Chapter 125

Gula POV

*Knock*

*Knock*

The world went black for a long blink before revealing the page in my hands. The red coat whose sleeves reached to my wrists was rubbing across the faintly yellow paper. It was a fresh look at the latest inquiry to arrive from the Crasden Council. At some point during the avalanche of work orders, storage figures, and written begging the stream of words started running along the eyes but never reaching beyond. Now fully paying attention to the world, the salty tang of sea reintroduced itself to the nose now resuming its work.

“Yes?” I called from my position in the back of the wood room now taking a wobble to the right. Despite the ship's size and craftsmanship, I had learned you were never truly on solid ground when bobbing about the sea. The dining table to the left wall and bed on the right stayed still from the nails in their legs, yet the particularly big wave made some strands of midnight hair obstruct the double door directly opposite of me. Even with that, I instantly placed the black pants peaking from behind shifting strands.

“I thought ships were supposed to ride the sea like carts.” The grumpy voice of Sally extolled with exhaustion, even if her gold irises in black spheres darted around the room with alacrity. Her short grey hair dripped with bits of ocean spray. She rubbed a sharp chin just above the white square adorning the black collar tucking into the white shirt. A cloud of mist came out of her small nose to flow over the leather vest covering the chest of her white shirt and black coat. “Everyone’s busy these days and I’m sure the captain of the only means out of here is at the peak of it. So I will be as brief as I can be.

We messed up the plant scions wall.”

I raised eyebrows at the words, trying to understand their dire tone.

“A bit chipped or cracked-”

“It’s down. Part of it is, at least. The rest of the structure is still standing save a section near the main gate for the road to Crasden.”

The words, like those on the papers, didn’t fully penetrate even with her voice carrying over the waves outside.

“Down? As in…. To the ground, down?” I asked with a held breath. I scoured the woman's frame, trying to find some indication that this was a joke.

Her gulp of spit cut through the ambling sea.

“A bit lower in some spots.” She confirmed with a small nod.

I quickly put the paper to the right before the hand holding it could clench into a fist.

“Do you have any idea how much we risked to get that tunnel ready?” I demanded with a lean forward.

Any cold nipping at the skin vanished as I felt my cheeks warm. This had to be what Eli didn’t tell me about two nights ago. The budding irritation at being left out immediately withered. If he had told me this it would have robbed me of precious sleep for no gain. That and there was no way I could properly feign the raw fury churning through my veins at this moment.

“I know,” The priest agreed with hands raised in supplication. “Your people risked a lot for all our lives, and still do. As did the women who were crushed by the rubble.”

Right, there were probably a lot of people working under the wall when it fell. The sadness in those gold eyes made me reign in my anger. As much as it would allow, at least.

“Will I be going on another excursion for stone crafts?” I asked, forcing my spine to loosen enough to let me pull back into the chair.

“No. Some guards will be…. We just need to know what the inside of the plant scions house looked like. The only ones who’ve been in it are maids who owe us nothing, mages and lion guards who would kill anyone who even helped us, and you. As for what, I cannot say.”

I took a deep breath as I pulled down on my white shirt's collar.

“You know, if you’re going to make it so obvious that stealing more crafts is the goal, maybe saying it in a spirit connection would be better advised.”

Sally rolled her golden eyes before fixing me with puckered lips.

“If we were meant to always talk with that, Christ would have used it to deliver his sermons.”

“Good for him.” I offered with raised hands. “But we’re not here to give speeches. I trust every person on this ship with my life, save the children. Something you can’t say. In the future, I would advise you to not be so trusting.”

Her nod of agreement came with only a small touch of hesitation.

“Games of deception aren’t for me. Which is why Kev will be attending the meeting. It will be happening at the ruined construction site.”

I raised an eyebrow at her.

“Is the Council building unavailable?”

“PFF!” Sally scoffed with a smile. “No. Kev wants to meet there so that we don’t have a small riot getting you through the tunnels.”

Memories of freezing water plowing over my bare skin came back of their own will.

“Another swim?” I asked with little hope. Her shrug lifted my heart a bit.

“How you get there will be up to Kev. He’ll be sending a guard later tonight to pick you up. Everyone wants this done today. That leaves a small window when…. Well, I suppose in games of espionage, telling you more about the plan than needed would be unwise.”

Getting a vague memory of Eli saying something similar, I gave her a final nod. She gave a slight bow before turning around and out the doors. The moment she opened them, I heard the yells and plopping of crates before being silenced with a slam of wood on wood, leaving me with an empty cabin and more paperwork to tend to.

When we first returned, I had hoped we’d be out on the sea towards the Cradle after a day at most. Getting as much meat and leather as they requested, however, proved more difficult for the Crasden government than just a trip to the local market. They still gave reassurances about meeting the trade request, but it would take time. I’d have been irritated if we hadn’t finished unloading our goods late yesterday. Dealing with the poorly disguised spies we brought with us sucked a few more hours out of our first day back, but it still took a lot longer to move those laden crates than expected.

The rest of the day passed into late afternoon without further issues save a working of the radio at the desk.

"Mom." I called into the box with a button press.

"Aye? Finished." The familiar voice called through the metal mesh on the bottom of the rectangular box.

"Checking in early. I've been called to an unexpected meeting. Finished"

"Understood. We'll wait for Eli's check-in then make our way back to the Base. Finished."

My eyebrows shot up.

"Oh?" I asked.

"I don't know what you think clouds are made of but I assure you they aren't edible. Finished." The box spouted off moodily.

An idle thought about how torturous describing my meal at the Cradle must have been for her came, but I quelled it.

"Understood. Goodnight. Finished."

"You too, brat."

This weird form of communication where our faces remained unseen certainly had its oddities, how it lulled you into being more open because you can make any face you want. And then the woman who raised you hears faint amusement in your voice that only she could pick out. Musing on the social oddness continued as I put the radio back in its hiding spot beneath the floor.

At the sun's dying hour, when clouds lost their white coloring to instead mix red and orange, another knock came.

“Lady Gula,” A young girl's voice half-yelled through a slight crack in the door. “Some guard in red leather is here. He says he’s expected and ready to go.”

“He is,” I affirmed with a rise from the chair. “I’ll be right there.”

Brushing off my black pants, I quickly retrieved the sword by the bed. Feeling whole with some steel at my hip, I walked through the door to visit the Underground. Ever-present crashing waves pounded my ears with a step into the sea air. Nothing more than a slight breeze went through my white shirt and red coat, lending a feeling of something approaching comfort to the outdoors. The land was still fully in winter’s grasp, but the men on the deck below weren’t shivering and most didn’t even have a second shirt beneath their coat.

I took a right down the wooden stairs, savoring a moment to appreciate the waves and rocky shore ahead before finishing my descent onto the deck. My second-in-command wasn’t around, so I pulled one of the young green girls lugging a basket of wet clothes around to a stop.

“When you’re finished with that, tell Geoff he’s in charge for an hour or so.”

“Y-Yes, Captain.” She exclaimed with a bow sending her brown hair flying around and gold eyes wide. Her immediate turn around to the double doors on the front end of the ship made me almost shout for her to finish setting up the clothesline first, but she was already lost among the sailors.

“A lot of different ages here.” A male voice to the right exclaimed to me.

Turning to the front, I saw the red leather guard waiting by the dinghy lifted up by the geared wooden arm beside the upper deck. His black beard had some sea spray on it, though the red cap was the only other thing for the water to get stuck on his face. Those green eyes above a wide nose regarded me with some warmth as he did a slight bow that made the sword and unlit torch around his belt sway.

“And types.” He continued, looking at the horns and goat faces found on some of the men.

“All solid people,” I assured him as I walked forward with an entourage of three Kelton men coming up from the crowd. They had been assigned to my guard, sporting metal chest pieces and some metal helmets. Their equipment had a faint shine from the dying sunlight, but their swords were still in leather sheaths. Two on the left were brown-furred with curved horns of the same color.

“I’ll be guiding you to the site.” the red-leathered guard announced to us, giving the black-furred Kelton on his right a small nod.

A few sailors joined us as we shuffled into the dingy without another word. The lack of exchange continued when our boat hit water and the human sailors started paddling among peaks and valleys of frothing ocean. I couldn’t hear anything besides soft wind and smacking water. That left me with no distraction from the worrying nibbles floating inside my skull. How this was all going to be fixed wasn’t apparent to me, aside from the fact that it was going to be done by pilfering more of Eli's work. I hadn’t talked to him directly, but mother made it clear he sounded rather worn.

It was too few minutes before the boat came onto the rocky shore beneath a sky fading from red to black. Disembarking took a few seconds longer as our human guide struggled to get onto the rock without slipping backward, but we were soon plodding along the path to the entrance into the Underground hidden among the jagged hills and rocks.

At least, we were until the human guard suddenly took a left between two horse-sized boulders away from the main trail. It took him a few steps to turn around and see his companions had stayed still.

“Ah, yes. There are a lot of Orcs in the Underground who are eager to talk with you. Getting through without constant stopping simply isn’t going to happen. The men on the walls know of our trip, so I’ll light my torch if needed.” He finished with a head bob before continuing his walk.

I only nodded as we followed him. From there, we walked an S-shaped path around mounds of rough rock. Sunlight was a fading commodity that barely peaked over the horizon now. Faint golden rays ran along the endless expanse of fractured stone while small chasms of shadow moved beneath the upright ones, a few of which we walked under. It was unfortunate that my vision was good enough for all but the darkest nights because if I had trouble seeing in the coming darkness then making these simple bends would keep me occupied and prevent what I suspected this trip would be.

When the sun finally lost its fight, my prediction proved accurate. This path had been untraveled by me or my guards, yet it was unobstructed in its center. Smooth on the feet, yet jagged in some of its turns. Too unfamiliar to let the mind wander and too boring to fully engage it.

Even when one of the stones peaking out over the others revealed itself to be the top of Crasden’s high walls, I paid little attention. The night allowed the stars to shine as the clouds had chased after the sun, making the few torches burning along the top mold into the heavens. When the city walls came close enough to almost reach by spear throw, our guide took a right around a boulder and kept on it.

Faint memories of approaching such masses of stone came to me, the ones in the past raining a hail of arrows down in greeting. Walking around it with an upright walk, even in the night, put me on edge. As we took a bend around the mark of human civilization and down a small hill, I saw my husband's labor.

Jutting walls stretched on for almost the entire horizon. A huge tower off to the left stood around twice the height of the walls surrounding it. The imposing mass, however, wasn’t what drew the eyes. At the end of the smaller wall connecting Crasden and Eli’s domain was an open wound of crumbled rock near the quad mage’s main gate. Bits of flame played around the top from what I wanted to guess were guards.

None of the others noticed the irritation in my every step and I was content to keep the walk silent as we moved alongside the road’s wall. Waves pounding the shore mixed with the occasional drop of a pebble from our trek. Aside from that, it was dead silence. Not a single insect or bird could be heard among the jagged mess of rock left behind by mole packs who cared how long ago.

Winter was still a faithful companion, however lax it had been today. My fingers were starting to get a bit stiff when we made it to the road’s wall and the coat barely made a difference when a breeze groped through my white shirt with each step towards Eli's land. Words of measured complaint were on the back of my tongue and about to travel towards the tip when our human guide finally stopped beside the sheer face of grey rock.

“Here,” He exclaimed with a pointed finger to a hole about a foot from the wall that had faint flickers of torchlight inside from somewhere below.

It would be a bit tight for my armed Kelton guards, but as I plopped down to place my legs in, my thighs went past the rocks and dirt with little fuss. My stomach leaped up with the six-foot drop, but the landing onto rough rock floor was otherwise flawless. I was surrounded by grey rock wall that was doused in the torchlight of what looked to be a wider expanse of the open stone room beyond the hole for a door directly ahead. Moving off to the left, I took a sideways glance to realize that the room out of here was the big tunnel connecting Crasden and Eli’s domain and we were coming in from its side.

The guard's arrival was not as smooth. Swords had to be tossed down lest they jolt out of their holsters and be sent flying up a rib cage. Our human guide had the easiest time of it, with his leather armor, but the Keltons had to do a small roll on landing with their horns and metal chest plates. Standing near the exit of the room with the human, I thought we’d be dealing with at least one snapped horn before they’d made the first jump. Which made it all the more impressive when, of the three, the only problem was the last one hitting the wall with his shoulder.

“How much longer do we have to walk?” I asked the guide behind us as I inspected the scuffed skin of the brown-furred Kelton.

“He’s not there,” The black Kelton guard to my right said, his white eyes looking behind me with furrowed eyebrows.

The rest of us followed his gaze to the empty entrance into the tunnel. Irritation at being left behind coiled in my gut. I sucked in a deep breath to yell after the man. In the blink of an eye, the sound of rushing water filled the room. By the time my lips had changed to form new words, a wall of ocean reaching the ceiling surged into the room.

I immediately tried swimming to the top, perhaps helping the Keltons get rid of their armor as I did so, but then I noticed that the water wasn’t letting me move, either under my power or from its forceful entry. When the faint lights shifted a bit, I realized what this was.

Magic.

A few seconds of shifting oranges in the world of water passed before the liquid near my head pulled away. Releasing the held breath, I tried to look around. Aside from a tunnel around the front of my face showing grey rock and the occasional torch, the world was nothing besides murky distortion.

Cool water pressed against my body, filling any gaps in my coat, shirt, and pants. What I wasn’t feeling was panic. I could do nothing against a mage. Maybe if the ambush had been on the other end… Now, however, I could do nothing against their power.

Some faint suggestion that I should have gotten some magical protection from Eli came. The healing enchantment in my collar wouldn’t do any good against being diced into dozens of pieces. The crafts I had taken on the excursion to Mole Hill had been left…. I couldn’t remember. At the moment of probable death, all I felt was embarrassment that I had misplaced such treasures.

Unable to hear anything, the sudden scratch of poorly made rope on my wrists made me jolt. Given that the liquid cage had all the give of stone, a soft pain from scraping my shoulder against uncaring water was all I got for the movement. Pushing through the distraction, I tried wiggling my entire body. South of the thighs and upper half could be encased in metal bands for all they could move, but the midsection moved like sludge as the ropes pulled my arms behind me.

After my hands were snug to my backside, the water finally released its grip on me. I felt like I was in a waterfall for a second before solid stone slapped my soles. The former cage splashed around my thighs before pooling on the floor. Then it vanished into nothing almost as quickly as it came into the room.

The massive tunnel would no doubt merit a look if I could pull my eyes away from the woman a few feet in front of me. Wearing a leather jerkin with a white shirt and black pants, I had to say her poise more closely matched mine than Salamede’s or Nersa’s. Red hair reached the shoulders and the right hand at the sword on her hip was in the correct position for a quick pull. I would even say the sharp nose was pretty close to the one seen in mirrors and still ponds. Any potential companionship from such similarities was dispelled by the sour pull on her strong chin and the scowl revealing a missing tooth on the left side.

“Lady,” Our guide turned trapper said as he walked up behind me from the right. “Being so close to the green-”

The groveling words died with the slow turn of the woman towards him, sending his head downward in submission.

“Do I have a dick?” She asked in a whisper that could never be heard anywhere else but in a bare tunnel.

“Do-….” The man gulped. “No. Lady. Scion.”

“Well, the great ancestors did manage to fit that much in your skull,” She said with a hint of bitter-sweet anger. “Then, it stands to reason that they pose no threat of spreading my talent to their children. They can, however, give us the information needed to make Tilvor’s failures well known. The Keltons….”

Her green eyes regarded the goat-headed men behind me with indifference.

“Hmm,” The mage's pink lips puckered in deep thought for a second before she casually shrugged. “If they know something the Orc doesn’t, it will die with them. All of you, come.”

She turned around with the full assurance of unquestioned command. Our former guide was joined from behind us by a few other previously unseen men in red leather. When he pulled me ahead, any worries about tripping in mud subsided when I realized all the water had dissipated. There was no puddle around my feet and even my underwear was as dry as when I had gone down the hole.

The yawning tunnel stretched on for as far as could be seen until what I presumed to be the site of the wall collapse came into view. At the end was a thick grey curtain reaching down to what I wanted to say was a dozen and a half feet. Our captors kept us going until the disaster beyond the cloth revealed itself.

Jagged walls with uneven gouges in the rock surrounded a space around the size of a barn. Large, but too small for the opening into a major underground city. That was until it became apparent that the section at the front was mostly comprised of huge grey slabs that used to be above ground. All illuminated by lit torches stuck in odd spots along the wall.

I took a moment to consider what being here at the moment of collapse was like before looking elsewhere. However bad it looked, the stone building to the right seemed untouched.

It was as simple as anything more than a lean-to could be. No windows in the walls comprising a single floor or other furnishings could be seen on the thing barely large enough for three proper rooms. The long creak of wood and sudden sound of footsteps made it clear that a door was on the unseen side facing the rubble. Around the corner of the building came another red-leathered guard.

“What is it?” The red-haired mage demanded with no attempt at patience.

His bare face got a bit of sweat but he continued all the same.

“Fessel isn’t convinced he can get the plant scion to come but-”

A raised hand stopped him.

“Bring him here.” She commanded. The guard gave a light bow before shuffling back to the unseen door. The mage then motioned towards the building, which the guards promptly moved us towards. As one of the Keltons was pushed ahead of me, I noticed that they had been stripped of all their armor and weapons, which made it a bit easier when our backs were against the wall and squished together. The men watching over us stood a bit to the left, allowing the mage a full view of us.

Another swing of wood preceded another human coming around the corner, though this one had a metal helmet and chestplate. Bits of black hair flapped near his upper neck while a nervous chewing of lips above a strong chin made it clear that the presence of human mages didn’t set his heart at ease. Despite that, a steady breath came out of his sharp nose and green eyes brimmed with energy. He came up to the mage with heavy thuds from his leather boots, which the mage regarded with expectant silence.

“Tilvor has stayed away from this place at Kev’s pleading,” Fessel explained in a dull tone. “He’s familiar enough with the guards to know mine aren’t with the regular bunch. Sending Kev to fetch him is probably the best way to avoid suspicion.”

The woman puckered her lips at that.

“I suppose anything that brings him to the place he’s been kept away from will seem off. I do hope you know how hard it is to motivate a man as near to death as Kev.”

The armored guard did a light bow.

“I do. And I have the how of it.” Fessel implored.

She nodded before resuming an almost statue-like stillness.

The man went back inside and returned in a few seconds. This time he was accompanied by two of his fellows manhandling a rather mute Kev between them donned in a white shirt and black pants. His black hair was short now, though the matching beard and mustache were the same as always. Sweat dripped down his thin nose and cheeks, but his brown eyes told of determination.

“A final task,” The woman announced with all the friendliness of an executioner. “Tilvor. We need him here. You will fetch him.”

Kev looked unimpressed at the demand. Raising his eyebrows as if to say ‘Really?’ and sucking in his lips like the words only amused him. A vein throbbed in the woman’s forehead at the obstinate display. Fessel, however, moved between them.

“You die today,” He announced with a casual shrug. “That is a fact. The question is whether your…. Spawn joins you.”

The disdain in the man’s voice reverberated around the cave before cracking through Kev’s demeanor, whose lips immediately went white from the clenching of teeth.

“A member of the Watch will be seeing to his soon enough. They’re well trained in such arts and taking a small detour to visit that hovel you call home would be trivial. That is, of course, still a risk. A risk that isn’t worth potentially letting the bigger fish go. As long as we don’t have to take it. Will you force us to take it, Kev?”

Any resistance in the man melted away about halfway through. All they got was a numb nod, which the two accepted with smiles. Fessel opened his mouth, the words about to come out silenced by the swing of the unseen door.

It was hard to see the person coming around the corner with a hood up, but the green robes screamed expensive taste. Gold leaves embroidered up and down the cloth, wrapping around emerald gems sparkling in the torch's light.

“Did you say Kev has gotten him?” The man asked the scion with little of the usual deference.

“We’re fuc- sending for him. He’s getting ready to send for them now,” The woman stated slowly between gritted teeth as the man in question was dragged back towards the stone dwelling.

“It’s not like we don’t have time, Percy,” An unseen woman from the front of the house called. “The captain was quite happy to put us on the manifest after the coin we gave him. We’ll be off soon enough.”

“I know you lot aren’t used to actual toil,” The water mage hummed with a casual thumbing of her sword. “But I hope you’re aware that the woods aren’t streets with uneven stones. Don’t be so eager to start the trek after we’ve finished here.”

The two guards placed Kev to the right with a single brown-furred Kelton between us. His brown eyes were dead and an air of defeat hung about him as the mages bickered. An opportunity I took. Sending out a spirit connection, I moved it across the Kelton first.

‘Don’t move.’

The goat-man followed the order as I moved the unseen connection behind his head and towards the human’s shoulder.

‘Kev.’

My sudden intrusion into his mind only elicited a small sigh.

‘Who are these mages?’ I demanded.

‘The green-robed dick is a plant mage, while an earth caster also waits inside with two of my trusted men, Sally, and two other priests serving as architects. And three of Fessel’s guards for protection. The woman who brought you is a water scion. Not a ‘might be a’ scion like the plant mage either. She had a familiar who died at his hands.’

His head dipped down a bit as he finished. By all accounts, life had abandoned him and the feeling seemed mutual.

‘What’s this all about?’ I demanded, growing a bit more furious at his demeanor with each word.

‘The man we stole magic crafts from. That spy they mentioned found some of his crafts among the wreckage. Whatever animosity has come between these mages and Tilvor, they want to end it by shaming him for letting us get a few of his tools.’

His face turned up a bit as he gave me a small smile.

‘Not that I would ever blame you. It’s been good. My girl’s going to grow up and I’ve got another on the way. A good life overall, I think.’

‘They’re bringing him down here, right? That’s what they said.’ I demanded with a raise in pitch approaching panic. My chest heaved like I had run here while cold winter nipped at exposed skin.

Kev only gave me a sideways glance barely peeking between black locks.

‘Um, yes. I also remember what they said two minutes ago.’

The snide resignation in his voice sent a twitch through my right arm, the slap only stopped by the Kelton between us and its bonds.

‘Shut up!’ I growled in the spirit connection.

Thinking it over for a second, I crafted the words that would reveal as little as possible.

‘Kev, when you meet the plant mage start a spirit connection. Tell him about the trap then say ‘Gula said to kill everyone not tied up’. Do you understand?’

His head went straight up at that. Midnight eyebrows furrowed as the sound of the unseen door opening filled the cave. That look of skepticism finally sent my temper over the edge.

‘Kev, if you don’t do this I will spend the entirety of my death haunting your bloodline!’ The words were sent as loudly as my mind could make them.

A dubious look was all I got as two red-leathered men approached with matching armor and a breastplate for him. Before they pulled him away, the sense that he wasn’t going to follow my instructions was a bit too real for my taste. I stared hot murder at him as the messy black beard was pulled out of the leather armor being lowered over him and his chest encased in steel, those mud eyes never meeting mine.

The captain of the local guard was quickly looked over by Fessel, who nodded and sent him off with a small smile. Kev and his two captors went further to the right past the unseen section by the house. Echoing footsteps told of a tunnel somewhere in the hidden area, though our position lined up against the building left any curiosity unfulfilled.

“That’s why.” The woman mage expounded to Percy off to the right in full view of their hostages. Her left hand idly thumbed the sword’s pommel, more in irritation than threatening its use.

Realizing that an entire other conversation had happened while I was mind-screaming at Kev, I finally tuned into the mage's argument.

“Yes,” Percy scoffed as he threw up his hands, the dark tan of his arms being the first I had seen of him besides gaudy green robe. “Him being shamed about having the Orcs touch his crafts is certainly worse than a blade to the throat.”

Thick sarcasm dried up even as he continued.

“The man has no shame! No dignity or pride. Killing him outright is the best choice for everyone.”

The redhead took a step closer to him, her red eyebrows furrowed and smile thin.

“He is still a scion.” She announced.

Even with the face unseen, the sudden rise of the man’s shoulders and deep breathing made his emotions clear as the woman continued.

“Knowing she filched it from under his very nose, that he directly aided Garren’s bane,” She stopped for a second to nod towards me, “Will haunt him till his dying day. As his murder of Zanel will me.”

“Your decision to attack him after surrendering is-”

The redhead’s right hand shot forward like a whip, carrying her a bit past Fessel. It reached into the hood, pushing it back to reveal the black locks currently grasped between her fingers. Percy’s tan continued on the bits of exposed face and neck, doing nothing to conceal the quiver in his stubby chin.

“I DIDN’T ATTACK HIM!”

That almost feral scream reverberated around the cave, emphasizing the woman’s wild green eyes and gnashing snarl.

“He-,” She stopped for a moment to steady her breathing and tighten her grip on his hair. “Will suffer. He took the hole in his heart and fitted mine with it. This disgrace is the only true revenge I can give him in return. You may have freed me, but do not think that gives you the right to dictate our course.”

She pulled him a little closer, leaning his head to the left as she did so. The move exerted dominance yet the tone that followed was sweet enough to match her soft smile.

“This is between scions and all the weight of our station. Your insignificant grievances will be as satisfied as can be. We’re going to be heroes, Percy. We’re the ones who will uncover the flow of magical items into green hands. Such a disgraceful thing hasn’t happened in decades, at least to my knowledge.”

“Hmm,” He hummed in agreement, though his head stayed in place beneath her palm.

“When I get back to the Mist, I am going to dispatch spies to this pit. They will tell me every word of condemnation that falls on his head, every drop of spit that proper mages send his way. And when that crusty, withered, husk of a man shits his deathbed for the final time, I will do everything in my power to be there.

Are you going to deny me such satisfaction? Or will you bask in the glory to come and whatever promotion your bosses can throw at you?”

A full second of silence passed.

“Fine,” Percy spat out, the petulance of a child coming clear through.

The woman released her grip, allowing Percy to stand straight. He put his hands in the sleeves of the robe and turned away from the scion. Smooth cheekbones had a few flecks of sweat, though the brown eyes almost matching his skin didn’t deign to look my way.

Minutes passed before another human guard in almost blood-red leather came from the curtained entrance. The walk over brought him between the guards standing like statues off to the left, only springing to life to allow his passage. He regarded the scion with a smile and extended Percy the same courtesy when the robed man came back from the side of the house. His thick red beard and mop of hair were a lighter red than the woman’s, though his green eyes above protruding cheeks matched.

“Is it done?” Percy demanded with an indifferent gaze as he idled about on the right.

“Yes,” The newest arrival announced. “We’ll be long gone by the time the…. Ilk are discovered.”

The scion woman puckered her lips, looking the man up and down like he was a bug climbing onto her plate.

“Those Ilk came from your loins, did they not?” she asked with a not quite accusing tone.

A rough cough came from Fessel, who had been content to stand to the woman’s right and keep out of the mage's conversation.

“The Watch does what is needed,” Fessel’s voice announced. “You can’t spy among those who mate with Orcs without participating. He expunged the stain, so let’s focus on what’s next. What of the other members? Is there anyone else among the Orc’s men who could help us? Tilvor is going to the prison she was staying at and any help bringing him in will be appreciated.”

The red-haired man took a deep breath and released it as a cloud from his mouth.

“I don’t know who else is in the Watch. All we are provided is a single phrase to prove our association, which is rotated after a few years. Saying anything else about the plans-” His green eyes darted towards me and the Keltons, taking us in like we were rabid dogs in a cage. After that moment, he turned back. “Is needless.”

Fessel nodded with a bow that sent his short black hair cascading down.

Any further conversation died. I checked on the Keltons through spirit connections. None were hurt or had nothing else to say after asking me the same. Cold bit at my skin as the torches lining the walls could do nothing to hold back winter’s embrace. Minutes of staring at uncaring rock passed only interrupted by the crushing of rock beneath impatient feet from all present.

The woman had a small smile that grew with her skittishness. The smacking of her boots soon bounced off the walls as she started pacing in place. No fear or trepidation could be seen in the hard face, only excitement and anticipation in those green eyes. A bit of which showed in Percy, even if he stayed in place.

The mundane guards were likewise energized, thumbing their sword pommels and standing at full attention with spines of steel. Even I couldn’t keep my toes from curling and lips free from crushing teeth. We were all headed to the same place, with no one able to say precisely where this long wait ended.

When the first steps sounded off from the unseen corner of the cave, they landed with the weight of a falling mountain. The humiliated pirate immediately stood straight, her chin sticking out with the tongue swiping over her lips. Everyone else was likewise engaged, each smack of leather on stone demanding full attention.

Around the corner came Kev, looking dejected and resigned as his brown eyes lazily took in the room. Any interest I had in him vanished when the grey hair of my sister-wife finally showed around the corner. Eli’s green eyes, my green to be precise, shot back and forth above a brown cloth face covering. Anyone not familiar with his reluctance to show his face would assume it was due to keeping warm, something his thick leather coat with a white shirt and black pants helped sell.

Those emerald pools stopped dead when they fell on me. When there wasn’t an immediate cascade of magic blasting through the faces of everyone else present, I looked towards Kev on the quad mages left. He regarded me for only a second before turning back to Eli. And at that moment, I knew what my afterlife was going to be spent doing. If I couldn’t ensure the cur got there before I did, at least.

Her moment of triumph finally at hand, the water scion walked forward with a broad smile. The woman trekked up to me, seizing my left arm like I was a trophy kill before dragging her prize towards Eli.

“What is this, pirate scum?” My husband demanded through a growl.

“Your failure,” She announced with barely restrained glee. When we were just within arms reach of my husband, she brought us both to a stop. “This Orc slipped into your home and stole your magical crafts, which they’ve since put to use towards their ends. A shameful thing only caught by a member of the Watch who arrived at this wreck.”

Percy would not be denied his moment in this climax of the play. Walking forward with a kingly gait from the left, the smug smile on the man’s face held a lifetime satisfaction condensed into a single expression.

“Our magic has been sullied by you for the last time. As the representative of the Seed Association, I will expunge the stain you’ve put on the great plant element.” He pronounced. That voice filled the cave with a child’s joy.

The happiness in both mages' faces only emphasized the way I was shoved forward like a rotting animal to coat him in rancid stench. Eli clenched his jaw as I stopped two feet from him, refusing to look at me. Instead, he gave Percy a slightly puckered lip.

“The plant element deigned to allow you its use. I can pile no greater shame on it than that.”

All that confidence and joy disappeared in Percy’s face like sand dipped into a frothing river. His teeth ground together while bits of white colored his cheeks.

“Even now, Tilvor? At your lowest, you still brush all that I am aside?” The green-robed man demanded.

“Enough!” The woman put in. She spared only a scathing look for the enraged man before turning back towards her prize. “You’ve allowed Garren’s disease the use of your crafts. Aided in their survival through your carelessness. Lady Ashe will have her due from you if the other mages don’t exact justice before her turn.”

Eli continued with no acknowledgment of the male mages' suffering.

“I will not take this slander without proof.” He continued.

Red hair jostled with the woman's eager nod.

“And proof we have in abundance. This has all been put in letters wrapped around a craft in our great guard captain's quarters. So, it goes without saying, that any thoughts of killing your way out of this are pointless. If your creaking joints could even achieve that, of course.” She announced, almost skipping ahead of us towards the closed wooden door now revealed along the wall of the building.

Footsteps came up from behind, the familiar crunch of rock beneath boots filling my ears. I took the moment to check in on the Keltons before this charade continued. They looked as fine as hostages could be. When I began looking away, the brown-furred Kelton that had been between me and Kev opened his mouth. Time seemed to slow as I realized what kind of face the goat-man was making.

Whatever was coming out of his mouth, it required enough air to put his brown, curled horns up for a full-bodied yell. That, combined with the widening of white spheres of him and his fellows, made it clear that something was happening behind me. When my vision passed by the door, the Kelton’s scream finally rang out.

“Lord mage!”

By the time his shrill scream hit, my eyes were already taking in what his had. Percy had a silver dagger in hand, the sharp tip glinting in the torchlight. The hand holding it was already pulled back for a proper stab into Eli’s back.

Percy’s mean grin mixed with confusion at the goat man's scream, slowing his vengeful thrust. That half-second fumble was the only reason I got between him and Eli in time. My teeth gritted in preparation for the familiar pain as the knife slid into my right side. The scars littering my body were not received from bushes or the playful swipes of children, yet the searing agony above the hip was no less excruciating for all that experience.

Black eyebrows furrowed on the tan mage’s face. The red-haired member of the Watch to the left was likewise immobile, their green eyes looking between me and Eli. A dawning comprehension began to steal over the spy's face. Percy looked to be the first to say something, his mouth opening to deliver a world-shattering revelation.

The white-hot flash of fire that flew past me burned through his right leg like butter, keeping the words in his mouth forever after. More heat poured from behind me, like a bonfire that suddenly lit up. For my part, all I could feel was the lack of steadiness in my right leg. The world tilted as thin columns of flame engulfed my human captors to the left and further beyond.

Content to let the man with too many talents deal with it, I concentrated on facing upward when my right leg fully gave out. The only thing worse than being stabbed with a knife was landing on it immediately afterward. More heat. Lots of screaming. By the time hard rock finally hit my back, the smell of burning flesh filled the air.

I stared at the jagged ceiling for a second, allowing myself a second of idleness before looking around. All the humans were in states of crispiness. Looking directly left, I saw a pile of ash with bits of skeleton sticking out. The red-hot sword lying on top stuck out the most. Someone with a more artistic mind could probably explain in detail why the bone hand still wrapped around the pommel of charred leather was so haunting, but I was no such person. There were a few piles of charred mass and bits of smoking clothes by the door, now open to reveal a torch on the side illuminating the table and chairs inside.

Any further perusing was cut short as Eli lifted my head up with his right arm. Those green pools were filled with worry and the way he nestled me like a babe in his embrace, I had to admit it took a few seconds for me to realize the knife had been removed and a warmth was blooming from his left hand on my side.

“We have to stop meeting like this.” He mused, the face covering failing to hide the mirth around his eyes.

“Yeah, me saving you is getting a bit old.” I shot back, trying to keep how good it felt to have his arms around me out of my voice.

The smug joy in those green eyes said I didn’t succeed. Failing at that, I decided to change the subject. Shifting onto my right arm, Eli gave me a slight nod as he summoned a rock knife and went to work cutting through the ropes.

“Kev,” I announced to the empty room.

Slow footsteps came from somewhere above me. They were distinct from the ones further off behind me, which I placed as the Keltons coming over. When the leather boots came into view, I took a deep breath and then looked up.

Black hair only drew a starker contrast to the white skin on the guard's face, not that those thin cheeks had much blood to begin with. Those brown eyes were not starved, however, as they shot between me and the local mage of legend. Taking another lungful of air, I released it in a cough to draw his gaze firmly to me. He obliged with a sharp swing of his head that sent a bit of sweat down his sharp nose.

“Did you tell him?” I asked with a small smile.

“Um….” Kev bit his lower lip. It took a good second for him to shake his head.

My left leg connected with his shin before I could even decide how to react.

“Gula.”

The chiding voice of Eli stopped the leg's second swing.

“You idiot!” I hissed between gritted teeth.

Kev didn’t seem to register any of the abuse. His brown eyes resumed speeding back and forth between us. When the snap of cut ropes bounced across the rock walls, I lifted myself up onto my butt. Sitting there, a moment was taken to appreciate the pile of bone and charred muscle that was my attacker. Eli had not been precise with his flames, reducing this Percy fellow to bits of charred meat. The lofty origins of which were only shown in the bits of fine green cloth scattered about and still shining emeralds. An inner voice of greed told me to take the sparkling gems but I resisted with a heave off the floor.

On the left, my husband was freeing the goat-men while Kev kept up his impression of a white statue to the right. When the last ropes were undone by Eli’s rock shiv, I took another deep breath. This time my legs moved towards the only other human without violence.

“When I said ‘Tell him Gula says to kill them all’, did you think I was doing it for fun?” I demanded.

Color returned to his cheeks as he puckered his lips.

“I wasn't going to risk giving them a reason….You’re together?!” Kev almost whispered.

“I would have thought my message, the message that was supposed to save all our necks, made that clear,” I demanded between gritted teeth.

“A man with a family in danger is not a rational creature,” Eli extolled behind me.

Turning around, the Keltons were moving closer with hands rubbing red-ringed wrists. Eli was a bit off to the left, his green eyes taking us both in.

“But,” My husband continued with a pointed look at Kev. “The time for rationality has returned. Do we have any other guests coming?”

“No.” Kev said, “This is….Was a discrete meeting between the architects of the church, the human guard, and Gula. We were talking about….”

His awkward gulp echoed through the cave.

“Kev,” Eli asked patiently with a raised eyebrow. “Do you think it wasn’t immediately obvious to me what happened when the wall collapsed?”

The guard puckered his lips, thoughts churning through his skull so hard they were almost visible even without widening eyes and quickened breathing.

“Yeah,” Kev announced with a look to the floor. “I suppose it wasn’t just luck that Jerry saw your notes about the new governor’s aims.”

His head suddenly snapped to me in a flurry of black locks.

“Or that the plan to get his crafts succeeded.”

I puckered my lips to keep a smile down.

“The past is very interesting with new context,” Eli continued, drawing everyone back to him. “But the now has wrinkles that have to be addressed. Who else is around here?”

“There are two of my guys in the building and three members of the church. Two of those are architects looking to fix this place with more of your crafts. Which I suppose we can considering the one who made them is present.”

The guard had a hopeful tone, perhaps the first positive emotion he had felt all afternoon. He emphasized it with a look towards the building, though my husband was still thinking about other things.

“And you trust those men? With everyone’s lives? They weren’t killing off the captives yet, so they may have been waiting to reveal their status as spies.” Eli asked Kev with a puckered lip.

Brown eyes turned towards the quad mage with an enthusiastic nod.

“I’d like to say we were selected for our positions because of our skill. The truth is a large part of why I lead the guard, and they assist me, is because we’ve shown we’re not part of the Watch in the past. I survived a raid after the spies had run away and those two stopped one from killing their family.”

Eli looked towards me again. I had heard as much from the Orc guards and in gossip, so I nodded. This time, however, I followed it up with a questioning eyebrow. He was jumping a bit ahead, but a more important question needed answering.

“Is anyone else coming by?” I asked.

“No. There are Orc guards at the end of the tunnel and the men under Fessel you saw on the way here. Both sides think everything is fine. For an hour or two, at least.”

Eli furrowed his grey eyebrows, biting his tongue as his unfathomably old mind pondered the situation.

“I don’t like Fessel's men being so close. Killing them will be easy, but will any other guards come looking?”

“No,” Kev put in with a small shake. “The reason it was so easy to slip in here is because I’ve made it clear to the men that they are to avoid this area save those needed to scour for anything ambling in from the rocky plain. Any more than that draws the undead.”

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

The quad mage turned to the Keltons.

“Two of you get back in armor and watch the end of the tunnel. Kev and I will deal with the last of Fessel’s men.”

“And what about me?” I asked.

Eli nodded over toward the back of the building facing the rock. I followed his lead behind the building while the four others waited around with an awkward stillness. The smell of burnt flesh still hung in the air, growing a bit stronger as we walked over the ash piles and retreating slightly as we turned around the corner of the building.

It was a bare thing resembling a topless hallway, sporting only a jagged rock wall on the left bathed in a fire glow, the smooth surface of the building on the right with a window showering the opposite wall in light, and an empty space at the end. The second we were out of sight of the men, Eli did a turn around so sudden I nearly collided with him. Standing a few inches away from each other, the irritation in his green eyes and slight push on the face covering by puckered lips was now apparent, or at least finally being shown. The impression left me prepared for the electric sensation sent across my face.

‘Don’t do that again,’ Eli said, ‘If I get attacked in the future, try to shove me out of the way or…. Anything else.’

My eyebrows furrowed at the unexpected start to the conversation.

‘Don’t try to save you?’ I asked, too incredulous to be mad.

‘Try to, if you can. Getting yourself killed to do it? Absolutely not. Worst comes to worst, I would have had to heal myself while the pirate woman attacked hi-’

The violent shake of my head stopped him. My spine straightened into a steel bar while I let anger pucker my lips and nose flare with each breath.

‘My people need you, Eli. Far more than they ever will me.’ I countermanded while driving a single finger into his chest. ‘A single Orc isn’t important. The untold thousands of green women being ground into paste in this hellish world are what matter. More than our feelings or personal comfort, if that decision has to be made.’

He closed the gap between us, taking my hands in his and clasping them together inside his larger palms as he squeezed groping fingers around them.

‘You’re important to me. To Salamede and everyone else.’

A blade of warmth cut through bone and flesh to seize my heart. Not the kind that had seen to the mages around the corner but a comforting blaze pushing away the coldness on my skin and softening the ice that had etched into my soul from years on the battlefield as worthless fodder. Heavy breathing continued even as my lips trembled. Eli responded by pulling me into a full hug.

‘Mathematically, what you said is true.’ He continued in a patient tone while I stared into his leather jacket. ‘What we’re doing here has the potential to bring a level of prosperity previously unimaginable. The industries and technology we’re working to bring this world will save millions and bring about the food and housing to allow for the birth of billions more. Is that worth one person’s life? A single individual?

Yes.’

Eli pushed me a bit back, still keeping me in his embrace but now my world consisted of green eyes piercing me through.

‘Blade to my wife’s throat, can I say all those possibilities are worth more than her? Is the woman I’ve grown to love, who will one day bear my children, worth letting die for the sake of all the woulds and coulds of an unrealized vision?’

He probably meant to leave the question unanswered, but the subtle, seemingly unconscious shake of his head betrayed that intention.

‘That is not something any man should be asked.’

I bit my lip. Any effort to not register how good he felt around me failed yet again. Equally as shameful, the honeyed words sloshed through my ears without resistance. Raw love would not be denied, whatever frustration I was feeling at how illogical it was. I pressed myself against him, soaking in the moment before finally responding.

‘Then we best make sure it doesn’t come up again. Resolving the current situation will go a long way towards that.’

Whatever notion I had of pulling away for this conversation, my arms and legs voted against it.

‘I don’t think we should tell them everything,’ Eli put in as his arms wrapped around me more fully. ‘Just say we’re making a place for us to stay together since I don't think they can be convinced our relationship is purely one of mutual benefit.’

‘Them?’ I asked with a raised eyebrow at his right peck snuggled against my cheek. ‘Right now, it’s just Kev. Why not keep it at that? We can tell the others….something to keep them ignorant of our connection.’

‘If they hadn’t brought down my wall, I’d possibly agree. Sadly, just giving them the plans for this place has proven wanting. That doesn’t even touch the whole other problem surrounding this mess. Three mages and the replacement for the head of the guard are now spoken of in past tense. A story will need to be conjured and Kev working alone cannot explain these events to any satisfactory level.’

Right. A ball of panic dropped in my stomach as the enormity of the past few minutes came into view. A reluctant pull backward was the first answer I gave.

‘Ok,’ I said with an unsteady tone. ‘You deal with the remaining guards and I’ll get the people still tied up free. Assuming there isn’t anyone hostile inside.’

Eli shook his head, intentionally this time.

‘The earth mage and the last two guards inside were burned to a crisp.’

With that, we separated in a single step towards the group around the corner. When we made it back to the main floor of the cave, I was surprised to see how indifferent Kev seemed at our return. The Kelton men had since retrieved their stolen armor and waited off to the left.

“Kev, with me. Two of you guard the entrance to the tunnel while another helps Gula free those stuck inside.” Eli commanded the group.

None objected, least of all the only other human present who moved behind Eli like a nervous attendant as they walked into the mouth of a small tunnel to the right. One of the black-furred Keltons likewise followed me to the building. A single step over a pile of ash brought me into the bare room.

The rushed nature of the building became even more apparent when I realized the floor was the same bare rock outside. A single torch burned on the left wall near a window, illuminating the long table with seven plain wooden chairs in the center. Another was placed near a desk to the left. The flickering orange and red didn’t reveal any tied-up hostages. It did make it easier to see the door in the back left, however. I moved around the right of the table only to feel a hand on my left shoulder halfway to the door.

A turn around revealed the Kelton guard shaking his black-furred head and brown, curved horns. That was all I got before he pushed ahead, hand on the pommel of his sword with his other moving to take the door handle. He gave it a good yank, sending the wood slamming against the frame. The light push that followed revealed another room with no light. Some firelight flickered through but I couldn’t see anything inside from the angle save a bit of the left wall.

He took out a small dagger, making my hand fly to the sword not on my hip.

“You’re safe now.” He announced to the room before going in to leave me grasping at air.

The poorly lit closet produced the twang of cutting ropes for a few seconds before stumbling steps preceded a priest in a black dress and hood coming through. All her features were sharp, from the nose, chin, and cheeks, though her red eyes in black spheres were a bit wide from the sudden light. Her black robes were covered in dust yet the early 30’s woman didn’t seem too out of sorts, only regarding me with a questioning glance before shuffling to the side for the next survivor.

Shortly after, a rough man with a brown beard that matched his eyes and smooth cheeks walked out. He and his skinny, blonde fellow looked a little more out of sorts. Their red armor was covered in the same grey dust but the brown and green eyes immediately went to the exit door. There were bodies close to the entrance but they were blocked by the table. The lack of screams or pale faces said their vision was similarly obstructed even as they moved directly ahead closer to the wall.

The next was a smaller priest with ears so large and sharp they pocked out of the cowl. Old to the point that all her hair was black-flecked grey and the skin around the sharp nose and stubby chin was lined with wrinkles. Those red eyes had a rather sour look despite the rescue and lack of dust on her barely five-foot body.

“Being in such tight places has never agreed with me.” The older priest announced to the room before shuffling to my right.

“Oh, shut up!” The brown-haired man scoffed with a sour look “I’m the one who had a goblin plopped on them for an hour.”

I tried to cough louder than my laugh. The common insult for older Orcs was apparently a feature of the universe. Hearing it out of a human mouth, however, caught me off guard. My efforts drew the old priest's severe gaze on me.

“And what a poor chair he was.”

The man stood silent even as his human companion choked. Their jovial spirit was not shared by the younger priest, whose nervous demeanor cracked enough to allow an angry scowl.

“Is this a show by the mages? String us along with some false hope before crushing us like ants?” She demanded with a pointed look towards the open door.

As cruel as it was, I had some gratitude for the time they had to process their coming deaths. No hysterics, just four people wondering if the reality they had lived for the past hour was finally reaching its conclusion.

“No, you’re safe.”

A slight slouch in all their shoulders said almost as much as the relieved sighs. The nervous woman merely bit her lips, not quite accepting the good news.

“And how did that happen?” A familiar voice announced from the closet.

Sally stepped out with the Kelton, her black pants and white shirt looking disheveled with the black collar opened and hanging on her shoulder. She was trying to fix the dark band and wipe the dust off at the same time, yet her gold eyes still looked at me with unwavering attention.

“That will be explained.” I said as the goat man moved off to the left and out of sight “For now, just take a seat at the table and try to relax. You’ve all spent the last few hours waiting to die. Take a few minutes to collect yourselves, in proper chairs this time.”

That drew a smile from the older woman while the men were too busy moving to the right side of the table to notice. The priests were a bit slower, with….Bishop? The faintly remembered title danced on my tongue yet Sally moved towards the left side of the table all the same. Fortunately, the Kelton guard had the forethought to close the door after coming out as we mingled on the group's salvation.

I moved to the head of the table, taking up the seat closest to the door. On the way there, I noticed my sword by the desk. Probably a prize one of the human guards wanted. Sadly, swords made for poor sitting companions, so I made a mental note to pick it up on the way out as I plopped into the chair. The nervous priest sat on what was now my immediate right, with the older woman behind her and Sally at the last seat on the right. My immediate left was taken up by the brown-haired man with the blonde fellow sitting further behind.

The scrape of wood on stone to the left announced the Kelton’s theft of the desk chair. He dragged it to the table, filling the position opposite of me. When he finished and immediately moved away to stand at my right, every eye present made note of it. Whatever questions were present behind those gazes, they were fighting with the sudden realization that tomorrow would be coming for them and remained unspoken.

A small eternity passed in idle silence. When the nervous priest coughed once, the sound blared like an intruder barging in. A notion her colored cheeks and embarrassed expression only emphasized. It took only a minute after that before lips started puckering, matching eyes that flitted between me and the door with increasing impatience. Sally had since made herself presentable and seemed on the verge of saying something when a long creaking swing on the right announced the two humans' return.

“Sorry for the wait,” Kev announced to the room as he moved past my left and his men to sit at the last chair on the left before the one opposite of me.

Relief to finally get on with the proceedings showed on the priest's faces, even as they regarded the figure in a white shirt, leather jacket, and black pants walking by them, with particular attention being paid to the brown cloth face covering. The two ignorant men on the left went pale like death had come knocking a second time. Eli paid neither group much attention as he came up to the seat at the opposite end of the table and plopped down, making the two harried men flinch backward like they had been stung. A casual brush of his grey hair was all Eli got in before Sally finally spoke.

“And who might you be?” She asked wearily, looking him up and down with pensive lips.

Eli opened his mouth but it was the blonde man’s frantic words that made it out first.

“It’s him.” He croaked with panic unblemished by any attempt to disguise it.

The priests raised eyebrows at the interrupting man. It hit me that the guards would know what he looked like as they had probably been his escort at some point whereas these women had never so much laid eyes on him. Kev coughed into a leather-covered hand.

“The plant mage. The man whose wall you brought down.”

Red and gold eyes shot toward Eli with suspicion and fear. While they may have stood still as statues, the fresh beads of sweat rolling down their foreheads gave away the pounding hearts within. The skittish priest was heaving, her hands squeezing the arms of the chair with near-white knuckles. She showed how strong her grip was when she suddenly rose and brandished the furniture like a shield. Everyone turned to the scared woman moving back as she hefted the chair in front of her with its legs protruding towards the terror lying at the end of the table. Eli merely crossed his arms over his chest and huffed.

"If I meant you harm, you wouldn't have been given enough time to realize it. Nor would you have gotten so close to my domain." He stated with a small smile.

Whatever haze of panic and adrenaline the priest was under, the simplicity of that statement seemed to penetrate. Her feet stopped and the chair made into a weapon was slightly lowered. That didn't make the sweat on her face dry up or wide eyes shrink, but she stood still all the same.

"You...." The brown-bearded man started, those mud eyes shifting between the harried priest and the mage. "When we came up with that story about a craft taking out the wall, you knew it was a lie?"

The quad mage slightly nodded as he held the Orc's gaze.

“If you're going to lie to a mage in the future, don't make it involve crafts they made,” Eli instructed. “Introductions such as these are best given at the start of the relationship. Of course, polite society would probably have some things to say about me outright working with Orcs.”

"Oh?!" Kev asked, placing a red-leathered elbow on the table. "Have you been working with the Council before all this mayhem? Or was this a more recent affair?"

Sally gave the captain of the guard one sidelong scowl before returning her eyes to the quad mage. Her old companion, however, never wavered and got in the first words of the group.

“Work?” The small priest wheezed out. “You’ve been working with Orcs?”

I gave a light cough, interrupting the glares between Kev and Sally to turn their gazes on me.

“He has. You lot, specifically. That you were doing it in ignorance doesn’t change that fact.”

The nervous priest took a gulp so deep it was heard from her position off to the right while the others just sucked in their lips. Her nerves now a bit steady, the panicked woman put down the chair and brought it back to the table. She reluctantly sat down before looking at me.

“And y-you weren’t?” She asked with a clasp of her palms together. “In ignorance, I mean.”

My simple head shake made Sally’s chest heave with panicked breathing.

“Not in ignorance.” I offered with a pensive smile.

The Bishop shot straight up, sending her chair crashing into the floor.

“Yeah?” She snarled towards me, an unsteady crack in her voice as she bared teeth with furrowed grey eyebrows. “So all the food you’ve been selling has…. It’s all magically grown?”

I slowly nodded, making her bite her lip white.

“Not much of a smuggler if you just have to walk down the road.” She scoffed.

Gears turned in her mind for a second longer.

“A smuggler that got his crafts for us to use.”

I sat in silence, unable to find the words to diffuse the woman’s anger. The face of impotent rage contrasted with the amused demeanor of the captain of the local guard.

“So you knew? Right from the very start?” Kev asked Eli with a small smile peeking out from his black beard.

“Knew what, specifically?” Eli responded with a casual lean back into his chair. “That they would dig towards my domain and made sure the stone supporting the road between here and Crasden was large enough to support a tunnel? Or that it was they who brought my wall low? The latter, I assure you, was realized at the bridge.”

Flickers of impatience made me bite my lower lip. I was eager to get on to the portion of the conversation that would save all our lives, but a revelation like this demanded its own time.

The moment of irritation had distracted me from the fact that the two sides of the table were staring in opposite directions. While the men were looking at Eli with some relief, even a bit of joy from Kev, the Orcs were not similarly enthused in their inspection of me. Puckered lips and narrowed eyes regarded me with worry.

Sally had bits of sweat running down her forehead that the cramped closet and certain death hadn’t been able to produce. Some of which dripped off when she stalked towards me around the table with a right hand outstretched. The expected slap across the face or grab of the chin instead widened into an open palm that pulled up my shirt to grope the stomach beneath.

“Has your bleeding come at its regular time?” She demanded as her hand ran up and down my belly.

“Yes,” I offered with a forced smile.

“Ah.”

Eli's disappointed tone carried clear across the table, drawing amused looks from the men and rather severe scowls from the priest. Mine was a bit of both that emphasized the lean forward onto the table.

“What?” The quad mage offered with a shrug as he crossed his arms in front of him. “A love so pure, so viral, that not even Yook Root can stop it is a rather romantic notion.”

The women puckered lips at him, making Sally pull away to walk back to her seat. Picking it up off the ground, she placed it properly under the table before sitting in it. Her white-sleeved elbows rested on the table while some great struggle ran through the Bishop’s mind. Grey hair stuck to the forehead where sweat still gathered.

That nervous demeanor made it all the more surprising when her left hand suddenly went towards Eli’s. Not a blur but fast enough most would only react with their faces in time. Eli allowed the green hand to brush his with a raised eyebrow. Sally looked at him with wide eyes as they regarded each other and the realization that she was testing his reaction came later than I would have liked.

“Love? Romance?” Sally almost whispered to him. “Mage, are we worthy of such things in your eyes?”

“I’m sure some of you aren’t, but that’s for the same reasons as some humans aren’t,” Eli mused. “Otherwise, sure. As my wife will hopefully attest to with great enthusiasm.”

A bit of heat infused into my cheeks but no one was going to commit the effort to turn their necks towards me at this pivotal moment.

“And if we die, will that death be as sharp to your soul as a woman of your kind? Our pain, as offensive to your sense of decency as any humans?” Sally asked. There was no pleading in her voice, just the measured words of someone long used to speeches and careful debate.

“Yes,” Eli answered firmly.

Sally let loose a deep breath.

“Then why do you endanger us so? Surely you know what the humans will do if you’re discovered. What they will do to us. Our daughters. Is it worth risking all our lives just so you can have a nice little spot to rut?” Sally asked as calmly as the hint of anger in her voice would allow, at least until the end.

The ingratitude on display made my fist curl on the table. This time the sharp-faced priest noticed with a slight turn of her head, though she said nothing of it before looking back towards Sally.

Eli regarded the Bishop for a second that felt like minutes before he crossed his arms and broke the silence.

“When God spoke to King Solomon, he offered him whatever he desired as a reward for his good deeds. What was the young king’s answer? Wisdom. Not wealth, long life, or power. God, so pleased with his answer, gave him that and all the others besides. Because wisdom is the source of all good things. Tell me, lady of Christ, is wisdom angry? Is it quick to judge and slow to reason?”

Despite everything preceding it, a smile broke out above Sally’s sharp chin as her gold eyes tried to not look amused.

“You dare twist scripture against me, mage?”

The tips of another smile broke out above my husband’s brown cloth face covering, showing fully in his jade eyes.

“I have contorted text no more than Jesus did when he debated the Pharisees.”

It all sounded very sage and hinting at deeper meanings, but the poetry slid in and out of my ears with little comprehension. My ignorance of what they were saying didn’t leave me blind to how impressed the priests were, who now looked at him with an air of amusement and tolerance as his lecture continued.

“And what wisdom is there in refusing your only means of mortal salvation? I hope I don’t have to remind you what provided the impetus to start digging under my domain so recklessly.” Eli asked with a lean back into his chair.

Sally opened her mouth with some words on her tongue. They stopped for a moment, leaving her jaw agape. After a few seconds of cold silence, she finally spoke up.

“Even if we are crushed under the governor's plan, it would only be us. If you two are found, they will scour all the surrounding settlements for every Orc. No chances will be taken. And if she should conceive, it may spark a wider persecution against not just us landbound but also the Waveborn.”

Eli solemnly nodded as he rested his rested his left hand on the table.

“Whatever impression my bout of male pride may have given, we don’t intend to start a family for a while. But-”

“When?” The older priest on Sally’s left demanded with narrowed red eyes that made a spiderweb of wrinkles pull around her face.

I felt venomous words dance across my tongue and hands clench into fists yet again. Absorbing the situation was one thing, this circle of endless questions was quite another.

“A few years, at least. At a time when we are all more established.”

It was the blonde man who leaned forward this time.

“Do you have to make the child with Gula? Could you not take a few wenches from the local bars? Your bed would be full to bursting with opportunity for heir-making and no one would kill you for it.”

Surprisingly, it was the priests who looked the most offended at the idea. Their deadly glares made the man shirk back. Eli merely got a tight lip as he rejected the proposition.

“I’m afraid Gula must bear my child at some point. Love demands it and siring a small country of human children wouldn’t dull that need.”

He then turned back to the now more receptive women.

“As for endangering everyone else. I will ask you this; Has anything ever been gained by taking no risks?”

Sally took a deep breath, making sure to meet his gaze.

“Risk requires consent to be taken. We have no right to decide for hundreds of thousands of people.”

“No, it doesn’t,” I growled with a slap on the table, thin patience finally snapping. That sudden smack on wood drew everyone’s gaze to me. “Not everyone consented when the first Orcs dug beneath human cities and all the retaliation that might have followed. The risk to humanity from our existence didn’t come with their agreement.”

I made sure to scowl at the women, meeting their eyes as prickly thoughts and a guarded tongue were finally let loose.

“Risk?” I scoffed at Sally with a raise of my finger towards Eli. “He risked more than mere death to set this place up. You find out a mage is working to help our kind and all you do is scour for ways to be ungrateful. If you can’t find it in yourself to be useful, at least stop getting in the way of people who are.”

The women sat still with stiff expressions. A second passed before the elder priest huffed.

“A wife’s anger.” She stated with a smile. “But not unfounded. The ways of their bed are for a less pressing time. Am I to assume our former captors are also formerly living?”

Eli merely nodded, while Kev's black locks almost swirled with how vigorously his head bobbed up and down.

"A bigger question," The quad mage put in. "Is what they were doing before this meeting."

I nodded with the men glancing back at me before returning to Eli. Kev, as the leader of the guard, assumed his station by going first.

“They broke the water scion out of the mage prison with the help of the new guard, no doubt. Security is pretty lax at night but come morning…. It’s going to be a city-wide manhunt. Fessel told me that the other mages were supposed to be heading out on a ship specially marked as under the protection of the mage associations so that the pirates would know to not attack it and we were to set up extra guards along the dock to keep it safe. While keeping order on the harbor is part of our responsibilities, his insistence on having so many men on standby to thin our eyes here was quite clever. ”

I took a deep breath before adding what little I knew.

“They said something about bribing the captain and walking over land after all this. Though how they would take credit for revealing our stock of earth crafts isn’t clear.”

“They wouldn’t.” Kev put in with a puckering of his lips that pulled at his black beard. “Fessel would lay out the charges. Having it known that three mages who hated Tilvor had helped would only draw suspicion. My guess? They would tell the truth about the Watch member finding the crafts in the rubble and he took it to Fessel. The lie is that they concluded who it was taken from on their own and will only reveal the other mage’s help after it had been irrefutably established that Tilvor had indeed aided Orcs through neglect. I suppose that neglect proved to be the biggest lie, however.”

“And the pirates escape? How would they explain the coincidence?” Eli asked with a raise of his grey eyebrow.

Kev bit his lips, looking back and forth over the table before sucking in some air.

“No coincidence. They did it for protection. You're a scion and they broke the only other scion here out of prison so that they would have a chance of surviving your retribution. Once this gets out, no one will complain about what they did.” He speculated.

Eli nodded in agreement. It was at that moment that a terrible idea bloomed.

“Are there any messages sent out that we need to worry about? Could there be a hawk delivering the truth of these events right now?” I offered.

Kev’s look of skepticism eased my heart.

“The Watch doesn’t do written messages. Too easy to have the correspondence snatched. Fessel hasn’t sent any letters and doesn’t bother seeing as how all communication from here has to go out on boat. Not that there's much he has to say to the outside world. Everyone knows the game. He has all the authority on paper, but that paper is stored in drawers we fashioned. We built the station he works at and the house his head laid in. This wasn’t the first time some high and proper outsider came in to break the Orc shagging dredge into shape and it….”

A small laugh contorted his lips beneath black bush.

“Well, it might very well be the last time.”

Eli drummed his fingers on the table.

“In normal times, I could accept that. Revealing a mage helped the Orcs is anything but a normal day in the guard. The pirate wretch talked about having some evidence in Fessels’ quarters. We should assume he wasn’t content with just that for such an explosive accusation. That bribed captain probably also took on something besides two empty beds.”

Kev leaned forward a hair while his men put almost their entire torsos across the table.

“The captain? You imagine he handed off some parcel explaining these events?” The blonde man asked.

Eli bobbed his head back and forth.

“Or to some member of the local government we don’t know about. Being a mage, Percy probably lent him some assistance getting the word out in avenues and ears your kind couldn’t reach. There are too many ways for evidence to have been handed off. Even a single page explaining everything with an official seal could be the death of us all.”

The brown-haired man on my direct left huffed, sending a small cloud out of his beard.

“Fessel was an arrogant bastard. A dick like him has a member of the Watch give him an investigation that would send him shooting to the top and he’s going to leave anything to chance? Nah. I’d bet my life he’s probably left sent so many messages he’s had the boys running back and forth all day.”

“So,” Eli put in with a tired sigh. “Let’s assume the general story about me helping the Orcs through neglect is going to get out.”

A dead silence crept into the room while Eli stared at the ceiling for a solid minute, leaving us to languish in our own wranglings before he finally spoke.

“Hmm,” He hummed for a second before looking down towards Sally. “How many people are aware of the crafts you’ve been working with?”

Golden eyes bounced back and forth before Sally spoke.

“The council, which is three. The workers and select guards are about ten, including the Overseer of the mining operation. We have been strict in keeping them under the greatest secrecy.”

“If I gave you, say, fifty more, could you perhaps let that fact slip out among the human guard?”

Everyone at the table looked as lost as I was during the Solomon bit. Something which Eli sat upright and attempted to relieve.

“Percy and the Mountain Top representative were tasked to give me a hundred crafts to aid in the construction of my city. Right now, we should assume that someone with power will be reading a letter explaining this sordid story either now or in the weeks to come. The way to counteract this is to present a new story and make it bigger than the truth.

I’ll hand off fifty of those crafts I 'received' to you lot. You will explain to your superiors that they were acquired through the negligent security of those mages. When this fact gets out among the human guards, I’m sure some Watch spies will hear of it. This will present a new sequence of events; Realizing that they just destroyed Ashe’s grand project and any reputations they had spent their lives building, Percy and the earth caster forced Fessel to write these lies and freed the water scion to get in the good graces of the pirates who would be taking them in. The trip to which no one has any hope of tracking down.”

“That’s all?” The sharp-faced priest asked incredulously.“They lost FIFTY magic crafts? Like a child dropping a favored rock?”

Kev strummed his fingers on the table for a second in contemplation.

“Maybe.” He finally said “Moving a lot of goods is tricky. We could say they handed them off to some of my men, not realizing they weren’t a part of Fessel’s crew.” Black hair dipped towards the other two men with Kev’s bobbing head.

“Who could say otherwise?” The blonde man offered with a shrug. “People will have questions and doubts, but who could call us liars when we've got a cart full of magical wonder?”

That got a thoughtful nod from the old Orc.

“Having so many crafts will do wonders for our efforts here.”

“Speaking of,” Eli cut in. “I would like to see your plans for the excavation. It’s time we started working more closely, especially with how quickly you’ll be expanding after I’ve finished the new crafts.”

“We’re going to lie to everyone?” Sally asked with her first note of trepidation all night.

The other priests got an understanding frown. Eli leaned back into his chair with a deep breath, looking at her with sympathy in his green eyes.

“Some have said the first sin was Satan lying. I’m more inclined to say it was the pride and greed preceding the act that were the first true sins. Tell me, when you look them in the eyes and say things you know aren’t true, will you be proud of it? Are you doing it for your personal gain?”

Sally stared at him for a second before shaking her head.

“If someone asked where a vial of poison was, someone you knew was going to drop it in a well to kill thousands of people, would God look favorably upon you for telling them the truth?”

She sucked in her lips, chewing them before releasing them in a whisper.

“I….Don’t think so.”

Eli only nodded as he leaned forward.

“We can recite all of scripture from heart and lay plans of meticulous detail, but sometimes one must make the hard choice. For all that I have done and will do, I will explain to God why I did what I did and can only hope that he finds my justification satisfactory.”

This time the philosophy stuck in my skull. Having to defend how I lived my life to some higher power after death was so odd yet intriguing. A courtroom of the afterlife. Would I also have a perfect memory of everything? Because having to justify things I had no recollection of seemed unfair.

Sally stared at the table with golden eyes going back and forth. Her fingers strummed on the table as the battle raged on inside. When the clacking of nails finally stopped, she gave a slow nod that ended with a release of breath had the same finality as the men whose hearts my blade and arrows had pierced in a past life.

“Nersa and the rest will worry about using them, but I’ll make sure they understand it’s this or death.”

“For now,” Eli said, puncturing through the silence “There won’t be any lies but the plain sharing of information.”

With that, everyone got up. The guards went back out to retrieve their various pilfered items while I checked on the Keltons guarding the outside. They were fine and when I came back, various pages were scattered about the table, with Sally retrieving yet more from the desk’s drawers.

A quick look over them revealed a lot of numbers scattered about and various symbols whose meanings were totally lost on me. Content to sit back in my chair and watch Eli work his hands over the large papers with a crude pencil, idle boredom continued as the three other humans waited on my right by the door and the Kelton guard stood at attention to the left. Our uselessness only stopped when two words broke through the low grumblings of numbers.

“All right,” Eli announced to the room, looking at me and then the men. “This is to satisfaction. Crafts aren’t quickly molded into wood, no matter how simple they are. Kev, I’m going to be taking a rest tomorrow to get them finished, try your best to act surprised when the announcement for a lazy day comes.”

“You’ll be letting everyone take the day off?” The guard asked, looking a bit impressed as he rubbed the steel helmet under his left arm.

“If I can’t work, then no one else will. Well, the meals and cleaning still need doing but I’ll make it up to the support staff later. More importantly, coordinate with the priests on when to release the rumors. We need to make sure the Orcs are properly dug in before the Watch first hears of the fifty new crafts.”

The rest nodded before awkwardly getting up one by one. Eli hung a bit back to let the others, including the Kelton, leave the building. It ended with the nervous priest trudging out with an air of exhaustion. When the door behind me was closed with a terrified squeak from the sharp-faced priest probably realizing what the ash piles were, he walked up to me. I was getting ready to ask him something but Eli took my open mouth as an invitation. One he accepted with a quick side pull of his face covering.

His kiss was forceful, needy, and only matched in power by the manly hand pulling on my lower neck. I didn’t retreat and our duel continued for a few moments longer before he released me.

“I would say I’m sorry, but I’m not.” He offered with a smile that seemed to warm the winter air as the face covering was kept to the side.

His brutish affection agreed with me, though a coy smile and lean backward was all I’d give him.

“Apparently there’s many uses for my body you're rather unapologetic about. Even ones you said you wanted to hold off on.” I chided in a voice that hopefully didn’t sound too pleased.

A slight shrug was the only regret he showed. Even that small concession was undone by the smug smile above his strong chin.

“I can say one thing, but a twenty-or-so years old male body often says something very different. It’ll cool off around the early to mid-thirties. Though, I wasn’t making babies at those times. Even if that drive chills, I’ve found that I need you for other purposes.”

I raised my eyebrows in expectation of some new mission or great danger we would ride out to meet. When his eyes trembled a bit, my muscles tensed at what horror could make a man of such ability quake.

“I need to wake up with you in the mornings again,” He intoned like a dire prophecy. An askance look at him was forming but his hand gently placed along my left cheek had me leaning my head into it. “These nights are cold and all things need their companionship. With Kev now somewhat in the loop, it should be easy to have you visit me some nights or I you when the ship is in port.”

Trying to think about anything beyond how good his hand felt was hard yet one thought did push through.

“With Sally and the others involved, it may be even easier than that.”

He raised a grey eyebrow.

“I don’t remember if I told you, but the church wants to be the ones around you so that they can keep anyone from trying to snatch a child from you and bring all the destruction that would follow.”

“A small tunnel into my abode, then.” He mused.

The way his thumb idly rubbed my cheek, making my spine tingle with each stroke, kept me from continuing the conversation. After a second his hand fell away with a regretful look.

“I have fifty crafts due. We’ll have this conversation….properly in the future.”

Feeling a bit better from his affection, I got up and retrieved the sword from the desk while he held the door open for me. As I was fastening it back around my waist, I noticed how intently Eli was staring at the skin exposed to the chill. The slight drop of my pants revealing a bit more was purely a coincidence in getting my weapon in place. His eyes flared a bit as I finally stood straight and walked up to the doorway but he said nothing as I walked out into the open cave. Around the rock walls were the torches still dutifully giving off an orange glow. Their debris was spotted in black flecks sprinkled around the floor though the bits from charred bodies would need to be swept up.

Eli moved ahead of me with stone gloves to pick up the few weapons still laying about and placed them in a pile near the tunnel he had taken in. I saw the others standing off to the left near the building, with the humans near the building's wall and the Orcs a bit closer to the curtain. The priests looked on with pensive expressions that didn’t match the relieved men’s faces. None of them seemed to register my walk up to them nor did I attempt to make them. Seeing a mage work their divine blessing was something most never got to see once, at least not before dying from it.

Rings of water pooled out of nothing to surround the bodies. Even after learning how magic worked, there was still something offputting about how water stood upright for no reason. As they always did, the laws of the universe handed the reigns over to their better and the magic liquid sloshed over the dead with cracks and sizzles. All the corpses were brought into the center of the room in the same manner that I had arrived in. When a body arrived, they were dropped into the pile with a soggy splash from the release. By the time the next one came, the water had disappeared with whatever magic was keeping it present, allowing the newcomer to land on a dry bed.

“Careful,” Eli called back as the last bundle was placed down. “My fire crafts are from an old friend and it’s not always easy to control them.”

Ah, so that’s going to be the explanation for his fire element. Not that anyone here knew much about magic anyway.

A round of nods greeted him, lasting only a second before a great blaze suddenly engulfed the ashen piles. Burned bodies and bones quickly mixed with the ash, being helped along into oblivion with a pulverizing cube of summoned stone until nothing but black powder remained of the untold wealth and power of three mages. The magic-less members of the dust pile would never be mentioned in any retelling, as was tradition.

Eli conjured a ball of water, holding it above his hand as he plunged it into the pile. The black sphere was soon joined by a snake of water scrounging up any other bits of black mass before slipping into the ball. He then took a right past the building, apparently intending to send the remains somewhere off into the night sky.

When the last footstep could be heard going through the tunnel, Sally turned towards her two compatriots.

“Get ready for a big push to be near his house. Any thoughts of sharing the space around his abode are no longer worth considering. If for no other reason than we can’t afford to have anyone else rummaging around our back end.”

A bellow of laughter suddenly filled the cave. It was so pure I would call it childlike if not for the deep base. The brown-haired man was almost fully bent over on my left yet it did nothing to impede his cheery tone.

“Do you know?” He choked out with the last hearty laugh, his brown eyes brimming with tears. “Do you know how many years I’ve put up with my wife going on and on about how stupid the Christians are for crushing any attempt to get mages?”

The blonde man got a similar smile of mischief.

“It’s the opposite with Vera. Stupid woman almost got in a fistfight arguing with someone about how we can’t risk our daughters for a magical man's pulp. Love her, mind you, but she’s quite prickly on the subject. Who would have thought the Church would be the first ones to use a male mage.”

The three priests didn’t seem amused at the conversation happening a few feet away. Their faces of regal indifference held firm only until Kev sucked in his lips with a bemused look. Something that finally sent Sally over the edge.

“His COCK isn’t the point, now is it?” She growled with furious gold eyes.

“Sister!” The older priest scoffed, swatting her superior's side like a wayward pup.

All three men went wide-eyed, pulling back their heads like children who had just heard their first profanity. Even I raised my eyebrows at Sally’s darkening cheeks.

“Apologies, esteemed men of the guard,” The holy bishop intoned with borderline sarcasm and a slight bow, “My years as a barmaid have a habit of sneaking up on me now and then. But if the fine and delicate sensibilities so typical of your profession aren’t well suited for these coming events, I could perhaps bring more members of the clergy to fill in the gaps. Such-”

“No,” I stated firmly, drawing all eyes to me. “We’re not bringing anyone else into this.”

Sally shook her head.

“I’m the current bishop and these two are heads of the logistics and architectural department. We alone cannot pull off the needed moves without drawing questions from those outside the church, forget those within. To say nothing of having a direct connection to his house, as I assume you’ll want.

Cassie will likewise have to be brought in. Being the main overseer of coin means we’ll need her to help….tinker with records in case we should need some material aid from your husband. Besides which, her department will be the one closest to our main area, which is where Tilvor will be. The woman runs a tight business and getting anything in or out of her domain without her knowledge would be a fool’s hope. That is besides the fact that she’ll want to know what the plans for those girls she’s been giving you are.”

A pang of guilt at deceiving the kind woman came and went. Those kids were safer now than they ever were in the city. Whatever else was going to be said between us stopped when steps announced Eli’s return. His turn around the building was met without words, though the attention on him was no less intense or immediate than a king come to visit.

“Tilvor,” Sally put in with a small bow on my left. “If we are to go through with this, we will need to bring more of the priesthood in on the scheme.”

Eli didn’t immediately answer. Instead, he looked towards me with raised eyebrows that seemed to demand my opinion. I could only shrug at the unspoken question.

“Have you suffered any infiltration by the Watch?” He asked with a turn back to the Bishop.

“We’re all Orcs. Men who live with our kind don’t do it with the aim of chastity.”

The nervous-looking priest hummed, her gold eyes looking somewhere distant in the ceiling before coming back down.

“I believe a few men work in some of the churches out west. We had an older man a while back, but god has since brought him home.”

“Yes,” Sally said between gritted teeth, “For those present, however, it is all green women.”

“Sadly it is not only humans who might betray us.” Eli put in with a small smile. “I’ve heard that your church was quite opposed to hunting mages. Of course, there can be different reasons for reaching the same conclusion. Are there any who might object to not taking my seed now that it is possibly within reach?”

“No,” Sally reaffirmed with a head shake that her two fellows matched. “The hardest part will be convincing some of the sisters to go along with it. Giving them all the choice of everyone immediately being killed in the new governor's plan or possibly in the future will give us the best purchase. Still….”

Sally’s moment of hesitation finally ended with a pensive look towards me then back to Eli.

“After everything settles down, there is an argument to be made that killing you would be the safest route.”

Hairs on the back of my neck stood straight while Eli only slightly nodded. Surprisingly, it was Kev who spoke next. He had a grim frown and the looks of trepidation the men were giving the priests were not too different from the ones they had given Eli at his introduction.

“That rumor, about the injured mage in the slums. It’s true, then?” He asked with a bit of white seeping into his cheeks, matching his fellows.

Sally took a deep breath, only turning towards the guards with its release. Her face was stone with golden eyes brimming with a defiance that matched her snarling lips.

“The truth of what happened that night and to who is not a matter that would help anyone. And any more than that will not leave my tongue, even under the hottest pincers.”

We all took a moment to absorb the barely obscured admission. Eli didn’t linger, instead coughing into a fist.

“I would counter that the land this city is on belongs to me and no one else. If Ashe’s plan works, there won’t be too many people left in Crasden who would take command of this place with kindness.”

The Bishop did a slight bow, making her short, grey hair sway above the red shirt.

“I will make sure this fact is central in our discussion.”

With only a nod from Eli, we all walked towards the curtain blocking the cave from the rest of the tunnel. Kev followed behind with his two men in tow. Not to be left behind, I came up behind the column with my Kelton guard in attendance.

Crossing the cloth curtain revealed a long tube of stone wall, specked with flickering torches. The two Keltons keeping watch remained silent as the small procession went by, only moving when I came through.

“Hmm,” Eli mused, looking up and down the curved walls. “Decent. For a structure potentially facing erosion from the sea, I would recommend a special outer layer of stone with easily replaced bits that stick out to break waves. I’ll draw up some plans to be dropped off later. Right now, we need to get going. Do try to hold the workers off for a few minutes while I clean the mess left behind by our former hosts.”

A round of nods was all he got. My legs then made it known how objectionable this trip had been and the logistics for getting back reminded me of something.

“We were led here,” I announced to the group. “Seeing as they’re no longer living, we’ll need another to see us over the stone fields.”

Kev looked towards the blonde man, who nodded back. Our new guide then broke out of the line and walked along the left of the tunnel while others stuck to the center. Making it to the crude opening where we had been kidnapped came far quicker than expected. An unfortunate thing, as Eli had made his way to my side during the walk. He took our time together to sneak a groping palm in or give a loving rub along my sides and arms. The only thing keeping me from scolding his lecherous dealings was the possibility that it would work.

Arriving at the hole in the tunnel wall, our little group split. It was dark in the cave, with only bits of flickering flame showing the contours of the hole and faint starlight above where we had dropped down. Eli fashioned a crude stairs for us to walk up into the night sky. When the blonde man and the last Kelton had vacated the cave, I turned to Eli waiting on my left by the stairs.

I didn’t know what to say, despite the massage I had received on the way here. No thought or decision was made when my hand moved his cloth mouth covering aside while my head moved forward. Lips puckered for a kiss, I was about halfway there when some notion that I should let the man make the first move sprouted.

It would have been so romantic if I hadn’t fumbled the move into an awkward head bob that suddenly pulled up short. Eli was not so uncertain in his desires. Strong hands grabbed my hips with a pull, closing the space that had been between us. Any thoughts about how he felt against my chest, thighs, or stomach evaporated as Eli also closed the space between his tongue and mine.

Warm buzzing ran up my spine, matching his hands trailing over it. Seconds passed too soon until Eli broke the kiss. Iron willpower, hardened by years of fighting for life and death, only just stopped the left hand from reaching to pull his head back into position. We stood there panting away the chill winter air, pressed together tighter than any rope or steel band could manage.

"I didn't see any marks from your crafts on the bodies or walls." He whispered with a soft blow on my left ear.

Hair stood straight on my neck. Eli followed it up with a soft kiss on my cheek. I was quite grateful the embarrassment at what I had to say blotted out the groan of pleasure fighting for release.

"I put them down. Somewhere. Probably in a drawer or rack back at the Base."

If the absence of such unfathomable treasures upset the most powerful man in the world, his groping palm on my left breast didn't squeeze hard enough to make me feel it.

"We will have to make some that aren't so easily displaced. Ones....Form fitting enough that you won't be inconvenienced by having them on in the day-to-day toil." He offered in between kisses down my neck.

My jaw opened of its own will to finally give him the moan he clearly wanted. I was only saved by the smack of rock against rock from the right. Our eyes drew to the pebbles tumbling down the stairs, courtesy of the men waiting above.

Grasping palms released my skin to the bitter chill. Eli pulled back about a step to take me in like a piece of art. His bit lip and heaving chest sent fire into my ears and cheeks, this time accomplished without him using any magic. Obligations, however, pulled me further away.

“Love you,” I offered with a step onto the crude stairs.

“Same,” He responded with a small smile.

My foot smacked against the side of the step, forcing me to choose between walking up or continuing to look at Eli. A sour smile played across my lips when the quad mage pulled the face covering back into place and started working his hands over the wall. Taking the turn around took a moment, though the call of fresh air helped make the walk up easier. Two hands reached down through the hole to pull me up, which I accepted from the two goat-headed men.

For a weightless moment, the stars rushed up to greet me before rock crunched beneath my feet. A solid mass of stone behind me stretched on in my peripheral vision. Its projection of strength and power undone by the rubble further ahead to the left where it met the larger wall of the main settlement.

“This way, Gula.” The blonde man said with a look to the right, “Or should I say, Lady Laperict.”

I didn't attempt to keep a smile down. Looking backward, the hole I had just been pulled out of was now smooth stone. A crunch further ahead announced our guide's departure, which I reluctantly turned to follow. The Keltons dispersed around me as we trudged behind the guardsmen like ducklings.

Bitter cold blew over the endless rocks and through my coat to rub away any warmth still lingering from Eli. Leaving this place proved worse than coming. Moving around rocks demanded constant attention yet thoughts of people and places elsewhere barely allowed for anything else. So much had happened in less than an hour. Years of future moves and plans had to be decided in less time than I took to get breakfast and a shower.

We had prepared for the worst possibilities and no obvious faults presented themselves to me. For all that, I still couldn’t stop the ball of worry churning in my gut. About halfway back to the ship, I decided to focus on how I was freezing to death. My Kelton sailors said we should pass winter's peak for the far north soon or had already done so. The bitter ice working its way into every crevice and bit of exposed skin didn’t seem to agree.

As the complaints in my legs were starting to work their way to my tongue, we finally made it to a recognizable stretch of path that experience placed between the hidden entrance and the ship. The human led us off to the right and after a short walk endless rock gave way to a shore of equally limitless sea, complete with a boat of sailors wading onto land.

“It appears we’ve finished here,” The blonde man said, standing in attendance off to the left. “However, I just wanted to say….thanks.”

He emphasized the words with a deep bow that didn’t hinder the rest of his speech.

“Whatever happens or reasons you have, I’m sure it would have been easier to just live out in the woods with no care for our fates. Though they may not know it, my children and beloved owe you their lives in more ways than they will probably ever know. So, I thank you for them even if they don’t.”

I gave him a small nod, stuck between wanting to get onto the boat and not brushing aside his gratitude. He did not linger, however. The instant the boat hit the rocky shore, our human guide made a turn toward the field of boulders we just vacated. Clambering along the rocks dulled by the waves, tired legs managed to get me into the wooden vessel before the men rowing it could help me in. Our only injury in departing was the black-furred Keltons left leg, which made an intimate acquaintance with the freezing sea up to his groin. Squelching shoes were barely heard over the smacking of waves as our escort rowed us out to sea, plying their trade in cold winter’s night without a word of complaint.

It was a cramped trip with so many present, only made bearable by how quick the mass of wood among the waves approached. In what felt like a few minutes, our dingy was being hoisted up the side of its mother with ropes tied to hoops on both ends. The instant we made it up over the lisp of the deck, I looked around for the leathery face of the second-in-command. When all I found was a small mix of regular crewmen, I coughed to clear my throat.

“Someone get Geoff to my office,” I announced to the few lookouts still scattered about the ship. An iron grip on the right side of the boat held firm as we angled into place towards the left. The instant our boat stopped moving, I hopped out onto the floating mansion. The jump nearly sent me into a guardrail on the left, but no thought of injury came. This long night left the bed up the stairs calling me and there wasn’t a shred of resistance in the sore feet, cold skin, and tired mind currently defining my existence.

Walking up the wooden steps only made the pain sharper until I hobbled through the double doors leading into my office. No attention was paid to anything save the red blankets of the bed to the left, which I promptly scurried towards as fast I could while undoing the sword holster. The instant my butt hit the bed’s softness, I released a long sigh of relief that followed my placement of the weapon against the bed. Getting the shoes off took a bit of hard tugging, but soon sore feet were chilling in freezing air before being shoved beneath the blankets with the rest of me.

Aches in my joints and soles cried in relief with the pull of the sheets up to my neck. Laying there felt magnificent. Even when the old leathery-skinned man came through the doors, I barely paid him any attention, instead closing my eyes to try and prepare my brain for sleep.

“Captain?” Asked the black void.

“The priests and most of the human guards know we’re working with Eli,” I answered with a small shift sideways in the sheets.

A sharp intake of breath cut through the crashing waves.

“How did they react to a new ultimate mage?” Abyss inquired.

“They know we’re working with Eli, who we will call Tilvor Laperict. As far as they’re aware, he’s a plant scion whose trying to establish a place for me and him to hold up in. They don’t know about the Base, our real long term plan, or our connection to Salamede. Tell the crew these facts and that they should be as silent as possible about this situation, especially around our young recruits.”

“The last I’ve already beaten into their heads. Night, Captain,” The nothingness said before the long creak of a closing door filled the air.

Sleep came almost immediately to wipe away all aches and pains.

The morning was better and worse than expected. While the bed was more comfortable than my land-bound one, washing and cleaning were trudged through with a warm bowl of water and rag. A quick brushing of teeth followed by a breakfast of fish soup got me back in the mood to look over more orders and messages. Cold air slipped through my white shirt and brown pants, now unobstructed by the red coat being washed in a pan with the rest of the dirty clothes. Not that the frantic energy in me cared.

*Knock*

*Slam*

*Knock*

A few choice curses rolled on my tongue before being forced back down.

“Come in,” I shouted to the impatient intrusion.

Placing the page off to the right, the guess of who would be so impudently slamming on my door proved correct as a plump priest came through. Cassie’s hair was all tucked into her head covering of black cloth with inner white. Her plump body beneath the black dress contrasted with Sally’s thin frame covered in a white shirt, black coat, and dark pants behind her. Their eyes also provided an immediate distinction. Golden fury boiled in Cassie's eyes to the point the mole under her left eye was unseen while Sally’s gold irises looked tired.

Despite that demeanor of exhaustion, she was quick to close the door behind her companion who was slowly stalking up to the desk. The portly woman came about a foot to the desk, standing in front of me with a heavy breath. Her small mouth puckered and her hands squeezed like she would very much like to strike me. Instead, she let venom-tipped words land the first blow.

“Do you have anything you want to share?” She hissed out between gritted teeth.

“I remember-”

“Before we draw blades,” Sally interrupted with a step to the left of Cassie to stand between us like a mediator. “We need to establish some things.”

A murderous look from Cassie only made her stick a sharp chin out.

“He is not using them for spreading magical talent.”

“Yet,” Cassie growled with a raised finger before turning to me with a louder voice. “Perhaps when the fruit has ripened a bit he’ll have a good time plucking-”

A hand slammed onto the oak desk. It took the pain in my palm to realize that it was mine, not that I much cared. The hair on the back of my neck rose with the rest of my body out of the chair.

“Be VERY careful about what you say next.” I hissed back.

“Cassie!,” Sally whispered, “We don’t want the crew hearing-”

Golden eyes looked away from the plump priest before slowly turning to the wall. She stood there in silence, taking in the woodwork directly ahead. Even her companion stopped brooding to give a questioning raise of an eyebrow. The slow turn of her head towards me with a stone face didn’t make it immediately apparent she was still breathing. A long release of clouds from her lips answered that question and the words that followed carried a shocked tremor.

“Gula. Is the entire crew….Aware?”

Cassie’s eyebrows shot up with a quick head snap to me.

“Yes. And each would be equally upset to hear you speaking of him in such a way.”

The plump priest puckered her lips. Her dour expression only made the slight relief in Sally’s face more pronounced.

“Well,” The bishop announced with a turn to her companion. “At least we know his appeal is not just a girl's whimsy.”

Cassie’s golden eyes were still fiery but the tight jaw relaxed with the rest of her face enough to show the mole beneath her left eye.

“Power obscures many failings. Things that may not be suitable for growing girls to flourish in. Not-” She put an open hand to me. “Just in the crassest ways either. We could be handing them off to a personal cult centered on an old mage.”

I took a deep breath, pulling back the anger trying to push past my lips.

“And that power is why you entrusted them to us in the first place,” I said, drawing the two gazes towards me. “If we had come in on a shoddy dingy held together with string and tar, would you have handed them over? Before you start indulging in panicked ideas of what those girls being here means, I would remind you that their stay here wasn’t my idea.”

Sally turned towards her companion with an expectant raise of her eyebrow. Cassie at least had the shame to look downward.

“I remember you begging her to take on more, but is it true having the orphans brought here started with you?” The bishop asked softly.

“Yes,” The plump priest almost whispered. Rather than getting angry, Sally put a firm hand on her friend's left shoulder.

“Do we have anywhere else to put them?”

Cassie stood still for a moment, staring down at the floor. When the shake of her head came, it was so slight I almost placed it as a movement of the ship. Sally nodded with a knowing sigh.

“I allowed your visit to help lessen the poison in your soul over this issue. We’re now in the territory of directionless anger, another malady of the spirit. Do you have anything else you would like to say? Something that might change the decision you already made.” Sally consoled with a stern look one often had for a wayward child.

It took only a moment for the plump face to turn up to me. Her soft features clashed with the hard look in those golden eyes.

“Your husband seems to be our only hope. Are his shoulders up to carrying almost everyone in Crasden?”

“His arms are strong enough for anything this place could throw at him.”

Bemused smiles broke out on the women’s faces. I didn’t dignify their expressions with a rebuttal or embarrassment. Instead, I slid back into my chair and meshed my fingers together my stomach.

“You should be happy,” I declared. Their response of raised eyebrows didn’t stop me.

“We are wed and that means our times together aren’t tainted by f-”

The half-remembered word struggled to form on my tongue.

“Fornication. And isn’t that what really matters? The purity of our souls?”

Cassie puckered her lips. Sally stalked forward with a scowl and golden eyes trying to be angry.

“Listen, whelp,” She scolded with a pointed finger at me “I am the Bishop of Crasden. I put in the work at Sunday School when I was a pup. This is the second time in as many days that the bible has been wielded against me, and by God, I’ve had quite enough of it.”

“Oh? Who was the other?” Cassie asked with a folding of her hands together in black sleeves.

“The mage!” Sally scoffed in exasperation. Her exaggerated eye roll forced the hint of a smile onto Cassie's reluctant face. “When we first found out, we were furious. Then he mentioned King Solomon asking for wisdom. About how it’s slow to anger and such.”

The bishop’s hands clenching into fists made Cassie bite her lip.

“Of course, I asked if he was going to use scripture against three priests. And you know what the cur says?! ‘I twist scripture no more than Jesus did against the PHARISEES.’ Uh!”

“What a terror!” Cassie extolled with a grin pushing out any bit of anger left on her face.

“It was devastating,” Sally scoffed. “I can only offer a prayer for the poor soul that had to instruct him growing up.”

“That is the least of his talents,” I cut in, drawing both their gazes.

Cassie was a bit more relaxed now as Sally stood patiently off to the right, though she wasn't the object of my current speech.

“You sent me those kids because I had the resources to provide for them and judgment that you trusted.”

Her plump lips moved like they wanted to say something but she couldn’t find the words, so I did.

“You relied on my judgment when you put them under my care, even if my ship and food is what first attracted you. Otherwise, you would have had them come back after every meal.”

Shoulders beneath black dress sagged and a low breath slipped between her lips. The deflation of her spirit was so total that even her rounded frame seemed to shrink inward.

“Those same instincts are saying we should trust Tilvor.” I offered in earnest truth with a cough before continuing.

“And I assure you that we worked together before our bodies became entangled and I can be hard with him when needed if some concerns about being led about by lust is any concern to you.” I half-lied.

There was no way I could be objective when it came to the man resembling my girlhood dreams of a husband, who made my heart pound like a days run, and whose molding hands I yearned for.

If either of them detected any deception, they made no fuss about it before slowly nodding with a slight heave of the ship. Cassie’s long sigh was partially obscured by the crashing wave outside, but her next words came through clearly.

“The decision is made then.” She said with the resignation of an execution before turning to Sally. “We’ll need to bring at least two more from the department in on the big secret.”

The bishop nodded.

“Not as many as I feared.” She stated with a turn back to me.

With nothing left to say the two did a light bow, which I returned with a slight bob of my head. Their turn and exit was a billow of black cloth that let in a gust of biting wind when they opened the doors. I grit my teeth as the intrusion of the outside lasted barely a second longer before the doors were again sealed shut.

A long release of air escaped my lips. So many plans spanning years and decades had been woven or changed in a single night. Even as I returned to my work among missives and invoices, it was hard to ignore the sense of momentum. For the rest of the day, urgency coursed through my signatures for shipments, I broke my routine by personally overseeing the onboarding of cargo, and meals were washed down without tasting the ale or food.

Frantic energy poured into every boring task the day gave me. The crew didn’t know everything about last night, but I was certain they picked up on my anxiousness. No one said anything in earshot nor did Geoff confront me, leaving me to stew in an adrenaline rush that seemed to rise and fall throughout the day while never fully fading. When the only light left was from torches and the blur of toil and pent-up anxiety ended with me face down on a pillow, sleep seemed to be a far-off thing. Even laying in bed made blood pulse in my ears until finally, mercifully, exhaustion had its due and black void scattered the worries coursing through my brain.