He sounded sincere enough, but I had to question his goals.
I thought about it more as I followed him back.
The closest thing I’d heard to a restriction about discussing an attunement was Sera’s contract with Seiryu. I hadn’t studied Summoners extensively, but it was hypothetically possible he had a similar contract with an even greater restriction.
But it didn’t sound likely.
More likely, this specific assignment had instructions not to disclose his attunement. This was clearly a trust exercise — as well as an information gathering exercise.
But even more likely than that answer? He was forbidden to discuss his attunement in general, even outside this test. Just restricting him within one test was a nearly pointless exercise — almost everyone knew each other’s attunements by this point in the year.
But Roland had never disclosed his, even at the beginning of the year. And he’d never shown it off, even during dueling classes.
That strongly implied the restriction predated this test.
So, what possible reasons were there for that?
The simple answer was that Spiders were instructed not to disclose their attunements. If he was a Spider, that was a simple conclusion to draw.
But it wasn’t the only one.
Jin had hidden his attunement because it was a foreign one — and not from a nation that he wanted to be associated with.
Roland was a Valian native. That meant he probably had a Valian attunement…but it wasn’t a guarantee.
Derek had an attunement from Dalenos. It was expensive to take a trip to another country and get a foreign attunement, but there were some advantages. Notably, both Dalenos and Edria allowed people to take attunement exams at a younger age.
That was why Jin was as powerful as he was, and it was probably a good part of why Derek was already an Emerald. Dalenos offered Judgments starting at thirteen — so, four years earlier than in Valia.
Roland was just a little older than me.
My mother had started taking trips to Dalenos to climb their spire a few years ago. Roland had been a part of her household.
Could Roland have gone with her and taken a Judgment at a younger age?
That would have explained a great deal. If he’d taken a Judgment three years ago, he could be around the same level of power as Jin and just hiding it in the same way.
I was beginning to suspect the entire monster-infested forest was just a backdrop for an intelligence gathering activity.
Or, of course, maybe I was just overthinking all this. I had a tendency to do that.
We got back to the wagons. I fetched some food from my pack, ate quickly while pondering my next move, and then settled on my original approach.
I found Jin standing at the border of the woods, eating in silence.
I walked over to him and pulled my water skin out of my pack, offering it to him.
It was the one that provided an endless supply of drinking water, so I wasn’t exactly wasting anything.
He accepted it with a raised eyebrow, taking a quick drink before handing it back to me.
I took a breath. I was so bad at this. “Thought we could talk for a minute.”
“You would technically be correct.” He took another bite of his meal — a sandwich that appeared to consist of nothing but two slices of bread and a piece of cheese wedged between them.
I chuckled. “I, uh, not about us. About the mission. Or, rather, additional missions.”
He frowned, though whether it was at the world’s most boring lunch or my words was hard to judge. “Go on.”
“I could use your help with something.”
He took another bite. “Clearly. Why else would you approach me?”
I folded my arms. “Right. First thing you can help me with is not being dramatic.”
“But it’s part of my charm.”
“No, being brooding and mysterious is part of your charm, not being dramatic. Wait. No, you’re not tricking me into complimenting you.”
“Too late.”
“Resh.” I narrowed my eyes. “Okay, Jin. We’re not dealing with interpersonal things right now. Mission stuff. Focusing now.”
“Of course.”
He was clearly enjoying teasing with me. I was not going to fall for that.
Probably.
“Okay. So, I have a secondary mission that involves gathering information. You can go almost completely unnoticed.”
“Almost?” Jin made the slightest smirk. “Think you’re underestimating me.”
I hated how much I liked that smirk. “Right, clearly you’re an impossible to detect Emerald-level Shadow. Let’s go with that. I have two assignments for you, oh-great-bastion-of-invisibility.”
“I take it that at some point you will tell me what these assignments are.”
“I’m getting to that. Ugh.” I refused to be flustered. It was ineffective. “I need you to find out what Roland’s attunement mark is. It’s probably on his—”
“Diviner.”
I blinked. “What?”
“He’s a Diviner. The mark is on his right leg. He wears enchanted pants to obfuscate the aura. I figured that out ages ago. What else?”
My jaw moved, but no sound emerged.
“Take your time.”
I sighed. “Show off. Okay, fine, why’d you figure that out?”
“Is that important?”
“Maybe.”
“I was sizing up the people who were in your inner circle for anyone who might be able to work through my Mesmer attunement. I noticed that he was the only one who wasn’t disclosing his abilities in conversation. I asked Patrick, who didn’t know either. I had Patrick ask Sera. When she didn’t know, I had to find out myself. That was more complicated and I will save you the details.”
I suddenly had an image of Jin trying to find an opportunity to catch Roland without his pants. I laughed, and that helped me feel a little bit better. “Okay. That’s fine. It’s good information. Great, in fact.”
It didn’t tell me if Roland was a Spider, but if I could trust Jin’s word on the subject — which I probably could — it meant that I had a pretty good idea of what Roland was capable of.
And it wasn’t a foreign attunement. I’d probably just been overanalyzing that one.
Still, it was refreshing to know he was most likely going to be a similar level of power to ours. That meant it’d be easier to counter him if he did turn out to be an adversary.
I cleared my head and focused on the next task. “Okay, next thing. Are we being observed right now?”
Jin scanned from left to right. “Not as far as I can tell.”
“Good. Are you a Spider?”
Jin blinked.
Then he smiled broadly, showing teeth. “Why, of course not.”
“You have to realize that is the world’s most suspicious response.”
Jin laughed. “I’m just startled it took you this long to corner me and ask. But also pleased that you did.”
“Okay, good. Because there’s at least one in the group, and they’re going to sabotage us.”
Jin’s expression shifted immediately to neutral. “What?”
“You heard me. We’ve got an infiltrator in the group. Possibly more than one. And I’d like your help to find them.”
Jin scanned the area again. “I’m revising my earlier assessment. If this is the kind of conversation we’re going to be having, we need to do it further away.”
“Why?”
“Because I didn’t see anyone watching us when you asked, but if you’re correct, we’re in a considerably greater amount of trouble. Anyone in Spider Division is likely to have alternate means of surveillance that would be harder to detect.”