If someone had asked Wren to relate what had happened over the course of flight over the dammed lake, her conversations with the Elden commanders in control of the rift, and the activation of the waystone which took her to Bald Peak, she couldn’t have clearly recalled any of it. It was as if she moved through a fog so thick that she couldn’t see or hear anything clearly, and every other thought was pushed aside by the recurring echo of Ractia’s words.
By the time she came back to herself, standing on the waystone in the Aspen River Valley, it was evening. Just like every time she made the trip from west to east, from Varuna to Isvara, she’d lost time. The moon was rising, and the cool night breeze made her shiver after the wet heat of the Varunan jungle.
She’d hardly had time to blink the light of her passage out of her eyes when two of the Alliance soldiers came rushing out onto the stone to meet her. That wasn’t normal. They moved like soldiers who were ready to draw their weapons and fight at any moment.
“Commander Wren,” one of the men greeted her, and they both made quick bows. “The queen left word for you.”
Wren shoved Ractia’s proposed bargain out of her mind; there was nothing to do about it until she’d talked to Liv, anyway, and that could wait a few hours. “What’s happening?” she asked, striding off the waystone and toward the gate. The soldiers fell in to either side of her.
“The first set of orders was to send you up to the palace as soon as you’d arrived,” the soldier on Wren’s left said. He was the older of the two: not a veteran of the pass or Nightfall Peak, or even one of the first recruits after the founding of the Alliance, but a second wave man. Pike, if Wren recalled correctly. From what she knew of Lucanian naming conventions, she suspected his ancestors had been fishermen somewhere.
“‘First set’ implies things have changed since those orders were given,” Wren observed.
The two soldiers exchanged glances as they followed Wren out from behind the fortifications and onto the street. “Something’s happening,” Pike said. “We got orders not to let anyone leave by waystone until the queen orders otherwise. And troops have been marching down to surround the guild halls. No one’s quite certain what’s happening, but –”
A blast of cold, northern air rushed down the road, sending a flurry of snow in every direction and frosting over the windows of the shops. It came and went as fast as a galloping horse, heading from the campus toward the district where all of the guild halls had been built.
“Blood and shadows,” Wren cursed.
“Here.” Pike offered her a corked vial, engraved with sigils and cold to the touch. “We were told to keep one ready for you.”
Wren accepted it, popped the cork, and threw back the vial, letting the entire contents slide down her throat in a single gulp. Then she pushed the empty container back at Pike and shifted.
Rather than her bat form, which was perfectly adapted to the jungles of Varuna, Wren chose an animal native to the north. She’d had ample time, over nearly twenty years, to make a few careful choices, hunt her prey, and prevail upon Arjun to make use of the word of blood. Between the space of one breath and the next, she took the form of a snowy owl, her feathers nearly pure white with just enough hints of a woody-brown to blend into a frozen forest, and launched herself up into the night.
In this form, she could fly twice as fast as a bat could, and her wings were designed for nearly silent flight, letting her dive at her prey without any warning. Wren wasn’t quite fast enough to catch up with the storm that blew through the streets and houses of Bald Peak, but she wasn’t far behind it, either. She soared in its wake, above the heads of the people who shivered and murmured excitedly.
The Smiths Guild hall was surrounded by Alliance soldiers, and Wren caught sight of Soleil there, but the storm continued on to the Joiners Guild. Ghveris was standing at the head of that group of soldiers, mana-blade extended and shoulder-mounted weapons out, clearly ready to fight. Wren dropped down to land on his enormous steel pauldron, gripping the edges with her talons.
The Antrian war-machine turned his armored head just enough that his burning blue eyes, the mark of the word of power which let him perceive the world around him, met Wren’s owlish gaze.
“Henriette has been captured,” Ghveris rumbled, by way of explanation. “She had overheard some sort of assasination plot targeting Liv. We think she took a few friends and tried to track down the assassins. Also, it is good to have you back.”
Wren stepped across the pauldron, over the barrels that extended out and pointed in the direction of the guild hall, and nudged her head against Ghveris’s armored helm. If Liv had bypassed the other guild hall and come to this one herself, she must have learned something that confirmed where her niece was. And if Wren knew her friend at all, Liv would be utterly furious – which meant she might not be thinking very clearly.
Sure enough, Liv coalesced above the guild-hall, mana-wings spread, surrounded by so many swords that Wren wasn’t even going to try counting them. She opened by demanding a surrender, and then scooped the top off the guildhall with a conjured hand of coherent mana.
Wren shifted into her human form so that she could actually talk, but remained perched on Ghveris’s shoulder. So far as he was concerned, the difference in weight was negligible. “I haven’t seen her this angry in – I don’t even know how long.”
Ghveris nodded, lifted one arm, and pointed. “She is using her Authority. You see the man crushed to the ground, there? He can’t even lift his crossbow.”
“If Henriette wasn’t in there, I think she’d have already levelled the entire building,” Wren muttered. “She’s still holding back.” She didn’t think Liv would use Skyfall inside her own city – there was no way her first Archmage spell wouldn’t cause massive damage to the surrounding buildings and neighborhoods, with a corresponding loss of life. But that was by no means her friend’s only option for wrecking a building.
Wren had half a mind to fly over to Liv, or to head down into the broken building, but she didn’t think her friend had realized that she’d arrived yet. With the amount of magic Liv was throwing around, it would be stupid to try to get close to her right now.
As Wren watched, that enormous hand of sparkling mana reached down again, presumably breaking through the floor of the guild hall into the basement. A small portion of her mind wondered just how much all of this would cost to repair, and whether the guild would be in any position to bear the cost afterward. If they really had plotted against Liv and kidnapped Henriette, there might not be much of a guild left by the time everything was done.
There was a sudden roar and flash of light, and before Wren could do more than tighten her grasp on Ghveris’s shoulder, his blue mana shield flickered into existence in front of them. Wren raised one arm to shield her eyes, squinting against the glare, as she tried to figure out just what had happened. It had almost sounded like the crack of Ghveris’s weapons, or the explosions from Liv’s archmage spell - but the light didn’t seem to be fading. And she would have expected rubble, splinters of wood, sprays of dirt – something to be hitting the mana shield. Anything at all, but nothing was.
“I can’t see her,” Wren murmured. “I can’t see her. Can you?”
“Yes,” Ghveris said. “Liv, and everything else.”
Wren blinked against the glare, letting her eyes adjust, and her mind struggled to accept what she saw. The guildhall, the lumberyard around it, the rubble that Liv had tossed aside – all of it had been frozen in a single moment in time, motionless. A spray of wood, stone, and debris was caught, mid eruption, suspended in the air above the center of the build hall. The outer walls were just beginning to buckle; even the snowflakes and the hanging swords were utterly still, as if they’d been painted on canvas by an artist, rather than being something real.
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As she watched, shining bubbles of mana began to drift up through the air, each one surrounding a single person. Most of them were prone, though some had been caught in the motion of flinching, closing their eyes, or raising their hands to shield themselves. Some had been encased along with their weapons: crossbows, clubs of various sorts, or knives. Two particular bubbles floated over to where Ghveris was standing, each one containing a young woman bound in rope. One of the two, Wren recognized as Henriette.
While those two mana bubbles came to a rest just in front of Wren and Ghveris, one other bubble, containing a dark-haired man, flew up to hang in front of Liv, in the air high above the guild hall. Once all of the bubbles were set down – and there were dozens of them, Wren saw, most immediately surrounded by soldiers as soon as they’d reached the ground – an enormous hemisphere of mana surrounded the entire compound, from the ground to a point in the air just beneath Liv’s feet. Thick veins of gold ran through the shell of shining blue magic, swirling like oil on top of water.
With a sort of jittering motion that Wren could feel, somehow, in her bones, time resumed. The roar, which had stilled for a moment under the influence of Liv’s magic, returned. The ground shook, and then subsided. When the hemisphere of mana dissolved back into glowing motes of magic, which drifted up toward the sky, there was little left of the Joiners Guild hall save for a crater, and burning rubble. Even the stone foundations had, for the most part, collapsed outward.
Liv spiralled down out of the sky, bubble trailing her, to land before Wren and Ghveris. Her face was hard, her jaw set, and her eyes angry. “It’s good to have you back,” she called to Wren.
“Wish I’d been a moment earlier,” Wren told her. “I got here just in time to see you blowing through the city like a blizzard, but I couldn’t quite catch up to you.”
“The rest of your scouts?” Liv asked.
“They’re fine. One wounded, from an unfortunate encounter with a cougar, and that slowed us down. I’ve got things to tell you, but I think they can all wait until this is done,” Wren explained.
Liv nodded, turned to the two bubbles which contained Henriette and the other young woman, and waved a hand. The shells of mana dissolved, and both girls gasped, their eyes wide with panic. Wren could see now that one of them was an Eld – the hair and coloring of House Asuris were nothing if not distinctive.
She slipped down from atop Ghveris’s shoulder, drew one of her enchanted hunting knives, and once he’d lowered his mana shield, she walked over to the two young women. “Hold still,” Wren told them. “I’ll have you free in a moment." Liv had somehow managed to pull out not only the two captives, but even a sizable chunk of the two wooden pillars they’d each been tied to. Wren stepped behind Henriette, slipped the blade of her knife beneath the ropes, and gave it a yank. A normal dagger might have required a bit of sawing back and forth, but Jurian’s runework was still effective after all these years, and the fibers parted easily, in a single swipe.
“I believe that I told you quite specifically not to put yourself in danger,” Liv said, glaring down at Henriette. “That you were permitted to look around public places, but not to go anywhere that would be a risk. That you were supposed to wait for Commander Wren to arrive.”
The rattle of wheels on cobblestones came up the street, and Wren glanced over to see Liv’s carriage rolling to a stop just past the soldiers who still maintained a guard on the entire property. By the time she had Henriette free, the girl’s parents were out of the carriage and hurrying over.
“Ettie!” Beatrice Summerset exclaimed. Wren stepped aside, not only so that she could get to work on the Elden girl’s bonds, but so that she wasn’t in the way. No sooner had she moved than Triss had wrapped her arms around her daughter.
Matthew contented himself with a hand on his daughter’s shoulder. “What happened?” he asked Liv.
“Several dozen barrels of black powder,” Ghveris rumbled. Though Wren was hopeful that there wouldn’t be any further violence, her lover hadn’t put away any of his weapons quite yet.
“This was only half of them,” Henriette said, as she tried to wriggle out of her mother’s grasp. “We overheard them say that the rest had been delivered beneath the council chamber. I’d imagine they planned to blow the entire place up during the vote – presumably they’d find some excuse to make certain all of their allies arrived late. The plan was that after you were dead, they’d make certain the princess had a regent friendly to them. That’s Guild Master Harrow you have there, by the way.”
Wren finished slicing the ropes off the Elden girl. “You alright?” she asked.
The young woman nodded her head. “My leg was already hurt,” she admitted. “From culling.”
That taken care of, Wren circled around the bubble which contained, apparently, a guild master. She did not put her knife back in its sheath. “You want to do this here, or somewhere more private?” she asked.
Liv glanced over to the Summersets. “Everyone we came for is safe. Let’s get my niece up to the palace. Your Red Shield friend, by the way, ladies, will survive. He’s the reason I got here when I did, so I suggest you show him a bit of appreciation.”
She turned to Ghveris. “I want every person in one of these bubbles arrested the moment I dismiss the spell. I want them all secure in the prison while we talk to the guild master. Anyone with an injury that requires immediate treatment can be seen to in their cell; send over to the hospital and ask them for help. Don’t let any of them die before they’ve been questioned.”
“It will be done,” Ghveris promised. He made a motion to the Alliance soldiers who had been waiting, and they rushed forward to surround each of the bubbles.
“Thank you. After that, we need the basement beneath the council chambers searched. Assuming what Ettie heard was the truth, there’s going to be a lot of black powder that needs to be moved out of there and stored somewhere safely.”
“And him?” Beatrice asked, pointing at the unmoving Harrow. “The one who tried to kill my daughter?”
“He’ll be coming up to the palace with us,” Liv said. “Though I doubt he’ll enjoy the visit. Wren, I’m afraid I need to ask you to take care of something before you come up and join us. I want every guild master in the city – barring Lia Every – safely in custody. All of the mayors, as well. Until we know exactly who was part of the assassination plans, and who was simply wheedled into voting with the guilds, none of them are free to leave the city, nor to meet with each other.”
“Consider it done,” Wren said. She took to the air again, spreading owl wings to catch the breeze.
?
It took a few hours, even moving as quickly as she could.
Wren started by having all of the scouts woken and readied for duty. There’d been enough soldiers in the streets – not to mention the very obvious magic at the destroyed guild hall – to spread any numbers of rumors among the people who lived in the city. She was determined to move a bit more subtly, and to hopefully allow things to calm down.
Her corps of scouts was a combination of Red Shield hunters, Asuris shadow-benders, and mountain men from the range that surrounded the Aspen River Valley. All of them were skilled trackers, and could move silently through the forested mountain slopes as easily as they could shadow a coach rumbling south along the mine road.
That ended up being exactly what Wren needed when Mayor Madeline Salter tried to slip out of the city in her carriage. She was trailed by a Red Shield in bat form, and the moment she and her guards had gotten out of sight of the city limits, chains of shadow latched onto the rear axle of her carriage. The entire rear wheel assembly came off, dropping the carriage onto the cobblestones and breaking the wooden frame open. By the time the honorable mayor had been helped out by her servants, they found themselves surrounded.
The only other ones who tried to flee were a few tradesmen who’d been out drinking when Liv had descended upon the Joiners Guild hall; spurred on by liquid courage, they’d apparently decided that stealing a riverboat from the Drovers Guild hall would be a surefire means of getting south into Lucania.
Wren simply ordered the chain stretched across the river to the south of Bald Peak to be raised, and made herself a promise to thank Professor Norris for the idea. Each link had been enchanted with V?dic sigils that guarded against rust, one of the old man’s pet projects since he’d come north. There was a matching chain north of the city, as well, though most people had forgotten about them, since both were almost always left to lie along the bed of the Aspen, where they couldn’t be seen. Only the cranks on the west bank of the river were visible, and those were guarded by Alliance soldiers at all times.
But finally, exhausted from the day’s travel and then the work that had followed, Wren marched through the great double doors which led into the great hall of the palace atop the mountain peak, where her friends waited.
Guild Master Harrow, still imprisoned in a bubble of mana, had been placed at the center of the aisle, just below the high table, with two guards standing behind him. Wren strode past, took her place at the high table, and sat back in her chair.
“Everyone is secure,” she told Liv. “I think we can get to the bottom of this now.”
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Dramatis Personae
Livara t?r Valtteri Kaen Syv? - Archmage, former scullery maid at Castle Whitehill, the bastard daughter of Maggie Brodbeck and Valtteri Ka Auris. Queen of the Alliance and Lady of Winter. Wrath personified. [38 Rings of Mana, not counting mana stored in items.]
Beatrice 'Triss' Summerset (Formerly Crosbie) - Daughter of Baron Arnold of Valegard, Wife of Matthew, mother of Henriiette, sister-in-law of Liv, sister of more brothers than anyone could ever want. Able to breathe again [17 Rings of Mana]
Ghveris, the Beast of Iuronnath - Formerly a Great Bat in service to Ractia, now the remains of his body form the heart of an Antrian juggernaut. Makes a wonderful perch. [Mana Battery: 10 Rings]
Henriette Summerset aka Ettie- Daughter of Matthew and Triss, niece of Liv and Keri, cousin of Rei and Princess Rianne. Heir to the Duchy of Whitehill. Apprentice of the Mages Guild. In so, so much trouble. [12 Rings of Mana]
Matthew Summerset, Duke of Whitehill - Henry and Julianne's son, husband to Beatrice. Reunited with family. [14 Rings of Mana]
Pike - A soldier of the Alliance.
Wren Wind Dancer - Daughter of Nighthawk, cousin of Calm Waters. Hunter of people, as well as animals.
