Sitting at the kitchen table, Emilie began to realize just how much she had grown in the past year as she reached for the salt jar in the center and didn't have to get up to reach it. She was just about to her mother's shoulder now, which for 8 was a bit taller than her mother expected. Her parents would joke that she'd be a giant when she was done growing. They also said it was because of all the food she ate.

Speaking of food, the cold Elemiwi air was great for stirring up her appetite, even for the rather bland oat porridge they frequently made in the older months.

"Kids, we've got a surprise. Your mother is going to have another baby! "

"Yay, someone else to help with chores!" Ricaza cheered.

"Bah bab! Bab bah!" Nittaa, not quite a year old yet, just babbled and smiled.

Emilie on the other hand could only stare at her bland winter’s porridge, her hunger suddenly fading. In the back of her mind she could only think, ‘another one?’ Her parents barely had time for her as it was.

“Aren’t you excited for your new sibling?” Her father’s voice broke her out of the stupor she found herself in.

Forcing a smile and a nod, she simply said “Yeah.”

Maybe her father could see through the mask, or maybe it was just a guess. “You know we’re not replacing you right?”

An invisible arrow of words struck Emilie’s heart or so it felt. Regardless of what would happen in the future, they weren’t trying to hurt her and she knew that. This was good news, she just needed to swallow down her fears and smile, even wider. “I know. I’m just surprised, I guess. Nittaa’s not even a year old, I thought you guys would wait to have another. That’s all.”

Her mother blushed ever so slightly, “I mean, these things happen Emilie. You’ll understand when you’re older.”

Of course, she had some idea how it all worked. It wasn’t like her parents were quiet, but still. A creeping feeling crawled up her back as her own thoughts began to make her feel gross and a bit ill. With a shake of her head, she went back to her porridge. So long as she had a home, she’d survive. They’d never kick her out or send her away at least.

Months would pass, the last of winter would quickly give way to spring and eventually summer. Cantam 30th rolled around, it was Srijedeg the last weekday of the last week of Cantam, and the end of school. The last week was always kind of fun, less focused on learning new things, and more on how to learn on your own. Fense always pushed his students to keep up their studies even when not in the classroom. It was also a bit bitter sweet as the older students would often not return in the fall.

Like Gezal, who planning on moving on from school after the summer, but to what? He didn't really have an answer, yet.

But, back at school Fense was even going to work with Ard to keep the school house open for the library during the summer. It would be nice to have other things to read, rather than her mother and father’s books all the time. Even if the school’s library was little more than stitched together pages.

Thinking about new things to read, the bookstore was also an option. Emilie had saved about 59 silvers from chores, errands, and gifts, just one shy of a gold. She’d have enough for a new book. A cheap book perhaps, but maybe she’d finally spend some of it. Reese kept telling her he’d be able to get her a small discount too.

As her mind drifted to Reese and bookstore, she began to wonder and think what it would be like to work in such a place. Surrounded by tomes of knowledge, and smell of paper and leather. It was something that brought a smile to her face, and she could see herself enjoying that life. Maybe she should try and get a job somewhere too? Surely, there had to be someone in the village that could user her skills.

With those thoughts and the end of school, Emilie’s mind would drift for the next few days. Bouncing around ideas, and visions of the future. She still remembered the first of two questions she wrote in her first notebook, "Who do I want to be?"

A question that remained unanswered.

Her drifting mind was made all the more turbulent as her mother's swelling belly created a swelling fear inside herself about the future. Without school to keep her mind occupied, that fear compounded each day. All she had was Reese and his droning on about experiments she didn't understand, or occasionally Gezal and watching him swing a sword. It made her feel trapped between an unknown future she didn't want and a present that was vexing.

She considered seeking out Samil and Venginn, she got along with them well enough in class. But they never seemed to want to bother with other.

Upon stumbling across them out by the lake together, she realized it was probably best to leave them alone. Samil was clearly infatuated with the elf girl, everyone could see that. But Emilie knew that the elves didn't like marrying from other races, particularly the anthro races. Samil was at least part anthro, human and oddly enough elf. So, maybe it could work? There had to be some union for him to come about.

Regardless, Venginn seemed more clueless about love than Emilie did. It seemed destined for failure just because of that if nothing else. Still, she did wish them well. Even if her parents didn't approve they were a strangely good pair. The lake was a romantic setting, and they were at that age. Maybe they'd start courting?

At the very least it was a nice distraction for the day. But then the other days would roll in, and a week would go by since school ended. Another Srijedeg spent with Reese. It was, getting a bit too common, and for reasons she didn't quite understand it was starting to grate on her. She enjoyed his company, he was one of the few who could talk to her, and understand her. But, there was just something about him that always felt overbearing, like he thought he had all the answers even when he didn't.

At least today he was trying to learn from her again, his latest project requiring her understanding of magic and spell. Specifically, Lightning spells and enchantments, or something like that? He had some kind of idea for an enchanted glove or gauntlet that involved it. Without a gate he couldn't cast the spell so he didn't really know what to expect. Apparently the mana stone had to actually be gems for it work, so it would be expensive. Not wanting to spend the coins on something useless, he wanted her to demonstrate a simple lightning bolt cast. Simple he said, as if he had no idea how hard and complex the spell was.

She cast it with a soft smile, it actually was pretty easy for her.

Crack!

The echo of the small strike echoed around them as they sat near the southern edge of the village. It was unlikely the village heard it. Part of it felt like years ago when she would meet him at that hill, and cast spells for him to observe. Still another part knew it was different. Her soft smile faded as the echo disappeared, returning the forest's edge to quiet.

"You ok Emilie? You've looked down since classes ended."

Reese had closed his notebook, a signal he was giving her his full attention.

"I'm fine. It's just…" Did she really want to dump what she was feeling on her friend like this? Did he really want to hear it? He would of course, he always did, but it would make things uncomfortable for at least her.

"It's just what? If you don't want to talk about it?"

Maybe she didn't. It didn't matter. For all the annoying things he did, there was a reason why she still considered him her best friend. He at least tried to listen to her, and that, she supposed was enough.

"Do you want to go see what Gezal is up too? I saw him walk south of here before you showed up."

Emilie sighed and shrugged. It was something to do at least. "Sure, not much else to do."

The forest bush was thick in spots, and some of the plants had thorns that would catch on the hem of her shirt. Pulling lightly at one such vine, she was suddenly glad she didn't wear dress today.

Of course, Reese was well ahead of her already. He always seemed to be, it was getting really annoying seeing it be physically true too.

Reese had grown unusually quite as they ventured deeper into the forest. Usually, he'd be going on about something, talking about an experiment, or magic or maybe history. Recently he started going off on some stories he picked up somewhere. He seemed to have hundreds of them, about subjects she had never read of before. Stone rings that sent you to other worlds, magic rings that needed to be destroyed in a volcano, something thing about time and going back to the future. None of it made sense to her or anyone else that would listen to him, but she had to admit it was fun listening to those stories. Definitely more satisfying than his experiments.

He stopped at a small opening in the bush. In front of them, a poor tree showed signs of being abused by a sword. Next to it, its brother and sister trees had already fell sometime earlier, likely to the same sword. Again, Reese was deathly silent.

"Is this where Gezal has been training?" Emile spoke softly, she wasn't expecting him to jump like he did.

"Sorry. Yeah. Something… doesn't feel right. Haven't you noticed; the forest is really quiet."

Pausing for a moment, all Emilie could hear was a light breeze rustling the trees. But, no other sounds, no animals, or birds. Perhaps the occasional cricket but that was it. The forest was always much louder than this.

The ground around the trees must have been very interesting, because Reese knelled down and examined it closely. "Emilie, there's blood in the dirt."

With a light jog, he followed a small red trail behind some bushes to where they found Gezal resting.

Gezal was leaning against a tree, half conscious, around him lay four smaller green creatures. In his fuzzy gaze and foggy mind, he smiled at Emilie and Reese. "Time to slay some goblins." He tried to laugh only to cough and hold at his side.

"Yeah. Time to slay some goblins." She agreed and approached him. His body didn't look that bad, but she had to make sure. Looking him over there were cuts and wounds, nothing too deep. But his leg had a nasty gash in it, and his foot seemed sprained.

"Sorry guys. These little fuckers came out of nowhere and snuck up on me. I got them though!"

Looking his wounds over futher, she couldn't be sure but, "I think you'll be fine. Come one we've got to get you out of here." Emilie attempted to lift the older boy but barely had the strength. "Reese, think you can help-"

Reese held his finger to his lips and crouched as far down as he could. Emilie followed suit and Gezal was smart enough to stop talking as well. The sound of crunching leaves and breaking branches bounced along the woodland edge. Creatures barked and cackled in that strange and twisted noise that made the lower goblin's so-called language.

Peering through the brush, there were at least six of them out there, four smaller ones, and two larger hob like ones. If Gezal had been more lucid they may have had a chance, but as it was there was no way Emilie and Reese could take care of them and protect him. Even with her power, she didn't think it be possible to cast spells fast enough, and Reese. Well, he could swing a sword, but that was about it. Who knows how many more were out there waiting.

"What are we going to do?" Emilie whispered to Reese.

The sound of more crunching leaves and even more goblins walking around. He couldn't tell if they were looking for their companions or something else. That's when another one came into view, it was chewing on something. A bone of some kind. Reese almost threw up when he realized what it was, and Emilie's face went pale when he told her.

It was a human forearm.

They were going to die here. More and more were coming, somehow, they had to get out of this. With this many goblins around, even the village was at risk. Their only hope was the army, there were just too many otherwise.

Emilie watched as Reese turned around and glared at her. He didn't look like Reese, it was like something else was inside him, dead and cold. It scared her.

He whispered in a hushed tone. Moving his lips carefully so she could see them through nearly inaudible sounds. "Emilie, you need to carry Gezal. Both of you will need to move quickly and quietly to the west, when you're back in the clearing you need to run for the keep."

That scared her even more than his look, she whispered "What are you going to do?"

Reese picked up one of the rusty garbage swords the goblins had been carrying. "Something very stupid."

For a moment, Reese paused as if he was considering something, something very important. Emilie could only imagine it was some grand strategy, some way to bring them all home. She wasn't expecting what he said or did next.

"Famous last words I guess… LEY-ROY-JANKINS!" With that he charged out of the bush, and sliced through the nearest goblin who fell gargling his own life force. Another nearby turned to face him, and felt his sword pierce its heart as Reese continued to run through them all. "Come at me bro!" Shouting random noise and nonsense in that insane fake language of his. "That the best you got!"

And then there was quiet. For a few more moments the two just stood there in shock, looking at each other. Gezal and Emilie shared a single silent conversation, 'Did he really just do that?'

It worked though; the Goblins followed him as he ran north and ignored the two hiding in the bush.

Waiting, she counted the seconds, till she hit one hundred. No more sounds, not more noises, no more goblins. They left. Quietly, slowly making their way to the west.

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The boy was heavy, and despite her growth spurt she wasn't particularly big, yet. Having only one working leg made it very difficult to move. Add to that, every rock, log, and stick wasn't painful to the boy.

"Oww."

His weight seem to grow greater the more they moved. It wasn't just her imagination.

"Emilie, stop. My side. It's…" His side was dark red, his wounds growing with each step. The wounds were deep, not fatal, but it was bleeding badly ever more with each step.

She knew one spell that could help. One of the first spells any healing mage will learn cauterization. Without a pain numbing spell though, it would hurt a lot.

"Ok Gezal, this is going to hurt. I'm sorry"

He nodded as she began to whisper the words.

His chest and legs grew hot, hotter than the feeling of the blade that cut him. He tried not to scream. But a thousand coals dropped in your side would spare only the hardest of the broken. "EEEUAAAGGUUU!"

After she was done Gezal laid on the ground while Emile knelled next to him, both panting in exhaustion. It was the first time she ever cast that spell. Any healer or mage would have commended her.

Unfortunately, the only others around to witness the act were lesser goblins. Who certainly were not lesser in number. They had to run, Gezal's scream had called them forth.

"Emilie, this really hurts. My head…"

"I'm sorry. I don't… I don't know what else to do."

"Do you know any other healing spells?"

She thought about it, she actually knew several glyphs and the words for them, but had never actually used them. All the books she had read came with grave warnings about misusing healing magic. If you do it wrong, you'll make it worse. Possibly lethally worse.

"I… I'm not sure."

"Emilie, I can't keep moving and it's not just my leg. I lost too much blood, and my head hurts and my lungs feel like lead. If you can't heal me, you have to leave me."

The sounds of more goblins coming though the bush could be heard, this time they were in front of them.

"Yaghth! Yarg!" One of the sickeningly green monsters started charging them. Emilie held up her hand and did what any good mage would do.

"Fire bolt!"

The green skin on the goblin quickly turned brown and black before cracking open and turning red. It's companion seemingly unaware of the danger continued to charge her.

"Fire bolt!"

Again, the goblin burned and died.

The sounds of the spells being cast and of her shouting were enough to call forth the rest. They could hear them running and cackling. There were just too many. At best they'd have a minute.

"Ok, I'm going to try this, but it could kill you if I do it wrong."

Gezal nodded, "Do it."

Emilie didn't know deep healing; it was beyond her skills. She did learn something close that might work in this situation, "Stamina Boost". The books said it was dangerous, nothing explained how it worked, just how to cast it and a warning that if a person wasn't hardy enough, it could stop their heart and kill them.

She held her hand over his abdomen and pushed out the sounds of the rushing army. She traced over the glyph in her mind. A mixture of Fire, Water, and Solisium symbol. That last one hurt her when she thought about it, like was pulling at her very life force. Now, it was going to pull at his.

She whispered the words, as the glyph ran through her mind.

Inside Gezal's body, it felt hot, like being stabbed with a hot poker, only there was no pain. Just the heat. His head felt weird, like his body was given a sudden rush of energy from somewhere. Inside his abdomen, it felt like something small was deflating.

Neither of them truly knew what was happening, but inside Gezal, his fat stores were being broken down rapidly into sugars, protein and other things his body needed for energy. Some was even turned into more red blood cells. This spell was very hard on his body, an older or weaker man, may have their heart stopped by the shock. If she cast it correctly, and if they survived this, Gezal would be in pain for a day, but would also likely sleep though it as well. After which, he would be quite literally be starving.

Unfortunately, she didn't cast it quite right. The complexities of healing spells and using Solisium leave nothing to chance. A slight miss of focus, a failure to concentrate, and parts of his vascular system could be converted to 'stamina' as well. Veins disappeared, that wasn't good, arteries disappeared, that was bad. In their absence a growing and dangerous internal hemorrhage formed that neither was aware of at the time.

Two more small goblins came running at them. Without thinking, Gezal used his second wind and picked up his blade slicing at the first one. The tip and blade of the sword ran over the goblins chest, slicing through skin and muscle, and bouncing over bone. Hitting bone was a good way to dull a blade, but he didn't have time to think about it.

The other one continued to rush him, this time with a dagger. However, the foolish creature did nothing to protect itself, leaving its neck wide open as Gezal forced his sword down in a quick chopping motion. The goblin’s head, now free from its body floated up before crashing on the ground behind him. Its body stumbled forward seemingly unaware of its sudden lost head before crashing next to him.

More goblins came, five this time from different directions. Gezal readied his blade on the latest group. The first one to charge him was a large hob, covered in rusty metal plating, cheap garbage armor. But it did cause his sword to bounce off.

"Sunder" Gezal shouted, for a moment the edge of his blade glowed. As it struck the cheap platemail, it crumbled under the blade, and his sword was free to rip through the goblin's flesh. Immediately behind that one, was another.

He didn't have time to think as he held back his blade, letting the smaller goblin's rusted gladius strike it instead of him. Three more were closing in faster, those two were flanking their side. Gezal couldn't hold them off on his own.

The numbers were too great, she needed to do something to help. She needed to be a mage.

Her heart throbbed in her chest her breathing felt erratic. Fear threatened to wash over her, until a memory came to her. Reese running forward through the goblin horde, and another Reese standing before a mighty dragon seemingly unafraid. Then for a moment in that memory, she stood in his place. She was the one standing before the dragon, only that wasn't a fantasy that actually happened. This wasn't her first time here, she had already faced death, she had already done this. Only this time it was goblins.

Another thought of Reese, "Breathe", the spector in his mind whispered.

The sound of Gezal swinging his sword borough her out of her trance. Without thinking, she raised her hand at the goblin charging Gezal's side.

“Fire Blot.”

“Fire Blot.”

Falling to the ground the two creature's bodies cracked and burned.

Gezal only had a moment to smile before more started coming. Nearly a dozen this time.

“Fire blot!”

“Fire bolt!”

She kept screaming as they kept coming. Gezal had fell at least 4 more already. But more just kept coming. Pushing her back to his, the two unlikely partners fought back with everything they had.

“Fire Blot!”

“Fire Blot!”

Then a group three deep started charging, a perfect target for, “Ice Bolt“. The moment of the ice spike carried the three backwards impaling them. She didn't have time to be impressed with herself.

“Fire Blot.”

“Fire Bolt!”

“Ice Bolt!”

Suddenly, Gezal pushed back against her. “Emilie, I… don't think I can keep… this up. Something feels wrong inside.”

A little over a dozen of the monsters rushed them at one, both the smaller ones and the hobs. She had one thing she could try. A spell she thought was simples, but which she barely managed to cast before.

A series of fire glyphs appeared in her head, connected in sharp zig zag lines. Fuzzy points flitted about, and her hands tingled. The air quicky took on the acrid sent of ozone as she readied her last spell.

“Lightning Bolt.”

From her hands, needle fine stands of twisting light moved at speeds imperceptible to the eye. Tendrils jumped between the goblins, following their armor, skin and her will. Limbs burned, and charred, small pockets of water and visceral vaporized and exploded. In little more than a second the goblins lay dead or dying.

Her head grew light, she wasn't out of mana yet, but it was close. They were still out there she could hear them, but thankfully, no more came running from the woods. It sounded like they were running away? No, towards something else.

The sound of swords and bows, of footsteps marching grew, like a roaring wave about to crash ashore. From the tree line, soldiers and knight appeared, in front was that terrifying bearded man. The man she was suddenly ecstatic to see.

Fortus gave them a look over before turning to command his soldiers. “Get these kids out of here!"

Seemingly in defiance of his trainer and superior Gezal stood and walked up to the commander, his head intoxicated with the lack of blood. "Fortus, I'll have you know… That I'm going to collapse again." With that Gezal fell to the ground.

One of the soldiers pulled back his black and red shirt to see the cauterized wounds, and a very large and growing bruise under it all where Emilie had pulled his stamina from.

Fortus didn't know what caused it, but knew exactly what internal hemorrhaging looked like, "You two! Carry him back to town now! Run!"

Rapidly, two of the soldiers picked up and began running back toward town.

Without missing a beat, he called to another soldier, "You, grab her and follow them!"

Emilie felt the hands wrapped around her waist. "I can walk you know!" She protested to no avail.

The sounds of more fighting could be heard as she was pulled away from it. With nothing left to do but hang as the soldier ran, her mind wandered again. Her hands began to shake, she tried to breath. "1…"

The soldier carrying her dropped her on the ground of the keep. Inside was deserted, all but the three soldiers, and one of them just ran out. "I'll get Lilith, you find Hippon!"

Then it was quite. Gezal was hidden away in what was the keep's infirmary, she had to see him.

"Kid you can't be in here." The solider poked at Gezal's side with something, letting a small stream of blood trickle out from him.

"What are you doing?"

"The blood is making it hard for him to breath, it's crushing his lungs." A handful of rags were shoved in her face, "Here, make yourself useful."

"Gezal!" Reese stood in the doorway, the look of shock on his face as his friend laid on the bed, possible dying. "I can help, let me help."

The soldier and her both sighed. "Reese, I don't think you can do anything right now, wait for your mother."

The boy stood in the entryway, just watching as he seemed unable to do anything. For a moment, Emilie had a pang of pity for him, knowing what that felt like.

The sounds of running steps, and Lilith entering the room, "How bad?" She asked, while gentely pushing Emilie out of the way.

Beneath the blood-soaked rags she could see the bruising, and his breathing was quick and shallow. Her hands sat on top of the bruises as he twitched under the pain. Spell after spell, she pushed into his abdomen. They looked like cauterization spells. "I think I stopped the bleeding, is anyone else coming?"

"We're trying to get Hippon."

Lilith sighed, "He's going to want a lot for this. Maybe Fortus can pay for it out of the town's funds."

"Sounds like you're talking about me." As if on cue, a dark elf man came into the room. The elf stood over the boy, and fell around the wound, eliciting small moans from him.

Hippon looked over the boy, his skin was white, it was clear he lost a lot of blood. Yet, he didn't seem as bad as he could have been. The pulse seemed quick, but not worryingly fast, hard to feel though. Low blood pressure from the blood loss.

"Gezal, how do you feel?"

"Great, just great. Thanks for asking." The sarcastic response was a good sign.

"He'll live, I don't think he needs deep healing. Lilith, you sealed him up with a bit of time to spare. How did this wound happen though? It doesn't look trauma related."

"I did it."

Hippon looked at the child in surprise. "You tried to heal him?"

Emilie nodded, "My mother's book had a spell for stamina, I used that."

"Solisium is very hard to work with. Even trained mages can have problems with it. I think you both got lucky, you could have dissolved his organs." Hippon looked around, there wasn't anything for him to do here.

"Ok, I'm not going to do deep healing unless you really want me to, he'll be fine in a few days, and back to normal in a few weeks. Unless one of you wants to pay me the 5 gold?"

Lilith shook her head, "I can't believe charge people that much, that's nearly a years earning for some people."

Hippon shrugged, "You see what bad healing does, and I know you know how hard it is on the casters. I'd be out of mana for nearly a week if I did it. It's cheaper than what others charge. Seems fair to me. I won't charge for the visit today." With that the dark elf left.

Lilith walked up to her son and squeezed him tightly, "I don't know what happened, I'm just glad you're alright."

"I'm fine too, thanks for asking." Gezal mocked from the bed.

Lilith put her hand on his chest and casted something else, causing Gezal to sit up slightly. "You're not better, go slow. I numbed some of the pain. You're still suffering from blood loss."

"Thanks…" Gezal laid back down.

For the next few minutes, Lilith watched as the boy's breathing improved until she was satisfied.

"Reese, you probably want to stay with your friends, I only got a little bit of the story but I'm sure your father will need to talk to you. If anything happens, come get me. I think Hippon is right, your friend will be fine."

Before leaving, she paused, her hands shaking. For a moment, it looked like she was going to say something else. But didn't before walking away.

It would be a little while before Fortus showed up. Outside, smoke from the forest indicated the drastic measures the soldiers used to deal with the goblin infestation.

As Fortus walked by the infirmary, he seemed to sigh and left just a bit of his guard down. "You three, wait by my office, I'm going to talk to you in a minute."

The helped Gezal to the outside of his father's office, while he discussed some disturbing evidence they collected.

"You're saying these goblins were transported to the outskirts of town?"

"That's what it looks like sir. Whoever did it tried to hide their tracks, but that many wagons… You can't hide everything. And their weapons all came from villages along the Vortiana and Fresall border."

"The only other thing we found was this paper. It looks like a coded manifest. There might be more evidence but the fire…" The soldier, Edthan handed over the note.

Fortus held the paper in his hands. His fingers rubbing over the fibers in it. There was nothing in the note to indicate where it had come from. But it was clear the paper was familiar somehow.

"It was necessary." The other soldier, Smargi gave her opinion, even if it was unwarranted.

The two soldiers Smargi and Edthan were the best trackers they had. Experts at finding things others would miss. Still, the fact that they found something as obvious as that note implied someone may have wanted it to be found.

Sensing the three outside the office, Fortus dismissed his soldiers and called them in. He sat at his desk for a few minutes while thinking about what to say to them. It had occurred to him that he could ask for their side of the story, for what happened. But he knew enough from what Reese said earlier, and in truth he didn't care.

"By the gods. I don't know what to do about you three. Do you have any idea how dangerous, how stupid it was to engage those little monsters?"

The three stood in silence, Gezal wobbling a bit.

"Gezal, I'm looking at you right now. You should have run when those four attacked you. You're lucky my idiot son his idiot friend found you. As for you two, you're kids. Emilie you might become a skilled mage one day but right now you're a kid."

Next he turned his attention to his son.

"Reese. That stunt, running out and acting as bait, it was fucking suicide. If you were one of my soldiers you'd be confined to the brackets for a year and demoted in rank… But at least you had enough intelligence to come and get us."

"I'm sure your parents will deal with you two. For now, I need to talk to my son a little more. In private."

After Emilie helped Gezal out into the hallway, she shut the door behind them. Fortus, normally so big and strong, suddenly seemed smaller.

Through the door, Emilie and Gezal could hear Fortus.

"Son… You know you only have one life?"

Silence, as if Reese was crafting his response. None of the three listening would know what was going on through his head, saying to himself that his father was wrong. The next words he spoke were the opposite though. "I know dad. I only have this one life, and this one body."

"Twice you put yourself in mortal danger. Twice. First that dragon and now these goblins. Each time only luck saved you."

"What was I supposed to do? Let my sisters burn. Let the goblins find us and eat us."

For the next few minutes, there was no sound. No talking, no moving. Emilie and Gezal could only imagine that they become statues, cursed by the gods in exchange for Reese's luck.

"You're dismissed. Get out. We'll talk more when I get home."

The two tried to pretend like they weren't listening in on the conversation as Reese left the office. A half-hearted smile, of a boy who looked to be near 50 greeted them both.

"You know… I need something sweet. I don't know about you two."

Outside, three could see the smoke on the horrizion. The fire had to be massive.

"How many goblins do you think there were?" In his daze, Gezal was able to give a coherent question, that all were asking.

"By the looks of it, hundreds." Reese guessed. Maybe his father was right. Maybe they were lucky.

A few weeks would go by. Reese was punished, by both his parents, all the house chores every day for a month. His parents also forbade him from going back to the forest. Gezal, was put on extra training, and forced to clean the barracks every weekend for the rest of the summer. Emilie had it easier, much easier. Her parents were just glad she was alive.

By the sounds of it, Ard wrote a letter to someone of importance regarding her magic skills. Her parents had a copy that they showed her. It was overflowing with praise. Praise she wasn't sure she really deserved. If Gezal hadn't been on her back, the goblins would have run her through. If Reese hadn't acted as a distraction, and gone to get help, she would never have been able to keep it up.

She owed her life to both of them.

Though, perhaps it wasn't all bad for Gezal. Fortus and Ard had both written letters to the Knights Order Ast-Astrix, the premiere military academy in the special district. By the sounds of it, he would be leaving them behind and going off to truly become a knight at the end of the summer.

Emilie was excited for him, he deserved it. Reese appeared happy and congratulated him as well. But she had learned to read him over the past few years. There was part of him that was tearing apart at seeing his friend go.

In many ways he was like her, only, where she was afraid to make friends, he was afraid to lose them. Neither knew just how different things would become before the end of the year, and how hard it would be on both of them.