On the third and final day of the pause, the group set out together to finally take care of what Nouel and Alvios had already scouted the routes for two days earlier. The city's market woke to full life around them, stalls lined up one after another, vendors' calls mixing with the clatter of hooves and the laughter of playing children, and over it all hung the smell of fresh bread, leather, and molten metal. After two days of training and quiet evenings at the tavern, it clearly did everyone good to simply drift along, without Raiiko's strict repetitions or Nouel's sharp critiques breathing down their necks.
"I hope they have something in a reasonable color too," Viktoria murmured, strolling past a stall of gleaming chainmail and eyeing a particularly clunky specimen with mock interest. "This one looks like someone forged it out of an old cauldron."
"It's about protection, not fashion," Nouel replied, without even looking at her.
"Why not both?" Viktoria countered with a grin, and even Raiiko, walking a step behind them, let out a barely audible snort.
"There," Nouel said, pointing to an unassuming but well-visited workshop at the end of a side alley, its windows filled with warm light from within. "That's where we did best when we scouted around."
They'd barely taken a few steps toward the workshop when Viktoria stopped abruptly, gaze fixed on a slender figure just turning a corner far at the edge of the market, her sea-blue hair unmistakable even from a distance. "Isn't that…" she began, more to herself than to the others, before a smile flickered across her face. "I have something to take care of. See you later." Before Alvios could even ask what she meant, she'd already vanished among the stalls, with that offhand ease she always displayed when she had something in mind she'd rather not explain to anyone.
"Shouldn't we follow her?" Alvios asked, but Nouel only shook his head. "Let her be. She'll come back when she wants to come back." Raiiko said nothing to that, but the look he cast after her betrayed that he, too, had his own thoughts on the matter.
"Sometimes I wonder if she even knows how much that worries us," Alvios murmured, casting one last glance after her before the crowd finally swallowed her up.
"She knows exactly," Nouel replied. "She does it anyway. That's just how she is." He turned toward the workshop without dwelling on it further, while Alvios hesitated a moment longer before following him.
Lunara was easy to spot, even amid the crowd—her movements had something so fluid that she seemed to move through the throng like water, never quite bumping into anyone. Viktoria kept her distance, staying behind stalls and carts as she followed her through increasingly narrow lanes that gradually led toward the harbor district, where the air smelled of salt and tar and the houses grew lower and more crooked. More than once she nearly lost sight of Lunara as she slipped through especially narrow passages barely wider than her own shoulders, and Viktoria had to squeeze past rough walls more than once to keep from falling behind, quietly cursing herself for getting into this at all.
Lunara finally made for a small fish stall, behind which an old, stooped Sirentarii with gray, algae-colored hair was patiently mending nets. "Perrin," she said quietly, barely more than a whisper, but the old man immediately lifted his head, as if he'd recognized her voice from far off. "Guardian," he replied with a curt nod, in which respect and affection mingled equally, the way one greets an old friend rather than merely an official. "I'd hoped you wouldn't come, you know. That would have meant you'd already found her."
"Not yet," Lunara said, and in her voice lay a weariness Viktoria had never heard from her before, so different from the calm assurance she'd shown in the arena. "Have you heard anything? Anything at all, however small?"
Perrin shook his head slowly, setting the net aside. "The traders who call at the coastal towns know nothing. No rumor, no trace. It's as if the current itself closed over her." He looked at her with a sympathetic gaze. "I'm sorry, Lunara."
"You don't need to apologize," she said quietly, but the disappointment in her posture was unmistakable, a barely noticeable dip in her otherwise upright shoulders, one Viktoria would hardly have recognized from the fighter she'd seen in the arena. "You've already done more than anyone could ask of you."
"I spoke with the old captain of the Stormfeather again, last week," Perrin added, as if desperately searching for anything that might help her. "He said he'd seen a boat of Sirentarii make in the northern waters about two months back, far off the usual routes. Might be nothing. Might be something." Lunara's head snapped up, her eyes bright with hope for a moment, before she visibly forced herself to stay calm. "One boat alone isn't a trail, Perrin. But thank you. I'll pass it along."
She only nodded, thanked him quietly, left a small coin on his stall even though he clearly hadn't asked for anything, and turned away, her steps heavier for a moment than they had ever otherwise been. Viktoria, hidden behind a stack of empty barrels, was about to give up and turn back when Lunara, instead of heading back toward the city, went instead to a quiet, deserted pier at the very edge of the harbor, where the water struck dark and still against the old wooden posts.
Curious as she was, and unable to rein in her own curiosity even for a moment, Viktoria crept closer, hiding behind an overturned boat whose wood smelled of old salt, from where she had a clear view of the pier without being seen herself.
Lunara knelt at the edge of the pier, dipped both hands into the water, closed her eyes. For a long moment nothing happened, only the quiet lapping of waves against the wood, before a faint, barely perceptible hum filled the air, a sound felt more than heard, as if the air itself were resonating with her. Lunara's lips moved, forming words that made no sound, while tiny rings of ripples began spreading around her hands, far too regular to be of natural origin. It was a connection she evidently made only rarely and with noticeable effort, her shoulders trembling faintly under the concentration, so unlike the effortless grace with which she otherwise carried out every movement.
"Rex Maren. Regina Maren." Her voice, when it finally became audible, sounded strangely doubled, as if she were speaking here at the pier and somewhere far away at the same time. "It's me, Lunara. Forgive the delay—the tournament held me longer than I wanted."
A pause followed, during which Lunara tilted her head slightly, as if listening to an answer only she could hear. Her expression shifted with every silent word she seemed to receive—a brief brightening, followed by a shadow of disappointment, as if the first question she'd been asked had already anticipated the answer she feared.
"No," she said finally, her voice fractured by a nuance she would never have shown in the arena. "Still nothing. I've asked everyone I know, everyone whose waves I can call. No one has seen Nerissa since she vanished." Another silence, longer this time, before Lunara lowered her head. She fell silent again, listening, her fingers unconsciously digging deeper into the water. "I know she's no fighter. I know how vulnerable she is out there, without me. Believe me, I know it better than anyone." Her voice grew quieter, almost a whisper. "She never learned to defend herself, because she never had to—she always only strengthened others, never herself. Her gift was always to help others grow beyond themselves, never to fight for herself. And now, when she needs it most urgently, there's no one there to support her."
Viktoria, crouched behind the boat, felt her throat tighten. She had only known Lunara as the calm, unshakable guardian who never lost her composure even in battle—this version of her, fragile and worn down by worry, was something else entirely, something no one was really meant to see. Unbidden, she thought of her own family, of what she herself would do if she lost someone she loved so unconditionally, and for the first time since she'd followed Lunara, the whole thing felt less like a curious little adventure and more like something she really shouldn't have been allowed to see at all.
"I'll keep searching," Lunara said finally, her voice steadier again, as if she'd reminded herself to stay strong, the way the guardian of the Deep Oases expected of herself, come what may. "Once the tournament is over, I'll return to the Deep Oases and continue searching from there. Until then, I ask you to keep your eyes open. She's your niece just as much as she's my sister." One last long silence, before she added quietly, her voice barely more than a breath over the water: "Thank you for not giving up on her." The rings of ripples around her hands slowly faded, the hum in the air died away, and Lunara remained sitting motionless at the edge of the pier for another moment, gaze fixed on her own reflection in the dark water, as if searching there for an answer the connection itself hadn't been able to give her, before she finally rose and set off on the way back with tired steps.
Viktoria waited until Lunara's figure had fully vanished between the houses before stepping out of her hiding place herself, gaze still fixed on the dark water, long since calm again. She had seen something not meant for her eyes, and for the first time since she'd decided to follow Lunara, she felt something like a guilty conscience. But beneath the guilt lay something else, something she couldn't just shake off—the image of a woman whose strength in the arena was only half of a much bigger, much quieter story.
Back at the market, Alvios had by now ventured deep into the workshop, a narrow but surprisingly packed shop with shelves reaching to the ceiling, hung with armor pieces, blades, and small rune-objects in an arrangement that seemed chaotic at first glance but, on closer inspection, turned out to be surprisingly well thought out. A man with warm, caramel-brown skin and deep red eyes greeted them, eyes that seemed to size him up before he'd even said a word, as if taking in several things at once. Fine rune lines ran along his neck, in a faint, bluish shimmer that never quite went out—as if something inside him kept moving without pause, even when he stood perfectly still. A barely noticeable blur hung around him, as if even the air needed a blink longer to fully catch up with him. "Let me guess," the man said, an amused smile at his lips, as he moved between the shelves with a speed that seemed almost too casual to be deliberate, picking up a piece of leather here, checking a buckle there, while the shimmer at his neck kept glowing steadily, never quite fading, as constant as a second heartbeat. "You're looking for something light enough not to slow you down, but sturdy enough to withstand a bolt of lightning coming from your own fingertips." Alvios blinked, surprised. "How do you know that?"
"Teryon," the man introduced himself, without directly answering the question, and handed him a simple but finely crafted breastplate of dark brown leather with inset metal strips. "I deal in everything a fighter needs, and with a bit of practice you learn to spot the right armor for the right person before they themselves know what they're looking for." He winked at Nouel, who was studying the workshop with an appraising look, while the shimmer at his neck kept running on unchanged, calm, never faltering, so offhand one might have mistaken it for a trick of the light. "And you, wood elf, probably need something that stays quiet, no matter how fast you move."
"That would help," Nouel admitted, visibly surprised by the accuracy of the assessment.
Alvios tried on the breastplate, turned once, then again, testing the mobility of his arms, a broad grin on his face. "This feels fantastic. Light as a feather, but still sturdy. How did you know that so quickly?"
Teryon laughed, a quiet, easy laugh. "Let's just say I've had enough time to study it. More time than's good for my concentration, honestly." Something in his tone carried an undertone that made Nouel take notice, a tiny, barely graspable inflection, but before he could think further about it, Teryon had already turned to another shelf to show Raiiko a pair of light vambraces he had apparently picked out just as unerringly.
"How is it that you know so precisely what each of us needs, without us having to say much?" Nouel asked, his voice polite, but with that analytical sharpness that rarely left a question unanswered once he'd asked it.
"Practice," Teryon replied curtly, without turning around, as he adjusted Raiiko's vambraces with practiced fingers, his movements so exact that hardly a single motion seemed one too many or too few. For a heartbeat his gaze seemed to be looking at something not in the room—no lapse, no pause, only a fleeting shadow of absence passing over his face, while his hands kept working without interruption, as if part of him ran permanently independent of the rest. "No," he murmured briefly, seemingly to no one in the room, before continuing without missing a beat, as if nothing had happened, "that's the price, and asking three times won't change that." No one in the workshop had asked a question. "You see a lot, when you work in one place long enough." He handed Raiiko the finished vambraces, letting a brief, assessing glance pass over his posture. "You move like someone who never learned to be loud. That'll serve you well here." Raiiko only nodded, a curt but appreciative nod, rare among them, and silently counted out eight Lumen, which he set on the counter without another word—Teryon swept them up without checking, as if he'd already known the number before Raiiko had set it down.
Nouel didn't quite let the answer go, studying the merchant a moment longer before finally turning to a shelf of fine arrowheads, setting his own curiosity aside for now, even as a quiet suspicion lingered in him that he couldn't quite explain to himself yet. He picked out a short dozen, checking each one against the light, before trading them for five Lumen, counted out with the same sober precision he applied to everything else.
It wasn't long before Viktoria entered the workshop, her face calmer than usual, an expression in it none of the others could quite read, her usually upright posture a shade more subdued than normal. "Everything all right?" Alvios asked, noticing the change in her. Viktoria nodded, forced herself to smile. "All good. I just... saw something I need to think about." She said nothing more, and no one pressed her, though Nouel studied her for a moment, as if he could read the answer from her face if he only looked long enough, before shrugging and turning back to the displayed weapons, evidently deciding that some things were none of his business either.
Teryon, who noticed the brief silence without commenting on it, finally handed Alvios the finished, fitted armor, laced and wrapped in leather. "Twelve Lumen," he said. Alvios rummaged through his pouch, counted once, then a second time, and in the end laid every single shard he owned on the counter—exactly twelve, none left over. Teryon studied the small, carefully counted pile for a moment, one corner of his mouth twitching upward slightly, but said nothing about it, sweeping up the Lumen with the same practiced gesture as before with the others. "Come back if you need anything," he said with a smile that somehow knew more than it showed, while the shimmer at his neck grew richer for a moment, denser, as if for one breath more of him had gathered in this one place than usual. "I'm... well, let's say, surprisingly often nearby."
As they left the workshop, the sun already low over the city's rooftops, the streets bathed in warm evening light, Alvios chattered animatedly about his new armor, striking various poses until Nouel dryly pointed out that he looked more like a garden ornament than a fighter with it.
Viktoria laughed along with the others, but her laugh sounded a shade too thin to be truly carefree, and as the group strolled back toward the tavern, she lingered a moment longer, her gaze turned back toward the harbor.
"Everything really all right?" Alvios asked quietly once more, noticing she'd fallen behind, his concern for her genuine and unmistakable.
Viktoria hesitated, opened her mouth as if about to tell him everything she'd seen—the fragile version of Lunara no one else knew, the vanished twin sister, the quiet despair behind the guardian's facade. But something held her back, a feeling that this story wasn't hers to tell. "It's nothing I can sort out yet," she said finally, which, as she noticed herself, wasn't even a lie. "But thanks for asking."
Alvios nodded, clearly not fully convinced, but he didn't press further, a restraint Viktoria appreciated in that moment more than she wanted to admit. Together they walked after the others, while somewhere between water and silence a woman searched for her vanished sister, without the world having so much as an inkling of it, let alone the friends walking beside her on the last steps to the tavern, each of them caught up in their own unspoken thoughts.