It is interesting that of all the various holidays and traditions that have sprung up across the world, despite being thoroughly unrelated to lunar passages, Solaria is the one most similar across cultures. Countless holidays are widespread among the continents of a given engaldria, but very few exist across more than one of the four.


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    As Jair stared on in bafflement, Sekir left through the side door he’d left unlocked with Qahrvirna on his arm. She had a crimson parasol to protect her from the sunlight, giving them their own personal blob of shadow. Their heads were close together, talking too softly for Jair to make out, but she looked happy and he looked starstruck.


    They giggled and sneaked around the outer edge of the courtyard, then ran off toward the nearest rock formation with the full appearance of naughty children.


    Jair glanced back and forth between the courtyard, which was empty for the moment, and the duo rushing off together. He couldn’t tell if Qahri had seduced Sekir, or he had seduced her, or they were mutually oblivious, or…


    Nah, no way. They were both too smart for that.


    Of all the outcomes for today he''d envisioned, this wasn''t one of them. Though perhaps it should have been.


    For a time everything was quiet. Jair kept checking on Lilin, checking on the vampire and sorcerer who seemed entirely caught up in each other, sitting side by side under an overhang and whispering together.


    Had this happened the previous time too? Is that why after the first three murders nothing had happened, because Qahrvirna was keeping him distracted?


    But... why would she not tell him, if that were the case?


    No, never mind, it was Qahrvirna, of course she''d think it was amusing to completely derail the timeline and then keep it secret. She could feel like a hero and also be the one keeping secrets from everyone.


    "Well played, Qahri." Jair glanced down at the two of them. He''d been planning to wait and observe more of Sekir''s specific methodology, but as long as he was this distracted…


    He couldn’t resist.


    Jair darkflamed beside them—closer! Come! please…—and slashed down in the same fluid movement, bisecting Sekir''s body in a diagonal cut that sent the top half flopping down into its own lap.


    Qahrvirna looked up at him reprovingly, then shrugged and licked at Sekir''s blood while it splattered everywhere. "Rushing things today, are we?"


    "Were you ever planning to tell me you''d lured him off alone, or just play games with him for weeks?"


    Qahrvirna grinned. "Whichever I thought would be most entertaining. Guess we''ll never know now."


    "I begin to question my decision to bring you along."


    "Don''t be a sore loser. The goal was to save the poor little humans from the scary elf mage, and I did that."


    “Elf? He looks human.”


    “Of course he does. He was undercover. But he tastes like an elf.”


    “I’ve only ever seen him as humans.”


    “What else would he look like in Veor? Humans are the only ones dumb enough to think this place is worth living in.”


    Did this change anything about his collective assumptions regarding Sekir?


    Not really. Though it made his use of vampire rituals less concerning. Elves lived long enough they collected all kinds of magics just as a matter of course. His body-shifting could be something similar, some elven secret passed down in his family, finally turned to nefarious purposes.


    It certainly explained Sekir’s resilient soul. No human could have held up to Jair’s soul strength after a few hundred loops of throwing himself recklessly against anything and everything. Whatever would give him any tiny advantage."Well, this gives us at least one way to get his attention."


    "You mean me."


    "Obviously."


    "No, I mean there is no us. I am able to get his attention. I do not need or want your or anyone else''s participation." She continued to lick at the bisected corpse of the temporarily dead sorcerer. "I''m perfectly capable of doing my own hunting, you don''t need to come in and save me."


    Jair ignored her excessive display. "I wasn''t coming in to save you. I wanted him dead and I''d do it again."


    "Well that''s just rude. What if I wanted to save him for later?"


    "I can revert if you''re that dead set on having him back alive. But I think I found where he keeps his backup bodies and I''m desperately curious to learn what his return process looks like."


    "Why bother? I can do it faster." She licked Sekir''s blood off her fingers, then grimaced and wiped the rest on his robe instead. "Such a waste. Didn''t give me time to set up preservation even. It would have been better alive."


    Jair sighed. "You do know we were here to observe without interference this time, right?"


    The vampire stood, parasol over her shoulder and an innocent smile on her face. "I won''t tell if you don''t. Didn''t you say you want to watch him come back? Go ahead and do that. I''ll keep an eye on things. I''m sure I can keep him distracted if he slips past you. No one needs to know."


    Jair chuckled. The hidden downstairs room of Sekir-bodies had only one narrow ladder for entry and exit. "He won''t be sneaking by me. But he''s a very powerful arch-sorcerer, I don''t think you''d have survived if I hadn''t caught him off guard."


    "But you did and I did so you can''t go making claims like that.” She tapped her chin and tilted her head slyly. “I''m pretty sure I''m stronger than you, anyway."


    Jair brandished Maelstrom. "Want to test it?"


    Qahrvirna grinned and threw herself forward, impaling her chest right through with the silver-wavy blade.


    Jair obligingly sliced her into pieces.


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    "Boo." Something intangible and Qahrvirna-shaped slammed into his chest.


    Jair’s manabody strained, struggling to stay attached. Something bit down and started to draw out the power he''d worked so hard to accumulate and keep together in one place.


    "I hate vampires," Jair grumbled. "All right, point taken." He slashed at the intangible Qahrvirna-remnant.


    She hissed and backed away. "Careful with that! You could''ve killed me!"


    "You say that like the whole point of this wasn''t you proving that you''re stronger than me."


    "I am. You rely on your sword''s abilities entirely. Without it, you''d be helpless."


    "Incorrect. I don''t rely on it any more than you rely on your fangs."


    "I rely on my fangs for a lot of things."


    "But not everything."


    Qahrvirna''s ghost scowled at him. "Just revert already so I can have my body back."


    "I think I''ll go and verify the—" he paused and looked down at the fragmented pieces of Qahrvirna, then up at the intangible remnant. "I wonder..." he stabbed Maelstrom into one of the bigger pieces and activated Darkflame with the intention of restoring her fully.


    The pieces all disappeared and Qahrvirna had enough time to let out a startled yelp before she reappeared in a burst of green and black flame, the same as if he''d been transporting her normally.


    She let out an undignified squeak of pain and flinched away from the sunlight and back into the shadow of the overhang, her clothing scattered into scraps from having been cut apart into so many pieces.


    “Ah. Yes.” Jair stabbed her and reverted them to just before he demonstrated his vampire-slaying capabilities.


    "Well, now…” Qahrvirna grinned. “That''s convenient." She patted herself down, then started toward him with a gleam in her eyes. "I could get used to this. I can think of quite a few ways we can—"


    "Nope, no thank you, I''m not interested." Jair stabbed her and darkflamed both of them back to the Serin oasis estate.


    Why gone why abandoned where?


    Jair growled and shoved the dungeon’s voice aside. It was growing both harder to ignore Meliarn’s demands and easier to move past them. Every time he darkflamed, in that moment between departure and arrival, the dungeon’s call screamed at him with all its strength, desperate to drag him back.


    He reminded himself forcefully that this was purposeful, and he had good reasons for not letting Eythron just shatter the thing, though the temptation was only going to get stronger.


    "Hey!" Qahrvirna glared like she wanted to slap him. "So impatient, you can''t wait the ten seconds for me to grab the thing?"


    Jair blinked away the persistent tug of Meliarn, relegated it back to its corner of his mind. "It''s faster this way."


    "And it ruins my clothing! Again!" She plucked at her dress, where a Maelstrom-shaped slit marked the space where he''d stabbed her. "This isn''t cheap, you know. I can''t just go grab a replacement."


    "Oh. Right. I''ll try to aim for your non-clothed areas next time."


    Qahrvirna huffed irritably. "If that''s the best you can manage, it''ll have to do."


    Ajriol and Raina made their way over while they were arguing. Qahrvirna gave one airy wave as she watched them down her nose, then flounced off to find someone else to talk to. Or seduce. Probably both.


    A lot of the other guests were looking his way too, the entrance in a burst of green-black fire dramatic enough to draw attention.


    “Did something happen?” Raina asked. “I thought you were going to be in that other place with Lilin.”


    “Well, I think I found where Sekir stores his backup bodies, then Qahrvirna found his current version, lured him out on his own, and I killed him. So I’m going to go see if he tries to come back, how it happens, the duration, anything that could help us.”


    “That sounds like a busy morning.”


    “It was. Right now, I need to know about the extra guest who left with Qahrvirna. Who was he?"


    “Extra guest?” Ajriol shook his head and waved Carn over.


    “Yes, Lord Serin?” Carn had been hovering about, disappearing only long enough to take care of whatever had come up before returning quickly to the vicinity of his lord. Ever since seeing Ajriol''s fragmented corpse strung along the window, Carn had been significantly clingier than normal. Constantly reassuring himself that Ajriol was still fine.


    Not that he was the only one. Raina seemed equally unwilling to let her father out of sight this time around.


    "We have a question about the guest list."


    Jair started to describe Sekir''s second form and Carn nodded along, then got a pensive expression and nodded. "Wait a minute, I need to check something." Carn returned a few minutes later with a sign-in book and a pair of record spools. "Describe him for me?"


    Jair gave him the description as Carn ran a hand over the records. "Ah, yes. That is Ser Elsven Mykoras, one of the lower nobles in the Erathien contingent. He''s been included in the afternoon event as a guest of Stephani Serin but did not arrive until several hours after the morning ceremony."


    "How many guests were brought in throughout the day, who weren''t there at the start?" Jair glanced around the meeting spaces, which were quite a bit livelier than the fifteen or so people and almost as many staff who’d been present at the start of the day. Aside from Eythron and Qahrvirna, there were several other newcomers as well.


    "Around half of our guests declined to participate in the morning ceremony, preferring to do their acknowledgements privately, but are happy to join in the afternoon''s revelry."


    There was generally some switching around between different events during the day, only the truly committed stayed in the same party throughout the whole day. It was traditional to stay with your closest group, but why stick with tradition when you could go off and show off how many other people you could meet and mingle with?


    There wasn''t much in the way of regulation either.


    Solaria parties were one of those weird things that pushed toward the boundaries of being an official thing but were actually not at all, and it was one of the few places where illicit dealings could be made without anyone so much as commenting. More so when there was such a convenient Dark Night immediately prior.


    Was that what Jair used them for? Not usually. Generally he used them more as a way to test his reach, get his name out there and see how much further he had yet to go, but he could always try to get in a quick trade for some crunchy terraroot.


    Jair shook himself out of the contemplation as Carn stared at him curiously. "Nothing to worry about, just contemplating the popular culture surrounding Solaira. There''s a lot of chaos that goes on between parties, and there are enough people coming and going that there''s a lot of work to do keeping track."


    "Most parties are by invitation only, but people with invitations to multiple events do tend to flip around at will rather than staying at one."


    "And cousin Stephani''s entourage is among them?"


    "Stephani will do anything to maintain her reputation. You think she would have allowed Ser Elsven to stay away from an event this important?"


    "I''ve never felt the draw of these things myself." Jair shrugged. "But anyway, he arrived and did what? Went to find Stephani?"


    "No, he was immediately sidetracked by your beautiful vampiress. She took one look at him and they just walked straight at each other like they''d found the missing piece of their existences."


    "That doesn''t sound normal."


    Carn chuckled. "Stephani wasn''t pleased by it either. She said that there was a certain expectation that wasn''t being upheld here and... well, there was a lot that she said."


    Jair shook his head. "Oh no, that sounds like exactly the sort of chaos Qahri thrives in. Let me guess, they almost came to blows and Stephani screamed at her for nearly an hour before running off in a huff?"


    "Close. I wasn''t here the whole time, but from what I saw the man was completely taken with the vampiress and didn''t even give his original companion a moment''s consideration, and she was very displeased with that fact."


    Jair frowned. "This is too easy. How are we this far ahead of Sekir already?"


    "Pardon?"


    "Well, Qahri lured him off by himself and I killed him. He''ll be back in a few hours or a day at most but... this doesn''t seem like him, being distracted so thoroughly by one girl? However amazing at her job Qahrvirna is, she''s not using any actual magic to attract people, just her own personality."


    "There is a lot of magic in personality."


    Jair nodded absently. But if she was willing to keep this a secret from him, how much of her report would she actually be willing to share?


    He shook his head. She was still too secretive, too possessive of her information. He''d take other precautions too.


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