“Commander.” The soldier guarding the entrance to his suite bowed his head as Dannûl approached.

He offered the guard an easy smile. “Were you stationed here all night, Kadrû?” The Djinn nodded. “Yes, commander, but my shift’s almost up.”

“Consider yourself relieved, then. Go get some rest.”

“Sir?” The guard hesitated, torn between his desire to leave and his sense of duty. “My relief won’t be here for another hour.”

Dannûl offered a low chuckle. “I don’t think we’re in any danger of being attacked here. I’ll be fine.”

The guard didn’t ask a second time. Bowing his head deeply, he thanked the commander and headed down the hall with as much speed as decorum would allow.

Dannûl’s friendly smile slipped into a scowl as soon as the guard’s head had disappeared around the corner. Unlocking the door, he slammed it shut behind him, letting out an angry growl as he stalked into the middle of the room.

The bed chamber was as intricately decorated as the other halls in the manor. The mosaics in this particular room had been dedicated to stories of the fantastical creatures and supposed histories of the world the Djinn had left behind - Zaginnu. Dannûl hadn’t grown up taking art classes like the nobles, so their artistic virtues were lost on him, but he’d enjoyed their depictions of childhood fables nonetheless. But he was not in the mood to appreciate them right now.

The last twenty-four hours had been a fiasco. Everything had been going so well up to then. As the head commander of the firebird contingent, when the king appointed Gūla to investigate the mysterious sabotage attempts, General Turzu had come straight to him, her former commander, to learn more about his new aide.

Dannûl had seized the opportunity to derail her investigation before it ever began. He’d been careful not to go too far, of course; he’d praised her strength as a warrior and mage highly, and even pretended to commend her skills as a leader, but he made many ‘slip-of-the-tongue’ comments the painted in her a far less savory light. Turzu had walked away convinced that Gūla was hopelessly incompetent at anything but fighting, and a slut who had slept her way into the position of captain.

All Dannûl had to do was plant the seeds of distrust, and Turzu, whose low opinion of Gūla was subtly reinforced by some of the other recruits the Lord of Wēdīnīnu had in command, had proceeded to completely dismantle her ability to pursue the mission the king had given her. Turzu had started by removing her loyal soldiers from her command, giving the excuse that she no longer needed their services now that she was on ‘special duty.’ He'd slashed her budget too, giving her not a penny more than the absolute minimum regulation required him to. Most importantly, the general had closed his ears to what she had to say, convinced they were the words of a woman scorned.

The situation had been so completely in hand that Dannûl had failed to pay sufficient attention to her new recruit. Whenever an otherwise unknown scion of the Royal House made a public appearance, there were usually only two reasons for it - they were an embarrassment the family had sought to keep hidden or a bastard who had proven themselves competent enough to be elevated. When he’d heard that Gūla had promptly seduced the noble - ironically enough, fitting his description of her to Turzu - he’d promptly written the noble off as ne’er-do-well. He hadn’t realized they were making progress on their investigation until last night when news of Selbarah’s capture reached him.

Dannûl had reacted decisively, dispatching every agent of the Lords at his disposal, save for the handful embedded in command, as their absence might be noted. It was overwhelming odds. Gūla was a competent fighter, but against three other mages she should have had no chance. And while he’d only had one to devote to the feckless noble, even if the noble had proven competent, the other assassins should have made short work of the archer and the newly awakened mage and finished the noble off.

Instead, he had six dead agents and Gūla was in the end.

His fury boiled over, and grabbing the nightstand beside his bed, he flung it against the wall with a curse. “Dās̆ip.” The wood was no match for a warrior’s strength, splintering so thoroughly that portions nearly crumbled into sawdust.

She played me. The realization infuriated him. Selbārah had chosen to flee rather than return to him, so he wasn’t sure how much the captain had figured out, but she had clearly realized that somebody was slandering her to the general, and had decided to lean into that reputation. She slept with that noble so I wouldn’t bother to investigate. And as for how she’d managed to defeat three mages, there was only one conclusion he could draw. She must be hiding her strength - but for how long?

With the rest of those under his command dead, Dannûl knew he could no longer afford to stay in the shadows. Even if Selbārah hadn’t revealed his identity, Gūla’s absence from command told him she knew it was compromised - he needed to kill her before she could get any further. I don’t think Turzu will listen to her at this point, but who knows - perhaps she’ll seduce him too. He growled in irritation, but as he stalked back to the campaign table, he already had formed the germ of a plan. She must be hiding in Nūr-S̆ams̆a. She has no friends amongst the nobles there, and the merchants are ours, so she’ll be in the taverns. I think it’s time my men get a night off to enjoy the town.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

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

“You sure about this,” Jasper asked Tsia for the third time. “I think Gūla’s plan might just work, but I’m not really comfortable with asking you to be bait.”

As Tsia shook her head, her hair moved a bit more stiffly than usual. Her usually curly locks had been straightened out, and she fiddled with a pair of horns she was trying to stick to her head. “I’m sure. If Ihra and I hadn’t gotten lucky, those bastards would have burned us alive. Now, help me get this on, Jasper.”

It took the two of them another few minutes before they finally figured out how to snap the prosthetic horns in place. With a twirl of her skirt, Tsia admired the finished product in the mirror. She wasn’t exactly Gūla’s doppelgänger, but with her pale skin, long brown hair, and prosthetic horns, she could easily be mistaken for her from a distance, and the simple blue dress she wore, a favorite of Gūla's, helped to reinforce the image.

“So I’m just supposed to let one of the guards catch a glimpse of me and then wait for Dannûl to appear,” she asked.

Jasper nodded. “Gūla seemed certain he’d send men to check out the inns, but he’d want to deal with her personally. It’s best he doesn’t get a good luck at you close-up, so once you’ve made a few appearances in the eating hall, head up to your room.”

“I’ll be waiting down by the stables to keep an eye out for Dannûl to show up. When I see him, I’ll whistle for you to join me.” He walked over to the small, dusty window which was propped slightly ajar. A thick rope had been nailed into the tavern floor and trailed up and over the ledge, dropping down into the courtyard below where the tavern’s stables awaited. “Just slide down the rope and hope on your tsussîm.”

“And then we, what, wait for him to catch up?”

“He’s a pretty high-leveled warrior - I don’t think it will take him that long to catch up,” Jasper pointed out. “But once he reaches the courtyard, he’ll think he has us trapped. Everyone knows tsussîm can’t fly at night, after all.”

“Unfortunately for him, he doesn’t know about Spectral Wings,” he added with a grin. “We’ll fly up and over his head and lead him outside the city. Even if he tries to rally the guard, they are low-level enough that we should be able to outpace them, isolating him from everybody else."

"Won't he stop following us?"

"Maybe," Jasper admitted, "but Gūla said he’s confident to a fault - she’s sure he won't back down once we've got him hooked. From there, we’ll lead him out to the designated spot where Erin and Ihra are waiting. Meanwhile, Gūla will quietly slip back into her room and make another appearance in the tavern hall, so even if they suspect her, they won’t be able to prove she’s guilty.”

“It seems...kind of complicated,” Tsia replied dubiously.

“Not as much as it sounds,” he disagreed. “The only part we have to worry about is making sure he sees you and getting him to follow us out of the city.”

“We also have to fight him,” she pointed out.

“Okay, that too,” he agreed, “but I think we can take him. He can’t be worse than Yas̆gah.”

An involuntary shudder rippled down her spine. “Yas̆gah is not the standard for our future fights,” she muttered. “At least not if you want me to stick around...but,” she lifted her eyes to the mirror and forced a smile, “I’m sure we’ll manage.”

Dannûl must not have been familiar with Gūla’s tavern of choice, as it was several hours before a handful of soldiers burst through the doors of the blueberry-colored Armored Swan. From the slight stagger of their steps and reddening of their eyes, it was obvious this wasn’t their first stop, but the men were still in control of their senses. Sticking to their ploy of having a day off, they grabbed one of the few free tables close to the bard and ordered a round of drinks.

Tsia waited a few minutes before making her appearance. Slipping down the stairs quietly, she approached the edge of the bar and ordered two bowls of stew. Gūla had suggested she try to appear as if she was in hiding, so Tsia obscured herself behind a wooden pillar, taking care to allow a portion of her eye-catching blue dress to peek out from cover. She was forced to loiter awhile before the drunken soldiers finally noticed her.

“Captain,” one roared out, “Come sit with us!” Raucous laughter echoed around their table as she fled up the stairs. But as Gūla had predicted, the soldiers made no attempt to stop her themselves - going after a mage on their own would have been suicide, after all. Instead, after downing the last of their drinks, they made for the door.

As the soldiers staggered into the night, Jasper took his watch by the stable gates. Dannûl did not take long to make an appearance. Less than ten minutes had passed before a Djinn matching the description Gūla had given emerged into the light of the tavern’s lanterns. The man was built like a human-sized dwarf, which is to say, he was far broader of a chest and stouter of muscle than the average Djinn without being any taller than usual.

He headed directly for the tavern’s entrance, and as soon as he’d stepped inside, Jasper whistled for Tsia to descend. She slid down the rope in a flash and the two hopped onto the tsussîm’s back - and not a moment too soon. Dannûl must have rushed straight for the private chambers as the sound of splintering wood broke the silence of the stables, followed quickly by an angry face peering out of the upper window.

“Gūla? Is that you and your man-whore?” More wood splintered as he forced his frame through the narrow window and leapt into the courtyard below, landing with an agile grace that belied his bulky form.

“I’m sorry it has to end this way, but I can’t let you leave,” he growled. “You never should have taken this job, but it’s over now - you have nowhere to go.”

While Tsia could be mistaken for Gūla in the darkness, their voices were far too dissimilar to be confused, so Jasper was the one to respond. Pretending to put a quaver in his voice, he yelled out, “You’ll never take us,” while more quietly he cast the spectral wings. The commander’s snort of disdain was cut short as the tsussîm, which should have been unable to fly in the darkness, bolted into the night sky, backlight against the light of a gibbous moon.