It’s come to my attention that many are worried I will outlaw dismemberment of the feet with the skeleton legion in mind. These groundless fears have nothing to stand on, as necromancers are more than capable of constructing skeletons balanced on two peg legs or simply animating boots.

Yes, this means that your foot collections are safe and may continue to grow. You sick, deviant creatures.

- Dronn the Everlasting, Tyrant of Secv Serith speaking to the aristocracy.

Lycanthropy was a subject I’d been very interested in when I was younger. With the way that the Heavens yanked on my strings every other day, the idea of acting on my most violent instincts, preferably while close to the Shepards, while also being empowered by lunar energies to become stronger and ignoring physical ailments such as dismemberment had been very tempting. Many a night I had spent hours staring up at the blackness of my ceiling, fending off sleep with nighttime daydreams of ripping Avien apart.

However, the more I learned of the topic the less interested I became. Rugic had a lunar cycle of twenty eight days and nights, while Nebes’ cycle was a round thirty days, meaning Nikolai clawed his way up from the Hells less frequently than werewolves lost control. My experiences getting locked inside every month while that demonic thing stalked Veliki had gone a good ways towards putting me off the idea, since it and a werewolf were basically the same thing.

To say nothing about my eventual experience with another kind of cycle.

And lycanthropes only cared about the second moon, Rugic. Nebes, which represented the location of the Heavens in proximity to Santoria, had no effect on the wolf cursed. Some legends said that one way of finding an untransformed werewolf was by asking the suspect what phase Nebes was in, as lycanthropes are forsaken, and therefore could not see it in the sky. For the Heavens do not watch over the forsaken.

Whether that was true or not, I had no idea. But I had listened to many adventurers telling their personal werewolf story, since it seemed they were common enough that every person that ended up in Veliki had a werewolf story.

Even my dad, though he never told me his. My fascination only ever disturbed him until it eventually went away.

The point was that there were some things I was sure of, simply because I’d heard the same thing from two or more retired adventurers who would normally be at each other’s throats. Werewolves were supernaturally strong, for one, even when untransformed. That strength only sometimes appearing as actual muscle before the wolf came out. For another, silver was needed to damage them no matter the circumstance. Moreover, their senses of smell and hearing, while not at the same level as an actual wolf, were far better than an average person's while untransformed.

Wolfsbane, a common weed that could be found practically everywhere, was not actually a bane in the typical sense. Mundane wolves enjoyed the scent of the plant, and so chewed on it. Since it was a mild poison with pleasurable effects to the point of distracting said wolves from hunting and making them writhe around on the ground, hence making them scarcely a threat, it had been granted the name of bane.

When it came to werewolves, wolfsbane acted in exactly the same way. Normal people, on the other hand, had no such infatuation with the weed. If someone like me wanted to experience what a wolf did when chewing wolfsbane, I’d need to extract oil from the plant and boil it into a tea while adding a strand of wolf fur to the concoction. Avien’s transmutation sage had been kind enough to prepare me such a brew when I’d been going through my werewolf phase.

To tell a long story in two words: Never again.

Unfortunately, wolfsbane wouldn’t be of much use during a full moon. While a werewolf at such a time would be completely controlled by their animalistic side and likely hunting, they’d still possess their untransformed cunning. If someone with lycanthropy had survived more than a single full moon, then they were likely a very cunning wolf. Chances were they’d rather pursue an active hunt than get sidetracked by an intoxicating but not meaty smell.

As for the whole silver thing, a werewolf’s regeneration was strange. The creatures regenerated, even when untransformed. Though the speed at which they regenerated is slower when untransformed, and then again when the moon isn’t out, with the effect being more dramatic the farther away the full moon was.

When it came to actually killing them, silver to werewolves was like fire to trolls. It was possible to kill a werewolf without silver but you’d need to end their life with a single blow, which would involve removing their head, piercing their heart, or drowning them. Magic was a substitute, if variably effective, meaning my magic dagger would be my lifeline should such a beast appear before me.

Without silver or magic, the best anyone could hope to accomplish would be punching a werewolf around, maybe throw one through a pillar and hope the falling roof killed them. It was safe to say that I wasn’t capable of that. Taranath actually had a story about killing a werewolf that way. That one was actually one of my favourites.

Not because of the method of killing, to be clear. It was because the werewolf was a pompous bard who spent the entire story up to that point telling wolf jokes, misdirecting Taranath and his companions with irony that turned out to be completely serious.

One time he literally described how he’d kill a victim if he was a wolf after they found the body, and they discovered that the evidence perfectly matched his supposed joke.

Somehow, I didn’t think I’d get a character like that here.

The people that I suspected were old man Silvurium, Lavenner, and all the rest of the maids and hidden guards, the latter of which I was beginning to suspect didn’t exist, having found no trace of them. My list would be longer, but I only knew of the people in the building I was in. There were at least four other mansions that could be occupied, and I wasn’t about to believe anyone with enough money to have such grandiose mansions would leave them without maintenance.

Winters and Scout weren’t on this list. They were part of an organisation that relied on precise strikes and subterfuge. I found it hard to believe they would have an agent that accidentally got bit, became cursed, and then got stationed near all the rich people without anyone else finding out.

But on the other hand, if they wanted to generate a little bit of chaos, that was an outstanding method to do just that. Winters was back on my list.

As it stood I had a lot of reason to be suspicious, and next to no evidence beyond a warning from a little girl and a fortunately timed howl coupled with a glance up at Rugic.

I glanced up again as I passed another tall window. As I saw before, it was waxing to full, and was nearly there. My studies of the moon from my time wanting to be a werewolf weren’t as clear as they used to be, so I couldn’t tell if Rugic was one or two days away from being full.

But that brought another question to bear. If Rugic wasn’t full yet, then why had I heard a howl?

My walk stopped by yet another tall window, and I looked out at the black landscape beyond. The only hint of a horizon was from the stars twinkling above the canopy of a forest in the distance, which I only knew was there from looking in that direction in the daytime. Not for the first time, I found myself wishing I knew the secret to darkvision magics, if only I’d been taught the fundamentals. There was a lycanthrope out there somewhere, and if I could just make out movement I’d be able to see where it was coming and going from.

It was a smart werewolf. It had to be. Only those who embraced the curse or were born cursed could willingly transform. Otherwise I'd have heard nothing.

I found myself wishing that Jevi were here to cast her magic on me. Then I’d be able to figure something out. But unfortunately, she was yet to arrive. Scout had mentioned they’d likely take half a week to arrive, and the moment I met up with her we were going to leave this place behind anyway.

It was a stupid thought. One that I shook from my mind after lingering on it for longer than I maybe should have.

What I needed to do was start mixing methods of finding lycanthropes into the work I did for Lysis. Hopefully she wouldn’t work me as hard as she had today, so I’d have a little leeway for that stuff. Ideally nothing would come of it, and I’d leave without incident. And I’d want to stay in disguise while I did all that, which would be the hardest thing.

Just the stuff I’d done today had me feeling as though I’d somehow regained a little bit of my resurrection fatigue. I had my doubts about how much a night’s rest would shift that fatigue.

To say nothing of that thought about leaving without incident. Avien somehow chancing upon me in Burden Bridge had vividly coloured my expectations of such things moving forward.

“That expression doesn’t suit you, Amber.”

The sound of Lavenner commenting on my face took me off guard. I wasn’t properly in character though, so I forgot to jump. “Oh. Hi, Lavenner!” Caught out as I was, applying false tension to my strings was still the work of batting an eyelid. “Sorry, I was thinking. Or trying to think…” I trailed off purposefully, and let the head maid use some expectant silence on me. “You really surprised me there! I didn’t hear you at all.”

I truly hadn’t, which was worrying. My listening glyphs were active.

Lavenner gave me a matronly smile. She had a basket with crumpled fabric in one hand, and used the other to give me a pat on my head. I closed one eye and let it happen, though my true nature screamed at me to make her stop. “I know it’s difficult, not properly remembering all the things that you should. But take heart. They who put you here have your best interests in mind.”

I almost snorted. They who put me here was a voyeuristic mirror dragon. “It would be easier if I knew who you were talking about.”

“As do I.” Lavenner said kindly, moving to stand next to me and look out the window. “Did you hear the howl?”

“Mhm.” Normally I’d just say ‘yes’, but that seemed more cute.

“Terrible business. A werewolf, if you would believe. Fortunately, there only seems to be one, and one that isn’t all that aggressive, either.” Lavenner said. I looked at her with concerned eyes, waiting for more exposition. “Since two moons ago, shortly after we arrived, actually. Guards have been turning up mauled, if not outright dead.”

A hand suddenly cupping my cheek nearly made me flinch away. “But you won’t need to worry about that. No maids are to go outside after dusk when Rugic is lighting the night.”

I smiled, but I was very worried. Lavenner had just claimed that the werewolf had arrived at roughly the same time that she did. If Silvurium was the kind of noble to bring his macho maids around with him as he traveled, then those maids were my prime suspects as far as the werewolf went. Lavenner herself was probably safe, seeing how the werewolf was out and about right now and she was next to me being very much not a werewolf.

“Thank you.” I said with a grateful smile. “Maybe I’ll-”

Something growled, low and menacing.

I immediately crouched, one hand going under my dress to grip the handle of my dagger as I looked around. There was nobody else in the hallway we were in, but then I heard the growl again, coming from outside.

Looking down, I didn’t see anything.

Then I saw grey fur shift in the darkness of the night. It wasn’t much, I only caught a glimpse. But it was definitely there. Had been there. The shifting was from it moving away.

“Did you see that?” I asked Lavenner in a hushed tone, though I was well aware a werewolf’s hearing made such efforts futile.

“I think I caught a glimpse.” She said. One of her hands was buried in the basket of bloth, and I could feel a familiar weight in the air receding. “It was right there on our property. I need to inform master Silvurium.”

“What should I do?”

The question caught Lavenner off guard for a moment. “Come with me.” She told me insistently. “It only attacks people when they’re alone. You’ll be safer with me.”

I nodded dutifully and hurried to follow the older maid. Now that I was looking for them, I found signs that spoke of a higher level of training in the woman. People that I passed on the street in any of the three towns I had visited moved around clumsily, which had been a stark difference to the people I’d grown up around. Lavenner had a grace that I normally would have ascribed to Wrenn, and only when he was doing something difficult like walking up a pipe.

And I wasn’t too sure when I had become sensitive to the use of magic in my general vicinity, but whatever she had prepared to do had alerted my senses. There were more such traces that threatened to tickle the bridge of my nose and make me sneeze as we went around corner after corner to where Silvurium’s room was.

We must have gone around thirteen corners and two secret passages, the Silvurium manor was that large. Of course, since it didn’t rearrange itself at will like a certain blue fey lord’s house did, I was pretty confident I could find my way back if I needed it to. Soon enough Lavenner was reassuring another maid that had arrived at the old man’s door looking distressed, and knocked after sending said maid away.

I kept my eye on the hem of her dress. It may have just been me expecting to see something but I was pretty sure she had knives strapped to her shin, much like I did.

“Enter.” Old man Silvurium said from inside, and I followed Lavenner when she gestured me to.

The room had a big four posted bed that nearly matched Taranath’s guest bed in size, and the man who was meant to sleep there was standing by the windows overlooking the darkness below. He had one arm leaned against the wall where the window was affixed, and the way he was pressing the curtain there gave him an asymmetrical silhouette.

“What is it?” He asked, all business. None of the sympathetic old noble man that had greeted me earlier today.

“Master, the werewolf was sighted earlier, on the courtyard.” Lavenner explained. “It was looking at us. Amber was with me at the time.”

“Yes. I did hear the howling.”

“That’s not it. The werewolf left us alone the past two moons, but the very day a Chosen One arrived here…”

“You are saying the lycan sniffed her out.” Silvurium stated.

“Um.” I said. Normally I’d just say what I wanted to say, but my honest and eager to please disguise would ask permission first.

Silvurium glanced back at us, then turned fully after a moment. “Amber. Lavenner brought you here with her.”

He said that evenly. So much so that I couldn’t tell how he felt about my being here, even though the words alone implied he hadn’t been expecting me. However, that was tacit enough permission to speak unless my ability to read people had been crippled.

“You called the werewolf a lycan, but that’s wrong. Lycans are shifters that can take on wolf like characteristics, and they aren’t forsaken by the Heavens. Calling a lycan a werewolf, or the other way around, it’s very rude. Sir.” I added hastily when the old man’s brow suddenly furrowed. “Sorry. I-”

“It’s fine, Amber. Just some unpleasant thoughts.” He beckoned Lavenner forward and began whispering with her. The exchange was clearly not meant for my ears, but I had received a blessing from a voyeuristic mirror dragon.

Voyeurism, specifically. I didn’t need to shape the magic in my ears since it was already as solid as it could be.

Surprisingly, Lavenner was the one who spoke first. “You should not have let her outside.” Her whisper was more of a hiss.

Silvurium didn’t like that one bit, because he responded in kind. “The alternative was to keep her inside. I will not entrap a growing young girl like that.”

“You are playing with lives if you continue this path.”

“Do we not do that already?”

“Innocent lives, master! Innocents!”

“Innocent to the games I play, that may be true. But do not think for a second that anyone here is free from the red dirt. From the youngest girl to the eldest man, none in Luzi Lake are pure.”

I caught him glancing at me discretely. We made eye contact, and I made sure to smile brightly with a trace of worry.

“Except for perhaps, a single exception.”

Oh. That was rich.

Impressive that I fooled him though.

“The men of other nobles will continue to perish.” Silvurium finished.

“And what happens when the werewolf turns its gaze here?” Lavenner pressed, clearly unsatisfied. “It already saw her. When the full moon comes-”

“How is our silver reserve?” Silvurium interrupted, now speaking closer to his normal volume.

Lavenner took a breath without making it seem the sigh it obviously was. “We still have two ingots, master.”

Silvurium abruptly turned my way. “Tell me Amber, what is your preferred method of self defence?”

I blinked, showing up my ‘surprise’ at suddenly being addressed. “Oh, I- I’m- I have a weapon or two I’m trained in I suppose, but I’d prefer to not need to. Why? Is something the matter?”

“The behaviour of the local werewolf is errant as ever, and it seems they have taken an interest in you.” Silvurium explained. “As you are here to recuperate until you are well enough to continue on your quest, whatever that may be, there are precautions I must see to if I want to stay in the good graces of the Heavens. Most importantly, that you are not only safe, but able to defend yourself.”

I didn’t need to act for the smile that appeared at my lips. To hear those words after arguing for years just to get a bow, only for it to snap and have things result in me dying when I tried to learn the sword… It was satisfying, and it sounded like Silvurium was about to let me in on some secret family technique to that end.

Lavenner misinterpreted my smile. “Master, Amber already has some means of ‘self defence’. Amber, if you would show master Silvurium your artefact.”

Nodding, I reached down to lift up my dress, only to freeze and blush. This, unlike the smile, was an act. I had no shame in this sense. It was to sell the disguise.

“Ah.” Silvurium let out a sound of understanding and turned his back as Lavenner interposed herself between us. I told him when I was done retrieving my dagger and he turned back around. His eyes lit up the moment he saw my dagger.

“Such an exquisite sheen!” Suddenly, he was like an excited child. “What enchantments does it have? Wait, don’t tell me. Lavenner, retrieve my identification sphere. Amber, may I hold it?” I nodded hesitantly, and allowed him to take it handle first. He immediately flinched, but that only seemed to redouble his excitement. “Fascinating!”

He inspected it from a few angles and made a few thrusts before setting it down on a desk opposite his bed. Lavenner placed a sphere strewn with enchantments that I recognised from my time with the divination sage. Normally low level magics had been glossed over, but a vital component of spellcasting was knowing what the hell you were dealing with. Hence, I was familiar with what identification sphere looked like, what they did, and how to use them.

Maybe I should get a closer look at the glyphs used to see if I could mimic them…

As I watched on, musing methods of enhancing myself, Sulvurium placed one hand on top of the glass orb while touching the hilt of my dagger. I was actually interested in what he would find out.

Whatever it was, it made him burst out into laughter. He didn’t calm down from his gross guffaws for a full minute, and all I could really do was exchange awkward glances with Lavenner.

When he calmed down though, he did have some interesting things to say. “This dagger has three enchantments on it, if you would believe it. First is a standard durability and sharpness enhancement, makes it lighter, harder, and better at cutting in all the ways it needs to be. Standard stuff, you’ll find an artificer in every city and town capable of doing such a thing. But never to this scale!”

I smiled shyly, but didn’t say anything. That was just my Rezan. Curious that he thought it was something done artificially.

Lavenner however, was vexed by the revelation. “Are you certain? When I held it I could have sworn-”

“Ah, but that’s the second enchantment.” Silvurium grinned as he interrupted his head maid. “This one requires claiming the weapon, but once claimed the first enchantment will only work for the bound wielder. Whomsoever else tries to even hold the dagger will find the first enchantment doing the opposite of what it is supposed to. That’s why I can’t even hold it steady right now.”

I nodded with an understanding smile. Considering how much of a skill gap rezan made up for, I was surprised the dagger hadn’t slipped from their fingers the instant I stopped touching it.

But that still left a question. “What about the third enchantment?”

“Well, that’s the thing.” Silvurium scratched the back of his head and looked at my dagger again with wonder. “Best I can tell it’s something to do with transmutation, but the reading I got was incomplete. It must be related to your quest. My identification sphere was made by an archmage, it doesn’t do false readings.”

I smiled and nodded gratefully instead of pointing out that the user was just as, if not more likely to be responsible for such mistakes when it came to spellcasting. Then I jumped and let out an ‘eep’ sound when Silvurium suddenly and loudly clapped his hands together.

“But we have become spectacularly distracted from the very reason we- you- gathered here! You have the means to defend yourself, I won’t deny that. However.” He handed my dagger back to me, and I noticed the tremble with which he held it vanish the instant I touched the handle. “A dagger against a werewolf is not a guarantee of safety. Considering how fast and strong they are, and how cunning this one is, you will need more.”

He turned to face Lavenner, who squared her shoulders and stood a bit straighter. She pushed out her chest a fraction too.

“Lavenner here is proficient in some very specific fighting styles.” Silvurium continued. “I can’t practice them. If things go my way, Lysis won’t practice them. It’s actually the reason my retinue is populated the way it is.” He paused and placed a hand on both my shoulders. It burned my pride, but I let it happen. At this rate I was going to track down the werewolf and kill it to rid myself of this humiliation.

“She could pass them on to you, if you’ll allow it.” Silvurium finished, finally making the offer.

I had to stop myself from grinning, and restrained myself to nodding with a serious expression. Free training? That was something I’d never pass up.

\V/