The next few days settled into a pattern that almost felt like a holiday, save for the disgusting rat blood.

  We found a room in a decent inn on the outer ring, close enough to the Guild to walk. The beds were narrow but solid, the owner looked more like a retired adventurer than a nervous innkeeper, and lastly, the beer didn’t taste like ditchwater. That put it above most places I’d slept in the last year.

  The rat job went as expected. It was all dark cellars, with bead?like eyes catching the lamplight and the constant skitter of things just out of sight. The rats were bigger than they had any right to be and a little too fearless, but they still turned into paste when Ragna’s club met their spines. Aura?laced volcanic axe took care of the few that tried to get clever with me. By the time we dragged the sack of tails back to the Guild, Ragna was muttering promises about burning every nest she ever found again.

  We picked up two more small contracts after that. One was an escort to a nearby hamlet during tax collection. That had been a long day of standing around while farmers argued about weights and measures, with nothing more dangerous than a drunk who thought he could shout down a ledger. The other was a night on a granary roof while something howled across the plains and then thought better of testing Maricall’s walls. We never saw it. That was fine by me.

  The work gave us enough coins for food and a little left over. Sure, we had plenty in our trusty Spatial Pouch, but more money never hurt. Who knew when we’d need it?

  It also left me time to walk the area, counting watchtowers and patched stone. This city sat astride on the Caedran Line, yes, named after the same general’s status we’d met. It was a broad strip of firm land where the main imperial road ran east to west, the most reliable route for large armies and heavy wagons moving between the eastern marches and inner Ethenia.

  Ragna amused herself by arm?wrestling and playing tug?of?war with local strongmen in a yard behind the inn. Most of them lasted about three breaths and went away telling stories about “that barbarian woman” who laughed while she beat them.

  At night, we ate, drank, and listened to gossip. The city’s rumor?mill didn’t take long to spin something new.

  By breakfast on the fourth day, the inn’s common room buzzed. Servants carried bread between crowded tables while guild runners wove through them hungrily. A pair of militia drank in a corner, and three merchants from the eastern road leaned over their cups arguing in low voices.

  Every table had at least one person bent forward, voice lowered with that mix of excitement and fear that says someone important has done something stupid.

  Our enhanced Valtherian Physique picked up on the sounds, even as they whispered.

  “Didn’t even wait for dawn. Some kind of summons from the capital, you think?”

  “Summons don’t come with no trumpets.”

  “Yeah he left in the dark, I tell you.”

  Ragna and I sat by the window. She was making a determined attempt to turn the inn’s morning supply of eggs into a personal trophy pile. I was taking my time with bread and a bowl of something that passed for stew.

  She paused mid?bite, watching the gossipers with narrowed eyes. “These old bastards with nothing else to enjoy their days with. They’ve been repeating the same story since we sat down,” she said, swallowing. “Minister ran with his tail between his legs in the middle of the night.” She set the fork down and pointed it at me. “You’ve got that look too. The one that says you’ve already built three different answers in your head.”

  Yes, it was as she said. Cassian, the 6th Ascension Minister, had fled the city. I tore a piece off my bread and dipped it, letting the broth soak in. “You’ve got a brain,” I said. “Use it. What do you think?”

  “Trying to dodge the question and making me talk?” A quick smile flickered and faded as she leaned closer. “Fine. I’ll play.”

  She lowered her voice, though the room was loud enough that no one would hear us anyway. “This is about the caravan, and how the bandits knew about it. The first time I walked into that meeting room, I knew it was either him or the step?mother who ratted out the caravan’s routes.”

  “Really? How did you know?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. Those two just had a wrong smell. It’s probably not the countess though since she’s still here, pouring honey in ears and twisting things slowly. Look at the minister, isn’t it crazy? I don’t know human kingdom politics but ministers don’t run from power unless they’re the ones who stirred the wrong pot, right? So. He leaked the caravan route, the count found evidence, and now he’s running before the count puts his head on a spike.”

  I watched her while I chewed.

  She had received no academy training, nor did she have experience of court games. She was just a barbarian who’d lived around liars and challengers her whole life and learned what danger felt like.

  “Not bad,” I said. “Really not bad. If you ever get bored of breaking things, you could make a fortune pointing out who needs to be broken next. You could easily pass for a spymistress, if we ignore your size.”

  Ragna snorted and reached for more bread. “Too much talking. I like simple problems. See the snake, cut the snake.”

  “Simple works,” I agreed, then tipped my head. “But there are a few more snakes in this pit. You’ve done a great job dissecting, but…”

  “Of course.” She sighed. “Go on then, ruin my nice clean story.”

  “Cassian running at night looks like guilt. Or fear.” I tapped the table with two fingers. “Say Count Severus suspects him, but even so, the minister I heard is the count’s blood brother. So normal course is chains, questions, maybe a very long drop off a very short wall. But if you’re innocent and you know someone else has the ear of half the court, you might decide the road is safer than standing still while they build a noose.”

  Her brows pulled together. “You talk cryptic, I hate it. So…” she took a second. “From what I know… the current countess is Lady Ilyra’s stepmother. Mhm, yeah, I see what you’re suggesting since she has a son of her own.”

  “You’re on the right track.”

  “So you mean the countess is the one who framed the minister? Make him look like the traitor while she keeps sipping wine behind her husband’s shoulder.”

  “She benefits with him gone. Fewer eyes on the gold and grain. The rival house that hired the bandits benefits too. A count whose brother runs in the dark looks weak.” I shrugged. “But we can’t be sure if it’s the countess. Even a clever servant could push things in that direction if they had access to the right letters.”

  She chewed slowly, thinking. “I don’t know. Maybe it's exactly what it looks like,” she said at last. “He sold out the caravan, took the coin, and then someone found a thread leading back to him. He saw it coming and bolted.”

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  “That’s the thing, everything is possible,” I said. “Both stories fit what little we know. That’s the annoying part. Lack of information makes the wildest things plausible."

  That was why Sherlock Holmes had been a novel, and not the biography of some real detective. Investigation couldn’t be done with left and right, the knowledge of up and down was also necessary, and more.

  Ragna leaned back, folding her arms. “Whatever the case, the countess gave me an iffy vibe. Like I don’t know. She seemed dissatisfied with stuff? Like an unsatisfied wife. Even if she’s not behind this particular incident, maybe she’d be for future stuff.”

  Ragna seemed strangely invested in this topic. Probably because it was closely about Ilyra Marcellis’s safety, which was her Ascension Quest.

  “Remember how she spoke against Severus in front of us? The gold complaint.” I broke the last bit of bread, more to keep my hands busy than because I was hungry. “That’s not how a good wife operates among nobility. Unless they’re sure they can get away with it, or they’re so frustrated that they don’t care.”

  “I really don’t like her even though we didn’t talk for long,” Ragna muttered. “Her smile feels like a knife without a handle. You pick it up and you’re the one who gets cut.”

  “Ooh, good metaphor, ten points,” I praised my little barbarian student who shot me a glare. “But yup, until we see who gains from Cassian being gone, we’re just guessing. Could be him, could be her, could be both tangled together, or could be something else. All we know for sure is that someone shook the tree and something fell.”

  “You’re very annoying when you do this.” She pushed her empty plate away. “I had one neat answer. Now I have a pile of maybes.”

  “That’s politics.” I lifted my cup in a mock toast. “Neat answers are for rat nests. And even then, sometimes the rats are smarter.”

  She laughed at that, low and brief. “Fine. What should be our plan, then? Since we’re not chasing ministers down the road. We can’t keep hunting rats.”

  “Something simple.” I set the cup down. “Remember the herb?picking job on the board yesterday? The old florist by the south wall wants silverleaf from the fields. Pays a bit more if we bring it straight to her instead of dumping it at the Guild.”

  “A walk in the sun and an old woman with coins.” Ragna stretched, joints popping. “Not exactly glorious, but better than sitting here waiting for trouble to knock.”

  “We’ve had enough glory for a while,” I said. “Coin that doesn’t scream when you earn it is still coin.”

  We finished breakfast and headed for the Guild.

  ****

  By noon, we were outside the walls again.

  The herb job was as straightforward as it sounded. Pick a certain amount of silverleaf, which were thin, silvery?green leaves with a faint mint smell. We could find it in a strip of rough ground a league from the city, and then we’d carry it back to a cramped little shop tucked under the outer wall’s shadow. The clerk had stamped our plates, handed over a simple map, and looked relieved we weren’t throwing a tantrum at little jobs.

  He had a deeply negative view of barbarians, wow.

  The air felt better once the stone ring was behind us. Cleaner, and the smell shifted from sweat and smoke to soil and growing things. The Caedran Line ran ahead as a pale road, cutting through green in a straight, stubborn line. Off to either side, fields faded into rougher patches of scrub and low trees where the ground buckled and the plows had given up.

  We walked rather than rode. Easier to spot the plants the florist wanted, and it gave Ragna room to throw her arms around while she complained.

  “This feels so strange,” she said, nudging a rock off the road with her boot. When I gave her a curious look, she explained. “No monsters, no bandits, not even a drunken noble trying to duel us in the street. Just grass and sky and some plants you want to stuff in a bag.”

  “Yes, plants don’t try to stab us,” I said. “For the record, that’s a good thing. I understand if you’re having a hard time understanding it, barbaric woman.”

  “They don’t stab us but they also don’t make us stronger.” She lifted her arms above her head and groaned. “I can feel my levels rotting. Remember Elayne said there are tons of monsters around. Why don’t we take those missions?”

  “These simple missions give us time to unwind,” I answered. “Time to think. Right now that matters more than one more dead beast. Remember, our goal of staying back at this city isn’t to kill rats and stuff.”

  She walked in silence for a few steps, then gave me a sideways look. “You mean, you want to keep circling this place because of my Ascension Quest.”

  “I mean exactly that.” I nodded toward Maricall, its walls a distant line behind us. “The System told you to guard their heir for thirty?one days. That doesn’t work if we wander off to slay wyverns three days' ride from here.”

  She stopped in the middle of the road, scowling. “We’re not even inside their inner walls let alone the castle. How are we guarding her? Sleep in our inns and glare at it until assassins fall over?”

  “Just by staying close we’re making ourselves useful,” I said, stopping beside her. “We take jobs, we get known faces. When something odd happens, people are more likely to mention it to the big barbarians who keep solving their problems. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than hearing about trouble after the funeral.”

  Ragna blew out a breath and started walking again. “There’s a simpler way, you know?” she said after a moment. “We go to the count, drag him to a temple, make me touch the altar, and show him the quest. Then he either believes the System or admits he’s an idiot. Why are we sneaking around this?”

  I blinked.

  That was a straightforward way of thinking you only got from someone who hadn’t spent the last few months treating the System like a schemer.

  “I… well,” I had nothing to say. How hadn’t I thought of that before? “Wait, don’t you hate these Gods and wouldn’t touch them?”

  She gave me a flat look. “Twelve Gods sit in heaven, we Valtherians only like a few and dislike the others. I don’t hate them all. If the System wants me to guard the count’s daughter, let it say so to his face. Better than us hovering outside like thieves.”

  “It… makes sense,” I admitted, clearing my throat. “If he sees the quest text, we stop being suspicious barbarians and become ‘tools the System dropped on our doorstep.’ Might not trust us completely, but it’s harder to ignore.”

  Ragna’s smile spread slowly across her face, smug and bright. “Hah! So I’ve been the smart one all this time! You hear that, System? I did better than your chosen bastard.”

  “Careful,” I said. “If it hears you, it’ll give you homework. Next Ascension Quest will have you babysit some kid.” She snorted and swung at my arm. I stepped aside out of habit, and her fist cut through empty air.

  “Coward,” she said.

  “I’m a survivor,” I corrected.

  She lunged again, faster this time. I twisted, caught her around the waist, and pulled us both off the road into the thick grass. We went down together, the impact softened by earth and plants. The smell of crushed green rose around us.

  Ragna landed half on top of me, hair falling forward to frame her face.

  “This is what you get for dodging,” she murmured.

  “All part of my plan,” I said, brushing a strand of her hair back. “I lure you into the grass, then you can’t escape.”

  “You think I want to?” Her weight shifted as she settled more firmly against me. “We’ve had four nights in a row with no one trying to kill us. I’m starting to feel spoiled… and my body is begging to relax in other ways.”

  “Dangerous words you’re choosing lately.” I smiled up at her. “You’ll start expecting baths and warm meals too.”

  “Now you’re just tempting me.” She leaned down, and our lips met.

  It was familiar by now, but still enough to make the rest of the world fade. Her hand dug into the soil near my head, steadying herself so she didn’t crush me, warm and careful all at once. For a time, there was only heat and the sound of our breathing and the distant wind moving through the grass.

  The light dimmed.

  It was subtle, a brief shadow across my closed eyelids. Ragna froze before I did; I felt the tension run through her. She broke the kiss and lifted her head, eyes already scanning.

  “You feel that?” she asked.

  I opened my eyes and followed her gaze. Dragon’s Eye sharpened its effect. Something had just moved along the line of scrub trees a little way off the road. Branches shook, but the wind hadn’t picked up. Four figures slipped from trunk to trunk, too high and too silent for farmers or hunters. Cloaks, hoods, purposeful speed.

  One of them had someone slung over a shoulder.

  Green hair hung down from that burden, a loose braid swinging with every leap.

  My eyes narrowed. “Would you look at that?” It was the same shade of hair I’d seen at that window a few days ago.

  Ragna pushed herself up. The softness from a moment ago was gone, replaced by the hard, clean lines of a fighter ready to move. We met each other’s eyes. No words needed.

  Herbs forgotten, we grabbed our weapons and ran toward the trees.

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