Arcane, Fariah had decided, was a difficult place to like.

She’d seen much of its face, more than most could ever hope to. Walked its mercurial landscapes and traversed its fickle settlements. Found an ease of distaste and natural-born hostility among the few facts remaining consistent across the continent.

The air was eternally humid in the land of magic, hot and moist like fresh breath against her skin. Flies of every type buzzed angrily around it, harassing her heedless of her swatting hands

And despite it all, she found an impossible fondness for the place.

The beauty had certainly not hurt. Few places could match the majesty of Arcane, with its technicoloured vegetation painted in shining pastels.

Even the forestry Fariah found herself traversing at that very moment was violet and teal, tinted pale and seeming to challenge the sun’s glare with luminous flesh as it cast her in shade from above. Beauty incarnate.

A curse erupted from five paces ahead, beckoning a smile from Fariah’s face as she stared forth at the source. She saw her charge angrily wrestling a wall of vines as they barred his path, machete failing to bite through no matter his strength.

“Do you need any help?” She called out, relishing the sight.

“Fuck off.” Snapped the man, not even glancing back at her as he slew the plantlife.

Fariah let herself smile, having learned long ago into their travels that her ward cared not for any of the ten thousand slights another might admonish her for. He didn’t even glance over his shoulder as he continued hacking through the foliage.

Silver hair was wetted by sweat, though held a clear lustre even then. Violet clothing seemed heavy as it hung draped across the mystic, and his pale skin bore the flush of physical exertion.

Many might have felt compelled to help regardless. The man’s lodestone presence and silver tongue made it a tempting prospect for even Fariah. But her wardship had come at the command of the Twin Spheres.

It was more than her own pride at stake, and she would sooner die than sully her comrades’ names by lowering herself to the level of a servant.

Another curse turned the air blue from ahead, and she felt her smirk return. Resisting the urge to help brought with it a reward in entertainment, too.

“Bloody Arcane.” Snapped the mystic, wrenching his blade free from a mass of vines.

Fariah knew what would come next, perhaps before he did. The man placed a hand on his magic, smooth and quick as only a God could manage, gesturing with a contemptuous laziness at the obstacle.

Light flashed for half an instant, then died to reveal ash and smoke where greenery had been moments prior. He stepped through the blackened zone with abject disregard, letting the power seep away as he moved along the dark carpet.

She followed dutifully, closing the gap for the second time and speaking softly as she came level beside him.

“I assume there’s a reason we can’t simply fly to your destination?”

He didn’t even bother to meet her eye as he answered, face still holding a semblance of the irritation that had grown so swiftly by the forest’s hand.

“Attention, mostly.” He answered, Jaean accent leaving every syllable sharp as a blade and swift as a whipstrike. His drawl had irked her when first they met, but Fariah had since grown to find it captivating. Almost soothing.

“Right, you want to make certain she doesn’t feel you coming this time.”

The Deity arched an eyebrow, turning to Fariah and studying her a moment before answering. It took long enough for her breath to leave at the sudden focus.

Even after weeks of travelling with the man, she’d not grown nearly used to his face. The despicable perfection of it, seeming to exist as a mirror for her every desire. Thin and high cheekbones, a delicate nose, hawkish lips. A hundred casual beauties all woven together and made exaggerated by some unseen, holistic touch of his blood.

She found herself breaking the lock of their gazes first. Gilasev Menza barely seemed to notice the surrender.

“If they’re already at our destination, Fariah, then there’s little point in us doing anything. I aim to arrive subtly, or at least as subtly as we can manage, so that no word of it gets out. Then we shall be the ones waiting for our target, and with just a pinch of luck they’ll walk into our trap. Deviousness will do them no good, then.”

It still amazed Fariah that Gilasev could carry such certainty with himself, even hunting a woman armed as their target was.

She wondered whether his arrogance was the inheritance of a Menza or merely the right of a Deity.

Both, I think. With each worsening the other.

They walked for little longer before the destination came into view, crowning a great clearing in the vegetation with a majesty that might have awed Fariah, had she seen it sixty years earlier.

Buildings seemed grown rather than built; stone, wood and metal merged seamlessly and forming a great complex of corridors stretching both horizontal and vertical, occupying three dimensions in place of two.

A wall encircled its totality, three fathoms high and capped with cast steel. Doubtless its metal shell was inches thick, lacquered along with the stone beneath for greater strength. Kanans had no shortage of mystics to do so.

Figures moved outside the main gate, and even from their distance of two hundred yards Fariah recognised the shape of arbalasts.

That they were cocked told her of their wielders’ wariness, and the magic trickled through into her fingers in an almost subconscious response to it.

“Do you need to do that?” Asked Menza, glancing at her with the subtlest irritation.

“Prepare to protect your life?” She snapped. “Yes, I do. Some might even say it’s my job as your fucking bodyguard.”

The Deity sighed, as if dealing with a child.

“Please, there are doubtless mystics up ahead. Feeling an Immortal’s magic primed for use tends to leave diplomacy inconvenienced.”

“So does one of the Heralds having a bolt put in his head.”

He chuckled at that, glancing with a sneering amusement back to the nearing figures.

“As if they’d have a chance in eclipseum of drawing a nosebleed from me, even attacking with ten times their number.”

Fariah opened her mouth to speak, but the Deity was soon eying her again.

“Very well, you have my permission to maintain your preparations. Goddess knows what I’d do without you around to mildly inconvenience any attackers powerful enough to actually threaten me.”

She fumed in silence as they cleared the remaining distance. Even after her century of life, dismissal and disregard were the two needles still able to pierce her hide. Menza had wielded them masterfully.

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They were soon close enough that she could see most of the force awaiting them. Numbering more than it had just minutes ago, Fariah realised the mass of people was being fed by a smaller gate standing open just beside the main entrance.

Soldiers exited it in twos and threes, sergeants and officers relaying orders with low, fearful tones. Clearly cautious of making themselves targets. Clearly aware of just what approached their meagre defence.

All had the black skin of Kanans, dark against the dimming sky’s light and hiding their terror. Fariah saw yet more arbalasts, all ready as the first were and all in trembling hands.

Then the dancing of bright cloth caught her gaze, and she turned to study the war mystics mingling with the men.

It was more a menagerie than a force. Barely regimental in size and with perhaps a hundred mystics to bolster the weight of inept flesh making it up. Fariah didn’t even see mounts among them.

There would be no threat after all, she decided. Relaxing slightly.

Menza didn’t hesitate to walk towards the assembled bowmen, grinning with the same ease he always did. Eyes sparkling as he took in the sights.

Here we go. Fariah thought, awaiting for the first stroke from his bladed tongue.

It was interrupted by a woman, short and dark of skin even for a Kanan, adorned with the flamboyance of the other war mystics and carrying a fragile authority in her bearing.

“Identify yourselves, outsiders.” She called out, voice more strongly accented than any but a few others Fariah had heard.

She glared at Menza with open hostility, and Fariah found herself reminded they stood in the wild lands, a place unruled by the Have Empire and populated by many who’d love nothing more than to gut each of its heralds.

Ones who’d surely make no exception for Fariah’s own charge.

“Identify myself.” Menza repeated, voice monotone, face scornful. “You see a tall, pale Deity with silver hair and cyan eyes approaching your city, and you wish me to identify myself. Really.”

The woman said nothing, only shifting slightly on her feet. Menza sighed as though the entire conversation were a bore. As though half thousand weapons raised and held level at his face were beneath notice.

“I am Gilasev Menza.” He announced, voice transforming to that of an orator’s. “Deity, Herald of the Great Have Empire. I request an audience with your leader.”

Hostility hardened the woman’s gaze.

“You name yourself monster and conqueror, why should we grant your request? I would sooner allow entry to a viper.”

Menza seemed unfazed.

“Because I carry a warning, one that you will doubtless find greatly important. This is the home of Malike, the Immortal. Yes?”

The mystic’s silence was confirmation enough.

“Excellent. Then you should know the man you presumably serve is in danger. An assassin comes, one equipped with the means to slay even him. I’ve come to warn you, and set a trap for them.”

Uncertainty flashed on the woman’s face, and Fariah could practically see the gears turn in her head. Seconds passed before she finally spoke again.

“A trick to gain entrance and lower guards. Your story is too convenient by far to be the truth. It would benefit only you that we believe it.”

Fariah felt the rush of Gilasev’s magic at that moment, a gasp escaping her at the abruptness. The man’s body remained as it always was, yet somehow it grew in her sight. Taking on a visage unbecoming of any mortal man. Unbecoming even of any Immortal.

“You’re wasting my time.” He said, voice booming and echoing as if he spoke with hurricanes in place of breath. “And that means you’re wasting your master’s life. I’ve not come for a massacre, but I could easily arrange one if you tempt me. Don’t think this defence you’ve mounted would be enough to even slow my hand.”

The woman stared wide-eyed and gaping as Menza stood, churning the world without so much as a gesture.

Winds howled around them like racing wolves, ground trembling underfoot and air chilling to a painful depth. The display lasted only a minute’s quarter before subsiding. When it cleared, none of the soldiers moved to fire.

“Now then.” Menza continued, voice back within the confines of a mortal’s lungs, “I shall ask you again. May I please have an audience with your master? I do apologise for the short notice.”

The woman’s nod was almost undiscernable amid the terrified trembling of her body. Menza smiled upon receiving it all the same.

“Lovely. Please lead the way, and feel free to bring a retinue of guards. Anything to make you feel more comfortable.”

It didn’t take long into their trekk through the settlement for Fariah to see that its volume far outstripped its width. What she’d expected to be a short walk by way of the thousand-foot diameter soon proved a testing distance as their path turned entirely to labrinthian corridors.

The woman lead them with a hurried gait, as if she secretly hoped to escape. When at last they came to the great double-doors of master’s hall, she practically fled.

“We’ll show ourselves in, thanks.” Gilasev muttered at her back. He glanced at Fariah, grinning that arrogant, lop-sided grin.

“Shall I knock, or will you?”

He didn’t wait to answer, forcing the doors open and strolling into the hall they barred as if it were his own. Fariah followed dutifully, seeing four eyes turn from the room’s end to her charge. Taking the chance to scan the area for threats.

She saw no weapons or traps prepared, even as she funnelled magic to bolstering her sensory prowess. Finding only curtains of silk or panels of ebony and gold. Riches enough to sicken her, yet nothing of ill intent. Nor did her more ephemeral perceptions find hidden pockets of magic that might prove a danger.

Turning back to the man and woman seated at the end of the room, she recognised a pair of mystics on sight.

Powerful enough that it was clear instantly why they felt so comfortable being alone in the room with their visitors.

“Gilasev Menza strolls unannounced into my kingdom, demanding an audience and threatening my guards. What should I make of that?” Spoke the mystic on the right, a woman looking to be in her middle years. Round of face, thin of hair, smoldering of eyes.

She held a respectable power, for a mortal, and seemed to carry all the brittle self certainty that came with it.

“That I have something particularly important to do here, as evidenced by my particularly important presence, and your guards made themselves an inconvenience to me. Oh, and that I was feeling nice.”

Menza’s retort was delivered almost dispassionately, as though his wit were a chore. She’d seen the look on him before, knew it to mean his thoughts were moving deeply and quickly.

“It is not your right to charge unannounced into our territory.” The woman answered, voice growing tight with anger. “We are not a part of the Have Empire, you have no power here. No authority.”

“I never said I did.” Menza answered. “But the message I carry is one that concerns you deeply. I assume you’ve already had it conveyed to you, lady Armana?”

The mystic called Armana bristled.

“I have.” She answered, words seeming almost reluctant to leave her. “And I recognise it for the deceptive nonsense it is. Do you think to manufacture a pretense so lazily?”

“If I wanted a pretense to come here and conquer I’d simply claim to be giving aid to the efforts of Herald Toala, kill your husband and install a replacement of my choice. You overestimate your own importance. I am not here for you.”

“And if we are so insignificant, then why would you be here to prevent my husband’s death any more than you would to cause it?”

Outrage brought volume to Armana’s voice, and Fariah could sense her magic was just a hair from her touch. She prepared for battle, yet Menza remained as icy cool as ever.

“I’m not.” He said. “This is a bigger matter than you, your husband or your settlement. I’m after the God Hunter.”

Silence fell, like the heavens themselves had grown heavier than the sky could hold.

“You lie.” Armana answered, but her voice was a whispering croak without conviction.

Menza answered her almost placidly.

“There are far easier and more believable lies I could use to bend your actions to my will. I speak only the truth. And you know it.”

“Enough!” Rang out the voice of the man seated on the left. Fariah turned to him, studied his robust, combative features. They seemed at odds with the youth betrayed by his ovular visage.

There was power to the young man, she could feel. Greater by no small amount than was held within Armana. Perhaps even pushing into the realm of a Fable.

“You will not insult my mother in such a way, not in her own court. Before her own throne.”

Menza studied the boy quietly. Cool eyes siphoning life from the fire of his anger.

“This is not your mother’s court.” He said. “And that is not her throne.”

The lady Armana remained unfazed, weighty face unmoved by Menza’s words. Her son held not even a tenth of the composure, eyes widening clear as day, tongue running over his lips as he held himself silent.

Fariah knew there was meaning to the reaction, that it had surely confirmed some theory of Menza’s, yet the man moved past the topic without delay. Seeming to merely store the knowledge away for later use in his mind’s ineffable bank.

“You had quite an exceptionally large assembly of guards prepared, especially given the size of this settlement. I’d have guessed at least one in every twenty of your citizenry had awaited us with crossbows loaded. Curious.”

“We knew you were coming.” Snapped the boy. His mother turned to him sharply, with a look that might have sent a younger man to bed.

“What my son means to say is that we’ve lived in eternal preparation for your Empire coming to seize control of our people and induct us into their ranks.”

Menza nodded slowly, seeming to accept the explanation. Speaking without giving any mood or thought away through his face.

“I see. So you have a pre-trained, standing army.”

Both Armana and her fool son nodded. Menza smiled.

“Strange to see one armed so poorly, then. Arbalasts like those are the weapons of brigands and vagrants, given the amount of finery in this very room I’d expect your soldiers to be better equipped.”

Eyes hardened and jaws tightened at Menza’s words, and for a moment Fariah thought the boy might leap from his throne and attack the Deity.

Armana struck him with words before her son could with magic.

“What are you implying, Menza?” She demanded.

If she’d hoped to cow the Deity by drawing his implication to the light, Fariah could only pity the woman. Menzas were rarely at home in the darkness to begin with.

“I’m not implying anything at all.” Menza answered with a smile. “Just remarking on how strange it is that your standing army is worsely equipped than most deserters I’ve seen. And, of course, deducing from that fact that you’re lying through your fucking teeth.”