Dee stared at the fort built into the side of the mountain. She had rarely seen a place that took their security so seriously. Thanks to the fact that most of the inhabitants of the place were not present, the number of guards was somewhat limited. Despite all the equipment and facilities present, guarding an essentially empty fort was of limited importance after all. That said, the guards themselves were a lot more professional than most. The majority of the guards Dee had seen before were just going through the motions and trying to stave off boredom. These Unseelie guards were different. They actually observed the surroundings with sharp eyes and were ready to raise an alarm at the first sign of trouble.

If that had been it, Dee wouldn’t have been worried at all. Despite their vigilance, fooling guards was Dee’s specialty. However, the fort benefitted from the fact that it had existed here for a thousand years. The inhabiting Sidhe had taken the time to add to the magical defenses of the place over time. Where guards were somewhat sparse, the walls were frequently dotted by floating magical sentries. Actually saying that the walls were dotted with them was incorrect as the floating balls of mana were also surrounded in an invisibility spell, but to Dee’s eyes they shined like torches with all the gathered mana. Additionally, the air surrounding the fort was closed off by a magical shield, which prevented aerial entry without breaking the shield first.

“There, that one on the left!” Noyala suddenly pointed at a particular male guard.

The two had been observing the fort for a full day now. In addition to checking out the security, Noyala was also trying to spot a familiar face. Although she hadn’t had much time to observe her attackers when she and her friend had been ambushed, she was familiar with the members of this unit. They had worked together several times, although the members of the unit were less aware of that fact. Noyala was trying to see if she could spot a person that took part in the attack among the guards. Questioning someone like that would more likely yield results about the identity of the one who had killed Noyala’s friend.

“The one with the red left pauldron?” Dee checked just in case as she memorized the appearance of the person in question.

“That’s the one. He was also among those that chased after me and ran into the centaurs. Apparently at least some of them made it out alive.” Noyala confirmed. They had guessed the Sidhe soldiers would do well in the fight despite the separate numbers, but it was always nice to get a confirmation.

Dee also tagged the person in the Mindscape, so that she could find them if they went indoors. “Alright. It seems a little wishful to expect him to leave the fort anytime soon. That leaves ambushing them outside the fort out of the picture.”

“Agreed. Those on guard rotation rarely leave the fort.” Noyala confirmed again. As the daughter and operative of the general leading these troops, Noyala was quite familiar with their routines.

“So that means I will have to infiltrate that place.” Dee said with a small frown, as a plan started to slowly form inside her head.

“Wait. You? Not us?” Noyala noticed the choice of words.

“It seems like a good idea to bring him out instead of trying to hide our interrogation inside the fort. Let me do my job. This is why I’m here. Infiltration is what I do. We are not going there to fight, so having two people would only make it more likely for us to get caught. Instead, you should prepare a place where we can question him safely.” Dee explained her thoughts.

Noyala grumbled for a short moment about how she could infiltrate just fine but finally acquiesced. It’s not like Dee was wrong, and the only thing that would change would be the person going inside. Noyala had prepared a small magical ring for communication beforehand, and they had set up some signals in case someone managed to listen in on them. Then she set off to fulfill her part of the plan.

Dee took another look at the fort. There were several ways to do this. She could try opening a portal inside the shield, but despite her training, her precision with the portals wasn’t that good just yet. She could probably hit the fort, but she couldn’t place the portal exit in a place where it would not be spotted. Additionally, she still had the minimum range problem, so she would have to distance herself from the fort and try to open the portal blind. The second option was to find a way through the shield that protected the air above the place. A third way to get in was to change shape into her smallest kitsune form and go over the walls.

Automatic detection systems like those eyes were great against passive effects like her aura that affected the minds of the guards, but such mindless spells also had downsides. No one could stare out of such a large number of eyes without going crazy, so instead the observation spells would alert whoever was controlling them if something odd happened. The trick was in what the observers were magically programmed to react to. If every small animal tripped the alarm, then the controller would be driven crazy. So a small animal was almost certainly safe.

Dee just so happened to have the ability to shrink her kitsune form roughly to the size of a cat. A cat with eight tails, wings and dragon horns and scaled front-legs, but it was the size that mattered in this case. However, in her kitsune form she would be somewhat vulnerable for being spotted by the guards, as the form was so decidedly odd looking that it sort of negatively affected her stealth ability. No one would think something like her was indigenous to the area. It would be very unlucky if she was spotted, but the chance was still there. Thus she decided to combine options two and three for entry.

She went a bit further away from the fort and flew high into the air, approaching the shield from the most vulnerable spot, directly above. That’s where the shield came together, and that’s where she would be able to make her entry. Zabaniya had taught her several ways to deal with such shields. The effectiveness of a shield like this was dependent on how it was made. You couldn’t stop everything; otherwise, even air would not pass through. Not to mention that such a shield would be prohibitively hard to set up and maintain. In addition, this shield was also made for battle purposes, so it was mainly made to withstand bombardment and not specifically to prevent infiltration. That was a side benefit.

One of the things that had made Dee such an effective assassin was her ability to get past shields such as this. Mostly this was thanks to her ability to read the spell making up the shield. She discovered that this shield would only alert people if it was actually broken, and the part preventing infiltration was keyed to the intentions of someone trying to pass. A rather ingenious idea, as that was not something most would consider countering. However, it was not as effective against someone like her.

She hadn’t had much time to practice alchemy lately, but she had replicated some of the substances used by Zabaniya for various purposes. She now pulled one such vial from Croestia’s storage and applied it liberally to the shield. Then she assumed the smallest kitsune form she could take and lay down on the area she had just covered. Then she emptied her mind and waited. After a short time, the shield started to fluctuate at the spot where the substance was applied on. It was as if someone had dropped a stone into a pond, sending out waves across that part of the shield.

One of those waves slipped over Dee’s tiny form as if she wasn’t there, and she suddenly found herself falling inside the shield. With a feral grin, she spread her wings and glided towards the spot where she sensed her target. “Oh how kind of him.” She mumbled quietly as she noted the man taking a position on top of a tower. There was only a single observation spell nearby, and it was looking outwards from the wall. Dee landed silently on the crenellations behind the man and assumed her normal form.

She sneaked behind the man who couldn’t hear or sense a thing and suddenly pounced. Two of her arms pinned the man’s arms, while two others took a silent chokehold. She silently fell backward with the assistance of her telekinesis, while wrapping the man’s legs with her own to prevent kicking, ending up with Dee on her back, choking out the man who was on top of her, struggling for breath. To make matters worse, Dee also assaulted the man’s mind at the same time, so his struggle was disjointed at best.

As she felt the man giving up on his struggle, she froze his mind just in case and applied a small healing spell to make sure he wouldn’t actually die by accident. ‘That was somewhat anticlimactic.’ Croestia said silently.

‘Indeed. But a good plan and a bit of stealth go a long way. A well-done infiltration should be anticlimactic.’ Dee replied in the same manner.

‘So how are you getting him out?’ Croestia asked, realizing that carrying an unconscious guard wasn’t exactly the stealthiest thing in the world.

‘I might not have the accuracy to make a portal into the fort, but I don’t need accuracy to get out.’ Dee replied with a smile as a small opening to the Astral plane suddenly appeared in the air. She hoisted the unconscious guard on her shoulder and walked through. She also didn’t forget to send a signal to Noyala while she was at it.

------

The guard Dee had captured was seated on a chair in a nondescript room of stone surrounded by wards. He was also bound by magical bonds to the chair itself, making it impossible to try and struggle free. Dee was standing behind the man, staying out of sight on purpose. When someone was looming behind you, leaving things to your imagination was often more effective than actually showing the true nature of the danger. Noyala was standing in front the man, looking menacing.

“You can wake him up.” Noyala said, ready for action.

Dee removed her hold keeping the man’s mind frozen and gave it a little jolt to bring him back to awareness. They had neither the patience nor the willingness to wait for him to wake up naturally. His eyes shot open, and he took a quick look around, blinking rapidly. His eyes fell on Noyala and a weird smile suddenly grew on his face. “Well look who is back. If it isn’t…” The man’s words were cut by Noyala’s hand backhanding his face, dislodging a tooth, which he spat out with a glob of spit and blood.

“You will speak when you are asked a question and only then. You will promptly answer my questions." Noyala’s glanced at Dee for a moment. "Would you be so kind as to show what happens when he disobeys these rules.”

Dee noted that Noyala had probably interrupted the man’s words at that place on purpose, not allowing him to reveal anything about Noyala by accident. Dee didn’t really mind, but she did find it a little interesting. It’s not like Dee would be able to find out anything if she found out Noyala’s real name, as she didn’t know any Sidhe. If she really wanted to, she could try to trace Noyala’s parents and inquire from that direction, so this secrecy was a little pointless anyway.

The man had not noticed the presence of a third person in the room. He had only noted the lack of any torture implements. Of course he knew that Noyala was quite capable of doing nasty things with her magic alone, but still. Now that he had been alerted to Dee’s presence in the room, he could feel something large behind him. Something large that radiated danger and death. Ever so gently Dee placed a single clawed finger at the back of the man’s head.

Moirai had not taught her how to use her mind type psionics for torture. However, when you had free access to someone’s mind as Dee now did, you couldn’t help but get some ideas. Reading minds was not her specialty, nor was dominating them or causing illusions. Her true specialty was harming them. There was also the fact that her growing control and power afforded greater freedom to mess with someone’s mind. In normal torture, nerves got damaged and you could only cause so much pain with your particular methods. It was also hard to keep the subject from growing at least somewhat numb or going insane. Psions had another option. They could insert the feeling of pain straight into the targets head and it would be as painful for as long as the psion wanted. They also had the unique ability to stop the target's mind from collapsing.

The animalistic scream of pain that the man unleashed surprised even Noyala. Luckily for the man and the ears of everyone involved, Dee kept the burst of pain extremely brief, just showing an example of what to expect. Nevertheless, the man was shaking and mumbling almost incoherently as the pain passed.

‘Went a little hard there, don’t you think?’ Noyala sent a silent message through the ring. At this distance there was no danger of anyone intercepting the message.

‘I just gave him a taste. Besides, this is new to me, so I’m winging it as I go along. We can get another one if this one breaks.’ Dee replied a little callously, once again showing how little she thought of the lives of people she didn’t care about.

She got no argument from Noyala however, as the Sidhe woman felt betrayed by the members of this unit. “Now. I think that shows just where we are headed if you don’t answer my questions. Who killed my friend when we were ambushed?”

The man cursed, and there were tears running from his eyes. Even that brief moment of pain was enough to cause desperation as he knew this would not end well. Yet he held his ground. His loyalty was almost admirable, if annoying in this case. “You know damn well we don’t rat out our own. No matter what you do to me, I will not speak.”

Noyala glanced at Dee, asking if the psion already got the answer they were looking for. Dee shook her head silently. ‘His mind was still too clouded and he was thinking of other things. You need to focus his thoughts on what we want.’

Noyala once again spoke to their prisoner. “I would advise against such loyalty. My friend there can cause a lot more pain than the bit you felt earlier. She can also heal you if you try to kill yourself. We both know the principles of the unit and your training against questioning, but we both also know every man has a limit. We will do this as long as it takes if necessary. I know how to stop anyone from magically coming to find and rescue you. I know how they would do it since I did it myself a couple of times. No one is coming for you. Now focus. The ambush you launched on us. Who killed my friend?”

“Go die in a ditch bitch!” The guard growled, eliciting another burst of pain and screaming.

Noyala had to ask the question four times before Dee nodded in confirmation. “I got it. He was doing a pretty good job of not thinking about it. I think he figured out I was a psion and what I was doing. I already got the answer the last time you asked, but I wanted to be sure he wasn’t feeding me something false, so I dove a bit deeper to confirm.” Dee said, not bothering to be secretive anymore. “Next time I can get to it faster now that I know how it’s done.”

“So we got what we needed?” Noyala confirmed, getting another nod from Dee. Then in a single motion, she pulled out her single edged slightly curved blade and decapitated the man.

When Noyala noted Dee’s slightly amused look, she couldn’t’ help but be a bit defensive. “I got a little annoyed at him calling me names.”

Dee found it even more amusing that Noyala felt the need to justify her actions. “His memories were not a complete confirmation, but close enough. Is an Unseelie named Commander Dorceran familiar to you?”

Noyala frowned, not pleased where this was going. “Yes. He’s the person who leads the unit in my mother’s absence.”

“Well, apparently this guy had to chase after you, so he didn’t see everything. He saw the commander start to question your friend seeing as you were already gone. They didn’t expect to be able to catch you, and the commander decided to instead try and find out where you would be headed. This guy here asked later on what happened. Apparently your friend honestly didn’t know where you were headed aside from the direction you went towards, seeing as it was up to me where you were going to end up. The others told this guy that the commander didn’t take that well and killed your friend in a fit of anger. It was quick.” Dee said the last part in a consoling tone.

Noyala’s faced twitched as she tried to stop it from twisting in pain. “I didn’t know the commander was also there.” She said absently, almost trying to distract herself.

“Apparently the whole unit came after you. Your spell that prevented most of them from chasing was much more effective than you maybe thought. You also jumped out before the ambush point.” What Dee didn’t mention was that for some reason the whole unit thought of the mission as a suicide run and had been surprised at the result. She could’ve chased that thought further, but decided to honor Noyala’s privacy. She purposefully steered clear of anything related to her companion. She assumed Noyala would tell her when she was ready.

Noyala was taking the news of her friend’s death hard. While the rest of her escort was arranged by her friend and unknown to Noyala, her friend was different. Until now she had kept up a slight glimmer of hope that her friend might have been alive, but having the death confirmed was causing the grief crash on her hard. She made a feeble grasping motion with her hand and took a small step towards Dee, not sure what to do.

Dee noted Noyala’s distress and walked closer, gathering the smaller woman into her arms. Noyala rested her head on Dee’s chest, feeling the safety of the strong arms surrounding her. For the first time in a long while, she felt safe. A feeling she had very rarely been able to enjoy. That more than anything broke the walls stopping her from expressing her grief, and Noyala started to weep, cry and holler openly. As she cried, she punched Dee several times just to express her grief and dissatisfaction at the unfairness of the world, though such feeble hits barely even registered for Dee.

As the crying took its toll on Noyala, Dee slowly eased the two into a sitting position, with Noyala still resting in her arms. Without either of them paying attention, Dee was getting soaked by the blood on the floor that had escaped from the dead man still bound to the chair. After an hour of expressing her grief with incoherent sobbing, Noyala began to speak about her friend.

“Thia was one of the few people that didn’t expect something from me. My mother only had orders for me. Kill this person, frame that noble, smuggle that item. Thia was just there. She allowed me to relax and just be myself. Of course, it helped that she slipped me the occasional tidbit about the future, but I honestly wouldn’t have minded if she hadn’t done that. She had this…aura of peace about her. It made being in her company such a joy. She was my best friend for a hundred years.” Noyala explained slowly.

Dee could certainly empathize with that. She recalled the peaceful air and the music played by Mina, the Jun girl from the Four Winds. That also brought a question to mind. Dee had found that peace and warmth attractive enough to develop some feelings towards Mina, even if she still didn’t exactly understand the depth of those feelings. Was the same true for Noyala? Had they been just friends with this Thia person? She knew enough not to ask, but the question still remained.

Some of that question was picked up by Noyala, and she also felt a weird compulsion to explain herself. “We were just friends. She…wasn’t like that.” Now she was also babbling, half trying to think about anything but her grief. “If she had been, something might have developed early on. Later on, we were like sisters. Actual sister and not the weird relationship I had with the so called sister that I have blood-ties with. Besides, the Sidhe frown on things like that.”

Now Noyala frowned as well. “We are beings of such heavy magic that it’s hard for us to procreate. A Sidhe woman doesn’t become pregnant by accident. They spend decades and centuries gathering natural mana inside themselves before trying to become pregnant. Even with that, it’s up to luck. The longer you prepare, the better the odds. On the other hand that also means a bigger loss if it fails, as it so often does. It is seen as the duty of every Sidhe woman to continue the family for that very reason.” Dee noted the use of the word ‘they’ instead of ‘we’.

Noyala continued. “That partially changed when we came to this forest. Even in the proximity as we are, the abundant natural mana makes gathering such mana easier. What normally took hundreds of years now only takes decades. That’s part of what has made us soft. The abundant resources are part of it, but the higher birth rates have changed us as a race. We used to work together and sacrifice for each other. Nowadays there are enough of us that we kill each other almost freely. Some of us are thrown away once we have served one purpose or another. We are no longer united by clans and families, and we are degenerating; becoming just like the other races. This forest is ruining us. That’s why we need to leave. That and…” She went quiet at that, realizing she probably shouldn’t speak further for now.

Dee squeezed Noyala a little harder and put her forehead on Noyala’s forehead, a feat made much harder by her snout. “No need for such thoughts for now. You need rest. You need time to grieve. We can topple the empire tomorrow. Tonight you just need to be.”

In the end, Noyala fell asleep, tired emotionally, as Dee held her in her arms in the puddle of blood.