Chapter 69 Lunes
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Lunes
Night was falling over Lunes, and Auria could barely breathe.
Detective Jebat had pulled together a tactical team remarkably fast, and they’d arrived in Lunes in dribs and drabs via portari gate over the course of the afternoon so as not to attract attention.
They wore plain clothes, cloaks of black and emerald and navy, chattering casually as they exited the station into the village.
Of course, in a place as small as this, locals would eventually notice the slew of unfamiliar faces, but that couldn’t be helped.
Auria stood in the station for hours, nodding calmly to the stream of detectives filtering in, her pulse thrumming like a long, drawn-out chord.
She had just taken the biggest gamble of her career. Her life.
“How’s it going?” Nissa asked via wand tip. Outside the station, dusk was a moody indigo, the sky bruised with rain clouds.
“The last of the tac team just arrived. They’re setting up position in Renzel’s Wandery—it has a strong vantage across the village green.
To the east it has eyes on the portari station, and to the west the Saints hall.
Most of the action in Lunes seems to happen between these four points, so we’re in a good spot to watch how things play out.
Move in when we can. The local streetwatch is small, only half a dozen or so on the force, but primed to offer backup if we need it. ”
She needed killing curses to be fired between the whites and the scarlets.
She needed their leaders to be drawn out, dragged into the fray.
She needed to bide her time, letting enough momentum build for the arrests to be airtight.
Thankfully Detective Jebat had a lot of field experience—Auria was skittish, prone to playing a hand too early, but he’d know when to move in.
Tonight was the night. She felt it in the hum between her ribs, the jangle of her nerves, the thunder charge at her temples.
“Any updates at the apothecary?” she asked Nissa.
“Contact dropped between the Whitewing and the boy, Relar. Ferrow told him that his Bloodmoon protections were dead, and I think he’s gone dark. Now Ferrow is sending threatening messages, promising to kill his grandmother unless he answers, but…if I were the lad, I’d know it was a lost cause.”
“Are you going to intervene if Ferrow tries to kill her?”
“It’s your case. Do you want me to intervene?”
Auria played out the various scenarios in her mind. “Yes—providing the risk to you is minimal. Save her if you can, but not at the cost of your own life.”
“Heeded. I can handle a swine like Ferrow.”
There was more Auria wanted to say to the dragonborn Wielder, but she was too cowardly to say it—she was channeling all available courage into the operation.
Heart in mouth, she pushed off the wall of the station, back and feet numb from hours of rigid observation, and strode out into the night.
If it weren’t for the sinister mission, Auria might find Lunes quaintly beautiful.
Novarin was her heart home, the scholar city a hundred miles west, but its influences here could be felt like dim echoes; a branch of her favorite parchment shop, several secondhand bookshops (more than there was surely demand for), a library with a yew tree growing through the thatched roof.
There were taverns, though not like the brawling, raucous drinkhouses of Atherin—sleepy, comfortable places, serving as much ambertea as they did bitterale, with gentle music floating out into the night sky, the crackling laughter of the elderly.
How she loathed to bring violence into such a place.
Fighting the urge to flee—her limbs were flooded with adrenaline, and she’d never been good at coping with the sensation—she strolled down the high street, past the village green and the wandery where her colleagues lay in wait.
She kept her wand in her palm, though tucked up in the wide, loose sleeve of her scholar’s cloak.
She made a show of stopping to look in the window of the library, though turning her back to the village green felt like an almighty risk—she half expected to be ambushed at any moment.
Rather than studying the texts in the window, she kept her gaze trained on the reflections in the glass.
Though it was hard to pick out exact shapes under the shroud of night, the streetlamps surrounding the green had no silhouettes standing suspiciously beneath.
The village was eerily quiet, which only highlighted the busier spots.
On the other side of the green, adjacent to Renzel’s Wandery, was a pokey little tavern called the Brimming Keg—more sound came from the bar than the rest of the village combined. The windows were opaque with moving shapes.
Flashes of white cloak. Unmistakable.
She lifted her wand subtly and called Jebat.
“Marriosan?”
“I see white shapes in the window of the Brimming Keg.”
“Heeded, and already noted. It would be a rather conspicuous place for them to hide out, but it does offer eyes on the portari gate, where they’ll be expecting the Bloodmoons to head for.
And they’re used to being able to conduct their business brazenly in the capital.
Perhaps they haven’t thought about how obvious their position is in a quieter locale. We’re keeping a close watch.”
“Heeded. Stay safe.”
Her skin prickled with fire as she set off on her patrol once more. Every instinct screamed at her to charge the tavern now, to use the slaughter of the Bloodmoons at the apothecary in Atherin to arrest these Whitewings, but she knew it was the nervy, shortsighted play.
No, she needed killing curses to be fired. Preferably by the Whitewing leader, who’d told Ferrow she was coming here herself.
Of course, there was also the Saffron of it all.
There was every chance her former friend was with the Bloodmoons—still undercover, and walking right into this ambush.
The Whitewings would kill every scarlet they laid eyes upon.
Ordinarily Auria would try to extract Saffron before that happened, yet this operation required killing shots to be fired.
So many moving parts—three factions of mages, all at odds.
The timing would have to play out perfectly, or Saffron could lose her life.
At the top edge of the village green was a glorious Saints hall, its creamstone new and perfectly pale, its crimson-and-gold obelisk shining in the patchy moonlight. She felt a curious tug toward the hallowed hall, and with a fretful glance over her shoulder, she went inside.
The space was smaller than the Saints halls in the capital, but there were still all the usual hallmarks—a kiosk selling velvet pouches of painted stones, a bell-shaped main hall pierced by the obelisk, statues of Saints notched into alcoves in the outer walls and holding out basins for donations.
There was also a private curtained chamber where the Hand of the Saints would conduct private conversations with troubled parishioners, but tonight it wore a little sign reading: At the Pub, Find Me If You Need Me.
Auria went to the groove around the base of the obelisk, where errant snow and rainwater had flowed down the length of the column and into the circular basin. Kneeling before it, Auria went to cup her hands and drink from the water when something stopped her.
Anger, bitter and grainy as old coffee grounds.
She sank back onto her heels, looked up, and muttered like a madwoman, “I know you do not concern yourself with individual lives, individual loves and losses.
I know you have always set out a grand plan for the world, an eventual bend toward peace and prosperity.
And I used to believe in that so staunchly—that in the great arc of humanity, goodness would always win.
I still do. The day I abandon that faith is the day I am lost.
“But I’m so, so angry. Angry Tiernan had to be sacrificed.
Angry he’s not here with me now. Because he was good.
And you were supposed to honor the good more than anything.
What use is a world filled with whites and scarlets when you let silvers die so freely?
How is that following the great arc of anything? ”
A single tear fell down Auria’s cheek into the basin, mingling with the holy water.
“I once loved the idea that after we die, our souls are turned into a raw energy used to guide humanity through its great arc toward peace. That our souls become magic itself, and that magic is the force that will mend the world. So it should bring me comfort that every time I cast a spell in the name of good, I’m using Tiernan’s life-force to do it.
My grandfather’s life-force. But it doesn’t.
Every time I cast, I know I’m one step closer to a true goodbye.
One day soon, a spell will be cast using the last of them—maybe not even by me—and then they’ll just be gone. ”
Her breathing was growing ragged now, desperate.
“And all of this got me thinking…if you need fresh death for magic to endure…it’ll never stop, will it?
That’s why you allow violence and war, why you allow children to die of terrible illnesses.
You need their life-force. How is that fair? How is magic worth it?”
She was about to launch into another tirade when the wand in her palm crackled.
“Et vocos, Auria Marriosan.”
It took her several beats to place the voice, but when she did, she gasped.
“Sebran?” She climbed to her feet so fast her head rushed. “Where are you? Where have you been?”
“Captive in Bloodmoon mansion. Long story, but I just escaped. I’m back at the Order, but Jebat’s secretary told me you’re on a raid against both the whites and the scarlets.”
Auria’s mind scrambled to catch up. “Hold on. Why were you—”
“Marriosan, I’m coming to help.” His tone was as brusque as ever, yet something new underpinned it; a hum of anger, a nihilistic seethe. “I will bring those bastards down if it’s the last thing I do.”
Auria was torn.
On the one hand, he was likely not briefed, not even debriefed on his captivity. This went against all protocol, all good detective practice. She should insist he fill out the necessary paperwork, conduct the necessary interviews. Assure him that next time, he’d be here.
Yet…there might not be a next time. It could all end here, whether a defeat for white, scarlet, or silver.
And his presence could be the thing that tipped the scales in their favor.
There was nobody more skilled in ground combat, nobody more ruthless, nobody better at following orders.
Sebran would do whatever she told him, and he would do it extremely well.
Perhaps she could order him to protect Saffron—extract her, if he could.
Knowing that this was yet another line she was crossing, she swallowed hard and said, “We’re in Lunes, already in position. How fast can you get here?”