‘You will try to save her from him. You will fail.’
His whole body a jumble of pain and numbness, Johann Avendari’s eyes opened, glancing at the fallen chandelier dozens of feet away, and the [sky.elven] guard standing near it, glaring at him. They had long, red, braided hair, dark-purple wings, a white spear in one hand, and the sigil of a Gray crow flying upwards on his orange, polished armor. The sigil of Hann’s father. That burned away any remaining bit of exhaustion within the [Blacksmith]’s son. His upper body rose from the cot he’d been sleeping on, head darting this way and that, eyes searching for the [exiled.king]. All he found was an abandoned dinner-hall filled with rotten and broken furnishings, an [Exiled.Royal.Guard] who was still glaring at him, and a familiar Ranger standing by one of the floor-to-ceiling windows, watching the sunrise, her green cloak in hand. His friends were nowhere to be seen.
“Geja?” The Ranger grew tense in an instant, head turning a bit, placing him in her periphery. The Guard didn’t change much. Didn’t change at all. Just kept glaring.
So, it’s Geja now?
Sorry if that was too forward. Hann stood from the cot, stretching his back, and his wings, the solid one and the gaseous.
No, it’s alright. Just haven’t heard it in a really long while.
Johann knew how names could hurt. But her pain regarding it didn’t sound like his. Didn’t sound like she would rather not have heard the name. It sounded like one of longing.
You can call me Hann if you like. Or Jon.
I’ve already called you Hann, before.
Then you can keep doing it, I guess. He pointed his wing up at the ceiling, watching as rivulets of its gray, roiling smoke floated upward, vanishing into nothing as soon as they left the wing’s bounds. What happened to me, Geja?
You became my champion. Became one in the [fate.weaver] class. So you’re dying wing took on the form of a Fate-Weaver’s, while the other remained Sky-Elven.
My wing’s dying. He remembered its state. The hole which was stabbed out of it. By her. There were tales out there of other Sky-Elves losing their wings to far tamer injuries.
Dying, no longer. It is fixed, now.
He watched the gray smoke forming, moving up, vanishing. You call this fixed?
Would you rather it had stayed cursed?
“I would rather it had not been injured at all, as a matter of fact!” The Ranger had made a complete turn and was giving him her full attention, now. But it didn’t matter. He felt like he’d lost. You will try to save her from him; you will fail.
I’m… I wanted freedom. And that was the only way I knew I could get it through. I’m sorry.
Letting out a sigh, he turned away from his wing, and back to the glaring guard, and the frowning ranger, and the blood-stains on the dusty, wood-riddled, marble floor. Just a day ago, he’d been hounding one of his latest students for favor with the GoldenMace. What would he have done if it had been necessary? If he’d been trapped? If any of his family had been trapped?
What happened to my friends?
They were escorted out. So did my [Captain]. I don’t know what happened to them afterward.
And the book?
The book is with you. Part of your wing. It will materialize when you need to open it. To heal a curse.
He doubted that would ever happen. ‘You will fail.’
Did you what you see what I read?
I did.
“What did it mean?”
You will try to save someone. Maybe a friend. Maybe a total stranger. Definitely a girl. And it won’t work out. Cannot discern anything more from it that you haven’t already.
Always a riddle with these things. Why does it have to be so complicated? Hann walked off of the cot. Glare-Guard’s grip on their white spear tightened.
Have a saying where I’m from. Convolution is a game of the Temporal. Oh. She’s said something.
Said something? It took him a second to remember he couldn’t hear anything yet. Took him another to gaze at the Ranger near the window. Her mouth moved again.
“Are you ignoring me, Skyborne?” Geja mimicked.
An inward sigh. “Don’t call me that.”
“Twenty hours ago, you and your gang of fools were trying to kill me. I think I’m going to call you whatever I want to call you, Skyborne.” Leah Cheretesha stopped talking and turned back to the window while Geja was mimicking the last of her words. “And speak up, for slumbering sake.”
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You speak up! Hann breathed in and out, trying to expel the agitation. This was a Council Member. One of the closest people to a [Graduation] from the Harubridgium. If she hadn’t been, his people would have managed to kill her like he’d ordered, and would have been in even hotter depths as a result. One of them had a reason for being angrier than the other, and it wasn’t him. In and out. He moved toward her, Glare-Guard’s ever-attentive eyes following him across the ruined hall.
“Ever thought about how peculiar this place is? The building, not the school.” She asked once you were standing a few feet from her.
Down at path closest to Asadu’Mevenathe, Pebbles walked alongside and past each other, one letting out a yawn. A Murder flew across the sky, practicing, closer to the Harubridgium than the other mountains in the distance. And a park he’d lost his friend to loomed.
“Not particularly, no.”
Leah threw him a side-eye. “Really?” She asked. “One night in this haunted ruin and one of you’re wings turned into literal smoke, while you keep talking to yourself.”
“It is as [Oshvepertha] wills.”
The Ranger chuckled. “The Mother doesn’t care what we do. Scratch that: maybe she does; but she’s certainly too asleep to will anything.”
“If anybody could.”
“If anybody could,” she said. Silence. A second, two seconds, thirty. “Who were you talking to, Skyborne?”
“Already answered that question on your own. Myself.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“Then, it was certainly someone who respects my right to being called whatever I slumbering want to be called.”
“Do they condemn murder just as much, if I may ask?”
I do—in some cases.
“Where did you take my friends, honorable Derun’Lugekandai?” Council-Member.
“Me; nowhere. I came here to make sure the only one of you I owed a favor to was pardoned. Even gave him a plus one. He did not in fact, choose you.”
“Where are they?”
“Two prepare their fallen wife for her last flight. Two are trying to wrangle your remaining students and keep them from bailing out of the ship for far calmer waters. And two have already left the Mountain-Campus’ grounds, heading for the World-Capital of Nevelo’Sawenathe; amidst some of the deadliest [Warriors] alive. Don’t know what they did, or who they are to receive such honors. Do you?”
Deqa had been about to tell them her secret before he’d stopped her, a secret he thought he’d uncovered now, and right before he’d fallen unconscious, Hann had witnessed one of these deadly warriors bowing down to the Half-Orc. He was adamant the Ranger had witnessed it too. So, why ask? To catch him in a lie? To scrape for more information?
My Captain! What of her?
“The woman in blue. What about her?”
“A prisoner of the Harubridge Guild. A true prisoner at that. Do not worry your gray smoke of a wing. You’ll probably never see her again.”
She doesn’t know my Fate-Weavers. Vesa will be out before we know it.
The Ranger frowned. “Or did you want to see her again? Does she work for you, or our Dearest Goldenblade, or this apparition you keep talking to?”
“She tried to kill my friends and I. Just want to talk to her. See what she knows about my wing.”
“So what? We already know you’re willing to let your friends die. But are you committed enough to hurt yourself in the process. Play the pretender.” She moved from the window, walking a few steps closer to the hall’s center.
“I’m no pretender! And I care for my friends.”
“Then why send them after me? Knowing who I am; what I can do. Why attack an [ocean.prince] and kill his step-father before that? Before I called you Skyborne. Why let a [merchant.princess] swindle you? Why risk everything and everyone you have? Hm? For attention, favors? Cause you have it. Goldenblade was able to get you down to a Four-week suspension, but it doesn’t matter anymore. The school is your biggest problem, no longer. The [ocean.queen] readies for another war with the surface and every player worth a coin knows you’re at the heart of the reason.”
War? Hann shook his head. “The Princeling lives. Why would there be war?”
“Because, as we speak, Goldenblade journeys eastward,”—the Council-Member points to the other side of the room—“a day away from the eastern shore, amidst very deadly [Merman] warriors and the corpse of a princeling who supposedly lives!”
It took him seconds to process her words, to stare at her face and see if she was trying to make a fool of him. Tolemvria couldn’t be… The Glare-Guard chuckled, still standing by the chandelier, wings shaking with every exhalation.
The Ranger turned to look at him. “Do you mind leaving, [Private]? We’re kind of in the middle of a conversation here.”
He glared at her, chuckles nowhere to be heard. “You’re times up, Utu’Thanaio. Best make your farewells.” Human.
She turned back to look at him. “My father wants me,” he said.
“Till the suspension is done. Maybe even after. Maybe you won’t even see the next sunrise. Who knows?” She shrugged.
“I didn’t kill him,” She stayed silent. “Who did?”
“Unattainable.”
“There must have been some clue. The Systemborne must have been keeping him on surveillance.”
“Their monitors ceased to work at the time of death. No one was seen coming in or out of the clinic. It was as if [Oshvepertha] willed it.”
Glare-Guard chuckled again. Leah frowned. “So they just didn’t see anything? What a coincidence!”
“Everyone has been questioned. By Darunayus himself. No one knows who killed him, could be him, could be Mace. Could be Chuckle-head behind us for all we know. All that matters is that he’s death. Under the Guild’s watch. Under your watch; the person who was supposed to protect him, but ended up attacking him. Ripping out his ear. Drowning him in fresh water. If there’s a person of interest in this case, despite having an alibi, it’s you, an Order-Head with several students under your belt.” She said; “Chuckle-head! Tell him what you told me.”
Glare-Guard looked away from them and back, the smile on his face turning dour. In and out.“My mother was part of the squad which accompanied King Naryus to the Blacksmith’s shop. They managed to rescue the child; but the Ocean has your mother, lad. Times up.”
No. In and out. Leah began to leave. It didn’t make any sense. His mother. They couldn’t have his mother. In and out. She was only a [Blacksmith]. Why would they take her. ‘You will try to save her. You will fail’ He heard the double doors open. In and Ou-- He punched at the window, glass shattering, fist soldiering past till it was on other side. The Murder outside focused on him in an instant, heads turning, warriors waiting. He couldn’t leave. Couldn’t try to find her. Would die before he could even leave the school. A Vivid Green began to run down his hand and fall to the grass below.
You need to calm down, Hann.
“But, she’s just a blacksmith, and she needs me,” he turned to the Ranger watching by the door. “Help me, please.”
“You made your bed, Avendari. And I have my own family to think of. Sorry.” She walked out, and the door closed behind her. Glare-Guard continued to watch him. So did their fellows outside. He let his hand come back in.
We don’t need her. I’ll help you. We can defeat them. All of them. With the Book. All you have to do is wait. Let your exhausted facets rest. And when the time comes…
When the time came, he could go, with his sister in tow. Save their mother. Destroy anyone who stood in their way; no matter how many books he had to open in order to do it. How many ill-fortunes he had to uncover. He would save them. He would not fail. Static.
Item attained: Gray Armor of the Fate-Weaver. Skill attained: [Monitor], Level 1—7/7 uses left. Do you accept, Johann Avendari?