Remmings was putting the final touches on his gift, as one didn’t show up to a stranger’s home empty-handed for dinner if they wanted to leave a good impression, when the hotel’s messenger boy rapped on his door. He slipped the waifish thing a few coppers as he handed over the medium-sized box and the well-trained worker fell in step behind him as he stepped briskly down the stairs.
Outside, a strange carriage waited for him, though calling it a carriage was being generous. It was a wagon with benches installed and a flimsy cover made of a large, dirty cloth and thin sticks. There were no walls and poor cushioning in the form of a layer of straw, some of which had fallen to cover the floor.
Even the beasts hitched to it were a poor showing. Instead of the long maned stallions whose coats gleamed under the tall torches that lit the street, it was pulled by beasts of burden. Big, burly things with horns more intimidating than bastard swords and hooves that could crush a man’s head.
They looked perfectly docile as they sniffed the at the street and stared into oblivion, but Remmings thought he could be excused for being intimidated by a creature three times his size. The mental affinity was many things, but he’d have to empty his core to stop one of the things before it could trample him. If it could run. The beasts looked like boulders with legs. He didn’t imagine they’d be very fast. He even worried if he’d manage to make it to his host before dawn.
A woman leaned on the side of the poor vehicle, chewing a long stalk of something green. He recognized the black rings tattooed on her dark skin as the markings of the Temple, zealots that worshiped powerful mana beasts. The crazy people practiced a religion that taught them to value monsters more than men. There was a time when they were a true threat to the people of Harvest, with a culture of raiding that could rival the pirates of the coast. Unlike the clans, they weren’t afraid to target large settlements and their nomadic nature made them difficult to subjugate.
As a boy, he’d been lectured on the many threats of the kingdom in preparation for when he’d have to defend against them. The Temple wasn’t at the top of the list, but they weren’t at the bottom either. Thankfully, Dunwayne’s invitation to house the larger clans within the Hall pacified their more aggressive actions. However, his knowledge of their history made Remmings watch the young woman with a critical eye as she straightened up.
“You are the lord who needs a ride into the city, hm?” she asked while tossing aside her stalk.
“I might have been but I’m rethinking the decision.”
“Do not think too hard.” She chuckled as she pat the side of her vehicle. “It is easy to fish in shallow waters. No others are willing to ride into the city now. The Sanctuary has stepped in to provide where there is lack and I am one of the more considerate of my kin. If you call for another, you may be pushed around in a wheelbarrow.”
Remmings lips twisted with distaste, both at imagining such a scenario and for accepting the reality that he would have to ride in such an undignified matter. “At least tell me you had the forethought to have a blanket to lay on the bench?” He wasn’t as critical about his appearance as some higher nobles but there was no way he would show up to a formal dinner with straw on his ass.
“No, but perhaps your host can spare one.”
He stared at her, waiting for her to go in and check, but the young woman made no move, lips turning up with amusement. It took far too long for him to realize he was treating her as a servant and she had no intention of acting like one. Not even temporarily. His frown deepened as he turned to handle the inquiry himself. The ride was just as miserable as he imagined. He tried not to imagine the bruise he would have in the morning. Something made easy by the scenery.
After the destruction, Remmings had stood at the edge of the Market for what felt like hours overlooking the city. It was horrifying to see most of what was once a prosperous city reduced to flat rubble, but the feeling was muted by shock and detachment.
Standing above it all, it was easy to frame the destruction in the abstract. To think of the death as numbers and potential consequences rather than people. It was very different to be amid the damage. To see broken signs sticking out of the rubble. To see survivors darting through the carnage like stray dogs. In the thick of it, the loss was palpable. He swore he could taste it on the air, something indecipherable but figuratively sour, tanking his mood until it was all he could do to keep it off his face as they pulled up to the Teppin estate.
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Marks of the recent conflict were everywhere he looked but just as obvious as what was there was what wasn’t there. The Teppin knights weren’t a renowned order, but they were an adequate force. In normal times, they would have lined the dirt path leading up to the door. Instead, a boy in a purple jacket with gold buttons was the only one to receive him. His bow as Remmings disembarked would have made the best etiquette teachers in the capital shed a tear of joy if he were their student.
“Welcome to the Tome estate. I am the steward, Earl.”
“Tome estate?” Remmings asked.
“This property will belong to my lady so long as she claims it.” The young man’s gaze shifted to his driver. “Good evening, Cloud. My lady is hosting dinner tonight but I can inquire if your presence is welcome, either at the table or later.”
It was Remmings’ turn to side-eye the young woman. He hoped that their acquaintance was limited to the personal. The last thing the kingdom needed was someone with Lady Tome’s power backing the Temple. Or perhaps worse, the Temple backing the lady. They were crazy but they’d never leveled an entire settlement. He didn’t want to see what they would do if they were directed to.
“Not today, little predator,” Cloud said with a smile. “But perhaps I will be back beneath another moon. It has been too long since I’ve broken bread with my sister and I wish to see how your kin has progressed on the path.”
“Then have a safe journey home.”
Despite how little he enjoyed the journey, Remmings still gave the young woman a silver. Best to be generous with a woman who he was sure had just referred to his host as her sister and had a clear connection to the Tome house. She smiled toothily at him, but he didn’t think the gesture was friendly.
“This way, your lordship.”
As the young man led him into the estate, Remmings quickly cast a spell. An original of his. There were three fields of study for the mental affinity. The first was delving the mind. The second, enhancing it. And the third, changing it. However, there was a fourth field. One that was more a question than a field, intricately tied to the three main disciplines.
The mental affinity was most impactful when the target of it didn’t realize a spell was being cast. As such, the eternal question was stealth. How to do more without being noticed.
Of the three, enhancement was the easiest to use subtly. It was also a field that interested Remmings a lot. The techniques of the interrogators focused on delving the mind, but they provided few means of personal power. Something the head interrogator thought was the point. They were potent tools but no threat to the crown and its royal knights. A mental caster’s combat strength lay in enhancement. Amplifying the abilities of their own minds and allowing them to perform superhuman feats of sensory and intelligence.
His eyes flashed with channeled mana a fraction of a second as he examined the minds within the home. He had practiced identifying and cataloguing multiple impressions on the streets of Summer Spire, where there could be dozens of people within the area of his spell. A simple estate was child’s play. What he discovered made his shoulders tense.
One mind was familiarly cold, though shrouded with a new blanket of…something. Comfort? Confidence? It was close but different.
One was numb, streaked with anxiety. A mind in distress.
One was hyper aware, an animal moving cautiously in dangerous circumstances.
One, the boy steward, was disciplined, strangely focused without any other emotion to distract him.
One mind was full of fear and the mind closest to it was full of…fervor? The only thing close to it were the minds of the religious fanatics who truly worshipped the saints, venerating those with the light affinity and praying to dead heroes to save them in their times of woe.
Three of the minds were focused on violence, but with different flavors; anticipatory, determined, and amused. Their thoughts made him fear for his safety, but there was no way to know if their thoughts of violence were focused on him. That would require touching them more directly.
The last one…
Remmings repeated his spell, focusing on one mind in particular. It didn’t help. What he felt…he didn’t know how to describe it. It was strange, incredibly strange. Wrong. Overwhelming. But more than anything, it was foreign. Remmings couldn’t begin to understand the emotion in it because it didn’t feel like a human. He didn’t know if it felt anything. The only thing recognizable about it was power. Somehow, he could feel the strength of the thing’s intellect.
And then it turned its attention to him and he realized he was only sensing the tip of the mountain.
That…thing waiting deep in the estate wasn’t simply foreign. Or inhuman. It was alien. Something so different he had no frame of reference to compare it to. No, there was one thing. It was a predator and this was its territory. And he, the head interrogator, so proud of his power and affinity, was nothing but prey, ripe for devouring. His presence was tolerated but if he made one mistake, stepped out of line or raised a hand, he would be devoured. Quickly and with great relish.
“Your lordship?”
The presence turned away and Remmings snapped to attention, brow sweating heavily. The young steward was staring at him impassively. Did he not feel it? What kind of creature could target him so precisely with such a powerful effect at a distance?
“May I take your coat?”
It took all his willpower and love not to shrug it off rather than clench it tighter as he fled into the night.