Finally, the trip to the north was over, but that didn't mean Guelder could rest. The events around Valerie had distracted her a little from her own problems, albeit not in the most pleasant way, but now they were seeping back into her consciousness, clawing at her mind again.

  The Order of the Eternal Rose had been dealt with. Sir Fredero Sinnet, Valerie's old mentor, had wanted to reclaim his mentee for the order and take her on a repentant pilgrimage to some new temple they were building—on the border of Glenebon and Pitax, of all places. Had Valerie harboured the slightest inclination to repent and join him, that location in and of itself would still have made Guelder think twice. She couldn't trust an organisation establishing its base between two states equally impervious to her diplomatic advances (and also physically inaccessible for such advances due to the infestation of river pirates along the East Sellen). Of course, a Nightvale spy in Glenebon would have come in handy, considering that Guelder hadn't heard from Hannis Drelev since the inauguration ceremony. But Valerie was not the right person for that. She was too honest and too indispensable in legislation and community building.

  The altercation had ended in a duel, seemingly just to let the steam out rather than to decide or prove anything. It had been a long and boring flail-shield-smash-flail-shield-smash series, until Valerie had taken a hit in the face, and the end result had finally discouraged Sir Fredero from wanting her back.

  It could have been a happy ending for Valerie, and as a cherry on top, Harrim had even managed to heal her perfectly. But the humiliating defeat had taken a strange toll on her. All the way back to Tuskdale, she'd kept checking on her face, touching it, even wondering about the price of a Greater Restoration treatment, all the while insisting that nothing was wrong. Guelder suspected that being forced to repeatedly deny her former goddess (and by extension, her beauty, considered to be a blessing of Shelyn) had broken something inside her. Or maybe the reflection of her badly smashed face in Fredero's polished breastplate had burnt into her brain, causing irreversible harm to her body image.

  And whenever Guelder said she hated mirrors, she was mocked and laughed at.

  Which, in turn, reminded her of the Enneo problem. She needed answers. Why was she hunted for another person's crimes? Why had she flipped out at the sight of Jaethal's dagger? How would she make a crafty scoundrel like Enneo spill the beans, short of unleashing Jaethal upon him?

  More importantly, was this a real and actual gap in her knowledge, or a secret buried deep in her mind, under layers and layers of scars, fear and deliberate ignorance?

  Also, she had to clear up the issue with Kyonin. She desperately needed support from her elven homeland, mainly in the form of environmental know-how, and she cherished her state's budding relations with the land of her ancestors. A bunch of vengeful young elves massacred in her lands, even though in self-defence, was a very inconvenient rub. She needed to find someone over there who could help her smooth it over and perhaps answer a few questions. Someone in a position to carry out investigations on her behalf. And she thought she knew just the person.

  Nortellara Frozen Lake, Jaethal's daughter.

  But before she could draft a letter to reach out, the mother of her would-be contact stormed into the throne room, and instead of greeting, slammed a piece of paper on the mission planning table.

  "I knew it!" she exclaimed in Elven.

  Guelder made a mental note to hire an usher as soon as possible. It would be so nice to have at least ten seconds to prepare for visitors before they burst in on her.

  "Remember, Jaethal, the language of audiences is Common. Linzi needs to be able to take notes."

  She took the paper. It was a short message, only three words: No way out—and the image of a spiral-shaped comet for signature.

  "What is this?"

  "Enneo's letter of farewell. He escaped, along with his two guards, and left this behind. Filthy Pharasmin scum. Why am I not surprised?"

  Guelder bit her lips. The message was obviously for Jaethal, but she couldn't help feeling that it was for her, too. Now it all made sense. A servant of the Lady of Graves hunting down those who hacked the natural cycle of life and death, and apparently also those who harboured such individuals. Guelder understood the sentiment to a certain degree. Deep down she agreed that the world would be a better place without undead, necromancy and Urgathoa herself. But the methods Enneo applied... that was an entirely different animal.

  "Fine," she said. "This is what we do. I am going to issue an arrest warrant against Enneo. After all, in his religious zeal, he orchestrated an assault on my life. We have that part of the Criminal Code down already, do we not?"

  "Indeed. It goes without saying that the penalty is death."

  "I grant you permission to track him down and bring him to justice. No vigilantism, though. I want a proper trial."

  Jaethal raised an eyebrow.

  "All right. I hope we can discuss this further when we have the culprit in our hands. What support can I count on?"

  "Team up with one of the rangers and set out immediately. You can choose between Ekundayo and Hazel."

  "Hazel, obviously," said Jaethal. "Handsome, speaks Elven, and does not come with a smelly fleabag."

  Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

  Pangur flashed his fangs in solidarity, taking Jaethal's remark to heart.

  "So be it. Additionally, you should know that I am going to track down the elves' families based on the Storyteller's report, in order to offer them compensation and an official apology."

  "WHAT?"

  "These people got caught in a conflict that was not theirs and were led on a false trail in their rightful pursuit of revenge. They are victims of Enneo, as much as myself and you are."

  Jaethal didn't answer immediately. Her black eyes measured up Guelder and reflected disappointment.

  "If I may advise—"

  "You may not, Jaethal," snapped Guelder. "I am starting to believe that this is your past catching up with me. By association with you, I am being held accountable for atrocities I have nothing to do with. You can bloody well refrain from making it all worse."

  The inquisitor narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips, as if she had lots of things to say but chose to remain silent. Her gaze sent a shiver down Guelder's spine. Jaethal was obviously in a better position to assemble the pieces of the puzzle, and might even know some details that escaped the baroness.

  She turned to Linzi, sitting on a stool by her throne and taking notes.

  "Linzi, please go now and draw up an authorisation for Jaethal to act on my behalf in her hunt for Enneo, within reasonable limits, as usual."

  As the bard scurried away to carry out the command, the baroness stood up and walked closer to Jaethal.

  "And before I sign it," she said in Elven, keeping her voice down, "you shall fill me in on this Falaris Summer Breeze and how you think he might be connected to me."

  It was not easy to stare down Jaethal, of all people, but Guelder couldn't afford to back off. She needed as much of the truth as she could get, and she was hellbent on using the little leverage she had on Jaethal to the fullest. Although the inquisitor could (and would) just as well pursue her goals without permission from the baroness, she was probably wary to get on the wrong side of her protector.

  "I apologise in advance if I recount something you already know," said Jaethal, eyeing her with unconcealed curiosity.

  "Feel free to suppose that I do not know anything."

  "All right. As you might have guessed, Falaris Summer Breeze is, or was, an important member of Iadaran high society, and as I mentioned before, also my mentor in the faith. You are probably uninterested in the nuances of our relationship."

  "Indeed," said Guelder coldly. If the accounts of those vengeful elves were anything to go by, she definitely did not crave for more details. "What became of him?"

  "I cannot tell for sure. All I know is that at a certain point, about twenty years ago, I lost contact with him."

  "Tell me about the events that led to his disappearance, from the very start."

  "When Falaris felt old age approaching, he prepared an escape route for himself. Since he walked the Path of Pleasure, undeath was not his preferred choice. However, he had a daughter, an unexpected child born at the dusk of his life, in defiance of Pharasma's will, who was supposed to serve as a body donor for him."

  Guelder needed all her willpower to keep herself from shuddering. Her stomach roiled.

  "A body donor?"

  "There is a secret ritual, known only to the most advanced believers of Urgathoa: the Ritual of Migration. It allows for a high-level initiate to leave their failing body behind and move their consciousness into the body of a young and healthy offspring or close relative. Obviously, the soul of the host is ousted from the body to free up space for the new inhabitant. Alas, before Falaris could perform the ritual on his daughter, the girl took wind of what was about to happen, and escaped. He left no stone unturned to recover her, to no avail. Three years went by, until an adventuring party he had sent out to locate her returned with news of her untimely death. From that time, it all went downhill. Falaris became obsessed with finding alternatives, mostly by getting handmaids with children, without any satisfactory result. Then one day he just stopped answering my messages, and I have not seen him ever since."

  "Is that all?"

  Jaethal stepped close to the baroness and grabbed her left hand, her cold fingertips brushing over Guelder's scarred wrist. Their eyes met for a long moment, before Guelder reclaimed her hand.

  "You need not be afraid, Falara. As I said, I do not know his whereabouts, and even if I knew... If you thwarted his plan and survived, that could only happen because such was the will of the goddess. In fact, I wonder why cheating death is not yet recognised as one of Urgathoa's edicts."

  Falara. He did not even bother to give his daughter a unique name.

  This was so, so wrong.

  "Stick with the name I introduced myself by, Jaethal. That is my true name. I do not require another one."

  "So be it, child. Know that I shall keep your secret... for now. And when you feel ready to explore your heritage, you know where to find me."

  At long last, Linzi returned with the document. Guelder signed and sealed it, and Jaethal finally departed, leaving her alone with her confusion. There were holes in her past she couldn't account for, mostly overlapping with full moon nights, but she was fairly certain that she had never escaped from a posh Iadaran household as a young adult. She had an entirely different escape story. All in all, if she had ever been Falara Summer Breeze, she believed she would know about it.

  One day she would let Jaethal know the truth about herself. She just had to find it first.

  Jaethal and Hazel's investigation came to a dead end very soon. Enneo had used the waterways to escape, getting rid of his companions at the first occasion available. One corpse washed ashore on Candlemere Isle, the other near the rudimentary port at Lake Tuskwater. Guelder could only hope that Jaethal had not interrogated the sorry, bloated things, after the baroness had forbidden the use of necromancy for investigation purposes. There was nothing else to do: she had to wait until Jaethal's ilduliel would make his next move, or at least until she would get an answer from Kyonin.