> O Goddess of the Sun

> With your burning arrows

> Destroy the spreading plague

> —Hymn to Elyon, author unknown

Asteria

There were five Lifers which seemed like overkill to me. One was driving the van while two were seated on either side of me. Two more were seated in front. One of the Lifers had taken my wand, spare artifacts, and pack.

“Er.” I cleared my throat nervously. “Lifers” was the nickname given to the Kraej family’s lackeys. There were families who had served the Kraej for generations. Their members took care of the Kraej family’s personal needs. They served as the chefs, maids, personal assistants, bodyguards, etc. to the Kraej and were called “Lifers” because their contracts were for life.

Soldiers like Oren were part of the professional army who were sent on official Kraej Company missions. Lifers, on the other hand, were only sent on the Kraej family’s personal errands or on top-secret clandestine missions.

“Miss, stay calm. We’re just taking you to see someone,” said the youngest Lifer.

He wasn’t the problem. The problem was the oldest Lifer, the one who seemed to be in charge, who looked like Alfred the Bloody also known as “Iron Hand” from “Tales of Vesterland.” Alfred was a stone-cold killer whose backstory involved countless assassinations.

“Okay,” I said meekly. I smoothed the skirt of my dress over my knees and kept my eyes on the floor of the van to avoid eye contact with them, especially Alfred.

The assassin’s cold, dead eyes had looked as though they could see right through me. He was middle-aged, with slicked-back brown hair. Like all of the Lifers, he was wearing a black suit.

I followed their directions quietly when the van entered the Kraej Company main building and they led me inside. The elevator stopped at floor 38, and they took me through an empty hallway to a small, nondescript room with grey walls, grey carpeting, and a table with two chairs.

“Sit down, miss.”

I hadn’t forgotten about Magnus Kraej, the little boy I’d saved from his kidnappers five years ago. It’s just that my priority was the hero, so I’d planned to contact Magnus after the hero had started his quest. I wanted to limit my involvement with Magnus because the Magnus of the sequel video games was a dangerous, slippery character. Dealing with him would be like swimming with a shark.

“Uh, can I make a phone call first?” I said to the Lifer who had spoken. He looked at Alfred who nodded slightly. The youngest one left the room and returned with a phone extension. Everyone watched me closely as I dialed the number I had memorized years ago. When I was done dialing, Alfred left the room.

“Hello,” I said to the phone when someone picked it up.

“Who is this?” said the person on the line.

“This is Asteria,” I said. “I’m at the thirty-eighth floor of the Kraej Building right now.”

“Please hold,” said the man’s voice on the phone.

The door opened, and Alfred came back inside. One of the other men said, “She said her name’s Asteria.”

Alfred took the phone from me and spoke into the handset, “This is Alfred. I’ll take care of it.”

He gave the phone to one of the men and said to me, “Miss, he’s in a meeting right now, but he’ll be here soon. Please come with me.”

The room they took me to this time was a light and airy waiting room with plush cream-colored carpets and modern artwork on the walls. The reception desk was a sleek, stylish affair in metal and dark-colored wood. I sank down onto a comfortable chair while the secretary offered me drinks. Two of the Lifers stood watch near the door.

“Just water, please,” I said.

Looks like I was right, and this was about Magnus since they were treating me nicely now. I picked up one of the magazines that were scattered around the waiting room and started leafing through it.

After around thirty minutes, just when I was starting to get restless, the secretary came back and said, “I’m afraid the young master won’t be here until much later. Would you like to have dinner?”

Bah, these rich people have no consideration for others! Did they think I didn’t have anything better to do than to cool my heels here? My feet were aching and I wanted to go home to rest.

“If it’s going to take that long, why don’t I go home and change?” I said.

“Ma’am, you can change here. Would you like me to bring you a change of clothes from one of the boutiques?” the secretary offered.

The Kraej Company’s main building housed the company’s offices and was flanked by five residential and commercial buildings connected to it by walkways. The elites of the company need never leave the headquarters since this place had all the best restaurants, bars, shops, salons, and everything else the wealthy wanted. The top floors of one of the adjoining buildings was an exclusive club with a yearly membership fee that was more than most people made in ten years.

“No, thank you. I’d prefer to go home for that,” I said.

The secretary glanced at the Lifers. One of them shook his head, and she said to me, “Ma’am I’m afraid there isn’t time for that.”

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I sighed and gave in. “Alright, then I guess I’ll have dinner. Sandwiches are fine.”

It was three hours before Magnus finally arrived. Two big Lifers came with him, but Alfred was nowhere to be found.

“My goodness, you’re so tall!” I said. The little boy must have gone through a growth spurt since he was now a head taller than me even though we were the same age. I put a hand at my shoulder height and said, “You used to be this small.”

“No, I was this tall.” Magnus lifted my hand until it was level with my eyes. Despite his height, he hadn’t changed that much and still had a boyish look about him even though he was wearing a grey three-piece suit. His caramel hair with blond streaks was shorter, but his big hazel eyes were the same. He’d developed a hard mouth, and his movements were quick and decisive.

“How come you’ve hardly grown?” he asked.

“Stress,” I said.

“Let’s go to my office,” said Magnus. He ushered me into a large office with a spectacular view of the Kraej City skyline. When he sat behind the desk I felt like I was being interviewed for a job. The Lifers followed us in. They said that the Kraej were never alone and that at least three bodyguards followed them everywhere, even at home.

“What do you want from me, Mr. Kraej?”

“It’s Magnus, not Mr. Kraej. Why did you never call me?” said Magnus in an imperious manner as though once he had told someone to call him, they had an obligation to do so.

“Why would I call you? And why did you have your goons… I mean, your people kidnap me?”

“I’ve been waiting five years for you to call! I wasn’t even sure you were alive. Why didn’t you call me?” he repeated, leaning forward with his hands on the desk.

“Eh.” I scratched below my ear nervously. “Well, you know we were just kids. I thought you were lying about being a Kraej.”

“Lying? Why would I lie?”

“Because you wanted me to help you. Why would a Kraej be in a cave in Stone Valley?”

“What were you doing in a cave in Stone Valley?” Magnus countered.

“I played in those tunnels when my father used to work nearby and that was the farthest place from home that I had ever been. I’d just discovered my special skill and wanted to test it so I teleported myself there.” I had foreseen this question and had prepared a small circle of land in Lieceni that I had drained of anima.

“Lucky for me you did,” he said.

“What’s lucky is that I didn’t kill us with my skill. Did you know my skill drained the anima all around us then?” Since I didn’t want Magnus to think of me as a convenient teleportation machine, I reminded him of the drawbacks of my skill.

There were limitations to the things special skills can do.

I wanted to use Spirit Incarnate on other people, but that wasn’t feasible because of ontological inertia, or the tendency of things that exist to continue to exist. In simple terms, all things have chibis protecting their existence.

If I were to tell my chibis to take every cell in the body of a bunyip, the bunyip’s own chibis would fight my chibis. With enough chibis (anima), I could force the disincarnation, but the bunyip’s chibis would continue to fight my chibis as they flew off with the bunyip’s cells, and they wouldn’t stop fighting until my chibis arrived at the destination and the body was incarnated.

Not only would this take a substantial amount of anima to do, the titanic clash of the chibis would produce too much noise and heat. According to the simulation I ran in the spiritual place, casting Spirit Incarnate on another person or monster would result in a tremendous explosion at the starting point, a stream of fire thirty meters wide while in transit, and another explosion at its destination.

That’s why I created the Star of Fate special skill. That one was simple. I just had to ask the chibis to read someone’s mind to know the destination they wanted, then punch a hole in space for that person to step through. The only drawback was that the anima cost of this was so great that it drained anima from the place where Star of Fate was cast.

That’s why I would hate for Magnus to ask me to teleport people.

Magnus said, “I know how risky that was, don’t worry. You still haven’t said why you didn’t call me. You must have realized eight months ago when I was in the news that I’m the real Magnus.”

His first public appearance had been during his coming of age party when he had been given his first position in the company. His face had been splashed all over the newspapers and magazines.

“Yes, but it’s been millions of years since we met. I thought you’d have forgotten about me,” I said, reasonably enough, I thought.

Magnus shook his head. “My father has had men looking for you all over Stone Valley and all the surrounding villages since that day. Why did you tell me you lived near there?”

“Oh, that’s because I thought you might not leave without me if I didn’t.”

Magnus reflected on that. “I must have left a good impression.”

“You seemed like a nice boy.” I stared pointedly at the Lifers who were standing to attention nearby.

Magnus was impervious to the implied criticism. “It occurred to me that you might be somewhere in Kraej City. I’ve had people on the lookout for a blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl named Asteria.”

“Huh? There are millions of people here, how did they even find me?” The Kraej must have one heck of an information network.

“We have our ways.”

“Okay, okay. It’s late and I’m tired. Please tell me what you want,” I said.

For the first time, Magnus looked taken aback. “Don’t you remember I said I’d reward you?”

I laughed. Rolling my eyes, I said, “Yes, I want that train set you promised. I believe there was also talk of… a dollhouse, dolls, teddy bears, yoyos, and… did you say slingshot? Why don’t you throw in a music box? I’ve always wanted one.”

“I did also say that you would be able to buy all the dresses you wanted.” Magnus looked me over, his eyes lingering on the patch on my skirt. He pressed a button on the desk and an old man in a dark suit came inside. Another Lifer? The man handed a check to Magnus, who tried to give it to me.

“No, there’s no need,” I said.

“It’s fine, take it,” said Magnus.

“No, I don’t need it. I have a job, you know.”

“You can’t refuse. I don’t want to be in your debt,” said Magnus. His tone of voice was quite firm.

“Then have your secretary send me the toys,” I said.

“My mother was quite excited when I told her I’d have a friend coming over,” said Magnus. “She’s had a guest suite prepared for you and your family since five years ago. Your room is full of toys. Ivan, give her the keys.”

The old man tried to hand a set of keys to me, but I refused to take them.

“Please thank your mother for me,” I said.

“You can thank her yourself when you see her tomorrow.”

“Huh? But I have work tomorrow,” I lied.

“I think you’ll like what she’s done with the suite,” said Magnus, ignoring my protests.

“But-”

“You can go back to your home after a few days,” said Magnus. “It’s just a routine background check, please don’t fuss. Ivan here will make sure you have everything you need.”

Magnus got up. I recognized a dismissal when I saw one so I got up, too. I made one last request before I let the Lifers show me out the door. “Can you at least make sure they’re discreet? People will think I’m a criminal or something if they know I’m being investigated.”

“My men are always discreet,” said Magnus. “See you tomorrow.”

“We do routine background checks for potential Kraej staff all the time, miss,” said Ivan. “Your neighbors will think you applied for a job, that’s all.”

“Good,” I said, relieved. I shook my head at Magnus disapprovingly. “See you tomorrow, Magnus.”

A background check shouldn’t turn up anything suspicious. It looked like I’d be spending the next few days in the lap of luxury. There were worse fates.

The only fly in the ointment was a certain person’s reaction.