Zalia stood out the front of her house as Ro grew from the plants around, vines drooping from trees and sprouting wings, thick trunk legs pushing out from the earth between. Soon, Ro stood at his full height before her.

“Alright, what is it? And why weren’t you at the council meeting?”

His voice came to her mind again, no words spoken aloud.

“I have been contacted by an Astar wishing to meet you.”

Zalia froze, staring.

“And why the hell would I do that?”

Ro’s form shrank until he fit through the door into her house, stepping past her and finding a nice place before her ever-burning fire to perch. Zalia followed him in.

“You know of the Astar exiles, I saw the slave you freed inform you of them.”

She sat down heavily on the couch there, mind racing.

“Yes, but why would they want to speak to me?”

Ro sat for a time, his deep black eyes unreadable.

“The Astar are not cold, calculating and egotistical by nature, Zalia. It is their society that forms them this way by exiling any who would show emotion, particularly empathy, towards anyone or anything. It is their monarch that makes these rules, pushes them to fight amongst themselves in a scramble for power. It appears a group of those exiles saw what you did in freeing those slaves and wants to meet you, perhaps even work with you.”

“I don’t know Ro, I don’t think I can trust any Astar. It feels wrong.”

Ember came in and sat next to Zalia.

“Alright, what are you two secretly talking about now. Remember you promised Faian you wouldn’t make any more trouble Zalia.”

Zalia nodded absently, still considering.

“Apparently, a group of the exile Astar saw what we did and wants to meet me, perhaps work with me… towards what, Ro?”

“They wish to overthrow the monarch and restore the Astar to be a better people. The memories of the Astar are long, their lives near endless. The Astar that spoke to me told of a time when they helped raise the ones around them, long, long ago. I believe he was ancient, perhaps even older than I.”

That surprised Zalia, as surely anyone that was as old as Ro would be Ascendant by now, thus rendering them unable to interfere in the way it appeared they were.

“How did this Astar find you Nateysta?” Ember asked.

“I used a little bit of my power in helping send Luminescence to you and they saw this. They are old enough to know of most of the Ascendants that live here and were intrigued by a new one.”

“How did they see you?” Zalia asked, actually interested in how that could be accomplished.

“There are ways.”

Zalia rolled her eyes and saw Ember doing the same. Bloody Ascendants and their mysteriousness.

“Ways that you won’t tell us because we aren’t old enough or powerful enough to hear or understand them yet?”

“That is correct.”

She sighed.

“Alright, fine. We’ll have to think and talk about this. I assume you’ll be going?”

“Correct. You know how to reach me.”

His form withered and crumbled to dust that blew into the fire, burning away. She wondered if that last part was a hint as to how the Astar found him as she did in fact know how to reach him. Perhaps they had done something similar.

She felt a tentative hope, a possibility of winning against the Astar. If whoever this Astar was actually wanted to help them in their fight, the knowledge Zalia could gain from them would be priceless.

Of course, she would need to talk to Faian about this as soon as possible. She wasn’t going to run off and cause more problems without at least letting her know about it first.

As she started thinking about what else she could contribute to their efforts, an idea came to mind.

“We need to free Hidey,” she whispered.

Ember turned from the fire to her.

“What? Why?”

Thinking about her actions in retrospect, she couldn’t help but feel she had been going about this wrong.

“I’m not a spy or some kind of infiltrator. I spend most of my time with plants, not people, and while I might be stealthy, sneaking around a city is an entirely different prospect. Instead, I should have found a way to free Hidey then have him go and work on getting information.”

Ember nodded in agreement

“Okay, that is true. You do have to remember though, that while things did go wrong, you also managed to do a lot of good. Just think about all those people that live here now, ones that will contribute not only to the war but to the good health and prosperity of your people.”

Zalia grumbled a little, knowing that she was right.

“What do you think about meeting this Astar?”

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Ember frowned, staring back into the fire.

“I don’t know Zals, it seems dangerous. Would you go to meet them alone?”

Zalia nodded.

“Yeah, kind of. Ro would be with me, I’m pretty sure he can interfere since the Astar brought him into it, which gives me a bit of comfort. I also have my armour which will stop them from teleporting me away so… I guess it should be alright? Then again, they could be Gold or even Emerald rank.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

Zalia sighed.

“I just realised I’ll have to fly back to the capital to talk to Faian.”

Ember poked her arm.

“Just get Aylie to bring you both into a dream tonight, silly.”

“Oh yeah.”

Ember rolled her eyes and Zalia knew what she wanted to say. Something about forgetting others can help and contribute to the things that needed doing, or some such.

“Okay, okay, I’ll ask her later. For now though, I want to figure out a way we can free Hidey. I think I’ve got a plan but it might be a little dangerous.”

“Wouldn’t be you if it wasn’t. Come on then, what is it?”

“Alright,” Zalia began, standing to turn and face Ember, “So, Hidey is being controlled by someone who knows his true name, right?”

“Yeah, we think so at least.”

Zalia paced back and forth a little.

“Well, the way he emphasised what he said, I can’t imagine it was anything else. Anyway, the chances are that whoever controls him is an Astar, since that was who Juniper was working with.”

“I think that’s correct.”

Zalia held up one finger.

“So we either have to find out his true name so we can counteract those orders, which would probably involve breaking Zayes out of Cormaine.”

She held up a second finger.

“Or, we take Hidey out of his prison, take him somewhere that the Astar will try to ambush us but lay a trap first, then kill the damn Astar thus freeing Hidey.”

Ember sat up.

“Zalia, what if the Astar is higher ranked?”

Zalia pointed at her.

“Good point, but I already thought of that. Hildebrandt. We have to find a way to hide her nearby.”

Ember started to look thoughtful, which was good because it meant she had run out of obvious problems with the plan.

“Okay, what happens if whoever this Astar is sends someone else to do it? We might kill that Astar but Hidey still won’t be free.”

That one made Zalia pause.

“Hmm, that’s a little harder. We can’t really control that, can we? We can’t really control if the Astar even makes a play to free him either. Damn.”

Ember sat back.

“It’s still worth a try though, I guess. Either Hidey is freed from the Astar or we kill one of their underlings.”

Zalia tapped a finger against her leg repetitively, thinking.

“We have to convince Hidey that we’re moving him and not laying a trap for the Astar though. As far as we know they can hear what he hears.”

“Like you’ll ever be able to lie in a way that he won’t see through.”

Zalia held a finger up, like she was going to protest, then didn’t.

“Okay, fair. We need someone who is excellent at lying straight to your face…”

She trailed off as she thought of someone. By the expression on Ember’s face, she had thought of the same person.

“Indis.”

Zalia nodded.

“We don’t know where she is though.”

“We don’t, but we don’t need to. Fortunately for us, the range at which Aylie can bring someone into a dream when familiar with them is quite far.”

Ember cursed.

“Damn, are we really going to go to her for help?”

“She owes us.”

“I know but I don’t know that she’ll see it that way.”

“We’ll just have to see how her removal from office has affected her, then go from there. If she can’t or won’t help, we’ll find someone else.”

Ember nodded her agreement so Zalia moved on.

“Right, so I’ll talk to Faian about this and the Astar that wants to meet with me tonight, then, if she agrees, I’ll have Aylie reach out to Indis. I guess we’ll have to go find Indis after that.”

“Yeah.”

Ember didn’t look too happy about the thought and Zalia felt the same. There were quite a few strong emotions between them and Indis. It had been a long time since they spoke properly though and things had hopefully settled since.

“What do we do if things go wrong with Hidey?” Ember asked.

“Like what?”

“Well, assuming we do get Indis to help and she does successfully lie to Hidey, what if, say, they send a Diamond rank Astar to get him back?”

Zalia thought about it, realising it was a hole in the plan.

“Hmm, that isn’t really something we can do anything about, right? Unless…”

Something occurred to her, perhaps their only way to fix this issue.

“Ro is able to interfere with the talks with the exiled Astar and he is the only being in Endaria on our side that would be capable of taking down a Diamond rank Astar. What if we find a way to involve the exiled Astar in this, thus involving Ro as well?”

Ember frowned.

“That… seems convoluted. It could also lead to problems with the exiled Astar if we use them as bait. The Astar who knows Hidey’s true name also might just now show up if they find out about the exiled Astar as well, which might lead to the Astar as a whole finding out that we may be working with them. No, that seems like a bad idea.”

After thinking about it, Zalia came to agree with her. It was just a bit too complicated of a plan, one with too much risk for the reward of freeing Hidey.

This put a dent in the wheel the plan had been rolling on, which brought Zalia to a stop.

“Damn.”

How did you solve the problem of simply being too weak?

“I’ve read Hildebrandt’s abilities and I don’t think the Astar are actually capable of harming her. I’m not sure anything is really capable of harming her, as long as her mind remains firm. Maybe she would be capable of beating something Diamond rank?”

Ember shrugged.

“I don’t know. Maybe she could but that would depend entirely on what the Diamond ranker’s abilities are, wouldn’t it? It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve seen beings capable of attacking the mind and soul, Aylie being one of those.”

“Well, you have a good point there. It’s worth the risk though. I think if the Diamond rankers amongst the Astar were want to come wreak havoc in Endaria there wouldn’t be anything we can do to stop them either way. There’s no point planning everything with the expectation that they will, otherwise we would do nothing other than sit here and wait to die.”

“Alright, I can’t argue that. I guess we talk to Faian and see what happens then?”

“Yeah.”

With their conversation done, their words turned to simpler things like what they were eating for dinner. It was nice, thinking of only the little things, because Zalia knew that it wouldn’t be long before the mind altering stress of war was upon them again.