Cloaked, Concealed, Hidden

A few days passed and we made process both in our training, as well as in my language proficiency. I couldn’t participate in conversations yet, but at least I could barely read a children’s book. Although, I have to admit, I needed to look up more than a couple of words. Sarran was overburdened with work just as in the beginning and Elana disappeared once in a while, fulfilling missions she was afraid to tell us of.

One night, she didn’t even knock. Something shook my naked shoulder. I moaned “let me” and turned over, curling myself into the heavenly soft blanket. It disappeared, violently rolling myself back on the other site, taking the warmth from me. I opened my eyes wild to see Lia standing there, holding a dagger. I reflexively bathed her in a burst of golden flame.

“You idiot!” She threw the blanket back over me. The bright light got concealed as fast as it appeared.

Pulling the thing out of my face, I saw that her dagger was actually sheathed. “What are you doing here? You scared the hell out of me!”

She eyed the short weapon and put it to her belt. “Sorry.”

“You better explain what this was about.”

“If you are an undead”, she stammered, “the blade glows.”

“I am literally not burning myself from [Inner Light], how could I be?” It was cold without a cover, so I wrestled it back.

“Uhm, snakes are immune to their own venom, you know?” She looked around nervously. “Let’s hope nobody saw or heard that. If anyone asks, you had a nightmare. They are all afraid of the hideout monsters, they’ll eat it. But…”, she sat down next to me, putting her mouth to my ear, “…let’s go outside.”

I turned towards her and stroke a rogue strand of hair from my forehead. “Why?” Back onto the pillow I dropped.

She leaned down to whisper: “To see what’s really going on.” A big promise, but unrealistic.

Being totally sleep drunk and on the verge of drifting back into sweet dreams, I muttered: “You need to hug me, then I’ll go.”

She dropped down next to me. “I am not going to get closer than that.” She actually bit her cheeks.

“Why not, Seja…”

Wrapped in leaves only she could see, we sneaked through the palace floors, passing the occasional sleepy patrol. Twice or thrice, we saw someone rushing to the toilets.

As we hushed outside onto a balcony, lit under an ocean bluish moon, a couple of equally cloaked figures walked through the small flower garden bellow. We leaned on the railing to get a better view.

I whispered: “Was this what you wanted to see?”

She signaled me to stay silent. “You see this?”

Under one of the hoods, two large bulges ordained a shady head.

“Do people wear their hair like this here?”

Lia shook her head. “Don’t think so.”

The group bellow aimed for a garden house. As they disappeared bellow its roof, we lost track. It would have been too risky, not to say not worth the unclear reward, to get down there and inspect. Instead, we took the stairs and walked to a window on ground level. We could see directly into the garden house... but only if it were day.

“Maybe they are merely a couple of gardeners.”

“They start work with sunrise, not that early.”

“Why don’t we get a little bit closer?”

“You may not know yet, but there are means to expose the invisible.” This – albeit totally unrelated in all but association – sparked an unpleasant thought: There are means for everything. Even for getting rid of immortals.

We moved on towards my trusty friend’s actual target: The armory. Probably the most secured place after the treasury and the chambers of Avenar himself. As before, she didn’t dare to get inside, and we only peeked from an opportune angle.

The thin window we pressed our faces on got foggy from our breathing. Before I got to whisper “What are we looking for?” she tapped a finger on mine. The signal of absolute silence. The two of us are not stupid. We made up a small sign language beforehand. So, as we lay there in the wet grass taking glances through foggy glass ordained by decorative metal rods, light flashed the room behind. A door was opened and someone with white empty eyes stashed a box with weapons with malformed handles. They looked like torture instruments, but bigger.

“The thing I wanted to know is, if ‘our’ ”, she made quotation marks with her fingers, “lord is as friendly as the inhabitants say.”

“Torture can happen anywhere, in any sort of nation.”

“Remember what they said? It’s a war below the surface.”

“This means?”

She rolled to the side to remove her face from the window and locked eyes with me. “Espionage. It’s about who turns who to his side by coercion or bribing. Who manages to exert the highest pressure wins. And guess who has shown being generous at doing so?”

“The lord.” Right during her very first five minutes in this world.

She nodded. As we got up, she added: “I saw and heard things while you peacefully slumbered in your shell. Trust me when I say that Avenar and his enemies measure their strength in a unit called cruelty.”

I slit a finger over my throat.

“Yes…”

The gallows were big. They induced nightmares simply for existing.