Leaving the office, Lucimia’s heart fluttered like a startled sparrow in a bamboo thicket. “This soldier named Lev is terrifying. Did his gut feel a mosquito over his crown, or did he actually see me?”
She drifted into the underground prison, unease curling like a thin fog around cold stone. “Suppose… suppose he really saw me, then what?”
If he did see an invisible mosquito resting on a shelf, he’d likely mark her as a Plague Follower—either a spy in the rafters or an assassin in the dark. Once he knew, he’d smoke the shadow out like hounds flushing a fox from bramble. That would drag her into needless trouble, like feet in swamp mud.
She sighed, breath thin as a reed. “I should’ve left it alone. This runs against why I came.” Still, she had Reversion, a reset like turning a river back to its source. If storms came, she’d just reset.
She reached Gendi’s cell, resumed human shape, slid open the iron hatch with practiced fingers, and peered in, eyes like lanterns in dusk. Same mangled corpse-scene; only a lone head lay on the floor like a discarded lantern.
“Hoo… even on the second look, it’s scary. Good thing they didn’t clean it, so I can devour his memory again.” She steadied her breath, fixed what to Devour, and sent in the Fuzzy Orb’s shadow, ink spilling over stone.
She watched the Fuzzy Orb ripple across the boy’s head like oil on water. She murmured, “Good thing the Devouring Authority lets Fuzzy Orb do the eating.” If I had to do it myself, then… She pictured it and shook her head fast, like tossing off clinging cobwebs.
When the Fuzzy Orb returned, Gendi’s hideout trickled into her mind like a cold stream finding a creek bed. “Huh? It’s right by that tree?” Surprise pricked like a thorn, then settled like a leaf.
The beasts were around the great tree, and Gendi had acceleration; sprinting between the giant and the town would take him moments, like an arrow between two posts. “Looks like we can nail it down: Gendi really is one of the Plague Followers. Before my first Reversion, those beasts were his to drive. Now he’s caught, the Plague Followers will switch tactics.”
She also learned their meeting spot lay in a cave between the giant tree and the town, a mountain mouth like a sleeping beast. “I should set an ambush and see if that pale-green-haired girl shows.” Decision made, Lucimia closed the iron window with a soft scrape, like slate on slate.
At the same moment, bootsteps drew near, pebbles skittering down a slope. With a flick of intent, she became a mosquito and lifted into the air like a seed on wind.
Four soldiers in pitch-black armor strode up and halted at Gendi’s cell, like crows alighting on a bare branch. “Take his head out. We’ll need it for the assembly.”
“Got it.” One soldier fished out a key from a ring like a bunch of dull fruits, twisted the lock, and pulled the iron door open with a tired groan. Another stepped in and lifted the blood-slick head, fingers red like stained reeds by a riverbank.
“You two, clean this place.”
“Understood.”
The leader’s gaze cut to the head-bearer, sharp as flint. “You, with me. Move.” The pair hurried off, leaving two to mop the blood like rainwater after a storm.
“Good thing I came fast, or I’d have missed the chance to devour his memory,” Lucimia thought, relief cooling like shade under a pine. She watched the two cleaning below, then the two marching away, eyes darting like swallows.
“Judging by their rush, the assembly’s about to start. I need to see it.” With that, she quickened, whooshing out of the jail like a gust through a grate.
High above, she saw the square from afar—a basin brimming with people, tighter than last time, a tide packed to the rim. The pomp swelled bigger too, like a festival drumbeat rolling across rooftops.
An ornate carriage rolled from the count’s manor, carvings curling like climbing vines, flanked by two rows of black heavy-armor soldiers marching in lockstep. Lev led, a spearhead at the column’s tip.
Along the route, residents stood on both sides like hedges; most carried baskets hooked on their arms, baskets full of flowers like small dawns. When the carriage passed, they cast petals at it and shouted, “Long live Count Emongaha!” “Thanks to Count Emongaha for the Mystic Return Smoke!” “Count Emongaha!” Some dropped to their knees where they stood, bodies folding like grass before wind.
Watching the fevered crowd and that delicate carriage, Lucimia muttered, a wry smile thin as a knife-edge. “This count’s really high-profile, huh? ‘Long live’… acting like an emperor here?” He was only a count; if he were a duke, how high would the waves rise?
She thought of her Lancelot Family. Alvis never made such an entrance, never let people fawn like this; he went out like anyone else, a boat among boats. When citizens met a count, it was a polite nod—two sides more equal, like two skiffs sharing one river.
Under the people’s tide, the carriage pulled up by the square. Two servants cradled a red carpet and laid it from the carriage to the center, a strip of sunset across gray stone. Done, Lev opened the carriage door, like lifting a curtain before a stage.
A leather-shoed foot stepped out, then the whole figure emerged, a shadow becoming man. He straightened, brushed his collar, and swept his gaze over the crowd, sharp as a winter blade.
Lucimia finally saw the count, the figure at the heart of the storm. She had pictured a pot-bellied, kindly elder, yet the man wore severity like armor. He stood tall, about one ninety—a solitary pine—a shade shorter than Lev. The way his clothes lifted showed a body like coiled cable, strength tight under cloth. He seemed thirty to forty, spring and autumn not yet heavy, not the elder she imagined.
His steps were steady; he walked the carpet and stopped at the center, hands clasped behind his back like a general on a ridge. A heavy aura rolled off him like a stormfront, making the people below shiver like reeds.
This was the count of Jaha Town—Count Emongaha.
When the crowd fell quiet beneath that pressure, Emongaha cleared his throat, a stone dropped in a well. His deep voice rang across the square like a bell. “Good afternoon, citizens. I, Emongaha, am here to announce an important matter.”
At his words, people glanced at each other like startled fish, unsure what he’d declare. Lucimia blinked, surprise popping like a bubble. “Huh? When did my hearing get this good? No—amplification magic. Seems the count has some strength.” She stilled, wanting to hear the blade’s edge of his words.
Seven or eight seconds passed, a held breath stretched thin. Emongaha spoke again, each syllable landing like a hammer. “I—of House Gaha—officially announce that from today, we stand with the Independents. That also means I support the Independents within the royal family. At the same time, we will form a Plague Hunt Squad to cleanse this town of all Plague Followers, fully and without mercy.”
