JASMINE FLAMESWORTH

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The low rolling foothills leading away from the Grand Mountains made it easy to travel unseen. After escaping the guards at the Wall, I took Camellia off the main road, and we proceeded slowly west, using the hills for cover.
I didn't expect Albanth to send anyone after us. It was too risky, and he'd probably be just as mad at his soldiers as he was with me anyway. Despite the state of the Wall, the senior captain was a logical man with a level head.
But that didn't mean I was going to wait around to find out for sure what my punishment for killing a soldier of the Bulwark Division would be.
Had we stayed on the main road, the walk to Greengate—the nearest town—would have been less than a day, but our meandering path through the rugged foothills meant we spent a night camping in the wilderness. The sun was high in the sky the next day before the hills flattened out into wide fields surrounding a village of a couple thousand people.
Although I didn't have any particular destination in mind, it made sense to stop in the rural farming village and get a feel for the situation in Sapin. With the mana beast parts still stored in my dimension ring, I was hoping to barter for some food and traveling supplies as well.
It was unlikely we'd find news of the Twin Horns there, but I figured it was too risky to ask such pointed questions anyway.
"But if you're sure there won't be any Alacryans here, why do we need to pretend to be other people?" Camellia asked after I finished explaining my plan.
"It's safer that way. I'm just a lowly sellsword, and you're my useless elven servant." "Hey!"

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I smiled at the girl's indignation. It felt...weird, and I realized I couldn't remember the last time I'd felt so much like myself. I had a mission to occupy my mind, a client—even if it is a non-paying one—to protect, and was surrounded by enemies who were trying to kill me.
This was what it had been like with the Twin Horns all those years, and with Arthur in the Beast Glades.
But Arthur was gone, and the Twin Horns were underground... "Jasmine?" Camellia was staring at me with her oversized eyes.

 "Better call me...Note," I said after a pause. It was the first name that came to my head. "Note?" Camellia giggled. "That's a funny name."
I looked carefully in both directions to make sure no one was watching before we stepped back out onto the road leading to the village. "And you'll be Skunk."
Camellia's mouth fell open and she stopped walking. "No, I am not letting you call me that." "Sorry, Skunk. Master Note's orders. Now get moving, or it'll be three lashes for disobedience."
The look on the elven girl's face almost made all the trouble she'd caused me up until then worth it.
***

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I hadn't been entirely sure what to expect when we walked into Greengate. Had the Alacryans sent soldiers to these smaller towns already? Greengate was close enough to the Wall—one of the last Dicathian occupied fortifications on the continent outside of Darv—that it would make sense to have a couple of spies there at least.
The only villagers we saw gave us nervous looks and took off in the other direction. One woman, after opening her front door and taking a step outside, saw us, gasped, and rushed back into her home before slamming the door and bolting it shut.
"These people aren't very friendly," Camellia said softly, staring around.
We found out why once we reached the square at the center of the village. The cobblestones were cracked and blackened in a dozen different places, and I could see the clear signs where earthen columns had burst out of the ground, destroying the carefully laid road. A couple of the buildings around the edge of the square had been smashed by large rocks, and all of the windows facing the plaza were boarded up.
"Some really strong mages must have fought here," I told Camellia as I bent to examine a patch of stone that had shattered like glass. "See this? Stone breaks like this when frozen by an ice-deviant mage."
"Jasmine," Camellia whispered as she bent down next to me to look. "There is someone watching us."
Careful to keep my movements natural, I feigned scanning the other signs of magical damage until I found him.

 A young man, perhaps nineteen or twenty, was crouched down in front of a small shop, frozen in the act of pulling weeds—or pretending to pull weeds—from the small patch of garden out front of the building.

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He was staring at both of us, his face contorted into a worried frown.
Turning back to Camellia and pointing at a place where the cobblestones had been crushed in a perfect rectangle, I said, "If he's a spy, he's a pretty bad one. Let's go see." Since he was the only person in town who hadn't immediately scurried away from us, I hoped he might be able to fill us in on what happened there.
No longer hiding my intentions, I spun on my heel and marched straight toward him. He flinched and busied himself ripping out a couple handfuls of dandelions.
"Hey." I put one leg up on the short rail fence that separated the garden from the rest of the road and stared down at the young man. Although his blond hair had grown a little wild, and his cheeks were gaunt, he looked more like a noble than a rural farmer. I gestured over my shoulder with a thumb. "What happened here?"
He met my eyes, then quickly looked back at the ground. "I'm sorry, ma'am, I'm not supposed to..." He trailed off, his eyes flicking back to me, a spark of recognition in them. "You're an adventurer, right? I think I saw you fight at the Xyrus Adventurers Guild once."
The last thing I had expected was someone way out here to recognize me, and it took me a moment to collect my thoughts.
"I doubt it," Camellia said first. "This lowly sellsword is the adventurer Note. She hasn't done anything of note." She shot me a self-satisfied look.
"And my caddy here is Skunk," I said, frowning at her. "She was raised by wild elves deep in their cursed forest, and, between you and me, I think the mists there did something to her mind."

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"Wild elves?"
"As I was asking," I went on, speaking over her, "what happened here?"
The young man had listened to our back and forth with a bemused smirk on his face, but it fell away at my question. In a low voice, he said, "Three of the Lances attacked a Vritra retainer. There was a big battle, and now the villagers are all terrified that the Alacryans are going to come here and punish them for what happened."
My heartbeat quickened at his mention of the Lances. "The Lances are alive?" He looked around, then nodded. "They were a few days ago, at least."

 I'd been close enough to the Lances at the flying castle to understand that their power was on a different level. If they were still alive, and fighting back against the Alacryans, then Dicathen might actually have a chance.
The young man looked around again, growing increasingly nervous. "Listen, I'd like to speak with you more, but we should go somewhere less exposed."
I examined him again. I couldn't sense any mana signature, and it seemed unlikely that someone as young as him would be powerful enough to suppress his mana from me. Still, the Alacryans had proven to be full of surprises again and again.
"Show me your back," I said seriously. He seemed to understand my intentions, because he didn't hesitate to turn around and lift up his tunic. There were no runic tattoos along his spine, but there were several faint yellow bruises that discolored his skin from hip to shoulder.
"Okay, let's go."

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