"Empires are curious objects. They are found on ideals but never sustained on those. Love and devotion only go so far. Fear, oh fear is the everlasting, everpotent source of power. One cannot rule only through swords, magic, and gold. One needs to establish an empire of terror in their hearts."

-Emperor Exelfeor, First Emperor of the Ebraven Throne

“I think pink would go well with your eyes”, I whispered at Faeve in a voice barely audible over the impassioned speech on the other side of the curtain.

She blinked with her arm deep inside a box of toy swords and faux crowns. “It is a moustache”, she said while her brows quirked up.

“No one can tell the difference, I swear”, I bantered as I rifled through as an assortment of the wiriest and decrepit wigs and fake facial hair. Holy shit. Might as well just paste straw to my head. In no universe is this a believable costume choice.

“Are you saying I look like a man?” Faeve bristled.

Oops. “I am saying”, I pointed towards the other side of the curtain. “You look no worse than the guy there playing the lovely, frail queen Fenriel”. The audience cheered again, no doubt at some other scene of the hero taking down a tin dragon with a cardboard sword.

Faeve snorted. “Some queen he is. Pot-bellied, with hands rough as a sack …he is the spitting image of the Goddess of Love”.

Well, that’s your fault! “Never thought they would replace the actress with the guard!” I grumbled. “I almost feel sorry for the villagers. Travelling theatre troupes don’t come around very often”.

“We did what we had to”, Faeve replied, holding up a hay-coloured wig. “Without poisoning the actress, we could not have lured the guard away and get access to the group’s prop chests”.

“I know, I know” I picked a tawny wig. “Wait, poisoned?” She…she didn’t kill her right?!

“No”, Faeve replied as if she read my thoughts. “Sap of Porvellin. She will be alright”.

Eww. I know that! My body shivered as I remembered the extreme laxative it was. Well, at least we didn’t have to kill anyone.

Faeve tried on the wig. She tugged at it; the golden locks fell on her shoulders.

She looks like before I chopped her hair. I sighed. “Faeve?” I asked. “Remind me to never have you as my enemy. I don’t want to die shitting my guts out”.

Faeve paused for a bit. She nodded. “Alright, no Porvellin”, she said in a soft voice.

Wait? What’s with her? Why so serious?

Meanwhile, applause broke out in a large din behind us.

“Go, go” I urged Faeve. “Third act is over, they’ll come to change!”

~~~

As we ran out into the night, footsteps echoed behind us as actors filed in behind the curtain. The steady stream of cheer and conversation from the rural audience hid the noise of our retreat.

“I must say”, I struggled to glue the fake moustache on my face. “The plan to rob the travelling theatre troupe was brilliant”. Now we can rest a bit easier. Little chance anyone would recognize us.

“Night of the speared moon is still three days away”, Faeve replied. “I could have spent outdoors but…I could do with a bed to sleep on and some decent food”. She whirled back, her eyebrows scrunched. “And, do not call that theatre. Some fools slathered with powders and colours do not a theatre make. A mockery of fine arts, that is what that…that travesty is”.

Oh wow. Very touchy today, are we? “It’s four wagons attached with each other to make a stage. What else did you expect out of a village roadshow?”

We walked through the empty streets of the village by the faint light of the single moon. As almost the whole village gathered in the outskirts to spectate the rare bit of entertainment, very few houses had lamplight peeking out through the doors and windows.

Still…something’s strange about this village.

“Faeve”, I whispered softly. “Have you noticed?”

“Aye”, she replied. “Faerad village was supposed to be a fishing village but…”

I knew what she was getting at. Before entering the village, we had stood on a hill nearby that overlooked the whole bay. As twilight had approached, we had had our eyes peeled on the horizon, for any sign of fishing boats. And any navy boats that might follow.

As the golden sky turned purple with the birth of stars, there was no movement on the seas. No boats returned to the desolate jetties, no sails glinted in the sun in their homeward journeys as they did back at Salrest. And fishing wasn’t even the main occupation there. Heck, it’s supposed to be the only work in this hamlet.

Faeve’s eyes were scrunched. “Strange”, she muttered. “Look”, her slender fingers pointed at the few moored boats.

“What?” I asked. “I can’t see that far without our connection”.

Faeve grunted. “Disuse”, she said. “Rotten wood, broken net spreads”. Her eyes squinted. “This village hasn’t fished for a long time”.

We had come down from the hill with extreme caution. The village had been devoid of activity as if asleep from some witch’s curse. However, the odd stare from the corners of a window; the crawling of one’s skin when one is being watched; the sudden clatter of a utensil had told us we weren’t alone. And we had been watched the whole time.

Faeve clicked her tongue and shook me out of my thoughts. She held a fishing net hanging by the doors of a house.

What?

She spread the net in the scant moonlight. Huge holes ran through the surface of the net.

They didn’t fix the one thing indispensable for their trade?

“This fishing village is fishy”, I said in English. Too bad puns don’t translate in Aruvahn.

Faeve kept her hands on the dagger as she motioned me to follow. Despite the fact we wore leather gear taken from the bandits, the clink of our gear was still audible, such was the silence that reigned through the village.

A play by the fire couldn’t account for this.

Salty wind raced through the village, carrying with it a strange sickly sweet smell. It was as if the wind had suddenly breathed life into our surroundings. Animals and beasts howled in the distance, their cries reverberating through the empty streets.

Faeve whiffed the air. “I cannot quite recognize that smell”.

“Yeah”, I agreed. “Me too”. And most likely, it’s nothing good.

Something flashed in the distance. Its yellow glow stood stark against the backdrop of dark silhouettes that made up the village.

As we turned a corner, the single glow multiplied into a row of lurid oil lamps that threw light and shadow into a ramshackle wood building.

“Finally”, I pointed at the rusted sign of a lit hearth that tilted by the building. “Beds”.

Faeve cursed. “Great tree protect. It just keeps getting better and better”.

“I didn’t say the beds would be clean”.

~~~

An Elven assassin and an otherworlder human walk into a bar, I thought to myself as we threw open the half-rotten saloon doors of the inn. Let’s see how this joke ends.

If one thought the exterior was a match for the interior, well….they’d be right. The floorboards creaked like angry mice as we made our way to the counter. So much for being inconspicuous.

As it turned out, we didn’t really need to bother with any amount of stealth. The fuck is this? I coughed as I waved my hands to dispel thick plumes of vapour that coiled inside the establishment.

Faeve cursed under her breath while covered her nose. Her hands rested on her dagger ready to lunge at a moment’s notice.

The counter itself was barely visible through the billowing white smoke. The top of a shiny bald head peeked through as an errant wind rustled the smoke curtain.

“Ahem”, I coughed.

The man didn’t as much as stir. Thick masses of the same white smoke billowed out his nose as he puffed on his driftwood hookah.

“Oy”, I barked and rapped on the table made of the same driftwood for extra effect.

The man jumped out of his skin, falling backwards from his awkward slump on his chair.

I heard Faeve sigh as his plump figure disappeared with hardly a stir in the white smoke that crept on the floor.

Ugh, my head again…I held my aching head in one hand and reached down into the mass of curling white that writhed like a living being. Fuck, where is he? Sickly sweet aroma snaked up to my face as my hands searched around.

There! My hands grabbed hold of a rough homespun collar. I yanked at it and…almost fell over. Shit! How light is he?!

I knelt down to look at the man’s sunburnt face. He looked at me through the haze, his eyes a deep shade of red.

“Room”, I rasped. Fuck this smoke is…my head swam as the white mass attempted to engulf me. “Need a room for two”.

The man’s eyes wandered as if he couldn’t keep focus. Drool dripped down his chin as he stared at me listlessly.

Fucking druggie. I snorted as I immediately realized the irony of the statement. As if I’m any better.

Faeve swooped down. Her eyes glinted like a wild beast even through the thick smog.

Oh shit.

I shook the guy like a biscuit tin. Wake up you little shit. This Elf will fucking kill you!

The guy gasped and slammed the floor. “I’m not asleep! No asleep!” He yelped. “Please don’t gut me!” he prostrated.

“No, that’s not what…”

“I’ll pay you back as soon as these wretches settle their bills”, he whimpered. “Don’t cut me off!”

“You dazed fool”, Faeve growled. “We are not loansharks”.

The man’s eyes flitted between Faeve and me. “You’re not Lord Asper’s men?” he asked.

“No…”

“Whaddya shakin’ me fer then you kivala”, the man switched to his coarse Aruvahn. “Shakin me noggin like that, want me to turn idiot?” he bristled.

“There is no danger of that”, Faeve spat. “That horse has already fled the stables”.

The man blinked, his eyes squinted at Faeve. He turned to me and rasped, “Yer woman has a mouth on ‘her”.

Oh shit! Before Faeve could react, I bellowed, “We want a room!”

“Whatcha yellin for?” the man retorted while his hands searched for something behind the counter. “me ears work fine”.

Faeve rolled her eyes. “No magic locks”, she demanded.

I doubt he’d notice if we stole the inn under him.

“’ere you go”, he slapped an old-fashioned heavy lock and key arrangement on the counter. “Whatcha think dis was ‘ere lil’ lady? Salrest? Don’t do no fancy magic locks ‘ere”.

Mmm good. I couldn’t count the times I had seen young suppressors left penniless because they depended on those pesky magic locks. Heck, the thieves sold those themselves to rob them later.

“Which room”? I asked.

The man’s hands stopped in midst of fondling his hookah. His snarled, “take any. Ya think anybody comes to Faerad these days?”

Huh? Wasn’t this one of the few points of entry to Mountain of Trees?

As we turned to take the stairs that led to the second floor, the proprietor beckoned me with a wave of his hands. He slid me a slip of paper, yellow with oil stains and age.

What’s this now?

“Want some?” he asked in the tone of a confidante. “Best Daze that be in these parts. One puff and you be suppin with gods in heaven”. He paused for a bit before adding in a hurry, “I didn’t mean you’d die, but feel…” he groped the air for the word, “in heaven”.

“Yeah no”, I refused. If he was any indication, this stuff is fucking dangerous.

“You sure?” he scrunched his eyebrows.

I simply walked away. Fuck. The ending to that joke seems more and more perilous now.

As Faeve and I walked up the rickety old stairs that creaked like they were on their last legs, the counter was once again engulfed in thick layers of smoke.

“Daze”, I whispered. “Should have known. It’s a border town after all”.

Faeve crinkled her nose at the groans and whimpers that came from the fog of white on the first floor. Her hands grabbed the termite-ridden railings. “The rot take them”, she spat at the faint figures of men visible through the dense fumes.

Her anger was like a heated blade down my guts. “Calm down”, I said. “Killing a few drug smugglers won’t solve a thing in Elfland”. Same thing back on earth. There’ll just be new highs and new merchants to sell them.

She sighed and climbed the rest of the stairs with steps heavy on the precarious floorboards.

“OY!” a shout recited from downstairs. “Dat woman! She call me stupid!”

He realized it now?!

~~~

We picked the room based on how far it was from the dug den and the number of escapes it had. Really smart move. Spending the night on top of a drug house.

The dusty room was in almost as much disrepair as the rest of the establishment. He wasn’t kidding when he said no one comes here.

As my eyes adjusted to the faint moonlight filtered through the half-shuttered windows, I saw the single bed and a cot.

Wait what’s that…oh crap. A small bug crawled under the bed.

I whipped my head around to see Faeve knocking on the doors and the walls to see how flimsy they are.

She hasn’t noticed!

“You take the bed”, I drawled as if I didn’t care. “I’ll take the cot”.

She pressed her ears against the floorboards and checked for hiding spots. “No, I shall take the be…wait what?” She looked at me, her brows raised. “Why so generous?”

“Can’t let a lady sleep on a lowly cot”, I replied as I put my things on the cot. Probably too much.

Faeve now checked the strength of the shutters in case someone attacked in the middle of the night. “From you, human, it is very suspicious”, she said while chanting in Elventongue.

Her magic is back? I pondered while I fumbled with the straps on the leather jerkin. Guess so. We’re out of the desert, so she can use as much Vegetative AP from plants as she wants.

“No traps”, she sighed. “So, what did you find on the bed?”

Bedbugs, obviously. “Just thought a fine lady such as yourself shouldn’t take the dirty cot”.

“As opposed to the…” she ran her fingers on the rough bed sheet, “dirty bed?”

“I called dibs”, I said as I unbuckled my armour. “As everyone knows, dib rights are sacred”.

Faeve rolled her eyes and slumped on the bed, without taking her armour off.

“So…” I said while rummaging through my bag. “I guess we aren’t eating at this very reputable inn I guess?”

Faeve rolled over, her cheeks a faint blue in the light of the moon. “Just eat some dried Soroscope”. She yawned and stretched with a feline grace. “I missed this”, she moaned as she sprawled on the bed.

“Aren’t you too coddled for an assassin?” A soft touch on my hands alerted me that I had found the cloth I was looking for.

“Human”, she said as she rolled over. Her chin rested on her hands. “What do you even think assassins are?”

Well, that’s easy. “They break into rooms and threaten people with a blade”.

“No”, Faeve sniggered. “People who need to be dealt with by an assassin do not live in rot infested places like this. Balls, estates, courts, we deal death in places like those”.

“Sure”, I said as I looked at her reclining form on the bed. My eyes rested on her soft curves as moonlight caressed them. Mmhm.

Faeve shivered as she followed my gaze on her exposed nape and going lower, lower…

“Too much of that smoke has gone to your head”, she said as she gasped, her skin assuming a faint crimson in the moonbeams that draped her. “Cool off”.

Not like you aren’t…I thought as I saw her uneven breathing.

Her head sank as she curled up, her face toward the window and away from me.

Of course. I quickened my pace and wetted the cloth with the leftover salt water in my bag. The connection is affecting her even more now…

I plugged the gap between the door and the floor with the wet cloth. Now they can’t gas us with the Daze as we sleep.

“Tal’hael” I whispered as I took place in the cot. “I’ll take first watch”.

A slight murmur from the bed was the only sign that she had heard me.

Guess that’s all I am gonna get.

“Tal’hael”, came the unexpected reply.

~~~

Wha…what time is it? I woke up all groggy while my hands searched around for my phone. Where the fuck am I? my hand scampered frantically. Where the fuck is the phone?

Phone?

A chuckle escaped my lips. Haven’t done that since…since Shrafingshire. When I had first come to this world, every now and then I’d forget where I was when I woke up. Arin used to laugh in that tinkling bells and rivers laughter of her when she saw me scrambling for my phone in my sleep.

Arin…

I shook off the last of my sleep. Sword? Check. Dagger? Check. I sprang up. The fucking drug-den! I stared at the empty bed. Faeve’s gone?! I unslung my weapons. Where the fuck did that Elf go?

Something rustled as I moved. A paper?

“Gone to scope the village. Stay alert.

P.S. Found the bedbugs. The rot take you”.

Oh. I crumpled the slip of paper she had stuck to my side. That goddamn Elf. She didn’t even wake me up before going off?

A sigh escaped my lips as I strode over to the windows. When did she become so indispensable? A silent chuckle bubbled up my throat. Better not get used to it. We’ll part ways soon enough. My eyes fell on the massive mountain in the distance. In the light of the waning moon, its dark bulk stretched almost infinitely. The mountain of trees, huh? My fingers grabbed the wooden slats. Vaegar. My teeth clenched as Talaviel and Zain’s cocky smiles flashed in my mind. I will burn you two shits like you burned Arin.

The old wooden shutter groaned with the force of my hands. But first, I need Vaegar. I let go as fine cracks spread through the wood.

As the dark of the night turned into the dark of the dawn, I sat cross-legged polishing my blade. There was a strange peace in the repeated, mechanical motion of the blade going over the whetstone. Glad those sand pirates had a few. The sharpening of the sword had become almost like a ritual. The rest of the world fell away, only I and my blade remained in a never-ending reverie of motion. The dark of the room after moonset didn’t hinder my work, as I knew every notch, every curve of the Tavitz Steel blade through my long nights at Salrest when nightmares and phantoms would haunt my sleeping hours.

Zain. Talaviel. Astria. I recited in my mind. Zain. Talaviel. Astria. “One day”, I promised myself. One day.

The soft creak of the door would have gone unnoticed had I not been sitting by it. Faeve stepped through, her footsteps silent as a cat even on the old floorboards.

“Dressir”, my whisper was barely loud enough for an Elf.

Faeve jumped out of her skin. She immediately crouched by the door, her daggers out by instinct.

I continued polishing my sword, the sound of the metal against the stone the only noise in the room.

“Great tree protect, human”, Faeve sighed in relief. “Do not surprise an assassin like that”.

“The question is”, I rasped. “Why is the assassin so surprised”. Something’s fishy.

Faeve didn’t reply, instead sheathed her daggers. “I thought you would still be fast asleep”, She said after a long pause.

Huh? “Why, I wonder?”I interrogated further. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”

Faeve sighed. “Nothing of the sort. You got a pretty good hit of the Daze, so I figured you would sleep like the dead”.

“And…knowing that, you left me undefended”, I pondered aloud. Being careless isn’t really in her nature.

“Hardly”, she sniggered. “Booby-trapped all the doors”.

This fucking elf! “What if I wanted to go out, you idiot!”

“It would just lop off a little bit off your head”, Faeve grinned in the light of breaking dawn. “More importantly”, she added. “I have news”.

~~~

In the morning, when I came down the stairs, the bar downstairs came into view. Huh? The place which was so full of that dreadful smoke and scores of desperate men eager to whiff it was completely devoid of life. Crooked driftwood chairs and tables lay strewn about, askew and without occupants. Only the acrid scent of burnt out oil lamps irritated my nostrils.

Huh, those are some punctual druggies. Back in Salrest, the revelry such as this would leave people passed out all over the bar. It wasn’t uncommon to see people spending days or even weeks at a stretch in such places.

But here, both the smoke and its partakers had evaporated like last night’s bad dreams. As I passed the counter, a strange gurgle caught my attention.

Hmm?

A shiny bald head rose from the floor and cursed loudly. “Coin”, the proprietor grunted.

“How much?” Damn, conked out of his mind, yet didn’t forget his dues.

“One Rita”, He sputtered. “Or two Gold-Tree; One Saliz; Four-part Dwarfmetal; ya choose”.

Like hell it is!

I slapped down three coppers. “Three Ress”, I said. “And if the Elves hear you’ve been calling their royal currency a gold-tree they’ll gut you’.

He gave a toothy grin. “This be a bordertown. The onl’ Elves ‘ere be smugglers and thieves. Coin be coin ta them”. He looked me up and down with his bloodshot eyes. “An you ain’ no Elf”. He grimaced as he saw my hands holding the coins. “10 Ress”, he groaned.

I slid two more into the pile. “Five, and you know you’re slitting our throats for the krumper-shit room you have here”.

“Ya starvin' my children”, he grumbled. His actions didn’t match his complaints as he eagerly grabbed the coins with hands that were nought but skin stretched over bones. “Stag protect”.

Stag? That’s new. Since it’s a god, probably a bastard as well.

The village was much like as it was at night; silent and deserted. Apart from the wood smoke curling out of occasional chimneys, it was like a ghost town. Tch, I’m being watched again. The gazes behind shaded windows, door cracks, felt like pinpricks running on my skin. What’s their fucking deal?

The wind picked up in a savage gust, blowing dust into my eyes. That…that smell again. The sweet scent of Daze crept outside the barred doors of many homes I passed and flowed out into the streets like tributaries flowing into a river of Daze that snaked through the village, engulfing its muddy roads. This whole fucking village…in the light of the day, the decay was even more visible. As I walked, the houses were more and more ramshackle, torn and disused nets hanging outside, fishing lines rolled up in dusty bundles.

Few people milled about here and there.

“Hey!” I called out.

They shuffled away in a hurry as if I was some contagion. Some even went inside and bolted the doors.

Strange.

It was as if the whole village slumbered. No…Dazed. I felt my fists ball up. Do I…do I also when I take Shivang… I shook my head to rid of the thought. I need food. Some fresh food that isn’t Soroscope.

But no matter the direction I took, shuttered windows and the occasional sprawled out figures of the Dazed greeted me.

Oh, fuck it. I kneeled down beside one such addict. The scrawny old man lay on the ground face down and groaned. His hands clutched at an old fishing pole.

“Oy”, dust fell off his tattered clothes as I shook him. In response, he groaned even louder.

Goddamnit.

I pried his fingers loose and grabbed the pole. I slid a Ress in his hands. I might not even see him again. Might as well buy it. I walked away towards the river, the fishing pole in my hands.

Sigh. Nope. I turned back where the Dazed guy lay, the Ress still gleaming in his outstretched hand. “He’ll probably be here anyway”, I uttered to thin air and exchanged the copper coin with one of lesser value. Not like anyone’s here to judge me for being a cheapskate.

~~~

I hadn’t realized how much I missed air untainted by the Daze. As sickly, sweet scent gave way to the stench of saltwater, my heart lifted. Before long, I caught myself singing a cheerful ditty. Ah, the song from the Moonsong festival Suri had tried to get me to learn the flute and become a bard, but I had less tune than a blacksmith’s hammer. I chuckled as I remembered Suri’s face when she heard me playing the flute. Never asked me again, did she?

I cupped my hands to avoid the summer sun beating down. Should have got a hat…but this will...I plucked a huge leaf that grew by the riverside. Suddenly, something flashed in the corner of my eyes.

What’s that?

The grass rustled as the wind blew through them to reveal a petite figure bounding down the muddy road. Her mangy black hair matted with salt flickered like the ocean waves while she skipped.

My heart hammered in my chest. Why…why…is she…

The fishing pole on her shoulders danced along with her while the wind brought snatches of a raucous ditty known to fishermen all over Ebraven.

My mouth went dry. She…she looks so like…like…

The small red bucket beside her slapped against her worn down tunic. Suddenly, she looked at me: her black eyes stared into mine and fixed me into place.

I backed up a couple steps. This…this can’t be! How is she here!

The little girl’s soft eyes squinted in confusion. Dappled sunlight played on her oriental features as she stared at me with a face I have known for years.

Yuki’s.

My half-sister back in Japan.