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a-mad-scientists-writing · 11 months ago

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A New Era (3)

Chapter 3: The Sceptre of the Spirits

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Apart from a luxury boat, a journal full of scribbles, and a villa in Ba Sing Se, every single one of deceased horror-fiction writer Gordon Edgley’s possessions pass to his youngest niece, Valkyrie Cain. This causes a lot of chaos, namely:

Carol and Crystal Edgley couldn’t care less about the shoddy notebook of their uncle’s thoughts they find themselves in possession of, and enter into a screaming contest right in the solicitor’s office as soon as the shock wears off. Their parents do little to temper this, as…

Fergus and Beryl Edgley are too busy fighting over the boat neither of them want. Valkyrie wouldn’t go so far as to say that she deserves the fortune Gordon left her, but in seeing the way Fergus and Beryl act, she can’t say she’s sorry they missed out.

There is, however, a rather pressing problem that no one as yet knows about, which is...

3. The identity of Nefarian Serpine’s next target.

The next day, Melissa Edgley and her daughter decide to make the trek from their village to Gordon’s mansion, a secluded place hidden in the woods by the Cave of Two Lovers. The Edgleys’ village is called Léi, and the name suits the place as far as Valkyrie is concerned. Yes, it is her home, and yes, she does love the feeling of the sun on her skin, and the way the river dashes through the Kolau Mountains, and the soothing breeze that plays with her hair… but all it does lately is serve to remind her how much else she hasn’t seen.

While Desmond is overseeing a construction project in Omashu, a neighbour takes them the bulk of the journey on a cart, and then leaves them near the river crossing. Valkyrie and Melissa talk idly as they walk the final stretch along the dirt path through the trees. They’ve made this journey many times, and considering they own the dwelling at the end of it now, expect to make it many more. The roar of the river draws ever closer.

A sturdy bridge crosses the vast expanse. Recent storms have raised the water level, but not to a dangerous degree. They break for lunch upon reaching the white-water rush, and Valkyrie eagerly heads on over the bridge as Melissa finishes gathering up their things.

The river is wide. The bridge is long. Over the great flurry, it is difficult to hear any other noise. The flash flood takes them not only by surprise, but force.

Valkyrie reaches the other side before the bridge is destroyed. Melissa’s scream reaches her over the roaring rapids, and she almost panics, but her mother is fine, just calling out to make sure she is alright too. Via gestures and yelling, the message gets across that her mother is urging her on towards Gordon’s place.

The shock of the situation wearing off, Valkyrie makes a half-hearted effort not to feel the excitement of going on an adventure alone, and continues on.

Melissa doesn’t like this one bit; the journey to Gordon’s suddenly seems much longer, more serious, and more dangerous now that her twelve-year-old daughter is undertaking it alone, right after a flash flood. The river is too wild and filled with rocks to swim across, however. She heads upriver and further inland into the mountains, where the water will either eventually taper into a traversable crossing, or will enable her to pass straight on to Omashu to collect her husband and some sort of transport.

The flash flood has raised the water level too much to cross even at its narrowest part. Still, there is an extremely rickety old bridge spanning one section that, despite the clear danger, Melissa would have risked crossing- had she not seen Skulduggery Pleasant making his way along the opposite bank.

(He’s not a skeleton here. Tried to make it work. Couldn’t.)

It takes her only a split second to decide. Whatever Desmond’s reservations, he was a friend of Gordon’s, close enough to be invited to the will reading and the funeral, and is a high-ranking member of the Fire Nation. The Fire Lord’s court is well-known for being of good standing and trustworthiness these days. Mostly though, she’s more scared for her daughter than she is of a stranger. Melissa gets his attention through the simple expedient of hollering until he notices her.

He sends over a messenger hawk so they don’t have to yell, and once she relays the situation Skulduggery agrees to help. Apparently he was already heading in that direction, so going to Gordon’s place to make sure Valkyrie is safe is no trouble for him. Meanwhile, Melissa will take the long way around to Omashu.

Hours after reaching Gordon’s mansion, located in a small hidden valley with a wondrous view of the surrounding forest and a river that gleams under the moon, Valkyrie is warm, dry, only a little hungry, and having a blast reading Gordon’s last work. Rather eager to keep the adventure going, she decides to spend the night, and then head on for Omashu in the morning. Valkyrie is happy, self-assured, and feels safe as anything. Until a firebender obsessed with some sort of map comes through the window and tries to kill her, of course.

Not to worry though. Skulduggery Pleasant breaks down the door and saves her life.

The man’s hand is tight around her throat. Valkyrie kicks at his legs and scratches at his hands to no avail. Her vision, already blurred by tears and fear, is tunnelling. She gasps and chokes and all her attention is suddenly drawn to the fistful of flames in front of her eyes, igniting with a whoomph, close enough to singe the skin of her cheek.

“Now tell me,” hisses the man. “Where is the map?”

The front door is blasted off its hinges and slams into the opposite wall, in pieces and smoking. The hands around Valkyrie’s throat disappear. She’s on her knees on the floor and the room is on fire, ears ringing and the air singing with bursts of flame and wisecracks from the new man- the new firebender- who has just come into play.

Once she wakes up from her bout of unconsciousness, Valkyrie’s more than a little curious as to what a high-ranking member of the Fire Nation is doing in the Earth Kingdom, and as it keeps her calm and was more than a little his fault she was in danger anyway (re: bait), Skulduggery sits with her for a while and talks. The answer to her question is, he’s keeping an eye on someone.

When Valkyrie starts asking about him personally, Skulduggery tells her that he wasn’t born or raised in the Fire Nation actually, but he is a firebender, and he was in the Capital when it fell, and stayed there for a while after, so they just went ahead and made him an official citizen.

Valkyrie then asks why he’s a firebender if he wasn’t born in the Fire Nation. Skulduggery airily replies that he has family from all over the world, and Fire Nation must be in there somewhere. His mother was an earthbender, his father a waterbender, and he had all sorts of bending and non-bending siblings. He helped a lot during the war, so the Fire Lord made him a special envoy, and the other nations accepted him as an arbiter with jurisdiction throughout the world. He splits his time between Ba Sing Se for his envoy duties and travelling the world for his arbiter ones. At the moment he’s on his way back to Ba Sing Se, to talk to King Eachan about his case. Valkyrie is fascinated.

‘But first,’ he tells her as he stands, ‘I have to take you back to your parents in Omashu.’

Not exactly looking forward to a trek through the mountains in the dark, Valkyrie tries to make him wait with her in the mansion, but he is convinced they should get moving. Wary, but trusting that this man can handle things if they go wrong, she agrees.

On the journey from Gordon’s place to Omashu, things go wrong.

Half of the Kolau Mountains, the half where Gordon’s mansion and Léi reside, are covered in lush woodland. The terrain they now head through in the dark is on the rockier side which rarely sees rain and whose usual dusty underfoot has turned treacherous with mud. It is not difficult for their attacker to set off a small landslide that separates Valkyrie from Skulduggery.

During the chase, she jumps into a basin of roaring waterfalls in a desperate attempt to escape, and, miraculously, survives. The waters close over her head and she’s tossed around a fair bit, but ultimately borne safely back to shore. The most injuries she has are the bruises from particularly large rocks in the rapids that the water didn’t manage to swirl- in an almost protective fashion- away from her.

The firebender was not so lucky. Despite entering the water in the same place as Valkyrie, he was drowned or dashed mercilessly against rocks in the cascade. As previously said: miraculous.

Once Valkyrie pulls herself out of the river, Skulduggery’s there to help her up again, and they make it to Omashu just as dawn breaks the horizon.

Hypothetically, an attack on a child by a member of a covert magical community would incite a very different response from a magical detective than an attack on a child by a member of an overt magical community. As such, the matter of being assaulted by a fireball-throwing maniac is not beyond all understanding.

Valkyrie tells her parents about it. Skulduggery does not stop her.

There’s no (hypothetical) experience of hundreds of years of living in the shadows that might make him inclined to hide things from Desmond and Melissa. As they sit in the chambers Desmond inhabits while overseeing the Omashu earthbenders’ construction work, Valkyrie wrapped in blankets on the couch, her parents on either side of her facing Skulduggery, he tells them what he suspects: that the people trying to hurt Valkyrie are connected to Gordon’s death. More attacks are likely until whatever map these people are looking for is found.

Skulduggery doesn’t think Desmond and Melissa themselves are in any danger; by heading for Omashu they seem to have thrown off anyone on their scent, if anyone ever was. Besides, it was Valkyrie who inherited Gordon’s possessions, not her parents.

To Desmond and Melissa it seems pretty clear that all three of them need to stay in Omashu until Skulduggery can sort this out. To Valkyrie, it seems pretty clear that her brief taste of adventure is going to slip through her fingers unless she does something. So, she insists on going to Ba Sing Se with Skulduggery.

There are protests. Many of them. She argues that it’s the sensible thing to do: if people are after her, then it won’t take them long to find her in Omashu; it’s right next door to Uncle Gordon’s place, after all, and then that would put her parents in danger, not to mention anyone else nearby. So the best (she carefully avoids using the word safest) thing to do is stay with Skulduggery, who has already proven adept at getting them out of life-threatening situations. Besides, if Gordon was murdered, she wants to make those responsible pay for it.

The argument about the (implied) safest option for their daughter is most effective on Desmond and Melissa. Both of them are scared at the notion of Valkyrie being in danger, and rightly so. Desmond’s mind is already on track to wondering if his family’s Air Nomad blood has somehow been discovered by the remnants of Mevolent’s fanatics; Skulduggery mentioned that he believes Nefarian Serpine, Mevolent’s former governor of Ba Sing Se, to be the culprit. While neither Desmond nor Melissa are entirely at ease leaving their daughter’s safety to a firebender, Skulduggery has made a far better impression than he would have during, say, a highly tense conversation a few years down the road in which they discover he’s been working with Valkyrie in secret.

Skulduggery- taking into account the determined glares Valkyrie keeps shooting him which quite plainly state that she will be tagging along on this, as a stowaway if need be- admits that she has definitely proven herself capable of keeping up with him and handling herself if necessary. If Desmond and Melissa agree to it, he’ll acquiesce to taking her with him to Ba Sing Se, the most fortified city in the world.

It is amazing the favours having a face will do for him. Desmond and Melissa Edgley say yes to their twelve-year-old being taken on a murder investigation joyride.

How do they get from Omashu to Ba Sing Se within a reasonable time frame? Well, they have a dragon on loan, of course.

That night, Skulduggery calls (messenger hawks) in a favour from some friends of his, only referred to as the Sun Warriors. Valkyrie rolls her eyes at his mysteriousness, but on the inside she can’t stop beaming. She goes to sleep that night and dreams of the movement of firebenders in the sun.

The next morning, a great friendly black reptile arrives and waits for them across the great stone bridge to Omashu. Sleek coal-like scales adorn the creature’s serpentine body, and wings of the night itself protrude from his back. Golden tresses of hair sprout from his face and elbows, and line his back in a ridge. Shining tendrils like a moustache curl and shift like tentacles on his snout. The gold snatches of fur only serve to accentuate the dragon’s fierce yellow eyes- not slit-pupilled, but quite human really.

He’s called Ben. Short for Bentley. Yes, Skulduggery does give Valkyrie an enthusiastic Bentley-speech. His apparent command of (or at least buddyship with) such a creature further cements Desmond and Melissa’s ever-positive view of him.

‘This is the first dragon of the Eastern Isles to be born in over a hundred years, one of the last dragons alive in the world today. He has an eighty-foot wingspan, razor-sharp talons, eyes that can pinpoint a black hawk in flight at night, and intelligence advanced enough that he can understand most of human speech. He is the hope of an almost-extinct species, a fierce friend, a bit of a rascal, exquisitely stylish, and can flame a target from a hundred and fifty feet. We can cover half the continent in less than a day on his back, and the Earth Kingdom shouldn’t even shoot us down this time. I think they know me by now.’

Some of the awe taken out of the moment, Valkyrie would have been happy with, ‘It’s a dragon.’

By midnight, they are safely landing in the midst of the multitude of twinkling lights making up Ba Sing Se’s Middle Ring. Valkyrie can hardly contain her excitement: she can feel the thrum of millions of people around her, so many more, so much closer together, than in Omashu, and even at this hour the Impenetrable City is not quiet. Also unlike Omashu, the streets are all on the same level and far more cramped, the cobbles older and less maintained, and mysterious men in green robes, dark armour and wide hats pulled low over their faces lurk on the edge of vision: the Dai Li.

From school Valkyrie knows Ba Sing Se’s Inner City is divided into three walled rings, with the Earth King’s palace lying at the centre. Despite the city’s many glowing lights, appearing from above almost like a second golden-starred sky, the darkness obscured where exactly in the city they landed. Leaving Bentley to frolic in a park, Skulduggery takes Valkyrie to see some people…

China is entrancing, while Ghastly is wary. Valkyrie is dumbstruck: she’s met plenty of former soldiers with scars from fighting, but none like this man. He quite reasonably questions the decision to bring a twelve-year-old onto the case, and he knows Skulduggery much better than Valkyrie’s parents do. The phrases ‘out of danger’ and ‘Skulduggery Pleasant’ do not belong together.

The visit to Ghastly’s shop is to stop by, say hi, and commission some protective clothing for Valkyrie. She is initially reluctant: it sounds as though they want her to walk around in some sort of armour, and Valkyrie prefers clothes that are light and breathe well. Even winter oilskins make her hesitate, though she can’t explain why. Ghastly assures her that that won’t be a problem.

It isn’t. The clothes he makes for her are the best she’s ever worn. Despite Ghastly’s clear reservations, she can see he genuinely cares about her well-being; the bruises around her throat may or may not be sending his response into overdrive.

China’s library is an elegant wrought-metal monument to the limits of delicate smithery: Valkyrie has never seen such intricate shaping before- although in Léi such artwork isn’t exactly common. Shining metal adorns every surface, even weaving through the shelves and covers of books. The stunning woman they find in the midst of it all is no less exempt from the beautiful finery, wearing it on her arms, her clothes, her sculpted shoes, and even in her hair and ears. She greets them both with poise, grace, and welcoming familiarity, which Skulduggery ignores in favour of cutting abruptly to the chase. This amuses China, and Valkyrie can’t help but like her; she does however catch something in the woman’s eyes that is sharp like flint.

China tells them the rumours she has heard about Serpine’s target: the Sceptre of the Spirit World. According to legend the artefact was imbued with a vast amount of spiritual energy, energy harnessed to be used against humans, and which was incapable of harming beings from the Spirit World. Skulduggery and China are both certain it’s only a myth. Skulduggery decides to find out some more about it anyway.

They retire for the night, planning to turn to the Earth King for more information in the morning.

Skulduggery’s house is, surprisingly, not in the Upper Ring, where all the nobles tend to reside. Valkyrie assumed that as the Fire Nation’s Special Envoy, and the Arbiter of All Nations to boot, he would have a reasonably cushy station, but she supposes that his humbler Middle Ring abode makes it easier to blend in; subterfuge must be a part of being an arbiter. Although, it’s hard to see how good Skulduggery is at this when a dragon sleeps curled around his house.

By the morning’s light, it is astonishing to see how packed Ba Sing Se really is. Greeted by the cacophony of the bright, clamouring, bustling, busy morning, it’s quite the contrast to be permitted entry through the vast golden gates into the Earth Kingdom Royal Palace. By comparison to the streets outside, this area is deserted.

It’s as if the entire city has been starved of the spaciousness and serenity used in constructing these grounds. Miles of flat light stone pave an endless expanse populated by the occasional squadron of attentive soldiers before Valkyrie and Skulduggery reach the massive steps leading up to the palace. At the top of these is the gargantuan building. Perched on the seismically scaled red walls swoop the sharp curves of tiered golden roofs, and the massive green and gold stone seals of the national emblem adorn the outside. There is no mistaking this dwelling for belonging to anyone other than a king.

While the sight from outside is breathtakingly grand, Valkyrie becomes sour at the reception. No one sees the Earth King according to their own schedule. After being kept waiting in an antechamber for more than an hour, they are admitted to a secretary. After another hour, they are ushered into a waiting room, to wait. Skulduggery is impressed at the lightning pace today.

Finally, Earth King Eachan Meritorious and his retinue enter: Sagacious Tome, the pompous Grand Secretariat, and Morwenna Crow, the commanding Head of the Dai Li. They are all unhelpful and refuse to believe Skulduggery about Serpine ordering maniacs to attack Valkyrie.

Valkyrie knows Serpine’s name from history, as she does Meritorious’. She can neither see why King Eachan doesn’t think Serpine, the man who was governor of Ba Sing Se during Mevolent’s reign, would be up to some bad business, nor why the famed Earth King who was present at the siege and fall of his own kingdom won’t take a possible situation like this seriously. The discussion becomes heated, and ends with a fuming Skulduggery storming out of the palace, no further enlightened. His anger seems to be more than what the encounter deserved.

‘Are you okay?’ Valkyrie asks, a little hesitantly.

At this, Skulduggery seems to catch himself. His frustrated pacing on the palace steps slows to a halt, his stance loosening much quicker than she would have expected. Valkyrie gets the distinct impression that he’s reigning himself in, drawing himself back from a line.

‘Yes,’ Skulduggery answers, in a very calm voice. Slightly more normally, he confides that Meritorious never believes him when he brings up Serpine’s activities.

‘He doesn’t? That doesn’t seem very responsible. Or kingly.’

‘Yes, well. He thinks I’m biased.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I am, I suppose.’

Into the silence, Valkyrie says, ‘Well, I believe you.’

He tilts his head in mild surprise and smiles with more warmth than he’s shown so far. ‘Thank you.’

Valkyrie’s increasingly low opinion of the Earth King is reinforced in the next minute.

Yes, it has been iterated over and over in school that the Dai Li’s betrayal of Morwenna Crow during the war was not the king’s fault; it was a product of the whole system’s failure. The palace spent too much effort examining the war and not enough thinking about what was happening with its own people, a mistake which has been studiously corrected. This is stressed over and over in schools around the Earth Kingdom. But in the more distant southerly regions people have more leeway to hang on to such failures.

In Omashu and the surrounding principalities, they have their own king, who is trusted a great deal more than Meritorious.

Mr Bliss is the most powerful earthbender in the world, and Omashu was happy to elect him as their king after the war, even if it was Meritorious who volunteered him. Valkyrie never expected to see the living legend walking up the steps towards her, but then again she never expected to stand in front of the Earth King or the leader of the secret police either. She finds him just as scary as the stories say.

He and Skulduggery talk like they know each other well. Old war… well, if not friends, at least colleagues. Mr Bliss doesn’t seem like he has friends. He tells Skulduggery that he is right about Serpine, and that the Earth King is becoming too focused again: he is narrowing his gaze on affairs of state, revelling in peace. That is why Bliss is here, to convince King Eachan of the situation brewing. Mevolent’s old forces are on the move. Bliss is gathering his own allies in preparation.

Never let it be said that Mr Bliss doesn’t take an active role in his subjects’ well-being. He is, after all, referred to as ‘Mr’ rather than ‘King.’

If the palace too was a dead end, then where can they find information about the Sceptre of the Spirit World? Skulduggery has an idea. A place buried out in the Si Wong desert: the Spirit Library.

‘You’ve been there before?’

‘No, but I’ve seen it, albeit from a distance. Ghastly, a few others and I got lost in that desert once and came across it. We didn’t go inside, of course. We weren’t stupid.’

‘Why would it have been stupid to go in?’

‘Apparently there’s a great big owl spirit inside who’s not very nice to visitors.’

‘Not very nice like the Earth King, or not very nice like the guy who tried to kill me?’

‘Second option, I’m afraid. There’s a reason people have left it buried.’

‘Oh great. Ohhh great. That really fills me with confidence, that does. It bodes so well. Spirits are never good news.’

‘You don’t have to worry. It’s a library! The books are made for reading.’

(In the end, they are chased by a giant owl. It is not fun.)

Bentley flies them, guided by Skulduggery’s fairly rusty directions. He was lost when he found the place, after all. Valkyrie feels the wind that they surf on and knows she’ll never get tired of it.

The great buried library is silent, creepily so. They enter through a rope lowered down into the only part of the library that isn’t buried in the vast sands: the topmost tower. Valkyrie is told to wait on the window ledge outside in the heat. Reluctantly she does, staring down into the depths as Skulduggery takes their rope and lowers himself to the bridge, below which level upon level of the place descends into darkness, all packed with corridors full of bookshelves. It’s quite the sight. Quite vertigo-inducing.

Skulduggery touches down. He takes a few steps forward and almost immediately an owl five times as tall as he is with black feathers and a booming, ancient voice swoops up out of the depths, landing between him and the rope in a clear, threatening message. Wan Shi Tong, the spirit of the library, has revealed himself, and is, to say the least, uninclined to allow any humans to peruse his shelves, lest they try and use what they learn for violent purposes like all too many have.

‘Violent? Me?’ says Skulduggery.

‘If you’re going to lie to an all-knowing spirit being, you should at least put some effort into it,’ Wan Shi Tong responds, swiftly extending an inscrutable avian face on a lengthy neck down to Skulduggery. He doesn’t back away.

Taking this as her cue to enter, Valkyrie drops down the rope, landing behind the owl. She gets a brief glimpse of white feathers like a second set of eyes on the back of Wan Shi Tong’s head before it swivels one hundred and eighty degrees towards her and fixes her with a stomach-dropping stare. Skulduggery quickly darts around the spirit to stand slightly in front of her, a hand closing over her forearm from behind his back. The owl examines them both.

‘We come in the spirit of peace,’ Skulduggery tries again. ‘Of… bridging the gap between worlds. You have my word we won’t abuse your library.’

The owl’s fathomless eyes peer at him. ‘Hmmm.’

Something significant appears to be passing between the two of them, but whatever it is, Wan Shi Tong does not seem convinced. Skulduggery’s hand tightens on her arm.

Valkyrie offers a trade of information. She tells Wan Shi Tong one of her family legends: that a dark spirit possessed her great-grandfather for years during the Hundred Year War, enabling him to train the Avatar better and fight back against the Fire Nation all the more fiercely. Her bloodline was supposedly forever tainted with the power he wielded.

Wan Shi Tong is dismissive of the legend, as any reasonable person knows that spirits have not possessed people in millennia. It is an unfounded prejudice which is still held up in the way humans continue to take new names to ward spirits away. Put out, Valkyrie doubles down on their claim of peaceful intentions, then adds that if during their search he becomes suspicious of them, he can always just kill them. It’s not like they have much of a chance against him, after all.

‘True,’ he agrees, and allows them entrance.

A fox guides them to the books on spirits. They read about the Sceptre: it is only able to change owners through death; it ‘sings’ in the presence of enemies; it cannot be wielded against spirits; and it is most assuredly real. It has been used throughout history to take power, to harm people- and Serpine will add his name to those ranks unless they find it first.

Unfortunately, Wan Shi Tong hears this, completely fails to understand that they want to stop people from getting hurt, and the aforesaid owl-chase begins.

They leave the library unscathed, if a little sooty. Wan Shi Tong deemed saving his books from destruction by a wildfire more important than chasing them. Valkyrie would feel disapproval of Skulduggery’s tactic there, if it were not for the fact that they were both alive because of it. As they fly away on Bentley, the enraged screeches of Wan Shi Tong are accompanied by a great rumbling, and the Spirit Library sinks fully into the sand.

Skulduggery shares with Valkyrie his theory: the map Serpine is intent on finding must be the map to the Sceptre, and a map must be necessary because the Sceptre must be hidden in the best hiding spot Gordon had access to: the Cave of Two Lovers. They decide to go snoop around Gordon’s mansion for the map. Going into the caves without it is sure to be a death sentence.

On the way, Skulduggery asks Valkyrie more about her family legends, since he never heard Gordon speak about them. Obligingly, Valkyrie unloads all of them onto him. Her family has always been very leery of letting anyone know about their airbender heritage, but Skulduggery has made quite an impression. She laments that she’s not a bender despite being of a ‘varied background’ like Skulduggery. Skulduggery tells her about not knowing he was a bender until he was her age, despite having grown up in a family full of them who all found out when they were much younger. This brightens her up a bit: there’s still a faint chance she could be one.

They search Gordon’s mansion to no avail. His study is full of many things, but a map of the Lovers’ Cave is not one of them. Dismayed, Valkyrie heads back outside, to find, when she opens the front door, a man.

He has dark hair and darker green eyes. She notices red fern-like scars on one of his hands, visible between the gap of his expensive sleeve and glove.

There’s a rush of Skulduggery’s footsteps behind her, and suddenly she’s in the middle of a firefight at her uncle’s house for the second time in as many days.

Serpine has had the same idea as them: to search Gordon’s place for the map, and he brought much more back up than they did. They are cornered on her uncle’s porch, surrounded on all sides by firebenders, things are moving too quickly, and then lightning flickers from Serpine’s fingers, fierce and unstoppable and blinding in the dark night. Skulduggery shoves Valkyrie to the floor before being blasted off his feet.

As her hearing comes back, Valkyrie hears Bentley roar from the midst of a contingent of Serpine’s followers. She sees Serpine sedately go to collect Skulduggery’s unmoving form. There’s a large mechanical locomotor nearby that they must have used as transport. Serpine uses Skulduggery as a shield so Ben can’t charbroil him as they board. Ben isn’t exactly trying however, having his claws full protecting Valkyrie from all the firebenders Serpine brought along.

After the attack, Valkyrie is left alone in the mountains, far from home, with no one to call for help. Whatever will she do?

HAH. She has a freaking dragon. First step, sending a message via said dragon to Ghastly Bespoke, Ba Sing Se, that Nefarian Serpine has captured Skulduggery Pleasant. Step two: follow the locomotive.

It’s achieving this second step that immediately becomes the difficulty. Valkyrie’s just sent her locomotive-chasing steed away to Ba Sing Se. Skulduggery told her that Bentley knows Ghastly, so she’s confident that he will reach him. She, however, is stuck with no way besides her own two feet to follow the machine. With no other options, she takes off on foot, following the tracks north-west. Even in the dark, the deep ruts are not difficult to distinguish.

Funny story: a certain someone is on her way to Omashu at Mr Bliss’s request and runs right into Valkyrie- almost literally, had it not been for the quick reflexes of her ostrich-horse.

The woman who almost trampled Valkyrie is young, with blonde hair cut sensibly short, a serious set to her face and an even more serious set to the sword she carries. She’s dressed in green robes that are tied at the front with a cord, and despite a certain hardness to her eyes that shouldn’t belong on someone barely into their twenties, she smiles easily and has a readiness for action that Valkyrie admires. She introduces herself as, of course, Tanith Low.

They get on that locomotive.

They get off that locomotive plus one (very surprised, lightly charred) Skulduggery, enemy firebenders none the wiser.

Valkyrie catches her breath, heart racing and unable to keep a broad grin off her face as she stares at the dwindling dark mass of the all-terrain locomotive chugging away into the distance. She actually did it.

Beside her, the strong woman with the sword on her hip, Tanith, nudges her. ‘Nice work,’ she praises.

‘Well, I did my best,’ Skulduggery answers from Tanith’s other side, where she is supporting him.

‘Not you,’ says Valkyrie.

‘Ah, you’re right. Tanith, your ostrich horse is most impressive for keeping up the way it did. Good boy,’ Skulduggery corrects himself, stroking the tired, panting creature fondly, before flashing a grin back at Valkyrie. She huffs and holds the ostrich horse still while Tanith helps Skulduggery off its saddle to sit on the ground. She hears him give a sharp hiss and her faux grumpiness vanishes.

‘Are you okay?’ she asks worriedly, seeing Tanith go still for a moment.

‘Well, I’d rather not try to walk any more than I have to for the next few hours, but on the whole, I’ve been shot with worse lightning,’ Skulduggery tells her lightly.

By what light she can, Tanith examines him beneath the charred remains of his shirt. Underneath Valkyrie catches sight of many burns, almost glowing red in the moonlight. What makes her pause though is the large, star-shaped scar at the centre of Skulduggery’s chest. It looks old, and like it didn’t heal easily.

Tanith is frowning as she checks his burns. ‘The worst of it missed your heart, which is the important thing.’

‘That is pretty important,’ Skulduggery agrees.

‘But that doesn’t mean you got off easy. Hold on, I’ve got some bandages- but I’m assuming you’re more versed in treating burns than me?’

Skulduggery nods. ‘Thank you. There’s not much to be done right now, but if you have any water I’d appreciate it. Lightning strikes tend to dry me out.’

Tanith and Skulduggery’s calm and pragmatic attitudes are off-putting in a way Valkyrie can’t explain even to herself. She just feels jittery and sick, and it must have shown on her face.

‘He’ll be okay,’ Tanith reassures her with a smile that seems only a little forced, unrolling a length of clean white cloth. ‘The damage is only skin deep, nothing major.’

‘We don’t have any medical supplies…’ Valkyrie starts.

Skulduggery shakes his head, brushing it off. ‘I don’t need any. Some water, some rest, and I’ll be fit as a firecracker in no time, just wait and see.’

‘Skulduggery, you were struck by lightning.’

‘I’m fine.’

‘But-’

‘Tanith, tell her I’m fine.’

‘I’m with Valkyrie,’ Tanith mutters, grimacing as she begins to wrap his middle. Skulduggery gives her a look. She brightly adds, ‘But you will be fine, yes.’

Unconvinced, Valkyrie takes the waterskin out of one of Tanith’s saddlebags and passes it up to Skulduggery, only to catch him looking at her with a strange expression on his face.

‘What? What is it?’

‘Nothing. I really am fine, thank you. And thank you for coming to save me. I can honestly say that I did not expect that. It was very brave of you.’

Valkyrie feels her mouth twitch into a grin. ‘When have I ever done something you expected?’

He laughs.

After a few hours of thinking and riding, Skulduggery works out where the map is.

Fergus and Beryl are not pleased to be woken at such an early hour. Valkyrie can’t say that she’s all that happy to be seeing them either after an entire night of alternately walking and riding an ostrich-horse, but the excitement of finding the map, scrawled in Gordon’s field journal, bequeathed to the Toxic Twins, tossed carelessly in a corner of Carol’s room, stolen by Valkyrie, quickly infects her. She, Tanith and Skulduggery head for Omashu, reinvigorated.

They meet Mr Bliss in the mountains. He betrays them. The subtle clue is in when he tries to bury Tanith in a rockslide, and pushes Skulduggery off a cliff.

The rumbling ceases. Valkyrie stares in shock as Mr Bliss turns to her. When she starts to run, there is a great boom behind her as the earth launches Mr Bliss into the air to land right in her path. She skids and lands on her backside, and Mr Bliss simply takes the map from her. The shock gives way to outrage, and she demands to know why he’s doing this. She receives the depressing answer that he wants to be on the winning side: Serpine’s side.

When he has rumbled away on a hill of earth, Valkyrie scrambles to the avalanche site only for Tanith to push her way out the top before she can help, dusty and bruised but otherwise unharmed.

They turn to the cliff. Fortunately, there’s a fjord at the bottom. Skulduggery is soggy and angry by the time Valkyrie and Tanith find him.

Valkyrie’s hopes of having a rest are dashed. With no other choice, they head towards the Cave of Two Lovers. Fortunately, it’s within riding distance.

‘Let me get this straight. We want to navigate through the Cave of Two Lovers, find Serpine and all his firebenders, stop him from taking the Sceptre, and find our way back out again, all without the map?’ Tanith asks in disbelief.

Skulduggery considers. ‘Yes,’ he decides. ‘Yes, I think so. Does that sound right?’

‘Sounds right to me,’ Valkyrie shrugs with a grin.

Tanith turns to Valkyrie outside the cave, keeping her eyes on the entrance. It gapes wide and dark, and although the paved road inside is flat and smooth, its forbidding nature is not dispelled in the least. ‘You were reading Gordon’s journal on the way to Omashu. Did it have any advice on how to navigate through?’

‘It said something about letting love light the way,’ Valkyrie responds, also watching the dark. ‘The legend said that the two lovers who first found their way through would extinguish all their lights and trust in their hearts to guide them to each other.’

‘A knack that would be handy if Serpine was at all lovable,’ Skulduggery comments. ‘As it is…’ Fire flares in his hand. ‘…we’ll have to see how far our tracking abilities can take us.’

There are no dangers in the Cave of Two Lovers besides the natural hazards of the dark. At the present time, this includes firebenders.

They catch up with Serpine just as he finds the Sceptre. It is hidden in a magnificent tomb, where Oma and Shu were left to rest side by side. Grand staircases lead down to the lovers’ coffins, on which engravings detail their story, and the walls depict it in images.

Now, the quiet dark is thrown into unwelcome firelight as Serpine’s followers swarm all over the place, standing guard while the man himself reverently raises the Sceptre of the Spirit World from its resting place atop one of the stone coffins.

Tanith and Skulduggery instruct Valkyrie to stay back while they take on Serpine’s forces, and, predictably, she does not. She skirts sneakily around the edges of the melee instead, eyes fixed on Serpine as Skulduggery closes in. Fire flashes, lighting up the dark sporadically. During the fight, the Sceptre briefly falls within her reach, and remains silent; for some curious reason, it doesn’t warn Serpine of her presence.

Valkyrie cannons into Serpine as he scoops the Sceptre back up and aims it at Skulduggery. The dark crystal, so deeply purple as to be almost black, unleashes a powerful lance of violet energy which goes wide, striking the cavern wall. There’s a momentary pause.

Serpine has claimed the Sceptre, and his forces outnumber them. Skulduggery, Valkyrie and Tanith retreat, running in darkness because any light would make them an easy target. Sprinting headlong into pitch black that may or may not conceal a cave wall takes a lot of nerve, and Valkyrie’s the only one who feels something change- the breeze maybe- as a blocked tunnel looms out of nowhere. She grabs Skulduggery and Tanith before they run face-first into it, and they try and find another way out: any way will do at this point, Serpine can’t be far behind… but he is far enough behind such that the firebenders’ light is extinct. Above them, a glow glimmers: phosphorescence shows them the way.

Valkyrie’s jaw drops. ‘But the notes said they trusted in love!’

‘I don’t know about you, but right now I love those crystals,’ Tanith says, taking off again.

They reach daylight just ahead of their pursuers. For the second time, Skulduggery hauls Valkyrie out of the way of a lightning blast and sets to work blocking incoming bursts of fire. Serpine and his forces close in… and are driven back by a wave of rolling earth.

Bentley lands before the uprooted grass and rocks, Ghastly and China on his back.

‘Get on!’

As China calls out the order, she leaps off the dragon and puts her back to Skulduggery’s. They both cover Valkyrie and Tanith, China pulling a wall of earth out of the ground to shield them while Skulduggery takes over offense. Valkyrie catches Ghastly’s hand and feels Tanith give her feet a boost, and once they’re both aboard Bentley, Skulduggery whirls in a circle.

China follows his movements like they’ve done this a million times before, lifting the rock wall and knocking it back at their attackers while Skulduggery sweeps his leg around and sends a clean wash of fire across the ground below it. The firebenders are all forced backwards. Skulduggery shouts for them to take off as he jumps for Bentley, catching China’s hand and hauling her up after him.

‘You haven’t lost your touch,’ compliments China, catching her breath. Her eyes are alight.

Skulduggery brushes soot and dirt off his charred clothes. ‘My touch for fighting or escaping?’

‘For angering dangerous enemies.’

‘You say that like you expected otherwise,’ Skulduggery says with a wry grin.

It is only once they are in the air that Valkyrie notices the dragon’s beautiful black scales are covered- all over- in hideous yellow dust. It smells like curry. Apparently by the time Ben made it to Ba Sing Se, Ghastly wasn’t at his shop, and the dragon subsequently tore through the downtown market stalls in the attempt to track his whereabouts: he found China instead.

Normally, China would have been happy once finding Ghastly to send him on his way alone, but he called in… an old debt she owed him. Neither say what it was, but it was apparently enough to convince her to lend her help. Valkyrie, not having any reason to think otherwise, finds herself liking China even more, regardless of everyone else’s reservations.

‘And so the market stalls are how he got spices all over him?’ she asks, trying valiantly to rub the awful yellow stuff off the sleek glossiness underneath. She can accept that excuse. It was only an accident.

‘Oh no,’ Ghastly says dryly. ‘As we left, he saw the spice carts coming into the city and decided, despite the urgency of the situation, to beat his wings and fly through the ensuing cloud.’

Valkyrie then notices that China and Ghastly also have traces of yellow on their clothes and skin, but they, being sensible people of good taste, have done their best to remove it. At Valkyrie’s dismayed expression, Skulduggery nods and pats Bentley’s hide ruefully.

‘He likes being colourful,’ he explained. Bentley wiggles happily in mid-air.

The Earth King is not pleased, but he somehow manages to avoid admitting that it was his mistake to disregard Skulduggery’s suspicions. Kings don’t apologise. They move on, and expect everyone to follow in their wake.

It isn’t clear why the Sceptre never reacted to Valkyrie’s presence. After their visit to the Spirit Library in which Wan Shi Tong disabused Valkyrie of any fanciful notions of ‘tainted blood’ causing the Sceptre to overlook her, Valkyrie has no explanation to offer either. Regardless, Meritorious considers her a valuable asset to have, despite the pompous reservations voiced by Sagacious Tome. Valkyrie is not only permitted to continue being part of the affair, but practically enlisted.

China, considering her debt to Ghastly settled even in the face of Ghastly’s clear disagreement, heads back to her library to begin organising her affairs in preparation for a war. Valkyrie is more than a little surprised and disappointed at this action, but China is not swayed. Skulduggery takes the opportunity to instil in her the lesson that China Sorrows cannot ever be trusted she is only ever self-serving never put your life in her hands she will betray you nod if you understand Valkyrie.

Reluctantly, Valkyrie does.

That last encounter with Pleasant was too close a call for Serpine to allow again. He needs to distract the arbiter. Fortunately, Serpine is well-versed in how to do that. As a bonus, that niece of Edgley’s was getting on his nerves anyway.

After the Earth King and his war council has made their preparations and given Skulduggery, Ghastly, and Tanith assignments, the four of them make their way through the palace, heading for the exit and listening to Skulduggery as he thinks aloud about what Serpine’s next move will be. He has the Sceptre, but what does he want it for? Mevolent’s goal was to spread the influence of the Fire Nation across the whole world, but Serpine doesn’t have the Fire Nation to use as a starting point. The only thing he’s ever ruled in fact is… Ba Sing Se.

A blank-faced man in white robes under dark armour is waiting for them in an anteroom. There are no guards in sight, and they can’t remember passing any in the hall for a while either. The assassin carries a scythe. Under the low-pulled hat, his focus is fixed on Valkyrie.

The others attack, but the man has a surprising trick: he gets a jab into Skulduggery’s inner shoulder, and the flame he was summoning extinguishes immediately. Skulduggery grimaces and tucks the arm in close until he can regain use of it. His and Ghastly’s stances grow a little warier.

‘Chi blocker,’ Valkyrie hears Tanith mutter.

Despite apparently having no bending of his own, the man is more than a match for Skulduggery, Ghastly, and Tanith. His scythe meets Tanith’s sword at every turn, and his durable armour is more than capable of withstanding not only Ghastly’s punches but the lumps of stone he bends his way- although it is rare that the assassin cannot cleave, dodge, flip, or somersault away from them. His feet are as sure as ever even when the ground underneath him tilts or becomes awash with flame. Skulduggery continues with hand-to-hand attacks, getting in so close that using any firebending would be almost suicidal, but he still has his work cut out stopping any more of his limbs from being deadened or severed.

When Skulduggery shouts at Valkyrie to run, she does, but the fight follows her.

The White Cleaver almost reaches Valkyrie. It takes Ghastly collapsing the roof of the chamber to shake his attention. Chunks of brick rain down around them. Without her coat, Valkyrie would have been hurt far more than the mild bruising she sustained. She, Skulduggery and Tanith make it out just in time.

Ghastly doesn’t.

His eyes are closed and Valkyrie keeps shaking him, but he won’t wake up. He’s bleeding- in a lot of places- but still breathing. There’s rubble strewn everywhere. Skulduggery is hauling Ghastly onto his shoulder and Tanith is urging them to move. The White Cleaver emerges from the dust-filled ruins of the room behind them.

Meritorious, walking with Morwenna Crow, hears fighting in the halls of his palace. Serpine is inside. The coup is taking place now. Before the Earth King can summon the Dai Li to his aid, a blast of purple energy vaporises him.

Several halls away, the palace administrator makes it to the mews and scrawls a frantic note for the nearest bird he can reach before he too is killed. The iguana parrot takes off.

Serpine’s plan is a simple one: massacre everyone. The power of the Sceptre is incredible, and allows him easy destruction of anyone he wants. Should there be a powerful object that would allow him control over all the people in the city, its hypothetical equivalent in this world is the throne of Ba Sing Se.

Using loyalist forces leftover from Mevolent’s Fire Nation, who have been in hiding for almost thirteen years, awaiting their chance to strike, Serpine leads them into the palace via a secret entrance revealed to him by Sagacious Tome. Tome’s eagerness to lay his hands on some real power goes wasted, Serpine killing him right after the Earth King and Morwenna. He has no further need of the advisor.

The next step is to eliminate the counterforces that will inevitably be deployed. All the loyal palace guards have been decimated, and the not-so-loyal ones in the pocket of Sagacious Tome now answer to Serpine.

Once the palace has been cleared, Serpine sends out the majority of his soldiers to manage the guards on the Outer and Inner Walls. The remaining Earth Kingdom soldiers will assume places outside the palace, deterring anyone from entering.

The halls of the palace are chillingly silent. Valkyrie runs through them with Tanith and Skulduggery, her breathing seeming too loud, her footsteps too heady. Ghastly’s limp hand sways with Skulduggery’s motion. Bodies are abundant throughout the corridors. The coup was swift and merciless.

Ghastly shouldn’t be moved, but he shouldn’t be left alone either. They find a room with a lockable door and lay him gently on a pristine sofa that is quickly dirtied by the dust and blood. Valkyrie kneels by his side. He’s still breathing- faintly.

Skulduggery is dead set on killing Serpine ASAP, while Tanith wants to contact reinforcements. She is a seasoned fighter, but out of her depth; she is too young to have been a soldier in the Hundred Year War, and has never dealt with situations like this. Frustrated at Skulduggery’s iron refusal to compromise or listen, she hisses some things. Things that reference the war. Valkyrie doesn’t understand some of it, but she can piece together what ‘maybe you want to join your family’ in this context means. She feels the blood drain from her face and isn’t sure if she’d prefer Skulduggery to shout over the stillness he’s now adopted.

They both catch their breath. Tanith doesn’t agree that either of them are at all prepared to face Serpine when he has the Sceptre, but the only other feasible option is splitting up, which is undoubtedly worse. As it is, they don’t know the full extent of the coup, or what is happening in the city. Reinforcements may not be available.

With a much cooler head, Tanith can see that Skulduggery’s plan is as good as any they have. It’s a concession he’s lucky to have under the circumstances, so he accepts it. She also points out that Valkyrie is the only one who can sneak up on Serpine, so leaving her with Ghastly isn’t an option either. Skulduggery reluctantly agrees. After barricading Ghastly in the room as best they can, they head out.

Valkyrie feels a shift in the air over her shoulder. She rolls out of the way of the White Cleaver’s absolutely silent approach, Tanith draws her sword, and suddenly splitting up is the only option. The chi blocker settles into his stance. Fortunately, Tanith has no bending he can take away.

Serpine is in the throne room, standing at ease in the middle as he contemplates the gold-plated seat atop the stairs. The Sceptre is held loosely in one hand- easy for her to take. Valkyrie’s palms start to sweat. Whatever Skulduggery has told her to do if things go south, she knows the only way she is leaving this room is with him.

Valkyrie Cain, it has been an absolute pleasure knowing you.

Her shoes aren’t sturdy boots, as favoured by so many. She doesn’t like heavy clothes. Her shoes are soft, and light. Sometimes she scares her parents by unintentionally being too stealthy when she walks into a room. They’ll turn around and there she is…

Serpine turns around. The Sceptre lights up. Valkyrie dives, rolls, spins and brings up a hand-

The Sceptre flies out of Serpine’s grip, skidding across the room, borne on a gust of wind.

Well.

Isn’t that a surprise.

Skulduggery crashes into Serpine with elbows and fists before he can react. The two firebenders fight, and it’s instantly clear who is the better combatant. Valkyrie thinks it’ll be over easily, when-

The floor spirals open beneath Skulduggery. He falls through, and it slams shut over him just as quickly.

Mr Bliss walks into the room. Before Valkyrie can process what happened (is he dead, is he dead, did Bliss kill Skulduggery), or that she’s now very alone, a known airbender with one of Mevolent’s generals, Serpine is ordering the King of Omashu to kill her.

‘Where’ve you been?’ Serpine snaps, wiping blood from his face.

‘I was delayed.’

‘I’m sure. Well, if you want to reap any rewards after tonight, you’ll have to display some of that “legendary” strength. There’s one more adversary to deal with.’

‘You want me to kill an unarmed child?’

‘I want you to kill an unarmed airbender.’

Valkyrie stares into Bliss’s cold blue eyes and waits for the floor to open up and swallow her whole, just like it did to Skulduggery. Instead, a ton of ceiling slams down towards Serpine… who is already rolling out of the way, coming up onto one knee, two fingers pointing at Bliss, lightning exploding into the space between them. Bliss is thrown off his feet and doesn’t get up.

Serpine, whose movement took him to the Sceptre, stands with it in hand. He turns to Valkyrie, a cruel smile on his face, taunting her as he closes in.

Then the floor cracks open again and Skulduggery wrenches himself out. Serpine snarls a curse at Bliss’s unmoving form, and the fight begins anew. Skulduggery refuses to give Serpine even a second to bring the Sceptre to bear, driving him backwards. He doesn’t firebend, and doesn’t need to, working only with his fists and knees and elbows. This seems to infuriate Serpine further. Skulduggery slams him against a pillar, and places him under arrest. Serpine laughs, inexplicably, viciously, head shaking and eyes burning.

‘I will always find a way to make you suffer!’

The hand holding the Sceptre is pinned out of the way so it can’t be angled at Skulduggery, but Serpine isn’t looking at Skulduggery. He twists his wrist, and Valkyrie feels her blood turn to ice as she looks into a purple glow.

The beam never comes. The crystal shines like a firefly and refuses to let loose. Serpine screams his rage, and Skulduggery wrests the Sceptre from his grip, half-turning to toss it behind him. Valkyrie shivers, and operating on instinct, makes a move that sends a strong breeze spinning the weapon further away. She looks up to find Serpine white with fury. In the instant before Skulduggery pins his free hand back in place, Serpine shoves him off and time slows down.

Crackling blue-white light is summoned out of thin air. Its tendrils are drawn to a point and extend along the line set by Serpine’s fingers, pointed straight at her. But the view is eclipsed. Skulduggery was already in motion. His feet are sure as he throws himself in the line of fire, his stance as confident as if he’s done this time and time again. The arcing, sparking, icy fire snakes from the tip of Serpine’s fingers and meets Skulduggery’s… and then blossoms around him in a flashing cloud of electricity, booming back along Skulduggery’s other hand, straight at Serpine.

Valkyrie blinks the searing afterimages out of her vision just in time to see Serpine’s body slump to the ground.

Skulduggery turns around and asks if she’s alright. She stares at him. His clothes are smoking faintly.

Running footsteps from the corridor herald the arrival of a flood of Dai Li.

‘Just in time,’ Skulduggery sighs.

They assess the situation efficiently and effectively, helping Mr Bliss up and checking Serpine is dead. China Sorrows enters the room. She smiles and folds her arms.

‘You’re not dead. Well done,’ she praises.

‘Not for a lack of trying,’ Skulduggery murmurs. He seems a little shocked (no pun intended) to Valkyrie.

It transpires that a message was sent out to Mr Bliss during the coup. China’s people, who were monitoring Bliss’s residence in Ba Sing Se for any sign of his return, intercepted the distinctive iguana parrot and alerted her to what was happening. She raised the alarm to the Dai Li agents in the city and the soldiers on the walls, who were ready for Serpine’s forces when they made their move. She did this not, China assures them, out of the goodness of her heart, but in order to avoid a total collapse of the resources and influence she has amassed since the end of the Hundred Year War, a fate which would surely have befallen her had Serpine come to power so soon. Whatever her excuses, Valkyrie grins broadly; without China, two of her friends would be dead, and many more people besides. Even Skulduggery doesn’t try to distance himself from her that night, although he does seem rather preoccupied with his own thoughts.

Other notable occurrences of the night’s events: Tanith and the White Cleaver half killed each other during their duel. The White Cleaver went missing in action before China and the Dai Li arrived, but Tanith, along with Ghastly and Bliss, was hurried to healers as soon as she was found. While Tanith and Bliss are expected to make full recoveries, Ghastly’s injuries were incredibly extensive; he remains in a coma, and is fortunate to be breathing. Skulduggery says he’s survived worse though, so Valkyrie tries to keep her hopes up.

The most important take-away from all this is that Valkyrie is an airbender. This is incredible news to everyone around. As soon as Bliss is well again, a flurry of action rises up around her. Valkyrie was confirmed as a non-bender as a child, but as Skulduggery vouches, those tests aren’t right one hundred per cent of the time. Bliss decides that she must be trained, and once the next in line for the Earth Kingdom’s throne is crowned- a cousin of Meritorious named Thurid Guild- this matter is one of the first brought to his attention.

Waiting, strained, in Omashu, Desmond and Melissa Edgley receive word that their daughter is safe and sound, the crisis is over, and that they are invited by the Earth King himself to attend the celebratory welcoming of a thought-to-be-extinct race of benders back into the world: otherwise known as the official presentation of Valkyrie Cain, the First Airbender, to the nations.

Well, that’s the years of the Edgleys hiding their heritage over. Desmond can’t say he’s entirely sorry, not when his daughter is so excited and happy and protected.

Despite knowing that King Thurid is mainly doing this for the good PR value, which shows that Ba Sing Se has quickly recovered from the mishap and is looking forward to leading the world in a new era of recovery brought on by her own self, Valkyrie is indeed overjoyed. She loves airbending. It comes easily and naturally to her, something that she’s felt has been part of her life for so long which has now unfolded to reveal its potential.

The trouble is, there’s no one to teach her. The Edgleys lost their cultural records of the Air Nomad practices, customs, and teachings long ago, while hiding and on the run. China has nothing, nor does the palace, and the Spirit Library is not even to be thought of after Skulduggery’s actions the last time they were there.

There is good news, however. Skulduggery’s background means that not only is he well-versed in all kinds of bending, but he is also one of the only self-taught benders in the world. There weren’t many firebenders willing to teach the enemy their tricks during the war, so he had to figure it out himself. He knows how to start from scratch in these matters. Furthermore, as an Arbiter of All Nations it’s his job-

(‘Technically?’ Valkyrie asks.

‘Literally,’ he replies.)

-to act on behalf of and in the interests of all nations. All the nations want Valkyrie trained. If she’ll have him, he offers himself as her airbending master.

To Valkyrie’s utter delight, he’s got the job. Not only because there’s suddenly a talented young airbender who no one else knows what to do with, but because no one is going to tell Skulduggery Pleasant what his specific duties entail.

Valkyrie notices, in the days after the coup, that people, old friends apparently, often come to talk to Skulduggery. Their conversations are quiet, and she usually only catches bits and pieces. There’s the general impression that they’re checking in on him, making sure he’s alright. She supposes she hasn’t really known him long enough or well enough to make judgements of her own, but their presence does encourage her to notice some of the silences he retreats into on occasion. Eventually, she asks him if he’s alright, to which he replies, with some consideration, that yes, he is. He’s killed the man who murdered his family and tortured him. Skulduggery is feeling a certain satisfaction, it has to be said. He says he’s looking forward to new things now. Valkyrie is too. Together they sit under the stars.

As the parents of the First Airbender, the Resurrector of the Air Nomads, officials fall over themselves to offer Desmond and Melissa housing in Ba Sing Se’s Inner Ring, in addition to places at official functions, etc. The attention is overwhelming, something they have never desired or imagined happening to them. Initially, they are reluctant to accept any of the offers, but, being sensible and practical people, they think it over and realise that Ba Sing Se offers the best resources for Valkyrie’s training and protection, and so relocating to the big city would be in their daughter’s interests. They politely decline the grand offers of titles and seats at functions, and move into Gordon’s villa rather than the grand housing of lords and nobles offered. They do, however, request positions in the city where they can continue their careers and remain somewhat independent, preferring to accept the vast amounts of assistance from the palace only as a last resort. They are not necessarily anti-monarchist, but they are also not blind to the realities of corruption within the Earth Kingdom’s government, and this latest fiasco has not helped any.

Skulduggery’s duties as arbiter do not generally allow him to remain fixed in one place for too long. It’s time for him to head out again, and at queries from King Thurid about what this means for Valkyrie’s instruction, Skulduggery answers that he’ll just take her with him, of course. They’ll head for the Air Temples, and see if they can find any surviving records of airbending.

Guild doesn’t seem entirely happy with that. Valkyrie gets the impression that while he obviously doesn’t want Skulduggery around, he’d rather someone from his own palace was teaching her so that she would remain his PR heaven-send and claim to fame throughout the world in perpetuity: the Earth King overseeing the First Airbender. But, as Skulduggery reminds Guild, he doesn’t have any right to keep her under his jurisdiction. She is not a threat who must be kept under watch, and there is no standing legislature to restrict the movements of airbenders.

Unless they’re the Avatar. Which she’s not. The next Avatar is an Earth Avatar, not an Air Avatar.

So Valkyrie and Skulduggery set off on their journey. Promising her parents she won’t be gone long and that she’ll write often, Valkyrie looks eagerly forward to more adventure. In a matter of days her life has completely turned around- for the better, she believes.

The wind tosses her hair around and caresses her skin, Skulduggery starts joking for the first time in days as they leave Ba Sing Se, and she knows she’s ready for so much more.

#skulduggery pleasant #fanfic #avatar au #fusion #ok style-wise things change up now #there's mostly only indirect narration from now on #with a few direct action scenes here and there

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