Two Sides of the City

Smoke from the watchfires around the wall filled the city with a heavy night. Whispers were muffled by the fear as people crammed into the authorized shelters. Every man, woman, and kid understood that the walls might not hold against the depravity that was just days away in the forest.

Sir Baltram knew too, but he feared nothing. Cloaked in scarlet and gold, he cut through the streets on horseback as if he were the city’s saviour incarnate.

He pulled the reins before the largest shelter and raised a gloved hand for silence. Guards banged their spears against the gate; the murmuring within died away like a smothered flame. Baltram smiled.

“Gods perceive us in this hour,” he began, his voice carrying easily through the square. “They measure the noble from the baseborn, the dutiful from the slothful. And what do they see here? A rabble, crammed together like cattle, waiting for charity as if salvation can be handed in a bowl.”

Faces shrank back in the glow of the lanterns, but none dared protest.

Baltram dismounted and stepped toward the gate. “You mistake this place for sanctuary,” he continued, gesturing toward the shelter, “but sanctuary is earned. The gods weigh every soul, and I, their humble knight, record their judgment.”

He went up to a boy holding a broken cup who had slipped too near the bars. Taking the cup out of his grasp, Baltram flipped it over, allowing the remaining liquid to fall onto the pavement.

“Thirst is a trial,” he murmured, almost tenderly. “Endure it, and perhaps the gods will find you worthy. Complain, and they will see your weakness and mark you for the corruption’s feast.”

The boy’s mother rushed to pull him back, bowing frantically. Baltram tossed the cup aside and raised his voice again:

“Do not mistake my presence for indulgence. Every coin I spare, every loaf of bread taxed from my coffers, is but proof that nobility alone bears the gods’ favour. You squat here not by right, but by grace—my grace. And gods perceive us all.”

Maren shrank back as she watched the knight turned on his heel, cloak trailing across the stones like spilled wine. Baltram mounted, taking a final look at the quiet throng as his horse kicked and snorted. A man who had already found them guilty was smiling at them.

The coin he flipped as he left clattered in the dirt — a single token to mock a hundred starving souls. No one picked it up.

For even as the corruption of the forest threatened the city from without, within its walls it already had a name: Sir Baltram.

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The grand doors of the temple were shut, but a small, unassuming side entrance granted Anna passage, a privilege Bella had afforded her during their first, chaotic meeting.

“Are you sure about this, Anna?” Maren whispered, her light pulsing nervously at Anna’s hip. “It’s the middle of the night! Even fake saints need their beauty sleep!”

“She’ll be awake,” Anna replied, her voice a low murmur that the cavernous space swallowed whole. “Beside, I reckon she isn’t even a human.”

In the scriptorium, she discovered Bella sitting in a high-backed chair with a lone candle lighting the strategic maps on a huge wood table in front of her. As Anna walked in, she glanced up, her pink eyes piercing and evaluating.

“You’re late,” Bella stated.

“I was busy,” Anna said, stepping into the circle of candlelight. She placed her hands on the table, leaning forward slightly. “The Ironwood farmstead. The guardian golem, Inwa, is fully operational. The Silverleaf family has been purified of Morvanium’s influence. They are human again. If you heard any news, that’s me.”

A flicker of genuine surprise crossed Bella’s face, quickly suppressed. “You restored them? The Rite of Consecration has failed for weeks.”

“My methods are more direct.” Anna’s eyes glinted. “I’ve also made contact with the enemy. I am now officially a spy for the leader of the corruption faction, a lich who calls himself Yarte.”

Bella frowned, her fingers steepled before her lips. The name clearly struck a nerve. “Yarte…” she mused, a dangerous edge to her voice. “So that’s who directs this chaos. About 20 to 30 years ago, that name belonged to one of the kingdom’s most respected mages. I never thought he would fall so far as to embrace Morvane’s power.”

“He’s ambitious,” Anna noted. “He’s already re-corrupted Inwa.”

Bella’s frown deepened, but then her eyes widened with a terrifying clarity. “Of course,” she breathed, a grim smile touching her lips. “Any fool can spill a bucket of paint. He’s converting our holy defenses. He wants to hijack Minilon, to turn our own sacred guardians into weapons of Morvanium. Thought it’s almost impossible to turn Orivaneia’s creation. He thought he’s strong, but a dead man can’t fight a goddess.”

“Which is why my allegiance is with you. I will help you destroy this corruption and search where Orivaneia is.”

“KYAAA! Anna! You’re so noble!” Maren shrieked from her hip.

“For a price,” Anna finished, ignoring the sword.

Bella, ever the pragmatist, nodded, “You have proven yourself a valuable asset. The offer I made when we first met still stands. The forces of Morvane are a plague, and I will not risk the Ars weapons falling into their hands while they fester in our lands. Help me eradicate them, and another of the series will be yours.”

Maren vibrated with excitement. “Did you hear that?! Another one of us! Maybe it’s my brother, Ars Caelus! Or my sister, Terran… Though I doubt she will answer you.”

Anna’s lips curved into a predatory smile. “Then we have an agreement. I’ll continue my work as your agent.” She deliberately left out the part about the tracking seeds she’d left behind at the inn; Bella didn’t need to know every detail of her methods.

“Good,” Bella said, rising from her chair. Her presence seemed to fill the room. “Your next task is the knight camp. Destrian is a good man, but a pawn of the kingdom’s blind hatred for all dark beings.”

“We, the Saint’s faction, believe in a more nuanced approach. We need to know what the kingdom is planning. And with Yarte’s seeds in your possession, you have the perfect excuse to be there. Do you have a plan?”

“I think the plan is simple enough,” Anna stated, “The corruption seeds Yarte gave me will activate the moment I place them. I will plant them in strategic, isolated locations. Yarte will see the spread of Morvanium on his magical charts, but it will be a fire I control. I will corrupt, and then hopefully I can purify it just like Inwa.”

Bella respected that. “You’ll need a detailed layout then. I can provide maps of both the city and the knight’s main barracks.” She nodded once, a gesture of finality.

“Good.” Anna then produced the formal letter from her coat, the parchment crisp and bearing the kingdom’s seal. “Speaking of the kingdom’s faction, they wish to reward me for defeating Urzmu and saving Captain Destrian. They said I could ask for anything.” She slid the letter across the map-covered table. “What should I demand?”

Bella’s smile widened, turning predatory. She didn’t even glance at the letter. “If they are foolish enough to offer you anything…” she purred, her eyes gleaming with sudden, brilliant cunning, “ask for the key to the mines.”

Anna’s brow furrowed. “The mines?”

“Have you not noticed, Anna?” Bella leaned forward, “You’ve walked the streets of Frola at night. Have you seen any beastkin? Any other vampires? Any demonkin? The city is… pure. That’s because every dark being captured in Minilon for the last millennium and a half is down there.”

Maren, who had been listening quietly, let out a horrified gasp. “A prison? For all of them?”

“It’s more like a labor camp,” Bella corrected darkly. “It was established fifteen hundred years ago by a paranoid king. He wasn’t searching for gold or iron. He was searching for a legend, but I doubt they actually read the legend itself.”

Maren froze, her holy light flickering erratically. “A legend…?”

Bella’s gaze met the sword’s. “He believed the holy weapon, Ars Terran, was buried deep beneath the earth. He started the mines to find her.”

The air crackled with Maren’s sudden shock. “MY SISTER?!” she shrieked, zipping through the air to hover in front of Bella’s face.

“They built that entire… that entire dungeon to find Terran?! But that makes no sense! She hates dark places! She loves leaves and grass and the feeling of sun on her… well, on her metal! Why would she ever bury herself in a mine?!”

“I don’t know,” Bella admitted, her expression grim. “The king’s obsession became the kingdom’s policy. They have been searching for your sister ever since, using the dark beings as disposable labor.” She turned her intense gaze back to Anna. “If you can get that key, if you can get inside those mines, it would be a monumental victory for our cause. My dad is there, so I hope you can save him.”

Anna face become serious, “Dad…” She muttered to herself before looking at her again, “I understand, I can help you with that also.”

Bella’s voice lowered further “Thank you… For the longest time, I have had our seers run the calculations. The mines are directly beneath Frola. When Yarte’s corruption finally touches the capital’s foundations, the ground will shake and all the tunnels will collapse.”

She paused.

“It will bury them all… every last one of the hundreds of thousands of slaves they have locked away in the dark.”

Anna gave a slow, deliberate nod. “I will ask for the key. But they may be loyal to a fault. What if they refuse?”

Bella’s serene expression didn’t falter, “Then you threaten them,” she said simply. “Remind them what happened to Urzmu. I’m quite certain you are not afraid to kill.”

“No,” Anna agreed, her own voice flat and cold. “I’m not.”

Maren, however, was still reeling from the previous revelation “Wait, wait, wait!” she buzzed, darting up to hover before Bella again. “I can feel it now… you have the ‘Protection of Caelus’ active on you! If you have his protection, that means my brother is still near the kingdom! You should know where he is!”

Bella let out a long sigh, “That wonderful girl probably told Caelus not to respond to me,” she muttered, shaking her head. “Serenya may be a naive little being, but she is fiercely protective and far from stupid. And Caelus… his loyalty to her is absolute.”

She looked at Maren, “Last year, the temple elders tried to force the issue. They brought forth a candidate to be the new Saint. Ars Caelus did not accept her. The moment she tried to claim him, he burned her.”

Bella’s voice was chillingly casual. “Last I heard, half of her body is scarred tissue and she can no longer walk. Poor girl.”

Anna processed this without comment. She filed the information away and brought the conversation back to the present. “Is there any other intel I should have? After this, I get the maps, I plant the seeds, and then I head to the knight camp to begin my surveillance for Yarte. I may be hard to communicate with.”

Bella paused, considering. “Just one thing. Don’t be shocked when you find many of the knights are… prejudiced. They will not like that you are a vampire.” She paused, a wry smile playing on her lips.

“Though, I don’t imagine a normal vampire would be walking around with Orivaneia’s Blessings.”

Anna’s eyes narrowed slightly. “You know of it?”

“Anna, that skill is quite literally the highest tier of magic in this world. If you were to spread that information, the kingdom would fall to their knees and worship you as a living god.”

Anna is clearly uncomfortable, “I clearly wouldn’t want that…”

The pieces clicked into place. Anna’s lips curved into a smile. “So this is why you gave me a custom guild card.”

Bella nodded. “Precisely. With that card, all your most… confidential information has been removed.”

“However, we can’t hide your mana as it update in real time, and twenty-four million is a number that will draw attention. Be careful who you show it to.”

Anna’s smile didn’t waver. Of course she understood. In this world, just as in her last one, overwhelming power was both the greatest weapon and the most dangerous liability. She was not stupid.