The Wanted Poster and the Faithful

Vulgara’s head weighs more than a lesson. Parzelle Starfall carried it into Shen’dar Village under a sky the color of a bruise going purple, and Danarii Bellowveil took the bounty the way Peacekeepers take any good news that arrives already dead: gratefully, and without pretending the highlands are safer for it.

Constable Aonda had posted the notice for a reason. The winged vuldren had been terrorizing the rises southwest of the village — a scourge with an appetite and a hilltop, which is all a nightmare needs on Zephras Isle. Parzelle finished what the Wanted poster asked. Six silver and a column of experience later, the High Order had one less problem and one more mage who had learned that wanted work pays in coin and in the kind of quiet that only follows something with wings being made to stop flying.

She had come back to the Shen’dar Highlands with a satchel full of yesterday’s unfinished business. A Magical Affront, aimed at Windshaper novice seers who would rather the isle keep begging spirits that have already left, came due in a wash of gold light on the cobbles of Shen’dar Village. Level seven. The chronicler has watched that light on a great many first-week mages. On a Skyborne it looks like the island agreeing, briefly, to stay up.

The rest of the day was the highlands arguing back.

Prideclaws had been pressing the village borders, bold enough that Indari Sunseam wanted pelts before someone’s child became a story instead of a warning. Parzelle brought the pelts. Bandits had been lifting windstones from Teeri Wellwind’s emergency cache and laughing about it in a cave behind a waterfall north of town — Highlands Bandits, and their leader, the one they call “Badwind” Bennic. Constable Aonda could not spare the people. Parzelle went anyway.

She died twice in the Bandit Hideout before the cave learned her name. Level seven both times. The chronicler notes these things. First deaths teach a mage whether she means it; second deaths teach her that meaning it is not the same as winning. She got up. The bandits did not, eventually. Pilfered Windstones came home. The Criminal Element closed. The waterfall kept falling, indifferent as water always is.

Then the cult.

Infiltrating the Cult was a short walk and a long idea: speak with Sania Silverstream, take the Mark of Akir, and walk into Falaath Village as if you belonged among people who have decided the Shen’dar Highlands need a different kind of faith. Missionary Jasaan met her at the entrance. Among the Faithful meant looking until the cult’s intentions stopped being rumor and started being architecture you could point at. She looked. She reported back to Aonda. The village of Shen’dar handed her the next three problems before she had finished standing up: Havoc in the Highlands, The Western Watch, Stolen Supplies.

Somewhere on a pebbly shore under the cliffs, with a Highlands Bandit cooling at her feet and the last of the pilfered stones accounted for, the strength of the isle settled into her again. Level eight. Fireball had already grown teeth. Arcane Missiles and a colder Frostbolt arrived with Polymorph, which is the mage’s polite way of saying sit still while I decide what you are for. She learned to fish, because even a Skyborne has to eat, and the island does not lower dinner from the chains.

Ninety-nine minutes across two returns to Zephras. Copper earned and spent in the ordinary arithmetic of trainers and reagents. Two deaths. A bounty finished. A cult walked into and walked back out of. Three quests still open like unfinished sentences on the highlands wind.

She logged out in Shen’dar Village with the Mark of Akir’s memory still on her and the Western Watch still waiting for someone who has already learned that Faithful is a word that means different things on different sides of the same floating island.

The chronicler will be curious which lesson she believes next: the one that says the High Order can hold the sky with spells, or the one the cult is already preaching in Falaath while the chains creak.