CHAPTER TEN

The Miracle Expanse wasn't quite as silent once the morning came. A stiff breeze blew in from the north, and the tall grass of the savannah rustled in cadence with each gust. The wind brought a scent of distant wood smoke, either from a village or another traveller's campfire. Whichever it was, Jin couldn't see any rising columns of smoke to identify the source.

Jin maintained a frown as she struck down her campsite. The fire had already been doused, not that it had provided any meals worthy of the name. Jin still mourned the lost opportunity to trade for Conrad Priest's fishing reel. A fish would've been more appetizing than the same pot of thin soup, day in and day out.

After the night of the Jade Empire's attack, it'd been an awkward silence between her and Starra for the following day. She listened to Starra explain it over and over again and tried to take it all in. Jin went over what Starra told her a thousand times, but she didn't know what to make of it. She'd learned that one of her most basic assumptions about herself was false, and it wasn't a swift process to reconcile with it.

Jin wasn't human. At least, not fully. Coming down to it, she was still about as much human as Starra was. As with a vampire, there was only something a little extra worked into the mix.

Starra watched with an inquisitive tilt to her head as Jin brushed down Scorpion. She sat on a flat block of sandstone with her arms hugging her knees. "Sooner or later, you're going to have to say something."

Not if I have anything to say about it, Jin fumed, and she didn't care for the insanity of that thought.

"Bloody hell, but I suppose I should be thankful you're still you. If there was ever a queen of all that is dramatic, there she stands."

Jin shot a glare over her shoulder.

"You were never one to do something halfway," Starra went on, undeterred. "Up to and including the silent treatment. It's what I enjoy most about you."

With a snort, Jin turned back to Scorpion.

"Yes, it's true," Starra said loudly, throwing her hands in the air. "I'm a deceiver. A reprobate. A bloody, secret-keeping liar! None of that changes the truth. You're a feyling, and now that Kumo's free, there's no more reason to hide it."

Jin brushed Scorpion with more vigor. The horse turned his head to give her a look of displeasure, but he was wise enough not to pitch a fuss over it while Jin was in a mood.

"Now," Starra continued calmly, "we're both rested, you've had some time to process, and we can discuss this rationally. I'm not even asking you to go out of your way."

Jin maintained her silence.

Starra huffed and hopefully accepted defeat. That was soon proven not to be the case when she sighed and apparently chose to approach from a different angle. "If I didn't know it for a fact, I'd never believe you've been out here all this time. How can you move about after sleeping on the hard ground like that?"

"I have acclimated to..." Jin snapped her mouth shut. Dratted woman, she thought. I'm mad at you, and don't forget it.

Starra's grin widened at her victory. "And you still let me have the bedroll. Your sweet nature is irrepressible."

Jin finished with Scorpion and returned the brush to his saddlebag. "Perhaps I let you have it for fear of finding you in it with me when I awoke."

"Oh, posh. As if I'd ever. That ship sailed years ago, my dear. You were quite clear on that."

"What are you talking about?" Jin asked exasperatedly.

Starra shrugged, looked away, and spoke in a higher pitch. "I distinctly remember several instances when we attended events together, and you so happened to make comment on every other lady at the gala. Never you mind the gorgeous and available woman at your side."

"Bite your tongue," Jin scolded. "You know perfectly well that you were the one who put a stop to anything between us."

"Oh?" Starra asked, innocent as a newborn. "Did I?"

"'I would never burden you with my secrets, my dear,'" Jin quoted in a nasally tone. "Not to mention your incessant badgering for me to introduce you to Maya."

Starra blinked. "I... didn't realize you took it that way. Jin, are you saying you once pined for me?"

Jin turned her back and crossed her arms. "Not at all."

Starra gasped.

This was just like Starra. Jin refused to turn around and let the lush see how her cheeks were reddening. "Don't get the wrong idea. Maybe it was something I briefly considered. It's not as if there were droves of women with our courting preference attending galas."

"Mmm, fair enough. A lack of options can make the options present seem more inviting. But, come off it, Jin. Even a dough-brained twit like you would see we'd be absolute rubbish romantically."

Jin didn't appreciate the assumed fact of her being a dough-brain, but Starra wasn't wrong. Being each other's preferred companion on outings into the city was one thing. Being paramours was another. Jin had little doubt that one of them would've strangled the other inside the first month had they ever attempted courting.

Starra got to her feet and came a few steps closer. "Well, if it salves your wounded pride, you weren't alone in thinking about it. Unfortunately, there was a barrier between us you were never aware of. Something rather more tangible than mere incompatibility."

Jin glanced over her shoulder. "The Merovech sent you to me."

Starra dropped her gaze. "I won't deny it. My master wanted a pair of eyes he trusted beside you, someone to ensure your uncle couldn't get his claws on you easily. He chose me."

"All those years, you were never there to be my friend. You were spying on me."

"That's a bit harsh," Starra said. "I never give my friendship insincerely. You ought know that by now. More, I was spying on Vintus from an unconventional angle." She sighed and came forward another step. "I'm sorry. There were so many times I wanted to tell you everything, but too much was at risk. It was crucial no one from House Algara learn too much."

"Why is that?" Jin demanded. "The Merovech was my father's friend, his closest confidant. Why hide something so important as a war against demons to save humanity?"

"This has been a long time coming, I suppose. If anything, I do owe you an explanation along with my apologies." Starra looked her in the eye. "My master and I hid this, because if this war's taught me anything, it's that House Algara always goes one of two ways. Hero or monster, with nothing in-between."

Jin frowned and looked away. "Very little I've ever done could be called heroic."

Starra clucked her tongue. "There it is again."

"What?"

"Dramatic." Starra came the final few steps forward and hugged Jin from behind. "Be that as it may, I've always found you to be wonderfully heroic."

"I'm a killer," Jin whispered.

"What a coincidence. Me too. You don't see me wallowing. They were all demon thralls or the tools of such, and I won't mourn them."

"Perhaps," Jin said. "But those I killed were not thralls."

Starra scoffed. "Blood cultists and terrorists? Slavers? Forgive me, my dear, but I won't mourn yours either."

"If it only stopped there," Jin murmured.

Starra's hands rested on Jin's shoulders. "Now, really. I've never seen you put an end to someone who didn't have it coming, or barring that, was about to end someone who really didn't deserve it. How much blood can you have on your hands?"

"More than you would believe."

"Try me."

Jin turned around to face her. "What is it you think a royal assassin does, Starra? We are not soldiers, nor are we knights. Yes, we slay fiends in the daylight, but what of when the night falls? That is when our work truly began, what we did in the dark where no eyes could see."

Starra pulled an incredulous face, probably thinking how Jin was just being overly dramatic again.

"Lords who opposed their kingdom's entry into the Five Kingdoms," Jin said. "Stable hands who overheard the wrong conversation. A university professor who asked too many questions about history. A pregnant maid who would not accept a baron's hush money. You and the other demon slayers kill the guilty, Starra. A royal assassin murders the inconvenient."

Starra narrowed her eyes. "I don't believe it. Not of you."

Jin brushed Starra's hands from her shoulders. "Your belief is irrelevant."

A dark smirk bloomed across Starra's face. "No. No, I don't believe it at all. If you're truly the remorseless killer you claim to be, the woman who slaughters innocents at the behest of her father and king, then there's one fact I know about you that stops making sense."

Jin gave a sharp tsk and attempted to walk around Starra, but the pushy shifter kept sidestepping into her path.

"Answer me one thing." Starra put a hand to Jin's chest to hold her in place. "With the blood of baby bastards and their mothers on your hands, what could ever possess a soulless monster like you to spare the life of a sky woman named Enfri Page?"

"Perhaps I erred," Jin snarled.

"Don't you dare lie to me," Starra said with every ounce as much venom. "We've known each other too long for that nonsense, and you were never very good at it."

Jin brought their faces close. "Jin Algara was weak. She was not ready to do what had to be done. There will come a time, Starra, when you will wish I had never let myself become a lovestruck fool."

For the first time, Starra started to get truly angry. She bared her fangs. "I've heard you say some bloody stupid things before, but that takes the top prize. What do you think is going on in Shan Alee? That Enfri's holding dark rituals to the old masters in secret? No, you utter dunce!" Starra shoved Jin back a step. "She's crying her eyes out, night after night, because you broke her heart! And does she blame you? Of course not, because she hasn't changed at all, and Enfri being Enfri, she blames herself!"

Jin clenched her jaw but only to keep it from trembling. The thought of Enfri's tears was painful, and the knowledge that she was the cause of it was worse. But those feelings belonged to a dead woman, not to a royal assassin.

"Also irrelevant," Jin said, her voice cold. "Shan Alee was built on the backs of slaves. The Imperial City lies on a foundation made from the bones of my ancestors. The Dragon Emperors were a blight on the world. Those creatures live on within her, and it is only a matter of time before she becomes the same as them. The Empire of Scales returning will be as ruinous as the old masters' doom. It has already begun, or have you forgotten what comes of those who oppose her?"

"You wretch," Starra hissed. "Are you honestly blaming Enfri for... for any of that? I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt up until now, but now it's clear you're dead set on deluding yourself!"

"I am not the one who is deluded," Jin said. "I had to see it three times with my own eyes before I realized what she is becoming. As each day passed, her actions grew more and more sinister. The sky woman I loved would not stoop to threatening children, she would not browbeat a defeated enemy to coerce her cooperation, and she most certainly would not extend guest-rights to the house who murdered my brother. Those are the actions of the Dragon Empress, not Enfri Page."

Starra opened her mouth to argue, but she stopped herself. When she began again, she spoke more calmly. "What's this about her threatening children?"

"My cousin, Princess Manon of Nadia."

Starra narrowed her eyes. "Is this the poisoned tea incident?"

Jin gave a curt nod.

"Alright, I'm listening." Starra crossed her arms in a guarded posture. Guarded, but listening. She wasn't averse to hearing harsh truths, and Jin had always admired that about her. "What exactly did Enfri say?"

"It is not so much as what was said but what was implied."

Starra held up her hands. "Stop right there. Before you go on, can you tell me with complete honesty that your assassin brain didn't hear things that would never occur to our adorably dimwitted empress?"

Jin hesitated.

"Someone who only received what amounts to a crash course in diplomacy might not realize what certain phrases could imply." Starra withdrew a few steps and started pacing. "As for Nkeoma, can you really blame Enfri for being upset? No matter what we dump on her, she'll always be a healer at heart, so it's only natural she'd have some harsh words for the woman who just sent nearly two dozen of her people to their pyres. If anything, Nkeoma should count herself lucky she wasn't bound, gagged, and tossed in a fertilizer wagon."

Jin looked down at her feet, and despite herself, she fought back a chuckle. "Enfri said almost the exact thing."

"This business with Darby, or whatever his name is, though... I can't say I disagree."

Jin looked up. "You mean Darian?"

"Is that what it is?" Starra said unconvincingly. "I can't seem to ever keep it straight."

"I take it he is still present."

"Unfortunately," Starra sighed. "I had about a month of peace. My least favorite exile went off to regather his men from wherever the Espallans stuck them, but now he's recently returned to New Sandharbor and already proving to annoy me with his very existence."

Jin raised a curious eyebrow. "Does he still pursue Reyn?"

"His one redeeming quality, in my estimation," Starra said. "He seems to have set aside past affections, but that hasn't stopped him from... being such a... bloody joyboy."

"Explain."

"He's a womanizer!" Starra exclaimed. "Dandy's the sort who doesn't feel right in the morning unless he's waking up next to a girl whose name he doesn't know."

"So remove him," Jin suggested.

Starra pinched the bridge of her nose before giving the morning sky a sour look. "I would surely like to," she growled. She then gave Jin a frown. "Don't you go distracting me. Not when I feel like I'm close to breaking through your thick skull. Can you truly stand there and tell me you're so infallibly observant that there's no possible way you could've misinterpreted the things Enfri supposedly did?"

"The question is wrong," Jin growled.

"I beg your pardon?"

"You gave a loaded question, and it is therefore wrong. My being right is not the same as a claim to perfection."

"Bloody hell, but I'd almost forgotten how infuriating you can be. The question stands. Can... you... be... wrong about her?"

Jin blinked rapidly as she felt her heart clench. She averted her eyes. "I hope so," she whispered. "But even if I am, there is no mending what I've done."

Starra clapped her hands suddenly, startling Jin. "Aha! Finally. See, my dear? That's all I wanted to hear you say. At last, a step in the right direction. Now, I need only talk you out of playing yourself out to be a martyr, and then we can finally get somewhere."

Jin scowled. "What are you talking about?"

"The reason I'm even here, you bloody fool," Starra laughed. "I'm trying to get you back where you belong, at Enfri's side."

There was a flutter in Jin's heart. A feeling, a most pressing desire, began flickering to life. A hope, that happiness hadn't been hidden away somewhere she could never find it again. But a shadow remained and threatened to smother that tiny flame as soon as it appeared.

"It's not so simple, Starra," Jin said. "She'll never trust me again. If I see Shoen in her shadow, I'll never trust her."

Starra pursed her lips and came up to Jin again. She reached up and poked her on the tip of the nose. "That's between you and your betrothed, my dear. For the sake of all good people left in the world, talk to her."

That might've been the most terrifying thing Starra had ever said. Then, Jin heard it. A creaking of yew wood coming from twenty paces behind her back.

Jin burst into motion. She pushed Starra aside with one hand while drawing her sword with the other. "Get down!"

An arrow cut through the air a scant inch from Jin's cheek, taking strands of her hair with it. She'd been distracted, unaware of the armed men creeping up on them from the south, downwind, so even Scorpion's nose hadn't noticed their presence. Her ethersight picked out the strands of untethered ether radiating from the imprints of a dozen men crouched in the savannah's tall grass. They were nocking arrows.

Jin sprinted towards them while weaving a barrier ward. As she charged, the bandits realized they'd lost the element of surprise and stood. Some aimed their bows at her while others readied spears or blades.

Untenable odds. Jin's thoughts came at a mechanical pace, each course of action and planned maneuver being considered and discarded by the handful in a heartbeat. Any engagement leads to being surrounded. Cannot maintain barrier wards in all directions. Engage and withdraw. Lead their pursuit away from Starra.

She knew why they'd come. Jin recognized the man whose arrow nearly took her in the back. The Aleesh bandit snarled as he shouted to his compatriots.

"Take 'er! The empress will pay our weight in gold for the traitor's 'ead!"

Jin clenched her teeth and ran towards him first. Fear came onto his face as he saw an assassin's eyes locked on him.

A volley of arrows shattered against her ward, and her ether drained from the impacts. She would need to use all her concentration to maintain the barrier and extend it as far around her as she could. There wouldn't be an opportunity to manifest offensive spells while she protected herself, so she'd need to rely on swordplay.

The Aleesh bandit took a step back, his eyes rising from Jin to look at something above and behind her. The other men raised their eyes as well, and some let out fearful gasps. A shadow fell over Jin and the bandits, something large enough to blot out the sun. When a shattering roar broke over the savannah, Jin knew it could be nothing else but a dragon.

The bandits broke immediately. They tripped over their own feet in a mad scramble to escape, most even abandoning their weapons. Discarded knives and quivers of arrows littered the ground around their hiding places, but Jin wasn't willing to stop. She caught up to the Aleesh and kicked his ankles out from under him.

She didn't care for the others. Jin let them scurry away like vermin startled by the gaslight. She planted her foot on the Aleesh's chest and held him pinned, exactly as she'd done before.

"Familiar, is it not, bandit?" Jin spat. "You were unwise to throw away my mercy."

"Stones take you!" he shouted. "We 'ave to eat, and takin' yer carcass to Shan Alee would mean we never 'ave to rob anyone else again!"

"Scum will find a reason to be scum, no matter how many riches they're given." Jin pressed down with her boot. "This time, a more permanent lesson. You will not rob anyone while lacking hands."

Jin raised her sword.

"Your Highness!"

The dragon's shout drew Jin's attention. She looked back, towards the enormous, male dragon looming over the savannah. He was gigantic, the largest dragon Jin had ever seen aside from Varn the Librarian, and his voice boomed like thunder. His scales were black as charcoal with scarlet markings slashing across his body. Two great horns curved out and forward from his skull, like the horns of a bull.

Jin knew this dragon, perhaps better than she knew any dragon other than Deebee or Kimpo. Grimdar the Gladiator, largest and strongest of the red chroma, second in age only to the Huntress, and sire to Kimpo's hatchlings.

Jin furrowed her brow at his presence. She never expected to see him again.

"Your Highness, come quickly!" Grimdar shouted. "I am unable to use restoration spells!"

Grimdar stood with his snout low to the ground. Where Starra had been standing.

Jin felt the blood drain from her face, leaving her light-headed. Her sword lowered as she felt no longer able to breathe.

"Starra?"

The bandit struggled beneath her boot. He tried wrenching her foot off of him. "Get off me! See to your friend 'fore she bleeds out, and I'll..."

Jin silenced him without taking her eyes from Starra. A single stroke, from the left ear to underneath the chin, severed the carotid artery. There was no room in her mind for any thoughts but for Starra, not even for the first Aleesh she'd ever killed.

She sheathed her blade as she ran to Starra's side. Crossing the distance in moments, Jin went to her knees.

"Bloody hell," Starra muttered. She lay on her back and clasped at the arrow shaft protruding from her chest. It'd punctured through between two ribs, narrowly missing her heart. The wound was jagged, and blood poured out at a frightful rate. Starra's black dress was already soaked down the front.

Jin searched through her potion pouch. Her fingers clattered among the empty oren vials as they searched out something useful. But no, Jin used the one healing potion she had when she gave it to Goodman Priest the night before last. She had nothing left to tend to Starra.

Starra spat off to the side. Her saliva was dark and red. "Seems another of my secrets is out in the open," she laughed weakly. "You know how I've been keeping an eye on you."

Jin glanced up towards the Gladiator. "Have you anything to help her?"

Grimdar shook his massive head, the size of a small house. "My witchery is of no use to the healing arts, Highness."

Not as useless at staying nearby and unnoticed, while able to give sendings to Starra about every move Jin made. She wondered how long Grimdar had been in her shadow. It must've been from the beginning.

That raised more questions, but Jin didn't have the time or the inclination to ask them now.

"I've no skill in restoration," Jin said. She pressed down around Starra's wound to stem the flow of blood, eliciting a pained hiss. "This is a mortal wound. She needs a healer, immediately. Can you fly her to the last village? The Sapphire Knights must still be there."

"If she can be moved, I could have her there within a few hours."

Jin grit her teeth. Starra might not have that long.

"Stand back, Lord Gladiator," Jin commanded. "I must take her away."

Grimdar's brow furrowed as he complied. "To where?"

Jin propped Starra up and held her around the shoulders. Her ethersight perceived the Weave of magic around her, and she willed the threads to thrum to the tune of essences once thought lost forever.

"With respect, Lord Gladiator, I feel it is in my best interest not to tell you. Please, see to my horse while I am gone."

Grimdar raised a clawed hand in protest, but Jin's spell completed before he could speak a word.

From within the spell, it was silent. Jin knew from witnessing it multiple times that it triggered with a thunderous crack accompanied by a flash of blistering heat. There was also another sensation, a most disturbing sense of being in two places at once. Jin focused her magic along an imprint connection, one between her innermost self and a specific location. It was a place she knew well, one she saw nearly every night in her dreams that had since become nightmares.

Jin used teleportation. It took her and Starra to the threshold of a little house on a small, country homestead. Jin looked up at the door and found herself in front of a single-room cottage on the desert's edge.

The homestead wasn't as remote as it'd once been. The encroaching woodlands were more sparse, having been cleared some in the past months. The nearby road was no longer packed dirt, but a broad highway with paving stones and lined with red brick fences. Several other buildings were now in sight, as were the foundations of more to be built. The cottage was no longer a country homestead but looked to be on the verge of getting swallowed up in the construction that would soon connect Old and New Sandharbor.

Jin took it all in as the last echoes of her arrival sent the animals in their pens into a panic.

A young woman shrieked from inside, followed by an angry string of profanity. "Winds and storms! If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times. No teleporting around the geese! You blustering louts should know by now they bite when they're upset!"

The door slid open with a bang. An Althandi girl, not yet eighteen, stood in the doorway. She was smallish with a slight and slim build. Her black, shoulder-length hair was uncovered by a shawl, as she'd likely been just getting ready for the day. Jin recognized Kiffa Smith at once.

No, Kiffa Brandyn now, Jin amended. Starra told me of her father claiming his title.

Kiffa looked down and took in the bloody ruin of Starra's dress, as well as the fletched shaft of the arrow that caused it. Her brown eyes widened in shock and only got wider as they next fell on Jin. She let out a tiny, fearful gasp. "It's... you."

"Lady Starra is injured," Jin said hurriedly. "Potions, Sky Woman. Have you any healing potions?"

Kiffa's eyes flickered between Jin to Starra. She clutched at the bodice of her fine linen dress. Jin couldn't tell if it was because she was fearful or dumbfounded. After the briefest hesitation, she nodded.

"Bring her inside," Kiffa said softly. She backed into the cottage and held the door open.

Jin whispered to Starra for her to put an arm around her neck. She picked Starra up, momentarily surprised that Starra weighed little more than a few pounds.

"Shifter, remember?" Starra chuckled. The loss of blood was causing her to speak in weak and almost euphoric tone. She was slipping away. "Vampires can change their weight."

Jin carried her inside and spared a moment to shut the door behind her against anyone who might see the sky woman's visitors. Kiffa directed Jin to lay Starra down on the dining table. Kiffa ran ahead to it and pushed a bowl and wooden utensils onto the floor with a sweep of her arm, then jogged to some shelves.

Once Jin had Starra laid down, she looked about the cottage. Immediately, a powerful wave of nostalgia washed over her. She'd come into this home many times, ever since it belonged to Kiffa's teacher.

Enfri's old home was different now. The bed was newer, as was the bookshelf holding a large collection of leather-bound journals and notebooks. There weren't racks of drying herbs indoors anymore, and the rocking chair that once sat at the oaken writing desk was missing and replaced by a more practical stool. Much was changed, but enough was the same to assail Jin with a thousand memories of each moment spent here.

Jin felt Starra take her hand and give it a squeeze. She looked down and saw Starra looking back at her with a sad expression in her red eyes. Starra understood Jin's mind. Perhaps something of the pain Jin felt in that moment had made its way onto her face. Jin smoothed her expression, transforming it into the stoic mask she'd been trained to keep.

A clatter of glass vials came from Kiffa's work table and shelves. The sky woman rummaged through her collection of alchemical spells as she sought out the one she needed.

"This will be the thing," Kiffa said as she pulled down a bottle filled with a violet liquid. "For trauma to the chest cavity. Should fix up any damage to her lungs and stop the bleeding."

Jin felt able to breathe more easily, but not completely at ease while she stood in this cottage. Too many memories— too many regrets— for her to think she could ever feel comfortable in this home again.

She stepped back from the table to allow Kiffa access to Starra. The sky woman began administering her potion, and she also had a small bowl filled with a purplish paste Jin recognized as invested nightshade. It was a powerful anesthetic spell to help Starra's pain.

Jin backed away another few steps.

Starra murmured answers to Kiffa's rapid questions until she noticed Jin retreating.

"Jin, don't go," Starra said, calling out to her.

Shaking her head, Jin backed herself all the way to the door.

Starra's eyes were pleading. "Marwin, Jin. Promise me you'll go to Marwin."

Jin's entire body trembled. She didn't want to leave, but at the same time, there was nothing she wanted more than to flee from this place and the memories it carried. Her eyes darted around the room.

To the desk, where she first sat when she brought her injured uncle to the local sky woman.

To the bookshelf, where she stood when she first laid her eyes on a young healer.

To the table, where she sat when she shared a meal with an Aleesh she was meant to kill.

Up to the rafters, where that second meeting had been invaded by a silver wolf bursting down through the thatching.

To the threshold, where Jin returned after six months of thinking the sky woman she loved was dead and found her alive. Where they kissed. Where their life and journey together truly began.

Jin didn't plan for it— she could never have anticipated it— but a sob tore from her lungs. She could no longer see clearly through the tears spilling from her eyes. Jin couldn't stay here a moment longer. She had to run again. She had to leave and leave immediately. Jin turned and slid the door open in a rush. She pulled up short and nearly felt her heart burst from her chest.

Enfri stood on the threshold, her hand raised to knock on the frame.

Stunned, Enfri blinked as if to clear away what she thought to be a hallucination. Her mouth fell open as she stood frozen in place.

"Jin."

"My..." Jin stopped herself. She couldn't call Enfri that, not anymore. After everything, she no longer had the right. "Enfri."

Someone grabbed Enfri by the shoulder and pulled her back. Jin managed to tear her eyes from Enfri and looked to the second person at Kiffa's door. She felt her heart sink into her stomach.

"You blustering twerp!"

Jin made no move to defend herself as Maya socked her across the face.