Chapter 18

* * *

Alat generally liked the current situation.

It took him four months to get over the initial difficulties. He could have done it faster, but he couldn't kill too many people, and neither the bandits nor the guards would understand. Therefore - first negotiations, then the incomprehensible to the nail, no other way. There were some rough edges, but on the whole, the neighborhood gangs returned to the firm hand of the vampire community without too much fuss.

Alat did not change the structure that existed under Zervan. There was no need. The city was still divided into districts, and each district had its overseer, who was responsible for the Coffers and didn't get involved with gangs. Vampires had been the only Watchers before, but now, with the staff shortage, about a third of the badges with the eye symbol was worn by humans. Alat considered inviting his friends from other cities but then decided against it. We'll do without strangers.

The "big boss" did not sit permanently in Taleya, still preferring to wander around. The work is established, and the deputies can handle it, in case of incidents, there is a mirror communication, which even the younger ones know. Then, however, the head hurts, and he is thirsty. Witchcraft skills are bad for those who walk in the path of the Beast, it takes a lot of strength, and he is not Master Hustin, and especially not the Mistress, even capable of reaching Zonna in the daytime.

That's not to say that there are no difficulties at all. He's still not so much at enmity with the guardsmen, but close. How else could it be, when they look at you like you're shit, all of them! Good thing he's on good terms with the mages, Vador put in a good word. Otherwise... It would have been bad, really. He'd seen what they were capable of.

Well, humans do shit on a regular basis too. There is nothing to be done about it - those who have brains, rarely go to gangsters. The fighters usually mess up on the small stuff, and it's the bosses who deal with their mistakes, so if something got to Alat, it means that the levels below the responsible failed and serious effort is required. There have been two occasions when he couldn't fix it himself and turned to Merk for help.

A gut feeling told him that today would be the third time.

The Squint's gang was running the Right Bank Market and a few outlets near the former Gold Quarter. The curse had swapped the upscale neighborhoods of Taleya with those of the poor, and the map of the city as a whole had changed dramatically. Only the palace of the Son of the Sea still towered haughtily on the cliff.

What had happened with Squint, Alat did not understand - the fighter from the neighboring gang, who ran straight to him, did not say anything clearly. His leader sent messengers to all possible places where Alat could appear, with the order to tell about the big mess at the Right Bank. It seems that the mages there have fought and killed someone important because the guards are swarming and there is a total raid. The vampire listened to the message, cursed profusely, and rushed to meet the trouble.

By the time he arrived in the market area, something had cleared up. Not in terms of visibility - it was the middle of the night - but about what had happened. Yes, indeed, there had been a fight between mages, but not two, but more. And while one side was more or less clear (high-class mercenaries, who were often seen in the local taverns), the other had never been seen in the area before.

"The faces are well-groomed, they're covered with trinkets," the petty goon described them, standing at attention in front of Alat. "There were three of them and a dozen swordsmen. They've been taken to Vislo's shop and won't let anyone in."

"There are a lot of guards," the ringleader added to his report. "The spiders are here, too, I recognized one of them, he had a conspicuous face. And someone else, I don't know who, but they're all lowering in front of him."

"I see," Alat tossed a coin to the shining boy. "Are the mercenaries gone?"

"I don't think they've all been killed," the younger bandit said. "It's a small unit, about twenty men, they're well known here. They're strong if they're hunting demons. At least someone must have survived. You want me to look?"

"Yeah, find them. I want to understand what the heck is going on here."

Clashes between two units with magical support within the city limits, even if not in the most prestigious area, are not frequent, so the fuss made by the guards had an explanation. What Alat didn't understand was who the mercenaries were fighting. Anything happened in the Capital, sometimes in street fights the nobles' squads came together and it was necessary to involve troops, and even the Royal Guard, to separate the enemies. Before, however, it had always been clear who was fighting whom. Now the locals could not determine one of the sides. The guards clearly knew something, but they preferred to keep quiet.

The surviving mercenaries were found quickly. It only seems easy to hide in the city; if you know who to ask, and you're authoritative enough, you can find anyone. An hour later, Alat was standing outside a ramshackle house, practically a barn, and sniffing around, trying to determine how many people were inside. It smelled of earth, dampness, cat urine, and old shit. It smelled of blood, too, along with notes of medicinal tinctures. At least two hearts were beating inside the house, and my intuition told me that there were actually more people, only they were covered by magic.

The vampire grimaced. Mages, until you punched them in the face, liked to show off.

He walked into the courtyard without hiding, approached the symbolic porch, and swung the door open... The events then proceeded apace. Behind the door, an elderly but sturdy man jerked his hand sharply forward with the amulet clutched in it, and the vampire was simply swept backward. The impact was so swift that the body flew through the air for three meters and then rolled on the ground, stopping just outside the gate in the street.

A human would have died on the spot. The younger vampire would have gotten away with broken limbs and perhaps a brief loss of consciousness. Alat pulled his face out of the dirt and roared angrily, feeling the world turn violently bloody.

The paths of the Beast give those who follow them extraordinary strength and a range of abilities designed to strengthen the physical body. If an outsider were here, he would have seen the vampire's fangs lengthen, his shoulders bulge beneath his rattling clothes, and the muscles in his naked arms swell up in knots. Alat shot himself out of the way, traversing the ten paces that separated him from his foe in the blink of an eye, crashing headlong into the blue light of his nimbly erected shield. The shield vanished. The next blow, not quite as hard, struck at the thin outline of the mage's defense, which also crushed it. The mercenary, however, immediately jumped back, throwing his arms up in the air and shouting:

"Peace! Peace! Redemption! Peace!"

Not that his shouting stopped Alat, but he held back another blow. The hard slap only knocked the mage to the ground, not knocking half his head off as it might have. The man rolled deftly onto his back without rising from the floor, covering his legs and one hand with the other as he fumbled for something on his chest.

"Peace!" he finally pulled his hand out from behind his groin and held it up, revealing a red glass on a leather string. "Elder, peace!"

Alat looked closely at what he was poking at, snorted, stepped closer, and kicked the man. A little, as a prophylactic.

"Get up, you scum. Who are you?"

The man showed him what he called a "gratitude" amulet, an amulet that used the freely given blood of a vampire to create it. It was a simple thing, showing that some elder had cooperated with the mercenary before and was pleased with the result. There was no particular preference for "gratitude" amulet owners. It was just evidence that you could do business with this particular mortal. The amulets had no protection against falling into the wrong hands, so they were made of glass to be broken more often.

"Nestorius Kraas, platoon leader of the Steel Squirrel Free Squad," the mercenary got to his feet with a grunt. He staggered. "Don't hold a grudge, Senior - I wasn't expecting you."

"And whom?"

"Guild mages. They put our squad down, I don't even know who else got away."

"The Guilders?" Alat asked again. "The Royal Mage Guild, was it?"

"Yes, these ones."

What the Royal Mage Guild did, the vampire was vaguely aware of. As it happened, he had no dealings with them, and neither did the other servants of the Mistress. The Guild as an organization was tightly bound by numerous prohibitions, its members were under constant supervision of the government and "voluntary helpers" in cassocks, and there were no strong specialists there. Intelligence seemed to be keeping an eye on them, but Alat didn't know the details.

"Let's go," he nodded at the doorway leading inside the house. "Tell me what they want from you."

There was a thick smell of blood and human sweat in the room. It was clear at once why Nestorius was the only one fighting - the other two simply couldn't get up from their beds, so badly wounded they were. Three out of twenty? They had been badly beaten. Maybe someone else is hiding in other places.

"So what did the guilders want from you?" Without asking permission, Alat sat down on the only stool in the room, ignoring the wary glances of the wounded.

"I don't know. They came in the evening, asked the commander, and went up to a private office together. Well, not exactly an office - there's a cubicle in the inn on the second floor for a private conversation. I mean, there was. Fifteen minutes chatting, then a crash, the commander ran out, something hit him in the back, ours grabbed for swords. The inn went up in flames, then someone hit me with the Staff of Wrath, and the walls came tumbling down. I got out, grabbed the lads, and was off," the mage, slumped against the wall, speaking tiredly, not trying to be coy. He was eager to talk. "My contract with the Guild was up a few months ago, covering an expedition in the Rhyn Mountains. They're a quarter of what we were promised, the bitches."

"What they were talking about, of course, you don't know."

"No, of course not," Nestorius shrugged. He thought for a moment and grinned wickedly. "And anyway... Red Hey said he sensed one of yours in the guild's castle."

"Tell me!"

"We received the payment at their branch near Ivyanki, about a day's trip south, such a big village."

"I know it. Next."

"The Guild has a castle there. So when we were standing in the courtyard, Red Hey said he smelled a vampire. He had some sort of instinct for yours. It wasn't even magic, but a natural ability. But it worked. He went up to the commander afterward and whispered to him about something for a long time."

The commander believed him and decided to try to blackmail the guilders a little, mentally added Alat. In vain. The wizards were foolish, too, underestimating the mercenaries, or they panicked and thought of nothing better than to start a fight at once. In any case - the story is interesting, the Mistress will surely want to hear it.

The vampire gathered his spirits: "Mistress!"

"Alat?" As always, he felt as if someone huge was standing behind him. Invisible, exuding cold. "Is something wrong?"

"I've got mercenaries fighting guild mages near the Right Bank Market. I've got the mages dead, but there's not much left," the vampire said in a low voice. "Well, one of the survivors says his friend, who was killed, got a whiff of us in the mage's castle. They have a castle near Yvianki, where the mercenaries were paid off."

"Interesting," came the reply after a short silence. "Where are you now?"

"At the corner of Peat and Second Creek."

"Take the survivors to the shelter under merchant Kashkala's house, on the third level. I'll be there in a few hours."

After the connection was severed, Alat rubbed the back of his head in relief. This mysticism wasn't for him. It's a useful thing it's true but he'd rather have a sorcerer do it.

"Get all your things," he commanded. "You're coming with me."

"Where to?" the mage took his hand from his apparently head, still ringing from Alat's slap. He and the wounded tensed when they heard that they had to go somewhere.

"Where to! Wherever you have to go, that's where you'll go," the vampire mocked. He wasn't angry at the soldiers, though, but rather sympathized with the plain and simple people, seeing them as kindred spirits, so he explained. "They want to talk to you. Don't be afraid. If you weren't a liar, we'll let you go, and even fix you up. You did not lie, did you?"

"What am I, a complete fool?"

"Well, if that's true, then don't make a fuss. Come on, get your things together."

* * *

For fun, Celesta occasionally imagined herself sitting in a deep armchair, stroking a huge smoky cat in her hands and uttering pompous truths with a villainous look. Alas, the mood for goofing off passed quickly, and she remembered that the animals were afraid of her. She could, of course, make the cat sit on her lap, but the feeling was not the same - she admired the graceful, freedom-loving animals too much.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

They should have admitted that they had missed the situation at the Mage's Guild. Now, when it suddenly became necessary to obtain specific information and check the unpleasant suspicion that had arisen, it turned out that they had agents only in the capital's branch. And they are more "outwardly" oriented. Why this was the case, Celesta understood perfectly well. The Guild was tightly controlled by many organizations, had almost no influence of its own, and its specialists were weak. Mages who showed good ability quickly defected to the Zonna or ended up in the entourage of aristocrats. In a word, it was an unpromising direction from the point of view of intelligence.

And there are different people there, too. Some are very ambitious.

The memories in the mercenary's mind made her think. On the surface, the situation looked clear: the wizards had cheated the free squad of money, and the commander of the latter learned that one of the branches contained a captive vampire and decided to blackmail. The attempt ended in a skirmish in which three, not the weakest wizards, and almost the entire squad died. The event, by the way, made a lot of noise, even an official from the palace arrived, in front of whom everyone was jumping on their hind legs.

Why is the vampire a prisoner? Because neither she nor Kalderan sent anyone there. The assumption that one of her subordinates would be in contact outside her area of responsibility with the Guild has a right to life, but let's just say it's unlikely. An outsider? There was no place for an outsider. The assumption had to be checked, and checked quickly, while people were at a loss.

Hearing that Celesta wished to go to Ivyanki in person, Vantal dared to object for the first time in years: "This could be a trap!"

Merck, who was present during the conversation, nodded in agreement.

"Maybe," the vampiress agreed. "It's classic baiting, tossing the bait in first, then attacking the ones who fall for it. The mortals know we always check our information, so they may be waiting for us beneath the Ivianki. Only," the Mistress grinned harshly, "they're certainly not waiting for me."

"The captain will kill me," muttered Vantal wistfully.

"He won't. Scolding will be a long time, of course," Celesta smiled. The prospect of stretching had put her in a good mood. "You can blame it on me. You look sad and complain that you couldn't stop me."

The sergeant would not comment on the advice.

It would take all day to get to the right place. To avoid driving along the tract in the bright sun, unprotected by night, the vampires left the city through a secret passage and used the abandoned roads, where the danger of ambush was minimal. As a consequence, they arrived at the Guild's branch after midnight. The poor horses had to be given an elixir of night vision to prevent them from breaking their legs.

The Guild estate was nothing special - a piece of land with a wooden fence, a regular two-story stone house, and outbuildings. The only strange thing about it was the absence of dogs and the number of alarms set up around it or strung around the fence. Celesta had neither the time nor the inclination to remove the magic of others, so she did something simple: she subdued the janitor's mind from afar and forced him to let the uninvited guests in. It took her half an hour to get the result she wanted, but it was faster than if she had been untangling a complicated tangle of someone else's spells.

The man, of course, after such abuse of the mind died.

The fact that they hadn't come for anything was clear to Celesta from the time she'd turned the gatekeeper into a puppet - she'd been able to find three consciousnesses in the basement of the central house that exuded pain and hopelessness, clearly belonging to her kindred. One was bright and awake, two were barely perceptible. So she wasn't going to be ceremonial with the other local inhabitants. The Mistress sent the guardsmen a plan of the house with an indication of the living, singling out the three brightest in the mental for capture. The others were to be destroyed.

Celeste herself was on her way to the prisoners, and, of course, they would not let her go alone. Vantal personally escorted her, opening the doors and removing unnecessary obstacles, such as the guard who peeked out of a side room. Surprisingly, the dungeon was very well protected - the corridors were blocked by fortress-enchanted bars, and the floor on which they walked was a complex artifact that tried to kill the intruders suddenly grew stone spades, and even alarmed. True, no one heard it anymore, but the fact itself! Few people in the modern world could create something like that.

The door to the first cell could not be kicked in at the first blow. Celesta didn't bother to find out how strong it really was, and the enchanted oak wood crumbled to dust at the slightest movement of a small maiden's hand. Stepping over the threshold, the Mistress pressed her lips grudgingly together and nodded sharply back to Vantal - on the wall, crucified by his arms and legs, with a gag in his mouth, hung a vampire. The younger one. Weakened to the point of losing his mind, completely subjugated to his instincts. It was pointless and dangerous to free him in his condition, so Celesta accepted a mug and a large bottle of wine from her returned vassal. She first filled the mug halfway, then ran her fingernail over her wrist and dropped a few drops of her blood into the wine. The prisoner stammered, twitching, smelling the tantalizing scent.

Quickly pulling out the gag, the vampiress held up a mug, offering the younger one a drink.

As she watched the greedily choking prisoner regain his human features, she noticed: "I had never seen him before."

"I think they were bringing the risen unnoticed by us, Messena."

"Most likely. Are there any survivors? We still have two more to free, and this one could use some live blood."

She was too hasty in ordering a full sweep. She didn't consider that the prisoners would need power. Her mistake.

"I'll take a look now, Messena."

The guardsman quickly left the room. Waiting for the younger man to swallow the last drops, Celesta set the mug aside. She noted the meaningful and wary expression in his eyes and asked: "What is your name?"

"Archlan, Enlightened One."

Enlightened One, wow. She had not been mistaken for a priestess of the official religions for a long time. Guided by a bad feeling, she clarified:

"Archlan, who do you think I am? Can you feel me?"

"N-no, Enlightened One..."

Celesta felt like cursing. No vampire would confuse a sibling with a human, it was an instinct that came with rebirth. It disappeared during a period of extreme exhaustion or after long magical influences of a mental nature, the consequences of which are long and difficult to correct.

"I am a vampire, a risen just like you. Now I will set you free."

The chains burned when she tried to touch them, so Celesta simply vaporized them, summoning a piece of the seal's power. Leaving the younger one in the cell and ordering them not to go anywhere, she moved to the next cell. Things were much worse there. Despite the wine and blood, the second prisoner's gaze remained blank and meaningless. He did not attempt to clutch at his Mistress's throat. His mind seemed to have been severely affected.

Vantal returned, dragging the groom who had spent the night there from the stables. The mages were the only survivors of the house, bound and unconscious, so the sergeant sent two of his guardsmen to search the rest of the manor for servants. The groom was drained by Archlan, Celesta hesitating to give the madman a drink.

In the third cell, an armless, legless stump was hanging from chains. Mistress wondered, at the sight of him, whether she should kill him. If his body was accustomed to its new state and didn't try to regenerate, then the vampire would forever be invalid. Immortal, perhaps insane. It is very doubtful that Zonna will be able to repair the damage caused. The wizards had a lot more to complain about, especially the as-yet-unknown mentalist.

They shouldn't have ignored the Guild.

While the guardsmen carried the mages and their freed kin into the hall (the second, still unconscious, was left tied up), Celesta strolled through the rooms in Vantal's company. She wasn't interested in gold or jewels-if the others wanted it, they could collect it for themselves. Among the older vampires, wealth was treated as a tool. They knew they could always make money if they needed it. Exceptions were rare. So Mistress searched for papers that pointed to the patrons of the local researchers - letters, ledgers, contracts. It was quite obvious to her that without substantial outside support, what was going on under Ivianki would have been revealed long ago. Laboratory logs and records of experiments were also to be either seized or destroyed. It was unlikely that Hustin would learn something new for himself, after all, some of the vampires sentenced to execution had ended up on his desk, but what if something came in handy?

"It will be dawn soon, Messena," reminded the sergeant. "Wounded juniors should not be transported during the day."

"What do you suggest?"

"There's a cave half an hour away where the Morvanites used to hold rituals ten years ago. It's a secluded spot, and our party can fit in there with the horses."

"I guess you're right. We'll wait there, and I'll interrogate one of the wizards as well."

The house should have been set on fire to hide the traces. The good idea was hindered by the nearby village, where the fire would surely have been noticed, rushed to help, and made a completely unnecessary fuss. The authorities would have been informed, a raid would have been organized, and all that sort of thing. They didn't want to just leave, either. So they made a compromise: one of the guardsmen took some chemicals from the broken-in lab and mixed them into a couple of compounds, which he used to make an incendiary bomb with a delayed timer. It was supposed to go up in half a day, though the amateur chemist made no guarantees.

If they find it sooner, it's not their fate. Nothing better could be done in their situation.

Finally, after cleaning up the most obvious signs of the night's slaughter the vampires with some difficulty loaded their prey onto their horses and left the deserted manor. Celesta considered sending in cultists but then decided not to leave any unnecessary threads for the inevitable investigation. The guild belongs to the Son of the Sea, a slaughtered branch means a slap in the face to the highest authority. It's probably more appropriate to confess and press charges first - her subjects suffered, after all, she's entitled to revenge. Of course, the king is unlikely to agree with this interpretation. Well, there's no hurry, it's better to wait and see how events develop.

After walking along the road for a while leading their horses under the bridles, they soon turned into the woods. The guardsmen often operated around Taleya, so they knew the routes by heart. The Mistress had often dealt with conflicts between Latam and Zervan's subordinates in the past, and hand on heart, the sides were worth each other. The Guardsmen justifiably considered themselves elite, and they didn't hesitate to remind everyone of this, sometimes in a harsh form.

There were enough secluded corners around the capital. Travelers seldom strayed more than a dozen paces from the roads, and farmers also preferred not to go deeper into the woods. And it was not because of the occasional captured small monsters or packs of wolves, in the famine years approaching the cities. The land belonged to the nobility, and the boundaries of possessions were very arbitrary. No one wanted to be caught by a huntsman and get the penalty. Hence the appearance is not far from the city of the glades, which literally for centuries did not set foot of man.

The cultists were very good at hiding. The men in the guards didn't change the fact that caution and secrecy were indispensable. Those who forgot this simple rule lost their heads - and it was a good thing if they were alone. Places for meetings and prayers were carefully chosen based on proximity to roads, crowd presence, escape routes, and much more. Often the Dark Guild and vampires were brought in for extra camouflage. After all, most of the cultists were from less educated backgrounds and were ecstatic about the simplest sorcery.

The cave Vantal recommended was one of those shelters. Not abandoned - they just found another, more comfortable one. Servants still came here, cleaning up, praying before a crude altar in the shape of a stylized cross, and restocking. They came infrequently, so the unit found no one inside which was more than satisfactory to the vampires.

Celesta left Archlan alone for the time being and did not ask him anything. She saw no point in talking yet. He was, first of all, too weak, secondly, in shock after his release, and thirdly, the guardsmen had enlightened him as to who had freed him, which had put the boy into a complete stupor. All he could do was stare at Mistress with round eyes, and at least he kept quiet.

Dawn came. The younger ones fell asleep in the far corner of the cave, safe; the guardsmen were setting up camp, sluggishly arguing over the order of duty. Celeste prepared to gut the first of the wizards. The captive mages had been given a sleeping elixir which they would not awaken for another twenty-four hours. Now would be a good time to probe their memories. It would be better to act at night when the sun's rays do not weaken the vampires, but the subtle ways, in particular, mentalistics are the least subject to the hostile influence of the light.

As always. Bound, though unconscious, the body of a man. Insurance from Vantal and another senior by his side. Trance.

Mistress acted carefully, not yet determined how she would deal with the mage. So she watched carefully, moving gently from association to association, trying not to damage the fragile underlying layers of another's consciousness. She was probably the only wizard in Taleya and neighboring countries capable of working with other people's minds so accurately. There were other memory-readers, but the traces they left behind were impossible to hide.

Two hours later, Celesta sighed softly and straightened, moving her shoulders. Vampire's muscles get tired, too, and they want to stretch them, just not as much as humans.

"Vantal, have you ever wondered why humans never have enough?" she asked the sergeant, accepting the obligatory goblet of drink.

"It seems to me, Messena, to a certain extent, greed is rather a good thing," the vampire replied. "It stimulates us to develop, makes us go forward. That's why the Dark One gave it to us."

"That's a wonderful way of putting it. You refuse to preach in vain."

"Thank you, Messena, but that's not at all what I would like to do."

"It is for this reason that it would be worthwhile. As we age, the mind becomes ossified, no longer flexible, and no longer accepting new concepts. And stagnation, as we know, means death. The best way to change is to put yourself in an uncomfortable environment," Celesta said familiarly. She'd been having a lot of such conversations lately, preparing her comrades-in-arms for the twists and turns of fate. She had no concrete plans yet, but she knew clearly that she would not allow them to degrade further. Those around her sensed the change and were wary.

"Would it not be impertinent of me to ask what you saw in the mage's memory, Messena?"

"It's a joint project of several groups. I don't know yet, though, whether it's all of them or individual representatives, I'll have to look at the others. I didn't even think they were capable of agreeing on anything!" Celesta wondered slightly. She had seen all sorts of alliances in her memory, but priests of different cults, aristocrats, and royalty had never gone in the same harness before. "Immortality turned out to be the prize that united the natural enemies..."

"What are we going to do, Messena?"

"I haven't decided yet. Son of the Sea and I are running a complicated game right now, I don't want to add any variables to it."

Seeing that Mistress was lost in her thoughts, Vantal, too, became silent.

The elite has always tried to find immortality. How long can a human live? An ordinary nobleman would live about a hundred to a hundred and fifty years, an old noble who had been subjected to complicated rituals since childhood could live to two hundred. Mages who consciously developed energy and helped the body to mutate in the right direction, lived up to three hundred or three hundred and fifty, the strongest of them passed the four centuries. Much depended on the lineage, on the unique knowledge accumulated, on one's own persistence and diligence. It was a long road that did not suit everyone.

They wanted everything, all at once, and not to exert themselves.

They couldn't help but pay attention to the vampires. Here it is, the coveted eternal life - just stretch out your hand! The moral and social aspects did not embarrass them; men of power always consider themselves above the accepted norms. Much less interested in immortality were satisfied with other aspects of being undead: the necessity to drink blood and sleep during the day, indifference to usual human pleasures, and vulnerability to sunlight. That the very process of a mortal being reborn as a vampire remained a mystery was irritating and frightening. After all, religion played a large role in the worldview, and this world knew no atheists.

Morvan's anger stopped some people. Some didn't.

Celesta would not have been able to stop the research if she had wanted to. At first, she had no possibility - she was not allowed to participate in the experiments conducted at the Academy, and her position remained precarious at that time. She would have survived on her own. Then, gaining her freedom, she established an order in which the missing were looked for, found, and pulled out of the clutches. For her subjects, she took revenge, as ostentatiously and brutally as possible. It didn't always work, because those responsible for the abductions often held very high positions, but she tried.

The situation with the "outsiders" who did not manage to get under the supervision of the communities was somewhat more complicated. They were not known, they were counted on their own. And, from the point of view of the existing system of relations, they were not subjects of Celesta, that is, she had no right to protect them. That's why one of the heads' main duties was to find the young risen and take them under her wing as soon as possible.

Somebody's going to pay for it, Mistress made a mental note. Especially if all three are caught in the same region

* * *