My first thought as I looked at Jesvae Spiritwind was how amazing it was that she had accomplished all this in such a short time. My second thought was very much disliked that she treated me like a very important child whose success was vital to the survival of our people.

The important word there, if anyone missed it, is ‘child’. I knew that it was normal for her to view me as such, since biologically I was one, but I was either at or VERY close to puberty, and by the spirits did my hormones make me upset when she returned my flirty smiles with an encouraging pat on the head.

Not that my thoughts were impure, of course! Far from it; if anything, I felt a desire for romance – a connection – more than anything physical or ‘Wolframesque’. I figured it must be something to do with the age of my soul, which was in a lot of ways my mental age, and the fact that she was a strong, confidant, interesting woman who just happened to be VERY attractive.

Tetra was also beautiful and strong, for example, but I didn’t feel any attraction of that sort to her at all, for which I was glad. Maybe by the time we were both fifty years old (or a hundred and fifty) the age gap wouldn’t matter as much, but for now I felt revulsion whenever someone suggested that we are in (or should be in) a relationship… which happened more and more as we got older, especially since we are physically around the same size (Tetra is quite slight for a teenage, and I am very tall and well built for a pre-teen).

“Are you courting Tetra?” Jesvae asked me.

“WHAT!!” I yelled in shock. What did I just say! Ok yeah, she couldn’t hear my inner monologue, but still, I was just thinking how much I hated that, and I hear it again… and from Jesvae herself, no less…

“I said are you courting Tetra? It isn’t uncommon for those in a quad to develop attachments.” Jesvae raised an eyebrow at me, frowning slightly. I probably shouldn’t have shouted…

“NO!!” I took a deep breath, “I mean, no. No, I am not, and I will not in the future. She is like a sister to me… and… and I like older women anyway.”

I answered her as clearly as I could, not wanting any misconceptions to develop, and by the end my tone was stable and firm, and I was able to maintain eye contact with her as I expressed my preference.

“Heller… she is an older woman. Tetra is at least four years your senior, is she not?”

Bloody beasts… I almost lost my composure again. What the heck do I say now… ah, beast it, nothing to lose anyway, right?

“No, not like that. I mean I find myself attracted to woman like you, Jesvae. Women with experience, and who are mature.” I waved my hands in front of me, trying (and probably failing) to get across that I could never be attracted to a teenager. “Women who are fully grown.”

Jesvae frowned again, tilting her head to the side as she studied me. She drew her brows together as she contemplated my words.

“You want power… so you are only willing to court a noble, or the heir of a Great House, like me?”

What the… I opened my mouth slightly, wanting to refute what she had said, but not sure how, and she carried on regardless.

“That is an admirable goal, and a political union could be beneficial to our cause. I will keep my eyes open for a suitable match. I am glad you are not going to be distracted from our goal so lightly – this is no time for such a frivolous thing as coupling.”

By all the spirits, what was happening…

“N… no, ah, I mean you specifically, not some other noble!”

But her mind was obviously elsewhere already, and I already knew it was hopeless from the start – if she was messed up enough to be attracted to a preteen, I’d probably have bigger problems to deal with.

Jesvae gave me an absent smile and turned back to the paperwork on her desk.

“That is all I summoned you for, Heller. Please return to your training.”

It took me another few moments to recover, and I shook my head in bemused exasperation as I left her study. Sometimes reincarnation sucks…

***

The best part about our secret fort out in the mountains was that it was, in fact, not all that secret. It turns out that the location that Jesvae had taken over was simply one of a dozen forts that House Spiritwind had built into the mountains over the centuries, and while many had fallen, a large portion of them were still actively staffed – meaning that logistics was not a problem.

We had access to any supplies we needed, and expensive trainers and instructors from all over were brought in to help us learn the more mundane aspects of combat and survival. It wasn’t exactly safe, but we were told that we were still well within the territory protected by the Merrik: There used to be other forts that were apparently built out past some invisible line (known as Merrik’s Line), and none of them had survived long.

House Spiritwind had tried to map out the boundary that the Merrik did not cross, but as far as they could tell it wasn’t exactly static… nobody could ask him (he never seemed to speak or answer questions, even if someone was lucky enough to catch him standing still), and when they had taken it up with me I had honestly professed my complete ignorance on the subject.

The location we had set up in was three forts deep into the mountain, along a regularly patrolled path that House Spiritwind still maintained. Originally they had been trying to build a pathway as far out as they could, but that plan was abandoned centuries ago after countless losses – and to make matter worse, many of the most powerful beasts seemed to know how far in towards our lands they could safely come, so it was just outside this boundary that the largest of the beast hordes gathered.

Jesvae suspected that there lived even more powerful beasts out there in the wild, ones who were smart enough not to challenge the Merrik in the first place, and her theory was that these beasts were responsible for culling any of House Spiritwind’s attempts at making it further into the mountains.

Wulfric and I stood on top of a tower jutting up from our new fortress home, all of it built from thick stone slabs expertly fitted together, without a hint of mortar and barely a visible seam.

“It’s impressive, isn’t it?” Wulfric said, his breath misting in the chill air as we looked over the endless expanse of snow-capped mountain ranges before us. Our fortress was up high, built upon a tall and sturdy mountain that stood above all those nearby… but the gargantuan peaks before our eyes, off in the distance, dwarfed even our new home so completely that we may have been standing on flat ground.

I had been to the Rocky Mountains back on old Earth a few times, and what lay before me made them seem like gently rolling hills: In fact, I felt quite certain that my old home didn’t even have mountains this big. Maybe Everest? I didn’t know, as I had never been there. Was the top of Everest so dark and dim, even on a clear day, that it almost looked to poke into outer space itself? I’d never know, and the thought brought a small pang of longing that I soon brushed aside.

“I’m starting to see why people say that the mountains go on forever,” I said.

Wulfric gave a low chuckle. “That too, but I meant the forts that House Spiritwind built, as well as the road connecting them.” He pointed off into the distance, where we could just make out a tiny rectangle perched atop a faraway peak. “That one is more than two days walk from here, and there are more after it, going out all the way until they reach Merrik’s Line.”

I nodded, agreeing completely. I had heard a lot of bad things about House Spiritwind, but now I could see where all their resources went. They may have a small standing army compared to House Flameward, but what they had achieved was pretty beasting incredible.

And it didn’t hurt that, being cultivators who specialized in both ice and wind, House Spiritwind had a natural advantage high up in the mountains. There were scattered valleys everywhere, many large enough to support multiple settlements the size of North Stone Village, and the majority of the beasts out in the wilds roamed between them, sticking to the lowlands as much as they could – but the heights belonged to House Spiritwind alone.

“How are you adjusting out here? I know you liked being closer to the city...” I did feel guilty, but at the same time in many ways his family was safer with him out here, away from any politics that might sweep us up in their mess. If there was one good thing about House Spiritwind, it was that they were focused on their goals, and seemingly had little use for political maneuvering.

“I like not having to hide who and what I am, and I think Tetra feels the same. Being able to cultivate and practice in peace, not working about who might see us… it is nice. And since Lady Jesvae Spiritwind is the highest ranking noble here, we don’t need to break any more laws. It is… relaxing…”

They hadn’t exactly been prepared for Tetra and Wulfric to have crazy powers when we arrived, but the story we went with was that the Merrik had made them my training partners, using some unknown magics, after seeing us practice together; meaning we were not to be separated, and we had no power to replicate what was done to them.

It had worked out well… so far.