I knew it was wrong when I had to trick a twelve-year-old, a child, to get my way. How can anything in the world that is right and just, which the knights are supposed to stand for, involve tricking anyone into betraying their own mother, adoptive or not? I had never bought into the pompousness and virtue of the knights—we were humans like everyone else—but we weren't worse than the common folk, either.

But making a kid lead us to their parent to slaughter them? That was worse.

There was no excuse for this, but still I made myself believe it was for the better. I kept my eyes on the money and assumed there had to be a reason. A good reason our queen wanted the Diviner dead. She had to know something about the woman that made her guilty enough to justify an execution.

It didn't matter, regardless.

I only acted out the will of the queen. I was to be her hands and not her head. I didn't need to think. I only needed to kill a young boy's mother and lie to him about it in his face.

A small price to pay to save our world, according to the queen.

Excerpt (5/8) of an anonymous letter hidden in the wall of the Diviner's cenobium.

**

Chapter 5

The Diviner had vanished, and Safina was convinced she had foreseen her own death. Whether it was through a vision, or through common sense, the Diviner seemed to have sensed danger and fled the cenobium in the dead of night.

The 'why' she disappeared was crystal clear to Safina. The 'why' she needed to die was as illusive as ever.

Safina theorised the Diviner was a loose thread that needed to be cut; the prophecy was not the only thing she had seen in the future. Perhaps the Diviner had broken the law, read the mind of a member of the nobility, and shared secret information with enemies of the queen. The Diviner could read minds and was even allowed to, if only under very specific circumstances. As much as the Diviner was revered, she was also feared. This Diviner would not be the first to be tempted to use her powers for riches. She would be the first to get assassinated for it.

A grave mind reading crime was the only explanation Safina could come up with. She had told herself she wouldn't involve herself with the Queen's reasoning, but couldn't stop her mind from wandering. Especially not now the disappearance uprooted the entire palace and threw everyone into chaos. The Queen's orders were as strange as they were unnerving, and the plot had only thickened now the Diviner had vanished from the cenobium.

Safina's orders hadn't changed. The queen had said nothing to Safina, except that she had to join the search for the Diviner, along with the other knights from the palace. Safina had retreated into her room, just like the others, to suit up and prepare to leave. She spent some time checking her equipment carefully until she sensed a presence behind the door.

There was the message she'd been waiting for.

"Avery," Safina said. "Come in."

The old librarian opened the door and peeked into Safina's bedroom.

"You have to find the Diviner's son. His name is Karis," he said. "He's been adopted into the Damaryl family as of today, but you need to be the one to escort him to the palace. Queen's orders."

Safina nodded. "I see," was all she said in response.

Avery opened the door further and stepped inside. He frowned. "And that doesn't surprise you?"

"I would've been more surprised if there had only been silence from the throne room in response to the disappearance of the Diviner." Safina shrugged. "This makes sense. I am supposed to charm the boy, aren't I? Make sure he knows I'm better than the other knights. I will truly do whatever it takes to find his mother, and he needs to help me and do anything I ask of him. Even if that means scrying and acting as 'bait' for his mother. Is that it?"

A shadow passed over Avery's face. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a letter. It had Damaryl's crest on it. "You think right," he said. "This is for Tanith. An official letter so she won't give you a hard time with the boy."

Safina sighed as she accepted the letter from Avery's hand. "Of course. They're at the cenobium, I take it?"

"Yes, but possibly already on their way to the palace."

"I will go find them then." Safina tucked the letter into her bag and went on her way.

***

The search for Karis was easy and short. Tanith and the little boy made no effort to hide themselves; they walked together on the main road. Safina spotted them from some distance away, and she only needed to wait for them to cross the river to reach her side.

Tanith had already noticed her, too. Safina could tell from the way she quickened her pace. Usually, when Safina was involved, shit was about to go down. Her official title was knight, but everyone inside the palace walls knew her as the court's unofficial assassin. If blood was to be spilled, it was likely her or someone together with her.

Safina watched as Tanith and the boy waded through the river. The boy was about half Tanith's height and the water reached up to his chin, nevertheless, he kept up with her. Even from a distance, it was easy to see why. The boy, Karis, was clearly not human. His red eyes glowed, and she'd heard whispers of cambions like him often having tails like an animal's.

Once Karis emerged from the water, Safina quickly noted the rumours were true. As Karis was soaking wet now, Safina could see the bump where his tail began underneath his clothing. It looked scaly, like a dragon. Safina would love to look at it more closely, but she knew better than to stare. Karis probably dealt with a lot of staring and would find it refreshing if she didn't—she needed to win this boy's trust, after all.

"Safina," Tanith greeted Safina first. "What are you doing here? I thought they stationed you in the inner city?"

"I was. Until yesterday," Safina replied, smiling at Tanith, but not too widely. She wanted to look kind to the boy, not overly gregarious. Every gesture and expression she made from hereon out was meant to win his trust. "I'm here to relieve you from your escorting duties, so you can go back and help the other knights find traces of the Diviner. I'm certain your keen eyes are most useful to the search party."

Tanith narrowed her eyes and opened her mouth to protest. Before she could speak, Safina pulled the letter with the Damaryl seal out of her bag. "Official orders."

Safina offered Tanith the letter, and the latter snatched it out of her hands a little too roughly to be polite. Tanith's brow remained furrowed as she checked carefully if the seal was authentic. Then she opened the letter to read it. Her eyes shot across the lines, and finally, she looked up at Safina.

"Very well," Tanith replied with obvious reluctance. She turned to Karis. "Karis, this is Safina. She's another royal guard of the palace. She will escort you to the palace from here on out."

"Alright, sister Tanith. It's nice to meet you, Lady Safina," Karis said with no trace of hesitation.

Safina would've bought the cool act, if only the boy had as much grip on his facial expressions as his voice. She saw a fleeting moment of doubt, and when Tanith nodded curtly, turned, and marched away, Karis followed her with his eyes.

Safina wasn't without sympathy for the boy; this situation had to be unsettling. Karis likely hadn't stepped foot outside of the cenobium often. Traveling to the palace had to be scary, let alone suddenly having to do it with a stranger while his adoptive mother was missing. But if the boy was to become a knight, he had to get used to circumstances changing like the weather.

"It's a pleasure to meet you too, Karis," Safina told the boy. "Let us be on our way, then. Your new family is eager to meet you, I'm sure."

Safina started walking, and the boy walked beside her. He adjusted his pace to hers without complaint, even if he almost jogged to keep up.

"I'm eager to meet my new family as well," Karis said, though Safina easily felt the tension below his words.

"You're wondering why you have to go to the Damaryl family and play nice while the Diviner is missing and you should be out there searching," Safina said. Judging from the way Karis' eyes widened, she was right. Safina smiled. "I could read it from your face."

"Sorry, madam," Karis mumbled. He averted his gaze and looked down at the gravel.

"Don't fret. The secret's safe with me. And we are also part of the search," Safina said. "We are just taking a different approach in the palace. Say, you are very close to the Diviner, right?"

Karis glanced at me, then turned his gaze back to the road ahead. "Yes," Karis mumbled. "I would like to think so."

It made sense that now that the Diviner left without warning, Karis suddenly wasn't so sure about his place in her heart. The other monks said she had a weak for him, especially since he was the only child in the cenobium and the Diviner was all but in name his adoptive mother. But a mother wouldn't leave her child without saying anything, would she? She wouldn't, unless she knew she was going to die. From a poison Safina still carried in her satchel.

"I will let you in on one secret, Karis: at the palace, we believe she didn't leave because she wanted to," Safina said. An attempt at grabbing Karis' attention and make him trust she wanted to find the Diviner just as much as he did. Which was, arguably, the truth. Just not for the same reasons as he did. Twisting in lies with truths made it easier to keep up a facade.

Karis looked up at Safina. His red eyes were soulful and sad, but also held a glimmer of hope. "Who do the knights think took her?"

"We don't know that," Safina replied truthfully. "I doubt many people can surprise and take a Diviner, do you?"

Karis considered Safina's words for a moment. "There probably are people who could. But they must be powerful magic users," he said.

Safina appreciated the boy's answer. He couldn't be over twelve years old, but he was already wise enough to not blurt out answers or blindly agree with what he was told by adults. That certainly bode well for his future as a knight.

"Certainly they would be powerful, but so are the knights," she said. "I wouldn't want to stand up against the queen's personal army. Or the Diviner's adopted son."

Karis looked up at Safina, surprised.

"You share a close connection with the Diviner," Safina explained. "Many forms of scrying magic rely on having something or someone having close ties with the one we're looking for. If anyone can help us find her, it's you."

"We are going to scry for her?" Karis asked.

"If you're willing to help us with that, yes. I know scrying rituals can be... invasive, but we do not have many other options if we can't find traces of her in the cenobium."

Karis was silent for a moment. Then he nodded and looked at Safina with renewed determination. "Yes, I will assist in a scrying ritual. Anything I can do to help."