Chapter 2: Landfall

  Cadmus Aine

  I steered the ship into Port Seluvis, named for some rich guy who died exploring the nearby forest. I always found stuff like that foolish and vain. Why name something for someone who died? Also, it was only ever the rich who got things named after them after doing something stupid to get themselves killed. What of the servants who he likely used as meat shields before kicking the bucket? I doubt they have anything named for them. I suppose it isn’t the pce of the low born like us to expect legacies. I wonder if I were to die here, would Lady Seliune have an area named for her?

  “Commander Aine, sir,” Lorill, a tall infernal man in his middle years with tanned skin and violet horns that stick straight out the the sides, ran up to me to deliver a report “we’re nearly done unloading. Would you like me to send Wredeye to the Governor’s Mansion to request lodging for the Lady?”

  It took me a moment to reply, ostensibly because I was thinking if Wredeye was the best choice for runner, but in reality it was because it simply took me a moment to process what he’d said while I was lost in thought.

  “Yes, but send him with Latan at least, I don’t want the d getting into any trouble” I replied to him, pulling my thoughts away from legacies and back to the present.

  “Lad? You’re scarcely older than the boy yourself” he chuckled “Don’t go getting a big head just cause you got yourself a title now, we’re all still Sves” He gestured between his horns, where his sve brands sat prominently, smoldering with quintessence.

  Unconsciously I felt to my own on my back, prominent scars that could never fully heal, denoting our tenure of service, who we belonged to, and why we were ensved. They also let people know important information, such as jobs and temperament. Lorill was to serve for life, belonging to house Seliune, for the crime of murder. Though I knew him to be a good man, I couldn’t imagine he’d actually committed the crime that had gotten him branded. In fact, none of the people in my command seemed as though they could have possibly committed the crimes they’re accused of, but I suppose I could be a poor judge of character when I’d only known my trainers and masters growing up.

  “You are right though, I wouldn’t want him getting in trouble, and Latan does tend to keep him in line” Lorill continued, bringing my mind once more back to the present, before he ran off to do as he was told and sent the runners to the Governor’s Mansion. With that done, I went off to ensure the rest of my men knew their formation for us to transport Lady Seliune to the Governor.

  After ensuring my men were ready and the ship was unloaded it wasn't long in finding my charge. Lady Cecilia Seliune stood at the railing of the Lord’s Drake, peering over her shoulder and past her curls, I saw she was doing a watercolor painting of the coastline in her sketchbook. It was gorgeous and skillful, capturing the ndscape wonderfully. In the area where she painted the dock I even saw that she’d painted myself and Lorill conversing, which felt strangely warm. I looked like a person, not a thing as I was so often treated growing up. Though talking to my men and the captain of the ship, they made me feel like a person, but for her to paint me as one felt entirely different, as though I was being seen for the first time by someone as more than I was raised to be.

  “Lady Seliune” I finally said “It is about time we left to see where the Governor will be allowing you to stay until House Seliune has a proper estate here in Farspell. The men are in formation to escort you, and we’d ideally reach the mansion before sunset”

  Lady Seliune wordlessly turned up her nose at me, her icy gre reprimanding me for speaking to her directly, but she complied. She used an aureate she was clearly familiar with to speed dry her page before closing her sketchpad to follow. For just a moment I’d made the mistake of thinking she saw me as a person, a moment too long that left me particurly hurt by her looking so far down on me.

  I led her down to the docks where her guard and the exploratory team were arranged in the optimal way to protect her from the monsters of this unknown nd, with Elves and Infernals on paired off on the perimeter for their innate skills at sensing and tracking Quintessence, followed by a few Orcs in the midline quickly rush out and deal with smaller threats or slow down bigger threats so the backline, consisting of Humanum, would be able to help deal with them from afar with aureates and crossbows, then with myself pced directly next to Lady Seliune in case something were able to make it past all of them, I could do what I could to personally protect her. Though with that formation in mind, I doubted I could stay back to solely protect her with others in danger.

  We began to walk through the colony made around Port Seluvis, full of wooden structures, and no real walls to be seen anywhere, not even personal walls around people’s property. It made no sense to me, of course they were always worried about quintessent beast attacks without walls and with such flimsy buildings. I’d been told that only the Governor could afford to quarry stone for proper buildings and walls, but did he not provide for his citizens? He’s had years to at least begin to build a wall for his people, even if they didn’t have enough to build proper homes. I hoped at the very least we’d be given sturdy stone lodgings.

  Cecilia Seliune

  Father had truly sent me to die in a backwater, penniless, death trap of a vilge. Their homes were made of wood, not even just transmuted logs, or quintessentially grown tree houses, but just cut lumber. These fools didn’t even bother to try and use their fire hazardous building material to build a wall, they just left themselves out in the open to be picked off. They had to be insane. I know that many Thaumaturgists were kept behind, only those in svery, like Commander Aine, or those with the ability to pay their own way were able to make it here. The Governor couldn’t possibly live in such squalor, he had his own personal Thaumaturgists, he could afford to quarry stone for himself, so I assured myself that I at least would be allowed to live behind walls and in a real building.

  The road here was disgusting too, just trod on soil to compact the earth, utterly unpaved. It was embarrassing to traverse, and even more so to walk. I am a Lady, I deserved at least a Panquin, but mine had been stored in the hold of one of the many ships that sank- thinking about that some more, I was gd to be walking rather than wherever those consumed by the Deep go.

  We walked for roughly an hour outside of the colony town proper, with dense forest on either side of the road until we saw the walls to the compound that housed the Governor’s Estate. They were rge, sturdy walls built from quarried stone. I was gd to finally see a proper structure after having walked past all of those twig houses. We were almost there, and I was tempted to run ahead before I noticed my guards on my right bristle out of the corner of my eye. A moment there was a blood curdling scream, a spray of blood, and a bone chilling roar that sent me falling backwards and scrambling away from it.

  On our right fnk was a massive beast with the head and body of a bck maned lion, a goat’s head on its back, and a serpent for a tail. The Chimera was about as rge as a small house back in the colony town we were just outside of, easily dwarfing the rgest Orc in my guard. It looked around at our group hungrily, which was mostly frozen in fear, each of the three heads scanning us with their golden glowing eyes. It stood atop the Infernal man that Commander Aine had been talking to while I’d done my painting of the coast. It seemed somewhat content to take him and was trying to be sure it could get away without much trouble. However, it had seemed it could not.

  After a moment of scanning the situation to ensure this was the only threat, he acted, pulling the sword from the scabbard at his belt and rushing from my side. Cadmus fought, and he was a storm. Words of Paradigm, the nguage of power, poured from his lips as his off-hand wove hand signs though the air. The wind picked up as he infused it with his ashé, ribbons of silver and gold light streaming through his contained tornado as arcs of golden lightning danced along his bde.

  Cadmus began to single-handedly repel the Chimera as he dodged, shocked, and sshed, moving like the wind that helped him. Each time the beast seemed like it would go for an attack, it was knocked off-bance, making its blows far more predictable and far less effective. It was an entire quarter of a minute before the rest of my guard joined him, at first frozen in fear, then in awe by their Commander’s bravery and skill. The Orcs joined him in the physical fight, and the humanum near me finally began to weave Aureate of their own, but in comparison to how he fought, it was like watching children fight alongside a seasoned veteran. It didn’t make sense, not just that he cast powerful and complex aureates nearly effortlessly, or that he seemed to have such a deep well of ashé to draw from, but his physical abilities. He seemed to be outperforming the Orcs, who were no slouches in terms of their abilities, but more than that, he still seemed like he was restraining himself. There were several times I saw him bat away a swipe from the monster from hitting one of the other members of the guard and continue to fight, and yet the Orcs seemed to have been thrown around the same as anyone else. It made no sense how he could have gotten this skilled and powerful as a sve, and I knew from his brands being on his back that he was born into the role.

  I didn’t have time to worry about that though as a few of the Elf and Infernal members of my guard carried me away from the fighting. By the time I was taken back to the rest of my guard, the fighting was already over. The area was a wreck, scorch marks all over, felled trees, and trunks marred by acid. Though it didn’t seem like there were too many injuries aside from minor scrapes and bruises here and there. The exceptions being Cadmus, who sustained four deep gashes in his forearm, and the man he’d been talking to earlier, who looked to be barely alive, his intestines strewn across the ground in front of him. It was horrifying and bloody and something that a Lady should never see, and I couldn’t look away.

  He’d taken that injury for me. He’d protected me from succumbing to the same. I’d spent all my time menting that these sves were subpar, and beneath me. They weren’t worth my time or consideration. However, looking at that man on his side, dying because he was charged with protecting me. For a moment I wanted to take his pce, and then it clicked; These were people. Yes I knew they were people before then, but it was then that I felt they were people. They were just trying to survive, and knowing that, I realized he wasn’t putting his life on the line for me, he was doing it to protect his friends and comrades. Their brands would kill all of them if I died, and that made me feel so much worse. It was then that I decided I’d at least try to treat them better than simply as tools and annoyances.

  Then something beautiful happened. None of the guards, not even Cadmus, knew how to heal using quintessence on their own, but with a cost far higher than the benefit, they were able to form a covenant to save him by collectively pooling their ashé. Cadmus walked over, letting his blood flow from his wound into his hand, collecting into a crimson sphere that swirled with flecks of gold. One by one, the others cut their palms and held them out, the blood flowing from their hands into the sphere. From the sphere, tendrils of blood flowed out into the soil and trees, siphoning power from them, and the golden ashé flowing through a tendril into the injured man, mending his wound, though not entirely, but it gives him a chance at survival.

  Minutes past, stretching into eternity as their covenant solidified itself, tendrils of blood breaking off from each man as they ran out of power until only their Commander stood there with golden blood flowing from and around him. Cadmus, who had clearly taken the brunt of the Quintessent weight, grew ashen and his brow collected sweat as he colpsed. He fell unconscious next to his wounded friend, in a clearing of now dead and dry grass and trees, all of the life in the foliage around them being used to try to save the man’s life. A few guards lift up the two unconscious men, and we rush off to make it to the safety of the walls.