Maggie stood to leave with the kids, but a gesture from Gunilla caught out of the corner of her eye kept her where she was. She desperately wished it hadn’t. As soon as the spiress was ‘alone’ with her mentors, the girl threw a fit. Maggie couldn’t speak the language but she’d spent enough time around nobles to recognize the posture and tone of one who wasn’t used to powerlessness. Saga and Senna did most of the calming, and while Gunilla injected with a comment every now and again, they often just enflamed the young woman’s temper.

  A soft knock at the door saved Maggie from more of Sylvie’s unintelligible whining, and a young scholar poked her head in the door to deliver a message.

  “The human has learned the rune.” Sylvie said with feigned calm, speaking the Trade Tongue for the first time in an hour. “It is time.”

  Maggie felt pride straighten her back at the news. Mika’s talent for runic comprehension was something she’d taken every chance to brag to her peers about.

  “This is a mistake.” Gunilla stated, also in the Trade Tongue.

  The spiress spun to face her mentor and general, her vestigial mandibles ground together for a moment before she composed herself.

  “Leave.” Sylvie spoke up at the older woman with admirable command, a subtle flex of aura tired to the lace the word with compulsion.

  The attempt was laughable. Gunilla stood and showcased the physical difference between the pair. Sylvie was a molehill to Gunilla’s mountain. As Gunilla leaned over the younger woman, her form one of iron compared to the girl’s silk, Maggie felt the breath leave the room.

  Gunilla stared the younger woman down for a moment and let her stew in her inability to command the older woman before she scoffed in the spiress’ face and left. She stopped briefly by Maggie’s chair before she exited, which was all the invitation Maggie needed to get up and walk with the massive woman.

  Maggie had questions, but she didn’t ask them. She knew how odd it was that they allowed her to stay and witness such an unseemly display from the spiress so she held her tongue. Content to let the elder of them start the conversation on their own terms. The pair didn’t stop their silent stroll until they reached the walkway on the wall where they had a clear sightline on the organized chaos of an army gathering for battle.

  “Do you have much experience with war?” Gunilla asked.

  “For my people I do.” Maggie returned.

  “Then you are aware of its nature as a tool.”

  Maggie made silent agreement to Gunilla’s words, but didn’t add her own thoughts on the matter. She’d been around enough conflict to know that behind every just cause or noble war was a petty squabble between two people with far too much control over the lives of others.

  Gunilla stared down at Maggie for a long moment as she weighed how to phrase what she wanted in a language not her own.

  “I apologize for the mistake my charge has thrust upon your own.” She said finally.

  The battle would be a mistake, of that she had no doubt, but she wanted to know why Gunilla thought so as well. On the advice of her mother, Maggie let Gunilla stew in her apology. Hoping that the tension would push the elder to elaborate.

  Silence didn’t phase Gunilla however, and the two of them stood for a long while just watching the kids get ready before Gunilla spoke again.

  “How long has the party been under your care?”

  “Not long, only a little over a month.”

  “One day. One or maybe all of them will do something so stone headed you question all the care you ever provided.”

  “You think it’ll go that badly?”

  “I have no idea what shape the final outcome will take. But I know we do not have the numbers to hold a new fortification in contested land. I know she knows that. I know that no matter how many goblins the children kill today, they will be forced back to us and the enemy will gain a wall we are too weak to siege. Even though she refuses to acknowledge that, I know she knows as well.”

  “Then why allow this?” Maggie asked. “Surely you could stop them from leaving.”

  “I could. Yet, children must have space to fail. I just hope Sylvie can learn from this mistake before it kills her.”

  It was true children needed the space to fail so they could grow, but willingly allowing them to commit a mistake that would kill others and might kill them seemed a step too far for Maggie. Watching the older woman out of the corner of her eye, Maggie thought about the harshness of that thinking. What did aranae culture have to be like if it fostered that kind of casual indifference? She thought of what she would do in Gunilla’s shoes and if she could allow her party to do something similar when she saw Bran putting on his armor. The light of the moss above him cast the tear drop painted onto his chest in an azure light.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  It was the sight of one of her charges preparing himself to fight and possibly die for another child’s mistake that forced her to realize. She had no want to pull him, or any of the others, out of the fight. She couldn’t say for certain what motivated Gunilla to let Sylvie make this mistake, but Maggie knew the glory and resources it could win them motivated her.

  A battle like this, and the upcoming siege could cement her party as one of the empire’s best low tier defensive adventurers. For that opportunity alone, she’d allow them the chance to die a pointless death in another species’ war.

  “You understand.” Gunilla said, and interrupted Maggie’s line of thought, “An old mentor taught that lesson to me. Children must have the space to grow, even if they wither.”

  Maggie watched, not speaking, as ten carriers brought close to two hundred children away from the fort. Her tier four stats allowing her to see them in perfect clarity the entire way.

  She watched the construction with mild curiosity. The aranae moved stone in a way that was rare but not unheard of. She paid even closer attention as Mika carved his new rune series into the wall over and over. The more she saw of what the young man could do, the more his skill set amazed her. As fascinating as watching him constantly refine the series was, she forced herself to move on. While this might be stressful for him, he was in the least amount of danger today.

  Bran, Nora, and Ellen huddled around one another, their heads close as they spoke. She couldn’t make out what they were saying over the din of all the moving stone. Instead, she focused on reading their auras and body language.

  Interestingly, Nora and Ellen began the conversation nervous and slowly relaxed, while Bran slowly grew more tense the longer they spoke. That tension drained partially, however, when he brought the girls in for a hug where he touched his forehead to each other theirs.

  The hug wasn’t intimate, but she was still glad to see Bran coming out of his shell more. When she’d first met him, the kid was little more than a ball of tension, ready to lash out with violence at a moment’s notice. Maggie was glad the kind boy she suspected him to be was starting to peek through.

  Unfortunately, the calm before the storm can only last so long and the instruments of war soon joined the sound of stone against stone.

  ~~~***~~~

  Stress flashed through all the kids stationed at the new wall. The aranae hid it well, but Maggie could see the subtle signs of nerves in their bearings and she could feel it in their auras from where she stood. The goblin instruments certainly didn’t help matters either, with every horrid noise Maggie watched as the kids got tenser.

  Which was why she was so glad something broke the silent tension of that moment. From so far away it was barely above the sound of a whisper, but the low rumble of Bran’s chest as he hummed was still audible over all the noise.

  “Why is the blessed singing?” Gunilla asked, a strange smile on her face.

  Maggie thought about how she was supposed to answer that for a moment. While not widespread amongst the people; stories of the Emerald Ocean’s sibling divinities and their cults were fairly common amongst the empire’s elite. Even if a lot of those stories amounted to hearsay and rumor. What she knew of them came almost exclusively from her dad, who only started his research once he found out about Bran’s history.

  Verifiable details were scarce, but what she knew was that the Cult of Weeping Grace was one of the most militaristic of the sibling cults, with far more draconian laws than was common. As far as the Order Bran trained under, all her dad could find was that they were the personal troops of a demi-goddess named Iona, with a winter domain who was beholden to the Grace Mother somehow.

  Maggie wanted to give Gunilla something a little less influenced by propaganda and a lifetime of conditioning, but all she knew was what Bran had told her.

  “Apparently every soldier from his home hums during battle, it’s supposed to keep time.”

  Gunilla gave Maggie a look that told her the woman also saw the massive impracticality to that.

  Unable to give the woman anything more, Maggie’s attention shifted from her party onto the goblins, trying to get a troop count of her own. She got to three hundred before a new and incredibly potent presence forced her attention back to Bran.

  Golden light spewed from beneath Bran’s helmet to illuminate the space around him like two hood lanterns. And along his armor, the subtle vines worked into the scales started to glow. Slowly growing in brightness along with the other decorations on his armor until Bran looked like an oak tree wrapped in vines of purple and gold.

  Hidden beneath the unfamiliar presence Bran projected was a smaller one. Focused around the back of his neck that made no projections that Maggie could see.

  It took the appearance of a willowy woman in front of Bran for her to realize what was happening. He’d prayed. The divine answering the prayers of their believers was a rare, if known, phenomenon. The fact the Grace Mother answered the prayer of probably one of her first chosen right before a major battle wasn’t a shock by itself, but the rarity overall made it so.

  The Grace Mother was tall, not taller than Bran, but neither did she have to look up into his eyes. The light his eyes now cast melded back into the divine projection. Her features were set in a matronly cast, at odds with the flawlessness of her person. With gentle movements, she took Bran’s face in her hands. Past Bran’s massive frame, Maggie could barely make out that the goddess wore a gown of flora in a constant cycle of decay and growth that happened so fast her skin was never visible.

  Maggie stared as the woman wipe something from Bran’s face. Every breath, blink, and motion of her body made Maggie feel a [Beggar] who’d intruded on the evening of the noble lady. Only audible because her attention focused so fully on her projection, she could faintly hear distant music. It was a song unlike any she’d ever heard, but even its echo was enough to recognize the beat of this divine song matched perfectly with the war hymn Bran still hummed.

  Even though she felt terrible for sullying the sight of the divine, Maggie couldn’t stop herself from gawking as the goddess’ projection stepped back from her chosen and surveyed the land around her. Maggie watched as a divine gaze settled onto each of Bran’s party mates before it fell finally onto herself.

  Instinctively, Maggie could feel a warning and a threat laced in that stare, but she was too lost in the gold and purple to focus on that. She might have remained that was forever, enthralled by a vision of Grace, had the Grace Mother not withdrawn her presence and vanished.

  “Do not coddle your charge.” Gunilla said, the woman’s suddenly tired voice snapping Maggie from her trance. “Nature has a way of renewing what is lost.”

  Maggie had no idea what she meant by ‘renewing what was lost’ but she knew that with the woman’s tier seven sense, she likely got a far truer look into the Grace Mother’s domain than she had with her limited aura and Dao.

  Maggie almost envied the woman for getting that truer look. Insight like that would be so helpful in better understanding Bran. Yet, looking at the aranae elder, she couldn’t stop an old fable from coming to mind. Something one of Mera’s [Priests] back in the capital used to love telling.

  It was the story of a [Sorceress] at the peak of their power, someone who had dedicated their life to pursuing the Dao. In hubris, the woman proclaimed herself equal to any divine in understanding of the universe. When a passing river deity heard the claim, they punished the mortal for their arrogance by revealing to her their true form entire.

  The fable goes that the sight and complexities of the deity’s domain and Dao were so immense that even a casual glance was enough to not only drive the woman insane, but curse every member of her bloodline with madness eternal.

  It was the thought of that story that made Maggie not press Gunilla to know what she’d seen. Instead, Maggie focused on how the rest of the party reacted. At their tier, they wouldn’t have even seen the basic projection she had, but even the mere presence of a divinity could overwhelm.

  Just behind him, Ellen’s had her shoulders pressed up and a new kind of wary caution similar to how it’d been right after the Youth Program laced her aura. The thought of that forced Maggie to think back on a time right after the end of the youth program when Ellen had asked if she thought Bran really was blessed or if he’d said that simply to raise his value.

  Nora looked uneasily at Bran, but with none of the caution in Ellen. It was as if Nora no longer knew where she stood with him. Mika, by contrast, was still locked into his work, and Maggie wondered if he’d even seen the manifestations to begin with.