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“Well, of course,” Mogul drawled, thrusting his hands into his pockets and adopting a slouching pose so clearly exaggerated for effect it was reminiscent of a vaudeville performer. “That’s the only trick you know, isn’t it? Kill it with fire, ask questions never, then flounce away and let the authorities sift through the wreckage. No, Natchua, if I meant to mix it up with you, I promise you’d never have seen us coming. I want to have a word with you.”

“I don’t recommend having words with the Wreath,” Fedhaar said tersely.

“I notice you haven’t opened fire yet,” she replied, glancing back at him.

“Standard procedure not to force a confrontation with warlocks if it’s not necessary. If they don’t want to fight, grand, but that doesn’t make it smart to listen to notorious manipulators. We need to evac.”

“And that’ll be why he’s put himself between us and the exit,” Svanwen said.

Mogul tipped his hat.

“All right, sunshine, I’ll tell you what,” said Natchua, folding her arms imperiously. “Convince me you have something worthwhile to say and I’ll hear it out. Waste any more of my time and I shadow-jump all of us right out of this entirely pointless pain in the ass.”

“Any reason you can’t do that now?” Fedhaar asked.

“I’ll send you all back up top if you want,” she said. “He’s gone to the trouble of setting this up once, and cost Agatha’s people two days of work. I’d just as soon he get it out of his system before the next attempt is even more of a headache.”

“Hn,” the captain grunted, flexing his fingers along the haft of his battlestaff. “That said, I prefer we stay and keep an eye on this, then. Thanks for the offer.”

“Appreciate having you,” Natchua said, glancing back again to give him a nod. “Well? We’re waiting, Mogul. Spit it out, while we’re young.”

“Kind of an impossible position, isn’t it?” he mused. “I’m to impress someone whose core problem is being too up her own butt to possess basic empathy, or an awareness that actions have consequences.”

“Well, he came to the point more directly than I expected,” Natchua said, smirking faintly.

“Glib in the face of anything that might cause the discomfort of a real emotional response,” Mogul retorted. “I know you didn’t learn that in Tar’naris. You must’ve devoured those chapbooks and comics as soon as you hit Last Rock, kiddo. That would explain several things, actually.”

“I’m getting bored,” she warned.

“Now, as best as I’ve been able to piece together events after the fact, you actually spent a short time in chaos space yourself. You and the Crow; she’s just about the only person who can get into there and is insane enough to use it for transportation. So you know that’s not boring.” He was still showing teeth, the corners of his mouth still turned upward, but his upper lip had twisted the expression into a feral snarl beneath the shade of his hat. “Don’t you?”

“Did you honestly set all this up to complain at me?” Natchua exclaimed. “It was a warzone. I caught you idiots red-handed summoning more demons into it. And I’m the one who’s unaware of consequences? At least have enough courage of conviction not to whine when you get hurt in the process of being hilariously evil.”

“’Evil’ is a word people use to dismiss anything they can’t be bothered to understand,” Mogul shot back. “But don’t you worry, darlin’, we’re more than accustomed to being the bigger person. Case in point: I’m not even going to rant about how evil it is to consign a couple dozen bystanders to a dimension of unimaginable torment for no better reason than that you wanted to hurt the deity they answer to. Because I do understand it, Natchua. And mark me now: before I’m done, you will understand it, too.” His smile thinned, which ironically made it look more sincere, though it was still not a warm or cheerful expression. “Consider this the thrown gauntlet. Any fool can hurt someone; there is no greater vengeance than to make a person confront their own fundamental inadequacy. For most people, a personality is little more than a lifetime’s worth of built up defenses against the realization of what a piece of shit they truly are. I’m going to take that from you, Natchua. And when you finally have to acknowledge the true depth of your own stupid, selfish perfidy, that will hurt more than anything suffered by us, or by our comrades who never made it out of where you sent them. So you have that—”

“Oh, gods, are you done?” she demanded.

Mogul sighed, his smile finally inverting into an annoyed grimace. “Really, now, I’d think you could at least let me have my moment of drama. Surely even you will acknowledge you owe me that much.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Natchua snorted. “I’m gonna tell you what I told your bitch goddess: you’re no better. However justified Elilial is in her beef with the Pantheon, she’s a spiteful, destructive monster with oceans of blood on her hands. You think you’re so very put upon? Please. Yeah, I messed you up, but—and I can’t believe I have to keep repeating this—you were summoning an army of demons into Ninkabi. What, did you look around at the city being torn apart by demons and think, ‘hey, I know what this needs: more demons!’ Just fuck right off.”

“We were acting under orders from the Dark Lady,” another of the Wreath cultists interjected harshly. Her voice was feminine, though none of their faces save Mogul’s was visible, and the echoes in the tomb made it difficult for even Natchua to tell which one was talking. “We were trying to put a stop to the invasion! Her forces—”

“Even you don’t believe what you’re saying,” Natchua scoffed. “You were trying to stop a demon invasion with a demon invasion? You’re supposed to be the ultimate anti-demon experts. There is zero possibility you’re not fully aware that is the opposite of how it works.”

“When you’re given marching orders from an actual deity,” Mogul began.

Natchua barked a harsh laugh which reverberated through the tomb, prompting an agitated hiss from the chained rozzk’shnid behind the wall. “If you’re the Black Wreath and living on a diet of your own prideful resistance to the gods, you question your orders. If you’re the Black Wreath and have been close enough to Elilial’s plans to have seen firsthand how she’s been unraveling for years now, you definitely question orders that you can plainly see are only going to make a catastrophe worse. Apparently, you idiots couldn’t be bothered. So what does that make you?”

“Are you trying to suggest we’re not the actual Black Wreath?” Mogul asked, his tone amused. “I have to say, that’s something I’m rarely accused of. In fact, this may be a first.”

“I’m saying you’re exactly like every other poor sap wrecking the world and coming up with no better excuse than ‘my god told me to.’ You think the Pantheon and their cults are assholes? Fine, maybe so, I wouldn’t really know. You think you’ve been mistreated? Sure, I handled you roughly, and so have a lot of others. But you think you’re in any better position to look down your noses? Please. You had your chance to prove you were better; I caught you right smack dab in the middle of it. That was your opportunity to show that all your resistance to the gods was something more than asshat us vs. them tribalism, your chance to stand up to an unjust goddess and do what was right instead of what you were told. And did you take it? Did you prove your character? Or did you duck your head and obey, and try to fuck up a disaster even worse? Well, Mogul?” She threw her arms wide, sweeping a glare around at the robed figures. “Any of you? What did you do?”

They remained hooded and inscrutable, though a growl sounded in the feminine voice which has previously spoken, softly enough that only Natchua could have heard it. Mogul’s mouth had pressed into a thin line, no longer showing any amusement either real or dramatically feigned.

The ensuing two heartbeats of silence were broken by a low whistle from one of the soldiers, followed by a muffled snort from another.

“Never mind, you don’t have to say anything,” Natchua stated in the most condescending tone she could muster. “We all know the answer. I just wanted to see your face wrap itself around that stupid expression. And you chuckleheads came here to make me confront my inadequacy? No wonder your goddess had to surrender.”

“You have no idea what that place was like!” the woman snarled.

“Vanessa,” Mogul warned, but ignoring him, she stepped forward, revealing herself to be the hooded figure closest to him on his left.

“People I cared about died in agony right in front of me because of you,” she snarled, pointing accusingly at Natchua. “Torn apart by monsters, because you had to pursue your own little grudge with Elilial! You don’t get to climb up on a high horse and lecture us!”

Natchua folded her arms again. “You know what? Fuck your dead friends.”

“Little beast!”

Vanessa hurled a shadowbolt of such intensity that its sullen purple glow lit the chamber for a split second. Natchua deftly brought up a hand to intercept it and plucked the thing out of the air; in her grasp, the streak of energy was suddenly a yard-long shaft of irregular violet crystal which streamed with sulfurous smoke. She contemptuously tossed it aside, and the solidified magic shattered upon the stone floor, brittle as old charcoal. By the time the soldiers managed to bring their weapons to bear, the fragments were already decaying into nothing.

“Fuck your nihilistic crusade,” Natchua continued relentlessly. “Fuck your whingeing goddess, fuck her hurt feelings, and fuck you all. You’ve been through some shit, fine, you can be upset about that, but you’re not going to act like the aggrieved party. You know what you did, and this entire stupid thing is nothing but you trying to make yourselves feel better by pretending there’s someone worse than you out there. And the proof of it is that you’re trying to pick on me instead of Mary the Crow, who was at least as responsible for that whole thing and would flick her fingers and annihilate the lot of you if you went near her, you self-involved cowards. You made your choices, and you chose to lick Elilial’s hooves and in the process throw away your own vaunted spirit of defiance and your divine mandate to protect the world from demons. So yeah, I sent your asses to Tentacle Super Hell, and you are now getting on my case about it so you don’t have to face up to the fact that that was what you deserved.”

Vanessa practically vibrated with rage, but silently; Mogul had gone still and stood stiffly upright, with none of his theatrically slouched demeanor. The other cultists, previously impassive, shuffled restlessly in their robes.

“Fuckin’ told,” Lieutenant Bindo observed, prompting another derisive snort from a fellow soldier.

“Quiet,” Captain Fedhaar ordered tersely.

All of them stilled, though not in response to him. The sound that echoed through the tunnels hovered right at the edge of hearing, even Natchua’s, resembling both a groan and a whisper. It came from the gate into the deeper, unmapped catacombs, accompanied by a soft stirring of air and the acrid smell of old decay. The rozzk’shnid whined and began scrabbling furiously at the stone, as if trying to burrow into the floor; mostly smothered by its noise was an ephemerally faint suggestion of murmuring voices, with words hinted at but nothing meaningful to be discerned.

It faded in little more than a second, though, and in the next instant the darkness momentarily deepened in the tomb, shadows drawing together around the cultists in unison. They receded immediately, and with them the Wreath vanished.

Ms. Svanwen let out a huff of pent-up breath. “Well. That’s…that, I suppose.”

“Not hardly,” Natchua murmured, frowning at the spot where Embras Mogul had stood. “There is no possible way that was all he wanted.”

“Agreed,” said Fedhaar, raising his battlestaff to plant its butt on the stone floor. “That kind of confrontation isn’t their pattern at all, though it can be the first step of a characteristic misdirection. Whatever they came here for, that was just the opening move.”

“Well, if they’re after me in particular, hopefully they won’t mess up your work any more,” Natchua offered, turning to face them.

Svanwen shook her head. “If nothing else, now they know they can draw you out by messing with Veilgrad’s interests. Blessed Light, and I played right into it. It was me who went and drew you into this, just like that prancing cockerel wanted.”

“Don’t beat yourself up about the Black Wreath thinking two steps ahead of you, ma’am,” Fedhaar advised. “That is pretty much what they do. For now, we need to get out of here and report this nuisance to ImCom and Duchess Dufresne. Jevani, finish what we came here for.”

“Sir!” One of his soldiers saluted, then swiftly stepped around the dividing wall with her staff at the ready.

“I could’ve done without that last bit of theater, though,” Fedhaar commented. The crack of lightning was deafening in the tomb, causing Natchua to wince and cover her ears; Jevani had to shoot the rozzk’shnid three times in succession to finish the armored creature off, but the captain continued as though there had been no interruption the second its squeals ceased. “That was just plain creepy. Didn’t seem like it fit with the rest of that guy’s performance, either.”

Natchua turned to face the direction of the doorway into the deeper tunnels, hidden out of view by the likenesses of the ancient kings, her face again drawn into a pensive frown. “I don’t…think…that was them. We may have additional problems.”

The whole exchange so far had taken place in the lodge’s grandiose entrance hall, simply because that was the only indoor space large enough to contain the whole group. The Harpies numbered thirty-eight women in total, most somewhere in their middle years but including a handful of teenagers and three gray-haired grannies, one of whom required a cane to walk, not that it had apparently held her back from rebelling against the regime in Shaathvar. There was a single Tiraan among them, a woman in her thirties named Sadhi who had looked singularly depressed every time Ravana had seen her; all the rest were Stalweiss, with hair in shades of brown and gold when not gray, plus two with the rarer red, most of them with the solid build of hardy mountain folk.

Despite the opulence of the lodge, with its gilt-fluted marble columns, the atmosphere in the room was surprisingly convivial, largely due to the noise from the front area near the doors, where Dantu had taken over shepherding the Harpies’ dozen or so accompanying children. The old man appeared to be having the time of his life, guiding the youngsters through a game that seemed to involve alternately sitting in a wide circle and chasing one another around it; fortunately he’d selected as the site for this roughhousing a large swath of plush carpet which had been enchanted so as to both repel stains and not inflict burns when skidded across. Ravana had already decided never to inform any of them that her great-grandfather had commissioned the thing for sexual purposes and her father had laid it before the door as its magic conveniently prevented mud from being tracked into the lodge. For the most part, she kept her focus on Ingvar and the Harpies, but periodically stole inquisitive glances at the elder and the children. She’d never had the opportunity to play such games at that age…

With the sounds of play as a backdrop, the more serious scene unfolding around the great hearth at the opposite end of the hall was spared from excessive solemnity. The refugee women stood and sat in a roughly semicircular formation, their attention mostly on Ingvar, who spoke in a steady and soothing tone that Ravana admired for how deftly he had perceived the mood of this crowd and the best approach to them. At least a few of the Harpies were still studying Dimbi with awed expressions. The younger Shadow Hunter had taken the form of a great wolf as a demonstration, and not seen fit to change back; she now sat next to Ingvar before the fire, a tawny creature the size of a small donkey surrounded by a gentle aura of light as if occupying her own private sunbeam, the golden geometric patterns marking her fur glowing gently.

“There’s nothing more natural than to feel that way,” Ingvar was saying earnestly in response to Brenhild’s last statement. The closest thing the Harpies had to a leader, she was a broad-shouldered woman with dark brown hair done in a single long braid and then wrapped around her head like a crown; apparently she had personally fended off Huntsmen trying to drag her and her comrades back home, first with a broomstick, then a cudgel, and later with the Avenic leaf-bladed gladius now hanging at her hip. She watched Ingvar with a skeptical frown as he continued, but showed no signs of disagreeing. “Every person has the right to space of their own; in Shaath’s service, we learn to appreciate solitude, and the fact that women are so frequently denied it in traditional lodges is just one of the crimes heaped upon you.”

More of the women than otherwise nodded at that, a couple grunting approval.

“As free beings, you’re entitled to decide whose company you keep, and when,” Ingvar went on, still holding Brenhild’s gaze with that inexhaustible calm of his. “If you don’t want anyone around sometimes, that is fine. If you don’t want any men near you at certain times or places, that’s entirely your right. It would be even if you hadn’t been through ordeals that would make it particularly understandable. Being part of the wild means determining these things for yourself. As a group, though, and as a doctrine, we will not be segregated by sex.”

“The Avenists cultivate women-only spaces,” Brenhild stated, narrowing her eyes.

“So they do,” Ingvar agreed with a nod. “In fact, so do Izarites and some sects of Vidians. We do not. This thing with men against women is the whole root of all our miseries, and needs to end. There is a lot we can learn from Avenists, and others, but not to the point of losing our own identity as Shaathists. As I said, when you need times and spaces to be by yourself, they’ll be available—but this will be because you are human beings with the absolute right to determine with whom you will keep company, and when, and under what circumstances. It will never be about formal segregation within the Shadow Hunters. That is a point of principle, yes, but there is also a crucial matter of overcoming bad habits within our own ranks. We have many former Rangers who are already accustomed to this and provide good examples; we also have Huntsmen who need to get used to accepting women as equals, and women from both Shaathist and other backgrounds who I will not see brushed aside into separate spaces. Even with the best intentions, that can all too easily lead to exactly the kind of gendered divide Shaath’s people urgently need to overcome.”

At that, Brenhild nodded, her expression finally softening; clearly taking a cue from her, several of the others nodded as well. Some of the Harpies still seemed skeptical of Ingvar, but fewer than when he had started speaking, and quite a few were gazing at him with utterly rapt expressions. Watching all this unfold from the shadow of a marble column a few yards away, Ravana was impressed by how well and quickly he was winning the group over.

“We’ve our own scars to heal, you know,” said Gretchen. A widow, she had had the personal privacy to take up a very cursory study of the fae arts without any Huntsman preventing her; the woman was no witch, but even her slight connection to magic had made the wolf dreams especially vivid and informative for her, leading to her taking a role as the Harpies’ unofficial shaman. It had been Gretchen who had foreseen Ingvar’s coming even before Ravana had informed the group of her intention to bring him, and she had ardently championed him as a solution to many of their problems. Now, though, her expression was concerned, even cynical. “Not that I doubt the seriousness of what you’re suggesting, Brother Ingvar, but I don’t think any of us are anxious to take on the obligation of tending to more Huntsmen of Shaath, even if it’s to teach them how not to be pompous puffed-up arses. There’s plenty of pain here that needs to be healed before any of us look to take responsibility for anyone else.”

“You’re absolutely right,” Ingvar agreed, inclining his head toward her. “I mean no offense, but you all have a great deal of learning to do in the ways of the wild, due to being unfairly kept from them for all these years. If you’re ever to be responsible for guiding others, that will come later, and only if you choose to embrace that task. For now, it will be the Shadow Hunters who take on the duty of guiding and nurturing you, not expecting you to do likewise just yet. I confess we are not an ascetic or healing-oriented order. There are other cults with deep arts for soothing hurts to the spirit. In Shaath’s service, we have the wild.” He smiled, glancing about at the group. “And honestly? The wild is good medicine. Simply being out in nature is one of the most healing experiences a person can have. The harmony of wild places soothes the spirit and guides the mind back into balance. This is true for anyone, but as you grow in your knowledge of woodcraft, your connection to the earth will grow stronger. That eternal comfort will always be there.”

He paused, glancing aside at one of the hall’s towering windows, and shook his head ruefully.

“Well. Words are cheap; this is the point where ordinarily I would lead you outside to walk among the trees and show you what I mean, but unfortunately, we’re in the middle of winter.”

“Hah!” Ritta, the eldest among them, cackled and thumped her cane against the floor. “You call this winter, sonny boy? You’ve not spent much time up in the mountains.”

Amid the laughter which followed, Ingvar grinned right along.

“All right, fair enough! I certainly have time, and I came prepared for a Tiraan winter.” He picked up his bearskin cape and swung it over his shoulders. “No one need feel obligated, if you’d rather stay in here by the fire, but anybody who’d like to accompany me in a short exploration of the forest is more than welcome. There’s no time like the present to introduce you to your birthright. The wild belongs to all who are called to it.”

Smiling broadly, Brenhild clapped her hands. “You heard him! Cloaks and scarves, everybody, and let’s not keep Brother Ingvar waiting. Give us five minutes, young man.”

To Ingvar’s visible bemusement, every last one of them headed off to the hallway toward the inner rooms where their effects were kept, from stooped old Ritta to little thirteen-year-old Mittsin, herself barely mature enough to be welcomed by the group as a sister rather than consigned to Dantu’s care with the other children. Evidently not a one of the Harpies was willing to be held back from her formal introduction to Shaathist woodcraft by anything so paltry as a foot of snow.

As the last of them streamed out of the hall, Dimbi stretched out in front of the fire, resting her head on her forepaws, and Ingvar slowly crossed the room to join Ravana.

“You impress me, Brother Ingvar,” she said before he could speak. “You’ve handled all of this with great skill. I did hope you would be the one to guide them forward; my faith was clearly well-placed.”

“It’s I who should thank you, my Lady,” he replied. “All of this is thanks to your kindness.”

Ravana nodded once, then made a languid gesture at the great hall itself. “I realize the pretentiousness likely doesn’t suit your aesthetic, but what do you think of the lodge?”

“I do feel slightly out of place,” he admitted, “but it is a magnificent edifice.”

She smiled coyly up at him. “How’d you like to keep it?”

Even his well-mastered expression faltered into startlement. “Pardon?”

“There are drawbacks, of course,” Ravana mused, turning her head to gaze toward the hearth. Dimbi was watching them sidelong, her ears pricked upright despite her relaxed posture. “Being stationary poses risks, with Grandmaster Veisroi and his loyalists baying at your heels. But it will also better enable more followers to find you, and Tiraan Province is in a far more central location on the continent than N’Jendo. There is certainly ample room for your extant group and quite a few more additions, even counting the Harpies.”

“I…” He trailed off after one syllable, staring at her in apparent confusion.

“It’s not charity I offer,” Ravana assured him. “There is a traditional relationship between House Madouri and the Huntsmen of Shaath, allowing them free reign of the forests in the province in exchange for providing forestry services. You’ll be aware of this, of course, as I understand you lived in the lodge in Tiraas for several years. The Huntsmen have similar agreements with a number of Houses. With a single ducal decree I can award this traditional right to your group.” She allowed her smile to widen slightly. “To keep up appearances, of course, that means I will have to formally and publicly acknowledge your sect to be the legitimate cult of Shaath.”

Dimbi raised her head at that, turning it to stare directly. Ingvar had belatedly marshaled his features, and now peered down at Ravana through narrowed eyes.

“Why would you do such a thing?” he asked. “Supporting the Harpies is one thing, Lady Madouri. What you suggest would place you right in the center of what may yet become a violent religious schism. It seems like an impolitic move.”

“I’m a calculating creature, Brother Ingvar,” she murmured. “If I choose to take sides in any conflict, it is a sign of my confidence that the side I select will be the winning one. So the question is: do you want me on your side?”

He studied her in silence for a handful of seconds before answering.

“I am not sure.”

Ravana grinned. “Your reticence shows wisdom. I do think you are in the right in your conflict, but more importantly, I think that you are the future. Veisroi and his ilk are the past. Have you considered the meaning and the nature of the progress we have seen in the last century, Ingvar? Telescrolls, Rails, zeppelins, wands, shielding charms. What does it all mean?”

“Connection,” he answered. “The world grows smaller.”

“Oh, everybody knows that,” she said, waving a hand. “House Madouri has reigned over this land for a millennium by looking always to the future. The future I see is one in which secrets will grow harder and harder to keep, and even the most common people more and more able to defend themselves. With every advancing decade, people will grow harder to deceive, and harder to oppress. The Shaathist traditionalists have a regime built upon lies and persecution; it will grow ever more unsustainable, and would even without the wolf god himself plaguing their nightmares. It is people like you, who seek to liberate and enlighten, who will move to the fore in the coming century.

“Which is not to say that your victory is preordained,” she cautioned. “It’s early, yet, and Veisroi is well-positioned to make his enemies disappear. Someone will topple his kind, in the end; it may or may not be you. As I see it, by throwing my support into making sure that you are the one, I position House Madouri to enter the world of tomorrow with hard-won credibility and valuable allies.”

“Hm,” he murmured.

“And then, there is the more immediately practical,” Ravana continued, lowering her voice nearly to a whisper. She gazed at the fire past Dimbi, who was still staring at her. “I am…a patriot, Brother Ingvar. Acknowledging my bias, I judge the Tiraan Empire to be the preeminent example of the potential of human civilization in the world today. I consider the Tirasian Dynasty the most effective the Empire has yet known, and Sharidan a superior ruler to either of his predecessors. His Majesty is regrettably constrained by the politics of his position from openly acknowledging that Archpope Justinian has deliberately made himself an enemy of the Throne.”

She deliberately parted her lips, showing the tips of her teeth in what was not a smile.

“I am not.”

“And to think,” Ingvar said softly, “I feared you underestimated the scope of the conflict you offered to enter. It’s the opposite, isn’t it? You are looking to an even grander struggle.”

“You deserve to succeed,” she replied, “and the Empire must endure. It is the general practice of those in my station to sit upon the fence until they feel they see which way the wind is blowing. Then again, it is the general practice of nobles to think nothing matters more than their own power. I choose to make a stand upon what I deem a greater purpose than my own desires. And in so doing, I mean to help shape the course of the wind itself.

“So!” she said, suddenly brisk, turning to face him directly with a broad smile. “This is what I propose, specifically. House Madouri shall formally recognize your sect as the true Shaathists, and award you the traditional rights, duties, and privileges of husbanding the wilds of Tiraan Province. You will be granted indefinite use of this lodge as a headquarters, with its upkeep and defense still funded by my treasury. Given the precarious nature of your situation, in order to lend further legitimacy I will bestow upon you the traditional title of Warden; it is long retired, like Court Wizard, but still on the books and will throw the weight of custom behind your position. In fact… Yes, to make certain you have the full authority to act in your new capacity as Warden of this province, in my capacity as governor I will appoint you an Imperial Sheriff, which will enable you to enforce the law within this domain, as well as create severe repercussions for any who seek to attack you.”

Dimbi shifted her head to stare at Ingvar.

“That is…incredibly generous, my Lady,” he said slowly.

“No, it isn’t,” Ravana replied, her smile unfaltering. “I have considered the matter carefully. What I propose will lay obligations upon you, as well as expose you to certain risks. This arrangement comes with plentiful compensation, to be sure, but only that which I deem necessary and suitable considering what I gain from it.”

“I see,” he murmured. “This is a larger decision than I had planned to make today, Lady Madouri. Obviously, I would like to discuss it with my fellow hunters.”

“You should of course do what you think is right,” said Ravana. “I will not, however, promise that the offer will still be on the table when you have finished with that.” He frowned, but she continued before he could speak. “I’m certain that consulting your fellows sets a most admirable precedent for spiritual purposes, Brother Ingvar, but with all due respect, such matters are between you and your followers. For my purposes, I require a leader who can act decisively when it is called for. I judge you to be just such a man. If I am thus in error, it of course changes the situation.”

She gave him a single beat of silence in which to mull that, during which he stared narrowly at her eyes as if trying to glimpse what lay behind them.

“Decisively, but not in unseemly haste,” Ravana added in a gentler tone. “You were just informing our guests of the calming powers of a walk in the forest, and are just about to lead them upon one. By all means, embrace this opportunity to ponder; I’m sure it will be every bit as soothing for you as for them. And when you return, we can discuss our shared future.”

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16 – 6

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“My family’s hunting lodge,” Ravana said, gesturing at the scene before them.

They stood upon a snow-covered hill in the western reaches of Tiraan Province, near the Viridill border, with a dense stand of leafless oaks behind them and in front, the long descent to the lodge itself in the middle distance. It rose proudly from a lower hill of its own, positioned right on the border between the ancient forest (one of the few in the province not burned or leveled in the Enchanter Wars) and the broad plain stretching toward the low hills that would become Calderaan Province beyond the northeastern horizon. Half a mile from the gates of the lodge stood a sleepy little village, looking quite picturesque buried under a heavy snowfall and with the smoke of a dozen fires streaming upward from its chimneys.

“Lodge?” Dimbi repeated incredulously. “Don’t you mean summer palace?”

It could be fairly called palatial in its proportions. The main building was designed in the shape of a traditional Stalweiss longhouse, though the resemblance did not extend beyond shape. Its roof was expensive Sheng-style gabled slate, the tall windows stained glass, and even its towering support pillars were hand-carved into the shapes of upright animals, every one a work of art which had taken an entire ancient oak trunk. From the central longhouse spread rambling wings of faux-rustic timbers supported by fluted marble columns, the more recent featuring huge banks of plate windows made feasible even in the depths of winter by modern arcane heating.

She wasn’t about to mention that the nearby village existed entirely to staff and support the lodge. Ingvar, at least, had probably already figured that out.

“The House of Madouri has reigned over this province continually for a thousand years by cultivating certain defining strengths of character,” Ravana said proudly. “I will acknowledge that restraint and modesty are not among them. Honestly, I’m just glad to have found a useful purpose for this property, as I confess I don’t hunt. Nor, I suspect, did most of my ancestors who stayed here. Please forgive the distance; those staying in the lodge currently have been subject to a great many upsets of late, and I have observed they seem somewhat uncomfortable with grand displays of magic. I try to approach them in the most humble and unobtrusive manner feasible. My Court Wizard has been very accommodating in—Veilwin, really.”

The rest of them turned from their study of the lodge to follow Ravana’s gaze, now fixed on the wizard herself. Veilwin was now gulping deeply from a silver flask, and did not stop while meeting Ravana’s stare with raised eyebrows.

“You know, you’re just going to have to down a sobriety potion to teleport us back,” the Duchess said, exasperated. “It’s unlikely to be more than an hour from now.”

“An hour?” Veilwin replied, finally lowering the flask and grimacing bitterly. “An hour of complete, uninterrupted sobriety? Girl, do you have any idea what that feels like?”

“Yes, in fact,” Ravana retorted. “Speaking as a wine lover of, if I may flatter myself, some local repute, sobriety is my default and preferred condition.”

“And you’re easily the worst person I’ve ever met. Coincidence?” Veilwin brought the flask back to her lips and resumed an uninterrupted sequence of long gulps, while holding an arch stare at Ravana and, with snaps of her fingers, conjuring an armchair and a small bonfire. The sorceress flopped down in her seat and stretched her feet out toward the arcane blue flames as the surrounding snow hissed away to steam.

Ravana shook her head and turned her back on the elf. “Anyway. I presumed that veteran outdoorspeople such as yourselves would not mind a short winter hike, but if you are in any way uncomfortable I will not hesitate to send Veilwin back for coats.”

“That’s not necessary at all,” Ingvar said smoothly. “Your judgment was correct, my Lady, we are quite comfortable. Shall we?”

“Let’s,” she agreed, setting off down the hill. Ravana noted he did not question her comfort, but the man was doubtless intelligent enough to infer the presence of a heating charm. The enchantment woven into her own dress was more sophisticated than anything on the market (a Falconer prototype; Geoffrey came up with the most marvelous things when he got bored of tinkering with carriages). Even her breath did not mist upon the frigid air.

“What is she drinking?” Dimbi muttered as they strode through the knee-deep snow toward the distant lodge. “I could smell that flask from two yards away, it was like a burning alchemy lab.”

“I don’t know,” Ravana admitted. “Though I have observed its contents to be quite combustible. Between an elvish constitution and the resistance built up over a lifetime of drinking, I suspect what it takes to get Veilwin tipsy would kill an orc.”

“She’s…interesting,” Dantu said, grinning.

“Veilwin is a powerful and exceedingly skilled mage; I am quite satisfied with the performance of her duties. She is also, in addition to the alcoholism, congenitally incapable of withholding her opinions. I don’t think she’s ever held a single job for more than a month before.”

“I just meant,” the old man chuckled, “I’ve managed to meet a handful of nobles in my long years, none half so important as a Duchess, and I can’t see a one of ‘em letting one of their employees talk to them like that.”

“Not long ago,” Ravana murmured, gazing ahead as they plowed through the snow, “as I was listening to Professor Tellwyrn rightly excoriate my entire character, I experienced an epiphany: no one had ever spoken to me that way before. And further, no one ever spoke to my father in such a manner, either, and I now believe that is directly why he ended up the way he did. My father was neither evil nor unintelligent, he simply failed to comprehend that his own desires were not synonymous with the highest good of the universe. It is a failing to which nobles are regrettably prone due to the circumstances of our upbringing, and in fact, those circumstances are an unavoidable necessity. A chain of command only functions of those at its top are respected and obeyed. This is…a dilemma.”

“So,” Ingvar said softly, “you seek to surround yourself with those who will speak truth to power.”

“I was considering leaving university,” Ravana admitted, “but this understanding changed my mind. At Last Rock, I am surrounded by royalty, paladins, demigods… All manner of people who are in no way impressed by me. And those are just my classmates; the faculty are on another level entirely. It is an extremely healthy environment for people such as myself. Additionally, it buys me two and a half more years to collect advisors who will not hesitate to challenge me at need. Hopefully I can find some with more nuance than Veilwin, but she is…a start.”

“I respect that a great deal,” said Ingvar. “To know one’s own faults and seek to overcome them is both the least and the most that can be asked of anyone.”

They reached the base of the hill, which was less than half the distance to the lodge, but changed their trajectory. No longer descending toward the grounds, they now in fact began to push upward through the snow toward the rise upon which it was built.

“In any case,” Ravana said briskly, “our correspondence was relatively brief before Veilwin took it upon herself to fetch you, Brother Ingvar. How much do you know about the conditions from which the Harpies fled?”

“Less than I should,” he admitted, frowning. “We have stayed largely on the move; most carriers of news have been less persistent than your agents in finding us, Lady Madouri. Hunters have continually sought us out to join since Shaath’s call first went out, both Huntsmen and Rangers, and some have brought news from the Stalrange. It is somewhat sketchy regarding events in and around Shaathvar, however.”

“You are probably getting more applicants from Lower Stalwar, where the Rangers have more enclaves,” Ravana said. “Yes, I shouldn’t wonder; the situation around Veilgrad is quite different. People there have ample recent experience at rolling with large metaphysical punches, and Duchess Dufresne is a pragmatist after my own heart. Loudly dissident Shaathists have been inexplicably vanishing all winter, and not long ago, someone shadow-jumped a group of their runaway wives and daughters to the Abbey in Viridill.”

“I would be grateful to know anything you have learned of their circumstances,” Ingvar said in a carefully neutral tone.

“They are somewhat dire,” Ravana warned, now frowning herself. “Shaathvar has been an ongoing disaster from the day of the Battle of Ninkabi until I intervened last month. With the dreams that won’t stop coming every night, the core Shaathist regime there has been tearing itself apart, and one of the biggest sources of conflict is the simultaneous unraveling of more families than otherwise as women have been trying to either flee with their children, or in some cases, attacking their husbands.”

Dimbi grimaced. “Yikes. I support anyone wanting to live free, but that sounds…”

“Can’t rightly expect a person to remain calm and logical after they get divine confirmation they’ve been lied to like that for their whole lives,” said Dantu. “I don’t blame the women one bit.”

“It’s been chaos,” Ravana continued. “Nearly coming down to guerrilla fighting in the streets of Shaathvar and the surrounding forests, as women and sympathetic Huntsmen have been trying to escape, most willing to shed blood in the process, and traditionalists have taken it upon themselves to forcibly retrieve them. The governor declared a curfew and martial law, which didn’t help; the Empire had to send troops to hold the city, and that barely helped. The jails are crammed beyond capacity and the courts overwhelmed trying to figure out who drew steel on whom, and whether any of them were justified. And as if all of that were not chaotic enough, the Sisterhood sent a detachment of priestesses with a Silver Legion escort to counsel and support any Stalweiss women who desired freedom from their circumstances. The loyalist Huntsmen still in nominal control took that about as well as you would expect. And that, too, began to spiral, as various Huntsmen have arranged for themselves to be reminded why it is not wise to assault servants of the goddess of war.”

“I would have thought High Commander Rouvad had better sense than to poke the bear in such a manner,” Ingvar muttered, his eyes narrowed.

“I suspect that after the Syrinx debacle this summer, Rouvad is anxious to be seen standing on Avenist principle regardless of the political repercussions. Then, too, the Archpope has been deliberately dragging his heels on confirming a new Avenist Bishop, and it is known that the Huntsmen are his greatest pillar of support within the Pantheon cults. The Sisterhood may be growing tired of waiting to be listened to, and looking to make a point that they can insist upon it.”

“You said your intervention calmed things?” Dantu inquired.

She nodded. “It started as mass chaos but quickly coalesced into factional conflict, as such things do. The Shaathist traditionalists remained in control of the bureaucracy of the province, but once the Avenists got involved, they secured a defensible structure and began teaching runaways both the art of self-defense and the relevant laws around it. By then the group of local women who rose to find and shelter other runaways had begun to organize, and took to calling themselves the Harpies. Which was also a provocation, as no one has seen a living harpy outside of Inner Anvedra in a thousand years; it is obviously a reference to the harpy eagle on Avei’s sigil. By last month, a bitter stalemate had ensued, as the Harpies more or less rescued everyone they were apparently able to, and then had to turtle down and defend themselves from outraged husbands and fathers trying to drag them back home. When I offered to remove them en masse from the province, even the local government was grateful. They were themselves glad of a safe route out of the situation, the Sisterhood and the Silver Throne supported me, and with the Harpies gone from Shaathvar, it has finally begun to settle. Of course, I am inundated with complaints from various lodges about my unwarranted interference, but my lawyers are handling all of it so far.” She shrugged, allowing herself a cold little smile. “And what they cannot, the House guards stationed at the lodge will. I have made it clear that any rogue Huntsman trying to sneak into these grounds is asking for whatever he gets.”

All three Shadow Hunters glanced sidelong at her, but none responded directly to that.

“Did you have them teleported here by your mage?” Ingvar asked after a momentary pause.

Ravana shook her head. “These are women from a very traditional Shaathist background and their young children, who have already lost the most central underpinnings of their understanding of the world. They’re not sanguine about arcane magic and I have found it best not to rattle them any more than I absolutely must. Plus, teleporting this many individuals would have required me to hire most of the Wizards’ Guild, who themselves came from the great Salyrite schism a century ago. I made inquiries of the Archmage, who was leery of getting into internal Shaathist affairs. In the end, the Harpies’ escape served as the inaugural mission of my new private zeppelin. It was a little cramped, but more of them than otherwise seemed to enjoy the flight.”

Ingvar nodded, glancing at her again, and she could practically hear the unexpressed thought in his eyes: why was she willing to stick herself into the center of a bitter religious feud in which both sides were willing to shed blood and neither offered her any apparent gain? He kept quiet, though, and Ravana indulged in another knowing smile. It wasn’t yet time for that conversation.

The other two likewise held their peace, looking to Ingvar for guidance, and Ravana took note of the political acumen on display. He had clearly picked this group with care, even though it didn’t include his dryad friend or any of the others closest to him, or those most intimidating in a confrontation; his Shadow Hunters had only survived this long because they were too physically dangerous for any Shaathist lodge to attack in force. Obviously Ingvar had opted for a gentler approach here. Dimbi was a young woman, a good choice to help put the Harpies at ease and demonstrate that women were equals in his new Shaathism; Dantu was an old man, and doubtless a source of wisdom, while also not being an even remotely intimidating figure. And tellingly, both were socially adroit enough to follow Ingvar’s lead without overt instruction. It was a small thing, but it showed greater sophistication than she was accustomed to expecting of Shaathists.

Which boded well for her own plans.

“I cannot tell you how much I appreciate that you have done this, Lady Madouri,” Ingvar said softly as they ascended the last steps of the hill upon which the lodge stood, its gables now towering over them. “The effort must have been considerable, and the results…are priceless.”

“No one else was doing it,” she said noncommittally. “A person in my position can do a great deal of good. I could also exhaust myself and my resources trying to put out every fire in the world, an error I am not about to commit. To an extent, one must pick and choose from many worthy causes. This one…resonated with me. I know what it’s like to live under the thumb of a man whose brittle ego and need to keep me there informed his entire view of the world. I brought you here, Brother Ingvar, because I believe you are the best possible person to help these women find their footing in this strange new world. And I daresay you will find a warm welcome here: the dreams of Shaath that continue to come have, according to some of them, mentioned you by name.”

“Now, that I did not know,” he murmured as they climbed the broad stone steps to the front door of the lodge.

“Regardless, we can only do what we can,” Ravana said, grasping the latch and turning it. She pulled the door wide, letting a rush of warm air out, and gestured within. “What will be, will be. After you.”

“It’s simple economics,” Svanwen explained as another fairy lamp clicked on in the tunnel ahead, and one behind the party winked out. “Lights with motion-sensing charms are a lot more expensive up front, yes, but they save me both the cost of a lot of recharging dust that needn’t be burned while nobody’s around and the man-hours it would take to have somebody come through switching them on and off. It’s one more thing my people can ignore and get on with their work. This project is likely to take decades, years at the very least. Over time, it’ll save a fortune. A good businesswoman takes the long view.”

“How’s all the flashing on and off on your eyes?” Captain Fedhaar asked Natchua. “I know drow see well in the dark, but I’ve heard you lot have some trouble in bright light.”

She had long since perfected the magic to maintain her vision without the need of dark glasses, but was not inclined to delve into that for his benefit.

“Don’t you worry,” Natchua said with a wink. “I can see better than any of you under any light level.”

Fedhaar grunted and turned his gaze back forward. “Elves are bullshit.”

Svanwen shot him a look as if fearing a racial conflict was about to erupt, then switched it to Natchua when the drow chuckled.

“Well,” Natchua said, shrugging, “he isn’t wrong.”

The dwarf shook her head. “Anyway. How’s the trail looking?”

“We’re still following,” reported Fedhaar’s tracker, a Western human called Lieutenant Bindo, who was walking at the head of the group with his attention on the ground. “The beast’s healthy, which is both good and bad; means it’s not leaking any infernal radiation. Harder to follow, that way, but much safer for everyone. Lucky there’s so much stone dust in these tunnels. Nothing that belongs on this plane has feet like this.”

“My people know what they’re about,” Fedhaar said coolly.

“I never meant to imply otherwise,” Ms. Svanwen assured him. “If I forget myself and prompt everybody to keep alert for any infernal craft nearby, it’s not meant as a personal slight. Just my veteran tendency to micro-manage.”

“It’s good advice, no matter whose ego is at stake,” said Natchua. “The second rule of infernomancy is to triple-check everything, and then triple-check it again.”

There was a momentary pause.

“All right, fuck it, I’ll bite,” Fedhaar finally said with a sigh. “What’s the first rule of infernomancy?”

She grinned at him. “Don’t.”

The captain couldn’t help grinning back. “Good rule.”

“So,” Svanwen said pensively, “the big question is how there’s a rozzk’shnid in the tunnels. They’re not the sort of creature that tends to wander through hellgates, even underground. We’re thinking there are two possibilities, the first of which is that some deep drow have burrowed into the catacombs somewhere down below the areas we’ve explored. That’s a worst case scenario, obviously. Scyllithenes with access to Veilgrad would officially be a crisis.”

“Unlikely,” Natchua opined. “If you had Scyllithenes, you’d be finding the mutilated corpses of your crew, now tracks from what amounts to a loose animal.”

“That’s exactly my assumption,” Svanwen agreed, nodding, “hence coming here with a small team of specialists and not Captain Fedhaar’s entire battalion. Imperial Command and Duchess Dufresne agree, though they did insist on having another unit from the Azure Corps on standby to bring in more soldiers if this goes sideways somehow. But all things considered, it’s most likely the second possibility: some rogue warlock hiding in the deeper tunnels. They made a great hideout for shifty types even when they were still full of bodies. That’s exactly what drew the chaos cult that caused the big disaster in the first place.”

“Mm,” Natchua grunted. “One warlock shouldn’t be too hard to take down, if it comes to it. Question is what they would summon a rozzk’shnid for. The creatures make decent guard dogs in tunnels, and…that’s about it.”

“This hypothetical warlock will explain themselves when we get them,” Fedhaar stated dispassionately. “One way or another.”

Natchua gave him a nod of approval.

“Tunnel opens out up ahead,” Bindo reported. “Tracks are still leading that way.”

“There’s a sequence of larger vaults just ahead,” Svanwen added. “They mark the deepest regions my people have explored and secured. Beyond that, there’ll be no more installed lights, and we don’t even have reliable maps of the tunnels.”

“We’ve got light sources and directional charms,” said Fedhaar. “I’m not worried about getting lost. It’ll just be a little less comfortable, that’s all.”

They emerged into a broader chamber than the arched tunnel along which they had been traveling. Well-lit now with large fairy lamps Svanwen’s crew had set up in each of the rectangular room’s corners, it was lined entirely by deep alcoves in the wall of the right size for a human body to be laid out, all currently empty. The center of the long chamber held three huge stone sarcophagi, their lids pushed aside and lying broken upon the floor.

“It still gets to me, sometimes,” Svanwen whispered as the group stepped carefully through the rubble. “All these honored dead, just… Treated that way. It’s sickening. Did you know Veilgrad was originally a necropolis? The first living residents were Vidian priests who looked after the old Stalweiss chieftains interred here. Burial records extend back before the Hellwars. And all just…swept aside, in service to pointless, destructive madness.”

“The Vidians have been quite clear that they were just bodies, at least,” said Fedhaar. “The souls of the dead were long since in Vidius’s hands and beyond tampering. C’mon, no use dithering here.”

Natchua opened her mouth, but stopped herself from commenting at the last second. While she suspected that was the sort of thing the Vidians would say regardless of its veracity just to keep people from worrying needlessly, it belatedly occurred to her that suggesting it would also cause nothing but needless worry.

Then she frowned, tilting her head. “Wait.”

The others paused, turning to look expectantly at her.

“I hear… Up ahead, there’s something. Sounds like scratching… Claws on stone, maybe.” She brought her eyes back into focus, first on Svanwen and then Fedhaar. “May be our beastie.”

The captain turned his head toward his soldiers and nodded once; in unison, all of them drew wands. “Good to have the elven bullshit on our side, I won’t deny it,” he said. “How far?”

“It echoes weirdly down here,” Natchua murmured. “Hang on…”

She closed her eyes, reaching out through magic. Yes—definitely a demon, at about the outer limits of her perception in this manner.

“There’s a sequence of chambers like this,” Svanwen said while Natchua concentrated. “All in a neat row, the last being the biggest. Beyond it the tunnels are more rough-cut, smaller, and twist about more. The final gate is as far as we’ve explored. It was supposed to be barred, but I’ve not had people down this deep in weeks.”

“Yes, looks like a rozzk’shnid,” Natchua reported, opening her eyes. “I can’t tell anything about the surrounding tunnels, but it’s maybe a hundred yards up ahead. Not moving around much. I don’t detect any active magic nearby.”

“Right,” Fedhaar stated, moving ahead. “We’ll take point, then. Careful and quiet, people. This thing may just be an animal but we don’t know what’s what down here.”

The soldiers saluted, and he waited to get nods of acknowledgment from Svanwen and Natchua before proceeding.

It was a tense passage through a series of cleared out burial chambers, each growing progressively larger, and the ancient carved decorations more elaborate the deeper they went. By the time the group reached the final sepulcher, the scrabbling of the demon was audible to all of them, along with a soft, intermittent metallic clatter. It was loudest as they stepped into what Svanwen whispered was the largest final tomb, a space the size of a church. There were motion-activated fairy lamps down here, too, though they were already on before the group came into view of them.

The last gate opened onto an open space lined with more burial alcoves, these carved into the stone walls to a height of four per wall. Above, the vaulted ceiling lay in shadow, soaring high enough not to be easily reached by the installed fairy lamps. This chamber had no free-standing sarcophagi, but maybe two thirds of the way along its length a stone wall stood in the center of the open space, leaving passages to either side and not reaching the ceiling. Its purpose was apparently decorative, being carved with the solemn likenesses of five ancient Stalweiss kings, each with inscrutable runes engraved above their heads.

The scratching was coming from the other side of this.

At hand signals from Fedhaar, the troops split up, creeping forward with weapons upraised to both sides of the barrier. Natchua joined the captain himself, as did Svanwen, and ignoring his grimace of disapproval, stepped forward to be the first around the corner.

The demon was there, all right. The rozzk’shnid was the size of a large dog, proportioned somewhat like a monkey and plated in natural armor, and eyeless. It was also wearing a heavy iron collar, from which a chain trailed to an iron spike driven into the ground. At their approach, the best stopped its futile worrying at the chain, turning blindly toward them and hissing.

For a second, they just stared.

“It’s like…” Svanwen whispered, “like it’s set out as…”

“As bait,” Natchua finished. “Oh, fuck.”

“Retreat,” Fedhaar ordered, and the soldiers immediately stepped back.

“Now, now, now, let’s nobody go and panic,” a new voice said jovially, and the group trailed to a stop just beyond the stone wall, staring at the entrance to the tomb, where a dark-skinned human in a pristine white suit complete with a wide-brimmed hat had just sauntered out of the tunnel beyond.

The soldiers brought their weapons up as eight figures in hooded gray robes materialized seemingly from nowhere along the walls of the tomb.

“Whoah,” the man in white said soothingly, raising both his hands. “Easy, now! Sorry about all this rigamarole, but I assure you I’ve no beef with most of you. Last thing we want is to kick up a scrap with the Army, after all. And most especially not with the inimitable Ms. Svanwen, here. I confess after having a good look through these chambers I’ve become quite a fan of your work, ma’am. Why, the place is starting to look downright homey!”

“Most of us?” Svanwen demanded, ignoring his flattery.

“Hey,” Natchua said, narrowing her eyes to slits. “I remember you.”

“Oh, do you,” he replied, his smile growing broader and notably brittle. “What an honor it is to be remembered by the great Natchua! My heart is all a-flutter.”

“I’m positive I killed you fucksticks in Ninkabi,” she snorted. “How the hell did you get out of that—”

“You seem to’ve adopted Veilgrad as your home,” Embras Mogul interrupted, grinning more widely still until the expression looked nearly psychotic, especially as he held his head tilted so the brim of his hat concealed his eyes. “There’s an old Shaathist hunting axiom you really should’ve picked up by now, Natchua honey: never wound what you can’t kill.”

“Those robes…” Fedhaar said. “Are these Wreath? What exactly are you assholes playing at? Elilial’s not even at war with the Pantheon anymore. It was kind of a big deal.”

“Oh, indeed, our business is not with anyone aligned with either the Pantheon or the Empire,” Mogul assured him. “My humble apologies for drawing you fine folks into this. It seemed the least disruptive way to get this malicious little darkling off by herself, but rest assured, I’ll make amends for the inconvenience. Now, as for—”

He broke off, staring incredulously, as Natchua burst out laughing.

“Oh, this is too rich,” she chortled, striding forward into the center of the room and rolling up her sleeves. “The Black Wreath has come to exact terrible vengeance! And here I was afraid for a second that something bad was happening. Agatha, Captain, this shouldn’t take long, but you may wanna step back a few paces to enjoy the show. The front row of seats may see some splattering.”

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16 – 4

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“The one and only!” Rasha said with a broad smile. “Something I can help you ladies with? I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.”

It was instinct, by that point: never let them see you’re afraid. Glory had not only schooled her apprentices in Eserite philosophy, but drilled them in roleplayed scenarios with herself and one another until she was satisfied that they would reflexively default to a Guild thief’s poise and confidence under any pressure. And so, in a situation wherein the old Rasha would have quailed and tried to run, or perhaps lashed out and suffered the consequences, she just smiled, giving them nothing.

Also, the well-practiced calm enabled her to keep in mind that she was a welcome guest in this temple and there were Silver Legionnaires within earshot. These three were working to project an intimidating presence, but if they actually did anything, it would be they and not Rasha who landed in hot water. Had Zafi already left? She didn’t dare concede her nervousness by turning to look.

“This isn’t a social call, boy,” the woman in the lead sneered, and Rasha was proud of herself for keeping her composure. They couldn’t tell, she knew it with an empirical certainty beyond even her own insecurities. Glory, a ruthless taskmaster as much as she was a nurturing mother hen, had deliberately put Rasha into social situations arranged entirely to prove to her that no one saw her as anything but a young woman after a year of transitioning, counseling, and coaching. Which meant…

“I don’t know exactly how you got your hooks into our paladin, but the last thing she needs is more of a corrupting influence,” the ringleader stated, tilting her head back to stare down the considerable length of her nose at Rasha. “It stops, now. Am I understood?”

Yep, there it was. Thorn was going to stomp these imbeciles into paste when she learned about this.

And as if by magic, that realization sucked all the menace out of their ambush.

Rasha kept her amiable smile in place, affecting an idly interested posture of her head while they prattled on.

“It’s bad enough the High Commander sees fit to indulge perverse men in…this,” the woman on the left said, putting on an identical sneer. “But don’t get too comfortable with it. Things are changing around here.”

“That’s a problem for another time, though,” added the third, folding her arms across her tabard. “Have your fun while you can. But you will keep away from General Avelea.”

“I don’t want to hear any more about you infecting her with Eserite nonsense, to say nothing of pushing the idea that your mental illness deserves to be recognized as Sisterhood doctrine,” the leader chimed in. “You thieves can be as sick as you want on your own time.”

“It’s Rasha, yes? Is that your made-up name? Well, whatever you’re really called, we know where you stay and—”

She broke off incredulously as Rasha yawned. Widely, but discreetly covering her mouth with her fingers. A lady, as Glory insisted, did not show off her molars.

“Excuse me, ladies,” Rasha said politely, managing not to betray her amusement at their expressions. “It’s been a long day already. Would you mind awfully getting to the point? It’s just that I don’t really have time for halfhearted schoolyard bullying today. Not that you’re not very good at it, I’m sure, but some of us are grown-ups, with jobs.”

They stared at her, the two on the sides with their mouths satisfyingly open. The leader managed to look even more belligerent, however.

“Oh, I see,” she snorted. “You think you’re clever. How very like an Eserite.”

“So, that’s a no, then?” Rasha said pleasantly. “Very well, you three have a lovely afternoon. I’m going to leave now.” She almost took a step backward to extricate herself from their formation, but then had a better idea. “And you,” she continued, polite as ever, “are going to get out of my way.”

The leader’s fingers shifted to grasp the handle of her longsword; the woman on the left actually gasped in outrage, while the other flushed nearly crimson, her Stalweiss coloring making it especially vivid.

“Oh,” the ringleader said quietly from behind clenched teeth. “Are we?”

“Yes, you are,” Rasha replied, batting her eyelashes. “I am an apprentice of the Theives’ Guild, and a welcome guest in this temple. Lay a finger on me or draw that sword, and you’ll be tossed out of here on your ear by Silver Legionnaires, just for starters. Then you will be dragged into an alley for an etiquette lesson by six enforcers before you can flee the city. And none of us wants that, girls. I don’t want it because stirring up drama like that would be a terrible repayment to all the people in the Sisterhood who have been very kind to me.” She smiled more broadly, again batting her eyes. Just because it was classically, stereotypically feminine, and they would hate it. “And you don’t want it because you’re cowards.”

“You little Punaji brat,” hissed the second woman, actually sliding her blade a few inches out of the sheath, but the leader reached across to grab her wrist. Rasha kept eye contact with the woman in the center, not looking around to check for intervention. The sanctuary was almost crowded; someone had to be overhearing this. Legionnaires might not have been able to see the almost-drawn sword, with the four of them clustered together, but it was only a matter of time before somebody stepped in.

“Cowards, are we,” the leader said very flatly.

“Well, you seem to think it takes three of you to corner a girl half your size,” Rasha simpered. “And there’s the fact that your entire spiritual philosophy is that the sex you were accidentally born into doesn’t feeeeeeel as special if just anybody’s allowed in. Yes, I think the word applies. Don’t you?”

“Now you listen to—”

“Nope.” Rasha took one step forward; the woman didn’t back up. “You’ve wasted enough of my time. Draw the sword, or get out of the way.”

She flexed her fingers once, adjusting her grip on the hilt, eyes narrowing to slits.

“Do it,” Rasha said softly, dropping the smile. “I dare you. Do. It. Coward.”

The woman tensed, and for an instant Rasha thought she actually might.

Before anything could come of it, though, a fifth person inserted herself into their cluster. Sliding in as deftly as an alley cat, she draped an arm around Rasha’s shoulders and pushed herself subtly to the fore mostly by surreptitiously forcing Rasha backward.

It was a woman with tousled black hair and angular Sifanese (or maybe Sheng, Rasha still couldn’t reliably spot the difference) features, wearing a ragged Punaji-style greatcoat over a clearly armored leather vest.

“Hiiii,” she said in a breathy voice, eyes vacantly wide, and let her head list deeply to one side as if drunk, staring up at the central woman. “You have really pretty eyes.”

The Purist’s leader frowned, and actually took a step back, her two compatriots squinting in confusion at the new arrival. “What? I don’t… Listen, young woman, this is a private conversation.”

“Pretty eyes. Pretty, pretty eyes,” the woman crooned. Her accent was local, despite the foreign features. Well, the Empire had birthright citizenship and Tiraas itself was a melting pot, so one couldn’t assume. Rasha’s inward attempt to size up the interloper who was still clutching her faltered at her next comment. “Can I have them?”

The Purists all three stepped back, incidentally opening up their tight formation and exposing the center of lines of sight from several directions. Rasha, glancing rapidly about, immediately noticed two Legionnaires and a priestess watching them intently.

“They sing to me,” the Sifanese(?) woman cooed, beginning to sway back and forth subtly, tugging Rasha along with her. “I hear them in my dreams. They want to be mine. Pretty please, pretty eyes? I’ll give them a good home.”

Grimacing in pure disgust, the Purist leader finally turned and strode away. Her lieutenants fell in alongside her, the Stalweiss one with a lingering glare. In seconds they had departed through the temple’s front doors, all of the nearby Legionnaires openly turning to watch them go.

The second they were gone, the woman released Rasha and turned to face her. The daffy expression had vanished from her face, replaced by a sharp glare.

“You, apprentice, will run straight home and inform your sponsor of the dumbass stunt you just pulled. If you explain exactly why that was a stupid thing to do and what could have gone horribly wrong, she probably won’t box your ears the way you’d be in for if you were my apprentice. Glory’s a soft touch.”

“Me?” Rasha protested, at once relieved and offended. It was good news that the woman was Guild, but this… “I was just—”

“Oh, I was so worried!” the woman squalled suddenly, hurling herself forward and throwing her arms around Rasha in a big hug. It probably looked like a friendly gesture from the outside; only Rasha could feel the rigid fingertips digging into the pressure points at the base of her skull.

“The Guild and the Sisterhood are both unrepresented in the Church right now,” the Eserite hissed right into Rasha’s ear while soothingly rocking them both back and forth for the benefit of the onlookers. “We don’t get along great at the best of times. Intercult relations are incredibly delicate, and strained enough with that fanatical splinter sect suddenly infesting the city. What I do not fucking need is untethered apprentices picking fights with them in the temple.”

“They started—”

Rasha cut herself off, a second too late. The enforcer slowly released her, pulling back and gaze down at her face with a condescending little smirk.

“No, please, go on,” she said sweetly. “Finish your thought.”

Punaji were raised not to complain about fairness; under other circumstances, Rasha might have gracefully accepted the rebuke. But she had been standing up to bullies, doing exactly what Eserites were supposed to do. Straightening her spine, she stepped backward, pulling herself out of the woman’s grasp.

“Well. I won’t keep you any longer, if you’re here on business.”

“Too right, you won’t,” she said brusquely, already striding past her toward the rear of the sanctuary. Her voice rang out as she went: “Straight to Glory, now! She won’t like it if she has to hear about this from me.”

Still practically quivering with repressed fury, Rasha herself set off for the front doors at a stately glide, spine rigid and nose upright. One of the Legionnaires actually opened the door for her, with a sympathetic look. She barely had the self-possession to nod politely in acknowledgment.

That had stirred her up even worse than the ambush. Purists and other assholes she expected to behave that way; where the hell did a Guild enforcer get off rebuking her for doing exactly what she was being trained by the Guild to do?

Fortunately, the frigid air of Imperial Square did a lot to clear her head. Rasha turned up the fur collar of her dress, surreptitiously thumbing the rune on the warming charm hidden underneath it.

The Square was as stirred up as the temple had been; apparently she wasn’t the only one having an eventful morning. Rasha slipped to one side, out of the path of traffic, and paused in the shadow of one of the great columns to study the comings and goings. A column of soldiers was just marching past, and there were knots of people clustered together in excitable conversation all across the temple steps. What had gotten under everybody’s skin this morning?

Picking out a piercing voice from the hubbub, Rasha set off sideways toward one end of the temple steps, just in time to intercept a young boy coming round the corner, pulling a wagon full of newspapers, waving one over his head, and shouting at the top of his lungs.

“EXTRA, SPECIAL EDITION! READ THE BREAKING NEWS ON THE ELVEN CRISIS! IF IT’S KNOWN, THE LANCER KNOWS IT!”

She mutely tossed him a silver coin, receiving a grin and a deftly thrown paper in response. Rasha ripped off the twine and unfolded it enough to read the front page while he carried on into the Square.

Though she wasn’t personally much interested in politics, one didn’t live under Glory’s tutelage without developing a careful respect for the web of interconnected forces that made the Empire work, and sometimes prevented it from working. Rasha’s frown rapidly deepened as her eyes darted across the lines of text.

“The elves did what?”

“Formed a united government, including the legendary high elves! As Veilgrad’s most celebrated elven resident, my readers would be very interested in your insight into these developing events.”

Macy poised her pencil over her open notepad, gazing expectantly at her target with a big smile of anticipation in place.

“I straight up don’t believe you,” Natchua said bluntly. “If you told me the Matriarchs and Elders all linked arms and went square dancing in Imperial Square, that would be more plausible.”

The reporter had the temerity to grin at her, not looking down at where she was scribbling on the pad. Omnu’s breath, was she really writing that down? “Well, assuming for the sake of argument that I’m right, can I get a quote on this from you, Natchua?”

“Here’s a headline for you: annoying reporter continues to abuse the fact that I don’t indiscriminately immolate people.”

She wrote that down, too, looking not the least bit discomfited. “You grew up in Tar’naris, I’m sure you have more insight than practically anyone into what the ramifications of this might be. Veilgrad really respects your perspective, Natchua, and it’s especially applicable here. A word from you would mean a lot to people.”

Flattery and manipulation, and both so ham-fisted they would have provoked only annoyance in Tar’naris. Natchua indulged in an irritated sigh. Macy Vaucherot, which was pronounced in zee authentic Glassian manner, the pretentious tit (even though Veilgrad was full of old families with Glassian names who had been fully Imperial for at least five generations), was actually one of the less irritating reporters who tended to buzz around. One of the more persistent and least intimidated by casual displays of infernomancy, true, but at least she only published what she actually heard in that paper of hers, without the embellishments or outright fabrications which had almost sent Natchua to kicking down some of her rivals’ doors before her entire household had frantically talked her down from that idea.

And for that matter, she certainly did have opinions about Tar’naris and what such a development would mean for the Empire, and came perilously close to starting in on them before the recollection of Melaxyna and Kheshiri’s hurried advice about the power of the press came back to mind.

Elilial’s remarks about Natchua’s so-called “cunning” had, over the last several months, frequently made her stop and second-guess her first impulses. There was actually a pattern, she’d found; while most of her actions were described with words like “reckless” and “harebrained” by those close to her, in hindsight she noticed that they tended to lead to success when she spotted a benefit others had missed and aimed right at it with no regard for common sense, whereas just acting out of temper or apathy rarely ended well. It didn’t take much reflection to see which of those it would be to rant at a reporter about what abhorrent monsters most Narisians were. It was true, but the knowledge wouldn’t do anything to help anybody who got their news from Macy’s rag. Riling up the local populace and pissing off the Imperial Foreign Service might be worthwhile in a hypothetical situation where there was a benefit to her in it, but this was not one of those.

“I wasn’t a noble or anything, in Tar’naris,” Natchua said carefully. “I came from the farming House, and most of what I was taught about the affairs of the powerful was to stay as far from them as possible. I don’t think I actually have much in the way of insight into this, Macy.”

“But you were selected to attend the legendary University at Last Rock!”

“Yeah,” Natchua said dryly, “I’m the one who got kicked out, if you’ll recall. Look, international relations are over my head. What I do know is that the Tiraan Empire has not endured for a thousand years by being stupid, and the Tirasian Dynasty deserves credit for stitching the whole thing back together within a few years of the Enchanter Wars and keeping it that way during a century of unprecedented changes of all kinds. I have no idea how international relations should be handled, but it seems to me the people whose job that is are pretty good at it. Unexpected surprises like this are a good time for all of us out here in Veilgrad to stay the course and let the diplomats work. I can’t think of any recent examples of them letting us down.”

“But what about—”

“Good chat, Macy, but you caught me on the way to an appointment. Bye,” Natchua said firmly, turning away.

“I just wonder if you have any thoughts on—”

At least this time she didn’t shout or try to chase after her when Natchua shadow-jumped fifty feet up the street; experience had taught her that would only drive her quarry away faster.

The short range jump had put her in front of a public house with an outdoor terrace, on which a cluster of students from the nearby college were gathered around a brazier holding pints. Upon her appearance, one of them pressed himself against the waist-high wall, brandishing his tankard at her.

“Veilgrad stands!” he yelled unsteadily.

“Veilgrad stands!” she shouted back, pointing at him. A roar of approval rose from the whole group, and Natchua carried on down the sidewalk, grinning as they clamored behind her, though she did mutter to herself. “It’s one o’clock in the afternoon, ya louts.”

Her destination was another pub, this one abandoned since the chaos crisis, after which its owner had packed up and moved his operations to Mathenon, where the climate was mild, the coin flowed like water and nothing even slightly interesting ever happened. The Mad Marquis had stood empty till the catacomb reconstruction efforts had brought Agatha Svanwen’s company to Veilgrad. Then, its empty condition, central location, and basement access to the catacomb system had made it an appealing headquarters for her stonemasons.

The Svanwen Company guards out front waved her in with a smile. Inside, the common room was filled with masons and miners sitting around at tables and notably not doing any work; they raised such a cheer at Natchua’s arrival that it took her a few minutes to get it quieted down enough to receive directions to the basement access.

At least it was quieter down there, though notably tense, as she observed immediately on arrival.

Svanwen herself was present, along with two of her employees, a dwarven man who’d come with her from Stavulheim and a Veilgrad local, both wearing suits and holding clipboards rather than stoneworking tools. Standing at the other side of the room and looking notably unhappy were five humans in Imperial Army uniforms, complete with the eye symbol on a blue background of the Azure Corps.

“Finally, here she is,” said the man apparently in the lead, who wore a captain’s stripes and a disgruntled expression. “Can we get this over with?”

“And hello to you too,” Natchua said, raising her eyebrows. “I’m quite well today, thank you for asking.”

“Thanks for coming, Natchua,” Svanwen said with that firmly calm voice she so often used to keep order among her laborers. “I appreciate you going out of your way. This is Captain Fedhaar, from the Azure Corps.”

“Commander of the Fourth Infernal Containment Unit,” Fedhaar said with a bit more grace, finally nodding to her.

“Enchanté ,” Natchua replied. “So what’s this I hear about demons in the tunnel?”

“Probably not more than one,” Svanwen said before the captain could reply. “A few of my people have been seeing odd tracks since last week, but one finally got a look at it yesterday. Needless to say, I ceased operations and pulled everybody out, and we’ve had a guard posted on every entrance we couldn’t seal up outright. By the description, it’s pretty clearly a rozzk’shnid.”

Natchua glanced at Fedhaar, then back to her, frowning. “Well, those do like tunnels, but they’re not sapient and can’t use magic. What do you need me for, exactly?”

“She wants you to clear the creature out. Isn’t it obvious?” Captain Fedhaar said sarcastically, folding his arms. “Nothing but the legendary Natchua will do.”

Another time she might have taken exception to the attitude, but in this case Natchua had to agree with him.

“Seriously?” she demanded, pointing to the disgruntled battlemages while holding Svanwen’s gaze. “You’ve got the most highly-trained professionals at demon containment on the continent, on loan from the Imperial Army, to deal with what amounts to an animal control problem? That’s already overkill, not to mention a situation that can only get messier the more people are involved. What the hell is my gray ass doing down here?”

“I appreciate the vote of confidence,” said Fedhaar, apparently meaning it. At any rate, he looked a bit less irritated.

“You’re right, as demons go, a rozzk’shnid in the tunnels isn’t much of a crisis,” Svanwen agreed. “Hell, I could take care of the damn thing myself with a battlestaff and a hunting party. At this point, it’s more a matter of morale and personnel management, Natchua. Sometimes, the best person for the job isn’t the best person for the job.”

Natchua blinked at her, then turned to Fedhaar. “Do you know what she’s talking about?”

He shrugged. “Lady, I’m in the Army. The brass rarely uses the best person for the job, but I don’t think it’s on purpose.”

“It’s like this,” said the dwarf, now with some amusement. “My crew are composed of my own people from Stavulheim, who have no particular faith in the Imperial government, and locals who are of…divided opinions. Some of ‘em will no doubt be reassured by knowing the Army is on the case, but not all, and maybe not most. Like I said, this is not a big deal. All of us together are well more than a match for the creature. But what I need to get my people back to work is assurance that there aren’t demons in the tunnels, so they don’t have to be looking over their shoulders every five seconds. I asked you to come, Natchua, to lend your credibility. We track the thing down and kill it, and then I can get the say-so of everyone’s favorite friendly local warlock and hero of the Battle of Ninkabi that it’s safe to get back to work.”

Natchua heaved a sigh, then grimaced apologetically at Captain Fedhaar. “Well… Crap. I guess I can’t turn up my nose at that, can I? As the least actually useful person here, it’d be an asshole move to not contribute what relatively little I can. All right, Agatha, fair enough. I’m in.”

“Glad to have you,” the dwarf said with a smile. “I’ll earmark you an honorarium from the discretionary—”

“Oh, don’t bother. I mean, thanks, but what the hell would I buy? Anything I need, Sherwin is happy to squander his ancestral wealth on. Save your funds for the folks doing the real work.”

“Huh,” Fedhaar grunted, staring at Natchua. “You weren’t kidding, Ms. Svanwen. Everything about her screams ‘cocky, irritating college kid,’ but damn if she doesn’t leave me with a positive impression.”

“Yeah, I’m a real fudge-dipped strawberry,” she drawled. “Everybody loves Natchua. All right, then! C’mon, nobody’s getting any younger. Let’s go fuck around in the dark demon-infested tunnels.”

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Having been expecting it, Natchua ignored the outbursts from the crowd which resulted from her abrupt arrival. She also was careful not to react overtly to the soldiers at the edges of the platform who spun to level weapons at her, though she did of course mentally prepare a proper defense against lightning bolts. It was such universal knowledge that infernal magic had no defensive application that the several she knew, advanced though they were, she was able to have prepared without need to mask the effect. Nearby priests or other warlocks might have been able to tell she was doing something, but not what. Besides, such spells were fiendishly complex even without the extra effort of concealing them; just that much concentration distracted her momentarily, long enough for Grusser to step away from the podium and take her by the arm.

“Natchua, what are you doing?” he demanded in a low tone, angling his face away from the voice projection charm on the podium.

“Preventing this from becoming a bigger mess than it already is,” she replied, equally quiet. “At least, hopefully.”

“I do not need—”

“Mr. Grusser, you’re one more minute of waffling from a riot and you know it.”

“And you are trained in public speaking?”

Not thoroughly, but yes. She didn’t bother getting into that, though. “We don’t have time for this. Seconds are precious and this is about to explode. Let me help.”

He pressed his lips together into a disapproving line, clearly unhappy with her attempted appropriation of his job and about to put up an argument. Natchua chanced a sidelong glance at the crowd, not that it was needed as her ears already told her the shock of her appearance was wearing off and rapidly turning into more anger. She simply did not have time to reason Grusser down the way he’d futilely been trying to do with an incipient mob.

Unfortunately, while Natchua had countless ways of removing obstreperous people from her path, employing any of them here would magnify her problems exponentially, starting with kicking off the very riot she was trying to prevent.

For just a moment, she thought this particular action might have been a little too hasty.

“If you don’t know me,” a new voice boomed across the square, “I’m Agatha Svanwen, founder and president of Svanwen Unlimited. My company came here from Stavulheim to oversee the renovation of the catacombs, and train local laborers in our specialty of underground masonry. At a guess, I’d say there are a fair handful of folk in this crowd who have a job because of me, and when I’m gone, will have a skilled trade they can put to work anywhere in the Empire.”

Grusser turned back toward the podium and Natchua subtly leaned around him to see.

The thing had not been designed with dwarves in mind; Svanwen had had to climb precariously onto the fortunately sturdy structure, bracing her feet on a conveniently placed shelf near its base and gripping both its sides for balance. It left her head just barely above the top, with the protruding projection charm closer to her eye level than her mouth. Still, she seemed to make do, with not a hint of strain from holding herself up entering her voice.

“A lot of you likely heard about the recent problem we had with drow; let me just assure everyone that she wasn’t part of it. This is Natchua, a friend of Duchess Dufresne’s from Last Rock. And in fact, she’s the one who chased off the Narisians so my company could get back to work. So if anyone here is drawing a paycheck with my name printed on it, you can thank her that you’re still getting yours.”

Natchua could actually see the moment Lars Grusser decided to swim with the current instead of against it. While the crowd murmured at that pronouncement, he turned to face them, raised his hands, and clapped them together repeatedly. The response was hesitant at first and never spread far, but there were apparently a good few Svanwen employees in the square. Applause and a few cheers rang out. It wasn’t much, but it helped to shift the mood, at least a little.

“And more immediately,” the dwarf continued, turning her head slightly to give Natchua a sidelong look, “when there’s weirdness afoot, Natchua is someone I think we should listen to.”

With that, she hopped down and stepped to the side in clear invitation. Natchua hesitated only to glance at Grusser; his eyes expressed a silent warning, but then he took a step backward, clearing her path to the podium.

Almost immediately, she found herself gripping its sides nearly as hard as Svanwen had. This was a lot of expectant faces. For a moment, Natchua found herself envying the relative bluntness of human senses; to Grusser and Svanwen this crowd would have been largely a blur past a certain distance. She could clearly discern every puzzled and irate frown clear to the other side of the square, and it was an entirely new kind of pressure.

The murmuring rose again, and she realized she had been standing there in silence for several seconds. She realized, then, that she didn’t actually have any specific thing to say.

But she had to say something. Well, hell, winging it hadn’t actually gotten her killed yet.

“Well, you heard them,” Natchua stated. Fortunately the charm picked up her voice and carried it across the square, but in it she heard its faltering quality. From the diaphram, as she’d learned in that one class on oratory. She tightened her midsection and when she continued, her voice was a lot firmer than she felt. “I’m afraid I haven’t much to add. What I know, you now know: the howling of wolves, dreams and portents coming to those sensitive to the fae. It’s happening all over the Empire, possibly all over the world. No one knows why, or what it means.”

The murmuring swelled again, taking on an angry note. She could pick out every individual muttered complaint. This, so far, was not going much better than Grusser’s attempt.

A frown settled over Natchua’s features and she heard her magically enhanced voice say, in a biting tone, “I must say, I find myself disappointed.”

Quiet fell. Not absolute quiet, but those who still muttered now did so mostly in confusion. Natchua pressed on, still not sure herself exactly where she was going with this but feeling she had slipped into a groove somehow.

“I’m hearing a lot of anger here,” she stated. “And to that I say: good. Whatever is going on, getting mad about it is better than buckling to fear. You had better make damn sure your anger is direction to the right place, though, and that’s at who or whatever is attacking everyone’s dreams. And since we don’t yet know who that is, you need to control yourselves.”

She had to push on over a surge of more irate voices, but did not falter; between her projecting and the vocal charm, there was little chance of anyone drowning out her voice. “Where I come from, in an event like this the Queen and matriarchs would loudly demand blind trust from everyone and send guards out to clobber anyone who wasn’t fast enough to offer it. That would be the practice in most countries in this world; I guarantee it is what’s happening right now in some parts of this Empire. Not, however, in Veilgrad. Here, you have a mayor who has led this city well, and is willing to stand before you and take the greatest risk there is in politics: admitting he does not know something.” She half-turned to shoot Grusser a long look. “A lot of politicians would have told Lars Grusser it was not wise to do this. I, however, will tell you why he did.”

Natchua turned her head back forward, and swept her stare around the assembled crowd. Somewhat to her surprise, they were even quieter now, most faces intent upon her. Apparently those public speaking techniques actually did work. It might have been wise to verify that outside a classroom and before inserting herself into this situation, but oh well.

“Because this is Veilgrad, and you have earned that respect.”

Another surge of murmuring rose, this one softer—and for the first time since she had arrived to watch the proceedings here, approving.

“If there is one place in the world where people can handle this kind of thing, it is here,” she declared, to louder noises of approbation. Repetition, her professor had said, building to a climax; Natchua rapidly cast about for examples prior to the big one on everyone’s mind. “This is the Empire’s acknowledged capital of spooky nonsense; you all live with fear and mystery, and despite that constant pressure, Veilgrad still stands. This is the place where the civilizations of Stalwar, Calderaas and Tiraas clashed for centuries, and finally found a union. That is the kind of history that destroys cities, but Veilgrad still stands!” This time, she got a smattering of cheers. “This is the city where people listen to the howls of werewolves in the mountains at every full moon, and the next day get up and go back about their business. Where not a month goes by without some new word of a disappearance or monster or unexplained event in the forests just outside, and yet here you all are still! Despite the best efforts of every specter and spook on this half of the continent, Veilgrad stands!” More cheering; her own voice was rising in pitch and volume, and it was not fully a facade anymore. Once she got going, this was gratifying. “No matter what lurks in the forests, or in the catacombs, Veilgrad stands! And when it all came to a head, when this city was tested like no other before—when the dead rose, when demons filled the skies, when monsters breached the walls and chaos itself intruded on this reality, you were pushed to the very breaking point. The forces of darkness threw everything at you, more than enough to break the spines of a lesser breed of people. They hit Veilgrad with every foul trick they had, certain it would finish you off for good. And yet?!”

“VEILGRAD STANDS!” a thousand voices roared back at her, hundreds of fists brandished in the air.

For just an instant Natchua was almost overcome by the sheer power of it all; it was heady, like a drug, like nothing else she had ever experienced. That passed immediately, though, because she was, after all, a warlock. And looking out at the mighty surge of energy animating this beast made of hundreds upon hundreds of souls, she recognized how very much like demonology this was. She held the leash of a monster that she did not control. She had only persuaded it, for now, not to turn on her. One wrong move, and it still might.

“In the days to come,” she said, loudly and firmly but with deliberately less emotion, “we’ll all know more. The Tiraan Empire is devoting every resource it has to this crisis,” or so she presumed, anyway, “and has the finest mages in existence.” Debatable, between Syralon and the high elves, but this was no time for careful attention to facts. “They will find answers. That’s what governments and leaders are for: to take care of issues that everyone else can’t while still going on about their lives. And that’s exactly the duty that falls to the rest of us now. Each and every one of you is the leading expert in one thing: going about your business. Now, while leaders, soldiers, and mages deal with whatever power is at work in the world, the call goes out for each of us to perform that ordinary task while under the most extraordinary pressure. Because life must continue, or all our struggles are meaningless. All of our lives have the worth we give them, and that’s never more clear than when danger looms over us. Around the Empire, all around the world, people are summoning the necessary courage to keep their heads down and carry on, while not knowing what’s happening. But not here. In Veilgrad, you’ve faced worse than this, and come out the stronger for it. No matter who else falls, Veilgrad stands!”

“VEILGRAD STANDS!” they shouted back. Still enthused, but less exuberant now, just as planned. Following Rafe’s instruction, she had taken hold of their emotions and was now carefully, a bit at a time, leading them back toward calm.

“Each of you must know someone who has been affected, even if you have not. If you don’t, you’ll be able to find someone. For now, this is what we all have to do: take care of each other. Everyone has a role to play in keeping the city running, and as you have time and energy left, watch for chances to help your fellow citizens. Reach out to other people in case they need a helping hand, and never be too proud to ask for one yourself. The temples and churches will be able to direct you to where you can do the most good. Because right now, this is the crisis, and that is the task: find where you can help.”

Natchua paused, looking again across the crowd. They were quieter, calmer. Her job here was almost done; with every necessary point made, it was time to wrap this up. And not a moment too soon, as she was beginning to feel a weak tingling sensation in her limbs, as if from exhaustion. Or more likely, adrenaline fading away.

“None of us knows what will happen in the future, but no one ever knows that. And we don’t need to. What we know is how to keep living. And here, in this city, we’ll keep living no matter what throws itself at us. I don’t need to tell you why.” She held her hands out in a silent invitation.

“VEILGRAD STANDS!” hundreds chorused.

“Veilgrad stands,” Natchua agreed. “Because every one of you stands, and no one stands alone. So long as you remember that, it always will.”

Nerves and fatigue had suddenly started to wear on her after the unaccustomed effort of putting on such a face for so many people; she just didn’t have much left to give. Fortunately no more was needed, as this crowd knew a stopping point when they heard one. Natchua probably couldn’t have kept going over the cheers that now broke out, anyway, and so didn’t try to.

She considered, for a bare moment, trying to surreptitiously mend fences with Grusser, but thought better of it. She needed a strategic retreat, and her performance her called for a dramatic exit.

Shadows gathered, and a moment later she was back in the tower.

Natchua blew out a breath in one gust, her cheeks puffing with the effort, and Jonathan laughed at her even as he wrapped her in his arms. She melted gratefully into his sturdy chest, closing her eyes and just letting him hold her up.

This was nice. Last night had been an experience she was still trying to parse, but this? This was really just incredibly nice. Natchua hadn’t realized how much she’d craved such simple comforts. She still was not at all sure she deserved them.

“You just never cease to surprise,” Jonathan chuckled, resting his chin on her head and stroking her hair. “I had no idea you were good at public speaking. Honestly, it doesn’t seem like the kind of thing you’d be into.”

“Had a semester of it,” she mumbled. “Oratory is an elective at Last Rock, taught by Professor Rafe.”

“Rafe,” he murmured. “Wait, isn’t that the one who…”

“Yep, that’s him.”

“You didn’t let me finish.”

“Unless the rest of that sentence was ‘is known for his good taste and restraint,’ the answer is always Rafe.”

He laughed again, and subtly twisted his body back and forth, rocking her. Natchua permitted herself a sigh, snuggling closer. Gods, this was just so nice… It just needed Hesthri to be perfect.

Outside, the chants of “Veilgrad stands!” had sprung up again. No doubt Grusser, politician that he was, had seized the chance to step in front of that and put his face on it. Well, she was inclined to let him, so long as the man didn’t get himself pelted with produce like he’d been about to.

“Well, I can’t say you didn’t pull it off,” Jonathan stated after a pause. “I’ll admit I was worried, when you vanished. No offense.”

“None taken, Jonathan, I’ve met me. It was a hasty thing to do, but I wouldn’t have tried it if I hadn’t had at least a little coaching in the art. Grusser was doing everything all wrong, trying to reason calmly with a crowd like that. Rafe said something in class that’s always stuck with me: if you ask a crowd of people to be brave, or calm, or intelligent, or anything with an ounce of virtue, they’ll probably lynch you. But if you convince them they already are those things, they’ll love you for it, and then if you give them an opportunity to prove it, they probably will.”

“Cynical,” he murmured.

Natchua nodded wearily, rubbing her cheek against his shirt. “Well, you know me. Cynical reasoning is more likely to appeal to me than idealism. Based on how that went down, it seems he was right.”

“Do you really believe that?” Jonathan asked softly, stilling his rocking of her. “That people can’t be reasoned with?”

“They absolutely can’t. A person can be reasoned with. I have to believe that, whether or not it’s true, or the sheer despair would drive me bonkers.” He chuckled, and she couldn’t help smiling in response. “People, though? The way Professor Rafe explained it… People are social animals. Get them in groups and they’ll always look to each other to see what they should be doing instead of thinking it over themselves. So you have to treat a crowd like an excitable child, because a crowd always ends up reflecting the outbursts of the most emotional person in it. It doesn’t mean people are stupid, or unreasonable, it’s just a reflection of how they think. How we all think. We can’t really help what we are.”

“Hm. I have to say, that makes a troubling amount of sense,” he mused. “Explains a lot of stuff I’ve seen, too.”

Natchua stiffened suddenly, pulling back to look around the small tower room. “Wait. Where the hell is Kheshiri?”

“She went back to Malivette,” he assured her, “muttering something about damage control. I’m none too sure about letting that creature run around loose, but I was even less sure of my ability to contain her.”

“No, that’s…yeah, you made the right call, there. I can always count on you to do that, Jonathan.”

He gazed seriously down at her, gently brushing a lock of white hair back out of her face with one big, callused hand. “On the subject of things that’ll have to be dealt with, Natch… You just shadow-jumped, twice, in public. In the most public kind of public you could possibly have arranged. Unregistered warlocks in the Tiraan Empire tend to attract attention from the government.”

“The government’s pretty busy right now,” she pointed out with a little smile.

He gave her a look.

“It’s okay, Jonathan,” she reassured him. “I think. I’d planned to make a point of how I was working for Malivette, but as it happened, Ms. Svanwen went and did it for me, bless her. Nobles can get away with a lot, including having pet warlocks in their employ. Believe me, I read up on that; it’s part of why I decided to attach myself to Sherwin. If anybody comes ’round asking questions I can point to the backing of both local Houses.”

“Malivette isn’t likely to appreciate that,” he pointed out.

Natchua smiled darkly. “Malivette should maybe have thought more carefully before she decided to try fitting a leash on me.”

He sighed. “So you ended up vying with her for political power, after all. Exactly like Kheshiri wanted you too.”

“I know, Jon, I know. The fact is…she wasn’t wrong. That may well be the best way to keep from ending up as Vette’s lackey. At least, I couldn’t think of a better one. And hey, it also worked to prevent that crowd from turning into a riot.”

“Grusser does seem to be doing a better job of leading them now,” Jonathan agreed, glancing to the iron-barred windows. The chanting was trailing off, but the ambient sounds of the crowd weren’t angry anymore, and that was still an improvement over how it had started. “I just worry. Succubi… I’m still not sanguine about Melaxyna, and Kheshiri makes my skin crawl.”

“Good,” she said frankly. “Embrace that, it’s your intuition being extremely right. We can’t cease to think, though. Just because Kheshiri suggests something doesn’t automatically make it wrong; that’s it’s own trap, and a quick way for us to drive ourselves nuts, besides.”

He pulled her back in for another hug, and she willingly let him, resting her head on his shoulder and letting her eyes close once more.

“What’s our next move, then?” Jonathan asked.

“This fae business is way outside my wheelhouse,” Natchua muttered. “Still. It would be utterly daft to just ignore it and hope it goes away. First I’ll see if Xyraadi has any ideas; the khelminash know secrets even I don’t. Failing that, I have other avenues of investigation. I don’t like turning to Qadira; djinn are as tricky as Vanislaads. Just checking on how willing she is to talk can provide hints as to how serious the matter is, though. At some point soon, I’d also like to jump back to Ninkabi to talk to Mr. Agasti. Even if he has no hard data—which is possible, he’s pretty connected in that city—he’s a smart fellow.”

“Mmkay,” he said. “And…generally?”

“This is a nice excuse to deal with something that probably doesn’t concern us directly,” Natchua admitted. “Good chance to…settle in. Let the hobs work on the house, let Mel work on Sherwin. Let us…”

His breath was warm on her ear; she trembled in spite of herself when he bent to lightly kiss its pointed tip. “Yes?”

Natchua grinned into his shoulder, wrapping both arms around him to squeeze as hard as she was able. “Let’s go home. We really shouldn’t leave Hes out of the loop.”

The narrow slats between the blinds which covered the windows of the town hall’s uppermost room served much the same function as the decorative ironwork in the tower’s windows. Someone standing there could see everything in the square below while being functionally invisible to anyone looking up at the house.

Nonetheless, Malivette stood well back from the blinds, and the sunlight peeking through them. That small amount of sunlight wouldn’t have been any worse than a discomfort for her, but it would be a discomfort with no purpose. She didn’t need to see out to know what was happening. Every word of Natchua’s speech had been perfectly audible to her, as was the crowd, still chanting their new slogan.

Kheshiri slithered up behind her, wrapping first her arms and then her wings around the vampire’s gaunt form and resting her warm chin on Malivette’s bony shoulder.

“You see what I mean, though,” the succubus cooed in her ear. “Right, m’lady? She has…such potential.”

Malivette stood rigid as a gargoyle, not about to indulge the demon’s flirtatious insinuations. Her crimson eyes narrowed to slits as she gazed pensively at the window.

“Hmmmm.”

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“I realize I’m repeating myself,” Jonathan said as the carriage eased up to the curb by the governor’s mansion in the center of Veilgrad, “but it bears repeating. This is a trap, Natchua. There’s no reason—”

“Jonathan,” she interrupted, “enough. It would be pointless for Malivette to maneuver me into a trap, given the number of daggers she’s got over my head. She’s already tight with Imperial Intelligence; it would take her one telescroll to ruin my day good and proper. Back me up, Mel,” she added, turning to the carriage’s other occupant. “Whether or not you can trust someone, you can rely on them to act logically toward their goals, and base your plans around that. Right?”

“Almost,” the succubus said with an amused little smile, already shifted into a human disguise—a local woman of Stalweiss coloring this time. “You can very rarely rely on people to act logically, at all. A better word would be ‘predictably.’ But yes, in this case, I agree with your assessment of Dufresne.”

“Back me up, Mel,” Jonathan said sharply. “This is at the very least a hostile move! She shows up out of the blue, demanding you do things, and now you’re being sent into the gods know what and refused to explain it!”

“I think,” Melaxyna said pensively, turning her head to look at the doors of the mansion through the carriage’s window, “you’re half right. This is a sneak attack, not a trap, and we aren’t the target. Consider: Malivette is about to drop Natchua into a situation she doesn’t understand and probably won’t like. It smells to me like the lady governor intends harm to somebody in there, not to us.”

“That tracks,” Natchua said irritably. “Our deal hinged on me being available to do her favors as long as I’m keeping my menagerie of demons in Veilgrad. Malivette Dufresne has all the scalpels she needs, and doesn’t dare wield herself as a hammer despite all the power at her disposal. She had mobs at her manor during the chaos crisis, and she wasn’t even behind that; everybody’s eager enough to blame the local vampire without her swooping around terrorizing people. No, for someone in Vette’s position, I can see how it would be very handy to have an unpredictable warlock she can just kick into the middle of things and then claim she wasn’t involved.”

“Oh, gods,” he grunted, rubbing at his face.

The carriage door was finally opened from the outside by Ruby, who peeked inquisitively in at them. “Everything all right?”

“Yep,” Natchua replied, sliding off her seat and clambering out as the vampire’s handmaid stepped back. “Just a little last-second strategizing. Come on, you two, let’s go see what this rhubarb is about.”

Jade was not in evidence, despite having accompanied Ruby on the driver’s seat. Ruby, with that vague little smile all four of Malivette’s attendants cultivated (a shade more sly than the Narisian average, just enough to be subtly threatening), opened the door to the governor’s mansion and led them inside, leaving the carriage unattended on the street outside, its undead horses standing motionless as tombstones. There was scant possibility of anyone in Veilgrad messing with it.

Natchua let her eyes wander as they passed through the corridors, though there wasn’t much to see as she was not a connoisseur of gothic architecture. This wasn’t her first visit to Veilgrad, but previous class trips had not brought her to this manor. Supposedly it was from here that the city and all of Lower Stalwar Province were actually run, but based on the lack of activity she heard in midmorning on a weekday, she had her doubts. Stretching out her senses, Natchua detected movement and conversation in multiple places throughout the manor, but not nearly the bustle the rule of such a region would generate. More likely administrative tasks were handled at the city hall and nearby structures, while the acting governor Mr. Grusser used the residence for the backroom dealings that kept Veilgrad under control. This city was a cultural nexus where Tiraan, Calderaan and Stalweiss sensibilities collided and often failed to blend; the friction between the heavily Shaathist Stalweiss and the heavily Avenist Calderaan kept local politics at a constant simmer, to say nothing of the Empire’s interest in keeping its fingers in this resource-rich area. Natchua was not a fan of surreptitious dealings that ran other people’s lives, but in fairness, it probably took a fair amount of constant cloak-and-dagger just to keep Veilgrad from exploding politically even when it wasn’t doing so literally, as had happened last time the paladins and their classmates were here.

It would be just her luck if she ended up creating a mess that topped even that. The prospect was regrettably believable.

“Just follow my lead,” she said quietly, but not so much so that the two flanking her one step behind would fail to hear. Ruby could also hear, of course, but that couldn’t be helped. Natchua had brought these two along because they blended best; even Hesthri in a disguise ring had some odd mannerisms that might pass in a crowded nightclub but would invite closer scrutiny in quieter circumstances. And she had wanted at least two to back her up. “Remember: don’t hesitate to interject if you think I need…to be reminded of restraint. Otherwise, try not to draw attention.”

“I do admire a lady who knows her weak points,” Jonathan said, tension warring with amusement in his tone. Melaxyna just reached out to pat her shoulder.

Ruby half-turned as she walked to give her a coy little glance, unperturbed by Natchua’s answering cold stare.

Fortunately, the next door through which Ruby guided them appeared to be their destination. Beyond it was a snug little sitting area with doors set in three walls; waiting for them were Jade and Lars Grusser, Malivette’s steward and the man who did the actual governing of the province. Natchua had met him once before, in passing. He was the perfect foil for Malivette: the living portrait of a bland, inconspicuous bureaucrat, to the point that it took her a couple of seconds of staring and the forewarning of whom they had come to meet to confirm it. She would not have sworn under oath that he was the same human.

Evidently the disinterest was not mutual.

“Why, it’s Natchua, isn’t it?” Grusser said, raising his eyebrows in surprise.

“Nope,” she replied, deadpan, “I’m one of the other green-haired drow. Common mistake.”

“You’re doing the thing, Natch,” Jonathan murmured behind her. Annoyance warred in her with guilty acknowledgment that he was right, as well as…another source of distraction. He had leaned in close enough that his warm breath was far too tingly on her sensitive ear.

“Ah…hah,” Grusser said, nonplussed. “Well! Jade tells me Malivette has sent us a negotiator to help resolve this little stand-off.”

Natchua blinked. “…did you say negotiator?”

Melaxyna made a noise that was too perfectly a strifled laugh to have been anything but premeditated.

“Well, I’ve learned to trust Vette’s judgment, and I’ll confess at this point I’m grateful for any help,” Grusser said, running a hand over his hair in frustration. “This is the second day of no progress being made, and quite frankly I’m surprised it hasn’t come to violence already. I’m confident that if something miraculous doesn’t unfold, it will before another sunset.”

“So, no pressure,” she sighed. “Summarize the situation for me, please?”

“Vette didn’t…? Oh. Well, then, in brief, it’s to do with the reconstruction. Most of the rebuilding of the city is either done or nearing completion, after the chaos crisis, but the catacombs were a major source of the problem. They provided a very convenient hiding place for cultists, and also are mostly emptied out now, after the…use to which the ancient burials were put.”

“That’s a very polite way to describe a skeleton army,” Jonathan commented.

Grusser sighed, nodding. “Well, the rebuilding started off later because the whole maze had to be crawled over by exorcists and archaologists first, but it’s now underway. We’re updating the city’s sewer system while we’re down there, and essentially retrofitting the upper levels of the entire catacomb system to be more…well, habitable, and more importantly, controllable. It’s an ambitious project that will effectively add an entire subterranean layer to the city. And for this, the city and the Empire have brought in dwarven contractors, since there’s a lack of domestic specialists in underground construction. We’ve never needed any, with the dwarves being as happy as they are to rent out their services. And of course, they do excellent work. The sewers of Tiraas are dwarven work; before that, the city flooded some three times in an average year.”

“Sounds like the matter is well in hand, then,” Natchua said impatiently. “Why do you need a negotiator?”

He grimaced. “As it turns out, there is another party interested in joining the work, also skilled in underground construction. We have no real need of them, and our existing contractors object strongly to their involvement. But, it turns out they have an official prerogative to put in at least a bid, and since we neglected to offer them the opportunity, they are now insisting on being assigned a share of the work. Unfortunately it’s over my head, and even Malivette’s. There is…an international treaty involved.”

Natchua closed her eyes. “Oh, bloody brilliant.” No wonder Malivette had called her in for this. Damn vampire was probably laughing herself sick right now.

“I don’t suppose,” Grusser said cautiously, “you have some standing that gives you…”

He trailed off at her bark of harsh, contemptuous laughter.

“Oh, pretty much the opposite, m’lord steward. But…I will see what I can do.”

“Ah, right,” he said warily, then turned and picked up a thick folder from the room’s sole desk, which he then held out to her. “I’ve prepared a set of documents you’ll find applicable. Established plans, reports on the work done thus far, a copy of the treaty in question with the relevant sections underlined, copies of the formal petitions and complaints submitted by the parties involved. If you’d like to take some time to study…”

“Thank you,” she said, immediately handing the folder off to Jonathan, “but I think I’d rather get right to work, as it were. Lead the way.”

“They’re assembled in the conference room just through here, actually,” he said, indicating one of the doors.

Natchua frowned. “I don’t hear anything.”

“Indeed, you wouldn’t. We’re prepared for elven guests; I situated the discussion in the Silent Room. The door enchantments ensure absolute privacy.”

“You sealed them off where they can’t be heard?” she said skeptically. “Well, maybe we’ll get lucky and they’re already dead.”

“I rather hope not,” he said. “The paperwork alone…”

“All right, let’s get this over with,” Natchua grunted, striding toward the indicated door.

“You think you can just get a delicate negotiation over with?” Jonathan demanded. “I don’t think that’s how that works, Natch.”

“Jonathan, Jonathan, when are you going to learn? As I had to explain to someone recently, I don’t do things the way they work.”

She yanked open the door, causing the sound of an argument in progress to billow out, and strode through it. The discussion broke off at her entry, and there was silence until Jonathan and Melaxyna had trailed in after her, the latter shutting the door.

“What’s this, then?” demanded one of the dwarves. “More of you?”

Three dwarves were seated along one side of the long table, a woman and two men. The woman wore an avuncular suit with gold cufflinks, while her companions were both attired in sturdy denim, cotton, and leather suited to physical laborers. All were glaring across the table with open hostility at the two impassive drow women who had now turned to regard Natchua and her companions, no sign of surprise crossing their features.

“I’m not with them,” Natchua said briskly. “The Duchess felt this discussion could use a neutral perspective.”

“Neutral?” the dwarf woman exploded, rising from her chair.. “And so she sends another drow! I’ll not have this blatant—”

“Sit your ass down!” Natchua barked.

Total silence descended. The dwarf did not sit down, but blinked at her in bemusement. If she’d spent the last two days contending with typical Narisian reserve and expected more of the same, that had to have been startling.

“Natchua yil Nassra y’nad Dalmiss,” one of the drow said quietly. “I confess, I am astonished to find you, of all people, here. And you are in the employ of Lady Dufresne?”

Oh, lovely. Now everyone in Tar’naris who might care where she was would know by the time a telescroll could be sent to Fort Vaspian. Fucking Malivette… Mastering her irritation, she kept her own voice even and soft. “Yil and y’nad, is it. My, my, the old bitch must’ve been royally torqued off.”

Both drow stiffened slightly, indulging in reproachful frowns.

“Come again?” Jonathan inquired.

“Apparently my mother had my honorifics changed,” she explained. “You don’t often hear those; usually anybody who offends their House that badly is just kicked out of it. Somebody must really want to have a claim to shove me in a spider box.”

“You know, I would honestly like to see someone try that,” Melaxyna said in a fascinated tone. Natchua gave her a filthy look, then turned back to the two bemused Narisians.

“Anyway. You may report to whoever it is you curry favor with that it is just Natchua. I renounce House Dalmiss, Tar’naris, and in particular my bloodless wendigo of a mother, and anyone who attempts to come collect me will be mailed home in a soul jar. Now!” She grinned broadly, and modified her tone to a sugary simper. “Whom have I the pleasure of addressing?”

A moment of silence answered her.

“I’m Agatha Svanwen,” the dwarf woman said finally, “and it’s my company that’s been performing the underground renovations in Veilgrad. To, I want it noted, nothing but praise from the local government.”

“I am Alrith nor Alvenn n’rin Vyendir,” one of the drow said, inclining her head fractionally toward Natchua, “here to represent my House’s claim to the opportunity we are owed by Tar’naris’s treaty with the Tiraan Empire.”

“I am Shinar syl Raelis n’rin Awarrion,” said the other, also nodding slightly. She had been the one to name Natchua. “I have been tasked by my matriarch with the honor of assisting in making the necessary arrangements to the satisfaction of all involved.”

“Not ruddy likely, that,” one of the dwarf men sneered. Neither male had offered names, and Narisian sensibilities being what they were, neither Natchua nor the other two felt it necessary to ask.

“An Awarrion,” she said, sighing softly. “Well. I suppose that buys you a smidge of favor. Ashaele is the only matriarch in that nest of vipers I even slightly respect, and I owe one of her daughters.”

“Excuse me,” Svanwen said sharply, “but I imagine you understand why I’m not happy to hear our supposedly neutral negotiator open by acknowledging a bias in favor of my enemy, here?”

“Let me add some context,” Natchua said with another wide grin. “The favor that buys her is not being summarily kicked in the throat for misnaming me. Now, then!” She stepped up to one narrow end of the table and leaned forward, planting her fists upon it. “Kindly state your positions, as succinctly as you can.”

Shinar and Ms. Svanwen’s eyes met, and for a wonder they both seemed more bemused than hostile. After a tense pause, Shinar nodded politely and gestured the dwarf to proceed.

“There’s not much to tell,” Svanwen said shortly, finally sitting back down, “and forgive me if I’ve grown a little sick of going over it. We were hired to do a job, we came to do a job, we’ve been doing our job—and doing it well, I might add. There was no problem here of any kind until these—” She broke off, looking warily at Natchua, then continued in a more careful manner. “…people showed up and involved themselves. Now work has been stopped, I’m paying skilled laborers to sit on their thumbs, the entire shebang is falling behind schedule and nobody is happy. Nor will be, until these interlopers butt out!”

“Tar’naris, in accordance with its treaty with the Empire,” Shinar said smoothly, “is granted the right to submit an offer to participate in certain types of infrastructural activity relevant to our specific skills as a culture, including subterranean construction. House Vyendir has already been denied that by what I feel certain was an accidental omission, and not a malicious breach of treaty. This has been an awkward situation for all involved, and it has always been our position to seek a compromise, rather than assert sole right to the work in question. Ms. Svanwen has, thus far, declined even the slightest measure to meet us partway.”

“And why the bloody hell should I?” Svanwen demanded. “Your treaty isn’t my problem. I have a contract, and it includes nothing to do with fucking drow!” She caught herself again, glancing at Natchua with a subtle wince.

“All right, then,” Natchua said, straightening back up. “Do either of you contest the facts of the other’s position, as stated?”

Shinar shook her head. “I understand and sympathize with Ms. Svanwen’s position, and give her full credit for not attempting to deceive us, or you, at any point.”

“Those who’re right have no need to deceive—”

Natchua cleared her throat loudly.

Svanwen drew in a breath and let it out in a huff, scowling. “Yes, fine. I’m no expert on your treaty, but she accurately described her attempts to insert her people into my business.”

“Very good,” Natchua said pleasantly. “Now, Shinar, I would like to hear you answer Ms. Svanwen’s question. Why the bloody hell should she stir herself to meet you halfway on this?”

Another moment of silence passed, marred slightly but a muffled chuckle from Melaxyna.

“Because,” Shinar said finally, her voice quieter now, “that is what civilized people do. Ms. Svanwen is not at fault for this situation, but it is what it is. We have our rights. A person who is in an uncomfortable situation has the option of making an accommodation with it, or being swept aside.”

“Well said,” Natchua concurred. “So! Since we all agree that you aren’t needed or wanted here and are only delaying this task by your presence, have you considered voluntarily withdrawing your claim?”

“That is not on the table,” Alrith said with an audible edge to her tone. Evidently two days of being shouted at by dwarves could fray even a Narisian’s reserve, if they weren’t an Awarrion and trained for such stress.

“I think,” Natchua replied pleasantly, “you should seriously consider putting it on the table.”

“Excuse me,” Shinar said in deadly calm, “but your phrasing there could be interpreted as a threat. I am certain that was not your intent. Would you like to clarify?”

“Do you think I’m out of line, here?” Natchua asked, turning back to her own companions.

“Nope,” Jonathan said immediately. He had the folder open and was leafing slowly through it, perusing pages with a practiced eye. “Been a while since I was in construction on this scale, but these work logs are impressive. These dwarves have put in fine work thus far. Everything’s been ahead of schedule, under budget and up to standards. Basically what we’ve got here is honest folks doing good work and bureaucrats mucking it up by trying to profit from what they’ve no business being involved in.”

“We have our rights!” Alrith insisted.

“What you don’t have is a three-way dilemma,” Natchua retorted. “This is not you against the dwarves against the province. Everything was fine and everyone getting along swimmingly before you showed up. This matter consists of Lady Dufresne’s government and Ms. Svanwen’s company doing just fine until you and your rights came blustering in from nowhere to make a godawful pest of yourselves. A veteran negotiator such as Shinar must surely be well aware of this shaky position.”

“In fact,” Shinar replied, “we have a very firm position, as laid out by treaty.”

“A firm position that gives you absolutely no prospect of winning,” Natchua said pleasantly. “Your best case scenario is to have a lot of innocent House Vyendir laborers stranded in a city where everyone hates them and resents their presence. I don’t know if you’re up on local history, but Veilgrad isn’t kind to the vulnerable and unwanted. Or, you could write all this off as a bad job, go home to your dank spider hole, and cease making an abominable nuisance of yourselves.”

The dwarves were now watching this exchange as avidly as children gawking at a parade.

“Are you acquainted with recent Imperial history, Natchua?” Shinar countered. “It was not very long ago that the previous Duke of House Madouri was executed for treason against the Silver Throne—for, among other things, deliberately intervening in the relations between Tar’naris and Tiraas. Perhaps Duchess Dufresne should be reminded of these events before sending her agents to…negotiate.”

“Excuse me,” Natchua whispered, “but your phrasing there could be interpreted as a threat. I’m sure you couldn’t possibly be that fucking stupid.”

“I intend only the best for all parties involved,” Shinar said with a placid little smile, her eyes half-lidded and knowing. “I firmly believe that no situation is so uncomfortable that a compromise cannot be reached.”

Natchua stepped around the table and began to slowly pace back and forth behind the drow. Alrith stiffened noticeably.

“One,” Natchua said softly, and the fairy lamps in the room dimmed. The dwarves glanced nervously at them. “The previous head of House Madouri was a corrupt, incompetent fool who mismanaged his province into the ground and sought to undermine the Emperor at every opportunity. His daughter, who was instrumental in getting rid of him, has single-handedly resuscitated the economy of Tiraan Province in less than a year, and that while ruling it remotely from Last Rock. She is also closely aligned with House Tirasian. Ravana’s a friend of mine,” she added in a confidential tone, leaning down toward Shinar from behind as she passed. An exaggeration—Ravana was a megalomaniacal little creep with whom Natchua was just as happy being on politely distant terms—but there was no reason Shinar needed to know that. “Now, can you guess which of those two options better describes Malivette Dufresne?”

She continued pacing for several more steps, letting that sink in. The lamps had continued to dim; now, the shadows in the corners of the room were deeper and darker than they had any reason to be, even with the light running low.

“Two,” Natchua said suddenly, just when Alrith had been about to crack and break the silence. “Malivette Dufresne is not here. I am not affiliated with her in any formal capacity. I’m just here as a favor to an acquaintance; I’m not even a citizen of Veilgrad. So if your intention is to run crying to the Empire about how I was mean to you…well, knock your little self out, precious. The only living person who cares less than I is Duchess Dufresne.”

The whispering had begun at the very edge of hearing, even for elves; with Natchua talking over it, the words would have been barely audible even to the Narisians. It swelled, though, smoothly but quickly, until even the dwarves could hear the faint breath of voices from the ever-darker corners of the room. Even Jonathan had backed up against the door, now, eyes wide in unease. Melaxyna just stood placidly with her arms folded; she had somehow contrived to position herself so that the fading light cast her face in a series of ominous shadows. There was still no real meaning in the whispers, just disjointed snatches of gibberish and occasional demonic.

Natchua placed a hand on Shinar’s shoulder and leaned forward between the two drow. “Three,” she said, herself barely above a whisper. “If you’ve been here a few days, you’ll have begun to notice. This is a place where chaos and cultists rise out of the catacombs, bringing undead and worse. Where cemeteries come alive, and werewolves howl in the mountains at night. Those who travel the forests do so in groups, if they want to come back. The last nobility of Veilgrad are a vampire and a warlock. Of all the rumors that swirl through the streets, only the least wild are made up.” She added a second hand to Arlith’s shoulder, grinning when the woman flinched. “People disappear in Veilgrad.”

She held them in silence for a moment. By that point, the fairy lamps were sullen reddish patches in a dim room, which did nothing to explain the writhing shadows which shifted across the walls. Natchua only belatedly noticed that both male dwarves had lit up with golden divine auras, which were doing nothing to push back the darkness.

She clapped both drow women on the shoulder once, and straightened up. “Some people should think about disappearing voluntarily, while they still have that option.”

Shinar rose abruptly but smoothly, shoving aside her chair and pivoting in place to stare at Natchua, icy anger plain on her features now.

“I speak for Tar’naris,” she hissed, “and I will not be bullied by a selfish, disrespectful brat.”

“Oh, no,” Natchua whispered, “it’s happening already.”

The darkness swelled, congealed, rose, and when it was gone, so was Shinar syl Raelis n’rin Awarrion.

“What?!” Arlith squawked, her reserve shattering, and tried to scrabble away only to freeze when she almost fell out of her chair. “Where is she?”

“Oh, I’m sure she’s fine, don’t worry,” Natchua said, strolling around her and back toward the door. “Veilgrad’s cathedral spire is very tall, but elves are quite agile. She should be able to get down pretty easily. And who better than an Awarrion to explain to the police what she was doing monkeying about on a protected landmark?”

“It’s a very sunny day, you know,” Melaxyna said in a sepulchural voice from one dark corner. “I understand drow eyes are…vulnerable, in the sunlight.”

Natchua made a show of hesitating in thought, then turned to the succubus and raised one chiding finger. “Now, now, that’s a negotiator of Tar’naris you’re talking about. Have a little faith.”

“You can’t…” Arlith choked off when Natchua turned back toward her.

The woman flinched again when she reached out to gently take her by the shoulder.

“Go home,” she said in a soft, kind tone, as if soothing a child. “Tell your House what you found. There’s no profit for you in Veilgrad. There’s nothing here for you but evil.”

Arlith stared up at her like a frozen rabbit.

“Go!” Natchua snarled, her voice cracking through the small conference room.

Arlith exploded out of her chair in a panicked dash and raced to the door with all the speed an elf could muster; Jonathan barely got out of the way in time for her to claw it open and scramble out, leaving it ajar. He gently pushed it shut behind her.

Just like that, the whispering and shadows cut off and the darkness vanished, leaving the room as pleasantly lit as ever.

Natchua turned back to the dwarves, finding all three had backed their chairs up against the far wall and were staring at her as if at a monster. Which…was fair.

“I’m sure the Duchess appreciates all the good work you’ve put in so far,” she said brightly. “Lars Grusser is a capable administrator, but…these things happen. If anything else comes up that he can’t seem to deal with, feel free to reach out to Malivette directly. All right, then!” She clapped her hands together, guiltily enjoying it a little when the dwarves all twitched in reaction to the sound. “Another successful negotiation, resolved. Let’s run along, now, these fine people have plenty of work to catch up on.”

She led the way back into the sitting room outside, pausing to let the others catch up. After looking back through the door, Melaxyna pulled it closed behind her; evidently the dwarves weren’t in a hurry to join them. Dwarves, after all, were famously reasonable folk.

Neither Grusser nor Malivette’s handmaids were in evidence. Of course; they wouldn’t have reasonably expected anything to be resolved in such a short time. Arlith, of course, was long gone.

“So that’s her play,” Melaxyna mused aloud.

Natchua turned back to her, drawing in a breath. Shapeshifting aside, this was the main reason she had brought the succubus along. She herself was painfully out of her depth when being maneuvered about by aristocrats, and fully knew it. Melaxyna was another matter. “You have a thought?”

“A whole host of people are about to know exactly where you are, and what kind of power you’re messing around with,” Melaxyna said seriously, holding her gaze. “Those drow will go squealing to both their Houses, and even if they don’t reach out to the Empire directly, House Awarrion absolutely will. They’ll also inform House Dalmiss.”

“I’m not worried about anything my mother or Ezrakhai might be able to send after me,” Natchua said dismissively. “You think Malivette’s trying to get me in trouble with the Empire? That still doesn’t make sense, she wouldn’t have to go to such an effort. All she has to do is tell them. I haven’t specifically done anything to cheese off Imperial Intelligence but I can’t imagine they’d be happy about anything I’m involved in.”

“I thought it was fishy you were able to talk Malivette down at all,” Melaxyna admitted. “Considering what you showed up with and what her position was. Letting you establish a base in Veilgrad was just…weird. The fact that she wants to use you as some kind of fixer makes it more clear, but this completes the pattern. If she tells the Empire or anyone else you’re here making trouble, she becomes your enemy. But! If she puts you in positions where you can’t avoid attracting their attention, then she can use her clout to prevent them from taking you away.”

“Shit,” Jonathan said feelingly. “She’s right. That vampire isn’t trying to destroy you, she’s trying to control you. If she becomes your only protector from the Empire or the Church or whoever else…”

“Then she gets her fixer,” Natchua finished, her face twisting into a scowl. “And she gets to keep her. Oh, well fucking played, Vette.”

“How much does she know about…what you’re actually trying to do?” Jonathan asked.

“Malivette is under the impression that I’m on a campaign to hunt down remaining Black Wreath cells. Which isn’t inaccurate, just…less than complete. After all, she has reason to empathize with that, considering the Wreath’s involvement with the chaos crisis.”

“We can always leave,” Melaxyna pointed out. “It would mean sacrificing your investment with Sherwin and the horogki…”

“More than that,” Natchua said, shaking her head. “Sherwin gives us access to resources, not just a leaky roof over our head. We wouldn’t have any of that hiding out in some ruin in the wilderness. House Leduc also has a veneer of legitimacy and a history with diabolism. No, that’s the perfect position for us to take as a base. That’s why Vette is doing this, she knows I won’t abandon it easily.”

She paused, frowning deeply in thought. Then, suddenly, her expression shifted, a smile curling across her mouth.

“Ohhh, hell,” Jonathan groaned. “I know that look. That’s the look that happens right before one of your trademark lunatic schemes.”

“Well, after all,” Natchua said reasonably, “Malivette likes to surround herself with pretty girls. And oh, look! I have one whom I was just fretting over what to do with.”

Melaxyna clapped a hand over her eyes. “Natchua, no.”

“Stop it, this could not be more perfect. Malivette and Kheshiri both like to play mind games, right? Well, let them chew on each other for a while. No matter which loses, I win.”

“Yeah,” Jonathan said, “because that’s always how it ends up, isn’t it.”

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