Holding the reins of the carriage, Helianna was left to stew until they stopped for the night. Vir had delayed the attack and the following rescue had been a disaster, almost killing all of them. Regardless of how much she thought about it, she could not come up with a logical reason for what had happened and by the time they stopped, she was positively seething. She slammed open the door as she entered the carriage, startling the girl while Zane simply turned to look at her.
“Alright! Tell me what the fuck that was all about! Now!”
“I’m going to need you to clarify,” he responded calmly. Helianna took a moment to steady her breathing and spoke in a more composed manner.
“We went in with a half-assed plan, took too long to start said plan, and then Vir got himself killed. Any one of those could have jeopardized the mission and it’s a miracle we got out! Just one more attack from any of those crazy weapons could have killed any one of us and done permanent damage! So I repeat, what the fuck was that about? What was so important about that damn speech?!”
By the time she was finished, she was yelling again, but he barely responded. His face remained an emotionless mask as he took his time to think before speaking.
“We needed information. The city that captured our ithrax cell could have been a solo operation but from the speech, it’s now obvious that he has significant backers. And even if it’s largely propaganda, getting insights into their plans is useful.”
“At the cost of our lives?!”
“Yes.” Helianna seethed at his answer, tempted to punch him right in his emotionless face. “It matters to us,” he continued but offered no more explanation. The two stared at each other for several moments before another voice entered the conversation.
“Well it succeeded and you saved me,” the tijatan girl said weakly. “Uh… can you get me out of these cuffs please, they’re blocking my magic.” Zane gestured towards Helianna and she looked back at him blankly.
“What am I supposed to do? And why’d you wait so long?”
“You’re the one that magic doesn’t apply to. It should be easier for you to deal with the cuffs,” he said but didn’t bother to explain the wait.
“Fair.” Helianna stepped up to the girl, realizing she didn’t remember her name. “What’s your name again?”
“Isela. What’s yours?”
“Holly. Can you lift up the cuffs so I can see them better?” Isela did so and Helianna let out a small noise of shock. “These are just regular cuffs with a shit ton of runes on them. How did they get the runes so small? I thought that wasn’t possible.”
“Can you get them off?” Isela asked weakly.
“Of course. Getting out of standard cuffs is easy. I just didn’t know this kind of stuff existed.” She pulled out a small pin and after a little finagling, the cuffs popped open. Isela instantly stumbled, knocking the cuffs to the ground and nearly dragging both herself and Helianna with them.
“Are you okay?”
Isela nodded shakily before slowly standing up on her feet again.
“Y-yeah. Removing the suppression from the cuffs was just overwhelming.”
“How’d they catch you?” interrupted Zane. “Obviously they have advanced runetech, but what did they do specifically?” Helianna gave him a weird look, after which, he surprisingly clarified. “We’re vulnerable right now. We don’t know what they’re capable of and don’t want to be caught by surprise because we underestimated them.”
“Like we did last time?” Helianna challenged.
“Yes.”
“U-uhm…” Isela stammered, breaking the staredown happening between Helianna and Zane. “It’s fairly embarrassing but I think we’re a bit past that point,” she spoke timidly, which felt strange to Helianna considering that Isela was taller sitting down than Helianna was standing.
“Neither of us are very good at reading people, and well. They caught us by surprise with a bit of an ambush. We tried to fight back, but there were a lot of them and we were inside. I’m not as good of a fighter when close up like that so I didn’t help much. I… I’m just glad they didn’t do anything worse,” she finished numbly.
“Are you still injured? How long ago was this?” asked Zane.
“At least a few days? I’m not sure. They hurt my legs really bad. I don’t think I’ll be able to walk until I respawn.” Despite their earlier aggression, both Zane and Helianna shared a worried glance.
“Let me see.” Helianna demanded. “The escape could have reopened any wounds you received and we can’t let it get infected. You won’t be able to respawn right if your only option is to respawn off your null. Where’s the injur…”
Helianna petered off as she noticed the issue. Due to the tijatan’s alienness, she had ignored any sense of wrongness, but now as she paid attention, it was clear. Her legs were clearly bent in the wrong direction near the shin area. No bipedal creatures had knees that bent sideways like that. Her eyes snapped back up to lock with Isela’s.
“They didn’t do anything to relieve your pain, did they??” Isela shook her head in response. “Damn.” After a moment to parse that information, she continued. “Do you mind if I take a closer look? It will probably hurt more again if I’m not careful enough.”
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“Go ahead.” Helianna sighed in apprehension before kneeling to see the damage. She lifted up her pant legs and that’s when she noticed something strange. Isela’s pants had been partially ripped apart from the attack and in between multiple layers of fabric, there were runes engraved. Not being able to help herself, she spoke up. “Where did you get these pants?”
“Wha…” Isela eloquently responded. “Uh… The Academy, why?”
Unsure how to respond, Helianna didn’t as she took a closer look. There was no such thing as fluency in runic due to how much it constantly changed, but she could understand some of it. The runes within Isela’s pants were using almost entirely sovereign runes, but knowing she wouldn’t be able to properly read it, Helianna shelved the worrying thoughts and focused on the injuries. As far as she could tell, most of the damage to Isela’s legs had been brunt force, resulting in mostly internal damage. The external damage that she could see seemed to be healing alright, if slow with no signs of infection. She rested back onto her heels and looked up at Isela.
“Any other injuries?”
“Yeah, the one on my back. That’s the one that took me down.” Helianna gave Zane a pointed look and he raised an eyebrow. Her look turned even more demanding and she gestured to the carriage door. Without acknowledging her, he turned and exited the carriage. Helianna let her frustration bubble out, muttering “fucking psychopath.” Even though there wasn’t really anything for him to see due to Isela’s fur, she didn’t want Zane in here when she looked over Isela’s wounds.
Despite tijatans unable to wear standard clothing due to the webbing between their four arms, Isela still wore aesthetic pieces that blocked part of her back. Helianna helped lift it over her head and put it aside before taking a look. Isela turned to give Helianna a better vantage point and immediately upon seeing the wounds, Helianna gasped. “What did they do to you? How are you upright?”
“Why? What does it look like?” Helianna stared in shock, struggling to comprehend what she saw. There was a massive wound going from near Isela’s top right shoulder all the way down to her waist on the other side. It was over two inches wide and incredibly deep, making it easy to see several of her ribs and part of her spine. Somehow, there was no blood flowing from it despite the wound looking brand new.
After a moment, she realized there was a thin frosty layer covering the wound. She delicately reached out her hand and delicately reached towards the wound. Before she even touched it, she could feel cold irradiating from it and when she touched the wound, it almost seemed to burn. Isela loud out a chirp that instantly had Helianna recoiling from the high frequency.
“Sorry!” they both said at the same time before pausing.
“I’m not exactly sure what they did,” Helianna started. “But it looks almost like they froze your wound. I don’t think it will get worse, but it won’t get better unless we have the right people look at it.” For a moment, she thought she heard Isela whimper, but elected not to say anything.
“I’ll help you get your cover back on. We’ll try to be extra careful until we get back.”
Helianna reached for the cover but paused before she started helping Isela into it. Someone had clumsily stitched the shawl-like cloth together, which made sense how she didn’t notice Isela’s injury earlier. She looked closer and where the stitching wasn’t as good, she was able to see a few runes inside the shirt as well. Before the girl could say anything, Helianna stopped and helped her into it.
“I’m going to talk to Zane and then we’ll be back in, alright?” The girl nodded and Helianna stepped out.
“Everything alright in there?” he asked.
“It won’t get infected unless whatever strange attack the person used wears off. We’ll have to watch her because if it does, I think she’ll die. We need to get to someone who can at least keep her stable.” He frowned slightly before his expression returned to normal. Helianna opened her mouth to speak, before closing it and sighing.
“If you would humor me, I have a minor request of you,” Helianna stated. She thought she saw a hint of a smirk on his face as she said it, but couldn’t be certain.
“What is it?”
“May I see a part of your uniform for a moment?” This time, she was confident that he was smirking slightly.
“Of course.” He immediately took off his jacket and handed it to her, leaving him in a simple undershirt. She pulled out one of her knives, which needed to be sharpened at this point, and looked up at him to gauge his reaction. His face hadn’t changed, so in a quick movement she cut a small slash in his uniform. By now, he had a full smirk on his face as he watched, making her a bit nervous. She looked into his uniform and on the interior, she saw the same runes that adorned the interior of Isela’s. She was frozen for a few moments, trying to consolidate her thoughts before mechanically handing the jacket back to him.
“Are you aware of the runes inside of your uniforms?”
“Yes.”
“Are you aware of what they do?”
“Yes.”
“What do they do?”
“I cannot tell you that.”
She narrowed her eyes before responding, “You cannot tell me or will not?” After a few moments of silence, she spoke. “Cannot then. Is there anything you can tell me?”
“Yes.”
After a long pause, she asked, “Well, will you?”
“No.”
After thinking for a moment, she slowly asked “Are you prevented from bringing up what you can tell me?”
“Yes.”
“Damn. Does it control your actions?”
“No.”
“Geez, I’m playing twenty questions here. This is ridiculous!” She took a moment to calm down before asking her next question. “Does it control your thoughts?”
He didn’t respond and she took a few moments to think about what that might mean. “Does it influence your thoughts?”
“Yes.”
“Does every ithrax have these runes controlling them?”
“Yes.”
“Do the other teams know?”
“No.”
“Jayen found out, didn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“He can stop it because he has sovereign magic, right?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.” Feeling stupid, she walked up to Zane and put a hand on his shoulder, almost expecting him to push her away. When he didn’t, she closed her eyes and looked inward, reaching in towards her magic. She urged it to push into the uniform and it almost felt like she was trying to coax an animal. It started to move, but as soon as it started to go into the uniform, there was a huge amount of resistance.
She tried to push it out and managed for a few moments, just long enough for Zane to say “Finally!” before it collapsed back into her in a rush, feeling as if she had just got punched in the gut. She fell on to her backside and looked up at Zane, who was scowling at her.
“I’m sorry Zane. I tried. Wait a minute…” she trailed off, thinking. “If Jayen was able to stop it with sovereign magic, that seems like a major oversight on their part. Wouldn’t any sovereign be able to do that?”
“Yes.”
“Then why don’t they have a failsafe? Wait, how common is sovereign magic?”
“Rare. Very, very rare.”
“Are there other ithrax in The Academy with sovereign magic?”
“Not right now.”
“Maybe The Academy just doesn’t have enough experience with them? That still feels unlikely. Hell, I have no idea how to get good information out of you.” She sighed unhappily. “I’ll have to see if I can talk to you guys at a later date. Good to know this exists though. I’m going to go check on Isela.”
“Wait!” Zane called as she turned away, causing her to turn back to him. “If you’re going to ask questions, be careful.” She nodded and stepped into the carriage.