"Make me."

For a moment, all in the tent fell silent. Then the Djinn exploded into action.

With a hoarse yell, Nas̆ru lunged forward. Rather than stab his sword straight in Jasper's gut, he slashed at him with an oddly awkward thrust. It gave Jasper enough time to almost dodge the blow, though the flat of the blade - rather than the edge - caught the edge of his arm and sent him spinning. The Djinn struck like lightning, and the blow caught him square in the back - yet no real harm was done, for the Djinn had once again hit him with the flat of the blade. Propelled by the force of the blow, Jasper rolled forward and landed on the balls of his feet.

From the hurried footsteps behind him, Jasper knew Nas̆ru was closing in fast behind him, but he had bought himself enough space to cast a spell. The problem was, it was clear now that the Djinn wasn’t trying to kill him. It took a certain amount of skill to keep striking him with the blunt side of the sword, and Jasper had no desire to escalate the conflict to bloodshed. Unfortunately, very few of his spells were intended to simply disable his opponent. Buying himself a moment to think, Jasper cast Fiery Shackles and darted out of reach of the Djinn.

Nas̆ru’s reckless charge came to a sudden stop as the burning manacles rose from the ground to clamp around his ankles. The fire did no real damage, the Djinn's red skin a sure sign of immunity, but it was good enough to bind him in place. With an angry growl, the lord slashed at the manacles, but they resisted his blows. Must be around my level then.

With the temporary reprieve granted to him, Jasper raced through his limited options. His fire spells were all but useless; Nas̆ru was likely immune to all but the special fire of his Flame Charge - and using that would kill him - not to mention the fact that in the cramped confines of the tent, large flame spells were a dicey proposition. He’d been sent here to investigate the fires endangering the camp, after all, not start one. Yet, his other spells seemed nearly equally useless - spells like Purge and Scourge of Despair were designed to kill, not merely disable.

The shackles disappeared back into the ether, and Nas̆ru closed in with an angry bellow. Jasper ducked beneath a wild blow and hammered a flaming fist into the Djinn’s ribs as he rushed past him. The blow did negligible damage, but the second Fiery Shackles he cast bound the lord in place once again.

“By S̆ams̆a’s rays,” Nas̆ru cursed angrily, “have you no honor? Stop dancing around and fight.”

Jasper shrugged. “You sure you want that? Because I can beat you, but I’m not too sure I can do it without killing you and setting fire to this lovely party of yours.”

The man snorted angrily. “Kill me? Cease your idle boasting, hornless. A simple pyromancer like you can do little against me, and we both know it. Sooner or later, you’re going to run out of essence.”

Jasper’s fingers writhed as he cast his two spells at once. His back arched in pain as a pair of shadowy wings tore themselves free, stretching from one side of the tent to the other, while from his right hand, a long shadowy whip cascaded across the floor. “Who said I only have fire skills,” he replied calmly.

The shackles around Nas̆ru’s legs dissolved again, but the Djinn made no attempt to move. “What is this, an illusion? Some sort of feeble party trick?” He asked with a snort, but from the way his eyes remained glue to the whip in Jasper's hand, he could he'd shaken the man.

With a gentle flap of his wings, Jasper rose above the ground and flicked the whip through the nearby desk, which exploded in a shower of splinters. “Still think it’s just an illusion?” he asked with a smirk.

Wrath and caution fought a war within the Djinn, but caution won. Licking his lips nervously, Nas̆ru slowly slid his sword back into its sheathe. “It seems I underestimated you, Lord Yas̆peh.” As he spoke, he inclined his head ever so slightly to the left in a begrudging gesture of respect. “There are too few of our mages these days who can wield something other than fire, and I made the mistake of assuming you're one of them. Fire mages are of little risk to me,” he added confidently. His gaze drifted over to Gūla, who had watched the scene in silence, and his expression soured. “Aside from our beloved firebirds, of course."

“Shall we call a truce?” Jasper asked.

The man nodded slowly. “For the sake of my party, you and that whore can stay. All I ask is that you stay out of my sight. At least let me enjoy what’s left of my night.”

Jasper frowned at the man’s repeated insult of Gūla, but felt there was little point in calling him out again as neither one wanted to escalate the conflict. Offering the captain his arm, he walked stiffly out of the tent, not bothering to bid the Djinn farewell.

The two walked wordlessly through the crowd, ignoring the proffered treats that more servants brought by, and didn’t pause until they were out of sight of Nas̆ru’s tent. There Jasper stopped as Gūla pulled away from his arm.

“Sorry about that,” he offered with a sigh. “I didn’t mean to start a fight, but he kind of had it coming. There was no reason to talk to you like that. But...I don’t know how we’re going to question him now,” he admitted.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Gūla appeared entirely unconcerned. “Oh well. At least there’s two more suspects. Hopefully, we can get one of them to answer a few questions. Besides,” a twinkle entered her eye, “I think we’ll get what we need from these.” Jasper watched in confusion as she stuck her hand down her bosom. A moment later, the hand remerged clutching a small sheaf of papers she’d hidden beneath her dress.

“Where did you get those?”

“While you were busy defending my honor, I took the liberty of rifling through his desk. Didn’t have time to sort through them, but hopefully we got something useful.”

“That’s quick thinking." Jasper nodded his head in approval but froze as he noticed the amused glint in her eye. “Wait a minute - was that?” Jasper frowned as it dawned on him. “That was your plan all along, wasn't it?” he accused.

“Why whatever do you mean,” the Djinn replied coyly. “I had every intention of having a nice, friendly conversation with Nas̆ru. It wasn’t my fault that he refused to cooperate.”

Jasper gritted his teeth, annoyed that, once again, she’d played him like a fiddle. “You could have just told me your plan,” he ground out.

“You’re no actor,” she retorted quickly, “and it needed to be authentic. Besides,” standing on her tiptoes, she planted a kiss on his cheek. “I found your response rather gallant.”

Leaving him to stew, Gūla flipped through the papers rapidly, her eyes shining with excitement. But by the time she’d reached the end of the documents, her shoulders had slumped in defeat. “Drat. There’s nothing here that can convict him,” she said as she crumpled the papers up in her hand with a scowl. “All that scheming for nothing. We’ll have to find another way to get at him.”

Snatching the papers out of her hand, Jasper straightened them out and glanced through them while she pouted. It was as she had said: a few letters about minor business ventures, notes from family, a list of supplies he needed to buy for his money, but there was nothing to indicate the man had any involvement in the sabotage of the camp. “Looks to me like he’s clean,” he pointed out carefully.

“He’s more clever than I thought,” she snapped. “Clearly, he must have hidden the evidence somewhere else.”

“Or there’s no evidence.” Jasper met her eyes calmly. “I know you have your reasons to hate the man, and I get it - he seems like a dick - but are you sure you aren’t letting your history with him influence your investigation? There’s at least two other suspects we know of and, hell, it's not like we can just rule out the northern lords.”

“Do you know why I was chosen for this job?” Gūla asked abruptly.

Jasper shook his head.

“Firebirds are primarily a combat-oriented class, but we do have a few…social skills we gain,” she explained. “One of these is called Rustled Feathers. It gives us a sort of premonition of danger if someone’s planning to attack us. A few years ago, I received a previously unheard of variant of the skill.”

“Well that's unique,” he replied wryly. “What's it called?”

The woman seemed almost embarrassed to reply. “It's called....A Mother’s Pinions. Don’t laugh,” she added defensively when she saw the corners of Jasper’s mouth curl up. “Despite the name, it’s proven to be a very useful skill.”

"I'm not making fun of you, I promise," Jasper reassured her. "What's it do?"

Slightly mollified, she continued. “Unlike Rustled Feathers, the plotter does not need to target me specifically. If someone is up to no good, there’s a reasonable chance I’ll pick up on it. Believe me when I say,” she grabbed hold of his hand and stared up with a surprising degree of earnestness, “Nas̆ru is up to no good. I am not targeting him just because I’m some woman scorned.”

“Alright,” Jasper relented. “I believe you. Lord knows I probably shouldn’t, but I do.” He hesitated a second before continuing. “But it sounds like this skill doesn't give you specific information, right? It tells you that someone is planning something ‘bad,’ but it doesn’t tell you what they’re planning. It doesn’t mean Nas̆ru is involved with the sabotage; he could be, I don’t know, smuggling goods or something like that.”

“It’s possible,” she admitted reluctantly, “but he’s still the best suspect I got, papers be damned.”

Their conversation ground to a halt as a hubbub arose behind them.

FIRE! FIRE!

The two spun around as a dozen voices raised the hoarse cry simultaneously. With the pavilion already brightly lit for the party, it took Jasper a second to locate the fire - but no more than a second, for within moments the small white flame that had caught the edge of a tent blossomed into a whirlwind of radiant fire.

The flames' light was almost blinding, its color almost as white as snow itself. It leapt from tent to tent with the swiftness and surety of a deer in flight, spreading to a dozen tents in a matter of seconds. The party dissolved into chaos. Some tried to beat it while others frantically tossed snow upon the tents, but their efforts were quickly abandoned as the fire made the jump from the tents to their bodies. Screams filled the air as the partygoers, transformed into flaming torches, tossed themselves in the snowy banks, rolling back and forth in futile attempts to quench the fire consuming them.

Jasper could only watch in horror as the fire rampaged through the party. Sure, he was good at starting fires, but he didn’t have any skills aimed at extinguishing them. Worse, the white fire that was running amok through the camp seemed more akin to the special fire of his Flame Charge than normal flames.

“Is this what happened before?” He asked Gūla in a subdued tone.

“No, this is something much worse.”

“What do you mean?”

The firebird captain looked sick as she replied. “Either a firebird started this, or somebody went to a whole lot of trouble to make it look like we did.”

“Come on,” she grabbed hold of his hand and started pulling him toward the blaze. “There’s no way people didn’t see me at the party. We’ve got to be seen helping put the fires out.”

Jasper followed reluctantly. It wasn't the noblest of sentiments, but he wasn't all that eager to get close to the flames which seemed more than capable of breaching the Djinn’s fire immunity. Would my Flame Charge protect me? Still, he knew Gūla was right - there was a real risk Nas̆ru would accuse her of starting the fire - and even if she wasn't, there were people who needed help. Racing to the tents, the two fell in line with hundreds of other soldiers, working to pull the injured out, tearing down tents in the path of the flames, and digging trenches of mud and snow around the ever-spreading flames.