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1.6 Azalee

Azalee. The very name carried with it an arcane power. To say it left a numbness in the tongue and frost on the breath. It was a name scarcely spoken for an age, for no being lived long enough to remember it. The passing of time had no bearing on the Marshal.

It was obvious her frequent visits of late had made the people of Reist uneasy. This was to be expected, for there was no reason for the Marshals to appear unless something unfavorable was going on. This was certainly one of those times. It was not clear to the citizens what brought her here, and that was how she intended to keep it.

Like a shadow and a fog the lady Marshal moved, silent but ever present in the change of wind or the rustle of a leaf. There were a great many unfavorable things going on these days, subtle changes the simpletons couldn’t sense. Brahna had always held more secrets than its ignorant inhabitants could ever imagine. From the highest tower to the very names of the streets, to the passageways in the underbelly of the city that the dregs of society called home, it all had a story. It all had a purpose. Brahna’s secrets were just another thing that had been lost in the folds of time.

It was the middle of the fire cycle and close to high sun. The fire festival would be starting soon, the young adepts had already been found and would soon be presented their stones. Little of import happened during the fire cycle otherwise.

"Good day to you, Marshal," one of the townspeople said, loudly enough for those around him to hear. The man stopped and bowed briefly before scurrying out of her way. Azalee nodded her head in acknowledgement, sighing inwardly. The man’s greeting was echoed throughout the roadway as the Marshal cleared a path by sheer force of will. Even those whose alignment was weaker than a wisp of smoke could still sense the sheer energy that emanated from her, thick and choking.

The guards traveling behind her were uneasy, and she could feel it. Any regular law enforcer was unused to such treatment. Being in the presence of a Marshal must have been disconcerting enough as it was, but either way, none of the six guards would be heard to complain of the heat today.

Of course they had heard the stories about her. The only female Marshal, she was also the harshest when it came to matters of discipline. She knew they spoke of the unnatural way the Marshals would show up so quickly after an incident, sometimes before the general authorities had even been notified about them.

One of the guards, no doubt the loser of a wordless battle of dirty looks, asked her then, timidly as a mouse, "My lady Marshal, where is it that we go to?"

"The archives of the citadel," she said matter-of-factly, in a voice both old and young, laced with honey and acid and bitterness. "For there has been a theft," she said, and sensed those behind her looking up over the top of the buildings to the great centerpiece of Brahna.

"The alarm would have sounded, would it not? If something had been taken?"

"Have you no faith in your Marshal?" Azalee whirled around, double-bladed great axe in hand a hair’s breadth from the guard’s throat. The man swallowed heavily, the motion pressing the blade against his skin.

"That’s not it at all, my lady Marshal. My most sincere apologies!"

The alarm at the citadel sounded, as she knew it would. She pointed to four of the guards. "Fool’s Way, where it meets Dragon’s End." They didn’t move. "RUN." She commanded. She lowered her axe, speaking to the two remaining guards, one of whom was clutching his neck. "We go to the citadel."

The guards’ fear of the Marshal far outweighed any shortcomings they had. It was dangerous to disappoint a Marshal. The four men ran quicker than they would have ever imagined they could.

At the citadel, no one met Azalee’s gaze. She was more than intimidating in her armor. Dragonsteel, the people called it. The flat black of the metal plates was broken up by bluish-silver etchings covering every inch of its surface. The swirls and lines ran into one another, and even standing still, gave the appearance of it flowing like so many trickling streams.

The helmet she wore had rimmed ram’s horns on either side of the faceplate, and she wore a black cape that ran between her shoulder blades down to her ankles. Short stature aside, she was a sight to behold. The great axe strapped to her back was silver, but pink and purple light danced at its edges, sharper than any blade or point. She looked like the most fearsome executioner, and rightfully so.

More out of respect for the building than the people, Azalee removed her helm, something seldom done. She could feel the displaced energy, could sense there was something missing. One woman stepped forward. Azalee guessed it must have been the one in charge. She was hunched over a bit, and her high-necked dress was buttoned right to the top. As for her hair, it was pulled back and pinned up tightly, pulling the skin around her cheeks and eyes up and away that made her look like a skeleton rather than a younger version of herself.

"Day to you, my lady Marshal," the woman said curtly, but with the utmost respect that Azalee’s position demanded.

"And to you," Azalee replied. In contrast to this other woman, Azalee looked hardly more than a child, a woman of no more than twenty, with her cornflower hair cropped to just below her chin, her wide matching eyes and unnatural purple-brown skin the color of an eggplant. Getting right to the heart of the matter, shifting her helmet to rest under her arm, she asked, "What was stolen?" The woman shook her head, and Azalee felt her anger rising. "How is that possible?!"

"My lady, I know every volume and scroll and scrap on record here. I can feel their presence like I can feel my own consciousness. They speak to me. Whatever was stolen, it wasn’t in the records."    

Next Chapter: 1.7 Corina