“What are the chances they have heard of your disgrace?” Myraden asked the Hand.

“High,” said the Hand. “It’s been many weeks since the Emperor stripped my titles from me.”

They walked down a broad thoroughfare in the center of Ostaloth. The street was wide enough to fit ten carriages and carts across, at least, and civilians made use of its every inch. Kythen walked in front of them, clearing a way through the crowd and lowering his horns whenever peddlers or potential thieves approached.

Clotheslines and old fishing nets hung over the street, supporting chains of lanterns, or, on street corners, entire chandeliers of candles who had dripped into an eldritch stalactite of wax. Building clung together by threads and rusty nails, and dried kelp shingles blew across the street in droves. Music rattled out of windstones, or was played live by buskers, and Smoke sculptures whirled in plazas like fountains.

Myraden cursed under her breath. She couldn’t rely on the Hand’s previous standing to get them into the council grounds.

It was called the Crown Ring, named for its old significance to Greatsaad and the capital. She’d also learned—in the few hours they’d been here—that there was rarely any councilling happening. It was mostly a game of galas, evening dinner meetings, and large social gatherings for the old marshals and their retinue.

“Like I said,” the Hand muttered. “I have a friend who can help get us prepared.”

“Apparently, you have many friends,” Myraden muttered. “It is a shame they were no good to you in the realms of politics or war.”

“At least I have friends,” he replied, voice empty and cold.

“I have…a friend.” Myraden glanced at Kythen, then thought of Pirin. “Friends. Two.”

The Hand shook his head. “If all you seek is a friend who can bring you value, then that’s no friend at all.”

Myraden gulped. She rarely thought of Kythen as a tool, not anymore.

His words still stung, and she wanted to hurt him back. She glared at him and snapped, “And what happened to these friends, hm, when they found out what you had become? Red Hand of the Emperor? I do not suppose you made them after you earned your vicious titles.”

“No,” he said. “I did not.”

It wasn’t the satisfying response she’d been hoping for.

“Turn here,” he said, motioning toward an alleyway.

She relayed the command to Kythen, and they both followed the Hand down an alleyway. It ran between a warehouse and a rudimentary bakery complex with apartments on its second and third storeys.

They followed the alleyway, dodging abandoned crates and barrels. A vagrant moaned and stumbled out of the shadows, but the Hand pressed his sheathed sword up against the man’s chest and pushed him away.

They arrived at a door at the end of the alley. The Hand pushed a door open then disappeared through it. Myraden followed him inside, but Kythen was too large.

“Stay here,” she instructed him in Íshkaben. “I’ll be right back. Feel free to kick anyone who tries to take you away.”

Don’t be long, Kythen said. This city gives me a sickening feeling, like I’ve just rolled in spring mud. The alley doesn’t help.

Myraden followed the Hand inside and let the door fall shut behind her. She stood at the bottom of a stairway, and she ran up it to the very top, where the Hand waited at a landing. He knocked on a dingy apartment’s door and called, “Yesunta?”

The door creaked open a crack, revealing a middle-aged woman’s weathered cheeks and tired eyes. Like many of the native Greatsaadans, she had broad cheekbones and round cheeks, and a pale bronze skin tone. She pulled the door open farther, revealing a simple but pristine apron and a green rag tied around her hair.

“Kovar?” she whispered. “Is…that you?”

The Hand nodded. “It is. It has…been a while, Yesunta.”

“Indeed, aye.” She cleared her throat and backed away. “You have a…friend? She is with you, right?”

Yesunta stared directly at Myraden.

“I am with him.” Myraden crossed her arms. “He said you two were friends.”

Normally, Myraden didn’t scan the spirits of everyone she stumbled across, but a faint pressure bubbled off this woman, pressing gently against Myraden’s core.

She stared intently at the woman and extended her senses, then looked inside and weighed the woman’s core against her own. Yesunta was a Flare—just past the middle of the stage. She had no markings of an enhanced body, though. Not as strong as she could’ve been, but not a pushover, either.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“Old friends, maybe,” the woman grumbled. She stared directly at Myraden, as if to say ‘I felt that’—one often did feel their spirit being scanned. “Friends send letters from time to time, and don’t leave each other out to dry for a decade or two.”

The Hand snorted. “If I recall, you still owe me a favour. You even insisted on making it a soul pact, as part of your honour.”

“That was a long time ago…” Yesunta muttered. “I was much younger.”

“Friends, hm?” Myraden shook her head. “Miss, the Hand—or, Kovar—he needs your help. We both do. I am not exactly sure what he thinks you can help us with, but if you would let us in, he can explain.”

Yesunta sighed, then backed away from the door. “Alright, you two. Come in. But don’t get too comfortable, aye? It’s late, and I’ve got a busy day tomorrow.”

Myraden and the Hand stepped into a small, windowless apartment. A hearth blazed on the opposite side of the room, but otherwise, bookshelves covered every inch of the wall. Reams of colourful fabric, spools of golden string, and rune-marked wooden tablets made them bow in the middle. On the very top shelves were jars of flame-aspect Essence manifested into pellets and stored like candy. Aside from the hearth, they provided the only light for the room, and their pale orange glow was barely enough to reach the ceiling.

Yesunta ran to a table at the center of the room and swept off a layer of fabric snippings and a coiled-up Smoke cloth, which landed on the head of a peacock.

A peacock. Her Familiar. It squawked, then fanned out its tail feathers and hopped away from the edge of the table, then nattered and clicked its beak.

“Apologies,” Yesunta muttered. “Didn’t see you, aye?”

“She is a Smoke-maker,” Myraden said. She glanced skeptically at the Hand. “How will she get us into the Crown Ring?”

“She’ll make us presentable,” said the Hand. “Yesunta is a master of aesthetics, and that extends beyond crafting trinkets.”

“Wasn’t much good as a Smoke-maker, anyways,” said Yesunta. “Or, wasn’t much good at selling them. Making coats and dresses pays the bills.” She picked up a crochet hook off the ground and pointed it at the Hand. “He helped me get into the Greatsaad Arts Academy, but I flunked out after a few years. But a deal’s a deal, aye, and my word still means something?”

“If you help us,” said the Hand.

“I don’t have time to make anything from scratch.” Yesunta kicked an empty spool of string under a chair and looked up, as if pretending to have not noticed. “But we can investigate my closet.”

She turned around, facing a hallway that led off along the side of the apartment, but stopped halfway and turned back to face them. “By the Eane, you two smell vile, and you look like you’ve been on the road for weeks.” She reached into her pocket and felt around for a few seconds, before producing a rusty key. “This complex isn’t much, but there’s a small bathhouse on the bottom floor. Seawater, and it’s lukewarm at best, but it's fresh. Clean yourselves up, and I’ll find something in my collection.”

She tossed the key to the Hand, and he snatched it out of the air. “Thank you, Yesunta.”

“Yeah, yeah. Least I can do, if I’m giving you the reject fashion.”

image [https://static.wixstatic.com/media/f3a882_5e221995337243e6a7d4250b55d3aeea~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_280,h_232,al_c,lg_1,q_85,enc_auto/embercore%20sigil.png]

Myraden wrung her hair out in a towel, then scrambled back into her clothes. There were only two other women in the apartment’s dingy bathhouse, and they were elderly and slow. Chances are, they weren’t even looking, and if they did, the room was dark. No windows, salty steam clouding the air.

Besides, there was little to hide anymore. No more reckless scars, no weeping cuts that she’d been too lazy to cauterize. The glowing gold Blaze-stage markings and silky enhancement residues below should’ve been a stamp of honour.

Old habits died hard.

As she dried off, she tied up her hair with a leather band, then rammed her feet back into her boots and walked through the building’s hallways, navigating back to Yesunta’s apartment. It wasn’t cold, but without her armour of Kythen, she felt oddly vulnerable. Like someone would leap out from the shadows and slit her throat without her sensing it.

The Hand had already returned to the apartment. His hair had grown longer than usual, and he tied it up into a ponytail as well, but he’d shaved his beard—leaving only a small mustache.

“Guests of honour wouldn’t arrive at the Autumn Council in their best garb, so I’ve prepared travelling overcoats for you,” Yesunta said, motioning to the table. Two matching gray coats rested on the table, with brass buttons running down their front and gold embroidery on the lapels and collars. “Wear these when you arrive, aye? They’re clean and high-status, but they won’t look too unusual.”

Myraden nodded slowly.

“And beside them, a marshal’s doublet. Commissioned for the Eastern Earl Marshal, but he never picked it up, and truly, I rushed it a little…but that’s no matter. If no one looks too closely, they won’t notice. I doubt the public saw it, anyway…”

Myraden’s gaze drifted over to the black doublet. It had a Dominion crest—two ostal horns in an open circle made of chains—and light gray embroidery in distinct lines down its front. Its shoulders jutted out straight to the sides, and toggle buttons ran up its front.

“And,” Yesunta drifted to the side once more, drawing Myraden’s attention to a folded brown dress. “One of a set I made for Lord Four’s wizard maidservants. Still elegant, gala attire, but the muted colours are befitting of a servant. On request, I designed the cutouts to highlight the wizards’ reforging markings, though it should have the same effect with your runemarks. To show their family’s immense wealth and power.”

Myraden reached out and squished the silky brown fabric between her fingers. She lifted it up, and along with it trailed a mesh of smoke. It had its own spiritual weight, like that of a Smoke tablet, but the gray ash was alive and swirling.

“I made its base of manifested Essence, and it should hold its smoke tight. It’s not using it, aye?” She flicked it, and a wisp of smoke abandoned a strand of deep red manifested Essence—weak flame Essence. The smoke fluttered back, swirling around the strand and hiding it once more.

Myraden nodded in thanks.

Truly, even if she repurposed it afterward, the resources used to make the dress were worth something.

“Thank you, Yesunta,” said the Hand, then dipped his head as well. “Now, if you don’t mind, we’ll be off.”

Myraden grinned. They had a general to sway.