The wind that battered the cliff and sprayed Saia with drops of salt would have been unbearable in a body of flesh. She walked up to the very edge, the tunic pressed against the front of her statue, her figure shrouded by the night. She'd emptied her bag of anything that could be damaged, destroyed or made heavy by the water, leaving only the block of viserite. She looked down for a long time, not out of fear but fascination: she’d fallen from higher heights, but it was the depths that interested her.

She jumped. The water met her halfway through, trying to crush her against the rocks, but her fall continued as if it was nothing more than a gentle push. She let out a laugh, hoping there was at least one monk looking out from the monastery’s windows, confused and scared by a sudden voice coming from the sea.

Water in different shapes paraded in front of her eyes as she sunk to the bottom: sea foam, currents, dark depths. Some ancient instinct was still trying to convince her to hold her breath. She saw the rocks coming from below and landed on them with the grace of a dancer, the tunic she’d stolen from the monastery’s closets billowing all around her.

She observed her surroundings: rocks enclosed the base of the cliff. On the side that wasn’t battered by the currents she spotted mussels, algae, and other sea creatures. They clung to their pockets of tranquility amid all of that movement; Saia’s steps were the only disruption they’d probably felt in their entire lives, if they were capable of feeling anything at all.

She walked on, not knowing what exactly she was looking for. Some sort of tunnel, perhaps a cave.

Something silvery darted through the water at the edge of her range. She stopped, waiting for the movement to return. Since it wasn’t coming back, she started running towards it, in defiance of the sea’s attempts to correct her trajectory with violent currents.

She stopped as soon as she found out what they were: sea snakes. If not identical, at least similar to the ones that lived around the mountain. She remembered the ones at Iriméze’s zoo. She took their presence as a sign of good luck. She was proven right when one of them darted into a hole on the side of the cliff.

Saia stepped forward. The cave’s entrance was big enough to fit the monastery’s luxurious hall. The jagged edges betrayed its natural formation, in a time when the monks didn’t exist yet.

She expanded her domain to check the inside. There was a light in the distance, slowly approaching. She stood beneath the entrance, not bothering to hide: it was difficult to tell with her enhanced vision, but it seemed dark enough that a human couldn't spot her.

Her confidence in her senses wavered when she saw the thing coming out of the cavern and couldn’t distinguish what it was. She’d had the same sensation at the hidden monks’ village, while watching the structure that had emerged from the secondary entrance. She’d later recounted the scene to Serit, after they had been scolded by the abbot and still managed, with Saia’s hidden help, to convince her they hadn’t put one foot beyond the doorway at the end of the stairs.

“A glass pattern, you said?” they had commented in the end, the mystery too interesting to keep up the silent treatment. “Glass and viss behave weirdly.”

“What do you mean?”

“Glass absorbs viss easily, but it doesn't let it move well. It’s handy when you have to isolate two different patterns from each other, but it’s a pain to work with when the glass is right at the center of whatever you’re working on. You can't really trace patterns with glass.”

“There's an entire family in the government working with it.”

“Maybe that's what they do. Patterns to disrupt the effects of viss.”

If that was the real function of the glass pattern, it didn’t protect the bottom of the structure. Saia caught a glimpse of it while it hummed past her, away from her domain. Fins protruded at the sides, realistic enough to seem real even if they didn't move. After a quick inspection, she realized they were made of metal exactly like the rest of the hull. They were crossed by veins and wrinkles that traced a subtle pattern. The lines were so delicate in their shape that they put to shame the flying ships of Iriméze's rebels.

The fine workmanship and the glass pattern suggested a connection between the hidden monks and Aressea. Saia didn’t have time to reflect on it; she’d promised Serit a swift return. She’d promised the exact same thing one too many times to everyone she cared about, and had yet to keep her word.

The ship was gone, so she entered the hole with a calculated jump. The natural formations at the bottom of the cavern had been cut in half, the wall at the end of it excavated to form a tunnel. She climbed it, moving a bit sideways to let the water slide around her body instead of pushing against it. The climb became steeper until the tunnel was vertical, large enough to accommodate a structure bigger than any ship.

Another one was arriving, she realized from the humming of the water at the edge of her domain. Not seeing any handholds in the artificially smooth walls of the tunnel, she propelled herself upwards.

There was a gaping hole at the top. Past that, the empty room and two monks, gaping as well at her shape surfacing from the water. She made them fall asleep, then dragged their unconscious bodies out of the door. There wasn’t time to dry her tunic completely, so she exchanged it with one of the monks and stepped back into the otherwise empty room.

Her statue remained completely still as the upper half of the ship broke the surface of the water and occupied most of the space in front of her. Saia was nervous about being openly visible in front of a structure she couldn’t see clearly. For all she knew, behind the warped vision created by the pattern there could be monks looking at her, with one of their destructive weapons aimed at her delicate sphere.

She waited, focusing on the portion of her vision that wasn’t distorted. Something moved, but it was only when a metallic clangor hit the stone pavement that she realized the hull had opened and was now showing the inside of the ship, if only she was able to see it. She saw movement, silhouettes that belonged to people, even if their species was still a mystery. She’d learned not to take humans for granted.

Finally, someone stepped outside of the glass pattern’s area of influence: a monk wearing a tight black suit and a confused expression.

“You are?”

“Sorry, I can only speak to the one in charge.”

The monk was still looking at her with suspicion, but turned her head slightly towards the now open hull of the ship. Her arm disappeared into the distortion as she gestured in someone’s direction. Those monks didn’t seem to have sentinels, but they respected hierarchy in the same way.

Someone else emerged, stepping just outside of the distorted area. Saia couldn’t tell how much of his frown was caused by her presence and how much by the water dripping down his suit.

“Who are you? Where are the two artificers I requested?”

Saia was briefly tempted to ask ‘what’s an artificers?’, but filed away the question for a later time.

“The abbot sent me. Can I talk to you in private?”

The man’s eyes lingered on her face.

“You’re not a monk.”

The words sent a ripple through the group of monks that had just started emerging from the ship, wearing suits and carrying backpacks. Saia didn’t need to check their contents, because now they were being aimed at her: weapons of various shapes, but all made of wood and metal, some of them already emitting light.

Memories of Saia’s first meeting with the tattooer Teormu and the hunter Caydras resurfaced to her mind: she’d obtained their attention and respect by showing what she was capable of. But she couldn’t show how dangerous she was in a place where the wrong word could get to the families, and through them to Beramas.

She put all the monks to sleep, holding up their bodies with her winds. The only one to stay awake was the leader, which would have certainly noticed that something was wrong unless Saia distracted him.

“No, I’m not a monk,” she admitted. “But I have a problem, and I hope you can help me.”

She opened the cavity in her chest until the intense light of her sphere shone through the dark cloth of her stolen tunic. The eyes of the leader widened much in the same way. Saia observed his reaction closely, then reached down to take out her sphere.

He watched in stunned silence. She read his viss, trying to find a hint of understanding, a sign that he knew what he was looking at and could explain why and how it was possible in the first place.

She found nothing besides bewilderment. She felt a resemblance of fear herself: the deeper she dug, the fewer answers she found. Soon she'd have revealed everything about herself without getting a single answer in return. Maybe Serit was right: all she could accomplish by digging deeper was putting them both in danger.

“Is there someone I can talk to about this?” she asked, letting the cavity close again around her sphere and awakening the other monks. They looked at each other, confused, not yet aware of what had just happened.

The one in charge was startled into action.

“I’ll ask our prior.”

_______________

The office was nothing special, a small room with two doors that could turn it into a corridor if needed. One end was obstructed by monks in black suits, standing behind Saia like a school of fish mesmerized by a light. The woman sitting at the other side of the desk, instead, kept her eyes closed and pinched between two fingers, as if trying to forget the last few minutes of her life.

"Who and what are you, exactly?" were the first words out of her mouth after the expedition’s leader had explained the situation.

Saia didn’t let her tone intimidate her.

“I have questions for you too. Why do you live here and not at the monastery?”

The prior opened her black eyes, wrinkles spreading all around them. Her hair was piled up on one shoulder, showing an impressive scar on the other side that started at the back of her head and snaked down the neck, disappearing under the dark cloth of her tunic. She reached behind the desk and put something onto the table: it looked a lot like a tangle of metal and roots, the only opening pointed at Saia. She let the prior aim it at her, pretending she didn't know what it was. It was still an improvement from the dozens of weapons she’d had to face only a few minutes before. She could deal with just one of them.

The monks at her back apparently couldn’t, because they retracted as one.

“Out, all of you,” the prior said, and they dispersed with a frenzy of whispers.

"I can kill you," the prior said once she was alone with Saia. "So you should start answering my questions.”

“Believe it or not, I can kill you too,” she only replied, and kept staring at her.

The impasse protracted for a minute, then the thought of Serit waiting alone, Dan and Morìc in danger, and Aili hoping for her return set her statue's lips into motion.

“I’ve been told I’m similar to a tanhata,” she started, keeping a close watch on the prior's viss for any reaction that could betray her. There was none, for the moment, besides mild curiosity.

"I come from the other side of the sea," she added.

She'd been about to mention the mountain, but the prior's interest flared up so suddenly that she held back.

“If you’re telling the truth, how did you come here?”

“The cloud people gave me a passage.”

The prior's interest disappeared as quickly as it had ignited.

"I can tell you what’s going on there, near mount Ohat, if you answer my questions,” Saia said in an attempt to rekindle it.

But the prior was already shaking her head.

“There’s no need.”

Saia then remembered her first meeting with Beramas, at the sculptors’ palace. He’d mentioned having tried to cross to the other side of the sea multiple times, even dealing with an invisible barrier. If the monks were in direct contact with the families as she suspected, they already knew what he’d seen from afar. Worse than that, the cloud cities could have sold the information recorded in their bottles. Maybe what was going on at mount Ohat wasn’t the mystery she thought it was, at least not for the families. She had less information to bargain with than she had initially expected.

"I want to know about you,” the prior said after a moment of reflection. “Establish how much of a danger you are. You can start by showing me your sphere."

Saia did, and the sparkle in the prior's eyes came back, even if it wasn’t as strong as before. The woman’s eyes shifted from the sphere to the weapon on the table. Weapons that produced light when activated, explosions made of viss. Suddenly Saia knew what the woman was thinking, why she had accepted to speak with her.

"You can't use my energy, if that's what you're wondering. I'm dying."

Saying it out loud sent a trembling through her viss, even if the total control she had over her voice didn't let anything through. She watched as the last inkling of interest disappeared from the woman’s viss, replaced by a fresh wave of hostility.

“You said we could help you. What do you mean?”

Saia reflected on what the prior could already know. The mountain’s monks were careful not to step outside and remain as hidden as possible. On the other hand, Serit was aware of their existence, thanks to Rabam. But even they didn’t know everything, and it seemed the kind of information Iriméze’s representatives would at least try to keep quiet.

"I was transformed into a sphere by monks like you. That's why I'm here."

The woman leaned forward, palms pressing on the desk. Not touching the weapon, Saia noticed.

“Monks like us,” she repeated. “What do you mean, exactly?”

"I won't tell you anything else until you start answering my questions."

The prior's fingers tapped the wood and metal of the weapon, almost distractedly.

"That's not how this works."

"The way it works is that if you don't answer, I'll leave forever.”

It was a gamble, based on the fact that she seemed to want Saia's answers more than she wanted her gone or killed.

Anger and frustration rippled through the prior's viss.

"Our very existence is supposed to stay a secret. It's bad enough that your companion came so close to the entrance of our village and that we found one of our artificers unconscious in the testing facilities. She hasn’t awakened yet. It’s your fault, right?”

Saia decided to ignore the accusation, or anything that would lead the conversation away from the only thing that mattered: answers.

"It's a risk you'll have to take,” she said.

"We work with the families. If you reveal anything to anyone, they'll be the ones to hunt you down. You might not fear us, but I suggest you don't underestimate them.”

Saia focused on the weapon again, without letting her stone eyes stray away from the prior's face. Beramas wasn’t the only dangerous thing the families had access to.

“Understood,” she said.

The woman leaned back on the chair, dragging the weapon across the table until it rested near the edge that was closest to her.

"We are the same, the monks above and us. We follow the same doctrine and teachings. The belief that split us in half is much younger than our religion."

"In half? Not three parts?”

"No. The monks on the other side of the sea don't have anything to do with this, even if they're the reason we're now divided."

“That’s… confusing.”

The prior sighed and briefly closed her eyes. Saia took it as a sign that her defenses were lowering.

“Let's start from the beginning. At the end of the war between Darasa and Aressea, some of our brothers left with all the riches of the Golden Lands. The families didn't trust each other to protect the coins without using them to their own benefit, but they trusted our order. We were huge, rich, and most importantly independent from Aressea and its politics, even if not strong enough to oppose them. This made us the perfect candidates for the task.”

Saia thought back at Caydras's hiding spot at the ruins. Serit had called it a vault.

"I don't think there's that much money going around mount Ohat,” she said.

“It's probably hidden. It certainly wasn't brought to the other side of the sea just to be left laying around. The cloud people were already trying to get it for themselves after Darasa's defenses crumbled. Or maybe they've since succeeded in their goal and managed to steal it. Nevermind. What you must know is that we soon lost contact with our brothers on the other side of the sea. Shortly after, the monster appeared.”

Saia could almost hear the questions drip from her mind into that silence.

"So they stopped talking to you," she said. “This still doesn't explain why you're split in two."

“You can easily imagine what happened afterward. The families learned about their riches disappearing, and now there was something preventing them from ever getting them back. And whose fault was it? Of the ones that were supposed to protect that money with their lives."

A suffused kind of anger awakened in the woman’s body, deeper than skin, as if she’d been alive all those centuries ago to see the events she was talking about happen in front of her eyes.

"We barely survived. Our order gave up all their riches and influence. Even this palace had to be wrestled back from Aressea's hands, and only as a loan, a symbol of prestige that helped us gain the locals’ trust. The order declared those monks heretics and traitors, it tried to distance itself from them as much as possible. At least two hundred years had to pass before we could entertain the idea that, perhaps, there was something more to this story."

She seemed to realize at that moment just how close she had gotten to Saia, leaning forward as she was. She put her back against the chair and rested a hand on the weapon.

"A few monks disobeyed the orders of the abbot and refused to forget our disgrace. They left for the lands above the clouds, at the time still foreign and hostile, to seek information. We discovered that one of the two mountains was still standing, thriving even. Houses were being built where no human had set foot before, where our brothers were supposed to keep their presence hidden and quiet…”

"Wait," Saia stopped her. “One of the two mountains?"

"Yes, of course. The families weren't so stupid to put all of their riches in one place like Darasa had."

Saia roamed the woman's viss with her senses, desperately looking for the signs of a lie.

"So there's another mountain?"

"There was," the prior said in the grimmest of tones. “On the same side of the sea, but a bit further down the coast. The monks looked for it but didn’t find anything, not even ruins. Something, or someone, has wiped it away.”