{-Noa-}

They spent another day wandering around town, since they still hadn’t received any word from King Merith. That and because, since Allyna left, Rennyn wouldn’t sit still in one place for any longer than a couple of minutes. It wasn’t like the time was completely wasted, since they did find themselves a short job helping some merchants.

“How do you think that book ended up in the library..?” Noa asked, quiet and cautious.

Rennyn, so far, was distracted by the old woman in the merchant caravan—she said he reminded her of her grandson, and was treating him accordingly—and none of the three wanted to disrupt him. It was much better, at least, than always having a hand on his sword with his eyes darting around, waiting for an attack of some sort. All that ever did was make everyone else more nervous.

Seldir shrugged. “I’m just going to assume it was something old and happened to be pretty applicable. I’ve long since gone past the point where I’m willing to wonder about that kind of thing.”

“I like to think it’s there by fate,” Lyrei remarked simply. “It just feels right that it was there when we needed some answers, you know? Why argue with something like that?”

“But, to me, it just seems… wrong,” Noa admitted. “I’m not really sure what it is but it definitely isn’t nothing. If that makes sense at all…”

“Well, maybe one of you is right and the other is wrong—or you’re both right or wrong, somehow. I think for the most part, though, we’re just letting this get to us.” Seldir sighed. “Or, at least, I hope that’s what most of this is. I’m assuming, with how she’s been acting so far, Kaylin would’ve said something if she thought something was off. Yet, when we talked to her, she just looked like she’d been expecting that and moving on. I’m assuming that means there’s nothing to worry about.”

“Maybe… we could try to contact Elidia and Dalleira again?” Noa offered. “I mean, I assume they’d know more about the situation than we do. They… didn’t really give a whole lot of solid answers before… but maybe they could help with this part.”

He should’ve expected Lyrei to get much more excited at the possibility, yet still he found himself surprised by it. “Oh, yeah! That’s probably a great idea. If not just so then we can talk with them a little bit. They were the ones who originally chose us, right? They’re bound to know something about all of this! Plus, it won’t hurt to see if maybe they just want to talk a little bit. There’s so many things I can think of asking them…”

“Just don’t be surprised if they don’t answer,” Seldir mumbled. “They’re goddesses. They probably have more important things to do than answer all of your various questions…”

“Kaylin’s the one who knows how to do it anyway,” Noa pointed out. “We’re going to have to bring it up with her if we want to do anything…”

Lyrei nodded, though it mostly seemed to be to herself. “Right. As soon as we get back, we can ask Kaylin about it. Seems like a productive thing to spend our time doing, especially since we still haven’t heard anything from King Merith…”

“He’s probably busy,” Seldir said. “I think we can give him a little bit more time. Even if we’re, frankly, just going to be getting more antsy the longer we’re stuck in one place…”

“I… could always send something else..?” Noa offered cautiously. “I mean, who knows what he’s doing—he might not have even noticed that Queen Vaeri sent him something yet. But if whoever’s managing his letters sees there’s one from Queen Vaeri and a ‘representative’ of Lord Aymer…”

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“We don’t want you to draw any attention to yourself, either,” Seldir remarked. “Trust me, things’ll get a lot harder if someone thinks that you’re some rich kid with more money than you can ever spend. If you ever have to do something, it should probably be as Lord Aymer’s messenger boy, and definitely not his nephew…”

“I guess you’ve got a point…”

A moment later, Rennyn looked over his shoulder at them and called, “I think you three are going to want to hear this story.”

They looked between each other, clearly unsure of what to expect, and walked a bit quicker to be closer to him.

“Can you tell me about it again?” Rennyn prompted, looking at the old woman.

“You must be rather interested in it, dear,” she said with a chuckle. “I suppose it shows you’re not from around here! No local usually thinks twice about these kinds of baseless rumors.” She paused for a moment. “Well, if it had involved anyone else… See, it’s about Lady Mira.”

One of the other merchants sighed. “Ma, you know there’s probably not any truth to it. Stop spreading it around—you’re just going to panic people.”

“My friends are going to want to hear it,” Rennyn countered. “We’re probably one of the best people to tell it to. There’s a chance we can figure out if it’s true or not—and, possibly, find a solution if it is.”

The old woman laughed. “You young people are always so eager to prove yourselves! You don’t need to make up some story, dear. I intended to tell you.” In a voice clearly meant to address all of them, she continued, “I don’t believe I need to tell you much about Lady Mira—just that she’s the best thing to come of Astiri’s line of kings and queens. She’s done what she can for us, despite the undoubtable pushback from the council and King Merith. But lately… she hasn’t been showing up to many events. This is quite unusual for her—she often does whatever she can to show the people she’s still there. Some are beginning to consider the king has devised some to get rid of her. He hasn’t said a word about where she is. He likely wouldn’t. So we’re simply left wondering where she is, and hoping that it's nothing permanent.”

Noa knew just enough about Astiri politics to have a very, very bad feeling about that…

“Do you understand why I wanted you to hear it?” Rennyn asked, glancing back at the three of them. The old woman, seeing as her time was done, went to bother her son about something. “This could be something serious.”

“I assumed you’d be going on about how we shouldn’t get involved,” Seldir pointed out. “Because, to be honest? All I’m hearing is ‘foreign politics’ that, ‘someone else’s problem’ this, and none of it has to do with us. Trust me, I’ve heard of the kinds of things you can get yourself wrapped up in by trying to get involved in stuff like that. We should probably just stay out of it.”

“You want to let corrupt government officials kidnap or possibly murder the one good council member?” Lyrei questioned. “Did I just hear that right?”

“I—I mean, I can kind of see the point of both sides…” Noa began. “But I think I’d rather side with Rennyn and Lyrei..? The people of Astiri have been enduring this for a long time. Lady Mira showed them that things can change, and if something happened to her and realized her efforts will go to waste…”

“Usually I wouldn’t care either,” Rennyn remarked as Seldir still didn’t seem convinced. “But there’s one other thing to consider—Dhymos could get involved, if he isn’t already. And then it becomes our problem, not just something for the locals to handle. Dhymos uses this kind of chaos. We’ve got to do what we can to stop him.”

Seldir sighed. “Fine. I just don’t want any of us to get arrested. We’re not going to have Lord Aymer or Queen Vaeri to bail us out and I doubt King Merith is going to take ‘we’re supposed to save the world’ as a reason to let us go…”

Lyrei waved her hand dismissively. “It’ll be fine! It’s probably just some kind of misunderstanding and we’ll be able to have it cleared up in no time!”

“I doubt we can do a lot about it now anyway,” Noa mumbled. “Not until we’re able to actually talk to King Merith. Which… might be a good thing, actually, because there’s something else the three of us wanted to do… like seeing if Kaylin will be able to let us talk to the goddesses for a little bit.”