by Sarah Hawke
“No problem.” The man smiled again and clapped me on the arm. “We should get drinks sometime!”
I grinned back. “I’d like that.”
I rendezvoused with Kaseya a few minutes later, and I led her further down the street on the off chance the guard actually remembered our meeting and tried to do something about it. A true enchanter could probably prevent that particular side effect, but sorcery was inherently unpredictable.
“You seem…conflicted,” she said once we reached a reasonably private corner a few blocks away. “What did you learn?”
“Apparently the reason that Senosi Huntress didn’t engage is because she wasn’t actually there for us,” I said. “She hired those thugs to ambush a shipment of illegal enchanted goods.”
Kaseya’s face didn’t light up with surprise like I expected. She looked more relieved than anything, which I found odd…
“A strange but fortuitous coincidence, then,” she said.
“In a way,” I said. “From the sound of it, there’s an ongoing power struggle between several different factions of the underworld right now. The strongest one is led by a woman they call the ‘Black Mistress,’ whose major crime seems to be harboring uncertified spellcasters and circulating illegal magical items.”
“She sounds like a potential ally,” Kaseya said.
“Maybe,” I said, furtively glancing about in search of eavesdroppers. “I don’t know for certain, but I bet that Huntress was sent here by the Inquisitrix to try and help overthrow the Black Mistress. Not because she cares about Highwind, of course—she just knows that destabilizing the city is in Vorsalos’s best interests.”
Kaseya nodded absently. I still thought her reaction was a little strange, and I made mental note to ask her about it later.
“The important thing is that apparently this Huntress isn’t after us,” I went on. “We may have smacked down her thugs, but it sounds like she has more important things on her plate right now. All in all, I’d say we’re reasonably safe for the moment.”
“What about this Black Mistress? Do you wish to try and contact her?”
“I don’t know how—yet.” I paused and considered our options. “Well, we still need coin regardless, and I suspect our best bet is probably some good, old-fashioned mercenary work. Assuming you’re up for it.”
“You know I am, Maskari ,” Kaseya said.
I sighed. “We talked about this. You can just call me Jorem.”
“As you wish,” she said, smiling faintly. “Jorem.”
“Better,” I said, grinning. “Before I left, a friend of mine recommended I check the official bounty boards maintained by the Highwind Guard. Most of the guilds won’t bother will small-time contracts, but it’s a decent way to make connections and prove your worth.”
“To whom?” Kaseya asked.
It was a good question, probably even better than she realized. I had fled Vorsalos out of desperation, not because I’d concocted a grand scheme to acquire riches. I would have loved to study magic here, but from what I’d heard the Highwind Academy didn’t accept sorcerers. Apparently their current Headmistress—a haughty high elf, if my information was correct—was also a tremendous bitch.
I couldn’t hire myself out as a mercenary spellcaster for the same reason: every reputable business and guild in town required an Academy certificate up front. The only ones left were the “disreputable” businesses and guilds, which, to be fair, were the people I had the most experience dealing with anyway.
“I’m sure there are plenty of folks in this city willing to pay good coin for a competent sorcerer,” I said. “Especially one with an even more competent bodyguard.”
I asked for directions from the nearest shopkeeper, and they directed me to the board near the district’s exit. The postings were even more numerous than I had expected. Some paid almost nothing, and plenty of others struck me as downright fraudulent. But perhaps that was just my Vorsalosian cynicism talking.
“If you cannot choose, perhaps you should consult the Aether for guidance,” Kaseya suggested.
I turned and frowned. “How so?”
She shrugged. “On Nol Krovos, experienced moshalim —sorcerers—will often call upon the Aether to reveal glimpses of the future.”
“Unfortunately, that’s well beyond my abilities,” I said, squinting at the postings. “And finding a teacher was never in the cards.”
“Perhaps you should return to the island with me someday,” Kaseya said. “My people are not fond of outsiders, but as my Maskari they would be compelled to allow you entry. Our moshalim could teach you a great deal.”
“I bet they could,” I murmured. I wasn’t thinking about the sorcerers, of course. If the women there were even half as beautiful as Kaseya…
“Fornication with another moshalim’s bond-mate is punishable by death,” she said. “Unless her Maskari permits it.”
“Yeah, I didn’t mean…” I trailed off and closed my eyes. I really needed to learn to control my thoughts better. “Let’s just focus on picking out a job, okay?”
Kaseya shrugged and glanced back at the board. “What about these? They all mention bandits on the North Road. Kidnappings, theft…”
I glanced at the different postings and nodded. “The fact there’s more than one probably means they’re not all a hoax. The pay isn’t great, but maybe we’ll get lucky and be able to collect on more than one.”
“It is also a chance to attain considerable honor,” she said. “Earn enough and perhaps the people of the city will begin to respect all moshalim .”
I snorted, assuming it was a joke…but then I saw her face and belatedly remembered just how naïve she was. “Unfortunately, things don’t work that way here.”
Kaseya turned. “You think I am foolish.”
“No, I think you’re….” I trailed off and licked my lips. “I think Nol Krovos sounds like a nice place with good people, but the culture here is very different.”
Her eyes flicked about the nearby market. “I shall trust in your wisdom, Jorem.”
I grunted and plucked one of the postings from the board. In all my years scraping by in Vorsalos, I had never once imagined that I would be trying to eke out a living as a mercenary. I was a sorcerer—I had the power of the gods at my fingertips!
But you don’t have Valuri or her coin. And you never will again, since you abandoned her to the Inquisitrix.
Kaseya frowned at me. “Is something wrong?”
“No,” I lied, the long-buried guilt rising in my stomach once again. I had managed to go almost a whole day without thinking of Valuri by name, but now there it was, burning a hole in my conscience. Even the company of a beautiful woman could only help me ignore what I’d done for so long.
“Something is upsetting you,” she said, touching my shoulder. “If you tell me, I can—”
“There’s nothing you can do,” I told her. I forced a smile and gestured towards the city wall with my chin. “Come on, let’s get moving.”
4
The bounty posting directed us to a small shop near the northern gate. A Mage’s Guild symbol was emblazoned on a wooden placard outside, and the long-bearded, unkempt-robe-wearing owner fit the stereotype of the doddering old wizard so perfectly it almost made me suspicious. I was concerned he would pepper us with questions before giving us the details of the bounty, but thankfully he wasn’t much of a talker. He split his time evenly between gawking at Kaseya’s cleavage and leering at her long legs.
Thankfully, the bounty itself was rather straightforward. Apparently a guild caravan had been scheduled to arrive two days ago, but the Duskwatch Rangers found the carriage burned and upended on the road yesterday. The guild’s ongoing assumption was that bandits had stolen the cargo in order to trade it with Vorsalosian relic smugglers, a group of people I had far too much experience dealing with.
“Five thousand coins for the return of the supplies,” Kaseya said once we’d left the shop. “Is that a generous offer?
”
“It’s not quite enough for any big-time mercenaries to pursue, but it will make huge difference to us,” I told her. “We could live here comfortably for a year or two with that kind of coin.”
“Then we should depart at once, yes? Unless we travel through the night, it will take us at least two days to make this trip on foot.”
“Yeah, we just need to pick up some basic supplies first,” I said, running a hand back through my short hair. Something about this didn’t feel right, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Perhaps it was just the strange coincidence that the first decent job offer I’d found involved both magic and smugglers from Vorsalos. Was it too convenient, or was I just being paranoid like usual?
Either way, I couldn’t really say no to this much gold. Not when my coin purse was so light a stiff wind would have blown it away. And of course, there was also another, less reputable option here…
“If that guardsman was right and the Black Mistress deals in illegal enchanted goods, we could potentially use this cargo to buy our way into her favor,” I said. “We’d lose out on the coin, but having a powerful ally is a better bargain in the long run.”
Kaseya frowned. “But you promised that old man you would recover his belongings.”
“I know, but…” I glanced away and sighed. Considering how obsessed she was with following her own pledge, I should have known she wouldn’t respond well to the idea of backing out on an agreement. “Look, you’re just going to have to trust me, all right?”
“Whether I trust you or not, I am bound to obey your commands,” she said. “Lead on.”
I bit down on my lip. I really wasn’t comfortable with the idea of making her do something she didn’t want to do. As I kept telling her—and myself—she was not my slave. Sooner or later we were going to have to work that out.
For now, however, she was right that we needed to keep moving. After purchasing some basic supplies for the trip, we departed the city through the northern gate along with half a dozen caravans headed towards the mining villages in the mountains. I was actually surprised when the guards didn’t harass us; living in Vorsalos had apparently jaded me even more than I realized. Highwind was legendary for its adventurer guilds and mercenary bands, so I should have known that Kaseya and I wouldn’t look out of place.
A few hours into the trip, I really started to regret the fact I couldn’t afford a horse, and an hour after that I became convinced that my legs were about to fall off. Unsurprisingly, Kaseya didn’t seem fazed in the slightest. She navigated with the map we’d purchased in town, diverting us off the road and into the forest whenever we could shave time off our trip. We encountered a few Duskwatch patrols as well, enough to make me feel reasonably safe about our detours through otherwise untracked terrain. I was far more worried about collapsing from exhaustion than being eaten by a bear.
I distracted myself from the pain and fatigue by imagining how good it was going to feel when I bent her over a rock and fucked her beneath the stars tonight. Assuming I had any strength left by that point.
Gods, you really are pathetic. All that power, all that potential, and you’ve stooped to taking advantage of a brainwashed girl from a backwards culture.
As the hours ticked by, Valuri’s scolding voice became a permanent fixture inside my head. She wouldn’t have approved of anything I’d done since leaving Vorsalos, and she would have been downright horrified about Kaseya. The two women had plenty of things in common—determination, grit, self-reliance, perfect tits—but in terms of personality they were essentially polar opposites. No one in their right mind would have ever described Valuri as submissive or obedient, and despite the fact I had fucked her hundreds of times and spilled in her mouth a few hundred more, she had always projected an aura of mystery I found irresistible.
Kaseya sensed my ruminations, but thankfully she eventually stopped asking what was bothering me. I could tell that my elusiveness was starting to bother her, however, and I spent the last few hours before nightfall building up the courage to tell her the whole story.
We reached a cozy-looking copse just before the sun vanished beneath the horizon, and I decided it was probably the best place for us to set up camp for the evening. Kaseya immediately set to work acquiring wood for a fire while I circled the perimeter and checked for any signs of trouble. I inscribed a few wards at the edges of our camp just in case someone tried to sneak up on us, fully aware that they wouldn’t do a damn thing against a Senosi Huntress. They would work on bandits just fine, though, not to mention the random hungry bear or troll.
Once Kaseya had assembled enough wood, I ignited the pile with a burst of magical flame and sat down next to her on the bedroll. “Before we eat, there’s something I’ve wanted to tell you,” I said. “Something you deserve to know.”
“You are not required to part with your secrets,” she reminded me.
“Maybe not, but I want to,” I said. “You’ve been so open with me…it only seems fair.”
Her cheek twitched ever so slightly, enough that I suddenly wondered if she hadn’t actually been that open to me. But I decided to press on regardless.
“Back in town, I mentioned that I used to occasionally work for a Senosi Huntress,” I said. “That’s true, but it’s only part of the story. I didn’t just work for her. The two of us were close. Too close sometimes, honestly.”
“She was the first woman you ever copulated with,” Kaseya said.
“Uh…yeah, there’s also that,” I murmured. “Her name was Valuri Sovaal, and without her I never would have survived this long. She shielded me from the wrath of the Inquisitrix, but it was more than that. She taught me things….things I don’t think I could have learned from anyone else.”
“Did you love her?”
I bit down on my lip. “I’m not sure I’d call it love, exactly. But let’s just say that we were an incredibly effective team. I had never met anyone like her before. I still haven’t.” I paused and pursed my lips. “We worked together for a little over a year before the Inquisitrix learned about our relationship. Everything we’d built, everything we had worked to accomplish…it all crumbled overnight. I saw the other Huntresses drag her away, and I was powerless to stop them.”
Kaseya’s eyes narrowed in thought. No matter how much I struggled to control my mood, I had no doubt that plenty of my feelings were slipping through into her collar. “You feel guilty that you could not help her.”
“Calling it ‘guilt’ doesn’t begin to cover it,” I said. “She took an enormous risk sparing me, and I owe her a debt I can never repay. But when those Huntresses took her…I’ve never felt so helpless in my life. My magic is virtually worthless against them, and I didn’t exactly have a lot of allies waiting around to risk their lives for a renegade sorcerer and his Senosi lover. There was nothing I could do.”
I grunted and crossed my arms. “That was almost three months ago. By now she’s almost certainly dead, but not before the Inquisitrix tortured her. Just thinking about it makes me…”
I closed my eyes and balled my hands into fists. I didn’t even hear Kaseya move, but a moment later her hands were gently squeezing my shoulders and her lips were barely an inch from mine. She didn’t say anything; she just held onto me and remained close.
“At the very least, Valuri deserves justice,” I whispered as I reopened my eyes. “I promised myself that one day I would return to Vorsalos and avenge her, but it was just a lie to dull the pain. I don’t think I can ever go back. All I can do is start over.”
“I do not know much about the world beyond Nol Krovos,” Kaseya said, “but even my people fear the growing reach of this Inquisitrix. Hestiah and I were sent to Vorsalos to investigate the situation. We didn’t learn much before we were forced to flee.”
“Well, you can bet that the Inquisitrix wouldn’t approve of your sorcerers or your culture in general,” I said. “She wants to purge the world of magic, but in the meantime she’s content to recruit and train wom
en as channelers.”
“Only women?”
“Yeah. Ostensibly, she believes they are the only ones who can properly resist the ‘darkest temptations’ of the Aether.”
Kaseya pursed her lips in thought. “I suppose that perception is not entirely dissimilar from that of our matriarchs. They believe that the moshalim are inherently deadly and unstable. We bond with them so that we can sate their desires and temper the darkest of their impulses.”
“Well, in the case of the Inquisitrix, it’s all a big lie anyway. I’m not convinced that she actually cares about purging magic. All she wants is power, and she’s spent the last several decades amassing a cult to help her take over the city.”
Kaseya shifted forward and wrapped her hands around my neck. “Perhaps you and I should return to Vorsalos someday. We could avenge your friend and destroy these Senosi at the source.”
I snorted. “I think we might need an army first.”
“Once they are fully bonded, an amazon and her Maskari are more than a match for any army,” Kaseya said.
I almost laughed before I realized she was serious. Her earnest confidence really was charming in its own way, assuming it didn’t end up getting us killed.
On impulse, I pulled her in for a long, deep kiss. My hands didn’t slide further beneath her skirt, nor did hers attempt to breach my trousers. We just held each other close for several long, breathless minutes, and when she finally leaned away we both smiled at each other for several long, breathless minutes more.
“Maybe I will return home one day,” I said eventually. “I just wanted you to know the full story.”
“Thank you for telling me,” Kaseya replied. She stared at me for a long moment, her eyes glimmering in the firelight. “We should continue to strengthen our connection tonight. I promise that it will make you feel better.”
“Of that, I have no doubt.”
Kaseya smiled. “You should consider activating your ring. It will allow you to experience the full range of my emotions, just as I experience yours.”