Herynhû Megansra was born on an old potato sack, surrounded by yams.

It was stuffed with straw and wedged in a corner of the Blue Heron Inn’s root cellar. Her mother Megan, a barmaid at the inn, delivered her alone, assisted only by a wad of numb-leaf that turned her spit bright green and reduced her screams to a handful of wheezing moans that couldn’t be heard over the clatter of boots on the floorboards above. She delivered alone by choice, not necessity; the midwife from Reed Lane had offered to assist for only two coppers, three if it was a breech birth, but Megan was not entirely sure what she was giving birth to.

She thought it best that she do so privately, in case she had to smother the whelp and dispose of it in the river.

Getting driven from Reedport—or worse, hanged—for lying with a lich, or skinwalker, or whatever darkling it was that should have been Fourth-Lord Aerduin but maybe wasn’t, was not part of her plan.

Fortunately, the baby came out red-faced, pointy-eared, and screaming like any half-mortal infant. The resemblance she bore to the Aerduin clan was obvious: emerald eyes, black hair, and unmistakably peaked ears. Megan briefly considered going back to the Keep, as soon as she could walk and the baby was cleaned up, and parading her bundle of evidence back and forth at the gate. But given the reception she’d received last time, Megan was sure she’d be driven into the street by the butt of some Elven guard’s spear. Last time, five months pregnant, Healer in tow (not cheap) to verify paternity, Megan had been informed coldly by the family bursar that the Lord in question had been found dead seven months ago.

Megan couldn’t fathom precisely where she’d gone wrong, she’d confessed to Herynhû years later. This wasn’t her first con, after all.

Well, it was the first that involved getting pregnant.

But it was simple. Step 1: Get pregnant. Step 2: Blackmail wealthy married father. Step 3: Profit.

She’d been waiting for the opportunity since her first day at the Blue Heron, when she’d overheard a drunken gnome slur something about hush-money and numerous “wee bastard Fourthlings” before passing out on the table. The inn was well enough—they kept the maids’ room warm in winter, and turned a blind eye to the few extra coppers Megan made extending additional hospitality to the guests—but if she could get herself with the child of an Elf-lord, she’d be set for life. No more petty theft, no more “admirer’s gifts” from whatever wealthy merchant or fortune-favored adventurer that happened her way, no more sleeping in farmer’s crofts and pigpens after fleeing town yet again. She’d spend her days reclining on silk pillows in a pleasure barge with a team of halflings fanning her with palm leaves and feeding her peeled grapes and duck canapes until she got so fat she sank the boat. That, Megan decided, was the way to go out.

Given the likely value of an actual payoff, Herynhû later concluded her mother was not the swiftest fish in the shallows.

When Fourth-Lord Aerduin himself appeared not three weeks later, she could hardly believe her luck. Reedport was a large trade city, set at a bend in the River Reed (the populace was not creative with names) where the water ran wide and deep. Enough wealth floated north from the sea and south from the mountains to support a dozen merchant lords, Human and Elven, and fuel their endless family turf-wars and bribes to the Magistrate. Plenty of that wealth found its way to the dockside taverns, gambling dens, and brothels via the more outgoing nobility. The Blue Heron Inn was large, upwind of the fishmarket, and its mead never had the remains of disintegrated rats at the bottom of the tankard, so it was popular. Classy, even. Megan was reasonably confident some married Lord would stop by sooner or later, possibly high or missing most of his jewelry after a bad game of draughts.

Fourth-Lord Aerduin was both sober and in full possession of his finery when he handed the reins of his horse to a very surprised-looking boy outside. More importantly, Megan thought as the room went momentarily quiet, he was Fourth-Lord Aerduin. Elves were particularly sensitive to anything that might impugn clan honor, and byblows of any stripe—especially those gotten on barmaids—squarely fit that bill. As the wealthiest and most generously offspringed clan in Reedport, the Aerduin were in a position to marry themselves off in favorable directions—namely, up—but only so long as said offspring weren’t a tremendous embarrassment.

Lords First through Sixth had all nabbed strategic wives, with the exception of the Fourth.

Despite the unrelenting efforts of his noble parents, Fourth-Lord Aerduin had evaded every potential betrothal—usually, to hear the cityfolk talk, by causing a scene. After the incident with the suckling pig and the chastity belt, they’d banished him from their estate for a year and a day and cut him off financially. He promptly set about flirting with every dowager in the city who would keep him in gambling money... and impregnating their scullery maids. When a steady stream of black-haired, pointy-eared babies started trickling to the back gate of the Keep nine months later, the Lord and Lady Aerduin conceded defeat and terminated their son’s punishment early—before it cost them half the gold in the kingdom, Lady Aerduin purportedly screamed, to keep all the whores he’d plowed from opening their mouths as wide as their legs.

They day he strode into the Blue Heron, three years later, Fourth-Lord Aerduin was either dead or, even less likely, willingly betrothed to G’Resha Urk-Urula, the youngest daughter of the powerful Orc warlord who’d recently taken control of a major tributary upriver. The marriage was in a fortnight. It was said on the day they’d met, for the Truce-Feast hosted by both families on a soggy riverbank, she’d charmingly braided flowers into her bristles.

And this, Megan sighed, was where everything stopped making sense.

It was perfectly understandable that Fourth-lord Aerduin might wish to fake his own death under these conditions. Actually cause his own death, for that matter. But either way, how—and why—had it been kept quiet? This was a city that knew how many moles the Duke’s mistress had on her right buttock. The death of a noble, especially one whose impending wedding night was likely to involve a broken groin, should have set the city on its ear. More likely, then, he was actually alive, and the Aerduins were covering something up.

He certainly seemed alive in bed, Megan added smugly. By the time he had sat himself in a shadowy corner of the inn, Megan had tacked up her skirts, yanked down her blouse—conveniently showcasing the telltale contraceptive amulet that had reassured her gentlemen callers for years—and sashayed over to his table with a large mug of ale. Her bodice was so low, she nearly dropped a tit in his drink as she leaned over. He noticed immediately.

“Herynhû,” he called her. He whispered it hoarsely in her ear as he took her on the bed. “My little Herynhû.” He pulled her hair. For a moment she was worried he would see the amulet no longer dangled from her neck with her head thrown back, but either he didn’t see or was too drunk to care. “Do you like this? Meleth nin beleg ohtar, Herynhû.”

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At least he didn’t puke.

She slipped from his room as he lay tangled in the sheets, completely unconscious, and wondered what Herynhû meant. Probably “honey” or “sweetling.” That was nice. Most of the other men Megan had lain with had simply grunted until they were finished. She placed her hand over her belly and closed the door. It would make a nice name for a girl.

It wasn’t until Herynhû was nine years old that she learned it meant, “Bitch.”

She learned this from Toddrick Smith as they stood in the shallows of the river, shivering. Spring had only just begun, and their feet were numb with the cold of the snow runoff that swelled the river to the high-mark on the docks and swept the ice-crabs downstream. Toddrick was pale, blond, and three months older than Herynhû, which meant that he got to decide where to put the crab-traps.

Herynhû stared at him mutely after his pronouncement. “No it doesn’t,” she said at length.

“Yes it does,” he replied. Goosebumps covered his skinny frame, naked from the waist up. “‘Heryn’ means ‘lady’ and ‘hû’ means ‘dog’ and the word for a lady dog is ‘bitch.’”

Herynhû felt the cold seeping into her muscles and up her legs, making her bones ache. A crab-trap sat unopened in her hand. “You don’t even know Elvish, stupid,” she snapped.

“Yes I do,” he snapped back, then amended, “I’m learning. Gramma taught me ‘dog’ and ‘cat’ and ‘fish’ and ‘lady’ and ‘lord’ and your name means ‘bitch.’”

“Shit!” Herynhû flung her trap into the water. “Shit!” She ran away before Toddrick could see her start to cry. She didn’t notice the water she splashed onto her skirts as she ran, nor the way the drops hung suspended in midair wherever she had passed. Toddrick stared.

Herynhû came back to the inn to find her mother carrying an earthen jug of water to the washbasin and told her she was crying and wet because she’d fallen. Then, red-eyed, she announced she was changing her name to Heron. When Megan laughed, the jug exploded. Water spilled upward and pooled on the ceiling. Megan stopped laughing and looked thoughtful.

Toddrick agreed to call her Heron the following day, but he didn’t want to set traps with her anymore. He didn’t say why. Megan also agreed to call her Heron, then asked if “Heron” would like to go to the nightmarket on Seventhday. She didn’t say why.

Herynhû had never been to the nightmarket before. Toddrick had said there were naked ladies there, but he said there were naked ladies everywhere he hadn’t been. It was his default imagination of the unknown.

The only naked ladies Herynhû saw were the stone ones in the market fountain, squirting water from their nipples. Megan left her at the base of the fountain with a handful of raisins and told her to stay put. Then she disappeared into the crowd.

Herynhû sat cross-legged and ate her raisins one at a time, watching the people. Mostly they looked like folk she’d seen at the daymarket, although there were a few jugglers and mummers wandering the crowds in masks and wigs. The beggars were a little scarier, though. They were dirtier and hairier, although none of them were missing legs. They shook their tin cups under the noses of commoner and noble alike and breathed their foul breath in the faces of anybody who didn’t immediately step away. Herynhû saw a Dwarf, an upriver lord from the mountains in fine furs and gold rings, jab the flat of his battleaxe into a beggar’s gut when he wouldn’t leave off.

A bad smell, like fish drowned in alcohol, washed over Herynhû. She turned around, scrambled to her feet, and saw a one-eyed beggar squinting at her from under a heavy brow. He grunted something unintelligible at her and rattled his cup. A lone copper clanked. “N-no,” stammered Herynhû, trying to sound forceful. “I don’t have any money. Go away.”

He grunted something again and took a step towards her. Herynhû took two steps back. “Fuck off,” she said loudly. She could see a couple people glance at her, then look away again. The beggar didn’t move. Herynhû turned to scan the crowd for her mother when she felt a heavy, hairy hand grab her arm and pull. Hard.

Herynhû screamed. Behind her, the fountain’s water gushed, stopped... and then it exploded. Chunks of stone went flying into the market crowd. An entire stone bosom flew through the stained glass window of a Mithran temple. The hairy hand let go with a sudden curse. And finally, Herynhû caught sight of her mother. As everyone rushed towards the fountain, or scrambled away from flying masonry, or simply stood staring and shouting, Megan was flitting from booth to booth and purse to purse, and stuffing the spoils in her skirts.

By the time the crowd had settled and begun to observe their surroundings once more, Megan had acquired two peaches, a stick of cinnamon, a gold bracelet set with emeralds, nine silvers, and a bag of coppers. The cinnamon and one of the peaches were handed to Herynhû, the bracelet went on Megan’s wrist... and two of the coppers went into the beggar’s cup as payment.

And Herynhû never trusted her mother again.

She did, however, learn from her. She learned a little pickpocketry, but mostly, Megan warned, that was a good way to lose fingers—or an entire hand. Better to use flattery, and guile. And magic.

Megan was delighted with her daughter’s sorcery. Unpredictable and unstable, perhaps—but within a year, Herynhû could heat the bathwater quick as a wink, nine times out of ten. (The tenth time, it might vaporize or turn to ice and crack the bathtub, but that was all right; Megan was sleeping with the cooper and could always get more bath-barrels.) Fishing and crabbing became a simple matter of bringing the flash-frozen meal back in a chunk of ice. By the time she was fifteen, Herynhû could flip a boat without looking at it, which was helpful when Megan needed to claim injury and lost-property money from a wealthy tug-captain on a busy morning. That claim kept Megan and Herynhû in sweets for a year, and bought Herynhû the lovely dress Megan had had her eye on that so nicely framed her daughter’s... collarbones.

By the time Herynhû was eighteen, Megan was dead.

Probably.

It was very strange. Megan came back one morning, drunk but otherwise hale and hearty, crawled into bed, and was snoring by the time Herynhû had rubbed the sleep from her eyes. She let her mother sleep as she crept out of bed. She had a breakfast date with a visiting count’s grandson at the market—which was a free meal, at the very least. More if she smiled just so and he didn’t have to leave tomorrow. And even if he did, well... he didn’t keep his purse tied very well.

When Herynhû returned to the Blue Heron that afternoon, she found a trio of maids sobbing in the room and a grave-faced man in black. He took off his hat when he saw Herynhû.

“Are you Heron Megansra?” he asked. He had a voice like gravel.

“Yes.” Already she knew.

“I’m so sorry, my dear. You mother is dead.”

Herynhû simply looked at him. “How?”

“Seems there was a... hm, ah...” He shuffled his feet. “A transaction of some business resulted in a disagreement, I’m afraid. A knife was used to slit her throat. Her body was recovered in a fisherman’s net this morning, and one of the dockside loaders recognized this.” He held out the emerald bracelet. Herynhû put it on her own wrist. It was cold. It was exceedingly odd—not the cold, but that the bracelet had made it back to Herynhû, and not managed to grow legs between her mother’s murderer, the folk who found her, and the man standing before her now. If it had been Herynhû finding the body, that would have become her bracelet in very short order. “That was how she was identified, you see. Judging by the state of the deceased’s, ah, remains, she’d been in the river for a few days.”

“No.”

The man in black looked taken aback. “I beg your pardon?”

“I just saw her this morning,” Herynhû replied calmly. “She came in drunk.”

The eventual verdict was that Herynhû was mad with grief. Confident in her sanity, Herynhû was more concerned by the notion that she may have slept next to the undead all night.

All too aware of the story of her own birth, Herynhû shivered. Reedport might be prosperous, but there was a distinct possibility something was highly amiss.

She packed all the belongings she could carry in Megan’s old leather rucksack and sold the rest, making sure to distribute the money evenly about her person in several unlikely places. Then she put the bracelet on her wrist, covered it with rags, laced her boots, dipped her hand in the water basin, and drew out a knife of glittering ice. It would probably melt within the hour, but it made her feel better to have its weight and coldness in her hand.

Then she walked out the door.