by Eric Vall
“Is that why you keep looking at my nipples?” Cayla asked, and I groaned as I gave up trying to seem focused.
“Did I destroy all those little leather things you guys were wearing?” I finally asked as I turned their way. “Can we buy more, or were those like … the only leather strappy things in all of Illaria?”
“Oh, there’s plenty more where those came from,” Cayla assured me. “Hugo never minds shuffling his other clients aside to complete my orders.”
I furrowed my brow. “Hugo?”
“My leather guy,” Cayla explained, and she pulled Deya over so the beautiful elf was snuggled between her porcelain thighs.
“I think Mr. Hugo should make Mason a whip,” Deya decided, and I raised my brows while she traced circles around Cayla’s taut nipple.
“Maybe I should meet this Mr. Hugo guy first,” I muttered as I dragged my eyes back to my work table. “Then I’ll decide if he’s making me anything.”
“But he’s the best leatherworker in Serin,” Cayla insisted, “and he’s so honored to be crafting your holsters. I told him you greatly appreciated his efforts, and he was so flustered, he spilled half a shelf of sheaths on the ground. I helped him clean it all up, though, and then he posted a beautiful, hand-soldered sign in his front window that says ‘Personal Craftsman to the Honorable Baron Flynt.’”
Now, I turned around.
“He’s not my personal craftsman,” I clarified, “he’s yours, and I don’t know that I like--”
“Mason, he’s eighty-three years old and has seventeen great grandchildren running around his shop,” Cayla informed me, and any irritation I had just poofed into dust.
“Oh,” I replied as my women giggled. “Well, then Hugo’s my personal craftsman. But I don’t really think I need a whip.”
“Me neither,” Aurora agreed. “I like it just fine when you spank me. Your hands are so calloused lately, and it turns me on to no end. I feel like I’m being worked over by some gritty blacksmith, and I’m the metal you’re bending to your will. The hotter I get, the harder you hit.”
“Woah,” I muttered, and my women burst out laughing at the glint in Aurora’s eyes.
“It’s good,” the half-elf murmured, but then she screeched and nearly drowned herself as Nulena appeared in the corner of the shop with no warning.
“Stop doing that!” Shoshanne laughed, and she sent a wave of water splashing over the Baroness’ black skirt.
“You scare too easily,” Nulena murmured, but she had her two-toned eyes on mine while she headed straight for me.
“I certainly do not,” Aurora shot back. “You should cough or something before you just pop out of the shadows like that.”
I couldn’t help chuckling because I’d already known Nulena was there, but my women hadn’t learned to recognize the presence of her Tenebrae Magic yet. A few days back, I’d realized it was something I’d gotten familiar with ages ago, probably because the Baroness had been following me around for so long. I used to think I was just feeling cozy all of a sudden, but now I knew anytime the air felt soft around me, Nulena was somewhere close by.
I didn’t explain this to Aurora, though, because it was hilarious watching my fiery half-elf spasm and shriek whenever the Baroness showed up. Cayla occasionally flinched in surprise, but she generally maintained a stoic demeanor, and Deya always lit up like someone set off a confetti cannon. Shoshanne was the wild card when it came to being caught off guard, but after she pulled a pistol on the Baroness two days ago as a reflex, we all decided we shouldn’t keep guns in the bedroom now that the Tenebrae Mage was spending time with us.
“How long have you been in here?” Aurora demanded as Nulena curled against my chest, and the ebony woman let out a soft sigh when I wrapped my arms around her.
“Long enough to know you’re the hot metal and Mason’s the gritty blacksmith,” she mumbled against my shirt, and Aurora rolled her eyes.
“Well, there’s your secret, Baroness,” the half-elf snorted. “Hope it sells well.”
“No one cares about your dirty secrets,” Nulena chuckled. “You’re too pretty to fetch a price in my business.”
“I am not!” Aurora scoffed.
“Sorry … do you want to fetch a price?” I clarified, and the half-elf blushed and looked away.
“Of course, she doesn’t,” Cayla chuckled. “Aurora just wants to know she could if she wanted to, because then she’s just as deadly as you.”
Aurora ground her teeth together as she stubbornly crossed her arms, and I grinned while I tried to process that kind of logic. By all accounts, it was utter nonsense, but I wasn’t about to point that out.
“Well, I think we all know Aurora’s way more deadly than me,” I assured the beautiful half-elf. “You burn people alive like no one I’ve ever met.”
“I do,” she replied haughtily, and she sent me a teasing glance, “but I hate that I can’t sense Nulena’s magic. It’s only magery, I should be able to feel her nearby.”
“With most elements this is true,” the Baroness allowed as she shifted to loop her arm around my waist, “but Tenebrae powers play in a different space. Darkness doesn’t alter the state of its surroundings like fire, stone, water, or air.”
“Air doesn’t alter its surroundings,” Deya mused. “It’s just there.”
“Think of the way the temperature fluctuates,” Shoshanne explained. “Or the way a breeze bends the limb of a tree. It’s a physical alteration.”
“Just because there is a shadow cast across the ground or through the air,” Nulena continued, “it doesn’t mean the air, or the stone has been altered. They only appear different, so my magic is influencing your perceptions more than anything.”
“Is that why you can blind people and take away their ability to hear?” Cayla asked curiously.
“Precisely,” Nulena replied. “I cast shadows within them.”
“Then why can I sense you when you’re near?” I asked, and the Baroness snuggled closer to me.
“I suppose you’re just incredibly in tune with me,” Nulena purred, but Aurora snorted.
“Or because you follow him everywhere … ” The half-elf cocked a brow as her own challenging gaze met Nulena’s, and I held my breath.
I’d started to get a little uneasy the last few days about the way they clashed so suddenly, and even though it always seemed to end good naturedly, part of me worried a bit because they were similar in a few dangerous ways.
The two things the Ignis and Tenebrae Mage had in common were their love for me and their willingness to kill someone with no questions asked, but they came from very different walks of life. Aurora had grown up an orphaned outcast with an erratic disposition, and as the first woman I’d fallen in love with in this realm, we had a connection that couldn’t possibly be compared to the others. Nulena was rich, widely known, and devious, though. She may have been drawn to me for longer than I’d been aware, but she was still the most recent woman to join our inner circle, and it mattered a lot to me that her and Aurora get along.
So far, my other women didn’t seem at all concerned, so I tried to follow their lead, and I hoped I wouldn’t be prying the two women off one another in some fiery battle to the death one day.
Except, that did sound kind of fun and incredibly sexy.
Then Aurora grinned like she always did, and I relaxed a few degrees.
“You look beautiful this morning, by the way,” the half-elf said as she returned to washing Shoshanne’s hair.
“You all look like you were up half the night making love to Mason,” Nulena chuckled.
“Aww!” Deya giggled, and a sweet smile came to her face. “Thank you! We were.”
“I heard there was a violent attack, though,” the Baroness continued, and she eyed me with concern as she pulled away.
“There was, but we handled it.” I shrugged. “Now, we’re trying to decide if anything can be done to prevent the same thing from happening. So far, it’s not looking to
o promising. We located and destroyed the elemental mark the ogres used to get here, but there could be others. I’m trying to figure out what I can do to get around this dilemma.”
“The solution is simple,” Nulena replied after a moment. “Make the layout of Falmount a strategic battlefield.”
“But I want my mages to live a good life here,” I countered. “How can they do that if they’re living on a battlefield?”
“I think Nulena has a good point,” Cayla said as she furrowed her brow. “There’s no reason you can’t achieve both, Mason. If you can’t prevent more soldiers from arriving right now, be prepared for an attack at all times. Fortify Falmount as if it were a king’s keep rather than an entire village.”
“The mages wouldn’t be living in fear, then,” Aurora mused. “Everything they need would still be here, and they could go about their daily lives, but a protocol would be in place in the event of an attack. All the residents would know what to do, where to take cover, or which posts to report to, and we’d have the upper hand because we’d be fighting on our own ground with ample preparation.”
“Then it wouldn’t matter if an attack did come,” I muttered as I considered this.
“We’d be ready regardless,” Cayla added, and she sent me a deadly grin.
“It would almost be ideal if the Master tried to come after Falmount again,” Aurora said with a shrug. “Think of it. His soldiers would be walking into a trap disguised as a little village in the foothills, and none of them would make it out alive.”
“I just shivered,” Deya giggled. “I like this idea. Mason, you should do this.”
“I agree,” I chuckled, and I pulled three of my designs over as I shifted the others aside. “I had an idea to build upward in the market, kind of like they do where I’m from. If I put battlements at the top of each structure, then Falmount would have a central point of defense, and our mages would have a strategic advantage because all of them could see as far as our lookouts do.”
“Then we could have stores of weaponry and ammunition already waiting on each structure,” Cayla added, and she was so excited she climbed out of the fountain to join me and Nulena at the worktable.
Drops of water began dripping from her breasts onto my drawings while she stooped to get a better look, and the princess clamped her hands over her nipples as she sent me an apologetic look.
“In this sketch on the right,” the princess muttered, “what have you put at the entrance of the marketplace?”
“That’s just a fancy archway,” I mumbled as I rubbed my neck. “I thought it looked kind of official.”
“Could it double as a barbican?” the princess asked, and my brows shot up as I realized the full extent of possibilities.
“Hell yeah, it could.”
“So, if you’re centralizing your defenses in the marketplace,” Nulena reasoned, “why not wall the entire market in as you’ve done with your lands in these drawings?”
“Because I don’t want to lock my mages into one space,” I replied. “With how fast the Master’s soldiers move, and how much destruction they leave behind, we need everything working to our advantage. Walling ourselves in won’t give us that advantage. There’s a reason breaching the gates of a castle almost always means the battle’s won, and that’s not happening on my watch.”
“I never considered that,” Cayla admitted.
“That being said,” I continued and shifted two drawings so the edges of the designs I’d made for the marketplaces overlapped, “we could connect our shops together in two central squares, but leave one side of each square open. This way, we have battlements stretching along the tops of each square.”
“But they don’t connect?” Aurora clarified.
“They’ll actually be misaligned with each other,” I explained. “One line of buildings extends into the other square by about ten feet, and if soldiers filled the whole marketplace, there would always be a clear angle to shoot from above with the ability to maneuver freely. Our soldiers at the top would have a clear shot all around.”
“Would they be able to protect the homes as well?” Shoshanne asked.
“Yeah, if we built high enough,” I replied. “The same design gives our mages access to the surrounding village from the backside of the buildings.”
“And you could use the barbican at the front of the squares as a primary post for your generals,” Aurora suggested. “From there, they could be seen by everyone on the battlements.”
“If only we could secure a space for the children,” Cayla mused, and my head snapped to her so fast, I almost kinked my neck.
“What children?”
“Well, a market of this extent needs to be filled, and the more residents you acquire, the more likely it is they’ll bring their families here to live with them,” the princess muttered as she tapped her chin thoughtfully. “There’s the merchants who will want to sell their goods, the farmers who will seek to grow for you on your lands, some of the Defenders may wish to reside here rather than the Oculus … ”
“And don’t forget Sebastian’s baby,” Deya added, and I casually nodded like this was exactly where my head was at.
“Yeah, Sebastian’s kids shouldn’t be on the battlefront,” I agreed.
“Nor should the elderly who are no longer fit to fight,” Shoshanne pointed out.
“But where could we send them as quickly as possible so they couldn’t come to harm no matter what the Master sent into Falmount?” Cayla asked. “This design is ideal for battle, but a slaughterhouse to any innocent bystanders.”
“It has to be quickly accessible from any place in the village,” I mused.
“With a discreet entrance,” the Baroness said with a nod.
“Why not use the barbican?” Aurora asked. “They could hide within the towers on either side.”
“But with our soldiers posted at the top, the barbican will be a prime target to the Master’s forces,” I countered. “You saw how those ogres tore the houses down.”
Aurora furrowed her brows. “That’s true. No one would agree to keep their children in a place like that.”
“What we need is a bomb shelter,” I snorted.
Nulena arched a brow. “What is that?”
“It’s something my people came up with,” I replied, and I tried to be as vague as possible without confusing the woman further since she didn’t know where I was really from. “The basic concept is having a space, usually underground, that has all the provisions you could possibly need in case you needed to hide there long term.”
“Like utilizing the cellars during a siege?” Cayla asked.
“Exactly,” I nodded, “but deep underground, so it’s not easily found. That way, if everything above ground goes south, whoever’s inside the shelter can survive until it’s safe for them to reemerge.”
“So, build one,” the princess urged. “This is precisely what Falmount needs. We could place the entrance within the barbican and extend the steps downward into the shelter. It’s a central point that all the residents can easily access.”
“But didn’t we just decide that’s not--”
“It’s the last place anyone would expect,” Nulena interrupted as realization dawned on her face. “Cayla’s correct, this is perfect. With the commotion taking place within the market while your mages get to their posts, it would be difficult for others to discern what’s going on, and the residents who need to seek shelter wouldn’t be tracked.”
I furrowed my brow as I thought through any pitfalls in the idea, and it only took me a few seconds to land on the biggest one.
“That’s all excellent except any Terra Mage could break through the ground, tear the whole thing down, or crush everyone inside,” I sighed. “The steps could be altered to trap them all down there.”
“Damn,” Cayla cursed. “If only we could construct one of these fallout structures from something none of the elements could influence. Wood?”
“Not sturdy enough,” Aurora
muttered. “Maybe--”
“Ohhh, shit,” I cut in as I clutched my hair. “Fucking metal.”
Then I swiped every parchment off the table as I dropped onto my stool.
My hand could hardly keep up with my thoughts as I began sketching out a brand-new design for Falmount that would not only be openly accessible to any of the Master’s minions, but gave us every strategic advantage in battle and was equipped with an all metal, fully stocked, underground shelter for my hypothetical kids.
Or Sebastian’s baby and anyone else who wanted to not die. Maybe Stan, too.
“But Mason, does this mean Falmount must now live in fear of an attack?” Deya asked as she leaned her elbows on the edge of the fountain.
“If we have everything completely prepared, then we don’t have to fear anything,” I replied. “For the time being, this is the best way to spin this new element to our advantage. Any attacks that do occur give us a chance to whittle down the Master’s numbers, and any stragglers can lead me straight to whatever mark they used to get here. I can destroy the engravings one by one if I have to, and in the meantime, I need to come up with a means of countering it entirely.”
“Is that possible?” Cayla asked as she returned to the fountain.
“I have no idea,” I admitted, “but I’ve gotta try. An element like this could be the difference between us having a fighting chance, or the Master having the upper hand at every turn. He could send his troops out all over Illaria in one mass attack.”
“He could go after every region at once,” Deya muttered with an anxious frown. “If your allies are all too busy fighting their own battles to join us in a siege against the Master’s headquarters, then all of your work will be for nothing.”
“I know,” I agreed. “I’m trying not to focus on that, though. All I can do right now is set a trap here and keep trying to track down these marks any way I can.”
“Nulena could help,” Shoshanne pointed out, and she sent the Baroness a hopeful glance.
I smirked as I saw Nulena cringe a little out of the corner of my eye, and she deliberately avoided the healer’s eyes while she toyed with a bit of steel on the table.