Ampus went on. “The rules of magic are absolute, like gravity, but the rules for Ascended have always seemed different, and when it first happens, just like when you changed, there seem to be no rules at all. We have no idea why this phenomenon occurs, the spontaneity of ascension, but it corresponds to when the White and Black Dragon disappeared from this plan. They used magic so strong that it created the Elves and Iumenta.”
They were walking to the dining room now and Legon was deep in thought. It made some sense. It explained so much that had happened to him, and what he had seen when he changed. The topic changed shortly after they started eating, but Legon made a mental note to ask Ise more later.
* * * * *
Sasha opened her eyes to mist.
So I’m going to have one of these tonight, huh,
she thought. She got up and started to walk along the familiar path to where she assumed Iselin and Legon would be. She was right.
They were standing in front of the tree that had dominated these dreams for the last few years.
“How was your evening?” Sasha asked.
“Fine, you’re still in the Golden City, right?” Iselin verified.
“For another week, yes. The city is too far away for us to have a strong link. I guess that confirms this isn’t a dream,” she pointed out.
She looked up the white bark with its many winding pink, purple, and ruby lines. Over the last few years the lines on the bark had changed. Before Legon and Iselin were married, the pink line wasn’t as intertwined with the red and purple ones. Over the years that had changed. Now all three colors were more and more tightly knit, almost blending into one line in some sections.
“What do you think we’ll see tonight?” Legon asked.
His question was answered by the tree. The colored lines started to glow, which was new. They grew brighter and brighter, starting to undulate, connecting together. The whole tree itself shone bright and finally with a brilliant flash of light all of the lines merged into one glistening golden thread that wove up the tree.
“Look,” Iselin said, pointing.
The tree’s canopy was bursting with butterflies. Some were bright pink with lavender veins in their wings, while others were large and purple with pink veins. But the odd ones were the red ones. Their wings were a reflective red and their wings were huge in comparison to their bodies. It was amazing they could move their wings at all. One descended and Sasha held up her hand, the butterfly landing on her index finger. Its scarlet wings fluttered to keep it on its perch. Sasha looked closely, seeing that the tiny body of the butterfly was entirely purple.
Chapter Twenty
Insight
“Fear is the greatest of all smoke screens. When we see it, we don’t see what is causing the fear.”
-Diary of the Perfectos Compatioa
Arkin stretched out in bed, trying not to disturb Stacy. She sighed, “It’s too early. Go back to sleep.”
“It’s not early. I’ll go make breakfast.”
She opened one eye and looked out the window and then turned her head into the pillow “It is too early, there isn’t even any light out. What is it with old people getting up so early?”
Arkin thought about making a comment, but decided against it, and he wasn’t old, he told himself. He made his way to the kitchen and started making something for them to eat for breakfast. His days and nights were starting to coalesce into one. Their mission was getting harder and harder. The Iumenta were being forced to crack down, implementing curfews and marshal law. The reports coming in from other cities were the same, and as for the countryside…
Stacy walked into the kitchen in just a button-up shirt. This was an added bonus to the mission. In all his life Arkin never had anyone, not when he was growing up or before he moved to Salmont. After Legon’s mother and father were killed, he didn’t even think about being married or even having someone to call his own. Stacy was young, too young, but like him she couldn’t let people in her life; it was too dangerous. It was this situation that brought about their love. That aside, he was still thankful for the opportunity.
“What are you thinking about?” she asked.
“Why you’re with me,” he replied.
She pressed her lips together. “You think it’s because with the work we do my choices are limited?” She paused to read him. “Well that may have been why we got together, but I’d be willing to bet that neither one of us would change that now,” she said warmly, then she added, “We should step a bit more lightly, the noose is tightening.”
Every other conversation came back to how far could they go with the mission. He wasn’t sure. Stacy wasn’t a coward by any stretch, but she was right to be worried. Arkin felt worried too. Before he just had himself to keep alive. He cared about his people, but at the end of the day if things got too hot he could leave without a backward glance. That was how he had always worked, but now he had her. He couldn’t jump ship so easily, nor could she.
“I don’t think local law enforcement has what it takes to track us down, and I’m not sure the Iumenta are aware of us, or if they are they can’t know what we are doing,” he said.
Stacy sat down in one of the rickety table chairs. “Can’t know what? That there is a clandestine group in the Cona Empire trying to bring it down from the inside?” She shook her head. “Oh, they know, don’t you kid yourself about that. The question is how much do they know? And who do they suspect?”
Arkin set a plate of eggs down on the roundtable in front of Stacy, sitting in a chair of his own on the other side taking up the other half of the table. They ate in silence, both thinking. Like always, he wished she would let him in her mind, but she wouldn’t. Well, she did, but not all the way. He wondered what had happened to her to make her so unwilling to connect with someone.
“What are your plans for the day?” she asked after a bit.
“I’m going to the shop and to work for a while, and then get ready for tonight. You?”
She shrugged. “I have a few things to do around town, but that’s about it, I need a few odds and ends for tonight. Where do you want to meet?”
“The ministry next to the north fortress. I want to poke around in there.”
“What are you looking for? That building is a little close to all the Iumenta Ascendeds, if you ask me.”
Arkin shook his head. “I’m getting odd reports from other towns, something about the North and… and…” he huffed, “and I don’t know, we keep hearing more about these men in the black cloth. There has to be something to it, but I don’t know what.”
Stacy rolled her eyes, as he figured she would. “They are just playing mind games with the resistance, nothing sinister is going on. The Iumenta are losing control of the south, why mess around with things up north?”
That might be the case, but Arkin wasn’t all that convinced. He left their apartment and went on with his day, working in the shop and otherwise wasting time until he could go to his real job. He couldn’t figure out what was wrong with Stacy. It wasn’t that she had lost her backbone, she just didn’t like when the conversation turned to the northern lands. Tom came in bringing Arkin lunch.
“What’s on your mind?” Tom asked.
Arkin stopped eating to explain what was going on with Stacy. He normally didn’t confide in people, but Tom had earned his trust.
“She’s scared,” Tom said matter-of-factly.
Arkin raised an eyebrow. “Stacy, scared? Of what?”
Tom shook his head. “Look, Stacy is a resilient one, I’ll give her that, but everyone has their limits. Plus, have you ever thought that maybe she’s from the North? After all, what do we know about her?”
Arkin thought. “Well, not much, but the same could be said for all of us”
Tom nodded. “Yeah, I know that, but I’m just saying that while Stacy may be great at everything she does, she’s bound to have limits. Maybe she doesn’t want to think there is anything wrong up North, and that’s why she’s being difficult. That’s all I’m sayin.’”
Arkin thought Tom was probably right, and in truth he didn’t really know anything about Stacy’s past. He trusted her more than anyone in his now vast organization, but they didn’t talk about the days before their own personal war began. Arkin had things he wasn’t going to share with her, and he knew that went both ways. He decided that after tonight he wouldn’t make her do anything to investigate the North anymore, that was if tonight turned anything up.
As the sun was setting, Arkin made his way to the east side of town, getting some tea at a shop across from the building they were going to break into. He felt Stacy’s mind and told her where to meet him. The teashop he waited in was stuffy, so when Stacy opened the door there was a gust of cool air. She plunked down across from him.
“You look like you’ve had a hard one,” Arkin said, seeing her disheveled appearance.
She pulled a ribbon out of a pocket and pulled her long dark hair back, tying it up, then before answering him she took his tea and sipped it. “You don’t even want to know, and I do not want to talk about it.”
He waited for it.
She set the cup down with a clink. “Ok, just this,” she said raising her hands in frustration. “Is it really that hard to tie a horse? Really? So, since for once I didn’t have all that much to do today, I said to myself, ‘Stacy, go see if Jenny wants to go out,’ right? Not a lot to ask. Well, Jenny had an errand to run, and I was willing to go with her.” Arkin nodded, knowing better than to stop her once it started. She went on. “So we had to go to this little shop, right, and when we are there some moron comes in to pick something up. So he’s got his cart outside and whatever, but he is rude to everyone around and didn’t even bother to tie his horse up. I don’t know, maybe in the country they don’t tie them up. Well anyway, an Ascended flew overhead because it’s Salez, so the horse FREAKS out, I mean full-on tantrum. It has a cart behind it so that makes it freak out more, anyway, long story short, the storefront is obliterated. So, I’m thinking Jenny and I can leave because it’s pretty obvious what happened. NO, that’s right, I said no. Some git peacekeeper comes along to sort things out and made us stand around all afternoon going over what happened.” She huffed and took one long pull from Arkin’s tea, finishing it off. “And why haven’t you offered me tea or anything? I’ve had a hard day!”
Why hadn’t he what? It wasn’t worth it. Arkin apologized and ordered tea for her. After a few cups she seemed to calm down. He decided that it was probably safe to broach the subject for tonight. He poked her mind and she looked at him and then sighed, speaking in her head. “Sorry.”
“It’s ok, you had a hard day. Do you want to pass tonight?”
“No, I’ll be all right. I want to get back at that peacekeeper. I’m gonna get his address so I can mess with him.”
“You know what they say about revenge?” Arkin said wryly.
Yeah, dig two graves: one for the person you’re getting revenge on and the other for the guy who tried to tell you to drop it,
she thought acidly.
He tried not to smirk, people in the tea shop would think he was a loon. “Fair enough, let’s have something to eat and then go over to the building. I’ve have this place cased out, no one stays late.”
After dinner Stacy and Arkin made their way across the street and into a small ally. Arkin looked up the side of the rough wall to a window that was high overhead.
“So what do we need to look for exactly?” Stacy asked in a whisper.
“Anything that seems out of the ordinary, really, but it will likely show in the paperwork.”
“What will show in the paperwork? Ya know what, it doesn’t matter. Let’s go.”
Arkin looked down at his hands and let the energy flow to them. “Caulo.” There was a slight green glow that faded. Stacy did the same. Arkin reached up, placing a hand on the wall, feeling it stick at his will. He started his ascent with Stacy right behind him. Right underneath the window he placed his right hand in his jacket pocket and pulled out a mirror on a thin metal rod, holding it up to the window. There didn’t appear to be anybody in there. He lifted himself to the window and checked for spells that might be protecting the building. There were a few in place.
“They have this place protected,” he said across the network.
Stacy wasn’t surprised. “It is a government building. What is there?”
“Looks like some basic wards to stop people from breaking in and vandalizing the place. They don’t look like anything that would block a Venefica.” He paused, feeling with his mind and energy. “Wait, here’s one. It’s a detection ward. I’m not sure how it alerts security.” He groped around more. “And there is a blocking ward too. If we try to disable the detection spell…”
“We will be blocked by the other ward, which will in turn set off the detection ward. Peachy.”
Arkin thought for a moment. “A detection spell is looking for a certain level of magic, so in theory we should be able to hit them at the same time.”
“What how does that work? If you attack that blocking ward you’re gonna set the detection off,” she said, concerned.
“Let’s see, if it’s a simple blocking spell…if I’m right these aren’t complex spells and the blocking ward won’t be able to handle more than one person at a time, so if I attack it…”
“I should be able to disable the detection spell before it picks you up, got ya,” she said, unconvinced but resigned.
Arkin put just a little energy behind his breaking spell and just a heartbeat later Stacy hit the detection ward with all her might. Arkin felt resistance, but he didn’t push more.
“I CAN’T FEEL THE OTHER WARD, I GOT BLOCKED!” Stacy yelled in his mind.
“What?” Arkin readied himself to fight or escape. If Stacy was blocked with the amount of power she had put behind her attack, there was no way the detection ward hadn’t found them. “We need to move.” Arkin was about to drop to the ground but stopped at a snicker. He looked down at Stacy, who was red in the face, tears streaming down her cheeks.