This wasn’t the first time Kalender had seen a dead body.

Jyn clutched his shoulder. “We should keep moving.”

“Not yet. I’ll scout ahead,” Gellar said. Although it meant leaving everyone in an uncomfortable place, making sure none of them ended up dead took precedence. She disappeared into the street after the alley, leaving the group to ponder about the tragedy around them.

If it was any consolation, at least these bodies were respectably left behind. After collection, they could still be identified, and their personal belongings rightfully returned to their families. That was, assuming they won.

Kalender nodded after Gellar. He still didn’t know what to think of the demon, but it was always reassuring to have someone who took her job seriously.

He kept his head on a swivel to look out for enemies—looking anywhere else other than the ground. There weren’t any enemies, just crickets and…well, he didn’t know what to make of this one, but behind them, his Interpersonal Bubble was letting him see this faint purple glow over the roofline. It was so faint that he wasn’t even sure if it was really there.

He decided to look at something else. Conveniently, he spotted Minimine crouching down in front of someone in gray battle robes—a Cleric. There’s nothing else to look at here other than dead bodies, it seemed.

Minimine showed no particular emotion for a while—then she reached into the air and pinched something. Seen only by her and no one else, the Cleric’s soul had still been floating around like a butterfly, and she put it right back where it belonged, pressing her fingers on the Cleric’s forehead.

The Cleric’s wounds closed and, a second later, she started hacking up a dry cough, catching everyone off guard. Page hurried over with a water canteen in hand, offering it with a look of concern. The Cleric obliged with a sip.

“T-thank you,” she said to Page. Perhaps her eyes hadn’t cleared up yet, because it took a solid two seconds before she realized who else was crouched in front of her, and as soon as she did, she twisted her aching body to put her forehead on the ground stained by her own blood. “Goddess Minimine!”

“Emma, glad you’re okay,” Minimine said. “What happened here?”

“You know my name!” Emma paused. “Infiltrators!” she said, raising her head. “Many of the knights, and a handful of my…my sisters.”

“The Clerics too?” Kalender muttered. He recognized some of them by face and a few others by name. Knowing that they had been charmed, however, he hoped not to face them.

Emma looked left and right, meanwhile. Her comrades had long fallen, and it was all she could do to pray: May their souls be guided along the River and beyond—

“No, not yet,” Minimine said. She jumped and caught another soul.

It was really almost like a child trying to catch butterflies, and Page giggled seeing this—but she had to cover her mouth upon remembering they were among the dead.

“Does that mean…” Emma said under her breath.

Minimine let the silence speak for her.

In a little under a minute, she’d revived seven knights and two other Clerics. Joy, confusion, religious dedication—these feelings and more intermingled just as Emma and her sisters spent a few seconds in grateful embrace.

Besides that, it was a reminder to all that Minimine was dead-set on not letting anyone die. Rather, this just drove home the point that death wasn’t the worst thing that could happen.

They had enemies—but also allies. Jyn and Kalender eyed each other, then set about talking to the knights.

It turned out the knights had been part of Regiment Tertius, camped out west of Harmony, facing the Republic’s border. Their particular squad was here on Lord Shal-yen’s request for reinforcements to augment the existing garrison.

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“We were on our way to the castle,” the squad’s leader said. “We bumped into these Clerics, who then started to accuse some of our members of being charmed.” Her face twisted into a bitter frown. “Why did they have to be right… Half our numbers turned on us.”

The squad leader rubbed her neck. The dagger which had slid under her helmet felt like it was still there.

Hearing about such a large fraction of the knights turning on them, Kalender remembered Amelia’s message. He was permitted to charm anyone who’d fallen to the other side, but that didn’t mean he could just run around without the Inquisition’s bracelets. There was just no way for him to target specific people either, so if there were innocents anywhere nearby, they’d get charmed, too.

Jyn’s Leadership told her he was thinking a little too much. She grabbed his shoulder, and he looked up at her. “We’re going through this together,” she said.

Surrounded by a scene that he knew would repeat, just knowing Jyn was there was enough to balance his fears. “Yeah,” he said.

***

Gellar hadn’t returned yet when another group bumped into them, giving both groups mini-heart attacks.

The other group bore the insignias of Arpeggio’s personal guard, and among them was Seldi, Jyn’s squadmate.

“Seldi?”

“Jyn!”

They briefly hugged, but that only let them smell iron from the blood on their armor.

“What are you doing here?” Jyn asked as they let go.

“The castle’s been attacked, but the situation there’s under control now,” Seldi said. “Lord Shal-yen has tasked several groups to secure the gatehouses.”

Jyn could still smell the blood off of Seldi. “Have you come across the infiltrators?”

Seldi’s face twisted into a frown. “There were some. Minimine’s Clerics are helping us identify them, but it’s too dark. We surely can’t find them all.” Behind her, there were two Clerics. They didn’t seem to recognize the Clerics behind Jyn, but they acknowledged each other with a small bow.

Seldi looked over Jyn’s shoulder, and upon seeing Kalender, she wasn’t able to suppress her frown in time. He’d certainly seen it, but it wasn’t anything he could—or should—do anything about, especially not as the culprit of why Seldi had to be separated from her comrade.

Still, she nodded his way, half in apology, and half in trying to ignore him. She briefly scanned the other knights and Clerics, confirming the forces with Jyn. Had she looked closer, Minimine was also there, but she was too small.

“It’s like they got stabbed and walked it off,” Seldi remarked.

Jyn chuckled. “It can be worse. We’re heading to the castle.”

Seldi nodded. “Since you’re going there, follow this route…”

After Seldi told Jyn how to retrace her steps, she and the other royal guards bid their leave and headed for the southern gate.

Gellar dropped down in front of Jyn as soon as Seldi on her group disappeared. She’d been watching them for a short while. “Who were they?”

“Royal guards. One of them was my squadmate,” Jyn replied.

“Alright.” Gellar nodded. “The area ahead should be clear.”

Jyn conveyed Seldi’s route to Gellar, coinciding with the areas which Gellar had scouted. That made two confirmations that the path ahead was clear.

Before they started moving, however, the knights’ leader approached Jyn and Gellar. She didn’t know what to make of Gellar, but her experience told her that having mysterious people on one’s side either dramatically increased or decreased one’s survival rate, and seeing Jyn’s relaxed take about the black-hooded mystery in question, she gambled on the chance that they were on the winning side.

“We’ll stay in front of you,” she told them. “It’s the least we could do. Our lives are borrowed.”

She turned towards Minimine, giving her a little bow. She made sure to keep her motion vague and indistinct so as not to make a show of it; her soldiers surely hadn’t figured it out by now, and it would only trip them up to become aware of it now.

Minimine discreetly waved with one hand, and that was enough of an acknowledgement for the leader.

She and her six knights took the front. Only the leader and two others were armored head-to-toe in full plate; the others were on a bit of a budget, but by no means did that mean that they could be taken down with a thrown rock. They trusted their brigandine: long-sleeved coats reaching until their knees, and the only evidence of the hundreds of metal plates riveted to their inner layers were the metal studs visible from the outside.

The knights raised their hooked spears, pointing them diagonally into the sky; their swords were in reserve, hanging from belts on their waists.

Kalender gulped upon seeing the knights form up and march in front of him. They had already died once; weren’t they afraid to die again?

They cleared a road, entered another alley, then exited to another road. They ran again some distance then turned again to enter another alley. Kalender had thought he’d known this town, but without Seldi’s instructions, they wouldn’t even get through this maze.

They hadn’t spotted anyone along the way. It was late into the evening, after all, and anyone shady enough to have a nightlife must have figured out by now that something was amiss tonight, and they’d long scattered to avoid the danger.

It was supposed to be clear just ahead, but unless one had an eye in the sky feeding a realtime image of the area, even minutes-old battlefield intelligence could instantly become outdated, especially in this kind of place where one couldn’t tell who was friend or foe.

Kalender held his breath as the knights in front of him stopped, pointed at some knights farther ahead, and began shouting.