Valkyrie's Shadow

Chapter 14

Was it cold? It was cold.

So far from home, he had so many things on his mind – so many things to keep in mind – but ‘cold’ was a sensation that cut through it all…even if he couldn’t feel it.

Moreso than the cold, it was the wet. Everything brought back memories of a time not long ago; a life of dark alleys and damp streets pockmarked by puddles pooling in potholes and wagon ruts. A life huddled in cold, damp corners where even sleeping was a deadly risk. A life in which life had no value in itself.

He shook the rain from his hair and wiped his brow. That life was behind him now…or was it? Looking at his surroundings, it only seemed that he had left it for a while. Now he had returned.

“Looks like you’re still alive.”

A dull sheen glinted in the morning gloom as he turned and drew his blade. The owner of the voice only flashed a grin at his startled reaction.

An edge of annoyance played through his body. She knew. They both knew. It was too late. Too slow. Too unaware. Too inexperienced. If she had come to kill him, he would have been dead before he knew it.

The woman across from him produced a brown paper package.

Despite what she was asking him to do; despite the cold, hard edge to her voice, he thought there was warmth hidden in her words. Affection. Like the big sister he never had. Or maybe it was because she was really pretty and that was twisting things; putting feelings in that weren’t actually there.

He reached out and took the package, fixing it to a rough leather belt under his worn woollen mantle.

“Is there more?”

“No.”

“But…is it enough?”

A warm hand cupped his right cheek. The woman had come forward, but he hadn’t noticed until he felt her touch. Her coral eyes fixed his own. He shifted in embarrassment at how close she was.

“I know you’re used to working alone,” the woman’s voice was still soft, but firm. “But that’s the past and it sucked anyway. You’re part of something bigger now: you need to trust the job.”

He swallowed. The job. Trusting people was hard. Trusting a lot of people was harder.

Her slender fingers trailed over his cheek and the woman drew her hand away. Her stern expression melted into a charming smile.

“If I were my sister,” she said, “I’d have taken a real fancy to you. Too bad. Also, you’re too clean – you can’t act all spoiled out here.”

The woman stepped back, pulling a soiled cloth from her pouch. Red stains joined the brown ones as she wiped her left hand. His eyes widened and he touched his cheek. His fingers came away with the scent of blood.

“D-did you–”

“Kill someone? Yeah. He was an obstacle, so he was disposed of.”

She may as well have been a chatty prostitute for all the care she showed about killing a man in cold blood. He watched her put away the cloth and stretch languidly in the shadows of the alley. And then she vanished without a trace.

A distant clip-clop of hooves and wheels jouncing over the dirt road sounded in the distance. He drew himself further into the shadows, away from the street. After washing his face with dirty water, he pulled a thin length of ragged cloth from where it was tucked behind his belt. Holding it over his head, he turned and left the alley, making his way through the mud and the rain.

Other people were already out and about, both children and adults whose overall ‘feeling’ matched his own. No, that wasn’t right. He matched theirs. That was why he was here, after all.

He kept walking, past the wharves with their fishing boats and the men and women tending to their nets. The lane curved and he followed it up the slope until he came to a market where fishmongers were dousing their stands with buckets of water. They paid him no mind as he shuffled by: to them, he was probably just another waif drifting through the streets, one of hundreds of thousands of children driven from their villages by the flames of war.

In the two weeks since his arrival, he had followed his instructions: study the people; become one of them. Honestly, it wasn’t that hard since he was sort of the same. His father died fighting a war…or at least he went to war and never returned. His mother disappeared not long after that.

He eyed some other children as they picked their way over the waterlogged ruts and holes in the street. Some of them carried things that they found – things that they thought valuable, scavenged from the broken buildings and piles of refuse. Old boots. Bundles of rags. Splintered planks of wood and scraps of metal.

A girl half his age walked down the opposite side of the street, licking a gash on her palm with tears in her eyes. A jagged piece of iron was held gingerly in the fingers of her other hand. It had hurt her, but she couldn’t let it go: she needed to eat.

Other children stopped to look up at the adults with big, round eyes, holding hands to their meagre bellies. They asked if there was work that they could do. If there was no work, they begged for food. If there was no food, the stupid ones stayed and kept asking for help. The smart ones kept going. Every breath pointlessly spent was energy that they wouldn’t have to ask the next adult.

They were just like him. Or they would become just like he was. At least if they survived.

Losing one’s parents was just the beginning. Life happened after that. War was just something that happened. What happened after that showed people for what they really were.

He stopped at a small billboard at the corner of the market. Several men eyed the soggy parchments posted there. The numbers he knew, but he couldn’t read the letters. Not that he couldn’t read letters – he worked hard to learn how over the past year – they were just letters he didn’t know. Letters of a different language.

“Hey kid,” a gangly man with a leather cap and a rat’s smile looked down at him. “Can you read what it says?”

When he shook his head in response, the man clicked his tongue and spit on the ground, giving him a dirty look before stomping off. He probably wanted to use him. Just like in his old hometown, most people couldn’t read. Being able to read meant one’s parent’s taught them, which meant that they probably taught them other things too. Kids like that could be sold – especially in a place like this.

“Weakness is sin,” came a voice from his opposite shoulder. “Become stronger.”

He turned his attention to the source of the voice.

“That’s what the words you were looking at say,” a man in a drab shopkeeper’s outfit said.

Huh? Why would anyone post something like that? A posting board was for information: notices, people looking for others, news of work and other important stuff. Taking up space for some common sense didn’t make any sense.

“I know,” the man snorted. “Crazy, right?”

The shopkeeper walked away, shaking his head. Maybe it wasn’t common sense here, but he didn’t understand why that would be.

A girl with a bucket of fish bumped into him and stumbled, nearly falling into the mud. She wobbled forward with her bucket before managing to right herself and shuffled up the street with her burden. He eyed the thin skirt that clung to her slender legs for a while, then decided to follow her. Concealing himself as best as he could, he trailed the girl from a few dozen metres away, weaving his way through the men and women whose eyes were filled with their own troubles.

Away from the wharves she went; up the slope into the city proper. He slowed his pace as the girl walked by a pair of militia, whose eyes scanned the crossroads where they were posted. One of them looked directly at him. He sent his gaze to the ground as he walked by the sentry.

I’m just another kid. Just a war orphan. A dirty war orphan that adults have no time for. I don’t have anything; I’m no one. No one.

He felt the sentry’s gaze leave him. Slipping past them when they looked the other way, he walked quickly to find the girl who had gone far ahead.

After searching past several blocks, he found the girl again. She had stopped partway into a dark alley. The bucket of fish was at her feet and she shook her hands with a pained look. No one else was around. He smiled as he entered the alley, quickly making his way toward her.

Then, he stopped and looked to the side.

“You need to wear something under your shirt,” he said. “I can see everything.”

“A poor girl like me can’t afford it,” the girl replied. “Besides, there are a lot of girls like me to look at.”

He frowned as she wrung out her dirty blonde hair. She was wrong. She was a lot nicer looking than the other girls and that always brought trouble.

“A shawl, then,” he said. “At least get a shawl or mantle…”

“If I can’t afford a shift then how can I afford a mantle?” The girl frowned, “I don’t think the Cook would let me wear one anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

“It means what it means. He sent me out on purpose in the rain so he could look at me in my wet clothes. The last time it happened he kicked the bucket over and told me to pick up all the fish. Then he watched me from behind as I bent over to do it. I bet he’s gonna do it again.”

“…can I kill him?”

“No.”

He sighed. The girl pulled off one of her straw sandals, balancing herself on one leg as she whacked the mud off on the alley wall. She put the sandal back on and switched to the other foot.

“He…he didn’t do anything to you, did he?”

“No. He’s not allowed to. Not even touching. The Viscount wants to ‘pluck’ me first.”

Anger swelled within him. The girl put her other sandal back on. Then she glanced at his clenched fist.

“Well?” She said, “Where is it?”

He pulled the package from his belt, holding it out to her. As she reached out to take it, his mouth fell open.

“Your face,” hot anger rose again. “I thought he wasn’t supposed to touch you!”

The girl’s fingers went to the swollen bruise marring her cheek.

“This wasn’t him,” she said. “This was from one of the Parlour Maids.”

“Why would another Maid do that to you?”

“Jealousy,” the girl smirked, taking the brown paper package from his hand. “She was the Viscount’s favourite…until I came along.”

She unwrapped the package, sifting through its contents with a finger. There were several small ceramic jars and vials, plus a folded piece of paper. Her lips moved silently as she read what was on it.

“Uh, hold this,” she said.

He found the open package back in his hands. The girl picked up one of the jars and unscrewed the cap.

“Wait,” he said, “are you allowed to do that?”

“Yup.”

She gingerly sniffed the contents before scooping out a bit of white cream with her fingers. The bruise on her cheek vanished as she rubbed in the cream, leaving her usual pristine skin…or maybe it was even nicer than before?

“Oh, even the pain goes away…”

The girl flashed him a grin. He felt a frown forming on his face.

“Uh…wait a minute,” he said. “Did you bait her into hitting you?”

“Maybe.”

Her topaz-blue eyes seemed to shimmer in the daylight coming from the street. She definitely did.

“What happened to the Parlour Maid?”

“Who knows?” The girl put the jar back into the pile, “Wrap that up again.”

She bent down to pull the fish out of her bucket as he did so. The package went to the bottom of the bucket before the fish went back in again.

“Time to go,” the girl said. “I’ll see you tonight.”

They parted ways and he came out of the opposite end of the alley. More people filled the streets and wagons full of debris were occasionally carted by.

What to do…

He didn’t think there was much left to see of the harbour city. At first, everything was new and exciting: he had never seen the ocean before, nor were there any ships where he came from. The buildings looked different and the people behaved in weird ways. He wasn’t fond of the food, which seemed to be nonstop fish and seaweed soup.

Then again, they did just go through a crazy war and their food stores were ransacked over the fall and winter. They were lucky to have the ocean to fish in and even luckier that the nearby Demihumans were friendly. He even saw Merfolk and Sea Giants that came to the city to trade.

There’s supposed to be a Sea Dragon too. Maybe if I go watch long enough I’ll see it?

Probably not. A Dragon wouldn’t swim around the city just to be seen and it likely had better things to do.

A distant bell tolled, marking four hours to noon. His attention turned to the temple from which it had sounded. It wasn’t a temple of his faith, but it reminded him that he should be doing his job as best he could.

Ah, what’s why that shopkeeper thought those words were crazy…

The people here didn’t worship the Six Great Gods, they worshipped The Four. He didn’t really care for gods or religion until recently, but, now that he thought about it, the Priests of The Four in his old town preached all sorts of stupid things. They said to be good and kind and virtuous, but no one listened to them. What they preached didn’t get him a roof over his head or ease the gnawing in his belly. It didn’t save him from the thugs that came looking to beat him every time he earned a copper coin.

Weakness is sin. Become strong.

He pondered the words. It was right and wrong at the same time, but he couldn’t figure out what exactly about it was right and wrong.

With a shake of his head, he took a deep breath and focused on his surroundings as he wandered the streets. It wasn’t the time to think about stuff like that.

The bustle of the city had increased, punctuated by the sounds of construction. Many buildings had been ruined by the Demihuman occupation and many people from the inland territories came to the sea to avoid starvation. A city of tents had sprung up around the city’s broken walls, but it wasn’t houses that they built first.

Industrial buildings like smithies, mills and others that supplied equipment and materials for reconstruction were raised right away. Trade, which had been paralysed in the war, was starting to return and the first galleons were arriving with charcoal from the south. Now that they had fuel, equipment salvaged from the war was being reforged into tools as the people fought to catch up with two seasons of lost work.

Ahead of him, a small crowd had formed. He squeezed himself in to see what was going on. In front of a platform in the city’s central square, two men with brown hair and brown beards faced one another. Behind the one on the left were several members of the city militia, which probably made him a city official. Behind the one on the right were strong-looking men adorned in blue and yellow livery, which probably made him a Noble.

“Count Dominguez,” the man on the left said in a long-suffering voice. “We need you to keep your men here. For security.”

“I sympathise with your situation,” Count Dominguez replied. “But I need them for security. Surely you understand? The retinue that I brought with me to help liberate the north is the same retinue that keeps my lands safe. I cannot simply abandon my obligations to assist you with yours. The more lawless my demesne becomes, the less it will produce and the less food we can send you in the winter.”

“Surely you don’t need all of them, my lord.”

“My retinue is this large precisely because it is what I need to police my territory,” the Count replied. “I do not dress up men in equipment and pay for their livelihoods out of some decadent desire to turn war into a hobby. Rimun is secured and it was the last occupied city in the kingdom.”

The official bobbed his head empathetically in agreement, but still pressed his case.

“Rimun might be free, but the war isn’t over yet. We still have pockets of Demihumans hiding all over the countryside.”

“That would be the problem of the local lords.”

“The local lords are dead.”

“Yes, but that doesn’t make it my problem. Furthermore, I have no right to march an army around in the north. Without a lord, this land defaults to the jurisdiction of the Royal Army. Petition His Majesty for assistance.”

“But the city–”

“Viscount Santz has generously offered to stay in the city because Marquis Bodipo has generously offered to keep an eye on his vassal’s territory. I, on the other hand, have no such luxury…and it isn’t as if we’ve abandoned you. Good day to you, sir.”

Count Dominguez turned on his heel, leaving the square with his bodyguard. The official crumpled his black felt hat in his fist, releasing a frustrated sigh.

“But you’ve abandoned us to Viscount Santz,” he muttered.

Concerned murmurs filled the air around him. It appeared that Viscount Santz had a bad reputation. His stomach churned as he thought of the girl he had parted ways with. Would she be safe?

Trust the job.

That was what they had been taught. Trust the job. Trust everyone that did their little part of it. That, of course, meant doing his little part because people trusted him to do it. Betraying that trust made him worse than scum and there was probably a place worse than any hell waiting for him if he did. The last part was spoken of with a strange air of certainty by the people who trained him.

He had no idea how the job would end, but he would only need to wait a while longer to find out. All he needed to do was do his part.

Evening came and the rain only grew more intense. He made his way to the rich part of the city – or what was left of it – walking by torches guttering under the deluge that pounded the street. Whenever militia patrols came into view, he picked his pace up into a jog as if he was merely rushing across to the other side of the district.

On the west end, Viscount Santz had ‘claimed’ a mostly-intact manor that formerly belonged to a local lord. After a quick check of the surroundings, he concealed himself in a messy, untended hedgerow across from the manor grounds.

An hour later, bobbing lights appeared through the evening murk. A column of riders came thundering down the street. Two dozen men and women in white-and-blue tabards over shining armour stopped in front of the manor. Several held magical torches aloft. The woman at the head of the column dismounted, her bob of brown hair bouncing as her boots hit the cobblestones.

“By order of the Holy King,” the woman declared to the footmen at the gate. “Viscount Santz is to submit to our inspection!”

The two footmen gaped wordlessly at the woman for several seconds before one turned to run towards the manor entrance. A man in a silken house robe appeared five minutes later, accompanied by a handful of retainers. A parasol held up by a Maid shielded his ashen hair from the downpour.

Cityfolk crossing the district stopped to watch the confrontation. He slipped out from his place in the hedgerow to join them.

“Captain Custodio,” the man’s waxed, greying goatee wagged in the torchlight. “What is the meaning of this?”

In reply, Captain Custodio held out a scroll. The Viscount took it in his hands. His expression grew incredulous as his eyes went back and forth.

“This is…hah?”

The Noble was so flabbergasted that it was all he could manage. His utterly bewildered expression seemed fixed on his face as Captain Custodio raised a hand.

“Secure Lord Santz’s household and bring them out here. You know what we’re looking for.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

Half of the people with Captain Custodio stormed into the house while the other half moved to surround the building. Screams and startled shouts rose from behind the gate.

“I still don’t understand what is going on here, Captain Custodio,” Viscount Santz said.

“If it is in error, my lord, you have our apologies. We have evidence that points to what you’ve read on the warrant strongly being the case. In the meantime, thank you for your cooperation.”

“Even if there is ‘evidence’,” the increasingly soggy-looking Viscount said, “it must be some sort of plot to frame me…except this is so utterly preposterous that one could only think it a joke.”

Captain Custodio did not reply. The Noble frowned at her lack of a response, then sighed.

Ten minutes later, the manor staff lined up along the street. They all glanced worriedly at the heavily armed and armoured figures watching over them. Two women with magic torches went from opposite ends of the line, inspecting each of the servants.

“Captain Custodio,” one of them said. “Over here.”

The woman stood at the girl he had met that morning. Captain Custodio came over with a man holding another magic torch. Viscount Santz tried to follow, but two men barred his way.

“This should be it, right?” The woman said, “There’s no way a serving girl would look like this.”

“No,” Captain Custodio said. “Senior household staff are usually Nobles, but she’s a bit young…you – what’s your post?”

“I…I work in the scullery, m’lady.”

Captain Custodio and the other woman exchanged looks.

“Right,” Captain Custodio said. “So she’s not a Noble. Tell me, girl: have you always looked this pretty?”

The girl glanced toward Viscount Santz and swallowed. She looked back at Captain Custodio and nodded.

“I see–”

“She’s lying to you, m’lady!” A Maid two servants down cried out, “She’s a liar! There was a mark on her cheek yesterday and now it’s gone! A witch! She has to be a witch. A Demihuman witch!”

Captain Custodio’s head drew back at her outburst. She looked back and forth between the girl and the other Maid with a baffled expression. In front of the gate, Viscount Santz spluttered incoherently. The two women drew the girl away.

“I don’t think you’re a witch,” Captain Custodio said in a low voice, “and I certainly don’t think you’re a Demihuman, but can you tell us why you could get rid of that mark?”

“M’lord…m’lord likes me pretty,” she said. “He likes the way I look. He said he would…”

The girl blushed and looked down. The two women followed her gaze to her dress, which had turned next to transparent in the rain.

“That sick son of a…” Captain Custodio muttered, “We just fought a war against those monsters but we still have ones wearing Human skin.”

“Captain!”

Three men jogged out of the gate. One was carrying a familiar brown paper parcel in his hand. He went over to Captain Custodio and handed it over.

“We found it in the solar, Captain,” the man said. “In the back of one of his drawers. The stolen formulas are in there, as well.”

The five armoured figures leaned forward as she unwrapped it, and then four of them stepped back as Captain Custodio’s face twisted in rage.

“Seize that thief!” She pointed at the Viscount with a roar.

“What!” Viscount Santz jumped in shock, “This is…I have my rights!”

“And gag him! Viscount Santz, you are charged with the theft of crown assets! That being said, I would think you could have done better than stealing our dear Holy Queen’s beauty products.”

All around them, the gathered crowd exploded into a fury no less intense than the expression on Captain Custodio’s face.

“Have you no shame?!”

“Is nothing sacred?! Our poor Holy Queen!”

“You thieving gull! Coming late to the war and trying to steal everything!”

“Make him swim back south!”

“Chain him up and sink him into the bay!”

“Feed him to the Merfolk!”

The crowd surged forward. The men and women who had come to take the Viscount away suddenly found themselves defending him against the angry mob.

People were idiots.

Something tugged on his mantle. The girl had snuck out in the commotion, giving him a look and a nod. They ran off into the night.

“Did you check the way out?” She asked.

“Yeah, it’s all clear,” he answered. “Kali should be waiting for us.”

They hurried along the road and then descended off of it as they went under a bridge to follow a river north. Rimun’s wall had all sorts of holes in it and the part over the river was completely torn down.

“Hey, do you have my mantle? I’m freezing here.”

“Where’s your clasp?”

“I left it with you! Why would a Scullery Maid have a magic item?”

He reached into the bag slung behind him, pulling out a dark woollen mantle. The silver clasp enchanted with Endure Elements was carefully fixed to it. He tossed it over and the girl unfolded it, throwing it over her shoulders.

Their path continued north along the river and they used the high grass along the shore to help conceal themselves. They stopped to watch the soldiers patrolling along the broken wall. Once they figured out the patrol’s timing, they snuck out through a gap and kept going.

An hour later, they came to a lake surrounded by tall reeds and willow trees. He slapped the cold surface several times with the palm of his hand. A head popped out of the water, followed by a long neck. A Frost Dragon swam over to the shore, her long body undulating like a snake.

“Liam,” her turquoise eyes shone dimly in the night. “Saye. Welcome back.”

“Thanks, Kali,” Saye smiled. “Er…were you here all this time?”

“Of course not,” Kali’ciel replied. “This place has too many Humans running around with stabby things. I was doing deliveries – I must have flown back and forth between E-Rantel and the Abelion Hills three dozen times.”

The Frost Dragon loped onto the shore, shaking herself free of water. Saye went over to open the Infinite Haversack strapped to her neck.

“What was it like?” Saye asked.

“The Abelion Hills? Well, there were hills, but I didn’t see anything that might be ‘Abelions’. No one there knew what an ‘Abelion’ was, either.”

Saye pulled out a double-seated saddle. Liam helped to fasten the harness onto Kali’ciel while Saye changed into a tight leather outfit that wouldn’t catch the wind. They strapped on their flight caps before ascending into the rain. The Frost Dragon kept going until she broke through the clouds and levelled out over them. Liam removed his goggles to wipe away the fog.

“Hehe,” Saye turned her head up at the field of stars above. “I really like flying at night.”

“I don’t see why that is,” Kali’ciel said. “I thought Humans can’t see in the dark.”

“It’s still pretty.”

“If you say so,” the Frost Dragon replied. “After sixty years or so you might think differently about it.”

Kali’ciel was around seventy years old, which, according to one of their teachers, meant that she was around Liam’s age in ‘Human years’. They first met her when she joined their classes at the orphanage. She did seem to speak like them, but the way she acted depended on what she was doing. Stalking people and scaring them half to death seemed to be her favourite thing to do, but so far Liam hadn’t seen her attack anything but wild animals. She was almost like a cat – a talking, six-metre-long cat with wings and scales.

Liam scanned the moonlit blanket below, trying to figure out where they were headed. The only things he could see were the different mountain ranges poking up above the clouds. To the east were the Southern Border Ranges that separated Re-Estize from the Abelion Wilderness. In the distance to the northeast were the Azerlisia Mountains.

“Where are you taking us?” He asked.

“E-Rantel,” Kali’ciel answered. “Those were my delivery orders, at any rate. I have no idea what’s waiting for you there. Did you get anything for me by the way?”

“Uh, it’s not like we could carry stuff,” Liam replied. “Well, I have some Roble coins, I guess.”

“Coins are good. I like coins!”

“They’re copper coins.”

“Oh.”

Kali’ciel winged swiftly to the northeast, faster than anything that Liam could have imagined a year ago. Their flight from E-Rantel to the Holy Kingdom of Roble had been just as swift, taking all of five hours to arrive over the ocean. According to Kali’ciel, her big sister could be twice as fast.

“So what just happened?” Liam asked, “Did we destroy that Noble?”

“He got in big trouble, at least,” Saye answered with a yawn. “That wasn’t the goal though.”

“Then what were we here for?”

“To stir the pot,” Saye replied. “Making the people of the city mad at that Noble. I think they already knew how bad he was so it was easy to make it worse.”

“But why?”

“Who knows?” Saye shrugged in front of him, “That was the job. Apprentices don’t need to know.”

Saye had an easier time getting used to their new work. She was clever and could get people to do things in the weirdest ways.

Over a month previous, they were called into Orphanage Director Alpha’s office where they found a girl around their age by the name of Shalltear waiting for them. Well, she wasn’t actually a girl around their age – she was a Vampire and they didn’t know how old she was. She was older than them, at least: she spoke really proper and acted like a noblewoman with a fancy dress and everything.

The orphanage director told them that they were being ‘recruited’ for some work. She had a certain look on her face while she told them – a sort of odd look that was worried and happy for them at the same time. It was ‘an honour’, supposedly, but Miss Alpha didn’t say what she was worried over.

Lady Shalltear had selected them because they had worked for her vassals before – Countess Corelyn, Countess Wagner, Baroness Gagnier and Baroness Zahradnik – and she thought they would be useful again. Liam and Saye were more than happy to help the people who had saved them from Fassett County. They were real Nobles: not like the ones that bullied the people with their power and did all sorts of mean things, but ones that did their jobs properly.

From there, Lady Shalltear whisked them away through a hole in the air where a woman named Tira – the same woman who had given him the package in the alley – waited for them. She was one of the officers of the Sorcerous Kingdom’s Intelligence Division and they were to be trained in the arts of espionage, assassination, sabotage and all sorts of other clandestine and covert operations. A lot of what she wanted from them was what Liam was already doing in Fassett County, so it seemed that Lady Shalltear had picked the right person.

He was worried about Saye…except she took to it faster than he did. She did things differently, but Tira always laughed about how his little sister was outshining him. Not that he minded.

After about two weeks of crazy training that included learning how to fight and kill people, Tira sent them off on their first job. Liam voiced his worries over only having two weeks of training, but Tira waved her hand dismissively and told them that it would be ‘easy’.

She was right.

“Are you going to sleep?”

“Huh?”

“Saye is already sleeping. Don’t Humans sleep at night?”

Liam leaned forward to look around Saye’s shoulder. His sister was sound asleep, her leather vest rising and falling gently with her soft breaths. She was probably the only person in the world who could fall asleep thousands of metres in the air hurtling forward at gods-knew-what-speed.

They arrived at the Frost Dragon Aviary in E-Rantel in the middle of the night. Despite it being so late, three people were waiting for them.

Tira had arrived ahead of them – probably from using one of those holes in the air. Lady Shalltear was there as well. The third person was a smiling man in a red suit with orange stripes. He wasn’t a Human: he had pointy ears so he was an Elf? But he also had a long spiked tail that waved lightly behind him.

“So,” Tira said, “what do you think?”

“I doubt anyone can say that it isn’t a pass,” the pointy-eared man said. “It also serves to help prove one of Pandora’s Actor’s theories. There were no critical failures and Saye’s manipulative techniques were quite interesting. Delectable for one so young, if I may say so myself. Since you managed things the way that you did, can you tell me what your work accomplished?”

“We were polishing our skills,” Liam said. “And we were learning how to blend into a foreign harbour city.”

“Those are indeed some of the reasons why you were deployed,” Demiurge nodded. “Is there anything more?”

Liam fell silent. What sort of answer did he want?

“We were sowing discord,” Saye said. “The Holy Kingdom just had a war. People from the south came to help finish the war, but now they have to go back home to work. But the people from the north are still scared and they want them to stay just in case something happens.

“The people already didn’t like Viscount Santz, so it was easy to frame him. But Viscount Santz has friends and those friends will stand up for him because Nobles stick to one another like that. The north and the south will start to resent one another from this, and the important people who were directly involved are going to become the main targets. Unless someone can fix what’s going on, everything bad that happens to one side will be blamed on the other and things will just get worse.”

Demiurge’s spectacles glinted as he flashed a broad grin.

“Very good,” he said. “Very good, indeed! Though you do not have any power of note, you already understand how to leverage what you have to exponential effect. How old are you, Saye?”

“Twelve.”

“In that case, I look forward to your development with interest. Tira: be sure to see to the development of these young talents.”

“It just so happens that one of our grandmaster Infiltrators has recently returned to us,” Tira replied, “so they’ll have the best training on this side of the continent, Lord Demiurge.”

Lord Demiurge nodded and turned his attention to Lady Shalltear.

“Your intuition is as sharp as always, Shalltear,” he said. “The Ministry of Transportation’s investigative division appears to be off to a flying start.”

“Then I guess we can move on to the real work,” Lady Shalltear said.

“Real work, my lady?” Saye asked.

“Yes,” Lady Shalltear smiled. “You are now official employees of the Ministry of Transportation. Your next job will be to help conquer a kingdom.”

Weakness is a sin. Become stronger.

Liam finally realised what was wrong with those words. The Clerics at the E-Rantel cathedral never said weakness was a sin or demanded that people become stronger. There was no need to deny weakness and become stronger; they only needed to become better at what they already were. They didn’t need to become rich or famous or powerful. Excellence could be found in all things, and the meek still possessed many blessings.

The Faith of the Six acknowledged weakness and cultivated what gifts people had. With those gifts, a Noble with all of his riches, power, servants and allies could be toppled by a poor, weak orphan from the alleys of Fassett Town.

“When do we start?” Liam asked.

“My, so eager,” Lady Shalltear’s crimson eyes seemed to flare. “You have some time yet – to train and refine your craft. I suppose as mortals you require rest, as well. Also, Yuri has been asking after the two of you…”

Lady Shalltear looked at Lord Demiurge, a question on her doll-like face.

“Two weeks, at most…” the Elf-with-a-tail’s words seemed to trail in the air, then he nodded. “Yes – two weeks, and your work will begin.”

Liam shared a smile with his sister. Two weeks. They couldn’t wait to start.

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