Free 1 State of Grace by John Phythyon

to Bartleby about what had happened.
    “Not tonight,” he said. “Perhaps another time.”
    He turned to go, ignoring her disappointed look. After scooping up his winnings, he started for the cashier’s window to turn his chips into gold.
    After a few steps, a thought occurred to him. Bartleby wouldn’t know what time his affair with Silverleaf at the club ended. Reporting in could definitely wait. He turned back.
    “Isabelle,” he called. She turned towards him with a hopeful look on her face. “I changed my mind.”
     

Chapter 5: For the Glory of Alfheim
    (Ten Days before Revelation Day)
     
    May Honeyflower stretched to relieve her cramping muscles and mopped her brow as the hot wind blew strands of her caramel-colored hair into her face. Her mouth was dry, and she found herself wishing for a tall flagon of freschina , the light elfin wine that somehow always took the heat from the day.
    The wind blew dirt through the streets of Al-Adan, and it swirled around the ankles of the elves out walking, dancing with their feet before moving onto a new person. The throng of people trudged back and forth on the street en route to whatever business they had to conduct – shopping at the market, visiting friends, ordering goods from a smith. All of them appeared beaten down by the heat and the dust.
    May remembered a time when it wasn’t like this. The weather was always fair in Al-Adan. A pleasant breeze blew through the midday to cool the skin, and the afternoon sun was the perfect companion for a nap before the festivals at night. The war and the occupation had done so much damage to the former Alfheim she wept if she allowed herself to think too much about it.
    With an effort, she refocused her mind on the task at hand. She was positioned at a small café across from the Central Police recruiting office. The Elite Guard she commanded, to which the CP reported and which was responsible for security in Al-Adan, had received a tip from a typically anonymous source that the Sons of Frey were planning to bomb the recruiting station.
    May understood the reasoning. The Shendali fundamentalist sect was attempting to destabilize the government. By getting inside an allegedly secure facility and destroying it, they could sow fear and convince the people the government couldn’t protect them. It was sound strategy for a standard guerilla campaign.
    But at its heart it made no sense. The goal was to encourage the Urlanders to end their occupation and leave Alfar. But everything the Sons of Frey did to destabilize the situation only encouraged the Urlanders to stay longer. It was ultimately a self-defeating strategy.
    Of course, the Sons of Frey wanted more than for the Urlanders to leave. They hoped to topple the government and institute a theocracy similar to the one in Jifan. May was damned if that was going to happen, and she was tired of these whackos slaughtering her people in the name of God and Frey. She was no priest, but she knew this was not what Frey intended when he brought his message of God’s love to the elves. If it was, she wanted no part of it.
    She had three agents stationed in the street at various points, all keeping watch for the terrorist. She wanted to make sure he didn’t get the chance to cast his deadly spell. Her department was under fire for not rooting out the terrorist cell and putting an end to its activities. The Elite Guard had identified a Jifani elf named Mustique Starfellow as the ringleader, but they did not have a reliable description of him, nor did they have a lead on where to find him. At the moment, the best they could do was react to his attacks. She desperately wanted to foil this one to not only send the message that the people were safe from this sort of terrorism but also to let Starfellow know she was onto him. The Elite Guard had foiled three attacks in the last month, but every one of them came from an anonymous tip. Despite her bravado, she was no closer to finding and stopping