Chapter Text
She gets the orders in the evening, three weeks off from Harvest’s Close. She has just finished one job and only just sending in the report when the papers come through, the print neat, the signature looping. They are not official orders; the looping hand is that of her teacher, not the Cerberus Assembly or the King, which makes this a personal mission rather than a required one.
She is not surprised to receive it, nor upset; rather, she is amused, smiling as she reads it through. Trent does this sometimes, to her and Eodwulf both—little errands and hunts and bids for their time, as if they are still students, as if he is still testing them. It makes her feel warm to receive them. To know, even after all this time, even with his new students and new duties, Trent Ikithon still thinks fondly of her.
The orders are short, and swift. Curt, like every instruction he ever gave them. There is a group known as the Mighty Nein, near the border of Xhorhas. They are traitors to the Empire, and they have become a nuisance.
There is a group called the Mighty Nein, and they need to die.
She folds the paper in her fingers, tucks it in her waistband. She takes her time in thumbing through her spell books, picking and choosing which will go with her on the journey. Then she pulls on her cloak and goes to find Eodwulf. They have not had much time for each other, as of late—this is a good chance for them to catch up. An easy assassination, and then drinks after.
Astrid is already looking forward to it.
.
It is not that Astrid grows up loving magic, like Bren, or looking for it, like Eodwulf. It is just that it is useful, and Astrid grows up wanting to be useful too. When her mother buckles down and complains about the weight of the crops on her back, Astrid wants to lighten the load. When her father curses the late rains, the dry fields, Astrid wants to make the sky pour. When Bren falls off a tree and snaps his arm beneath him, she hovers useless by his side as he screams and wishes hopelessly, desperately, that she could fix it.
When the Soltryce Academy people come, Bren conjures fire and Eodwulf charms them all. But Astrid—Astrid reaches out and breaks their cart in two, as neat and as violently as she breaks the trees for their firewood, and then mends it back as if it’d never been broken at all.
They smile at her, the Academy people, each and every one of them. In the back of their group there is a man, with white hair and colorless eyes, so old he is almost ancient. He wears the robes of someone official, and when he looks at her—at all of them, Astrid and Eodwulf and Bren—there is something bright and pleased in his pale eyes.
“Wonderful,” he says to them. He rests a gnarled hand on Bren’s head, gives a fond nod to Eodwulf. To Astrid, a smile. There is something like intent there, in the weight of his hand. Something like a promise in the look in his eyes.
There is power in his fingertips and magic in his words, and Astrid has never wanted anything more.
.
It’s not hard to track down the Mighty Nein, because they are loud, and vibrant, and violent. They are not as loud as some groups, admittedly—some in their number must think well of keeping a low profile—but the chaos they leave in their wake is unmistakable. Astrid has tracked down myths and legends; these bumbling fools are almost too easy. With Eodwulf by her side, it is child’s play.
(If Bren had been with them—but no. That is a foolish thought. She has not thought of Bren in ages, too caught up in work, but something about this job is nostalgic, tugging at the edges of her mind. It is too easy, perhaps. Too easy, and once, Bren would have laughed and said: “Let us finish this quickly, yes? Let us show our teacher we are beyond such games.”
And once, too, Astrid would have turned to Eodwulf and replied, “He talks like he isn’t the most delighted, or the first to set his hands on fire.”
“Hah, well,” Eodwulf had said, as Bren turned bright red beside her. “That’s our Bren.”)
But these are useless thoughts. These are useless memories. And regardless. Despite the nostalgia, despite her other duties, despite little things like travel and time: it is not hard. Finding the Mighty Nein, tracking their location, narrowing in for the hunt—
—together, it takes them barely a week.
(Once, it would have taken them barely a day. But that was long ago.)
.
Bren is bumbling, Bren is bright, Bren is confidence and knowing and did-you-hear? He remembers almost everything and loves to prove it, and he is quick with wit and laughter besides. Bren is going to be something, someday. Bren is going to be someone great. Everyone knows it—from his proud parents to the Academy recruiters, to their teachers at the Academy to Trent Ikithon. Everyone knows it, and no one knows it more than Bren himself.
Astrid knows it too. She knew it as a child, knowing Bren only distantly; she knew it as a student, knowing Bren as a classmate; she knows it now, as Trent’s disciple, knowing Bren as a friend, as a something, as a maybe more. She knows Bren is going to be something, someday, and it never fails to warm her heart, the fact he can look at her and think the very same thing.
.
They attack the Mighty Nein at dawn.
Dawn, objectively, is a great time for surprise attacks. No one is awake, the guard (if there is one) is almost half-asleep, and people tend to assume that if they are to be attacked, it will be in the dead of night. Daybreak means the danger has passed. Sunrise, to the unknowing, is safety.
Sunrise, Astrid knows, is when even the mighty are at their weakest.
It is Astrid who approaches first—who steps forward, barely one hundred feet away, and flings out her hands to call the magic to her. At her direction, the earth trembles. At her will, the earth breaks.
The distant silver thread of the Mighty Nein’s alarm spell wakes them up too late.
Rocks fly, and yelling follows, shouts and screams and curses snarled into the air. Distant figures scramble to regain their ground. Astrid walks forward, long strides and an even gait, and smiles faintly at their resistance, the magic she can feel building in the air, the taste of ash on her tongue. A fire spell?
She casts Counterspell as easy as breathing. Fire is nothing to her. Fire is useless. The first friend Astrid ever had wore fire like a cloak and threw sparks everywhere, uncaring of the scorch marks he left behind him. Astrid could block fire in her sleep.
Still—her smile curdles at the reminder. The fading flames make her stomach tight. Her fingers clench and curl in the air, and the earth gives a vicious, violent, petty twist. The distant silhouette of the spellcaster falls to their knees.
From the sending stone tied to her wrist, she can hear Eodwulf laughing. He is already there, of course, right in the thick of it—Astrid as the earth breaker, the ground shaker; Eodwulf as the sly tongue, the charmer. It’s a game, now, between the two of them: will he convince the group to slaughter one another, or will Astrid get to them first?
“Incoming!” Eodwulf sings, bright to her ears. “Drinks will be on you, dear, I’ve got them right where I want them.”
She picks up the pace, grinning outright, shaking the memories from her head. Oh no, not today—she will not be paying for their drinks tonight! “I don’t think so.”
“That starting spell didn’t kill a single one of them,” Eodwulf tutts back. “Nice show, but little impact. Watch and learn, my friend, this is how you stamp out—”
And he stops.
“Eodwulf?”
He makes a noise. Soft, involuntary. It rings from the sending stone clear as a bell, and sends ice shooting down her spine. “Eodwulf!”
“No,” he says. His voice is distant, fearful. Her silver-tongued friend, reduced to a stuttering whisper. Astrid’s blood runs cold. “No, wait, you can’t be, you are—are you—?”
There is a snapping sound, a yell, a distant flurry of sparks and lightning. Eodwulf’s voice cuts off.
Astrid reaches out her hand, fury and hatred and fear singing in her gut— not him too —and tears the earth apart.
.
This moment will ring clear in her memory for years to come. Astrid, standing there, an academy student for barely a year. Eodwulf, to her right, looking sick. Bren to her left, practically shaking with excitement, hands clasped behind his back and smile bright.
The man from a year ago stands before them, the old man with his long white beard and gnarled hands. His eyes crinkle over at them, smiling even as he speaks with their teachers. Eodwulf cringes at the sight. Astrid wonders. And Bren, bright and knowing, leans over to whisper in her ear.
“We’re not in trouble, I bet. I think… I think we got chosen .”
In the end, Bren has the right of it. They are not in trouble. The three of them—some of the brightest, the boldest, the most skilled—they have been hand-picked. Hand-chosen. They have one teacher, now, and they will train under him alone. The old man, Trent Ikithon.
“It is an honor,” their teachers say to them, later, as they pack their bags. “To be chosen for this. It is an honor.”
She believes them.
.
Astrid rips the earth apart and leaves the Mighty Nein to the mercy of unfaltering stone-cold shrapnel. She doesn’t even look to see if it’s hit them; she is already by Eodwulf’s side, her hand at his neck. His head is lulling, his eyes dull—a spell of some kind? It must be—but his pulse beats steady at her fingers.
Her hands clench, magic tearing free from her hold, each word of the spell ripped from her throat. She is suddenly, blindingly angry. What has done this to him? There is ash in Eodwulf’s hair and blood trickling from his temple, and she is going to tear these people apart for this. She is going to rip them limb from limb.
But first: Eodwulf. She tucks his arms to his sides, gentle and kind, then slips a small ring from the bag at her side and onto her fingers. Trinkets such as these—small items filled with spells stored and saved for moments like this—are expensive, only for emergencies, and she does not hesitate as she presses the ring to Eodwulf’s forehead and lets the teleportation incantation take hold.
His body vanishes, spirited away to a safe house a few miles off. With luck, she will be back by his side before he awakens. Astrid tucks the empty ring in her pack and rises to her feet. Eodwulf is safe, and now—now, she will rip the Mighty Nein to pieces.
She can hear them coming for her. Footsteps pounding on loose earth, high voices shouting swears in the Common tongue. Astrid smiles and turns to meet them. There is magic building at her palms, violence in the set of her hands. There are words of power on the tip of her tongue, and then she looks across the battlefield and her voice slams stone-cold in her throat.
.
This moment Astrid will remember for years to come. Her new teacher, Trent Ikithon, looking upon them with something like pride and expectation. Bren, beaming ear-to-ear. Beside her, Eodwulf, still shaking, but now from excitement rather than fear.
The three of them, standing there, side by side—once just the three nobodies from a small village, now students together, a team, a unit. She looks across and sees them smiling, and it is the easiest thing in the world to smile back. To meet their eyes and match their laughter.
And she knows, then, with stone-cold certainty, with all the presence and weight of prophecy: together, they will conquer anything.
And they are together, then. Astrid, Bren, Eodwulf. Three friends, destined for something greater.
In that moment, she thinks they are unbreakable.
.
He is different, but she knows him. She knows the shape of his face, the color of his hair, the curve of his eyes and the bend of his smile. He is older, the sixteen years since she last saw him stark on his face. He is—worn, starving thin, with a bent back and hair longer than the crew-cut he should have. He is different, but she still knows him.
Bren.
The shock of it hits her like a blow. She chokes on her tongue, her will waning, her hands twisting out of her spell to reach out, helpless and disbelieving, reaching for him. Bren. Bren, her first friend, her first almost. Bren, the boy who set trees on fire and admired the flame. Bren: the best of them, the one everyone knew would do great things, the one who was always the first to smile, to laugh, to share a joke.
Bren, who is not moving, who stands there a few feet away, ash and dust coating long hair, blue eyes wide and his face gone white and empty.
“Bren?” Astrid whispers, and he looks her in the eye and says nothing at all.
Too late, she remembers where she is. She flinches back, hands rising, words on her tongue—but her chance has been lost, the tide turned. Astrid pulls away from the wild slash of a sword only to trip right in the path of the monk. She sees the swing. She sees the strength behind it, the intent of the blow. But it is coming too fast to dodge.
The staff slams into the side of Astrid’s head with a solid crack.
Her vision goes white, then black, and then swims back with spots burning bright behind her eyelids. She’s on the ground now, face-down, her hands pressing flat against dusty earth. Her head throbs like an open wound. She tries uselessly to push up on her feet, and the pain nearly sends her right back to the dirt.
But Astrid is not a Vollstrecker for nothing. She has not spent years and years of training, learning, living, only to be taken out here. She pushes up from the ground and stands on her own two feet.
She gets up just in time for the sleep spell to smack her right in the face.
She does not see the castor, nor hear the words, but she can feel it—the drug-like pull of the spell, the drag of it. She struggles against it, fighting with all her might to throw it off—but her head is spinning and her skull aches and Bren, that’s Bren, how is he—
And Astrid finally falls.
.
.
.
“May I go see him?” Astrid asks, three months after everything. Her voice has gone quiet, weak, almost-but-not-quite begging. Her throat is tight. Her hands, white-knuckled on the door.
Trent closes his book, and he looks at her, and she can read the truth in his face.
“No, Astrid.” His voice is grave and his eyes are dark. “I’m afraid that Bren has become… a danger. To you, and to others.” He looks back at his books and the set of his mouth tells her all she needs to know. “I’m sorry, my student. But you cannot see him.”
“I understand,” Astrid whispers, and she slips back out the door with her eyes stinging. She knows, then, for certain—Bren is gone. Bren is good as dead. She is never getting him back.
She does not ask about Bren again.