Chapter 10 – Voices of the Gods


Beta'd by A.O. Talmidge


ithurtssoMuchpain


Leo had come into this meeting expecting talk of trade, or maybe an ill-founded plea for peace between the nations. But what the archduke was spouting was…

"Ridiculous."

Leo found himself nodding at Takumi's statement. "Yes. If this is your idea of a jest, archduke-"

"Just Izana, please. I've already said so."

"…Izana," Leo sucked in a stabilizing breath, "then it is in poor taste."

The Hoshidan prince crossed his arms. "Much as I loath to admit it, I… agree with Prince Leo. The whole thing sounds like a fairy tale designed to scare young children. 'Play nicely or the Silent dragon will break out of its seal to eat you,' or some other such nonsense."

Izana raised an eyebrow, and one of the corners of his mouth was quirked up. Had he found that amusing? "The truth is often more simple than any of us like to imagine. Even fairy tales have a disturbing amount of truth to them, you know."

The blue-haired Hoshidan retainer – Niles had said her name was Oboro – leaned in. "Even so, we need more proof than just your word, or even the 'word of the gods' as you put it, to go by."

Izana gestured with his hand in an exasperated manner. "Then search. Waste your time looking for evidence, even though what I've given you is the truth. But while you flit about searching for your precious proof, the Silent Dragon rages against its slipping seal. Take too long and it will be too little, too late for the world. If any history remains afterword, they will blame the royals who refused to get off their butts to act before it was too late."

Leo gritted his teeth. "Ignoring the fact that you are blatantly insulting us, Izana, you realize are asking us to unite with our sworn enemies and mobilize to war for a threat no one has ever heard of."

"Oh, I wouldn't say that no one has ever heard of it." Izana cocked his head to the side. "Or, are you calling me a nobody?"

Leo furrowed his brow. "What? No, that's not what I-"

Izana held up a placating hand. "That one was a joke, Prince Leo."

Leo pressed his lips into a thin line, and his eye twitched involuntarily. "Fine, but if this Silent Dragon is as big a threat as you say, then why have you not been actively working to prevent its release or destroy it? Why haven't we heard anything of it?"

"Because," Izana answered quickly, "I was only recently informed of the danger, and almost immediately sent for you all soon after."

The brown-haired retainer, Hinata, spoke up. "But why us? I mean, why not the King and Queen of our kingdoms? Wouldn't they be able to handle something like this better than we could?"

"I think all of you are aware that neither would have risked coming here, especially not together. No, out of all the royals in both Hoshido and Nohr, I believe you and your retainers are the best equipped to deal with this threat. To unite your nations against it. Even so, there are others who are aware of this menace."

"And who would that be?" Takumi asked.

"Unfortunately, the gods were stingy on the details-"

Leo heard Niles scoff and silently agreed. It seemed too convenient.

"- however," Izana pressed on, "I believe they meant for both of you to ask the leaders of your respective nations. They will likely know something of this."

Leo saw Takumi frown, confused. "If you only found out about this from the gods directly telling you, what makes you think they would know?"

"Call it a," he spun a hand around in the air, as if searching for the right word, "hunch."

More like he was pulling things out of thin air.

"However, regardless of what you think, the gods were adamant that Hoshido and Nohr stand no chance against the might of a mad dragon unless you unite your efforts." The archduke turned towards the Nohrian side of the room. "You would know all about the need for unity in fighting a threat like this, having already fought something similar in your home…land outside of Nohr, correct, Odin?"

Everyone turned their attention towards his dark mage retainer, who, now that Leo thought about it, had been oddly silent during this whole affair. He would have figured talk of mythical figures, fake or otherwise, would have him excited. He didn't seem as surprised at the sudden attention as Leo would have thought.

Odin shifted on his seat, before nodding carefully. "Well, uh, yes. It's true. But, how do you know that?"

Niles spoke up. Oddly, his expression looked thoughtful, not the scowl Leo would have expected. "I'd wager it's the same source for everything else: the 'gods,' right?"

Izana smiled. "You catch on quick. As all of you are acutely aware, I was recently in communication with the gods."

"During your divining ritual, you mean?" Takumi asked.

The one that had lasted nearly four days. How could they forget about that?

Izana shrugged. "Call it what you whatever you want. First, it was with one I had never spoken with before. Normally the gods are quite cryptic, but to my surprise, she was very talkative. We chatted about lots of things. I would go into more detail, but time is short. However, she was very insistent that I stress at least this one thing. A warning."

Leo noticed that the archduke glanced at Odin again. Something to do with this threat Odin had faced?

"She asked me to warn you that her sworn enemy, whom she thought destroyed, had recently arrived in this land by means unknown to her. She called them the Fell Dragon, Grima."


everYthingfeelswroNgsowrong


Everything was going smoothly.

Nina had expected a heist into a castle in the capital of a nation to be much rougher than this. Yes, she had prepared extensively for months: scouting infiltration routes without drawing suspicion, securing guard patrol routes and how they changed, deciding the best day to do it and getting the right people in the right place.

She had the help of very capable individuals, even if not everyone understood why she wanted to go through with this heist.

She sighed. Kaden was obviously shaken up about something. After this was done, she should ask what was on his mind. But the rest of them were fine enough. Anxious, though not without good reason.

Regardless, everyone was in place. No one had spotted them or seemed any bit the wiser that they were about to have something stolen from under their noses.

Everything was going smoothly, and that's exactly why she felt so uneasy.

That was the problem with thieving. You couldn't really tell if you were succeeding or not until you were far, far away from the scene, behind bars or dead. Right now, it felt like she was practically prancing around the castle while no one noticed. That might be a good thing, but it might not be. Sure, at this point, there was no point in looking back, but even so, something in the air was putting her on edge

The sound of approaching footsteps put pulled her out of her thoughts. She breathed in. She didn't want this to go wrong, so for now, she needed to focus.

She breathed out, shoving down Nina, the shy, strange girl who enjoyed reading and…people watching, and replaced her once again with the confident young woman leading a band of noble thieves.

A beefy, well-built helmeted guard stopped just in sight of her hiding spot. He sneezed, and almost imperceptively rapped the butt of his spear on the floor three times, before moving onwards toward the archduke's study.

She smirked. Right on time.

She waited a moment, then slipped out from behind the cracked open door, and slinked to the end of the hallway, loosely following the path of the guard. At the corner, she crouched down and carefully peered out.

The guard that had passed by her was chatting amicably with the two at the door. Laughter echoed in the corridor at some joke she couldn't hear, before one of the guards at the door left and was replaced by the one that had just passed her by. All the looks of a simple shift change.

She leaned back in, and started counting her heartbeats. One-hundred and twenty later, she stood and stepped out around the corridor into plain sight.

"Who's there? This area is off limits."

She kept walking silently forward, unperturbed by his words. Understandably, the guard leveled his spear at her, moving forward. Intimidation, nothing else. He didn't want to kill her just as much as she didn't want to kill him. She kept walking.

"Stand down, girl. Move any closer and I will be forced to-"

He was completely unprepared when the other door guard wrapped his arm around his neck, wrestling him to the floor in a chokehold. Eight heartbeats later and she was standing over him, just as his eyes rolled into head.

The other door guard let go of the chokehold a few moments later, rolling the unconscious guard off of him, before standing. He unbuckled the strap on his helmet and raised it over his head, revealing Bree's face. He shook his head, sighing.

"Stinkin' helmet. You know, one of these days, we're gonna find a guard who's better at his job than your average bucket-head, and they won't go down this easy." He nodded to the unconscious guard.

"That would be the day we get creative." Nina crouched down, extracting some thin fiber cord from one of her hip pouches and quickly tied the guard's hands and feet together behind his back.

Bree let out a grunt, which she interpreted as a laugh. He stuffed a cloth in the guard's mouth, holding it in place as she tied more of the cord around his mouth. "I'd hate to see the poor sods on the wrong end of your creative side."

"Stuff it, you." She paused a moment before she yanked at the leather cord with a key looped through it at the guard's waist. No point lock-picking if you didn't need to. She gestured vaguely away from the study door. "Go and hide him away already."

"You got it, boss." Bree let off a mock salute, before he dragged the unconscious guard and his spear – no, wait, that was a naginata – to stuff in a nearby room.

She lifted the relatively simple key towards the lock in the door and fiddled with it a moment, before it turned with a satisfying click. She gently swung the door open, and stepped through the doorway.

The hairs on the back of her neck tingled as she entered.


avoicewhyisthereAnothervoice


What.

Odin's heart lurched in his chest, and he could hear its thumping loudly in his ears. He tried to keep from reacting too blatantly, but his right hand clenched into a fist regardless.

Izana continued speaking, but Odin had stopped listening. He was dimly aware of the others in the room asking questions, raising doubts. The two bands started arguing over something, while Izana placated them.

Grima, here? Alive?

How?

That shouldn't be possible. No, it was impossible. Grima was dead. Deader than dead. Destroyed, no, erased from existence by Robin's own hand. Naga had assured them that that was the last they would ever see of its fell lineage.

But now Naga, or at least, he felt it had to be her, was saying that fiend was back?

Was everything that the Shepherds had worked towards, including Robin's sacrifice, meaningless? Even crossing time itself would not rid the worlds of that menace?

Odin grimaced. He didn't want to believe it, but if it was true, then why here, why now? He forced himself to focus back on what Izana was saying.

"…her sight into this land was, honestly, rather limited. All she could tell me for sure was that the Grima was working through an avatar. You know, mind of a mad dragon, body of a human? Whoever they are, they would be branded with this symbol."

Izana raised his hand and with two fingers glowing with magic, pressed together like a brush, he dragged them through the air as if painting onto a canvas. Though Odin was momentarily distracted by the unfamiliar magic – what would he call that if he could utilize it somehow? – it quickly became clear what the archduke was creating.

He dotted the six eyes, connected in sets of three by intertwining lines at its base. The symbol hung in the air and pulsed ominously with violet light when it was complete. It faded soon after.

The very symbol which lay on Robin's right hand, eyes depicted on his cloak's sleeves. Symbol of the cult of the Grimleal.

The brand of the Fell Dragon, Grima.

The very air around him seemed to shake from the force of a colossal roar as Owain ran. The capital of Ylisse burned around him, air thick with the haze of smoke and debris as he cut through another Risen, allowing Inigo and Severa to dart through the momentary opening. He chanced look back and was met with the sight of six glowing, crimson eyes. They bored into him from high above in the air, chased him, even as he ran away from the crumbling city.

His sword hand twitched.

"So you expect us to deal with this as well?" Takumi scoffed. "Why should we care?"

Izana turned toward Takumi. "I suppose I can't really make you do anything, Prince Takumi. You have to make that choice, not me." He turned to address the group as a whole again. "These two things aren't unconnected. It would horrible if it is true, but she speculated that Grima and the Silent Dragon could be working together. Be wary of anyone bearing that brand."

Both of them working together? He shuddered. That would be a nightmare, considering just how much it took to overcome just one mad dragon. There wasn't any sign of a Falchion or something similar in this world, at least none that he could find.

But, if Grima was back working through an avatar, did that mean Robin was here?

Something clicked in his mind.

The map. The attack in the library. The messy, familiar, scrawl.

Robin was here. In Izumo.

Or, Grima is.

The door to the small room slid open and one of the guards poked his head in. "Archduke?"

Izana nodded and waved for the guard to enter. The guard crouched down next to Izana and whispered something Odin couldn't hear.

"Already? They are quite eager aren't they?" The archduke stood, and turned towards the assembled royals and retainers. "Well, fun as it's been talking to all of you, duty calls."

He stood, heading towards the door, though he paused before exiting. "Remember: unite against these threats or the world as we know it will end. Food is a great way of bonding, so why don't you start with the feast?"


makeitstopMakeitstopmakEitstop


Nina had seen her fair share of noble bedrooms, studies and fancy hidey holes. More than anyone she knew. Interestingly, you could tell a lot about someone based on how they kept their room, and after enough heists, she started making a game out of guessing what the state of their rooms would be before she entered them.

This, was…not at all what she had expected.

"Well, this is a bleedin' mess, innit?"

She nodded silently in agreement, as Bree stepped inside the circular room, walking past, carrying a lit lantern with its hood mostly down. The room's single window had its shutters locked closed. The archduke's study was…well, calling it cluttered or messy didn't do it any justice.

Papers were strewn about seemingly haphazardly throughout, though some lay in messy piles. On her left, there were a set bookcases entirely devoid of books. However, on one lay a single wooden carving of a dragon. The rest of the books were heaped into seemingly aimless stacks around the room's interior.

On the walls, Hoshidan-styled ink paintings depicting what looked like dragons littered the wall. All twelve of them hung without any sense of symmetry. The walls themselves were coated in paint in a strange style. In the middle of the room, a single, large, lacquered wooden desk sat, barren of anything. Bree set the lantern onto it, opening up the hood.

It's light shone around the room, illuminating it in its entirety. Her eyes widened and she breathed sharply at the sight. "What the…?"

What she had initially taken for simple stylistic patterns painting the stone wall weren't just a bizarre patterns at all.

No, they were words.

Everywhere.

Not just on the walls. On the floor, the ceiling, covering the stacks of books, looping around the paintings, coating the furniture, the desk, the window shutters. Barely anything was left untouched.

"By the Dusk Dragon, what am I looking at? Are those…words?"

Nina swallowed, her throat suddenly felt very dry. "Looks like the rumors about the archduke being mad might be closer to the truth than we thought." If the state of his study was anything to go by, the archduke of Izumo was absolutely insane.

She shook her head. That didn't matter. Focus. "If the intel was good, the archduke should have a safe or something in here somewhere. You try checking the desk. I'll check the walls in case there's a secret compartment or something."

Bree nodded, and she walked around, systematically checking behind each of the paintings, shifting the shelves and checking the floor for signs of a secret compartment or door. Nothing but those words.

They probably were just gibberish, but she was morbidly curious. There was a section where it looked like the brush had slid, creating a long black streak that drew her eye. She squinted at the tiny print:

"Something is wrong. Things, people, are showing up where it was clear to me they weren't before. When I ask others, they seem confused and act as if they were always there."

Well that was…odd. She read another bit at random:

"Silence seems unlikely to be the source, but could be contributing; something else is the cause."

And another:

"The gods said my life would become part of something larger. I think they like being vague to keep me on my toes."

So just gibberish then, but they were followed by a sequence of eight numbers. She glanced around, skimming some of the other writing, only to find a similar vein of crazy. However, every series of words she could see were followed by eight numbers. Different ones then the ones before. Dates, maybe, or something else?

Eh.

"Nina. I found something."

"Huh?" She backed up from the wall shaking her head. She shouldn't get involved with that type of crazy. She looked to Bree, who had emptied out the desk, the contents on the floor. "Find something?"

He tapped the underside of the opened top drawer of the left side of the desk. "Found a keyhole."

She walked over and crouched down, spotting what he'd seen. "False bottom?" she asked.

He nodded. "Seems like it."

"Heh. Classic."

"Couldn't find a key. Can you crack it?"

She gave him an incredulous look, whipping out her lock-picking kit. "Who do you think you're talking to?"

Bree said nothing, and simply brought the lantern closer. Thoughtful of him. "Someone's touchy."

She sighed, working the pins with her tools. "Can you blame me? This place is giving me the creeps." The lock wasn't too complicated and before long, it clicked open.

"I agree, boss," he rumbled. "Sooner we get out of here the better."

He lifted the false bottom of the drawer, revealing a trio of beautifully cut, glowing gemstones, resting atop a small old looking book.

"Huh. Figured they'd be larger."

Nina rolled her eyes, and put the three stones in a side pouch. Maybe they did something special, maybe not. She really didn't care about them personally, so long as they would sell well on the black market. She lifted the unmarked book out, quickly flipping through it. A smirk grew on her face. This was the real jackpot, at least for her. Hopefully.

She paused when she saw more writing on the bottom of the drawer under where she had lifted the book. This one was brief.

"You aren't supposed to be here either, are you?"

Ominous. Was it an attempt to scare off people stealing? The rest of the room already did that, so this felt kind of unnecessary.

"He really is mad isn't he?"

She glanced over her shoulder at Bree, who was reading the inscription. She nodded. "Seems like a good possibility, yeah."

The stone threaded through a leather cord that hung around her neck pulsed.

Kaden's warning. Someone was coming.

Nina shut the book she was holding, closing the drawer to the desk, and turned to Bree, "We need to go, quick. I just got the signal from-"

She cut off as the door slammed shut.

"Well, well." Nina spun at the sound of a woman's voice, reflexively drawing a throwing knife from her belt in a reverse grip. She kept the book tucked at her side in the other hand. "Here I was expecting to find the archduke, but it's just little thieves scampering around and stealing things that don't belong to them."

Backing up from the desk, she put her back near to the wall, and started to edge towards the door, eyes darting around the room. She could see Bree doing the same. She couldn't see the speaker. Was this some sort of trick with magic, or were they actually that good at hiding?

She stopped short as a light blue-haired woman, cloaked in violet flames phased into view in front of the door, right before a ball of pulsing dark energy rushed at her. Nina sidestepped out of the way as the magic splashed against the wall, melting the words off of the stone, ink dripping down like black blood.

What the..? What kind of magic was that?

Nina tossed her knife at the woman, who simply batted it aside by a swipe of wind magic just as Bree leveled his spear at her, and charged at the woman. She'd wished she'd brought her bow.

The woman simply stepped aside the thrust of Bree's spear and caught his lance with her left hand. He struggled a moment before the lance melted in her grasp. As he let out a bark of surprise, she grabbed his face with the other hand before he could get out her reach and lifted the large man slightly up off his feet with inhuman strength, before using his weight against him and slammed him onto the ground.

"Bree, no!" Nina drew another throwing knife as she dashed forward to help, before something grazed her face, cutting a thin line into her cheek. She winced, sucking in a pained breath through her teeth as she felt blood well up on the cut. She just needed to get close enough to stab-

The wind was knocked out of her as she was sent back by a powerful and unseen force. Instinct took over, and she was able to turn the landing into an awkward roll, heaving a moment before she was able to suck in air again.

She looked up in time to see another person cloaked in violet flames standing like a guard near the woman. They hefted what looked like a metal club briefly in sight before they faded. Some form of invisibility magic? When did that become a thing? How many of these guys were in here?

"Nina, get out of here!" Bree's voice choked out. His voice sounded distorted.

She scrambled to her feet, wincing, but still holding the book, just in time to see the woman drawing…something out of Bree into herself. He went limp, and a moment later faded to dust. All that remained were the clothes and armor, empty on the floor.

Her façade of confidence fell, but she shoved her grief down in favor of surviving. She was injured and obviously way out of her league. She needed find a way to get out of here, fast.

"Now." The woman turned to face her. "Hand over that dangerous toy you have, girl."


itswhisperIngbutnobodyhearSnobodybutmenobody


It was happening again.

The overpowering scent of Anankos' soldiers came suddenly, without warning. One moment it wasn't there and the next it flooded his senses, almost making him gag at the sudden intensity of it. He had initially panicked, but immediately after, sent a warning pulse through the stone to Nina, ran to the door, to fight, to do something.

Only to have it slam shut in his face.

Kaden rammed into the stubbornly shut door again. His shoulder protested at his effort, still sore from busting through a window the night before.

No, no, no.

His ears perked up at a noise behind him. Someone was coming up the stairs. What should he do? Run? No, he wasn't like that. He could ask them for help. Beg if he had to. He couldn't just leave Nina if there was something he could do.

He turned around to face a single man as he stepped up into sight. Straight, long white hair, dressed in traditional onmyoji garb, styled in white and black with the occasional gold trimming. However, it was the curious symbol on his head that made Kaden's eyes widen.

This was the archduke himself.

The archduke tapped a fan of battle scrolls against an empty palm. "I wouldn't have expected Spectre to have a kitsune with them, much less posted as a guard so plainly in sight. Were you really that confident?"

Kaden held his hands out in what he hoped was a peaceful manner. "Wait, before you arrest me, my friend is in there. They're in danger-"

"I'll say; breaking and entering into my study like that, trying to steal what doesn't belong to them."

Kaden growled in frustration. "This isn't about that. Throw us in the dungeon later if you need to. I know it sounds crazy, but there are invisible soldiers are in there right now and I need to get in there to get my friend out." He bowed deeply. "Please."

The archduke raised an eyebrow. "You," he lowered the fan of battle scrolls, "are very lucky I know what that means."

Kaden's eyes widened as he raised his head. "You know about…?"

The archduke strode up to the door beside him. "Of course. You can sense them inside?" Kaden nodded, slightly bewildered. "How many?"

Kaden shook his head. "I-I don't know, maybe three or four. One of them felt powerful, or at least had a more powerful scent that blots out the rest of them, but can we hurry already?"

"Right. Stand back for a moment, and get ready to fight. I'll handle the strong one if you can keep the others off of me, got it?"

Kaden nodded, quickly sent two pulses through the stone in his pocket and shifted to his beastform. "Whatever it is, do it already."

The archduke grinned. "Let's see how my door handles an ox."

What?


agGonyscoRchingmyheadpleasestopmakeItstopitstopit


Why had these weirdos not killed her yet? They wanted the book; that much seemed obvious. This temporary stand off or whatever it was wouldn't last long. She needed to stall for time.

"What's this worth to you? M-maybe we could work out a deal, you know? Both walk away happy?" Nina asked, not the slightest bit interested in the answer. She edged towards the window, wincing as she breathed. Probably had a couple of bruised and cracked ribs from the earlier strike.

If she could distract them long enough, maybe she could bust out the window and grapple down. Not the best plan, sure, but it was the only one she could think of at the moment.

The dark mage woman formed another ball of dark light in her palm. "Don't test my patience, girl, unless you want to end up like everyone else who has defied the will of the Silent Dragon. Give it to me willingly, and you may leave with your life."

Great. They were religious nutcases, then. Powerful religious nutcases.

"Er, point taken." Nina's eyes flicked back to the woman, and then back to the book. Her goal was so close, but was it really worth her life? She glanced at the empty armor of Bree. Even if she handed this over, would she be killed?

The stone around her neck pulsed again, twice this time, the signal that Kaden was going to cause a distraction. Right, there was no way he couldn't have noticed or heard what was happening at this point. She took another pained breath. Whatever Kaden had planned had better work.

She lowered her knife and held out the book, smiling. "Here. Take it."

The woman smirked and shifted to walk over to her. "It's good that you see reas-"

A loud crash heralded the door exploding off its hinges inward. It hit a barrier of wind the woman created, before it flipped end over end.

Straight towards her.

Nina's eyes widened before she dove out of the way even as she felt her grip on the book completely slip. Coughing against protesting ribs, she shielded her eyes at the influx of dust, just as she heard a loud growl sound out, followed by Kaden in his beastform rushing past the woman and tackling empty air.

No, wait, he was attacking one of the invisible guys; he must be able to sense them somehow. Useful. The dust settled and the archduke himself walked in, tapping a fan of battle scrolls in one palm.

Well, that was a distraction, she supposed.

"Well, well, Arete." The archduke was smiling, but it wasn't friendly. The smile, the way he walked, the narrow focused look in his eyes oozed presence. "I wasn't expecting to ever see you again. Were the rumors of your death really that exaggerated?"

The woman – Arete, apparently – growled and the dark light in her palm coalesced to form, to her horror, hundreds of dark lights that swarmed like tiny bugs. The swarm shot forward and ripped through a stack of books in between the two.

Izana kept grinning as his scrolls formed a portal, which opened, shooting out ghostly forms of pelicans which gulped down the bugs, before diving back towards Arete. She shifted to the side out of the way, as the birds exploded into bursts of wind as they impacted, some tossing up some of the loose paper that had been strewn about.

However, the wind magic also disturbed the invisibility magic on the other two soldiers. Their backs were to her, facing the more obvious threat.

Nina took the opening, tossing her knife into the head of one of the abominations, distracting it a moment before Kaden tore into its neck. He gagged slightly after landing back down on the floor.

"Kaden," Nina warned, "don't let her touch you; she turned Bree to dust that way."

"Seriously?" His voice had that weird echo from his beastform.

She nodded towards the dueling mages as Izana dived out of the way of a wave of violet flames, conjuring what looked like the spirit of a horse, which took the brunt of another attack. The book was on the floor somewhere over there. No chance of getting it now.

She started towards the window. "Wait, where are you...?"

"The archduke can obviously take care of himself. We need to cut and run. Cover me a sec while I get this lock open."

"But…"

"You've become much angrier since I last saw you," Izana called, as he quickly traced a symbol in the air. The loose papers around Izana started glowing before it flew swiftly towards Arete, surrounding her. Nina hoped it gave the woman serious papercuts. "The violet flames are new too. They really don't suit you; so garish."

Nina started to fumble with the lock on the shutters, as the papers surrounding Arete burst outward, burning with dark fire. "Do not mock me." There was a something building in her palm, and the violet flames surrounding her increased in intensity. "Your interference has gone on long enough, Izana."

"So your new master sent you came here to assassinate me after only a few months of knowing about him?" The archduke tutted, before sending off two spirits of tigers crackling with lightning towards Arete. "Rude."

There! The lock popped and she threw open the shutters and she attached a grapple with a rope to it to the window, and let it unfurl down to a balcony below. Behind her, something exploded and the people down on the balcony below yelled, but at this point she didn't care.

She felt a hand grip her shoulder, stopping her. She spun to find Kaden, back in human form.

"Nina." Kaden's voice was firm. "We need to help him."

"Why? He looks like he's got it."

"He helped save you, and he knows something about the ones who attacked my other friends. I need to know."

That was what this was about, huh? It explained something of why Kaden was working with the one they were stealing from. She glanced at the rope and back at Kaden's pleading face.

Nina gritted her teeth. Why was she such a softie? "Fine, but this better be worth it. You owe me."

"I'd say after this rescue that it's even." Kaden shifted back into his beastform.

Nina didn't respond, turning her attention back to the battle right as the archduke snapped with his fingers. The twelve ink paintings in the room flocked towards him, swirling to form another portal as a snake-like dragon burst out and coiled around Arete. She fell to her knees and the dragon constricted around her tighter, locking her in place. The violet flames around her grew in intensity.

With an unspoken signal, Kaden dashed forward after she threw her knife. The knife struck Arete, stabbing through her thin clothing, right as Kaden went by and slashed at her neck with his claws. No blood. Weird.

The archduke quickly drew another symbol in the air and paper manikins cut themselves out of the surrounding papers on the floor, flew down and stuck to Arete's body. Everywhere they stuck seemed to paralyze her until she couldn't move at all. The violet flames surrounding Arete retreated, before they died down completely.

There was a tenseness in the air, as if none of them could completely believe that they'd won. The other three guys, the archduke's assassins she supposed, glowed with an ethereal blue light before they burst like bubble into motes of blue light. That was…not normal.

Kaden broke the silence, voice echoing in that odd way again. "Is she…alive still?"

"Yes. Those are just a temporary seals on that variety of magic. They should hold for-"

They all jumped back, tensing as the violet flames erupted from Arete once again and the ink dragon burst apart. Some of the seals burned off as she struggled to a stand, looking the archduke in the eyes.

"You think you've won?" she spat and let out a strained laugh. "It will never be enough."

The violet flames flared before she disappeared in a flash of light. The remaining paper seals fluttered to the ground.


neveroutofMyheadneedoutofmyheadgetoutofmyheAd


"Drat. I didn't account for magical transport in the seal. Oh well."

The archduke turned to them, wiping sweat from his brow. Kaden saw Nina back up warily, even as he shifted back into his humanlike form. "I suppose official introductions are in order. Archduke Izana at your service and such." He waved a hand in Nina's direction. "I know you are the leader of the anomaly you call 'Spectre,' but I know neither of your names."

Nina just scowled in the archduke's direction. She looked like she really didn't want to be here, so Kaden moved into a quick introduction. "She's Nina, and I'm Kaden. Kitsune and wanderer extraordinaire."

The archduke clapped his hands together and smiled. "Excellent. Well, it's good to meet you both."

Kaden's ears perked up and he and Nina tensed as soldiers flooded into the room and moved to surround them. Both of them put their backs to each other as naginatas were leveled at them.

Kaden saw Nina look incredulously at the archduke. "You're still going to arrest us after all that?"

"Of course. Even though you helped, you did break and enter and even I can't flaunt the law. If you come willingly, I guarantee I can lighten your sentence. I can let them heal your wounds at least before you're incarcerated. However, you will have to give back the stolen goods before that, of course."

She glanced at him, then looked over to Izana. "We don't really have a choice, do we?" She sighed before tossing over a pouch to the archduke, who caught it. He checked their contents, which Kaden couldn't see.

"The book?"

"Somewhere in here. I dropped it."

"And the other guard?"

"Tied and gagged in one of the nearby rooms."

Izana nodded to the guards and they stripped both of them of their equipment, before binding their wrists with rope cords. "Don't worry, the dungeons, if you want to call them that, are actually quite comfy. Recently refurbished as well. I'll be around later to chat, but right now I have some cleanup and a feast to direct, yada yada you know the drill."

Nina leaned close to Kaden. "Just so you know, this is your fault."

Kaden just laughed as the guards yanked them away from each other before they dragged them away. At least she wasn't…

No.

He shook his head, shoving thought of Robin and Anna down again. He could face that later. Nina was safe. That was all that mattered at the moment.


WHO ARE YOU?


Her world was exhaustion, pain, burning, and a thumping in her head.

"My, my, I do seem quite popular today."

A voice.

"Who are you?"

A different one. Sounded familiar. Not wrong.

"I am Izana. Yes, the Izana. Archduke, winner of best hair award three times running, messenger to the gods Izana."

"I don't care."

"You're the avatar of Grima, correct?"

A pause. There was something solid underneath her. Stone. Floor?

"How do you know that?"

"I did say I was messenger to the gods, did I not? One of them warned me about your arrival here into this world. She really didn't seem to like you. "

"Naga." The word was snarled out like a curse, and she couldn't help but agree. Something about the name made her want to retch. The burning in her head flared. "Can't she just leave me alone?"

"Well, to be fair, according to her, you did destroy her world, did you not?"

"She already won that battle. I don't care about that anymore."

"Really. Well, avatar, what do you call yourself?

"My name is-"

The pain flared. This time from her hand. A groan came from her mouth.

"Who's this?" The first voice.

"A friend."

Anna let out a whimper. She opened her eyes. Something in her blurry vision pulsed. Her hand. Something black quivered, pulsed in her veins underneath the skin, out of sync with her heartbeat. Another off-beat thump. It inched down her wrist. She felt like it should hurt more.

"Did you do that to her?"

"No."

"Truly?"

"Yes. Can you help her?"

A pause. "No."

A snarl. "Why?"

"A healer knows when to apply himself. I can tell she's already on death's door-"

"You'd just let her die?" She was dying? The second voice was angry. She did know him. Why?

"Whatever curse that is, it's clearly dangerous and spreading. Would she be the same? Would she be happy if she did live?"

"But she would live."

"For how long?"

"I don't care."

"There's nothing you can do. Let her die."

Silence hung in the air. Someone was giggling. Was that her?

"No, there is."

"Sorry, I can't allow you to-"

There was a noise. A scuffle? Something cold passed over her. It felt…nice? Wrongnice. She giggled again.

"Ah. That's…what they meant. Today…is the day…I…become…"

Something thumped down in front of her. Lifeless eyes stared. Something tried to stir in her memory, but it collapsed a moment later.

Boots entered her vision in front of her eyes. "I'm sorry."

'For what?' she tried to ask. Only a garble left her mouth.

At once, her blood was on fire, the thing pulsing in her hand advanced quicker. She threw up. No, dry heaved.

Nothing would come out whywouldnothingcomeoutwrongwrongwrongwronggetitoutgetitoutgetit