Sophia read the letter quickly, then went through it again more carefully. There was a lot of interesting stuff there, starting with the Stepped Pyramid jewelry design that seemed too much like the image in the floor of the entrance of the Izel Vocational Registry. It sounded a lot like the current tension in the city was triggered by Amy’s uncle, but Sophia knew enough to know that wasn’t the full story. It wouldn’t have gotten this bad if there wasn’t already a problem; this was an excuse.

  That didn’t mean she wanted to be in the middle of an excuse for a riot.

  Amy groaned, then handed the second letter to Dav and buried her face in her hands. “Why did this have to happen now? Uncle Los’en likes his fights, but that’s all they’ve ever been! This isn’t just a fight!”

  Sophia shook her head, then looked down at the second letter. She had no idea what to say; maybe there was something there that would help.

  Hey, sis.

  If you haven’t read the other letter, please read it first.

  The news isn’t as good this time. Mother rejected the Broken Temple’s Hilt’s demands, of course, but now Uncle Los’en is refusing to even apologize. He says he won’t back down and that the Hilt’s demands mean that we can’t afford to give them any concessions.

  It’s nothing I can do anything about, of course. That only makes it worse.

  When I told Mother you’re on your way here and asked to delay the expedition to the ruins in the Western Wildlands to wait on you, she said that I should go ahead and head out so that we’re not caught by the snow. She was definitely not happy, but I think that’s more from Uncle Los’en than from you.

  Mother said she’d arrange matters with Registry Master Ermine for you to get rushed through the Challenges you and your group need then arrange a Second Upgrade clan member to bring you to me. The Registry isn’t involved, so it should prove a shield for you; the Registry Master can notify Mother if you think it isn’t safe to come to the compound.

  I’m worried. Mother has everyone traveling in groups; she doesn’t want anyone caught by any of the Templars while they’re alone. We aren’t the only people traveling in groups, either. It makes the city feel weird. Be cautious; I don’t want someone to attack you to get at Mother or Uncle Los’en. Before this week, I’d have said no one would dare. Now I’m not so sure.

  We leave tomorrow. I should be looking forward to whatever we find in the ruins, especially if we find an old hidden Challenge or a lost Imperial cache, but I keep worrying about the people I’m leaving behind, especially you. Mother will be fine, but she’s past her second upgrade. You aren’t. I hope the city stays peaceful for long enough.

  I know you want to unlock the rest of the Abilities you need for Night Owl, but once you’ve done that please hurry out here. You’ll just have to brave a camp far from outside support until the snows leave. I think that’s going to be safer than Izel.

  Hope to see you soon,

  Lan

  There was a lot less in the second letter than the first. It was especially lacking specific information. What it did make clear was that the tension in the city was about to boil over even before they arrived.

  Well, there was one other thing. Lan’s letter said that the Registry wasn’t involved, but there were now Templars outside the entrance and the floor showed a symbol that had to be the stepped pyramid design that Amy’s uncle used to initiate the problems in the first place. The Registry was involved now.

  “Is the stepped pyramid supposed to represent the Tower of Kestii?” Dav asked suddenly. “For that matter, what is the Tower of Kestii?”

  “What?” Amy’s head whipped up in obvious surprise. “You don’t … of course you don’t know. How would you?”

  That didn’t answer the question, but Sophia held her tongue. She knew she felt a little annoyed because she had to admit her ignorance yet again.

  Even if it was Dav that admitted it this time. He seemed more patient than Sophia felt; he indicated that Amy should continue with nothing more than a calm nod.

  “The Tower of Kestii is … well, it’s really more of an ideal than anything, the stepped pyramid is just the most common symbol for it. We want to go back to the old ways, the ways that built Kestii into a grand civilization that tamed the land instead of little pockets of survivors besieged by the monsters in the Wilderness.” Amy bit her lip as she stopped talking.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  “And what does that have to do with the Broken Temple?” Dav prompted her.

  Amy frowned for a moment. Sophia was certain she was having trouble figuring out how to express something she’d known for so long that it was just obvious, but she slowly answered. “The Broken Temple follows the Broken Lord. He’s the one who … well, his choice is what broke the original Tower in the legend of the Tower of Kestii, so they don’t want people to rebuild it.”

  Amy had a frown on her face. After a moment she shook her head. “It doesn’t seem like enough, does it? I don’t understand why you’d follow someone who broke the world and then disappeared for hundreds of years. Well, disappeared other than handing out Hallows. They don’t even like it when people talk about the other Patrons, it’s like they want the Broken Lord to be the only one and hold up his mistakes like they’re good.”

  Dav nodded as if it was a more complete answer than Sophia thought it was. “So the Tower of Kestii follows all of the other Patrons? And you’re a member?”

  Amy shook her head. “It’s not that formal, there’s nothing you belong to if you follow the Tower. We don’t work that way, it’s more like the Tower is a bunch of different groups that work together. Some groups are trying to oppose the Broken Temple, others work to explore the lost arts and restore or recreate the glory of Kestii. Lan’s expedition … He thinks the old ruins date back to Old Kestii, and he managed to convince Mother that they were worth looking at. No one else on the expedition that found them thought they were that old. Which is good, because if they did, someone else would already be out there.”

  “Is that common?” Dav paused, then seemed to realize that he needed to add detail. “Expeditions, I mean. Don’t you already sort of know what’s out there, from before Kestii fell? Aren’t there old maps? I know things can change, they certainly have back home, but the old maps are still useful.”

  Sophia gave Dav an incredulous look. Hadn’t he ever been somewhere that didn’t have a strong central authority? Sure, technology made it a lot easier, but even though most of the planets Earth traded with could have bought the tools to map their land, maybe even from space, the only good maps she’d ever seen were city maps. No one thought it was worth mapping land that wasn’t being used or taxed. Even in areas where the wealthy owned the countryside, the boundary markers were rivers or where the land changed from forest to grassland or desert. It wasn’t worth mapping them more carefully than that unless someone thought there would be a dispute.

  Some places didn’t even own land; you got what you used. That didn’t usually work that well in larger cities, but it worked well enough when there just weren’t that many people and land wasn’t the limiting factor.

  Come to think of it, no, he probably hadn’t. From the way he described Terra, people on his world were crammed into cities that occupied only the land that the Dust hadn’t taken over. Sophia was certain there was more farmland than he talked about, but it was probably tightly controlled as well. He simply had no idea how hard it was to make good maps when you could only travel on your feet or on animals and you had to map with tools you could carry.

  Amy didn’t talk about any of that. Sophia was sure she stood on the other side of it; she had no idea what it was like to be in a world where mapping was easy and could be done with aircraft or satellites. “The world shattered. Everything was shuffled. As for maps, well, I know we have some. I can ask about them when we see Modir. Then you’ll be able to see how much everything changed.”

  Amy bit her lip and looked down at the letters in Dav’s hands. “There are a couple more things you should know. I didn’t think it was that important, but I know it’ll come up when we see Modir. She’ll expect me to have told you, and I meant to tell you before now anyway. It just never came up.”

  Amy didn’t continue for a long moment. Instead, she looked at Sophia, then Dav, then back at Sophia as if she was looking for something.

  Sophia wasn’t sure if Amy was just nervous or if she was looking for something specific, but she certainly didn’t seem to be finding whatever she was looking for. Sophia tried to be encouraging and calm. “What just never came up?”

  “Names,” Amy finally answered. “We take different names when we deal with outsiders, but that’s not supposed to be something you do with your team, so I need to tell you or Modir will think I don’t trust you. You can still call me Amy, please do when we’re in the Registry, but my name is Ci’an.”

  She shook her head slightly and an embarrassed smile crossed her face. “We usually take part of our name as our public name, but I don’t like being called Ann and Si isn’t a common name, so I went with Amy. Lan’ti, my brother, goes by Lan. He did that as a child, too, so his name was easy for him to pick.”

  Sophia wasn’t sure why Amy seemed so embarrassed about it. It wasn’t like she’d hidden who she was; she’d basically just admitted that she used another accepted name. There wasn’t anything wrong with that. Sophia knew a lot of people who were known by names other than the name their parents gave them. It wasn’t like she was pretending to be someone else.

  “And Hunter?” Dav prodded. He didn’t sound upset, either; he sounded curious.

  Amy … no, Ci’an … shrugged. “The Vocational Registry wants a second name that doesn’t change. That’s not how it works in the Skylands, so we have a few names we use. Only Called take names like that, and they’re picked by the Clan leader. Modir chose Hunter for both Lan and me. I think she used Hunter, too; it’s pretty common to take your parents’ second name with the Registry if they were Called.”

  By now, it was pretty clear that Ci’an’s “Modir” and Lan’ti’s “Mother” were probably the same person, their mother. The only other option was that they might have more than one mother, which was possible but seemed unlikely since they were referring to her as an authority figure. Sophia wasn’t quite sure how to ask.

  “I don’t know if I ever told you my name,” Dav answered with a nod. “But if we’re introducing ourselves again, I should. I’m Dav Andrei Carolan, but please don’t use all of that. Call me Dav.”

  Sophia glared at Dav for a moment. He’d just turned this into something kind of nice, but he’d also backed her into a corner without realizing it. She was going to have to admit her name and not just the one she used on Earth if she was going to match their reveals. Dav was lucky that he didn’t have an embarrassing name.

  She took a deep breath for courage, then started. “Sophia Dalmoti Rothmer of Earth, Lyka, and Tzintkra, Clan Et’Tart of Suratiz. And yes, please keep calling me Sophia. The rest doesn’t matter here.”

  Yes, Sophia’s middle name is her great-great-grandfather’s given name. She’s also missing some titles because her father doesn’t really do titles, but there aren’t many people who can introduce themselves as “of” three worlds and from the leading clan of a fourth … so on the rare occasions when she goes somewhere that she has to be introduced, she still gets attention like she had a title. She isn’t particularly fond of it; people who care about those titles usually want things from her that she isn’t willing to give.

  She hasn’t thought of the fact that (other than Earth), neither Dav nor Amy has ever heard of any of these places.