{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://serpentsquiggles.neocities.org//posts/fiction/endless-stars/14",
  "path": "/posts/fiction/endless-stars/14",
  "publishedAt": "2019-03-09T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:ivoe7cntxuy6at7uzmxzs2ft/site.standard.publication/3mfk6cpprzt2t",
  "textContent": "::: subchapter\n\"The bodies are gone?\" I said with a snap of my tongue. \"Where did\nthey go?\"\n\nAdwyn was still prodding the tarp in front of us, and still speaking,\nthinking aloud, \"These are sandbags, decoys.\"\n\nThe orange drake, face hidden behind a dust mask, turned from the cart.\nWhen he did, every careless scale had been shed. This Adwyn, I could\nimagine, was the last thing Raganari had seen before her end. \"We have\nbeen robbed,\" he said.\n\nI looked around, to Digrif and to Hinte, frowning confusion. A moment\npassed, and my brilles flashed clear. We'd been robbed! I looked up,\nthe confusion cracking and hatching a quintet of questions. How? When?\nWho? Where? Why?\n\nHinte only growled wordlessly; while, with excitement befitting any\nother situation Digrif said, \"Brigands!\"\n\nI glanced at the warm-gray drake, and then at the dark-green wiver\ntrying to maim him with just the curl of her lips. I started to opened\nmy mouth, but a deep growl beat me speaking.\n\nAdwyn, brushing off Digrif's excitement, spoke in a voice like stones\nrolling down a mountain. \"This is enemy action. From now until this is\nresolved, you three will follow all my orders when I give them. This is\nserious.\"\n\nI tilted my head. \"What? Why do you think it has to be enemies? Why not\njust normal thieves?\"\n\nAdwyn pointed at the cart. \"I'd say ordinary thieves are less likely to\nbother with such a boring, out-of-the-way cart, in a market like this.\nAnd then, upon discovering this cart held human corpses⁠ ⁠---⁠ rather\nthan anything valuable⁠ ⁠---⁠ they make to steal them anyway. And\nfinally, after it is all done, they carefully replace the bodies with\nsandbags before fleeing the scene. Rhyfel and I deal with enough reports\nfrom the prefects to know no thief in Gwmr/Frina operates like this.\"\n\nAfter that, he reeled on me. All of the calculating warmth from earlier\nwas gone, replaced with unadorned suspicion. Once his eyes had\ninterrogated my face, the military adviser spoke, voice venomous.\n\n\"It was you.\" His tone was half-assertion, half-question.\n\n\"I⁠ ⁠---⁠ What! No, I had nothing at all to do with this! At all!\" My\nfrills flared and my wings unfurled before I folded them back up.\n\n\"Of the six dragons privy to the details of our plans, only the three of\nyou are aware that we brought the bodies here to the market: I trust you\nthe least, and you are the only one here with time unaccounted for.\"\n\nI opened my mouth, and closed it. I didn't do it. Why couldn't he see\nthat?\n\nI broke from Adwyn's gaze to look at my friends. Hinte's features were\nconflicted, fighting between disbelief and betrayal... betrayal won out,\nleaving a glare more intense than any I had seen her with before. Digrif\nwas beside her, open-mouth in shock, but he looked to me with measured\nhope.\n\nLooking back at Adwyn, I spoke slow, saying, \"Time unaccounted for?\"\n\n\"Digrif tells me while I hid the cart, you slipped away from the two of\nthem and returned a ring later. What did you do during this time?\"\n\nI bared my fangs, spicy indignance burning on them. \"I went to buy some\nscrolls while Hinte was busy chatting with that weird gemstone wiver,\"\nI said, pointing at my glaring friend. While she was talking with that\nwiver about crysts or whatever, I'd wandered off to find a book stall,\nthat's all. All I wanted was up-to-date astronomical tables. Hinte would\nhave been busy awhile.\n\nMy tail slipped into my bag and found that slim scroll⁠ ⁠---⁠ and the\nletter. I pushed the second deeper in my bag, I wouldn't think of it\nright now. I had just been relaxing in the shadow of some alleyway, my\nmind caressing the figures in the book⁠ ⁠---⁠ and then they'd come. I\ndidn't want to think of about how the plan might be changing. Everything\nwas already wuthering out of control.\n\n\"Which stall?\" Adwyn moved his head forward.\n\nI told Adwyn the name of the stall I bought my book at, something bland\nand boring they have such an unlucky name?\"\n\nAdwyn kept peering at the dark-green wiver, but he flicked his tongue at\nDigrif's words. \"Aurisiuf, hm.\" The adviser pronounced the name in slow,\ndeliberate syllables. As if it were a name read and not spoken.\n\n\"Nobody.\" Hinte was looking at the clouds drifting high above us.\n\nThe orange drake shook his head. \"Which stall, Hinte-ychy?\" Adwyn\nhadn't looked away from Hinte. His voice had grown another kind of\nurgency.\n\n\"...In the northeastern sixth, fifteen flaps from the Berwem gate. It is\nGlyster's Gyms, with a silly 'y' where the 'e' should be.\"\n\n\"Glyster's gums? Glyster's geems?\" I wondered aloud. It wouldn't work.\nIt could only work if you ignored every rule about pronouncing y Draig,\nrules I'd labored to learn. It was just... silly. Was that the point?\n\nHinte didn't smile, or really change her expression, but she glanced at\nme, nodding just a bit. \"I do not know what she was thinking either. I\ncall it Glyster's Gems and she's never corrected me.\"\n\nAdwyn gave one last evaluating look to Hinte, then turned to Digrif.\n\"Did you tell anyone about our mission?\"\n\n\"My parents, no one else at all, at all. And even then, not too much, I\npromise.\"\n\n\"I ensured as much,\" Hinte added.\n\nI smirked at Adwyn. \"What about in town hall? Whatever documentation you\nproduced for this might betray us if someone in the administration is\nbehind this.\" Citrusface is up to something. Thanks, Staune.\n\nWhen Adwyn glanced back at me I let smirk fade⁠ ⁠---⁠ he'd seen it,\nthough. \"Oh, not quite. This task is officially nothing more than a\nfavor for the faer. There is no documentation of it.\"\n\n\"What?\" I asked. \"Why not?\"\n\n\"Mlaen likes to steer the ship. Especially when it comes to everything\nthat matters. Between the high guard and the treasurer, the faer would\nbe playing puppet three times removed if she went through official\nchannels.\"\n\n\"Alright.\" I glanced up. \"Could someone have been following us then?\" I\nasked, fangs remembering the trickle of shame from Adwyn following me\nthis morning.\n\nThe Dyfnderi adviser scratched his chin, and the moment before he spoke,\nhe seemed to shuffle his words. \"Not without an elaborate⁠ ⁠---⁠ and\nconspicuous⁠ ⁠---⁠ system of rotating spies. I watched our backs all\nalong.\"\n\nI looked up. Then, brilles clearing, I said, \"Well, what if they just\nhad a bunch of stationary spies all over? They wouldn't have to follow\nus, just report to someone, and it'd be like we were followed.\"\n\n\"There still must have been a way for them to discover our plans.\nMlaen's private meeting room is a possibility⁠ ⁠---⁠ but we discussed\nthe matter indirectly. The Gären house is more likely, but there's\nstill the matter of their knowing when to spy. Which all again raises\nthe possibility of someone betraying us.\" Adwyn's gaze roamed over us,\nme most of all, seeming even more analyzing than ever.\n\n\"I couldn't have had anything to do with this, though. I collapsed on\nmy bed last night out of sheer tiredness. And then I roused and went to\nHinte's house first thing. And then I went to work until it was time to\nmeet you. There was no room for these schemes. I certainly couldn't've\nplanned this out now while being in your\nsight⁠ ⁠---⁠ almost⁠ ⁠---⁠ the entire time!\"\n\nI caught Hinte looking at me from the side. Her glare had faded to a\nshadow of anger, but it still darkened her face. Waving her tongue, she\nturned to Adwyn and said, \"Forget about spies for a moment. What abyss\nswallowed your tongue to make you do something as apterous as leave the\nbodies here? Without any sort of guard?\"\n\nAdwyn's growl from earlier had reappeared. \"Gronte-wyre, remember whom\nyou're speaking to. I would not make such a careless mistake. I left\nguards. Whoever is under this had them desert their post, or forced them\nfrom it.\"\n\n\"Why is deserting the first thing you think of?\" I asked, tongue\nflicking.\n\nAdwyn waved behind him. \"You must subdue three guards in straight\ndaylight with none seeing or noticing their absence. How do you do it?\"\n\nI glanced at Hinte. \"Poison? Then take their bodies like they took the\nhumans.'\"\n\nAdwyn nodded. \"One last question. Why are we still standing?\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"If they were to poison the guards, and have enough forethought to plant\nsandbags⁠ ⁠---⁠ not for the guards, whom they poisoned, but\nus⁠ ⁠---⁠ why would they not just poison us instead?\"\n\nAdwyn waited while I dropped my gaze to the ground and stayed silent.\n\"Thus,\" he finished, \"Whoever is behind this most probably had them\ndesert their post.\"\n\nDigrif hummed. \"So, that means we do need to figure out who betrayed\nus. They had to be at the Gären's house. It wasn't Kinri or me, at\nall.\"⁠ ⁠---⁠ I grinned, and Hinte glared⁠ ⁠---⁠ \"Maybe it was that Ushra\nguy. He seems plenty creepy.\"\n\nHinte covered her face with a wing.\n\nI ventured, \"Isn't Ushra the faer's personal alchemist? And hasn't he\nbeen involved with this town forever? I don't think he should be our\nfirst suspect.\"\n\n\"If he's the faer's alchemist, doesn't that give him enough sway to do\nthis?\"\n\n\"Uh no, I don't think it does. If an alchemist asked you to do\nsomething, would you do it?\"\n\nDigrif scratched his chin. \"Well, Is that alchemist Hinte?\" I shook my\nhead. \"Well, I don't think I would.\"\n\n\"Exactly. Ushra couldn't do this, Gronte is nice and I trust her, and I\ntrust you two too.\"\n\n\"If you three are done retreading everything I've reasoned in the last\nfew moments, perhaps we could look in a useful direction.\" Then, in a\nvoice low enough I half-missed, Adwyn continued \"Yet somehow I don't\nimagine you are going to have anything useful to say.\"\n\n\"So we're thinking they spied on us?\" Digrif said, scratching a frill.\n\"But if they did that at Hinte's house, wouldn't they have to already\nknow something was up?\"\n\n\"No, Hinte was in the paper, remember? Our 'hero of the town?'\" I gave a\nlaugh I'd grown and stored some place where it rotted and fell to\npieces.\n\nDigrif nodded. \"Yeah, yeah you're right. Maybe they could have been\nspying as soon as the papers were out. It doesn't give them a lot of\ntime, but it's enough, right?\"\n\nAdwyn was muttering to no one, \"Blind take them and rip their eyes fr",
  "title": "Concede"
}