3

Odehi and The Conspiracy

The afternoon sun was unreasonably warm for the winter haze through which it dimly shone. It was not long after Eliza had slain Odehi’s brutes that the haze had rolled in. Dazhyen walked beside her, silent for the whole journey, maintaining an impregnable air around him. She had seen the horror on his face as the brutes had fallen in front of him – a horror, she had quickly surmised, born of equal parts of the shock of murder, the suddenness of the violence, and his certainty of his own death.

Eliza now was in a white and yellow dress – not too dissimilar in colour to the city around her – of fine cotton. Her leather cloak and gloves, which staved off the cold, had been bloodied and so she had disposed of them. For the early part of the walk she was cold but soon the strain of walking uphill in the afternoon sun meant that both she and Dazhyen had broken out in sweats. All she could think about in that moment was lunch. The mess was serving steak in a sauce of red wine, with bread pudding for desert, she remembered with a pang of hunger. It was her favourite Dunwennish food, and she was famished.

Yes, she shad just killed two men, but it didn’t bother her. They were going to kill Dazhyen – she did what she had to. Didn’t she? They walked in silence. Dazhyen is a good man, and they were going to kill him, she thought to herself. They deserved it – they were brutes and they deserved it. If she had stayed her hand, Dazhyen would be dead. Sweet, innocent Dazhyen would be dead. Dazhyen, whose worst moral trespass was engaging in childhood bullying, would have been killed. No, she did the right thing. Yes, she did the right thing. Yes, they deserved to die. But what allows you to sentence them? She asked herself. If I didn’t do it, no one would. That is my duty, she retorted.

It was only a few minutes before they reached their destination that Eliza spoke up. “Dazhyen,” she had now taken to calling him by his first name in an effort to show familiarity around other scholars, “I should like to remind you that we have the late morning slot booked tomorrow in the Library’s reading rooms. Meet me there by 10 in the morning, and I’ll show you around!” she had a cheery smile on her face, a smile which Dazhyen returned with surprising ease.

“Certainly, ma’am! Anything else?”

“Yes, there is something, rather,” she considered for a moment. “Meet me later today, for coffee or tea – your choice, really. I suppose you are owed a bit of an explanation!” she maintained her chirpy tone.

“Certainly, ma’am,” Dazhyen’s monotonous and polite deference was unaffected. They went their separate ways – Dazhyen into the men’s dormitory, and Eliza into the women’s. It was as the waiters cleared away Eliza’s pudding that she realised that she’d forgotten entirely about what transpired in that isolated alleyway. As she left the dining table and bid a polite goodbye to her table-mates which were all high-born women with at least a passing interest in an academic pursuit, she wondered what this bode for the rest of her stay in Casat. She’d been blooded now and Odehi was sure to be alerted when his men didn’t return. His men, however, lingered on in Eliza’s mind as she made her way to her room. It wasn’t their deaths that bothered her – she was certain they were given what they deserved – but it was the fact that it was so… easy. According to everything she was knew about Odehi, after everything he had managed to orchestrate in Afor, it should not have been easy at all. But then again, she reminded herself, his brutes decided to target Dazhyen and not her.

She’d spotted those two brutes almost instantly after they landed in Casat Port, but foolishly she’d assumed they’d been after her. Of course, they didn’t see her as the threat – who would consider a young woman, professor on beach wyrms by, to be a threat? Dazhyen was, by contrast, a sailor with the lithe build of a soldier. Had she been in the brutes’ position, she would have suspected Dazhyen first as well. Surely, however, Odehi should have known better, even if his foot-soldiers couldn’t see through the disguise. Surely, he was smarter than this.

Therefore, she concluded, this seemed less a mistake on Odehi’s part and more a lapse in communication, or an error in judgement. But Odehi would be alerted now. If Gunada were in Odehi’s place, he would have seen to it that the mistake was rectified before sun-up. As she ascended the stairs to her quarters, Eliza clenched her jaw. Something in her gut was telling her that Odehi’s next strike would be tonight. She needed to be quick.

The need for alacrity on her part was nothing new. She needed to be off soon regardless, as the Heiress was leaving in two days, and the arrangements for accommodation and food that Mistress Treak had made at the College did not extend beyond that either. But she now felt doubly hastened by Odehi’s brazen attack. The roster for the Port and thus the Heiress’s scheduled date of departure were public knowledge, and the latter was easily found out. If Odehi intended to kill them, he needed to do so immediately.

She stood in front of the mirror, having changed into some more comfortable evening clothes, and her thoughts turned inward. She met her own gaze, and she saw a blackness in her stare that before was absent. She blinked, and the bloody alleyway flashed in front of her eyes. The men’s dying gasps, their blood on her hands. She’d washed them as best she could with the flask she’d carried, but they were still stained red. They were hidden behind laced gloves, and she played them off as henna stains at lunch, but... She blinked again.

It will be tonight, she said to herself. She needed to get Dazhyen ready.

The moonlight streamed in through Dazhyen’s bedroom window, as he lay under his covers. His window looked out east – over the city and across the sea. Off in the distance, in the day time, he could easily make out the silhouette of the Heiress, for she was the tallest ship at harbour then. Now, late at night, he could see nothing beyond the blackness of his covers. His fingers were wrapped tightly around his new sabre. The conversation that he and Eliza had had over coffee that evening had been the truest test of his composure so far. He had prepared himself for many things when he boarded the Heiress – chief among them sea-sickness – but he’d never thought he would become the target of assassins, caught in a hellish game of cat and mouse. This was yet another of Dmitur’s failings, Dazhyen felt, though he could not pinpoint how.

A sudden noise from outside his window jolted him and he sprang up out of his bed. Staring at him from the windowsill was an owl. It meant him no harm and was unperturbed by Dazhyen’s frantic readying of his sword. It hooted and took flight, chasing after some prey it must have spotted. “Dazhyen!” Eliza’s voice from the corner was a sharp stab and Dazhyen, still in the throes of adrenaline, whirled around and pointed a quivering sabre in the direction of her shadow. As his eyes adjusted, he saw that she had perched herself on a stool in the corner of his room, in the deepest part of the shadows. “Get back under the cover! If they’re observing, they need to think you’re asleep,” he did as she bade, but he detected a hint of uncertainty in her voice.

As he pulled the sheets over his head again, he took a few deep breaths in order to steady himself – he was shaking all over, but more from anticipation than fear. He was not supposed to sleep which was for the best, as he couldn’t. Every time he closed his eyes, he was back in the alley. The first time it happened, it was horror. He was, in that first moment, in a bath prepared for him and he’d fallen asleep – lulled into a nearly comatose state by the comfort. He’d woken thrashing, drenched in sweat as he remembered the alley.

Then the next time, it happened while he was preparing for coffee with Eliza, and it only gave him pause for a minute or two. And now, it was just a matter of fact. He relived it – and he only felt a morbid curiosity. But he still couldn’t sleep, for the constancy of its presence in his mind. It was, from the outset, an unpleasant experience – the chase through the streets, the dead end at which he found himself, the dagger raised above him and a bloodied Eliza standing over the corpses of his would-be killers. His morbid curiosity, then, was tempered by the shock of Eliza as killer.

Then there were his would-be killers. As he thought about them, his anticipatory shaking was replaced with a stillness born of rage. In that miruq’s face he’d seen Dmitur – he’d seen his old master’s hatred, his dissatisfaction, his dogma, and his evil. Dazhyen had thrown his punch, which never made contact, as what he thought would be his final act of defiance. He had intended to go down swinging – though no one would witness his silent rebellion – such that when his soul was being judged, Manu the Judge would see the bravery of his spirit. And then Eliza had saved him. This had infuriated Dazhyen – he should have been able to save himself. He was helpless. He was grateful to Eliza, his Princess, for saving his life but he realised – as they walked up the hill to the Library – that he cannot, he must not, keep relying on others for his own well-being. When he returned to the Heiress, he intended to spend every free moment with Mr. Frost learning to fight. Next time… next time he would be ready.

And then his window shattered, as a man tumbled through it. Dazhyen acted on pure instinct as he lunged out of bed and thrust his sabre into the dark mass that lay in front of the window. Instantly it was expertly parried, and he saw a flash of silver slash against him. The air was knocked out of his body as he fell backwards, saved from a grizzly death only because his opponent misjudged the distance and, as a result, just about scratched Dazhyen’s chest. He spent a few precious seconds on his back, reeling from the pain – it felt as though he had been punched by the bosun. He felt around for his sabre, wrapped his fingers around and leapt onto his feet. His assailant was, however, already dead – a victorious Eliza stood over him, withdrawing her dagger from his neck.

“You did well,” she said, genuinely impressed, as she cleaned her dagger on the dead man’s clothes. “You were quick – he didn’t expect that,” she nudged the corpse with her foot, “and you caught him by surprise. Had he been slightly slower, you would have skewered him,” she sheathed her dagger and looked up at Dazhyen. "You allowed me to take him completely off balance. Without your lunge, I would only just be finishing him off.”

“Oh,” Dazhyen was stunned.

“He climbed all the way up here,” Eliza had poked her hooded head out the window and was looking down, “so he knew what he was doing. He was overconfident,” she breathed heavily, but not uncontrollably. “That being said,” she was now kneeling over the body, “I wonder why Odehi still hasn’t sent his best. I doubt that an expert climber and a half-decent duellist is all he has at his disposal. There must be another threat – a more dangerous one,” she was now examining the assassin; who appeared to be an Uttaric elf.

“You mean, now? Again? Tonight?” Dazhyen’s heart was still racing and he realised that his hand was still tightly wrapped around his sabre. He relaxed his hand slightly and his whole body de-tensed with it.

Eliza shook her head. “No, it makes no sense for him to have sent two. This is the Yellow Library – he would gain nothing from causing a scene. From what I’ve learnt, our original assessment was wrong – he holds practically no real influence over the city, and seems to be… incompetent,” she frowned as she said those final words, though Dazhyen could not see her face.

“So?”

“So, breaking into the Yellow Library to commit murder would make even less sense than slaughtering you in the streets. I doubt this man,” she indicated to the would-be assassin who now lay motionless in a puddle of his own blood, “was sent here to kill you. Probably just to gather information. You weren’t watching, but he slipped through the glass – it wasn’t intentional. He was trying to open the window and his gloved hand slipped – and with it, he slipped.”

“I see…” Dazhyen said as Eliza searched the body, he turned his attention to the shattered window, through which now biting cold air was streaming in. As Dazhyen’s adrenaline died down and feeling returned to him, he felt a shock from the cool air was over him. “Luminil!” he cursed, catching himself and Eliza by surprise.

"You evoke the Pantheon?” Eliza seemed delighted at this.

“I… yeah. It’s just,” he indicated to the window, “It’s so cold!” he said through chattering teeth. Eliza laughed – it was that sea-breeze laugh again – and Dazhyen responded with an awkward smile.

“Yes,” she was still beaming, her whitened skin radiant in the moonlight. “I suppose it is too cold to sleep like this!” she said as she walked over to the window, and closed her eyes.

It looked to Dazhyen as if she were meditating, and for a moment he wondered what use that might be – until the shattered glass and splintered wood around him zipped through the air. He watched in stunned silence as the window began to knit and stitch itself back together – the shards of glass and the chips of wood were twisting and bending themselves into the shape they had held before the would-be assassin smashed through them.

“Your Majesty… how did you do that?” he could scarcely believe his eyes.

She returned an awkward smile and said shyly, “it’s a gift,” before turning her attention to the corpse which now lay on Dazhyen’s bedroom floor. He watched, once again in awe, as the blood seeped into the stone underneath and the body turned to ash as if cremated. This all seemed to be done by Eliza with her eyes, quite literally, shut. “It’s impossible to do that,” she seemed to be referring to the smatterings of ash that were once a person, “with something that still lives. Their willingness to live, for lack of a better term, fights back. To tell the truth, to do that to a corpse is draining enough,” she yawned as if for effect.

Dazhyen nodded, in shock.

“I need to make my way back to my dormitory now, Dazhyen,” she was looking up at him from quite close-by – she was nearly a foot shorter than he – and this snapped Dazhyen out of his daze.

“Yes, ma’am. Of course,” he rushed to open the door for her which was another act which made her laugh.

“You’re sweet,” she said softly as she walked past him, hidden in her cloak, and disappeared in the shadows.

Eliza slept well that night, sung to sleep by the soft wind that tapped against her window, and with her mind fortified by her righteous conviction. She’d killed to protect… her friend. It was an odd sensation, but a comforting one. She’d known love before, for she loved Gunada, and Ani, and her mother, and they loved her too. She’d known respect, for she and Raidas shared that feeling. But friendship? No, that one was unknown to her. She first noticed it as she’d gotten ready for tea with Dazhyen, and had found herself looking forward to it. A friend! The sensation spread through her chest like hot cocoa on a cold winter’s day, and she was asleep the moment her head hit the pillow.

Come morning, Eliza woke with a new resolve and readied herself for a long day ahead.

Throughout the day, she spotted Odehi’s goons – who seemed all to be mercenaries or hired thugs – on multiple occasions. Often, they made no effort to hide themselves, thus drawing the ire of the locals, or they were so incompetent in their attempts at stealth that Eliza had no trouble noticing them. But they did not make an approach. This was Odehi’s way of sending a message, Eliza felt, of reminding her and Dazhyen that he knew they were in his city, and that he knew who they were.

Dazhyen, within minutes of him meeting Eliza, had broached the topic and asked a question that Eliza should have foreseen and forestalled. “How does Odehi know we’re here?” he’d asked, in his innocently unapologetic way. “He doesn’t,” she’d responded, though she wasn’t entirely sure. “He took his best guess – his people in Afor have all been killed or jailed over the past year. In fact, the week before we left Afor, a superior of mine,” she chose her words with great care, “had killed his top man.”

Dazhyen seemed to remember that killing. “You mean Basantha Gutti was killed by you?” Raidas had killed Rohak Gutti, a Basantha by rank and thus nominally in charge of the Maran temple in Afor. Gutti had been one of those directly responsible for inciting the violence in Ushek, but had managed to insulate himself from association by leaving little physical evidence. The murder remained unsolved, and the Afor Daily and The Times of Afor had run stories on it constantly. The press liked the unsolved ones, and Raidas and Gunada delivered.

Eliza shook her head. “Not me, but the good Basantha was gotten by one of us, yes. The timing of the arrival of an Afori ship must have been too suspicious for Odehi, who is clearly extremely paranoid.”

“So, he ordered me to be killed… just to be safe?” Dazhyen was less shocked than she’d expected him to be.

“Yes, that is what they do. They are more violent than even you were allowed to know.”

“And why not you?” his face had morphed into an expression that betrayed his feelings of unfairness. Eliza laughed – but in a haughty manner, and stressed her voice of Pyrene Firebeard.

“What threat does Professor Firebeard pose? Is dear old Odehi hiding texts on the seasonal behaviours of the White Coast Wyrmlings?” she spoke with a wide grin, stifling giggles.

Dazhyen laughed at her impersonation – he always laughed when she stressed the character of Firebeard. She liked his laugh, she’d realised. “I understand, ma’am,” he spoke with due deference. Eliza was deeply disturbed by this – especially in lighter moments. She had begun to see him as a friend, yet he clearly saw her as… Prince Eliza Mawer, Heiress to the Kingdom of Afor. He must stop calling her ma’am and Your Majesty, she’d decided in that moment. She would tell him when they were back aboard the ship.

The morning passed quickly, and soon Eliza found herself sitting alone in the Yellow Library leafing through a myriad of works on wyrmlings across the world. She did so absent-mindedly, however, as she was focused on the Dean of the College, who’d taken a seat across from her. The Dean’s back was turned to her and he was humming as he read. The man was dressed in a scholarly robe of black and red silk, and he was exactly who Eliza had been waiting for. Dean Husail al-Farooqui was a personal friend of Iram Odehi’s, with them both having met at the College some years back. She calmed her thoughts and closed her eyes, preparing herself to rummage through Husail al-Farooqui’s memories. She’d already tried to break into the man’s office, or to gain an audience with the harbour master for he was also a friend of Odehi’s but it had all been to no avail. All else that she tried in an effort to gather information on Iram Odehi had failed, as a matter of fact – from intercepting letters sent to and from the Temple, to sneaking aboard the ships that carried goods marked for it. And so, she was left with little choice.

The world was remade in her mind in that familiar black and white, and she stilled her attention on the man in front of her. Five years of unbroken tutelage under Gunada and Raidas had made her damn near an expert in manipulating the meya while meditating and she knew well how to plunder an unsuspecting target’s memories. She followed that thrum to its source and soon found herself assaulted by the memories of Dean of St. Tithus College, Husail al-Farooqui.

From what she could gather, the man was an expert on the history of the Principality of Caldwell – one of the many city-states that made up the country of Dunwenn – and was infatuated with cheeses. He was also an avid collector of wine bottles, though he didn’t much like the wine, and loved to paint scenes of the longshoremen at work in the docks; at this he was not particularly good. Most amusingly, he relished in wearing women’s undergarments underneath his uniform – a fact which shocked Eliza so much that she almost broke concentration. But soon she arrived at a conversation, seemingly recent, the man had had with his old friend.

In the conversation, which took place over dinner, they spoke about the theology of the Faith Karyadar, the ancient and true name of the religion now known as Azdavyery, and the philology of the Ushushki language and how it impacted the spread of the Karyadar in the Isles of St. Maria. While they spoke, they spoke almost exclusively in Uttaric – though both men were from the eastern reaches of Dunwenn. As the dinner drew to a close, they grew silent – Odehi was the one to speak up.

“What do you know of Afor?” he asked with venom in his eyes. Husail had felt uncertain in how he should respond, so he’d responded with the truth.

“Just that a few years ago their Queen passed, their King is said to be mad, the heir is adopted, and that we Casatis are great fans of their aged reds!” he’d chuckled. Odehi’s response was much colder.

“That dynasty is a blight on the land. We do not call the islands the Isles of St. Maria for nothing! Saint Maria and Saint Peter were the greatest prophets of Azda-Mara!” he was seething now.

“Steady there, old chap!” Husail was laughing uncomfortably. “Perhaps you’ve had too much wine,” he gingerly reached out and moved Odehi’s glass away. Odehi did not respond. His face was narrow, his eyes shrewd, his nose bent left, and his lips so thin as to be invisible at first glance. Yet now, that left turned nose was flaring and his lips seemed swollen in anger.

“We will kill that King and his heir, Husail,” Odehi seemed like he was making more a promise or swearing a vow than simply wishing and hoping. “And when we do, when I am made Atashga of Afor and Rakhak of the Saints,” Eliza had never heard the second title before, “you and your city stand much to gain.”

Husail had nearly stumbled out of his chair. “No, I will not have any part of this insanity,” he’d said – and he’d meant it. “Good night, old friend! I bid you see sense! This is not a path that, if you tread down it too far, will end well for you – that I can see clearly enough!”

It was at that moment that Eliza broke her concentration – prying any deeper would have exhausted her entirely. Besides, she’d learnt enough and, simultaneously, nothing new at all. Odehi’s plans had been easily deciphered by her and Gunada, and his ambition was nothing new. However, if he’d begun to speak about it so publicly he was either in desperate need of support, or was on the verge of success and was gathering allies. Unfortunately, nothing in the memory had dated the conversation so Eliza could not parse when it had taken place. Eliza needed more – and she needed to act fast. Sitting there, she decided that there was nothing else left to do – she must break into the Temple of the Mara on the Sea and she must do it tonight.

As she returned to the physical world and opened her eyes, blinking as they adjusted to the light which flooded the library, she realised that an attempt to break into the Temple would be a daunting task. She paused for a moment in the middle of collecting her things, to ground herself – prying that deep into someone’s mind and memories was disorienting. For someone as inexperienced as her, there were real risks – the least of them being exhaustion, with the worst being driven to insanity. She breathed in the air of the Yellow Library’s great reading room – the smell of paper and ink was one of her most favourite in the world. The reading rooms were located above the library’s ground floor – which itself contained the maze of bookshelves – and the rooms’ walls faced the sea, with great windows through which light streamed in in plenty. Below her were rows and rows of bookshelves and cupboards, stacked neatly with books arranged in order – by topic, then by the author’s name. The Library had quickly become one of her most favourite places on the earth.

The wooden floors were ancient and carpeted by a red carpet embroidered with gold thread, the walls were of a beautiful white sandstone and the bookshelves had stunningly detailed gold inlays. Each book’s cover was hand-drawn and engraved with silver, or ivory, or – for the rarest and most valuable of tomes – gold. But most stunning of all was the ceiling – large dome made entirely of glass panels joined to each other by wooden beams. Eliza almost wished she didn’t need to leave, but she dutifully got up and left, making to meet Dazhyen for lunch.

Dazhyen had busied himself with studying as well, though Eliza did not know the particulars with which he concerned himself, and as she waited for him in the College’s mess, she cast a wary eye over those who attended. The first thing she noticed was that the mess hall was almost empty – which immediately triggered an alarm in her mind. It was lunch time in the middle of the winter term – students should have been eating here in great quantities. Instead, only a handful could be spotted, and the staff – be it academic or otherwise – was nowhere to be seen. At a table a few rows down from her, four men sat eating quietly, their faces hidden. Instinctively, Eliza’s hand dropped to a dagger she had strapped to her thigh under her dress and she readied herself. But surely, they would not strike so publicly. Perhaps she was being over-cautious. But then again, Husail was an extremely old friend of Odehi’s…

“Madam Firebeard!” Dazhyen’s cheerful melody broke her out her paranoia. She noticed her friend walking across the hall, behind him a flood of students and staff. Her eyes darted to the large mechanical clock at the centre of the mess hall – it was among the College’s greatest achievements and she had no idea how it worked – which showed that the hour had only just struck half past one. As the world around her was filled with students and noisy chatter, she realised she had just been paranoid and over-cautious. The four men she’d suspected stood up and revealed themselves to be among the older pupils as they went about their day paying no mind to ‘Pyrene’ and Dazhyen. Dazhyen sat himself down opposite her, placing a heavy book on the table next to his plate of food.

Eliza silently reprimanded herself, “paranoia is a sure-fire way to get yourself killed!” Gunada had warned her numerous times. “Analyse, think, and act! Paranoia will work only if you control it. Master your base instincts and replace them with considered actions!” he’d drummed into her head. Why was she straying from that now? It was, perhaps, the daunting task of breaking into the Temple.

“I was studying the history of the Mawer Dynasty,” Dazhyen was saying. The book he cradled was titled On the Mawer Dynasty and an assessment of their “Impossible” Kingdom, ostensibly written by a historian called Professor S. A. Jenath.

“Oh really?” Pyrene spoke through Eliza, her voice high-pitched and words enunciated with precision. “Whatever for, dear chap? That old family is too boring to read about!” she laughed, and perhaps too sincerely, for Dazhyen looked offended.

“I beg to differ, ma’am,” he was considering his words carefully. It seemed to Eliza that Dazhyen’s cautious picking of words fulfilled two purposes; the first of maintaining the ruse of Firebeard, and the second appeared to be to make himself seem sincere in complement without sounding sycophantic. “What the Mawers have managed to do in a part of the world hallmarked by barbarous violence is nothing short of miraculous!” he had adopted a new, assertive, and confident tone. She had never seen him like this before, and the visage was quite compelling.

“They must be celebrated and their achievements in statesmanship and politics should be – as they rightfully are – studied across the world!” he beamed proudly, though Eliza was unsure how much of that pride was for her and how much of it was for the nation of his birth and to which he claimed loyalty. She smiled warmly and in agreement, engaging in polite conversation with her friend about the book and the many, many (Dazhyen was very taken by the arguments in the book) ways in which the Mawers were an ideal monarchy. Eliza had neither the heart nor the willingness to correct him. She knew that her adoptive family had the evil streak, such as with Gunada’s grandfather, and that without the Prafi it was likely that the Mawers would have resorted to the Isles’ nations’ ordinary tactics of suppression, repression, and cruelty. Furthermore, she couldn’t correct him publicly – why would Firebeard know of any of this?

It was after lunch and when they were secluded in the hush-hush halls of one of the many member’s clubs of the College – this particular one being the Scale and Dagger Member’s Club – that Eliza decided to reveal her plan to Dazhyen, and the role he needed to play that night.

“Break into the Temple of the Mara on the Sea?” Dazhyen had repeated coolly, though she could sense the abject terror he felt. He hid it well.

“Yes, that’s about the long and the short of it.”

“Will that not be dangerous?”

“Considerably so,” she nodded.

“What about Odehi’s goons?”

“We will need to lose them – either break their tail on us or kill them. Either way, they must not be allowed to pass a warning to the temple.”

Dazhyen nodded again, sipping his tea. “And what will you do once you are in there, ma’am?”

“What I must,” she said, leaving the matter open to inference. Dazhyen said nothing.

“And what am I to do?”

“It’s simple,” she said, staring down the length of the quiet hallway in which they spoke. “Return to the Heiress – and be loud about it. Make sure everyone knows that we’re leaving soon. Tell the maid who cleans your room, the boy who waits your table, the man who shines your shoes – anyone and everyone you can.”

“But won’t you need help?” he said, worry plaguing his voice.

“That is help, Dazhyen. I’m still not convinced Odehi’s thick-brained mercenaries think me a threat. If you draw them away, that shall give me plenty of time to get to the Temple, do what needs doing, and get back to the ship before daybreak. And hopefully all without being spotted.”

“What if some still follow you?”

“Then their lives are forfeit. I cannot risk being uncovered – that could mean war. And war is never a good idea.”

Dazhyen was silent for a moment longer, and Eliza too said nothing. For a while, the only sound was that of the roaring fire in the fireplace not far away.

“Your Majesty,” Dazhyen spoke up finally – it was the first time he’d referred to her real identity since they left the Heiress. “Please return safe to the ship,” he was glaring at his cup of tea – which had now gone cold – as he said this. Eliza smiled despite herself.

“Yes, Dazhyen, I will.”

The night was thick with fog – so much so that not even street lamps could be seen a few feet away. This, Eliza considered, was the greatest stroke of luck thus far on her stay in Casat. Dazhyen had carried out his duty perfectly – making a big show of his successful trip to Casat and showing off all that he had learnt. He ended the day by lamenting that he must leave and had earned many polite comments of sympathy. She had watched silently from her room as he set off for the docks, with a small guard of Odehi’s dim-witted thugs not far behind him.

Eliza left the dormitories within a few minutes of Dazhyen’s departure, and always maintained a wary suspicion of her surroundings, making sure she wasn’t being followed. It was a long walk to the temple, which lay to the north of the city’s boundaries, on a cliff overlooking the Bayn Sea. It was shortly after she left that the fog had rolled in and quickly become impenetrable. This was a common occurrence in Casat – in fact, it was so all along the White Coast. Warm winds from the Khostradeh Ocean to the east – an Uttaric word meaning “Expansive” – blew west, where they were immediately cooled by the cold air over the Bayn Sea and the White Coast. This cooling, her teacher of geography Mr. Kolminski had taught her, caused the sea haar to form so suddenly. Apparently, the onset of sea haars could be predicted with great accuracy, as the movements of the winds over the oceans had been studied by scholars and sailors alike – but that mattered little to Eliza in that moment. She was grateful only that no one could see her as she walked up the long and lonely road to the Temple.

She’d studied the Temple’s exterior on an excursion to the beach, an excursion to which Dazhyen had happily tagged along under the pretence of seeing the White Coast Wyrmlings. Thus she knew that, at least on a technical level, it would be easy to break into. It was built, almost hewn, out of coarse black stone which jutted out like a dagger above the land, and stood in stark contrast to the whites, browns, beiges, and bright colours of Casat. It was also a single monolithic building, built in the traditional Uttaric style. The main body of the building was circular and four-storied, with the roof being a multi-layered inverted cone, and into each layer of the roof were carved hundreds of figures. From her observations, it seemed that the Temple had once been a Sapti Temple that had been subsumed by the Marans.

The rough rock meant it was easy to climb, if needed, and Eliza had not spotted any armed guards. And that’s what worried her – it seemed too easy. Odehi had already made a show of force, multiple in fact, in the city. Where were the mercenaries now? Had he left the temple completely unguarded? Was there something more dangerous protecting it than a few brutes with daggers? She was now upon the temple, however, and had little time to worry.

“Halt!” a voice called out to her through the grey fog. “The temple is closed to the public!” the voice was nearer now and soon a silhouette in the fog. The man was wielding a sword, and on his belt, there appeared to be a pistol. Eliza considered simply slipping past silently, but quickly changed her mind when the man made a threat. “Turn around now or your life is forfeit!” he ordered. Eliza almost pitied the man for he seemed to be uneasy with the weapon. His level of expertise was quickly confirmed as Eliza lunged at him from the fog, and he was so taken by surprise that he did not even raise his blade in defence. Had he known how to use that weapon, had he been quicker, he could have sliced her down – but this was not to happen, and Eliza thanked her lucky stars that the gamble worked. Eliza’s lunge had been expertly aimed and her long dagger pierced the man’s heart. Her left hand immediately covered his mouth as he keeled over and died. On the man’s neck she saw a tattoo – it was almost identical to the Azadvyery symbol, though the hand was now covering the other side of the face. It was the Maran sigil.

She made no attempt to hide the body as it would have taken too long, and was immediately on her feet, walking with purpose toward the temple. Ahead of her, she could hear dull footsteps and soft voices, and see the dim light of oil lamps bobbing up and down in the hands of tired guards – Odehi had indeed placed the road to the temple under guard. But then why was the guard behind her alone? Picket-men patrol in twos – always! The idiocy of her decision dawned her and within a second, she’d turned around. Any minute now the dead man’s companion would spot the body and raise the alarm – any minute now. She had to beat him and she had to kill him.

“ALARM!” a panicked voice shrieked. It was too late, and yet she was upon him, dispatching him too in the middle of his shrieking. It was then that she most thanked the fog, as she extinguished the dead man’s oil lamp and slipped into the darkness.

What followed was a test of her patience. She lay still for a good few minutes, hidden by the brush, dirt, and fog, from the mercenary guards that were now running about. Her bloody dagger she held tight, and her body was poised to lunge if discovered. She regretted not taking a pistol with her, for she would have appreciated the firepower – but it would have made too much noise. At some point, a man in charge gave the order to fan out and search for the killer, which caused her to brace for her inevitable discovery. But no such discovery occurred – the men missed her entirely, walking perilously close to her hiding spot, but never tripping over her and never seeing her. Only then did she realise the extent of the expertise that Gunada and Raidas had trained into her. A few minutes after the search party passed her by, she got to her feet, and after making sure no one was nearby, she made her way to the temple.

The door was guarded by two large men, silhouetted by the bright firelight from inside the temple and the blaze of their oil lamps. In a fair fight, she would never have beaten them – especially in a frontal attack, for they were armed with muskets. And so, as she walked nearer to them, so near in fact that one of them called out to her, she raised her hand and pushed. It was one of the first battle tactics of the meya that Raidas had taught her, and it was markedly her most favourite. Reaching out across the meya she did not actually push the two men standing in front of her, she just willed them to fly back. As they were violently shoved onto their backs, then flipped over onto their stomachs, and disoriented by the unnatural experience before coming to a rest some ways inside the temple, she had drawn her dagger and had rushed them – killing them swiftly, before they realised what was happening.

As she took a moment to steady her breath, she observed her surroundings. The inside of the temple too was hewn from that same odd black stone and there was firelight everywhere. Marans, she remembered, believed in the Pravi Agnih, or the Holy Fire – a cleansing fire that purified through pain and torment, the sins caused by Lies. In the centre of the temple was a large firepit, in which a fire roared. Its flames licked upward, the smoke escaping from a hole cut into the ornately decorated roof.

That was not, however, the most interesting thing she saw in the temple’s main hall. A man was sat in front of the fire, his back to Eliza. He was meditating. Before Eliza could slink into the shadows, he spoke. “So sends Pretender-King Gunada his little assassin after me…” he was speaking in Uttaric and he seemed to have resigned himself to his fate.

“I knew this would happen,” he lamented as he got up and turned around. There stood Atashga Iram Odehi – an old, frail, and deeply evil man. “I shall not attempt to fight you – I stand little chance,” his voice was thick with contempt. “I must die… it must be so.”

This piqued Eliza’s interest and she could not help herself. “Why must it be so?” she enquired.

“Because I told His Lowness Keegan-Trith that his plan would not work. He asked if I’d bet my life on it,” Odehi’s eyes were low, but not devoid of hope. “Well I did.”

“His Lowness?” Eliza enquired, before her quarry could speak further.

He laughed at that – but it was not a pure laugh. No, even his laughter was seeped in contempt and hatred. “Yes, lowness. I refuse to call that man Highness. He is not my Duke or King or Prince!” Odehi’s shouting echoed in the empty temple.

“What a pity, assassin,” he hissed the word, as though he were a snake, “that you come upon me now. Now when I am… old and frail. Now – when my diseased arms cannot lift up a sword or even load a blasted pistol.” Eliza moved closer and observed the man who stood in front of her. The fire was behind him and as such he was silhouetted, but she could tell well enough that Odehi was wasting away. There was nothing to him but skin and bones.

“They call it the Gaunt,” he looked down at his body in disgust. “And it is My Lady’s greatest creation.”

“How is it then,” Eliza moved closer still, her fingers tightening around her dagger, “that she has struck down her faithful servant so?” Odehi laughed again, and again she heard venom in it.

“She created it, you idiot girl. She does not administer it. The Rakhak, that is the Warden in this guttural language, and only the Warden is privileged with control of this wasting disease.”

“And who is the Warden?” Eliza was now within a few feet of her quarry.

“You hunt us, and you do not know us?” his vitriolic response was followed almost immediately by him spitting at his feet.

“I know what the Warden is, Odehi,” Eliza spoke through gritted teeth. “I know that he is chosen to represent the will of the Married Saints, though,” and she smirked as she spoke next, “why you do not call him the Prophet is beyond me.”

“You insolent girl!” he raised his hand as if to slap her, but so weak was he that Eliza did not even need to parry it. The speed of the movement and the weight of his own arm toppled him over and he collapsed onto his back. “The only Prophets were the Saints! No one else can be the Prophet! I should cast you into the fire for just uttering the word!” his lungs now seemed to be exhausted for his shouting had become raspy and softer.

He pulled himself back up to his feet, and collapsed again. “Keegan-Trith,” he smiled through the pain. “He is the Warden. He,” Odehi’s smile disappeared and was replaced by a look of fury, “was my pupil! I taught him everything he knew and he stole from me my birthright!”

“Well,” Eliza shrugged, “bully for him.”

“I lie here now,” he smiled once again through the pain, eyes fixed on his holy fire, “and either you will kill me… or the Gaunt will. Either way, I shall not see the sunrise. But I take pleasure,” he now turned to look at Eliza, still smiling his broken smile, “knowing that you will kill Trith, that the Gaunt will strike down Afor first and then all Liars, and that my men will have killed your friend by now-” Eliza did not wait for the man to finish, and drove her dagger deep into his stomach – this she repeated six times. It would cause him a slow and painful death, which was more than what he deserved. “At least… I got your friend…” he croaked, as Eliza shot off.

She had to save her friend.

****

The full chapter is just over 8k words, and can't be posted here in full. Will post part 2 of ch.2 later!

PS: This is a world I've been building since 2019. It began as a thing I did to pass the time, and has become a pet project. I have over 6000 years of history written down, and dozens of in-world documents. I think all of this has bled into chapter one to detrimental effect.

But I'm too close to it! My beta readers have been friends and family, and they've been too close to it too. So I need fresh eyes.

My questions are simple: what works? what doesn't and why?

Ty!