From the twinkling stars to the glistening of streetlamps, the city of Yanhelm was aglow with celebration. Veterans bearing their war injuries danced, drank and made merry with the civilians they’d laid their lives on the line to protect. The craters had been repaired with fresh brick and the reconstruction that had been their great work for twenty years was at an end. King Boros Fitznorth was giving a speech in the square while the great and the good listened on with fresh hope in their eyes.
Yet as this very speech was being given, three figures crept through the old storm drains that had hidden the children from the guns not so long ago. One was exceptionally large, looming head and shoulders over most around her. Her body was battle-worn, her blonde hair shot through with a trace or two of silver. Another wore a set of blue hooded robes, belts hanging from her shoulders and clanking every so often with the crystals and glass bottles she carried. Her boots were thick, well-made and clearly unused to the wet, murky depths of the storm drain. She held aloft a staff made of dark brown wood, the outstretched branches at the head glowing as the party made their way forward. Unlike the rest of her troupe, she wore a featureless mask with two eyeholes covered in gauze.
Far ahead of them, barely visible beyond the light of the staff, a short man shimmied along with a rifle in hand. His long tail swayed above him, holding his lockpicks as he used his dagger to cut a tripwire. To most who looked upon him, he would resemble a rat in many instances- the hairless tail, the black fur covering his body, his large round ears slightly higher than a human’s. He wore the apparel of a workman with overalls and shirt underneath. However, his pockets boasted of considerably sharper implements than a common blacksmith.
“If they’re expecting us, we should probably return with backup. We’re not even Guard members!” The masked woman spoke up from her position in the rear. She seemed nervous, perpetually looking back towards where she imagined the entrance to the storm drains were. In the lower districts, where the houses still flooded if there was particularly bad weather. The rebuilding efforts had become too expensive to put in an entirely new drainage system. Which was fortunate, the masked woman reasoned, because it meant their quarry hadn’t changed their meeting place.
“There is no backup. They’re all at the king’s speech. I didn’t have a spare mage on hand.” The blonde woman growled, checking her night stick with a few practice whacks. Though she wore the uniform of the guard with its pseudo-military apparel, it very clearly did not fit her well. Her arms bulged against the sleeves and her trouser legs needed no lifting out of the steady stream of water in the bottom of the drain. Indeed, she was so large that she had to walk in an awkward crouch while the others merely bowed their heads.
“It just seems like a very bad idea to go around messing with Sunburst types when they’re at peak mouth-froth.” The masked woman countered, grunting something about amateurish spell work as she destroyed a rune painted onto the wall with a swift strike of a gloved hand. She took a moment to remove something from a makeshift bracket on the wall and pocket it.
“Would that be a bad idea like when you decided to go AWOL in a warzone?” The large woman jovially prodded, looking back at the other woman with a smug grin.
“I merely wanted to see if arcane thermoreversal was possible on conventional ammunition. How was I to know it would detonate the whole damn magazine?” The masked woman retorted, somewhat louder than she normally would. The large woman was about to continue her teasing when the stout skitti man raised a paw with a pained expression evident, even though his eyepatch.
“Y’know I’m glad you want to give ‘em advanced warning of us comin’. I was ‘fraid I’d get to go home without a broken nose tonight.” He said with exasperation, taking his dagger to another tripwire before tying it to the loop it had been threaded through, as he’d done several times already tonight. He was beginning to think they knew the storm drain was a weakness in the perimeter. The group eventually made it to the maintenance shaft they were looking for, the skitti man climbing the ladder with a sigh as he noticed something.
“Something wrong up there Fred?” The masked woman asked as the skitti took a pair of bolt cutters from within his overalls. The masked woman resisted the urge to make the obvious joke as Fred attached his bolt cutters to some form of mechanism on the underside of the grate.
“They’ve locked the gate then bent it. I don’t think the grenades were dummies. Which makes ‘em extra stupid for makin’ the tripwires obvious.” Fred observed, grunting and straining as he attempted to pull the cutters closed. After a solid minute of trying, Fred clearly resisted the urge to punch the grate before slipping down the ladder and tilting his head upwards. “Your turn Solvi. Break the middle three then lift. Weldin’s bloody terrible. I know the lads that make these.”
Solvi climbed the ladder, hooking her legs behind the rungs before leaning back and flexing with her considerable strength. She spat at the grate in disgust as it refused to budge, its bars remaining firmly uncut despite her best efforts. She reached into her pocket, chalked her hands with cordon powder before attempting it again. When it refused to work, Solvi looked down at the pair with a frustrated expression.
“If I had a sword made from these bars, we’d have won the bloody war! Mara, do some magic or something.” Solvi demanded, prompting the masked woman to open a pocketbook she pulled from under her robes, clearly doing some calculations. After a few seconds, she nodded and lifted her staff upwards, the grate beginning to heat up until it began to glow a dull red.
“Assuming the grate is made of iron or steel, heating it up will cause it to expand and lose its tensile strength. You can cut the bars now.” Mara spoke cheerfully up at Solvi, who griped about the heat as sweat began to bead on her forehead. Fred, meanwhile, scurried up past Solvi as she finished cutting the last bar. As the grate was about to fall onto Solvi, Fred gave an almighty kick with his blacksmith’s boots, using the large woman as a springboard to kick the grate into the room above. He blew on his boots, Solvi straining to hold both her own weight and the rat man sitting on her. “Ah yes, I forgot to account for shrinkage due to cooling temperatures. My mistake!” Mara added, scaling the ladder into the room after her companions with a sense of triumph. Her companions though were curiously quiet for a pair of people who loved to comment on every little mistake. Mara began to wonder if her brilliance had taken their breath away. A novel but not entirely unexpected outcome. She was, as Professor Renaud said, a woman of significant intelligence and potential.
Mara’s self-congratulation was cut short when a sabre was levelled at her nose. It was held by a tall elvish man of strong build and a breastplate stamped with eight tongues of flame arranged in a circular pattern. Mara’s ego deflated like a zeppelin on fire as she noticed her companions being held at sword point as well by the people, she now understood to be the Sunburst Army.
“Salviat ti.” The man spoke in elvish, and Mara’s eyes lit up behind her mask as a sudden idea came to her. She pulled herself out of the storm drain and sat on the rim with her hands folded in front of her. She then took out a small purple crystal gilt in gold and strung on a thin golden chain. The crystal, when held up to the light had a stylized dragon inside. The man very quickly lowered his weapon as he realised, he was threatening not only a fellow elf but one related to a powerful elvish noble house.
“Salviat ti, vi frinnai gwileld forel du gratten.” Mara replied in elvish, casually. The man’s face slipped as his compatriots looked on with confusion at this strange woman. The tall gentleman put up his blade, a sheepish expression dawning on his face as he tried to parse the message. Eventually, he conceded.
“Alright my elvish isn’t that good.” He admitted, causing Mara to sigh audibly before she stood up, taking in the surroundings. The room around her appeared to be a storage cupboard for a theatre of some kind. Probably one of the old ones used before the war destroyed the outer parts of the city and with it, their clients. Around her, she noted several humans, coblini and orsan people bound by ropes with gags tied firmly around their mouths. Indistinctly, Mara heard a person giving a speech on what was presumably the stage. Mara cast Solvi and Fred a meaningful look which, although difficult through a mask, proved effective. As Mara began to discuss learning techniques with the confused and often bored-looking Sunburst Army, the pair of them began pushing the bound people into the middle of the room. Once Solvi stood up and yawned loudly, Mara took a pocket watch from her robes and marvelled at it for a moment.
“My, would you look at the time! Class dismissed.” Mara chuckled, taking grenades from her pocket and wiggling them at her erstwhile students. With a surprisingly cruel laugh, she threw the grenades at the elves, who immediately panicked and fled the room. Solvi began to push the victims into the storm drain, giving Mara a thunderous look. Fred meanwhile cast about looking for shelter from the detonation that was inevitably coming.
“Are you insane?!” Solvi shouted, taking the rear position with her nightstick brandished as they escaped into the storm drain. Fred was babbling about grenades not being toys and magical ammunition being exceptionally dangerous to small skitti bodies. Mara meanwhile was following behind the Army’s captives, laughing at everyone’s hysteria. “What’s so bloody funny?!” Solvi demanded. Her eyes were wide with fear. Mara ceased her cackling for a moment to point at a tripwire they were crossing. Its grenade had been pilfered.
“I destroyed the detonator runes while you were busy failing at being the strong one. It’s always useful to scare a bully. Bring as many duds as you can, and they’ll leave behind their own mothers.” Mara explained, causing Fred to cease his babbling almost immediately. Their expressions very quickly shifted from panic to anger, Solvi helping the kidnapped people past her to get at Mara. “I didn’t tell you because your reactions had to be genuine. You’re both very poor actors.” The elvish woman added, holding her hands up by some small way of apology.
“I have a rule against explosives.” Solvi spat, holding her finger pointed under Mara’s chin. The mask, which usually appeared so quaint and quirky, took on a sinister air even though the features remained the same. It was as if a malignance underneath or within it had suddenly manifested. The two women stood for a moment, Mara remaining completely silent before shaking her head. She pushed past Solvi to better light the way for their charges. Solvi took pause for a moment, forgetting her anger. Her frown of rage softened into one of concern.
Fred, who’d been leading the party out of the storm drain, sighed with appreciation as he stretched upward. His back emitted audible cracking sounds as he did so, his gaze turning towards the sky with a contemplative expression. The rings of their planet, Auryth, had spread broadly these past few weeks. Superstitiously, he took some red flannel from his overalls and whipped it about his neck. Thereafter, he took his knife to the bonds of the captives. He freed them with a smirk and a joke every so often, making sure none were hurt. One of the captives had a nasty cut cross the brow which descended to his cheek and Fred wasted no time calling for Mara.
The mage emerged from the storm drain with a hand to her head, a gasp escaping her as she walked into the moonlit street. Even as she walked, she staggered slightly. Solvi was there to catch her, eyes widening as she went. The question of whether Mara was alright had left her lips before she even remembered her anger with the shorter woman’s stunt.
“It’s fine. Just a headache.” Mara grunted, cracking her neck. Solvi’s expression wrinkled with suspicion. Her eyes were set against that infernal mask. “Someone must be furious with me.” Mara joked, her voice apologetic. She then turned to inspect the injured person before an expletive surprise escaped her. She shook her head and laughed at herself, overturning a wooden crate and seating the gentleman on it. She took out a leather roll with surgeon’s tools; scalpels, needles, thread and sterilization ointments as well as pain-suppressing unguents of all kinds. She took a combination of both into a swatch and began to clean the wound against the man’s face. He hissed with discomfort but otherwise remained admirably still.
He was human, quite young with a half-grown beard. He kept his hair long in an elaborate braid, interwoven with plants of various kinds including a crown of leaves. His skin was tanned from the many days he no doubt spent in the sun. His body was strong, and he had an impressive stature, being chest height to Solvi. Though he wore a simple linen shirt and overalls, Mara could tell that this was not his usual garb given the golden torque he wore around his arm.
“I do appreciate the efforts but it’s not necessary to worry over this trifle. I’ve had far worse on my pilgrimages.” The man chuckled, just as Mara began applying Losip’s Glue to his wound to seal it from the outside world while it healed. Mara snorted as she finished her work, applying a bandage more for surety than anything else. As she stood up, Mara leant on her staff and looked the other man over.
“Bring me whatever injury, no matter how small, and I shall save you from fester.” Mara spoke in a pompous imitation of the man’s high-class accent. The man looked startled, looking up at Mara with narrowed eyes before realisation dawned on his face. Mara’s free hand extended in greeting, to which he took her forearm in a firm grip. “Arthur De Reyes. You have your father’s talent for self-sacrificing grandeur.” Mara said with an audible smirk. Arthur stood up and looked about himself with a self-conscious air before a somewhat shy smile graced his face.
“I wish our first meeting had been in the temple. But as it happens, I was getting off the boat when a gang of elvish youths accosted me and dragged me to that theatre. They took my robes and gave me this ensemble to wear.” Arthur explained to all assembled, his ears turning red as he relayed the story. “Naturally, I told them where they could shove their demands with my fists. Hence the dragging. I was mildly…indisposed.” He added, curling a lip as he rubbed the side of his head. “Pale elf hit me with the flat of his sword. Tall bloke, had a dragon on his armour.”
Mara and Solvi shared a look, Fred looking grim for a moment before rolling his shoulder. Solvi motioned to the captives to fall in line before she pulled Mara aside with a concerned air. Mara allowed this, her head spinning somewhat due to her headache. Fred was already leading the captives from the street towards the guard station.
“I’m going to get their statements. Fred can handle the docks by himself. You’re done for tonight. Go find Professor Renaud and take the rest of the night off.” Solvi ordered with compassion in her voice. Mara raised some protest, but Solvi firmly pressed the surgeon’s tools into the smaller woman’s arms. “You are not well. You’re not even City Guard. Go say goodnight to Renaud, go to our apartment and sleep it off. You have lectures in the morning.”
Mara relented, knowing that Solvi was intractable when she got like this. The mage nodded and set herself against her staff, hobbling down the street towards the distant orange and purple glow of the festivities. As she turned a corner, sure Solvi was out of sight, Mara holstered her staff on her back and ducked down an alley near the theatre’s well-lit edifice, decked out in the crimson banners of the Sunburst Army. The black flames, Mara recalled, harkened back to the last Elysian empress. A throng of people had gathered outside the theatre. Mostly elves, mostly people decked out in standard Yanhelm worker garb with a few wealthy people sprinkled in, judging by the weight of jewellery they were comfortable wearing in Sanstown. Mara supposed it helped, having your own gaggle of army veterans to stand around looking intimidating.
Mara’s mask took on that other aspect again, causing Mara to grip the side of her head with a grunt.
“Will you shut up? I know it’s in there. I don’t feel like fighting hundreds of angry idiots to get a book.” Mara condescended angrily, a pause following her proclamation. “No, I don’t want to let you at them either. Last thing I need is the City Guard opening a case file.”
“Something the matter, sister?” A voice inquired from behind her. Mara nearly jumped out of her skin, hand going to her staff as she leapt away from the source of the voice. It had come from a pale elvish man with purplish lips and dark eyes, his hair tied in a topknot behind his head. On his hip he wore a sword with a purple stone set into the pommel, its guard decorated in the style of flared dragon wings, the blade emerging from its mouth. His armour was similarly ostentatious with claws etched into his pauldrons and a crest hanging from a gold chain that held his cloak in place over the darkened armour. Mara’s mind noted every detail as she slowly came out of her frightened stance and looked up at the man’s face.
“Nothing that would concern you, Van Tuil. My sana is expecting me and I think I took a wrong turn.” Mara replied, her voice tight as her mask began to emit a dark mist that, thankfully, couldn’t be seen this far from the streetlamps or theatre. The man’s eyes narrowed, a hand resting on his sword hilt while the other came up to his chin.
“It’s true. Humans are woefully inept at designing their cities. No concern for the citizen. Why, my soldiers were concerned but a few minutes ago that the theatre was going to be attacked by humans!” The man laughed, attracting an awkward chuckle from Mara. For her part, Mara was busy edging away from the man with an eye towards the festivities. The light of the theatre seemed almost promising if it meant not a moment more in this alley with this strange man. “Of course, I inspected the grenades myself and discovered that they were disarmed beforehand.” Tuil added, stopping Mara’s retreat with a single rasping pull on the sword’s hilt. Her heartbeat, which had been merely elevated before now thundered in her ears. She remembered this feeling during the war. The feeling of being caught between the enemy and their artillery. “Of course, since we use elvish arcanography, only an elf could have disarmed them. Wouldn’t it be an odd coincidence if my soldiers told me a masked mage dropped those grenades?”
The world stopped for Mara as she realised, she had only moments. Her eyes flickered from the theatre to the man’s now grim face. The sword, like a gravity well, kept pulling her eyes towards it. Mara idly touched her mask, prompting the man to lash out with his free hand and grab her wrist. He twisted downwards; a cold fury etched on his face. Mara silently ran through the litany of spells she could cast to harm this man before clearing her throat. The expression was so mundane and absurd that the man stopped for a moment, as if manners drilled into him since birth took over what he logically knew should happen.
Mara used the nobleman’s moment of distraction to snap her fingers. With a word, the air between them exploded with light and sound, sending Mara’s adversary to the wall with a grunt of pain. A simple spell, Mara reasoned, but enough to buy her the seconds she needed to put her adrenaline to good use. She took off down the alleyway, away from the theatre and towards the poor, drunken humans that might witness this incident.
Her pursuer had recovered and gave chase, clanking and cursing as he struggled with his cape. Mara saw the opportunity as she turned a corner, using her staff to whack a fire escape ladder down. Before she could ascend it, Van Tuil was upon her with his sword drawn. Mara yelped, tipping the contents of a rubbish bin over and hampering his progress as she made her way around the block. She chanced to look back, only to see the nobleman simply run along the wall as if it were just another street to him. He leapt from the wall with a smug expression, lashing out with his sword at seemingly thin air. Mara thought him crazy before a flash of steel in front of her almost took her arm. Her eyes widened beneath her mask, recognizing the spell. Even the most talented Sera Yoldir didn’t utilize illusion magic like this!
Mara took another left turn, taking out her staff and conjuring a little illusion of her own; a towering fire elemental that stood halfway up the buildings. Its eyes blazed with the fury only a supernatural conjunction of fire and magic could muster. The illusion was one of her sora’s favourites. Mara smiled as she climbed the ladder she’d struck down earlier. Her smile soon turned to a bitter snarl as the nobleman ran his fingers along the length of the blade and carved through the illusion, as if he knew it was immaterial.
“That might fool a human thug, vercan, but it won’t save you from me!” Van Tuil snarled up at the retreating back of Mara. She desperately fell over the lip of the building into the gutter, cowering in the shade of a steep roof. With a panicked whimper, she pulled the rope that held the ladder aloft, gasping with relief as she heard the ladder click into place. She sat there for a few precious seconds, breathing heavily as her mask oozed that black mist. Mara growled and shook her head, wincing to herself.
“I don’t want to hurt him. What would Gaius say? Gods, what would Solvi say if I hurt a nobleman?!” Mara growled, seemingly arguing with herself. She seemed so distracted that she did not see the nobleman rise above her, roosting atop the roof like a hideous bat. Only when his blade caught the light of the celebrations did Mara instinctively roll. She felt the lash of air behind her as one of the nobleman’s illusions shattered the stone crenelations of the building.
“You call yourself a mage, yet you cower from simple spells. You call yourself an elf, yet you turn against your own people! Did you assume that for all your wit there were no greater mages?” Van Tuil sneered, sliding down the width of the roof to stand with her in the gutter, levelling his blade at Mara’s chest. He did not need to see her face to know the contempt she felt in these, her final moments. Van Tuil’s face was filled with indignation, the grip on his sword shaking with anger.
“My people, as you call them, sneer and laugh at me behind my back. They think I don’t hear them when I hear them call me eccentric, a joke. From where I’m sitting, the only joke is the pompous prat in a cape lecturing me on something he doesn’t understand.” Mara growled, whipping her hand through the air. A spectral blue light began to coalesce around it, forming the shape of a ghoulish claw that ran the length of her arm. Van Tuil’s eyes widened, flicking the tip of his blade into a thrust at Mara’s throat. With a spray of sparks, Mara’s clawed spectral hand stopped the blade on its deadly journey. “What was that about simple spells?” Mara’s voice was not the voice of the calm, bookish woman many knew her to be. It was filled with malice, sneering pride and contempt.
“You dare? I will have you in irons for this!” Van Tuil snarled. His eyes were full of cold hatred as he attempted to push the blade home. Mara rolled to the side, directing the blade into the stone beneath her. With a skidding clatter, Van Tuil saved himself from the fall by throwing the blade aside and drawing a dagger, its tip dripping with foul enchantment.
“Enough!” Came a sonorous masculine voice, its proclamation announced with a parade of fire encircling the building and preventing escape. Van Tuil clearly expected someone else for he stood upright, whirling around as if he’d forgotten Mara’s existence. Mara, on the other hand, swiftly ended her magic and staggered to her feet, clutching her side. It felt warm and her hand came away wet. She tried to take a few practice breaths but found herself wincing with pain at every attempt. Yet even through the pain there was relief for flying above them stood Professor Gaius Renaud.
Many would not think of Renaud as an intimidating figure. He was a middle-aged elf bearing long hair tied back in an elaborate braid strewn with silver hairs. His ears bore decorative piercings and his face had strong features. His eyes, sitting beneath carefully maintained eyebrows, were steely and piercing like a bird of prey. They had an ice-like blue hue and shone in the flames with such intensity that Mara was concerned he’d used more potent spells than usual. For Van Tuil, the most immediate danger came from the elaborate blue robes he wore, threaded with silver. A sign of rank as Magister.
“I come to the aid of my sana and find her assaulted by a foreign noble? For shame, Albrecht!” Renaud bellowed, alighting to the rooftop and dismissing his flames with a confident wave of his hands. “And here I had deluded myself into thinking you cared for our people, our laws. Your father will hear of this.” He continued, marching up to the armed man with a scowl. Mara felt it may have been the adrenaline but, in that moment, she saw Van Tuil shrink back like a naughty child. She’d never seen this side of her sora before.
“She, a member of the guard and a Skitti assaulted our rally and dropped what we believed to be real explosives! I could not let that pass.” Van Tuil spluttered out, attempting to retrieve his sword before Renaud held out his hand, the sword leaping into his open palm without so much as a word. His face spoke every syllable of his opinion on Albrecht bearing arms in his presence.
“Be that as it may, she is my sana and I am her guardian. She has fallen in with the wrong type but that is not an excuse to attack her. We have rules, Albrecht!” Professor Renaud replied with a curled lip, taking his sword and pressing it against the man’s chest. “Now take your toy sword, your shoddily enchanted dagger and your ridiculous outfit and scuttle back to your gaggle of imbeciles!” Renaud then snapped his fingers, causing the ladder to clatter back into place for Albrecht. The man’s face was a contortion of fury yet, with a shaking hand, he sheathed his blade and began to make his way to the ladder. He did pause before leaving, turning to look Mara in the eye.
“The last elf who used that magic carved his name into history as a traitor to our people. Think very carefully about your loyalties.” Albrecht directed at Mara, before turning to them both and bowing formally. “Goodnight. Apologies for the disturbance.” He said with as much steel and venom as his blade, before descending the ladder.
Renaud sighed with relief once he was sure Albrecht had left earshot. He then rounded on Mara with a furious paternal gaze. Mara knew it well and braced for the dressing down of her first century. But it never came. Renaud’s gaze softened after a few moments before he sat himself down, taking a bottle from his far too small pocket. Mara smiled to herself at her mentor’s mannerism, remembering fondly the first day she met Renaud.
“All throughout our time together I tried to protect you. But how can I do that whilst you do…this?” Renaud made a broad motion as if gesturing to the city at large. Mara knew what he meant. He was about to launch into the same speech he so enthusiastically gave whenever Solvi became involved. “The Sunburst Army are not your fight. They’re barely Solvi’s! Surely there’s something better both you and the Guard have to do with their time than harass a gaggle of privileged youth?” Renaud said, voice pitched with exasperation. Mara rolled her eyes under her mask, confident that Renaud wouldn’t notice. “And don’t roll your eyes at me! I’m serious. You have a great future if only you stopped dallying with Solvi and her unsavoury friends.” Renaud continued, placing extra emphasis on his opinion of Fred.
“They’ve started kidnapping people, sora. For what purpose I don’t know. That is definitively Solvi’s business though.” Mara spoke quietly, toying with an errant thread on her glove. She pretended to pay it mind, avoiding the terrible gaze of her mentor. Yet his voice still rung with enough condemnation regardless.
“The city guard are not responsible for missing people. That job belongs to the Royal Legionnaires. You are both out of line and I am powerless to do anything but lecture and cajole and influence from my pulpit of 80 years’ experience.” Renaud countered, his tone rising with frustration. Mara knew she wouldn’t win the fight yet a voice in the back of her mind egged her on. As if Renaud’s indignance were spurring on his sana’s own.
“For all your imperious lectures you’re technically my junior. Or were you particularly lucid when they pulled your carcass out of the Bay of Fangs?” Mara sniped. Her tone was considerably more barbed than she’d intended. Her breath hitched before she shook her head, a malformed apology already working its way out of her lips. Yet Renaud held up a hand, silencing her.
“As I recall you weren’t particularly lucid when we hauled your carcass out of whatever godsforsaken realm you so foolishly threw yourself into. And you weren’t the only one.” Renaud countered, though his tone was considerably softer than Mara’s had been. And Mara felt shame, shrinking back into her cloak then pulling it about herself. Renaud placed an arm around his charge, a comforting squeeze of the hand on her arm setting her spirits to rest at least somewhat. “We are both mismatched oddities in an age that does not respect us. But like me you will prove your worth in time. And when you do, I shall be there to watch you walk the streets as yourself. I shall watch you radiate the power and confidence I know you deserve to.” Renaud’s smile was warm, his usually steely eyes alight with understanding. Mara found herself weakly smiling beneath her mask before holding her thumb up to Renaud. His smile widened as he stood himself up, back clicking as he groaned with pain. “With any luck, you’ll get there before you have to deal with the ravages of mortality.”
“Maybe the old man has celebrated enough and needs a nap before his morning classes.” Mara jabbed, remaining seated and gazing out across the war-torn city. Renaud snorted with laughter before walking to the ladder. Like Albrecht before him, he looked back at Mara with a wan expression.
“I’ll trust you to make your way home quickly. Don’t open the door for strangers and no more late-night adventures with Solvi.” Renaud said emphatically, climbing onto the ladder after Mara’s non-committal affirmation that she’d heard the older man. But Mara stayed there a while longer, silently gazing at the city’s well-lit streets, bunting hanging from every streetlamp. People were yelling, singing, carousing in every corner. Mara smiled. Up on the roof, far away from their jeers and snide comments, Mara could grow to love the people of Yanhelm.
“Yeah. They’re worth it up here.” Mara laughed to herself, leaning back against the roof, watching as fireworks spat up into the sky and exploded with majestic plumes of light that threw the moon itself into shade.
From the twinkling stars to the glistening of streetlamps, the city of Yanhelm was aglow with celebration. Veterans bearing their war injuries danced, drank and made merry with the civilians they’d laid their lives on the line to protect. The craters had been repaired with fresh brick and the reconstruction that had been their great work for twenty years was at an end. King Boros Fitznorth was giving a speech in the square while the great and the good listened on with fresh hope in their eyes.
Yet as this very speech was being given, three figures crept through the old storm drains that had hidden the children from the guns not so long ago. One was exceptionally large, looming head and shoulders over most around her. Her body was battle-worn, her blonde hair shot through with a trace or two of silver. Another wore a set of blue hooded robes, belts hanging from her shoulders and clanking every so often with the crystals and glass bottles she carried. Her boots were thick, well-made and clearly unused to the wet, murky depths of the storm drain. She held aloft a staff made of dark brown wood, the outstretched branches at the head glowing as the party made their way forward. Unlike the rest of her troupe, she wore a featureless mask with two eyeholes covered in gauze.
Far ahead of them, barely visible beyond the light of the staff, a short man shimmied along with a rifle in hand. His long tail swayed above him, holding his lockpicks as he used his dagger to cut a tripwire. To most who looked upon him, he would resemble a rat in many instances- the hairless tail, the black fur covering his body, his large round ears slightly higher than a human’s. He wore the apparel of a workman with overalls and shirt underneath. However, his pockets boasted of considerably sharper implements than a common blacksmith.
“If they’re expecting us, we should probably return with backup. We’re not even Guard members!” The masked woman spoke up from her position in the rear. She seemed nervous, perpetually looking back towards where she imagined the entrance to the storm drains were. In the lower districts, where the houses still flooded if there was particularly bad weather. The rebuilding efforts had become too expensive to put in an entirely new drainage system. Which was fortunate, the masked woman reasoned, because it meant their quarry hadn’t changed their meeting place.
“There is no backup. They’re all at the king’s speech. I didn’t have a spare mage on hand.” The blonde woman growled, checking her night stick with a few practice whacks. Though she wore the uniform of the guard with its pseudo-military apparel, it very clearly did not fit her well. Her arms bulged against the sleeves and her trouser legs needed no lifting out of the steady stream of water in the bottom of the drain. Indeed, she was so large that she had to walk in an awkward crouch while the others merely bowed their heads.
“It just seems like a very bad idea to go around messing with Sunburst types when they’re at peak mouth-froth.” The masked woman countered, grunting something about amateurish spell work as she destroyed a rune painted onto the wall with a swift strike of a gloved hand. She took a moment to remove something from a makeshift bracket on the wall and pocket it.
“Would that be a bad idea like when you decided to go AWOL in a warzone?” The large woman jovially prodded, looking back at the other woman with a smug grin.
“I merely wanted to see if arcane thermoreversal was possible on conventional ammunition. How was I to know it would detonate the whole damn magazine?” The masked woman retorted, somewhat louder than she normally would. The large woman was about to continue her teasing when the stout skitti man raised a paw with a pained expression evident, even though his eyepatch.
“Y’know I’m glad you want to give ‘em advanced warning of us comin’. I was ‘fraid I’d get to go home without a broken nose tonight.” He said with exasperation, taking his dagger to another tripwire before tying it to the loop it had been threaded through, as he’d done several times already tonight. He was beginning to think they knew the storm drain was a weakness in the perimeter. The group eventually made it to the maintenance shaft they were looking for, the skitti man climbing the ladder with a sigh as he noticed something.
“Something wrong up there Fred?” The masked woman asked as the skitti took a pair of bolt cutters from within his overalls. The masked woman resisted the urge to make the obvious joke as Fred attached his bolt cutters to some form of mechanism on the underside of the grate.
“They’ve locked the gate then bent it. I don’t think the grenades were dummies. Which makes ‘em extra stupid for makin’ the tripwires obvious.” Fred observed, grunting and straining as he attempted to pull the cutters closed. After a solid minute of trying, Fred clearly resisted the urge to punch the grate before slipping down the ladder and tilting his head upwards. “Your turn Solvi. Break the middle three then lift. Weldin’s bloody terrible. I know the lads that make these.”
Solvi climbed the ladder, hooking her legs behind the rungs before leaning back and flexing with her considerable strength. She spat at the grate in disgust as it refused to budge, its bars remaining firmly uncut despite her best efforts. She reached into her pocket, chalked her hands with cordon powder before attempting it again. When it refused to work, Solvi looked down at the pair with a frustrated expression.
“If I had a sword made from these bars, we’d have won the bloody war! Mara, do some magic or something.” Solvi demanded, prompting the masked woman to open a pocketbook she pulled from under her robes, clearly doing some calculations. After a few seconds, she nodded and lifted her staff upwards, the grate beginning to heat up until it began to glow a dull red.
“Assuming the grate is made of iron or steel, heating it up will cause it to expand and lose its tensile strength. You can cut the bars now.” Mara spoke cheerfully up at Solvi, who griped about the heat as sweat began to bead on her forehead. Fred, meanwhile, scurried up past Solvi as she finished cutting the last bar. As the grate was about to fall onto Solvi, Fred gave an almighty kick with his blacksmith’s boots, using the large woman as a springboard to kick the grate into the room above. He blew on his boots, Solvi straining to hold both her own weight and the rat man sitting on her. “Ah yes, I forgot to account for shrinkage due to cooling temperatures. My mistake!” Mara added, scaling the ladder into the room after her companions with a sense of triumph. Her companions though were curiously quiet for a pair of people who loved to comment on every little mistake. Mara began to wonder if her brilliance had taken their breath away. A novel but not entirely unexpected outcome. She was, as Professor Renaud said, a woman of significant intelligence and potential.
Mara’s self-congratulation was cut short when a sabre was levelled at her nose. It was held by a tall elvish man of strong build and a breastplate stamped with eight tongues of flame arranged in a circular pattern. Mara’s ego deflated like a zeppelin on fire as she noticed her companions being held at sword point as well by the people, she now understood to be the Sunburst Army.
“Salviat ti.” The man spoke in elvish, and Mara’s eyes lit up behind her mask as a sudden idea came to her. She pulled herself out of the storm drain and sat on the rim with her hands folded in front of her. She then took out a small purple crystal gilt in gold and strung on a thin golden chain. The crystal, when held up to the light had a stylized dragon inside. The man very quickly lowered his weapon as he realised, he was threatening not only a fellow elf but one related to a powerful elvish noble house.
“Salviat ti, vi frinnai gwileld forel du gratten.” Mara replied in elvish, casually. The man’s face slipped as his compatriots looked on with confusion at this strange woman. The tall gentleman put up his blade, a sheepish expression dawning on his face as he tried to parse the message. Eventually, he conceded.
“Alright my elvish isn’t that good.” He admitted, causing Mara to sigh audibly before she stood up, taking in the surroundings. The room around her appeared to be a storage cupboard for a theatre of some kind. Probably one of the old ones used before the war destroyed the outer parts of the city and with it, their clients. Around her, she noted several humans, coblini and orsan people bound by ropes with gags tied firmly around their mouths. Indistinctly, Mara heard a person giving a speech on what was presumably the stage. Mara cast Solvi and Fred a meaningful look which, although difficult through a mask, proved effective. As Mara began to discuss learning techniques with the confused and often bored-looking Sunburst Army, the pair of them began pushing the bound people into the middle of the room. Once Solvi stood up and yawned loudly, Mara took a pocket watch from her robes and marvelled at it for a moment.
“My, would you look at the time! Class dismissed.” Mara chuckled, taking grenades from her pocket and wiggling them at her erstwhile students. With a surprisingly cruel laugh, she threw the grenades at the elves, who immediately panicked and fled the room. Solvi began to push the victims into the storm drain, giving Mara a thunderous look. Fred meanwhile cast about looking for shelter from the detonation that was inevitably coming.
“Are you insane?!” Solvi shouted, taking the rear position with her nightstick brandished as they escaped into the storm drain. Fred was babbling about grenades not being toys and magical ammunition being exceptionally dangerous to small skitti bodies. Mara meanwhile was following behind the Army’s captives, laughing at everyone’s hysteria. “What’s so bloody funny?!” Solvi demanded. Her eyes were wide with fear. Mara ceased her cackling for a moment to point at a tripwire they were crossing. Its grenade had been pilfered.
“I destroyed the detonator runes while you were busy failing at being the strong one. It’s always useful to scare a bully. Bring as many duds as you can, and they’ll leave behind their own mothers.” Mara explained, causing Fred to cease his babbling almost immediately. Their expressions very quickly shifted from panic to anger, Solvi helping the kidnapped people past her to get at Mara. “I didn’t tell you because your reactions had to be genuine. You’re both very poor actors.” The elvish woman added, holding her hands up by some small way of apology.
“I have a rule against explosives.” Solvi spat, holding her finger pointed under Mara’s chin. The mask, which usually appeared so quaint and quirky, took on a sinister air even though the features remained the same. It was as if a malignance underneath or within it had suddenly manifested. The two women stood for a moment, Mara remaining completely silent before shaking her head. She pushed past Solvi to better light the way for their charges. Solvi took pause for a moment, forgetting her anger. Her frown of rage softened into one of concern.
Fred, who’d been leading the party out of the storm drain, sighed with appreciation as he stretched upward. His back emitted audible cracking sounds as he did so, his gaze turning towards the sky with a contemplative expression. The rings of their planet, Auryth, had spread broadly these past few weeks. Superstitiously, he took some red flannel from his overalls and whipped it about his neck. Thereafter, he took his knife to the bonds of the captives. He freed them with a smirk and a joke every so often, making sure none were hurt. One of the captives had a nasty cut cross the brow which descended to his cheek and Fred wasted no time calling for Mara.
The mage emerged from the storm drain with a hand to her head, a gasp escaping her as she walked into the moonlit street. Even as she walked, she staggered slightly. Solvi was there to catch her, eyes widening as she went. The question of whether Mara was alright had left her lips before she even remembered her anger with the shorter woman’s stunt.
“It’s fine. Just a headache.” Mara grunted, cracking her neck. Solvi’s expression wrinkled with suspicion. Her eyes were set against that infernal mask. “Someone must be furious with me.” Mara joked, her voice apologetic. She then turned to inspect the injured person before an expletive surprise escaped her. She shook her head and laughed at herself, overturning a wooden crate and seating the gentleman on it. She took out a leather roll with surgeon’s tools; scalpels, needles, thread and sterilization ointments as well as pain-suppressing unguents of all kinds. She took a combination of both into a swatch and began to clean the wound against the man’s face. He hissed with discomfort but otherwise remained admirably still.
He was human, quite young with a half-grown beard. He kept his hair long in an elaborate braid, interwoven with plants of various kinds including a crown of leaves. His skin was tanned from the many days he no doubt spent in the sun. His body was strong, and he had an impressive stature, being chest height to Solvi. Though he wore a simple linen shirt and overalls, Mara could tell that this was not his usual garb given the golden torque he wore around his arm.
“I do appreciate the efforts but it’s not necessary to worry over this trifle. I’ve had far worse on my pilgrimages.” The man chuckled, just as Mara began applying Losip’s Glue to his wound to seal it from the outside world while it healed. Mara snorted as she finished her work, applying a bandage more for surety than anything else. As she stood up, Mara leant on her staff and looked the other man over.
“Bring me whatever injury, no matter how small, and I shall save you from fester.” Mara spoke in a pompous imitation of the man’s high-class accent. The man looked startled, looking up at Mara with narrowed eyes before realisation dawned on his face. Mara’s free hand extended in greeting, to which he took her forearm in a firm grip. “Arthur De Reyes. You have your father’s talent for self-sacrificing grandeur.” Mara said with an audible smirk. Arthur stood up and looked about himself with a self-conscious air before a somewhat shy smile graced his face.
“I wish our first meeting had been in the temple. But as it happens, I was getting off the boat when a gang of elvish youths accosted me and dragged me to that theatre. They took my robes and gave me this ensemble to wear.” Arthur explained to all assembled, his ears turning red as he relayed the story. “Naturally, I told them where they could shove their demands with my fists. Hence the dragging. I was mildly…indisposed.” He added, curling a lip as he rubbed the side of his head. “Pale elf hit me with the flat of his sword. Tall bloke, had a dragon on his armour.”
Mara and Solvi shared a look, Fred looking grim for a moment before rolling his shoulder. Solvi motioned to the captives to fall in line before she pulled Mara aside with a concerned air. Mara allowed this, her head spinning somewhat due to her headache. Fred was already leading the captives from the street towards the guard station.
“I’m going to get their statements. Fred can handle the docks by himself. You’re done for tonight. Go find Professor Renaud and take the rest of the night off.” Solvi ordered with compassion in her voice. Mara raised some protest, but Solvi firmly pressed the surgeon’s tools into the smaller woman’s arms. “You are not well. You’re not even City Guard. Go say goodnight to Renaud, go to our apartment and sleep it off. You have lectures in the morning.”
Mara relented, knowing that Solvi was intractable when she got like this. The mage nodded and set herself against her staff, hobbling down the street towards the distant orange and purple glow of the festivities. As she turned a corner, sure Solvi was out of sight, Mara holstered her staff on her back and ducked down an alley near the theatre’s well-lit edifice, decked out in the crimson banners of the Sunburst Army. The black flames, Mara recalled, harkened back to the last Elysian empress. A throng of people had gathered outside the theatre. Mostly elves, mostly people decked out in standard Yanhelm worker garb with a few wealthy people sprinkled in, judging by the weight of jewellery they were comfortable wearing in Sanstown. Mara supposed it helped, having your own gaggle of army veterans to stand around looking intimidating.
Mara’s mask took on that other aspect again, causing Mara to grip the side of her head with a grunt.
“Will you shut up? I know it’s in there. I don’t feel like fighting hundreds of angry idiots to get a book.” Mara condescended angrily, a pause following her proclamation. “No, I don’t want to let you at them either. Last thing I need is the City Guard opening a case file.”
“Something the matter, sister?” A voice inquired from behind her. Mara nearly jumped out of her skin, hand going to her staff as she leapt away from the source of the voice. It had come from a pale elvish man with purplish lips and dark eyes, his hair tied in a topknot behind his head. On his hip he wore a sword with a purple stone set into the pommel, its guard decorated in the style of flared dragon wings, the blade emerging from its mouth. His armour was similarly ostentatious with claws etched into his pauldrons and a crest hanging from a gold chain that held his cloak in place over the darkened armour. Mara’s mind noted every detail as she slowly came out of her frightened stance and looked up at the man’s face.
“Nothing that would concern you, Van Tuil. My sana is expecting me and I think I took a wrong turn.” Mara replied, her voice tight as her mask began to emit a dark mist that, thankfully, couldn’t be seen this far from the streetlamps or theatre. The man’s eyes narrowed, a hand resting on his sword hilt while the other came up to his chin.
“It’s true. Humans are woefully inept at designing their cities. No concern for the citizen. Why, my soldiers were concerned but a few minutes ago that the theatre was going to be attacked by humans!” The man laughed, attracting an awkward chuckle from Mara. For her part, Mara was busy edging away from the man with an eye towards the festivities. The light of the theatre seemed almost promising if it meant not a moment more in this alley with this strange man. “Of course, I inspected the grenades myself and discovered that they were disarmed beforehand.” Tuil added, stopping Mara’s retreat with a single rasping pull on the sword’s hilt. Her heartbeat, which had been merely elevated before now thundered in her ears. She remembered this feeling during the war. The feeling of being caught between the enemy and their artillery. “Of course, since we use elvish arcanography, only an elf could have disarmed them. Wouldn’t it be an odd coincidence if my soldiers told me a masked mage dropped those grenades?”
The world stopped for Mara as she realised, she had only moments. Her eyes flickered from the theatre to the man’s now grim face. The sword, like a gravity well, kept pulling her eyes towards it. Mara idly touched her mask, prompting the man to lash out with his free hand and grab her wrist. He twisted downwards; a cold fury etched on his face. Mara silently ran through the litany of spells she could cast to harm this man before clearing her throat. The expression was so mundane and absurd that the man stopped for a moment, as if manners drilled into him since birth took over what he logically knew should happen.
Mara used the nobleman’s moment of distraction to snap her fingers. With a word, the air between them exploded with light and sound, sending Mara’s adversary to the wall with a grunt of pain. A simple spell, Mara reasoned, but enough to buy her the seconds she needed to put her adrenaline to good use. She took off down the alleyway, away from the theatre and towards the poor, drunken humans that might witness this incident.
Her pursuer had recovered and gave chase, clanking and cursing as he struggled with his cape. Mara saw the opportunity as she turned a corner, using her staff to whack a fire escape ladder down. Before she could ascend it, Van Tuil was upon her with his sword drawn. Mara yelped, tipping the contents of a rubbish bin over and hampering his progress as she made her way around the block. She chanced to look back, only to see the nobleman simply run along the wall as if it were just another street to him. He leapt from the wall with a smug expression, lashing out with his sword at seemingly thin air. Mara thought him crazy before a flash of steel in front of her almost took her arm. Her eyes widened beneath her mask, recognizing the spell. Even the most talented Sera Yoldir didn’t utilize illusion magic like this!
Mara took another left turn, taking out her staff and conjuring a little illusion of her own; a towering fire elemental that stood halfway up the buildings. Its eyes blazed with the fury only a supernatural conjunction of fire and magic could muster. The illusion was one of her sora’s favourites. Mara smiled as she climbed the ladder she’d struck down earlier. Her smile soon turned to a bitter snarl as the nobleman ran his fingers along the length of the blade and carved through the illusion, as if he knew it was immaterial.
“That might fool a human thug, vercan, but it won’t save you from me!” Van Tuil snarled up at the retreating back of Mara. She desperately fell over the lip of the building into the gutter, cowering in the shade of a steep roof. With a panicked whimper, she pulled the rope that held the ladder aloft, gasping with relief as she heard the ladder click into place. She sat there for a few precious seconds, breathing heavily as her mask oozed that black mist. Mara growled and shook her head, wincing to herself.
“I don’t want to hurt him. What would Gaius say? Gods, what would Solvi say if I hurt a nobleman?!” Mara growled, seemingly arguing with herself. She seemed so distracted that she did not see the nobleman rise above her, roosting atop the roof like a hideous bat. Only when his blade caught the light of the celebrations did Mara instinctively roll. She felt the lash of air behind her as one of the nobleman’s illusions shattered the stone crenelations of the building.
“You call yourself a mage, yet you cower from simple spells. You call yourself an elf, yet you turn against your own people! Did you assume that for all your wit there were no greater mages?” Van Tuil sneered, sliding down the width of the roof to stand with her in the gutter, levelling his blade at Mara’s chest. He did not need to see her face to know the contempt she felt in these, her final moments. Van Tuil’s face was filled with indignation, the grip on his sword shaking with anger.
“My people, as you call them, sneer and laugh at me behind my back. They think I don’t hear them when I hear them call me eccentric, a joke. From where I’m sitting, the only joke is the pompous prat in a cape lecturing me on something he doesn’t understand.” Mara growled, whipping her hand through the air. A spectral blue light began to coalesce around it, forming the shape of a ghoulish claw that ran the length of her arm. Van Tuil’s eyes widened, flicking the tip of his blade into a thrust at Mara’s throat. With a spray of sparks, Mara’s clawed spectral hand stopped the blade on its deadly journey. “What was that about simple spells?” Mara’s voice was not the voice of the calm, bookish woman many knew her to be. It was filled with malice, sneering pride and contempt.
“You dare? I will have you in irons for this!” Van Tuil snarled. His eyes were full of cold hatred as he attempted to push the blade home. Mara rolled to the side, directing the blade into the stone beneath her. With a skidding clatter, Van Tuil saved himself from the fall by throwing the blade aside and drawing a dagger, its tip dripping with foul enchantment.
“Enough!” Came a sonorous masculine voice, its proclamation announced with a parade of fire encircling the building and preventing escape. Van Tuil clearly expected someone else for he stood upright, whirling around as if he’d forgotten Mara’s existence. Mara, on the other hand, swiftly ended her magic and staggered to her feet, clutching her side. It felt warm and her hand came away wet. She tried to take a few practice breaths but found herself wincing with pain at every attempt. Yet even through the pain there was relief for flying above them stood Professor Gaius Renaud.
Many would not think of Renaud as an intimidating figure. He was a middle-aged elf bearing long hair tied back in an elaborate braid strewn with silver hairs. His ears bore decorative piercings and his face had strong features. His eyes, sitting beneath carefully maintained eyebrows, were steely and piercing like a bird of prey. They had an ice-like blue hue and shone in the flames with such intensity that Mara was concerned he’d used more potent spells than usual. For Van Tuil, the most immediate danger came from the elaborate blue robes he wore, threaded with silver. A sign of rank as Magister.
“I come to the aid of my sana and find her assaulted by a foreign noble? For shame, Albrecht!” Renaud bellowed, alighting to the rooftop and dismissing his flames with a confident wave of his hands. “And here I had deluded myself into thinking you cared for our people, our laws. Your father will hear of this.” He continued, marching up to the armed man with a scowl. Mara felt it may have been the adrenaline but, in that moment, she saw Van Tuil shrink back like a naughty child. She’d never seen this side of her sora before.
“She, a member of the guard and a Skitti assaulted our rally and dropped what we believed to be real explosives! I could not let that pass.” Van Tuil spluttered out, attempting to retrieve his sword before Renaud held out his hand, the sword leaping into his open palm without so much as a word. His face spoke every syllable of his opinion on Albrecht bearing arms in his presence.
“Be that as it may, she is my sana and I am her guardian. She has fallen in with the wrong type but that is not an excuse to attack her. We have rules, Albrecht!” Professor Renaud replied with a curled lip, taking his sword and pressing it against the man’s chest. “Now take your toy sword, your shoddily enchanted dagger and your ridiculous outfit and scuttle back to your gaggle of imbeciles!” Renaud then snapped his fingers, causing the ladder to clatter back into place for Albrecht. The man’s face was a contortion of fury yet, with a shaking hand, he sheathed his blade and began to make his way to the ladder. He did pause before leaving, turning to look Mara in the eye.
“The last elf who used that magic carved his name into history as a traitor to our people. Think very carefully about your loyalties.” Albrecht directed at Mara, before turning to them both and bowing formally. “Goodnight. Apologies for the disturbance.” He said with as much steel and venom as his blade, before descending the ladder.
Renaud sighed with relief once he was sure Albrecht had left earshot. He then rounded on Mara with a furious paternal gaze. Mara knew it well and braced for the dressing down of her first century. But it never came. Renaud’s gaze softened after a few moments before he sat himself down, taking a bottle from his far too small pocket. Mara smiled to herself at her mentor’s mannerism, remembering fondly the first day she met Renaud.
“All throughout our time together I tried to protect you. But how can I do that whilst you do…this?” Renaud made a broad motion as if gesturing to the city at large. Mara knew what he meant. He was about to launch into the same speech he so enthusiastically gave whenever Solvi became involved. “The Sunburst Army are not your fight. They’re barely Solvi’s! Surely there’s something better both you and the Guard have to do with their time than harass a gaggle of privileged youth?” Renaud said, voice pitched with exasperation. Mara rolled her eyes under her mask, confident that Renaud wouldn’t notice. “And don’t roll your eyes at me! I’m serious. You have a great future if only you stopped dallying with Solvi and her unsavoury friends.” Renaud continued, placing extra emphasis on his opinion of Fred.
“They’ve started kidnapping people, sora. For what purpose I don’t know. That is definitively Solvi’s business though.” Mara spoke quietly, toying with an errant thread on her glove. She pretended to pay it mind, avoiding the terrible gaze of her mentor. Yet his voice still rung with enough condemnation regardless.
“The city guard are not responsible for missing people. That job belongs to the Royal Legionnaires. You are both out of line and I am powerless to do anything but lecture and cajole and influence from my pulpit of 80 years’ experience.” Renaud countered, his tone rising with frustration. Mara knew she wouldn’t win the fight yet a voice in the back of her mind egged her on. As if Renaud’s indignance were spurring on his sana’s own.
“For all your imperious lectures you’re technically my junior. Or were you particularly lucid when they pulled your carcass out of the Bay of Fangs?” Mara sniped. Her tone was considerably more barbed than she’d intended. Her breath hitched before she shook her head, a malformed apology already working its way out of her lips. Yet Renaud held up a hand, silencing her.
“As I recall you weren’t particularly lucid when we hauled your carcass out of whatever godsforsaken realm you so foolishly threw yourself into. And you weren’t the only one.” Renaud countered, though his tone was considerably softer than Mara’s had been. And Mara felt shame, shrinking back into her cloak then pulling it about herself. Renaud placed an arm around his charge, a comforting squeeze of the hand on her arm setting her spirits to rest at least somewhat. “We are both mismatched oddities in an age that does not respect us. But like me you will prove your worth in time. And when you do, I shall be there to watch you walk the streets as yourself. I shall watch you radiate the power and confidence I know you deserve to.” Renaud’s smile was warm, his usually steely eyes alight with understanding. Mara found herself weakly smiling beneath her mask before holding her thumb up to Renaud. His smile widened as he stood himself up, back clicking as he groaned with pain. “With any luck, you’ll get there before you have to deal with the ravages of mortality.”
“Maybe the old man has celebrated enough and needs a nap before his morning classes.” Mara jabbed, remaining seated and gazing out across the war-torn city. Renaud snorted with laughter before walking to the ladder. Like Albrecht before him, he looked back at Mara with a wan expression.
“I’ll trust you to make your way home quickly. Don’t open the door for strangers and no more late-night adventures with Solvi.” Renaud said emphatically, climbing onto the ladder after Mara’s non-committal affirmation that she’d heard the older man. But Mara stayed there a while longer, silently gazing at the city’s well-lit streets, bunting hanging from every streetlamp. People were yelling, singing, carousing in every corner. Mara smiled. Up on the roof, far away from their jeers and snide comments, Mara could grow to love the people of Yanhelm.
“Yeah. They’re worth it up here.” Mara laughed to herself, leaning back against the roof, watching as fireworks spat up into the sky and exploded with majestic plumes of light that threw the moon itself into shade.
