37th of Season of Earth, 220th year of the 32nd cycle

  Newt’s first instinct was to say no. But he couldn’t say no to the heresy hunters. They might accuse him or the order as a whole of being cultists or cult supporters. They might attack outright. Newt could survive a few blows from ninth-realmers. He could even fight back, depending on how unsculpted their realms were. But people wearing half-gold, half-green had to be powerful, as those were the colors granted to the highest officials outside the imperial family.

  They probably had enough time and resources to complete at least sixty to seventy percent of their realms once they crossed the fifth. Meaning they were powerful, and since they were heresy hunters, meant to battle the four cults, they must have been at least capable combatants.

  “Master is in seclusion, please understand, causing damage to an exalt is no trivial matter.” Newt tried to defuse the situation, citing the law, but without blinking, the man threw Newt a potion bottle.

  “This will compensate for a moon of your master’s effort; let’s go see him.”

  Newt could tell the bottle was thrumming with energy, an exalt-grade potion. He stored it in his spatial pouch and nodded.

  “Please follow me.” He was powerless to stop them. The only thing he could do was to contain the damage when they discovered that the Explorer’s Gate’s exalt was not, in fact, home.

  The wards around Master’s residence are strong enough to contain them for a while. I’ll gather the grandmasters, but in a two on two battle, these guys hold an advantage even if I and Chaplain Monsoon join the fight.

  Newt’s mind raced, half of it focused on keeping all of his bodily functions exactly the way they were before the conversation with the imperial officials. Outing his panic and his plotting against them would only worsen his position.

  Then, he started thinking about the situation in general. Sending two peak ninth realm experts for an audit and to deliver a message was definitely irregular. And why heresy hunters and not ministers? The only thing he could conclude was that the imperials suspected something. Only Newt and his Master knew what was happening, so nobody else could let anything slip.

  Is someone watching Master’s residence? Do they know he’s absent? Have they heard our conversations somehow?

  Grim scenarios kept building up in Newt’s mind as they went deep into the forest. If they fought at the gatemaster’s residence, within a defensive barrier, even with the two grandmasters inside the order’s protective wards, the casualties should be minimal.

  The old shack came into view. Newt nonchalantly crossed the invisible line of spell seals, but the grandmasters stopped at the edge of the ward. Right at the edge.

  The barriers were inactive. Next to impossible to spot casually, and yet they stopped exactly a step away from them.

  “Gatemaster Greenthorn!” the woman boomed, her voice infused with so much mana it made his bones shake. Newt’s heart skipped a beat despite him minding it. The fight was inevitable, and if they knew about the wards, that meant they were expecting sneak attacks.

  He was estimating who was the softer target of the two. The woman projected a menacing aura; the man seemed stout and invulnerable—.

  The door of the hut slammed open. Gatemaster Greenthorn walked out spitting blood.

  “There better be a good reason for interrupting my seclusion.”

  A look of terrified surprise flickered across the heresy hunters’ faces, but they calmed the next moment.

  “We meant no disrespect,” the woman stammered, visibly shaken.

  “Tell me, what’s the punishment for wounding an exalt?” Gatemaster Greenthorn was livid, and Newt had no idea what was going on.

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  “I am an imperial servant!” the woman shouted indignantly, but the gatemaster was in front of her, his hand wrapped around her neck like a band of steel.

  “If you are an imperial servant, you know how one approaches an exalt who is in secluded meditation. You have a textbook with a step-by-step protocol.” Her skin hissed and popped, a soundless scream of agony escaping her twisted mouth.

  The other man bowed deeply, not even bothering to put up a fight. “We were acting under false information. We will compensate you for your injuries and the loss of mana.”

  A veritable chest of potions appeared on the ground before him, all of them blazing with mana.

  “These should be more than sufficient.”

  Gatemaster Greenthorn scanned the dozen bottles and then released the woman.

  “What is the punishment for disturbing an exalt in secluded meditation?” he asked her again, a fiery handprint visible on her neck.

  “Whatever the exalt says, Lord,” she rasped, the gatemaster hadn’t cooked only her skin, but the damage seemed to have been much worse deep beneath, where it couldn’t be seen.

  “You should thank your partner. I was close to killing you for your offense. As is my legal right. Now, if there was nothing else you wanted to do except interrupt my seclusion, you may leave.”

  They turned to leave, but the gatemaster spoke again. “Let me ask you one thing, which of my order’s enemies has fed you information to interrupt me at this crucial point? Who are we going to war against?”

  “Information about informants of the heresy hunters is confidential, Lord,” the man said, then a bit of anger seeped into his voice. “But trust me, we’re going to find out what the meaning of this was. And if someone has tried to use us as a knife, they will pay dearly.”

  Newt moved to follow them, but Gatemaster Greenthorn spoke. “Newstar, you will stay here and tell me exactly what it is that the heresy hunters wanted with us.”

  “Yes, Master,” Newt replied meekly, and followed the gatemaster towards his hut.

  “Collect the potions first.”

  Newt did so, then went into the ancient building.

  “Master—”

  Gatemaster Greenthorn raised his hand and private wards. “Now, you may speak.”

  “Weren’t you—” he stopped himself in time. “Busy?”

  “I was, but heresy hunters stopped by the Tidebreakers for a surprise audit and insisted on meeting all three exalts. I smelled a scuttler, so I departed through a secret escape hatch and headed straight back.

  “I feared I would find a smoldering crater where my order once stood, but I hoped we were low enough on the imperial administration’s list of priorities that I would still make it in time.”

  He wiped the blood off his lips and his chaotic flow of mana stopped, the exalt once more turning into a man-shaped void in Newt’s mindcore.

  “What now?”

  “Now we have to leave earlier. We don’t have years as expected, but around two moons. We should also root out the spies who noticed my disappearance. Couldn’t have been any of the students, since the heresy hunters stopped right outside the wards, and there’s no way for students to know where’s what. Chaplain Longfang is the most suspicious, but he has no reason to betray us. He’s in his final years, spending them with family more than performing his duties.”

  “Will impact plans?” Newt tried asking through mental communication, but he was stretched thin and lacked the time to master the art.

  “We have to bring everyone with us. Deep in the wealds, they can be a traitor all they want. If they try to leave our territory, something will eat them, and we’ll all be happier for it. I doubt the spy is a cultist, since their hatred for the imperials should be genuine, and once we publicly reveal the imperials’ betrayal, I doubt the spy or spies will stay loyal.”

  “And your injury, Master? How severe is it?”

  “I ruptured the back of my mouth with poor mana control. The blood was mana-saturated enough for them to think it was a heavy internal injury. They can’t scan my body. The fact that we could scam them for twelve exalt-grade potions is excellent. They may have paid our first six years of taxes to the saurians.”

  “Actually, they gave me a potion to bring them to your residence, so it’s thirteen potions.”

  “Even better.” Gatemaster Greenthorn smiled; scamming the imperial administration brought him no small amount of joy.

  “I arrived two hours before they got here, but I have to tell you, the way you guided them around the order and showed them everything was beautiful. I couldn’t have made better preparations.”

  “Why?”

  “Because had the master of the order known his student would show the heresy hunters everything instead of just what should be on the tax submissions, he would have arrived there immediately to stop that stupid nonsense. Unless,” the exalt smiled. “Unless they were really in secluded meditation focused entirely on sculpting their realm.”

  He laughed and shook his head before speaking aloud. “Pure genius.”