1

Through the early morning mist came a pale gelding, dragging its hooves along the cobbled road through Bendehol. Shadowy robes veiled the rider, with a deep hood pulled overhead, so that the watchmen at the fort gates weren’t able to discern any identifying features whatsoever of him. The rider wouldn’t answer their hails either but rode unhurriedly on, and growing restlessness overtook the sentries. Even without biblical allusions, the visitor made for a ghastly sight, and for a time the defenders were unsure how to react. No, surely it was better to shoot first and ask questions later. At the last moment, as the archers were already picking up their arrows, a messenger from within the stronghold rushed over with orders from above, telling them to let the suspicious traveler through unchecked, much to the guards’ open dismay.

With great reluctance and confusion, the gates were opened.

Sparing not so much as a word of thanks, making no effort to state his business, the rider proceeded on, ultimately coming to the fort courtyard, where the mount halted without a separate signal. An officer stepped forward to confirm the visitor’s identity and intentions, but after coming closer he found that neither his legs nor tongue would agree to his intentions.

Suspicious behavior wasn’t the only off-putting part about the traveler.

The soldiers standing nearby at the time could see that whereas the right hand peeking out from under the robe sleeve was veiled in only a black glove of fine leather, the left one was covered in full with an elaborate armoring, which gleamed spotless golden in the pale light of daybreak.

Quietly dismounting, the rider abandoned his horse and departed for the stairs to the docks, ignoring the audience, asking no one for instructions. Troops observed the passing of that shadow with great confusion and instinctive dread, certain only that nothing good could come from allowing such a figure in their midst. Each move of that person emitted something inexplicably off, and the shadow of death hung low about him. It was certainly no common soldier or a spy who walked there, if not a daemon in disguise.

The traveler passed the stairs down to the foot of the bastion, where the Thule was busily being readied for voyage. From out of the crowd of knights, loaders, and sailors, the guest sought out the Grand Marshal’s eye-catching figure and directed his steps straight at her. Guards shifted to block his path at once, reaching for their swords, but the Marshal stopped them with a shake of her head. Apparently, there was no danger, even though common sense appeared to insist otherwise.

The shady rider walked on towards Miragrave, coming awkwardly close, barely an arm’s length away, and only there—to the audience’s collective relief—he halted, and removed the hood.

Surprisingly, no eerie, inhuman abomination or a scarred mercenary bald emerged.

The rider was not a man at all, but a woman, young and fair, with hair like her complexion, pale as thoroughly consumed ashes. Her bangs were cut short about the brows, while in the back her locks were braided in a tail of prodigious length, several times wrapped over the shoulders, yet the tip of it could still be seen hovering about the level of her ankles under the cloak. The woman’s face, while otherwise appealing, seemed devoid of expression and perpetually weary. No makeup had she bothered to apply, even to simulate some fleshly vitality, and all rosiness was absent from her pale lips as well. But neither the deathly lack of hue, nor being of the fairer sex were the reasons why she guarded her face from the common populace.

The primary cause was doubtless her gaze.

Her heavy-lidded stare, superficially indistinguishable from the ordinary, betrayed upon closer scrutiny the alien disposition of its owner; instead of living cells, her brassy irises were composed of fine, metallic wheels, and could be seen subtly whirring and turning at the shifting of focus. No one seeing such inhuman eyes for the first time could avoid recoiling in horror and dismay upon one glance of them. It couldn’t be a standard mortal they were looking at, but some manner of an elvish abomination, surely.

Nevertheless, the traveler parted her lips and announced in clear Common Speech,

“Hero number twelve, Aurlemeyr. Answering summons.”

The woman’s voice was no less colorless and torpid as her overall demeanor, but it was still very much a human voice, and no mechanical imitation. Hearing it allowed most of the people around to slightly relax. Among everyone present, only Miragrave never displayed particular shock, having already met the eccentric guest a handful of times in the past, and being the one to have called her over in the first place.

“Took your sweet time!” she grumpily told the agent instead. “Did you stop to watch flowers, or what?”

“There were minor complications en route,” Aurlemeyr reported.

“Complications?” the Marshal frowned at this. “Enough to slow you down by a full day? I was not told there was a war going on.”

“That’s not it,” the hero responded, shaking her head. “Although, they do say that love is war.”

“Love?”

“Yes. The fact of the matter is, I sought the services of a certain madam who caught my eye on the way and, following brief negotiations, she happily obliged. However, she did not mention to me she was the wife of a local Jarl, which I learned by coincidence in the following morning. The Jarl, on the other hand, didn’t take well to the discovery that his wife had sold herself to a passing stranger for only twenty silver. He put his men after me and set up a bounty for my head. It took me a day to shake off the pursuit. They had dogs too. On that note, I would appreciate it if you could have the Bureau remove the bounty. It is a meager sum, only eight hundred strata, but it might complicate future operations in Arcadia.”

“Pretend I never asked!” Miragrave replied, rubbing her aching head. Quickly throwing the bothersome news off her mind, she returned to the main problem at hand. “Hurry and get yourself on that ship. We have no more time left to waste! I’ve not worn a dress since the day I turned fourteen, but thanks to your little misadventure, there is a very real danger I may have to put one on! Pink and frills! It must never happen!”

Aurlemeyr contorted her brows slightly upward in a mild frown.

“...What?”

2

In her impatience, the Marshal had ordered the Thule and her crew ready to sail at a moment’s notice. Now, bells were rung in the fort to signal that the moment had come. Miragrave and her retinue boarded the caravel with all due haste, and all hands were called on deck to start the necessary procedures to weigh the anchor. With rehearsed effectiveness, the pursuit for the Empress’s ship was ready to begin in record time.

While the anchors were being hoisted and hawsers reeled in, Miragrave paced back and forth on the quarterdeck, busily performing various calculations on her mind.

Thanks to the excellent weather and moderate wind conditions, the Thefasos had likely been able to maintain direct heading, and sail close to her maximum speed without interruptions. Yes, Yuliana wouldn’t have the ship stopped to fish or swim, or any other such frivolous reason. They had to have therefore gained the lead of around a hundred and forty nautical miles by now, giver or take. It was going to be a tight race. But Miragrave had never had any intention to play fair. Only a second-rate commander would enter battle on equal grounds with the opponent. She’d made sure the Thefasos was under heavier load and thereby slower. Moreover, they had departed with only royals, gallants, and tops on, the mizzen sails not set. Yuliana wouldn’t know to pay special attention to the rigging. Unless she convinced Captain Tal-Asif they had a pressing need of haste, and the wind kept constant, they likely wouldn’t put on more canvas. The crew would want to prioritize a stable, pleasant cruise for her majesty. But Miragrave started out with all masts clothed. She'd also had jibs set. If the wind didn’t grow much stronger, they could lower the mains too. Moreover, Colonel Ibramov’s elemental affinity was Water; he lost a good deal of potency with wind spells. Which was precisely why the Marshal had ordered Major Uleison, who had affinity with Air, aboard the Thule. Every advantage was hers.

“Captain!” Miragrave turned to the Thule’s commander, Captain Gottfrey, who stood by the helmsman, yet felt anything but in control at the moment. “What are you waiting for!? We’re far enough from the berth, where are our sails!? Get to it!”

“A-aye, Ma’am!” the Captain replied and hurried to direct his officers.

“Major!” Miragrave turned next to bark at the mage. “As soon as the sails are set, I want wind enhancement in place, two points starboard! Sustained propulsion! And with a will!”

“Yes, ma’am!” the magician replied and hurried to raise his staff.

Soon enough, the ship’s speed began to pick up. Watching the crew’s spirited work, Miragrave could bring herself at last to smile with open relief.

“Ha, with this, we have at least fourteen knots,” she mused. “Tomorrow, before dusk, I will have caught you. Oh, Yuliana! You’re still too green.”

—“Tell me again, why am I here?”

A stranger to sailing, the champion called Aurlemeyr sat in the shadow of the poop deck, hugging her knees, looking quite as lonely and far out of her element as a stray cat.

“I’m surprised,” Miragrave replied, turning to her. “I didn’t think you cared for reasons.”

“I’m not a robot,” Aurlemeyr muttered with an air of apathy.

“The answer goes without saying,” the Marshal told her, glancing at the metallic hand, which the lady made no effort to conceal. “You are here because you are the bearer of the Gilded Bow. For the very reason the Old Gods made that thing. To safeguard the future of humankind.”

“So it’s coming then?” the pale woman remarked. “The end of the world?”

Miragrave narrowed her gaze at those ominous words. “Never say such things out loud again!”

“Am I wrong?” Aurlemeyr replied with a shrug. “The Grand Temple is fallen. The Emperor is dead. Wolves walk among men, and daemons roam the land. Men of age turn young again, women become heroes, and the mighty Empire negotiates for peace. Are you saying this is normal now?”

“What do you know of ‘normal’, anyway?” Miragrave retorted. “You ghost of the past! All you need is do as you’re told and not speculate on pointless things.”

“You’re right,” the champion agreed. “That suits me much better. I could never bring myself to understand busybodies like you. Why go out of your way to seek more problems and responsibility? Life gives everyone enough, as it is.”

“Not all live only for themselves,” Miragrave spitefully answered, turning back to gaze past the bowsprit. “There are some among us driven by powers above the needs of flesh. Those who recognize that man may either suffer idly, or for a reason; and that the reason is worth it, if it means things will one day be better.”

“Whether it gets better some day or doesn’t, what is the point, if you won’t live to enjoy it yourself?”

“Is that something a ‘hero’ is supposed to say?” the Marshal asked, irony heavy in her tone.

“It was your people who named me your hero,” Aurlemeyr replied. “I never cared for such corny titles.”

“Though every breath you take is meant to be for the good mankind, and for no other reason?”

“Is protecting our species somehow inherently virtuous then? I suppose a human would say so. But to save people from whatever threatens them only means that this ‘whatever’ must die in their place, heedless of its own interests and reasons. I do nothing but deliver such death, and never ask why. Then, from the perspective of all other life on this planet, the Bow is undoubtedly a force of evil unlike any other.”

Miragrave glanced at the champion over her shoulder. “Do you earnestly believe that?”

“No,” Aurlemeyr answered, closing her eyes. “My point is, thinking about anything in terms of ‘good’ and ‘evil’, or dividing people between heroes and villains, is something only a small child would do.”

“So what?” the Marshal said, facing forward again. “What are we people but grown-up children? And if children need heroes to live right, then that’s what we’ll give them! That glittering ideal towards which to strive, regardless of how naive or silly it looks to a jaded phantom like yourself. And to nurture our young star of hope, I will be a busybody like no other!”

“…”

Listening to her, the bearer of the Bow made no more comments, but retreated to her innate reflections—if she indeed entertained any. It was impossible to tell by the looks alone.

Finished with setting up and stabilizing the wind enchantment, Major Uleison let his curiosity get the better of him and stepped over to the Marshal’s side, while discreetly glancing at the black-clad woman seated in the shade.

“So that is the bearer of the Gilded Bow?” he asked, lowering his voice. “I’d heard stories about the Dharvic War, but they were, at places, rather difficult to accept as real.”

“Trust me, Major,” Miragrave replied, “had you been there in person, you’d still think the same.”

“I shall take your word for it,” the Major continued. “Legends say the Old Gods crafted the Bow to help early mankind endure the War of the Sky. I am surprised they didn’t take the gift back afterwards, if it is as formidable as the gossip portrays it.”

“Suppose they were in such a rush to leave, they forgot,” Miragrave offered her less than serious theory. Had there ever been such “gods” to begin with?

“I should not think it likely that a God would forget,” Uleison missed the irony and responded with a cringe, awkwardly scratching his short beard. Despite his age, he seemed to take mythology quite seriously.

There were magicians who grew bold and brazen with power. But there were also those who recognized their own paltry measure in the grand cosmic scale, and in whom the power only inspired healthy fear and respect for what was beyond them.

While the army had uses for both types, the latter group made for undeniably better wizards.

“Since the Bearer is here, does that mean the rumored dragon is real as well?” the man carried on, turning his gaze forward over the waves. “Though none have been seen in Noertia for so long?”

“So it appears,” Miragrave made a reserved response. She had trouble believing the idea herself, against all the reports. The chance of it being some sort of an uncanny mistake, or enemy deception, couldn’t yet be fully denied. There were a great many odd beasts in the world, easily misidentified. Even bludryns were labeled “dragons” in many books by so-called scholars, though they were an entirely unrelated species. If the reality of the threat was something that could be dealt with without resorting to the Bow, then all the better.

“Dragons and daemons,” Uleison remarked, “even without a war going on, we have no shortage of enemies. If anything, they appeared to be growing in size. It might be well to know more of what we’re up against. Have our elven friends told us anything that might be of use against the alleged wyrm?”

“No,” Miragrave answered. “Caalan is in Oferion, and she’s our only contact overseas at the moment. The other cirelo operatives have since spring withdrawn from Noertia.”

“They have?” the man asked, surprised. “That’s strange. Any word as to why?”

Naturally, cirelo wouldn’t explain themselves to mere humans. Not that they needed to, in this case. The cause was rather obvious to the educated.

“Because of the calendar,” Miragrave wryly answered.

“Not sure I understand…” the mage frowned.

The upcoming end of the Age and whatever old scriptures said would follow were not common knowledge, even in the military, nor did those in the know hold classes on the subject. The word was bound to spread, and learning that the mightiest federation on the continent made decisions these days based on the assumption that an apocalyptic disaster was imminent, because spirits and prophets had said so—it would not inspire a lot of confidence in the masses. No, the outcome would surely be a great deal worse if they believed it was true. Chaos and rioting were not going to help. But the fact of the matter was that most other intelligent races in the world did take the change of cycles seriously on their own right, and took measures to prepare.

But now was not the time to worry about that.

“Keep your focus on the mission,” Miragrave advised Uleison. “Looking for a fight with monsters is not the goal of this trip. The Bow and its bearer are only here as an insurance. We will see her majesty safely to Efastopol and back again, all else be damned. Tackling pirates and legendary creatures will be a problem for another day.”

“That is well then,” the mage nodded.

“More importantly, Major,” Miragrave said, glancing up.

“Yes?” he leaned his ear closer.

“The wind is fading,” she pointed out.

“Oh!”

Different spiritual conditions applied at sea and Uleison’s enchantment was coming apart sooner than he had estimated. He hurried to refresh the spell. Shortly, the crimson sails bulged again, and the keel of the caravel sliced the deep blue surface below with the cleanness of a fine and swift razor. The shores of Bendehol were but a faint line behind the stern now, trembling in the vibrating air, which the rising sun warmed. The weather was fit to be called fair, with nary a cloud in the sky.

There was no way the Thefasos could fly as fast. They would catch up, soon enough, so Miragrave assured herself. Yet, a vague discomfort continued to haunt her, like tiny barbs digging into her heart, keeping her on the edge throughout the day, to the agony of her co-travelers. Something told the Marshal she had made a grave error, though she couldn’t explain what it could be, or how it might have happened.

It was not until a couple of hours before sunset that day, when the answer was given by the waves, and not one smile would grace the reunion of the two ships.

3

Here and there in the dark water floated pieces of wreckage, highlighted by the dusklight’s fiery glow. Broken, tarred boards. Fragments of the hull. Displaced furniture. Clothes without wearers. Sails, removed from their bindings. Spars. Lines. Crates. Various materials light enough to not sink in the brief time since their abandonment. The flotsam had spread to cover an area of several square miles by now, scattered by waves and the wind.

A shipwreck was never an uplifting view, but those very familiar fragments shook the hearts of everyone aboard the Thule with a daunting effect. The dark-painted hull pieces and red sails left little room for alternative theories. Well before the numbers said it should happen, they had caught up with the Thefasos, in a manner none wanted to witness and few even dared believe possible.

The knights and sailors gathered on the deck, peering over the bulwark at a loss of words, trying hard to digest the gravity of the marine devastation which had befallen their friends and companions on the day of their separation.

One among them, Miragrave clutched the railing with trembling hands, her face pale.

“Yuliana…!” she whispered, desperately seeking with her eyes any sign of survivors in the water. There were corpses, too many corpses, tangled in lines, or clutching life rings or luggage, which had failed to spare them from death.

Was there no one left alive?

—“Over there!” A sailor then yelled.

All eyes turned quickly ahead to where the lookout was pointing.

Some hundred yards off the starboard bow floated a larger, torn-off part of the ship, flat and a bit smaller than a boat and, quite miraculously, two living people sat stranded on that floater. At least two souls had survived the disaster, providing mild but much needed consolation for the latecomers.

As the Thule drew closer, the two survivors could be easily identified as maids in their nightgowns.

“Ah, thank Lords rescue arrived this soon,” Tilfa sighed in relief. “For a moment there, I worried I might have to drink piss to survive!”

“Damn it, rescue arrived this soon?” Hila remarked, less grateful. “For a moment there, I thought this was the ideal chance to make you drink my piss!”

Sails were reefed, boats lowered, and the crew spent the grim hours before sunset scouring the waters, locating the total of thirty-four fortunate survivors. Only thirty-four out of over two hundred. Still a surprisingly high number, considering the sudden nature of the disaster, and the fact that the fully occupied passenger deck had flooded in an instant. But as soon as the instigator of the disaster had passed, the anomalous storm had subsided as well, allowing the more skilled and collected swimmers to find their way to the surface. They had been left afloat only for a bit over a day, the water was warm and sharks absent. They were all tired, hungry, and thirsty, of course, but their ailments were quickly remedied.

Captain Tal-Asif was not among the survivors, but First Mate Treabor was, and he could provide perhaps the most accurate account of the past night’s events, as shaken and exhausted as he was, and struggling to believe even his own words.

After Treabor had been given something warm to eat and drink, he was allowed no rest, but was taken straight away to the commander’s cabin, to be interviewed by the impatient officers. There he shared his memory in as great a detail as he could muster, swearing every word of it true.

And what a fable it was.

Too restless to remain seated while listening, Miragrave paced a small circle in the middle of the cabin floor, tightly gripping her fist behind her back. She heard the whole tale from beginning to end without questions or interruptions, without making a sound. It was only after Treabor was finished with his testimony, that she at last halted and spoke, while the others remained yet too astounded to speak.

“...A dragon? Swooped down in a storm, seized her majesty, destroyed the ship, and then flew away?” she summarized the gist of the narrative with relative calm, before erupting in open rage immediately after. “Have you lost your wit!? Why don’t you say mermaids rescued you and threw you a banquet while waiting? Truly, Treabor, if your ship weren’t in a million pieces right now to prove your story, I would hack you into just as many with my sword! ‘Nothing could be done?’ Did you actually even try!? For what reason did I put fifty of my best on that ship!? For what reason did I load it with a hundred magic arrows of certain death!? For what reason and on what merit was Ibramov ever promoted a Colonel? I wish I could fish that wretched town conjurer from the ocean floor, and have him hanged for fraud! Oh, I should have posted my old maid Madeleine aboard instead! She could tell in her bones when it would rain, and such a level of foresight already exceeds the helpless escort of our one and only Sovereign! By far! I’m surprised you still have the gall to show your face among the living, even after being involved in such a scandalous disaster of criminal incompetence! Were I in your shoes, Treabor, I would rather have dived to the lowest depths of the Numénn, and prayed no one would ever find my bones again! That is what you could have done! You should’ve followed your captain!”

First Mate Treabor could only hang his head in shame.

“Please be reasonable, Marshal,” Major Uleison attempted to calm Miragrave, his sympathies on the survivors’ side. “Even had we been there, the result would have been no different, and we’d be two ships down instead of one. Dragons are themselves beings magical in nature. They are said to repel human sorceries as the dove’s feathers do rain. I am certain Ibramov did the best he could under the circumstances. As did the rest of the crew. They were simply outclassed. May the Divines rest their souls.”

Miragrave reined in her agitation with great effort.

“The dead took the easy way out,” she spoke again in a while. “Our souls meanwhile have no more the luxury of rest. Every moment of our being henceforth is for finding a way to fix this calamity.”

“The survivors reported having seen a pirate ship before the attack,” a knight officer said. “It had been following the Thefasos through the night. That ship must be what summoned the beast. As per the earlier reports, there’s always one of theirs accompanying it, whenever it appears. There may be no doubt now that the creature is in cohorts with the lowlifes. We know their last reported heading. With the Major’s familiar, we might still be able to locate them. Should we give chase?”

Miragrave passed over to her work desk and examined the map of the Edrian Bay that lay spread across it.

“…We’ll never catch up with a heavier ship,” she concluded, shaking her head. “Now that they’ve got what they wanted, those wretches will no doubt scurry back to their nest by the speediest route available. And would even the Divines find them there?”

“So you’ll give up on her majesty?” Aurlemeyr bluntly inquired while yawning, unbound by military regulations as a champion, and utterly devoid of tact as a person.

“I didn’t say that,” Miragrave sullenly replied. “This was not simple bad luck. They came for her majesty in specific. One way or the other, detailed information on our plans has been leaked to the rogues. The only reason why they would take her alive then is to demand ransom. Which means, she should be safe, for the time being. That gives us some time to maneuver.”

“Should we then turn back to Bendehol and summon reinforcements?” the officer asked.

“That’d cost us weeks,” the Marshal answered. “And we don’t have enough ships of our own to conduct a thorough search, not over an area this vast...”

“Yet, I fear it is all we may do,” Major Uleison commented. “We will find no allies out here at open sea. I don’t suppose the fish will fight for us.”

“Allies…?”

Stirring at that word, Miragrave had a thought. Rather, she recalled the original cause for which they had set sail, and another possibility occurred to her. A possibility she likely would have dismissed as unfeasible under any other circumstances, but right now, rational concerns had left her. Desperate times called for desperate measures, and where there is a will, there is a way, surely.

Quickly making up her mind, she turned back to the crew, a grim flame of wrath lit in her emerald eyes.

“Yes, we’ll have the fish fight for us,” she growled. “We’ll have the eels!”

The others stood confused by her strange words, pondering if she was serious. But Miragrave had rarely, if ever, been as serious in her overly serious life, and without wasting another moment, she appended her line with a sharp command to the ship officers.

“Set course for Efastopol.”