SOPHIA

Sophia trotted her horse down the road south of Riverhill in pursuit of the outlaw magicians. She usually traveled alone with only her trusted steed, Vareen, to keep her company. She made an exception for this hunt. The stout Holy Knight, Talix Aldous, rode behind her.

The pair made quite an unusual sight. Talix was dressed in an elegant green linen tunic that was likely worth more than a freeman farmer would make in a year, with tight white trousers to match. Though Sophia was by no means poor, she dressed like she was. The Sentinel wore a dirty white tunic, brown trousers, and did not do much to make her hair presentable.

The sun had only been up for a couple of hours, but it already felt like a full day to Sophia. The Sentinel kept to the roads at a relatively slow pace to not aggravate the horrid headache she was feeling. She did not mind traveling this way. Salamandra had naturally heightened senses compared to humans. Her dulled senses were a relief from the constant influx of stimulation from the world around her. She was better able to focus her keen hearing on the path ahead without being distracted by every sound that beckoned from the wilderness. This was a common issue that plagued many salamandra and was often remedied with hours of meditation and discipline. Sophia chose the easier but more painful route and took another long drink of her watered-down rum. She called this vile concoction grog.

The pair came to the top of a hill, and Sophia looked over her shoulder to see Riverhill in the distance, though it was not nearly as far as she had hoped.

“Gods burn this road,” she said, patting her horse’s neck. “I told you to take it easy, girl, but we still have to catch these blasted outlaws.”

“By the mercy of the Holy Trinity, I feel like my insides are rebelling against me,” Talix complained.

Sophia turned and smirked. “You had only two pints last night. I thought Holy Knights were meant to be tough bastards.”

“Two pints and whatever was in that last drink you forced upon me.”

“Even still, lightweight. I’ve seen much smaller women drink more than that and work the mills the next day. You drink as if it really was your first time.”

“Those truly were my first alcoholic drinks. I took a vow of purity during my baptism.”

Sophia scoffed at the statement. “Yeah, I know that, but no Holy Knight I’ve ever met truly holds that vow completely. In Avelorn, almost every Holy Knight still drinks wine like it’s water.”

“They will regret that when they come face-to-face with a ghast and their divine gift of purity has abandoned them and left them vulnerable to its poison.” Talix leaned over his horse and vomited all over the path.

Sophia chuckled, grabbed a leather canteen, and took a sip, hoping to alleviate the thumping pain in her head. She contemplated giving some to Talix, but she knew he couldn’t keep it down anyway.

“We’ll keep this pace until noon, and then we’ll rest. You can’t fight magicians if you’re dead, lightweight.”

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Talix wiped his mouth. “I’ll be fine, Lady Ross. We must keep a brisk pace or risk losing their trail.”

Sophia shook her head. “Don’t worry yourself. I paid a visit to the church cartographer and had him conjure a map of the wilderness. I doubt the magicians have their own map, so they will likely be taking the roads. If we cut through the woods and hills, we can easily reach the port city of Lood long before they do, even at this pace. If what you said is true, they will have to sail from there to make it to Galatea in time for the festival.”

“Well done, Sentinel,” Talix said as he regained his riding posture. “I must admit, I did not expect you to have a plan at all.”

Sophia readied a snarky response but held it back. She was pleasantly surprised to see that the Holy Knight did have a hint of sarcasm hidden deep within him after all. “This is far from my first hunt,” she said, straightening her posture. “When you’ve been doing this as long as I have, you learn all the tricks of the trade.”

“How long have you been doing this? A salamandra like you must have been hunting magicians since the reign of Draygonix.”

Sophia rolled her eyes. “Ah yes, I remember it like it was yesterday. I became a Sentinel over eight hundred years ago and was appointed by the Grand Conqueror himself!”

She laughed and turned to see Talix’s reaction to her jest, but instead was met with an open-jawed child.

“By the gods, lightweight, don’t tell me you are one of those ignorant fools who think salamandra live forever.”

“There aren’t many salamandra in Evintia, and I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting any of the salamandra nobility since I moved to Travenhall. The only knowledge I have of your kind comes from legends and stories. All the stories say that salamandra never die of old age.”

“That is partially true,” Sophia said. “Salamandra age much slower than you humans do, but we live such long lives that we will almost certainly die of disease, famine, or war long before our natural times have come. The oldest salamandra I’ve ever met lived to be around two hundred years old before sickness took him.”

“I suppose I never thought of it that way. The salamandra ruled the empire for so long before Ringavere became sovereign that it is easy to think of them as these immortal demigods.”

Sophia could not blame Talix for his ignorance. Though salamandra can live in all corners of the world, some regions have not been graced by their presence in many Azure Moons.

“To answer your question more plainly, I have been a Sentinel for around six Azure Moons.”

“That’s almost fifty years . . . That would make you around seventy years old!” Talix trumpeted.

“Sounds about right,” Sophia said, looking up, trying to do the math in her head. “I stopped counting the years a long time ago.”

“You’ve lived longer than my grandfather, and yet you look as young as my little sister.”

“Ah, so the lightweight Holy Knight has siblings,” Sophia said, flipping around on her saddle and riding backward. “You humans always mate like rabbits. I wager you have at least eighteen brothers and sisters with another one on the way.”

Sophia laughed. Though salamandra could live much longer than humans, it was far more difficult for them to have children. A salamandra’s body matures at only a slightly slower rate than humans, but they do not reach childbearing age until much later. Even when salamandra can have children, it is more difficult for mothers to carry a baby for the full year that she is pregnant. By comparison, short-lived humans indeed do mate like rabbits.

“Eighteen is an absurd number,” Talix said. “I only have two younger siblings. A brother named Theelix and my baby sister, Dae.”

“A respectable amount of children for a human. I’m sure the world could only handle three overly pious Holy Knights.” Sophia laughed.

Talix had no response. Not so much as an annoyed grunt. Silence tore between the pair, making the loud world around Sophia even louder. Sophia turned back around on her saddle, keeping her eyes on the path ahead. She took a swig of her canteen to dull her senses further. Glancing back toward her gruff vassal, she finished the half-full container for good measure.