***Tirnanog, Hochberg***

***Tianna***

I couldn't hide a deep frown on my face upon leaving Vanya's room. Nonetheless, I tried to portray confidence by clasping my hands behind my back and standing straight.

One of the guards quickly minded her own business when my eyes met hers. Suddenly, she found a spot on the wall of particular interest, just to avoid my gaze.

I slowly made my way towards the exit. A lot of things had to be taken care of for Vanya's ideas to play out as she desired. The girl may have grand plans, just like Greta, but the two had always been good with the theory side while overlooking the practical application.

People just didn’t behave predictably like pieces on a board game.

No matter her intelligence and abilities, I couldn't discount Vanya's inexperience with the social aspect. She failed to understand that sometimes people simply didn’t act rationally.

Placing both Thich and Aerie in the same room was paramount to forcing a diplomatic incident. The problem was further compounded if the Aerie in question answered to the family name of Frost from the twelfth strata.

A shudder ran down my spine at the memory of a particularly nasty incident which almost sparked another war.

The Frost elders had visited the Old Camp and taken a liking to an exiled girl-

I halted my current train of thought and pursed my lips while I replayed the memories of that day.

- A field of dead Thich recruiters.

- More accurately, their pieces.

- Bisected bodies which looked like they had been hit by a meat cleaver.

- A bodiless head bobbing in a disturbed pond.

- Etan Frost standing in the middle of it all with an expression which said he found the scene he created distasteful.

- Teresa Frost covering the eyes of a disturbed teenage girl.

I barely paid attention to the guards who hurried to open the doors for me when I left Hochberg's administration. Did I have something on my face?

Anyway, I wondered whether the girl in Teresa's arms had been Astra Frost. If so, she had found two seriously bad role models as adoptive parents. The incident back then had been the cause for the ban on any partnered warriors visiting the Old Camp.

Previously, the recruiting process had been relatively relaxed and carefree. All clans had free access to the Old Camp and could enact trade and recruitment policies as they pleased.

If properly handled, the Old Camp could have turned into a trade hub and meeting place, allowing people from all clans to interact with each other without the restrictions enacted by their superiors.

The new regulations had made this impossible and the recruitment of exiles had turned way too ceremonial for my tastes.

Although, the consequently established practice of sending out youngsters to gain some real-life experience in survival and diplomacy hadn't turned out to be a bad thing. I just would have wished for this opportunity to be available to everyone.

By Gaia, some of the old folk who were set in their ways could have used a heavy dose of cultural exposure.

On the other hand, nobody could dispute that Thich's recruitment behaviour had skirted the border to slavery. Some of their practices were already a re-invention of serfdom.

Banishing partnered warriors with the power to enforce their will on the entire settlement had put an end to such practices and ensured none of the clans could establish a position of absolute power.

Sending clan-reared youngsters to the Old Camp still ensured a position of power for the clans. But with their limited power, they would never be able to subdue the Old Camp on their own.

I still wondered why the people in charge back then had decided to leave the Old Camp to that man. Having an overseer was wise, but he was the worst possible option in my opinion.

Alas, I hadn't been at the meeting and the decision had been made by just a few leaders. Greta had been the only Hochberg who could have answered the question, but she was dead.

Maybe he had some leftover favours with them and managed to save his skin?

They should have quartered the pig instead and spread the pieces in all four cardinal directions to ensure he wouldn't return to haunt us at a later date.

Sighing, I took the main tunnel to the executive offices and reconsidered the memory and the underlying cause of the incident.

Whether the Aerie and the Thich realized it or not, there had been a major cultural shift between the two clans. Maybe it was due to their isolation or caused by distance, I couldn't say.

High up in the mountains, the Aerie were somewhat disconnected from Hochberg, Vier, and Jeng. Meanwhile, the Thich chose their isolation of their own accord by limiting visitors from other clans. Only some Caravaner families had regular contact with them, although the recent revelations brought by the Aerie delegation would explain Thich’s behaviour.

Seen in this light, the Thich and Aerie may as well be located on opposite sides of the planet.

Aerie prided their rationality and strictly adhered to their stratas. They often denied it, but it sounded like a caste system to me. This resulted in them reacting to their surroundings with unquestioning rigidity. If you approached an Aerie peacefully and with respect, the respect would be returned in kind. Contrary, challenge or insult was easily cause for unfiltered violence, especially when dealing with one of the combat-oriented stratas.

I really would have to pay the mountain a visit if I ever decided to lay down my badge.

On the other hand, the Thich were constantly challenging the status quo in an attempt to climb the ranks. This happened according to a ritual of slow escalation in which subordinates challenged their superiors for the right to lead. If the superior ever backed down from the challenge, the subordinate could take the position. Their aggravating behaviour was a direct consequence of the Thich's strictly hierarchical society.

Presented as a metaphor, the Aerie’s cultural rules were equal to an otherwise harmless explosive material while the Thich’s desire to challenge served as a detonator.

Thanks to my position I was aware of the social quirks among the two insular clans, but many people who hadn't been specifically schooled wouldn't know this and react according to their social imperative. It was doubtful whether most regular people among them were aware of their idiosyncrasies.

Well, I hoped Astra and her partner had been thoroughly prepared for a meet and greet with the Thich. Maybe I should give Peter a special forewarning just to be sure.

I felt a scowl stealing itself onto my forehead while I entered the public reception lobby for the executive forces.

Guard Captain Sarah Gaelic sprang to attention when she saw me approaching. The guards at her side also straightened like frightened mice.

“At your service, Advisor Tianna!”

“At ease,” I ordered. I wasn't fond of my presence being announced in such a public manner. A tingling sensation on my skin told me exactly how many interested gazes had been turned in my direction when Sarah pointed me out to the entire lobby.

I casually surveyed the crowd and memorized the three people who had turned their attention towards me and were now trying to fake ignorance at varying levels of professionalism.

One of them was a known Thich informant. Sadly, not all Hochberg were above working for anyone as long as the payment was good. We officiously allowed the informant to keep her job as long as she didn't give away vital information. One could never know when it would be beneficial to feed carefully edited news through a trusted channel.

A second person who had shown interest was unknown to me. He was a tall man with an average face. Someone who could have fit in any crowd without giving cause for a second glance.

The third was a cloaked figure who couldn't be any more conspicuous, although the tell-tale glow of a nightstalker mutation from within the hood left me with a good guess of who was trying to spy. If I was right, the cheesy cloak could be forgiven. Better to stand out in a crowd than to be a neon sign advertising your identity.

I considered whether I should sentence the three based on paying a little too much attention to the wrong person.

“Is everything alright, Advisor? You look like a gutter took off with your liver.”

Sarah's concerned question reminded me of why I was here.

“It's fine.” I gestured for the captain to lead the way. “Lead the way to the morgue.”

I would leave the three for now and see which of them would strain their luck and stay around until I returned. Once could be incidental. Twice warranted identification.

Nonetheless, I gave a silent order to the other two guards to have an eye on the three people's actions while I was busy.

Two minutes later, I found myself looking at the preserved corpse of a Forgotten while a doctor performed a post-mortem examination of the body. I didn't need him to tell me we were looking at the real deal.

“I guess the only question I have is, did he die recently?” I asked. “Or did they have the body in storage?”

“Most definitely within a few months,” the doctor answered and squeezed the skin. “They embalmed the body with stickweed extract. It conserves the body but also slowly changes the cellular structure as the chemicals seep into the flesh. At the end of the process, the body is like plastic. As you can see, this one is still pliable. Like rubber. No older than three or four months. I also found no traces of damage as it would occur in frozen storage – which would be easy to recognize. Alas, conserving a body in this manner obfuscates any possibility of determining an exact time of death. But I can assure you, he died within the last year. Which is all that interests you I suppose. I will give a detailed report once I am done here.”

“Please inform us if you find anything contradicting your current judgement,” I ordered.

“Unlikely,” the doctor replied and went back to his work.

As much as it wrinkled my pride to admit so, if a Forgotten task force had managed to hide among the Aerie for so long, Hochberg could have the same issue. Maybe Vanya's plans of drawing them out had some merit after all.

But why would the Forgotten assassinate Greta now of all times? I was lacking too many pieces to the puzzle to assign any motivation to the murder.

Killing Greta to gain control of Hochberg was stupid. Nobody could be certain of passing the tests required to take control of the clan. Although many had applied and tried their skills, it was hubris to assume one could come out on top for sure.

Short-term destabilisation of the clan might be another motive. But the murder had occurred in the middle of winter. A time during which the clan was forced to inaction anyway. It had taken just a few weeks for Vanya to take up her mentor’s mantle, voiding any sense for this possibility.

Unless whoever orchestrated the assassination had vastly misjudged the re-election process. The Forgotten were a likely and at the same time unlikely candidate.

On one hand, they couldn’t move openly through our society and learn the in and outs of our leadership structure. On the other hand, they must be able to move among the civilian population without much threat of discovery at the very least, or we would have noticed them long ago.

Was a collaborator among my clansmen a possibility I wanted to entertain?

I shook my head.

Occam’s Razor, the simplest explanation was likely true. As long as I didn’t have any indication of a traitor, planning for one would be paranoid.

There was already a new player to consider, but how would Earth gain anything from Greta’s death? Not to forget Aerie and Thich.

What I needed was a motive. Without it, any investigation would be just searching for a needle in a stack of hay.

Sadly, Aerie’s unexpected arrival hadn’t given me any answers. Just more questions.

I turned and gestured for Sarah to follow me.

When I returned to the lobby, two of the three people were gone. Only the cloaked guy was still there.

Grumbling, I took off in the direction of the cloaked figure, intending to have a serious word with either Magnus or Astra. Them infiltrating our colony unannounced wasn't only a violation of trust, but it could also cause us serious problems if something happened to them outside the Caravaners' protection.

The cloaked figure noticed my approach and left through the lobby's main exit.

I quickened my steps until I was on the wide main transit tunnel in front of the lobby. It was angled slightly upwards, one direction leading to the surface settlement and the other leading to the docks.

Scanning the busy traffic route, I found myself dumbfounded to find not a single hair of my prey.

My lips pressed together in annoyance. No matter how much I concentrated, I couldn't sense anything. It seemed like my prey had evaporated into thin air. Vanya had mentioned they had some speed-type mutation, but I hardly believed it allowed them to teleport.

I pointed at a nearby street vendor. “Hey, you! Have you seen a cloaked fellow running off?”

The woman in question looked confused. “No? But I could offer some snacks.” She pointed out the arrangement of meat sticks she had on offer.

“Not now,” I replied and returned to searching the passing crowd while Sarah and her subordinates caught up to me outside.

“Is something wrong?” one of Sarah's men asked.

“No. When did the other two leave?” I asked.

“The first you pointed out left immediately. The other four minutes later,” the guard answered.

“Hmm.” I hummed. “Sarah, go and inform the Aerie. They are invited to prove themselves tomorrow morning. If all works as intended, we will have dinner afterwards. I also want an announcement for the whole clan. A training alarm is to be expected tomorrow morning. Everyone is to lay down their work until midday and be careful not to be caught up in potentially dangerous activities.”

I gave a short explanation of what was expected to happen and left the exact wording of the announcement to her. Giving my orders in public was intentional and in accord with Vanya’s wishes.

It was the best part of the day since I still had to go and meet some Thich.