Jyl crouched several feet back from the edge of the roof doing a remarkable impersonation of a gargoyle. Her protege however was vibrating with barely suppressed nerves.

“Shouldn’t we do something about this?” Pelay asked, her voice pitched higher by nervous terror.

Down below them a princess of the realm and her assassin were being pursued by a trio of were-rats. As members of the Queen’s Guard, Jyl and Pelay were responsible for more than just the queen’s welfare. The health of her adopted daughters and sons was also part of their remit. In theory that duty also included the Queen-Consort as well but Jyl was reasonably certain that anything which posed a threat to Daelynne Akorli was a foe she couldn’t meaningful help defend against.

“No,” Jyl said. “Iana has this covered. See how she’s directing them down that alley?”

Iana, the princess in question, mentioned something about taking a shortcut at just enough volume to sound like speech yet be heard from the rooftops. Jyl wouldn’t have taken a bet as to whether Iana knew she had a pair of guardians present and lurking above her, but she was certain the girl could handle herself under the circumstances.

“That’s going to leave them cornered though,” Pelay said.

As a Pact Knight, Pelay had demonstrated above average skill, but that was a given for someone brought into the Queen’s Guard. Technically she was still provisional in the role, but Jyl had spent enough time training the new recruit in the Guardian’s Hall that some practical fieldwork felt like a perfect next step in testing Pelay’s aptitude for job.

It was, admittedly, Jyl thought, a little cruel to make Pelay’s first assignment one where the life of the heir-apparent to the crown lay in the balance. Given that Jyl’s first real assignment had been the historically unheard of overthrow of another realm though, she was only worried that Pelay might be starting with too easy of a task.

The three were-rats took the bait and followed Iana and her companion down the narrow alley, and moments later cries of shock were following by muffled screams of pain.

To Jyl’s amazement three different groups of people emerged from the buildings around the alley moments later and proceeded to venture forward to check out the disturbance.

People didn’t do that.

Or at least they hadn’t in Jyl’s experience.

She motioned for Pelay to hold her position and watched as the citizens of Highcrest apparently became involved in their community? The people weren’t forming a violent mob, and weren’t a group of drunken ruffians. They were just normal folks who reacted to a problem in their neighborhood by banding together and investigating it calmly. The idea boggled Jyl more than chasing after a royal heir who’d escaped the palace with her own assassin.

Highcrest was the royal capital of Gallagrin, but that didn’t mean it was well patrolled or defended in all quarters. Like any great city, Highcrest grew and grew until it had absorbed all of the available land. Thanks to Gallagrin being what it was, Highcrest then began turning unavailable land into habitable living spaces.

Just because you’re surrounded on all sides by mountains doesn’t mean you can’t expand. It just means that you have lots and lots of building material to work with.

Under Queen Alari’s reign, the royal treasury had never sat idle. The damage from the civil war that placed her on the throne had taken wealth to fix, and the damage inflicted by her father’s ruinous misuse and neglect of the realm had required even more. Even the war against the Green Council, successful though it had been, had not brought in piles of new wealth in any liquid form.

All that added up to mean Highcrest was not the opulent and overly endowed jewel of the realm it had once been. It wasn’t a cesspool of despair and misery by any stretch of the imagination, but things weren’t particularly easy for everyone either.

Jyl watched as the citizens carried three prone bodies out of the alley. They were all were-rats. Iana and Yuehne emerged on their own, walking beside a half-giant woman and a dwarf.

“They had these,” Iana said and passed a trio of clubs with nails in them over to the dwarf. She repeated the trick of speaking just loud enough to sound like she wasn’t shouting while at the same time projecting her voice so that the crowd (and the rooftops) could hear her.

“She absolutely knows we’re here,” Jyl said, not bothering to suppress her grin.

Officially, Iana had left the palace grounds without informing anyone. Rumors were circulating that she had been kidnapped by agents hostile to the queen but only a select few had been allowed to hear those rumors at first. Since they were started by Queen Alari, Jyl had questioned them from the beginning. She’d also questioned Wylika, Iana’s former second-in-command and still closest confidant.

Wylika didn’t come right out and say that Iana had told left a note to explain her departure. Given the illiteracy the two were still working to overcome an actual note was unlikely, but Jyl had seen them communicate with symbols on a far deeper level than most people would have imagined to be possible.

From Wylika, Jyl gathered that leaving had been Iana’s idea and was part of a grander plan. Alari concurred with that assessment and made the leap to join her adopted daughter in the idea of uprooting the conspiracy of harassment that had been plaguing them for more than a year.

Iana had an asset of the conspirators which they’d never had access to before; one of the assassin’s themselves. Alari and Dae believed in their daughter but, wisely Jyl felt, chose not to leave her completely on her own. Thus, the assignment to shadow Iana and assist her as much as, and only when, needed.

Undine had lobbied to take on the role of the princess’s silent defender but no one in the Queen’s Guard could compete with Jyl when it came to passing unseen and unnoticed. The only person she knew who could rival her in that arena was the current ducal heir to the Lafli family and Jyl was reasonably sure her sister had other issues to worry about than helping chase down a missing royal princess.

The crowd below parted as a pair of Highcrest constables arrived on the scene. They started taking testimony and deputized a few of the citizens on the spot. The deputies watched over the were-rats while the constables took statements from the crowd, from Iana and from the were-rats themselves. It was handled with such a lack of excitement that Jyl guessed the interplay between the law officers and the community was a common occurrence. Even the were-rats seemed to be aware of what their role in the proceedings needed to be. One of them shifted back to human form but the other two remained in their hybrid rat-human state, allowing the human form member of their group to answer all of the constables questions for them.

The situation on the ground was so calm and under control that Jyl almost missed what was happening on the rooftops with them. Pelay, for all her nervous excitement, did not though.

“We’re not alone,” Pelay whispered, indicating with a glance where their fellow rooftop skulker was.

Jyl narrowed her eyes and peered into the deep shadows that covered the building across the street from them. There was someone else watching the spectacle on the street. Someone in the sort of concealing, yet form fitting black garb which suggested they were not simple residents of the building.

“They’re good,” Jyl said. “How did you spot them?”

As an elf, Jyl’s eyesight and hearing ranges usually well exceeded that of her human counterparts. Pelay didn’t have that advantage and didn’t seem to need it.

“The shadows flicker but the clothes they’re in keep the area they’re standing in a shade too dark,” Pelay said.

Jyl nodded. It was one of the risks of working in stealth. Often the vantage point you wanted or needed was not the most concealing one available. The observer had selected their spot well but had been constrained by the need to watch the action below them.

“I think the were-rats are well in hand,” Jyl said. “Let’s go talk to our eavesdropper.”

Maneuvering to the opposing rooftop in stealth was a viable option, but it would require more time than they necessarily had available.

So, instead, Jyl leaped. Everyone thought of Pact armor as being bulky, heavy platemail. Few understand that the armor could be slimmed down to emphasize speed over power though.

Powered by pact magic, Jyl’s leap didn’t send her on a long arcing trajectory. She flew straight as an arrow from a bow and slammed into the other observer, taking the woman down to the ground as the two of them rolled across the rooftop fighting for control over the other.

Pelay landed beside as Jyl dragged her prey up to stand before them.

Her prey, the dummy filled with twigs and straw.

“That’s not possible,” Pelay said. “I saw her move just as you leapt!’

“What I hit was soft, but not this soft,” Jyl said.

They both stared at the bundle of clothes and then raced to the edge of the roof.

Iana was nowhere in sight.

Jyl didn’t so much drop to the street as fly to it.

Her arrival was met with astonishment. For the people who’d gathered, seeing a Pact Knight, much less one bearing the insignia of Gallagrin’s Queen was a momentous occasion.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Jyl said. “I’m looking for the girl who was accosted, did anyone see where she went?”

There was a flurry of questions from the crowd, but, maddeningly, no answers.

“I think I found something,” Pelay said, leading Jyl through the crowd and pointing to a sewer cover in the middle of the alley Iana had lured the were-rats to in order to fight them one at a time. “It’s been moved recently.”

Jyl saw the mismatch of the mold that grew on the sewer cover and the mold that grew around it. Whatever or whoever had taken Iana, they’d dragged her into the underworld beneath Highcrest. Aside from the sewers there wasn’t supposed to be anything down there, but the myths remained of whole communities that had fled from one unjust ruler or another and made their home down in the Deep Galleries.

“Is this part of the regular sewer system?” Jyl asked the half giant woman  who was nearby.

“I don’t think so,” the woman said. “It doesn’t back up when the others do.”

“Does it lead to the Deep Galleries?” Pelay asked.

“I’ve lived here for twenty years and I can’t say for sure,” the dwarf said.

“Only one way to find out then,” Jyl said and walked over to the sewer cover. “Pelay, report back to the queen, I’m going after them both.”

“We can have a report sent to Her Majesty,” Pelay said. “I think it would be good if I stayed with you until other backup can arrive.”

Jyl wanted to explain that sending Pelay away would make things easier since Jyl could focus on protecting herself and would be able to move at full speed, but then the dwarf spoke up.

“You’ll need a guide too,” the dwarf said. “I don’t know the sewers here but I know the specs they were built to. I may not be able to get you where you need to be but I can make sure you don’t get lost trying to find wherever that is.”

“I’d offer to go with you Brenn but I don’t think I’ve even fit through the hole to get in there much less be able to crawl around with you,” the half giant said.

Jyl debated for all of a single second. Taking two fledglings into an area as full of unknown dangers as the Deep Galleries was a huge risk, but it was the sort of peril she’d managed before.

“Thank you,” Jyl said. “We need to leave immediately though.”

“Yeah, that’s how adventures always seem to begin,” the dwarf said.

Iana didn’t find reading easy. The tight wiggly marks that Gallagrin used for its standard script had none of the grace or clear imagery of the Green Council’s basic symbol set.  It hurt her eyes to stare at them for hours at a time, but she was used to pain and used to pushing her limits. That someone was creeping up to stab her while she was working so hard was either a great relief, or a mild annoyance. She hadn’t decided which.

The intruder was stealthy, nearly indetectable by Gallagrin standards, but those were the standards of people who wandered around in enormous metal platemail and thought tactics like “hit them with your offhand” were true examples of subtlety.

Iana stayed focused on her text, a simple picture book fit for toddlers, but tracked her assailant by the scritching the talons on their gauntlets made on the stone as they maneuvered onto the ceiling directly above where Iana was sitting.

It was a good spot to attack from. From directly above, the movement as they dropped down onto her wouldn’t catch Iana’s attention. If the attack was executed well, Iana would die before she was aware she was in the slightest danger. Merciful and sensible. Iana appreciated the effort and diligence the attacker showed, despite their ineptitude at actual stealth. That they were trying to kill her would have been frightening if she wasn’t used to the attempts from their frequent repetition. Her certainty of surviving the attempt was fueled by that same level of well worn experience.

She’d been a Princess of Gallagrin for a little over a year and in that time, she’d survived over a dozen attempts on her life. That was due in part to the diligence of her adopted family, in part to the care and talent of the people assigned to guard her, and in part because whoever was sending the assassins didn’t seem to be interested in actually harming her.

The attackers always arrived bent on mayhem but they never came equipped with sufficient tools to enact the violence they attempted. Instead they had, to the last, been outfitted exceptionally well for quick escapes.

Alari (Iana was still working on attaching ‘Queen’ before her name, something daily and informal contact made increasingly difficult) explained that the attempts were a message from one, or more, of the nobles. The attackers left subtle clue pointing towards various noble houses of Gallagrin. Nowhere near enough for Alari to bring the indicated Duchess or Duke to stand before her and answer charges, but enough to open questions as to their loyalty.

“Whoever’s behind this is testing me,” Alari had said. “Trying to see where I’m likely to break and against whom.”

She’d promised to reinforce the guard, and move the princesses and princes to a safer location, but Iana had spoken with her fellow heirs to the throne. Gallagrin was a foreign realm and, despite it’s monarch’s kindness, the group of Ex-Green Council Warbringer pilots felt safest staying together and staying near Alari’s sheltering influence.

That kept them in the royal castle and Iana’s insistence kept the guards and protections at a reasonable level. She didn’t want the attacks to stop, she wanted to discover who was behind them. There were sins in the world and then there was causing Alari pain or grief and Iana found herself agreeing with Dae that the latter was far worse than the former.

Thanks to Dae, the heirs were uniquely well protected too, which was part of why Iana had voted to keep them all within the castle. The sorcerous wards that Dae placed on their dwelling prevented anyone with a full Pact Spirit from entering who was not the monarch of the realm. That eliminated the truly dangerous threats and left ones like the somewhat clumsy attacker who was scuttling across the ceiling like an inebriated spider.

Iana gave them the time to get in place, using the slow minutes to try to puzzle out the next few words in her picture book. Reading was a form of magic she’d only barely been exposed to as a Warbringer commander. Her orders were all conveyed directly via the Deep Root network she’d been grafted into while she lay in her command bower. Even the readouts within the Warbringer used a pictographic symbology set that was much simpler, in Iana’s mind, than the largely arbitrary arrangement of curling lines that Gallagrin stored its information in.

If she was going to be a proper princess though, she needed to understand her newly adopted homeland and it’s history lay in books far more than it did in any oral tradition. That was why she had to master the magic of reading.

There were other perks to conquering the challenging of reading too. Alari and Dae spoke of the adventures they’d had in their youth, raiding forbidden libraries and learning all manner of esoteric things. Dae credited that as one of the foundations of the sorcery she was able to work. According to her, becoming a sorcerer had been relatively straight forward, being able to work magic effectively was something else entirely though.

Iana didn’t expect that she would ever manage to cast spells like Dae did. Privately, she didn’t think she would ever really merit the title of ‘Princess’ either, but she liked challenges, especially ones which helped her understand her world better.

She’d worked out the fifth word on the page when she heard the distinctive scrap of metal talons sliding free of the stone they gripped. The poor assassin would have starved in the forests of the Green Council with an ambush technique as bad as that, she thought as she rolled away and drew the enchanted dagger Dae had gifted her with.

Halfway through her roll, she heard a cry of dismay ring out from her attacker. The beauty of falling was that it was reasonably silent, very quick and generated a lot of force behind the initial blow the attacker struck. There was, however, the slight problem that once you began falling it was exceedingly difficult to change your path unless you had wings.

As her attacker was not a fully bonded Pact Knight, wings were pretty much out of the question, which meant that instead of a nice soft Iana-body to break their fall, they got to meet the stone floor of the library that Iana had been sitting in at full falling speed.

Falls are funny things. Iana had seen creatures make and survive all manner of drops, some intentional, some not. One of the common elements though was that landing on something other than what you planned to was never a fun experience.

Neither was having an enchanted dagger pressed to the unarmored flesh of your throat while you tried to recover from the pain and disorientation of cracking bones against an unyielding surface.

“Standard protocol when dealing with hostile enemies calls for immediate termination to ensure the health and safety of all members of the command unit,” Iana said, citing the Green Council regulations that had been drilled into her head from the time language had meaning to her.”

“Go ahead and kill me,” the girl who tried to assassinate Iana said.

“If the situation allows it, the commander in charge of the scene may choose to use the hostile as a baiting mechanism to draw out additional enemies,” Iana said. “Regulations suggest maiming the hostile in a manner that renders them permanently harmless and will elicit sympathy from any allies they might have is the most efficacious method of proceeding in most cases. Typically removal of the eyes is sufficient to accomplish this goal.”

The girl startled at that and tried to break free. Iana had expected her reaction and removed the knife from the girl’s throat before the assassin could managed to inadvertently slash herself on its edge.

A bracelet on the girl’s arm glowed a orange-red, like the center of a forge, and pulled her from Iana’s grasp. The primary escape provision had been deployed.

Iana slashed the metal bracelet off without harming a hair on the girl’s wrist.

Enchanted daggers were wonderful tools when they were enchanted properly.

The girl’s necklace glowed silver-blue next, the secondary escape provision deploying jagged wings that tried to lift the girl into the air.

Those fell by her side, sliced from the necklace in a single stroke.

The escape options defeated, necklace changed it’s glow from a soft blue-white light to a deep green one.

In less than an instant it too lay on the ground. Iana severed it before the necklace was able to do more than constrict the girl’s throat and leave a shallow crease behind. As it lay on the ground, the necklace finished it’s constriction and wound up the size of one of Gallagrin’s smaller coins.

Iana frowned. None of the previous assassin’s had been slain by their tools but none of them had come close to being captured either. The assassin’s handlers hadn’t made a serious play against Iana’s life but they seemed quite willing to terminate their agents rather than risk exposure.

“My teachers taught me never to show mercy to an enemy, never to expose myself to peril unless it was absolutely necessary,” Iana said.

“Why did you cut the necklace off then?” the girl asked, her glare filled with what Iana could only read as unbridled rage.

“Because my teachers were wrong,” Iana said. “They betrayed me the same as your masters just betrayed you.”

“I wasn’t betrayed,” the girl said. “I’d rather die than tell you anything. I wore that necklace on purpose!”

“They betrayed you when they sent you to kill me,” Iana said. “They knew they hadn’t given you the tools you needed and they sent you anyways.”

“That’s a lie, just like all your other lies,” the girl said.

“Do you know how many they’ve sent before you?” Iana asked. “They know very well what won’t work, and yet they’re not sending anyone better equipped to do the job. Why do you think that is?”

“I could have done it.You just got lucky!” the girl said.

Iana pulled the girl to her feet, and put away the enchanted dagger.

“What are you doing?” the girl asked.

“Try,” Iana said.

“Try what?”

“If you can kill me, then try.”

The girl hesitated and Iana swept her off her feet, knocking her to the ground before stepping a pace away and gesturing for the girl to rise.

For their next exchange neither held back. The girl lunged upward, aiming a clawed hand at Iana’s throat and trying to overbear her at the same time.

That didn’t go well for the girl. Iana didn’t have pact spirit reflexes, strength, or toughness. What she did have was training in hand-to-hand combat since before she could walk. Warbringers were biologic machines of vast power, but their combat skill stemmed from their driver’s capabilities and strengths and Iana had been one of the best the Council had.

After three more attempts the girl remained seating. Her shoulders drooping and her head bowed.

“You weren’t meant to succeed. You were meant to try and escape,” Iana said.

“No! I was meant to send a message,” the girl said.

“What was the message?” Iana asked. “All these times, none of you have ever said why it is you are doing this. How does my death serve your needs?”

“You corrupted the queen and you’re going to corrupt Gallagrin!” the girl said. “Gallagrin’s spirit can never be held in the hands of a foreigner!”

“What is your name?” Iana asked.

“Yuehne,” the girl said.

“And how did I corrupt the Queen?” Iana asked.

“You ensorcelled her with your blasphemous magic and forced her to accept you as her heir when your invasion failed!” Yuehne said.

“Who told you that?” Iana asked.

“Everyone knows it’s true,” Yuehne said.

“”Who’s everyone?” Iana asked. “General Kemoral doesn’t think it’s true. Dae doesn’t think it’s true. Am I supposed to have ensorcelled the strongest spell caster in the world? Is my magic stronger than a god’s?”

“The Sorceress is in league with the Green Council! The whole war was a lie,,” Yuehne said.

“You were there? You know what we fought?” Iana asked.

“It was all for show,” Yuehne said.

Iana thought back and remembered the sensation of a god’s fury raging around her. She thought of the soul numbing dread she felt when her Warbringer was drained by the Blighted Legion. She thought of the repeated and sincere assassination attempts Dagmauru had made on her life.

Wordlessly, she pulled the shoulder of her tunic down to reveal the residual scars from where the flame beetles had tried to incinerate her.

“Is this for show?” she asked. “They tried to murder me too. My superior and his allies in the Council. They tried to burn me alive when I became inconvenient for them.”

Yuehne stared at the melted flesh on Iana’s shoulder.

“I was caught, helpless in my command bower,” Iana said. “I couldn’t move. No matter how hard I struggled. Vines were grown into me and the beetles had their orders. Alari saved me from that.”

Iana pointed to the small pock marked areas on her arms and neck, the last visible markers of the interface points that she used to be connected to her Warbringer by.

“I foreswore my realm for her because of what she did for me,” Iana said. “So think whatever evil you wish of me, I don’t care, but do not think less of her. Ever.”

“She shouldn’t be giving Gallagrin to a foreigner,” Yuehne said.

“I have no realm, so this is my home as much as any other,” Iana said. “I can never return to the Green Council’s domain, not after what they did to me. But I also know I’m not fit to bear the Spirit of Gallagrin and when the time comes I am sure it will choose to pass to a worthy successor instead.”

“But you’re the Princess,” Yuehne said. “You’re the heir!”

“Alari only did that to show people that we were under her protection,” Iana said.

“She didn’t protect you from me.”

“I asked her not to,” Iana said. “I knew if we let your people keep trying we’d catch one of you eventually.”

“I won’t turn on them,” Yuehne said.

“I won’t ask you to,” Iana said. “I want to know what you want. What convinced you that I should die.”

“It’s not about you,” Yuehne said. “It’s about maintaining the purity of our realm.”

“I’ve heard that argument all my life,” Iana said.

“It’s how the gods designed us,” Yuehne said. “It’s why you’re an abomination.”

Iana let a bitter chuckle escape her lips.

“I’ve spoken with a god, and seen what a true abomination is,” Iana said. “Abominations are born from fearing and hating others. We…I have done terrible things from fear and hatred.”

“But they still made you a Princess.”

“What if I wasn’t?” Iana asked. “What if I left here with you.”

After a year of listening to Alari and Dae’s tales, Iana was able to recognize when a mad plan had gripped her mind, but, thanks to the example they set, incapable of resisting it.

“Why?” Yuehne asked. “I mean why would you do that?”

“I have a lot to learn about Gallagrin, and I’m not going to learn it here in the castle,” Iana said. “And you have a lot to learn about me.”