Chapter 71: Master Fire Mage

I took a look across the room. There were two charred skeletons, a burned mass, and another dead body. The wall opposite the beds was cracked, and one shutter was, too. At least it looks like we were attacked.

“We heard a commotion, miss.” A tall human woman wearing a hastily-strapped-on chestpiece addressed Seyari. She looked over Seyari’s shoulder despite how Seyari kept the door mostly closed. “Is everything all…” she trailed off, eyes wide.

“We were attacked,” Seyari responded plainly, keeping the door mostly closed. “We’ve handled the problem.”

Back on her bed by the window, Taava finished pulling a shirt over her head, flicking her ears as she tried to calm her tangle of hair. Salvador sat quietly on the edge of Seyari’s bed, listening intently.

“Attacked by what? We heard an explosion!” said a light, masculine-sounding voice from behind the tall, partially-armored woman. “Move out of the way, Drin!”

“How about you open the door, miss…?” The tall woman, Drin seemed to search for Seyari’s name.

“It’s Seyari,” she replied. “And you’ll forgive me for not wanting to open the door after what we’ve just been through.”

“Miss, I can see the bodies. Will—”

“Are you town militia?” Seyari asked curtly and Drin shook her head. “Ordian guard?” Drin shook her head again.

Seyari pushed the door as if to close it, but it was stuck on Drin’s booted foot.

“There are bodies?” The same high masculine voice called out from somewhere in the hall.

Drin’s eye’s narrowed, and she spoke to the voice without moving her gaze away from Seyari. “Keep quiet for now, Tren.”

There was a light grumble behind the large woman.

Before the situation could devolve further, Taava stepped in, tapping Seyari on the shoulder. “Hey, come on Seyari, we can talk ta them, yeah? They’re not guard and they’re not with the assassins.” She flashed a winning smile and flicked her ears at Drin. “Right guys?” Taava turned to us and winked.

“Right,” Salvador said with a sharp nod.

“Yeah, I guess…” I trailed off and rubbed the back of my head.

Seyari reluctantly opened the door for Drin and the tall woman walked into the room. A thin, robed man glided in behind her, eyes darting around the scene: Tren, presumably.

Drin moved to a clear spot on the floor and took keen interest in the blackened skeletons, her face briefly showing shock. “You mentioned—"

“Assassins?” Tren interrupted. “What were they after you for? You know, we could maybe get you a contract for protection if you’ve got the money!” He looked down, seeming to just notice the charred bones. “If you need it? Who the heck would send someone after someone who could do that!?”

Taava shrugged exaggeratedly. “Idiots?”

Drin gave the man a reproachful glare. “Tren, enough—”

“Is this just about money? We don’t need protection, and we’re not going to be extorted.” Seyari interrupted angrily.

I felt Drin’s anger spike to match what had been burning in Seyari. I spoke up quickly. “Let Drin talk please.”

The partly-armored woman turned to me and nodded gratefully. “As I was trying to say, we simply came over to see if we could help after we heard the sounds of a fight, and then we heard the explosion. Tren and I are with the Gelles Company and in this town on an assignment.”

“While we do provide protection services—” Drin looked at the bodies around the room, then scanned across our faces. “We vet our clients first. Now, I may not be with the law in this town, but I want to know what happened here, and I will be reporting this.”

Seyari looked like she’d bitten a lime, but held her tongue. I knew what she’d want to say, but we both knew any further stalling would paint us guiltier and guiltier.

“Assassins!” Taava exclaimed confidently. “They broke in, used some magic ta make things real quiet, and tried ta kill us! Check their outfits and what they’ve got on ‘em.”

Taava hadn’t been awake because of the lack of sound and the poison gas, but even if she wasn’t formerly one of their members, I could see it wouldn’t be difficult to assume they’d used magic to conceal themselves.

“There’s also one who got away.” I inclined my head toward the window. “I caught their leg with a shot of fire, and I know which alley they fell into, but I’d assume they’re gone by now.”

“And that would prove?” Drin cocked an eyebrow.

Behind her, Tren had moved on to inspecting the other bodies, but he kept glancing back at the two blackened skeletons.

I rubbed the back of my neck, barely keeping my hand from moving to tap a horn that wasn’t there. “Only that someone was trying to run away over the rooftops—if we can find evidence of their passing, that is.”

“Are you the mage?” Tren looked over at me, and his brown eyes glowed before he frowned. “You don’t have much of an aura.”

I glanced at Seyari who nodded her assent to me.

“Yeah, she is!” Taava jumped up right as I was about to demonstrate my fire magic. “Renna’s a really, really strong fire mage! But seriously, let’s just prove these people are assassins so we can stop bein’ all suspicious at each other!”

I shrugged, then lit a flame at the tip of a finger, white-hot and precisely crafted. Tren watched it, mesmerized. I’d taken well to the lessons Seyari had given me back in the mountains above Navanaea. My precision and efficiency with my magic were both still improving, but I tried to show off a little with how hot and precise I made the flame dancing just above my fingertip.

I hadn’t burned the two assassins to the bone with any magic a human would be capable of. But I needed to exude the confidence that I had done so as a capable human.

Taava’s deflection had been obvious and clumsy enough to where I took notice of it. But, I thought to myself, that had been the point. She deflects, I show my magic anyway, and now I’ve built some measure of trust between myself and Drin. I’ve shown that the four of us who’d killed these people were not acting out a script.

And the tension that had been building in the room lost its head of steam. Now wasn’t the place or time for my mind to wander, but, for a moment, I considered whether I’d ever seen the real Taava. Or if there even was a “real” Taava.

Drin and Tren searched the bodies and we made small talk. Tense, at first, but with each hidden blade coated in burned poison and each smoke ball and each lockpick and each throwing dagger, the ice in the room melted.

Drin’s anger had ebbed after Taava’s little trick, but it drained further as we all talked, simmering low enough to where I couldn’t possibly guess at its origin.

Outside in the street, a crowd had gathered, chattering, but without any notable damage and no clear evidence of what had happened, few people lingered long. I wasn’t really able to see the street from out our window which Seyari had closed at some point to dull the chatter.

Taava leaned by the sill, watching for something. Militia, probably. A town this size and far from any border or internal conflict wouldn’t have a dedicated town guard. It was still the middle of the night, but they’d be around—an explosion was hard to ignore.

I kept my seat at the foot of Taava’s bed by the window. Salvador sat at the foot of the other bed, and Seyari moved around the room, watching.

“So.” Drin tossed the last blade onto the pile of damaged sneaking and killing implements. “A group of assassins attacked you in an inn room off the main street in a sleepy fishing town.”

“Yep!” Taava nodded excitedly.

“And one of you is a master fire mage.” Tren looked at me with a mixture of emotions I couldn’t place. No anger, though.

“I wouldn’t say master fire mage,” I replied, trying to wave off some of the formality, “and my name is Zarenna.”

Tren’s eyes glowed again. “You’re concealing your aura, Miss Zarenna.”

“If you had assassins after you, wouldn’t you do the same?” I asked, then after a short paused added, “If you could?”

“I suppose, but there are few mages of your strength in Ordia, and none I know of who match your description.” Tren kept his eyes fixed on me with a kind of fascination that spoke of categorical obsession.

“All this begs the question…” Drin looked around, eyes lingering on everyone in the group before landing on Salvador. “What is a group like your own doing in a place like this? Why would a master fire mage travel with you lot? And, most importantly, why are there assassins after you?”

Salvador answered. “Zarenna has always chosen to help her friends, regardless of station. She is journeying to her childhood home to seek answers, and I am following because I feel I might find some of my own.”

“And the assassins are after me ‘cause I helped get a bunch of ‘em caught a while ago and they want revenge! These three agreed ta protect me, and they did!” Taava concluded energetically.

I saw Seyari cock an eyebrow at Taava’s statement. How truthful was that?

Obviously not entirely, since Taava clearly wasn’t going to tell the two mercs that she used to belong to the dead assassins’ order.

Drin narrowed her eyes, seemingly trying to gauge Salvador’s authenticity. She didn’t react to Taava. Ever the consummate professional, Salvador’s face was as unreadable to me as ever.

I suppose it didn’t hurt he was telling the truth.

Behind the partially-armored woman, Tren whispered something to Taava—I caught my name. Taava whispered back conspiratorially, and I watched Seyari drift closer by a step to listen in. I turned back and regarded Drin.

She eventually replied, “That’s… commendable, Mister…”

“Salvador, Miss Drin.”

She nodded.

I heard booted footfalls coming up the stairs again.

Taava’s ears twitched and she leaned past Tren to speak to Drin. “Are we good now?” She turned to the small robed man. “We’re good now, yeah? Just gotta report some dead assassins?”

“We have no problems, right Tren?” Drin gave the charred remains one last lingering look.

“None!” Tren smiled. “Oh, and if you’re ever in Lockmoth or another big city, we probably have a branch there. If you folks want to join up, we could use a mage like Zarenna!”

“I’ll think about it,” I replied honestly.

“Great!” Tren gave a thumbs up right as a knock sounded at our door.

“Militia. Is everyone alright?” a voice from the other side said tiredly, with a hint of boredom.

“We’re fine!” Seyari called back. “I’ll be there in a moment!”

Seyari paced quickly over to the door and opened it. The man on the other side wore the expression of someone who would really rather be in bed. He gazed around the room, saw five others in the two-person room, then the bodies.

Very quickly, the man went from half-asleep to awake and shocked.

***

We spent until dawn bouncing back and forth between the militia headquarters and the inn, getting questioned, and even helping to remove the bodies without causing an uproar.

Drin and Tren left early on, but I kept their offer in the back of my mind. It wasn’t until we were settling in to sleep at a different inn that I remembered: I hadn’t ever checked where the assassin had fallen off the roof.

Exhaustion had claimed the others, but I lay awake on my bedroll on the floor of the inn room, staring up at the underside of my empty cot. When the creaking that was keeping me up had been interrupted by a cracking sound, I’d realized I was too heavy and moved to the floor.

The beds here were narrow and probably nearly as frail, but I still had almost crawled in with Seyari. Not that I would’ve fit.

Quietly as I could, I slid the blanket off myself and tiptoed over to my clothes which had been thrown in a pile in the corner. I paused, frozen, when I caught motion. One of Taava’s furred triangular ears flicked, the only part of her visible under the blanket nest she’d made.

I didn’t know if it was reflexive or she’d heard me. But she didn’t move or say anything, so I took my clothes, dressed quickly by the door, and crept out into the early morning, locking the door behind me.

Salvador had the other key, so I wasn’t worried. I passed a militiaman in the tavern downstairs. He gave me a questioning look and I told him I couldn’t sleep, so I was going out for a walk. His gaze held me in the room long enough to make me realize I was holding my breath before he told me to be careful and assented.

I breathed out a sigh, thanked him, and stepped out the door into the brisk morning, salt and gull cries crisp on the air. Behind me, I heard “And don’t roast anyone. Call for help instead.”

I winced. I’d gotten an earful for that. Yes, it had been self-defense, but the guards were convinced such fire magic would be a danger to others or to structures. Tren had been the one, in the end, who got them to drop the matter, but I could tell they were antsy around me.

How much different would their attitude be if they knew what I was?

I shook my head. Not something I was willing to test… yet.

I’d made it a block before the warmth of the inn faded and I felt how truly cold the late autumn morning was. The chill was bitter and unrepentant, worsened by a wind in from the water and a clear, nearly sunless sky. Orange and maroon hues from the east heralded the sun’s arrival.

The town was busy, like I imagined any port would be in the morning. I’d been through two major ports on my journey—three if you counted the pirates’ hideout in Port Princely—but I had yet to really experience one during the morning rush; fishing boats dotted the harbor, dispersing out to sea like ants in search of food.

As I walked toward the main avenue, I heard a catcall from a guy who had the dress of a fisher and it took me a moment to realize he’d aimed it at me. I kept walking, head lower. In the past, my height or Seyari had shielded me. In Navanaea, culturally, unwanted advances were kept more intimate in their proximity. Also, I had openly been a demon, and bound, for most of the trip.

The guy called again. I walked faster.

He said he just wanted to talk to me. Called me pretty.

I kept walking, turning onto the main street probably two blocks from the inn where we’d been attacked. Not that the town had more than six or eight “blocks.” I tried to distract myself with the architecture.

The guy almost had to jog to keep up. Really? How dense can this guy be?

Now, he was getting angry. Asking me why I wouldn’t talk to him. His voice was sweet, but I felt his anger bubble up, fetid and cloying.

A dark part of me thought briefly about pumping up his anger just to give me a chance to—

No. Instead, I pulled and deflated his anger, the mass puddling like melting tar on a hot day.

Anger turned to pleading. Some few people were watching.

“Is that man bothering you, miss?” I looked toward the voice and saw a rather burly looking guy set an empty barrel down on the cobbles.

There was a protest from the man who’d been following me. A denial, an “I just want to talk and she’s being rude!”

“Yes,” I replied icily, “he is.”

The man by the barrel called out to the guy to knock it off. The guy protested but stopped walking after me. I kept going at a brisk pace, long legs carrying me away down the main street.

I caught some of their conversation; a reprimand, a long silence, then a complaint and an angry assent. I didn’t hear the rest of it, and, quite frankly, I didn’t want to. On one hand, I was happy the other guy was willing to step in, but on the other hand, I shouldn’t be happy the major jerk had been brazen enough to follow me across half the damn town.

What if I wasn’t able to fight someone of his size off and no one like the other guy had been around? Perhaps I could have gotten away with the right sort of attention-acknowledging deflection and a quick tongue, willing to flatter for the sake of my own safety. Perhaps not. Perhaps nothing more beyond a creepy, awkward conversation would have happened. Perhaps not.

I was still brooding when I reached the alley where the assassin had fallen. There was a scuff down the side of the damp wall of one of the buildings, and a deep scar surrounded by burned scraps in the muddy dirt of the alley where someone had landed. There were footprints in the mud, but when I followed them, they disappeared on the cobbles of the street one row inland from the main harbor avenue.

I’d hoped, perhaps foolishly, for some kind of clue to have been left behind. The scene had reminded me of one in a book Abby had lent me years ago. In it, the main character was a princess in hiding, and the situation had been similar. She had found the assassin’s crest on a torn scrap of cloth and it was instrumental in her quest to avenge her father’s killer and take her place on the throne. But that was just a story.

I turned and walked back down the alley, spending time at the end to check the place where the assassin had landed. The burned bits, I guessed, had been part of their clothing. I kicked the mud around, but didn’t find anything.

Then, when I was about to leave, I looked up. Something metallic caught the rising sun, jammed into the eave of the roof. Maybe the stories do have something right!

My excitement only lasted a moment before I realized I had no way to get up there. Even if I had my claws, I didn’t trust them to hold me to the wall without ruining it, and I wasn’t about to try my luck getting up to and across using the rooftops.

I stared up at the object for a while longer; it was a blade—or part of a blade. I almost risked shifting my eyes to see a bit better, but remembered there was at least one person in this town who, astronomical though the coincidence would be, could catch me out.

Tren wasn’t around, but I did hear footsteps turn into the alley. I looked over, brain trying to come up with an excuse as to why I was standing in a muddy alley looking intently up a blank wall.

Taava was the person who walked around the corner, wrapped up in probably everyone’s cloaks all at once. She rubbed her eyes blearily and stretched, yawning. “D’ya normally sneak out in the mornin’ ta go stare at walls? ‘Cause the inn room has four of ‘em, plus a ceilin’ if you’re lyin’ down.”

“That’s not what—I mean, no, I normally don’t.”

“You normally don’t? Somethin’ special about this wall?” Taava walked closer to me, and made a show of looking around. “Oh hey, wait a minute! Was this the place with the thing? Nice!”

Despite her irreverent comment, I caught that her cat-eyed gaze had seen the blade stuck up above us. “You think you can climb up there and get it?” I asked quietly.

“Tch. Sure thing,” Taava whispered back. “Just keep an eye out by the main road for a sec, will ya? I’ll look toward the back ta see if there’re any real light sleepers in this place. Though, you think they’d’ve woken up with some jerk bangin’ around all over their roof and fallin’ down the side of their house. Eh, oh well.” The kazzel saluted and turned toward the wall.

I stepped back out onto the road, doing my best to pretend the sunrise was interesting without actually getting distracted by the gorgeous scene.

Not long after, Taava walked up and tapped me on the shoulder. “Done! Let’s get back, though. I’m freezin’ my tail off out here! How can ya stand it? Is it a, y’know, thing?”

“I’m cheating and using my magic.” I started walking and Taava followed behind, then to the side, then out in front, orbiting me. I tracked her, watching the bundle of coats with cat ears circle me. “How did you find where I went? Or did you also remember?”

Taava stopped and I almost walked into her. “Huh? Oh, I totally forgot—I just heard ya sneakin’ out and thought I should follow. Then I found some guy complainin’ to some other guy about bein’ a dick to some girl and figured that might’ve been you. Then I remembered the roof person thing and found ya!”

I noticed she was carefully avoiding saying anything incriminating. “How much is real and how much is training?” I muttered under my breath.

“I dunno!” Taava pretended to answer the question, smiling brightly. The smile didn’t reach her eyes.