I understood now what Hortensia had seen through the spyglass, my naked eyes having discerned Litzia at the first hint of daylight. She was wending her way through each cramped pathway, studying the masonry with passing glances, deeply immersed in her task. She searched with minute care as though with but one moment of flagging focus her objective would be lost forever. But there too was a franticness, a growing desperation that hurried her steps from one corner to the next.

Having retreated from the ledge with only my head poked out, my monoeye followed her, anxious to quit the watch to follow her on foot, and would have, if not for Hortensia’s insistence. Only once Litzia’s figure had been obscured by the tallest block of the tier did the wyverness throw herself over the ledge, and with a seasoned deckhand’s nimbleness descended to ground level. For all my years scaling the rigging, I could scarce keep up with hers. We started downhill with the hurried quietude of a pair of stalking cats.

Here and there, the day’s earliest risers stirred the city, if only in part. The occasional flung open gates and cockcrows punctured the veil of silence. More and more inquisitive eyes passed us by as we descended the tiers.

I wondered if these morning activities would hinder Litiza’s search, and if not for the very reason of privacy that she had come into the city so early. Even as I ran I became aware of how much I was anxious about her success or failure in this seeming vain endeavor. I wanted just as much to find out the nature of her quest, but it was morning, and a restless night of stray thoughts had affected me. Far away my curiosity seemed now, reduced by the sorry sight of my frantic pledge-sister into something of a secondary concern.

Would that she have trusted me enough to confide, as Gladiola had hoped. But she had gambled on none of us. What I had told Hortensia, I had told in truth, I would not stop her, only that I may give reason a chance.

We caught up with her at the tier of Acis’ residence. Here the less wealthy and historical lived behind stone walls, within enclosed gardens and little orchards. A number of odd bends and thick trunks’ shades provided us with plenty of hiding places. Hortensia pointed out many secluded corners for us to stand watch. Many without her I wouldn’t have noticed. In this manner, for little more than a half hour, we tailed my unwitting pledge-sister, communicating wholly in signals and gestures. Her restless search showed no sign of faltering.

This close, we saw her at times peering under benches, or part of a wall obscured by a palm tree. I watched as the proud wyverness, who would not bend her gaze for the Dragon, sighed as she leaped down from a protruded ledge, having discerned nothing of what she sought on the nooks aloft. And when she quitted a courtyard, that much more exasperated than before, I despaired for her. Heat dampened her brow, with great exerting effort she had searched thus since the moon was high. It was a sorry sight. Hortensia frowned.

As eventually Litzia’s endless search put some distance between us, I came out of the current hiding place to our next. But Hortensia seized my arm, shaking her head.

“Don’t waste your time,” she said.

“What say you, waste? No, this is the least I can do, having come this far!” This vain quest galled me. I was peeved for Litzia and for myself.

“Listen here,” Horensia said quietly, turning her head to check our surroundings, “I have seen enough to know. Your pledge-sister is an amateur. Even a bumbling drunkard would sooner find what she’s looking for. She knows what she seeks, but not how, outmatched by her own allies.”

“And you do? And what allies?”

“I have played this game before, starling dear. What games and tricks you Southerners practice, I have myself employed and some. The girl looks for a signal, etched somewhere out of sight, but such things are not so carelessly placed, if the spy knows her stuff. And I know all that and this city better than the back of my hand. Only a few choice places one may put the signs, fewer are the destinations to be denoted. Come, I have doubt the poor girl would find it sooner than I.”

In truth, I couldn’t wholeheartedly or blindly believe her, not after the pledge she had forced on me. Still, she was my Ala-sister, and I trusted Gladiola, who had placed me in her care.

“Very well, I come with you, and pray that you’re right,” I said.

Thus we parted with Litzia, pursuing our own search for etched signs hidden in the layered stone maze of Tithonus. Being on the move myself was less aggravating, to be sure, not that Hortensia asked for my help. She strode much more an honest woman than my pledge-sister, without a sneaky gait or fugitive look. So much that for a moment I had thought she lied, and was merely enjoying a nice morning walk, waiting for me to give up. But ere long, she made a deliberate, sharp turn, into one unseen pathway fronted by thick palm trees. It was a dead end, but instead of backing out, she ventured to its furthest point, and turning an empty barrel aside, she showed me a sign crookedly engraved in the stone. From standing height it looked no more than an accident scratch, but only once I had crouched low, as Hortensia instructed, did I discern a markedly manmade symbol. An arrow that bent upwards, and slighter, at its point, the crooked lines of a simplified wolf enclosed in a circle.

“The golden apple’s she-wolf?” I whispered, a chill shivered my veins.

“Interesting, isn’t it?” Hortensia couldn’t contain a smile, amused, “but our task does not end here, come.”

And so she quit the alley.

Scratched back there, though carefully hidden, was unmistakably the symbol of the pagan empire – the counterpart to Hortensia’s old liege, and the one great power on this side of the skies. And though there were still the very likely chances of it not being what Litzia sought, or in the first place laid there for her, its existence implied much. Hortensia was much assured of it too, evident in her growing enthusiasm.

My denial wavered as the cerulean wyverness revealed another of mark just below the water level of a stone rain basin. This time the arrow pointed west.

“It could be that they were laid there before the separation,” I said, looking sidelong at my intrigued companion, “they look ancient, I mean.”

“Deliberately,” she said, matter-of-factly.

My own proposal was not likely in the first place, I know. Emathion, currently the empire’s capital city, had ceased its association with Tithonus and Aurora for uncounted generations, even before the time of some lower parts in this city.

On we went. After the third sign, Hortensia declared our search done, and pointed to an estate aloft. As we gained the place, it appeared a quaint estate, somewhat humbler than its neighbor, and the gate to its courtyard was wide open.

“She sought this place?” I asked. But Hortensia immediately took a turn some houses before our destination, descended an alley, and crossed into a street behind the place.

When asked, she silenced me with a quick hush. The wyverness approached a door to a two-story house, and picked the lock with some needles produced from her inner pocket. It clicked before the second passed. I doubted the owner of the place could have opened the door so fast with a key at the ready. But there was in fact none, the entire house deserted of furniture or souls.

“No one’s home,” she said, “You could watch them from here.”

It was true, the sloping hillside placed the house at a lower level than the courtyard of Litzia’s goal, conveniently facing the second floor’s window directly out the courtyard, a position Hortensia deemed too revealing for comfort. But she found an uncovered putlog hole close to the floor. The crude opening was no larger than a palm, but through it I could hear the rustle of dead leaves, the echoing of footsteps beyond the gate. None else, the house itself was far too quiet, both a fortune and omen it seemed, alike to one so used to the Daybright’s populated decks.

“My job here’s done,” Hortensia said, then to my puzzled stare, “what will transpire here is for your ears alone, Gladiola promised you that much, did she not? I don’t deny my curiosity, but this is between sisters, and I am not one to get between a pair unless uninvited.”

I did not protest, she was right, in the end this was Litzia’s and my affair, so far as it does not others, so I hoped. My gratitude received, she left quietly.

The day wore on, and as Litzia was having a hard time with the puzzle of the scratches in stone, no sound drew nearer than the courtyard’s gate save that of the odd birds and cats. Compared to her toil in the glaring sun of Tithonus, my boredom was of little worth. But still the wait in a deserted house was not comforting to my anxious heart. And as it ran wild, I thought of such disastrous ends as that might come from Litzia’s quest. I knew too little about her to say with certainty she had not confidences with the empire’s spies. But it had been long since she was last ashore, and had been without a way to maintain contacts with aught on land.

Which led to only one conclusion, which was incredibly obvious once realized. None knows the captain’s course save herself. But of all ports only at one she would eventually dock without fail. If you must wait for someone of the Daybright’s crew, Tithonus is the place of choice.

Once, Hortensia returned, throwing me a loaf of bread and vague pointers at the houses I could not see beyond the wall. Whoever it was, she mused, they were careful, having posted sentinels across the street of the courtyard. Yet the wyverness assured me that we had so far escaped their notice, and I would be safe so long as I stayed put. Then again she left, leaving me to wonder if this time she would be away in earnest.

When the last shadow left the windowsill, and the sun hung straight over the earth, footsteps sounded near the putlog hole, but I dared not look through it, crouching as I was. One thing was sure, the person drew near and away, as though searching for something. Ere long another crossed into the courtyard. I willed my senses to their utmost capacity, I could not afford to miss even a sound of the coming exchange.

“You took your time.”

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“Thanks to you,” the answer came in a winded voice, between short breaths, that of Litzia. “Too much care, I could have missed the tokens.”

“We deal in opposition to a Dragon in her territory, no care is exceeding. Will you listen to our proposal?” I could scarce discern it to be a man’s voice, but whether he was old or young I could not know, nor could I tell a hint of emotions in it. Not delight, not caution, only an unvaried evenness.

“What do you think I dashed around since night for?” Litzia snapped, “Can you get me away from here or not?’

My heart lurched.

Beyond the wall, there came a pause, then, “the mark binds you, wyverness. If it is her will, none could sever your bondage. But if her attention lay elsewhere, long enough that you might weaken the mark by distance…”

“Even so, I must flee whenever the mark aches, until again she seizes my freedom! Is this the way to live?”

Only silence answered her. For a while my pledge-sister paced to and fro, until a sigh marked her coming to a halt.

“You people spoke once,” she said, “of a way to end this wretched fate of mine for good.”

“And you denied us for fear. You did not wish to confront the Last Dragon, I recalled.”

“No more,” a clear hatred rang in her voice, “I am tired of living in fear, weary of hovering between hate and love for friends and foes. I seek a way out. Is there really one?”

“You know the only,” he said, tone unchanged, “if the master is slain, the mark is forfeit.”

“Not by my hand so long as I bear it.”

“Not yours. Another’s.” And for the first time, his tone changed, rising, but only as a thin veneer to his even voice, “He shall champion mankind who has unwinged dragons and restored the azure.”

“Is that the prophecy of some idle tales? Do you claim the Abasalomese champion could slay Aurora? Or who else?”

“The only named,” he said, “Your part in this is yet to come, if you will play it. But do you serve the purpose of my people, true freedom will be yours. We will meet again in Emathion.”

The implication struck me with a stifled inhalation. None knows the captain’s course save herself. It is plainly unthinkable that a foreign spy should know with surety where the Daybright would dock next.

“Emathion? how do you…”

Litzia paused abruptly. A rush of steps drew near. My heart dropped. Before I could react, the butt of a wooden staff shattered the window. In came a looming, hooded figure. With a sharp hiss, he leveled the staff.

For all my reflex training, I could not leap away fast enough. The rune-propelled gale rushed by, ripping my sleeve and tearing a hole in the flesh. No sooner had I swung out my runestaff with the intact arm that another blast came. It struck, covering my eyes in blood and the shattered bones of my own leg. The first shot had been meant to weaken, the second cripple.

The paroxysm of pain paralyzed my brain. I was unable to comprehend my own situation. That I could no longer run without a leg and that the staff could not be aimed with an arm missing were not registered in my brain dazed with pain. The mindless agony consumed my wits, petrifying my limbs. When I hit the floor the dull sound of a crashing statue entered my ears. But to aught else I was blind and deaf. And that was about it. I could scarce process it. If my eyes could still see, they saw but the strangest vestiges of a dream, naught real and material. And my breaths were like earthquakes, rumbling and toppling inside my failing body.

Mayhap I cried out then, but who can say?

Some resemblance of consciousness in the back of my mind told me that aught second now, the third and last strike would end me. ‘Twas not so bad for an azure. But this berth might be my last. For these conspiring spies would no doubt bury my body somewhere out of sight, and my true death shall arrive as my mind erodes to the senseless state before my finding. Once more dumb and wandering. The glory of an alaris did not fit my skin, but this should - a dog’s grave - a thing beaten and abandoned.

At the time, only a singular, intimate pain still entered between the merging waves of throbbing quakes - that of the pressing, crushing wood.

I wonder at the final pain all beings must suffer upon expiring. Death I had seen in droves. Despair I read in runes.

The glowing lines coursed through those frozen veins of lifeless corpses. I saw. But what light is there without life? Must be lights that lingered and such reflections of the ghosts, echoes of insidious howls surmounting the depths between worlds.

My mind wandered. Pulled apart.

If the pain consumes me why should I not consume the pain?

It ate at me. So I ate at it. ‘Tis but a fair trade. No bargain. Not a morsel be untouched. Only taking and giving and giving and taking and taking and giving and taking inside the endless Ourboros’ circular gut…

Voices that were not mine yet spoke in my hoarse voice, rumbling in my parched throat.

Now gnaw upon fallen ramparts of tattered souls, now lower the drawbridge…

Now invite in the shapeless horde… now consume them all who stormed this house where the dead rest…

…and grow to be what you eat…

…‘Tis what even I may do. Even I may be the terror of man - even I shall leave nothing untouched!

One deafening, single crash thwarted the dead-still air, expelling it like a punch in the gut from the dusty house. And all were conquered.

I found myself cursing in the incomprehensible language of the mad; propping on the unshattered leg and the rune staff of mine in the intact hand, shouting at the writhing man on the floor. His staring rolled back eyes, his frothing mouth, his twitching limbs made a sight of delight!

The blinding radiance of my runestaff dwarfed even that of the sun. The pale blue of searing pain filled every nook in the abandoned house, preying on even insects and specks of dust. So that nothing may be untouched.

The hierograms pulsated in maddened joy.

Birthed from pain, it became pain, thus reveled therein. ‘Tis a forbidden domain naught may enter therein unless the language of violence is uttered.

So did a slap stung my cheek.

My opened, now seeing, eyes found a fiery Litzia looking at me. Her face, a hand span away, grimaced under the hard lines of cruelty and malice. And I spat, thinking to turn my curse upon the insolent thing with my dark speech. But another slap nearly toppled me. Unbalanced by her own exertion, Litzia almost stumbled over. She said something I could not quite hear. I dropped the staff, and with it fell to the floor.

The pain renewed. In truth, it had never gone away, but I had consumed it, and had for a brief while felt it no more than the blood in my veins. Now once more the balance of power was upturned, and blinded by pain, my vision blurred. I could scarce make out the bodies of strangers pouring in from the window.

“Avast,” Litzia’s voice echoed, “the girl’s my pledge!”

“A changeling?” Someone muttered amidst the rustling of robes, “What is the Dragon’s ploy!”

“I chose her by my own will, and that is none of your business!” Litzia’s voice flared with anger somewhere next to me. “Away with you now, we are done today!”

And there was a long silence as feet shuffled on the floor.

Fabrics elsewhere were torn, and then my bloody arm and legs were wrapped in makeshift bandages. When at length my consciousness recovered somewhat, I looked about, the men, even the one on the floor, had gone without a trace. Even as before, eerie silence reigned the house, broken glasses strewn the floor.

I groaned. But it would heal.

“What was that just now?” I asked foolishly.

“Your staff,” she answered. It did not suffice. But we both know none of us could explain aught more. The runestaff lay on the floor next to me, its engraved hierograms no longer shining with the eerie light.

“Help me up.”

“Wait here while I get help. Your leg is torn to the bone.”

“Nay. I may be able to walk in a few hours.”

With some effort, she helped me lean on the wall without a word, and herself dropped to the floor, gasping as though beyond exhaustion.

Now that I looked at her, her lips were pressed thin and her brow beyond drenched.

“Do you hear?” at length she asked, breaking my pattern of pain.

When I nodded, a painful look passed over her eyes.

What are you in pain for?

She avoided my gaze. I had thought that we were long past worrying about the other’s betrayal. And in truth, she spared me the needless questions. And yet I could see them in her eyes.

At long last, when I had grown used somewhat to the searing pain and the lasting effect of my crazed mind, I said through gritted teeth, “So you said… you were tired.”

Litzia started, she had been dumb with deep thoughts, her eyes clouded by a dullness beyond what physical exhaustion alone could bring.

“Tired, as you told that man,” I said, “How far would you go to quell it? Of us who do you think friends, who foes?

“I do not know,” she answered in a low voice.

“Then lie,” I ejaculated, as though to spit out an unbearable taste upon my tongue.

“And what good are lies?” she said, “you know as well as I am, the pledge must have shown you. I trust none of them. Each and every a warden to my jailing.”

“You said that now, when it was you who forced my lies.”

She did not have an answer. And I knew that she had long passed the need for lies, now that her wounds had healed, and my role expired.

“Very well,” I said, hugging my wounds, “let us return. I know not what use you have left in me, if not lies. But if you will it, I serve, until the day even my remaining uses are spent.”

And what then would be left of me? The shuddering experience just now crossed my mind. How far would she drive me on her quest of madness? Until the both of us are stark mad? I gazed at the forlorn runestaff. The dormant hierograms both came from her in some way. What transpired was only a glimpse of my eventual end, even as Marigold’s or that Xenon slave’s.

For how much it shook me, I did not speak of it.

Hours passed before I could walk again, each step an agony to the bone. It was past noon when we exited the desert house. Too numbed by pain for thoughts or even hate, I walked abreast of my pledge-sister. Her mood was horrible under the icy mask. And yet it was nothing to compare to when Hortensia stumbled upon us. Whether Litzia knew it was her who helped me or not, she glared at the cerulean wyverness with distaste.

Hortensia, on the other hand, spared only a quick look at my wounds. What she thought of it I never knew, for she swept the matter aside, as though it was but a petty quarrel between sisters and naught more.

“If you cannot walk aright, then fly,” she said, “aid us. Acis is missing.”

For a moment I struggled to understand her. But the urgent tone of her pressing soon imparted the gravity of the situation. The exact details I did not know, but somehow, she hurried us along with one simple explanation, for it was a matter of life and death.