Splinter Angel Chapter 220 (Patreon)

It took the Party another hour to reach the foot of the cliff. During that time an increasingly anxious Kaira apologized no less than three times, twice to Tor and once to the group at large, promising that she’d never let herself get anywhere near as bad as the cautionary tales threatened Fire-mages might become. It didn’t matter that no one who knew her truly believed that she might hurt them or anyone else who didn’t deserve it; she’d gotten it into her head that they may drop her at some point, and now she had to apologize.

The fourth time she apologized they were on a cleared trail, enjoying the fresh scent of any number of species of conifer. This time Tor just stopped her in her tracks and wrapped his arms around her, holding her there until she forced a laugh.

“I’m fine, Tor,” she said, her voice quavering. “Really. I just don’t want anyone to think—”

“We don’t,” Tor said, gentle but firm as he cut her off. “No one thinks that. We love you, Irry, and we trust you. You’re with us as long as you want to be, and not a second less. Don’t ever think otherwise.”

“But I—” Kaira stuttered. “I could— and I already—” Then she broke completely, and whatever she was trying to say vanished into nearly unintelligible blubbering. Though from context and what little Ana managed to pick up, she was pretty sure that the Evoker was trying to simultaneously thank Tor, tell him that she loved him too, and beg him not to abandon her.

That was too much for her old friends to stand idly by. Soon Omda, Rayni, and Messy had all joined the hug, crushing Kaira between them. They only let her go after she stuffed sniffling for long enough to give them a fragile but genuine laugh and promise that this time she was actually, really, honestly fine.

A name, or possibly a title, had come up a few times during both Kaira’s desperate apologies and her friends’ reassurances: The Infernal. It was one that Ana had heard before; an Ascender that Nari had mentioned as an example of why Ascenders were feared. “We don’t know much about him,” the Swordswoman replied soberly when Ana asked a little later, making sure that Kaira was well out of earshot. “Not his name, not who he was or where he was from. Nothing like that. It was far enough in the past that only the gods might remember, and they’ll only confirm that he was real. What we do know is that he was the highest-dedication Fire-mage the world has ever seen, and that once he lost control, he tried to burn the world.”

“I guess he must have gotten close if he’s used as a cautionary tale,” Ana said softly.

“He’ll never be entirely forgotten, I’m sure of that,” Nari replied, her eyes getting a haunted, faraway look. “I’ve seen the Infernal’s Scar. A desert of black glass, hundreds of miles wide. They say a nation stood there, once, one of the ancient kingdoms. No one remembers what it was called, but they remember who burned it out of history. They remember the Infernal.”

“And the other one?” Ana asked, matching Nari’s hushed tone. “The… Someone the Magnificent?”

“Alga. Alga the Magnificent. Alga the God-Queen. The Infernal wanted to burn the world. Alga wanted to rule it, all-powerful and eternal. She almost did it, too.” Nari snorted, and there wasn’t a shred of humor in it. “One of our own, you might say. She had her capital in Castra. Or Castra grew from the ruins of her capital. There wasn’t much left after she was cast down. Not of the city, nor the land, nor the people. They say the Halewood only grew because there was not a soul left alive to work the land.” After a pause that lasted a dozen steps she added, “You should ask your goddess about it. They say she was one of the Ascenders who brought Alga down.”

Later, when Ana asked, the Wayfarer remained silent for so long that Ana began to wonder if she’d been forgotten, or if something had happened that demanded the goddess’s full attention. She was about to ask again when the answer came.

I was involved, the goddess said. It’s not something I wish to speak about.

And that was that. Ana knew better than to press.

By the time the light began to fail they still weren’t out of the trees, so when they came across a prepared campsite they decided to call it a day.

As they were setting up their tents, Jisha sheepishly joined Ana and Messy. She stood about for a while, occasionally handing them something while they waited for her to speak up. Finally she sighed at herself and just asked, “Can I sleep with you tonight?”

“Of course,” Messy replied, half a heartbeat before Ana said, “Sure. Why?”

“Ray’s sleeping with Tor and the others tonight. She said Kaira’s going to need the biggest pile she can get, and… I can’t sleep alone, but I don’t think I’m comfortable with the, uh… the pile. So.”

“You know they’re really just sleeping in that pile?” Messy asked wryly. “I’ve cuddled up with Irry and a few of the other girls from Ladies’ Night a few times, when she needed it. It’s cozy.”

Jisha blushed. “Even so.”

“Well, you’re welcome here,” Messy said, squeezing the young Fighter’s shoulder. “Right, Ana?”

“Yeah, of course,” Ana said. “Go on. Bring your things and we’ll squeeze you in.”

“Thank you. Sorry,” Jisha muttered before going to pick up her pack and her halberd, both resting against a tree across the campsite.

“Do you think her nightmares will ever go away?” Messy asked softly as she and Ana watched Jisha go.

“I hope so,” Ana replied. “Mine did. But I’m me. I didn’t have to deal with guilt and separation on top of everything else.”

“You know it’s only a matter of time before Ray and Tor want to start sharing a tent. Alone.”

“Then… we’ll just have to invite Jisha to stay with us, and tell her when we want some privacy,” Ana said, taking Messy’s hand as she searched her face. “Is that alright?”

Messy smiled wryly. “I’m not thrilled about it, but yeah. It’s alright. Though I do expect to see that girl blush quite a lot in the future.”

“Behave,” Ana said with a soft laugh.

“I will! But remember when she interrupted us, that night when Touanne first assessed her? I thought she might catch fire, she was so embarrassed! What do you think will happen the first time I tell her we want the tent — or our room — to ourselves for an hour?”

“An hour, huh?”

Messy’s eyes darkened as she leaned in, running her short nails through the fuzz above Ana’s ear with a deliberate slowness that sent a prickle up Ana’s spine. “Well,” she whispered, “I’m going to have to be quick if we’re sharing the room, won’t I?”

Then she pulled back before Jisha could turn and see them, leaving Ana once again wondering just what the hell Messy had done to her. What she was doing to her, on an ongoing basis. For just a moment she considered fighting back by pulling Messy down and kissing her breathless, but then Jisha was walking back to them, and the kind of overwhelming affection necessary to faze Messy would make things very awkward in the tent later.

But Ana wasn’t one to give in that easily. She’d just have to be patient and ambush Messy later.

*

Jisha’s nightmares were back that night, as they were most nights. She sniffled and whined, jerking spasmodically in her sleep with enough force to wake both Ana and Messy.

Messy simply kissed Ana on the neck and rolled over. A few shuffles and soothing noises later, and Jisha quieted. Not much later Messy’s breathing evened out as she went back to sleep.

Ana carefully turned over, raising herself on one elbow. Messy had pulled the young Fighter’s whole bedroll close so she could gather her in her arms, holding her like a child. For far too long, Ana just watched them. The initial pang of jealousy gave way to a distant envy. She knew how much Jisha had lost, but in that moment all Ana could think was that she’d been twenty-six years old the first time anyone held her so innocently. But as the seconds stretched into minutes, the envy evaporated, its place taken by something altogether softer and more comforting: the love she felt for Messy, which she’d come to terms with; and a very different, much less intense but no less real affection for Jisha.

Not so long ago, that feeling would have confused her terribly. She still couldn’t say if it was real, or if it was her Class affecting her. Hell, perhaps it was something to do with her Connection, or their shared bond with the Wayfarer. She didn’t know. She might never know for sure. But that didn’t bother her. She didn’t let it. She liked caring about Jisha.

Ana settled in, molding herself against Messy’s back with a contented sigh. She slung her arm across her, not finding her breast or wrapping it around her waist as she usually would but instead folding it to let it rest on Jisha’s shoulder. Moments later, she was back asleep.

*

They left the forest behind early the next day. Trees gave way to pasture where goats and cattle grazed, as well as animals that looked suspiciously like oversized llamas or alpacas — neither Ana nor Jisha could say which was which, and the Inter-guild name for the things was wool-horse, which suggested that nothing quite the same existed in the English language. Messy did confirm that they were what she’d eaten back in Ellsthal, though, so whatever they were, they tasted good.

It was less than half an hour from the forest to the road that clung to the river as it wound its way down the valley. The valley was long enough that there seemed to be plenty of room near the river, with no need to clear the steeper slopes further up the sides. It seemed to be in the middle of the growing season; in some fields grain, their heads smaller than Ana was used to, already grew tall and green. In others, shoots had barely started dotting the furrows. Some trees had flowers, while others were either too early or had already dropped theirs; Ana couldn’t say for sure, but she’d guess the latter. It hadn’t been that cold in the higher reaches.

Having reached the road in the middle of the valley, they started meeting more people. Not many, but even the handful they met during the day they spent travelling to the outpost were a big change. In the four days since they’d arrived in the Gauntlet Mountains, they’d only met Lotri. That day they sometimes met two people in the same hour!

Most of the travellers they came across only offered them a polite nod or a greeting, especially in the face of Messy’s new habit of walking around with her dagger out and trying to push mana into it; but the two times that anyone wanted to exchange a few words they made the same assumption: that Ana, Trislain, and Mabb were traveling to the outpost from some outer settlement, and that the others were their escort. It wasn’t an unreasonable assumption; especially not the second time, with Ana having decided to encourage it by asking Messy to carry her sword, Rayni, her armor, then changing into a hardwearing dress and slipping into her Stacy persona.

“They’ve been treating you well, I hope?” the matronly Orchardist asked Ana, casting a disapproving look across the more obvious Delvers in the Party. Gods only knew what she’d intended to do if Ana had told her that they hadn’t; the woman seemed to have stopped at Level 30, which was nothing to sneeze at, but she didn’t have any other Classes.

Not that Ana had any interest in finding out. “Oh, they’ve been absolutely lovely,” she replied cheerfully. “You wouldn’t believe how I had to argue just to carry my own pack. But can I ask you something?”

“Of course, dear!”

“Is the alignment happening soon? We didn’t miss it, did we?”

“Oh, that? Don’t you worry. That’s not until tomorrow afternoon. You’ll see them setting up for it when you get into town this evening. Are you leaving?”

“No, but someone might show up, and I don’t want to miss them.”

The older woman gave Ana a knowing smile. “Oh, I see. Well, I best not keep you, then. I’m sure you have things to get ready before this eagerly awaited friend of yours shows up. Good day to you all, and may the Wayfarer bless your boots.”

“Same to you, ma’am,” Messy replied with a polite nod, followed by a wave of murmurs from the rest of the Party.

Closer to the outpost the farms got larger, with more people working them and finer houses. Signs started appearing, telling anyone coming up or down the road which farms the branching road led to. At a crossroads a mile from the outpost stood a smithy with two Smiths and their apprentices working loudly outside, as well as a large, idle watermill with white-rendered walls. Some of the people they met rode horses.

If the Wayfarer hadn’t confirmed that they were in a Splinter, Ana might have been tempted to think that they were still in the Indomitables. This was an altogether different kind of Splinter than Summer Angel, that was plain to see.

It was also the kind of place that was clearly big enough that no one expected the guards on the gate to know every face. But neither were they there to keep anyone out. Ana had worried about that; in Summer Angel the guards had made some small effort at keeping track of who came and went. But not so here. The Enforcer and the Peacekeeper who stood by the wide-open gates kept one eye out for trouble, but otherwise seemed mostly interested in their animated conversation with the Messenger who lounged in the shadows of the gatehouse with them; a conversation punctuated by plenty of laughter. Ana would have preferred to just pass them by unnoticed, but the Peacekeeper tracked the Party as they passed. Ana gave her a bright smile and a friendly wave; if they had to be noticed, it was better to have the guard remember it as something inoffensive or vaguely positive.

The Peacekeeper gave Ana a nod and a briefly raised hand in return before dismissing the whole group as harmless and turning back to her conversation. And that was all. They were inside the settlement, and no one gave a damn.

Inside the gate was a small square, but there were no stalls. Either there was no market today, or it simply wasn’t used that way. But it was clad in even flagstones rather than cobbles, and the buildings surrounding it were plastered stone rather than wood. Again, the difference between this Splinter and Summer Angel were immediately clear. There was a sense of age and permanence here very different from the frontier feeling of the Splinter that Ana still found herself occasionally thinking of as home.

“Right,” Ana said, stopping the party and dropping the Stacy mask she’d been wearing for the last hour and change. “We’re here. Any suggestions?”

“Well… we need somewhere to stay, right?” Komaki said. “We should find that inn the mage was talking about. The Oracle? Seems like as good a place as any. Then maybe we” — he gestured to the Misery Splinter half of the Party — “lay low until we can do Mabb’s idea and try to blend in with the new arrivals.”

“Sounds good to me,” Ana agreed. She’d rather not go comparison shopping for inns, and the mage, Lokri, hadn’t rung any alarm bells. “Any objections?”

“Inn, then a bathhouse,” Messy said firmly.

“An inn, a meal, then a bathhouse,” Kaira objected. “We haven’t eaten for hours!”

“Those all sound good,” Nari agreed. “Shall we ask around?”

“I mean…” Komaki said, giving Ana an appraising look. “‘Stacy’ here could probably just ask one of the guards to show us the way.”

“I probably could,” she replied, “but the less contact I have with anyone who may be likely to worship you-know-who, the better. What about Lara?” She turned to look at the Slayer. “I know you don’t like to use it, but you ooze natural authority when you want to.”

“You’re right,” Lara replied with a small frown. “I don’t like it. But a meal and a bath sound good enough right now that I’d rather not put them off for longer than absolutely necessary. Give me a second. I’ll ask.”

Lara returned no more than a minute later with the Messenger in tow, a boy who couldn’t be a day older than fifteen. The way he looked at Lara was… complicated, but everything about it was useful. And it wasn’t just the do I want her or do I want to be her aspect, either. Ana had a strong feeling that this kid wasn’t going to stay a Messenger for long judging by the dozens of questions he managed to ask the obvious combat Classers among the Party during their ten-minute walk across the settlement. The fact that the vast majority of those were directed at Lara, Nari, and Messy was probably entirely coincidental.

The outpost followed the same general layout as the other settlements Ana had seen in this world. The kid led them up a wide, well-maintained Main Street, where carefully painted signs advertised what were no doubt some of the more well-appointed stores and other establishments. Unlike those other settlements, Main Street here wasn’t quite straight; even in Ellsthal it had been a straight shot through the city, but here it followed the slow dawnward curve of the river. By the time they reached the ubiquitous central square, the northern gate through which they’d entered had vanished behind the three- or four-story buildings across the water.

The square was busy, both with a market and the ongoing preparations around the Waystone. It was open to the river on one side, with the Cross Street bridge providing access to the other side, and the other three hosting the outpost’s most important buildings. The guild hall, which here was no less than five stories, lay wall to wall with the Exchange. Directly across the square from them was a fortress-like building that was no doubt the guard house, with an adjacent training yard. And between them, across the square from the river, was the temple to the Wayfarer; this being a Splinter, the Wayfarer’s faithful had no doubt snagged the place of honor for their goddess the moment the Splinter first aligned.

That was all there was really time to see. Their guide, Jorgen, took them past the temple and onto duskward Cross Street, where they continued until the walls and the gate there came into view before turning south again on a smaller, but still flagstoned, side street. And there, halfway down the first block, he stopped.

“Here we are, Miss Slayer,” he said to Lara. “The Onyx Oracle.”

“Thanks, Jorgen,” Lara said, handing him a couple of coins. “Appreciate it.”

“Oh, there’s no— Thank you, Miss,” he said, then hesitated as he looked at the coins in his hand. “Um… what you said. Did you mean it?”

“Sure. Come by tonight, sometime late. If we do take rooms here, I’ll be in the common room.”

Jorgen brightened. “Right! Thank you, miss! Tonight, then!”

“What was that about?” Messy asked as the kid jogged away, no doubt returning to the northern gate.

Lara shrugged. “Kid’s curious about my Class. I promised to answer some questions. Now come on. Let’s see if this place is any good.”