“Are you sure you can find your way to Northastr?” Berenike asked once more. “It’s a long way to go without flight, through all sorts of winding spirals and loops, and there are strange monsters everywhere…. Are you really sure you don’t want someone with you?”

The kindly warrior had my hand in hers, holding on as though she was afraid to let me go, to face the most dangerous role of the raid alone. Perhaps she was just worried that I’d get myself lost, like a small child in a mall. Given the labyrinthine world beneath the surface of Arcadia it was hard to entirely deny that possibility, but I smiled anyway, trying to look more confident than I felt.

“I’ll move faster alone – I can jump over or smash through whatever I need to that way, and I know I have the stamina. As for finding my way, well I just need to get back to this road, right? After that I’ll have a trail to follow. Even if it takes a lot of running, crawler routes are pretty easy to recognize too, and I can’t miss a great big fortress like the one Ivaldi showed us. I don’t think anything is going to want to get in my way either, given the company I’ll be bringing.”

“Yes, you are the most… scary monster in the Underworld,” Captain Beyla said, in stilted but impressive Cycloan.

The smaller woman stood in the cargo bay alongside the other Pharyes, elevating her to our eye-level.

Berenike gave a laugh at her words, as did Sulis, and several others among my rescuers from the surface.

Gathered there, in an open cavern where multiple magma tubes, dried up rivers and burrowed paths met, they were giving me a warm sending-off, having disembarked for us to share our goodbyes.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I replied in sardonic Pharynx. “Just make sure you take care of everyone else until I get back. I’m counting on all of you, you too Ivaldi, Uldmar.”

Although they had all come to see me off, the latter gave me an unimpressed look that made me wonder if he really expected me to say ‘Lord Uldmar’ as though I was a maid servant in some period drama. I never found out however, as Ivaldi stepped forward, hands outstretched in the same open-palmed gesture he’d shown me before.

“Safkhet,” he said, his voice a little higher than usual. “R-remember to search for the beacons we’re leaving, the essence signatures will be set to pulse-”

“It’s alright,” I said, smiling at the anxiety on his face. “I’m glad you’re worried about me, but you don’t have to fret. I survived the kajatora, didn’t I?”

“Indeed, Lady Safkhet may be in the least danger of any in this raid,” Uldmar spoke, stern as ever. “Regardless, let us wish you the best of fortune in your mission. Much depends on you.”

“I won’t let you down,” was all I could think to say to response to so stiff a farewell.

I just hoped I was telling the truth.

“Don’t get eaten by monsters either,” Sulis said insistently, her cool, soft hands catching my own. “Gastores would miss you.”

“And you?”

“He would miss me as well,” Sulis replied, grinning.

“We’d both miss you,” Gastores interjected, smiling. “So don’t try to be a hero and end up in trouble again, otherwise we’ll have to come rescue you for a second time.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t,” I answered, looking between the gorgeous aquatic girl and her cyclopean boyfriend. “This time I’ll be the one saving you both.”

“Just don’t show up with my spare clothes in tatters,” Patch warned me, the older huntress giving me a testy look.

“I’ll… do my best. I promise.”

The beastfolk woman gave me a look that told me exactly what she made of that weak-spirited vow.

“They get ruined and I’ll be looking to that Empress girlfriend of yours for new ones.”

“I’m sure Aellope would be happy to get you some replacements,” I said, even as I felt my cheeks tingle with a familiar sensation. “But… she really isn’t my girlfriend. I mean… I don’t know what she is now.... She might still be pretty angry with me for running off on her….”

Patch just rolled her eyes, leaving the matter there.

“Forget about that for now, Saf,” Berenike said, her tone serious. “Lover or friend, you can make things up when this is all over. Right now you need to focus on not getting yourself hurt – and getting back to us on time.”

The Valkyrie captain’s plumage sat low, her tail curled unhappily as she spoke.

“Don’t worry,” I said, gripping her forearms in my hands. “You saved me once, Berenike, so I’ll be sure to return the favor. To you and to everyone. There’s no way I’m letting anything happen to friends willing to risk their lives for me. You just make sure everyone is safe and sound when I reach you, okay? Yourself included!”

I could feel the tears pushing through my eyes as I spoke, and for a moment I tried to hold them back. Berenike had seen enough of my sobbing, I thought.

Then I saw the look on her face, the momentary quiver on her lip and the single trickle from her left eye.

How absurd I was, trying not to cry in front of everyone yet again….

Tears flowed freely as I pulled Berenike into my arms once again, something between laughter and sobs shaking me as I held her tight. For a moment she was stiff, as if she too was wrestling with embarrassment, but soon I felt the familiar sensation of wings around me, and her tail about my legs.

Truly, harpies gave the absolute best hugs.

“Thank you so much, Berenike,” I murmured in her ear as I held her, and she me. “For everything. For taking a chance on me at the Eyrie, and for being a good friend back then, and for taking an even bigger chance now, and being an even better friend this time around.”

“Just… come back to us safe, alright?”

“I will. Take care of Echo for me until I’m back, okay? Protect them as if they were me.”

“I’ll guard them with my life.”

~~~

It had all seemed simple in my head, but the moment of my departure proved harder than I ever imagined. Tearing myself away from everyone, leaving Echo, leaving Berenike and Nefret, Gastores and Sulis, Ivaldi and Beyla… even Uldmar… the partings stung, and my feet felt heavy and sluggish as I traversed the dim road ahead. It wasn’t just the knee-high flow of an underground river which pulled at me. The thought kept echoing in the solitude of my mind; it wasn’t too late to go back to them.

They would understand… would forgive me the change of heart. Most had opposed the idea of parting on this mission to begin with, of sending me into danger for their sakes. They were good, kind people, and their fears for me were sincere and heartfelt.

I hadn’t known any of them long, but risking our lives for one another brought a strength of connection I had never known before. Admittedly, not all got on well with me, and others were mere faces to me thus far, but even if I could count only Echo, Berenike and Ivaldi to reciprocate my friendship, they were truer, realer and more precious friends than anyone I’d known in my past life.

Running through the gloom the glows of innumerable leaves blurred, then rippled around me as tears flowed from my eyes once more.

Surely I had shed more tears in my short life in Arcadia than in all my years on Earth.

Shame bubbled up from the murk of those cold and lonely days, bringing with it his image.

The man I had pretended to be.

The wretched prison in which I had entombed my emotions, my very self… wrought in the image of the man who called himself my father.

That alone should have been enough to choke the grief from my face, to strangle out my tears… yet somehow, short as the time had been, he… they… felt so very far away now.

Those images, those people… they were a breath of buried prehistory, freed from the eons of sediment for just a moment to wash over me like stale, dead air.

I didn’t have to fear feeling. I need not be shamed by my grief, my sorrow, my vulnerability.

That was thanks to them, to my friends and this world… my second chance at being me. The real me this time… even if I was still figuring out who she was.

They were people worth fighting for. Worth risking for. More than that, they were people worth returning to, no matter what.

My fingers clenched into small, hard fists as I sped past the Underworld scenery, over strange monsters and beneath bridges and walkways of chitin that wove through the space like a road.

A stray pack of formorians chittered in shock and anger at the water’s edge, but with a kick of my legs I soared over them, leaving them far behind in the twists of the great tunnel.

More and more of the terrain I passed through was infected with the black growths, layers of chitin and other organic material that formed a patchwork growing thicker the further I went, like an alien landscape… one which was alive. It was as though I was entering the body of some titanic creature, of which the Formorians themselves were mere blood cells or antibodies.

I had wondered if the site of the hive would be consumed entirely, a whole cavern remade into the belly of a beast of unimaginable scale… but it seemed even the Formorians couldn’t subsume so great a volume.

Ahead multifaceted rays of brighter light shone into the tunnel from the vastness of the cavern beyond. A moment later I was bathed in the radiance of a million leaves, dazzling neon hues flooding the swamplands and illuminating the grazing herds of fungal beasts and their formorian shepherds.

Somehow, I had never imagined that the Formorians would keep other creatures as livestock. The thought of the nightmare creatures of arms and horns rearing cattle, nurturing animals and tending to their needs… was difficult to process.

Yet the reality was unmistakable.

Gaunt, skeletal faces peered out from halos of thorns as I passed by, emerging from shell-like structures, miniature hives of black chitin amid the mire – or more often retreating into them in fear. Outside some were tools and supplies, piled up on dry patches of rock and earth, and I saw woven casks like packs or saddlebags, designed perhaps to be worn around the spines that lined their backs.

These were working farmsteads, and they were homes.

In the distance behind me I could still hear the patrols I’d passed, spitting and clacking in anger and malice, yet those ahead were different. Smaller, shorter and softer bodies moved anxiously, giving off plumes of dark gas and darting for cover as though fleeing for their lives, while larger, muscular figures lumbered away on their countless arms like frightened farm animals.

Despite their differing scales and shapes all were clearly formorian. Could there be different castes of formorians, I wondered, like the ants of Earth? I had been too frightened in my first encounter to observe the bodies of my attackers – and workers wouldn’t have been sent to fight off an intruder anyway – but it was certainly possible. There was a great deal I didn’t know about the Formorians. There was a great deal no-one knew save they themselves.

The Formorians were atrocious beings, an expanding horde viscerally frightful and malicious to all… yet they were possessed of minds… of intelligence and emotion. The Mycoth could even reason with them, form a peaceful association….

Now… I planned to slaughter them, likely in their hundreds.

I wouldn’t strike the blows or cast the spells which would end their lives, but I would bring them about, with my intent and for my ends.

As fierce and single-minded as they were in their devotion to my death, they still found some value in their own lives, however alien and incomprehensible they might seem to me.

If I was worth saving… if the helpless and fragile cube that was all that remained of Echo was alive, real and precious and as much a person as anyone… could I really tell myself that the Formorians were any different, simply because I couldn’t speak to them? Or because right now they were my enemy?

So too had been the Pharyes, yet I couldn’t imagine using them so easily.

I could tell myself it was for the best, that I was doing the Underworld a favor in destroying as many Formorians as possible. Certainly it was hard to imagine a peaceful resolution to their endless war against the other species of the realm, or that they would ever tolerate the lives of beings such as the Pharyes.

Perhaps then this plan, this destruction, was good. Better to destroy the brutal and intolerant than allow them to destroy us.

I couldn’t refute that thought.

But nor was that why I’d come to their homes.

I wasn’t invading their territory to purge the evil of their xenophobic, genocidal species and save the peaceful peoples of the depths.

I was there to sacrifice them.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Reaching the top of a hill amid the wetlands I looked out from among the thick, humid undergrowth of broad leaves and bladed grasses.

Ahead, the colossal edifice of the hive grew from the rock of the cavern like shrapnel from a necrotizing wound, a vast monolith of coiled organic spires and arcs, beautiful in its sinister and otherworldly malice, tendrils of chitin extending out in all directions like veins.

Formorian travelers scuttled along the larger of them, the arterial roads which linked the hive to its surrounding lands, each a living cog in the mechanisms of a civilization as vast and complex as it was alien.

The various elements of my pursuit were stretched out between minutes and hours behind me, and the thousands of lives within the hive before me were unaware of my presence. Or at least, if they were tracking their death mark, they had yet to realize I was so close.

Judging by the sheer scale of many of the orifices lining the walls, dozens of formorians could come and go at a time – it was a far greater structure than the one in which I’d awoken so long ago.

I shuddered at the thought of just how many would soon be issuing to hunt me down.

I had to save my friends, and their loved ones. Even if it meant abusing the nature of these beings, leading them to destruction.

“I’m sorry.”

I began to incant my spell.

~~~

Any who saw the raging storm that rolled up the Hronaram Gulf and into the mountains some three days past might well have expected it to engulf the mountaintops just as it had the foothills, but the rampaging formation had dashed itself against the colossal body of the Cyclopean Bones, scattering into a layer of cloud and rain that flowed west over the human and beastfolk nations, while not even the least trace of the heavy weather reached as far south as Skycrown and the heart of the Empire.

Instead the Eyrie was baking in the noon heat, the ground of the Great Basin dry and dusty, earth parched and cracking. Most of the palace was enjoying their traditional siesta, escaping the hottest hours of the day, and so far as anyone knew, Agytha and the others were too.

“Can’t be,” Chione muttered, shaking her head slowly, as if in a daze. “First Ramhorn an’ now this…. It’s gotta be a mistake!”

“I’m telling you its true, sister sent word with one of the deliveries this morning,” the slight grey girl replied.

“Out the way!” bellowed a giant ogre, driving a huge cart down the narrow street.

The two handmaidens were pulled back by the powerful arms of their companion, pressed against the walls of the mud and stone dwellings lining the way. Other harpies, beastfolk and ogres similarly dodged back.

Drawn by a giant ram, the vehicle clattered past, mining tools loaded into the back creating a cacophony whenever it hit one of the many bumps or pits in the unpaved dirt road.

“Thank you, Karlya,” Agytha said, looking up at the taller figure of their ally and guardian.

“No names now, girls,” the stern Valkyrie replied, her deep, rough voice muted. “We don’t want to be recognized.”

Agytha wondered for a moment whether a name of all things would give away the imposing muscular warrior woman – covered in scars, with one eye pale and sightless, and a belt at her hip with daggers and a sword, she was far from the usual denizen of the Great Basin.

Not that Valkyries never ventured into the streets where the smallfolk made their homes. Karlya herself was lowborn after all, and could well be expected to visit her family or friends from time to time.

Chione barely seemed to notice the warning, or indeed the near miss, continuing their conversation as they came out into a small square.

“Aggy, I’m tellin’ you this jus’ ain’t possible. The Rootflood’s massive!”

The women around one of the grain stores had turned their heads at the noise, as did a few flying overhead, but dusty and unadorned by any accessories of value, Agytha and Chione looked no different to the other lowborn harpies of the Basin. Seeing the look on the tan-feathered Valkyrie’s dark-skinned face, the women flew on or retreated into the squat, square granary building, a simple structure of stone that shielded against the worst of the sun and kept food stores cool and dry.

Normally the lowborn would have also been napping, but for the workers down in the basin there was too much to do – war had doubled their usual work. There were food supplies to distribute, buildings to clean, repairs to make, crops to water… and now excavations to assist in too. In the Stormqueen’s absence the court seemed intent on working the smallfolk to death, but there was little room for objection, given that it was all for the defense of the Eyrie.

Agytha pulled Chione away, down the alleys between the buildings, before anyone else could notice them.

“Karlya warned us, did she not? Keep your voice down,” Agytha murmured as they walked together. “The purpose of meeting here was to avoid being seen or followed. We cannot allow the courtiers to find out.”

It was one thing for a Valkyrie to be seen walking the streets, but if word got back to the nobles of Karlya in particular, moving around with the handmaidens of the Stormqueen during the height of the day when they should have been resting… well that was sure to raise questions in those of sharper mind… such as Lady Ventora.

Chione nodded. “I get it, I get it… but… the entire Rootflood? Are they serious about this? Going it alone I mean?”

“The Rootflood’s a strange place,” Karlya declared, at their back. “I’ve been all over the mountains, but doesn’t feel the same there. Might just be the low altitude and sea air, but the people felt different too.”

“Sister told me that the salt air makes the women strange,” Agytha said uncertainly, “they fly out into the ocean for days at a time, and they even dive and swim like fish.”

“That they do. Shocked me the first time I saw it, let me tell you,” Karlya said, with a low, throaty laugh. “I saw them flying along, then whoosh, down they went, right into the water like arrows….”

“This ain’t jus’ about salty feathers though,” Chione hissed, “this is… it’s a rebellion! An’ not the sort we’re plannin’! This carries on and there won’t be an Empire left to save!”

“That’s right,” Agytha replied, jaw clenched. “I think that’s why Diantha agreed to meet with us.”

“You sure she din’t jus’ tell Lady Shedet everything? She chose the place too, could be a trap….”

“No-one hates Lady Ventora more than Lady Shedet – they’ve been rivals at court since before our mothers hatched, and she’s the one holding the Stormqueen’s faction together now. If Diantha told her she would be certain to try to use this opportunity against Lady Ventora’s faction.”

“Well what if she don’t see things our way after we explain? We really gonna… do her in?”

Agytha would have rolled her eyes – they’d discussed the plan well in advance after all – only now that they were actually treading the dirty, narrow streets on their way to the meeting it all felt much more real. If things went awry it could mean lives – their own or Diantha’s.

“That’s what I’m here for,” Karlya said simply. “If we have to silence her, I’ll take care of it. You girls just think about how to make sure it doesn’t come to that.”

The way the Valkyrie patted their shoulders reminded Agytha somehow of Safkhet, and how the human girl had come so suddenly into her life, and so rapidly become someone very important to her. A trusted friend, an ally and a supporter against the struggles of palace life.

The simple woes of that time felt very distant now.

Reaching the end of another street, they passed a heap of spoil, the debris from yet another mine shaft sunk in the last few days. Smallfolk and non-harpies were hard at work shoveling it into wagons, but none spared a glance for the two handmaidens.

“How much diggin’ they doin’ down there?” Chione asked. “Ain’t they just warning tunnels?”

“The deeper they’re sunk the more warning we’ll have of an enemy attack,” Karlya said.

“Still seems like a lotta rubble,” Chione mused.

“Focus now, we only have once chance with Diantha.”

It was worse than that, Agytha reflected, as they moved down the steps into a sunken courtyard. The Witch Laureate was crucial to their organizing, but if Diantha’s investigations continued Shukra would be forced to suspend her messaging magic lest she expose herself.

A pet caria was sunning itself on the stone, tail twitching as it dozed in the heat, but it lept to its four feet and up into the air in dismay as the stiff iron hinges of the door creaked.

The cut stone floor of the room was cold after the baking streets above, and with the wooden shutters closed it was shockingly dark. Their eyes adjusted quickly, but for a moment Agytha was quite blind.

The woman awaiting them was similarly afflicted, but in Diantha’s case the impairment of her vision was permanent.

She was seated at a small, rickety old table, but Agytha knew her height to be between her own and Chione. Despite that Diantha was thinner than either, scrawny and frail, more feather than flesh. That brown and orange speckled plumage showed dust from her own passage through the streets of the Basin, and her features were just a little too emaciated to be pretty to Agytha’s eye. It was hard not to feel sorry for the woman.

So too was it hard believe how much depended on her decision.

“Thank you for coming,” she said quietly. “Please, take a seat.”

She and Chione lowered themselves onto uneven stools, which rocked slightly on the imperfect surface of the old storeroom, while Karlya stood by the door, some steps back.

“Thank you for agreeing to meet with us,” Agytha replied.

“It’s only my duty to Lady Shedet,” the older woman replied.

“Are we safe to talk here?” Karlya asked.

“Oh, yes, this is my aunt’s home. Her whole family have lived here for generations… although they’re at work digging today.”

“You trust her?”

“Of course,” the woman responded, tilting her head up at the Valkyrie with a reproachful look.

“And no-one knows you came here? Or followed you?”

Diantha shifted uncomfortably on her seat. “I did as you asked… but I can’t promise you no-one followed me, given my sight it is… hard to distinguish faces at a distance.”

“That’ll do,” Karlya said. “Sorry to press you, but as you can imagine, we had to be careful.”

“Of course, but… how did you know to come to me with this?”

Agytha spoke up to answer her. “Masika told us about Lady Shedet’s theory of conspiracy with the enemy, and that you were hunting for the suspected traitors.”

Diantha gave a nod.

“But to insist on a meeting in secret, without informing even Lady Shedet…. And to bring a Valkyrie of Miss Karlya’s stature as your chaperone…. Just what is it that you know?”

When she spoke she seldom looked one in the eye, instead turning her head slightly as if to hear the better. Contradictorily, it made Agytha feel as though she saw through everything the girl said.

Agytha gulped, her mouth suddenly painfully dry in the dusty air, flecks of grit like sandpaper torturing her throat.

“We… believe we know the origin of the spell you’ve observed,” she said slowly, “and… the identity of the ringleader, plotting against the Throne.”

Diantha gave a long, soft exhalation. “You were right to be cautious… your lives would be in danger if anyone knew about this. We must go to Lady Shedet at once-”

Outside there was a chirrup of alarm, and a patter of wings, audible through the shutters opposite the door.

The four women all turned to the window, in time to see a mass of fur and feather burst through.

Landing atop a barrel under the window, a scraggly old caria gave a hiss, the plumage lining it’s shoulders and back standing upright.

Karlya was the first to relax.

“Just a pet,” she said, her hand relaxing its grip on the short sword at her hip.

“W-wait…” Diantha said, raising her fragile hand. “I… something is wrong here. I didn’t see it at first, I thought it was just Kolys, sunning himself on the windowsill outside…. But I can see a second body of essence!”

A blur of feathers moved up from below the windowframe as she spoke, faster by far than the first.

Karlya’s sword slashed through the packed mud of the window-sill and clashed with a metallic ring.

Outside a figure rose on her wings, leaping into the air to escape, even as something shone in her hand.

Karlya’s tail whipped out at Diantha’s throat, and with a spark the metal dagger was knocked from its course, embedding itself instead in the tabletop between the girl’s hands.

The Valkyrie was already jumping out through the window, and up into the air after the fleeing spy.

Rushing after the women, Agytha watched in astonishment from the ruined window as Karlya caught the other in a single rush, mana glittering from her feathers as the old warrior made a supernatural ascent.

Realizing she was caught, the other turned and swooped back at her pursuer.

In the instant before their clash her black feathers glinted, then her hands struck like the jaws of a serpent.

Karlya’s blade knocked back the first knife, while her tail deflected the second.

Her foe wore a look of triumph as her own tail slipped between her wings, spearing through her feathers towards Karlya’s exposed flank.

The Valkyrie’s sword was already returning after knocking the dagger from her hand.

The weapon cleaved through yellow scales, severing the tail below the bony head of her stinger.

With a cry of pain the black-clad woman pressed in, gripping her remaining dagger with both hands and driving it at Karlya’s breast.

Karlya guarded herself with her own tail, but the other pushed on, impaling herself on the Valkyrie’s lance of bone.

Her weapon grazed Karlya’s neck, the tip raking a red gash in her brown skin.

The look of triumph on the woman’s face died as Karlya’s blade did what her own could not, returning with impossible speed to open her throat with a rush of lifeblood.

Entangled, the two fell together back down, to the ground of the courtyard.

“Karlya!” Agytha screamed, vaulting the window as she rushed to the woman.

Blood drenched her chest and shoulder. Agytha felt sick at the sight of it, her head pounding.

“Oh no, no no no! Chione, get a healer!”

“No, I’m fine,” the warrior proclaimed, pushing the crumpled form of her assailing away. “Most of its hers.”

At some point her sword had been buried in the chest of the ill-fated woman, to one side of the freely-bleeding puncture from Karlya’s tail strike, but the terrible gash in her neck had surely sealed her fate.

“You’re hurt too though,” Agytha said, her voice small with fright.

Sitting up, the Valkyrie scanned the sky, rooftops, windows and doors. Once satisfied she held a hand up to her neck, and inspected the blood adhering to it.

“Don’t make a ruckus now, it’s only a scrape. I’ve had worse in the training arena. I can bind it up, and get it seen to later.”

Agytha nodded reluctantly, as Chione arrived at their side, having exited via the door.

“Looks like more’n a scratch for her though, huh?” the girl observed. “She… dead?”

Karlya nodded, then rose to her feet and tugged her weapon from the body of the fallen foe. A pool was spreading around the figure of the other harpy, who lay crumpled and immobile, bleeding from three lethal wounds.

“You… you killed her,” Agytha said, her voice trembling, as were her hands.

“Yeah… sorry, she was better than I expected. Didn’t have a chance to take her alive. But we’re lucky, no-one was passing overhead,” Karlya explained… as though that were somehow the only issue with killing a person in broad daylight.

There was a horrible paleness to the frozen face of the young woman, only a few decades the elder of Agytha herself.

Her mouth hung open, blood trailing from her still lips, which had been animate moments before. She looked as if she could sit up again at any moment, blink those deep green eyes and wipe clean those narrow cheeks, but they would never move again, to smile or blush, or to snarl and shout.

Everything was over for her.

“Who… was she,” Agytha asked no-one in particular.

“I don’t know her face,” Karlya said, “so not a Valkyrie, but from her abilities she was well trained. She was probably one of the personal retainers of a noble lady. There’s no way to tell who now.”

Agytha wondered to herself if the slain woman would really consider her demise a price worth paying to serve her noble mistress. It was hard to imagine she would have.

“Diantha,” Karlya went on, “if this is your aunt’s place, you think we could hide this body here? We have to get it out of sight fast, and if Ventora finds out she’s dead we really don’t want anyone working out what happened to her.”

Standing in the window in a daze, Diantha took several seconds to react to the question.

“I… yes… I suppose that you’re right. Please put her… put it in the cellar. Down those steps.”

“We… should do something about all the blood… there’s so much of it…,” Agytha observed.

“I’ll fetch some pails… if you girls could help me fill them?” Diantha suggested.

After her initial shock, almost being killed, then seeing the death of another, the girl had recovered impressively quickly – faster than Agytha herself to be sure.

“W-wait. There’s no need to use the rainwater reserves, I’ll conjure some,” Agytha suggested.

Using her magic to wash away the evidence of the crime also gave her time to compose herself. Violent and shocking as the attack was, a rebellion against the highborn could well mean many more such deaths.

Their plan aimed to prevent it, to thwart Ventora’s coup and depose the nobles without warfare or killings, but she had to be prepared for that risk. Prepared to risk her life, and the lives of others, and prepared to see lives ended in the cause of freedom for the misused and silenced smallfolk.

It was certain that the nobles would have no such compunctions in slaying lowborn harpies, ogres, naga or beastfolk in order to maintain their roosts and their dominion over their supposed lessers. They were willing to sacrifice them even for this, as disposable spies to hunt down and murder those who might oppose them.

Little wonder that the Rootflood sought independence.

By the time the evidence of the clash was cleaned up Agytha was calm once more. She was no Valkyrie, but she could do what need be done. She had to.

As for the traces of fighting, the windowsill was ruined, the mud split apart and a chunk cleaved from one of the shutters, but there was nothing they could do to hide that. Diantha’s family would have to do something about that later. All traces of blood or bodies were gone however, and Karlya had wrapped the cut on her neck with a strip of cloth taken from the family pantry.

It was growing worryingly late, the sun lowering and the heat abating enough that the absence of two handmaidens would soon be noticed, but even so the women reconvened in the same room where they had earlier met to resume their talk. This might be their only chance.

“I never… imagined such a thing would happen here, in the Eyrie,” Diantha said under her breath. “We have to go to Lady Shedet and the court at once….”

“That’s the last thing you should do,” Karlya retorted.

“But why? Taken alongside the magic I saw this is proof of the conspiracy!”

“Right, but… what are they doing it for though?”

Diantha turned her head as Chione spoke, bringing her ear to bear more closely on the thickerset girl.

“Excuse me?”

“I mean, these nobles, what they got to gain? Betrayin’ us all to the enemy, getting’ girls like that one dead. They mus’ have a deal, right? They’re getting’ something outta this for themselves, an’ they’re willin’ to sacrifice the lives of us lowborn for it.”

“Yes, I believe so,” the older woman replied. “But what are you suggesting?”

“Well ain’t that just every highborn then?”

Diantha’s brow furrowed. Chione went on, speaking with an impassioned eloquence and confidence that was a marvel to Agytha’s ears.

“Sure one of them’s betrayin’ us to the enemy now. Maybe more’n one. But are the rest treatin’ us that much better? They’re all havin’ a siesta, an’ here in Basin the smallfolk’re haulin’ rocks and breaking their backs diggin’ to keep this place safe.”

“What are you trying to say? What is it you know, Miss Chione?” Diantha demanded.

“The conspiracy you’re lookin’ for. That’s us.”

Diantha’s jaw dropped at the bluntness of the declaration.

“We’re not the ones leaking information to the enemy,” Agytha said hurriedly. “But if that’s happening… it’s not through the magic you detected. What you were seeing is our messages, communicating with the smallfolk, both around the Eyrie and around the Empire.”

“I… don’t understand.”

“When the Stormqueen disappeared the nobles took control of the Empire, but… do you really think Lady Ventora is satisfied with leading the court until the Empress returns? She and her supporters… they’ve been working to undermine the Stormqueen’s power for a long time, and now that she’s gone they mean to make sure she never reclaims the throne, and she may even be working with the enemy to make it happen, and make herself Stormqueen instead!”

“And so you have… been….”

“Planning a countercoup. An insurrection against the nobles.”

“That’s treason,” Diantha whispered.

“Your eyes may be poor, but I know that you aren’t blind,” Agytha replied. “You saw the knife that woman threw at your neck. The mark’s still there in the table. That’s all the nobles see us as, tools to use, and dispose of. That’s all she was too. A disposable lowborn whose mistress sent her to tail you, or kill you if need be.”

“But… not all nobles are like that. Lady Shedet took me in, gave me a place serving her in the palace….”

Chione gave a sharp snort of disgust. “Sure she took you in, ‘cause you’re useful! But look around you here in Basin! Nobles got your own fam’ly diggin’ to keep them safe, while they’re all asleep ‘cause it’s too hot in the palace. Come night, your family get grain an’ scraps of meat, and Ventora and Shedet an’ all their lot feast on ram an’ fresh fish and fruits, everythin’ you could want! It’s sick, an’ it’s gotta change!”

“But… we could… we could persuade Lady Shedet, she could help us!”

“Not a chance,” Karlya spoke, tone leaving no room for argument. “Marshall Arawn’s told me all about her. Shedet’s faction may be loyal to the Empress, but she loves power as much as anyone on Ventora’s side. She’d never agree to give up her position.”

“Even if she might help us, we can’t take that chance,” Agytha added. “When this is all over, if Lady Shedet is willing to work with us, she can help establish a new order, a fairer system where we all have a say, but for the moment the danger in telling her is too great.”

“Wh-what about the Stormqueen? Aren’t you her own attendants?” Diantha asked, voice faint.

“Sure are, an’ when she gets back we’ll welcome her with open arms…. But she ain’t here now, an’ when she was all this stuff still went on. She’s a good person, kind, carin’ an’ always doin’ her best for everyone, but one woman can’t fix th’ whole Empire, even if she is an Empress. We gotta do it ourselves. Everyone, together.”

“It’s the only way we can stop the nobles, and the only way we can end their exploitation,” Agytha said.

Taking Diantha’s hand in her own she looked up at the other woman.

“Please, help us. We’ve already come so far, gathered so much support… but if you were to report on us now, and tell Lady Shedet, it would destroy any chance of change for the Empire. And any chance of stopping the coup.”

Diantha sunk into her seat, looking thinner than ever, her face haggard and fraught.

“I have no choice…,” she said quietly.

“Then you’ll-”

“I don’t… know if I can help you,” she said quickly. “But… I won’t report your actions. I’ll keep searching for some sign of betrayal from Lady Ventora and the other nobles, and… when I sense messages from your people, I won’t speak of it to anyone…. Even Lady Shedet.”

“Thank you,” Agytha whispered, the tightness in her chest finally noticeable as it released. “Thank you, Diantha.”

Even if she didn’t become their co-conspirator, reopening their magical lines of conspiracy was salvation for the nascent rebels.

Agytha could have hugged the older woman.

~~~

Flames washed over the black towers of the Formorian hive, melting chitin and loosing bubbling hisses of gas like screams and wails at the bombardment… as though the hive were itself alive and in pain.

My assault had sent the denizens of the edifice scurrying, some fleeing inside, others pouring out, organized chaos taking hold in seconds after the first fireball. Each had been painstakingly aimed and controlled, to ensure no individual would be engulfed in the flames, but naturally they couldn’t ignore my mystical bombardment of their fortress home, and indeed the mouths of the giant carapace castle were disgorging the hordes already.

A few more spells, a shout or two from the distance to ensure all understood their foe to be the branded criminal they had so doggedly hunted through the depths, and it would be time to make good my retreat.

I hesitated however, as I felt a shudder run through the ground underfoot.

Thousands of feet from the hive as I was, surely the ructions I’d caused within couldn’t shake the very bedrock of the Underworld at such distance….

The thought perished as I saw the form emerging before me.

A shape climbing up and out of the hive, squeezing through a mouth I’d thought made for a hundred to pass abreast, carrying titanic weight on a forest of limbs taller than real trees.

Any thought of further antagonism was forgotten as I turned, putting all possible strength into my legs to leap away.

Landing I sprinted flat out, fleeing the nightmare that made even the land tremble.

My feet were gouging into the rock, but even so I could hear it behind me, strides many times my own giving it speed.

Everyone was counting on me, the plan was hinging on me, on my careful execution of my role, but in that moment I simply ran for my life.