Chapter 3: Part 5 - Sworn To Secrecy

Oska and Ruby barely spoke as they raced back across the Wildlands. Oska’s heart seemed to hammer in his chest, beating an unpredictable rhythm that left him gasping for breath. If Auri was hurt…

He wouldn’t let himself think it. Auri was a maelstrom of magic in a girl’s body. Artair wouldn’t even slow her down.

Oska would have found himself more comforted by that line of reasoning if Ruby hadn’t looked so panicked. She was wide-eyed and pale, her movements jerky, her breathing as erratic as his own.

“What’s he after?” Oska asked, as they reached the top of a rise. “What’s the weapon?”

“I don’t know,” Ruby said, sounding so fearful that Oska actually came to a stop.

“You don’t know?”

Ruby shook her head. In that moment, Oska thought he understood her better than ever before. She might act like a wilful child and she might talk about understanding how to be human ‒ but at the heart of it, she was just as lost and confused as the rest of them. Taria had kept even her in the dark.

They scrambled down the hillside, then up another rise. Finally, the camp lay before them. To Oska’s shock, it was utterly silent. The boundary lanterns still burned and the tents were untouched. He even saw Burg appear from the direction of the latrine, stare up at the moon for a moment, then vanish into his tent.

Oska shared a confused glance with Ruby. What about Artair’s game? Where was he?

They hurried down into the camp. Ruby rushed off to check the perimeter, but Oska stood beside the cold campfire and listened to the night. Jungle birds. Chittering insects. Someone snoring inside one of the tents. They certainly didn’t seem to be under attack.

He moved towards the tent he shared with Auri, but stopped before entering. He could feel his twin’s presence there, lost in dreams. There was no need to wake her, except…

For a heartbeat, as he’d stood in those ghost-infested ruins, he’d been certain Artair was after her.

The snap of a twig brought Oska’s head up. It was only Ruby, making the noise deliberately so as not to startle him ‒ but she was looking off towards the south, her eyes narrowed. Quite suddenly, Oska could hear what she’d heard: footsteps and the jingle of armour, coming along the narrow trail that passed for a road.

They dropped into hiding together, in perfect silence. Ruby made a gesture to direct Oska westwards and he nodded, slinking off through the shadows. The footsteps were growing closer, making no effort to conceal themselves. Oska dropped behind a boulder and drew a dagger, waiting for the moment the newcomers rounded the bend in the road…

“On a night like this, you need to conceal your blade.” Amber’s voice was right behind him, so close that Oska didn’t even have time to turn around before she grabbed him by the collar. “Cover it in ashes, or keep it sheathed until the last possible moment. The moonlight is giving you away.”

Oska was too annoyed to reply. He shook free of her grip and spun, keeping the dagger ready. “Don’t you have better things to do than go sneaking around after your own guild?”

“Just keeping you on your toes. Besides, who said I was sneaking?” Amber replied with infuriating calm. “Erin certainly isn’t.”

Oska could hear the norn now, passing by on the other side of the boulder. Other footsteps accompanied hers ‒ Ivar and Roan, if he had to guess. What was going on?

Amber had taken several steps back and was regarding him thoughtfully. “Jumpy, aren’t you?”

“You would be, too, if you’d just seen an illusion of Artair,” Oska replied. He’d expected surprise, but Amber didn’t even give him that.

“Hmm,” she said, before striding away.

Oska wasn’t surprised to find the whole camp in an uproar. Burg and the rest of the staff had been roused from their tents, with Ruby now watching over them. If she’d been startled by the guild’s arrival, she was doing her best not to show it.

In fact, she looked about ready to start a fight with Erin. “What are you doing here?” she demanded, as the norn crossed the camp. “It looks an awful lot like you’re interfering.”

Erin’s gaze swept the camp, but she didn’t get a chance to reply. Amber had stopped a few paces behind her, arms folded. “He’s been here, too.”

Erin merely raised an eyebrow.

“If you’re talking about Artair,” Ruby said, her chin raised, “it was an illusion. We handled him.”

That was one way of putting it. Oska’s heart was still pounding from their charge across the Wildlands. The fact that there was no obvious sign of Artair didn’t exactly fill him with confidence.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“There was an attack on the guild hall,” Roan said, foot tapping on the ground. “Your cousin was injured. The competent one.”

“Marissa?” Oska’s jaw went slack. Roan might have been subtly insulting Jean, but he was also right: Marissa was the most formidable woman Oska knew. If she’d been caught off-guard…

“She was ambushed and outnumbered,” Roan said, with a grudging kind of respect. “But she’ll be fine, if she can force herself to rest.”

“Whilst she was still scouting, Artair confronted Erin,” Amber said, with a pointed look in the norn’s direction. “He claimed to know what Taria’s weapon is and said he’d meet us here.”

“He said the same to us,” Ruby put in.

A strained silence fell. Oska remembered their conversation in the ruins with perfect clarity. Artair had made every impression of threatening Auri, even if he hadn’t mentioned her by name. But their tent was still closed and the camp was now swarming with allies. More importantly, Artair was nowhere to be seen.

“What’s he up to?” Oska muttered, but no-one answered.

Amber was still glaring at Erin. She didn’t seem to care about Artair one bit. “Well? Are you finally going to come clean?”

Erin stared stubbornly into the distance over their heads.

“Come clean about what?” Oska asked dubiously.

“She knows what the weapon is,” Amber spat. “She’s the only one who does.”

“Taria told me,” Erin said slowly, “and she also told me to keep it a secret, for very good reason.”

“Good reasons aren’t enough anymore,” Amber said. Oska wondered if they’d had this argument already; they sounded like they’d been sniping at one another all the way from Lion’s Arch. Amber certainly looked ready to explode. “No more secrets, Erin. We need to know what’s going on.”

But with a flash of comprehension that almost blinded him, Oska realised he already knew. Taria reappearing in their lives so suddenly, then using Ruby to keep an eye on them. Sending them all the way out here for ‘training’ they didn’t need. Oska had been so certain Taria was trying to sideline them, but what if it was quite the opposite? What if she’d known all along just how important they were ‒ or one of them was, anyway ‒ and now Artair had learnt the truth of it, too?

“It’s Auri,” he gasped, the words spilling out of him. He’d been right about what Artair wanted. Gods, he’d been right. “She’s the weapon.”

No-one laughed. Not everyone present had seen Auri in battle, but they all knew she was an accomplished elementalist. What they didn’t understand, perhaps, was just how accomplished. How many times she’d almost burnt the house down before she was old enough to walk. How their parents had built an extra wing on the family home to accommodate all the mentors and teachers they’d hired for her as a child. How, if she wasn’t so lost in her own world, she could have razed this whole camp with a snap of her fingers.

But Oska knew. He’d been there to see it all and he’d always thought Auri’s power was just a natural part of her. Only now, with Artair’s threat hanging over them, did he realise it might be anything but.

“He’s right,” Erin said wearily. “The weapon we’ve all been fighting over is Auri. The girl’s always been powerful, but Taria’s spent years trying to cover up just how powerful. From what she told me, for the last decade she’s been paying regular bribes and even blackmailing Auri’s former teachers to keep their mouths shut.”

“You throw enough money around and someone will notice,” Roan growled.

Erin nodded. “They did. Shortly before Yinn’s game kicked off, a rumour started that Taria was hoarding some kind of weapon ‒ and she was, in a sense. It just wasn’t the kind of weapon anyone could steal.”

“Artair’s certainly trying,” Amber said, her tone grim.

Oska didn’t hear the rest of her words. His ears were ringing as the enormity of it all sank in. Auri was the weapon. Auri. His twin, as much a part of him as his own right hand. Of course she was powerful, but a weapon? And if that’s what everyone had thought of her for years… Why hadn’t anyone told him?

“You should have told me,” he said, only realising how loudly he’d spoken when everyone else fell quiet. “I should have known.”

There was an uncomfortable silence, broken by Erin taking two steps towards him. “I’m sorry,” she said, sounding pained. “Taria swore me to secrecy.”

“It wasn’t her secret to keep.”

“He’s right,” Amber put in. “Taria has a lot to answer for.”

The conversation went on, voices rising and falling ‒ but Oska’s thoughts were overwhelmed by a sudden, piercing flash of panic. He gasped, scrabbling to make sense of it amid his anger and his confusion. It was only when he blinked and found Erin right in front of him that he realised he’d fallen to his knees.

“What is it?” she asked urgently. “What’s wrong?”

Oska couldn’t reply. His gaze rose, settling on the tent where Auri had been peacefully sleeping. The bond that tethered them, one to the other, had snapped like a piece of string ‒ and that could only mean one thing. Auri was gone.