By the time they slid the gangplank into place, I was all but quick-stepping in place, eyeing the nice, solid ground just a stone’s throw away. No more wood beneath my feet. No more splinters. The straps of my bag dug into my shoulders, and my sword hung heavy from my belt, but I didn’t even care. I’d stand here for an hour. After what felt like an eternity, we’d finally arrived.

Nella seemed to be excited, too. She squirmed across my shoulders, worming her way between the back of my head and my shield, finally perching on my shoulders, wings spreading wider. She let out a trill, looking to me with her whirling golden eyes. The question was clear.

“Not yet,” I said, scratching under her chin. “You’ve been good. I’m sorry the ride was so long.” I let my hand fall, looking back to the cityscape of Maurana. “But I don’t know how they’ll react to you, sweetling. You might scare them.”

“Oh, I’d be scared if I saw a little baby dragon flying at me, yes I would,” Kevin said, leaning in to tease at Nella’s snout.

“A what?” I said.

“Never mind.”

A shadow crossed in front of the sun, casting me into shadow. “She’s got to be all stiff, after so long without being allowed to fly,” Korinn said, lumbering up alongside me. Her horn loomed above her. “Hells, I’m stiff, and I don’t even have wings.”

“You could’ve joined us for the morning workouts,” Myles said.

“Eh,” Korinn said. “I’m not that stiff.”

“Feeling better?” I said more quietly, glancing to Myles. When he’d spoken…well, it didn’t sound great, but it wasn’t a rasp anymore.

Sure enough, he nodded, the corners of his lips twitching up. “I think I’ll manage from here.”

A clack of wood, and a fresh cry went up among the seahunters. We looked over as one. “I think they’re done,” Korinn said. “Shall we?”

“Hunter Trellin!” I heard Aron call. He was headed for the gangplank too, beckoning me over with Ysandre hot on his heels. “If you’re ready-”

“Yes,” I said. “Definitely, yes.” I was back to ‘Hunter Trellin’, it seemed. I considered correcting him, but…both of them looked a bit grey about the gills again, and we’d just arrived in their capital city. If they wanted to be a little formal, I wasn’t going to stop them.

Aron just nodded, turning for the ramp. With a glance to my companions, I followed after, keeping one hand on Nella. Every step we took, her head swiveled this way and that, her scales ruffled and rustling. She was getting overwhelmed with all of this, I could tell, and the last thing we needed was for her to lunge out and nip someone. Not a good first impression.

When we hit the wood of the pier, I inhaled, sucking in a breath of Talmarnan air. The sweet tang of flowers hid behind the salt of the ocean, growing stronger as a breeze whispered toward us. “It smells nice here,” I murmured, starting to smile.

“What?” Myles said. “You smell something?”

“Don’t you?” I said, glancing over to him. “I guess it’s not that surprising. The whole city is covered in flowers, isn’t it? You can’t smell that?”

“Maybe a little,” Myles said, making a face.

“It’ll be stronger further in,” Aron said, going so far as to reach for my elbow. “If you please, Hunter, we shouldn’t waste time.”

I managed to take a step forward without making it look too hasty, neatly dodging the grab. “Lead away,” I said. “Your country, your party. We’ll follow your directions.” Assuming he didn’t direct something stupid, of course.

Aron flashed a grateful look my way, his too-tense expression melting for a threadbare second. Then, the anxiety washed back in.

I didn’t like this one bit. And as we started from the docks, waving to the seahunters left behind, I realized the pier was empty. There had been no welcoming party, no envoy to guide us in. I…wasn’t quite sure how to take that, really. We had Aron, after all, so it wasn’t like we needed it. But it was another oddity on top of the rest, and I was really, really starting to get a bad feeling about this.

Tight-lipped, I followed after Aron as he accelerated away down the pier.

The pace he set was fast enough I almost had too dip into my aura and start longwalking to keep up, but as I went, I filled my eyes with the sight of Maurana around us. The dock looked just like the one in Linead—long piers, stones piled up as tidebreaks, filled with ships that bristled with flags marking their port of origin. The layout was different, and the landscape was decidedly more flat, but there was nothing too shocking.

It was when my feet slapped down against the stones at the pier’s end that I really started to smile. There it was, the invisible part of me that’d been missing for ashes-near a month. It was like new strength flooded through my lips, giving me a bit more speed as I hurried after Aron.

Before long, the docks turned into the dockmarket. Aron had been right, I saw—most of the structures around here looked newer, although still formed from neatly-cut chunks of stone. They didn’t even seem to use mortar, shaped so perfectly that every slice fit together as though parts of a whole. The color was paler, too. From a different quarry than the old district, I reasoned. And although green blossomed across lattices set against the walls, bristling with flowers of their own, the growth was decidedly less overwhelming than I’d seen from the ship. A wide iron trellis sat over the dockmarket’s exit, heavy-burdened with vines that dangled down to brush at our heads.

As we hurried out onto the main street, Kevin inched closer, bumping me in his need to worm into the center of our group.

“Hey,” I mumbled, shying away.

“Sorry.” Kevin glanced to me, swallowing hard. His eyes darted out to the Talmarnan citizens around us, then back to me. “Do…D’you think they’re staring, a bit?” he whispered, leaning closer again.

Oh. As I scanned the crowds, I could see he was right. Ahead, I could see people going about their business, totally unbothered and unaware, but…as we passed, the citizens turned, conversations dying at our passage. A crowd hovering around a food cart froze as we approached, turning to look. Nella lurched forward, puffing a ball of smoke from her nostrils, and they all leapt away. A man in the back let out a shriek.

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“Oh, stop that,” I muttered, hauling her back by the neck ridges. Glancing to the terrified onlookers, I cleared my throat. “Um. Sorry about that.”

“D’you think they’ll understand you?” Kevin said behind me. “Won’t the language barrier be a problem?”

“The what?” Korinn said.

“Oh,” Kevin said. “Um. Never mind.”

As I gathered Nella into my arms—the better to keep the little minx from biting anyone, I realized it wasn’t just Nella they were watching. If anything, my little krytir was an afterthought, not the main attraction. No, the Talmarnans were staring wide-eyed at Korinn. And, more specifically, at the giant fiendhorn strapped to her back.

She seemed totally unaware of the eyes on her, grinning with unabashed joy at the city around us. Every few steps she ducked low, as though a sixth sense warned her of every shop’s sign or a thickly-laden trellis overhead. I supposed if you carried a weapon like that around every day, you had to get good at not destroying the town with your passage.

Another few steps, and the rough cobblestones underfoot turned to flagstones so smooth I thought I might slip and fall. I dug my toes in, savoring the polished surface. On streets like this, I could wriggle my feet against the rock, pressing every last inch against the ground. I knew it wasn’t what the builders had intended, but I appreciated it anyway.

“We’re almost there,” Aron said, slowing a mite. Ysandra turned, clutching at her flowgem with both hands. Aron smiled thinly. “Just a short distance farther. And if you don’t mind, hunters…” He took a deep breath, sharing a long look with Ysandre. “Let me do the talking.”

“Okay,” I said, my brow furrowing. “Whatever you’d prefer, envoy.” If they wanted to be formal, I’d follow suit. That seemed to be what they wanted, anyway.

Aron just nodded once, turning back around, and continued his silent charge up what had to be one of Maurana’s main streets.

And as we passed beneath a bridge for one of the town’s upper levels, the skyline ahead cleared—and gave us our first glimpse of the tower, blackstone structure we’d seen before. I heard Myles whisper a curse under his breath, echoed by a nervous chuckle from Korinn. It was…big. Taller than it’d looked in person, tall enough I had to rest my head back against my shield. I hadn’t been able to see it before, but all of the stones had been carved before they were stacked. It was those etchings that the plants were clinging to, rising all the way to a roof that looked like it’d been plated in copper.

It was a statement, I’d give it that much. Glancing over, I realized Myles was staring at me, his eyes worried.

I sighed. Me too, buddy.

My pulse quickened as we approached the main gates, with a squad of violet-garbed soldiers positioned all about. We all had our weapons. Would that be a problem? I didn’t want to surrender my sword, and definitely not in a foreign country, but I didn’t want to start a fight, either. Myles stiffened alongside me, his hands carefully dangling at his sides.

The guards eyed us, but only looked to Aron. He held up something dangling around his neck. A badge? Whatever it was, it meant something to them. They nodded, turning back to the crowds, their eyes glazing over once again.

I breathed a sigh of relief. Good. Looks like Maurana didn’t follow Linead’s rules, then. Which, considering Linead didn’t follow Linead’s rules even a short decade ago, was fair enough.

In the gates, and through a wide courtyard. Out the far side, and into what could only be Maurana’s palace. Aron led us unerring down a passage, waving the badge around his neck to anyone who looked at us. The flags hanging everywhere were the same violet as the guards’ uniforms, striped with yellow down the center and marked with a stylized orb that I halfway remembered Ysandre showing me as the sigil of Karnarthia’s emperor. I grimaced. Definitely the palace, then.

Keep it together, my thoughts hissed. Avira isn’t here this time. If you make a public spectacle, it’s on your head.

So I held my tongue, keeping my face perfectly neutral as we strode toward a wide set of doors—and the guards beside it that opened it at our approach. The chamber beyond was big enough to set my heart to thumping, with tapestries draped down the stone walls. Showtime.

In we went.

The shift from light to dark was enough to leave me blinking. The doors creaked shut behind us, closing off our escape. There was light, filtering through tall narrow windows in the walls, but not nearly enough of it after exiting the evening-colored world outside.

Murmurs filled the chamber, but the sort that sounded like a hundred voices keeping the volume down in an echo-y room, not the “we’re talking about you” sort. Breathing a little easier, I trailed after Aron, taking the moment to really appreciate the enormous chamber. This place…looked important. I could do the mental math—and sure enough, the clusters of well-dressed figures thickened around a dais at the room’s heart. Okay. So that was where the important people were in this important room. It was there Aron strode toward, pale-faced under his olive skin.

“Aron!”

At the woman’s hiss, he froze, glancing over. Ysandre spun, her eyes going wide. “Mona?”

This ‘Mona’ sprang forward, grasping Aron by the shoulder. I shouldn’t eavesdrop, I knew. The woman looked like she might be sick, and both Aron and Ysandre were rapidly turning green. I really should give them some space and let them work out whatever in the three hells was going on here.

Of course, what I did was creep forward, pointedly looking in the other direction, and prick my ears for anything I might here.

“You can’t be here,” Mona moaned, her voice tight. “I’m- You should have sent word, before you came straight here. You should’ve-”

“We don’t have time for that,” Aron said. “You know that. Didn’t you sort this out? You were supposed to-”

“You know how he is,” Mona hissed. “I- I did my best. But- Look. You need to go back to the residency, right now, before-”

“Is that Master Aron I see over there?”

The hall went silent. All the whispers and murmurs died out as if they’d all sucked in a breath at the same time. The crowd around the dais thinned. Footsteps rang out against the flagstones.

And a violet-garbed man strode from their depths, meandering toward Aron with the same sort of predatory intent as a full-grown shimarra. He didn’t wear a crown, but the golden embroidery at his tunic’s hems was all I needed to see.

Aron dropped to one knee, as did Ysandre. I didn’t, and neither did Korinn or Myles. We weren’t Talmarnan, and this man wasn’t a hunter. There was no obligation between us. Kevin let out something that might have been a whimper, hiding behind us.

Nabar, my thoughts whispered, oddly still and calm in the electric tension of this moment. That’s what Avira called him.

Emperor Nabar glanced to us for a moment, a shadow passing behind his eyes. And then he looked back to Aron. “I wondered where Morla’s designated representative had vanished to for so long,” he said. I’d have expected his voice to be oily, all polished edges and hidden daggers. Maybe Verrick had been tainting my expectations, because he sounded surprisingly rough, a deep note that boomed beneath his words.

Aron nodded, looking up to Nabar—and stood,although he clasped his hands before him. “Yes, my lord,” he murmured. “Well, I-”

“Your absence was noted,” Nabar said, glaring down the length of his nose at the envoy—who was starting to sweat. “Explain yourself. Now.”

“W-Well.” Aron glanced to us, as though we could save him from this. He looked back to his emperor just as quickly, taking a deep breath. “We did speak of this before I left, your majesty. After our last, I departed for Aradhen. And now…”

He stole another glance at us, sweat visibly sheening off his temples now. I balled up my hands into fists, hating this more with every second. Because I could see it, now—the mess we were in. The trouble we’d been sucked into the middle of.

Aron shifted, then straightened, locking eyes with Emperor Nabar. “I’ve been to Aradhen, and back,” he said, more firmly. “And I’ve returned with hunters, just like I said. Now, we can sort out the fiend problem plaguing Talmarn.”

The whispers that had died out resumed in full—and now, I could tell these were absolutely of the ‘talking about us’ sort. My skin prickled with a hundred sets of eyes fixed on me.

Nabar didn’t blink, didn’t so much as look away from Aron. His eyes narrowed, his chin rising to jut his nose into the air. And when he spoke, his voice was low, filled with ominous energy.

“You did what?”