Teppin frowns, trembling.  "I... I surrender!"

Arnault laughs ruefully.  "Your king's already signed that.  Not that it matters.  I'm here" (he gestures to his comfortable chair), "you're there; that's not changing.  So I'll ask it again:  What's going on here?"

"Chaos!  Chaos!  Everyone's trying to get out or hunker down or -"  Teppin throws up his hands.  "The king didn't leave us any plan; I was just -- waiting for you!"

"Until my men pulled you down from your tower."

Arnault folds his hands and looks over Teppin's shoulder to a carved griffin's-head candlestick holder by the door.  Some people could get around the compulsions enough to hide something - he'd rather that than have people babbling about everything tangentially related; they can do that to the other interrogators - but he's pretty sure Teppin isn't doing that.

So he presses.  "All right, let's be specific, then.  Princess Arina - I know she was here; what happened to her?"

"She left day before yesterday, same day as the battle.  I think.  It's not like anyone arranged it and let me know!"  He shakes his head.  "One of her ladies was with her, and some priest, they said.  They didn't say who or where to."

Arnault sighs.  He hates it when things are falling apart like this.  It's not like it serves any purpose - it's not like it's going to help Marnon at all - it's just going to make things a little more difficult for him!  Are the people trying to spite him?  Are the gods throwing around this chaos just to make his life worse?

But the Princess's run.  And people know about it.  Even if he captures her tomorrow, there'll still be rumors and imposters popping up for the next ten years at least.  And that's before the chance there's some actual god-plot in this.

He really should alert the Office of Inquiry.

He hates the Office of Inquiry.

Well, that can wait a bit, just in case he really does capture her tomorrow.  "Orderly!" he barks.  "Double the search parties, and make sure they've all got Princess Arina's description!"

By back roads and a longer ride than Arina or Selma have taken ever before, they finally reach Fraddir's cabin.

Arina is feeling exhausted in so many ways she hadn't imagined she could feel.

But she's safe.  At least for now.

Arina sinks down in the stables, on the bale of straw that's shortly going to become her bed.  Sometime very very soon, she's going to want to wash off all the dust in that stream nearby.  Sometime sort of soon, Fraddir's plan is going to be ready, and she's going to have to - somehow - fight this immortal mage Emperor.

But for now, she'll just rest.

"So... that is your plan."

"You do know that Arina doesn't even have any Mage-Gift?  And you're planning to send her to fight what could be the whole Empire?"

Fraddir nods.  "The gods didn't just show me this buried pool of magical power; they showed me some very promising devices buried with it.  I need to study what they do - and probably improve them - but I expect they'll let Arina use this even without mage-gift.

"That'll take me a year, at least.  And in that time, I'm hoping to find out more about how much power she'll need."

"I wish we knew where this pool came from...  but the gods did give it to us..."

Selma trails off.  Everything about this seems very dangerous.  But she isn't a mage, and she's never even talked with mages before now, so she's probably wrong.

She moves on to another issue.  "But why Arina?"

"Maybe it came from before the Cataclysm?  And..."

Fraddir frowns.

"The gods told me to give it to Arina.  But that does make sense.  If we had some trustworthy battle-mage, that'd be one thing - but I think they're all gone or captured.  I'm a mage, but not a battle-mage.  There's enough power in here that - with these devices - I don't think Arina's not having native Mage-Gift will make that much of a difference."

Selma stares back toward the cabin where Arina's grooming the horses for the third time that day.

"She does have that Wild Gift too.  Maybe the gods are thinking of that, whatever it'll be..."

"Yes... That might be another reason to wait.  Hopefully her Gifts will manifest soon."

"Don't go hoping it'll be soon.  If her Gifts manifest early, that means she's in distress."

But it probably will be soon, unless Fraddir's literally planning for them to stay in the woods for a year or more.  As soon as Arina sees anything the Empire is doing, Selma is sure, she'll be feeling distressed... and Selma just hopes that Fraddir's plan will be ready soon enough.

And that the vision from the gods proves true, and the plan will work.