It was pairing day on Cradle Mountain Peak and Elsier's family were once again trying to sell him off.
His father King Severn the Emerald Carp was present in human form, presiding over the auctions from his seat in a golden bowl of sapphire spring water. His fine robe of red silk and silver thread was wet up to the knees, but that didn't diminish the dignity he projected, and nobody would dare to draw attention to it.
Pairing day or not, it was death for any mortal or spirit to wound the pride of the king.
Elsier was dressed in his own finery as well, so much as a spirit can be dressed in anything.
Tonight, he was wearing a robe of deep black satin embroidered with the outlines of intricately drafted human hands, all of which were contorted into deeply offensive gestures. The spirit concierges managing the event might not know what a closed fist with a raised pinky finger meant, but to the visiting mortals, it was an unambiguous red flag.
He was the one-thousand and twenty-fourth prince of Cradle Mountain Peak. The court expected him to bring a high price, but for some reason, no mortal had ever even made an offer. His handlers remained mystified as to why.
Elsier had just seen off another mortal prospect, glaring at the bearded man until he grew uncomfortable and shuffled away, when the spirit gate roared into watery life and another batch of mortal visitors stepped through.
The realm of Cradle Mountain Peak wasn't hard to access for mages with the right ritual, or for anyone else if they had the right artifact, and it showed in the petitioners they attracted.
Wisened mages in robes of flax and cotton, warriors in leather armor with swords and glaives that looked like they'd started their life as farming equipment. If they wore any silk or satin at all, it was as a stole or other accessory, and there was barely a gemstone ring or amulet among them.
One girl in homespun clothes began making her way down Elsier's row, inspecting each spirit candidate carefully.
She stopped a few spaces up in front of Elspeth, Elsier's younger sister. The princess demonstrated a skill, turning the tips of her fingers into razor-sharp steel claws and striking the air with a series of deadly slashes. The mortal girl spoke to the hawkish concierge, likely asking the price, then shook her head before moving on.
Elsier’s handler for the night was a low-tier lion spirit, currently in human form, but with a brassy mane growing around his head. Elsier noticed when the lion spotted the approaching girl and began puffing himself up.
"Good evening miss!” the lion spirit called out. “What a wonderful night to see a well-traveled young mortal such as yourself perusing our stable of princes and princesses."
The girl stopped in front of Elsier's platform, looking first at the concierge, then at Elsier himself.
She eyed him up and down, making him feel uncomfortably like a piece of farming equipment she was weighing up the pros and cons of.
When she didn't immediately lose interest and move on, Elsier glared at her, using one of his most powerfully belligerent expressions.
The girl was wearing a hemp robe dyed nettle green, with reed sandals and gray woolen leggings held up by crisscrossing twine. Her earth-colored hair was held down by a white lace bonnet, and she carried a black drawstring bag in her hand that probably held all her money in the world. She seemed younger than most of their other visitors, with no creases on her face or weakness in her stance. From her bearing, Elsier guessed she was barely past her majority, perhaps twenty two or twenty three years.
In short, she had no money and very little experience.
How did she even scrape up the power to make it here? Is some village's ancestral pig missing its core?
"How much?" she asked.
Elsier had never traveled outside Cradle Mountain Peak, but her accent didn't sound educated to him.
"For this son of royal blood, the first generation offspring of our King Emerald Carp himself? A very low price, madam. A surprisingly reasonable price."
"An exorbitant price," Elsier said, contradicting the lion. He didn’t want the poor impoverished mage to think she had a chance at his contract. "A staggering price. My father, the king, wouldn't let me go for fewer than five hundred beast cores of amethyst grade or higher."
That was actually more than the court would expect for even one of the better elemental spirits. Elsier had cribbed the figure from the final price of one of the king's flying horses at the previous year's pairing day.
"Actually madam," the lion spirit went on, "the king is quite tired of seeing his face, and the concierges of the court feel it's time for Master Elsier to find his way in the mortal world."
Wait, what?
The girl seemed interested, perhaps even hopeful.
"What can he do?"
The concierge seemed encouraged. "As you see, he's young, only nineteen years old. He has never consumed beast cores or a human soul, only pure starlight energy, so his form is completely fluid," the lion spirit said. "Whether you need him to be armed with a sword, a spear, or even a bow, he can manifest those with ease. Would you like a warrior clad head to toe in steel? He can provide that, and move as easily as if he were wearing silk."
"I can't do any of that," Elsier said, feeling mildly alarmed at the over-sell.
He technically could, or at least he could appear to, but without ever feeding on the energy of elemental metal, any steel weapons or armor he tried to express wouldn’t have much strength. They’d cut soft targets as well as steel, but they’d break like ice if they hit any resistance.
The girl seemed to be completely ignoring him, only paying attention to the concierge.
"Could he make weapons for others to use?" she asked.
The lion spirit hesitated before replying. "He could, but as spirits, the equipment we manifest is made from the stuff of our bodies. Every item he gave away would diminish him."
She's going to butcher me for parts.
This was looking bad. Only the fact that the girl obviously couldn't afford him kept him from panicking.
"But if they were returned afterwards?"
The concierge considered. "Then he would be able to recuperate, given some time."
"What about magic?" she asked next.
"I don't know any magic," Elsier quickly interjected.
The lion spirit looked reluctant to agree. "He hasn't had any training in magic, madam. Nor has he been fed any elemental cores."
"Has he had any training in fighting?" the girl asked.
"No," Elsiel answered quickly.
The concierge only nodded.
The girl took a step to the side and began strolling around him, looking from every angle.
Elsier was alarmed that she still hadn't been put off yet. From what she'd heard so far, she'd get more use out of an animal spirit than him.
When she passed behind him, he silently altered the silver embroidery of his robe to display a collection of even more rude gestures on the back. Maybe the raised pinky wasn't a thing in the girl's culture. Elsier added every graphical obscenity he knew. Fingers raised in a 'V' — upright and inverted, the middle finger raised, the middle finger crooked, the forefinger and thumb held in a circle, even one he'd heard a half-drunk merchant visitor refer to as 'the shocker'.
She paused to stare at the back of his robe, but when she'd finished her circuit she still didn't seem deterred.
Elsier decided to take a different approach. He obviously still looked too appealing. He'd always been more of an artist than a fighter, and maybe he'd made himself too attractive.
While the concierge was looking away, he altered his features slightly. His eyes became too large and too far apart, his gaze diverging until his pupils pointed in different directions. He expanded his mouth and grew his teeth until they were double the proper width, with gaps between. His nose shortened until it had a noticeable upturn that showed off the inside of his nostrils.
When he checked how the girl was receiving his handiwork, he found she merely looked annoyed, staring at him with a flat expression and impatience in her eyes.
"How hard is he to kill?" she asked.
Oh no.
Elsier's imagination raced at the possibilities of what she had in mind for him. Barbaric rural gladiatorial games? Mobile target practice for their shortbow-wielding archers? Maybe just a village punching bag for times of civic stress.
The lion spirit actually seemed encouraged by the question. "As a spirit, any attack made with the intent to kill will hurt him, but it would take some time to whittle him down to death. No one wound can be fatal, with the exception of decapitation. Magical and elemental attacks pose more of a threat, especially those which use fire. Unless you were to feed him up on fire elemental cores, which would ameliorate that weakness."
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"He sounds perfect," the girl said.
What spirit have you been listening to?
She obviously knew nothing about spirits. The lion concierge's sales pitch had consisted only of statements that were true of every spirit in existence. He had a dozen brothers and sisters with special skills, unique powers, or elemental natures. There was one five places to his right.
"May I ask about your budget here tonight?" the concierge asked, raising the redeeming subject of price.
The girl hesitated, then carefully untied the drawstring of her bag and looked inside.
"I have five agate beast cores," she said, plainly. She looked up at Elsier and then the concierge, uncertainty clear on her face.
The lion spirit let out a pained whine, but quickly suppressed it.
"Well, perhaps some accommodation could be made. Would you be willing to sign your name to a deferred payment plan?"
"I'm afraid that even if I secure a spirit tonight, I might not be alive for long enough to pay it," she answered, letting her eyes fall to the ground.
So she was planning on dragging him into mortal danger.
"Plus one hundred turquoise cores for hazard pay," Elsier added, feeling desperate.
The lion spirit glanced at him. "That won't be necessary. In the interests of maintaining our good reputation in the mortal world, and as you are clearly a mortal of noble intent and good character, I will be happy to sell you the contract for this prince of Cradle Mountain Peak for five agate beast cores."
No! Aaaarrgghh.
Elsier felt like screaming. Perhaps he should. It might help. He fixed up his face and glared at the girl, putting all of the anger and threat into the expression he could manage. It was an art he'd perfected, and it had worked on mages three times her age.
The girl smiled, and it seemed genuine. A moment later her smile fell.
"Oh, but one of these cores is promised to our village elder. His daughter is sick with scarf rot, and I'm due to cast a cleansing ritual on my return. I can't break my word. I suppose… I suppose the village will fall, after all."
The concierge held his hands up in a gesture of appeasement. "Please, don't be upset. For a friend of Cradle Mountain Peak, we can show mercy, and reduce the price to four agate beast cores."
The girl looked up, smiling. It seemed like the four cores were already in her hand, and a moment later she was holding them out for the lion spirit.
How did this all go so wrong?
The concierge took the stones and left for a moment, heading to a pavilion at the side of the viewing area. He left the two of them alone.
Elsier glared at the girl, who smiled back benignly.
What did you say to someone you were being contracted to against your will?
“Are you really going to die soon?” Elsier asked.
The girl’s smile faded, leaving her looking distracted. “I really hope not, but things are quite bad, yes.”
Her voice seemed different, now that they were speaking alone. The accent Elsier had decided was rural was less pronounced, and there was more bite in her tone. Her bearing had changed, as if she’d aged two years and seen a death or two in the span of a few seconds.
“That’s a shame. At least if you die, I’ll be set free,” he said.
“Yeah…” the girl replied.
She didn’t seem as enthusiastic about the idea as him. Her eyes strayed to his robe, and her mouth twitched into a momentary smirk despite the topic.
“What’s with the…” she made one of the rude gestures depicted on his robe with her left hand, flashing him the inverted ‘V’.
Elsier looked down at his clothes, suddenly feeling embarrassed about it. He let the images fade, twisting the embroidery until it showed moons and stars instead.
“It was meant to put you off,” he said, not bothering to suppress the petulant tone of his voice. “It’s worked for the last four years.”
“I’m sure it works very well on dignified old wizards and humorless mercenaries. Less so on desperate young mages.”
“Why are you desperate, anyway?”
The concierge returned before she could answer. He was carrying a black wooden box, which he opened to reveal two onyx rings sitting on a red satin pillow. One was marked with the symbol for ‘mortal’, the other with the one for ‘spirit’.
The lion spirit removed the ‘mortal’ ring and reverently placed it in the girl’s outstretched hand.
“Hold this for a time, don’t put it on just yet, madam.”
The lion spirit turned and grabbed hold of Elsier’s hand. Elsier put up token resistance, but too much fuss would only attract the attention of the royal guards and the king himself.
“Wait!” Elsier said, wiggling his finger to avoid the ring as he thought of something else. “You can’t sell me for so little. I’m a first-generation prince. It would be an insult to the king’s pride to sell my contract for four agate cores.”
The concierge froze in place, the ring only inches away from Eslier’s finger. His eyes were fixed on nothing as he seemed to think furiously.
Elsier had him, and the spirit knew it.
“I think the young prince has a point,” the concierge admitted.
Yes!
“I think decorum would best be served if we placed a shorter time limit on the contract. Perhaps one month?”
No!
The girl seemed briefly taken aback. “Aren’t they normally for a decade or more?”
“Normally, yes, but as the prince says, this is a very small price, and it could be viewed as an insult to the king.”
“Well, I wouldn’t want to insult the king,” the girl said, quietly. Suddenly, she seemed to think of something, and her face brightened. “How about a month, with the option to renew at the same price? We can call it a rental.”
The lion spirit thought it over. After a minute, he nodded slowly.
"It's an unusual arrangement. But in these circumstances, yes, we could entertain that. Return before the contract runs its course, and we will renew it for another month, for the price of four agate beast cores." He glanced at Elsier as he finished, a look of concern crossing his face. "Assuming that, at that time, you still wanted to keep him."
You won’t, Elsier assured himself.
“All right,” the girl said finally.
It was better than a decade-long contract, Elsier thought. One month, and he had a chance at being free. It was within his own power to ensure the mage wouldn't want to retain his contract. After a few moments of consideration, he decided he could live with this. Assuming he could survive whatever the girl had planned for him.
The lion spirit jammed the black ring onto Elsier’s finger, and said, “Now, miss.”
The girl slipped the ring onto her thumb, and the pairing was made.
Elsier felt the girl’s presence in his awareness. A body of light and heat, a few feet away.
“Allow me to explain how they work,” the concierge said. “Madam, when the mortal issues an order, their desire to see the order carried out will be measured against the spirit’s desire to refuse. A silent, immediate barter takes place, weighing a measure of lucent energy from the mortal against whatever energy the spirit can provide—in the prince’s case, pure stellar energy. If the order is obeyed, the spirit receives the lucent energy offered by the mortal. If the order is refused, then the mortal receives the spirit’s energy as forfeit. Unless explicitly claimed, the energy paid or forfeited remains inside the connected ring, which acts as a kind of purse.”
Elsier had heard all of this before, from all the times his neighbors in line had successfully been paired to a mortal.
Souled mortals were the only source of lucent energy, which had a staggering number of applications in the mortal realm, and was usually highly prized by spirits. In theory, every order he followed would net him a payment of lucent energy, which would be stored in the ring. Orders he particularly hated would have a higher price for the mortal in lucent energy.
If he truly detested an order, he could sacrifice some of his own energy to refuse it, though over time that would lead to him eventually withering away.
“What if the spirit has a strong will to refuse any order?” the girl asked. “He seems like he might be uncooperative.”
Correct.
Elsier could feel her curiosity through the pairing bond, and at the same moment, he felt sure she’d felt his confirmation that, yes, he was going to be uncooperative.
The lion spirit turned and watched Elsier for a few seconds. He also seemed to realize the truth of that statement.
“If the prince is truly difficult, and treats all orders with the same level of disdain, the pairing bond will take that into account. If you think of it as a mediator, you won’t be far wrong. It’s not a sentient magic, but it will have its own ideas about what is unreasonable. I would advise both parties not to try and manipulate the system. Too many refusals will erode the spirit, and forcing a spirit to complete distasteful orders can have unforeseen consequences. My kind are quite adept at fulfilling the letter of an order.”
“I understand,” the girl said. “What is left to do?”
“Only to give you both a warning. The contract will be mutually binding for thirty sunsets in the mortal realm. Do not take off the rings before then. They will be difficult to remove, and destructive should you succeed. Once the term of the contract is over, any power each of you has stored from the pairing will remain in your ring, which you may keep.”
“Thank you for your help, great lion,” the girl said, showing more deference than Elsier thought was necessary. “If you could only tell me the prince’s name?”
“His common name is Elsier,” the lion replied.
Elsier Severn, Irresolute of Tyrant’s Get. His full true name, which followed from his father’s true name, Elderren Severn, Tyrant of Noble’s Get.
“Elsier. I’m Meredith Blackbriar.”
“Fine,” Elsier said. He didn’t really care what her name was.
“I will take my leave of you, great lion,” Meredith said, bowing to the concierge.
“Be safe on your journey back to the mortal realm.”
The girl nodded and turned, starting back towards the spirit gate.
“Come on, Elsier.”
Elsier scrunched his face up at the girl, then looked past her, frowning at the spirit gate.
He felt the pairing bond surge with her order, the rapid back and forth of intent, a weighing of wills.
He took his will to remain at home, in the only place he'd ever known, where the starlight was as plentiful as targets for fun, and set it against the order. Meredith’s will surged in response, the need to leave this gilded circus, where the gold was spirit-stuff and gems were just as fake, to get back to the village that needed her, where even now, people might be dying.
In the face of the girl’s selfless need, his own desire seemed small and unworthy. He hopped down and started following after her.
A trickle of lucent energy fed into the ring on his hand as he gave in to the order, no more than a wisp, but a confirmation that the bond was working as intended.
Meredith led him to the spirit gate, an arch of enormous silver-bound horns, filled with a wall of water that crashed and churned like a stormy sea in miniature.
Elsier stopped at the threshold, looking back over the plaza. A square of perfectly clean marble tiles, walled with elegant stone buildings, backed by the azure blue ocean palace of his father. He had no farewells to give, not to his father who sired him and then stopped caring, not for his siblings who saw him as a constant source of teasing and frustration, not for the court who were happy to sell him off.
Four agate beast cores!
He had nothing to say to the court. Nothing. This village girl already valued him more than they did.
“Are you ready?” Meredith asked him.
He turned back to the churning doorway. “I suppose.”
“Then let’s go.”
She took his arm to anchor him to her on the trip through the gate, and together they stepped through.