Chapter 4

How far will love take one from what one knows? Can love and duty coexist and blossom equally? When news of a threat reaches the heart of the land, how far will the blood flow to ensure its safety?

Chapter 4

            Corson woke with the same pain in his neck that had plagued him for days. On this morning, the pain had made its way down his spine and through his back. He stood and stretched as best he could, but the soreness persisted. He couldn’t feel sorry for himself very long. Omily lay on the bed next to his chair, wrapped in her blankets and tucked like a cocooned caterpillar. He knew that his pain was small, laughable almost. Omily’s wound became infected at the Trihill Forts before the trek back to The Tear. By the time they returned back to the safety of the capitol, Omily’s fever was the thing of nightmares. She shook almost always, and the changes between hot and cold were sudden and unpredictable. The Tear’s healers said that it would be tough to save her. Thankfully they had succeeded. But the remedies they used meant that Omily would remain bedridden for much longer than Corson could bear, and the possibility of her taking a turn for the worst was constant.

The sun had just risen, barely. Clouds had moved in from the north overnight, a rarity at The Tear. Corson gazed out the window and strained at what little light managed to penetrate the overcast skies. Yet no rain fell beyond the waterwall. Its stream was solid and uninterrupted. At this height, on the last tier before the royal quarters atop the city, the waterwall was quiet. Unlike below, where the end of the stream made a constant splash and splattering against the drainage grates, this room was a sanctuary of sorts, a peaceful area designated for prominent individuals. This was not the only healing wing at The Tear, but it was the one where healers took the more perilous cases, the one whose patients were more powerful and valuable than commonfolk.

Corson sat back down in his chair and turned his attention away from the ever-charged waterwall and the clouds that had crept away from Darkstrand over Lightning Bay. There was nothing he could do for Omily, but he talked to her as if she was healthy, and he stroked her cheeks and hair as if they were lying in bed together. There was a light knocking at the door, but no pause for permission afterwards. Instead Healer Farja entered while she was still knocking. The smile on her face was forced, Corson knew. Visitors were rare in this wing. Even family was urged to stay away for the sakes of the patients and the healers. Omily’s father, Lord Constance himself, kept his distance. But Corson didn’t care for these superstitions. He knew that his presence was helping Omily, not hurting her, even if he couldn’t prove it.

“Adept Xull,” Farja said cordially, positioning herself over Omily on the other side of the bed. She began removing the tucked sheets and blanket, rolling them down to Omily’s legs.

“She seemed to have slept well last night,” Corson said, standing, backing up a bit to give Farja some more room to work. He respected the healer, but he wished she understood feelings as well as she understood medicine.

“I can see that,” she said matter-of-factly. “The color that’s returned to her is a good sign. She grows stronger each day.”

“Then why will she not wake?”

Farja stopped, her hands still on the pillow she was about to fluff. Her eyes moved, only her eyes, and they met Corson’s across the room. “My words were ‘she grows stronger.’ She is far from healed. There is a difference, you must know. We will be steadfast with our treatment.”

Corson watched as Farja went to the cabinets across from the foot of Omily’s bed. She removed the poultice she rubbed liberally over Omily’s forehead and chest. She looked at Corson again after applying it, and she spotted the uncertainty in his eyes. “Say what you will.”

“Please don’t feed her again,” Corson began. “Let her wake today, and let her assess her strength herself. If there is any bit of bad news, put her under again. But please, let me see her eyes and hear her voice.”

“You know,” she said as she returned the poultice and removed the tube, “that while I am Healer Eminent of The Tear, even I have someone to whom I must answer.” The liquid, infused with a number of herbs and most importantly Dreamdust, came out of the cabinet next. “And that someone is Lord Constance of The Tear, High Adept and father of this patient.” Farja began feeding the tube down Omily’s throat. It made Corson cringe, but Omily remained still and silent. “He’s lost his wife to illness and his son to war, and now his daughter is on her deathbed.” The healer took the tube and snuggly wrapped an end over the top of the bottle before turning it upside down. “If I fail my lord, who will be left to heal me?”

There was a light rasping on the door, and this time a pause, accompanied by a silence. “Enter,” Farja announced, exasperated as she returned her instruments to their proper places. The door opened, and as Rophelius entered the healer passed him in a tiff, announcing her return in a few hours to bathe Omily. Rophelius left the door open.

“Walk with me, Cor,” he offered.

“I’d rather not,” he answered, taking his spot in the chair by Omily’s bed again.

Rophelius walked to the foot of Omily’s bed and stared down at her. “Good news?”

“Farja says her strength is returning. But they won’t yet let her wake. They pump Dreamdust and who knows what else into her regularly. It’s maddening.”

“When’s the last time you found your bed, Corson? Or had a proper meal?”

“I’m not worried about such things. I’m only worried about Omily.”

“Tell me why, friend,” Rophelius started, stepping over to Corson and placing a firm hand on his shoulder, “why you abuse your heart so.”

Corson stayed silent for a bit. Then, in a soft voice, said, “Her heart is hurting, too, only you can’t see it. I don’t love her blindly. I know she loves me, too, Ro. You know that much. She is your cousin, and you know her better than perhaps even I do. You are the brother she no longer has, and she is the sister you never had.”

“But it is"”

“Forbidden,” Corson said with a snap, standing up quickly and tossing the hand off his shoulder in the process. “I know it is forbidden, by the woman’s very father. The word itself treats love as if it’s a punishable offense, a sin worthy of death.”

“It is forbidden, yet you toil over the dream as if it could one day become reality.”

“Quento Constance is perhaps the greatest adept in recorded history, and the most progressive lord to ever govern any region. He has united water and light tighter than they’ve ever been and used one power to defend the other, and vice versa. His vision has birthed more skilled adepts in one lifetime than the previous ten combined. Women are now able to heal and wield stones and jewels and swords and fight alongside men. Omily and I can laugh, and cry, and fight, and die together, but we cannot love together. Quento Constance is all the things I just said, but above it all, he is just a man, a man like any other, afraid to lose his daughter, afraid to lose the only thing he has left in this world besides strength.”

“Corson…” Rophelius said softly.

“Tell me I am wrong, Ro.”

“I have little to say of this matter,” he said bluntly. “My uncle’s power can perhaps only be matched by his wisdom. And if that wisdom forbids the mating of water and light, then so it is forbidden.”

“It is a coward’s law.”

Rophelius let out a deep sigh. “There are other things in this world more pressing than your heart, Corson. I came here to fetch you and bring you before Lord Constance and the High Council to make the case for brave Darwen’s immediate elevation of rank. You were there, as a witness, and the respect the council has for you will go a long way for him.”

“I love your cousin, and she loves me. If you should plead any case to the High Council on this day, let it be mine. Let it be the case of your two closest friends, and not that of a lucky warrior using you for leverage.” Corson turned away from Rophelius and took his seat, yet again, by Omily’s bedside. His tone had turned almost scathing. “There was a time, Ro, when I thought you human. But you are a lord’s tool. You can harness the power of water, but there is no fluidity to you. You are rigid, and unyielding, and programmed.”

“Your heart may be full of love, set to burst,” Rophelius said. “But it is seeping cruelty, and I hope you come to regret those words. I hope the love seeps out next, and clarity returns.”

Rophelius slammed the door behind him just a few seconds later. Corson jumped a bit, and Omily remained still, and rigid, and unyielding. He leaned forward as much as he could, and his face found the crook of her neck. Her hair smelled of mint and rosemary. He blinked and felt his eyelashes brush against her soft skin.

“I know how you feel, Omily,” he started in the softest whisper. “I know the love that’s in your heart for me. We see it in each other’s eyes, and we feel it when we touch. But we want more, I know. It won’t be long, my tender teardrop, until I find a way to take you from here. We’ll start out on our own, and you’ll find your strength, and I’ll help you, and I promise we’ll laugh and live and love like we’ve always wanted to, and no gusts or fireballs or Conduit or Tear will tear us apart or oppress us together again.”

The Conduit’s southern end rose through the floor and out the ceiling of The Tear’s throne room. It was exposed here, not barricaded against the elements as it was at Stormcharge. Domed glass, a mirror of the waterwall that fell just a foot or two outside it, hung over the room. Aqueducts ran from the southern mountains to this one point over the city. The wide and massive streams of water passed over the Conduit, gaining a strong and lingering charge that lasted as the water cascaded over the numerous tiers. Adepts stationed intermittently throughout the city gave the waterwall its tear-like shape. They worked in shifts, molding the charged water with their glowing stones for a few hours until another adept came to relieve them of their duty. Aside from a defensive purpose, the waterwall served also as an aesthetic point. The construction of the aqueducts and the Conduit coincided and collided some decades ago. Once the water flowed the already regal city flourished even further. Carved stone or blended marble lined almost every wall and ceiling, especially on the upper levels. Where there wasn’t hard and beautiful manmade art, there were nods to nature. Flower beds spotted the exposed sections of each tier. Trees sprouted where the sun shone and streams of water snaked underfoot, falling from the upper tiers to the lower, tributaries of the ducts or whimsies of an adept. The Tear was a capitol in the clearest sense of the word.

Lord Quento Constance preferred being as close to water and light as often as he could. That meant his throne room at The Tear’s apex was where he spent most all of his time. He was never as alone as he’d been in the last few days. Even while his only living child was off at battle he was still comfortable knowing that she would soon return. It was a worse fate knowing that she was in the healing ward, so close but so far. Her recovery was not guaranteed, and even if it was it wasn’t guaranteed she would be the same. He couldn’t talk to his daughter. He couldn’t even see her smile. Healer Farja recommended he keep his distance for both their sakes. There was an urge to resist at first, but just until he realized that he would only see his daughter as still and detached from the world as a cold corpse. She may have been alive, but it certainly didn’t feel that way. It was hard to admit that he didn’t want to see her at all unless he could see her smile, but that was the reality. His wife died in their own bed with pain painted across her face, and his son died in a fiery battlefield years ago and leagues away. His colleagues and most trusted allies were in the level below, in which there was the council and dining hall and a few personal chambers. That was where he should have been. They could have offered him a thought or two other than his daughter.

It had been years since more than a small skirmish, isolated incidents in undesirable locales, broke out between adepts and mages. The last major battle, in fact, was the same one that took Quento’s son in the Marshlands. Very few casualties had fallen on either side since then, and nothing of worth was won or lost in nearly a decade. The scout who had recently spotted the army in the Hillands was lucky. There were dozens of paths, and it would have been easy for the mages to navigate through that territory and set siege to any number of towns or forts. But the army was large and slow enough that one of the few scouts sent into the Hillands found it. The manner of the army’s destruction was questionable, for sure, but a victory was a victory. He didn’t lose sleep over the fact that wind and fire destroyed an army of those very elements, but rather he lost sleep over the army itself. It was of relative size, the largest unit to enter their half of the realm in recent memory. Every adept who survived the sweeping fire told the same story, and every man and woman who heard it had their own answers to the questions that followed. Lord Constance had his own answers, too, and he was sure they were right.

He heard the footsteps ascending the marble stairs before he could see his personal guard. Mayson Telleron was big, and strong, and loyal, but never nimble, never smooth. Quento could always tell when the man was approaching. He was the densest, thickest water adept Lord Constance had ever seen, yet the beast molded into his lord’s hand like a clump of damp dirt.

“The High Council is mostly assembled, my lord,” he said after approaching the throne at just the right acceptable distance.

“Mostly?”

“Your nephew, sir, is the only expected member not yet arrived. Adept Xull remains at your daughter’s side”

“Of course he does,” Quento said with a stink on his face. “The fool thinks sitting by my daughter’s side will make his love for her appropriate.”

“Shall I call for Adept Immellion?”

“No. He is late, and yet he will be on time, seeing as how I’m not present, either,” Quento said as he stood from his throne and stepped forward. “The council will start in a few minutes, and Rophelius is more prompt than any person I’ve ever known. Let me descend.”

Mayson stepped aside to let his lord pass, and followed him to the stairway. The walls were all mirrored, and the white marble clapped under their leather boots, almost in unison. The stairs emptied out into the main royal chamber. Men and a few women stood around it, talking in small pockets, waiting for the cue to take their seats. Quento found his chair at the top of the tear-shaped marble table, a point that could have stabbed through his heart were he to push into it. Mayson slid the chair in as his lord sat. Subjects saw their lord and started taking their seats, his closest colleagues nearest to him, the others around the sizable round butt of the table. Peatross and Harmon sat next to each other to his left. Only three seats were empty when the chamber door opened and Rophelius entered. His cloak drifted behind him and the room fell to silence as he approached the table. He took his seat directly to the right of his uncle, who smiled to himself at Rophelius’ punctuality. The only empty seats now belonged to Omily and Corson, and they were sat unintentionally across from each other.

“Why are we here?” Quento asked. He enjoyed testing his council.

“To decide which is more disturbing,” Marigold Bristol piped up, “the movements of a mage army directly towards our territory, or the destruction of said army by its own elements.”

“And as the Liaison to Lightning Bay,” Quento said directly to her, “tell me, dear Mari, what does Lord Venyo find most disturbing?”

“Neither.”

Quento pursed his lips. “Do tell.”

“Lord Venyo finds it most disturbing that rather than seeking vengeance offensively with the wrath of water and lightning, we are hiding defensively behind walls of water and stone.”

“These things take time and planning.”

“Then let’s use this time to plan.”

“Perhaps,” another voice came from the other end of the table, “we could focus less on the mage army, and more on those we lost.”

“The ceremonies were long, and somber, and thorough, Adept Klemons,” Marigold said. “The dead were honored with the utmost sensitivity and respect.”

“Most of the dead were killed by a fireball the width of a battlefield, with enough power behind it to sweep down a hillside and across a prairie,” Idriod Klemons said. “Has the most elderly man in the most remote village ever heard of such a thing?”

The chamber stood eerily quiet.

Klemons continued. “The strength of one fireball nearly decimated two armies. What happens if there are more mages capable of such things? And what happens when they’re able to navigate the Hillands without resistance? What happens when they make it into Lightwater?”

“They won’t make it into Lightwater,” Rophelius said. “And if they try again, we’ll send more armies. We outnumber them four to"”

“They’re stronger than us!” Klemons shouted. “My stepson died on that battlefield. My wife lost her first husband to war, and her older son who I never even met. We may be growing in number, but they’re growing in power!”

“Let us remember that we are civil,” Rophelius said in an even tone. “We are evolving. We are better.”

            “The Tear is the safest city in the realm,” Marigold said. “It is evolved, indeed. But at what cost? Lightning Bay and every other dwelling are susceptible to attack.”

            “That will be all,” Quento said, and all the eyes that were darting around the table turned at him in unison. “From all of you. Greatfort remains the largest and most fortified stronghold from Saltshore to Sweptsea, and will protect Lightning Bay and all of the north you fear is so exposed. I should have explained that I called this High Council meeting not to listen, but to speak. Moves are already in motion to better fortify our outlying towns and forts. Scout outriders will increase in number and strength. I had planned to lay this and more out to you in much greater detail, but your squabbling has already drained me of my patience and interest. You needn’t fret over the mages’ genocide of their men. It was tragic, and hellish, yes, but it was mostly foolish. It was a man who had lost himself in their ranks, likely a rebel of sorts who saw the injustice and retrogression that runs rampant in the west. They are a lost people, crumbling from within. What happened in the Hillands is nothing more than proof, a firsthand account on our part that we are much more cohesive, and so we are better. That is all. I dismiss you.”

            Just as quickly as they found their seats they stood up and began trickling out of the room. Bristol and Klemons continued their squabbling as they walked out together. Mayson moved to pull out his lord’s seat when he indicated he was ready to stand. Rophelius stood with his uncle.

            “May I take another moment of your time, lord?”

            Quento looked at him out of his peripheral with an uncertain glance. “Just a moment.”

            “I commend your strengthening of our defenses and outriders. And you know I work vigorously to make our armies all the more dominating.” Rophelius was moving by this point, following Quento across the hall towards a side door. “I came across a man, my lord, in the battle in the Hillands. He saved my life, and that is no understatement. And he was invaluable in our push and the preservation of your daughter’s life. For a rider, he has proved himself more versatile than any man I have come across in years. I recommend his immediate promotion to full Adeptation. He will prove a great leader one day. I feel it.”

            They stopped just as Quento reached the door to his dining hall. “You have a great sense for these things, nephew,” Quento said as Mayson opened the door for him. “For battle, I mean. I’d trust your instincts with this man. He is in your charge. Promote him as you see fit.”

            “Thank you, Quento.”

            His uncle gave him a sharp look.

            Rophelius bowed generously. “My lord.”

            Quento Constance took his leave, and Rophelius found himself alone in the Council Hall save the two guards who stood statuesquely at the stairs leading up to the throne room. Rophelius stepped out of the hall through the main door. Life was bustling here. Babbling streams paralleled all the walkways of the water temple outside the royal quarters. Pairs and groups gathered on the large stone common grounds where the walkways met, sitting on marble benches or standing with their arms folded or deep in the pockets of their robes. They talked amongst themselves. Servants and priests and healers and guards, set to walk by themselves, weaved between the groups. Rophelius walked, deliberately, straight and steady. He passed Marigold Bristol, now sitting on a bench with fellow light adepts surrounding her. They talked in hushed voices and Marigold looked hesitantly at Rophelius as he passed. He paid them no mind. Darwen stood on the other side of the main causeway, leaning against the threshold that led to the next set of walkways and doorways and streams.

            “Walk with me,” Rophelius said as he approached. He passed as the younger man stood up at full height. They walked side by side.

            “Did you speak of me to Lord Constance?” Darwen asked, looking over and down at his mentor, nearly a foot shorter but just as well-built and intimidating.

            “I did,” Rophelius answered. He turned at an intersection and headed into a spiraling round tower that took them down to the lower, larger tiers.

            “And?” Darwen said hopefully. They stepped out into the fourth level, passing a dozen doors locked while the occupants spent their days about their business.

            “Lord Constance has placed you under my charge.” They turned left and passed a dozen more doors. The door at the end opened into a large room, empty at this time.

            Darwen pondered this. “What does that mean?”

            “It means,” Rophelius said, looking around in his pause. “Ah, there he is. It means that since I am a busy man, you are ready to meet Varello.”

            Darwen followed him to a man who had just entered the room from the other side. He was tall, but thin, wiry, and his robes hung longer than all his limbs and trailed behind him.

            “Varello, my dear sir,” Rophelius said, extending a hand to shake as he approached.

            “Rophelius,” the man said with a smile. “Only you would manage to find me at breakfast, and while you’re supposed to be at a High Council meeting. I was so hoping I’d be invited this time, but alas I was left to oversee the training.”

            “Where else would you be?” he asked with a smirk as he motioned back to Darwen. “This is the man I spoke of upon our return from the Hillands. Quento has put him in my charge. And you know what that means.”

            “That he is now, by default, in my charge.”

            “I want stronger turquoises set in his armor immediately, and I want him dueling with waterstones and full weaponry by week’s end.”

            “A week? Your expectations are high, sir. But his trainer did tell me of his skills during his initial learning. It shouldn’t be too difficult of a task. It looks you’ve already got a scar there,” Varello said, indicating Darwen’s bandaged arm. It was still a bit raw underneath, but the medicine healers applied kept it relatively painless.

            “Forgive me, sir,” Darwen began, “but I’ve never met you before, or even seen you.”

            Varello chuckled. “I trained all those who trained you. I oversee the Watercoaches without the trainees seeing me. I’m a bit old for anyone to take very seriously anymore.”

            “Darwen is a very capable man,” Rophelius said. “He will prove an invaluable asset to my army. And if there’s any trainer to whom I can entrust him, it’s you. Is that no longer true?”

            He chuckled again. “The one thing that has not diminished as I add years onto my life is my skill in the art of Adeptation. I haven’t stepped onto a true battlefield in more a decade, damned Sanctuary.” Varello turned his head to look at Darwen, giving him a quick up-and-down before meeting his eyes. “On my deathbed I’ll know that most of our brave adepts will smite mage scum at battle because of me, and that will be enough to carry a smile into the afterlife.”

            “Age also hasn’t taken your love of dialogue, old friend.”

            Varello laughed more heartily at that and looked back at Rophelius. “I’ve always thought the most underestimated weapon on the battlefield is a rich vocabulary and the strength to project your war cries. A warrior fears what he doesn’t understand just as much as a scholar does.”

            “I have heard as much and more from you.”

            “But yes, go along, Ro. When you see him next his stone will glow as bright as yours.”

            Rophelius grinned. He shook Varello’s hand again before clapping Darwen reassuringly on the shoulder. He left the training wing with more of a jump to his step, tracing his path halfway through the corridors of locked doors before making a turn down his wing. A large set of double doors was the only wood in this hall of stone and sconces. Rophelius entered the chamber beyond. Cool air greeted him as it always did in his open-wall quarters. The sound of the waterwall on the arched roof beyond, dropping onto it before expanding and falling to the larger levels, was welcome. It was a relief.

            “Adept Immellion, what a surprise,” Anabelle said as she stepped from the bedroom with a pile of linens in a large woven basket. Their chambermaid was soft-spoken, and frail for her youth, but she was an angel all the same, and Rophelius treated her as family.

            “Today’s duties were light. How are things?”

            “Today has been… peaceful. Quiet. I’ve just bathed the misses, and after delivering these linens to the washers I was set to finish an early lunch. Cyann ate breakfast some hours ago. Would you like a bowl, sir? A nice hearty stew, my grandmother’s recipe. Will you be staying?”

            “Yes, Anabelle, thank you,” Rophelius said as he headed towards the door she had just exited. He opened it, and in their bed laid his wife. Her eyes were closed, but she didn’t look to be asleep, just resting. Rophelius admired her milky smooth skin as he stepped closer. Simple, unadorned white linens covered her to just above the knees. He thought he was quiet enough, but when he was just a couple steps away, Cyann opened her eyes and blinked a few times before smiling. Rophelius reached his hand out, and found her belly. It was large, and round, and it took but a few seconds for him to feel a kick.

            “How are we feeling today?”

            “I dreamt of you last night,” she said softly.

            “Not a nightmare, I’d hope.”

            “Only when I wake and you’re not beside me.”

            “I’m here now. I’ve done what I needed today.”

            “We were younger. In my dream. It was like I was reliving it. We had less cares, and enjoyed more pleasures.”

            “With our age and our positions come promotion and responsibility. And I’m sure those carnal pleasures are an easy sacrifice for this,” Rophelius said as he rubbed his wife’s belly again. “It’s been too long coming.”

            “It is a miracle, indeed. But I am not made to lie here day and night. I miss them.”

            “And they miss you, I’m sure. It’s smart of you to listen to the healers and cut back on your days with the children.”

            “Will you check in, tomorrow perhaps?”

            “Of course,” he said, leaning down and placing a kiss on her forehead. He laid his head on the pillow next to hers, keeping a hand on the near-bursting belly while the other caressed her hair. “The child is active.”

            “As restless as the mother,” she said, turning her head to meet his eyes. “Anabelle claims there are at least three in there, what with all the kicking.”

            Rophelius grinned at the idea. “And what do you feel?”

            Cyann pondered for a moment. “I feel that I haven’t the slightest clue what one would feel like, after trying for nearly twenty years. But… it would be nice. It would make up for the past we’ve endured.”

            “What kind of a toll would that take on you? To care for three of your own children, and the warphans?”

            “The warphans are already my children, Ro. You know that. They are the ones whose parents made the greatest sacrifice to Lightwater and have no one else to turn to.”

            “You give them all the same love as you would your own children.”

            “You think they don’t deserve it?”

            “No, I just hope that our children… that they feel it, too.”

            Her eyes widened, and she looked like she wasn’t sure if she should laugh or cry. “Rophelius…”

            There was a light knocking on the door. “May I bring lunch in?”

            “Yes, Anabelle,” Rophelius answered.

            “I’ll fetch it, then,” she said back through the door.

            “I’ve suddenly lost my appetite,” Cyann said, turning her gaze to the stone ceiling.

            “I misspoke,” Rophelius admitted. “You know how I am with my words.”

            “A sure fool,” she quipped.

            “Let me try again,” he said. She looked at him. “You love unconditionally. Whether we had no children, or one, or three or ten, they will each have the whole of your heart. As does every warphan, because loving is what you’re best at, and our child or children will know from the moment they see the glow in your eyes and feel the warmth of your touch.”

            The smile on Cyann’s face widened as Rophelius spoke each word. “I melt too easily for you.” She let him lean in and place a kiss on her lips. They parted as Anabelle knocked again, and looked forward to the comforts of the peaceful day.

            The lowest tier of The Tear was the largest. It was the most active, also. It was proof that The Tear was indeed a city. There was no squalor like many other cities or large towns, but there were so many people, and everyone had their own agenda, and everyone got in everyone else’s way. It was very rare to see a shop in the same spot two days in a row. By law, businesses were not allowed to set up permanently in the city. Instead they came in from surrounding towns or from their residences within The Tear itself early in the morning, and stayed until sundown.

Mornings were the worst. They were the loudest, and the most unpredictable. Squabbles were common, but they rarely escalated to violence thanks entirely to the eternal presence of the Tear’s guards. They were men and women of varying ages, sizes, races and backgrounds, and they all had stones and jewels and charged rods and scimitars, and they were all skilled adepts. Everyone respected them. A lot of citizens and merchants even feared them. And they all answered to Peatross Gergens. The water adept often found himself higher in The Tear, but it was one of his duties to visit the first tier regularly.

After the morning’s High Council meeting he took his leave of the men and women of importance and made his way down, and down, and down, until he was at ground level. He found his number two, a portly man with olive skin and a hard face. Between his sausage fingers he spun his rod casually, leaning against a wall outside the main stairs to the second tier. At this lowest level, most of the ground was just dirt, clouds of which were kicked up every morning in the bustle. By this time in the afternoon, the dust had settled and things looked calm.

“I suppose there weren’t any issues this morning, Rondell?” Peatross asked as he approached. “Otherwise you might not look so lackadaisical.”

The big man removed himself from the wall and stood straight. “It went smoothly.”

Peatross took a survey of the northern area around the first level, all he could see from this point. He recognized a large number of the carts selling their fruits, vegetables, seeds and grains and spices and linens and jewelry and other odds and ends. Along with the calmness that accompanied early afternoon, there came the emergence of many of The Tear’s citizens. They needed their necessities and their spoils. Many were commoners that made residence on the next three levels, but occasionally someone of importance found their way to the bottom. Guards, wielders of stones or jewels ready to defend at a moment’s notice, usually accompanied them. The first tier looked like a most dangerous area. But between the city guards and the personal guards, the crime was all but nonexistent, a fact in which Peatross took great pride.

“Some fool in from Boltown tried gaining entry to the upper tiers,” Rondell said. “But he had no clearance and was not a citizen.”

“What was his business?” Peatross asked casually, still scanning the crowds.

“The one that talked was stumbling on words like a dolt. He said something about engineering, and Lightning Bay, and some sort of attack in Boltown.”

“Attack?”

“I figured him drunk. He smelled of Antiwater and filth, like he hadn’t bathed in days. Like I said, he was a fool. A fat fool.”

“Hmm.”

“Ah, there he is now. By that big bread cart.”

Peatross narrowed his eyes to see better. “You, Rondell, are the fat fool,” Peatross said as he took off. Rondell was right behind him. “That man is Hammerveen, Second Engineer of Lightning Bay and the last person you’d ever call a fool if you had your wits about you. Aye, Hammerveen!”

The big man turned and saw Peatross approaching. “Finally, a familiar face. I tried getting up at the east, too, but no one was having it.”

“Your face is not as known here as it should be,” Peatross said, tossing a scathing look back to Rondell.

“My apologies,” Rondell said, dropping his head.

“How fairs your old uncle?” Peatross asked.

“He is old. And fair,” Hammerveen answered quickly, disinterested. “But I require a real audience, Peatross. I tried explaining what happened to this guard here but he"”

“He couldn’t get out a word without stuttering and losing his place!” Rondell snapped.

“Take a lap!” Peatross shouted back at his man, who set off immediately.

“Tell me. Quickly. As we walk.”

Peatross led the way as Hammerveen strode behind him. “We were sent to inspect a bit of the Conduit at a dig point, but rain had come so far off the bay that it had soaked the area. We couldn’t dig but to make a pool. I saw two riders on a hilltop, but thought nothing of it. We sought refuge from the weather in Boltown. We were in a basement tavern, and noticed two men sitting in a corner. They claimed to be easterners. It didn’t take many more questions to provoke an attack. Two mages, and they were skilled. They had to be, to be able to conjure in such a small dank area. One of my diggers is likely still on his deathbed in Boltown. If he lives he won’t be recognizable, that’s for sure. What were they doing there? Why were they in Boltown, of all places? And they were there before, the barkeep told me. Where are we going, Peatross?”

They had climbed more than a few flights of stairs, and their speed seemed to increase somehow as they climbed higher, from one tier to the next. Hammerveen had passed countless people, and noticed that almost all of them looked at him inquisitively, but he didn’t care. He struggled to compose himself. His breath ran ragged and his heartbeat hastened. He was with Peatross, and knew that this was a man who could get things done. For almost five years he had served as a great conjurer at Lightning Bay, working tirelessly for hours at a time with his colleagues to bring Darkstrand from Shadowsea. With the rain came the lightning, and that charged the Conduit, and that protected The Tear in one of the greatest engineering feats to have ever been imagined, much less built.

 “Peatross,” Hammerveen said again, trying to get some words from his friend.

“This is the High Council chamber. We’re going to the throne room.”

“Lord C-Constance?” Hammerveen asked. He had been in this room before, when he was a bit younger. He was with his uncle, who at the time was still rather nimble on his feet and able to travel without it being a hassle. They came and met with the Waterlord upon completing the most thorough inspection the Conduit had undergone in years, just as the aqueducts were finishing a restructuring and water began pouring more strongly towards The Tear. It looked much the same from what Hammerveen remembered. But the lumbering guard in front of the stairs leading to the throne room was a new feature.

“Telleron,” Peatross said, stopping before the giant. “We seek words with Lord Quento. And the matter is urgent.”

“Gergens,” Mayson quipped back. “Lord Constance is not to be disturbed at this time. And who is this?” he asked, looking down at Hammerveen.

“Hammerveen, Second Engineer of Lightning Bay and a great ally of your lord.”

“Looks like a drunken butcher,” Mayson said, smirking at his slight. “He can’t pass, either, though I shouldn’t even have to tell you that.”

“Stay here, Ham.”

“Ham,” Mayson chuckled. “Finally, something that makes sense.”

Peatross sprinted up the stairs, passing Mayson. The lumbering guard tried to snatch him, but Peatross’ speed won. Hammerveen wasn’t sure what to do when the large man returned his attention to him to make sure he stayed put. So he just started talking. He retold his story to Mayson, the same one he had told Peatross. But his words were jumbled, and he stuttered here and there, and he stopped to catch his breath too often, just as he always did when he talked to someone with whom he wasn’t comfortable. Mayson just looked straight ahead, and he was tall enough that that allowed him to not see Hammerveen at all. Hammerveen fell silent, and so did the hall. Peatross hurried down the steps faster than Hammerveen had ever seen him move.

“We are to gather Adept Immellion,” Peatross said with rushed breath, his face flushed. “And ride out at sunset.”