“Are you sure this is a wise idea?” asked Lia as Darim carried Frane over his shoulder, the gag in the back of his mouth. The lack of guards meant they could accomplish such a suspicious task without repercussions. With sword-spear in one hand and a writhing body in the other, Darim followed Lia down the street using the overhanging shadows of the buildings in the pale moonlight muddled by the snowy clouds as cover.

“I am not going to kill this man,” said Darim. She gave him the usual scowl. She hated it when he took control, and he hated when he fell for a pretty face. If it weren’t for that and the excessive drinking he’d never have signed that damn contract. They should really have a statement saying that the signer should be in full senses when agreeing to the terms. Then again, how else would demons and Fates get their servants? He wondered what sort of contract Lia had signed with her patron.

Whoever that patron was, he was not to know. She had bagged that secret tighter than he did his gold pouch amidst a bustling city.

“You intrigue me,” she said. “You killed those other men.”

“They were attacking me. This one has surrendered. It’s a very simple moral thing to understand. I like to keep it simple.”

Lia scowled as they walked away from the alley and toward the inn they were staying at.

Behind them, they heard a voice.

“What the hell happened here?” Siril’s voice. Darim and Lia spun to see the serving girl that Darim had danced with earlier the one that made him do foolish things. I always fall for a pretty face, don’t I? His face still throbbed, and he wasn’t daft enough to ask Lia for healing, not even for his wound in the side. Hopefully, she hadn’t noticed. She’d probably chew him out for his recklessness and lecture him tomorrow. That and Green healing hurt worse than the wound itself.

“Siril!” said Darim, nervously pulling at his collar. “What are you doing here?”

“My shift was over and I was headed home. ThenI saw you with a corpse over your shoulder and a bloody spear.” Her eyes held fear. Darim sighed.

“First of all, he’s alive. Don’t worry. Secondly, you said you liked a little mystery in your men,” Darim laughed nervously.

Lia turned to him and gave him that withering glare.

Darim shot back a look of helplessness. “Look Siril, they attacked us first,” he said.

“Who’s she?” she asked, envy creeping into her voice.

“Who am I?” asked Lia. “You’re the reason he’s ended up in a pig’s pen, and you ask who I am?”

Siril’s face flushed and her gaze cast downward.

“As for what happened here,” Lia said, “it was self-defense. We’re delivering this man to the guards.” Lia’s voice was sharp. Is she defending me? She had put two and two together and realized this was the girl Darim had fought for. Darim felt his heart melt for his boss.

Darim chuckled. “So we’ll be on our way then.”

Siril gave a shameful nod. Were those tears?

“Hey,” said Darim. “Why are you crying?”

“Jackel left me.”

“You two were together?”

Lia groaned beside Darim and tossed her head back in disbelief. Darim ignored her and strode up to Siril. “Hey listen, what happened?”

“He was angry that I set you to fight him. I was only joking. I didn’t think you’d actually do it, you foolish man!”

Darim winced. He supposed he should have seen that coming. Why couldn’t women just be more clear? Either way, Jackel was the wiser man. He’d have left this woman to her wiles and jests. Darim would have kept pursuing. Was he still pursuing? Darim laughed inside. He had work to do.

Darim steeled himself for his next words. This woman was trying to make him feel guilty. Is it working? She seemed to be heartbroken.

Lia must have seen through the ploy. She latched her hand on Darim’s spear arm and dragged him away. “Come on,” she growled. “We don’t have time for this drama.”

Siril ambled home, but her sadness seemed to have been sincere.

“Did you really fall for that?” asked Lia. “She treated you like dirt.”

Darim felt ashamed and did not reply. But Fates damn me, she’s pretty.

****

They placed Frane on the floor of the inn. They had to release him and let him walk, lest the innkeeper question them. Lia entranced him with a sufficient amount of Blue to make him appear drunk so no one would question them.

“You want a room with three beds?” asked the innkeeper. “Or two rooms?”

Darim gave Lia a mischievous look, and before she could stop the damn fool, he said, “oh no, we’ll share.”

Lia growled under her breath but decided to counter his ploy. She turned to Darim, fury in her eyes despite her pleasant smile. “Don’t push him off the bed like last time.”

The bartender stood agape realizing the situation. Darim stammered but did not say more. They led the “drunken” Frane up to the room.

After they settled in their rooms, Frane was bound and gagged once more and placed in the corner. Lia gave Darim her most withering glare as she entered the bathroom for a rinse. She poked her head out before she closed the door. “Don’t you fall asleep,” she said. “You’re taking one next.”

Darim rolled his eyes and slumped backwards onto the bed.

“Hey! That’s my bed!”

“We just got here,” said Darim.

“Well I was going to choose that one.”

“I’ll move.”

“Don’t infect the other one!” she snapped. Darim mimicked her voice and began pulling off his boots. Frane squirmed in the corner for a better position, struggling under the Blue’s influence.

Lia shut the bathroom door and began to unbutton her traveling dress.

The hot water was a treat that she convinced herself she deserved. As she bathed, she sank into a memory of many months ago, a memory of her and her father during lunch. She gritted her teeth. She remembered it vividly.

****

The hall was large, but not ornate and Lord Terell, the father of Lia Terell, was not a man of ornate things. He was a man of steel, of ambition, and of terrible intensity. Lia had come into the dining hall with a calm face. Never come to me like you’re afraid, her father had told her. Or I’ll give you a reason to justify it.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

She sat at the end of the dining table that stretched many paces. At the other end sat the tall, muscular man that was Lord Lorek Terell, a mountain that could breathe. A thick slab of meat lay on his plate circled by bright green vegetables. Lia’s smaller portion had also been arranged. She sat and nodded politely to her father.

Her father nodded back and the two began their meal.

Lord Terell began slicing through his succulent meat, the sound echoing through the halls. Lia ate her food quickly. Better to finish early so I can leave.

“How is your training with Master Kramer going, girl?” Lord Terell asked.

“Well,” said Lia.

“And what has he taught you today?”

“We learned of some famed Relic Hunters of the past.”

“And their mistakes, I presume?”

“Yes,” said Lia.

“Tell me some of them.”

Lia bit her lip as she tried to remember. Her heart raced. Time was passing. The sound of her father cutting steak ceased and there was silence. She recalled one finally, her mental block vanishing. “Benevol of Karth,” said Lia. “He was an astute man with an incredible ability to see things even without Blue. He noticed things people with Blue active did not. He saved the king because he noticed a tiny pin under his seat tipped with poison and earned a seat of honor because of it.”

The cutting resumed. He took a bite. “And his mistakes?”

“He trusted his friend, Serek of Rhodina,” said Lia. “Serek stabbed him in the back when they found their fifth relic and took the others for himself.”

Terell began cutting again, nodding as he chewed. “A foolish man for all his wisdom. Trusted a hunter, a Rhodini no less. Good.”

Silence ensued aside from the cutting, chewing, and slurping of ale. Her father spoke. “Do you want to be a Relic Hunter?”

“I do,” said Lia. “Father.”

“Do you want to be a Relic Hunter,” he repeated, “daughter.”

Lia frowned. “I do.” She put down her ale. “Father.”

The cutting stopped and Terell gulped his food. “If I was not your father, would you have still wanted to be a Relic Hunter?”

Lia steeled herself as her eyes grew cold and narrowed. “If you were not my father, I wouldn’t have spent the last two years of my life learning, Father. So I suppose not.”

He nodded and continued to cut. The piece went into his mouth. “You aren’t as timid as you were two years ago. You’ve grown to be steel. Much like your mother.”

“Will I end up like my mother, then?” she asked.

The cutting stopped and this time Terell glared at Lia. He placed his knife down beside his plate. “Hard as steel, and prickly as a thorn. You are better than your mother. You will find me Relics while she had only tried to find me a war.”

“What’s the difference?”

“She wanted to forsake the Relics and march to war without them.” Terell scoffed. “Doesn’t she know that Relics are power? They will change the way wars work.” Terell picked up his knife and continued cutting. “They are true power.”

“Humans can achieve that power.”

“Mind, Body, and Soul. Blue, Red, and Green. They all come at a cost. With a Relic and the right one at that--armies will shatter, knowledge will be ripe pickings, and basic necessities of a conquest will be met. That, my daughter, is true power. Something your mother didn’t believe.” His cutting stopped. “Do you believe it?”

“I’m your daughter,” said Lia. “What do you think?”

“Cold as steel, prickly as a thorn, and daring as a gambler. Learn the mistakes well, girl. You will make a fine hunter someday. That is what those lessons are for.” Terell took another bite. “What of your magic lessons?”

“I am excelling at Blue,” said Lia.

Terell scoffed. “Most people don’t do well with Blue. They’d rather hurl lightning with Red or heal their allies with Green.”

“What’s the point of a lightning bolt if you mistakenly hurl it at your ally.”

Terell pointed his knife at Lia. “Good answer. Learn Blue as best as you can, but learn the others as well, Red especially. Make your enemies fear you.”

“And make your allies fear you even more,” said Lia with a smirk. “That’s what Mother used to say. Funny that she never feared you.”

Terell slammed his fist on the table. “Don’t mention your mother to me again.”

Lia leaned forward. “I will mention her if I want to.”

Terell grumbled something under his breath. Is he afraid of me?

“You have learned to be steel, yes, but even steel can bend.”

“I won’t bend to you any longer. I will become a Relic Hunter on my terms. But I will not bend.”

“Then you are stone. And you will crumble.”

“Why should I be scared when my father’s mind becomes muddled with Blue?”

“Is that a threat, girl?”

“No, rather a question for you to consider.” Lia’s heart raced. Of course, the guards would intervene, but she didn’t care. She wanted to cement what she could do now.

“A question I have considered.” Terell rubbed his chin. “You aren’t at all the girl you were two years ago.”

“Thinking before acting?” asked Lia. “It seems you’ve changed yourself.”

Terell bloated with rage. “Leave me. Do your studies and do not speak to me for a week. You will have your meals brought to you”

Lia bowed in her seat, took a swig of her ale, and left to the sounds of cutting meat, only this time in far more rapid succession.

When she closed the hall doors behind her, she could hear the sound of the plate shatter and a curse bellowing.

****

Darim pounded on Lia’s bathroom door. “Fates, woman! How long you gonna take? I thought you wanted me to clean off.”

“Use the buckets outside!” cried Lia. She wanted to object more but bit her tongue. She needed to maintain control. Tears dribbled down her face. “I’ll be a while.” She added softly.

“Fates damn me! Women can be strange. They tell you to do one thing and yell at you for doing just that! You’ll just have to deal with my stench then.”

“Just go to bed and bathe in the morning!”

“Fine!”

****

Darim scoffed and slumped into his bed. Lia’s magical washing hadn’t gotten every spot and he figured the innkeeper would have a hell of a fit when he’d spot muck on the sheets.

Darim didn’t care. He’d been through worse situations. Memories of explosions lifting bodies off the ground—charred and shattered—flickered through his mind.

What an adventure that had been.

That was before he met Lia.

Fates, it had been a long time since he joined the caravan and began learning the spear. He recalled the day he dueled the bandit leader and took his spear as his own. Darim’s eyes lingered to that weapon propped against the wall. He'd nearly died three times that day. It taught him how to kill a man. The battle was never done until you died. In his revelry at winning against him he’d not seen the ax wielder behind him.

Darim rubbed his shoulder where the scar lay.

A lesson.

Darim chuckled. There were many more where that came from. His thoughts drifted to before his service started as a caravan guard and as a sellsword; back when he was just a simple carpenter’s apprentice, back before he became an adventurer.

Adventurer. The word was more of an inside joke or a gimmick, but to Darim it had been something special. Was an adventurer a man who killed for money? That was an assassin. Was an adventurer a man who searched for outlaws and brought them to justice? That was a bounty hunter. Was an adventurer someone who found ancient relics of old and studied ancient tomes? No, that was a relic hunter like Lia, and she detested the word adventurer.

So what was an adventurer? Was it someone who saw the world in its entirety, exploring the far reaches of the land? Other professions accomplished that to a degree. So in a sense all of them were adventurers.

The term was arbitrary at best, and Darim had come to accept that. Yet, he had not moved on. He still clung onto his boyhood fantasies about the world.

Darim recalled the days where he argued with Naromi about such thoughts. He hoped she was well. He’d heard tensions were rising in Mahar.

Fates, Mahar! I haven’t been there in 5 months. That was another thing adventuring did: it offered another perspective. Before, he’d dwelled in the middle of a pond and wondered how big this ocean could be, not knowing that the shore was a mere ten paces away. The world was wide and deep; what he thought the world was merely happened to be the distance from Karth and Mahar. Once he'd traveled that far, the reality of how vast the world stretched hit him.

Now he was in Karth helping Lia. Damn that contract. He shouldn’t have drunk so much on the request of a pretty lass. That was a pitfall waiting for you to stumble into it. He supposed it wasn’t too bad. Her journey led him places he’d never seen. So he still got what he wanted.

Soon, Darim drifted into a memory, and then to sleep.