“You found a lead,” Jasper echoed dumbly. “Already?”

Tsia smiled smugly. “Drunk lips are loose lips.”

He rolled his eyes as she repeated her father’s maxim, but suppressed the urge to reply snarkily. If she’d really found a lead - hell, if she learned anything at all - she’d done better than them. “Whaddya find?”

She glanced at the busy square around them and shook her head. “We should probably discuss it somewhere quieter.”

He quirked an eyebrow, wondering who or what she was concerned about, but let the matter drop as their time in the city was almost done.

When the last of S̆ams̆adūr’s men had straggled in, the company reformed and headed for the gates. The sun was already dipping toward the horizon as they reached them, and judging from the guards clustered around the pulleys that raised the drawbridge, they had arrived in the nick of time. The guards paused their work long enough to let them pass, and then the bridge closed behind them, leaving them to set up camp on the far side of the moat. While it lacked the protection of the city walls, it also lacked the overwhelming odor of the overpacked city - a fair trade in Jasper’s mind.

The men quickly split off - most to pitch the tents, while a handful gathered wood for the fires and started the pots of stew they’d need for the night - leaving the three of them alone. Taking a seat by the freshly started fire, Jasper waited for Tsia to tell her tale. “So what were you worried about back there?”

“S̆ams̆adūr was right,” she said with a frown, worry pooled in her eyes. “There definitely is a mind mage at work - at least one, maybe more.”

“Thought so,” the prince muttered, gluing his eyes to the flickering flames. “Didn’t want to believe it, but…”

“What makes you so sure?” Jasper asked.

“I had a very informative talk.”

“They just blabbed it?”

“Well…it might have been more of an interrogation,” she admitted. “After we split up, I…”

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

The perpetual stench that had been assaulting her nose ever since she’d reached the overcrowded market finally faded as Tsia reached the small upscale section of Debur. The village was too small to have a true noble section; instead, the handful of nobles lived side by side with the merchants and craftsmen in a cramped quarter that, despite its small size, possessed a certain charm. Of course, anything looked nice in comparison with the refugee camp she’d just left.

Tsia followed the guard’s directions to The Gilded Pig but, in truth, it would have been hard to miss. The tavern was the only one in the small quarter and the source of its name was self-evident - a large bronzed pig was attached to the third floor of the tavern as a weathervane, spinning merrily in the hot gusts of wind roiling off the sun-baked plains to the west.

The shade inside the tavern was a welcome relief, but her eyes blinked rapidly as they struggled to adjust to the dim light. Though it had a row of windows, they were blocked by heavy shades open just wide enough to allow narrow shafts of light to illuminate the room, and even the giant stone hearth sat unlit. Despite that, the tavern was already nearly full.

She snagged one of the last remaining stools in front of the bar and waited until the maid came by.

“Beer, ale, or cider?” The barmaid greeted her briskly.

“Cider,” she replied. “Is there any food,” she asked, casting a glance over her shoulder at the unlit hearth.

“You must not be from around here,” the maid laughed.

“Is it that obvious?”

“The hearth’s just there for the rare day it gets cold, but our kitchens’ are outside. Dinner’s still a way off, but we’ve always got stew,” she offered.

After a moment’s pause, Tsia shook her head. “Just the cider then. I’ve had my fill of stew recently,” she added, thinking of the dish the dwarves cooked nearly every need. It was immediately decent, for camp food, but no dish was delicious enough to be eaten that often.

When the woman returned a few minutes later, she nursed her cider and surreptitiously scanned the room. Despite what she had told Jasper, Tsia didn’t really expect to find much here. The opportunity to get out of the sun and enjoy some food that wasn’t stew had simply seemed too tempting to pass up, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t learn anything from the gossip in the tavern.

In one corner of the room, a handful of guards were discussing the recent attacks in low tones. While the guard at the gate may have been unwilling to directly criticize Lord Sarganīl, these men, with the help of liquid courage, were fearless.

“What’s the bastard thinking?” one grouched.

“He's become a coward in his old age, that’s what.”

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“He let Agūril get wiped out, and it's barely half a day's march from Birnah. Word is that what’s left of the city was saved by a bunch of durgū. Enemies saving us instead of our own lord,” another spat.

“Do you see the dwarves that arrived today? Think they’re the same ones?”

“There can’t be that many of them running around loose,” the man grunted.

Picking up her cider, Tsia decided to make her way over to the group and pry them for information, when someone behind her theatrically cleared his throat. The old stool creaked as she pushed it back and swiveled around to find another guard. Like the man outside the gates, he was near the age of retirement, if not perhaps a bit beyond it, and judging from the slightly more elaborate armor he wore, she guessed he was the city’s commander. “Can I help you?”

“I’m Captain S̆ams̆ilī, head of the guard and you, my lady, you are…” He lowered his voice and leaned in. “You are Princess Keturah, are you not? What are you doing here, my lady? And by yourself?”

Tsia froze like a deer in the headlights. Perhaps it was stupid, but she’d never expected anyone to recognize her, at least not in the boondocks. “I, uh, I think you have me mistaken for someone else,” she said.

The old man’s eyes widened with confusion, but after a long moment, he shook his head. “I am sorry, my lady, but I am certain it is you. I’m sure you won’t remember someone as unimportant as me, but I once served on Lord Sarganīl’s personal guard. I accompanied him to the palace on several occasions, and had the honor of meeting your father and his children.”

She decided to commit to her bluff and shrugged her shoulders. “Maybe I look a bit like her, but I assure you, I’m not this princess of yours. What would a lady like that be doing in a place like this?”

“I might have believed you,” the captain replied, “if I had not been warned you might show up.”

Tsia reached for her cup of cider, taking a long draught to wet her suddenly parched mouth, before replying. “Someone told you the princess would be coming here? To Deḇur?” she asked, still not quite willing to admit to her identity. “Who would suggest such a thing?”

Confusion flashed through the man’s eyes, and he slowly shook his head. “I…I can’t remember,” he admitted reluctantly, “but I know I was warned of your coming, and here you are. You are no mere look-alike, my lady.”

Tsia frowned and tried to take another sip of her cider, only to find the cup barren. She frowned at the empty bottom and plopped it down on the bar. “And why would they warn you?”

“I have a message for you, my lady.” The captain nodded his head toward the empty hall that led up to the private rooms above the bar. “Perhaps away from prying ears?”

After a moment’s hesitation, she rose and followed him to the hall. The old man seemed harmless enough and, even if it wasn’t, she doubted he was strong enough to be any threat to her. He paused at the end of the hall, well out of the hubbub of the tavern conversation, and held out a folded piece of paper whose edges were sealed with crimson wax.

She examined the seal curiously, not recognizing the odd symbol of a sun with some sort of slashes in front of it, and broke it apart. “What is this?” Her brow furrowed as she saw the odd pictogram splayed across both sides of the paper. It looked almost like a rune, though she had never shown enough talent at them for her mother to bother training her.

Engrossed in the rune, she almost missed the old man’s hand twitch, glancing up just in time to see his hand slash forward, blade aimed at her throat. His eyes were glazed and milky, his skin suddenly puffy and red, but that didn’t make the blade any less deadly. She tried to jump backward, to crouch down, to throw herself to the side of the blow, but she was suddenly rooted to the spot as a surge of magic flowed into her body from the paper she held.

The blade was going to kill her.

Its progress was arrested a foot from her face as a shield of lightning flickered into place around her. She wasn’t the caster, but she recognized it nonetheless. Imhullu didn't mention that little mark of his did this. The electricity surged up the metal blade and into the man himself, tossing him against the wall with a thud.

As he crumpled against the wall, the milky look in his eyes ebbed away, quickly replaced by a look of horror. “My lady!”

The old man staggered to his feet, his eyes flickering between the unsheathed sword lying at her feet and herself, still rooted in place by the magic. “He...lp…me.” Unable to even move her lips, speaking was nearly impossible, but the captain hadn’t reached his position by being a fool. With trembling hands, he snatched the paper from her grasp and tossed it to the floor where he stomped hard on it.

“Wait.” With it out of her grasp, she came unstuck and grabbed his hand as his heel was about to descend again. “That might have clues,” she hissed.

He put his foot down carefully, far away from the paper, and turned to her with horror-stricken eyes. “My lady, I had no idea-”

This time, she saw the change in his eyes. His hand lunged for the dagger tied at his waist, but her essence was faster. He spasmed as electricity poured through him, and collapsed to his knees with a gasp. “I’m sorry. I-, I-”

Tsia stepped over him, ignoring his twitching, and pulled some rope out of her bag. “I’m sorry too, but it looks like we’re going to have to do this the hard way.” As she pulled his arms behind his back and began to tie him up, a maid stepped out of the kitchen, holding a platter stacked high with ale.

“Selene’s grace, lass, what are you doing?”

She froze again, but an excuse came readily this time. “He, uh, likes it rough?”

The maid stared down at them for a second, the captain hiding his face out of shame, and finally snorted. “I’d heard stories, but didna believe ‘em. But you can't do it here, lass. Take ‘em upstairs.”

Tsia nodded vigorously, eager to be rid of the maid, and began to drag the man toward the stairs. “My lady, I can-” The look appeared in his eyes again, and she downed him a second later. A bit too enthusiastically. She groaned as the man slumped unconscious over the stairs. “Great. I get to carry him up.”

“It sounds like you almost died. Again.” Jasper sighed as she relayed the story.

“I wasn’t ever in much danger,” she shrugged dismissively. “Imhullu’s ward protected me.”

“But you didn’t know it would.”

“I also didn’t know a piece of paper would paralyze me,” she snapped. “Would you have expected that?”

“Well…no,” he admitted reluctantly. “So is that your lead? The piece of paper.”

“Oh, I have that with me too, but that’s not the only thing I learned. Once S̆ams̆ilī woke up, we had a little chat. It was hard at first, as he kept getting taken over by the compulsion, but after the fifth time I electrocuted him, he finally seemed to snap out of it.”

“And?”

“He remembered meeting a man with a brown hood, and a ring with the emblem of a lightning-scarred sun.”