After our stay at the inn, we left early in the morning. Mia hadn't slept enough and I could tell by the bags under her eyes that she was under a slight exhaustion debuff.

I’d noticed that she needed more sleep than most elves, but that, along with her that fire manipulation trick, just proved that whatever creature took up half of her genetics, it wasn’t simple.

As a healer, I could see every party member’s health and mana pool. When she’d used her fire manipulation, either the fire did damage to her because it was more than just fire, or using it to direct fire required a temporary sacrifice of life. At least this was the case at lower levels. It was also possible that she only had half of the genetics required to use it, so her other half took damage.

Honestly, to figure it out we needed to test it. The issue was how to get my bonded, who was terrified of fire, to overcome her fear enough to test her manipulation ability.

Technically, as a bard, I should be good at convincing people to do things they might not want to, but that wasn’t always the case.

“Mia, let’s talk about fire.”

She flinched. “I’m tired. Let’s do this later, okay?”

“I told you about my clan and how we became prisoners. It would be nice to hear something from you.”

She paused for a while. I thought she was going to ignore me but she sighed and rested her head against the padded part of the carriage wall. “Let me sleep until we reach our first fight.”

“You’ll talk about it then?”

“Yeah.”

Judging from how she avoided my eyes I could tell that she would try to get out of it. But I wouldn't let her.

She curled up and quickly fell asleep. I took out a thick blanket and turned to covered her. Out of the corner of my eye and through the thin back window I noticed that a carriage followed us closely. Something was off.

Well, seeing other people on the road wasn’t that unusual, but Whitedove’s presence at the inn had made me a bit suspicious, despite telling Mia that it was normal to encounter acquaintances while out adventuring.

Whitedove was a fan of mine, but she was also manipulative and obsessive. She’d been known to retaliate against my substitute jailers who made too much contact with my body. So, was she trying to hurt Mia this time as a warning?

I really hoped that I was thinking too much and that the coach behind us was a random fellow guest from the inn.

***

Our carriage rolled to a stop. It was time. I put my blanket back in my inventory and I patted Mia’s shoulder.

“Wake up.”

“What?” She peered at me, burry eyed.

“We have more monsters to eradicate. This time I want you to go further into the forest, go into stealth, and kill the extra monsters in there.”

“Extra monsters?”

I pointed out the back window. “Since we have friends, the PPVS sent us even more enemies so our lives aren’t too easy.”

“Oh, neat,” she said, then covered her mouth as she yawned cutely. The yawn seemed to wake her up because she stood as well as she could in the cramped quarters and drew out her swords. Once she air-kissed them she sent me a grin. “Ready.”

I pushed open the carriage door.