Chapter 47

Subterfuge

The hallways of the bloodshedders’ barracks were all made of stone brick.

Femira had fallen into the habit of actively honing her edir as she walked through them. It had been a technique that Endrin had suggested to help enhance her edir control. Before, her edir would wash over the halls in waves, and she could sense each of the bricks resonate in response. She tried focusing on each individual brick so that she could only feel the vibration of just one. At first the action was slow, taking a few seconds for her edir to focus in but now she didn’t even need to slow her pace as she walked, making sure that her edir touched every single brick individually as she passed.

The edir—she’d learned—was like a muscle. The more you used it and trained it, the stronger and faster it became. This—in turn—made her runewielding stronger and faster. Although a normal person’s edir had a natural limit to how strong it could become. Femira even before becoming soulforged had a naturally powerful edir but that didn’t make her special here amongst the bloodsheeders. All of them had been recruited because of their stronger edirs.

Becoming soulforged extended this natural limitation allowing her edir more strength and reach in runewielding, but this meant that she needed to actively train her edir to get to the same level as Endrin and the other bloodshedders who’d been soulforged longer than her. Even Jaz’ edir seemed to be growing much more powerful after he had been infused with his topaz.

The only drawback to it—that she could see—was that an affinity to one particular runestone weakened the edir for using any other runestones. But considering Femira had never been able to use any other runestone in the first place, that didn’t really matter to her. It did however make the stormstone she still had in her room useless to her so she would need to find a buyer for it.

Most runewielders owned their own runestones but if you were in the military you could request to be assigned one to train with. If you were talented, you’d likely get to hang on to it for training and battles but you still didn’t own it. Actually owning your own and training with it day-in day-out was the only way to really excel. The Reldoni military had secured the largest cache of stormstone in the world after they conquered Altarea. This meant that the army had the largest stockpile to assign out to their runewielders. But this was still only a few thousand in tens of thousands of hopeful soldiers.

Femira simply needed to get word around that she had one to sell, and she didn’t doubt that she’d quickly have a horde of potential buyers looking for her. At first, she’d been worried that it would be confiscated from her as when most of the ones she’d stolen in Altarea had been the night she’d been caught but it didn’t seem likely now that she was a bloodshedder. As she walked through the halls, she figured that Jaz would be the best person to tell to get word out. He was from the wealthier highborn houses and would have connections to others who would have the coin for it.

She turned to the hall that led to Garld’s office and reined in her edir. Her mind had often lingered in the early days of her training on how Garld had managed to detect her hiding in the treasure room in Altarea. Knowing now that accomplished runewielders could sense other people’s edirs closeby had confirmed her suspicions. She didn’t even know what an edir was then, let alone that she was broadcasting hers unintentionally.

It had become a game to her now to restrain her edir around Garld. In one part, to show to him the control she’d learned and in another—larger part—because she enjoyed trying to sneak up on him undetected. Garld’s edir was always under immaculate control, other people had a tendency to flare out occasionally. For most people, it was like holding sand in your hands, it was impossible to ensure none slipped out, especially when you weren’t focused on making sure you didn’t lose any. But for Garld it was like he had it all contained in glass, perfectly in control.

As she approached the door to his office, she pulled hers in tightly. Grasping to all the metaphorical grains of edir sand. She could hear voices within the office that made her pause. She could pretend that listening in was part of her edir training but Femira had long since accepted that she simply enjoyed stealing secrets as much as she enjoyed stealing gold. And Garld had plenty of secrets he was still holding on to.

“ …won’t be long before it is common knowledge,” Garld said. It was muffled through the door but Femira could still make out his voice.

“And we’re certain he’s still alive?” That was Misandrei.

“Yes,” Garld replied, “I’m sending a small party to assist in the search. I want you to lead. You have full authority over the existing team… or what remains of them.”

“When do we leave?”

“Tonight, I want you on a ship before word gets out. Bring a small team, five should suffice. A balance of specialists would be ideal.”

“Loreli is capable,” Misandrei noted, “I’ll bring her amongst a few other trusted people. Will I take Annali or do you have another assignment for her?” Femira’s heart skipped a beat at the mention of her.

“Landryn actually,” Garld responded, he sounded amused, “wants her on the Tidewall mission with him… In fact, she’s supposed to be here already to go over a briefing,” he added with a note of frustration.

Well that’s as good a cue as any.

With a satisfied grin with remaining undiscovered, she slowly released her grip on her edir letting a small trickle out. It would seem that she was just walking towards the door to anyone who wasn’t actively trying to sense for her. She knocked on the door and walked through with a light bounce in her step.

“You’re in a good mood,” Garld noted.

“As anyone with a glass of sand would be, ”she grinned at him.

“Is that a Keiran saying?”

“Why not,” She shrugged with a smile, then walked towards the desk. She saluted Misandrei and Garld, dutifully. Even though Femira was now a fully recognised bloodshedder, Misandrei was still her captain and deserved her respect. The woman had also been responsible for all of her early training before Femira had become soulforged and she would be forever grateful for that.

“You wanted to speak with me, sir,” Femira started.

“This mission on the Tidewall,” Garld replied, “it will be just yourself and another bloodshedder—Selyn Caul—that will be accompanying the prince. He will also have a pair from his own personal guard also.”

“Selyn’s a wavecaller, right?”

“Indeed, she will be beneficial to your team if you happen across any remnants of the Altarean corsairs.”

“You don’t think it was Altareans that attacked those villages either?” Femira asked him.

“I believe it warrants further investigation.”

“You’re not telling me something here, sir,” she said, trying to keep respect in her voice. Garld gave her allowances much of the time in her lack of decorum but she didn’t want to push it.

She greeted her teeth when Garld and Misandrei exchanged glances. She hated how they seemed able to have full conversations with each other through glances alone. Maybe that’s another secret ability of mindstone? She suspected now that Garld used one, it was the only thing that made sense how her emotions always felt strange around him. How she could feel at ease when she shouldn’t. The thought that Garld was manipulating her emotions didn’t annoy her as much as she thought it would. She trusted Garld, the sense of genuine care and concern for her she’d felt during her soulforging had been a comforting thought.

But was that also emotion manipulation?

She couldn’t live her entire life questioning her own emotions. When Karas had used his mindstone to paralyse her with fear it had been an abrupt affront; an external force compelling her into fear. Garld’s touch was more subtle, so subtle that it had taken her a very long time to even realise that he was even doing it. She still wasn’t even entirely sure that he was, but it was the only explanation she had for why she always felt so comfortable around the man.

“Landryn has suspicions that he wants confirmed,” Garld offered, “I’m not convinced myself but I will trust his judgement on this.”

“You’re being really cryptic here, is it something to do with soulforging?” soulforing runestone affinities was the big secret that everyone was trying to keep hidden.

The Honorswords were clearly soulforged, it was the only reason that made sense why they were such powerful runewielders. Vestyr had confirmed for her that his own people had ways to soulforge so it wasn’t a huge leap to think that the Honorswords did too.

“What does it have to do with disappearing people?”

“Soulforging can sometimes be…” Misandrei struggled with the words, “costly.”

“What Misandrei means,” Garld cut in, “is that those unfamiliar with soulforging… they make mistakes. Lives can be lost.”

“You think someone tried to soulforge the villagers? Why?”

“No,” Garld replied, “no, I don’t think so. But it might be related to the recent rise in the amount of soulforged runewielders. You might come up against foes stronger than we’ve anticipated.”

“Landryn is a formidable runewielder, as is Selyn.” Misandrei added, encouragingly.

“Your own ability also shouldn’t be ignored,” Garld offered and Femira felt a swell of pride, “I don’t doubt that if you find the perpetrators of these crimes, your team will be able to handle it.”

“So what is it that you wanted to speak to me about?” She prodded.

“At first, I didn’t approve the excursion,” Garld said, honestly, “but Landryn being out of the city for a while will allow me to make some plans that would be easier made without him here.

“That sounds…” very fucking suspicious, she wanted to say, but settled on, “weird.”

“The Prince has some blindspots in his judgement,” Garld said with a look of genuine honesty on his face, “know that everything that I do is for his benefit… and for Reldon.”

She did trust Garld. If he felt he needed to hide certain things from the Prince then who was she to question that.

“You’ve still not told me what you need me to do, sir,” she said.

“It will take you two days to reach the villages past Inish Head. And two days to return, I need a little more time than that. I want you to prod the Prince towards continuing further north if you’ve not uncovered anything.”

“Understood,” Femira nodded, “how long do you need?”

“Ten days should be all I need to get everything in place.”

“Easy,” Femira shrugged, “what are these plans?”

“There’s a small expedition team I need to send north to Rubane quietly, I don’t want the Prince knowing about it just yet.”

“Would he care about a small team heading there?” Femira asked. Rubane was an ally of Reldon, but she supposed it was pretty weird sending in a secret team of bloodshedders.

“Yes,” Garld replied, sadly, “he will when he learns why… and I want you to make sure that this is kept from him as long as possible.”

“What is it?”

“His brother—Prince Daegan—has been assassinated.”