeavor might draw other visitors besides Nazralind’s cohorts, but today of all days she was unwilling to trust anything to the Goddess’s mercy.

Moving with every bit of the skill she’d been taught to avoid making a sound, she crept closer to the ruined chapel. One of the voices was Maeflyn’s and it was not raised in alarm; that was promising. Nazralind eased under the drooping fronds of an outlying khora sentinel, slowly as she had to pass between to bushes to avoid rustling them, and pulled closer to the half-broken wall until she soft noise of speech coalesced into comprehensible words.

“…you say, of course.” That was Sister Maeflyn’s voice—Nazralind could have wept for the relief of hearing one of her precious few allies not being rounded up by the vindictive Clans. Needless to say, she didn’t. “Do you not wish to cover any other potential rendezvous points? I can get word to you if they turn up here.”

“The situation out there has grown too unstable to risk it.” The elf lurking outside barely managed not to physically jolt in surprise. That voice—could it actually be? Was wishful thinking making her hear something she desperately wanted in place of what was really there? She inched closer as he kept talking, keeping low to the ground. “Besides, this is an exercise with a specific win condition. This is the logical place for them to regroup. I’ve been disappointed by some of—well, many of the girl’s decisions up to now, but not so much that I’m willing to give up on her outright. If she has the wit to gather them here, that will be the sign to me that my investment in them was not a loss.”

It was. It was his voice, she was sure of it even before she managed to position herself in the shadow of both a far-reaching khora frond and a chunk of fallen akorthist that had once been part of a pillar to sneak a single peek into the chapel sanctuary. Despite the broken walls, the sanctuary itself was cleaned out and kept meticulously swept by its sole resident priestess. Sister Maeflyn was there—and so was Coridon.

The man she’d hoped to meet at that little hamlet where he had spent much of his time. The only elf on Dount, so far as she knew, not connected to her family or any of the other local Clans, with the mysterious past and strange arsenal of survival and other skills who had taken it upon himself to train her in all the arts that had enabled her to make it this far. Her teacher, the first person in her new life to offer her any support at all, the man she’d been prepared to mourn as another casualty of her ineptitude…whom she had just overheard commenting to one of her only other surviving friends about that very incompetence. The shame of it would have been crushing had she not been so relieved.

And…confused. Since when did Coridon and Maeflyn know each other? Or even know of each other?

The priestess, a pale human woman with medium brown hair, was currently sweeping the floor of the chapel while she spoke with him, and now paused to glance about at the broken walls as if checking for eavesdroppers. Nazralind repressed the urge to duck back down out of sight. She should be invisible to them from here, but moving suddenly could ruin that.

“And what’s the plan after that?” Maeflyn asked, resuming the steady swish-swish of her broom. “I like those girls, don’t get me wrong, but I must say they’re not who I would nominate for a permanent presence on Dount.”

“No, no,” Coridon chuckled. “You’re not wrong, Sister. They have potential, hence my interest, but none of them are ready for a field posting without significant further training. And not training in the field, either. The next steps would necessary take place for outside your purview.”

“It’s not my intent to pry, of course,” the priestess said placidly, eyes on her work. “Forgive if I overstep, agent, you know the Guard gives relatively cursory training to adjuncts like me. Was that a prohibited question? If I don’t need to know, then I don’t.”

“Relax, Sister, we’re not so heavy-handed with Temple allies. In fact, this is specifically your business, as my next plans will leave you as the only Imperial presence on this island.”

“Oh? Do you not need to clear that with the Grey Guard first?”

“I have significant discretionary authority, in fact. There are no specific plans this far north, save the general policy of keeping Fflyr territories unstable and disorganized. On Dount’s best days, most of that work is done with no help from us, thanks to that sadistic buffoon they call an Archlord. The current mess out there will suffice to leave this island a zone of zero priority for some time. Your only responsibilities would be to serve as secondary support for agents traveling to and from Godspire.”

Nazralind was physically unable to move under the pure weight of shock and betrayal. For long seconds, she couldn’t breathe.

Gray Guard. Temple… The Radiant Temple. They were Imperials. Not just people who happened to be from Lancor, but agents of the Empire, sent here specifically to sabotage Fflyr interests and maintain the status quo of Dlemathlys’s weak, subordinate position relative to its massive southern neighbor. Goddess have mercy on her idiot soul, she’d been trained by the Gray Guard. Coridon’s training, Maeflyn’s gentle support and sanctuary—they weren’t helping her, they were using her against her own country. She was no freedom fighter, just a dupe and a traitor.

Nazralind hadn’t even decided what to do before her body began to move on its own. Slowly, silently, with the greatest care she could manage, she began to creep closer, seeking a better vantage, while pulling out her shortbow and drawing an arrow.

“I see,” Sister Maeflyn mused. “That sounds not much different from what I’ve been doing, then. And you? No matter how talented those girls may be, I think you’ll have a rather hard time moving the whole group across the entirety of Dlemathlys back to safe territory.”

“On the contrary, that should make for serviceable field training. The only trouble spots are the landbridge crossings, and what passes for Fflyr security is a great chance to coach new operatives with low stakes. Once off Dount itself, I anticipate no real problems. No, the issue comes before that. Promising as they are as recruits, they are also stubborn and overly idealistic, to the point that some of the most important lessons I have tried to impart have been unfortunately wasted. Those girls are already more than halfway to giving up on this teetering wreck of a country and going on to do something more meaningful with their lives, but…they are significantly less than halfway to realizing that. If only…”

He paused, then turned to look directly at Nazralind, and smiled.

“Well, Highlady Nazralind, do you see what I mean?”

She was still fully in shadow; she knew she was nothing more than in indistinct shape in the dimness between two scraggly pricklepit bushes. Maeflyn straightened up, her eyebrows pulling together in a frown; the priestess tried to follow Coridon’s gaze, her eyes continuing to shift as she visibly failed to locate the person to whom he spoke.

Nazralind had her bow already taking aim; she had a perfect line of fire at both of them, right through the space between two standing columns where all that remained of the wall was a low mound of crumbled bricks.

She held Coridon’s eyes for a moment, then pulled back the string further.

“Ah, ah,” he chided, holding up one hand and looking not the least bit alarmed. “What did I teach you, young lady? Never start a fight you are not sure you can win. All you know for sure about my capabilities are that they exceed yours. I taught you everything you know, Nazralind, not everything I know.”

She breathed in and out, holding the tension in the string, sighting down the shaft.

“You know how good you’ve become at sneaking,” Coridon continued more softly, smiling. “Look, the good Sister still can’t see you. A wiser person would ask herself how I did, and refrain from initiating hostilities.”

“You’re just trying to manipulate me,” Nazralind retorted. He wore no armor; there was no way he could counter an arrow fired at this range. Could he?

“The ‘just’ in that sentence is carrying a lot of weight. What is manipulation but an attempt to sway someone to your point of view—and what is any communication if not that? Yes, I very much prefer that to violence, both professionally and morally. Come now, young lady, the moment has passed. You’d have shot me already if this were the day you were to learn what a terrible mistake that would be. Let’s settle this with words.”

“Settle this? You think there’s anything left for us to discuss?” And yet, she found herself straightening up and stepping forward out of the shadows, even relaxing her bowstring. Sister Maeflyn stood silently, clutching the broom in front of herself and watching Nazralind’s movements with wide eyes in a stark contrast to Coridon’s calm demeanor.

“But of course,” he said, his smile unwavering. “Neither of us are thugs, and we are not enemies.”

She bared her teeth, raised her shortbow again and drew the string back. Maeflyn’s eyes widened, and the priestess retreated a few steps. Nazralind ignored her, keeping her aim locked on Coridon.

“You disagree?” Coridon’s tone remind soft, conversational. Idle, even. “Everyone you meet has layers you aren’t aware of.”

“Layers? You’re a Lancoral agent and you have the gall to stand there and claim we aren’t enemies?”

He shrugged. “Why would we be? Lancor and Fflyr Dlemathlys are not at war. Formally, they are not even on bad terms. So I’ve been disrupting the activities of the Clans on Dount—what of it? What is it you think you have been doing?”

Nazralind jerked as if struck, nearly losing her grip on the arrow; Maeflyn twitched backward, apparently expecting that outcome. Coridon, despite having the shaft aimed at his chest, didn’t react at all, save to continue talking.

“In fact, it might interest you to know that training and assisting you is the entire scope of my activities against the Clans, Nazralind. There’s nothing you can accuse me of that doesn’t encompass you. Why this sudden outrage? You know better than anyone how contemptible the leadership of this country is. Think instead of just reacting, and you’ll quickly realize we are still on the same side. Just as we’ve always been.”

“I am trying to help free my people,” Nazralind hissed, drawing back the string another rhid. “You are the stooge of an all-devouring power-hungry despot!”

“Citizens of the Lancor Empire do not go hungry,” Coridon retorted, calm and implacable. “Commoners have legal recourse if mistreated by the nobility. There are no summary punishments of any kind, all crimes are tried by trained jurors. If a Lancoral citizen is unable to find the dignity of work, it is found for him by the relevant bureaucracy. That all-devouring power-hungry despot, long may he reign in peace, provides schools and hospitals for his people, and the relevant administration to ensure citizens can access to them. He builds roads and aqueducts while your Clans hoard the harvests and feast as those who support them starve.”

“Just because—”

“Your problem, Nazralind, is that you will not compromise, or sacrifice.” Coridon’s smile had vanished; he now leaned forward, holding her gaze and relentlessly hammering her with his words. “That is why you have failed, and why you will continue to do so. You want to change the world, to make it better? That is what drew me to the service of the Empire. In the Gray Guard I have learned that to achieve a greater good one must often make peace with a lesser evil. And I serve faithfully, as one who is often called upon to dispense those lesser equals, because I have seen the good that is done by upholding the stability of the Empire.”

“By making sure Dlemathlys never knows any of that stability!”

“You know very well that it is you highborn who are the architects of most Fflyr suffering. I know you’ve seen too much to believe this country would fix itself overnight if the Gray Guard were all purged. It is beyond our power to right the course of Fflyr Dlemathlys; that would take annexation and administration by the Empire. Is that what you want?”

Nazralind opened her mouth, and no sound emerged. The bowstring slackened in her grip as her arms had begun to quiver with the fatigue of keeping it taut for so long.

“I didn’t undertake your training and support your campaign because it advances the cause of Lancor,” he said more quietly, “but because nothing you do here will harm Lancor’s interests, and in you I see a talent that should be nurtured. Talent, and a desire to right wrongs and improve people’s lives—and the will to act when action must be taken. And flaws, of course. Your overall incompetence is the entire reason for the mess you and your followers are in right now, as you well know. Your unwillingness to accept losses led you to attack indiscriminately in every direction, causing the Clans to rally against you—which you could have avoided by picking your battles, accepting the suffering you did not yet have the strength to remedy. And having so bungled this, you presume to pass judgment on an Emperor who leads the most prosperous people in this archipelago?”

She wanted to shoot him just to shut him up, but of course couldn’t. Not for that. All she could do was stand there and take it.

“And I remember what that feels like, Nazralind.” Coridon sighed and finally broke eye contact, turning his head to gaze at the shadows beneath the khora. “That’s why I decided to help you, truthfully. Because you remind me so much of myself, before I learned to act on those convictions effectively. Flaws can be remedied; that’s the point of training. It’s the talent, the drive and the will that must be there from the beginning. If you can learn patience and discipline, I can train you to become what you need to be. Someone who can achieve the things you long to do.”

He returned his gaze to hers, his eyes so earnest she wished she could believe them.

“As a Gray Guard?” she retorted bitterly. “While my country continues to suffer because your ‘greater good’ finds it convenient?”

“And what can you do about that, as you are?” he countered. “Lancor’s policy toward Dlemathlys isn’t the only possible one, nor necessarily the best. It’s merely…good enough, sufficient that the Empire feels no impetus to change it. Would it not make just as much sense, from an Imperial foreign policy standpoint, to support and uplift Dlemathlys as a client state, invest in its stability? But to make that happen, you would need to rise high enough in the Imperial ranks to be in a position to influence such large-scale decisions. And to accomplish that, you would have to willingly suffer the status quo while you worked toward a better future. Accept what you cannot change, for the sake of positioning yourself such that you can. That is what you have refused to do, and what you would need to learn, Nazralind. Can you?”

She could see the logic in it, that was what was so infuriating. Especially as it all hinged on the abundantly evidenced fact that her own judgment was questionable. A voice still screamed inside her head that she was being played, that he’d deceived her already and would again, but it was being slowly but surely drowned out by his oh so reasonable tone, his meticulously logical arguments… By the reality that her own stubbornness had gotten her into this entire mess in the first place.

Maeflyn held still, eyes wide and darting back and forth between them.

“We’ve barely scratched the surface,” Coridon said quietly. “I have so many things still to teach you, Nazralind. Things that would be of great use to you in this situation, just to begin with. There are ways to survive an arrow fired at this range—ways to detect someone approaching stealthily. Imagine what you could do with what I know. The only question is whether you will make the right choice.”

“When are you going to tell her that the stealth detection trick is Void craft? Does the Gray Guard teach that stuff to its agents, or is that just a little something you’ve picked up along the way?”

Maeflyn gasped, spinning toward the new voice; Nazralind jerked, raising her eyes to stare at the slim figure which emerged from the shadows of the most ruined section of the chapel, opposite where she herself had entered. For just a moment, she stopped breathing.

She was thinner than when Nazralind had last seen her, dressed in a lowborn boy’s clothes, and had a big floppy hat covering most of her hair. In her hands was a crossbow—a style of weapon even Nazralind’s gang hadn’t managed to acquire. Her brown eyes met the elf’s and held them for an endless moment, a new thread forming between them despite the layers of tension already laying over the scene.

“Elemyn,” Nazralind whispered.

“Ah,” said Coridon, reminding her that he was here. He had turned to face the new arrival slowly and with much more poise. “So this is Lady Elemyn. What a relief to see you alive and hale—even if you are claiming extremely improbable knowledge of Void craft.”

“Improbable?” Elemyn’s eyes cut back to him. “Interesting that you saw Nazralind coming, but I was able to sneak up on you. That particular trick can be defeated by multiple people crossing the ward perimeter within a few minutes of each other; it will only trigger once. So tell me, Gray Guard, if my information is so improbable, how do I know how it works?”

“Is that true?” Sister Maeflyn interjected. “The Void? Surely even—you would not dare, agent.”

Coridon glanced at her, and then so visibly dismissed the priestess from consideration that she bristled. “Sauce for the gander, then. I wonder how you happen to know such craft, my lady.”

“And he deflects,” Elemyn retorted. “Predictable. Nazralind and I may not be trained agents of the Gray Guard, but don’t underestimate a noblewoman’s education. Particularly in matters of social manipulation, agent.”

He smiled disarmingly. “I hardly—”

“Jumping between topics to keep her off-balance,” Elemyn pressed, raising her crossbow to aim at him directly. “Combining flattery with scathing criticism so that it penetrates one’s defenses against flattery, making it ironically more effective even on a target who knows better. That’s a great trick, one of my favorites. And of course, let us not forget the most effective of all: striking at someone at a moment of greatest emotional vulnerability.”

It was like chugging a healing potion. Elemyn’s words flooded through Nazralind, accompanied by the surge of joy and relief at finding her maedhlou still alive, and washing away the poison of Coridon’s insidious blandishments. A screwup she might be, but she was not about to let him muddle her conviction any further.

“And I was so close to falling for it,” she growled, drawing back her bowstring again. “How utterly embarrassing.”

Elemyn shot her a smile that made her heart sing.

“Manipulation,” Coridon murmured. “There’s that word again—as if you’d caught me in some offense. Nothing I said was insincere, or even incorrect. You would have pounced immediately had I told you a falsehood, Nazralind. It is not I in this situation who is exploiting your vulnerability to emotion.”

Even while speaking, he had slowly shifted his position, moving with creeping steps until he could keep them both in view at once. She noted his braced posture, flexed hands. He claimed to be able to dodge or deflect an arrow in flight.

Just one?

Nazralind took aim at his heart. “I don’t need the help of my enemies.”

“Do you not? You were lost, helpless and utterly useless before I took it upon myself to train you.”

“I took what I needed from you,” she replied, reveling in the icy defiance restored to her voice. “It must be confusing to be on the other end of that transaction, Gray Guard.”

When the shot suddenly came, it was from neither of them, instead flashing out of the shadows beyond the ruined walls from a completely different angle. Even so, he nearly managed it. Coridon spun with impossible agility, taking only a grazing hit along the ribs from a crossbow quarrel that had been aimed at his midsection.

But he could not dodge again in mid-dodge, not at that speed, nor watch in three directions at once. Even as he evaded one killing shot, Nazralind’s arrow hit him directly in the back. Straight through the heart.

Her teacher staggered, bent, crumpled to the ground with a groan. Maeflyn screamed once, backpedaling with her broom clutched in both hands.

“I’m the one who knew that trick,” said a new voice, stepping over a pile of rubble as she emerged from the shadows. “Helped take out a couple of Void witches in my King’s Guild days. You can never trust anybody who’s screwing around with the Void.”

“Goose!” Nazralind’s voice cracked from sheer emotion, and she couldn’t find it in herself to be embarrassed.

“Damn, but I’m glad to see you, m’Lady,” the big woman said, grinning at her.

“So we’ve just got the one witness left,” Elemyn stated, turning her crossbow on Sister Maeflyn. She alone hadn’t fired.

“I am a priestess,” the Sister protested, backing up further.

“Don’t get ahead of yourselves, girls,” Goose warned, and for that one second it was just like the old days again. “That’s a trained spy; just because he’s lying still doesn’t mean he’s dead.”

“…he is,” Nazralind said after staring for a moment. “The position of the arrow, the depth of penetration, the…amount of blood. You can tell if you know what to look for. He taught me that,” she added more quietly.

Too many contradictory feelings were roaring about inside her in that moment for her to settle upon one to experience fully. The whole added up to a surreal sort of giddy numbness.

“Right, then,” Goose said with a nod. “What about this one?”

“She’s Imperial,” Nazralind said, her voice going cold again. “Radiant Temple. And working with the Gray Guard.”

Under their combined glares, Maeflyn seemed to recover some of her poise, straightening up and shifting the broom to one side. “Be that as it may, girls, I am still a priestess of Sanora. Temple, Convocation—we are sister faiths. I know that concerns of mere politics will not induce you to risk the Goddess’s wrath by—”

The crossbow bolt slammed straight into her heart, toppling her backward and driving the breath from her.

“Hail Virya, you duplicitous bitch,” Elemyn spat.

None of it, not the shock or violence or the sheer murder of the last few seconds, could have held her back. Nazralind carelessly dropped her bow, stepping forward, and then lengthening her stride until she was running the last few steps. Elemyn dashed to meet her, tossing aside her own crossbow.

They collided in an embrace and clung together, rocking gently. For the first few moments, Nazralind couldn’t even tell which of them was crying. It turned out to be both.

“I’d lost you,” she whispered. “I—I was so sure you were gone.”

“It’s been—I don’t even know where to begin. But I’m back, Naz. We found you!”

“And I hear there are others?” Goose added. Nazralind wanted to hug her, too, but all things considered it was probably for the best that at least one of them remained watchful and armed. Naturally, that was Goose, ever the professional. It really was like the old days.

Except it wasn’t, and never would be again.

“Hail Virya?” she finally said, pulling back just enough to see Elemyn’s tear-streaked face. “I know the kind of trouble I’m in. Hell’s revels, Myn, what’ve you gotten yourself into?”

Elemyn scrubbed at her eyes with a sleeve, grinning up at her. “Ah… Well, Naz, the good news is we won’t actually need backing from the likes of the Gray Guard. We’ve found something much better. But, ah…something that requires some explanation.”

Nazralind suddenly remembered Maizo’s warning. Someone had intervened, paying off her protection money to keep the goblins and the other gangs off them. Someone Maizo had said was the “real deal,” able to accomplish what she’d failed to.

Hail Virya… An idea tickled the back of her mind, sending a chill through her. The rest of her girls would be converging here within the next few hours. Suddenly, Nazralind had the feeling she had better hear this before they arrived.

“I’m listening.”

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