Max’s body ached from lying still for so long. He stretched his muscles in the late afternoon sun, already feeling evening creep ever closer. He let out a long yawn before returning to his boring task: watching the town under the mountain. The town was as boring as the name, or lack thereof.

  Miranda had him lying on a small knoll since daybreak to ‘study their patterns’. Whatever that meant. He wanted to walk straight in, find a comfortable bed to rest in, then go investigate in the morning. Miranda had other ideas.

  Apparently, Verick’s words about the town being part of the Conclave’s plans had really stuck with her. So Max lay there all day, watching for anything strange.

  “Look out for strange visitors, weird magic, large bursts of green energy,” Miranda had instructed.

  “I understand, look for anything that doesn't belong in a small mining town,” Max said. “What are you going to do?”

  “I need to divine, see if the threads of Fate have any clues for us.” Pacing back to their camp, leaving Max alone on the hill with only his pack.

  And that’s where he was, eating pickled carrots from a vase he salvaged from the guardhouse. They were kind of bland. He had eaten poor food before, but the Weatherbreak Inn had spoiled him. He remembered the warm meals Brock the barkeep would whip up, a thick cozy aroma of whatever herbs he was able to buy off the traveling merchants.

  The thought of real food stirred Max’s impatience and killed his appetite for the pickled vegetables. He stowed the vase in his pack and resumed watching the town. It was hard to see everything beyond the front gate and the city square.

  The city’s walls were lackluster, rotten wood built into an ancient crumbling wall. The whole thing stood no more than five feet. A gate sat open, with a lazy guard who just napped as townsfolk walked in and out. He was lucky there have been no bandits or wild animals today.

  Max almost nodded off for the fifth time that day when something of interest finally caught his eye. A lone figure walked out from the woods to his right, near the city wall. The figure wore a dark cloak that obscured his form. Max thought he was going to walk right through the city gates unimpeded, but curiously, he paced right past them. The figure gave the guard a quick glance, but other than that, he didn't even hesitate.

  The figure only stopped when he finally reached a large, low-hanging maple tree. He stood under its shadow and waited… and waited. Five minutes had gone by and the man hadn't so much as moved. What is he doing? Is he waiting for someone?

  Max glanced behind him, down the hill, looking for signs of Miranda's return. Nothing. Where is she? Why is she taking so long? Miranda's divinations have never taken more than a few minutes, an hour tops if she was trying to see more. Although she had said that anything past a week gets unpredictable and fuzzy with free will and everything. And Max tended to make anything else in between downright questionable.

  Max pulled his pack back onto his shoulder, stretched his limbs, and took an encouraging deep breath. Well, I'm going to go see what this guy is up to; she can catch up. Max hunched down so that he was as low to the ground as he could and took off towards the figure. He made a large detour around the bit of forest that came up to the maple so that he could sneak up under the cover of the underbrush. Just have to be careful not to step on a branch.

  Max moved silently through the forest, creating as little disturbance as possible. He moved like a ghost; not even the animals knew he was right underneath them. He recalled the hunt with the deer, how he slowed his breathing and his movements, allowing his lack of an aura to turn him into just another object in the forest.

  Max approached the large maple, slowing to a crawl twenty feet from it. He couldn't see the cloaked figure, or hear them. Part of him wondered if they were even still there. They could have done what they planned on and left while I was traipsing through the woods. I missed it! Then, the sound of dirt shifting under weight. Max whipped his head to the left of the tree.

  A different figure, this one less mysterious, came walking up to the maple. It was a tall and burly man who fiddled nervously with his finger. He was dressed in miner's clothes, the rock dust staining his tunic and skin. The man wiped sweat from his brow and stopped five feet from the maple, looking at the bit obscured from Max’s vision.

  “Ok I… I did it. Just like the other one asked,” he stammered out. Then more footsteps as the cloaked figure emerged from behind the tree, starting to walk away. The miner looked stunned. “And my payment? Miss?”

  The woman stopped and turned towards the man, Max finally able to get a look at her face and clothes. Tension rose to Max’s shoulders as he realized who she was, or what she was.

  Her face was serious and unforgiving. Her hair was pulled back in a tight bun that looked almost painful. She wore a half-plate set of steel armor, painted black with crimson enamel trim. A Fated Death assassin! Max suddenly wished he had waited for Miranda. The thought of fighting one of the assassins alone terrified him. The woman paced to the miner until she was an inch from his face; he leaned back like a dog who had just gotten in trouble.

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  “You will get paid, peasant! When the job is done. See to it that the plan doesn't fail!” She said each word like it was meant to be a punishment to the miner's ears. She pulled back her cloak, revealing a wicked-looking whip engraved with runes with a spiked tip. “If you fail, or I hear one more question about payment before the job is done, you will find out exactly why I was chosen for this task. As menial and degrading as it is, babysitting fodder.”

  The woman gave him a disgusted look, spat on the man's decrepit shoes, then turned away. She marched back towards the forest, melting into its shadows. This can't be good. The miner looked like he might throw up, but instead, he swallowed his pride and turned back the way he had come. Max watched him approach the city's rotting wall where no entrance should have been. The miner glanced back and forth once to make sure no one was watching, then moved a loose board. He disappeared into the town. Interesting.

  Max slowly walked back into the trees. When he thought it was safe enough to do so, he dropped the careful act and just walked the rest of the way back to the hill casually, letting what he just saw marinate in his mind. That’s three assassins in the area now. What could they possibly need done from a miner they couldn't do themselves? He asked himself many more questions before he finally reached the bottom of the hill. When he did, he looked to the top to find Miranda staring at him with her arms crossed, a glare resting on her face. Uh-oh.

  “Where were you?” Miranda asked impatiently. “I thought you were dead, or captured. You can't just go wandering off.”

  “Miranda, I'm not a child. I can walk through the woods on my own,” Max said, raising an eyebrow at her. She appeared to notice her scolding tone and took a breath.

  “I know, I'm not saying that,” she said, tossing a hand in the air for emphasis. “I'm just saying we are a team now; you can't leave a position or run off without telling me.”

  “I get that, I know. But it was for a good reason. I actually saw something.”

  Miranda's frustration left her face; she cocked her head to the side and gestured for him to continue. Max explained what he saw to Miranda, who nodded along intently. She never betrayed what she was thinking, just stared at a spot on the ground while she listened. Finally, when Max finished, she looked up to him.

  “Sounds like Never,” she said softly. “A brute of a woman, ten years older than me and meaner than almost anyone, well other than Nyx or Graves, of course.”

  “Nyx, he was the one that burnt down my farm, wasn't he?” Max asked with a shudder, the flashes of fire and ash in his mind.

  “Yes, Nyx is a monster, a psychopath. The other man with him was Hest. Not as cruel but obscenely apathetic to malice. He’s younger than both, a soldier for the Conclave in and out.”

  “So what do you think Never wanted?” Max asked, his optimism for their quest wavering ever so slightly. “Also, what's with these names?”

  Miranda let out a small chuckle. “They are given to them when they are given the rank of Conclave assassin; it's just a thing to inspire fear. And as to what she wants, I don't know. But knowing her, it's not good. Most likely it'll be quiet until it'll be big and disastrous. That's usually how she works.”

  “Well then, what should we do now? Divine anything in your several hours away?”

  “Right, sorry about that. I was trying really hard to find more information on what's going on. I had to keep away from you because you keep blocking everything,” Miranda said, pacing to the top of the hill; Max followed. “I did some deep digging and it sort of wore me out, still recovering from the vampire fight.”

  “You took a nap!?” Max asked, a little bewildered. Miranda just shrugged unapologetically and watched the sleepy guard on the gate.

  “Anyways. I did get some information. They are definitely here, and in small numbers. Some sort of recon group. I think I saw Magistrate Havar, a weaselly little man. I saw images of the city in flames, overrun with monsters. It was hard to see clearly, but it has something to do with the mines and the old decrepit castle on the mountain pass.”

  “Ok, that makes sense. They are clearly paying the miner off to do something,” Max added. The idea of the city burning made him angry. Is that what these monsters do? Walk through our lands and destroy lives? “What do we do next?”

  “Next, we go see what this town is about,” Miranda said, already straightening her pack to walk down the steeper side of the hill. “We need to be careful, but just know, someone may recognize us. It could get dangerous fast.”

  “I understand, Miranda,” Max said, following her down the slope. “But honestly, I have been watching it all day. And other than Never, it's been quiet. Just townsfolk milling about.”

  After a few minutes they approached the city gates. However, gates were an overstatement. Max saw why they permanently sat open: they were broken. The hinges were rusted and shattered, most likely long ago. The doors were stuck in the mud, grass and weeds growing around where it merged with the soil. Max pushed at the guard to see if he would notice him; he did not. Max cleared his throat loudly; the man snored. He turned to Miranda and she just shrugged.

  Together they entered the town, the ground mushy with dirt and mud where a cobbled road should have been. Not even Denebeam looks this bad. Max was almost insulted by the lack of care the people put into the town. The townsfolk milled about lazily, giving him and Miranda hollow-eyed stares before drifting off. Why do they all look so down? Is it some curse the Conclave has put upon them?

  They reached the center of town and stopped at the notice board. Rotting and ripped papers blew in the breeze; only one fresh parchment caught Max’s eye. He stopped and pointed it out to Miranda, her face wide in shock. It was her, the wanted poster Lord Corwin's goons had plastered all over. Miranda quickly snatched it off the board, crumpling it and stashing it in one of her pouches. Max whipped his head around to see if anyone saw; they did not. But he did notice something peculiar.

  Lying on the ground, in a huddled mass, was a weeping woman. She wore beggar's clothes and her feet were bare. Scars and dirt matted her skin. Max paced around the board to come closer.

  “Are you ok?” Max asked in a soft voice. He bent down to be closer to her level. She winced at his voice, then slowly looked up in confusion, as if she had just understood what his words were. “You're hurt. What happened?”

  The woman's eyes went wide in fear. She shook her head and waved him away. But not like Max was a threat to her, but as if she posed a threat to him. Then the sound of heavy footsteps in the mud behind Max made his skin crawl. A deep bellowy voice rang out.

  “Step away from the prisoner. Unless you want to take her lashes for her.”

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