“They say news travel fast. I say the best news travel even faster ! Letters telling of good love and hopes for the future, now that's my kind of news. Oh, lady, excuse me ? Yes, you... You seem like you're in a hurry to inform your close ones of something ? Here, let me introduce you to my new prototype of magically enhanced messenger bird... The love-powered hybrid pigeon ! The better the news you want to spread, the faster they'll go ! But don't tell anyone they're only powered by mana in truth, eh ? Haha !

-salesman”

* * *

The girl in the faraway island

She was lying on the sand, in the middle of the beach. Only the waves of the sea pierced through the silence, like a soft lullaby sung by a mysterious deity of the sea. She rolled to her side and observed the pile of sand that was meant to be a portrait.

“Making statues is quite hard, huh...” she complained before exhaling deeply. She got to her feet and dusted off the sand in her black hair and on her coloured robes. As she was walking away, she stopped and turned her head. Glanced one last time at the thing that may or may not have resembled her from this angle, and blasted it away with a magic missile.

Sculpting sand with her own hands wasn't her forte, anyway. No need to be sullen because of a mere statue, she had others qualities. She was much more proficient with magic, and she trained like crazy, to the point where her mana-sculpted portraits were now as good as the ones Azcheron used to do. She could only hope to prove her superiority at sculpting by tackling the non-magical version of it, but it turned out to be quite the challenge. As she neared the village, she decided to take a detour via the training grounds, to see how the young ones were doing.

Here, children were practising various forms of magic missiles, attempting to modify the speed and the size of the spell, adding fluctuations, changing the shape, even splitting the projectile in several smaller parts. She was standing here silently, observing the children, when one of them spotted her and came rushing toward her.

“Mirna !” he said merrily.

The others were quick to notice her. “Mirna ! It's Mirna !”

“Look, I can write my name with magic now !” one of them said, as he proceeded to demonstrate his claim. His name was indeed appearing out of thin air, as glowing letters of white light floated before him.

“Oh, that's nice,” she praised, smiling. “Me too, behold.” With a thought, her name flashed intensely with stylish characters made from mana. Her display of style got the children to whisper in awe among themselves. Hehehe, she snickered in her mind. Impressing kids is so easy.

“Hey, Mirna,” someone called out from behind. She turned to face the owner of the voice, the teacher. “Vara was looking for you. Said there's news from the continent.”

She did her best to hide her surprise and excitement – she was supposed to be the responsible person in charge of the village. But truly, she was not expecting to hear from him so soon. Well, there's no guarantee it's him, but I've the feeling I'm right.

It had been almost two years since Azcheron had left the island with Anton Vardt. Some would have said it was a long time, that he should have contacted them much earlier, but Mirna and the other clansmen knew better than to trust Azcheron with such matters. She would have deemed herself lucky to receive a letter form his hand during the first decade following his departure.

Actually, he did say something like that before leaving, didn't he ? “I'll not send you letters, for you will be hearing about me and my deeds before you know it.” Sounds like something he'd say, at least.

She strolled through the village and went into the temple. Inside, her mother was sitting at the grand table, with Aldaron, a few elders, and the recently appointed pigeon-master. This last person appearing here was something of an unusual occurrence – not many pigeons could make it through the two months journey that separated the continent from the Rahal island.

Yet here he was, and here it was. In front of the pigeon-master, on the table, a bird. Something's amiss with this one, though, she realized, frowning.

“Ah, you've come,” her mother said.

“We were waiting for you,” Aldaron continued. “Please sit.”

“Yes,” she replied in a suspicious tone, reaching for her chair while her eyes were fixed on the pigeon. It was convulsing and making creaking noises. Its eyes were frenziedly darting in every direction, and from time to time, sparks of magic emanated from its body. “What's wrong with the bird ?” she finally dared to ask.

“It's dead,” the pigeon-master stated flatly.

“...I see,” she said, but she did not really see the evidence. “Err... Why is it still moving, by the way ? And what's with the leaking mana ?”

“The answer's the same – magical residues. Looks like the mainlanders have started to cast Manasprint on their messenger birds. Keeps the thing flying for who-knows-how-long, then it suddenly dies.”

“So that's why this one managed to reach us.”

They nodded. Vara then handed out a parchment to her daughter, and motioned for her to read it. Once Mirna was done, she sighed in relief. For a moment she feared that the bird had brought bad news, but it turned out to be the opposite. More or less.

“Is it reliable ? Do we know who sent it ?”

“Yes,” Aldaron confirmed and pointed to the map of the continent that was nailed on one of the walls. “The parchment comes from an old clansman that settled in Longhills decades ago. He signed it. The contents of the message itself, he got from our dear old Anton, in the capital.”

She glanced at the bottom of the paper, noticing there was one last paragraph she hadn't read. It said what Aldaron had just explained, basically. “Right.”

“Well, it's good news anyway,” Vara said. Hearing that, Mirna made an uneasy expression.

“I guess... though from what he says, Anton's angry with Azcheron.”

One of the elders scoffed. “Bah ! They'll patch things up like always. I wouldn't worry about that.”

“Nng...” She read once more the message. Yep, she eventually concluded. It does say explicitly that Azcheron has become both a hero and an evil mass-murderer, and that Anton thinks he needs to be taught a lesson before it gets worse...

“What to do...” she muttered. What were they supposed to make of this message anyway ? Was Anton merely informing the clan of Azcheron's well-being, using the opportunity to complain about him like usual ? Or was he requesting something of them ? Also, what did he mean by 'mass-murderer' ? As far as Mirna knew, Azcheron killing a couple of people wasn't anything to be surprised about. It was probably justified, in any case. The Saint wasn't a lunatic murdering people for no reason.

Aldaron cleared his throat and spoke up. “Well, as for me...” Yes, that's right. You should decide. You're his father, you know best what to do in such a situation. “I don't have an opinion on the matter. I think Mirna should decide, as she's the acting chief of the clan.”

You miserable bastard. Shoving all the decision-making in my direction.

Her mother betrayed her too. “I agree.” And so did the nodding elders. The pigeon-master was busy studying the bird's cadaver and did not seem to care. “It's up to you,” Vara concluded.

Or so she said. They were all making faces that looked like they strongly wanted her to go. To be fair, she could understand. It would be the occasion for the two of them to finally decide on the clan's future. If he has become an Imperial hero, it means he's serious about leaving the position of chief to me. But he had already confirmed all that. Azcheron never led them to believe he'd come back one day, on the contrary. The only thing that stopped him from straight out handing out the job to Mirna was tradition, nothing else.

Was there really any need to see him, in that case ?

But then there was the matter with Anton. The way the old mage puts it, it doesn't sound like something too important. After all, there would always be things that the clansmen did that would annoy to hell out of Anton. But still, mass-murder ? It wasn't as if Mirna feared that Azcheron had turned into a criminal, but she was interested. What was it all about ? She had to reckon it made her curious.

They still had the ship they had... inherited form lord Koven Sarlas, and the clan had properly maintained it all this time. Not that many of them knew anything about sailing, but some did – the ones who had already travelled with Anton a few times. Mirna believed it could work. If not, then what ? They would be delayed or they would end up somewhere else than in Longhills. At worst, they'd sink, maybe. Nothing Rahal mages couldn't handle – it would probably be easy to make a raft out of a sinking boat.

Well, I hope, at least. Maybe I'm a bit too optimistic ?

She glanced over the people gathered in the room, just to make sure. Yep, no doubt. They were all waiting for her answer, and they had already decided what it was they wanted to hear. She let out an exasperated sigh. What's it to you guys anyway ? ...Pft, whatever.

“Fine,” she said as she got up and slammed her palms on the table. “Mother will come with me, in the meantime Aldaron will be in charge. It should take three months to go there, and three more months to return.”

“A wise decision,” an elder said.

“The wisest decision,” another one added.

“Mirna the Wise, is what we'll call you,” Aldaron declared seriously.

I'm pretty sure it's not wise at all to go on this journey unprepared, but oh well. I won't bother arguing with them.

A few days later, they departed for Longhills. Surprisingly, perhaps, the journey went without any issue. That was probably because Mirna used wind and water magic to prevent any trouble from happening. In the end, they almost only had to follow the compass, as the waves calmed down unnaturally and the wind always came from the proper direction. On their way, they called in at the islands near the coast, where they heard more tales about Azcheron's glory.

There was never any mention of his alleged murder spree, though he was sometimes accused of being an opportunist. Word about him betraying the Empire during the war in the north, only to be graced by the Emperor himself after he helped saving the capital from dragons. Needless to say, Mirna barely understood anything, since she didn't exactly care about the affairs of the Empire.

Looks like we have a lot of catching up to do, she thought as the continent could be seen in the horizon, after a little more than two months of sailing. In the end, I guess Anton was exaggerating again.