The town of Liyung was somber as the residents gathered at the edge of town, around a cemetery which had clearly been added to far too frequently in recent months. Fresh plots, with a single summer's worth of growth or less, were scattered all over the burial ground, and many new graves had been freshly dug - shallow as they were.

  Nai didn't have to ask why. Her charge was resting. Passed out from exertion and exhaustion. Nai couldn't bme the girl. She'd clearly had a life that was far from easy, but no one would rest well after what had happened before.

  She gripped her short-bow tighter, fingers grinding against the leather wrap of the handle as she tightened her grasp around the weapon. She hadn't put it down since the dawn had come. She'd lost one of her knives, two of her throwing darts, and panic welled within her at the realization that the potent poisons she had been sent with had had absolutely no effect on the demon they had faced.

  In light of current events, her mission seemed to have dramatically shifted in scope. Lord Langshen had sent her to monitor a suspected necromancer, and to kill her if she ever fell out of line and dared to animate the corpse of a deceased. Instead, she now found herself isoted and hunted by a demon who broke all commonly held beliefs, who killed despite wards and spells crafted specifically to prevent such a monstrosity. It... didn't sit well with her. Most things that had happened didn't. She didn't know how to feel about the dead woodcutter, brought back to his family clear as the sun shone down on them now. Nai knew that he had been no wraith - no illusion cast. She'd been around illusionists before, she knew their tricks, had been trained to recognize the changes in the flow of divinity as they wove their magics, as they inflicted their will upon the world around them. It was trivial for her to confirm that the girl- Emilia - was no willshaper. It was clear that she did not understand the winds of magic - but rather rode them through the gift of the divine. Power flowed through her, to affect the world. She did not command it.

  In short, she was most definitely a spirit guide, reliant upon the gods, reliant upon bargains with the spirits.

  Nai gnced over where a family numbly dug a grave with a wooden shovel, faces bnk, five bodies ying inert on the ground beside them. This mission had originally been to confirm that Emilia was a spirit guide. Pacify the guardian spirit, nothing more. Confirm that she could actually fulfill the role she cimed to possess.

  Instead, she had seen the girl commune with the dead, as she had cimed, they had a demon - possibly two - pursuing them which needed to be subdued, a mad foreigner or two who may have caused everything, and from what Nai could gather, all of this was beyond the normal experiences of the girl she had been sent to escort. Send to escort with explicit commands to end her quickly and brutally should such action prove necessary.

  Nai pursed her lips, her left hand brushing the fletchings of her arrows as she surveyed the woods around them. The girl knew nothing of politics. Nothing of the petty schemes of the nobles, and Nai felt sorry for her. Her power, her usefulness, had been descovered by the Jut'yi. There was nothing that could be done for her now. Those schemes and politics would become her life. Her gifts bent towards the will of the conquering lord of Langshen.

  She heard heavy footsteps behind her, and she turned, surprised to see a man with long dark hair, a thin mustache that passed below his chin, and a well-trimmed beard. He wore the clothes of a city official - albeit not a terribly important one - and he grimaced as he surveyed the many graves being dug. The man folded his hands behind his back, and pnted his feet about a shoulder's width apart in the soft soil at the edge of the area marked for the graves.

  He stood next to the maidservant for some time, saying nothing, as he surveyed the aftermath of the monster's rampage.

  "Truly, a tragedy." He spoke at length, voice carrying softly. His voice was surprisingly light, although it bore the rough crackle of someone who enjoyed their pipeweed.

  Nai gnced at the man, looking him over once to confirm the presence or ck of weapons.

  "It is." She stated simply, turning back to the graves.

  The man produced the expected pipe. A long, thin item, with a small bulb at the end that he slowly packed with his chosen pnt.

  "I have been told your spirit-guide will be coming to bless these graves."

  Nai simply nodded.

  "That's good... very good." The man snapped his fingers, and arms rang in Nai's mind as a small fire sparked to life at the end of his thumb, which he used to ignite the pipeweed. "This town has seen it's fair share of devastation. I would not want it to endure more than it must."

  He was a willshaper - had to be - but how potent? Was he a suspect? He was clearly from Tain'Xia, Nai could tell simply from his general build, from the straight dark hair that was tied back but somehow allowed to run loose. He didn't look like most she had met from Yosae, but he really didn't stand out.

  Nai turned to the graves, trying to disguise the motion of her fingers gripping the nock of one of her arrows.

  "She has surprised me with her competence." Nai responded. "I expected less from her, if I am to be honest."

  He raised an eyebrow, taking a long draw of his pipe, before puffing the smoke out into the autumn air.

  "Due to her age, I presume? She is quite young. And far less pompous than most. Does she appear naive to you?"

  Nai wasn't sure what to say to that, so she shrugged. She hated how well this man hid his thoughts from her, even as he posed his questions. She wanted to close her eyes, construct her own weave of magic to try to pierce into his thoughts, to glean his intentions, but she was already confident such an attempt would be noticed, at the least, and may directly fail. In the end, she spoke the simplest truth she could without giving away the limitations she herself perceived in the girl.

  "She has found favor with a small goddess. She has been taught far more quickly than most in her station, I believe."

  This piqued the dark-haired man's interest.

  "Ah, a rarity, to be chosen by one of the gods. They work hard to maintain their distance from us, now that they are forced to live upon the same world we traverse." He puffed his pipe again. "With such favor, it is possible she may yet remedy the situation."

  He seemed thoughtful. Nai didn't like that.

  "May your mistress be successful." He extended the pipe to Nai, and she cursed inwardly as she took it. A gift had been offered, and the slight she would decre by refusing was more than she could allow right now. She didn't know this man, and she didn't want him armed by awareness of her suspicion. She took the pipe, and drew the smallest breath she could manage, and still puff out a visible cloud of the sweet smoke. It was surprisingly high quality pipeweed. She briefly wondered how a foreman could afford it.

  "Let us both pray she does." Nai responded. "Do you have any family among the dead?"

  The man smiled, slightly, and shook his head.

  "No. I have come only in recent months from the great city of Goka, on the shores of Yosae." Nai blinked. This made him the other foreigner - the other suspect that Emilia was worried about.

  "You have chosen an unfortunate time to come to Liyung." Nai decred, handing the pipe back to the man. He nodded, and bowed shallowly to her.

  "Indeed, it seems I have. But... there is always fortune to be found, at the end of tragedy. Good day, Lady of Langshen." He turned away from the graves, and Nai watched his back as he left, contempting whether it was worth putting an arrow between his shoulder bdes or not.

  In the end, she turned back to the graves with a sigh.

  They still didn't have proof. And this test was, in the end, still Emilia's. For now, she would trust the girl's judgement, the girl's gifts. After all, as she had told the man from Goka, Emilia had already impressed her. Perhaps she would in fact be able to solve this.

  Emilia woke shortly before sunset, the time the Jiak had decred all graves must be finished, all dead must be enterred. She hurt everywhere. Bruises covered her body from the falls she had taken, and her right hand stung from the force that had vibrated through her sword into her arm.

  She stared at the ground for a while, in the cottage. Two days. It felt like so much longer. A full day of travel without rest. A day of investigation. Nightmares. And now... she had to bless the graves of this town.

  "How long do you think I'll have to do this?" She whispered to the empty room. "How many times will I be the witness to tragedy?"

  Wind swirled around the room, lifting a few scattered petals off the floor. Emilia wanted to sob.

  "I don't know if that counts as comfort right now, Lady Death." She wiped the tears that fought to form from her eyes. "I've seen so much, but I suppose my experiences pale in comparison to yours. You witness it all. Each death, each tragedy."

  Emilia stood, limping for a moment as a bruise on her hip made itself known to her. She gripped the neck of her Liuquin, shakily pcing the strap over her shoulder, so the instrument rested in front of her. she reached into a pocket of her flowing skirt, and her breath hitched as she gripped her bone pick. She pulled it out, revealing the corner that had broken. It was such a small thing, such a small problem. Bone picks were not hard to obtain. They were not difficult to make.

  This one had been a gift though. A singur gift on the worst day of her life.

  She slumped against the side of the bed, ughing sobs falling from her as her chest heaved. It was all too much. She wanted revenge against one man - the man who had killer her parents, who had brought the restless dead to Qua. She didn't want to py these games of lords, of mad willshapers ensving the spirits.

  Her tears dried, as she felt a warm hand caress her cheek. She looked up in shock, to see a pale face, pristine, with ruby red lips, and amber eyes that glowed with inner firelight. Blossoms swirled for form a flowing dress, spectral lights flickered to life along the brim of a wide hat that stretched wider than was necessary, above them both. Swirling midnight curls cascaded through the air, and the decorative markings of the woman's face were recognizable at an instant, echoing the visage of a skull, bck paint, with vibrant blue and yellow petals.

  "Catrina!" Emilia lunged forward, wrapping her arms around her goddess for the briefest of moments, her surrogate mother after the loss of her own.

  She felt the gentle hand caress the back of her head, and Emilia forced herself back onto her knees to show respect, back straight as she dedicated her attention to the deity.

  La Catrina smiled.

  "You've been busy, My Emilia-Yun." La Catrina's smile lifted Emilia's spirits, full of confidence and trust, before the goddess's expression fell, repced by a somber shadow.

  "I have a song I must teach you. You are going to need it tonight - and perhaps in many more nights yet to come."

  Emilia wiped the tears from her eyes, readying her Liuquin, trying to ignore the wrongness of the broken pick in her hand.

  "Yes, Catrina, I am ready."

  "Match my notes, my Emilia - there are many souls who we will have to guide to safety tonight, and more than one pair of jaws eager to close around them."