Emoyen moved through the streets of Brighton with the moon high in the air. It was still a few hours before midnight, and though the sun had set hours ago, the streets were lit with dozens of lamps. Half of them would be put out in an hour, but the nightlife was busy enough to warrant fully lit streets long into the night. Emoyen had taken Celaina’s advice and returned to their keep. As the head sage in the order, she had a large room to hold all her books, and it was definitely more luxurious than staying in the tiny temple where she assumed the dagger was hidden. Not wishing to identify herself to the other pedestrians, she had left her armor and longsword in her quarters and moved about the streets in a dark cloak over a dress that would mark her as a serving woman at one of the nicer restaurants in the city. They were open late, and her presence on the street wouldn’t draw attention.

Even so, as she neared her destination, she moved from the sidewalk to the alleys and constantly looked over her shoulder to be absolutely sure no one was following her. Eventually, she came to a locked door hidden behind a collection of old crates and broken furniture. From the back, the building was nondescript and could be just another one of the many apartment complexes in the congested city.

Emoyen produced a key, and with one last look up and down the darkened alley, she opened the rear entrance and went inside. A large man with an axe greeted the paladin, recognizing her as one of four Sanctified Vessels of his faith, and bowed deeply. “Good evening, Mistress. The others have been waiting for your return eagerly.”

Emoyen said nothing and continued passed the guard and into the central part of the building, which served as the only temple of the Angelican Saviors. The side of the building facing the street looked like an antique shop with old furniture, jewelry, and cutlery. If anyone ever tried to sneak past the public area into the back rooms, the rest of the building would look like a library, with hallways leading into dimly lit rooms lined with bookshelves. Emoyen entered one of the larger rooms and found three other women sitting at a round table, each reading an ancient tome.

Without her armor or steel-toed boots, Emoyen moved silently across the floor, and none of the other women looked up as she entered. Instead of announcing herself, Emoyen looked enviously at the other women. This is where she belonged, spending at least three hours each night reading and rereading the tomes they had painstakingly collected over the years, many of which she had stolen from her keep. Even though several hundred books were in this room, she immediately recognized each of the volumes before the women, books she had read half a dozen times.

“Sisters,” she said in a measured tone, loud enough to be heard but not loud enough to startle. “I have returned.”

Diedre, the head of the Angelican Saviors, looked up from her book suddenly and rose from her chair. “Emoyen, my faithful sister. Were you successful?” The other women looked up as well, eager to hear the report.

Success. Emoyen thought on that word for a moment. That all depended on what her mission was. She was not only the sage for the Elemental Order, but she was also the chief researcher for her new faith. She had been the first one to discover where her order was hiding the Elementals. It had only been a hunch, but the more research she had done, the more she became convinced.

It had actually started with Sir Wentry and Dame Celaina. The couple had been famous in the order for their exploits and skill and infamous for their marital bickering. When they had both “retired” from the order simultaneously and went to live in distant, small villages, it had caused some confusion. Some had played it off as the final straw in their relationship, but upon further research, Emoyen had found more. The pair had separated ten years ago before Emoyen had even become a paladin, so she wasn’t swayed by the gossip of the time but only had the official records to go on.

Days before the couple had gone their own ways into retirement, there had been letters from two other paladins living abroad saying they had become disabled. One was ill, and the other had been thrown from a horse, and local physics doubted whether the knight would ever walk again. Looking at the records, those paladins had also “retired” earlier than some thought necessary, though years apart from each other.

Emoyen was searching the personnel records of the order because she knew it had found the Elementals and was protecting them. Only the highest up in the order was supposed to know even this, and then only two or three knew where the Elementals were. But Emoyen had been able to gain access to texts the head paladins thought were secured, and ever since, she had been trying to unravel the secret of where the Elementals were. The knights of the order were told from the start that the paladins had secrets, and there were times when younger members would be asked to leave during sensitive discussions. They weren’t told what those secrets were, but since their focus was on finding and protecting the Elementals, everyone had their guesses. But they had also sworn an oath to be faithful to the order, so they didn’t investigate, and the secrets stayed secret.

Emoyen no longer held her oaths sacred. In the process of reading and interpreting the ancient texts, she had come upon the truth of the Elementals, and it differed from the beliefs of her order. Knowing that the other paladins would not believe her and that her position within the order gave her access to valuable writings she wouldn’t have if she left, she had kept her unbelief to herself.

That was until she had met Diedre. The woman was a priestess in the Temple of the Divine Savior, but her heart wasn’t in it. The patience the followers were expected to adhere to when the world seemed to be descending into chaos around her was not sustainable. She yearned for the savior, not for the unknown divine being her faith looked forward to, but for a solution from within. Her need for action brought her naturally to the Elemental Order, and when she met Emoyen, the younger woman revealed the truths of what she had found, and it spoke to Diedre’s heart in a way that convinced her of the truth.

The Elementals were real; the order had that right. They were to be absorbed by humankind; the Supplanters had that part right. And the target should be divine; her old temple had that right. But they weren’t meant for one man, but four women. “To rise back above, no man can climb,” the ancient verse said. “Only wise hope, the Savior Divine.” Wisdom was always referred to as feminine, and Emoyen had found plenty of texts to show the hope of salvation for humanity would come from women. The supplicants assumed that was from giving birth to the Supplanter’s offspring. After all, the next verse said, “Filled with passion from love newly born,” but there was no room for love in the Supplanter’s religion. However, Diedre and Emoyen had found love, one to another. Soon theirs was a stronger bond than sisterhood, and they worked together to draw others to their new order.

Jennifer was next. She was a Tallashite and had been a life disciple in the Supplanter religion. She could attest to the fact that love was absent from that faith. She had been part of the current Supplanter’s group for a while but left before he retreated to his temple in the Border Mountains. She had been bothered by how the Elementals were to be transferred into the Supplanter. She knew from her own cultivating meditation that life was what stitched everything together. After a chance meeting and debate with Emoyen, who knew that the Elementals had been secured within vessels through a human’s life, it only made sense that they would be transferred into the Supplanter the same way. The Blessed Mothers weren’t chosen to give birth to the Supplanter’s children but would give their lives so he could become a god. It wasn’t difficult to convince the Tallashite woman to join them after that.

With Emoyen, the sisters had a mind disciple, and with Diedre and Jennifer, they had women dedicated to the heart and life. They needed a fourth who would take on the body Elemental. Persephone had been described as a goddess of beauty. She had worked in the local circus as an acrobat, and men and women alike flocked to see the angelic woman fly through the air.

She was from the southern islands, the child of a Sister Warrior, and she had all the strength and grace her heritage was known for. But, unlike her southern people, she was searching for meaning in her life beyond mere existence. Temples filled the northland in the cities where her troupe performed, and she eventually became a perfecter, learning to cultivate strength and power within her body that had her performing feats of athleticism that kept the crowds enthralled.

But when she had met Emoyen, Diedre, and Jennifer, Persephone had given that life up and saw that she had a higher calling. She could become perfect and save all of humanity, not just the northerners but everyone.

All this history flew through Emoyen’s mind as she stood before her beloved sisters. They had been content to wait for several years, the paladin promising that she would find the location of the Elementals, and they would be able to achieve angelican form. For they believed that portion of the verse was wrongly translated. “Named in beauty, angelic in form” should have been “angelican form,” an old way of saying, “in the form of multiple angles.” In this case, it would be four of them, one for each Elemental.

And then Emoyen had made the discovery involving Wentry and Celaina. On the surface, it looked like two lovers having one last fight and separating. Neither allowed the other to claim victory, so they both left the order simultaneously. It covered the fact that two other paladins had just become disabled. Emoyen had always figured they must be using older paladins to guard the Elementals, and this confirmed it for her. The married couple was asked to make the ultimate sacrifice, pretending to separate so they could each live solitary lives in complete dedication to their faith. And the more she looked for it, the more Emoyen found example after example of retired knights suffering injury or illness, and then days later, a paladin who wasn’t quite ready to retire decided to “leave” the order and live in a distant village. Once Emoyen was sure of the location of each of the Elementals, she had told her sisters, and they waited to see how best to take action.

But their timetable was accelerated when Jennifer had told them that the supplicant sisters she maintained contact with – for they all lived a double life with their old religions – claimed that the Supplanter also knew where the Elementals were. Emoyen needed to make sure she was involved with whatever mission was undertaken to secure the items, so she had fabricated a prophecy from an ancient text that she was pretty sure no one else in the keep could read. She said it predicted the Supplanter would gain control of some of the Elementals, and this would be the final test of the order to prove they were capable of keeping the powers safe before the return of the Divine Savior.

When the report came from Celaina that she was attacked and the assassin had been after her enchanted dagger, Jenkins had no choice but to include the keep’s sage in the mission to investigate. Emoyen’s sisters said they would pray for her and that they trusted she would be able to locate the Elementals and find a way to bring them into the care of the Angelican Saviors.

Had she done that? Was she successful?

Emoyen looked around at the other women, knowing what their roles in the faith were. Diedre was the recruiter, and her impassioned speeches to those of her former faith that came to her with doubts had convinced many of them to join their order. They didn’t have the numbers of any of their rivals, but at any time, there were half a dozen men and women within their “temple” willing to give their lives to defend the sisterhood.

Jennifer was responsible for using her connection to the life force of humanity to find a way to transfer the Elementals without needing to take a life. She had told the other women a while ago that she felt it was possible. Only she had that connection with the divine life force to make the transfer to herself, but once embodied with the Elemental, she would be able to do the same for the rest of them.

Persephone was charged with training their “soldiers” to defend them, knowing that once they were filled with the Elementals, everyone would be coming after them, and war was possible. They didn’t think they would need to fight for long, for the truth of their saviorship would soon be evident to all, but they weren’t naïve enough to think there wouldn’t be any fighting. While she had been an acrobat before, weapon training came easily to her, and there wasn’t one man in their charge, no matter how big he was, that could last ten seconds against the dark-skinned, silver-haired goddess.

“I was successful,” she finally said. “I know where the mind dagger is. I know who has the heart sword, and I know they are going after the body axe and the life spear. Either the enemy will bring those three together, or Sir Jenkins will successfully consolidate them. Either way, they will be bringing all three here to either procure the fourth or send them all back into hiding. I have inserted myself into their trust, and I will be involved with how the Elementals are protected in the immediate future.”

“And if the enemy comes looking for the last Elemental?” Persephone asked, hoping she wouldn’t have to call her army into action quite yet.

“My order will do the fighting,” Emoyen assured her. “Right now, four paladins know the location and are ready to fight. I don’t think the Supplanter could gather a group strong enough to defeat us. Not without bringing an army, which he can’t do without starting a war.”

“Don’t underestimate the ambition of this Supplanter,” Jennifer warned. “He will do anything to get all four Elementals. And if it takes an army, there is a rumor the Prince of Talla has been seen in his service.”

“Likely the other way around,” Diedre accurately corrected. “Either way, it’s a valid point.” She looked back to Emoyen. “And where is the dagger now?”

“With a paladin in a Temple of the Divine Creator on the city’s southern edge.” Emoyen gave the vital piece of information without hesitation, trusting her sisters completely.

“Those temples still exist?” Persephone asked.

“People have a heart for all forms of belief,” Diedre said. “It is a good place for it. The enemy will not look there first, but we will know when they get close.” She smiled. “You have done well.” She moved out from behind the table to embrace her sister. “You have been gone a long time. Will you be staying with us tonight?”

Emoyen smiled back. “I don’t think I will be missed.”

“Unfortunately,” Jennifer said, standing from the table, “I will be. This is good news, but we need to be even more vigilant now, as anything can happen. We must be ready to act. We should meet again tomorrow evening to update the group on the status.”

The other women all nodded at the sound advice as the Tallashite woman walked from the table. “Be careful,” Persephone warned before the woman left the room. They all knew that Jennifer was taking the biggest risk as her religion was the most hostile to their position and had already shown they would kill to get what they wanted.

Before leaving, she smiled. “Don’t worry; I will be.”

***

Jennifer moved between the warehouses on the southern edge of Brighton, her dark gray cloak pulled tight around her, keeping her tell-tale pale skin hidden from the infrequent streetlamps. She was tempted to find the small temple Emoyen had told them about, but she thought better of it. Even though she had trained with Persephone as much as any of the sisters, she was no match for a seasoned paladin.

Instead, she moved past the warehouses to the very outskirts of the city, where several merchants lived in apartments above their shops. Here it was only a few miles to the river, and one could cross over from Talla, trade their goods, and be back in the southern kingdom within a few hours. She found the shop she was interested in, a silversmith who made jewelry and expensive tableware. The hidden key was where it was supposed to be, and she carefully opened the back door, quick to catch the bell, before it sounded her entrance.

The back of the shop was pitch dark at this hour, but fortunately, it was also tidy, so she didn’t fear as she moved between the small anvils and workbenches to the stairs in the central part of the building. Ferres would be asleep by now, and Jennifer hated the idea of having to meet him in his bedroom, but she had made the mistake of allowing the bell from the back door to alert the merchant before, and he had met her at the stairs with the tip of a sword at her neck. Better not to sound like an intruder, especially with a shady merchant who had a legitimate fear of retribution from unhappy customers in the night.

Instead, Jennifer continued her silent intrusion into the man’s home by ascending the stairs and efficiently bypassing the lock into the living quarters that sat above the front of the shop. She moved through the dark kitchen, found a lamp, and lit it. Then, after moving to the far side of the small table and having a seat, she started knocking on the wooden wall. “Ferres, wake up!”

She heard a commotion in the room next door, and soon a frazzled man stood in the far side of the kitchen with messy black hair, wearing only a pair of shorts and holding a sword in his hand. He noticed the light, turned toward his table, and saw the fellow Tallashite sitting ten feet away from him. “Good morning,” she said cheerily.

“What time is it?” he asked, putting the sword down on the table and sitting opposite her, rubbing his eyes.

“Time for you to listen. I know where one of the Elementals is.”

This did get his attention, and he made a futile attempt to straighten his appearance.

“It is being kept in a Temple to the Divine Creator only a few blocks north of here.”

Ferres looked puzzled. He knew the temple. “That is a terrible place to keep it. It is completely undefendable.”

She sighed at his stupid reply and decided to chalk it up to the fact he was tired. “That is why. We would never think to look there. Either way, you need to go to the port. I suspect the master will be here in a day or two, or he will send someone he trusts to get it. Our enemies may have the other Elementals, in which case I will have to take matters into my own hands, but I had faith our people proved the stronger in the past few days, and they will be coming. Either way, you need to go to the port and wait. You will know the Supplanter’s emissary when they come. Tell them what I have told you.”

Ferres was frowning. “But it could be days? Who will watch my shop?”

“You will be compensated,” she replied and stood to signal the meeting was over. He didn’t move from his seat, and she would have to walk past him to leave his apartment. He saw that and grinned.

“How will I be compensated?”

This is why she hated meeting this vile man at night. She did feel sorry for men caught up in the Supplanter’s religion as they didn’t have much hope for female companionship. They only got the women the Supplanter rejected or those who proved infertile. They were promised to be on the winning side and would share in the wealth the Supplanter was supposed to create, but that didn’t always keep them satisfied.

“Go back to your room,” she said firmly.

“Come with me,” he pushed. “You’ve rejected the Supplanter; you are available.”

“I have chosen not to be with him, but he has other uses for me, and it isn’t to be with you. Go back to bed.”

Ferres still didn’t move, and they both looked at the sword lying on the table. She really hoped he wouldn’t be that stupid. He was. He reached for the blade and leveled it at the woman just as Jennifer reached back over the kitchen counter and snagged a cast iron pan. He knew better than to attack the woman in front of him. He only wanted to frighten her into compliance. Jennifer, however, had no hesitation and threw the heavy pan at him with all her strength. The slender blade was no defense, and the cast iron cookware hit him in the side of the head, his reactions still dulled by sleep.

Jennifer scampered out from behind the table and stepped passed his groaning form on the floor. “I thought your bed would be more comfortable, but remember, this was your choice. I better not find you here tomorrow morning.” With that, she left him on the floor and fled the upstairs apartment and the shop.