‘I’m sorry.’

‘Look,’ the wizard said, rubbing his eyes. ‘I get my fill of arguing philosophical trivia in Cier’Djaal. I was hoping that this mission would heighten my appreciation for simplicity.’

‘You hoped that a mission to track down people who shoot fire from their fingertips and don’t soil themselves with the effort due to glowing red stones would be simple?’

‘What did I justsay?’

‘I’m sorry.’ Miron smiled and held up a hand for preemptive peace. ‘Excuse me. In truth, I had hoped that summoning you here would result in a greater enhancement of your desire for simplicity.’

Bralston merely grunted at that. Thus far, the two hours of contact that he had shared with the Lord Emissary had been anything but simple.

He had arrived in Port Destiny shortly after dawn broke on the blue horizon of the sea, as scheduled, planning only on lingering for as long as it took to find a meal. He had been surprised to find a bronze-clad, fierce-looking woman with raven hair and a long sword, standing exactly three feet from where he landed, wearing an expression as though she had been waiting there specifically for him.

His surprise had turned to suspicion when she, one Knight-Serrant Quillian Guisarne-Garrelle Yanates, had revealed that she was doing exactly that. That suspicion had convinced him to follow her lead to the luxurious temple in the city, and from there to the table where he now sat, across from a priest of Talanas — an apparently high-ranking priest of Talanas — who somehow seemed to know everything about his mission.

And, he thought with a twitch of his eyelid, who just won’t … stop … smiling.

‘You’ll forgive me for being less than willing to nod my head dumbly and accept whatever you say, Lord Emissary.’ Bralston all but spat the title on the table. ‘But given that the Venarium acts with at least a modicum of secrecy, I must be more than a little suspicious at how you know what my mission concerns.’

‘Suspicion is a wise policy, even in times of peace.’ Miron shook his head and sighed. ‘In times of turmoil … well …’

‘That doesn’t explain anything.’

‘No appreciation for dramatic segues, I see.’ The priest smiled, took another sip. ‘I can see why, of course. Drama tends to be a word in a forgotten language that roughly translates to “long-winded, unimportant babble purely for the sake of entertaining idiots.”’

‘I would not disagree.’

‘When “long-winded and unimportant” tend to be the exact opposite of the concise and sharp-witted pride of the wizard, no? Curtness, forthrightness, everything explained, everything understood. That is what you believe, is it not?’

‘Priests believe. Wizards know.’

‘Indeed. However, what you apparently don’t know is that everything is not quite so neatly explained as you might think. This supposed rivalry between the churches and the Venarium, for example.’ The priest’s smile seemed to grow larger with every mounting moment of Bralston’s ire. ‘It would cast such knowledgeinto doubt to learn that there might be one or two wizards out there who find the company of priests tolerable, would it not?’ He smiled and winked. ‘Even to the point of sharing the details on missions conducted with a modicum of secrecy?’

Bralston’s eyes went wide, mouth went small.

‘You’re saying …’ he uttered. ‘We have a leak.’

‘Now who’s being dramatic?’ The priest’s laughter was dry, like pages turning in a well-read book. ‘No, no, my friend. I simply meant that, where our concerns coincide, Lector Annis and myself are not above violating enmities steeped in philosophy and history.’

‘Coincide?’ Bralston raised a brow. ‘The Lector mentioned nothing.’

‘I suppose he wouldn’t, for fear that you might believe what I am about to tell you is an order, rather than a humble request, something you would no doubt resent.’

‘And that request is?’

Miron’s smile faded, and a look of concern, so familiar as to have been etched on the face of every soft-hearted grandmother and hard-working grandfather that Bralston had ever seen, spread over his face.

‘I would like you to find my employees.’

‘Surely,’ Bralston replied, ‘agents of the church are more than capable of performing your will, given the funding and support you undoubtedly boast.’

‘ Trueagents, perhaps.’ Miron nodded. ‘However, for want of those, I instead hired adventurers.’

Bralston rolled his eyes and placed a finger to his temple, the reasoning suddenly becoming all too clear. ‘You hired some vagrant lowlifes to do your bidding, they broke their contract and they made off with your money or your daughter or whatever you wear under your robes, if not all three, and you want me to get them back?’ He sat rigid in his chair, uncompromising. ‘I’m not a mercenary.’

‘No, you’re a Librarian,’ Miron replied, unfazed by the sarcastic assault. ‘But more than that, you’re a good man, Bralston.’

‘I didn’t tell you my name.’

‘Annis did, amongst other things.’ The priest leaned forward in his chair, propping his elbows on his table. ‘He told me many things about you, many foul things you did for the right reasons.’

The Librarian had prided himself on being difficult to surprise. But it wasn’t the words emanating from the Lord Emissary’s mouth that caused him to feel so small in his chair. Rather, it was the intensity, that instinctual concern that played across the priest’s face that suggested he had known Bralston all his life.

Only one person had ever looked at him in such a way before …

‘You know …’ the Librarian whispered.

‘I know that you love a woman,’ Miron replied. ‘That you spilled blood to protect her, blood that nearly brought the Venarium to war with the Jackals. I know you burned two men alive without question for the agonies they inflicted on a poor woman. I know that your duties go far, far beyond whatever the Venarium claims they do in the name of their laws.’

Bralston expected to feel cold, expected that such a revelation should seize him by the heart and twist. Instead, he felt warm, comforted by the reassuring smile that the priest wore. He felt a familiar urge, the same urge that when young would cause him to run crying to his mother when he had skinned his knee, or to hug his father’s legs when a dog had growled at him.

An urge that he thought he had hardened himself to.

‘That is why, Bralston,’ Miron whispered, ‘I want you to find my employees. There are six of them, four men and two women.’

‘And …’ Bralston swallowed hard. ‘You want me to protect the women.’

‘If it is in your power, I would ask you to protect them all. As it stands, these adventurers are a capable lot. The men are well-armed, and one of the women, a shict, is possibly even better-equipped to handle herself.’ Miron’s face wrinkled with concern. ‘The sixth member, however … she is not weak, by any means, but she is … untested.’

‘I see.’ Bralston scratched his chin contemplatively. ‘This woman … I assume she’s one of your own.’

‘Do you?’

‘As compassionate as even a Lord Emissary is, I doubt his charity extends so low as to reach adventurers. They live to die, do they not, to be used and disposed of?’

‘Perhaps some hold that attitude.’ For the first time, Miron betrayed a hint of sadness in his face. ‘Though you are right. She is sacred to Talanas, serving her pilgrimage with the others. A priestess.’

The Librarian didn’t feel the usual cringe that accompanied such a word. Enmity steeped in years was forgotten, replaced by a sudden surge through his being, the same surge that had called him to burn men alive.

‘A priestess …’ he whispered.

‘I know you do not agree with her calling. But she is not yet hardened enough to know that anything beyond her faith exists.’ Miron smiled. ‘She is the one I wish to preserve the most. I fear the horror that was inflicted upon the woman in Cier’Djaal would shatter her completely.’