Dazien knocked on the door to Phoenix’s dorm room. This was the second time she had been abnormally te to meet them, and it was usually not a good sign. This was further confirmed when no answer came, and he had Uriel scent for her again, not smelling anything fresh from their Supporter.

  He contempted breaking in but thought it might be pointless if she wasn’t there. Not to mention, it’d probably get him in trouble with Lord Waynd. With that thought, he changed course to the Waynd Estate. Uriel faithfully followed his lead, and he appreciated that he didn’t have to expin himself all the time to him.

  They had enjoyed their quiet day off at home yesterday, reading books together by the small hearth and drinking tea, but he couldn’t help but wonder if it might have been even better with Phoenix by their side. She seemed to share his insatiable curiosity and desire to improve.

  Both of them worked hard at whatever they attempted and cared about protecting others, even over themselves. She was a lot like Uriel, too; she was shy around strangers, had a contempt for being the focus of attention, and was comfortable with silence, unlike himself most of the time.

  More importantly, though, she knew how to make both of them rex and smile. In the st few months, he had witnessed Uriel begin to open up and engage with others more than he had in the eight years prior to the strange woman crashing into their lives. If she had been there reading alongside them, would he have gotten to see Uriel smile more?

  Dazien knocked on the door to the Waynd Estate and waited patiently for the staff to answer. When they cimed that Phoenix wasn’t there, he requested Paul instead. He was lucky they even agreed to pass on his message, and he wondered if his connection to the Lord’s Protégé was the only reason they had even listened to his question instead of smming the door in his face.

  While he wasn’t one to assume the ill intent or arrogance of nobles, he knew that the staff were often kept busy and didn’t want to waste their time on random people who stopped at their doorsteps. When the Emerald Caster came to the door, however, looking at him in a way that threatened retribution should his reasons for summoning him to the door not be adequate, he thought perhaps he should have searched the city a bit more thoroughly before coming here.

  “What is it, kid?” the golden lord asked him bluntly. No greeting or name… again.

  “Ah, good evening, Lord Waynd,” he began, gncing over his shoulder at Uriel, who remained frozen behind him, “We just came to inquire about Miss Fraser’s location. It seems like she’s missing.”

  “What do you mean missing?” the Wrath Bde asked, and even his weaker senses could pick up the invasion of the Emerald aura on his own.

  “She was meant to meet us for dinner over an hour ago. We checked her home first, but there was no sign of her,” he expined, then added sincerely, “It’s not like her to be te, sir.”

  Paul frowned at him, and for a moment, he feared that the nobleman would scold him for not searching elsewhere first, but he was pleasantly surprised when he replied, “Thank you for coming to tell me.”

  Then Paul pulled out an item from the pouch at his belt that seemed like a gss ornament holding a bright fme within it, “She’s alive at least. I’ll search the inner city.” He pointed at the pair of them, “You two go check the AOA grounds, then meet me in the Temple District. Try to get a hold of your other party members, too.”

  Dazien nodded and said in relief, “Thank you, Lord Waynd.”

  Rayna was both pissed and annoyed. Angry that their leader wasn’t doing enough and annoyed that she didn’t know how to help. It had been three days since anyone had st seen Phoenix, and it seemed she was nowhere in the city.

  She had grown fond of the awkward yet determined redhead over the st couple of weeks, and she wasn’t about to give up on finding her. Lord Waynd had expined to their party that Phoenix had potentially been targeted by political rivals of his but that his search of the city revealed she wasn’t within it.

  That only left the wilds and the fort towns for them to search, and she didn’t like the odds of either option. Rayna could move pretty fast, but combing thousands of kilometers of open tundra to find a single Crystal Caster was a fool’s errand. There was no way she could cover it all in a reasonable amount of time, be safe while doing so, and guarantee not missing the crossing of their paths.

  The Shatter Bard couldn’t just not do anything, though, so she kept running. Sprinting through the streets of the International District on her way to tell that wannabe king to do more to find their Supporter. She wasn’t sure what exactly he should do more of, but obviously, he needed to do more of something.

  As the door opened from her persistent knocking, she pushed past Uriel and into the small room to talk to the man sitting on a small couch, bent over some papers spyed out on the short table in front of a tiny unlit hearth.

  He was just sitting there.

  Not searching.

  Not doing that talking thing that he loved doing so much.

  Not leading their party.

  Not doing anything!

  Did he even really care about their missing party member, or did he already write her off?

  Rayna stood at the end of the table and pointedly pced her paws on her hips as she practically yelled at their perpetually cocky leader, “What are you doing?!”

  Tired amethyst eyes gnced up at her. Was he up te partying or something? He definitely seemed the type. Everywhere they went, the gemite seemed to charm and flirt with everyone. Was he already busy finding a repcement he could charm into following him?

  “Rayna,” he said wearily, “I’m not really in the mood for bant–”

  “I don’t give a blopgum’s arse what you’re in the mood for!” she snapped at him, “Phoenix is missing, and you’re hiding in here like nothing’s wrong!”

  “What?” he asked, biting the word. His tired gaze turned into a cold gre, but she didn’t care. He needed to get up and do something.

  She gestured to the cup next to the papers on the table and asked, “Is that more wine? Up te ‘celebrating’ again? Are you actually gd that Phoenix is gone?!”

  In the back of her mind, she knew that her words were unfair and cruel, but she had to say something that would make him react. So she wasn’t completely surprised when Dazien grabbed the cup and threw it at the empty hearth as he stood and shouted at her, “It’s tea, you fool of a fox! I was up te filling out AOA forms so that Phoenix wouldn’t lose her license for not showing up for our assigned missions!”

  “You should be out there!” she yelled back, stomping a foot for emphasis, “Out there looking for her! You don’t need some dumb form to do that! Talk to people that can find her! Since you seem to care more about socializing than whether Phoenix is dea–”

  She took a step back as the warrior stepped closer and jabbed a finger in her face, “Don’t you ever cim that I don’t care about any of my party members again, yourself included!”

  The bard scoffed, “You don’t care about me. You barely know–”

  “Of course, I care about you!” he excimed, throwing his hands up in frustration and backing away slightly, “I don’t need to know your whole life story or every little detail about your mind to know that you are a valued member of my party and I don’t want anything bad to happen to you!”

  Dazien ran a hand through his messy hair, as he backed up another step and asked her incredulously, “Gods, Rayna, is it really so difficult to believe that just because I’m not running around the city, I’m still trying my best to find her?”

  “Your best isn’t good enough!” she yelled and then got angrier when she felt her cheeks become wet.

  Dazien paused and stared at her. She wiped the tears away furiously, refusing to open her mouth in case a sob tried to escape as well. The useless man took another step towards her and she wanted to punch that look of pity he was giving her right off his smug face as he said softly, “I know… I know it’s not good enough, but all I can do is keep trying. I swear to you that I am trying, okay?”

  She angrily nodded and he gave a weak smile as he asked, “If I hug you, are you going to punch me?”

  “Right through that wall,” she responded instantly, returning his pained smile, and her leader chuckled.

  Uriel was in the small kitchen area of their apartment: stress cooking. It was one of the few activities he enjoyed and was fairly decent at. Anything to keep him calm right now was a good thing, and he absently rubbed at one of his golden earrings only to grumble a moment ter at the flour now coating his ear.

  He had been wearing the piercings for about seven years now, after an “incident” at the temple of the Parent that almost killed some fellow orphans. They were magically enchanted to help keep him calm and focused so he wouldn’t cause even more accidents, and he found himself grateful for them again.

  It had been four days since Phoenix vanished from the city, and their entire party was on edge, trying to figure out what to do next. Dazien had barely slept, and after Rayna managed to calm down yesterday, the pair had been going to various establishments together to find ways to track their missing Supporter.

  That left him with nothing to do but stay calm and keep cooking. His partner would be back soon.

  Uriel had already finished making their dinner for that night, along with dessert, tomorrow’s breakfast, and some nice easy road meals for the party that he kept in the special dimensional backpack they had all pitched in for that was more efficient at storing rge amounts of food. It was a good item to have for adventuring parties that wanted accessible storage options that any of them could use while traveling since most Casters still needed to eat on the low Caste tundra.

  He hadn’t come close to filling it yet, but he had made pretty good progress. He was grateful for the fact that none of it would spoil in the dimensional space that kept it in a perfectly preserved stasis.

  Unfortunately, he couldn’t put the pots and pans in it –only able to use a specific type of organic cloth to wrap any food that needed to be contained and a hard technically-edible wax container for hot liquids while cold ones went in the enchanted slowmelt ice barrels– but that was what his [Fortress of Solitude] was for since it could store most of their non-essentials like that.

  As he finished pulling a tray of ruebean muffins out of the small oven they had, the door opened, and an exhausted gemite trudged through the entry, shrugging off a heavy knee-length coat and hanging it over the arm of the old couch before falling face-first into the solitary bed pushed against the far corner of the room.

  “No luck?” he asked his partner.

  Dazien groaned before tilting his head to the side to be able to talk, “I swear Rayna hates me.”

  “I think we both know she’s just worried and trying to fix things, just like you are,” Uriel pointed out.

  “Sure, but she’s always yelling at me. I’m either so bad at everything that I can’t fix anything and am a waste of space, or I’m so good that I’m supposed to automagically solve everything by saying a few words to the right person and snapping my fingers to make Phoenix reappear,” Daze vented.

  Uriel shook his head as the corner of his mouth twitched slightly, “I think that just means she already trusts you to lead us and feels safe enough to know you won’t toss her away for talking back.”

  Dazien sat up slowly and sighed, “I guess,” then he began kicking his shoes off and removed his shirt to stretch taut muscles, “I’m going to try and catch a couple of hours of sleep. I don’t think I can push anymore without breaking something.”

  A soft scratching sound at the door caught their attention, and they gnced toward one another. Uriel lifted flour-covered hands, and Dazien rolled his eyes, “Fiiine,” the warrior groaned and stood to answer the door, not bothering with repcing the shirt.

  “Hello, Bliss,” Dazien’s voice came from the now open doorway, and a moment ter, a small bck cat leaped up onto the counter near where Uriel had set his test creation. Dazien followed after shutting the door and chuckled at the small meow the chimera gave as he asked, “Here for more treats? Uriel does make the best ones.”

  She gave another small mewl.

  Uriel couldn’t say no as he popped out one of the muffins and pced it next to her, “Here you go. I doubt the fact it just came out of the oven matters to a Sapphire Caster, even one kitten-sized.”

  “Should we get a pet?” Dazien surprised him by asking suddenly, then added, “I know how much you love animals. Why don’t we get one?”

  Uriel rolled his eyes at his partner, “Because we’re Adventurers that aren’t home for long stretches of time. Pets need feeding, remember?”

  “Ah. Right,” his partner conceded, “I knew that,” he added with a yawn before going back toward the bed, “Wake me in a couple of hours, okay? I still want to go through some papers.”

  “If you fall asleep, I’m not waking you, King.”

  “Senesh…”

  “You need sleep. It’s for your own good,” he retorted, then added as Dazien opened his mouth to argue again, “Don’t make me get Saiya to order it.”

  The party leader shut his mouth and gave a small pout that the Warrior King only ever let him see as Daze grumbled, “Calling in the Healer is cheating.”

  “It’s only cheating if it’s against the rules.”

  Dazien snorted a ugh in response at their inside joke as sleep quickly cimed him, and Uriel smiled softly at the sight of his partner finally resting.

  Saiya sat at the center pavilion of the Temple District in an area designated for the lost to come that they might be found. It was a rge open space that had many small tables of various colors spread around for people to sit at and wait for a clergy member to find them or to listen to the ones that would proselytize on the outskirts. She had been wandering to this pce every morning since Phoenix went missing six days ago.

  On the first day, she asked one of the priests of the Undertaker to tell her if Phoenix died. It was her biggest fear since it was her job to keep the party alive, and not being there didn’t feel like a good excuse. The priest had reassured her that Phoenix Fraser still lived but quickly departed as though some urgent thing was calling.

  On the second day, she was approached by an intern priestess of the Mender who wanted to recruit her. She never felt the calling of that popur faith, however. They seemed mostly focused on patching people up and seeing them on their way when she knew from experience that not all wounds could be so easily healed. The priestess also couldn’t help her with finding Phoenix or keeping her safe, so she moved on.

  On day three, an acolyte of the Lover approached her, curious about her… interests, and she had to politely decline their offer for a private tour of the luxurious temple rooms. After the acolyte left, a priest of the Parent took their pce, inquiring about her pns for a family, and she decided to leave for that day.

  Saiya felt a bit better when a pair of priests belonging to the Gamer stopped by her table on the fourth day with a board and the offer of a distraction and chat. She pyed a few matches of Monarch’s March while trying to expin her worries. The priests listened and offered both advice and reassurance, and she left feeling a bit lighter than she had arrived.

  Yesterday, however, her mencholy had returned, and she spent most of her time in silent solitude while sitting in the square. The only surprise came when she got up to leave, and a Cleric of the Hero walked up to tell her, “Miss Fraser will be safe. She is finding her strength.”

  Before she could ask more, though, the human man gave a courteous bow and left her to ponder alone again.

  She was afraid that today would be much the same as yesterday when she sat at a small teal table, feeling more lost than ever. It wasn’t long until an elf sat across from her though and smiled kindly, “Hello, Lady Dewsong. My deity wanted to congratute you for your perseverance so far. You have journeyed far to find yourself here at this time.”

  Saiya took in the woman’s clothing and said, “The Traveler would know just how far that is, wouldn’t they?”

  “Farther than I think you even realize,” the stranger said with a grin, “I’m Priestess Kyleen Lastrand. I believe we share an acquaintance.”

  “Did Dazien give you that charming smile too?” she asked curiously. Even she wasn’t so blind to not see how the beautiful gemite affected the people around him and he was extremely friendly with everyone.

  The ebony elf ughed and shook her head, “That man has definitely had his own unique journey around the city.”

  “That wasn’t a no,” she pointed out with a gentle smile.

  “I was referring to Miss Fraser. She has traveled farther than most, considering she had to cross realities to get here.”

  Saiya nodded in understanding and admitted, “It’s hard for me to understand what that’s like.”

  “Is it?” Kyleen asked, tilting her head to the side, “I would think you would understand exactly what it felt like to have your family and friends all die, leaving you behind, and being forced to adapt. Coming to this strange cold nd with customs and people so different from yourself.”

  She fell silent in thought, and Kyleen continued, “My deity also wanted to mention that the journeys we walk are not always with our feet. The choices we make are more than just forks in a road. We travel through life and the journey itself can be what heals the wounds that can’t be mended.”

  Saiya stared at the priestess for a long moment before giving a soft smile and saying, “Thank you, Kyleen. I’ll think on that more.”