PreCursive

  Ead every one of the apanying cssers from the Order of Solstice’s Fme looked like they could take me. These didn’t look like the run-of-the-mill warriors that had to fill the ranks of the opposing Martial Order. No, if I had to take a guess, this was aire ptoon of elites, hand-picked and sculpted by their leadership in order to kick ass and take names. From their highly personalized, intimidatingly powerful feeling ons and armor, to the simple way they held each other, I doubted my ces against any of these guys.

  And there were at least thirty of the damn people, all of them at the bed call of Rhiannon.

  What…

  What the hell was going on here? How did the woman have the pull to and such a force?

  Rhiannon herself looked almost exactly the same as she had back at the shop, in a slightly off putting way. Still wearing the same pitch bck gown and furs, her burgundy eyes sought out mine from across the dead silent pza. Nobody that had been previously fighting had moved an inch since Rhiannon had shown herself.

  She smiled thinly at me.

  “My my,” Rhiannon said casually, sauntering farther into the pza. As she did, the cssers moved forward and started to spread out. Gradually, the ptoon began to encircle both us and the SED agents, stig to the very edges of the circur pza.

  I te the motion, nearly springing away from the trap. I was stopped, though, when Dusk cmped down hard onto my shoulder, nearly enough to grind my boogether. She wasn’t even looking wheopped me, just watg Rhiannon instead.

  As if she was the real threat, and not the deadly-looking cssers from a rival Order.

  Almost mogly, Rhiannon trailed her eyes over Dusk for a moment, before letting them meet mine once again. She tinued speaking. “I certainly didn’t expect to see you here, Nathan,” She nearly purred. I mentally wi how she had just blown whatever cover I still had, but it wasn’t a huge loss. The SED agents, and particurly their leader whose head had just turned slightly to look at me had already seen my face. I was going to have to burn the identity of Hans Schefel no matter what.

  Sorry, Jason.

  “After all, this little trap wasn’t even for you,” Rhiannon said casually, trailing a hand over the bench the SED leader had been sitting on earlier. For some reason, a screeg sounded out from the point of tact between her nails and the iron fittings, eg around the pza. “I was just trying to bait out some little rats that have been troublihe Guard Captain didn’t mention you were the ones ag as…e. Tsk tsk. I’ll have to punish him ter.”

  …What?

  “As expected of you, creature,” The SED leader uedly said, pt dripping from their synthesized voice. “You care so little for colteral damage that you won’t care that even your test little is step in the way.”

  Rhiannon rolled her eyes at them as the Solstice’s Fme cssers finished encirg the pza. Not a one of them, including the absolutely massive man carrying a warhammer in full pte at Rhiannon’s side, had spoken once sihey’d stepped foot in the clearing. They seemed tent to let Rhiannon do it, while they watched Crook, Dusk, Sylvia and I hungrily.

  “Oh, do drop the self-pity, hirty-Two,” Rhiannon said derisively. “It ill suits you. Besides, you should speak when spoken to. Be quiet now, ahe adults do the speaking,” She flicked a dismissive fi ‘hirty-Two’.

  From it, a thin line of a dark, indistinguishable liquid sliced from its tip to crash into the SED leader’s shoulder. It split both the cloth of their cloak and the of the armor I could now see underh, exposing their pale flesh in an instant.

  A massive, nearly bone-deep gash opened up on their shoulder, bleeding heavily. Thirty-Two barely fli the attack, even though it had to be absolutely agonizing. They must have an incredibly capable mental trol Skill like my own in order to ehat.

  Even though their leader had barely reacted to the attack, the other two SED members tensed up and moved as if to attack. They were stopped by the raised hand of Thirty-Two. They shook their head, causing the two operatives to step back.

  Rhiannon visibly dismissed the group of SED agents, instead shifting her eyes to look over roup. In particur, they lingered on both Dusk and Sylvia, even though she had previously been speaking to me. “Hmm…” She trailed off, tapping one darkly painted fingernail against her lips. “But perhaps this will work out better.”

  I decided to finally speak up. “Rhiannon, what is this about?” I asked her in a low, tense voice.

  The woman broke out of her spell, blinking rapidly at me. It was as if she had fotten I was even here. She dismissed me after a moment, though. “Oh, just sidering which of your two little girls there I’m going to take with me,” She said casually, eyes still lingering on Dusk and Sylvia. She eaking as if she had just debated which café she was going to choose, and not which person she was going to kidnap. Either my friend and rade.

  Or my girlfriend.

  I tensed up at the same time Sylvia did. Dusk didn’t react, though. She just kept watg Rhiannon with steady eyes.

  Said noblewoma speaking. “On one hand, we have the daughter of the mighty Grey, Archmage of the Violet Circle, Headmaster of the Academy, and Grand Marshall of the Order of the Eclipsed Dawn,” She said casually, outing Sylvia without a sed thought. The eyes of every Solstice’s Fme member in the pza immediately shifted to home in on her eagerly, palpable bloodlust in their gazes. Meanwhile, Rhiannon had locked her eyes on Dusk, as if she could see straight through her mask. For all I knew, she could, with the way she seemed to be able to see through Sylvia’s illusioned fa?ade. “Oher, we have little Liora Valen, so far from home.”

  Dusk visibly twitched at the name Rhiannon had just thrown out.

  I’m…guessing that was Dusk’s real name. She had never shared it with me, so it was my first time hearing it.

  “Orpha a young age and taken in by that sad old failure Baldric-excuse me, I hear he goes by Hook these days,” Rhiannon said mogly, lightly c her mouth with one hand. That name only caused Dusk to tense further. “He taught you all the worthless, tired old skills that he could. And when you came of age, you insisted that you join up with his little band of spies and cutthroats. Tsk tsk, whatever would your poor old parents think of you now?”

  How…

  How did Rhiannon know all of this? How could she possibly know Hook’s real identity, when I don’t think anyone in the Noe Division did. In all of my time both around Hook, and in the Division in general, I had never heard even the hint of a whisper as to his real he dwarf's history was a bnk ste, and seemingly purposefully so. And here was this random noblewoman droppi, well-hidden knowledge like it didn’t even matter.

  It gave me an ominous feeling.

  That was only enhanced when the look Rhiannon was giviurned calg. “Yes…thinking about it. Why choose?” She said with a smirk. “I only need one, but both wouldn’t hurt. Boys, take them.” At Rhiannon’s dismissive gesture towards us, the surrounding Solstice’s Fme members all finally drew their ons. Slowly, they started to advan our bined group of SED and Noe Agents. As the circle closed in on us, I bizarrely found myself back to back with the SED Agent Sylvia had been locked in life ah battle with only moments ago. We exged brief looks of mutual antipathy, but didn’t say anything about it.

  After all, it looked like these guys were more than willing to take all of us at once.

  Strangely, both Dusk and Thirty-Two didn’t move from their inal positions. They exged a long, slow gnce before the SED Agent ined their head at her. Dusk nodded, and then turo face the smugly onlooking Rhiannon. The Gnoll woman struck out sharply with one hand. “Stop. Or I promise you, you’ll regret it.”

  Idly, Rhiannon raised one hand, causing the advang Solstice’s Fme members to halt in pce. “Oh, is that so?” She said with an amused smile. “What could you possibly do now that could make me regret anything?”

  Slowly, Dusk reached up to grab her mask. Undoing the csp, she lowered it, allowio see her white-furred faobscured and undisguised for the first time since I’d known her. I wasly the best judge of Gnollish beauty, but I would certainly say that she was a striking example of her kind. Her face articurly memorable sidering the nearly crest moon shaped markings of bck fur she had underh her strangely violet eyes.

  Right now, her snout was arranged in something I never would have expected on the usually taciturn gnoll woman’s face.

  A small, sharp smile.

  “Because I know what you are, ‘Rhiannon’,” Dusk, or rather Liora Valen, said semi-mogly.

  Rhiannon finally lost the ever-present smile that had been on her face this whole time. Now she was just looking at the Gnoll with a frighteningly bnk look.

  Meanwhile, most everyone else in the clearing was looking fused. I was sidering the w of what Liora had said.

  ‘What’ you are, and not ‘who’ you are.

  I say most everyone was looking fused, but not Thirty-Two. They hadn’t reacted to Liora’s words at all, while even their SED underlings had perplexed posture.

  “You, are bluffing,” Rhiannon said bluntly. “This is nothing more than a pathetic attempt to throw me off guard.”

  “You were careful, I will admit that,” Liora said grimly, ht ign the other woman. “But there are certain traces that your kind leave that ot be cealed. Your kind thrive off of being unknown and unseen, operating in the shadows to twist things to your liking. But if even the barest hint of suspi is cast, then those traces be found. And then you. Are. Doomed.”

  Rhiannon was looking at the Gnoll now with wary, narrowed eyes. She didn’t speak, as it seemed like she was starting to believe that Liora actually knew what she eaking about.

  And my rade noticed that. She smiled at who I was suspeg might not actually be Bleddyn’s cousin. “I found it on the Portal St-”

  Rhiannon moved.

  In the blink of an eye, faster than I had seen anything and anyone move ever since I’d e to Vereden, Rhiannon appeared in front of the unmasked Noe Agent. Liora had been cut off because the woman had her by the throat, and was dangling her in midair.

  Right o me.

  I startled and skipped back, along with the rest of the ents around me, Noe or otherwise.

  Fast.

  Faster than even Honoka was, I thought. I had seen the old woman move quickly in the past, but o the degree that I had just seen Rhiannon do.

  Liora wasn’t struggling in Rhiannon’s grip, even though the other woman was holding her above the ground. Instead, she just met the ‘noble’s’ eyes and smiled slightly.

  Said noble was standing utterly, impossible still when she finally spoke. “What do you want.” She said in a ft, uional tone of voice. I didn’t get the impression that was so much a question, as it was a statement.

  Liora didn’t waste any time. “Let my rades go, and I’ll e with you willingly. If not, then my deadman’s switch will deliver the truth of your identity to Grand Marshall Grey.”

  Deadman’s switch? That was a thing here? I…guess it had to be an entment of some kind.

  “Not good enough,” Rhiannoed, her painted lips curling. “I ’t be certain just you will be enough for my needs.”

  Before things could degee any further, Thirty-Two stepped forward. “Then I shall assist,” They said ftly. “I offer myself as well, in order to buy my own rades freedom.”

  “ander!” I heard one of the other SED operatives say, taking a protesting step forward.

  “Silence, Seventeen,” Thirty-Two said calmly, without even looking at his subordinate. ‘Seventeen’ reeled back as if they’d been struck, but quieted down. “I, too, know what you are. Creature. The Noes are not the only ones capable of dedu. Why else do you think our fa was hounding you so, these past few months?”

  Rhiannon cut her eyes over at Thirty-Two, narrowing them. “I see I’ve been a bit careless, if a couple of striplings like yourself discover this,” She mused almost casually. Still, she nodded sharply. “The deal is struck, then. Your lives now belong to me. Go,” Rhiannon said to the rest of us, almost dismissively. “My toys shall not bother you anymore, this night.”

  None of us moved, unwilling to leave any of rades behind.

  Rhiannon’s eyes narrowed. “Do not sy generosity, curs.”

  Dusk, or rather Liora, turned around to meet my eyes.

  And nodded, almost peacefully.

  ‘Go’, she mouthed.

  I y my hands on Sylvia and Crook’s arms, drawing their attention. When they looked at me, I jerked my head in the dire out of the pza. Crook studied me for a moment before abruptly nodding, while Sylvia said nothing. She did reach out to squeeze my hand, though. Slowly, the three of us started to back away in the dire of the building we’d been from. The SED agents were slower to ply with their leader's orders, but eventually plied. They grabbed the still unscious form of the agent I had been fighting as well as the corpse of the one Wisp had killed. Afterward, they joined us as we stepped through the wall of Solstice’s Fme members, and out of the pza.

  My st glimpse of the captive Liora was the strangely peaceful look on her white-furred face.

  As if she had accepted her fate.

  My lips thinned.

  I promise, Dusk. We’d be back for you.

  t on it.