, now," Shiran hissed, turning to run and pulling both sisters with him; Arta tried to break free of his grasp, fear warring with outrage in her heart.


    mother?"


    that old, do I? I''m your sister, Artakane. Well, half-sister, technically. We had the same mother but different fathers. And I''ve been watching you for a while now."The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    was you who hired those assassins then, wasn''t it?" Arta breathed. "I thought you were a dream…"


    or all-knowing," Midaia said, a faintly disgusted look on her face. "I had nothing to do with the farce earlier, nor would I have. Something you must realize is that not everything terrible is about you, and neither does it require a hidden agenda. What happened tonight was a conflux of greed and incompetence; Hiram''s power depends on the guilds, so he lets them do what they want to wring a profit from the common people, and when the common people don''t like it, the guilds get to crack down as they see fit. Unfortunately for everyone involved, all this will accomplish in the long run is making the people even angrier. Hiram and the guildsmen may be getting what they want for now, but they''re sitting on a bomb and it will blow up in their faces sooner or later." She shrugged again. "I''ve seen it before, all around this kingdom. The dukes do what they want, forget who they depend on, and in the end, it explodes in their faces. It''s a petty, shortsighted game, and one I have no interest in playing. ''Vanity, vanity, all is vanity.''"


    not a threat to him. I''m nobody."


    "Are you all right? Where are you?"


    "I''ll follow your signal and come get you. Stay where you are until I get there. I''m so glad you''re safe." The comm clicked and went silent.


    Lord, I was worried about you!" she said. "Are you all right? After we got separated in the crowd, even Shiran couldn''t find you. What happened?"


    I heard it," the Baron said; his tone was mild, but Arta knew him well enough to hear the barely leashed anger underneath it, "the crowd was peaceful until your friends in guild security thought it was a good idea to make it disperse by firing energy blasts into it."


    It doesn''t matter who my birth parents were, or what Midaia is to me, she thought. This is my family. This is where I belong.