Airlean Tales

NOTES:

For website viewers: Scarlet Rider now updates twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays! Check the previous chapter to make sure you haven't skipped it, or this chapter could be a little disorienting (º □ º l|l)

This update had a day's delay for Thanksgiving, hope everyone had a lovely and delicious holiday!

 

“You’re lucky to be alive,” Nicolina said grimly, her right hand flying over a sheet of paper, fingers clasping a quill pen.

Azalea silently listened from her perch on an examination table in the physician’s study. Her arms were braced with mana inhibitors, and the presiding physician—a clean-cut man in practical, unassuming garb—currently had a hand on her shoulder, eyes closed and brow furrowed as he Threaded through her system.

Although Azalea’s injuries weren’t severe, she knew this visit would take some time. The first encounter with a Regen Threader always did. It was vitally important for physicians to learn a patient’s unique life signature, known as their biokey. Without it, physicians risked Threading mana that the patient’s body would reject, invoking manaimmune responses like vomiting, seizures, or even death.

And this particular Threader was especially diligent. Thomys Privalt, as the head physician of the Hunter’s Guild, was personally responsible for the fifty most reckless and frequently injured people in the country. Which probably explained the sagging shadows under his eyes and the permanent downtilt of his brows. Being the Hunters’ physician sounded like a miserable job, and Azalea did not envy any part of it. At least someone in this country was willing to shoulder the burden.

She glanced at the corner of the room, where Nicolina sat in an oaken chair, paper and inkwell neatly balanced on a lapdesk, placing the final flourishes on the Northelm report.

“I’m alright, Guildmaster,” Azalea said politely. “You don’t have to waste your time waiting around.”

“Wasting time is a state of mind, Fairwen,” Nicolina said practically. “You can always be productive. Even if it’s productively resting.”

Azalea opened her mouth, then closed her mouth. She wasn’t quite sure what to say to that.

Nicolina set aside her papers and laced her fingers together. “Thankfully, you seem to be in good condition. I was wondering, since it took a few days for you to return.”

Azalea flinched. “I’m sorry.”

“No need. I trust your time was well-spent?”

“Yes, Guildmaster. Or, I hope so.”

Azalea had tarried to look after Northelm, seeing families reunited and townspeople calmed. Thankfully, she’d found the villagers taking shelter in the storerooms, unharmed. The foresight of stocking the caves with provisions had paid off greatly.

Zack had managed to not burst into tears upon finding his father, but seeing his lip wobble and the watery stars in his eyes had made everything worth it. Azalea learned that he hadn’t been just anyone’s son, but the eldest son of the town-reeve, who showered her with gratitude, praise, and a feast in her honor.

That night, the town passed around crispy griddle cakes, juicy meatloaf, sweet fruit preserves on golden waffles, and hearty spiced stew with mutton and creamy potatoes. Azalea ate until she was full and then some—despite the nagging doubt that she didn’t deserve a single bite. She’d barely raised a hand against the serpent. If anyone deserved to be honored, it was the fierce, brutal huntsman who seized that victory with his bare hands.

She tried to pay back her debt in other ways. In the days that followed, Azalea thoroughly explored the caves, scouring the mining routes for any sign of infestation or hazard. She found nothing. Storms did not hit Northelm often, and when they did, the caves—and mana quartz clusters within—did much to shield animals from the overwhelming blasts of mana.

Beasts are not typically a problem, the town-reeve told her. When we find one, we’ve been able to steer well away. But the serpent, it came from nowhere.

That comment made Azalea reinvestigate the blood-soaked cavern where the serpent had once been. It was difficult to find anything among the rubble, to say nothing of the serpent’s obliterated carcass. But a wayward thread of instability led her to a curious sight: traces of a foul poultice, smeared behind a large outcropping of rock.

Azalea had seen her father lay out enough traps for vermin to recognize it for what it was: bait. Apparently, the rotting flesh of corruptions, mashed together with some bitter herbs and strange coagulant, was a succulent treat to higher Classes.

Now, who would be insane enough to bait a serpent out of its den, and into a mine full of innocent civilians—that was a different matter entirely.

Azalea didn’t think the huntsman could be the culprit. Not because he was incapable of it, but careful stalking and trapping just didn’t seem to be his…style. Lunging in with no thought and all bloody murder, now that seemed more likely.

But if the huntsman hadn’t set the bait, who had?

Frowning, Azalea raised her hand and waved a little, trying to catch Nicolina’s attention.

Nicolina choked back a laugh. “We’re not in class, Fairwen. Speak your mind.”

She lowered her hand. “The huntsman in my report…Do you know anything about him?”

Nicolina tapped her quill idly. “Ah,” she said. “The Whisperer.”

The Whisperer? Azalea frowned. There had been nothing quiet about him. He had been dark and explosive and foolhardy.

“The Dragon Whisperer,” Nicolina explained. “A beastman who lives among the ancient dragons of the North. Some think him a barbarian king. Others, a mythical huntsman. Still others, some ancient spirit taking on human appearance.”

After seeing his breadth of power, all of those explanations sounded plausible.

“What do you think?” Azalea asked.

“I think he’s bad news.” Nicolina grimaced. “Every Hunter who has come into contact with him has died. He’s become known as an omen, or even a sign of the reaper. So, do I know anything about him? No, not really. You’ve fed me more information on him than the past five years combined.”

An omen, a reaper. Azalea thought of the raw power, the brutality, the stench of death and lack of feeling. She shivered.

“Why did he let me live?” she asked.

Nicolina shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe he felt the same about your handshake alliance. Maybe he was in a good mood. Maybe you looked too small and weak to be worth fighting. All I know is that he’s killed Hunters for less, so count your blessings.”

Azalea’s gut dropped. “He’s killed Hunters?”

“He has a bad habit of destroying areas without considering collateral damage. So, whether it’s on purpose or by accident, yes. Hunters have died at his hands.”

Azalea thought of the huntsman’s parting blow—that terrible, all-consuming vortex of energy. If she hadn’t Stabilized it, it certainly would have imploded. And brought down the entire cavern with it.

“How does he live through such—such risky behavior?” Azalea managed.

Nicolina shrugged. “My guess? A combination of his dragonscale armor and insane manawell. The armor keeps him alive, the manawell regenerates him.”

“Is, is that possible?”

“For someone who can weave that many high-power spells in one sitting, anything is possible.”

Azalea pause. A little seed of an idea planted in her mind and murmured teasingly to her.

“Maybe,” she began slowly, “if his spells could be Stabilized—if we could negate the casualties, draw him to our side—”

“No,” said Nicolina. “The man could be a Mythic Star sent from heaven itself, and I wouldn’t give a damn. He’s sooner to kill civilians than save them. Myths forbid I give that lunatic a license to unleash himself in congested towns.”

It was true. Azalea had witnessed his brutality firsthand, and frankly, she would rather not see it again. Even if she had been fortunate enough to live through it.

“The next time something like that happens,” Nicolina continued, “like you run into the Whisperer, or you find a Class Four—get out of there, Fairwen. Don’t stick around. Don’t try to fight it. Just go.”

Azalea blinked. Coward. “I thought we were sworn to protect the Airlean countrymen.”

“Yes, and you can’t do that when you’re dead.” Nicolina returned to her papers. “Better to make Thom patch you up than make me find a replacement.”

Azalea’s gaze turned to the Guild’s physician. Thom was absorbed in his work, immersing himself into her biosystem. It was unnerving to watch, really; he grew deathly still, like a corpse floating on the water, and his breathing slowed, swelling in time with her low pulse. Azalea had grown accustomed to it, but the first time Wes had Threaded in her body, she’d been so terrified he had died sitting up that she’d tackled him to the ground.

Every so often, Thom surfaced, eyes blinking open. Then he turned to a page in a worn leather book and scrawled down some messy symbols with a charcoal pencil.

“What’s that?” Azalea asked curiously.

Nicolina glanced up. Her grey eyes landed on his book, and she grimaced. “A security violation.”

Thom looked at the guildmaster, unruffled. “It’s only hints, Lina. And encrypted twofold to boot.”

Nicolina huffed, but made no further objection.

Thom turned back to Azalea, the quick strokes of his pencil slowing. “This is Threader shorthand notation,” he explained. “We use it to make notes on a plait—like its biokeys and topography. Or we use it to document the changes we’ve made, like an ingeniator’s ledger for a mana quartz.”

Azalea squinted at the page he was showing her. Now that she was looking carefully, the characters he’d scrawled did look like simplified pictographs. The curling wave of an ocean. The soft wisp of a cloud. Three beams of light on a flatline of earth. Together, they seemed to tell a beautiful, strange story.

Thom smiled as he noted her interest. “Each character is made up of individual strokes and shapes, called radicals. These characters are then put together into groups, like words.”

“So, it’s…a language?”

“More or less.” He straightened, closing the book. “Threading is a bit…complicated. Cerebral, even. It’s not as simple as writing the characters into your plait and watching everything magically unlock.”

Azalea blinked. “What is it like, then?”

Thom pondered for a moment. “Have you ever tried a puzzle cube?”

She’d seen one before at the Night Market. It was a curious object, with rows and rows of cubes that twisted this way and that—and only one combination of turning would slot all the colors and shapes into place, crafting a lovely picture. “I have,” she said.

“That’s what a plait is like. A puzzle.” Thom tapped a callused finger on his book. “And Threader shorthand is like…a solution describing how to solve the puzzle cube, like which row or column to turn. The letters themselves don’t have any meaning—they’re just instructions so the Threader knows what to do. Such as, turn the upper-left cube twice, the lower-right cube once. Instructions like that.”

Azalea nodded gratefully, then looked at Nicolina. “Then why would Lord Privalt’s notes be a security violation? They sound useful.”

Thom coughed. “I’m not actually a lord, but thanks.”

“He’s not actually a lord, which is partially the problem,” Nicolina said dryly. “His connection to the Guild paints a target on his back, without any of the insurance of a high status to protect him.”

Azalea’s eyes widened. “They’ll try to hurt him?”

“They’ll try to steal his book, or torture the biokeys out of him.”

She flinched. Thom shrugged, distinctly unworried.

“They’ll have fifty of the nation’s most bloodthirsty fighters on their tail if they do,” he pointed out.

Still, Azalea could see the guildmaster’s point. Biokeys were critical information. The knowledge of every secret to someone else’s body was highly valuable—especially if the body belonged to someone important, like a nobleman or a magistrate. It was why upperclass families often hired their own live-in physicians, providing for and protecting them like a blood relative.

“But even if they know the biokeys, they can’t do anything without mana inhibitors, right?” Azalea said, a little nervously. “I mean, we’d have to hand over our biokeys and sync with the inhibitors before they could Thread anything harmful.”

Nicolina chuckled bleakly. “There are plenty of ways to force a sync with an inhibitor.”

“Lina,” Thom chided softly. He turned to Azalea, his eyes kind. “This is just her way of showing she cares. Don’t fret over it.”

Azalea swallowed. “But…if someone did get their hands on your book…?”

“Thom memorizes most of the Hunters’ biokeys,” Nicolina said matter-of-factly. “That book only holds a few symbols here and there to jog his memory. His ‘hints,’ as he likes to call them. Which is the only reason why I let him carry it around at all.”

Azalea’s jaw slackened. “Memorizes biokeys? Aren’t they incredibly complicated?”

“Yes, and one mistake will inflict a seizure that will kill his patients,” Nicolina said. “No pressure, Thom.”

“Thanks,” said Thom resignedly.

“It hasn’t happened yet,” Nicolina added, probably in reaction to the growing distress on Azalea’s face. “Thom is good at his job. Very good. So good that I refuse to cut his pay, and you know how the Royal Treasury is. Basically, you’re in the best hands possible.”

Azalea could believe it just by looking at the physician. He felt sturdy, reliable. His kindness, his resilience. He reminded her of Father, in a way. Something about his aura made her feel safe and drowsy.

A knock on the door, sharp and orderly, shook her alert.

“Um, Thom? You have a visitor,” babbled a girl’s voice from the other side. “And, uh, it seems really important. Or he seems important. I mean, he’s in a fancy suit, and he has a pocketwatch that looks like it’s gold—real gold, not plated or anything. And he seems very not happy. You know how I feel about rich people who are not happy.”

Azalea recognized that keen, sprightly voice: Sasha, the cheeky guild attendant who’d arranged the flowers in Jack’s locker. Except this time, the energy in her tone held a distinct edge of nerves, maybe even fear.

Thom didn’t even glance up. “He can wait. I’m in session, Sasha.”

“Oh, well, you see,” said Sasha, her voice slowly rising, “he’s carrying a sword. Now, rich people I avoid, and people with swords I avoid—so rich people with swords, that’s just—”

“Pardon the intrusion, Doctor Privalt,” interrupted a deathly calm voice. A nobleman’s voice, clear and commanding, expecting to be obeyed.

Sasha squeaked and ran away in a flurry of fading footsteps. Thom’s jaw clenched.

“I’ve arrived as a guardian of the current patient,” continued the nobleman. “I request to be present during all following medical procedures.”

Azalea recognized that voice, too, and it made her jump from her seat.

“Wes?” she choked out.

There was a moment of silence. It stretched out into a minute. Then two.

“’Zalie?” The hard edge of Wes’s voice had softened with a hint of breathlessness. “You’re alright? Mythics, I thought—thank the Stars. You’re alive.”

Oh, Azalea realized with a trickle of guilt. She’d gone missing for an entire week without a word. Before that, her missions had taken two days, tops. The first word Wes would have received after a week of silence would have been from the medical ward. What on earth had been running through his mind?

She looked at Thom. “He’s my Support, and therefore, my medical guardian and executor of will,” she said. “Can I let him in?”

Thom’s gaze immediately shot to Nicolina, but not for permission. His eyes were sharp and his mouth was thin. A rare moment of tension from the stalwart physician.

“Lina,” he said accusingly.

Nicolina’s expression was inscrutable. She folded her fingers together and gave a slight nod.

“Let him in,” she said.

“You can’t keep doing this,” Thom said.

“Let him in, Thom,” Nicolina said softly.

Thom sighed. He slid his book into the inner folds of his coat and pulled the door open.

It wasn’t Wes who strode into the room, but the Heir Apparent of House Geppett—a young lord in a lovely, fastidious green suit, hair neatly styled, cravat perfectly fixed. Just the way he hated it. His posture was immaculate and his stride was graceful, every step calculated. This is not someone who should be denied, was what his every move said.

Azalea had seen Wes dress nicely before, but this went beyond appearances. He exuded control and charisma; he felt influential, confident in himself and his status. Little wonder his mother frequently called him back to the estate if his performances at social rites were this stellar. For all his hatred of the role, he really did make a great nobleman.

It made her realize that she had never seen him at a party or in a ballroom. A part of her wished she had.

Wes settled into an empty chair, which Azalea expected. She’d read in an etiquette book that standing was reserved for servants, soldiers, and subordinates only. Anyone with power deserved to have a seat, and the Geppett heir was certainly one of them. He would sit just to send that message.

But the first object of his attentions wasn’t Nicolina, the guildmaster. Instead, his warm eyes rested warily on Azalea.

“Are you hurt at all?” he asked gently.

Azalea straightened and shook her head. “I’m fine.”

“Some bruises, some strains,” clarified Thom. “About as superficial as they come.”

There was a fracture of relief in Wes’s mask. His shoulders loosened as he exhaled. “Thank you.”

Thom glanced at Nicolina, who had yet to say anything. She merely remained seated, her fingers still folded together. Waiting.

“I’d say that the situation wasn’t severe enough to warrant a notice,” Thom said carefully.

Wes’s eyes were burning cold as they turned on Nicolina. “Is that so, guildmaster?” he said softly.

Nicolina met his gaze unflinchingly, silver clashing with hazel. “Would you like to change your position?”

Wes’s jaw twitched. “No.”

“Then get used to it. When a Hunter is under treatment in the medical ward, it’s common courtesy for the Guild to issue a notice detailing their previous encounter. Clarifies the situation, you know, and potentially eases some anxieties.”

“Yes,” Wes said tersely. “How very polite of you.”

“You’re welcome.” Finally, she returned to her papers, taking up her quill and jotting down neat lines.

Thom slowly drifted to a distant corner of the room, where he set about organizing his already impeccable cabinet of herbal remedies.

Azalea’s gaze slid from Wes to Nicolina and back. She quietly cleared her throat.

“What did the notice say?” she asked.

Wes turned to her, and his eyes seemed to soften. He drew a wrinkled slip of paper out of his pocket and handed it to her.

To Wesley Geppett, Enlisted Support of the 50th Hunter:

Your partner, Azalea Fairwen, has returned wounded following an encounter with a Class Four corruption. She is currently under treatment in the medical ward of the Hunter’s Guild.

Regards,

Ld. Nicolina Cotton, High Magistrate of the Royal Hunters

Azalea blanched at the cold, clinical words on the page. “Well, yes, this is—technically, it’s true,” she mumbled. “But it wasn’t that bad, honest. I didn’t even face the Class Four directly, not really. Did you, did you think it was…serious?”

Wes’s gaze lingered on her, burning bright. “I thought you were dying.”

Azalea felt her cheeks warm, and she wasn’t sure why. She stared at her shoes, mind unhelpfully blank.

“Then you must have been very worried,” Nicolina said mildly from her seat.

Wes turned sharply. “As you likely presumed.”

“Shall I refrain from sending you notices, then?”

Wes stiffened. To an outside eye, he might have looked slightly miffed, or moderately inconvenienced—but Azalea knew better. In her eyes, he seemed just about ready to sock the esteemed Guildmaster of the Royal Hunters straight in the jaw.

“Send them every time,” he said smoothly. “I guess you’ll be seeing a lot of me.”

“What an honor.”

“The pleasure is all mine.” He glanced at Azalea. “Mind if we go, ’Zalie?”

Something was wrong here. It was one of those second conversations again—the kind that took place between people’s eyes and bodies, where their mouths said one thing while their tone said something else. The kind that Azalea was very poor at understanding.

But even if she couldn’t read second conversations, she could read Wes. He was upset and he wanted to leave. That was good enough for her.

Azalea pulled herself up and lightly touched his hand. “Yes,” she said. “Let’s go.”

Wes rose from his chair and strode through the door. Azalea saluted Nicolina and Thom before she followed. She felt the guildmaster’s steely gaze on her back until the medical ward was far behind.