No one spoke as they crept back through the forest. Half of Martin’s attention was on maintaining the strongest veil of his life, the rest on the simmering bundle of rage beside him. The forest was old, with ancient roots and unpassable underbrush, the few kilometers between camp and their target taking an eternity to cross. Worse, they were suppressing their cultivation so much they almost missed their campsite. Before leaving Devon had warded the cave to the teeth, with layers of protection meant to first avoid notice, and then end anything that wandered too close. Crossing the barrier, the welcoming nickers from the horses was the first sound they’d made since the morning. Even if it felt like they’d aged another century in the interim.

  “That stars-cursed, weak-willed, traitor!” Devon hissed.

  Martin stretched while Devon continued the monologue. There hadn’t been any physical activity beyond crouching in the woods, but holding a veil always left him feeling achy. And Devon would be easier to talk to if he got the anger out. For his own anger, Martin left that inside, banked to a dull ember but ready to flare again when he needed it. That he would need it was not in doubt. Some things weren’t forgivable.

  Adam sidled up next to him to watch the rest of Devon’s ranting. Perversely, his lower cultivation level made it easier for him to navigate their newly precarious situation. And his relative youth meant he was more confused than angry. Their scribe opened his mouth to speak but Martin waved him off. Like lancing a wound, they needed the top layer of rage to evaporate before it would be time to discuss.

  “-- flea-bitten, half-rate, tasteless excuse for a cultivator.” Devon finished and stood panting. With an inarticulate cry, he ripped one of the extra ward stakes from the pile and bent it in half. Adam gaped. It was easy to forget their enchanter was a master in his own right, and that meant a body infused with mana and the strength to match.

  After a few more deep breaths, Devon smoothed down his clothes and turned to the both of them. “Apologies, I’m ready now.”

  “Can someone please explain what’s going on?” Adam asked. He was still staring at the bent steel in Devon’s hands.

  “The area we were just in, was the former home of the Thousand Hands sect,” Martin began. Devon might have calmed down some but there was no way he’d get through an explanation without another diatribe. “They’re digging it out with cultivators, which means they know exactly what it is and what they're looking for.”

  “We expected that, didn’t we?” Adam was obviously trying to step delicately, but there really wasn’t any safe ground when watching the ransacking of a former home.

  “We did.” Martin confirmed. “We did not expect to recognize any of the people doing it. Did you see the woman in charge? Tall, blonde, could cut you with a look, wearing way too much jewelry for the woods?”

  Adam indicated he had. “I noticed her ordering the others where to search.”

  “Dariella Zaelos. Master cultivator from one of the sects way out on the west coast. I would have called her a friendly acquaintance.”

  “So she’s like you two and Laurel? Maybe they’re forcing her into doing this.”

  “I didn’t see one of those thrice-cursed collars around her neck,” Devon barged back into the conversation. “There certainly wasn’t anyone else in that camp capable of forcing her into anything. She could walk out and no one there would stand a chance of stopping her.” He threw his hands into the air and began to pace. “It’s not like Laurel hasn’t spent the last two years making a spectacle of herself! There’s no way Dariella isn’t aware that there are other options. The cold-hearted witch just doesn’t care. Or she thinks she’ll get her hands on sect treasures. The Thousand Hands Sect was the richest in half the world at our peak.”

  “Agreed. Any Masters we find working with Laskar at this point we have to treat as enemies. Even if they did find a way to compel them, it's too dangerous not to.”

  “Is everything really so bad? There’s two of you to one of her, right?”

  Martin looked at Devon. Devon was staring right back. They turned in unison to look at Adam.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  “Right.”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s just,” Martin stopped again. “If it was the two of us against Dariella, yes we’d be fine. It would be a hard fight. Dariella is a joint solar and lunar cultivator.”

  “Highly cliched,” Devon interrupted the explanation.

  “Yes, though part of the reason it became a cliche is Dariella herself. She’s extremely dangerous in a fight.” He hesitated before continuing. “And it’s not just her. There are two dozen other cultivators around. Most of those were carrying guns. So we have to get past all of them, get the Legacy Stone and anything else we can grab, and get out.”

  “I can’t imagine you two balking at two dozen initiates, or adepts or whatever. I’m guessing what you’re trying to avoid saying is that I’m the problem.”

  “No.” Martin answered.

  “Kind of,” Devon said at the same time. “But that many at once have the potential to be a problem for us even if you weren’t there, since we’ll need time to deal with the vault.”

  “Can we sneak in? This was your old sect, right? Didn’t you have ways to sneak in and out?”

  Devon looked thoughtful. “Maybe. Dariella’s a lot like Laurel. More of a violence-first subtlety-later kind of a person. I doubt she stopped to set up too many wards or alarm formations. And they wouldn’t know about the tunnels.”

  “If you think about it,” Adam said, stroking a beard that was no longer there, “if they’re just digging around, that must mean they don’t know where to go. That gives us an edge.”

  “Sure, sort of –” a snapping twig cut Devon off.

  Martin kneeled where he was and pressed his palm to the ground. He held the other hand up behind him with two fingers displayed, then pointed in the direction they were coming from. The others urged the horses back from the edge of their camp, while Devon did something to the ward to make it even harder to notice. A minute later, two of the cultivators from the camp walked in front of him. He was as stone, still and silent until it was time to move, and then it would be explosive.

  This close it was easy to see the matching insignia on their shoulders, a claw grasping a dripping peach, picked out in black and gold thread. They wandered past without even glancing in their direction. The closer of the two even slapped at the leaves concealing Martin as he grumbled about scouting duty. Grumpy’s partner was at least attempting to scout, a clumsy spiritual sense passing over their camp without catching on the wards or their own signatures.

  They waited half an hour after the cultivators left before moving from their tensed state.

  “We’ll go the long way around,” Devon murmured. The man pulled up his equipment, erasing their presence in the cave entrance.

  A flex of Martin’s mana erased the runes carved into the hardened earth, and encouraged the plants that the horses trampled to perk back up. Adam scattered the sticks gathered for a fire and swept the ash out to be churned in with the dirt. In only a handful of minutes it was like they had never been there at all.

  “All the way back out to where the river forks,” Devon said. “Then we’ll arc around. I don’t want to force a confrontation before we get to the Legacy Stone if we can avoid it.”

  A few miles into their trek, Martin took pity on Adam. “You can ask whatever it is, just keep the noise down and eyes up.”

  “What do solar and lunar aspects even mean? How do you fight against something like that? Why would this woman work with the people who trapped her. What, by the stars above, am I supposed to do in a fight? All I’ve been able to do so far is make ink move a bit. I could ruin their clothes I guess?”

  He thought about how to answer but Devon took the technical part off his hands. “You aspected your own mana, so you have some idea of what it feels like. The process gives the mana inside you a certain flavor, which comes across when you connect to the ambient mana for any technique bigger than moving a pebble around. Working with other types of mana or trying to create an effect far from your mana aspect becomes exponentially more difficult the more unrelated it is. The power you can bring to bear within your aspect is consequently far stronger than anything else you can do.

  “Solar and lunar aspects are what it sounds like. Dariella is a master of light, which lends itself to a powerful array of attacks. But it’s not just the physical. The process of developing aspects and your own goals and understanding color what your mana can do. For Dariella, I’ve heard she can do some sort of emotional manipulation using the light of the moon. It doesn’t really make sense but as long as she understands the connection, the possibilities are there. Cultivation is an individual journey.”

  Martin recognized the beginnings of a mana theory lecture when he heard one, and cut Devon off to address the rest of the questions. “There’s no way to know why she’s doing this without asking her. Gavin, the man Laurel fought, seemed to think these people were too powerful to defy, that he could fall in line and reap the rewards. I didn’t know Dariella well before, but she was respected. I would have guessed her too honorable to join up with the people who imprisoned her, but it’s impossible to say. And I don’t fancy stopping to ask her.

  “As for what you should do in a fight? Shoot first and don’t stop to ask questions. Don’t try and form techniques, but if you can, break theirs. Throw sand in their face, yank the mana in a different direction. Anything you can do to interrupt will help. These people aren’t well-trained, they fight against scared kids and old people with herbal remedies. They won’t be used to dealing with anyone that knows what they’re doing.

  “If none of that works, run.” Adam looked at him askance but he plowed forward anyway. “This isn’t some glorious last stand. There’s no nobility in standing your ground against hopeless odds. Better to live to fight another day. We’re here to get in and get out. If we can take out Dariella we will but if we can sneak out without a fight even better.”

  The expressions on the other two’s faces let him know exactly how likely they thought that was. They reached the river without any further incidents and started on a long arc around the former sect compound while Devon filled them in.

  “No spatial masters with fancy rooms floating off in the ether. The legacy stone is behind ten nested vaults, each with nastier enchantments than the last. Even a member of the sect is only guaranteed entry to the first five. After that you need to know the keys.

  “It’s rank arrogance for them to think they could get in, even if they do find it,” and he was off on another rant.

  Martin listened with half an ear. He actually agreed with Devon. Which worried him. Did they really have something they thought would get them through the defenses around a Legacy Stone as formidable as this one, or were there other reasons the Laskarians were here. And if they could, how many other sects’ secrets were in their enemies hands?