The King’s Agent

THE AWAKENED REALM: BOOK 1

D.K. HOLMBERG

Copyright © 2025 by ASH Publishing

Cover art by Damonza.com

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Chapter

One

Night was a time for sneaking.

Ellie had always felt that way, even if she wasn’t really a thief, but she found herself sneaking all too often for her preference, anyway. And tonight was an opportunity for her to finish a task that she’d been working on for a while now. It was a task that Dorian had given her years ago, and it had been difficult for her to accomplish it, though not for lack of trying.

This wasn’t just about the ring. Not really. Dorian hadn’t said it outright, but he’d looked at her that way again—that calculating gaze that weighed her not just as a tool, but as something more. She needed to show him she could do more than run, fight, and follow orders. She could lead. She could handle responsibility. She had to prove it.

Not just to Dorian. To herself. To the part of her that still wondered if Zaren had left her behind because she wasn’t ready.

She approached in the dark. Dressed all in black, she blended into the night. A pair of short daggers strapped to her waist were her only weapons, and they were fabricated ones at that. Not that she intended to need any weapon—at least, she hoped not. Still, it was reassuring to have them with her. She moved steadily toward the well-lit building up ahead.

The estate dominated the street, its walls rising three stories and gleaming pale yellow under the mounted lights that dotted the perimeter. A twelve-foot defensive wall encircled the property, its top bristling with shards of colored glass that would glow with dangerous energy if touched—a common but effective security fabrication. Iron-reinforced gates stood at the front, marked with spiraling patterns that weren’t merely decorative; Ellie recognized them as defensive fabrications.

It was not the kind of place that could be easily accessed—at least, not by most. Ellie was not most.

She made a circuit along the street to get a full survey of the protections that Magnus Telling had around his home. As a member of the king’s council, he would have plenty of security, and she wanted to make sure that she had her count accurate. She had looked at it in the daylight, having planned and scouted this job for a while now, as she had wanted to be certain that she would do it right, and certainly didn’t want to be surprised by a measure overlooked, such as somebody patrolling who wasn’t supposed to be there.

Half a dozen guards, all of them stationed where she had expected, all moving in the same patterns that she had seen earlier in the day.

Thankfully, it didn’t seem anybody else was out and looking for her, although today was no different than any other day, so she wouldn’t expect somebody to be watching for her. The only problem was the constables that patrolled at either end of the street, though she’d timed her own patrol to avoid them.

Caught by the constables.

The air crackled with energy. Along the street, Ellie could feel the power of a dozen potent fabrications. For each one, she thought about how she would counteract it—her ability with such magic allowed her to do that even from a distance—but she also knew that she couldn’t oppose those fabrications obviously, because doing so would risk somebody discovering that she was coming.

Stop dallying, she told herself.

Every delay meant that she was putting off this. And she had put it off for the better part of two weeks, ever since she’d gotten word that Telling had what she was looking for.

It was time to get it over with, assuming that she could even find what she was looking for once she was inside. It was nothing more than a signet ring, small, and with a weak fabrication, so it would be difficult for her to find. Fabrications could be tied to anything, items engineered to hold power for a specific purpose, and this one was unique.

Timing the gap in security, Ellie scurried toward the wall. She couldn’t go through the doorway. Not without a fight. Though she had trained to fight, that wasn’t how she wanted to do this job. Stealth was the key. Getting in and out without anybody knowing that she’d ever been there. Better to make it seem as if someone had simply misplaced the ring rather than have them know that she had been there. That would raise the kinds of questions she hoped to avoid.

The wall was almost perfectly smooth. Almost. With her fabricated boots, she managed to slide over the imperfections in the wall and push upward, grabbing for a lip of stone and crawling up. From here, the rest of the manor complex became visible.

The house itself spoke of both wealth and paranoia. Ornate bay windows projected from the second floor, with stained-glass patterns. Carved wooden eaves extended far enough to prevent easy climbing, while copper rain spouts were deliberately placed away from windows and balconies. A slate roof featured dormer windows, each protected by a delicate-looking but sturdy iron grille.

Lights illuminated everything, blooming in the darkness. A dozen or more arcane lanterns, all tinted in the same shade, although it wouldn’t take much to change that. Ellie suspected that with the right pulse of her own ability, she could counteract the arcane lanterns—probably all of them at once if she were to time it right—and either dim the lighting or extinguish it altogether.

Stop thinking like that, or you’re going to get caught.

She forced herself forward. There were no guards in the garden. Most of them were stationed along the street, making it look as if they were simply on a stroll, although the pattern of their pacing was far too regular for them to be anything but guards. Once inside the house, however, she would have to deal with the guards. That was the bigger issue.

She rolled off the wall, landing softly on the ground. She waited a moment, letting her eyes adjust to the shadows that snaked into this section of the garden—which was the reason that she had chosen to come here—and then moved forward along the hedgerow, toward the house. The shrubs were neatly groomed, sculpted into rounded lines that created a twisting pathway. She found it surprising that Telling would favor flowers sprinkled within, as he didn’t strike her as somebody who would, but the fragrance here was certainly sweet and pleasant, better than the sea salt and stench of fish that she would have expected this close to the harbor. Maybe that was the reason for his flowers.

The sudden sense of fabricated energy caught her attention, and Ellie froze.

She had neared a turn in the hedgerow when she picked up on it. As she paused, she slipped back, trying to blend into the shrubs, and doubted that she would do that very well. She had to be careful. She couldn’t make any noise, but she also didn’t want to be standing in the path of a guard who happened to come in this direction.

The pulse of the fabrication moved past, and she let out a relieved breath. So far, it didn’t seem she would be caught. So far.

Still, she would do well to be careful here.

Get in. Get out. Don’t get caught.

Those words echoed in her head, as they were the ones that had been told to her long before. And now, however, she found herself thinking about what it would take to get out quickly. If somebody picked up on her presence, she would have to sneak through in a different way, and she wanted to make sure that she knew the layout. As she moved along the path, she saw the main entrance to the rear of the house and scanned along the windows.

From her position on the path, the rear of the house revealed itself as a collection of deliberate layers. The main entrance was less grandiose than the front—a wide door clearly meant for deliveries and servants, flanked by storage rooms with narrow windows set high in the walls. Above these, the second floor featured a covered gallery with glass doors that opened onto it, likely the family’s private dining and entertaining space. Moonlight glinted off the glass, making it easy for Ellie to spot which panels could swing open.

The windows told their own story: ground-floor ones were predictably small and secured, but the second floor had larger casement windows, their bronze latches visible from outside—a detail worth noting. The third floor’s dormer windows jutted out from the slate roof at regular intervals, creating shadows beneath them that could provide cover if needed.

A wrought-iron trellis climbed one corner of the house, ostensibly for flowering vines, but to Ellie’s practiced eye, it was as good as a ladder—though likely alarmed with fabrications. More subtle was the stack of rain barrels against the kitchen wall, their arrangement creating an unintentional set of steps to a lower section of the roof.

Service paths branched from the main rear entrance—one leading to what appeared to be a small herb garden, another to what was likely an icehouse, partially buried in the ground. Each offered potential cover, though the gravel surfacing meant silent movement would be challenging. The clever placement of light fabrications created overlapping pools of illumination but also, crucially, defined shadows between them that could serve as dark corridors for a hasty retreat.

Movement near the main door, however, caught her attention, and unfortunately made it impossible for her to go in that direction. Through the window, she saw two shadow figures.

Two?

That didn’t fit with the account.

Had she made a mistake?

She knew that Telling wasn’t home, so there shouldn’t be any reason to have extra guards here, unless there was some reason to believe that something was going to happen tonight. Odd, if that were the case.

She slipped forward, though, not wanting to stay out in the open of the garden, and moved along the windows, testing each one as she proceeded forward, until she reached the end of the house. Two of them were unlocked.

Which one should she choose? The layout of the house meant that the farthest window would be the farthest from the stairs, and she needed to get to the upper level.

Unless she just tried to scale the outside and get to the upper level. Her intention had been to sneak inside, dart toward the staircase, up the stairs, all while timing the guards’ patrols. She figured she could do that and manage to get into Telling’s personal study, where she believed the ring would be found, all without getting caught.

Too much to hope for such an easy approach, though.

The sound of a cat mewing nearby drew her attention, and she glanced over. A darkened shape slithered toward her and then hissed suddenly.

Sacred Souls.

Here she had been caught by a cat.

“What’s over there?” a hoarse voice called. “You find yourself a little mouse, Spots?”

Sacred Souls.

All her planning, and it was going to be a cat that spoiled it for her.

She glowered at the cat, which was still hissing, fur standing on edge, as if she were a dog chasing it.

“Thanks for that,” she muttered.

She reached for the window and pulled it open quickly, then scurried inside and closed it before the cat could bound in after her. It wouldn’t do for her to be chased by a cat, hissing its way through the house.

She stayed low. She quickly surveyed the room. Light from out in the hall cast a shadowed glow into the room, allowing her to see what was here. The room unfolded before Ellie’s crouched form in layers of shadow and faint light. She found herself in what appeared to be a study or private office, where the ambient glow from the hallway caught the edges of a massive mahogany desk positioned near the center. Leather-bound books lined the walls on built-in shelves that reached to the ceiling, their gold-lettered spines catching occasional glints of light.

A crystal paperweight on the desk held down several documents, its facets creating tiny rainbow refractions of the distant hall light. Behind the desk, a high-backed chair upholstered in dark leather waited silently, while two smaller chairs faced it from the front. The air held the mingled scents of beeswax polish, old paper, and mint—suggesting the room saw regular use.

The thick carpet beneath her feet would help muffle her movements. She knew where this room was from the building plan that she’d seen, but she hadn’t expected to need to come here.

A quick pulse of her ability, and she made certain there were no active fabrications here. The only fabrications that she sensed were the obvious ones: an unlit arcane lantern not too far from her, and another on the door. There was the soft pressure of another fabrication near the window, although she wondered if that had been a mistake, because she hadn’t detected any fabrication active there. Maybe there normally would be one, but there was not now. Regardless, the room itself was not much of an issue.

She crawled forward, ducking around the darkened shape of a chair, and got to the doorway, where she poked her head out, looking down the hall briefly, and then used another pulse of her ability. It was a simple technique—at least, simple now. In using her ability this way, Ellie could detect where other powers were. She didn’t expect anybody with innate magic inside Telling’s home, but she did expect them all to be heavily fabricated and was not surprised to feel one such collection of fabricated energy farther down the hallway. That was one of the shapes that she’d seen in the window, but what of the other?

She didn’t feel anything.

So had she misjudged?

No. She didn’t think so. She knew what she had seen.

Maybe somebody had stopped by. A messenger, perhaps. Somebody like that wouldn’t necessarily be carrying fabrications on them. Even though fabrications were no longer forbidden in Busal City, as they had been only a few years ago, they still weren’t widespread—at least, not fabrications of any real potency, like those Telling possessed.

Stop dawdling, she told herself.

She heard the cat hiss again.

What is that cat doing?

Was this some sort of guard cat? If Telling had something like that, there was no telling what she might have to deal with here in the house.

Once she was convinced that the fabrication collection, which she suspected came from the guard patrolling the house, had moved to the far end, she darted down the hallway. The hallway stretched before her, decoration muted by the blue-tinged glow of arcane lanterns mounted in bronze sconces. These lights cast an even, unwavering illumination that was both a blessing and a curse—no flickering shadows to hide in, but also no risk of sudden changes in the lighting to reveal her presence. The wall coverings were rich silk in deep garnet, their subtle patterns occasionally catching the arcane light with a lustrous sheen.

The floor beneath her feet was polished hardwood, with a long runner carpet in deep blues and golds that helped muffle her steps. At regular intervals, small tables lined the walls. Doors were set at measured intervals along both sides of the hall, each made of the same rich wood as the ceiling.

Then she reached the stairs. With another quick pulse, she made sure the top of the stairs was safe, and she quickly hurried upward.

There was no sign of the other guard. Another quick pulse. He was inside one of the rooms. Good. Let him be there. A bedroom, she suspected. Not along the hall, and certainly not toward Telling’s personal office.

She closed her eyes for a moment, imagining the building plan again, and then darted down the hall.

This new hallway presented a stark contrast to the one below. While still elegant, there was a more private, almost intimate quality to the space. The arcane lanterns here cast a softer, amber light, suggesting these were residential quarters rather than public spaces. The runner carpet was thicker, its pattern more intricate—clearly chosen to muffle footsteps for sleeping residents rather than to impress visitors.

The walls here were paneled in warm cherrywood to waist height, with pale gold wallpaper above featuring a subtle pattern of intertwined vines. Portraits hung at careful intervals. This corridor was narrower than the one below, with fewer decorative tables but more intimate touches: a forgotten book on a small reading chair, a delicate vase of fresh flowers, whose scent mingled with the lingering trace of beeswax from the polished wood.

At the far end, moonlight spilled through a tall window, creating a silvery counterpoint to the warm glow of the arcane lanterns and casting long shadows that stretched across the runner toward her.

Footsteps on the stairs caught her attention, and she swore softly under her breath, quickly drawing one of her blades. She slipped it into a lock, twisted until she managed to deactivate the fabrication that kept it closed, and then stepped inside.

The room was dark. Not perfectly dark, though. A single arcane lantern on the desk was dim. Ellie breathed out as she closed the door, and she listened against it for a moment, then turned her attention to look around Telling’s office.

The room was larger than the study below, dominated by a massive desk of black walnut that faced the door—positioned so its occupant would never be surprised by visitors. Behind it, tall windows were covered by heavy velvet drapes.

The single arcane lantern on the desk cast a weak yellow glow that caught the edges of objects: an elaborate bronze inkwell, a scatter of papers weighted down by what appeared to be a small animal skull, and a collection of crystalline paperweights that might have been decorative or might have been powerful fabrications. It was often hard to tell with merchants of Telling’s caliber.

Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lined three walls, interrupted only by a massive fireplace, whose mantel was carved with decorative shapes. The books themselves were clearly organized by some private system, their spines revealing everything from account ledgers to texts on the fae. A rolling ladder attached to brass rails provided access to the highest shelves, its wheels padded to ensure silent movement.

Various artifacts were displayed in glass cases between the shelves: a desiccated squirrel, a mirror in a frame of twisted silver, and what appeared to be a mechanical bird that seemed to shift position when viewed from different angles.

What drew Ellie’s attention most was the careful arrangement of everything—not a paper out of place, not a book misaligned. This was the office of someone who would notice the slightest disturbance, someone who kept their most valuable possessions hidden in plain sight among careful misdirections.

Now to find the ring.

She had anticipated getting here, had anticipated it being relatively straightforward—and it had been, short of the cat surprising her. And she had anticipated everything that she would find.

The only thing that she had not planned for was finding the ring. The ring had to be here, as this was about the only place that she could imagine Telling keeping it. After the years she’d spent tracking this down in her spare time, she’d finally detected it moving in the city—and ending up here.

She used a pulse of her ability and then focused.

This allowed her to concentrate on what she could feel. The pulse allowed a ripple of her ability to wash outward. It touched upon other magics, some of which left her feeling a vibration from her pulse, others of which felt like an absence of energy, more of a void of power that would otherwise have been there, and still others of which left her skin tingling because they had a danger to them.

There were quite a few more fabrications here than she had anticipated. More than just the arcane lantern, although Ellie had anticipated that would be the case. She excluded that, dismissing it from her search, and focused on what else she found.

She turned to a bookshelf. Another pulse, and another pressure, and she felt a series of different empty spaces from where the fabrications were. The fabrications revealed themselves to her trained senses. Near the top shelf, a leather-bound tome radiated a cold energy that made the air around it shimmer. Three shelves down, a gap between books concealed what appeared to be a small fabrication sphere, its presence betrayed by the way it distorted the space around it, creating a subtle ripple in her magical awareness.

Each detection pulse revealed more: tiny pinpoints embedded in the wooden shelves themselves, protective fields that overlapped like fishing nets, and trigger mechanisms that would respond to unauthorized touch. The entire bookshelf was a carefully constructed maze of security, with each fabrication placed to complement and reinforce the others.

Still, none of that was what she had been looking for.

She moved on, listening outside the room. She was still on edge at the possibility that a guard would decide to come down here, although considering that the room should be locked to them, she doubted that they would make it in here, and used another pulse. She felt a faint energy, but it was near the desk.

Fine. Then I’m going to sit at the desk.

She pulled the chair out and took a seat. She adjusted the lantern light, just a little bit, and began to sweep her gaze around. The desktop itself was organized with precision: three stacks of correspondence precisely aligned with the desk’s edge, a brass pen set arranged by size, and an ornate inkwell shaped like a coiled serpent. A leather blotter, its corners decorated with gilt designs, occupied the center.

Seven drawers lined each side of the desk, their brass handles crafted to look like twining vines. Each drawer moved on silent runners. The desk’s edges were carved with a subtle pattern that, upon closer inspection, contained protective fabrications worked into the decorative design.

She pulled out one of the drawers and found a stack of papers, which she sorted through before closing it. Trade routes slowing to the north. That probably irritated a man like Telling.

She opened another drawer, saw several notebooks, which she pulled out and flipped through. And she noticed something odd on one of the notebooks. Why would he be tracking the movements of the Blades? And moreover, why did he have information that she didn’t?

I’ll just take that …

She slipped the notebook into her pocket.

Then she pulled open the bottom drawer.

Inside was a small box. It was the only thing in that drawer. She pulled the box out, set it on her lap. The box was deceptively simple at first glance—a cube roughly the size of two fists, crafted from dark rosewood deeply polished. Its corners were reinforced with brass fittings, each one etched with tiny defensive fabrications that pulsed faintly against her senses. The lid was inlaid with an intricate pattern, forming what appeared to be a stylized maze.

A quick pulse of her ability against the fabricated protections, and the lock on the box popped open. When she pulled it open, she saw several rings, not just one. But all of them emanated energy. That surprised her. More than she had expected. With the box open, the fabricated power spilled out.

The box suppressed it?

Surprising. She hadn’t experienced anything quite like that, or quite so compact, and was surprised that Telling would feel the need to have it.

But this was exactly what she had been looking for, especially the small ring with a raven exquisitely etched in obsidian against a field of silver. The raven’s wings were spread wide, and its talons clutched a cluster of emerald-green ivy leaves.

Footsteps along the hallway caught her attention. She could stay, but staying meant risking getting caught. And maybe Dorian would be pleased that she had found more than one ring.

Might as well take them all.

The box was heavy, but she slipped it under her arm, adjusted the light on the arcane lantern again, dimming it once more, then headed to the door and waited. Once she was convinced that the footsteps had gone the other way, moving farther down the hall, she pulled open the door.

Only to see the guard looking straight down the hall toward her.

Sacred Souls.

Ellie closed the door and leaned against it for a moment, but footsteps came thundering toward her.

The window. That was the only way out now.

Hopefully, the guard wouldn’t call for help, and anybody patrolling in the garden wouldn’t be called, and the cat would leave her alone.

She reached the window, pulled it open, glanced down, saw everything darkened, other than some light spilling out of the windows, and then hurriedly hung from the windowsill. She dangled for just a moment, hoping that her boots would absorb the blow. They were fabricated, like so much that she had on her, and were designed to make this job quite a bit easier, but there were limits to what would work for someone like her. It was possible that her innate ability would automatically destroy the fabrications, and if that happened, she was definitely getting caught.

As the door came open, she dropped.

She landed with a soft thud. The boots absorbed most of the impact, as they were supposed to. Then she felt the fabricated power within them dissipate with a pop.

Once? That was all she had gotten out of them?

She supposed she should be happy that she had gotten even that.

She darted toward the shrubs. Just as she reached them, the guard at the window called out.

“Intruder!”

Somewhere nearby, the traitorous cat hissed again.

Chapter

Two

Ellie managed to make it onto the street and raced into the darkness. She didn’t have to go very far, not to stay ahead of the guards, as she suspected they would be distracted in the house for a little while, probably trying to figure out what she’d taken, but the worst part of it was that she had not managed to sneak out without getting caught. That was the entire purpose of the job. Get in, get out, not have anybody aware that she was even there, and she couldn’t even do that?

Still, she had the box, which meant that she had the ring. Along with the notebook that she’d grabbed when she’d scooped up the box, and that other fabrication that had left her skin burning. She would need to test it so that she could know just what kind of fabrication it was, as it was not one that she was familiar with, and hopefully, she had managed to take it without anybody knowing that it was her. It was a win.

At least, it was a win as much as Ellie managed to get wins.

She raced along the street and then nearly skidded to a stop when a pair of constables appeared.

“Come on,” she muttered.

The constables shouldn’t be after her. They wouldn’t even know.

Unless one of the guards had managed to alert them already.

No. She didn’t expect that. They wouldn’t know. So they were just on patrol.

The constables started toward her.

Of course they would. It was late, dark, and she was dressed like a thief.

I am a thief.

Not normally, but she was tonight. And this was the kind of job that would raise the kinds of questions that she and Dorian didn’t want asked. So this was why she needed to hurry, so that she could keep ahead of anybody discovering that she had been here.

She turned, taking a side street.

The side street was a narrow affair, barely wide enough for a small cart to pass through. Buildings leaned together overhead, their upper stories jutting out to create a tunnel of shadows. The cobblestones here were uneven and slick with the evening’s earlier rain, reflecting the faint moonlight in scattered gleams. Crates and barrels were stacked against walls—the detritus of the merchant district’s daily business—creating convenient shadows and hiding spots.

The occasional guttering light from high windows cast strange patterns on the damp stones, but most of the buildings here were dark, their occupants long since retired for the night. The mouth of an even narrower alley branched off to the left, descending slightly toward what might be the older part of the district. The air here carried the mingled scents of wet stone, rotting vegetables from a nearby refuse heap, and the faint brine of the distant harbor.

A cat watched her passage from atop a stack of crates, its eyes reflecting green in the darkness before it melted away into the shadows. The walls were close enough that Ellie could touch both sides if she stretched out her arms, and the occasional drainpipe or architectural ornament offered convenient handholds for someone who might need to make a quick vertical escape. At the far end, the street kinked sharply to the right—a perfect spot to lose any pursuit in the mazelike warren of the old merchant quarter.

It was dark enough that she was confident that she had managed to veer out of sight before anybody had even noticed that she was there.

But confidence could be misplaced.

The sound of footsteps came thundering behind her. They were loud, the heavy boots of constables, the rattle of their swords against leather, and the feeling of the fabrications they wore pressing against her.

She ran.

In the daylight, this would have been an easy thing to do. She could have slipped off into the crowd, and she was small enough that most wouldn’t even see her, and she probably would have dressed in such a way that she would have blended in. But in the daylight, she wouldn’t have been able to pull off a job like this. With her dark cloak, she hoped that she could blend into the night, but it didn’t seem that would be likely.

Racing on, she found an alleyway, and she ducked into it. From here, she thought that she could sneak through the alleys, or at worst, climb up to the rooftops where she could scramble over to the next street. She hurried to the rear of the alley before turning and looking out.

The air stank, the stench of stale, stagnant water drifting to her. She much preferred the floral fragrance of Telling’s garden. This was awful. It was as if she’d stepped in …

She had. She’d stepped in animal droppings. At least, she hoped it was animal droppings.

That’s disgusting.

It wasn’t long before the soldiers went darting past, racing down the street, obviously thinking that she wouldn’t go into an alleyway. And given what she had encountered here, Ellie really wished that she hadn’t. Once she was convinced they were gone, she slipped forward and then headed toward the harbor. There would be people out at this time of day. There was always somebody out here. And she needed to wash her boots off before she headed back home. She was not bringing them back smelling like this.

I could just throw them away. They’ve already served their purpose.

She could, but she needed to test the fabrications in them to see if they were truly deactivated, and whether she could still use them anyway. It would be easier that way. Better, even.

She hadn’t gone very far before she saw another pair of constables.

So many?

The constables’ jackets were trimmed with silver braid at the cuffs and collars, marking them as night patrol. Each wore a short sword at his hip, while their boots still maintained a gleam. The taller of the two carried a fabricated lantern, its blue-white light casting sharp shadows across their faces beneath their peaked caps. The shorter officer’s uniform bore the additional shoulder insignia of a senior patrol member, three silver bars that caught occasional glints from his companion’s lantern. Both moved with the measured stride of experienced patrol, their eyes constantly scanning the shadows, hands never far from their weapons.

At this time of night, she shouldn’t be terribly surprised to find such a constable presence, especially so close to Telling’s house. He’d recently built it, within the last few years, constructing a compound that would loom over the harbor front in the daylight, and with the amount of wealth that moved along that street, or it did now that Telling had attracted other builders there, the constables probably felt an obligation to make sure that those with money in the city were well taken care of.

While those without …

It was that way everywhere.

Not that Ellie really was one to complain. Not with her situation.

Still, she didn’t like it.

She slipped into the shadows, heading down the street, but didn’t run this time as she stayed ahead of the constables. When she reached the harbor front, she turned and then ducked toward a rocky slope leading down toward the water. From here, she saw the bridge leading across from one side of the harbor to the other, from one section of the city to the other, and could feel the fabricated energy in the bridge itself. Faint lights glimmered along the bridge, lanterns that had been placed there over the last few years, giving illumination to those who would cross at night. That was new enough, but they also served a different purpose: preventing the other side of the harbor from devolving into a place of thievery.

Down on the rocks, she set the box and the notebook to the side and then dipped her boots in the water, quickly washing them, and then regretting that she had to use her hands to do so. Once her boots were clean, she scrubbed her palms as much as she could in the water, before wiping them on her cloak and standing, scooping the box off the rocks.

When she climbed to the top of the rocks, there was a figure waiting. She froze. The curved sword was obviously that of a constable, but the posture was familiar.

“Come out of the darkness,” the familiar voice of Lijanna said, without moving closer to the light herself.

“How did you know it was me?”

“How did I know? I mean, reports of somebody racing along the streets dressed all in black, and⁠—”

“No,” Ellie said. “That’s not how you knew.”

“I saw you,” she said. “By chance, of course, but I knew it was you. I am curious why you are down there in the water, or do I not want to know?”

“I don’t know. I’m not sure that I can have the captain of the constables knowing why I was down there.”

“And I suppose I’m not supposed to know what you’re carrying, either?”

Ellie looked down at the box. In the faint light, it seemed to shimmer, just a little. What was worked into the wood? It was a fabrication—she knew that—but she didn’t know much else beyond that. And she didn’t know how it worked as a fabrication, only that it clearly did.

“This? Just a fabrication I came across.”

“Oh? And I don’t suppose I am supposed to ask you where you came across it?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“Is that me as a friend or me as the captain of the constables?”

“Both, probably.”

“I see. So what did you step in?”

“I have no idea, but it smelled terrible.”

Lijanna started to laugh. She wobbled for a minute.

“Another night running around with secrets and boxes. The king’s got you on high alert lately.”

He says it’s just cleanup work—old debts, unfinished tasks—but the way his voice tightens when he mentions the city’s edges or the strange sightings… Something’s different.

Movement down the street caught Ellie’s attention. It was movement that struck her as a little different from that of constables, partly by the rigidity that they carried themselves with and partly because of the power that came from them. It didn’t take much of a pulse of her ability to detect fabricated energy, nor did it take much for her to recognize what it was. She had felt it not that long ago.

Telling’s guards.

They had tracked her. Which meant that there must be something on the box, or perhaps in the notebook or the other fabrication, that allowed them to do so. Regardless, she couldn’t just stand here. And Lijanna certainly couldn’t stand here, because she didn’t need the captain of the constables to get caught up in what she had been involved in. There could not be anyone who knew what she had been doing.

Ellie pushed out a band of her ability, wrapping it around the box. It was a simple bubble of power. She had learned to do that trick long before she had learned many others, and it would mute the power there for anybody who was trying to track it. She should have thought to do it sooner, but she had been running from the constables. Then she’d stepped in whatever she’d stepped in, and gotten distracted.

“I don’t think that we should stay here,” she said.

“Oh?”

“Why don’t I get you back?”

“I’d rather have a drink.”

A drink?

A tavern might not actually be a bad idea. She could slip into one with Lijanna, use her ability to keep the box shrouded, and buy some time as the soldiers continued searching.

“Come on, then. I need you to move a little quicker, though, Lijanna.”

“You don’t tell me what I’m supposed to do. I’m the one who tells you.”

“Just because you help train me doesn’t mean that you can tell me what to do,” Ellie said. “You forget.”

“Oh? Is it that I forget who you are working for?”

Ellie snorted. “Come on.”

It took a bit of urging, but Lijanna came with her.

Ellie slipped her arm around her, and they headed down the street. When they came across another pair of constables, this time Ellie wasn’t as concerned. They saw Lijanna, saluted, and then marched on down the street—toward the pair of guards that had been approaching.

Ellie glanced over her shoulder, smiling at the guards, who disappeared. Likely thinking that they would be able to follow her regardless, but for now, it was enough to get them some time.

The harbor street unfolded before them. Wide cobblestones, worn smooth by years of cart traffic, stretched between the towering merchant houses on one side and the harbor’s edge on the other. Iron bollards lined the waterfront at regular intervals, their tops rounded and pocked with rust, thick ropes of various sizes snaking from them to the ships that bobbed gently in the dark water.

The buildings here were a mix of old and new wealth—ancient stone warehouses with heavy wooden doors stood alongside recently constructed buildings with gleaming windows and fresh paint. Flickering lanterns hung from iron brackets every few dozen feet, creating pools of amber light that reflected off the water and cast long shadows across the street.

The air was heavy with the mingled scents of salt water, tar, rope, and fish—though here in the wealthy section, the more unpleasant harbor smells were kept carefully at bay. Night birds called occasionally from masts and rigging that stretched out into the harbor, while the gentle slap of water against stone provided a constant backdrop.

Between the buildings, narrow alleys led away from the water, their mouths dark and uninviting. Occasional sounds drifted from these gaps—distant music, laughter, the scrape of a door—suggesting the livelier parts of the harbor district. The newer buildings cast longer shadows, their architecture deliberately imposing, while strings of lanterns marked the locations of the more upscale taverns and trading houses, which catered to merchant captains and wealthy traders.

“You have a place in mind?” Ellie asked, keeping the bubble of energy wrapped around the box.

“I was just heading down to the Dancer’s Dawn, but if you have another place in mind, I’m happy to hear it. I’m always open to a new and comfortable tavern.”

“Oh, I know it,” she said.

The Dancer’s Dawn was not really the nicest place, but then again, when it came to what Lijanna cared for, maybe it wasn’t all about the nicest tavern. In fact, it had been Ellie’s experience that Lijanna never cared that much for a nice tavern.

She moved on, heading down the street, passing a few other taverns, and noticed the energy of the guards’ fabrications starting toward her again. They had looped up the street and then started coming back down, heading toward her once again. She didn’t know if they could still track her—and in fact, she thought they couldn’t—but she didn’t want to take that risk. Maybe it would be a mistake to be in the tavern. Then again, going into the tavern with Lijanna, where she could sit out in the open, could watch the door, and could make sure that nobody came in, might be safer.

“Ellie?” Lijanna said.

“Sorry,” Ellie said, shaking her head. “Just a little distracted.”

“You want to tell me what you’re doing yet?”

“I told you, this isn’t the kind of thing that you need to get involved in.”

“Not at all?”

“No. Not at all.”

There had been a time that she would have been able to tell her, but that was a while ago, back before Lijanna had taken over leadership of the constables. Now, she didn’t think that Lijanna would use the information against her, but she needed to keep the details of this particular job to herself.

“I don’t like it,” Lijanna said.

“Well, you don’t have to know about it, then.”

“All right,” she said, pulling open the door.

Sound drifted out, voices, music, and a general chaos, and it surprised Ellie that it would still be so busy at this time of night. The smell of bread, roasted meat, and stale ale all followed. It was better than the disgusting smell of the alley, and vastly better than the stench of fish that lingered in the air near the harbor, but she found herself thinking about the floral fragrances of Telling’s garden again. Ellie took one more look before stepping inside.

Lijanna seemed to notice her hesitation. “I know you’re not going to tell me, but I really want to know what the king has you doing now.”

With that, Lijanna staggered in and collapsed onto a chair near a table.

And Ellie took a seat, joining her. It might be a mistake, but it seemed Lijanna needed her as much as Ellie needed the delay.

Chapter

Three

The tavern was lively. There was a minstrel playing a four-stringed instrument with a long neck and a bowl-like body, picking at the strings with his fingers, working quickly up and down the neck. Ellie had had an interest in minstrels ever since she had come to learn about the Guild of Assassins when her mentor had still been in the city, although there had been no sign of the Guild in the time that she had served with Dorian. Still, she found herself watching the minstrel, curious as to whether the older man with graying hair would be surveying the tavern with any particular interest, or whether it was an actual performance.

Lijanna elbowed her. “Stop staring,” she said. She raised a hand, her arm waving a bit shakily as she did, until one of the servers came over. This was a younger man, with rosy cheeks, foppish hair, and an easygoing smile. “Say, Benji, I don’t suppose that you would mind getting my friend and me a couple of drinks?”

“Are you sure that you want another one?”

“How many has she had?” Ellie asked.

“Ignore her,” Lijanna said. “And yes, as the captain of the constables,” she went on, resting her elbows on the table, nearly missing placing her right elbow, “I very much want another drink. Besides, you don’t need any additional inspections around here.”

He nodded and spun away, the easygoing smile fading just a little.

“Nice,” Ellie said, leaning back, listening to the music. She didn’t recognize the song, but the minstrel didn’t seem to be paying any undue attention to anybody here in the tavern. That much, she figured, was good. Still, she did watch. “Now you’re going to have him spitting in our ale.”

“Benji? Oh, that boy loves me.”

“I don’t know. I saw the look that he gave you. I think maybe you need to stop drinking quite so much.”

“And I think you need to start.” Lijanna turned, scraping her chair around a bit too loudly and nearly bumping into a couple of patrons behind her. “Want to tell me what you’ve been doing?”

Ellie looked around. The tavern was loud, and there was a boisterous energy here, but it wasn’t so loud as to obscure anybody from listening. She had been careful, continuing to keep her bubble of energy expanded around her so that she could ensure that she had trapped the box inside it, and to avoid the guards being able to detect where she had ended up. At least, she hoped that was the case. There was a possibility that they would still know where she was, depending upon where they were and, moreover, upon what sort of potency they possessed.

“I don’t think I do, and I don’t think the king would want me to.”

“I am the⁠—”

“I’m well aware of what you are, as you are quick to remind everybody else around here as well, it seems. Do you want me to get you home?”

“Home? I was just getting ready to meet with a few old friends.”

“Now?”

Ellie didn’t want to say in this state, but that was what she felt like asking.

“Now,” she said, and she surprised Ellie by sticking her tongue out.

When Benji came back, he set one mug of ale in front of Ellie and another close to Ellie, nearly out of reach so that Lijanna would have to stretch for it.

Lijanna noticed what he was doing and gave him a harsh glare.

“Thank you,” Ellie said. “I’ll make sure she’s safe. And cared for.”

Relief swept across his face. Maybe he really was a nice boy, and he certainly cared, or was concerned, about Lijanna’s well-being.

“See?” Lijanna said. “He likes me.”

“Is everything all right?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“I don’t know … you … like this. And⁠—”

“And everything is just fine,” she said. “It’s been hard since Harent retired. Moved inland to a small cottage, you know.”

Ellie nodded. She knew the old captain, Harent, as well as Lijanna did. Well, maybe not as well as she did, but she knew him. And he had retired a few years ago, taking his family, moving away from the city, where he was supposedly doing quite well, although that wasn’t terribly surprising. He’d served his time. He had served in the navy, from what she’d heard, and then had spent another decade or so serving as the captain of the constables in Busal City. He had left the constables in good hands, or so he had believed.

And most of the time, Ellie believed that as well. There were times when she worried, though.

“Hard because you don’t want to have this job?”

“Hard because everybody compares me to my mother,” Lijanna said, looking up, then grabbing the ale and taking a long drink. “And you know what? I’m not her. Don’t know that I ever could be.”

“Nobody’s comparing the two of you.”

“You do.”

“I don’t compare you.”

“But you know how she can be.”

Ellie shrugged. “So? Mothers can be hard. Especially on their daughters.” Ellie’s mother certainly had been at times. Maybe because she took after her, not only in appearance—they had the same black hair and pale blue eyes—but in abilities. “And I do have some experience with yours. Is this your way of telling me that you want to serve as the headmaster of the school?”

Lijanna shook her head vigorously. “Sacred Souls, no. I can’t even imagine.”

The door opened behind Ellie, and she shifted, glancing toward it so that she could make sure that it wasn’t one of the guards coming in. There hadn’t been any sign of them. She didn’t feel anything, although she used another quick pulse, testing if there was anything that she might be able to uncover of their movements. In that brief pulse, Ellie thought that she felt something familiar. It was vague, faint, and distant. Not here, at least. What was it? Something that she had felt before, but she couldn’t quite place it.

“There he is,” Lijanna said.

She looked over and saw a familiar, and grizzled, face coming in. Jos was the head of the Investigators and had served as a bit of a mentor for her and her brother ever since her other mentor had left. He could be gruff, but he was a caring man. He had another Investigator with him, a younger man by the name of Byron, who looked at Lijanna with concern in his eyes before seeing Ellie, and then relief swept over his face.

How bad had he thought it was going to be?

Jos grabbed a chair from a nearby table and dragged it over, dropping down next to Lijanna.

“I was told you would be here,” he said, scrubbing a hand across his gray beard. “And I told you not to get started before we got here. Don’t tell me how many you’ve had.”

“Just this one,” she said.

He looked at Ellie, and she shrugged. “All I can say is she’s had only one.”

Byron sat down next to her and leaned over. He smelled of lavender, and his brown hair looked recently washed and brushed. “She was apparently seen coming down here a little while ago, so we figure it’s been more than one,” Byron said. “Probably three, if you ask me.”

“Probably,” Ellie said.

“Can we talk later?”

“About …”

Byron nodded to Lijanna.

How bad had it gotten that Byron was concerned about her?

Had Ellie really been ignoring her friend? She visited with Lijanna from time to time, but maybe she hadn’t been paying enough attention to her. Then again, Ellie didn’t know that it was really her place to be concerned.

“Surprised to see you over here,” Lijanna said, directing the words at Byron. “You’ve been spending quite a bit of time at the school.”

“Talk to Jos about that,” Byron said. “Seems that he thinks that I need to be working with the new Investigators.”

“If you want to lead, you need to teach. That’s the way that it was pitched to me.”

Ellie glanced at Lijanna, who just looked down at her drink, pulling it toward her, taking a long sip. She knew that Lijanna had gone through something similar. And here she had thought that Lijanna had wanted the job. But now it seemed she didn’t. What had changed?

Maybe she needed to talk to Dorian about that, although it really wasn’t Dorian’s place to deal with the constables, and the leadership of them. That was more to do with the city council. Although considering what Ellie had done tonight, she didn’t know that she wanted to approach the city council about anything.

“It helps,” Ellie said.

“Oh? So you’ve been teaching?” Jos asked.

Byron snorted.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Ellie said.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Byron said, waving down Benji, who hurried over with a pair of mugs, which he set down in front of Jos and Byron. Lijanna tried to take Jos’s mug, but he fought her for it and held on to it. She glowered at him. “Maybe I believe that you are supposed to be out in the school, teaching. There are other Blades that need to learn from the most skilled in the city.”

“Only when the fabrication breakers are here,” she said.

Fabrication breakers were people from the nation of Ardem with a similar skill set to Blades, who would come once a month, bringing those with some skill to the city, where they would work with Ellie and some of the other Blades, although for the most part, they did it out of tradition and respect for her former mentor. She had not really spent much time with them lately. It was clear, however, that they were incredibly gifted, and whenever she had been around the fabrication breakers, Ellie had always learned something new. Still, there were times when she wondered about that, wondered about her own ability, and wondered if there was some part of what she was able to do that reacted differently than it should. She wasn’t sure why she felt that way. She only knew that her Blade ability—at least, what she had been taught was her Blade ability, that which allowed her to resist magical energy and disrupt it if needed—reacted in ways that were not quite as reliable as the fabrication breakers said.

“There’s one here now,” Byron said. “Figured you knew.”

“There is?”

“A man by the name of Ralen Greywind. He came by the school the other day. He was talking with Karissa.”

“Oh, and what did my mother have to say to him?” Lijanna asked. “She has a thing for fabrication breakers, apparently.”

“She was talking to him about the Blades, and about progress. We’ve managed to bring in quite a few recruits,” Byron said.

In the five years since Ellie had begun serving as the de facto Blade in the city, they had been bringing in recruits. Blades were magic breakers, of a sort. It was what she was supposed to be when she had first started training with her former mentor, a man by the name of Zaren Joha. Her mother had been one, and she had her mother’s ability, and had long believed that she would end up doing the same thing. But when she and Dorian had met, he’d had a different vision for her.

Now …

Unfortunately, now Ellie wasn’t sure what she was destined to do with her ability, but it didn’t seem as if Dorian wanted her to be a Blade. He had trained her for something else.

Becoming a thief, she thought.

“We’ve gotten younger,” Jos said. “Not just the breakers”—Jos liked to use the term “fabrication breaker” for the Blade recruits, primarily because that was what they were trained to do—“but the Investigators, and even some of the constables. The complex has grown.”

“Even the fabricators,” Ellie said.

“Think he would’ve minded?” Byron said.

He being Zaren.

“He knew what was going to happen,” Ellie said softly, taking a sip of her ale.

“Have you heard anything from him?” Jos asked, leaning forward. “Figured we would have heard something over the years, but he never leaves messages.”

She smiled tightly. For once, even Lijanna was listening, and seemed to be doing so intently. Was she upset about Zaren leaving? He had gone after the queen had died, when he had felt his obligation was over. It was a clean break, at least that was what Zaren had said.

“I used to hear from him. Early on, after he left, he would visit. At first it was every couple of months. He came in through the harbor, visited for a day or two, and then took off again.”

“He stopped, then,” Byron said.

Lijanna nodded.

“Then the visits got less frequent. And he started sending letters.”

“When was the last one?” Byron asked.

They didn’t talk about Zaren very often, and Ellie preferred that. It was easier. He had been the one to bring her into the Blades, and had given her a place and a purpose when she had lost her mother. She hadn’t really known her father, so having Zaren there made her feel as if she had one, if only for a little while.

“It’s been a couple of years,” Ellie said. She took a drink, and everybody around the table fell silent.

“And now the king has her running errands again,” Lijanna said, breaking the silence. She slammed her mug down on the table and raised a hand to wave for Benji.

“He keeps talking about how the world’s changing. Like he’s worried something old is waking up. I think… maybe he’s looking for signs. In me. In the city.”

“I thought I was going to make you his Blade,” Byron said. “A king or queen needs to have a Blade.”

“I think Joha thought you were going to be a spy for him,” Jos said.

“So what is it?” Lijanna asked. She couldn’t get Benji to come over, and she was trying to grab Jos’s drink. She gave up and then grabbed Ellie’s mug. It was mostly gone, anyway.

“Neither, I suppose. Sometimes it seems I’m just running errands for him.”

“Some errand,” Lijanna said. “Running through the streets, avoiding my constables, and carrying something that looks like you took it off one of the ships.”

“Not off any ship,” Ellie said, shooting her a hard stare. She didn’t need the others to question what she had been doing. And for that matter, she didn’t need to answer questions. This was her assignment, and she was going to fulfill it, although she couldn’t deny the fact that it felt like there should be more for her. Wasn’t that what she had been trained to do, after all? She had been trained to be more than just a thief, an errand runner.

More than just a trainer for other Blades.

Perhaps it was time to talk to Dorian about that.

Only what would he say?

He would probably tell her that she was far too essential in the running of what he was doing, and that he needed her to help him gather more blackmail on the various members of the council. So in a way, maybe she was a spy. Only she hadn’t realized that she was going to be spying on her own people. That wasn’t what she had intended, and that certainly wasn’t what she had wanted.

“He asked about you again the other day,” Jos said, leaning close so the others wouldn’t hear.

“Dorian?” Ellie kept her voice neutral.

“Said you were ready for more. Not errands—responsibility. I told him he was right, but… you sure you’re ready?”

“Depends what he thinks ‘more’ means,” Ellie said, but her chest tightened at the idea. Dorian never said things he didn’t mean. And he never moved pieces unless there was a larger game in play.

She leaned back, falling silent while the others kept talking.

“Ellie?” Byron said.

“It’s fine,” she said. “Anyway, I really need to get back to the palace. Can one of you see that she gets home all right?”

“I’m on it,” Byron said. “Her house isn’t too far from mine, and her mother would kill me if I didn’t get her back.”

“Thank you,” she said, patting him on the arm. She slipped a couple of coins onto the table—she was paid far better than the rest of them, she knew—grabbed the box from the floor, and then slipped out into the darkness. She hadn’t gone very far before she heard Jos calling after her.

He came jogging up behind her.

“Just wanted to make sure that you are all right, Ellie.”

“I’m fine. Why?”

“That look in your eyes. It’s one that I’ve seen before.”

“Oh?”

“Sometimes on your brother. Not so often these days, though.”

Baring was an Investigator, although she knew that he wasn’t a very good one. At least, he wasn’t a very motivated one. She didn’t know how much that bothered Jos, but then again, the older man didn’t really say much about it.

“You just need to talk to the king,” Jos said.

“About what, exactly? He’s the king. He’s going to use me how he wants to use me.”

“If he’s got you sneaking around and stealing things, you need to talk to him.”

“He doesn’t⁠—”

Jos raised a hand, cutting her off.

“I’ve been at this job for a little while now and have had a bit of authority for a while, too. I know what I know, Ellie. And I’m not going to say that I’m passing judgment on anything. Far be it from me to be the one to do that, or to question the king. But if that’s all he’s got you doing, maybe it’s time for you to start asking questions.”

“Thanks, Jos.”

“And just be careful. Some of the people he’s had you involved with have a tendency to be dangerous. And I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

“I don’t want anything to happen to you, either.”

“Stop by later this week? I’d like to talk to you a bit about your brother. Maybe you can help me get through to him. He’s been shirking some duties, going off on his own too often. Seems to be taking an interest in the priests of the Sacred Souls we’ve had coming through here”—Ellie frowned at that, as she hadn’t seen any priests—“and I’m thinking maybe he doesn’t want to be an Investigator any longer. Marge will make your favorite.”

His wife was a fantastic cook, and after Zaren had left the city, Jos had sort of taken her in, which meant that Marge had taken her in. It could be worth hearing about whatever her brother had been doing—or not doing.

“I’d love that.”

“Better get back. I’m going to make sure that Byron doesn’t have too much of a hassle with her. Can’t have the lieutenant of the Investigators being accused of assaulting the captain of the constables.”

“Or having either of you accused of anything with her. I can help, if you need.”

“No, this is not something that you can help with. She’s just got to figure out what she needs. And truth be told, I don’t know what it is. I think it hurt her that the Blade left.”

“I got hurt every time that Zaren left.”

“No, not that one, the other. I think that hurt her. So it just gets harder over time. They say it gets easier, and in some ways it does, but the loneliness doesn’t. That gets harder.” He smiled. “That’s why you’ve got to find your family if you lose it.” He patted her on the shoulder, squeezing her arm. “See you later, Ellie. Be safe.”

She watched him until he went back into the tavern, and then started down the street. The quiet of the harbor reminded Ellie of another night, years earlier—when she had still been new to Busal, angry and uncertain, trailing behind Dorian like a shadow he hadn’t yet acknowledged.

She’d just broken a well-crafted fabrication trap during a patrol—a feat that would’ve impressed most. But Dorian hadn’t said anything. Not until they reached the stone overlook above the sea, just below the palace gardens.

“Why didn’t you disable the proximity thread?” he asked her.

“I didn’t need to. I disrupted the core fabrication.”

“Yes. Loudly. You solved a problem with force, not precision.” He didn’t raise his voice, but that made it worse. His disapproval was quiet, cold water on a flame. “Strength is not in how quickly you act. It’s in how wisely you choose when to act.”

She folded her arms. “So what—let danger pass while I calculate?”

“No.” He turned to her then, eyes shadowed by the moonlight, but sharp as ever. “You listen. You learn. You watch. That’s what the world needs, Ellie—not more fire. The old powers—those that scarred this world—rose from people who mistook boldness for wisdom.”

“Are they really returning?” she had asked, uncertain then whether he meant legends or real threats.

“I don’t know.” He had looked out over the water. “But I intend to be ready if they do. And so will you. Because one day, you’ll need to be the one who prepares others.”

That night, he left her standing in the dark with that thought. At the time, it had sounded like a burden. Now, she wondered if it had been a warning. Or a beginning.

Chapter

Four

In hindsight, Ellie should have gone straight back to the palace.

Instead, she found herself wandering along the harbor front. The harbor stretched out before her, the masts of ships creating a shadowy forest against the star-strewn sky. Closest to the wharf, sleek merchant vessels rocked gently at their moorings—three-masted carracks, with their distinctive high forecastles and rounded hulls, their woodwork gleaming even in the dim light.

Closer to shore, smaller fishing boats and coastal traders clustered together, their rigging creating complex webs of rope and shadow. A few showed signs of life—lanterns swaying gently on deck as night crews prepared for early-morning departures. One ship, a swift-looking brigantine, had crew moving quietly about its deck, their shadows dancing in the light of swaying lanterns as they worked the ropes and prepared to sail with the morning tide.

In the deeper shadows of the harbor, ancient stone quays bore the worn marks of centuries of maritime traffic. Some of these oldest docks, their stone green with age and sea growth, bore distinctive spiraling patterns and angular writing that caught the moonlight in unusual ways. These older sections of the harbor held a complex energy, as if the very stones remembered the countless ships and sailors that had passed over them through the ages.

The surface of the water was occasionally broken by mysterious ripples that had nothing to do with the gentle movement of the ships. Here and there, patches of bioluminescence ghosted beneath the surface, creating patterns that might have been natural—or something else entirely, though Ellie sensed nothing.

It was quiet—peaceful, even—and at night, she could appreciate the city in ways that she couldn’t during daylight. She could feel something about the city itself, the energy, the age, that was unique. Much of that came from the fact that the city was an old settlement. The Inarak were an ancient people who had long served the fae, who lived in a realm that was only accessible through what were known as Twilight Gates, portals that Ellie had thought were little more than stories until she had come to deal with them, and the Inarak, and what she suspected was a fae, although she wasn’t sure if she had actually had that experience. Zaren felt otherwise, but Ellie still found that difficult to believe.

But at night, in the darkness like this, with lights glittering behind her, starlight overhead, and the half-full moon casting a beam of silver across the waterfront, she could feel something different. There was an energy that she didn’t notice during the daytime. It felt as if the city itself were alive. It lived in a way that it didn’t during the daytime. As if the city were awakened in some way.

Dorian once told her the city whispered at night. Not voices—but echoes. He’d meant it metaphorically, or at least she’d thought so then. Lately, she wasn’t so sure

She breathed out, turning to one of the ships in the harbor. She didn’t recognize it. This one was small, sleek, and had a painted hull. She frowned and used a pulse of her ability, as she often did, testing for any power within it, and …

And there was some. It was faint, but it was there. It seemed to be buried within the ship, a hidden potency, although maybe it wasn’t hidden so much as inactive.

She should ask Lijanna about that in the daylight. The constables kept a record of all the ships coming and going from the harbor, especially after some of the troubling events that had taken place in the city over the years. The Investigators also did, although their interest was tied more to fabrications moving into the city. They wanted to make sure that there were not too many, or none too powerful. Dorian wanted to ensure that as well, primarily because it provided a way of controlling activity, and understanding what dangers might appear.

Ellie moved on and paused as she neared the street leading toward the palace. The temple of the Sacred Souls rose in jagged silhouette against the night sky. The main dome had partially collapsed, creating a crescent-shaped gap that caught and held shadows. Massive columns, some still standing while others lay shattered across the wide steps, bore deep veins of black that hadn’t been part of their original patterning—scars from the force that had brought the temple down.

The remaining walls stood up to three stories high in places, their pale stone now stained and weathered. Intricate carvings still adorned the surviving sections, though many were cracked or worn smooth by exposure. Arched windows, glass long since shattered, gaped in the darkness. Vines had begun to claim the lower sections, their leaves silvered in the moonlight.

Dorian had once told her, quietly and without ceremony, that the world had scars most people forgot. “The Sacred Souls weren’t just a temple,” he’d said. “They were a warning. Places like this remember what the rest of us are trying to forget.”

She hadn’t understood at the time. But lately, with how the city felt under her skin at night, she was starting to.

The temple had once been intact and had fallen in the time that Ellie had been in the city, leaving behind a remnant of energy that she could feel, although it was subtle. It didn’t have the same potency within it as the palace, but there was an aspect to it that lingered. She used a pulse of her ability, feeling it reverberating off the temple, as she often did, and knowing that there was nothing within the temple that was dangerous. But she was still aware of that power, and aware of something else, she had to admit. She wasn’t sure what it would be.

Was there another power present?

She hadn’t expected to detect anything like that, and certainly wouldn’t have thought that another power would be active in the temple, so she moved toward it. She kept the box under her arm, and as she approached the temple, or the ruins of the temple, as it had long since been destroyed, she created another pulse of power. There was nothing there.

Nothing that shouldn’t be there, at least. She tried again, and once again she felt emptiness. The key here, she knew, was to create a rippling effect, a cascade of energy that would allow her to pick up on anything in the ruins, other than the old, faded Inarak power. The technique involved pushing out her Blade ability, the deep part of her that reacted to magic. When she did that, she could feel the resistance against her, like a weight she had to press against. Some magic felt different from other magic, and in Busal City, she was accustomed to the Inarak.

Now she felt something different—and moving.

She had started to follow it when a shadow slipped along the street toward her.

Was someone following her, or was somebody just out in the night?

Ellie had long since lost a sense of fear in the city. There were times when she questioned whether that was a healthy thing to have lost, as the city wasn’t necessarily a safe place at all times. She still moved on, creating another pulse of energy, and starting to wonder if it was one of the guards that she had encountered while at Telling’s place. Something about what she detected did strike her as familiar, but it wasn’t the guards.

It was a Blade sensation.

Was it one of her students?

There were quite a few Blade students at the school these days, although very few were trained well enough to really challenge her. However, she could envision how one student might put another up to the challenge of trying to follow her. Any of the other fully trained Blades had been sent from Busal City by Dorian, stationed in various cities throughout Busal. She had wondered about that, curious as to whether there was a reason that he hadn’t wanted any in the capital, but when she’d asked, his response had been that she was here, and though she wasn’t his Blade, she was a Blade.

So maybe it was a student.

Or even more likely, it was an Investigator, as they shared much of the same ability, only in a weaker form.

But if that were the case, she wouldn’t have expected them to follow her.

Unless it was Baring.

She snorted. That was what it had to be. She could imagine him coming after her. Maybe he’d seen her talking with Jos and Byron and had decided that she needed a good scare. Or maybe he had decided to push her a bit, to see if she might detect him and his presence. Whatever it was, as her older brother, he still felt he needed to prove things to her at times, even though she was the one with the ability, and he was …

You can’t think about him like that, she told herself.

And she really couldn’t. It wasn’t her fault that she had taken after her mother and Baring had not. Ellie didn’t know if Baring took after their father, either. She didn’t know much about her father. She had been four or five years old when he had left, and she didn’t have much in the way of memories of him. Not like Baring did. Although Baring didn’t really talk about their father, either. She figured that was for the best, because it likely meant that he had not been a good person.

What kind of man left his two children behind?

Her mother had never talked about it. She’d tried to keep her responses vague any time that Ellie had asked about what had happened to him, and whether their father had abandoned them. She had never said a disparaging word about him, although Ellie had never missed the look in her mother’s eyes, that haunting, almost angry expression that had lingered, so she knew that regardless of the reason their father had gone, it was one that her mother had not agreed with.

She slipped toward the rubble of the ruins. And she expanded the bubble of her ability that she still had around the box, shielding herself. Let Baring track her this way. There were other ways that she could shield herself, but considering that he was an Investigator, and that he would have to use a fabrication to track her, she doubted that he could follow her very effectively, anyway.

And she waited.

It wasn’t long before she saw the figure slipping along the street. They stopped outside the temple ruins. And when they did, there was a soft tremor in the air. It was faint, but it was not the kind of thing that any Investigator would use. It certainly wasn’t fabricated power. What was it, then?

What she felt struck her as far more subtle than she would have expected.

She stayed in the shadows, watching. She didn’t know what was out there, but it wasn’t something that she had any experience with.

And though she wanted to know, she resisted the urge to use a pulse of her own power, because doing so might create enough of a ripple to wash outward, and that ran the risk of exposing her location.

When the figure moved on, she stayed for just a moment, keeping herself shrouded. The technique was one that the fabrication breakers had taught her, and one that she had mastered, but she felt that if this was a fabrication breaker, they would have a way of seeing past it, anyway. And more than that, she had some curiosity about what it would feel like to somebody who had a similar ability to hers—or perhaps even more potent than hers, and Ellie was considered quite potent—with the Inarak energies that were around the ruins.

Finally she slipped back out.

Maybe it was her turn to follow this figure.

That actually brought a smile to her face. She slipped along the street, watching for the shadowy movement, and felt that subtle power.

And then it faded. Not just faded. It disappeared altogether.

They knew. They must have sensed her following, tracking them, and they had a way of simply vanishing.

How is that even possible?

Even suppressing her ability left a bit of a signature. That was one of the challenges that a Blade had, as there were ways of suppressing her ability, but doing so didn’t truly suppress it entirely. There was almost always some faint energy that lingered. Goran, one of the fabrication breakers from Ardem who had worked with her, had helped her learn to track that.

“It’s going to feel like a haze to you,” he had said. They had been working in the school grounds, as they often did, because the fabrication breakers frequently came to the school to teach, and Goran was no different. “There should always be something that you can follow. But the challenge is finding the haze.”

“What do you mean?”

“You can see fog, and you can feel it, but if you didn’t know it was there, would you be aware of it?”

“I don’t know, depends on when.”

“How about on the darkest of nights?”

She understood. At night she wouldn’t see a cloud of fog, and she wouldn’t know it was there as she walked through it, feeling the dampness on her skin or the coolness in the air.

“So if I know that there is something, I should feel the haze, and I can target that.”

“Exactly, but if you don’t know that it is there, you may not be able to track it down. It is useful, but it is not a perfect way of masking yourself.”

So as Ellie focused, and struggled to pick up on that haze, she wasn’t quite sure why the energy felt different. The narrow street stretched before her, hemmed in by tall buildings whose upper stories leaned slightly toward each other. Lanterns cast pools of warm light at regular intervals, creating dancing shadows on the worn cobblestones. The storefronts were shuttered for the night, their painted signs creaking softly on their iron brackets. The air carried the lingering scents of the day—fresh bread from the bakery, smoke from the smithy, and underneath it all, the ever-present mustiness of the old city.

Where is the haze?

As far as she could tell, there was no sign of it. No haze. No energy. No evidence of anybody having been here.

Nothing.

Until she felt a bloom of power.

This time, it was behind her.

Ellie spun, reaching for one of her blades, and darting forward. It might be a mistake, especially because she was carrying the box of rings Dorian had wanted her to bring to him, but she felt curious, and moreover, she had a rising concern that whatever was here was something that she needed to know about, because it might pose a danger to the city. She immediately raced around the ruins, darting through a darkened alley between a pair of buildings, thankful that she didn’t tramp through any foulness, and came out on a street lined with rows of crumbling homes.

Overgrown cobblestones created an uneven path. The thoroughfare was unusually wide for this part of the city. Shadows pooled in the hollows where stones had been displaced or removed entirely. Ancient lampposts, their arcane lanterns long since dead, stood at irregular intervals. Scattered pieces of architectural debris—broken columns, chunks of carved stone, fragments of what might have been statuary—lay where they had fallen or been discarded, creating an obstacle course of shadows and potential hiding places.

She used a sudden, sharp burst of her ability. There was no point in hiding it, not any longer. She needed to know. She needed to pick up on whether anything was here. So as she focused, blasting that energy outward in a ring, she searched for the source of power that she had sensed. Where is it?

She moved forward again. She didn’t feel it, but there had to be something, some way, for her to find where that power had come from.

There.

She darted up ahead, rounding a corner, and discovered the street led toward the northern edge of the city. There wasn’t much out there.

The ordered streets dissolved into darkened paths between scattered buildings—mostly storage sheds and abandoned workshops. Behind her, the city’s buildings created a ragged skyline. In the time that Ellie had been in Busal City, she and others had created a rim of fabrications around the city to create a line of protection.

But that rim offered another benefit for her. She could use it to track what came through it.

She didn’t see anything here, though, even though she felt the effect of something having been here. And as she slipped forward, continuing to send out her pulses, she became aware of one other thing.

There was a memory of power here. Nothing more than that, just a faint remnant.

There had been something—or someone—here.

But they were gone. Where had they gone?

She was going to have to ask Jos to interrogate the fabrications around the perimeter of the city. If she were to do it, she’d probably damage them.

As she looked around, creating pulse after pulse of her own ability, she felt nothing for long moments. Dorian had once warned her: the old magics left fingerprints. Not everyone could see them, but someone needed to.

Faintly she felt an echo. Like a haze in the air.

And it was far from her, back in the city, and then it disappeared once more.

Who was here?

Chapter

Five

Ellie was exhausted. She had wandered the streets for a little while longer after feeling the strange haze of energy, before realizing that she had to get back. She’d stumbled into her bed but felt as if she’d only slept for a short while before awakening to bright sunlight streaming in through the window. She sat up, rubbing at her temple. Her head throbbed, as if she had been the one who had drunk too much last night. She hoped Lijanna had made it back, and wondered if she should have gone to check on her.

Perhaps she should have made sure that the constables knew about the mysterious figure, because of the likelihood that there had been an attack in the city, and she would need to ensure that it was dealt with. A quick pulse to check the power—something that she often did, but given what she had experienced the night before, she felt it was even more necessary—and she felt the familiar hum of the Inarak energy all around her. Ellie had taken to feeling it as a constant pressure, a reminder of the ancient energy that permeated the palace.

Dorian hadn’t warned her about anything like this. But maybe that was the point. Maybe he was waiting to see what she’d do when she wasn’t given orders. When the world asked her to act on her own.

The box that she’d purloined rested on a cabinet near the end of her bed. Had she really just left it out there like that? She was usually more careful than that. But perhaps her encounter last night had distracted her.

At least that was the only thing that was out. The room itself was spacious but not overly ornate. A large wardrobe of dark-stained wood stood against one wall, its doors carved with subtle geometric patterns that caught the morning light. Her bed, though generous in size, was simply made, with crisp linens in deep blue, and a practical writing desk occupied the space beneath a tall window. Several worn books were stacked neatly on the desk, alongside a collection of detailed maps she’d been tasked with studying when she was younger. Her preferred blades she kept close at hand, usually on the bedside table. The room’s only real indulgence was a plush reading chair tucked into the corner, angled to catch the afternoon sun.

A part of her felt guilty about the standard of the place that she now called her home, as it was far nicer than she ever would have believed she deserved when she was younger. And it was a far cry from the home that she had grown up in before losing her mother. Moreover, it was a far cry from what her brother had now. He didn’t visit very often, generally waiting on her to visit him, but he would often comment on the finery that she enjoyed. As if she should apologize for her place in the world.

She dressed hurriedly, slipping into a simple jacket and pants, strapping on her blades, and then grabbed the box before thinking better of it. She wasn’t going to take that through the palace. She could tell Dorian that she had found it, but she didn’t want to carry anything that would draw attention to the fact that she had been in Telling’s house. After grabbing the ring that Dorian had been after, she hurriedly tucked the box into her wardrobe, stacking some clothing on top of it, then stepped out into the hallway.

The corridor stretched before her, its high-vaulted ceiling supported by graceful stone arches that cast elongated shadows in the morning light. The walls were lined with delicate sconces, their lights low now that daylight streamed through the tall windows set at regular intervals. Paintings hung between the windows, some so realistic that Ellie had to pause to ensure she wasn’t looking out of a window.

The polished marble floor reflected the morning sun, creating patterns across its surface as servants hurried past, their footsteps echoing in the hallway. The air carried the distinct scent of freshly cleaned floors, mixed with the ever-present hint of old stone and history that permeated the palace walls. Decorative tables lined the walls at strategic points, topped with carefully arranged fresh flowers in delicate vases—a touch of life among the ancient stonework.

Several corridors branched off from this main hallway, each marked by ornate archways carved with symbols she now knew to be Inarak. Empyrean soldiers, Dorian’s elite soldiers, stood at attention at key intersections, their uniforms pristine and postures rigid despite the early hour.

She was surprised by the general energy in the hall today. It was more animated than was typical, and Ellie wasn’t sure why that would be. Was something going on in the palace that she hadn’t heard about? She would have expected Dorian to make it clear if there was something happening, but then again, there were periods when she didn’t spend that much time in the palace, and she might have missed something.

She approached Maisie, one of the heads of the household, and somebody who had been in the palace for nearly as long as Ellie had. The woman was only a few years older than Ellie and had a quick smile, but today she had a serious expression.

“Hey there, Maisie,” Ellie said, striding toward her and putting on her most winning smile. “Did I miss some event taking place today?”

“Oh, Lady Ellie,” Maisie said. “Do you need anything?”

“Just information. There seems to be quite a bit of commotion.”

She thought about what she had felt in the city. Could it have anything to do with that? Surely she would have detected something around here if that were the case, but as she created another pulse of energy, she felt nothing other than the expected fabrications and the Inarak energy that was common in the palace.

“Council meeting,” she said. “Didn’t get a lot of forewarning about it, and you know how things can get when the council comes into the palace.”

Ellie licked her lips, her mouth suddenly going dry. A council meeting? The fact that there was a meeting so soon after she had broken into Telling’s home …

He couldn’t have known that it was her.

But if anything would have drawn the entire council to the palace, it would be one of Dorian’s servants breaking into a council member’s home and taking something.

“Anything significant?”

Maisie shrugged. “Can’t say that I know, but then again, I don’t listen to all that much. Try to stay out of it, you see. It’s better that way.”

Ellie knew that wasn’t entirely the case, and that the servants often heard more than they let on, but she also knew that if Maisie wasn’t going to admit to it, she wasn’t going to push her to do so.

“Can you tell me where they are meeting, at least?”

“In the council chamber. Figured you would have been invited, but …”

“How long have they been in the meeting?”

“Better part of an hour now,” she said.

Which meant that it would be over soon. The council never met with Dorian for very long. Not because they didn’t want to but because Dorian had no patience for it—or for them. He attended out of an obligation, but he didn’t think that the council needed the position in Busal City that they believed they did. She couldn’t argue. The council had its place, as she had seen, investing commoners—or at least, those that played at being commoners—with a role of leadership, but the council had its problems. For one, there was quite a bit of corruption, and the means of gaining a seat on the council was the issue that Dorian had with it. Although if he really cared to change that, he obviously could. But they also tended to be some of the wealthiest people in the city, and he knew that he had to listen to them one way or another, and it was his way of dealing with them on his terms.

“Thank you, Maisie.”

Maisie nodded and started to scurry off.

“Oh, Lady Ellie, your brother stopped by yesterday. I meant to find you, but⁠—”

“That’s fine. I wasn’t around much yesterday, so I doubt that I would have been available.”

Maisie breathed out, relieved.

“Thank you for letting me know, though.”

“He seemed agitated. I tried to get more information and offered to let him wait for you, but he didn’t want to. I figured that he knew how to find you if he really needed to, seeing as he is an Investigator and all.”

“You aren’t wrong, Maisie,” Ellie said. “Thanks again.”

She headed down the hallway. The morning sun painted long shadows through the series of arched windows that lined the eastern wall, lighting the intricate mosaic floor. Tapestries hung between the windows, colors still rich despite their age, each one telling a different story from the city’s history.

What would Baring have wanted from her?

Maybe just to talk to her more about his role in the city. It had been a while since the two of them had had much of a conversation about it, and perhaps it was time for her to revisit it. Maybe she even needed to take the time to involve Dorian in it. She knew that he would listen to her if she asked. However, she wasn’t sure that she wanted to ask Dorian for a favor for Baring, not until she had a better idea about where Baring’s loyalties lay. He had been difficult to read, and that made it difficult for her to know what to do.

One more thing for her to do, though. Figure out what Baring was after, or at least go to him and have a conversation.

She could combine that with checking on Lijanna later today. Something else that she needed to do. Maybe even visit with Jos and have a real, and perhaps hard, conversation about Lijanna and what she had been going through.

Not with Karissa, however. Even though Ellie had her own relationship with Lijanna’s mother, she doubted that going to Lijanna’s mother would change anything. Jos, on the other hand, might actually be able to say something that would spur change for her. Honestly, if the old captain had still been around, he would have been the ideal person to go to, but she also figured that if he had been around, Lijanna wouldn’t have fallen into this fate.

She reached the council chamber, where a pair of Empyreans stood guard outside the door. They were dressed in fabricated armor, the energy of it radiating to Ellie’s senses, with equally fabricated swords and helms.

Another pulse of her power, and she felt the fabrications. Not only the fabrications that the Empyreans carried but also the energy that she detected inside the council chamber. There were protections placed around the chamber. She could feel them as they created a ring of energy inside the chamber. There were also protections carried by the occupants.

Enough individual sources of power that she was able to count how many people were there. She could feel seven distinct sources. Several of them were familiar to her. Dorian carried a distinctive necklace that he had worn for quite some time, a protective fabrication that had been designed to serve as armor. Hadrian, Dorian’s adviser, a man Ellie didn’t always see eye to eye with, had a similar type of protection, although probably less ornate than the one that Dorian wore. Beyond that, she sensed the councillors, including one quite familiar—because she had recently been inside Telling’s home and could feel he carried the same sort of power with him as she had found inside his home.

It would be a simple matter for her to defeat each of those protective fabrications. Ellie could send out a pulse of power to do so, but it would be clear who was responsible for that. The only one that she wasn’t sure she could overpower was Dorian, and that was because he had other protections on him, beyond the obvious.

“Mind if I step past?” Ellie said to Nerast, an Empyrean that she was familiar with. She had trained with the man, dating back to some of the first sparring sessions that she’d had. He was handsome in a traditional way, with a strong jaw, short haircut, and deep blue eyes.

“He doesn’t want anybody going in,” Nerast said.

“Even me?”

Nerast shared a look with Jacen, the other Empyrean soldier, and somebody that Ellie had only really known over the last two years or so, as he had progressed through the ranks of the traditional army and taken on a position in the household. This was a place of prestige for the Empyreans, and yet many of them preferred to have assignments outside the city.

“It’s Lady Ellie,” Jacen said.

There were times when she didn’t like being called that, but it did carry a bit of weight, even if it wasn’t warranted. She was no noble, and she would never be. But she was favored by Dorian in a way that gave her a position of authority, even if it didn’t give her a position of power.

“I’m just going to stand in the back of the room,” she said. “And observe.”

“I suppose we can always say that she overpowered us,” Nerast said.

“Exactly,” she said, flashing a blade. “Tell them that I beat you both up.”

“He would just replace us with someone else,” Jacen said.

“Who do you think he has in the Empyreans that she couldn’t take on and beat?”

She chuckled. “Now, now. I’m a decent fighter, but I think you’re giving me too much credit.”

“Decent?” Nerast asked.

“Fine, skilled enough, but …”

She frowned. As she had been standing there and gabbing with the two of them, there had been movement inside the chamber. There was a sense of fabrications coming toward the door. Only a couple at first, but it suggested to her that the meeting was over.

She had taken too long. Then again, she had only wanted to go inside because of curiosity, and not because she actually wanted to observe the meeting.

“When was the last time you sparred with any Empyreans?” Nerast asked.

The question intruded on her thoughts. Several of the council were getting close to the door. Not Telling, though. He stayed behind.

“It’s been about a year or so,” Ellie said. “Ever since Dorian—the king,” she hurriedly added, knowing that she needed to do better at maintaining propriety, “asked me to stop.”

“Because you always take care of our fabrications first,” he said. “And the fabricators have a hard time keeping up with demand the way that it is.”

She wasn’t sure that was quite the case. It had more to do with something that Dorian had said about embarrassing his soldiers, and how he couldn’t have that. But Ellie had been trained by some of the best fighters in the kingdom. Not only had she trained with several Empyreans, but she had trained with Lijanna, back when Lijanna had still been a skilled fighter, something that Ellie was not sure was the case any longer, and with Asi, a former Blade, who might have been the best hand-to-hand fighter that Ellie had ever seen without any power other than her Blade ability.

The door opened. She watched as Vorish Hames, head of the newly formed Fabricators’ Guild, and someone who had taken on a bit of prominence in Busal City, emerged, not sparing any look in her direction. He was followed by Fahra Jenarin, who was ostensibly head of the Weavers’ Guild but also oversaw most of the brothels in the city. And finally came Hillie Chaqen, an elegant woman who Ellie knew to be well connected. She came from family money, though her business interests in the city kept her wealthy.

They were all agitated, the same way that she felt, and hurried toward the stairs and would soon be out. She stepped to the side, looking into the council chamber, where she saw Hadrian and Dorian speaking with Telling, along with Galbraith, one of the newer council members, standing behind. That was an odd gathering.

What she wouldn’t give to hear what they were saying. There were fabrications that would allow that, though Ellie didn’t trust herself to be around a fabrication like that, as it would be just as likely that she would end up incapacitating it and destroying it.

Finally, however, the conversation ended, and Galbraith and Telling turned to head toward the door. Ellie slipped to the side and stood next to Jacen for a few moments, waiting for them to step out. They hurried forward, and she knew that she shouldn’t be terribly surprised when Telling glanced back in her direction. His silver eyes seemed to take in everything. He was a slender man but still carried an air of authority, and there was something hard in his gaze.

Her heart hammered briefly, thinking that he knew that she had broken into his home, but she had to tell herself that he could not know.

Once they were out of sight, she closed her eyes for a moment, checked her pocket to make sure that the ring was still there, and then headed in to meet with Dorian.

Chapter

Six

The council chamber was an octagonal hall, more intimate than imposing, though every detail spoke of carefully calculated majesty. Dark wood panels lined the lower walls, carved with intricate scenes from the kingdom’s history, while above them, tapestries in rich midnight blue and gold depicted the royal crest. The ceiling rose to a modest dome, from which hung a bronze chandelier whose crystals caught the light streaming in through tall, narrow windows set high in the walls.

At the center stood a round table of polished mahogany, its surface gleaming like still water. Six high-backed chairs were arranged around it—five for the councilors and one, slightly more elaborate, with the royal crest worked into its headrest, for the king. The chairs were upholstered in deep blue velvet, each embroidered with the seal of the palace in gold thread. Behind the king’s chair, mounted on the wall, hung the royal standard, its colors rich and vibrant against the dark wood.

Small brass braziers stood in each corner, their flames casting a warm glow that softened the room’s formality while infusing the air with the subtle scent of cedar and sage. The floor was laid with intricate marble work in a pattern that drew the eye naturally to the center of the room, where the table stood like the hub of a wheel.

Ellie approached slowly, mostly because she knew how Hadrian viewed her. They got along passably well, although their relationship could be better. But she didn’t want to create an uncomfortable dynamic for Dorian, something that she did any time she interacted with the king far too casually. At least, that was what Hadrian had told her. She didn’t know how Dorian felt about it, but she didn’t think that he felt that she interacted with him too casually. They had known each other since she was young—barely twelve at the time—and how else was she supposed to interact with him but casually, especially when she had played the part of his niece for many years?

Dorian cut a striking figure. He was probably in his early forties, although his age was difficult to know, with gray speckling his black hair, and dressed in well-cut clothes embroidered with the sigil of Busal, a replica of the palace, which she had long thought was a strange thing. He stood talking to Hadrian, one hand resting on the back of a chair, and glanced in her direction as if he had sensed her approaching. A hint of a smile curled the corners of his lips before he turned and continued with his conversation.

“Of course, Your Majesty,” Hadrian said, dipping his head in a bow. “I will see that it is done.”

Hadrian started toward Ellie. He was a tall, lean man who moved with the precise, measured grace of someone who had spent his life navigating politics. His silver-streaked auburn hair was immaculately styled, and his high-collared coat in deep garnet was tailored to emphasize his height, adorned with subtle geometric patterns in black thread that shifted in the light. His face was all sharp angles—a blade-thin nose, high cheekbones, and a jaw that could have been carved from marble. But it was his eyes that always drew attention: pale green, almost colorless, with a calculating intensity that made him appear to be constantly assessing, measuring, weighing everyone around him for potential value or threat.

Despite his station—or perhaps because of it—he gave off an arrogance that she had always found a little off-putting. He said nothing as he passed her, though she couldn’t help but feel his gaze appraising her.

Dorian cleared his throat, and she turned toward him.

“You could have come in,” he said. “You are waiting out there for the better part of a few minutes. Were you deciding whether you wanted to take Nerast to dinner?”

She glanced back at the open doors, although they were closing as she stood there. She caught a glimpse of Nerast before the doors closed. She didn’t ask Dorian how he had known that she was there, because she knew how. He had a fabrication that allowed him to sense her, something that he had claimed he needed. She was surprised that he would keep it on him in the council meeting, though.

“He’s not really my type,” she said.

“Oh? Even though you have been eyeing him up around the palace⁠—”

“I have not been eyeing him up.”

“Perhaps it’s the other ladies around the palace, then.”

Ellie snorted. “I heard that the meeting was a bit abrupt,” she said. She glanced at the walls, where deceased royal figures were arranged, as if they watched the proceedings. Her gaze lingered on the former queen, Dorian’s stepsister, who had preceded him on the throne. She seemed to be watching Ellie the most intensely, though she knew that was her imagination. “Anything that I should be aware of?”

“Just a bit of a trade dispute,” Dorian said. “And the council gets agitated, as the council is wont to do. You know how it is.”

She didn’t, but she wasn’t going to tell him that. She tried to stay out of politics for the most part. Dorian had certainly trained her in politics, so that she was aware of the dynamics within Busal, but seeing as she had very little influence over such things and had never really needed to use that information, she had stopped worrying about it.

“Go on,” she said.

“You obviously don’t have any interest,” he said.

“Not really, but you want to tell me.”

“Only because I think that it may involve you, sooner or later.”

“How so?”

This was new. It was uncommon for him to include her, so if he thought that she would need to get involved, that might actually be some progress.

Dorian regarded her for a moment, appraising. It wasn’t quite as disturbing as the way that Hadrian regarded her, primarily because Dorian’s purpose pertained to how he was going to use her and gauging her progress, whereas Hadrian’s was finding a way to dismiss her.

“Come along,” he said. “Walk with me.”

He headed to the rear of the room, tapped on a corner section of the wall, and a small door opened. It was a simple trigger, and she had long since learned how to navigate the hidden passageways throughout the palace, although she rarely did these days. She was surprised that Dorian chose to do that now.

“Do you need to tell them that you are leaving?”

“And ruin the mystique?” Dorian snorted. “They will stand guard until I return. And perhaps it is better if they think that I can simply vanish in one place and reappear in another.”

“As if the Empyreans don’t know that there is an extensive system of tunnels throughout the palace grounds,” she said.

“Well, there is that,” he said.

Dorian stepped in, and Ellie followed. It was dark, but he twisted a small fabrication on his finger, causing just a tiny light to brighten the space. The passage was narrow, barely wide enough for two people to walk side by side, with rough-hewn stone walls that showed their age in the scattered patches of dark moss growing between the blocks. The fabrication’s light cast strange, shifting shadows across the uneven surfaces, making the ancient mortar lines look like spiderwebs in the dim illumination. The ceiling was low enough that Dorian had to duck his head at certain points, and occasional water stains marked where moisture had seeped through over the centuries.

The air was cool and stale, carrying the musty scent of old stone and earth, along with a hint of something metallic—perhaps from the remnants of Inarak workings in the walls. Their footsteps echoed softly despite their careful movements, the sound seeming to travel both ahead and behind them through the network of hidden corridors. Small metal brackets for long-absent torches lined the walls at regular intervals, their surfaces dulled with age and verdigris.

Every few feet, barely visible seams in the walls marked potential doorways and branching passages—a subtle reminder of just how extensive the hidden network was throughout the palace. The floor was worn smooth from generations of secret traffic, though here and there Ellie could still make out the faint traces of old warning runes carved into the threshold stones, their power long since faded to nothing.

Dorian tapped on another section of the wall, and it slid closed, sealing them inside.

“I find it easier to talk here,” he said, keeping his voice low nonetheless. “There are always ears, although at least here I know if the ears are rats in the halls or spies in the walls.”

“Are you really concerned about spies? I mean, if you are, you know that you could ask me to⁠—”

“That is not what I’m going to ask you to do,” he said.

She was getting frustrated, although she had to be careful. She could not let him know that she was frustrated. Of course, he knew anyway. She knew that he knew.

“I got this, by the way,” she said, grabbing the ring from her pocket. He might as well know that she had accomplished a task that he had given her. She held it out, and he took it carefully, holding it up to the light that radiated from his ring. “I figured that might’ve been part of the reason that Telling was here.”

He shook his head. “I doubt he would have shared that if it were. He would have other ways of looking into what happened.”

“Well, if it does get back to you, you’ll have to deal with the repercussions. I don’t want anything to do with it.”

“You will always have something to do with it,” he said, “regardless of whether or not you want to.”

“Do you want to tell me about the fabrication in it?” she asked.

“A key, I think. Which is why I wanted it back.”

“Not because it was sentimental?”

He turned to her. “Have you known me to be a sentimental man? Now, let’s walk.”

Dorian strode through the halls until he reached some stairs, and then down. It was entirely dark other than the light from his ring. If she had been here alone, Ellie would probably have had to fumble around in the dark. She could find a way out. She had spent enough time in these tunnels that she knew her way around them, and could find her way out in a few different places, not the least of which was inside Dorian’s private chambers, but there was always a feeling of extra movement around here that made her a bit uncomfortable. Some of it came from the way that the walls, and the entire palace, felt to her. These walls were old. Inarak old, which meant that they were impossibly old. The walls were imbued with old magic as well, power that had long ago settled into the palace, although Ellie did not know the reason for it, nor whether she would be able to understand it.

“Where are you leading me?”

It had been a long time since she had spent any time inside this space, and certainly a long time since she had done so with Dorian.

“Rumors,” Dorian said, looking back at her. “Rumors of activity, and of dangers. That’s why I brought you down here. And that’s what I need from you, Ellie.”

“You need me to do what?”

“I need you to tell me what you feel here.”

They had reached a wide section, and it suddenly expanded into a vast circular space. Massive stone columns, each as wide as three people standing shoulder to shoulder, rose from the floor to disappear into the darkness overhead. Their surfaces were covered in intricate spiraling patterns that caught and held Dorian’s light, creating a shimmer that danced across the ancient stone. The patterns weren’t mere decoration; instead, Ellie thought they were fabrications, though it was difficult to know.

The floor held a massive mosaic that spread out from the center; the seams between the stones were barely visible. Archways punctuated the circular wall at regular intervals, each leading to darkness beyond, their frames adorned with more spiraling script. Metal fixtures of unknown purpose protruded from the walls at various heights, their surfaces etched with more symbols, and thin channels ran through the floor in geometric patterns, suggesting that this chamber had once been part of some larger system.

When Ellie used to come down here, she had believed that she could imagine what it would have been like for the old Inarak. The structure gave off a memory, but little more than that. It was said to be intact, although Ellie knew that it was not fully intact, and that the palace had been built on top of and around aspects of the Inarak structure. She did not know what it would have looked like before. Although she had worked with her friend Tabitha in the archive to try to understand, because she had believed that she could learn something about it.

Down here, she felt the weight of the stone around her. Maybe it was the age, or maybe it was the sense of power, but she felt it deep inside. It triggered something in her. More than just her ability. That was one element that she felt, though when she created pulses of power, Ellie was not able to detect much. She just felt the Inarak ruins around her. Still, something vibrated inside her.

“I feel the same thing I always feel,” Ellie said, her voice soft. “And you know that there is nothing else here.”

“Other than what we nearly lost,” Dorian said.

“There’s no sign of them,” she said.

He meant the Korans, a people who had targeted Busal and had used strangely powerful fabrications to try to overwhelm them. They had not seen any sign of them since her mentor had defeated them. And she knew that Dorian had been searching. She had not been a part of that search—she suspected that he didn’t think she was trustworthy enough—but she believed that Zaren had been, even though she had not heard much from him.

“None of them in particular. I think those Korans were working alone. At least, they were working separately from the rest of their people. But there’s a greater danger, I fear.”

“Oh?”

“There are rumors of distant upheaval. Much of it is the kind of rumor that I tend to ignore, because it is unlikely to be of significance for us. But I have started to listen to some.” He closed his eyes, and then when he opened them, he pulled out the ring that she had brought him. “My sister had started to learn about things I cannot fully fathom. Not yet. And she kept much hidden from me.”

“You said it was a key.”

“Perhaps. Even if it is not, it belongs with the family, even if I am only adjacently related.”

Ellie wanted to smile, because she had heard Dorian make comments like that before. After the queen’s passing, there had been very little objection to his assuming the throne. The line of succession was not very clear, but as his mother had married into the family, and he had been adopted by the king, Dorian had a claim. More so than others.

“Are you worried about somebody making a claim to the throne?”

“Not particularly,” Dorian said, and then he shrugged. “There are times when I wonder if another would serve better, anyway. But I come down here, and I can practically feel the weight of the age of this place, which makes me aware of things in ways that I can’t quite explain. And given some of the rumors that have started to spread, I think that it’s time for you to fulfill the role that I have prepared you for.”

“Oh? Now I get to be what? Your Blade in the city?”

She didn’t know why, but that irritated her. It shouldn’t. Serving as a Blade was an honorable position. It was what her mother had done, after all. And there had been a long time when Ellie had wanted nothing more than to be like her mother.

“You and I both know that I prepared you for much more than serving as a Blade.”

“You did, but over the last few years, you have not really given me any responsibilities. I mean, I’ve become a thief for you.”

“Only a thief?”

“You could’ve asked anybody to do that,” she said. “And they would’ve had just as much deniability.”

“I could have, but anybody else wouldn’t have been able to see the way that you did. Anybody else might have had a harder time getting away, and keeping it safe until it was returned to me.”

“I doubt that,” she said. Dorian was readying her for something, though she wasn’t sure why he would feel the need to flatter her. He was the king, and he could just tell her what he wanted her to do. Maybe after the council meeting, there was somebody else that she needed to break into the home of, steal from, and keep her actions from drawing the attention of others.

“I’ve hesitated to use you, you are right. But with what has begun to play out, I think that I can no longer do that.” He turned to her, and the serious look in his eyes was one that she had not seen from Dorian before. “Rumors, Ellie. Rumors tend to have some truth in them. And some of what I have heard in these rumors has me on edge. Attacks along the border to the north, Blades disappearing, and those with power. I do not like it when all I have is rumors.”

Ellie frowned. She had seen something relevant.

“Telling has been tracking Blade movement,” she said, before looking up. “I happened to see it.”

“Happened to, or were you looking for it?”

“I wasn’t really looking for anything. I was looking for the ring, like you asked me to, and I came across some documents. I don’t know what they were.”

“That is what he stayed to mention to me. The Blades along the border with Buruketh have gone silent. Now, I don’t know why Telling has been tracking them, though I have my suspicions. His bringing it to my attention has raised concerns, especially since the last report I had from Devarel was that some power had been discovered. There has been nothing for a month. And now Telling’s report. It might be nothing, but I don’t like my suspicions. Which is why I’d like you to investigate.”

Devarel was one of the king’s spies in the north, an older man with some Blade ability. He had been stationed in the city-state of Buruketh to give information, though Ellie didn’t know how clear that communication had been.

“You would? Does that mean going back to his house?” she asked.

It would be harder to do so, especially now that she had already broken in. Part of her actually relished that idea, because she could imagine what it might be like to overcome some of the protections that would inevitably have been placed there.

“I think that we are past that. I need you to head north to Buruketh to find Devarel. And if you can’t find him, find what he has uncovered.”

“You want me to leave Busal?”

After all this time protecting her, he was sending her away, and not just away but away away.

“You don’t think you can do it?”

“I’m sure I can,” Ellie said hurriedly, because the idea was appealing to her. “I’m just trying to understand why.”

“For a lot of reasons, but mostly because of you, and this.”

He pulled a small item from his pocket, and before he had even held it out for her, Ellie could feel the energy within it. She didn’t recognize the item, but she didn’t need to. There was a painful vibration of power within it.

“What is it?”

“I don’t know, honestly. It’s what Devarel sent with his last missive. I’ve had the fabricators examining it, but they can’t tell me what it is.”

The item was a metal sphere slightly larger than a fist, its surface marred by deep grooves that formed unsettling asymmetric patterns. Unlike most fabrications she’d encountered, this one actively repelled her senses—its power signature felt like needles against her mind. Dull bronze-colored metal showed through patches of black tarnish. The power emanating from it felt wrong—discordant and jagged, like the screech of metal on metal.

“I should have asked you sooner, but I wanted the fabricators to evaluate it first.”

Ellie suspected there was more to it but left it to Dorian not to explain.

“I don’t know what it is, but from the look in your eyes, you can feel it.”

She nodded.

“As I suspected. I have nobody else that I can trust to investigate. So I’m asking you to go to Buruketh, serve as my eyes and ears. Serve as my agent. And find what you can.”

Chapter

Seven

After leaving the palace, Ellie debated what to do. As she was leaving the grounds of the palace, she came across an older man with graying hair, followed by Tabitha, her friend who worked in the archive as a scholar and researcher. Tabitha leaned forward, whispering something to the man, who Ellie didn’t recognize, but she suspected that he was a scholar in the archive. Then Tabitha came over to join her.

Tabitha was about a hand taller than Ellie, slim, and had an inquisitive look to her eyes at all times. Right now, she flicked her gaze from Ellie over to the palace before cocking her head to the side and regarding Ellie with a curious expression.

“You’ve got a worried look about you,” she said. “I don’t like seeing you like this.”

“Worried?” Ellie asked, although in a way, Tabitha’s observation was accurate. “Can you walk with me?”

“I suppose I can,” she said. “Lorian has me looking into some records on the …” She shook her head and then chuckled. “You don’t care about any of that. So yes. I can walk with you.”

“I care,” Ellie said. But then again, some of the things that Tabitha got involved in were often beyond her understanding and often beyond what she allowed herself the time to deal with. “How are you?”

“We don’t need to bother with pleasantries,” Tabitha said. “I know you. When you have that look about you, you are struggling with something.”

“The king assigned me a task.”

“Oh? More than just investigating the ship traffic?”

Ellie had spent some time doing that on Dorian’s behalf, and while it had been less than exciting, at least she had been given something to do.

“Ship traffic has its place,” Ellie said.

Tabitha snorted. “Oh, I’m quite sure it does. I’m just hopeful that you will be given a chance to do more than studying ship traffic.”

“This is more,” Ellie said. She looked around. They had reached the wall leading outside the palace grounds, but then she decided against taking Tabitha outside, primarily because Tabitha wouldn’t want to leave. “Something is going on, and the king has asked me to investigate.”

“Seems to me that’s what you have been hoping he would ask you to do. Why does that bother you?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s just that I am not sure what he wants from me.”

“How long will you be gone?”

“That’s just it. I don’t quite know.”

“So you finally get to do something significant. Seems to me that should be a good thing, and you should be excited about that.”

“I am. I think.” Ellie started to chuckle. “But I wonder if … You know when you’ve spent all this time thinking about what you want, and looking forward to doing something, and the chance is finally given to you, and then you start to question whether that’s really what you want?”

“No,” Tabitha said. “I know that you have been frustrated. And in all the time that I’ve known you, you’ve been looking for an opportunity to do and be more. Don’t forget, Ellie, that I’ve been there with you from the very beginning, when you were training in the palace.”

“I’m not sure that I could forget that,” she said. And even if she could, she doubted that Tabitha would let her. When she had first come to the palace, she had begun instruction, much of it private instruction that Dorian had arranged. Tabitha had befriended Ellie, making her time in the palace a little less lonely. “Anyway, given that we are looking into fabrications in a city I’ve never been to, I figured having someone who might know things would be helpful.”

“Oh? And what sort of team are you taking with you?”

“The king seems to think that it will draw less attention if we go in a smaller group. And given that we will be leaving⁠—”

“We?”

“I figured you would come with me.”

“And what if I say no?”

“I might have to exert my authority.”

“You don’t have any authority.”

“My authority as your friend,” Ellie said.

“Even that is a bit of a stretch. You know, I do have some obligations within the archive that will be difficult to let go of, and Lorian in particular will have a hard time with me leaving.”

“Even if it means that we go to Buruketh?”

“What?”

The opportunity to leave Busal was something she suspected Tabitha would be eager to take up.

“Why to Buruketh?”

“Because of rumors concerning Blades and power. And I thought that having somebody like you, who is perhaps more familiar with the workings of Buruketh, would be beneficial to me, and to ensure that I am safe. Now, if you feel otherwise, I understand, and I won’t push the issue⁠—”

Tabitha gave her a shove. Nearby, an Empyrean looked in Ellie’s direction, but Ellie waved his attention off.

“Careful there,” Ellie said. “You know how they view me.”

“Depends on which of the soldiers are viewing you,” Tabitha said. “There are a couple I think who are interested.”

“That’s not what I meant,” she said.

“I know, but it’s true nonetheless.”

“So do you want to come?”

“I’d have to clear it with Lorian and some of the supervising scholars, but I don’t see why I wouldn’t be able to do that, especially if you suggest to them that I am needed.”

“I can certainly do that,” Ellie said. “Although do you really think that they will believe what I have to say?”

“More so than what I have to say. I’m still in training, Ellie. And it’s a bit more rigorous … well, maybe not more rigorous than what you went through, but it’s more structured, I should say, than what you went through. So I have obligations. Now, if the king were to decide that I was needed, my supervising scholars wouldn’t think twice, but I do think it would be beneficial if you spoke on my behalf.”

“I’ll have the king send word.”

“Great. And when are we going?”

“We need to get going within the next few days. So make preparations, gather whatever supplies you need, and I will figure out who else to bring. The king suggested that an Empyrean come along, although I have the feeling that he will assign one, and I won’t have much choice in the matter.”

Tabitha smirked. “Let me guess which one he’s going to send with you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, I just have a pretty good idea of who he might send. Maybe Nerast.”

“Stop,” Ellie said.

“Like you would mind. I remember when he first came to the palace. I remember the way that you watched him. Actually, I remember the way that you followed him around the palace, and I wonder if he ever noticed.”

Despite herself, Ellie flushed and then elbowed Tabitha. Leave it to her friend to remind her of something so embarrassing.

“Well, I’m not mooning about after him any longer.”

“Not any longer, but if Nerast were to ask you to dance at one of the taverns you like to go to …”

“I haven’t been spending much time in taverns. Other than last night, when I …” She didn’t want to tell Tabitha about Lijanna, as she didn’t want that to get out, especially here, where there were ears everywhere. She wanted to protect Lijanna and keep Dorian from learning what had happened. “Anyway, just get ready.”

“All right. Consider me getting ready. I will gather some books about that region. That is, if you think we will stick to that region, or maybe we will go beyond.”

“What’s beyond?”

“The Nirthaal Mountains, but there’s not all that much there that would be interesting. Buruketh is intriguing, primarily because of the old relics that can be found there, and because of some of the stories that have been circulating.”

Ellie frowned. “What stories?”

“Let’s talk about it later. I need to make preparations, and I’m going to talk to Lorian, and it sounds like you have to figure out which of the handsome young Empyreans you want to bring along.”

“I don’t think I get to decide.”

“But I bet you get to influence.”

Ellie snorted. “Whatever. Go do what you need to do, and we can talk later.”

She watched as Tabitha skipped off, heading around the outskirts of the palace.

The palace grounds sprawled before Ellie. Wide paths wound between meticulously trimmed hedgerows and flowering beds, their edges marked by ancient stone markers. Marble fountains stood at intersections in the paths, their waters catching the sunlight and creating rainbow prisms in the spray.

It would be nice to travel with her friend. And though Dorian hadn’t explicitly said that she could bring Tabitha, he had said that she would need help, and considering that she was the one assigned to this job, he would have to deal with her assembling her own team, such as it was.

But who else?

An Empyrean made sense, as they were all skilled soldiers. If there were any Blades who were ready, that might be beneficial, or perhaps an Investigator. Byron or Jos—although Jos was getting old, and he likely wouldn’t want to travel away from the city—might be useful as well. Or even a fabricator. Being able to make fabrications, depending upon what they encountered, appealed to her.

Ellie headed out onto the street, where she used a pulse of her Blade ability and felt for the fabrications that were gathered around her. There were quite a few fabrications scattered all throughout the city, and as she moved toward the market, hoping to get down to the Investigator station, she felt a different sort of energy.

This one was familiar, akin to what she had felt the night before. Strange that she would feel it so prominently, but even stranger was the presence of something in the city that reminded her of that energy.

She created another pulse, and this time, she expanded it with more force. She had started to test the limits of her Blade ability, to see if there was a way to exert even more force. She felt the energy coursing around her, and this time, she knew that it was familiar.

It struck her as similar to a Blade’s energy, but an element within it was masking its presence. The only way that would be possible was if somebody were either using a fabrication—and masking a Blade with a fabrication was incredibly difficult, because the Blades had the intrinsic ability to incapacitate most fabrications—or …

Or it was Zaren.

Could he have returned?

She immediately turned toward the energy, creating another rippling wave of her Blade ability as she moved through the city. The morning streets were beginning to fill with people as merchants opened their stalls and workers made their way to shops and workshops. The smell of fresh bread wafted from nearby bakeries, mixing with the sharper scents of leather from the tannery district and smoke from the blacksmiths’ forges. Stone buildings rose several stories high on either side, their upper floors jutting out over the street, creating deep shadows even in the morning light. Washing lines stretched between buildings, colorful laundry fluttering like flags in the breeze.

And if Zaren were here, right about the same time that she was getting ready to leave, how would that be fair?

She hadn’t seen him in a long time, and she wanted nothing more than the opportunity to catch up with him, to find out what he had been doing while he’d been away, to see if he might have encountered anything that she could learn about, because he had gone off to understand more of his ability—which was the same as her ability—and had promised to return to share what he had learned.

He had promised, but he hadn’t come back.

She shook those thoughts away, because it would do nothing, not now, not with Zaren, and she couldn’t blame him, anyway.

But that had to be him. What other Blades had the ability to mask themselves like that?

And as she turned toward it, she could still feel a shrouding, but the rippling waves of her ability were strong enough to allow her to track the movement of the energy.

There it was. It was near the temple.

Again?

That troubled her, because Zaren wouldn’t have come to the temple. And as she got closer, she noticed a strange emptiness flowing around it. Perhaps she had made a mistake. Maybe this wasn’t Zaren. But it was definitely Blade ability, which meant …

A fabrication breaker.

She knew that they were still coming to the city. She wasn’t sure who was here or what they might be after, but the fabrication breakers had often been interested in the temple, especially because they had joined the battle to reclaim Busal City, and the efforts to secure it from the attack that had very nearly destroyed it.

“Who’s here?” Ellie called out. “I can tell somebody is, so you might as well reveal yourself.”

She moved carefully along the street, using another pulse, this time creating a rhythm with it. It was a technique of her own, feeling for the disturbances a power caused. And as she followed it, she was able to pick up on the disturbances within the temple, but then she also felt the disturbance from whoever was up ahead.

She felt something unusual drawing on her, a steady, almost burning sensation. It reminded her of the unusual nature of what she had experienced with her ability lately. Maybe it was unrelated, but something about it just felt wrong.

The gleam of streetlights caught a small, spherical fabrication not far from her. She stepped over some of the ruins to the source of the power.

But she wasn’t the only one coming toward it.

She saw a figure approaching slowly.

They were dark-haired, covered in a midnight-blue cloak. Ellie’s hands went to her blades, and she hesitated.

But only for a moment.

Then the figure spun and darted toward her in an attack.

Chapter

Eight

Ellie jumped to the side, already reaching for her blades and creating a bubble of energy around her to protect herself. It was a simple technique, not one requiring much skill or finesse, another thing that Dorian would have been displeased by. He had always wanted her to use her Blade ability in ways that even Zaren had not managed, which was part of the reason that he had taken to training her himself, using various techniques that he had heard of and various instructors, all designed to make her as ready as she could be.

But this was unlike anything she had faced.

The man had a curved blade, and he swiped it toward her.

Ellie unsheathed one of her blades and then swept at him, carving down, metal connecting with metal. There was a clang, and then she dropped, barely avoiding another strike. He had a second blade, a simple knife, which had swiped over her head.

As he fought, she could feel the fabrications in the weapons. Moreover, she could feel the Blade energy radiating from him.

She rolled and then kicked, catching him in the hip, but he only staggered one step. Ellie rolled to the side, popped up, and surveyed the area.

The temple ruins spread out around her, lingering destruction from five years ago. Broken columns lay scattered across the ground, their surfaces now weathered and stained. The great dome that had once crowned the building was gone, leaving the interior open to the sky, with only jagged sections of the supporting arches remaining, like broken teeth against the morning light. Thick vines had already begun to claim the ruins, creeping up the remaining walls and wrapping around fallen stonework.

This wasn’t an ideal place to fight.

What she needed to do was to get out into the open, out onto the street, where she could draw the attention of some constables, or perhaps some investigators. Regardless, she needed to draw the attention of somebody. This man was skilled.

He slipped forward again.

He was moving quickly—far too fast for somebody who didn’t have a fabrication to enhance his movement—and she needed to incapacitate him.

Another of her quick pulses, a ripple of energy, slammed into him.

And simply washed over him.

Somehow her attempt to incapacitate any fabrication that he was carrying did not work.

Was this who she had detected the night before? And if so, what else would he have been involved in?

Ellie pulsed again and followed it with a dart forward, grabbing for her other blade, and then swiped.

There was a series of rapid movements. She sliced up; he blocked; she sliced down; he brought his knife around, and then she brought her knee up, but he’d already spun out of the way.

She twisted, barely avoiding a strike to the back of her head, and then she had to drop down, barely managing to keep the wickedly curved blade from striking her.

He was moving too quickly.

He was gifted.

And strangely, Ellie found herself enjoying the fight.

She still hadn’t gotten a good look at his face. He had the hood of his cloak up, obscuring his features, and yet she had the feeling that this was somebody young, not at all like most of the fabrication breakers who came to the city.

She twisted, bending low, driving the tip of her boot into his elbow. It connected, grazing him slightly, and she pushed her ability through the boot. In that contact, she felt the energy flowing through him, into his weapon. There was resistance, but the contact allowed her to use her own ability and finally overpower him, or at least overpower the fabrication he was carrying.

With another kick, she drove forward, and she had to move, but at least whatever fabrications he had in the knife were no longer going to be a problem.

She jumped back, regarding him for a long moment.

He stood, blade held in front of him, and it gave her a chance to study it. It was crescent-shaped, and he was able to twist the blade impressively. It was also hard to deflect, because anytime her blade struck it, it slid straight off.

But was there a weakness?

One of the things that Dorian had taught her and encouraged her to study was a weakness in everything she did. He had told her that most things had a weakness. Most people had a weakness. However, she didn’t know if he had expected her to have to find a weakness in a weapon.

But he had certainly trained her to look for them.

“Who are you?” Ellie asked.

He didn’t respond, just darted at her again.

This time, he twisted, bringing the blade around, and she had to drop down, driving the heel of her hand into his belly. He twisted the blade down, and Ellie slipped out of the way and rolled to the side.

Her leg struck rubble, and she came to a stop, nearly blocked from moving.

That’s no good.

She pushed forward, sliding between his legs, and then came up, kicking behind him, driving her heels into the backs of his knees, which buckled him.

Then she flipped up and landed on her feet, knives ready again.

“I’m going to ask you again. Who are you?”

He turned, holding his weapons at the ready.

Maybe he was realizing that she wasn’t quite as easy a target as he might have assumed.

Regardless, Ellie had to devise a way to stop him.

She took a step back. At least here she was able to stand up on a rock, and it gave her a chance to survey him better. She had a better vantage here to see his movements, and if needed, she could jump or climb to get out of the way. He did move quickly. So far, his fabrication had eluded her ability to overpower and incapacitate it. It produced in her an achy, vibrational sense. Some part of it reminded her of what Dorian had shown her.

“You have only a few moments before the constables arrive,” Ellie said.

“Do you need them to fight your battles?”

His voice was coarse, rough, and he seemed more than a little amused by his question.

“No,” she said, “but I don’t like to be surprised by somebody in my city.”

“In your city?”

She should have been more careful, because comments like that were bound to get her in trouble, considering the fact that she really didn’t have any authority.

However, if Dorian knew that somebody like this was attacking her in Busal City, he would have approved of her claiming that it was her city.

“It’s my city, and I’d like to know why you are in it.”

“You are what they call a Blade,” he said. His voice was dark—dangerous, even.

“I am something like that,” she said.

“Talented enough, although still lacking.”

“Lacking?”

That irritated her.

She used another pulse, and she followed it with another rippling wave, and then another, then another, and each time, she hoped that she might incapacitate whatever fabrications he had on him, but once the first pulse of energy struck him, she felt his resistance, and then she felt that resistance rising with every subsequent attempt to draw the power through him. It was as if her power was mitigated, and she could not counter him. Was he adding to fabrications while he was standing there?

And if he was, that meant that he wasn’t a Blade, as she had assumed.

“Talented enough,” he said.

He took a step toward her. The air around him started to take on a haze. That was a fabrication as well, she suspected.

But it was one she had seen before, and she had no idea of the purpose of the fabrication, other than to obscure him, as if he were going to hide within that haze of energy.

Piles of debris created a mazelike array of obstacles. The ground was treacherous, littered with smaller fragments of stone and sections where the foundations had cracked and shifted. The air still held a trace of the temple’s destruction, a lingering staleness mixed with the scent of wet stone and growing things.

Ellie debated her approach. The man was obviously confident—arrogant, even—but he was also skilled, and she didn’t like the idea of risking herself if she didn’t need to. Right now she had the higher ground, but she didn’t know if he could rob her of her advantage, and moreover, she was curious enough about his purpose here that she wanted to get some answers from him.

“Who are you?” she asked, stepping back.

There was a sudden buildup of pressure. Ellie felt it behind her ears, in her chest, and even in her blood. It was as if she burned with that power.

She pushed against it.

And the force that she had to push was far greater than anything she had come up against before. It forced her to exert a massive pulse of energy and send it sweeping outward, but she had no idea what that would do or whether it was strong enough to oppose him. The fabrication he used was immense.

Pain bloomed in her.

And she tried to fight it, but she would need quite a bit more power than she had access to.

Ellie used as much as she had remaining.

As that power rolled out from her, she could feel the energy flowing.

And then everything started to go dark.

She sucked in a breath and concentrated.

In that moment, as everything burned, she felt some deep part of herself reacting.

When she had first started learning about her Blade ability, she had learned that she had an innate way of handling the magic around her. Ellie had learned how to tap into that, how to use it to counter power, but in this case, she needed something different. She needed strength that she didn’t have.

She needed Zaren. What would he have done?

Not gotten into this problem. Zaren was as powerful as they came. He might not have the same skill as some Blades, but he had reserves of strength that very few others had.

She pushed nonetheless. And as she did, she felt some deep, flickering part of her reacting, resisting, and fighting against that burning energy inside her.

For a moment, everything went dark, and that flickering became a flame that burned through her, washing outward and finally fading altogether.

When it did, the man was gone.

Ellie stood for a moment, feeling that energy still there, feeling the way that it was coursing within her, and feeling something dangerous in it.

She waited, testing with another pulse of her ability, but as she did, everything within her felt wrong. The air had a metal tang to it, and it occurred to her that she must have bitten her lip or her tongue, as blood coated her mouth. She took a step down the rock; her legs were wobbly and weak.

How much had she just exerted herself?

A magical encounter was not supposed to happen quite like that.

Neither was somebody to have that kind of power.

Ellie sucked in a sharp breath. And then she took a step down to the ground, where she looked at where the man had been. And though she couldn’t see anything, she could feel the residual energy.

He had left a trace of power here.

That wasn’t uncommon when power departed. In fact, it was quite common when somebody was incredibly powerful. But an element of his power struck her as similar to her own, which it shouldn’t be. That was no Blade.

But whatever power he possessed was not dissimilar to hers, somehow.

The sound of boots over stones came toward her. She looked up and saw a trio of constables, along with one Investigator, a woman by the name of Andarra, approaching.

Ellie still held her blades, focusing for a moment, trying to ignore the pounding in her head, but more than that, trying to ignore the way that the burning deep inside her seemed to tremble.

“Lady Ellie,” Andarra said, “is everything all right? I felt … Honestly, I don’t even know what I felt. Just that there was power here.”

“I think so,” Ellie said. “I don’t know what it was, but somebody was here. Somebody powerful.” She crouched down, holding her hand out to feel the energy that lingered in the dust. Some fabricated power lingered here, but it wasn’t only fabricated power. There was also the energy of a Blade.

What kind of Blade had that ability?

“Send word to Jos,” she said, looking over at Andarra while the constables were setting up a perimeter, “that we need to investigate this space. And we need to put out an alert. I don’t know who this is, but he’s powerful. We need to be careful.”

“You’ve got it,” she said.

The hard part for Ellie was that this was happening right as she was getting ready to leave.

She wondered if that was not chance. What if this man was tied to what Dorian was concerned about?

And if so, could she stop him if she needed to?

She felt like she had managed in the fight, but she questioned whether he had just been testing her. And at the end, when he had called her lacking, she had been upset, but compared to the kind of power that he was able to wield, maybe that was what she was: lacking.

For so long, Ellie had wanted an assignment, to do something on behalf of Busal, to prove that Dorian’s faith in her was worthwhile.

And now she was left with a question—what if she still wasn’t strong enough?

Chapter

Nine

Ellie’s search for the attacker had turned up very little.

She and the investigators had spent quite a bit of time canvassing the city, searching for evidence of where he had gone, but given the fact that he obviously had considerable control over his ability, Ellie didn’t really think that she would find anything. In fact, as she had been searching with Jos, who had wanted to come along with her, she had started to feel it was unlikely that there would be any evidence of him whatsoever.

“You can let us do this,” Jos said as they passed a market.

The market spread out before them in a chaotic patchwork of color and sound, stalls crammed together beneath a mix of striped awnings and weathered wooden overhangs. Merchants called out their wares in competing voices, while the aroma of spices mixed with the scents of fresh bread and roasting meat. Baskets of bright produce were stacked in precarious towers, while strings of dried herbs and flowers hung from wooden beams, swaying gently in the breeze. The crowd moved in its own rhythm, flowing around the stalls like a river finding its course.

Local craftsmen displayed their wares on wooden tables—everything from practical cookware to delicate jewelry set with stones that might or might not have held traces of power. A fabricator sat at one stall, demonstrating minor fabrication to draw customers to his collection of simple magical items. Nearby, an old woman arranged protective fabrications on a faded cloth, their dull metal surfaces occasionally catching the light.

Ellie used another pulse of her ability and did not feel anything else. The pulse came up with the usual fabricated power, but nothing more than that, and certainly nothing to make her think that there was somebody here with significant potency.

“I know I can,” she said, “but I’m going to be leaving for a little while, and I need to know that it’s safe to leave the city.”

Jos patted her on the shoulder. There was a warmth in his eyes as he studied her. “You know, you take after him.”

“Who?” If he was going to claim that she took after Dorian, she wasn’t sure that she had the patience for that.

“Joha. He was like that. Pretty frustrating, if you ask me. At least, he was when he first came to the city, stomping around and throwing his weight and authority in my face.”

“I’m pretty sure that he never threw any authority in anyone’s face.”

“Oh, I know that now, but at the time, I didn’t really see it in any other way. It was frustrating having somebody not from the city suddenly telling me what I needed to do and how I needed to do it.” He snorted. “But he also thought that he was the only person who could handle things.”

“I don’t think that I’m the only person,” Ellie said. “And I know that I’m not Zaren. It’s just that I’m going to be away for a while, and I just don’t like the idea of leaving a task incomplete.” She shrugged. “And I realize that there’s always going to be something more that I could do, but …”

“How long have the two of us known each other?” he asked her.

“I don’t know. Maybe seven or eight years.”

“Maybe,” he said, and he snorted. “At least, right? Long enough that I feel like you know me, and I know you, and that you know how I see the world.”

“With a stubborn streak,” she said.

“Fair enough. A stubborn streak. And that stubborn streak extends to you as well. You’ve been running around the city, out to the school, running errands on behalf of the king, and now he’s giving you a real assignment, and your first reaction is to delay?”

“That’s not it⁠—”

“Let me finish,” Jos said, raising a hand. “Plenty of us can detect whether this man is running around the city. And there are more than a few soldiers here that would give him a challenge. I realize that we aren’t Blades, but with the right fabrications, anybody can be stopped. You know that, and the king knows that, which is why I suspect the king wants you to go off and serve this way, because he thinks that this is the best way to ensure you fulfill whatever destiny he has in mind for you.”

“I’m not so sure that he has any destiny in mind for me,” Ellie said. But the sentiment was not wrong, she knew. She appreciated Jos’s bluntness. “I just feel like I could do something else,” she said. “So that when I do leave, you and the others will be in a safe space. If this man ends up being dangerous …”

“I’m sure he is. He very nearly beat you, right? Seems to me that is dangerous. You might be the best-trained fighter that I’ve ever seen. Now, there are others who might be bigger, faster, stronger, but you’ve got a combination of all those, and the king has seen to it that you have no shortage of fabrications.”

Jos glanced at her blades. They were strapped to her side, and though she didn’t share the fact with many, they were fabricated weapons, and she had the advantage of being able to channel her natural ability through them.

“Thank you, but I don’t know if you are quite right in that.”

“Anyway, what does the king have you doing?”

“I’m not sure that I can talk about it.”

“Oh? You’re not sure, so that means that you can talk about it. First thing you learn when you start getting orders is that if it’s not explicitly forbidden, then it’s not forbidden.” He smiled. “At least, that’s how I always viewed things. And considering that the two of us have spent a bit of time together, I would imagine that you would view things in a similar fashion.”

She chuckled. Leave it to Jos to simplify things for her.

“He wants me to go to Buruketh. He says there are rumors of power there and Blades missing, and I need to gather information.”

“That’s it?”

“Well, that’s the mission, although I think it’s more about what might have been discovered there.”

“So somebody with your skill set might be the best equipped to handle it. That makes a bit more sense.”

“And considering that it’s in Buruketh, I asked Tabitha if she’d come with me.”

“Two young women leaving Busal City, heading to a strange city, where the Sacred Souls only know what might⁠—”

“And the king has also instructed that I bring an Empyrean along,” she said. “He wants to keep the size of the party small, so that we don’t get too many questions.”

“Makes sense,” Jos said, nodding. “And seeing as you are as good a fighter as most of the Empyreans—although few people would know it—that’s not going to ask quite as many questions. That way, he’s going to look like he’s hired help. Or maybe your brother. So dress plainly.”

“You think that we need to go dressed plainly?” She had assumed that she would wear her usual clothing, although now that she thought about it, she should have considered Jos’s point sooner. Anything that she might do was going to draw attention to them. She couldn’t go as Dorian’s representative, and she had to be careful with how they traveled.

“You’re a smart girl, so I’m sure you’ve already given this some thought,” Jos said, as if to suggest that she should have, but that he knew that she hadn’t. “Weapons won’t look unusual. As soon as you get far away from some of these bigger cities, most people carry weapons. Even young ladies.” He flicked his gaze down at her blades. “Maybe not a pair of blades, or at least not so openly, but weapons nonetheless. And a man carrying a sword …” He shrugged. “A man wearing fabricated chain mail, now that’s a different status altogether.”

“So we need to hide our fabrications, but the fabrications themselves aren’t a problem. Got it.”

“Do you?”

“Not really. I don’t suppose you have any fabrications that you’ve gathered that might be particularly useful?” This wasn’t the reason that she had come to meet with Jos, as her real intention had been about searching the city for the assailant. “You know, in that big warehouse of yours. You’re always keeping something there.”

“We report everything that we acquire to the palace. It is required of us.” He added the last almost as if he were concerned that he needed to.

Ellie smiled. “I know that you report everything to the palace, but I also know that things don’t make it there quite as quickly as they could.” She grinned at him as a pair of children came sneaking past and looked as if they were going to try to grab at Jos’s coin purse. Ellie shot them a hard look, and they stuck their tongues out at her, before Ellie darted forward, quick as a snake, and they jumped back, scrambling away. She chuckled. “And you would do better not to look like such a feeble old man.”

“Feeble?” He snorted at her. “Old man, maybe. It’s getting close to my time to retire, you know.”

“You got a few years left in you, Jos, and besides, I can’t imagine what you would end up doing if you left your post.”

“Can’t say that I know, either. And Marge likes me working. Especially a role like this. A man can be an Investigator for a while, especially one that oversees the others.”

“And one handpicked by Zaren Joha to make sure that the Investigators are handling things the way that he would.”

“Doesn’t hurt,” he said. “But there are quite a few of us who worked directly with him. I think when it’s my time to retire, Byron would be in a good position to take over, and I’ve been trying to season him a bit, although the boy can be stubborn.”

“I think anybody younger than you is stubborn, at least according to you.”

“True enough,” he said. “Why don’t I see what we have in the warehouse, and I will send word? Before you leave.”

“The king wants us going soon, so …” She shrugged. “How about in the next day or so?”

“Fair enough. A day. I’ve got a log that I can check.”

“So you will leave me a record of what you are sending me, as I don’t want to have to go experimenting with fabrications while we are on the road.”

“I wouldn’t want you experimenting, that’s for sure. Anything you might do might end up destroying them.”

“Especially after what just happened,” Ellie said. She shivered.

“You didn’t mention anything else. Something happened?”

“It’s just that when I was fighting that man, I felt something different.” She shrugged. “I don’t know if it’s just my imagination, but some part of my ability felt a little different. I don’t really have anybody to talk to about it, so I am just going to fumble through and see if I can work it out.”

“Tell me,” he said.

He started through the crowd again, weaving through some people, and though Jos didn’t have an intimidating appearance, much of a crowd did move away. Ellie noticed that the two street thieves were still watching. She found that amusing. They must think that Jos was a reasonable target. That would be funny, were it not actually dangerous for them. If they were to steal from an Investigator—not only an Investigator but the chief Investigator—the repercussions could be steep.

As one of the boys started to get closer, she shook her head, shooting him a look.

“I just felt a burning sensation, I suppose. When I was first learning about my ability, and how to manage it, Zaren always talked about how powers felt different to each person. And with me, I feel resistance. And I’ve learned to expand that a bit, to fully understand how to have a measure of control with it, but this …”

The more Ellie had thought about it, the more she had started to feel like it was not typical for her ability. She wasn’t sure why. And it was that uncertainty that was strange to her. What did it mean that she had something new happening to her? Blades didn’t start getting new powers, but this felt new.

“It’s times like this that I wish that I had somebody like Zaren to talk about it with. Or maybe even a fabrication breaker. I thought that the man that we were dealing with was actually a fabrication breaker, as I’d heard there was one in the city already, so maybe I should find him. Now, are you ready to keep going? Maybe we wander a little bit, see what else we can find. Check a few fabrications, test the boundaries.”

What she didn’t say, what she didn’t need to say, was that they could try to figure out where her mysterious assailant had gone. The fabrications that ran through the city should have detected his presence, especially if he truly did have some Blade ability. If so, she had to wonder if she could figure out in which direction he had gone.

“Seen that look in your eyes before,” Jos said. “Can’t say that I like it.”

“No look,” she said. “Just thinking.”

“Well, I’m going to go think about what we have in the warehouse, and about what sorts of fabrications might benefit you, while you think about what other supplies you might need. Figure out what you might benefit from on the road. I would encourage you to dress like any other traveler. Nothing that would stand out. Maybe bring along something that would signify that you are traveling on behalf of the king, but nothing obvious. You aren’t going as his representative, are you?”

“No,” Ellie said.

“So don’t act like it. You go as his …”

“Agent,” she said. She shrugged. “That’s what he said. It’s better than his spy, which for a long time I thought he was trying to make me.”

“Agent. I like that. A new sort of position. You aren’t his Blade, although you might actually be still his Blade, only he’s using you a little differently than the queen used Joha and the rest of her Blades. But the king is a different man, so maybe that is for the best.”

Ellie chuckled. “Maybe.”

“All right, I will leave what I find for you at the palace. And you …” Jos smiled, and there was a hint of worry in his eyes. He grabbed her, hugged her, which was far more emotion than she usually saw from Jos, and then took a step back. “Sorry about that.”

“Thank you.”

“Oh, don’t go thanking me. I shouldn’t get all mushy. Marge is going to be disappointed that she won’t have a chance to see you before you go. But I’m sure you won’t have time to stop and chat with her.”

“If everything gets arranged, I’ll do my best. I’d like to see her.”

“Then I might have her make a loaf of bread. Something you can take along with you.”

Ellie grinned. “Then I’m definitely stopping by.”

“Figured as much.”

He studied her for a moment, then nodded before heading down the street.

Ellie noticed movement near her, and she slipped toward one of the street thieves. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“He’s got something on him,” one of the boys said. He was shorter than her by a hand and had a gap in his teeth, with dirty cheeks.

But there was a shiftiness to him that she found herself amused by. But it was more than that. Not just from him but from both of them. She used a pulse, sending it sweeping through them, and was not terribly surprised to detect some innate talent.

She was not trained to detect such things, as it was a skill that took time to master, but picking up on when somebody could use an ability similar to hers had proven valuable ever since Zaren had left the city, primarily because it allowed her to help identify people for the school.

“You two from around here?” Ellie asked.

“What does it matter to you?” the taller of the two said, a boy with wavy hair and a bit of a stoop to his back, as if he was trying to mask his true height.

She shrugged. “I just thought that somebody like you, boys with real potential, might be interested in learning how to serve the king.” She started to turn.

She heard them murmuring behind her.

“Wait,” one of them said, grabbing at her sleeve.

Ellie used another pulse, pushing him back. She was careful, doing it cautiously, but she had learned to hone that pulse of her own ability and could force him away from her.

“The king?”

She shrugged. “I serve him. And I sense some potential in you.”

“She doesn’t serve the king,” the gap-toothed boy said.

“No?” Ellie said, and then she pointed to a pin on her lapel. “What does this say?”

“Doesn’t say anything. I see no words on it.”

“That’s the sigil,” the taller of the two said. “Household. You do serve him.”

“I do. And you have a little potential. If you want to learn about it, go to the school. I assume you know where it is.” She waited until they nodded. “And tell them that Lady Ellie sent you. Ask for Karissa, and see what happens.”

“It’s a trick,” the gap-toothed boy said.

“What kind of a trick would that be?” the taller boy said. “Just to get us out of the city?”

“No trick,” Ellie said, and she grabbed the silver out of her pocket and handed it to the two boys. “Take this. Consider it a token. And when I see you next, if you are still learning, maybe we can talk about how you can earn more.”

With that, she left them behind.

She had no idea why she had felt motivated to do that, other than the fact that it felt right.

And it was the kind of thing that had once helped her. For a while, Ellie had been a street thief, and Zaren had rescued her from the streets, from her fate, or perhaps one that would have been worse. She was thankful for it. And though she wouldn’t be around to see what happened with these boys, at least it gave her a feeling that perhaps something good could come of it as she set them on a journey that might change their fate.

Now she had to focus on the preparations to start her own journey.

Chapter

Ten

Ellie was getting ready to start packing when a knock came at the door. She stood before her wardrobe, the doors flung open, a pile of clothes on her bed awaiting her to sort through before she left. Ellie didn’t know what she would need, so she had been debating what would be most helpful. She pulled the door open to see a meek-looking servant standing there, a note in hand. Ellie took it, keeping the door open as she skimmed it.

It was from Baring.

First he had come looking for her. Now he had left her a note?

That was surprising.

And he wanted to meet. Of course he did. While she was getting ready to leave. Maybe Baring had heard that she was going. He had probably spoken to Jos, and he might have thought that he could include himself in her party. However, knowing Baring, he would have felt the need to try to protect her.

Still, if he wanted to meet, far be it from her to deny him that.

She got dressed, made her way out into the streets, and headed toward the gardens where he claimed he wanted to meet, but she began to feel something following her.

It was a subtle energy, something that she detected through her recurrent pulsing of power. The more she pulsed, the more certain she was that it was there. What was more, there was a familiarity to it. She shook her head. Did he really think that he could follow her? Maybe he was testing her.

She moved forward carefully, heading toward the gardens, which were not far from the fallen temple. She knew it was a place of power, even a place connected to the fae, though she had not yet proven that, and a place that Dorian had maintained even after his sister’s passing. It was where she had gone to begin her training with Zaren.

As she drew closer, she saw a figure slipping from an alley, scanning the streets, and following. Not that Baring was doing it all that well, unfortunately. He was skilled, if he wanted to be. But he had a tendency to be sloppy.

She drifted, turning a corner, and then ducked into an alley. When he started across the street, she jumped out behind him and jabbed a finger into his back.

Baring spun, swinging around his fist, which Ellie caught easily. She forced it down.

“Did you really think that you could follow me?” Ellie asked.

Baring’s hair was longer than it had been the last time she’d seen him, and his gray jacket was a little dirty, which was unusual for an Investigator, but the deep blue eyes were the same, watching her with a look that spoke of his desire to protect her, as he always had. Unfortunately for him, Ellie had been the one with the talent, and Ellie had been the one who had often ended up protecting him.

“You knew?”

“Come on, Baring,” she said, shaking her head. “I can always tell when you are there.”

It was better she tell him that than tell him he had been sloppy in his pursuit. There had been a time when the two of them had lived on the streets, and she had needed to steal for her keep. Even then, she had been better at it than Baring. However, he had been the one to teach her, so there was something to be said about that.

“Just because of my ability,” he said, straightening.

She nodded. As an Investigator, he did have some innate ability, but not so much as she did. It came from their mother, Ellie knew, though she also knew that there were times when Baring wished that he had taken after their father, although neither of them knew that much about their father. Certainly, Ellie didn’t, although she didn’t think that Baring had that many memories of him, either.

“I heard about the attack,” Baring said.

“I’m fine.”

“I just want you to be careful.” He leaned close and then dropped his voice to a whisper. “Can we talk in the garden? There are some things we need to say that we shouldn’t be talking about out here.”

“Really?”

“Come on. Just do this for me.”

She guided them toward the garden and approached the wall, the iron gate, and the fabricated lock, which she slipped her blade into. She used a pulse of her ability through it, which deactivated the lock temporarily, before pulling the gate open. She waved for Baring to go in. And once he did, she followed. The moment that she closed the gate, the energy of the gardens washed over her.

Not just the energy, however, but the sights and aromas. Tall rosebushes created natural walls along the paths, their blooms ranging from deep crimson to pale pink, while climbing jasmine wound up ancient trellises, its sweet scent mixing with the sharper notes of rosemary and sage that grew in neat beds below.

Stone paths wound through the space. Small fountains were placed at strategic points, their gentle burbling helping to mask conversation while also feeding the elaborate irrigation system that kept the garden thriving. Ancient trees spread their branches overhead, their leaves creating a natural canopy that filtered the sunlight into dappled patterns on the ground below. In the center of the garden stood a weathered stone bench, positioned beneath the spreading branches of an enormous oak tree, whose trunk was wider than three men standing shoulder to shoulder.

Not only was it a place of beauty, but it was a place of power, and Baring knew, just as Ellie did, that it was a place that could prevent anyone from listening, even with a fabrication.

She turned to him. “All right, you got me out here. So now what?”

“I know that you are getting ready to go,” he said.

“I’m sure Jos told you,” she said. “And I’m sorry, but Dorian doesn’t want me to bring an Investigator.” At least she could tell him that, although she hadn’t even asked. “He thinks that I need to have an Empyrean with me, because he believes that I need some protection.”

“You do,” he said.

“Why do you say that?”

“It’s complicated. But I’ve been looking into some things, Ellie, and just know that you need to be careful here. I don’t think that you should take this assignment.”

“Why? Jos said you’re investigating some priests⁠—”

“Careful,” he said, dropping his voice. “They have ears.”

She started to smile. “Priests? You’re talking about the Sacred Souls here, Baring. They just want us to follow traditional celebrations.”

“It’s more than that. That’s what I’ve been looking into. These priests are different, somehow. That’s why you need to be careful.”

“I can manage myself. Besides, I need to do what Dorian wants me to do.”

He took a step back, nearly backing into one of the ornamental plants before catching himself and moving back onto the pathway. “We both know that if you didn’t want to go, the king wouldn’t force you. So maybe he shouldn’t force you. I’ve heard rumors. Some new organization that’s looking to unseat the Guild. Powerful. And it’s the kind of thing that you shouldn’t get involved in.”

“How are you hearing rumors that Jos and others aren’t?” Ellie asked. That was the more pressing matter.

Baring’s brow furrowed, and she recognized the hesitation that flashed in his eyes. “It doesn’t matter,” he said, although the hesitation in his response had her thinking that it very much did.

What was her brother getting involved in?

“If you want me to take what you have to say seriously, I think that it does matter.”

“Just an investigation I’ve been on.” He looked down. “And it’s good. I’m getting a little more responsibility, so I’m getting a chance to be more active in cases like that.”

Ellie debated how to respond to that, because while she wanted to believe her brother—and moreover, she wanted to trust him—it didn’t fit with what she knew.

“Baring, if you are getting involved in something that you’re not supposed to, you need to let me know. I can help.”

“It’s not something that you can help with,” he said. “And it’s not something that you would want to help with, anyway. This is something that I need to do. And I think that I’m getting some answers, but just trust me when I tell you that you need to be careful. If the king decides somebody has to go, just have him send somebody else. There are other Blades who can do what you do.”

That hurt. Though he was her big brother, and often acted like he had to protect her, this one stung like he had slapped her.

“Others who can do what I do? The king has been training me since I was twelve,” she said.

“I know,” Baring said. “And if he knew, he would want you to be safe. So stay. Like I said. Stay. Here.” He took out a small object from his pocket, an irregular black box, and then held it out. “If you need to, get this to the king. I imagine that he would recognize it, and hopefully, he will know why you can’t be the one to go. Can you do this for me?”

“You are acting a little strange,” she said.

“I understand, but just do this for me.”

She shrugged. “All right.”

The relief that swept over his face was hard for Ellie, especially because she knew that she was not going to do what he wanted.

“Do you want to get some food and catch up?” Ellie asked.

He shook his head. “I can’t. I just wanted to give you this and to get that warning out. I’m still in the middle of this case. And hopefully, I’ll have some answers, and when I do, I can bring you in on it. You need to know, but right now, just trust me.”

“Fine,” she said. “I will trust you.”

Only she wondered how she could.

Ellie guided him out of the palace gardens and watched him head back down the street, slipping into the crowd. She used a pulse of her ability periodically, testing where he was going, but she did not detect anything. Eventually, she decided that she needed to make her way back and finish the packing process. She was distracted, however.

While gathering some of her belongings, rolling clothes into a bundle, the door opened, and she jumped and spun to see Dorian standing there.

“You know, I really don’t like it when you just intrude on me like this.”

He offered a smile. “It is my palace.”

“But it is my room,” she said, sweeping her hand around. It wasn’t nearly as opulent as any of the rooms Dorian occupied, but it was certainly better than any room she’d ever been given. “What if I had been changing?”

He pressed his lips together, frowning. “Yes, sometimes I get a little impetuous, don’t I?” he said, and then he started to laugh. He grabbed the chair near the wall and took a seat, crossing one leg over the other.

He was alone, which wasn’t common in the palace. This was a conversation he didn’t want others to hear. Her room was unique, at least unique enough, in that there was an access to the passageways throughout the palace, but it was locked by a fabrication that only she and Dorian possessed. It led from her room to his, and to the queen’s old rooms.

“I brought something for you,” he said, patting a small satchel that she hadn’t noticed. “I figured that you would need some fabrications, and I had these crafted to help you.”

“Until I deactivate them,” Ellie said.

“That is always a concern for you.”

“Well, ‘always’ is a bit extreme,” Ellie said, “but it does happen from time to time, although never intentionally.”

He smiled tightly. “Can you tell me about the attacker?”

“You heard?”

“I get reports from the constables and the Investigators, as you know.”

She nodded. “I don’t know anything about him.”

“You think this is somebody with your talent?”

“I did, but now I’m not so sure. The power felt strange.”

Dorian nodded slowly. “Strange is challenging,” he said softly. He flicked his gaze around the room before settling it on her again.

Ellie grabbed a chair, stuffed the bundle that she had been working on inside her bag, and then took a seat.

“When I talked to you about investigating,” Dorian continued, “I had only heard some rumblings. I thought that we were going to have more time. But there is something else at work here, and unfortunately, I’m not sure what it is. It seems to be posing an increasing threat to Busal.”

He was quiet for a moment, gathering his thoughts, as he often did. Ellie knew him as well as anyone, she suspected. She had practically grown up around him, chasing him around the palace, although he didn’t like to think of it that way, and he had personally instructed her in many different subjects. He had been her mentor. And there had been times when it felt like he was a bit more, more like an uncle, although never much more than that. Still, she had played the part of his niece when she had first met him, so having him as an uncle did fit.

“My brother doesn’t want me to do this,” she said. “He said I was supposed to get this to you.” She handed him the box. She had tested it on the walk over and hadn’t found any fabricated energy within it. There was no danger to it, either. It looked old, but old could mean many things. “And he thought that it would serve as a warning.”

“And he thought that this would mean you shouldn’t go?” Dorian asked, taking it, holding it up, and turning it from side to side.

Ellie shrugged. “I didn’t say that he always makes sense. He tells me he is looking into something.”

“Your brother has been reported to be working with some less-than-savory individuals,” Dorian said softly. “I had hoped to resolve that myself and keep it from you.”

“What?”

“Nothing to be concerned about.”

“If my brother is getting involved in something like that, it is absolutely something for me to be concerned about.”

“I don’t know what it means,” Dorian said, looking up. “And I didn’t want to trouble you.”

“So you just keep tabs on him?”

“For your sake, absolutely.”

She shook her head. “You know, sometimes you can be frustrating.”

“Sometimes?”

“Well, much of the time,” she said. “So what is it?”

“Unfortunately for your brother, I think that he has it wrong. I was hesitant to have you go,” he went on, looking around, “but this tells me that you absolutely need to be the one to go. I told you that a power has been unearthed in Buruketh?”

She nodded, though that wasn’t quite what he’d shared.

“Devarel mentioned that it was an old power. Fabricated, he suspected, though that’s not his area of expertise.”

“Like Inarak or fae?” she asked.

Dorian shook his head. “Older.” He sighed. “Your scholar friend is going with you?”

She nodded.

“Good, though I am sure the scholars don’t want the distraction right now with what they’re going through. I don’t know what all this means, Ellie, but you are probably the only person I trust in Busal to discover the answer—and bring it back. Nothing more. Answers only.”

“You’re concerned about something more than you’ve shared. What is it?” Would Dorian have the same concern as Baring had?

“Ever since Mr. Joha departed, there have been rumors. Hints of something else. A different sort of organization.”

“You can’t believe that Zaren has anything to do with this,” Ellie said.

He shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t know. I have long lost track of Mr. Joha, although I am curious what he ended up finding. But no. I do not think that he is the one responsible for this. What I am concerned about is some unknown and unnamed faction. Perhaps it’s related to these fabrications. Perhaps not. And that is what I want you to look into. Find the answers, and bring them back. That’s it.” The deep, dark frown on his face told her all that she needed to know. Dorian was actually concerned she might do more. He didn’t like not knowing, and this was something that troubled him.

“I told you that I’m going to do this. I told you that I can do this.”

“I know.”

“And I⁠—”

He held a hand up. “I know. And I told you that I would assign someone to go with you. A chaperone, if you will. Although you don’t need one. But it is, of course, for appearances. Trust me when I say that this person will be handpicked, and that you will have the best of my best.”

“And you don’t want to tell me who it is?”

“I’m still debating.”

“It had better not be Nerast,” she said.

His lips quirked into a smile. “And here I thought you would have enjoyed his company.”

“I think I might’ve been a little too distracted by him,” she said, flushing a little, but this was Dorian. She shared things with him, even embarrassing things, because he often shared with her.

“Interesting. Well, perhaps not him now, although now that I know, I might have to reassign your protection when you return to Busal City.” He got to his feet and motioned to the satchel. “This is for you. I had the master fabricator make a detailed list of the fabrications within. I figured that you would benefit from that.”

“Thank you,” she said.

“Travel safely. You should leave tomorrow.”

“That’s the plan.”

“Very well. Your chaperone will meet you at the stables.”

“Great,” she muttered, and Dorian chuckled before turning and heading out.

When he was gone, Ellie continued her packing, although she did find herself thinking about what Dorian had said, and moreover, thinking about how he had wanted to protect her but also felt this was something that she would be best suited to help with. She couldn’t deny that she felt a thrill in that. Having Dorian trust her like that was a reward of sorts.

Chapter

Eleven

“Thank you, Marge,” Ellie said, hugging the older woman. Her gray hair was bound back in a bun, and she had a large, flour-covered apron on. She wrapped Ellie in a tight hug, tighter than even the one that Jos had wrapped her in. Marge stood in the doorway, as if not wanting to let Ellie go.

“You sure you need to go so soon?”

“It’s time. Jos made sure that I had some supplies,” she said, patting her satchel, along with the list of what the items were. “And I’ve got a few other items that I’ve gathered.” Since she had last seen Jos, Ellie had gone to the palace fabricators for any additional protections that she might find. She certainly didn’t know what dangers she might encounter, but she did know to be ready for anything.

“He says you’ll be gone for a while. I don’t know when you’ll be back. And I’m going to miss our dinners.”

“I will make sure to join you when I’m back,” Ellie said, smiling at her. “Because I’m going to miss them as well. Thanks for the bread.”

“Oh, can’t have you getting too skinny on that journey. What man is going to want a girl that’s too skinny?”

“I’m not worried about a man,” she said.

“Maybe not yet, but soon.” Marge winked at Ellie. “You’re a pretty girl, and you’ve probably got men chasing you. Or you will.”

Ellie snorted. “The only ones that chase me are ones who think I can give them something because I spend so much time around the king. That’s not the kind of person that I want to be around.”

“Because you have a good head on your shoulders,” Marge said. “I’ve always told Jos that. A good head, the kind of girl a mother would be proud to have marry her son.”

Ellie laughed again. It wasn’t the first time that Marge had tried to marry her off to her oldest, though she didn’t try with the same intention that she had the first few times that Ellie had come around.

She gave Marge another hug and then set off toward the palace. She really did have all her belongings together, and they were waiting for her at the stables. The next thing she had to do was gather Tabitha and then figure out which of the Empyreans Dorian had decided to assign her. Any of them would be sufficiently skilled. Knowing Dorian, he had probably chosen somebody who was a bit older and could act as a protective figure for her.

Once near the palace stables, a series of unassuming buildings near the outer wall of the palace grounds, she found Tabitha waiting, a bundle resting on the ground, a book held in front of her, and she was thumbing through the pages while she was rocking in place. Ellie cleared her throat as she approached, and Tabitha hurriedly closed the book, looking up with a bit of a flush.

“Any difficulty getting permission to leave?” Ellie asked.

“What? Oh, no. No difficulty. I’m guessing that the king sent word, because as soon as I asked, I got the clearance. Although I did tell them that I was going with you, and that we were going to Buruketh, so I suspect that had something to do with it.”

Dorian probably had, since he’d already known Tabitha was coming.

“What’s that?” Tabitha asked, pointing to the bundle of bread under Ellie’s arm.

“A loaf of bread from a friend of mine.”

“You got traveling bread?” She started to smile. “I would imagine that it was some palace chef, somebody who had to stay up all night baking for you.”

“Not from the palace,” Ellie said. “A friend’s wife. She is trying to keep me fattened up for the journey, because I think she is hoping that I will marry her son when I return, or maybe find some man while we are gone.”

Tabitha chuckled. “A man like that?”

Ellie looked over. She saw a tall, muscular man in simple pants and a casual jacket with a bundle slung over his shoulder approaching. He had a thin, curved blade at his side. And with a pulse of her ability, Ellie detected the dozen or so fabrications that he carried. She didn’t know this man.

“I …”

Tabitha suppressed a laugh.

And Ellie flushed. The man was quite handsome, with a sharp jawline, a well-trimmed beard, and intense eyes. She found him fascinating.

He paused in front of Ellie and then tipped his head to her.

“Lady Ellie,” he said. He turned to Tabitha. “And the scribe?”

“Scholar,” Tabitha said. “Scribes are a little different, and … and I realize that you don’t care. So yes. I’m the scholar.”

“My name is Jerath Asleson, and I have been assigned to accompany you.” He held out a pin, the sigil of the Empyreans, before flashing his tight smile at Ellie.

“You’re not wearing it?” Ellie asked.

“We are to go incognito, I believe,” Jerath said. “I figured from your own attire, that was the plan.”

Ellie was dressed simply in a traveling cloak over her own traveling jacket and pants, with more formal attire, along with the sigil pin of the palace, tucked into one of her bags in the stables.

“Good point,” she said. “I just wouldn’t have expected you to become incognito so soon.”

“Perhaps not, but I felt that it was best to get into character, I suppose.”

Ellie shrugged. “Whatever.”

She strode past Tabitha, trying not to look back at Jerath. He really was quite striking. She found her mare saddled and ready for her, and grabbed the reins to lead her out of the stables. “You got a horse as well,” she said to Tabitha. She didn’t have to say anything to Jerath, who had already gone in and returned with a tall dappled stallion and a saddle slung over his shoulder. He made quick work of getting the horse ready and then turned to Ellie, as if waiting.

That was it?

Tabitha came out guiding her own gray mare, and she looked pleased with the choice. “She’s named Bayel. Like the stories.”

Bayel the Steadfast was remembered for her defense of the Great Library of Yalish during the Autumn Siege. As Ellie had heard the story, Bayel had served as the First Scholar of the library. When raiders breached the city walls and began burning buildings in the district, she organized the defense of the library and its irreplaceable contents. Rather than trying to protect the entire library, she made the controversial decision to collapse parts of the building strategically, using the rubble to create a defendable position around the most valuable collections. She then led a group of scholars and students in holding off repeated attacks for eleven days, using their knowledge of the building’s architecture to maintain their position until help arrived.

It figured that Tabitha would love the name.

Jerath glanced at Tabitha before turning his attention back to Ellie. There really was a striking intensity to his gaze. And as an Empyrean, he would be skilled, but she wondered why Dorian had assigned him rather than someone else, considering there were so many Empyreans to choose from. She had expected Dorian to pick somebody older, and yet she was happy that it was somebody like this. He would at least be pleasant to look at on the journey.

“Are we ready?” Ellie asked.

Tabitha and Jerath nodded, and Ellie led them out of the yard. There was a brief stop at the gate, and she found the guards looking at her, Tabitha, and even Jerath before they passed out into the street.

“A little more delay than I was expecting,” Tabitha said. “Is it because we have horses?”

“I don’t know,” Ellie said.

The city fell away behind them as they guided their horses through the gradually thinning streets. The sun cast long shadows from the tall buildings, their upper stories leaning out over the narrow lanes. The buildings grew shorter and more spread out as they approached the outer districts of the city. Gardens appeared more frequently between structures, and the streets widened enough for wagons to pass. The air grew clearer here, free from the press of humanity and commerce that marked the inner city.

“I understand the journey leads you to Buruketh?” Jerath said.

“That’s what I understand,” Ellie said. “To Buruketh, and from there, I suppose it depends upon what we find, and then eventually back here to report to the king.”

“Very good. And it is my assignment to ensure that the Lady Ellie is safe.”

“I can take care of myself,” Ellie said. “I don’t know if you’ve talked to some of your colleagues, but I am well trained as a fighter. So I don’t need you to watch my back. I need you to appear as …” She wasn’t sure what she needed him to appear as, but maybe her chaperone. And that was irritating enough. “Anyway, I don’t need you to feel like you have to guard me at all times. This is just about appearances.”

Once they neared the edge of the city, Ellie turned south, heading toward the school. The school complex rose well outside the city walls, its high stone walls obscuring most of the training grounds and buildings within. Only the tops of several towers were visible over the walls, their slate roofs and weathervanes catching the light. Thin wisps of smoke rose from multiple points within—likely from the forges where training weapons were crafted and maintained.

“Do you miss spending time there?” Tabitha asked while Ellie was climbing into the saddle. She didn’t ride very often, but that didn’t mean that she couldn’t. Still, she would quickly become saddle sore. And for all her bluster about how she didn’t need Jerath to take care of her, the moment that he saw her stiffly getting out of the saddle, he would think that she was some dainty girl that needed his protection.

She wasn’t sure why that bothered her. She didn’t like the idea of somebody viewing her as helpless. And around the palace, very few people actually viewed her that way. But there was something in Jerath’s gaze that made her think that he was one of them.

“I never really spent that much time at the school. Not recently, at least. Although I did just find a pair of boys that might have some potential as Investigators, so there’s something to be said about that.”

“Oh? You found some boys?” Tabitha arched a brow suggestively.

“Stop it. They were probably only nine or ten years old.”

“You had to go and ruin it for me.”

As they headed toward the school, Ellie noticed a commotion. She frowned, falling silent.

The town that had grown up around the school sprawled outward from the main gates, a hodgepodge of practical buildings and busy workshops. Fabricator shops clustered closest to the school entrance, while the distinct ring of metalwork echoed from several smithies. Boarding houses and taverns dotted the streets, their signs weathered but well maintained, catering to both visitors and those who worked at the school but lived outside its walls.

Merchant carts moved steadily along the main road between the city and the school, carrying supplies and messages back and forth, creating a constant flow of traffic that kept the dust stirred up on the packed-earth road. Gardens and small farms had sprung up in the spaces between buildings, providing fresh produce to the school’s kitchens and the town’s residents alike.

“We should skirt around this to keep a better pace,” Jerath said.

“Just wait,” Ellie said. “Something’s not quite right here.”

“If we dawdle too long, the journey will⁠—”

“Just wait,” Ellie said again.

As they neared, she noticed activity near the entrance to the school. She climbed off the horse, handed the reins to Tabitha, and looked at her and then Jerath.

“Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

“Where is she going?” Jerath asked.

“I’ve learned that with Ellie, it’s better not to ask those questions. She’s probably going to check on a friend at the school before she leaves.”

“It was my understanding that we were to go quickly,” Jerath said.

Ellie ignored the exchange and headed straight toward the gate, where a pair of soldiers looked as if they were going to stop her, but Ellie pulled her hood back and glowered at them. The nearest man, one by the name of Darren, jerked back at her appearance.

“Sorry, Lady Ellie. Didn’t realize that you were here.” He had been reaching for his sword, which was a more dramatic reaction than Ellie had expected.

Something had happened here.

Ellie immediately used a pulse of her ability. It spread toward the school and then backward as well. Among the buildings that surrounded the school were several fabricator shops, so she wasn’t surprised when she felt a pressure that resisted her, but she was, however, surprised at the density of it, and it seemed a series of protections had been placed. It reminded her somewhat of the ring of protections that surrounded Busal City. Only this was new.

“What’s going on?” Ellie asked.

“Don’t know. We don’t get those reports. But the headmaster instructed us to keep guard, and to filter only the essentials into the school. You must be essential.”

She didn’t argue with that, but she questioned whether it was a mistake for her to do this, as it once again delayed her departure.

But she couldn’t leave without knowing.

“I’m essential,” she said, stepping into the grounds of the school.

When she had been here other times, there had been squads of constables training, future Investigators working with fabrications, even a handful of future Blades, all working in the yard, all training together. That was the entire purpose of the school, and the reason that it had been founded not that long ago.

That was not the case now.

Instead, there was an unnerving and uncomfortable quiet. The training yards lay empty, the practice dummies standing like silent sentinels in the late-afternoon light. Wooden weapon racks stood fully stocked, their contents untouched, while training circles drawn in chalk on the packed earth were clear without the constant scuff of boots to wear them away. The usual sounds—the clash of practice weapons, shouted instructions from teachers, the rhythmic counting of drills—were conspicuously absent, making every footstep unnaturally loud in the stillness.

Ellie found her way through the grounds until she found a familiar face. Byron was here, a flicker of concern rippling across his face.

“Ellie? What are you doing here?”

“I was just leaving.”

“That’s right. Jos said that you had an assignment.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing, really. Just that Karissa said that there were three fabrications missing. Older ones that Joha had brought to the school, but not from the old fabricator.” He shrugged. “Can’t say I know much about them, but she’s a bit concerned.”

“Three fabrications?” Zaren wouldn’t have brought fabrications here, would he? The only ones that had been brought to the school came from the old fabricator, who’d died in the attack on Busal City five years ago. Could that be what was missing?

Ellie used another pulse, but inside the grounds of the school, it was often difficult to detect anything unusual, primarily because this place was designed to test those like her. She could feel fabrications all around nonetheless. Many of them were worked into the walls of the school, as they were designed to ensure that the school would not suffer the fate of the prior training compound for the Blades. There were other fabrications here, though, many of them designed to train the Investigators and the Blades, along with some of the constables, although their ability with fabrications was limited. What fabrications would be missing?

Ellie wasn’t familiar enough with the fabrications here to know what might be missing.

“It is my understanding that you were sent on an assignment,” a sharp voice said from behind her.

Ellie spun to see Karissa, a gray-haired woman with sharp features, dressed in royal blue, striding toward her. Her gaze constantly darted around, quickly taking in everything at all times. She scanned the compound before once again settling on Ellie.

“I am. I just happened to be coming by, and I⁠—”

“I have this under control. Unless you think I need help to investigate the missing fabrications that some students have decided to take as some prank?” the headmaster asked.

Ellie looked around, but she didn’t have the feeling that this was a prank. Given the commotion, she had the sense that Karissa was more concerned than she was letting on. “This is just a prank?”

Karissa came closer, and she flicked her gaze around before once again settling on Ellie. “The students often play pranks. The only problem is this time the prank involves several more dangerous fabrications. And I am trying to find them before they become unstable. Nothing more than that. Now, if that is all … Well, I suppose it’s not all. There is the matter of the two young boys you sent my way, with the promise of more silver, I believe.”

“There was no promise of silver,” Ellie said. “They had some potential. I wanted them tested, and⁠—”

“And they are dealt with. They do have some potential, and I have instructed Carshon to put them through their paces. When I first saw you here, I thought that was why you had come over.”

“No, but I appreciate it nonetheless.”

“Good, if that is all, then you can continue on your way. I have this under control, Ellie. As I said, it is just a prank. And there are plenty of senior instructors that are capable of searching for the missing fabrications.”

She started to walk away before pausing. “And I suppose I should say thank you.”

“For what?” Ellie asked. Whenever she talked with Karissa, everything was a bit confusing, as Karissa intimidated her. And Ellie never really knew where she stood with the woman.

“For what you did for Lijanna. Thank you.”

With that, she marched away.

“You said something?” Ellie asked, turning to Byron. “You know what she’s going to do?”

“Not me,” he said, holding his hands up. “Can’t say what Jos might’ve said, because I think he’s trying to get through to her, but it wasn’t me.”

“Or maybe she just has her own eyes and ears throughout the city,” Ellie muttered. “Make sure that she’s doing all right while I’m gone. Lijanna, not Karissa.”

“I don’t think she’s going to have any problems.”

“But I think she needs a friend. Since I’m not going to be around, I need you to be that friend. Will you do that?”

“I suppose I can stop by the constable station now and again. I’ll just blame you if she gets upset with me.”

“Blame whoever you want. But just check on her.”

“I will.”

She nodded, said goodbye to Byron, and then strode back out of the school and over to where Tabitha and Jerath were waiting with the horses.

Tabitha frowned as Ellie climbed into the saddle. “So what was that about?”

“Apparently, some students are playing a prank. And I am overreacting. Now it seems that we can keep heading toward Buruketh. Let’s see how quickly we can go.”

Chapter

Twelve

The journey went about as quickly as it could, though Ellie found Jerath to be awkward company at best. He had been relatively quiet the entire time that they’d been traveling together, and every time she tried to engage him in conversation, he deflected and turned the conversation into a comment on how quickly they needed to reach Buruketh.

Tabitha was caught up in her books, although that wasn’t uncommon for her. Tabitha was usually to be found buried in a book. Every so often, she would look up and squint into the distance, and then she would turn her attention back to the book.

“Have you found anything?” Ellie asked.

“Nothing obvious,” Tabitha said. “I do think that there may be something tied to the change in the landscape here.”

The gentle farmland that surrounded Busal City had given way to rougher terrain, where plowed fields became increasingly scarce and wild meadows dominated the landscape. Hills rose and fell, each one slightly higher than the last, their slopes dotted with stands of birch trees, whose leaves flickered in the breeze. The road began to twist more frequently, following the natural contours of the land rather than cutting straight across it as it had in the flatlands.

Ellie had spent some time traveling with her brother before they had come to Busal City, but most of that had come from a need to do so. After their mother had been killed, Baring had led her away from their home in Rizanal, and the two of them had vowed to get revenge for what had happened to her. At the time, it had seemed like they were doing the right thing, doing right by their mother. Over time, Ellie had started to question that. Even now, there were times when Ellie would think about whether their mother would have been pleased by the fact that the two of them had ended up the way that they had—having stable positions and developing their skills—or whether she would have been disappointed. Ellie wondered whether her mother would have been upset that Ellie had followed in her footsteps, as she had taught Ellie about what it meant to have her Blade ability. She had certainly not taught Ellie enough for her to have known how to use it, as that skill had come when she had reached Busal City, when Zaren had begun to work with her.

After seeing Baring, Ellie had been a little distracted. She had allowed herself to be caught up in preparations, but now that she was riding, and her companions were quiet, it was easier for her to fall into the rhythm of thinking about what her brother had said, and trying to come to terms with what he had been telling her.

She didn’t know what to make of the fact that Baring was so worried about her, other than the fact that she knew he often felt like he was still the big brother and needed to keep track of her. Often, but not always. Nowadays, Ellie felt it was her responsibility to ensure that her brother was as safe as could be, because she was the one in the position to do so.

“Where do you think we should stop for the night?” Tabitha asked, breaking the silence. She guided her horse closer and patted her on the side, grinning as she did. Tabitha seemed to be enjoying this a lot more than Jerath. He was going to be unpleasant company if this was the way that he behaved the entire time. “I have a list of suggestions, depending upon how hard we want to push ourselves. The largest would be the town of Felik, but that also means that we won’t be traveling that much farther.” She flipped open her book, pointing to a map of Busal.

Ellie looked over and just laughed to herself. The town was really not that far at all, which would mean that they would have only traveled for half a day before stopping.

“I think we have to push farther than that,” Ellie said.

“Unfortunate,” Tabitha said. “The ruins there are said to be quite lovely at sunset.”

Jerath glanced over. “I thought the mission was⁠—”

“I am well aware of what the mission is,” Ellie said, trying to placate him while also keeping Tabitha engaged. Moreover, Tabitha was her friend, and she wanted her opinion. “And we will make good time. That seems to be your concern.”

Jerath flicked his gaze back at them. “As much as I would enjoy seeing the ruins, I am concerned about the attacker that you spoke about.”

Ellie hadn’t said anything to him about the attack in Busal City. She had spoken to Tabitha about it, though, and the two women had speculated about the person who had been responsible for it, and she had been left wondering if any of the Investigators in the city had figured out who that man was and what he wanted.

“You don’t have to worry about him. I doubt that he’ll come out here. He’s probably more concerned about finding something in Busal City. That’s what he was there for, after all.”

“Perhaps,” he said.

Ellie shared a look with Tabitha. “All right, so if not there, what other options do we have?”

“Along this road, which is the road that we need to take, because it’s the way to Buruketh,” she went on, grinning again, “there are a series of villages, although we probably only have a couple of options today. One is only an hour or two outside of Felik, and given the way that the big guy over there is looking at me, I think he’s going to want to push on.”

“He doesn’t decide how quickly we go,” Ellie said, making a point of ensuring that Jerath heard. “I do. This is my assignment, so I’m going to decide how much we push the pace.”

“Well, the other alternative is to go on to here,” she said, holding her book out. “It’s a tiny trading outpost, really. But once you get too far beyond Felik, everything is small.” Tabitha shrugged. “I can’t disagree with him, though, about pushing ourselves. The sooner we get to Buruketh, the more time we’ll have to study what’s there, and the more time we’ll have to figure out why the king thought you would be the best person to investigate.”

Ellie smiled tightly at that. It wasn’t so much that Dorian felt that she was the best person as it was that Ellie had convinced him that she was, but she wasn’t going to tell Tabitha that. Better to let them believe that she had his confidence. Not that she didn’t, but she had to be careful about this.

“What’s that village named?” Ellie asked.

“Robarish,” Jerath said.

Tabitha nodded. “He’s right. You must know your geography quite well.”

“Yes,” Jerath said. “And it is a small place, but it is where I intended to get to today, if it is all the same to you. It is the last easy point of rest along the road. Beyond that, we will be camping out on the road, under the stars.” The look that he gave Ellie suggested that he didn’t think that she was either willing or able to do that. “And if you are interested in ruins, there is an old temple in Robarish that some have said holds—” He seemed to catch himself, as if afraid to say more.

Ellie smiled. Regardless of what he hadn’t said, he was right. She had no interest in camping if there was a place with a bed available. Of course, a place like that didn’t necessarily guarantee that there would be a bed available.

“I suppose Robarish it is.”

“Well, that’s good. I have a list of places to stay,” Tabitha said. “One of the notebooks that Lorian thought I should bring with me was a list of contacts that we have. For the most part, it’s to gather local information, to be able to report back, but just as often, they are contacts for places to stay. At least we will have a safe bed.”

“I doubt that we will find any difficulty there,” Jerath said.

Tabitha just shrugged, and Ellie didn’t know.

They continued their steady pace.

Occasional outcroppings of gray stone pushed through the earth, worn smooth by centuries of wind and rain. The grass grew taller here, undisturbed by livestock, and clusters of late wildflowers added splashes of purple and yellow to the russet tones of early autumn. Small streams, their waters clear and swift, cut across the landscape, disappearing into shadowed valleys, only to emerge again farther down the road.

In the distance, the hills began to bunch together more densely, their overlapping shapes creating deeper shadows in the folds between them. The air grew noticeably cooler as they traveled, carrying the crisp scent of pine from the scattered evergreens that became more numerous with each passing mile.

When they neared the town of Felik, they slowed, giving Ellie an opportunity to see the town and how it compared to Busal City, but there really wasn’t much comparison. This town was quite a bit smaller, and there wasn’t nearly as much traffic, nor did she think that there were as many outsiders there.

Felik spread across the gentle slope of a hill, its buildings clustered around the intersection where the road met two smaller paths. Most of Felik’s buildings were timber-framed with whitewashed walls, their steep-pitched roofs covered in weathered thatch.

The town center boasted a modest market square, though only three stalls were occupied today, selling local vegetables and household goods rather than the exotic wares Ellie had grown accustomed to in Busal City. A two-story inn, its sign depicting a crossed hammer and plow, stood at the square’s edge. The smithy next door rang with the steady rhythm of metal on metal, while a clutch of children played marbles in the dust nearby. Narrow lanes branched off from the main road, leading to small houses with kitchen gardens and chicken coops.

The entire settlement could be walked across in ten minutes, and Ellie noted that every passing resident seemed to know each other, exchanging familiar nods or stopping to chat—a stark contrast to the anonymous crowds of Busal City.

They pushed downward, and as the day grew long, Ellie pulled out the loaf of bread that Marge had given her, tore off a hunk of it, and handed it over to Tabitha. She grabbed for some dried cheese and carved a piece off while they were riding as well. It would be better to stop and rest, but they were making steady progress, and anytime they had slowed, Jerath had given off a very strong sense of irritation, and Ellie just didn’t have it in her to argue with him. Besides, the sooner they got to Robarish, the sooner she could be off the horse for good—or at least the night—and the sooner she could get some rest.

Here she had thought that taking a journey like this would be exciting. The travel itself was … not so exciting, if Ellie were honest with herself. She didn’t mind being out here on the road, but she had envisioned it going differently, although maybe that was because she had not envisioned traveling with somebody like Jerath, who was making it quite unpleasant for her.

“That’s delicious,” Tabitha said.

“I know. I told you she is quite the baker.”

“I understand why you had to make a special stop to visit her.”

Ellie snorted. “Well, when we get back, she’s going to expect me to visit her for dinner. You should see some of the spreads of food that she has made for me. They are outstanding.”

They kept eating, and Ellie realized that she had not offered anything to Jerath.

“Would you like to try some?”

“I have my own supplies,” he said.

“Fine, but you won’t get to enjoy the sweetness of this bread, and …” She shoved another bite into her mouth, chewed quickly, and then grinned at him when he gave her a dark-eyed stare. When he looked at her like that, there was something dangerous about him, but also strangely appealing, she had to admit. Not at all like Nerast, who he sort of looked like, but who also had a wholesome competence about him. Maybe the danger was the reason that Dorian had sent Jerath with them. Maybe he thought that Ellie needed a bit of danger in her life, especially if they ran into some trouble.

They kept traveling. The old trade road wound between low hills. Unlike the well-maintained sections near larger towns, here the road showed its age and neglect. Spring rains had carved shallow channels across its surface, and weeds pushed through cracks in what remained of ancient paving stones. Occasional markers, half-buried and tilted by decades of frost heave, still bore faint carvings indicating distances to places that may or may not have still existed.

The afternoon shadows stretched long across the rutted surface, cast by pines that had taken root along the roadside. Here and there, remnants of older times could be seen—a tumbled wall that might once have been a way station, the rotted remains of a wooden bridge now replaced by a simple ford across a stream. The road itself seemed to tell a story of gradual decline, of fewer feet and wheels passing year by year, until what had once been a vital artery of trade had become little more than a suggestion of past importance.

In places, the grass had grown so bold it split the road in two, creating twin tracks where wheels still occasionally passed. The air held the musty scent of autumn leaves beginning to decay, mixed with the sharp tang of pine needles warmed by the sun.

By the time they neared the next village, Ellie was definitely getting saddle sore. They reached a stream after they moved past the village, paused to let the horses and themselves drink, and then kept going. The sun was getting low in the sky, and she started to think that pushing this hard was a mistake. But like Tabitha had said, the sooner they got to Buruketh, the sooner they could improve their understanding of what was there, and see if there was anything for her—and Dorian—to be concerned about.

She felt the quiet around her, felt the absence of energy, other than that which they carried, and realized that might be what was most off-putting to her. Ellie was accustomed to feeling different magical energies at all times. She couldn’t go anywhere in Busal City without having some presence and pressure of magic around her. Out here, however, there was nothing. It was just quiet.

Tabitha looked over, and Ellie forced a smile.

“I just realized how everything feels out here,” Ellie said.

Tabitha’s brow furrowed before she seemed to comprehend, and she nodded. “I imagine that given what you’ve told me of how you detect magic, it would feel very different. I didn’t even consider that. When was the last time you left the city?”

“Like this?” She shook her head. “It’s been years. I have stayed and trained, because that is what the king wanted me to do. And …” She shrugged again. “And I suppose that is what I wanted to do, because I always believed that there was something more for me, that I would have a larger responsibility and the king was going to ask more of me.”

“Well, now he has.”

“Now he has,” she said.

Ellie fell quiet and just fell into the rhythm of the horses. As the darkness began to fall, she started to think that maybe everything that she had wanted had not been nearly as exciting as she had imagined. And this was only one day out. What was she going to feel like when she was farther from everything and everyone that she knew?

“There,” Jerath said, nodding toward the flickering of lights in the distance.

In the growing darkness, it was good to see the lights, to know others were out here. Ellie used a pulse of her ability, testing whether there was anything inside the village, and didn’t detect anything. It was quiet. That wasn’t terribly surprising, but it was reassuring. The only thing she felt was the fabrications that they carried, and something familiar, and old. There was just a faint, barely detectable sense of old power within the village.

“There were Inarak here,” Ellie whispered, looking at Tabitha. “Did you know that?”

“We don’t have any records of their settling here,” Tabitha replied. “Maybe that’s what Jerath was talking about.”

Ellie shrugged. “Well, there is something here. It’s long gone, just a memory of power, but it was here.”

“A memory?” Tabitha asked.

Ellie found Jerath looking back at her, but she ignored him. “It’s something that I can do, something that I can tell. As far as I know, not all the Blades are able to do it quite as well as I can.” At least, that was something that she had heard from many of the fabrication breakers that she had worked with, along with Zaren, when he had spent some time with her. “I’m able to pick up on a history of power in a place, I suppose. I can feel what it was, and what it could have been. And in this case, what I feel here is very faint, but there was something here at one point, and it was significant. Significant enough that I can feel it even now.”

“Can you tell what it was?”

“Not particularly. Maybe when I’m closer. Most of the old Inarak things are buildings or temples, but maybe this was just some Inarak outpost. I don’t know.” And considering the fact that the energy here was quite faded, she doubted that whatever was here had been all that significant, anyway.

She continued her pulsing, sending out wave after wave as she got closer, and could feel the faint stirring of that power, and she did wonder what had been here. Moreover, Ellie wondered if that ability of hers might actually be the most useful thing that she had with her on this journey. Because it might give her the ability to test, and attack, other fabrications that had come through.

Something Dorian once said came to her. “Strength isn’t in power. It’s in choice.”

And perhaps Dorian, for all his frustrating wisdom, had anticipated she’d need to make a choice.

Chapter

Thirteen

They got settled in a quaint little home near the northern edge of the village. Its stone walls, built from the same gray rock that dotted the surrounding fields, rose just one story tall, topped by a steep thatched roof that had been recently patched with fresh straw. A crooked chimney puffed thin wisps of woodsmoke into the air, while ivy had claimed the northern wall, its tendrils creeping between the stones.

The front door, painted a faded blue that matched the window frames, faced the road, with a small herb garden flanking the flagstone path. The fragrance of the herbs mixed with the sweet scent of the climbing roses that arched over the door. A weathered bench sat beneath the front window, positioned as if to catch the morning sun and watch the occasional traveler pass by.

The kindly widower who owned the home welcomed Tabitha quickly, especially after Tabitha showed her that she worked with Lorian, somebody that she had some experience with, it seemed. She showed the two of them to a room in the back of her home, and Ellie saw a reasonably comfortable bed, though it wasn’t wide enough for the two of them, pressed against the far wall, its wooden frame polished by years of use and care. A handmade quilt in faded blues and creams covered the mattress, accompanied by two plump pillows encased in white linen. A small window with lace curtains looked out onto a vegetable garden, letting in the fading light that caught dust motes dancing in the air.

To the left of the bed stood a simple oak dresser. A tarnished mirror hung above it, reflecting the warm glow from the iron lamp mounted on the wall. Near the door, a straight-backed chair with a worn cushion provided a place to sit, while a brass hook on the back of the door offered a spot for hanging cloaks or clothes. The wooden floorboards, though old, had been swept clean, and a braided rug in earthy tones added a touch of comfort underfoot.

For his part, Jerath had been interested in taking up a position outside the home and claimed that he was perfectly content sleeping on the ground. Ellie wanted to argue, but at this point, she decided that she wasn’t going to do so, primarily because there wasn’t room enough in the home for him to stay, and Tabitha didn’t know if they would be able to find any other places. So it was the ground for Jerath.

Ellie and Tabitha sat at the table inside the home, enjoying some roasted vegetables, flatbread, and a freshly squeezed juice that Ellie couldn’t quite place but was incredibly sweet. Ellie kept looking over at the door. The homeowner, a woman by the name of Mavys, moved around the kitchen while Ellie and Tabitha were seated.

“Do you think that we should just try to find a way for him to sleep in the room with us?” Ellie asked. “Not that I want him to, but I just question whether we should be leaving him outside like that.”

“You really want some strange man sleeping in our room?”

“Not particularly,” Ellie said. “Although the king obviously trusted him, because he sent him with us.” She could easily imagine Dorian’s reaction at learning that she had kept his chosen Empyrean from keeping watch. “I really don’t know, to be honest.”

Tabitha popped a hunk of the flatbread into her mouth. Mavys glanced over, and Tabitha nodded to her before leaning in, dropping her voice to a whisper. “Something about him strikes me as off.”

“He’s just intense,” Ellie said.

“Maybe that’s all it is. You have quite a bit more experience with the Empyreans than I do. But I can’t shake the feeling that something about him is strange. It might just be me. We should try to get to know him a bit, figure out why he was so willing to come on this journey with you.”

Ellie smiled at that. “I can answer that one pretty easily. He came because it was his assignment. All the Empyreans are devoted to their assignments, and they are devoted to Busal.”

“But are they devoted to the king?”

Ellie couldn’t believe that Tabitha was asking that, but maybe it was a reasonable question. They hadn’t seen any sign of discontent after Dorian had ascended to the throne, but Ellie wouldn’t rule it out, because it had been an unusual succession.

“I don’t know,” Ellie said. “I honestly don’t have a good answer.”

“I don’t, either. And I just wanted to see if there was anything that you were concerned about. You are usually on top of these things.”

“I’d be more concerned about the man who attacked me in Busal City. Thankfully, we’ve put some space between us and the city, and⁠—”

“Unless he’s following you.”

“I would know,” Ellie said.

“I hope so,” Tabitha said.

Mavys placed a couple of mugs of steaming tea in front of them. “What can I tell you, ladies?”

Ellie looked over. The tea had a minty aroma to it, but it seemed to have a bit of cinnamon as well. It was an odd combination. “We would appreciate hearing any rumors that you’ve heard of movement out of the north and east,” Ellie said.

“Not so much rumors,” Mavys said, grabbing a chair and taking a seat. She had her own mug in hand and tapped one long, crooked finger on the mug as she sat there, looking over it as she took a deep breath. “We don’t get many travelers from there. The border has been pretty secure.”

“Anything at all, though?” Ellie asked. “Even anything that you normally wouldn’t think much about?”

Mavys smiled. “Oh, stories, but stories are just that.”

“What kind of stories?” Tabitha asked, and she immediately pulled out a notebook from her bag and flipped it open. Was she really going to take notes? “I told Lorian that I would document anything unusual.”

“That man loved to find the strangest little nuggets,” Mavys said, laughing softly. “The last time I saw him was in Edgertil.”

“You didn’t know him when you were here?” Tabitha asked.

“No, not here. I came here later. He and I were friends a long time ago.”

“Well, I do appreciate you putting us up for the night.”

“Of course. There are others who would house you as well. It’s a pretty welcoming place. We don’t get many visitors traveling through and continuing north. Care to tell me what has brought you out here?”

“We aren’t sure,” Ellie said. “I work with the king, and he is concerned about some rumors from the north. Some of the people guarding the border have suggested that something unusual is taking place. And he asked me to take a look.”

“You must be a Blade, then.”

Ellie was quiet for a moment. But of course, considering what she was doing on Dorian’s behalf, and the fact that Mavys was connected to the scholars, and to Lorian in particular, she suspected that Mavys knew more than she was letting on.

“We’ve seen a few Blades moving through here, although none recently.” She leaned toward Ellie, arching a brow. “I imagine something like that gets the king’s attention.”

Ellie wasn’t sure what the woman was getting at, but she had heard that there had been some activity with the Blades. She had thought that she would have detected others as they’d traveled, and she still had not.

“Have you heard what happened to them?”

“Just that they are not around. Curious, I think. Something that would make one investigate.”

“Well,” Ellie said, getting to her feet, “I think that I need to check on our companion.”

Mavys twisted, glancing at the door. “I told him that he could have the floor in here, but he seemed quite adamant that he guard outside. I don’t think he is going to find anything there, but a soldier has that stubbornness to him.”

“How did you know he was a soldier?” Tabitha asked.

“A man like that, with that intensity, can be nothing else. Probably highly trained, especially if he was tasked with guarding the two of you, although if she is a Blade,” she went on, glancing at Ellie, “chances are good that she doesn’t require much in the way of protection. You might need to do a better job of hiding that as you travel, assuming that you want to. Considering that you came disguised, I suppose that you do.”

Ellie smiled tightly. “I will have to talk with him,” she said.

“Again, not much of concern here, but depending on how far north you go, there may be. If you go beyond the border, go beyond Buruketh, even, people are going to start asking questions.”

“Thank you,” Ellie said. She glanced at the table, grabbed another bite of the flatbread, and then headed out.

Jerath was standing guard, or so it seemed. The horses were tied to a post in the yard and grazing, seemingly unconcerned about the fact that they were not stabled for the night. As far as Ellie had been able to tell, there were no stables available here. The village wasn’t very large, probably no more than a couple of dozen houses, a few businesses, but no stables. No barns. Nothing of that sort.

“Our host has got some food, if you’d like,” Ellie said.

“I brought my own supplies,” he said.

“You don’t have to be like that, you know. I can handle myself, and I can handle my own protection.”

“The king⁠—”

“You can relax here, Jerath. The king sent you to ensure that we kept up with appearances. I doubt it was much else. I don’t think that he is overly concerned while we are still in Busal. Maybe you can tell me a bit about yourself, about where you’ve served, about your training, and …”

As she spoke, she saw Jerath stiffen slightly.

“Or not,” she muttered. If he didn’t want to talk, then she wasn’t going to push the issue. It didn’t matter, as far as she was concerned. It might have made the journey a little bit easier to get to know him, but if he didn’t want to talk, it didn’t really make a difference. “I’m going to walk around the village. You stay here. Keep guard.”

“I am supposed to⁠—”

Ellie held her hand up, cutting him off. “We’re in a village where it’s safe. I have little reason to think that somebody here in the village will attack. Besides, Tabitha needs you more than I do.”

She smiled as she turned away, setting off to walk through the village.

The village intersected the old road, its thirty-odd buildings clustering around the faded route as if still waiting for the merchant caravans that now rarely passed. Stone cottages with slate roofs showed their age in moss-covered corners and generations of patched walls, while newer, wooden additions leaned against them.

There was something peaceful about it, and it reminded her a little of her home, before she had come to the capital. Rizanal was a larger town than the village here, but it was still quiet. Her mother had served as the Blade there, although they were near a border, so she understood—especially now—the reason behind her mother’s service. At the time, she had only really known that her mother had served the queen, and did so by using her special gift, as she had called it. She had worked with Ellie, helping her to learn about what it meant to touch upon the deep power within.

She paused, looking at a small square, and was reminded of a similar one in her hometown, where her mother had first worked with her.

“You have to first feel it inside you,” she had said. Her mother had Ellie’s dark hair and was a little taller than Ellie had ended up, but otherwise, they shared many of the same features. Ellie had always thought her mother lovely, and after their father had abandoned them, many of the townsmen had apparently felt that way as well, harassing her into having a relationship with them. “I can sense it when you pick up on it. You have this look on your face when you do.”

“I do?” Ellie asked.

“You do. You flinch, although I think that you should be less inclined to flinch and more inclined to focus on what you feel. Welcome it.”

“I didn’t realize that I was flinching.”

Her mother pulled out a small item and set it on the ground. It was an irregularly shaped box with markings along its surface. Ellie immediately began to feel an itching deep inside her, although she wasn’t quite sure why.

“You’re doing it again,” her mother said.

“I think something is irritating me,” Ellie replied.

“Or maybe you are picking up on this. I don’t generally keep items of power around the house, so you wouldn’t be exposed to power, except this one I wanted to test with you. It is harmless. It’s infused with a little bit of energy because somebody thought that it would help buy them affection,” she said, shaking her head, “but it does have a better purpose—at least for us. Can you feel it?”

“My itching?”

“Itching, but I’d like you to feel it differently than that. The itching is your reaction to this item. I’d like you to focus on where that itching comes from.”

That had been her mother’s first lesson, giving Ellie an opportunity to detect where she felt her connection. And by the time she had gotten to Zaren, Ellie had been more attuned to her Blade ability and had been better able to use it and to expand her connection to it. Zaren had helped, but then he didn’t have any more experience than she did. He was just stronger than her.

Ellie moved on, saw a couple of children chasing after a leather ball that they were kicking down the street, and smiled to herself. Maybe that would have been her fate had she stayed in Rizanal, had her mother survived, and she couldn’t help but wonder what that would have meant for her. Would she have been content?

She had been filled with anger after her mother’s death, although not nearly as much as Baring. He had been quite angry. But losing both of their parents had been hard—probably harder on him because he had actually known their father, unlike Ellie, who had very few memories of him. In some ways, Ellie hadn’t really had a father, not until she had gotten to Busal City and had a chance to work with people like Zaren, Dorian, and at times, even Jos. She smiled at that. She should be comfortable with that, feeling as if she had been blessed, instead of cursed by losing a father.

She used a pulse of her ability, the way that she often did, testing whether there was anything here that she could detect. There was nothing, little more than a memory, but she still wanted to make sure that she didn’t overlook anything. As she focused, however, she knew that there had been something here.

That was odd. It was a faint fabrication.

But it was not just that it was a faint fabrication; it was that it was familiar.

Ellie tore her gaze away from the activity here. She stopped watching the children, and she started to pay more attention to that memory of power. It was a memory, as it did not seem to be active, at least not now, but that didn’t mean that it had not been active recently.

The village centered on a modest courtyard, where worn cobblestones created an uneven surface that had withstood generations of footsteps. A stone well dominated the center, its wooden roof weathered to a silvery gray and decorated with climbing vines. Three ancient oak benches formed a rough triangle around the well. The surrounding houses, none more than two stories tall, leaned toward the courtyard, their window boxes spilling over with geraniums and herbs.

From here, she could use her ability, and she could expand that outward as she used a repetitive, frequent rippling of power. And in the process, Ellie started to detect that there was more around her.

Strange, but it was distinctly there.

She used another pulse, one after another. And then she began to follow the memory of power.

As far as she could tell, the fabrication had never actually come into the village itself. She reached the outskirts, saw the road, and created another pulse. She used a rhythm of them, a cycle that was something innate and tied to a trick that she had learned in order to track memories of power, and then she had it. She felt the trail, saw in her mind the way that it was moving. It wasn’t just a single fabrication, though. There were several, all of them familiar to her. She had not noticed them before, somehow.

But why would she be picking up on fabrications that Baring carried with him?

Chapter

Fourteen

The road was quiet, and Ellie had been relatively quiet the entire morning after making preparations, wanting nothing more than to just get going on the road, so that she could test if she truly had picked up on something of Baring. She had spent quite a bit of time the night before following the trail, before realizing that it was going to keep leading along the road. And she’d had no interest in staying on the road and running the risk of getting lost in the darkness.

When she had returned and shared with Tabitha what she had felt, her friend had been surprised but had agreed with Ellie that they should pursue it.

She had not, however, shared with Jerath.

Something about what Tabitha had said stuck with her. He did have an intensity. Ellie found herself trying to figure out if that intensity should bother her, or if she should be pleased by it, thinking that if nothing else, that intensity would mean that he would be protective. She hadn’t been able to decide which way she felt.

Mavys had provided them with some supplies, mostly dried fruits and bread, and now they were loaded with even more supplies than they had before. And Tabitha had spent the evening getting the woman’s gossip, although Ellie doubted there was anything to that gossip that would be of much use.

“What do you think your brother would be doing out here?” Tabitha asked.

“He wouldn’t,” Ellie said. “He’s an Investigator, so he wouldn’t.”

“Unless somebody took the fabrication that he was wearing? That’s what you’re picking up on, right?”

“It is,” Ellie said.

“So could something have happened to him?”

She had seen her brother only a few days before she’d left. But at that point, her brother had offered her a warning, trying to scare her out of making this journey.

“I have no idea,” she said. “He got caught up in something—that much I know—but I’m not sure what, and because of that, he might have been dragged out of the city. Maybe he decided to come here knowing that I would come here.”

She could imagine her brother doing that, unfortunately. It had been a long time since she had needed her brother to protect her, though that didn’t mean that he wouldn’t think that he needed to protect her while she was off on Dorian’s job. But there was the possibility that he had gotten involved in something that had pulled him in, and that meant that she would need to watch out for him.

“Can you still feel anything?” Tabitha asked.

Ever since they’d left right as the sun was coming up, Ellie had been picking up on the faint trail. It was subtle, and fading. Had she not been aware of it, she might not have detected it. There were different types of fabrications, Ellie had learned. For the most part, fabrications were essentially items that stored power. They themselves were not necessarily powerful, but the kind of power that they stored, and the construction used to store it, was what made them powerful. And the more capable the fabricator, the more potent a fabrication could be. In the case of the kinds of fabrications that she and Baring generally carried, the energies were subtle because of the overall weakness of the fabrication. They would fade over time. Other types of fabrications, such as the potent Inarak ruins, which were fabrications built on a much larger, more powerful scale, produced a very different feeling.

“I feel it, but what I feel is subtle,” Ellie said, staring along the road.

The road stretched before them, its packed earth worn smooth over the years, though not a single soul disturbed the path now. On either side, tall grass swayed in the afternoon breeze, golden tips catching the sunlight and creating waves that rippled to the horizon. In the distance, mountains pierced the sky, jagged peaks covered with vibrant white that gleamed against the daylight.

A few weathered markers, engravings faded by time and the elements, stood as sentinels along the roadside, wrapped in climbing vines whose pale blue flowers had yet to open for the evening. The air carried the sweet scent of wild thyme that grew in patches along the verge, mingled with the crisp, clean scent that drifted down from the distant peaks.

Jerath stayed in front of them, riding rigidly, and he swept his gaze all around, as if looking for some sort of ambush. Ellie found that amusing, mostly because it would be pretty easy for them to see if anybody else was nearby. They had seen nothing.

After wandering the village, she’d found Jerath near the ruins he’d mentioned. When she had come across him, he had been kneeling, facing toward the fading sunlight, and almost looked to be praying. There was something unusual about that, but she had not been interested in approaching, wanting to give him space. She could ask him questions later.

“Well, if he is heading in the same direction that we are, maybe what he’s gotten involved in is tied to what the king wants you to investigate. Do you think that the king could have known about your brother’s involvement?”

“I think that he does,” Ellie said. “But I think that he does because I’m the one who told him. Baring asked me to give the king something. I don’t know what it was, although I don’t think that it was powerful. He just suggested that I bring it to the king, and that the king would recognize the danger to me.”

“And you brought it to him, but the king didn’t recognize any danger to you.”

“I don’t have the feeling that the king thought there was a danger to me.”

“All right. So what, then?”

Ellie didn’t know. And until they caught up with her brother—if they caught up with him—she wasn’t sure what to make of it, nor was she sure that she would act calmly by the time she got to him.

“Let me know if the power changes,” Tabitha said.

“I don’t need to burden you with that,” she said.

“You’re not burdening me with anything. Just let me know if it changes, and I will tell you which way he’s going, assuming that he’s taking a different direction.”

Ellie nodded. “Thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me. Not about that. This is your brother. I don’t know him very well, but I understand siblings. I have two older sisters, but they can be awfully difficult as well.”

“Being the youngest isn’t easy,” Ellie said.

“Oh, I’m not the youngest. I’ve got two younger sisters as well.” She grinned. “I’m in the middle. My poor father, all these girls and no boys. My grandfather used to say that they kept trying because he wanted a boy. But I think he enjoys being a girl dad.”

“Even with a daughter like you? I would’ve figured that he had gotten tired of all the questions.”

Tabitha glowered at her. “You enjoy my questions.”

“I enjoyed the way that you used to fluster our instructors. I didn’t always like the fact that you would delay our classes with your questioning.”

“I couldn’t be a scholar if I didn’t ask questions. And besides, everything that I asked was helpful for you. Or it should have been if you had been paying attention.”

Ellie snorted. She always paid attention, but then again, Tabitha knew that.

As the day grew long, they reached a stream, paused for the horses to drink, and Ellie surveyed the mountains that were looming in the distance. She could just start to make out the peaks, with swirls of cloud around them, and she pointed to them.

“Not cloud,” Tabitha said. “Snow.”

“Even at this time of year?”

“I think they are snow-covered almost all year round.”

“I didn’t know that,” Ellie said.

“One more thing that you weren’t paying attention to.”

“I’ve paid attention,” Ellie said.

“If you had paid attention, you would have remembered Master Therash talking about the mountains, about the single pass through them, the way to the lands beyond.”

“And if you had paid attention, you would have remembered that you can get to those same lands by ship.”

“I’m not saying you can’t. I’m just saying that if you had paid attention, you would’ve heard about the mountains.”

“The Osidarn Pass,” Jerath said, breaking his silence.

Tabitha nodded. “That’s right. Named after King Osidarn, who lived about a thousand years ago, and supposedly held the pass against raiders out of the north. Depending upon which version of the story you listen to, it was either the Ukar people of the mountains or the Vinalt tribes beyond the mountains, or⁠—”

“Armies of the fae,” Ellie said.

Tabitha shook her head. “None of that is true. No armies of the fae came through the mountains.”

“I’m just saying what one of the stories suggests,” Ellie said. “Wasn’t that what you said? Depending upon which story you listen to, you would⁠—”

“Fine. Depending upon which story you listen to, it could even be the fae, although have we ever known the fae to come in such numbers? Assuming that you even believe that the fae spent any time here.”

At least Tabitha didn’t question the reality of the fae. Tabitha, like many people within Busal City who served the royal archive, had had an opportunity to study the Twilight Gate that was buried beneath the city. It was a transition from the fae realm to theirs, and though Ellie had rarely seen it activated personally, she had known those who believed that it could be, and there were stories of those who would cross over. But Tabitha was right. The fae were never said to have come in many numbers. That was the purpose of the Inarak. They were the servants of the fae in this realm, offering them protection, and perhaps more, although even there the stories were sparse and difficult to interpret.

“No,” Ellie said finally, “no fae.”

“The two of you speak of them as if they were real,” Jerath said.

Ellie smiled tightly. “Well, I had a mentor who was quite confident in their existence.” She shrugged. “And truth be told, I trust him more than I trust almost anybody else. So if he believes that the fae are real, even if I’ve never seen them, I guess I’m going to believe that they are real. Besides, in the time that I have been in Busal City, I’ve seen some strange things.”

“And we know just how powerful they are,” Tabitha said.

“None are more powerful than Him,” he said.

He turned to face the road.

Ellie wondered what he meant by that, but something about it struck her as odd, especially considering that she’d seen him praying near the ruins. Could Jerath be that devout? Not that Ellie could judge him for that, but it just surprised her, as there were not many in Busal who were. Although there had been rumors of priests coming through the city, so perhaps Jerath had started to follow them.

“He’s a lot more intense than I would’ve expected,” Ellie muttered. And she was left wondering why Dorian had sent somebody like him with her. Maybe because he had a practicality to him. Or maybe Dorian hadn’t known that he would be such a sourpuss. More likely, knowing Dorian, he had simply looked for the most talented and capable of his Empyreans. She hadn’t seen Jerath’s skill, and maybe it was time that she changed that, so that she could get a sense of what kind of fighter he could be. Not only that, but she wondered if he needed to get a sense of her skill, so that he would not fear for her ability to protect herself.

They could do that when they stopped, though.

Ellie fell silent, and she continued to use pulses of her ability and felt for the trail of her brother. Every so often, she would feel something distant and behind them, which she wasn’t quite sure how to describe, but she was aware of it nonetheless. Maybe she was picking up on the distant sense of the village, primarily because there were no other fabrications behind them that she should be able to feel. Regardless, Ellie continued to test.

It was getting closer to dark, and they had started to have conversations about stopping for the night when Ellie noticed that same sense behind them, only now it seemed a little closer.

She turned, looking back. She used a sharp, crackling pulse of her ability and then layered the pulses one on top of another. This was not an attempt to detect a memory, not as she had been using the power to pick up on her brother’s trail, which had been heading in the same direction that they were going, anyway. This was simply to pick up on whether any other power was trailing them.

Unfortunately, it did seem there was something there.

“We’ve got someone behind us,” Ellie said.

“It’s a pretty well-traveled road,” Tabitha said. She didn’t ask how Ellie had detected that and just accepted the fact that she had. “Maybe not these days, but it once was. And if you are heading to Buruketh, this is really the only way to go.”

“I know, but whatever’s behind us, whoever’s behind us, is making time. And more than that, I can feel that they have some power with them.”

“What does it feel like?” Jerath asked.

It was the first time that he had asked about her ability, and it was a good thing that he had, because she needed him to understand that she was the reason they were here, not him. It was her ability. It was what she had trained to do.

“When I test for fabrications, or other powers, I use aspects of an innate ability. It’s the ability that makes me a Blade.” She used an explanation that she used when working with the constable trainees at the school—at least, when she had still been teaching at the school. It had been a long time since she had spent much time at the school, so it had been a little while since she had given this particular talk. “With the right force, I can detect if there are any trailing energies. Most of the time, power is tied to fabrications. That’s the most common type of power. Not the only kind that I can detect, but the most common. And when I use my ability now, I can detect that something is behind us. I thought it was coming from the village before, from the old ruins.” Ellie hadn’t taken the time to investigate those ruins when they had been there, as the power had been faint enough that she doubted there was much to them. “But it seems to be keeping up with us, and now it’s getting closer.”

“Fabrication or something else?”

“I can’t tell,” she said, shrugging. She used another pulse, and once again she felt that faint energy, but that was it. It was like a ripple in a pond. “It’s far enough away that it’s difficult to detect.”

“So it could be something else,” he said.

“I suppose that it could, but it’s unlikely. There aren’t many with real powers. Certainly not in Busal.”

“Other than those like yourself.”

“Mine isn’t …” She trailed off, because she couldn’t really argue with the fact that hers was a power. It was different from some, but power nonetheless. “Anyway, we need to be aware of it, especially because it is still moving toward us.”

“Which means what, exactly?” Tabitha asked.

“Well, it means that we either have to be extremely vigilant when we camp, or we keep pushing until we are comfortable it is no longer following, camp while it isn’t following, and then move on first thing in the morning.”

“You can’t tell how many are back there?” Tabitha asked.

“I can’t, and I don’t even know if it makes much difference. We just need to be careful, don’t we? That’s the whole point of this journey. We are supposed to look like travelers. We aren’t supposed to get into any situation that puts us into danger.”

Tabitha sighed. “I suppose. I don’t like it. I want to get out of this saddle, and I want to rest. And I was hoping to have some time to read. I haven’t had a chance to read up on some of the more recent history of Buruketh. I am not going to be quite as useful for you.”

“I’m sure you’re going to be plenty useful,” Ellie said. “Now, can we keep moving?”

She looked over at Jerath. He was staring into the distance, into the darkness, as if he could pick up on what was coming. And she didn’t know if he carried any fabrications with him that would allow him to do so. With the right fabrication, it was possible that he could. Still, that would be quite a potent fabrication for him to wield, and she would have detected something along those lines.

“Yes,” he said. “Let us keep moving. It would be best to stay ahead of whatever you detect. And if needed, I can ride back and confront it.”

“Aren’t you supposed to keep her safe? How can you do that if you ride back?” Tabitha asked.

“It was an offer,” he said.

“Not needed,” Ellie said. “But thank you.”

And really, if anybody was going to ride back, shouldn’t it be Ellie?

Especially if it meant keeping Tabitha safe.

Better to keep moving, stay ahead of it, and take time to test if it was dangerous.

Because until she knew that, it made no sense to confront it.

Chapter

Fifteen

They camped for the night, though Ellie didn’t feel very comfortable with the camping and remained on edge for the possibility of an attacker appearing at any moment. So far, there had been no sign of anything more than the steady pursuit, though it had eventually faded, giving her some optimism that they had put enough space between themselves and whoever was pursuing them to ensure that they could keep ahead of them.

Now they sat in a small copse, the heat from a small fabrication pushing back the growing chill of the night, nothing but darkness around them. The shadows of the trees twisted around them, creating strange patterns that seemed to move with lives of their own. Darkness pressed in like a thick curtain, broken only by occasional glimpses of starlight filtering through the canopy above. Every so often, a night bird’s call or the rustle of leaves in the wind would make the shadows jump and shift, causing Ellie’s heart to skip a beat before settling back into its nervous rhythm.

Tabitha had leaned forward, her book open in front of her, a tiny arcane lantern creating just a bit of light, pushing back the darkness and giving her a chance to read. Jerath had objected, but Ellie had overridden him because she figured that they had enough time, and for that matter, enough of a warning that they weren’t in much danger from whoever was back there.

She was tired, though.

Ellie had been using her ability quite a bit. It took time to recuperate.

“You should rest,” Jerath said. Even in the shadows of night, there was a gruff energy to him.

She wasn’t going to argue. She had been so focused on the pursuer that she had not paid as much attention to tracking her brother, so she used a faint pulse, a little ripple, and slowly began to pick up on his trail. That was good. She had been somewhat concerned that she had lost it, that there would be no evidence of Baring still ahead of her, but thankfully, it was still present. She was growing increasingly concerned about why he had come out here, and for that matter, what her brother had been involved in, but she had to think that it was tied to the reason that she was out here.

“I don’t suppose you’re reading has revealed anything about what we might find in Buruketh?” Ellie said.

Tabitha glanced in her direction, then slowly crawled closer, holding the book in her lap, the lantern underneath it, so that the light would really not be all that bright. From a distance, however, Ellie suspected that anybody would have been able to see them. “Buruketh is a unique place. It’s separated enough from Busal and from the neighboring mountains that it’s quite isolated. So unless your brother is tied to some of the reports of fabrications that have been moving, I’m not really sure why he would come here.”

“My brother wouldn’t be tied up in that,” Ellie said.

“Are you sure?”

She let out a heavy sigh. There had been a time when she would have known, but now she simply didn’t.

“No,” she admitted. “Jos warned me that he had been causing some difficulty for him, and I think he wanted to warn me a bit more about my brother, but he was also worried about saying anything to me about him. Typical of Jos.”

“You think he was afraid to hurt your feelings?”

“He’s trying to protect me in his own way. That’s not unusual for him. He still sees me as a kid.”

Tabitha smiled. “And the king?”

“I don’t think Dorian sees me as a child any longer, but then again, I don’t know that he ever did.” She noticed Jerath patrolling, making a circle around them as if he needed to keep watch. Maybe he thought that he did. But as she mentioned Dorian by just his first name, he glanced in her direction and frowned. Maybe he didn’t like it that she spoke of him so casually. Then again, many of the Empyreans that she’d been around felt that way, she knew. They viewed her familiarity with him with some skepticism and maybe a bit of concern for how she might leverage that. However, Ellie had been a presence and a fixture in the palace for longer than most of them, so she ignored it. Most of the time. “He’s always treated me a little differently.”

“You don’t like to talk about it.”

“What’s there to talk about?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Your first connection to him. He’s sort of aloof. That’s what everybody says. He’s never had any romantic entanglements”—Ellie laughed at that because she couldn’t even imagine Dorian in a romantic entanglement—“and doesn’t really have much of a connection to many others. You and Hadrian might be the only people that he’s truly close to.”

“I think Hadrian is more out of necessity than desire,” Ellie said. “And he is useful. That’s how Dorian views people, you know. Who can be useful to him.”

“So you think that’s all he wanted you for?”

Ellie shrugged. “I think there’s something to be said about that. Can I be useful to him?” She shrugged. “I try to be. And that was how I stayed in the palace when I first went there. I wanted to prove myself. Well, and I wanted to get off the streets.” She smiled at that. Zaren would never have let her actually stay on the streets, but getting to work more with Dorian had ensured that was the case. “Over time, I’ve become closer to him, but he is still distant.”

“Would you consider him a friend?”

It was an odd question, and yet would she?

“I think I’m friendly with him, and I think that I’m probably as close as anybody is with him, other than his sister used to be.” She shook her head. “It was hard on him, you know. When the queen died, Dorian struggled. He didn’t let anybody else see it, but I did. I knew him before, and I knew him after, and I just knew how hard it was on him. That and ruling.”

“That’s something that I wanted to talk to you about,” Tabitha said.

She lowered her hands, blocking some of the light. It created shadows along her face, giving her something of a haunted expression against the darkness of the night. “There were some rumors that went around at that time. I was still early in my training as a scribe, wanting to be a scholar, so I didn’t chase them, but I heard them.”

“About Dorian being responsible for everything?”

Tabitha blinked, and she stared at Ellie. “You knew?”

“I lived in the palace. I learned to work in the streets. And I have plenty of connections with the constables and Investigators, so of course I heard the rumors. But do I think there was anything to them?” She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment before looking over at Tabitha. “No. Absolutely not. I don’t think Dorian ever wanted power. In fact, I would even argue that he was uncomfortable with the idea of being given it. If it had been up to him, he would have been far more content working in the shadows behind the scenes, being the Hadrian rather than the king.”

“So the queen didn’t have an adviser?”

“Not like Dorian does. Didn’t need one, either, as Dorian served in that role.”

“Interesting. You know, I have given some thought to documenting things.”

“His rise to the throne?”

“That and the attack on the city. I think it would make for an interesting read, and it is the kind of thing that needs to be documented.”

Ellie couldn’t deny that, especially having lived it.

“Someday,” Ellie said.

“It’s better to do it before it gets too far out of your memory. When it’s fresh, you know.”

“I don’t know that I’m quite ready for anything like that,” she said.

“I didn’t say that you had to be ready, because it’s really just answering questions. I would interview you, take down notes, and then I would compile them.”

“And do I get any sort of editorial review?”

“You don’t need an editorial review,” she said, sounding offended by the mere suggestion. “You are just one element of the historical record. You wouldn’t be the only one.”

Ellie smiled. “Well, I suppose in that case, you can ask me some questions, and if I don’t want to answer them, I just won’t.”

“Good.”

Ellie sat back, staring up at the sky. The stars glittered against the darkness, and a comfortable breeze drifted toward them, every once in a while pushing past the warmth that the fabrication emanated. It was an unusual fabrication, although a useful one, and it had come from the satchel of fabrications that Dorian had sent with her. She wouldn’t even have thought of anything quite like it. She could feel the heat, but she could also feel the faint irritant that the power within the fabrication emanated, which allowed her to understand the purpose of the fabrication.

It wasn’t the only active fabrication, but it was the most potent, at least right now.

“You know, if there are any other Blades around here, they would detect us,” Ellie said.

“Well, it’s a good thing that there probably aren’t, as I have a hard time thinking that anybody is all that close here,” Tabitha said. “We haven’t really seen much in the way of travelers, have we? And that makes you wonder about that as well.”

“It hasn’t, but what are you getting at?”

“Only that it feels strange. I keep thinking that we should come across somebody, but there’s not been anyone. So people aren’t going toward Buruketh—and that certainly is reasonable, especially if there are reasons to avoid such travel—and people from Buruketh and beyond aren’t coming toward Busal. The latter is the less likely. And that’s what has me feeling troubled.”

Ellie hadn’t considered that, but it did make sense.

“What do you think it’s related to?” she asked.

“I don’t know. And it does make me wonder what we might find when we get lost. What sort of trouble we might encounter.” Tabitha shrugged. “Or maybe no trouble, and people just don’t want to come into Busal. Maybe they don’t like the fact that there are Blades stationed along the border, and they don’t like the idea that they are going to be asked questions about what fabrications—or whatever other kinds of power they might have—they are carrying.”

“We haven’t been limiting any sort of power these days,” Ellie said.

“Well, not now, but there have been Blades stationed along the border, and from what I’ve heard from some of the other scholars, more of the Empyreans have been stationed along it as well. I don’t know what sort of military presence the king has installed, but maybe people just don’t like it.”

Ellie didn’t think that was likely. It felt like there would be a different sort of answer here. And they would find out soon enough.

“I think I need to get some rest,” Ellie said.

“I thought you wanted to test him.”

“You know what? You are right.”

She got up, dusting her hands on her pants, and approached Jerath as he made a circuit around the clearing.

He looked at her. “Did you find anything?”

“No, but I’d like you to learn something.”

“Me?” He paused, frowning at her. In the pale light that came from Tabitha’s lantern, Ellie could see the confusion in his eyes. “What do I need to learn?”

“You and I have not had an opportunity to work together before. I can handle myself, but we need to protect Tabitha. Beyond that …” She shrugged. “I was hoping for a simple sparring session.”

“I don’t think this is a good idea.”

“Well, I do. And you might think that I can’t take care of myself, but I also don’t know what you are capable of, so show me.”

He shook his head. “I will not⁠—”

Ellie struck fast. Right blade high, left blade following.

Jerath managed to unsheathe quickly and caught both of her blades with a single sweep.

“Oh? You will not?” Ellie asked, grinning. There was something fun to this, but she couldn’t help but feel he had reacted far faster than she had expected.

Did he have a fabrication to allow it?

Maybe Dorian had had something special made for him. She’d fought others with fabrications, but this felt different.

It might be that she wasn’t willing to overpower the fabrication. She knew that if he did have one, he might need to use it in the future.

She spun back, boots scraping earth. His blade whistled past her ear.

Her blades flickered in moonlight as she ducked under his next strike. Her right blade scraped his defense. Her left blade darted for his ribs.

He twisted, impossibly fast.

Steel rang against steel.

She pressed forward. Quick strikes, alternating blades. High. Low. Cross-cut. Each met his sword.

Surprisingly, she felt he was holding back, but still the impacts jarred her arms.

She feinted left. His blade shifted to block. Her right blade sliced toward his knee.

Jerath leaped back, countered. His sword became a silver arc in the darkness.

She caught it between crossed blades, muscles straining. She broke away. She rolled right. She came up striking.

His defense flowed like water. Each strike met steel.

Ellie gritted her teeth. She would have to be more forceful than she had expected. That surprised her.

She spun inside his guard. Twin blades scissored toward his throat. His sword swept up, caught both blades. He pushed her back.

Ellie stumbled. She recovered. She held her blades up just in time to catch his overhead strike. The impact drove her to one knee. She twisted away. His blade cut air where she’d been. She was back on her feet.

Now she was breathing hard.

She launched forward. Right blade. Left blade. Right again. No pattern. No pause. Jerath’s sword found every strike.

At least she saw the effort now. She saw the slight delays. He was holding back less.

Their blades caught moonlight. They cast brief shadows. The night air filled with the sound of steel on steel. Quick breaths. Boot scrapes on earth. The urgent dance continued.

Then he took a step back and lowered his blade. His eyes were darkened pools of irritation.

“Is that satisfactory?” he asked. “You wanted to know if I was capable of defending you.”

“Fabricated, you are,” she said.

“You think I need fabrications?”

Ellie shrugged. “I suspect you have them on you, and I suspect that they are necessary for what you’re doing.”

He flashed another irritated glare, but he didn’t say anything. That actually disappointed her. She wouldn’t have minded him pushing back on her assertion that he had been using fabrications, if only to get a rise out of him. Still, he took another step away from her.

“And I can take care of myself,” Ellie said. “I hope I proved that to you.”

He didn’t answer.

She breathed out. She had pushed, but she had also held back, much like she thought he had. She could have used her ability to overpower his fabrications, but then where would the fun have been in that?

When she rejoined Tabitha, taking a seat next to her, Tabitha just looked over. “That was interesting foreplay.”

“What?”

“You, him, the little dance that you were doing. You should just tumble on a bed with him. He’s handsome enough. And he is your type.”

“He’s not my type,” Ellie snapped.

“I wonder if that’s why the king sent him. Thought that he could get you riled up.” Tabitha started to smile. “Or maybe he did it because he wanted to test you. Tempt you?” She looked down at her book as if she were going to jot down some notes. “Either way, the two of you should just get it over with.”

“I think not,” Ellie said.

She found Jerath watching her, though, and some of the irritation and intensity in his gaze had lessened, which in her mind was a win. She hoped that she could get through to him, and maybe get him to relax, even if just a little bit.

But for now, she would sleep. It was late, and she knew they would have to push themselves the next day.

Chapter

Sixteen

Ellie had been feeling the power moving closer and closer to them over the last few hours. It had an intensity to it, and she had been trying not to worry about what could possess such a power.

Jerath knew that she was cautious. He kept looking back at her and seemingly trying to gauge if he would need to do anything, but he couldn’t do much short of scouting out the source of the power.

Ellie had considered doing the same. They needed answers, and yet in order to scout and return, she would have to push her horse faster than she felt comfortable doing, and there was very little reason to believe she would be able to do all that much. And she didn’t know if there was much that she needed to fear. It could just be a fabrication.

Despite the power gradually gaining on them, it didn’t feel threatening. Maybe it was just somebody carrying a fabrication. A caravan, even.

But no caravan would move faster than three people on horseback. That meant it had to be somebody mounted, pushing their horse. Ellie, Tabitha, and Jerath were pushing their own horses, so their pursuer had to be pushing even harder.

The terrain had grown steadily more demanding as they rode, the soft earth of the lowlands giving way to scattered outcroppings of gray stone that jutted from the ground. The distant mountains loomed larger with each passing hour, their snowcapped peaks sharp against the pale sky, while patches of scrubby vegetation clung stubbornly to the increasingly rocky soil around them. Hardy mountain pines had begun to replace the mixed forests of the lowlands, their branches twisted by prevailing winds into shapes that pointed northward, as if marking their path. The air had grown thinner, carrying with it the crisp scent of stone and pine needles. Through gaps in the rocky terrain, they could occasionally glimpse the road to Buruketh winding its way through the foothills ahead.

“We’re making good time,” Tabitha said, looking up from her book about midday. They had stopped by a stream, letting the horses drink. “Faster than I expected. I don’t know how long it will be before we get to Buruketh, but I don’t think it will be much more than another day or two.”

“Hopefully, we can stay ahead of whatever is following us,” Ellie said. “I’m optimistic that we can keep in front of them, but I am concerned that they are making progress.”

“I could deal with them,” Jerath said.

He had made a similar claim several times, and Ellie continued to tell him that it wasn’t necessary. She didn’t know any longer if he was sincere or if he was just making that claim to appease her. Regardless, she wasn’t willing to let him go back on his own.

“We keep pushing,” she said. “No villages between here and Buruketh?”

“We’re getting into the outer lands of Busal,” Tabitha said. “Not much here. There were supposed to be some farms, but I haven’t seen any sign of those. Maybe they are near the road.” She shrugged. “This map is pretty old, so it’s difficult to know.”

Ellie nodded. Had she asked Dorian, he would have provided a better map, but that might not be necessary. They were going to make progress one way or another, and it didn’t really make much difference.

They kept moving, and the power kept building.

By nightfall, it was still making progress on them, and Ellie encouraged the others to keep going. She didn’t like the idea that it would get closer to them when they stopped to camp, and given that this pursuer had not yet stopped, she felt compelled to keep pushing. She started to wonder if this pace might actually be dangerous for the horses, although Jerath didn’t seem to think so, and he seemed to have quite a bit of familiarity with horses, so she trusted him, but she finally felt the power not pursuing nearly so aggressively several hours after dusk.

They camped, and Ellie ate some of the bread that she still had from Marge, some smoked meat, and took a swig of water from her flask, all while sitting in front of the warming fabrication. Tabitha had pulled her notebook out to make a few notes but closed it and tucked it away sooner than she had the previous night. The only one who continued his previous habits for the camp was Jerath, who continued to make a steady circuit around them.

“He’s nothing if not consistent,” Tabitha said.

“Consistent, but maybe a bit unnecessary,” Ellie said. “At this point, he would be better served just resting with us and saving his strength.”

“For …” Tabitha started, waggling her eyebrows suggestively.

“To ride tomorrow,” Ellie said.

“I don’t even want to get into that,” Tabitha said, and then she laughed, curling up and resting her head on her satchel. “Make sure I don’t sleep too long. This luxurious bed might just draw me in.”

Ellie smiled, lying back and looking up at the stars again. Luxurious bed. That was something that wasn’t spoken about very often in the stories that she’d heard of people traveling. She had been so eager to get on the road, but she hadn’t considered how much she would have to camp out at night, with little but a fabrication to keep her warm. Ellie had thought that they would have beds to sleep in every night, either in an inn or in the house of some ally of the scholars.

The reality was far harsher and less exciting.

It might be a good thing for her, though. She’d gotten so comfortable inside the palace that this might actually help harden her a bit and toughen her up so that when she did return to the city, Dorian might see her in a different way and wouldn’t be quite so hesitant to send her on assignments.

Or maybe it wouldn’t change a thing.

She woke to a slow rippling of power.

It was dark, and at some point, Jerath had taken a seat and was resting with his back up against a rock, staring into the night. It took her a moment to realize that he was asleep, and yet he didn’t look fully asleep. She got to her feet, moving as quietly as she could. She wasn’t sure what had woken her, but she was certain that there was power out there. The sweeping nature of it had been strong enough to awaken her. She had no idea how long she’d been sleeping but didn’t think that was very long. She checked to make sure that she had her blades. She made sure that she had a couple of defensive fabrications, and then she moved away from the campsite. The horses seemed oblivious to her movements. That was for the best. They were as tired as she was.

She moved a little way away from the campsite, to get clear of any other fabrication, clear of anything else that might distract her, and then she concentrated.

She tested if she could feel any part of that distant fabrication in a way that she had not before.

A pulse. She used a rippling wave of her ability and then pushed again, and again, and again. Having slept, even for a little while, Ellie felt refreshed. And as she created that wave of energy that flowed outward from her, she felt first the memory of her brother’s passage, which was reassuring, but then she noticed the other energy.

And it was far closer than it should have been.

Far closer than it had been before.

Ellie stiffened. She almost called out to Jerath but then hesitated.

That sense of whatever was there struck her as familiar, but right now, Ellie wasn’t sure what it was, and it was no longer moving.

That didn’t mean that she couldn’t move toward it.

She looked back at the others. It was a dangerous thought, but if it was stationary, shouldn’t she go and look for it? It was close enough that she could get there on foot, which meant she could avoid waking and worrying the others by taking a horse. Ellie wanted to know.

She set off. This was the kind of thing that Zaren would be doing now. She didn’t think much of where he was nowadays, but times like these did make her wonder what sorts of things he might have encountered on his explorations of the world. He had gone looking for answers about what it meant to be a Blade, to learn more about his power, and he had claimed that he would return to bring those answers to Ellie.

However, as Ellie had been training in Busal City, she had been finding her own way, working with the fabrication breakers from Ardem and honing her craft, and hoping to understand what it meant for her to have this ability. She was never going to be a Blade the way that Zaren was. That didn’t bother her, but she would like to know how to wield her ability better, especially since the fight before she had left the city. There had been that strange burning sensation. That had bothered her.

Still bothered her.

She needed to understand it. Figure out what it was—and what it meant for her.

She moved carefully, staying away from the road, but found that she didn’t need to be too close to it to know where it was. There was a lingering memory of the fabrications that they had carried, and her pulses of power allowed her to use that memory to follow the roadway. She had probably jogged for about an hour, heading through the darkness, moving over rocky terrain, when she neared the location of the power she had felt.

Through the darkness, she could make out the silhouettes of several large boulders clustered together, creating natural walls that rose against the star-scattered sky. Between them, gnarled pines cast deeper shadows, their branches swaying slightly in the night breeze. The power she’d been tracking pooled here, a subtle warmth that prickled against her awareness, but there was no visible source. The moonlight caught on the edges of the rocks, turning them silver, while leaving deep wells of shadow between them that could have hidden any number of threats. A few loose stones had been disturbed recently; she could see where they’d been knocked from their resting places, leaving lighter patches of earth exposed beneath.

There was no sign of anybody camping, but maybe they were hidden in the cover of rock and tree. It was where she would have hidden. It was far enough away from the road that somebody wouldn’t stumble across them, and it was actually a pretty good campsite. She moved carefully, blades now unsheathed, and tried to mask her footsteps on the stones. Her heart hammered. Her breaths came in quick bursts as she tried to stay silent. At one point, when her boot scraped over stone, she paused, listened into the darkness of night, and didn’t hear anything.

There was still that energy, and nothing else.

She moved on.

The presence of it didn’t change. The power didn’t fluctuate, so whatever it was, it was static. Ellie didn’t know if what she was feeling was anything dangerous. It might not be what she thought she was going to find.

She slowed her movements.

It was only a dozen or so steps in front of her. She was certain of it, but there was still no sign of anybody here.

A trap?

If so, what kind of trap? It had been following them. Ellie was certain of it.

The rocky clearing opened before her, roughly circular and about twenty paces across, where the ground had been worn smooth by centuries of wind and rain. Pale moonlight spilled down unobstructed, making the surface gleam like polished silver, while the surrounding rocks rose up in jagged walls that cupped the space in shadow. A few determined mountain flowers had found purchase in the cracks between stones. The rocks themselves showed traces of ancient scoring—whether from water or something else, she couldn’t tell—creating patterns that seemed almost deliberate in their regularity. The air here felt different, too, somehow heavier, as if the space were holding its breath in anticipation.

The only thing unusual was a single metal fabrication at the center.

Ellie used a pulse of her ability, and the moment that it struck, she felt a rippling wave of discomfort washing through her.

That was new.

Not new, familiar.

It was the same burning sensation that she had felt when she had been facing that attacker in Busal City, near the temple ruins.

What is this?

And why would she still feel that burning sensation? She needed to understand it.

She moved forward, crouched down, and looked at the fabrication. It reminded her of the item that Baring had asked her to take to Dorian, but that one hadn’t had any energy in it. But if it was a fabrication, maybe it had been incapacitated by a Blade.

This one, however, hadn’t undergone any incapacitation.

She felt something in it, something hot, burning. It was there, building.

Not the Blade ability. What, then?

She pulsed.

“I would not do that,” a voice said from behind her.

Ellie spun, readying her blades.

The man was familiar.

She had seen him. She had fought him.

“You?”

“Not me, but it is designed to draw someone like me—you, I presume—out here.”

“What are you doing? Why are you following me?”

That was one of many questions she had, and she doubted that she would get much of an answer.

“I would ask you the same.”

“I was sent on an assignment. You aren’t from Busal, so you shouldn’t be out here.”

“You think borders could keep me from going where I need to go?”

It was a bit more than that, she sensed. This was his way of asking if she thought that she could stop him from going where he needed to go.

“I’ve dealt with you once,” she said.

But even then, she had barely handled it. She had managed to escape, but she had felt … something strange.

“I would not handle that, is all,” he said.

She turned to him. “You need to come with me,” she said.

He started to smile. “And do what?”

“Tell me what you’re doing out here, and then we can decide what we’re going to do with you.”

“We? You aren’t alone?” He looked around. “I don’t see or feel anybody else.” He frowned, and there was a subtle energy. She recognized it, as it was similar to the way that she used her Blade ability, only the technique was different, more potent, in fact, and it went sweeping outward. “I sense a presence quite a way from here. You are not alone, but you are still alone.”

He still hadn’t reached for his blade. That unnerved her.

“Who are you?” she demanded.

“My name is Ralen Greywind,” he said, “and I⁠—”

He broke off and then turned to look into the darkness. There was another pulse, another wave of power, far more compact and controlled than anything Ellie could produce.

“You should not be here when I get back,” he said.

And with that, he darted into the darkness.

Ellie watched him go, confused. Not only because he had suddenly disappeared—and she still didn’t feel anything from him, only from the fabrication in front of her—but also because she had heard that name before. But where?

She searched her memories but didn’t come up with anything. She could go after him, but what would the point be? She needed to warn the others that this man was out here, but beyond that …

He hadn’t attacked. He could have—he knew that she was alone—and more than that, Ellie suspected that he was a far more capable Blade, or whatever he was, than she was. Maybe not as skilled a fighter, although that remained to be seen.

And he had warned her of this fabrication.

Why?

She turned, focusing, and used a rippling wave of her ability on it, wanting to neutralize it.

And the moment that she did, pain exploded inside her.

Chapter

Seventeen

Ellie couldn’t move. The burning pain that coursed through her reminded her of what she had experienced when she had fought the man in the city. Strange that she should be so attuned to it now, and that it should be here when he was not.

She had to use her Blade ability. Ellie focused on that, concentrating it deeply, and pushed it outward so that she could counter the power that was pushing through her now. But the burning sensation was beginning to overwhelm her. She had to understand it.

She had never encountered a fabrication that she couldn’t overpower. One of the things that Ellie prided herself on was her ability to withstand fabricated energy, and to counter it.

Worse than the pain, she had a vague sense of movement near her.

Shadows, but she was frozen in place. They were getting closer. Ellie did not dare linger here too long.

What could she do?

She thought about some of the lessons that she had learned, starting from the very beginning, when she had first learned what she was. She thought about how her mother had taught her, guiding her through the very early stages of uncovering her Blade power. But it wasn’t quite the same as what Zaren had taught, nor was it quite the same as what she had learned from the fabrication breakers. Her mother had taught her to embrace the deep part of herself, concentrate on it, so that she could understand what it meant for her to have this power. She had to find it now.

As she concentrated on her power, she began to feel something different about it. This was not just her Blade ability, although that was how she had learned about her own ability. She did not know what it was, but she had to find some way to push, to counter the power affecting her, and perhaps overwhelm her.

The shadows continued to move.

Ellie pushed out a pulse, a rippling wave, and she sent as much as she could fathom, as much as she could draw out through herself. And as she did, she felt a faint pause in the pain.

But little more than that. The moment she released her hold on her power, there was another surge of energy, and the pain coursed through her again.

Ellie pushed again, this time pulsing more deeply and more potently than she had before. Every time she pulsed again, she felt that resistance, and she felt herself gaining a separation.

But she didn’t have enough strength.

Not without making contact.

Contact increased the focus of a Blade’s resistance.

Another pulse, and this time, as she felt the pressure of the fabrication, she used more resistance, and the pressure abated enough.

Ellie was able to stagger forward and drop down. Her knees pressed against the stone. She held her hands against the fabrication, fighting through the pain, and continued to use pulse after pulse. When she felt some part of her beginning to fade, she used another pulse, until it felt like the energy that she was drawing upon was different from her usual reserve. It didn’t feel like her Blade ability any longer. It was unique, distinct. Then the fabrication shattered.

Ellie staggered back and lay there for just a moment.

But the shadows all around her began to swirl, and she scrambled to her knees.

Another pulse. Now the fabrication was no longer incapacitating her, she became aware of something else. She unsheathed her blades, readied, and turned in place, attempting to pick up on what was there.

Darkness moved toward her.

But Ellie could feel through the darkness. There was the burning energy but also something different, distinct from her Blade ability. She could feel that power, but she was not sure what it was. Another pulse, and she used it to focus, concentrate on where the power was coming from. She had to understand that energy, but so far had not.

The shadows writhed around her, dense and almost liquid in their movement, making it difficult to distinguish where natural darkness ended and this strange power began. They seemed to absorb the moonlight rather than simply blocking it, creating patches of absolute darkness that twisted and coiled like serpents in the air.

As she moved, the shadows reached for her with tendrils of pure black, distorting her sense of depth and distance. Some patches folded in on themselves, creating impossible shapes that her eyes couldn’t quite process, while others flowed across the ground like spilled ink, making the very earth beneath her feet seem uncertain and treacherous. Through her Blade ability, she could sense how these weren’t merely an absence of light but something more substantial.

It was unique enough that she was able to detect it, and she flowed toward it. Ellie started to think about her training, and she darted into the darkness, brought her blades together and then swiped outward. When she did, she released some of her Blade ability through them. She was thankful that the blades were fabrications themselves, and they stored some of her innate ability, so that when she unleashed it, it struck that darkness. She felt a strange resistance, but she pushed through it.

Then she was amid the darkness, the shadows, the night.

And the burning energy began to course through her, and it seemed to provide her with the answer as to what was here. Ellie pushed, the same way she had when she had been holding the fabrication. This time, however, it wasn’t a fabrication that she was fighting; it was this darkness.

She created a wave of resistance. And through that, Ellie felt the fabrication shudder. Then she felt the source of it.

The darkness parted. It was brief, but long enough for her to see the outline of a figure up ahead.

Ellie swept her blade forward, trying to carve through the darkness, and ultimately barely managed to have any effect.

Then her blade cut through the figure’s arm.

The fabrication that the figure was wielding parted, and for a moment, there was that resistance, but then even that began to change, fading, until there was nothing. The darkness parted.

The figure in front of her was a plain man, dressed all in gray, so that he blended into the shadows. He had a long, twisted blade, of a design that Ellie had never seen before. And his eyes were deep pools of shadow.

The fight went back and forth, surges of power that Ellie felt as flashes of pressure and warmth against her ability, the darkness twisting and difficult to follow easily.

Strangely, the man didn’t appear to be making much effort. Surely he would have no reason to hold back, but that was just what it felt like. It felt like how she had sparred with Jerath.

Why?

She shook those thoughts away and then dropped down, swinging her heel, kicking as she drove out with one of her blades. She brought the other one high, blocking his thrust. And then she twisted, driving outward. There was an explosion of energy from inside her, into her blades, and it was different from what she normally used when she created a rippling explosion of her Blade ability. The power slammed into him, and he staggered.

That was unusual. Her Blade ability was usually good against power, not against people. She had never created anything quite so physical with it.

Maybe it was just fear, but for whatever reason, it worked.

She twisted, driving that power, and then she noticed that there was a different power here.

The man lunged at her, but she used the same pressure, pulsing it out through her blades, which concentrated it, and then once again it slammed into him.

She followed quickly. She needed answers. Not only who he was but why he was here, and for that matter, what kind of power this was.

The only thought that came into her mind was that this was an Inarak attacker, but she didn’t know if the Inarak had this kind of potential. If they did, that was dangerous, and she couldn’t even imagine being able to handle this easily.

Another pulse, and she had to push everything she could into it.

The man darted to the side, and she followed, but more shadows spread.

He wasn’t alone.

That was why he was holding back.

She darted at him. Deal with one threat, and then she could focus on the other.

“Did you think that we were so unprepared for one like you?” His words were dry, and there was something unpleasant about the way he spoke.

“One like me?” Ellie asked. “I’m afraid I’m not sure what you mean, but I’m happy that you are prepared for me.”

She had to deal with this threat, and do so now, before it was able to chase down Tabitha and Jerath. And moreover, she wanted to prove that she could do it.

This was exactly the kind of thing that Dorian had wanted her to do, the reason that he had trained her. This was the kind of thing that he had prepared her for, and now Ellie had to handle it.

The shadow started to flow. She had never seen or felt anything quite like it before, but there was no other way to describe it. It was as if the shadows were alive, swirling around her. Whoever this was had control of the night, of the darkness itself, and they were pushing it toward her.

Anger flooded Ellie, and she brought her blades down. Crackling energy from deep inside her coursed out through her hands, out through her blades, and there was a sudden shattering of power. Ellie felt it as a rippling wave. And once it cleared, the darkness simply dispersed.

She sank to her knees.

Now was not the time for weakness, though. She pushed herself up, started toward the nearest man, and was upon him before he had a chance to recover. He brought his blade up, but she was quicker. Barely, but she was. Both of hers went into his belly. It would not be a killing blow, but hopefully, it would be enough to incapacitate and keep him from fighting.

He grabbed her blades, meeting her gaze, and then forced her hands up. Carving into his heart.

“What are you doing?” Ellie asked.

“You cannot stop this,” he said.

There was a tremor. Then he collapsed, falling away.

Ellie spun, readying for another attack, but none came.

The only thing present was Ralen Greywind. He stood over three men, three other figures, all dressed the same way, and somehow he had incapacitated—or really, killed—all three of them.

He regarded Ellie, and she couldn’t quite read the look in his eyes.

“What is this?” Ellie asked.

“You don’t know?”

“No. I was sent out here to gather information.”

“These are the Servants of Ascendance,” he said. “And you are lucky to have survived them.”

One of the men started to sit up, and Ralen jammed his blade down into him.

“And you are not?”

“I most definitely am not.”

With that, the strength that Ellie had been holding on to, strength that she had barely managed to maintain, faded, and she sank to the ground. She sat there for a moment, steadying her breathing, and she knew that she couldn’t stay like this, knew that she had to get up, that she couldn’t rely on this man not attacking, even though there was no evidence he would actually do so. She had to get to her feet. The only thing that she could do, however, was raise her head and look in his direction.

Even as she did, however, she knew that she was too late.

He was already gone.

What did it mean that he had helped her, though?

And who were these Servants of Ascendance?

Chapter

Eighteen

Ellie struggled to get back to the campsite.

There was no sign of Ralen Greywind, no sign of any other attackers, so for the most part, she thought that she had managed to get away. She was hopeful that no one was coming after her, but she remained on edge. She simply didn’t know if she had dealt with the situation well enough to stay in front of it.

What had happened?

That question lingered in her mind. She had barely managed to survive the attack. Before she had left, she had checked the Servant of Ascendance for anything that would identify him, but other than his unusual weapon, there was nothing. He hadn’t even had any fabrications on him. How was it even possible that he had managed to attack her as effectively as he had without any fabrications?

Ellie felt a rising unease about all of it, and for that matter, about whether they would strike again.

The moonlit terrain swam before her eyes, the rocky ground seeming to shift and tilt with each step. The mountain peaks in the distance doubled and blurred, their snowcapped summits merging with the stars that speckled the night sky. What had been distinct landmarks on her outward journey now melded into a confusing maze of shadow and stone, each outcropping looking frustratingly similar to the last. The sparse pines cast long shadows that pointed in contradictory directions, and the wind-worn rocks that had earlier served as waymarks now appeared unfamiliar. Even the air felt thicker, harder to draw into her burning lungs, carrying with it the metallic taste of her own exhaustion. The occasional scrape of her boots against stone echoed in her ears, making it difficult to tell if the sound came from her own feet or somewhere else in the darkness.

Ellie hoped that she was heading in the right direction. She was unwilling to create a pulse of her ability to scan her surroundings, because she was concerned that doing so would weaken her too much. She was afraid of drawing on her power too much, or being overwhelmed by the pain that she had felt before.

She stumbled, giving her the excuse to rest again before she managed to get back to her feet. When she did, she staggered forward. This went on for a while. She’d only taken an hour or so to get out to that place, but the return journey … that was something else altogether.

She clutched the fabrication that she had overwhelmed. Much like the one that Baring had given her, this one was also incapacitated. Now. It had not been before, and it had incapacitated her before. But she was going to keep it with her and use it to try to figure out what was happening here.

It was near morning by the time she staggered back into the campsite.

Ellie could scarcely concentrate on anything.

She found Jerath pacing, and he came storming over to her when she approached.

“What do you think you were⁠—”

“I’m fine,” Ellie said, “or at least, I will be. There was a fabrication not far from us, and I went to check it out. I didn’t know what it was, and it was closer than it had been before. I figured that I could investigate it easiest.”

“And?”

“And I dealt with it,” she said.

“You look as if you are⁠—”

“I look as if I barely survived,” Ellie said.

Tabitha was starting to sit up, and she looked in her direction, concern in her features. Ellie didn’t know if she could say anything to reassure her friend, because at this point, the only thing that came to her mind was that she had very nearly not survived.

“There was a strange attacker. I managed to survive, but it was difficult. And you can tell me all you want about how the king wanted you to protect me, and I don’t have anything to say about that. But I can tell you that it’s over.”

“Who was the attacker?” Tabitha asked.

Ellie looked at Jerath, and she debated whether to inform him. He was an Empyrean, and one of Dorian’s favorite soldiers, so she felt she should at least fill him in.

“I don’t know. He was using an ability that I haven’t seen before. He was controlling the shadows.”

Tabitha nodded. “All right. Can a fabrication do that?”

“It didn’t feel like a fabrication,” Ellie said.

“Where?” Jerath asked.

“You aren’t going to⁠—”

“Where?”

Ellie was too tired to argue, so she pointed back in the direction that she had come from. Jerath would do whatever he wanted to regardless of what she said.

She watched as he grabbed his horse, quickly got it tacked, and then jumped into the saddle and galloped off.

“So,” Tabitha said after he was gone, “you want to tell me what you weren’t sharing with him? I could tell that you were holding back. It didn’t go so well, did it?”

“It didn’t go so well,” she said. “And honestly, there was another man.” She breathed out. “And I have him to thank for my survival.” She filled Tabitha in on what had happened. When she was done, she told her what Ralen Greywind had said about the Servants of Ascendance.

“I’ve not heard about anything like that,” she said. “Are you sure that you heard it correctly?”

“I might not have,” Ellie said. “At that point, I was barely able to keep my eyes open. It was difficult, because my own ability felt different. This thing is some sort of Blade trap.” She held out the fabrication. “I’ve never seen anything like it before, never felt anything like it. It was almost too much for me.”

“Almost?”

“Almost,” she said, stuffing it back into her pocket and then sinking down to the ground next to Tabitha. “I just need to rest.”

“Aren’t you concerned about getting away?”

“I think that what I have been detecting following us is Ralen.” Her head bobbed forward, and she was exhausted. “Even if he is following us, I didn’t have the sense that he was going to hurt me. He had every opportunity to do that after I collapsed. But he didn’t.”

“So now you trust him?”

“Not trust, but I don’t think he is coming after me,” Ellie said. “Let me rest.”

Her head fell forward, and she drifted. She didn’t know how long she slept, but when she woke, it was sunny, warm, or at least relatively so, and there was movement near her. She immediately jumped, grabbing for her blades, before realizing it was Tabitha talking to Jerath.

Ellie got up, and she rubbed the sleep out of her eyes.

“You can rest longer,” Tabitha said, looking over at her.

“I don’t know if I can,” Ellie said. “And I don’t know if I should.”

“I found a body,” Jerath said, “and I prepared him for the Sovereign.”

Ellie blinked. “You did what?”

“The Sovereign?” Tabitha asked. “You mean of the Sacred Souls?”

“I follow the Sovereign,” Jerath said.

He stepped away, and Tabitha frowned, chewing on her lip. “I haven’t known anybody to follow only the Sovereign,” she said. “There have been stories of a resurgence in the faith, but nothing to make you think that you would encounter it out in the open like this.”

“I don’t see the problem,” Ellie said.

“I don’t, either, but it’s strange. Just to follow the Sovereign?”

“Again, I suppose I don’t see the problem. If it makes him happy …”

“I don’t know,” Tabitha said. “The people who follow the Sovereign have different beliefs. I don’t know all of them, but they seek his return. That’s all I really know. I can’t say that I know how they seek to bring about his return, but …” She breathed out. “Maybe it doesn’t matter. I just didn’t think that we were going to have a conversation like that while we were out here.”

Ellie rubbed a knuckle into her eyes.

“Whenever you’re ready,” Tabitha said. “We are going to keep making our way to Buruketh, and Jerath is going to keep us safe. That’s what he kept telling me, anyway.”

“I kept myself safe,” Ellie said.

“But you very nearly did not,” he said. “You went off in the middle of the night, chasing some dangerous fabrication, and you couldn’t have⁠—”

Ellie raised a hand, cutting him off.

“I realize that you were assigned to guard us,” she said. “But I need you to settle down. I went off because a fabrication woke me. And that fabrication was potent, and different from any other fabrication I’ve felt, and it was powerful enough that it nearly incapacitated my ability.” He started to argue, but Ellie cut him off again. “And I should’ve had others with me. You two were both sleeping, and I did not know that it would be dangerous. But the power did appear closer than it should have, and I thought that I could at least investigate beforehand. There was no sign of anybody else there when I approached the fabrication, so honestly, I didn’t think that there was anything to be concerned about.”

“You didn’t think,” he said.

“Well, I haven’t encountered a fabrication that I couldn’t handle before. This was the first to pose too much of a challenge for me. But here I am.” She flashed a smile. “And when we get back, you can tell the king that you did all that you needed to do to keep me safe. I will make sure that he knows that you were the diligent little soldier, and that you did everything that he could have asked of you in order to ensure my safety. You were quite dedicated to the cause.”

She was pushing a little too hard here. He wanted nothing more than to keep her safe, but she saw the way that he looked at her, dismissively.

“Well, you still should not have gone off alone.”

Ellie didn’t argue with that. Instead, she grabbed her horse and then climbed into the saddle. She sat for a moment and struggled to stay in the saddle, because she was still tired.

“Are we going, or are we just going to keep talking and criticizing my choices? I mean, I’m perfectly happy for you to do that, but seeing as I have the king’s ear, and he’s the one who sent me on this mission, I think that we should do what I intend.”

Tabitha climbed into her saddle and then followed Ellie.

They hadn’t gone very far down the road before Tabitha guided her horse closer. “Do you think that it’s a good idea to challenge the soldier?”

“He’s overly protective.”

“I think he’s just intense, and I think that you have to appreciate that.”

“It’s the intensity that I don’t appreciate, and it’s the intensity that’s the reason I’m not going to share with him that Ralen follows us.”

Ellie had managed to pick up on some of his power, and using another pulse of her Blade ability, she detected movement. But then, knowing what she had felt of him before, Ellie wondered if he wanted her to know that he was there.

And if that were the case, then the question was why.

He had obviously challenged her in Busal City, but he had challenged her about …

About another fabrication trap.

Wasn’t it the same sort of thing?

When she had encountered him at the temple ruins, she had been dealing with the fabrication, and she had felt the bloom of power, and though she had thought that he was the one responsible for it, that didn’t seem to be the case at all.

This was different, and for whatever reason, this was him trying to protect her.

Strange.

Now she had Ralen and Jerath both trying to protect her, and neither of them was someone she had known before. Ellie was concerned about who she should rely upon, who she should trust, if either of them.

The terrain had begun to show signs of civilization—the wild, rocky paths gradually giving way to more weathered trails, where cartwheels had worn grooves into the stone. The mountains still loomed, but their presence felt more distant now, more like sentinels watching from afar than the immediate companions they’d been for days. Ahead, the land sloped downward into a broad valley where morning mist still clung to the hollows between hills, and through gaps in the thinning trees, Ellie could occasionally glimpse the glint of sunlight off distant windows. The air carried new scents now: woodsmoke from invisible chimneys, the musty smell of livestock, and sometimes, when the wind shifted just right, the faint but unmistakable odor of too many people living too close together. Even the vegetation had changed, with neat rows of berry bushes and the occasional apple tree replacing the wild mountain flora.

Ellie was anxious, though, and wanted nothing more than to get to the city, to take the opportunity to figure out what she was going to do, and moreover, to figure out what her brother might be involved in, if she could track him down. There was no sign or evidence of Baring, but every so often, when she created a rippling of her ability, she could faintly pick up on his trail, the memory of it, and it lingered just enough that she thought she could follow it. She was a little concerned that he might have veered off, but where would he have gone if he had?

There was nothing but the city.

Jerath stayed with them, either riding ahead or occasionally riding alongside, and never riding behind. Ellie kept waiting for him to ask more questions about what he had seen the night before, but given that he had claimed that there was nothing, she wasn’t sure that there was much for her to deal with, anyway.

“The two of you need to figure this out before you get to the city,” Tabitha said. “Because it’s going to be plenty uncomfortable for us if we get there and you are arguing.”

“There’s no argument,” Ellie said. “And I don’t need to get his permission for anything.”

“I didn’t say that you did,” Tabitha said, and then she shook her head, letting out a frustrated sigh. “Stubborn.”

Ellie created a rippling wave again, focused more on her brother. The sense of Baring had faded. She didn’t even feel the memory, and it left her curious and confused. Where would Baring have gone? There didn’t seem to be anything here, no sense of him, no sense of his trail, and it was as if it had just faded.

When she told Tabitha, her friend just shrugged.

“Where else could he have gone? There’s nothing else here.”

“I know, but it’s strange that it just disappeared.”

“Well, maybe there is something here that is keeping you from picking him up.”

“Maybe,” Ellie said.

But even as she thought about it, she didn’t have much in the way of an explanation.

“I’d like to know more about the Sovereign,” Ellie said. Given that Jerath was faithful, having a conversation about his faith might be a way to draw him out. Ellie felt she needed to do so, especially if they were going to travel this far together. “I’m afraid that I don’t know much about him.”

“The Sovereign provides gifts to those deemed worthy,” Jerath said, and there was something of a practiced recitation to his words. “Those who seek His favor can be granted those gifts.” He looked at Ellie. “That is what I hope for. That is why I serve.”

She frowned, thinking that he might say something more, but he didn’t.

But they didn’t go very far before the city opened before them.

The ancient walls of Buruketh climbed the foothills. Towers of weathered granite thrust upward into the morning sky, and golden sunlight caught on countless windows that sparkled against the gray stone. The main road they traveled merged with others, where a steady stream of wagons, horses, and people flowed. Buildings of every size and age crowded together, most showing the steady decay of centuries, their rooflines creating an uneven horizon against the mountain backdrop. The air hummed with the noise of countless lives, and wisps of smoke rose from countless chimneys, creating a thin haze that hung above the city.

It was massive, and it gave off a similar ancient energy to Busal City’s, though not Inarak. Ellie could feel something here, although even as she came closer, she wasn’t sure what it was.

“Well,” Tabitha said, looking over, “this is where you wanted us to get. So I suppose your mission is about done.”

“I don’t have that feeling,” Ellie said. “In fact, I think that whatever the king sent me out here to do is just beginning.”

Chapter

Nineteen

Buruketh proved to be a sprawling city. Many of these older cities were large, but it sprawled across the mountainous terrain, with neighborhoods rising and falling with the natural contours of the land. Buildings of weathered stone and timber pressed shoulder to shoulder along narrow streets that twisted and switched back upon themselves as they climbed the steeper slopes.

The streets teemed with life: merchants shouting their wares from storefronts, workers hauling carts laden with goods up the inclined roads, and streams of people flowing around horse-drawn carriages that clattered over the cobblestones.

Ellie was exhausted, although she was starting to regain some semblance of strength as she kept moving, and she thought that over time she would eventually fully recover. Every so often, she would create a rippling wave of her ability to search for her brother’s presence. There was no sense of Baring, no evidence of where he had gone. There was, however, the sense of other fabricated power, along with something that Ellie couldn’t quite place.

“What do you need to do now that you are here?” Jerath asked.

“Well, a couple of things, although I would really like to find Devarel, if I can. He should be carrying a fabrication given to him by the king, something that I would recognize. We need to find him, get some questions answered, and then decide what we need to do here.”

“I think our first order of business should be to get settled,” Tabitha suggested. “There are a few safe inns here.” She pulled out one of her books and began to flip through the pages. “You’ve got the Bent Blade, the Copper Cup, and the Sleeping Stone. They’ve got an appetite for alliteration here. Maybe the Bent Blade, since … well, you know.”

“Sounds good to me,” Ellie said, smiling.

Regardless of what else they ended up doing, finding a place to stay seemed to be the right strategy. She needed to find familiar fabrications. Right now, she didn’t detect any, but there had to be something that she could uncover, something that would help her.

The narrow cobblestone streets wound between buildings, forcing their horses to navigate single file through the press of people. Market stalls crowded the wider sections, their canvas awnings creating patches of shade where merchants hawked everything from fresh bread to intricate fabrications that glowed with subtle power. A group of children darted between the horses’ legs, chasing a wooden hoop, while a robed scholar clutching scrolls pressed himself against a wall to avoid them. Tabitha looked after him with longing.

Ellie continued to sweep out with her ability, testing for Devarel’s fabrication. She found nothing.

At one corner, a street performer had drawn a crowd, though Ellie couldn’t see what they were doing. The scents shifted as they rode: fresh dung from the horses, smoke from a blacksmith’s forge, the sharp tang of herbs from an apothecary’s open door, and the yeasty smell of brewing beer from somewhere nearby.

A cart piled high with mountain pine logs had become wedged in a narrow turn ahead, its driver arguing with a merchant whose doorway was blocked. Two women in long skirts gathered their baskets and ducked down an alley to bypass the obstruction, their heads bent together in gossip. Above it all, the constant murmur of haggling, greetings, and arguments echoed off the stone buildings, while shop signs creaked on iron brackets in the breeze.

Stone buildings rose three or four stories on either side, their upper floors jutting out over the street, making the sky above seem like a narrow ribbon of blue. Wooden shutters stood open to catch the morning air, and here and there, residents had strung lines between buildings where linens fluttered like flags.

But before they came across the Bent Blade, Ellie was drawn by a gathering.

The street ahead widened into a small square, where a growing mass of people pressed together. The crowd’s murmur carried a different tone from the usual market chatter—more urgent, more focused. Bodies shifted and swayed, with latecomers standing on tiptoes or nudging their way forward for a better view of whatever drew their attention at the square’s center. A woman in a baker’s apron stood in her doorway, flour-covered arms crossed, while apprentices from the nearby shops clustered at the edges of the throng, their work momentarily forgotten.

The air was charged with anticipation, punctuated by occasional murmurs of agreement or concern that rippled through the assembled people like waves. A few craftsmen still wore their work aprons, suggesting they’d been drawn from their tasks by the commotion, while others appeared to have come purposely, dressed in better clothes as if attending a formal gathering. Near the edge of the crowd, a mother hoisted her small child onto her shoulders for a better view, while an elderly man leaned heavily on his walking stick, nodding along to something they couldn’t yet see or hear.

“Can we take a look?” Tabitha said. “I know that you want to get settled, and I know that I was the one who suggested that we get settled, but I am curious about what this is.”

“We need to get rest,” Jerath said.

“Fine,” Tabitha said, taking on some of Ellie’s frustration with him. “You can go get settled, get the rooms established, and then we will join you. The inn is right over there.” She pointed. “I’m not terribly concerned about getting there or getting nice rooms. What I am concerned about is understanding what’s happening in the city. And that is the reason that I came along.”

Jerath breathed out slowly. “We should stable the horses before we do anything else, as it is going to be too difficult to have horses moving through a crowd like that.”

Ellie glanced over and then shrugged. “Well, he’s not wrong,” she said.

“Thank you for your affirmation,” Jerath said.

Ellie flashed a smile.

They guided the horses over to the inn, and they had a stable nearby. She handed the reins to Jerath, having taken her pack and supplies.

“I suppose it also makes sense to get rid of our belongings,” Ellie said. “With the crowd like that …”

“Now you’re just trying to delay us,” Tabitha said.

“I’m not trying to delay. I’m just trying to be practical and make good decisions here.”

Tabitha looked back. The crowd was still dense, so whatever was going on, it wouldn’t disperse that quickly.

“Come on,” Ellie said.

“I can make arrangements,” Jerath said.

“You know what? That’s probably a good idea, anyway. We can pay whatever the market rate is, and I’m not concerned about how much coin it will cost, as the king did send me with supplies for that.”

Jerath nodded.

“Tabitha and I can share a room, but you need to have your own.”

“It will need to be in the same hall,” he said.

“I don’t care, but we aren’t sharing a room all three of us,” Ellie said.

Jerath frowned, but he entered the inn while Ellie stood outside with Tabitha.

“He seems even more intense now that we’ve reached the city,” Tabitha said.

“He does. Perhaps he still thinks that he needs to provide some measure of protection for me.”

“Under other circumstances, it would be kind of sweet,” Tabitha started, “but I get it.”

Jerath came back out. He seemed irritated, a scowl on his face, and then he pointed. “We have been given rooms at the back of the inn.”

“So?” Tabitha said.

“I’m assuming that means we are above the kitchen,” Ellie said. She shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t really care. Is there a back door?”

“There is.”

He seemed more irritated than Ellie would have expected, but he guided them up a narrow hall and then paused, handing her one key, which she used to unlock the door.

The room was exactly what one would expect from a room above the kitchen: modestly sized, with uneven floorboards that creaked under their feet. Two narrow beds lined opposite walls, each made up with clean, if threadbare, linens. The whitewashed walls had yellowed with age and woodsmoke from the kitchen below, though the room itself was well kept. A simple washstand with a ceramic basin stood in one corner, and a wobbly three-legged stool served as the room’s only other furniture. The shutters hung slightly askew, letting in a thin stripe of light.

At least there were two beds inside.

Tabitha joined her, dropping her belongings onto one of the beds before looking over at Ellie. “I suppose I should’ve asked which one you want.”

“I’m quite sure that it doesn’t make a difference,” Ellie said. “And even if it did, I don’t really care.”

“You are …”

“Right,” Ellie said. “What am I?”

“I don’t even know,” Tabitha said, and then she started to chuckle. “You are whatever you are. So, what now?”

“We leave our things here, lock up, and take a look around the city. I’m going to wander a bit, see if I can feel anything, while you can figure out whatever you might need.”

“We stay together, right?”

“We can stay together,” Ellie said. She didn’t know if she was afraid or if she just wanted to make sure that Ellie wasn’t going to leave her behind. Either way, she didn’t intend to abandon Tabitha.

“Thank you.”

Ellie shrugged.

They headed back out, locked the door, and waited outside while Jerath finished whatever he was doing. When he finally came down, he looked as if he had actually cleaned up a bit.

“Now I wish I had washed up,” Tabitha muttered.

“You wanted to see what that crowd was about, right?” Ellie asked.

“The proprietor did not share with me what was taking place here,” Jerath said. “I tried to see if she would offer any insight, but unfortunately, she did not think that it was information worthy of being shared with me.”

“Well, that’s unfortunate,” Ellie said.

“So what do you think?” Tabitha said. “Want to go see the market?”

“I don’t think that’s just a market,” Ellie said. She wasn’t sure what it was, but it certainly didn’t feel like any market that she had been to.

They headed in. The press of bodies grew thicker as they moved deeper into the crowd. People stood shoulder to shoulder, their attention focused ahead rather than on the goods in the scattered carts around them. The air was thick with the mingled scents of unwashed bodies, street food, and burning incense from somewhere nearby. Voices murmured in an almost rhythmic pattern, though Ellie couldn’t quite make out the words. Every few moments, the crowd would shift as one, people craning their necks and standing on tiptoes to see something beyond their view. The faces around them showed a mix of anticipation and unease, with some people clutching small tokens or charms in their hands.

Surprisingly, however, there did seem to be some element of a market here, with carts stationed all around. They were staggered, not in any orderly fashion, and certainly not like any market that Ellie had been to within Busal City. This was almost erratic, chaotic. She kept going, fighting her way through.

The carts seemed to have been placed wherever their owners could find space, creating narrow, twisting paths between them. Some displayed common goods—bread, fruit, trinkets—while others held stranger wares: crystals that caught the light oddly, bundles of dried herbs that made her nose itch, and small cloth pouches sealed with wax. A few merchants called out prices, but most stood silent, watching the crowd with calculating eyes. One cart had been abandoned entirely, its contents covered by a heavy cloth that rippled in the still air. The smell of spices mixed with something sharper, almost metallic, and Ellie found herself instinctively drawing back from certain spaces between the stalls, though she couldn’t say why.

Ellie had been testing for the king’s fabrication, thinking that there had to be some sense of it. Without Devarel, she wasn’t sure how to go about getting answers about what was taking place in Buruketh.

The farther they got, the more she noticed some of the buildings, and moreover, some of the energy in them. She looked around, using a slow, steady pulse of her ability. She couldn’t pick up on whether anything here was particularly dangerous, but she didn’t think so.

“I don’t feel anything Inarak,” Ellie said softly.

“Would you be able to tell?” Tabitha asked.

“I think so,” she said.

“Except for the crowd?”

“Except for whatever is going on here,” she said.

She needed time to explore, because right now, Ellie wasn’t able to discern anything.

They kept moving forward, with Jerath trailing, though he was staying close.

She had a distinct sense of him coming close, from the fabrications that he was carrying. She had not probed his fabrications, as she should have, and she wondered if he was carrying anything that she needed to be aware of.

“What do you think everybody is gathered for?” Tabitha said.

“Street performer?” Ellie suggested.

“This is no performer,” Jerath said.

She noticed his hand near his sword. At one point, when somebody got too close to them, Jerath stepped forward, just putting his body in the way. He didn’t actually do anything other than just nudge the person out of the way, but his physical presence was enough to push people back.

Ellie wasn’t a large woman. She doubted that she would be able to force a crowd back quite like that. Not without using her Blade ability, and even then, there was no guarantee that she would have been able to push back a crowd. In fact, she highly doubted it.

Still, she had done something with her ability to force back her attackers last night. She wondered if she could use that now.

This wasn’t necessarily the best time to test her powers, but there probably wouldn’t ever be a good time for it.

She focused, thinking about how it had felt, the burning energy, and then she began to build that energy up again and slowly swept it outward. The burning power eased away from her. Whatever that sense was, it seemed to work… somehow.

It had to be some new technique that she had stumbled upon, and if she had a fabrication breaker, or somebody else who could help explain this, maybe she could learn more about what it was. But for now, the technique alone created a bubble around her, and it kept others from getting too close.

“What are you doing?” Tabitha asked.

Ellie realized that she had simply stopped moving.

“I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s fine. I was just curious what you were doing.”

“I’m trying something. I don’t know if it will be effective, but I wanted to test whether there was something to what I feel here.”

They kept moving, and the crowd spilled out onto a much broader street. At one end, it looked like merchants moved wagons through, but at the very far end was where the crowd was the densest.

She focused, creating a wave of energy that she sent rippling away from her. Ellie could feel something significant here, and she thought that it was emanating from the crowded end of the street.

“Be ready,” she said, getting close to Jerath. “I don’t know what it is, but I can feel something.”

He didn’t say anything but just nodded.

They got closer, and she started to wonder if she had been right about it just being a street performer.

But that wasn’t it at all. Instead, she saw a tall, looming man who commanded an unmistakable presence. He had dark hair, crystal-blue eyes, and a strong jaw. But it was more than his appearance—there was something about him, an energy she could feel radiating outward, that set her instincts on edge.

“What is that?” she muttered, though mostly to herself.

“He’s just preaching,” Tabitha said.

Ellie looked over sharply. “Preaching?”

“We see them outside Busal City at times. This is nothing new. He’s just another priest. They celebrate the Sacred Souls,” Tabitha said. “They are not that common in Busal, but Lorian has started getting reports of them spreading throughout the country, and I know there was one in Busal City not that long ago.”

Ellie shifted closer, listening.

“The Sacred Souls watched over us all, my brothers and sisters! They saw our struggles, our triumphs, our very hearts laid bare before their eternal gaze.” The priest’s voice carried across the crowd, his hands raised toward the sky. “And what have we become in their absence? Lost sheep, wandering without a shepherd. But they have not forgotten us—no, they remember every soul that once sang their praises. Their wisdom still echoes in the ancient stones of our temples, in the very air we breathe. Some would have you believe they abandoned us, that their departure was just. But I tell you this—they were taken from us! And until they return, we remain incomplete, children left alone in the dark. The Sacred Souls’ light may have dimmed, but it has not gone out. Remember them! Honor them! For they remember us, even now!”

Ellie turned slowly, looking around at the gathered crowd. She had never seen anything quite like it, though perhaps such scenes simply didn’t occur in Busal City. Or at least they hadn’t, but according to Tabitha, maybe they were starting to, especially after the strange attack in the city. Maybe that had drawn a different sort of focus.

“We can keep moving,” Ellie said.

She nodded to Tabitha, but her friend remained frozen in place, unmoving.

“Tabitha?” Ellie called softly.

But Tabitha just stared ahead, a vacant expression on her face. Ellie glanced back at Jerath—he wore the same unsettling look. As she surveyed the crowd, she realized everyone who had gotten close enough to the priest shared that same vacant expression.

It seemed as if Ellie was the only one that had made it this close to the priest who didn’t.

Then she noticed something else. Dark figures were moving through the crowd.

And everything within her went cold.

Chapter

Twenty

Ellie positioned herself so that she could gain a better idea of what was happening here, but she was also trying to make sure that she didn’t fall to the enthrallment of the priest. It had to be some sort of fabrication. She pulsed her power, and as she did, she didn’t feel any pressure against her, certainly nothing that would explain what was going on here.

It didn’t feel like power, or anything that she had encountered before, so what was it, and why was she immune to it?

It was that second question that she thought was most significant.

Ellie focused on her ability. She hadn’t been paying that much attention to it, but her ability certainly felt a little different now. There was that soft burning sensation that had only been there since she had been attacked near the temple.

Some part of her had reacted to the attack. And it had persisted when she had touched on that Blade trap, when she had very nearly been incapacitated. It had forced her to use some aspect of her ability that she had never attempted before, and it had released something inside her.

She focused on that.

When she did, it struck her as a potent, almost unsettling kind of power that was unique to her. The burning was the key, she thought. Somehow the burning seemed to actually help her, and perhaps even protect her.

But why, and what was it doing?

Better yet—could she control it? It felt like there was something missing in it, but she had to understand that power—somehow.

Ellie stood, pretending that she was unfocused, like the others.

The figures continued to move through the crowd, and Ellie skimmed her gaze around, trying to pinpoint who might be responsible, and for that matter, what they were responsible for.

As the figures got closer, she noticed that some of the movement was halting. They weaved through the crowd with practiced grace, their movements too coordinated to be random. As Ellie watched, one would pause near a person, and that person’s eyes would become glassy, their stance becoming loose and unfocused. Then, quick as shadows, hands would dart out—to a coin purse, a jeweled pin, anything of value. The victims stayed frozen, swaying slightly, as if caught in a dream. Three, no, four of the thieves worked in concert, each positioning themselves so that the crowd’s own movements would hide their work from those nearby. They never touched the same person twice, never stayed in one spot long enough to draw attention.

Ellie had thought that they might be attacking people, but that wasn’t it at all.

They were thieves?

Not only were they thieves, but they were using some sort of power to place people under an enthrallment that incapacitated them.

That angered her. If they had power like that, then why use it for this?

However, she had known people to use power for reasons that were equally selfish.

Wealth, power, it was all part of the same spectrum, she supposed.

Ellie debated what to do here.

She certainly wasn’t going to let herself be robbed, because she wasn’t willing to let them get close to her. But she was curious.

She kept her hands on her blades and continued staring, listening to the priest.

The man’s face flushed with passion as he continued. “They say we are better without their guidance, that we have grown stronger in their absence. But look around you! Look at how we stumble through the darkness, how we’ve forgotten the old ways! The Sacred Souls gave us purpose, gave us direction. They showed us the true path, and what did we do? We listened to whispers and lies. We allowed ourselves to be led astray by those who would keep us from our rightful destiny.”

His fingers curled into fists. “But the signs are there, for those who know how to read them. The old powers stir. Those who watch from the shadows grow restless. The time approaches when we must choose—will we remember the Sacred Souls’ teachings? Or will we continue to deny their glory, their rightful place above us? The choice, my brothers and sisters, will soon be upon us all!”

As Ellie listened, she tried to pick up on the location of the source of this power.

It didn’t seem to have any obvious source.

One of the figures got closer.

What did she have in her pockets? She had left most of her belongings back in the inn, so if they took something, could she use it for her gain? Thankfully, she had left the trap fabrication behind, as it was deactivated, but she did have a few other fabrications, including …

A hand dipped into her pocket. It took everything within Ellie’s power to fight off the urge to go after the thief. She needed to look just like everybody else in the crowd, enthralled in the same way.

Then they moved on. She shifted her hand, moving subtly, until she could check what they had taken.

A fabrication. That was it.

An idea began to form.

She pulsed and was able to pick up on the trail of her fabrication. She could follow these people through the crowd.

Interesting, and perhaps useful. Depending upon what happened, and depending upon what she was looking for, Ellie could use that information.

She listened to the priest a little longer.

“And so I tell you, in these darkening times, we must keep our faith! The Sacred Souls hear your prayers, even now, even in their absence. Their wisdom survives in each of us who remembers. Do not let others convince you that their silence means abandonment. Their silence is a test, my brothers and sisters. A test of our devotion, our resolve! And when they return …” The priest’s voice cracked with emotion. “When they return, they will know who remained true!”

As soon as the preaching was done, the crowd started to shift. It was as if a veil lifted, and whatever had been influencing everybody dissipated.

Tabitha blinked. Jerath shifted his feet for just a moment before turning.

“So,” Tabitha said, as if nothing had happened, “are we going to see what he’s talking about?”

“You didn’t hear any of that?” Ellie asked.

“Here any of what?”

Interesting. Could it have been the priest? If that were the case, the technique was unlike anything that Ellie had experienced before, but then again, there were quite a few different techniques that she could imagine. It certainly wasn’t a fabrication. If it were a fabrication, Ellie would have been aware of it immediately.

And given that thieves were responsible for this, and that they were simply slipping through the crowd, using the priest in some way to buy some time, Ellie found herself curious and a little impressed. The measure of power was significant. And it had worked over a fairly large area, influencing pretty much everybody here.

The crowd had started to break up. The real question was why the crowd had pressed so hard toward the priest.

The most likely reason was that somebody had a way of pushing people toward the priest, to gather them here so that they presented an easier target to move through and rob.

“Check what you’re missing,” Ellie said.

Tabitha started searching her pockets, and then her eyes widened. “I had three coins. Did you take them?”

“No,” Ellie said. “We were robbed.”

“We were robbed?” Jerath asked. “I would have known.”

“I don’t think so, not with this technique. This was something unexpected.”

Ellie started moving through the crowd as it dispersed, using pulses of power. She trailed her fabrication, and curiosity was getting to her. That sort of technique had some potential, although Ellie wasn’t sure if she could use it herself, but she would like to know what they had done, even if whatever she learned wouldn’t actually help her all that much.

Tabitha kept pace. “You want to tell me what happened? Or am I supposed to just wonder why I was robbed, and why you don’t seem at all concerned about it?”

“We were all robbed,” Ellie said, motioning around her. The crowd continued to disperse. Some of the carts moved slowly away.

The cart owners were in on it.

Maybe they had some way of amplifying the effect.

She had no way of knowing. Another pulse, and still there was nothing, no sense of energy, no sense of anything else that she could identify.

“All of us?” Tabitha said.

“They went through the crowd. They took from everybody.”

“If you knew, why didn’t you do something?”

“Consider it a curiosity,” Ellie said. “We can talk about it more, but right now, I want to see where they’re going.”

“How … Oh. Your fabrications. You wanted the thieves to take one.”

“I didn’t necessarily want them to take my fabrication, but since they did, I can use that. Every fabrication has a distinct signature to it, especially one that I’ve carried with me. I can’t always use fabrications myself, but I can always follow them.”

Even ones that weren’t all that strong. And none of the fabrications that she had with her were all that potent.

The thief moved up ahead. Ellie pushed through the crowd, veering down a side street. The narrow street twisted away from the market’s noise, its shadows deepening as the buildings pressed closer together. Ahead, the figure slipped between patches of light, the stolen fabrication leaving a trail that only Ellie could sense. The cobblestones here were slick with something that might have been water or worse, and the windows above seemed to watch them with dark, empty gazes. Every few steps, Ellie would pause, head tilted slightly, testing the air like a hound catching a scent, before continuing her pursuit.

“Are you sure we should go down here?” Tabitha said. “If we could fall under their influence again, are you sure that it’s going to be safe?”

“It’s going to be safe for me,” Ellie said, and then she flashed a grin. “You need to be worried. I think I can remove any influence over you.”

“The key word there is ‘think,’” Tabitha said. “I’m not particularly fond of the fact that you don’t know that for sure.”

“I’m pretty sure that I can remove it. I just didn’t want to.”

“You’re making it sound like you’re working with them, and I don’t really care for that.”

Ellie snorted. “There were too many people around us. If I had done something, they would have known I was immune. I want to know what’s going on here.”

Jerath stayed behind them, although Ellie had the sense that he was displeased by her coming out here, and about the idea that he might not be able to protect her as she got deeper into this section of the city.

The fabrication stopped moving, so Ellie continued her pursuit until she moved past the building where the fabrication was now located. The building comprised two stories of weathered stone, wedged between two taller structures like an afterthought. Its windows were shuttered tight despite the hour. The fabrication’s signature led straight through that door. A narrow alley ran alongside the building, choked with empty crates and rotting barrels that reeked something foul.

She kept going, on the off chance that somebody was watching for any movement. She kept on until she reached the outskirts of the city. It ended near the rocky slopes of the lower hills of the city, and from here, she could follow a path, take it to a road that led deeper into the mountains, but that wasn’t what she wanted to do.

“What does this have to do with the reason that you came here?” Tabitha asked.

“Still trying to figure that out,” Ellie said. “And I don’t have a good answer yet, but I will let you know when I come up with one.” She flashed a smile. “But what it does is give me something more to look into while we are working to see what else is happening in the city. And it makes me wonder if this might be something that my brother was looking into.”

“You think your brother found out something with the priests?”

“You said it yourself. A priest came to Busal City, and that was not that long ago. Then my brother got involved in … Well, I’m not even sure what he got involved in, but then he left.”

“But I thought it was tied to the fabrication that you found.”

“What if these things are all somehow interconnected?” She shrugged. “Thieves.”

“It’s not quite as sexy as I was hoping it would be,” Tabitha said.

Jerath stood about a dozen paces away, looking into the city.

“He’s got to stop doing that,” Ellie muttered. “He looks so strange standing like that. He’s going to draw attention.” She turned her attention back to Tabitha. “And I realize that it’s not that exciting, but it doesn’t have to be exciting. It is what it is. We were looking for answers, and we’ve found something.”

“And you think that the king would care about this?”

“Probably not this,” Ellie conceded. “Not anything quite this mundane.”

“They robbed us. How is that mundane?”

“In terms of what Dorian would consider mundane, this is mundane.”

“So we don’t have the answers.”

“Not yet, I’m determined to find them. I must find Devarel. Then I can understand what is going on here.”

The question she didn’t have an answer to, however, was whether her brother would be found here as well.

Chapter

Twenty-One

Ellie looked along the street, wishing that she didn’t have to have Jerath tagging along with her. At least Tabitha had stayed behind, getting settled in the inn, where she claimed that all she wanted to do was some research. Given Ellie’s experience with her, she suspected that truly was all that she was going to do.

She crouched near the entrance to an alley. In a way, she felt like she was still sneaking and thieving, just doing it in a different place, but still for Dorian. From her position, she could see the back entrance of the building where she’d tracked the fabrication to earlier. A single lamp burned down the street, casting weak light across rain-slick cobblestones. Two men had been standing guard along the street, though they made it seem as if they were not. Every so often, someone would approach—always from a different direction, always alone—knock twice, pause, then three times more. The door would open just enough to let them slip inside.

“You don’t have to stay with me,” Ellie said to Jerath. “This is something that I need to do, and I am perfectly content to do it on my own.”

“I am tasked with⁠—”

“Right, tasked with keeping me safe,” Ellie said.

She was getting a little fed up of that. It would have been easier if Dorian had simply let her and Tabitha come on their own. All his presence did was create additional attention that she didn’t want.

She had been using a pulse of her ability, testing for the fabrication that the thieves had taken. Her fabrication hadn’t moved, but she kept waiting for it to do so, for one of the thieves to decide it was time to sell it.

She had seen a few people moving along the street, but not in significant numbers, and certainly nothing to make her concerned about what else was happening here. A woman in a faded blue dress hurried past, basket clutched to her chest, while two men lounged against a wall, sharing a pipe between them. None had the bearing of trained fighters—their movements were too loose, too casual. A boy who couldn’t have been more than twelve slipped between buildings. Every now and then, someone would emerge from one of the doorways, exchange quick glances with others on the street, then move on. They all had the same watchful wariness about them, but none carried weapons beyond simple knives.

As far as Ellie could tell, most of these people were tied to this thieving circle in some way, but none of them looked particularly dangerous, and as far as she had been able to tell, none of them carried with them much in the way of power. That, in Ellie’s mind, was the most significant thing.

“I’m going to investigate a little more. I don’t need your help for this.”

Jerath scowled at her. “That is not the assignment.”

“Maybe not yours, but it is mine. There are certain things that I’m capable of that I don’t need your assistance for. And I’m not saying it to upset you.” At least, that wasn’t really the reason that she was saying it, but she was trying to keep him from feeling like he needed to shadow her so closely. “The king knows that I am trained for this.”

“He trained you to be a spy?”

It wasn’t the first time that somebody had suggested that, and to a certain extent, Ellie had also thought that maybe that was part of the reason that Dorian had trained her the way that he had, although not entirely.

“Not a spy,” she said. “At least, not entirely a spy. But I can move quickly, quietly, and I can do so without being detected.”

“Because you are a Blade?”

His question was laced with something else, maybe a hint of curiosity, and she understood. Most people within Busal City understood what the Blades were, as they had continued to serve the realm even after the queen had perished. Dorian used them a little differently, working them in with the Empyreans, and having them serve in more of an advisory role, rather than as solitary servants tasked with removing any magical presence. Ellie’s role was very different, though.

“I trained as a Blade, but I’m not a Blade. Is that enough for you? Or do you need more?”

“I am trying to understand my place here,” he said.

“That’s fair. You can keep watch, and if you see anything that looks amiss, you can come after me. Although I don’t want you to come rushing in and revealing that I’m there. Got it?”

He seemed as if he wanted to argue, but thankfully, he did not.

He nodded.

Ellie sighed, and then she slipped forward. It was getting dark, and in the growing darkness, she was able to move much more easily. She chose a pocket of stragglers along the street, using that to move forward, avoiding any attention, and then she neared the building where she felt her fabrication. She used another pulse of her ability, and once again, she felt the presence of the fabrication inside. It was growing dimmer, and she suspected that was because she kept using her pulse of ability to detect it. Doing so would likely diminish the fabrication over time. She had to be careful with that, because Ellie certainly didn’t want to damage her means of tracking the thieves.

She found the building looking no different than it had before, and then she moved past, looping around, taking a side street to see if there was another way in. She saw a back entrance, on a backstreet. The backstreet was little more than a narrow gap between buildings, barely wide enough for two people to pass. Old crates and broken barrels had been stacked haphazardly against the walls, creating shadows within shadows. The door itself was sturdy but plain, set deep in the stone wall with no identifying marks. A single rusted hook beside it suggested a lamp had once hung there, though now the space was dark. Above, the building’s walls rose straight up with no windows until the second floor, where a single shuttered window overlooked the alley. The smell of wet stone and rotting wood hung heavy in the air, and somewhere nearby, water dripped steadily into a puddle she couldn’t see. The space felt deliberately forgotten.

That was where she needed to go.

She moved forward, holding one of her blades. She kept her ability wound deep inside her, and strangely, that burning sensation had persisted.

She slipped up to the door. The fabrication wasn’t quite as prominent here, but near the door, she knew that it was still inside this building. She focused, tested the lock, and then used her knife to pop open the door. When she had been training as a Blade, Zaren had used his own blade to deactivate fabrications that were used to lock doors, but Ellie had never felt that skill to be necessary, mostly because with the right force, she could simply pop a door open. And in this case, she didn’t feel any fabrications locking the door.

Inside, she paused. This was a space that spoke of disuse or disinterest—chairs were pushed back from a long table, papers scattered across its surface. The room held the musty scent of old wood and something sharper, chemical, that made her nose twitch. Moonlight filtered through narrow windows set high in the walls, casting angular shadows across worn floorboards. A few arcane lanterns burned low, suggesting someone had been here recently. Against the far wall, cabinets stood with their doors slightly ajar, their contents hidden in shadow.

She moved forward and then found a staircase leading up and down.

Up would take her to an area that would be easier to escape from if it came down to it, and as she used another pulse of power, letting it sweep out from her, she could tell that the fabrication that she was chasing was not in that direction.

Not up, then. Which meant down.

That posed a bit more danger.

Nothing to do but go, she told herself.

She took a deep breath and slipped down the stairs. At the bottom of the stairs, there was the sound of voices.

Ellie hesitated there for a moment, waiting and debating. Depending upon how many people were here, she could slip in, attack, and deal with this relatively quickly, but she didn’t want to reveal that she was here. Not yet.

So she waited, looking, listening, and testing for just a moment. There were no other sounds here. Just the murmuring of voices up ahead.

With another pulse of her ability, Ellie detected nothing other than the fabrication that they had taken from her. Odd that she would feel only that.

Unless …

There was another possibility, one that she had not checked for.

There was the distinct possibility that something here was limiting her ability to detect much else. That would be surprising, because she was able to detect her own fabrication, but it was quite possible that the reason that she could detect her fabrication was because she had carried it. There was something to be said about having a familiarity with and a proximity to a fabrication, and having an awareness of that power.

She needed to know what was going on. And she wasn’t here to deal with some thieving ring, so what did it matter if she exposed her presence?

She slipped forward.

There was no sign of the voices that she’d heard, although as she stepped toward the doorway, she paused, listened, tested the lock, and found that it was unlocked, and then pushed it open. As soon as she did, a wave of fabricated power washed out toward her.

There was a man on the other side, his back to her.

She hurriedly darted forward, drove the hilt of her blade into the back of his head, and kicked his feet out from under him at the same time, dropping him to the ground, where he lay unconscious.

Ellie quickly scanned the room.

The low-ceilinged room had the feel of an old wine cellar, with stone walls darkened by age and moisture. Racks had been bolted into the walls and floor, each holding fabrications that made the air thick with power. Old wooden support beams, their surfaces worn smooth by time, crossed overhead at regular intervals. The stone floor was stained with dark patches. In one corner, a workbench held tools laid out. The space felt cramped and oppressive.

There had to be a dozen or so fabrications here.

She didn’t need to test each fabrication in order to know that many of them were dangerous. These were potent fabrications.

This could be what Dorian had wanted her to investigate, although he had just said to look into fabrications. Not a crime syndicate. Ellie quickly moved forward, testing a couple of the fabrications.

A spherical fabrication no larger than her fist pulsed with steady waves of power, its metallic surface etched with fine geometric patterns. Beside it, a slender rod about the length of her forearm was mounted horizontally, its dark metal surface completely smooth except for a series of small indentations along one side. The third she tested was flat and circular, like a disk, with concentric rings carved into its surface that seemed to channel power toward its center. Each one’s construction was precise, deliberate, but the power signatures flowing through them felt raw and unstable in a way she’d never encountered before.

With each one that she tested, she found a distinct signature, and something that was unlike anything she had felt before. That was odd, because Ellie had been around quite a few fabrications in the time that she had been serving Busal City, and had rarely come across anything that would surprise her these days, especially given the trade agreements with Ardem, from where powerful fabrications would come into Busal and could be used by Dorian for the security of the realm.

But these …

She wasn’t sure what some of them did, only that they were powerful.

And then there was one near the corner, inside a box.

She didn’t even need to open the box to feel it. It radiated to her senses, the same burning vibrational sense that she had experienced when she had encountered it before.

Some sort of fabricated Blade trap.

She wasn’t going to make the mistake of using her ability against it, but she wasn’t going to leave it here, either. She needed to test it, and so she grabbed the box, looked around the room, scanned the other door, where the other voices must’ve gone, before debating. Could she—and should she—deactivate some of these fabrications?

Not all of them felt quite as raw to her as the Blade trap.

But most of them had the distinct, potent sense that she had some familiarity with, and they needed to be dealt with. And considering the fact that she was dealing with thieves …

These weren’t people who were looking to use the fabrications for the protection of their own people. These weren’t people who were hoping for safety and stability. They were using them for some other purpose, and at this point, she wasn’t sure that she cared.

So perhaps it was better to deactivate them, but there was another possibility, something more that she could do until she had a better chance to know what, exactly, she needed to do about this.

She moved around the room, checking each of the fabrications and using her ability to connect to them. She didn’t deactivate them. She didn’t push through them. She didn’t fight the resistance. She just made herself aware of them. With each one that she connected to, she could feel the fabrication much more clearly. And once she left, she had to believe that she would be able to use that connection in order to link to them, and to stay connected so that she could track where they ended up.

There was a possibility—however unlikely—that the fabrications were not meant for anything nefarious. And until she knew, Ellie didn’t want to take action that might actually be to the detriment of Busal.

Better to be cautious than to be too presumptuous. Dorian would appreciate that. And besides, if they ended up in Busal City, she could deal with them then. Until such time, she just wanted to know where they were going.

The sound of voices started drifting toward her again. She could stay, but she didn’t want to fight and expose what she was doing. So she glanced at the fallen man, whispered a quiet apology, and then darted back out onto the street.

Now to go find Jerath and come up with a plan.

Chapter

Twenty-Two

Ellie sat at the table inside the Bent Blade, a mug of ale in front of her but untouched. She hadn’t really wanted to drink anything. She was hungry, though, so she was picking at the vegetables in the stew that had been brought over. She didn’t know what kind of meat it was. Some mountain animal, from what the waitress had said, although she had a thick accent.

A fire crackled in the stone hearth, casting warm light across the wooden beams overhead and filling the room with the scent of burning pine. Heavy wooden tables, worn smooth by years of use, were scattered throughout the space, most occupied by locals who spoke in the same thick mountain accent as the waitress. Copper pots hung from hooks near the kitchen door, and dried herbs dangled from the rafters, adding their subtle fragrance to the mix of woodsmoke and cooking food. The walls were lined with shelves holding mismatched mugs and bottles. In one corner, an old man played a stringed instrument she didn’t recognize, its melody barely audible above the general murmur of conversation.

Tabitha had a book in front of her, her own food having been quickly eaten, and she would occasionally take a sip of her ale. Jerath sat rigidly, and Ellie felt he ought to try harder at being less conspicuous. He was giving off the energy of somebody who was clearly not meant to be here.

“You’re being too obnoxious,” Ellie said.

Tabitha looked over, and then she chuckled. “Just relax. Have a drink, a little food. Besides, you figured out what was going on, didn’t you?”

“We did not figure anything out,” Jerath said, looking over at Ellie. He had been disappointed to learn that she had gone into the building and had gone down into a room where she could have been trapped. That was true enough. But she also had made a point of not sharing with him that she had grabbed the box containing the Blade trap. She hadn’t even told Tabitha that yet.

“We did,” Ellie said. “Fabrications are moving. And apparently, the priest is somehow tied to it, or at least his people are. So I don’t really have a good answer, but I’m starting to wonder if that is part of the reason that I was sent.”

She needed time to learn more and to see if there would be anything else here that she could uncover about the fabrications and why they were here, but she also wanted a little more time to figure out what the priest was doing. She hadn’t seen him again, but she figured that it was just a matter of time.

“You want to talk with the priest?” Tabitha said.

“Maybe,” she said.

“And you don’t think that would be dangerous?”

Ellie had shared her concern about how the priest might have been involved in what had happened to the crowd. She wasn’t sure how he had done it, but it hadn’t been a fabrication, which suggested that it was some innate ability that he possessed. Ellie had not felt anything from him, though, so whatever he did and however he did it was impressive. It hadn’t affected her, so she figured that it should be something that she continued to investigate.

“Actually, I think that I’m the only person that won’t find him dangerous,” she said. “I realize that others might, and I realize that there might be more to his trick than I know, but I’d like to figure it out.”

“Trick?”

Ellie shrugged.

A server stopped back at the table. He was an older man with a large mustache, deep gray eyes, and heavy wrinkles. He smiled easily when he saw them, though, although the smile faltered when he looked at Jerath. “Can I get you ladies anything else?”

“Another drink,” Tabitha said.

“I’m still working,” Ellie said. She turned, looking up at him. “Say, we saw a priest out here earlier, but we didn’t get there in time to hear what he had to say. I don’t suppose you could tell us anything about him?”

“Him?” He waved a hand and then snorted. “We’ve been getting that spiel for a little while now. They come and talk every couple of days, get a bit of a crowd each time, though I can’t say that I understand why. Not for me, you see. You live out here long enough; you find that those who talk about the Custodians have some peculiarities to them.”

Tabitha pushed her book aside, looking up at the man. “I’ve not heard about this. What is this?”

“Oh, not much to be said about it, just that there tend to be those who still follow the Custodians, think that they can bring about the old ways.” He snorted. “You get that around here, especially with what we’ve got up there.” He tipped his head toward the north. “You learn to ignore it. You stay here long enough—and if you plan on staying, I can get you better rates for the room—you learn to just let it blow past you.” He chuckled. “Don’t have much choice in that, I suppose.” He grinned at Tabitha. “I’ll be back with a drink for you.”

When he went, Ellie turned to Tabitha. “The Custodians?”

“Honestly, not something that I’ve heard much about in a while. I’m familiar with them, as an old religious sect.” She shook her head. “Can’t say that I know much, though.”

A religious sect. And then there was the issue of the Servants of Ascendance.

Maybe this was all tied together in some way.

“I need you to look into it,” Ellie said.

“Of course,” Tabitha said. “That’s all?”

“See if you can’t figure out what he’s talking about with some of the places around the mountains.”

“Oh, that’s easy,” Tabitha said. And when Ellie frowned at her, she just grinned. “Well, relatively easy, I suppose. You go maybe a day or two up into the mountains, depending on if you go on foot or horseback, and you get to a few ancient places. There are discrete ruins. But they are all fairly close together. There are some who speculate that it was once a massive city, but the ruins are too difficult to map to make sense of that.” She shrugged. “Honestly, not much that I can tell you about it, although there are some stories. Some say there was a great battle there that shattered the land itself. Others claim it was a plague that emptied the city, but not a natural one—something born of power gone wrong. The most interesting tale, though, is about a vault deep in the ruins. They say the ancient people sealed away weapons or fabrications of incredible power, things they feared to use again. Every few generations, someone claims to have found an entrance, but they either return empty-handed or don’t return at all.” She took a sip of her ale. “Though personally, I think the truth is probably more mundane. Trading outpost that fell to raiders or weather or simply time. But it’s odd how many of the stories mention power that makes me think of fabrications.”

Ellie sat quietly for a moment, distracted. She had already experienced how old—even ancient—issues could come back. There were the Inarak, which had attacked in Busal City. There were the fae, although she really didn’t think that they had been involved in anything, and then there was whatever had happened in the city before Zaren had left. Ellie still didn’t know all the details. Zaren had kept most of those to himself, and she suspected that was part of the reason he had left, although she wasn’t sure what he had gone to investigate.

“I don’t suppose you heard any stories?” Ellie asked, trying to draw Jerath into the conversation. He was so quiet most of the time, and she wanted to see if he would share anything with them, but maybe there wasn’t much that he wanted to talk about, especially because he didn’t seem to care about anything other than his assignment.

“You haven’t said much about where you come from,” Tabitha said. “It can’t be from Busal, not if you follow the Sovereign.”

Jerath was quiet. Finally, he glanced at Tabitha before looking to Ellie. “Not originally. Like many, I’m an immigrant. I learned to follow the Sovereign, learn to seek His favor, and have devoted myself to Him and to His return.”

“And King Dorian,” Tabitha said.

“Of course,” Jerath said after a slight pause.

The hesitation was surprising, especially for a man that had been assigned to Ellie. What had Dorian been thinking by sending him with her? With Dorian, there were always hidden messages, other purposes. Maybe he knew—and given how much she knew Dorian, and how well informed he was, she suspected that he did. There had to be some reason behind it. And perhaps Dorian had known that they would find the priest, and that her brother had been following him. Perhaps Jerath would know something that would help her understand what Baring had gotten involved in. And maybe there was a secondary purpose behind all of that.

“I’m going to get some air,” Ellie said.

Tabitha shrugged, which thankfully meant that she wasn’t going to try to stop her. When Jerath looked as if he was going to get up, Ellie shook her head. Let him stay here. Let him eat, drink, and relax. And maybe she could get a sense of the city.

“I’m just going to see if the city gives off any strange senses,” Ellie said. “Nothing to be worried about.”

“You know that it is my responsibility.”

“I know. And I’m not going very far. I’m just stepping out, just for a little while. I promise that I’m not going to take risks.”

She knew that was not fully the truth, but she wouldn’t let him know that.

Ellie stepped outside. The night air held a sharp chill, and mist crept along the cobblestones, curling around the bases of the streetlamps, which cast pools of yellow light at regular intervals. The buildings loomed tall on either side, their upper stories dissolving into darkness where they met the clouded sky. Most windows were dark, though a few still glowed with lamplight, and somewhere distant, a dog barked. The street itself was empty save for a drunk weaving his way home on the opposite side, and the occasional whisper of wind through the narrow alleys that branched off into deeper darkness. The fog muffled sounds, making even her own footsteps seem distant and unfamiliar.

As Ellie had promised, she used a pulse of her ability and let it flow out from her. All was still. That was reassuring, or at least, it would have been, were it not for the fact that she had a distinct sense of that burning energy. It was more prominent now. It was as if coming out into the street had awoken that sense. Regardless, Ellie needed to work on this new aspect of her ability, so that she could get a better sense of what it was, and whether it was dangerous to her. She didn’t quite know why she had started to feel that each time that she had begun to use her ability.

It didn’t seem to impact what she was able to do. At least, it hadn’t so far. She remained concerned that it would interfere with her innate ability to deflect and interact with power. So far, she hadn’t seen that to be the case, but until she tested it, Ellie couldn’t be confident of that.

She moved on down the street, getting away from the inn. As she did, she noticed shadows moving. Another quick pulse, and this time, she detected a familiar sense.

It was one of the fabrications that she had felt in the thieves’ warehouse.

She followed. Her target moved with purpose, keeping to the edges of the street. The fog made them little more than a silhouette, but Ellie matched their pace easily, her footsteps silent on the cobblestones. The fabrication’s power signature was like a beacon she could follow even when buildings briefly blocked her view. They turned down one narrow alley, then another, moving deeper into the older part of the city, where the buildings pressed closer together and the streets grew more twisted. Ellie kept her distance, pausing at each corner before following, her hand resting lightly on the hilt of her blade.

They reached a darkened section of the city. This part of the city showed its age in the weathered stone walls and uneven streets that climbed the mountain’s first slopes. The street ended in a sheer wall of mountain stone, black in the darkness, with buildings pressed against it. The fog was thicker here, clinging to the cold stone. The air felt different, too.

From here, Ellie could feel the energy around her, but she wasn’t sure what to make of it.

Until it simply vanished.

She frowned. She used a pulse of her ability, but there was no sense of it. It had just vanished.

That was unusual, especially because she had made a link to the fabrication, or so she had thought. It shouldn’t be possible for it to simply disappear like that.

Ellie moved along the street, staying in the shadows, and continued to create rippling waves of her ability as she tested for the fabrication, but she found nothing. The sense of it had simply gone away.

What was going on here?

Not only did they have quite a few potent and dangerous fabrications, but now they were able to hide them from her?

Dorian had said that fabrications were getting moved through Busal, dangerous ones, and he wanted her to investigate. At least now she understood how they were slipping past the Blades along the border. Because the Blades wouldn’t be able to detect them.

But how were they doing it?

She made her way back toward the inn. The fog had thickened during her pursuit, making the return journey feel different. The mountain loomed as a darker mass against the night sky, and the steep streets forced her to watch her footing on the cobblestones. A cat darted across her path, disappearing into a narrow gap between buildings. The few lit windows she had passed were shuttered now, and the sound of her boots seemed louder in the growing silence. Even the tavern district’s usual noise had dulled to a distant murmur, muffled by the fog and the press of old stone buildings.

Ellie could still feel the energy around her, but she wasn’t sure what else to make of that. There were other fabrications out there, and they were the ones that she had seen and felt at the warehouse, but they weren’t moving. As far as she could tell, they were still back at the warehouse. She found herself heading in that direction, wandering closer, still using her waves of ability, staying in the shadows. When she neared the building, she could still feel those fabrications.

There was a single figure near the door. Then another appeared.

Ellie watched and noticed three other figures coming down the street, but it was the one in the rear that drew her attention.

It was the priest.

He was coming this way. He was coming toward the warehouse.

And Ellie had questions for him.

Chapter

Twenty-Three

Ellie looked outside the building. Shafts of moonlight streamed down around her, so she could barely make out the outline of the building. The building rose two stories, its stone facade pocked. Above, slate roof tiles gleamed dully in the moonlight, their edges softened by patches of mountain moss.

There had been movement in and out of the building, but Ellie had seen no sign of the priest again. It was too dangerous for her to go after him. She had no idea how many guards he had, and Ellie didn’t want to run the risk of deterring him from answering her questions by being aggressive. It was better to approach with caution and draw him into a place where he wouldn’t know that she was there.

But she waited long enough that she started to think that this was his residence.

Not the basement, at least. But perhaps on the upper level, which she hadn’t explored.

She considered the right approach. Go after him or wait for him to reemerge?

If she waited, he might appear with more security. If she went in, she might not be able to fight her way through the security inside.

What she needed was⁠—

“What are you doing out here?”

Ellie spun, immediately jabbing out with her blade before realizing it was Jerath.

She breathed out. “Sacred Souls, Jerath. I could’ve gutted you.”

But she really hadn’t come all that close. He had simply blocked the thrust of her blade using his forearm, which bore a bracer.

“Tabitha went back to her room to study, but you did not return.”

“Sorry,” she said, and she surprised herself by feeling that way. She’d been irritated with him all this time and knew that he was only interested in protecting her. He was serving his king. “When I was here before, there were some fabrications. I detected one moving in the city,” she said, motioning toward the building. “Just one of them, though. I followed it, and then it just disappeared.”

Jerath moved closer to her. She was aware of his presence, the physicality of the man, and more than that, she felt the fabricated energy he wore stirring. He was heavily fabricated, which didn’t surprise her, as Dorian would have assigned him dozens of fabrications to ensure that not only was he safe, but he could ensure Ellie’s safety. She was curious about them, but not so curious as to test any of them, because doing so would run the risk of deactivating them.

“Does that happen often?” He kept his voice low.

“No,” she said. “Almost never. And it seemed as if the fabrication simply vanished. I don’t have a good explanation for it. The fabrication was there, and then it was not.”

He nodded slowly and then pressed his lips together in a tight frown. “Do you think they have some suppressive capability?”

“Doubtful,” she said. “Any sort of fabrication would be something I could detect. The fact that it simply vanished suggests to me that either it was used, or there is another way of dealing with it. A fabrication couldn’t mask another fabrication. I would know.”

There would be other ways of masking power, but that suggested high level power. Not the kind of thing that ended up in a place like Buruketh.

He studied her for a moment. “You would?”

“That’s sort of the reason that I’m useful. And why the king sent me out here.”

“So you think that it was used?”

“Honestly, I don’t. I would have detected its use. This just vanished. There should have been some surge of power. So someone has the ability to mask fabrications.”

“Another Blade?” he said.

She opened her mouth to tell him no, but why couldn’t it be?

She had certainly felt power like that before, and had felt something vanish in that way. And as strange as it was, it certainly could be a Blade.

“It’s possible,” she conceded. “And then I came here, drawn by the other fabrications, and saw the priest arriving. I want to question him, and I was debating how best to confront him when you crept up on me.”

He shouldn’t have been able to sneak up on her, though, not with the number of fabrications he carried. Maybe she had been too focused on the building, but she didn’t think so.

“Dangerous,” he said.

“I’m aware.”

“What do you need me to do?”

Was he really offering?

“It would be helpful if you served as a distraction. I need somebody to draw some of the people out. It doesn’t have to be all of them, but just a few, to reduce the number of guards inside, so that when I get to the second story, where I think the priest is, I won’t have to deal with too many of them.”

Jerath stared down the street for a few moments, seemingly deciding what to do. “I will draw them away.”

“Thank you. I’ll get in position. I need to get onto the rooftop, and I should be able to scramble across to that building.”

The roofline was a jumble of heights and angles, where buildings had been added to over time. Slate tiles caught the moonlight, and thick wooden beams jutted out at regular intervals, perfect for crossing between structures. A few chimneys rose like sentinels, trailing thin wisps of smoke. The gap between the building and her target wasn’t wide—six feet at most—and the roof slopes were gentle enough that she could move across them without too much risk of sliding. Stone gutters ran along the edges, offering additional handholds if needed.

“This is part of your training?” Jerath asked.

Ellie chuckled. “There were a lot of things that were part of my training.”

“I am curious what the king intended for you.”

“Well, we can talk about that later.”

She scrambled away and made it to the nearest rooftop. It was an easy climb, as there were sections of stone that created natural handholds and footholds. The moonlit rooftops spread before her, rising and falling with the slope of the mountain. Chimney smoke created a shifting haze, and somewhere a shutter creaked in the night breeze. Below, the street was a narrow channel of shadows broken by pools of lamplight. She could see both ends of it clearly from here—the sharp turn at one end where it met the main road, and the way it curved up toward the mountain at the other.

From here, she watched as Jerath made his way down the street, and he hadn’t gone very far when he started making noise. Quite a bit of noise, in fact. He staggered toward one of the guards in front of the priest’s building. Ellie found herself smiling. The guards followed him down the street, giving Ellie a chance to move forward.

Her heart pounded as she inched along the narrow stone ledge, fingers finding tiny cracks in the weathered rock. A gust of wind made her press closer to the wall, the street swimming dizzyingly far below. The ledge crumbled slightly under her right foot, sending chips of stone pattering into the darkness.

She froze, listening for any sound, then forced herself to keep moving. Her muscles burned from holding the awkward position, and sweat made her palms slick despite the cool night air.

Just a few more feet to the window, she told herself, trying not to think about how one wrong step would send her plummeting three stories to the cobblestones.

Another gust of wind tugged at her clothes, and somewhere above, a loose tile clattered, making her pause again until the sound died away.

She reached the window. Bars blocked it, although she didn’t feel any fabricated locks on them like she would have in Busal City. She heard a murmuring but couldn’t tell if it was distant or not. Better to take a little more time and make sure no one was about before she headed into the window.

She moved on. When she reached the next window, she paused there as well. No sound, no movement, nothing.

This was where she could go in.

She slipped her thin blade between the window frame and sill, feeling for the mechanism inside. The metal was cool against her fingers as she worked the blade back and forth, probing until she felt the slight resistance of the lock. A careful twist, applying pressure in just the right spot.

She held her breath, easing the blade through the final motion, hyperaware of every tiny scrape of metal against metal. The lock was old, which made it both easier and more dangerous—easier to manipulate but more likely to make noise. She kept the pressure steady, gentle, until she felt rather than heard the mechanism give way.

It came open with a soft pop. She stood there for a moment, hating how exposed she was, but she wanted to give anybody nearby an opportunity to reveal themselves before she pushed her way inside. When no one came, she breathed out, pushed the window open, and looked in past the curtains that billowed with the breeze.

Moonlight fell across a narrow bed pushed against one wall, its blankets neatly made. A small wooden chest sat at its foot, and a plain washstand stood in the corner, with a ceramic basin on top. The walls were bare except for a single hook where a cloak might hang. There was nothing personal about the space—no ornaments, no pictures, nothing to suggest who might use it. It could have been any boarding house room in any part of the city.

Everything was quiet here. Strangely quiet. She pulled herself inside and stood for a moment. She didn’t dare pull out her lantern. Instead, she moved to the door, cracked it open, and looked in either direction. There was no sign of anybody in the hallway. A long corridor stretched in both directions, lit by a single wall-mounted lantern at the far end, which cast weak yellow light over worn floorboards. Closed doors lined both sides, spaced evenly, their brass handles dull with age. Shadows pooled in the corners and beneath a narrow wooden staircase.

Once again she found herself feeling like a thief, even though Dorian had never trained her to be one. This reminded her all too much of crawling through Telling’s home, but the stakes were quite a bit different. At least in Telling’s home, she had been a known entity, so if she had been captured, she could have deflected blame onto Dorian, and nothing significant would have happened to her. Here, however, she would have to fight her way to safety.

She moved down the hallway. There were three other doors. The building wasn’t very large, so it wouldn’t take long to search, but she needed to work quickly. She paused at one, listened, and didn’t hear anything. Cracking the door open, she found a bedroom, but it was empty. There was a bed with rumpled sheets, looking as if someone had been sleeping there, and a wardrobe partially open. Nothing else. A quick pulse of her ability told her that the room did not have any power within it. She moved on, checking the next door, and again found an empty bedroom, although the bed was made in this one, and then she moved to the last door. This had to be the room that she had seen from the street. She listened. There was a steady murmuring on the other side, though she couldn’t tell much about it.

Unsheathing her other blade, Ellie braced herself and then pulled the door open.

The room was larger than the others, stretching the full width of the building. Faded outlines on the walls suggested shelves or cabinets had once been mounted there. A single oil lamp burned on a wooden table pushed against one wall, its flame steady in the still air. Five metal disks had been arranged in a perfect circle on the bare wooden floor, their surfaces etched with patterns she couldn’t make out in the dim light. Old merchant ledgers and boxes were stacked in one corner, as if this had once been a counting room or storage space, though everything of value had long since been cleared away. The floorboards here were more worn than in the hallway, showing years of heavy use.

The priest knelt in the center of the room, surrounded by the five disks, which would have been fabrications under other circumstances, but she didn’t feel anything from them. He had his shirt off, and a scarred chest gleamed in the faint light of the room. He turned, looking toward her, cutting off his murmuring.

And his eyes surged with a pale light for a moment.

Ellie felt something deep inside her reacting instinctively. It was that burning energy. She darted toward him, jumping past the disks, and jabbed one of her blades toward his throat. He didn’t even move.

It occurred to her what he had been trying to do. He had been trying to use whatever power he had to hold her in place.

His gaze flickered past her, toward the door. Time to make a choice.

Strength isn’t in power. It’s in choice.

“No one is coming,” Ellie said. “They’ve been dealt with.” Let him think that she had incapacitated everybody on the way here.

He looked up. He still hadn’t moved, his legs crossed, his hands resting on his lap, and every bit of muscle in his upper body tense, but he had been that way when she had first come in.

“You’re going to tell me what you’re doing to the people in the city.”

“And I would like to know what you are doing to resist it.”

She smiled. “Of course you would. But I have the blade. What are you doing with the fabrications here?”

He tilted his head, frowning. “Fabrications?”

She didn’t like his slow, almost drawling way of talking. She didn’t like much about him. He made her uneasy, mostly because he obviously possessed some power that she didn’t understand. Ellie didn’t like it when she didn’t understand something.

“Weapons in your basement. I know they’re there, because I’ve seen them.”

“You are the intruder, then, who thought to take our protections against the Servants.”

Protections? That surprised her. She wouldn’t have considered any of those fabrications protections against the Servants. But that suggested that the Custodians were working against them. Interesting.

“Sure,” she said. “And you moved one of them tonight. What are you doing with them? Answer me honestly, and I might allow you to make it out of this alive.”

He didn’t move. But she felt a pressure on her now. It was acute, sharp, and it left her uncomfortable. It had to be tied to what the priest was doing, but when he had been out in the city, she hadn’t felt it quite so acutely.

Of course she wouldn’t have. She hadn’t been the focus of it at that point.

Ellie pushed, using her ability, focusing on that burning, and felt the pressure on her sizzling, until it simply disappeared.

Only then did he react, jerking his head back, as if she had struck him.

He blinked, and the strange light in his eyes faded. “What are you?”

“What am I?”

“Yes, what are you? You are not fae, but you have a touch about you. Intriguing, or it would be under other circumstances. Perhaps you will be more amenable to having a discussion when you no longer have these distasteful weapons.”

“That’s not going to⁠—”

She heard boots on the floorboards outside.

Ellie spun, positioning herself so that her back was no longer to the door, but she kept one blade up to the priest’s throat. The door sprang open, and three men came in. One of them had a crossbow, another a sword, and the last one had a fabrication, which he aimed at Ellie.

That was the easiest thing to deal with. She pushed and then darted out of the way of the crossbow bolt that came streaking across the room toward her.

But the room was small, and this was not an optimal place for fighting.

She scrambled back toward the window, debating what to do. She had wanted answers, but now she wasn’t sure if she had made a mistake in her approach to getting those answers. No. She was sure. She had made a mistake.

Three—no, four against one was generally not terrible odds for Ellie, but in a confined space, and with a power that she didn’t understand … she didn’t like those odds.

She reached the window, gave it a kick, forcing it open, and as the man with the crossbow raised it up to release another bolt, she jumped toward the window, dove out, landed on the ledge, and then scrambled across it until she could reach a nearby rooftop. When she was far enough away, she glanced back and saw the priest looking out the window toward her, but even if she hadn’t, she would have known that he was paying attention to her. She could feel that deep burning and knew that he was responsible for it, even if she didn’t know how.

Chapter

Twenty-Four

Ellie hadn’t gotten very far before she felt she was being followed. A presence was unmistakably pushing behind her.

Ellie paused in Buruketh’s main marketplace, and it was quiet at this time of the day. The market stalls stood empty, their canvas coverings pulled tight against the mountain wind. A few early-morning workers swept the cobblestones, their brooms scratching against stone the only sound besides the distant cry of a mountain hawk. The air held the crisp chill that came before dawn, and thin ribbons of smoke rose from chimneys, twisting in the breeze. Iron brackets that would later hold bright lanterns cast long shadows across the square. A cart laden with vegetables creaked past, its driver hunched against the cold, paying her no mind. The mountains loomed over the marketplace, their peaks catching the first hint of sunrise while the square remained in shadow.

Ellie used a pulse of her ability, letting it flow outward, but she could not pick up on anything. There seemed to be no fabrications here, but given what she had experienced, Ellie had started to think that there had to be other kinds of power that she wouldn’t be able to detect.

She moved into the shadows underneath an awning. The shop was a potter’s workshop, clay bowls and vases visible through the dusty window glass. Wooden shelves lined the walls inside, their surfaces crowded with finished pieces waiting to be sold. A half-completed urn sat on the wheel, covered with a damp cloth to keep it workable. The awning above her was weathered canvas, patched in places where the mountain winds had torn it. Tools hung from hooks near the door—wire cutters, shaping knives, and other implements she didn’t recognize. A few crates of raw clay were stacked beside the entrance, waiting to be brought inside when the shop opened.

Ellie turned her back to the window and focused. Another pulse of her Blade ability, but again she did not detect anything at all. She pushed out another wave and found herself pushing deeper than she had anticipated, and she began to feel that steady burning again.

That sense was accompanying her ability more often now. Ellie didn’t think that it posed a danger to her, but she did want to be careful that she didn’t start to use a power that she didn’t fully understand.

Another surge of that energy, and this time she felt just a soft stirring. It was at the edge of her awareness, and it was faint enough that Ellie wasn’t even sure if she had detected it accurately, but she was certain that she had pushed outward with enough force to detect something, if it was there.

But it was subtle.

And she thought that she had a good idea about where it was moving.

Ellie concentrated, another rippling wave rolling out from her, and she found it still moving.

What was more, as she pushed that burning focus into her Blade ability, the memory of a fabrication came to her. This was hers, the one that she had tracked back to the warehouse, but now she started to notice another element lingered with it.

It was distant, quite distant, in fact, but it was the first time that she had felt the sense of her brother since she had come to Buruketh.

It was almost enough to make her lose her focus. But then she pushed again.

That presence moving through the city was coming in her direction.

She felt it slowly working its way toward her. It didn’t take a direct path.

She didn’t want to stay here on the street. Not where something might spring upon her, and not until she had a better idea about what was happening.

Another pulse, and she thought that she could follow that strange sense, but now it had faded. There was nothing.

Ellie hadn’t gone very far before she noticed the shadowy form of a figure following her. She slipped down an alleyway and was about to dart forward when the person stood in front of her. There was a tiny pinprick of familiar energy that radiated from them, but then it vanished again.

Ellie froze. She recognized that fabricated power as something from Dorian’s household.

“Devarel?” Ellie said.

The figure moved into the alleyway. There was a slight flash of light, just a hint of a deep blue, enough for her to see. He was older, with gray hair, wearing a simple jacket and pants, a gray cloak hung over his shoulders. He didn’t appear to have a weapon. Still, she could feel the fabrication. And more than that, she had the sense that he could blend in anywhere.

“It’s dangerous for Blades here,” he said. “Dangerous in most places.”

“I’m not just a Blade,” she said. “The king sent me to gather information. I’ve been looking for you. But how are you able to shield that fabrication?”

He took a step back. “Some things are necessary here. Better to keep in the shadows.”

“Some things? What does this have to do with? Is it the priest and his followers?”

“I don’t know. I think that the Custodians are probably in on something.”

“Other than forcing people to follow the Sacred Souls?”

“Forcing? They don’t have to do anything to get anybody to follow. People have been eager to learn more about the Sacred Souls, not only here but in other places. Their voice has spread. I’m sure it has even reached Busal City.”

“Not quite the way that you might think,” Ellie said, although maybe it was spreading there. “Do they have anything to do with the Servants of Ascendance?”

He frowned. “I’ve heard rumors, but I suspect that is all it is. Rumors. I do not think they work together.”

“What are you doing here with me?”

He had sought her out, but there had to be a reason behind it.

“You have been following the fabrications. Leave those. They are designed for defense, nothing else. The Blades that have come through here know that, and they have left them intentionally.”

“I’m not so sure that they are meant for defense. They are powerful. At least the ones that I saw in their warehouse. Too dangerous to be left active.”

“You know where they have kept them?”

Ellie nodded. “I know. Found it. Like I said, I can⁠—”

“You need to be careful. There is said to be a significant power source that was recently discovered. That is what the Blades here uncovered. They disappeared before they were able to share what they knew.”

She wondered about that. Could that be what the priest was hiding? Maybe it wasn’t him that was powerful but something that he had uncovered.

“You can help us figure this out,” Ellie said. “That’s why we were sent here. Deal with this danger, and report back to the king.”

“I’m an informant, not an agent of the Crown.”

“But you are informing.”

He seemed to consider. “If I find anything useful, I will bring it back to you. Including any threats to you.”

“Well, I think that I’ve already put myself in some danger with them, so I’m not terribly surprised that there would be a threat. Any help would be appreciated. The king hoped that you could provide it.”

Devarel took a deep breath and then nodded. “For the king.”

With that, he slipped out of the alley.

Ellie followed, but she didn’t see where he’d gone. He had simply disappeared.

That was odd. She tried using a pulse of her ability, attempting to pick up on his presence, but there was no sign of him. He had vanished.

After taking a few more attempts to pick up on that connection, failing each time, Ellie turned back toward the Bent Blade. By the time she got to her room, she was exhausted. She checked with Jerath, but he was not in his room. And it occurred to her that she had not detected his fabrications when she had been testing the city, either. That might be a problem.

She was about ready to turn back when the sound of boots on the stairs caught her attention, and she used a quick pulse of energy to detect Jerath coming up.

There he was.

“You returned,” Jerath said, his voice rough.

“You knew that I was going to,” Ellie said. She debated sharing with him that Devarel had found her, but decided to hold on to that information. “And I saw you stumbling down the street, so I figured that you were safe enough.”

He nodded. “Safe enough.”

“Did you have any trouble?”

He considered it for a long moment before he responded with a slight shake of his head. “No difficulty. Nothing that I could not manage.”

“I tried to talk to the priest,” she said. She looked around, realizing that it wasn’t a good idea to have this conversation out in the open, but who was there to listen, anyway? “I didn’t get much time. He has power, though. I think he’s using a device to make him more powerful, but I’m not sure.”

“You saw it?”

“I saw it, resisted it, and then managed to get away before his buddies attacked.”

Jerath hesitated again. He watched her with his characteristic intensity. “I thought you could handle things.”

“I can,” she said, feeling more irritated than she should. “And I did. But one of them had a crossbow. The room was small, and …” She shrugged, not wanting to tell him that she had been a little unnerved by the fact that the priest had some power that she didn’t understand. “Anyway, let’s get some rest, and we can regroup tomorrow. I need to track down those fabrications and see what they are doing with them. I think that has to tie in with what I’m doing out here, and then I can figure out what else I’ll need to do in general.”

He nodded and then waited for her. She breathed out and turned back to her room, slipping inside. She expected it to be dark and Tabitha to be asleep. Instead, there was a small arcane lantern resting on the table, and Tabitha was propped up on the bed, books splayed out around her.

Ellie looked back at the door. She didn’t want Jerath to know that they were both still up, and she wanted to have a private conversation with Tabitha, because Ellie needed answers, and she wasn’t sure how to get them. Not yet.

“Back so soon?” Tabitha asked, flicking her gaze up. “I had to send Jerath after you when you didn’t come back. He got a little jumpy. I pretended that I was tired and that I needed to come to bed, and I figured that he would go hunting for you. You really have to stop doing that, you know.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Ellie said. She sank down on her bed, shifting her blades but not taking them off. She felt a certain comfort in having them with her. “I talked to the priest.”

Tabitha set her book down. “What?”

“Well, it’s a bit complicated.” She proceeded to tell Tabitha the story, and as she spoke, Tabitha flipped to a new page in a notebook and started making notes. Ellie knew better than to challenge her, as Tabitha was just trying to document what had been going on. And her notes might come in handy at some point, especially when Ellie reported back to Dorian. Not only that, but given the way that Tabitha’s mind worked, Ellie suspected that she could puzzle out what she had encountered by making notes.

“I think the priest has some item of power. Maybe a fabrication. And that’s tied to what has been happening to the Blades. At least, that’s what Dorian’s spy told me.”

“You found him?”

“More like he found me. And unfortunately, I don’t know if I could find him.”

“Ellie unable to find somebody? Interesting. This makes me want to meet him.”

“Well, he did agree to provide us with information, but I have a feeling that he’s not particularly eager to do so. And for now, we need to focus on the priest. I think he was surprised that I was able to overpower his device.”

“Well, there aren’t that many Blades.”

“Not many, but from what Devarel said, it sounds like that might be the reason that they’ve gone missing.”

Ellie wished that she’d had more time with the priest, to get the answers that she needed so that she could better understand what was happening here.

“I’ve never felt power like that before,” she said. “Never something that I simply can’t feel.”

“But you did, right? You said there was a burning.” Tabitha looked back at her notes and ran her finger along the page. “And you said that you’ve been feeling it for a while. Maybe it’s these priests that have arrived in Busal City and are responsible for these Blade traps that you have been finding.”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t strike me as quite the same. That was a white-hot pain. But this was something different. I was able to resist it, but I didn’t really feel it, if that makes any sense. I know that you can’t really understand what I’m trying to describe, but it is troubling to me.”

“What do you want to do about it?”

“I need to know more about the priest. I need to know more about the kinds of things that he’s doing, and where he’s moving. We need to follow him, I think.”

“And by ‘we,’ you mean you, especially since the rest of us are influenced by his power.”

“Probably,” Ellie said. “Not ideal, like I said.”

She snorted. “Not ideal? I would say so. But …” Tabitha leaned forward, and she looked up at Ellie. “If you think that this is how you’re going to figure out what the king sent you to do, then I’m on board. If you need me to distract Jerath, I can do that as well. He loosened up a bit tonight, and he lost some of that darkness.” She shrugged. “Can’t say that I know much about that darkness, nor that I really dislike it. There’s something intriguing about him.”

“You interested in him?”

“Well, a girl doesn’t always have to go after the safe men, does she? I could go after a dangerous one once in a while. Doesn’t mean I have to stay with him.”

“No, I suppose it doesn’t,” Ellie said. She closed her eyes. “There’s something else, though.”

“What now?”

“I felt Baring’s trail again.”

“You did? It’s been a couple of days now. Is he in the city?”

“That’s the thing,” Ellie said. “When we approached the city, it vanished. I thought maybe the trail had grown too faint, and that was the reason that I wasn’t able to feel any longer. The suddenness of the way that it just vanished was a little surprising, but at the time, I didn’t think much of it. I just thought that I wasn’t able to detect it. But considering what I have felt here in the city, I’m starting to rethink that, especially given how there have been some changes to the energies here, and the way that power simply vanishes.”

“So you think that Baring came here, whatever happened with him was tied to how the fabrications vanish, and you don’t know if he is in any danger, but you are concerned nonetheless.”

“Something like that,” Ellie said. “I’m still working it out. But he’s headed away from the city, if I’m not mistaken.”

“Away?”

“That’s the way it felt.”

“I wonder if he’s heading to the ruins,” Tabitha muttered. “Do you think your brother got involved with the priests?”

“I didn’t think so,” Ellie said, “but now I’m not so sure. I’m not sure about anything, honestly. It’s possible. He said that he was going to talk to me more about it after he finished his investigation. And I can’t imagine him looking into something like this, but maybe he decided to do it to prove himself.”

“That’s the only reason you think your brother would do it?”

“I don’t know. Baring has always been the big brother, wanting to protect me, but I was the one who developed the Blade ability, and I was the one that Zaren and Dorian took in and trained. Not that Zaren ignored Baring. He made sure that he was set up with the Investigators, and helped him gain some responsibility. I just think that Baring never felt like it was the same. I was in the palace, working with Dorian, working with Zaren—the Queen’s Blade—and he was⁠—”

“Searching the city for fabrications and other sorts of magic,” Tabitha finished.

“Right. So maybe he’s doing it to prove himself. Do a big job, show off to Jos and the Investigators—or even to Dorian—and he might be given more authority. Or maybe I have it completely wrong. I just don’t know what would motivate Baring to leave like that.”

“Well, if we figure out what you need to do here, then you can go after him, and you can ask him.”

“That’s not really what I’m here to do.”

“Who’s going to tell you that you can’t? The king? You just tell him that it’s all part of the same mission.”

“I suppose I could do that, so long as Devarel doesn’t send word.”

“We could bring him with us.”

Ellie snorted. “Doubtful. He seems … untrustworthy. Besides, he’ll do what Dorian wants, and I need to do this to figure out what Baring is after. And what the priest is hiding.”

And if she came across Baring, figured out what he was after, she could help him.

Maybe that would be her way of letting Baring be the bigger brother.

Chapter

Twenty-Five

Ellie woke up early the following morning. She felt better, although she couldn’t say that she felt refreshed. After the night she’d had, she had figured that she would sleep longer, especially because she had not slept in a bed for quite some time. Still, at least she wasn’t waking up outdoors, getting off the hard ground, and dealing with biting flies.

She found Tabitha already sitting up, looking over a book that she had splayed in her lap. A shaft of daylight streamed in through the window, although she had left the curtains closed. Ellie used a quick pulse of her ability and didn’t detect anything. Normally, that would be reassuring.

“Tell me you slept,” she said to Tabitha.

“I slept, but you get used to going without. And so I did.”

“Find anything?” Ellie asked, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. “Anything to keep you awake, at least?”

“No. Thankfully enough. Nothing worrisome, although I’m curious about the ruins. There has to be something to the stories that might help me better understand what is going on.”

“What makes you think that anything is going on there?”

“I don’t know,” Tabitha said. “Instinct, I suppose. When you spend enough time reading old texts, you get that way.” She shrugged. “There’s supposed to be a library in Buruketh, and if we have time, I’d like to stop there and see if I can’t find anything. I have the name of a few researchers that I could use to gain access, although even if I do, there’s no guarantee that it’ll provide me with what I want.”

“Well, anything you can find about the Custodians would be helpful. How long do you think you need?”

“I don’t know. I’d like a week, but I don’t think you’ll give it to me. So just get me when you need me. I assume that you can find me.”

Ellie nodded. “I should be able to. Assuming that my ability doesn’t stop working. I’m going to look for Devarel again.”

“And do you think you can find him?”

“No,” Ellie said. “But maybe he’ll find me.”

They got dressed and headed downstairs to the dining room, where Tabitha slipped out. Ellie took a seat at a table and waited until a young boy came by. His hair hung loose in his face, freckles sprinkled across his cheeks, and he wiped the table off before looking at her. “Can I get you anything?”

“Breakfast. Whatever you’ve got.”

“You have to pay first.”

She frowned. She hadn’t needed to pay first the night before, but she was an outsider, and though she’d stayed for the night, there was no guarantee that she was going to stay another night. She understood. “How much?”

“Three coppers.”

It was a bit expensive, but she didn’t really have much choice in the matter here, so she wasn’t going to argue. She fished the money out of her coin purse and set it down. “If you see the intense soldier that’s traveling with me, let them know that I’m here.”

“Oh, that one,” the boy said. “He’s already gone. He came through here about an hour ago.”

“He did, did he?”

The boy nodded hurriedly and then rushed away, making a point of scooping the coppers off the table first.

Ellie turned to look at the door. She used a pulse of her ability, testing for Jerath, but found that she didn’t detect anything from him. That bothered her. There had been far too many times when he had surprised her by what she had not been able to detect of him. She should be able to pick up on his fabrications, but there had been plenty of times when she had not.

Why was that?

The simple answer was that she had not been paying attention to him, but was that truly the case? Even when she hadn’t been paying attention, she had still been aware of Tabitha’s fabrications. That suggested something a little more unusual.

When the food came, she ate quickly and then hurried out of the inn. A crowd was already forming in the streets, though nothing like the crowd around the priest. She made her way into the street, into the crowd.

The market street bustled with morning activity. Mountain traders led mules laden with ore samples and furs, while merchants called out prices for fresh bread and dried meats from their stalls. Ellie passed a woman selling bright wool scarves, then a man arranging copper pots that caught the morning light. The crowd moved around her—farmers in rough clothes, merchants in better wear, and a few travelers with dusty boots and heavy packs. The air smelled of fresh bread from a nearby bakery and woodsmoke from the forges. Above it all, the mountains loomed, their peaks sharp against the morning sky.

She continued to use pulses of her ability. She didn’t pick up on anybody following her, so she didn’t think she was in any danger here.

After a while, she started to notice something. For one, the fabrications that she believed should be there were no longer there. It was something for her to investigate when she had a chance. But that wasn’t the main thing that bothered her. No. What bothered her was the sense of a familiar power following her.

And not Devarel’s.

Ellie reached a courtyard and stepped inside. The courtyard was a small, quiet space tucked between three buildings, paved with worn stones and centered around an old well. A wooden bench sat beneath a gnarled apple tree that had somehow taken root here, its branches reaching toward the narrow slice of sky visible above. Moss grew between the stones and crept up the weathered walls. Someone had placed clay pots with hardy mountain flowers along one wall, adding spots of purple and yellow to the otherwise gray space. The sounds of the busy street were muffled here, reduced to a distant murmur that barely reached over the gentle splash of water dripping from the well’s pump.

Ellie continued to focus, creating occasional pulses of power. She couldn’t help but feel that what she had been dealing with, the connection that she had been aware of, was starting to grow far more significant. It was that burning sense. It still persisted.

Finally she saw a flash of dark blue as Ralen appeared.

The daylight gave her a chance to truly see him. He looked younger than she had assumed. She had figured, with his obvious ability and skill, that he would be at least a decade older than her, when in reality he was only a few years older. He had dark hair, light blue eyes with a bit of tension to them, but when he saw her, it eased. It surprised her that he would react that way.

“You noticed that I was following,” he said.

Ellie nodded. “How long have you been in Buruketh?”

“A while now,” he said.

“A while? As in a day, or did you get here before us?”

“Can’t say. Did you head straight here?”

“After you and I dealt with …”

“Yes,” he said, frustratingly vague and clearly unwilling to share more about the men they had fought. The Servants, whatever they might be. “You seem to have struggled.”

“Seem to?” She shook her head. “You knew something was going to happen.”

“Not the first time that I’ve dealt with them,” he said. “I know which traps to avoid.”

“And you tried to warn me,” she said.

“I tried, but you didn’t want to listen.”

“I don’t know you.”

“No, but you did think to fight me when you first saw me.”

“I’m pretty sure you were the one fighting me.”

“Perhaps a mistake,” he said. “I thought you were with them. You had …” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. It was a mistake, and one that I take full responsibility for.”

“I had what?” Ellie asked.

“You had a sense about you that made me think that perhaps you were with them. Like I said, a mistake.”

She wondered what that sense was and why that would be.

“Care to tell me what you’re doing in the city? Does it have anything to do with the Custodians?”

“You’ve had some experience with them, have you?”

“I have. And you don’t seem terribly surprised by that.”

“Out here?” Ralen shook his head, glancing toward the street. One hand hovered near his sword, and his body was postured to react quickly if anything were to happen. “You get far enough away from Busal City, and you start to hear things. The Custodians are just one of those things.”

“And the Servants?”

He turned back to her. “You need to be careful. There’s more happening here than I have been able to identify.”

“And why is that?”

Ellie needed to know, because she suspected that the Servants were the reason that Dorian had grown concerned, even if he hadn’t known why.

“I presume your king sent you out here to investigate the movement of particular fabrications.”

“He did,” she said. “And the only thing that I’ve found so far has been tied to the Custodians.”

“And what have you found of those fabrications?”

“Some of them are dangerous,” she said. “And they had another Blade trap.”

He frowned at that. “A Blade trap?”

“I don’t know, whatever the fabrication was that they used on me. The trap.”

“Yes, that,” Ralen said, and he nodded. “It is called a tenasark. The making of it is quite old, and quite unusual. I wouldn’t even call it a fabrication, though. The concept is not completely dissimilar, in that it is a construct that contains power, but it’s really designed to incapacitate so that the proper person can then be dealt with.”

“Proper person?”

He nodded, but he didn’t explain.

Odd.

“So it’s not really a Blade trap.”

“Not exactly,” he said. “That is what brought you out that night?”

“That night, the night that you and I first met, and there is another one in Buruketh.”

“They shouldn’t have that one,” Ralen said. “And I suspect that will lead to their downfall, not that they know it.” He shook his head. “You cannot always help someone who chooses to take action that will pit them against those who can destroy them.”

“What?”

“The Custodians are fools. Capable in some ways. The priests have a little bit of talent. But they are fools nonetheless. And they think that they can avoid the attention of the Servants, that they can smuggle weapons that are beyond them, but that is not true.”

“So that’s what you’re doing here? You came for the same reason. You thought that you might be able to stop this?”

“Oh, no,” he said. “I doubt I can stop anything. I did, however, come for information. And then there was you.”

“What about me?”

“You were not quite what I expected when I first encountered you. I thought you were typical of your kind in Busal. Inexperienced, lacking finesse, and sometimes potent, but for the most part, helpless to some of the greater dangers in the world.”

“Well, aren’t you full of compliments.”

“And I suspect you still are all of those things,” Ralen said.

“But not you?”

“No,” he said. “You can return to Busal City, and you can tell your king that you have found the source of the dangerous fabrications, and that they will be dealt with.”

“Because I can trust that you are going to deal with them?”

“You can trust whatever you want, but they will be dealt with.”

“I don’t know anything about you, and there is no reason for me to trust you, but I’m certainly not going back to the king”—Ellie almost said “Dorian,” which would have only revealed the relationship that she had with him—“with claims of trusting strangers. So you could choose to work with me.”

She doubted that he would agree to that, especially because he was more capable than her, and she would only slow him down.

“Unfortunately, I’m not able to mentor someone right now. Perhaps if you return to your city, and I come back through, I could find you.”

“You could find me? Are you so sure that I couldn’t find you?”

“Could you find me now?”

There was a hard edge to Ralen’s tone. Ellie used a quick pulse and was surprised to find that he radiated no power. Whatever he was doing kept it entirely suppressed.

“How?” She believed that he was a Blade, or a fabrication breaker, or something of a similar vein, but she had never known anybody to be able to suppress that ability so fully.

“As I said, you have some talent, but not enough to protect you. Stay here if you need to, deal with the Custodians if it will appease your desire to take action, but do not follow.”

“Follow? Let me guess. You are heading to the ruins.”

He frowned. “I’m warning you …”

“Are you? It seems to me you came here to tell me what you are going to do, but it doesn’t seem like much of a warning. If you really wanted to warn me, you would’ve just beaten me up. Considering how our first battle went, and how the second one went,” she went on, having some difficulty remembering that night, “I question whether you would’ve been able to do that. Maybe I’m a little more talented than you want to give me credit for.”

Ralen took a deep breath. “I suppose the only thing I can convince you to do is be careful, then. I don’t know who is guiding these Servants. But trust me when I say that this sect has proven powerful. And dangerous. And if they come after you, whatever training you think you have obtained will not be enough. Whatever fabrications you brought with you,” he said, glancing at her pocket, “will not be enough. Nothing that you can do will be enough.”

“And you are?”

“Me? By myself?” He shook his head. “I didn’t come to eliminate them. I came to track them. And I hope that others will follow in time.”

With that, he headed out of the courtyard and disappeared into the crowd.

Ellie followed him for as long as she could, but given that she couldn’t sense anything from him, she was not able to follow nearly as long as she wished.

Chapter

Twenty-Six

Ellie followed the sense of Tabitha’s fabrication, working her way through the city, ignoring the people on the street as she twisted through narrow passageways.

The streets grew narrower as she climbed higher into the city, where buildings pressed close together and bridges of weathered wood spanned between upper stories. Stone steps, worn smooth by centuries of use, curved up the mountainside. She passed through shadows cast by overhanging buildings where craftsmen had built their shops into the mountain rock itself, their windows glowing with forge fires or lamplight.

She had been left troubled by Ralen’s warning. It seemed there was more at stake here than she had anticipated. And the answers might not even be found here.

The library occupied what had clearly once been a temple, its stone facade rising above the surrounding buildings. Twin staircases curved up to a columned entrance, though generations of feet had worn shallow troughs in the steps. The building’s original purpose showed in the high arched windows and weathered carvings that decorated the walls, but bookshelves were visible through the glass now instead of icons. Someone had repaired the roof with newer slate tiles that stood out against the ancient stonework. Iron lanterns hung from chains near the entrance, unlit in the morning light.

Ellie headed to the steps, up to the door, which she pulled open.

The foyer opened into a vast chamber where late-morning light streamed through the high windows, catching dust motes in its beams. Wooden shelves, dark with age, lined the walls and created narrow aisles that stretched deep into the building. The air held the familiar scent of old paper and leather bindings. Reading tables were scattered throughout, some occupied by scholars bent over texts or merchants reviewing ledgers. At the center of the room, a spiral staircase of wrought iron led to a gallery above, where more shelves stretched into shadow. A librarian’s desk faced the entrance, though it sat empty except for a stack of recently returned volumes. The ceiling still bore traces of old frescoes, barely visible now beneath years of smoke from heating fires and lamps.

It was a bit more than she would have expected a city like this to have at their disposal, although this was an old city, in an old part of the world, so why shouldn’t they have access to ancient knowledge?

She found Tabitha seated on the floor in front of a bookshelf, three books splayed out in front of her. She cleared her throat when Tabitha didn’t immediately look up.

“Oh, come on,” Tabitha said. “You didn’t even give me an hour.”

“I know,” Ellie said. “And I don’t know if I can give you any more time. There has been a development.” She described her meeting with Ralen.

“So he’s warning you against getting involved. And what do you think about that?”

“I think it basically means that I need to get involved,” she said. “As challenging as that might be.”

Tabitha frowned. “I can see that. So what, then?”

“The real challenge is what else, if anything, we can do. I need to find Jerath, but I came to you first.”

“All right. And here I thought that I was going to have a little more time to explore. They actually have quite a few records here.”

“Actually?” Ellie asked, grinning.

“More than I had expected, but I suppose that Buruketh is an old city. And considering that it sits just on the edge of the mountains, it shouldn’t surprise me that they have some interesting volumes here.”

“Have you found anything about … I honestly don’t know what you were looking into.”

“I was hoping to find something about Buruketh itself, the settlement, and how it ties to the ruins. I’ve been curious about whether something here would help me make sense of it all.”

“And you haven’t found anything.”

“I have not,” she said. “I have these books, but I haven’t had the time to read through them properly.”

“Take them,” Ellie said.

“That’s not how a library works,” Tabitha said.

“I realize that, but maybe leave something in their place.”

Tabitha seemed to consider it, but then she shook her head. “No. I wouldn’t want somebody to do the same thing in our library, with our records. So no. I’m going to just have to come back.”

“And we will just wander and hope that we find answers,” Ellie said.

Tabitha stared at the books for a few more moments before ultimately letting out a long sigh and then stuffing them back onto the shelves.

“And here I thought that I was going to have an opportunity to study,” she said. “After everything that we have done here, and you going off and following the priests.” She breathed out. “All right.”

“You know where they go?”

“Of course.”

“Of course you do,” Ellie said.

Ellie headed toward the entrance, although Tabitha veered off, spoke to a gray-robed man, who bowed his head to her, and then she hurried over to join Ellie.

“A friend of yours?”

“All who seek scholarship and knowledge are friends,” she said, and then she grinned. “But he knows Lorian as well.”

“So is that your real reason for not wanting to take anything?”

“It’s part of it. Can you imagine what Lorian would say if he learned that I stole some books from the records here?” She shook her head. “That would be a terrible idea, I can tell you.”

“Of course it would be,” Ellie said.

She stepped out into the street, and as she did, she used the typical pulse of her ability to test for power. She pushed harder than she had intended to. She felt the burning sensation, although it felt somewhat different.

“There’s something missing,” she muttered.

“What? You can’t find Jerath?”

“No,” she said. “I can’t, but that’s not what it is. Come on.”

“Ellie,” Tabitha said, “I don’t know if this is the right idea.”

“It’s not the wrong idea, and we can find Jerath after I check on this.”

“Where are we going, then?”

“To the Custodians’ warehouse.”

“I don’t want to go,” she said.

“It’s not dangerous.”

“You just broke in there last night, confronted the priest, were chased, and barely survived.” She started to smile. “That kind of not dangerous?”

“It’s daytime,” Ellie said, “and there are quite a few people out in the streets, and there’s nothing here to worry about.”

“I still don’t like it.”

“Then you shouldn’t have come to Buruketh.”

“You don’t believe that, and I know it.”

Ellie shrugged. Tabitha was not wrong.

They headed through the streets, taking the fastest route to the warehouse. Ellie had been using pulse after pulse of her ability, testing for the fabrications, but they were simply missing.

“I don’t know why I can’t feel them,” Ellie said. “They were there before I went into the library with you.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“So does that mean that something happened to them or something happened to you?”

They reached the street containing the warehouse. The street looked different somehow, though Ellie couldn’t quite place why. The buildings cast longer shadows than she remembered, making the warehouse loom larger than before. Something about the air felt wrong—too still, too quiet, as if the usual sounds of the city couldn’t quite reach this street. Even the morning fog hung differently, clinging close to the ground.

It was strangely empty, eerily quiet.

She moved past the warehouse door and saw that it was slightly ajar.

“What are you doing?” Tabitha asked.

Ellie grabbed for her blades and slipped forward.

“Something’s wrong,” she said, glancing over her shoulder briefly at Tabitha. “You should stay back. I don’t know what we might find in here.”

“If it’s dangerous, I can just stay out here.”

“Might be dangerous out here,” Ellie said.

Something had happened here.

She stepped inside and paused, taking in everything. The warehouse didn’t look different. It still had that empty, almost disused feeling, but there was a vague sense that lingered, leaving her thinking there was a difference.

“It’s so dark,” Tabitha whispered.

“Get your lantern out,” Ellie said.

Tabitha didn’t even object, and a faint white light bloomed, pushing back the shadows.

Ellie saw the first body near the stairs.

Tabitha sucked in a sharp breath, but Ellie darted forward.

It was one of the thieves. She recognized the man because he had a bulbous nose and a scruff of a beard on his chin only, and she rolled him over to find a single stab wound to his chest.

There was some bleeding, but not as much as she would have expected. She breathed out, sliding the man to the side, where he would be out of the way, but she also pulled the lids of his eyes closed.

“He was one of the thieves that was working through the square when we first encountered the priest,” Ellie said.

She flicked her gaze up the stairs. The priest.

She moved carefully, Tabitha staying behind her, and when she reached the top of the stairs, she found another body. She didn’t recognize this man, but much like the first, there was a single stab wound.

“Somebody was incredibly precise,” she said.

“Why do you say that?”

“They knew exactly what they were doing. They didn’t get into a fight, even. They just stabbed them in the chest. That suggests incredible speed and skill.” She used a pulse of her ability, letting it flow through the man, but couldn’t feel anything. Ellie honestly hadn’t expected to pick up on anything, but she had hoped to feel something to give her a clue.

She moved down the hall, checking around the doors, until she reached the priest’s quarters.

The metal disks that had been arranged in a circle were scattered now, some overturned, their etched patterns catching what little light filtered through the window. The table had been pushed aside, its surface bare where papers had been swept off. Those papers were now strewn across the floor, some crumpled, others torn. The lamp lay broken in one corner, its oil making a dark stain on the floorboards. Boot prints had scuffed the wood where multiple people had moved through the space, and the window stood open, its curtain stirring in the breeze.

It looked as if there had been a struggle, but she saw no sign of the priest. No sign of blood, even, so that much was good.

“Well?” Tabitha asked.

“I don’t know. When I was here before, the priest was just kneeling in the center of the room. He had some fabrications or some other items around him, but I can’t really say with any certainty what they were, or what purpose he had for them.”

“And you can’t detect anything from him?”

“No,” Ellie said. “Unfortunately, I can’t. He has a unique kind of power.”

She looked around the room. She saw a series of other markings, including near the center of the floor. A single floorboard looked slightly different from the others, its edges worn in a way that suggested frequent handling. Thin scratches marked its surface in a pattern too regular to be random wear. What caught her eye was a small notch in one corner, barely visible. Using her blade, Ellie pried up the floorboard and realized that there was an empty space beneath.

“They were hiding something here,” she said. “Strange. I wonder what it was.”

“Maybe that’s why the priest was kneeling here,” Tabitha said.

“Or maybe he was hiding something that he didn’t want somebody like me to find. Come on.”

They headed down the stairs, and then Ellie paused on the main level, investigating for any further bodies, but saw nothing. Just the one at the staircase.

She headed down to the basement, where she paused again, using her ability and pushing out once more, testing for any power. There was a faint energy, but she struggled to make sense of it.

It was a memory, nothing else. The memory of the power that had been here, a memory of fabrications.

She breathed out heavily. “All right, on the other side of this door is the warehouse. Now we can see if there’s anything here.”

Ellie pushed the door open and braced for a confrontation, although given that she didn’t feel anything, she doubted that she had to worry about that.

The warehouse was empty.

The low-ceilinged room felt larger now that it was empty, the stone walls stretching into shadow. The metal racks that had held the fabrications stood bare, their bolts still firmly anchored in the floor and walls. Dust motes danced in the weak light filtering through the high windows, settling on the dark stains that marked the floor. The workbench in the corner had been cleared, though a few scattered tools remained—a hammer, some bent nails, and a length of wire. The air felt dead, lacking the charged sensation she remembered from when the fabrications had been here. Only the musty scent of old stone and damp remained.

Ellie worked her way through, using pulse after pulse, attempting to pick up on the power that might be here and finding nothing. She suspected that there had to be some remnant.

“The fabrications were here,” Ellie said. “I don’t know what took place here, though.”

“What makes you think that anything did?”

“There fabrications were potent, and now they are gone. But it’s more than that. There is a memory of something, and I can feel it. And …”

And she felt what she needed to do was track it, to understand the connection. The memory was the key here.

Moreover, there was a trail.

She moved toward one section of a wall. None of it looked particularly remarkable, other than the fact that the trail led here and then vanished.

Strange.

Ellie held her hands out and used pulse after pulse of her ability but did not come up with anything here.

“What is it?” Tabitha asked.

“There is a trail, and this is where it ends. There has to be a way to open it.”

She began to push on surrounding sections of the wall, but nothing changed. She tried using her ability to send a surge of power into the door that had to be here, but she didn’t find anything. It was quiet.

“It’s usually a latch,” Tabitha said, coming over. “Not something magical, something physical. And look for sections of the stone that are unusual.”

“I’m looking, and I can’t find anything.”

“It’s a good thing you have me here. You see, the floor here is all stone, but the wall, at least in this section, looks like stone.” She leaned down. “And honestly, without the lantern, I’m not sure that I would’ve noticed it. But there is just a little gradation of color difference here.” She began to run her fingers along it. “It even feels the same. Pretty well done. Especially considering I suspect this was made centuries ago. But if you find the right spot …” She pushed on something. Ellie couldn’t even see what it was, but where she pushed, the wall suddenly pulled back, revealing unseen cracks and a doorway. “There you go. Now what do we do?”

Ellie looked inside the dark tunnel, its walls smooth and precisely cut, unlike the rough-hewn passages in Busal City. Water trickled somewhere in the darkness, the sound echoing strangely. Their lantern light caught moisture gleaming on the walls and ceiling, making the stone look alive. The air that drifted out tasted old and stale, carrying the musty scent of long-sealed spaces. The floor sloped gently downward, disappearing around a curve ahead. Small channels had been carved into the floor near the walls, their purpose unclear after so many centuries.

“Now we search.”

“This is starting to feel like something I don’t want to be a part of.”

“Too late. You are here. Time for you to stick with me.”

“Great,” Tabitha muttered. “Good thing we’ve got a lantern. Do you think we should get Jerath?”

“Probably. Why don’t we follow this trail? And then we can figure out what he’s been doing.”

Chapter

Twenty-Seven

The tunnels turned out to be a dead end. Ellie and Tabitha had searched for clues to explain where the priest and the other Custodians had gone, but there had not been anything obvious. There were no outlets, and unfortunately, Tabitha had not managed to find ways to activate any other doorways. They had wandered for the better part of an hour, with Tabitha working her way along the walls, examining it with a level of detail that impressed Ellie, but ultimately she threw her hands up.

“I don’t see anything here. There has to be a way out, because there would be no other point in having a hidden doorway, but it’s shielded in some way. I’m sorry, Ellie.”

“It’s fine. They were attacked by someone,” Ellie said, and she had started to wonder whether it had been Ralen, given the technique and the skill level required, “and I think they escaped. I don’t know if they escaped with the fabrications.”

And she wasn’t sure how to go about searching for the fabrications, either.

After returning to the warehouse, closing the door, searching through the building and finding nothing else, Ellie and Tabitha ended up back out on the street.

“Time to get Jerath?” Tabitha asked.

Ellie nodded. “Time to get Jerath.”

When they returned to the Bent Blade, they didn’t see any sign of him in the common room. The inn was quieter at this hour, nothing more than empty tables and chairs still upturned from morning cleaning. A few early drinkers sat scattered about—likely merchants taking an early break or travelers finishing late breakfasts. The hearth had been swept clean and laid with fresh logs, though not yet lit. Behind the bar, a woman polished glasses while chatting with an old man nursing an ale. The air still held traces of breakfast—bacon and tea—mixed with the ever-present scent of ale and woodsmoke.

Ellie found the young man who had served her breakfast and tapped him on the shoulder. When he turned, he blinked nervously and looked past her at Tabitha.

“We’re looking for the man that has been traveling with us? I don’t suppose you’ve seen him recently?”

“No, ma’am. Told you that I could get word to you if you wanted me to, but he hasn’t been through here.”

Where would he have gone?

“Something’s not right,” Ellie said.

She hurried up the stairs to the rooms, where she knocked on Jerath’s door. There was no answer. Tabitha stayed behind her. Ellie knocked again, and when there was still no answer, she took her knife, jammed it between the door and the frame, and popped it open.

She wasn’t sure what she had expected, but it was empty.

There was no sign of Jerath, no sign of his belongings; the man was simply missing.

“Well?” Tabitha asked.

“He’s not here.”

“He’s not here?”

“No. It’s …” She frowned and then went over to her door, unlocked it, and found the room turned over.

It looked as if it had been searched methodically—not ransacked but thoroughly examined. The beds had been stripped, their blankets folded neatly at the foot. Tabitha’s books were stacked with careful precision on the small table, different from their usual scattered arrangement. Ellie’s satchel lay open on her bed, its contents arranged in a row beside it, each fabrication placed deliberately. Even the floorboards showed signs of inspection, with the rug pushed aside and the dust disturbed in regular patterns. The window latch had been checked too—she could see the slight marks where it had been tested.

“Somebody broke in?” Tabitha asked.

“Yes, but I don’t know why.”

Had Jerath been targeted?

“Why don’t we check the stables to see if he is with the horses?” Ellie said.

“Why would he be there?” Tabitha asked.

“I don’t know,” Ellie said. “At this point, I really don’t have answers.” And that was getting frustrating.

The stables were built into the back of the inn, tucked against the mountain slope. Morning light filtered through gaps in the wooden walls, making dust dance in the air. The smell of hay and horses filled the cool space. Most of the stalls were occupied. The empty stall where Jerath’s horse had been stood open, its fresh straw suggesting it had been recently mucked out. A stable boy worked at the far end, pitching hay into a manger, while a cat watched from its perch on a stack of saddle blankets.

“What do you think?” Tabitha asked.

“I think his horse is gone as well,” Ellie said.

“His horse? Why would somebody have taken his horse?”

“I’m starting to think that somebody didn’t take his horse. I’m starting to think that Jerath took his horse.”

“Why would he have done that?”

She had no idea. She quickly got the saddles for their horses and realized that she didn’t see any stable attendants, which surprised her.

She saw a person near the entrance to the stable and had started toward him when she froze.

A distinct power signature radiated from him.

She hurried over. “Byron?”

He took a step toward her, looking like he wanted to grab her, either to shake her and make sure she was real or to hug her. Still, the relief that swept across his face was clear to her.

“Sacred Souls,” he said. “Ellie. When the man found me and told me that there was a Blade at this inn, I didn’t know if I could believe him. I went searching and felt something here but wasn’t sure if I could even believe that it was true.”

“The man?” She frowned. “Let me guess. An older, nondescript man who claimed to serve the king?”

“That’s right. He came upon me once we got to Buruketh, and told me I needed to find you. Said it was necessary to get you out of here to safety.”

“Devarel,” she said, shaking her head. “He’s supposed to help us. We are close to getting answers here, Byron. That’s what the king sent me to do, you know. Get answers about what was going on with the fabrications and the Blades and report back to him.”

“The king sent me with a squad of Empyreans. We were supposed to get you and bring you back.”

“Why?” Ellie asked. “Let me guess. Dorian doesn’t think that I can do this? Or he has heard some new rumor and doesn’t think that I’m safe, or he has somebody else in mind, and they might be better suited to this task?”

“No,” he said. “The Empyrean he assigned to go with you was found murdered. Somebody had taken his clothing, his sigil, and the king thinks the murderer took the Empyrean’s place to come with you, for some reason. You were seen traveling with a soldier, and …”

Ellie looked over at Tabatha. “Jerath,” she said. “He’s not an Empyrean?”

“I don’t know a Jerath,” Byron said. “The king had assigned Lorad Gorish to travel with you. They found his body with a single stab wound to the chest.”

A single stab wound. The type of injury that she had seen in the warehouse.

Ellie knew Lorad. He was incredibly skilled, capable, and ranked high in the command of the Empyreans. He was exactly the kind of person that she would have expected Dorian to send with her. Older, experienced, and someone who knew quite well the dynamics between her and Dorian.

Not somebody like Jerath.

Ellie should have questioned the king on his choice. Why had she not?

“Then Jerath has the priest. And whatever fabrication or relic the priest is using. We need to go after him. I need to stop him.”

“I can’t do that,” Byron said. “The Empyreans were given explicit orders to bring you back, regardless of what you might say.”

“Great,” Ellie muttered. “So you have the same order?”

“I do. I volunteered to come along. He wanted an Investigator to go. Well, I think he actually wanted a Blade to go, but there was none readily available. Anybody would’ve had to be called back to Busal City. Given that I have the next-best ability, I offered.”

Ellie didn’t need him to explain. She knew he was talented, and in another lifetime, he might have actually learned enough to be a Blade.

“I can’t go yet,” she said. “We’ve got to see what Jerath is after. I think this has to do with his belief in the Sovereign and trying to use some power to gain his favor. The device the priest had is powerful. I’ve seen it and felt it.”

“I don’t pretend to know what you’re talking about,” Byron said. “But …”

“Just tell the Empyreans that you didn’t find me. We’ve already gone. If you need to, you can follow us. We are heading into the mountains, toward the ruins. But I would appreciate a day’s head start.”

Byron looked at her, the debate waging across his face. He was her friend, but he was also loyal to the king.

“This is the right thing for Busal,” Ellie said.

“I know. I’m just trying to figure out how to pretend that I didn’t find you.”

“Don’t,” she suggested. “Tell them that I disarmed you, incapacitated you, and left.”

“They know we are friends,” he said.

“Then just don’t tell them I was here.”

He licked his lips, nodding. “Fine. I can give you half a day. And you’ll have to avoid the Empyreans in the city. They’re doing a sweep, looking for you.”

“It’s a good thing that it’s a busy city.” She sighed and then gave Byron a quick hug. “Thank you.”

“Be careful.”

“I will.”

Ellie hurried over to Tabatha, who had been getting the horses ready.

“Did you hear all of that?”

“Don’t know how I couldn’t have,” Tabatha said. “So we have to get out of the city quickly, head into the mountains, stay ahead of the Empyreans, who are trying to bring you back, chase down Jerath, who is apparently a murderer, and try to track down this powerful device that may or may not be some ancient fabrication?”

“Sounds about right,” Ellie said.

“Well, at least we have the fabrications that the king sent with us. Hopefully, there’s something here that we can use against him.”

“And that I won’t unintentionally deactivate,” Ellie said.

“That would be a bad idea,” she said.

The streets held half the crowd they’d seen when the priest had drawn his audience. A few merchants still called their wares, but their voices lacked the earlier energy. Mountain traders led their mules through the thinning crowd, and shopkeepers swept their doorsteps, pausing to exchange quiet words with passing neighbors. The usual press of people had eased, leaving gaps between the market stalls where before there had barely been room to move. A group of children played marbles in a doorway while their mother haggled over the price of bread, and workers still carried loads between shops, but the streets felt somehow subdued. Even the forges seemed quieter, their smoke rising thin against the mountain peaks that loomed over the city.

When Ellie pointed this out to Tabitha, Tabitha stared for a moment before nodding. “Do you think it has anything to do with the priests?”

“I don’t know,” Ellie said, watching for signs of the Empyreans. There were none—yet. “It’s strange. Strange enough that I can’t figure out what to make of it. But I do think that it’s best to leave.”

“But you still don’t have any answers.”

“Well, I know that the priest was here. I know that he was protecting something, although I’m not sure what, and he obviously has some power. I know that there were powerful fabrications, and that they have simply disappeared. I’m not quite sure beyond that, but I will keep chasing this until I do have those answers.”

They reached the outskirts of the city. Ellie wasn’t sure which way to go. There was no sign of anything, no trail, nothing whatsoever.

“We have to go north to follow Jerath to the ruins,” Ellie said. “That’s the key here.”

“Only if you are sure about that,” Tabitha said. “Because we don’t know what he’s capable of. What any of them are.”

She was right, but Ellie couldn’t do nothing.

They kept going and climbed steadily. A quiet fell between them. The path wound steadily upward through rocky terrain, sometimes disappearing entirely before emerging again around a bend. Scraggly pines clung to the slopes, their branches bent from constant wind. The air grew thinner as they climbed, and the city below became smaller, its buildings merging into a pattern of slate roofs and rising smoke. Patches of snow lingered in shadowed hollows, and loose scree shifted under their boots. The mountain peaks ahead looked closer now, gray stone streaked with white. A cold wind cut through their clothes, carrying the sharp scent of pine and snow. Every so often, they passed waymarks—old cairns built by previous travelers, their stones weathered and covered in pale green lichen.

It occurred to Ellie that they didn’t have the supplies that they would need to make a lengthy journey, so hopefully, they wouldn’t be gone very long. She continued to use her ability, sending out wave after wave, but she discovered nothing.

They had been traveling for several hours when she did notice something. At first it was little more than a stirring, but the longer she pushed on that sense, the clearer it became. Ellie found that she was using the burning sensation, mixing it with her ability. When she mingled the two, it seemed the connection she felt was more acute.

“There’s something up ahead,” Ellie said. “I don’t know what it is, but I can feel it.”

“Something like Jerath?”

“Something,” she said. “We need to be ready and careful.”

“I will be both,” Tabitha said, and then she moved to her horse behind Ellie’s. “You take the lead.”

The path ahead narrowed between two sheer rock faces. Broken pine trunks lay scattered across the slope, their roots torn free from the thin soil. Above, the clouds had thickened, casting the gorge into deeper shadow. Water trickled down the rock faces, feeding patches of dark moss. The wind had died here, leaving an unnatural stillness broken only by the sound of loose stones shifting under their feet. Through gaps in the cliffs, Ellie could see more peaks rising in the distance, their tops lost in the gathering clouds.

As they traveled, Ellie continued to use her ability, sending out waves of power, no longer worried about trying to conceal what she was doing. She reached for one of her blades, just in case of an attack.

“Take my reins,” Ellie said.

“What?”

“Just take them,” she said. “I’m going to explore. I need to know if this power is dangerous. Can you just do this?”

“I can do it. I’m just wondering why you are getting out of the saddle.”

“Because I can move easier on foot, and I can move amongst the rock better.”

She didn’t want to say that Tabitha would serve as a distraction if anything was out there.

Ellie scrambled out of the saddle, handing the reins over to Tabitha, and then moved forward. Now when she used her pulse of ability, she didn’t push with quite the same force. She didn’t want to attract attention if somebody with some potential was out here.

She picked her way across tumbled rocks, testing each foothold before committing her weight. The stone was slick where water had seeped from above, forcing her to use her free hand for balance. Loose scree shifted treacherously under her boots, threatening to send small avalanches of pebbles down the slope. She ducked under a fallen pine, its needles brushing her shoulders, and squeezed between two massive boulders where the gap was barely wide enough to pass. The rock faces rose on either side, creating deep shadows that made it difficult to see what lay ahead. Every so often, she had to backtrack, finding her chosen path blocked by drops too steep to navigate safely.

The other issue was that what she had detected was not directly on the road itself. It was off to one side. Ellie wasn’t sure why, but that felt odd to her. She moved carefully, and then she found the rock flattening out.

She crouched forward, moving with both blades in hand, everything within her on edge. And as she approached, she readied for whatever she might find.

Another pulse, and this time, she felt a familiarity.

Why would there be something familiar up here?

Not her brother. That was good, because she didn’t want to suddenly spring on Baring, although considering she had chased him this far north, maybe a good scare would serve him right.

A massive boulder blocked her path. The boulder stood nearly twice her height, its surface scarred by countless storms and weathering. A thin crust of ice coated its northern face. The rock wasn’t quite flush with the cliff wall—a narrow gap remained, barely wide enough for a person to edge through if they turned sideways. Dark lichen grew in patches across its face, making the handholds slippery. The ground around its base was worn, recently disturbed by fresh boot prints in the thin soil.

Ellie looked around and moved slowly, cautious not to make any noise. Whatever was here would be found on the other side of the boulder.

Another few steps, and then she froze.

“You can come around,” a coarse voice said.

Not just a coarse voice. A familiar voice.

It wasn’t the voice of the priest, nor Baring’s, nor Jerath’s.

It was Ralen’s.

And he was waiting.

Ellie moved carefully, looping wide around the boulder because there was no point in hiding, not since he knew that she was there.

But for all her caution, it didn’t matter. Ralen was slumped against the boulder, holding his stomach, blood staining his jacket.

And when she approached, he looked up. “It’s about time you got here. I’ve been waiting for you.”

Chapter

Twenty-Eight

Ellie didn’t want to approach Relan. He was injured, and she was concerned that she might need to help him, but until she had a better idea about what was going on here, she didn’t feel comfortable getting too close. So she stood apart from him, watching.

All around, she could feel a faint, distant power.

“It’s fine,” he said. “I’m not dying right now, just injured. He surprised me.”

“He?” she said.

“Warint Jurrick,” he said.

Ellie shook her head. “Am I supposed to know who that is?”

“I figured that since you were traveling with him, you would know him.”

“You mean Jerath.”

Ellie could feel the power more acutely, somehow. It was like a soft heat, an unusual way for her to pick up on power, but it was power nonetheless.

“That might be what he went by,” Ralen said, coughing and grabbing for his stomach. “I managed to escape, but I think it was mostly because he wasn’t really interested in me. He was interested in the others.”

“The priest.”

“Priest,” he said, shaking his head. “It took me a while to realize what they were doing. And that the Custodians had found something in the ruins. I should have anticipated …” He coughed again, wincing and grabbing at his stomach. “I don’t suppose you have any dressings?”

Ellie blinked. Tabitha had brought along some healing fabrications, although she didn’t know if they would work on somebody like Ralen.

“You have some ability like mine, right?”

“I do,” he said. “Figured you knew that already. I’m a member of the Arbiters, and …” He coughed again. “Thought you knew about it.”

“I didn’t, but now I’m going to need some answers. I’m starting to think that I needed to find you all this time.”

Ellie sheathed her blades and approached, carefully. Ralen made no move to reach for her or attack, even though Ellie wondered if this might be a trap or a trick. She pointed to his injury, and he nodded.

She pulled his shirt and jacket up, revealing a wound to his belly. A deep gash ran across his abdomen, its edges clean but angry red. Blood had soaked through his makeshift bandage, turning it dark. The wound wasn’t ragged like a knife fight would leave—this had been done with a single, precise strike. The skin around the wound felt hot to the touch, suggesting the early stages of infection. When he breathed, she could see how Ralen tensed against the pain, the muscles around the wound tightening.

“A simple dressing isn’t going to be enough,” he said. “If I were back home …” He coughed again. “Of course, if I were back home, I wouldn’t have a problem like this. I should have been more alert.”

“Let me get my friend. She has some supplies. And then you are going to answer some questions. Deal?”

“I suppose,” he mumbled.

Ellie hurried down the rock. She wasn’t worried about making noise now, and so as she scrambled back toward the road, she went much more quickly. She reached Tabitha, who was still holding her horse, her gaze darting all around.

“I need your healing supplies,” Ellie said. “The man I was telling you about is up ahead, but he’s been stabbed by Jerath, who apparently goes by the name of Warint Jurrick as well.”

“What?” Tabitha asked, her eyes widening.

“Let me guess. You’ve heard of him?”

“Just rumors,” she said. “Not much more than that, but those who work with Jurrick are said to serve an old power.”

“Like what?”

“He’s part of the sect that has been targeting Dorfal, Janilash, Herdan, Jof, and others, taking books from various libraries, and apparently, he must have been involved in what happened with our archive.”

“I didn’t realize the archive had been plundered,” Ellie said.

She grabbed the reins of her horse and led the animal down the road, heading toward Ralen. She could still feel him, and it seemed he was making it easier for her to do so, as if he had released something that granted her the ability to detect him, which Ellie thought was surprising. He clearly had control over how much of his power he released and how much she was aware of it. That suggested a level of control that she couldn’t help but marvel at and want to learn. She had studied with skilled fabrication breakers, but this was something beyond even that.

“‘Plundered’ might be a bit extreme,” Tabitha said. “Some older volumes went missing. Lorian thought that it was one of the other scholars. We also get visiting scholars from time to time, sort of like I had intended to be in Buruketh.”

“Which was why you didn’t want to take the books.”

“Exactly. It’s a courtesy. You can ask, and of course, if they are willing, you can borrow them, but it’s not considered … What happened to him?”

Ellie and Tabitha had rounded the rock, and Ralen was still holding his belly. His shirt was drawn up, and now there was some blood around his hand.

To Tabitha’s credit, she hopped out of the saddle and searched in her saddlebag, grabbing for several fabrications, which she carried over to him.

“He’s got Blade ability,” Ellie said.

“What does that mean?” Tabitha asked.

“She suggests I might damage the fabrications that you might use on me,” Ralen said, coughing. “Ralen Greywind, by the way.” He offered a tight smile.

“Tabitha Watis,” she said. “Nice to meet you. I take it you’re the one who Ellie has had some difficulty with.”

“A miscommunication,” he said. “Nothing more.”

“Nothing?” Ellie asked, standing back while Tabitha began to place the fabrications on him. Two went on either side of the wound, and one went on his back, which surprised Ellie, although she didn’t know how the fabrications worked.

“It was a miscommunication.” He sucked in a sharp breath.

“How do you do that?” Ellie said. “How do you suppress everything so fully?”

“I can show you later. Maybe,” he said, gritting his teeth.

“I’m sorry,” Tabitha said. “I didn’t think that I was actually going to need these. They were sent to me”—she glanced briefly at Ellie, which made Ellie realize that Dorian must have been responsible for sending them—“with instructions to keep them safe, because they might be needed. They are to heal more significant injuries, but unfortunately, they don’t do so in a way that is comfortable.”

“Definitely not comfortable,” Ralen said.

As Ellie watched, though, the skin of his abdomen began to knit itself back together. She could feel the fabrications work. There was pressure in the air, as if her ears needed to pop, and it took a measure of concentration to avoid pushing against it, as she normally would have. Ellie could feel something else within the power, and she wondered if what she was able to detect was tied to her ability or to what the fabrication was doing.

Finally Tabitha lifted the fabrications off and then stuck them back in her saddlebag.

“I think we have a few more uses out of them,” she said. “I hope. Although I’m hopeful that we won’t need to use them again.”

Ralen ran his hands along his belly. Then there was a brief burst of power—something that was akin to Blade ability—and then it faded.

“Thank you,” he said. “I don’t carry fabrications quite like that.”

“All right,” Ellie said, taking a seat on a nearby rock, holding the reins of her horse, although the horse wasn’t going anywhere. She leaned forward and used another pulse of her ability. She couldn’t feel anything, but there was that steady heat. Ellie started to think that the heat might come from what Ralen was doing, or maybe it was from Jerath, or even from the priest. Whatever it was, that presence lingered. “You agreed to share. So share.”

“I told you that I serve the Arbiters. We are an organization that challenges particular threats.”

“Like the Guild,” Ellie said.

He frowned. “You have some familiarity with the Guild?”

“I do. I know Garridan, and a few others.”

She didn’t have that much experience with them, as Zaren had, but enough to throw out the names. Garridan was somebody high-ranking within the Guild, and there was another man, by the name of Benjamin, who had helped Zaren a few times in Busal City. Beyond that, Ellie had been exposed to others within the Guild, but she didn’t know them.

“Intriguing. Perhaps there is more to you than I expected.” Ralen got up and stretched before looking around. “But no. I do not serve the Guild, although I would say that we work adjacent to each other from time to time. And there are some who work more closely with us. Though when it comes to the Servants, there is reason to work with them, if they were so inclined.”

“They aren’t?” Tabitha asked.

She knew about as much as Ellie did about the Guild and those who served it, although it was possible that she knew even more than Ellie did.

“The Servants have pursued an ancient and dangerous power. It is something that predates even the powers of this world.”

“And by that, you mean the Inarak and the fae?” Ellie said. When Ralen nodded, she shrugged. “We’ve had some experience with power like that in Busal City.”

“I’m well aware. But even fae power is not quite as profound as what the Servants pursue.”

“You mean the power that very nearly destroyed our city isn’t that profound?”

“Not as you might believe. There are those who have served the same power for centuries upon centuries. I suppose I should say ‘powers,’ rather than ‘power.’ These powers are ancient, older than the fae, and we do not see much of their influence in this world. But when we do, it must be contained.”

“Contained?” Tabitha asked.

He nodded. “I received word that a particular relic was recently discovered. I began to detect certain signatures and came this way in search of it. Unfortunately, the Servants must also have received word and come to claim it.” He locked eyes with Ellie. “When you and I first encountered each other in Busal City, I thought that you were with them.”

“Why?” Ellie asked.

“Because of how you managed to escape from the trap, as you call it. It should have held someone like you.”

“Or someone like you?” Ellie asked.

“I have training to avoid tenasarks,” he said.

“Why didn’t it hold me, then?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. It was unexpected.”

“That’s why you fought me.”

“I did. I thought you were a Servant. But your fighting style is … different.”

She had a very distinct feeling that he had nearly said something else, perhaps even criticizing her fighting style, but she had handled him. “And then while we were traveling?”

“I have followed the sense of the Servants, trying to keep up with them, but they have been delaying me. I have needed to deal with some of the dangers they left behind.” He didn’t share what those dangers were, though Ellie was curious. “And I have been challenged by that. By the time I got to the city, I began to feel more activity and realized that the core of that power was here. Or there.” He pointed back toward Buruketh. “I sent word to the Arbiters to alert them of the danger, although I doubted anyone would be able to reach it in time. Which was why I came this way.”

“You still haven’t told me what this item is.”

“Because I don’t know,” Ralen said. “These ancient relics are incredibly powerful, and they contain a different kind of connection to the world than you may be familiar with.”

“The priest,” Ellie said.

“You think the priest is connected to it?” Tabitha asked.

“I don’t know. He had an unusual kind of power. I haven’t felt anything like it before.”

“It would be a remarkable kind of energy,” he said. “And one like us would be unlikely to withstand its full force.”

“What about a diluted aspect of it?” Ellie asked.

“Perhaps,” he said. “Depends upon what that aspect is, and depends upon who is using it.”

However, when she had encountered the priest—assuming that the priest had access to this relic—she had been able to withstand the full force of that power. When she had broken into the building, confronted the priest, she had felt the full force of what he had done. And there was something to be said about how he had tried to use it on her, along with his reaction to her immunity to it.

“Did Jerath have anybody with him?”

“I didn’t see,” he said. “He snuck up on me, stabbed me, and like I said, I did what I could to escape. It is possible that he is not alone.”

“We know he’s not, don’t we?” Ellie asked. “Because there were others that night that you and I dealt with. So it means that there are others out here.” She looked over at Tabitha. “Why would Baring have come here?”

“I don’t know,” Tabitha said. “Do you think that he knew something about this? You thought he might know something about the priests, so I suppose that might make sense.”

“Who is Baring?” Ralen said.

“My brother,” Ellie said.

“And you said he came here?”

“He did. Why?”

He was quiet, and she could see that he was keeping something from her.

“Do you know my brother?”

“I do not,” he said.

“But you know something.”

“I’m not the only one searching for this item.”

“You’ve said that. The Servants are after it.”

“There are other Arbiters who are looking for it.”

“My brother isn’t an Arbiter,” Ellie said. “He’s what’s known as an Investigator, in Busal City. So …”

There was still that look in Ralen’s eyes that left her wondering what he might know.

“Why are they heading to the ruins?” Ellie asked Ralen.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I came looking for the relic, and nothing else. I came so that I could help contain the danger with it.”

“Not to use it yourself?” Ellie asked.

She wasn’t sure that she could trust him. What did she really know about Ralen? Other than the fact that he had helped her the night that they had fought alongside each other. And he hadn’t harmed her.

“I could not use it,” he said. “That is my challenge.”

“But others could,” Tabitha suggested.

“Of course,” he said.

“What does it take?” Ellie asked.

“It takes more power than what you or I would be able to create.”

“That’s still not much of an answer.”

“It’s all the answer that I can provide.”

Ellie looked over at Tabitha, who just shrugged.

“You’re asking why they might be heading this way,” Tabitha said. “What if the priest had the relic? I think Jerath wants to know where he got it. And there’s only one place here that he could have gotten it from, right? One place that makes sense, at least. The ruins of Vharakal.”

“We need to stop him,” Ralen said. He took a deep breath, swept his gaze around. “And we need to keep them from using the relic, although it is possible that they cannot.”

“But if they could, and if they brought it to an old place of power, what would they be able to do?”

“Again, I do not know. But it could be dangerous. And unfortunately, it seems as if I must ask for your help in stopping them.”

Chapter

Twenty-Nine

The soft heat and steady pressure persisted around Ellie. The road wound up the mountainside, a path that continued to narrow. The path clung to the mountain’s edge, where centuries of travelers had worn the stone smooth. To their right, the cliff face rose straight up, water seeping from cracks in the rock. To their left, the ground fell away sharply into a valley shrouded by mist. The trail was barely wide enough for two horses to pass, forcing them to ride single file. Every so often, stone markers carved with weathered symbols appeared.

Tabitha continued to make notes as they traveled. Ellie had thought that she would have been keeping her eye on what was happening around them, but so far, she did not seem to be paying much attention to the landscape.

Given that Tabitha was lost in her own notebook, Ellie turned her attention to Ralen.

“All right,” Ellie said. “Time for you to share a bit about yourself. You have some talent, and you obviously have training that is different from mine. So tell me about yourself.”

“There isn’t much to tell. The Arbiters seek those who have talent. I have some. I have been useful.” He shrugged. “And I made a promise to my parents when I was younger, before …” He let out a soft breath, shaking his head. “Before. And I want to keep that promise.”

“I understand that,” she said. “I am trying to honor my mother.”

“Just your mother?”

“I don’t know my father. He abandoned my family when I was young. I didn’t really have a father.” There were times when Zaren had been paternal to her, Jos as well. Even Dorian, in his own way. “Can you at least help me understand how you suppress your talent? It would be a useful skill.”

“It is a relatively simple technique. You simply push it down.”

“Push it down?”

She had learned how to push her ability outward, and generally what she did was create a pulse of it, although depending upon the magical energy and entity she encountered, that pulse would change.

Push it down.

She focused on that deep part of herself and began to push, but the moment she did, she felt more of that burning sensation, as if her attempt to push was resisted by some other part of her.

“Maybe it doesn’t work that way for me,” Ellie said.

“Why would it not work?” Ralen asked. He kept his gaze on the horizon, and though she couldn’t feel anything from him, she had the distinct sense that he was probably using a similar aspect of power to what she had been using. The difference with Ralen, however, was that when he used it, there were sweeps of subtlety that rolled off him. If she didn’t pay attention to what he was doing, Ellie wouldn’t feel it.

“Because every person feels their innate ability a little differently. That was what I was taught.”

“To a certain extent,” he said, “but everybody can learn to use it in a similar fashion. It is just how you manifest it that is the key. So I would not expect you to have much difficulty with this, but the technique is what provides the challenge.”

“All right, then what are you picking up on here?” Ellie asked, sweeping her hands out briefly. “Because there’s a heat and a pressure, and I can feel both of them squeezing.”

She didn’t like it. The more she felt that pressure and burning, the more difficult to overcome it seemed.

“You feel a heat?”

“That’s what I’m feeling, and I’m not sure what it is.”

“Can you extend your awareness?”

“That’s what I’ve been doing,” she said. “But even extending my awareness, I haven’t been able to identify anything about it. It’s just a heat.”

“How long have you detected this?”

“I suppose since we came into the mountains.”

“Have you ever experienced anything like it before?”

“Why, of all the questions?”

“Because it is unusual for somebody with your particular ability to be able to feel it. Have you ever felt anything like it before?”

“Several times, and I have started to feel it quite a bit more often of late.”

“You have?” he said, frowning. “Interesting. Tell me about it.”

Ellie didn’t get a chance to describe anything.

Ralen lunged forward, grabbing for his blade in a sudden blur of movement.

It took Ellie a moment to realize why.

He had darted toward a darkened figure hiding near a rock just around a bend up ahead. The shadows around the rocks seemed to twist and deepen, moving in ways that shadows shouldn’t. A figure emerged from the darkness, its edges blurring as if it was part of the shadows itself. More darkness pooled at its feet, spreading across the ground. The afternoon light dimmed unnaturally where the figure stood. Behind it, other shadows writhed against the rock face, stretching and contracting like living things.

There was a clash of metal on metal, and then sudden, sharp pressure, and then nothing. The burning that she had been feeling eased.

Ralen came back toward them.

“What was that?” Tabitha asked.

“A Servant,” he said. “And I wonder if you have been able to sense them.”

“Sense them?” Ellie asked. “Why would I have been able to sense them?”

“The answer that I can most easily come up with is that you spent time traveling with them and you learned to detect their presence. Familiarity is the key with such things. There are other possibilities, but they are much less likely.”

“And what are they?” Ellie asked.

“It matters very little.”

She wasn’t so sure about that. Yet she also felt a strange relief. Maybe that burning had been tied to Jerath’s presence alongside her. She still wasn’t sure why he had felt the need to travel with them, unless it had been curiosity. Or maybe there was something about Ellie in particular that he had hoped to find.

Whatever it was, she thought that she should have asked different questions.

They kept moving. The road had become little more than a trader’s track, switching back and forth across the mountainside. Ancient retaining walls of fitted stone lined the steeper sections, though many had partially collapsed, spilling rocks across the path. The air grew colder as they climbed higher, and the wind carried ice crystals that stung their faces. To their left, the valley fell away into shadow, while the late-afternoon sun cast long fingers of light between the peaks ahead. Every so often, they passed stone markers, worn almost smooth by weather and time, their carvings barely visible. The horses picked their way carefully around fallen rocks and across sections where spring melt had cut channels through the path.

Ralen had fallen silent, and every time that Ellie tried to get him to answer questions about what he could do and the kind of power he had access to, and whether he might teach Ellie, he gave vague answers, which bothered her. Maybe he didn’t want her to learn what he could do. Or maybe he didn’t think that she could learn. That was the most frustrating possibility.

They came across more Servants, this time a pair of them, late in the day.

Ralen darted forward and quickly disarmed one, but he was very nearly stabbed by another.

Ellie lunged forward. She brought her blade up, catching the longer, curved blade with her own and pushing back.

The moment that she did, she began to feel the heat burning within her. She pushed against it, letting it radiate outward, and a crackling of energy emanated from her.

It pushed the Servant back.

She darted forward, and he blocked. She carved upward and then kicked, driving her heel into the man’s knee.

Then she lunged, sliding the blade into his chest. His eyes went wide, and she pushed some of the heat out through the blade. The blade grew warm and glowed softly before the man fell back, stumbling and then collapsing.

“What did you do?” Ralen asked as he crouched over the fallen Servant.

“I brought him down, no differently than you did,” Ellie said.

“You brought him down, but it was definitely different than what I did.”

She didn’t know what to say.

“Come on,” she said, changing the subject. “We need to get to the ruins.”

“Yes,” he said, though he seemed troubled.

Maybe he should be. Maybe she should be, for that matter. She had just used an aspect of her power that she had never used before. That had not been her Blade ability. It had never caused her blade to glow like that. It had never caused warmth to flow into it.

She pushed those thoughts aside, guiding her horse up the slope.

The path grew steeper, forcing them to zigzag between weathered boulders that dotted the slope like giants’ teeth. Their horses’ breath came in white puffs in the thinning air. The afternoon sun cast long shadows across their path, and somewhere above, loose rocks clattered down the mountainside. Snow lurked in the deeper shadows between rocks, and ice had formed where water trickled across the stone.

She kept sending out sweeping waves of her ability. The warmth had faded, if only a little bit. She didn’t know what to make of that.

“Where are all the Servants?” Ellie asked, looking around. “Why are there not more of them?”

“I suspect they are guarding the ruins,” Ralen said, his voice soft. “And I suspect they didn’t expect anybody to make it here.”

They kept moving. Ellie used pulse after pulse of her ability, but she didn’t feel anything. It wasn’t until she added a little heat into what she was doing that she noticed that stirring of energy again. It was a faint, subtle power, and the more she focused on it, the more she realized it was something distinct. She wondered how that could be the case. More than that, she wondered why that was the case. It had to be significant.

It was growing dark when they reached a crest in the climb.

Ancient walls emerged from the mountainside, most little more than foundations now, their stones worn so smooth by time they almost looked natural. Here and there, a higher section of wall stood defiantly against the centuries, its edges softened by weather and covered in lichen. What might have been a ceremonial approach could still be traced in the pattern of tumbled stones climbing the slope in steady intervals. Pieces of carved stone lay half-buried in the thin soil, some bearing traces of weathered patterns. The ruins spread across the mountainside in terraces cut into the living rock, though most had partially collapsed, creating fields of scattered blocks. Near the center, a few larger stones still stood upright, arranged in what might have been a circle, their original purpose lost to time.

But at the heart of the ruins, a single chamber remained remarkably intact, protected by the mountain itself. Its entrance was an arch cut directly into the rock face, its stones fitted so that not even millennia of ice and snow had forced them apart. Deeply carved symbols, untouched by weather, still marked the stone. The chamber’s darkness seemed deeper than natural shadow, as if the space itself held on to the remnants of whatever power had once dwelled there.

“It’s quite a bit more impressive than I had expected,” Tabitha said. “I knew that we were going to find it, but I just didn’t know that it was going to look like this. This is very well preserved.”

“You can document it after we figure out what’s going on here,” Ellie said. “What do you think we will find?”

“I don’t know,” Ralen said. “We should tie up the horses, leave them for now. Then we can scout, see what else is here. We don’t want to be discovered.”

“By the Servants or someone else?”

“By anyone here,” he said. “I do not know what we might find, but we should be ready for any danger.”

“If they came with the relic, and they intend to use it, is there a particular place that they might need to use it?” Ellie asked. “Or is it just a need to be here in some way?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

Ellie looked at Tabitha, who just shook her head.

“I don’t know,” she said. “That’s not the kind of thing I have studied. This is more along the lines of what you would know about.”

Unfortunately for Ellie, it wasn’t.

She kept moving forward, and they saw more of the ruins. Broken walls created a maze of ancient pathways, many choked with rubble and winter-hardy weeds that had forced their way through cracks in the stone. As they moved deeper into the ruins, more carved stones emerged from the earth—pieces of columns, fragments of what might have been statues, blocks bearing faint traces of script. The stone beneath their feet changed, too, from rough mountain rock to carefully laid pavers, still fitted together after thousands of years. In places, the original surface remained, polished by countless feet to a dull sheen. The air grew noticeably colder as they proceeded, and their footsteps echoed strangely, as if the spaces between the ruins were deeper than they appeared.

As Ellie proceeded, she felt the heat in her changing. She felt power in a way that she had not before.

And more importantly, she felt a memory of power that was familiar to her.

Baring was here.

“This might be a problem,” she said, looking briefly at Tabitha and then Ralen. “My brother is here.”

“Could he be with them?” Tabitha asked.

“Baring? With the Servants? No. I doubt it.” But she saw the impassive expression on Ralen’s face. “But I wonder if he might be with Ralen. What do you know and aren’t telling me?”

“I’m not the only one of my people here,” he said. “And I am not sure what they intend.”

“Wait,” Ellie said. “Are you trying to tell me that some of your Arbiters might be after this relic to try to use it?”

“Not all of my organization agreed with how these relics need to be dealt with. Some think that they could be used.”

“Why would they think to use them?”

“Because they think themselves capable of controlling them,” he said. “But the only ones capable of controlling that power are not from this realm.”

“So we have to deal with Arbiters and Servants,” Ellie said, looking straight ahead. “And I have to deal with my brother. Great.”

Chapter

Thirty

What did she want to do? Ellie had come to find answers for Dorian, but now there might be something more she needed. Understanding. She needed to know what the burning power was inside of her. She needed to deal with the Servants. And then she needed to return and report to Dorian.

It was time to be a Blade.

More than a Blade, though. She was something more for Dorian.

And maybe she had always been meant to be something more.

She looked at Ralen for a moment, took a deep breath, and readied herself.

Time to stop this.

They moved forward into the ruins. Evening shadows crept between the broken walls. Their footsteps crunched on ancient gravel and fragments of stone. Wind whispered through gaps in the ruins, creating odd echoes that made it impossible to tell direction. Here and there, larger stones rose from the rubble, their original purpose long forgotten. The remaining walls cast strange patterns in the fading light, and somewhere in the distance, loose rocks clattered down a slope. The air had grown noticeably colder and held an odd stillness, as if the ruins themselves were holding their breath.

It was getting dark, and the steady burning that Ellie had been feeling was intensifying. She wasn’t sure what it was, but she did not like the way that it felt. She found Ralen watching her, and there was a look to him that made her even more uncomfortable.

“What is it?” she asked.

“It’s you,” he said.

“What about me?” Ellie asked.

“I’m not certain. I’ve not felt something like this⁠—”

Ralen didn’t finish, because he spun, immediately unsheathing his blade, and then he darted forward.

Darkness had swirled toward them. Ellie had barely even seen it. It was as if the shadows had erupted from the stone, and five figures were there.

Ralen’s blade flashed in the dying light. Two shadow figures glided toward him, their movements smooth. Metal rang against metal.

The third figure circled left.

The fourth and fifth spread wide, trying to flank him.

Shadows writhed at their feet like living things. More darkness poured from the ruins’ crevices.

Ralen spun, his blade cutting through one figure that was nothing but shadow—and disappeared. Re-formed. Came again. No sound came from them—no footsteps, no breathing. Just the whisper of steel meeting steel.

Ellie stayed close to Tabitha but knew she needed to help Ralen.

“Stay close,” she said. “I can’t protect you any other way.”

Tabitha followed her, and Ellie brought out her blades, darting toward the nearest of the attackers.

Once again there was the steady buildup, the burning, and something quite dramatic. Ellie released an explosion of the energy, allowing it to expand outward in a rapid rippling wave of power.

Knowing now that it worked that way, and knowing that she had to keep trying with that power, even if she didn’t understand it, allowed her to work with it differently. As that energy expanded, it slammed into the nearest of the figures, and she darted toward another that had been somewhat distracted by the attack. She drove her blade into the Servant’s side. Then she twisted, kicking down, catching the man in his knee. Somebody slipped close to Tabitha, dark and shadowy, swirling around them and making it difficult to see. Ellie suspected that it was a fabrication, but given that these were Servants, and they obviously had power that she was unfamiliar with, that might not be the case.

She pushed Tabitha to the side and then dropped beneath the circling of a blade and thrust outward with both blades. Heat burst through her, into her blades, which began to glow once again. The power shot from the ends of her blades, slamming into the man, who staggered back, crumpling.

Everything fell still.

She crouched there for just a moment, gathering her thoughts, trying to get her wits about her again.

“Are you all right?” Ellie asked, looking over at Tabitha.

Tabitha was getting off the ground. She rubbed at her hip but nodded.

“I didn’t even see him,” she said.

“They draw on different talents,” Ralen said. “It is one of their gifts. There was a time when they were called Mimics for what they could do. That was until others began to realize the potential they have.”

“Mimics?”

He nodded. “It is somewhat of a misnomer, but that is what they have been called.”

“So they could mimic what we do?”

“They could mimic many such powers,” he said. “Especially as they rise within their service to this ancient power.”

“Great,” Ellie muttered. She had known that they had some power, but now she had to worry about what they were really capable of.

“The ones we have faced have mimicked the ability of the dekmarsh. They have the ability to cloak themselves in darkness. But then, where they live is quite dark, and so it is simply a way of blending in. I am surprised that they would be found here, but …”

He didn’t finish, but Ellie couldn’t help but feel she needed answers to what was going on here, and Ralen seemed to be avoiding them.

They headed forward. The burning sensation continued to grow stronger as they moved down into the ruins. Ellie continued to use sweeping waves of power. There was obviously a source of power here, but she did not know what it was. She focused on what was there, focused on that buildup of power, and moved forward.

Stone steps led them deeper into what might have been a sunken courtyard. Fresh tool marks scarred some of the ancient blocks where they had recently been shifted. A crude wooden framework braced one wall where the earth had been dug away, revealing more carved stones beneath centuries of soil. At the far end, a dark opening gaped in the rock face. The entrance’s original decorative arch had partially collapsed, but someone had cleared the fallen stones, stacking them neatly to one side.

“Somebody’s been here,” Tabitha said. “There are signs of recent excavation.”

“The Custodians. They were here. Or maybe it was the Arbiters,” Ellie said, looking at Ralen.

As she got deeper into the ruins, against the backdrop of night, she was better able to make out the changes that were evident, and likely new. Wooden support beams had been wedged into doorways where ancient lintels threatened to collapse. Fresh earth was piled beside deep trenches that followed the line of buried walls, the soil still dark and damp compared to the sun-bleached stone.

They moved deeper into the ruins, following what Ellie was able to detect.

The chamber opened before them, perfectly circular in shape despite the millennia that had passed. Ancient columns, half their original height, ringed the space at regular intervals. At the center, a stone platform rose from the floor, its surface carved with spiraling patterns that caught their lantern light. The walls curved upward to a domed ceiling now partially collapsed, letting in shafts of starlight. Their footsteps echoed strangely on the stone floor, which had been worn to a glassy smoothness. Someone had cleared the rubble here, too, piling broken stones against one wall, revealing more of the intricate patterns that radiated outward from the central platform.

There was no sense of the Servants. The only thing that Ellie was aware of was the steady buildup, the steady burning.

“We are getting closer,” Ralen said, his voice soft.

“You can tell?”

“They leave certain characteristics. There is a rhythm here.”

“Do you feel that rhythm?” Tabitha asked Ellie.

“No,” Ellie said. “All I feel is the burning, and it’s getting more intense.”

Ralen regarded her as she said that.

They moved forward, and at one point, Ralen slipped ahead, disappearing for a moment, before returning, locking eyes with Ellie, and nodding. Another Servant dealt with.

They reached a hidden section of rock. And this part of the ruins looked to be more intact than the rest. An archway rose before them. Ancient script ran in precise lines along the walls. At regular intervals, stone brackets still held the remnants of torches, their metal bands untouched by rust despite the millennia. The floor bore no sign of age or wear, each stone block meeting its neighbor with incredible precision.

Tabitha stiffened. “It is far more intact than I imagined,” she said. “I can’t believe this is even possible.”

“Well, be careful here,” Ellie said. She pointed. She saw the darkened shape of two people with their backs to them, just up ahead. And the steady buildup of burning energy was much more potent here. “You said there were other Arbiters with you. Maybe not with you, but with you. Where are they?”

“They came to research,” he said.

“To research. So you’re saying …” She frowned. “Some of the Arbiters came looking for information?”

“Some.”

“And how are the Custodians involved?”

“They would be a local faction, not a part of the Arbiters.”

“So the Arbiters came looking for something, probably some ancient relic,” Ellie said, realizing that had to be the reason that the Arbiters had been in these ruins in the first place, “and the Custodians came after them, maybe took what they were after, and the priest …” The priest had access to power, but why the thieving?

“What about those people?” Tabitha asked, pointing.

From their vantage, Ellie could just make out a cluster of figures not far from them. A series of pillars ringed them, but there was something about those pillars that struck Ellie as unusual. Fabrications, and familiar ones. They were the same fabrications that she had discovered in the warehouse in Buruketh.

“What are they doing with them?”

“It appears that they are holding them,” Ralen said.

“And there’s the priest,” Ellie said, seeing the figure of the priest on what she suspected was a raised altar. That seemed to be the source of the burning.

She wasn’t sure what to make of this, but if Jerath was involved, she suspected his motivations. He had made it obvious that he only served the Sovereign, wanting to do what he could to see to his return. How would this have anything to do with that, though?

A steady chanting began. It was soft, rhythmic, and it washed over Ellie. She had felt it before.

It was what the priest had done in the city, only this felt more powerful. She actively worked to fight against it. She could feel the burning inside her, could feel the way that it was settling through her. And she could feel something else with it, rising in intensity.

Ralen’s eyes were glazed. Not like Tabitha’s and Jerath’s had been in the crowd around the priest, although now she wondered if Jerath had ever had that glaze, if he had just been pretending. Regardless, she pushed outward. She had to do so with force, extending through that burning energy, and it enveloped not only Tabitha but Ralen as well.

Ralen shook with a shiver.

“You feeling better?” Ellie asked.

“That should not have happened,” he said.

“Well, it did. Apparently, this relic allows them to influence you. Others as well,” she said, looking at Tabitha. She still seemed to be in a trance. Ellie thought that she had helped, but apparently not enough.

“I can manage on my own now,” he said.

“Are you sure about that? I can hold it for you if you need, but⁠—”

“I can handle it on my own.”

She shrugged. “I didn’t say it to be offensive. I’m offering you my help.”

“If this is about releasing power,” he said, seemingly reluctant to do so, “it must be stopped.”

“Wait. You think that he actually could free the Sovereign?”

“Perhaps free the Sovereign, or perhaps free some aspect of power. Regardless, he seeks an ancient and uncontrollable power. It is too dangerous to be unleashed, at least without the necessary precautions, and even then, I would hesitate to think that power should be unleashed.”

Given what Ellie had experienced in her time in Busal City, she had to agree with that. Power often became unstable and was dangerous to those without it.

“I just don’t understand why he stayed with us if this was what he was after.”

“I suspect he traveled with you because of what you can do. He must have sensed it. He is a Mimic. It is likely that he detected your ability and wanted to understand it.”

“I don’t even know what kind of ability I have, though.”

But she thought about what she had experienced, about what she had felt, and moreover, she thought about what the priest had said to her, asking what she was.

What was she?

Something had felt off about her ability for a while, though she hadn’t understood it. Maybe the only thing that mattered was that she had an opportunity to do something here, to stop this madness.

“You have mentioned feeling something in response to the priest’s presence. A burning, I believe you called it.”

“It’s not really in response to his presence so much as the items he’s used. But yes. I have felt something. Why?”

“If I’m right, the power they are drawing comes from outside this realm.”

The way that he said this suggested more than just beyond Busal and Buruketh.

“You’re talking about the fae,” Ellie said.

“Oh, I’m talking about more than the fae. Older. And you seem to be attuned to it. I suspect he realized that and decided to use you. Or perhaps it was merely chance.”

“Why? Why me?”

“I can’t answer that. I can’t say what happened to you or why you as opposed to another would have such capacity, although it may simply be tied to what you have experienced during your time in Busal. Regardless, you need to use that power now.”

She needed to. And maybe she needed to so that she could get some answers.

That burning continued to build within her. She understood it reacted to what the priest was doing, and might even be reacting to the relic. Ellie had no idea what that was doing, or for that matter, why she felt that burning, but she could no longer deny that she felt something. It was there, a distinct, steady feeling that coursed through her. It was a feeling that lingered, one that she could not ignore. One that she needed to use.

“All right,” she said. “You go first. I’ll follow. And don’t get caught, because I don’t know if I can control whatever this is enough to help you if that happens.”

“I would say the same to you,” Ralen said, and then he slipped along the rocks, disappearing.

Ellie moved over to Tabitha and fumbled through her satchel until she found one of her healing fabrications. She had no idea if it would work, but she tapped on it, set it in Tabitha’s hands, curled her fingers around it, and then leaned close.

“If you can hear me, just stay here. Be careful. And be ready. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I might need your help.”

And with that, Ellie focused on the burning. It coursed through her, building to an almost unpleasant crescendo. She had felt that before, had felt it threatening to overwhelm her. This time, however, Ellie had to be careful, and she couldn’t allow it to overwhelm her. She had to be in control.

When she moved forward, she saw Jerath standing next to the priest, a blade to his throat. And there was the relic resting on the ground, flickering with faint white light. The relic resembled a complex geometric prism, all sharp angles and intersecting planes, as if someone had captured crystalline lightning in metal. Its surfaces caught and fractured the pale light it emitted, each facet seeming to glow with its own radiance. Bands of ancient script wrapped around its various faces, the characters so fine they looked like ripples in the metal’s surface. Where different planes met, thin lines of white light pulsed like veins through the metal, creating patterns that made her eyes hurt if she tried to follow them.

What was more, Ellie could feel the relic. Moreover, she could feel how the relic was drawing on her, drawing on the burning and pulling her forward.

Whatever else happened here, she needed to deal with this, because she needed to understand what it was doing. And more than that, she needed to know why it seemed she had some other potential. Something more than just a Blade’s ability.

And she had to wonder if Dorian had known the entire time that he had worked with her. Could that be why he had chosen her? Had he wanted to keep her with him for some reason? Thinking that she would be the key to something?

Questions that she would have to save for later.

What should she do now? Was she strong enough to handle this?

Strength isn’t in power. It’s in choice.

She had started forward slowly when a shout rang out.

Ralen had been detected.

Chapter

Thirty-One

Ellie lunged forward.

She crossed the distance between her and the priest in a matter of moments. She could still feel that buildup of energy, still felt the effect of the chanting on her, but she was able to resist it in a way that she still didn’t understand. That burning lingered inside her, and she continued to push outward.

As she neared, readying her blade, deciding that it would have to go into the priest, she felt something slam into her.

It was like a wall. She staggered back.

“You will continue,” Jerath said, looking at the priest.

The priest continued to chant.

“And you,” Jerath said, looking up. Some of the intensity in his expression had changed, but it was still there. Now it seemed harder. “You were what I hoped for.”

“So you are just using me,” Ellie said.

“You have felt the power,” Jerath said. “I know that you have. You should want to understand Him, and His touch, and prepare for His return.”

“It’s dangerous. For you, for me, for anybody.” She started to move away but didn’t know where she could go.

“You can’t stop this. And if you try, then perhaps I was wrong about you.”

He darted at her. His blade was a blur, fast, sweeping at her in a sharp arc.

Ellie brought her blades together, crossing them, and thrust upward. She pushed the burning energy into the blades. The blades glowed, and she pushed again, forcing that power out. She had expected the overall effect of the attack to send him staggering backward. Instead, he simply blocked, twisting, pushing her to the side.

The chanting persisted.

“You can’t stop this. This power predates you, and it will continue after you.”

“And what do you plan to do with it? Unleash something?” She started to laugh. “You think that you’re the first person to have believed they can do that?”

“No,” he said. “But I am one who has been faithful, and I will return this world to its rightful order.”

“By unleashing some old power here? Or taking control of some old power? Because that’s what it’s about, isn’t it?”

She focused on the burning inside her, readying it, but she didn’t know if she had enough strength or control to use it. She needed to, somehow, but Ellie didn’t know what that would entail. Right now, the only thing she could think about, the only thing she could feel, was that burning, and she had to find some way to hold it and maintain a measure of control over it.

“You didn’t need to come here. I was willing to leave you,” Jerath said.

“Willing to?”

“I was willing to give you a chance,” he said. “You have been gifted by Him. You can be a part of this, but you have to be willing to see.”

“That’s quite a lovely sentiment,” Ellie said. He continued moving toward her, and she forced more of the burning to flow through her and let it sweep outward. This time, she did so with a sharp crack of power, but she wasn’t sure that it would be enough. Thankfully, it slammed into him, forcing him back.

But not as far as she had hoped. She knew that he had some power, but she didn’t know what it was. She didn’t understand what it was.

She had to get the priest. She had to stop the chanting. She needed to do that so that the others could help.

Jerath moved toward her.

There was something casual and devastatingly deadly about the slow, purposeful way that he approached.

Then he attacked. It was lightning fast, one strike up, then down, Ellie needing to quickly react, using everything in her training to ensure that she wasn’t struck by his blade, and she had to force out the burning again. This time when it erupted, it didn’t do so with the same intensity, and it certainly didn’t push him back with the same force that it had before.

He brought his blade up. Then he brought it down. Ellie managed to block the thrust, but barely. And he was pushing forcefully down, his face getting closer, a sneer lingering in his features.

“Nothing can stop this. You can be a part of this.”

“You shouldn’t have gotten so close,” she said before kicking him in the groin.

He jerked back, and Ellie rolled to the side.

The distraction was a brief one. She scrambled toward the priest, racing toward him, and slammed into him, driving her shoulder into his belly, knocking him back, away from the relic. He fell backward, and she brought her hand up, catching him under the chin and making sure that his head slammed into the stone, knocking him unconscious.

The chanting ended, the burning that she’d been feeling eased, but only a bit.

She rolled around, looking.

Not far from her, Ralen fought off two Servants. Three other individuals were fighting more Servants, which surprised her. Ralen had saved them?

The chamber stretched up into darkness, its ceiling lost in shadow. Pale light from the relic cast strange patterns across ancient stone walls smooth as glass. Fighting pairs moved through these shifting shadows, Ralen’s blade flashing as he held off two Servants, while three figures she didn’t recognize battled more shadow-wrapped forms near the chamber’s edge. Their movements created a deadly dance of steel and shadow, punctuated by the ring of blades and the whisper of quick footsteps on stone. Fallen columns provided cover and obstacles, their broken forms creating a maze within the vast space.

When she skimmed her gaze back around, she saw Jerath slowly making his way toward her. There was nothing rushed or fearful in the way that he moved. It was all deliberate.

She got to her feet, crossing her blades in front of her, focusing on the burning. Her Blade ability wasn’t the key here. She didn’t understand this new power, but she needed to grasp what it was and why she could use it so that she could better understand how to stop Jerath.

“You won’t be able to do it without the priest,” she said.

“He was a sacrifice,” Jerath said. “And there are others who can make the sacrifice.”

He came toward her. Ellie brought her blade up, trying to stab him, but he simply blocked. She tried again, and he caught her wrist, twisting, forcing Ellie to drop her blade. She tried to bring her fist around, but even that was stopped. She was like a child, and he lifted her and carried her over to the altar.

“You don’t even understand what you can do,” Jerath said. “Perhaps it won’t matter. You are here. And you are touched. Your life can be of service.”

“My life? I’m not going to chant. I don’t even know what the priest was doing.”

“The chanting is not the key. It is the channeling.”

He forced her down, shoving her toward the relic. She fought, but he was stronger than her. As soon as she touched the relic, pain exploded.

She had felt that kind of pain before. It was like the burning, that all-consuming kind of pain. And she didn’t know what she could do about it. She thought about pushing past it, using her Blade ability, but there was nothing she could do.

“Let it flow,” Jerath’s voice said. It seemed to come from a distance. “And you will feel Him. You will see Him.”

If the one he wanted to serve was anything like the pain she felt, Ellie did not want to see or feel him.

“This is our chance to return His glory, Ellie. Let His power flow.”

Everything in her fought.

But she knew it was a losing battle. The power she felt was beyond her as a Blade, beyond what she could resist. And given the enormity of the power, she feared that it would tear through her—and through this world.

“There’s a reason it’s contained in this relic,” Ellie said through gritted teeth. “A reason it was trapped.”

“Fear. But I don’t fear it. Neither should you. Let it flow.”

There was something almost seductive in the way he asked her to let it flow, much like the way the priest had had something seductive in his chanting.

That was this power.

Ellie caught a glimpse of something greater, but nothing more than a glimpse. As if a doorway opened through the pain that coursed through her, showing her the vastness of this power that wanted to take hold here. And if it did, what would happen?

It would spread.

Ellie could see that. The power would not be contained here. It could not be contained. It would spread.

And they could do nothing against it.

She had to fight it here and now. Otherwise, this would overwhelm her. Not only Busal would be harmed, but so much more.

The white-hot energy that burned through her continued to sear through every fiber of her being. Ellie could not think of anything else.

It was like the Blade trap, she realized.

That had been similar, but not the same.

And she realized the purpose behind it. It was not a trap at all. It was a beacon. Trying to find somebody who could use a certain type of power. Or perhaps trying to find this power, the source of it, some way of tracking it down.

That was about the extent of what her mind could process as the pain coursed through her.

Then somewhere nearby a fabrication exploded. Then another.

They came one after another, the sound of explosions, and the air became charged with a different kind of power, one that left Ellie vibrating.

It was a reminder.

And then something deep inside her reacted. It was like a memory.

Her mother had taught her about how to use her Blade ability, how to encase herself in that power, and how to pull it through her entire being. Doing so was a way of protecting oneself from power. That was what her mother had taught. And at the time, Ellie had thought that her mother was simply teaching her what it meant to be a Blade, teaching her what she was going to need one day when she would eventually be able to serve the realm in the same way that her mother had. Now Ellie wondered if her mother had known more.

She focused, as much as she could, but even that was difficult. She had to try to find that focus, to find purpose, to find something other than the pain. She pushed, allowing herself to be encased in her Blade ability, but this time, she found something else flowing with it, another element. It was that burning, slowly pushing against it.

As it did, the heat began to fade. She could feel it, but she could also feel something else. This relic coursed with power. Of course it did—that was the purpose of it. But she felt something else with it, something even greater.

Ellie’s vision cleared just a bit. Jerath was there, standing across from her, and she didn’t miss the satisfied look on his face, one that spoke of an eagerness, perhaps the belief that he had succeeded.

Ellie felt that power. She felt it within everything that she did. She felt it within everything she had.

And she knew what Jerath wanted. He was a Mimic—wasn’t that what Ralen had said? They used power like that, and he wanted her to show him how to use it. She didn’t understand why she would have that ability, but that was what he wanted. The same thing that he had wanted from the priest, she suspected.

Ellie turned her attention to the relic. It was a fabrication, though it wasn’t a fabrication like any that she had ever known before. Still, as a fabrication, it could be dealt with like any others. And with this new power flowing in her, she could deal with this fabrication in a way that she wouldn’t have been able to before.

She pulsed power out from her, directing it toward the fabrication.

At first Jerath didn’t seem to know what she was doing.

She pulsed again, and the relic surged with a power that allowed Ellie to flow with it, to feel it around her.

“What are you doing?” Jerath asked.

“I’m using it,” Ellie said. “So that you cannot.”

And with that, she brought her hands down, and power exploded through her, down her arms, out of her palms, and into the relic. When it hit the relic, there was a crackling along the surface. From there, the crackling expanded. The lines of glowing white expanded, and as Jerath came toward her, Ellie pushed one more time, allowing a pulse of power to slam out from her and flow into it, until the relic exploded.

It was a blast of white, and then Ellie felt nothing.

Chapter

Thirty-Two

Ellie sat motionless for a long time. A strange energy permeated the air around her, bringing with it a quiet, an otherworldly difference she couldn’t quite name. The energy that she’d been feeling finally started to fade, dissipating into a soft burning. She looked over, saw the relic had been shattered, and pieces of it glowed, but nothing else. All around her, whatever fighting had been taking place with the Servants and Ralen and his people had died down. Even the explosions of fabricated energy had faded. Ellie wasn’t sure what that had been, but she suspected Tabitha had something to do with it, somehow. From the faint memory of power, she could tell that the fabrications were Dorian’s.

She had stopped what Jerath was trying to do, at least here. There was no sign of him, though, and he must have escaped—she didn’t see his body. Which meant that she had not really stopped Jerath. She had simply broken a fabrication that he had intended to use that would allow him to touch some deeper power. Or maybe something worse—allow that deeper power to enter their world.

Maybe for now, that was enough.

That was the kind of thing Zaren had done as a Blade. And now me.

She smiled at that. What would Zaren think? What will Dorian think?

And did it even matter? She had done this. She had stopped the attack. All her training, everything she’d learned—and was still learning—was enough.

“Ellie?”

She blinked, looking up.

At first she thought it was Ralen, but the voice lacked the hard edge of Ralen’s tone. This was Baring. He looked down at her, concern evident in his eyes.

“Baring?” She started to get up, but her head ached. Everything within her burned as well. She saw Tabitha moving toward her, concern etched on her face. Ellie nodded, but even that hurt.

“You weren’t supposed to come out here,” he said. “I didn’t think the king would let you after I sent a warning. I tried to help him understand the danger to you.”

“You tried to warn him? What are you doing out here?”

She looked around, but she didn’t see any sign of Jerath. Hopefully, he’d been caught in the blast, but she didn’t think that she would get that lucky. He was a Mimic, hoping to capture the understanding of an ancient power, hoping to use it somehow. Ellie didn’t understand that, but she figured that she would need to.

“I followed,” he said. “I told you that I was looking into something. I was trying to understand what they were doing, why it called to me. And when they came through the city, I knew. That’s what I tried to warn you about. I wanted to make sure that I was right before I told you. Then I took some of Zaren’s protective fabrications from the school, the ones that came from the Guild, and came this way.”

Ellie got to her feet, and she saw Ralen talking to some of the Arbiters in the distance. At least she knew what had happened at the school—and that it was no prank. Karissa would not be pleased.

“We have a lot to talk about,” Baring said.

“So talk.”

“Are you sure that you are all right?”

Ellie didn’t even know. She hurt, but she didn’t think that she was permanently hurt. And more than that, she needed to know what she could do, what that power she had unleashed was. She had felt it echoing inside her.

“I’m fine. So talk.”

“I’ll talk, but maybe come with me over here,” Baring said.

“And then what?”

“Then you can learn what I’ve been doing. I told you that I was looking into something, and I found … well, more than I expected.”

“You found the Arbiters.”

He followed the direction of her gaze, toward Ralen.

“I don’t know the Arbiters. Is that what he is?”

“You don’t know, so what are you doing?”

“I need you to trust me, Ellie. Trust me to have done the right thing. I couldn’t be just an Investigator.” He shook his head. “Not when I learned what I learned. You need to see it for yourself. Can you trust me?”

Ellie stiffened. “You know, Baring, I’m having a hard time trusting you right now, especially with what’s been going on.”

She still had no idea what she’d gotten caught up in. She needed to report back to Dorian, but even then, she wasn’t sure what to tell him. He would need to know about this ancient power, and she wondered what he might say about it. Maybe he’d heard more than he had let on, and maybe that was the reason he’d sent her here. Or more likely, he would task the scholars in the archive with digging for more information. Regardless, they had done it. At least for now.

Tabitha arrived, looking at Baring. “You look better than I expected,” Tabitha said. “Although Ellie has been worried about you.”

“Can you get her to come with me?”

“Where?”

“She needs to talk to somebody. He’s over there by your friend.”

He motioned to one side of the ruins. A partially intact wall created a natural alcove. Broken columns lay where they’d fallen, now serving as makeshift seats. The ground had been cleared, swept clean of debris. In this pocket of relative shelter, the constant mountain wind died to a whisper.

There was a taller, gray-haired man speaking to Ralen. The man turned, and there was something familiar in his dark, blue-eyed stare. Something familiar about the sharp chin and the heavy beard. Ellie couldn’t quite place it, though.

“All right, who do I need to talk to?”

Baring paled. “You don’t know?”

Ellie shook her head. “What am I supposed to know?”

“Ellie. He’s the reason I left Busal City. When I saw him, I knew I had to.”

“So you chased a priest looking for power?”

“A priest?” Baring shook his head. “No. Not a priest. Ellie, that’s our father.”

Don’t miss the next book in The Awakened Realm: The Fractured Legacy.

The power inside her was only the beginning. Now it’s waking something far older—and far more dangerous.

When explosive attacks rock Busal City, Ellie knows there's more at work than simple terrorism. The mysterious Servants of Ascendance have targeted her home—and awakened a burning power within her that she barely understands.

Now Ellie must scale an impossible cliff to reach ruins older than memory itself, where ancient seals separating our world from the fae realm are weakening. Accompanied by a mysterious Arbiter, her scholarly friend, and pursued by terrifying creatures, she races to prevent catastrophe.

But Ellie isn't just fighting the Servants—she's fighting her own nature. The burning power inside her connects to something primordial, something the Servants desperately want. If she can master it in time, she might save two worlds. If she fails, an ancient power called the Sovereign will return, forever altering the balance between realms.

With rival factions manipulating events from the shadows, Ellie must decide who to trust—and what kind of power she was meant to wield.

Author’s Note

Dear Reader,

Thank you so much for reading The King’s Agent. I hope you enjoyed it. If you would be so kind as to take a moment to leave a review on Amazon or elsewhere, I would be very grateful.

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All my best,

D.K. Holmberg

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Series by D.K. Holmberg

The Wayward Chronicles Series

The Queen’s Blade

The Wayward Chronicles

The Executioner’s Song Series

The Executioner’s Song

Blade and Bone

The Chain Breaker Series

The Chain Breaker

The Dark Sorcerer

First of the Blade

The Dragon Rogues

The Storyweaver Saga

The Storyweaver Saga

The Dragonwalkers Series

The Dragonwalker

The Dragon Misfits

Elemental Warrior Series:

Elemental Academy

The Elemental Warrior

The Cloud Warrior Saga

The Endless War

The Dark Ability Series

The Shadow Accords

The Collector Chronicles

The Dark Ability

The Sighted Assassin

The Elder Stones Saga

The Lost Prophecy Series

The Teralin Sword

The Lost Prophecy

The Volatar Saga Series

The Volatar Saga

The Book of Maladies Series

The Book of Maladies

The Lost Garden Series

The Lost Garden