After a very rough, early morning, I clean myself up in the suspect tub, wish I had a toothbrush, and then gear up— including my leather protective vest and archery gloves— before heading downstairs a little after the central city tower strikes its eighth bell.

The Wide Sky Tavern is not quite as bustling in the earlier morning as it was yesterday afternoon and evening, but I’m far from alone in the place. I slip into a seat on a barstool, which allows me to keep my bow on my back and quiver at my hip. Nyssa, the elven bartender, smiles slightly at me and gives a nod.

“Feeling okay?”

“That healing spell hits hard,” I sigh, cringing at the very recent memory.

“I did warn you. It was your first, right?”

“Yes.”

“It gets much easier from here. You shouldn’t have that reaction again, even with a big spell.”

“Hopefully I won’t need it often.”

“You’re going to try the adventuring life?” I nod and she chuckles. “You will need it.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“Would you rather I lie to you?” She puts down a napkin and a fork, then a mug, which she fills from a pitcher. “Water.”

“Oh God, thank you.” She quirks a questioning eyebrow at me but doesn’t say anything as I down the mug of water without taking a breath. I put it on the bar and nudge it toward her. “Please?”

She chuckles again and fills it up, then sets the pitcher down in front of me. “What would you like to eat? We have oats, eggs, toast and jam, a morning steak, a morning salad…”

My stomach growls, audibly, which makes me blush up to my ear tips.

“Eggs with toast and jam?” I ask. “I think we’re going to try to go out this morning, so I should probably get some protein.”

Again, she gives me a bit of a strange look (something I’m probably going to have to get used to) but nods and disappears down the back hall from which kitchen noises come. I turn on my stool to look out into the rest of the tavern. Morning light flows through the currently latched windows, and a fire burns in the hearth under the stairs, which I didn’t notice yesterday. It is cool in here now that I think about it, and I wish I had a cloak that wasn’t about thirty levels above me and likely to get me killed. Yes, my legendary [Cloak of Dragon Scales] should just stay safely hidden in the magic bag, thank you.

There are about a dozen people in the tavern, some simply nursing morning beverages while others eat. Most of them look like travelers of some sort with dusty cloaks and the worn weariness that I remember from when I used to be on the road a lot for work. At the end of the bar, there’s a little individual who is probably some kind of faefolk; their androgynous features give them an ageless appearance, and they could be anywhere from fifteen to fifty. Their hair is short, their body clothed in lose purple robes. They catch me looking and cast a glare my way.

“Okay then,” I mutter to myself, looking back into my water.

Nyssa returns, moving as if she’s walking on air. There’s a slight smell of rose petals that comes with her, and she has a calming presence. Her hair is done up in a braid today rather than curls.

“Your food should be prepared soon,” she says.

“Thanks. Nyssa. Can I ask you something?”

She glances down the bar and out toward the other patrons in the main room, then shrugs. “Why not. I can play bartender a little while longer.”

“You’re not usually?”

“I’m the proprietor,” she says with a sigh, “I don’t usually tend my own bar, but one bartender quit, and the other is off on a walkabout for a few days. Who knows what that means.”

Hm. Maybe this is my delusion giving me another option. I could refuse my call to adventure. Maybe I am meant to stay here in the relative peace of the tavern. It is rather comfortable. I have worked in worse places, even with the body odor of some of the patrons.

Eh. We’ll see how today goes. But it is an option.

“What do you want to know?”

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“How long have you known Flynt?”

She scoffs and shakes her head. “Long enough to know that he will help almost anyone he thinks needs it. It feels special, but he has a bit of a savior streak.”

Ouch.

I frown hard. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“No?”

“No. It’s just… unusual where I come from. I have friends back home who I’ve known for years and wouldn’t do for me what Flynt did after knowing me for five seconds.”

“Not very good friends, then, are they?”

She may have a point.

“Maybe not. The point is, how much do I owe for the room? You can take it off his tab or whatever. I don’t want to be too beholden to a guy I just met, it’s not really my style— yesterday’s confusion and uncertainty notwithstanding.”

“Oh no.” She shakes her head. “That ship has sailed, I’m afraid, and I am not going to get in the middle of all that. You want to pay him back, then you take that up with him. He is going to refuse, and if he doesn’t, you will have to tell me your argument because I have never once managed to get him to step back, and I have known him since he was a child.”

“Really?”

“Oh yes. His father and I go way back.”

“His orkish father?”

She laughs out loud at that one and shakes her head. “His father is elven. Just like you and me, sweetie. His mum is the half-ork.” Nyssa glances over my should and her eyes gleam. “Bright morning! We were just talking about you.”

I glance back to find Flynt a few paces between me and the tavern’s front door. He’s wearing more adventuring appropriate gear than the poet garb from yesterday. Today’s outfit is a more fitted, almost Han-Solo-style shirt, dark heavy-weight trousers, and a thick, leather chest and back piece that looks like it was probably wet formed to him. A dark green sash is tied around his waist, and he has heavy boots that are cuffed at the knees. He also wears a pair of thick leather bracers on each forearm that have the same design as his tattoos tooled on them.

He pauses mid-stride and looks between us with the uncertainty most people get when met with that sort of statement. You can almost see the accounting for every action going on behind his eyes: What did I do now?

“Good things, I sincerely hope,” he says, recovering; his tone is a little different with Nyssa than it was with me or the rest of our soon-to-be party. It’s more formal— more like that academic tenor he explained things with. I wonder who she really is to him.

“She was asking me why you are the way you are.”

“Nyssa,” I hiss at her, giving her a look that anyone back home would understand as why do you betray me so, but she just laughs at me again in her silver bell little laugh. I realize in that moment that Nyssa, despite her overall courtly manor and otherworldly etherealness, may well be what my father would call a shit stirrer.

“What did you tell her?” he asks, seemingly curious now as he leans up against the bar next to me and gives me a bright-eyed look that is a little charming— and he knows it. His square-jawed face has otherwise fairly fine features, disrupted only a little by that lower tusk situation. He seems self-conscious about it, though, ducking his head slightly as if to hide it when he notices me looking at him.

“I told her that I have absolutely no idea and if she figures it out to let me know.” She grins. “Let me check on the food. I’ll make it takeaway.”

“You’re a Queen, Nyssa,” he says. “Never let anyone tell you differently.”

“I never do!” she calls over her shoulder.

He chuckles and meets my eyes. “What?”

“Nothing. I half expected you to be waiting for me.”

“That was my original plan, but I had to help Da with a new bookshelf.” He eases onto the stool next to mine.

“Anything interesting?”

“Not especially. Some popular fiction.” He shrugs, then leans over the bar, grabbing a mug and filling it from my water pitcher. “Are you feeling okay? You ready for today?”

“As ready as I’m going to be. Got as much rest as I could, but you weren’t kidding about those aftereffects. I was up half the night sweating it out.”

“First time is awful, but it should be easier now.”

“So I’ve been told.” I take a glug of water, looking down the hall after Nyssa as my stomach growls again. I’m pretty sure it’s loud enough for Flynt to hear it, though he graciously doesn’t say anything. “Why didn’t you tell me your father is elven?”

“It never really came up. Does it matter?”

“Not especially, but you had plenty of opportunity. We had half a conversation about my people yesterday, and I was led to believe that we were few and far between around here.”

“My father being elven doesn’t change that.”

“And you being elven.”

“No, Keira, I am too green to be accepted as anything of the sort.” The way he says it leaves no room to doubt that there are many wounds surrounding that in his past. He clears his throat and adjusts in his seat, then leans in a little, lowering his voice. “Qeth fancies itself an open and accepting nation. I’m sure that’s a big part of what you’ve heard about it, why you wanted to take the journey here? But you should be aware it’s not always that way.”

“I’d never imagine it would be,” I admit.

He hesitates, then says, “Many of your people are especially bad about it.”

I sigh. “Yeah.” I offer him a regretful expression and lightly squeeze his forearm as it rests on the bar top. “Still. I wish you’d said something. It tells me that you know, at least a little bit, what it’s like to be elven in Qeth. So. I’m going to rely on you for that.”

“Oh, excellent,” he mutters, shaking his head. His hair falls down over his forehead in an endearing, late ’90s heartthrob kind of way— but without the horrible middle part.

Nope. Shutting that down right now. This will not be that kind of dream.

Nyssa emerges with two wrapped servings of breakfast, sets them in front of us, and hands over a filled water skin. “Because I know you don’t have one,” she says to me. I smile at her sheepishly as I take it. She looks at Flynt. “Make sure to take her to the Emporium and get her some proper gear. And I mean things that are actually useful. She’s carrying around a magic bag, and I doubt she even has anything worthwhile in it.”

“Hey. I have some things.”

“Oh?” She raises an eyebrow. “A waterskin? Rations? Rope?”

“Rope?”

“Every adventuring party needs rope."

I lean in toward Flynt. “Do you have rope?” I stage whisper.

“Nope.” He mimics my volume, watching Nyssa from under his brow.

She shakes her head and motions between us. “This? This is trouble.”