Wren watched her target fall.
She jumped onto the train of wagons behind the Mediator, then peered down into the reservoir. For a moment, she fluttered upwards with her wings, debating whether she should follow or not.
After a second, she dropped back down on top of the wagon train, falling to a crouch. The wagons raced away between another valley of towers, and the reservoir below disappeared. Her chance passed.
Her body ached and the base of her wings was sore. Mothfolk had lost their ability to fly long ago, but Wren had a reinforced body. With significant effort, she could fly. It didn’t come without a cost. She focussed her Arcara, pushing it to the base of her wings to restore the tissue that she’d damaged by fluttering so hard.
Her body obliged. When she’d reached the Quartermaster stage, she had undergone the proper Victra Family rituals—those described in the ancient tomes—about how to properly forge a God-heir’s body, should the family ever have one.
Not that Wren was a God-heir, of course.
She sighed, then hooked her carbine to her belt and knelt on the wagon. She would have a chance to try again. Myrrir hadn’t given her a time limit, and after a little while, the Order would settle down. Wren would have another chance.
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Vayra vaguely recalled being hauled onto a small rowboat. A few civilians rowed, bringing her to the artificial stone shores of the reservoir.
Any moment, she expected the mothfolk bounty hunter to swoop down towards her, but it wasn’t long before a pair of Order of Balance members swam to the side of the boat and climbed aboard, their swords drawn. More teemed on the shore, waiting to give aid.
An hour later, Vayra awoke again in a cot in an infirmary. From the marble walls and high ceilings, she guessed they were back in the Order of Balance Temple. As the surgeons tended to her, she glanced around, still on edge.
If bounty hunters could reach her in her apartment, was there anywhere that they couldn’t?
Even the presence of Elder Gheita and Elder Miin at the edge of the infirmary didn’t help ease her.
As she passed in and out of consciousness, she recalled Phasoné rambling about seagulls and turtles. Something about how no one could harm an adult turtle while it roamed the sea, but when the eggs hatched on the shore, the first few minutes of scrambling to the sea were always the most dangerous.
The only way Vayra would truly be safe is when she was more powerful. She needed to scramble to the sea. Faster.
After a few more hours, Vayra awoke with only a dull pain in the back of her mind and most of her deeper cuts either bandaged or sutured. She stayed in the infirmary for the rest of the night, just to be cautious.
In the morning, when her tired mind refused to give her any sort of clarity, the Order brought her another concentration-improving elixir. A few seconds later, she felt fresh, as if she’d had a proper sleep the previous night.
The elixir couldn’t make her any less on edge. Everyone had to know where she was. What was to say more powerful God-heirs couldn’t sneak to Thronehome and snuff her out for a reward? Or a constant deluge of bounty hunters with tricks up their sleeves.
Before she could return to the library and continue her work, Elder Gheita intercepted her in the hallway outside the infirmary. “The Gray Council is meeting, Vayra. We are requesting your presence in the high chamber.”
“I’m…coming,” Vayra said. She glanced back, and noticed Glade standing outside the infirmary door with a hand on the hilt of his sword. She wondered if he had budged all night.
As soon as she set off after Elder Gheita, Glade followed behind them, along with a few other Order members. She’d come to realize that they weren’t all elders, nor were they all disciples. Some were called ‘adepts’. The adepts had no elders supervising their training, but they weren’t on the Gray Council, nor did they oversee a certain section of the temple; they weren’t elders yet.
The Gray Council’s chamber was near the top of the Temple, in a room that just barely peeked over the main hall’s roof. It had a smaller and less ornate rose window, which let multicoloured light into the chamber.
The room itself was large enough to fit a round table with chairs all around it. Every chair was filled with a member of the Order in a black coat. Those with hair had dyed it white, and most of them carried swords.
Vayra’s apparent guards—Glade and the adepts—waited outside the council chambers. The doors shut, and for a moment, everything was silent.
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Vayra crept to the edge of the hall, making sure to step softly so she didn’t disturb the silence. There wasn’t a seat for her, but she didn’t mind. She doubted she’d have been able to sit still for long.
“How goes the Mediator’s training?” asked an elder. He was an aging dryad with twigs wound into his hair and beard.
Vayra expected someone to answer. She spotted Elder Yaryn in the corner, watching patiently. Did he have no progress reports?
All heads turned to Vayra, and she mentioned the findings of the day before. When she was finished speaking, she tried to disappear into the shadows, rather than trying to admit that she wasn’t living up to all their expectations.
“It is unwise for her to remain in the care of a librarian,” said another elder. “She needs combat training.”
“She has combat training,” Gheita stated. “Her ability to use a scythe could improve, yes, but it won’t give her too much of an edge against much more powerful opponents. She needs to use the Mediator Form more reliably, and for longer. And she needs an enhanced body.”
Vayra grimaced. If only saying it would make it easier.
For a few more minutes, the elders calmly suggested plans or ideas, but most of them revolved around a missing piece—an elder who knew how to use a scythe, or who knew the best techniques for cycling. Everything came back to the same conclusion. They would need to keep searching the library for clues about what was causing this roadblock, and what they could do to fix it.
Vayra came to the conclusion that she needed the advice of a God-heir, not the Order.
‘Ask them about Nathariel,’ Phasoné demanded. ‘There’s no better time.’
Nodding, Vayra forced herself to step forwards. “King Tallerion told me about someone named Natheriel Hayden Layre. When I had my first audience with him, that is. Is…is there any chance we could enlist his help?”
The elders broke into a deluge of confused and rapid murmuring. A few turned to face each other, and a couple others began to slam their fists down on the table.
Finally, a dwarven elder at the end of the table asked, “Mediator, what did the King tell you about Mr. Layre?”
“He only mentioned the name. I figured you might know more about it.”
“We know much,” the dwarf said. “But now is not the time to seek his aid.”
“Besides,” the Elder who had first spoken said, “there is no reason to leave Thronehome. It is the safest world in Velaydia, and with our guards, you shouldn’t have any more issues.”
“Do we know who her assailant was?” asked a human elder with dark skin. “She had magic, yes, but we do not know how powerful she was, nor her allegiance.”
“It was a bounty hunter,” the dwarven elder said. “If Elder Olrannd had been there, perhaps she could have scanned the hunter’s spirit, but she regrettably wasn’t.”
“The marines are searching for the bounty hunter,” Gheita commented. “However, they haven’t caught her yet. She fled into the undercity, and until the marines report a finding, there is little we can do. Either we run her down eventually, or she reveals herself again and attacks you.”
Vayra raised a hand shyly. “Sorry, but…she clearly had an enhanced body. When I struck her with the Starlight Palm, it barely did anything. She had to be higher than a quartermaster.” Even if the marines did locate the mothfolk woman, they wouldn’t be able to detain her.
Another few minutes passed in directionless discussion. Vayra stepped back to the edge of the room, tuning out the conversation. The Elders spoke of her like she was an asset, which she supposed was natural, but it was hard not to feel excluded.
‘Press them about Layre more,’ Phasoné demanded. ‘Don’t take no for an answer, Vayra. You know what the king told you—the Order clearly isn’t fond of him.’
“I doubt we’ll get a proper answer out of them,” she whispered as quietly as she could.
‘It can’t hurt to try.’
Vayra sighed, but she never found a good time to press the topic. It didn’t matter; she would try in a different way.
If the Order disliked Nathariel so much, she’d surely find something about him in the library—which she had full access to, now, and an excuse to be there. Even if it was just documentation of why Nathariel wasn’t their favourite, it was worth examining.
The council came to an agreement: they would post extra guards at Vayra’s apartment, and she could never be outside without at least two guards to accompany her. The thought of it eased her mind, slightly, but no matter how skilled the guards were, they wouldn’t be able to hold off the mothfolk hunter forever.
The council dissolved, and Vayra returned to the library.
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It was late in the evening when Myrrir received a messenger fish. He and the crew of the Hyovao fished it out of the water and hauled it up to the junk’s forecastle. The little silver fish squirmed and writhed, but it couldn’t escape Myrrir’s grip. He pried its lips open and pulled a scroll of parchment out of its mouth.
On a sheet of parchment, someone had written a short message in ornate handwriting. It read:
Target engaged. Almost captured. Awaiting calm—will attempt again.
If you hear news of this, do not fear. I have not yet failed.
If she leaves the planet, I will follow.
* Wren (not a God-heir)
In any other case, Myrrir would have been furious. He’d paid a premium sum to a bounty hunter with the expectation that there would be no screw-ups.
But, for his plans, this was more than acceptable. Immediately, he stuffed the note in his pocket and crushed the fish under his heel—it had swam a long journey down the Stream, and messengers didn’t stop nor pause. They swam as fast as they could, even if it meant working themselves to death. Myrrir might not have been concerned about their souls, but he didn’t need to prolong the creature’s suffering, either.
He ran back to the quarterdeck. “We need to get moving. Larin VI isn’t the best place to listen for rumours.” He looked closely at the coxswains, then at Tye. “We need to be ready to intercept her when she leaves Thronehome—and Velaydian territory.”