The travelers finally spread their cots off the road, where two massive water wheels stood grave markings. All that remained of the adjacent settlement were a few stone foundations jutting up from the sand. Only one wheel still turned with the river. The overlapping spokes creaked as it rotated on its jagged stone axel. The morning light hurled the wheels’ shadows over the steppes, stretching their lattice edges.

The rising daylight did not disturb the Mage or the Sargons, but Alize could not muster any sleepiness so long after the dawn. Though her fatigue tugged at her eyelids, she wrapped her cape around her and lumbered out of her cot to begin her exercises.

To warm her stiff arms and legs, Alize started her fastest routine. Soon she discarded her cape. She used her body weight alone for her exercises, first to strengthen her arms, then her torso and her legs until her muscles burned. We must hone our strength to repel Sargons. Alize shook free of that thought and glanced at her sleeping companions.

Davram was snoring slightly. Not exactly threatening.

Sweating, Alize progressed to her punches. She used her fist like a whip for fast impact before thrusting forward to drive her second punch with the full force of her upper body. A Sargon’s helmet will protect his face, but he is vulnerable under his chin and at the base of his neck. Alize crouched slightly to angle her punches upwards. A fast attack could force the Sargon backwards, and grant her more time before he could draw his sword. Alize rotated her body, elbow raised and pivoted on her front foot to give her hook punch more propulsion. Pummel his temple, then catch him in the jaw as he falls.

Fist still high, Alize faltered in her movement. In her mind, she had seen Kell’s face instead of the Sargon helmet. His fists had not been raised. Slightly disturbed, Alize dropped her hands.

Instead, she began the next round of exercises with her dagger. For close combat, jab forward with the blade and keep your guard up against retaliation. Sargon armor is weakest in the shoulders and armpits. Alize repeated the same exercises she had always done, darting forward with her blade and dragging it through an imaginary seam in the air. Stab deep enough so he cannot chase you. Alize pictured the Sargons from her nightmares, but again her gaze swept over her companions. These strikes would inflict damage far worse than the wound Alize had tended on Kell’s arm. Her limbs felt awkward, her movements forced, and she ceased to relish the exercise.

Instead she felt flustered. These were the exercises she performed every day, her own powerful grounding to the Hrumi world even when she was alone on the shores of the Inland Sea. The presence of Davram and Kell should not impact her routines; she should not allow them to impact them.

She braced her body and started again, this time pushing all the unresolved thoughts from her mind.

Alize moved through her exercises until her fingertips flushed red, until her veins strained against her skin as raised rivers threading through a desert. Only when she had forgiven herself for her initial reservation did she stop to rest by the fire Onder had started.

The Mage bent his head when Alize acknowledged him. She was still panting, in contrast with his relaxed expression and slow movements. After her disorderly morning routine, Alize wondered where Onder found his quietude in the depths of the steppes.

“We can let Davram and Kell sleep some more,” he spoke, nodding to the where they still lay under thin woolen blankets. The fire crackled and sputtered while it battled the wind and Alize blinked smoke from her eyes. Around her the stunted grassess tossed in shifting patterns that forced the stalks to collide and divide like the surface of a choppy sea.

A strand of hair flicked free of Alize’s braids and she pushed it back behind her ear. Her exercises had not relaxed her. She sought familiarity in the setting around her, but there was only the wind and the stale autumn air. On the treeless steppes, neither provided solace.

Onder passed her some bread and dusted the crumbs on his robe.

Alize turned the roll in her hands, her mind already elsewhere. “Can I see the magic you removed from me last night?”

Onder raised his eyebrows but nodded. After some fumbling in his robes, he produced a narrow glass vial identical to the one he had previously shown Alize.

“The Conjurer carried the same two intertwining magics as the one in the forest,” he said. He spewed some bread from his mouth as he spoke, then smiled apologetically.

Alize accepted the vial with tense fingers. The gray and the white magics writhed in the glass, receding and erupting anew. It was the same rhythm as waves on a shore, or a mind trying to ignore the loneliness that haunted it. Alize handed it back to Onder quickly.

Onder locked his eyes on hers. “Can you think of anything to tell me, Alize, that might explain why those men pursued you?”

The wind tossed Alize’s hair in front of her face once more. Hunching, she began to unravel her braids. Though the movements were ones she had done a thousand times, her fingers seemed slow to work.

She could think of many things to tell the Mage – but her ability to interpret the trees might interest him for the same reasons Hesna feared it would beguile Celillie. She could tell him how Celillie had renounced her, or of her unexplained headaches that preceded the earthquakes. But these secrets Alize wanted kept private until she herself understood them. She already felt like she had so little control.

Justifications came to Alize easily enough: since Celillie experienced the headaches too, they were not unique to Alize, and the renunciation was an internal Hrumi matter. And the trees had never been anyone’s business but her own.

Instead of answering, she tilted her chin upwards. “With all your whispers, Master Mage, I wonder if it is you who owes me an explanation.”

Onder scrutinized her for a moment, and then tilted backwards slightly and grasped his knees. “Perhaps you’re right,” he sighed. “You’ll have bear with me.” He swept his hand over the fire and looked to the horizon.

Alize continued braiding her hair while she waited for him to begin. She could feel her hands begin to ease.

“The rulers of the Silver City were never contenders for the Parousia throne. It’s possible the Ginmae were not even related to Parousia’s High Princes – the Ginmae rule over their plateau may have predated Parousia’s founding. And then, over a decade ago, the every last Ginmae was hunted and killed in the springtime. Now their capital city languishes in ruins from the destruction the Kogaloks have wrought there.”

Though Alize saw no connections in Onder’s words, she nodded. She knew the story well. She spoke to confirm this to Onder. “The Ginmae prince offered sanctuary to the Kogaloks. No one knew then their depravities. It’s a sad story.”

“It is.” Onder stole a glance at Alize. “And what do you know about the Sun Temple?”

Alize dropped her hands in their motion. Not this again. “I feel like our conversations go in circles Master Mage and you never tell me anything!”

“Please, bear with me. You know more than most, so I don’t want to bore you with repetition.”

Alize sighed. “The Temple sits on the edge of the eastern plateau, just at the rise of the Ginmae steppes. It was Rehsan’s seat of power, nearly a thousand years ago.” Alize watched the fire contort. It moved like a lithe body, both certain and uncertain in its dance. “There was real power, back then.”

“Well, whatever you think of the current Priestess, the tremors that began in the spring indicate that she may expel the same power that Rehsan did.”

Alize shook her head, impatient with the Onder’s steadfast convictions. Beliefs could not craft reality. Sometimes they could not even capture it.

“And you Magi are moving there like scavengers, seeking whatever mythical crumbs of magic you think a poor dying woman might grant you.” Alize’s voice grew harsh and she blushed. “Excuse me if I disrespect you.”

“No disrespect taken.” Onder replied. He furrowed his brows in deliberation. “Besides, if I’m not mistaken, it would appear that the Hrumi journey there too.”

Not intending to respond to that, Alize shrugged.

Onder kept his gaze on her. “I confess myself surprised by your distrust of the Temple. I didn’t realize the Hrumi took so much interest in it.”

“Probably most don’t. My mentor though, she had been slighted once when she went there for help.”

“What type of help?”

Alize paused. Despite Hesna’s repeated criticism of the Priestess, Alize could recall no mention of the event that sparked it. “I don’t remember.”

“And where is your mentor now?”

Alize scowled. Looking down, she dug her fingers into the dry earth until pebbles scratched against her nails. It hurt to speak of Hesna. “Dead.”

The grasses of the steppes fluttered in the wind and Alize’s pronouncement faded in their yellowing expanse until it was lost altogether. Lost and meaningless.

Alize had believed that time would cure that bitterness, but it had not even weakened it.

“I’m sorry.” Onder murmured.

Staring into the distance, Alize did not acknowledge Onder’s condolences. She did not know how. That pain was private. She guarded it so close to her heart sometimes she forgot it was there, weighing her down, dimming the daylight. But even that was a gift she would never relinquish, Hesna’s memory, beautiful and tragic.

“Did your mentor know much of the Ginmae?” Onder prodded.

“She did actually.” Alize picked up a gnarled stick and poked at the fire until the end curled and burned into embers. “She had a special interest in them, and it annoyed Celillie - she’s our clan leader - to death.” Terrible word choice. Alize rushed forward, “But my mentor liked to retell the story of the Ginmae’s downfall. She said it is good to remember that love becomes destructive when borne by inflexible ideals.”

“You mean because the Ginmae admitted the Kogaloks into the Silver City?”

“No,” Alize regarded Onder askew. “That was neither love nor dogma. She meant the Deku betrayal.”

“The Hrumi know of the Deku betrayal?

“Why should we not?” Alize scoffed. The clans were not isolated from tragedy. Indeed, the Hrumi were the daughters of tragedies.

But Alize took comfort, too, that the Magi did not know of the special Hrumi truce with the Deku. Hesna had repeatedly criticized that relationship, citing the Deku betrayal of the Ginmae. But that truce granted the Hrumi their best security. It likely granted them their survival in the world of princes.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

Onder swallowed. “I see. And did she tell you about the Ginmae prophecy?”

Here Alize lurched, swinging from smug in her knowledge to disconcerted in her ignorance. “She never mentioned any prophecy.”

“There is a prophecy, foretold not by a priestess of the Sun Temple, but rather by one of the Sky Temple, in the Gontvi province.”

Alize made a face. “I know where the Sky Temple is.”

“Of course,” Onder said, flustered, “you are probably more traveled than I.”

“Well, I don’t know about that.” It occurred to Alize belatedly that amicability might better coax this information from the Mage.

Onder cleared his throat. “There is a prophecy fortelling the Ginmae return. It goes,” Onder sat up straight for his recitation,

When flocks gather easterly in eagerness deceived

With power yet divided, restore Rehsan’s legacy

To realign the silver throne with voices unabated

Expiation shall begin in specter immolated

Alize sat back on her heels and shook her head at the ashen sky. “Deceived and legacy? I mean, is it supposed to rhyme or not?”

Onder looked stunned before muttering somewhat defensively, “Well, some things are lost in translation!”

“Oh, excellent,” Alize groused, “so the Sky Priestess foretold this in, what, Gontvian tongue? And now what was probably nonsense to begin with has now been translated with attempts to convey the original meaning? Is it flocks of sheep? Birds? A specter -”

Onder frowned. “I have read it in the original and I assure you that while some ambiguities may remain, the important parts are extremely clear. Someone is going to restore Rehsan’s power-”

“You said ‘legacy’-” Alize said sweetly.

“And realigning the silver throne – that can only be in reference to the Ginmae inheritance.”

“To what end, Mage Onder? Everyone knows the Deku massacred the entire Ginmae family in the Silver City years ago!”

Onder ignored her comment, “The point is, the movement east is a harbinger of restabilization.”

“Or, a lot of sheep are getting herded towards the sunrise!”

“I don’t think Priestesses foretell prophecies of peasants’ future meals.”

“Pity.” Alize snarked.

“You have missed the meaning.”

“On that we can agree.” Alize heaved a breath and softened her tone, “But even if it were clear, why should it concern me?”

“Alize, I can only tell you what I know, and that may not answer your question.” As Onder spoke, Kell appeared and settled by the fire to face his companions. Alize had been so engaged with Onder, she had not noticed him rise from his cot.

Her attention nearly flickered to him, but she locked her gaze on Onder anew. “Out with it then!”

Onder stroked his beard and scrunched up his mouth. “After the earthquakes started,” he said finally, “the Sun Priestess contacted me.”

Again humility doused Alize. “You know the Priestess?”

“If you distract him with other questions, he’ll never get to it,” Kell yawned.

This time Alize did glance in his direction. The clothes he had slept in were wrinkled and his hair tousled. The shadow she had seen on his jaw the night before was darker now. Though she sat straight and rigid despite her exhaustion, intent always to embody vigilance, the Sargon did not seem to feel the same compulsion. Kell yawned again and reached into his pocket to produce a handful of pistachios. When a few spilled to the ground, he snatched them back up and flashed Alize a guilty grin.

He does not fear me. Alize bristled with the thought.

Onder was answering Alize’s question. “The Magi will sometimes consult the Priestess about the properties of magic. She is a great resource. After the earthquakes, she bid me do her a favor. She seeks a beacon, something she expected to come to her, but has remained out of reach in the west.”

Alize returned her gaze to Onder as she waited for him to continue.

“She gave me the signal to follow,” Onder explained.

“And?”

“Well, it turned out to be you.”

Alize dropped her jaw. Disbelief, denial, even anger surged through her. “Excuse me?”

“You bear a light Alize. I could see it with my magic when I met you.”

Alize began to stammer further objections, but Kell interrupted her. “There’s more.”

Alize glared at him for an instant, wondering how he came to possess more information that she did.

Onder continued, “She told me very little about you – that I would find you with a strong guardian. I followed you, waiting for an opportunity to catch you alone. And when I found you,” Onder paused. “forgive me Alize, but I enchanted a shield around you.”

Alize jerked. “You did what?”

“I enchanted a shield. It’s completely intangible in the physical world, but it effectively leaves you untraceable by magic. Now no one else can find you as I did. I believe the two attackers we’ve seen tracked you conventionally. And I think the Kogaloks who passed us in the forest hunted you too.”

Onder leaned in to the fire with his eyes steady on Alize’s. He spoke softly, but it did not dispell his intensity. “Not me. Not Davram. You.”

Alize gritted her teeth, furious on one hand that Onder had once more enchanted her without her consent, but hearing too his fear. She was not so foolhardy to fail to appreciate his intentions. She could, however, question the rationale behind them. “But why?” she asked finally.

“I assume for the same reason the Priestess asked me to bring you to her.”

“Again, why?”

“Here it gets confusing. She called you Saikal.”

“That doesn’t mean anything to me.”

“It’s a woman’s name. It also happens to be the name of a powerful Mage who died a few months after the Ginmae massacre.”

“And what?”

“Unfortunately I have no more insight than that. All I know is that the Temple is driving forces towards it, dispute it as you will. And I fear it has something to do with this dark magic that seeks you.”

Alize balked. His words seemed more impossible by the moment. “Now it is dark magic?”

“That which seeks you is corrupted magic. Only dark Conjurers would dare something so sacrilege.”

Abruptly Alize broke her eye contact with Onder and rose to her feet. She remembered the man in her vision describing her location, but her mind revolted against the implications.

“This,” she murmured finally, tossing her stick into the fire, “is madness. I’m of no consequence to anyone.”

“Stated with such conviction,” Kell observed.

When Alize glared at him, his face did not hold the meanness she expected to accompany that remark. In fact, he had somehow smeared ash on his cheek, and it made him look almost comical, nothing at all like the monster she kept expecting to see.

It made her stammer her defense against him. “The Hrumi know these things! My mentor rescued me from my family’s abuse, from a tiny settlement in northern Yuden. My story hardly bears retelling and it certainly does not concern the Sun Priestess, by the gods!”

Onder rested his head in his hands. “I don’t really know what to think, Alize, but I am certain that you have a purpose in this war.”

“And now we speak of war?!”

“It is coming,” Onder replied, “surely as the winter rain. There is tension contracting around us and the ground is already wet beneath our feet. I think this business with the Sun Temple is just the beginning.

“Well at least you’re not being dramatic about it,” Alize retorted. She glanced at Kell for his reaction, but he watched only Onder. Alize turned her gaze back to the Mage, dubious, although her heart beat had begun to thump just a little harder in her chest.

“Laugh if you want.” Onder’s eyes nearly burned her. “But I fear these muffled whispers will soon become battle cries. And power amasses chaotically in circumstances wrought with fear.”

Alize could not listen to Onder’s words, not while he regarded her with such expectation. “Whether that’s true or not doesn’t concern me! What if the Kogaloks attacked me because they can’t sense through your shield that I’m not the right person? I certainly have no stake in the power of any priestess or the return of some archaic ruling fam-!”

“I did not make you a beacon, Alize.” Onder interrupted, his voice now subdued. For once it bore the weariness of his years. “It is too bad our adversaries seem to know more than we do.”

Alize pressed her fingers to her temples.

“We can start with the smaller challenges.” Onder offered. “I’ll restore your magic and see where we can go from there.”

“Better,” Alize nodded. Though from how Davram had characterized the spell, she had not been consider that task a small challenge.

As Onder woke Davram, Alize packed her sleeping cot. On the other side of the camp, she noticed Kell struggling to do the same. He moved gingerly with his injured arm. After a moment’s hesitation, Alize slung her sac over her shoulder and skirted around the fire to join him.

“Kell,” she spoke, feeling the unfamiliarity of his name on her tongue. “How is your arm?”

“Sore,” the Sargon frowned. “But not nearly so bad as I’d expected, really.”

Alize pulled the blanket from his cot and began to fold it. “That poultice will works wonders for wounds. But it should get changed. Um.” Alize gestured to her bag.

“Oh,” Kell glanced to either side of him before finding a place to sit.

Watching him, Alize shrugged off the doubt gnawing at her mind. What Hrumi would help a Sargon? Her doubt always spoke with Celillie’s voice.

I can fight any Sargon and win, Alize countered, when I choose it. So when I do take arms against him, he will not attribute his loss to chance or accident.

Kell, evidently, carried no unease.Though Alize wore her dagger openly on her belt, the same dagger that had carved the wound in his skin, he did not flinch when she settled beside him.

He wore no armor, and Alize barely even registered the familiar thought process of enumerating all the places she could dig in her fingers, could cut crucial veins or tendons with a flash of her blade. Yet, somehow Kell’s lack of fear betrayed neither courage nor ignorance. He believes I won’t hurt him. Alize realized. When she reached forward to position his arm, he nodded and shifted to accommodate her. And he’s right. For now, he’s right.

This was not how she had imagined a Sargon.

Unbinding the wound, Alize made every effort to avoid actually touching Kell. With the wound cleaned, the iron smell no longer masked the scent of his skin. Alize wrinkled her nose at his acrid dried sweat, but caught underneath an unexpected sweetness reminiscent of cedarwood. Alize almost leaned in to confirm it before she caught herself. She jerked back to fill her lungs with ordinary air from the steppes.

Under the bandage, much of the wound’s swelling had subsided and Alize found no signs of infection. She began tugging at cloth of the poultice that clung to the dried blood.

Kell winced once but otherwise remained silent. He kept his chin down and watched Alize as she worked.

Abruptly she met his eyes. “Don’t stare at me so.”

Kell bowed his head in quick acquiescence. Keeping his gaze on the ground, he murmured an observation. “You are not disgusted by blood.”

“Your surprise,” Alize retorted as she searched her bag for more dried hellebore, “is patronizing.”

“Is it? I’ve met plenty of great warriors who can’t stand the sight or smell of blood up close.”

Alize recited the words she had heard a thousand times. “A true warrior can inflict or repair damage as suits her needs. The Hrumi do what they must to survive.” Against you and your compatriots, she appended silently, confident that it remained obvious.

Still she reapplied the poultice with delicate fingers before beginning to rebind Kell’s wound.

“Well, then,” Kell spoke, his eyes flickering to Alize’s again, “I suppose you are not impressive in the slightest.”

Alize knotted her brows as her hands continued their grim work. She heard his provocation. Exactly what reaction did he intend to elicit from her? Did he expect her to be grateful that he recognized her strengths?

She resolved to disappoint him.

“You’re not complementing me. What you profess remarkable is common Hrumi custom.”

“I’ve met other Hrumi and they are not like you,” Kell responded, his voice low, cautious.

Alize’s heart skipped a beat. Other Hrumi? She flashed her gaze to Kell and he returned it, letting her see the depths of his muddled brown eyes.

He knew the meaning of his words.

The only Hrumi who interacted with Sargons were those who had not escaped their attackers. The clans prayed for their deaths in the princes’ prisons, because soultrussings were so much worse. Either way, their lives were forfeit. Death at least granted their souls peace from the princes’ torment.

Alize felt dizzy to think of those women. Whatever Kell thought he knew of her Hrumi sisters, he had learned under the worst circumstances. Of course he would think her different. She resembled her free sisters, with their pride, their finesse and their resolve. A Sargon’s prison would kill those things. Kell did not know Alize. A Sargon could not know her.

“Do not presume that you can learn about us from your prisoners.”

“Some of them were caught,” Kell conceded, “but one…” He paused. Swallowed. Then he resumed with conscious, almost pedantic deliberation. “One chose to leave her Hrumi life to settle on the edge of the Parousia steppes.”

Alize brushed her bag to the side before directing a brutal glare at Kell. “And then Sargons soultrussed her. They condemned her to suffer for the prince’s benefit.”

For a moment Kell did not respond. His expression subsided into a strange sorrow. If Alize had not known better, she might have mistaken it for pity, or perhaps even grief. “No, they didn’t soultruss her.”

Alize felt her cheeks burn. His gentle delivery only emphasized his perfidy. She understood his game. He wanted her to demand an explanation, to imagine for a moment that such a thing could be true.

She refused to give him the satisfaction.

Instead she grimaced. “No Hrumi soul could be safe under any prince!”

Again Kell kept his voice calm, controlled, patient. His poise felt to be another provocation. “She would disagree with you. For her, it was a good choice.”

“Then she is a disgrace!” Alize shouted, surprising herself. “She favors the very people who hound us, against the sisters who rescued her as a babe, raised her and protected her! There is no greater infamy!”

“I’m sorry you think so,” Kell replied. He frowned in muted pain as Alize secured the bandage. She jerked her last movements to disguise how much her hands were shaking. “But she’s happy with her choice. Proud even.”

Alize tried to invoke Hesna’s most dubious expression on her own face.

“And of the few Hrumi that I have met,” Kell added, undisturbed by Alize’s reaction, “you remind me of her the most.”

That comparison did not sit well. “What could we possibly have in common?” Alize snorted. She intended her question to be rhetorical but Kell grinned just a little in response.

“Now, answering that be complimenting you.” He tugged his arm from Alize’s hands after she finished securing the bandage.

Rising with him, she vowed to shake off his words, to deny their reverberation in her mind. Sargon lies could not change her understanding of her world. Only fools expected truth from their enemies.