Interlude 6: Sun, Moon, and Stars 03
- Location
- Nova Scotia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Invite Sola to join your Hearth: 28
Do not invite Sola: 10
Do not invite Sola: 10
Grace watches Ambraea go, uncertain how to process her own deeply conflicted emotions. She hadn't literally ran away this time, at least, but the feeling of masquerading as a Dragon-Blood — as a minor Dynast, no less — is strange enough without having to keep it up in the company of the woman who she had served for most her life. Ambraea isn't someone Grace is used to conversing with as anything close to a peer.
"Where would I be, without your singular grace and dedication?"
Apparently, in the mountains, chasing after glory and Anathema before she's even graduated secondary school. Centring herself, Grace takes in a deep, meditative breath and lets it out again. She looks to the stand of trees that Nettle had disappeared into — due to the positioning of the surrounding cliffs, it's inside the camp's perimeter, even if it's otherwise a little too dense to be of use to the talon for anything but firewood.
She doesn't like or entirely trust Stinging Nettle, but Grace does want to talk to her about the trail she'd mentioned finding. And whatever else, the only people in this entire encampment who can even begin to know who Grace is are Nettle and her familiars. Grace slips into the trees, moving in the distant direction of Nettle's voice.
"There'll be blood before this is over, and you can have your fill then. You complain too much."
There's a low hiss of displeasure. A different voice says: "One Anathema is hardly enough to go around. The Dragon-Blooded will kill it and I'll get nothing."
Grace comes out into a small clearing, where Nettle sits cross legged on a rock. Beside her, her austrech sits with her legs folded beneath her. Much like Grinner, the mount is in truth a lesser god, a common animal raised up through Sidereal magic, granted intelligence and immortality in exchange for being supernaturally bound to Nettle. Unlike Grinner, she has proven to be singularly violent and unpleasant, the few times she's opened her beak.
"Tell you what, Bolt, we'll find a few innocent wilderness creatures for you to gut on the way back," Nettle says. She finishes sliding the saddle off the austrech's back, freeing the bird for the night.
Bolt gets to her feet, stretching and ruffling out her feathers. "I'll hold you to that," she says. She fixes Grace with a cold, yellow eye — exactly the same shade as Nettle's. "The Joybringer is here," she says, before walking away to find a place to lay down and sleep.
"I've got eyes," Nettle says, turning her attention to Grace. While the warm woolen clothing of a Ventus local might be vastly different from what she'd been born to in the South, the sturdy, unpretentious garments seem to suit her far better than the finery Grace had seen her wearing in Yu-Shan.
With a sigh, Grace shrugs off her Resplendent Destiny, the supernatural trappings of the Quiver fading away. Without it, the subtle magic that causes people to see an Exalted Dynast when they look at her, that keeps some version of herself in peoples' memory for the purposes of carrying out her work, leaves as well. She needs a moment to be Singular Grace, not an archetype woven from stardust and prior association. "Do you really think you've found the Anathema already?"
Nettle shrugs. "I've got better odds than anyone else looking for them," she says. "Unless there's a master Dragon-Blooded tracker out here I don't know about. Could be someone else, but I've got a feeling."
"A feeling," Grace repeats. She needs to do something other than just stand there. She considers the area they're talking in — large enough for some light training forms, although not for anything involving her rope dart. She unties her outer robe, hanging the garment carefully on a tree, and removing the coiled weapon from her belt to set it down nearby.
"Yeah," Nettle says. "This has been going too well; I don't like it. Coming too easy, I mean. If we do just find one starved Solar Anathema out here on his own and kill him on our terms, it'll be too fucking convenient. The score that looks too good to be true usually is."
Nothing concrete, but Grace isn't about to discount the instincts of a more experienced Sidereal. She begins to go through the motions of the most basic training forms associated with Throne Shadow Style, a series of subtle, clever evasions, striking only from the imaginary foe's blindspot with abrupt palm strikes or unexpected, sweeping kicks. Combat of any kind played no role in her previous life, but Sidereal Essence resonates powerfully with systems, abstract philosophies, and traditions of teaching — even considering the other advantages she's had, a single year's training has done more for Grace than ten might for a mortal martial artist.
Nettle watches her movements with an appraising eye. "If it comes to a fight with just this group, none of the other ones around, be ready to pull your fucking weight, you know?"
"We have four Dragon-Blooded with us," Grace reminds Nettle, not pausing in her work. "Three of whom are sorcerers."
"Three of whom are school girls," Nettle says, unimpressed. "I don't need to know her well to know that this shit is too personal for that Tepet bitch. I don't wanna rely on her for more than rushing in and getting herself killed, if it comes to that. Princess Full-of-Herself out there seems a bit steadier, at least."
"You remember that I was raised with her?" Grace says. She executes a series of dodges with her hands clasped almost demurely behind her back, her footwork bringing her around to face Nettle.
"Yeah, that's gotta feel a bit fucked up for you," Nettle agrees, unapologetic. "The third one, well, as long as she's pointed at the right people."
"Erona Maia?" Grace asks, surprised.
"Yeah. You know. Short, cute, boyish, looks at people she's met for the first time like she's been taught to assess them for elimination. There's a difference between someone who'll kill if you push 'em to it, and a killer. Run with the kind of crowd I came up around, and you learn to tell the difference fast."
Grace frowns, considering that. It's true that Maia had struck her as a little unsettling, coming and going in complete silence as she so often had, but she'd never struck Grace as the sort of Dragon-Blooded who one had to be especially wary of. Not the kind who would abuse a servant who fell into her power, at any rate. That particular way of thinking might be less than universally applicable, however.
"Perhaps," Grace says. She moves through a sequence of strikes — face, solar plexus, kick to the legs, then slipping away again. "What were the chances we'd end up here with them at all, out of all the groups we could have picked?"
"Oh, pretty good, I think," Nettle says. She leans down to root through the saddlebags on the ground, revealing a flash of red jade hidden beneath a blanket. She's going for something else, though — the jar that Holok gave her, and a few other odds and ends. "You got sent here because you know the Northern Isle, right? And that's because of your girl out there? So you're both in the area."
"... I suppose so," Grace admits.
"And, you know, I was taking us to support a Wyld Hunt group going after these Anathema, but I was following the Yellow Path, yeah? You know how that is."
Grace looks up, frowning. "No. What do you mean?"
Nettle shrugs. She's moved to use the stone she'd been sitting on as a work surface, laying out a flattened piece of paper. She has the jar open, and is carefully measuring out what looks dismayingly like hashish onto the paper. It's not the sort of thing Grace would have expected to come from Holok, of all people. "Desirable Maiden technique. Takes you where you're going, and in a hurry, but in an 'interesting' way, specifically. Mercury doesn't like shit to be too boring. Didn't I mention that?"
"You didn't," Grinner says loftily, looking down at them from his perch in a nearby tree, where he has apparently been the entire time.
Nettle shrugs, preoccupied with carefully rolling the paper up. "Well, now you know. Rarely's travel peaceful!"
Grace suppresses the urge to stop her training and glare.
Finishing her work, Nettle glances up at her, a curious look coming into her eyes. "So, your girl out there," she says.
"My lady," Grace corrects, without a great deal of conscious thought.
Nettle laughs. "Right, sorry, your lady." She strikes her freshly rolled joint along the length of the red jade aritfact hanging from the saddle, lighting it. "When you said you used to be close, do you mean like, you-were-her-confidant close, or did you mean she-was-fucking-you close?"
This does finally stop her short. Grace physically recoils, real anger entering her voice for the first time, her professional pride wounded: "Just because I was in service to a Dragon-Blood doesn't mean I was doubling as her bed slave!"
"Fuck, sorry, sorry!" Nettle says, the eyeroll somewhat undermining her placating tone. "Guess that makes one of us, is all." She puts the joint to her lips and takes a drag, savouring it for a moment. "Gods, that's smooth."
Mortification washes over Grace's anger like a bucket of ice water. Nettle has made it perfectly obvious that she'd formerly worked under some manner of petty outcaste bandit lord, but Grace hadn't scrutinised that connection overly much. She finds herself torn between a desire to apologise, and an indignation at the comparison on Ambraea's behalf.
"You want any?" Grace realises with a start that Nettle is holding out the joint to her, with the air of a proffered peace offering. "For being an ascetic who seems to try not to have any taste most of the time, Holok knows how to get good shit if puts his mind to it, apparently. You really look like you could use something to bring you down a notch or two."
"No, no, I'm quite fine," Grace says, managing not to physically edge away from Nettle. "... Thank you," she adds, belatedly.
Nettle shrugs. "Your loss, then."
Awkward seconds stretch on, Grace standing there, Nettle smoking, a bird calling softly overhead. Nettle glances up at it. Needing something to fill the silence, Grace asks: "How did things go, with your war goddess? You never mentioned."
Nettle visibly brightens. She pulls a pendant out from under her tunic, revealing what looks like a holy symbol wrought from gold. A spear on a dark field, its backspike dripping with red garnets. "Pretty good, I think! Told me I owe her one hell of a dinner at this point, then gave me this for luck. And a few other things you in particular definitely don't want to hear about."
Grace frowns. "I beg your pardon?"
Nettle takes a long, contemplative drag, grinning through a mouthful of smoke. "Funny as shit that Venus Chose the two biggest prudes in heaven one after the other."
Grace feels her face colour a little, indignant on her own behalf as well as Yula's. She opens her mouth to say as much.
Nettle's eyes flick upward again, then over to Grinner on his own perch. Then both of them move without further warning. Nettle lunges for her saddlebags, pulling free the coiled length of a direlash. She flicks it upward, ten feet of supernatural leather and jadesteel wire striking out to try and cut the bird in two. The bird flies up and out of the way with an audible squawk, black wings pumping up and away, and directly into the path of the onrushing mospid god.
The two birds collide in midair, Grinner's jaws, talons, and wing claws digging into the bird's flesh to try and bring it down. But the bird gives a heave of its wings, jerking them both into the trees, crashing through branches in a mess of feathers. Grinner strikes a branch, and the black bird flies up and away, fleeing for its life.
Nettle looks after the bird with a slight frown. She somehow hasn't lost hold of the joint, and she sticks it into her mouth for long enough to coil the direlash back up.
"What was that?" Grace demands.
Nettle shrugs. "I didn't like that bird."
Grinner lands on a lower branch, staring after it with a plainly disgruntled air. "It was stronger than it looks," he says.
"Yeah," Nettle says. When she looks him over, there's a flash of affectionate concern there that Grace doesn't expect from Nettle. When Grinner seems to largely be fine, she turns back to Grace.
"Do you think it was a familiar?" Grace asks.
Nettle shrugs. "Could be. Zeniths are supposed to be good with animals. I'm not looking forward to it if we catch up with this asshole and he sets bears and hellboars on us. Or something worse." Grace is having a hard time imagining what could be worse than that, but there's something serious in Nettle's eyes.
A note of anxiety twists in Grace's gut, a childhood nightmare she hasn't thought of in years and years springing to mind. After a slightly older servant child had shared a particularly gruesome story she and Ambraea had been too young for, for weeks a five year old Grace had woken up in a cold sweat, visions of her loved ones being revealed to be girl-devouring monsters in disguise haunting her dreams. Anyone raised in the Realm and educated by Immaculates knows of Solar Anathema, but they're largely thought of as ancient foes vanquished long ago, only rarely rearing their heads in modern day Creation, taught to children through the lens of morality tales where they're presented as personifying different kinds of wrongdoing.
There is a different kind of Anathema, though, one far more prevalent and insidious in the Age of Sorrows. One that can become an animal or a person as easily as breathing.
"If there were... More than one, we'd know, right?" Grace asks. "More than one Anathema, I mean."
Nettle has stepped over to run a hand through Grinner's feathers, reassuring as much as examining him for injury. He lets her without complaint. In the near distance, Bolt has cracked open an eye, looking at you all with thinly veiled interest.
"The Loom's real good at helping us figure out that someone's Exalted and a general idea of where," Nettle says. "Fucks with destinies all over the area, you know? And we can tell when a powerful Exalt shows up somewhere and starts fucking around, same deal. But if they're already doing that, and there's a bunch of Dragon-Blooded out trying to hunt them down already... Things like exact numbers get fuzzy."
There's a long, quiet moment, the worst possibility hanging between them. "I think I'll try to convince the Dragon-Blood to implement pass phrases," Grace says. To help make sure the person you're talking to is still that person.
"Yeah," Nettle says. "That's probably not the worst idea."
They stand like that, mutually reflecting on the situation as Nettle continues to quietly smoke. It doesn't seem to be as soothing for her as it had been before.
Nettle sighs. Carefully, she kneels to put the joint out against the rock, before carefully stowing it in her pocket for later."So, while we have time, do you want to show me that bitchy little dodge that you were practicing? The one where you try really hard to make it look like you're not even trying?"
"You want me to teach you? Now?" Grace asks. Throne Shadow is a style based around avoidance and stealth, avoiding engagements to support students and allies from the background. Nettle's Laughing Monster Style, from what Grace understands, is very nearly its philosophical opposite — a style reliant on making oneself the centre of attention, provoking opponents into directionless rage.
"Your techniques work better if you have a student onhand, yeah?" Nettle asks.
"Yes," Grace admits.
"Well, it's not going to kill me to pick up a new trick or two. Unless you've got objections."
"... Alright," Grace says, trying to adjust to this new development. "But we'll have to start now."
The black-feathered bird flies up and away over the trees, missing a few tail feathers and bearing a few new wounds. The injury to its pride is, perhaps, worse, but there's little it can do about that for the time being.
The bird flies through the fading light, over hills and craigs, dead set on its final destination. When it finds it, the bird circles down toward the ground, zeroing in on a small, cramped gap amid the hills. Two human figures sit here, watching its approach.
The bird lands, ruffles its feathers, and in a flash of silver light becomes a woman.
"You look like shit," one of the two men says. He's tall, lanky, wiry muscle corded like iron, complexion a pale olive. His face might have been handsome once, before the scars.
"Yes, thank you, a mospid had a go at me," the woman says. She's of middling height and built, dark, her expression permanently brooding. She scowls as she examines a claw mark on her arm with obvious distaste.
The taller man laughs. "You turn around and smash its teeth in?"
"I was too close to the hunters," she says. "They'd have noticed a bird lighting up silver and killing a mospid."
The third member of the group sits up from where he's been laying curled up against the taller man's side. He's slight to the point of frailness, his skin an unhealthy sort of pale, a fringe of dark hair obscuring sad eyes. He doesn't speak, instead looking up at his companion, hands flashing through a series of signs.
"Good question," the taller man says. "You learn anything useful?"
The woman nods, slumping down to the ground. Something on the air smells enticingly good — they've clearly caught and cleaned some kind of animal, and are now cooking it in a small hollow in the rock to prevent the smoke from leaking out too quickly and giving them away. "They're still gaining on us," she says. "Over a hundred armed mortals, five Dragon-Blooded. Most of them are young, though." She leans forward, eyes going wide. "You'll never guess who one of them is."
"A rich, arrogant little aristocrat, grown fat and happy on the stolen wealth of the entire world?" the taller man says. He rolls his eyes. "Hope, I'm not in the mood for guessing games. Just say it if it's not a waste of time."
"Are you ever?" mutters Hope For Rain. "It's the Empress's youngest. Must be fresh out of secondary school. Is that a waste of time to you, Hound?"
Wounded Hound's amusement vanishes, and he sits up so aggressively that it nearly dislodges his silent companion. "You're sure?" he asks. "You're sure? Out here, in this backwater?" He seizes Hope by the arm, his grip like a vice.
"Yes, I'm sure!" Hope says, yanking out of his grip with some difficulty. "Earth Aspect, tall, goes by 'Ambraea'."
Hound's face twists into a vicious, mirthless smile. "Well," he says, "if I can't get ahold of the bitch herself, that'd be the next best thing. I'd have to make it slow, let her watch as I tear her heart out and drink from it."
"We're trying to get out of this with our lives, not indulge your desire for petty vengeance," Hope says.
"Petty? Petty?" Hound surges to his feet, looking for a moment like he might strike her. "Do you know what her mother did to me? To both of us? How long she had us?"
Hope scrambles back, a thrill of outraged alarm going through her, already reaching for the living energy of the scrubby tree at the top of the hill, ready to draw on it to power her sorcery. Fortunately, though, his companion reaches up, putting a silent hand on Hound's arm. After a moment, Hound forces himself to subside. He looks down at the smaller man, frowning. "Don't tell me that you don't want her dead too, Beacon."
Beacon of Truth signs out an answer that Hope can't understand, but it seems to mollify Hound a little. He sits down again, and asks: "Are any of the Dragon-Blooded trackers? Did you see how this group is onto us so quickly, when we got away from the others?"
"I..." Hope frowns, thinking back. There had been something, toward the end. Why had the mospid attacked her to begin with? And it had talked to someone. With supernatural awareness, she rifles through her own recent memories, finding the gaps with a growl of frustration. The spaces where she had seen something that had simply fallen out of her head, or been removed. It feels like finding a sore in her mouth with her tongue, impossible not to be aware of now that she's found it.
She focuses hard, silvery Essence filling her mind, bridging the gap, a Caste Mark blooming on her forehead to form a glowing silver ring. All at once, in a surge of indignation, a refusal to not be in full control of the contents of her own head, she has it. The memory snaps back into place, crystalising out of moonfire — the two strange women in the clearing, the Southwestern Dragon-Blood who had become someone else in a way that Hope couldn't quite understand, and the coarse, mouthy one who had attacked her. Those details combine with the confusing contents of their conversation, intermingling with the strange warnings her teachers had drilled into her in the years after her goddess had first come for her. "Two Sidereals!" she blurts out. "Two of the women with the hunting party are Sidereals!"
There's a moment of lingering silence, the two men staring at her. Then Hound swears loudly and earnestly in an aggressively rural Low Realm dialect, one hand scrubbing through his short hair. "Just what we need. That's why we can't get away from them!"
Frowning, Beacon signs something to him, a question in his eyes.
"Shit, right," Hound says, frowning. "They're... Exalts, from heaven. They hate us."
"He doesn't know?" Hope asks, still too preoccupied with her own edited memories to think about the here and now.
"Of course he doesn't know," Hound says, "they're not exactly common knowledge, and it's not as though Solars have the Silver Pact to warn them."
"Right," Hope says. She thinks back to the explanation she was given, focusing on the basic details. "They're Chosen of the stars, their job is something to do with enforcing destiny, but over a thousand years ago they helped the Dragon-Blooded betray and kill us all, the entire Solar Host, and whatever Lunars they could find. They were cursed for it, and now no one can remember them."
Beacon frowns as he processes this, nodding slowly. Beside him, Hound gets up, beginning to pace furiously in what little space they have. "We can't keep running like this, it's not going to work," he says. "We need to think of something else."
"Like what?" Hope demands.
"Like—" A stone tumbles down from the rocky slope above. Hound freezes, then whirls on his heel, staring hard up the slope. His hand reaches out, seizing the massive jade club he'd taken from a dead monk back in Scarlet Prefecture. Instantly, a small figure that had been lying quietly out of sight behind a rock scrambles to its feet and bolts away.
"Who was that?" Hope demands.
"A girl," Hound says, relaxing marginally, "local, probably here looking for the sheep." The source of the cooking meat smell from the rocky hollow.
Hope is extremely aware of how distinctive her Caste Mark is. "We can't let her tell anyone where we are!" she hisses. She needn't have said so, however — Beacon is already in motion, springing up over the slope in a single bound, chasing the girl down.
With the Solar's absence, the two Lunars stand still for a moment. Hope takes her chance. Standing up and stepping closer to Hound, she whispers: "We could get away."
"What?" Hound demands, taking a step back again.
"The two of us," she says. "We can both be birds in a second, we can fly away. Even if the Sidereals could follow us, the rest can't. We can make for the coast, swim across the sea, hit the Near-North, take the long way around to the Kinslayer if we have to."
"Leave Beacon?" Hound demands, as if he can't entirely understand her meaning. "You said Amatha sent you here to help us."
"To help you!" Hope says, "because you're her friend, because you're a Pactmate. I have nothing against him, but he can't fly like we can, he can't hide like we can — that's the entire reason you were spotted in the first place! I didn't agree to be put down by Dragon-Blooded in the middle of the Blessed Isle for someone who isn't even one of us!"
This had always been dangerous. Coming anywhere near the heartland of the Scarlet Realm always is. But Hope's teacher within the Silver Pact, Amatha Kinslayer, had asked Hope to come here, to find a friend who had escaped after long being written off as killed by the Wyld Hunt, and to bring him back. Hope had owed her enough that refusal would have marked her as unwilling to repay her debts. Despite the danger and the difficulty, she had done as she'd been asked, she had traveled the length of the Blessed Isle, and she had found Wounded Hound. What she hadn't anticipated was Beacon of Truth, and how the two of them were seemingly attached at the hip.
"Then you leave. You slink away like a coward, if that's really all you're good for," Hound says.
Hope reels back as if struck across the face, seething indignation warring with an overwhelming desire to be gone from this place and never come back. "Are you Bonded to him?" she asks, because if she responds to Hound's accusation the way it deserves, there will be blood. She's been told about Lunar-Solar bonds, ancient connections that can be felt across many incarnations — they've always sounded incredibly inconvenient, to her.
Hound scoffs. "We were imprisoned together for years," he says. "Years and years. I don't need to be Bonded to a man like that to love him."
Hope stares at him for long seconds, trying to master her temper before she replies. Long enough that Beacon arrives back first. He appears at the top of the ridge, a young girl squirming in his grip. She's somewhere in her teens, dressed as a shepherd in brown wool, complexion dark from the sun, black hair braided down her back. Her eyes fix on Hope, on the Caste Mark still faintly visible on her forehead, and an expression of abject terror comes across her face.
With a flick of his wrist, Beacon sends her tumbling down the hill, where she lands in a heap between Hope and Hound. Beacon remains where he is, holding up a leather sling and a pouch of appropriately-sized stones, clearly a weapon the girl had tried to use on him.
"Why did you drag her all the way back here?" Hope asks. She knows what needs to be done, but she hadn't needed to see it.
Beacon signs a reply. Hound considers him for a moment, a thoughtful look on his face. "He's asking if you're a necromancer. You said you were, didn't you?"
"Yes," Hope says. "I'm initiated into the Ivory Circle of Necromancy, as well as the Terrestrial Circle of Sorcery."
"Can you raise the dead?" Hound asks.
The girl raises herself into a sitting position at Hope's feet, not moving a muscle, as if they might forget about her if she wishes to disappear hard enough.
"I have a spell for making zombies, if that's what you're asking," Hope says. "Why?"
Beacon makes a very simple sign. Hound points at the girl, and translates: "She came from somewhere."
"A shepherd village," Hope says, dismissively. If it's even large enough to be called that, Ventus is not particularly populous. It takes her a moment to actually follow why that would be relevant. "... You can't be serious," she says, a note of disgust coming into her voice.
"We can't get away from them," Hound reminds her, a hard look in his eye. He hasn't forgotten her earlier suggestion, or forgiven it. "We can't slip this noose unless the Sidereals are dead. And as you've said, we can't kill that many Exalts and a hundred mortals beside on our own. So we need bodies to throw at them."
Bodies is the most appropriate word, for what he's suggesting. "Hound, they're just innocent peasants!" she says. "Ordinary shepherds scratching out a living here, the Wyld Hunt isn't their fault!"
Something dark comes into Hound's eyes. "No one is innocent in the Realm," he says. "Not a single person on this entire wretched island. Not the Dynasts, who devour everything they can find and kill anyone who fights back, not the monks who teach their lies, not their cronies in the patriciate. Peasants, slaves — either they're benefiting too, or they're too cowardly to risk their lives fighting the Realm. I should know, I was born here. Not in these mountains, but it's all the same. They're all the same!"
Hope looks between Hound and Beacon, seeing something in their faces that had been beaten into them through years of captivity and torment. If there's a breaking point for her, surely this is it. If there's a moment where she flies off and leaves the two of them to their fates, tells the Kinslayer that she did all she could, it should be now. If she agrees to this, if she does the monstrous thing that Hound is asking of her, how could she ever live with herself for failing to see it through to the end?
She makes her choice. Whatever else she might be, Hope For Rain will not be called a coward. "Fine," she says. "Fine. But we need to be smart about this. We need to make a plan."
In short order, either the Sidereals and the Dynasts will be dead, or the three of them will be. Hope sends up a silent prayer to Luna that it's the former.
You kneel on a cushion in your tent, feeding Verdigris bits of rabbit meat by lamplight. She happily unhinged her jaw, and delicately takes the piece of meat from your hands, swallowing it whole. It's not as much to her taste as live rodents, but she'll accept dead meat, as long as it's from you. As a spirit, she doesn't need to eat, but she enjoys it enough for you to keep it a priority.
When the tent flap opens behind you and Maia steps in, Verdigris seems to intuit the shift in your focus, curling up on top of the portable desk she's been sitting on. You clean the meat residue off of your hands, and turn to face Maia.
"Is this about Sola?" Maia asks. Without waiting for any kind of an invitation, she crosses the small space to the bed, folding her legs under herself as she drops down onto it.
You rise, and follow, sitting down beside her. The tent doesn't have a great deal of furnishings, after all — the three of you traveled relatively light, when you came here, and apart from that you only have what the talon could provide to suit your station. "Yes," you say. "If she keeps behaving like this, I'm worried something terrible will come of it."
Maia stares at the far wall of your tent, pensive. But she nods. "I am too. I think... she thinks she has to, for her family."
"I know," you say, a note of frustration in your voice, "but I'm sure they wouldn't want her getting herself killed in a place like this."
Maia shrugs, not disagreeing. "They're not here to tell her that."
"We could tell her, if she'd let us. If we were more to her than we are now."
Maia takes your meaning instantly, her gaze drifting downward, studying the rug underfoot. "She doesn't know who... what I am," she says, finally. "Not like you did."
Reaching down, you take Maia by the jaw, gently tilting her face up to meet your gaze. "I know who you are," you say, "your loyalty, your bravery. We all have to choose between Hearth and family, at need. She knows this as well as we do."
Maia is still for a moment. You can hear her heart pounding through the pulse at her throat, for reasons other than her proximity to you. Slowly, cautiously, Maia moves closer, rising to her knees to whisper directly into your ear. "My family..." she hesitates, uncertain, as she often is, at explaining these forbidden subjects to someone who doesn't already know of them. "My family still blames the houses for what they did, how they destroyed us at the first opportunity. The Empress's mercy is the only reason any of us are even alive." There's a venom in her words that surprises you. Her tone softens, though, as she adds: "The things they expect of me might not be... to her benefit."
Something in her tone, the bleakness in her voice, tells you that this is not something to be brushed aside. The warning look in her eyes means that she's entirely serious. You choose your words carefully.
"I trust you," you say. "I trust you with my life, and I will have to trust you with the lives of any Hearthmates we share in the future. I know things aren't simple for you, and that you're being pulled in more than one direction. But I trust you. I would like to extend the offer — you have an equal voice in this, though. It's your decision."
Maia stares at you for perhaps half a second. Then she leans forward, and seizes you in a startlingly hungry kiss. As you return it, she wraps her arms around your neck and her legs around your waist, clinging to you like you're the one rock she has amid a drowning sea. When you finally break off for air, she darts in to kiss you again for good measure.
"Thank you," she says. "That means more than you can know. I love you."
"And I you," you say, taking a moment to enjoy the feeling of her in your lap, burying her face against your neck the way she likes to. You hold her back, arms tight enough that you might never let her go, even though you know you're going to have to. After several long minutes, you speak again. "As enjoyable as this is, have you made a decision?"
Maia slowly nods her head, not yet pulling away. "I have," she says.
Sola sits by the fire, carefully tending to Storm's Eye, polishing the daiklave's mixed orichalcum-jade surface to a mirror sheen. Sister Briar sits beside her, sipping from a bowl of vegetable broth. Through a combination of respect for the Dragon-Blooded, and wariness of Sola as one of the strange young sorcerers who had descended upon them so unexpectedly, the officers of Third Talon give the two of them a very wide berth.
"I understand wariness, they can't see that many of the Exalted out here," Sola is saying, "but I've never seen peasants so... skittish. It's like they do their best to melt into the hills the moment they see anyone they don't recognise."
Sister Briar hums quietly, contemplating the mysteries of her spoon for a moment. "I was born here," she says, finally. "In a village just on the other side of that peak." She points without having to look, identifying an impressive, snow-capped monster to the west of the valley you're currently in. "And my circuit has taken me back many times over the years, since I took my vows. The common wisdom here is that Black Helms, soldiers, and other Realm officials only appear to demand taxes or to make arrests. Neither are particularly welcome."
Sola frowns. "Are there really so many criminals here?" she asks.
Briar chooses her words very carefully, looking at the young Dynast askance. "There are a great deal of arrests," she says. "Accusations of poaching, banditry, tax evasion. The shepherds here aren't quite born with a sling in their hand, but it's a near thing — those found guilty of such crimes are frequently pressed into penal service with one of the Imperial Legions."
"... To serve as skirmishers," Sola says, her face twisting in distaste, clearly seeing the shape of the incentives at play. It would be a corrupt abuse of power for an Imperial judge to accept a bribe from a legionary recruiter to encourage such verdicts, illegal, if discovered. But when the victims are penniless peasants? "I see."
"There are several reasons that the local Immaculate monastery doesn't ordinarily get along with the authorities here," Briar says, clearly pleased that Sola is at least following what she's trying to communicate. In the failing light, Sola's eyes drift out over the tents of the soldiers, to where the local troops had pitched their own. Seeing this, Briar shakes her head. "No, the Sesus House Legions do not have that privilege, thankfully. These are, technically, volunteers. They are having sentences commuted in exchange for participating in the Wyld Hunt, to make up for the shortfall in the Sesus troops. It's why I was in Bright Obelisk when you first encountered me — the abbot of Turning Sky Monastery felt that the suggestion would be taken more seriously if it came from a Dragon-Blood."
Sola nods, simultaneously reassured and concerned anew. "Do you really think they'll hold, if we track down that Anathema?"
Briar sighs. "Who can say? Most would rather not be soldiers. But These are their lands. It is hardly in their interests to have such a monster stalking through the countryside. Tensions are not yet so high to make that seem preferable."
Sola is still mulling that over when you step out of the gloom. "Good evening, Sister," you tell Biar, tone respectful, businesslike. "I am sorry to cut your conversation short — we have a serious matter to discuss with our classmate, however."
Briar gives you a curious look. "Far be it from me to stand in your way, Lady Ambraea," she says.
Sola regards you sidelong, standing up and sheathing her sword at her side. "A serious matter?" There's a note of suspicion, bordering on hostility in her voice, like she expects you to simply take her aside and tell her she's acting like a child.
"Don't look at me like that, it's nothing that bad," you say, turning away from the fire. Beside you, Maia offers her a smile and a shrug, before following along at your side. Sola waits for a moment longer before curiosity wins out, and she hurries to catch up with you.
"Where are we going?" Sola asks, her forehead creased.
"To have a modicum of privacy," you say. And to make sure you're all well clear of the tents or any of the mortals and animals present, assuming she doesn't turn you down after all. You lead Sola away, toward the camp's perimeter, where lamps hang from posts staked into the ground. The three of you draw curious looks, but no one dares stop you as you walk past the guards. You're not actually going out of sight of the camp, at any rate.
Once you're far enough away, you stop, turning to face Sola. Maia puts herself to the side, equidistant between the two of you, a statement that you appreciate, and hopefully Sola will be able to decode shortly. "So?" Sola asks, her off hand resting on her daiklave's cross guard.
"This could get as dangerous as that business during Calibration," you say. "Or more — we have fewer Dragon-Blooded here to rely on, if we're really the ones to find our quarry. We have to be able to rely on each other implicitly, to watch each other's backs, to see one another through this safely."
At first, Sola is braced for the lecture that she originally suspected, her hackles almost visibly raising. But something seems to occur to her as she looks at the expression on her face, and Maia's beside you. The belligerence washes away, replaced by genuine surprise. "... Are you going where I think you are?" she asks.
You reach out, and put a hand on Sola's shoulder, a rare show of physical affection. "You are our friend," you tell her, "we both trust you at our side and at our backs."
"With our own lives, and with one another's," Maia says, speaking up for the first time.
You continue: "Swear an oath with us, and I promise we will see this through with you. I would be proud to call you Sworn Kin."
Sola stands stock still for a moment, looking from you, to Maia, and back again. Finally, a smile tugs at the corner of her mouth, and she nods. "I would be honoured," she decides, voice quiet.
Encouraged by this, you nod once, take a deep breath, and begin speaking in a louder, more carrying tone. It's very nearly the same oath you swore to Maia, a renewal of your promises to her, in addition to an extension of them to Sola: "I, Ambraea, swear to stand beside you as sworn kin in this Hunt and beyond, to fight at your side and see our foe dead. To defend you against all others. To keep faith with you ahead of all others. To be your pillar of strength, the solid Earth you walk upon, the bulwark against your enemies. By Pasiap, I swear. By Mela, Sextes Jylis, Hesiesh and Danaa'd, I swear. By Earth, by Air, by Wood, by Fire, by Water, I swear. On my honour as a Prince of the Earth and an Imperial daughter, I swear."
The power of the words swells up within you as you speak, thrumming in your throat, and through your bond with Maia. She feels it too, as she pulls herself up to her full height and looks to Sola, even as she reaches up and lays a hand on your shoulder opposite the arm you touch Sola's with. The words she speaks are significantly different from those she swore to you in private, simpler, less revealing of her true origins, but the sentiment is the same — the magic wouldn't take, otherwise. "I, Erona Maia, swear to stand by your side as Sworn Kin, to see this Hunt through to the end, to defend you above all others, to keep faith with you above all others. To be the shade that you take refuge in, the water that soothes your wounds, the tide that drowns your foes. By Water, by Air, by Wood, by Fire, by Earth, I swear."
The night is lit by your and Maia's mingled anima, white and blue-black, banking up around you, but not yet roaring to full force, still waiting for Sola to take up the oath herself. Acting on sudden impulse, she reaches out, putting a hand on Maia's shoulder, as yours still rests on hers, physically bridging the gap between the three of you. And then she speaks:
"I, Tepet Usala Sola, in the name of valiant Mela and her sibling Dragons, in the name of my ancestors and on the blood of legions, swear to stand by you as comrades and sword sisters. Come what may, against this enemy and all those after. To see them dead and their ashes scattered on Mela's sacred wind, so that they may never harm another, and may never again raise a hand against my Hearth. To be your sword and shield both. By Air, by Wood, by Fire, by Water, by Earth, I swear."
By this point, you've drawn an audience. The sentries have been joined by what looks like most of the talon, looking on as Sola's blue anima banks high around her, intermingling with yours and Maia's, bonding her to the two of you through the magic of your very blood. There's wonder on many faces — the sanctifying of a young Hearth's oath features in countless stories and heroic legends. Even if the three of you are intimidating sorcerers, many of the mortal troops will likely view this as an auspicious sign.
Vahelo stands at the front of the crowd, looking on with the hulking form of her second in command standing at her shoulder. Too much the professional young commander to let herself get visibly swept up in the moment, her eyes still don't leave the sight.
Finally, the light begins to fade. For each of you, your anima dims, recedes, and finally dissipates back into your souls entirely. You don't immediately let go of one another, however, taking the chance to savour the moment. For the first time in months, Sola's smile is full and genuine.
"Well," she says, as you all finally pull away, "let's see if playing third wheel to you two doesn't drive me crazy before this is done."
Somewhere out in the darkness, seemingly very far away from this moment of profound connection between three young women who truly need it, desperate, powerful people wish you ill, and plot all your violent deaths. Just then, you're certain that you're ready for whatever the rest of the Hunt has in store for you.
You're wrong.
Article: Your group will be the one to encounter the Anathema you hunt for. It will not come on your own terms, the decisive fight arriving after days of Vahelo's messengers mysteriously not reaching Winglord Oregano, sentries and scouts vanishing without a trace. Famously in a Wyld Hunt, the roles of hunter and hunted can reverse suddenly and dramatically.
You are not helpless or stupid, though. As nasty a surprise as the Anathema prepare for you, things do not go wholly to plan for them. Where does this battle occur?
[ ] [Location] An abandoned village
A rustic collection of houses, rendered abruptly and inexplicably cold and lifeless. You are all lured here, but Maia's spirits and suspicious mind warn you of the trap before it can be truly sprung.
[ ] [Location] A false messenger
A messenger arrives from one of the other hunt groups, urging you to come to her commander's aid. Watching her, you realise that she isn't what she seems, before it's too late.
[ ] [Location] A treacherous gorge
The path leads here, a narrow space with only two exits. A well-planned rockslide might have trapped you disastrously, were it not for Sola's quick thinking.
You and all your allies, Dragon-Blooded, Sidereal, and mortal, will have your hands full in the coming fight. What terrible foe do you face in particular, though? Which Anathema will you be forced to fight for your life against?
[ ] [Anathema] Beacon of Truth, Zenith Caste Chosen of the Unconquered Sun
THE BLASPHEMOUS
In Immaculate fables, Zeniths were monsters who enslaved the innocent with unholy power, binding mortals in servitude to their dark gods. They presided over the foul rituals of the Anathema, indulging in slaughter, human sacrifice, and hedonistic debauchery. When the Dragon-Blooded rose up, they shattered this vile cult, and slaughtered its masters to the last man. In its place, they taught mortals of the Immaculate Philosophy, sharing with them righteousness and hope. The dead cult's masters became known as Blasphemous for their crimes.
An eloquent voice stolen by your mother's cruelty, a blade forged of pure sunlight, swordsmanship empowered by the god of perfection and excellence. Your martial skills tested to their furthest limit.
[ ] [Anathema] Hope For Rain, No Moon Caste Chosen of Luna
THE OGRES
In Immaculate fables, the No Moons are hideous, grotesque beasts so twisted and disturbing they can only work their evil in the darkest nights. Driven by an insatiable lust for power, they forge pacts with demons and forsaken gods so terrible their names can't be spoken in any but the brightest light without fear of summoning them. Only the righteous Dragon-Blooded can root these deformed creatures out of their fetid swamps and twisted groves, ending their threat to the innocent and the pure. For their demonic magics and blasphemous dealings, these Anathema are called the Ogres.
Locust wings wreathed in silver and shadow, sorcery and necromancy wielded against you as one, raw arcane might you will never achieve, empowered by the goddess of witchcraft. All you've studied at the Heptagram these past six years straining to keep you alive.
[ ] [Anathema] Wounded Hound, Full Moon Caste Chosen of Luna
THE FRENZIED
In Immaculate fables, the Full Moons are monsters drunk on power stolen from the moon, rampaging through villages and cities slaughtering man and beast alike to gorge on their heart's blood. Only the mighty Dragon-Blooded stand between the innocent and these inhuman abominations' savage appetites, driving them back into the tainted lands whence they came. For their insatiable hunger and lunatic rage, these Anathema are called the Frenzied.
A fury that can shatter armies and rend heroes limb from limb, a stolen weapon wielded with brutal artistry, a relentless will empowered by the goddess of primal freedom. All your strength pitted against something beyond you.
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