“I find myself in desperate and dire straits. Gen Stalbraid is out of time, out of money, and most importantly out of allies. Agents from the Protectorate Ministry are probably already watching our home day and night. I don’t know how much more progress, if any, Taru and I can make on our own.”

“Progress with what?”

“Finding my husband, Brio, dead or alive, and exposing the ones who took him from us. The same ones who tried to kill me, I’m sure.”

“And who do you imagine did all this? Do you have any clue? Any leads?”

Lexi draws in a deep, labored breath. “My husband began to notice what he suspected were disappearances. People disappearing from the Bottoms. People no one else would ever notice or report missing. The poor, the homeless. Some were arrested for petty crimes and once they were taken to the dungeons… they never returned. Others simply seemed to vanish off the streets without any record or trace of arrest. He began investigating. He discovered what he believed was evidence that these people were being conscripted… forced… into some clandestine military legion. I urged him to present what he found to the Council, but he wanted to gather more proof. Before that happened, he… disappeared too.”

Daian registers what appears to be genuine surprise, although it is perhaps less directed at the existence of the Savages and more at the fact that Brio and Lexi were able to pierce the bureaucratic shield that protects Crache’s secrets.

“Where is your husband’s evidence now, Te-Gen?” he asks her.

“Either that evidence was taken away when he was, or he hid it somewhere beyond my reach,” Lexi concludes.

“My policy is always to assume the worst.”

“Then we have to start from here and now,” Lexi insists.

Daian is quiet.

“Will you help us?”

He looks up in even starker surprise.

It’s not Lexi asking the question, but Taru.

“Would you trust me to?” he asks the retainer. “Truly? Your eyes are cold when you look at Aegins, but I know you’re burning deep inside. You hate us.”

“I distrust your uniform, especially when it is worn by ones like those others in your Dojo,” Taru corrects him. “You’re different. You stayed their hand. You have no malice in you.”

Daian is obviously moved by Taru’s words, even if he works not to show it.

“So you’d trust me, then? Because of that?”

Taru draws in a deep breath, raising the thick leather breastplate protecting the retainer’s heart.

“Te-Gen is willing to trust you. I trust Te-Gen. Implicitly.”

Daian nods, looking from Taru to Lexi. “Can I share with you a secret, one difficult for me to part with, although one I’m sure is no secret to you?”

Lexi looks confused, but she nods all the same.

“There are vastly more men and women like Grath and Kamala wearing this uniform than people like me.”