“Do not worry so,” the voice of Orebe said within Paul’s mind as he stood in front of the Teras Estate, “This One is 86% certain that Lord Teras will not remember the time Waynd attempted to court his sister.”

  “Court is a strong word for what I suggested back then,” he thought back to his Familiar, not consoled at all about the imminent meeting he had requested with the current noble lord he had known best as a teenager.

  “Lord Teras did agree to the meeting and is still only Sapphire Caste,” she pointed out. Still, when he thought about Duke Tul and his hostility despite being lower level, Orebe added, “Lord Teras also has no reason to fear the usurping of his position.”

  Paul sighed, tilting his head in acknowledgment, and pressed his palm to a small diagram circle filled with runes in the center of the front door. The only indication anything had happened was the slight glow the runes now gave off. A few moments ter, the door opened, and a woman politely bowed low with a hand over her heart.

  “Lord Waynd, it is an honor to have you in attendance,” the cinderen said courteously, then gestured for him to enter, “Lord Teras is awaiting you in the lounge. Please, allow me to guide you.”

  He simply nodded in response, feeling slightly uncomfortable with the formalities the staff performed. Paul was led into the building, which seemed colder than his own despite the heavy use of reds and golds in the decor. Everything was immacute in its presentation, and even his cleaning tendencies were impressed by the tidiness of it all.

  A lone man was waiting in the lounge, already drinking a slightly glowing crimson liquid from a short gss as he sat. Upon the announcement of his arrival, the cinderen lord stood and offered a slight bow with a hand over his heart, “Lord Paul Waynd, a pleasure to see you again after so long.”

  He returned the respectful bow and replied, “You as well, Lord Ethan Teras. I’ve been meaning to stop by sooner, but my duties as an Adventurer have taken precedence and kept me busy.”

  “I can only imagine,” the Magi said, offering a small smile, “You always were chasing fights as much as women in our youth.”

  “And as I recall, you were always chasing books as much as boys,” he replied, offering his own slight smirk.

  Ethan ughed, “Yes, well, my persistence paid off, and I found a good one who helped focus me and build up our family. Please, sit,” he added as he retook his seat and took another sip from his gss, “I’ve been hoping you would find some time for at least a chat to catch up. Or is this a more official type of meeting? Your letter was very vague.”

  “I apologize for that, but what I wished to speak on was better said away from prying eyes and ears, and I have been away too long to know which messengers to trust,” he expined, sitting in a chair perpendicur to the younger noble.

  “Sounds serious,” Ethan noted, then added with a gnce to the staff who were moving to serve Paul, “Let’s leave the serious talk for ter in my private study, yes? For now, let us drink, and you can tell me what’s happened in the past twenty years since we st talked face to face.”

  “That far back?” he asked with a raised eyebrow, “I thought the whole city knew of everything up to six years ago.”

  “They know rumors. I want to hear things from the man himself,” Ethan said, dropping the humor as he added, “I want to know what really happened with you, Paul. We were friendly enough growing up, though I know you were closer with my sister.”

  Ethan held up a hand to forestall Paul’s interjection, “And no, I don’t care that she was one of the women you chased. She’s her own person, and I know she put you in your pce. I want to know what happened to the righteous friend that shook him so hard that he fell from faith. I want to know why he not only agreed to return to a city that turned his back on him but stayed to protect them.”

  So Paul told him.

  They drank, and Paul expined how he discovered the Purifier’s pns to cleanse the world and renounced his faith in his god’s mission, which he had served for almost thirty years. He spoke about the dissolution of his adventuring party and traveling the continent of Pyrin while hunting down the Renseres and Soul Reapers wherever he found them.

  In return, Ethan spoke of his family. It currently consisted of his husband, Icarius, who was part of Mentor’s clergy, and their two children, Polissa and Simmon, who became Adventurers as well as Magi. He talked about the career growth that led him to become the current Vice Chancellor of the Order of Magic’s Tulim branch and the struggles the tundra has faced with little support from the queen sitting on her throne in Blomstra.

  “So, with chasing vilins around the continent, I assume there has been little time for love-chasing and family-making?” Ethan asked and finished off his third gss of spicy firegut ale.

  “Some brief interests,” Paul admitted, followed by a shrug, “But nothing serious that led to expanding my family. I’ve been leaving that to Pati.”

  “Right, she has… what? Five children now?”

  “Seven,” he replied, “The youngest twins just turned five. They’re still a bit shy around me.”

  The Magi ughed, “The wayward uncle that has been absent their whole lives and returns as the most powerful man in the tundra? Gods, I wonder why?” he teased, leaning forward to set his gss on the small table between them, “Still, I would have thought you would have someone by now. A woman that agreed to accompany you to the ends of the world or an illegitimate brat trailing after you.”

  “Actually, there is a bit of a brat involved,” he started saying, then gnced towards the door where a staff member stood patiently observing them, and he decided that this secret was worth letting slip a bit more now, “I have a Protégé now.”

  “Seriously?” Ethan asked with wide eyes that glowed like warm embers, “I would never have believed anyone else telling me that the Bde of Pure Wrath willfully took on a Protégé. Who could have possibly caught your eye enough to take on the responsibility of mentorship?”

  He set his own gss down and pulled out a scroll from the bag at his hip, “She’s a bit of an odd mix of abilities and skills. Honestly, it’s been hard to figure out how best to guide her when we’re so different.”

  “What’s this?” Ethan asked, taking the scroll he held out between them.

  “It’s a modification to the city’s Monster Spawn Alert enchantment diagram,” Paul expined, giving him a few minutes to look over it, “I’m more learned in rituals than enchantments, but this seemed like an improvement to me. I figured, out of everyone I knew, you might be the one to tell me if it could actually work or not.”

  The Sapphire Caster didn’t respond immediately, which Paul appreciated as a sign that the man was taking his request seriously. The Magi hummed a bit and muttered some rhetorical questions as he poured over the diagram, and the first question he asked Paul was to crify, “And your new apprentice did this? Is she from one of the other continents or something? I’ve never seen this kind of concept on this rge of a scale before.”

  “Trust me when I say she didn’t learn it from another person anywhere in this world,” he said with a slight grin, “She came up with this on her own but tossed it aside because she didn’t have the means to test it properly and she’s only been studying enchantments in her spare time over the st two months.”

  Ethan’s head snapped up to look at him as he stated, “That’s impossible. Not unless some Knowledge Tomes were involved or she’s a savant of some kind like your cousin.”

  “I don’t believe that’s what this is in my Protégé’s case,” he stated, “A tome was involved to give her the foundational knowledge when we arrived here in Tulimeir but I believe this comes from logic and patterns she learned in her homend.”

  “I thought you said she didn’t learn this from anyone else?” Ethan asked in confusion.

  Paul leveled his gaze at his old friend and said evenly, “She’s a Wayfarer.”

  Silence fell between them for a long moment as Ethan looked from him to the scroll in his hands then to the door where his staff stood sck-jawed and slowly said, “I think we should have that more serious talk now.”

  “So you just stumbled upon a Wayfarer out near the border of the Blue Ridge Mountains, finished getting her a Css, then took her in as a Protégé and been training her personally to become an Adventurer; only to discover that you stole some sort of enchanting prodigy from the Magi of the OOM?!” Ethan summarized as the man paced around the private study that was brimming with books on every shelf and surface, a complete affront to the pristine order of the rest of the estate.

  Paul watched him with amusement and pointed out, “I would never have had the opportunity to meet her if a Magi hadn’t tried to kidnap and force her into submission to be experimented on.”

  Ethan scowled at him as he added, “I hate to be the one to tell you this, but the OOM doesn’t really have a good track record with their treatment of Wayfarers. Too often your organization’s thirst for knowledge outweighs the wellbeing of their… subjects.”

  “You know that is not something I would ever condone, Paul,” Ethan almost growled, then said, “I’m not involved with the field of study surrounding Wayfarers, but even I can recognize the worth of the knowledge they hold. While it is a worthy field of study, the Wayfarers themselves are people who have gone through a traumatic shift and deserve far more respect and empathy than most; even those of us among the nobility. Wayfarers are not only a treasure but a blessing upon our world.”

  “Perhaps you should be the one in that field of study,” Paul murmured, “The ones I’ve met there all sound like they’re worth a pile of siva dung.”

  “They’re too rare for my taste,” Ethan replied with a dismissive wave, “You know I went into my family’s specialization of golem construction.”

  “Yes, well, anyways, Phoenix’s existence and diagram isn’t the only reason I’m here,” Paul began looking at the book titles listed on the shelves as he spoke, “It’s just the official reason in case anyone asks why I stopped by suddenly.”

  Ethan slowed his pacing as he processed the words and asked quietly, “And the unofficial reason?”

  Paul didn’t stop his perusal of the books as he asked casually, “I recently started looking into some projects that fell directly under the Chancellor’s purview. One in particur stuck out to me. How’s the research on the Soul Cage the AOA delivered to the OOM progressing?”

  “The Soul Cage?” the Magi repeated, then scoffed, “Chancellor Ruwena left that task to her husband.”

  “Is he unqualified?” Paul inquired.

  “Not exactly,” Ethan admitted begrudgingly, “He’s a fair hand at artifice, but normally we would have an entire team dedicated to unraveling the secrets of that thing. He hasn’t called in anyone else. Making reports directly to the Chancellor and she’s not letting any of us see them. Ciming a threat to national security should the information be leaked to the public.”

  Paul raised an eyebrow towards the other noble, “And nobody has compined?”

  “Sure we have!” Ethan excimed, throwing his hands into the air in a dispy of frustration, “But nobody wants to anger House Ruwena! They control access to Tulisuda and lead the OOM branch here. I even wrote a formal compint to the duke himself about the way they’ve been consolidating power and shutting out other parties from verifying their findings and procedures, but I’ve been ignored or brushed aside.

  “People see my family name and position within the OOM and immediately think I’m making my own sort of political py to promote myself or my house,” the Magi bemoaned, then added in annoyance, “I’m not that petty, Paul.”

  “I know, Ethan,” he reassured, turning to look at the man, “I also have my own reasons not to trust House Ruwena. Perhaps we can help one another in uncovering what I believe to be treachery.”

  Murinah gave a coquettish smile to a runeforged man as she leaned over his desk and asked, “So, Ramir, you told me that Dazien was going to be on wall patrol, but I’ve been checking every night all week, and he hasn’t shown up. You didn’t give me bad information, did you? I can only imagine what that will do to your reputation if I told my parents that–”

  “His party was assigned some missions out along the south road since you st asked,” Ramir Mirimel interjected haughtily, “It’s a blood moon, Noble Ruwena. Information changes quickly, and parties get reassigned.”

  “Party? What party? A Defender and Mage aren’t going to get missions outside the city even when it’s not a blood moon,” she argued.

  “His party,” the functionary pulled out another folder from his desk as though he had been prepared for her visit, “King’s Dream is the official name, and they have one of each Role filled now. It looks like you should have communicated more about wanting to join said party.”

  She ground her teeth, knowing full well she had already tried exactly that, “Who could they have gotten as a Supporter? That Role should have been empty for me to fill.”

  “It’s the same as before,” he said with a raised eyebrow, “Phoenix Fraser, the Midshift Supporter.”

  “That’s not possible,” she stated with a shake of her head.

  “They should be arriving back in Tulimeir by this afternoon via her portal, so it had better be possible,” he replied ftly.

  “That’s not possible!” she shouted at the moronic man who seemed to be refusing to tell her the truth, or perhaps he just wasn’t the best source of information like she had thought.

  Murinah stormed off, ignoring the looks shot her way as people scurried out of her path, recognizing her superiority. She would keep searching for where Dazien was. Perhaps she had just missed him, like two ships passing in the night, and he was training at Warrior’s temple now, even though she had checked earlier.

  Dazien was the only man who didn’t seem to fear her or grovel at her feet. His confidence and chivalry towards her since they had first met ten years ago had captivated her heart. She knew he felt the same towards her but was simply awaiting to prove his worth to stand beside her. She saw the truth behind his jeweled eyes, the knowledge that he had to earn her hand, and how hard he trained every day to gain that title of king for her sake.

  Mother ughed at her request to sponsor him, but Daddy recognized the love between them and promised to offer aid where he could. So when she wanted to wait to join the AOA until Dazien would, her father didn’t refuse her. Daddy had always promised her the world and the man of her dreams would be included with it.

  That’s right, Daddy would help her track down Dazien now and help convince him that she would be the perfect scout to join the party of his dreams. She changed directions and headed back to her family estate within the inner city.

  Murinah froze when she saw an impossible sight, however. Curly red hair was forced into a braid that hung down a pale woman’s back. The woman must have been some sort of ghost walking down the road towards the inner city with a pair of voxen, a tall cinderen that was a familiar shadow, and the amethyst warrior that loved Murinah –and who was being distracted from that love by the strange undead woman from a distant nd.

  They were all talking and ughing together and she could only assume that Dazien had made yet another perfect dispy of his charm and wit to make the group behave in such a way. Even the solemn Uriel seemed to be chuckling at whatever brilliance their leader must have just uttered.

  She trailed along behind them, watching carefully for signs of some evil trickery on the part of the annoying redhead that had caused such odd behavior in her love. Murinah had needed to correct that kind of change in Dazien a few times before, but the miserlings usually did the trick. None of his other distractions had returned after that.

  The group made their way to one of the rge dorm buildings reserved as lodgings during the blood moon, and the pasty ghost broke off to go inside. Murinah realized that the outsider must be staying there while stuck here in the city. That could be useful information to pass on to her father because now she knew that she would need his help to rid herself of the daemon that came back from certain death just to torment her.

  Continuing back home, she found her father down in one of the rooms he used to experiment with that creepy bck hand thing on people who had aggravated their family too much and who simply had to be punished. She preferred using the miserlings for that since the first time she had discovered her father researching them, but Daddy seemed to think the cw thing would make the disobedient peasants behave properly.

  “Daddy, you just have to do something!” she whined, sitting on the edge of one of the tables near the sealed door after having expined what she had done earlier to the ridiculous redhead and putting on her best pout that usually got the man to do whatever she needed. “She knows I used a Silencer, and she’s completely ruining my life with how she clings onto my Dazien.”

  “Wait, you took a Silencer, and she survived the miserlings,” Lord Ruwena asked as he turned from the man hanging from chains in the center of a ritual circle in the middle of the heavily enchanted stone room.

  “She must be some kind of daemon, Daddy. An undead daemon that is confusing Dazien and threatens our family,” she said with an adamant nod.

  The older cinderen walked over to grab the towel off the table next to her and wiped the blood off of his hands before gripping both of her shoulders to make their eyes meet. He smiled gently and said, “Don’t worry my little shadow. I’ll get Arktis to take care of the loose ends, and young Dazien will be yours. A shiny prince for my lovely princess.”

  Murinah smiled broadly, “Thank you, Daddy.”