The sun and the ocean breeze were less welcoming the second time. With her focus clouded by this troubling business, Aja couldn’t attune to the surrounding Nyama, leaving her shivering at the cold wind as she approached the dockyard behind Brexton and Leondros. The Magus and the Marshal hadn’t spoken since the Queen’s quarters and they clipped with great purpose through town, moving faster without a detachment of Bladewards, despite the Queen’s offer.

After backtracking all the way to the docks, Aja took a breath to steady herself. She was chosen for this, and she earned her spot here. This was the job now.

As the trio traversed the old wood of the docks, she saw light bouncing off the bronze splint armor the Bladewards holding perimeter, keeping people away from one specific pier. It held half a dozen storage houses, ranging in size from a hut to a tugboat. The two officials ahead of her moved through the circle of guards, she followed. She caught a stray look or two, but they quickly adjusted back to formation as the trio stopped between two large storage houses.

That was when she saw the body.

Face-down, elegant red and white robes ruffled and sprawled, undone mane of red and silver hair sticky with dried brown blood.

Brexton stopped first, Aja a few paces behind, while Leondros marched directly up. Eyeing Brexton’s locked stature, then the body, Aja snapped out of it. Instinct kicked in. This was a dead thing, even dead things release Nyama. She took a cautious step to Brexton’s side. Leondros finally looked back and saw the pair hesitating seven paces away.

"You’re no help if you’re afraid," he grumbled.

Aja put a hand on Brexton’s shoulder. He took a shaky breath and met her eyes, not as a teacher to student, but fellow human being. She gave him the smallest nod and took a step ahead of him, laying a hand on her Tilik as her foot touched the dock. She felt her step ripple across the wood, into Arch Caster Callaghy’s body, then to the storage houses and into the ocean. Their Nyama reverberated back to her, clearing her mind and filling her with sensations, then her mind deduced their meaning:

Stale, coppery scent — This creature has been dead for 13 hours.

Amount of blood — This creature died here, but was mortally wounded elsewhere.

Minor scraping on the wood — This creature was dragged here conscious.

Flecks of hemp fiber — This creature’s wrists were bound with rope.

As she joined Leondros by the body, she relayed this information aloud. The Marshal subtly looked at her, then grunted and nodded in reply. "I had suspicions of the like. You can confirm them?"

"Nyama cannot lie, Marshal," she nodded, stepping around the body. "Only we do that."

"Aye, breaks the heart," he exhaled, kneeling on his haunches and turning the body over ,surprisingly gentle. Aja’s eyes flicked up to Brexton, who watched the Marshal intently.

"Have care, Marshal," he warned from his distance.

Leondros opened his mouth to snap back at Brexton, but his breath caught. His course remained gentle and steady. "Aye, Magus. His dignity is minded," he answered earnestly. It seems in the presence of the deceased, the Marshal dealt Brexton a bit more slack. He glanced up to Aja. "Girl — erm, Animist," he corrected. "What make you of this?"

He motioned towards Callaghy’s face, Aja stifled a gasp. She drew back half a step, hand covering her mouth. Time slowed as she looked over the ugly, twisted visage of the man who would’ve been her mentor:

Leondros laid him down by the arms, where she saw his broken, gnarled fingers with deep ligature marks around his wrists, but that proved the least disturbing aspect. His long red and white beard had been sliced in half at the throat, likely in one fell stroke as a means to gouge a red crevice across his Adam’s apple, a bib of dried blood caked around his collar. Above that, his jaw was brutally dislocated, jutting at an unnatural angle. Numerous teeth were knocked from his mouth, the tissue and skin of under his chin a distended mass. Her thoughts failed and her stomach churned. However, Nyama was sickened by no sight. His ruined flesh simply told the truth: his throat was slashed, then his jaw pried open as the killer drove their fingers into his neck wound with one hand, surgically removed his tongue with the other, and then ripped it out through the throat.

As the data fed into her mind, she heard Brexton moving closer, his worry for her overriding his grief.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

"Aja, are you—" he asked as Aja raised a hand. The sight was grisly, but she would not let it shake her. She kicked herself for recoiling to begin with, but then again, this was something she’d not seen before. Her eyes found Leondros, who studied her reaction intently. This wasn’t just him asking for her input — he was testing her. She met his gaze evenly, if a bit indignant, and swallowed.

"I do not know the signs of your Tongue Cutters," she said, kneeling beside him and laying a finger directly on the Arch Caster’s fatal wound. "But this man’s tongue was removed through this laceration in his windpipe, as well as a hand through his mouth, dislocating his jaw and distending the windpipe to reach the base.”

"Too right," Leondros nodded, satisfied and, Aja sensed, impressed. She glanced back to Brexton, but saw his head snap another direction, suddenly fixed with alarm.

"We’re being watched," Brexton muttered. Aja’s head perked up as she stood, scanning about. "Do not look, Aja," he chided. She lowered her head back to the body and began aimlessly pacing around it, reaching out to the surrounding Nyama.

"Aye, it’s a public spectacle," Leondros sighed, dusting his hands. "We’re likely to cop a few wandering eyes."

"No, we specifically are being observed," Brexton countered. "I cast a Perimeter spell when we arrived, centered around this dock. Anyone I did not visually identify and account for who breaches my perimeter would alert me."

Suddenly attentive, Leondros’ head lifted ever so slightly. "That so?" He asked quietly, positioned as though he were still examining the body, but now with greater peripheral vision.

"Someone has breached it, directly to my southeast," Brexton reported, eminently controlled. "Your northwest, Marshal."

Aja watched Leondros’ head tilt nigh-imperceptibly. She knelt down as if to examine the body again, and discreetly knocked the bony end of her Tilik on the dock. Nyama bounded across the wood, then onto cobblestone as she felt the vibrations of heartbeats. She felt the Bladewards a few crows circling the carrion, and and one other living creature, crouched behind a small storage house.

"I will alert the Bladewards," Brexton said.

"They’ll scare him off long before they could give proper chase," Leondros challenged quietly. "I’ve got no sight on ‘em. Magus, bring the Bladewards closer, then I’ll circle around and—"

"I have him," Aja interjected, fingers curling around her Tilik as she willed a gust of wind up over the tides. It burst across the dock and under her hips, thrusting her upward.

"Aja, Aja wait—!" Brexton whisper-yelled while Leondros’ brow furrowed as he watched her soar across the docks.

Her soft sandals eased on the roof of the dock house, she darted to the edge and leapt over. She came down towards a tall, lanky figure in a long lavender coat, wide-brimmed hat obscuring their face. As she was mid-descent, the Voyeur bent back in surprise before sliding two small objects from their sleeve: red and white dice, like the ones she’d seen the sailors gamble with. When the dice hit the ground, they sent a ripple of magic through the air and time seemed to slow -- but only for Aja.

As the Voyeur sidestepped at normal speed, she drifted down at impossible slowness, like she was swimming through honey. Aja’s brow furrowed, eyeing the dice, a one and a two. She looked back at the Voyeur, now far enough away that she saw a young male face beneath the brim of the hat: olive skin, sharp features, vibrant brown eyes that winked at her under long strands of black hair. Once the Voyeur had taken off running, he lashed an arm back and the dice whipped off the ground, back into his gloved hand, at which time Aja abruptly hit the ground at normal speed.

She staggered for a moment, but then adapted — clearly the dice were a way he cast magic, and now his concentration was broken. She pushed herself into a run, waving at the Bladewards ahead of her and the Voyeur.

"Stop him!" Aja cried, searching for an authoritative tone, "By order of the Queen!"

The Bladewards gave chase, a few raised crossbows, but the Voyeur again tossed his dice at their feet. She couldn’t see the number, but she watched a purple light burst from the game pieces, then the wood boards the Bladewards ran on violently and unnaturally shifted, throwing all of them off their feet. As before, he then raised his hand and the dice returned to his palm.

Willing into her Tilik, Aja threw a branch of water over the dock, attempting to swat the Voyeur like an elephant’s tail swats a fly, but the Voyeur slid beneath it, then recovered back into a run. Cursing to herself, Aja veered to the side of the dock and willed more water up and leapt into it, hurtling herself through the air. From her higher vantage point parallel to the Voyeur, she reached out to the water on his boots and froze it. The Voyeur slid off balance, but managed to slide forward until he could leap back onto dry ground, cracking the ice off, then threw a playing card behind him. The card flashed purple and erupted into a burst of fire, turning the water to steam. Aja gritted her teeth. This certainly wasn’t in Brexton’s lectures or books.

Once the Voyeur crossed from the docks onto the cobblestone, Aja tensed and threw herself forward with the arm of water. It propelled her through the air as she spear-tackled him. The two rolled across the street, to gasps and alarms from the merchants and customers of the market district. From behind, Aja wrapped an arm around the Voyeur’s neck and coiled her legs around his waist, then used her other arm to arrest their momentum. As they stopped, she felt his weight shift. No, not shift—vanish. She turned the figure over, and it was now a blank-faced puppet man, still wearing the coat and hat! She looked up, and saw the real Voyeur darting into the stacked houses and shops of the market district. How did he do that...?

Pushing aside her confusion, she threw the double away and kept up her pursuit.