Pagopoi 19, Imperial Year 1643
The Royal Palace, Capital of Mercia
The king's council chamber was cold, despite the fire roaring in the hearth. King Aldric the Third sat at the head of a long oak table, his face pale, his hands trembling. Before him stood his spymaster, his general, and the high priest of Dike.
"Another one," the king said. His voice was hoarse. "Another assassination. In a public theater. In front of hundreds of witnesses."
"Yes, Your Majesty," the spymaster said. He was a thin man with gray hair and a scar across his throat. "The victim was a circus master named Horatio Vane. He was impaled with a stolen guard's spear by a figure in a beaked mask. Witnesses describe him as tall, dressed in black, with a mask like a bird's head."
"The same figure from the pilgrim incident?"
"We believe so. The description matches – the beaked mask, the dark clothing, the theatrical speech, the use of magic to appear and vanish. And witnesses near the stage reported seeing a strange weapon tucked under his coat, though he did not use it."
The king slammed his fist on the table. "I do not care about consistency! I care about results! You have been hunting this assassin for months. Months! And what do you have to show for it? A handful of brass casings and a thousand terrified nobles!"
The general spoke. "Your Majesty, we have deployed twice the usual patrols. We have questioned every known mage in the kingdom. We have offered rewards that could buy a duchy. The man is a ghost."
"Ghosts can be exorcised," the high priest said. "Perhaps we should consult the oracles."
"The oracles are useless," the spymaster snapped. "They speak in riddles and charge a fortune."
The king raised a hand. "Enough. I want every city gate watched. I want every traveler questioned. I want this Raven found – alive, if possible, but I will accept dead." He looked at each of them in turn. "Is that understood?"
"Yes, Your Majesty," they said in unison.
The king dismissed them with a wave.
When the door closed, he sat alone in the cold chamber, staring at the map of his kingdom on the wall.
Who are you? he thought. And what do you want?
No answer came.
Pagopoi 19, Imperial Year 1643 (continued)
The City of Stonebridge – Streets
The city was in chaos.
Guards blocked every major intersection, questioning travelers and demanding papers. Merchants closed their shops. Families stayed indoors. The circus master's body had been removed, but the blood on the stage had been left as evidence – a dark stain that the city's rumor mill had already transformed into a sign of divine judgment.
Elara Greenhill moved through the crowds with her head down, her halfling stature making her easy to overlook. Roderick walked behind her, his cloak pulled tight to hide his tusks. Rosalind and Miku followed at a distance, while Hikari and Kaito stayed close to Reinhard.
The teacher had insisted they leave the city immediately, but the gates were locked. No one was allowed to leave until the guards had completed their interrogations.
"We are trapped," Rosalind said, her voice low. "If they start checking identities, my father's name will not help us. We have no papers."
"Then we hide," Reinhard said. "We find an inn that asks no questions, and we wait."
"There is a district near the river," Kaito said. "The poor quarter. The guards rarely go there."
"Lead the way."
The poor quarter was a maze of narrow alleys and crumbling buildings. The smell of sewage and smoke hung in the air. But the people here were too busy surviving to care about the circus master's death.
Elara spotted a small inn – the Drowned Rat – and signaled the others. They slipped inside.
The common room was dark, lit by a single lantern. A few patrons sat in corners, nursing cheap ale. The innkeeper, a fat man with a missing ear, looked up as they entered.
"Rooms?" he grunted.
"Three," Reinhard said, sliding silver across the counter. "For two nights. No questions."
The innkeeper pocketed the silver and tossed him three keys. "Up the stairs. Last door on the left."
They climbed the creaking stairs and crowded into a single room – the largest of the three. Reinhard locked the door.
"We wait," he said. "When the gates open, we leave."
"And if they do not open?" Roderick asked.
"Then we find another way."
Pagopoi 20, Imperial Year 1643
The Poor Quarter – The Drowned Rat
The next morning, Elara went down to the common room to fetch bread and water. The innkeeper was serving a thin gruel to a handful of patrons. Among them, sitting alone at a corner table, was a gnome.
He was small, even for a gnome, with wild brown hair and a leather apron stained with grease. His hands were calloused, and he wore a tool belt heavy with wrenches and pliers. He was eating his gruel with a mechanical spoon – a device of his own making, Elara realized, with a small gear that turned the bowl to scrape the sides.
She froze.
The gnome looked up. His eyes were blue, sharp, and for a moment, they met hers.
Then he went back to his gruel.
Elara approached his table. "That is a clever spoon," she said, in Mercian.
The gnome shrugged. "It passes the time."
"Where did you learn to make such things?"
"Here and there." He did not look up.
Elara sat down across from him. She lowered her voice. "Daiki."
The gnome's spoon stopped turning.
"Daiki Suzuki," she said. "You sat in the back row, near the window. You always had a joke, even when things were bad. You made everyone laugh."
The gnome looked up. His face had gone pale beneath the dirt and grease.
"Who are you?" he whispered.
"Yuki Tanaka. Class president."
He stared at her. Then he laughed – a short, broken sound. "I thought I was the only one."
"You are not. There are more. Nine of us, plus the teacher. We are in the room upstairs."
Daiki – Pippin Shortstep, though he had not used that name in years – looked around the common room. The other patrons were ignoring them.
"I have been running," he said. "From the guards, from the rumors, from the assassin. I thought if I kept moving, no one would find me."
"We found you."
"Yes." He set down the spoon. "You did."
Elara brought him upstairs. The others were waiting – Roderick, Rosalind, Miku, Hikari, Kaito, and Reinhard.
Daiki looked at each of them in turn. "Haruki. Sakura. Miku. Hikari. Kaito." He paused at Reinhard. "Sensei?"
"I am here," Reinhard said. "We are all here."
Daiki sat down on the bed, his shoulders slumping. "I have been alone for so long. I thought I was going mad. The dreams, the memories, the feeling that something was missing."
"You are not alone," Elara said. "You never were."
"I know that now." He looked at his hands. "I am a tinkerer. I travel from town to town, fixing clocks and locks. I have been searching for you without knowing it – asking questions, following rumors. But I never found anyone."
"You found us," Roderick said. "That is what matters."
Daiki nodded. He was quiet for a moment. Then he looked at Elara.
"The assassin. The Raven. I saw him at the circus. I was in the audience."
The room went silent.
"You were there?" Rosalind asked.
"I was in the back, near the exit. I saw him appear from nowhere – magic, must have been, to turn invisible like that. He had a beaked mask, dark clothes, and he used a spear he must have taken from one of the guards." Daiki's voice was low. "But before that, when he first appeared, I saw something under his coat. A pistol. Maybe two. The same kind the pilgrims described – the weapon that spits thunder."
"You are sure?" Kaito asked.
"I am a tinkerer. I know what a firearm looks like. The shape, the cylinder, the grip. He had them." Daiki leaned forward. "He is one of us. I am sure of it. No one in this world has that kind of knowledge – not the firearms, not the magic, not the way he moved. He is a reincarnator."
"We have considered that," Reinhard said. "But we have no proof."
"The proof is in the weapons. The rifle that killed the treasurer, the pistol that killed the knight, the pistols I saw at the circus – those are not medieval. Those are modern, built by someone who remembers."
Kaito nodded slowly. "I have been trying to build a working firearm for years. The metallurgy, the cartridges, the primers – it is all incredibly difficult. But if someone had a century to work on it…"
"A century?" Miku said. "That would mean he reincarnated long before us."
"It would explain why he is so far ahead," Daiki said. "And why he has not contacted us. He may not even know we exist – or he may not care."
Roderick grunted. "He saved those pilgrims. He killed the circus master, who was a monster. He cares about something."
"Justice," Hikari said softly. "He spoke of justice."
"Or vengeance," Reinhard said. "There is a difference."
The group fell silent. Elara looked at Daiki.
"You saw his face?"
"No. The mask covered everything. Beaked, like a bird. Dark lenses. I could not even see his eyes."
"Then we have no way to identify him."
"Not yet," Daiki said. "But if he is one of us, he will make mistakes. He will leave traces. And eventually, he will cross our path again."
Pagopoi 21, Imperial Year 1643
Stonebridge – The Eastern Gate
The gates opened at dawn. The guards had grown bored, and the city was too large to keep locked forever. Travelers streamed out – merchants, farmers, pilgrims, and one small group of reincarnators.
Elara led them east, toward the Free Cities. Daiki walked beside her, his tool belt jingling.
"I have a contact in the Free Cities," he said. "A merchant who deals in rare metals. He might know where to find some of the others."
"That is a good start," Elara said.
"And the Raven?" Daiki asked. "Do we try to find him?"
Elara looked back at the city walls, where the guards still stood watch.
"He will find us," she said. "If he wants to."
They walked east, into the rising sun.
End of Chapter Fifteen