Narda shook her head. “We have to bring these two,” she muttered in reply to the elf. “Don’t want the villagers to tear them to shreds when they realize what’s been happening, or if the messengers catch wise and take them. Something else is going on around here and I don’t like it one bit.”
The husband and wife just shifted their gazes nervously between the giant Countess, the otherworldly warrior-woman with the strange accent, and the Wyvern cousin looking intently at them. Though as frightening as this turn of events were for them, they were even more unprepared for Shadow-Walking. All Narda had given them was a curt explanation in Taakalon of what to expect, but even then, the sudden plunge into absolute darkness, and the cold shock that came with it, overwhelmed them so much that Holly emerged looking pale as a sheet in fright. Narda was about to warn her not to send everyone to sleep when she saw the woman faint in the mayor’s arms. 

While Ruli was drawing runes, Kire and Gavin had returned to the edge of the forest after their conversation with Myka at camp. Sensing Ysaryn’s arrival, she nudged Gavin to walk with her to meet them and saw the three, along with a portly man carrying a sleeping woman in his arms. Kire raised a brow. “I take it the lethargy wasn’t coming from Lyta, then?” she asked after Ysaryn left to talk to Ruli. 
Daryll nodded. “Seems like this woman—Holly’s her name—has at least some control over it, but still needs guidance. They’d caused quite a mess back at their town.”
Narda snorted at that, before recounting what they had learned, and what had happened while they came to fetch the woman. “They don’t know anything about a goddess, or visions. Looks to me like magic is seeping into Amria whether this Solaralai wills it or not,” she said, crossing her arms. The mayor looked like his tongue had been glued permanently to the roof of his mouth, realizing who the blonde with the scarred face was. 
Kire looked at him, her expression stern, though not too angry. “Daryll,” she said at length, her gaze already weary. “Work with Narda. Find out if there’s any sort of significance as to why two people from the same place had acquired magical abilities. If it’s their blood, or the place, or both, or something else. If there’s a way to anticipate the appearance of others like them, I want to know. The Lyta lead was slim, but we got more than we had anticipated.” Both Narda and Daryll nodded. They could see the weight of all this uncertainty in her eyes. They felt it too, but both knew that the burden would be hardest on the Empress. “But first, see to it that these two have accommodations. The inn would suit them for now, till we figure out where the best place is for them.”
The giantess looked at the forest behind Kire. “Any leads?” she asked, even though they hadn’t been away for too long and the answer was a likely ‘no’. Kire didn’t respond, thinking something else over. “Could you take care of these two?” she asked Nard, gesturing to the mayor and Holly. Narda nodded, then practically hoisted the unconscious woman up, muttering to the mayor in Taakalon as they walked off.

Kire turned to the young mage beside her, not speaking just yet, still pondering on the question she was about to ask. “Gavin,” Kire she said at length, softly. “How were the Kartaians able to track me down at Ziad?” 
Gavin, who had been glancing at the forest now and then, thinking about how best to try and track Envy down, looked sharply up at her, eyes wide. “Wards.”
“Can you break them? How long will it take you?” 
Gavin thought it over. “Yeah, I probably can. As for how long, with help, maybe two hours, a little longer than that by myself, but I still have a vague memory of their placements. But [i]why[/i]?” 
Kire saw Ysaryn approaching them and waited till the elf had rejoined them.  “I need to go back to Ziad. I’m going to look for something in the catacombs under the temple. All I need is for the Kartaians to not know I’m sniffing around, and in any case, I will only be searching under daylight. I’d probably still need to speak to Risa first, though, along with the goddess’s worshippers she says she’s been meeting with, if only to ask where their sacred texts might be buried, if they don’t already have some hidden with them when they fled Ziad. If they don’t have them, at the very least, maybe bringing back something from the temple would appease Solaralai enough that she’d, I don’t know, grant a favor. I have not worshipped at a temple since I was a little girl,” she added, frowning. “But I do know that as much. Gods love their offerings.” She smirked, though only briefly. "Maybe she's fucking with me because I punched a hole through the temple during my last visit. 
Gavin glanced at Ysaryn, uneasy. “Did you talk to Ruli? What’s he doing?” he asked. When Ysaryn gave her answer, he nodded, eyes downcast. “What are we gonna do, though, if we don’t find Envy soon?” he asked in a quiet voice. “The people back home—humans, elves—they might start asking questions.”