Chapter 572: Firebreak

For the next month, Arc continued to learn with the Dragon Knights outside of her normal school hours. The medical training they offered dried up quickly for her because she did not have the right magic to heal, and there was only so much they taught about physical stabilizing methods. She benefited from learning how to identify wounds for prioritizing treatment, what common potions to rely on, and how to ready the deeply wounded for transportation, but the rest was denied to her, and towards the end of the month she stopped going.

Though it was tragedy that bound them together, the next month passed quickly as love and friendship built up what Arc had almost lost along with Ais. She still hurt deeply, and in some moments she found herself crying at the memory of her dragon and the potential lost. These fits came at random. A stray word. The sight of dragons in the sky. Even Owyn’s presence, sometimes, was all it took to remind her that she was no longer an official Dragon Knight. Whatever unnofficial channels existed, Owyn was required to hide his status, and that meant hours and hours of "form control" training with Kordia and eventually the entire trio that formed their collective within the constellation. In a sense, he had gone from giant to beastkin, by becoming a dragonkin. Arc looked forward to the day that she would be able to fly again, but the fits of sadness still lingered even so.

It was during one of these fits that her would-be assassin struck again. It was the weekend, and for once she was out on her own, doing a favor for Snow who was finally getting far enough along in her druidic studies that she needed different seeds as practice materials. The fit started and she took herself to a corner of the store, only to be approached by the kindly storekeeper and hugged until it passed, all while standing near the window.

Arc had just stepped out of the store when she felt it. By this time, Arc’s ability to detect danger through the threads warned her, and when she tried to duck into an alleyway to see if it was just some passing racist, the feeling followed her before suddenly lessening as a new sort of intent crystallized... a focused one for killing. An intent to kill, pulsing into her in unsteady but hateful waves.

Fire was her weapon of choice. But the moment the first strike was sent, Arc leaped forward and out of the way as she turned, feeling the tear-streaks on her face dry further as she drew her gun from storage and aimed high. The act saved her life as an arc of force broke against the weapon, severing it in two right as she got her shot off, splitting the spell into twin pieces that flew wide of her, just as her bullet flew wide of her would-be assassin.

Arc heard a frustrated, feminine voice swear as her attacker gathered more mana. But by then Arc had charged her body with enhancements and was rushing towards her assailant, claws extended on one hand and the remains of her rifle - more like a carbine now - in the other. But her attacker was ready for this too, and Arc barely halted her advance in time to avoid the flare-up of a searing wall of true fire, white with heat, that burned so hot Arc was forced to halt herself. The light revealed a mask under the hood of the woman’s hooded cloak. A cheap thing, the sort sold in many places across the city.

"Who the fuck are you?" Arc demanded, charging her hand with mana. She had tested this with Owyn and Raven, and knew that sometimes she could read what was actively on their minds. Recent memories. Desires and things of the subconscious influencing their present. Now, she reached for the thread that bound the assassin to her, hoping to get something, anything, as she used the brief pause as she pulled the invisible thread...

Prison bars. A cell in the city prison. A gentle hand reaching through for her. "It’s not fair," the assassin says.

"No, it isn’t," the woman on the other side of the bars acknowledges. Her face is narrow. Burn-scarred along one cheek but with a clear-eyed gaze lined as if with regret. "You’ve already lost enough for this. Please. Don’t make the same mistakes I did. Just let it go."

"Never. They deserve to suffer..."

The memory ended as, in the real world, Arc was forced to flee from one last push of flame as the assassin went all-out, the thread in her hand slipping free as she escaped the alley ahead of a burst of white fire that left behind it scorched walls and no sign of the assassin.

What the fuck was that?

Around her, a few people had noticed the burst of flame from the alleyway, and they backed away from Arc with fear-fed haste, not wanting to get involved. At first, Arc thought it was because they recognized her, but that was not the case because, from up the street, a Knight was charging towards her.

An hour later, the bars of a holding cell slammed shut around a freshly arrested Arcine Gale, if that was her real name, under suspicion of dangerous use of magic in a civilian district. She tried to explain that someone was trying to kill her, but the Knights who policed the city were a suspicious lot, and so someone was sent to find the one person on hand who could vouch for her supposed identity. Knight Commander Amarena.

The first thing Arc’s mother did was question her extensively before jaunting off to the same street Arc had been on when she came out of the alley. She returned and had Arc released, silently walking her towards the exit as Arc read her temporarily unguarded intents...

"You know her," Arc said. "The woman I described."

Amarena didn’t even try to lie. "Yes," she said. "She’s a woman who nearly destroyed the city once, when she tried and failed to challenge your father."

"I want to see her too."

"She’s dangerous. Even with her magic sealed, there’s always a chance-

"In the memory I saw, she was trying discourage the person trying to kill me. I’m not asking to let her free or anything, I just want to understand why someone she knows wants to kill me."

"There are hundreds of people in the city that would want us dead, thousands even. Some because we opposed Heaven in the war, others because of the power and influence we have, and still more because they fear us. That is why, eventually, we’re going to have to teach you about holding back. About hiding most of what you can do so you don’t increase the fear they have of us." Her mother sighed. "And as for why you would be targeted... it is likely because you are easier to get at than your siblings or us. And if people find out how useful your mavenry was in cracking this case, then it might only increase eliminating you as a priority if the assassin was politically or religiously connected."

"I’m not afraid," Arc said.

"Good. But don’t be foolish, Arc. You need to take your training seriously, especially your enhancement magic, since that might be your only means of escaping or mitigating an attack, just like it helped you today. Though it concerns me that the assassin was able to cut through all the enchantments we had on your rifle."

"Father’s going to be pissed, probably," Arc grumbled.

"Not at all. I’ve let him know about the situation. He’s asked me to take you to your Auntie Moshui after this."

"After what?" Arc asked.

"After you meet the person you’re so adamant about questioning. You’re an adult now, Arc, so I will treat you like one, even if your fathers would rather you not get involved. Our House is nothing if not hands-on," she chuckled. "Just don’t do anything that would warrant my arresting you."

"I promise I’ll behave," Arc said.

"Good." Amarena placed a hand on Arc’s shoulder and suddenly they were in front of the crystal tower, the doors open and far more guards on standby than there had been the night of the incursion.

"Why are we here?" Arc asked. "I thought the prison was in the seventh ward."

"Why? Because one floor down is where we keep the truly dangerous prisoners. The unrepentant ones. Those whose point of view cannot be changed or cured. Those who would, if given the chance, burn the world to ashes just because they can."

"Which one is the woman we’re visiting?" Arc asked.

"All of them."

Inside the dungeon, teleportation was an iffy affair, operating mostly by line-of-sight, or so Amarena explained when Arc asked why they were walking. The first floor was always clear of monsters, and the way down sometimes changed, but they found it rather easily and proceeded, coming out onto a floor where the landscaped looked like it was encased in a bubble of mountains. A box canyon, if the only light came from a little hole in the roof.

The prison squatted in the middle, a five-storey building with no fences, where in the yard some prisoners were carving stones while others simply lounged around. The entire complex rested on an islet formed by the deep carvings of a river, which Arc barely got a glimpse of before Amarena teleported them to the roof and led the way down to a particular cell...

"Well now... To what do I owe this surprise?" asked the voice of the woman in Arc’s vision. In the light, her face was clearly more aged than the assassin recollected. Some of her hair hung across her burn-scars in scraggly grey strands.

"We’ve come to ask some questions, Michelle."