For the next few minutes, as the Princcairs made their way to the plaza, Hagen tried to convince Jeso that the flutist had been killed. However, Jeso was having none of it.
“Chan might know something about this,” Jeso said, holding up a silver rod with a jagged end—a part of the flute that had broken off.
“It’s just a normal flute,” Hagen said.
“Maybe not. You’ve never seen that kind of soldier before, have you?”
“She was probably just an assassin.”
Jeso didn’t reply as he resumed examining the instrument. Hagen couldn’t figure out why this was such a big deal. Had this Windoren somehow given Jeso a run for his money? No, that was impossible. Hagen was convinced that anyone outside of Greyshin’s lot was easy fodder.
The plaza was encased in a dome of bones, the remains of a colossal beast. There had been a time when the area was brightly lit with lanterns and bioluminescent insects, but now everything was a dull gray, smothered by the overbearing thundering of two battle clocks.
Hagen and Jeso perched themselves on a balcony outside of the battle domain to observe the situation. The Stringsandens had taken the plaza and the Windorens were camped in the spires above. There was relative peace at the moment, but it was merely a period of calm between storms.
“Chan’s not there,” Jeso said.
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“How do you know?” Hagen asked.
“Everything’s too intact.”
“Maybe he’s not using magic.” Hagen pointed to the plaza and their fellow soldiers. “Come on, let’s slingshot down.”
“And get trapped in that pile of bones?” Jeso countered. “No thanks.”
“What do you wanna do then? Kick up our feet and talk about life?”
Jeso rolled his eyes. “We should look elsewhere first.” He headed to the left end of the balcony, which was connected to a flight of stairs that led to the lower floors.
Hagen scurried forward and stopped him at the edge of the staircase.
“What if we took a little detour?” he proposed. “Somewhere up there,” he pointed to the spires looming over the plaza, “is Colonel Clod. If we kill him-”
“The Clodder got replaced a few weeks ago,” Jeso said.
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, well up there is some high ranking Windoren who’s directing the offense. If we kill him we could probably turn the tide of the battle.”
Jeso let out a chuckle. “That’s a stretch.”
“They’ll be disoriented for a bit,” Hagen argued. “We can at least whittle down their numbers.”
“This little assassination is going to take far longer than you think, Hagen.”
“Oh please, we’ve done it before. Remember our mission-”
“Sorry, excuse me.” A passerby who was walking up the stairs tapped Hagen’s shoulder.
“Apologies,” Hagen said, stepping out of the way. “Anyways, remember our mission in- wait, hold on. Chan?!”
The passerby turned around, and three mouths simultaneously fell open.