“What do you mean he escaped?” High Priest Vershik asked in a low tone.

  The other priests exchanged nervous glances.

  “He had a relic that let him scale the west wall, Your Grace,” Tanelis, Vershik’s second, offered up.

  “You didn’t follow him over?”

  “We had to remove the ladder, Your Grace, before the guard’s most recent inspection.”

  Vershik scowled. Ganis did too many damn inspections.

  Before he’d taken over the guard, they’d used that spot extensively, convenient as it was right in the temple district.

  But with him in charge, they’d had to stow the ladder elsewhere so it wasn’t discovered in one of his increasingly thorough and frequent inspections.

  The guard captain was onerous enough already. Were he to find out they were using it to dodge taxes, he would become intolerable. Not to mention inform the council. Vershik might lose his position on it were it found out. At the very least he’d have to pay extraordinary fees, which would greatly eat into the ministry’s coffers.

  “A Defender,” Vershik scoffed, “and he evaded a group of Champions.”

  “Not before we placed a brand on him, Your Grace.”

  “Yes,” Vershik said sourly, “a brand which has yet to yield any results.”

  “It will surely be located soon.”

  “It should have already been located. A Defender has no aptitude for interfering with it.”

  “Which is why I suggested he was not in fact a Defender,” Tanelis said.

  “You think he hid his renown from the goddess’s eyes?”

  Tanelis quickly went to his knees, head bowed. “I would never doubt the goddess, Your Grace. But Joy shone her gaze, not in search of enemies, but in repair of allies. And it was focused through you.”

  Vershik was about to snarl an indignant response, but Tanelis pushed on.

  “You were affected by the delirium, however briefly, which could have clouded your sight. You, after all, thought he was a drakken. ‘Even Myths fall to the arnaphen’.”

  Vershik ground his teeth together, breathing out heavily through his nose.

  His priest was correct. He couldn’t be certain of his memories. He’d swallowed a large amount of concentrated arnaphen poison.

  As Tanelis said, everyone knew not even a Myth was safe from the arnaphen.

  And he was no Myth, but a mere Sovereign Champion.

  Just yesterday Basorik—a Hero—had been affected with their gas alone, and was still recovering.

  For all the empowerments his goddess had granted him, invulnerability was not one of them.

  Not yet, in any case.

  That he’d survived at all was a testament to his goddess’s grace. In his pain from the burning godsblood, he’d bit down and shattered the vial containing the poison and swallowed much of it. Mere glass wasn’t enough to create any wounds in his mouth, but the amount he’d swallowed before spitting it out had still rendered him incoherent.

  The deadly bit had been the wound on his neck. Arnaphen barbs not only penetrated any flesh, but wounds made by them circumvented any healing trait and renown enhancement. Without Joy’s grace, even as a Sovereign Champion, he would have bled out.

  And if the poison had actually entered his blood…

  But it hadn’t. He had survived. Now he would get his revenge for the power stolen from him.

  He shivered as the memory of what he’d seen in the Ritual of Return flashed in his mind. Ascendent Maris’s screams replayed as though he was hearing them anew, but he pushed them away.

  It was not his place to question Joy’s methods.

  He’d been gifted the ability to see within that beam when he’d become high priest and been granted the Scepter of Joy, but now wished he hadn’t. It meant he saw Maris’s shock when she ascended. Saw what was done to her afterward. The other priests saw only a beam of blinding brilliance and heard nothing, while Vershik saw Maris’s withered form and heard her agonized screams.

  “What of the barb he left behind? Do we know if he crafted it himself?” Vershik asked. It was thought arnaphen parts were uncraftable. If they could get their hands on whoever’d created it, it was almost be worth the loss. Almost. “And stand up. I’m not fond of speaking to the back of people’s heads.”

  Tanelis stood and nodded. “It wasn’t crafted, Your Grace.”

  Vershik’s eyebrow raised.

  It had been one of the man’s familiars which had wielded it, but still, that shouldn’t be possible. “A familiar which can use uncrafted monster parts, veil itself, and take on a human’s form? Rather flexible familiar for a Defender.”

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  Tanelis only nodded.

  Vershik sighed. “Do we know how he obtained arnaphen poison and one of their barbs?”

  “The guards have the remains of the two that breeched the city yesterday locked away.” He looked to one of the priests behind him.

  “Garalis,” he snapped when the priest just stared at him.

  “Oh, yes, sorry. I checked with the guard and confirmed for myself both corpses are present. Most of them, anyway. Basorik’s relics don’t leave much in the way of remains. Hard to say if any parts are missing.”

  “And?”

  “Uh, yes, no one seems to know how or why the arnaphen ventured all the way here. And the guards at the gate who sounded the alarm have yet to recover.”

  Tanelis returned his gaze to Vershik, dismissing Garalis.

  Vershik considered. If the arnaphen corpses were locked away, no one but the guard or mayor would have access. And as frustratingly obstinate as Ganis was, he wouldn’t try to kill Vershik or interrupt the ritual. He simply didn’t care enough.

  As for the mayor, she was an adherent of Joy herself, and in some ways benefitted more from the current arrangement than even Vershik himself did.

  Which meant the heretic collected the barb and some poison during or after the attack. Or perhaps he’d led them into the city himself.

  Though why he would have done that, Vershik couldn’t imagine. Arnaphen were dangerous, but not known for their speed. It would take a purposeful effort to lead them all the way here from the Fen.

  But how had he obtained the poison? The arnaphen poison became gaseous when expelled, and neither condensing it nor extracting it directly was a simple matter.

  Though perhaps it was for those living on Fairwind. The trolls had managed to construct a ship capable of crossing the Sea of Fear; who knew what other unknown technology they possessed.

  Not for the first time, Vershik wished his suggestion to execute their envoy had been heeded. But no, instead the council had released them and begun trade with them in return for examining their ship, which had told them practically nothing. And now look where it had gotten them. One of their Heroes disabled, and, more importantly, Vershik’s own advancement to Hero thwarted.

  The question was, was it the TTC itself, or simply a rogue godsworn from Fairwind?

  “Do we have any idea who he is?” Vershik asked, finally.

  “All we know is that he is a shade, Your Grace. Even without the brand, he shouldn’t be difficult to identify. We have the trolls’ records of all those who came over on their Divide Crosser.” He inclined his head at the woman next to him. “Onalis has a memory of him.”

  Vershik nodded. Onalis had a relic which allowed her to share the things she’d seen with others.

  It was a rather uncommon type of relic, not much use in battle except for brief distraction, but it had proven useful on many an occasion in affairs such as these.

  “Show me.” Vershik hadn’t directly seen his attacker, only the familiars which had taken on the form of Vershik himself.

  But thankfully his priests had caught up with the would-be assassin long enough for Onalis to get a good view of him.

  Onalis activated her relic, and a vision appeared in front of Vershik.

  The shade bows. “What a fortuitous encounter. My apologies, you’ve called on me at an inopportune moment and I must be going. May Rage fill you and find you wanting.”

  A red cloud appears around him, obscuring him as he launches upward. Senik reacts quickly and launches a brand at him.

  As it impacts and merges with him, he falls forward into the Blighted Wilds.

  Vershik frowned as the vision ended.

  That saying, it was a litany.

  Their records of gods outside of Fayteraus were limited, but he knew the litanies of all the Exalted—well, save for one—and this one was Rage’s.

  Was he on a quest from his god?

  “Good. Show this to the guards and have them keep a lookout. Then take a patrol to Arkalis. If the godseye doesn’t point us in a direction soon, I want to make sure he doesn’t board the troll’s ship to Fairwind.” If he did, they would follow him, but it would be much simpler to capture him on Fayteraus. Joy had no temples on Fairwind, and while her priests would retain their powers, she’d not be able to render them any aid.

  Aid which had very recently saved Vershik’s life.

  Tanelis bowed.

  As they left, Vershik rubbed absently at his healed neck.

  The heretic had failed to assassinate him, but had succeeded in preventing Vershik from advancing to Hero.

  He’d been so close. This would set him back years. Maris had been the only Ascendent on the entire continent. He’d still gain power at the next Ritual of Return, but it was nothing compared to what he would have gained had this ritual not been interrupted.

  Whoever this shade was, they would find him, and Vershik would take great pleasure in making him pay for his sins.

  As Ashinaro ran as fast as he could toward Arkalis, he took the opportunity to finally practice his breathwork.

  But by the time he reached the old road to Arkalis after what would have been a few thousand regular breaths, he had to stop. It wasn’t slowing him down, but it was tiring him out.

  The road must have once been a major thoroughfare; now it was mere suggestion.

  To his left, it stretched back in the direction of Argalis, while a few hundred paces right it led into the Withered Vale. It would let out onto the Vaskar Plains, eventually leading to the Crossroads, and then, finally, Arkalis.

  He looked up at the two statues flanking the path just before it entered the vale, cracked and weathered, their features lost to time.

  One thing was clear, they weren’t drakken.

  People said they were the fay, the original race of this continent who’d long ago vanished, leaving behind only their constructions. Like these statues. Like Unar’s Tower. Like the Boneyard itself.

  And perhaps like the journal Ashinaro had in his pack. Which, unlike his cores and coin, was thankfully one thing he hadn’t left behind.

  Few traveled this way anymore, and though that had changed recently with the arrival of the outsiders from Fairwind, he doubted it would ever be restored to its former grandeur.

  For the hundredth time, he scanned the way he’d come, looking for any sign of pursuit.

  But it didn’t appear he’d been followed. Nor were there any monsters about.

  So long as he stayed on the road, he should be safe from any he came across. There was no damage to the road here like there’d been in the Festering Fen.

  He traveled for several thousand breaths, constantly on the lookout.

  Darkness fell quickly under the dense canopy and still no priests appeared to pursue him.

  Another thousand breaths and he exited out of the jungle and into the Vaskar Plains. It looked a lot like the Boneyard, but with fossilized plants in place of bones. Rolling hillocks sprawled before him, obscuring his view of the distance, and he was careful not to stray from the road. Monsters far too dangerous for him to face lurked in those canyons.

  Eventually, the Crossroads came into view. It was the exact halfway point between the gates of Argalis, and the gates of Arkalis. It wasn’t the halfway point for him, since he’d gone the long way around.

  The Crossroads led east to Vesalis, west to Omen Lake and the Burnished Range beyond, and straight ahead to Arkalis.

  A copse of trees, green and verdant, surrounded the Crossroads. It was a large area, a place to set up camp. Water from an underground stream filled an oasis at the Crossroads’ center.

  Ashinaro didn’t have time to rest.

  He exited the Crossroads through an ancient archway. The structure was still intact, two pillars of weathered stone supporting a massive lintel.

  Something he’d never noticed before—though he’d rarely been this way—was writing carved into it. Writing like that in Unar’s journal.

  He pulled out the journal, comparing the symbols to those written within. He found several matching clusters, but none which were exact matches.

  He again wondered what the point of retrieving it was. And the mask. And Zanas himself. Who was still yet to wake.

  Stowing away the journal, he continued on toward Arkalis.