The light of day was fading early, the mountain peak casting a long shadow over the city on a ledge, and the streets were already dark as he hurried over, eager to catch them before they could leave. Stepping into their path hastily, Jasper waved the merchants down, hoping they would stop in time.

They did, but one of the small caravan’s guards leapt down from the wagon and stormed over to them. “What the hell are you doing? Get out of the way or we’ll call the guards.”

But the anger in his face was promptly extinguished when he noticed the black and red armor Jasper wore. “My lord,” he bowed stiffly, “Forgive me; I had no idea there was a member of the Royal House in this accursed city.”

Jasper waved the caravaneer's apology off, and pushed the woman and her child into the light. “Is there room in your wagons to take these two with you? I’m happy to pay their fare.”

The man bowed again. “I believe so, my lord, but I cannot authorize it myself. Let me fetch one of the merchants for you.” He scuttled back to the wagons and returned a few moments later with another man in tow.

The new Djinn was a much older man, dressed in a luxurious blue robe. The lack of even a faint reddish hue to the Djinn's skin was a pretty clear indication that the man had little to no combat prowess. Yet, what the merchant lacked in strength was more than made up for unflappable confidence that great wealth bestows. Dipping his head just far enough to satisfy social requirements, he regarded Jasper coolly. “How can I help you, my lord? We wish to leave for the gates close for the night.” He glanced around quickly and seeing, no guards around, lowered his voice. “We’d rather sleep on the road than spend another night here. Our rights here are one angry guard away from being non-existent.”

“Don’t worry - I have no attention of holding you up. In fact, the sooner you can leave, the better.” Jasper quickly agreed. His mind flitted back to whatever Tsia was doing, and he sent a silent prayer to Kas̆dael that she wasn't stirring up too much trouble. I hope she isn’t planning to kill that guy.

The merchant raised his eyebrow, taken aback by Jasper's vehemence. “Oh? Not a fan of this place either. What is it you want me to do then, my lord?”

Once again, Jasper thrust the young Djinn woman and her child toward the man. “Can you take these with you to the capital? You can drop them off at the palace with my uncle, Lord S̆arrābī. He’ll handle them until I return from my trip.”

A sly grin slipped across the merchant’s face, and he shared a conspiratorial wink. “Ah, now I see. My lord has had a bit too much fun on his trips to Dūr-Ēkal? No worries, you certainly aren't the first or the lust to lust after Umadammah's children. Very well - I'm sure I can find room to take them with us for..." he hesitated, screwing up his face as he ran through the numbers, "let’s say, ten gold a piece? I know it's a bit expensive, but I expect the guards at the bridge will try to extort us because of them.”

A bit too much fun? What the hell is he talking about - oh. His blush was lost in his already red cheeks as Jasper realized the merchant’s mistaken assumption. “I'm not in a relationship with this woman," he snapped abruptly "I'm just trying to help her - I’m with the animmû.”

“Really?” The merchant’s head tilted to the side, as he analyzed the young lord standing in front of him anew. “So you are one of those do-gooder nobles?”

Jasper nodded. “The woman was nearly beaten to death at one of the local brothels, partially because of some scouts I'm looking for. I just want to make sure that she and her child don't suffer because of us.”

A fleeting moment of respect flitted across the merchant's face. “Then I will personally deliver them to the palace,” the merchant promised. He held out his hand. "I still want the money, though."

After a brief negotiation with Ihra, who was ever loathe to part with her money, the merchant agreed to lower the price to 8 coins. Jasper provided the man with a wax impression of his mother’s ring to present to S̆arrābī, and then the guards trundled the mother and child into the back of one of the caravan's wagons. The whole deal was carried out in a matter of minutes, with the caravaners working with a pace bordering on frenetic, and for good reason. It was only as the last rays of light returned to their slumber, that the merchant train crossed the bridge, narrowly making it out of the city just before the final closing of the gates.

Jasper watched until they disappeared into the gloom of night. Then, he turned back to Ihra. “Well, shall we see what trouble Tsia has cooked up?”

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“Damn it, Tsia, wait for me,” Nēs̆u snapped, struggling to push through the inebriated masses to catch up with his ward. The young woman, a mere slip of a figure in comparison to him, slid through the crowd with ease while he fought his way through. Finally, abandoning all pretense of civility, he bulldozed through the rest, grabbing her by the elbow. “Stop.”

She looked up at him, the irritation plain to see in her eyes. “What?”

“What do you think you are doing?” He lowered his voice, glancing at furtively at the crowd around them. Fortunately, everyone seemed to be far too drunk to care what they were saying. “What’s your plan here? Track this Dūrilī fellow down and do what exactly?”

Her lips hardened in a firm line. “I’m going to punish him.”

Nēs̆u held in his groan. “And why is that?” He pressed on. “Ihra will heal that woman with her little runes, and she'll be good as new.”

“Maybe in body,” Tsia fired back. "But runes don't heal the mind."

The warrior frowned. "You can't punish every jerk you run into, Tsia. Say you ‘punish’ Dūrilī. Then what? Do you think this brothel is going to go out of business?” He swept his hand around dramatically, accidentally backhanding one of the revelers who was sent sprawling to the ground, unconscious. Oops. He held his breath for a second until he saw the Djinn subtly stir, and heaved a sigh of relief. Good, I didn’t kill him. Last thing we need is to get in trouble with the guards.

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Dismissing the drunkard he turned his attention back to Tsia. “Well?” He demanded.

The girl hesitated, refusing to meet his eyes. “I just wanted to help them.”

Nēs̆u sighed. “Not everyone can be helped, Tsia. Killing Dūrilī will only bring trouble down on our heads. For these women, it will probably be nothing more than a blip in their day. Someone else will step in to run this tavern, and the next owner could even be worse.”

She bit her lip, clearly wavering. “How? Look at this place - how could it be worse?”

“Dūrilī didn’t hurt that woman; sure he didn’t protect her sufficiently, sure he didn’t pay for a very expensive mage to heal her, but it would be very easy for another boss to be worse. That’s one of those things you have yet to learn about life, princess: no matter how much someone’s life sucks, there’s almost certainly a hundred ways it could suck even harder.”

Nēs̆u paid her arm softly, smiling down at his ward. He took a little bit of pleasure in winning the argument - it was hard to get through to the lass. But his moment of victory was quickly soured.

The uncertainty in her eyes vanished, replaced with newfound determination. “No,” she said, brushing his arm off, “I refuse to stand by and do nothing. You say it could get worse, but what if it got better? Are we supposed to help no one simply because we cannot help everyone?” She turned away from, and started jogging toward the tavern entrance.

Nēs̆u chased after her. “Stop. It’s not just Dūrilī. What about his father? The child said he was a very powerful noble in the city.”

“Then we’ll deal with him too.”

Feeling desperate, he pressed on, playing his trump card. “And what about Jasper? We’re here to help him. If we cause an uproar in the city, it could endanger his mission.” It was a calculated risk. Tsia certainly hadn’t said anything to make him think she liked him, but the warrior had noticed that anytime he was around, she practically glued herself to his side. Well, when the elf doesn't get in the way. Personally, he had no idea what she saw in the man - the burgundy-colored bastard was ugly as sin, if you asked him - but he was willing to bet that his ward wouldn’t want to disappoint him.

Tsia did slow down, hesitating for just a moment. Then she shook her head, turning to look at him. “I think he’d do the same, and if he wouldn’t…then I guess he isn’t who I thought he was. Now you can either help me, or wait here, but either way I’m paying Dūrilī a visit.”

Nēs̆u suffocated his groan. Damn it, Aphora. Your daughter grew up to be just as stubborn as you. Too bad she doesn't have the power to back it up. But he slowly nodded his head, resigning himself to what was about happen. She was his responsibility, after all. “Very well, my lady. Lead on.”

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Raising his mug to his lips, the Djinn drained every last drop before setting it down again. Shaking the tension out of his shoulders, he let out an unceremonious belch before reluctantly turning his attention back to the troubling matter at hand. Ten contracts lay sprawled across his desk, each a contracts for one of the prostitutes - or as he preferred to term them, the courtesans - that worked in his tavern. Contracts that he had already sold.

A few months back, a chief from one of the smaller villages further into the mountains had come to him, wanting to buy a few of the contracts. Dūrilī had been hesitant at first. Legally, there was nothing stopping him from selling the contracts to the chief, but that didn’t actually mean that the women had to go with them - they weren’t slaves. Selling the contract only meant that he would no longer employ them, but the chief would have the opportunity to offer them the same deal.

Of course, given the economic situation most of the women were in, they usually went along with it. You could almost guarantee, though, that there would be at least one who refused to move, and Dūrilī had learned from hard experience that many of the village yokels were outraged when that happened, no matter how often he explained it to them. Dūr-Ēkal may have banned slavery, but he suspected it was still practiced in at least some of the smaller settlements.

So he’d refused the deal at first, but the chief had been incredibly persistent, upping his offer with more and more gold until Dūrilī had finally been unable to refuse his greed any longer. He’d sold the man ten contracts, to be transferred two months later. The chief had chosen the women he wanted and departed.

Almost two months had passed and now Dūrilī was staring at one particular contract. It’s that damn woman. He wrinkled his brow, trying to remember her name, but nothing came to him.

She was fairly unremarkable, all things considered, save for that blond-haired kid she’d spawned. Where he’d come from had always been a bit of a mystery, a mystery that had intrigued him just enough to keep her on even though she’d been a chronic underperformer. The woman had rarely indulged in the vices most of the women here chose to drown themselves in, taking just enough customers for her and the boy to survive. It was good for her, perhaps, but bad for business, and now she was gone. One of the customers had roughed her up pretty good.

The Djinn felt a momentary flash of pity for the woman. It wasn’t unheard of for the customers to get a bit too rough with the women, but these ruffians had gone too far. They’d left the poor thing crippled, snapping her spine like a twig. That wasn’t supposed to happen - not on his watch - but keeping track of two hundred rooms at the same time just wasn’t possible.

At least that’s what he told himself.

He’d even felt guilty enough to summon a healer before evicting her, but the price they'd asked had just been too damn high. There were a grand total of three mages in the city with a spell strong enough to heal a broken spine, and they were well aware of the concept of scarcity. The cost they'd demanded would have been more than the woman could have made in five years. So he’d had no choice but to evict her. It was just one of those things that had to be done.

But the matter of his stupid contract had completely slipped his mind. Even if she was still alive, it’s not like she could perform with a broken back. Maybe I can make a substitution without the chief noticing? His mouth soured. Somehow, he doubted that would work. The chief had been sharper than most of those hicks. Damn it. He will probably demand I provide additional contracts in compensation.

Dūrilī’s musings were interrupted by the start of a curse word that was abruptly cut off by a muffled thump in the hall outside his door. His head jerked up, suddenly alert. Thanks to his father, there weren’t many in the city who would openly attack him. Outside the city was different, though. Could the chief somehow have already learned what happened?

Leaping to his feet, his sword was already half-way drawn when the door burst apart in a shower of splinters. Slowed down by the door, the blade of wind that slammed into his chest was blunted. It still sliced through his thin leather armor, but it didn't have enough force left to cleave through his reinforced skin, drawing a mere scratch rather than a deadly wound. It still had enough force, though, to flip him head over heels on the floor.