Sael

There they were, bold as brass, laughing at her, as if meeting up had all been their idea. She could tell that her bodyguards were amused as well. How dare they? That's not what they're paid for!

Temperance, dear Sael. There was her Whisper. The intrusive voice that tried to advise her. Sael felt like the Whisper tried her best to make everyone around her seem less of a bore, but it didn't work most of the time. Sael landed on the ledge.

"Stay where we can see you, Miss Erus!" Dexian called from the ground. She looked back, rolled her eyes, and nodded. Turning back, she locked eyes with Azrael and flared her wings before dismissing them. He didn't say anything and his facial expression didn't change, but his eyes dimmed. It looked like they might be blue under the silver glow. She hit him where it hurt and marked some personal satisfaction in it.

That wasn't nice. You know he can't help that he doesn't have wings. Must you use other people's insecurities to make yourself feel validated? Sael ignored the hushed chiding, but relented somewhat. She turned around and sat down on the ledge, letting her legs hang down over the road.

"Come, sit!" She called. They may have teased her, but she decided that they were her friends and she should make an effort to get along with them, regardless. The pair sat on either side of her. Azrael handed her a pomegranate. Sael, not saying anything, split open the pomegranate and took a few of the arils inside and popped them in her mouth.

"You look well, Sael." Eden said, friendly as ever. "How are your parents doing?"

"That's what you led with?" The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. Not skipping a beat, Eden replied,

"Yep."

"You're not going to ask why I'm dressed like a spy?"

"Nope."

Sael sighed. "Father and Mother are alright. Father has a big event planned, today. Mother is meeting with some of the other nobles over something hush-hush. I should be lucky to see her at all, today.

Azrael asked, "How's your sister?" Sael turned to glare at him.

"She's a whore, like always." That wasn't nice either. They don't know what your sister is like; and taking it out on them doesn't help you in any way. Sael opened her mouth. Also telling them might disgrace your family. Think of your father. She then closed her mouth.

"Still at odds with her, then?" Azrael pressed.

"...Yes."

"I'm sorry. That can't be easy." Sael was surprised. She hadn't anticipated that Azrael would respond as he did. She shook her head and took a few more arils. Her friends followed suit.

"Don't worry about it. It's not important. I did want to show you both something. Not a lot of people know about it."

"Does it involve your father?" Eden asked. How did she do that?

"Yes. But stop guessing, I want the rest of it to be a surprise." Eden held her hands up in resignation, pomegranate juice running down her left wrist. Azrael wasn't so easily dissuaded.

"Does it have anything to do with why the guards are rerouting traffic away from the west gate?"

"Azrael, what did I just say?" She thought she caught a smile forming on Azrael's smug face. "No, what did I just say?"

"Alright, alright, fine. After we finish our pomegranates, then?"

"Fine."

"Not to pry-" Eden started.

"But you will." Sael interjected. "Continue, though."

"You're usually pretty touchy when you talk about most of your family, with the exception of your father; you're pretty generous with him."

"Yeah that sounds about right." She spit a couple seeds off the overhang. Please be careful what you say.

"Since you usually deflect actually talking about them, I won't ask you why, but I will ask you this: your family is one of the more prominent noble families in Almaz; you've got the run of the city and no one bothers you; Why do you slum it up with us? Azrael over here makes holy symbols and makes his living off tourism, while I serve drinks at Poseidon's Parlor. Besides our age, it's not like we have very much in common with you."

Remember what we talked about. Sael sighed and said, "I'm not... exactly... easy to get along with." Azrael snorted at this. "Shut up, Azrael, no one asked you! Anyway, Mother used to try to make me well-to-do. She'd stuff me in dresses, have me attend charity events, and she'd even arrange social events where I'd get to meet potential suitors."

"And that didn't agree with you."

"No, it didn't. Why should I have to sit still for anyone? I'd usually end up insulting someone important--one time, it was Princess Tamarinthe. So as not to cause our position any undue stress, Mother just gave it a rest, after a while. She knows that I know how to act in a high society setting, so I think she hopes that I'll gain interest if she leaves me alone. Also, my sister is... well, let's say that she functions well in the settings that mother needs her to. And it works out well enough for me, but it's tense. Mother hardly speaks to me. You two at least don't treat me like a failure, and you don't worship the ground I walk on, either. It's nice, because people are usually one or the other for me. Most of the time, I wish that I didn't have my station, that I'd just be a normal person that no one expects anything from."

They all fell into an uncomfortable silence for a few minutes, each feigning interest in their pomegranates. That was well phrased, Sael. Mostly.

I didn't ask you, Sael thought. There was no reply. There never was. The Whisper only offered advice; she never engaged in conversation. The annoying voice would give criticism, but would never accept any herself. Sael eyed Dexian and Frintak. They had finished their pomegranates much earlier than Eden and Azrael. The halflings had struck up a conversation with the anakim bodyguards, which irked Sael somewhat; the halflings had embarrassed her; the least the bodyguards could do is pretend to be miffed on her behalf.

When they had all finished their fruit, Sael hopped off of the roof and into the arms of her bodyguards, who, after years of guarding her, had come to expect that sort of rash behavior from her. She waited for her two friends to make their way back out of the fruit shop, making sure they saw that she was tapping her foot when they exited the front doors. Birds of a feather, both Eden and Azrael rolled their eyes when they saw it. Sael snapped her fingers and her bodyguards each produced a set of neatly-folded black robes identical to the set she was wearing and presented them to her friends.

"You mean we have to look as ridiculous as you? We will literally be the only people wearing these, going down the street." Azrael complained. Sael scrunched up her face.

"Do you have to whine about everything, L?" Sael sniffed. Azrael started to protest her use of his nickname, but she cut him off. "Besides, I'm not worried about people seeing us in the street. It's where we're going, where the robes will come in handy." Azrael didn't look happy about it, but he threw the robes over his head anyway.

"Look at it this way, L," Eden chimed in while attempting to navigate the robes, seemingly unsuccessfully, as her arms had still not found the sleeves, "Nobody will recognize us like this to make fun of us afterwards. A little forced anonymity for her highness will work in our favor." Sael's cheeks flushed.

"Well maybe I won't show you what's going on at the west gate. If you two want to be ungrateful, I'll take Dexian and Frintak with me instead. Frintak coughed and Dexian awkwardly offered,

"Ma'am, we'd be going with you either way." Sael shushed them, waving her hands in their direction. "Plus, we have orders from your father to forcibly remove you from any illegal activities." Sael turned towards them and held her arms straight out and palms up.

"Guys, could you just...? Could you be cool? Please? 'Kay." The anakim looked at each other and shrugged. Sael took that as a sign of defeat. You should be nicer to them.

Once everyone had their robes on, minus the anakim, of course, they set out towards the west side of the city. Whenever Sael went to one side of the city or another, she was always surprised at just how big the city was. Whenever she decided how much time it would take for her to get to her destination, the city seemed to decide for her that it would take half again as long to get there. She left early to make it to the fountain early, and she still wound up exactly on time for some strange reason.

They wove through the crowds, passing several temples and some up-scale restaurants on their way. The Whisper suggested that they stop and offer a sacrifice or donation to the temple of Hermes to speed them on their way, or perhaps the temple of Sekhmet on behalf of her father. She brushed aside the advice. It seemed pretty useless to stop and ask a god to expedite their trip across the city, when any time they gained as a blessing might be negated by stopping in the first place. And stopping to offer to Sekhmet? She could do that directly after.

The city was shaped like a particularly wide oval, being about twice as wide as it was long. The west gate led out to farmlands that eventually turned into the coast, while the east gate led to the wilderness between kingdoms. The north gate was used as the main commerce gate, and the southern gate was the highly-decorated ceremonial gate that never opened. Sael had seen it be the subject of several paintings and ribbon-cuttings, but rumor had it that the gate was never meant to open.

What seemed like an hour later passed before the group came to a stop; they had reached the portion of the city that led to the east gate, and, sure enough, the roads were cordoned off and each path was guarded by two members of the city watch.

"Where to now?" Eden asked. Sael pointed to the far right.

"Valkyrie's Flight Avenue. It leads right to the temple of Odin. They've left that street open so the temple can stay open, and you can't see the gate from the street."

"But you can get us tower access, can't you?" Azrael ventured. Sael nodded, smirking as if she was the cleverest elavis in the city, and as far as she was concerned, she was.

They walked to the farthest south street leading west and, sure enough, no barricades or guards, and they followed it to the temple.

Approaching the temple, Sael noted how serious and foreboding it was designed to look. Many of the temples dedicated to gods and goddesses of the Yggdrasilian pantheon boasted temples that were designed to look almost rustic, having mostly grey timber with a base of stone in what seemed to be an almost survivalistic form of architecture until you looked closer and saw that every piece of timber, every stone was host to dozens of intricate carvings that betrayed the fact that love and care was put into every inch of the temple. The temple of Odin, on the other hand, was built like a small fortress, made entirely from rough-hewn stone shaped in interlocking rectangles that formed the main building, which was large enough to sport two tall towers that were each supposed to be a perch for the two crows associated with Odin.

Sael stepped up first and pushed one of the doors open, which, despite the fact that the doors were made of stone, the door swung open quite easily.

The group shuffled inside. Sael turned to look at Azrael; she knew that he had very likely never been inside any temple, let alone this one. Sure enough, Azrael was slack-jaw, and his silver eyes were darting everywhere, trying to take in as much as possible as quickly as he could. And, to be fair, Sael considered, it was quite the sight, for while the outside was forlorn, the inside of the temple was positively extravagant.

On the west wall was a decorative portrayal of Yggdrasil, the universe-tree that was essentially a series of lines that looked like pure gold that ran through the expanse of the tree and folded back in on itself in numerous places to make the shape of a tree, but in a way that was strangely reminiscent of a fingerprint. And on different branches in a similar fashion were silver circles that were supposed to represent different realms that are connected by the tree.

On the east wall were pictographs of stories of the other Yggdrasilian gods, portraying the best and worst of them in a way that was supposed to have the worshipper ponder and learn from them.

On the South wall, opposite the doors, was a large statue of Odin, who had an appearance of an old man wearing long, flowing robes and an eyepatch, and holding a spear that had a blade that was almost as long as the handle; two ravens sat atop his shoulders, one on the left and one on the right. The entire sculpture seemed to be made of the same grey stone of the building, but a large sapphire was in place of odin's eye, the sapphire being the only adornment of the entire statue.

The middle of the room featured an altar in the center of the room and several pews situated around the altar, facing it. Several worshippers sat in the pews, chatting softly to each other while a priest walked around the temple, replacing candles that had burnt down.

"L, you're starting to drool." Sael teased. Azrael closed his mouth and frowned at her, but stayed silent.

"I can't say I've ever been in this one," Eden mused, "but it's exactly like the patrons at Poseidon's Parlor said it would be."

The priest set down his candles and made his way to the doors where the group stood and greeted them. He was an older man with grey streaks on the sides of his head. Notably, he wore an eyepatch, and Sael wondered, as she did last time she was in, if the priest was actually missing an eye, or if the eyepatch was simply worn out of reverence.

"Hail, Lady Erus, and guardsmen. I see you brought company this time." The priest's voice was light and unjudgmental, a tone which Sael liked.

"Yes, Gjalford. We're hoping to pray atop the north tower. We'll be making a generous donation to the temple, of course!" Sael spoke as persuasively as she knew how.

The priest held up his hand in protest. "I'll allow it, but no donation is necessary. The temple of Odin doesn't accept bribes." Sael's face reddened. She could feel Azrael smirking. "Besides," the priest continued, "It's payment enough for a daughter of the distinguished Erus family to be present here. That alone will bring in more worshippers. I do, however, have a stipulation for use of the tower-top."

"What's that?" Sael asked, genuinely curious.

"If Huginn or Muninn light atop one of the towers, or if they are already there, descend to the main sanctuary immediately. The tower-tops are designed to be their perches to begin with, and if they come to roost, and there are mortals in the way, I might get cursed for allowing the tower-top to be occupied."

"So if either of the two ravens are there or show up, then we leave."

"Yes."

"Deal." Sael grinned.

The priest motioned to the staircase in the back corner. "Take those stairs to the second floor, where there are spiral staircases for each tower."

The group took turns thanking the priest as they passed him to head to the stairs, to which he replied to each one, "Have an eye for wisdom, friend."

"Well look at you!" Eden exclaimed as she started up the steps, "You really know how to get what you want!"

Sael frowned. "Not everything I want."

They made their way up to the second floor, which was a library, full of books that looked as ancient as the stones that made the temple. They spotted two large columns that housed spiral staircases and started climbing. The anakim bodyguards had to turn sideways to fit in, but they managed.

"You know," Azrael wondered aloud, "The way this place is constructed is strange. The space between the floor of the second floor and the ceiling of the ground floor can't be more than a couple feet thick; there are no support columns underneath these towers, which means the weight of the towers themselves is sitting almost entirely on the second floor."

"Oh," Sael replied, "That's because this entire building is heavily enchanted. Magic is part of the architecture. With the amount of magic used to fortify this place, I'm surprised there aren't any teleportation pads to make travel to the tops of the towers easier. For that matter, I'm surprised the towers aren't just floating."

Azrael looked quite shocked at this statement. "How can you tell?"

"You mean you can't feel it? From the moment we opened the doors, I could feel the hairs on my arms standing up."

"Huh?"

"Oh, how do I describe it? You know how when the weather changes, and you know- you just know a storm is going to come in, because you can feel it like a shiver underneath your skin, even though it's not cold?"

Azrael thought for a minute as he trudged up the stairs, "Now that you mention it, I know what you mean."

They moved up in silence for the next couple of minutes and emerged in an opening on the floor of the tower top, which was close to forty feet wide, flat, and circular, with no guard rail.

Sael glanced around and then looked to the other tower some seventy feet away. No birds of any sort. Good, she thought.

"Dexian, Frintak, stay low, lay down, if you have to, but stay in the center, here, and don't be seen." The anakim nodded and obliged, both of them sprawling out on either side of the stairwell entrance. "Eden, Azrael, lay on your stomach, lean your head over the edge, and look over here. No, seriously, lay down, we don't want to attract attention." After some coaxing, they eventually did so, and all three of them were peering at the city below. "There! Over by the gate, can you see?" Sael pointed where they were supposed to look.

Over by the east gate, there was a battalion of armor-clad people amassing and filing into order. There were so many of them that they filled up the space they had to work with.

"Those are soldiers?" Eden asked.

"Paladins, loyal to the crown. Most of our soldiers are just citizens that get conscripted in times of war. In times of peace, like, supposedly, now, the crown maintains an order of paladins, that way if war does break out, the city will have some heavy hitters to send out while the conscripts get trained up to follow them."

Azrael asked, "'Supposedly now'? What's going on?"

You should probably keep quiet about this. "You guys have got to keep quiet about this." Sael echoed gravely, ignoring her Whisper.

"We won't tell anyone, Sael. I'll keep my mouth shut, and L doesn't have any friends to tell!" Eden joked. Azrael elbowed her and said,

"Go ahead, spit it out." Sael nodded and explained,

"Supposedly someone summoned a demon lord nearby. I don't know how close 'nearby' is, but it must not be terribly close, as nobody has heard anything. None of the merchants I stop by for gossip has any idea, and they're always the first to know things."

"What about me?" Azrael interjected, "I'm a merchant."

"Yeah, but you live in your own little world." Sael replied dismissively, "I knew you wouldn't have heard anything. Anyway, supposedly someone summoned some sort of wolf or dog demon lord, and he, in turn, summoned an army and they completely wiped a town off the map. Just gone. Only scorch marks were left behind."

"A wolf or dog demon lord?" Eden asked.

"Well, that's what my father told me. Some well-to-do wizard that survived the event managed to contact the crown court wizard and warn him yesterday. That's how the wizard described them. The crown summoned all the nobles to discuss it. When father came back from the meetings, he was exhausted."

"Well, at least your father is a noble, and he won't have to fight, or even worry about getting conscripted." Azrael stated, matter-of-factly.

"Azrael," Sael replied, feeling her voice tighten, "He's right there at the front of the battalion, commanding them."

"What?" Eden and Azrael cried in unison.

"Yeah, he was a paladin well before he married. He actually earned the title of noble at the end of a particularly gruesome quest. Most people think his title of paladin-commander is honorary, but those under his command know better.

"But the crown is still ordering him to go?" Azrael asked, sounding offended on her behalf.

He sounds like he cares.

Yeah, he does. She was grateful for that.

"No, father volunteered. My whole family tried to talk him out of it, but he was adamant that it was his duty as patriarch to keep the demons away from his family. And other macho platitudes like that. I'm sure he meant it, but I'd rather he stay here, out of harm's way. What if he gets hit by an arrow or something?"

"Do demons use arrows?" Azrael wondered. Sael turned and shot him a look of annoyance.

"Or something else random. You knew what I meant." Azrael shrugged at that.

And, before Sael's eyes, the paladins opened the gate and marched off.

"There'll be talk amongst the town about the movement of the paladins. At least a few of the night watch will always stumble into the Parlor at about six in the morning and do nothing but gossip. And at least a few of them watched the paladins leave." Eden said.

"Oh, definitely." Sael replied casually. "But they won't know why, and that's what's important: that no one finds out. I don't want my father to be blamed for letting information leak."

"Understood. What if someone volunteers the information? Like if they already had that information from another source."

Sael nodded, "Then you can talk about it with them, because if you are questioned about it later, you can just say you heard it from that source and it can't be traced back to my father." Sael suddenly realized that Azrael wasn't paying attention. In fact, he was looking away. The arrogant little twit had the gall to ignore her.

He can't hear you.

"What?" Sael asked aloud. She realized that she heard a soft whispering, not her Whisper that spoke to her directly, but something unintelligible, like it might be the wind or something scurrying on the roof, but it was so soft, she couldn't tell if she was actually hearing it, or if it was in the back of her mind.

"What is it, Sael?" Eden asked, sounding concerned. Sael ignored her.

"Hey, L, are you listening?" She reached over to shake Azrael's shoulder and found that she couldn't. Her hand touched his shoulder, but trying to shake it was like trying to shake the trunk of a large tree. She stood up and stepped over him and she immediately saw something was wrong. You should probably get him out of here.

He was slack-jawed and his normally silver eyes were blue, like a human's, but there was a soft red glow pulsing in the whites of his eyes, as if somebody was holding a candle in his head that was burning red for some reason. It didn't look like he was breathing.

"What's wrong with him?" Sael asked, panic starting to overtake her. She heard Eden stifle a scream. Sael heard her bodyguards suddenly stand up. Looking up, she saw that Eden's overall color had changed from her usual green to a light blue, and her hair looked like it had a layer of frost covering it. Eden had one hand over her mouth and one hand pointing at the other tower. Sael turned her head and realized in an instant what was going on.

Across the gap, sitting on the opposing tower was what looked like one of the largest eagles that she had ever seen, but it was jet black, the beak was wrong, and its eyes glowed red, like two precious rubies lit up by flame. One of Odin's ravens was perched on the opposite tower and was locking eyes with Azrael.

Gather your friends and run.

"Dexian, Frintak, pick up Azrael and let's go!" She cried. In a flash, her bodyguards were by her side. Dexian interposed himself between her and the raven while Frintak reached down to Azrael and grabbed him under the arms. She heard an almost deafening croak come from the raven; the sound itself would have been terrifying from a normal bird, but this one was loud and made her shiver, like some cold she didn't feel had settled into her bones. Sael watched, her panic increasing, as Frintak put more effort into moving him. Azrael didn't budge. Frinktak glanced at Dexian and Dexian moved in to help, grabbing Azrael's legs. Both Anakim struggled, veins protruding from their necks and brows, but to no avail.

"Azrael, please get up!" Eden pleaded, her voice cracking. He still didn't budge. The intermittent light in his eyes pulsed faster.

Azrael didn't deserve this. Sael shook her head. He didn't do anything wrong. He didn't deserve to-

"His eyes." she heard Dexian say. Frintak produced a large, stained handkerchief from his pocket and muttered,

"Sorry, kid." and dropped the cloth over his head, concealing his eyes. In that moment, both anakim, who had their backs bent, suddenly sprang up, Frintak with Azrael's limp body in both arms, and Dexian turned and scooped up Eden, followed by Sael. They made their way into the stairwell and hurried down. The whispering stopped and the only sound besides their footsteps were Eden's sobs.