I'm awfully sorry I haven't updated this story in so long. I'm currently enthralled by my other story "Redemption," which I compel you to read. I can't help thinking of that one more, even though I started this story first.

By the way, I hope the format of this chapter doesn't annoy you too much. I was too lazy to figure out an easier way to portray the mayhem of having only one speaking-stone between Niko and Tris. I mean, just imagine that.

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Daja was completely annoyed, but Dedicate Skyfire had insisted that Trevin be removed temporarily from her services. She hadn't even known the boy to be the nephew of the famous ex-General, which just might have tempered her discontent slightly, except for the fact that Daja would have to periodically heat, oil, and shift the wire herself while simultaneously etching her magical runes.

Which was all minorly infuriating compared to Moonstream's acquisition of Frostpine.

"They can't take you right now!" Daja complained, forgetting that she was almost sixteen years old. "Lark and Sandry sent in an order for more copper and iron- seven bundles each! I'm not doing it all by myself," she warned him.

The young Fire-dedicate sent to fetch Frostpine, despite being heavily armored and fitted with a Sandry-made robe, blanched slightly as Daja shook a warning finger at him. Frostpine merely laughed.

"Erm," the Fire-dedicate said.

Daja glared at him. "Ok," she said, sighing. "I can see why they want Frostpine. But can't I at least have my slave boy?" Trevin stuck his tongue out at Daja from the doorway where he was leaning, and she sneered cheerfully at him.

"Slave boy," Frostpine said, "can flame an enemy out of a saddle while standing blindfolded fifty lengths away. It's no wonder Skyfire wants him around- just in case."

"You don't have to remind me," Daja said lightly, hands on her hips. "I know he's that good." Trevin turned as red as a hot iron. "Fine, fine," she said, flapping her hand at the two males in a gesture quite reminiscent of Sandry.

"Now that we have your approval," the Fire-dedicate murmured.

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"Now?!" Briar exclaimed. "Rosethorn, give a guy some time to get ready!" Rose geranium paste was smeared over his hands, and he was clutching a piece of clean muslin filled with the goo while clear oil dripped from the cloth into a bowl.

"Honestly, Rosie," Lark said almost incoherently, a piece of wire stuck in the corner of her mouth. "You chould have told him before he started straining oil."

Rosethorn glared a little, but she knew Lark was right. "Fine. But I'm telling you now. We're going to the East Gate. You too, Lark." A muffled sigh came from the direction of the older Dedicate.

Abandoning the paste, Briar dipped his hands in a bucket of water, scrubbing at the oil with a bar of lemon-scented soap. "Why?"

"We're going to plant some weeds. Now get your robe from Sandry and – boy, put on some shoes."

"T's summer, don't need no shoes," he mumbled, obeying.

Lark was murmuring in Sandry's ear, a warm hand on her shoulder. Whatever was being said, Sandry smiled wanly and agreed before rummaging through the piles of undyed wire-ridden cloth.

Sandry emerged from behind a particularly tall stack of folded robes. "Here," she said, holding out two robes that gleamed so fiercely with magic that Briar had to shield his eyes with his hands. "We made these ones special for you two."

"Cripes, Sandry, what did you do, dip them in oil?"

Sandry and Lark looked at each other. "Not exactly." Upon closer inspection, Briar realized the cloth practically bristled with strands of wire, almost to the point of stiffness. "Maybe we were a bit ... biased," Lark said ruefully. "I know there are some who wouldn't appreciate unfavorable comparisons between their robes and – these."

Briar watched as Sandry laid one hand gingerly on the hem of his robe, extending the web of her magic through the cloth. The pattern almost flickered, and suddenly most of the wires seemingly disappeared.

"Camouflage," she told them, as she did Rosethorn's.

The robes, now quite ordinary, fit them perfectly. Sandry handed one more to Rosethorn, folded neatly and shining just as strongly. "For Dedicate Crane," Lark reminded her.

"Yes," Rosethorn replied tersely, and even Princess Sandry, who had worked hard to keep a straight face, had to hide a smile behind a discreet hand.

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Tris sighed gustily, before realizing that doing so would cause a gale strong enough to knock down a tree. Luckily, the grassland she was currently canvassing for villains didn't support anything taller than a bush.

The past three days had been mind-numbingly boring, thought Tris, deliberately keeping her thoughts from spreading to mindspeech. She knew that Daja was exhausted from working her wire night and day, and that Briar and Sandry were now furiously grinding protective oils in the kitchen.

Midsummer had come and passed, with wistful conversations with her three friends in Discipline. When she had a moment to clear her eyes of endless, empty landscapes, she checked in with the Circle only to find them doing boring, albeit important, work.

Just like her.

If Tris wanted to be amused, she knew she wouldn't find it in a metal-mad mage girl making wire, or in a thread-mad but wire-inclined stitch witch.

Briar, on the other hand, had free moments to chat more than the other two. However, his thoughts were too laced with images of Sandry to be of interest to Tris- at least at the moment. Tris might have given almost anything to be at Discipline to tease the obviously infatuated boy.

"Niko?" she called hopefully.

A sharp reply from the man quelled her optimism. "Stop asking. Working from a moving cart would be even worse than our delay, Trisana."

Wagons, even spelled ones that would remain splinter-free and relatively level, were enough to test Niko's temper. "All right," she said, dejected, and sent her winds out for one more spin in the Easterly direction.

Borrowing knowledge her friends had given her, she swept the plains for signs of human enemies. Passing over a village, Tris could smell worked iron and stitched cloth, as well as the ordered pattern of cultivated plants.

Niko had been right to camp, she thought. There were enemies who would crush a village without a second thought just to destroy her famous teacher. Even though most villages Tris had visited were definitely not perfectly peaceful havens, they were preferable to the images of war-instruments Daja had drawn in her mind.

Until she came to her first burned-out site, far South and East from where Tris was standing.

Metal was bad enough when it was manipulated into long, sharp swords and armor-piercing arrows. But the effects of these weapons were far worse than Tris had expected. She steeled herself for the stench of dead, decaying bodies.

Except this village had been empty when it was attacked. Evacuated to the nearest Temple. Which could only mean ... Tris hastily checked the position of her winds and felt a cold sweat begin to bead on her forehead.

"Niko?" Tris called, nearly choking on the smoke she was certain she could still smell. "Niko!"

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Moonstream had barely snatched the seeing-stone from the pocket of her robes before she started speaking rapidly. "Niko? Niko, are you there?"

The tinny voice babbled on. "They've already evacuated what we think is Haypost and Barstone. If some kind of force has already hit the empty villages-

A second voice emerged, provoking a startled protest from Niko. "They burned hours ago. I can only assume they are heading toward Winding Circle as scouts."

"Assuming is not good enough, Tris." Niko, apparently, had wrenched the stone back from his student's hand. "Moonstream, are you there?"

Tris was shouting to be heard over the stone. "Niko, I don't assume. After I found the villages, I checked the surrounding areas and found a small disturbance. A shield designed to cover, say, a group of seven to nine people on horseback. Which means a scouting crew."

"If they were scouting, why did they burn the village?"

"Poor planning, sheer hostility- Niko, how am I supposed to know?"

Ignoring the intellectual bickering, Moonstream leaped over her chair and out the door of the Hub. To the amazement of the young novices and refugees setting up tents in the courtyard, she sprinted toward the East Gate, snagging several heavily armed Dedicates on the way.

Niko now had hold of the stone. Shifting the stone to her right hand without missing a step, Moonstream heard Niko's warning: "Tris has detected a small scout force nearing the East Gate of Winding Circle. They're surrounded by an invisibility spell, and not much else, which either means the approaching mages are weak or holding back."

"No shielding spells up yet," Tris supplied. "Though they'll certainly use them later."

"How concealed are the preparations we discussed?" Niko asked anxiously. "I don't want us to show these patrols more than we need."

Moonstream's hand was on the Gate, and the guards posted outside the metal fixtures didn't hesitate to open the locks. One of them tossed her a heavily spelled robe, which she put on hastily. "Not concealed at all. Niko, they just went out the East Gate." She didn't bother hiding the panic in her voice.

Niko's answer was bleak. "Gods bless us."

"Who? Who is out there?" Tris yelled.

"Skyfire, Rosethorn, Lark, Crane, that Briar Moss, Skyfire's nephew, and some odd Fire warriors."

Tris moaned in the background as Niko began to mutter arrangements to Moonstream.