From a small tube, Heron carefully squeezed out a dollop of paint onto his palette. He only needed a little bit of blue for his painting, though he could always scrape the remainder to use in other works.

He closed the tube and set it aside. Picking a brush, he dipped it into the paint and slowly coloured Yuriko’s eyes on the canvas. Frowning to himself, Heron muttered, “Not quite the correct shade of blue.”

He’d tried several times over a dozen paintings but he couldn’t quite match the blueness of the real thing in his paintings. Well, this time around, his subject wasn’t just the girl, but what he saw during that fateful day in the woods.

Aside from her eyes, he emphasized the form her Anima created. It was of a masculine figure with a well-toned physique, though he could barely make out other details, such as the facial features or the eyes. Those sculpted muscles were what stood out and consequently, what he remembered.

Sighing to himself, he dropped the paintbrush into a tumbler of water and stepped back. His room was already stuffy from the heat and he didn’t want to waste his Animus to power the cooling runescript.

His piece was mostly done, though anyone who looked at it would disagree. There was no background and only the eyes and the Anima was coloured; everything else was just a pencilled sketch. He didn’t intend to do more than this, an impression of that figure around Yuriko. He just needed to get that image out of his system.

His thoughts inevitably wandered back into those few minutes. Right after Yuriko defeated the Chaos Lord, she had collapsed. Despite him being the nearest, it was actually Leader Yoran who arrived next to Yuriko the fastest.

The Company Leader placed a finger on the girl’s neck, checking her pulse. Her sigh of relief told Heron that his initial impression had been incorrect. Yuriko lived and the cold hand that gripped his heart when he saw her fall eased.

Heron had gingerly made his way closer, tiptoeing through the field of obsidian cranes that littered the ground. They looked identical to the folded paper messenger cranes but a careless touch from his boot saw the tough forceweave split in half, along with his socks and a bit of his skin.

Armsmaster Byrne wearily walked up to them, while Avos Shillogu squealed in both pain and glee. The humongous boar land spirit had escaped death or servitude by the skin of his worn-out tusks.

Armsmaster used his greatsword to flick the cranes away from his path and he also cleared the area around Yuriko and Leader Yoran. He looked at Heron and nodded.

Heron took that chance to look back. Krystal, Mikel, and Orrin were still back where he left them, though they were staring in his direction. The militia squad were staring in their direction, too.

“Is…is it over?” Heron asked.

Armsmaster nodded. “It should be. I don’t see him.”

“We should return to Northwold,” Leader Yoran said.

“No, Faron’s Crossing. Braden Foster needs better medical care than what a runestone could provide. What’s wrong with Cadet Davar?”

“She’s not wounded. Physically anyway. Perhaps Animus depletion?”

“Either way we need to hurry.” He looked at the obsidian cranes. “Don’t bring any of this along.”

In short order, all of the humans were gathered in the village. Armsmaster talked in private to each of the militiamen before he took the cadets aside.

“It would be in your best interest not to mention how Cadet Davar defeated the Chaos Lord.”

Mikel, that idiot, asked, “Why?”

“Don’t bring undue attention,” Heron growled, “bad enough she got the artefact.”

“He’s right, but only somewhat,” Armsmaster sighed. “Yuriko Davar’s Heritage is strange, but from what we saw, I can easily infer that it definitely is from her mother’s side. Do not cross the Realmheart Clans.”

Heron blinked. “Realmheart clans?”

“Watch what you say. You never know who’s listening.”

Heron looked ostensibly around him. Other than the militiamen, there were only cadets, the instructors, and the Avos.

Leader Yoran sighed and added, “Just because you can’t see any, doesn’t mean nobody’s listening. Just because they aren’t close doesn’t mean they can’t see you.”

Commander Davar could reputedly snipe a Wyldling from a league away, so he could probably see at least that far.

On the way back, and even during the days they spent in Faron’s Crossing while waiting for reinforcements, none of them mentioned it again. During the debriefing by Vagaris, they focused mostly on the instructors, with Heron’s experience being mostly perfunctory.

Thok, thok!

“Heron, dinner!”

“Oh. I’ll be out in a bit, mum!” Heron wiped his brushes dry and laid them on a table. He removed the painting from the easel and placed it flat on his desk, beside the other paintings he’d made the past couple of years. Most were sketches of people, though a majority were of Yuriko. Objectively, his portraiture was average at best. His landscapes were a bit better and the abstract work, the best.

After receiving his Heritage, his ability to draw fractals increased to a point that he could draw a perfectly symmetrical snowflake in less than a minute. He made sure his windows were latched shut before he left his room.

Today’s foray to hunt Wyldlings was a disappointment, but he didn’t really expect anything with the number of bounty hunters trying their hand at it. The damage to the crops probably meant that the town would have to buy grain from across the Zarek Mountains. Or maybe from Haveena to the south.

At the dinner table sat Heron’s mum, Tegan, and his elder sister by three years, Teresa. Both women were taller than he was by a few inches, both with dark blue hair. His mum’s was set in a tight bun while Teresa’s was in a loose ponytail.

“Heya, squirt!” Teresa laughed. “How was your date today?”

Heron felt his face redden but he knew if he didn’t answer her, she wouldn't stop poking at him, “It wasn’t a date,” he mumbled.

“Well, why not? Don’t be such a swarm fodder! What have you been doing all that time in the woods, eh?”

“Resa, don’t be crude.” Mum sniffed. “Our little Ronnie is a gentleman.”

“Yeah, right,” Teresa snorted.

Heron did his utmost best not to rise to his sister’s baiting, focusing instead on the meal. Mum had prepared a casserole of beef, potatoes, green beans, and tomato paste. He ate quickly, washing down the food with cold water from the icebox.

“Where are you going?” Teresa snarked. “You’re on washing duty.”

“Oh, sorry. I forgot.”

“Huh, well, wait a bit until we’re all finished, ya hear.”

Heron brought the dishes to the sink, letting them soak in the basin with soapy water.

Mum had been uncharacteristically silent but Heron knew that she was worried about Dad. Heron was worried as well, but his old man was tough as nails. He was sure to return soon.

When Teresa finished, she brought her dish and utensils to him. He started scrubbing them, briefly lamenting the fact that he couldn't just clean them with his Facet. Though maybe he could cause the air to harden next to the porcelain, pushing away the gunk in the process.

But he shouldn't practice with the extremely breakable dishes.

"A copper for your thoughts?"

"Huh, oh. I was just thinking how one of my teammates' Facet was unexpectedly useful when it came to cleaning dishes."

"Uh-huh, and you were wondering how to use yours to do something like it?"

"Yes." The grease clung to the dishes and he had soaped and scrubbed them twice already, yet a bit of the oil still clung to the surface.

"Silly. There are Animus techniques for household cleaning. You don't have to try adapting your Facet for it."

Heron stared at his elder sis with narrowed eyes. "Is that why it takes you only a few minutes to wash up?"

"Ehehe. Yes. But these techniques are a bit inefficient. You'll use up several lumens just to clean a single dish." Teresa shrugged. "It helps when something particularly foul needs to be washed off, or if your implements need to be as sterile as possible."

"Teach me!"

"Haha, you can wait until you enter Agaza. They teach these as a matter of course. Besides, you should focus on advancing to Apprentice instead."

"Urk."

"Speaking off, you're finally ready for the real Harvest Festival. Hihihi. Who are you taking with you?"

"I don't know yet. I haven't asked anyone."

"Well, you should ask that Davar girl you've been mooning over since last year."

"Alright, already," Heron huffed. He gulped nervously. "But what if she says no?"

Teresa rolled her eyes. "Then you ask someone else. One thing for sure though, you won't go to the festival with her if you never ask." She grinned. "Or, you could wait for her to ask you, but I really don't see that happening."

"Fine, fine. You've made your point." His guts twisted and his heart skipped a beat whenever he thought about just asking.

The Harvest Festival was only a few days away, and if he was going to ask, he'd have to do it soon.

-----

As the Radiant Sun set in the western mists, Marron rode on the flying shuttle borrowed from the Watchtower's stables. He would only be home for the evening and he was somewhat eager to bring the news to his siblings.

He felt that the search party should have been authorized nearly two weeks ago, or even immediately after the Full Moon when his Da and the Inquisitor failed to return, or even send word of their circumstances.

Unfortunately, the Wyldling Wave they wanted to prevent got touched off before they could come back. No, Marron shook his head, it was quite possible that the team's foray into the Tidelands could have triggered the Wave prematurely. Nobody said it in the Watchtower but Marron could read the runes on the wall.

Nobody said it, but they thought it.

Thankfully, Da wasn’t the one to lead, or even call for the mission. Which begged the question, what made Inquisitor Gorlyn call for such a mission in the first place? Yes, the signs were there of a Wave, but Marron didn't think the signs were any different from those of the previous Wave. His hasty research into the Memory Halls supported his thoughts.

“Inquisitors do what they do, and woe fall on those who hamper their ways.”

“They do the things they do in the name of the Empress.”

“You may not know the underlying reason, but there is always a reason the Inquisitors do things.”

They are the Hands of the Empress and move according to her will. Of course, there were thousands of Inquisitors but there were nearly a hundred planes under the Empire’s control, which made seeing one a rare occasion. Marron thought their duties had more to do with rooting out instabilities in a plane’s governance than in looking at the Empire’s outside enemies.

“Did this have something to do with treason?” Marron suddenly voiced out loud, before he shook his head. It was a good thing he was alone on the shuttle, for he would get in trouble for voicing such thoughts out loud.

Inquisitor Gorlyn was an acquaintance of Marron’s Da from Virgil’s legion days, so the fact that she asked him for aid was reasonable. Or maybe she suspected Faron’s Crossing’s leadership of seditious thoughts? They were located near the gold mine called the Tidelands and were close to a foreign power. Perhaps there were shenanigans going on with the town’s governing body.

The township didn’t even warrant a full noble as a governor due to their rather low population. Perhaps in the gap, rats had slunk inside the granary.

The evening lights of the town shook Marron out of his low thoughts. There was not a shred of evidence for his suspicions, and even Inquisitors would need that shred before they could act.

He drew a bit of Animus from his core, a perfect red sphere that contained a swirling storm, and channelled it into a pattern around his eyes. The twilight brightened to full daylight, and he easily located the Davar household. He flew directly there, trusting shuttle’s underwing insignia to identify him to the sentries.

He had barely landed on the front yard when Rami ran out and accosted him.

“Big bro! Help!”

“What happened?”

Rami fidgeted before continuing in a softer voice, “Big sis Yuri came home and holed up in her room all afternoon. She wouldn’t answer when I knocked and I thought I heard her crying.”

Marron felt his heart sink to his stomach. What had happened now?