Chapter IV

Countdown

In which Alia’s plans bear fruit

Timing was everything. Alia brought in echomancers, and requested an Ellura Astral-Mirror. This she placed on the stage of the town’s amphitheater, which she commandeered for her next gambit. All of the townspeople were invited, especially — this Alia made sure of — key members of Junius Fellrath’s circle.

The show was set for noon, but Alia did not dare sleep. Too many threads on her loom obliged her to keep alert. From her own personal network of arcana she dispatched officers to listen, observe, or act according to the orders she gave them.

Noontime found her pacing in the middle of the amphitheater stage, obsessively checking her astrolabe as artificers from the Ellura company finished setting up a giant mirror. The colossal astral mirror had to be assembled in sections, and after hours of work—she’d called them at dawn—they were finally working on the last piece.

Alia looked around and smiled. The amphitheater was packed. Getting people to come was easy; all she had to do was offer free food. Her captain could not stop grumbling at the expense needed to entice the better tavern keepers to set up concession stands, strategically placed throughout the tiers of seats.

Sizzling meat cooking on the griddles made her stomach rumble and her mouth water. A breeze tickled her sinuses, carrying upon it the sharp scent of freshly ground long pepper. Carried, naturally enough, from the tin kept open by Lyssa the Gold fifty feet away from her. The most beloved baker in town, Lyssa famously spiced her cookies with long pepper.

“Finished,” the master artifex alerted her.

“Take a seat then,” Alia said, gesturing for the echomancers to come forward.

One echomancer carried an ornate Ellura wand, a five pointed star, sapphire in an electrum setting. Alia once again consulted her astrolabe. Noon exactly. She breathed a sigh of relief as she snapped the fob shut.

At a nod from her, the announcer sounded the horn.

Alia straightened. She had everyone’s attention. Use it well, she told herself.

“Ladies and Gentlemen of Ebon Cove, may I introduce myself? I am Watch-Huntress Alia Ironwing. I have invited all of you here because time is short, and I am determined to protect you good people from the harm that threatens you now. You may have heard of strange disappearances and mysterious deaths. In the space of a month three men have disappeared, all ordinary citizens of Ebon Cove.”

She worked hard to suppress the irony in her voice when she called the victims ordinary.

For the first time she wondered if she should have assigned Serafina this task. Lacking a talent for artifice as well as acting, Alia felt unequal to the theatrics she needed to pull off for this part. People were difficult enough for her to read, how was she to play on their emotions?

Murmurs rippled through the crowd.

“I’m afraid the disappeared may not return. When you see this, you will understand, and I will take your questions after. Hawkwing?”

The echomancer stepped forward. He turned the mirror’s dial according to the astral coordinates Alia gave him. Then, with a dramatic flourish, he gently struck the mirror. Fortunately the sunlight in the late autumn sky was too dull to bounce off the mirrors and blind everyone.

A hush fell over the crowd as everyone watched the events unfold on the mirrors.

A larger-than-life Junius sat in the prow of a skiff as Gavin rowed. The men chatted freely as they approached the shoreline of the lighthouse. They kept up their chatter as they stepped onto land and began walking to the bluff. Alia held her breath. Though she had seen this part before, she still startled when the scene unfolded.

The crowd gasped and shrieked when the flayers suddenly appeared before the men. The men screamed in terror; the audience screamed in unison. Junius stumbled backward, clutching an amulet he wore around his neck. A flayer lunged at him, but caught only air as Junius vanished. Gavin ran, kicking up sand as he dashed up the bluff.

He only managed five steps.

The remaining flayer stayed on his heels. Claws lashed out, and with one swipe the flayer severed Gavin’s spine. An eternity went by before his legs collapsed, sending him sprawling to the ground.

“Freeze,” Alia ordered.

The echomancer tapped the mirror once.

“The monsters are the flayers,” Alia said, stepping in front of the mirror, where all eyes were riveted. Though she appeared relatively diminutive compared to the mirrors, she gave the audience something to focus on besides the impending carnage.

She continued, “And what’s more, the flayers are intelligent” — here she paused to let this sink in — “and one spoke to me. Let me assure you, not everyone is in danger. Their targets are associates of these two men, Junius Fellrath and Gavin Kyr. I warn you, if you ever dealt with these men socially or professionally, or their circle of associates, time is short.”

Lessons from Serafina taught her to now pause, to allow her words to sink in. Everyone was leaning forward.

“No matter who you are, no matter what you have done, I will not accept the flayers running around meting their own vengeance against any resident of Ebon Cove. I won’t have it.”

Anger gave her voice an edge, and she didn’t restrain herself from showing it at the end of her speech. Trained as she was to protect people from Erebossi, Alia hated to make an exception for flayers. Though the creatures weren’t from Erebossa in general, or the Abyssal Serpent in particular, they were still invaders who preyed upon people.

What infuriated her was Rikka having to call upon them at all. Never had Alia imagined failing her family so badly, but fail she did: no dryad taken by Fellrath’s people was ever seen again.

However, Alia’s show of emotion apparently piqued a righteous fire in the audience, because they roared their approval of her sentiments. Following Serafina’s advice, Alia allowed them to indulge their emotions for a few moments. When their thunderous applause subsided, she began again.

“I negotiated a cease fire.” Alia lowered her voice, forcing them to be still and listen. “However, the cease fire ends two mornings from now. For the time being, the only way to be safe from them is to put yourself in my care. The flayers insist they will not kill anyone in my custody. Be warned: any friend of Junius Fellrath who is not under my protection is fair game in their eyes. Mr. Hawkwing?”

The echomancer re-set the machine, this time to show Alia standing in a field with two of the flayers. At Alia’s request, Fellrath’s flayer had summoned its companion to a field outside of the grove. This was by design; Alia did not want the dryads’ involvement to become public knowledge.

Rapt, the audience perched on the edge of their seats, watching Mirror-Alia as she stood fearlessly before the Mirror-flayers. When the first flayer spoke, a silence so profound fell over the audience Alia literally heard a hairpin drop.

“I get two days,” Mirror-Alia said. “And your word you will harm no one in my custody, no matter what.”

“Two days,” the second flayer snapped.

By pre-arranged agreement, the echomancer paused the replay, freezing the moment. Serafina had convinced Alia that the sight of a talking flayer would sear the memory of everyone who witnessed it. Especially as the revelation came in tandem with proof Alia could face the flayers unscathed.

Alia made a show of taking out her astrolabe and tapped a tiny button, causing a golden sundial to project itself overhead, visible to all. “It is now a quarter to one. We have less than thirty-six hours before the flayers start killing again. The guardsmen of Lyrcania will do what we can in the meantime to make sure everyone is safe. But I urge you all, if you think you are in danger, please come to me.”

----------------------------------------

“Are you ready?” Sheridan asked. “We’ve got people here already.”

Alia rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. All of her energy vanished when she stepped out of the amphitheatre and into one of the Watch’s carriages. She slept the entire ride back to the fortress. A persistent Sheridan managed to awaken her, long enough for her to stumble into the nearest empty office and fall asleep the moment her head hit the couch cushions.

Now hours later, Alia got to her feet. She glanced down, remembering to notice her clothes. Rumpled. Humans had rules about the state of clothing, she discovered. Especially the humans with military titles.

Sheridan pointed to a green deerskin satchel sitting on a desk. With a jolt, Alia recognized it as her own.

“Serafina brought that for you,” he said. “I’ll tell the others you’ll be along.”

Lingering fatigue obliged Alia to suppress a yawn. “Did you sleep, too?” Hopefully he wouldn’t think her rude for her asking.

Being raised by dryads meant she did not intrude upon the privacy of others, but what tripped her up was the difference between what the dryads considered private, and what humans considered private. Mapping dryad behaviors onto human interactions frequently resulted in strange reactions.

What made things worse for Alia was how rarely people understood their customs to be optional, a particular way of doing things, but not the only way. Nevertheless, many people judged her egregiously rude at best, and barbaric at worst because she didn’t know their customs.

And learning from scratch was exhausting.

This was why she preferred Serafina’s company; as a human Alia could never do ‘salamandran-ing’ wrong. But with humans she kept running into rules she never imagined existing.

Sheridan was different. He, too, had grown up isolated from humans. He was raised by his grandfather in the woodlands of Serica, miles and miles away from Ebon Cove. And miles from everything else, from what Alia understood. The young man was live-and-let-live with her, and she sensed a certain commonality in outlook when she first met him.

“Not really,” Sheridan admitted. The puffiness around his eyes verified his words. “I kept waking up and thinking a flayer was behind me. From what you said, it’s impossible to keep them from coming, isn’t it?”

“Indeed. For now it doesn’t matter, though. Not as long as they’re not after anyone besides the Brotherhood. But I will ask the keeper about it when this is over. I doubt she would tell me now.”

“Does she not trust you?”

Alia considered the question for a moment. Though Rikka was not exactly warm, there was something lovely and wonderful about dryads: they were so damn blunt and honest. They never kept her guessing where she stood. If Rikka didn’t trust her she would have said so, and meted out correction as necessary.

“Trust isn’t the issue. But dryads have a particular burden. The burden is heavy, and dryads believe it wrong to share their burden with anyone who isn’t empowered to carry it. My living amongst humans means I have ties and obligations to you that present certain … complications,” Alia said.

Sheridan looked askance at her. “Such as?”

“Would you or Palamara count it as a betrayal if I kept certain secrets from you that you think I should have told you? But what if I gave my word to not tell those secrets? Or what if telling you means you incur an obligation you would not willingly choose, but now have no choice but to carry out?”

“Knowledge that confers an obligation I would not choose? Never thought about that angle. Interesting.” Sheridan’s lips quirked, for reasons Alia could not guess. He left her alone to get ready.

Slinging her satchel over her shoulder, Alia headed for the barracks where the new recruits stayed. And where the closest showers were.

When Alia finally presented herself in the common room she was confronted with a maelstrom of activity. Everyone’s nerves were on edge, and Alia’s act had set so much in motion that her captain said he wished he had six different copies of himself to keep everything straight.

Alia clenched her jaw. This was exactly the situation she wanted to avoid. Ideally, she would be the one to route all the information, and read all of the reports as they came in. For the Watch this was a case; for Alia it was a quest, and she’d borne it the longest of anyone there. She would know at a glance which details were significant and which ones weren’t.

Expelling a sigh, she acknowledged to herself the situation couldn’t be helped.

“Brief me, please,” Alia asked the captain.

Fellrath’s home yielded a treasure trove, fulfilling Alia’s hopes. But Palamara waved that away.

“There are sorcerers here who insist on speaking to you. They’re not all from the Brotherhood. Or at least, they were never linked to the Brotherhood before now. But some of them are definitely part of Fellrath’s group, and it might be best to treat them all as guilty until proven otherwise. They’re cooling their heels in one of the parlor rooms.”

“How long have they been waiting?”

“Four of them have been here four, maybe five hours now. Two arrived an hour ago. In case it matters, they think you are keeping them waiting.”

Alia raised her eyebrows, but refrained from saying anything. Thanks to her time with humans she recognized the keep them waiting tactic. Serafina had explained the tactic’s purpose after an archon of the city spectacularly failed in using it on Alia. Arrogant, the archon believed he need not answer to the priestess when her investigations brought her to his office.

Unfortunately for him, Alia innocently ruined his maneuver when she began ordering around the weak-witted lackeys who worked for him, obliging them to bring her the records and documents she had come for in the first place.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

When yet another lackey had failed to come at his summons, the archon was stopped dead in his tracks when he saw Alia holding court in his antechamber. He had tried to protest, but Alia demanded his silence and forced him to wait for her to finish giving her latest order before she suffered him to talk. The man looked as if she had horse whipped him, but she hadn’t regarded his astonishment at the time.

“They must be restless,” Alia said. “Like caged gryphons.”

Palamara laughed. “And what of it? Haven’t you heard? You’re the talk of town! You met two flayers and lived! And you set the terms they agreed to. Letting the whole town see it was an inspired idea. From now on, you are officially a woman to be reckoned with. You have no idea how many doors you’ve opened for yourself, do you? Eyes are on you now. Remember that. Use it.”

Natural modesty inclined her to protest, but Alia managed to keep her silence. Discretion gained the upper hand with her: to reveal the dryads’ role in the negotiations would only bring problems on their doorstep. Instead she turned her attention for the moment to the reports stacked on her desk. Occasionally she interrupted herself to question officers mentioned in the reports, or to examine evidence brought in.

Only when she thoroughly satisfied herself that she was well versed in the latest intelligence did Alia finally enter the Plum Blossom Room, where her visitors awaited her. The room, so called because of the plum trees outside the terrace doors, was in the east wing of the fortress. Far, far enough away from the hub of activity.

Far enough away from anything the visitors could overhear.

All eyes turned to her. The sorcerers bounced to their feet, snapping to attention.

Alia suppressed a smile, realizing that Serafina had done right by her. The fresh clothes she brought Alia screamed ‘authority.’ More specifically, they screamed huntress. As well they should, for she wore the regalia of a huntress, a calf-length sleeveless silk tunic belted at her waist. Two scabbards hung at her belt, each bearing a moonbow blade. Below her belt the open tunic revealed the skirt of her ankle-length dress.

From her necklace a chrysoprase amulet gleamed, all the better to feature a cameo of the golden eagle sigil of the Huntress.

Around her upper arms Alia wore golden bands carved to resemble the wings of a golden eagle. Velvet gloves of forest green came to her elbows, and were styled as an elegant version of a falconer’s gauntlets.

“Gentlemen,” Alia said coolly. She shut the door behind herself and folded her arms. Now she stood silent, still, and implacable—the daughter of a dryad.

The men arrayed before her were a curious lot.

One set she recognized as Fellrath’s men. They occupied the sofa, munching down on a tray of finger foods on the table in front of them. Each man had at his feet a valise, and between them they carried one trunk.

Alia raised an eyebrow. Did they think they could escape the flayers by leaving town?

The remaining four men were clustered in armchairs by the glass doors leading to the terrace. One stood in front, apparently their leader. He dressed much like Sheridan, in a leather duster and sturdy trousers. On his feet he wore high quality leather boots, kept supple thanks to the oil and lamp black wax he used to condition them.

Boldly he met her eyes and put his fists on his hips. This gesture opened his duster wide enough to reveal moonbow blades in the carved leather sheaths at his belt.

That last detail impressed her; it was difficult to obtain moonbow steel in the first place. The temples of the Huntress controlled the trade tightly enough that most people must sit high in their favor to obtain a knife. Alia’s knives were a gift from Rikka herself.

“So you’re finally here,” he growled. “Nice of you to make room in your schedule.” He and his friends came forward, to stand before her.

“I will brook no complaints,” Alia replied.

She waited.

The man favored her with an ironic bow. “I am Tregarde, O Great Mighty One. And with me are Misra, Sharma, and Masson. We’ve come to warn you.”

Alia raised her chin and gave him the once-over.

The names Tregarde and Masson signaled they were New Lyrcanians, as Fellrath’s people were. Misra and Sharma were clearly Gandhari, and so were likely Old Lyrcanians. The Old Lyrcanians traced their lineage all the way back to the Deukalian Age, so named for the Pelasgian general who ruled a vast empire far away, across the Gold Sea.

The Old Lyrcanians were the exiles, people expelled to what was now Lyrcania. That was when the Pelasgian Gate still stood. That was when the Lyrcanians were obliged to pay tribute. After the Fourth Cataclysm, those days were over.

The New Lyrcanians were adventurers. They were descendants of traders from the Lyrcania Mercantile Voyagers, who saw it as their duty to foster and protect trade routes. They came three hundred years ago from a different empire, one called Rasena Valentis.

Alia never studied the maps thoroughly enough, but she gathered Rasena Valentis encompassed more and less territory than the Pelasgian empire had.

The Old Lyrcanians didn’t trust the New.

Her captain was an Old Lyrcanian, and he hadn’t told her which of her guests he suspected were part of Junius Fellrath’s brotherhood. Perhaps they were all the same to him, but Alia welcomed a chance to test her knowledge. She had worked diligently to determine the names of everyone in Fellrath’s circle; she could identify on sight his aunts and uncles, and she even knew the name of the cat his primary mistress owned.

Neither Tregarde’s face nor name were known to her. If he were part of Fellrath’s network, then it meant she still hadn’t uncovered the full scope. She clenched her jaw, determined not to be discouraged.

“Six men to deliver one warning?” And that warning was apparently so important he could wait four hours to deliver it.

“Not me, huntress,” one cried. “You said we could come to you for protection. That the flayers won’t harm us if we’re in your care. Why is that?” No taller than she and leaner in body, his demeanor suggested furtiveness. Never did he allow her to meet his eyes, his ceaselessly darted from hers even as he studied her in turn.

“They were not chatty.”

The shifty-eyed man blinked in surprise. Good. Her peculiar bluntness threw people off-guard, and this time being herself was no hindrance.

“Which of you is here for my protection?”

Shifty-eyes and his companion exchanged a glance. Ah, the pair were standing apart from the other four. Or—she favored them with greater scrutiny. The other sorcerers were standing apart from them. Tregarde studiously ignored them.

“And which of you are here for altruistic reasons?” Alia asked.

Tregarde did a double take, and glanced at his three companions. “I wouldn’t put it that way, darlin’. I wouldn’t put it that way at all.”

Alia swung her gaze back to Shifty and Friend. “What were you to Junius Fellrath? Friend? Business partner?”

Bag man. Shifty was nothing more than that, according to Alia’s investigations. Whose name was…? Ah yes: Quintus.

“Nothing like that,” Quintus said hastily. “I hardly knew him.”

True. Very strictly true.

“In that case, you probably have nothing to worry about. Run along.”

Quintus’s jaw fell open. His expression was so comical that she smiled in response, before composing herself and saying,

“I am also not altruistic in this matter. If your association with Junius was so barebones as you say, then you have no meat to chew on. In that case you don’t need protection, do you?”

Quintus licked his lips, and brought forth a leather-bound codex from his coat. The volume was battered and worn and slightly foxed, as she saw when he placed it into her outstretched hand.

“I can be useful to you,” he said. “Things I see, things I hear, I kept it all in here.”

Alia thumbed through the book, fanning the pages open as she skimmed. “And your friend?”

Sweets. Low level throat-slitter.

Sweets looked dismayed for a brief moment, but rallied quickly. “Well, I don’t write it down like ol’ Quintus here, but I know where the bodies are buried, Lady Huntress. Keep it all up here, see.” He tapped his forehead.

Sweets was also Quintus’s cousin, which Alia discovered when she once followed them to a holiday gathering. Throwing Sweets to the wolves—the flayers—would only earn her pointless enmity. Quintus had bought them both passage, she decided.

“Let’s see if you prove it. Present yourself to Constable Shu and tell him I said to give you quarters in the south tower.”

The south tower was still a prison, only without bars and with beds sans bugs. Alia knew the men were frequent guests of the city jail, and had even spent time in prison. The south tower was such an obvious good deal that she expected it would whet their appetite.

And give her leverage.

As soon as the cousins were escorted out, Alia turned her attention to the remaining four. Who were eying her warily, sizing her up. Assessing her. Why? What had they expected? Surely they couldn’t be concerned that she had broken any social rules? No, they were after something more.

“May I help you?”

Only Sharma’s barest glance at her amulet gave it away. Half a second, but all she needed to clench her jaw and calm herself. Thus, she bore it stoically when the blast of heat crested over her and warmed her from the outside in. Apple-green light flared from her amulet but her eyes were already closed, so she heard but did not see Sharma fly backwards across the room.

Clang!

The sound could only mean his body crashed into the wrought iron screen in front of the hearth.

When Alia opened her eyes Masson and Misra were already moving to assist Sharma. Tregarde kept a wary eye on her as his gaze darted to his friends and back to her again.

Alia fingered her amulet. She took out her pocket astrolabe and made a show of looking at it.

“Thirty seconds,” she warned.

“Forgive us, huntress,” Tregarde said quickly. “We had to test you. Test your devotion to the Huntress.”

“Why?”

“Because the flayers can be stopped.”

Alia nearly shut her device, caught by surprise. “Oh?”

The man exuded confidence in his stride—but abruptly he stopped his approach. Again he eyed her warily, but what raised her guard was his foot pawing at the ground. Like a gryphon contemplating a potential threat.

Awkward silences did not trouble her, and Alia eyed him in turn, curious about the battle he seemed to be waging inside himself. Finally, he squared his shoulders.

“I think I’ve worked out what you’re up to,” he said at last. “That show you did today? Challenge, invitation, threat—you meant it as all three, which suits us fine. Point of fact, before today we were trying to figure out an introduction. All of us huntsmen know you’re trying to stop the Brotherhood.”

“It’s hardly a secret that I’m trying to stop the sorcerers,” Alia pointed out.

“The Brotherhood,” Tregarde corrected. “We are not all in on this.”

Alia could not hide her disgust. “Yet you sorcerers do nothing to stop it. None of you polices the other; not one of you has lifted a finger against Fellrath and his Brotherhood. And when I attempt to mete out justice, do I receive assistance from your order? No! You close ranks against me, as though unity is more important than doing the right thing. Why should I distinguish you sorcerers, when none of you distinguish yourselves? If the Huntress were before you now, what excuse would you give Her?”

“Don’t assume too much,” Tregarde warned. “Don’t assume we would none of us pass the same test we gave you a minute ago.”

He pointed to her amulet, and she reflexively touched it. If she had proved to be untrue to the Huntress, the amulet would have burned her through and through.

Alia, having no sorcery of her own, relied on a divine curse to perform a similar test on one of Fellrath’s pseudo-priests of the Huntress when she first arrived in Ebon Cove.

The woman had been luring in young acolytes of the Huntress, then torturing them when she wasn’t selling them into slavery. She twisted them until she broke them enough to make them carry out horrible orders. The shame alone would enslave them even if her powers didn’t.

The woman’s amulet immolated her as surely as Serafina’s flames would have.

Alia had used her ashes to write a rebuke where all could see it. In this fashion she introduced herself to the underworld of Ebon Cove.

“Listen to me,” Tregarde urged. “If I’m right about what you’re doing then those two upstandin’ citizens you were so magnanimous with might be the only prizes you win tonight. They can’t be the high and mighty ones. And those won’t be comin’ to you.”

“You know this how?”

“Because as I said, the flayers can be stopped … if you’re far enough gone that the Eagle-Eyed One would turn Her gaze from you.”

One look at Tregarde’s sly smile, and she knew her night was not going to end as she wished. With a curt gesture she indicated he should continue.

“I’m betting you know how the flayers can come here. We think they need to lure people to their world in order to come to ours. Correct?”

“And?”

“But I bet it didn’t occur to you how that method might be, shall we say, negated? And I’ll tell you: in our realm, the only way to send the flayers back is to sever the spirit of those they carried off.”

“S—sever? As in, remove someone’s spirit from their body? While they still live? How would that work?”

“Makes your stomach drop all the way to the bottom of the Rift, doesn’t it, over the thought of people walkin’ about sans their spirits? The stuff of nightmares. Unfortunately, I hear tell that’s how it can work. Can’t say for sure. And if I were one of the Fellrath crew, with the flayers at my back, don’t know that I’d care.”

Every instinct in her body screamed at her to tread carefully. The Brotherhood earned relentless enmity from her, but she always forced herself to remember they were people. Like any one else, they had thoughts and motivations and goals. Even though she didn’t know their motives for seeking the power to harm dryads, that didn’t mean they didn’t have them.

Nor did she deem it safe to assume the Brotherhood would commit random acts of mayhem; no shoving old people down the stairs on a whim. Which meant she couldn’t pretend their attacks on dryads meant they would willingly destroy their own people.

One thing she learned repeatedly was that she didn’t see the world the same way other people did. Others prioritized their needs or ethics differently than she did, but that didn’t mean they didn’t have priorities at all.

“Let us suppose you are right,” Alia said carefully. “And they were willing to do this abomination. How would they do it? Could I stop them?”

Tregarde looked at his companions. As one they breathed a sigh of relief.

“That’s the thing, huntress,” Sharma, the one who tested her said. He was cradling his side, unable to hide his injury from her. Even so he bowed to her, in respect and apology at once. “To take a spirit is a blood spell. And not your average blood spell, either. To, ah, deprive someone of their spirit is a wickedness no matter how you look at it. It wrecks the Scales. You put a trouble on your own spirit that’ll weigh heavy.”

“There’s a price to pay,” Tregarde translated. “Involving a corner of Erebossa reserved for people who do such things. If the Scales are already tipped the wrong way for you, then you’re going to be some abyssal’s special friend for a good long while after you die. So for this spell, you’re going to want three kinds of people.”

“What is it with you sorcerers and your threes? Virgin, mother, crone. It’s always threes with you people.”

Tregarde snickered in spite of himself. “One person is either a sorcerer or one of those shadow priests.” He paused to let her shudder. He went on, “They have the power to do the spell. But you also want a young person—doesn’t have to be a virgin—because they have a lifetime to try and re-tip the Scales. Assuming they don’t become dragon kibble before they grow old. Then again, I suppose an immortal might suit their purposes mighty fine. Anyhow, the final person must be Just with a capital letter. Maybe all caps even. Underlined in red three times. You understand? So almighty Just that the Scales are heavily tipped to the good neighborhoods in Erebossa before they even get started.”

“Do you have a suspect for two of the three? The young and the “Just”? Where this spirit-cutting is supposed to happen?”

“Suspects? Not so much. As for where, we’ll take you there. And when: true to how these things go, it’ll take place at midnight,” Tregarde said. “I gotta point out that spirit-cuttin’ is not something you can be compelled to do by a sorcerer’s blood magic. Understand? To rip out someone’s spirit you have to be sincere.”

What just person would sincerely utter such a spell? Alia’s insides froze when the answer came to her: someone under a different kind of compulsion.

“They have a hostage, don’t they?”

Someone threatened with the deaths of their own family or innocent people might even rationalize that kidnapped sorcerers were being tortured by the flayers, and killing the sorcerers by taking their spirits would be a mercy killing. Deep down they’d want to believe they were doing the right thing.

Her eyes darkened as she considered that the hostage might otherwise believe the brotherhood sorcerers deserved to lose their spirits. They might innocently assume that the sorcerers would die immediately, but again, they would probably not inquire too closely.

Goose flesh broke out on her arms. Perhaps, perhaps the spell would not work. Just could not include ripping another man’s spirit from his body. She would rather die before committing such an act; either the hostage was the worst kind of coward, or the Brotherhood was wrong about how just he was.

Either way, she must intervene. She opened her eyes and faced them head on.

“Where will this happen?”