59 – Herbicide

We carry your blessing across the land and the breathing. Let it fester, let it proliferate. All warmth is a garden. Zabatrid willing, it will blight into bloom.

Creed of the Pale Bloom, unknown author.

“Are you certain?” Sera asked. “If you contract a sickness, Louis stays in that cell.”

Alexandra clenched her fist. “A whole village, Sera.”

“I know.”

“My friends were in that village.”

“I know that too.” Sera’s voice didn’t soften. “It’s still a plant. It didn’t choose anything. The Yshant did.”

Alexandra opened her mouth and closed it.

“You want to hurt something,” Sera said. “I understand. But that thing is a tool. Killing it doesn’t reach the hand that holds it. Not the Yshant. And certainly not Merinus.”

The silence stretched.

“So I do nothing.”

“You get Louis out. You get stronger.” Sera put a hand on her shoulder. “Kill the Yshant. The Perub falls with it.”

Alexandra looked down at her sickle. She exhaled through her nose.

“Fine.”

“Good.” She handed her another rock. “Keep practicing while we walk back to town. Try to cast both spells together. It’ll be tough, but that’s good training. And it would be safer if you could do that during the infiltration.”

Alexandra took the rock.

They reached Esmera as the sun was starting to dip. Alexandra had dropped the glamour too many times to count and failed to dispel the enchantment. Working with two mana threads was several steps above a simple spell. Yet, by the time the white walls came into view, she had gotten better at keeping her spells active while moving.

It was still far from perfect, or even satisfactory, but it was progress.

They used Louis’ hideout as an entry point, but didn’t stop there. Wearing hood and gloves, Alexandra blended into the thin crowd as she went down the main street through the harbor.

The attacks had left their marks. She could see it in the way people moved, fast, glancing left and right. She followed a few steps behind two men, close enough to hear.

“The Hands left for a reason, I tell you. We better dip while we still can.”

“And how? The last boat left yesterday.”

“Through the plains?”

“Then what? The steppes? It’s probably nothing important. Politics between the Wardens and the Hands.”

She turned to a side street, toward the eastern district, then she started climbing rocks on the sea side.

Sera was already there when she arrived, seated on a flat rock above the harbor with the Merinus estate spread out below her like a map.

“Was it enough?”

“No,” Alexandra said, closing her journal. “One Face Among Many is difficult to level.”

“It’ll happen naturally. Not a bad thing per se. Just a bit inconvenient now.”

Alexandra looked down at the harbor, then at their target.

The estate sat at the harbor’s edge, separated from the town by a stone wall twice her height. Inside it, four buildings arranged around a central courtyard. A main house wide enough to swallow three of Esmera’s townhouses, two smaller structures flanking it, and a long low building against the far wall that had the look of servant quarters. Guards moved the perimeter in pairs. Even from here she could count six, and those were just the ones moving.

“So that’s where they keep him?”

“Yes. In the basement under the courtyard. See the main entrance?”

She nodded.

“Trace the walls counter clockwise. About twenty minutes. You should spot the servants’ entrance.”

Alexandra squinted. It was hard to see from this distance, and that was with her perception having tripled since arriving in Laika. The setting sun in front of her didn’t help.

“Ah, there it is.”

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

A large metallic door cut into the wall.

“I can’t see a guard.”

“He’s there. Behind the wall.”

They waited until someone approached. Three people carrying bags, likely from the market. They stopped before the door.

“They knocked,” Sera said. Alexandra wasn’t capable of seeing such details from their position.

A few seconds later, the door creaked open. One guard. A few seconds passed, then the servants went inside with their bags.

“Am I supposed to enter like that?”

Sera shook her head. “We’ll wait for a larger group.”

They watched until the light was gone.

The west district was quiet at this hour. Alexandra stood in front of Maret’s door, the cliff wall looming over her. She’d left Sera to watch over the Merinus estate. The plan was to act tomorrow, and she needed to complete all her preparations beforehand.

She knocked.

Seconds passed. The near-cavernous atmosphere in this part of town weighed on her.

She knocked again.

“Yes, yes, I’m coming. How impatient can you be?” The door slammed open. He looked her up and down. “I was starting to think you’d given up on the herbicides.”

Alexandra shrugged. “I’ve been busy.”

Maret let her into his lab.

“Busy? You’ve yet to eliminate Merinus. Don’t you want the antidote? Or did you find another way to pay for it? With the Hands gone, you are out of options.”

“As a matter of fact, I did.” She paused. “You wouldn’t happen to know something about the sickness of empathy?”