The gaggle of gawking initiates stared at the coughing half-breed as she shambled out of the camp and into the last of the morning's fog. There was a sadness to her slumped shoulders, and the outcast practically dragged her feet as unfriendly eyes bore into her back when she departed. Khazmine had proven to be a fiendish, resourceful fighter, which the lingering gossipers saw fit to comment on in Jaycen's presence.

“God’s old and new, did you see those gashes?”

“She tore into those initiates like a rabid marsh hound… Nasty… I've never seen anything like it.”

Jaycen scouted around as the whispering continued, gathering information on what exactly had transpired in the commissary. Stories varied, but the lieutenant pieced together that initiate Jarrow made some snide remark or other, prompting a snarky response from Khazmine. Whatever it was, Jarrow and Quin had taken tremendous offense, calling Allyn over to help “teach the wretched filth some manners.”

No one had come to Khazmine’s aid—not now, nor in the past. The outcast had forced herself to expend precious ether to defend against overwhelming numbers and had cowed all three assailants in short order. Was this the kind of training Major Barshaw had given her? Jaycen wasn’t privy to their private lessons, and only noticed an increased sensation of ether traces on both Khazmine and the Major recently. Whatever they were doing, at least the outcast was better equipped to defend herself.

But she shouldn’t have to…

Apparently, this kind of treatment had been going on for ages, and yet this was the first Jaycen heard any of the gory details. Lieutenant Mevralls tensed his ears back as he learned more. Overturned plates, intentional spills, cruel nicknames, assaults on her person—this had been going on for weeks.

She never said anything. Not one word.

Deep down, Jaycen knew better than what he thought just then. Khazmine had said, repeatedly, that the soldiers and initiates hated her. She was a half-breed, a malignant blemish on the camp, a harbinger of decay that the righteous citizens of Old Sarzonn despised. Jaycen had chalked up the outcast’s complaints to melodrama, the rantings of a teenager on the cusp of maturity, nothing more.

Maybe he wanted to suppose that sentiments had changed in the camp, or perhaps it was wishful thinking to believe that anyone would accept a poisonous half-breed against the holy house’s continuous warnings about their existence. Regardless, Jaycen’s carelessness had allowed abuse of his subordinate to take place on his watch, filling the lieutenant with a swirling, uncomfortable mixture of shame and rage.

Before he knew it, Lieutenant Mevralls had found himself skulking towards the brig, where all three men were already in the process of receiving their punishment. Quin, Allyn, and Jarrow were kneeling inside separate cells with their now shirtless backs turned to face anyone outside the drafty alcoves. Each man had his hands bound in abrasive manacles with chains that reached up to ceiling rings in their cells, whose columns of cold iron bars were the only barrier between them.

Their arms were tugged into an upright position above their heads, straining uncomfortably against weighty chains that were two full links too short for comfort. Whenever a hint of defiance presented itself, all one had to do was tug on the length of chain to elicit painful cries from whoever offended. Hearing Lieutenant Mevralls enter, Quin turned his head to try and appeal the initiates’ punishment.

“Please, sir, there’s been a mistake,” Quin pled as his knees dug into the cold stone slab beneath them. The entire brig’s floor featured a gentle slope towards the back wall, with a series of grates leading to an underground sluice whose purpose was unknown to them. Dark stains on the stone appeared to originate from their positions, trickling toward the grates, and led each man to believe the worst was yet to come. “Lieutenant, we’re innocent. Look, look at Jarrow here—his face is in tatters. Look what she did to—”

A sound of crackling thunder rang out in the room, deafening the trembling men where they knelt. Quin Scurving had sworn he felt the electric sensation of Major Barshaw’s whip end miss his ear by inches. Already straining to contain his whimpering, Allyn was the first to shed tears as he awaited the inevitable. Jarrow’s lips quaked in silent prayer to gods he knew weren’t listening. In the Solanai brig, the walls were thick enough to conceal all three men’s screams, and each came to grips with that troubling fact with varying degrees of terror.

“I don’t want to hear it,” Jaycen growled. “You’ve broken your oath to the Solanai Order and will suffer the consequences for your crimes. What you’ve done is tantamount to attempted murder of one of our own, and I’m inclined to ask Major Barshaw to mete out your sentence here and now.”

All three men winced in unison at the sound of creaking leather as Major Barshaw clenched onto her trusty whip. None of them wanted to confirm whether the weapon’s renowned crimson color was achieved by repeatedly dousing it in the blood of her enemies.

“P-please! No!” Allyn begged through a waterfall of tears and leaking snot.

“We’re sorry, sir! It’ll never happen again!” Jarrow added, briefly breaking his silent pleas to the gods to rescue them.

“No, it most certainly will not,” Lieutenant Mevralls sneered as his shadow loomed over the frightened men like a giant specter. “You three will be spending the next few days here to reflect on what you’ve done. After that, your penance truly begins…”

The lieutenant homed in on Quin Scurving in particular for his next comment, and he bent low enough for the trio’s ringleader to hear the severe displeasure in his voice. “And if you so much as squint at Khazmine again, you’ll wish we sent you out on a corpse cart, understood?”

Another creak from the major’s whip forced Quin to jolt on the spot. It was then that Quin Scurving and his cohorts realized the gravity of their mistake. Major Barshaw would be delivering their punishment personally, which none of them had prepared for. Lieutenant Mevralls offered each man a rolled-up length of boiled leather to clench between their teeth before departing. Sure enough, with the heavy door closed and the walls being so thick, no one could hear the concert of suffering within.

---

The recovery room of Rida’s hovel echoed with the sound of a jarring slap as the healer pulled back his hand to avoid being struck again. He’d patiently tried to replace the depleted bandages on Aranthus’s injured body, but the Outsider fought off Rida’s care like a snarling little hedge kitten. The wrappings had long since lost the glow of healing magic, and needed to be redressed before infection took hold.

“Please, kid, it will only take a minute,” Rida implored him as Aranthus scooted away feebly. The insistent healer sighed at the confounded difficulty of treating the filthy Outsider child who’d bitten him yesterday. He frowned at how reticent this child was to receive care, especially from the southerner who had prided himself as being “great” with children. “Miss Khazmine will be disappointed if you’re feeling worse when she gets back.”

Aranthus scowled at the mention of his big sister’s name from the healer. This old man was the same meanie who’d repeatedly told Khazmine to “give up” on Pavo since they’d arrived, and Aranthus had a long memory for holding grudges. Still, the sooner Rida got him patched up, the sooner Aranthus could resume his watch for Lady Kiss-Me…

“Okay, fine, mister…” Aranthus squinted suspiciously at the healer as he worked, scrubbing the flesh around Aranthus’s wounds with a damp cloth before adding new tape.

The Outsider’s laceration was healing nicely, much to Rida’s relief. The last thing he wanted was for Khazmine to come back, find her little friend dead, and skin the healer alive for failing to save him. Not that she would, but Khazmine was incredibly stubborn when it came to the welfare of these outcast children, especially the sickly one.

“There now, all done,” Rida tugged Aranthus’s shirt down to cover the fresh wrappings. “Now it’s Pavo’s turn.”

“What are you doing?” Aranthus asked, shuffling his tiny body between Rida and the sleeping Pavo.

“I was planning to wake him up and do an examination,” Rida explained with waning patience.

“NO,” Aranthus protested, much to the healer’s surprise. “He was up all night, tossing and turning. He should be sleeping…”

Another deep sigh was all Rida could muster at Aranthus’s objection. If he’d truly spent all night awake, surely little Pavo wasn’t in immediate need of an examination that would rob him of a few precious hours of rest. Rida frowned at finding yet another hill he was unwilling to die on. Blood relations or not, Aranthus had “inherited” the same stubbornness that Miss Khazmine had, along with a relentless desire to protect one’s family. If all the healer could do was administer another injection to keep the lad calm, then so be it.

“Don’t look at me like that, it’s just a sedative,” Rida explained to Aranthus as he injected a vial of liquid into Pavo’s limp arm. The razor-edged stare from the tiny Outsider was sharp enough to shave with, and Rida shuddered as he elaborated for the little guy’s benefit. “It’s medicine, the kind that will help him stay asleep longer. That’s what ‘sedative’ means.”

“I know, I know,” Aranthus protested, “I’m not a baby. I know what said-a-tiff is.”

Rida didn’t have the heart to correct him, nor the energy to stifle a chuckle at Aranthus’s expense. His ears reddening with embarrassment at the healer’s laughter, Aranthus shoved Rida out of the recovery room with both hands. “No laughing, you’ll wake Pavo.”

“I should hope not,” Rida countered. “He should be out for hours with that dose. Please come and get me if he wakes up before dinner. I’ll put something on for you boys, so just keep an eye on him for me, okay?”

The healer had hoped to garner an acknowledgment from the Outsider, but Aranthus was still too embarrassed to do more than close the door quietly as Rida departed. The exhausted southerner shook with another beleaguered chuckle at how annoyingly cute those kids were and trundled off to the kitchen to scrounge around for an easy meal. Unfortunately, Rida still hadn’t secured any groceries and would need to go out for a brief errand to fetch enough food for at least himself, the boys, Jaycen, and Khazmine.

If she even wants to eat with me, that is… Rida’s expression soured as he remembered Khazmine’s accusations last night before fleeing to the recovery room. I couldn’t blame her if she’s still mad about everything, but…

Rida’s thoughts were troubled and heavy with regret as he locked the hovel door behind him to sneak off to a nearby market in Cheapside for a few sacks of groceries. He hadn’t meant to crush Khazmine’s hopes last night, but Rida couldn’t think of any other way to discourage her from seeking out Marquis Banebury for help.

They’d only met twice some fifteen years ago, when Rida was first training for his healer’s license in Old Sarzonn, and once again a few years ago by accident. Even half a lifetime ago, Marquis Banebury was an ancient man, a learned scholar who much preferred holing up in his observatory in Holloworth over pitching in to help the sick out in Cheapside. Those two early meetings went along fine enough without incident, but the most recent one…

Something wasn’t right. Rida reflected on their final encounter. Despite years of isolation and a history of poor health, Marquis Banebury was physically unchanged but had an entirely different personality from before. Where once the marquis had a curious, haughty, self-absorbed attitude, this time-altered man before him was sharp of wit and tongue, highly sensitive, and emotionally distant to everyone. He didn’t even appear to remember meeting Rida before. Marquis Banebury had spent the better part of a decade alone in his manor, only to emerge as a familiar yet unrecognizable man.

But that wasn’t the strangest thing, not by a long-shot. From what Rida recalled of the Banebury line, they were supposed to be incredibly powerful ether users, even rivaling the skills of Lord Vythorne himself, yet this marquis… Rida shivered at the thought of it. The last time they’d met, Rowyn Banebury didn’t give off a single trace of ether, not even ambient ether, which was supposed to emanate from all living things… He was undoubtedly different, changed… foreign.

Regardless of the consequences of hurting Khazmine’s feelings, Rida took comfort in the fact that he’d successfully warded off the outcast from seeking the bizarre individual who presently occupied Banebury Hall. At least there was no danger of making things worse, or entangling the young Deceiver in matters even Rida didn’t understand.