The room on the other side of the door was draped in swaths of white and gold fabric tapestries that seed to tell stories Sophia didn’t have ti to decipher. The far wall held only the Professional League sigil in gold. The floor was covered in white and gold tiles in a checkerboard pattern. The only furnishings that weren’t white or gold were the legs of the chairs, and they defeated the promise of sothing different with brilliantly white heavy padding on the seat, arms, and back.
It was honestly pretty garish.
Sophia recognized two of the three people in front of her. Sweetfire didn’t look like he belonged at all, since he was clad in his usual red to match his hair and his temper. Bai looked more like he belonged, though high deep green clothing set him apart. The third person blended into the room’s furnishings almost too well. Her deep, almost mahogany-colored skin tone was a nice contrast to her white-trimd golden clothing, but in this room she looked like she was trying to blend in and failing miserably.
Sophia was pretty sure she wasn’t actually trying to blend in; she was probably trying to stand out in her place of power. It might even work on so people.
Whoever she was, she was definitely with the Professional League, which made sense since this was their building. Sweetfire must be visiting, but Sophia had no idea why Bai was there.
Bai was the only one who looked at the opening door. “Sophia and the rest of the Flying Stars, I see. Welco; we were just talking about you.”
“I heard,” Sophia admitted as she moved far enough into the room to let everyone in. It was a little small for eight people, five of whom were carrying their traveling gear, and there weren’t enough chairs. “I wasn’t expecting you here; we were looking for Sweetfire.”
Sweetfire grinned as he spun around. “Sophia! I’m glad you’re back. Wait, did you co here directly? I thought for sure you’d stop off at the house.”
Sophia rubbed the back of her neck. If she’d known they were walking into so sort of negotiation, she would have stopped off at the house to at least drop her traveling gear off and maybe get into nicer clothing. At least they were clean; the Imperial Hall had excellent bathing facilities.”We had a question for you. I guess I might as well ask. Uh, Arak Shade. Did he have children that, uh, disappeared?”
“Yes, he did.” The Professional League woman’s frown only seed to get deeper. “They were never found. What does that have to do with anything?”
“He found their graves,” Sophia blurted out. “And then he saw the Blade kill soone else near there and then bury them nearby. I don’t know what he’s going to do, but if the Blade’s unconscious like everyone else with an Imperial Sphere…”
“The Arena disappearances.” The Professional League woman tensed, then smacked her leg. “We’ve been tracking them for years, but the Blade always dismissed it as people who left town or went into the Maze without admitting that Professionals aren’t that stupid, especially not older Professionals. You go in with people who can defend you or you don’t go. Bai? I know you’ve been keeping track.”
“Of course.” Bai closed his eyes for a mont. When he opened them, he started. “The first disappearance happened three years after the Shade’s son vanished. That was four months after Amaryssa Seuvarin beca the Blade and took charge of the Arena after the death of her predecessor. This does not tell
anything about the Blade’s involvent or lack thereof.”
“It might explain the deaths,” Sophia offered. “Arak says the Blade believes she gets Thread from people she kills if they’re linked to her in so way, and that the stronger the link is, the more Thread she gets. That’s why she killed her niece and her nephew.”
“The Blade and the Shade are siblings?” The woman whose na Sophia still didn’t know sounded shocked. “They look nothing alike.”
Sophia shook her head. “No, Arak says Amaryssa Seuvarin is his wife’s sister. Uh, what was her na?”
“He called her Marice,” Dav supplied.
“Huh. I didn’t know Spicy had a sister,” the woman in white and gold muttered. “Much less that she was the Blade. I guess it explains so things; I’ve seen Spicy’s food when the Blade’s the one hosting but I’ve never seen Spicy in the kitchens. The Shade probably brings it up, since Spicy doesn’t like leaving the underground. For that matter-”
A knock at the door interrupted her. Sophia’s team moved away from the door to make room as it swung slowly open. A young man in a dark gray and gold uniform stood on the other side. “Master Rayne? You said you wanted to know imdiately when any of the sick people woke up. Two of them woke up a few minutes ago.”
The woman in white and gold nodded at the ssenger. “Thank you. I’ll be there shortly.” She didn’t wait for the door to close before she turned to Sweetfire. “You can co if you wish, of course. And… I suppose the rest of you may as well.”
By the ti they reached the large room elsewhere in the building that had been temporarily converted into a sick ward, there were four awake instead of two. Master Rayne spoke to each of them, reassuring them that they weren’t in any trouble and that the Professional League would make sure they didn’t lose their jobs over their illness.
When the fifth person woke up, Sophia was certain. She leaned over and whispered a question at Bai to confirm what she felt in her aura. “They’re all before the first upgrade, aren’t they? The ones who woke up, I an.”
“Yes,” Bai confird. “It’s unusual; upgrades normally help with resilience against illness.”
“It’s because it’s not an illness,” Sophia stated firmly. She was certain it would get out as soon as the Adherents started talking, so there was no reason not to admit the truth. “It’s Wisp overuse sickness, and it’s my fault. Well, sort of. I was fixing what the Broken Lord did.”
Sophia spoke a little too loud, just loud enough for one of the healers to overhear.
“Excuse , miss, but could you repeat that?” The healer turned away from the unconscious man she was checking to stare at Sophia. “If you know what happened to these people, I’d certainly like to know.”
“They had … they were granted Spheres by the Broken Lord. Those Spheres had … well, they all had an Ability called Whispers of the Broken Lord that let him push them into doing things they wouldn’t have otherwise.” Sophia probably wasn’t explaining it well, but she had to keep going. “I was able to change that, so I did. But I think it made them sick like when you use too many Wisps at once.”
“It was part of the reward for restoring the Tower, then?” Master Rayne asked.
It wasn’t, exactly, but that was close enough. Sophia nodded. “The Broken Swords won’t work anymore. I don’t want anyone killing themselves to make more. That’s just wrong.”
She started to say that it ought to be possible to set up the sa thing at a nexus as soon as she figured out how, but maybe that wasn’t really what it was. If she set up her own Imperial Spheres, they’d progress differently than the Broken Lord’s; on top of that, they wouldn’t be pushed to the top of the upgrade imdiately. Sophia was pretty sure that was a bad thing, overall. “There are a lot of options, and it’s going to be a while before I understand them all … and even longer before I know how to make them work with the way things are set up now. The way the Kestii Empire did things isn’t appropriate, it’s gone, and what the Broken Lord did was worse. He was trying to change things and it didn’t work.”
“It did change things,” Bai countered. “But I think we can say that things aren’t better than they were when the Empire fell.”
“There aren’t many Professionals that would disagree with you in Mazehold,” Master Rayne said, then glanced around the room. “More than I expected, if everyone here was Hallowed by the Broken Lord. Imrys, talk to everyone as they wake up. We will help them recover and either help them keep their jobs or find a new one; that’s part of what the League does. Find out if they were Hallowed and what they can tell us about what it ant and what’s changed. I’m especially interested in knowing if they can and will talk about it.”
The healer who overheard Sophia nodded. “After we make sure they’re fine, I’ll get soone to talk to them.”
A few minutes later, they were in a room nearby that was larger than the room where Sophia found Sweetfire, Bai, and Master Rayne. Master Rayne spoke first. “You have to be Empress Sophia. I thought you’d be taller, sohow. What do you want and what can you do for ?”
Sophia blinked at the reference to her height. She wasn’t that short; sure, she was below average height for a woman, but only by a couple of inches.
It was better to ignore it.
“I’m still trying to figure it out,” Sophia admitted. “I think there’s a lot the Guide does that was blocked that I can open up, but it requires access to a nexus. A sigil might work for so of it, but without the Wisps the Broken Lord was siphoning away from everyone who touched the Broken Swords, I’m not sure how much the sigils can do. Uh, the Tower’s for Called, so that’s probably not that interesting to you, but there were quite a few Professional Spheres in the list of Imperial Spheres. I think I can probably make those available.”
“Professionals once entered the Tower regularly,” Bai corrected Sophia. “The sa way they enter the Garden now, but with a called escort. It fell out of fashion when the Maze started, because even getting to the Tower beca dangerous, but the Tower once had so very valuable resources.”
“There are stories of Tower-born tals,” Sweetfire added, “tals that hold an impossible edge and heal themselves or respond to the smith’s thoughts as well as their hamr. I am certain most of them are overstated, but occasionally soone finds sothing amazing in the Maze that no one can find again. It would be better if we could reopen the Gateways; what ca through them was not simply materials but techniques.”
Sophia shrugged helplessly. “I can’t repair the Tower any faster than it’s already going. It’ll heal as people go through it. It’ll be faster if people finish Tasks, but it’s going to take ti. I’m not sure when the Gateways will reopen. My best guess is that they’ll open at the sa ti as the Tower opens to people at the first upgrade.”
Sophia’s Status didn’t say anything about it. Everything she knew ca from the few words she’d managed to get Cliff to say. He was never talkative, but he seed to be more willing to say what he was seeing when he was managing sothing he thought of as a gigantic dungeon, so Sophia knew what appeared on his Status.
“This building has nexus terminals,” Master Rayne admitted. “There are only a few things they’ll do without the City Lord’s authorization. Can you appoint a City Lord?”
Sophia could guess who Master Rayne wanted as the City Lord. “Maybe, but I think it would be better if we set up a city council based on the current structure in Mazehold. It seems to be stable and that’s worth a lot. I should be able to get that structure recognized as the equivalent of a City Lord.”
She’d explored the stratification nus a little and knew they were flexible, but she hadn’t dared change anything. This seed like a place to start.
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