“And I’ll be right beside you,” she added as she climbed to her feet. “We’ll face whatever comes next together.”
I smiled. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.” After standing up beside her, we began our trip back towards camp. “Besides, who are they going to throw at us now? We’ve taken out two of Kaldan’s greatest warriors and sent an entire company of men scattering. What do they have left?”
“Well, I’m sure they’ve already filled the two empty slots in the Trinity Guard,” she remarked offhandedly.
My eyebrow shot up. “Why would you think that? They don’t even have the weapons anymore.”
“They don’t have those weapons, sure, but there are plenty of others that could take their place. I don’t think there’s been a King’s Reach since before I was born, and Val replaced the King’s Wisdom when she first joined.”
“You’re telling me that Virram has an entire arsenal of magic weapons at his disposal, but he only uses three of them at a time?” I asked incredulously.
“I wouldn’t call it an arsenal, really. The Golden Throne has eight artifacts in their collection: one for each of the eight major Primevals. They’re called the ‘King’s Primes’.” She turned to me with a smirk. “They only use three of them at a time because it’s called the Trinity Guard.”
“But why would you call it a Trinity Guard if you have eight weapons? Wouldn’t you want them all being used at all times, if they’re so miraculous and powerful?!” I was entirely bewildered at the thought of Virram hiding away powerful artifacts just to satisfy a naming convention. “Wouldn’t you just call it the...Octernity Guard? The Octave Guard? The…” I trailed off, searching for an appropriate name.
“When the country was founded, they only had three weapons, so they called it the Trinity Guard; the other five artifacts came later. If I had to guess, I would say they kept the name because there’s no good phrase for a group of eight people,” Lia laughed. “I guess you’ll just have to ask the King next time you see him.”
I threw my head back and sighed loudly, dissatisfied with the lack of logic. “I don’t know why I’m surprised; this is Virram we’re talking about. Why am I trying to find reasoning in anything he does?” For the remainder of our walk back to camp, I muttered under my breath in an effort to determine a fitting name for a group of eight knights. The effort was quickly abandoned when we returned to the wagon and Hana, now dressed in a long hide jacket lined with fur, handed us our dinner. We all ate in the shelter of the wagon, forsaking the comfort of our small fire for protection from the wind and falling snow.
When our meal was finished and the wagon was rearranged to accommodate bedrolls, I made to take my leave to keep watch for the night. Hana and Marten both protested on the grounds that I would freeze to death overnight, despite my reassurances that I would be plenty warm beneath my cloak. Lia raised her own complaints about my absence for the night, though her motive was more self-serving: if I would be using my cloak to keep warm outside, she wouldn’t be using it as a blanket for the night, much to her dismay. Marin offered to sleep under one blanket with her to help stay warm, and the argument was ultimately dropped.
After I said my goodnights, I paced along the road until I found a suitable spot to hold my nightly vigil. A solitary stump on the roadside appeared after a minute of walking, and I brushed the snow from its wide face and sat down, making sure to drape my cloak carefully over my crossed legs. Along with keeping watch, I had a secondary goal in mind for my meditation: find a workaround for the new issues with Detection magic. The falling snow showed no signs of stopping, and I could sense every snowflake landing around me as I sent my mana out in a tight circle.
I stumbled upon the solution much quicker than I had anticipated. The strain of processing each individual bit of information was taxing on my brain, and it seemed to fight against my efforts to stay focused. When I inevitably gave in to the need to relax, the images within my head lost their neon sharpness in the moment before my mana receded. I replicated the sensation in succession until I could reliably call upon it; the feeling was similar to letting my eyes lose focus on a distant object, and brought a similar hazy view of the world around me. My mana was still extended as it always had been, but my mind chose the level of detail with which to display the reported data.
With my new strategy ready, I pushed out the fullest extent of my abilities, covering miles of countryside in every direction. The world was still and silent under the freshly fallen snow; apart from the tiny flickering lights of forest creatures hidden within their tree hollows, it might as well have been a barren, lifeless tundra. The static image within my head made it easy for my mind to wander, and I fell into a pleasant trance.
Movement at the edge of my vision roused me to an immediate focus, and my Detection shifted from a wide circle to a sharp line between myself and the new arrivals. Three horses trotted along the same road we had traveled only hours before, heading in our direction. Each carried a man dressed in furs
