“Time!?”

  Needless to say, everybody was thrown into a bit of a

  tizzy by that statement. It took a while before they settled down enough

  that my stomach and I were able to convince them to get lunch going.

  Fiddle was kind enough to hand the first finished sandwich

  to me, although that probably had to do with all the noise my

  midsection was making. I thanked him on its behalf and tucked in.

  By the time I’d finished it, forcing myself to slow down

  some and appreciate the flavors, he’d handed out food to everybody else

  and was working on a stack of extras again. And once I’d polished off a

  second I was feeling satisfied enough to answer some more questions. Not

  that I had much more info to share.

  “What can I tell you? The only ability from Fee’s color

  tree I’ve been able to learn so far is just called ’time sense’. So I

  always know what time it is now. The other abilities that I can look at

  so far are expensive.”

  “Like?” La’a demanded.

  “There’s one that lets you see visions of the past by

  handling an object. Another one seems to allow brief glimpses of what’s

  about to happen. And then there’s the most expensive of all, that slows

  down your perception of time passing ”

  “Fun-uuck.” She flopped onto her back, staring into space as she contemplated that revelation.

  I reached for another sandwich.

  “But why has no-one discovered this before?” Fiddle moaned. “Why in the light would be the first one to be bonded by one of these too-violet fairies?”

  “Maybe they need souls of a different wavelength?” I shrugged.

  “Or maybe they need a bonded who’s had another fairy

  before.” Ever’s expression was pensive. I imagined she was thinking

  about the story Fiddle had relayed the other day, about warriors from

  centuries ago who lost their fairies to, what was it? Ghost dragons?

  “Why worry about that?” La’a asked from her comfortable

  sprawl. “It’s not as though it matters, just deal with what’s in front

  of you. And what’s in front of us is someone with access to completely

  unique powers. That’s seriously awesome!” Her smile dimmed. “Although

  the way you go about things, you’ll never ignite any of them.”

  I have to admit, La’a’s remark hurt a bit. On one hand,

  she was an acquaintance of only a few days. But on the other hand, my

  dependence on these three people was near complete right now, and

  knowing that one of them looked on my cautious nature with

  such…contempt, was distressing.

  That didn’t mean I was going to run out and start risking my life for no more reason than to gain her approval.

  We finished our lunch in awkward silence after that. I did

  my best to focus on enjoying Fiddle’s lovely sandwiches, which

  absolutely deserved it.

  Once everyone had eaten their fill, Fiddle tucked away the

  extras and slapped his knees, breaking the quiet. “So, time for that

  other secret conversation, right?”

  Ever met his challenging stare and let out a sigh that

  came from all the way down in her toes. “Yeah, I guess there’s no point

  putting it off any longer.”

  I settled my legs tailor fashion again, apparently unable

  to resist “tying myself in knots” as Fiddle had called it. “So, would

  this big secret have anything to do with that pretty dress you warned me

  not to wear?” I asked.

  La’a snorted.

  “Yes, I’d say it does,” Ever answered. “It’s about Kiri, and who she is. Was.”

  I tilted my head, giving her the space to find her words.

  La’a wasn’t so patient. “Kiri’s mom is Queen Varkona of Ulthara.”

  My stomach dropped. “Oh, that’s bad.”

  “Kiri isn’t the heir,” Ever hurried to reassure me. “That’s her older brother, Eli. But it is just the two of them.”

  I buried my head in my hands. “Oh, fuck, what a mess.”

  “Yeah,” La’a said.

  “Oh, God, so I’m not just walking around in someone else’s stolen body, I’m walking around in a stolen body. That’s just marvelous.”

  I swore some more.

  And then I cussed a bit.

  Once I felt like I’d gotten that out of my system for now,

  I looked up and met Ever’s eyes, fixed on me. “So, you’ve had longer to

  think about this than me. What do we do?”

  “We’re on our way back to the capital now,” She said. “We

  go straight to her Majesty and tell her everything. She deserves to

  know, and there’s no keeping it from her anyway.”

  “Yeah, you’ve got about as much chance of masquerading as Kiri as I have of eating the moon,” La’a piped up.

  “Thanks.”

  “Happy to help.” The drake gave me an ironic grin.

  “I’m glad you don’t want to hide this,” I said. “Never

  mind my acting skills or lack thereof, I got tired of lying about things

  a long time ago. It’s too much work, for too little benefit.”

  “Oh, we’re going to hide it!” La’a corrected me. “Just not from the queen.”

  “It does seem—prudent—to keep you out of the public eye

  until after her Majesty can be informed and decide on a course of

  action.” Ever’s expression was empathetic, but firm.

  “What, so you’re going to me into the city?” I gestured up and down my ridiculously oversized frame. “In what dump truck?”

  “I assume a is a very large thing?” Fiddle inquired.

  “Yeah, used to cart around heaps of dirt, usually. Seems fitting just now.”

  “We have a few ideas,” Ever soothed. “Probably involving

  getting on a supply ship outside the walls and sailing straight to the

  castle.”

  I hummed thoughtfully. I had no idea what their home city

  was like, but that sounded like a solid start to me. “Well, there’s not

  much I can do but put myself in your hands,” I said. “Where I’ve been

  this whole time.” Now I understood why they were so kind and helpful to

  me. At least one reason.

  “Speaking of you folks, if Kiri is a princess, how did you three get to be her adventuring team? Some kinda nationwide contest?”

  Fiddle laughed out loud. Even La’a chuckled at that.

  “Not exactly,” Ever said. “Her Majesty chose me to be the

  princess’s support and protector, to my eternal torment. Fiddle and Kiri

  have been friends since childhood.”

  La’a’s smile twisted again. “And I spent the last ten

  years in the palace as a royal hostage. Kiri was about the only one who

  bothered to hang out with me. Showed me a good time.”

  “Yeah, they were a real roisterous pair once they got

  together,” Fiddle added. “Hit up every bar and whorehouse in the city.

  Got kicked out of a good chunk of ’em, too, princess or no princess.”

  “That we did!” La’a boasted, her grin returning in full,

  sardonic force. Then it slid away. “Great Serpents, I’m gonna miss her.”

  I gave her a moment of silence for her grief. Once her eyes began returning to the present, I asked, “So, you were a hostage?”

  “Not was, am. Technically.”

  “Really?”

  “She’s a member of the royal family of Talakoni,” Ever explained.

  “A very, minor member,” La’a confirmed. “Barely hanging off the family tree by my toe-claws. Not like Kiri.”

  “Three royal hostages from there, and one from here, were

  exchanged as part of a peace treaty signed a decade ago.” Fiddle

  offered.

  “Why the difference?” I asked.

  “In hostages? Partly their individual value. The Ultharan

  royal family is much smaller, so we sent a second cousin to them, while

  all three of their choices were as distant from the throne as La’a is.

  Plus, we had the stronger bargaining position by several metrics. But it

  was widely agreed to be a very fair deal,” he asserted.

  “Yeah, fair.” The drake didn’t seem to be commenting on

  the terms of the treaty so much as her own situation, and I couldn’t

  blame her for that.

  “Are the other two hostages—close to you?” I asked.

  She looked at me for a moment, seemingly considering

  whether or not to answer. “One’s my little sister. She went home a few

  years ago now. The other’s—I think a great uncle? Maybe

  great-great-uncle, I get it confused. But he’s kinda senile and we never

  had much in common, so it doesn’t matter.”

  We all sat in silence for a long moment after that.

  Something occurred to me. “Hey! If we’ve had our serious conversation already, shall we try to get to that next town today?”

  Ever took on her stubborn look. “I can’t allow you go carrying us all around, Anne. Surely you see why now.”

  “What, because ’I’m’ a princess? Who’s going to know out

  here? I promise to set everybody down as soon as we can see civilization

  again.”

  Her expression didn’t change, and I watched her for a

  moment. There must be something else to this. The stiffness even after

  she let me pick her up before…

  “. Ever, do you not like being touched?”

  She folded her arms, looking uncomfortable, and Fiddle glanced away awkwardly. La’a snorted.

  “Shit, look out!” I yelled, as I grabbed for Ever’s

  shoulder, yanked her into my lap, and bent over, trying to shield her

  with my body.

  #

  Anne’s sudden assault caught them all by surprise, coming out of nowhere for what seemed like no reason.

  And then a great plume of dust puffed up right where Ever

  had been sitting at the same time that something invisible clamped down

  on La’a’s shoulder and shook, tearing her robe and drawing blood from a

  half-circle of round stab-wounds. Her scream of sudden pain mingled with

  Ever’s, as Fiddle’s instincts sent him tumbling and scrambling out of

  the way at the same moment that something heavy swung through the space

  his torso had just been, grazing his ribs and adding momentum to the

  roll.

  Terror pounded at the squirrel’s mind as he scrambled to

  understand how something had gotten by his habitual mental surveillance.

  The assailants couldn’t be seen at all, even now, and he couldn’t sense

  the things moving around them either. With a thought, he activated his

  telepathic communication power, including Anne for the first time.

  He yelped in their heads.

  Anne responded, her mental voice firming up quickly after the initial confusion.

  La’a snapped, the words flickering

  red with her pain. She flicked a hand up at the air, calling out,

  “Sparkledust!” as she did. A cloud of glittering dust burst into the

  air, spreading around them in a wide circle and falling in a shimmering

  rain for several moments. It stuck to every surface it touched,

  glittering on them and the ground, and quickly outlining the invisible

  creatures as well. As Anne had said, they looked like a trio of slightly

  oversized grass-cats.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  One still had its teeth buried in La’a’s shoulder, while the other two had focused on Anne, curled up on top of Ever.

  Ever said, her words also wobbling and red-tinged.

  The huge wolf woman rolled to the side, sitting up and starting to gather her legs under her as she took in their predicament.

  From her sprawl on the ground, Ever focused on the creature closest to her and hissed, “Convulse!”

  The sparkling outline dropped to the ground, all its muscles twitching helplessly at her command.

  Meanwhile, La’a pointed a finger at the heavy head still

  clamped onto her shoulder and a huge icicle sprung forward, skewering

  straight through the beast’s eye. It screamed and staggered back,

  finally letting go as blood and vitreous humor sprayed out of the wound.

  The third sparkling outline retreated a few paces, fading

  into view in all its feline majesty, mouth open in a roar to match its

  pride-mate’s.

  Then it faded from view once more, taking the sparkling dust with it.

  “Shit!” Anne yelped, rising to her full height and

  swinging her head around in an obvious attempt to seek out the once-more

  invisible beast. she sent, giving the lie to her act.

  Swearing under his breath, Fiddle gave up trying to use

  his strongest attack, unable to target the mentally-concealed creatures.

  Instead, he raised both hands and bright teal smoke began to billow

  forth from them, swiftly engulfing the whole conflict. He’d have to keep

  concentrating to prevent it from affecting his allies, but the

  disorienting fog should reduce the monsters’ effectiveness in the fight.

  The one-eyed cat threw itself toward La’a again, but was

  met in the air by a net of flame that enveloped and flung it to the

  ground, as the drake stood and backed a few paces further from it,

  tossing more icicles through the gaps. It screamed and thrashed, but was

  unable to escape the net.

  Ever had her target under control as well, regularly

  renewing the twitching paralysis while another vicious spell slowly

  stifled its breath.

  The blue smoke began to lick around the legs of the

  otherwise invisible attacker, just as it threw itself toward Ever.

  Anne’s gaze snapped into focus and she swung one huge hand forward,

  claws out. The swipe seemed to miss its target, as invisible teeth

  latched onto her wrist, drawing a surprised yelp and thin trickles of

  blood. “Gotcha!” she growled, digging her fingers into something that

  also started to bleed.

  Anne raised her free right hand, making the gesture to

  summon the blood sword while her bitten hand jerked and twitched, tossed

  around by the creature’s movements. She winced, looking away as she

  swung the sword down, but it was a half-hearted blow at best, bouncing

  off the cat and drawing only a shallow line of blood.

  “Oh, for

  fuck’s sake,” La’a’s voice rose over the screaming cats, and a barrage

  of icicles as long as her arm swept through the space in front of Anne,

  three plunging deep into the invisible cat’s chest. It bucked once more

  and then fell slack, dragging Anne’s arm down with the dead weight.

  Anne let go of what must have been the creature’s tongue,

  and the body slid to the ground, fading back to full visibility. She

  stood still for a long moment, staring at her hands.

  Fiddle let the fog dissipate and looked to his other

  companions. La’a stood panting near the charred and punctured corpse of

  her attacker, while Ever had simply rolled to her knees, still focused

  on the slowly suffocating final beast.

  “Anne,” he said out loud. She startled, and glanced up at

  him, still awkwardly holding her bloodied hand and sword out in front of

  herself. “Come over and finish this one.” He pointed to Ever’s victim,

  its breath shallow and shaking, still occasionally wracked with leftover

  muscle tremors.

  “What?” she sounded completely lost.

  “The spell she’s using will take minutes to kill it. I want you to chop its head off.”

  She looked at him like he’d just ordered her to strangle a puppy.

  “This world is full of violence, Anne. I know you don’t like it, but we can’t let you fear it. Put it out of its suffering.”

  #

  I stared blankly at Fiddle, as though he’d grown an extra head or something.

  “I’ve never killed anything bigger than a bug.” I blinked, feeling a tingling in my nose. “I don’t want that to change.”

  He stepped closer to me, tilting his head up and up to

  keep my eye. “I’m sorry. I can’t say I understand that feeling. I’ve

  known my whole life that defending my home and loved ones would mean

  learning to kill the monsters that want to tear it down. All I can tell

  you is that we all must make the choice to do things we don’t want.”

  A growl of irritation left La’a’s throat from behind me. “Are you really such a coward?” She demanded. “You aren’t anything by refusing you know. Only putting the burden on someone else to keep yourself free of it.”

  That hurt. That contempt of hers was back, and it hurt

  much worse this time. Because she was right. If I refused to kill the

  lion either Ever would finish smothering it, or more likely La’a would

  finish it off. I was a little surprised the impatient drake hadn’t done

  so already. I looked at her, but her expression was blank, not even

  showing as much emotion as I’d heard in her voice. I lowered my head and

  looked at the struggling lion again. My bloody hand clenched into a

  fist and I raised the sword. “You’re right. You’re both right. I’m

  sorry.”

  I crouched down and swung the blood sword with all my

  strength, burying it to the hilt in the ground beyond the lion’s

  smoothly severed neck. The head tilted forward a few inches and the body

  relaxed, subsiding in death. I let the sword dissipate and rested my

  arms on my knees, tears falling from my eyes.

  Around me, the fairies took flight, descending to do their

  little collection dance over the dead, infested lions, and I told Fee

  to go on and help.

  As I pulled myself together my eyes were drawn to the ring

  of little gashes on my left wrist, from the smarty-pants lion’s teeth.

  The smears of blood were all that remained of the minor injuries, my

  body’s regenerative power having closed the little wounds almost

  immediately. It made me wonder how quickly La’a would heal from her

  bite, and then I remembered Ever bleeding too and looked up at them.

  When had that happened?

  Sure enough, while the fairies worked, both La’a and Ever

  were tending to their bloodied shoulders, pulling the fabric of their

  clothes away from them and cleaning out the wounds a bit. Where La’a had

  a half-circle of tooth marks much like mine, Ever’s shoulder had only

  one puncture on the front, but several, deeper, on the back and I

  realized with a lurch that it wasn’t from our attackers. I had done that

  when I tried to drag her out of the way.

  “Shit.” I scooted over to Ever’s side, reaching out to try

  and help. She was having some trouble getting to the punctures on her

  back, so I carefully picked up the bloodied cloth of her shirt and

  pulled it away from the injury. “Oh, god, I’m so sorry, Ever. Here I’ve

  been so fucking careful with every single thing I touched today, and

  then I go and do this to you. Fuck.”

  “It’s no matter, Anne. You were trying to help. You did

  help—” she interrupted herself with a hiss as I tugged the cloth out of

  the last puncture on her back. “Being flattened by the grass-cat’s

  pounce wouldn’t have been better for me, I promise.”

  “Yeah, I guess. Lemme see if I can make this little

  healing spell work for you.” I frowned and focused on one of the two

  yellow abilities Kiri had, seeing the identifying glyph in my head and

  imagining pressing it into the wounds on her back as I said the control

  word. “Salve.”

  She sighed as the holes began to fill in, and patted my

  hand. “It’s good for you to practice, but I’ve got this. I have some

  regeneration of my own.”

  Sure enough, the minor healing I’d done was already spent,

  but the injuries were continuing to close up, maybe even a bit faster

  now.

  “Thanks for the help, Anne. When you heal around fabric it itches like an anthill afterward.”

  “It was the least I could do.” I plopped down on my butt next to her. “I’m really not cut out for this sort of thing.”

  On Ever’s far side, La’a made a rude noise. “That’s bull. You did pretty good for your first emergency, dumbass.”

  “Oh, come on. I hurt my ally more than any of the

  opposition until you guys badgered me into finishing off the downed one.

  I did basically nothing useful while you three handled it all.”

  “No, La’a’s right,” Fiddle chimed in, walking around to

  face me. He rolled his eyes her way. “Aside from the insults. You may

  not have been highly effective, but you didn’t freeze, or run away, or

  do any of the other useless reflex things lots of folks with no

  experience default to when they’re surprised. You reacted as best you

  could when you first saw the danger, and then you immobilized one of

  them till our blaster could take it out. That’s really quite good for

  having no training.”

  I looked him in the eye for a long moment, seeing nothing but honesty in his grey-furred face.

  “Okay, so I’m not completely hopeless. I still—” I didn’t

  finish. I wasn’t sure how to. How could I tell these three that I still

  wanted nothing to do with their lifestyle? Profession? Hobby? I wasn’t

  quite sure what to call it.

  Fee fluttered back to me while I was trying to muster my thoughts and reported in.

  :This one has collected twelve blue motes and four orange, Bonded.:

  “Thanks, Fee.”

  She settled down behind my ear again, and I felt the subtle warmth of the collected magic seeping into me.

  Ever reached out and took my bloodied left hand in hers, murmuring a word to clean it up and smooth down the fur.

  “Thanks.”

  “It’s no trouble. What did you grab when it bit you anyway? I couldn’t see,” She asked.

  “Its tongue. That’s what was there.” I shrugged.

  She chuckled and patted my shoulder as she stood up, leaning on me for a moment in the process. “We should get moving again.”

  I stood up too, looking around our bare little rest stop

  at the three lion corpses. “What about these guys? Should we clean up

  after ourselves?”

  “No need,” Fiddle answered. “Without preservation effects of some sort they’ll just disintegrate in a couple of hours.”

  “Some folk harvest the carcasses for meat, hides and such,

  to sell, but we don’t usually bother. It’s not worth our time,” La’a

  explained.

  We gathered on the road, Ever taking a moment to neaten up everyone’s appearance on the way.

  I rubbed my hands together. “So, we had the serious talk. Does that mean I can carry you guys the rest of the way?”

  Ever sighed, looking uncomfortable again, but Fiddle and

  La’a both had eager smiles on their faces. “I suppose so.” She shrugged.

  “But you do have to put us all down as soon as we see signs of

  civilization. And!” she continued, interrupting our cheers, “We have to

  spend the time starting to teach you about how to be a proper princess.”

  “Sounds fair,” I said.

  La’a stuck her tongue out.

  While I was getting everyone situated, I mentioned my howdah idea. La’a laughed uproariously, and Ever literally face-palmed.

  “We are not getting you a howdah, or a saddle, or any

  other ridiculous, undignified riding equipment,” she elaborated, while

  snuggling into my shoulder. She hadn’t bothered with the standoffish act

  this time, and I realized she couldn’t possibly dislike being touched

  as I felt her start to purr again immediately.

  “Hmm. Maybe a rickshaw?”

  #

  My casual afternoon run was only subject to one more

  interruption. This time there was no impressive stealth attack or

  ethical conundrum. We were bopping along the road when a big

  raggedy-looking bird thing—maybe once related to a vulture, I couldn’t

  be sure—dove straight out of the sun at us.

  Fiddle had been tracking it for a while before it decided

  we were a good target, and let us know in plenty of time. Once it got

  close enough La’a focused in and blasted it with an array of icicles as

  long as her forearm, and then Ever made most of its muscles seize up.

  The poor thing never had a chance, and crashed into the ground just

  ahead of us, breaking its own neck when it hit.

  We wouldn’t have even had to stop if it weren’t for the

  fairies needing time to do their little dance over the corpse. I set the

  gals down at their request and we all had a stretch while we waited,

  but Fiddle was content to stay perched on my shoulders, just rising to

  his feet to get the kinks out.

  “See, I don’t need to fight, I can just be your mobile gun platform,” I joked, getting a snort out of the drake at least.

  “I don’t know what a is,” Ever scolded gently,

  “But you do need to be able to at least defend yourself. We won’t always

  be hanging off you after all.”

  We’d been discussing their expectations and plans for me

  when we got back to the capital city, and I had been saddened but

  unsurprised to hear that the one they all agreed on was training to

  recover at least some of Kiri’s combat skills. Fiddle thought that there

  might be a way for a more experienced mind mage to give me a shortcut

  to ’relearn’ what her body already knew. I was unenthusiastic, to say

  the least. Sure, karate lessons were supposed to be great for

  self-control and confidence, but I wasn’t an awkward twelve-year-old,

  and I had no interest in using such skills.

  “What would I need to defend myself from in the city?” I protested.

  Ever and La’a exchanged knowing glances.

  Fiddle’s somber voice answered from above my head. “Kiri

  and her brother between them have weathered four assassination attempts

  in their young lives. Her Majesty at least ten that I know of.”

  “Wait, seriously?” I asked looking up…straight at his crotch and the underside of his tail.

  He bent over to look at me and I grabbed his feet just to make sure he wouldn’t fall.

  “Seriously. There are many factions dissatisfied with one

  thing or another the queen has done. Or that they imagine she’s done.

  Being royalty isn’t all fancy dress and hangers-on.”

  “Well. Learn something new every day, don’t I?”

  Fiddle wiggled his toes under my fingers and I let go,

  allowing him to hop down to the ground after all. “I can see how much

  the idea of violence bothers you, Anne. But is it not better to prepare

  for unwanted circumstances than to hide one’s head under the covers

  until they occur?”

  I sighed. The little guy had a point. A good chunk of my old life had involved such avoidance, and it rarely did any good.

  The fairies finally finished their collection and returned

  to us, Fee reporting the acquisition of three violet motes this time.

  Violet was the color of… chaos? Entropy, maybe. Was that why the bird

  had looked to be in such bad shape? I asked my companions.

  “Indeed,” Fiddle said. “The darkest color is often

  damaging to the wild creatures infested with it. Their bodies break down

  even faster than their minds.” He stared down at the already decaying

  corpse for a moment, then shook himself and moved away.

  “It’s not catching, is it?” I asked.

  “The body isn’t dangerous now, if that’s what you mean,” Ever said.

  I picked up the gross dead bird by a wing and tossed it

  away from the road. I only meant to send it out of sight, but I guess my

  disgust with the thing came through. It whirled off like a Frisbee and

  didn’t come down for several long seconds. A little shudder ran down my

  spine when it finally crashed to the ground.

  We got going again, and I distracted myself with some

  experimentation. I hadn’t been pushing my speed particularly so far, and

  hadn’t felt any sense of fatigue buildup either, but now I tried

  forcing the pace a bit at a time, until I did begin to notice myself

  growing tired. It was pretty gradual, and I’d gotten up to speeds I was

  pretty sure could have gotten me a ticket in a school zone before it

  happened. I slowed down for a while and felt my wind recovering, even

  without stopping entirely for a break.

  When I felt like I was completely recovered from that, I

  warned my passengers and went for the fastest sprint I could manage. I

  kept an eye on my personal clock to see just how long I could keep it

  up. I began to slow down noticeably at the twenty minute mark, but damn,

  I’m pretty sure I’d hit freeway speeds for a while there.

  La’a found my high speed experiments funny at first, but

  then started complaining about the bouncy ride. Ever just clung silently

  to my shoulder, and Fiddle crouched on my traps like a jockey, hanging

  onto my hair for balance and occasionally whooping into the wind.

  That passed a couple of hours interestingly, but

  eventually I settled down to my ’sustainable’ pace again and continued

  until about two hours before sunset, when we started to see the first

  signs of civilization.

  I didn’t realize it at first, just registering what seemed

  to be the crown of a very large tree starting to poke up above the

  horizon. But as we progressed, and it just kept creeping taller and

  taller, I began to realize that the shape was all wrong.

  Rather than branches climbing up from a central trunk and

  spreading out, it looked more like the greenery was pouring down from a

  series of taps in the sky. Like a weird variant of a waterfall, where

  what seemed like floating clumps of earth spewed out a cascade of leafy

  vines to spill down to the ground below.

  According to Ever, that’s almost exactly what it was.