78th of Season of Water, Year 16 AL

  Newt wondered why he was at the meeting. Apparently, negotiating everything with the saurians and starting the entire exodus thing meant he was responsible, despite his realm being the lowest in the room.

  “We need to face the facts,” the patriarch of the Swordpeak family started the meeting. “While we have escaped the empire with two royal treasuries and no small amount of resources from smaller houses and orders, we are lacking basic necessities for alchemy. Blacksmiths, artificers, and scribes can use the new ores and materials we’ve been discovering over the past decade and a half, but alchemy is much more change-intolerant.”

  Newt still had no idea what was going on. Why was he invited to a meeting about alchemical ingredients? Why were fourteen exalts together in a room discussing alchemical ingredients?

  “So, what do you propose?” Maelstrom’s ancestor asked. “Alchemists and herbalists are doing what they can to find substitutes, but it’s slow going, with many plants that seem like they could pass, but eventually, after weeks or moons of experimentation, prove a failure.”

  “I think we should approach black markets in the empire and buy supplies of everything we need.”

  Newt’s heart skipped a beat, but everyone else only frowned.

  “That would risk valuable supplies to potential spies and defectors,” the Everfrost’s exalt said slowly, everyone except the Swordpeaks nodding along, some of the men way too enthusiastic about it.

  “That’s why we suggest Newstar Salamandra should be our contact.”

  Suddenly, all the gazes turned towards him, and while Newt wasn’t cowed by all the attention, it certainly wasn’t comfortable.

  “We can be certain he isn’t an imperial spy and that he wouldn’t defect to the other side.”

  “While I have complete trust in my ward’s moral integrity,” Greenthorn said, “I wouldn’t send him out to buy a sack of apples. Not to mention broker a deal of city-sized proportions. He is a good, talented man, but his talents lie elsewhere.”

  The Tidebreaker exalts nodded in understanding, but the Swordpeak patriarch wasn’t done talking.

  “We wouldn’t send him alone. His job would be to act as a bodyguard and chaperone to our most established alchemist, Ruby Dewdrop. His mission would be simple: to protect her from harm, and eliminate her should she attempt to betray us.”

  “Isn’t that too dangerous?” Newt asked. Since his head was on the chopping block, he thought he had the right to question the exalts, who had gone quiet, thinking the matter over.

  “Naturally. That’s why we’re sending a seventh realm mageknight, who even to our senses registers as eighth unless we carefully focus on you, one who can kill dangerous manabeasts a realm beyond his consistently without ever suffering heavy injuries.”

  Greenthorn spoke up, his face smug with the praise his ward was getting. “Exalts and grandmasters aren’t likely to patrol the empire looking for us. At least not fifteen years after the exodus. Anyone else, you can either fight to a draw or kill without trouble.”

  He looked at the patriarch Swordpeak.

  “Which city did you have in mind?”

  “Thunderbluff. Glory would’ve been a better choice, but as Madam Helmsworth will tell you, the odds of an exalt taking up residence there aren’t negligible.”

  Madam Helmsworth nodded, but said nothing.

  “The cities of imperial princes and princesses are too likely to have exalts watching over them in case the cults attacked. As such, smaller imperial cities are the superior choice. Especially since you can make large orders through the alchemists’ guild.”

  Then the discussion devolved into the risks, and someone even suggested they should just raid the alchemists’ guild in several cities, but the consensus was that paying for the goods would draw less attention.

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  As for the black markets, now that they were outside imperial law, all exalts talked about their contacts and what they could possibly supply them, for how much money, and with which deadlines.

  Newt was fascinated by how all those figures of authority at least knew or outright had connections with various criminal syndicates.

  Three hours later, the group concluded the meeting. It was decided Newt and Ruby would visit several cities across the empire over the course of half a year, and that they would depart within a week.

  “I know Ruby’s an attractive woman,” Maelstrom’s grandfather poked fun at Newt as they left the building, “but don’t get any ideas. You’re engaged to my granddaughter. Remember that.”

  Newt would’ve blushed at the statement once, had the man’s granddaughter not done her best to purge any trace of shame and shyness from him. Often quite vigorously.

  Instead, Newt shrugged, catching his master’s lips twitching into a smirk.

  The week passed in a blur of Newt’s usual activity, mostly sculpting his realm, since he guessed he would lack the time for it in the moons that followed.

  Soon, it was time to depart, with Maelstrom staring into his eyes lovingly.

  “If you stick it where it doesn’t belong, I’m gonna bite it off.” She snapped her jaws at Newt, her smile losing none of its sweetness. “We clear?”

  “Manarium.” Newt pecked her on the forehead and went over towards Ruby, who was talking with Maelstrom’s grandfather and the Swordpeak patriarch.

  “You ready?” Newt asked, and the woman nodded.

  He grabbed her in a princess carry and winked at Maelstrom, who snapped her jaws at him again. With a smile, Newt was off.

  “So, you inherited my Big Brother’s accumulated wealth,” he started the conversation with the most sensitive topic.

  For some strange reason, he had avoided Ruby Dewdrop, deep down thinking Dandelion liked her better.

  “Dandelion said you might be jealous. He wrote a couple of poor jokes at your expense, but I don’t see a reason to act childish just because of his last will and getting a bunch of manarium from him.”

  She stopped talking and looked into the distance. “On second thought, it was a lot of manarium, so I might as well go through with the script. I got the money because I’m your big sister.”

  Newt gave her a weird look. “You were married?”

  She shook her head and kept silent.

  Newt frowned for a moment. “All right, he guessed I would be shocked and think you are his sister?”

  She nodded with a smile. “You’re more mature than he expected.”

  I’ve been living with Mel for fifteen years. It makes you grow jaded or insane.

  “And what was the real reason?”

  “He said you weren’t starved for resources, and that he needed to pay me back for giving me those two dangerous recipes. They really would’ve been dangerous had the Tidebreakers not found me almost immediately and brought me to their court, where I started brewing those potions for them. They were kind enough to explain the dangers of being unaffiliated in the empire. To be honest, the fact that we don’t have the capacity to spare for plots and schemes against each other is one of the biggest benefits of our new city.”

  Ruby proved to be enjoyable company as she and Newt spent nearly a week flying towards the Eternal Light Empire. The woman was witty, and her relationship with Dandelion obviously wasn’t ordinary. She told Newt he had bought her from the imperials when he freed her from her library duty following Hailstown’s destruction.

  The Dandelion she knew wasn’t nearly as perfect as the one in Newt’s memories, but that was fine. Each remembered people differently, and her memory couldn’t change Newt’s.

  Saurians fled from them, and Newt couldn’t stop being amazed at the colossal creatures running away from him.

  On the eighth day of flight, they reached the Dragon’s Rest mountain and the Salamandra clanhold. With the awakened leaving, the people of the town had fled back into the empire, leaving behind a ghost town and an abandoned castle looming over it.

  Newt landed in the courtyard, scanning the entire structure in a blink. Someone had come to ransack it, but there wasn’t really much to take. The library and the tomes, Newt and his clansmen had taken with themselves. They had even emptied the graves and taken the remains, fearing someone might desecrate or do something vile with them, but apparently, the imperials hadn’t bothered to send anyone.

  He changed his focus to the mine and frowned.

  “We need to check something. Please stay close.”

  Ruby nodded, mana circulating through her body as Newt slowly led the way towards the entrance to the mine.

  They stopped before the pit. Newt spread his senses as far as he could.

  “It should be safe out here, but I can’t guarantee it. There’s not a living soul in the mines, but I have a feeling something vile lurks down there. Would you rather stay here or follow me into the dark?”

  Ruby stood there unmoving, considering her options. Newt wasn’t in a hurry. Whatever had happened in the mines had happened years ago, and he had a very good idea of what he would find down there.

  Apparently, Harthrow’s residents hadn’t evacuated after all.