The morning after I bandaged Gedric up from his ‘fall’, Luis had come to our cabin once more. I kept the warrior at my door, preferring to talk at the entrance. My brother was safely hidden in the closet, but it wasn’t worth the risk, really. Better to keep the conversation short.

He had come down to present an itinerary. I was to be ready to leave the boat that evening an hour before sundown, after which myself, the Ambassador, and a handful of his retinue would travel to the Governor’s mansion.

Luis also informed me that I was free to come and go from the boat until then. There was to be a meal at lunchtime, but it would be meager, and the sailors wouldn’t be eating on the boat. This was standard practice, as far as I was aware - most didn’t want to continue eating galley grub with a perfectly good pub on shore, and captains didn’t want to stretch their budget for food when their crew could be paying for themselves. Still, the freetime gave me an opportunity to look for some of the things I’d foregone in the need to stuff the massive pile of rope in our pack.

I got confirmation from Gedric that he wouldn’t get himself captured while I was out, and disembarked the vessel with a portion of our cash horde tucked tightly in my shirt, twine tying it around my neck. The ground wobbled below me as I remembered how to walk on land.

Selio was smaller than Byras in both the size of the port and the height of the buildings. It had maybe half the number of places to dock, but the streets felt twice as crowded. If Byras was a pair of pants one size too big, Selio was one size too small.

The city had walls, a tight ring of birchwood and grey stone, but it did not mark the margins of it. Instead, the town extended a good ways beyond them, the market even passing between the walls. The result was a clog of bodies that was only exacerbated by the tight streets. I had to resist the urge to steal from every person I bumped into.

The first thing I bought was a second pack. It was smaller than the one I had brought, but made of sturdy tanned hide and sewn well. I hadn’t managed to haggle the price down as much as I had wanted, but the merchant’s breath was poor enough that getting the pack and leaving was worth the extra coin.

Food was next. We did have some jerky I’d noticed after looking at the dumped out contents of our pack on the floor of the cabin, but the amount was meager. We’d forgone a larger food supply, expecting to have more opportunities to smuggle food to him than we’d so far had.

I also found and purchased another roll of cloth bandages, for obvious reasons. My brother was likely to go through more of them, doing something else brilliantly dumb.

Shopping complete, I dropped off the pack with Gedric.

“Breakfast.” I glanced at the sun. “Well, lunch.”

I opened it to reveal the contents.

“ ‘preciate it.” he replied, scooting out of his hovel in the closet to reach for the bread, fruits, and meat I’d bought.

He didn’t look great, I had to admit. We changed the bandage on his leg again, and I got a second glance at the wound. It had stuck to the cloth as we pulled it off, the gelatinous red of the healing gash reluctant to part with the covering. It’d stopped bleeding, which was good. I didn’t see any signs of infection, either, but I knew from Mom’s lessons that it might be a while still before that happened. Until then, the best thing to do was keep the wound clean and wrapped, so we did.

More than the leg wound, though, Gedric looked... rattled. My brother usually had an energy to him that ranged from exuberant to borderline insanity, but that glint in his eye that suggested he was going to do something dangerous was missing. I hadn’t seen him like this since Mom and Dad Vanished.

“You sure you’re okay?” I asked.

“I’m just battered.” He admitted. “That fall took a lot out of me.”

“Well, heal soon. If we get caught working with the prisoners, you might have to jump overboard again.”

Gedric snorted and returned to chewing.

“I think I might go scout out the Governor’s place.” I said, mulling over the thought.

“You should.” He replied, between bites. “You might not have time to talk to him during dinner.”

That was true. Katherine had mentioned to me that I’d be going to the dinner, but in what capacity beyond being present I wasn’t told. The impression I’d gotten was that I was expected to keep silent. If I was to be seated at the metaphorical kid’s table (or even the real one), then I may not even get a chance to exchange a single word with the Governor.

Mind made up, I stood.

“Guess I’ll go.”

Gedric gave a small, halfhearted wave. But he didn’t meet my eyes, focusing on the food instead. The implicit message was received, of course. He wanted to go.

Maybe he didn’t, actually. The scare of almost drowning had made my loud brother a reserved presence. It might be for the better, at the current moment, but the thought of him no longer scheming hit me harder than I expected.

I departed the room and made my way onto shore. It took me a while to find the Governor’s mansion, but after a few points in the right direction from locals, I’d made my way to the northwest edge of the wall. The streets widened the further this direction I moved, eventually morphing into a district of grey brick walls and decorative ivy surrounding houses with large archways.

There, I found it. The Governor’s place was built in the style shared by most of the Ringing Coast, smooth octagonal pillars and a wide porchway surrounding the three story mansion proper. It was roofed with a deep green shingling, and the ivy I’d seen on the other fancy houses in the neighborhood was present, too, often wrapping the pillars within what looked like channels cut to guide it.

Most impressively, the mansion had no fence, the way the neighbors did. Instead, in a city where space seemed premium, the Governor had a courtyard, a grove of well-manicured local trees and flora that extended all the way back to the wall behind it.

Guards patrolled the grove, and a pair sat at the beginning of a well-set stone path through the courtyard to the Mansion’s front entrance. Multiple points along the path had twisting, ornate archways of metal, unlit torches hanging from above.

I skulked around the edge of the courtyard, trying to come up with a plan of attack. Er, well, not a literal one. More like a plan to contact the Governor. I didn’t want to just walk in the front door - one of the guards would certainly ask me what I was doing. If I lied, they would see me return later with the Ambassador, which would be hard to explain.

Wait.

What if I just told the truth?

Plan half-formed in my head, I moved towards the pair of guards at the entrance to the courtyard, waving at them as I walked up. They were geared in leather, shoulderplates and gauntlets metallic.

“I’m with the Ambassador.” I said, truthfully. “I’m here to deliver a message.”

I’d just neglected to say who it was from.

The guard on the right side of the path opened his palm and gestured, as if asking for me to hand the supposed message over. I shook my head.

“It’s only supposed to go to the Governor himself.” Another truth.

If the Governor’s men mentioned it offhand, or the words got into the wrong ears, it might end with my brother caught as a stowaway. Worst case, I’d be seen as conspiring against the Emperor.

People who did that? They were hung from hooks.

The guards traded glances.

“Just a moment.” One said, turning towards the house and walking down the courtyard path. About fifteen minutes or so passed before the guard returned, then motioned to me. I followed the man to the door, then inside.

“Remove your shoes.” He said, though I’d already begun due to the etiquette lessons bearing their first fruit.

It was common practice to do so in the houses of Bloodlines, apparently. There were a lot of traditions like that which were followed only because that was how it was done in the East. Many of the practices never bled out of the noble households into mainstream popularity, however, and left the Empire with a set of traditions in Blooded households that floated on top of whatever the regional customs were.

The interior floor of the house was made of a shaded grey tile that chilled my toes as we padded down the hallway towards what I presumed to be the office of the Governor. As we moved down that direction, I heard the sound of raised voices, though I could not catch the words. The guard walked to a lacquered brown door and knocked twice. The voices hushed.

“Send him in!” Someone said from the other side of the door.

I gulped as the guard opened the door and motioned me in. I suddenly realized that I was about to put my trust in a complete stranger - if the Governor was on the side of the Ambassador, and wanted a few easy points with the man, all he would have to do is turn me in.

It was too late to turn back now, however, so I stepped into the room.

In the office were three people. The first one I noticed was a sickly man whose hands were trembling as he gripped the edge of the desk in the center of the room. The shaking didn’t seem to be from fear, or rage, or any emotional cause, but rather some sort of physical ailment. He was balding, too, though his combover did its feeble best to hide the fact.

Across from him, at the other end of the desk, stood a woman. The woman was of similar age as the man, maybe a bit younger - her fifties instead of her sixties - and she was fuming. The angry expression she wore suited the wrinkles on her face, as if it’d been the face she’d defaulted to for the last thirty years. She wore a robe that had flamboyant, leafy vines stitched into it that trailed up her torso and then down an arm.

The third was sitting in the chair, and it was much too large for her. She looked even younger than myself, and was preoccupied with a piece of parchment she was marking on the desk. Her oval-shaped face wore an expression I recognised, the one children my age made when they were pretending to ignore the fighting of adults, while absorbing every word.

All three of them had similar facial features, clearly related. The girl had blonde hair, almost silver, and both of the adults had a whitened version of the same color. All had striking green eyes, their skin colors close to my own.

“Well?” The woman said, impatient.

“I, uh, need to speak to the Governor.” I said.

The girl cocked her head at that, attention momentarily moving to me before moving back down.

“You found her.” The woman replied. “Out with it.”

“It’s for your ears only.”

The woman, annoyed, clicked her tongue. “She’ll tell us everything said between you two, anyways. Might as well skip the part where we get kicked out of the room.”

The combover man on the other side of the room nodded in agreement at the woman’s statement. I blinked. The woman wasn’t the Governor? Unless she had a penchant for speaking in the third person, ‘she’ could only be referring to the girl at the desk.

It made sense, now that I thought about it. Byras wasn’t the only place Jirou drafted in the Savage War. If they needed Hemomancers, they would be drawing from the Bloodlines first and foremost. It was likely that the girl was the daughter of the late Patriarch or Matriarch of the house. If that was the case, that made either one or both of these two her guardians and advisors.

Advisor was maybe too weak a word. With the age of the Governor, it was more likely they were regents in full.

I cleared my throat as I tried to figure out how to frame my pitch to them to help out the pair of prisoners on the boat. The man and woman seemed to be at odds with one another, if the Governor’s disposition and the yelling I’d heard before entering was enough to go off of. It was likely a trend from how used to it the girl was.

But which of them was more likely to help? I didn’t know. It was unlikely I’d figure it out, anyhow. So, I bowed.

The man and woman were silent as I took my deep, L shaped bow.

“I’m sorry.” I said, gambling. “Ambassador’s orders.”

The woman spat quietly about easterners while the man just walked out silently. The woman exited soon after.

Soon, I was left with only myself and the Governor in the room. She’d stopped writing after I’d bowed, and was now watching me curiously.

There was a chair across from her, which I moved to sit in.

“I didn’t say you could sit.” She said, frowning.

“Sorry.” I said, lurching back at the sudden authoritativeness of the otherwise silent child.

“So?” she said.

I took a deep breath, preparing to make the leap. Different words came out, instead.

“How’d your parents die?” I asked.

The girl looked annoyed. “That doesn’t sound like the message from the Ambassador.”

“Uh, no. It isn’t. Sorry. ” I said. “It just caught my attention that you were so young.”

The girl was starting to look angry. “Look, can we cut past the bullshit?”

The mouth on the Governor made me freeze.

“I spend my whole day listening to people trying to find common ground with the poor, orphaned girl when going through my Aunt and Uncle fails.” She said, “You aren’t really here to pass a message, right? You want something. I could see it while you watched the other two.”

Dumbstruck at the forthrightness, I didn’t respond.

“Well?” She prodded. “If you don’t respond, I’ll just call them back in, and that’ll be it.”

“Please don’t.” I said. “You’re right, I do want something. It wasn’t a lie that I was on the Ambassador’s ship, either.”

I watched the Governor, waiting for a reaction. She just gestured for me to continue. I took a deep breath, then did.

“Jirou’s been sacked.” I said. “I think their palace in Jur was attacked.”

She didn’t look surprised. Shaken, I tried again.

“There’s two members of the Jirou Bloodline on the ship, as prisoners. One of them asked me to get in contact with you.”

“What are their names?”

“Diana and August.”

The Governor sat back in her chair, which ended far above her head.

“I don’t know them.” She said.

“Do you know why they’re prisoners?” I asked. “My b- I asked them if they knew, and they said they weren’t sure. That, maybe, the Jirou Elders had done something?”

“The news got to us just before you came in, actually.” She said. “Apparently the clan was digging up bodies of their ancestors for some grotesque, terrible ritual or something. The whole Bloodline is being rounded up.”

Shocked, I just stood there.

“Right?” she said. “It sounded awful. I can’t believe they’d do something like that.”

The door burst open.

“I agree.” said the woman. “I don’t think they did.”

The Governor’s Uncle walked in slowly behind her, closing the entrance to the room behind him.

“I don’t know why the Empire would lie about that, though.” He said. “It wouldn’t make sense. I met the Jirou Patriarch in his final days, right before the war ended. He wasn’t the same man he used to be. I could see him digging up graves.”

“Wait, the Patriarch is dead?” I said. “Actually, before that, you were listening in? If I was a real messenger, the Ambassador would be livid.”

“I told you.” The Aunt said, still frowning. “We would’ve heard the conversation anyway.”

“This might be a little late to ask,” I said, “but please don’t tell the Ambassador or any of the guards I was here. I’m not supposed to be.”

None of them responded to that, which was worrying.

“Why are you helping the Jirou on the ship, anyway?” The uncle asked. The shaking hadn’t stopped, but he was rolling a coin between his fingers with surprising dexterity.

“They saved my life when I fell overboard.” I said. No reason to reveal Gedric was on the ship, if I didn’t have to.

“We should do something about this.” The Aunt said. “They don’t deserve whatever’s coming. It doesn’t even sound like they know what’s going to happen.”

“Do you know why we’re going to Jur?” I asked.

The Aunt opened her mouth, before the Uncle cut her off.

“Don’t tell him anything, yet.” He said. “I don’t trust this boy. Why are you even on the Ambassador’s ship?”

I explained how I’d been picked up in Byras by Katherine, and how I’d been receiving ‘training’ on the way. At some point, the Governor had started giggling.

“What’s so funny?” I asked.

Between giggles, she spoke. “You’re a political tool.”

I was starting to really not like this girl.

The Aunt nodded at the statement. “She’s right, you know.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Child of a captain in the Imperial Army, stuck in an orphanage due to the ‘incompetence’ and lack of resources of Jirou’s Domain. Likely to die in a ditch, before they ever had a chance to become something. And not just you, no. A whole program for the orphaned and the estranged hopefuls of the Domain, provided for out of the Emperor’s own pocket. It’s a message: ‘The Empire is here to help you.’” The Aunt said.

The Governor smiled at me, eyes empty of emotion. “While also taking the Blooded children of an entire generation of the west hostage as they brainwash them, far out of reach of any Bloodlines less inclined towards falling in line.”

It did make sense, I realized. That’s why Luis had called it ‘parading me around’: they were here to demonstrate that the Empire was still in control of Jirou’s Domain, despite the poor ending to the Savage War.

But, if that was the case, they still needed someone to blame. If they came to the west with just carrots, those who wanted change would turn on the hand that fed them. The Emperor needed a scapegoat, which, it seemed, was the Jirou Bloodline. That was why August and Diana were on the ship as prisoners.

They were going on the hooks, with the rest of their Bloodline.