{-Kaylin-}

Vaeri pulled out a slip of paper and gestured for one of them to come closer. Rennyn went up to take it from her, then went back to his previous position.

“I’d like you to find those items for me,” she explained as he read it over. “I’ll tell you whatever I know and give you the ring when you return. I don’t expect it to take any more than a day without detours, but I’m not pressing you for a time limit.”

“So I’m guessing these aren’t just things we could pick up in town?” he prompted.

She shook her head. “There’s a reason I don’t have them already. My knights cannot spare the men to look for them, and most are things only found within Kositeia’s forests.”

Kaylin glanced over Rennyn’s shoulder to look over the list, too, but it didn’t answer any questions. In fact, it brought up a handful of new ones. But she decided against mentioning it—for right now, that wasn’t important.

Instead, she said, “We’ll try our best to get these and return to you as soon as possible. On that, you have our word.” Everyone gave mutual nods of agreement, even if none of them knew more than she did.

“I expect nothing less from you.” Then, Vaeri made a vague gesture and a servant came out from seemingly nowhere. Talking just to the servant, she asked, “Could you tell the others they can return, then see these five out?”

The servant first bowed, then darted out of sight again. Once the other servants and guards returned to their positions before, they walked up to the five of them. “I’ll be showing you guests out now. It’s quite an honor to be helping Queen Vaeri, I hope you’ll complete your task and please her.”

They didn’t say anything else to the five of them, nor did the five start any kind of conversation, until they walked back out of the palace. Even then, the servant just mumbled a farewell, bowed, then went back inside.

“Can I see the list?” Lyrei prompted as they kept walking through town. When Rennyn handed it to her, she skimmed through all of it, and her grin seemed to grow a bit. “I recognize all of these—there’s a book about them in the Archives. I think I can remember generally where all of them could be found.” She glanced at Seldir. “So long as you’re able to actually pick a spot?”

He nodded. “Just tell me what you’re looking for and I’ll do my best.”

She pointed to a couple of items. “These can all be found in cooler, shadier spots in a forest. Maybe close together, maybe not. And this stuff is mostly found near rivers. I’m not… too sure about these, but I remember them being pretty common, so we can keep an eye out for them while we look for everything else.”

“I’ve got a couple of ideas already. Not all of them are too far from the city. You know what they look like, right?”

“Mhm. They’re unique enough I’m not going to get things mixed up, either.”

Noa tried looking over at the list, but it seemed like he only got confused. “What are all of these used for, anyway?”

“At least some of them are used in medicine,” Kaylin offered. She wasn’t familiar with all of the names, but she was certain with the ones she was familiar with. “I assume if you know about them because they’re all in the same book, then they all are..?”

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“Yeah,” Lyrei said with a nod. “The weird part is, they’re all used for different stuff. It isn’t the lineup of something you’d generally expect to be together, either—a lot of them have better alternatives, they’ve just got to be imported. There… is something about the list, though. I remember reading something from an old journal. All of this combined could, in theory, give a momentary respite from any illness—a panacea, kinda.”

“Those kinds of things are always a myth, though,” Rennyn pointed out. “I’d assume someone as old as Queen Vaeri would be able to figure that out.”

“But someone as old as Queen Vaeri would also understand a lot more than we did, right?” Noa countered. “I don’t think she’s making us do all of this just to keep us busy, or because she doesn’t trust us. I think there’s more going on than that.”

“There’s always the possibility of… how someone’s lived as long as she has,” Seldir remarked with a shrug. “I’ve heard a lot as a mercenary—most rumors and folktales have some kind of truth to them. And there’s a lot floating around about how Queen Vaeri has been ruling Kositeia since its founding.”

“I’ve read a lot more, though,” Lyrei said. “I’d say most of the possible options are improbable, if not completely impossible.”

Kaylin realized something, though—a common link in experiences, to a degree. Slowly, she mumbled, “The reasons don’t matter. What does is that, despite whatever happened, she’s still human. In the end, she’s just like the rest of us.” Only partly aware of it herself, she glanced at Rennyn. “And that’s not the kind of fate a human can handle on their own.”

If he also made the connection, he didn’t show it. “Then why couldn’t she just say so outright? It would save us from the speculation.”

“She probably didn’t want to acknowledge it,” Noa said. “The people look up to her—she’s the only ruler they’ve ever known. They know that they can rely on her for anything. Even if she told them the other servants and guards to leave, they still had to be close by—close enough to be able to answer her call to return. So they probably heard most of what we talked about. And they definitely wouldn’t have liked hearing her admit what these were for.”

Lyrei nodded. “I think that would explain why she didn’t even hint towards what was actually written, other than they weren’t found in the city. It keeps them from piecing together that… maybe she isn’t as strong as we’ve been believing her to be.”

“I wasn’t in Zaitha a lot before I met you, but I thought I heard something possibly related to that,” Seldir remarked. “Hasn’t she been appearing less and less over the years, especially recently? From what I heard, she used to wander the streets, but now she barely leaves the palace.”

“I… think so?” Lyrei seemed to think about it for a little bit, but couldn’t come up with a better answer herself. “I think I can remember my parents talking about it, anyway. I wasn’t out enough on my own to be able to actually say anything, though…”

“And, unfortunately, that’s not the part of politics that crosses international borders…” Noa mumbled with a sigh.

“I don’t like it either, but there’s not much we can do about it now,” Rennyn said. “She said she’d tell us when we got back. It’s not exactly like we can storm back in there and demand answers, so this is the best we can do.”

Kaylin, after considering it for a couple of moments, decided to throw out another piece of speculation: “I wonder if that will explain how she apparently knows of Dhymos, too. No one else in the other lives knew who he was—at least, not what he planned to do—until well after he already started…”

“Well, we… kind of already figured this wasn’t what usually happened with the two of you,” Noa pointed out quietly. “It sounds like both Lyrei and I sort of knew who Dhymos was before. Could it be like that?”

“Neither of you knew his name,” Rennyn muttered, “or seemed to understand what his plans were here.” He shook his head. “That doesn’t matter, either. I think she wants to get rid of Dhymos just as much as we do—not lead us to him in a trap. We’re probably not going to get any answers just thinking about it.”

“You know, considering how paranoid you’ve been over smaller things, I don’t know if this is an improvement or something to be worried about…” Seldir remarked.

Rennyn seemed uninterested in answering for himself, so instead Kaylin said, “Let’s… hope it’s the former.”