The older boy frowned at Mirae’s question. “What? You have something to hide from me now?” he said, flicking his long sleeve and letting out a puff. “I believe anything Emela hears, I should be privy to as well. I am her older brother, after all.”

  “Yeah, and look how her eldest brother is treating her,” Harry snapped from the side.

  Brom shot him a look, and the boy took a step back, shrugging. “Not my problem that he’s a scumbag.”

  In any other situation, a guard would have probably grabbed Harry and strung him up from a lamppost for such an insult. But neither Brom nor Emela seemed to mind his words. And so, focus back on Mirae.

  “What is it?” Emela pressed. “Have you seen or heard anything?”

  “Well,” Mirae glanced at Brom again, and Emela nodded her head.

  “It’s fine. I trust Brom enough to believe he can be privy to some of the information... At least, the information that concerns me anyway.”

  Brom’s frown seemed to pick up on the underlying meaning of that, but he didn’t question what Emela truly meant.

  “Well, Nyx is alive.”

  Emela’s face broke into a smile, her dried lips pulling up at the edges. “She is?” Her blue eyes practically shook as she looked around. “Where is she?”

  “Over by the tree line.”

  One of Mirae’s puppets stepped out from the shadows of a large oak and then gestured for something behind it to move. A breath later, Nyx stood out, her black bob clearly noticeable even from this distance.

  Emela let out a gasp. “Nyx,” she said.

  “Well, well, well,” Brom chuckled. “It seems you still have a personal maid after all.”

  A few moments later, Nyx was walking up the steps, her footfalls steady as she met Emela’s eyes, the two sharing a look. It was as if life had returned to her, and Emela’s eyes began welling up.

  In a rush, she broke past Brom, gently nudging her brother aside and racing down the steps towards Nyx. Halfway up, the two girls met. And Emela threw herself into the black-haired girl’s embrace, sobbing as she rested her head on her shoulder. “I can’t believe it! You’re alive! But how?” she asked, pushing off Nyx’s shoulder and looking over the girl, as if searching for injuries.

  Nyx simply shook her head and smiled. “I’m fine. Thankfully, Mirae saved me in time; otherwise, I’d be at the bottom of an abyss.” Nyx’s voice came out steady at first, but choked up towards the end.

  Over by the side, the two girls that Mirae had watched conversing earlier shared a look of shock, the noble-looking one even rubbing at her eyes as if in disbelief. Though Mirae suspected the disbelief stemmed less from Nyx being here and more from the fact she’d survived at all.

  After all, she’d probably known what Drion could do and had seen it herself. So, the fact that he’d left this woman to live spoke volumes. On the other hand, the black-haired girl beside her thumbed at her palm, biting her lip. She looked at Nyx as if she wouldn’t live for too much longer, her eyes falling to the ground as she shook her head.

  “What will happen to her?” Mirae asked Brom, who turned and cocked his head to the side, his lips pulling into a thin line.

  “Of that I’m not sure. My brother can be an unpredictable man, even in the best of times. I dare say the only one who can really predict him is our father.”

  Mirae found that troubling. Drion’s father was the patriarch of the Frostkeeps and one of the most powerful men in all of Middlec. Of course, someone that strong could predict someone so far below in cultivation, but that didn’t answer her question. And if his reaction were to be so unpredictable, was this reunion called too early?

  Mirae frowned to herself.

  A moment or two later, Nyx and Emela walked back up to the top of the stairs, with the two girls following behind them. The last of the mercenaries that Drion had hired had entered the tower now, and it was only their group that was left to go in.

  Off to the side, Harry rested his hands against the stone edge overlooking the drop below. He had a pensive look on his face, as if not sure what was going to happen next. Mirae didn’t know either and so turned to Pippa, raising a brow at the girl.

  She shrugged. “I guess it’s time to go in as long as everyone’s ready,” Pippa said, shifting the journal between her hands. “I take it they’re tagging along with us?” She jerked her head towards Emela and her group.

  Mirae shifted on her heels, her sandals slapping against the stone. While it was good to have a larger group, it would also risk drawing more attention.

  And attention wasn’t something that would go too well with anything that was coming next. But then again, they didn’t know what waited behind those flashy doors of the tower. Even now, the light coming from it danced across the white stone of the entrance, almost lulling them in.

  Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

  “I think we’ll separate, to be honest,” Emela said, pulling Mirae from her thoughts.

  Mirae frowned, turning to the girl, who wore an appreciative look.

  “You’ve already done so much for me, and I’m aware Brom has his own considerations,” she said, looking towards her brother.

  Brom brought a hand to his chin, his long sleeves falling to his elbow, exposing the smooth skin of his arms. “Well, as I offered to you earlier,” he said, inclining his head to Pippa, “I don’t mind working together, though I don’t know how the points will get distributed.”

  Mirae raised an eyebrow at that. Point distribution wasn’t something she’d been considering for this small excursion of theirs. She hadn’t even earned any points when she defeated the stone monkey... golem... thing.

  She wasn’t exactly sure what it was, but it had given her no points, though the other creatures hadn’t done so either when she and Hector had gone out hunting. Maybe, much like those situations, they had to return to the quest hall to turn in a specific part.

  But what ‘it’ was, was a mystery to her. There had been no parts harvested, no limbs dropped. Her gaze moved to the golem, resting on the ruined battlefield. Should she bring something from it back? Though she reached around in her pockets, a large chunk of stone definitely wouldn’t fit there. And it’s not like she had brought a backpack.

  Again, she frowned, regretting her decision not to bring more supplies. It was really proving to be an inconvenience at this point.

  “I appreciate your offer,” Pippa answered Brom and gave him a small bow, “but I will stand with what Mirae said to you at the time.”

  “Alright then,” Brom smiled, clearly taking no offence at the rejection. He seemed as if it were but a minor occurrence to him before turning to Emela and gesturing. “Shall we then, sister?”

  Emela nodded, reaching a hand out for Nyx and grabbing her wrist as if fearing to lose her again. Mirae wasn’t sure of how the two had grown up together, but they certainly seemed a lot closer than the typical maid and master, at least from the ones she’d known. And that wasn’t very many. She’d run into a few with lower nobles and merchants, their relationships seeming more transactional than what Nyx and Emela were displaying right now.

  “So, are we going to get this show on the road then?” the girl at the back said. Mirae’s gaze moved to her, noting how she puffed out her chest and rested her hands on her hips. A look of impatience quirked at the edge of her lips. She was definitely a noble, perhaps a high-class one at that.

  “Why? Are you worried, Rana?” Emela asked, glancing over her shoulder.

  “Of course not. I wouldn’t be worried. Was I worried when those ice-dogs attacked me?”

  “That’s because you had me,” the black-haired girl said. “Covered all your weak points, didn’t I?”

  “Pish posh, Lilia. I simply made use of your presence, that is all.”

  The black-haired girl rolled her eyes, shaking her head, not taking the girl’s comment too seriously, before letting out a puff and nodding.

  With that, Emela and Brom moved towards the door. Mirae smiled, nodding to Mrs Strongmail and Pippa, before stepping over and grabbing Harry’s shoulder. The boy jumped a little, being pulled from his thoughts and shaking his head.

  “Sorry, I was just thinking,” he said, with a slight pause.

  “Don’t worry about it. We’re going in now.”

  With that, she turned.

  Behind the group, the two puppets moved, their footsteps light against the stone. The pale light emanating from their bodies waved in rhythm as they fell into position—one at their left flank, the other at their right.

  At the same time, the third puppet stepped past Mrs Strongmail and Pippa, the two women shifting aside to let the construct through. It moved to stand directly beside Mirae, close enough that the glow from it cast faint shadows across her arm.

  The weight of their presence settled something in her. Three constructs at her command. Three additional layers between her and whatever waited inside.

  She rolled her shoulders, exhaling through her nose.

  They all then stepped through the doors, Emela and her group already moving through ahead of them.

  The light swallowed Mirae whole.

  One moment, she stood on the white stone, the next—

  Her boots struck the polished floor. The sound echoed, reverberating through a space so vast that the echo took seconds to return. Mirae’s head snapped upward.

  The ceiling stretched impossibly high. Stone arches arced overhead, their peaks lost in shadow despite the soft luminescence emanating from braziers mounted along the walls. Columns rose at regular intervals—each wider than three men standing shoulder to shoulder—their surfaces carved with patterns that seemed to shift when viewed from the corner of her eye. The sheer scale pressed down on her, the architecture designed to make anyone standing beneath it feel really small.

  Doors lined the hall. Dozens of them. Each one identical—dark wood bound with iron, maybe ten feet tall, set into archways carved from the same pale stone as the ceiling. Mercenaries moved between them in clusters, their voices a low murmur that carried across the expanse. A group of four disappeared through a door on the left. Three more approached another doorway to the right, one of them gesturing emphatically while the others nodded.

  Mirae turned.

  Emela stood a few paces ahead with her group—Brom’s long sleeves hanging at his sides, Nyx still gripped by Emela’s hand, Rana with her chin lifted, and Lilia scanning the hall with narrowed eyes.

  Mirae walked over, her feet echoing across the polished stone. A few mercenaries looked over their shoulders before stepping through the doors, not interested in watching the newcomers.

  “So I guess this is where we part ways,” Mirae said to Emela, who gave her a weak smile.

  She looked as if she wanted to say something, though she thought better of it when her gaze landed on Brom. Instead, she opted to step forward and reach out her hand. Mirae grasped it, meeting Emela’s eyes.

  “Thank you, Mirae,” Emela said, “for saving Nyx. I’m not sure how you did it, but thank you.”

  Mirae reached a hand behind her head and scratched. It wasn’t exactly much of a secret, not between those who were part of the Clear Sky Mercenaries anyway, but with Brom present, she couldn’t exactly spout out the reason why, and that was without even considering the other two girls standing behind Emela.

  “It wasn’t an issue, and good luck,” she said.

  With that, the two groups broke off, Emela leading her group to a door on the far right, which Brom had picked out, saying his gut felt a strong connection. On the other hand, Pippa held up Kar’s diary, her fingers massaging its rough front. A thoughtful look on her face. A moment later, her lips quirked into a smile.

  “I’m thinking we’re going to go in that direction,” she said, pointing to a door slightly off to the left.

  It was probably another of her feelings, the ones that had been guiding her to Kar’s journal the first time. Whatever that inheritance she’d picked up from him was, it was proving to be quite useful indeed.

  Mirae smiled at her friend and stepped over, peeking at the journal. “And you’re sure about that?” She asked, raising a brow.

  Pippa nodded with some enthusiasm. “I bet everything I have on it.”

  Mirae laughed. “You don’t exactly have much anymore.”

  Patreon has 20 more chapters on it if you'd like to read more. For anything more, you can find me on .