At the border separating Nethus and the Dominion of Icrana:

  Keleis looked closely as a pair of guards watched over the road crossing the border.

  She held out her hand, and the King of Limbs responded to her summons, fading into existence.

  He knew implicitly what she wanted of him, and he moved forward, out of sight.

  Keleis waited until she heard a loud sound in the distance, echoing near the border, and moved when the guards strode over to investigate the noise.

  As she moved, the King of Limbs fell in behind her, and they crossed the border together.

  The King departed, and Keleis continued, as the guards, having found nothing, returned to their former places.

  Shortly past the border, Keleis found a road, and, being far away enough from the border to be safe from questioning, decided that following it was a good choice.

  Following it, she noted that the grass was getting progressively yellower, and loose dust was on the path, unlike what Nethus had. It was a lot muddier there, and dust wasn’t dry enough to be kicked up like this.

  Eventually, the path began to improve, first becoming less dusty, as if it had been swept, and then even later on, becoming paved shortly after she noticed a town along the way.

  It was obviously a militaristic city, as she wanted, surrounded by walls.

  Keleis slowed, being more watchful, ensuring that no person that might hold any suspicion would notice her as she crept up to the walls.

  She looked up, and, sure that no one was able to see her, jumped, catching the edge of the wall, and pulled herself up onto it.

  She peered down into the city, and seeing no people nearby, jumped down, landing within the city’s walls.

  She walked along the quiet streets, seeing no one save for a handful of citizens, moving in silence, watching her with suspicion and desperation in their eyes.

  What happened here? Keleis wondered, as she walked by a person glaring at her warningly, picking scraps of bread off of the dirty stones by the roadside.

  Keleis strode forward until a building, large by comparison with the others around it, was in front of her.

  Several guards were at the entrance, and the increased security and size of the building told Keleis that this must be the target that she needed, but also that she would need another way inside the building.

  She walked to a part of the building where no guards were watching, and jumped, grabbing hold of a protruding stone to launch herself upward, onto the roof of the building.

  She quietly moved forward, and noticed a skylight slightly in front of her, looking down on a part of the building that seemed more greatly furnished than the rest of the building was from the glances she saw through the windows on the bottom.

  She peered down, noticing a desk at the back of the room, where a man was sitting, pen in hand.

  He was writing a letter as Keleis watched, and he finished the last line almost as soon as she peered through the skylight.

  Reading through what he had written, he nodded, and set it aside, before taking a stack of papers.

  He read through the stack of papers, gradually setting aside each after he had finished reading it, and Keleis waited.

  Eventually, the man finished reading the stack, and he set it back on the desk.

  He stood, taking the letter again, and walked over to a specific part of the wall to the right of his desk. He looked around him, carefully checking the room and the skylight, and Keleis retreated until he was satisfied. The letter writer then put his hand on a specific stone in the wall, and pulled on it.

  It easily slid out of place, and he carefully put the letter in the gap in the wall that it exposed.

  He ensured it was safely in the gap, before he took the stone again, and put it back into its place in the wall.

  He walked back to the desk, took the stack of papers again, and carried them with him before he opened the door and left the room.

  Keleis waited a moment, preparing herself.

  “Be seen.” Oren’s words echoed in her mind, and she smiled, before jumping forward.

  The skylight shattered, and shards of glass reflected gleaming light throughout the room.

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  She landed on the floor, rolling to lessen the impact, and hurriedly stood.

  Shouts of alarm echoed from the hallway and she stepped up to the stone she had seen displaced, and ripped it out of the wall.

  Inside was a small stack of paper, the newly written letter sitting on top of it, and Keleis took the stack, before concealing it.

  Running back to directly under the skylight, she again called on the King of Limbs, and jumped, bracing herself.

  The King appeared, and held his arms below Keleis as she fell.

  As she landed, it vaulted its arms upward, throwing Keleis up and above the roof, and she landed on top of it.

  The King vanished again, and Keleis ran across the roof as people burst into the room below in confusion.

  She ran to the edge of the roof, and dropped, landing on the ground.

  Several citizens looked towards her in confusion as she rolled, before she took off in a sprint.

  Behind her, Keleis saw the guards move to follow but hesitate as they saw her speed, something that only an Aether user could possibly hope to match.

  She watched in apprehension until a man jumped up onto the roof from the room she had stolen from. He looked at her, before giving chase at a speed near Keleis’ own.

  He leapt off of the roof much as she had done, and he landed on the ground, continuing the pursuit.

  The chase is on. Good. Now I just have to lead him back to the capital.

  She ran to the outer wall, and jumped, landing on top of a walkway partially up the wall, before she jumped off of that to clear the wall.

  The guards on the wall turned in shock as Keleis flew past them, with the soldier giving chase only slightly behind.

  Keleis landed on the dried grass outside of the city, and began her escape to the border.

  Her pursuer, too, crested the wall before dropping down, waving away any would-be pursuers, and the chase truly began.

  * * * * *

  More than an hour later, a shopkeeper in Judaylif, the capital of Nethus, was closing up her shop, when she saw a coin left on the street.

  She walked into the street, peering down at either direction for anyone who might have accidentally dropped it, and, seeing no one, stooped down to pick up the coin.

  Suddenly, a shadow darkened the sky above her, blocking the sun’s light.

  She looked up, seeing a figure above, higher than the roof of her shop, and the shopkeeper stumbled backward in shock.

  The figure vanished, moving further into the city, and the shopkeeper continued looking upward, wondering whether she had actually seen what she thought she had, when a second figure obscured the sky, following after the first.

  The shopkeeper, coin forgotten in her bewilderment, retreated back into her shop, watching nervously.

  Keleis jumped up onto a house, and turned back to face the man who had been pursuing her.

  “Done running?” He asked. “I would like those papers back.”

  Keleis smiled. “This is just as I wanted.” She said, taking her dagger from its spot and flipping it open.

  “Oh? You will perhaps regret that, I feel.” He said, drawing a sword out of its sheath from his side.

  Keleis drew the King of Limbs forth again, at last for him to show his prowess in battle. He had been impatient, and now she felt a sense of anticipation from the King. She sensed that if he had a mouth, it would be grinning widely in excitement.

  The soldier smiled, holding his own hand out in a pose different from Keleis’ pose, and a spirit formed behind him as well, making it an even fight.

  This spirit was a cluster of stone blocks that reformed into a vaguely humanlike shape, and the spirit raised its makeshift hands in a fighting stance.

  The King of Limbs rushed forward to attack the stone spirit, and the soldier leapt onto the roof to attack Keleis directly.

  The soldier slashed at Keleis, and she dodged sideways, stabbing in retaliation, an attack which he deflected.

  Keleis jumped back, and the King of Limbs struck the stone creature.

  The creature held its hands up to block, taking little effect from the hit.

  The stone spirit punched at the King of Limbs, and the King dodged.

  That stone creature is heavy. Keleis thought, as she prepared to attack the soldier again. It may be slow, but it’s hard to stagger, and in return, it also hits hard.

  Keleis stabbed at the soldier again, kicking at his leg when he dodged. The king will have to outpace the stone spirit, and damage it eventually.

  The soldier sliced, then stabbed, attacking numerous times, and Keleis’ knife flashed, intercepting the strikes she could not dodge.

  She stopped the sword, then stepped within the soldier’s cutting range, and landed a solid punch to his stomach.

  The soldier slid backwards, before he stopped himself, and lifted his sword upwards again. He ran at Keleis, cutting at her side, and she dodged sideways again, beside the soldier, aiming to stab his neck, but he caught her arm as she moved, and stopped the strike.

  He threw her forward, onto another building, and jumped after her.

  Only a short little away, the stone spirit deflected another attack from the King of Limbs, before it struck him squarely.

  The King of Limbs staggered backwards, and could not dodge the next attack, which slammed the King into a building behind.

  That stone spirit is strong. Keleis thought. But the King can be stronger. I remember that much from the fight against that cloning guy. The King seemed ten feet tall that day. But I know now, somehow, that it wasn’t just a trick. He threw his opponents as if they were toys.

  The King of Limbs lifted itself, and readied itself for the strength it wanted to access.

  Suddenly, the hands making up his body began to grow, fingers lengthening, knuckles broadening, and hands distorting and being reestablished, enlarging the king evenly.

  His head grew higher and higher as his body magnified itself, and he looked down on his opponent from a more and more gradual vantage until he stood more than thrice the stone creature’s height, despite the fact that the stone creature still towered over Keleis’ own opponent.

  The King stepped forward, the ground shaking at his footsteps.

  He raised a leg, and, with incredible speed, slammed it back down onto the stone creature.

  With no time to dodge, the stone spirit had to take the blow head on, attempting to block it to lessen the damage.

  The sheer power of the attack forced the stone spirit to its knees, and Keleis heard a slight, but audible, crack.

  The stone creature threw off the King’s foot, a visible line of damage running down one of its arms.

  Keleis dodged a stab from the soldier, then deflected and dodged a series of increasingly more desperate blows, culminating in a backhand cut which she jumped backwards to dodge.

  The man knew that were the King of Limbs to win, his own loss would be guaranteed, and so he banked his survival on the chance of killing Keleis, causing the King to be destroyed as well.

  Keleis raised her knife, and dashed at the soldier.

  As she ran, she noticed citizens in the background, watching the battle, and she smiled, seeing that Oren’s plan had set up perfectly.

  She struck at the soldier, and the soldier deflected the attack.

  The King of Limbs grabbed hold of his opponent, and drew back arm, before throwing the stone spirit forward into a half-destroyed tower.

  Keleis kicked the soldier off of the roof, and followed him down to the street, before slashing at his face.

  Anxious about the outcome of the separate duel, he barely managed to block with his sword, backing up, and he couldn’t recover in time to defend from Keleis’ next attack, a punch that sent him into the same tower as his spirit.

  The King of Limbs moved his arm across the base of the tower, damaging the stone, and collapsing the tower on their opponents.

  Keleis ran forward, up to the building, and looked down at the rubble.

  Suddenly, a stone hand burst out of the rubble, and Keleis prepared an attack, before the stone arm crumbled, and faded away.

  Knowing that the spirit had been destroyed, Keleis dug in the rubble, confirming the soldier’s death, and she stepped backwards.

  She turned to the King of Limbs, which brought himself back to his original size, and she bowed to him, acknowledging his power and skill.

  At this point, he was almost more of a comrade to her, rather than a tool. Regardless of her consideration, he was still a spirit, used for combat in the kingdom, and he demanifested.

  Flipping her dagger closed, Keleis vanished into the night.