Earthwitch

11. Helani

The city of Oasis lives up to its name because it is designed to. 

Hot sand whips against the city's outer limits, piling at the base of an invisible wall. Shielded from the desert, children play in lush parks and families lamp in the shade of giant willows. Where there are homes, private gardens spill over stone terraces, covering whole suburbs in purple flowers. 

Cool streams flow under wooden bridges while a network of air currents circulate heat away from public streets.

Viewed from above, Oasis sprawls in all directions, each district rippling out in concentric rings, every main road converging like spokes on a wheel. And there at the axis, the Cloud Palace floats above it all, and casts its shadow across the city like a sundial.

Standing on the edge of a golden cloud, Saint Helani sighs into the wind.

Assaulted by the desert on all sides, the capital hums, a thriving blue metropolis in a sea of fire. But anything that bears fruit brings scavengers. From her vantage in the sky, Helani observes a hundred crimes at once.

Every act permitted in the shadows plays out in the light of her stoneiris. Petty theft between relatives, administrators putting official stamps on works of fiction, a worker skimming cargo, a merchant skimming workers, hands touching hands or breaking them.

The Cloud Palace supplies guards to police such matters, watchers to discourage their frequency, and mediators to settle personal disputes. Even when these measures fail -- which they do sometimes, by designed  -- civil spies ensure the courts never lack for evidence.

While the general public is vaguely aware of Saintly abilities, it is an unwritten rule that the omniscient turn a blind eye to immorality. Of course, the rule is only unwritten because the Paramount tells every Saint to their face.

The Cloud Palace sees all, but surveillance breeds distrust. We only punish betrayals against the city.

Helani dismisses the Paramount's words with a scoff. If her sister insists on ruling with both hands nailed to the desk, then everyone else has to fall in line. Power is simple like that, and so are the people who spend their lives searching for it.

A Perfect mage with pure insight can become a Sage. Blessed with the requisite will, that Sage may even become a Judge. But strength and wisdom alone cannot make a Saint...

Helani's focus settles on a plain building tucked away in Scholar's Park. A beer house. Its walls disappear in her vision.

Twenty souls move around inside, glowing across a spectrum of auras, but she hones in on a blip in the corner, a little blank void where nothing shines. 

Very few people can hide from an all-seeing stoneiris, but there is such a thing as hiding too well.

Her cloud purrs quietly as it glides down, leaving a jet of shimmering aura in the sky -- a signature of the royal family, and a gaudy one at that. Half-focused on the beer house, half-focused on a town elsewhere in the desert, Helani pulls a little red book from her sleeve and flips to a page marked Bounty.

She makes a mental note, which the book transcribes it in a precise hand.