Putting together the ritual to find the beacon within the school wasn’t actually difficult. It just required doing a lot of footwork she usually kept in her notes. Begging help from one of the space-tethered among the Sleeping Sons and she was inside and grabbed her notes.

After this she setup a more permanent solution. It wasn’t as good as Ranvir’s. Not as big as she would have liked. It also had to be opened, though it took little mana. When she was finally ready to begin work on her ritual against Saleema, she found herself herded into a tent to rest.

She reluctantly followed his command right until she lay back against the cot, at which point all resistance flowed directly into the dream world.

She woke up disoriented and cold, blinking gritty eyes. She sat up groggily. Her hair had half come loose from the where she’d tied it away, the rest pulling painfully against her scalp.

The tent flap pushed aside and someone threw a waterskin at her. She drank greedily, while rubbing against her sternum where it’d hit. All the while, she warily watched the elderly man who stepped inside.

The dark-skin of an Ankirian, though lightened from extended time in Elusria, his salt and pepper hair was cut short. Unlike many other Ankirians, he wore a regular Elusrian military outfit. High-ranking judging by the embroidery, but compared to the usually poor attempt at combining Ankirian fashion with Elusrian necessity, a simple and functional cut.

Silently, he stood in the corner of her tent.

“What are you doing?”

“Protecting you.”

She rolled her eyes and rubbed her face. “Why is a Triplet Master playing bodyguard?”

“Because you have a ritual that could help against Saleema. Until it is set up, you will be with a guard at all times.”

She nodded slowly. At least that made some sense. Kirs replaced breakfast with an apple, the skin wrinkled. The man introduced himself as Zubair and let her into the inner garden of the palace. A square cloister with a small tower sat ringed within the greater grounds of the castle, as if within the protective fold of its mother’s wings.

The tower was made hand-fashion without the aid of tethered. It was built of rough brownish gray rock, bared oak defining the individual floors and rimming the windows. Hammered copper gone green finished the peaked roof.

A thick layer of dust covered the floor inside the tower, leaving the recent tracks of workers clear in its disturbance. She glanced over her shoulder at Zubair.

“Checking the structural integrity and safety of the building.”

“And?”

“There’s no rot in the wood and the stairs are sturdy, if loose.”

She sighed and nodded. The twisting staircase was steep, Kirs’ shoulder regularly brush wall-to-wall as they ascended. Hesitating on the third floor, she considered going all the way up.

She decided against it. The third floor was entirely bare, except for a trio of wicker seat chairs stacked in one corner. The dark wood floorboards groaned and gave slightly beneath her boots, but were solid underfoot even when she jumped on them.

It took a lot of effort to ignore Zubair’s skeptical look. “I’ll need a table and a platform to draw the ritual on.”

“You cannot do it on the boards? Our specialist could’ve easily worked with this.”

“Oh? I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were still an Ankirian. I am your specialist. The Specialist. Could your Ankirians trap Saleema, or even hope to?”

Zubair nodded in defeat, but didn’t budge from his place by the door. She stared at him exasperatedly. “Until you finish the ritual, I don’t leave your side.”

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“I figured it out, thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

A frustrated growl escaped her as she trundled back down the staircase, bumping the walls as she hurried down. Instead of finding his disheveled form trailing after her, he stood by the stairs when she reached ground level. A faint trail of ice through the front door suggested his path of choice.

It took too long to find a servant, but eventually she got her new office equipped how she wanted it. Zubair’s help was needed in the end, as it was significantly easier to lift the table through the window than bringing it up the narrow stairs. The wooden platform ended up as precisely cut planks that was fastened together inside the tower. The job was straightforward, thanks to every single cut being perfect.

Each floor in the tower held the staircase, a small storage closet, the remaining three-fourths taken up a by a single room. Three windows looked out onto the courtyard, the palace, and the wall, relatively. From the third floor, she could just barely peer over the parapet and the patrolling guards, revealing the snow covered peaked roofs of the city.

With the light streaming in from the wall window, she paced around her ritual platform, mirroring the guards and their much larger route. Though they were checking for enemies, she was looking for defects. In her experience, certain flaws presented themselves at different times.

Es had been good at picking out issues at this early layout phase, where she’d been better when it got more complicated.

“You really think this could trap Saleema?”

She didn’t have to look at him to sense the skepticism coming through his words. “Potentially.”

Zubair scoffed. “Do you have any clue what she’s capable of?”

Kirs frowned up at him, then shook her head. “I’m trying to work.”

“That’s a ‘no.’ Do you even remember when she tore this city apart?”

She shot him a harsh glare. “How old do you think I am?”

“Old enough to understand the world, young enough to think you can change it. Saleema is, child. She’s part of reality and everyone has to live with her. Like the sun-blights or your glacier.”

“You’re ascribing divinity where none belong.”

“Isn’t your child-leader doing the same thing?”

Child-leader? Ranvir? She laughed, throwing her head back. “You think he wants any part in that?” She shook her head and returned to the circles on the board, adjusting a few lines.

Zubair was quiet for a while, letting her work in peace. For which she was uncountably thankful.

Time passed, evening fell, and a messenger came running, whispering into Zubair’s ear.

“What is it?” she asked once they were alone.

“Saleema’s nearby. They are still fighting.” The old man sounded slightly unsteady. It was sometime later, another messenger came. This one brought glyph-lights, as well as word. “The remainder of your school has just arrived in the city.”

Kirs straightened. Her lower back and knees ached from hovering above the ritual all day. Her fingers and arms were stained with chalk powder. “That took a while, didn’t it?”

Zubair nodded, frowning in concentration. She sensed his soul-sight reaching beyond the tower, presumably towards her friends. His brows furrowed deeper, and he scowled at her. “What is wrong with them? How did they get power like that? I’ve never felt the like. Another user like your Ranvir, but gentler? Rain?” he shook his head.

Kirs shrugged. “Just us youngsters being too dumb to know better, I guess.”

He sneered at her. “You’ve made some breakthrough, haven’t you? And now you’re holding it from the rest of the plane. Typical.”

“Oh, typical, huh? I guess we learned from Ankirians? All three of your triplet masters, all of your secret training and techniques. Don’t come to me complaining about secrets!”

His face twisted into a scowl, wrinkles deepening as he glared at her. “I couldn’t help but notice your husband isn’t among the newly arrived members. Wonder where he ran off to? With a personality like yours, it’s no surprise he fled.”

“My husband would never run from!” she yelled, lurching to her feet. The effort nearly sent her sprawling across the rituals, as her legs refused to straighten. “Esmund is not a bad person.”

“And he truly loves you? Naivety suits the young.”

“He loves me. I know he does. He has killed for me.”

Zubair shook his head and laughed, the sound bitter. “Hate you more likely.”

Though his words were far quieter than their previous exchange, Kirs reeled back at them. The sheer venom in his words. “What do you mean?” she couldn’t help herself. The question rising unbidden.

“The life of men rests weary on my shoulders. I remember their faces, their voices, cries for mercy, the light of horror in their eyes. And the understanding. Knowledge that I now stood apart from those who had not killed. They could never truly understand what it was like.”

There was an edge of something unfinished about the man as he stood huddled in the shadow cast by the glyph-light.

“And?” she asked, her voice tentative. In the shadows, she couldn’t make out his features. Redressed in the shadows, he simply became a rough voice and a dark elusrian uniform.

“Fear,” he admitted, like it was the personification of defeat. “I’d have to do it again. Wondering if I could. What would happen if I couldn’t? Who would suffer? Who would be hurt because I couldn’t follow through?” he leaned out of the shadow, the sudden move casting his features in harsh light. Old and worn. His eyes, dark and haunted, pierced her to the core, chilling her spine. “Eventually, I failed. I couldn’t do it… and that was worse.”