22- Desperation

 

“I need something, Mykah,” Callie says gravely. “Anything.” 

“I know,” he grumbles, shoving his scattered items into a rucksack. “I know. But we’re talking about an entirely different paradigm of magic, a whole new Arcana-,”

A knock on the door, Callie’s newest paladin guard, Kyrian, checking in. She sighs and drops the ward to call back out to him, confirming her continuous survival for this moment, at least. So far, she likes Kyrian. He might be occasionally curt and awkward in his speech, and overtly fervent in his devotion to Suul, but she notices his eyes on a watchful swivel and he’s even larger than Calvin. And, he’s already thwarted one assassination attempt.

One out of a half dozen. 

Velena is making good on her promise to press Callie into resignation, ensuring that she feels under assault for every hour of every day. Most of the attempts at her life have been quickly prevented - a raised shield from Gloriana, a skillful duel by Wileya, a preemptive dagger throw from Kyrian. 

Of the six, two of them had nearly succeeded. 

The jagged, ungainly scar healing along her neck is joined by a heavy purple bruise that had nearly resulted in the loss of her right leg as she lay buried beneath a toppling ceiling. One moment, she had been imploring an ally of Hamada’s, a nobleman with connections to the College, that there ought to be more support for mages to learn the new Arcana - the next, an explosion rocked the building. Four people were killed, and Callie was saved only by the sacrifice of a paladin raising her shield to protect the Devotia instead of herself. 

Her name was Assensia, and it had been gut-wrenchingly painful to attend her funeral and cremation, her return to Suul through holy flame. 

No one died in the second near miss, save Callie herself. Poison in her wine. Trite, uninspired, and painfully obvious in hindsight. All the food and drink in the villa were now under rigorous inspection before they could ever hope to reach her plate. 

Velena’s offer remains a daunting relief to the assaults - give up everything except her life, and it’ll all end. Each sunset, and subsequent sleepless sunrise, finds Callie considering the offer with more and more ease. 

“I cannot survive this much longer,” she pleads with Mykah, pacing in tight circles in his apartment. She walks with the faintest impression of a limp, her leg still sore and nursing back to health. “I need you-,”

“I’m hardly sleeping, too,” Mykah throws his final object into his bag and plops back onto the edge of his thin mattress, canyons forming in the threadbare blankets. “Barely eating, barely seeing anyone. All I do anymore is try and study these baffling mirror drops, but they’re not my forte. I’ve no idea how they work, and it isn’t easy to invent an entire framework from scratch.” 

Callie feels a pang of guilt and sympathizes with her friend. She’s asking the impossible, she knows that. Find a defensive magic that she can protect herself with, something that not even the most powerful Magister can penetrate, and do so on an increasingly deathly and urgent timeline. Oh, and your closest friend will surely die if you don’t succeed - no pressure. 

“What can I do to help?” Is all she can muster. 

He swallows, glaring at the ground like it might hold hidden knowledge in an unreadable script. Mykah’s shoulders drop. “I need to not be starting from zero. I’m still trying to grasp the basic concepts, much less applying them under stress.” 

“Dynasa and Velena both were able to examine Yala’s magic through me,” Callie offers. 

“If you could get me access to Dynasa’s notes…”

“Done.” 

Callie marches over and pulls him into a standing position, embracing him and trying not to let herself imagine that it’s for the last time. 

“Just…” He mumbles into her neck. “Promise me you’ll get out before you’re dead. Abdication is better than losing you forever.” 

She squeezes tighter. Her lungs may as well be cased in lead and iron for how heavy they feel in her chest.  

I don’t think I can handle another attempt. 

She decides not to tell him that. Instead, she chooses to bob her head slowly against his shoulder, knowing she’d had to make very similar promises to Calvin and Junivere. 

Yet, at the same time, Callie feels a blistering fury bubbling inside - an immovable force of frustration to feel herself under attack in this way, to experience the malintent of someone else’s agenda designed to take her beautiful life away from her. Solva is her home. Solva is where her heart lives. She can’t bear the thought of being forced out. 

But, compared to death, is the contention within herself greater? 

Callie can’t say.

Back on the narrow, crowded streets of the College, dressed in one of her rotating disguises - she’d given up on pretending to look like a priestess, even that placed her in too much scrutiny - she marches down towards Dynasa’s office. The Magewitch is still recovering from her duel with Velena, beaten within a near inch of her life, but whether or not she’s in her tower Callie doesn’t care. Kyrian follows close in step, wearing a thick cloak over his armor and hiding his two long daggers at his belt. 

“Was Mykah able to help?” Kyrian asks at Callie’s side. 

Not wanting to reveal much, and nursing a headache which leaves her in a sour mood, Callie simply grunts noncommittally. He’s a good paladin, a bit religious in his devotion for her taste, but she’s in hardly any mood to speak. 

She’s further annoyed when he then asks, “Have you received any word of guidance from the Goddess?” 

She mutters an impatient curse to herself. “An exhortation towards silence.” 

He makes an awkward, forthright face, and allows his pace to fall a step back from hers to provide more distance between them. She’ll apologize for her brusque attitude later, back in the relative safety of the villa. Her eyes remain on alert as they walk, and eventually she notices the other paladin following them, Rumia, remaining a careful distance away so that Callie is not made obvious by being protected. 

She wishes Gloriana could be on duty with her instead. But, she’d been easily identified as her usual guard; being seen with her would place a glaring target upon her back. 

Inside the doors of the Magewitch’s tower, Kyrian breaks the silence once more. “Do you really intend on bringing a new era?”

“I’d really rather not talk right now,” she replies dryly, rubbing her hand against her neck. Despite the healing, the scar still feels raw and sore, far too fresh for her liking. 

A new era?

The two of them ascend the stairs into the tower, rising the couple stories it’ll take to reach the secluded office of the ever-curious Magewitch. Callie had grown used to the climb before she’d broken free of both Dynasa and Velena’s control, glancing out of the terraced windows that spiral along the columned staircase. She doesn’t even need to peek out of the windows at the sky to know the present position of the moon. She’s memorized its movements by necessity. It’s currently tucked away beyond the horizon, leaving Suul alone in this morning’s sky. 

It’s at the very top of the tower, in the hallways outside of the grand oak double doors to the office, that Kyrian stops and asks, “Have you considered High Magister Velena’s offer any further?” 

High Magister. 

Callie becomes very aware that the paladin now stands between her and the exit, and suddenly feels quite stupid. Rumia would be waiting down in the lobby, having entered quietly to avoid attention. She’ll remain there until after they leave. 

Her chest tightens, and the hairs on the back of her neck raise. 

But he’d stopped an assassin… 

She sighs. “Kyrian, please.” 

The cool, awful sound of two daggers slowly drawn from their sheathes, ringing out into the echoing stone around them. Would Dynasa be in her office? Would anyone? Her heart thumps heavily in her chest. Not likely. 

“The High Magister is not endlessly patient,” he spins the handles in his palms, holding each slightly curved blade in a backwards grip. “And who knows how long it will be before another attempt is made on your life.” 

She turns slowly to watch him, putting her back to the heavy wood doors behind her, cornered. “Why?” She swallows, her voice weary. 

And, disguising it with a nervous tremble, she slowly hides her hands behind her back. It’s easier to mask when her hands are, in fact, shaking profusely. Her mind races at a hundred miles an hour. 

“You’re blaspheming the Goddess,” he accuses, growling out the words with an air of righteous indignation. “And you haven’t even the sense to back down from that heresy when your life is under threat.” 

“You saved my life,” she reminds him tersely. 

“I shouldn’t have,” he mutters, then dismissively scorns, “Duty.” 

Callie swallows, forming as many plans as her frantic mind will allow her. Time, she decides, I need time.

“Kyrian, you’ve been a faithful paladin of the Goddess,” she musters, cautiously enticing forward from the doors. “Ever-vigilant. Always upright and moral.” She swallows and descends to her knees. “And now you have a Devotia at your mercy, eager to save her own life.” A tense, sultry, pause. “No one would have to know.” 

For a whisper of a moment, his eyes hungrily consider the offer at his feet, only to be defeated by his predilection towards higher duty. But Callie wasn’t counting on his lust anyway. 

“This is your final chance to consider her offer, before I do what holy duty demands of me-,”

With the meager connection to Suular magic she possesses, Callie blossoms a blinding ward into existence, sending him stumbling backwards in shock. She crawls away from his blundering, automatic strike down at her, scrambling back up to her feet to run down the stairs. One of Kyrian’s daggers falls to the ground in the commotion, and just as her foot arrives at the first descending step, a gauntleted hand wrenches her backwards by her dress. 

Callie lands on the stone ground and feels her hip resent the impact, but she has no time to soothe the feeling, diving to dodge a kick from the large knight’s boot. She screams at the top of her lungs, a halting and panicked sound, and hopes Rumia will hear it and understand it’s her. 

Time. Just a few seconds. 

Another stab from his remaining dagger is narrowly deflected by a haphazard ward, thrown up purely out of frightful reaction. She wasn’t trained in combat, every movement of hers is shivering and full of the brutal terror of survival. The force of his blow shatters the threadbare shield she’d conjured, buying her only a single second to scutter back from him. 

She already feels the burning exertion of magic in her stomach, exhausting her and making everything feel sluggish. Damn him for making her fight like this - and damn herself twice for not insisting that self-defense magic be a part of her curriculum as Devotia. 

Callie tries to listen for the clanging of metal armor rising from the stairs, but can’t isolate it from the sound of Kyrian’s next blow, which catches the side of her ribs and slices across it. A cool chill flusters across her skin, the shock of injury meeting the racing adrenaline in her blood. 

Her hands bump against a sharp object on the ground and she instinctively grabs at it, cutting her palm as she latches onto Kyrian’s discarded weapon. Without any thought for the pain, she throws it at the towering paladin, where the hilt rockets against the top of his breastplate, finding a small gap enough to softly bludgeon his collarbone. He steps back to recover and Callie slips away - back towards the doors of Dynasa’s office. She screams again for good measure. 

The doors are locked - and Callie realizes for the first intense breath that she may be about to die. 

Kyrian approaches like a lion on the hunt, slow and steady for the kill, having retrieved his second weapon as she retreated. His eyes contain a wildness to them, tempered by the fury of conviction. 

Callie turns inward and finds that her reservoir of Suular magic is tapped out, and with the moon behind the horizon, Yala isn’t much help either. She clasps her palms to her forearms, nevermind the blood on one of them, and scrambles for an idea. 

The memory of Hamada’s duel provides her with a terrible, stupid one. 

A horrible idea, as far as she’s concerned. 

Very stupid. 

Dumb. 

She listens again for the possibility of Rumia heaving up the stairs, but hears nothing. Foolish idea, it is. 

“For Solva,” is all Kyrian says as he launches himself at Callie. 

Gritting her eyes closed and teeth clenched tightly, Callie sinks her fingertips into her forearms and hunts for the traces of threadbeams which comprise her blessed form. Secure in the hope that this will not kill her as quickly, she rips the beams out. 

Releasing a roar of pain and fear, Callie wields her threading as a bushel of whips and slashes them down to meet Kyrian. 

The power behind the magic, sizzling and sparking with blood and sunlight, shatters through the impending daggers and sends the paladin crashing back into the cobblestone wall. He lands with a heavy clash, dropping to the ground where he curses loudly. 

Callie doesn’t wait around for a response, turning tail and hobbling down the stairs. She winces dreadfully, her body buzzing and teeming with sickly pangs of horror at the damage she’s done to herself. It takes great effort not to look down at the results of her actions, leaping down the staircase two-at-a-time and trying not to trip. She leaves her arms tucked closely to her chest, never minding the blood staining the borrowed fabric. 

The thundering of plate armor above her tells her Kyrian has recovered just as quickly. 

It’s at the base of the stairs that Callie comprehends how royally fucked she is. Rather than charge to her defense, it seems that Rumia has apprehended a would-be defender and bound them with threadbeams, tossed against a wall like a sack of potatoes. The glimmering paladin turns to face Callie, kicking the bound mage at her feet for good measure, and draws her sword. 

Don’t do it don’t do it don’t do it-

Callie ignores the pleading voice in her head and knows she’s out of any other options. Without stopping to allow herself any time to mentally prepare, she brings her fingertips to the outer side of her forearms and tears out the threading there, too. 

This, she sends whipping down at Rumia like a sizzling poker, fresh from the fire. The beams spark flames as they lash onto the expensive rug below, setting it alight and blocking the paladin’s charge at her. Callie continues running, throwing her shoulder into the heavy door leading outside, trying not to mind the pain-won tears fighting their way through her eyelashes. 

She doesn’t stop in the pavilion, stumbling into a small group of studying mages waiting beyond the door and sending them scattering, initially muttering words of frustration at her until they witness the carnage spreading behind her. Screams erupt from the area, though she doesn’t know who released them, and to both her horror and relief, a crowd fills the square. 

“They’re trying to kill me!” Callie decides to yell, nearly losing her balance as she tries to point at the two approaching knights. 

“This is official business of the Knighthood,” Kyrian commands, holding his arms wide to encourage the gathering students and mages to stay back. 

“That's the Devotia!” Someone in the assembled mass shouts, and suddenly the area falls deathly silent. 

Kyrian and Rumia stalk towards her like knives in a butchery, ready to end her life without further delay. Callie turns and turns around at the crowd, her expression pleading for intervention, but too many seem frozen by the indecision of terror. 

Until one mage steps between Callie and the attackers. She looks back at the cowering Devotia with a stoic fortitude, resolute in the risk to her own life. Then, she turns back to the paladins and unleashes her attack. 

Another mage attacks her. 

And with that, the whole of the square erupts into chaos. The more vigilant and passionate mages begin attacking one another. The less decided scattered to escape the billowing collateral damage that will ensue. 

Callie tries to flee along with them, hoping to get lost in the assembled mass, dodging and weaving between frightened stampeders or bold assailants. For every mage that moves to attack her, another leaps to her defense, and vice versa. She can hardly follow what unfolds around her, overwhelmed by the sounds of magic sizzling against magic, wards booming into existence, and screams of the terrified. 

She isn’t sure how she stumbles into the alleyway, but she finds herself catching her breath in a rank and musty path between stonetop apartments. She’s dizzy, whimpering under her breath and trying not to faint from the quaking agony in her body. Her arms have gone numb of useful feeling, all their sensation reserved for the searing, burning torment of her lost threading. 

“Hal Devotia!” A voice calls from an opened doorway ahead of her. “In here, quickly!” 

Callie makes a pitiful effort to raise a palm in her own defense, her exhausted voice floundering out, “S-stay back.” 

“Please,” the man implores, and Callie’s vision is blurry enough that she can no longer make out any details of his face or form. “I’m loyal to the Devotia, and a friend of Mykah.” 

“Mykah?” She murmurs, spit bubbling between her tired lips. She takes a half step forward and stumbles down into his now-outstretched arms. When did he get close enough to approach her? 

And then she’s being carried, down a dark set of stairs, away from the fight and fury of the College streets. Safer, as far as she’s concerned. 

“Where’s Mykah?” She manages. 

“I’m not sure,” the young man - his voice has that youthful cadence - tells her. “But I can try and bring you to him.” 

And Callie nods into his chest, allowing herself to begin weeping in earnest, teetering on the edge of consciousness. The shock flashes into a feeling of potent despair, somewhere approaching anguish, and she finds herself blubbering out curses and groans at the stranger, not that it’s his fault. 

He sets her down long enough to open some secretive door in the basement of the building, then scoops her up into the dark hallway behind it. It shuts after him, and he gently lowers Callie to rest against the wall while he takes to setting a complicated variety of static wards to protect them. 

“You’re bleeding profusely-,”
“Ripped out threading,” she whispers between heaving cries. 

“Shit,” he shakes his head, rubbing his palms together as he tries to triage the damage. He removes a piece of threadstone from a loop around his neck and smashes it, pulling apart the golden threads which give it its magical strength. Those beams he massages into something approaching a salve, which he skillfully wraps around her arms. 

“This will help with the pain, and halt some of the damage,” he explains, panting as he scrambles to assist. It’s hard to fully understand him as she sobs, her back flush against the rank wall behind her. He takes a low breath. “There’s more blood on your side, may I…” 

Callie nods, lifting her head to stare at the dark ceiling as he respectfully lifts her top enough to inspect the dagger wound at her side. Another salve is placed over that one. 

“Down here, there’s only so much I can do,” he coughs apologetically. “But that will stabilize things for now. I wouldn’t even know how to begin restoring your threading, but…” His voice trails off. 

He allows Callie to shake and shiver and sniffle, slowly allowing her body to find ground against the pain. She doesn’t even notice that he started guiding her through her breathing, encouraging long exhales to steady herself, but she appreciates it deeply. 

A thundering boom rumbles up above. 

The man swallows and pushes the worry of it away. His kindly eyes return to Callie. “What do they call you when you’re not Hal Devotia?” 

It takes her some time to mumble, “Callie.” 

“I’m Rian,” his soft voice replies. 

Callie, despite it all, manages a weak chuckle. “You… you and Mykah went on a date.” 

“Three dates, your Reverence,” he glistens proudly. “With plans for a fourth, present circumstances notwithstanding.” Rian relieves himself of the squat he’s been holding, shifting instead to rest his legs underneath him. He places a comforting palm on her knee, gently rubbing it and muttering peaceful nothings to encourage her. “What happened?” 

Callie relates the details, stammering and having to backtrack sentences just to get it all out. Her hands haven’t stopped shaking, and she grimly suspects they never will. Around her, the hallway bends into a rounded passageway, something approximating a sewer canal, save that there is no disgusting trickle of water passing through the middle. It’s dry and arid, with a stale air choking her breath. 

“I want to get you to safety,” Rian nudges. “Is that with Mykah or do I need to get you back to the villa?” 

Callie chokes back a stifled cough. “I…” She sighs gravely. “It doesn’t matter. I’m done. I can’t do this anymore.” 

“Hal Devotia-,” 

“I’m alive, for now. I can’t keep hoping the next attempt won’t kill me.” She hazards a glimpse at the shredded magic and tissue across her forearms and shudders, a sickly cool feeling down her spine. “Velena has made eight attempts on my life. I’d be foolish to assume I’ll survive nine.” 

“Velena? The Magister-,” Rian catches up quickly to her predicament, his face scrunching into a devastated frown. 

Callie nods quietly to herself. It’s over. She begins wondering how long the sting of abdication will humiliate her, comforted only by the hope she could convince Calvin to leave with her. 

And Junivere. 

And Mykah.

And Cirene. 

And Gloriana. 

And Mira. 

And Civa-

And the list in her mind, of those people most necessary to her, weighs heavily upon her chest. Surely they wouldn’t all come with her. To unseat her own life is one thing; to ask all of them to do the same? They have families and friends and homes and Callie is just one person in their lives; it would be unimaginably cruel to ask them to uproot everything for her. 

How many of them would I be willing to lose? 

And, as a counterbalance, how many would I be willing to let die by remaining?

Perhaps Callie would survive a ninth attempt. She’d been horrendously lucky so far. But if Velena were to decide her invulnerability were too inconvenient, how many attempts could anyone else survive? She’s a Devotia - in theory her survival was owed to the Goddesses. 

The Goddesses. 

A sour feeling churns within her, wet with the disdain of adopted faith. What good were the Goddesses if they needed to rely on a pitiful girl clutching her own wounds in the dark? Belief had come so habitually in her role. Callie had never really adopted the intrinsic faith that Junivere carried; no, Suul and Yala may as well be distant relatives to Callie. Sure, they are real and extant, but they are so far removed from daily life, despite the blessings and rituals and all. 

Had Yala ever spoken to her, or had that been imagination? 

The struggle behind her eyes must be too easily apparent because Rian, that soft-eyed boy with frizzy brown hair, stares intently at her. His eyes contain the same eccentricity of Mykah’s when constructing a thought. 

And, having tested the ideas until satisfied, he says, “You owe it to us not to quit.” 

Callie opens her mouth. Closes it. She’d not been expecting him to take that tone. 

“Not that it’s fair of me to ask you that,” he adds apologetically, continuing with a rhythm of preparation. “But everything is falling apart, crumbling under the weight of something new erupting. Magisters are dueling in the streets. No one knows how this will all end up.” 

A pause. 

“No one looks to the Magisters for inspiration. It’s not the Imperium that gives the city its soul - it’s the Devotia. And you’re a Devotia unlike any other.” In his eyes there is a wealth of admiration. “I mean, the proof of it is before me, in all of its grisly detail. A threaded Devotia, and one who didn’t come from nobility or power. A commoner.

“When you were anointed, the College was set alight,” he shares excitedly. “Rumors were flying - people with an eye for magic in its glorious detail, we all suspected you might be threaded, and that meant everything to us.” A brief worry on his brow and he holds up his hands. “Not that it’s obvious! We just recognize the signs of magic because we’re - it’s just that we can more easily speculate on - ahem, I’m also threaded and so I-,”

Callie tosses a forgiving look his way, not taking any offense to his words. Rian looks relieved and smiles awkwardly. 

“A threaded Devotia, that meant a lot to some of us. There’s never even been a threaded Magister before. It was inspiring. I can’t tell you how many parties I blathered on about you at when you were anointed. It was like I’d suddenly been given the ability to fly!” He takes a low breath. “And now, you’re the Devotia of Yala, and everything feels like it’s changing. For the better. New magic. New precedent. We’re sitting on the cusp of something beyond anything we could’ve ever expected.” 

Rian looks away, seems moved almost to tears. He is quiet for a few soft moments, composing his emotions into speech. “I… it’s not like I ever consciously realized it, but I’d put a cap on what I could achieve, on what the world could be. The day you were anointed, and the day we confirmed you were threaded, I mean, wow. It changed everything for me. 

“It feels embarrassingly naive to just tell you that you give me hope. But you do. I think about you constantly. Sometimes I’ll just sit and work in the central plaza, in view of the Villa, and just think that my work matters more now. I’m writing papers about the Arcana but I’m dedicating them to Hal Devotia.” 

He chuckles. “I feel so child-like right now, but it’s true. I… I know it’s not fair of me to ask you to stay, not after… well…” His eyes glance down at her bandaged wounds. “But I’m just not ready to give up that hope, the new and beautiful world you gave me, purposefully or not. I may just be one mage, and not even a stupendously talented one, but…” He shrugs. “What can I do to help?” 

Callie can’t meet his gaze. It’s so painfully optimistic, tangible in its desire for the world to be what she also wants it to be. It, in its own way, makes her feel unexpectedly pitiful. 

To Rian, to so many, Callie is more than just a celebrity, she’s a beacon. She may feel like a fumbling mess of a Devotia, but that doesn’t seem to be apparent to anyone else - or, they’re fond enough of her strengths to forgive her fumblings. 

Callie never asked to be in the position she’s been brought to. She had been so content with the idea of hiding namelessly in the city, taking shelter in the anonymity of a crowd, scraping by with any meager life she could find. A part of her believed that’s all she deserved, all she could deserve. 

And she knew this. Had confronted this reality time and time again as a Devotia. She could no longer hide, no longer pretend to be nothing. How many times has she wished to simply disappear and run away, a pitiful, forgettable thing? Her departure from Rookwell never leaves her. 

Something Rian says to her begs a new question in her gut, inescapable: what would it have taken for Rookwell to be a place she could live safely and happily? People like her either lived hidden forever, or died. But could that be changed? 

Likewise, the Devotia of ages past could marry and live freely. What would it take in Solva for that to be the case again? She’d made bold choices to that end, willing to risk so much goodwill to bring the blessing of Yala. 

How far would she be willing to go? 

She finds herself wondering what it would have been like to have known another threaded woman in Rookwell. How much courage that woman would have had to live and live defiant of social disgrace. Surely that was something someone else could be capable of. 

But… why couldn’t that be Callie? It’s a different kind of courage than survival, an unwillingness to die. She left Rookwell out of fear of what someone might do to her. And yet, attempts have been made on her life in Solva - attempts she has walked away from. 

What would it take for Solva to change? What newfound courage might push it there? 

How much farther would she be willing to go? 

What would it mean for the future - what newfound beauty might the world learn to accept? 

She sighs, stifling whatever optimism the thoughts might generate. “I appreciate it, Rian, I do. But that doesn’t change the fact that the thing standing between us and that new world is the most dangerous Magister anyone’s ever seen. I’m not a duelist, or a strategist, or a mage. Sooner or later she’ll kill me, or decide she’d like to start assaulting the people I care about.”

“I… I recognize it’s not ideal…” He looks down grimly. A darker thought crosses his eyes. “She needn’t be fought alone.” 

Callie swallows. “A coup.” 

“What’s another?” 

“You say that like it’s easy. The Imperium is collapsing in on itself as is, and I’d hardly any idea where the Knighthood stands now.” She closes her eyes and rests her head against the cool, stone wall. “I never intended to smash the flowerpot.” 

“Parden?” 

“Ignore me,” she mutters, shuffling to stand. “News that I’ve been attacked will be spreading. My friends and companions will be worried. I need to find a way to contact them that doesn’t put them at risk.” 

Upon her feet once more, and feeling herself still trembling in a way she suspects will never leave her, Callie gazes across the arched, cylindrical tunnel they’re in. “What is this place, exactly?” 

“The Eclypsium,” answers Rian at her side. “Series of tunnels underneath the College that are deliberately dark and void of Suul’s light.” Seeing Callie’s confusion, he explains, “People come down here to meditate, away from the goddess’ power. The absence of it makes it more noticeable once you emerge from the catacombs.” 

“Is it safe?” 

“For now.” He doesn’t sound particularly confident. “Where do you want to go?” 

Callie considers her options. The continued rumbling of skirmish high above them paints a grim picture of the city - it’s possible Velena has launched an all-out assault by this point. Perhaps that was the goal of Kyrian’s attempt on her life: to instigate the Magister’s coup. Returning to the Villa would be all but a death sentence. Seeking out Mykah or Calvin or anyone directly would thrust them into the line of fire. 

The answer lands almost like a head upon a pillow. “Can you get me to the Fleeting Fox?” 

“At once, Hal Devotia.” 

 

– – – 

 

As Mykah meticulously repairs the threading in Callie’s arms, she finds herself struggling not to cry. It’s worse as she can’t quite pin down why. 

Stress and pain were easy explanations, but this feeling is so much deeper than just those alone. Calvin and Junivere share hushed whispers in the corner of the lodging, nestling up into a crook in the walls of the Fleeting Fox’s most secure room. The occasional frantic glance towards her betrays the subject of their conversation. 

Somewhere outside the room, Civa and Willow hide in plainclothes and try to throw together as many wards over the Inn as their limited magic will allow. They were unfortunately transparent that the goals were more about early warning than anything meaningfully protective. Mirabelle is dressed up as a serving girl, helping Magnus maintain the front that the Fox is having business as usual. Gloriana is somewhere hiding a sword in her cloak while pretending to sip at a bowl of soup. 

And her ears are filled with the muttered, mechanical jargon of Rian and Mykah doing triage on her unfortunate magical desperation. 

“-will need to compensate for potential cauterization from the-,”

“-the salves you placed initially should have prevented most of the damage to-,”

“-were just cast from threadstone and not nearly powerful enough to stop it.”

“Shit.” 

“-she really did a number on herself with the-,”

Their work continues, requiring Callie to lay still as possible on her back while they gently weave and repair. The occasional sizzling jolt stabs at her worrying sense of exhaustion, preventing her from slipping away into something like rest. 

Stress. Pain. And the terrifying sense of inevitability gripping her as she considers the intimate danger to the people she loves most in this world. She’d begged Willow to deliver a message to Cirene, imploring her to take a trip out of town for her own safety. She hopes the Lady listened. 

A soft, hallowing trickle slips down the side of her cheek, greeting the firm mattress and scratchy blankets like an elegy. Callie cannot bear the thought of anything happening to any of these people. She loves them so much she feels like she’s drowning in that care. 

Junivere and Calvin’s whispering turns heated. Callie can’t quite make out their argument but it’s tense in a way that she rarely sees on either of their faces. Calvin makes a point and June glowers at him.

An innocent part of Callie is praying, as though divine intervention would save her yet again. Yala is quiet. Maybe she’d always been quiet. Somehow, despite the miracle which had anointed her in the courtyard below feels like a dream she’d had. Maybe it was. 

Why couldn’t I just be content with following tradition? Why did I need to try and change things so badly?

She abandons the thought. The answer is clear, even in the grips of desperate rumination. Callie was never content with living a shadow of life. She couldn’t do it in Rookwell. She couldn’t do it in Solva. For all her anxiety, for all her trepidation, she’d never been willing to suffer the sting of compromising her heart. 

She grows afraid of that simmering conviction. She grows afraid of what it might mean for her. 

Calvin wins the argument, though he doesn’t look pleased about it. With a solemn, apologetic air, he gently asks Mykah and Rian to step away and sits himself down onto the edge of the bed, armor jostling as he does. The paladin tries to smile warmly, but it comes out as a sickly and half-hearted look. 

Fuck. 

“We need to get you out of the city.” 

Callie closes her eyes and rolls her head back. Just an hour prior, she’d been telling Rian she was going to call it quits. Yet hearing the direction from Calvin, she can’t stomach it. 

“I can’t do that.” 

A gauntleted hand rests softly on her thigh. “We’ll come with you. You won’t be going alone.” 

“I can’t.” 

“Callie…” He sighs. More rustling betrays June’s arrival on the other side of the bed. 

“Calvin and I are both in agreement about this,” she says, but doesn’t seem pleased about it. “I have enough connections in Tulla. We’d be able to take refuge there.” 

Callie finds herself thinking about the familiar cobblestones of Solva’s streets. The scent of peppers and keelt rising from the markets. The wonderful and comforting bustle of its people. 

She shakes her head. 

“I’m not willing to lose you,” says June. “I hate the situation that we’re in, but Velena is officially making her move. It’s not safe for us here.” 

And, as though accenting her point, the sound of an explosion echoes in the distance. Junivere places a sweet hand on Callie’s cheek, thumb stroking across the soft skin affectionately. 

Ignoring Mykah’s request for her to remain still, Callie grimaces and sits up. Her eyes pass between Calvin and Junivere, back and forth and back and forth, shouldering the weight of their concern. There are no words she can conjure which explain her thinking, the burden in her mind. 

So, she can only tell them, “I’m not willing to leave.” 

“It may not be forever-,”

“You don’t know that,” she cuts back. Calvin frowns. 

Junivere attempts, “We need to consider what the consequences of-,”
“Hal Devotia?” Chirps an apprehensive voice at the door. Civa. “Forgive me for interrupting, but, well…”

Callie looks past Calvin and Junivere, something stirring in her stomach. She reads an expression upon the priestesses face that alights her senses. Civa locks eyes with Callie. 

“Salome has returned.” 

And all of the conviction within Callie’s chest, that voice asking her, demanding from her, what would you do to save your city?, emerges as something like victory, something like grief. She’s suddenly aware of what she would be willing to do. How far she would be willing to go. 

Junivere stands, looking back and forth between Callie and Civa. “She’s back?” Her brows furrow at Callie. “Why do you not seem surprised?” 

Callie swallows back the jittering in her chest. “Is she alone?” 

“No, hal Devotia.” Civa tenses. “You’re not going to believe who is with her.” 

“I believe I can,” she replies, rolling her shoulders and trying to emerge from the act more presentable than before. “Bring them up here, will you?” 

“At once.” She bows and disappears, the door clicking shut softly behind her. 

Calvin stirs apprehensively. “Just what exactly did you have Salome doing this whole time? She’s been gone for weeks.” 

Junivere almost smirks and paces away. “Oh, she’s done something she thinks is rather clever. You can see it on her face.” Her head drops and her head is between her palms, where her fingers massage her worrying temples. “What in Suul’s great light could you possibly be up to now?” 

The knock on the door excuses the waiting air. Callie is already shuffling up onto her feet, arms clenched softly with the pangs of pain still bobbing through them. She beats both of them to the door and opens it, announcing to the room, “May I present the return of Salome, and her distinguished guests.” 

Calvin’s face is pale and he stands at attention, alert and shocked. “Gellen?” 

His brother emerges from the hallway with a hesitation to him, wondering whether or not the Knight-Commander would accept his presence or dare him to stand and face consequences. Salome greets Callie warmly and quietly, and Callie whispers gratitudes into her ear. The priestess greets Junivere as well and waits at her side, leaving the final guest to remain stoically in the hallway. 

I desire for my Devotia to be free, speaks Yala. 

Callie steps forward and inclines her head, holding her breath and trying to avoid any possible offense. Seeing none in the woman’s eyes, she smiles and turns around.

 I will protect you as I could not protect her. 

“My predecessor, Devotia Ellava.”