At the edge of Faron’s Crossing, right before the road turned towards the Watchtower, Yuriko, Gwendith, Saki, and Desire disembarked.

“We’ll handle the reports in the Watchtower,” Marron said. “You go home. Rami’s waiting for you.”

“You sent a messenger crane?” Yuriko asked.

“Yes.” Marron answered. Then he looked at Gwendith and Desire. “We do have free rooms at home if you want to stay there. Unless you want to stay at the Homestead Inn? Or those barracks?” He pointed towards the freshly made buildings at the town’s southern end.

“We’ll stay with Yuriko,” both of them said in unison. Saki merely snorted.

“Right, well, have fun.” He waved at the transport’s pilot and the landcraft moved on.

“The town’s changed,” Yuriko muttered as she started walking along the pavement. The transport had dropped them off at the eastern gate, and that had been the very first change. There was a wall around the town.

Compared to the Frozen Camp’s wall, it was shorter at five paces high and about ten paces wide. It was made of grey stone and had a seamless quality that made it seem as if it was all one rock. The earthmelders probably fused the stones. There was also a five-pace wide ditch, that was a couple of paces deep, along the outside. Rather, it was a moat and was filled with river water, and the only reason she knew its depth was because of her perceptive aura. Silvery dartlings scooted along the water, and was that a turtle?

The moat’s sides were reinforced stone too, but the bottom was plain earth. The east gate had a drawbridge about four paces wide and was manned by a dozen militiamen. Two guard towers were on either side of the opening, and the gate was a thick slab of rock held aloft by the structures. She imagined it would only take the flip of a switch to send the thing crashing down. It wasn’t quite as thick as the walls though.

The guardsmen waved them through. Why didn’t they try to stop Desire, Yuriko wondered, but then again, it was easy to see that all of the men and women at the gate were staring at her.

With a sigh, she realised that her distraction had allowed her Mien to burst out of her tight control. It was much like holding her stomach in, she thought. She could train herself to do it, but it was just as easy to let loose.

The Foreign Quarter had been turned into a storage area, with most of the warehouses used for holding the harvest. There were several landcrafters and haulers trundling about the main road, and she could see sacks of flour, piles of vegetables, and even pigs, goats, and sheep being brought to the butchers.

People walked along the streets carrying side-arms, either blades or Lancets. It was strange to see many carrying plasma weaponry considering a couple of years ago, only marksmen did so. Perhaps it was due to the prevalence of jade cartridges now. With the ability to store excess Animus into the things, civilians and warriors would retain enough to use in melee.

Although it would probably be better to funnel the cartridges to the actual sharpshooters, she supposed that quantity had a quality of its own. She imagined an entire Century firing in ranks and laying down a fusillade of plasma bolts. Hmm, her condensed Anima could weather that kind of assault easily, but it would shred through a horde of swarmlings easily.

The waiting shed of the Circuit Tram had a bit of a line, so the four of them settled at the back to wait. In the meantime, Yuriko continued her observation of Faron’s Crossing.

“This place is familiar,” Desire said.

“It should be. This is where we grew up,” Yuriko said dryly.

“Huh.”

“Seems a bit busy, isn’t it?” Gwendith remarked. “And the people are…tense.”

“Didn’t the others say that Cierra village had fallen to the Federation?” Yuriko said. “That’s about twenty longstrides away, I think.” Yuriko frowned. She could walk and reach Cierra in less than a day. No wonder they were building fortifications.

“I suppose it only makes sense,” Gwendith muttered, “but depending on what the Federation's after…hmmm, no, this is the biggest population centre for Western Rumiga, so they’d have to capture and control this town eventually. What’s Faron’s Crossing’s strength?”

“I’ve no idea,” Yuriko muttered, “not now anyway. But…I think there were more warriors in the Frozen Camp than here. The others are probably at the Watchtower.”

“And I wonder how many Federation warriors took over Cierra,” Gwendith mused.

“Master, I also wonder why the legion has not retaken Cierra village. It’s been several weeks, almost a Season, if what I heard from your friends is correct,” Desire asked.

Yuriko shrugged. She didn’t know either.

“It’s standard Imperial procedure,” Saki answered quietly. “As long as the Gemheart is in place, the plane will remain within the Empire’s purview. You should know, young mistress, that even as we speak, hundreds of Chaos ships are assaulting and breaking through the Chaos Lord blockade. Eventually, the Chaos Channel in Rumiga City will be cleared of debris and forces will flow back inside. The might of seven disparate city-states, the savages up north, or the Chaos Lords and Wyldlings pale before a legion’s might. In Coltherstone, there are at least two legions being assembled.”

“And?” Yuriko prompted.

“So all the local Imperial forces have to do is hunker down and defend the Gemhearts. The Imperial legions will do the rest.” Saki shrugged. “Moving our forces away to retake unimportant territory could instead open a hole in our defences. Once the Gemhearts are out of the picture, then they win. We, on the other hand, will triumph as long as we hold on.” She nodded towards the defences. “This is a good start, but since the Gemheart isn’t here, Faron’s Crossing is nothing more than bait or a distraction.”

“Don’t say that,” Yuriko growled. “There are thousands of lives here.”

“Of course, young mistress, I merely speak of general strategy.” Saki bowed apologetically.

“With that in mind, what do you intend?” Gwendith asked idly.

Yuriko shook her head. She didn’t know. The least she could do is help to defend Faron’s Crossing, but if the enemy’s true target is in the Watchtower, should she head over there instead?

The Circuit Tram pulled up to the station and disgorged its passengers before she could think up an answer to her question. Not that it mattered at the moment. She could probably run to the Watchtower in less than ten minutes if she had to, or back to Faron’s Crossing. The main difference was that her younger brother was here, and there would be no one to protect him if something happened.

Her thoughts briefly touched on Da, but after so long, she was starting to doubt if he…no! She couldn’t think that. Wait! The golden thread she saw during her World Trial. One of those was Virgil’s. She should use her Facet and bring herself to the dreamscape to check. Why hadn’t she thought of this before?

Ancestors! Maybe she could even follow the thread to where he was! She was more than capable of crossing the Chaos Sea on her own!

Hold on, hold on. She can’t leave Rumiga yet.

“Yuri.” Gwendith prodded her and she startled out of her swirling thoughts. The line had moved and she hadn’t noticed.

She entered the tram and dropped enough coins. “The Central District, near the town centre. Four of us.”

The pilot nodded amiably, though he stared briefly as Desire went in. They took the seats near the back and she stared out of the windows as the tram moved along its route. Her companions didn’t interrupt her, lost in their own thoughts.

Before she knew it, it was already their stop. She alighted the Circuit Tram with her heart beating like a drum. Her walk turned into a light jog as she hurried towards her home while her resistance training undid itself. Before she knew it, she was at the front door, her hand grasping the door handle.

Before she could turn it, she perceived someone on the other side of the door, and it opened inwards.

A tall boy, nearly her height, stood behind it. Sandy brown hair, hazel-coloured eyes, and the same sharp features of Marron, but with baby fat still on his cheeks.

“Big sis…” Rami’s voice broke between one word and the next, and then he threw himself into her embrace. “You’re back…”

Tears and snot stained her overcoat, but no less than her own tears that dripped down on his hair. Rami…had grown like a weed, and she missed every second of it. She tightened her hug and noted absently that he had a not insignificant amount of Animus within his Anima.

But that didn’t really matter at the moment. She was finally home.

__________

Heron stared at the Chaos ship tethered to the Watchtower. It was roughly a hundred or so paces long, was shaped like an isosceles triangle, and about thirty paces wide at the base. It had forward swept wings and was made out of silver and green metal. No, that was probably jade-alloyed silver or something like that.

The troop transport trundled into the Watchtower’s courtyard, and he couldn’t help but look at the walls. There were newly emplaced Plasma Carronades, a dozen in total, around the perimeter wall, as well as a bigger carronade at the tower’s peak. The brass and steel constructs gleamed threateningly in the afternoon sun.

A few Flying Shuttles, with marksmen and pilots, took off from the landing strips, for the evening patrols. The Veil across the Tidelands had been fluctuating dangerously in the past couple of weeks, though now that he saw the Chaos ship, that was probably the reason. A lower hatch was open, and a ramp extended from it towards the mid-level balconies, and there were obvious guards standing at the end. The uniform was of the legion’s though he wasn’t familiar with the colours…wait. Green, bronze, and gold?

He tapped his lips while thinking, but he couldn’t quite remember.

“Legion Praetorius,” Asami muttered. “Why are they here?”

“The Royal Guard?” Krystal chimed in, grabbing Asami’s shoulder in the process. “Ooh! Why, why? Think they’re reinforcements?”

“More likely they entered the Tidelands and the plane to resupply.” Asami shrugged. “Praetorius doesn’t concern itself with mundane matters.”

“I’d hardly call an invasion of one of the Empire’s frontier planes, ‘mundane’,” Heron pointed out.

“It is,” Asami insisted. “How many frontier planes do you think the Empire has?”

“Er…”

“Dozens. Each is in some form of contention, great or small. Our home plane of Rumiga isn’t unique, just that we’ve had peace for decades.” Asami said.

“Ancestors, Asami, you sound like an elderly woman.” Krystal chuckled.

“Hmph!” Asami rolled her eyes.

Heron returned his gaze towards the ramp, and just in time to catch a few people entering from the balcony. He couldn’t activate Enhanced Senses quickly since it wasn’t inlaid, but he managed to identify the last couple of people to board. It was Vice-Commander Theo Stuart. Now, why would he go there instead of the people inside doing the opposite?

Shaking his head, he returned to his current task, which was to make his reports and submit them to the command centre. Since he lived in Faron’s Crossing, and he was only a cadet, he didn’t have a berth here. So he and Asami entered the library which doubled as a visiting forces study and did the work there.

While he was at it, he grabbed a messenger crane and wrote a letter to Yuriko. But by his third draft, he scrubbed the back of his head in frustration. He had to ask someone to cleanse the ink off the first two cranes, and he didn’t want to add a third for that effort. Even if this last one had several strikethroughs.

Well, he was probably grasping at straws, but he could feel the longing and desire within his bones. He was no longer willing to hang back and watch others approach her. Or, if he was being honest with himself, hang back and try to prevent others from getting close to her. A foolish act for a foolish young man.

He glanced at Asami on the adjacent desk, with her tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth. He…felt nothing. Now, he felt nothing. Before, there were the faint stirrings of something blossoming, but now, nothing. All replaced by thoughts of the golden-haired goddess.