Liberi Reader

The fog grows thicker. The entire forest seems to swim in it.

I'll confess, I'm not so familiar with Kazdel at all. By the end of the Banshee's Court's part in the war two hundred years ago, I was gone from that city. It was in the Convallis of the Banshees I came of age.

I had asked my mother why, being one of our 'Six Heroes', she would choose to leave Kazdel, the city she once fought to the bitter end for.

My mother issued no response at the time; she plucked a few reeds from the riverbank, and wove a necklace for me. Their stems twisted about each other, head to tail, tail to head.

It was beautiful, and I treasured it in the most genuine sense. Yet very soon, it withered and faded, and fell to scattered pieces.

My mother told me how this was the Banshees' most traditional artform. We weave song and incantation, just as we weave necklaces of grass.

But now, we had the entire Convallis.

They needed not be foraged, needed not be bothered, and so year after year, they grew forever.

We Banshees sang our elegies, but the elegies were no supplication of the end; rather, they were anticipation of new life.

There is the Sarkaz's need—not to hold a dead city standing, but to grow.

The Doctor is considerably wounded, but their tone of voice is steadied once more.

Ascalon silently carries the still-unconscious Amiya, taking the very front.

She remains as ever, lips sealed. But I can sense that her current silence is a more... bleak one than before.

I remember, at the time of her hurried rendezvous with me, that flicker of an expression I found hard to discern.

I know this Convallis.

I've always loved it.

At the Convallis's other end, there seems to stand someone, dead still, silent.

Ascalon nods, handing Amiya over to the Doctor, who strains to hold her up by the arm that isn't hurt.

Ascalon, master assassin, vanishes in a blink into the mist.

I shut my eyes and prepare, conceiving of destruction, imagining reconstruction.

But the figure appears again, this time atop one of the Convallis's crests. She seems to be looking at me, but she is as if a thin slice of the past, stuck frozen in some older time.

I know that crest full well. When I was young, I would practice incanting there, until twilight fell, and she would show up behind me.

I would never know when exactly she had come, but she would just stand there, as she does now in this mirage.

And once I exhausted myself, we would go home together.

I feel for my bone whistle. It's cold as bale ice. Just like the time I was first given it.

Not long ago, I sounded it to the closure of Damazti's Court.

But the time before that, that was back in this Convallis.

I rest the whistle to my lips.

The Sarkaz must write a new verse.

With the words, power bursts forth.

Laboring to keep Amiya supported, the Doctor lifts their head with some worry, taking in the giant, sanguine-colored crystals.

The Doctor gives no response, seemingly lost in thought.

Heh, they finally ran out of patience.

I detected them long ago; a handful of boorish wanderers. The derangement of our spacetime was masking their figures, and now, with the mist abated, they finally show themselves.

Already, the silver glint in Ascalon's hand has cut across their necks, while bone-writ incantation blocks their attack.

A clump of dirt? It's crude as a child would be.

Ah, it is a child.

Does the Doctor know this Sarkaz girl?

This Sarkaz steps up to me, skeptically looking me up and down.

I can tell with a glance that she's never taken the battlefield. Her hands are callused in the wrong places.

Just now, did the young Paprika girl call her Driver?

The man nicknamed Shopkeep rubs his hands, eyeing me with ingratiation.

His dagger is equipped with an auxiliary Originium Arts control apparatus; never an affordable piece of kit. A shame it's all-new, dagger itself included.

......

So he hasn't the first clue about any Court at all.

Inside their truck, I notice an uncovered spot, where a few blood-streaked crystals are poking out.

The Doctor makes brief eye contact with me. I have some inkling. A Sarkaz truck—a vehicle that can take us through the battlefield.

With Amiya's current condition, we won't be rendezvousing with the main unit on foot.

I can sense Ascalon all set to go in the shadows, ready to strike at the amateur squad before us.

But evidently, the Doctor already has a better idea.

I can comprehend the Doctor's gist, but... I'm really not well-versed when it comes to this.

Thank you, coins that Mechanist stuffed in my bag.

The Doctor comes to my side, voice grave.

The Doctor looks at the sanguine Arts Circles. A pit forms in their stomach.

Say no more. I know far too well.