Adrea woke up in a warm bed under an unfamiliar ceiling. The last days had left her completely exhausted both physically and mentally, and it had suddenly caught up to her as soon as she knew that she was safe. Realizing that she was probably using someone else's bed, she immediately looked under the covers, and was relieved to remember that even in her emotional state, she had had the decency to remove her clothes before tucking herself under the covers.

She was not particularly enthusiastic about putting her clothes back on, considering that they were quite dirty and ripped in more than few places, but she did not have any spares, so she reluctantly reached for them. As she was putting them on, she noticed Naviya sitting on a chair in the corner of the room. Her sister had a vacant look about her, and did not seem to have noticed that Adrea had woken up. This was concerning.

As Adrea made her way towards her sister to check if everything was alright, Naviya suddenly seemed to come back to life.

"Good morning, big sister. Sorry, I was asleep."

That explains what I just saw... but also doesn't.

"Good morning, Naviya. Did I wake you up?"

"Yes, but don't worry about it. Are you better now?"

As strange as it was, Adrea was filling quite chipper.

"I feel better than I have in days. I do feel sore all over, but it's better than not feeling anything."

Naviya nodded in clear approval.

"So, what did we have to do next. Let me remember... I think the guard captain seemed to want to talk about something yesterday before I..."

That put a damper on her mood. Her loss of control over herself had not only been embarrassing, but also more than little rude.

"I guess we should probably let someone know that we're ready to talk..."

The door was locked. She really did not want to knock on it, but after pacing around for a bit, she eventually mustered the courage to do so. For a brief moment, there was no reply, before a voice on the other side answered.

"You're awake?"

"Yes."

"Excellent, please wait for a bit, I will fetch the captain. He wanted to speak to you in person."

It took a while, but eventually the door was unlocked and two men stepped inside. She recognized the one who was wearing a set of full plate armor, excluding a helmet, as the soldier who had "welcomed" them into the city. The other man was slightly younger, and mostly looked like a high-class explorer, with the exception of a royal crest prominently emblazoned on the upper-left side of his vest. The soldier spoke first.

"Good morning. I take it that you have slept well?"

Although he was obviously trying to control himself, Adrea immediately noticed that the man was not in a particularly good mood. He looked tired, and seemed annoyed by something.

"Yes. I must apologize for my behavior yesterday. It was... unbecoming. Are you the guard captain?"

The man seemed to get slightly more annoyed by the question.

"Yes, I am. Also please do not worry about what happened yesterday. I understand that the last days have not been easy on you... two..."

There was strange pause as he looked at Naviya with a bit of suspicion, but then immediately resumed talking.

"Now, while I would have preferred to welcome you in a more pleasant way than how I did yesterday, this was a necessary precaution. In addition to that, I am afraid that I will have to continue with some unpleasant topics, because my ability to perform my duties properly depends on it."

"With that said, I will now explain your situation. You are currently in one of four guard towers near the western gate of Meunheil. Due to your circumstances, we cannot allow you to leave this room, but we will provide any basic amenities that you may need, including clothes, food, and toilet service. However, as this room belongs to one of my subordinates, you are to be careful to not cause any damage to the furniture."

"You must also understand that this arrangement is completely outside of regular procedure. According to the royal decree of 152.F.2.21, refugees are normally to be provided temporary housing in specifically designated buildings. However, in your case, you are the only witnesses that we have with regards to the attack on Trosten-egerdaal. Your testimony will be critical in understanding what happened and how to handle it. We also cannot allow you to spread this information, as it would public unrest, which will prevent us from doing our job effectively."

"Before we continue, I would like to ask you to open and read the letter that this royal courier will now give you."

The other man stepped forward, and with a "here you go", handed her an envelope with blue wax seal. It took Adrea some effort to control herself when she saw he father's name on it. Meanwhile the guard captain continued.

"I believe that the contents of this letter may be related to what happened to your village, but according to royal courier policy, I am not allowed to read it without the consent of the recipient."

Adrea opened the letter and began to read out loud.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

"To Shaav Herdrick Venmaast,"

"The information regarding your daughter has been crucial in making sense of recent events, and having discussed this with other colleagues, we came to the conclusion that what she told us is very likely to be true. You may consider the present matter to be resolved."

"Yours sincerely, Vaahmeist Mrius Vandraak."

"PS: Due to being classified information, the rest of this letter has been written in mana-activated ink, which should hopefully be activated by you daughter's unique condition."

The rest of the contents had not appeared yet, so she asked Naviya if she could help. As soon as she touched the paper, the ink activated, spreading in an expanding disk around the place where she had held it. Adrea continued reading, pre-reading each sentence in advance to make sure that she would not reveal Naviya's nature.

"Unfortunately, the discovery that Naviya appeared what we discussed happened around five years ago has led the court to make an extremely uncomfortable realization, followed by an even more uncomfortable decision."

As Naviya released the paper, the ink began to fade, so she had to ask her to continue holding it.

"Thanks to additional clues, which I will not expand upon, it has become obvious that what we have been calling 'the third demon invasion' (now called the 'Hildean invasion') was only a precursor to the actual demon invasion (which I have petitioned to call as the 'Venmaastian invasion'). This demon invasion will probably begin soon and is likely be on an unprecedented scale."

"The royal court has decided to focus all its efforts on strengthening the heartlands in Lower Danalau and central Middle Danalau, effectively abandoning all other regions to their fate. Concretely, the policy is that until sufficient resources are made available to guarantee the defense of a given settlement, this settlement is not be informed of the danger to avoid overloading other places with refugees. While I personally consider this decision to be utter stupidity and completely irresponsible, it is not something I can significantly influence."

"However, as the ones who helped uncover what is happened, I thought that I should at least warn you. You should inform the rest of village and begin heading out to the nearest fortified city as soon as possible. I would like to request that you avoid mentioning the present letter to anyone but city authorities, and come up with some other excuse for everyone else. As much as I hate to agree with the court, I believe that they are correct in saying that panic would only hinder the defense of a city."

That was the end of the letter, and the contents were disturbing to say the least. The royal messenger was the one to break the ensuing silence.

"Well, this is ... unfortunate news. So, this means that the city is basically on its own against the largest demon invasion in recorded history?"

He was visibly getting angrier with every word he spoke, followed by a stream of profanities. This did not last particularly long,after which the man apologized for having lost his temper. The guard captain, who was visibly just as angry, nevertheless spoke in a calm voice:

"As infuriating as this is, we have to do the best we can. Verhof Marcel Ondraak, Shaav Adrea Venmaast, Shaav Naviya Venmaast, you are not to speak of the contents of this letter to anyone. To ensure this, all three of you will be confined to your rooms for now. I will arrange for you to be let out onto the city walls under escort starting tomorrow, under the condition that you do not hinder our preparations."

The royal courier seemed outraged, but did not push the matter. The guard captain continued.

"I will come back later to get your account of what you saw, but I have immediate duties to attend to in light of what I have just learned."

The two men exited the room and Adrea was let alone with her sister, holding the letter. She looked at the one paragraph that she had omitted:

Personally, I still have doubts about your daughter's explanation. I think that there is more to it than 'reincarnation', as she said. The way mana flows around her is like nothing that I have seen before. I have no idea how to describe it, other than 'unnatural'. Do with this information what you will.

That reminded her that Naviya had, at some point during the last days, stated that she was not human, and that she had not asked for more details on the subject. Bringing herself to ask her younger sister about it was hard. Adrea did not know how Naviya or herself would react, and that terrified her. Regardless of her secrets, she was still her sister, and she did not want to drive a wedge between them.

Both of them just sat there in silence for while. Somewhat uncharacteristically, Naviya seemed distracted by something, but Adrea decided against asking her about it. She was apprehensive about speaking to her now, and welcomed the delay this offered. Eventually, Naviya seemed to regain her focus, and Adrea managed to push herself to ask her about what she had meant by her statement of not being human.

Naviya started by saying that she did not really know what she was herself. She explained that she had been something different prior to being "Naviya". She described herself as a weapon of some sort, with power on a scale that Adrea struggled to understand, but that she was currently much weaker than she used to be. Naviya herself did not understand how she had become more than an inanimate object when she was moved between worlds, but she had. Her name prior to that had meant "eclipse". She did not elaborate why, and neither did she wish to speak about what happened before she had materialized on the coast of Danalau, but she strongly insisted that she did not want to be called by her old name.

Her journey before she reached Adrea's village had been an unpleasant one. Because she had not known the local language and customs, she had been systematically shunned wherever she had gone. By the time that she reached Torsten-egerdaal, she was beginning to lose hope that she would ever be able to put her past as a weapon behind her. The unique circumstances that had led their parents to take Naviya in had been a blessing for her, and the destruction of the village had hurt her much more than Adrea had realized.

Adrea decided to not ask Naviya about what she could do that normal humans could not. Nor did she ask her about what happened during the attack. She was not ready to hear it yet. Instead she moved on to talk about what they would do once they could go out of the room. Visiting the walls seemed like a nice prospect. After that, Adrea would probably have to find an explorer apprenticeship, whatever that entailed. She was not particularly enthusiastic about it, but it was a nice distraction, thinking of all the awesome things that she could be doing once she was ready.

Eventually, the guard captain came back into the room to ask them about the events. Naviya was the one who explained what happened, saving Adrea the pain that would have come from having to remember the events. She did not really listen to what was said, but the captain seemed satisfied with the explanation and did not probe either of them any further.

There was not really much to do it the room. Adrea eventually built up the courage to ask if there was any way to have her clothes replaced or washed. Both were possible, and the captain had apparently volunteered to cover their expenses for anything sensible. Having proper clothes qualified. Besides that, she spend some time practicing sword forms. In the beginning, she was reluctant to pick up a sword, even one of the wooden training swords that she found in the room, due to the memories it evoked, but she eventually began practice, blowing away all her stray thoughts. Naviya mostly just sat there and watched, making comments from time to time. Later, new clothes were brought in. They were also provided with a couple of towels and a bucket of hot water to wash themselves with. It was not an ideal arrangement, but thanks to that, for the first time what felt like weeks, Adrea fell asleep while feeling comfortable. Hopefully, tomorrow would be a good day.