“That is a lengthy delay.” Gilt agreed. “But tell me Sechen, why did you not seek out guidance on your own? There has to have been literature to read or masters to learn under once it became clear Revelation was not sufficiently aiding your growth.”

Sechen’s mind was brought back to the ruins of her headspace, her own ghastly voice echoing off the destroyed stones that had once been something greater. She shuddered, then felt a wave of disappointment run through her.

“It wasn’t all Revel’s fault. Something happened, and it made things difficult for me. Even though I was technically Revel’s apprentice, for the first two years I was always fighting some sort of Issi disease or another off. After that, I just kind of never doubted Revel.” Sechen shrugged. “Then the lies became too obvious for me to ignore, and everything started going wrong. She sent me to Resthollow for two weeks to try and bond with someone who wasn’t on this side of the divide, and I wondered every moment if that was her trying to help me or…” Sechen swallowed hard, tears welling up in the corners of her eyes as she finally externalized the terrifying thought she’d had for three long months now. “Maybe she was trying to get rid of me.”

Gilt was silent for a long moment, and Sechen started worrying she’d alienated him. “Never mind. It was a stupid thought.”

“I might be very young in this form, though I was a wisp for untold centuries. I experienced things most would consider to be horrific, traumatic, or would induce suicidal tendencies among those who are prone to them. But one side of the veil reacted to those events not as if they were awful, but as if they were the expected outcome. Any emotion was short lived, as it was destined to pass.” Gilt looked over at Elach’s body, and let out a sad sigh. “Elach has seen and done things that would have horrified mobs running him down on this side of the veil, but since he was on the other side at the time it was expected for him to act the way he did. He had no choice.”

Gilt turned to look at Sechen, his eyes constantly swirling balls of thin ribbons around a single milky white pearl in their center. “But you, you live with the consequences of not only your actions, but the actions of everyone around you. People are not consistent; they are a mess of emotionally and logically driven decisions that can be chaotic one moment and orderly the next. And those feelings are not reserved for decisions alone.”

“So you’re saying Revel might have been trying to get rid of me, but not because she was tired of me?” Sechen leaned backwards, looking up at the stars overhead like she had so many times before when on the road with Revel. “Why, then? We might have fought, but I always thought we made up and moved on. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“There is also the option that Revelation was not attempting to be rid of you, and you were misreading what she was attempting to portray. But the best course of action is to ask her yourself, once you have been reunited.”

“Whenever that is.” Sechen sighed. “It looks like Prisoner doesn’t want anything to do with the glacier anymore. And honestly, I don’t blame him. Hells, Rainshear’s probably already left with Revel. She couldn’t stay there. Not with Glasrime looking for her.”

“And does that make reuniting with Revelation simpler, or difficult?”

“You know what?” Sechen pushed herself off the carpet-covered log she’d been sitting on. “I don’t think it matters.”

The next day, Sechen awoke after a night of only the regular amount of nightmares. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes as the light from the rising sun streamed in through the thin material of the tents Prisoner had set up, the smell of something cooking pervading the air. She shook out her hair and dug in her pack for a fresh set of clothes, but paused as she saw what was sitting on top of all her packed clothes. A small, sorrowful smile crept across her face, and she wiped at the corners of her eyes just in case she’d teared up a little. But her hands came back dry, and Sechen filled the tent with blinding light so that nobody could watch her dressing. Not that Prisoner looked at her that way, and Metea/Irric has seen her in a swimsuit multiple times. And she didn’t even know if Gilt had the ability to feel attraction. But it still felt good to have a little privacy; a small sense of normalcy in the middle of this whirlwind of a week.

As she emerged, Prisoner turned from the sizzling meat and eggs on a flat slate that he was cooking, gave Sechen a look that felt fatherly and proud, nodding with a smirk on his face. “You look good, ringlet. Emerald green really is your colour. Aside from gold, that is.”

Sechen allowed herself a small smile. “Thanks. I don’t have a lot of chances to wear dresses, but Revel always got me into one whenever she saw the opportunity.” Sechen sat down opposite Prisoner and leaned forward, smoothing out her sleeveless dress. “She made me this one the last time we were in Foxborough. Worked for a few days to trade for the fabric, then worked on the dress every night for the two weeks we were there.”

“Does the filigree have a story behind it?” Prisoner asked, referring to the rose pink looping pattern that went across Sechen’s chest from her right shoulder down to her hip, continuing in a spiral until it reached the bottom of her dress.

Sechen shrugged. “Revel thought it looked nice.”

“It does.” Prisoner agreed. “So, how’d your chat with Gilt go last night?”

“Don’t act like you don’t already know.” Sechen chuckled. “You somehow know everything.”

“Well, this may surprise you, but I don’t know.” Prisoner said. And he was right; Sechen was surprised. “Believe it or not, I do value privacy; mine and otherwise. I have an emotional net cast so that I can start listenin’ if things go real sour, but that’s a failsafe, not a standard.”

“Well. Alright, then. I think it went pretty well. Thanks.” Sechen said as Prisoner handed her a plate of meat, eggs, and two small citrus fruits with red peels that sparkled as if they’d been dusted with silver powder. “And I have a question for you; do you care about what happens to Revel?”

Prisoner held out a flat hand and waggled it; the universal sign of ‘sort of’. “Not in the way you’d think or expect. Hells, I ain’t even met the girl. But she’s a victim here of the same people that did sleepy dirty, and that counts for somethin’. So if you’re gettin’ at what you’re gettin’ at; yes, we will be rescuin’ Revel. Not right away, since I’m the only one who’d stand a chance against the kind of people I assume are holdin’ her, but eventually.”

Prisoner plucked a slice of meat off of the rock, rolled it up and held it between his teeth like a cigar. “Cloudy seems to think Revel’s gonna be safe for a while, but how do you feel about that? Think you could give me a timeframe in which I gotta make you four stronger?”

“Metea/Irric knows Rainshear better than I do, so I can’t really say anything about that. But I know Revel won’t stay in one place for long, so she’ll try to get away if Rainshear tries to tie her down.”

“And how long do you think it’ll take for Revel to go shack wacky?” Prisoner asked, purple smoke rising from the center of his makeshift cigar as he spoke.

“Shack wacky?” Sechen asked with an undertone of what-the-hells-are-you-saying.

“Stir crazy. Wild with wanderlust. Home-a-phobia. Whatever the opposite of agoraphobia is.” Prisoner rattled off, holding his cigar between two fingers and gesturing wildly with it. “Y’know, the point that Revel can’t take it any more and tries to leave.”

“Well, the longest we’ve ever been in one place was... three months.” Sechen said, trying to recall all of her travels with Revel. “We both got jobs, and we stayed at the Gilded Night from solstice to equinox.”

Prisoner looked to the sun and nodded. “And we’re just gettin’ close to an equinox ourselves. So let’s set the upper limit as three months to get all of you as powerful as possible so you stand a chance against whoever Rainshear’s workin’ with. But first of all we gotta focus on bringin’ sleepy back. Does that work for you?”

“Yeah.” Sechen nodded. “It does.”

“Then eat your breakfast. You’ll need the energy for the ambush that’s been set a couple’a miles up the road.”

Sechen paused with an egg halfway to her mouth. “Ambush?”

“Yup. Four of them, and from the Issi they’re puttin’ off seems like they’re some of Glasrime’s chosen ones. And an extra with martial Issi. Do they still work in threes?”

“Yes, they do.” Metea/Irric said with a large yawn, taking a seat next to Sechen and slouching over while trying to finger comb her hair. “Are you going to be fighting with us?”

“I’ll sit this one out, unless it looks like someone on our side’s gonna bite the dust. You three need to learn how to fight for real and see just how weak you are outside of the glacier. Well, maybe not you, cloudy, but you have other problems.”

“Other problems?” Metea/Irric asked, looking at Prisoner with questioning, tired eyes.

“Other problems.” Prisoner confirmed. “Issi withdrawal won’t hit you hard for a few days, but when it does, it’ll be pretty damn obvious.”

“Then it’s a problem for later.” Metea/Irric sighed, laying into her portion of breakfast with the voracity of someone who hadn’t eaten for days.

For the rest of the morning, Sechen was walking on eggshells. She jumped at every sound, flinched at every motion, and yelped once when a bug landed on her forehead. It was starting to get exhausting being so on edge, and Sechen was almost begging for the ambush to spring so she could go back to not worrying about them. Almost.

Metea/Irric’s gaze snapped onto one of the trees that hung over the worn path they’d been walking on, a warning sounding in Sechen’s mind before Metea/Irric put to words what she’d seen. “In the trees!”

It all seemed to happen so fast; one second there was nothing, and the next there was a spear of glass hurtling directly towards Sechen’s heart. Metea/Irric lashed out with a blast of wind to just barely alter the spear’s path, and it instead slashed through Sechen’s left arm almost to the bone. She looked down in disbelief at the gash that had appeared on her bicep, blood running down to her elbow as the glass spear shattered somewhere in the distance. She felt her face grow pale as she reached her hand over to feel at the wound, her hand coming back sticky and red from the terrifyingly clean cut.

Sechen took in a deep breath, forcing her eyes away from her wound to try and get a sense of what was happening. It didn’t help much. Metea/Irric was standing her ground against someone in a full set of plate armor made of frosted glass, two spears hovering behind their back as they pressed onward through what looked like gale force winds with a third leveled at Metea/Irric’s chest. And she wasn’t even looking at her opponent, she had her neck craned backwards with a concerned look on her face. That was when Sechen realized she was standing there, dumbfounded, as Metea/Irric pushed back the person who’d wounded her. Gilt rubbed up against Sechen’s leg, a ribbon of gold wrapping itself around her arm, and warm Issi pushed itself up into her wound, shocking her out of her trance.

“Thanks.” Sechen said, and Gilt nodded in return.

“This one is the vanguard; the others will be joining in once they sense danger. Be vigilant.” Gilt said, but his words came without sound. There was only the scrolling of text over Sechen’s vision, and Gilt waited for Sechen to nod understanding before flaring his Issi and moving in to protect Metea/Irric’s back.