by Todd Herzman
Lilah looked away from him. What did his reasons matter to her? She walked this path because it was the only one she could see—it was the path set out for her since she’d been old enough to swing a sword and shoot a bow. It was something she knew would happen, if not this Choosing, then the next.
Becoming a seeker is all you’ve ever wanted since I met you, Serena’s words played in her mind. Lilah wasn’t sure that was true. It was a feeling she’d been fighting. A reality neither she nor Serena wanted to confront. Becoming a seeker meant living a life that was rarely confined to the city. Lilah knew what that did to a family. Her mother and father were no longer together. She remembered when they’d split up.
Her father, Seeker Haldin, had been gone for a year, the longest he’d ever been gone. He came back, and the first thing he did was head out again, taking Lilah with him on a hunting trip in the Emperor’s Forest. She’d loved it—a whole two weeks alone in the forest with her father. In the city, she’d been learning how to shoot a bow and swing a sword. She’d shot at targets with a group of thirty others, an instructor walking down the line, correcting stances, grips and draws. She’d learnt ketans from an old sword mistress who hailed from Guhrat—patterns of techniques that honed coordination and proper movement with a sword, but did nothing to teach her how to fight an opponent.
She learnt more in those two weeks in the forest with her father than she had over the year before it. He taught her how to shoot a target, redraw and shoot another a moment later directly behind her. He taught her how to keep her sword guard up even when her arms and shoulders screamed and her legs burned from the effort. He taught her how to find water, light a fire without flint, spot tracks and cover them.
But when they returned home, her mother’s arms were crossed, and her face was drawn. As her parents argued, Lilah climbed onto the roof of their home. She heard every word—her mother’s yells that he cared more for his duty than his family, more for training his daughter than loving her. Her father’s pleas and excuses, refutations and frustrations.
His bag packed, he kissed Lilah on the cheek that evening. After that, he was around even less.
Lilah had been angry at her mother until she was old enough to realise it wasn’t her mother’s fault. It wasn’t her father’s fault, either. Not really, at least. He’d been a seeker when they’d met, and it wasn’t something he could stop being.
Jercolf halted beside her. Lilah looked up. They’d reached the Temple. It was raised above the buildings surrounding it, its structure sitting atop a stone podium taller than Lilah. They walked up the stairs and between the half dozen pillars surrounding its entrance. Jercolf pushed open one of the heavy doors—the Temple’s doors were always unlocked, the acolytes kept the fire burning in the great hall all night for the homeless who slept between the pews.
Lilah followed Jercolf. She didn’t know if what she had with Serena would last. She didn’t know if being a seeker would be the thing that tore it apart—all she knew was that she wouldn’t be herself if she didn’t go after this. If she gave up her chance at being a seeker to be with Serena, it might put so much pressure on their relationship to succeed that it would become the very thing to break it…
As they stepped into the temple, Lilah gazed up at the high ceiling and around at the walls. It always felt strange being in here—the very air in the Temple felt… different. She knew why—it was because of the walls. Starstone, found in the hearts of the few meteorites that broke through a starfall, the very material Starblades were crafted from, was built into the Temple’s walls. Such a finite, expensive, holy resource was used in something as mundane as walls, all to keep the halls of the Temple closed off from magic.
Lilah often wondered how many Starblades could be made if the walls were knocked down and the starstone hidden in the brickwork salvaged. How many more seekers could the empire have roaming its land, five? Ten?
A hundred?
Lilah stifled her sacrilegious thoughts as she spotted Priestess Lynna, hands behind her back, white robes flowing low enough to brush the floor, awaiting them at the front of the hall. Her dark curls streamed past her shoulders and touched her crystal necklace, a necklace similar to the one Lilah wore. Lynna looked no older than thirty, and was quite stunning—Lilah wondered if that in itself was a sacrilegious thought, finding a priest of the Heavens attractive. Not that Lynna was anywhere near as beautiful as Serena…
‘Good morning, Priestess.’ Lilah bowed her head and Jercolf mirrored her movements beside her.
‘Good morning. I trust you are both well rested.’ Lynna motioned down a hallway heading deeper into the Temple, letting the two recruits lead.
Jercolf hesitated, then nodded his head for Lilah to go first. Lilah suppressed a huff and walked down the hall. She went down the long corridor until she came upon a small circular room. A book sat atop a pedestal on a dais in the centre. Lynna stepped onto the dais and stood behind the pedestal. The heavy book lay open, the script in a language only the priestess could read, an ancient language written in ink more often than spoken by tongues.
Priestess Lynna hovered a delicate hand over the text. ‘This is the Sermon of Merilyn, the death wizard who ruled Kharleon before it was Kharleon, and how our Lord Emperor, the First Emperor Ronin, defeated him with one of the first Starblades ever forged. Before Ronin and his rule, the world knew only magic, and thus was led by evil men and women corrupted by its pull.’
Lilah wanted to roll her eyes. You’d have to live in some backwoods town off the far coast not to know the story of Merilyn. She’d memorised the sermon word for word long ago in preparation for her first Choosing. But it was a long sermon, and she knew reciting it to the panel at the end of the week would be more stressful than whispering it under her breath in the library, so she didn’t begrudge the extra practice.
Priestess Lynna read out the sermon sentence by sentence; Lilah and Jercolf repeated the sentences back. Lilah wondered if the seekers of old—the first seekers—who followed Ronin in his holy quest, ever had to deal with memorising sermons. She supposed there wouldn’t have been sermons to memorise back then.
They came to the part where Merilyn killed Ronin’s family, and Ronin vowed revenge. Ronin had been a castle blacksmith working for a lord whom Merilyn conquered to expand his domain. Ronin alone escaped the carnage. He hid in the hills of the Tahali mountains before the monks called them home. He’d been staring at the sky, wondering if the souls of his family had yet risen to the stars, when he witnessed a meteorite break through a starfall.
‘Priestess Lynna.’ A city watchman stood in the doorway to the chamber. Her arrival rocked the trio from their concentration, and all their eyes turned to her. ‘Apologies for interrupting, but Seeker Haldin has requested the recruits’ presence.’
‘This is highly irregular,’ Lynna said.
The watchman swallowed before she replied, looking the priestess in the eye. ‘There’s been a murder by malfeasance.’
Lynna grasped the crystal at her neck. ‘Inside the city?’
‘Aye, Priestess.’ The watchman bowed her head to Lynna then turned to Lilah and Jercolf, who’d both taken a step forward. ‘All the recruits have been called upon.’ She turned and marched out the door.
Lilah sped after her, with Jercolf on her heels. ‘When did it happen? Where?’
‘Sometime in the early morning, near as we can figure, else someone would have noticed sooner. Happened in the alley behind the Red Rose.’
Lilah stopped. Jercolf’s heavy steps thudded to a halt behind her. She remembered herself and started walking again. Not wanting to look back to see Jercolf’s reaction to her stopping, she hastily caught up to the watchman’s swift strides.
Serena, Lilah thought. They’d spent time in Serena’s room at the Red Rose after her shift had ended. When their night was done, Serena insisted on walking Lilah out to the end of the alley… they’d parted ways just after, and Lilah slipped back into the barra
cks while the other recruits slept.
‘And the victim…’ Lilah’s words trailed off. She was afraid to ask the question—afraid to hear the answer—man or woman?
‘You’ll see for yourselves soon.’
Chapter 3
They walked to the Red Rose in a hurried silence. Lilah felt like she was sprinting at the rate her heart was beating. Please, please, for the love of all things holy in the expansive Heavens above, do not let it be Serena.
There hadn’t been a deadly act of malfeasance within Hirlcrest’s walls for almost a decade. She remembered the last time it happened. Her father had been away and Seeker Ailena had been in Hirlcrest. She’d led the investigation. The whole city had been tense until she’d caught the perpetrator—a young boy. A young boy with the power to set fires with his mind. Lilah shivered at the thought.
Such loss to evil.
The boy had killed his own father. Word got out that his father had been a horrible man. He beat his wife. He beat his children. And in all likelihood, the boy had been defending himself when his outburst—the manifestation of his Affinity—had occurred.
Judgement had been passed upon him all the same, and the city relaxed knowing the only magic being performed within its walls was done by that of the pacifistic Tahali monks. And though the seekers might look at the Tahali monks with a suspicious gaze, they had never once broken their oaths.
A dozen city watchmen were arrayed at the front of the alley. Lilah wanted to run up to see who the body lying on the ground was. Seeker Haldin and a few of the other recruits were huddled around it, obscuring the body from view. Lilah didn’t run, instead keeping pace with Jercolf.
It’s not going to be her. Please, Heavens above, stars in the night, do not let it be her.
Her father turned, his massive shoulders no longer blocking the way. Lilah looked down at the body. The face was mangled and swollen, limbs twisted at impossible angles. No ordinary person could have done such a thing—not unless they had the strength of ten.
Lilah sighed. It wasn’t Serena. She tried not to let her relief show—she shouldn’t be relieved at seeing a man dead.
‘Crushed,’ Seeker Haldin said. ‘As if he’d fallen from a great height.’
They all looked up at once. The Red Rose was the tallest building walling the alley. It rose to a prodigious three stories, but there was no way that would have been enough to twist his limbs—and his face? She shuddered as she looked at the body again.
Lilah’s eyes widened. He had a bushy beard tinged with bits of grey. She recognised him. One of the mercenaries. The one who’d leered at Serena…
Lilah bit her lip. ‘Do we know who he is?’ She wasn’t sure she wanted to reveal that she’d been at the Red Rose when she should have been studying, but in an investigation like this, facts like that always find the light.
‘I haven’t gotten that far yet.’ Her father looked at the Red Rose’s back entrance. ‘He might have been a patron. The owner wasn’t working last night—we’ll be questioning the other workers soon.’
‘We?’ Jercolf asked. ‘We’ll be part of the investigation?’
Haldin nodded. ‘I’ve decided to make it a part of the test. It shouldn’t take much convincing for the other Deciders to agree.’
We’ll be questioning Serena, Lilah thought. The longer she waited to speak, the more trouble she’d be in.
‘I recognise him,’ Lilah said.
They all turned their gazes on her. Lilah’s eyes fell to the ground, to the man’s beard.
‘Oh?’
She looked at her father. ‘I was at the Red Rose last night.’
He crossed his arms. ‘Of course you were, seeing your girlfriend, were you?’
Lilah narrowed her eyes. ‘As a matter of fact, yes, I was. I thought one night off in forty would benefit my studies. Serena agreed.’ Lilah looked back down at the dead mercenary. ‘He was there. At the bar. He was with another man. They looked to be caravan guards, probably come into the town together.’
‘Did you see him leave?’
‘Serena finished her shift early. I was… preoccupied. The tavern was closed and empty last I saw it.’ She looked at her father. ‘So was this alley. He must have come back around.’
Seeker Haldin walked around the body, then up the alley and back. He seemed to be looking for something, though Lilah wasn’t sure what. He looked to the back door of the Red Rose, to the mouth of the alley where the final recruits had turned up. Then he walked back and examined the position of the body.
The man lay on his back, his feet facing the alley’s dead end.
‘At least we have a timeline.’ Seeker Haldin’s gaze swept over the alley once more. ‘Whoever attacked him may have been boxed up, walled in.’ The only door in the alley was to the Red Rose. ‘Whoever killed this man was here for a reason—maybe they lured him down here, maybe the mercenary wasn’t the respectable sort.’ He looked up at the windows. ‘The mage might be staying in a room at the Red Rose.’
‘Or they could be anywhere in the city,’ Jercolf said. ‘They might not even be in Hirlcrest anymore.’
Seeker Haldin frowned at Jercolf. ‘They might not be, but we have to act as if they are. Word of malfeasance spreads fast, and when it happens within the city limits—especially this close to the centre—the emperor becomes very interested. He’s going to want this sorted as quickly and as smoothly as possible, so you better hope they’re still in the city.’
The last recruits to arrive stood to the side, waiting to be addressed by the seeker.
‘You two’—Seeker Haldin pointed at Lilah and Jercolf—‘Watchmen have already secured the tavern. Go in and start questioning its guests.’ He looked pointedly at Lilah. ‘Your girlfriend included. Ask about the mercenary, see if he has any friends, see if he got into any disagreements. It’s rare that a case of malfeasance like this happens on purpose inside Hirlcrest—mages and witches are smart enough to know the dangers of practicing their evil inside the empire. Most likely the perpetrator didn’t know they could do this, which means you must watch out for anyone in emotional distress.’ He sighed. ‘You both know the theory, now get going.’
He turned to address the remaining recruits, sending them to different parts of the city while Jercolf and Lilah headed into the Red Rose.
A few patrons and guests sat eating breakfast, their eyes occasionally flicking up to the watchmen guarding the tavern’s exits. The staff looked tense. Emotional distress, Lilah thought. Malfeasance had been performed scant yards from them, likely everyone inside the Red Rose was experiencing different degrees of emotional distress.
Serena stood behind the bar, wiping it down though it was already clean. When their eyes met, the smile Lilah usually saw failed to return. Serena’s brow was creased, her eyes full of worry. Lilah had never seen her look so shaken.
‘Perhaps you should talk with her alone, she might be more receptive speaking with someone she’s more familiar with.’ Jercolf’s face was no longer blank. For the first time since Lilah had met him, his expression softened.
She gave Jercolf a curt nod before hurrying across the creaky floorboards. The sombre mood of the Red Rose was in stark contrast to her visit the night before.
When Lilah made it to the bar, she let relief settle on her face. She reached over the polished wood and grabbed Serena’s hand, squeezing it in her own. Serena’s grip was weak in return. The light in her eyes missing.
‘When I heard it had happened near the Red Rose—oh, Serena, I am so glad you’re okay.’
Serena nodded numbly. She held eye contact a moment before gazing over at the watchmen by the exits. ‘Why are they guarding us?’
Lilah bit her lip. ‘My father—Seeker Haldin—thinks the perpetrator may have been a guest or patron here.’
Serena looked at her. ‘It was malfeasance, then? He’s sure?’
‘Nothing natural could have done that to a man.’
Se
rena blinked. ‘Nothing natural...’
Lilah squeezed her hand again. ‘I know this is a lot to process—something like this happening so close to where you work—but I need to ask you a few questions. The man who died, he was a patron of the Red Rose. I saw him here last night, he was one of the mercenaries at the bar, the older one who was leering at you.’
Serena’s eyes refocused, as if she’d only just realised Lilah stood in front of her. Her grip tightened on Lilah’s hand. ‘I remember him.’ She frowned. ‘I didn’t like the way he looked at me.’
‘Neither did I,’ Lilah said. ‘Perhaps he looked at someone else that way, and they liked it even less. You mentioned he’d been coming here all week, did you ever catch his name?’
‘Warrick.’ Serena let go of Lilah’s hand and touched her own wrist. ‘He grabbed my arm the second night here, told me his name and asked me what else was for sale.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘I snatched my arm back and told him we weren’t that kind of tavern.’
‘You never told me about this.’ Lilah’s hand, on instinct, drifted to the dagger at her belt, though there was no one to fight. The condition Warrick’s body was in... his death must have been very painful.
Good, Lilah thought, despite the evil that had caused it.
Serena eyed where Lilah’s hand had gone. ‘I never told you because I knew how you’d react. I didn’t want to worry or enrage you.’ She said the latter with a half-smirk. ‘I can handle such things without you needing to stab anyone.’
‘I wouldn’t have—’ Lilah sighed. As much as she wanted to talk to Serena, to take her out of here, she was here for another reason. ‘I’m just glad you’re safe.’ She took a breath. ‘He was with another man. Did you ever catch his name?’
Serena shook her head. ‘He was quieter, kept to himself and didn’t hassle any of us girls—not that he stopped his friend from doing so, mind. Heard they were due to head west to Trafon on a caravan this morning.’
‘He could very well be the mage. Which means he needs to be found fast, before he leaves the city.’ Lilah wanted to jump over the counter and hold Serena in her arms, but the rest of the world crashed back into focus. There were more important things to do than comfort her girlfriend—that very thought stung. Had her father felt such things every time he’d left her mother to do his work? ‘I have to go, but I’ll be back to see you as soon as I can.’