“It’s headed north,” Ser Mattias stood up from the tracks and declared definitively.

“Hmm.” Jean did not sound convinced.

Vero rejoined the hunting party from the tree where she had been investigating further tusk marks. “There are two of them, one moving due north, another moving north by northwest.”

Jean smiled at her and Ser Henri made an annoyed sounding grunt. Ser Mattias said nothing, and Jean led them forwards.

Ser Henri kept a hard expression on his face and walked very near to her.

“You are stepping on my shadow, Ser.”

“I told the Marquis not to bring a woman on a boar hunt. My Lord may be prepared to allow you to place yourself in danger my Lady, but I am not.”

“Your concern is very tender, Ser.”

Ser Henri made another darkly tempered grunt.

Jean stopped them. “It’s just ahead.” He whispered.

“Mattias.” Ser Henri motioned him forward and Ser Mattias stalked ahead carefully with his spear ready. Vero watched him for a moment, but also prepared for the second boar she remembered would soon approach them from the west.

Ser Mattias takes the first boar easily and shouts in triumph, Vero paid the matter no mind. The second boar was already charging out of the foliage.

This time she felt no fear and lowered her spear, on which the pig obligingly impaled itself. She could not tell if events were moving faster or slower than they had played out in real time.

She killed the animal easily and quickly this time, but when she looked up, she was only a few feet from Ser Mattias- still struggling to free his weapon. He looked at her in shock.

Jean wrapped her up in his arms and kissed her. “Wonderfully done!”

Vero met his kisses with her own. “I want you now.”

“What will Henri say?”

“I don’t care. He’s only a dream figment anyway, he can go to hell.”

“What about the others?”

If the rest of the hunting party was still there, then she could no longer perceive them.

“They can join us, if they like.”

Vero felt as though she were falling.

Vero woke and allowed herself the pleasure of a languid stretch before she climbed out of bed. Her feet sank into the thick carpet which protected her from the impossibly cold stone floor.

She dressed herself. After their discussion in the armory, Pentarch managed to get her own clothes back to her. It was fortunate, because the set of the clothes she had been given were becoming quite rank. Vero would have held no objection to wearing the dress they gave her while her other clothes were cleaned, but she would have needed to manage that around her training time and did not wish the bother.

It felt better to be in her own clothes again anyway. Vero preferred neutral colors when she wore men’s attire, although she had a fondness for gay colors in women’s dresses. Mostly she dressed for practicality in either garb. Thick wool and furs for warmth, and leather overclothes for durability. She kept the boots the slayers gave her, her own were practically falling to pieces.

They also returned the money she brought with her when she arrived. She left most of her money back with Dora, so there were only a few quarters and a silver crown. It was still the sort of thing guards tended to pinch, so she was surprised to have it back.

Finally, they also returned her personal effects; Mama’s prayer book, a pendant Jean gave to her containing both their portraits in miniature, a lock of Dora’s hair she cut for herself during their last night together, and a few other minor keepsakes she had acquired and retained some meaning to her. Only the pendant and perhaps the prayer book carried any monetary value, but everything was there.

They did not return either her armor, nor her weapons, nor any of the climbing gear that might help her to escape back down the mountain, nor any of the components she might be able to use for spellcraft. Pentarch would not even trust her with the reagents to create her own weekly infusions.

It was just as well. The formulae she used required many herbs she doubted they would have access to so far north in the mountains. Eventually she would have needed to devise substitutes to keep herself supplied anyway.

When she asked who was preparing the infusions they gave her, Pentarch told her that Iosephus was concocting them personally. He was their foremost expert in both occult studies in general, but also medicine in particular. The blend he used was some composition of mineral salts, which she then dissolved in water to drink.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

It did make her feel very powerful. Even after a morning of hard training, she still recovered marvelously quickly. She also noticed when she undressed at night that she seemed to be gaining more muscle, surpassing the relative plateau she reached not so long after she left Jean.

On a man, Vero would have found the body rather comely. As she was…

And there were some other disadvantages to the new infusions. Her temper was always threatening to run away with her. Her libido felt like it was even more overactive than usual. Her last woman’s blood came heavily, and she had terrible cramps.

She put this last complaint to Iosephus’s lack of understanding regarding feminine humors, but it also came when she was still suffering from a terrible fever, so perhaps that was the true cause.

Vero checked that she still had Richard’s dagger with her, hidden under her cloak. It was still there.

When she opened the door the cold hit her at once, but she was ready and put her head down to follow the lifeline through the dark. The night watch in the guardhouse were huddled around their fire and took no notice of her.

She said her prayers in the chapel and went to breakfast. She was no longer setting aside food to use as rations for an escape, at least for the time being.

The day’s exercises went easily and her archery was beginning to improve. She was surprised when Pentarch followed her as she took her mid-day meal to the library.

“You’re stepping on my shadow, Ser.”

“There was no need for me to order you to the library as you were already going there on your own accord. I was content to let you pursue your own free studies while you were still climatizing. Now that it seems you’re physically fit, I wish them to take a specific bent.”

“And you intend to give me these lessons yourself then?”

“Unless you’re capable of immaculately conceiving the knowledge I require you to possess. Then, yes- I was intending on teaching you myself.”

Vero had not taken instruction from anyone since she was an apprentice. She knew well the power of knowledge. However, she also knew that the acquisition of knowledge required an admission of ignorance, which was a sign of weakness, carrying all the dangers that showing weakness could bring.

She replied with a noncommittal, “Hmm.”

When they got to the library Vero expected some kind of lecture, but Pentarch only selected a series of books for her to read from the lower levels.

“Speak, if you have need of me.” With that, he sat nearby to eat his own meal while reading his own book.

Vero checked the title when he looked away, it was a chronicle of the campaigns waged by Ser Hugh of Karlan.

The books he selected for her were more scholarly. Treatises on the balance of humors, with a particular emphasis on the circulation of azoth through the medium of vitae sangris- blood. Vero was already an expert in the topic, but her knowledge was more practical- focused on direct causes and effects. These books tended towards the theoretical and she found them very dry.

After hours of dull reading, Vero sat back and was disgusted by her lack of progress through the thick stack of tomes. They were written in old Imperial, for the most part, which she could read. But there were frequent digressions into Liturgical, or Sylvan – once, the Sand Speech they use in the Oasis Cities – none of which Vero knew.

They also called for knowledge of how to work numerical geometry through four spatial dimensions, while she had only mastered the means to calculate length, width, and depth.

She looked over towards Pentarch, who had changed his own reading material for a collection of Imperial poetry. “This isn’t all some ploy to stay near me in case the conspirators attack again, is it?”

He looked up at her over the top of his book. “You think I have nothing better to do? Conner is the one meant to be watching you.”

“The boy?”

“You haven’t noticed him following you? I’m disappointed, apprentice.”

“I’ve seen him loitering near me once or twice- I didn’t think anything of it.” Vero presumed that she had simply become a source of adolescent admiration to him. “He’s no danger, so I didn’t take any special notice.”

“Anyone can be a danger under the right circumstances. Be more observant in the future.”

“As you wish.” She paused before asking, “Why are you here then?”

“I’m waiting for you to admit you haven’t understood the first thing you’ve read this afternoon and ask me for help.”

Vero had a very cross reply in mind, but she stifled it.

She had understood some of what she read that afternoon, though not much. It was purely by happenstance that the first collection was filled with particularly complex theses on the capacity of a physical liquid such as blood to carry weightless-formless life essence. She may not have understood exactly why blood held such potential, but she suspected that the author lacked a complete grasp of the subject as well.

“Surely, you could have simply offered your help without needing to be asked.”

“I could have. But that would have required me to submit myself to your endless witticisms, as you tried to convince us both that you know all of this already.”

“I’m not so proud I can’t ask for help when I need it.”

“I know you’re not. Just proud enough that you’ll make us both waste an afternoon, while you stare at books you don’t understand awaiting divine insight. Once you’ve decided that you do need that help, you’ll ask for it, and then I’m sure we shall get along famously.”

Vero bit her tongue. He was right that there had been nothing keeping her from asking for assistance. She decided that getting angry about it would only make things worse.

“I need help.”

Pentarch snapped his book of poetry shut. “There we are.” He laughed. “Did you really believe I was here to act as your knight protector? I suppose that was why you were so prickly when I followed you.”

“I was prickly because I thought you might be getting ideas.”

“Ideas about what?”

“I’ve overheard some fellows in the Toad’s faction discussing their own theories about why you’re so interested in me. Although I don’t know if they actually believe them, or if they’re only spreading them for malice.”

“I’m beyond any such concerns.” Pentarch spoke with such bold plain candor that Vero believed him, even though she knew better than to believe that kind of promise from any man- or any woman.

“You’re an individual of rare discipline.”

“You don’t need to trust my sense of decency. Not all of my scars and amputations are visible at a glance. I sustained a certain injury during a hunt for a wereboar.” He did not say more, but there was no mistaking what he meant.

Vero was not sure exactly how to respond. She thought that it would be polite of her to offer some kind of condolences, but she was not sure how to put any such offer of sympathy into words.

“I’m… sorry?”

“Not as sorry as I am, I assure you.”

There was a commotion coming from the gatehouse. It was loud enough to reach them faintly, even in the library. Pentarch stood up and went to the door before then stopping to listen.

He drew his sword.

“An alarum has been called.” He rushed out of the room.

Vero wanted to rely on something more substantial than her dagger. She grabbed the heavy iron poker out of the fireplace before following him.