Solmaren Temple Astralon Diocese, Astralon City, Eloria
The evening preaching had ended.
The believers filed out in their quiet procession — heads bowed, hands folded, carrying whatever small comfort the words had given them back into the city's indifferent dark. Bishop Ethan watched the last of them go from the altar steps. His expression was what it always was during the service — measured, present, appropriately solemn. Faith was a transaction. He had been administering it long enough to know exactly what each side of the exchange required.
Two moons hung in the clear night sky. Their light came through the coloured glass in long fractured bands — silver and deep violet mixing with the amber of the magic lamps and the steadier orange of the candles along the nave. It caught the white and gold of Ethan's robes as he stood there, the fabric still and formal, the kind of garment that had been designed to be seen from a distance and read as authority before the man wearing it had said a single word. A faint breeze moved through the temple's upper vents, stirring the frankincense smoke into slow, drifting coils before it disappeared into the dark above the pews.
He turned and walked toward the back of the nave.
"Your Eminence."
A junior priest caught him near the corridor entrance, half a step behind the appropriate distance. He was young — new enough that he still hadn't learned to control the particular quality of urgency that crept into his voice when he had something to deliver.
"Knight-Commander Enmer has arrived, Your Eminence."
Ethan didn't break stride. "Tell him to wait near my residence."
"Yes, Your Eminence."
He left the priest behind and continued walking.
---
The Bishop's residence sat directly behind the temple, connected by a short covered passage of plain stone — functional, entirely unlike the grandeur it adjoined. Ethan moved through it without a candle. He had walked the passage enough times that the dark held no surprises.
Enmer was standing at the door when he arrived.
He was a large man — not in the decorative way of soldiers who spent more time in ceremonies than in the field, but in the way of someone who had spent years doing the actual work that ceremonies were held in honour of. His travel kit was on his back. His gear showed wear at the edges in the places that meant use rather than neglect. He stood without fidgeting, without filling the silence with unnecessary movement. Beside the Bishop's composed, grey-haired stillness — the unhurried bearing of a man who had long since stopped needing to prove anything to anyone — Enmer looked like exactly what he was, someone who solved problems that other people couldn't.
Ethan unlocked the door. "Come in."
They entered together.
The residence's living room was modest — a desk, shelves of bound records along one wall, two chairs, a oil lamp burning low. Ethan turned the lamp up as he settled into the chair behind the desk, the white-yellow of his robes catching the light briefly before settling back into shadow. Enmer remained standing, which was his habit and his preference both.
For a moment neither of them spoke. The lamp steadied. Outside, somewhere distant, the city moved on without them.
"So," Ethan said. "The investigation ?"
"Completed, Your Eminence." Enmer's voice was even. "Though not in the way I would have wished to report it."
Ethan looked at him.
"We were unable to catch them," Enmer said. "Or maintain the tail."
The silence that followed had a particular quality to it — not empty, but waiting.
"The 1st Squad," Ethan said. There was no volume to it. Just the words, laid down carefully. "Failed to tail them !"
"Yes, sir." Enmer held his gaze without difficulty. "I am sorry. But that is the truth of it."
Ethan studied him for a moment. Enmer was not a man who apologised for things that weren't his fault, and he was not a man who made excuses for things that were. The apology meant something, which also meant the failure had been genuine rather than careless.
"You wouldn't fail without reason," Ethan said. "Walk me through it."
Enmer straightened slightly.
"We picked up their trail moving east. Everything pointed toward the ports, escape by sea, which made sense. We moved quickly. The military was notified, the Holy Knights at the eastern posts were alerted. For several hours we had them. We used divination methods." A pause. "Then they changed direction towards north-east. The shift was sudden. A deliberate pivot, executed cleanly. By the time we had repositioned, the trail had gone cold."
"Gone cold," Ethan repeated.
"They vanished into the Ashen Forest, sir. We suspect there is a foreign power involved."
The lamp flame moved in a draft from somewhere. Neither man looked at it.
Ethan leaned back slightly in his chair. "Are you certain a foreign power is involved? And certain they entered the forest?"
"Not certain on the foreign power, sir. That is an assessment, not confirmed yet." Enmer's expression was steady. "But the forest, yes. We are fairly certain of that. We choked every other route. The ports were sealed, the northern roads were watched. They could not have simply vanished into thin air."
"The forest is the only answer that remains."
Ethan thought.
"Hmm." He looked at the corner of the desk, then back at Enmer. "Correct."
He stood and walked to the window. The movement was unhurried, a man who had learned that standing up too quickly in a room was its own kind of statement, and that stillness usually served better. Below, the city of Astralon moved in its quiet nighttime rhythm — a figure crossing under a lamppost, a cart turning a distant corner, the ordinary machinery of a city that did not know and did not need to know what was being discussed in this room. The moonlight lay across the rooftops in long silver strips, the kind of light that made everything look calmer than it was.
"You know what the Ashen Forest is," he said, not turning from the window.
"Yes, sir. A buffer zone between Eloria and Qinver, claimed by both kingdoms, controlled by neither." Enmer paused. "It is a cursed forest. Dangerous enough that even we don't take risks entering it without serious cause."
"Which is precisely why this doesn't fit." Ethan turned back to face him. In the low light, the grey of his hair looked almost silver, the same colour as the moonlight coming through the glass. "The borders of that forest are not unguarded. Both Eloria and Qinver maintain military presence along the edges. And there is a magic barrier. A joint measure by both nations, old and expensive, kept active because neither side trusts the other enough to leave it dark. If that barrier is crossed, both countries are notified. Immediately."
He let the silence settle for a moment.
"Did the military receive any notification?"
"No, sir."
"The temple network? Any church post along the eastern or north-eastern corridor?"
"Nothing," Enmer said. "No notification from any source."
Ethan returned to his desk and sat. He picked up his pen, looked at it briefly, and set it back down — a habit, something for the hands while the mind worked.
"So either the barrier was not crossed," he said, "or someone crossed it in a way the barrier did not register." He looked at Enmer steadily. "Neither possibility is comfortable."
"No, sir."
"And we are not certain of foreign involvement." Ethan said.
"No. But if the forest entry holds — it narrows the list of who could manage it considerably." Enmer said.
"It does." Ethan was quiet for a moment. When he spoke again his voice was the same — level, unhurried, the voice of a man who had learned long ago that raising it was almost never the most effective option. "See, Enmer, we cannot place suspicion on another nation without concrete proof. A rumour becomes an accusation. An accusation becomes a diplomatic fracture. And a fracture, once it opens, does not close cleanly." He folded his hands on the desk — the deliberate, composed gesture of a man choosing his next words with care. "We will not be the ones who crack that foundation without something solid to stand on first."
"Understood, Your Eminence."
"Good." Ethan pulled a fresh sheet toward him. "I want the investigation forwarded. Eastern Diocese of the Temple — they have jurisdiction over that corridor and eyes closer to the forest than we do. The 2nd Squad of the Astralon Diocese as well. More coverage along the perimeter." He paused, considering. "And the MIB."
Enmer's expression remained even, though something in it registered the weight of the last name. "The MIB, sir?"
"Yes." Ethan dipped his pen and began writing. "This has moved past a simple theft. The barrier anomaly, the route change, the forest — the MIB has resources the Temple does not, and they have handled joint investigations before. They will cooperate." He didn't look up from the page. "I will make sure the request is framed in a way that makes cooperation the obvious choice."
He wrote steadily, three letters, each addressed separately, each precise in its language and its scope. The room was quiet except for the scratch of the pen and the low sounds of the city outside. Enmer stood and waited with the particular patience of a man who had spent enough time around authority to know that interrupting it while it was writing was never worth it.
"The investigation should not stop," Ethan said as he wrote. "It should expand. Quietly, through the proper channels, until we have something that is not speculation." He finished a line and moved to the next. "The relic is very important, find it as soon as possible. I want the case to be airtight. No loose threads."
"And if the investigation turns up evidence of foreign involvement in the meantime?" Enmer asked.
"Then we will have the proof we needed," he said. "And the conversation with the diplomats will be a very different one."
He completed the last letter, set the pen down, and looked over all three briefly — reading each one the way a man reads something he has already decided is correct but wants to be certain of anyway. Then he gathered them, folded each one with the same careful economy of motion, and slid them across the desk toward Enmer.
"Take these."
Here it is:
---
Enmer didn't understand why the Temple would become so serious about a relic that they would seek help from the Military Investigation Bureau on what was fundamentally a Temple matter. The MIB did not involve itself in religious affairs. That was simply how things worked. And yet the Bishop had written that letter without hesitation, as though the decision had already been made before Enmer had even entered the room.
He also didn't understand why the higher-ups were pressing the investigation with this much weight behind it. Usually a stolen relic meant internal pursuit, quiet and contained, handled within the Temple's own structure. Not three referral letters. Not the MIB.
He didn't have answers. But he understood one thing clearly enough.
This investigation was important in a way that went beyond what he had been told.
Enmer picked the letters up. He held them with the care of someone who understood that paper could carry as much consequence as a drawn blade, sometimes more.
"That will be all," Ethan said.
Enmer inclined his head. "Your Eminence."
He turned and left. His footsteps were quiet for a man his size, which was, Ethan had always thought, part of why he remained the right person for this kind of work.
The door clicked shut.
The room settled back into its silence. The lamp burned steadily. Outside, the two moons continued their slow arc across the Elorian sky, indifferent to the small human arrangements being made beneath them. Ethan sat without moving for a moment — not thinking, exactly. Just letting the room be still.
Then he reached into the lower drawer of his desk and produced a second sheet of paper. Different from the official stock he had used for the three referral letters. Plainer. No temple header. No seal.
He looked at it for a moment.
Then he dipped his pen, and began to write.