by Andrew Rowe
She nodded. “Right.”
We set up the appropriate wards on the walls, then checked each other’s work, just in case.
“Satisfied?” Elora asked.
“For now,” Cecily replied.
Elora looked to me, then back to Cecily. “How much does she know? How much do the rest of them know?”
“Most of them know what I know. Cecily... I’m less certain about. She seems to know about Tristan, but I don’t think she’d be aware of what happened with Saffron.”
Cecily looked at me with a raised eyebrow. “Who’s Saffron?”
“I’ll explain later. Or maybe now, if it’s relevant.”
“Right,” Elora said. “That makes this somewhat easier, at least. A more important question, Cadence. Who do you trust?”
“Well, not you, certainly.”
Sheridan snickered.
I continued, “But for the most part, the people in this room already know enough about the situation that I’m comfortable sharing more. Information security is important, but I’m tired. Tired of trying to keep secrets. Tired of not knowing what’s really going on. Tired of fighting people who are a hundred times more powerful than I am.”
“A good sentiment, although I might argue that imminent danger might reinforce the need for secrecy, rather than lead us toward eschewing it.” Elora folded her hands on the table. “Nevertheless, I believe this particular situation is bad enough to warrant a cooperative response.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning that we’ve fought the two most dangerous people I’ve ever encountered in the last few weeks, and that we need to coordinate to prevent that from happening again.”
Keras leaned across the table sleepily. “Don’t you mean the second and third most dangerous people?”
Elora narrowed her eyes. “I don’t even know what you are, darling. But if you’re feeling disappointed that I didn’t include you, don’t fret. I don’t count you as dangerous in the slightest for one reason.”
Keras raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”
Elora smiled. “It was obvious in our little spat. You either can’t — or won’t — use lethal force. Perhaps you’re under some sort of persistent enchantment?”
Keras chuckled and leaned back. “You keep thinking that.”
Elora turned away from him with a victorious smirk. “Back to the point. We need to take precautions.”
I nodded. I’d been thinking about the best way to approach this since last night. “Did you know that attack was coming? You tried to extract me a while ago.”
Elora shook her head. “I didn’t have the specifics. I just knew there would be an attack on heads of government sometime soon. I didn’t expect it this soon.”
Cecily turned to look at me with a questioning glance. I shook my head at her. She was better off not giving away her own information unless she needed to.
I wanted to know what Cecily knew, but that didn’t mean I wanted Elora to know what Cecily knew.
At the moment, Elora probably believed that Cecily had the least information out of anyone, and that meant she would not register as a threat.
I preferred to keep it that way.
“You knew there was going to be an attack on the government and you didn’t do anything about it?” Sera asked.
Elora shook her head. “I didn’t say that. Certain individuals were warned or evacuated, not just Corin.”
“You didn’t warn me.” Sheridan folded their arms.
“I didn’t think you’d be a target. I suspected they’d be hitting a council meeting. Normally, the group responsible tries to avoid collateral damage.”
“They were avoiding collateral damage,” Sera said, “At least more than they pretended to be.”
We all turned toward her.
Patrick frowned. “Uh, Sera, I don’t think sending the daughter of a god beast to a party is avoiding damage.”
Sera shook her head. “It certainly was. How closely were you watching Mizuchi?”
“Can you please not be vague, Sera?” Cecily asked. “I’m not handling this well.”
Sera frowned. “Sorry. Mizuchi was able to paralyze everyone in the room with a single spell. She only used that spell once: to deliver her speech without interruption. She obliterated the people on the stage. After that? Her attacks were more focused. She eliminated specific targets, and fought back against the people that attacked her.”
Sera paused, taking a breath. “She clearly had wide area of effect attack spells, but she never aimed them at the students. Even when she finally used her breath weapon, she directed it in a line. A shaper of her level could have made it fork, or jump to multiple targets, with ease. But she aimed it just at Marissa.
“Sure, Mara was fighting hard,” she offered, giving Marissa a nod of acknowledgement, “But if Mizuchi’s goal was to kill everyone, she could have spread out that breath attack. Or used it more than once.”
“You’re saying...if we hadn’t fought, she wouldn’t have ‘urt us at all?” Marissa sounded terribly dejected.
I stepped in. “Maybe she wouldn’t have hurt the students, sure, but when you stepped in she was just about to kill Teft and Meltlake. They were both down and bleeding. And I checked — they’re both alive. Badly hurt, but alive. You saved them both.”
Marissa’s expression shifted to resolve, and she sat a little straighter after that.
And I turned toward Patrick. “And you saved her in turn. No one needs to regret getting involved. But I think Sera’s right.”
“Yes, Mizuchi was obviously holding back,” Elora waved a hand dismissively. “She could have just turned into a ten story tall serpent and rolled around on us if she wanted everyone in the room dead. That was a message, as she said in the beginning. But that group isn’t usually as messy about this sort of thing.”
“You’ve mentioned ‘that group’ a couple times now.” Keras adjusted his mask. It was strange to see it on him indoors. “Who are we dealing with? Tails of Orochi? No, I suppose it’d be the Scales of Seiryu if it was Mizuchi...”
“It’s neither. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you about them.”
Keras frowned. “That’s what you’re going to be vague about? I think that’s pretty critical to this discussion.”
Elora sighed, then adjusted her necklace and pulled down the high collar of her dress to expose her throat.
There was a glowing runic mark on her neck. The source of that second aura I’d seen under her dress earlier.
I’d wondered why she had two magical items in the same spot. She didn’t — this was something different.
And the rune looked an awful lot like the kind of brand that Katashi had put on my hand. The kind that I’d been told could explode if I didn’t complete a certain objective in time.
“When I say I can’t tell you, I mean I can’t tell you.”
Keras leaned closer, narrowing his eyes. “Well.” His jaw tightened. “That changes things, now doesn’t it?”
The implication was fairly obvious, but I had so many questions.
But how does it —
Cecily leaned closer. “How does the mark work? Does it respond to certain words? Or is someone listening to your conversations to remotely activate it? Oh! What if we just asked you yes or no questions?”
I blinked at Cecily.
“I can’t discuss it.” Elora adjusted her dress and necklace, covering the mark. “Now you know there are some things I can’t talk about, however, and my reason for it.”
Cecily frowned. “Could you maybe just write down what your restrictions are? Then maybe we could find a work around.”
“It won’t work,” Sheridan explained. “She can’t talk about it, but I understand the general theory. Brands like that are designed to read your thoughts. Attempts to deliberately circumvent the brand will result in increasing levels of danger to the person with it.”
Elora nodded and made a gesture of thanks to her sibling.
“Okay,” Kera
s sighed. “So you can’t tell us about them, but this was apparently non-standard. Fine. Where can we get more information?”
“Tristan,” I offered. “He seemed to know about what was going to happen.”
“But, if Tristan really is alive, he’d be in the spire, right?” Patrick asked. “And we wouldn’t know where?”
“The latter portion is indeed a concern,” Elora replied. “I can get us inside, but I always used a Wayfarer to contact him once we arrived. That Wayfarer is now dead. It might be possible to locate him with a Diviner, but my Diviner is also dead.”
I winced at that, remembering what had happened when Saffron attacked. “I may be able to contact him if we get inside.”
“A ‘maybe’ isn’t good enough in this case. Even if you could get him a message, he may not be able to reply. Given how things have gone, I suspect he is no longer in the position he once was.” Elora replied.
“And that position is...?” Sera asked.
“I can’t talk about it.” Elora motioned to her neck.
Sera grunted in irritation. “Fine. Then we need a Diviner.”
“Even if you had one, I wouldn’t be interested in taking anyone into the spire right now. The situation inside has clearly changed, and that means it could be dangerous.” Elora shook her head. “Moreover, Corin described Mizuchi as having been banished. Is that right?”
“That’s the word that Vellum used,” I confirmed.
“When you banish a creature, it goes back to its home. For creatures like elementals, that means their home plane.”
“But for a spire monster,” Sheridan added, “That means their spire.”
“Meaning that Mizuchi is back home.” I nodded at the logic. “And if we go in there, she might come after us.”
“It’s a risk I wouldn’t want to take,” Elora explained, “Not unless there is no alternative. And I believe we can find several superior alternatives.”
Keras gave me an apologetic look. “You should probably just leave the country for a while.”
I blinked. “Seriously?”
Elora turned to nod in agreement to Keras. “Even if Mizuchi leaves the spire again, I doubt she’ll leave Valia proper. I’ve never seen a spire monster go that far outside of their territory. Corin would likely be safer away from here.”
I shook my head. “Fleeing might save our lives, but it’s not going to actually solve anything. Other people are going to keep dying until we figure out what’s going on here.”
Sera turned toward me. “And you think we’re the best equipped to handle that? Aside from Mara, we got demolished when we tried to fight Mizuchi. And from what I hear, your fight with Saffron didn’t go much better.”
I made a noncommittal grunt in response.
“It’s not always about fighting,” Keras offered, surprising me. “But even if what you’re pursing is a diplomatic solution, you’d probably be better off waiting. Leave for a few months. Let the monsters lose your trail. In about two weeks, I should be able to get us some help.”
He gave me a meaningful look.
Meaning that he can leave the country and get equipment?
Oh, no, he’s talking about the Jaden Box.
When I’d first picked up the box, the documentation had said that it would take about two hundred days to recharge. It had been a lot less than that.
When I’d used it to try to summon Keras, I’d hoped that it might use less mana when trying to summon someone close by. That was still possible, and would require further testing, but it didn’t work in that case.
I considered his offer. “In terms of help... Could you get us someone else as powerful as you are?”
He nodded. “Potentially. Maybe more than one person, if we’re lucky enough that some of my friends are in the same place.”
That was a tempting offer, but assuming the two hundred day limit was accurate — and I couldn’t assume it was wrong — we were still more than a hundred days away.
If this mystery organization was acting now, they could do a lot of damage in that time period.
Cecily turned to me. “You should go to your mother.”
Mother?...
Something clicked in my mind.
Tristan had been trying to get me to go to Dalenos, too. That was where Mother presumably was.
Did that mean she was involved in all this?
I wasn’t sure I could handle another family member being involved in this madness.
Or was he just trying to get us both to be in a safe location?
“Uh, I like Lady Lyran and all,” Patrick offered, “But I’m not sure how that has anything to do with this?”
“Lady Lyran is on the city council. She may be a target, like I was,” Elora offered. “It would be kind of us to inform her that there may be a threat.”
That was an explanation, but not the only one. But I wasn’t convinced that Elora was one of Mizuchi’s targets in the first place.
Elora had left almost immediately after hitting Mizuchi with that powerful attack. Maybe that was because of how exhausted she was — she still hadn’t fully recovered from fighting Saffron — but maybe she just wanted to make a show of contributing before she left.
Mizuchi hadn’t had a chance to attack Elora, so there was no way for me to know if she would have if she’d had the chance.
I couldn’t trust Elora on this. Not when she’d presumably been one of the people who had started this in the first place.
Going to my mother was a potential route for getting answers, although it was somewhat less likely now that I’d seen that Elora had some kind of brand. If my mother worked for the same organization, maybe she would have one as well.
In retrospect, I didn’t have any good information on the brand at all. I just had the word of Elora and her sibling.
I trusted Sheridan a little more. They’d helped both me and Sera, after all. But their loyalty was probably to their sister.
“Lady Lyran?” Keras frowned, turning to me. “I think your mother tried to have me arrested last time we met.”
“Yes, that was her with me,” Elora confirmed, making things more awkward for me. I’d been trying not to let Keras in on that little fact.
That added another complication I’d have to deal with. “Sorry about that. I’m sure I can clear that up.” I turned to Elora, deliberately changing the subject. “You were just in Dalenos. Were you with my mother?”
Elora shook her head. “No, but we were on related business. I have a feeling I could locate her, as long as she isn’t in the spire at the moment.”
Keras raised a hand in a gesture for me to pause. “I didn’t realize it was Dalenos you were talking about heading to in order to meet your mother. I’m not one to hold a grudge, but I didn’t exactly have a good experience last time I was in Dalenos. I can’t go with you if you’re heading there.”
“Katashi didn’t clear your name?” I asked.
“Oh, that was taken care of. But I may have made some personal enemies, and I’d rather avoid any conflicts with them. Believe me, that wouldn’t be good for anyone involved.” Keras reached up and adjusted his mask, which just made it look more lopsided.
I couldn’t laugh at how silly that looked, though. He’d just added a whole other complication.
I put my head in my hands, thinking. People chatted around me for a moment, but I focused on my own thoughts.
What did I want to do?
Visiting my mother might get me a few answers, but I didn’t know if I could even find her.
And if Keras wouldn’t come with me, I’d be losing one of my strongest allies.
While I had Keras with me, I had a real chance to climb high in the spire. I also currently had access to Elora, who could get us inside, and a full team worth of people that I trusted.
I didn’t know if I’d ever get that kind of opportunity again.
Moreover, Tristan’s last letter had made it sound like something had gone wrong. If he was in danger, that
made it an even higher priority for me to meet him as quickly as possible.
I would never forgive myself if I had a chance to see Tristan and I missed it because I’d chosen the safer path.
“Okay,” I said, addressing the room, “Elora is right that we should send Mother a message. But if we want any real answers, any real solutions, we’re not going to find them outside the spire.”
“Well,” Elora said, “I’m not going back in there. Not while I’m very likely to be toward the top of Mizuchi’s list of delicious morsels.”
I took a breath. “Can you teleport me inside without you?”
Elora frowned. “Theoretically possible, but I don’t like it.”
“Because you wouldn’t get anything out of it?” Keras asked.
Elora rolled her eyes. “Well, there’s that, obviously. But also because it has a high chance to get Corin killed, and Tristan would hold me responsible for that.”
“I’ll take responsibility,” I said. “I can send him a message explaining that.”
Elora laughed. “You don’t know your brother very well.”
That...hurt.
Sera intervened on my behalf. “Of course not. He hasn’t seen his brother in five years, and now he believes Tristan may be involved in a mass killing. One that you played a role in initiating.”
Elora didn’t get angry, as I’d expected. She just waved a hand. “True, true. Fine. I can send you into the spire. But not without a full team that has a method of locating Tristan. We’re doing this right or we’re not doing it at all.”
I nodded at that. “I can work with that.”
“This...that’s a mistake, Corin.” Cecily shuffled her chair closer to mine. “You really should go see your mother. I’m sure she could explain all this. And with a vastly lower risk?”
“I’m very tired of running away from danger, Cecily.”
“That doesn’t mean you should run toward it.”
She had a point.
I didn’t like risks, either. Normally, I avoided them as much as possible. I planned for every contingency I could think of, even ones that weren’t likely.
But in this case, I had resources at my disposal that I was likely to lose, and Keras’ mention about Dalenos had made it clear that it was possible for me to lose those resources at any time.
