The long-legged transport skitter loped along the path, the relatively slow motion of its legs belying the speed which the small group traveled northward. Arlette kept her eyes forward, trying to keep herself focused on not running into anything. This was harder than it might sound. The path was still thin and winding in this area, even though they were closer to Wroetin than Breah, the fishing town on the southern coast from which they'd departed that morning. Some trees also had the annoying habit of growing over the path as well, meaning she had to watch for potentially deadly tree limbs before they took off somebody's head.

All this was made more difficult by how much less responsive the transport skitter was now than on the way down. The control device Blake had given her had ceased to function. The mostly automatic navigation had similarly stopped working. Now, she had to manually operate the thing at all times, which was hard enough without taking into account her complete lack of experience with such things.

Something terrible had happened. Arlette didn't know what, but there were too many signs for her to come to any other conclusion.

It had started with the tremors that had hit not long after they'd found Sebastian's message for her. The skitters—not the one they were currently riding but the two that had been already stationed in Breah's area—had immediately started acting strangely. Without any instructions from her, they had relocated themselves to the unoccupied resort villa higher up the hill and become intensely territorial. Anybody who tried to get near the area would be fired upon by the pair of killer machines, including Arlette. Like her transport, these skitters also ignored Blake's device that used to let her order a small army of the things around.

Well, that wasn't entirely true. The first sign, if her gut was correct, had been Sofie nearly dying. Or, at least, that's what it had looked like at the time. She'd gone from perfectly healthy one moment to spewing blood all over the place the next. Then, she'd collapsed and it had taken her five days to wake up again. Nobody could say the cause of the sudden medical emergency, not even Sofie herself. She'd just said that it had felt "like something inside me violently snapped" and that she now felt "a bit hollow". Sofie had lost a lot of blood, but Arlette had a hunch that that wasn't what she was talking about when she said "hollow".

When they reached a short straightaway in the path, Arlette risked a glance back at the others. Gvido was the only one sitting in the actual chairs, nonchalantly staring out at the landscape as they went, seemingly no worse for wear. Ramune was reclining against the side wall to Arlette's left, her eyes closed as if she were napping, which she very well might be. Sofie, however, had propped herself up against the back right corner of the cabin, her head lolling to the side, her face pale and eyes dim. Half of that was likely motion sickness from the very rough ride, but still…

The woman claimed she was feeling better, but it was clear to the rest of them that she was just putting on a brave face. Had all else been normal, Arlette would have preferred to stay in the seaside town until her friend fully recovered, but she just couldn't quiet that insistent hunch inside her that told her they couldn't waste any more time. Thankfully, Sofie shared her concerns and had wanted to leave as soon as she was able.

A small group of figures came into view as they rounded a turn. More Otharians. The last big sign of some terrible disaster was just how many civilians they'd come across on the trip north so far. There had to be twenty—maybe even fifty—times the amount of people they'd passed on the trip south. More worryingly, few, if any, of them looked to have traveling supplies with them. Carts or wagons were nowhere to be seen. It was just people in clothes with little else on them save haggard and sorrowful expressions.

Yes, something very terrible had happened. These people all surely knew what that terrible thing was, but to the last man they fled when they saw Arlette's vehicle. So far, she had not bothered to waste time trying to chase one of them down. Going off the path was too risky with nothing but manual control to work with, and it would waste too much time. This sort of encounter happened more and more often the further they got from the less-populated south of Otharia, until one time it didn't.

"Huh, they're not running for once," Gvido observed as they closed in on another group.

Unlike most others, this group of seven were taking a rest, a pot over a small fire amid what could very generously be called a 'camp' on the left side of the road. These Otharians had more supplies than the others they'd encountered, but still seemed under-equipped for their circumstances. More importantly, as Gvido noted, the group had spotted them but, while sporting some very fearful looks, were not yet running for the hills.

Maybe this was her chance. She slowed the transport to a stop not far from the camp and stepped away from the controls towards the left side of the cabin to better look down. The travelers, a mix of male and female but all in the middle of their lives, had come to their feet and now stood nervously but made no move.

"Hail!" she called out.

With a momentary exchange of glances, the group silently picked an unwilling spokesperson, a balding man in his forties. The man stepped forward, hands clasped together and an obsequious smile on his face.

"Ah, uh, yes! How may we lowly ones serve you, high one?"

'High one'? Was this some form of address used out in the rural areas? She'd never been addressed that way in Wroetin, though she also did not tend to be piloting a giant machine that marked her as somebody important in Lord Ferros's hierarchy. Perhaps they wanted to get into her good graces? Or maybe they were just trying to be as submissive as possible, afraid that she would do something terrible? It would explain the 'lowly ones' bit as well. Still, something about how deeply the man was willing to immediately verbally prostrate himself before her bothered her. It was like—

A series of light taps on Arlette's left ankle seized her attention. She glanced down at Ramune, her eyes still closed, and watched as the sensory Feeler made a rapid series of hand signs with her hand on the floor where only Arlette could see them. Arlette fought to keep her expression under control as she silently translated the message.

'Eight heartbeats other side. Six in trees ahead.'

Yeah, now this made more sense.

Arlette stretched her arms upward and let out a huge fake yawn, using the act to sneak a look at their surroundings. The area behind them was largely clear, as was the side with the—presumably fake—camp. To their right were some fairly thick bushes, thicker than what usually grew around here and dense enough to hide a small group of people if they packed themselves in properly. Ahead of the transport, down the path, were two trees, one on each side, both tall and broad enough to reach out well over the path. Their trunks were also wide enough that somebody could hide their whole body behind one.

Arlette suppressed a sigh. Since when had her cautionary instincts lost their edge like this? She should have suspected an ambush from the start, but this whole situation had gotten to her so heavily that she was losing touch with the things that had helped keep her alive for so long.

Well, now that she was aware, her instincts and experience told her it wasn't time to spring the trap just yet.

"Pardon me. It has been a long trip," she began. "We have been out of communication far to the south for the last few days, and coming back, it is clear that something big has happened while we were gone. Do you know what it was?"

"Oh, aye," the man replied, shaking his head enthusiastically. "But, it is a long tale. Perhaps you might come down while I explain? Pardon my rudeness, but my neck isn't what it used to be, you see."

"Of course."

Perfect. Just the excuse she needed to return to the controls without suspicion.

Arlette slowly began to lower the cabin, the vehicles insectile legs spreading wider to allow the cabin space to descend. But that wasn't going to happen. She just needed to make it look like she was doing that so they wouldn't be ready for the moment she launched them forward.

And that moment was right now.

The transport shot forward to cries of alarm from the bystanders. Arlette heard an arrow whiz by far behind her, a hurried attempt by the hidden ambushers to do anything before Arlette and her people were long gone. A moment later, they neared the trees and the second group made their move. A thick rope crossing the path, hidden by dirt and leaves, rose up and went taut about a man's height from the ground, waiting to trip up the transport's legs. It was too late for them to stop, and there was no other way around without backing up significantly. In just a few moments, it threatened to send them all hurtling to the ground.

Not on her watch. Drawing upon her imagination, Arlette manifested a large axe, huge, sharp, and heavy, slicing with great velocity down towards the rope. With a flex of her will, she manifested the weapon, bringing it from illusion to reality through nothing but her own conviction.

She felt her stamina flag significantly as the act took a serious toll on her reserves already strained from hours of travel, but it mattered little to her as long as it worked. And work it did. The axe sliced through the rope as if it were made of cloudstuff and they rushed through unimpeded.

Or, nearly unimpeded. Two figures dropped down as they cleared the trees, landing in the center of the vehicle with weapons in hand.

"Ramune! Take the reins!" she shouted, turning around.

This might be a little bad. Sure, it was four people to two, but these two looked to be at least semi-competent fighters—and well-armed, as well. Meanwhile, Ramune was a sensory Feeler, somebody who had forgone the usual upgrades to strength, speed, and the like in exchange for stuff like hearing that could hear these people's heartbeats from a significant distance. She was made to scout, not fight. Gvido was a stone Observer, a type of Observation that was not big on things like speed. Neither of them had their weapons in their hands. And then there was Sofie, who was in no condition to do much of anything.

It wasn't all bad. Arlette had confidence that she could take both of them in a fight on her own, and they'd landed in the center of the cabin, which was filled by seats that would be awkward for them to maneuver around. But, it wasn't about taking them down. It was about doing so before they could hurt one of the others, especially Gvido, whom they'd nearly landed right on top of.

Showing better fight instincts than Arlette had given him credit for, Gvido quickly leapt over the back of his seat. Well, it was more of an awkward, sideways tumble than anything acrobatic, but hey, whatever worked, as long as it bought him some space and her some time.

Arlette focused on the attacker closer to her. He was a large, fairly portly man who undoubtedly weighed at least twice what Arlette did, if not more. He brandished a machete and wore thick farmer's clothes. In a confined space like this, he might be dangerous even if he lacked training.

She rushed forward regardless, less concerned for her own safety than that of the others. Against her expectations, the large man did not lash out at her, instead doing his best to interpose himself between her and the second attacker. Were they purposely going for the others over her? Was this some sort of plan?

Before, she would never have considered that they would do something like that, but things were different now. Arlette now knew who was pulling the strings, and having his minions try to kill off her subordinates and friends while leaving her alone was not only something Sebastian would do but had already done. He wanted her to spend her every waking moment worrying for the safety of everybody she cared about.

One day, soon, she was going to drive a knife through his eye. No matter what it took.

The layout of the fight was fairly simple. Ramune was wrangling the controls behind her. In front of her was the transporter's cabin, about eight paces wide, with about six paces of empty space in front of her before the first row of seats. There were four rows of seats total, and each row went nearly all the way from side to side, with just a pace or so between the side seats and the walls for somebody to squeeze through. Between the first and second row stood her current obstacle, while the second ambusher was currently clambering over the third row of seats, chasing after Gvido, who had cleared the last row and had joined Sofie all the way in the back's more open area.

For now, all she could do was hit this bozo as hard as she could as fast as possible. No time for tricks and illusions, only speed. Drawing her sword, she pulled it back on her left side as she sprinted forward, showing an attack from that side. The man shifted his machete towards her left, as she'd hoped. She responded by leaping forward instead, her right foot planting atop the nearest seat top. The man hurriedly slashed across with his blade, but he had recognized her maneuver too late to stop her. Launching herself off the top of the seat's back with her right foot, she delivered a vicious knee to the man's face. The combination of the force of her blow at the top of his body and the seat behind him keeping his lower half from moving further backward caused him to tumble head over heels into the next row, his body half caught in a third row seat as he tried to push himself fully upright.

Arlette's landing wasn't much better. Just as her knee connected, she felt the sting of the man's blade slice into the back of her right calf muscle. How bad it was she couldn't say just yet, but it definitely felt deeper than a scratch. Still, as she tumbled down on top of her assailant, she found herself able to still put some weight on it, for now at least. Good enough.

The extremely limited standing room between the rows of seats meant that neither Arlette nor her opponent had solid footing when they came down, but her situation was now much better than his. The man was more off-balance than she was, and she was now very close—too close for him to easily slice her again with his machete. That lack of distance, combined with the seats in front of her, meant it would be hard for her to swing her sword effectively as well, but that was what knives were for. With the man's arms still held higher to guard his face and upper body, she took the open invitation and stabbed one of her many daggers into his ample gut with her free hand. The man cried out, but didn't fall, so Arlette pulled out a second one and stuck him with that as well.

That seemed to do the trick. Her oversized enemy rolled off the seat and fell to his hands and knees, desperately clutching his belly. Now would have been the ideal time for Arlette to drive a third blade of her choice into the back of his neck, but she chose to forgo that for several reasons.

One was that he would be out of commission for a while as it was, so killing him now would be a waste of time when every fraction of a moment's delay might be the difference between a live Gvido and a dead Gvido. But, perhaps higher on her list was that she was feeling greedy. What she'd just done to her aggressor was brutal, yes, but it wouldn't kill a healthy Scyrian if they were given medical care in the next hour or two. She's made a pair of large holes, but she hadn't sliced his intestines to ribbons just yet. Plus, his thick belly fat had greatly reduced the amount of organ damage. He'd live.

And that was by design, because Arlette had so many questions for him. She was done with being in the dark. Sebastian had tipped his hand and she was going to get some fucking answers. There was no way these people had been waiting right here at just the right time with a plan to take down her transport and everything through sheer coincidence. Just like Sebastian had known she'd go down to Breah, he'd known she would have to come back up soon enough. That meant that this double-punctured man had at least some level of connection to Sebastian and his organization, more of a connection than anybody else she'd been able to pin down until now. She wasn't going to let such an opportunity slip by.

But that was for later. Right now, she had an ambush to finish foiling. From what Arlette could see, Gvido and his attacker were currently engaged in what she could only call a "scuffle", some chaotic mashup of wrestling, stabbing, and other assorted violence, with little in the way of discipline or form. While her subordinate was, by his own admission, not that great a fighter, he was smart enough to know that his best strategy would be to do everything he could to just frustrate his opponent and waste as much time as possible until she could get to him and take over.

Judging by the knife in his shoulder, that strategy could have gone better. Still, any fight you could walk away from, as the saying went… Now she just had to make sure he walked away from it. She had to move fast—the second assailant had wrestled him halfway over the back wall and looked close to pushing him over.

Vaulting over the last row of seats, she rushed forward to save Gvido only for their opponent to turn and throw him straight into Arlette's chest. Unable to avoid her subordinate in time, she found herself thrown backward in an awkward jumble of limbs that crashed against the back of the last row of seats.

As she tried to push Gvido off her, Arlette finally got a better look at her second adversary. It was another man, a head shorter than the first, who looked to be in his mid thirties with a thick, muscular build. He wore rugged fur-skin clothes, with a long knife strapped to his left side with a belt and a very nasty-looking metal hatchet tied to his upper back. Some sort of woodsman, most likely, but clearly somebody who knew how to handle himself in a brawl.

Without wasting a beat, the man pulled out the hatchet and charged, bringing the hatchet down in a vicious one-handed, overhead strike. Arlette threw Gvido to her right, using the force to shift herself left just enough to avoid the incoming blow. A metallic shriek rang out as the hatchet head buried itself into the top of the seat back just to the right of her head.

Arlette brought her sword up just in time as the man ripped the hatchet out of the seat with pure Feeler-enhanced strength, turning his mighty pull into a rightward swipe the moment the head was free. With her right foot, she lashed out at his knee, forcing him to step back.

This put her side in an advantageous position. Due to the man's overreach trying to take them out while they were scrambling to regain control after hitting each other, he'd put himself in a position where he was surrounded, with Arlette at his front and Gvido at his back, with little room to maneuver on either side. If this woodsman wanted to live, he'd have to abandon his offense for the moment, giving her time to properly gain control of the fight.

It wasn't until he turned his back on her, hatchet raised high to slam into Gvido's chest, that Arlette considered—too late—the possibility that this man might not care if he lived as long as he accomplished what he'd come here to do. Even at full strength—and Gvido was nowhere near full strength—he wouldn't be able to stop the blow that was coming; the solid metal back of the seat was proof that whatever tiny stone shield he might have been able to conjure by now would be nowhere near enough.

Her first instinct was to throw herself forward in a desperate attempt to somehow intercede, but she knew that she wouldn't be able to do anything fast enough to save Gvido. With his unprotected back exposed to her blade, she could kill the ambusher without an issue but not before his axe fell upon her precious underling.

But she and Gvido weren't the only people here, something that Arlette was reminded of when Ramune threw the transport into a bone-breakingly violent stop. Arlette felt the crunch of her arm's bones fracturing just below her shoulder as she slammed into the back of the hard and unbending metal seat to her right with the full weight of her body. Pain coursed through her right side, cutting through the wooziness brought on by the whiplash of the simulated crash and helping her stay present.

The bad news was that her right arm was out of commission. The good news was that Ramune's maneuver had thrown Gvido and the man just as much as it had her, essentially hitting pause on the action for a crucial moment. She still didn't have enough time to work herself off her knees and reach them before the man attacked—with his arm raised, he'd taken the blow on the side of his chest instead and likely broken some ribs, which wasn't enough to stop him—but that moment had given her enough time to realize the error of her ways.

She didn't need to get closer at all. With the speed of thought, she Observed a wickedly sharp metal spike behind the man's neck and sent it hurtling forward at a velocity that only somebody like The Monster could manage. And then, right after giving it such speed, she brought it from illusion to reality. The spike plunged into the woodman's spine, obliterating not just the spinal cord but multiple vertebrae in the process and killing him in an instant.

The vast majority of Arlette's remaining energy evaporated like a raindrop landing on a forest fire, leaving her slumped over on the floor, unable to find the fortitude to get up just yet. She forced herself to take deep breaths as her vision dimmed, willing herself to stay conscious. This new ability was absurdly powerful, but damn did it drain her.

After a few moments, while still heavily fatigued, Arlette felt good enough to reach across her body with her left arm and slowly push herself to her feet. The first thing she did was hobble and wobble over to Gvido to check on him. The stone Observer was very slowly working his way out from under the half-decapitated corpse that had fallen right on top of him, pushing with his one working arm to limited effect. Arlette considered helping him, but she wasn't sure if she bent over that she would be able to straighten back up.

Instead, she settled by asking, "How bad are you?"

Gvido groaned. "I'd say I've been worse, but that would be a lie. I think I have at least ten different injuries. Some broken bones, I think I tore something in my knee, and then there's the obvious…" He indicated the knife still stuck in his shoulder. Now that the battle was over and they could do first aid, it was finally safe to remove it from the wound. "I'll live."

"Arlette!"

Arlette turned towards the sound of Sofie's panicked voice. The Earthling had at some point repositioned herself up by the front of the transport near Ramune, and she was pointing urgently at something.

It was the other attacker, the large man who'd tried to block her from getting to Gvido. The one she'd incapacitated with two daggers to the gut. The one that was to be her treasure trove of answers. The one currently halfway over the side of the transport, making his escape!

Before she could even make a move, the man rolled over the side and fell the fifteen or so paces to the ground, then began to hobble away at a distressingly fast pace.

No!

Arlette ran through her options. She didn't have the physical energy to chase after him, nor the internal energy to conjure up something to stop him. Ramune wouldn't be able to do anything on her own, and Arlette didn't want her taking the transport off the path. Gvido was out. The man was leaving enough blood on the terrain that tracking him down would be easy enough, but Arlette didn't think waiting to recover before hunting him down was would be a wise choice. They were currently nowhere near far enough from the ambush site for her peace of mind, and there was a high likelihood that he'd find help before they found him. And that "they" would be Ramune and a quite exhausted Arlette with only one good arm. That left…

"Sofie, stop him!"

"Me?! But, I— uh—" Sofie swallowed. "Don't… umm…"

Her voice, already weak, trailed off into silence as she watched the man limp and lope his way to freedom.

"Don't…" she tried again, but still she hesitated.

A moment later, the man passed out of view and was gone.

"Damn it!" Arlette growled.

Sofie drooped. "I'm sorry."

Arlette sighed. "No, I shouldn't have said that. You aren't recovered enough to do anything yet, anyway."

"Hmm," Sofie replied, which Arlette took as a sound of resigned agreement.

"No use getting upset about it now." Arlette didn't have the energy to be angry right now, anyway. "Ramune, get us going again. I want more distance between us and those assholes before we stop for first aid. Sofie, help me find the first aid kit that Blake claims he put in all of these. Gvido… umm…"

"I'm just gonna lie here for a little," he said.

"Good enough. Let's move."

"I'm sorry," Sofie said again as she slowly and carefully wrapped a bandage around Arlette's arm and the stick they were using as a makeshift splint. "I fucked up."

"Why are you saying that again? I already told you it's alright. There's nothing we could do if you're injured."

"It would be nice if I had that excuse, but no," Sofie sighed. "I can use my powers, no problem—maybe even better than before. I feel like I'm right on the cusp of a breakthrough, even."

"What? You start vomiting blood, and now you can suddenly use your powers better?"

"It's hard to explain, but…" She paused to think through her words. "Imagine you actually have a prehensile tail like a monkey, but it is invisible and you can't feel it so you never realized it was there. It's just that, sometimes, if you move your body and clench your butt muscles in a certain way, you can move or pick up an object without using your arms. You never really know exactly how it works, just that you can use it kind of clumsily if you try hard enough.

"Then, one day, your tail gets crushed in a door. Suddenly, you can feel pain all over this part of your body that you never even knew you had until now. And, through that pain, you learn to be able to see your tail for the first time. Suddenly, everything changes. Now that you can see it, you can understand it. You can learn how to use it more effectively. What was a weird power you barely knew how to use is now a third arm growing out of your butt that you can do whatever you want with."

"Interesting analogy aside, I think I get what you're trying to say. Somehow, when you started vomiting blood and collapsed into a coma for days, you learned to see your ability?"

"Right. I think what happened to me is that something injured my soul, and the pain that came from that is how I found myself able to perceive my soul for the first time. That's kind of how it's been since I woke up.

"I think my soul is what my ability uses to do what it does. Remember what that dragon said about what he saw with my soul? That I had chains coming from it? I've been working on it since I woke up, and I think I can feel the chains now. I can feel the connections I have with everybody currently under my spell.

"That must be a big deal to you."

Sofie sighed. "It is, but it's also depressing. There's so many chains, Arlette—tens or even hundreds of thousands of them. Still, this has given me hope. Now that I can 'see' my soul, I should be able to use that to discover how to use my powers better."

"Like what?"

"Releasing geas without being in the presence of the person affected is the big one. Then, I could remove everybody currently affected. Another might be issuing or removing a geas without having to say those stupid phrases exactly every time. Chitra thought it was a way for massaging my mind into flexing the right spiritual muscle to activate the power, kind of like clenching the right butt muscles to move that tail. But now, if I can figure out how to work it more directly…"

"You could use it with just a grunt."

"Or maybe without having to say anything at all. Or maybe there still needs to be a vocal component to carry the restriction to the other person. I don't know if either is possible, but for the first time, I can say that I might be able to find out."

"Well, that's great news. I'm happy that at least one good thing has come out of this, though I wish it didn't require a near-death experience. But if this is all the case, then why didn't you stop that man before he got away?"

She sighed again. "It's embarrassing, but I just didn't know what to say."

"Huh?"

"You know how I feel about my powers. I've been avoiding my abilities as much as possible ever since we found out about them. I never practice them. So, when you told me to stop him, I couldn't come up with something to say fast enough. My mind froze."

"You couldn't come up with 'don't move'?"

"Of course I did. But, when I went to issue the restriction, I realized I didn't know what I was about to do. What counts as moving?"

"What sort of question is that?"

"A very important one. Tell me, if I put had put that man under a geas that prevented him from 'moving', would just his limbs have stopped? What about his face? His eyes? What about his lungs? You have to move to breathe, right? If I put that on somebody, would I just be condemning them to a slow death by suffocation? What about organs inside the body? Does a heart pumping count as 'movement'? The blood flowing through one's veins?

"When I tried to think of the answers to those questions on the spot, I couldn't do it. I blanked under pressure. That's why I froze."

"I would think that it would mean whatever you want it to mean," Arlette offered.

"Yeah, well… this is where things get worse, because…" She put her face in her hands. "Because, after it was over, I realized I already know what those words do to somebody, since I've used them before. I just forgot."

Arlette groaned. "Sofie…"

"I told you, I fucked up. Sorry."

"Well… no use getting upset over it now. It's fine. Just… make sure you take the right lesson from this. You did fuck up, but not today. You fucked all those days where you chose not to train yourself so you'd be ready for what happened today. You said it yourself; you've been avoiding using your abilities as much as possible. That will need to change if you don't want this to happen the next time too."

"I know, I just… I know. I'll… try to think of something."

"Just do your best. That's all anybody can ask." Arlette let out a short grunt of resignation. "I don't have much room to criticize, anyway. Did you… happen to see what I did to end the fight earlier?"

"Kind of? It was confusing. You made an illusion but then you somehow killed him with it? Like it was actually real instead. Or, did I see it wrong?"

"That's pretty much it."

Sofie perked up. "Really? That's wild! Since when could you do that?"

"Not long. It's something I… discovered fairly recently, but it really takes a toll on me, so I've been putting off training it. That's why I messed up today, just like you. If I had just used that technique right away, Gvido wouldn't have nearly died. Instead, when things got violent, I defaulted to the same old habits that I've always relied on and completely forgot about it until it was nearly too late. Just like you, I failed to prepare myself to use my abilities when they mattered."

"I feel like you're being harsh on yourself just to make me feel better."

"No. When I was a mercenary, self-improvement was more than just something I worked on, it was a means for survival. Every day was an arms race against every possible enemy I might face. It was exhausting sometimes, sure, but it's the reason I'm still breathing.

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"Once I got caught up with you and all the crazy things that happened, that kind of got put to the side for a while in all of the chaos. But after I got this position here in Otharia, I should have started back up again. Yet, I never did. A total failure of judgment."

"You've been working your tail off on other things instead, like your job."

"Perhaps, but that's still not good enough. Everything's been constantly changing since you and your lot showed up, but I haven't kept up at all. I've stuck to the same old tricks instead of trying to push myself. And here I am with a brand new trick, the most powerful trick I've ever possessed, and what have I done with it? Practically nothing.

"I should have been pushing this new ability to its limit every day, training up my stamina so I could use it more often and making sure I had a mental playbook of different tactics for various situations always in the front of my mind, ready to be used reactively. If the old me had come upon this power, that's exactly what I would have done, and then we wouldn't have ended up like this today."

"So then…"

"Yeah. I guess this was the prodding I needed. I'm going to start pushing myself hard starting tod—" Arlette had started to raise her right hand to emphasize her point, but a sharp sting of pain made her reconsider. "Starting tomorrow. And you need to start too. Don't allow yourself to accept your failings now, or you might regret it soon enough."

"I can try, but… I can't just train like you can. Part of the problem is that I need a subject to test on. A victim."

"We have options. There's convicts who are headed for execution anyway that you might be able to use for now, and isn't the person who Gabriela is out fetching supposed to be able to bring people back to life? If that's true, then you might not even need to use convicts soon."

"Using people like that feels gross."

"Eh, we can offer them lifetime imprisonment or something if they survive. Then it's a transaction, if that makes you feel better."

"It would help, at least."

Sofie went quiet, contemplating something.

"What about other stuff?" she asked after a bit. "How much are you willing to change if it makes you stronger?"

"If the results are good, I'd be willing to change a lot. Why? You have something in mind?"

"What about guns? You'd be so much more capable if you had some guns you could use."

"You think so?"

"Have you ever seen Blake fight? There's a reason that people don't fight with swords where I'm from anymore, you know. Even just a pistol would be useful."

Arlette couldn't deny the destructive power she'd witnessed guns wreak in the past. She loathed the idea of giving up her sword, which had been almost a part of her since seemingly forever, but as an additional option? It would be foolish of her to reject it out of hand, at the very least, especially with Sebastian lurking out there somewhere. She knew that, sometime soon, would need every source of strength she could get her hands on.

"That sounds like something worth exploring. A pistol, at least. Not sure if I am ready for more than that just yet."

"Great. That paranoid bastard refused to make any guns for other people before, but I bet I could convince him now. I'll talk to him about it when we get back."

"What about you, then? Going to get some guns for yourself as well?"

Sofie bit her lip.

"Tell me, Arlette," she asked after several quiet moments of thought. "Is it selfish of me to want to avoid hurting other people?"

"I…" Arlette initially wanted to say 'yes', but instead responded by saying, "That's a complicated question."

"I mean, there's millions of people out there who don't know how to fight, right? Is a seamstress or a blacksmith selfish if they refuse to hurt other people? Is it wrong for me to want to just be like everybody else? To try to keep my hands as clean as I can?"

"Yes, it is."

Sofie gave her a despairing look. "But, why?!"

"Because you're not like those seamstresses. You've seen more action in a year than most of them will in their entire lives. At some point, you have to face the fact that trouble comes hunting for you just like it does me, and at some point, you can't sit off to the side and let those around you carry all the burden. It's not right."

Sofie put on a petulant scowl. "You make it sound like it's my fault that stuff keeps happening. It's not like I want things to happen."

"Blame isn't the point. What I'm trying to say is that for people like us, having the ability to choose not to get blood on your hands is a luxury we can't afford. At some point, the bill will come due whether you like it or not, and when that time comes, you need to be ready or you'll regret it for the rest of your life. I mean, it already happened to you once, didn't it? When Pari died?"

Sofie's face fell. "Oh. Right…"

"If you had been able to fight, maybe she wouldn't have been killed that day. We were saved by that man in Stragma who can bring the dead back to life, but you can't just assume he'll be around to bail you out every time. One day, you'll again have to make a choice between bloodying your hands or losing things you care about. You need to prepare yourself for that now, and you should work towards the skills you'd need to even be able to make the choice at all. Because if you're too weak—mentally or otherwise—then that choice will be made for you and you'll spend the rest of your life regretting it."

Sofie sighed once more. "Maybe you're right. I'll think about it."

It was Zrukhora all over again.

That was all Arlette could think after looking out upon this crater of devastation that had just recently been her home for going on half an hour. Things weren't exactly the same, of course. The crater at Zrukhora—when she'd gotten to see it from above later—had appeared remarkably clean and localized, as if some great higher being had scooped a perfectly round bowl out from the world while leaving the surrounding land untouched. There'd been a serenity to it, a zen—the aftermath seasons later, that is; the explosion at the time had been as far from serene as one could imagine. The view here, on the other hand, screamed violence, the land itself covered in wounds.

Arlette couldn't help but think back to the several occasions where she'd fought on the side of a truly elite archer—a strong Feeler who could shoot arrows at a velocity that could rival the bullets shot from a skitter's weapons. Thankfully, the truly terrifying ones were exceedingly rare, in part because it was so hard for anybody to make a bow or arrows that could stand up to that level of strain, or so she'd been told. Still, when she had encountered one, she'd always been thankful that they'd been on her side in no small part because of the gruesomeness of their results.

She could still remember the one time, after a victory, when they'd undertaken the time-honored mercenary tradition of looting the dead. She'd found a man who'd been killed by the archer, an arrow growing right out of his chest like a seedling. But, when she'd turned him over, she'd been stunned at the massive hole in the man's back. The arrow had hit with such force that it had blown a gaping cavity out of the other side of his body, a messy and uneven but disturbingly wide pit of burst flesh.

When she looked at the crater that had once been Wroetin, she couldn't help but think of that corpse. It was like somebody had hit the city with a massive Feeler arrow from below, turning the city into nothing more than mountains of rubble.

And rubble there was. It was everywhere, covering the surrounding landscape everywhere she looked, even in the crater itself. They'd first run across a large rock that had seemed like it didn't belong in the landscape over three leagues before reaching the city, and the amount had only increased exponentially as they'd gotten closer. It wasn't just stone and earth, either. There were pieces of buildings scattered all across the area, with the most notable being numerous shards of Blake's fortress, none more than a few paces across.

Suddenly, all of Arlette's problems didn't feel like they mattered much anymore. Her head was filled with thoughts of the many, many people who had not survived this disaster. Not all of those who'd called this place home had perished. Multiple large camps comprising thousands upon thousands of survivors had popped up around the ruin, while, judging by the traffic at least, many others had left over the past few days for safer pastures elsewhere. But not everybody had made it out. A quick glance at some of the rubble as they'd gotten closer had been all she'd needed to know that a great many people had perished.

Who was alive, and who were among the dead? It was a question that had crossed not just her mind but that of every person in her little group, and one that seemed to have no concrete answers just yet.

"I have to go," Gvido was saying to her as she looked out upon the devastation. She wasn't really listening, but she didn't need to to know what he was saying. The man had a family, after all. "Until I know they survived…"

Arlette just nodded, not taking her eyes off the sight. She was rather surprised he was even still around; Ramune had left almost immediately. She hadn't even asked permission. Arlette didn't care.

"Family comes first. Go," she told him. "If I need you later, I'll track you down somehow. If either of us even has a job anymore, that is. Stay safe."

And then, it was just down to her and Sofie.

"It's like a volcano erupted or something," her friend observed, her face still wet with tears.

The Earthling's eyes scanned the nearest gathering of people half a league away.

"Look at all those people. They've lost so much so fast, and yet they're the lucky ones."

Arlette looked as well. The gathering could barely even qualify as a 'camp', as the people there lacked even the cloth needed to make primitive tents. All they had to work with was the clothes on their backs, and that might as well be nothing.

"Yeah…"

"Hey…" Sofie rubbed her eyes and stared out towards the 'camp' again. "Somebody's coming this way."

Arlette saw them too, a lone figure doing their best to run in the transport's direction, though their stride carried a moderate limp.

"Is that…? Arlette, I think that's Leo!"

"Are you sure?" Arlette couldn't say with such confidence herself from such a distance, but she trusted Sofie's eyesight better than her own.

"Mostly sure."

She returned to the transport's controls, turning the machine counterclockwise to run along the crater's edge. "Then, let's go meet him."

The transport couldn't move as fast off the road as it could on smoother ground, so they ended up meeting about halfway between them. The profusely sweating Otharian man slowed to a halt, doubled over with his hands on his knees as he gasped for breath. Arlette lowered the transport down and Sofie immediately jumped out, ran over, and wrapped the man in a hug.

"Leo, it is you! I would recognize that bald spot anywhere!"

"Sofie… It is… good to see… you are well," the man gasped out between shuddering breaths. "You… as well… Arlette…"

"You alright?" Arlette asked.

"Othar's beard… I'm so out of shape…" He let out a wheeze. "Funny… I was in better shape… when I spent all day in a cell… than since I got out…"

"The perils of desk work," Arlette observed. "Hop in, if you think you have it in you. It's good to see you."

Once the three of them were all back on board, Arlette turned the skitter around and headed back to where they'd been before.

"We have all sorts of questions, as I'm sure you can guess," she told him.

"Unfortunately, I only have answers for some of them," he replied.

"What can you tell us about Blake? Is he alive somewhere?"

"Not much. I have seen no sign of Blake—or Samanta, for that matter. No body, at least. There's the occasional wild rumor of somebody seeing glimpses of him in the woods, but people are scared and they see things when they're scared."

"What about the others?" Sofie asked.

"The only other person I know to have survived is our beloved Minister of Agriculture." He scoffed. "It figures that old farmer would be too stubborn to die from this. Not even the end of the world would be enough to take down that old codger."

"Damn…"

"You can tell us everything in a bit, once we're settled down," Arlette decided. "First, we should leave and find a place to rest for the night. Somewhere away from here."

"You sure?"

"No, she's largely right," Leo agreed. "I was lucky in that most people don't know who I am or I don't think I would have made it past the first day. Even so, I was attacked earlier today by somebody who recognized me and hurt my leg. But this—" He gestured to the transport around them. "—makes it clear to everybody our affiliation. There will be a target on all our backs until we can abandon it somewhere, if that's what you decide is best. However, there is one thing I think you need to see first. Something that I have a hunch will answer some of your questions that I cannot help you with."

"A hunch?"

"You'll understand when you see it. Can you take us into the crater?"

"Into the crater?"

"Yes. What I need to show you lies there, right in the center of this blasted hole. It shouldn't take too long."

Arlette weighed the situation for a moment, but couldn't see any reason to deny him. She turned the skitter towards where the city had been just days before.

Getting the transport all the way down proved to be too much, especially with its currently limited functionality, so they disembarked from it for the final third of the trip when the ground became mostly stone. Still, as Leo predicted, they made it to the center of the crater fairly quickly even with the uneven ground, and as soon as they did, Arlette understood.

Lying on the broken stone was a sign. A literal wooden sign, left here at the very center this great tragedy like a calling card left at the scene of a crime. Its mere presence here was an insult and a provocation, and that was before she even read it. And, to make matters so much worse, on that sign was a message written a script not found in Otharia and signed by a specific individual.

"I was hoping you might be able to read it," Leo explained. "I faintly recall seeing something like it some time ago in one of the old book in the archives. It was marked as a foreign script, but I can't for the life of me remember which—not that knowing would let me read it, regardless. Do you recognize it?"

"Yeah, I recognize it," she said with a scowl. "It's the script of Ofrax, my home country. This was left for me to find."

Sofie gasped. "Really? What does it say?"

Arlette skipped over the snide mockery, the tone of superiority, and the mind games to pull out the information that actually mattered.

"It says that Sebastian has Blake," Arlette told her with dread in her heart, "and if we want him back, I have to meet him at a place of his choosing ten days from now."

The small fire crackled in the twilight, casting flickering shadows across the area. As planned, they'd retreated from Wroetin, found a place to ditch their ride, and ventured further out to camp in the wilderness.

It was just the three of them now. In a way, it felt like the old times, minus Pari, Jaquet, and Basilli—at least the vibes, as Sofie would say, were quite similar to those early days. That was not a good thing. Now that they'd had some time to soak in and process everything they'd learned today, Arlette found herself saddled with that same hopelessness, that same feeling of being deep in enemy territory with nowhere to go. And, just like back then, they had no supplies to work with.

"It was horrible," the man was recounting to them. "Nobody knew what was about to happen. The closest thing anybody got was a sort of feeling of pressure just a heartbeat before, and then…"

He shuddered.

"Before then, boulders were raining from the sky, the observation tower was ripped out of the ground by… something… I suppose those things are what got most of the people to heed the emergency sirens and try to evacuate the city, but…

"All the people trying to escape through just four gates immediately turned into a mess of fearful people all getting in each other's way, like sand squeezing through the middle of an hourglass. Half of the people still hadn't made it through when the cataclysm happened. Even many who did get out still didn't make it far enough to survive."

Leo stared out at the fire with the vacant eyes of a man who wanted to weep but had already wept away all his tears.

Leo let out a defeated sob.

"It's my fault. I should have realized we needed larger gates long ago. I was too complacent with how things had always been. If they had been even a bit wider, tens of thousands of people would still be alive right now."

"Nonsense," Sofie rebutted. "Since when did you become the person in charge of architectural decisions? You already were carrying the load of three normal people. If anybody is to blame, it would be Blake, not you."

"It hardly matters at this point, does it?" he replied. "Wroetin is no more. The greatest city we have and so many of its people, just… gone. How can we ever recover from this?"

"You can. You can, and you will." Arlette insisted. "You and the others have what it takes to overcome this trial, I'm sure of it. And once we get Blake back, it will be even easier."

"If we get him back. We need a plan."

"Before that, I think we need to pool our information," Sofie suggested. "Like, Arlette, you said 'Sebastian' has Blake? Isn't that the jerk who hates you and caused us all that misery way back when? I thought you said he died."

"I…"

Arlette reflexively opened her mouth brush Sofie off, to tell her it was personal and that the letter demanded only that Arlette appear, but she hesitated as she looked back at her lifetime of dealing with Sebastian Cunningham with new eyes. All this time, she'd viewed her adversarial relationship with the man as something between just the two of them, something which she needed to keep others out of in large part due to the fear of something terrible happening to them. But, maybe that was part of the issue. Maybe it always had been.

She needed help. Sebastian wasn't a problem she could tackle on her own. It really never had been, had it? Why had it taken her so long to realize this? Why hadn't she just asked for help long ago?

"I guess you're right. Now that I think of it, we were so busy after you finally woke up that we never found the time to talk about what happened down by the sea, did we?"

Sofie perked up. "Oh, that's right! I had totally forgotten! There was that creepy tunnel and that… note, was it? I didn't get to see what it was before my insides… you know."

"It was, indeed, a letter. One addressed to me, from Sebastian Cunningham—who, yes, I had believed dead back in Crirada after I watched him get crushed by a crumpled ball of metal that I would guestimate weighed about as much as the entire observation tower at the fortress."

"Sounds like quite the story," Leo stated. "At the risk of asking you to repeat yourself, could you tell me more about this man? And how is he related to Otharia?"

"It's not a problem," she told him. "It's a rather long story, though."

It didn't sound like a watershed moment, but for her, it kind of was. Until today, it had always been a problem. But now, she felt unshackled, free to talk about that man and her past with him in detail in ways that she would never have even contemplated just yesterday.

"Sebastian Cunningham is a man as cruel as he is capable…"

And so, Arlette told them a summary of her long past with the man who had brought down her home country almost singlehandedly. Then, they moved on to more recent events and the current crisis. The others chipped in as well, especially Leo with as much knowledge about the last few days as he could provide.

"They must have had a traitor inside the fortress for a long time," Leo concluded. "There is no way that this man could know so much without one."

"That has always been how he operates," Arlette agreed. "But who?"

"Simona, definitely. I'd bet my life on it."

"Really? But she was always the most supportive of Blake's rule," Sofie pointed out.

Leo shook his head. "She is a fanatic, yes, but she supported him because she saw him as the means to the end she desired more than the end itself. Perhaps her loyalty would have remained the same if things had remained as they were before, but that started to change when he began to bring in more outsiders like you two. What in her mind started as a single special-case savior turned into an Elseling invasion in slow motion.

"But my reasoning is much more simple: she didn't show up to work that day. Everybody else did."

"I should have thrown her out of the airship," Arlette growled. "Oohhh, I hate that insane backstabbing little—!"

"Let's not get distracted. She'll be dealt with later one way or another," Sofie admonished. "Right now we need to prepare for the meeting."

Arlette huffed. "Yeah, fine. Ten days is more than enough to heal up and make a plan. Leo, you know where this Kevir place is?"

The man nodded. "West of Eflok. Small place, not much worth talking about there. Not sure why they would choose it."

"Only one way to find out. Let's focus on getting whole. Then, we'll go see what Kevir's story is."

Arlette stepped into the camp, letting her disguise fall away, and greeted the others.

"How'd it go?" Sofie inquired.

She shook her head. "The place is empty. Not a soul in sight. It's downright creepy."

"Did you find where the meeting is going to take place?" Leo asked.

"Not hard to find the town square. Unfortunately, it's pretty open, as you'd expect."

"So, Plan C, then."

"The worst plan," Sofie grumbled.

"I agree, but I don't think anything else will work," Arlette said. "I won't be able to sneak you close otherwise."

"Ah, well, let me eat something before we leave…"

Over the course of the last few days, Arlette and the others had put their heads together to come up with various plans to stop Sebastian and his people when they showed up tomorrow—if they showed up.

The three of them had no allies they could safely rely on. Tehlmar was nowhere to be found, and her subordinates were off dealing with their own situations. Really, Leo was probably the only Otharian outside of her subordinates that she felt she could fully trust. He had always worked for the best of the people, and even the notoriously distrustful Blake placed his full trust in the man.

This meant three, maximum, people on her side, against who knew how many people on Sebastian's side. Far more than three, surely. And, Leo was not a combatant.

It was a losing battle any way you looked at it. No matter how hard they tried, they could not think of a single way to win other than the obvious. They would have to use Sofie, their secret weapon. Nobody outside of Blake's most inner circle knew what she could do, and her power was great enough that she could disable everybody no matter how many they brought.

So, in the end, their various "plans" were just different ways to get Sofie close enough to do her thing. "Plan C" was their name for the "show up super early in the cover of night and hide Sofie with an illusion" plan, the most irksome of the different ideas. They would have to leave as soon as possible and walk the twenty leagues between here and Kevir, then hide behind illusion until the appointed time of midday. It would leave them worn out, but the open layout of the location meant getting Sofie close without being seen would be near impossible otherwise, so there seemed to be little choice.

She had not detected anybody watching the area while she'd scoped it out earlier that day. Hopefully that would still be the case, but she had her doubts.

This was a trap, clear as day. She knew it, Sebastian knew she knew it, but they both also knew that she had no choice but to willingly step into the trap regardless.

"I just want to make sure, one last time before we head out… you are alright with your role? After what we discussed before?"

Sofie sighed. "I'm not happy with it, but I understand. I wish that I'd had the chance to test some things out first, but this is what we were talking about, right? Our lack of preparation coming back to haunt us. It's alright. I'll think of something that will take them all out that hopefully won't run a huge risk to kill."

"Good. Just checking. Go eat something quickly. We need to head out soon."

"I'm coming too," Leo insisted for the third time that day.

"I told you already, it's a bad idea. You're not a fighter, and I cannot ensure your safety. I can't even ensure my own safety."

"That's fine. We both know the risks, and I'm alright with what may come."

"But why should I be alright with it?" she countered. "What benefit can you even provide by being there that would make the risk worth it?"

"Insurance. You were saying it would be best to hide her somewhere away from yourself, right? If they somehow find her, what would you be able to do? If she's caught off guard and taken down before being able to do anything, then all our planning goes up in smoke. I know I can't offer much, but I'm big enough that I could at least shield her from a strike or two with my body. That would be enough time to make sure she can act."

"You're saying you'd sacrifice yourself to give her just a few seconds more? That your life is worth so little?" she asked, incredulous.

Leo stepped in close, his eyes flashing with intent behind his spectacles. "Hear my words, Arlette Faredin. I lost more than a decade to imprisonment as the price I paid to help the people of this nation, and I would do it again. I sacrificed every fiber of morality left in me and assisted the rule of a murderous conqueror because I thought it was the only way to prevent the total destruction of the country at his hands. I have sacrificed myself for what I love again and again, and now you think I would falter over something as little as my life when the consequences are so dire?"

His voice grew more passionate with every sentence, until it practically shook with every word he uttered. He reached out and grabbed her by the shirt with both hands and pulled her even closer

"I refuse to stand by and let Otharia fall into the hands of the same people who turned our greatest city into a fucking! Crater! If all it costs to ensure that is my life, then I will pay it a hundred times! They cannot be allowed to win! They cannot!"

The fire in the man's gaze was so hot that Arlette found herself leaning back involuntarily. Then, he seemed to catch himself and released her, the anger fading into awkwardness so fast that it was almost like his outburst had been little more than a figment of her imagination.

"My apologies," he mumbled.

Still, Arlette remained unconvinced. She knew from experience just how easily an untrained person in dangerous situations could make everything worse.

"Look, I get that you're passionate about this, but—"

"Arlette, let him come," Sofie told her through a mouth half-stuffed with food. "I would feel better having somebody to watch my back. Even if it's just him, it would be better than leaving me on my own. Please?"

"Alright, alright, fine, you can come," she relented. "Well, in that case, both of you go get ready. We have a long way to travel before the night is over."

Kevir was not exactly what one might call "impressive", even by village standards. Like many of the smaller hamlets in Otharia, the habitats consisted largely of paltry shacks made of earth and cobbled-together stone, with wood and grass for the roofs. Blake had talked once about how he didn't want the people to have to live in such squalid conditions anymore, and while she knew that he had succeeded in improving the food supplies of villagers such as the ones who should have lived here, it seemed that any efforts of his to likewise improve their living conditions had not yet reached this place.

The only truly livable building was the solid stone church standing near the center of the place, its front doors opening to the town square. It was against this building that Arlette hid, disguised as a slightly damaged wooden barrel. Normally she would have thought such a disguise too out of place, but the town was a bit of a mess. It was clear to her that people had lived here only a few days ago but had left in a hurry, leaving all sorts of things, barrels and crates included, lying all over the area.

Arlette hoped that the villagers had at least left on their own, rather than being forced out by violence. There was always the possibility that they were resistance loyalists, as well, though why they would leave this place so untidy in that case eluded her.

She'd searched the whole area beforehand to find the best hiding place for Sofie and Leo, and the best spot was, without a doubt, a well in the center of the square. It had been mostly filled in some time ago for some reason or another, leaving a circular hole half as deep as a man stood tall. Add in the stone ring atop it, and only the top of Sofie's shoulders and above would be visible to those outside. She and Leo just had to crouch inside the well, and with Arlette's illusioned-on wooden cover blocking the top, nobody would see them. The only way for them to be discovered was for their enemies to get close enough to try to lift the "lid", at which point they were already inside Sofie's range.

Other than that, there were few options. The shacks were too far away for Arlette's comfort, and the church itself stood a great chance of being a trap. She'd checked inside for possible tunnel entrances and found none, but all Sebastian needed was one stone Observer to make her ability to detect anything basically impossible. If Gvido were here, perhaps that would be different, but she wasn't sure she would have been able to bring herself to make him participate in this foolish idea even if she had been able to find him, which she hadn't.

Hours ago, they'd successfully snuck in under the cover of darkness and taken their places. And then, they'd had nothing to do but wait, the pressure mounting with every passing hour. The eerie quiet of the abandoned village didn't help; every sound, from the rustle of the leaves in the wind to the sudden caw of a random bird, sent her heart racing.

But then, when the sun found the peak of the sky, Arlette heard the doors of the church creak. Slowly, they swung open, though from Arlette's vantage point to the side, she could not see who stood within the building.

As soon as the doors ceased swinging, he strode out. The first thing to register in her mind was a strange sort of shock. She'd known for a while now that the man who haunted her memories still drew breath. But, even so, it had still remained hard for her to wrap her mind around. She'd seen the crumpled city door, heavy enough to crush a hundred Feelers, plow straight into him. Any other man would have died in that instant, and yet, somehow, Sebastian Cunningham had survived.

But, as her mind processed what was before her, Arlette realized with no small amount of sadistic joy that the man had not emerged unscathed. Both of his right limbs were gone, replaced by crude mechanical prosthetics. These were nothing like the sophisticated mechanisms that Blake made, but instead looked like simple approximations of each limb's skeleton, with little more than a clamp of sorts for a hand.

She couldn't help but smile to herself just a little. She hadn't broken that massive gate—that had been the Monster making her re-debut—but she'd been the reason he'd been there to take the hit. The folds of the crumpled metal must have given him enough room to tuck himself inside at the last moment, avoiding a deathly blow, but he'd been unable to save that side of himself. With the way he'd disappeared after the door had swept through, he must have been carried along within it, his pulverized right side smeared across the metal like the insides of an insect smeared across the bottom of her boot. It must have been horrible for him. It didn't even things out between them—not even close—but boy, even just thinking about it felt nice.

And yet… the man before her remained Sebastian. That confident stride, that magnetic presence, that sneer, the expression of a man convinced he has everybody around him dancing in the palm of his hand—it was all still there. Even the prosthetics seemed to move as naturally on his body as his originals.

Wait, were those crystals sticking out of those fake limbs?

So, there it was. The proof she'd always known was out there.

Questions flashed through her mind. Who had made these? How had they done it? Why would they cooperate with this terrible man?

But, those questions could be answered later. The more pressing ones crowding those out were things like "If I dash out and strike now, could I kill him?" and "Why shouldn't I just manifest a blade and stab him through the heart with it right now?"

But no, she needed to wait. He was just a bit too far for her to strike on her own and succeed. The man had always been a terrifyingly formidable fighter, and those artificial limbs wouldn't change that enough to matter. As for open heart surgery through illusions turned real, well… that could wait. As much as she wanted to kill Sebastian, she needed to get Blake back too. Once she had him, however, it would be open season. Between her and Sofie, Sebastian would not leave this place alive.

But then, more people exited the church. Most she'd never seen before, but one she very much recognized: Simona Jumala.

Arlette never thought she'd despise somebody as fiercely as she did Sebastian, but her hatred of Simona came shockingly close. Being dropped out of an airship hundreds of paces off the ground would do that. The urge to act only grew, but she forced herself to keep perspective. She was a professional. Professionals didn't lose their heads like that.

Still, Leo had been right. Simona was the traitor, so what little suspicion she'd had of him before had now been proven baseless.

"Looks like she didn't show," Simona said with a snide leer.

"You underestimate our little illusionist," Sebastian replied. His gaze slowly swept across the scene, taking in everything.

Arlette went as still as possible, even holding her breath, as his eyes passed over her and kept going.

"She just loves to play hide and seek." He turned his whole body to face her, his stare directed right where she stood. "Isn't that right, princess?"

An involuntary tremble ran through her as panic surged. He could see her! He could see through her illusion! Panic fueled by memories of her childhood threatened to crumble her courage into dust.

No, the more rational side of her fought back. He was just guessing, or she'd messed up some detail about her illusion that she hadn't realized. Or, he'd memorized the layout of every item here! Yes, that was exactly the sort of thing that Sebastian would do. Stupid! She should have realized that she wouldn't be able to blend in this way.

Well, it didn't matter now, did it? So what if he'd spotted her? She had to reveal herself anyway, and with Sofie present, they'd already lost just by showing up.

Arlette let the fake barrel around her fade and stood up, hand on the hilt of her sword.

"Well, look who it is," Simona snickered. "The world's worst Minister of Security. How does it feel to fail so utterly, you Elseling trash? Thousands and thousands dead, and you couldn't do a thing to stop it!"

"Thousands of your own people, you traitorous slime!" Arlette shot back. "Only a worthless wretch like you would revel in the deaths of your own people!"

"Fool! Those people were weak, coddling up to their Elseling master! Now, the weakness has been cut out, and Otharia is stronger for it!"

"Now, now, let's not get too distracted, shall we?" Sebastian chuckled. "I'm a busy man, with places to be!"

"You called me here, bastard!" Arlette growled. "I'm here, so where is he? Where is Lord Ferros?"

Sebastian reached back and took something handed to him from somebody in the back of the group, who Arlette hadn't seen due to being hidden by the other's bodies. Then, he casually tossed the item towards her, causing her to reflexively hop back. The object landed on the barren, packed dirt ground with a 'clank!' and Arlette could only stare at it while settled there, unmoving, as much of her hope for the near future died.

It was a hand. A metal hand, delicately crafted to resemble a human one in every way imaginable. Articulated fingers, fully working joints… even the tops of the fingers were shaped to have false fingernails. Arlette had seen this hand many a time, except it had always been a part of a larger piece, a full arm that hung from a real human body. Blake's body.

Now, the hand cut off at the wrist, the metal there twisted and broken. It bode poorly, but still…

"This isn't Lord Ferros," she shot back. "You could have just picked this up separately. This proves nothing."

"Sadly, there's little else left of his to show you," he replied with a vicious grin, receiving and holding up a large glass jar filled with a gray powder that Arlette immediately knew to be ashes. "We said that we'd give him back, but we never said he would be alive. This is all that remains."

He turned the jar upside down, letting the ashes pour out and be scattered by the wind.

"Bullshit! Why should I trust your word for any of this?" she demanded.

His smile only grew, which chilled her to the bone.

"You don't have to. Come out, child."

Child? No…

Fearful and skittish, like a newborn jaglioth cub emerging from its mother's cave for the first time and intimidated by its first glimpse of the vast outside world, Samanta peeked out from around the doorway.

Arlette's mental calculus fell apart and she had to reevaluate her hopes. Blake was very protective of Sam—though he would never admit it—and the two of them spent a lot of time around each other. If they had her, then…

At least she seemed unharmed…

"Sam, is he…"

Sam nodded solemnly. "He's gone."

What sounded like a short gasp coming from within the well caught Arlette's ears, and she had to fight to keep it from showing on her face. What was Sofie doing? She knew better than to make noise like that!

No, it didn't matter anymore. If Blake was gone, then they had no more reason to delay. They had not planned on Samanta being present, but it couldn't be helped. The best time for Sofie to act was now.

"Sofie, now!" she hollered.

Nothing happened.

"…Sofie!"

"Something the matter, princess?"

Two figures rose inside the former well, and Arlette's mind came to a screeching halt. Leo stood behind Sofie, one arm holding her in place, the other clutching what Arlette recognized as a one-handed gun—a "pistol", her memory told her. The weapon, like Sebastian's prosthetics, appeared very rudimentary, with a blocky design and two small crystals embedded in the sides, but it didn't need to look sophisticated to be deadly. All it needed was Leo's finger on the trigger, which it had, and the barrel stuck against the side of Sofie's head, which it was.

Sofie, for her part, stood stiff and still, her wide, tear-filled eyes telling a story of betrayal and terror. Something metal looked to be wrapped around her neck, and it took Arlette a second to realize it was the collar that Blake had made to prevent Sofie from using her abilities.

Arlette's couldn't understand. How had Leo gotten those items? Before heading to Breah, they'd left that damned collar at the fortress—the fortress that had been blown to smithereens. The only reason he would have to possess that thing would have been for him to purposely take it before the disaster, but there would have been no reason for anybody to do that unless… unless they already knew.

There had been two traitors.

Simona laughed. "Leo! I had no idea you were also a patriot! You hid it so well!"

"Shut that filthy hole of yours, Simona! I'm nothing like you!" the second traitor snarled, his gun hand trembling.

He glanced at Arlette, and she saw him slightly wince from the guilt of his dastardly deed. "I'm sorry, Arlette. I didn't want it to be like this, but I don't have a choice.

He turned his gaze to Sebastian, who remained where he was, an amused grin on his face. "I've done everything you asked! I fulfilled my end of the bargain! Now, let her go!"

Sebastian laughed. "Let who go? I am not holding captive anybody you might know."

"Don't fuck with me! I know you have her!"

"Are you sure?"

"What?"

"Come now, Leo," a feminine voice said from within the church. "You should be smart enough to put this together without too much help."

A thin, almost gaunt woman emerged from the church, her purple-red hair blowing in the breeze. She gazed out upon Leo with no small amount of disdain, contempt practically dripping from every word and action.

"E-Erta? Y-You're—"

"What does it look like, you foolish man? I've been a part of this organization for years, even before that beast released you from your well-deserved imprisonment. Did you truly think me their hostage?"

"B-But, why?! I searched for you! I looked far and wide for years!"

"And if I had ever wanted to see you again, you would have found me. But I didn't, and I still don't."

Erta turned her head and spat on the ground. "Now, look at you. Betraying the people who put their trust in you to further your own selfish goals and letting them take the consequences, just like last time. You haven't changed a bit, Leo."

She turned to Samanta and took the girl's hand.

"Come, my dear. There is no need for you to witness what will happen next."

Together, the woman and the girl walked back into the church, the last glimpse of them Arlette saw being Sam's conflicted frown as the girl glanced her way one last time before disappearing through the doorway.

"Damn you, you bast—!"

Leo took the barrel of his gun from Sofie's temple, turning it to point towards Sebastian and the crowd. But, before he could even squeeze the trigger, the large man had already leapt into action. His flesh arm blurred forward, whip-like, and before Leo could even react, the heavy glass jar, now empty of Blake's ashes, crashed into his face. The minister fell, toppling over Sofie, who let out a surprised "eep!" as his unconscious body dragged her down past the edge of the well.

And then, only Arlette remained.

Sebastian chuckled again. "She was right. Truly a blind sucker if there ever was one. And you, dear princess, are no better."

Arlette heard the sound of rustling behind her, and she turned to find herself surrounded. Twenty people, some with blades drawn, others with bows pointed at her heart, stared back.

"Our reckoning awaits, princess. It's been a long time coming."

A litany of curses ran through her mind. There were just too many enemies for her to handle on her own, even with her new technique, not to mention Sebastian. Even if she somehow got him with a surprise attack, she wouldn't be able to fend off the rest and also keep Sofie safe. Her heart burning with impotent rage—towards Sebastian, the resistance, towards Leo, but mostly towards herself for once again being such an idiot—she grit her teeth, raised her arms, and surrendered.

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