Unoro sighed as the port came into sight. He vowed to never, ever, leave the comfort of land again. The Kastazee had been wonderful and welcoming to the captives, going so far as to sail them each to their original destinations after allowing them to recoup whatever they could from the pirates. Given that the Kastazee always seemed to have the wind on their side, they were arriving in Shefdon ahead of schedule. For some, their captivity had been a profitable encounter, as the Kastazee didn’t seem to question any of the former captives’ claims of ownership over the pirate’s haul.

Fortunately for Unoro, the captain had been holding onto his letters of credit. The coin and his other belongings were gone, but he would be able to replace them. He could still complete his mission, and the plan had always been to return via the land route.

“You are eager to put the stone under your feet again?” Pest Kozi asked, nearly making Unoro jump overboard.

“Of course I am. I do not mean to belittle your way of life, but I cannot imagine why anyone would willingly leave the land behind them. Between pirates and the risk of shipwreck or falling into the sea, I think I’ll stay ashore from now on.”

His savior nodded sagely. “Many Kastazee feel the same way about the land. It has been ten years since I spent more than a few moments without the comforting feel of the mother rocking her children beneath my feet. You are right about the pirates, though. They are much worse than usual. We have been feeding them to the sea quite frequently, and yet more are finding their way to our waters. I do not know why. I am thinking of asking the Empress if she is in trouble.”

Unoro snorted in surprise, looking over at the short, unassuming man. Wearing only the wraps around his waist that all Kastazee wore, it was hard to picture the darkly tanned man in an imperial court. Or in any context of social importance at all.

“I’m sorry, that was rude,” he said.

“Hm?” the man seemed confused by his apology.

“Never mind,” Unoro said, deciding that it was better to move past his outburst. “What would you do if the Empress told you that she was in trouble?”

“I suppose I would offer my help,” Pest Kozi admitted. “She is an old friend, after all. But before that, I think I will say hello to my youngest daughter, and meet the man she has chosen to marry. I was not at Nariffab when she met him and have not seen her for years. Her other father had volunteered to take her. I must make certain that the man she has chosen is worthy of her. That is why I offered you passage on my boat. That you were going to the city where my daughter is was a sign from the winds that it was time to visit.”

“Well, thank you for the ride. I hope your daughter’s future husband proves to be a fine young man.”

“A part of me hopes that he will be a sniveling coward so that I can scold my daughter and drag her back to my boat for another ten years,” the man admitted. “It has been a long time since I was a father before Ita came into the world, and this young Baturya has stolen three years of her youth from me!”

Unoro jerked in surprise. “Baturya? Your daughter is engaged to Baturya Etrus?”

Kozi scratched his ear, shrugging. “I do not know his second name, or even that he had one. Only that he was one of the Sudaman’s students when our children last played with theirs. I was very upset when Ita decided to chase after a boy instead of returning to her father’s boat, but her mother and other father insisted that it would be better to let her come back on her own. Ah, but she doesn’t understand what it means to be a father! They are only young once!”

Unoro shook his head and disbelief. “That is who I have been sent to find as well by my employers,” he admitted. “There cannot be two boys of the same name in the same Sect, but the coincidence of meeting someone else with a connection to him on the open sea is mind boggling.”

“When a coincidence becomes too improbable to be happenstance, then it is fate showing her hand,” Pest Kozi declared, throwing his arm around Unoro in the overly friendly way of the Kastazee. “It is good! We will go into the city together until we find my daughter and the rock-boy she has her eyes upon. I will make certain that he is worthy, and you will do your business with him after. Perhaps he will be more amenable to whatever it is you desire of him once I am through.”

Unoro could only grimace at the unexpected closeness with the virtual stranger.

They were docked an hour later, and Pest Kozi was following him through the streets as he searched for a way to redeem his letters of credit, and to exchange some of those coins for proper clothing. The outfit he was wearing was purloined from the captain of the pirate ship’s wardrobe, and he didn’t like wearing clothes stolen from a dead man.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Sazobo sparred with Likona, the sweat dripping off the two of them in the summer heat as strike, parry, and counterstrike flowed effortlessly between them. The two teens were more or less evenly matched. Likona had awakened some months after Sazobo. His awakening had been a brutal affair at the hands of the Kastazee, but he had long recovered, and he had progressed quickly, advancing into the first and then second Reformation much more quickly than their peers.

Sazobo had been envious of the other boy’s advancement as he had struggled with his own, but as of two weeks ago he had successfully purified his body, putting him back on the same level as the other naturally awakened boy, making them natural sparring partners. Sazobo missed the days when he had been able to spar fairly with Baturya, but the younger boy had simply advanced too fast for him to keep up with. Not by choice, of course, but even before ‘the incident,’ Baturya had been leaving him behind.

Sazobo did not like being left behind. He was liking it less with every week that his friends were gone. His frustration got the better of him and he missed an easy block, taking punch to the gut which knocked the breath out of him.

“Sorry, are you alright?” Likona asked, stepping back.

Sazobo waved away the other boy’s concern, although it took him a moment to recover his breath and answer. “It was my fault for being distracted.”

“You haven’t been at your best today. Is there something wrong?”

“It’s nothing,” Sazobo lied. “I just didn’t sleep well.”

The gong rang, signaling that food would be available soon, and the boys bowed respectfully towards each other for the match, and then towards their instructor, who wasn’t even paying attention to them. But etiquette was etiquette.

Sazobo’s social life had expanded since Baturya had left, but he didn’t particularly care for most of the new friends that he joined for lunch. Most had joined the Sect at the same time that he had and were of similar ages, but he lacked a connection with any of them. He preferred the company of his missing companions, but eating with near strangers was better than eating alone.

He was eating his stuffed bun, listening to the other teens laugh at the same jokes they always laughed at and talked about the same girls they always talked about, when one of the elders abruptly fell out of the sky.

Elder Sezen lay on his back for a moment, looking up at the clouds, while the dining area experienced a sudden silence. After he had recovered, the old Master sat up and looked around, quickly spotting Sazobo.

“You! You are friends with that troublemaker, Baturya! Where has he gone? You must know! For the sake of us all, you must tell me!”

~~~~~~~~~~~

Roz assisted Uma down from the cart, and that was it. They were free. It was humiliating. They had been completely defeated by their enemy, and as an ultimate insult, they were turned loose again to grow stronger and try again. The disregard that the supposed Whisperers showed for the Anzabos clan’s efforts of claiming revenge infuriated her.

Uma shuffled away into the city, towards the clan headquarters. She had recovered some of her strength, and yet her convalescence was going poorly. She was unsteady, her gate uneven, and she lacked the dexterity that she’d long taken for granted. Worse, the symptoms showed no signs of going away, no matter how she exercised or cultivated. So she did the only thing she could. She hid them, and refused to acknowledge her weakness. When Roz and the others asked how her recovery was going, she insisted that she was quickly returning to full health.

She refused to even consider that her definition of full health might have been irrevocably changed.

Worst of all was the geas. To think that there was critical knowledge she had about her enemy, one of the very hearts of their power, where their strongest congregated, and she could do nothing with it. Even thinking about sharing that information caused her breath to catch in her lungs, her heart to skip beats, and her tongue to tie itself in knots.

Perhaps, with time, the symptoms would fade. But she had never been patient. She could only wish that she had spread the information of the village’s location wider before she had attempted her assault. Unfortunately, she had kept her cards close to her vest.

They arrived at the manse together, and they were forced to open the gate themselves. Another humiliation; three years ago they would have been met on the way with a carriage and received with full ceremony. But times had changed, and not for the better.

There was nobody left to receive them. The ones who had not been hanged were all out in the field, attempting to rebuild. The manse was almost empty of life.

She settled down in her office and began to plan. There were several stacks of papers for her to go through, thrown into her inbox while she was away. Updates from other branches, reports on potential resources to exploit, nothing valuable or promising. And nothing on her daughter.

She was infuriated to learn that Rena had been spreading dissent. That there were reports of Anzabos making peace with and working for the enemy. An entire northern branch had issued a letter informing her that they were “taking the reigns of their organization and heading in a new direction.” It was insubordination, it was rebellion! And it was a serious blow to her tenuous claims of leadership.

Hidden in the middle of the stack of papers was a blank envelope. When she opened it, she was surprised to find that the letter inside was not written in ink.

It was written in ki. An instruction to infuse the paper with her own ki, which she promptly did, causing another message to appear. A simple message, only a paragraph long, and once she had read it, the paper burst into flames. She jumped and threw it into the bin, the contents of which also caught fire. Fortunately the steel bin was designed for disposing of documents in such a fashion.

She frowned, annoyed and impressed at the gesture. She wondered what the trick to it was; it was an excellent method of securing communication and one she wouldn’t mind employing herself. Whoever had sent her the missive was clearly an expert, making their offer of alliance immensely tempting.

“Help me find my cousin, and I’ll help you find your daughter,” she muttered. “So Baturya had a family after all.”