“Now that we’re getting close, what’s the plan when we get out of the mountains?”

Mitchell looked at Allora, who was finishing some of her rations around the small fire they had built to keep warm. While the temperature had warmed considerably in the last two days of their descent, they were still at high altitude and the nights remained cold.

“I will need to get to Gilriel’s cabin in the Shadow Glen. She has the rest of my gear. I do not yet know where we are, but I saw the Orna from the overlook before. I think we need to go north out of the mountains. Maybe another four or five days travel overland. Possibly less.”

“Who is Gilriel?” Lethelin inquired, already half asleep with her back against the cave wall.

“She was an Onyx Knight once. Many years ago, before I was born. I think it was around the time Baylor was bonded with Awen. Something happened that caused her to retire, which is almost never done, but she would not talk about it. She left for a life of seclusion.”

“How old is she?” Mitchell asked.

“I am not sure, but at least a hundred and twenty. Possibly older. I did not know of her existence from my time at the palace.”

Mitchell’s eyes went wide.

“And she’s still alive?”

Allora cocked her head at him.

“Of course she is. She’s an elf. They can live two or three centuries, usually. It is said that on our home world we could live a thousand years or more, but that is not possible here. I am unsure if it was even possible there. It may just be a legend.”

“Wait, how old are you?”

Mitchell suddenly felt like he had missed a major part about the people here. Granted, the stories of elves on Earth in the fantasy book said they were long-lived but he honestly hadn’t even thought about that with Allora. She appeared so human except for the ears and the strange tilt to her eyes.

“I am twenty-one high suns old,” she told him. “Still a baby among my kind. For comparison, the assassin we fought was, I suspect, close to one hundred and fifty years old.”

“So, you could live for centuries more?”

Allora nodded.

“It’s really not fair,” Lethelin said from across the campfire. “And they look amazing as they age. They hardly get wrinkles at all until they’re dead, and you never see a bald elf.”

“We get wrinkles,” Allora corrected, “but just at a much slower rate than most of the other mortal races. The gnomes are also extremely long-lived, as well as the dwarves.”

“Yeah, but they’re born looking old,” Lethelin said with a sulk. “I don’t want to look all ancient and corpsified while you still look like an Iletishian flower maiden!”

The name caught Mitchell’s attention.

“What is an Iletishian flower maiden? I’ve heard that before.”

They both looked at him and Lethelin gave a lascivious grin.

“Do you want to tell him?” the thief asked Allora.

Allora gave a small smile and shook her head knowingly.

“Flower maidens are women of the personal harem of the Lord and Lady of Iletish. They are selected at a young age and trained in the arts of pleasure and seduction.”

Lethelin jumped in.

“It’s said that the most skilled can bring their partner to such heights of sexual pleasure that they can kill them. Their hearts just explode!”

Mitchell’s eyes went wide at that.

“Is that even possible?”

Allora shrugged.

“I do not know. But regardless, their skills are legendary. They are sometimes used in matters of state, given as presents to nobles or dignitaries, to help aid in negotiations.”

“So they’re sex slaves?”

Allora and Lethelin both looked shocked at the suggestion.

“Absolutely not. Iletish tolerates no slavery within its borders.” Allora answered firmly. “None of the seven kingdoms do.”

“Well…” Lethelin added slowly.

A sour look crossed Allora’s face.

“There is one,” the knight amended. “The Tilsins.”

Lethelin shuddered at the name.

“Who are they?”

“They are a reptilian race,” Allora began. “They prefer to live in the damp swampland far to the southeast. Their culture is barbaric and cruel. Delegations sent there to establish relations with their people never returned, and eventually the other kingdoms stopped trying.”

“After the war against the dragons, all the new kingdoms outlawed slavery in any form,” Lethelin explained. “But the Tilsins never did. They’re savage creatures that eat their own dead.”

“That has never been confirmed,” Allora said pointedly. “We know nothing of their funeral practices. Do not engage in wild speculation.”

Lethelin visibly bristled at the dismissal.

“Yeah, but–”

“Anyway,” Mitchell cut her off before this escalated into another one of their petty arguments. “You were telling me about the flower maidens?”

“Oh, yes,” Allora blinked and looked like she was trying to reign in her own instinctual desire to argue with the thief. “The maidens are not slaves. They are offered the choice twice to leave the service of the royal house. When they are first invited into training at eleven high suns, they can refuse. And once again upon completion of their training at nineteen high suns. But if they agree to remain in the service of the royal house, it is often a lifetime commitment unless the Lord or Lady releases them. Which does happen on occasion. But rarely does one of the girls refuse either offer. It is considered an honor, and the girl’s family is also given a healthy stipend as a reward for their daughter’s service.”

“What if they no longer want to be members of the harem?” Mitchell asked. It still sounded uncomfortably close to slavery to him.

“As they age, they are often put into advisory positions, or given other duties suited to their skills outside the bedchamber. All of them are highly educated and all are capable diplomats, negotiators, and educators. They will never be without employment. They are well respected and highly sought after.”

Mitchell thought about it. They were basically courtesans.

“What about men? Are there flower men?”

Allora nodded.

“There are. But they are not called flower men. They are called Varnars.”

“It means polished spear tip,” Lethelin giggled. “Basically, they’re called cocks!”

Allora grinned as well.

“They are not as sought after as the women, but their skills are also legendary.”

“That’s wild,” Mitchell said.

This world was filled with so many things that he didn’t know about. It wasn’t just that he didn’t know about them. It was that he didn’t even know what to ask. How did one condense an entire lifetime of knowledge about the different races, cultures, and practices into a handful of questions? How was Mitchell supposed to navigate this world?

He looked at Allora and Lethelin who had moved on in the conversation and were discussing strategies on getting to Gilriel’s undetected. They wanted to try and avoid being seen by any of the mercenary patrols, given that Allora’s description was well known to all of them.

Mitchell thought about what the elf had told him. She would likely live for centuries after he died. She wouldn’t even be middle-aged as her people measured such things. What kind of life would they have if he got his wish to be with her, and he became old and feeble while she was still young and powerful. What would that do to both of them? Was he being selfish to even want a relationship with her? Maybe elf and human couplings were shunned here for precisely that reason. He remembered the scene from the Lord of the Rings movie where Arwen told Aragon that she would give up her immortal life to be with him and wondered if that sometimes happened here. It felt to Mitchell like he’d just realized he was the butt of some cruel joke. He was quiet for so long that the women noticed.

“Is everything alright, Mitchell?” Allora asked.

“Hmm? No, it’s okay. I’m just tired.”

How could he tell her that he couldn’t get the image of her remaining young and beautiful while his body was old and broken out of his head?

Allora nodded.

“I will take first watch,” she told him. “You can rest.”

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Mitchell nodded mutely and began to unpack his bedroll.

***

“Do you hear that?”

At Allora’s words, Mitchell looked up from the ground where he was attempting to navigate a bit of scree as he tried to walk down the slope without losing his feet. Lethelin stopped as well and they all listened.

“I don’t hear anything,” Lethelin called up from the rear.

Mitchell wasn’t sure. He strained to hear what Allora thought she heard. Her senses were sharper than a human’s, although she told him the heart stone made some changes to his body that would give him better senses as well. He quieted his breathing and tried to focus. Then he heard it.

Through a pause in the sounds of the wind, he detected a faint cry coming from where the slope reconnected with their path between some rocks.

“What is that?” he asked.

“What’s what?” Lethelin demanded. “I don’t hear anything.”

Instead of answering, she pulled her sword from its sheath. Mitchell, trusting her instincts, did the same.

“Balls,” Lethelin swore quietly from the back and took out Mira while pulling up the hood of her cloak. Immediately her outline became hazy and Mitchell was far enough away that, had he not known she was there, his eyes would have slid right over her. She had demonstrated the effect to him before, and he knew that the closer someone was to her the easier it was to pierce the illusion, but Mitchell was on point, and she was in the rear about ten meters back. The only reason he could see her at all was because he’d been looking at her when the hood came up. He really wanted a cloak like that.

“What do you think it is?” he asked.

“Shadow cat,” Allora said, her voice tight.

“Balls and hairy cock!” Lethelin hissed.

“It’s early afternoon,” Mitchell said, moving up to get closer to Allora. Behind her, he could see Lethelin’s feet breaking up the scree as she closed ranks as well. “You said they hunt at night.”

“That is their preference,” Allora replied, scanning around them carefully. “But this one might be hungry. Let us proceed with caution.”

As they continued down the slope, Mitchell tried to review what they had told him about the beasts. They were from the Fey realm, or so it was thought. Highly intelligent, they had six legs, were big enough when full grown to take out a clorvol, and they had some sort of ability to project an illusion to distract their prey while they attacked from another direction. Bright light was the best defense against this as such false images cast no shadows.

The trio pressed on, arriving at firmer ground, and followed the ancient trail forward. As the path entered into a small crevice between some rocks, the sound became much louder. It was definitely a mewling noise. It sounded almost plaintive.

“That’s a shadow cat?” Mitchell asked in a half whisper. “It sounds like a kitten.”

Allora looked puzzled, and she took the lead, pressing forward carefully as they approached a turn in the path. She crept forward and peered around the corner from where it sounded like the noise was emanating. She was still for a moment and then stood slowly. Looking back, she beckoned him and Lethelin forward.

“I think we are safe,” she told them, but she didn’t sheath her sword just yet.

As Mitchell stepped around the corner, he saw what had given her pause. It was the aftermath of what must have been an impressive fight between a shadow cat and a razor beak. The stone of the path was dark with drying blood and littered with patches of blood-soaked fur and feathers. It was there that Mitchell got his first look at the two beasts that had inspired so much fear in his companions. They were mangled and dead, but he saw why they had worked so hard to avoid them. The shadow cat lay motionless on the ground, its lower half crushed by a rock that had fallen on it during the fight. Even the half that was exposed was nearly as long as Mitchell was tall. Its thick black fur glistened in the afternoon sunlight, but its crystal green eyes were clouded and lifeless.

About two meters away lay the razor beak. One wing had been torn off and blood coated its entire left side. It also had a long gash across its chest that had bled profusely before it died. It was anyone’s guess which injury had been fatal, but it was just as dead as the cat that had inflicted the grievous wounds. Mitchell had only seen the flying creatures from a distance, and up close they were even more terrifying. It was nearly as big as a Clydesdale horse, with hooked black talons that were almost as long as his forearms. This one had gray-white feathers that would have blended almost perfectly with the granite of the mountains. Its dark, hooked beak nearly as long as Mitchell’s thigh gaped open with a thick black tongue hanging out.

The air stank of gore and viscera and the fight was recent enough, perhaps in the early morning hours, that the pools of blood had not yet fully dried. The mewling that had stopped as they’d rounded the corner suddenly started again, only this time it sounded more like a tiny growl. It drew everyone’s attention back to the corpse of the shadow cat.

From behind a thickly-muscled front leg, a little black head poked up, and two emerald green eyes locked on the three of them. It growled and hissed, doing its best to sound threatening.

“This must have been some fight,” Mitchell said, breaking the stunned silence.

“I’ve never been this close to a shadow cat,” Lethelin proclaimed in a hushed voice. “Stollar’s balls… They’re so much bigger than I thought.”

Allora merely nodded.

“This one is fully grown. A female.”

“How can you tell?” Mitchell inquired. “Its lower half was smashed by that rock.”

“The females usually have more rounded ears. Look at her head. It is not always the case, but that, combined with the kitten, suggests this was its mother.”

“How do you know that?” Lethelin demanded. She was tense, and her voice had an edge to it.

“I did not always skip classes at the academy,” Allora explained patiently. “Knights were occasionally sent on patrols in the mountains, and we needed to know about the threats we might face. I did study, you know.”

Rather than reply, Lethelin made a face and did a petulant mimic of Allora under her breath.

“I did study, you know!”

“Knock it off, Leth,” Mitchell reprimanded. “Just because you’re scared doesn’t mean you need to take it out on us.”

The thief opened her mouth and closed it again.

“Sorry,” she muttered, though her tone was softer this time.

“Is that thing’s father likely to be around?” Mitchell asked, trying to redirect the conversation.

“No, shadow cats do not mate for life. Occasionally, a pack lord will be born that can lead a group of shadow cats, but it is rare. They’re considered an aberration. They are primarily solitary creatures. Meeting only to mate or, in very rare instances, take down a much larger animal or group of travelers. The mother would not have brought such a young kitten out to hunt with her, so my guess is that they were ambushed by the razor beak and neither survived.”

“Well, come on, let’s get out of here!” Lethelin snapped, her voice high with tension. “The blood is likely to attract something else we don’t want to tangle with.”

Allora nodded.

“Agreed.”

The girls began to step over and around the puddles of blood as best they could, heading through the pass, but Mitchell remained still. He had locked eyes with shadow cat kitten, and they stared at each other. There were green-eyed cats on Earth, he knew, but not like this. The kitten’s eyes looked like living emeralds. It was ignoring the others and looking only at him. He felt something tug at his chest as they appraised one another.

“But what about the kitten?” Mitchell spoke suddenly.

Allora looked back at him.

“What about it?”

“We can’t just leave it here. It will die.”

Lethelin snorted. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

Allora had already picked up on what Mitchell meant, though.

“Mitchell, you cannot be serious. Shadow cats are the stuff of nightmares. They are not pets.”

Lethelin froze and stared at him like he had lobsters crawling out of his ears.

“But it’s just a baby,” Mitchell answered. “We can’t leave it to starve to death.”

“Yes, we can!” Lethelin snapped. “Do you have any idea what a fully grown shadow cat can do?”

“She is right, Mitchell,” Allora seconded. “A single shadow cat can take out a squad of soldiers if it were to catch them unaware. Once it was big enough, it would kill you without a second thought.”

“You said they were smart,” Mitchell countered. “Why couldn’t it see us as friends? If we fed it and took care of it until it could hunt on its own.”

“It’s a hell-spawned shadow cat!” Lethelin nearly yelled. “They don’t have friends! Did you forget what I told you about the one I saw at the high sun festival? It killed a giant scorpion like it was a nothing. I couldn’t sleep for days after! They are some of the most dangerous creatures on Tewadunn!”

He heard her and trusted that she was right, that they both were, but Mitchell didn’t know how to explain the feeling he had. The more he thought about it the more he liked the idea. It felt right. He pressed his case.

“Allora, you said we needed help. When this thing grows up, imagine if it was on our side!”

He suddenly began to dig in his bag and pulled out his spell book.

“Look! Here!” Mitchell flipped to the page near the middle and found the spell he wanted. A second circle spell that he hadn’t even tried yet. He flipped the book around to show it to her. “Speak with beasts. I could learn this spell and talk to it.”

The shadow cat seemed to sense the tension in the group and its little tentacles waved about warily as it let out the occasional growl and hiss. It otherwise hadn’t moved since they had entered this section of the pass.

“You’re serious?” Lethelin responded first. “No! We can’t! It will kill us all!”

Allora hissed at her to be silent, and the thief did so, but she looked like she had to bite her tongue to do it. Then Allora spoke very slowly, as if she were choosing her words carefully.

“Mitchell, I am afraid you do not know what you are asking. Please believe me when I say attempting to raise a creature like this as a pet is akin to suicide. And it will not just kill you, it would kill all of us and many more if it were loose in a town or city. Not for food, but simply for the joy of killing. For all their terror, even the razor beaks only kill for food. Shadow cats kill because they like it.”

Mitchell stepped slowly towards where the little shadow cat crouched near its dead mother. It took a clumsy step back and then, almost as if it remembered it was supposed to be a fearsome ball of murder, recovered from its momentary lapse and stepped forward with a warning growl and bared its small fangs at him. From the nodules on the two tentacles, Mitchell could see tiny flickers of iridescence and the air just in front of it the creature seemed to ripple slightly. Whatever effect it was going for, though, it didn’t hold. Mitchell crouched down about a meter away and dug some of his leftover meat from his morning meal out of a pocket. Not breaking eye contact with the animal, he spoke to Allora.

“I believe you. But something is telling me this is the right thing to do. Allora, we need to take it with us.”

In front of him, the baby shadow cat had stopped hissing and its eyes were now focused on the piece of dried meat that Mitchell held out towards it. He saw its little nostrils flare as it took in the scent.

“Please, Lora. Trust me.”

He looked up at where she stood and met her gaze. Her lips were a tight line of concern and her brow was furrowed.

Mitchell could see Lethelin who stood behind Allora with her arms crossed, and her face like a thundercloud. A born and bred city girl, she wasn’t comfortable with most animals in the wild, and he knew this was asking a lot of her. She had rarely been outside Varset before this little adventure began. Mitchell kept his attention on Allora, however. There was definitely a hierarchy between the two women. As much as Lethelin and Allora butted heads, when it mattered, the thief deferred to the Knight. If he could convince Allora then Lethelin would go along, even if with a great deal of protest. Mitchell wished he had more to offer her than the feeling in his gut that he was supposed to find this animal.

In front of him, the shadow cat’s hunger overcame its fear, and it crawled over the arm of its mother and crossed the short distance between them. It was bigger than he expected. Not at all like a kitten on earth, this was similar to a medium-sized dog, and its body was long, almost serpentine. Watching the way its spine flexed and rolled as it worked its six legs was a little disturbing. It had a grace about its movement that Mitchell found hard to look away from.

It stopped about a foot shy of his hand. Mitchell returned his attention to the small creature, and the two tentacles on its back began to undulate slowly. He watched and, as quick as a viper strike, the tentacles shot forward the last foot and latched onto the bit of meat and pulled it deftly from his fingers. The little six-legged cat hopped up and caught the meat in its front paws and pulled it to the ground, the tentacles retracting back behind its back as its little mouth started working hungrily at the meat. He saw both Allora and Lethelin jump at the rapid movement.

The silence stretched long. The shadow cat finished the snack and looked back up at Mitchell expectantly. It mewled once and, took a step forward. The tentacles reached slowly this time and prodded at his fingertips. Mitchell could feel small hooks pull lightly at the skin of his fingers and hands, the sensation not unlike that of a cat’s tongue. He could see them more clearly now. The end of each tentacle was almond shaped and cupped slightly. He thought that if they were opened flat they would be almost as big as his hands. The insides were mostly hairless, and the skin was a dark pink. He could just make out the little hooks that it had used to latch onto the meat, like small fangs. Not finding any further food in his hands, it closed further and bumped its head against his leg and meowed at him.

With a long sigh, Allora finally nodded.

“Very well, Mitchell Allen.”

“Oh, balls and hairy taint!” Lethelin cursed and stormed away.