Ashes of the Fallen

Chapter 9: Bitchin' to the Bartender

The water stopped.

Aidari looked straight at her.

The thin, icicle like bars were pressed into the far wall of the cave still obscured by clouds of chilling fog and rusted chains clanging ominously between the pipework fuzed within the stone. Caught in a trap of Aidari's own making, Nemera continued to wade closer little by little and counted the seconds with every puff of her cigarette. They didn't have long.

"The Sunstress can't comprehend that the Traited curse could ever affect them. They won't even acknowledge the Ashes of the Fallen. So how do you know..." Aidar croaked, her voice cracking under the weight of stringing so many words into a sentence.

"Just a theory. Much like your own involvement in this." Nemera admitted honestly, opting for a more measured response than her earlier interrogation in an attempt to reassure the girl.

Aidari's purple skin warped slightly under the moisture, delaying by a fraction each time as if Aidari was not quite sure how to react to her statements. Her nervousness seemed to flicker between anger and apathy only to blaze with the unfamiliar heat of embarrassment, betrayed by the disappointed expression on her face. But...it wasn't just her expression.

The Stormspell elf's once lilac cheeks turned blue, a deep blue like the sea only to match the grey slate stone around her for barely a moment. Close enough to touch the bars, Nemera tried to reach out with her Shadow Trait and help her but with every attempt her shadows seemed to...slip through. She had assumed everything unusual was down to her own tiredness but there was no denying it anymore.

Aidari wasn't just a Stormspell mage. She was an illusionist.

"Besides, I'm more concerned about why a Stormspell apprentice is trying to hide what they look like." Nemera said evenly, attempting to keep her tone casual despite her growing irritation over being constantly lied to.

The numerous shallow scratches against Aidari's arms now matched the deeper gashes in the walls, four sets of claws with one broken slightly wedged into the stone. Far less intentional like collateral damage from being lifted away in flight. It was the similar scrapes Nemera had gotten many times from Moonshear. There was no mistaking a dragon had been here.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Aidari retorted, the familiar, well practised Neridian beginning to slip.

Nemera grimaced at the lie. She was guessing Aidari's accent was self taught to mimic the hours of interrogation from a certain Sunstress actress. Had Nemera not had Siara jabbering in her ear throughout the tunnels she doubted she would've been able to catch the similar inflections she could only describe as 'trying too hard.' But she had to admit Aidari was much better at it than Siara.

"Your tone of voice isn't Neridian despite your admirable attempts to copy it. You chose to hide your appearance instead of healing your injuries. Dirt under your fingernails that doesn't match the stonework. Scratches that haven't healed. Water a Pyro Trollian can play freely in because you didn't want to hurt him. Yet you're still here. Waiting."

"Shut up!"

The weather violently changed to a freezing cold that turned rain to sleet and eventually, snow. Despite the chill that now clung to Nemera's neck, she pushed it to the back of her mind and tried to piece together the last few theories she had left.

Forewarn Cliff. The Dropspire Arches. The Brink.

Much like this farce of a case, Nemera felt like she only had a third of the information and the one third she did have was a rush through a city she barely got a glimpse at. An entire cliff face was destroyed yet the horizon had barely shown it within Floodbound. Those precious arches had been the opening statement to arriving through the other side of the Brink but judging from the stones impact they had been damaged facing the opposite direction.