We make good time to a city called Azmal, a mere three-week ride from Vezgaxur. I might have been able to transport us all there using my slate marble, but I'm not sure its magic is strong enough to handle all five of us. Daniel's friends-- Eliana, Antony, and Raeldon-- warm up to me gradually, and over the course of those three weeks, they become as close to friends to me as they can be. And Daniel.... Well, let's not get too ahead of ourselves here. As my brother told me, one time when I checked in with him during these past few weeks, it's best not to get too attached. If they are not for us, they are against us. And that makes them enemies.

And that could make them my targets.

I think on this as we trudge down a dusty road with Azmal's walls just in sight. Daniel's face floats through my mind, and grief pinches my heart. Would that our friendship were real.

What is happening to me? I can't be feeling this way!

I flip my hood up, stuff my regrets down where they can't make me think. I seem to be stuffing a lot of things down in that cold, numb place lately.

Daniel glances back at me.

"You alright?" He asks. He asks me that a lot. I think he sees more of me than he lets on. Than I want him to see. It makes me uncomfortable. For so long it was only Falkirk who saw me truly. Part of me wants it to stay that way.

Most of me.

All of me.

No friends but Fal and death. No companions but my brother, blood, and accusing souls. This is who I am, this is who I will always be. This is what I must be to reach my-- our-- goals.

I take a deep breath, and answer Daniel with a smile. "Yes."

He smiles in return and faces front. I don't think he believes me. Oh well. Let him think what he wants.

From beneath the refuge of my hood, I let my gaze roam the dreary, filthy cityscape of Azmal as we ride in. Our horses' hooves clop and squish on the scummy cobblestones. Shady characters eye us from the weary crowds, from the shadows, from the alleyways. I slump in my saddle, all comfortable nonchalance. Let them try anything with me or my companions. It will be the last thing they do.

To my surprise, Daniel finds us a reasonably respectable tavern and inn. The Walloping Goose, I read the inn sign and my eyebrows shoot up. This will be... interesting. Inside, it is as clean as this town is going to get. A portly woman wearing... questionable garb is behind the bar, wiping tankards out with a grey rag. I keep my face neutral as I watch.

"Willah!" One of the patrons shouts, slamming an empty tankard down with a belch. "Another, lass, will ya?"

It's not even noon.

Willah, the barkeep it appears, gives the dirty man a gap-toothed smile. "Nay, Smit! Let me see yer coin first!"

The man huddles over the table, muttering, "Ain't got any more, woman. Ya know that."

Daniel strides up to the bar, me and the rest of his friends in his wake.

"Good madam," he says, flipping her a silver coin. "I require room and board for myself and my companions." He leans close to her. "And information."

Willah giggles like a child. "Ain't nobody called me 'madam' in a long while, boy." She swiftly pockets the silver. "Ya can 'ave all the room an' board ya want, kid. Information, eh..."

Daniel casually flips her a gold coin. She snatches it out of the air and swiftly secrets it away. Leans so close to Daniel, I wince.

That can't smell good. I pity the fool paladin.

"Careful, kid." Willah whisper-rasps. "Ain't good fer yer 'ealth to be toutin' that much coin. I'll give ya information, but next time keep yer coin better 'idden, understan'?"

Daniel inclines his head to her. "Understood, madam. Now, information-- I wish to know if Lord Amyry is in town, and how favorable he has been of late."

Willah cackles. "Favor'ble?! That good-fer-nothin' noble was sour an' mean from the cradle! But I 'spose he's as favor'ble as he's gonna ever be, boy. An' yeah, he's in town. So he is most of the time, whenever tax season comes 'round. An' it's always tax season." She mutters sourly.

Daniel nods sympathetically. I merely watch and wait.

I've heard of Lord Amyry. He's a nasty piece of work, and if Daniel's set on recruiting him to the paladin's cause, that fool is going to be sorely disappointed. There's a reason this city looks like this. Amyry is the kind of filth my brother is fighting to stop. This particular noble, he... well, let's just say he makes what happened to my parents look like child's play. And he doesn't do it just to changelings. He does it to everyone who gets on his bad side. Falkirk sent me once to assassinate him. I nearly died. Fal vowed that he would never send me against Amyry again, at least not until my brother could back me with an army. I don't blame him. Not much scares me. Amyry does.

And I hate it.

So, coming to Azmal doesn't sit well with me, but I have to stay with Daniel. So I'll get through this. Besides Daniel will likely need me. That naive half-breed and the dandy of a rogue won't be much help in a place like this. They haven't got the street skills.

"Do you know of anyone who would be able to gain us an audience with Lord Amyry?" Daniel asks Willah. She cackles again before fixing the paladin with a strange, pitying look.

"Only way ya gonna get a audience with 'im is through a trial, boy." Willah cautions. She's right. "An' those only end in executions! Maybe check with 'is lordship's executioner ta see if 'e 'as a free block of time ta see ya? Watch yer step around 'ere, kid. That's all the advice I can give ya."

Daniel nods gravely. "Duly noted, madam." He turns and gestures to us. "These are my friends. They require a meal, the finest of whatever you've got."

Willah looks us over with interest, probably wondering if we're all as rich as Daniel. Her gaze lingers on me the longest. I narrow my eyes at her, wondering if I've ever encountered her before. The faces of my past living acquaintances are hazy and faded in my mind. I only remember the faces of the dead, sharp and clear.

The barkeep breaks gazes with me, shakes her head slightly, then turns her eyes back on Antony. It's clear she's smitten with the ash-blond high elf. I smirk, amused. Willah catches my look, and laughs. She tosses us a couple grimy iron keys-- one to me and Eliana, one to the men. I snatch my key out of the air, one-handed, never taking my eyes off of the barkeep.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"These are ta yer rooms." Willah says. "Number on the key goes to the number on the doors upstairs."

"Thank you." Daniel says. He turns to us, leaning back against the bar, as Willah disappears into the kitchen in the back.

"I don't actually expect to get an audience with Amyry," Daniel tells us, "but I have to try. Although, to be perfectly honest, I could not care less if D'Adrian mowed Amyry under in his conquest."

Amen to that.

Daniel continues, "Be on your guard at all times, and if you have to leave the tavern, go in pairs. I expect to get attacked here; Amyry hates outsiders, especially ones as fine as us. We are threatening to him. So be wary, and keep your weapons with you always."

Oh, good. He's learned.

Willah returns with our food, some sort of meat drowned in a thick, brown gravy and stale biscuits. I eat and don't ask questions.

Antony picks at his meal. I cannot help but be amused at the high elf's prissiness. Eliana catches my gaze, the same merriment I have, mirrored in her eyes. I grin, she giggles.

Antony scowls faintly at us, lifts his chin. Which only makes us girls' amusement grow. He finally cracks, the faintest of smiles lifting the corner of his mouth. Daniel sees and laughs. Raeldon merely eats without complaint or emotion. Daniel was right about him being dry.

Because that tiefling is one of the most stoic, dry people I have ever met. The only time I ever saw him display emotion was when Daniel had told him about his nearly dying.

We finish our meal and Daniel scrapes back his barstool. Stands.

"Well, we should rest, and I need to go grab some supplies." The paladin says.

"We'll all go," Relies Antony. Daniel nods.

"Very well." He strides to the door, trailing us in his wake. Lifts his hand to Willah.

"We'll be back!" He calls. She smiles at us.

We spend most of the day wandering around town. Lunch at the Walloping Goose. Wander some more. I know each of us is taking note of how many Amyry's guards are about town, his castle defenses, anything useful in warfare.

But, wary as we are, Daniel was right to expect an attack. It comes, right when dusk has fallen and we are trudging wearily through miry streets back to the tavern. Ten soldiers dressed in black march out of an alleyway and block the way in front of us. Eliana, Antony, and Raeldon spin, and find what Daniel and I already know to be true: ten more soldiers close the way behind us. Daniel and I exchange a glance, and sigh. We all draw our weapons-- he his longsword, I my mage-blade, the rest their own. I press my weapon's hidden button and the blade extends to full length with a soft shring! Eliana has a bow and sword, Raeldon a staff. Antony wields long knives and a blowpipe.

"Drop your weapons and surrender, outsiders!" The tiefling in front orders us. He's a captain, by the insignia on his breastplate. His rank won't matter in a minute.

"I don't think so." Daniel replies calmly. He seems to know that these bullies aren't up for anything other than a fight. He doesn't even bother with diplomacy. A flame-orange, crackling mage-whip extends from his left hand.

"Take them." Snarls the tiefling. His soldiers spring at us.

My mage-blade flashes and sends a head rolling to the cobblestones as Daniel's whip cracks and lashes across the attackers, tripping and binding them so he can finish them off. But I see him, more often than not, rendering his foes unconscious rather than administering the killing blow.

Well, if that's the way he wants to play, it's his funeral. But I know he doesn't want them dead.

That-- my respect for the fool paladin-- is the only thing stopping me from finishing the kill. Instead I expend manna to place the enemies in a sleep so deep it's like they're passed-out drunk.

To my own foes, I am much less merciful. My mage-blade swoops and flashes with unerring accuracy and deadly force. Heads roll, hearts are speared, and, as I use manna to conjure mage-shields and contract them, bodies are reduced to bloody pulp and shattered bone.

Eliana is a steady bastion at our backs, suffering few wounds and keeping the soldiers behind us at bay. Many have her deadly arrows sticking from them, making them look like humanoid pincushions.

Where Raeldon wields his staff, enemies fall and do not rise again. Cracked and stoved-in skulls and shattered bones abound, leaving his victims wailing or motionless on the stones.

Antony is a whirling dervish of flashing steel. Where he goes, foes fall never to rise again. I have to admire the elf. He shows no mercy.

The fight is over mere minutes after it began. The street is strewn with bodies, all of them in the black of Amyry. The tiefling captain is dead, his head lolling on the stones, his dead eyes staring. Probably my doing.

Eliana surveys the battlefield, her eyes lingering on my gruesome work. She blanches pale and slightly green, and claps her hands over her mouth. A cut on her arm is heavily bleeding and Daniel steps over to her to tend it with warm, flame-hued magic. Raeldon and Antony set to cleaning off their weapons before sheathing them.

Suddenly, from the alley bursts the figure of a black-clad soldier. He flees from us down the street toward Amyry's castle.

"After him!" Shouts Daniel, his head whipping up to track the running man. Antony and I glance at each other, then take off after the fugitive, sprinting side by side, matching stride for stride, breath for breath.

Night has fallen by now, hanging heavy and black over the city. We gain quickly on the fleeing soldier, despite the fact that he knows these streets and we don't. I veer off from Antony and take to the roofs, scaling the wall and driving upward to catch the lip of a filthy rain-gutter. We still run close together, Antony a little ways ahead down on the street, me rapidly recovering that distance on the rooftops.

I drive speed into my legs, pulling ahead of the fugitive. Leap from the roof to tackle him. He goes down beneath me, and I roll away and to my feet, drawing my mage-blade. He rises unsteadily to his feet, drawing his own weapon. Sneers at me. Lifts his sword, and I get ready.

A faint whistling, air-ripping sound hisses through the air. The soldier stops mid-stride, slaps at his neck. Then he crumples to the ground as unconscious as can be.

I stare at him for a moment, then lift my gaze to Antony who is just lowering his blowpipe from his lips. He fixes me with an unreadable stare. Just like an elf, that.

"Daniel would have wanted him alive." He informs me. I nod, sheathe my mage-blade. Stride over to the sleeping soldier and crouch over him. Flip back his black hood. It's a half-elf. Age: indeterminable. Male.

I yank off his belt and tie his hands with it. I gesture to the body.

"Do you want to do the honors or shall I?" I ask the high elf. He sighs, eyeing my petite frame. He doesn't know I am a changeling. He thinks I'm a half-elf maiden, of medium height and slight build. He thinks the task of dragging a body through the streets is not for the likes of me. So he's going to do the chivalrous thing and bear the burden. He doesn't know about the scores of bodies I've drug over the years.

Sure enough, Antony bends, takes a tiny blowdart from the half-breed's neck. Grasps the back of the soldier's tunic and starts dragging him back the way we came.

Personally, I'd rather drop the half-elf over a bridge somewhere.

But Eliana's face saunters into my mind like it belongs there. Her sick and grieved face when she saw the aftermath of how I fought. What would she think if she knew I--

No. I shut those thoughts down immediately. Nobody except Fal needs to care what I do or how I do it. I get the job done. We're alive. That's all that matters.

When Antony and I get back to our companions with our prisoner, Daniel looks up with relief.

"Oh, good. You're back." He says, then sees our captive. "And you captured him. Well done!"

Antony inclines his head like it's an everyday occurrence that he chases down thugs. Smug elf.

"Avalon here tackled him from the roofs, and I finished the job with a dart." He says nonchalantly. Daniel steps over and crouches beside the captive. He grasps the half-breed's jaw in one hand and tilts his face side to side to survey his face.

"No one I know." He says after a moment. I nearly snort. Was he expecting to know someone here?

"Let's get him back to the tavern." Daniel says, standing. "I have some questions for him when he wakes up."

He walks past me, pausing to lay his hand on my shoulder. Its warm weight incites a new feeling in me as his eyes stare into mine.

"Well done." He says again, quietly, for my ears alone. His eyes tell me far more than those two simple words though. Through his warm, blue gaze I can tell he's proud of me for not bringing back to him a useless corpse.

And this knowledge fills me with a caring I don't want. A warmth I cannot push away no matter how hard I try.

This desire to please someone other than Falkirk I hate with my very soul.

At least that is what I tell myself. I believe it too.

But I only nod and follow him as he and Antony support the prisoner between them and drag him back to the Walloping Goose.