Bondsfungi: Chapters 9-10 (The Weirkey Chronicles) + TBS3 Cover (Patreon)

First, check out the image above! This is my design for the cover of the third book in The Brightest Shadow. While I'm pretty happy with the overall concept, and this WIP is mostly done, it's still a WIP. Feel free to mention anything that looks off, or just your thoughts in general.

As for this week's chapters, they include some information that has been withheld for a long time (though it's not what everyone is speculating about lately). This subplot began in the third book and will escalate from here into a major part of the sixth. With this series, I'm trying to layer a significant number of different story elements: all the characters and worlds you've seen so far are involved in their own affairs, and our protagonists will increasingly have no choice but to get involved. I know this slower pacing isn't for everyone, but I hope the whole series will feel cohesively satisfying in the end.

-

Chapter 9

Theo lingered in the State of Rest long after his meal had been completed, and by this point the staff left him alone. He was meeting Kathina there soon and he saw no reason to leave, since it was as good a place as any. If she took long enough, he might even be able to finish the most recent book about Elghiera.

The ancient writers who discussed the wars over the artifacts were themselves split on whether Elghiera was historical or mythical. Centuries past those events, Theo doubted he could uncover the truth. His most important finds were less stories than implications: the writers seemed to believe that these artifacts were involved in great wars against demons.

Since demons were generally more of an annoyance than a threat requiring a war, that itself was curious. One of the books Kathina had given him scorned the oldest sources for that very reason, but Theo wondered if something had been lost to time. Perhaps demons had once been more threatening, or been controlled to fight the wars of others. It definitely seemed that some ancient figures believed that the Artifacts of Elghiera would be useful in combating the demons of their day, which might explain a great deal if only he knew more of Vistgil's plans.

Most likely he would never know the truth of the past... though Theo hesitated as he thought back to Senka again. She was much older than she looked, but surely she couldn't be that old. There had still been no sight of her, and she might have been a useful resource, but with so many issues on his plate, Theo couldn't afford to go hunting for her. That just left him imagining her alone, gibbering to herself as she struggled to pull her mind together...

He was a few pages from the end of the book when he felt a Ruler enter the State of Rest. Though Kathina seemed to have a heavy duty shielding wall, he'd never seen her use it to suppress her presence in the slightest. Rapidly skimming the last pages, he closed the book just as she arrived and handed it to her.

"Thank you again for these."

"No trouble at all." Kathina took the book and smoothly passed it into her soulhome. "None of that is exactly forbidden knowledge, just obscure. Are you ever going to tell us why you have this... hobby?"

"It might not matter at all. But do tell me if anyone else starts pursuing the subject, or claims they can buy or sell Artifacts of Elghiera."

"Believe me, I'd know if anyone ran around making claims like that. Everyone in the House of Coin would be laughing for days. Nobody is even claiming to trade that sort of thing."

"Not even Raythe?"

"Ugh, don't remind me. No, he's just buying up expensive sublime materials from Arbai and Aathal lately." Kathina cocked her head as she glanced over the table, which had been cleaned but apparently had a few traces of the meal. "I see you've already eaten. We have time before the meeting is scheduled, so I would have joined you."

"Sorry, but I finished a while ago." Theo stood up and left his payment on the table before glancing toward the door. "Will we be too early if we walk?"

"Probably not, and the dark Tatians always tend to arrive early anyway. They're as bad as Ichili when it comes to that sort of thing."

They left the State of Rest with Kathina in the lead, guiding him to the mysterious location where the dark Tatians would supposedly show him their sublime materials. Though Theo was eager to see if they had any plants appropriate for his soulhome, he was even more curious to ask them a few questions. Presumably they had to know more than the provincial Tatian peasants on the upper half of the planet, and what they told him could be useful information about Nauda.

Despite those thoughts, the reminder of Nauda led him to bring up Fiyu's proposal. "Earlier you spoke about wanting to recruit my allies. Well, it turns out that Nauda actually has a request for you."

"Oh?" Though her expression remained the same, something cooled within Kathina. He decided to press on regardless.

"She's been investigating House Crimson manipulation of the wild tribes, including for potential disruption of trade routes and control of certain markets."

"Not very likely, in my opinion." Kathina scraped something off a ridge of her armor as they walked. "They're definitely more involved in that problem than they should be, but I think the conflict is primarily internal. But the House of Coin isn't particularly happy with their actions, so if she wants to talk about the information we have, it would probably be a good investment in causing problems for them."

"Thank you," Theo said. "I'll let you arrange the rest of the details yourselves."

Kathina didn't answer for a while, simply ambling her way through the city. She revealed very little on her face, but judging from the way her eyes shifted, he guessed that she needed to consider carefully before speaking. But in the end, she did speak.

"I'm surprised that you're still soulcrafting with her, after her carelessness destroyed most of her progress."

Theo frowned. "She's rebuilding."

"No doubt she will, but how long will that take, and how far will you have ascended by the time she gets back to where she started?" Kathina's stare softened, which he wasn't sure was better. "I'm not telling you to rob her and leave her in a ditch somewhere. But someone as ambitious as you are needs to be realistic about who is capable of keeping up with you."

"Another reason I should join the House of Coin, no doubt." Theo gave her a flat smile as if her words had simply slid off, and Kathina looked away with a sigh.

As they continued in silence, however, the words dug deeper into his mind. Theo felt as though his head was a hollow shell filled with different voices. The man he had been during his first visit to the Nine insisted that he should stick with his chosen companions to the end. The man he'd been on Earth argued that this was naivety and that he should forget her. When he tried to move past either, he was swamped by voices offering realistic projections, considerations like how Fiyu would react, and questions about what truly mattered to him in the end.

Listening to all the voices, Theo wasn't sure if there was any "self" listening at all, or if he was nothing but the chaotic disagreement.

He didn't reach any conclusion on their walk, especially once Kathina distracted him with lighter conversation. In the end they reached one of the many buildings owned by the House of Coin, mostly built from the same red stone as the rest of the city but with armored golden plating. Nothing about it particularly spoke of Tatians, but as he understood it they weren't prominent enough in Norro Yorthin to have an established presence.

Kathina led him inside, where both of their identity plates were checked by Archcrafter guards, and then to one of the side chambers. She stopped with her hand on the door handle and turned back to him. "You're on your own from here. Don't try any Tatian customs you may know, but otherwise, they're reasonable. They won't like you, but there aren't any major pitfalls like with some worlds."

"You aren't joining the negotiations?"

"They know the commission we're owed and they'll be good for it. They prefer to handle business alone, so... good luck." With that she opened the door and gestured him through.

The other side was an ordinary enough Fithan negotiation chamber, chairs surrounding a stone table shaped like an enormous whirlwind. Theo paid more attention to the three Tatians sitting on the other side. All of them had golden brown skin like Nauda, but jet black hair unlike any Tatians he'd known. He realized that he didn't even know for sure that they were from the lower side of the planet, tempting as that conclusion was.

"We understand that you wish to purchase Tatian sublime plants." The leader was a heavyset man with a harsh voice, the words soul-translated from guttural sounds he had never heard before. Theo nodded to the merchant and his guards before sitting opposite them.

"I believe the House of Coin has already given you the necessary information and you have options for me." Despite their surly nature, he had to wonder if they were really so different from the Tatians he'd known. "Straight to business, then?"

"You are a purchaser, not part of our community." The woman behind the lead merchant scowled at him, while the man on the other side opened a case and began placing a series of materials onto the table.

Though Theo was primarily interested in those, based on their behavior he wondered if the chance to interrogate dark Tatians was actually rarer than sublime materials. They certainly didn't seem to like talking to others normally, so this moment when they wanted his money might be his best chance to get information from them.

"I may not be a part of your community," Theo said, "but I hope these materials are offered in the spirit of community. Tell me, which side of Tatian are these from?"

That got him an immediate glower from the woman and the lead merchant appeared mildly discomforted. No doubt they were used to dealing with Fithans who had only abstract knowledge of their world. Still, they might suspect he had merely stepped through the gate, so Theo reached into his soulhome and pulled out one of the eryo claws, setting it on the table in front of him.

"I may not have access to Tatian materials, but I have some familiarity with them. So I hope that you'll trade fairly with me."

The man setting out the materials fumbled one of them at the sight of the claw, the merchant's eyes widened, and the woman stuck with her strategy of glaring at everything. But after an extended pause, the leader of the group spoke.

"These materials were primarily taken from the Nkagankaga Plains, particularly deathbeast caverns. Some of the roots were stolen from the gardens of First Citizens, as it seems you surmised. We could not sell such a thing back home, yes, but we will not let anything so dear go cheaply."

"I see." Theo had never heard any of those names before, so he simply nodded somberly. They seemed to think he knew more than he did and he was happy to play along. "I care primarily about their quality, so I'll begin inspecting the materials."

They presented him with an enormous array of plants, diverse on a spiritual level but largely similar physically: all were as dark and grim as the upper side of Tatian was warm and inviting. Theo quickly disregarded several of the options as inappropriate or too weak, soon coming to three possibilities. None were labeled, so he needed to inquire about their wares directly.

First, the bloodthorn was a thorny vine that dripped with venom that made the name easy to understand. Second came something called grizzleroot, a grayed mess he would have ignored if not for its raw cantae. His third choice was called a schismflower, one of the only traces of color on the table, but its bright blue was painful to look at and seemed to fragment the air around it.

It was a difficult choice. The bloodthorn might be overall strongest, but he judged that it was probably the perfect material for a swordsman, not him. Nothing about the grizzleroot stood out to him, but it would be the most suited to reinforcing a soulhome. Finally, the schismflower struck him as the most potentially interesting but also possibly incompatible with his blueprint.

Thinking back to all the plants that had died in his soulhome before, Theo realized that this problem might not be suited to purely abstract consideration. The real question was whether or not he could get the Tatians to agree to an experiment. They spoke of community, but they otherwise seemed so different from those he knew that he really had no idea.

"I'm not taking the risk of purchasing a sublime plant that will die immediately," he said as he sat back. "Can I take a fraction of these in order to test them?"

"We do not have so much time, but we do have this." The lead merchant pulled a small pouch from his robes and slid it across the table. Theo picked it up carefully and saw that the inside appeared to contain a dark ash. "If you commit to making a purchase, we will allow you to use it to test several of them."

The woman pulled out a knife armament, which was far from comforting, even when the male assistant revealed a cutting board. She cut a tiny slice from each of the three materials he'd chosen, then deftly flicked the pieces onto the table beside the ash.

Apparently they trusted him to do the experiments... or more likely they trusted the House of Coin to enforce the terms of the agreement. Theo nodded as if he knew what he was doing and took all four sublime materials into his soulhome. He paused as soon as he did so, to see if they would take any action in the physical world, but they simply waited for him.

Picking an empty spot between his soulhome and shielding wall, Theo bent down to see what he could do. The slices of the materials had transformed into seeds, which they had definitely not contained before, so her knife must have been designed specifically to process materials. Interesting, but he couldn't afford to waste time.

He dug a little hole with his hands and set the schismflower seed into the dirt. Nothing happened, of course, but he carefully took some of the ash and sprinkled it over the top. The immediate surge of cantae made him pull back, just in case it was a trap, but when it faded, what remained was a schismflower. Much weaker than the one lying on the table, but as large as if it had been growing for days. Presumably the ash was a method of testing materials quickly.

Since he had all three, Theo moved to plant the other two seeds. He'd only used a fraction of the ash, so should he add more? Before he was even finished with the third hole, he noticed that the schismflower appeared to be wilting. Theo hastily planted the bloodthorn and then moved to watch it.

The schismflower didn't go out quietly, planes of cantae lashing out and tearing apart the aged grass of his foundation. That reaction was even worse than the hearthtrees or any other plants he had tested. As strong as it was, it was clearly inappropriate for his soulhome, so Theo uprooted it before it could do any more damage.

That left two, and they didn't seem particularly promising. The grizzleroot hadn't grown very much, while the bloodthorn was developing into a bleeding mass. At first he thought the internal form might differ from the one they'd shown him, but as it oozed more and more sap, Theo realized that it was dying as well.

Was his soul just entirely incapable of supporting living materials? He'd attributed it to being a bitter old man before, but the bloodthorn should have been appropriate. Perhaps he had been entirely wrong and the real problem had been his soul slamming between Earth and the Nine Worlds repeatedly. Considering that the transition had entirely wiped out his old soulhome, perhaps it had left him with a permanently broken foundation.

It was unfortunate that he'd agreed to make a purchase, especially since any of them would cost a significant portion of his Discs. Theo was considering whether or not one of the sublime plants could be used by someone else when he felt a throbbing from the grizzleroot.

When Theo bent closer, he was shocked to feel the cantae resonating with his soulhome. That didn't make any sense, unless... Theo yanked on the stubby leaf above the ground and realized that he'd been a fool: the grizzleroot had been growing down, not up.

The roots he pulled from the ground were a bit shrunken, likely due to being forcibly grown by the ash. But even in the air, they visibly reached toward the ground. For the first time since he'd returned to the Nine Worlds, Theo felt his soulhome respond positively to a plant. The grizzleroot was twisted and grayed, which was apparently just what his foundation needed.

Immediately his mind leapt to the possibilities for using it, but the Tatians had already been waiting for some time. Theo set aside all three plants and returned to the physical world with the ash in hand. "I'll take the grizzleroot."

"Really? You tested it and...?" The merchant winched down his eyebrows and nodded. "It's unusual for someone's soul to react positively to that one, particularly such a young soul. But it is your purchase, of course."

"Unless there's something else I need to know, I'd like that one."

"Grizzleroot is known to be a troublesome material. Hardy, so it does not die when errors are made, but stubborn. It will refuse to respond to many sublime materials that should feed it, and sometimes retreats into dormancy if it dislikes its environment. But if you are capable of making it grow, it is exceptional."

Theo nodded and completed the transaction, handing over a large pile of Fithan Discs in exchange for the full root. Just in case, he took it into his soulhome, but the whole material resonated even more strongly with his foundation. The way it felt, he'd have to be more careful about it spreading too far than getting it to grow.

Since the transaction was complete, Theo rose to go. With other Tatians he would have clasped their arms or gone through other affirming rituals, but the three seemed ready to be done with him. Still, while he had their attention, Theo decided to push for a little more information.

"I've always wondered, since your hair marks you so clearly... what happens if you want to visit the lighter side of Tatian?"

The woman immediately snorted. "He doesn't know so much after all."

"There are methods." The merchant watched him coldly, but as his fingers counted through all the Discs again, he seemed to relent. "Hair can be dyed, and there are materials to do so quite effectively. Crossing over may be difficult, but it's not as impossible as you think."

After that, the three of them clammed up, so Theo accepted that he'd gotten as much as he would and departed the mercantile hall.

He should have been considering everything he could do with the grizzleroot, or one of the many soulcrafting issues he needed to solve. Yet as he walked back into the city, Theo found himself thinking about Nauda. All he knew for sure was that she was aware of the divide on Tatian, since she had always been tight-lipped with information.

Had she ever explicitly claimed to be from the lighter side of the world? She had certainly let him assume it. Theo would need a long time to decide if she had lied to him.

-

Chapter 10

The mushrooms filled Nauda with more emotions than mushrooms ever should: anger, shame, despair. Despite her best efforts, and despite what she told the others, the bondsfungi kept reemerging no matter how hard she tried to kill them.

According to Antha, it was roughly five months before the Ruling City Wargames would begin, and Nauda had no idea if that fact was relevant to her. There certainly was no category for crippled soulcrafters. Grekig had urged her to put it out of mind, but the information she'd pried from him suggested that it included many team events, some of which could potentially work around her weaknesses. Based on his expression, she had a feeling that he didn't expect her to attend.

And, if she was honest with herself, what had she done to earn a place there? She had worked her hands bloody chipping away at the slag of her old soulhome, which gave her nothing but an enormous pile of useless rocks. Some of the region she had uncovered was growing back, but Grekig had been right: the stone had fused to the foundation of a large part of her soul and seemed impenetrable to even the Esoteric Chisel.

"Are you focused, Nauda?" Grekig's voice floated to her from outside her soulhome and she realized that the answer was an emphatic "no". "We need everything you have, if we're going to get rid of this infection for good."

"I'm sorry. Give me a moment."

Nauda dedicated herself fully to the task of gripping her entire soulhome to prepare for the sublime lava. She'd gotten better at the skill, which actually brought new problems. When she was fully focused, she thought that she could feel the bondsfungi, like a thin layer of corruption over a surprisingly large area of her soulhome. It was difficult to believe that she'd ever eliminate it for good, but she did her best and signaled for him to work.

The lava washed through her soul, and she was sure that she felt the bondsfungi die, but Nauda didn't really believe they were gone. Some fragment would survive and regrow. Maybe the real solution would be to pin it into a smaller region and then just live with it, or perhaps...

"We need to talk about your heartoak."

The voice brought her out of her soulhome and Nauda frowned at Grekig. "Is something wrong with it? I thought that it was growing well."

"It's growing extraordinarily. Generating cantae beyond expectations, which is due to your careful tending." Grekig's smile was just a prelude to stroking his mustache. "But that's going to become a problem soon. You see, heartoak trees are limited only by carefully constructed walls, and if you grew one the size of your soulhome you'd be an extremely limited soulcrafter. It's already as large as an ordinary room, so you need to contain it soon. You've been constructing bricks like I asked, so why not use them?"

She had to admit that he had a good point. Nauda glanced back inside herself, though she couldn't see the tree immediately. Because it was putting out so much cantae, she'd set up another tent over it that connected to her main building, just to improve her stamina a little. Obviously nothing but a stopgap measure, but all her plans for the future felt even more short-sighted.

"Just keep it in mind." Grekig moved away from her to begin locking up. "And don't worry about the expense of the sublime lava. It's produced as a waste product from one of the House's operations, so we have as much as you need."

The idea that she was costing the House had indeed occurred to her, but she wondered just what he meant by bringing it up in such a way. At home, it would have been an unquestionable reprimand, and even in the humblest of Tatian villages it might have been a pointed statement. Here on Fithe, she was never entirely sure.

As soon as they left the rehabilitation building they moved in their separate directions, as always. Even if Grekig had wanted to spend more time with her, Nauda was in a hurry. Their work had gone longer than she expected, so her meeting with the House of Coin representative was drawing close.

All Nauda had was a location and a description, but she presumed that this Kathina would find her. She still wasn't sure what to make of the woman, since she didn't entirely trust Theo's judgment. Not that she thought that he could be distracted by a woman, not for a moment, but it was easy to imagine him being seduced by power, especially the kind of power the House of Coin could offer.

When Nauda reached the restaurant, she had barely begun to scan it before someone called to her. "Nauda! Over here." Kathina looked essentially as expected and waved her over to sit. "Are you hungry?"

"I'm afraid not," Nauda said. It might be an insult, but her soul felt too scorched for her to eat.

"Well, I'm going to eat and hope that it doesn't offend you." Kathina leaned her head on one hand, examining her for several seconds but revealing nothing. "You've built quite an impressive shielding wall. Impossible for anyone to tell what's behind it."

That had to be a backhanded compliment, so Nauda responded in kind. "Thank you for your insight."

The House of Coin representative barely seemed to react at all, leaving Nauda with no idea if her sarcasm had even reached her. Eventually Kathina sat back, examining the ceiling instead of her. "You know, our House could sell you just what you need. There's a sublime material called a rebirthcloud... it floats through your soulhome, strengthening all your materials almost as well as an ascension. I imagine you're having trouble working with new materials, so that could seal them in place."

"I've never heard of that," Nauda said carefully. "Everyone would be using it constantly if there wasn't some sort of catch."

"Oh, without question. The rebirthcloud seems to burn something out of the soul, making further ascension impossible. But if you want to get into shape in time for the Wargames, it might be your best bet."

"No thank you." Uncertain just how much of the offer had been intended as another insult, Nauda remained silent and just held her gaze.

Unfortunately, Kathina seemed entirely uninterested in matching wills with her, instead looking around the restaurant. An attendant brought a skewer of spiced meats, which Kathina began eating eagerly. As soon as she finished chewing one piece, she paused to glance up at Nauda. "I hear you have questions about House Crimson?"

"That's right." Nauda was still off balance and struggled to regroup her thoughts. "Theo said that you didn't believe House Crimson was actually manipulating trade via the wild tribes."

"Some of them might be, but it's more likely internal power struggles."

"Then perhaps you'd better start there. Just what are their internal struggles?"

"Oh, it's the usual, just much worse than normal." Kathina stabbed an empty skewer into the air as if to draw a hierarchy. "House Crimson's leader is named Wiltur, a Stronghold who has been immortal for over a century. One of the old powers in the city, without question."

Nauda had known the name but not the rest, so she leaned forward despite her dislike for the other woman. "He must have given up hope of ascending to Dominion."

"He'd like to, I'm sure, but it isn't to be. Instead, it's well known that Wiltur has been hoping to find himself an heir. Not that he wants to give up power: he wants someone who could take over the House while he rises to bigger things. Don't ask me exactly what: the common guess is that he wants to join the Ruling City leadership at Dris Kolonb."

"Their House has five Authorities, right?"

"Well, you've done some research after all!" Kathina began eating another skewer while she gestured with the previous. "Two of them are very dull, or at least as dull as an Authority can be. One is Wiltur's sister-in-law Gethyrue, who has been stuck at Authority for decades but is an important pillar of the House. That leaves two who Wiltur hopes can be his next Stronghold."

"One of them being Tythes?"

"Yes, the former golden boy of the house. I've heard you've clashed with him a bit, but my House prefers to steer clear. Anyway, the last of their Authorities is named Roker. Nobody knows very much about him because he's the newest and he doesn't act often, leading to mixed rumors about whether he's a failure or a secret weapon."

Nauda turned over the information in her mind, wondering if it would be premature to ask her questions about Tythes. Perhaps it would be better to circle back. "I take it that the different factions within House Crimson are led by the Authorities?"

"Not entirely. There are a lot of ordinary people within the House who dislike the direction Wiltur is taking them. They might have been thrown out, but Gethyrue serves as a neutral party keeping the struggles under control. Both of the dull Authorities play the usual games, trying to increase their power by politics since they've reached the limits of their soulcrafting. And though Tythes's faction isn't taken very seriously, he does have his followers."

"Does that have anything to do with his ancestry? He is half-water Fithan, right?"

"Yes, but it's not that relevant." Kathina shrugged as she chewed for a while. "Wiltur had a temporary relationship with a woman from the oceans, another Stronghold, in the hopes that their children would be unusually powerful. That doesn't usually produce better soulcrafters, at least not after you account for the advantages their parents give them, but after so long he was getting desperate. Anyway, it makes Tythes more exotic than a pariah."

"But I understand that he's fallen from grace. There are stories that his soulcrafting stalled when he began drinking?"

Kathina stopped eating, instead wiping off one of her hands with a somber expression. "This isn't a closely kept secret, but if you know more about his shameful past, Tythes might target you. Are you sure that you want to know?"

"I'm sure." Nauda doubted that he could do worse than he already had, so she sat forward and tried to make her determination clear. After a brief pause, Kathina nodded and spoke in a lower voice.

"Tythes was brilliant as a child, and when he grew old enough to soulcraft he exceeded all expectations. Wiltur guided him the whole way, grooming him to be his heir, and for a while everyone in the city feared that House Crimson would become dominant.

"But then, Tythes participated in a tournament for Authorities, and he somehow... just fell apart. He didn't receive any injuries, and in fact he won his first two matches before abruptly dropping out. Everyone wanted to know why, of course. The only credible information I have is that he spoke to an Arbaian competitor for the entire night before he forfeited. Ever since then, he's been a drunken nuisance."

"That's really all that's known? It's hard to believe a conversation could have such an impact... Wiltur must have been furious."

"Absolutely livid." Kathina finally smiled again and began toying with another skewer. "He actually put out a bounty on the Arbaian competitor and scorched the sand to find him. But the tournament had attracted people from many worlds, and no one knew where that Arbaian had gone."

"You said that Tythes fell apart." Nauda frowned as she thought back to the times that she'd seen him fight, never sure if he was holding back or unconventional or a fool. "Isn't that just an assumption? He should still have all the strength and potential he did before even if he stagnated."

"Oh no, his soulhome has been seen in public and it was an absolute wreck. Some speculated that the Arbaian injured him in a private battle, but there was no sign of one. It could in theory have been poison, if anyone knew of a poison that could destroy an Authority." Kathina raised both her eyebrows mischievously. "The simple fact is that no one knows what occurred in that room, but it ended Tythes's career as a soulcrafter."

Nauda sat in silence to consider the story. It was frustratingly lacking in the important details, but it did explain the conversation she'd overheard in the Chasm. Perhaps Tythes really did fight unusually as a way to compensate for his soulhome damage, but she knew he wasn't a drunk. Whatever had happened, and whatever he intended, he had an agenda.

They spoke for a while longer, Nauda sharing what she knew of Tythes short of the significant secrets. By the end, Nauda felt like she had a much stronger understanding of the politics of House Crimson and why everyone else in the city took them so seriously, but she still didn't understand what it all had to do with the wild tribes.

"I'm not sure either," Kathina answered her unasked question. "But the House of Coin dislikes the instability they're causing, which is why I've given you all this information. It's also why I'm going to tell you about where they're striking next."

"What?" Nauda sat up straight and resisted the urge to look around suspiciously.

"We've obtained advance knowledge of another operation that House Crimson will be leading against the wild tribes. Not an official movement with the city, something more circumspect. We can't be seen to get directly involved, but... let's just say that we would be grateful if someone else acquired that information. Financially grateful."

"So you're sending us to do your dirty work." Despite her tone, Nauda was pleased to get such important information from the meeting. She couldn't go herself, but perhaps she could convince Blacksilver with such solid intelligence.

"That's the best kind." Kathina grinned and then tore into her meat.