Hope had been a beaded lizard for fifteen years, and in all that time she had never gotten over just how much she hated being cold-blooded. Of course, the subtropical weather of Darksoil meant that she was rarely in any mortal danger from the cold, not like she had been during her first winter, but as she darted between alleyways and exchanged signals with her team, she was painfully aware of how the oiled canvas cloak draped over her was the only thing keeping the rain from hampering her ability to think clearly. Exposure to the elements right now wouldn’t kill her. It would just fill her head with a soft, heavy fog and render her completely useless.

  “All Clear!” A flash of white feathers overhead signaled that there was no one to be seen guarding the storehouse door, at least from the outside. Hope crossed the central concourse, quickly ducking under the overhang meant to shelter cargo from the rain while it was being unloaded. She was soon joined by three other creatures.

  “The door hasn’t been opened since we last used it,” Honed-Claw rumbled, gesturing at the base of the door with a forepaw, where a small pile of dusty white powder blended in with the stonework. “The marking powder I left is undisturbed.”

  “Excellent. Black-Tip, any signs of activity elsewhere?” Hope turned her gaze from the bobcat to the gull, who already looked dry after just a few shakes. As an ocean bird, getting wet was barely an impediment to its flight, their plumage repelled most any dampness short of getting completely submerged. “Lamps are lit in the dormitories, so the Scholars haven’t fled. No sign of Guardian activity on the rooftops or in the courtyard. The only creature out and about is the salamander, pacing about in the mud by its pond.”

  “It is one of your kin, correct?” A quiet chirp from the fourth member of the party drew everyone’s attention. A large bipedal rodent, not dissimilar to a plus-sized jerboa, stood trembling behind the others, shivering as much from instinctual anxieties as from the rain. Boundless-Meadow rarely spoke up without being addressed first, the springhare much preferred to listen and let others make decisions. “Should we assist it? The others have all escaped already.”

  “They aren’t in any immediate danger, and we lack the means to easily transport them,” Hope drummed her claws on the stone beneath her feet. “We can’t do anything for them right now.” The salamander’s situation didn’t sit well with Hope, or anyone else in the group from the looks of it, but they were only human. All of them would be beyond saving, in the end. Herself included. “Let’s go. We have a job to do.”

  The mission was straightforward, but by no means simple. They were to ascertain the location of the Beacon within the College’s walls, assess its defenses, and then examine it if those defenses could be bypassed. The College was founded to protect and study the Beacon, the former coming before the latter. As such, the exact location of the relic was not public knowledge. However, the Lead Guardian’s response to the spectacle of Quiet-Dream’s abduction had tipped its hand.

  “We inherit the Truth.” It was a vague, if ominous, statement, impossible to draw any deeper meaning from without context. However, by coupling it to Quiet-Dream and the other humans, it created an implication that only someone who knew at least some of that Truth would pick up on. The withdrawal of Guardians from active patrol duties was a more extreme reaction than Hope ever would have expected, but if Rooted-Place had even an inkling of what that message meant, then there was one place that it would never leave unguarded.

  If they found the place in the College that Guardians were still actively defending, they would find the Beacon there.

  The initial infiltration went off flawlessly. They entered through the food storeroom, the least trafficked part of the College when new materials were not being delivered, and also one of the few large spaces to use solid doors, making it ideal as an escape route so long as either Boundless-Meadow or Hope herself were present to handle the latches. From there, they avoided the dormitories, as that was where most of the civilians they needed to worry about were waiting out the worst of today’s rains. Instead, they passed through the lesser-used material storage rooms. The place where Ink-Talon had been “experimented” on, according to Quiet-Dream. They passed a few Scholars carrying odds and ends to or from storage, but only drew the briefest of glances at worst. Everyone but Black-Tip looked wet and miserable, and Hope knew from experience that looking pathetic made you more sympathetic than suspicious among the gifted.

  A trait that she sincerely wished Humanity itself shared.

  “Scent ahead.” Hope raised a claw near a blind corner and halted the group, her tongue flicking out to get a better picture of it.

  “Confirmed, smells mammalian,” Boundless-Meadow lightly thumped a leg. The springhare had a slightly less powerful sense of smell than Hope’s, but it was tuned differently, able to pick out certain details better. Doubly so when it came to identifying animals that would be dangerous in the wild. “Carnivore, definitely. Hunter, most likely.”

  Prime Guardian material, Hope thought, knowing that the others were likewise coming to a similar conclusion. “I don’t smell anyone else. No one recent, at least. They wouldn’t have only a single guard, so more must be within the chamber itself.”

  “I’m confident in our ability to incapacitate a single Guardian without raising the alarm, so long as we have the element of surprise,” Honed-Claw said, taking a cautious step forward. It was the only truly seasoned combatant in the group aside from Hope, who was not exactly physically suited for the task. This group was good for scouting and ambushing, getting into fights with a large predator was something to be avoided unless they had the drop on it.

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  “As am I,” Hope nodded. “I’m less confident we can do it without anyone being injured. We only do this if everyone is willing. No debate. No coercion. If any of you hold any reservations about violence or our safety, then we note the location and pull back. Understand?”

  Everyone did.

  “Does anyone object?”

  Several seconds of painful silence passed.

  “I do.” Boundless-Meadow squeaked, barely audible, but its posture said everything it needed to on its own.

  “Then we leave.” Hope hissed, letting out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

  And then one of the doors behind them opens.

  “None of you are leaving in anything but a cage or a bag.” A low growl from the very large leopard exiting the door stopped the team in its tracks, and Hope immediately recognized it as the same Guardian she had smelled around the corner. The scent had never gotten closer until this moment, and none of them had heard its approach. The Guardians had passageways to flank intruders, with heavy doors to conceal scents and muffle sounds. They had been outmaneuvered before they’d even entered the College. “Your choice.”

  “You are rather confident in that,” Honed-Claw growled back, the difference in size between their species only being emphasized by how much higher pitched the bobcat was.

  “I am confident that if you resist, then you will be either crippled or dead, yes. I am under no illusion that I will come out unscathed.”

  “Guardian Golden-Streak,” Hope stepped forward, her mind racing through her options to salvage the situation. Knowing this particular Guardian by name seemed to catch it off guard for a moment, buying her time to continue. “This does not have to come to bloodshed. Nobody has to get hurt.”

  “I did not have to, and yet a Guardian lies in the infirmary, unlikely to wake from its coma. That was your doing.”

  “I regret that decision. It refused to surrender, and left us no choice but to incapacitate it.” This was a lie of omission. She did not regret attacking that coyote in the slightest. The decision she regretted was having her teammate for that mission be the one to do it. It didn’t deserve having that weight on its conscience. “It was better to try and knock it unconscious than use my venom.” That was true. So few creatures knew that beaded lizards were venomous, she didn’t herself until she became one. From the few times she’d been forced to bite a gifted creature, she has learned that her venom is both excruciatingly painful and uncontrollable. She wasn’t able to willfully refrain from using it like snakes were.

  It seemed that Golden-Streak was surprised to learn that she was venomous as well, taking a step back when she bared her serrated teeth for emphasis. It was a tactical disadvantage in an actual fight, but it was also a deterrent from one breaking out in the first place. She didn’t know if her venom would actually be fatal to something as large as a leopard, but Golden-Streak didn’t either.

  “I do not care about your regrets, only your actions.” The Guardian quickly regained its composure, but its rationale sparked an idea in Hope’s mind. It was a risky gambit, but she did know one thing that might turn this in their favor. The Truth.

  “And what are those actions? What do you think we are doing here?” Hope scraped her claws across the floor as she took another step forward. When Golden-Streak did not have an immediate answer, she pressed again. “You are assigned to guard the Beacon, correct? To prevent it from being tampered with or damaged? It already is, and has been for a long time.”

  In her peripheral vision, she sees Honed-Claw prepare to object, but she thumps her tail to preempt it, asking it to trust her.

  “Do you expect me to believe that?”

  “Do you expect me to be able to lie that convincingly?” Hope was on the attack now, stepping closer as she continued. “These ‘afflicted,’ they cannot have appeared without a reason. And yet Rooted-Place is obsessed with containing them and pretending they do not exist. Why? Why would the Lead Guardian be so concerned about erasing evidence of their nature and so unconcerned about their origins? It knows that they are dangerous, but how would it know that? How would it immediately identify the danger posed and take precautions when the Scholars and Physicians who specialize in such matters could not?”

  The questions seemed to overwhelm the leopard, much to Hope’s relief. Logical and reasoned questioning would never sway a zealot, but she knew that Golden-Streak had socialized with the humans the most out of the Guardians. It was most likely harboring numerous doubts already. With a subtle flick of her tail, she signaled to the others to prepare to go.

  “If you truly wish to uphold your oath, then we are not your enemy. Keep that in mind when we next meet.”

  “No, wait… you–”

  Hope tapped her prosthetic leg on the floor twice, and the group sprang into action. Black-Tip reached the leopard first, lacking the natural weapons to be a threat, but more than capable of blinding the cat with its wings. Boundless-Meadow was next, building up momentum to leap to Golden-Streak’s right, kick off the wall with one leg, and drive the other into the side of the distracted Guardian’s head. Hope scrambled into position by its front-right leg, just as Honed-Claw shoulder-tackled it from the left.

  Golden-Streak, dazed and completely unprepared for the coordinated assault, tripped over Hope and fell against the opposite wall, its head hitting the stone with a painful thud. It slumped over and stopped moving.

  “The other guards will check in with this one soon, if it didn’t raise the alarm already. We’re making an emergency exit.”

  Their exit was anything but smooth. With Hope clinging to Honed-Claw’s back, the party could move at a good pace, but they were also clearly fleeing, and passersby in the halls began running with them and asking questions, assuming that they were running from some kind of danger. Several “no time to explains” and “we need to keep movings” later, they were ushering a small crowd of panicked animals out the storeroom door and encouraging them to seek shelter wherever they could. It made good cover in the moment, but it also meant that there were a lot of witnesses who could see which way they were going when they left without explaining anything.

  Thankfully, there was protocol for a situation like this. They had to split up. Everyone would travel in a random direction away from the scene and then double back home once they were certain no one was following them.

  Unfortunately for Hope, someone was following her.

  Unfortunately for whoever it was, she had ways of dealing with people who did.

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