We arranged for a squad of Cabbits to deliver the queen’s message to Dabia. When they arrived, she looked down on the furry creatures as though monsters had invaded the castle. It was only when Kalli chastised her that she handed them a sealed letter. “Please deliver this only to the King of Dabia.”

The cabbit ignored the queen and looked me in the eyes, saying, “It will be done, my emperor.”

Celestea tutted as the Cabbits left the room. I turned my attention to Kalli.

I have an idea. We should get Esha to gather up the smelliest trolls in Wrotor and bring them here to give your mom some sensitivity training.

Kalli pushed me away playfully. That would be counterproductive. Let her warm up to them on her own. A lot of nonhumans are coming to Celestea. I am sure she will do the right thing in the end.

Kalli was right. Over the next few weeks, floods of people both human and non began to arrive in Celestea. Most arrived in caravans with all of their worldly belongings in hand-drawn carts. While the nonhumans still had New Wrotor and The City Under the Mountain to call home, many still made their way to Celestea to start a new life in the old capital.

Queen Celestea showed a side of her that Kalli and I had never seen before, meeting the newcomers with a grace that she didn’t project when we were with her in private. The castle refused to allow her to sit on the throne, so she was forced to grant audiences elsewhere.

She chose to fashion her throne out of a high-backed chair that she had Charles drag out of the castle to a gazebo near the center of town.

Celestea constantly grumbled at Kalli. “I don’t see why you can’t tell the castle that I am still the queen. It would make everything so much easier.”

Kalli looked down, not meeting her mother’s eyes. “I can’t. It doesn’t work that way.”

I secretly knew that Kalli never tried to give up her ownership of the castle or her castle-appointed royal title. Of course, I also had a secret. When nobody was looking, I made a few requests of my own to the castle. Being Kalli’s mate had some perks and the castle happily obliged.

After that first night, Kalli and I had taken up sleeping in the Queen Suite again. While Shiviria and Kalli were still joined at the hip during the day, she no longer refused to sleep alone.

Even though she had no experience with people, Shiviria had a natural affinity for the orphans that had arrived in Celestea. She joined Kalli in entertaining them and came up with a good idea. “Why don’t we just have them move into the castle? There are so many rooms and they don’t have families.”

“That’s a great idea,” Kalli said. “We need to get the littles from the orphanage I grew up with to come here as well. You’ll love them.”

“Do you want to go pick them up?”I asked, realizing we could get there quickly by using the Thief’s Corridor.

Kalli’s mouth dropped open, seeing the thought as it formed in my head.“Yes. Can we do that now, please?

Wendy, who was also with us, asked, “Can we make a second stop? Joe and Rundell have arrived at the Corridor near Dabia. I’d like to bring them back.”

That reminded me that the army was currently parked near the human capital and I needed to decide what to do with them. Noticing that Wendy was still waiting for an answer, I replied. “Sure, we can get them first.”

We appeared directly under Dabia. At first, I didn’t see them, but it was impossible to mask the sounds of thousands of soldiers, so we followed our ears to where the army was camped out. Walking around a bend in the Thief’s Corridor, I saw them. As far as the eye could see, soldiers of every shape and size sat in camps that looked to have been around for weeks.

Wendy ran off the moment she saw Joe. I watched in silence as she threw herself into his arms and they embraced. I was so distracted that I didn’t notice Nolgrit’s approach until he was standing next to me. “Greetings, my lord. What brings you to the march? Any word from the capital?”

I smiled as I clumsily returned the dwarf’s salute. “Wendy wanted to get Joe and take him back to Meltopia.”

“Ah, yes. That.” The dwarf replied. When he hesitated, I urged him to continue. “You see, we are hearing stories from the guild that Celestea Castle has risen from the ashes. Some of the men want to know what that means.”

I shrugged at Nolgrit and replied, “To be fair, I don’t know either. Kalli turned out to be a princess. Queen Celestea has sent a message to Dabia to meet with the royal family, so there’s a chance that we might be officially recognized that way.”

I left out the parts about the contract, the missing cat, and the shadow people that wanted to kill us. There were too many variables at play that I couldn’t figure out.

“What do you want us to do?” Nolgrit asked after a long silence.

Looking to Kalli for guidance, I sighed, “I suppose we should call the army back to the empire. I’d hate to get anyone else killed if it isn’t absolutely necessary.”

“You speak as though we’d lose,” Nolgrit said in a low tone. “Don’t underestimate the lesser races.”

“But Dabia has mages and other awakened,” I replied, parroting what I had been told in the past.

The dwarf laughed, slapping his belly with brawny hands. “Do you think we haven’t come up with ways to deal with magic over the years? Each race has evolved to adapt. That includes humans and their pesky magic. You went a step further and awakened us. We have been training and leveling for nearly a month now. I think you will be surprised the next time we do battle.”

“Were there always this many people here?” I asked, scanning the sea of soldiers.

“It took you long enough to notice,” Nolgrit laughed, running his fingers over the axe handle at his side. “More join us every day. Your army has tripled in size since we began the march.”

I groaned when I realized how far behind I was getting on awakening people. There was no way I was going to be able to do everyone.

Shiviria was not happy. When we arrived at Hellquist village, the group was forced to squeeze through a narrow passage to get out of the Thief’s Corridor. Wearing a dress that she had found in the castle, the young girl emerged covered in muck.

She groaned when she saw that Kalli’s dress had transformed into overalls and was spotless. “That isn’t fair. You had a dress on too when we left this morning.”

Kalli stuck her tongue out at her sister and explained. “This is a magic dress that I can make turn into anything. Do you want my help with your dress?”

“What do you mean?” Shiviria asked, looking unsure.

“This is my best trick,” Kalli explained, holding her hands out toward Shiviria. “I use it on Melvin all the time.”

I had a flashback to the first time Kalli cleaned me when she didn’t give her sister a chance to prepare.

“Pvruzth”

It felt like I was having an out-of-body experience as I watched Kalli’s flame wash over her sister. She shrieked and squealed. “No no no no! Stop. Hey, that tickles. Watch where you’re touching…”

Before we knew it, Kalli was done. When the flame retracted into the Pyromancer’s closed fist, her sister’s dress looked like it was fresh from the cleaners.

Shiviria slowly picked herself up off of the ground and straightened out the material of her dress, looking for blemishes. “Okay, that was scary. Don’t ever do that again. I thought you were going to burn me.”

Kallu huffed. “I have more control than that, dear sister. Ask Melvin if I ever burned him.”

Shiviria raised an eyebrow at her sister. “You do that to Melvin? And he lets you?”

Wanting to change the subject, I pointed at Shirivia’s butt which had been on the ground and was still dirty. “You missed a spot.”

The girl yelped when Kalli corrected the error.

A short while later, our group made its way into Hellquist village once again. It was me, Kalli, Shiviria, Wendy, Joe, Rundell, and the two human guards Honora and Palmer. Shiviria was pouting and walking a few paces behind us but as we got closer, she nudged her sister and asked, “Do you think I will ever be able to do that with my magic?”

“Do what?” Kalli asked. “I am sure there are a lot of things you are going to be able to do.”

“You know.” She hesitated, fidgeting with her dress. “I want to know if I’ll be able to clean someone with ice.”

“I can do it with wind magic,” Wendy informed the princess.

I laughed, remembering Wendy explaining her self-cleaning methods. “She’s right. When she wanted to clean herself she let out a huge…”

“TMI!” Wendy growled, sending a gust of wind at me that knocked me off balance. “All you need to know is that you can do a lot of things with your natural element when you learn control.”

“I can’t wait!” Shiviria exclaimed with a grin.

As we approached the monastery, all I could look at was the big house on the hill and remember Lady Hellquist which made my blood boil. I turned to Kalli and stopped walking.

I promised to take everyone out of this place. What do you think?

Kalli followed my gaze over to the various buildings in town. Mel, I have to be honest. I don’t know any of those people. They aren’t the kind of people who care much for orphans. They ignored me and I ignored them. Well, except for when they had jobs for me.

The truth was that my reasoning for wanting to take the people with me was selfish. I didn’t care about them so much as hurting Lady Hellquist for everything she did to us. A feeling of shame washed over me as I turned back toward the monastery.

As we got closer, I saw Wilfred and his cronies hanging out near the front doors. I expected them to run away again but they approached us as we made our way over. Wilfred stopped right in our path, arms folded across his chest. I heaved a sigh and asked, “Are we really going to do this again? You have to know we’re awakened by now. Do us both a favor and get out of here.”

Ignoring my declaration, he asked, “Are you going to take us to a better place? It’s all anybody talks about these days.”

I glared at the boy. “I don’t know. Are you going to stop picking on Kalli? Or anybody else for that matter?”

“She started it.” One of the boys standing behind Wildred shouted. “She bosses us around when the reverend mother is watching.”

Kalli scowled at them. “That was my job! We had chores to do and you boys never pulled your weight. I just wanted to finish so we could eat lunch.”

One of the boys started to say something but Wilfred held a hand up to silence him. “Look, we promise not to bully anyone. Just, please let us come along. I know we have a history but you know we will die alone out here.”

“I never intended to leave you behind,” Kalli said quietly. “Just because I don’t like you doesn’t mean I’d ever let you suffer. Not if I can help it.”

I took Kalli’s hand and stepped around the boys, headed for the monastery door. When they didn’t move, I called back to them. “Come on. We need to get the littles ready. I can’t teleport out here. We will need to go back to the Corridor first.”

“The what?” Wilfred asked, turning to follow us.