"Dismissed, then, we both have things to do."

A few nights later Iomedae wakes up screaming. Her skin is cold and her nose is bleeding and she doesn't remember what woke her but it was very very terrible.

Alfirin jerks awake and - looks around - rushes to the door to send one of the guards for help, because something is wrong and she doesn't know what.

She holds Iomedae. "What happened, is it still here?"

Iomedae spent the few seconds Alfirin was getting help fighting her way through the pillows on Alfirin's side of the bed panicking about the fact Alfirin wasn't there, never mind that she could literally see Alfirin standing a few feet away. "- I don't know. I don't think so?"

"You're hurt." It's a stupid observation.

"I can heal myself but maybe useful for figuring out what happened? If I wasn't hurt I'd think I just - had a nightmare - but I don't think nightmares punch you in the face. …but if anything hostile was here we should both be dead." …cling.

Cling. "Yeah I can't imagine how someone could try an assassination that got here and then didn't succeed. It's okay, I'm okay. A cleric will be here soon, I hope."

Iomedae will hold Alfirin very tightly until that happens. 

A cleric arrives. "What happened, did you need healing?"

"I'm not very injured," Iomedae says. "But I am injured and that's fairly concerning, since I don't think anything should've been able to get in here. I - woke up to something very terrible and I was bleeding. That's all I remember. I'm sorry. - Alfirin did you notice anything before I screamed?"

"I was asleep until then, and I saw the blood and - No, I didn't notice anything before that."

"A nightmare, then. Not just a bad dream, the magic kind of nightmare that evil wizards send to their enemies. There's not anything to be done now, except heal you. I'm guessing someone will talk with you about security measures in the morning."

That's a thing that can happen? "I understand," says Iomedae, more than a bit shaken. "I can heal myself."

The priest departs.

"You were right," Alfirin says, "I've been thinking it ever since they tried to abduct you - that I should be trying harder to become a wizard, because things like this are just going to keep happening, aren't they, and I can't protect you with lathes."

Iomedae hiccups shakily. "It's not - fair for it to be your job to protect me on top of industrializing an entire planet."

"It's not. It's not fair that we got back too late to help anyone we knew, it's not fair that Aroden is dead, it's not fair that Hell took over your homeland and the Abyss took over mine. It's not fair, it's just how it is."

"I hate this," Iomedae complains into her shoulder. "I hate being scared all the time, I hate that - I don't know if they have a policy of not telling us anything unless it comes up or if they figure we'd ask if we wanted to know or if there's just so many thousands of things that there'd be no point in telling us a few hundred. I hate not having enough context to make any tradeoffs in an informed way, I hate having to trust people who seem pretty trustworthy but too busy to really try very hard to justify all their choices to us unless we make a huge fuss and since we lack any context to make any tradeoffs it's hard to tell what we're losing when we do that and I miss Aroden and I miss knowing what people want from me and I miss being safe -"

Cling. "I know. I'm going to make them tell us, though - not any of the leadership, but there's probably a wizard here who's not so busy and can just - sit down, and tell us - if not all the things that Cheliax is going to try all the types of things they might try. And someone else to give us context. And someone else to teach me to be a wizard. Because we can't just - keep putting all these things off until we're not busy. 'We're not busy' isn't going to happen."

"It's really really not. I think that's a good plan. If I knew the sorts of things that were possible with magic I'd be less terrified when they kept unexpectedly happening - ugh, I'm not going to be able to get back to sleep at all but you should, especially if you want to be a wizard…"

"Mmm. You're not wrong but it sure does feel backwards, you getting attacked in the middle of the night and then staying awake while I go back to sleep." She'll close her eyes and rest her head on Iomedae until she's calm enough to sleep properly. "Miss being the most powerful wizard on the planet, things like this never happened when I was the most powerful wizard on the planet."

"Well, you'll just have to become the most powerful wizard on the planet again. How hard can it be?"

"Harder than airplanes prob'ly. Easier than pharma."

Iomedae is very tired in the morning but she drags herself up and to the workshop because if the invasion of Cheliax is starting in the spring they can't afford any delays. Also presumably Cheliax did this to her so as a matter of spiting them she has to be twice as productive today. If the crafters in the workshop and the soldiers in testing notice that she seems shaken up, they don't say anything.