Chapter Text







The stones underfoot flew around his as the girl kicked and screamed, struggling in his grasp. There were massive armoured men surrounding him, their plating scarlet and gold, their eyes dark, and under their dirty golden helmets shone the red faces of monsters.

He was used to it.

The girl was sobbing, begging, in a language that he understood, yet meant nothing to him, as if her pleading wails were nothing more than the guttural noises let out by the dying deer in a hunt. At least the deer would have some sort of mercy.

This girl had committed the ultimate crime in The Thousand Hands Guild: She had stolen from Lord Zhin himself. That evening, three guards had been found drugged by the servants, and the women they had been guarding had run. The girls belonged to Lord Zhin, when they had run, they had robbed him of his property. The other girls had lost their lives on the run, but this one?

This one will wish she had.

He approached the massive wooden doors to the Throne Room. The guards before the doors looked him up and down, before one approached him. The guard’s out-of-uniform red scarf accentuated his green eyes as he watched the massive man and screaming woman before him. The guard turned and pushed the door open, and the man moved forward, into the darkness.







Buck awoke in a cold sweat. The room was dark, the only light shone in the corner: a small candle on someone’s bedside desk, illuminating a monk and his reading. The monk met eyes with Buck, before returning to his reading.

Buck threw on a simple robe and left the sleeping quarters. The sun would be rising soon, and already some monks were out tending to the gardens and preparing for the day ahead of them. Buck moved down the stone steps of his sleeping quarters and down the cobbled pathway through the temple of Tau-Kor. He kept his eyes to the ground as he tried to clear his mind, replacing his thoughts with his destination.

The trickling streams and cries of the early birds were hardly enough to wake him from his trance. He would speak to his mentors later today, but for the time being, he thought back upon their previous lessons, in an attempt to find some solidarity with his pressing memories.

Finally, the wide-chested man arrived at a cliff on the side of the mountain, a bit off the main trail. This was his spot of meditation, his chosen place to sit and think. He rested in the worn spot and gazed up at the stars overhead, at the whales floating on the breezes, at the blue shattered moon high in the sky. He thought back on his memories from so long ago. The faces- he could never remember the girls’ faces. Perhaps that was the consequence of treating humans, elves, and other sapient beings as nothing but mere objects for so many years, simply because that man… that horrid man… had decreed such.

Buck closed his eyes and focused on his breathing, a slow inhale, a slow exhale. He focused on the footsteps of monks and livestock moving back and forth on the main path behind him, one of the main reasons he had found such comfort in this little spot. After a few minutes, the travelling monks moved on, leaving Buck in silence. The wind rushed softly before him, rustling the leaves of the hanging trees. The night felt soft and gentle and quiet, the cold winds caressing his skin.

He could smell the fish in the nearby streams, the fur of the livestock and… honey, the final scent filling his nostrils as the breeze over his face suddenly turned warm. It took him a moment to realise that the scent was carried not on warm winds, but on breath. There was someone in his face.

Buck opened his eyes and stared into the masked face of a man levitating off the edge of the cliff. The man’s silver-blue hair flicked and fluttered in the wind as he watched the monk. The man neared Buck, before words, thoughts, visions, melodies, began to flood the broken soldier’s mind. Buck felt the cliff vanish from beneath him and the stars reach out to him, holding his fingertips, taking him into the cosmos.







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Lian touched the parchment gently, her soft fingers tracing the printed words, stroking the teardrop away from the header letter. She lifted a hand to her face as her eyes scanned the horrible words on the paper in her hands: Princess Ling Melan of House Aico was dead.

A few mornings ago, the Aico princess had been absent from her breakfast, and her maidservants had gone to check on her. They had found her lying on the ground beside her bed, her face pale, her eyes gently closed, a smile on her lips, and no breath on her tongue. As far as the supports could tell, Lian’s mother had simply stopped breathing in her sleep, with no other evidence of her cause of demise.

Encased in the package beside the letter was a wrapped cylinder. Lian took the thin cylinder and began to unwrap it slowly, her eyesight fogging as her stifled sobs became strained exhales.

She deposited the wrapping paper at her side and held its contents between two fingers: a long, golden hairpin, encrusted with spherical sapphires on either end.

Lian sniffled softly, moving the pin between her fingertips. She hardly noticed Khan’s powerful, yet gentle grip on her shoulder as he offered her silent comfort. He dropped to one knee gently to give himself a better angle.

Lian glanced into his glowing eyes, the soft silver gaze relaxing her slightly. She placed the letter and hairpin neatly on the armrest, stood up, straightened her dress, and suddenly burst into tears, collapsing on to Khan’s shoulder. The broad-chested giant held her for a long time, his hand gently resting on her back as his fingers drummed along her spine rhythmically.







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Not a sound but soft whimpers filled the hot, dry sky, broken only by the step of heeled boots on the sharp rocks. The powerful and wise woman was crouched on the ground in what could have been meditation, had not its silence been broken by the gentle weeping. The sun shone on her pale grey skin and her hands traced the symbol on the rock, a Stagalla symbol meaning “warrior”, a symbol only marked on the graves of the Stagalla who had fallen in the glory of battle. The stone woman’s face was hidden from view by her hair and the angle of her position.

Valera had loved and lost, but she had never lost a spouse, and even though Terminus’ shattering had happened months prior in the first skirmish against the Magistrate, his widow was no less heartbroken. Who wouldn’t be, after the most recent battle against the Magistrate’s forces? Valera could not believe her eyes when the undead monstrosity had lumbered onto the battlefield, and she could not imagine how the view must have hit Inara, the realization that Inara’s beloved was now a mindless zombie of the Magistrate.

Valera watched over the Stone Warden, unwilling to speak and disturb the solemn woman’s sorrow.

“News of the south?” Inara spoke for her.

Valera shook her head, “No, news from the far northeast, actually.”

Inara looked up at the elven warrior in shock, “The northeast? What, has the Ruby Kingdom sent us a letter?”

Valera chuckled, “Of course not, nor the Thousand Hands. The letter comes from the Tau Kor Monastery of Ascension Peak.”

Inara eyed her warily, before rising to her feet and looking down at the golden-haired elven warrior, the leader or the Paladins resistance.

“Why would a little monastery in the northeast have any reason to contact us?” The Stone Warden questioned.

Valera traced the letter in one hand with the index finger of another before responding, “Jenos, The Ascended, the monk of the legends, he has returned! He has descended from the Cosmos! And Tau Kor has asked us if we would like to meet him, perhaps he would support our cause!”

Inara smiled, before her lip quivered and she glanced back at the marked totem beside her.

Valera watched the Stone Warden, realising that the idea of such a journey might be hard on the mourning woman. Softly, she asked, “I am preparing the patrol that will travel to the monastery, we’ve even planned to hire from the Twilight Cutthroats for a bit of extra support. I would never make such a final decision without the word of my Second. What say you, Inara? I trust your judgement.”

Inara glanced back to Valera and responded with a smile, “It is in the best interest of the Paladins, is it not? I think it would be wonderful to see if The Ascended would support our cause.”

Valera placed a hand on Inara’s shoulder (an action that required a bit of straining of the elf), and gently asked, “Are you up for the journey?”

Inara touched Valera’s hand with her own and replied, “I would like to be as far away from the Magistrate as I can be right now.”