“Truth,” she ordered.
Her parents were class four mages. Some of the most powerful in the land. Few spells worked on them, fewer mages could hope to best them.
She wasn’t a mage, though. Not anymore.
“The girl was a disgrace.” Daria clapped her hand over her mouth in an effort to stop her own words for damning her further, but there was no resisting the magics of Talia. Not anymore.
They’d had what they’d wanted. They’d sent their child to the capital of the Northern Var in hopes that she be noticed by the Order.
She had been. “We wanted rid of her honorably. If she had married Darsen, as planned, she might have salvaged a little pride and undone the damage she’d done to our name, but she was always a wayward child and refused to obey. I curse the day she sprang from my loins and am glad she was snatched away by some dragon. May it not choke on her bones.”
Lars Astria stood behind his wife, thunderstruck. Talia could read him. He wasn’t alarmed by what he heard from his wife, he was worried what was about to come out of his mouth. Talia turned her attention on him, binding him with the same truth magic she had lain upon her mother.
“I didn’t believe she was mine,” said Lars.
Daria clouted her husband over the head.
Talia smiled. They were their own worst enemies. She didn’t need to do more to punish them for what they’d done to Xandrie. They would keep telling the truth for days and by the time her truth spell wore off, their reputations would be in tatters and their business a shambles. They deserved no less. No self-respecting parent sentenced their daughter to be tortured and murdered. They only got what they’d brought upon themselves.
She left her parents, screaming obscenities at each other, and headed towards the Guard post, stopping at the door, only to turn to Aleria.
“You’re coming?”
The woman didn’t hesitate.
Darsen was lounging at small table, in the corner of the common area, where the guards loitered when they were on break and playing at cards and dice. His tunic was unbuttoned and his suspenders off his shoulders and around his sagging waist.
“Down,” said Talia.
Darsen’s pants fell around his ankles. His colleagues wept with laughter.
“Again,” said Talia.
Darsen’s underpants were on the floor in a trice.
Talia smiled. The man was well endowed. Not for long.
“Walnuts to hazelnuts, then hazelnuts to pinenuts.”
She didn’t wait to see her handiwork, but his shouts could be heard from one end of Malec to the other. With a nutsack that small, he wouldn’t be dropping his drawers any time soon.
Talia washed her hands of the small, backwards, oppressive town of her youth and set off. Truth be told, she may have stayed in the The Northern Var - might even have carried on working for her parents - if things had unfolded in a different way, but instead, Natalia Astria, the only living Enchantress in Eartia, set off without knowing where her steps would take her, and embraced her destiny.
The End
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May Sage ? 2017
Cover Art by Jeremy Chong
Typography by Rebecca Frank
Edited by Lisa Bing, Theresa Schultz and Kate Pickford
Created with Vellum
Except of Kitty Cat
Coveney, on your left!
Hearing his Alpha’s warning, the Head Enforcer of the Wyvern Pride turned just in time to block the jaw of the wolf, preventing him from aiming for his neck, but the shifter still bit his flank pretty hard and deep.
They were outnumbered, practically six to one - seven felines against three dozen wolves - but seeing his wound, Rye still ordered Coveney to get back to their pride house.
I can still help, the tiger said through the pride link.
He probably could, but at what price? The gash needed to be bound, or he’d bleed out at the entrance of their territory.
In other circumstances, Ola could have healed him, at least partially, but the lioness was currently relentlessly fighting against three females. Stopping to heal him right now was the equivalent of asking for a break, so she could make a cup of tea and eat muffins.
Go help Jas, Rygan replied, referring to their strongest female.
Jas hadn’t been happy about it, but she’d stayed behind, with the non-fighters and the children. She was too far for Rye to get a good reading on her through the pride link, but he sensed some distress, which meant that some wolves had made it past their lines of defense.
Fuck.
Coveney didn’t protest, presumably feeling the same call coming from the rest of their pride. Blood trailing him, he ran towards their homes.
Satisfied his Head Enforcer wasn’t in imminent danger anymore, Rye grabbed the wolf on his back by the scruff of his neck, his long fangs breaking the skin, and threw him at the nearest wall. He jumped on the one standing in front of him, claws digging in its back before his teeth closed on the wolf’s face. Now those were taken care of, he turned to Tracy. Ola was dealing with more opponents but Tracy was younger, and more vulnerable. His claws hooked on the flanks of one of the wolves attacking her, and tore through him.
Taking a second to observe their progress, he saw that his pride wasn’t nearly as outnumbered now. Rye had incapacitated at least ten wolves, but the real hero was Daunte, his crazy-ass Beta: the humongous, graceful panther was killing a wolf every other second. The others weren’t doing badly either.
They were winning.
Until they lost everything.
In the distance, Coveney roared, a gut-clenching sound that made them all stop and turn in the direction of their home. With some effort, Rye managed to push through the pride link, despite the five miles separating them, and asked his Enforcer, What is it?
Coveney shared what his eyes saw.
Fire. Their house was burning, each door and window reinforced, barricaded. No scream came from within.
Their pride members were already all dead.
Coveney cursed like a sailor, while Daunte punched the wall, enraged, sick to his stomach. The younglings in their pride, their submissive…they were all dead.
The only thing keeping them sane right now was the fact that it hadn’t happened. Yet. They were all gathered in the common room of their pride house, and there was no wolf in sight. But what they’d all seen would happen, if they didn’t change the course of their actions.