After escorting Heron back to the grounds of the palaces, where the marital ceremony was taking place, Davir rushed back to the eastern entrance of the royal domain. He was almost itchy with curiosity but forced himself to turn his back on the heir and safeguard his liberty. Davir wasn't about to grant Sir Salmior a flimsy pretext to send him to prison.

While the western entrance of the domain hummed with a tumult of noble folks leaving and entering the domain of the royal marital ceremony, the grand eastern exit remained silent.

His exit from the domain had been perfectly coordinated. The doors already had opened for him, the soldiers guarding the entrance that night not asking questions as Davir advanced towards the carriage awaiting outside.

Sir Kerm, brigadier of the city guard, stood there beside Sir Salmior, by the wooden carriage meant to conduct them to the city. He stared at Davir sternly, chin turned up as if to compensate for his small stature. His arms were a mound of muscles pressing onto black leathered uniform, resting on his waist where hung at three blades.

Instinctively, Davir was already expanding energy from his vessel. Activating the knack had become second nature to him in the face of potential threat. But his encounter with the soothsayer had shown Davir using his knack could well be the equivalent of revealing himself. He could not rule out people lashing out at him because of the sheer blasphemy of his existence. Davir blocked all the flowing energy in before it traversed past his skin.

His permit of residence in the royal domain had been burned that afternoon. As a city citizen, and without the heir's protective influence, one mistake could cost him everything. He had one objective at sight: the soothsayer and his companion. He put his curiosity on Brigadier Kerm to rest for now.

Keen to know how much he ached to see Davir ruined, Sir Salmior spoke with his overplayed disdain. "Do not waste this opportunity, Davir. Most aren't half as fortunate as you are. And of course, you should thank Brigadier Jallon, who believes you are quite a capable guard. And Brigadier Kerm, for accepting Sir Jallon's request for transfer. Had all the matter been for me to solve, you would be now in prison. I prefer to be honest on the matter, given its gravity."

Davir looked straight into the grey eyes of the man, unblinking. "The Ancients pay you." As intended, Sir Salmior seemed to take Davir's words as an affront. But what was there to make Davir accountable for? Whatever venomous words he was eager to spit out seemed to be swallowed with a long sigh.

Sir Kerm showed Davir the way, "Sir Salmior, soldier, you may enter the carriage if you will."

"I must return to the ceremony," said Sir Salmior. Marvelous. Of course, Davir suspected the distance from the clergyman wasn't bound to make him free of his control. Those meant to keep an eye on him in the city had most likely already been selected and assigned to the task.

Once Sir Salmior was finally out of sight, Davir and the city brigadier embarked into a carriage pulled by three horses through the slant leading them out of the surroundings of the royal domain, the darkness of forest Scura, then the cobbled paths of the city. To finally reach the barracks of the guards in its third borough.

Although never taking his eyes off Davir, Brigadier Kerm did not say one word during the trot to the barracks, his hand brushing the leather cap of the sheathing of the smallest blade he carried at his waistband. His free hand pushed a curtain open when they entered the city, causing firelights hanging on walls to flash behind him. Afterward, he kept a disinterested demeanor, but Davir didn't turn away, from him. Although he ached to, given the pain firelight inflicted on his eyes.

The barracks of the city guard were located inside a circular courtyard paved with the same cobbles as the city roads and enclosed by ramparts as tall as a three-floor edifice.

All the men keeping the entrance seemed to tense as the brigadier approached, and invariably bowed once the brigadier marched past them. They first seized the stables in the precinct. "And your functions as a city guard start now. Davir Her Arun, you will be serving the people. The Ceri. There is no greater honor. You will be integrated into one of twenty patrols of the Green Guard and be under the orders of your patrol captain. And now be granted a horse." The brigadier's tone had lightened and Davir noticed his hands were away from this blade sheathes now. As though Davir had passed a test of trust. It took the brigadier a long moment of eyeing and examining horses in the stalls until he halted in front of one keeping an old mare.

"Jyor," the brigadier called. A stableman, seemingly appearing from nowhere approached, his feet almost inaudible above the dry hey carpeting the floor. "Mare or stallion?" Sir Kerm asked.

"A mare," said Jyor after a sloppy and uninterested bow. He removed his green headpiece, uncovering decaying grey hair. "This one is quite old though," he said, "old enough to recognize the name of most soldiers here."

"If it is unassigned then it'll be sufficient for now," said the brigadier. "We won't have new horses delivered until next Sprout season."

"Breeding seasons have been quite horrible in the south, I've heard."

The brigadier ignored the comment. "This is Davir Her Arun. New soldier in the guard, a transfer from the Blue Guard. Prepare the mare and make it available urgently, please." The brigadier clicked his tongue. "In fact, before you do prepare the mare, inform the fourth patrol they've just earned a new member."

"Of course, Sir."

"Will you follow me, Davir?" The way from the stables to the administrative three-floor building in the center of the precinct was a straight line across the field of cobles. "You will be working with the men of the fourth patrol from now on. They have lost a member during a recent operation in the first borough. Usually, soldiers who've only newly arrived in the barracks do not integrate a patrol immediately. But given Jallon's report on you, I believe you will adapt quite fast." As he said the words, Kerm appeared bathed in pleasure, his black eyes glinting with reflections of the reddish light in his office.

"Make good use of the mare." The brigadier scoured his drawers and retrieved a pair of uniforms, which he threw at Davir to catch. "It's a pity, your salary will suffer as a consequence of being transferred to the city barracks. We do the best we can with the funds the Monarchy grants us. But our seasonal funds are four times smaller than those of the Blue Guard despite us having three-quarters of all of the military force of the northern region." He sighed and remained pensive and silent for a moment. "Well, you will earn three times less than your promised seasonal salary in the Blue Guard. You have a lot to gain serving the Ceri, however, especially if you compare that to the prospect of prison."

Prospect of prison for not having committed any crime at all. But Davir nodded all the same.

"There is one question I need to sort, however. It came to my attention that you have no memories of your life past the few weeks you served in the royal domain." The brigadier stood and that look of suspicion and defiance was back on his face, likewise, his hand reached into his waistband and this time he unsheathed one blade. The smallest of them, not longer than a palm, and completely black. Suddenly, strangely familiar when its sheer sight caused Davir the sensation of a stab in the chest. Soon he was gritting his teeth and shaking. He knew instinctively that he needed to get away from that blade as soon as possible.

Struggling to control himself, he lied, "Yes, Sir. I had been a soldier in the Red Anutehi guard before integrating the ranks of the Blue Guard." His forehead was dampening further with sweat by the second.

The brigadier rotated the blade, and walked closer, unseen heat closing in around Davir. "I heard of it. Thankfully Sir Salmior sorted that out and his reports on the matter are conclusive." Only a pace separated them now and Davir felt as if his bones wanted to jump out of his body to flee from that cursed vixen's blade. He couldn't hide his trembling from the brigadier anymore. "Still, I imagine it would be quite difficult for you. With no family. If need be, I can help on that front."

Davir felt the urge to get that blade and toss it away into the damned Order of The Shadows. But his body constricted at the idea. He suspected if he touched that dagger, he could die. "There will be no need, Sir."

"Brigadier," he said. "I prefer you address me as your brigadier." Brigadier Kerm knew exactly what he was doing. Davir only didn't reach into his vessel to summon strength enough to strangle the brigadier to death because he knew he couldn't fight against the black dagger. As suddenly as the blade had been produced it disappeared inside its thick sheathe. "Alright then. If it's of any comfort, I will be judging you solely on your deeds moving forward. The past remains where it belongs."

Davir nodded. Nauseated. Light-headed.

"You may leave now," said the brigadier.

Davir rushed outside the barracks and vomited bile onto dark cobbles at the sight of soldiers clad in the green uniform and the brigadier, who had followed him there. Did that bastard of a clergyman know exactly where he was sending him?

Davir stood and wiped his mouth with the back of his hands, attempting to keep any composure. Finding the soothsayer was more urgent than ever and now.

Strangely, the brigadier made no case of the scene. When Davir's body spasms threatened to spill out vomit again, it all came out dry and excruciatingly painful.

The brigadier extended a hand to him and murmured, "Congratulations. You have successfully passed the test. Come to me when you are ready to let out any useful information. I'll give you some time. But it's not infinite. If necessary, the guard will turn against you." Then with more vigor, he said, "Captain of the fourth patrol, Elhynor, is waiting for you in his office. The second floor of the edifice. The main corridor, two turns right and onwards to the fifth door. After you've had word with him, consider yourself dismissed. Elhynor will escort you to the chambers Clergyman Salmior has found to you in record time in the seventh borough."

Without farewell, Brigadier Kerm's turned away. His boot soles covered with a layer of metal tapped against the way of cobbles even when he was inside the halls of the barracks office.

Davir stood. Looked around to assure himself no other soldiers had been watching them from close enough to have listened to the brigadier's unsubtle murmurs. That appeared about covered. During his time in the royal domain, it seemed Davir had been handed the illusion of anonymity, but he understood how the heir hadn't been the only one sheltered by the great walls of the royal domain's barricades.

Elhynor was a gaunt man with a sturdy face, carrying a uniform that seemed to hang on a rack. Seemingly in a rush to dispatch Davir, he was quickly welcomed to the fourth patrol of the city guard and soon after led into their gallop through the city. Still, in a lazy tone almost spilling snores, the captain took the time to present the grounds of activity Davir was to as a new member of his patrol.

The streets grew narrower as they left the third borough where stood the edifice of the barracks to poorer areas of the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh boroughs. The buildings were smaller too, both in width and height, rarely reaching two floors.

Passersby recognized the green uniform of the guard. Where teen fights seemed eminent, their mere passage scattered boys across the pavements.

"There you are, you," said Elhynor.

"Ancients pay you," Davir said, still tasting bile in his mouth. He reached inside his pocket to retrieve a piece of paper with the written address of his assigned citizen's chamber: C-D.2nd-B.7th/5. The second domain of the city of Ceres. In the fifth edifice of its seventh borough. Elhynor drove away before Davir had finished turning the keys inside the building's lock.

A slant of spiraling stairs led to the first floor of the edifice where a small corridor sheltered two doors. His chamber was a square piece with three oval windows lined at waist height, stools below each of them. The view of a small bed was partly hidden behind layers of transparent curtains surrounding it. The rest of the furniture was one desk near a stone protuberance of the wall in an imitation of a table and a wooden barrel of water. Dusty and dry.

Davir undressed and sat on his bed, frustrated. With the questions that seemed to have no clear and straightforward answer. Davir now wished he'd pressed for whatever information Heron had promised. In the morning writing to the royal domain would be the first thing he needed to do. First than investigating the next possible departures from Ceres to the East to track the soothsayer and her companion. First than presenting himself to the barracks of the city at sundown.