55 - The Raven Girl

“Seriously, Arielle,” Lyra said to Arielle as they took their breakfast to the table. “You didn’t think a troll attack was special?”
“I didn’t know what your definition of special was,” Arielle said when they sat down. The buzz of conversation around the dining hall swallowed them. Everyone was talking about the same thing…the troll attack in Khor. The twins had brought the news to Lyra this morning when the girls had joined the breakfast line, and Lyra had then turned on Arielle accusatorily, because apparently that was something she should have mentioned last night.
“What do you mean you didn’t know what my definition of special was?” Lyra asked, tearing off a piece of her bread roll and dipping it into her porridge. “I’m pretty sure troll attacks are everyone’s definition of special.”
“Not if it happens often enough,” Ari said. “Khor had a troll attack when the Black Knight appeared, too.”
“So?”
“So it’s happened at least once before. It might have happened more times than that, which some people would define as not special.”
Lyra shook her head. “You know what, it’s my fault. Next time you go on a trip, I’ll ask very specifically if there were troll attacks anywhere in the vicinity, or if anything else happened that hadn’t happened more than a handful of times before, at least to your knowledge.”
That was a smart idea. “Yes, you should do that. That will net you a more accurate answer.”
Lyra narrowed her eyes. “I was being sarcastic.”
Arielle paused with her slice of duck halfway to her mouth. “Oh.”
“Never mind,” Lyra said.
A second later, they were instantly surrounded, and not by the twins and Maus, who were still in line. Instead, it was by Riorke, Lacey, Cuthbert, and Godfrey. Lyra looked startled as they all dropped onto seats beside them, their plates clanging on the table.
Riorke faced Arielle. “What was it like?”
“What was what like?”
“The troll attack. You went to Khor yesterday, didn’t you?”
Before Ari could answer, someone else jumped in.
“You were there for the attack,” Cuthbert asked. “Did you hear about the Raven girl?”
“What Raven girl?” Lyra asked.
“Apparently, all of Khor is talking about this girl with a raven mask that appeared out of nowhere and took down all the trolls. She was incredibly powerful and was casting wordless, wandless spells. She basically saved the day and then disappeared before anyone could find her.”
“Did you see her, Arielle?” Riorke asked. “The attack happened close to the bank, and I don’t know if you went there yesterday–”
Arielle shook her head frantically, keeping her eyes fixed on her food and not at the ceiling. “No. I was in the temple the whole time. I barely heard of a troll attack.”
“You’re lying,” Riorke said flatly.
Her eyes flew up to him. “How do you know?”
“Because you’re terrible at it. You did see her, didn’t you?”
Airelle had a moment of panic, but decided that she was better off sticking as close to the truth as possible. “I think she came into the temple, but then I didn’t see her after that.”
“She disappeared in the temple?” Lyra gave her a look, and Godfrey snapped his fingers.
“That explains it then,” he said.
“Explain what?” Lyra asked.
“Who she is.”
“Who is she?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” He looked around the table and rolled his eyes when no one responded. “She emerged from the temple of the Unholy Trio on the day of Hylox when they were celebrating the Black Knight. What else do we know about the Black Knight? He was a Vaelor, a servant of the Unmaker, as are the other three. So in a way, celebrating the Black Knight is celebrating the Unmaker.”
“Okay?” Riorke said.
“So…” Godfrey dragged it out for dramatic effect and also because he was waiting for someone else to complete the sentence, expressing obvious frustration when they didn’t. “It’s obvious. She’s the Abyssal Drift.”
Arielle choked on her duck and coughed a chunk of meat out as Riorke patted her back a little too hard for her liking. She made a face at the mess and quickly went to retrieve a napkin to clean it up.
When she came back, there seemed to be an argument going on.
“That’s ridiculous,” Cuthbert said. “She can’t be the Drift.”
“Why not?” Godfrey said.
“For one, she’s a girl.”
“So?” Lacey said. “We just assume that the Drift is male, but it could be female.”
“No, it couldn’t. Have you seen the statues in the temple?”
“You mean the one without a face? The one that’s simply crafted from the imaginations of mere mortals who probably have never even laid eyes on the Drift before?”
“Okay, I disagree that she’s the Drift, but not because she’s a girl,” Riorke said. “But because no one has ever seen the Drift, and people clearly saw her.”
“But no one saw her face. And how do we know that people haven’t seen the Drift if we don’t know anything about him or her?”
Arielle opened her mouth to say that people had seen the Drift, just that anyone who had was dead.
But she closed her mouth again.
An idea occurred to her.
“What if there’s more than one Drift?” she asked aloud.
All eyes went to her. “What?”
“All the conflicting stories about the Drift. What if there is more than one of them, and that’s why we get different versions, and sometimes he’s mischievous, and sometimes he’s helpful, and his powers are varied as well. Because they’reall different people.”
With that thought, she recalled one of the pieces of information she’d gotten when looking into the Abyssal Drift.
The Church of the Wayward.
A church implied multiple people playing multiple roles. Churches had priests, like the Hollowed Priest. They had gods like the Death god. Then they had a congregation.
What if the congregation was the Drift?
“Huh,” Riorke said, rubbing his chin.
“Do you have proof?” Lacey asked.
“Not really.” She couldn’t exactly show a random person’s handwriting as proof, but if she could somehow get confirmation from Telip and ask him where he’d gotten the information, then she would have proof.
She would ask him about it today. He wasn’t at breakfast, but perhaps she would be lucky enough to run into him at the library, or she might see him at dinner.
On that day, in between classes, Arielle spent her free time in the library incorporating more spells, mostly Vitae-dominant spells, into her Grimoire. She’d incorporated [Minor Rapid Healing] [Vitality Boost] [Creature Control] [Root Bind] [Minor Phytogenesis] and [Animal Grooming]. She mostly practiced these on an ant she found on a windowsill, releasing him from her hold only when she was done levelling up.
When the system alerted her to use her levelling points, she put it all into constitution again, as Elric had said she should.

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Speaking of Elric, she wondered if he’d responded to her message. When she’d checked this morning, there still had not been a reply.
He had to be busy. Hopefully, he was still alive, or Arielle would have to avenge him.
Once Arielle was done with levelling, she tried to figure out more about the oath spell around her neck.
She had a theory that maybe she needed to activate the oath first before uncovering it with Orion. So she thought about telling Elric, triggering the ring of heat, then she targeted it with the hunter spell.
Unfortunately, it didn’t work.
She was missing something, something that would help her break through.
But what could it be?
She had a feeling it was just at the tip of her tongue, at the corner of her mind.
One more thing she wasn’t considering.
Just then, she saw Telip arrive.
From her vantage point, she had a clear view of the entrance, and she bolted to her feet, rushing to interrupt his quick strides, right before he reached the staircase to the upper, restricted sections.
“Hello,” she said. “May I talk to you?”
He frowned. “I’m a little busy–”
“I’ll be quick,” she blurted out. “Do you know anything about the Church of the Wayward?”
Ari prepared for his shock and the questions that would follow. Of course, she couldn’t outright tell him that she had stolen the information from his book. That would upset him, probably, so she’d already prepared an elaborate lie to explain why she knew that name.
But he didn’t react in surprise. Instead, he frowned at her. “No, I don’t. Why?”
That surprised her. “You don’t?”
“Right. Should I?”
That was…shocking. She’d assumed he would know.
Or was he lying to her? Was he trying to hide the fact that he knew something about the Unmaker because he didn’t want her to find out for some reason?
“Why did you tell Torin that I should stop looking so deeply into the Unmaker?” Arielle asked.
“Because you were trying too hard,” he said. “Is that all? I have to go up and study.”
Trying too hard? Was he lying or showing genuine concern?
Arielle used the [Empath Sense] on him, and it showed a severe frown on his face before he walked past her and up the stairs.
He was displeased with her question. Why was he displeased?
Why would he pretend not to know what she was talking about? Did he not want her to know?
Well, she was going to find out one way or another.

---

Elric was exhausted when he appeared on the Island.
Three dimensional rifts in quick succession, one after the other, had a way of sucking the life out of a man. One of them had been in Gio’s territory, and once again, restraining Gio was the most hectic part of Elric’s job.
But that many rifts in less than twenty-four hours was cause for alarm for the council.
They’d had an emergency meeting because they needed to figure out why it was happening.
The most terrifying possibility was the one he didn’t even want to consider: that the Massa bases that held everything together–the reason for the stability on earth–were indeed thinning.
There were several on the council pushing that theory. Their solution to the problem was then to introduce a quota on adept mages, too, but so far, that proposal had been shot down for good reason.
There were already too many restrictions with the system, and without enough adepts, there wouldn’t be enough people holding up vulnerable parts of the community and the bureaucracy.
There would be more work for the masters and archmages, and the human race would be leaving itself vulnerable to attack.
It was while they were discussing that that Elric received news of the latest attack in Khor, an island that wasn’t in his territory but was close to home for him. He’d offered to attend to it, because Arielle’s school was only an hour away by boat, and if the trolls had made it there…
Well, they couldn’t have. Trolls couldn’t swim, and even if they could, there were enough capable mages at Erynwall to handle them.
The thought calmed him, even though he wasn’t necessarily worried about Arielle getting hurt. Maybe a little.
He was more worried about her defeating the trolls and accidentally revealing the true depth of her power.
But he need not worry about that. Her last duel against Anne had proved that she could show restraint, and she knew what was at stake. No way she would do something stupid to risk being exposed.
As it were, the casualties in Khor was less than he’d expected.
According to the brief report he’d received this morning, there had only been one mage on site, a master, who had laid waste to the three trolls. A master that strong should be an archmage already, but of course, thanks to the quota, a lot ofMasters intentionally suppressed their skills so that they didn’t have to battle another Archmage for their spot.
Which was a huge shame.
Elric observed the damage as he walked through the rubble and among the citizens who were trying to pick through it. Some of them bowed. Though he kept his authority in check, they might have recognized who he was anyway.
He nodded at each person who met his gaze as he got to the center of the destruction, where the worst of the attacks had likely been and where the trolls’ bodies had been hacked to pieces by the townspeople, some of whom probably sold the parts.
It smelled bad. Very bad.
He used a scent removal spell to get rid of the odor, wondering why no one had done that earlier.
Then he calculated the extent of the damage as he whispered, “[Axiom of the Unbroken Form].”
Suddenly, the broken parts of the market started floating back into place, much to the delight of the citizens who watched it happen.
When he was done, they looked at him with eyes glowing in gratitude.
“Archmage.” He heard the call and turned around, seeing a familiar figure approaching him.
“Master Bromsley?”
“Yes,” he said, bowing. “I can’t believe you recognize me.”
“Of course.” Bromsley was a master with a Calor-Massa lean, from a branch family somewhere at the bottom of the noble hierarchy.
As Elric remembered it, his specialty was protective spells, and so he was often sent to escort very important people to dangerous lands. “Are you here to enjoy the festival?”
“No. I was escorting the Draco siblings,” he said.
“Ah.” Poor man. “Why were you sent to protect them? Did you suspect something would happen?”
“Not at all. Their cousin requested their protection as he is paranoid after everything that occurred last month.”
“I see. Well, his paranoia turned out to be valid.”
“Yes. The trolls appeared right in front of us. I tried to get the citizens to safety and contain them, but one escaped, and there were still some casualties.”
“Less than there could be for an attack of that magnitude. You did well.”
“That’s not my doing,” he said. “I could barely handle them while protecting the others and shielding the carriage. There was someone else who helped me. A young girl, or at least that was her disguise.”
“Another mage?”
“Oh yes. A very powerful one by the looks of it. She cast spells without a wand and without words.”
That was interesting. So she was a Master or an Archmage.
“How do you know she was in a disguise?”
“She was using an adept-tier glamour spell. She held it very well, which must have taken some focus, but there were still some tells, at least for me. But also, she was too powerful to be as young as she portrayed. She was likely a master or an archmage. She’d also disguised her system screen and her voice, although it did have a strange cadence to it.”
“Do you know if she was female?”
He shook his head.
Darn. That could have narrowed it down. There were currently only four female archmages, one of them who was remote, and about ten female masters.
But knowing that she was using a glamour spell complicated things. His first guess would have been that she was secretly Gio Li, except that he’d been with Gio at the time of the attack.
“I’ve asked around,” Master Bromsley said. “And from what I’ve learned, she opened a bank account and then went to the temple. That was where she was last seen.”
She likely teleported from there. But her going to the bank gave her a motive for the disguise.
Some powerful mages liked to do that, open bank accounts under secret identities, to move around funds without being recognized. Though technically, bank accounts were supposed to be linked to verified identities, a lot of banks would let you open an account with a simple signature if they thought you were from an important clan or were simply a powerful mage, as power was status in the world.
Also, the banks did not have to disclose those accounts to the system, only at their discretion.
Powerful families had aggressively lobbied for those allowances, which enabled them to avoid taxes and launder coin in peace.
However, since this was a criminal investigation, the bank would have to give up this mage’s identity, if they knew it.
That would be his next stop.
“Did the geomancer arrive?” Elric asked.
Bromsley nodded and pointed at a woman, who was walking around with a machine in hand, reading the leylines in the air.
She looked up when they approached and said, “This rift didn’t have a natural cause.”
“What do you mean?” Elric asked.
“We don’t know exactly what’s causing the rifts, but we do know that rifts show a distinct pattern of convergence that empties the middle of the Balayan ozone.”
He nodded, though he wasn’t sure what she was talking about. Leylines had never been his favorite subject.
“This is caused by a collection of essences in Damian orientations of the third and fifth anchor, which weakens the separation between realms and enables a link between two worlds that should not be there. However, that typically only happens in locations close to the continental borders. This is not a good location for that, and the convergence seems to have happened in the last few days, not the gradual climb over years that we would expect.”
“So you’re saying it didn’t just happen?”
“No. It was orchestrated.”
“By who?”
“By someone very powerful.”
Like an Archmage. Perhaps the same one who had stopped the trolls. But why would she start the attack and then stop it?
That didn’t make any sense. Why would anyone do such a thing?
Elric turned on Master Bromsley again. “You saw this person. What did they, or their disguise, look like?”
He took a few seconds to think. “They were short, with hair between dark and light. Blue eyes. Wearing a raven mask. That’s about what I remember.”
“And she was a master?”
“I don’t know. Her system screen didn’t show that. It showed her as an apprentice.”
An apprentice that was likely a masqueraded master…
Or possibly an unregistered Archmage.
A powerful, unregistered archmage who looked like a young girl.
Elric suddenly had a very bad feeling about this.