It seemed like I had only moments. The field was shooting towards me. I snapped my head left and right, wanting to leap aside but not wanting to seem foolish in front of the men. Desperately, I didn’t want to suffer the same fate as Chowwick had. I had a moment to imagine how much worse I would fare if my body became entangled with the flesh, bone, and armor of another Griidlord.

I had just started reaching for POWER—my visor may have even flickered with the light of the attribute—when the field dissipated. A sleek figure bounded from the field. A woman. Her purple-armored form bounced over the last yards of the prairie, moving like a deer. There was an undisguised glee in the way she harnessed the momentum of the field. Her visor flared, and AGILITY guided her.

My breath nearly stopped as I watched her spin through the air. I had felt like a bird when I used AGILITY, but compared to her, I was a wet stone.

My hand went to my hilt. She had POWER activated, and she was coming with speed, yet there was something so playful about the way she danced that I couldn’t imagine her intentions were sinister.

As she came to a stop, Chowwick levered his unhelmed head over the side of his wagon. “What are you at, daft bitch? Coming at us like that? The Sword here might’ve cut you in half! Fucking Northern bastards charging at us like that, what the fuck do you think we’re going to do?”

She seemed completely unaware of Chowwick’s distress or anger. Rising to her full height, she cast her head about, inspecting the convoy. She looked at me for a moment, then continued scanning the surroundings.

I summoned Assess. In an instant, her vital information appeared before me:

Subject: Racquel Moonclaw
Status: Chosen Arrow
Level: 19

I wondered how type advantage compared to level. If I was a level 10 and she a 19, but my Sword had an advantage over her Arrow suit, how would we compare?

Her helm folded back into her suit, and she shook her head to free her hair. It was raven black and shining. She was utterly casual, unconcerned with how we had reacted to her charge at our convoy, unapologetic about the joy she’d taken in her leaping dance, despite the many watching eyes.

Her gaze returned to me. Her skin was pale, her eyes almost unnaturally blue. She looked so delicate, it was hard to imagine her as a Griidlord. And to have gained 19 levels, she must have worn the suit for much longer than I had. She must have fought to level her suit, though she didn’t seem like a fighter.

She said, “I’m looking for someone in your convoy, a man by the name of Dirk Jaxwulf, a Burghsman.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but Chowwick was faster. “Have you no apology? You could’ve been killed, lass.”

She tilted her head, unabashedly inspecting Chowwick. “Lord Chowwick, is it not?”

His words stumbled. “Aye, it is. You know of me, then?”

he said, “We crossed blades, Lord Chowwick, when the Falling came to the Northern Lakes a couple of years back. Well, I say ‘crossed blades,’ but properly, I should say you tossed me around like a cat with a mouse using your shield.”

She laughed suddenly, a high, musical sound that was jarring but somehow put me at ease.

Chowwick nodded, “Aye, that we did. You were a rookie, but you charged into our formation as though we were foot soldiers. Hard to forget. I assumed you’d have gotten yourself killed by now, taking such little care. What was that, two years ago? You’ve gained levels since then? Tiberius, what’s her level?”

I stammered, “Ah… I…” It felt rude to discuss her levels in front of her like that, like reporting on something intimate and personal.

Racquel cut in smoothly, “I’m level 19 now, Lord Chowwick. I’ll catch up to you soon enough. Then we’ll see who bats whom about.”

She laughed again. There was murder in her eyes but a lightness to her lips.

Chowwick whistled softly, “Level 19 in two years…”

Then, from beyond the wagons, came the voice of Dirk, calling to her as he strode briskly down the rows.

“Lady Racquel!”

She turned toward the sound, her smile broadening—a radiant, captivating smile. “Excuse me, m’lords,” she said.

“M’lady,” Chowwick muttered coolly as she walked away. Then he turned to me, his bushy brows bent low with disapproval. “Nerve of her, lad. What business does she have charging up on us like that, stopping our convoy? And now she’s talking to your man like he’s hers. Daft northern bitch.”

I asked, “She’s from Minneapolis? With those colors?”

Chowwick nodded. “Aye, city of madmen. If they’re not fighting fiends, they’re raiding decent folk far from their own land. Only folk half as tough and daft as them are those bastards,” he said, jerking a thumb toward Dirk and the cluster of Burghsmen.

I watched Racquel talking to them. There was a certain intimacy in the way she engaged with them—open, interested, and clearly captivated by them. It was just as obvious that they were all captivated by her. Her beauty, rare and striking, was only enhanced by her easy manner.

“What business could she have with Dirk?” I asked.

Chowwick’s frown deepened. “Dirk’s a good lad, but he’s a rapscallion. Do you have any idea what it takes to get thrown out of Pittsburgh? They’ve no laws, no real government. The lad got himself banished, and it wasn’t done for stealing apples.”

I asked, “Do you know what he did?”

Chowwick screwed up his mouth. “He’s a revolutionary. Not the sort we need to worry about out here in the civilized world—not a disruptor of order, not that kind. But to the Burghsmen, he’s a radical. He wanted to bring order to the clans.”

“Did he tell you this?” I asked.

“Aye, not in so many words, but he got the message out. The lad was sussing me, most likely.”

“Sussing?” I repeated.

Chowwick nodded, his eyes never leaving Racquel and the Burghsmen. “Believers love nothing better than getting a Griidlord behind them and their cause.”

I asked, “What good would you be to his cause? Does he expect you to march in and lay down the law yourself? They have their own Griidlords.”

Chowwick said, “It can be more complicated than that. Dirk’s got notions. He mightn’t seem it, with all the rough talk and the big axe, but the man’s a thinker. He might be a dangerous thinker.”

I said, “But you said he’s not a disruptor…”

Chowwick replied, “Not yet he’s not, but you can take the man out of the revolution—it's harder to take the revolution out of the man.” He paused a moment, as if awaiting my reaction.
“Damn, that sounded better in my head. My point is, Dirk is a man with a cause—or he was a man with a cause—but now that he’s been up-chucked out of the Hills, he might want to find himself a new cause or broaden the one he had.”

I said, “I’m not getting it. Most lands are lawful.”

Chowwick said, “There are those who’d see them more organized, who’d do something about the Wilds. There are treaties between the cities about how we treat each other’s holdings out in the Wilds, treaties that are ignored when it’s convenient. But there’s precious little that can be done about law and order out there. A man can murder a man in Boston, rape a woman in Buffalo, rob a store in New York, then disappear into the Wilds. The only way to catch him is to send a hunter after him, and that’ll only happen if he murdered, raped, or robbed someone with enough money or clout to get it done.”

I paused. Then, hesitantly, I asked, “And you think Racquel is involved in something like that?”

Chowwick shrugged. “She’s daft, isn’t she? That’s plain enough to see.”

I was going to say more, question how or why a loyal Griidlord would conduct business with social disruptors, but then I stopped. I thought of Joel, holder of a fortune built on more than a century of wildly profitable success, the founder and builder of an empire that had spread much further than the Western fragment it had become. He had walked away from the suit, from the empire he’d helped build—and what was he doing now exactly? Recruiting other Griidlords for his purpose. Danefer was no less perplexing.

I had always thought of the suit as a purpose. Already, it was beginning to dawn on me that I had no goals now, other than gaining levels and winning Flows for Boston. That seemed like a noble enough set of pursuits, but when I let my mind wander to the future, to the long decades, even centuries, that could lie before me, I could see how that might start to feel hollow. A strange chill ran through my gut at the thought of passing so much time with so little to work toward.

I looked at Chowwick. The man seemed happy enough. He had his ale, he had his family. He’d been a Griidlord for more than twenty years and didn’t seem to have grown lost in the aimlessness of it. I wondered if it saddened him to think about outliving his family, outliving Arthur. It made me think about my bitter feelings toward Lauren and Katya. The bitterness was still there, even if I pushed it deep. But I wondered what sadness there would have been if things hadn’t happened the way they had. In my best-case scenario, I would have lived to watch them wither and age while the centuries deflected off me.

I stared at Racquel. She had a passion about her. An intensity. There was a person with no misgivings about the passing ages leaving her with nothing to apply her energies to. Be it subversion or something else, I could sense she had a purpose.

I had been so focused on winning the suit, I hadn’t thought that much about what I wanted to do with it.