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It wasn’t the fact that the mysterious man had piloted an imperial airship that put up the hairs on the back of Dancing Heron’s neck. It wasn’t the fact that a Garlean officer’s gunblade with an eerily familiar hilt was strapped to his back. It wasn’t even the fact that he carried a comatose Alphinaud, although that certainly didn’t help matters.
It was the fact that Synnove, walking right next to her just behind the rest of the group, stopped dead in her tracks when he first spoke, her face going stony and expressionless in a way Heron had only seen a handful of times in her life, and only under very specific circumstances. It was another few heartbeats before Synnove slowly came to stand next to her again, still some distance from the man, the Highlander’s eyes never leaving the stranger even as Alisaie and Alakhai converged on him to take Alphinaud from his arms.
(Synnove had recognized the stranger’s voice, clearly. And…well, Heron would admit: something niggled at the back of her own mind, too.)
Heron strode forward, with Rereha and Hien on her heels, to take Alphinaud in turn from her smaller friends, the elezen youth’s weight negligible to her. Alisaie fretted beside her, reaching out to touch her twin’s hair, his shoulder, his cheek, as the group briskly headed back to the waiting gaggle of horrified engineers, a pair of medics rushing out to meet them. The group passed Synnove, the Highlander still unmoving, face still unreadable. Galette had shifted from her lazy sprawl across Synnove’s shoulders to a standing, coiled spring, front paws braced on one shoulder, back paws balanced on the opposite shoulder and the spot right between Synnove’s shoulder blades; Tyr and Ivar had come running from where the yols were waiting, skidding to a halt on either side of their summoner in a spray of white sand and lashing tails. All three were tense as bowstrings: Ivar growling wasn’t a surprise; Tyr growling less so; but the sight of Galette’s bared teeth and flattened ears was what sent a chill down Heron’s spine.
Synnove flicked a glance at Alphinaud, and then gave Heron a shallow nod before returning her full attention to the stranger. The carbuncles’ stares never wavered from him at all in that time.
I’m worried, but you have him, and there’s not much else I can do, that nod had said. But him I can keep an eye on.
Heron glanced over her shoulder.
The stranger was, to his credit, unflinchingly returning Synnove’s blank look with one that was mostly impassive…except for a brief flash of discomfort. And trepidation.
Alphinaud entrusted to the medics—though Alisaie only did so grudgingly—they converged back on the shield generator where Synnove and her carbuncles stared down the Garlean stranger from a distance of about twenty yalms. Once they had gathered, the stranger broke his stare with Synnove to address them all.
“We could identify no cause and found no remedy,” he said, primarily addressing Hien, and Alisaie next to him. “Thus I sought to return him to Doma—and into the arms of Lord Hien himself, it seems.”
Alisaie and Rereha both snorted.
The stranger otherwise ignored their reaction, but he did turn his gaze to the quartet of Heron and her friends. His eyes were pale gold and piercing in their intensity, and Heron felt the hairs go up on the back of her neck again. She recognized a fellow warrior, and more than that, she recognized a predator.
The danger sense lit up at the back of her mind.
He drawled, “It is a day for fated reunions…”
Oh. Oh, and there was the Echo lighting up, too, screaming at her that in a handful of heartbeats she needed to move.
“Would you not agree, adventurers?” he said to them. “Or should I address you as the ‘Warriors of Light’?”
The four of them all stared back at him, the silence practically ringing as the world seemed to hold its breath. Then Alakhai glanced down, just a bit, to a spot on his hip, and she drew in a sharp gasp.
They all followed her gaze. And there was a white mask hanging on his hip. The kind that decorated the visage of a Garlean legatus’s helmet. And each was always, always unique.
Heron felt her mind screech to a halt at the sight of that mask. She knew that mask.
But she didn’t have time to process, because that was it for Synnove, whose mind moved faster than all of their own and had probably figured it out first, of course. She’d had a hypothesis, but not enough evidence to confirm it until right this moment, and this revelation, of all revelations, on top of an Ascian wearing Zenos’s corpse, the Scions falling one by one to an unknown affliction, and a Garlean army nipping at the borders of her newly-freed homeland, it was:
The.
Very.
Last.
Straw.
The Highlander’s scream was an equal mix of rage, grief, and raw, unbridled hatred, and Heron was reminded of the warcries the Resistance had bellowed during the ambush on Rhalgr’s Reach and the Liberation of Ala Mhigo as they had engaged the Garleans in close combat. Synnove charged, her carbuncles moving in sync with her: Galette leaped from her shoulder, mischievous face twisted into a vicious snarl, as her brothers bolted forward in a mass of enraged fur and aether.
Rereha, thank all the gods, reacted at the same time as Heron: she sprinted towards Heron and launched herself into the air, with Heron grabbing her and throwing her before Heron herself raced across the sand to tackle Synnove to the ground in a flailing ball of limbs and incoherent screaming fury. Rereha reached forward and snagged Galette midair, the carbuncle screeching in shock and anger, and used the change in momentum to slam them both down into Ivar, who yowled his own bloodthirsty displeasure, with the three then rolling down the dune and out of sight; Hien swore in Doman and bolted after them. Alakhai, meanwhile, used a lifetime of livestock handling to throw herself on Tyr, knocking the huge carbuncle off balance and causing him to stumble long enough for the Xaela to incapacitate him.
Heron had Synnove pinned flat, but even with the lack of properly firm ground beneath them, the Highlander was still managing to claw her way forward, dragging the Hellsguard with her. Heron had a brief, hysterical thought that she was very thankful that Synnove didn’t have an axe at hand like the Second Zarir Incident, although she desperately wished she had two Yellowjacket squads again to help restrain her friend. “A little help here!” Heron yelled.
Alakhai, holding Tyr like he was a giant sack of popotoes and shuffling through the sand carefully to avoid stepping on any of his tails, stumbled over, throwing herself on Heron’s back and dropping Tyr over both Heron and Synnove’s legs; Tyr was behaving, but his expression was mutinous. Rereha trotted up with Galette and joined the dogpile, flopping backwards onto Heron’s shoulders. Hien carried a viciously struggling Ivar by the scruff, keeping the ruby carbuncle muzzled with his other hand, and stared down at them in bemusement.
Synnove managed another few ilms across the sand before her friends finally shifted their combined weight in just the right way to get her to stay down. She screamed in wordless frustration from beneath Heron.
The silence that descended was punctuated only by growling carbuncles and three panting Warriors of Light as everyone stared at the pile of people. Finally:
“That looked practiced,” Hien drawled. He had arms extended as far as possible to keep Ivar from digging his claws into Hien’s exposed flesh.
“Oh, you know,” Rereha said, and Heron heard the distinct sound of her patting Galette on the head as if it was just another day in the Rising Stones, “best friend wants to commit brutal, bloody murder, best to have a contingency plan in place.”
Alakhai snorted.
“Personally, I always thought we’d be doing this because either Bahram Zarir finally showed his face in Limsa Lominsa or the Arcanists’ Guild let her go to a conference in Radz-at-Han without an escort,” Heron said in a conversational tone between breaths.
“If we could focus on the matter at hand,” Alisaie snapped. “What is going on?”
Heron couldn’t see Rereha, but she knew that the lalafell was smiling. And that it was cold, and mean, and would not have been out of place at an Ul’dahn soiree. “Lady Alisaie of the House Leveilleur of Sharlayan, Lord Hien Rijin of Doma,” Rere said, her voice the lilting lyricism of the finest bardic training, “may I present the former Legatus of the now-defunct Imperial XIVth Legion of Garlemald, Gaius van Baelsar?”
There was a long moment of silence, and Heron saw Hien and Alisaie’s gazes slowly drift from the dogpile on Synnove to van Baelsar himself, who set his jaw and refused to look away. (Again, Heron had to grudgingly give him credit: there was a very angry Ala Mhigan who really, truly, desperately wanted to tear him apart with her bare hands just a few scant yalms from him, and he had stood his ground.)
Van Baelsar nodded. “Aye. Gaius van Baelsar, the Black Wolf. That was the title I was given. One I have long since relinquished.”
Hien settled nearly automatically into a battle stance, and exasperation briefly crossed his features when he realized reaching for his katana meant dropping Ivar. Ivar visibly pouted.
Van Baelsar shook his head. “Stand down,” he said. “The legatus of the XIVth Imperial Legion died in Castrum Meridianum. I am no more than Gaius Baelsar, a man without rank or allegiance.”
Under the dogpile, Synnove growled.
From there he spoke of Lahabrea, and the Ascians, and Heron resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Oh, yes, blame it all on the Ascians. Dangerous as the Ascians truly were, they did make such a convenient excuse.
Finally, Baelsar finished his monologue (Heron thought she heard Rereha mutter about Garlean officers being taught to monologue as part of their training, and she bit back a grin at the familiar gripe), throwing down his mask to the sands: “The Black Wolf has shed his pelt, never to return to Garlemald or her legions. I live now only to exact revenge.”
Synnove had been eerily quiet for a while, but at that, she did…something underneath the pile and she bucked. Heron and Rereha shrieked in surprise (and Alakhai grunted) as all three of them, plus Galette and Tyr, were dislodged and tumbled to either side as Synnove hauled herself to her feet.
“No,” she snarled, stalking forward. “No, you don’t get to disown your identity, Legatus.”
Heron swore and scrambled upright, making to follow her friend. “Synnove—”
But Synnove had reached Baelsar and hadn’t hesitated: lightning fast, she punched him square in the nose. He reeled back, and would have likely toppled over entirely, if Synnove hadn’t grabbed his coat in both hands and yanked him forward and down to her eye level to better give him the full force of her glare. He stared back at her, wide-eyed, blood dripping from his nose, but he didn’t struggle or attempt to free himself.
“First,” she spat, “for five fucking years, we lived in terror of the Mad King and who he was next going to drag off to the dungeons or the Divine Audience, which family was going to die in blood and terror, or perhaps someone would decide this group supported the king and should be eliminated to make his downfall easier. And that was your work, wasn’t it, and your intelligence apparatus, sowing the seeds of chaos until Ala Mhigo was ripe for plucking.
“And then you took our city and for TWENTY-FIVE FUCKING YEARS my people lived beneath your yoke or someone else’s! Whether it was in Ala Mhigo or the streets of Ul’dah or the canyons of Thanalan or the woodlands of the Shroud, we suffered,” Synnove said, voice cracking. “Maybe not in obvious ways, and not the same way, but suffer we did, all of us. How many children did you steal? How many families did you rend asunder? How many people did your men rape and murder? How many pretended that they never saw it happen at all, because we were just savages?”
There were tears streaming down her face now. “Don’t you fucking dare brush aside what you did to Ala Mhigo, to my people. What you did to my family.” The last was a hiss. “I saw it. When the cart was racing away from our home towards the western gate of the Wolf’s Den so we could get out of the city, I saw it.
“I saw the bullet go through my uncle’s head. I saw my grandda turn to defend him, too late, and I saw him cut down, too, before their position was overrun.”
Behind her, Heron heard Rereha make a teary, choked off noise of horror, and Alakhai a low, sorrowful moan that was for her a sob. Heron herself felt sick and icy cold.
Synnove had never said she’d seen her Uncle Tyr and grandfather Ivar die during the fall of Ala Mhigo. And Synnove had told them, her closest friends, everything about that day that she remembered, things she had never spoken of before, as she had said to them. And she never lied about such things. Which meant she had never told this to anyone. Not her father, not Angharad, no one.
Twenty-five years, she had never spoken of it.
“I don’t care that it more than likely wasn’t you who personally did it,” Synnove hissed again, into the eyes of one of the few men Heron knew she truly hated with all her heart. “It’s still your fault they’re dead at all.
“So, tell me, Gaius van Baelsar,” and the rage was back in all its roaring intensity, “why I shouldn’t have my reckoning HERE AND NOW?”
Her voice echoed across the Burn, the silence left in its wake deafening. No one dared to move.
“The XIVth was the sword, aye,” Baelsar said at long last, “and I was the hand that wielded it, and wielded it well. Who, then, controlled the hand?”
Synnove tensed, and her hands spasmed around the handfuls of his coat.
Baelsar tilted his head, so his throat was exposed to her. “I will not deny you your vengeance, nor Ala Mhigo’s should they claim it, well-earned as it is,” he said. “I would request, however, that for the time being, you stay your hand—if only so that it can be directed towards the corruption that festers at the heart of the Empire, as I am your best chance at excising that particular rot.”
Synnove growled deep in her throat.
“My principal quarry was to be Lahabrea, but you and yours ushered him unto oblivion long before I had the chance,” he said. “But so many more Ascians remain. Long has their kind lurked in the shadows, laboring to sow chaos throughout our world. I would see each and every one dragged into the light and put to the sword. Are the Scions not of like mind?”
Heron could practically hear Synnove grinding her teeth. It was Alisaie who replied, wary and incredulous, “In this single respect, perhaps…”
Baelsar inclined his head in Alisaie’s direction, though his gaze never wavered from Synnove’s. “Then I shall continue the partnership the boy began, and share what intelligence I have acquired. Though in order to do so, I will still need to be living.”
Heron felt her eyebrows hitch upwards. Huh. The Black Wolf could in fact pull off sarcasm. How deeply unsettling.
Logic, however, was apparently reasserting itself over soul-deep rage and grief, if only because blood wasn’t currently being spilled on the sands. Synnove stared Gaius Baelsar dead in the eye for a handful more heartbeats, before she abruptly dropped her hands and stalked back towards the group, spine rigid and limbs tense. She reached Heron and dropped to sit in the sand on her right with a hard ‘thump!,’ staring blankly forward towards the Ironworks camp. In a moment she had Galette winding herself around her neck and a lap full of frantically purring Tyr.
Heron shifted just enough so her calf pressed into Synnove (got your back)—Synnove leaned into it (thank you)—keeping a vigilant eye on Baelsar as an uncomfortable silence settled on the Burn. Baelsar, for his part, merely reached up to gingerly prod at his nose to check for a break then wipe the blood from his mouth and chin.
The quiet was broken by Hien’s yelp of pain, and Heron turned just slightly to see the Doman prince shaking his hands out as Ivar, fur quickly dimming from a fiery glow, darted towards Synnove. Heron caught Hien’s eye and cocked her head.
Hien grinned ruefully. “Not less than I deserve for trying to keep that one from his mama,” he said.
Another ‘thump!’ caught Heron’s attention, and she glanced down at her right again. Ivar, of course, was now sitting on Tyr’s head (Tyr didn’t seem to notice, too busy pressing his face into Synnove and purring like a magitek engine) with his stomach pressed all along Synnove’s front, his paws tucked between himself and Synnove, and his face shoved around Galette’s mass of tails so he could cuddle his mama and growl at Baelsar. Alisaie, however, had also joined the cuddle pile, though not quite as blatantly: she sat on Synnove’s left, knees tucked up to her chest and hands clasped around them, but facing out towards Baelsar even as she leaned heavily into Synnove—and Synnove leaned back.
Alisaie glanced up at Heron and the pair shared a subtle nod as they turned their attention back to the former legatus.
Rereha, thank all the gods again, had put on her Merchant Princess face. She finished brushing sand off herself and stepped forward a few paces, drawing the attention of the group. “Well, then, Black Wolf,” she said, vicious smile in place. “Let’s hear what you have to say.”
“While black-masked Ascians are subordinate to those who wear red, even among the red-masked there is a hierarchy,” Baelsar said. “Those set adrift with the shards of the star clearly stand below those still joined to the Source. Nabriales and Igeyorhm were of the former. And while they were indeed dangerous foes, their powers were inconsequential next to the Paragons of the Source. The first was Lahabrea, who plagues us no more.”
“Something for which we are all quite grateful,” Heron said drily. And, unable to resist the dig: “He enjoyed his monologues nearly as much as you.”
Baelsar heaved a sigh and muttered, “I suppose I deserve that.”
The four Warriors of Light all snorted. Hien stifled a laugh. Alisaie didn’t bother.
“To return to the matter at hand…” Baelsar raised his eyebrow at them. Once the group at large had settled, he continued: “There is also the white-robed Elidibus; and the elusive Emet-Selch, about whom little is known.”
Synnove shifted against Heron’s leg. Rereha and Alakhai exchanged a glance and a series of hand gestures.
Alisaie said, “We have files on Lahabrea and Elidibus, but I believe this ‘Emet-Selch’ is new to us...?”
“Aye,” Rereha said. “That is most assuredly not a name in the bingo book.”
“Stop calling it that,” Alakhai said.
“Make me.”
Heron resisted the urge to roll her eyes. And Rereha had been doing so well.
“As I assume my brother told you,” Alisaie said, pointedly ignoring Rereha and Alakhai as the pair began rapidly gesturing insults at one another, and putting that Leveilleur gravitas to good use to offset sitting in the sand, “we have evidence to suggest that an Ascian now walks in the body of the crown prince. Have you identified this interloper?”
“Elidibus seems the most likely culprit,” said Baelsar, briefly eyeing the two silently arguing Warriors of Light, before turning his attention back to Alisaie. “As ‘emissary,’ it is his role to maintain the equilibrium between Darkness and Light.”
“He certainly never shuts up about it,” Synnove muttered. Her voice shook, but Heron for once today wasn’t concerned: it was the uniform buzzing of someone whose bones were literally shaking from carbuncle purrs.
“Your many deeds in Hydaelyn's name have upset the balance, at least how he views it, and I believe he seeks to restore it by throwing his considerable power behind the Empire.” Heron was fairly certain he was trying to avoid having to respond to Synnove. Smart man.
Baelsar continued, “As a leader of the Ascians, he is one of our primary targets. It was on the trail of this very prey that the boy and I came across the scene of a failed uprising. In the absence of a single Garlean casualty, we inspected the bodies of the rebels, and the lack of any external injury drew my immediate attention. It is my belief they had been slain by Black Rose--”
Synnove and Heron swore, and Rereha and Alakhai stopped their silent argument to swing their gazes to stare at Baelsar.
“…You know it, then?” the Black Wolf said cautiously.
“We recovered the information on it for the Alliance early on during the Ala Mhigan Campaign,” Heron said, crossing her arms. “And since she already had the clearance, Synnove assisted the Arcanists’ Guild’s aetherochemistry department’s epidemiology team work through the numbers and equations.”
Baelsar grimaced.
Alisaie turned to look at Synnove, brow furrowed. “What is Black Rose, then?”
“Absolutely horrific alchemical concoction,” Synnove said, tone utterly devoid of emotion, the one Heron recognized from when Synnove emphatically did not want to recall details about whatever it was she being forced to speak about. Tyr’s purring ramped up. “Calling it a ‘toxis gas’ would be an awful understatement. I prefer ‘abomination.’ I’ll explain the details when we debrief with Alliance leadership, because I’m only doing it once and only when I can get roaring drunk immediately afterwards.”
“Could this be the new weapon Maxima reported was being used?” Alisaie said, utterly aghast.
“Chances are a solid one that it is the weapon indeed.”
Baelsar nodded grimly. “While I ordered production halted when I discovered Black Rose’s existence as legatus of the XIVth, clearly copies of the research had already been sent back to Garlemald. We infiltrated a production facility, and destroyed all existing stores of the chemical along with the plant itself. But that is likely only a minor setback, as the chances of that facility being the sole one in operation…” He shook his head.
“Regardless, I would draw your attention to a directive we discovered in the plant’s records, one authorizing the production of Black Rose in the first place and in such vast quantities. The document was marked with a recent date, and authorized with the signature of one Zenos yae Galvus.”
“A dead man signing the death warrant for thousands,” Hien drawled. “‘Tis bad comedy.”
“And the final confirmation that this must be an Ascian using Zenos’s body,” Alisaie said, features settling into her own grim mask. “Even more so, that he works in close league with the Empire; I assume such an order by the crown prince would require the tacit approval of the emperor?”
“Aye,” Baelsar said with a heavy sigh. “But the tale does not end there—within that same facility was a chamber filled with devices of Allagan design. Cloning technology, we eventually realized.”
Synnove groaned loudly, dropping forward to press her face into Tyr’s back; Ivar wiggled forward over her shoulder to prevent himself from being squished and to keep Baelsar in his line of sight. “Allagans,” she said, tone so sharp and scathing it could probably flay someone. “Always the Allagans and their buffalo shite coming back to bite civilization in the ass thousands of years later.”
“Allagans are cockroaches,” Rereha said. Alakhai and Heron both nodded in agreement, as Alisaie snickered and Hien crooked a grin.
Baelsar wore the expression of a man torn between wanting to laugh and wanting to be disapproving. After a moment, he merely shook his head, and said, “And what should we find in each and every incubator...but a young Emperor Solus.”
Rereha’s own expression went from darkly amused to gobsmacked so quickly Heron was fairly certain she’d pulled a muscle in her face. Heron herself felt her face go slack, her jaw sagging open. Synnove behind her had apparently started carefully banging her face into Tyr, as Heron recognized the rhythmic ‘thunk!’ of Synnove’s head hitting Tyr’s sides regularly interrupting his thrumming purrs. Alakhai just put her face in her hands and sighed, even as Hien threw his hands in an ‘I give up’ gesture.
Heron glanced down at Alisaie and then immediately jerked her gaze forward, every hair on the back of her neck standing upright. Alisaie’s expression of disgusted malice was one particular to the Leveilleurs that Heron had seen before, in the coils of a self-rebuilding Dalamud, under the shadow of a regenerating Dreadwyrm.
It hadn’t been either of the twins who had worn it.
“All of which prompts the question,” Baelsar said, crossing his arms and drawing the attention of the group again, “were the Ascians responsible for these abominations? Or was it the will of the Emperor?”
He shook his head, visage grim and, dare Heron say it, sorrowful, as his shoulders dropped. “I must know which hand guides the Empire, and for how long it has done so. Though I have given up my rank, I am yet a son of Garlemald...and I will fight for the future of my homeland.”
Synnove stiffened next to her. Heron briefly raised her gaze skyward; if any of the gods or the Mothercrystal were paying attention, please let them keep one of her best friends from being driven into a murderous rage. Again.
“It is time I returned to the hunting of shadows,” Baelsar said, drawing himself back to his full head. “Should I come into possession of new information, I will make contact with the Scions—provided our alliance holds?”
Alisaie stared at him for a few long moments, then finally replied, “You saved my brother’s life, so I'm willing to let sleeping dogs lie. But in truth, it’s not my decision to make.”
All eyes turned to Synnove as she hauled herself to her feet, Alisaie quickly following, and turned around to face Gaius van Baelsar. Her face was drawn and wan, but the anger was still there, and she should have looked ridiculous with Tyr pressing against her knees, Galette draped around her neck, and Ivar now being held tucked into her side, but everyone was intelligent enough to know how dangerous the carbuncles could be without Synnove having to say a word. All three constructs drove the point home by baring their teeth, but they didn’t move otherwise.
“This is not redemption,” Synnove said, voice hoarse and biting. “This is not forgiveness. This is not a balancing of the scales. Orders or not, the choices you made were your own, and thousands upon thousands suffered for it for a quarter of a century. The Ascians are the greater threat, however, and so I’ll put my grievances aside. For now.
“But mark my words, Baelsar: a reckoning will not be postponed indefinitely.”
They stared at one another across the sands for long moments, the Garlean and the Ala Mhigan, taking the measure of one another. It was Baelsar who broke the stalemate, when he inclined his head respectfully towards Synnove. Heron felt her shoulders relax, and the tension in the air finally began to dissipate.
“There was a time,” he said quietly, “when I scorned those who placed their faith in false gods—even as I, in my blinkered conviction, placed mine in Ascians promises. Unlike yours, my strength of will—and my restraint—was found wanting. We shall meet again, Warriors of Light.”
With that, he turned on his heel and strode back to his airship.
Hien shook his head as they watched Baelsar leave. “So that was the infamous Black Wolf,” he said. “An unexpected ally, to say the least…”
Synnove grunted, and Heron pulled her into a sideways hug. Her friend slumped against her, dropping her head to Heron’s shoulder.
“I want his information network,” Rereha said, apropos of nothing, as the airship took off and flew west.
Alisaie and Hien turned to look at the lalafell. “What do you mean?” Alisaie said.
“Nabriales and Igeyorhm,” Rereha said. Her tone turned serious, attracting everyone’s attention in full now. “He named those two specific Ascians, but why those two, unless he knew of their significance to us? The Scions have not shared that information outside our ranks, and while I’ll acknowledge the possibility Nabriales’s name being known could be traced to Ilberd’s circle of conspirators among the Crystal Braves, Igeyorhm’s? No.”
There was dead silence over the group as they exchanged horrified expressions over Synnove’s head. Synnove growled quietly.
“I hate it when you talk sense, Rere,” Alakhai grumbled.
“Think how I feel doing it!”
“Regardless of how he obtained his information,” Alisaie said, “he’s apparently good for it. The matter of a potential leak will have to wait until you can brief Riol back home.” She swallowed heavily.
Hien rested a careful hand on Alisaie’s shoulder. “Let us bid our friends from the Ironworks farewell and see what can be done for Alphinaud back in Doma,” he said gently. “And from there, how we will see him safely to Revenant’s Toll.”
Alisaie nodded, but before she turned to leave with Hien, she shot a questioning look to Heron.
Heron made a gentle shooing motion. “We’ll catch up,” she said.
Alisaie darted forward to hug Synnove, which she returned without looking up from Heron’s shoulder. “Thank you, sweetheart,” came Synnove’s muffled voice.
Alakhai and Rereha closed ranks as the red mage went to catch up with Hien. Once they were alone (or better to say, far enough away from anyone else to be politely ignored and given their privacy), Heron said, “Honesty set to on: how are you feeling?”
“Like shite.”
“Well, that’s understandable,” Rereha said, climbing up to stand on Tyr’s back; Tyr obliging locked his legs to hold steady. “It’s been a shite day.”
“What do you want to do?” Alakhai said.
Synnove was quiet for a long moment. When she finally spoke, it was around a broken sob of, “I’d really like to hug my aunt right now.”
Without a word, the Warriors of Light enfolded their friend in a group hug as she cried against Heron’s shoulder. Besides Synnove’s sobs, the only other sound that echoed across the Burn was the comforting purr of carbuncles.