The good thing about being ambushed by bandits is that you don’t have to carry your own loot. I was never going to make it out alone, not without taking an hour-long nap, at least.

  We moved fast and without ceremony.

  The ascent to the bandit camp was a long, slanted pull across broken ground that horses could manage if they knew where to place their weight. The path was never obvious. It threaded between outcroppings and shallow gullies, doubling back on itself often enough that I lost any clean sense of direction within minutes. From below, it would have looked like nothing more than uneven highland scrub and exposed stone.

  The land rose in tiers rather than slopes, each one broad and deceptively level, with old wagon scars cut into the earth. The camp itself sat just beyond the crest, settled into a shallow basin that the wind passed over. Tents were sparse and utilitarian, and every tether could be cut in seconds if they needed to scatter.

  No one bothered to bind my hands. That alone told me more than the knives on display.

  They took my pack, relieved me of anything sharp, and waved me toward the fire with the same disinterest they might show a late-arriving rider. Anabeth stayed close, a presence rather than a problem. No one tried to separate us. I found it to be profoundly foolish, as an Anabeth nursed to strength could simply wipe the floor with these men, but they didn’t seem to particularly care about our loot anymore.

  Someone handed me a bowl before I could ask for one. Inside was game meat, judging by the cut and the grease on the surface. A knife followed, placed on the ground rather than passed to me, close enough to reach if I was trusted, far enough to be taken back if I wasn’t.

  I ate. Refusing would have been read as a problem.

  The color had crept back into Anabeth’s face. She accepted a strip of meat, chewed once, then seemed to lose interest entirely. Instead, she lifted her hair and set her new skull-shaped earring into her right ear, utterly unconcerned with the men watching her.

  I turned to her. She beamed at me.

  Nosadiva settled across the fire from me, turning the fire between us into a line.

  “You wouldn’t bring that name here without reason,” he said. “So tell me—how many men are coming, and how far behind you are they?”

  “The Radiant Concord has already gone to the Order,” I said. “What they asked for was removal. You’ll get men without colors, without records. Vanishers. You will vanish in days.” I was exaggerating, of course. I needed him talking. Was he the kind of bandit who bleeds caravans for sport, or the kind who only started charging tolls once the Concord decided certain roads were theirs?

  Nosadiva gritted his teeth and clenched his hands. “I knew it. They always do. The Radiant Concord tells its people it stands against the excesses of the Order. That it protects the will of the commons from being bent by sanctified tyrants. And then they send letters in the dark, asking the Order to do what they can’t admit to wanting done!”

  “You know of Priest Calsen?”

  “Did that old bastard say something to you?” Nosadiva snarled.

  “He accuses you and your men of murder. That you are ex-mercs, preying on the vulnerable.”

  Nosadiva surged to his feet. The firelight caught the scars on his face then. He stepped closer to the fire, close enough that the heat washed over him, and jabbed a finger toward his own chest.

  “Mercenary?” he spat. “Look at me.”

  I did.

  “Tell me what contract carves lines like these,” he went on. “What paymaster leaves a man with stone dust in his lungs and church iron in his shoulder.”

  His voice rose, not shouting yet, but carrying.

  “We were Branfield,” he said. “Before the Concord put up banners, before the bells, before all the sanctified roads and blessed tolls.” His hand swept wide, taking in the men around the fire. “Every one of us who wouldn’t kneel, who wouldn’t swear, who wouldn’t tithe our labor to a Saint we never asked for… were pushed out. Look at us and tell me, do you see mercenaries?”

  I looked around.

  Yeah, they weren’t mercenaries. Their levels were too low. The Church had been lying about at least one thing.

  A man on Nosadiva’s left asked, “But why did you come to warn us? We’re nothing compared to the Church. If they wanted us gone, we’d already be gone. I figured they might even pay you. To bring us in.”

  He would be true. I’d gain a huge sum for turning Nosadiva in, and Anabeth would get her earring. Also, I’d only spoken so they’d voluntarily carry my pannier full of bone pieces instead of robbing us.

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  Yet, I was invested now. I needed to learn the full account of this story before my stamina passed the 50% threshold.

  “I serve a Saint,” I said. “The Saint I answer to does not tolerate theft dressed up as law, does not excuse exile because it was written neatly, and does not accept blood paid in advance so someone else can keep their hands clean. The Saint I answer to serve justice.”

  “You serve justice with a longsword and a girl shorter than your shoulder?”

  Anabeth let out an unimpressed ‘hmph’. She lifted one finger and turned it. The man who had spoken wore an iron bracelet, and it shuddered. Then the ring dragged him a full step toward the fire. Anabeth rotated her finger again. The man hit the ground hard and was hauled across it like freight as dirt and stone tore at his coat. He clawed at the earth and begged, “Stop—stop—please—”

  She lowered her hand.

  The ring slackened. The man lay where he had been dropped, shaking, one arm pulled unnaturally close to his chest. He did not look up again.

  Anabeth returned her attention to the fire, entirely serene, and tore another strip of meat in half.

  No one commented.

  Finally, Nosadiva started speaking, “This wasn’t always a road worth bleeding for, before the Concord.”

  The fire burned lower.

  Someone fed it without asking, then someone else took our empty bowls and replaced them with water.

  Nosadiva continued, “Branfield sat on old stone, a crossing point where three valleys met and nobody bothered to claim it because there was nothing there to claim. Yet, the Order sent a governor anyway. He promised crop subsidies and irrigation magic. Our fathers said no to every one of them. We didn’t want our sons counted or our grain measured. We kept our own roads, settled our own disputes, buried our own dead.”

  I listened.

  “The Order gave up without a fight, and we thought that was the end of it. Then one day, a man arrived. He came with a dozen attendants and a wagon full of icons, and called himself High Priest Schladen.” His mouth twisted. “The first day, he healed a crushed hand in the square. The second, he took a boy born crooked and made him walk straight. The third, he lit the chapel stones without flint or oil. People wept. I did too.”

  Around the fire, a few heads dipped. The old memories must have gotten to them.

  “Schladen said the Saints had noticed Branfield. He told us our crossing sat on a path walked in dreams. All he asked for was a shrine. A place to keep the light. Then came the surveyors. Said the Saints had marked the road more clearly now. Drove stakes into our fields. Drew lines we’d never seen before and told us they were holy.” His fingers curled in the dirt. “Protection,” he said. “That was the word. Protection from bandits we’d never had. Protection from dangers that appeared the same day the tolls did.” He looked up at me then. “At first it was kohns. Then silver. Then labor. Then vows. And once you owe a Saint, you don’t get to decide when you’ve paid enough.”

  Nosadiva stared into the fire. “I used to wonder what he could possibly gain from us. We were poor. The soils were thin, and the summers were short. Half the town owed favors just to make it through winter. Schladen arrived with a wagon full of icons plated in gold leaf and crystal lamps that burned without wicks. He fed people for weeks out of his own stores. He didn’t need our tribute. And when we resisted and he drove us all out, that was when we understood. “It was never about what he could take from us, but about the land we were standing on.”

  Around the fire, no one spoke.

  “They called us heretics,” he finished. “Then bandits. Then criminals. Same people. New names. Easier each time.”

  My blood went hot. I tightened my grip on the bowl until the rim bit into my palm and welcomed the sting. It kept the anger where it belonged. Why had it been necessary to break people the way Schladen had? The cruelty wasn’t collateral.

  I wondered why Anabeth had been so quiet, and if she had been thoroughly captivated by the story like I did.

  I turned.

  She was leaning on me, asleep. How she could have slept through such an account was beyond me.

  “We’ve already been placed as aliens the moment we denied the Order’s governorship,” he exhaled. “No town will take us. No charter will shelter us. If we perish, we’d rather perish on our own land.”

  He met my eyes again, steady now.

  “So thank you for the warning,” he continued. “But there’s nothing to be done. Even if you two were High Mage tier, Schladen came with a church full of magi and writs older than memory.” His mouth twitched. “We don’t need your dungeon spoils anymore, unless you’re feeling generous.”

  A few men chuckled.

  Nosadiva leaned back and lifted two fingers. “Tommy. Bring our guests the vitalizing water.”

  A man rose and returned with a shallow bowl holding a liquid with a faint aetheric sheen. I took it with a heavy heart.

  Nosadiva was right. Ultimately, this wasn’t our business. I had no illusion that I was some grand savior who had wandered in from the road with a sword and a conscience and could undo what had been written into ledgers and sealed with light. In fact, we didn’t even need to return to Branfield. We could set off to another town, sell our dungeon spoil for thousands of Kohns, then moved on to do business where the church didn’t hold a monopoly on artifact trade.

  Yet, the moment I took the bowl, a vision appeared before me.

  I didn’t miss the timing.

  Ceralis was careful about that. It’d decided to drop the hook only after I’d listened to the whole story. Justice, presented as an archival task. How Ceralis thought I’d be capable of producing a documented copy was beyond me. I hadn’t even been able to draw a proper map until yesterday.

  Yet it knew justice couldn’t be served unless someone had the power to enforce it. I shouldn’t have been tempted by the reward.

  But this first step asked for nothing irreversible. No confrontation; no blood.

  And that was how it drew me in.