It was bucketing down outside. When it rained in Anypaxia, it was unrelenting. In Sylexa, the rain used to come in short bursts, but those bursts were bitter and cold. The torrents were sometimes manageable in Anypaxia, but today it was not. It was unbearably cold.

Luci presented her phone to the guard stationed at the draw bridge and they let her across. The stroll through the draughty, hept-stone halls of the Dungeon Fort offered barely any respite. The halls were colder than outside, if a little less damp.

She’d never liked walking through this place. A wide path had been laid out for dungeoneers to cross which was lined with murder holes in the stone walls and unwelcoming, unsigned, barred doors. Every guard she passed eyed her suspiciously, as though she was up to no good. She was stopped once at a scanning station to present her meagre possessions. When she only had her staff to show, the guard looked at her with pity in her eyes.

After a few minutes she was out of the Dungeon Fort and in the freezing rain again.

The Dungeon Fort loomed behind, dark walls towering over her yet squat for the breadth. No guns pointed this way—there was no need to defend from the outside because nobody was insane enough to attack a dungeon. However, guards were stationed near the entrance to spring to action in case someone decided to skip out on their taxes.

The main street leading into the Dungeon Fort, Matados Street, was as busy as usual. Equal parts foot traffic and delivery vehicles clogged up the wide road, some here on business for the dungeon, some passing by, and others attending the many sail-covered stalls that lined the road’s southern curb. Hundreds of shopkeepers hawked their wares, from aftos, to clothes, to freshly cooked meals.

Luci was cold, soaked to the bone, tired, and starving. She hadn’t eaten since their break in the dungeon, and then they’d fought monsters for another two hours afterwards. There were many food stalls, some frying up dishes right there so that the aroma cut through the rain. Luci had no money. She trudged past them, her stomach growling in protest.

In a daze, she held up a hand and formed a convex barrier from dark, gaseous blame. The rain that fell on it was pushed up and aside by the blame enma’s pushing properties, causing rain to fall around Luci like a fountain. It was hard work given her state. Each bit of enma she drew from her soul weighed her down just a little more, but that weight was nothing compared to the heaviness in her heart.

On she walked, not bothering to check her direction. She let her tired feet choose her path for her. The enma umbrella above her kept sputtering on and off as she struggled, and she ended up soaked in spite of it. After a while, Luci recognised the streets she took as the path to the southern gate. She was heading home, towards her battered tent.

Then her umbrella disappeared for good. She stopped dead in the middle of a busy road. Mud stained her dress. Her legs screamed in agony. A sign flashed in her peripheral vision. Luci turned to read it.

Grey’s Pawn and Exchange

No cash above dan

The shop was nestled beneath a crumbling, brutalist apartment block. The sun was setting, but it made little difference—even without the rainclouds, the street was always in shadow. The moon was above Luci. She couldn’t see it but she knew it was there. It was a part of her. Today, more than ever, its presence felt intrusive.

Rain soaked through her dress, her cowl. The cold seeped into her bones. It was a miserable day, yet others didn’t seem to mind. People went about their business as though it was natural to be dashing through the rain. Umbrellas passed over her as the dense crowd moved by.

She looked down at Lunacogita.

“I can’t sleep when the moon is awake,” she muttered under her breath. “I can’t cut my hair because it is a symbol of my status. I can’t have a family, a real family, because my life exists for my duty.” She raised her head to the sky, facing the moon hidden beyond the clouds. “It’s all so far away. So why?”

She squeezed Lunacogita. Her grip was weak from exhaustion after having gripped the staff like a vice all day. She eyed the shop’s sign. People watched her weirdly. She was too tired to care.

“Why do I hold on? To not disappoint Mother? But all it does is cause me pain. I can get rid of it all—my name, my hair, even stop practicing my path so the weirdness in my body dulls away. I could… sell Lunacogita. With the money I’d make from selling it, I could repair her tent, afford a nice meal, live well for a change.”

The neon letters of the shop’s sign burnt into her vision. It practically called for her. But then a spike a guilt pierced her gut. She clutched Lunacogita tightly to her chest and dropped into a squat.

“What are you saying?” she screamed. She slapped her head, and when it didn’t hurt through the cowl, she slapped her face. Heads turned towards her but nobody stopped to see what was wrong. That was for the best. “You have a duty, Luci. You need to protect the people from monsters, from corrupt statesmen, from greedy guilds, and every other threat that the weak cannot surpass. You can’t just throw that all way for a hot meal and a warm bed! You’re the Daughter of the Waxing Moon, so stop whining, stop lazing about, and just fix your mistakes—”

Her stomach roiled. Luci bent and covered her mouth, thinking something would come up. Then she saw a boot in her peripheral vision. Lifting her gaze slowly, she met the cold blue eyes of a tall man.

He was decked out in unassuming aftos—a simple blade at his side, a silver chain around his neck, a white glove—which were only identifiable by the oddly-shaded crystals they housed. He had pale skin, which was uncommon in Anypaxia as the sun this far south could burn everyone to a tan. Yet it was very common in Sylexa, especially for those who practiced the Path of the Moon, or one of the subvariants offered to lower branches. If that wasn’t proof enough, his pale grey coat was emblazoned with a black crescent moon, the symbol of the Cult of the Moon, along with a black dove beneath denoting his branch, the Pacifi family.

“Princess… Animana?” he muttered.

Luci gaped up at him. After three months of hiding, she just blurted out her identity in the middle of the street, right in front of a Sylexan—no, in front of someone related to her family!

The man turned to the three people behind him who all wearing clothes with a similar symbol. “Bell, didn’t you meet the princess a few years ago?”

One of them, a young woman, said, “Yeah, at a social event for meeting young talent. It looks like her. I think I can even see her star freckles.”

Luci had completely forgot to check. After all that dungeon crawling, of course her makeup had come off. In her hurry to leave the Ravelin, she’d forgot to reapply it. She even had the almost-empty tube of concealer in her pocket!

The man in front, the most senior amongst them, gave a respectful bow then gestured towards a building down the road. Flags showing the black and white chevron, representing Mount Praesummus, were hanging from the front of the building and onto the street.

“We’ll be escorting you to the Sylexa consulate now, Radiant One. If you don’t mind,” he added as an afterthought.

She panicked. With a flick of her hand, she melded tendrils of conform and wrapped them around the man who’d spoken to her. Then she flung him into his companions behind and knocked them down. The street was crowded and it caused a chain reaction, knocking down several people who were walking around them and previously minding their own business.

Then Luci bolted.

Her legs weren’t working well due to fatigue. Her added weight meant she could only get to the next intersection before she was already struggling to breathe. Behind her, she saw the Sylexans were barging through the crowd and had nearly caught up with her. Abandoning reason, Luci threw out an anchor and dragged herself towards it, flinging herself into the sky.

“Idiot!” she screamed at herself. “Melding in public is probably illegal!”

The people underneath screamed and pointed as she flung herself through the air. With her added weight, it took more out of her than was necessary. Looking down, she saw the Sylexans followed beneath, knocking people out of their way.

“This isn’t going to work. There’s nowhere to hide in the air.”

She faced forward at the last moment to see a clothesline directly in her path, fast approaching. She didn’t have time for a proper meld. A quick pulse of blame wouldn’t knock her out the way fast enough. She did the first thing she could—an absolutely taboo act according to her instructor. Screaming, she spun threads of conform and grabbed herself with them. Then, controlling them manually, she flung herself up.

Luci flailed her arms and legs, screaming the whole way up. She had even less control than with her slingshots because she never practiced this method. She spun in the air and realised she was going right over a building.

That gave her an idea.

Before she reached the opposite end of a building, she flung herself down onto it using the same method. Now that the seal had been released, she no longer cared about what her instructor thought and decided to just keep using conform spikes. She wrapped herself with conform and, pinching the thread with unformed enma, caught herself.

The thread snapped taut, winding Luci. Sucking in deep breaths, she let herself swing back like on a pendulum. When she swung low to the building, she released her enma and dropped onto the ground, skidding across the building’s roof.

She landed hard against a sleeper, crying out from the pain. It took her near a minute to collect herself. She stood up slowly, one hand still gripping her staff, the other adjusting her cowl. Some hair had slipped out so she tucked it back in, groaning the whole way.

Half way through stuffing a stray lock into her cowl, she looked up and saw an elderly woman, wearing a thick jacket to protect herself from the rain, plucking vegetables out of the community garden. She stared at Luci with her eyes bulged like a deer caught in crystallight. A sign had been dug into the garden she was tending to that read, “Ap. 14, James Malepos.”

The elderly woman’s eyes darted between Luci and the garden. “If you don’t tell, I won’t either,” she said.

“Deal,” Luci grunted.

Stuffing the rest of her hair into her cowl, she hobbled down the building’s stairwell. She poked her head out of the only entrance, a single door, and realised she’d somehow looped back around to the street with the Sylexa consulate.

“Seriously, what is with this city!” she complained under her breath. “Every street is designed like a maze and this building is clearly not in line with fire safety codes. Why is there no alternate entrance?”

She glanced both ways, saw she was in the clear, then tiptoed onto the street.

“Just act natural, Luci. You’re just part of the crowd. Okay, you’re definitely the wettest person in the crowd, but people will ignore you if you ignore them—”

After a short work, her stomach turned again. From behind her she heard people cursing as people barged through the crowd. Panicking, she looked to her side and saw the pawn shop entrance. She dived in without a second thought.