Master Crow the Binding Chain was dead. Lawrence Tang of the Haveenian Security Office, its Director-in-Fact, stared at the missive in disbelief.

A Master-level Spirit Binder, dead, just like that? Who?

The message didn’t come through letters befitting its urgent and important status. Instead, the twinned spirit stone was the one to bring the message. Twin spirits were rare in nature, though they could be manufactured with some effort. Great effort, really, and just as great a cost. Valuable reagents that could only be nurtured and grown in select places, other ingredients that have to be found in the Chaos Sea, and of course, the talent to learn the technique of twinned splicing.

The twinned spirit stone was attached to a pen. A recent invention, or a recent rediscovery. Instead of dipping a quill in a bottle of ink, the fountain pen had an internal reservoir. He knew that the Verdanians had a similar implement, but that one required Animatech to produce and use. This one was a simple mechanical feature that took more expertise to craft but could be used by anyone. More importantly, for the use of twinned spirit stones, it meant that the writer on the other side need not dip a quill into an ink bottle–they simply had to write the message. The device was a small writing desk and one only had to keep the pen’s reservoir full, and the papers fresh.

The event was only hours old, and according to the report, the Kadracki Ranger captain who made the discovery chose to retreat instead of pursue.

“A wise choice,” Lawrence muttered.

“Hmm?”

One of his adjutants, a youngish woman, one of the latest in a bevvy of girls the Great Merchant Clans sent his office to act as assistants. This one was a honey-haired beauty who was quite skilled. Skilled with clerical work, too, of course.

He gestured for her to come around behind his desk, and she did so with a slow saunter.

“None of that now.” He sighed and gestured at the twinned spirit stone apparatus. He covered some of the sensitive information, such as agent names, passcodes, and cyphers, with his Animus, leaving only the event details out in the open. She read it with pursed lips.

“Danger?”

“Yes. Troubling, too.” He sorted through his other reports but only to confirm what knew.

The Kadracki report had a stand-out detail. Some of the sands had fused into glass, obsidian at some points, and that was a crucial detail. Mixed with other reports, it pretty much galvanized what he feared.

“A Verdainian infiltration team,” he said slowly. “With a Knight-Captain. Or with the Golden Terror. Rotter.”

He jumped off his seat and ran towards another room. This one held dozens of twinned spirit stone apparati. Skimming the labels, he took the one labelled Uaran City, pulled it out of its shelf, and twisted the stone. It would set its counterpart jiggling and should trip the alarm on that end.

The City-States didn’t have that many Master Binders, barely five or so per city. And to lose one, not to mention the cargo…

Granted, they could send a new batch and it would hardly affect the treaty, but the infiltrators were a latent danger, and if the Golden Terror was left alone, she could cause untold havoc.

Thankfully, they had the spare forces to send.

____________

They travelled until midnight, though that wasn’t really saying much. It took a bit longer than the ten minutes Yuriko allotted to hitch the wagons to the horses, and another ten to get them going. The guards were able to hasten the matter, but the freed captives skirted away from them, glaring all the while. For their part, most of the guards showed little remorse, and she understood that they were only doing their jobs.

The former prisoners also didn’t want to ride the wagons, having spent the past week or so cooped up in them. Their pace wasn’t anywhere near what Yuriko and the others achieved before, but that was the best they could do.

Braden and Orrin, along with Heron and Asami, headed back to where they left their horses. The poor animals were exhausted, but thanks to their rather sedate pace, at least they didn’t keel over dead.

Horses were prone to do that, according to Braden, if pushed to the limits of their stamina. Yuriko thought it was rather inconvenient. At least a landcrafter or a troop transport could continue moving as long as Animus was supplied to it.

There was little sign of pursuit by midnight, but Yuriko thought it had more to do with the darkness than anything else. There was also the hope that the caravan wasn’t able to send for help back then, and that there weren’t any forces nearby. To be safe, the expansive desert would be their safest bet.

“There are a few oasis towns,” Izna said, “occupied by some villagers.”

“Hmmm. What’s the desert called?” Yuriko asked curiously. Most notable landmarks were usually named after the Avos, or perhaps it was the other way around?

“Just the desert.” Izna shook his head. “It’s the only one in the Federation so there’s little need. I’m sure in Verdanian, you’d name it the Rumigan Desert, or Desert Desert, heh.” The last bit was spoken with a mixture of Wojan and Verdanian. “It’s several hundred leagues wide and reaches all the way to the Zarek Mountain’s foot. No forests or woods there, just granite.”

The next morning, Yuriko performed a high jump, reaching nearly ten paces high before unfurling her Anima wings to propel herself even higher up. Along the eastern side, she saw many clumps of greenery, and glimmers of blue. When she turned to the west, she spotted a few groups of cavalrymen, riding land raptors. They weren’t heading towards the wagons though.

When she alighted, she directed the caravan to the right by a tiny bit. That would put them on a direct line towards the greenery. An oasis town, hopefully.

As they plodded on, step by step, the Radiant Sun’s rays heated the air so much that it felt more like the middle of the Season of Fire than the tag end of Water. Yuriko rather enjoyed it, shedding her poncho and letting her hair loose to float behind her. She half thought to roll up her sleeves and bare her shoulders too, but Gwendith’s discreet cough and whispered words, along with a surreptitious glance behind dissuaded her.

The sun rose to its zenith and the horses groaned in weariness. They had to take a break, at least until the heat receded in the late afternoon. They could resume travel then and for a bit longer in the evening to make up for lost time. Not that they really had a real destination or plan beyond the need to move away from Kadrac and Haveena, without heading directly to Uaran. There was plenty of empty land all around, but it was rather hostile to the unawakened.

Canvas sheets from the wagons were spread out and put on top of poles to give some shade. The horses were given much-needed water, though for some reason the handlers limited the amount they could drink at a time. She really wanted to check supplies and logistics, but Gwendith and the boys insisted she stay put and aloof, so she sat on top of one of the wagons, in a meditative pose and ruminated.

The Rumigan Desert wasn’t flat or composed entirely of sandy dunes. From her jump, she could see barren stones, more sand, and parched earth. The sandy part seemed to be around them now, but maybe a few dozen leagues farther east, it became the barren rocky wastes instead. The parched earth, filled with cracks, craters, and ravines, was south.

Even for all its features, the desert wasn’t devoid of life. Just underneath the sands alone, she could detect it with her perception. Little pockets of life, insects, scorpions…lizards, and snakes.

A check of their supplies revealed that they only had water for a week, at most. And the rate that the horses, and frankly, the beastkin, consumed it, it was more likely to last half the time. She saw Gwendith attempting to condense water from the dry air, but several leagues into the sandy wastelands meant that the air was pretty dry. For all her effort, Gwendith only managed a couple of PiRen worth of water. That was about twenty drops and was a depressing result of an hour’s work. For all she knew, Gwendith was probably drawing in the water people sweated out.

And, uh, while that sounded gross to Yuriko, she knew that water condensed out of air was pure. Still, two percent of a Ren was bad. People needed a couple of Ren of water a day to thrive, probably much less to just survive, but the horses drank nearly ten times more than a person, and there were fourteen of them in the caravan, plus nine from their original group. Kassy and the other beastkin didn’t bring their horses with them after the chase, as they had been galloped to death. But the beastkin required a bit more water than the others do. The supplies wagon had more food than anything else, but even that wouldn’t last too long, even with the addition of butchered horse.

After all of that, Yuriko wondered if it was really the right thing to flee towards the desert rather than along its edge. The supplies they had were only enough for the caravan to reach the next village or town, and maybe a bit more.

Unsurprisingly, the Master Spirit Binder’s supplies were half luxury goods than anything else. Bottles of expensive liquor, bags of dried leaves that were either expensive tea or for smoking. Given the scent, she wasn’t really sure. There was a hefty pile of gold coins in his belongings too, but that was better served to help resupply the group than anything else.

The group that they attacked and defeated a couple of nights ago weren’t amongst the survivors. She had mixed feelings about that but she supposed this was better.

Yuriko’s thoughts turned to her fight against Master Crow, the chainman. She hadn’t expected the fight to have been so tricky. In a straight up clash, she had held her own well enough, but when he used his special tricks, then…well. If the others hadn’t distracted him, the result of their battle might have been different.

There was a tiny part of her that was annoyed that her duel had been interrupted and that she won with the help of others weaker than she was, but she recognised that sentiment to have come from Damien more than from herself. Da trained her to be part of a unit of warriors, not a duelist, even if she liked facing off against strong foes by herself. More of Damien’s memories and personality were bleeding into her mind, and the most troubling part is that she wouldn’t notice it unless she was in deep introspection. It was as if he had always been a part of her.

She shuddered at the thought that part of her was a perverted, sex-crazed old man, and not just a separate entity she could talk and consult with. Maybe…she should remove her old Facet entirely? The loss of knowledge and wisdom, as well as the tips and tricks she needed to advance her Anima strength…

Oh, who was she kidding? The way she was now, even if she removed the Facet, she would have it back up again a few days later.

As for the ability she used to defeat Master Crow…it was an aspect of her Ennoia. Or rather, it was a basic aspect of any Ennoia, which was manipulation, or perhaps the better term was kinesis. Anyway, she played with it while they walked earlier and while there were differences between it and her Animakinesis, it wasn’t that significant. Anything she placed her Radiant energy into, she could control as if it were her own limbs. With Animakinesis, whatever she moved, it was as if she used her Anima as a hand. That did mean she’d be able to make finer and more agile movements but the fact of the matter was, Radiant energy contained so much heat that anything she put it into, inevitably caught fire or melted. So, unless it was her own Animus constructs, or something equally tough, it wouldn’t last. That was probably why her ability to use her sunshards and sunblade got better.

She’d practice with the ability more later, and the greatest advantage seemed to be that it removed or destroyed someone else’s control. Useful when she was restrained, but it took an incredible amount of Radiant energy.

It was midafternoon by the time they moved from their resting spot. Most of the unawakened spent that time napping or eating. She led the caravan from the very front, allowing her Mien to uplift their morale. It was three hours to midnight by the time they stopped to rest.

This went on for a couple more days. All the while getting closer to the green area she spotted. Thankfully, there was no sign of pursuit. But on the third day, she noticed that there was something wrong with their destination. Why was it hazy, and why did it seem as if it was floating above the sands?