Wyn stepped out of Lyana's room and into the small sitting room that joined it to the rest of the villa, watching Nerini pacing back and forth along the short hallway. It appeared that the calm from before having dropped the moment Lyana was no longer with her friend. "She's asleep. She'll be okay, I think."

"She's definitely getting a bit of a trial by fire. Do you think she'll ever be able to fight, after all this?" Nerini paused for a moment, watching her friend sit down near the fire, expression unreadable. "It's a lot of violence and death, in a short period of time. I've seen less do more to stronger people."

"I think so. I hope so. She seems delicate, but she's got more to her than she knows." Wyn said finally, her words seeming to release Nerini again, setting her to pacing once more."You want to leave."

Nerini shrugged absently, running a hand through her hair, fighting the urge to let out a yell of frustration. "Yes. No. I don't know. I feel directionless. I feel like I need to do something, this calls for me to do something, but I don't feel it. I don't know where I'm needed, the pull, its gone."

Wyn frowned thoughtfully,  stretching out her legs slowly, her words cautious. "It seems you were needed here tonight."

"You had it handled." Nerini shook her head and only pausing long enough to let out a breath and incline her head. "I mean, now that it's all done, I feel odd, waiting here like this. Something is coming for us and we don't know why. I have been letting my guard down, and the enemy is still out there."

"Yeah, I know. But maybe, you're still needed here, or your plan for the next little while is a good one, so no further directions are needed?" Wyn offered, hoping her friend would relax and fearing that Nerini would disappear again. Whomever was behind this was more than her friend should try to handle on her own.

"You don't think I've used up all my magic? I've never felt like I was settled before. And things are starting to happen more rapidly." Nerini sighed and  just forced herself to breathe. "It is all picking up. I shouldn't be settled."

Wyn shook her head, patting the chair beside her, waiting for her friend to sit down with her before answering. "Yes, they are. But they're bringing the fight to us now. And who knows how long it will last. Just be content that, right now, you're exactly where you're meant to be. Stop fighting it so much, stop trying to seek out things too quickly."

"Sorry." Nerini murmured softly, expression going distant, to that far off place none of them could reach but her. 

Though, as quickly as she had left, Nerini was back in the present once more,  looking to her friend. "You fought really well today, you know. I was a bit distracted, but I noticed you held your own quite well."

Wyn smiled in relief offering a shrug. "I had a good teacher, Rini. And you helped a bit too, I saw you drawing more people away from us."

"Wow, thanks." Nerini laughed, "helped a bit"

"I had almost forgotten how exhilarating it is." Wyn said after a pause, smiling thoughtfully. "I remember why you prefer to do that, instead of all the tough work behind a desk. I might follow you off on an adventure while we're travelling, for old time's sake."

"I miss our adventures." Nerini rejoined, winking to her. "I would love to have you at my side, I'm actually looking forward to this winter, you know. Exploring with you again, not being alone."

"You know I'm going to make you help with the paperwork and the politics." Wyn warned, grinning as Rini groaned and shook her head. "You don't get to have all the fun and leave me with the boring. There'll be nobles to charm, budgets to plan, people to hire and direct and train."

Nerini covered her face and shook her head dramatically. "Stop! Stop, or I'm going to hop on the first ship north and fight the whole lot of these bad guys myself. Just as soon as I find them, just to avoid helping you!"

Wyn barked a laugh, then grew serious, painfully aware at how real that threat could be. How close Nerini was to doing just that every day she looked into the distance. "Promise me you'll never do that."

"Do what?" Nerini's smile faded, looking at her sombre friend, before glancing away.

"Never go up against it all, by yourself. You'll remember us."

Nerini nodded slowly, though her words were noncommittal, not promising a thing. "Yeah, sure."

"No, I mean it Nerini. You have friends and as tough as you think you are, we're way tougher than you on your own. Why have friends if you always leave them behind?" Wyn's voice was iron, a hand gripping her friend's arm firmly, desperate to get the message through to her.

"Some battles you have to fight on your own."

Wyn shook her head, her words still stubborn. "Yeah, but not all of them. And I'm not saying that you always must take me with you, though I would go in a heartbeat. But one of us, two of us. Someone."

"Are you angry that I'm always leaving?" Nerini asked after a moment of thinking about what her friend had said, looking away from her.

"Sometimes I am. Sometimes when I'm sitting in monotony, alone and forgetting the thrill of battle, or challenge of just being in a new scenario every day, I think of you, dropping us all so easily to go off and save the world. I can save the world too, you know."

Nerini pursed her lips, staring off into the distance for a long while,."I know. I just always figured you're doing a much better job saving the world with what you're doing. I don't have that. Your connections, your abilities with people and plans and numbers and things. I feel useless here, next to you and Rael and my brother. You guys all have a purpose."

Wyn sighed softly. "We all have a purpose, Rini, and I know that friends sometimes need to let each-other grow and I don't think we'd be us if we were always stuck together."

"Imagine how annoying I'd be, around you every day?"

"Oh, I know. I know." Wyn mock groaned, laughing softly as her friend hit her. "Can I tell you something stupid, something you can't laugh at me for, or mention it ever again?"

Nerini quirked a brow and nodded, "Sure."

"I think I like him."

"Who."

"C'mon. I mean he's arrogant, and still slightly sexist. But he's kind of cute, a bit more of a diplomat than a fighter but he tries. I haven't a chance in the world, I know." Wyn sighed softly, shaking her head. "But it's there."

"Oh him." Nerini paused, grinning to Wyn. "Yeah, I can see it."

"See what?"

"That he's arrogant and too self-involved. And you're entirely too good for him."

"I just wish he wasn't who he was." Wyn side glanced to her friend, smirking at the off handed compliment. Nerini was biased when it came to her friends, always had been.

"Funny, because I just decked two girls who were upset that he was who he was, and they couldn't have him."

Wyn laughed, shaking her head. "You didn't!"

"Yeah, they sold us out, because they couldn't be princesses anymore. Can you believe it?" Nerini rolled her eyes, a smirk on her lips. "I mean, if there's ever a sign that you were really bad marriage material, it's agreeing to murder the guy who turned you down."

"I was thinking, in a couple years, of maybe trying for one of the Council positions, you know?" Wyn said suddenly, changing the subject as she looked at her fingers. With the mention of marriage, she forced herself to stop thinking about something that wasn't a possibility. "Once I have things running in the meal house side of things, see if I can keep things looking to the greater good here."

Nerini nodded slowly, "I think you'd be great at it, Wyn. You have the people's heart, you know." 

Wyn wasn't sure if her friend was talking about the Council, or something else but she didn't ask, not brave enough to find out if Nerini was speaking her opinion or the truth.

***

After hours of talking, all the mercenary knew was that he had been hired by someone who had remained unknown throughout the hiring process. He had not known anyone else who had been hired until they all started moving in on their target. That all he was just told  wasthat he had to kill someone on the Council and that others would be working in concert with him. 

It was supposed to be an easy plan, good pay out, with small risk. There would be a distraction and then he was to assassinate the closest council member, or regent or high minded noble he could get to. 

Simple as that, in, kill, out.

Shiar found gold coins in the man's possessions though they weren't marked by any mint Shiar had seen before. Blank on one side, with a simple triangle on the other, perfectly formed yet completely untraceable. Enough money to make the mercenary a very comfortable life once it was all done, if he had succeeded and escaped. 

More than most people would pay a low-ranking mercenary for an assassination attempt, especially considering that most of the attackers had the same gold coins. Whomever had funded the attack had a great deal of money at their disposal and the ability to make their own currency.

There was a vial of black poison on the man as well and when questioned, the mercenary admitted he had been told to drink it if caught alive.  That part was an oddity when considering that they had hired mercenaries and not loyal subjects. The man clearly hadn't agreed to die for whatever cause he had been hired for and had no idea why his employer had thought he would.

Shiar sent the poison to the chemists, to compare it with the black poison found on the bolts at the scene of the attempted attack on his sister, though he already suspected what the result would be. 

Poison was something he didn't have familiarity with but would put money on all these events being connected, it was just too convenient not to be. All these facts were sending his thoughts back to Nerini's insistence that there was a force outside all of their awareness that was directing these things. The same force that had destroyed Cleandria, apparently.

Shiar didn't have to raise a finger against the man, though he never really liked trying to illicit information through pain anyways. With enough listening, most people were happy to tell their life stories because they liked to believe they were understood and perhaps justified. The man even admitted that he had tried to kill Lyana, just because she seemed like an easier target, though he had been stopped by Lady Wyn knocking him out cold with a punch to the face.

The mercenary then offered to turn double agent and try to find more information. But Shiar recommended against it and in the end the Council would sentence the man to hang for his part in the conspiracy, though Shiar had not bothered to worry about that side of things. It wasn't his job to mete out justice. He gathered the information and presented it, giving his recommendations to aid their decisions. 

Shiar spoke with the two courtiers next, though they had far less information. He found that their quick change from flirtatiously innocent to blubbering with tears grated on his nerves, which was odd, seeing as how he had just spoken to the man who tried to murder his sister without batting an eye. They had received money and a letter a couple weeks ago, addressing their frustrations at not being within the Prince's circle anymore and promising more money if they eliminated the threat Lady Nerini during the ball. They had thought to distract her enough to stab her with a poisoned knife and had not expected to be punched in the face.

Shiar could barely understand the level of their stupidity. They had thought the two of them could take her down with very little fight, underestimating Nerini's abilities. Though, their employers also having underestimated Nerini despite had deemed her important enough to be a specific target. 

Shiar was slightly more disturbed that the two idiotic women were the only ones given a distinct target, specifically named, when everyone else had just been hired to go after whatever weakness they could find. Out of the entire group, a second born noblewoman, who had very little to do with the Council, was the least likely to be a definite target but whomever had hired the women had been adamant that Nerini die.

The two courtiers were Aupanan and turned over to the justice of that country, where Queen Rael would sit as judge once she returned to her court. All that was needed from him, was a report written up with what they had told him, which he delivered along with a verbal brief before he had finished for the night.

He walked away from the interviews and reports feeling like he knew even less than when he started and did his best to clear his mind before trying to deal with whatever state Lyana was sure to be in. He stood for a long time outside his villa as his mind whirred through his confused thoughts. 

None of this made any sense. 

There was no major power in the area that would have a vested interest in them failing, no empire or country nearby enough to matter, so he could only conclude that the enemies were within one of the member nations. Though Nerini's odd obsession with some other sort of darkness and the fact that some unseen force had tried to send Sellexu and Aupana to war two years ago weighed on his mind.

The sun was rising by the time he walked through the door and found Nerini and Wyn sleeping in the sitting room outside his sister's bedroom. The first of his footfalls in the room, however, had them both awake, hands on sword hilts until they blinked the sleep from their eyes and recognized him. 

The two women moved like warriors, their bodies relaxing, hands dropping from their weapons as they evaluated him to be the furthest thing from a threat, nodding silently to him as he watched them calmly.

For some odd reason, none of them broke the silence of the room, merely offering one another knowing looks before he went in to check on Lyana. He watched her sleeping soundly in her bed, reassuring himself that his sister was alright and would get through this latest trauma with enough care. When Shiar returned to the sitting room, Nerini and Wyn were already gone, having let themselves out silently.

Shiar sat on the chair vacated so recently by Nerini, sinking into the cushion still warm from her body and fell asleep much the same way she had been moments before. He woke up several hours later with a blanket over him and Lyana sitting in the chair beside him reading a book. 

He didn't know what to make of it, but they would find a way through. 

END PART III