Mufara watched idly as the waitress poured a rich mushroom wine into their glasses. They were sitting at the only table in the room, an intimate four-seat arrangement with sticks of incense slowly smouldering within a ring of candles. Zora had always loved candles.

They sat next to each other, rather than across. It’s how they’d sat together on their dates, and despite the distance from that innocent young couple, temporal and emotional, sitting with her like this felt… right.

He shook his head roughly.

Get it together, Fara. She’s a viper now.

His sudden movement had startled Zora, interrupting her story. They’d bonded over their shared experience of raising a child that wasn’t their own and she was telling him about Uda’s difficulties at school.

She gave him a flat look, pursing full lips glossed with a dark red ochre.

“Are you even listening to me?”

She was clad in a black, silken, almost see-through slip of a dress, stretched provocatively over her generous curves with dark green rose petals sewn in swooping patterns to protect her modesty, if only barely.

It was quite distracting.

He blinked, coming back to reality. Coughing to cover his embarrassment, he took a deep draught of the wine in front of him.

“Uh yeah something about poetry and… landscaping?”

She rolled her eyes, unable to stop a smile from playing along her lips.

“I was trying to tell you a funny story, but if you want to steal more glances at my breasts, that’s okay too.”

Mufara flushed red, his cheeks burning as Zora’s smile turned into a small giggle. He stammered out a response.

“I- I uh… I wasn’t-”

A peal of laughter escaped her mouth before she bit her fist, waiting for the mirth to pass. She lay a hand on his arm, turning herself toward him.

“It’s okay, Fara, really. I like it when you look. It’s nice knowing some things haven’t changed.”

“No, I- I’m sorry. I’m being rude. Continue your story.”

She held his gaze for one heart-stopping moment, her red irises boring into his soul, before leaning back in her seat, a smile ghosting her strong features.

“It was Uda. He’d received a poetry assignment from his teacher. He was supposed to write a poem about his favourite place. Innocent as he is, he went into great detail about his chosen place. Very great detail.”

Mufara smiled.

“It was a secret place?”

She snorted.

“Not just secret. It was the main Fenari family headquarters, where our aunts, uncles, grandparents and little cousins live. No one alive without the Fenari name knows where it is. Or at least, that was before my little brother fancied himself the most thoroughly descriptive poet to put pen to paper.”

Mufara chuckled.

“Do you not have people watching over him? To stop things like this?”

She lifted her glass, twisting the neck slowly in her gloved hand.

“We have security keeping watch at all times, of course, but the guard who read over his homework wasn’t a Fenari and didn’t realise what he was reading. Unfortunately, he wasn’t sharp enough to send it higher up first either. Our enemies keeping us under surveillance is just a fact of life, but whoever’s job it was on their side to read Uda’s homework was of a keener mind.”

Mufara raised an eyebrow.

“You got attacked?”

“The very next day. It was obviously a very hastily-put-together plan, but with the surprise, our defences were only just able to hold them off. They held, thank the gods, and even better, I got to rub my excellent judgement in the faces of my aunts and uncles. I spent a small fortune on reinforcing our defence protocols and a large fortune on a backup base that the Fenari elders had bitched and moaned about. Whining about the cost, whining about the necessity, whining about everything, really. Fucking old people.”

“You should respect your elders more.”

She sneered, her disdain evident.

“I would if there was anything to respect. They think one of them should have inherited the role of head of the family when my parents died, just by virtue of age, when they consistently make the wrong decisions. In their hands the Fenaris would have been wiped out long ago. Two days after the first attack, merely hours after our rushed evacuation to the backup base, a bigger force showed up at the old compound, an alliance of all our enemies and some opportunistic neutrals. Much more than we would have been able to deal with had we stayed.”

“What did they do when they found you weren’t there?”

She laughed, covering her open mouth with a gloved hand.

“We rigged the whole place to blow when certain vault doors were breached. We didn’t get all of them but we got enough that we were able to expand into several key areas unopposed. I wish I’d seen it with my own eyes.”

Her laugh was infectious, making Mufara’s face crinkle with mirth in response. That did sound like it would have been fun to watch. He took no pleasure in violence, but watching criminals fight amongst themselves never got old.

I’ve missed this.

As much as he did not want to, he had to admit it to himself.

Her girlish charm had matured into a womanly magnetism, and they spoke together with a familiarity and frankness like no time had passed at all.

“And so you showed up your family elders, punished your enemies and grew your business all in one fell swoop. I can imagine you were unbearably smug about it as well.”

She smiled sweetly.

“You do know me! I’ve had to pull miracle after miracle to get my family to where it is today, and I’ll be damned if I’ll let a single one of those leeches forget it. Especially that one, I even impressed myself.”

Mufara snorted.

“And I’ll take a wild guess and assume none of them know Uda was the leak that lead to the whole confrontation?”

Her smile turned savage.

“Why burden them with irrelevant information when I wrapped everything up so neatly? If it forced me to do a little purge of the family to ensure their loyalty in the interest of security, well, that’s just the price of being in this business.”

Forced in the interest of security, huh.

She was just as fiercely intelligent as he remembered. He could only shake his head at her shamelessness.

“Sounds like you have your organisation under an iron fist.”

“I wouldn’t call it iron. Maybe a velvet fist.”

Something niggled at him however.

“How do the logistics of a secret base work anyway?”

Her brow creased in confusion.

“What do you mean?”

“You said no one who isn’t a Fenari knows where it is. How does that work? Do you guys have your own farm? Raise your own animals? I imagine regular shipments of food would be easy to trace.”

She looked away nervously.

“We do have a small farm, mostly for the retired to keep themselves busy, but for the things we need to buy from the city, we have… certain means to hide them.”

He narrowed his eyes.

“Certain means, huh? Okay, Zo.”

So some of the Fenaris are avatars. Powerful ones, it sounds like, if they can hide from all their enemies who no doubt have their own “means”. I bet they’re not part of a church.

“But what about for things you’d need outside expertise for? Like the builders or plumbers and such.”

Zora took a long sip of the wine in her glass.

“We have an in-house plumber and groundskeeper. He lives there and doesn’t leave.”

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Doesn’t leave? Or can’t leave.

He didn’t miss the fact that she’d avoided saying what happened to the people who’d built the compound. If it was as large as it sounded, there must have been many dozens, possibly even over a hundred builders. That’s a lot of people to keep a secret.

He was about to press her on the issue when the door opened and some waiters arrived with their food, a steaming platter of braised rockmole, spiced with powdered Jarani bluecap and a sauce of fermented holi beans, with a side of crumbed and fried loxen hatchling drumsticks and small bowls of rice to complement the mole. Mufara’s nose picked apart all the different ingredients and he nodded appreciatively. The kitchen staff knew their business.

Interestingly, they laid three sets of cutlery down before shuffling out.

Mufara raised an eyebrow.

“Is someone else coming?”

She grimaced.

“Unfortunately. Um, before she arrives, I just want to ask you to hear her out. Please don’t do anything… rash.”

He frowned. Slowly, under the table, he took his right glove off, placing his thumb on the trigger of his bellring.

“What do you mean ‘rash’?”

A voice from the door.

“She means don’t let your panties strangle your jewels, boy.”

Mufara stood up immediately, jostling the table so hard Zora had to grab at their wine glasses before they spilled. The tall, muscular figure that had just strode in was unmistakable.

He depressed the trigger, ready to escape at a moment’s notice.

“Mother Steel. Zora, what the fuck is this?”

Zora was quick to hop out of her seat and get between them, clutching at the man’s arm.

“Fara, wait wait, calm down! She promised no violence! She said she just wanted a meeting, a chance to talk.”

He did not take his gaze off Mother Steel. Dressed in her signature sleeveless grey nun’s habit, she moved like a cave lion, with an easy, confident gait that belied the explosive potential in the musculature shifting beneath her skin. He’d seen her in action exactly once.

It was enough to convince him that even now, years later, escape is his only option if she ever cornered him.

He pushed Zora off him, anger beginning to cloud his eyes.

“Don’t fucking touch me! You obviously don’t know who this is. She’s a rabid dog.”

Mother Steel chuckled as she prowled towards the table, looking Mufara up and down.

“Ouch, boy, that’s hurtful. I wonder what sort of nasty tales Sapphire has been filling your pretty little head with.”

“That’s Father Sapphire to you. You will respect his station as ordained by our god. And no tales were necessary, Mother, I see how your shiny toy soldiers act whenever they deign to step out of the gilded streets.”

Zora sighed off to the side.

“Mother, you neglected to mention the… depth of enmity between you.”

Mother Steel walked right up to Mufara, a challenge in her stare. She was taller than him, wider than him and all around more imposing than him. Thick muscles in her arm bunched as she crossed her arms, scoffing.

“There is no enmity. I met him once, years gone, and he has been avoiding me ever since. This petulant child has inherited his master’s hatred. But I know you Denizens, always grubbing, always begging. Worry not. You have done your part satisfactorily thus far, so I do not mind increasing your compensation. I sense I can still get some use out of your organisation so see it as a token of my desire for a continued working relationship. And you. Sit down, boy, we have important business to discuss.”

Only now did Mufara turn his gaze away from the threat in front of him, to point at accusatory glare at Zora, who looked away guiltily.

Compensation? This whole thing was set up to facilitate this meeting?

Just when he’d started feeling at ease around her. It was a shocking reminder. Zora had changed, for the worse. He needed to stop forgetting that.

He took a deep breath. And sat down.

Mother Steel was vastly more powerful than him. If she didn’t want him to leave, there wasn’t much he could do about it, especially here.

She ruffled his hair as she sat down in the seat next to his, where Zora had been sitting. Zora tried to sit on the other adjacent chair, opposite Mother Steel, but Mufara kicked the seat away, sending it sliding to the wall. Petty, but he would not let her sit next to him. That was a tradition he had with a Zora that no longer existed.

She looked dismayed as she sat down opposite him.

Mother Steel wiggled her eyebrows suggestively.

“Trouble in paradise, eh? Don’t answer that, I don’t actually care. Child Diamond. I’d hoped for this meeting to happen before your summons to the capital, but alas, women plan and gods laugh.”

Mufara scowled.

“How do you know about private missives from the head church? I only got it today. Are you spying on me?”

No, she wouldn’t bother having spies in the outer city herself.

His head turned to Zora again, his scowl deepening while she suddenly found the rockmole in the centre of the table supremely interesting.

She’s been spying on me. For how long? Gods, is this why Tala and Uda became such fast friends?

He didn’t think the child was capable of subterfuge like that, it was painfully obvious that he had a schoolboy crush on his little niece. Mufara could even hear his heart beat faster when Tala hugged him. No, the boy was probably innocent, but the enforcer couldn’t put it past Zora to have encouraged her brother to spend more time with Tala.

It was almost enough to make him laugh. Zora had been right. He was too naïve.

Mother Steel was watching the gears turn in his head, an amused grin on her face as he figured it out in realtime.

“Suffice to say, I have my sources. How I know is immaterial, however. I’m here to offer you a proposition. Take me with you to the capi-”

“No.”

Mufara shut it down immediately.

She must be joking. No way she thinks I’ll go anywhere with her.

Mother Steel frowned at being interrupted.

“Stupid and impulsive. You don’t even know what I’m offering in return.”

“I don’t need to know. I don’t trust you, Mother, not in the slightest. There’s nothing you can say to me before I leave that will change that, no matter what you offer me.”

Zora gave a weak smile from her seat.

“What happened to respecting your elders, Fara?”

He didn’t answer, merely fixing her with a murderous glare until she looked away. He turned back to the Mother.

“Why is she still here? This is church business.”

Mother Steel bared her teeth, in what Mufara assumed was supposed to be a grin.

“She’s quite well-regarded among her ilk for her mediation skills. You may not know it given how appalling the Gemsouled intelligence apparatus is, but many meetings between the city’s power brokers have happened here, with your little girlfriend sitting in on most of them. Of course, this is a gathering of a different sort. For this meeting, she’s here to ensure you don’t do anything overly hasty.”

He’d guessed it was something like that. He had been dodging the Mother for years and even now he was heavily considering just making good his escape. He was pretty sure he could do it, only it would require a bit of luck and a lot of destruction.

Destruction that Zora was much too weak to survive. Here, she was a hostage. From the mocking smile on the Mother’s face, she knew he knew that.

He sighed.

“Fine. You have me here. What do you want?”

She leaned forward in her chair, relaxing as she started cutting thick, dripping pieces from the rockmole.

“Like I told you, I want to come with you to the capital.”

“Why?”

“Three reasons. Firstly, I have unfinished business in Ott, from my time as a warnun. Many scores still need settling. Secondly, you’re going to embarrass this city and shame the church of Kiine within this city if you go to the capital as you are.”

Mufara scoffed, rolling his eyes as he too started heaping food on his plate.

“Please. I’m the youngest Elder in the region’s history. Chances are I’ll be the most powerful avatar Kampe has ever produced from any church.”

Mother Steel snorted, almost choking on her food as she tried to both laugh and chew.

“You frontier yokels are all the same. You think it’s all about the size of the man’s spear when it’s really what you can do with it that counts. Raw power isn’t everything. A fourth Harmonic girl from my old convent would humble you in less than a minute. I bet your control is crude and unrefined. Let me guess, your main weapon is an unnecessarily large version of a normal one.”

She said it like a statement of fact. She was right, but he wasn’t going to let her know that.

“You know nothing about me.”

“Ha! All men are the same. They all want to have the biggest dick. I’ve had to beat the urge out of every neophyte we get, and I know Sapphire doesn’t have the balls to do the same to you. Thus, the sloppy, inefficient usage of your gifts.”

He growled.

“That’s Father Sapphire. And I’ve completed every task I’ve been given, succeeded in every mission, investigated the most crimes of anyone in the Inner and Outer cities, without needing a bullshit quota and without training for years in some mountaintop monastery. Maybe you nuns and monks overestimate yourselves. Typical Citizen arrogance.”

While the churches within the cities were open to all, only a Citizen could become a battlemonk or a warnun, and train in the mountain ranges surrounding the capital region.

Mother Steel took a deep gulp of wine, burping loudly afterwards.

“Because all you’ve been faced with are other ignorant yokels. Worse, mostly Denizens. Of course they’re all pushovers. They’re much too stupid for real deception and much too weak for real danger. The only things worth attention in this godsforsaken backwater are the divine beasts that come out of the wilderness every so often.”

She set her glass down, looking Mufara in the eye.

“Let me be clear. You are nowhere near as powerful as you think you are. You’re a mid-sized fish in a tiny rockpool. You don’t realise there are sharks beyond your waters. The capital is a shark’s den.”

I don’t even know what a shark is.

Living on the frontier, he was familiar with every wild animal that he could conceivably come across, on land, in water and from the air. Any one of them could attune to a god and become a rampaging divine beast, so he made it a point to learn. He could recognise fifty different types of fish just from seeing their scale pattern. As far as he knew, there was no such thing as a shark.

Just another question in a night full of them.

He swallowed the food he was chewing. Contemplating.

He thought back to when the Mother was forced to defend the city herself, along with the local heads of all the other churches in Kampe, when a Worm Migration happened and thousands of panicked animals came rushing out of the caves in a stampede that included nearly a dozen divine beasts of at least the eighth Harmonic, if not ninth. Mother Steel was of the eighth Harmonic herself at the time.

What he saw that day…

He conceded that she was vastly better trained than him.

“So what, you’re going to give me lessons? Hold my hand on the way to the capital?”

She chuckled.

“I must give you lessons. Despite our… differences, we are a part of the same church. We worship the same god. Worse, people back in the capital know I’m here and I’m the highest ranking church member in Kampe. Your failure would reflect badly on me, even if we are in different sects. You can describe it as hand-holding if you’d like, but my neophytes have many more choice words for what you’re going to go through.”

“If I agree to your proposition.”

“You must agree. For your own benefit as well as the church’s. Which brings me to the third reason I must travel with you. I was granted a vision from Kiine.”

Mufara leaned forward in his chair. He glanced at Zora, who didn’t seem to grasp the significance of what the Mother had just said.

No way. She must be lying.

“The gods don’t intervene directly like that anymore. Kiine Himself only grant visions during times of calamity. Not many calamitous happenings in Tarte recently.”

Mother Steel dropped her easy grin and set her mouth in a grim line, all of a sudden deadly serious.

“Not yet. But I have reason to believe calamity is around the corner. It is not just my vision. The portents have gone erratic. A prophecy is coming, if it has not already. A harbinger of…”

She trailed off as she cocked her head to the side, listening. Her eyes widened.

“Shit.”

She flicked her bellring as the air in the centre of the room warped and shifted.

Her Core reverberated with a deep thrum, almost rattling Mufara’s bones as the deafening spiritual harmonies expanded outwards like a pressure wave. Zora couldn’t hear them, but the former nun’s ninth Harmonic Core nearly triggered his own with its powerful echoes.

He flicked his ring, secretly dismayed with how his own internal symphony was drowned out, and leapt toward Zora as Mother Steel burst forward, obliterating the table as she formed a spiked steel gauntlet and grabbed at the distortion in the air. The Fenari overboss screamed as wooden shards and splinters tore through her dress, peppering her vulnerable body.

Mufara grabbed her while Mother Steel held a strange man up by his throat. By his monochrome cloak embroidered with countless featureless faces, Mufara recognised him as part of the church of Obani. A monk, rather than an enforcer, from the shiny baldness of his head. He was powerful too, his Core sang at the eighth Harmonic. The Mother, heedless, growled as she squeezed her fist, crushing the man’s neck with an audible crack, before she threw his now limp, flopping body on the ground and viciously stomped on his head.

Mufara only barely had the time to encase himself and Zora in a thick shell of diamond, before the room flashed a blinding white.