A Fiend’s Five Fools

[First 5 chapters only]

Zane Joly

Chapter 1: The Alchemist

Mallory

I did not like fairies. I still don’t. There were a few exceptions to this rule, including myself, but on the whole, I had a distaste for my fellow fey. Itzal was not an exception.

“I have been absolutely burning to see the great Mallory for eons!” he proclaimed, lifting a few inches off the ground in excitement. But I suspected that seeing a squirrel would get Itzal excited, or possibly enraged. In Itzal’s current form, he was rather emotionally volatile. He glowed and just looking at him hurt. His hair was bright red and thrashed around behind him like wildfire, and the rest of him was a humanoid shape of glowing yellowish orange with eyes of pure white light. He lacked wings like I had, but he was capable of hovering above the stone floor of my private alchemy room.

Itzal was a fey liege, a higher order of our kind that commanded others. I could have claimed the title if I wanted to but preferred to be known as “Teacher Mallory”. I didn’t want much to do with other fairies, so none were under my command, but Itzal had two fey knights by his side, both with dragonfly wings and most of their bodies hidden under reflective, golden armor. One of their helmets left room for ram horns to curl out the top.

“What is it you want, Itzal?” I asked, pouring in a large dose of liquid iron into my cauldron, before giving the simmering brown potion a few stirs. It hurt a little to breathe the fumes it gave off.

“I’ve come to recruit your aid in the war!” he proclaimed excitedly, though I wasn’t sure he could do anything not excitedly while he was in this form. “The monsters have united under a troll they call ‘King Dalinar’. In the face of this threat, the humans have reached out to the fey for aid. If you join the fight on the human side, you will be rewarded. In fact, the reward will be greater if you also send your students to fight beside you.”

I gave Itzal a withering glare. “No,” I responded. He clearly hadn’t been expecting that response. “I will not fight in a war, especially not on the human side. I do not concern myself with politics, but if the trolls are unifying, maybe it will mean more magical knowledge will spread to them. And I most certainly will not send my students to fight in the war. I teach all, be they human, troll, scaleren, or even elf. Some of my students went off to fight in the war, on both sides, and that is their choice to make, not mine and not even remotely yours. This is a place of alchemy and learning, not greed and violence. Unless you want a lesson, I see no reason why you are still in my domain.” I started to beat my wings, lifting me off the ground until I was looking down at Itzal. I possessed two large wings on top, with another two smaller wings folded underneath them, like a wasp.

Itzal growled, and he began to glow brighter. “I had heard that you accepted trolls and scaleren as students, but you let them join the rest of their kind in the war? You are a failure as a fey. You will join us in the fight, or suffer the consequences.”

I was about to issue very specific instructions regarding in what precise manner he could fuck off when Gorranis, a troll apprentice of mine, entered the room from the adjacent ingredients storeroom. “I found the ingredients you requested, Teacher Mallory, shall I-” he began before he saw the other fey in the room.

“I believe it is time to teach this rebellious fey a lesson,” growled Itzal.

Before I could stop them, the two fey knights raised their hands in unison. Gorranis’s orange skin began to blacken as decay spread across him. He gave a gargled scream, before he fell to the ground dead.

I roared in rage and spread out two of my hands, keeping the other two tucked close to my side. Telekinetically, I lifted two bottles of magical acid off of one of my nearby shelves of potions. A bottle hurled at each fey knight, and when the glass shattered, the dark green acid quickly dissolved through their armor and then their bodies. Soon they too lay dead on the ground. Unlike Garronis, their corpses vanished into the aether as their essences melted back into the weave of reality.

“They were granted swift deaths,” I said, “but if you do not exit my domain immediately, I cannot guarantee you that I shall show such mercy again.”

“How dare you threaten me!” Itzal proclaimed, becoming almost too bright to look at. He reached out a hand, and a beam of scorching white light shot towards me. I made a pushing motion with all four of my hands and the beam met a wall of telekinetic force and was pushed back. The beam dissipated after a few seconds.

“You cannot defeat me in my home domain, Itzal.” I lifted up one hand and the brown potion began to lift out of the cauldron, swirling around in the air. “This is feybane acid. Touching it will melt away your physical form, but just a droplet of it is enough to weaken your magic, permanently. It is one of the most excruciating ways to die that any fey can experience. I don’t want to have to use it, but if you do not leave right now and never return, I will do so without hesitation.”

Itzal just roared. More light poured forth, and I prepared to defend myself, but realized too late what he was doing. The beam shattered apart the door to the ingredients storeroom and arced across the shelves, burning them in an instant and destroying anything the light touched. But the worst part came moments later, as the light kindled a fire. The greatest collection of alchemical reagents in the world, decades of work, was caught in the conflagration in an instant.

“No,” I whispered, and out of shock I released my hold on the feybane potion, letting it fall back into the cauldron. Desperately, my mind was racing for a potion that could stop the fire, but before I could act, something slammed into me, sending me flying into the opposite wall.

I had time to register Itzal holding me by the throat, pulling back a glowing fist, before the blow connected. He hit me again and again and again, leaving me dazed. But I managed to collect myself enough to send a wave of magical force into Itzal. Fey naturally weighed very little, and he was sent spinning through the air several feet backwards. Itzal rammed into the cauldron, and a few drops fell onto his skin, leaving small dark burns along his glowing orange surface.

He shot another beam of light at me, and this time I barely had time to make a telekinetic shield around myself before it hit. I was pushed back against the wall. Itzal grabbed me again and hurled me towards the cauldron. Desperately, I beat my wings, but it was not enough to fully stop the momentum.

I fell into the cauldron of feybane acid, at least partially. The lower half of my face, the front of my torso, and my four arms were engulfed in the awful substance, and I felt an agony unlike anything that I ever could have thought possible. I screamed, but that just made the poison flow down my throat and into me.

My desperately beating wings managed to pull me out and I fell to the floor, wheezing and coughing. It felt like I had spent an eternity in that cauldron, but if I was still alive it must have only been a few seconds. Much of the brown acid clung to my skin and the burning pain continued to torment me.

“You were brought down by yourself,” I heard Itzal’s voice above me say, “From your sentimental weakness over monsters to your vulnerability and distraction when I destroyed all your hard work, even down to dying to the acid you made. I’ll leave you here to enjoy your slow death. But before you die, I want you to know this: I am going to raze your school and all in it to the ground. And then I will do what you were too weak to and join the war, burning your precious monsters to ash. So know this was all your fault, you arrogant little piece of shit.”

With that, he turned and left, floating up the stairs towards the rest of my sanctum. I was too weak to follow him, but weakly tried to drag myself along the floor to stop him somehow. Itzal reached the top of the stairs, and before long, I started to hear fire and screams from above. The sounds of torment paired with the crackling of my storeroom’s burning was almost too much to take. I would have gladly accepted death at that moment, but the acid was taking its time.

It would kill me eventually, and nothing could stop it. Then an idea came to me. I reached out a hand and attempted to force one of the potions to fly off the shelf into my hand. Instead it wobbled, then fell off the shelf. My magic was barely even a spark of what it once was. The glass container for it was designed not to shatter, so it merely rolled towards me. I dragged myself towards it. I tried to use all of my arms, but my smaller two limbs were unresponsive and I could no longer feel them. I grabbed the olive colored potion. A greater elixir of regeneration. I tore off the cap and poured it into my mouth. It eased the pain slightly and I felt just a little bit stronger. It would slow the time it took for the acid to kill me, but it alone wouldn’t be enough. I needed to restore my magic somehow, and there was only one way I knew to do that. 

Dragging myself to the edge of my worktable, I reached up, grabbed the edges and managed to pull myself up. I couldn’t stand, so I had to partially lay on the table.

At the very corner the table was a small locked box made from black stone. I reached over and touched a finger to the keyhole. It took it a moment to recognize my magical signature, but it slowly opened. I was barely close enough to reach inside and remove a bottle containing an elixir that shifted through different shades of blue, a concoction devised as a worst-case-scenario desperate last resort. This qualified.

I grabbed a small wooden bowl I used for mixing smaller potions and poured the elixir in. It swirled around then darkened to a complete void of all color or light. Then three glowing sapphire eyes ignited in the darkness and I heard a smooth, echoing voice say, “Well, would you look at that. The great Mallory seeks an audience with this humble archdemon. It must be my lucky day.”

That day was perhaps the worst one of my long life.

Chapter 2: The Predator

Nirali

“Just a reminder, scaleren, if you’re lying to the Night Syndicate about this opportunity or trying to screw us over, we’ll make an example out of you and enjoy doing it.”

I rolled my eyes at the vampire. I hadn’t bothered to learn her name. “Yes, I know.” We had to keep our voices low so no one would hear us, and my two companions and I wouldn’t have to explain why we were on the roof of a museum.

She hissed at me. “I am human no longer, and you’d do well to remember that, mortal.”

I rolled my eyes again and replied, “You have no scales, are around five and a half feet tall, have boring skin tones, not-pointed ears, and are annoying and privileged. Seems human to me.”

The other human vampire spoke, “We don’t have time for this. Let’s go.” I didn’t know their name either, but I disliked them slightly less than the other ones. I still had a contempt for humans, especially human vampires.

The museum had a few different windows on the roof. Not the best security, but the Night Syndicate was usually helping prevent break-ins, not sending agents to break in themselves. But the vampiric crime organization had decided that the object I was after was worth making an exception.

When we came up to one of the windows, the rude vampire put on a thick black glove and punched the window, shattering it. Even when undead monsters, humans had such delicate skin. The cuts wouldn’t have bled or hurt him all that much, but they would have taken about ten minutes to regenerate. Humans weren’t meant to be vampires, even though the vast majority of vampires were human.

My two companions turned to smoke and flowed through the hole in the window. I looked down. About a twenty feet drop. I’d survived worse, but I didn’t want to go through the pain and risk of injury again. Then I spotted a pillar near the window inside. I turned away and struck the shattered glass with my tail, widening the hole enough for me to go through. Taking a deep breath, I jumped down through the shattered window and wrapped my arms around the pillar, grunting from the force of impact.

It wasn’t all that different from sliding down a tree, which I’d done many times. There was still a rough impact when I hit the ground, but I was only slightly sore, not aching all over. My two vampire companions were nowhere to be seen.

But my attention was immediately diverted to the two human guards staring at me in shock, both equipped with spears and very minimal leather armor. “MONSTER!” one of them yelled in fright.

“That’s rude. You should not be scared because I am a scaleren, you should be scared because I am a criminal breaking into this building in the middle of the night. I’m not even a vampire yet.”

The two guards seemed confused by this. Apparently most intruders didn’t deliver lectures. I sighed and said, “Never mind. Let’s get this over with.” I lashed my tail, raised up my hands, and started bouncing on the balls of my feet.

After a moment’s confusion, the two charged. Like the predictable idiots they were. When the first one lunged with his spear, I easily sidestepped before grabbing the end of the spear and kicking the other end out of his hand. I threw his weapon away just in time to duck under the second spear. I twisted around quickly, using my long prehensile tail to knock my second assailant’s legs out from under her. Her spear also went rolling across the floor.

I wasn’t a martial savant, but I had trained and exercised under difficult physical conditions my whole life and knew malzka, a scaleren martial art style. These two looked like they had taken this job because they didn’t expect anything interesting to happen and needed the extra money. I didn’t even break a sweat knocking the two of them unconscious. I couldn’t sweat, but I don’t think I would have if I could.

I heard the less rude vampire’s voice behind me say, “Not bad.”

Using all of the self-control that I had, I didn’t turn around in surprise. I hadn’t heard them approach. “If this was some sort of test, it was far too easy. I could do much more when I’m a vam-ayer.”

“I’ve told you,” said the rude vampire woman, walking past me, “It’s pronounced ‘vampire’.”

“I told you,” I said, “That’s the human way of saying it, not its original way. In Scaleren, vam-ayer means ‘dead-predator’. You can keep it for yourselves if you want, but scaleren vam-ayers should be referred to by the right name.”

“Call yourself whatever you want, as long as you get the job done,” said the other one, “And this wasn’t just a test. The Night Syndicate is supposed to be protecting this establishment, so we have to make it clear that we were the ones who broke in. We’ll say that the museum found some kind of vampire killing artifact and refused to give it up to us, so we broke in, caused some collateral damage, and left our signature calling card.”

The two vampires knelt next to the unconscious humans, angling their heads so that the necks were exposed. I turned away. I was used to the sight of death, and the humans had been rude, but I didn’t want to see them die.

After they were done, the two vampires stood, both wiping blood from their mouths and with eyes glowing a brighter than normal shade of red. They had slightly labored breathing and seemed to have trouble focusing. Yet another symptom of the vam-ayer magical condition being adapted to the human physiology it wasn’t crafted for. Their hunger for blood became a weakness, and they experienced a distracting euphoria and emotional instability when they drank.

“Let’s go,” I said, “I’m getting bored.”

The female hissed at me, and her partner said, “The scaleren exhibit is this way.”

We didn’t run into any more guards on our way. The two of them shattered, broke, tore, or stole a few small exhibits and objects along the way.

Soon, our trio reached the scaleren exhibit. A place that summarized the millenia old history of my people into a dozen or so medium blocks of text next to interesting trinkets in glass cases. Most of the written information provided was inaccurate, and the trinkets were all fake, random objects from my rainforest home, stolen from the scaleren, and/or blatantly disrespectful.

The object we were looking for was of the last two categories. It was labeled as “scaleren skeleton”, which was partially correct. Behind a protective layer of glass was the dead body of a scaleren with all the flesh and scales removed, leaving only the bones. But to call it just a “scaleren skeleton” was a little like calling a massive city a “settlement”. Technically true, but it was an understatement. It was the best preserved skeleton of a vam-ayer anywhere in the world not heavily guarded by a collector or magical order. I doubted that the curator of the museum even knew how valuable it was, or even what it was.

“Wow,” said Rude One, as that was what her name had solidified as in my mind, “So you must be really short for a scaleren.”

It was true that the skeleton towered over me, as I was a bit under five feet. “I’m normal height for a scaleren,” I replied, “We’re small so we can move through trees easily, the same reason we have tails. But vam-ayers are much larger. They are apex predators. And their size makes them more frightening. The humans who run this exhibit just used the biggest skeleton they could find, to make us seem threatening.”

I rammed my fist into the glass case. It shimmered with light blue light, and didn’t even show a crack. My fist just hurt quite a bit. The glass was magically enchanted.

I stepped aside and gestured towards the glass. Rude One and Polite One both stepped up, pounding on the glass together. Even with their strength, it took a few seconds for the glass to crack, and a bit longer for it to shatter. I walked up to the skeleton. At the tip of its tail was an unusually long and sharp bone, like the head of a spear. I grabbed it and snapped it off.

Human vampires used fangs to turn others, which I thought was stupid and awkward. vam-ayers had a much more efficient, logical, and clean method for turning other scaleren. They used the tips of their tails, which, unlike other scalerens’, could easily stab through flesh.

A few years ago, the last of the vam-ayers had been killed. This was supposed to mean that no new vam-ayers could be made, but if well enough preserved, then their sharp tailbones were good for one last go.

I held the object in my hand. Taking a deep breath, I stabbed myself with it, in the center of my chest, just below the lungs, where my first heart was.

I pulled it out. Blood was spilling onto the floor, and the pain was almost unbearable, but I had been prepared. I lifted the bone and stabbed into my upper left chest, where human hearts were, and where my second heart was. I almost collapsed to the ground and had to lean against the wall. I drew the bone out and stabbed it in one more time, in my upper right chest, where my third and final heart was. Blood was flowing over my bare scales.

The bone in my hand crumbled to ash. But the pain was starting to numb, and I wasn’t dead, which meant that the vam-ayer blessing was taking root. My body instinctively knew that what was about to happen was supposed to happen, so it had shut down my pain sensors that would ordinarily be screaming at the complete body rework. That didn’t mean it was comfortable.

I groaned as I felt my skin begin to itch. My bones groaned as they ground against one another and expanded. The two vampires watched in horror as I fell to the ground, losing all control of my muscles. I lay there and tried to relax, breathing in, breathing out, like I’d been trained to. I had been preparing for this moment for a long time.

I don’t know how much time I spent there, but I knew the itching intensified and I regained partial control of my muscles. I brought my clawed fingers up to my head and tore into the scales, which had grown colorless and gray as opposed to their normal brown and green. I tore off the gray scales, exposing clean white shining scales beneath.

After shedding my skin, a terrible hunger overwhelmed me, and I ravenously tore into my abandoned husk. My body was growing rapidly and needed as much biotic material as it could get. When I was done, I slowly stood up, and stumbled. I wasn’t used to being so high above the ground.

The two vampires suddenly seemed quite small. I enjoyed being able to look down at them. I lashed my tail. It was even longer and had a sharp bone emerging from the tip. “I’ve been looking forward to this moment for my whole life,” I said. I realized that my voice had dropped significantly. It made sense, considering that I had larger vocal cords and lungs now.

Rude One cursed under his breath. Polite One seemed surprised but like they were trying to hide it. “Well,” they said, “We’re glad the transformation worked. We weren’t sure it would. Per your deal with the Night Syndicate, in exchange for helping you become a vampire, you owe us fifteen years of your servitude. You will be a full-fledged member of the Night Syndicate, and I’m sure we can find many different uses for the unique skills that you have told us your vampire breed has.”

“Right,” I said, slowly stalking forward, my body becoming increasingly accustomed to the size difference, “That was our deal.”

Polite One seemed to notice something was wrong, and took a step backwards, resting their hand on the hilt of their dagger.

“That was our deal,” I said, slipping into my native tongue of Scaleren, which I was far more comfortable speaking in, “But I have a slightly different plan. Tfor all the help, but I don’t owe you humans for becoming this. If it weren’t for humans, I would have become a vam-ayer long ago. This isn’t personal. Well, it’s mostly not personal. Vampiric humans aren’t all that different from normal humans, you just also represent the proud magic of the scalerens being twisted to make parasitic monsters. And I’m done taking orders from humans.”

I lunged forward, and the two vampires barely had time to scream.

When I was done with them, I shifted into mist and flew away. I vowed to myself that for the rest of my life, I would never be a servant. That was the night I became predator, not prey.

Chapter 3: The Warlock

Strega

“Honey, you need to get up, now,” I heard my mother’s voice say, in a more urgent and serious tone than I had ever heard from her.

“What’s going on?” I asked, sitting up. My mother had a dead serious expression, wearing running boots under a green dress, and she had her glasses on. All of that was normal, but she was holding her personal journal in one hand and her usually neatly and elaborately braided hair was in a simple ponytail.

“I don’t have time to explain, sweetie. I know that you fell asleep before you could undress last night, so we don’t need to waste time getting you dressed. Get up and let's go.”

I nodded and followed her. She hadn’t told me what was going on, but I trusted that my mother hadn’t gone insane. Was the manor on fire? I sniffed the air. I didn’t smell any smoke. The halls were oddly silent. Where had the servants gone?

As my mother dragged me down the stairs, I heard yelling outside. She stopped in front of the front doors. The yelling was quite loud. She turned back to me. “I don’t know what’s about to happen, but there’s a good chance that things are going to be rough for you. And it’s my fault. I am so, so sorry, Strega, but remember: I am your mother and I love you no matter what. You are the strongest and smartest person I have ever known, including myself.”

With that, my mother turned back to the doors and opened them with one hand, her other hand still tightly clutching her journal.

I winced as the sunlight hit my face. But the sound was much worse. Over a hundred people chanting: “DOWN WITH THE WITCH! DOWN WITH THE WITCH!”

The ancestral home of the Hekaton family was unusually small, considering it was the abode of an old and powerful family, and it was positioned directly next to the town square. In the middle of the square were two tall wooden poles driven into the ground, with wood lying around each one.

My mother simply observed the mob with a cold impassivity, showing not even the slightest flicker of emotion. I looked around with shock and confusion.

“Aradia Hekaton!” yelled a man in front of the crowd. He wore a white tabard over high quality armor and held a large sword -- A paladin. “The Paladins have uncovered evidence you are a witch who consorted with the organization known as ‘the Dark Sages’.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about. If you have accusations to bring against me, then I will gladly stand trial for those crimes. But this manner of-”

The paladin interrupted her by lifting up his hand. There was a brilliant flash of multicolored light. The crowd gasped and I saw what they were looking at when the spots cleared from my vision. My mother’s personal journal was no longer merely a thick volume with a brown cover, but instead it looked like the book was made out of a black and green marble. The swirling patterns actually moved as I watched it, and the book emanated a strange feeling. Something about it was oddly fascinating in a way that couldn’t be described.

My mother just sighed. “I should have known it was a bad idea to bring my grimoire with me. But I spent a lot of time setting up that illusion. I suppose there’s not much for denial at this point.” Then she raised her voice and addressed the crowd, “First of all, I would also accept being called a warlock in addition to witch. And secondly, I am a non-violent, non-malicious practitioner of demonic magic. I recognize that it is an illegal form of magic, but I have never harmed a living soul that was not threatening the lives of innocents.”

“The Paladins recently raided the hideout of the Dark Sages, and one of their senior members mentioned you had worked with them in a confession.”

“An old friend of mine was a member of the Dark Sages. So I helped him out. I didn’t realize they were a bunch of murderous assholes, and so I freed the people they were keeping captive, loosed their own demons on them, then left. I imagine it was only because of those escaped captives that you tracked them down. You’re welcome.”

“Mom?” I asked. This wasn’t making any sense. How was my mother supposed to be a warlock? Warlocks wore dark robes and cackled madly. She wore what she referred to as “functional dresses” and brewed me tea every night.

My mother gave me an apologetic look. “Your excuses are meaningless,” proclaimed the paladin, “You admitted to practicing dark magic, and for that crime, by the authority of the paladins, I sentence you to burn at the stake.”

The crowd cheered. I had never liked a lot of the people in this town, but I didn’t understand how so many could be okay with this. I was breathing heavily and I could feel tears forming. They couldn’t take her from me.

My mother merely seemed resigned, like she had known it would come eventually. “Fine,” she said, “Do what you wish. Leave my daughter alone. She is only sixteen. She had no knowledge of any of this. Strega is completely innocent.” As she spoke, her gaze was focused on the center of the square. There was no reason to set up two stakes for one person. I felt a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

“Your associate in the Dark Sages also mentioned that you were teaching your daughter the demonic arts.”

I tried to think. She had taught me the basics of magical theory, but I couldn’t conjure even a spark, much less summon a demon or manifest hellfire. What was he talking about?

My mother sighed again. She looked tired and sad. “I know there’s no point in denial, but I believe what I said to him was that I intended to teach her in the future. I was going to give her a grimoire for her own as an eighteenth birthday gift.”

“You were?!” I yelled.

“Lies,” said the paladin, “I am not allowing any warlocks to escape this day. And there is the possibility that she is already corrupted or some kind of demonic simulacrum.”

And that snapped my mother out of her sadness. In an instant, her “grimoire” was open and in front of her. The page displayed a complex rune which started to glow an emerald green. “Leave her alone,” growled my mother, “Or I will rain hellfire from this sky. If you try to hurt my daughter, I can guarantee you I will do everything in my power to reduce this square and everyone in it to ash.”

The paladin lifted his sword and it ignited with magical flame, shifting from color to color. “You don’t have the power to make such sweeping threats. Even if you could best me in a fight, you are vastly outnumbered. Accept your fate with dignity.”

Slowly, she closed the book. I saw my mother trace a complex looking rune on its cover. Where she had traced her finger, it blazed with green fire for a moment, then disappeared. The grimoire itself dissipated into the air with a small burst of green flame moments later. The paladin began advancing up the steps of the manor toward us.

My mother turned back to me. “I am so sorry,” she whispered. Then she turned back to the center of the square.

Green fire manifested at the tip of her finger and she traced another rune in the middle of the air. It flew towards one of the wooden stakes and burned its pattern into the wood. But nothing else happened.

Then my mother began tracing a sigil over her heart. “Very well then,” said the paladin, sending a bolt of magical prismatic flame at her.

She held forward one hand, the one she wasn’t creating the rune with, and used it to block the bolt. The hand was horribly burned, but my mother just gritted her teeth and continued carving the rune. When she was finished, she put her hand to her heart, pressing the rune into herself.

The green glow pulsed with her heartbeat. The rune burned into one of the two stakes pulsed with the same light. Just before the paladin reached her, my mother screamed as the green light consumed her. She dissolved into emerald lightning, rushing towards the rune carved into the wood. There was an explosion. Where the wooden stake had been, there was only a large blast mark on the ground. And just like that, Aradia Hekaton, my mother, was gone.

I sank to my knees. She couldn’t be dead. That just wasn’t how things worked. This had to all be a nightmare. I stared at the one remaining stake and the blackened stone near it.

The paladin roughly dragged me to my feet and pulled me along. I couldn’t concentrate enough to resist. What had just happened was slowly sinking in, and I could feel tears forming.

The mob began cheering again. But it wasn’t until I had been firmly tied to the stake and the fire had been lit that I began to understand the immediate danger I was in. Fear of death managed to cut through my grief.

“NO!” I yelled, “PLEASE, I DIDN’T DO ANYTHING. I DON’T WANT TO BURN!”

I didn’t think they could hear me over their own yelling. I lowered my head and sobbed. Then I noticed something. Nestled among the pieces of wood which were being gradually consumed by the flame, was the book that had disappeared in green flame. My mother’s grimoire. The rune she carved on it must have been to move it to the stake and hide it. I can’t explain how, but the strange marble tome gave off a comforting feeling, like it was here to help me. But how had my mother known which of two stakes I would be at? Then realization hit me. She had done that spell that destroyed herself and the other stake to make sure that I would be brought to the one with the grimoire. She had been trying to save me.

“Please, help me!” I pleaded with the book. Its pages flipped open and something flew out. It looked like a playing card, and the back of it was a shifting blue. It levitated up through the air and settled about a foot away from my face. The front of the card was pure darkness. Then three glowing blue balls of flame ignited in the darkness. No, not flame. Eyes. Three eyes radiating blue light. I got the feeling I wasn’t looking at a moving image on a card, but that I was observing a gateway to somewhere else.

The fire approaching my feet suddenly froze. Then an azure color slowly creeped up the flame, and the heat dissipated. The strange flame swayed back and forth, not advancing any further towards me. The crowd gasped in shock and the paladin drew his sword, which once more ignited.

A voice came from the card. “Oh, hello there, young lady. You look like a girl in a desperate situation. I have delayed the flame, but unless a contract is made, I can’t protect you for much longer. So how about it? Do you accept the deal?”

“Demon,” I whispered in shock.

“That’s archdemon to you, child,” said the voice, “Now I don’t have all day. Well, I have all of eternity, but you don’t have long.”

The paladin thrust forward the sword and from the tip of it a bolt of magical flame came hurling towards me. The blue fire leapt up and blocked the bolt, but I could see the blue glow soften a bit. The normal orange color of fire started to creep in at the edges.

“What deal?” I asked the fiend.

“You really are clueless, aren’t you, girl? Where is your mother, she will understand the situation. Unless…” the card slowly made a three hundred and sixty degree turn, the archdemon’s three eyes darting around, observing the situation. The paladin sent another bolt of power forward, and was blocked by the flame again, but the demon’s power over the flame weakened once more.

"Condolences for your loss,” said the stranger without much emotion, “It seems I must explain the situation. This card holds a dormant bargain. A contract just waiting for a signature at the bottom. I offer considerable demonic power, and in exchange, the recipient, which would be you, agrees to serve me for one year. A more than fair deal, no? And it is also your only chance at escape. Do you accept?”

I didn’t have the luxury of a choice. The paladin was readying another, larger ball of prismatic fire and I didn’t think that the demon’s flames could block it this time. “I ACCEPT!” I yelled out.

“Excellent,” said the voice on the other side, “Now, I’ll just need a little blood to finalize the deal.” The card flew forward and made a small slice across my throat, drawing a bit of blood. I could feel the cut heal just moments after.

The blue flame suddenly exploded with power, spreading rapidly across the wood. It spread all over me, but did not burn. I could see the wood being quickly consumed in the flame, including the stake and rope holding me in place. The grimoire also caught fire. It crumbled to ash and a dark smoke rose up.

The azure flame started to twist around and around me like a tornado. The card was consumed in the flame and the black smoke from the grimoire was caught in it as well. The wood was completely gone now and I fell a few feet down to the ground. Infernal magic condensed and writhed in the air like a snake, then flowed downward.

The fire and smoke poured into my mouth and I could feel the power. The demonic might. I felt invincible. I felt powerful. And I felt angry.

“YOU!” I yelled, pointing at the paladin, who was staring with shock and fear. But he raised his glowing sword to face me all the same.

I want to burn him like he tried to burn me, I thought. Then suddenly, I could see something in my mind’s eye. A page titled “Individual Concentrated Hellfire” and a drawing of a rune beneath it, with neatly organized instructions next to it. The edges of the mental page trembled and flickered, and they had black scorch marks but the contents were legible nonetheless.

I reached a hand forward and instinctively the dark power surged forth to do my bidding. A blue glow manifested at the tip of my finger and I drew the complex rune in the air in seconds, like it was muscle memory.

The rune trembled in the air. With all my strength I struck it with my fist. The rune just floated there for a moment, and then it ignited turning into an unnatural shade of pure orange. Unlike normal fire, it didn’t flicker or have any range of color, it was just a brilliant and bright solid shade of red-yellow. This was hellfire.

I mentally commanded it forward, and the demonic magic leapt towards the paladin, obeying my will. He had time to manifest a glowing shield around himself, but the hellfire just wrapped around it. It became a pillar of barely constrained destruction, twisting around and around him. I heard the paladin scream briefly before he was silenced.

I lifted up my hand and clenched it into a fist and the hellfire was extinguished. There was nothing left of the paladin, just a smoking hole in the ground.

The mob stared in shock. Then the spell broke, and all hells broke loose. Some screamed and ran, others just stood still, but a couple dozen charged at me, wielding clubs, butcher knives, or hatchets. No, I thought, I am the one in control.

And just like that, another page manifested in my mind, titled “Lesser Mass Possession”. I knelt down on the ground and drew another rune, also radiating unnatural sapphire light.

I pressed my hand against the sigil, and it glowed briefly before disappearing. But an identical rune formed on the forehead of each of the advancing attackers and they froze in place. “Drop your weapons, then run,” I ordered. They followed my orders with looks of terror in their eyes.

Soon, I was alone in the square. I took deep breaths to calm myself down. As I calmed, I could feel the demon magic within me settle into place, fusing with my being. I had burned off the excess magic and doubted I would ever again be able to do spells of the magnitude of the two I had just casted.

How did I know that? Little fragments of knowledge accosted me, facts about demons or their magic, and so many pages of runes, mostly for hellfire or possession spells. Was this some part of the deal I had made? Slowly, the realization dawned on me, aided by the magical knowledge constantly whispered to me. This was because of the deal, but not a direct result. My deal had only given me this power, but when the grimoire had been burned it’s essence and knowledge had been absorbed by the power, which was absorbed by me.

The grimoire, or at least fragments of it, was in my head now. I concentrated and the shifting image of the grimoire appeared in my mind. The marble cover was cracked and had many missing pieces, and parts of it seemed to be melting from some unseen flame, but it was there. What was my mother writing in you before she… before this morning? I mentally asked it.

The grimoire opened and flipped to a page near the end. Written in my mother’s instantly recognizable neat handwriting, but written like she had been in a hurry, was: 

My Dear Daughter Strega

I will have told you that I am sorry, but I must repeat it again. If you are reading this, then I was killed and as a last resort to save you, I gave you the grimoire. I activated the deal card within to it would respond when you called out, and turned off the grimoire’s protection runes so it would be destroyed and absorbed in the deal. I forced power and the knowledge to use it upon you when you were too young, but I saw no other choice. Protect yourself. I love you.

That was all that was written. She had planned for this to happen. And even if not today, she might have planned to do this to me eventually. She had been a warlock, a wielder of demon magic for years and she had never told me. I was angry at her and missed her. I wished she was here so I could wrap my arms around her and also scream at her. But I was alone.

I fell to the ground and sobbed. The entire life I knew had been burned to ash and I was trapped inside a new one. That had been the saddest day of my life.

Chapter 4: The Sharp

Evander

I held out my arm and watched the bruises and cuts along it regenerate. Being a troll had its advantages sometimes. It also had many drawbacks, but I tried to avoid self pity. I had a few reasons my life was flawed, but they were all blown out of the water by number one, being born with a malformed leg.

I carefully cleaned the little splotches of blood off of my cane. A couple other trolls had tried to take her from me. I did not believe in engaging with bullies, but anyone who thought that they could take away my cane didn’t deserve to maintain an unbroken jaw. Her name was Cane. A nice functional name

I removed a tusk from Cane with delicate care. I’d had her since I was ten. She was carved from leywood, a slightly magical type of tree that produced incredibly durable wood. Cane was a lovely brown-red, so blood didn’t show up much on her. Still, I cleaned her every time she tasted blood as a kind of calming post-battle ritual. I thought her shade also provided a nice contrast to my indigo skin.

The attack by those two idiots was the most severe event to have happened since I joined the United Troll Nation’s Army, but it wasn’t isolated. I was unusual, and a footsoldier who needed a cane to walk was just asking to get harassed. I was a deceptively dangerous fighter, as my aggressors often found out in a quick and unexpected manner, but I needed to refine my combat skills quickly if I wanted to ascend in the army. At a higher rank, I would still get mocked and get in a few brawls, but I might command enough respect no one would try to take Cane from me.

If I didn’t, soon they’d attack in enough numbers that could overpower me. I’d struggled fighting just two opponents.

And whatever position I was hoping to achieve, preferably it wouldn’t require running. That logic brought me to the archery range. I figured that the only weapon that didn’t require much leg would be a good fit for me. When I was sure I was done regenerating and Cane was clean, I stood up, leaning on her.

There were several training bows hung up on the wall. I had gone to the practice range that was farthest from the center of the camp, so it would have the fewest people. I inspected the bows, and picked up a smaller one. I collected a few blunt practice arrows and took my place at the firing line, about twenty feet from the targets.

Then I realized one very crucial flaw in my procedure. Using a bow meant using both hands, which meant having to stand without my cane, which I couldn’t do without collapsing or balancing on one foot, and I didn’t have that kind of balance.

There was a wooden pillar supporting the roof above me right next to each archery window. I leaned against the pillar with my right shoulder, supporting enough of my weight to stand without my cane. I gently put Cane down at my feet and held up the bow with my left hand. I nocked an arrow and pulled it back with my right hand, which was awkward considering I was leaning against the pillar on my right side.

“Alright,” said a voice behind me, “This is too painful. I can’t watch anymore.”

I was so startled I nearly fell to the ground. Looking down at me was a scaleren with dark gray scales that were almost black. The edge of his mouth curled upwards, more expressive than the faces of most lizards. “Hello there.”

In as dignified and quick a manner as I could, I grabbed Cane and stood at attention. I saw his slitted eyes flick from the cane to my weak leg up to my face. And he did have to look up. I was around seven feet tall, a bit short for a troll, and he was around five feet tall, average for a scaleren.

“You should always pull the bowstring with your dominant hand,” he instructed, “And ideally you should be standing up straight, but in your case that doesn’t seem viable. So at least lean on your non-dominant side or the pillar will limit the range of your arm movement. Which is your dominant hand?”

“I’m ambidextrous,” I answered, “I can work with both hands.”

His face lit up when he heard that. “Oh, praise to the primordials! Oh that simplifies a lot. Truly you are blessed.”

I raised one eyebrow and looked down at Cane. “Yeah,” I stated in a sarcastic tone, “I truly am blessed.”

“Ah,” he said, nodding in sympathy. After a pause he said, “life really is a bitch isn’t it?”

That made me chuckle. “Indeed it is,” I said.

“Well, no use in complaining. Oh, I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Moallem.”

The name sounded familiar. Where had I heard it? After staring at him for a few seconds it hit me. “You’re the Lieutenant General of the archers division!” I exclaimed, “I’m sorry for not recognizing you, sir-”

“If I wanted to be recognized, then I wouldn’t practice at the archery range that people go to the least. I suspect that’s also why you came here. How about this: you don’t tell anyone I’m here, and I won’t tell anyone you’re here. Oh, and don’t call me ‘sir’. We scaleren think titles are stupid. Moallem is a formal enough sounding name as it is. What’s yours?

“Evander the Limper,” I said, “Footsoldier.”

Moallem tilted his head. “The Limper,” he said, “Did you pick that name?”

“No, I didn’t,” I responded. For a Sedani troll, a title was part of one’s name. My kin had supplied far worse ones. Evander the Deformed, the Weak, the Disgusting, the Freak. The Limper was at least factual, objective.

“Your name should be something you’re proud of,” the lieutenant commander said, “Now, show me what you got.”

I nodded and adjusted my bow so I was holding it with my right hand and pulling the bowstring back with my left. I focused on the target and let it loose. It missed the target by about five feet.

Moallem winced a bit. “I know that you can’t stand up straight, but try to be a little more upright, at least in the top half of your body. Posture is very important. And lift the bow more so that your eye is level with the arrow.”

I tried it again. I only missed by two feet that time. And so we continued like that for the rest of the afternoon. And for the rest of the week. And the rest of the year. Moallem took me as an apprentice and trained me in the use of longbows, recurve bows, crossbows, and some close quarters combat. I joined the archers division of the army and became one of their best sharpshooters. My leg made things a bit more difficult, but I spent all the time I could spare practicing, and apparently I was a natural. I stayed with Moallem until the very end. I couldn’t bury him in the Forest of Scales where he was born, but I found a little piece of woodland that I think he would have found acceptable. He had been right about one thing. Life was a bitch.

The day I met him was the second-most important day of my life. Well, possibly third.

Chapter 5: The Thawed Heart

Quilo

I was new to a lot of things in the north. The noise and movement of the tavern was simultaneously exhilarating and frightening. Like all elves, my eyes changed color given my emotional state and, at a guess, right now they would be a mix of white, green, and blue, showing fear, excitement, and curiosity.

I thought that a frost elf wouldn’t stand out that much in the borderlands. While they were technically a part of the United Troll Nation, there was still a large human population here. But strangely that almost seemed like it led to more division between species and I hadn’t seen another frost elf since I had arrived at the city of Vomlo.

I was drifting around and hoping I could find a job. I was talented, I just didn’t know how to interact with anyone except stuck up frost elf nobility.

A figure grabbed my attention. Standing at the bar was a tall troll with indigo skin and long white hair in a braid. He had a knife strapped to his waist and an unloaded crossbow hanging on the other side. But what drew my attention was the cane he was leaning on, even though he looked quite young. The cane had several diagonal notches that looked like they had been carefully carved. Then I noticed something odd about his legs. His pants were rolled up, and his left leg had something badly wrong with it. It looked like it was just skin and bone, almost no muscle at all. No wonder he needed a cane.

There was an empty spot next to him but no chair and I didn’t feel like standing. Frost elves were naturally tall compared to humans, but I would be dwarfed next to the troll.

I walked up and concentrated. Air solidified, making a stool out of ice. I hopped on and tried to think of something charming to say. The troll was drinking a red wine and gave me a cursory glance, mostly seeming to focus on my ice chair.

“Now, you’re an odd sight,” I said in Trollik, taught to me by my mother. The troll closed his eyes and sighed, and I imagine people commented on his unusual appearance a lot. I continued on, “I mean a red wine? You strike me as more of the white type.”

The troll froze for a second as he processed my joke. Then he laughed. His laugh was sudden and it had force. “Well,” I said, pleased, “I wasn’t under the impression it was that hilarious.”

The troll’s laughter died down to a chuckle. “It really wasn’t,” he said, “But I’m just used to people commenting on the leg.”

I resolved to do everything I could to not mention the leg, at least at the beginning of the conversation. He seemed like he heard enough about it. “My name is…” I hesitated. How a frost elf said their name depended on their rank. I was the son of a noble who hadn’t finished his cryomancy training, so I should say my first and last name. But I wanted to forget my previous life, and the custom for frost elf commoners was to say their full name. “My name is Quilo Eirvos Neve.”

“I am Evander the Sharp,” he calmly responded before taking another sip of wine.

“You have a title?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

“You haven’t known a lot of trolls, have you?” Evander the Sharp asked.

“You are one of the first ones I’ve had a real conversation with. I’m a new arrival from the frost elf lands down south.”

“Interesting,” he responded, “But the reason I could tell is you seemed surprised by the fact I had a title. I’m from the Sedani Plains, and the tribes in that region use titles as last names. A title that we or those around us give us. There are other Evanders, and possibly other ‘the Sharp’s, but to my knowledge I am the only combination of both.”

I looked down at the weapons he had on his person. “Which sense of sharp does it mean?”

Evander smiled. “Exactly,” he said, “It can mean sharp as in clever. Sharp as in sharpshooter. Or sharp as in,” In an instant he was holding a dagger in one hand, “sharp.”

“Sharpshooter,” I said as he put the knife away, “Are you an archer? Do you provide security, or something?”

 “I’m a professional mercenary, bounty hunter, and bodyguard. Basically, I hurt people if it’s legal and I’m being paid. I avoid killing unless absolutely necessary, but if a target is aiming to kill or has committed serious crimes and doesn’t seem like they’re going to go quietly and willingly, I’m not above maiming.”

This actually seemed like a job that I would know how to do. But I didn’t know Evander well enough to ask if he wanted any assistance with his job. First, I had to show him I was equally capable.

“I’m actually a skilled warrior myself,” I boasted.

Evander carefully looked me up and down with an analytical expression. “Really,” he said, without any tone or inflection. I couldn’t tell if he was mocking me or just unconvinced.

“I am a cryomancer, and a very skilled one at that. In fact, I specialize in combat based ice magic. You have already seen a display of my awe-inspiring power,” I said, gesturing to the stool of solid ice beneath me.

“Hmm,” he said, with the same lack of inflection.

Just then a human passed by us. “Crippled mongrel!” he spat at Evander. The troll’s face twitched just the slightest bit, but showed no other reaction. I, on the other hand, was almost certain that my eyes blazed with violet fury.

“If you don’t believe in my capability, I’ll prove it to you,” I said, sliding off the stool. I snapped my fingers and the ice reverted to its original gaseous form.

“ATTENTION!” I called out to the tavern, switching to speaking Human, a more commonly known language. Everyone looked at me. Evander had an expression of bemused curiosity on his face. “I have a bet!” I proclaimed, “Anybody who can beat me in a duel and knock me to the ground, I will give fifty silveni to. But anybody who I beat owes me ten silveni.”

The troll bartender casually added, “No blood spilled, no furniture broken.”

I pointed at the man who had insulted Evander. “And I will start with you, sir. Are you tough enough to take on a lone unarmed frost elf? I’m a frost elf, just so you know. You seem too ignorant to have come to that realization on your own.”

The man wheeled around and glared at me. After a pause he said, “Fine, seems an easy way to get fifty silveni. And I get to kick the shit out of an annoying fey. Seems like a win-win to me.”

“Again, I am a frost elf. We have fey blood but are just as much mortals as- you know what, it's irrelevant. You’re not going to remember any of tonight after your head hits the floorboards.”

People moved aside and gave us enough room to fight. I suppose that brawls were fairly common here. I didn’t actually have the money to pay if he won. I hadn’t stolen nearly enough money before running away and exchanging frost elf coins for silveni was quite expensive. I wanted to get as many challengers as possible so I could collect as much money as possible, and I couldn’t scare them away by revealing what I could actually do. No ice magic until I needed it.

“Oh,” I added, “And please do hand over the coins beforehand. I suspect you’re a sore loser. Or that you’re destitute and don’t have the money in the first place. Which would explain a lot about your odor and your taste in clothes.”

He put ten silveni on a nearby table. “I can’t trust you to not run away with it once you’ve got the money.”

I rolled my eyes. At a guess they would be a mix of violet and green, anger and excitement. I dropped into a fighting stance and held up my fists. He went into what he clearly thought was a fighting stance. The man was the first to strike. Fighting him was like playing chess against a blind chicken. The man hit the floor, groaning, in twenty seconds. He hadn’t even landed a single solid hit against me.

I leaned down and offered him a hand to get up. He must have known he was too dazed to get up on his own, so he took it. In an instant, I altered the temperature of my hand, just for a second, to be burning cold. He fell back down in surprise. “You fight like a crippled mongrel,” I whispered, before standing back up and collecting his coins.

Next a few of his friends challenged me, then a few other people. It became less about getting the coins for many and more about being able to boast they beat me. Some actually presented a challenge. But there was an upside to being trained to fight for a decade, starting at the ripe age of ten. I wasn’t as mean to any of my other opponents as I was to the first one, but he had deserved it. Evander watched with interest and leaned back against the bar so he could applaud every time I sent another poor soul down to the floorboards.

Then three humans came up at once, including the one who had insulted Evander. “Hmm,” I said. Three at once would be a nice challenge, and if necessary, I could just use ice magic. “If you wish to fight me three on one, then you each have to pay an additional ten silveni admission.”

They complied, putting down six ten-silveni coins. They attacked before I was ready. Apparently, one of them was a professional boxer. Or at least, that was my educated guess as to why being punched by him hurt so much.

I got a few good hits in, but eventually I ended up with two of them holding me by the arms while the jerk who I had first challenged to the duel hit me in the gut again and again. The wording of the challenge was that it wasn’t over until I hit the floor, and they were holding me up. But I sure as hells wasn’t going to concede. I was trying to figure out how to use my ice magic in a way that wouldn’t scare others out of challenging me.

The human leaned close. “Not so cocky now, are you, fey? How about this: If you surrender now, and give me all your money, not just the fifty silveni, fairy blood won’t have to stain the floor.”

I slowly lifted my head. “You insulted my friend,” I said, “apologize to him, and I shall make it relatively painless.” I gestured with my head towards Evander, who was looking at me with concern. I smiled a little at that.

The human snorted and slapped me hard. I had taken beatings before, but never this bad. “I’ll only say this one more time. Surrender and give me the money.”

“Have you considered,” I slowly gasped, “The long term benefits… of going and fucking yourself.”

And that might have been a tad too far. Because then he drew a dagger. Evander’s eyes widened and he reached for his cane, but he would be too late to get there.

I decided then and there that I was not going to die by being stabbed to death by an asshole in a tavern. In other words, I was done playing nice.

Much like I had done with the man before when I offered him my hand, I created a cold along my skin that burned the two men holding me. They let go and I made a couple of flicking motions with my hands. Two solid blocks of ice about six inches in diameter each solidified midair and went flying towards them, knocking the two men to the ground, unconscious.

The man lunged with the dagger but I grabbed his hand, stopping him. Predictably, he tried to use his other hand to remove my grip. Ice started to form around my hand, which was touching both of his arms. In moments, both the man’s hands and forearms were stuck in a block of ice, the blade of his dagger still exposed. I easily removed my own hand from the block of ice, but he was stuck.

He tried to attack me again, but with a simple hand motion, I froze both of his feet in place. Then they slid together and the ice fused, binding together his legs.  I could telekinetically hold the ice around his hands in place, leaving the man incapable of doing anything besides yell.

Which he did. “LET ME GO YOU SON OF A-” he stopped suddenly as his frozen hands and the blade they carried suddenly moved to his throat. He stared in wide eyed horror as he learned just how easily I could slit his throat with his own blade.

And I sort of wanted to do it. But the bartender had specified no blood spilled. With one hand, I made a very specific hand gesture at the man, and with the other, I raised my hand up, flipped it over, and let it fall, enforcing my will upon the ice.

The ice blocks holding his hands and feet went up, dragging him with it, about ten feet up in the air. Then the ice disappeared back into the air, and the man fell, hard. I collected the silveni coins.

“Anybody else?” I asked, eagerly. No one responded. I guess that I had been a little bit too scary.

“I’ll fight you,” said Evander, walking forward. I noticed his left leg did step along, but it barely seemed to be pushing along the floor, his cane serving as the actual leg. The troll was also holding an ale mug in his other hand. He must have ordered the drink when I was fighting.

I wanted to say something about how I found the fact that he could take me in a fight unlikely because of his leg, but I remembered that I was avoiding bringing up the leg with him. And I of all people should know about deceptive appearances. But I could still be cocky.

As he approached, I smugly proclaimed, “Fine, if you wish to waste your money, so be it. Though it would be such a shame to see your pretty face hit the floor.” He stared at me in shock. Crap, why did I just say that? I thought.

Evander tilted his head down like he was embarrassed and I saw him blush to a deeper shade of indigo. It was adorable. “You think I’m pretty?” he asked in a soft and sweet voice. And my entire brain just shut down at that. I had absolutely no idea what to do and it felt like I stood there paralyzed for an eternity.

Then something slammed into the side of my head and I hit the ground. The crowd was cheering wildly. When my vision cleared, I saw Evander smirking down at me. Slowly, I realized that he had hit me with the mug while I had been distracted. The tricky bastard. He had beaten me before I even realized the fight started.

“Don’t feel bad,” he said, “Most people don’t stand a chance against my speed, wit, and, as you phrased it ‘pretty face’. Now I believe you owe me fifty silveni.”

I glared at him and before he could react kicked his cane out from under him. He fell to the floor next to me with a thump. We stared at each other and a few people in the crowd whistled. “Some would consider your utilizing my weak leg as unfair,” he said in Trollik.

“Well,” I responded in the same tongue, “Some would consider your utilizing my weakness to pleasant gentlemen with pretty faces as also unfair”

“Those two aren’t the same,” Evander calmly stated.

I saw someone reaching for his cane, which had rolled across the floor. I instantly manifested a snowball and threw it at them. Then, with a hand gesture I made a ring of ice form around the cane and willed it to roll over to us. Evander gratefully accepted it and stood up, helping me up as well.

Grumbling, I gave him the fifty silveni. I had still turned a considerable profit. “Let’s go,” he said.

I didn’t know where we were going, but I followed him out of the tavern. It was getting dark, and the stars were starting to become visible in the sky.

“When you were fighting those three men in there,” he said, “You held back most of the fight. I get the feeling that it was barely an effort on your part.”

“I’m not fully done with my cryomancy training, but I am extremely skilled at the basics. I only held back so more people would challenge me. I’m a little tight on funds.”

“I certainly wouldn’t mind a little extra silveni myself,” Evander responded, “But it's hard to get much work. People often assume I’m incapable because of my leg. And I’m skilled, but I am only one troll.”

“I feel like this is leading somewhere,” I said.

“How very astute,” he said, with a slight smile. “If you don’t have anything better to do, how would you like to work with me? You seem a capable enough warrior and I can teach you what you don’t know. As a duo, we’d get considerably more work. It's a dangerous business, but you don’t seem all that fazed by danger.”

“Hmm,” I said, pretending to contemplate it, “I don’t know. I’ve got a lot of offers.”

He clearly knew I was messing with him. But still Evander stopped and turned towards me. “Well,” he said in a voice just a little bit softer and a tad deeper, “Is there anything that I can offer that might sway you, pretty eyes?”

I was paralyzed again for a few seconds. “Well,” I said, with a slightly quavering voice, “I might consider it if you answer one question.”

“What is it?” he asked, tilting his head in interest.

“Will you go on a date with me?”

At that he grinned. Not one of his small little smiles or a smug smirk, a real grin like when he laughed at my joke. It made something inside me flutter. He tilted his head again and it looked like something caught his attention. “Your eyes. They’re changing color. A combination I haven’t seen before. I know elf eyes change with mood, so what does a mix of white, brown, green, and light pink mean?”

That combination meant I was feeling fear, worry, excitement, and emotional connection respectively. A light shade of pink meant I was developing feelings. A deeper pink or red would mean love, either romantically or platonically.

“Now the white and brown are growing,” he observed.

“Just answer my damned question,” I growled at him.

“I would love to go on a date with you, Quilo.” I breathed a sigh of relief that I hadn’t realized I had been holding in. “Though considering we’ve already spent some time together, that could be considered a date.”

“It could be considered the first part of a date,” I said, “And not all that great a first part of a date at that. I got beaten up a lot. Partially by you.”

“Well, I thought it was very nice. Nobody’s ever defended my honor before. I was quite flattered.”

“Fine, but I get to decide the second portion,” I declared.

“Very well. What should we do next?”

“Well, I have an idea, but in order to do it, I’ll need to pick you up.”

He stared at me. “Haven’t you already picked me up?”

“I mean in a literal sense,” I said, miming lifting an object.

Evander looked skeptically down at me. “I see a single glaring problem. The crux of it being that I weigh at least twice as much as you.”

I rolled my eyes. “Obviously, I’m going to use magic. Simply hold on tight to your cane, relax, and trust me.”

He shrugged and complied. I made a gesture simultaneously with both hands and ice formed over my arms like gauntlets with some attached limb armor. With that, I reached down and scooped up Evander, holding up the backs of his legs with one arm and his chest with the other. It was a quite romantic pose that looked a little silly considering he had far more volume and mass than me. Technically, I wasn’t lifting him. I was just lifting the ice around my arms, and using my magic was easily capable of lifting his weight.

“Well this is interesting,” he said.

I gave him a grin. “Just wait,” I said. I began running.

A plate of ice formed under my foot, about six inches above the ground. As I stretched my leg out, another plate of ice formed about a foot in the air. Using small floating pieces of solidified air, I ran upwards like I was going up a staircase. As my feet left them, I let the small platforms of ice disappear behind me.

I was getting a little bored with the pace, so I made the ice steps lift us up with each step, leaving short intervals of empty space between them where we just soared through the air for a half second before I manifested the next step. Evander wrapped his arms around my neck, and I ignored the fact that it was probably just because he was afraid of falling.

Eventually, I landed on the roof of the tallest building I could find. It seemed like a warehouse or something. Gently, I set the troll down. His eyes were wide and he was wobbling slightly on his cane.

“Sorry,” I said, though I wasn’t really and was sure he could tell, “Are you scared of heights?”

Evander walked to the edge of the roof and looked out at the city around us. “No,” he responded, “I once was, but got used to them. I spent a lot of time on archery towers.”

“Ah, that makes sense. Do you want to sit down?”

He looked around. “There aren’t any-” he began before I flexed my fingers and a chair of ice made for his proportions manifested a few feet away from him. “Ah, of course.” Evander sat down in the chair.

When he did he tilted his head, as if something had occurred to him. “Why isn’t this chair cold? Isn’t it made out of ice?”

The lecture my mother had given me about exactly that immediately sprang to mind and I said, through memorization, “Finely crafted cryomancy ice isn’t cold unless it needs to be. An object is cold because it is absorbing the heat from that around it. But that means eventually it will melt, so the best magical ice is lukewarm and prevented from absorbing any heat, and so it wouldn’t feel cold.”

“Interesting,” he said.

I made a chair and sat down next to him. Looking up, I could see the stars. It was that time when they would start to form. Together, we watched as, one by one, brilliant points of light began to populate the sky. “You know,” I said, “Back home, it was far down south enough that if you took a trip a bit farther south, you could see the Aurora. It was like a bunch of big, colorful, shifting mist clouds in the sky. Well, it’s hard to describe.”

“Well, it sounds beautiful,” he responded, “I wish I could see it.”

“Yeah, but I believe that the night sky is romantic enough without it,” I said, looking back down at Evander.

He was also looking at me. He gave me another one of those wonderful wide smiles of his. “Your eyes are almost entirely pink,” he said, “What does that mean?”

“You’ll figure it out,” I responded, “Here’s a hint.” I leaned forward and gently pulled him into a kiss.

That day was the second most important day of my life. My first was the day we got married.