by Joe Kuster
“I don’t yet know what we’ll have to do to put life back into the village, but I won’t ignore the plight of our people. The brickworks have been cleared, but it will take months before the Mastersons can build up enough inventory to fulfill their trade contracts. Once that is done, money should begin flowing in, but I feel that won’t be enough. I’ll keep looking for options.”
Still fighting off a cold shiver, TJ offered, “Ladies, I apologize, but I’m worn thin. It’s been a rough day, and I’d feel better discussing this after a good night’s sleep.”
There were quick agreements around the room. Rachel held the tattered and stained remains of her dress in place while she disappeared behind the changing screen. While she’d looked like she’d held it all together well, he could hear muted sniffles as soon as she got within sight of the mirror. The sound of fabric being pulled free was quickly followed by scrubbing at the basin.
Slipping into her newly acquired duties, Abby inquired, “Should I have your robes laundered? If I hurry, zey might be ready before you wake.”
TJ thought on that and winced inwardly. They were caked with blood and had been torn in the scuffle with the first demon hound. There was no way he could say no, but he still wasn’t sure how they’d react to his wings. Anyone comparing him to certain types of celestial beings might be enough to draw unwanted attention. If that happened, it could cause all sorts of issues.
Coming up with a compromise, he yawned and nodded.
Climbing under the sheets and pulling them to his chin to hide the feathers, he disrobed under the covers. The move caused some odd looks, but no one called him out on his sudden bout of modesty as he dropped his clothing to the floor.
Abby picked up the fabric and inspected the strange series of folds and slits around where his wings could slide out. Turning it inside out, she wiped at the hundreds of tiny down feathers from TJ’s shoulders and back that had been caught in the weave. She gave the cloth a light shake, and they rained to the floor like snow. Curiosity in her eyes, Bethany likewise poked her hand through the openings at the back that the elaborate folds obscured.
Bethany said, “This is an interesting pattern. I suppose the ventilation is nice on warm days, and we are heading into summer. Would you like another set like this in local fabrics? This rough spun looks like something a beggar might wear. Something made from cotton or silk would help you blend in better.”
Answering for him, Rachel called out from behind the curtain, “Yes. He should have a variety suitable for meeting with nobility and for traveling. Have them put it on my tab as a rush order.”
Bethany bowed. “Of course. I’ll see to it. The Red Briar is well connected with the Guild of Seamstress. I’ll take his sandals to the cobbler and get some replacement shoes and boots as well. His look ready to fall apart.”
TJ’s blinking slowed as the ladies continued to talk by lamplight. It was well into the small hours of the morning, and he hadn’t slept in a day and a half. Taking the hint, their voices became muted. He was barely lucid when someone doused the lamp by his bed. He felt a tender kiss on his forehead as someone shifted his covers.
Moments later, his thoughts disappeared into ether's embrace.
Chapter 14
Golden light.
Every which way TJ looked, all he could see was a brilliant glow.
“Hello?” he called out
Oh, thank goodness, there you are.
“Serina?” he asked.
Yeah. Sorry, I can’t appear to you. This realm is full of assholes that are blocking my influence. They caught what I did with Rachel and pitched a fit. She got the whole limbo cross-roads experience with time dilation, but you get this. It’s taking a sustained effort to keep our bindings alive.
TJ’s mind swirled with everything he wanted to say. His breathing picked up, and he found himself getting dizzy.
Easy there, hot stuff. These roaming charges are costing me by the second. We don’t have time to get mushy. The TL;DR is that I need you to get stronger. Otherwise, the pressure on our bond and toting Rachel around will tear your soul apart.
I didn’t think it would be a problem, but that Timarat asshole is pissed that I claimed someone bound for his punishment. He started raving about how he was going to give her away as a reward to the faithful, then started bashing on our connection nonstop, trying to sever my ties. There is more to it, but I won’t be much help until we can anchor you to this realm.
I’ve already started fixing the crack in your essence shell. I should have it done by the time you wake up, but I’d suggest avoiding that in the future. You risk wild magic backlash every time you use essence with it leaking. I also don’t know much that you can cast. Sorry. I never had to limit myself to mortal spells. I’ll have to research what I can and pass it along.
The kicker is that my aunt’s lackeys are limiting my access to books. If you become a grandmaster or soul caster, I’ll give you stuff that’ll shake the heavens, but until then, studying mortal methods is a good idea. I’m flubbing a few things so you can learn more than you should. Chances are, if it’s a spell, you can probably pick it up. It’s amazing what you can do with a focus crystal tied to an auto-clicker. They didn’t catch that I popped your gift into a pocket dimension and tossed an illusionary one into the portal with you. So… thank you. We’d probably both be dead without it.
Blowing out a long breath, TJ tried to process all of that. Serina had a habit of speaking in ways that made no sense to anyone but herself. He had no idea what a T-L-D-R or the clicker thing was, but it didn’t seem to matter from context. Her manner of speech was just one of her mysterious ways. The other Devas tended toward classical language like thoust, and thine, and he assumed she spoke the way she did to piss them off.
“What do you need me to do?” TJ asked.
Head to a goblin den a two-hour ride to the north. Just follow the road until you see a creek on the left. The cave is in the bluff atop the hill. They have a page out of a spellbook you need. It’s all the way in the back, hidden in the lining of some dead schmuck’s map canister. Unfortunately, that’s just step one.
“So… murder a bunch of goblins?” TJ asked.
There was a snorting sound.
Seduce them for all I care. You just need that page and fast.
Although now that you mention it… I take that back. Kill them and make it flashy. They’ve fallen out of favor with their deity. I can probably spin this to convince him to stay neutral. He’s not very smart.
TJ nodded. Given what he knew of the celestial beings, that was the type of logic they’d probably employ. The moment someone slipped up, they were better off as a blood sacrifice or an example to others.
He chewed on his lip for a moment, then asked, “What else do I need to know right now?”
Those chills aren’t a good thing. They’re Timarat’s attacks causing cracks in your soul’s vessel. Rachel’s bindings to you are frayed too, but you’re the one taking the hit. Your soul instinctively wrapped around hers to protect it. Unfortunately, until I get her set up with something more stable, she’d just die outright if she got more than a few miles from you. Be glad her manor is close by.
TJ groaned. This was getting much more complicated.
Sorry, love. I gotta bounce, but I’ll stay in touch when I can.
“You are not just wearing robes in there,” Rachel demanded.
TJ rapped his knuckles against the heavily boned leather breastplate. “I won’t be able to move in this.”
Rachel motioned to her own laminar scales of boiled and hardened leather armor. Under it was a layer of woven fabric mated to chainmail. As she moved, the layers of textiles that held it together flexed, but he could see where flat bars of metal had been used to give it a rigid structure. It also kept the chainmail quiet and less likely to grab attention.
He wasn’t quite sure why this was the local style of armor. He’d assumed the metal would be on the outside. Either way, it looked far less pro
tective than the interlocking segments of enchanted metal the Devas wore.
He held up the second-hand leather, turtle shell, and animal bone chest protection he’d been given. Someone had painstakingly bound bones side by side to the composite layers of leather. It had a tall guard rising from the shoulders and back that should protect his neck, again reinforced with more animal bits. It looked like it had begun life as low-end leather armor, been dipped in glue, then rolled around in a pile of whatever skeletons were behind a hunter’s cabin.
Seeing that he was doubtful, she asked, “Do you see me stumbling around? Mine is practically the same thing, just less… well, witch-doctory.”
“It weighs a ton,” TJ protested, hefting it in his hand.
Rachel growled. “What does that matter? After what happened to me, I am not risking you getting hurt. My soul is anchored to yours. To say I’m invested in your safety is an understatement.”
“I’m not used to moving in something like this,” TJ protested.
Rachel curled her hands into fists until her knuckles turned white. “TJ, just… Ok, how about this? I just sent off a bunch of letters about you to my family and announced that I was skipping straight to courting you with the intent to marry as fast as we can make it happen. I also just submitted a notice of you to Duchess Aberdeen and a separate filing to the king, talking you up as the savior of myself and, hopefully, my county. I also sent the same to my father. Who, I might add, is going to be furious with me for using his signet without permission, much less for running off with a man he’s never heard of.
“I wrote until my hands cramped. Then I kept going. I did these things for you. Because without that, you’d have a much harder time here and I couldn’t go with you. All I’m asking is that you protect yourself. Please wear the armor. As my intended, do this for me. If it proves too bulky, I swear I’ll get you something better once we get to a city.”
A sudden pressure came and went as an oath slid into his chest, where her bindings resided. Rachel’s eyes widened for a moment.
She then coughed and nodded, seeming to process what she’d just done. “Not what I expected to happen, but I’ll stand by that.”
TJ eyed the others circled around their wagon skeptically, debating on just blurting out that he couldn’t fly with it cinched over his back, but he realized that would probably be a bad idea. Abby and Bethany were both in earshot.
They had offered to keep an eye on the horses that Rachel borrowed from her father’s manor to pull the rickety wagon since the ones she’d purchased in TJ’s name wouldn’t arrive from the farm on the outskirts of the village until the next day. The two escorts had come along as well as they discussed the pending trip while they waited around.
Unfortunately, Bethany didn’t think she could join them, and the last thing he wanted was to leave someone behind that might be pressed for details about him by the locals. He had no idea how Rachel’s father would react to him being a different race. If he weren’t around to explain it personally, there was no telling what might happen.
“Fine, but you need to show me how to get out of this getup,” TJ complained.
Not being able to fly felt like he was going in with a hand tied behind his back. He’d lived his entire life with that mobility, and now she was asking him to jump into a fight without it. He was a clumsy oaf on the ground, but in the air was where he felt alive.
Rachel slipped the chest armor over his head and began jerking at straps and buckles. Without realizing it, she applied a crushing force on his wings that made it hard to breathe. Compressing them as best he could, he tried to follow along as Rachel worked. After the woman got to the sixth strap, he was assuming he’d have to cut himself out of it.
After a good night’s rest, his wings seemed to be back in working order. It also seemed that Rachel had written off what she’d seen as part of the portal spell as she hadn’t brought it up or checked his back as she strapped the armor in place. He wasn’t sure how to correct her without telling everyone else just yet. Rachel’s oath to him had permanently bound them together, but they hadn’t had a private moment to discuss what that really meant.
Abby might not be bound to him, but somehow, he trusted her more than he probably should. He could relate to her plight and had no problem providing her a long-term place if she wanted it. She was beautiful, fascinating, and her bedroom acts were filthy in a way that left him desperate for more.
That left him dancing around the issue with Bethany. To be honest, he didn’t see the blonde running around adventuring. It seemed like part of her wanted to, but something was holding her back. It made him hesitate, but that may have been because he hadn’t quite figured out her motivations yet.
He assumed she supported her family from the context he had, but it didn’t give him much to work with without knowing the details. He knew him having wings wouldn’t be a secret forever, but he was hoping not to make things too difficult for himself or Rachel in the meantime. Villagers running around with torches and pitchforks, claiming he was a corrupt god’s angelic assassin or divine wrath wasn’t out of the question. That shit happened, and it was never pretty.
Grumbling to himself, TJ began strapping pouches of equipment and then his quiver of bolts into place. He hadn’t had a chance to practice much with the crossbow, but he’d gotten the idea. He’d found it somewhat funny that they were fletched with feathers that weren’t all too different from his own flight feathers, just smaller. He paused and adjusted the dagger at his hip, making sure he could pull it quickly.
Rachel tied back her black braid and began doing stretches, looking at ease with her armor and equipment’s weight. She had a short bow slung over one shoulder and a quiver of arrows. At her hip was her sword, and her dagger rested on the other. She’d tied the various pouches and equipment to her body with strips of soft cloth to keep them from rattling or squeaking.
As she’d worked, it was apparent she’d done this many times before. Even if she’d just been the young woman in the back of the group, she’d geared up and tagged along with her father’s strike teams just the same. Even if she wasn’t a veteran fighter, she had more combat training than the failed bard had at his disposal.
As she worked, Rachel bent over at the waist and dipped low only inches in front of him, giving him a fantastic view of a shapely backside that impeccably filled out her leather pants. TJ gritted his teeth, trying to hammer down his reactions. He didn’t think she was doing it intentionally, but her proximity pushed hard on his self-control.
He was a self-admitted cad before being tossed through the portal. That was expected for any young man in Eden’s Meadow. After the portal had changed him with the compulsions, it had moved his sex drive into altogether different territory. He was having a hard time suppressing the urge to reach his arms around her waist and… he wasn’t exactly sure what. Well, he did know. He even knew which mossy outcrop under a nearby tree to suggest they retreat to, but that wasn’t in the cards.
“Fucking rules…” he grumbled.
Sighing to himself, TJ tried to shove down his impulses and emulate her movements as best he could. He’d gotten the rundown on what goblins were typically like, and he knew there was no way he could just go in, magic blazing, and blow them up one at a time or send them scattering. They were simply too numerous and aggressive. They also used weapons that were often tipped with poisons. That meant that the tell-tale thunderclap of his kinetic blast would just send them all running in a surge that could overwhelm the pair.
TJ raised his crossbow and shouldered it. It was a simple wooden thing with a hand draw and a stirrup at the end where he could wedge his foot. He peered down the sights at an old oak tree on the side of the road. He brushed his thumb across the release trigger on the top of the stock, getting a feel for the action.
He’d been assured that it would work for goblins, but he couldn’t help but frown at the poorly-made weapon. He’d want to get something better once he got to the city. Unfortuna
tely, much like his armor, this was the only one available.
Drawing her sword, Rachel took the lead as they jumped across a few rocks in the creek, then moved into the dense foliage on the other side. After a few minutes, they found a worn game trail that wormed deeper into the woods. Keeping their steps soft, they moved deeper into the forest.
Picking up a soft rhythmic sound, TJ tapped Rachel on the shoulder and pointed off to the side. He couldn’t tell what was making it, but it sounded like soft snoring. Peering under the bows of a pine tree, he could just barely make out little green feet sticking out from behind the trunk.
Rachel smirked and nodded. She’d said midday was the optimal time for this since goblins were nocturnal. They’d post guards around their encampments, but were notoriously lazy and inattentive when the sun was up. She’d said it wasn’t uncommon for the guards to wipe out a nest and catch the supposed lookouts on the way out.
Slipping as close as they dared, TJ got his first look at the strange creature. It was green-skinned with an elf’s sharp ears and a warty complexion. It wore an old potato sack as clothing, and a stone-tipped spear rested in the dirt next to it. He figured the creature would only come up to his belt if it were standing upright.
Sitting empty along the walking path to the tree, a jug of wine had two crossed hand saws on the label. Curious, TJ leaned close to give the bottle a whiff and wrinkled his nose in distaste. Perhaps it was the goblin’s backwash messing with the wine’s bouquet, but he decided that the Saw-Saw branded blackberry wine wasn’t for him.
Rachel prepared her sword and motioned to TJ’s crossbow, then pointed to her head. Getting the hint, he took aim at the sentry’s skull and loosed his bolt. The string made a thwack, and there was a resounding thunk as the bolt wedged itself in the soft dirt a few inches above his target.