On the plains of Zenith, amongst our troop, early in the morning.

This is when the Darae had been often seen, training new recruits for the war. The first echoes of this information have come to us in the form of complaints from the soldiers, annoyed that such an important position was given to a political figure. The story would have ended there, if not for the strange occurrence of those complaints’ disappearance. Not only had we stopped hearing about the displeasure of the soldier about the Darae having been placed there because of nepotism, but we even heard a completely different rumour: The Darae was brilliant swordswoman, and that her lessons were even attracting veteran soldiers, many more than just the young cadets.

We delved deeper and our team investigated about her, and it has shown that the goddaughter of our Mother of us all, was the daughter of the previous sergeant-general Marke, and the apprentice of the Commandare Redrick Darkstar. This made her prowess much more understandable. What’s more, the Darae has supposedly beaten an Imperial guard during a training duel. We have found this guard, to look beyond the rumours, but to our surprise he confirmed it. He even added that to fight her had been an honour, and that he had been especially amazed at her great humility after she won.

Leïn’s newspaper, N°215 of the year 127 after the Firante war, p.12

Nay dodged the sword going for her forehead by a simple flex of her knees. Sweat was drenching her face, her back, and everywhere else. The humid heat, even after three days now, was not getting better. Nay spent most of her free time in their tent, where enchantments greatly reduced the thickness of the air, but she had obligations, as well as a training regiment to keep up with. She had lowered her physical activities by half though, as she forced to take a long cold shower and clean her clothes afterward.

Despite all of this, right now she was smiling wildly. The Trayx priest was quite a novel opponent, as he was using a two-handed sword, and he had been very well trained. It wasn’t surprising for such a proficient God-Touched to be put in charge of the camp’s security. He wasn’t as massive as the Carradin bandit she had met at the start of her trip to Makaka more than a year ago, but he was the only one with a style of fighting similar to Horick Valassian’s. Two-handed sword fighting was quite rare throughout the Empire, and as such, it was the perfect learning opportunity. The man was a lot stronger than she was, and she couldn’t parry or block his attacks without instantly losing balance in a way that would lead to her instant defeat. Of course, as it was just a friendly bout, the priest wasn’t using all his strength at all. If he had, his strikes would have been lethal whether he was using the training sword or a normal one. She could technically block here, but as it would have meant defeat in a real fight, she wasn’t allowing herself to. Having to crouch, sidestep and fall back as fast as possible to dodge was taxing with the ambient heat, but Nay had her breathing under control, big breaths, and she was calmly analyzing her opponent’s every move. He had a gaze of perfect focus, his Rreico completely balanced. It would be hard to take control of his rhythm of life.

As she dodged his horizontal strike, he immediately jumped back to put some distance between them. The Legio calculated that considering his age, she would have won an endurance battle, even if she was the one moving around the most. It was boring though, and she didn’t want to exhaust the chief of security at the start of the day, that would have been counterproductive. And if she did that, Trinne would definitely lecture her.

So she decided to play it differently, she would take some risks. After training with Lisana for a year, Nay had realized that her time in the Academy, while very good for her basics, had rigidified her swordplay. Simpler, stronger, faster, more precise. This was the Commandare way. But it didn’t fit with a free style like Lisana’s, and it didn’t fit Nay either. After all, her sword was one that mixed Imperial dance and Legio techniques. To her, to fight was art, it was like dancing.

So, she started dancing. Her swords and dagger became simple prolongments of her arms, and she swirled. Not towards her opponent, her first move was a simple sidestep to the left. Horick reflexively raised his large sword, sticking the flat of the blade on his entire right side. Lake crashed into it, and the sound of metal on metal echoed for just a single moment, as Nay’s sword was already flying to the other side. The priest saw the large opening made by the Legio turning and showing him her back, and he did a pommel strike right in front of him. It wasn’t an opening, obviously, as the Legio dodged without even looking, her body seemingly falling out of the way. Despite his failed attempt, the priest raised his guard with no hesitation, this time his sword blocking on the left.

Once again, Lake crashed on his sword, then went away. The sweat of the priest was making small puddles on the ground. But despite the assault, his Rreico was still untouchable. Nay was far from done though. Sidestep to the left and her sword hit, to the right and another blocked strike, her body turned, as if a prayer to the sky, and her sword hit again. Then came the moment she was waiting for, the last step of her dance, the last notes of the song. She was standing straight again, facing her opponent, until her body arched forwards, Lake following her every move as if it was one with her. The end of the sword passed less than an inch away from the priest’s neck. He had managed to dodge at the last second by pushing Lake away with his own sword. He smiled, Nay had gone too deep, and would never be able to put a guard in time, he simply needed to…

And he paused, feeling the cold grip of metal under his throat. Bubble was there, gently pushing against his jugular.

His focus vanished instantly, and shock quickly left to be replaced with something very different: he burst into laughter.

Nay took a step back, sheathed back her blades, and bowed slightly. “Thank you for the spar…Oh by Lebe I am drenched, urgh…” Her shirt and training pants were sticking to her skin.

Horick Valassian continued laughing for a bit, then passed a finger under one of his eyes to remove a single tear.

“I can’t believe I forgot you had a dagger.”

“Yeah, it’s the point of it. I believe the technique is pretty good, but it is pretty useless after witnessing it once.”

“I don’t believe it needs to be useful more than once. You are quite formidable miss Ruby, I do understand now how those blades came to rest in your hands. It was an honour.”

Nay blushed slightly. “Oh, no no no. You are really good as well and…”

“You should not say that miss, coming from you, it could be taken as quite rude.”

“What? I didn’t mean…”

“I am aware that it wasn’t meant in that way, do not worry. If I may though, could you point out my mistake?”

Nay blinked confusedly. She wasn’t used to be that respected after a duel. “Erm. Sure. Well, I can’t say for certain though, it is only my limited opinion.”

“And I want to hear it.”

“Well. Very well…uhm…” The Legio thought about what to say for a minute. “Well, your foundations are impeccable. You are also very experienced, much more than I am. I didn’t manage to make you lose focus, not even for a tenth of a second. But that’s what I used, maybe you were too focused? You saw through my attacks perfectly, but at some point, you were only seeing my attacks. I don’t know if I’m being clear.”

The priest looked surprised for a moment, then he started laughing again. “Ah. I see. Yes, quite the astute analysis. After all, who notices a brown dragon in a brown forest that has a single red tree?”

Nay hadn’t heard the expression before, but she liked it. “In any case, if you want another spar one of these days, maybe not today because I’m too sweaty but…”

“No, miss Ruby. This old body of mine should not waste your time any longer. You gave me more than you seem to realize yourself. A good late morning to you.” And he bowed, before leaving for the worksite without letting the Legio time to answer him.

She scratched the back of her head, bashful, but removed her hand immediately. Even her hair was wet in sweat, and she felt disgust crawl over her skin. She immediately left for the shower inside her tent.

Trinne wasn’t there, currently in a meeting with the different workforce officials. She was accompanied by three or four guards when Nay wasn’t with her, and the Legio wasn’t that worried about her friend’s safety inside the encampment. She was anxious about the possibility of a branch falling on her, but whether Nay was there or not wouldn’t have changed anything in that case. The Rreico couldn’t help her with objects falling from the upper-jungle. No wild animals had attacked them in the three days since they arrived, and she was quite certain that none of the Rreicos around were aggressive. The Banshee screams had quickly become tiring though, often waking her up in the middle of the night. After listening to some of the stories around, she had no desire to meet one.

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Nay undressed and threw her clothes in a basin of cold water. She then went under the showerhead. The water wasn’t freezing, just slightly chilly. The short way from the Canna well and her tent was enough to warm up the miraculously created water. As she washed herself, the Legio thought about everything that had happened those last three days. Things were even worse than described in the reports. Clearly, someone, most likely Tarrin the chief engineer, had tried to be overly optimistic to not have his position questioned by the Emperor. But the vegetation clearings, the bridge building, the accidents, the fatigue, the worker’s sanity, the heat, the lack of lights… Trinne had freely admitted on their first night that she would not be able to improve the working speed without putting the worker’s health at great risk. And this was a bad gamble in her opinion. She had decided to improve things little by little instead. If Nay had followed her friend’s planning correctly, Trinne was currently trying to convince God-Touched to put noise-canceling runes on the tents, to help everyone sleep better. The problem was that the tents had already two enchantments put on them, and a third one would be too much for the number of Touched they had on hand. Trinne was proposing an alternative solution for the insect issue: Mosquito screens, which should be enough to protect them. She had gotten that idea by talking to Lynn for some time.

Unfortunately, there had to be dozens of other little things that Trinne needed to change, and she knew that doing everything at once would not work. Nay wasn’t helping with it either, she didn’t really know how she could, but she was often doing guard work by patrolling the under-jungle around the worksite. There wasn’t much to see, everything being somewhat pitch black, the darkness rarely being pierced by an opening in the upper-jungle, creating some mystical-looking pillars of light. And nothing very interesting had happened anyway, except maybe that evening when a cat-lynx had gotten too close to the site. As it wasn’t even a meter tall, it wouldn’t have been dangerous for anything other than a child, but with the mental state of the workers, it could have created panic. Nay had shooed it away with a stick.

Lynn had discussed a bit with Nay about their trip to the temple of Trayx the first evening. It was thirty kilometres (twenty miles) away from the site, and the way there would take two days. The expedition in total should have taken seven. The main danger was the walks in the under-jungle. Without the Vanni walls, this was where Banshees and the other dangerous creatures of the Hymere lived. Lynn had told her that she would need to listen to her grandfather as if her life depended on it. Because it would. They would stop for the night in the Cali village, which was halfway between the site and the temple, situated on a hill like the one where the tents of the encampment were. There were a lot of those hills all over the jungle centre, and they were relatively safe spots. On their way, there would be ten. Ten stops out of the dark, Cali village included.

Nay wasn’t in a hurry for that trip, especially knowing that Trinne wouldn’t come with her.

After a week, Lynn’s grandfather finally showed up. It was in the middle of the afternoon, and a worker had discretely come to warn Nay about it when she was in the middle of her under-jungle patrol. A Banshee had screamed the whole day, and the Legio’s nerves were tense. She had expected everyone else’s to be the same, but when she arrived at the encampment, she was quite surprised seeing everyone with big smiles on their faces. And she was also surprised to see a lot of new faces.

Fair-skinned, the newcomers were clearly related with Lynn, but Nay hadn’t expected so many of them. The happy expression of the workers was quickly explained. She spotted one speaking quite giddily with a little tribe woman, her breasts completely out in the open, offering him fruits. She was wearing a beautiful modern-style skirt, and her shoes were quite similar to the ones Nay was wearing right now. Practical and knee-high. They didn’t look like savages, but the women and the men weren’t wearing anything above the waist. It had to be a Cali tribe tradition, pretty understandable considering the heat. The Cali tribe people were all quite small, but very well built. Nay was currently seeing a Dyone Touched looking at the muscles of one of the men with quite the rosy cheeks.

Nay couldn’t stop smirking a bit. This explained quite well why everyone liked the Calis in the camp. The tribe people were coming with food and something nice to look at.

When Nay approached the main tent, the biggest one serving as a command centre, the little groups of workers and tribesmen and women transformed into a single larger one. It looked much more like a marketplace. The chief engineer was currently trading with two old ladies, workers were at a quickly set up stall buying some sort of soap bars to…Nay noticed Trinne amongst them. She looked at the tent where she was being awaited, then to her friend again. She decided to do a little detour.

“What are you doing?” Nay asked as she came closer to the redhead, her gaze fixed on the products that were being sold by a Cali couple.

Trinne had her back to her, but she didn’t act surprised by the Legio’s sudden arrival. “From what I heard, this soap helps you not sweat as much.”

Nay had to get one of those. But the line was quite long already.

“Can you get me one? Wait, what are we supposed to pay with?”

Trinne turned around, giving her a weird look. “Gold pieces, of course?”

And yes, now that Nay looked at it, people were exchanging coins. She even noticed that there were stalls for the Calis, a lot of them buying and not selling things.

“I’ll take two, is that okay? You’ll reimburse me one way or another. And Nay, they are not savages, they are Empire citizens.” Trinne remarked.

Nay scratched her cheek, a bit ashamed. “Yes, sorry. I know. My bad. I didn’t think there would be so many of them.”

“Apparently, they usually travel all together, or not at all. It’s the least dangerous way. Aren’t you making them wait?”

“Yes, yes, sorry.”

“You’ll say goodbye before leaving, yeah?”

“Well, of course.” Nay didn’t understand the question at first. She couldn’t see the expression on Trinne, as she had turned around again, but the Rreico did give her a clue.”

It has been more than a year that the two women had found each other again, and there hadn’t been a day without them seeing each other at least once. Trinne was anxious.

Nay wanted to ask her why. Was she afraid that her nightmares would come back? That something would happen to the Legio? But they weren’t alone, surrounded by tribe people and workers, and Nay knew that Trinne would not answer her questions about her fears while being surrounded by others.

The Legio simply laid a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “I’ll see you soon.”

“Yeah yeah.” Trinne answered, nonchalant.

Nay removed her hand, and jogged towards the tent, almost certainly late already.

When she arrived, Lynn noticed the sweat on the cloudy-eyed young woman and remarked: “You didn’t need to hurry like this. There is no concept of lateness with the Calis, remember?”

Nay grimaced as only answer.

The tent interior was simple. The structure itself was a circus tent having been recycled for the occasion. It was very tall and large, and its old orange colour was still visible on some parts despite a new layer of white paint having been put over it. In the middle was the large meeting table, with stools set around haphazardly. There were blackboards all around, desks and abacus’ used by the engineers and architects. There was a large printing machine in the back, and on the opposite side stood the Canna well. Four men of the Cali tribe were waiting around the table, discussing with Horick Valassion. They were drinking tea and eating an exotic fruit cake, that was weirdly very familiar to Nay.

It was her cake! She almost shouted it out loud. They had taken her cake! Well, maybe she deserved it, it had been quite the selfish demand to ask for a sugar package in the middle of the jungle, but if she didn’t train, she would get rusty and forget the pastry recipes Hitoli had taught her. She thought she had hidden it well in the camp kitchen, but obviously, she hadn’t.

At least they had left some of her. She approached the table as Horick rose.

“Here she is. Miss Nay, also Ruby, Jewel of the Imperatrix, let me present to you Green Tree, Lynn’s grandfather and Cali tribe chief, as well as his son Crimson River and his two grandsons, Jordan and Firties.” The four men were very much alike, as if identical if not for a generation gap or two. She refrained from coming forward to exchange handshakes, she simply bowed her head slightly. Lynn’s cousins were twins and had to be close to Nay’s age. They had the same chestnut coloured hair as Lynn, and were well built. One was wearing beige pants and the other brown ones. Their father was much the same, if not that he was of medium height, which had to be huge for a Cali, and his expression was closed. Green Tree, the grandfather, was physically smaller than his son, and his expression the complete opposite of his. Smiling, showing a big row of teeth although a few were missing, and sipping on his tea before talking. “Hello young lady. Hyn told me much good about you.” His accent was heavy, hard to understand. Some of the sounds he was making weren’t ones Nay could have replicated.

She blinked wildly, but kept a smile on her face. “You speak with my godmother?”

“Now and then. She sends me letters. We had a fling fifty years ago, you know?”

The Legio tried her best to keep her smile, but it was starting to be difficult.

“Ah?”

Lynn arrived just in time. “Don’t encourage him, please, he never stops telling the story.”

“Jyrill ghitrry njhhhi ta!” Her grandfather exclaimed as he smacked the empty stool next to him.

“Kk, kk." The Cali woman sighed as she sat down next to him.

“Try this cake, it is delicious.” Her grandfather pushed a large portion of cake on a plate to her.

Nay sat down next to Horick, who had sat back down already. She picked another plate to quickly try her creation.

“Ah, the fruits are already extremely sweet, even after baking them. I hoped they would be slightly more acidic. I used too much sugar.” She grumbled softly. But Green Tree heard her perfectly.

“You made this?” His eyes were shining.

“Erm, yes I…” She never finished her sentence.

“You are an unmarried woman, right? Would you be interested in one of my grandsons? Or both, we the Calis…”

Nay tried to interrupt him. “I apologize sir but…”

“Call me Green Tree. They are very nice, you know? Maybe not the smartest of my bunch but…”

“…I am not…”

“…Jordan met a Htrrrillljyy on his own and survived without even a pack of salt, you know? He is brave and strong.”

“…Uhm I am sorry…” Nay continued desperately.

“Firtier is a very talented hunter too. We haven’t had a starving day since he got his first bow!”

The Legio was seeing that Lynn’s cousins were looking increasingly uncomfortable, so at least she wasn’t the only one.

“Grrrrpppp! Stop! You’re embarrassing!” Lynn hit the table with her hand, but because she was still eating the cake, it sent crumbs all over it.

“Fresh blood is important, not embarrassing at all!” The old man answered.

“She’s the Imperatrix’ goddaughter, she could marry a Duke! She isn’t interested in a lowly Cali hunter!”

"Well, the Imperatrix didn’t seem bothered when…”

“Grrrrpppp! No! I don’t want to hear it again!”

During all that time, Green Tree’s son hadn’t changed his expression once, but Nay had felt two distinct feelings in his Rreico. The first was despair and the second acceptance. The priest next to her was only oozing amusement though.

It took five more minutes for the conversation to go back to Nay’s mission.

“So, I will leave with your clan towards the village, then I will follow you and Lynn to the temple?”

“That is correct.” Green Tree nodded at least fifteen times.

“When do we leave?”

The Cali grandfather stopped to think.

“How do you say Gtyjjhjhjjh again?” He asked his granddaughter.

“Probably.”

“Ah yes, probably, well, probably this week, Nay.”

Nay closed her eyes for a very long second, then opened them again.

“I see.”