The Shining Wyrm

Adelyne sighed.

Her desk was buried, missives, reports, secrets overflowing. Twenty-five journeymen or masters in her guild spread out to every Vassal of Viznove made for an overwhelming flow of information.

The number of beasts that had to have been skinned for the letters filling her desk each season had to be climbing towards thirty by this point, a number that had threatened to briefly double when news spread that the Shining Wyrm’s brother was going to hold his wedding in Kaeketeh.

There were already whispers among the noble and rich in Viznove that the capital was simply the place to hold a wedding of any ostentation. The murmur of it rising up to find its way onto Adelyne’s desk from all over, Light’s End to Zapadvah.

Thankfully the urgency of parchment settling on her desk to be read had fallen back the season after.

Still this distraction was a welcome if brief respite from drowning in parchment and ink.

The Guildmistress glared at the Waif that had slipped back into her office despite the fact he was still supposed to be acting as the lead infiltrator in Old Cantor’s Pantheon.

“Havel, what are you doing here?.”

Like she didn't already know why he was here. Her poor head felt like it should slosh for how full it was with the secrets and murmurs of the city.

The waif wore imported silk dyed deep black over his face, which she thought was rather amusing. To anyone who was familiar with the Countess’ accursed, such a covering barely prevented you from reading the truth of their emotions like a book.

Yet it had grown into a matter of propriety, naked faced waifs had become scandalous since the former guards had first been released into Kaeketeh. Adelyne knew of a few that would happily dance on a table with nothing else to cover them.

But heavens forbid you reveal your face to anyone but your closest held confidants.

Even when it was little more than an exorbitantly valuable piece of sheer fabric that left nothing to the imagination.

Adelyne had found that the need to hide their faces to avoid having one’s feelings read plain as day often gave the former guards an advantage in utilizing the knack she’d been given by Fizzbunches.

Not that more than a dozen wanted anything to do with the Guild. Havel’s admiration of the Countess that had cursed him was not common.

“Heidi and Etelka missed their father. I’ve been gone for almost two years from their lives.”

Adelyne huffed and shook her head, this is why she preferred orphans over those that actually had ‘proper families’. She had lost years of deep awareness of the internal workings of the Pantheon because of the feelings of children, the rest of Havel’s team was sent to support him, not to slip into the largest Temple in the known world unobserved.

She’d been blinded to little more than gossip for last year's report from that overgrown ruin of a city.

“I need our best in Old Cantor and the Pantheon, no one else but myself would be able to slip into half the places you managed.”

The waif reached up to pull the silk from his face, revealing the hard expression that had taken shape in his brow, the set of his lips, the intensity of his eyes. With Havel going barefaced Adelyne knew she was not going to be able to get the waif back into Old Cantor without a serious concession.

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“I’ve seen the quality of the apprentices you’ve trained here in Kaeketeh since I left, you're slipping Guild Mistress, I think you need me here more than you can afford to have me abroad. You need better masters to train the apprentices. And my daughters need their father.”

Adelyne scowled at her best infiltrator, but there was not a hint of deception upon his face (which was the point).

None of the squirming indecision that would betray a lie, her reports around Viznove suggested that his daughters and that of the other children of the waifs shared that aspect of the curse too. It was hilarious how the inability to openly lie barefaced to you had made Bathory’s former guard some of the best sneaks Adelyne had.

She however waited, unlike the waif she could still keep her expression still.

Moments passed with a growing tension building in the air, but finally a shift in Havel’s expression washed over his bare face, a wince of pain, something he very much did not want to give up to her but as she watched the expression flow and solidify into determination on his features there was no denying he had decided he must.

“My girls have picked up the knack from imitating me, its running poor Lenka ragged trying to keep up with two children that can feel where she’s looking for them. If you’d call me back to train the apprentices here in Kaeketeh I’ll induct both of them into the guild.”

There it was, the shift she needed to get her best infiltrator back on task without a major concession, let him offer his own ‘price’.

Adelyne raised a brow, and there was another less intense wince over his features, of course she’d known about his daughters picking up her gift from their father. He probably should have realized that before trying to bring it up as a bargaining coin for her to reassign him.

Still at the same time he wasn't wrong, Adelyne struggled to find the time to teach the apprentices with all the other work she had to do as Guild Mistress. Furthermore if those two girls grew up to be even half as capable with the working as their father it would be more than a fair trade.

She thought of old Ginter and all he had taught her, how she and the other children had looked up to him. Havel likely could fill in a similar role as that. He had the right disposition for it, something Adelyne had to admit she lacked. The apprentices were nearly as terrified of her as they were the Countess.

With a nod she made her decision, one she could have made before but suspected Havel would have refused if she was the one that thought it up.

“Very well, Havel, you can stay in Kaeketeh and train the apprentices, but I want you to ensure the skill of your replacement in the Pantheon Assignment. Unless I’m satisfied they will meet the bare minimum for that challenge you will have to go back next birdsbane-”

Anger was curdling the waif’s brow.

“To return the next year for your report and attempt to again train and raise up your replacement. I need skilled eyes and level heads out there, Havel, I sympathize with your family's needs-”

Adelyne was thankfully not a waif or it would have been blatant how much she had just lied.

“But you’ve seen what’s brewing in the Pantheon, we need eyes out there watching and warning Viznove of what is coming before it's at our door.”

Who knows? maybe he would manage to train a replacement good enough to let him stay? Maybe he’d pick up enough of a knack of feeling attention in script and parchment to ease the burden of some of her work while dealing with the apprentices?

Havel scowled but nodded, again his determination plain to see on a naked face, then he pulled his barely concealing silk cloth back over his head and stepped out of her immediate line of sight. Unlike with the apprentices Adelyne didn't give him an opening, she tried to catch the waif, scanned her office intensely.

Of course from her best such an attempt was fruitless, she searched, but there was no sign of Havel.

Eventually an apprentice opened the door to bring in more missives for her to go over, just barely managing to avoid trembling as they set the letters on her desk. Jumping as Adelyne’s eyes swept over them and then the open door.

She held back from blinking as the apprentice left timidly, but never spotted her best infiltrator’s departure. Perhaps he hadn't yet left? Adelyne was mostly confident Havel missed his family enough to have found his way out with that opportunity.

But you never could be sure in the Guild.

After another few minutes Adelyne took a heavy breath then returned to going over those missives only she could read. This had seemed like such a clever idea back before she found out just how much of the burden would be solely hers to carry.