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Ren walked in and sat on the edge of the reception desk.
"What brings you here?"
Wei Liang stood on the other side of the desk, hands clasped, his scholar's robe still neat from the meeting.
"I came to report, Father. I have access to high-ranking information within the Blinding Light Guild and Victoria. There is something you should hear."
Five months, Ren thought. I assigned this mission five months ago and he is already inside their information network.
Needle. I don't deserve you.
"What have you brought," he said.
"Gregory Hood has a daughter. Sienna Hood. She is currently studying under Sir Armand Clamor, Guildmaster of the Knight of Justice Guild, here in Qintara. Under a secret identity."
"Why here?"
Wei Liang's smile was small. "A Blinding Light Guild executive told me, after three cups of wine. Sir Armand is a long-term agent, positioned as a mole in Qintara. Before this posting he was one of Gregory Hood's Seven Sky Paladins."
"His title?"
"Knight of the Sun."
Ren was quiet. A Mythical-rank asset embedded as a guild leader, and the man's daughter studying under him in the same city.
"How long can you stay?"
"I planted obstructed memory layers in the relevant parties. They have approximately one week before they notice the gaps."
"Find her location. Then report back."
"Yes, Father."
Wei Liang left. Ren sat alone and thought about Gregory Hood, whose daughter was here and whose Paladin was waiting, and about what those two facts together meant.
. . .
The Knight of Justice Guild's training hall was built for high-output casting. At midnight it held one figure.
She wore a deep blue priest's robe with silver at the hem, moving through the casting sequence with complete focus. Black hair, blue eyes, a build that was lean and held its posture without effort.
She raised her hand toward the training dummy.
"Scripture of the Sun, Section One. The Goddess declares that all her enemies shall be reduced to ash."
The fire came in a single burst. The dummy burned, broke apart, fell into powder. The air above it shimmered.
She lowered her hand and looked at what was left.
"Still too weak," she said.
"You're being too hard on yourself."
The man came through the side door without hurry. Silver and white plate armor, engraved with scales and bands of divine script that carried a faint internal light. A deep crimson tabard bearing the symbol of balanced scales within a radiant halo. White hair, cropped, a well-trimmed beard. His eyes were pale gold, sharp, the kind that weighed things.
Sir Armand Clamor. Mythical rank. Knight of the Sun.
"You turned twenty this year," he said. "What you just did surpasses your peers by a margin of seven. That is not weakness."
Sienna turned to face him. "I can't afford to be satisfied. I need more. For the Goddess and for Father."
A hint of something lived behind that statement, past conviction into somewhere further.
Armand smiled. "Rest. Tomorrow I'll show you the next sequence."
He walked out.
Sienna looked at the ash for a moment. Then she left.
. . .
She sat on her balcony with hot chocolate and wet hair and a towel around her shoulders. Qintara at midnight was distant and even below her.
The cough hit twice, hard. She pressed the towel to her mouth and when she looked at it there was blood. She folded it over.
She was not surprised. The blood had started three weeks ago. She had not told Armand. She had not told her father. There was nothing either of them could do about the seal, and she preferred to spend what time she had working.
She had been born with mana her body could not contain. Her father had placed a restriction seal when she was an infant, a single-use construct with no second application. It would hold until she developed sufficient control. If she reached twenty-one without that control, the mana would break the seal and she would die from the poisoning within days.
Six months left.
She looked at the blood on the towel.
I don't want to die, she thought.
"There has to be another way," she said.
"I can cure you," a voice said. "But the price will be very expensive."
Sienna did not startle.
She turned to the man sitting beside her on the balcony, in the chair she had not noticed being occupied when she came out, and felt no alarm. She knew him. She had always known the Doctor. He came sometimes to the balcony and they talked, and when she tried to remember specifically when they had first met she found a comfortable blankness she had never pushed against.
He wore a black long-sleeve shirt. A white mask covered his face.
"Doctor," she said.
"Mm."
She looked at the towel, then at him.
"When did you get here?"
"A while ago," he said.
She nodded and did not ask further.
"Is there actually a cure?" she asked.
"Yes."
"For this specific condition."
"Yes."
"You're certain."
"I've handled more complex cases."
The city below continued as it was. Her hot chocolate had gone warm while she was coughing.
"My father wouldn't approve of outside treatment," she said. "He has specific views."
"He doesn't need to know."
"He finds out most things."
"Not this," Ren said.
She believed him. She did not examine why.
"What is the price?" she asked.
"That depends on how far you're willing to go."
"I said I would do anything."
"People say that. It means something different each time. Tell me what anything means to you."
Sienna looked at the city. Six months. The blood. Twenty years of chasing the Goddess's fire and the possibility of dying before twenty-one.
"I've dedicated my life to a purpose," she said. "If the purpose can continue, the means is a detail."
Ren was quiet.
"The treatment will change you physically," he said. "The change is permanent. It will give you abilities you don't currently have. Your mana condition will be resolved in the process."
"What kind of change."
"I won't know exactly until we begin. The result is specific to the person."
She looked at the mask.
"You've done this before," she said.
"Yes."
"To people who are still alive."
"Yes."
"And they're functional."
"More than functional."
She was quiet for a while. A tram somewhere below. A vendor's bell. Then silence.
"Okay," Sienna said.
She set the cup on the railing, folded the towel with the blood on the inside, and set that down too.
"When?"
"When you're ready. Sleep on it. If you change your mind, you change your mind."
"I won't change my mind."
"Then when you're ready."
She nodded. After a while she became aware that he was no longer beside her, though she had not seen or heard him leave. The chair was empty.
She sat with the city for another few minutes.
She picked up the towel, went inside, and went to bed.
For the first time in three weeks, she slept well.