*-Rumors_*

Fiona stormed into the queens study, leaving stammering pages in her wake. She slammed her fist onto the desk, startling Danika into dropping the reports she was reading. "I have waited long enough to speak to you. Care to explain why my request for an investigation into my missing magesteel has been ignored?!"

Danika took a second to regain her composure, and shuffled the reports back into a neat pile. "Your request has not been ignored, however these things take time to be reviewed, and there are other concerns that are more pressing at the moment. The abbey is still surrounded by an impenetrable field, there are earthquakes occuring to the west, rumors of the southern raiders becoming more active in the south, several envoys from that gypsy in the Black Oak Forest, increased wyrsa sightings in the wild magic forest, odd reports from the mages working with those runestones, and a dozen other things that are far more important right now than a missing shipment of ore from a pirate!"

Fiona leaned down, and stared Danika in the eyes. She felt a moment of satisfaction at the glint of fear in the queen's eyes as she pulled back ever so slightly. "Let me make something very clear to you. That missing shipment contained ore that is extremely dangerous in the wrong hands. We have only just begun to discover the more potent properties of magesteel, and I will not risk it getting into the wrong hands. You would do well to remember that I, and my ships are the only navy that Shadowmist has, and it would be wise for you to remember that before you dismiss my requests as unimportant, and before you go making unfounded accusations of piracy."

----

Damario sat in the tavern, and glanced at his fuming companion. "Well, I would assume, Commodore, given your currently foul mood, that things did not go well."

"That my dear, is one of the biggest understatements that I have ever heard from you. And right now, can we please dispense with your military formality?"

He cocked an eyebrow and smirked at her. "Very well Fiona. We may have to take the matter of the magesteel into our own hands, if that woman is not willing to do anything about it. I don't trust anyone that has spent the majority of their lives behind a desk, to grasp just how dangerous a situation really can be." He took a long pull from the flask at his hip "Seriously though, things are getting worse, and it's not just our shipment. I've been hearing some troubling things while you were up at the keep, and one of those concerns that friend of yours that we were told is dead."

"You mean Marcus? I almost don't want to know. It was hard enough having to go and tell his wife that he had died in Drandmir, not to mention having no body to give a proper burial to."

"Oh this you will want to hear. If rumor is fact, he's not dead. The scuttlebut is that he was branded a traitor to the kingdom, and thrown into prison on that damned island of Ripley's. Now the only thing I can figure, is that he had to have either found something that would incriminate her in something, or was getting very close to doing so. There are some dark rumors about that wench that I've heard as well."

Fiona narrowed her eyes as she stared into the amber liquid in her mug. "This changes everything, if it's true. I think we need to do some reconaissance. Get Fenja, and get her into that keep."

"Immediately Commodore. Permission to leave?"

"Permission granted. And Captain, keep this quiet. I don't want anyone to know"

****

Fenja slipped across the roofs of the city, a feeling of both intense concentration, and euphoric exhilaration surging through her. It had been years since she had truly put her skills to their proper use. She crouched down in the shadows of a chimney, and looked across at the keep, watching the guards as they walked their patrols. A single point of light in the darkness marked her target, the window of the queen's personal chambers. She closed her eyes for a moment, and recalled the last time she had been in this same spot. Years before, she had been tasked with breaking into the keep by Ragnar, the man who had become the shame of Icedrake. She had spent hours studying the layout of the keep, the patrol routes of the guards, every entrance she could find, and the best escape routes.

She shook her head for a moment, reminiscing about the past was ultimately fruitless, and was a waste of time she did not have. She climbed to the top of the chimney, and leapt across to a tall oak that branched out over the wall surrounding the keep. She tensed slightly as a patrol she had not seen passed directly below her, but as was the habit of most guards, they did not think to look above. Their focus was in the areas surrounding them, but never higher than eye level.

She landed softly at the base of the tree once the patrol had passed, and quietly slipped to the walls of the keep itself, while pulling out a pair of dark grey gloves, made of wyvern leather thin enough that she could feel the texture of the stone beneath her fingers, but durable enough that it would take the sharpest blade imaginable to penetrate them. A matching pair of slippers were already on her feet, allowing her a level of control that boots simply did not have.

She ran her fingers across the wall, searching for the perfect grip. After a few seconds she gripped the stone with her fingertips, and began her ascent.

**

“This had better be important. I've told you numerous times never to meet me here, so I assume that whatever it is that brings you to me here is of the upmost importance." It didn't take an empath to sense the threat behind her words, but Daemon carried on in his typical devil-may-care attitude. He had had enough of her superior attitude, and the final pieces were in place to cut her back down to where she belonged. Finally he would be free of her, and he would be happier for it.

"But of course, your Highness." He said with a low sweeping bow. "I just thought you might want to know the latest bit of slung mud from our informants."

"What information could those bottom feeders possibly procure that would warrant you seeking me out here?" Danica stepped over to a lavishly adorned chair in the royal chambers and gently lowered herself into it, making sure that her skirt floated properly into place. Her agitation was evident through all her careful movements, which Daemon suspected to be an intentional action on her part. She did her best to let him know in many different ways when she was displeased with him, usually without going so far as to be mean or cruel. It was all this posturing and subtle attempts to manipulate him which drove him to the point he was at. He was tired of being her lapdog, and now he was going to deal his final hand.

He intentionally hesitated in giving her the information until she had lifted a glass of wine off the nearby gold gilded table before he spoke. While he fidgeted uncomfortably and acted like a guilty child, a corner of his mind noted that this was ultimately a petty delay, but it amused him to do so.

"That the oh-so-righteous Marcus has escaped from Ripley's island and is making his way here with all due haste." His timing had been perfect. The queen sputtered and coughed, liberally peppering her amber silk dress with stains that would probably never go away. But her current interests seemed to be elsewhere for the moment, as she sat there with her eyes nearly bulging out of her head.

"WHAT!?!?!" she bellowed. He noticed a trace of that wild insanity creep into her eyes, the same one he saw that night when she stormed into the tavern demanding to know what he had done with the Wind Rune. This is what he had hoped for, when she was in this state, she got sloppy and made critical mistakes. She threw the glass goblet across the room, ruining some fine artisan's masterpiece in the process, no doubt, and rose to her feet. "How? When?! Where is he?" Daemon decided to keep up the sheepish act.

"Not sure how he did it, but it was about a fortnight ago. We didn't hear about it sooner because wizard-speak has been all out of sorts lately, and it took this long for word to reach us through the Mistwalkers. As for where..." he pretended to be in the process of knocking mud loose of his boots, though no such problem was apparent. "He's been staying off the trade roads, making it almost impossible to track his journey. Our best guess is that traveling overland, by foot, he's probably no more then a day or two away. Less than that if he managed to get a horse or hitch a ride with some stone-browed local." By the time he finished with his "procured" information, the vein near her temple was throbbing mighty clearly.

**

Fenja slipped quietly down the wall, certain she had heard more than enough for her captain's satisfaction.

The man known as Marcus was already free of that hellhole known as Ripley's island. Having spent several months in the hole herself, after her arrest following the the rebellion against Ragnar, she had a fairly good idea of the means of his escape.

Daemon had some form of teleporting ability, and given that the tension in that room, both sexual and adversarial, was so palpable that she could sense it even on the other side of the thick curtains and heavy glass, it didn't take a mage to figure out that he was likely the one who had gotten Marcus out.

Damario and Fiona would not be pleased with what she had found, but for once, she was in a position in which the fallout would not be on her head.

**

Danica stared into the fire, her mind working furiously towards some solution to the current problems she faced. Marcus had escaped, and even now was coming after her, and some small part of her was certain that Daemon had something to do with it. The way he had been acting was completely out of character. He never fidgeted, as if he was uncomfortable in her presence, never once broke that careless facade of his. No, something was going on, and she had enough.

She rose slowly from her chair, and began pacing, with the barely restrained frantic energy of a panther on the hunt. Daemon acting strangely, that darn mage suddenly disappearing, and now Marcus escaped from prison, everything was spiraling out of control. She had let Daemon convince her that they needed to take the Mistwalkers to something more than a petty thieves guild, and the plan had seemed like a sound one at the time, one of the few plans that Daemon had come up with that didn't leave her terrified of him getting caught, and leaving her, and the rest of the guild with the prospect of a noose around their necks. Nothing was turning out the way it was planned.

She stopped pacing, and turned to look out the window. That was it, things had gone to hades in the span of a few short months, and there was nothing else to be done. She turned to her desk, and opened the secret compartment, emptying it's contents onto the desk. She picked up the one rune that remained in her possession and stared at it for a moment, a plan slowly emerging from her contemplation. That sanctimonious bastard Marcus was coming to kill her, well she wouldn't be here. Daemon was preparing to place an all to convenient blade in between her shoulders, time to turn the tables on him. She knew exactly where the bulk of the Mistwalkers wealth was, as well as her own cache of stolen goods and coin. He enjoyed his pretense to nobility, well she would deprive him of that, leaving him the penniless guttersnape he started out as.

She leafed through the papers concerning the Mistwalkers, and set a handful aside, tossing the bulk of them into the fire, including all those that had to do with the rune in her hand, and with her own activities. She then arranged the remaining pages on her desk, in such a way as to be certain that the next person to look on her desk, would be sure to find them.

After a moment, she walked into her quarters, and looked through her clothing, pulling out a rarely used set of traveling clothes. Yes, these would do, the only things she would take with her, aside from her jewelry, and a few other small pieces. The fine gowns would need to stay behind, much to her disgust. So much gold and work that would need to be left. It could all be bought again, and none of it was worth the noose, or prison.