Suggested Listening

Elruin returned to her school carrying a blood stained robe, a stuffed animal, and a pocket full of sarite. It was a small wonder nobody stopped her until she got to the campus gates.

The female guard approached her first. "Miss, where did you get that?"

Elruin held up her new prized toy. "This is Mister Squishybones. My elder sister had him made for me."

"I was referring to the robe. Where did you get it? And why is it covered in blood stains ?"

Elruin pulled her horsey back, since it was clear the guard wasn't nice and didn't like her new favorite gift. "It belonged to a bad lady. She's dead. Now it's mine."

"Entek," the guard whispered under her breath. "Where is the dead 'bad lady'?" As she spoke, she made a gesture behind her back. The male guard responded by generating a pair of quick light bolts at the sky, one orange and another yellow which soon turned pink.

"She's in the wilderness," Elruin said. "Lady Calenda's friend killed her." Meanwhile, Elruin watched the sparkling magic traveling into the sky. It was more complex than the spells her brother used, and was designed so the light could only be seen from certain angles below.

"Wait here for a minute, there are people who need to talk to you."

"But I need to put my stuff in my room," Elruin said. "And talk to Lemia."

"I'm sure it can wait for later," the guard said. "This is important."

Soon, Elruin was surrounded by a dozen officers, and had no idea what was going on. "Is something wrong?"

"We need you to come with us," the woman who now appeared to be in charge said. "Your cooperation, or lack thereof, will be noted." She put her hand on the saber she had at her hip.

"Yes, ma'am," Elruin knew she was in trouble, even if she didn't know why. She also knew that she couldn't fight her way out, not with this many trained officers nearby. "Please, tell me what I did?"

Now that she was under control, the officer preferred not to give the girl a reason to resist. "We'll explain once we get to the station. Don't worry, I'm sure it is all a big misunderstanding." No reason to frighten the child too much, and she'd long had experience lying to suspects.

Soon, they reached the station. The moment Elruin stepped through the entrance of the building, she felt her strength sapped. She was at once rendered weak, slow, and half-blinded. Now she struggled, out of panic and confusion, but it was for naught.

The soldiers had experience with blanket antimagic, and were adults with combat training, while Elruin without her magic was strong for her age, but was still a twelve year old child. With a woman holding both of her shoulders, the stuff she carried was taken, then she was pushed into one of the interrogation rooms where she spent what felt like all day alone in the room before the door opened.

Another woman walked in, and now Elruin was glad to know she hadn't been left to die in here. "Can I leave, now?"

"Leave?" The woman's voice reminded her of Cali's, right before she started to torture someone. "You're a criminal, why would you think we'd let you leave?"

"But I didn't do anything bad!" She almost began to cry, fearing they might have found Scratch or her dolly while she was in here.

"Let us suppose you told the truth about how you came into possession of blood soaked magical clothing," the woman showed no sign of caring about Elruin's argument or fears. "The looting of a corpse is a crime. Theft, if you're lucky. Murder if you're found to have anything to do with the prior owner's death, or accepted it from someone you knew was responsible for the prior owner's death."

"I..." Elruin did know that Cali and her friends killed the woman.

"However, you are young," the woman continued. "Not so young that you can't be punished by the law, but young enough that we're more interested in who you were involved with that would use you as an accomplice. I know you claimed Scout Calenda provided them to you, but I've known her for years. It's difficult for me to believe she would be involved in such an act. Adopted daughter or no, if she wanted to commit a crime, she wouldn't be so sloppy. Who really gave the clothes to you?"

"But it was." Elruin lied, but there were no Truthsayers thanks to the antimagic that still suppressed her abilities. She couldn't tell the truth about Old Scratch, not without putting him at risk and facing whatever horrible punishment Cali refused to talk about that might happen to her for working with the undead.

The woman's face was neutral, but her years of experience interrogating prisoners gave her the certainty that Elruin was hiding something. The first thing an innocent person did when arrested was ask for a Truthsayer to prove their innocence. It was no longer a question of if, but how, the eventual confession would go. "I have sent a messenger to find her, we'll see what she has to say about this."

She was torn about the assertion that Calenda was involved. On one hand, she knew the woman was good at what she did, and losing her meant losing an important asset for the entire empire. On the other hand, the Scouts played too fast and loose with the law for her preference, and busting even a minor noble served to remind the rest that none of them were above Enge's law. On the balance, it didn't matter. So long as the truth would be uncovered, and justice was brought upon the perpetrators, she would be satisfied.

They waited in silence, a child losing hope that she'd ever be free again, and an interrogator watching the progression of the breakdown that would see everything revealed. To her, it was far more satisfying than relying on torture, though torture was admittedly faster.

Both their heads snapped toward the door when it was opened by a younger guard. "My apologies, Sergeant, General Juna is here, it seems there's been a misunderstanding."

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Suggested Listening

Juna stepped through the door, even as the Sergeant stood to meet her. Elruin felt the smallest flicker of her magic return, as Juna's power was enough to tip the balance and overcome the antimagic which held her own back. So little that Elruin was certain that this room could hold Juna's power if there weren't others in here as well.

"General, Sir?" Outranked and confused, she wasn't certain what question she should ask. "What is this about?"

"A series of blunders," Lady Juna said. She looked at the guard who led her into the room. "Some of this is sensitive information."

"Understood, Sir." the guard backed out, closing the door as she left.

Lady Juna waited a few seconds. "To start, Scout Calenda returned from a mission earlier today, wounded. She came with several articles of equipment, four horses, and the bodies of Scout Lanine and Scout Crela."

"They will be remembered." Meanwhile, she was cursing a storm in her mind. Two Scouts lost was a tragedy, both on a personal level and for all of Engeval.

"We are trying to keep things quiet, for now," Lady Juna said. "We're still not entirely certain what happened out there. It will take some time for Scout Calenda to recover, and some part of it is because because illusion and mind magics were used. Which is where Lady Elruin was caught up in the mess."

"Right." This was a situation the sergeant was more comfortable with. "She claims Scout Calenda gave her the robes that she got from a dead woman."

"We have every reason to believe the robes did come from one of the Ghosts of Sorvel who were killed by the scout force," Juna said. "And the girl did help bring the evidence inside the city. Where she got the impression she could keep it, I do not yet know. Perhaps, in her altered mental state, Scout Calenda gave unclear instructions?"

Pure speculation mixed with half-truths, but truth mattered less to Juna than perception.

"In any case, the killing was just, as was the taking of the robes for investigative purposes. How they wound up in Lady Elruin's possession is muddled, but as I understand it she took them almost straight to her dorm, with no attempt to hide their origins. I imagine if it were a crime rather than a misunderstanding, she would have been more evasive."

"It does explain some oddities," the sergeant admitted. "You're saying she walked through the gates carrying the robes?"

"That I can confirm," Juna said. "I believe the soldiers, in their concern over Scout Calenda's condition, failed to pay proper attention to her adoptive daughter. I consider that a failure on my part to instill proper discipline and situational awareness. This will not happen a second time. But surely the child has suffered enough for my mistakes, wouldn't you agree?"

"Of course, Sir, we won't keep her any longer."

"See to it she gets her possessions back, save for the robes. Those come with us, as part of an investigation that cost two good women their lives."

By the time Elruin's stuff was returned and she was allowed to leave, she expected everyone else to be gone. Instead, Lady Juna stood waiting for her not far from the station. She bowed her head as expected. "Thank you."

"You get into the most fascinating predicaments," Lady Juna said. "Taking the robes is one thing, I can see why you'd want to keep them, but you should have covered your tracks better. Or at all."

"You're not mad at me?"

"Why would I be mad? It gives me an opportunity to get some fresh air and have a conversation with a friend I haven't seen for some time." Juna began to walk, leading Elruin along on a path that would take her to her dorms.

Something made Elruin suspect she'd have been better off back in the police station with the sergeant. "Sorry, I've been studying hard. I want to be able to help Lady Calenda and you."

"You're putting too much on your shoulders," Lady Juna said. "You're a child, you should take the time to act like one before it's too late. Trust us adults to handle problems while you learn the way of the world without getting involved in dangerous situations. Your naivety will only get you in trouble, like today."

Elruin felt smaller with every word, so she just kept quiet and walked.

"Like today. I'm aware that Scouts and Guards sometimes take... let's call them 'trophies'... from those they have to kill." Lady Juna kept looking ahead. "It's not entirely illegal. There is a process of claiming items for an investigation, then once the investigation's over, we must get rid of the articles somehow. Most is sold or donated, but an officer might request something interesting. Taking something and walking away with it, however? That is a crime."

"Sorry," Elruin kept looking down. "Does that mean I can have it back after you're done with it, please?"

"Not now, no," Lady Juna said. "You've been seen by a number of people with the outfit, and the blood which was on it. If we give it back to you, people will start to ask questions, which leads to answers we'd prefer not to give. See, some people want the practice of trophy-taking ended in its entirety, so it's best to not call attention to it."

"Oh." Elruin wasn't studying law, she'd have to take Juna's word. "What about sarite?" The police gave her shards back to her when she was let go, which seemed strange to her then. Not that she said anything.

"Still a crime, but impossible to enforce," Juna said. "We can't prove if a stone was taken from a bandit or straight from some slain beast. Wasting Truthsayer time on every shard in the city would be impossibly expensive."

Elruin nodded along. Practice with weakened sarite shards at her school had made it clear that sarite's natural magic made it difficult to influence with other magic, like scrying.

"Besides, we want sarite in human hands," Juna continued. "Burying sarite has a nasty habit of, well, back when I was not much older than you, I had to fight a fox that launched acid from its posterior. Don't laugh, people died. Some careless soul died with a powerful shard, which the animal swallowed. I still have that shard, it's one of my best."

That was good to know, though she still had to deal with the shards in her pocket. Her school was now in sight, a sign that perhaps the conversation would be over soon. "Thank you, again."

"You'll find a way to pay me back, some day," Juna said. "But while we're on the subject of sharing knowledge, I admit there is one thing I haven't been able to discern. Why did Scout Calenda go to you, first?"

Elruin's stomach clenched. "Pardon?"

"She entered the gates, told the Guard nothing, traveled here, found you, and took you back into the wilderness with her for the better part of an hour. Then returned, with the bodies of her team members, horses, and other assorted materials. Why?"

"I..." Now Elruin knew she was in trouble, since she couldn't shake Lady Juna off so easily. "Maybe it has to do with the mind spell?"

"Do tell," Juna commanded.

"I got a look at the spell as it was working," Elruin admitted. "It was really complicated, and I'm not a mind mage." Juna remained silent, while Elruin remembered what Kasa said about Truthsaying being a common spell for the magically skilled. Juna was perhaps the most skilled mage she had ever met. "I think she was trying to trick the spell. I mean, I know she was, she told me little bits the whole way, but I think that's why she didn't tell the guards. She couldn't, the spell wouldn't let her."

"But she could tell you?"

"As you said, I'm young, maybe the spell meant she couldn't tell an adult?"

"Seems like too obvious a loophole."

It did sound obvious. "She said something about being more clever than smart," Elruin offered. "Or maybe the spell was about not telling. She didn't tell me. She asked me to come outside the walls with her, which I did because she saved me and I trust her. If she asked a guard to come with, she'd want to know why, which Cali couldn't say."

"And once you saw the bodies and stuff, you'd be the one who brought it in for everyone to see, not her," Juna concluded. "Still, seems too obvious. But go ahead and keep your secrets for now, since you value them so highly. And try not to be such a shut-in in the future, I've come to enjoy our chats.

"Yes, ma'am."

Juna turned and went the path that would take her to her own mansion eventually, leaving Elruin behind with her heart hammering in her chest. She would need to be more careful from now on.