Izna Weyr stared down his ale mug and avoided looking at Braden Foster’s friends. The taller woman, Yuriko, was particularly unsettling, in his opinion. For one thing, she could somehow perceive things even though she had that hood over her head, covering her eyes entirely. That was…creepy.

From where he was sitting, the only parts of her face he could see were her jaw, her lips, and a bit of her nose. And what beautiful symmetrical features she had! He always liked looking at beautiful things and prescribed more value to art than function, something that wasn’t ideal for an aspiring Great Merchant.

The coin scales hiding in his pocket felt warm. It was his one bound spirit.

The state and the academies always warned of the same thing when talking about the Empire. There were fewer of them, less than a tenth of all the populace within the Federation of City-States of Rumiga. But all of them, without fail, can use Animus. Each of them, upon reaching thirteen years of age, underwent a ritual that unlocked their Animus Reserves. All of humankind, and even the demi-humans, have Animus. It was a necessity to survive, as otherwise, the ambient Chaos would poison them.

Of the populace of Haveena City, only a tenth was capable of Basic Spirit Binding. The equivalent of the Empire’s Novices. The rest were unawakened. Not that an awakened one wouldn’t be born from the masses. He was proof of that. Just that the majority of people lived as weaklings. Becoming a Spirit Binder took exceptional Will and talent. There were studies made that indicated the unawakened could eventually access their Animus Core, but if they weren’t suitable, it would just be a waste of time and effort.

He was one of the lucky ten percent but that didn’t mean he forgot about his original class. Hardly that. In fact, he felt disgusted at the fact that all four of the Great Merchant Clans, Salazha, Lorenti, Bonifar, and Mibirin, practically took all of the awakened under their command. It was inevitable. He even had to get a sponsorship from the Lorenti Clan to be enrolled in the Academy Haveena.

Idle thoughts flashed through his mind as he contemplated what he should say to the woman who had thrown her support for the commoners. After all, she was a foreigner, an enemy even, but she stood with them against the First Councillor.

“I’m sure you noticed how much prices have risen,” he began. “War has a way of making every basic need seem like a luxury. The price of bread has doubled. The price of honey and sugar tripled. And chocolate…there’s none to be had,” he said mournfully.

“Chocolate?” Yuriko gasped.

“Yes. The food and drink of the gods.” He nodded. “Tea leaves are expensive, so landlords have increased the price of lodging by three or four times. All because everything, from foodstuff to metal, is claimed by the Salazha Clan for the war effort. Why, some wheat and rice fields had been repurposed to grow some other strange crop and landowners are paid a pittance for them. People are starving, and it doesn’t help that your…the Verdanians have been raiding across the border for nearly a year now.”

“Raiding?” Yuriko gasped. “But…” She shook her head and nodded for him to continue. He watched her figure from the corner of his eye. They’d only met yesterday, but he felt quite positive about her. Quite worthy of trust.

“The latest weight to tip the scales,” he continued, “is the new conscription notice. Back then, all citizens of eighteen years of age until thirty-five were subjected to a lottery. According to their city registry, those who were drawn must report to the nearest recruitment office. About one in four people were unlucky.”

He took a deep breath, and his hands trembled in anger. “Imagine that. Kids and craftsmen, regular people, went through a short training period, no more than a couple of weeks, then sent to the frontlines! The casualty reports were staggering! Tens of thousands dead! Thrown against the burning walls of Imperial outposts and fortresses! And now this? Children? Fourteen-year-olds who’re barely into their apprenticeships? All forced to be conscripts?”

He felt tears dripping down from the corners of his eyes. But he heard her muttering, “Tens of thousands? That’s impossible…”

“It is,” he said in response. “Not all of them were sent up north. The majority were actually sent southeast. To cross the Zarek and fight in the Ivalan front.”

Yuriko’s lips were pouting and he found that so cute his tears dried up immediately. He stifled a laugh though and wondered why his emotions were affected so.

“That’s not all,” he said after a long moment. “You should watch out. All drifters in the city will be conscripted if they have not presented a writ of employment or business.”

“They would even conscript foreigners…ah!” She gasped and shook her head. “We’re refugees,” she continued faintly.

“If you say so.” Izna laughed. “Well, that’s about it, I guess.” He finished the rest of his ale and felt a wonderful buzz in his head.

“Thank you again,” Yuriko said. The other woman, whose name he’d forgotten, if she had even been introduced to him. Come to think of it, he only recognised Yuriko because she was so tall and stood out from the crowd.

“You should finish your drinks, then leave through the front entrance,” He said, pointing towards the narrow ladder opposite where they entered. “Lay low in your inn for now, but you better be ready to bolt. I don’t know if the press gangs will scour the Lorenti District or the dock slums for that matter. Maybe better if you and your friends ought to go farther south. Head over to Uaran and leave the plane. Spirits know that’s what I want to do if only my folks don’t own the Tackles and Bits...”

The other two just nodded along. Soon enough, they finished their mugs, thanked him again, and left.

Izna contemplated a fourth mug, but he was already feeling a bit woozy. He asked for some water. Barkeep Jimmy gave him an odd look, then came back with a mug, no doubt fresh from the rain barrels. Of course, it hadn’t rained in a week.

Izna channelled a bit of Animus to clean the water before drinking it down. Then he went to the latrines and relieved his full bladder. He left the tavern an hour later when he wasn’t feeling so dizzy. It was already well past noon as he strolled down the alleyways. He could still feel the tension in the air, and he wondered if he should have stayed in the tavern for a bit longer.

His feelings were suddenly vindicated when a manacle attached to a chain flew out of the shadows and snapped shut on his wrist. Then he was surrounded by a pack of rough-looking men.

“And here’s another one.”

The leader grinned, and Izna gulped in sudden fear.

____________

Yuriko realised that someone was tailing them when they were nearly a block away from that tavern. The narrow ladder on the opposite end popped out at a hallway, which opened up into another tavern, though this one didn't have anyone smoking anything pungent. She feared that the stench would stick to her clothes and hair, and a bit of it did stink up her poncho. She nibbled on a piece of Wayfarer’s bread once they were on the empty streets. The bread was just as hard and tough as a ration bar, though that was nothing to her strength now. But if she had eaten this while she was a Novice, then she might have chipped a tooth.

The street they came out of wasn’t an alleyway between two buildings but was a narrow side passage that probably connected to the main thoroughfare. A horse carriage could pass through it with little trouble but not two. The ground-level windows of the houses were still shuttered, though she detected a few peeping out discreetly with her perception aura.

Desire was dazedly walking beside her, and by the time they crossed an intersection, she felt eyes on her back. It was just past noon and there were barely any shadows on the ground.

Her perception range was at eight paces…a bit more than that now, actually. She barely noticed incremental increases now. She perceived it. A group of uniformed men turning down the side street she and Desire went into after crossing the main road. There was no one else outside.

“Hurry,” she whispered to Desire who stiffened slightly.

“If we run, it’s more suspicious, isn’t it?” Desire whispered back.

“Better than confronting them and leaving a trail of bodies,” Yuriko answered. The road ahead slowly curved to the right. The houses were built right next to each other, wall to wall. Tenements, if she remembered the correct word, each two to three storeys high. That was an easy jump for her, but she worried about walking on the rooftops since they weren’t made of slate and neither were they flat. The Haveenian style of architecture used mostly thatching for the roofs. From what she observed in the Solemn Flower House, the ceiling consisted of wooden bracings layered with dried hay or some other grass. Then again, she could easily perceive the wooden supports underneath anyway.

But, that would have to come later. As soon as they reached an alleyway, Yuriko grabbed Desire’s wrist and both of them sprinted down the narrow path. She heard their tail yelling in surprise, then the hurried footsteps of pursuit. There was a gentle slope downwards and runoff water from the buildings around it flowed down the sides. There was a horrific stink, too, but she ignored it for now.

A glance behind showed her that their pursuers were only a dozen paces behind. Yuriko couldn’t go full speed as she didn’t know the lay of the land. Which meant that they were actually gaining on the two of them.

But down one side, her eyes brightened as she saw what she’d hoped to see. She pulled Desire and both of them swerved into the new alleyway, and not five paces away was a fence three paces high.

Grabbing her friend by the waist, she leapt over the fence and expanded her kinesis enough to secure their landing. Then, off they went, randomly picking which turn to go through at the intersections.

After half an hour, the two of them took shelter under an awning. The shop it belonged to was closed, but from the sign on top, it normally sold fabrics. Maybe clothing, too. Hmmm, someplace to take note of. Her clothes were slightly tattered at the hem, and there were cuts along the sleeve. She supposed she could let Gwendith repair them for her, but that seemed a waste of her time.

The entire ordeal today had made her weary, not because of the physical or emotional exertion, but from the strain of holding back. That crowd earlier, she could have escaped it easily. Both of them could have, but doing so would have injured somebody and the government might have noticed them. That they have now wasn’t great at all, but at least they weren’t pegged as elites or warriors.

Hmmm, although jumping over the fence might have given them away. Ehehehe. Ah, but that’s better than killing them all or knocking them out.

They spent the next couple of hours flitting from shadow to shadow. Now that it was well into the afternoon, the alleys and small streets were always in the shade. That also meant mould and other unmentionables grew more easily in the wooden boards and frames. There were only a few buildings with signs of neglect, but there was at least a couple along every street.

Having no idea where they were, Yuriko had gone up above the rooftops once, not by jumping but by climbing carefully between two walls that were less than a pace apart, between two tenement buildings. Most of the houses were built of stone at the ground level but used wood above them. Those wooden panels creaked against her weight, at which point, she used her kinesis to support herself. The glow gave her away, but there was no one within sight.

Above the roofs, she found that she and Desire had drifted south and east from the central district, and they needed to go west, and a bit north.

It took a few more hours, but finally, they arrived back at the inn. And as soon as she returned to her room, was met with a flying tackle from a teary-eyed Gwendith.