Back at the cathedral, children laughed and ran through halls overhead while Amo stood near the huge doors and put on a new pair of leather gloves that Sgathaich had conjured. They felt so real, though Amo understood that they’d been woven from stories and song. Some hero had worn gloves like these gloves. They matched the sleek coat that Amo wore, so thin and proper, so defiantly warm against the snow. Amo wondered what story these garments had been born from. What hero had worn these? There was an emblem on the jacket’s sleeve, a curved triangle like a fang but with a serrated edge more like a saw. Some legendary spy, maybe? Wouldn’t that be appropriate? Amo smirked at the thought.

“Don’t forget why you’re doing this.” Sgathaich leaned over Amo from behind, so tall that she brushed the high ceiling. Sometimes she let Amo see her face without the coverings, but just then she was wrapped in thick white cloth. She had been out in the night, doing whatever the woman did in the evenings when she did not sleep. A woman of great magic and old mysteries by nature, though by choice just a simple orphan matron.

But she did have secret goals. Amo pivoted to look up at Sgathaich. The coverings on her face concealed her beak and her feathers, but not her eyes, deep with earnest worry. They’d argued about this: Amo cared so much about Pharaul and the goals of the mission, but Sgathaich hoped Amo would just learn whatever they could about the magic at work in Gray Watch and not risk themself for the mission that the spies, that people like Indirk, were willing to die for. And what was so important that it trumped protecting their home? Sgathaich wouldn’t say, not with any specificity that mattered.

At the moment, however, Sgathaich just seemed worried. So Amo said, “Don’t worry, mom. This isn’t my first mission. I’m good at this. I’ll be fine.”

“Gray Watch is a darker place than you know. Darker and more dangerous than anywhere you’ve ever been. Don’t get stuck there. Don’t let it eat at you.”

“I’ll stay close to the others,” Amo said. This seemed to make Sgathaich more worried, so Amo reassured, “They’re my friends. They’ll make sure I’m okay, the same way you would.”

Sgathaich shook her head. “Not like I would. No, not like I would. If you need to, you have my permission to use your magic. Just don’t let your friends find out about it.”

“That’s new.” Amo had never sought permission to use their own magic, small as it was. It was part of what made them a great spy. “I’ll be fine, really. Nobody’s sneakier than me. And I’ve got a hundred faces to choose from if I need them.”

Stepping around in front of Amo, Sgathaich crouched down so that her head was only slightly above Amo’s own. Her long arms bent, hands lifting to set long fingers on either side of Amo’s face. Sgathaich said, “Oh, my Bedlam-o-Amon,” and her voice deepened, growing heavy with magic, “You will be strong in Gray Watch. You will uncover its secrets. And you will live forever.”

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Leaning slightly out of Sgathaich’s hands, Amo chuckled. That blessing seemed like a bit much, but they could already feel its power wrapping around them, and it was hard not to appreciate that.

* * *

Indirk stood on the cliffside aiming her rifle into the Rhyqir Valley beneath. The avalanches still poured, as they ever did, down either side of the city toward where they were pulled back into the mountains by the inexplicable ancient magic of the ruins below the city. Other than that, the day had begun to clear, softly bluing sky casting sunlight on the frigid slope below. She could see as far as the tree line and the huge swath of green valley beneath, the conglomeration of alpine rivers that flowed toward the greatwood of the Laines where she’d been born.

But nearer to the city were huge craters where advancing soldiers of the Nor Sator League had been destroyed by Pharaul’s cannons and sharpshooters. Indirk had been one of those sharpshooters in her first years of service. She still used the rifle her foster mother had given her, the same one they’d spent evenings practicing with. Indirk turned that rifle in her hands now, raised it to her shoulder, and took a few moments to remember her first battle. Yes, she’d stood here, just like this: aim and fire. And fire. And fire. And with all the smoke and the shouting, sometimes she hadn’t known if she’d hit anything.

There were still bones on the mountainside. For a thousand years of war, Pharaul had never once cleared the corpses from the slope. Let Cradsoun’s infantrymen scramble over their own dead, their cavalry ride over the skulls of their ancestors, and let them know that their military history was a thousand years of futile struggle and loss. Then let them join it.

Indirk couldn’t help it; she fired off a round. A skull on the slope exploded.

A hand pushed her rifle down. Amo said, “Can you stop shooting so much? You scare people sometimes.”

Indirk didn’t look up. She chuckled with a strange, hollow humor. “It’s a scary world.”

“Hey.” Amo gave her a little shove.

Stumbling, Indirk slung her rifle onto her back and looked up. “What?”

Amo gestured along the cliffside, past the cannons and the palisades, toward where lifts waited to lower people down to the slope. Outside one of the lifts, a number of people waited, a diverse group in traveling leathers or armor. Some, like Indirk, had claws and spiked elbows. Some had fur and tails. Others, like Amo, had none of those, just smooth skin and blunt fingers.

“That our posse?” Indirk said.

“Compatriots,” Amo said. “Let’s go.”

Twelve loyal soldiers of the Rhyqir Valley Alliance, hand-picked by whomever for whatever reason, stepped into a lift and descended toward the valley floor. They’d spend the next couple of weeks traveling through the Warring Lands and infiltrate Gray Watch, establish cover-stories, gather information. In the lift, Indirk looked around at the fur of the alpin and the blunt fingers of the sollin. She wished that there were more littorn, hunting carnivates like herself, just in case there was fighting ahead. But maybe these people would surprise her. Wind and Sunfire knew she wouldn’t be able to count on Amo if things went wrong.