"Sister! I believe I've found evidence of corruption!" Stein's voice carried across Anbelle's fish market with earnest certainty. He stood with perfect parade-ground posture, despite the fish guts coating the ground around his meticulously polished boots.

  Arabella turned from her conversation with a local merchant, yellow light flickering briefly in her eyes as she read her brother's emotions. The familiar mix of absolute conviction and complete misunderstanding made her heart sink. Her fingers moved in their private sign language: What evidence?

  "Observe!" He gestured dramatically at a group of dock workers who didn’t hide that they were ignoring him. "These suspicious individuals are clearly displaying signs of ink magic corruption! Note their furtive movements! Their suspicious glances! Their operation is but a sham!?

  The "suspicious individuals" were simply trying to unload their morning catch, fish straight from the waters of Steel Bay, while avoiding the heavily armored zealot in their midst. Arabella's yellow magic showed her their simple anxiety and growing annoyance as the color danced and pulsated around them. She signed again: They're just working, brother.

  "Ah, but that's exactly what they WANT us to think!" His hand moved demonstratingly to his sword hilt as he shook his other fist. "The Morning Court's justice cannot be deceived by such obvious-"

  "Knight-Brother Stein."

  Commander Moira's voice carried the weight of decades of service, along with a bone-deep weariness that came with rank and experience. She sat astride her white charger, her white and silver armor pristine but bearing the scratches of actual combat rather than parade-ground shine. Unlike Stein's overlarge, constantly shifting armor, hers fit like it had grown there, framed by the white and silver cape from her shoulder.

  "Commander!" Stein snapped to attention, nearly losing his balance before he put his fist on his chest. "I was just explaining to my sister how these suspicious individuals-"

  "Are attempting to feed the city," Moira finished with a dry tone. The lines around her eyes deepened. "Perhaps we should focus on the actual reports of illegal magic affiliations near the warehouses?"

  "Of course! An excellent tactical suggestion, Commander!" Stein turned so quickly his armor rattled. "To the warehouses, where corruption waits for clean justice!?

  As they headed toward the docks, Arabella caught Moira's eye. The commander's slight head shake carried years of dealing with overly zealous young knights who saw corruption in every shadow. But beneath her weariness, Arabella's magic caught something darker – real concern about the reports they'd come to investigate. And something else, something Arabella just couldn’t catch. Her Yellow Arts allowed her to see emotional states and feelings, and though she had a knakk for deducing from what she saw, she couldn’t read thoughts.

  The warehouse distric, the smell of rotting fish in the air, proved her concerns valid. They found a group of workers huddled around another who was clearly ill, his hands flickering with uncontrolled bursts of purple light. More concerning were the others showing early signs – random color sparks, confused movements, the tell-tale glazed eyes. The rumors were true, there is a color sickness spreading, Arabella thought.

  "Ink mages!" Stein's armor rattled as he drew his sword, conviction drowning any reason. "Fouling the Kadani Empire with their filth!"

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  "Please," one of the workers stepped forward, tremblikg hands raised. "They're sick. The colors just started appearing-"

  "Silence, corrupted one! The Morning Court's justice will-"

  One of the sick workers convulsed, a burst of red light escaping their hands as he screamed in pain. Stein, operating on years of training and zero thought, interpreted this as an attack. His blade moved with terrible purpose and a speed that didn’t match his bulky looks.

  Arabelle waved her hands in the air. ?No, brother!?

  What followed was brutal. Stein charged forward, sword cutting through pleas and explanations with equal efficiency and honed precision. The sick workers' uncontrolled magic lashed out in panic, causing others to fall as the plague spread through contact. Arabella's yellow magic overwhelmed her with their terror, their confusion, their desperate desire to live.

  The warehouse sprung with color that blended with the blood that flew from Stein’s blade with every powerful swing.

  Arabella conjured the Yellow Arts and focused on her brother, trying to calm him, to no avail. Her strength was in interpreting the Color, not to use it, and the Knights of the Dawn could dampen the Colors. After all, their purpose was to defend the Empire against Color misuse.

  When it was over, when the screams had faded to whimpers, Stein stood among the fallen declaring victory against corruption. Several workers lay dead, others flickered with growing color manifestations, and the warehouse floor ran red with more than just spilled fish guts.

  "The corruption is cleansed!" he declared proudly, blood dripping from his sword, his eyes burning of pride and honor. "Another victory for-"

  "Oh, Stein." Moira's voice dripped tired disappointment. She stood in the doorway, shoulders bowed as if bearing a physical weight. "Do you even know what you've done?"

  "Struck a blow against ink magic users who-"

  "These people," Moira interrupted, every word heavy with exhaustion, and just a tinge of suppressed anger, "were victims of the Color Plague. The very thing we came to investigate. Not ink mages. Not criminals. Just sick people who needed help."

  Arabella watched her brother's certainty crack. "But... but they were using colors! And the corruption-"

  "Was a disease. Do you see any tattoos on their skin?? Moira sighed deeply. "Step forward, Knight-Brother. The Court will need to judge this... recklessness."

  Yellow magic flared in Arabella's eyes, showing her the emotions filling the room. Her brother's confusion and dawning horror. The commander's bone-deep weariness tinged with anger and resignation. And from the knights appearing in the doorway, cold purpose that spoke of permanent solutions to enthusiastically zealous problems.

  The Court would not be merciful to a knight who had slaughtered plague victims. Even if he had done it through earnest stupidity rather than malice.

  Before anyone could react, Arabelle grabbed a nearby rack of fishing poles and sent it crashing into the doorway. In the ensuing chaos, she seized her brother's arm and pulled him toward the back exit.

  "But- but- I was serving the Light!" he protested as she dragged him into an alley. ?The Light will –?

  They'll kill you, she signed furiously. Run now, question later!

  "A tactical withdrawal?" he suggested, clearly struggling to understand what had gone wrong.

  Something like that. She pointed east, toward distant mountains. Haven's Rest. Where people go to avoid consequences of stupid decisions.

  Moira's weary voice carried across the harbor: "Find them. Help the survivors."

  They ran, Stein's armor marking their passage like a travelling bell choir. Behind them, Anbelle's harbor bells began to toll warning. And somewhere ahead, Haven's Rest waited – though Arabella dreaded trying to explain her brother to anyone who valued sensible judgment.

  Next time, she signed as they fled, we investigate something you can't stab.

  "I do what the Light of the Empire requires of me," Stein said with genuine conviction, and Arabella felt the familiar mix of love and exasperation that came with being sister to the Morning Court's most earnestly dangerous knight.

  His intentions are good, Arabelle reminded herself.

  Behind them, the warehouse district echoed with the sounds of consequence. But ahead lay Haven's Rest, where it was said that second chances grew like weeds between cobblestones. Even, Arabelle hoped, for well-meaning fools who struck first and questioned never.

  inspired may be a loose term. I never got gud).