Checkmate

**Trigger warning: descriptions of torture in this chapter, read at your own discretion**

I stood by the rocks at the edge of the lake, looking out over the dark, calm waters, feeling the windrush brush through my hair, rippling through my robes, raising bumps on my skin. I shivered, cold, absently rubbing my hands up and down my arms, but I barely registered what I was doing.

So many memories.

I had needed no map, no instructions to get here. My feet had brought me unerringly and I had walked the path as if compelled by some magic, drawn back by the whispers of the past. 

It had almost overcome me when I'd come through the trees and seen it again. My throat had closed up as my eyes had slowly wandered around it, the same quiet glade, the dark lake where he'd finally beaten me at skimming stones, the rock where he'd been waiting for me every night, the grassy spot we'd sat on sipping fruit wine as he coaxed me to talk. 

I could see the echoes of that past mellow time before me as if they were real and I wanted to reach out and tell my echo to stop, to hold onto him, to talk to him before it was too late.

But they were only echoes, and they quietly faded into the wind so it was silent again, but for the hush of the leaves. 

I was here waiting for someone different this time. 

I'd tracked them into the city.

It was a smart move. Four males lurking on the outskirts would have drawn attention and questions; not so four faces in a crowd of faces. And I'd realised exactly how smart they'd been - all four agents had been blonde. They'd chosen agents that could pass as Vargan and would be unnoticeable at first glance.

Clever, clever Lichorians.

It had been a stroke of luck that I'd happened to be there when they'd started their mission. Without that, and without Soriah as a witness, they might have gotten away with this - and that thought made me go cold with fear. 

But I had been there. And I had seen their faces. I knew who I was looking for. And I knew Galae. They didn't. They hadn't been at the Congress, I knew, and while one of the Lichorian attendees could have mapped it out for them, that wasn't the same as knowing a place oneself. 

I was up on the roofs of the dwellings, overlooking the streets, watching people as they went about their days, searching for those faces, but staying low so as to not attract undue attention, either from my quarry or from the Guard, whom I knew would be searching for me by now. I had to hope that the latter didn't catch up to me before I found who I was looking for. 

I had yet to see them, and I was approaching the outer roads now, which would ultimately lead out of Galae and head into the interiors of Vargas. From there, the paths to the other three settlements were accessible - and although I knew where they were headed, once they were on that path, it would be harder to catch up to them. 

That's when I saw him.

He was walking along the street, quite casually, as if heading back from the market, a satchel on his shoulder, looking ordinary, nondescript.

Except I knew that face.

A quick scan of the people in the area, around him, behind him, told me that the others weren't with him. They'd obviously done the smart thing and split up, arranging to meet at a point outside Galae, I was sure. 

So far, they'd played it very clever, shrewder than I'd thought them to be.

I climbed down from my roof perch nimbly, never letting my eyes off him, ignoring the startled looks around me as I joined the crowd, knowing I probably stood out, the only dark haired person among the sea of fair haired people.