Veridienne was playing piano.

Nay was comfortably lounging in a leather couch padded with precious tuktuk feathers.

She turned the pages of her book, telling the story of Vanessa adventuring in the Trechuite islands of the Boiling sea.

The young teenager with sun-like hair was laying her fingers on the keys. It was delicate in its gesture, but the power of the music coming out was its complete opposite.

Fredere was not there for once, Nay could feel it made her friend more at ease, her classical interpretation of “Ode to Ja” felt almost modern, happy, instead of the usual ceremonious.

The last note hanged in the air for a long time.

Nay didn’t show her admiration. Her friends worked a lot, at school but also at home during the evening. To that was added her decorum classes, and other obligations for a noble lady, piano was evidently the task she enjoyed the most.

But her friend didn’t like being praised, only making her embarrassed and ashamed, so Nay stayed silent.

Veridienne went on to play another piece, much harder and one she had not mastered yet.

The young girl with cloudy eyes was reading peacefully.

A moment outside time.

Contrary to Ra’fa’s fears, no one came during the night. Their rest was uninterrupted. The next morning, Ra’fa went to her workplace to take another day off, then she and Nay went to Leïn’s Cathedral. They waited in front of it until the sun had reached its peak. The crowd of refugees was as thick as the day before but weirdly, were looking more joyful. Nonetheless, Nay kept her Rreico hidden, careful not making the same mistake twice: getting distracted. There were few God-Touched at the entrance, which was both good and bad news. Less mages there meant she was less likely to be spotted, but it also brought the question of where the others had gone. More God-Touched inside would be a potential extra problem.

“How will you extend the invitation to me?” Nay asked. She was sitting on the same box she had been sitting on the day before, using the elevated place to observe all her surroundings. She was trying to see if there were any discrepancies between what she was seeing today, and the intel her mother had collected from the weeks before.

“You’ll see. Just stay close to me when I’ll go talk to the priest, but don’t get spotted. You’ll be just behind us when it’s done.”

The young woman didn’t need to know more. If her mother claimed she was going to make them both able to cross the enchanted doors, Nay believed her.

The permanent music created by the sculpted walls of the Cathedral were overpowered by the sound of bells. The afternoon was now officially starting, as was their mission.

“Let’s go.” Ra’fa announced.

Nay jumped off her box, and followed her mother through the crowd, focusing on her Rreico and on her own exclusively. She managed to stay unnoticed by the six Touched present, but it also made her unable to foresee the movements of the crowd and she was pushed around twice. The second, a man turning around hit her broken arm with his shoulder, and she had to repress a pained cry.

Once inside, Nay looked away from the roof.

Ra’fa worried about her daughter. “Are you okay? What a brutish lout.”

“Yeah, it was unpleasant, but that’s all.”

Reassured, her mother began scanning for the priests inside the packed room. She seemed to decide on one of them, his garb a deep ocean blue.

“No, not him.” Nay held her mother back with her valid arm.

Ra’fa looked at her, raising an eyebrow.

“Touched.” And not a weak one either, as even in her current state of inner turmoil, Nay saw his Rreico clearly growing outside his body.

“What about him?” Ra’fa pointed towards a priest in brown robes.

Her perception informed Nay it was most certainly a normal Sage-Brother with no magic, and Nay nodded.

The two women pulled away from each other to seem unrelated but kept enough distance for Nay to be able to hear what her mother was saying.

“Excuse me.” Said Ra’fa politely.

The Sage-Brother raised his head, the cook towering over him. He didn’t look old, but his bald head and simple facial traits made his exact age difficult to establish with certainty. “Erm…yes?” He said, overwhelmed.

“I would like to meet with my daughter. She’s a God-Touched apprentice, I miss her so terribly.”

The priest suddenly seemed shameful, and he looked around to find someone else.

Shrewdly, Ra’fa put herself between him and the Touched with blue robes.

“Please. I’m all alone, my husband perished in Gite…”

Now looking almost desperate, the Sage-Brother began to mumble some answer.

Nay swore internally, maybe he was too young.

But the man regained his wits, as if overtaken by a whiff of courage. “I…I’ll see what I can do. Please, you may follow me, we will talk about it, calmly, inside one of our offices.”

Nay felt something in the Rreico. Not Ra’fa’s or the priest’s, but in the air around them. The magic was so dense inside the cathedral, Nay was only able to feel it if it moved. This revelation made her grimace. She had not gotten this feeling the first time. Shouldn’t she have felt the same thing when the Jormun God-Touched had invited her in? Something felt wrong, and the worst thing was, Nay could swear she knew what it was. But she could not put her finger on it.

Before the priest could get underway, Ra’fa put her hand on his shoulder.

“Oh, thank you, really.” She put her free hand on top of her belly. “She has a sister; I would like it so much if she could meet her.”

“Oh, you are…? Yes, well, you and your family can follow me.”

Nay was admirative. The bluff was brilliant, even if a bit hazardous. Nonetheless, she felt anxious, as nothing in the surrounding Rreico had happened when the man hat talked this time.

Had she gotten the authorization to get in, yes or no? Maybe she was unable to feel the effect if it concerned her personally?

That could be it.

Ra’fa and the priest left the central nave. Nay watched the door close slowly behind them. Once she had made sure no one was looking at her, she walked the most naturally possible towards the door, and entered the forbidden sanctum as if it were the most sensible thing she could be doing.

Nay saw her mother give her a quick glance. She was distracting the priest so he did not look behind him.

The young Legio had studied the map, the entrance they had taken wasn’t ideal, but there were two paths she could take. The one in front, with her mother and the Sage-Brother, and the one on her left leading towards the other doors of the central nave. She turned left, getting out of sight of the priest.

The first part of the plan had worked.

“Now for the hard part.” Nay got her map out of her pocket. She was quite sure of where she needed to go, but mistakes were not an option.

Her pathing made her pass next to a cloister, which was a big open space where she could be spotted. It was a risk, she could miss the Rreico of someone on the opposite side, but she had no other alternative.

As she walked further away from the central nave, Nay felt more and more confident. Her sixth sense was coming back in all its glory now that the hundreds of parasite Rreicos were not there to disturb her. She avoided the priests, the nuns or servants, she wasn’t sure of their roles, and even the Touched with relative ease. She was getting closer to her objective faster than she had hoped.

Nay felt the weird Rreicos before spotting the large double door. The lock was still there and would be hard to brute-force. But her mother had assured her, the key wasn’t far. Despite the reprehensible act of locking up kids and stripping them away from their families, the Church wasn’t inherently evil. In case of an emergency, the priest would come and help the apprentices as fast as possible. Which meant there was an easy and fast way to open the door.

Nay would have liked to check if Lisana was truly inside or not, but she did not dare remove her focus on her own Rreico. She examined the surroundings, and found another room, not far from where the kids were imprisoned.

Making sure no one was inside, she went in. It was a large storeroom. Like everywhere else, it was lit up through electric lamps: Ra’fa had taught her what the strange energy was the night before. This particular room though was badly lit, and it took her some time to find what she was looking for. In the end, she was lucky, as she found keys, and even better, servant robes she could use to hide her appearance. She put on one of the grey garbs, and with the keys in hand, went towards the double doors.

She instantly turned back on her tracks. Someone was coming from the other side of the corridor. Servants and a God-Touched were bringing carts full of hot meals towards Nay’s position.

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Nay focused on her Rreico, hidden in the darkness of the storeroom. She could not close the door, as it there was none, but flicked the single light off.

If they came to pick up the keys, she would have to bluff her way through, and it would be terribly risky.

But the God-Touched stopped in front of the big double door, and Nay heard another pair of keys clanging in his hands.

She stayed there, precious minutes passing by as she heard a ruckus inside the prison, and the multiple Rreicos of the children stir awake.

The God-Touched did not stay in the room for long, and two of the three servants followed him out.

Nay heard the footsteps come closer to her hiding spot.

She held her breath, held her Rreico, closed her eyes and prayed.

The Touched of Ja stopped, his Rreico showed inner trouble. He was looking straight towards her, unable to see through the darkness.

“Archbishop?” One of the nuns asked.

“It is nothing.” Said a weirdly young voice.

They left.

Nay breathed again.

It was the blue robed priest she had spotted in the central nave. His clothing were not any different from the others, but his Rreico was unmistakable.

She waited a few instants, until she realized the remaining servant was not going away anytime soon. Nay did not have the option to wait indefinitely. She was going to take a risk.

She rose to her feet and walked towards the room that imprisoned the children.

Except the aforementioned prison was wide open, and just beyond it, twenty or so children and adolescents were grouped around a table and eating a magnificent meal. None of them looked at Nay in her nun garbs, which gave her the opportunity to recover from her initial surprise.

The inside of the room was built like a cozy, exceptionally large wooden house, like a mountain cabin for nobles, not unlike the Palace inn in design. There were stairs leading to two upper floors, with visible side rooms next to a walkway, protected by a tall guardrail. The central room served as a dining and living room, and its ceiling was multiple floors high, reaching what had to be the top of the cathedral. The simple but thick wooden furniture was painted in soft colours and felt warm and welcoming. A fire was burning inside the big fireplace at the back of the room, surrounded by expensive-looking couches.

Then her eyes fell on two big blue eyes.

The nun that had stayed there to watch the children eat stood up when she saw Nay enter.

“A problem?” She asked.

“No, I’m just relieving you, you deserve a break.” The young Legio was doing her best to stay as calm as she could.

“I…Well, that’s nice. But I don’t recognize you.”

“Perfectly normal. I just arrived from the temple of Lebe in Jourdin. I am on my way to become a true priestess of Lebe!” As she said this, Nay took the nun’s hands in her own, and started to caress them.

The woman visibly tensed up, and she quite violently removed her hands from Nay’s.

“Oh, I see. I’ll leave you to it, then.”

She left in such a hurry it almost seemed as if she was running.

Nay had a hint of a smile, then her gaze fell back on her sister. Lisana had grown since she last saw her, almost four inches. She also seemed angry, her eyes were reminding Nay of her mother, while her expression was just like Marke during trainings.

Nay looked lower and saw a collar around the little girl’s neck. A Rreico was emanating out of it, not belonging to Lisana, it felt wrong, terrifying.

All the children had that same collar, now that she looked more closely, and all had some Rreico coming out of it. But the Rreico coming out was the same as the child wearing the accessory.

The young Legio was a bit confused. Her sixth sense was telling her that none of the children were mages.

Which was unlikely.

And why did Lisana’s collar emanate such a creepy Rreico while all the others just gave out their own? There was nothing remotely similar between her sister’s rhythm of life and the morbid energy.

Nay stopped thinking. Her questions would have to wait, she had already lost too much time.

She discreetly approached Lisana...in vain. The children had used the switch in surveillance to get rowdy, and they were getting quite noisy. Now, some were looking at Nay, puzzled as to why she hadn’t stopped the commotion already.

Nay grumbled. If her sister reacted badly, she would have a panic on her hands.

“Silence!” She screamed. “Sit back down, shut up, and stop playing with your food or you’ll only eat vegetables for a week!”

Children and adolescents alike began whining and disputing the harshness of their new caretaker, but the questions had left their eyes.

Nay silently thanked her previous experience as a chef at the Legio school. Some things didn’t change, whatever the place or circumstances. Disorder coexisting with groups of children eating together were definitely a universal constant.

However, one child had turned around to look directly towards Nay, her senses on high alert.

Really? The young Legio couldn’t quite believe it. Her sister was already that perceptive?

Because as the blue eyes were scrutinizing her, they were also slowly but surely seeing through Nay’s disguise.

“BIG…” Nay was faster, putting her hand firmly on her sister’s mouth."

“Lisana, you will be following me, as your mother wants to see you."

Her little sister's eyes were getting teary, and Nay was having quite the hard time refraining hers from doing the same.

“Do you understand me?” She continued.

Lisana nodded.

“Good, the rest of you can get on with your meal. Don’t do any sort of foolishness while I’m gone.”

But things didn’t go as Nay expected them to go.

“She can already leave!?” Some began shouting, jealousy in their voices.

“Hey, that’s not fair! Lisana should be punished, she broke her bed! I deserve to see my mom more!”

“Big sister…” Lisana whispered.

Nay had already picked her up in her right arm, well decided to flee the room before it all went to utter chaos.

She stopped though, feeling the frightened Rreico of her sister.

“What is it?”

“We can’t leave. The collar prevents us.”

Nay looked at her, not quite understanding what she was saying. It was clearly a magical collar, but nothing was preventing them to just get rid of the accessory, there was a normal mechanism at the back. Without much thought, she dropped Lisana back on her feet, as she couldn’t use her other arm, and with a simple snap, she removed the collar from Lisana’s neck.

At that exact instant, the item stopped emitting any Rreico. The terrifying rhythm was now growing out of her sister. It was more than weak, barely growing out of her skin, but it was undeniably proof of magic power. Nay stayed there, astonished.

“What?” It was not possible.

Then, things went completely sideways.

“SHE REMOVED THE COLLAR!!!” A teenager with brown hair shouted. Children stood up. Only a few had understood that there was something fishy going on, but the others were following the lead of the eldest ones. Nay and Lisana couldn’t stay there. The young Legio went to pick up Lisana back in her arms, but the blonde girl refused.

“No! I can run!” And to prove what she was saying, she ran out of the strange prison. Nay immediately followed suit.

“AAAAAAAAARGHHHHHHHhhhuhuhh” The terrifying scream of agony forced her to look back. The brown-haired teenager was writhing in pain on the ground, his movements erratic, drooling and crying exactly where the large room ended and the corridor began. A girl, or more like a young woman as she had to be a little older than Nay, with a weird almost green-coloured hair, had stopped just behind him. She was pulling him back inside.

She looked up, directly meeting Nay’s eyes.

“Please. I just want to see my baby.”

Something in her expression, in her Rreico, shattered the young Legio’s heart in a million pieces.

But she looked away, focusing on Lisana.

“Go straight ahead, then right. Hurry, people are coming from behind.”

The situation was bad, the screams had alerted every priest around, and if the alarm had not be sounded yet, it was a question of seconds.

Nay and her sister ran.

Bells began tolling, the sound resounding all around.

“Left, quick!” Nay commanded as she felt Rreico come from the corridor on the right.

Bravely, with no hesitation, Lisana was listening to her elder sister’s orders.

“Right!”

They were getting close to the exit.

Ra’fa appeared in front of them.

“Mom!” Lisana shouted.

“Come here sweetheart.” Ra’fa grabbed her younger child in her arms. Squeezing just a smidge before looking at the elder sister.

“The Sage-Brother left me alone when the alarm was called. I guessed you would take this path.”

Nay nodded. “Good thinking. Run, I’ll be just…”

She felt a Rreico growing larger behind her. Not one belonging to someone, one belonging to a spell.

“M’a!” Nay pushed her mother away from the miracle's trajectory.

Nothing happened.

The young Legio was looking as surprised as the priest with blue robes at the other side of the corridor.

“Nay, I…”

Instinct, or maybe adrenalin, finally brought back the memory Nay needed.

She understood now, Sage Jormun had told her, as clearly as possible.

Magic had no effect on her.

The young woman had thought he only spoke of side-effects, the passive magic as he called it, or like the explosion of a dying mage.

It was so obviously not only that. How had she forgotten such an important thing!?

Instead of blaming herself even more, she was reminded of the past events.

Considering what had happened, that she remembered anything was quite the feat. Carle’s death, followed by Vestigio’s revelations then own demise… it seemed quite normal to just forget the things about magic if you thought about it that way.

Nay sighed.

“M’a, get out of here. I can hold them back.”

“What!? What are you…”

“They can’t get me with magic, I forgot.”

“You for…”

“Mom, we need to run away!” Lisana interrupted them. Two other Touched, priests in brown robes, had met up with Ja’s archbishop.

“Liz, you protect Mom.”

“Yes big sister.”

Ra’fa grasped her right arm.

“Nay. Ask about Pompidour, he’ll tell you where we’ll hide. He’ll know.”

“Pompidour. Got it.”

A last look, and Ra’fa ran away, Liz in her arms.

The priests moved cautiously towards them. They also had had a quick chat between them.

“You are not a nun.” The Archbishop was old, but not physically. His Rreico betrayed his true age. He wasn’t quite as powerful as Sage Jormun, but he wasn’t far from it.

“By the wills of the God of muses, let my enemy fall in a peaceful sleep.” His sentence had almost sounded like a song.

Nay saw the Rreico in the air visibly tremble, then, something akin a magical tentacle whipped the air in front of her and…nothing happened.

“By Ja! Witchcraft!” One of the Sage-Brother shouted.

The other started his own incantation.

“Ligh of Ja, let a piece of his star befell on my enemy.” From his extended arms was birthed a gigantic ball of fire. It broke through the air, flying at unavoidable speed straight towards the young Legio.

By pure reflex, she stepped back, turning around to protect herself.

Nothing happened.

When she reopened her eyes, the walls behind her were pitch black, covered in soot and lacking any light sources as the lights had exploded, but she was untouched.

“Curses!”

Nay felt air rush towards the place the fireball had fallen, filling the emptiness created by the combusting flames.

She ran towards the God-Touched.

The two Sage-Brothers just looked at her, not worried, simply surprised.

The priest of Ja was the only one who reacted.

“Stone, let your servant fly.” The magic spell was much weaker than the one before, but it went under him instead of towards Nay.

The stone slab he was standing on levitated upwards. He took a knee, grasped the edge of the law-defying rock with one hand, then flew backwards at tremendous speed, far away from Nay.

The other two God-Touched seemed quite perplexed by his actions.

But it was too late, the Legio had reached them.

Her kick hit the man on the left directly in the face, making him crash into the wall with his whole body, before falling to the ground, unconscious.

The other God-Touched had witnessed the scene, motionless, mouth wide open.

“But, this is not possible.”

Nay turned around, redirecting the power of the one-eighty to her left foot.

The Sage-brother joined his colleague on the ground.

Nay watched the remaining man. His Rreico wasn’t showing surprise anymore, only fascination.

Nay didn’t like it one bit.

She ran away in a hurry.

“Not so fast. Alabaster wall close in on her path, days of light forever gone.” She heard him incant behind her.

As she moved towards the end of the corridor, she felt magic enter the walls in front of her.

They crumbled, blocking her path.

“Biach.” She swore.

The rubble wasn’t magical.

The Archbishop walked towards her, slowly, he checked the priest’s pulse when passing next to them, then stopped well over ten yards away from Nay.

She examined him again. He was confident, and she didn’t know why, which was discomforting.

He was small, juvenile in appearance, brown hair and slanted eyes, showing his Jarulavien descent. But the contrast between his Rreico and appearance was highly disturbing to her.

“I am the Archbishop of Ja, Sage Defin. And your nun hood has fallen, Nay, monster of Gite.”

Nay realized he was right. She swore internally.

“Your eyes are as striking as the stories make them to be. Nonetheless, I seem to recall you as a Virnyl guard apprentice, not an experienced God-Touched. How are you able to use an miracle-counter enchantment without words? And to hide your gift from the gods? A Carradin spy? No, it would not explain todays actions. This was personal. So, many, questions!”

“I do not want to hurt you. Let me go and you won’t end up like your colleagues.”

Her attempt to intimidate him didn’t have the expected effect.

Sage Defin seemed overjoyed.

“Magnificent! So you left Fri and Terebiste alive voluntarily? Obviously not Carradin, then.”

Nay understood she would not reach an agreement with this man. She saw something crazed in his eyes.

She ran straight towards him.

“A stone takes flight.” He spoke.

His Rreico touched a brick in the wall to his right.

The young Legio acted instinctively.

She jumped to the side.

The brick exploded, half of it shooting towards where she had just stood.

“Oh? OH!? You can SEE miracles? But this is…By Ja!”

Nay did not wait for him to finish, she had to stop him, right now.

He smiled.

“Five stones take flight.”

Nay felt the Rreico.

Horror gripped her core.

Then everything went dark.