(Author's Note: I HAVE RETURNED. And I brought a new chapter with me. For anyone curious, now that university's all but let out, I'll be adding the finale to this story next, then finishing up the FE8 story Cascade (really I will) and probably adding a new short story set during FE9, two or three chapters, tentatively titled 'Fever Dreams'. Expect weirdness.)
One-Stringed Harp
Chapter Six: And In The Radiance Bind Them
Philosophers were a bunch of freaking liars. When they were right, it was only by coincidence, like now, in the hours before sunrise, when stormclouds hung over Begnion like a funeral shroud and blocked out the light. Philosophers – one of them, anyway – had said that it was always darkest before the dawn, and they were right this time, but on any other day, any normal day, the sky wouldn't be at its darkest right now. More than a little, Sothe suspected it was a metaphor for something. He didn't care what.
"On the plus side, I don't have a life, so it can't be in shambles," he remarked to the streetlamp. Streetlamps! Lights in the street in the middle of the night, despite the storm. Unheard-of anywhere else in the world. At least, anywhere he had heard of. The irony was somewhat offensive.
'It's always darkest before the dawn'. When coincidence didn't go their way, philosophers were, as has already been noted, a useless bunch of prevarication peddlers. 'Truth is beauty, and beauty, truth' sounded wonderful until put into practice, at which point it ended with the secret love of your life marrying a megalomaniacal nobleman murderer. …Well, maybe not every time.
So what did Sothe have going for him? A cutting intellect and roguish good looks? An unparalleled opportunity to be miserable for the rest of his life, which would last until he really was killed on a selfless mission of greater good? What in the world did he care?
Hmm… They also said 'the truth shall set you free'. Rolling that one around his head, he had to admit that it seemed to work. He had nothing holding him here now, nor anywhere else. Sothe honestly didn't care what happened to the Begnion kingdom's nobility – it wasn't likely to become even less fair just because a power-wonk took over. That meant his contract with Gatrie was done, because he decided it was done, and Astrid obviously didn't want his help, if she could act like that after he got shot.
Sothe looked down the empty road in both directions and realised that his life was his own again, and this time he wasn't stuck in Daein.
"That's it for me, then," he muttered, and started walking.
Soren sat in the darkness, staring at the insides of his eyelids and inhaling the faint scent of cinder and wax. Gatrie had been the last to fall asleep, no more than an hour earlier, and he had doused the candles first, but without enough skill to prevent them from pluming with smoke. It was a little thing, but it was Gatrie all over – rush to fix the problem, then think about it, then find allies, then figure out who you would need as allies, then find them, then get them to think about it, and at some point possibly think about considering the consequences, but decide against it as a waste of time.
The truth was that Soren didn't know politics well enough to make a legal argument to prevent the wedding, and although Sothe had gathered most everything that anyone still knew about the Bow of Falling Stars, there was no mention of a weakness. He didn't know what Sagita wanted with Astrid. There was nothing they could do except try to be ready to react to anything.
Sanaki's life was the cost if they weren't.
The option that he hadn't mentioned to the others – and only Soren was pragmatic enough to think of it anyway – was that they were about to be severely disappointed. If he and Sothe were right, and Fletcher wanted the wedding as an opportunity to kill the Apostle, then they needed to be in perfect form. They would also need to be everywhere, and that was especially a big problem, because Sagita undoubtedly had dozens, even hundreds of guards, and they could all be called in. Regicides didn't do anything halfway, and it would be easy for a single killer to reach Sanaki if a melee broke out.
But if Fletcher was a patient maniac, then nothing at all would happen tomorrow, nor the day after. Not the week after, the month after, then one spring or fall afternoon he would drop by the palace to request Imperial Authority for some land-zoning matter, no one would expect the blade in his belt, and the Apostle would die. With the restored Bow of Falling Stars, House Sagita would undoubtedly emerge from the ensuing chaos as rulers.
"The only thing that makes me think he won't do that is that Sigrun would probably put her lance through his face before he escaped the room," Soren muttered. He rubbed at the Brand on his forehead; as a child he had thought it was the source of all headaches.
"Good thing too," Nephenee mumbled. Soren's eyes snapped open – wasn't she asleep? In the window-filtered starlight he could see her still slumped over the table, across from Boyd. Still soundly unconscious. "Lances fer all of 'em. Bloody waffles. Donchu talk smack 'bou' me, I'll fill ya wi' syrup like a, a, an Archsage wi' oranges. Fluorescent ones. Oh, ya got friends? Ya think I ain't got friends? Come back 'n' talk t' me when you ain't delicious."
The sage stared at her, watching these thoughts fall into place and the epiphany that blossomed from them. Slowly, Soren leaned across the table. "…No one can ever know about this," he whispered.
"Snnrrrgh."
Hours past, dawn arrived, and the clouds finally flew past, bathing the capital of Begnion in sunlight for miles around. It was the most beautiful day in months, and it was the day of Astrid's wedding. She walked through the grass, letting its feathered tips tickle her ankles, and realised she was thinking about it as though the world was due to end at one o'clock. Which it isn't, she thought sharply.
"I knew you'd be out here," said Fletcher, appearing from between the trees. "You really enjoy this archery range, don't you? We'll have to come here often."
"I'm just talking a walk, not practicing," said Astrid. "If bizarre traditions say the wedding procession has to begin outside the city, we might as well enjoy the surroundings. Speaking of which–"
"Traditions also say I shouldn't see you before the ceremony, yes. I looked that one up and found it only applies for four hours; we're quite free to do whatever we want until nine. For instance, if there's anything you'd like to talk about…?" he asked, without much subtlety.
"It seems to me we're about to have a great deal of time in which to talk about anything in the world," Astrid replied. Fletcher bit his lip awkwardly, and she wondered if that was some kind of 'tell'. She'd need to start learning those things. Makalov always pushed his hair behind his ears before settling into a particularly fantastical lie, and Sothe– "Did you have something you wanted to get off your chest?"
Fletcher hemmed for a moment, then laughed at the surprise on Astrid's face. "No, my dear, I have something much more tangible in mind." Astrid frowned, wondering what direction the conversation was going, and then he produced a gleaming curve from behind his back: a longbow. Astrid took it almost reverently from his hands, stroking the sleek golden wood. She tapped the string with a finger; it looked old, somehow, but it was in perfect condition.
"The craftsmanship is incredible," she remarked. "Where did you get it?"
"I wish I could say I made it, but the parts had to be gathered from elsewhere," Fletcher replied. "Try it." He waved at one of the nearest targets and offered Astrid an arrow. Smoothly she nocked, aimed, and loosed the shot – an exact bullseye. Fletcher smiled and offered her another arrow. This one landed in the centre of a more distant target; Astrid had to arc her shot higher to cover the distance, but the bow was perfectly balanced for such use.
"It's wonderful," Astrid declared.
"How about that one?" Fletcher suggested, pointing at a target that seemed ridiculously distant. Still, given the power and flex of the bow, it was worth an arrow. Astrid was so impressed that she didn't notice the quiver of anticipation in his fingers when she took the third bolt from her fiancée's hand. In proper form, she nocked it and drew back before swinging the bow upward, high enough that the long arc might reach the distant mark.
As the arrow's angle approached vertical, Astrid felt faint warmth under her fingers, and then in a flash it turned to a thin line of electric blue, humming a major triad. She let go in surprise and the bolt soared into the sky at an impossible speed, vanishing in an instant – and only an instant later an echo of the shot returned, blazing bright and moving so fast it left firework after-images in the air.
It fell on the target, which was lost to an eruption of wind and azure fire. There would have been smoke, undoubtedly, but sheer force blew it away instantly, leaving the ruined impact site clearly visible. It looked like a cake struck with a forge-hot sledgehammer. Eventually Astrid remembered to blink. Wordlessly, she accepted another arrow and fired it in a high arc. As before, the bolt turned to pure power before she had even let go, and the result was much like a meteor strike.
"What in the world is this?" Astrid demanded, only now realising that Fletcher was staring at her intently.
"The Bow of Falling Stars," he said simply. "An unparalleled weapon, in the hands of a true master archer. You can't imagine how pleased I am to see that it works."
"It's terrifying," said Astrid, frowning in confusion.
"Would you like to try it again?" he suggested.
"I don't think so," she said slowly. "I've never heard of such a creation – I'd feel better if we spoke to the royal scholars first. …Why are you looking at me like that?"
"Simple fascination," Fletcher replied smoothly. "Incidentally, do you think this cologne is too strong?" Instead of another arrow, he proffered a scented kerchief. Still immensely baffled, Astrid held the cloth to her face, inhaled – and gently toppled sideways. Fletcher shook his head in wonderment. "Chloroform is a truly glorious thing."
In the brief haven of the alley, Gatrie tried to decide whether or not it was worth putting the door back in place. The mercenaries' guild had a policy about strong locks on their doors, but in this case they had forgotten about strong hinges, too. He hadn't even needed to tackle it; just a slow, steady exertion had worked the screws loose from the old wood. After a moment, he decided to leave the door where it lay.
The hostage was a different matter. "Now, listen," he told the woman, whose glare was quite expressive above her gag. "You joked about Sothe being dead, so if I ever decide you're being more troublesome than you're worth, you die. That's my policy with evil people; you'll understand if I don't apologise." He undid the gag, his glare daring her to call for soldiers.
"You idiot, I'm working for the Apostle," she snapped with surprising restraint.
"Oh, of course. It's so obvious," Gatrie sneered. "Tell me where the stolen loot went."
"If I knew, do you think I'd be here? I'm waiting in case someone contacts us again – whoever's stealing artefacts from the Begnion reliquary isn't going to stop with a vase and a talisman, and when they hire us again, I'm not going to miss the chance to track them–"
"Either you think I'm a complete idiot…" Gatrie began.
"I haven't ruled that out, no," the woman snapped.
"…Or you're honestly a very good actor and a terrible spy," he finished. "Is it possible that you could be an undercover soldier and not have realised yet that Fletcher Sagita is your megalomaniac employer?"
"Sagita?!" she blurted. "As in 'House Sagita' Sagita? Are you mad? He's in line to join the Imperial Court in a few years; why would he risk it by stealing from the reliquary?" Her face went oddly rigid as she said this; the impression was that at any moment she might go teeth-first for his neck.
Gatrie was horrified, mostly because her sudden changes in demeanour were so thorough that at least one of them had to be an act, and if she could act that well, it made claims about spying a lot more plausible. He decided to let things play out a little more. "House Sagita is going to try to take over Begnion from the top down. But your underlings didn't steal the talisman, just the string it was on. Why don't you know that?"
"Our employer – or at least the envoys he sent – was stingy with information. Only a few of our company were told precisely what we were stealing, and they apparently got paid enough to stay quiet. Look, who in blazes are you and why should I tell you anything about the workings of the Apostle's intelligence service?"
"I'm Gatrie of the Greil Mercenaries" – her flicker of shock told him she recognised that name – "and I'm a lot better at your job than you are. Why should I trust you? The Apostle should have better agents than this."
"I'm… new," she said. "My name's Hayley – don't tell me it's a bad name for a fearless mercenary captain; I've been known around here as Hail for at least a decade now. I got sick of the sellsword life, so I applied to the imperial army, got picked up by the spy service and put back out here to watch for suspicious mass-contracts."
Gatrie considered this. It would explain a lot if she were a former-mercenary-now-undercover-mercenary-spy. For example, it would explain why this was giving him a terrible headache. More importantly, if she was put out here because of her past and not her skills, it was no surprise that she hadn't caught up with Sagita yet. The man was like a snake in a vat of jelly, only slipperier.
"All right," he decided, and pulled loose the knots around her hands. "For the moment, I'm going to act like I believe all of this, but I might as well say flat-out that I couldn't be more sceptical if you told me you were the Apostle's twin sister. I don't have any proof that you're not one of Sagita's best personal guards spinning a nice little gaiden for me so I can get suckerpunched again when I'm not expec–"
Hail cut him off in mid-cynic by producing a small cloth and rubbing it against her forehead firmly. Some of the skin turned pink with scrubbing, but in the middle it stayed artificially 'natural' until the carefully-treated masquing came off and revealed the Brand below. Gatrie stuttered to a stop. "Okay… so maybe you're not likely to work directly for a noble house."
"I should bloody well think not," Hail agreed.
"Doesn't mean I trust you."
"Fine. I still think I've met court jesters stealthier than you, so shut up about my spying skills. I'm used to field scouting, not espionage," she countered. Gatrie prepared to snap something back, but Hail wasn't finished: "Also… I'm sorry about the boy. I didn't know anything about him – it was just part of the act." After a moment's steady stare, Gatrie looked away and let it go.
"I guess charging into an enemy stronghold really didn't get me anywhere after all." He reconsidered. "Actually… you were ordered to keep me locked up how long? All day, wasn't it?"
"At minimum," Hail agreed. "We were told to expect an update by midnight."
"Heh. I was right, then: Sagita wants me to miss the wedding. That's a start, then; Ike always said that when you don't have a plan, the next best thing is doing whatever your enemy doesn't want. I don't like a whole lot of improvising, but once we can get into position – blast." Gatrie thumped his hand against the alley wall and recoiled quickly from the bruising impact; bricks hurt a lot more when all your armor was in the hands of mercenaries.
"What is it?" Hail asked. "Ten seconds' planning makes you dizzy?"
"Can we cut out the personal attacks? I'm trying to get stuff done here, and I have no idea where the wedding is going to be."
"You didn't get an invitation?"
"No! And what, you did?"
"Of course not," said Hail, uncomfortably. "But it's a wedding between two of Begnion's major noble houses. Standard operating procedure… uh, etiquette says it has to be held in the Great Hall of Heroes or risk officially Offending both families, and there's all sorts of legal garbage that follows. …Look, I've lived in this city all my life; I do know a thing or two about the way it works."
"All right. When you storm a building, do you prefer kicking in the front door or the back?"
"I'm not storming anywhere! What does it even matter that he doesn't want you at this wedding?"
Gatrie fumbled. Hail might really be an agent of the Apostle, but she also had her mercenary cover to maintain, and unless he could convince her that bringing down Sagita was the same thing as solving the reliquary thefts, he was about to get a building full of angry people with pointy objects called down on his head. "Well… ah, the Apostle will be there too, won't she? For such an important wedding?"
"I suppose so," Hail agreed slowly.
"I think Sagita's going to try to have her killed," he blurted. What the hell, it could happen.
"He's what?!" she demanded.
"You heard me," said Gatrie, settling into this story more comfortably. "It's a trap. Now, are you going to show me the way to this place so we can put a stop to it, or do we just sit here in an alley and hope everything turns out bloody daffodils?"
"You have no invitation; we'll never get inside the Hall of Heroes as walk-ins off the street," Hail insisted, forcing Gatrie to hide a smile. For the moment, panic had replaced suspicion. His amusement faltered a little when he noticed how she was looking him over with a critical eye, but then she snapped her fingers. "I've got something, I think. But we'll need much better clothes than this, and some cosmetics couldn't hurt either."
"Hey, when it comes to looking good, I'm always covered," said Gatrie. "Follow me."
Astrid awoke in a chair that silently asked the world 'Who needs to be comfortable when you can be flimsy and ridiculously expensive?' Naturally, this meant she was back in her own familiar House Ceffylau, and that made the presence of armed soldiers all around her even more noticeable. None of them were frilled in lace, for starters. They clashed with the décor something awful.
"Feeling all right?" Fletcher asked, when her eyes managed to focus on him standing nearby. He was definitely doing his best to look suave and daring, and she hated that he was good at it. "Whatever else happens today, I don't want you to get the idea that I don't care about you. I do. I'm looking forward to our marriage. But there are other considerations as well."
"Nngh," she groaned and rubbed her temples. Fletcher frowned and snapped his fingers; a servant placed a glass of water at her side instantly.
"I begin to understand why you can use the Bow of Falling Stars and I cannot," he went on. "It reminds me of an ancient scroll I once read, some kind of philosophical musing on the warrior spirit. They said that in mastery of a weapon, the true warrior goes through phases of understanding – first in wielding the sword, learning its motion and technique, and these warriors can be formidable opponents. But then there is a greater level of knowledge, wherein the warrior understands the nature of all weapons and it doesn't matter what he wields, because the shape can change but its essence does not."
Astrid was barely listening, she was too busy choking water down her parched throat and trying to understand why her mother was looking so concerned. Astrid was awake and plainly ready to get married; what else did she want from her daughter at a time like this?
Fletcher had been speaking to the air until now, admiring the tapestries in the hall and the metalwork of the chandelier overhead, but now he turned to face his fiancée, and his eyes were… intense. Too much so. "I dare say I've come that far, but you are a true master. At the third tier, the warrior himself becomes his weapon, and the barriers between them are gone. That is what the Bow of Falling Stars demands. A perfect unity and trust, with the two acting in perfect harmony, and only then can you find the strength that you need to fire."
Astrid's mother really did look distressed. It was vaguely refreshing, although Astrid felt guilty about thinking so. Maybe she was actually showing some concern for her daughter? Well, it was about time. Now that she could think straight, what was pestering from the back of her mind? Oh, right…
"Where the devil did you put that thing?" Astrid demanded. She considered leaping up, but the massed soldiers looked like the only question at their recruitment interview was 'how menacingly can you hold a pike?' That and blood was still pounding in her head.
"Not really one for poetic discourse, are you?" asked Fletcher, smiling. "It's in a safe place for now. I'd love to see you use it more; it's like art. But I'm getting ahead of myself. First, let's conquer the world together."
Astrid would have gaped, but she was too deeply aware that doing so would be unladylike. "What in the world are you talking about?"
"Well, not the whole world, but really, no one can stand against Begnion, especially with the Bow. We might as well hold the throne of all Tellius. The question is whether or not you'll help me revolutionise the country after the Apostle is gone. You know how she works, dear Astrid. Political games at court! I was there when she mocked Princess Elincia before the Daein War. And I saw her sit idle as that wretched Oliver traded freely in laguz slaves. Don't you think you'd make a better empress?"
That was a stunning question, considering how casually he asked. Astrid had thought to herself countless times that the nobility could actually be a body of worthwhile rulers if they just had different laws to work in and fewer bloody stupid rituals and pretences and painfully shallow lives. It wasn't hard to see where Fletcher was going with his speech, and Astrid was fascinated. If anything could make the Apostle step down, being threatened with an unstoppable ultrasonic celestial blast had to be it.
An instinct or two still spoke up. She also let a hint of a smile show, and Fletcher didn't bother hiding any of his satisfaction at that. "And what if I'm not quite convinced by this lovely dream-world you're painting for me?"
"Well, I would so enjoy taking all the time that I need to assure you that it can be much more than dreams, but the fact of the matter is that this afternoon is the best chance we'll have for a very long time, so I have to settle for the practical solution," Fletcher replied. He nodded at his nearest attendant, who drew a wickedly sharp stiletto and held it, steady as a stone, to her mother's neck. "Either the Apostle dies or your mother does. I don't think I need to tell you how much I'd prefer the first option."
You're not the same either, Sothe had said. I should have hung around Begnion more since the war. I can't imagine what's happened. Astrid had to admit he was right. Her family, the city, the nobility, this betrothal, they had all come together to crush her down, until she stopped wanting to fight back because all that mattered was getting through the next day. Enduring. She had become passive, thinking that maybe life would get better when her nerves went dead and she stopped caring. This new Astrid was weak. She would even take orders from this man, who spoke of ruling the nation by killing its child-empress, and would kill another innocent woman if she refused. The new Astrid didn't know how to cope with it all.
The hell with that.
The new Astrid was dead. Gone. A memory, and not a happy one at that.
Astrid Ceffylau, Archer-Paladin of the Greil Mercenaries and heroine of the Daein War, knew exactly who she was, what she was doing, and who she would take orders from, and it wasn't him.
"Don't worry about that," she lied smoothly. "I'm with you on this one."
"Of course you aren't," said Fletcher shaking his head with a laugh. He motioned again and the attendant holding Astrid's mother hostage stepped away. "But do come along anyway. We don't want to be late for the ceremony."
"About that," Astrid asked. "Isn't the procession supposed to begin outside the city?"
"Please. That one is practically a gift."
Sigrun frowned at Soren, whose mild disappointment was radiating an aura of terror throughout the small crowd. "I don't suppose I need to tell you that this does not help your case," she remarked. They both looked at the caravan of ornate carriages, which Sigrun had stopped at the city gates by the sage's request. Even now Begnion guards were rooting through their interior, looking for the concealed weaponry that Soren had claimed would be inside, while a handful of Sagita servants milled about anxiously.
A balloon drifted his way; Soren batted it off with a swat. Roughly a skajillion of the brightly-coloured globes had come bouncing out when the Begnion guards had thrown open the carriage's doors, and even now the last few dozen were being chased down by a squadron of fleet-footed pages.
"To be honest, I didn't think it would be as easy as that anyway. You can't just take my word for it that Sagita is going to try to kill the Apostle at this wedding?" Soren asked.
"Officially, no, the politics would be… disastrous if you were wrong. Or if you were right and the – assassins, let us call them – simply postponed their plans. Hypothetically speaking." The Pegasus commander shook her head.
"Hypothetical." Soren batted off another balloon; the faint static aura of his Elthunder tome seemed to be attracting them.
"Yes. We'll have to let them continue on their way, but I will make sure I have riders on the lookout," Sigrun assured him.
"No…" Soren muttered. "No, they'd just be in greater danger from a weapon like this."
"If it is only a single weapon you are concerned by, surely–"
"Believe me when I say nothing about anything today is sure," said the sage, and sighed.
Twenty feet away, two workers wearing House Sagita uniforms slipped out of the alley, between two of the carriages, and paused to see if anyone had noticed. At least, Nephenee was looking to see if anyone had noticed; Boyd was studying Sigrun and Soren with a critical eye.
"Look clear to ya?" Nephenee whispered.
"There…" said the warrior. Nephenee followed the line of his finger to the commander and sage. "Is that… wet-blanket-flirting? I mean, they've got about an eighth of a romantic instinct between them, but–"
"Answers're 'nah' an' 'shut up', respectivelike," said Nephenee, and hauled him inside the carriage.
"This is obviously a dead end," said Soren. He lowered his voice to add "And they just got in."
"Do me a favour and do not create any unnecessary havoc just because you can," Sigrun said.
"I can't speak for the others. Personally, I always restrict myself to necessary havoc," he said
"That is not comforting." The sage spun away, his violet robes sweeping with them the last vestiges of hope that remained in the hearts of mortals. At least, they looked like they should. Sigrun adjusted her helmet, wondering what she had just assisted them in, and addressed the crowd. "I offer the Apostle's apologies that you were so disturbed; please relay them to Lord Sagita when you reach the Hall of Heroes. Good day to you all."
Eventually they got rolling again, with Nephenee and Boyd largely obscured from view by the balloons that had been packed inside. "Anything?" Boyd asked.
"Oh, now tha' Sigrun's gone ye're Mister-Down-Ta-Business, are ya?" Nephenee inquired.
"Hey, I was paying attention before! I just thought it was funny! She's entirely not my type, she's just so… refined, plainly can't relax, and really, I… I…" Boyd stammered to a halt and frowned, which cracked Nephenee's thus-far-stable mask. "…You're having me on, aren't you?"
"I like it when ye're flustered," she explained, grinning. "Blushin' matches yer hair."
"Did you see anything or not?" Boyd demanded, ignoring the rising heat in his face. "Whoever put these balloons here has obviously got some kind of dementia, but it's not really proof of Evil."
"No hint's fer where th' Bow is, if ya mean that," said the halberdier, shaking her head.
"At least we've still got the backup plan, whatever that's worth. Soren sure seemed happy about the idea, though. Did you hear him muttering about waffles this morning?"
"I stopped askin' the world to make sense 'round about two nights ago. Ya s'pose Gatrie's ever gonna come back?"
"Considering the funk he was in yesterday, I think the best we can hope for is that he's been distracted for a while by a gorgeous woman. …In the opinions of other people. Not me."
"Boyd?"
"Yeah?"
"We got somethin' like ten minutes 'fore we get to th' big Hall place. You gonna kiss me or not?"
Orange wasn't something Mia could give up lightly. It was her colour. She blazed out on battlefields like a beacon, which some people said was risky, but with her aptitude for getting in the first strike, luring in plenty of opponents was hardly a bad thing. She preferred to think of her usual garb like a fatally poisonous frog or butterfly's colours – eye-catching, perhaps, but also a huge screaming warning of imminent doom.
In contrast, the dress Calill had supplied for her was purple. A pale, cloudy purple, somewhere between lilacs and summer dusk. It didn't scream anything. Mia was a woman who liked her clothes to make a statement, and that statement was supposed to be 'YAARGH, prepare to have your extremities chopped off'. Even Ilyana, for all her terrifying obsessing, couldn't manage purple as the hue of fear.
The shortened version of all this is to say that Gatrie did not select a good moment to barge in. "Okay, if what I saw the other day was anything – oh my, um, wow, sorry, not looking, just stand over there, thanks Mia, no, not near the mirror, thank you – then we should be able to find whatever you want in here – oh, right, Mia: Hail, she's a terrible spy, Hail: Mia, she's lightning death – and Calill will just have to forgive us for permanently borrowing a window curtain or two."
"How do you do that and not pass out? Do you have gills?" Hail suggested. She caught a glimpse of Mia retreating behind a folding screen. "Was that orange–"
"Pretty much everything, yeah. She tried to dye her hair once, too. Came out black. She didn't much mind getting confused with Soren, but the sage? Wow. Touchy about 'she', let me tell you."
"Are you on some kind of sugar rush?" asked the general.
"Hey, the wedding starts in, what, an hour? I have places to go and a 'noble' traitor to kill. Elegant up already." He gestured at the whole room that Calill had specialised for wedding preparations; the cosmetics table looked like a mad alchemist's workshop after a catastrophic explosion. Hail scanned the various concoctions and handed a jar of eyeshadowing-something to Gatrie. "Uh, you didn't say anything about us both dressing as–"
"Your face," she explained, coating a fingertip and drawing it across his cheek, leaving a long blue stripe.
"I knew that." He went to work himself, letting Hail get back to choosing her outfit.
Mia peeked over the top of the screen. "Um, not to pry, but are we getting dressed for the same thing?"
"Depends," said Hail, searching for a cloak that managed to be formal without falling prey to Begnion's occasional fanaticism for ridiculous ornamentation. "Are you going to an assassination attempt on the holy leader of the most powerful continent of Tellius?"
"…No," Mia replied. "Are you going to Astrid Ceffylau's wedding?"
"Yep," Gatrie confirmed. He glanced at himself in the mirror. "I should be tanner." A large powder puff struck with ninja precision; he barely managed to close his eyes in time. "Yeah, that's it. You're sure you're going to leave the Brand showing? There's still a lot of bigotry out there…"
"Then you'd better be a good growler. Whose plan is this, again?" Hail demanded.
"…Yours…"
"Mm-hmm. So get out of the room and get into character – no one's going to believe I'm your Branded bodyguard unless they start out believing you're exiled Gallia royalty," she commanded.
"If you were any less a harsh vessel of insecurity and hostility, the whole take-charge thing would be hot," Gatrie informed her, already moving quickly for the door.
Mia slid back down behind the screen again and stared at the lilac dress. She really needed to find a different place to stay whenever she was in Begnion. Somewhere more peaceful, like the basement of a heavily guarded warehouse, or the Guild of Thieves and Brigands. Lucia probably didn't have to put up with this sort of madness.
"This is absolute madness," the swordmaster grumbled, clinging to the parapet and staring down at Sagita servants constantly streaming in and out of the Hall's main doors. "Anyone who's got a spare moment to look up is going to see me; I'm not exactly camouflaged." But no one was looking up, and Lucia had to admit this was the best view she could get of the preparations, now that guards had sealed off the street. "…Calill could at least have stayed to keep me company."
They had already seen the Begnion guards' protocols for searching the incoming guests for weapons; they were 'thorough' the same way Ilyana was 'occasionally peckish'. That seemed like fantastic news, since they weren't Sagita guards and Fletcher couldn't just have them let the Bow through, but it also meant that he had a plan. When it came to combat, nothing was as irritating as knowing the enemy had a plan without knowing what it was. On top of that, if he could hide the Bow of Falling Stars from the guards, there was a good chance that Lucia wouldn't know it when she saw it, either.
"And I'm talking to myself, which always makes me worry for my sanity. A little more unhinged and I could end up like Calill." She shuddered the thought off and refocused on the swarming attendants. They carried decorations, endless bouquets of flowers, holy books to be read during the ceremony, a six-foot ice sculpture of a Pegasus, the musical instruments for the orchestra–
"Oh, dear goddess," Lucia breathed, because so much time around the fiery sage had taught her how to think like a stark raving madman if the need arose. All she had to do was scheme like Fletcher and the awesomely destructive weapon in the servant's hands became completely obvious.
The soldier behind her didn't say "Now, what's someone like you up to in a place like this?" because he was actually very good at his job. He simply struck sharply with his knuckles, once on Lucia's temple and once on her fingers, and in her disorientation she let go and toppled off the edge of the roof. Once she was gone, he did say "Rather a shame, but there you go," because he was only slightly evil. Also, he didn't have time for a longer speech, because it was time for Fletcher to take over the world.