“What’s he doing?” Vayra whispered. “He’s…he’s gotta be up to something.”
“If he’s here for you,” said Phasoné, in a voice that was audible to everyone around—she still manifested as an apparition, “then he has no reason to spring his trap until you turn up.” For now, though, there was no one else around to hear—unless Myrrir was specifically looking their direction and trying to listen in.
They still perched at the top of the arena’s gate, looking down over the conversation below. Vayra strained her ears to hear the conversation between Myrrir, Glade, and Nathariel—a normal human wouldn’t have been able to do it, but her senses had enhanced, too, when she reached Commodore.
“You said they are constructing a weapon?” Nathariel demanded. “Who? And what sort of weapon?”
“Is the Mediator here?” Myrrir asked. “She needs to—”
“If there is anything important, we will relay it to her,” Glade asserted.
“But—”
“Do you have a warning for her, or not?” Nathariel asked.
Myrrir lowered his arms and let his head droop. “Yes, yes. I…do.”
“See?” Vayra whispered. “He just wanted me to be there, so he could trick me, or something.” Last time she’d seen him had been on Muspellar, and there was absolutely no reason to believe anything would go differently this time.
“Or so he could prove to you that he wants to help,” Phasoné suggested.
“Don’t buy that. Why do you think that?”
Phasoné shrugged. “I’ve…lived long enough. I’ve seen people like him before. He might have seemed powerful, and truly, making it to Captain in the time he did was impressive. He built solid Foundations and progressed slowly, and he didn’t deal any lasting damage to his spiritual system—until he met Nathariel, that is. But eventually, people like him, the endless strivers who gain power for power’s sake, they’ll burn out. When you’ve surpassed everyone around you, advanced beyond all comparable metrics, reaching the next stage feels harder and harder. And this is what it looks like…”
Vayra let out an abrupt breath. She’d missed a slice of the conversation between Myrrir, Glade, and Nathariel. Myrrir was saying, “...crafted by Kalawen. It’s a specialized shadowthorn, rated for Admiral and above. With it, he could lock in place not only the Arcara, but drive a permanent wedge between the soul and the spirit.”
“Karmion could lock away Vayra and Phasoné and keep them from helping each other…” Nathariel breathed.
“How?” Vayra whispered.
“I’m in your soul,” Phasoné said. “Technically. That’s where our bond passes through. If you want to lock either of us apart from each other, the best way to do it would be by separating our soul from our spirit.”
“Would that not…kill us?” Vayra whispered. She reached down and rubbed her gut, where Myrrir had stabbed her with a normal shadowthorn.
“Maybe. Maybe not.” Phasoné shook her head. “It’s never been done before.”
“Why not? Why wouldn’t Karmion do this to us right away?”
“It’s no doubt a high-level treasure. Chances are, if they used it on us before we reached Lieutenant, it’d just destroy us both, and they’d have to contend with a new Mediator,” Phasoné explained. “And as far as we know, that was the last thing Karmion wanted.”
“Wanted?”
“He may be leaning closer to just…destroying us. A new Mediator would be chosen, but they’d be weak once more, and he could try again.”
In the distance, on the floor of the arena entrance, Myrrir backed away slowly, holding his hands up. “That wasn’t a threat. I don’t have it.”
“How do you know about it?” Glade demanded. “You are not one of them, correct? Cast out, dishonoured? There is no reason the gods would tell you their plans.”
“I know them,” Myrrir said. “Karmion and Kalawen have been working closely over these past few weeks. She has been visiting his ship, and among all the other powerful presences here, you may not have noticed, but there were spikes of Arcara flowing from the port—from his ship. The kind you feel when someone is Moulding a substance.”
“So they’re making something, aye,” Nathariel said. “It could be anything.”
Myrrir shook his head. “Karmion has the majority of the shadowthorns. He’s scooped them up over the years. They aren’t terribly useful on their own, but you can use them to lock up a low-level God-heir pretty neatly. Besides, he stores all of them aboard his ship. If he was going to make something with one, that’s where he’d do it.” He took another cautious step back and pulled up his hood. “When he’s working on his weapon, he takes his ship out, and they circle around the system a little while on the Stream—the constant mana influxes are critical for maintaining the weapon’s integrity.”
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Glade tightened his fingers around the hilt of his sword. In response, Myrrir pushed aside one half of his cloak, revealing his empty scabbard. He hadn’t even brought his enormous jade sword with him.
Vayra tried to keep a stoic face, but she couldn’t hide her thoughts from Phasoné. Perhaps Myrrir meant it after all.
Or he knew exactly how to manipulate them.
“See for yourself,” Myrrir said. “Go to Shatterport and observe his ship, and see what spiritual presences you detect. Sneak aboard if you have to, follow him out when he goes on a journey. See what Arcara aspects you feel. You can tell for yourself whether I’m being honest or not.”
“Vayra?” Phasoné whispered. “Are we going down there or not?”
“Not today,” she replied. “We’ll see if he’s telling the truth. Not falling for any more of his traps if I can help it.”
Let him walk away. They’d figure this out, and if he was lying…
“You don’t have a plan if he’s lying, do you?” Phasoné whispered.
“We’ll eliminate him when the time comes, if it comes.”
“Is that everything?” came Nathariel’s distant voice. He wasn’t waiting on her, either. “If it is, we’ll cut this short. Both for your safety and ours, aye?”
“Y—yes.” Myrrir glanced around one more time, and for good measure, Vayra ducked down, hiding behind the ridge of the door. “That’s all.”
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Myrrir turned away and walked out the arena gates, keeping his head down and his hood drawn. Someone might have noticed him, but there wasn’t anyone around.
And even if there was…what did it matter?
Father would be disappointed that he was trying to help the Mediator, sure. Instinctively, he knew it would hurt his standing.
But that wasn’t why he tried to set up the meeting.
Once he had slipped out into the depths of the woods, there was barely any light to see by. He stepped off the road, racing away from even the distant lanterns of wagon and cart traffic, and tucked behind a tree.
“Was that satisfying?” he whispered. “Was that what you wanted?”
All he could do was shrug.
But that didn’t fix anything. Of course, a shrug told him all he needed to know—of course it hadn’t been satisfying. Nothing had been accomplished. He’d just set a ball rolling.
Hopefully the Mediator would see for herself. Hopefully, then, she’d be willing to entertain his presence and speak with him.
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It was too late that evening to investigate anything. By the time Vayra reached Shatterport, it’d be midnight, and by the time she investigated and returned, it’d be early in the morning. She could survive off less sleep than before, but not no sleep. Not to mention, her next fight was the next day. She couldn’t jeopardize the tournament for this.
Besides, they had plans to make and friends to muster. If they snuck aboard Karmion’s ship, they’d get caught, but if they tailed it from a distance, they’d stand a chance.
As soon as Myrrir disappeared into the woods, she climbed down from her perch, then explained her plan to Nathariel and Glade. On the way back to their apartment, they stopped by a tiny mail room near the top of the arena.
A single mortal operator stood inside, scrawling notes on tiny slips of paste-covered parchment, rolling them up, then tucking them inside a messenger fish’s mouth. He had a whole tank of silver-gray fish just waiting to be used, and with expert precision, he snatched them out of the water. The fish squirmed for a few seconds. He pried its mouth open and tucked the parchment note inside, then clamped the fish’s mouth shut and slotted it into a Stream water-filled tube in the wall. The fish bolted away in a flash.
He must have been doing this job his whole life.
“What can I help you with?” he asked, no intonation in his voice. He barely looked up from the desk he hunched over, and .
“We need to send a letter,” said Vayra. “Out of the city. Inter…galactic mail?”
The operator nodded, then tapped a second tube. He opened a slat of metal in its side. “Write your note. I’ll prepare your fish. What is your target?”
Glade gave him instructions on how to send it to the Harmony while Vayra prepared the note: Captain Pels. Return to Shatterport, she wrote. We will need your help. Please be in port by Shatterport’s evening tomorrow.
Assuming he hadn’t sailed too far away, the note would reach the Harmony in a matter of hours, and from there, the ship could return.
She rolled up the note and dropped it into the fish’s mouth. Without a God-heir to target, they had to aim for the ship specifically. As Glade explained, most ships had a set of rune on their keel, both for helping keep the upright in the Stream and to aid some other minor functions—which Vayra knew little about—but they resonated with a certain frequency.
The messenger fish, if it had the same runes painted on its side, could track the ship through the Stream like a shark followed blood.
They clamped the fish’s mouth shut, dropped it in the chute, and it swam away with a flash.
“Tomorrow evening,” she said. “We investigate.”
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When Captain Pels heard the crew shouting about a messenger fish, he jumped out of his hammock immediately. It had been late at night, Tavelle time—which the rest of the crew had adhered to, even in the depths of space. They had no other way of tracking their watches as they sailed the Stream routes around the Shattered Moon.
They explored all the possible paths they could take, all the nearby star systems and astronomical features. For one, there was a small singularity. The Stream passed close by it, with a route all maps warned them against.
But when the messenger fish finally gave them a task, Pels was more than grateful. He spread Vayra’s note out on the deck and read it quickly, then nodded. “We return to Shatterport! Seems we’ve got a ship to track!”
Perfect for an old smuggler like him.