Reiner von Tezca was arrested at dawn.
I didn't do it myself. That would have been too much trouble, and I had already been awake for about twenty-two hours. At that point, I wanted breakfast more than I wanted to make a dramatic entrance.
Instead, I gave the harbor master a clean set of evidence: Greth's commission records, the proxy chain, the statements from two people who had seen Reiner's fixer at the beach, and the signed report from Julius's delegation about the attempts on the crown prince's life.
The harbor master moved quickly.
Reiner was taken from the east wing of the estate at around six-thirty in the morning. He was still in his nightclothes.
That seemed appropriate for someone who had spent three days trying to kill a foreign prince and frame me for it.
They searched his rooms, checked his letters, and found Davo at his lodgings in the lower harbor district less than an hour later.
I watched from the guest wing balcony with a cup of tea and the most expensive pastry I had found in the kitchen.
It had fruit in it.
It was very good.
Jane appeared beside me after a while. She knew I had gone out last night. She always knew. She stood there quietly, but I could tell she wanted to ask questions.
She did not ask them because Julius was sitting at the other end of the balcony, reading his delegation's report and correcting it with a pen.
"The harbor master is asking if you can give a formal statement," she said.
"Tell him yes. I'll go after I finish this."
I held up the pastry.
Jane looked at it, then looked at me.
"It has fruit," I said.
"Yes, my Lady."
The statement took forty-five minutes.
I told the harbor master about the commission chain, my visit to the guild, and what I had done on the reserve ships. I did not mention the Scion or the shell-armored figures. I still did not know what they were, and putting strange details into an official statement without enough explanation would only make things more difficult.
The harbor master had been doing his job for thirty years, so he knew how to deal with complicated cases. He wrote everything down and thanked me before leaving.
He looked very relieved.
I understood why.
By mid-morning, everyone knew.
The Crimson Wake was finished in the South. The hostages had returned. Reiner was in custody.
The beaches were safe.
Marisport had lived under the Crimson Wake's shadow for years, so the city became noisy as soon as the threat was gone.
The market district came alive. Vendors who had stayed inside for months brought their stalls back out. Music started somewhere near the harbor by noon.
A group of fishermen gave Julius a very large fish.
He accepted it politely, but he looked like he had no idea what he was supposed to do with it.
I ate my way through six market stalls.
That seemed right.
The people of Marisport were celebrating, and I was going to let them celebrate. I was also going to eat two more things before anyone asked me to do anything else.
I was halfway through my third purchase—a fried something wrapped in a leaf—when Trynda, who was riding in my jacket pocket, suddenly stopped moving.
It was not the restless kind of stillness that came from a bird trying to make itself small.
This was the stillness of something listening.
I stopped walking.
The harbor was on my left, and the sea beyond it was clear and bright under the afternoon sun. The fishing boats were out, and everything looked normal.
"Trynda," I thought.
[Trynda says nothing.]
That alone was enough to make me nervous.
I activated [Clairvoyance].
The bay came into view.
Beyond the headland was the place where I had used [Spatial Lock] on the reserve ships. The lock was still there, and the ships were still there.
The place where the small shell-armored figures had gone last night was not empty.
There were fleets.
Not a small raiding party. Not a group waiting for an ambush.
These were actual fleets, arranged in layers and moving toward the southern shore in an organized formation.
Dozens of low vessels moved in wide circles. Behind them were larger platforms that looked less like ships and more like floating forts.
Small, furry figures stood on them.
They were moving according to the same drum signals I had seen on the pirate ship.
They wore wooden masks with painted faces and had sharp blue eyes visible through the holes. Some carried short spears. Others stood higher up on the platforms with throwing spears and blowdart launchers.
The weapons were pointed toward the shore.
Moglo were in front.
Mogloko were standing on the platforms.
There were hundreds of them.
I started moving before the first drum signal reached the beach.
The southern side of the Tezca estate ran along a low cliff above the beach. Usually, it was just a walking path with a nice view.
Now it was the only thing between around three hundred small, furry enemies and Marisport.
The wall along the cliff was not mine.
It was an old Tezca wall made from clay and packed stone. It was about waist-high in most places, and it had been built to mark the estate boundary, not to stop an army.
The guards had reinforced it with whatever they could find after the alarm was raised.
It was not enough.
I had enchanted the wall during my first night at the estate. I often enchanted things when I was bored, and the wall seemed like the sort of thing that might become useful later.
I had not expected it to become useful within two days.
But it did.
I had used three spells.
[Structural Reinforcement] made the stone more resistant to impact. [Barrier Diffusion] spread the force across the wall instead of letting it hit one place. [Anchor] locked the foundations in place.
The first wave hit the wall like a heavy tide.
The throwing spears came first. Dozens of them flew from the Mogloko positions on the platforms.
They were too accurate to be random.
The spears hit the wall and scattered. [Barrier Diffusion] spread the force across the surface, and the stones shook without breaking.
The guards behind the wall still felt the vibration.
Some stumbled. A few fell down.
I moved along the wall without being seen and added [Holy Flame Lattice] to the outside. It was not strong enough to kill anyone, but it would make touching the wall unpleasant.
I also added more [Structural Reinforcement] to the parts taking the most damage.
The Moglos came next.
They ran toward the wall and stabbed at it with their spears. They were looking for gaps and trying to make places where they could climb over.
The wall held.
The guards had recovered by then and started fighting back. The Tezca soldiers were fewer than the soldiers of the northern duchies, but they were not useless. They knew the land and understood how to use the wall's height.
Julius had gone to the weakest part of the wall without anyone telling him to.
I had expected that.
His attendants spread out along the wall and helped fill the gaps. They fought like people who had already experienced dangerous situations and knew what to do.
I moved around them and quietly fixed the parts that needed fixing.
When one section took too many hits, I pushed [Anchor] deeper into the foundation. When a guard was hit by a blowdart, I used [Restoration] before the poison could spread past his knees.
I was not officially part of the fight.
The wall was holding by itself, the guards were fighting, and Julius was doing good work.
None of that was false.
The first wave eventually pulled back.
There was no dramatic retreat. The drum signals simply changed, and the Moglos returned to the water's edge.
They regrouped with the calm movements of people who had already done this before.
The attack had been a test.
The platforms stayed in the bay, and the fleets stayed behind them.
They were not leaving.
They were waiting.
Twenty-three guards were injured.
One had a dislocated shoulder after a Mogloko spear reached over the wall before I reinforced that section. Two had mild concussions from the vibration. Several had been hit by blowdarts.
The poison was real, but one dose would not kill anyone. It worked more like a strong sleeping medicine.
During the break, I treated the worst injuries without anyone noticing the cloaked figure moving among the wounded.
Nobody died.
I leaned against the eastern end of the wall and looked at the bay.
The fleet was larger than it had looked from a distance.
I counted forty-seven low vessels in front and twelve larger platforms behind them. [Clairvoyance] also showed another group beyond the headland, waiting in deeper water where they could not be seen from the shore.
Reserves.
Or commanders.
Maybe both.
There were probably between eight hundred and a thousand of them.
For Marisport, which had a working but small military force, this was a serious crisis.
For a wall made of clay and packed stone, this should have been the end.
I looked at the wall, then at my hands.
Without the enchantments, the first attack would have broken through it. The guards would have been forced to fight in the open against ranged weapons fired from higher ground.
Marisport would have lost its first defense before anyone could organize properly.
I had enchanted the wall because I had been bored.
It had become useful.
That made me think about the timing. It made me think about the fact that I had been here when this happened.
It also made me think about the unique quest that had appeared last night without any objectives or failure condition.
"Right," I thought.
[Xipe is silent.]
[Hecatia is silent.]
[Tyr withdrew after last night and still hasn't returned.]
I looked at Trynda in my pocket. They were watching the bay, their feathers held close to their body.
"Trynda," I thought. "What are they?"
[Trynda is silent.]
"You know something."
[Trynda ruffles their feathers.]
[Trynda says: some information belongs to the one who will understand it properly, when they understand it properly. I am not the right mouth for this.]
I stared at them.
"That is the most uselessly mysterious thing you have ever said to me."
[Trynda says: you're welcome.]
I looked back at the bay.
The Mogloko drum patterns were different from the Kakamora's. I had been listening to them since last night, and the rhythms were similar but not the same.
They were probably different dialects.
They used the same drum-and-movement system, wore masks, and coordinated their spears through the drum signals. This looked more like military training than a tribal raid.
They had also appeared immediately after the Scion died.
The Scion had worn a cloak that prevented recognition, killed a pirate so information would not spread, and killed themselves rather than being captured.
Before dying, they had said something.
I had not heard it clearly, but they had been looking at me.
The book in the library, the fleet in the bay, the symbol on the chief's token, and the strange quest were all connected.
I just did not know how.
That was what I hated most.
It was not the danger. I could deal with danger.
It was not the number of enemies. The enchantments were holding.
It was not even the gods being silent. They sometimes became quiet when something happened outside their authority.
I hated not knowing what kind of problem this was.
I had the feeling that this was not something I could solve by using more power. It was the same kind of feeling that had kept Josephine alive when she was surrounded by enemies, and had kept Yoo-ra alive during all the years people underestimated her.
"I'm not going to solve this with a Galaxy Impact," I thought.
"I probably can't solve it with strength at all."
That meant I needed information, resources, and help from the people who were currently having a very loud argument about sixty meters away.
The command tent was ready in the middle of the estate two hours after the first attack. That was fast, although it had probably caused the Tezca sub-family several headaches.
There were maps, a table, and around sixteen people talking at the same time.
I stood outside and listened.
The five Tezca sub-family representatives were arguing about authority. Reiner was in custody, so the ranking had changed, and everyone wanted to know who was supposed to give orders.
Should they contact the main family in the capital?
Would that take too long?
Was the harbor authority under the military or the civilian government during a coastal attack?
The Solidarian delegation was arguing politely about whether a foreign delegation had any right to join the discussion, since this was technically an imperial matter.
Sera was trying to suggest practical cooperation, but nobody was listening because the Tezca representatives were too busy arguing with one another.
Julius sat in the corner with his arms folded. He looked like he had tried to speak twice and been ignored both times.
There was also a harbor master's representative, three guard captains, a Tezca civil administrator, and a senior harbor priest who was burning incense.
I did not think the incense was helping.
Twenty-seven people.
One argument.
Nothing was getting done.
[Hecatia breaks her silence to observe that their child has a very specific expression right now.]
"Yes," I thought.
[Hecatia asks if their child is going to do something dramatic.]
"Probably."
[Hecatia says she has been waiting for this.]
I took out my fan.
I had been carrying it since the delegation arrived because diplomatic events required one, and it was useful for pointing at things.
I also took out the imperial scroll.
The envoy had given it to me three days ago with a lot of ceremony and very little enthusiasm. It had the imperial seal and the part about my authority over this region.
I had read it carefully because I read documents carefully, even when I did not want the responsibility that came with them.
Paragraph four, section two, sub-clause three.
It was a useful paragraph.
I opened the tent flap and went inside.
I had removed the cloak before entering because this was a situation where people needed to see me. I had also checked my appearance in a reflective surface.
My southern formal dress had survived the night without any visible damage, my hair was still acceptable, and I looked like someone who had been awake for twenty-six hours.
Good enough.
The argument continued for about three seconds after I entered.
Then the nearest people stopped talking.
The silence moved around the table until everyone was looking at me.
Twenty-seven people.
I opened the fan. The sound was clear in the quiet tent.
"Everyone," I said pleasantly. "Stop talking and listen."
Nobody moved.
I walked to the table, placed the scroll on it, and opened it to the paragraph I wanted.
"Paragraph four, section two, sub-clause three. I'll read it for anyone who hasn't checked it."
I looked around the room.
"Or we can accept that it says what it says, which is that when the Tezca main family is absent, a member of a ducal main family who is present in the territory has full temporary authority over Tezca's security and civil matters under imperial orders."
I closed the fan.
"That means me."
The senior sub-family representative was a man named Horst. He was third in rank and had been the most reasonable person in the argument.
He straightened.
"Lady Josephine, the authority over the estate's defense is—"
"Mine," I said. "The emperor's seal is on the document."
I pointed at it.
"You can complain about that later. Right now, there are around eight hundred enemies in the bay, and they will probably attack again in about four hours."
I checked the drum pattern in my head.
"Maybe a little earlier or later. So we can argue about authority until then, or we can use the time to prepare."
Nobody said anything.
"I prefer preparing," I said. "You can help if you want."
I closed the scroll and placed it on the table.
Then I looked around the room with the expression Josephine had practiced for years.
It was the expression that told people I had already decided what they were useful for and that we were going to work whether they liked it or not.
Sera was watching me from across the table. She had the same look she used when she was studying something.
Julius was still watching me from the corner. His expression had changed from frustration to something I did not want to examine.
If I examined it, Eros would be annoying.
The harbor priest had stopped burning incense.
Horst looked at the scroll, then at me.
"What do you propose?" he asked.
I placed my hands on the table.
"The wall is holding, but it won't hold forever if the attack continues. The clay sections need more support before the next wave. I can reinforce them, but I need access and time."
I looked at the guard captains.
"I need the guards to leave the wall for two hours and return before the next attack. Can you arrange that?"
The woman on the left nodded immediately.
"Yes."
"Good. I also need a list of all the injured. I need to know who can move and who cannot. I can treat the serious cases, but I need the information first."
I looked at the civil administrator.
"You'll handle that."
He blinked.
"I—yes. I can do that."
"The creatures in the bay are not attacking randomly. They are using drums to communicate, and they have a command structure. I have been listening to the patterns since last night, but I need someone who knows the southern coast to compare them with old records."
I looked at the harbor master's representative.
"Who is your most experienced coastal historian?"
"Aldric. He's been here for forty years."
"Bring him here."
"He is currently on the harbor authority side of—"
"Bring him here."
I tried to sound patient.
The harbor master's representative left.
I turned to Sera.
"The Solidarian delegation fought the Crimson Wake less than a day ago and wrote a report about it. If it contains anything about the creatures on the ship, send it to me."
Sera nodded.
"I'll prepare it."
"Julius."
He looked at me.
"The Solidarian royal family has ships and other maritime resources. I'm not asking you to send them. I'm saying that your delegation's official report will have more weight with the emperor than mine will."
I paused.
"Put your delegation's seal on the harbor master's report."
Julius was quiet for a moment.
"That is within my authority as acting envoy."
"Yes, it is."
He unfolded his arms.
"It will be done."
I looked around the table.
"We have four hours. We're going to prepare during that time. We're not going to argue about authority anymore. The scroll is here, and the matter is settled. Anyone who wants to argue with it can wait for the emperor to arrive in six days."
I looked at Horst.
"That gives you six days to prepare."
Then I looked at everyone else.
"Any questions?"
Nobody spoke.
This was not the same silence as before. This silence meant they finally had something to do.
"Then let's begin."
They began.
Horst was competent once someone gave him clear instructions. Most bureaucratic people were like that. They could carry out decisions well, but they needed someone else to make the decision first.
He organized the guard rotation, and the civil administrator had an injury list ready within thirty minutes.
I treated the injured myself.
The blowdart cases came first. The poison made people sleepy, and its strongest effect came around six hours after exposure. I needed those people awake and able to move.
I used targeted [Restoration] on each person. It took about three minutes per case.
The serious injuries needed [Full Restoration]. It used a lot of mana, and I was going to feel it later, but three people were already developing internal damage from the vibration.
I could not leave them like that.
Aldric, the harbor historian, arrived soon after.
I spent forty-five minutes comparing the drum patterns I had written down with his records from the past forty years.
He was an old man who had spent his career being ignored because his interests were too unusual. Now he sat across from me with a serious expression, because someone was finally listening to what he had studied for decades.
The drum patterns matched parts of an old coastal mythology record.
The harbor authority had never thought the record was useful.
Aldric kept almost asking who I was and how I knew about the patterns.
I had read a book.
That was the honest answer.
I had read a book, received divine skills, and had a familiar that refused to explain things directly while appearing whenever important information was nearby.
I did not tell him.
I reinforced the wall between the meeting with Aldric and the briefing for the guard captains.
It took two hours.
This time, [Structural Reinforcement] had to reach the foundation instead of only strengthening the surface, and [Anchor] had to be placed again at several points.
I stood at the southeast corner with my hand against the stone and pushed magic through it while thinking about the fleet.
Eight hundred.
Maybe a thousand.
Small, furry, masked, and organized.
They were connected to the creation myth I had found in the library, to the Scion who had killed themselves rather than be captured, and to the quest that had not even explained what counted as winning.
"I'm not going to solve this quickly," I thought.
"I'm not going to solve it without finding out what they want."
The next attack would come in a little over an hour.
I did not need to defeat it.
I needed to survive it and keep the wall standing while I figured out the real problem.
I pushed the last of the [Anchor] into place and stepped away from the wall.
The bay was still full of ships, the drums were still playing in the same slow pattern, and the sun was lower now.
[Hecatia finally speaks. She says: our child does not know what she is doing yet. But she is doing it anyway. We find this admirable.]
"That is the least useful compliment I've ever received," I thought.
[Hecatia says: it was not meant to be useful. It was meant to be true.]
I looked at the bay for a moment, then went inside to run the briefing.
There were still many things I didn't know.
But I knew where I was, what I had to protect, and what I needed to do in the next hour.
For now, that was enough.