descend.

But the thrawn mind

learns night-lore too;

A new teacher I’ll find

When I’m new.

Milian Raven, from the “Thorn poem”

Aven Jay Zarbot heard two young voices crying out her name. Again. And just when she was finally going to have her lunch! Those students! Those stupid, stupid kids… Aven took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “I’m a Crimson Guardian on duty, an experienced mage, and a responsible adult,” she repeated her daily mantra in her mind. “I’m going to be super patient with those kids even though all I want is to strangle them both. Let’s consider it a punishment for me being a stupid kid myself once…”

“Master Zarbooot!” the young mages cried again.

Aven stifled a curse.

“What!” she roared, the soothing mantra instantly forgotten.

“Take a look at the road! There are visitors. What do we do with them?”

Aven sadly glanced at a sweet diadem bun she had been hoping to eat in peace and put it into her pocket, with much regret.

“What do we do with them! Hah! Oh, why can’t these youngsters just work it out for themselves for a while? I can’t babysit them all day!” she grumbled as she was making her way upstairs to the lookout tower. Once there, she grabbed a spare pair of binoculars and took a look at the visiting party.

Great! More stupid kids!

The visitors in question were ten young Lifekeepers. The youngest of them must have been six or seven. The oldest looked like a pureblood Faizul. And all of them looked like trouble. Aven had seen enough during her service to know how much trouble even one ambasiath can be and there were ten.

“Follow the standard welcoming procedure, boys,” said Avenge with a sniff, then she fished the bun out of her pocket and took a bite. She bit through the white dough into the soft jam core at the first try. The diadem stuffing was honey-sweet and bloody-red.

The young Lifekeepers carried no forbidden items and seemed just a bunch of ordinary neophytes on a quest. With the Temple of Life being so close to Firaska, their kind visited the city often. The leader of the group – a young Faizul – was the only unusual thing. Aven decided to ask him a couple of questions, just to be sure he was who she thought he was. There was no harm in asking and the young mages under her supervision could use the opportunity to learn a thing or two.

“I greet the great warrior! May his blade be praised by the Moon!” she recited the only Faizulish phrase she knew. The young man’s reaction surprised her. His wide shoulders drooped, his cheeks blushed as if he was ashamed.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t give you a proper answer,” he said in her own language, without even a trace of foreign accent. “I barely remember the language of my people. I grew up in the charted Omnis, my lady.”

He seemed like a genuinely good boy. The way he responded to her simple test… it was not play-acting, the Faizul did feel ashamed for failing to return the greeting. Immediately, Aven felt bad for hurting him so. She did not remark on the incident and proceeded with the usual questions instead.

“What is the purpose of your visit to Firaska?” she asked.

“We want to buy a Transvolo here,” said the young Faizul.

“Where to? And what for?” Aven continued.

“To Torgor, to fulfil our mission,” was the Lifekeeper’s answer, as truthful as it was vague.

He wasn’t stupid, that one, even though he looked like a simple savage, Zarbot thought. The boy didn’t even try to deceive her, the head of the Firaskian Crimson Guard, but he wasn’t going to be open with her either. Aven had a hunch about the boy and his followers; something in them made her heart tingle with that subtle sense everyone serving on the edge of the No Man’s Land has: the sense of hidden danger. But she had no evidence against them, no logical reason to send them away.