As soon as he had left the room, the two of them got up to leave. The priest trailed along behind them, obviously distressed, but no words were spoken until they had left the building and passed through the market.
It was then that the priest finally broke his silence. “I am sorry, my lady. If I had known-“ He bowed his head. “He has been a loyal supporter for many years, currying favor with the Moon-kissed. I merely wanted him to have the chance to meet you. If I had known he would make such a demand-“
She frowned. “Demand? It was an offer, no? An offer I do not intend to accept.”
Jasper could not hide the sigh of relief that escaped him, but the priest looked at her with pity in his eyes. “An offer? No, my lady. It is a demand. Lord Nabul is not used to being told no.”
“What do you mean?” Jasper asked with concern.
The priest hesitated, scanning the crowd, and leaned in closer, speaking in a low tone. “Lord Nabul is, for the most part, a fair ruler, but those who oppose him have a tendency to disappear. If you do not wish to accept his offer, leave before the auction. To stay would be folly.”
“Do you plan to inform on us?” Ihra asked quietly.
The priest looked shocked. Placing his hands on his head in the shape of a crescent, he swore. “Yarha’s grace, no. I truly had no idea that Lord Nabul would do this - I merely thought to win favor with the lord of the city. But I am a servant of Yarha, not the Zaphonites, and the Celestial Queen would never permit me to betray one of her children.”
He paused, clearly fighting some battle within himself; then, with a guilty look, he continued. “My lady, are you still willing to come to our meeting tomorrow?”
Ihra stared at him frostily, her eyebrows arched in disbelief at the audacity of his request. “Surely I’ve paid enough for your services. Your little favor has nearly gotten me married off, and now we may not even be able to stay for the auction, the sole reason we came to this city. You’ve caused me no end of trouble, and yet you ask for more?”
The priest blushed, but he held his ground. “Please, my lady. At least meet the children.”
Her glare softened. “What children?”
“Our temple runs an orphanage near the lake shore for the children of, well,” he coughed, looking embarrassed, “the establishments near the fish market. The children were so excited to meet a child of our goddess.”
Ihra sighed, looking away. “I will make no promises, but if I’m still in the city, perhaps I will come. You can send a messenger to our tavern.”
The priest bowed, gratitude in his eyes. “Thank you, my lady. It is more than I deserve. I am sorry about Lord Nabul.”
He quickly scurried into the crowd, perhaps afraid that Ihra would change her mind. Ihra watched him disappear into the throng of people and turned back to Jasper. “Well, what do we do now?”
Jasper started walking back toward their tavern, and she hurried to catch up to him. He wasn’t sure what to say, finally settling for the wholly inadequate. “What do you want to do?” He stared at her, fear eating at his heart. “Are you sure you don’t want to take Lord Nabul’s offer?”
She shuddered from more than just the biting winds. “Selene’s Grace, no!”
The question was frozen on his tongue. There was a conversation they needed to have, a conversation they had needed to have for a long time, but he had been afraid to ask, afraid to risk ruining their partnership. “Why not? It’s not…because of me, is it?”
Ihra bobbed her head back and forth. “Yes, but also no.” She saw the look on his face and hastened to add, “Not the way you're probably thinking.”
“So, in what way?”
She pulled her coat tighter around her as they headed down a largely deserted street. The moon had broken through the thick clouds, its light falling on her head almost like a halo. “I’ve probably been sending you some mixed signals.”
He nodded, and she sighed. “The truth is, I didn’t know what I felt. I’ve been alone for so long. You know, the orphanage gives you basic training in a trade. You apprentice with someone for six or seven years, and then eventually, if you’re lucky, you’ll make a solid but unremarkable living.”
“Or you can do what a lot of the girls do, and join a brothel. You make great money, at least at first, so much more than you make at your trade, so a lot of girls choose to do that. It’s a nonstop party at first, but sooner or later you end up on the streets with a few bastards and no trade."
"I could have been one of those girls. Hell, I almost was one of those girls." Her cheeks blushed, and she looked away, not wanting to meet his eyes.
Jasper shook his head. "I really doubt that. Why would a badass archer like you ever even think twice about such an arrangement?"
Ihra snorted. “Who I am now and who I was aren't the same thing. The truth is, the only thing I was ever really good at was the bow, so the orphanage arranged an apprenticeship for me with a fletcher. They tried - I'll give them that. I was ecstatic to finally be out of the orphanage, but the whole thing went to hell. After the first few weeks, the old fletcher started to make it clear that he had certain…expectations.” The words were bitter on her tongue, her face involuntarily contorting.
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“I quit. I figured I was going to do that kind of work, I might as well get paid for it. The orphanage couldn’t find another apprenticeship for me - the craft guilds blacklist apprentices who quit - so I really had no other options. A few weeks before you arrived, I even had an interview set up with a madame.”
Jasper frowned. He knew she was an orphan but had no idea things had been so dire. “So what happened?”
“On the way to the interview, I ran into an old friend of my parents who worked for the barracks. He must have guessed where I was going - you had to dress for the part, after all - but he didn’t say anything bad. He just offered to set me up with an interview for the guild.”
She looked Jasper in the eyes. “I had no qualifications. I was a level 2 in my twenties whose only real combat skill was being slightly above competent with the bow. But he must have pulled some strings because, somehow, the guild took me in. He even paid for my mandatory training, spouting some complete bull about how my parents had lent him money, so he was just repaying the offer. It was nonsense, but I was too desperate to refuse.”
Her eyes grew distant with the memories. "Poor Barqu; he's probably dead now, along with the rest of the guild at Hargish."
They walked in silence for a few minutes, Jasper not wanting to prod. Eventually, she spoke again.
“Anyway, I graduated the course, doing just well enough to unlock my skill, Executioner’s Arrow. I was all set to start adventuring.” She smiled bitterly. “You weren’t in Hargish long enough to realize this, but there just weren’t that many jobs in Hargish, and most of them paid like crap because they weren't very dangerous. The crews were already established, and nobody wanted to take on a low-leveled rookie who would eat into their pay. Until the job in Yarr-Khennor.”
“I should have died there, but you saved me. Then we promptly got kicked out of my home town, and we’ve been on this whirlwind of a trip ever since. So, yeah, I guess my emotions have been pretty mixed up.”
“But now they’re not?” He paused, afraid of what she might say next.
Ihra shook her head. “No. Funnily enough, I think it was Sellâ that helped me sort out my feelings.”
Jasper felt a pang of regret pierce through his heart, her face flashing in from of him again, as she pled for her life, the tears streaming down her cheeks.
Ihra carried on, oblivious. “You were so obviously smitten with her and so obviously feeling guilty because you were afraid you were hurting my feelings. And I guess, that’s what finally made it click. I wasn’t jealous - I was afraid.”
Jasper looked at her, confused. “Afraid of what?”
“For the first time since my brother died, I’ve had someone to rely on. I was afraid to lose you, that you’d find someone else and abandon me. I want to be your partner, fire-boy, but not your partner.”
Relief washed over him. Thank God. His lips quirked up in a smile. “So you’re not madly in love with me?”
She laughed merrily but sobered up quickly. “No, and unless I’m mistaken, you aren’t in love with me, either.”
Jasper nodded. “No, you’re pretty much the only person in this world that hasn’t tried to screw me over in one way or another. I guess I'd like to keep it that way.”
She smiled. “So we’re good?”
“We’re good.” He hesitated. “So if you don’t have feelings for me, why are you so opposed to Lord Nabul’s offer?”
Ihra's brow darkened. “A gilded cage is still a cage. I’d be nothing more than an exotic pet to them, whose main purpose in life would be to pop out elvish heirs to marry off for alliances. It would have been better to die in Yarr-Khennor than be cloistered in Kār-Kuppû.” She looked around at the city, her nose wrinkling at the scent of fish carried aloft on the frigid wind, as they trekked through the half-frozen muck that lined the streets. "And let's be real, this wouldn't even be a gilded cage."
She sighed. “I don’t know what to do about the auction, though. If Lord Nabul is as powerful as the priest says, do we just need to leave?”
A grin slipped across Jasper’s face. “But Lord Nabul doesn’t know our cards.”
Ihra looked at him blankly. “Our cards?”
“Lord Nabul wants to garner favor with the Moon-kissed, but what he clearly doesn’t know is that we already have favor with at least one of the Moon-kissed. At least the priest kept his mouth shut about that. I think we should pay a visit to Qarda tomorrow. I’m sure she’ll be interested to know that her plans for the lyre of Damqa might be…interfered with.”
It was a long and sleepless night, and the sun could not rise fast enough to please Jasper. After a hurried breakfast, the two set out for the market district. They had been to Qarda’s place once before, so it was easy enough to find it.
The Moon-kissed traders were not staying in a tavern. After years of traveling to the auction at Kūr-Kuppû, they had established a permanent base. Their home was an elegant, if reserved, mansion. Like most of the great homes in the area, the outside was fairly simple and unadorned, the stout walls providing protection against the blustering winds that swept off the lake. But inside, the house was built around a large enclosed courtyard.
There, resting beneath the boughs of a small warodim tree, they found Qarda. The pale Djinn rose to greet them, the confused look on her face swiftly replaced by concern.
“Jasper, Ihra, you’re not thinking of renegotiating our deal?” She bit her lower lip, her two short fangs peeking out, as she glanced nervously between the two. “Our house was most pleased to hear the news.”
Jasper shook his head. “No, we still wish to travel with you to Dūr-Yarha, but there is a complication. Are you familiar with Lord Nabul?”
She nodded. “Of course. He is the most prominent lord in the city. He’s not technically the lord of this town, but he might as well be. Why?” Her eyes widened as reached a conclusion. “He’s not trying to buy the lyre from you, is he?” She grabbed Jasper’s hand, a pleading expression in her eyes. “Whatever he offers, we’ll more than match it. Surely favor with us is more important than favor with him.”
He wryly shook her hand off. “Not exactly. I’m not sure if he even knows the lyre exists, but there is something else he wants from us, and he’s applying a great deal of pressure, the sort of pressure that might screw up our deal.”
Qarda relaxed a little, her brow wrinkling. “What else do you have that he would want? The gold and weapons were nice, but nothing remarkable. Do you have another relic?”
Jasper glanced at Ihra. “Do you want to show her?”
With a sigh, Ihra undid the clasp around her hat, pushing it back. Her long blond hair tumbled over her shoulders, covering up her pointy elvish ears, but it did nothing to hide the two small antlers, little more than two inches high currently, that peaked through her hair.
Qarda gasped, her mouth gaping open as she swiveled back and forth between the two. “H-how?” She finally managed to stutter out. “It’s almost impossible for an outsider to be allowed into the mountains unless they’re on a direct mission from the Emperor.”
Jasper shrugged. “I have friends in high places, I guess. But they are far away right now, and Lord Nabul is very close. He is demanding that Ihra marry his son - something about trying to curry favor with the Moon-kissed. Obviously, if Ihra stays here, we can’t accompany you to deliver the lyre of Damqa to your mistress.”
Worry crossed the Djinn’s face. “I see the problem.”