Spider silks spinning passing pings,

Children connected with words in wind,

Tattle twins and their muted mutterings,

Talk to Chaelyn through the strings.

Amerys clapped along, grinning as she sat on a log and beat her palms against the wood. Thump, thump. A steady tune, thudding with every rhyme. Venti sat on her head as I played my lute, the three of us swaying side to side. My voice felt better to me now. More natural. I sang with a little more of the confidence I lacked before.

Whispering willow, wandering wings,

Busted bottles and beaten bins,

Children searching, seeking sustenance in,

Stale bread and discarded things.

Pass a coin to Chaelyn, small and thin,

Singing, sending sitting leaves a-spin,

Let life give the orphan girl a win,

Make her smile with a coin’s generous glint.

“Hey! Hey!” Amerys cheered, raising her arms as the song came to an end. She stared at my lute, her eyes bright. “That was great!”

“It’s one of my favorite songs,” I nodded. “Of course it’s amazing.”

“What’s it called?”

“A Coin For Chaelyn. You don’t know the song?”

Amerys sighed and shook her head, “I don’t get to visit the taverns much, and all they ever have here is my mother’s poopy court orchestra. I don’t get it. Songs like this are so much better.”

I raised a finger, “No, no. There’s merit in all music. We just have superior taste.”

“That’s true. Mother doesn’t even ask for crickets before breakfast.”

“What does she have for appetizers, then?”

“Snails.”

How posh. I stood from the log with a shake of the head, bringing my lute up with me. I stretched my arms over my head and turned to the thirteenth princess. She was leaning forward, elbows on her knees, watching me like I was some interesting creature she found under the roots of an oak.

I held the lute out to her, “Want to hold it?”

Amerys grinned and snatched it from my grip, immediately fiddling with the strings. Venti cast a glance between the both of us.

“If she runs away from her responsibilities to become a musician, you’ll be at fault.”

“It’s not my fault music has such an effect on people. And it would be a sign of my success as a bard if she did, no?”

“A bad influence down to the core.”

Smiling wryly, I patted the dust off my pants and turned back towards the manor. Compared to the night before, I felt lighter. The thought of father weighed on me still, but now… I was free, I supposed. I could see him any time I wanted. Even if he didn’t remember me. And here in Felzan, as a young immortal acquainted with the Summerskies, I could practice my craft in peace.

There were plenty of taverns in need of a good song, after all.

I raised an eyebrow towards Amerys, “Can I leave that lute with you for a while?”

She blinked.

“You’re going already?”

“Just for a while. Are your parents here? I didn’t show up to the dinner last night, so I’d like to show my face at least once.”

“Ugh. Adult stuff, then. I’m not going.”

Amerys stuck her tongue out as if she’d just eaten something bitter. She waved me off with a dismissive grunt, and Venti copied the gesture, well satisfied on her perch over the princess’s head. Amerys poked at the lute as she swatted at the air.

“Mother’s in her office, so shoo. I’ll master this thing while you’re gone.”

“Don’t go breaking it, then. See you.”

I turned away from them both, before bringing my bansuri to my lips. I played a short Galesong and the wind burst forward, rushing out from under me and sending me over the treetops. I glided over the leaves and landed back on the terrace, yawning. I pursed my lips at the sensation of sleepiness that came over me. It was annoying, now that I hardly needed it.

I’d already missed out on twenty one years. The fact that my half-mortal body was asking me to waste even more time was just adding insult to injury. It was really only offset by the fact that I could enjoy food again.

I sighed. Everything was a damn trade nowadays.

I placed my weave over myself as I entered the manor, Ashran’s guise coming over me with a new face once again. Today, I was a button-nosed man with sharp eyes, sporting slicked back hair that was reminiscent of white grass. I turned a corner and stopped one of the servants, asking for directions.

The man’s eyes lit up in recognition as he looked at the color of my hair.

“Sir Ashran! You’ve come,” he said, standing straight as he motioned down the hall. “Would you like breakfast?”

I shook my head, “No, no need. I’m looking for the head of the house?”

“Ah. The miss, then,” he said, before bowing and turning on his heel. “Please, follow me.”

Blinking, I joined him as he strode down the halls. It seemed like the manor was ready to receive me as soon as I made myself available. I had to admit, the idea made me uncomfortable. Nobles of the Twelve Houses? Waiting for me and not the other way around? It would have been flattering, had it been for my ability to play music. But as it was, I was shown respect for my status as an immortal—a status I didn’t even fully understand the value of yet.

I was no ancient monster, holding centuries’ worth of secrets and knowledge. I was just a bard barely under twenty. And yet, here they were, showing me courtesy for a status I hardly earned.

I pursed my lips.

I wonder when it was that immortality had gone from ‘curse’ to ‘status’ for me. Even now, I was still conflicted over which exactly it was. Would my life be better without it? Or was the potential for happiness it gave me worth the price I paid for it? I didn't know. And I didn't have the patience to dwell on it.

The servant led me to the third floor west wing, stopping in front of a pair of stylized, mahogany doors.

“The miss is inside, sir,” the servant bowed, excusing himself. “Please enter.”

He left without another word and I hesitated, glancing up at the massive office entrance. It was kind of stupid that I was nervous, considering I’d just casually eaten termites with a young princess, but this place had an air of importance to it. It felt official. It felt as if I would be walking into something I wasn’t ready for if I entered.

I gulped and stepped forward. I knocked on the door. Pushed it open.

It slid open without so much as a creak.

A red, carpeted floor greeted me on the other side, embroidered with designs in the house’s colors of gold and orange. Sweeping bookcases lined the walls, ending where a massive window peered out into the city outside. In front of the window was a desk and a woman with smooth, crimson hair. Like fire and sparks turned solid. The blue-white light from outside spilled over her shoulders and onto the desk.

They shone over a piece of paper the woman was writing on, the smooth calligraphy gliding over the page. She signed it and passed it to her guest, sitting across her.

Ilya Iseah Summersky, Matriarch of the Summersky House, turned her eyes up to me and smiled.

“You were right, lady Nashandra. He did come.”

Her guest raised her head, and the pale woman in a ravenfeather cloak met my eyes from behind her silver mask. She set down the contract she was reading and stood, walking up to me. She was tall and spindly, like a spider. I took a step back as I recognized the immortal from the songs—the mistress of death, the omen of end. She reached out to grab my shoulder…

And the Lady of Crows pulled me into a hug. I stiffened up at the sudden contact, my eyes wide, “Who—”

“Boy,” the lady whispered, and I blinked.

“Vivian?”

Her hold over me tightened and glancing to the side, I noticed that my perception of time had slowed around us. Sorcery. Vivian’s. The Lady of Crows nodded, “You noticed. Good. Listen, boy. I am your guardian, who took care of you in the absence of your parents. Understood?”

I frowned and gave her a look, “What are you on about?”

“Bah. Just play along. I want to get this over with.”

She pulled away, and the flow of time returned to normal. Vivian—no, Nashandra—turned back towards the matriarch of the Summersky house. Her weave shimmered around her, Vivian’s real form present underneath, seen only by me. She gestured to me and nodded.

“My crows see all,” Nashandra said. “He was in your garden, seeing the sights.”

Iseah rose from her chair and nodded, curtseying towards me, “Sir Ashran. I’ve heard much about you from my son. Thank you for your assistance on the front lines.” She motioned to the chairs in front of her desk, the motion as smooth as water running over silk. “Please, sit. Both of you.”

Nashandra and I sat, and the woman smiled pleasantly towards me.

“Your visit to the city was pleasant, I hope?”

Unsure of what to say, I settled for a nod, “It was, lady Iseah.”

“I’m happy to hear it,” she replied, before motioning to Nashandra beside me. “Your mentor and I were just discussing your arrival. She says you have a personal connection to Miss Elanah Kindlebright?”

So that’s what this was about. Our deal. I glanced at Nashandra and rolled my eyes, before turning back to Iseah. I nodded.

“Elanah and I are acquainted, yes. Why do you ask?”

“Just curiosity, sir Ashran. Miss Elanah is infamous for having few colleagues—much less one that is supposedly her match. Will your mentor meet with her?”

“She will. I’m assuming that thing between both of you is a letter of introduction?”

Nashandra nodded, “Precisely. I will need your signature, boy. A visit between alchemists in the front lines requires such a recommendation. If only for the sake of documentation.”

I glanced at her, “And once I sign this, the trade is over, no?”

“It will be fulfilled.”

I reached for the pen and wrote my own note at the bottom. ‘This is Vivian, Elanah. Do me a favor and help her,’ it said, and I signed my name—my real name—underneath, if only by reflex. The letters came out jagged and broken, in shifting, distorted shapes. I frowned at it. Even in text, it was gone. No mortal sense would know who I really was. Gripping the pen a little tighter, I signed Ashran’s name beside the broken letters.

At the very least, the distorted text would serve to prove my identity. A little bit of extra authenticity, thought I was sure Iseah hardly needed it.

I passed the letter to the lady of the house, and Iseah tucked it into an envelope. She dripped wax over it and reached for the seal nearby. I watched in interest as she pressed it down over the wax, the glyphs on the stamp lighting up. She infused her mana signature onto the seal.

She passed it over to Nashandra, who snatched the letter away with the blur of a hand.

The Lady of Crows stood and nodded to the both of us, “With that, my business here concludes. I will leave for the front lines now, Lady of Fire. Ashran. But before I depart…”

Nashandra reached into her cloak of feathers and retrieved a seed the size of her fist. It was shaped like a walnut, thick and bulbous, with a crag down the middle that smelled faintly of pine. She handed it to me and I felt something in my chest shift. It was a familiar feeling now; a trade, fulfilled.

“You’ve done your part, boy. We were separated, and I was unable to teach you everything you asked for. This seed is my apology.”

I looked down at it with a raised eyebrow. Whatever this seed was, the trade recognized it as worth more than any lesson Vivian could offer me now. “What is this thing? It seems valuable.”

“It is many things. Plant it and find out.”

With that, the Lady of Crows transformed into a small raven with piercing, green eyes. She made for the window.

“Vivian,” I said, and she stopped. Nashandra turned towards me. “There’s a Fae in the front lines. Freyarch Farce.”

The little raven stiffened, “From the Winter Court?”

“No. But he knows of them.”

“Then he is safe.”

She shot out of the open window behind lady Iseah, and just like that, Vivian was gone. I pinched the bridge of my nose. Always in a hurry, that greedy old woman. She got what she wanted and ditched us as soon as she had it in her hands. She and Elanah would get along.

And now, with her gone, I was left in an uncomfortable spot. I glanced to my right and saw lady Iseah, casually taking a sip from a cup of tea. What in Ancestor’s roots was I supposed to say now?

As if sensing my distress, lady Iseah set her cup down.

“Are you uncomfortable with formality, sir Ashran?”

I blinked at her and hesitated, “Well, I wouldn’t say uncomfortable, but…”

She smiled knowingly, “I get it. Stifling, no? I won’t force it down your throat. The Lady of Crows demands I speak to her like this, but I understand how tiresome all these courtly manners are. May I address you informally, so we can move on from this bothersome way of speech?”

“Please. Sure.”

At my words, the woman’s posture shifted. It was a slight thing—a small dip in her shoulders, drawing inward, and her smile, suddenly relaxing from the unreadable mask that it was before. She seemed like any mother now, albeit one that wore the clothes of a noble. I resisted the urge to narrow my eyes at her. What was the act? What was real?

If she thought anything about the way I stared, Iseah didn’t show it. “Thank you,” she said, before standing and walking away from her desk. She lifted a kettle from beside a bookshelf, “Do you want some tea, Ashran? It might make you a little less wary of me.”

I nodded, and she began pouring me a cup. I sat back on my chair, watching.

“This is practiced,” I said. “Isn’t it?”

She glanced at me and smiled in amusement.

“If you live the kind of life my family lives, you would understand. Everything I do is practiced to an extent. I hope it doesn’t offend you, Ashran. It’s simply the way I am.”

“Is your daughter the same?”

Iseah chuckled, “If she was, then she is a better actor than I am. No, Amerys still rebels against the way things are for us. Dirtying her dresses, sneaking into the city, making a mess in the midst of children from the other houses… it’s a headache. But she is a good child. I sent her off to play in the gardens today knowing you might run into her. It was a good way of measuring your character before you arrived.”

“And if I was the kind of immortal who’d kill your daughter for disrespecting me, what then?”

Her eyes flashed with something dark, “Then I would have you hunted down and killed to the best of my ability.”

“That’s awfully honest of you.”

“Lying to you would hardly do me any favors. It would be better to start off on the wrong foot than make an enemy of you later, no?”

The lady of the Summersky house joined me at the table again, setting my cup down in front of me. Back to a calm expression, once again. I sipped at the tea in silence, trying to process our conversation so far. It was obvious that she thought I was someone she needed to have good relations with. It said a lot of good about her that she was being so upfront about it.

But on the other hand, it said much about the kind of person she was that she’d risk her daughter just to measure my character.

That was all it took for me to dislike her ways. And she seemed to accept that.

I sighed.

“I’m just a bard, Iseah. I’m not looking to dabble in your wars or politics. I came to Felzan to see my father, and that’s all. I just helped Halcyn out because I didn’t want the Crimson Tide to reach my family here.” I put my cup down and shook my head, “Thank you, but with all due respect to whatever you’re planning to sell, I’m not interested.”

Iseah smiled and shrugged, “It was worth a try. Young immortals make for good allies, after all. It seems my daughter has done a better job at it than I have.”

“You say that, but I only see happiness on your face.”

“Of course. My daughter has made a friend. While you may not fight our wars or dance in our courts, you’d still help Amerys if she was in dire need of it, no? Or at the very least save her life, simply because you’ve shared a laugh with her. You don’t strike me as the type not to.”

Her words made me want to laugh. I was an open book to her. A piece in a game she was playing, stepping on the tiles she wanted me to step on. It was a small victory, true. But she’d won something from me regardless. I stood from my seat, “Thank you for the tea, but I’ll be taking my leave. If I stay for any longer, you might convince me to do more. You’re terrifying, Iseah. No offense.”

Her eyes twinkled with mischief, “Being called terrifying by an immortal? Ha! I think I enjoy it.”

“You can call me that if I’m still alive in two centuries. Right now, I’m just a musician trying to figure his life out.”

“Of course. Will you be staying in the manor?”

“It would be shameless of me to. I’ll take an inn.”

“And your friend? The… slime?”

“I’ll see if I can drag her out before you sink your claws into her as well.”

Iseah laughed and waved me off, turning her attention back to the papers on her desk. The noblewoman started writing with an amused look, “She’s in the room at the end of the hall.”

I stepped out of the room through a shadow, emerging on the other side of the wall. I made my way towards Aami’s room with a new conviction:

I was never messing around with nobles again. Not unless I wanted to turn into Elanah.