Chapter 14. The Missing Servant (Patreon)

When two mages above the three-thousandth threshold fought, the world around them suffered for it.

This was well-documented. At lower levels, a fight between mages was a local event — contained, visible, limited to whatever the combatants threw at each other. A fireball hit a wall, the wall broke, and that was the extent of the damage.

But past a certain density of mana, the physics of the confrontation changed. The mana-filled air itself became reactive. Space bent under the weight of two competing fields, warping light and sound in ways that made it difficult for bystanders to even perceive what was happening.

Temperature shifted in pockets — freezing in one place, boiling three feet to the left — as ambient mana bled from the combatants' control and saturated everything it touched. The ground cracked from pressure that had nothing to do with impact, and living tissue close to the point of contact broke down at the cellular level, organs failing under a density they were never built to process.

At the level Daeren and Gamos occupied, a fight inside this tent would kill everyone who wasn't them or Sael. The silk walls would disintegrate. The wooden floor would splinter upward. The guests nearest to the collision would die from unbalanced mana exposure alone before either man landed a blow, their hearts stopping as the energy passing through them exceeded what their bodies could tolerate. The ones farther back would fare slightly better, which in practice meant they would have a few more seconds of confusion before the same thing happened to them.

Sael had seen it happen many times. And each times, the aftermath had been measured in acres of dead ground and a count that took days to finalize.

That was the first reason he spoke.

The second was that the cause of the fight was, as far as Sael could tell, unfounded.

He had been watching the body on the floor since the man fell. The black bile, the convulsions, the rigid stillness, all of it was consistent with nighthollow root, and Gamos was probably right about that. But Gamos had declared his cousin dead, and the crowd had accepted it, Daeren had accepted it, and every person in the tent had moved forward on that assumption without verifying it.

But Sael verified it.

It took focus. He had to tune out the shouting, the building mana pressure, the trembling plates and the flickering lanterns, and listen. Beneath all of it, beneath the grief, the accusations and the gathering violence, there was a heartbeat. It was faint. So faint in fact, that Sael had to hold his breath and push his awareness down through every layer of noise to find it. Slow and uneven, each beat spaced a little further from the last.

Dying, but present.

"I think that is enough," Sael said.

And both of them stopped, which surprised him as he didn't raise his voice, nor push mana into the words to give them weight beyond their volume. He said it at the same level he'd been using all evening, seated at the head table with his tea still warm beside his plate.

He appreciated that polite consideration.

Gamos's hand loosened on the weapon at his side, while Daeren's mana pulled back and settled. The lanterns steadied, the ground went quiet and the silk walls of the tent hung still.

Then Sael [Blink]ed.

The distance between his chair and the body was perhaps forty feet. He crossed it between one heartbeat and the next, his form dissolving from the platform and reappearing beside the fallen man, already kneeling and reaching out. A gasp tore through the crowd: hundreds of people drawing breath at the same time.

The man named Nero lay on his side in the pooled bile. His face was grey. His lips had gone nearly black, and up close, the faint rise of his chest was barely visible: a shallow, irregular movement that could have been mistaken for nothing at all. The heartbeat Sael had heard from across the tent was weaker here, which shouldn't have been possible, except that it was fading in real time.

Sael placed his hand flat against the man's chest and cast [Heal].

Golden light spread from his palm. It moved outward in steady, branching lines, warm and dense, threaded through with veins of deep green that grew like roots pushing through soil. The glow sank into Nero's body and the change was visible: the grey in his face began to retreat, color returning slowly, degree by degree.

The black bile around his mouth thinned and paled. The rigid lock in his muscles softened as the poison was drawn backward through the same channels it had used to enter, pulled out of the blood and the tissue by the spell working in reverse along every path the nighthollow root had taken.

It was slow work. The poison bound itself deep, and rushing the extraction risked tearing the very tissue you were trying to save. Sael held the spell steady, feeding mana into it at a measured rate, and let the light do what it needed to do.

The tent was silent as the seconds passed. Ten became twenty became thirty. The green veins of light pulsed a few times and then contracted inward, drawing tight around Nero's chest like a net closing. The color in his face was closer to human now. His breathing deepened, and his fingers twitched against the floor.

Then Nero coughed in a wet, ugly sound, while his whole body lurched with it, his hands coming up to clutch at his own throat. He coughed again and a thin stream of dark fluid ran from the corner of his mouth, lighter and thinner than the bile that had come before, the last of the poison leaving him.

His eyes opened. They were unfocused, panicked, and he gasped in a breath that sounded like it scraped him raw from the inside.

Gamos was beside him before the second breath came. He hit the floor on his knees and grabbed his cousin's arm with both hands. "Nero. You're alive!"

Nero's eyes found him. He tried to speak and coughed again instead, his body still shaking with the effort of restarting itself. Then he managed a nod, small and weak, and his hand came up to grip Gamos's wrist.

Gamos pulled Nero's head against his chest and held it there, one hand on the back of his cousin's neck, and for a moment he didn't say anything else.

Sael withdrew his hand. The golden light dimmed and faded, leaving only the lantern glow and the quiet of a thousand people holding their breath.

"He was not dead," Sael said. He kept his voice even, directed at Gamos but loud enough for the tent to hear. "The poison was killing him, and would have finished in another minute, perhaps less. But when you declared him gone, Lord Gamos, his heart was still beating."

Gamos looked up at him from the floor. His face was streaked and pale, still trembling, and the anger that had been there seconds ago was gone entirely.

"I — thank you," he said. His voice broke on it. "Archmage, thank you."

Sael gave him a small nod and rose to his feet.

Sael turned from Gamos and looked at the floor around Nero's body.

There was the bile, black and pooled in the seams between the wooden panels. There were the scattered remains of a plate — something with quail, from the look of it — that had been knocked from the table when Nero fell. And there was a cup, tipped on its side about two feet from Nero's outstretched hand, the last of its contents still draining in a thin red line across the wood.

Wine. The cup was silver, broad-rimmed, with the imperial crest stamped into the base. Sael crouched beside it and tilted it upright with two fingers. A shallow mouthful remained at the bottom, darker than it should have been. The color was off: a muddied burgundy where Vaeloran red ran clean and bright. You could miss it in lantern light, especially if you'd already had a few cups, and especially if you weren't expecting your drink to kill you.

Sael set the cup down carefully and looked at Nero.

The victim was sitting up now, leaned against his cousin's chest, still breathing in a raw, scraped way. His eyes were open and tracking, though, which was a good sign. He looked like a man who'd been dragged back from a very long way away.

"Hello sir," Sael said. "Can you hear me?"

Nero's gaze found him. He nodded, winced, and managed a rough "Yes."

"Good. Can you tell me what you were drinking tonight?"

"Wine," Nero swallowed and tried again. "Red wine. The... the Vaeloran."

Sael glanced at the cup. "From the general table, or was it served to you directly?"

"Served." Nero closed his eyes for a moment, gathering himself. "I had a servant attending me. She poured all my cups tonight."

"All of them?" Sael asked. "The same person each time?"

"Yes."

"Can you describe her?"

Nero frowned. His memory was clearly working through a fog. He pressed the heel of his hand against his forehead. "Blond," he said. "Young. I didn't... I didn't ask her name. She was already at my seat when I arrived, and she stayed through the meal. Refilled my cup three times, maybe four."

"Had you seen her before? At previous events, maybe?"

Perhaps they knew each other, somehow.

"I don't think so." Nero coughed again, lighter this time. "I assumed she was staff. I didn't have a reason to question it."

Sael stood and turned toward the imperial platform.

Daeren was standing where Sael had last seen him, his mana settled but his posture still rigid. He'd been watching the exchange without interrupting.

"Your Imperial Majesty," Sael said. "I would ask that you assemble your serving staff. All of them. Everyone who worked the floor tonight, servers, pourers, attendants, kitchen runners. Anyone who had access to the wine or the cups before they reached the tables."

Daeren didn't hesitate. He turned to the nearest guard captain — a tall woman in imperial black — and said, "Do it. Now. Every member of staff in the east staging area within ten minutes. No one leaves the grounds."

The captain struck her chest with a fist and moved. Three of her subordinates peeled off with her, heading for the service entrances at the back of the tent.

Daeren looked back at Sael. "What else do you need?"

"The cup, please," Sael said. "I'd like it preserved as it is. And I'll need to speak with mister Nero again once he's had a moment to recover, his memory may sharpen as the poison clears."

Daeren nodded and gestured to another attendant, who hurried forward with a cloth to wrap the cup without touching the contents.

Gamos was still on the floor with his cousin. He looked up at Sael with an expression that was hard to read.

"Someone did this to him," Gamos said quietly.

"Yes," Sael said. "And they're likely still in this tent."

***

Richter's guard captain was efficient. In under four minutes, the east staging area behind the tent held every member of the serving staff who'd worked the feast: thirty-one people arranged in a rough line, most of them still in their uniforms, a few with their sleeves rolled up from cleaning duty.

A few of them were visibly frightened. One older man near the end of the line kept glancing at the guards stationed by the exit, and a woman in her twenties was holding her serving tray against her chest like a shield. The mood was bad. These were workers who'd been doing their jobs two hours ago and were now being lined up in the presence of the emperor's personal guard.

Sael noticed it immediately.

"I'm sorry," he said, stepping in front of the line before Nero even started. "Nobody here is in trouble. We just need to identify someone, and then you can all go back to what you were doing. I apologize for the disruption."

A few of the staff exchanged glances, and the older man stopped looking at the guards.

"Really," Sael added, because the woman with the tray still hadn't lowered it. "This will be quick."

Nero walked the line with Gamos steadying him at the elbow. He was upright now, though his color was still wrong and his steps were careful. He looked at each face. Took his time. Paused at a blond woman near the middle — she went rigid — and then shook his head and moved on. She exhaled so hard her bangs lifted off her forehead.

It did not take long before he reached the end.

"She's not here," Nero said.

Sael turned to the woman standing slightly apart from the rest of the staff, a stocky woman with close-cropped gray hair and a clipboard tucked under one arm. The coordinator. She'd been introduced as Maren.

"The person we're looking for is a young woman, blond, who served wine at Nero's table for the duration of the feast," Sael said. "Is she on your roster?"

Maren's brow creased. She pulled the clipboard out and ran a finger down the list. "I had three wine servers on the eastern tables tonight. Pella, Dorin, and Hask." She pointed to three people in the line, all of whom were present. None of them were blond women. "I don't know who you're describing, sir, I'm sorry. She's not one of mine."

One of the servers in the line — Dorin, apparently, a thin young man with ink-stained fingers — raised his hand halfway like he was in a classroom and thought better of it.

"Actually," he said. "Wait. I think I saw her."

Sael looked at him.

"Blond, right? Pale, kind of... she had her hair pinned up? I saw her carrying a pitcher around Lord Nero's section. I assumed she was new. Maren hires extra hands for big events sometimes, and I'd never seen her before, so I figured..." He trailed off and glanced at Maren, who was already shaking her head.

"I didn't hire anyone extra tonight," Maren said.

Another server, the frightened woman with the tray, spoke up. "I saw her too. She came in through the service entrance before the feast started. She was already in uniform. I held the door for her."

Sael thanked them both and turned away from the line. His mind was working through the timeline. The feast had been running for several hours before Nero collapsed. The woman had been present for all of it, or most of it. She'd left at some point, either right before or right after Nero went down. If it was before, she'd timed her exit. If it was after, she'd used the chaos as cover. Either way, she had a head start, but not a long one.

If she could teleport, this was already over. But assuming that meant giving up, and Sael didn't feel like giving up.

"I'll be back," he said to Daeren, then cast [Float].

The spell was quiet. Sael's feet left the ground without a sound, and he rose straight up, through the warm air that pooled beneath the tent's ceiling, and then he cast the second spell — [Phase] — and the fabric of the tent passed through him like mist, the night opening above.

He kept rising. The tent shrank beneath his feet, then the torchlit courtyard around it, then the palace grounds, and then the whole of the imperial district with its white walls and tiered gardens becoming a pale shape against the dark sprawl of Orlys. The city unfolded in every direction, its lamplit streets like cracks of gold in dark stone. He could see the river curving south, the merchant quarter with its clustered rooftops, the long road to the western gate.

Then he went higher.

The air thinned and cooled. The wind picked up and pulled at his coat. Orlys became a luminous smear on the landscape, surrounded by farmland, forest and the dark shapes of hills rolling toward the coast. He could see the faint silver line of the sea to the east. And at the edges of his vision, where the land met the sky, the horizon had begun to curve, so he stopped.

Sael closed his eyes and raised both hands, palms upward. Mana gathered in the space above him: slowly at first, then building, condensing, folding into itself.

The spell was [Vassal's Eye], and it was old. One of the first spells he'd ever learned from his mother.

The light that formed above his head was enormous.

It grew outward in a sphere, then flattened, then opened: a great luminous iris, easily forty feet across, burning white-gold against the night sky.

At its center, a pupil of concentrated mana so dense the air around it warped. From below, from anyone in Orlys who happened to look up, it would have appeared as a second moon had opened its eye above the city.

[Vassal's Eye] did two things. It let the caster see across vast distances with perfect clarity, as though standing inches away from whatever the eye focused on. And it let them hear. The range was absurd, so much so that his mother had once described it as "indecent, frankly", which was rare, coming from her.

Sael could hear the heartbeat of a finch sleeping in a tree four miles below him. He could hear the river current pulling silt along its bed, or two drunk men arguing about the price of lamp oil on a street in the merchant quarter.

He tuned all of it out.

The great eye rotated above him, sweeping its gaze across the landscape in slow arcs. Sael directed it with small movements of his fingers, his own eyes still closed, seeing only through the spell. He checked the main roads first: the western gate road, the southern highway, the trade route that ran along the river toward the port towns. Carts. A few late travelers. A patrol of city guards making their rounds near the northern wall.

He swept through the streets of Orlys. Alleys, side roads, nothing relevant.

Then a farmhouse on the outskirts caught his attention. There were no lights in the windows, overgrown path, plus the fence had collapsed on one side and nobody had repaired it. It was the sort of place someone fleeing the city might duck into to wait out a search.

So Sael turned the eye toward it and looked inside. He caught muffled sounds from the back room, at a rhythmic, strained and urgent pace. That could be a struggle. Could be someone restrained, trying to call out.

There, he found two people were in the back room, and they were — oh. Oh no.

Sael wrenched the eye away so hard the entire spell wobbled in the sky above him, the massive iris flickering like a candle in a draft.

"Ah — my apologies! I'm — yes, right, I'll just —" He was talking to himself, as they could not sense him at all. His face was on fire and he pressed one hand over his eyes, held it there for a few seconds, breathing through his fingers, and then pulled it away and stared at the dark horizon until his composure came back.

Clearly, the suspect was not there, so he widened the search.

The roads outside the city were mostly empty. Farmland stretched dark and quiet in every direction. He pushed the eye further, past the outer villages, along the hill roads, into the stretches of open countryside where the only light came from the stars.

And then he heard gasps coming in short, panicked manner. And beneath that, the rhythmic beat of large wings: heavy and fast, undoubtedly the cadence of a pegasus at full gallop through the air.

Sael turned the eye southeast.

There. About eleven miles from the city walls, moving low over the treeline at considerable speed. A pegasus, white-bodied, its wings driving hard through the night air. And on its back, leaning forward with both hands gripping the reins, a young woman with pale blond hair streaming behind her. She kept looking over her shoulder, back toward Orlys, her face tight with fear.

Sael raised one hand and cast [Teleportation] just as the great iris above him blinked out, its light dissolving into the dark like it had never been there.

Then the world folded.

One moment he was floating at the edge of the atmosphere with the curve of the planet beneath him. The next, he was standing — well, floating — in the air directly in the pegasus's flight path, about sixty feet ahead of it.

The pegasus saw him first and produced a shrill, horselike shriek that split the quiet, then banked hard to the left, its wings flaring wide. The woman wasn't ready for the turn. Her grip on the reins broke and she came off the saddle sideways, tumbling into open air with a shout that was equal parts terror and fury.

Sael caught her with a binding field before she'd fallen twenty feet. The mana wrapped around her in a translucent sphere, slowing her descent to nothing, and she hung suspended in the air between the treetops and the stars, arms flailing against the inside of the barrier.

The pegasus, unburdened, veered off into the dark and kept going. Its wingbeats faded quickly.

Sael drifted down to her level.

"Hello," he said. "I'm sorry about that. The sudden appearance, I mean, I know that must have been frightening."

The woman stared at him through the shimmering wall of the binding field. She was young, maybe twenty, with sharp features and pale skin flushed from the ride. Her servant's uniform was still on, though the collar had come loose in the fall.

"I have reason to believe you poisoned a guest at the jade imperial feast tonight," Sael continued, keeping his tone as even and unthreatening as he could manage while floating in the sky next to a woman trapped in a magic bubble. "I'd like to understand why."

"Let me go!" She slammed her palms against the field, but it didn't flex. "Release me! You have no right — release me!"

She thrashed harder, twisting her body, kicking at the barrier. Her collar shifted further, and the fabric pulled away from her neck, allowing Sael to finally see it.

Black veins, threaded with a deep, bruised purple, climbing up the side of her throat from beneath her clothes.

"I see," he said quietly, more to himself than to her, and felt very tired in a way that had nothing to do with the spells he'd cast tonight.