Sur-Rak walked down the long halls of the Archon’s palace, the whisking of her soft shoes failing to fill all the empty spaces the grand home possessed. The building seemed quieter than the last time she’d visited when her aunt counted among the living. Sur-Rak knew it was probably just a fancy of her mind that made it feel so or more likely how subdued the staff were at the loss of the Archon. But still, she couldn’t shake the sensation that the space was now somehow less.
She found Jer, exactly where she knew she would: in his mother’s rooms. It had previously been located in the back of the palace, but after the assassination by Life more than a decade ago and the subsequent destruction of that space, it had been moved to a more central location. The room would normally have knights of the inner division at guard and Aspects, but instead it sat empty, like it was a forgotten room in a forgotten hall with only the two of them remaining.
Jer sat on the closest edge of the late Archon’s over-sized bed, staring at his feet and didn’t look up even when she closed the door loudly.
She started to reprimand him for the insult but managed to hold the words back. They had been friends once, of a sort. She could use a lighter touch this day.
“You have my sympathy.”
He still didn’t respond, so Sur-Rak went and sat next to him on the bed, which failed to elicit a reaction from him either.
“The girl has escaped.” There was no need to say what ‘girl’ she was referring to.
“What?” Jer said, bolting upright. He was finally looking at her now and his eyes were wild.
“Do not--” be a fool, she was going to say, but again she chose to use the softer side of her tongue, “--concern yourself. Multiple divisions of knights are already searching the city for her. She’ll be found before the new sun sets.”
And what then? It seemed to Sur-Rak that her execution was being rushed to cover up whatever it was the girl might know.
“I will find her,” he hissed, moving to leave.
She grabbed his arm to stop him--careful to touch cloth and not his Blood ris covered skin--and stood to put them on equal footing. “There is no nee--”
“Let me go, Sur,” he growled, and she surprised herself by doing just that. Jer had always had talent but little conviction. And yet now it burned in him, shining through his gaze like a furnace--a furnace she found herself mildly hesitant of. “It is my duty,” he whispered, so quietly Sur-Rak didn’t think he had meant for her to hear.
Jer stalked from the room, and she made no further move to bar his way. If this was what would give him some peace, so be it.
Besides, she had her city to worry about. She refused to believe that the Archon’s assassination had been carried out by two barely trained children. There was a traitor somewhere in their midst, and no doubt whoever it was would be looking to use the upheaval the Archon’s sudden death would create to their advantage. Since Sur-Rak didn’t know who else had taken part in the coup, the only rational solution was to accelerate her own plans of becoming the Archon.
After all, the only person she could really trust was herself.
***
Teerog kept being so close. In Lercel to start, then when she had found the knight’s camp on the cliff edge, and finally on the boardwalk of Sah’Sah. But each time her quarry had managed to elude her.
Now she sat in front of Lercel again, the fronds of ferns and other low shrubbery hiding most of her large frame as she stared at the city. Unlike the first time she had been here, at least she knew who she hunted--a small, human girl with short hair.
Teerog had run all the way to Sah’Sah chasing the girl and the flying knights she traveled with, pulling energy from the grass and trees as she went, and the same on the return trip. It had not been enough to catch them though, not when Teerog had been waylaid by two different squads of Death. She had not only needed to take time to defeat the enemy of her people but also purge herself of their foul ris.
Teerog didn’t know what other lands the Lercel knights might go to besides Sah’Sah, but she knew that eventually they would come back here. Teerog had settled in to spend weeks waiting, if not months, so it was a shock to her when only a handful of days into her vigil she saw the girl and a fairy--who must have been the one from Sah’Sah--exit the city from a portion of the wall where there was no gate.
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Teerog touched her hand to her heart, to the Blood Aspect in all of them, giving thanks. Her need had been great, and the Aspects had provided, as they so often did.
She squinted her eye, watching the human to see where she would go, and her gut folded in half when she saw the girl move her arm: there was no longer any Blood ris on it. Teerog breathed in, calming herself just as her grandfather Torgath had taught her, one of the mightiest warriors of the Plain. The human girl would know where the ris was, so Teerog would wait and come upon the pair at a time that they didn’t expect. She had fought the fairy before, in Sah’Sah, and knew her to be a wily foe, but Teerog could be patient, very patient.
Because in the end, she would get her tribe’s ris back and be their Vychon. Of this, there was no doubt.
***
After a long night of stories, followed by a week of restful sleep and good food--her parents hadn’t been lying--Tif found herself standing at a narrow opening at the base of Lercel’s southern wall. It wasn’t a true exit of course, but a secret tunnel made by the underground, complete with a fake wall she had needed to slide aside. She breathed in, savoring the air--it was just as full of potential as her first trip had been.
Except this time it would only be her and Pep making the journey.
“You can leave now,” Tif said to the little creature who was hovering annoyingly close to her head. “I’ll put the wall back just as I found it and be on my way.”
If anything, the buzz of the fairy’s wings got closer.
Tif turned her head, to see that Plumya’s little face looked very put out. Tif didn’t know why. It hadn’t taken that long for the fairy to escort her here.
“Did you hear what I said?”
“I’m going with you,” the fairy mumbled.
“What?”
“I said I’m going with you!” Plumya piped in her face.
“What?” Tif said in shock. “No you’re not!”
Tif had met with a Ssuran, who had tried to recruit her of all things, to help train their people how to fight against ris users. Apparently, having attended the challenges and having been out into the world, Tif had much more experience than most in that area.
In the end, she had agreed, but with two very important conditions: first, that her parents could continue to stay in their room as they had been but with more freedom, and second, that Tif be allowed to go on a trip before she started. Ssuran had been less than thrilled with the latter, but after Tif went through the fighting style of every person she had seen at the challenges, as well as the division leaders, he was mollified enough to let her go. He even supplied with a travel bag, dried food, a canteen, and a map, all of which was strapped to her back, and for that he expected her to add anything she learned on her journey to her training.
All in all, she was rather pleased with the arrangement, but it had most certainly not included an extra travel companion.
“Are you being punished by Vak-Lav,” Tif guessed. “For not telling her how I helped you in Sah’Sah?”
The fairy whipped her hand forward and poked Tif’s nose with an invisible sword.
“You did not help me. I had it under control.”
Tif was sure her nose must be bleeding some, but she wasn’t about to agree to a lie, so she just stared at the fairy.
After a moment, Plumya growled, which from her sounded like a squeak, and she spun away in the air. “It’s Awt, okay. He paid me to guard you. Doesn’t want you dying, even though you obviously will.”
Tif snorted. They had been avoiding each other the last few days, but she should have known Awt would try something like this--he could be so single-minded. The thing was, if he wanted to win her back, he couldn’t have picked a worse way. Had he not heard anything she had said about believing in her?
“Well, let’s go,” Plumya said, drifting forward. “The sooner you’re a corpse, the sooner I can bring him a finger and say I did my best.”
Tif put her hands on her hips. “A finger?”
The little fairy shrugged. “Or an ear. Whatever.”
“I guess I should be grateful that you don’t just cut one off me now,” Tif said drily.
“Too soon,” Plumya said. “It’d be obvious.”
Tif laughed at the ridiculous and deadly little creature. “I think I’d be safer without you. Please go home.”
“Not a chance,” Plumya said. “I’m going with you to…where are we going?”
“Sah’Sah,” Tif replied. She would find whoever had given Rof the second half of his scroll, as well as Udaru if he was there. They would have answers, and if she wanted to be a knight of Lercel and then its Archon, she needed to clear her name.
The fairy tittered. “You’re going to walk? To Sah’Sah? You’ll be dead within the day.”
“No I won’t,” Tif said, adjusting the bag on her back. It was light now, but she was sure it would grow heavy in time. “Pep says that’s where I need to go, and I agree. Sometimes you have to trust your Pep.”
“You’re crazy. What are you going to do, scare the Death troops away with that face on your palm? I bet there’s more of them now, and I can’t carry you like those knights did.”
“Oh, that’s going to be the easy part.”
“Easy part?” Plumya scoffed.
Tif nodded with a smile, holding up her non-Pep hand with its spidery gray ris. “I’m one of them now.”