Many hours after departure, dusk was soon to be upon the adventuring party, and the group had stopped to make camp. A single tent was unloaded from the wagon for the men to sleep in, and the small wagon itself would act as Azara and Irinia's quarters for the night. Valerius, as a result of his inexperience with this sort of minimalist traveling, let Irinia and Joakim lead the way. Joakim, having been a soldier, knew the drill quite well. Soon the tent was pitched, firewood was being gathered, and the camp was set up. Joakim had even known how to pick out the patch of ground as a very dry spot among what seemed to be a flat field. When fire needed to be built, Joakim prepared the wood and tinder. However, he did not light it, and called over to Azara in his gruff and deep voice.

"Azara, come over here, light the fire while I start getting the food ready for cooking."

For Azara, this was a strange request. Why didn't he do it? It wasn't a pressing issue though, and so it was without complaint she walked over to the piled bits of wood and tinder - really whatever they could find in the field void of trees and the knelt to light it.

Then, she realized that Joakim was watching her. Everyone else was too. She arched an eyebrow and pursed her lips in confusion as she looked around.

"What is it?"

All her companions turned sheepish in an instant. For a little bit, no one spoke, until finally, it seemed as if Kasper gathered up the courage to do so. As the teenage boy spoke, his voice cracked a little bit.

"We were wondering how you would light it, and I made a bet!"

Azara smirked. She now understood what was going on. She reached into a satchel at her side, and pulled out a flint and steel, before going to work.

Valerius sighed, and then walked over to Kasper and handed him a couple of coins. The scoundrel seemed quite proud of himself as Azara lit the fire with the flint and steel.

"See, I told you she wasn't a mage of fire or anything like that!" Kasper said, still triumphant. "She just isn't the type."

"And what would be the type?" Azara asked as she finished her job, barring Valerius a response. She still wore a smirk on her face and stood up from where she had been kneeling.

The thief paused for a second. He put his thumb and forefinger to his chin as he thought. "Well, a redhead maybe? Short-tempered perhaps?"

Azara bent down and picked up some of the larger sticks they had gathered, and placed these onto the now flaming tinder, before replying.

"Oh, so you want me to be short-tempered?" she said her tone teasing.

"Oh, I'm so scared," he said. The reply was intended to be sarcastic, but Azara could tell by the way his voice wavered and a couple of nervous movements of his feet that the young man hadn't forgotten the magic she had displayed at their negotiations not long ago.

"Well, then, be scared of this!" Azara shouted, taking her staff into her hand and slamming it into the ground. A bright flash followed, accompanied by a loud explosive noise and a mild concussive force. A plume of flame shot from the top of the staff and into the air. After this, the gem at the top of the staff glowed red, flames licking its surface. It caused the dragon on the staff to look like it was breathing fire from its mouth. A great silence followed. Not a bird or bug sang.

Kasper and Valerius had fallen over, Joakim had dived for cover, and Irinia was crouched and covering her ears. As for Azara, she stood in place and wore a smug look. It was she who broke the silence.

"You really wouldn't like me if I were short-tempered..." Azara chided, and then rolled her eyes at them all. "What is with all the wide eyes anyways? I mean I know I'm impressive, but haven't any of you ever seen a little show magic before?"

Shaken, Valerius rose to his feet and gathering his composure. "You know how...shunned, sorcerers are here, Azara. The last time I saw something like that was perhaps in a fireworks display, and it was much farther away. By the stars, you could have killed one of us!"

She rolled her eyes. "No I couldn't have, that was just show, flash, and fire. Nothing more. But what do you mean? I knew that magic was not very welcome here, but you do have mages don't you?"

"You...you were a diplomat to this kingdom..." Valerius sputtered out, looking shocked. “How? How would you not know”

"And? What of it?"

"I would like to talk with you for a moment," he said, motioning away from the campsite.

"Alright..." she answered, wary. She felt a bit embarrassed, as if she had missed something obvious. She had taken her staff into her meeting with the king after all, and that been the wrong move? Had that offended him?

Meanwhile, Kasper and Irinia got back to their work, with Joakim continuing to prepare the food, all of them still a little shaken for what had just happened, but impressed nevertheless.

Stolen story; please report.

"I thought you told me Irinia was a mage?" Azara said as soon as Valerius and she had walked out of earshot from the camp. "I would expect her to have at least some experience with this sort of thing, and for you all to have at least seen some of it. I mean, that was a party trick!"

The prince looked somewhat flabbergasted. "For you maybe, but have you're a member of a mage organization, the daughter of their arch-mage no less! I've never seen anything like that in my life! The most Irinia has ever done is cause little flickering lights to appear and make a couple funny invisible walls...not...not explosions!"

"Oh, so she knows how to create wards and mage light?! That is good!" Azara said, and smiled out of enthusiasm as she made the comment. Perhaps Irinia wasn't hopelessly new to magic after all. “Most mages require formal training to be capable of even that sort of thing.”

"That isn't the point! I'll have to ask you to refrain from that sort of display in the future, particularly in towns. We could get driven out or worse hung by a rope for it. I assumed you would have read books about this sort of thing before even coming here. For heaven’s sake, your Ursulan is fluent! No, almost perfect, I wouldn’t be able to tell you’re foreign! I'd expect you to know much more about this place."

This didn't make any sense at all. In the books she had read in preparation for her task as ambassador, there was only mention of slight prejudice, not full-on lynch mobs. Then again, she hadn't read as many books as she should have, a certain number had been put off as too long and boring to be worth the read. Her siblings, Astra and Andreas, had always been readers and academics, not her. Besides, she had lived near Ursulam her whole life, and met many people from the country. She had briefly visited a couple of times as well while accompanying her mother in travels. She had assumed that she already knew an extensive amount about the place. This did not fit in.

"I speak Ursulan because my mother spoke it to me as a child, as did many friends in Aruslan, as well as one of our servants. I would have never thought that this country was this inhospitable to magic."

Valerius sighed. "Well, it wasn't always. It has gotten worse in recent years. My father has instigated a lot of it too, and the conflicts along the border with rogue Aerician mages and the Magi haven't helped. You know what they did here during their war. People haven't forgotten."

“I know, the Illumination - the cleansings,” she said, quieted. When Aericia had invaded Ursulam almost half a century prior, the Magi, a mage organization that also lead the church of Aericia, the Church of Lumira, had enacted unspeakable terrors within the country in the name of their deity.

"Yes," Valerius replied. "Some still live that have not forgotten those days. They remember when anyone even remotely related to heresy was dragged from their homes by the Magi Judicators, those steel-clad monsters. The Veyorn remembers their villages wiped away."

If the king was so anti-magic, that would be a factor regarding why he was so hostile towards entering into any sort of deal with Azara's mother and Aruslan.

Still, Azara had never thought Ursulan hatred of mage-craft was as bad as Valerius was suggesting. Some things didn't add up, and Azara was going to get to the bottom of it before she let Valerius slip with that bit of information.

"But you are the prince of this country, what lynch mob would kill you if I used magic? Is it illegal for me to practice magic? I'm not even a Magi, why would people hate me? And lastly, what in oblivion are you doing having never even seen a little display like that, but thinking you can go and slay a dragon? This plan of yours gets crazier by the minute Valerius."

"Do I look like I'm working in an official capacity to you?! Do you see guards, servants, or heralds? By the stars, no. My family, servants, and others do not even know I am here right now! Much less what I am doing!" Valerius retorted. "Besides, you were the one who wanted to come with us. If you had followed my plan we would have stayed in the capital another month or more, left then, and been better prepared. You wanted to leave immediately though. And to answer your question, yes! Some of your magic is illegal, and you don't have to be a Magi for people to associate you with them."

"By the time you'd be prepared, this beast would have been in the capital destroying it for all we know! Do you even have a way to track it?" Azara asked.

Valerius shrugged. "That is why we're going to Midton."

"Ah, well that answers one of my questions. Next question, what is it?" Azara said, beginning what she hoped would be a fruitful interrogation.

The prince put his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose as he tried to think of a response. He did not respond immediately, despite Azara's pressuring tone, and when he did speak he was measured and carefully.

"I get that I'm not exactly as experienced in this as you are. Irinia told me about your mother's adventures, but just trust me, if you are going to journey with us from here on out...A lot of things must remain a secret if this plan is to succeed, that is just how it is. Trust is necessary."

For a moment, Azara looked into Valerius' eyes, searching for an answer, or to see if he were just mad. He seemed steadfast, set in his ways. But then, there was perhaps something else. Was that ambition? Yes, she could see it, there was ambition there. Also, his eyes were a very nice blue. Free blue. Every time she looked at them she was reminded of a sky on a cloudless day.

"You are going to be dragon food, you know that right?"

He scoffed. "Sure, and no doubt you will feed me to the thing."

"Maybe. I'm sure you'd make a delicious meal for a dragon," she said, before she flashed a grin and turned away. She started walking back to the camp. "Speaking of which, I'm going to go see if food is ready, we can talk more later.”

"What? What was that supposed to...- wait no more magic like that, right? Did we agree to that or didn’t we? Azara?!?"