Of the two, Timbrelle had decided that she was the lucky one. The coachman, an old foreign man with an indecipherable accent, liked to talk. At first this worked well because Adna, too, was gregarious to a fault. The issue arose when coming to find that Ferrivk did not also enjoy listening. He was constantly talking over Adna or, more accurately, courting death.

She lifted herself onto her hands to readjust her position on the luggage rack when a pothole buckled her elbow. Timbrelle went skittering to the cobblestone street in a pile of groaning skirts. Surfacing after a struggle from within the many layers, she cursed Adna for the eighth time for choosing her a wardrobe exclusively composed of dresses.

Timbrelle looked up to follow the carriage. The empty road stared back… that and a number of onlookers.

“Did she just fall off that carriage?”

“I think she was stowed away on the luggage rack.”

“She doesn’t look like an urchin.”

From her heap in the street, she could see a crowd forming. Aristocrats, from the look of it.

A man in uniform jogged toward her. “Miss, miss! Are you alright?

“Yes. I’m fine. I didn’t mean to cause a scene.” She took his outstretched hand. “I’m new here and I heard I just had to try the cobblestone.”

He smiled politely. “May I escort you somewhere, miss?”

Timbrelle hesitated. If someone was offering to help, she wouldn’t say no. But Loren drilled aristocratic etiquette into her. It was polite to offer aid, and just as polite to turn it down.

“I couldn’t impose.” Timbrelle stood. Her left ankle was already beginning to swell. “…I might impose.”

“I’m on duty, but let me inform my mistress I’ll be escorting you to the clinic.” He held out a sturdy elbow. “I’ll place you on this bench for a moment. Please wait for me.”

Timbrelle hobbled to the turquoise bench and sat obediently. Now that she had accepted his assistance, he would essentially act as her chaperone until assuring her safety. Were everyone not staring daggers into her, she might have tried to escape to avoid burdening him.

“Over here, Your Grace. I left her on the bench.” Timbrelle rose, hearing them approach. With her sad ankle, a curtsy would be difficult but she had to try. Greetings to nobility in Yost were like surgery. Only a practiced hand could do them easily and a mistake could result in death. She turned to the knight and thanked them before politely averting her gaze to the noble woman’s shoes.

“I am pleased to meet one so respec—“

“Timbrelle?” A familiar voice asked.

She looked up. “Tuna?”

The guard looked appalled. “This is Duchess Tunari Rigel.”

“Hush, Pollis. She is my dear friend and my husband’s granddaughter. You should treat her with deference.” Duchess Rigel scolded the knight.

“My apologies, Lady Timbrelle. I was unaware of your identity.” Pollis performed an immaculate bow. One she recognized as that a servant would give their master.

She smiled sweetly, taking a jab at Tuna. “Sounds like none of us knew the other’s station.”

Tuna coughed. “You see, I forget who knows what.”

“I presume your husband is the Duke.” Timbrelle lead.

“Yes. I married Duke Rigel four years ago. What can I say? I like them stuffy.” She laughed.

“Four years ago? You must have been a teenager! How old are you?” Timbrelle exclaimed.

“How old are you, darling? We’ll just go with that.” Tuna deflected gracefully.

Timbrelle refused to entertain the question. It was not just one, but a slippery slope of questions. She was twenty-two… but she could clearly remembered her thirty-first birthday. Which lead her to another terrifying thought: her current body was not thirty-one. Nowhere in her memories did she recall looking like this. Her reflection, dark olive skin with large brown eyes and a cloud of natural curls, was not one she could recall.

Timbrelle shrugged. “Let’s call it twenty-five.”

“Where is our friend?” Tuna looked around. “You two aren’t often parted. Fede mentioned something about a transport order. She isn’t gone is she?”

Timbrelle motioned her in closer. “I had to fake someone’s death so they could run away with their lover. They’re going through a gate right now, I think.”

“How romantic. Duke Rigel never does anything that sweet. Isn’t that right, Pollis?” Tuna threw the mic to Pollis who answered dutifully.

“Never, Mistress.”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“I happen to know that Adna has a rendezvous planned with Davian tonight. Come to the Rigel estate. If we depart now, we can arrive before dinner.” She waved Pollis closer and whispered in his ear. The guard gave a curt nod and walked away. “Pollis will send word to the temple of your safety so that our sheepdog does not fret.”

They sat on the bench in a peaceful silence. Large winged animals, similar to bats but more spherical with long ribbon tails, fluttered about overhead.

“Do they have shibas on Earth?” Tuna asked, looking at the animals.

“On Earth they’re called ‘bats’, but they don’t have tails and only come out at night.” She explained.

“How odd. You keep them as pets, too?”

Timbrelle balked. “They’re not really considered cute on earth. Bats are a vector for disease. I heard once that if they even swoop near your head, you should go to the doctor. That always felt a little extreme to me, though.”

“Ah. It must only resemble a shiba, then, as there are no longer wild shibas, only domesticated ones. These,” she gestured to the flock above them, “are pets let out in the afternoon for exercise and socialization. Fascinating animals. They will follow you and imitate your soul. If you meet a kind shiba, it means their master is kind. I find them preferable to humans because they will not act outside their nature. If you’re an evil person, they’re evil. They cannot hide it. In the aristocracy, gifting a shiba is quite the spectacular disrespect.”

“You know a lot about them.” Timbrelle observed. “Do you have any?”

“ I do! I make it a point to give all the grandchildren one as a companion. That’s not all. A shiba was my fifth and final transformation as a citrine auror. The bear you saw was my fourth. Maybe I’ll show you the rest one day.”

Timbrelle snapped her head to Tuna. “That bear was you?”

She looked surprised. “You didn’t know? I’m so disappointed. Everyone had to drop their business and run to Capri that night. I missed a rather important ball and now I learn that you failed to appreciate my marsh bear.”

Pollis returned atop a carriage beside the driver. “Mistress, I encountered the Duke’s carriage on my way back. He has sent for you.”

“Oh my. Shame on me. Didn’t I just say my husband wasn’t romantic?” Tuna snickered. “Come. You’ll stay at the Rigel estate tonight. We have a training ground for Crystalurgical practice. I may be able to get you in with a visiting member of Tellcentra’s congregation. He’s the best sapphiric auror in the world and, currently, the only one in Yost. He dropped by to inspect the medium, I presume. You can’t find a better teacher for the sapphiric arts.”

***

Timbrelle gasped for breath as Piñatortesco, Piña to weaklings, allowed her to collapse to her knees. The man had looked her up and down with an unimpressed stare when she’d attempted stirring her sapphire to life. His disappointment was silent, suffocating and unrelenting. He stood above her, imperiously, judging her efforts with thinly veiled disdain. The towering stone walls of the grounds were erected to prevent people from peeking in on the aurors training, but also served to make Piña seem domineering when she looked up from the sand.

“Watch me one more time.” He sighed and rose a few inches off the ground in what he called an instinctive and wholeheardtedly futile skill to teach. “Each sapphire gives off an aura within your body, no matter its impression. Use this to push yourself away from the ground. It is possible to acquire a sapphire of levitation but they’re dominantly used in manufacturing and transportation, it would be selfish to take one for private use. This is especially true when you have a functioning sapphire inside of you.”

Timbrelle choked out a response between gasps. “Who said it—was functioning?”

He narrowed his eyes, alighting on the sandy ground of the Crystalurgy training field. “The fact that you are so drained trying to stoke it. You are feeding energy into it without getting any back. Tuna mentioned some sort of diagnosis for this incompetency.” He led, using the Duchess’s congregational name as appeared to be custom. He, however, wouldn’t permit Timbrelle to call him Torte until she “showed a modicum of Crystalurgical aptitude”.

“I have a deafening soul, or so I’m told by Morto. Nerrus said that I needed to settle my soul before I could attune any gems.”

“Then let’s start there.” He sat on the sand with his legs folded and patted the spot directly in front of him. “Do you know how to settle your soul?”

She shook her head, taking her spot before him.

“Death.” He mentioned it with much more flippancy than felt right when telling her to die. “…or near-death, if you prefer.”

“I think I have a pretty obvious preference.” She muttered.

He ignored her saltiness. “The alternate option is forcible attunement. Rather than attuning it yourself, this is something that must be done to you. It hasn’t been practiced openly for centuries as it is notably similar to necromancy. Not a viable option in most cases, it requires a gem of the highest quality, a tourmaline auror, a master crystalurgist and a surgeon.”

“…I think I can piece together what happens. Yikes. But why do you need a surgeon? If you have a tourmaline auror, couldn’t you just heal them after making any incision, professional or not?”

He shook his head as if to mourn the idiocy or his pupil. “You’ve seen Tuna in public, was she encrusted in jewels? No? That’s because we have the ability to move them where we need them and hide them away.” To illustrate his point, he surfaced four small sapphires of differing cuts and shades of blue on the back of his hand. “A surgeon is required to find an ideal location but a sapphiric master would need to insert these. I believe Fede and I are the only master crystalurgists in the world at present…”

She blinked at him. Was he inviting her to ask him for help? “Then could we—“

He broke off her question with a decisive, “Absolutely not.”

“Because of the whole necromancy thing?” She guessed.

“No, you fool. Our God has deemed you His chosen one. I won’t do anything to incur His ire. I considered giving you a sapphire to gauge your abilities with an impression with which I am familiar, but I’m told you have gems of your own meted out on a divine schedule.”

Timbrelle wouldn’t have called Adna’s whims a divine schedule but she supposed his point was fair.

Piña rolled his eyes, misunderstanding her silent contemplation. “It isn’t necromancy. To reanimate a dead body you’d need a topaz of considerable size to channel spectral energy through, a few sacrifices and dozens of rubies with various mobility impressions. The end result is nothing more than a puppet that can follow orders—a zombie.” He explained, annoyed. “Don’t tattle on me to Fede. The knowledge is something of a secret.”

She sighed at him, weary of the condescension from aurors she didn’t know. There was an opportunity to be had in his confession. “I’m not a child; I won’t tattle… for a price.”

He narrowed his eyes, a look of disgust befell him. “There’s the Unmade in you. I knew it would only be a matter of time until you showed your true colors. What would you have of me, cretin?” He spat the bitter words at her.

A breeze drifted in the heavy scent of forest that surrounded the mountaintop Rigel estate. The crystal clear air had her taking in savoring breaths in greedy lungfuls.

She relished the crisp evening air for a moment before she spoke again pointing at his satin vest, “Whatever gem is in your pocket smells amazing, I’m gonna Cookie Monster that shit.”