The orrock fell on its open side with a thud that marked commotion.

Confused quiet and whispers cropped up first. Then everybody was screaming or gasping or both. Quite a few disgorged their stomach's contents. Boots clicked softly, then boisterously, following which guards bellowed for calm, resulting in greater hubbub. Swords were drawn as, with armor or tabard on for second skin, they approached the fell beast.

Addie, hand inside cloak on bolster, started towards it as well, but the minstrel's hand clamped down on her wrist like a bind of iron. "With me!" he shouted over the racket.

In a direction opposite to where the guards were headed as a scattered wave, Addie was pulled along by Gryphik. She wriggled free of his grasp conveniently, but even so pelted fast after him. Only once did she whip her head around to see Nayari holding her daughter at the waist, covering Aeri's peepers.

Could the Ptirrens be here already? They would have to have made past the Dassan keep, then discovered this very road west. Or could it be that there were crumbs of rogues within these trusty soldiers?

The commotion was way too exacting for that second prospect.

They threaded their way eastwards, the sun overhead burning yam, white and dazzling. The road sloped up. The witchwood on their either side came to life with improper soughing: Seeeavoosh - Seeeeaavoooosh - SEEEEEAAAAVOOOOOSH -

Somewhere between a knot of shrieking women and whickering horses, Addie lost sight of the Tester. Had it been dark, the panic could perhaps have been manageable, but under the bright afternoon sun the horrific sight of the maimed orrock had been clear as lye soap. The rampaging guards appeared less and less confident the further Addie went. She collided head-on into two of them, not bothering with fake apologies.

Soon she was out of the thick of it. She saw Gryphik's glossy hair first, then him whole, breathing hard. His sweaty palms were on his knees and his eyes were anchored on the ground. Addie stopped besides him, stitches in her side, following his line of sight.

She found a corpse staring up at her lifelessly, its skin shriveled and decaying, as though it had been dead ten maes and not only just. The body was wearing full armor, and in one hand it held a helm with the Dassan Grail embedded on it. The helm looked like it had been pitting rust since the Baiid Era.

Feeling queasy, Addie precluded her eye. At first she thought what she was seeing hardly thirty span ahead of her was the light playing tricks on her mind, or may be just a man in hood and cloak. But it wasn't.

She saw a shadow.

Shadow, and no other way to describe it. It stood tall as a short giant and glabrous, bearing no quill or feather or hair. It was featureless and black, and sharp and vague. Vaporous like smoke, but solid.

This did not aid her queasiness.

At its feet - if a shadow could have feet, this one surely did - several other corpses were littered, each more sickening to behold than the last. Many of the corpses were armed guards, many civilians. Some had their backs as their fronts, some with faces flat as spades looked like they had been trampled. Others had skin and sinew like burnt leather or granite.

She tried, but failed to look away. Gryphik seemed the same way, although she was only distantly aware of his presence or even his existence.

Finally her gaze fixed like a doornail on one particular cadaver on the ground.

Where Poe's beady eye should have been, there was only a foul, watery residue. Already flies and dragoses were crawling across his tunic.

You robbed him of his last meal.

To avoid the unavoidable stench, Addie breathed through her mouth. The air that entered her lungs was thickened with heat, as was the air outside.

I would have my own if you hadn't felt so strongly about the truth, he had said -

Gryphik's hand was back on her arm. This time she did not fight its grip.

"Run!" he was yelling into her face. "I've got him!"

She looked at his crooked nose vapidly. Gryphik squeezed her arm even as he bent and gathered up the dead soldier's sword. Its sawtooth tip was black as the shadow . . .

The Shadow . . .

Addie looked back at it with unappetizing courage. Something like to a tiger claw scratched against the in of her gut.

That's a Rys Ami, or we'll eat our lungs, spoke her mageic nails.

She felt something else also. Something sweltering hot, in the pit of her stomach as much as in the pit of her anywhere - she surmised it was hatred. Hatred ferocious as her loathing towards Thonwak Danir.

"Fly, shren-aef!" Gryphik sputtered, as though from miles away. His grip detached and he started towards the baleful Shadow. "I'll help him!"

Him who?

Somehow Addie had missed Master Harl.

This would appear difficult to do, since he was standing quite boldly not nine feet from the quivering Shadow, poised in the Oadit Crouch stance, sword arm extended complete with his quarterstaff. There was an argonz blade, pecan as the embroidery of a Lord's cape and seven span long, protruding from the staff's end. His walrus mustache contained massive blood dregs visible from this distance; he had been cut on the lip not much ago. A strap of his dungaree was loose, like an outstretched hand teasing the Rys Ami. His shawl was missing.

Addie saw what she perceived to be coals in place of the Shadow's non-existent eyes. Their red-orange glare was vastly resentful. It seemed to be challenging Belraed himself.

Gryphik was sprinting towards his old friend, as was the Shadow. Gliding, for the latter, was more like it; the Rys Ami's feet were viewed by Addie as if through liquefied patchwork.

" - at arms!" she heard someone shout. Suddenly Addie wished she had caught some sleep earlier.

Before she knew it, her own feet were in motion and her knife had been flicked open. Commands being shouted behind caressed her ear, but the fighter in her heard no such thing.

The Shadow, seemingly materializing and immaterializing with each gliding step it took, lunged at Master Harl - who veered out of its way, kicking the ground hard as the Crouch dictated be done.

He looked small, the kosher blind old man.

"Don't make bare contact!" Master roared firmly at Gryphik, who held the sawtooth at swinging length from the Shadow.

Addie racked her brain.

But of course. She had heard the stories, everyone had: Rys Ami could taint with a touch animate and inanimate beings alike.

No wonder the Ptirrens had bested Walbrol and Queris in battle - and likely Dassan, too - with these on their side.

The only way to slay them was to make use of argonz metal, alchemical flame . . . or the power of a Tester.

Puhezer Gryphik held the sawtooth vertically in front of him. His narrow face glistened with sweat of concentration, lest his mageic not work.

Addie stopped in her tracks, watching as the hazy black mass shifted and blinked vigorously. The coals it had for eyes burned maliciously, but the unwilling Shadow kept in place. It seemed to be struggling, one moment stretching, another condensing.

It was similar to what Gryphik had done to Addie when she had asked for a demonstration of his power. A Bactract.

The Tester didn't twitch for a myriad of moments - one would think he were an effigy - whilst the Rys Ami did the opposite. Then Gryphik nodded minutely.

Addie hadn't been watching Master Harl. Their eyes now locked.
His hand swished sideways, and by the link of his Skill, Gryphik's sawtooth shot out of his hold and at the Shadow.

The serrated blade sped right through the black mass.

Three beats later, the Shadow exploded into a small dark cloud. Two glittering embers rose with the cloud towards the sun. A smell of sulfur spread across the road, extending into the woods, making them more pungent than ever.

Gryphik breathed, face slackening as though relieved of rope. Master Harl looked vexed as always, but was visibly shook.

Addie had done no fighting, yet she felt exhausted all the same.

At this time, about thirty or so guards trooped in. All on foot.

They were led by a man carrying a hefty longsword, clad in a corselet which may or may not have been covered in vomit a while back. His visor was up and a swarthy, masticated face sniffed at the rank from behind it.

"What're you doin' here?" Pedgram barked, cleft lip curling.

"What does it look like?" said Addie scathingly.

"This is a militant situation! Tap the road!"

Addie opened her mouth to speak, and Gryphik opened his mouth to speak, but the one to actually speak was Master Harl: "We have been assaulted by a Rys Ami. Your citizens' lives are in immediate danger."

"Rys Ami?" growled Pedgram, surveying the littered bodies. "This isn' some child's fantasy - "

The bladed end of Master Harl's quarterstaff flew to Pedgram's throat in a single bound, and stayed there pressing against it. Levitating in the air.

The guards straightened their weapons a breath too late, gasping extensively.

"More where that comes from," said Master Harl. "We just killed a Rys Ami, whether you want to believe it or not. If you value the lives of the people you have surely sworn to protect, if you value your own, you will pay heed to what I say. Will you not?"

Pedgram did not speak. The apple in his throat bounced against the staff blade.

"Sir," said one of the guards apprehensively - it was difficult to tell which with most of their helms on. "I saw it. It was like a - a shadow, only when I saw it I felt - "

"Shut it, Horte," said Pedgram. "They're fucking Jen."

Master Harl drew an exasperated breath. "No. We're not."

"But you are mages. And obviously not affiliated with any Ations House. I've no reason for believin' a damn word you say."

"What we are is survivors," said Master Harl, "and we want for the rest of Dassan to live too."

"I will take no orders from any mage scum," Pedgram spat, wisely trying not to sound as flustered as he looked. "For all I know, you freaks have been doin' this - "

"When?" said Gryphik. "When your soldiers were busy running for their own lives?"

" - and the people, by the by, are on the move for Fehnia. A knot of our best men are behind to escort them."

"How thoughtful of you," mocked Gryphik.

"The Highlord is carin' about all lives, lowly or important. So are all Aryans. So is Comrer Fugaak, and so are we!"

The guards whooped a half-hearted agreement.

"Clearly," said Gryphik, mopping sweat off his chin.

"I should be arrestin' you."

"Arrest us if we make past the turnpike alive." Master Harl's quarterstaff retreated from Pedgram's neck mageically. The blunt end landed on the ground with a clunk of finality. From there Master must have extinguished his Skill's candle, because he held the -staff with his hand.

"Aren' you supposed to be blind or summat?"

"Not quite," replied Master Harl.

Pedgram gestured with his hauberk arms. "Podra! Horte! Check for hilt-markings, footmarks, anythin' that seems suspicious . . ."

The soldiers moved. Pedgram turned to Addie even as she put her knife into her cloak. "You, wench. I should've known. Is your little sister like you - ?"

"Keep it in your skirt," said she. Addie hadn't meant to show him the sharp side of her tongue, but it was so sharp it cut right through her cheek.

She padded behind Master Harl as he walked briskly to the edge of the woods and knelt over his trunk. It lay there open, sock and lint to keep it company in the dirt - and a broken plank of wood.

Master mumbled incomprehensibly as he threw aside the false base and plucked a short, curved sword out of it. A scimitar.

"Hold this," he said.

Addie did, without thought. Its curved fuller beamed brightly at her: it would as easily take a life as defend the next.

"Burn your building to spite the neighbors," Master Harl was saying.

"Master?"

"There have to be more of those around, shren. We must away."

"But, er, shan't the company of those . . ." Addie felt strangely distracted by the scimitar she held. Its weight felt right in her hands. It felt equitable. ". . . those soldiers be of help?"

"They're hardly proper soldiers. The battle left none to spare. Guards, escorts, that's what they are. And if need be, they will see to their safety, and us to ours."

"As you say, Master."

But Master Harl seemed to be speaking more to himself. "Prying nail of Frunota! I thought Keshar was a sensible Highlord . . . he ran the princedom twice as well as his father, and twice more as much as his father before him. Had he sent word out south, they'd have relieved their House of Ations, sent those mages to fight - they'd have done something, dammit! - we would, all of us, be much safer inside the keep than out."

"Master - "

"The armory has enough for girding the civilians too. Fool move, fool! War clouds wisdom, oh yes . . . be that as it may . . . I do wonder what reason he had for the exodus of us all . . . I do wonder indeed . . ."

Master Harl exhaled. There was a frantic shine in his glazed-over eyes.

"Keep the weapon, shren," said he then, having read his pupil's mind. "I have been awaiting the correct hour to present it to you. But I suppose, now that . . . humph, you keep it, and you keep it well. I shall be greatly displeased if you misplace or mistreat it."

"I will not."

"Good girl. You earned it." He placed a hand on her shoulder. Somehow Addie could sense the fatigue in its load. "My hopes hope that the guild find you erudite. That you be one with the Gilded Fingers. Holder bless."

"I th-thank you, Master." Addie had to stammer out the words. "For the, uh, the steel and the blessings."

"Always with you, shren. Always with you." He patted her shoulder once and walked.

Addie just stood there, admiring her new weapon and flaunting it to the nettle and stringbark before her. The foolish smile that made its way to her face was not under her command. This smile was only of surface; it held nothing whatsoever underneath. She was still trying to wrap her mind around all that had happened in the last . . . she didn't know how long.

Simultaneously, she was repressing a seriously strong urge to slash at the trees with the scimitar. The devil with it, she thought, and decided to peer over her shoulder, just in case, to see Master and Gryphik quietly in talk, and guards working away at mangled bodies . . . and behind them, something that vanquished all her loftiness.

Bestial shapes were drifting between the tree lines on the other side of the road.

Aeri, are you all right? Did you see your ma? What is it?

"Watch out!" Addie screamed, pointing.

A swarm of obsidian figures leaped out of the woods as eyes turned. Not Shadows all, rather mostly men.

But these Men strode by the Shadows as brethren, and they, too, had furnaces for eyes. In place of armor they wore strange, mirror-like robes which were not all seasoned for battle and shone blindingly bright under the sun. They also carried long, thin spears with an unearthly bluish tinge to them.

Two mismatched forces cleaved down on one another.

"Cream them!" cried Pedgram.

There was no such cry from the opponents. They seemed not to, and neither did their fabric or weapon, make any perceivable sound at all.

Guards dashed. Metal shrieked. Blade made brutal conversation with blade.

More and more figures kept emerging from the fringe of fanning leaves. Now there were more or less fifteen flame-eyed Men flinging their spears at the guards' Ylar swords. They were not proper soldiers, just as Master Harl had said.

Thin though the spears may be, they sheared right through steel like knife through butter. Dassan guards started collapsing at once, either impaled by spears or blackened by Shadow's touch.

Strangely enough, the Shadows - there were two of them, it would seem - and Men all seemed to be heading straight towards Addie.

So you've started seeing things now, spoke her mageic nails, burning hotly. Mad curious. Emphasis on mad.

Addie pulled her cloak tight and pounded across the road, her yell adding to the clamor. Her insides at once felt both glacial and scorched. The hatred, again.

She didn't know if the Men's weapon would cut her blade the way they did the guards' swords, but there was no space of time for thought or hesitation. Using her Skill, which was almost an instinct with her, from a distance first didn't even occur to her.

Addie swung her sword at a Man stalking steadily towards her.

He raised his spear casually - and with a din like tin struck by crowbar the scimitar's crescent tip wedged itself on its shaft. Addie looked into those burning eyes, and the burning eyes were looking right back at her. This filled her with unexpected scorn, and she put her upper arm muscles to work on the quillons. There was a screeching sound as the shaft stayed in place, while the short curved sword's edge started flaking off a bit.

Alarmed, Addie pulled away her sword and feigned going for the Man's other side with it raised. His blazing eyes followed her, and she was confident when instead she swept out her feet that she would knock him off.

Yet she missed, as the strange, reflective robes blinded her. The Man saw it coming. His spear slanted such that the flat end ruthlessly planted her foot into the ground. Addie struck with the scimitar again, this time -

Curly white smoke rising . . .

- with her Skill's strength behind it.

That did the trick. The shaft keeled backwards, as did the man, enough to leave his chest unguarded for a moment. Addie put her hands on the spear, pulling it as she kicked him hard in the chest with the pained foot.

The Man staggered one more step behind, but Addie could have promised there was a smirk on his face.

Her next maneuver failed badly, because it relied on using her Skill, her quaint, starving Wolf, to use the man's own spear against him. She discovered, however, that the Skill's candle had been blown and the Wolf was dead.

The spear grew more brightly blue and it was like an invisible shield prevented the Wolf from touching it. The Man struck, advancing.

Addie frowned even as she stepped back.

As a Skiller she had always at least felt the tug at the reservoir of power inside her in the presence of any metal. Nonetheless it was difficult - even hazardous - to operate on some, like gold, silver, mercury. Then other metals like nickel were nearly impossible to touch for the Wolf, but still the reservoir, the power, the feel was always there.

What alien metal was it, then, that the Men's weapons were made of?

The spearhead lashed out again, missing her shoulder by a hairsbreadth.

To be sure that she hadn't suddenly and inexplicably lost her Skill (the possibility panicked her; the reservoir of Power had been a part of her for five years now, been in touch since she first unlocked it to slay Thonwak), Addie reached with the Wolf's paw for her special argonz knife.

Sure enough, the knife tore out of its pocket and at the Man.

It buried itself in the Man's skull, right above the crenellated brow above an ablaze eye. It buried itself so only the hilt jutted out.

Addie requested, and so the invisible Wolf pulled back the knife. There was no blood. Only a cave fold in the Man's head.

He smirked with the unharmed lower half of his face in a curious manner. Then he fell, face first, at her feet.

Pulling her cloak tighter, Addie looked to her side. Two longswords were hovering besides Master Harl, whose impaired eyes seemed unaffected by the reflected light of the Men's robes. His quarterstaff spun, rolled, jabbed. His opponents kept surging forward.

She whirled as she sensed movement, and jumped backward as though punched in the chest. The spearhead caught the front layer of her cloak. Shiny, convoluted shells fell out as a rip was heard. Addie made their metallic heart one with the Wolf's, and they were projected at the Man's chest, where they submerged into the skin. No spray of blood, no sign of hurt, and the Man advanced indifferently.

Addie swung the scimitar again. It met the spear with a maddening clang and a flash of blue. Then a sawtooth appeared where the Man's mouth and nose were, twisting them through the back of his skull, and he fell, bloodless. Smoke roiled out of the gnarled features of what had been a face.

Gryphik stood there panting, face ruddy, eyes closed. Addie noticed a Shadow behind him forced to stay in place by the Tester.

"Run . . . you clot."

Even as Gryphik said this, the Shadow seemed to be breaking its unseen bondages, spreading like brittle smoke. Another two, now three, now four Men threw aside guards by their necks and marched towards Addie.

What in Heim is happening? Go to the battlefield. Fight the soldiers, you demons.

"Run. Please."

Something in Gryphik's voice convinced her that this was the right thing to do, and she scudded back the way they had come like a puck on ice. She slashed her new weapon at any Man that crossed her way. Once she had to squirm from the hard grasp of one.

Past a few span, as she made for the woods, three Men planted themselves in front of her like broad, sturdy pole-arms, like great lords of carrion. Addie half-wished to faint into their arms and let them carry her to Inira, but then Pedgram was there. Even with the helm on, she could picture his swarthy face, aghast.

For a beat the hardened, overwrought Addie was some other where. She was a little girl again, the girl who had felt invited on a Highlord's comely lap. Yes, he'll skewer them now, thought she, staring at Pedgram's quivering gloved hand, he'll kill them for me, like a knight from the songs.

Her own impotence annoyed her, yet there was nothing to be done about it.

"Be it on your head," Pedgram whispered audibly. "Life to Aryans!"

He shook the longsword in a long arc at the Man nearest to him. It was greeted by the spear of unknown material, and thereafter it was broken. Pedgram's gasp could've been heard for miles if not for the fighting din.

Addie wanted to move, to run, to dodge past the scene, but her muscles were disobedient on exhaustion's command.

Pedgram put what was left of his blade into the Man's chest, to no effect.

They can only die if struck at head, Addie weakly realized.

Now a spear had passed right through Pedgram's gut, now it was out, and he was on the ground. The Dassan Grail shone like to the Men's strange robes.

All three stalked towards her now. Addie lifted her scimitar, felt her Skill's candle dimming, the reservoir thinning, her legs draining of energy.

Firstly a foolish thought occurred to her, that Pedgram had somehow risen from death. But Gvother Carl, one of the nine anointed gods, gatekeeper of Inira, was not so kind. It wasn't Pedgram but Master Harl who had come to her rescue. He looked blue as the poisonous berries she had found the honeysuckle by, and worn as the broken strap of his dungaree. About and around his head flew many birds in small circles.

The birds sped at the Men, at which point Addie realized they were made of metal. The Men struggled with the daggers as a pig does with his rear. Addie let out a tired laugh, feeling fainter than ever. She could not feel her Skill at all.

Their head, hit their forehead, she wanted to tell Master, but no voice would agree to come out.

Gryphik came, yelling something she could not hear. He pushed her, and she moved. He pushed her, and she fell.

Her vision trembled, but she heard the daggers, the metallic birds, collapse. She heard also the unmistakable sound of Master Harl's quarterstaff breaking asunder. Followed by: "Humph. Come, you sons of bitches."

Addie saw through incredible haze Master produce forth a buzzing green object and hold it over his head. This brought back some sense into her brain, and her eyes greeted his. They looked more blinded than ever, and all the more vocal for it.

Save yourself, said they. Arguing will not be profitable. Gryphik might have been saying the same, but by then her ears were impervious to sound utterly.

Master Harl's hand pressed over the smooth, delicately crafted surface of the gleaming ruby. The light emanating from it grew until they were all bathed in it, as did the buzzing.

Then the Relic exploded.

Addie felt herself be nudged and manhandled past a sea of green - was it smoke? Or light liquefied? She felt herself stumble and step over bodies, perhaps Pedgram's, perhaps Poe's, and after a hundred beats or so the nudging and prodding ceased and her feet kept moving out of proclivity till she was out of the verdant sea.

Feeling worse than useless, she tried to see in four different directions at once while trying to blink back tears. There was the well, as dilapidated as herself. There the woods, there too, and there. But no man, no woman, no shadow. She was alone.

Master Harl . . . was gone. The man who was her ticket to joining the Jen, of becoming one with the guild of the Gilded Fingers, was gone. He had exterminated his pavagwe deliberately, consciously, a part of his soul, and that meant that he -

Sacrificed himself, spoke her mageic nails. For you.

Suddenly she was out of breath. Ants crawled in her stomach. Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. Sweat erupted from pores in her skin she hadn't known existed. A drunkenness besieged her.

It wasn't necessary that Master was dead. Relic was linked to mageic, not to the being. It was possible. It was. She would slap herself, but Addie didn't have strength enough for that. Where was her stubbornness at when it was time to be stubborn? She should've stayed, she should've fought.

Move. Or he'll have been betaken to Jovanni for nothing.

Addie had hardly taken five steps when something grabbed her ankle.

The scimitar left her hand as the ground rose and met her face. Her knee scraped. Her cloak ripped furthermore. It was her own shadow, insubstantial and dark, a reflection of herself, that had its wrist around her ankle. Surely this was an illusion, it had to be.

The shadow - an actual shadow, her own shadow, an outcome of heat and light, solid and real as a bar of soap - grinned its fangs at her. And as it did, whatever little sight Addie had remaining took its departure. Noise waned, leaving behind only the mournful howl of wind.

She was a goner, she was dead, this couldn't be happening as she lived -

The black before her eyes was replaced by the image of lightning splitting a starless sky, landing on a snow-capped mountain top, sending missiles and fountains of rock and dust flying.

The wind pressed hot against her skin, but refrained from its mourning. Addie felt a voice, the whisper of a whisper, slither into her head: We will keep her . . .

Then there was music, and after that there was nothing at all.

I will be editing this chapter later to make it more snappy and action-ish. Kind of wrote it in a hurry because I wanted very badly to introduce a new character to you.

Well, that time's here. We're going to be following some royals now. Politics and posh life and highborn troubles. I love writing that, and I hope I'll do the next parts justice.

Meanwhile, I hope you don't forget Addie.

Hang on. I'm very, very excited (◕ᴗ◕✿)