Which presented a unique opportunity for him. An opportunity to check out the royal castle, and possibly even infiltrate it, bringing him one step closer to being done with this city. One step closer to reuniting with Maiya.
Vir tested his arm, which felt perfectly fine. Though he knew it wasn’t, deferring treatment for a few more hours wouldn’t hurt anything. This was simply not a chance he could forego.
Brimming with excitement, Vir started toward the tall walls of the castle, then immediately stopped.
What do I hope to accomplish there?
Was he going to assassinate Mina? If he did, and if he did it with no witnesses, then there wouldn’t even be a downside for him. He could complete Riyan’s task and be free.
And yet, his body rejected that violently. He’d only ever heard Riyan’s side of the story. Param and his wife held the princess in high regard, and his run in with her had only corroborated that image. Was she truly evil? Evil enough to die?
Vir had to admit, he didn’t know yet. And he wasn’t about to commit murder unless they absolutely needed to die.
Even still, squandering this one-in-a-million chance would be a tragic waste, so he came to a compromise.
I’ll infiltrate and map out the castle.
If he could find a direct way from the Commons to the Castle Grounds, it would open new doors for him.
And if I see Mina… What should he do if he saw her? Should he try to chat with her? He could easily picture what would happen. She’d scream and call for her guards, and Vir would be forced to run.
Well, he’d cross that bridge if he ever got to it. For now, he needed a way into the castle.
The buildings of the District of Internal Affairs were both larger, taller, and more spread out than the buildings of the Commons, which shared walls more often than not.
Finely manicured hedges rimmed the roads, and Vir got a glimpse into what Daha might have been like decades or centuries ago. Today, its wealth only existed in this small district of the city.
Leap was out of the question—too visible. Once more, Dance proved to be his ideal tool for moving around undetected. Not only did it allow him to slip out of the world entirely, becoming effectively invisible, he could scope out each exit carefully before appearing. It drastically reduced any chance of him being detected. Not to mention that handy ability to travel through walls.
Soon, Vir found himself at the nearest building to the Castle Ground walls. A gap of forty paces lay between him, where guards patrolled atop its ramparts. Far too many to risk sneaking across, even at this late hour.
They sure like to build big walls, Vir reflected.
The smart option would be to turn around and head back to his inn. Back to Neel, who was no doubt anxiously awaiting him.
The less smart option would be to create a diversion that distracted the guards, allowing him time to scale the wall.
And the least wise option was, of course, to Dance halfway to the wall, then Leap the remaining distance, scale as much of it as he could before Dancing through the wall onto the other side. If it worked, he’d be in, and he’d be undetected. If it failed… well, he could always use his Talents to get away before anyone found him.
It turned out that his last option ended up being his best one when a runner appeared on the ramparts and hurriedly communicated some message Vir couldn’t hear. Then the soldiers all followed the messenger off, leaving a scant handful left to man the wall.
Vir thanked Janak for whatever crisis they were forced to attend to and readied himself.
But first, he dropped his rucksack and changed his clothes and makeup. The clothes Mina had given him made for a perfect disguise. If only she knew he’d be using them to infiltrate her home. A sewer rat had no business in the castle. But a Sawai ’risto? Well, they’d at least think twice before attacking him.
With his face altered and his dirty clothes thrown under a nearby bush, Vir planted his palms on the grass. He crouched his knees and prepared to Leap.
78INFILTRATION
Vir stopped in his tracks, aborting his Talent. Fast-moving objects were far easier to spot, and despite the few guards that remained on the ramparts, Vir didn’t want to risk detection this early on. There was a better way.
He wore the clothes of a Sawai. He was in the District of Internal Affairs—a part of the city where crime was said to be nonexistent, and a cobblestone road that ran parallel to the walls lay before him.
Vir calmly stood up, dusted himself off, and tottered out onto the road. He didn’t walk toward the wall, but rather followed the road, gradually edging his way to its center. He caught the gazes of a couple of guards, but once they saw him meander with the wobbly steps of a slightly drunk Sawai, they paid him no mind. Swaying closer to the hedges that bordered the wall, he bent over as if to throw up, and made the appropriate noises. Whatever guards had been looking his way shook their heads and went about their business.
From there, a single Dance activation allowed him to pass right through the wall to the royal gardens. Vir lingered in the realm of shadows for the full ten seconds, analyzing the frozen guards, making a mental note of their positions.
Only the ramparts were manned. The royal garden looked completely empty to both his eyes and Prana Vision. Coupling Prana Vision with Dance of the Shadow Demon made for a truly unstoppable combo for infiltration activities. Dance allowed him to hide perfectly and let him scout the immediate area for varying lengths of time—depending on if he kept part of his body outside the ability’s time-locked zone. Prana Vision let him see prana signatures, and every living thing carried a signature.
He could not only pass through walls, he could see through them too.
The only limitation—and it was a significant one—was the limited amount of Ash prana he could draw from.
If Ash prana was as abundant as Earth prana… Vir would be unstoppable. While he couldn’t change the world’s distribution of prana, he could optimize his invocations, using the ability only sparingly when he absolutely had to.
Having determined that no guards patrolled the outer gardens, and that all the guards on the wall ramparts had their eyes trained outward, Vir simply strutted across the garden grounds as if he owned the place and was just taking a nighttime stroll.
The entire time, he analyzed the composition of the royal buildings. Tall dome-capped spires soared above the keep at each corner. The keep itself was a rectangular palace adorned with many golden domes, gold inlaid arches, and murals depicting scenes and rulers decorated its walls.
And, anchoring it all, was a large gold statue of some Hiranyan king, set high on a white pedestal. The king posed with his arms open wide, as if to welcome those who entered.
Meaning, only royalty…
It was all far too gaudy for Vir’s tastes, but he wasn’t here to judge. Each entrance to the building had guards, and Vir doubted any amount of acting skill in the world would get him past them.
What did catch his eye was the impressively tall temple that sat along the northern wall, towering over all the other buildings. Narrow, skinny, and covered with a mind-boggling number of carvings, it was the most ornate structure Vir had ever laid eyes on. Well, the most ornate from this age, anyway.