Shebelle knew Gendi? Then why sell him out like a knife in the back?

In Gendi’s memory, the three were eight or nine, like saplings in spring. Now Gendi is sixteen; Shebelle should be sixteen too, like a twin shadow. Yet she looks twelve or thirteen, like a late bud clinging to frost.

Did she grow slow, like winter wheat under a pale sun?

Doubt pricked her chest like thorns on a hedge. It wasn’t impossible, because the Shebelle in memory felt younger, like a fresher leaf than the one Lucimia saw. She had always thought Shebelle was nine or ten, like a child chasing kites. She hadn’t expected she might already be sixteen, like a lamp hidden under fog.

After all, she’d never asked Shebelle’s age, the question drifting by like a leaf on a stream.

Lucimia wanted to Devour more of the boy’s memories, her hunger prowling like a night cat. But marching boots rolled from the fork like gravelly thunder. She hurried the shutters closed like clapping wings, became a mosquito, and rose into the air like a fleck of soot.

When the soldiers passed like a cloud sliding off the moon, she took a girl’s shape again, opened the window like a lifted lid, and prepared another Devouring like a net cast into dark water.

A black shadow crossed the boy’s mind like a raven’s wing, then flowed back to Lucimia like smoke curling home.

She shut her eyes like shutters at dusk and flipped through his memories like brittle pages in a long-forgotten book.

Nothing useful surfaced, like a hook hauled up clean. Elyssus’s limits pressed her skull like an iron hoop, and she feared overloading her mind like ice cracking on a river. She couldn’t Devour everything, only selective pieces like plucking threads. She chose scenes of the boy and the pale-green-haired girl, like lanterns in the fog.

She watched a long while, time dripping like resin. Gendi, Shebelle, and the pale-green-haired girl were childhood playmates, like three sparrows on a fence. One day, the pale-green-haired girl left like a migrating bird. She returned rarely, like a comet between winters. At thirteen, she never came back, like a door shut and sealed.

So the real time-acceleration adept wasn’t in Jaha Town, like a clock missing from the tower.

At last, she Devoured his yesterday, the taste dry as ash. He hid all day in a dark room like a burrow, gnawed black bread like a rat, and practiced sword swings like reeds cutting wind. He did nothing else, like a pond holding its breath.

No more information rose, like silt settled at the bottom. If her wording missed, the Devouring slipped away like smoke through fingers. If her scope grew too broad, Elyssus might slip through like a blade in a seam.

Helplessness sagged in her chest like wet cloth. She shut the window and became a mosquito again, retracing her path like a thread through a needle’s eye. She wriggled up from the dank prison below like a moth from bark. She burst into wide sky like a released kite and drank the air like spring water.

Well, not that fresh; the air wore a gauzy mist like old silk. Maybe too many below smoked like chimneys. She didn’t know, like a fish puzzling at clouds.

Dusk poured toward dinner like ink, so Lucimia hurried back to the inn like a swallow darting to eaves.

She opened the door and found Desty solemn as stone, polishing a new longsword with a cloth like fresh snow.

Seeing Lucimia, Desty set the blade down like a sleeping snake.

Desty asked, her voice steady as a whetstone, “Where’d you go?”

“Nowhere,” Lucimia said, waving her hand like brushing cobwebs. She sat on her bed like a folded crane and stared out the window like a cat tracking rain.

Reading the mood like wind on grass, Desty didn’t intrude and kept wiping the blade like rubbing moonlight onto steel.

Lucimia’s thoughts circled what to do next like a hawk over fields.

She felt detached from Shebelle’s betrayal, like snow on a branch that won’t melt. Maybe Shebelle was with the Independents, and Gendi with a pro-god faction, flint and steel sparking in the dark.

After all, Shebelle had said only doctors can save a plague, like rain dousing a fire. That pointed to the Independents like a signpost in fog.

Lucimia didn’t want the whirlpool of factions, like a river-mouth pulling boats under. She weighed whether to seek Elyssus’s believers or keep hunting the pale-green-haired girl, like pebbles balanced on a scale.

She thought a long while, the moments ticking like drops from a cave. No choice settled, like mist refusing to part. If so, why not both, like catching two fish with one net?

Right, why not both, she told herself, her heart ringing like a small bell.

She could contact Elyssus’s believers, like knocking on hidden doors. She could filter Deceivers within the Bannubi Empire, like picking bright seeds from chaff. She could have them find the pale-green-haired girl, like sending hounds into the pines.

She’d promise a reward like a lantern swaying in the night. What reward? A big Fuzzy Orb, of course, like a warm moon cupped in the palm.

Two birds with one stone, like one arrow through two leaves. Good, good, like hot tea cutting the chill.

At once she lay down like a closing fan and told Desty, “I’ll nap for a bit, don’t disturb me,” her tone soft as falling ash.

“Huh? But it’s almost dinner,” said Desty, practicing nearby like a reed bowing in wind, eyes wide with doubt like water in a bowl.

Lucimia didn’t answer; her mind sank into the void like a stone into a black lake.

In that compassless dark, chaotic and pitch-black like a moonless sea, she first used her Disguise Power to mimic Elyssus’s aura and octopus-like tendrils, like a mask of dew. Then she sifted for Deceivers within the Bannubi Empire, like casting a net across starless water.

Why not just ask who’s in the Bannubi Empire, like calling out across a field? No. That would blow the cover like torn silk, because Elyssus knows his believers’ positions like beads on a strand. He knows which Magic Array each tends, like a gardener knows each bed.

So she searched on her own, like a spider testing silk. Around the void, besides chaos, strands of white lines gleamed like spider threads. Those lines let her speak to the Deceivers like tinny wires. They even hinted at locations, like fireflies mapping a grove, enough to tell who was inside the Bannubi Empire.

After some searching, like sifting sand through fingers, she picked out five Deceivers like five smooth stones.

Pity, none were in Jaha Town, like a net hauled up empty.

Still, a surprise rose like a bright fish. One woman was actually the chief at the Royal Capital’s Swordmaster Academy, like a blade resting on a throne.

Lucimia couldn’t help sighing again at the Deceivers’ penetration, like ink seeping into paper. Given time, their roots could climb higher, like ivy taking a wall.

She used her Disguise Power to wear the remembered girl’s face like a veil. She dropped her voice low like a deep bell and ordered the five Deceivers to find the pale-green-haired girl, like hunters fanning through trees. She promised whoever found her would have their wish granted first, like a coin laid on the altar.

Four agreed and vanished like candles snuffed by wind. Only the tall blonde in a Swordmaster’s uniform, black stockings like night ink, lingered like a shadow at the edge.

“Hm? Anything else to report?” Lucimia lifted her posture like a crane on one leg.

“My lord Elyssus, I have some knowledge of the girl,” the blonde said, half crouched, head bowed like a worshiper before a shrine.

What? She knows? That easy, like fruit falling? I’d braced to wait long, like winter stretched thin.

Lucimia shifted her pose, her skirt and trailing tendrils lifting her like a queen on a tide. She crossed one leg over the other like a ruler on a throne and said, deep and calm, “Speak.”

Granted leave, the blonde nodded slowly like a willow in a breeze. “I don’t know details, like a map missing roads,” she said softly, voice moving like a cat on velvet. “Long ago, to aid your descent, I surveyed the Royal Capital like a hawk and tested the Plague God’s believers like tapping a drum. I infiltrated the sanctum in the Royal Capital, like a shadow slipping through a gate.”

“There’s a place there called the Fog Domain, a hall wrapped in mist like milk,” she continued, a tremor rippling through her tone like wind across a pond. “The Empire worships the Plague God, and his sculpture is a worm, like a curled root. A worm idol stands in the sanctum’s center, like a black pillar. But in the Fog Domain, the statue isn’t a worm, like a song gone off-key.”

She paused, emotion quivering like a plucked string. “No statue stood there at all, only a pedestal like a bare altar. On that base, a girl was nailed to a Cross like a white bird pinned to wood. That girl was the pale-green-haired girl, like spring trapped in iron.”