A Girl and her Goat by Rook

Category: Original

Genre: Action, Adventure, Anti-Hero Lead, Comedy, Fantasy, Female Lead, Harem, Magic, Strong Lead

Status: In-Progress

Published: 2017-12-06

Updated: 2018-01-06

Packaged: 2018-10-11 20:38:05

Warnings: Gore Sexual Content Traumatising content, This fiction contains:

Chapters: 18

Words: 36,336

Publisher: www.royalroad.com

Summary:

Chloe Yinara, she’s a countess, she expects to be a marquis in due time, she’s a mage, and she’s staring at a black goat that appeared in the summoning circle when she called for a familiar and took more power to summon then she could have possibly provided on her own.

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There has been a major edit of the first 11 chapters, so anyone who enjoyed the story but couldn't take the spellchecker and other grammar mistakes should give this another shot. I can’t promise that there will be no grammar mistakes, but they will be less common and far less egregious.

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Notes. First for those of you looking at the fact that this story has both the Harem and Female Lead tags I am pleased to relieve your concerns, or disappointed to inform you depending on your tastes, this will not be a reverse harem, Chloe has no romantic interest in boys. Second, I was hesitant to add the Anti-Hero tag, but Chloe certainly dances on that line. Just to prevent any misunderstandings, even when blood and treachery abound and Chloe is at her most amoral this will primarily be a light hearted story.

Chapter 1 Summoning

Chloe leaned against the wall and watched the rest of the second-year students, all of whom had gathered in the courtyard. Countess she might be, and with only a younger sister the title of marquis would be hers in time, but here in the Alir mage academy, all the Yinara name brought her was the final turn in all group activities. Normally this didn’t bother her as it allowed her to learn from the mistakes of others rather than her own, giving her the opportunity to cultivate an air of extreme competence. Today, however, was different, today they were summoning their familiars.

It took all the self-control she had developed in her twenty-two years of life not to grind her teeth in impatience. Instead, she cast her mind back to the first lessons she had received here in an attempt to distract herself. Those first lessons had contained the most basic of basic information, most of which was common knowledge, but as the instructors had been so fond of telling them in those early days

“No complex spell can be reliably constructed or cast without a strong foundation of understanding and knowledge.”

And today was the absolute last day she could afford to make a mistake.

“now as I am sure most of you know” the teacher had lectured that first day “there are three distinct types of magicians, mages, sorcerers, and witches and wizards. First and most relevant to us there are the mages. As with all living things, the very act of living generates magical energy but what sets the mage apart from everyone else is that the mage's body generates that energy far faster the other people and can hold vastly more of it than the average body before it starts to leak into the world. This you see is why mages can cast the most controlled spells of any of the three, for while the magic is inside their body they have absolute control over it.”

The professor had sighed and run his hand through his hair before continuing. “This is of course also their greatest weakness as well as it means that the only magical energy they have direct access to is that within their own bodies. As is the case with the other two, all mages have an affinity or two and they will almost never cast spells not connected to this affinity as the energy cost would be far higher. As history has shown a magician’s affinity can be just about any substance, theme or concept one can imagine. For example, a couple of common affinities would be earth and air with less obvious magical affinities being such things as spatial manipulation or mind or soul magic. These of course barely begins to scratch the surface of the myriad of possible affinities.”

“But that is a topic for another day.” he said, letting out a snort of amusement “Now back on topic, mages. A mages energy and control mean that in civilian life they are most often employed to cast very precise spells or construct vary delicate magical items. In battle, a mage will most often have heavily enchanted their armor with some methods of defense in line with their affinity. offensively they generally try to identify weaknesses and exploit them with pinpoint attacks. They also normally carry a brace of wands, each of which they have repeatedly enchanted with a specific offensive or defensive spell, storing the magical energy in gems inlaid into the wand.”

“Next are the sorcerers, in most ways sorcerers are the polar opposite of mages, they have no control over the magic within them and normally lack the control to even touch it. The spells a sorcerer casts have no finesse, but they make up for that with sheer power. Unlike a mage, a sorcerer can channel the magical energy that is around them through their body and into their spells. Again, unlike a mage, a sorcerer is absolutely limited to spells that are of their affinity and they rarely are able to use subtle applications of that affinity.”

“while the military or a guard force is by far the most common profession for a sorcerer they are also often hired by cities if their affinity can be turned to large-scale construction or demolition work. Militarily they are the ones you hear stories about, the ones who fling sheets of fire or rip open trenches in the ground separating units from each other. Defensively they often surround themselves with some form of their affinity, but they primarily focus on all-out attack.”

“Finally, there are the witches and wizards. One could certainly argue that witches and wizards are a midpoint between mages and sorcerers. Like sorcerers, a witch or wizard can grasp and channel the magical energy that is around them through their body and into their spells. Now, what separates a witch or wizard from a sorcerer and brings them closer to mages are their sanctums. A sanctum is a building constructed by witches and wizards and attuned to a specific affinity. A witch or wizard can attune themselves to a sanctum that matches their own affinity and within the walls of the sanctum, the enchantments woven throughout it help to focus spells of that affinity. While I say that a sanctum focuses the magic, and that is certainly an accurate description of what happens, if you were ever to ask a witch or wizard what one does they would say that the spells on the sanctum harmonize with their magic, as that is apparently what it feels like.”

“When more than one witch or wizard lives in a sanctum the inhabitants are described as a coven and, as the construction of a sanctum is an extremely difficult process, it is rare to find one with only a single occupant. Within the walls of their sanctum, a witch or wizard nears the precision of a mage and combines that with access to all power of a sorcerer. While this might seem like the ideal type of magician there is a serious drawback, outside of their sanctums there are nearly helpless, they can’t hold there spells together without the sanctum’s enchantments acting as a harmony to their spells. There are some crutches that can be made for a witch or wizard who wants to travel, but that is a discussion for another time. Witches and wizards produce the vast majority of the enchanted items we use in our day to day lives. Militarily their primary use besides producing magical weapons and armor is as defensive points. Most of the greatest castles and fortresses in the world are also sanctums, it would take the entire coterie of magicians of a good-sized army to take an established sanctum that had even a two or three member coven. So, as you can see”

“Yinara, Chloe.” Her reminisces were abruptly cut short as she heard the loud call from the center of the courtyard. As she stood up a final memory tugged the corners of her lips up into a slight grin.  A couple of weeks later when the introductory courses had come to an end and it was time to begin picking classes she had not seen a single surprised face when the fact that that first instructor had once been a coterie lead and that several of the classes for aspiring war mages were being taught by him had come out.

As she walked through the courtyard all those memories slipped back down into her subconscious to be replaced with one burning thought, one word “familiar”

She was well aware that the act of calling and contracting with a familiar was one of the most important points in a mages life and she could not wait to begin.

She knew that some people tried to call for familiars who would complement their abilities while others would try to get one that would compensate for their weaknesses, she had a different criterion in mind, a very simple one.

She strode into the first of the two circles and stood, facing the other one, before she closed her eyes.  She knew that sometimes a familiar might be called from the surrounding environment while other times it was summoned into the circle from distant continents or even other worlds. Shoving her hope that it would be a summoning out of her mind, she began to cast the spell.

As she released the power in the way the instructors had shown them she focused all her will on the thoughts and feelings that would guide her spell and be conveyed to her familiar.

“Power” for a moment she made that one idea be all that she was “I want power, power to protect my people, and to destroy all who would threaten them”

At that, she felt the first twitch in her magic and she focused again “Power, I want power to protect those who would give me loyalty, and to crush those who would give me treachery”

With that, an even stronger twitch ran through the spell and she focused again “Power, I want power to protect those whom I love, and to annihilate all who would harm them.”

With that final thought, the link that she was making pulled taught, and magic began to flood out of her. She had one, horrified, moment to realize that if something did not change soon she would run out of magic long before the link was complete.

Something changed, suddenly it was not her magic that was building the link but instead the magic of the creature being linked to her. Her shock at that almost caused her to break the link, it was almost unheard of for a creature to both be eager enough for a bond to help and to have the magic to be able to.

And then to make her shock total the creature somehow began to refill her own nearly depleted magic reserves. As the link grew stronger she could feel the creatures fear that unless it did so she would not have the power to complete the spell. With that feeling pressing in on her she began to weave her newly acquired power into the link.

And then, suddenly it was done. She felt the link, whole and strong, mindbogglingly strong in fact, and took a deep breath before opening her eyes.

The sight that confronted her as her eyes opened caused her jaw to drop. There, standing in the other circle, was a goat with jet black fur.

Then for the first time, the link carried a fully formed and coherent thought to her from her new familiar, one single thought, one word. “Mooo”

Chapter 2 Wait, how many children did you say you had?

Moo? the sound echoed through her head even after the goat stopped sending it. She had never been near enough a goat to actually hear what sounds they made but she was fairly sure it wasn’t moo, at least they didn’t look like the sort of animals that went moo.

Again the goat thought at her, but this time there were no words, instead, there was just an image of both of them standing outside the castle walls, the goat munched on grass.

She considered for a moment, but then decided it would probably be for the best if she could get off on the right foot with her new familiar. After looking around for a moment she saw one of the instructors and walked over to her.

“Excuse me, but would be alright if I took my new familiar outside to let it graze for a bit?”

“I don’t know, normally we watch students for a little while after the familiar summoning to make sure that nothing went” then the instructor's eye twitched as a snapping, crunching sound came from behind Chloe.

Chloe looked over her shoulder to see her goat withdrawing its head from what had once been a well manicured rose bush. She winced and decided if the gardeners here were able to turn a goat mouth sized hole into part of a design then she might look into hiring a few of them away when she went back home.

“At the same time there is something to be said for getting to know your familiar quickly.” the instructor continued smoothly, then winced visibly as Chloe heard another a snapping, crunch “Yes, I think that spending some time with just your familiar would be the best way for you to strengthen your bond with it.”

“Thank you, I’ll be back before dark”

As she began to walk towards the arched gate the goat ambled up and began to walk alongside her. Taking one final look over her shoulder she decided that if that rose bush could be pruned into a presentable shape then some gardeners were definitely going to get poached.

As they walked her hand fell naturally onto the goat’s head. The goat looked up at her briefly but did not seem to mind.

After they passed through the gate the two of them kept walking for a while. eventually, Chloe found a tree that looked reasonably comfortable. She took her hand off the goat’s head and leaned up against the tree.

“So then, what are we going to do now?” she asked

The response was another moo through the link.

“I don’t think that goats moo.” she said softly “And anything with”

She was cut as another moo came into her head, but this time the moo sounded less like a sound and more like someone stating moo very firmly.

She blinked, but before she could come up with an appropriate reply the goat lowered its head and walked between her legs, stopping halfway through. While standing in between her legs the goat began to grow, rapidly reaching the size of a horse. As it grew the portion directly under her changed shape, while it did not quite become a saddle it was certainly closer to one then to the rest of the knobby spine of the goat.

As soon as the goat finished growing it began to trot directly away from the academy. As stirrups did not seem to be forthcoming she leaned forward and wrapped her arms around the neck of the goad.

While she had considered trying to jump off the goat it did not seem the most logical course of action. After all, no familiar would harm its master and it would be easier to convince it of her way of thinking if it was happy with her for going along with it then if it was already angry with her for fighting it.

The goat trotted for a good ten minutes before it reached the edge of the nearby forest. Within a minute of entering the forest, the goad stopped and began to slowly shrink back down to goat size.

She took a couple of steps away from the goat before turning to face it and raising a single imperious eyebrow.

The response was not quite what she hoped for. While the eyebrow normally was normally able to elicit a swift and nervous explanation, in this case, the immediate response was an amused snort.

“Just wait a moment,” The goat thought at her “This is not the optimal shape in which to carry on a conversation. Now, you’ve trusted me this far, would you mind turning away for just a moment, a full transformation can be extremely disconcerting.”

“A familiar won’t harm its master.” she focused hard on that thought as she turned away from the goat.

“Thank you. You can turn back around now.” This time instead of a thought conveyed through their link, the statement was made in a soft feminine voice.

When she turned back around, where moments before the goat had stood, now stood a woman even taller than her. The woman wore a black dress and had long black hair but her green eyes still had the horizontal bars of the goat.

“Thank you for answering my summoning,” Chloe said softly but fervently. “And since there does not seem to be anyone to introduce us hope you will not be offended if I ask what I should call you”

“Don’t worry, it takes quite a lot to offend me” the response was given in a clearly amused tone. “And you can call me”

The woman broke off suddenly and an annoyed expression passed over her face as she thought for a moment.

“In your language, Shub would be a boy’s name wouldn’t it?” she eventually asked

“yes”

“Well, then you may decide what you want to call me. And as for the summoning, the pleasure is mine. When you have as many children as I do believe me, no matter how much you love them, sometimes some time away from them is the most wonderful gift you can possibly receive”

“Ah, well then you are very welcome, and as for a name” Chloe’s eyes darted around, seeking inspiration before finally alighting on the tree that the woman was leaning on “How about Ash”

She had briefly considered lengthening it to Ashly but somehow the name ash fit the woman standing in front of her.

“Ash, yes that will do nicely. Now I am you have questions for me, ask away.

“Well then I can’t say I am not curious as to why you wanted to come all the way out here instead of just talking through our link in the courtyard or going up to my room”

“Simple enough. Your far from the first person who has summoned me, and a number of my previous summoners ended up building their own mage academies. spells to catch and record all the sounds within their walls are not an uncommon thing to include.”

At Chloe’s shocked expression Ash grinned “Knowledge is power after all, doubly so when it’s knowledge about the powerful. As for coming this far, the cleverest of those former summoners used the escape tunnels any good castle has as farthest points of a magic circle, extending the range of the spell well beyond the walls of the castle.”

“well, that makes sense.” Chloe said, then curiosity took hold “By the way who was your most recent Summoner?”

“Before you, that would be Mage Admiral Jackelyn Reed.” A smile crossed her face at the memory “That was an interesting run. Days after she Summoned me the Eltarie invaded the Telmak sector and by the time her task force arrived she was the senior surviving officer at the front, a most interesting run indeed.”

“I’m sorry,” Chloe said, baffled “I don’t recognize a single one of those names”

“Hardly Surprising, you didn’t think mages from this world were the only ones who could summon familiars did you?”

Well, that did make sense, Chloe realized, if there were familiars in other worlds, why couldn’t there be mages?

Chloe sighed “So since I assume there are plenty of people want a powerful familiar is the only reason you picked me because I happened to make the attempt at the right time?”

“Oh, no” Ash replied quickly “there was more to it than that, you promised me foes to crush, you promised me that there would be destruction and annihilation to mete out.”

Chloe winced, suddenly having a much better idea of the sort of creature she had bound herself to.

“You know, I also promised there would be protecting to be done.”

“I know.” Ash replied, “And that just makes it so much better, people are almost never as vicious, brutal, and ruthless as when they are protecting what they truly care about”

Chloe sighed and decided to let the subject drop for now, after all, Ash was not wrong . Then a realization struck her.

“So that’s the reason you just mooed at me when I first Summoned you, it’s possible to lay an enchantment that lets you record the thoughts that passed through the familiar bond isn’t it?”

“It is possible and before we return I intend to cast a shielding on our link so as that we can’t be overheard.” then ash grinned at her “But to be honest the main reason that I did it was you looked so adorably befuddled when you saw me in the circle that I just couldn’t help trying to push you a just a little bit further”

Chapter 3 What is it you desire?

Chloe growled quietly to herself. Ash’s clear fondness for violence was one thing, with the state politics in Telkirin were in and the location of her march violence was something she could provide, but to have a familiar that enjoyed messing with her, that would make things, interesting.

As she was thinking this she felt an odd sensation at the back of her mind.

“Ash?”

“Ah, that was me shielding our mental link, it should now be impossible for anyone to overhear us when we talk mind to mind or to figure out what powers I have given you.”

“That’s fine, but as far as concealing our powers goes we may have a problem, the next week of classes is fully dedicated to connecting with your familiar and learning to use their powers.”

“In that case, I would recommend only displaying the physical changes that you have received and not your new affinity, that way”

But Chloe had already stopped listening and started focusing entirely on her magic. She started by feeling for the mass of magical energy at her core, then slowly started to draw back from it. Before there had always been two spheres right beside it. One, big and gusting, was her affinity for air magic, the other one, smaller, glittering and ever-changing, was her lesser affinity for illusions. Now, however, there was a third one, and it was at least as big as the one that represented her air affinity.

She focused on this new sphere and tried to figure out what kind of an affinity it was. Like her illusion affinity its outline was constantly changing, as was its color, but unlike that affinity, this one had none of the glittering sparkles surrounding it.

“What is it?” she asked, fascinated

Ash smiled “I thought that was how you were going to react, this is going to be an interesting one.”

“What do you mean.”

“My past summoners have always had one of two reactions when I mentioned the new powers they had access to. Some, remembering how much power it took to summon me, politely let me finish what I was saying before asking me to explain about the new power. Then there are those like you who immediately start looking at the new power and trying to figure out what it is. Of the two I much prefer the latter, while the former, on average, live longer, the latter will either reach the absolute peak of their chosen profession or burn out spectacularly. Usually literally.”

Chloe tried not to grit her teeth “While that insight into my personality may well be something I should spend some time thinking about, would you mind telling me what this new affinity is?”

“Yes yes, your new affinity is for transformation, or more precisely personal shapeshifting. Now along with that you also now have perfect balance, rapid healing, an immunity to most poisons, and the ability to experience what I am experiencing when you want to. Now if I were you I would not tell people about the poison immunity or the shapeshifting, while I will act as a protective familiar.”

“As a protective familiar, as a goat?”

“Have you ever been kicked or headbutted by a goat? Then Ash laughed “And believe me, having your teeth at groin level in a fight is one hell of an advantage.”

Chloe winced “Ok, but as I will be unable to sign up for any classes on shapeshifting if I do this so is it safe to assume you will help me with that?”

“Certainly, but in return I want you to think about something for a bit. What is it you truly want, what is your goal in life and what will bring you happiness?”

Chloe thought for a moment. She had wanted power for all the reasons she already told Ash but beyond those what did she truly want?

“Let’s head back.” Ashe’s words pulled Chloe back to reality “I imagine you're hungry and tired after all the power you used summoning me and I have done what we came out here to do. So, if you don’t mind turning around?”

A thought occurred to Chloe as she turned her back on Ash. “Ash, what is your true form?”

“A black goat is one of the forms that comes most naturally to me and is the closest thing to my true form you will see, after all” and at this Ash laughed a laugh far less pleasant than the earlier ones. “A familiar won’t harm its master.”

When she turned back around Ash was back in the shape of a horse sized goat. Chloe climbed on Ashes back and they rode in silence until they were almost back. When Ash stopped Chloe dismounted and Ash returned to a more normal goat size. With Chloe’s hand once again on ashes head they walked the rest of the way back to the academy.

Almost no one was left in the courtyard when they passed back through the gates and they immediately went to the dining hall. Many students had animals in laps, on shoulders, or sitting by their feet. The food line was short, and they were quickly able to secure an empty table.

“Do you need anything to eat?” Chloe sent the question through their link

“Not now, I do enjoy eating and if I use to much power to quickly I can get hungry but for now I am fine.”

The response came back through the link as Ash was curling up under the table. Once Ash was comfortable Chloe very deliberately lifted her feet and rested them on Ashes back. The only response was an amused snort through the mental link.

The only disruption in the meal was when, about halfway through, a boy Chloe recognized as a second year who lived a few doors down from the hall from her walked by. As the boy passed Ashe’s Back stiffened and she raised her head to look at him, but since Ash quickly settled back down and didn’t say anything about it Chloe decided her fish was more immediately interesting.

With the meal over the two returned to their room. Wards covered the walls and there were some fairly nasty offensive air spells, which she could activate at will, inscribed on the wall directly across from the door and surrounding her bed. The only thing of note in her room, besides the bed and several bookshelves, was a large desk. The desk had carving and engraving tools, wood, partially enchanted wands, silver gold and gems scattered across it.

Chloe cursed quietly as she saw that it also had her wide-brimmed pointy mages hat sitting on it, she had promised her father that she would not leave the academy’s walls without having it on and breaking a promise made to a member of her family irritated her. She quickly changed into a nightgown and stopped just when she was about to get into the bed.

“Would you like to share the bed?” She asked Ash

“Not tonight”

Ash curled up, still in her goat form, directly in front of the door. Seeing that Chloe settled down into the bed.

“Ash I've been thinking about what you asked.” She sent through the link “And I think I have an answer, or at least most of one. I told you I wanted to protect the people who follow me. And having thought about it, I also want there to be a lot of those people. The more people following one banner, the more secure they all are, and the greater the things they can do. I told you I wanted the power to protect those I care about. Having thought more about that too I know what I want is a number of people close to me, people who I can truly trust and care about, and who will care about me in turn and give me the best advice and assistance they can.” A hardness entered her mental voice then “And I refuse to be a piece on someone else’s board, I wouldn’t be moved or sacrificed at their whims and neither will anyone close to me or who follows me. In this game of life, I will be one of the players.”

“Glad to hear it,” came the mental reply “And I will gladly help. I can’t promise you wouldn’t be eliminated early on, not having a lord to call on for assistance is dangerous after all, but I promise to aid and advise you to the best of my ability. And there’s one more thing I can promise you, there was a saying in one of the worlds I was summoned to, “In the end, everybody dies, but not everybody lives” I can promise you this, on the road you are on, you will live.”

Chloe Smiled to herself as she stretched out under her blankets and closed her eyes. Just as she was falling asleep she thought she heard a slithering, slipping right by her door, but with no response from her wards or from Ash, it was not enough to pull her from sleeps grasp.

Chapter 4 What do you mean I raised a banner? I'm not going to war.

Chloe opened her eyes, then quickly closed them again, cursing quietly to herself.

“You would think a countess could get a room without an eastern facing window wouldn’t you” Chloe muttered as she stumbled out of bed, squinting into the glare.

Ash opened one eye as Chloe started pulling a clean robe and undergarments out from the chest at the end of the bed.

“Sticklers for the rules here are they?”

“Possibly” came the muffled response as the nightgown came off “I honestly can’t decide whether it’s because I am from Telkirin, the kingdom has not been making itself very popular with its neighbors after all, or if they are just that wedded to their room lottery”

With her robe on a quick tug of air magic brought her wand belt flying to her hand and with a click, it was fashioned around her waist. She indulged in a little spin to get her Cloak on and settled, then smiled as she started to cast an air spell.

As much as she loved the feeling of flying through the sky or the challenge of learning a new war spell, this spell might be the most useful on a daily basis. Air rushed around her head as she started to cast and soon every hair on her head was sticking straight out and some air separated every single hair, then air rushed down them all, taking any grime along with it, finally she gave the spell one of the five endings she had practiced, setting her hair into one of her five favorite styles. Today she decided to go with the simple, though elegant, option of just having her long, straight, hair flow straight down her back.

With that out of the way she walked over to her desk and guiltily put her hat on, it might not make up for yesterday but at least it was something. As the hat came off the desk her small shrine was revealed. It was not much of a shrine, but it was what she took with her when she was away from the castle.

Centered at the back of her desk was a round piece of black velvet, a candle sitting on either edge of it. In between these candles sat three small figurines. The one on the left was Evara, goddess of magic. In the center was Silmesh, goddess of the home and family, as well as the closely connected domains of love and protection. On the right was Shirina, goddess of the night and of logic and intellect.

She offered up three quick prayers. First, she thanked Evara for any help she had given her with summoning spell she had used yesterday and asked that she would continue to aid and guide her in her study of magic. Then she asked Silmesh to watch over and protect those she loved, who were back home. Finally, she asked Shirina to help guide her through the choices in the coming day and to prevent Shirina’s twin brother, Celios, from guiding her choices.

With that out of the way, Chloe turned around, then jerked back as she saw Ash, in her human form, standing directly behind her.

“I thought you wanted to continue to play the goat?” Chloe asked through their link.

“It’s time for breakfast isn’t it?” Ash responded, completely ignoring the question.

Chloe growled as she passed by Ash. Just as she was opening the door Ash slipped between it and the wall, and with a sigh Chloe simply walked through, leaving the door open. She looked back when she heard the door close and watched Ash, once again in her goat form, walk up and fall in beside her.

“That door opens inwards and you don’t have any hands, how?

The only response she got was an amused snort over the mental link.

Once Chloe arrived in the dining hall she stood in line and desperately tried to look anywhere but at Ash carefully positioning her mouth so as that the student in front of her would not even notice when a bite was taken out of their cloak. Suddenly she smiled as she read one of the newly posted notices.

“Ash, can we talk?”

“Sure, what about?” Came a remarkably guilt free reply, considering the hole a certain robe now had and the contented chewing noises Chloe could hear coming from beside her.

“Good, in that case, we are free to skip the first class of the days”

She breathed a quiet sigh of relief as the boy in front of her got his food and went to his table, never even glancing at her. As she took her food and managed to once again find an unoccupied table she considered what she would do with her free time.

“Ash, do you mind if we go back to my room once I’m done with breakfast?”

“What will we be doing?” came the immediate reply

“I will be working on a wand that’s been sitting, unfinished, for too long. The day before yesterday I finally cracked the spell I intended to embed in it and I think I should be able to embed at least the first charge in the time we have. As for you, well you could do whatever you wanted, I could even let you out of the castle and then work alone if you want.”

“No, I think I will stay with you for now”

The rest of the meal passed in silence, even when Chloe decided that she would once again take advantage of the convenient footrest.

Once they made it back to the door to their room Chloe stood aside and looked at Ash. Ash stared back at her. With a sigh, Chloe gave up and opened the door, walked in with Ash, then closed it herself.

As she sat down in front of her desk she turned her head, asking “So what are you going to do while” only to break off when she saw Ash, now in human form, sitting on her bed with two of the books from her shelves. “Ah, so that’s what.” she answered quietly.

“So, tell me,” Ash asked, “What’s the spell you are putting in the wand”

“Actually, that’s an interesting question, this is a reconstruction of a spell that the air mages of Inervast used. With the fall of Inervast this spell seems to have been forgotten. When I realized that the terms, empty gale, hollow explosion, and Midrell’s air blast, all referred to the same spell I was able to combine the descriptions of the spells and figure out how to cast it. The idea of removing all the air from a sphere isn’t a new one, air witches and wizards use it all the time, but the power requirements needed to keep a wall of hardened air intact around it are far too high for a mage, and that’s what’s so ingenious about this spell. You see instead of creating a solid wall around the sphere you effectively combining it with a second spell that makes any air near the sphere simply want to float around it.”

“Clever spell, so what are you calling it?”

Chloe ground her teeth silently for a moment before finally Growling “I’ll think if something.”

Embedding the gems in the wand and linking them with the proper patterns of silver took longer than Chloe would have preferred, and by the time the first spell was embedded the period was almost over.

Chloe was sitting back in her chair, feeling quite pleased with herself, when she heard more noise in the hall then was normal for the time of day. With nothing else to override her curiosity she opened her door a crack and peeked into the hall.

There were six people in the hall, well five and a large dog. Four of them were instructors, two standing in front and two standing behind the Girl and dog. All of the instructors were at least an arm’s length away from the girl. The girl, well small woman Chloe corrected herself, considering the age requirements to enter the academy, had a couple of birds on her shoulders. Chloe was barely able to suppress a twitch when she realized both of the birds were skeletons.

Curiosity peeked, Chloe cast an air spell, this one was a subtle one, it affected an area far enough from the people that their personal wards should not notice it, and then brought all the sound that traveled through that area directly to her ears.

“So, we would appreciate it if you would tell us what you feel inside the room.” One of the instructors was saying.

“Certainly” came the soft-voiced reply.

The soft-voiced woman opened the door and disappeared inside, reappearing a minute later.

“I can guarantee that nobody died in that room recently, unless another necromancer, or a member of Zalane’s priesthood, has been here between the time of death and my arrival.” The necromancer’s words held absolute confidence.

“Well that is a relief.” one of the instructors said to another “But it certainly leaves us with a mystery. He was definitely in his room when he closed the door last night and neither it nor the window opened between then and when we came to check on why he had not left his room today. It's not like he was a spatial mage or anything.”

“Yes, well” the other instructor replied, “Better a mystery than a death, mysteries are easier to fix after all.”

The instructor who had been explaining the situation to the Necromancer earlier sighed “Thank you for your help Eloise, and I would appreciate it if you would keep this to yourself for the time being”

“Not a problem” Eloise replied, then turn and left the hall. Chloe noticed that the two instructors Eloise had to pass in order to leave the hall both moved slightly so they would be more than an arm’s reach away from Eloise at all times.

Chloe closed her door and turned towards her clothes chest. It was only when she saw Ash sitting on her bed that she realized, the room they had all been in front of was the one that belonged to the boy Ash had reacted to last night.

“Ash, you wouldn’t have anything to do with that disappearance, would you?”

“I’m hurt you could even suggest such a thing” Ash replied, amusement dripping from her words

“Ash”

Ash sighed and placed her hand over her heart “I swear I did nothing wrong last night”

“Thank you” Chloe replied gently

Opening her chest, she pulled out a pair of long cloth gloves and put them on.

“Time for class” she announced and walked out.

Once again, she heard the door close behind her and Ash in goat form walked up beside her. By the time they arrived in the courtyard this class was to take place in Chloe’s hand was resting on Ash’s head.

Chloe scanned the courtyard while she waited for the teacher to arrive and smiled when she heard what the instructor had to say first.

“Now for today's class, you will need to form pairs.”

As soon as the words were out of the instructor’s mouth Chloe set off for an isolated corner. Standing in the corner, clearly hunched in on herself and well away from any other students, was Eloise.

Chloe extended a gloved hand and asked “Eloise, would you mind terribly if I asked you to be my partner for this class”

Chapter 5 Because Thiessen is a boy's name.

Eloise’s head snapped up at the sound of her name and she blinked a couple of times.

“Have we met?” she asked eventually

“Possibly a couple of times while waiting for our meal in the dining hall, but not to remember. I take it you don’t have an air or Illusion affinity”

A look of slight disappointment crossed Eloise’s face, but it was quickly replaced by one of resigned determination

“No, a pure Necromantic affinity.” Eloise replied, then looked shocked at Chloe’s complete lack of reaction.

“A pure affinity, that’s quite impressive.”

People with a pure affinity were rare. While not as versatile as someone with multiple affinities, in their one area of power, they were unrivaled. Chloe smiled to herself, Eloise was just getting more and more interesting.

“But I must admit I had guessed that necromancy was at least your primary affinity, not many other people would go around with a couple of skeletal crows on their shoulders.” Then Chloe Smiled openly, “Well with the possible exception of someone like me.”

As she said those final words she focused on the birds sitting on Eloise’s shoulders and drew some of her power through her illusion affinity. Two birds, the mirror images of those on Eloise’s shoulders, appeared on Chloe’s shoulders.

“It’s not a bad look you know” she finished

A smile pulled at the corners of Eloise’s mouth, but then fled.

“I would not recommend it, at least not unless you are especially fond of solitude.”

“Oh, that’s hardly a concern, solitude was always going to be my lot here.”

As Chloe saw Eloise start to focus on her, she carefully crafted an air spell. The spell would form a bubble of air around them, any sound passing through the bubble would be significantly muted. It wasn’t as blatant as completely blocking sound, but it would still make it far less likely that anything happening outside of the bubble would distract Eloise from her.

“Ash” She called through her link “would you mind trying to guide that dog through whatever it is the instructor is asking us to do? I would like some time without any distractions.”

“Certainly. Can I eat anyone who gets to close?” She could practically hear the grin in Ashes replied.

“No, I want to avoid distractions and if you eat someone it will cause a huge commotion.”

“What if I promise to be very subtle or very quick and thorough about it?”

“No”

“Well, you’re just no fun at all.” Came the amused reply, as Ash turned around and started to walk towards the dog.

“And what did you do to ensure that?” Eloise asked curiously

“How rude of me, I failed to introduce myself. I am Countess Chloe Yinara, heir to the March of Twin Rivers.”

“You have my deepest sympathy” Came the very sarcastic reply

“I know how that must have sounded, but I am not trying to brag, just explain. As far as why my rank matters, there are a few points you may not have thought of. Being heir to one of the most powerful families in Telkirin, a country that has a habit of conquering other countries whenever the opportunity arises, does not make me popular with the other nobles here. Oh, there are a few who would like to be friends, but they just want to get close so as that I will use my assumed influence to either prevent an invasion or to leave their family in control of their lands after a conquest.”

Chloe Gritted her teeth then snarled out the next part “And then there are the worst of the nobles, In the year I have been here, three younger sons from noble families, from countries that border Telkirin, have approached me. While the offers were fairly subtle each one effectively offered to tell me everything they knew about their lands in particular, and their country in general, if I would ensure that they were the holders of their family land after a conquest. I swear by all the gods, the only thing that allowed me to control my temper, when they tried to sell out their own Families, was the hope that they might be trying to get close to me to act as double agents.

Chloe sighed then and her tone became more relaxed “There are of course plenty of common born mages who would be happy to be friends with me, but all they really want is the opportunity of a court appointment or an officers rank.”

Chloe gave Eloise a determined smile, “Better solitude and the opportunity study in peace then the company of sycophants and traitors.”

Eloise gave Chloe a slightly bitter smile in return. “That may well be true but at least you had a choice.”

With the final word, Eloise’s right hand shot up, and reaching into the left sleeve of Chloe’s robe, grabbed the arm, just above the cuff of Chloe’s glove.

Chloe willed the imminent panic back, it had been hard enough not to flinch away or yank her arm back and she would not let an increased heart rate suggest to Eloise that she was scared of her. This moment was critical, and she knew it, skin contact with a necromancer would allow them to do any number of unpleasant things to you, and if they happened to touch somewhere you had a cut they could rip your soul right out of your body. Knowing that Chloe guessed that Eloise probably had not touched another living person in months, possibly years.

“I didn’t have that choice” Eloise continued in the same soft voice she had used for almost all of the conversation “People are too scared I might do something like this,” she said, squeezing Chloe’s arm slightly. “Or even something like this” She continued, pressing her sharp thumbnail gently into Chloe’s arm. Luckily for Chloe’s battle with her heart rate, there was not enough pressure behind the nail to actually break the skin, just enough to show she could if she wanted to.

Chloe sighed internally, she had wanted the little bit of protection the gloves gave her, this early on, but well, this seemed like the time for a grand show of trust. Carefully, not shaking Eloise’s hand off her arm, she pulled her gloves off. With that done she gently pulled Eloise’s hand off her arm with one hand and caught the necromancers left hand with her free one. Pulling the hands up and back towards her, she pressed them gently against her face, covering her eyes.

“Now let’s hope she takes the extra skin contact and the loss of my sight as a sign of trust” Chloe thought to herself, “and that it does not occur to her that with both of her hands pressed against me it is impossible for her to take anything out of her robes or from her belt. And this is another thing I hope she does not notice.”

She pressed a bit of her awareness into her link with Ash, and then through it, into her familiar. She had only been trying to see through Ashes eyes, but for a brief moment, the amount she was seeing overwhelmed her. She could see far farther than normal, and with perfect clarity. Everything was surrounded by colors and. Then everything disappeared, except for a focused view of a dog, and past it’s back, her and Eloise.

“You should warn me before you do that.” Came Ashes slightly reproachful voice, “It would take you a very long time to get used to how I see things and it wouldn’t be good for you. With a moment’s warning, I can change my range of vision to something closer to what you’re used to.”

“I don’t think that’s a lesson I will be forgetting anytime soon.” Chloe replied, somewhat shaken

“That’s because most people are idiots,” She said aloud, eyes still covered. “The fact that you made it into this academy, and have lasted this long, tells me that you are both a very intelligent and very self-controlled person. And it's not like all Necromancers are insane murderers. When you actually think about it, the fact that you are a necromancer if anything makes me safer, I mean even if it was in self-defense the mere fact that you are a necromancer means that if you kill somebody you would likely end up strung up from the walls, or at the very least, run out of the academy.”

Then Chloe gave Eloise mischievous little grin “Besides later in life I am going to have to let a necromancer touch me quite frequently for a few months, no harm in getting used to it now.”

Through Ashes eyes, Chloe watched as a torrent of emotions passed across Eloise’s face, Joy, fear, longing, and concern were ones that appeared most often before she got her expression under control. She stood there, looking thoughtfully at Chloe for a few moments, until Chloe broke the silence.

“By the way, what’s your dog’s name?”

The thoughtful expression faded, to be replaced with a more relaxed one.

“Her name is Sheila, and as you have probably already guessed she is my familiar.”

As she replied she took her hands away from Chloe’s eyes. Once her hands were down one started to rise back up, before stopping mid-motion.

“Would you mind? It has been a very long time.” Eloise asked hopefully, looking up into Chloe’s eyes.

“Not at all” Chloe replied with a smile, as she sat down, her back against the wall of the castle.

Once she was sitting down she extended her arm. Eloise sat down beside her and gently grabbed Chloe’s wrist. The rest of the class was spent in small talk about life at the academy. Eloise clearly wasn’t comfortable enough with her yet to tell her much about herself or her past, but Chloe was quite content with this.

“Let her grow used to being comfortable and happy when I’m around,” Chloe thought to herself triumphantly, “Once there has been time for those associations to firmly set in, well, we will see what comes then.”

Chapter 6 Well, at least it's not gray.

Chloe and Eloise separated when the class ended, Eloise rarely ate in the dining hall apparently.

“It’s easier on everyone this way” Eloise had explained with only a hint of bitterness in her voice “Vice chancellor Murtsum gave me permission to stock up on food from the kitchens, so long as I ate it in my room.” Then her tone lightened “I even talked him into letting me have one of the academy’s Everchills, having one of those in the summer makes up for a lot.”

As Chloe walked towards the dining hall Ash trotted up next to her.

“You do realize,” Ash asked, “that you still have two skeletons sitting on your shoulders?”

“Yes, but everyone’s reactions are proving to be very entertaining.”

Ash looked at the distance everyone was keeping from them, and at the shocked looks on the faces of people entering the corridor they were in.

“Well, I can’t argue with you there.”

“Besides” Chloe went on, “with the way everyone is reacting I am starting to wonder if even the people waiting in line for their food will be so desperate to keep me from getting near them that they will simply let me cut through”

The two of them made it most of the way to the dining hall before Chloe spoke again.

“Ash, do you think that people are assuming that I have an affinity for necromancy, or that Eloise gave me a couple of her pets?”

“Some think one and some think the other I would guess. But you know, I can’t tell which idea scares them more.”

The presence of the skeletons did not allow them to walk straight through the line. Chloe was fairly certain that the primary reason was that the girl in front of them. She had, as Chloe clearly remembered from her first-year classes with her, Illusions has her primary affinity.

Disappointingly, neither of the classes they attended after lunch were ones they shared with Eloise. After a quick dinner Chloe returned to her room with ash trotting along beside her. Once inside Chloe immediately stripped and slipped into her nightgown before collapsing into her bed.

Her mind drifted back over the day and, inevitably, it came to focus on Eloise. Chloe felt that the necromancer was perfect, both powerful and shunned. She was clearly very lonely, but had yet to become bitter and cynical, in other words, the perfect sort of person to take under her wing.

She had learned many things from the memoirs and journals that she had read while growing up, but one of the most important things was this. If you give someone who already has some power, even more, they might feel some gratitude, but they were just as likely to simply feel that the additional power was their just do for who they were or what they had done. Also, while it was entirely possible for a person like that to perform whatever task was assigned competently, it was far less likely that they would bring any true dedication to the task. And of course, the biggest problem was that if the person would work for you for a bit of extra power, then there was no reason they would not sell you out for a little bit more.

On the other hand, if you were to find a competent person who had nothing and give them power, if you showed them trust and kindness where none had before, then you might well end up with an ally who would stand with you against the gods themselves.

But if Chloe was being completely honest with herself, she had to admit that there was more to it then that. That small frame, the long black hair and deep blue eyes, and that soft voice, Chloe smiled to herself just remembering it.

And then there was the way she walked. Every time Chloe had seen her walking, she had kept her back rigidly straight and had walked with a long stride as pride and a complete lack of interest in how the rest of the world saw her practically dripped off her. However, as Chloe had watched she had seen small flaws in what was clearly a carefully crafted image, whenever Eloise had come to close to someone there been a minute flinch and a slight hunching of her shoulders. To Chloe, these were clear signs that, no matter what she wanted everyone else to think, she was just as distrustful and frightened of other people as they were of her.

In fact, that walk reminded Chloe strongly of how she herself had walked, all those years ago. She remembered the way she had struggled to suppress her fear anytime a castle servant had come near, and the image of power she had desperately tried to project. Back then it had been Luna who had dragged her out of her shell and had worked tirelessly to restore some of her trust in other people.

By all the gods, did she ever miss Luna. It had been over a year since she had last seen her, as the Seahawk had carried Chloe off towards Alir academy Luna had stood at the very end of the pier, waving, until the Seahawk had gone around a bend in the river. Luna had sent letters, as had she, but letters weren’t the same as being able to talk face to face, and anyway, there were things neither of them dared say in a letter. Chloe sighed, even when this second year was over, and she could go home, it would be years, possibly decades, before she could truly be with Luna. As her thoughts drifted from Luna to Eloise and back to Luna, her slowly eyes fluttered closed, and she drifted off to sleep.

Chloe was sitting on the sofa in her tower room and looking out her giant window. She had always loved the view from here, watching as the two great rivers that gave her march it name came together. Luna sat to her right, her left arm wrapped around Chloe’s waist. Chloe smiled, seeing the way Luna sat, Luna hated the fact that she had ended up an inch taller than Chloe and always tried to hold herself in a way that would make her look smaller. The hair that slipped through Chloe’s right hand was brown, like her own, but while hers was a dark brown, Luna’s was a much lighter shade.

Eloise was pressed against Chloe’s other side, Chloe’s left arm Wrapped around her. Her head rested on Chloe’s shoulder and she had an enthralled expression as she looked out through the window.

Suddenly there was a loud boom and Chloe jerked upright. Her first confused thoughts were that something had struck the castle gates, but no, this was certainly not her room back home. As she blinked the sleep from her eyes she discreetly wiped some drool from her lips, then looked about for the cause of the noise.

Only the first few rays of sunlight were coming through the window, but it was enough for Chloe to see the book at Ashes feet. Looking up, she saw Ash, currently in her human form, staring at her.

“What’s wrong?” She asked, immediately worried.

Ash took a deep breath, and as she exhaled her face returned the serene, though slightly amused, expression Chloe was growing used to.

“Would you happen to have a mirror? This is something you may want to see for yourself.”

Chloe jumped out of bed and started to dig through her chest. Finding her small hand mirror, she brought it up, looked at her, then hurled the boot, which she had just pulled out with her other hand, straight at Ash.

“Don’t do that, you had me truly scared for a moment there.”

“No Chloe, as amusing as it could have been, this is not a Joke”

As she was talking Ash walked up to Chloe and ran her fingers along Chloe’s hair line.

“Look Closely” Ash instructed

Chloe did as instructed. She didn’t see anything at first, but then barely visible. The mirror started to shake in Chloe’s hand and she gently placed in on the bed.

Her hand rose, trembling, and yanked out one of her hairs. She stared at it in horror, most of it was her normal dark brown, but its root was silver.

Chapter 7 Nothing wrong

Chloe looked in horror at the strand of hair in her hand. There was only one thing in the world that bright shade of silver. While magic would take on the color of an affinity it was used with or a gem it was stored in, anyone who could actually look inside themselves and see their core of magic knew that magic, in its pure form, was the same color as the root the hair in her hand.

Chloe closed her eyes and felt for the power at her core. The power was the same stable sphere it had always been, which both relieved and confused her. Drawing back from her core she extended her senses throughout the rest of her body, but there was nothing out of the ordinary.

Confused, Chloe thought back on everything she had ever read about silver hair.

Silver hair was caused by uncontrolled magic flowing through the body. There were two common ways to end up with silver hair, the first was the loss of stability of a person’s power, usually the result of trying to gain more power by devouring other mages. The second was when a foreign source of magic entered the body and started releasing power into it, this was most often caused by either reading one of the truly powerful grimoires without sufficient magical protection or from simply reading to many of them.

Silver hair, in and of itself, wasn’t harmful, it was what caused it that was the problem. The uncontrolled magic flowed throughout the whole body, including the brain, and sooner or later that always resulted in insanity.

“But this makes no sense,” Chloe thought to herself, “My magic’s stable and there’s nothing abnormal in my body”

Then a memory struck her, it was only mentioned in a few books but there was another possible cause. When a group of mages works together to cast a major ritual, magical barriers are erected to keep all the magic they are pumping into the spell, in the spell. On occasion these barriers fail, either as the result of improper casting or when the amount of magic pumped in the ritual is simply enough to overwhelm them, and when that happens large quantities of magic often flow back through the casters. As the brain is not being subjected to long-term exposer to magic, insanity almost never results, though silvered hair often does.

“Magical backflow.” she thought, suddenly realizing the cause.

“Ash?” she asked, her mental voice sharp

Ash lowered her head, a look of embarrassment briefly playing across her face.

“I’m sorry.” Ash said softly through their link “The link was failing and you needed more power quickly, I wasn’t as careful as I should have been.”

Ash then gave Chloe a reassuring smile, “You shouldn’t have to worry about other side effects, silver hair is very much the canary in the coal mine, and even in as much of a rush as I was in, I was still more careful than one of those grimoires that only care about planting a seed of themselves, or their creators, in readers. Not one tenta, strand, of my magic passed through your brain.”

Chloe sighed in relief, at least she did not have to worry about her sanity, though there would be other problems. Anyone who saw her hair would make assumptions about her state of mind and what she had done to end up with unstable magic. On the bright side, any halfway competent mage who she allowed to examine her would be able to testify her magic was stable and that there were no secondary magical sources in her.

“Hair dye.” she muttered quietly to herself, “Finding some Hair dye has to be the first order of business, there are too many people here who can see through illusions”

“There’s some hair dye in the room a few doors down.” Ash said casually through the link

Chloe took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then shifted back to mental communication.

“Ash, that wouldn’t happen to be the room that the boy vanished from night before last would it?”

An amused smile flickered across ashes face, “Indeed it would”

“And how do you know anything about what’s in that room, you told me you had nothing to do with his disappearance.”

The amused smile on Ash’s face simply grew wider. “I never said I had nothing to do with the disappearance, and as for how I know about the dye in his room, he told about it before I ate him.”

Chloe’s eyes opened wide in shock, “Ate him?” she asked, her mind rerunning the conversation from the previous day, “How do you call eating another student doing nothing wrong?”

“Several ways, first the boy was a devourer. He captured non-mages from the nearby town, usually oarsmen from the riverboats, who people would simply assume had run away, and performed the spells on them. He believed that the much smaller power reserves non-mages have would be safer to absorb even if the power increase was smaller. He was wrong by the way, one of the biggest problems with the standard spells for devouring is that they overlook how closely a person is linked to their magic. While a mage who devours another mage will get some increase to the speed at which they generate magic, the amount of magic their bodies can hold, and some shreds of the devoured mages affinities, they will also get an echo of the devoured mage. It's having these echoes in the core of your power that is the largest cause of their magical instability.”

Ash laughed softly, “He was actually harming himself far more, and for less gain, then most devourers. I actually know a few ways to make devouring safe, though the gain is far slower and it requires precise control, if you are interested?”

When Chloe shook her head, Ash continued “As I was saying, his power had long since become unstable and it was affecting his mind, I was certainly not going to allow an unstable mage with a habit of devouring people to live a few doors away from where you slept. I did nothing wrong, I stopped a murderer and a madman. I did nothing wrong, I protected my mistress. And in a slightly different meaning, I did nothing wrong, I killed his familiar first, preventing its escape and sending him into a state of shock, and when I was done with him I eliminated all traces, even the subtle ones your girlfriend was looking for.”

Ashes voice took on a lecturing tone “You need to be more thoughtful about the questions you ask and the answers you receive, you should be learning truth spells soon, but since you’re not a mind mage the best you will be able to manage are spells that will tell you if the person is straight out lying. If you had used one of those spells on me it would have shown me telling the truth and If you had been conducting an investigation, the results would have been disastrous. You’ll also be able to employ the same thought processes to get around the subtle truth spells that are so common at court.”

Chloe nodded in acceptance, then asked a question that that had started to bother her. “How did you know”

“You mean that he was a devourer, or the details about who he devoured?”

At Chloe’s second nod Ash continued “As for knowing he was a devourer, you already experienced some of the differences in how I see the world, I can see power and affinities. With his power being unstable and the large number of weak affinities he had, the conclusion was obvious. As for details, I spent some time with him before I ate him.”

Ash then gave a broad smile and Chloe was fairly sure Ash had suddenly made her teeth far pointier. “Simply breaking into someone’s mind is no fun, so instead I made a deal with him, I would cast a simple truth spell and if he told me everything I wanted to know honestly, then I’d kill him. He gave me a very complete account of his activities, which by the way is how I found out about the hair dye.”

The mention of hair dye refocused Chloe’s attention on the problem at hand.

“His hair was a few shades lighter than mine, his dye will work as a last resort but let’s try to get something better first.”

Chloe fished through her chest, eventually pulling out a large pouch. She removed several coins and put them in a smaller pouch and offered the smaller pouch to Ash.

“I know there is a dye merchant in town, would you be willing to track his shop down and get me several bottles of dye?”

“This being the result of my carelessness, it’s the least I can do.”

Ash offered an apologetic smile, then her form shifted slightly, her skin grew wrinkled and her hair lighted. Most of her hair lightened only slightly, coming to perfectly match Chloe’s dark brown, but the roots turned gray. Reaching out a hand she held a strand of her hair beside one of Chloe’s, then smiled.

“I think this will do, don’t you?”

Chloe gave Ash an impressed nod. “It’s perfect.”

Ash opened the window, then looked at Chloe. Chloe dutifully looked away, and when after a moment she looked back out the window, she saw a large raven flying away with the small pouch in its talons.

Chloe spent the time Ash was gone coming to grips with what had just happened, her familiar had eaten another student and her hair had was now silver.

After some thought she smiled, everybody dies in the end and that boy had deserved it more than many others. As for her hair, as long as she kept a supply of dye, there shouldn’t be a problem.

Soon after that acceptance a raven, carrying a bag considerably larger than it was, flew in through her window and landed on her table. Chloe looked away for a moment, then looked back to see Ash, with the bag in her hand, sitting at the table.

Chloe took the bag and smiled as she saw how close a match the dye was to her hair. Pouring some out, she rubbed it through her hair, then proceeded to get ready for the day. Before they left the room, Ash returned to her goat form.

“No time for breakfast at this point, we’ll barely make it to class before it starts” Chloe muttered, a hand resting on Ashes head

Chloe smiled, seeing Eloise as soon as she arrived at the class. She sat down against a wall, directly beside the Necromancer. Eloise smiled back and shifted slightly closer to Chloe.

The two sat peacefully for a few minutes, before Eloise suddenly blinked and looked closely at Chloe.

Eloise brought her mouth close to Chloe’s ear before whispering “I would cover the back collar of your cloak with an illusion if I were you, there are some brown stains on it”

Chloe tensed but Eloise just smiled “How about you come to my room after class today, I think we may have some things to talk about in private.”

Chapter 8 Trust PT1

The rest of the classes that day passed in a blur for Chloe, she had agreed to meet Eloise in her room after dinner and the forthcoming meeting had been all she could think about. Eloise had clearly known what the stains were and guessed what they meant, but the lack of fear or revulsion in her response had confused her. Just after lunch, at least a part of the explanation had occurred to her, Eloise had touched her both yesterday and this morning, and it was not at all difficult to feel someone's power when you were touching them. Still, the fear of anyone with silver hair was something taught to every child, Eloise's ability to ignore that both impressed and touched her.

"So, what's the plan? How honest are you planning to be tonight?"

Chloe had taken her dinner to her room, and as soon as the door was closed Ash changed to her human shape and asked. That was, of course, the question that had been on Chloe mind all day, and she had finally come to a decision.

"I think I will tell her everything."

"Risky." Ash commented, though not it a tone that suggested she truly disagreed with Chloe.

"Just the fact she knows I have silver hair means she could hurt me badly. If she decided to tell the wrong people, say Telkirin nobles who end up opposed to me in the future, about my hair color then they would be able to spread rumors, not only of my silver hair but also that I had bribed any mage that testified as to the stability of my magic"

"Ah, so it's a matter of, she knows enough that more won't make much difference?"

"In part, at this point, I need to do whatever I can to win her over on a long-term basis, and the best way to do that is with honesty and a show of trust."

"I could just eat her, that would also solve the problem."

Chloe flinched, the thought of something bad happening to Eloise was even less pleasant then she would have guessed it would be. Her immediate impulse was to forbid Ash from harming Eloise in any way, but before she could say a word a memory rose up.

She was standing just behind her father, while he looked out the window in his study. Her father had been shouting at her about some mistake she had made earlier that day, but now he was just silently staring out the window. Without turning to look at her, her father had begun to speak

"I'm sorry for shouting, but you have to learn, always make your choices based on logic, not emotion. You will be responsible for every person in this march in time, and nothing that harms your ability to provide them protection can be allowed. And remember, it's not just your subjects for whom you will be responsible, nor even just your vassals. This march is a border, on one side is Telkirin, and all the other human kingdoms on this continent, and on the other is the Umbraian forest and the moon thorn mountains. For generations, it's been our family's duty to protect not only those who call us lord, but all the human lands, from the things that dwell in that forest and those mountains, And Nothing Can Be Allowed To Impair This Defense."

Chloe sighed, remembering her father's lecture. It had not been the first time, or the last, that she had heard that lecture, her father had given it often, but that particular iteration had always stood out to her for some reason.

Her father had not always been that cold, determined man. Chloe's earliest memory was of her mother and father smiling and laughing, while her father held her at arm's length and spun in circles, as she laughed from the pure joy and exhilaration of the experience. That, of course, had all stopped on that day, almost sixteen years ago.

"I don't want to hurt Eloise, but if she tries to outright blackmail me, she's not the person I think she is, and eating her will be on the table. Even then, talk to me before you do anything."

Ash's eyes briefly widened, in evident surprise, then a pleased smile played across her face. "I understand completely"

Chloe raised a sardonic eyebrow, "Glad to hear that, but the question is, will you obey"

Ash's smile widened "Very good. Yes, I promise I will talk to you before I do anything to Eloise, unless your life is in immediate danger."

Chloe sighed inwardly, that stipulation was a larger loophole then she would have liked, but she had made her desires clear and hopefully that would be enough. While she liked Ash, she did remember just how much power it had taken to summon her and what she had promised to give Ash. With someone like that, a loose leash seemed a far wiser policy than trying to calculate just how much Ash would put up with to stay in this world. Yes, as with Eloise, she would have to show Ash a large degree of trust, and hope that the years of watching the people in her father's court had honed her instinctual judgment of people the way she thought it had.

"Judging people" the though prodded another reason she might have been so willing to trust Eloise to the surface of her mind

"You know, we have completely forgotten someone." Chloe told Ash, a smile spreading across her face, "Despite all the time I spent thinking about Eloise, I hardly gave Sheila a second thought."

"Sheila?" Ash asked, then recognition flashed across her face "Oh yes, her familiar"

"Her dog familiar" Chloe corrected "Now while it's not quite unheard of for a familiar and its' summoner to have completely different character, it is rare. Anyway, the link between familiar and summoner always results in a bit of a personality bleed, the summoner becomes slightly more like what she summoned and vice versa, at least for as long as the bond exists."

"And what," Chloe asked, her smile practically splitting her face "is the strongest characteristic of a dog?"

Ash gave Chloe an answering smile "Loyalty"

"Precisely, now if I can just make myself the target for that loyalty, were set."

This time Ash gave Chloe a far more impish smile, "Is loyalty truly what you want her to feel about you?"

Chloe paused for a moment before answering, Ash had probably only asked as a way to tease her but it was a question that deserved a serious reply.

"I admit I am hoping for more than loyalty from her, though it does scare me a bit. I know very little about necromancers, save for one of their spells that's of particular interest to me, but I do know that the only type of mage that goes insane more often than necromancers are mind mages. If she stays half as sane as she seems to be right now then I would be happy, but the idea of what might happen later in life truly scares me."

Ash had been sitting on Chloe's desk while Chloe sat on her bed, at the serious tone in Chloe's voice and the worry on her face, Ash stood up and sat down on the bed beside Chloe, and wrapped one arm around her shoulder.

"We made a deal when you summoned me, you grant me access to this world and keep me entertained, in return I will use all the power I can squeeze into this world in your service."

Chloe nodded, that was not quite the deal she had meant to offer, but it was close enough

"What you may not have realized" Ash continued "is that the power I have to offer is not simply magic. I have been summoned countless times, and have had dealings with humans even when not acting as a familiar, I know much about your kind, and that knowledge is also at your disposal. It may please you to know that human madness is something I am quite familiar with, if you like I will keep an eye on Eloise, and tell you if she is heading down that road while there is still time to do something about it."

Chloe sat silently for a moment "Thank you, I would truly appreciate that." Her eventual reply, while quiet, was clearly heartfelt.

After another few moments of silence, Chloe gently removed Ash's arm from her shoulder and stood up "That's enough of that for now, there are things that need doing tonight"

"Things?" Ash asked, her mental voice having gotten its' standard, slightly amused, tone back.

"Our meeting with Eloise," Chloe replied distractedly, looking at the hat that sat on the corner of her desk.

"Ash, do you think this will be a conversation we should have outside of the castle?"

"If you are planning on telling her as much as I think you are, then that would not be a bad idea at all"

Chloe plopped the hat on her head, checked her wand belt and headed out the door.

Chapter 9 Trust PT2

Eloise’s room was not in one of the dorm hallways, as with her meals it had apparently been decided that keeping her separate from the rest of the students would be best for everyone. Chloe growled to herself before knocking at the door, she happened to know that the other doors in this hallway led to storage rooms, and the implications did not please her.

After only a moment, the door opened to reveal Eloise, a smile lighting up her face. Taking in the hat sitting on Chloe’s head, and the wands poking out from under her cloak, the smile faded from Eloise’s fact, replaced with a slightly hurt expression. Chloe realized her mistake and quickly grabbed Eloise’s hand, and entered her room, and closed the door as soon as ash trotted through the door.

“Don’t misunderstand, the hats not meant for you.” Chloe said hurriedly, hoping the skin contact, which would negate the hats protections, was enough to get her sincerity across, “I promised my father that anytime I left the Academy’s grounds I would wear this. If you are willing, I really think this is a conversation that should take place outside.”

Eloise looked confused, which, Chloe thought in relief, was a lot better than the hurt look of moments before. It was only then that Chloe truly took in the contents of the room. Bones, bones covered everything in the room. The shelves had bird skeletons stacked one on atop another, several snake skeletons lay in the corners, three of what she guessed were fox skeletons, lay on a small table, and a full suit of plate armor stood on either side of the door.

A workbench, far larger than the table Chloe used for her crafting, took up most of one side of the room. It had several bird skeletons on it, including one that had its’ skull removed. The skull lay upside down beside it and had clearly just had a gem fixed in place inside it. Looking again, she saw that the addition of gems was not the only modification made to the skeletons, the beaks of the birds that sat on the table had been coated in metal and had had barbs added to them. Their talons were also metallic and had serrated backs.

“A walk does sound pleasant” Eloise finally said, pulling Chloe’s gaze away from the bone and back to her. Eloise however, had noticed Chloe looking at the skeletons.

“Most of these are from hunters and trappers, or butchers, their quite happy to be able to sell the bones instead of just the meat and skins.”

Chloe breather a small sigh of relief “Do you need anything or shall we go for that walk now”

“Just a moment.” Eloise said, then opened her window and gestured towards it. About twenty skeletal crows leapt into the air and flew out the open window.

Chloe gazed in shock at the flying skeletons, they had no flesh, let alone feathers, there was no way they should be able to fly like that. She felt a hint of air magic as one flew close to her, on its way to the window, but that just confused her all the more, Eloise had said she was a pure necromancer, so how.

“Now I’m ready.” Eloise said with a proud smile

As curious as Chloe was about the magic employed, she decided this was not the time to ask, instead she opened the door for Eloise. Sheila and Ash followed Eloise out and Chloe brought up the rear.

Once they were outside the castle Chloe sped up until she was walking beside Eloise.

“So” Eloise started, but Chloe cut her off with a finger to the lips

When they had gone about as far as Chloe had walked with ash that Monday Chloe stopped and looked pointedly at Ash. Ash just gave a mental snort, then began to grow. While Ash did not grow any taller then she had the last time, she did grow longer, and this time produced two saddles. Eloise stared in shock at Ash for a moment, but as Chloe hopped onto the front saddle, she took a deep, calming, breath and hopped onto the rear saddle.

This time instead of leaning forward and grabbing hold of Ash’s neck, Chloe hardened a bit of air directly behind either shoulder and leaned back against them. As Ash began to speed up Eloise rapped her arms tightly around Chloe and pressed herself against her. Sheila ran alongside Ash, seeming quite pleased by the chance to run.

“You know Ash” Chloe called mentally “if you happen to need some exercise I’d be fine with letting you have it before you take Eloise and me somewhere we can talk”

A mental laugh was carried through the link “I thought you had things you needed to discuss with her?”

Chloe returned a mental sigh “I suppose you’re right, but if things go well, I want you to take a long route back.”

Finally, they arrived at what Chloe thought was the same place Ash had brought her last time, and like last time Ash slowly shrank back down to goat size. Once that was completed she walked behind a tree, when she came back into view she was in her human shape.

Eloise twitched, then smiled weakly “your name was Ash, right?”

When Ash nodded Eloise Continued “And I assume you are the reason for Chloe’s new fondness for hair dye?”

“Magical backflow during the summoning, I can assure you, the silver hair is the extent of the damage”

“Glad to hear it”

Chloe watched, nonplused, as Ash and Eloise talked about her. She looked up, waiting for an opportunity to enter the conversation, and saw the skeletal birds flying above them. About half of them were flying in a circle high above the treetops while the other half flew among the nearby trees.

Catching a lull in the conversation Chloe began to talk, she told Eloise about the summoning, about her deal with Ash and the powers she got from her, she eventually told her everything that had happened to her over the last few days, except for Ash having eaten someone.

Eloise listened attentively to everything that Chloe had to say, starting to smile at the end.

“You have to give the dye more time to dry, I could give you lessons sometime, if you like”

Chloe’s eyes widened, “you don’t mean?”

Eloise continued to smile, “you might have noticed I’m a bit on the small side. When my powers awakened I knew that my father would think I was a disgrace to the family and try to get rid of me before anyone found. I ran before he could find out, but my flight was neither clean nor short.”

Eloise paused for a moment then continued “How much do you know about necromancers?”

“Very little” Chloe replied, “I know about a couple of necromantic spells, and a little about the things historic necromancers have done.”

“well then, something you might not know is quite what a necromantic affinity is, while we are commonly called necromancers, we could also be called soul mages. What we use most of the time are the echoes of animal spirits, or the pieces of the soul the rest sloughs off when it goes to Zalane’s embrace. I can tell you more later, if you are interested, but what is important is that at one point during my flight I ended up cornered, end with no soul scrape to use. In desperation, I ripped a piece of my own soul away and used it. Souls are very good at healing, given enough time, but you’re not supposed to push magic that completely into you, it goes far deeper than transformation or enhancement magic. The end result was that while I escaped, I also killed any chance I had of getting as tall as you, and ended up with silver hair to boot. Still, I’m still alive so I guess I can’t complain.”

Chloe wrapped an arm around Eloise “I’m truly glad you survived.” She said sincerely, then a smile spread across her lips “And as for the rest, one of the people I care the most about in the world would give her left arm to trade heights with you, and while I doubt it’s a good idea to let it go undyed, I think silver hair would actually suit you.”

Eloise smiled up at Chloe “thank you, though I have to agree with you about the hair. Even without silver hair, most people are terrified of necromancers, even if we do have some spells that are extremely useful to people like us.”

Chloe’s heart soared at Eloise’s words and an impulse struck her, she had not intended to go, but, “Eloise, would you go to the equinox ball with me?”

Chapter 10 Equivalent Exchange

Eloise’s eyes widened and Chloe watched as emotions began to play over her face. Chloe smiled, seeing joy replace the initial shock, worry and indecision then played over Eloise’s face and she silently bit her lip before looking up at Chloe.

“I would love to go with you, unfortunately, the only dress I own is unsuitable and I doubt I could get another one by Monday.”

Chloe groaned her teeth, this was not a problem she would have anticipated. Her father had commissioned an entire set of dresses and gowns for her before she had left, saying that she would be representing both Twin Rivers and Telkirin and would need to be able to dress as such for any occasion. If there was more time she could send off one of her dresses off to be modified, unfortunately, the tailors would already be busy handling last minute changes to the clothes of other students, and making one of her dresses fit Eloise would require it to be practically transformed. Chloe’s jaw relaxed and she smiled, this wasn’t something she could handle yet but maybe.

“Ash.”

Ash had been leaning against a tree some distance away, but at the sound of her name, she wandered back over.

“Yes?”

“Would you be able to transform a dress into something more appropriate?”

Upon hearing Chloe’s question, the amused smile on Ash’s face was replaced with a look of displeasure.

“Chloe, I’m your familiar and there are many things that I will help you with, but this is something you would do well to remember, I, Am, Not, Your, Fairy, Godmother.” Ash snarled the last few words through gritted teeth.

Chloe winced, not only did it seem that plan was not going to work, she had managed to upset Ash for the first time, and it was an unnerving experience. Just as she was about to apologize, an idea struck her.

“Are you sure Ash? It seemed appropriate, a cosmetic change for a cosmetic change” she said running her fingers through her hair “and the slate is clean.”

Ash just stared at her for a moment, then, smile reappearing, she burst out laughing.

“The lord of the wood owes you a debt” Ash gasped out between laughs “And you ask for modifications to a dress?”

It took a couple of minutes for Ash to regain her composure.

“Agreed, I will ensure that Eloise is properly dressed for the ball, and the debt is paid.”

“Agreed” Chloe replied, relieved. With this the problem was solved, Ash was no longer irritated and she had a better idea of the sorts of things she should and should not ask Ash for help with.

“So, with that problem out of the way, are you willing to attend with me”

Even as Eloise at bit her lip, Chloe could see the corners of her mouth tugging up in a smile.

“You’re certain you want to be seen with me publicly?”

“Quite certain.”

“Well then, I happily accept your invitation”

They continued to talk for a while, chatting happily. Soon after agreeing to Chloe’s deal Ash had returned to her tree, and returned to her goat form. Chloe’s and Eloise’s conversation eventually died down into a comfortable silence, both women looking up through the forest’s canopy to stare at the stars above them. All of Eloise’s birds had landed by then, and they too seemed to be staring into the sky.

“I suppose we should head back, we do have class tomorrow.” Eloise said eventually, though with clear reluctance.

“I suppose you’re right” Chloe conceded with equal reluctance “Ash!”

Ash stood up and trotted over to them, already growing. Chloe hopped onto the front saddle and cast her air spell, Eloise hopped on behind her, immediately wrapping her arms around her. Chloe smiled as they rode back, a smile that only grew wider when she recognized a part of the forest they were riding through and realized that Ash had indeed taken a long way back to the castle.

Eloise had to leave Chloe and Ash almost as soon as they entered the castle.

“This” Chloe thought irritable to herself “is just one reason to be unhappy with the location of the room they assigned Eloise.”

The return to their room was uneventful and after pulling on her nightgown Chloe slipped into bed. The next two days were equally uneventful. Chloe chatted with Eloise through the classes, Ash knew far more about the familiar bond than any of the instructors did, and seemed happy to show Sheila the ropes.

Saturday dawned bright and Chloe stretched as she got out of bed. Looking through her chest, she selected a robe and cloak, far more worn than the ones she normally wore. She belted the robe tight, pulled most of her wands off the belt, then pulled the cloak on and finished getting ready for the day.

Chloe sighed as she ate a light breakfast, the academy left the weekends as free time, but her weekends were far from free. Most mages learned only how to fight spell to spell but her father claimed that that was simply mage arrogance and foolishness, and on this subject, she was in full agreement with him. It was entirely possible to run out of magic, or be in a situation where you only have enough power left for one or two spells and would need more than that to pull through, thus weekend training with the arcane knights.

Arcane knights were people with a larger capacity for magic than the vast majority of people, but not enough to become mages. Physical enhancement spells took less power than almost any other spell, as the spell never had to leave the body, and as long as the spell was being held the caster could be far faster, and or several times stronger than normal. Most mages looked down on arcane knights because the knights had so much smaller magic reserves than they did, but Chloe, and some other mages, could see the benefit of training with them. Even if you only had the magic left to power one or two of your normal spells, you probably still had more magic than an Arcane knight ever would.

While some arcane knights used massive hammers, or practiced very rapid and accurate archery, they were the exceptions, most arcane knights used a saber and hook knife. The traditional fighting style of the arcane knights had been honed over centuries, and its weapons chosen with care. The saber, while heavier than a rapier, is also a far more maneuverable weapon than a longsword or bastard sword and is thus the natural choice for style. The hook knife, on the other hand, was a weapon purpose made for use by arcane knights. It got its name for its close resemblance to an unbarbed fishing hook, though both of its edges are sharpened. The hook knife is often used as a parrying dagger or sword breaker, but can also be used offensively. Offensively it is often brought up under an opponent’s arm with the hook being set directly below the bone, then yanked out, cutting anything caught in the knife’s half loop. While most often employed on arms, it is also possible to use it on legs, or the stomach or throat.

All this ran through Chloe’s head as one of the arcane knights that the academy employed as a guard drove her around and around the courtyard. As had been drilled into her so many time before, she would never be able to count on winning against an arcane knight, as they spent most of their lives practicing, rather than just weekends and spare hours. She smiled to herself, even as a touch was scored on her, “what I will be able to do is beat anyone short of an arcane knight, and hopefully I’ll even be able to hold out long enough, even against one of them, for help to arrive.” The thought kept her spirits up and she only stopped briefly for lunch, practicing for the rest of the day.

As the sky darkened she went back inside. Her mood soured throughout dinner and by the time she and Ash returned to their room all vestiges of the pleasant exhilaration she had felt throughout the day had fled. In truth, she knew that she had kept sparring so long because she didn’t want free time for her mind to wonder today. She yanked her nightgown on then mentally called out.

“Ash.”

“Yes.”

“I want to be alone tomorrow, you’re free to enjoy yourself however you want, though if you kill someone, try to make sure it’s someone who deserves it. And do make sure it can’t be linked back to us.”

Ash looked at her for a bit but eventually just asked “What time can I come back?”

“I should be asleep by the third hour of the night, so that will do.” Chloe said, then pulled the covers over her head and determinedly closed her eyes.

Chapter 11 Apparently she doesn't like pigeons

Interlude, sixteen years earlier

Chloe walked down the stairs and towards the great hall, hand in hand with her mother. Her father had returned earlier that day and she was going to be allowed to have dinner in the great hall with him and mother. Honestly, she had mixed feelings about her fathers return, her mother ate every meal with her when her father was away, while when he was home she only ate with her about half the time. On the other hand, she did enjoy the infrequent times when her father was able to spend time with her, and the rare occasions she was allowed to eat with him and her mother in the great hall. There was also the fact that her mother was far busier when her father was gone, and so spent less time with her. All in all, she decided, she was glad her father was back.

As they walked through the doors to the great hall, Chloe gazed around in the same wonder she felt every time she was allowed to enter. The room was huge, as was the table that took up much of the front of the room, even the smaller tables that filled the back of the room were far bigger than the one she normally ate at. But as they came near the table her eyes were drawn away from the gorgeous tapestries that covered the walls, and the ceiling, with its’ enchantment that made it a mirror of the sky, and to the man sitting at the head of the table.

“Father!” she called out as they drew near, and ran ahead of her mother.

Her father stood up quickly and caught her up in his arms.

“Chloe.” He said, while hugging her tightly. “How have you been? How’s your sister? I’ve missed you so much.”

“We’ve both been well, and I’ve missed you too.” Chloe replied, her face pressed against his chest.

Her father put her down as her mother arrived, he gave her a tight hug as well, and whispered something in her ear, before sitting back down at the head of the table. Her mother sat to his right and Chloe sat in a chair drawn up directly beside her mother’s.

The meal was delicious, as was the tea they drank. She remembered her mother telling her that the tea they drank had come from another continent, aboard one of the ships that filled the harbor. She was imagining just what sort of journey that would be, as a servant placed a bottle of wine on the table and removed the cork, pouring some into her wine glass that sat beside her father.

Just as her father started to reach for the wine glass, her mother’s hand darted out and grabbed his glass. After drinking the contents, she leaned in and whispered into his ear. Recently Chloe had found that if she focused, she was somehow able to make sounds seem louder to her, and her mother’s behavior left her curious, so she focused on what her mother was whispering.

“You just got back this afternoon” Her mother was saying in a tone she had never heard before “and while the equinox celebrations will take up all your time tomorrow, you’re mine for tonight, and believe me, you will not want the problems too much alcohol can cause”

Her father chuckled and grinned, before whispering back “Come on woman, a glass or two won’t cause any problems. With you, not even a couple of bottles would be enough to keep me”

His voice trailed off and a look of horror spread across his face. Her mother stood up suddenly, and with that movement, Chloe was once again able to see her mother’s face. The sight left her utterly stunned, then a horror matching her father’s started to fill her. Blood was leaking out of her mother’s eyes, ears and nose, and her face was twisted in pain. Moments later her mother began to retch, again and again. What came out of her mouth looked like blood to Chloe at first, but something darker soon started coming from her mouth. Some of the bile coming from her mother splashed on her and her father, then her mother collapsed to the ground, only twitching for a few moments before going still.

Several months later

Chloe was staring out the window, even though the sun had long since set and she could no longer see the courtyard clearly. After the death of her mother, her father and some mages had interrogated the entire staff, using truth spells and whatever compulsion was required to get them talking. Chloe had been utterly horrified by how many of the people, who she and thought were nice, and cared about her, had been selling information to one noble or another. The resulting purge had been, thorough.

After the investigation, it had been found that the poisoner had worked for one of the two counts who her father had just settled a dispute between. The two counts, who both owed fealty to her father, had disagreed about which of them owned a large chunk of land. Both had sent troops to assert their ownership. That would not have been terribly unusual, but when the battle was over, the victorious count decided he would push forward, farther into the other count's land. When both sides started conscripting large numbers of their peasants, and even considered recalling the forces they owed Chloe’s father, her father had stepped in to settle the matter.

Chloe found it ironic that the count who had tried to poison her father had been the one who the deal had left in with the most land. Apparently, the count had hoped to completely conquer his neighbor, while Chloe’s mother had been had been busy establishing a regency for Chloe, and that after that, as the most powerful count in the march, and with a regency acting for a minor, he would be free to do as he pleased.

Her father had immediately summoned half of the garrisons of all the nearby fortresses and towers, combined them, and marched on the count. Even against the small portion of her father’s forces that he had brought, the count stood no chance. His lands were swiftly conquered and added to those held directly by Chloe’s father, and the count, his wife, and his only child, were brought back to Twin Rivers in chains.

After her father’s return, Chloe had insisted on having all of her lessons in this room, as it gave her a good view of the courtyard. Her tutors had argued and insisted on teaching her somewhere else, but when she had gone to her father and begged, he had agreed, and ordered them to teach her there, if that was what she wanted.

While there was only one now, for quite a while there had been two gibbets hanging in the courtyard, facing each other. Her father had placed the count in one, and his son in the other. Then he had the count feed and healed just enough to keep him alive. When the son had died the count’s wife was placed in the empty gibbet. Now that the countess too was dead, Chloe’s father had been letting the count get closer and closer to death between the times he had him fed and healed.

Chloe had watched this through the window every day. At first, she had been overjoyed to see the suffering of the person who had taken her mother away, but now her patience and self-restraint had run out. Earlier that day she had managed to steal a stiletto, as well as its sheath and belt, and now she tiptoed through the castle, out to the courtyard. In the courtyard she walked to the chain holding the cage up, and began to climb, only to promptly slide back down. She tried twice more, then close to tears, got ready to try yet again, when she heard a voice behind her.

“Chloe, what do you think you are doing?”

She slowly turned, and saw her father standing behind her. She just trembled for a moment then balled her little hands into fists.

“I’m going to kill that man.” Chloe said determinedly “You got to kill his wife and son, and make him suffer, but it was my mother he took away, I want to kill him.”

Her father stared at her silently for a few moments then muttered quietly to himself, “She’ll have to be able to kill if she’s to be the next Marquis, getting her used to it young might not be a bad idea.”

He walked over to the chain and slowly lowered the cage to the ground, then shoved it onto it’s back. Chloe walked up to the cage, unsheathed her stiletto, placed it against the center of the chest, then drew her arm back. Her father caught her arm before she could bring the stiletto down.

“That’s not where the heart is, your heart's a bit more to the left.” he told her and guided her hand to the appropriate place.

As Chloe raised her arm, she saw absolutely nothing in the eyes of the man who had killed her mother. Then she brought the stiletto down.

About three years later

Dawn on Chloe’s tenth birthday was a clear and beautiful thing, and she watched it through a window. Chloe then rushed downstairs and wolfed her breakfast, eager to see her father. Her father had told her that as the next Marquis, she would be responsible for justice in the march, and that it was time she began to learn what that meant. Then he had given her a sheaf of papers with the details about the crimes of a recently caught criminal and the evidence against him. He had told her to be ready to pass judgment on her birthday.

With her breakfast finished she eagerly rushed to her father’s study and knocked on the door, then entered in response to her father’s invitation.

“Are you prepared to pass judgment?” her father asked

Chloe spent the next half an hour explaining and defending her conclusions.

“So you see,” she said at last “not only is he clearly guilty, death is certainly the appropriate punishment for his crimes.”

“I agree with your judgment in both respects, in fact, I anticipated this and have a death warrant for him right here, all you have to do is sign it, as the one who passed judgment.”

Chloe grabbed the paper and signed it. Chloe’s father looked at the signature, gave a satisfied smile, and looked back up at her.

“You killed a man with that signature.”

“Are you saying he doesn’t deserve it?”

“No, but the fact that placing your signature there is the same as killing a man is a lesson you can never forget. Come with me.”

Chloe followed her father through the castle, to a back chamber where a pair of bracers and an axe were sitting on a table.

“Put the bracers on, their magical and will give you the strength to use that axe.”

Chloe could feel her stomach sinking, “What do I need the axe for?” she asked, hoping her suspicion was wrong.

“As I said you can’t ever forget what your orders actually result in, this should teach that lesson fairly well”

After Chloe put the bracers on and picked up the axe, her father opened the door and lead the way through. In the next room, Chloe saw a bound man, his head resting on a block. The man raised his eyes at the sound of them entering and they widened at the sight of Chloe with the axe.

“And people call me the monster. How old is she? Nine? Ten?” the man asked, looking at her father in disgust.

Her father didn’t reply, instead, he looked at Chloe. Chloe shivered under the gaze and walked up to the man. She thought she saw pity for her on the man’s face for a moment, then it was replaced with a look of utter contempt.

“Why even bother walking up to me?” The man sneered “You know you’re too much of a coward to do it. You know you can’t kill me, you’re just a stupid, weak, pathetic bi”

Chloe brought the axe down mid-word.

“Not quite the lesson I intended, but it’s close enough.” her father said quietly

Chloe felt sick throughout the day, but her father insisted she attend her birthday party.

“A noble of you’re standing will need to keep appearances up, no matter how she feels inside.” Her father had said.

Now, finally, she was able to go to her room, and to bed. When she opened her door, she saw Luna sitting on her bed, clearly waiting for her.

“Come here.” Luna said, opening her arms “I heard what you had to do this morning.”

Chloe rushed over to the bed and rapped Luna in a hug, which Luna returned. Both of them crawled under the covers, and Luna just held her, as she cried herself to sleep.

Present Day

Chloe sat at her desk, on it sat a pocket watch, a bottle of wine, a wine glass, and a stiletto. The Wineglass was the same one her mother had drunk the poisoned wine from and the stiletto was the one she had used to avenge her mother. The pocket watch sat open on the table the smaller bead slowly rolling from one square to the next.

Like all watches, hers was magical, and had ten large squares for the hours and a hundred small squares for the minutes. The minute bead would travel across one row, go down one square then go the other way back, repeating the process until it reached the final square on the bottom row, at which point a metal guide would lead the bead back to the top square and the hour bead would progress one square. The hour bead was always guided back to the first square at sunset and sunrise, giving both night and day ten hours, even when one was considerably longer than the other.

Chloe watched the watch. She had been able to find out from old Vindell, who was always obsessive about details, precisely which minute her mother had drunk the wine, and she waited for that minute to come. She always spent the anniversary of her mother’s death thinking about the past. The happy times before her mother had died, her mother’s death, her first two kills, and all that came later.

Her father had not been content with that one lesson, there had been many, many more lessons, of all types. Her father often called on her to act as executioner for the convicted, but in some ways, those were the easy lessons. Other lessons involved her being assigned groups of people, sometimes soldiers, sometimes not, and having to perform a task. The task was always dangerous in some way, though never to her, and there would always be a lesson in it. The lessons could be anything from using logic instead of emotion, to listening to those who had more experience in a certain field, or anything else her father thought she should learn. If she failed to understand the point of the lesson then members of her group would probably die.

She had asked her father how he could just allow her mistakes to kill his subjects. He had told her that is was far better for a few do die now and truly teach her the lessons. If not, he had said, then many more would die, because of those same mistakes, when she took over as marquis and the tasks became things like commanding an entire army, passing judgement on disputes between nobles, or calculating how much food an area hit by a disaster would actually need to be shipped to it.

Chloe wondered, as she watched the minute bead slowly roll, how different her life would have been if her mother had not died. As the time of her mother’s death neared, she uncorked the bottle, and filled the glass. When the minute came, she drank the contents, closed her eyes, and prayed to Zalane. She prayed that if her mother had chosen to rest then her soul was at peace and if she had picked to reincarnate immediately, that she was having a good life.

Opening her eyes, she grabbed the bottle of wine and hurled it out the open window, enhancing her strength for the throw. The bottle soared through the sky and shattered against a tower. Chloe then wiped out the wine glass and placed it, and the stiletto, in a padded box, and placed the box at the bottom of her chest. Then headed to bed.

She left the window open for Ash. She knew her instructions to her had been dangerously vague, but as long as Ash stuck to them, she really didn’t care what happened. A part of her knew she would care the next day, or the day after that, but right now, she just didn’t. As her head hit the pillow, her mind returned to her mother, and tears began to flow down her cheeks.

The sound of cawing from her window was only enough to partially wake her. One caw became a chocked, gurgling thing, and was then replaced with Ash’s voice, quietly singing.

“But they still go for peanuts when coated with cyanide.”

Ash’s voice cut off suddenly, and moments later she heard a slithering sound. In the following silence, Chloe fell back to sleep.

The sound of the door opening and closing quietly sometime later was not enough to wake her back up, but the slight bouncing of the bed as someone sat down on it was enough to start the process. Chloe began to truly wake up when she felt her head lifted slightly, and placed on something soft, and a hand wipe the tear tracks on her cheeks. Before she had truly woken up, however, another hand started to stroke her head and a soft voice began to quietly sing a lullaby, and, exhausted as she was, that was enough to put her back to sleep.

Chapter 12 well, it could have been a fight between thieves

As the first rays of the sun shone through the open window, Chloe’s eyes fluttered open and closed. Suddenly her eyes snapped fully open as she realized there was a face above her. After a panicked moment, in which she held perfectly still, she realized the face was Eloise’s. Panic subsiding, she spent a moment taking stock, Eloise was sitting up, back leaning against the wall and braced on one side by an arm on the bed, her other hand was still on Chloe’s head and she was sleeping soundly.

Chloe left her head in Eloise’s lap and just stared up at her for a time. Thinking back on the previous night, she had a vague memory of a softly sung lullaby and the reassuring caressing of her head. Seeing Eloise sleeping while sitting up, and remembering not just the last night, but everything else Eloise had done. A wide smile spread across her face, then she sighed internally.

“Always face the reality of a situation,” the memory of one of her father’s oft-repeated lectures floated through her head. “it doesn’t matter if it's unpleasant or unfair, recognize it for what it is and deal with it.”

“And the reality is,” Chloe thought to herself “I love Eloise. It may not be safe, possibly not even truly sane, to love a necromancer, but I do. And besides, very little that I plan to do could accurately be described as safe. So, accept that you’re in love with her and act accordingly.” The last of the unease left Chloe’s chest as she remembered something Ash had told her, “After all, will all die in the end whatever we do, best to live while you can.”

Smiling, she began to craft a spell. As she gently drew her body back and pulled her head off Eloise’s lap, she left a sphere of hardened air where her head had been. With her head now free, she had more hardened air lift her straight off the bed. A quick gesture sent a coin pouch flying from one of her shelves, straight to her hand. Looking down at herself, she had to suppress a bitter laugh, the fact that she had been to out of it the night before to even change from her robes into her nightgown was now proving highly convenient. Carefully angling her body, she flouted directly out the still open window. As she passed through she wondered, not for the first time, if the windows had intentionally been made wider than normal windows just for the students with an air affinity.

Once through the window, she sat up and released most of the air she had been hardening, leaving only a disc for her to sit on, then she began to craft her next batch of spells. First was a sphere surrounding her, any air encountering the sphere would flow around it, rather than crashing into it. Next, she cast a spell that would keep the air in the sphere breathable. Considering the short amount of time she intended to stay in it, it was probably unnecessary, but she preferred not to take the risk. Finally, she began to fly towards the town, accelerating rapidly. Even with the sphere negating air resistance, it took a lot of power to fly as fast as she was, and going this fast to town and back would leave her low on power for an hour or so. Since the preparations for the evening's celebrations meant there were no classes, however, this was perfectly acceptable if it meant she was able to make it to town and back before Eloise awoke. That thought led to another, and she called out mentally.

“Ash.”

“Yes”

“Where are you right now?”

“In the forest. While it’s missing a certain something, it is still pleasant.”

Ash picked up on the sigh Chloe let out at the words. “Why do you ask, need someone eaten?”

“No, I’m taking a quick trip to town, and I had hoped you were close enough to keep an eye on my room while I was gone.”

“You trust the necromance enough to sleep on her lap, but not enough to leave her alone with your stuff?” Ash asked with a snort of amusement.

“Quite the reverse, she’s asleep and it’s the rest of the academy I don’t trust. Speaking of, from what you’ve said, you’re making sure anything you do won’t cause me an excessive amount of trouble?”

“Yes, having you hunted down and killed would be very inconvenient.”

Chloe gave an amused snort, “I’d certainly agree with you on that, anyway, the point is I want you to priorities Eloise’s safety over concealment. While both would be good, and if there’s time I want you to talk to me before you do anything, if it comes down to a situation where she’s in immediate danger, I want you to act. I’m willing to make a run for Telkirin if I have to.”

There was silence for a moment, then an amused laugh. “Priorities a, well don’t worry, I’ll do what I can to keep both of you alive and unhunted.”

“Thanks Ash, I promise one we return to twin rivers I’ll bring you somewhere you can run as wild as you want.”

Rather than words, this time Ash simply pushed a feeling of contentment and anticipation through the link. Chloe smiled in relief, at least Ash didn’t seem to be bored enough to be a source of concern.

As Chloe looked down at the town, she sighed in resignation, it wasn’t what she had intended to do, but it was something that needed doing. She landed in a well-kept street. The town wasn’t big enough for a temple to each of the gods and goddesses to be practical, so the large building that stood halfway down the street was a church dedicated to the entire pantheon. On the same side of the of the street were two rows of shrines, half to the left of the church and half to right, which were used when praying to a specific god or goddess.

Chloe walked up to the third and fourth shrines. These two were closer together than any of the others, though that was unsurprising as they were to the twins Shirina and Celios. While both of them had multiple areas of influence, Shirina, for instance, was, among other things, the goddess of logical thought and judgment while Celios was the god of passion and war. However, those were all secondary roles of the twins, they were primarily the god of day and the goddess of the night, making the solstices and equinoxes their holy days.

Chloe slipped a gold coin into the wooden boxes both shrines had in front of them, then offered up a brief prayer to each before taking to the air once again.

This time when Chloe descended, it was in a clearly upper-class street. The building she walked into had windows making up almost the entirety of one of the walls, giving a beautiful view down the hill to the winding river. Chloe walked up to the counter and placed an order, then settled in to wait while it was prepared.

Her attention was drawn by the way the man behind the counter kept turning and looking at one point beyond the windows. She turned and looked in the same direction, not seeing anything for a moment. Then she noticed the wall of one of the warehouses down by the river had a large hole in it and, squinting intently, she thought some parts of the wall near the hole had large, red stains on them.

Now understanding the reason for the mans repeated nervous glances, Chloe quickly lost interest. Most likely a new gang was trying to move in and the hole and stains were either the result of them being violently evicted or gaining territory. Either way, the risk that customers might witness a murder and lose their appetite was likely the cause of the man's concern and it was of no interest to her.

Chloe smiled as the small box was handed to her, and placed a few coins on the counter before walking out. Once she was out of the building she rose into the air, recasting the spells she had used to fly to town so quickly. With her lavish expenditure of power, it took very little time for her to return to the academy. Instead of floating through her window, she walked through the main gates and picked up a jug of water on the way back to her room.

She opened her door as quietly as possible then floated into the room, avoiding any of the loud creaking noises her floor was so fond of making. Smiling contentedly at the sight of Eloise’s hand still resting on the sphere of hardened air, she sat down at her desk and began to float objects towards her. First, she pulled in a kettle a fire witch had enchanted so as that a touch of power would cause it to either heat or stop heating its contents, and poured her jug of water into it and gave it the first touch of power. Then she gestured at another shelf and two plates, two mugs, two sets of utensils and a box full of tea leaves floated to the desk.

Chloe smiled as she opened the box she had gone to town for, and felt the heat from it. The spell was a simple one which anyone with even a weak fire affinity could cast a hundred times without getting tired, and it wouldn’t last for more than an hour or two, but while it lasted and the box was closed no heat would escape from it. Inside was a large stack of berry pancakes, surrounded by more fresh berries. While the food the academy served wasn’t bad it also wasn’t anything to get excited over and after what Eloise had done the night before and with Chloe’s acceptance of how she felt about her, Chloe felt Eloise deserved far better than a simply breakfast of porridge in bed. Chloe carefully scooped some tea leaves into a pair of infusers and dropped them into the mugs.

At the hissing of the steam the kettle produced, Eloise began to stir and blink her eyes. Chloe touched the kettle with another little bit of power, then poured the water into the mugs and turned to look at Eloise. The look of surprised delight that spread over Eloise’s face as she saw the breakfast Chloe had prepared filled her with pure joy.

Chapter 13 Equinox ball

Chloe smiled as she watched Eloise stretch and twist after getting out of the bed. Eloise stood beside the bed for a moment, clearly at a loss for words, before finally, simply saying.

“Thank you”

Chloe smiled as she pulled out one of the two chairs that sat in front of the desk and offered it to Eloise.

“No, thank you for last night. Not just last night actually, thanks for everything.”

Eloise took the proffered seat, then waited until Chloe had sat down in the other one.

“You’re welcome. Would you like to talk about whatever happened yesterday?”

“Not really. Nothing actually happened yesterday, it’s just that yesterday is the anniversary of my mother’s death, and the memory of her death brought a number of other unpleasant memories with it”

“I’m so sorry.” Eloise said softly, wrapping an arm around Chloe’s back.

“It’s alright, it happened sixteen years ago.” Chloe said, forcing a smile, “And look, we have good food, a day free from classes, as well as feast and ball to look forward to tonight, this isn’t the time for melancholy”

As Chloe thought about the fact that she’d be dancing with Eloise that night, the smile quickly stopped being forced. Eloise looked at Chloe in silence for a moment, then clearly decided to accept her change of subject.

“True enough, though I have to warn you, its been years since I last danced, and even then, they were all imperial dances, not the local ones.”

Chloe blinked in surprise, the Empire was on the other side of the continent.

“Don’t worry about it, I’ll lead and I’m sure you’ll catch on quickly. By the way, have you picked your first batch of classes?”

The first year at Alir academy students focused on fully mastering their affinities. The second year was very different, students signed up for short courses that taught one or two of the most basic of spells of other affinities, or spells which had no real affinity. A course ended as soon as a person either mastered the spell or decided that they didn’t have the power to cast it without the affinity, at which point they signed up for another course.

Chloe and Eloise spent the rest of the meal discussing what spells would be useful to learn, and by the end had decided to take the same classes so they would always have someone to work with. Eloise had been looking at the books that Chloe had on her shelves while the two were talking, and when the meal came to an end she asked if she could take a closer look at them. Most of the rest of the day was spent in companionable silence as Eloise began to read through Chloe’s books and Chloe worked on charging a couple of wands.

Just as Chloe finished placing the final parts of a spell inside the gems of the wand she was working on, the door opened and Ash trotted in, followed by Sheila.

Eloise looked up from the book she was reading and turned to Chloe with a confused look on her face.

“How does a goat open a door?”

Chloe smiled at her, “You know, I asked the same question, and I have yet to get an answer.”

Ash didn’t volunteer any answers, instead, walking over to Eloise.

“I agreed to get her ready for the ball,” Ash sent through the link “so I’m afraid it’s time for you to hand her over to me”

“Ash thinks it’s time to start getting ready, you can come back and keep reading anytime you like.”

Eloise sighed, inserted a placemark, and put the book down.

“Well then, I’ll see you in just a bit” and so saying, she left the room, followed by Ash and Sheila.

As soon as the door closed Chloe stood up, grabbed her hand mirror, and began to prepare. A while later she smiled as she angled the mirror up and down, red had always been her favorite color and she quite liked the red ball gown she had chosen. She took a couple of experimental steps, and her smile widened as she found no problems with her dancing shoes. Just as she was placing the mirror on her desk, Ash’s amused voice called out to her through their link.

“She’s just about ready, I should have her all set by the time you can get here.”

Chloe smiled and grabbed a pair of long gloves from a shelf as she left the room. She pulled the gloves on as she walked towards Eloise’s room and looked down at the embroidered crest that now covered the backs of her hands. The Yinara crest, a shield with a river running down the middle, a mountain and a tree on the left, and three towers on the right, symbolized everything her family had stood for since the end of the Eldritch Kings war.

“And,” she thought, as a wicked little smile played over her face, “it will probably continue to accurately represent the family for another few years.”

As Chloe reached Eloise’s door she paused, it was open just a crack and she could hear Eloise’s and Ash’s voices through it.

“I’m still not sure about this.” Came Eloise’s nervous voice.

“There’s nothing to worry about, you’re attending with the most powerful noble at the academy and you could tear the soul out anyone else who’s attending.” Ash paused for a moment before continuing “Well, except for mine of course, but with that one exception, you’ll be the most dangerous person attending. You shouldn’t be hiding what you are, flaunt it.”

Before Eloise could reply, Chloe knocked on the door. There was silence for a moment, then footsteps and Eloise opened the door. Chloe grinned widely and suppressed an evil laugh as she saw just how Eloise was dressed. The necromancer wore a black velvet ball gown, embroidered with bones. When Chloe looked closely, she could see that the hair sticks that were holding Eloise’s hair in place were actually small bones.

“Flaunting certainly describes the look,” Chloe thought to herself as she continued to grin at Eloise “and it looks perfect on her. “

Chloe extended her arm “Would you do me the honor of attending this ball with me lady mage?”

The nervous look on Eloise’s face vanished, replaced with an amused smile, and she curtsied “It would be my pleasure, my right honorable lord.”

Eloise linked arms with Chloe and the two started to walk towards the great hall.

“I love the outfit”

Eloise blushed, “Thanks, you look beautiful in yours.”

Ash was trotting along behind them and gave an amused snort through the link when she heard Chloe’s words.

“It was the best I could do, she absolutely refused to let me make a few skulls rotate around her head, or to make acidic darkness drip from her sleeves, or anything else truly exciting.”

Chloe barely kept from laughing at the pictures Ash’s words generated.

“I have to agree with her this time, that might have been going a bit too far for tonight’s ball. Maybe another time we can go for a truly adventurous look.”

As the three of them entered the great hall, people took one look then backed away quickly, leaving an empty circle that moved along with them. Chloe saw the smile on Eloise’s face sour, and unlinked her arm from Eloise’s, bringing it up to wrap around her back. Her hand came to rest on Eloise’s shoulder, and she gave it a gentle, reassuring squeeze. Eloise pressed in a bit closer to Chloe and her smile returned, though this time it was a more determined thing.

The two of them sat down at a table chatted happily as the room began to fill. While the two seats to Eloise’s right and the one directly across from her remained open, the rest of the table quickly filled up. In a pause in her conversation with Eloise, Chloe’s attention was captured by the conversation of the three boys to her left.

“Did you hear what happened in town yesterday?”

“You mean about the mage that exterminated the riverside gangs? Yea, though I didn’t hear what started it”

“Me neither, but I have heard that she was dressed like a Cinain mage.”

“Oh gods, those poor bastars. It’s only the most powerful of their mages that are allowed to leave the country, and they’re used to being treated like royalty.”

“Yea, but it’s not like it’s much of a loss, the only ones who died were gang members from what I heard”

The third boy, who had been silent until this point, suddenly chimed in. “That may be the case, but do you really think the prince will simply ignore the fact that a Cinain mage rampaged through one of his towns?”

A thoughtful silence followed.

“Ash,” Chloe asked mentally, “that wouldn’t have happened to be what you did yesterday would it?”

“No”

“Ah, sorry”

“I should think so. To even suggest a single town would take me an entire day, I went through several others as well.”

“Oh”

At that moment a clinking noise reverberated throughout the hall. Chloe looked up to see that the chancellor had apparently magnified the sound of his spoon clinking against his cup. With everyone’s attention now on him, he began to speak. He first offered up a prayer to Shirina and Celios, then began to give a speech about the academies glorious history, without, Chloe noticed, going into much detail about what that history actually consisted of. As far as she knew, the sum total of the academies historical accomplishments was producing two moderately famous mages, it certainly wasn’t one of the famous academies. Chloe had picked Alir academy because while it was outside the borders of Telkirin, allowing her to focus on learning magic rather than on other Telkirin nobles who would try to include her in their political maneuverings, it was still a relatively easy trip by water.

The chancellor finally ended his speech and everyone was able to begin their dinner. Chloe spent the meal happily chatting with Eloise. It quickly became clear that Eloise felt uncomfortable talking about herself or necromancy in public, so they spend the meal discussing the history book Eloise had spent the day reading. As Eloise took a final bite and pushed her plate back Chloe stood up. Other people had already taken to the dance floor and she extended her hand towards Eloise. Eloise took her hand and the two of them stepped onto the dance floor.

While Eloise clearly was out of practice and unfamiliar with the particular dances that were taking place, it was also clear that she had spent quite some time dancing in the past. Another thing that quickly became clear was that she truly loved to dance, even the missteps she made couldn’t dampen her joy at being able to dance again, after so long. The two of them spun through dance after dance, and when the music for a dance they had already performed a couple of times played again, Eloise took the opportunity to lead.

As the dance came to an end and Chloe looked down at the triumph and joy on Eloise’s face, she simply couldn’t help herself, she leaned down and kissed Eloise. A look of even greater joy spread across Eloise’s face, then it gave way to worry, only to be replaced by joy again, then it finally settled to one of worry.

Eloise led Chloe off the dance floor before the next dance could begin, then walked with her to a corner.

“I had hoped that I was interpreting your actions correctly, but it's been so long since I last really spent time with anyone that I wasn’t sure.”

Chloe simply smiled down at Eloise and wrapped an arm around her waist.

Eloise smiled back for a moment, pressing in against Chloe, then pulled away and looked up at her with a serious look on her face.

“I think maybe we should go back to my room. Before things go any farther, there are some things about me, and about being with a necromancer, that you deserve to know.”

Chapter 14 Necromancy

Chloe walked down the hall, staying beside Eloise until they reached her room, at which point Chloe darted ahead and opened the door for Eloise. Chloe smiled to herself as she saw the amused expression on Eloise’s face, the exuberant gesture seemed to have at least somewhat distracted Eloise from whatever was worrying her.

Eloise sat on her bed, and Chloe sat down beside her. The amusement of a moment earlier was gone, and Eloise’s hands were clasped and squeezing at each other spasmodically. She opened and closed her mouth a couple of times, but said nothing. As her breathing became more and more rapid, Chloe stood up and walked directly in front of her.

“Calm down, everything’s going to be fine. Over the years I’ve been called a number of things, a cold-blooded bitch, a manipulative schemer, and a heartless monster, but one thing nobody has ever called me is a coward. I don’t know what you have to tell me, but a can’t think of anything that would scare me away. Trust me.”

It took a moment, but then Eloise took a deep breath and visibly relaxed. Chloe sat back down beside Eloise, this time Eloise nestled up against her, rested her head on Chloe’s shoulder, closed her eyes, and began to speak.

“Now then, where should I begin? I suppose it would be best to start with a bit more of an explanation of necromancy, as it has had such a large effect on my life. Tell me, do you actually know where the fear of necromancers comes from?”

Chloe though for a moment, “Isn’t it because you can kill with little more than a touch? I know it’s the next thing to imposable to ward against a necromancer’s magic. “

Eloise smiled slightly “No, well that is a part of it, but not the root. Whether it’s a peasant striking you in the back of the head with a cobblestone or a sorcerer who’s just burned through the last of your wards, anyone can kill you if given the right opportunity. While it’s true that the difficulty in warding against our magic would make people nervous, it wouldn’t inspire the sort of bone-deep fear most people are taught as children to have towards necromancers. No, the fear of necromancers comes from what our affinity is.”

“As I told you before, a necromancer is a soul mage. Whether it’s at the hands of the peasant or the sorcerer, when they kill you, that’s the end, your soul goes to Zalane’s embrace, and that’s what’s different about necromancers. Depending on what a necromancer has on hand, they may be able to damage, or even capture a soul before it can reach Zalane, and that is why people truly fear necromancers. Of course, for most people, the fear of necromancers starts with the nursery rhymes and children’s songs and eventually becomes simply a fear of the undead or of the inability to defend against our magic, but it’s the people who recognize the true danger a necromancer can pose who write the songs and the rhymes. So, tell me, are you truly prepared to have someone who could tear your soul apart standing next to you? And are you prepared for how others will react to seeing someone, who they’ve been taught to fear since the cradle, standing next to you?”

Chloe wrapped her arm around the Eloise and pulled gently, pressing their sides together even more firmly. While giving what she hoped was a reassuring embrace, Chloe paused for a few moments to think about how to phrase her reply.

“An old philosopher once said “Lonely is the head that wears the coronet” and he wasn’t wrong. For most of my life, the people close to me will either work for me or be lesser nobles who owe fealty to me. For the former, how they viewed me would hardly change, I could have any one of them killed at any time anyway, and hiring a necromancer if I wanted to do something to their souls would be fairly simple. As for my nobles, my job isn’t to be their friend, it’s to keep them in line, keep them from turning each other’s lands into burned-out wastes, and to protect them from larger threats. Having them be a bit scared of me will only help with all three of those things. And as for the rest of the people, the ones who will just know me as their lord, what they will care about are the taxes and duties I impose, not who’s standing next to me.”

Chloe paused, squeezing Eloise tighter for just a moment. “And as for me, I’ve seen you, and I have a good idea of what kind of person you are, I have no fear that you’ll tear my soul apart in some fit of madness.”

Eloise just leaned against Chloe for a minute, an expression of relief and pleasure on her face, then her expression turned serious and she began to speak again.

“That’s actually the next thing we need to talk about, do you know why so many necromancers go insane?”

Chloe shook her head silently

“It’s because, despite what I just told you, necromancers almost never use intact souls. We use the spirit echoes that animals leave behind as often as we can, but those almost always need to be housed in an animal body to be useful, and that takes time and is less powerful than what we can do with souls. When Zalane takes a soul, she works with it to strip some of it away, generally the pain and fear surrounding the death, as well as much of the anger, resentment and sorrow that build up over the course of a life. It’s these remnants we use for our potent spells. A little bit of power from a necromancer can turn one of those fragments into a wraith that will eat the lifeforce right out of a person. Or we can house them in a body, the power we give them makes them far stronger than an ordinary person, and it takes complete dismemberment to stop them. Either way, when we are giving them their power, selecting which the emotions should be driving them, and directing them, we feel them.”

“Do you know what it feels like to be stopped in an alley on the way home to your family, to know that if you give up the money you just got, your family will be going hungry before the end of the week, to know, as you lie in the alley with a knife in your gut, what your death will mean for your family, what your wife will probably have to put food on your children’s plates? The utter despair you feel, and the burning hatred for the people who did this to you are truly overpowering. That’s the sort of thing you feel when you touch a soul fragment, and that’s assuming you have the luxury of only touching one fragment at a time.”

Eloise fell silent, she had started shivering as she described what it was like to touch a soul fragment. Chloe just held her, as she clearly battelled back the memory of other fragments she had touched. After a few moments, Eloise resumed talking.

“And with that, we come to what you have to know about being with a necromancer. It’s the necromancers who have something that truly matters to them, be it a cause or a person, who are the most likely to hold onto their sanity. Having something that matters more to you than yourself to hold onto while the emotions flow over you, and to orientate yourself with when they pass, is just about the best thing possible for a necromancer. On the other hand, there’s are few ways quicker for a necromancer to lose themselves than to touch a soul fragment when they're already emotionally hurt, it’s can become impossible to tell where to fragments pain ends and theirs begins.”

“For that reason, if you want to be with me, it can’t be anything casual or temporary. I know this isn’t exactly a romantic way to put it, but if you want to be with me, you need to understand, it has to be permanent. Of course, it’s possible we'll find we're less compatible them we think and we'll simply drift apart, but even with just the short amount of time I’ve known you, I find that highly unlikely. So, if you are willing to agree to a relationship with me after I tell you a little about my past, I will promise you that I will give my all to making the relationship work, and to making you the person who matters that much to me. In return, I will need a promise from you, a promise that no matter what, you will not cast me aside.”

Chloe looked down and paused for a moment “this could get awkward” she thought nervously.

“While I would happily agree to that, I’m afraid there are a few things about being with me that I should also tell you.” Chloe said nervously.

Eloise laughed “Chloe, as you’ve probably already guessed, I was raised I The Empire, I’m used to how a noble family works.”

Chloe almost sighed in relief, that would deal with a number of possible problems. In most of the countries on this side of the continent, a noble almost always married a magician of some sort. Political marriages to other nobles or having more than one husband or wife was fairly uncommon, but things were very different in The Empire. In The Empire, a noble would always marry another noble, but then they would usually only spend one night together, and do in in the presence of a water mage who would ensure that the one night would be all it would take to produce an heir. After that, both the husband and wife would generally openly keep several concubines. The Children of the concubines were expected to become the trusted retainers of the heir, and when the ever-expanding borders of The Empire swallowed up a new land, it was these Children who would be raised to the nobility to rule the new land.

“Now, I promised to tell you about my past, and what you are getting into being close to me personally, rather than just necromancers in general. My father is an imperial noble, my mother is an arcane knight, and was one of his guards until his marriage, at which point she became his first concubine. I was the eldest, and groomed since birth to be Alycia’s right hand, to be the one to watch her back and hold her secrets. I have a full blooded younger brother and sister, as well as two younger half-brothers and one younger half-sister from fathers other two concubines, not that only being half-siblings mattered, all of us were treated the same, it was like we all had three mothers.”

A tone of reminiscent happiness had entered Eloise’s voice, and Chloe could see the smile on her face.

“I’d had it all planned out you know. I was supposed to go to war with Alycia, the family troops were going to perform with distinction, I was going to save her life in one of the battles. Then, when it was all over, I was going to be one of the ones raised to the nobility, of course that dream ended as soon as my power began to awaken. With an arcane knight and a mage as parents, I always knew I would be a magician of some sort, or at least an arcane knight. I was so happy when the magic in me started to be generated more and more rapidly, matched only by the rate at which my capacity to hold magic increased, I knew that meant I was a mage. Then I began to sense soul fragments, and I realized what my affinity had to be. Now, while being necromancer on this side of the continent means you will never be popular, in The Empire it’s a death sentence. It’s considered a disgrace for a family to produce a necromancer, and it’s something that never happens in noble families. Oh, sometimes there may be a hunting accident, or maybe a mishap where a sword slips from the hand of a sword master during training, and a child who is just around the right age for their talent to awaken may die tragically, but no noble ever admits to necromancy being involved.”

“When I realized what I was, I tried to keep my growing power a secret as long as I could, and started making preparations. I ran away one day when father and Alycia were going on a trip, I hoped that everyone would assume that I had convinced them to take me with them at the last moment. It probably worked, as I had some time before I had to deal with pursuers. My father is a pragmatic man, and would have assumed I would just come back on my one when I saw how much better I had it with him. The first pursuers were almost certainly hired simply to appease mother, and they were far from competent. Based on the way the competency those pursuing me increased steadily but slowly, I suspect my father decided I might be suited to act as an agent for Alycia. That came to an end when one succeeded in cornering me, and I had to use necromancy to escape. Luckily, I had made it quite some distance by that time, but as soon as my father learned what I was, he sent everything he could after me.”

Eloise paused for a moment and raised a hand to rub at her side. “He actually caught up with me himself at one point, getting away from him and his personal guard was one of the hardest things I have ever done. It still hurts to know I probably killed several people who, when I was a child, would slip me treats from the kitchen, and who, when I was older, trained me in everything they thought I would need to know to guard Alycia. Eventually I was able to get far enough away, and obscure my trail sufficiently, that father gave up on directly sending men after me directly, at that point he put a price on my head. I spent years simply heading west, trying to get as far from The Empire as possible. I would sometimes stay in a town or city for a few weeks or months, or find a good place in a forest and stay there a while, but with the size of the bounty on me, I never truly felt safe and sooner or later I couldn’t keep myself from running further west.”

“I met Vice chancellor Murtsum the summer before last, he was trying to defend himself against two natural wraiths. I dealt with the wraiths, and he offered me a place here at Alir as a thanks for saving him. While there are no instructors who actually know any necromancy, all the ones who had ever met a necromancer made time to talk with me last year, and helped me learn from what they had seen. The library here also has copies of the journals of several necromancers, and honestly, those have been more helpful than the instructors.”

Eloise paused a moment, then gave a snort.

“So that’s what’s on offer, a partially trained necromancer with a price on her head that would make even the long trip to The Empire a very profitable endeavor. One who, while she does have a solid grounding in everything from sword fighting to etiquette, was on the run during the years that she should have been building on that base. So tell me, would you be interested in such a Necromancer?”

Chloe smiled and moved so as that she could bring both arms around Eloise in an embrace.

“Definitely. I promise you that you will always have a place beside me. And as for the price on your head, I doubt any bounty hunter would be stupid enough to try and get past the Yinara family guards, and if they are, well, the citadel has plenty of spikes that would probably look good with a head on them.”

Eloise gently pulled free and Collapsed backwards onto the bed, just laying on it, eyes closed, for a few moments.

“By all the gods, I swear opening up and telling you all of that is was the scariest thing I’ve had to do since I had to rip away a chunk of my own soul.”

Chloe lay down beside Eloise and closed her own eyes.

“I told you to trust me, and I meant it, as I said I promise I’ll always be glad to have you beside me.” Chloe paused for a moment then continued. “Not that it will matter to our relationship, but a have to ask, just how partial is your knowledge of necromancy?”

Eloise Laughed “Don’t worry, the spell you’re wondering about was thoroughly described in several of the journals, when the time comes I can help you in having an heir.”

They both stayed silent for several minutes, then Eloise started to speak again.

“Well then, even if making this deal wasn’t the most romantic way to get together, I will be trying my best from now on. If we don’t find any glaring incompatibilities in the next few weeks I can promise one positive thing for you, to go with all the negatives you’ve accepted, I will probably end up as the person most devoted to you in the entire world.”

Silence returned and soon Eloise’s breath took on the slow and steady rhythm of Sleep. Chloe smiled, somehow the sound of Eloise breathing peacefully was truly soothing. But just before sleep claimed her one final, partly amused, partly guilty thought ran through her head.

“No Eloise, you’re wrong about that last bit, I’m afraid you’re just too sane to ever claim the position of the person most devoted to me.”

Chapter 15 Queen of hearts

Chloe opened her eyes slowly, blinked a few times, then barely resisted giving a snort of combined irritation and amusement as she realized the only limb she could move freely was her left arm. In the week since the ball, Eloise had spent every night in Chloe’s bed, nestled up against her and using her arm as a pillow. Finding that her legs had been immobilized by a large sleeping dog, however, that was new. She knew from experience that waking Sheila would also wake Eloise. Ash had told her this would stop once the two of them had become attuned enough to each other, they would become instinctively able to tell the difference between waking up because there was a threat, and just waking up. It had only been after Ash had left that a question had occurred to her, did Ash never wake her because she never slept or because she just had that much control over the bond between them?

Pressing herself a little bit more firmly against Eloise, Chloe settled down. Eloise, Chloe had quickly learned, was not a morning person, and liked to sleep until the last moment possible. Because of this, Chloe was already getting in the habit of leaving some partially hardened air under Eloise’s head and pressed against her side in the morning. While Eloise slept, Chloe could read, then get some breakfast for them to eat together, before waking Eloise. Looking at the peacefully sleeping face beside her, she decided none of that was worth risking disturbing Eloise, instead she let her mind wander.

Once they had begun sharing a bed they also began to change their rooms. Chloe’s room had quickly turned into a combination bedroom lounge, while they converted Eloise’s room into their workshop. Four of Eloise’s birds, as well as one of the suits of armor, had made the move. Two of the birds now perched above her window, while the other two were above the door while the suit of armor stood beside it. It had been as they were moving the birds that Chloe had noticed something strange about them, in addition to being sheathed in metal, their beaks and talons were considerably longer than was natural.

“Part of the necromantic affinity,” Eloise had explained, “is power over that which houses a soul, flesh blood and bone. It is not especially good at fine work, but I can lengthen a beak, or even fuse a bone back together.”

Classes were going well, being able to discuss where they felt spells were slipping away from them with each other was helping even more than Chloe would have expected. They had already mastered a couple of the most basic pain blocking spells, one that would only help with minor aches and another that completely deadened all feeling. they were also fairly certain today would be the day they’d finally mastered the basic truth spell.

Not that mastering spells more quickly was always a good thing. Since she had learned the complete pain block, Ash had insisted that Chloe begin to practice her new regeneration ability. While she would apparently regenerate automatically, carefully feeding power into the ability, along with the proper visualizations, could drastically speed up the process. While she had to admit being able to heal faster could be the difference between life and death, she found what she had to do to herself in order to practice, disturbing.

The only time she was parted from Eloise, other than regeneration training, was for baths. Like Chloe, Eloise apparently felt uncomfortable going into the girl’s bath when other people were in it, and instead slipped in at night. The first time Eloise had headed to the bath, Chloe had offered to go with her and wash her back, but Eloise had declined. While it had been something of a disappointment, it had not truly come as a surprise, as she had never seen Eloise out of her robe. Apparently the only time the other girl took her robe off was for a bath, changing into a clean robe immediately after.

The weekend had been a pleasant surprise, though, Chloe had to admit, it probably shouldn’t have surprised her. It was Saturday morning, and Chloe had just finished getting ready to go to practice.

“Eloise, would you be interested in practicing with me this morning?”

Eloise, who’d been watching her change into her more worn clothes with some interest, looked up at her face.

“Practice?”

“I normally spend a good bit of the weekend practicing with the arcane knights. I know you trained with the sword when you were younger, but have you learned the enhancement spells?”

“No, I kept my increasing power reserves a secret up until the day I ran, since then I never encountered a knight who would have been interested in training me.”

“Well then, what could be a better opportunity.”

Eloise stood up, looking interested but nervous.

“Do you think they’d be comfortable training with me?”

“Sergeant Tomlin’s a good man, I can’t promise he won’t be nervous at first, you are a necromancer after all, but he won’t let his nervousness stop him from teaching someone who wants to learn. As for the other students, the few others who train all intent to become battle mages, learning to control their fear will be good for them.”

Eloise chuckled at Chloe’s final words. Chloe raised an inquiring eyebrow.

“Do you disagree?”

“No, but I’m starting to think you simply find an angle that justifies what you intended to do all along.”

Chloe just smiled and linked arms with Eloise as she walked towards the door. Chloe was pleased to learn her judgement of Tomlin had proved spot on. Despite a nervousness that he was only partially successful in hiding, he did his best to teach Eloise. With Chloe helping her as well, she had mastered the basics by evening.

The next morning, they returned, both ready for a few hours of sparring. Chloe picked up the practice saber and hook knife, then paused in surprise when she realized Eloise had only picked up the saber. Eloise noticed Chloe’s surprise.

“Mother trained me in the Imperial style, I haven’t the faintest idea how to use a hook knife. Honestly, I’d prefer to practice with just the saber, rather than risk a moment's confusion about which style’s counter I need to employ if we end up in a real fight.”

A look of surprise and interest crossed Tomlin’s face “The Imperial style? I’ve never had the opportunity to practice against anyone who used that. Unfortunately, we don’t have the weapons required, though if you’d be willing to spar with me, I’d be happy to try and acquire what we need.”

Chloe had agreed with the Tomlin, opportunities to train with someone proficient with the Imperial style didn’t come along often this far west after all. The imperial style embraced a philosophy somewhat different from the school common on this side of the continent. Believing that the enhancement magic and the saber should be enough to deal with most opponents, the off-hand weapon was chosen specifically with combat against other arcane knights in mind, a serrated whip. The idea was that all you needed to do to claim the advantage was make the other person bleed, then wait until blood got into an eye, or made a hand or foot slick, or simply kept bleeding long enough to slow the person down. Apart from just the difference in off-handed weapons, from what Chloe had heard, the style had far more focus on the attack, rather than on parrying and waiting for an opening.

The three of them, along with three other arcane knights and four other students, spent the next few hours sparring. They rotated through one on one, two teams against each other, and last man standing free-for-alls. Throughout the practice Eloise kept her left arm moving, clearly flicking out an imaginary whip. Chloe asked Eloise why in one of the periodic short breaks.

“This is another skill I’m rusty in. If I’m going to get back in practice, I want to do it right. While a might not have a whip now, I want to be prepared for when I do. Besides, the strange had motions are distracting to my opponents.”

While Eloise may have been rusty at the start of the day, but by the evening she was showing the clear difference that having the muscle memory drilled into you as a child made. For the last thirty minutes of practice, Chloe simply backed off and watched Eloise. She now had the same fluid grace in her movements that she had shown in that final dance. A smile spread over Chloe’s face as she realized that, like while dancing, Eloise clearly found a joy in the movement and competition of sparring. As the practice came to an end and Eloise walked up to Chloe, Chloe wrapped an arm around her and whispered into her ear.

“That was absolutely beautiful. Every day I’m with you I just get happier and happier that I risked staying for this second year.”

Eloise blushed, as a small smile played over her face, then it turned to a look a confusion.

“Risked?”

Chloe winked at Eloise, then seemingly ignored her question.

“While they might be rare on this side of the continent, we're going to need to find you a proper whip. But that’s a matter for later, for now, let’s find some dinner.” Chloe paused for a moment then continued “It’s a beautiful evening, with the autumnal equinox past and Shirina gaining in influence, the number of evenings like this that we will be free on is limited, would you be up for a stroll after dinner?”

Eloise blinked in surprise, then understanding dawned on her face, and she smiled. “An after-dinner walk sounds lovely.”

Later that evening the two of them walked into the forest, hand in hand. After a few minutes of walking Chloe sat down, and Eloise sat next to her, leaning her shoulder against Chloe’s.

“Risked?” Eloise asked again

“Yes. How much do you actually know about Telkirin?”

Not much, it’s the westernmost country on the continent, and one of the most powerful ones on this side of it. From what little I’ve heard, while many of the attitudes of the inhabitants are different, it seems like a miniature version of The Empire.”

Chloe’s eye’s widened in shock, and she sat in stunned silence for a moment, before bursting out laughing. Even after she stopped laughing, mirth filled her voice as she began to speak.

“I suppose, considering our attitude towards our neighbors, I can see how you would get that impression. I have to recommend, however, that you never say that to another Telkirin noble, The Empire doesn’t have a good reputation.”

“I’ll remember that. By the way, where Ash? I haven’t seen her all day.”

“Last night she told me she was going to Cinaia, then she flew out the window. Anyway, Telkirin. As you seem to know it’s not precisely a popular country, but it’s not one anyone wants to provoke either, the problem is the king. The king's old, even for a mage of his power, and he’s growing more and more sickly, at a guess he has somewhere between six months and three years left in him.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.”

“I’m not, I’m glad that when I become a noble, it will be a different king that I have to kneel to. While I’m in no position to condone someone for loving more than one girl, it’s an entirely different matter when three of the women his eye fell on happened to be engaged at the time, at least in my opinion. And that’s just a symptom of my real problem with him, he’s too self-obsessed, he just sees what his people can do for him, not what he should be doing for them.”

“Anyway, the problem comes from the succession. Several hundred years ago the man who became king of Telkirin happened to be the sort of man who just wants to watch the world burn. He only ruled three years before his brother led a coup and took the crown. That king ruled well, unfortunately, the queen who took the crown after his death did not. She was only interested in the luxury that came with the crown, she threw massive parties and commissioned exorbitantly expensive statues and gardens, while the infrastructure of just about everything outside of the capital began to collapse. Luckily, before she completely bankrupted the country, her sister seized the crown. One of the new queens first actions upon gaining the thrown was to declare that birth did not matter, as far as the far as the royal succession was concerned. The reigning monarch is responsible for selecting which of their children is most suitable to take the crown, and declares them the heir.”

“The problem is, the king has made no such declaration of succession. At this point, two of his sons and one of his daughters have built up their own factions, and aren’t going to give up their claim to the crown without a fight. And there are whispers of others who are simply more subtle than those three. And as if that’s not enough, two of the duchies, the ones that came from our two most recent conquests, still have enough of a sense of being their own nation that as soon as our noble’s start turning their swords on each other, they will undoubtedly rise in rebellion. If the rebellions aren’t dealt with swiftly, there’s a third dutchy that’s likely to follow suit.”

“Anyway, the point is there’s a world of difference between the treatment a powerful noble from one of the most formidable countries around can expect, and that which an important noble from a despised and weakened country can expect. I want to be within the borders of Telkirin, preferably those of Twin Rivers, when the king passes into Zalane’s embrace. While I could say that I stayed because I wanted a familiar, and because there’re a bunch of other spells I wanted to learn, the truth is I could have hired private tutors for that. If I’m being honest, the real reason I stayed was because I was enjoying the break from the pressure of the responsibility’s I have in Twin Rivers. And in the end, even if I made the choice for the wrong reasons, the fact it led me to Ash, and then to you, makes me think it was probably one of the best choices I’ve made in my entire life.”

Eloise had sat, still and silent beside her while she talked, but now she leaned over and kissed Chloe.

“I’m truly glad you decided stayed too, even if though it does sound like it was a major risk.”

Chloe felt a warmth spread through her as Eloise kissed her. She returned the kiss while turning and wrapping her arms around Eloise. Not stopping with a single kiss, she kissed her entire face, then began on her neck. As Chloe enjoyed the embarrassed smile on Eloise’s face. Somewhere in the distance a branch broke, and a single thought ran through Chloe’s mind.

“Mine!”

She bit down gently on the side of Eloise’s neck, not hard enough to break the skin, but enough to leave a distinct mark. Chloe jerked in surprise, just as she was opening her mouth she had felt a surge of magic run through Eloise’s neck. She drew her head back in surprise, looking at Eloise. It took her a few moments of close inspection to determine that the only unusual thing she could see on Eloise’s neck, was that the bite mark was even more prominent than she would have expected. Eloise gave a happy smile and ran her finger’s over the mark.

“I told you I had some power over flesh, didn’t I? while it’s not permanent it should last at least a couple of weeks.”

Chloe blinked in surprise, before being thoroughly distracted by Eloise, as she began to kiss Chloe again. The two stayed like that for a while, kissing while wrapped in each other’s arms, before returning to their room and to bed.

Remembering the night before, Chloe looked at Eloise’s neck, the mark didn’t seem to have faded in the slightest. Her father had always told her,

“Chloe, always keep working, always keep improving yourself. The entire reason we are granted the wealth we are is so our entire focus can our duty, knowing our families are taken care of and that servants will keep things in proper order. Never give into the sloth that can come with wealth, remember why we have it and always keep working.”

And despite the disagreement she felt with her father about many of his lessons, this was one she agreed with wholeheartedly. Still, looking at the peaceful expression on Eloise’s sleeping face and listening to her rhythmic breathing, it was far easier than normal to push that need to be doing aside and just relax.

Chloe remained like that until they needed to get up if they were to have time to eat. She leaned over and kissed Eloise, while using her free left hand to caress her head. Eloise simply mumbled sleepily to herself at first, but after Chloe spent a couple of minutes kissing and caressing her, her eyes opened fully, and awareness returned to them. A smile covered her face, and she arched her neck to return the kiss.

“We really do need to get up if we’re going to have time for breakfast before class,” Chloe said, as she reluctantly broke away from the kiss. “And you need to talk to your dog about sleeping on the bed, with her on my legs, I was stuck in here if I didn’t want to wake you.”

Eloise gave Chloe a mischievous smile, “I don’t know, while waking up to breakfast is pleasant, I think I prefer waking up to find you still lying beside me.” Then her expression became more serious. “Besides, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you simply relaxing, this is probably good for you.”

Chloe grumbled annoyedly, but honestly, she couldn’t put much heart into it. She changed out of her nightgown and into her robe, then hurried down to fetch breakfast. The two of them ate together in their room, then got ready and headed to class.

During their last class of the day, Eloise let out an exuberant cry.

“I’ve got it!”

Chloe smiled widely. “that’s wonderful. shall we test it?”

Eloise nodded excitedly.

“Well then, 2+2=5.”

Eloise’s smile only widened

“Lie”

An evil little impulse suddenly took hold of Chloe, and she bent forward to whisper in Eloise’s ear

“I love you.”

A dark blush spread across Eloise’s face, and it was in a voice tinged with equal parts joy and embarrassment that she squeaked out “Truth.”

Chloe clapped. “very good, but those were obvious answers, let's try something a little bit harder. Ask me anything you’re that you want to know about me, or about anything that worries you.”

Eloise looked thoughtful for a moment, then she began to look nervous before taking a deep breath and saying one word quickly.

“Luna.”

Chloe blinked in surprise, then smiled. “What about her?”

“You’ve mentioned her in passing a few times this week, how will she react to me? What will she think of me?”

“Relax, you have the one quality she truly cares about, and that’s enough for her to give you a chance. Once she gets to know you, I have no doubt she will become quite fond of you. Probably not quite as fond of you as I am, but still very fond.”

Eloise gave a relieved sigh. “Truth. How certain are you about your answer?”

Chloe’s smile just grew wider. “I’ve known Luna since she was born, we’ve worked in sync most of our lives, I the tactician, she the logistitician, and we would work together on strategy. There’s no one who knows my mind better then she does, and there’s no one’s mind I know better than hers. I am absolutely certain.”

Chloe could see the relief spread over Eloise’s face, she then gave out a little laugh and spoke.

“Truth, though I’m not sure if logistitician is a word.”

“It may not be a word, but it’s certainly what she is. She has a true gift for details and organization. While I’ve spent much of my life learning to command, lead, and control, she’s been learning about the organization and running of the march. Not that I haven’t been learning that too, just not to the same extent she has. She was already in charge of several areas when I left her, a bit over a year ago. As she’s a sorcerer and has no need to spend the time we mages do developing fine control, I have no doubt her area of control has expanded, and I dread to imagine what she’s done in this past year without me to keep her in check.”

“That last part was only partially true.”

“Oh, very good. Ok, it’s more of a nervous curiosity than a dread. She already had several projects underway before I left that she refused to tell me about, just saying they were surprises and that I would like them. Don’t misunderstand, I trust her completely, or rather I know she would never betray me, and what the few areas are in which her judgement is, questionable.”

“Truth.”

“Good, now that you’ve got the hang of it, you can help me master it.”

Eloise helped Chloe for the rest of the class, and by the end, Chloe too could cast the basic truth spell. Just as the two of them were leaving the instructor called out.

“Miss Yinara, come here a moment.”

When Chloe walked over, he continued.

“Miss Yinara, the chancellor wanted me to tell you that now that class is done for the day, he would like you to go see him in his office.”

Chloe nodded and placed a hand on Eloise’s shoulder as she saw the worried look spreading across her face.

“It’ll be fine, just go to the room and I’ll bring dinner when I’m done with the chancellor.”

Eloise gave a weak smile, then turned and started towards their room. Chloe only vaguely remembered where the chancellor’s office was, but she only made one wrong turn before she managed to locate it. Before going in, she patted her robe down, then smiled as she realized what the lump she felt in one of the pockets was. Reaching into the pocket she pulled out her gloves, after the ball she had just put them in her pocket and after that she had just transferred them robe to robe, never quite getting around to putting them away. She pulled them over her hands, stud up straight, put in place a confident smile, then knocked on the door.

“Come in.”

Chloe opened the door and strode in, stopping directly in front of the desk the chancellor sat behind.

“Ah, good. Thank you for coming so promptly. Please, take a seat.”

Chloe sat down, then looked at the chancellor in silence, he gulped slightly then resumed speaking.

“I do hope your time here has been both pleasant and productive. I have heard you managed to summon a familiar, and that you’ve been doing well at mastering the non-affinity spells. Unfortunately, it’s come to my attention that a certain other student has been spending a lot of time in your room rather than her own. While we did except her, she scares the other students, and that’s why we gave her a room away from everyone else so”

Chloe suppressed a smile as a workable plan came together in her mind. She began to tap her fingers on the desk, loudly. The chancellor paused in mid-sentence at the noise, then looked down at her glove-clad hands. Chloe took advantage of the momentary pause to begin talking.

“It has been a pleasant experience for the most part, I have been very pleased with the character of your academy. If I had to come up with a complaint, the only one I can think of is that the small amount of biological magical supplies you have here is highly inconvenient.”

The chancellor blinked, clearly taken aback by the change in topic.

“I do apologize for that, we are far from the first place monster hunters go to sell. Honestly, most of what we can get is the excess supply, or the things the others aren’t even interested in.”

“Ah, I see. I have to admit it’s not a problem I’m familiar with. As you probably know, my family rules the lands that border the Umbraian forest and the Moon Thorn mountains. For us, it’s always been more of a problem to find people and institutions with the proper character to sell to. The creature of the Moon Thorns and the Umbraian keep us well supplied with useful monster parts. That is, in fact, one of the reasons I was so pleased to see the character of this academy.”

“But anyway, that’s not why you called me in here, you wanted to talk about Eloise. I have to suggest, having her share a room with me benefits your academy. The students of this academy will be powerful mages when they graduate, and that could be a problem if they let their emotions rule them. Luckily for you, Eloise’s mere presence provides a wonderful opportunity for a number of students to learn to control their fear, wouldn’t you agree?”

The chancellor looked down at the crest on Chloe’s gloves, then up at her, and finally smiled.

“You are quite correct, it will help to instill character.”

“Precisely, so was there anything else you needed with me?”

“No, but don’t hesitate to stop by if there’s anything at all you need.”

Chloe smiled, nodded goodbye, then left the room. As she went to get some dinner, she made a mental note to ask Luna to replace Silvian Academy with Alir academy on the list. Her grandfather had gone to Silvian and it had been a quite respectable school in its day, but lately it had been in decline, and with her grandfather long since gone to Zalane’s embrace, there was no reason to keep selling to his old alma mater.

A few minutes later Chloe used a gust of air to open the door to her room, both her hands being full. Eloise looked up the moment she walked into the room, concern written all over her face. Chloe gave her a reassuring smile and placed the food on the table and sat down beside Eloise.

“What was it?”

Chloe wrapped an arm around Eloise when she heard the worry in her voice.

“Nothing to worry about, just a little question of supply and demand.”

Eloise looked at her curiously, so she continued. “As I said, it wasn’t a big deal. I can tell you about it later if you want, but for now, our dinner’s getting cold.”

Chloe could feel the tension leave Eloise’s shoulders. As the dinner was coming to an end, an idea struck Chloe, if she was going to send a letter home asking for one thing, might as well make it two. As soon as they had both taken their last bite, Chloe opened her chest and pulled out a measuring tape, she then gestured at a spot in the middle of the room.

“Would you mind standing there for few minutes?”

Eloise looked at the measuring tape as she walked to the indicated spot. “And why are you measuring me?”

Chloe suddenly remembered asking Luna the exact same question, in the exact same tone and mimicked the reply. “A surprise.”

Eloise chuckled, then held still as Chloe began to measure her. Chloe spent several minutes measuring and jotting down notes, then, just as she was measuring the neck length, her hand knocked the collar of Eloise’s robe open slightly. Chloe froze as she inadvertently peaked down it and got her first look at Eloise’s bare shoulder. Eloise was clearly surprised Chloe’s sudden stillness, then she noticed her partially open collar, froze briefly, then yanked it closed.

“What was that?” Chloe was barely able to keep the murderous rage out of her voice.

Though Eloise didn’t respond, Chloe watched as fear and shame wared for prominence on her face. Seeing that, Chloe wrapped Eloise in an embrace and floated them both to the bed. She simply held Eloise for a time, until Eloise pulled free and stood up. While looking like she might burst into tears at any moment, Eloise shucked out of her robes and undergarments with a few quick motions.

Chloe stared at Eloise’s body for a few moments, before looking up at her face. As she looked into the blue eyes that had tears welling up them, she knew why Eloise always slept in her robe and why she had turned down Chloe’s offer to bath with her so firmly. Not only were numerous scars now visible, they didn’t look like ordinary scars, they looked like the wounds had just closed the day before, and some of them seemed somehow, misshapen.

Eloise broke eye contact, looking down at the floor as she began to speak.

“I told you I could work with flesh, but it’s closer to sculpting then what a water mage would do. Not that I really should be complaining, when you have a spurting wound, or can’t afford to leave a blood trail, it’s extremely useful. Unfortunately, I’m no sculptor. I’m sorry, I should have said something before getting you to agree to be with me, but.”

Eloise’s voice broke, and Chloe quickly stood up and hugged her again.

“Calm down, I’m sorry if a failed to keep all the anger out of my voice a few moments ago, none of it was meant for you, I was just furious at the idea of someone hurting you.”

Eloise snuffled slightly, then wrapped her own arms around Chloe.

“These are from the times the bounty hunters caught up with me.” Eloise paused and rubbed at a scar that ran down her side. “Well mostly.”

“I swear,” Chloe growled softly, “I will have their heads.”

“Don’t worry about it, I got a number of them myself, and the rest are most of a continent away.”

Chloe hugged her more tightly, then asked, “It’s fairly clear you don’t like them, have you ever thought about getting them removed?”

Eloise shook her head slightly “With the way my magic closed the wounds, it would take more power than a mage would have to fix them. There aren’t many things that can hurt a witch or wizard in their sanctum, this makes them uninclined to let in one of the only things that can.”

“But if there were some water witches who would treat you, you’d want them removed?”

Eloise looked down at her body in disgust “Of course.”

“Would you mind using the lie detection spell for a moment?”

Eloise blinked, then pulled together the power she needed and cast the spell.

“I love you, scars or no.” Chloe paused for a moment, then continued “But if you want to get rid of them, we can. It will have to wait until we head home to Twin Rivers, but I guarantee you, the Water coven there would far rather risk losing one of its junior members, then face the certainty of losing its patronage.”

Tears were flowing down Eloise’s cheeks, and she began to kiss Chloe, then to pull at her robes. Before Eloise succeeded in very thoroughly distracting Chloe, she had one final clear though.

“I meant it, I swear I will have their heads for doing that to you.”

Chapter 16 A world view shared by Chloe and Simon Cameron

Chloe woke up to the feeling of a hand running through her hair. Blinking her eyes open, she saw Eloise standing above her, and as the room came into focus, she saw breakfast dishes sitting on the table. After simply enjoying the caresses for a few moments, she smiled up at Eloise and deliberately patted her own head.

“So tell me, did something hit my head while I slept, or was it a curse?”

Eloise gave her a confused look. “What?”

“For you to be up before me, clearly something knocked me out for a while. I’m just wondering whether it was something magical or nat”

Her words were cut off as one of the pillows slammed into her face. When she pulled it off her face, she saw Eloise giving her an amused glare.

“It is possible for me to get up early.” Eloise paused for a moment, then continued in a slightly guilty voice. “Well ok, I admit I had to ask Sheila to make sure I actually woke up, luckily she’s better with mornings than I am. You do this for me almost every morning, I felt it was my turn.”

Chloe smiled up at her then stood up and wrapped her in a hug. As she held Eloise, she lowered her head and whispered, “thank you.” Into her ear.

Releasing Eloise, Chloe pulled her undergarments and a robe on, then went and sat down at the table. Eloise sat down beside her, and they started on their breakfast.

“So, what are we up to today?” Eloise asked cheerfully.

“Since we finished Ildev’s class so quickly, and that other one we want doesn’t start for a few more days, we should be free this evening. How does a couple of hours in the workshop, followed by a walk in the woods sound?”

Eloise smiled, “It sounds wonderful.”

A grin played across Chloe’s face, in the month since she had met with the chancellor, they had repeatedly found their workshop had been mysteriously stocked with useful raw materials or new tools. She briefly wondered what they might discover in it today. And after that, she had a walk to look forward to. They often walked through the woods in the evening and chatted, like they had the night before. They had been fairly deep in the forest when Eloise had sat down against a tree and gestured invitingly beside her.

“I saw that Ash got back today.”

Since Eloise had moved in with Chloe, Ash had taken to spending the nights in the forest.

“It’s missing a certain something,” She had said. “But at least it’s a forest, and it’s certainly better than sharing a room with the two of you.”

Ash would sometimes show up for classes, other times she would spend the day in the forest, or leave on one of her regular trips. While Chloe talked to her through their link regularly, Eloise had not actually seen much during the past month.

“Yes, she got back from Cinaia this afternoon.”

Eloise winced “That what I wanted to talk to you about. Why are you letting her do that? At this point, a war seems inevitable. Surely even if she did need something destructive to do, you could have convinced her to be more subtle, or at least to do something that wouldn’t have resulted in a war.”

A sad look crossed Chloe’s face, and she sighed. “Yes, I could have. However, I’m in favor of the war.”

Eloise blinked in surprise. “What, why?”

“When the war starts, prince Aldrick will call on the other three members of the Octilis Defense League to join him. Together, the four realms that make up the League are just about a match for Cinaia. Do you know much about Cinaia?”

Eloise shook her head.

“Ok, the Republic of Cinaia is a magocracy. Any mage in Cinaia is entitled to cast a vote in any governmental decision. The problem is, with the freedom given to the mages, any but the strongest are likely to be either killed, devoured or enslaved. To avoid that fate, just about every mage in Cinaia is pledged to one of the great mage clans, receiving their protection. In return for that protection, the mage has to grant his vote to the head of the clan and do a lot of magical work for the clan. For this reason, they have one of the largest and most powerful arsenals of magic weapons on the continent.”

“Both Cinaia and the League fear Telkirin and its expansionist tendencies. Depending how long this war goes on, the armies of both will either be fighting each other, or be too badly depleted, to take advantage when the succession crisis begins. The only other nearby power that is strong enough to do more than unify a piece of the country against a foreign invader is the Guild League Cities, and those merchants are too disorganized to carry out an effective military campaign outside of their borders.”

“I won’t deny that the coming war will be ugly, but as a great noble of Telkirin, it’s my duty to protect the people of Telkirin and make sure that the atrocities of war are happening to someone else, rather than them. Then there’s the fact that I would be willing to bet Telkirin’s next war of conquest will happen almost as soon as someone takes the crown. Unifying the country against an external enemy would be useful, as would making sure some inconvenient nobles die gloriously in battle. With the League’s armies bled white and the Cinain arsenal significantly reduced, the number of Telkirin citizens who make it back from the war alive will be increased. As a Telkirin great noble, it’s my duty to preserve the lives of as many Telkirin citizens as possible, even if it means doing unpleasant things.”

As Chloe finished talking, she looked down, not wanting to see the look that could be on Eloise’s face. Eloise had pressed in against her and just hugged her until it had been time for them to return to their room.

“Is something wrong?”

Chloe blinked, she had been lost in thought, and her breakfast was getting cold.

“Just thinking how much I love you.” Chloe said, remembering the warm hug.

Eloise blushed, and the two of them got back to eating. With breakfast out of the way, the two of them prepared for the day. Chloe had stopped using her air spell on her hair after Eloise had offered to start brushing it for her. She had then made the same offer to Eloise.

Chloe smiled as she stared at the bucket of sea water that the instructor had set in front of her.

“Eloise, I think I’ve got it.”

There were two variations of the separation spell they were learning. One variety simply separated the salt from the water, leaving the salt as ordinary salt. The other variety, the one Chloe though she had just mastered, left the link between the salt and water intact. At that point if the salt could be used as an ingredient in a water spell, as it would enhance the power and precision of the spell. Not that using it to separate salt from seawater was what Chloe had planned for the spell. She smiled as a small pile of saltbegan to build up in her hand, she could still feel the salts affinity for water. Just as she was holding the pile of salt out to Eloise, an instructor walked over.

“Miss Yinara, the chancellor would like to speak with you.” The instructor paused and looked at Eloise, who was sitting pressed up against Chloe, then continued. “Miss Eloise, I think it might be best if you went as well.”

Both women nodded, then stood up and walked to the door.

“Miss Eloise?” Chloe asked

“My family will undoubtedly have struck my name from the family rolls, some I’m Eloise. Just Eloise.”

Chloe smiled gently “For now.” Then after a few moments of silence, she continued. “This is irritating, I had hoped the chancellor was honest.”

Eloise snorted. “Honest? I thought you had outright bribed him.”

Before Chloe could answer, they turned into the hallway that held the door to the chancellor’s office, and the sight of the two men standing in front of the door nocked the reply clear out of her head. Eloise noticed Chloe’s surprise and tensed, the birds sitting on her shoulders spreading their skeletal wings.

“Do you know those men?” Eloise asked quietly

“Not personally, but that black and silver uniform, that’s the uniform of a Twin River’s officer. And you see those badges they're both wearing, the crossed boarding axe and hook knife, that means they are arcane knight marines. The only question is, why are they here?”

As they neared the door, the two men slammed their right fists to their hearts in salute. Then one opened the door without even knocking.

“Well, he’s not making any friends.” The thought ran through Chloe’s head as she saw the irritated look on the chancellor's face as his door opened without his permission. Then Chloe noticed the approving grin on Eloise’s face “Or at least not with the chancellor.” She corrected herself

As the two of them walked in, she saw the man seated across from the chancellor. She smiled as she recognized the first lieutenant of the Seahawk.

"Well, if they are just sending the second in command in, it can’t be that bad." The thought ran through her head and she relaxed slightly.

“It’s nice to see you again James.” Chloe said brightly “I trust Captain Oravic is doing well?”

The Lieutenant stood and bowed deeply. “I believe so, though Oravic was promoted to Commodore after he returned from delivering you here. He now flies his flag from Twilight’s Blessing, and I captain the Seahawk, my most honorable lord.”

chapter 17 The final reserves

Interlude, sometime earlier

Alister Yinara struggled to keep the calmly contemplative look on his face as he watched his army slowly bleeding to death in front of him. He’d miscalculated, he realized that now. He had been at Silverstone keep when the first reports of the incursion arrived. He hadn’t even finished drawing up the orders he intended to send out when more reports began to flood in. Warbands were raiding all along this portion of the border with the Umbraian.

The news had changed his plans, he had seen this tactic before. A large band would secure a central location while smaller warbands raided every farm in the area, taking the recently harvested crops, all the cattle and even his people for food. Wither weeks, not only would all the warbands have met up, far more creatures would also have flooded out of the woods, using the stolen food and wagons for the supply train they would need for a campaign.

Now believing he had understood the threat, he had changed his orders. He sent riders to all the nearby garrisons, ordering that they send all their cavalry and mounted infantry, as well as every single mage and sorcerer they had, to Shadowbane, the fortress closest to the incursion’s rally point. His plan had been to simply hold the enemy in play with his agile force, while magicians coterie, vastly more powerful than one a force his size would normally have, tore the enemy apart. With their supply cash captured and their raiding warbands being ridden down by his cavalry, the invasion would have to be delayed until spring. With the dramatic failure of an invasion, hopefully whatever chieftain had united so many clans would have fallen by before the snow melted.

At first the plan had seemed to go perfectly, his forces had congregated quickly at Shadowbane, and immediately ridden to reported location. His infantry had dismounted, and they had formed a standard battle formation, a large spear phalanx in the center and companies of swordsmen and axemen on the flanks with archers behind the phalanx. He had sent his cavalry to encircle the foe and prevent a retreat, and that’s when he found out how he had miscalculated.

The opening magical bombardment had wiped an entire company of his cavalry, and most of a second had been wiped out before they made it back to the main body. The only reason that many made it back was because his coterie had begun a bombardment of their own, and the enemy’s had needed to change their focus to defense. It had quickly become apparent that their coterie was as oversized as his own, while they were not able to inflict any damage, his people were almost never able to get a spell through either. At the sight of the massive magical duel, a detached part of his had realized what their plan had been. Draw a reaction force large enough to deal with a force their size, and destroy it with magic. The supplies would have been in place, and the rest of the invasion force would probably have been able to meet up with them before a follow-up attack could have been organized.

His men had been fighting bravely since the battle had commenced, but this wasn’t the battle they had expected and prepared for. Ogres, trolls, and goblins had been trying to break the phalanx, a few more Ogres and trolls were trying to turn his flanks, along with orcs and a few less common types of beastmen. He thanked Celios for the few war golems they had stuffed into the supply wagons, but there weren’t enough, and he could see the flanks beginning to waver. The remnants of a company of swordsmen started running, an officer ran into the center of the route, physically turning men around and shouting, as he waved his sword at the enemy. He seemed to be succeeding, until an arrow bloomed from his chest.

Alister turned his back on the battle, he could now see his coterie, guarded by a force of arcane knights and golems. He sighed, while they were slowly winning, the battle would be long over before they could overwhelm their opponents. If his coterie couldn’t turn the tides, he saw only one option that might have a chance of winning the day. He dismounted, ordering his personal guard to do the same, before walking to his final reserve company, a unit of chainmail clad axemen.

“Now listen!” He called in a loud voice “You all know what rides on the outcome of this battle, if we win we stop an invasion, if we lose we, condemn the civilians who are counting on us to defend them to the stew pots. While our coterie is winning and the center and right flank are holding, the left is beginning to crack. But remember! We aren’t some perfumed duke’s peasant conscripts, we are the soldiers of Twin rivers! Now tell me, do you think a single one of the soldiers down there is so craven that they won’t follow where their lord personally leads?”

He certainly thought so, but he hoped enough weren't that it would make the difference. The loud cries of denial warmed his heart.

“Now, ready your axes. Fredric, raise my banner. CHARGE!”

He tried to lead the charge, but three of the arcane knights of his guard ran ahead and formed the spearpoint. He was amplifying his voice and began to yell for his men to rally, to rally to him. By the time they reached the left flank, there were only two companies worth of soldiers and the few remaining golems left desperately trying to defend the Phalanx’s flank. His heart swelled as he saw how many of the fleeing soldiers were heading his call to rally and forming small groups. Then he saw how thin the enemy’s flank was and realized that all the orcs that were broken formation, and were now fighting in small groups against his rallied groups, had given him an opportunity.

“Don’t stop, cut straight through them!”

Even as his guards tried to defend him, he charged forward and slashed the ancient, dwarven made saber, across the throat of an Orc. He quickly raised his left arm to fend off the spray of blood, his movements magically boosted to match the arcane knights. He cut into a second and a third, then a fourth before he was through the line. He stopped, gesturing wildly with his saber for the rest of his men to keep advancing. He winced when he saw a spear driven through Fredric, but Elon dropped his sword and caught the banner before it could hit the ground.

“Captain Kelvin, detach half your men to attack their rear and hold them back, you lead the other half and follow me!”

Even as he started to run again, he could see half his axemen turn to fight. He was almost back in front by the time he reached the small rise he was aiming for, one completely surrounded by ogres and trolls. As he ran all out, dodging between them, he seized an opportunity and chopped into the groin of a troll. The creature screamed in agony, a scream that only got louder when it realized that enchantments on his blade were preventing it from regenerating. Then he was through, and he saw the coterie that had been meant to smash his forces. An orcish mage stood in the center, at the very top of the rise, clearly directing and guiding the magic. He was surrounded by other mages and shamans, some orcish, some goblins, and some, other things.

He didn’t hesitate, he dropped his hook knife and yanked a star iron throwing knife from the sheath strapped to his arm. He threw it into the throat of a mage, even as his saber took the head from a goblin shaman. He saw members of his guard breaking through after his, though it seemed Kelvin’s axemen had stopped and were trying to keep the ogre’s and trolls busy. He drove his saber through the heart of another shaman and beheaded a mage before he froze, looking ahead of him.

An orcish shaman was grinning evilly at him, and with a gesture, a wolven wraith finished manifesting and ran towards him. He threw his magic at the beast, and while much of it washed over the insubstantial creature, he kept pulling at his reserves until the last wisp of it burned away. He ran for the shaman, knowing that if another wraith manifested, he wouldn’t have the power to destroy it. He felt despair as another one began to take shape and he realized he wouldn’t make it in time. Then a serrated whip lashed out and was drawn back, across the eyes of the shaman. As the shaman clutched at his ruined eyes, the semi-formed wraith dissolved back into nothing and Alister finished his charge, opening the shaman’s throat with his saber.

He turned and saw Casimir dueling a mage, his whip lashing out at the mage, who was using his staff to fend off Casimir’s saber. Alister darted forward and drove his saber through the back of the mage's neck. Casimir gave a grateful nod before turning and charging a goblin shaman. As he moved towards his next target, Alister took a moment to thank Celios that he had hired the knight, a refugee from one of the empires bloody conquests.

He felt the tempo of the battle change. In the first few moments after they had cut their way through to the coterie, the magic users had been utterly shocked, allowing his guards to deal a devastating blow. Then there had been a disorganized resistance and it had been every mage for themselves for a while. Now it had changed again, and it seemed the few who remained alive had recognized that they were going to die no matter what, and were focusing all their power on a single target, him. His armor had been heavily enchanted by some of the best wizards in the kingdom, and he wore a myriad of items which had defective charms, but with this much magic focused on him, he knew it wouldn’t be enough.

He charged another shaman, then spun to the side as three mages working in concert hurled a bolt of something at him. He wasn’t quite fast enough, and for a moment he felt the agony of having his left blown off, then he had a complete pain block up and felt nothing. He finished his spin just as he reached the shaman, the momentum of his turn allowing him to cut the shaman’s stomach open. In that same moment, the shaman released his spell and his body became a pillar of fire. Alister almost threw up from the smell of his flesh burning, then half is vision vanished, as the flames ate into his left eye.

He charged, determined to take at least one more with him. The next one didn’t try to run, instead it practically threw itself onto his sword, continuing until its body was stopped by the hilt. With the two of them almost pressed body to body, the orc swung down a dagger and drove it into the shoulder joint of his right arm. And then, as the orc slipped off his sword, there was peace around him. As he looked from side to side, he saw that the only people left standing on the top of the rise were his few surviving guards.

“Grace” he called out. Then he saw her, or rather, half of her.

The faint hope that had filled him when he realized the battle was over faded. Grace had been a water mage who he had found just as her powers were beginning to bloom. From that time, she had been trained both as a healer and as an arcane knight. Seeing her body, he slumped. He tried to sit down, but his legs gave out, and he found himself on his back.

“My Lord” a desperate voice cried out.

Looking up, he saw Cedric, the second in command of his guard.

“No,” he thought grimly, seeing another body. “He’s the captain of the guard now.”

Cedric was looking down at him, and tears we flowing down his cheeks.

“I failed you my lord, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

Alister could feel a curse from the dagger lodged in his shoulder eating into him, but he managed to take a breath and speak.

“You didn’t fail. You see that?” he asked gesturing vaguely back towards the rest of the battle. “Our coterie’s turning the tide. We won.”

“But my lord your.” The word choked off in the man’s throat.

“Yes, I’m dying, but the rest of my soldiers will live, as will the farmers we’ve saved from the cook pots.”

He looked up at Cedric and realized the man needed a task. He extended his sword towards him.

“Take this.” He paused as Cedric gingerly took the blade.

“And the ring, take them to Chloe. The coronet, the ring and the saber are hers now. I charge you to with ensuring she receives them, and with protecting her as faithfully as you have me for all these years.”

If anything, the number of tears flowing down Cedric’s cheeks increased.

“I swear it my lord. By all the gods I swear she will get them and I will protect her.”

Alister closed his eyes and slumped fully back. He felt the elfin made ring being pulled from his finger and he sighed with relief. He had ensured the Yinara family treasures would be passed on.

“Chloe,” The thoughts drifted comfortingly through his head. “I’ve prepared you as best I could. I know you hated the lessons, but if I had known what I taught you, so many fewer people would have died, and the guilt for the deaths that occurred in your lessons is mine. You won’t be soft like I was when I took up the coronet, if there’s one thing I regret it’s how soft I was back then. That land grab was far from count Equwale’s first blatant bid for more power. If I had been more decisive back then, Ireania never would have died. That’s one thing I’m fairly certain I’ve saved you from, you will never have to look down at your wife’s dead body and know that if you had been stronger, been more decisive, she would have still been alive.”

An odd feeling came over him, and suddenly he saw a woman standing in front of him. As he looked up he recognized her, even though her statues didn’t do her justice. They couldn’t capture the gentle feeling she gave off, or the bottomless kindness in her eyes. She extended a hand he took it. As he took her hand his face took on a look of pure joy as he saw another woman, a woman he hadn’t seen outside his dreams for over sixteen years.

Not a chapter, A poll and recruitment

After a comment about the end of chapter 16 spoiling chapter 17, I have begun to wonder if I should swop the order of those two chapters. I can see advantages to both orders so I have set up this pole to see what other people think. If people like the idea of switching the order, I will swap the contents and titles of 16 and 17 before I release chapter 18, which will hopefully be coming out late tomorrow.

As I am making this extra post anyway, it seems like a good time for a recruitment call. I would be in hearing from anyone who is willing to proofread these chapters before I release them. If anyone is interested they would get to read new chapters before anyone else, get credit at the start of each chapter I post, and have the satisfaction of knowing that they were helping to make this story better. If this sounds interesting to you and you are good at spotting errors, send me a PM. If this post is still up and Chapter 18 is out, it means the position is still open.

While I have given you 2 votes, please only use one of them on the first two choices.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Chapter 1 Summoning

Chapter 2 Wait, how many children did you say you had?

Chapter 3 What is it you desire?

Chapter 4 What do you mean I raised a banner? I'm not going to war.

Chapter 5 Because Thiessen is a boy's name.

Chapter 6 Well, at least it's not gray.

Chapter 7 Nothing wrong

Chapter 8 Trust PT1

Chapter 9 Trust PT2

Chapter 10 Equivalent Exchange

Chapter 11 Apparently she doesn't like pigeons

Chapter 12 well, it could have been a fight between thieves

Chapter 13 Equinox ball

Chapter 14 Necromancy

Chapter 15 Queen of hearts

Chapter 16 A world view shared by Chloe and Simon Cameron

chapter 17 The final reserves

Not a chapter, A poll and recruitment