The ride to Adelgard was tense and uncomfortable for the three travelers. Ilvara acted suspicious of Brianca, and Brianca felt the same about the elf, with Alistair stuck in the middle. After about a week’s ride, when they finally saw the gates, Alistair let loose a sigh of relief. Somehow they’d managed not to kill each other.
Sun was setting on the fair city of Adelgard as they approached from the north. Folk working outside the gates had already returned inside and the guards seemed ready to close up shop. Their group was the last inside before the strong wooden doors were shut behind them for the night.
Alistair brought his steed to a halt a little past the gate. He turned his head to and fro, absorbing his surroundings. Something felt off since the last time he’d visited. Things were a little quieter, more mellow. Perhaps the news of the late viscount’s assassination has settled down a bit, he thought.
“Something wrong?” asked Ilvara. Again, the elf had taken up a hood to hide from unwanted attention. Though now with the lack of hustle and bustle in the streets, it didn’t seem so necessary.
Alistair shook his head. “Nothing, seems quiet is all.”
The elf snorted. “Don’t tell me you were expecting another hero’s welcome?”
“Of course not,” he said, more harshly this time. Such thoughts were still sore to him. “Just my nerves I guess.”
“I feel it too,” said Brianca. Her eyes were angled at the sky, gently moving as if she were tracking something.
Alistair followed her gaze but didn’t see anything himself. “What is it?”
Brianca shook her head. “There’s something surrounding the city. I can see it clearer now that we’re so close.” The noblewoman twisted in her seat and nodded to herself. “Something magical, though I must admit I don’t know the particulars.”
Strange, Alistair thought. The two of them shared the same kind of power with the Sight, and yet she saw something that he didn’t. Something to do with her particular relic, maybe.
“Well, we certainly won’t learn anything here in the middle of the street,” Ilvara said with her usual sardonic tone. She clicked her tongue and made her horse go forward, leaving the paladins behind. “Let’s go find that lady friend of yours. She knows magic, doesn’t she?”
Brianca and Alistair exchanged glances. He shrugged and decided to follow his friend, with the other girl hesitating a moment longer before she too started down the street. The three of them made their way through the city streets and toward the west gate rather than the castle, as they knew from experience Rozena had preferred it there. Along the way, they did see some folk walking about, running final errands, or making their way to establishments of the entertainment variety.
Seeing people alive and well put Alistair at ease. He realized how odd that felt after a bit of riding, considering his opinion had been much different only a month or so ago. When he first came to Adelgard with Sir Manus, he’d felt incredibly uncomfortable with the packed thoroughfares and market squares, but now for some reason he longed for them. If nothing else, to make the city feel normal.
Along the way, down a sidestreet closer to the west side of town, Ilvara came to a halt in front of them. The elf sat there a moment, not moving. With her hood up, Alistair found it difficult to tell what she was doing exactly. Before he could call out, Ilvara turned her head to look down an alleyway, and she kept her eyes locked on something for quite a while. An uncomfortable while.
He brought his horse to her other side and leaned in close. “What’s wrong?” he asked. A quick glance over her shoulder and he couldn’t see anything but some trash littering the ground and above them sets of clothes hanging from clotheslines.
She didn’t respond, not even when he gently touched her shoulder. A moment later and she finally moved, as if woken from a spell.
“Thought I saw something down there,” she said, quieter than her usual self. The elf gently shrugged his hand off of her. “Was staring at the tracks I could see. Must have been a stray.”
Alistair felt himself become somewhat unnerved. Not at what she said, but how she said it. He watched as she got her horse moving, a little faster this time. If even Ilvara was feeling on edge, then maybe something was wrong. He glanced back at Brianca who had lagged behind and saw the noble was still distracted with her surroundings, seeing things only she could.
He prayed Rozena would have some answers.
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“Any sign of her?”
“Nothing yet, I’ll have a look around outside.”
Alistair and Brianca remained in the tent to look for clues as Ilvara went back out the way they came. Of the daughter-errant, there was no sign. Her mare, the very recognizable one with a white mane, was gone as well. Normally, this wouldn’t be cause for concern, but something seemed ‘disturbed’, as Brianca described it.
The Shadow user stood in the middle of the canvas pavilion. Her eyes swept over the room with an unnervingly keen gaze. Alistair noticed that about Brianca before, in the duke’s throne room, how she had some unseen strength behind her vision. To him, the room looked mostly normal, but to her, there was another layer to peel away.
“I see signs of illusory magic,” she whispered, eyes unblinking. The young woman took a few steps forward, each carefully measured. Now in front of the bed, she inspected it closer. “Not Rozena’s own doing. This is from someone else.” Her brow furrowed, lips thin. “Something foul was here.”
“‘Foul’?” he repeated, confused.
Brianca seemingly ignored him as she pivoted from the bed toward the table, as if following a trail. She reached out to grab a nearby chair, only for the piece of furniture to disappear like a mirage. Alistair’s jaw dropped open as a new chair, this one thoroughly knocked over, appeared in the illusion’s stead. The supplicant moved around the room, quietly dispelling these false images to better paint a picture of what had happened.
It didn’t look pretty.
The room was mostly a wreck now that Brianca had gone over it with her discerning eye. Everything pointed to a clear sign of some kind of struggle. Alistair looked everywhere but—thankfully—he failed to find any signs of blood. Still, it left him with little to take solace in. Rozena had clearly been taken against her will, and perhaps harmed in some way during the process. And they’d put in a concerted effort to hide it.
The question remained, who ‘they’ were? Alistair didn’t need to wrack his brain for the answer when the list of culprits remained so small. This frightened him all the same. Could the undead have infiltrated a city as big as Adelgard? They must have gotten confident if they thought to get away with kidnapping a daughter of the Lady.
“This isn’t looking good,” Alistair muttered, his mind racing.
“No, it doesn’t,” Brianca echoed, her expression grim. “What should we do?”
The lowborn thumbed his chin. “We have to go to the viscount, as much as I’m loath to say it. This is his city. If something this brazen happened under his watch then he needs to know.”
Brianca seemed hesitant. “Are you sure he will lend us an ear?” She noticed Alistair’s look of confusion and clarified. “You see, when I met Rozena in Ionad, she spoke to me briefly of the tragedy Adelgard suffered. She said the special powers of a Shadow relic were needed to properly look into things here. And she spoke only a little of the new viscount, Alphonse Lathurn I believe, and there was little good Rozena had to say. I’m worried he won’t take our concerns seriously.”
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“Funny you say that,” Alistair said, adopting a rueful smile. “I’ve only met the man once and I don’t have much good to say about him either. It felt odd being the one to suggest going to see him, me being a lowborn and all, but I’m not sure who else to turn to.”
Ilvara returned, pulling back the canvas to look inside. She motioned for them to join her. Outside the tent, she led them around the back and made note of some well-worn, but still visible, tracks in the dirt.
“A single horse?” Brianca asked, as if she had expected a greater mystery.
Alistair shrugged. “Her mare, you think?” He posited this to the ladies, who shrugged.
“What concerns me is the age of the tracks.” Ilvara knelt to inspect them closer. “Many days old at this point. You said yourself that the girl prefers to sleep in her own tent. If she was attacked and ran away, why has no one come back to check?”
“We best see where the tracks lead first,” Brianca said, doing her best to keep a neutral tone. “Jumping to conclusions will only waste more time.”
“Time your friend may not have.” Ilvara nodded in agreement. “Let’s go.”
Alistair was impressed by their discipline and followed in silence. A little while ago they had been staring daggers at each other and now the two had come together in a time of stress. His thoughts drifted to the brief time he’d spent with Dogan and the aftermath of it all, and how they’d failed to reconcile by the end. Where did he go wrong, and how did these girls so quickly get their feelings in order?
Maybe I am still immature.
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The trail led them up through various streets and thoroughfares, with seemingly random turns taken for no apparent reason. Brianca surmised the culprits were trying to throw off any kind of pursuit through the obfuscation. To a normal human or even a guardsman, the effort would probably be considered overkill. For the keen-eyed Ilvara, however, it wasn’t even a delaying tactic.
“Running out of places it could be,” Alistair said as they made their way to the outer edges of the city streets. The hiding place would have to be near the outer wall at this rate.
“I believe I know where it’s taking us.” Brianca pointed at the rooftops. A structure was peeking out from over them—the viscount’s castle.
Alistair’s expression darkened. “Of course,” he muttered. “Why am I not surprised?”
“She’s right.” Ilvara, a little ways ahead of them, slowed her horse to rejoin them. The elf nodded in the castle’s direction. “As much as they tried to make it seem like the tracks got mixed somewhere, especially near the north gate, they unmistakably lead to the portcullis there.”
The three of them exchanged looks of concern. Was the viscount somehow involved in this conspiracy as well? Or was Rozena actually attacked and this was all evidence of some insane chase? With the only available evidence flimsy at best, they had no choice but to check the castle themselves.
Before long they were at the portcullis and found it to be locked. On the other side, a pair of guardsmen hobbled over to them. The men looked pale and sickly, with eyes nearly bloodshot.
“State ya business,” said one, almost hacking up a lung as he did.
Alistair noticed the women were waiting for him to speak, so he cleared his throat. “We’re here looking for the Lady’s daughter, Rozena.”
The two guards looked at one another, brows furrowed. They looked as if they’d never heard the name before. Alistair found that strange. Rozena had been a frequenter of the viscount’s court.
“Haven’t seen anyone like that,” the other guard said, scratching his chin.
“Are you sure?”
“O’course we’re sure.” The two guards stood a little straighter as their moods soured. “We may be a lil’ under the weather, but we ain’t blind.”
Brianca shifted uncomfortably next to him. She made eye contact directly with Alistair and slowly shook her head. Something must have felt off to her, he guessed. Nothing good, either.
Alistair returned his attention to the men, his voice more authoritative this time. “Then I’d like to speak with the viscount. I have urgent business.”
One squinted at him. “Who’re you, anyway?”
“Alistair of Wyrdwood,” he replied, raising a brow. Perhaps he’d been spoiled by his receptions elsewhere, but with his increased renown, people had begun to recognize him without any prompt. Again, he found it strange.
The two guards looked at each other and, after a moment to think, shrugged.
“Viscount’s orders, we ain’t to let anyone in.”
“‘Nother attempt on his life, there was.”
This news made the three riders shift uncomfortably. It did everything but confirm to Alistair that the undead were accelerating their plans. All the more reason they had to get access to the viscount and warn him. Any other alternative would see the city fall, one way or another.
Alistair adopted a pleading tone. “I ask you as one of the Lady’s chosen to send a message to the viscount, tell him I need to speak with him immediately. It’s an urgent matter.”
Brianca cleared her throat. “As a supplicant of the Lady, I second the paladin’s request. ‘Tis an urgent matter, one that concerns the viscount’s safety.” She paused for a moment to think. “A matter that concerns the entire city, in fact.”
Again the two men exchanged glances. This time they seemed genuinely overwhelmed. Whether it was from overwork or from whatever sickness plagued them, their reactions and thoughts were slow, too slow for a situation as urgent as this.
“Fine,” one of them said. “We’ll ask the viscount for ya.” The man shrugged, dismissive of the paladin’s urgency. “Won’t be for a while though, he’s with his council.”
Alistair grit his teeth. “Very well.” He hated to wait, but it seemed they didn’t have a choice. “We’ll be at the Stinking Stag inn, send a runner as soon as the viscount is ready.”
The awkward conversation ended there as Alistair and his companions turned away from the gate and headed back into the city proper. The lowborn found it difficult to tuck tail and run without any results, but he failed to think of a way around the usual decorum of meeting the nobleman. If there really was another assassination attempt, then he couldn’t blame Lathurn for growing more paranoid. Still, something didn’t add up about the guards.
Out of sight from the gate, Brianca rode up next to him. “They were lying,” she said, stating it as a matter of fact. “My trait, something called Truthseeker, lets me pick up on lies and illusory magic made in my presence.”
“I didn’t need any ‘trait’ to tell that,” said Ilvara.
“Could you discern any truth from their words?” Alistair asked. He was careful not to jump to any conclusion, but this was something he’d been fearing. It would explain the guards’ strange reactions to their presence in the city.
Brianca side-eyed Ilvara but continued. “I first felt the sense of deception when they spoke of not seeing Rozena. Then it happened again when they mentioned the assassination attempt. The only real truth seemed to be the viscount being with his council, though I still find the entire conversation suspect.”
The sun was setting now. Adelgard quieted as they approached the inn. It looked about the same as the last time Alistair had visited. He felt somewhat at ease being in such a familiar place among all the other weird happenings going on.
“So,” he said, “what should we do?”
Ilvara slid off her saddle with practiced grace. “Well, if this really is the undead making their move, then we just put a big target on our back.” She tied the horse to a nearby post. “Even in the best case, the duine noble is so paranoid he might just ignore your message entirely.” She then grunted derisively. “If those guards don’t keel over before delivering your message in the first place. They looked about dead themselves.”
Alistair and Brianca followed the elf’s lead and dismounted. Together, the three of them entered the establishment and found themselves a quiet corner to speak. Soon enough they had three drinks and plates of food in front of them, taken care of at Brianca’s expense. Again, Alistair found it strange the same innkeeper didn’t recognize him from before. Even ignoring his improved renown the man should have remembered him.
“Target or no, we can’t abandon the city,” said Alistair. “It’s not just Adelgard on the line here. The whole duchy is in danger, remember?”
“We mustn’t forget about lady Rozena.” Brianca whispered, voice laced with concern. “She’s still there in the castle, somewhere.”
“Do you think she’s still alive?” Alistair asked.
Brianca narrowed her eyes, a dangerous glint shining in them. “I shan’t think of the alternative.”
“Either way,” interrupted Ilvara, “we need to come up with a proper plan. Waiting here would mean giving up the initiative.”
The humans offered their full attention to her.
Alistair took a sip of ale. “What did you have in mind?”
“I say we make our own invitation.”