Amber led us through the mouth of the cave. On the other side the orange light was all encompassing. It blinded me for a moment, but as my vision came back it was hard to believe what I saw was real.

Trees taller than I had ever seen rose high toward a glimmering roof of stone and crystal. In the center of that stone roof laid a gem of orange-yellow that I couldn’t look at for more than a few seconds before my eyes started to ache. It acted like a sun in the cavern, the glow alien and warm. It made the place feel like it was trapped in an enternal autumn. There were a few wisps of clouds near the ceiling, which meant that even down here had its own type of weather.

Brandi gawked the same as I. Amber walked beside us with an amused expression and slowed her pace until we reached a well worn path through the towering trees of a forest. Sounds of creatures echoed out from the dark depths on either side of the path. Insects buzzed and clicked as the delver group went before us and stirred everything up. It felt like even here the chill of the abyss lived and I pulled my cloak closer against the breath of a breeze.

“You sure this is a good idea,” I asked Amber as we walked side by side.

The ears on top of her head perked up. “What’s that?”

“Me and you bonding.” I glanced back to Brandi. She narrowed her eyes at me in a dangerous expression, but kept her mouth closed and her lips thinned.

Amber shrugged as she undid the ties of the cloak and shrugged out of it. She wore a tight black t-shirt that hugged every part of her thin torso and it stretched farther to cover the top half of the skirt she wore. Her tail swayed from under the skirt and her legs were bare save for a pair of black, knee-high socks. The chill didn’t seem to affect her at all. She rolled the cloak up and carried it under her arm. “I think it’s a wonderful idea.”

“Yeah, but why? We just met. I could be a giant asshole.”

She chuckled. “If you were then that witch back there would have killed you long before you made it here. Beside, gossip is a favorite of school girls and they talked about you quite a bit after the duel.”

“Not sure I want to know what they were saying.”

“Mhm, most were trying to figure out why that girl back there would throw away her future so quickly on a weak mage like yourself.”

“Yup, was right. I didn’t want to know.”

“Well, she’s probably the smartest girl in the academy, or just really lucky since she picked the only wild card to grace our little lives in a long time. I like wild things. I think I’ll like you just fine.”

“You know I can hear you two, right?” Brandi said.

“We’re aware,” Amber said and smirked at Brandi which just annoyed her more. I didn’t pay much attention as I was thinking.

“When?” I asked after almost a minute.

“When?” Amber stopped. “So, that’s a yes?”

“Unless there is something you’re hiding, I don’t see why not,” I said and knew I would have to make it up to Brandi later, somehow. I couldn’t pass up another witch that wanted to bond with me, even if my current witch was against it. I didn’t have many options and Amber seemed like she would be useful beyond the fact of seeded magic.

“Well, my stomach just did a few flips. Didn’t think you’d agree so soon,” she said as we continued down the path. “Let’s just get to my parents first and then… we can figure out when we’ll have some alone time together.”

“Ass,” Brandi called to me and I gave her a nod that didn’t settle her anger any.

We came to a Y in the road. A fence marked off an island of land between the two paths. The lane on the left had seen much more traffic and stood about four feet wider than the one on the right. Amber paused, her nose twitching as she sniffed the air.

“Oh, that’s a lovely scent,” she said and adjusted the cloak under her arm before taking the right path. “Could follow my nose on home if I had to. Strongest smell of fruit and spice around.”

“Are you parents that big of a deal around here?” I asked as I looked around the path. We hadn’t the chance to actually meet them as once Cassie appeared, they all wanted to have a word with her.

The right section of trees opened up in patches to show browning prairies that rolled out to the horizon or another section of trees. The long grasses wavered in the chilled wind, making it look almost like an ocean.

“Aye,” she said. “Pa was the mayor of our village for a fair few years, but he gave up on it when we were born.”

“We?” I asked and she came to a stop and turned back the way we came.

“You can come out now, you brat,” she called to the trees around us. There came a rustle of leaves and then from the canopy came a spark of light. I barely had time to react, but Brandi was already moving. She slid to a stop in front of me, a barrier closing around us. The bolt of magic hit and fizzled out with little noise or light. Amber had disappeared from beside me.

“Knew she couldn’t be trusted,” Brandi snarled. “Told you that, didn’t I? But no, you saw a chance to get your dick wet and—”

A body hit the floor with a thud and a puff of dust. It laid there for a moment, a small groan escaping from clenched teeth.

Amber landed light as a feather a moment later. She walked up to the body and gave it a swift kick in the side. The body rolled with the hit and for a moment I thought I had smacked my head. There were two Ambers, one on the ground and the other staring death down at her.

“What in a wyvern’s asshole do you think you’re doing?” Amber said and went to kick her twin again, but the girl shot to her feet and scrambled out of range. The two looked like mirror images, but Amber’s twin had longer hair that went past her shoulders.

“It’s good to see you too,” her twin said. “What you walking around with these humans for?”

“Because I want to,” Amber said and then took notice that Brandi and I were still there and were very confused. “Right, sorry. This is my younger sister Tyria.”

“What do you mean younger?” Tyria said. “We’re twins, you idiot. From the same litter.”

“And I came out first which makes me older,” Amber said and waved her off. “What you shooting bolts at us for?”

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe because we’re getting ready for the harvest which always brings creatures and bandits around. How was I suppose to know you were with them when they’re both a bunch of hum—?” She gasped and Amber rolled her eyes. “Is he your master mage?”

“He isn’t my mage and it ain’t any of your business if he was.”

“Then what you doing with them,” Tyria said and then nodded toward the trees on our left. “The bunkhouse for hairless rats are in town.”

“Hairless rats?” Brandi asked from beside me. “She mean us?”

I shrugged. It seemeed like Amber’s twin had an issue with humans in general and us in particular.

“These two are with me and so they’re staying at the house in the guest rooms.”

Tyria bristled at this and her hands clenched to fists. “Then he is your mage. You bedded down with these murderers? After what they did to our family?”

“What we did?” Brandi asked, her own anger rising. Amber held up a hand and stared down her sister.

“These two hadn’t a thing to do with anything that happened all those years ago. I’d like it if you kept mind of your own troubles instead of getting involved with mine.” Amber pushed past her twin and motioned for us to follow. Her sister stepped aside for us, but stared death until we were down the road. I turned back and watched her climb up into a tree and disappear among the leaves.

“What was all that about?” I asked as we continuned. Before us stood a wide wooden house that was surrounded by fields of the red stalks of the spice plant. There were a few workers in the fields already chopping down the stalks and bundling them up. Off in the distance I could make what looked like machine doing entire sections of the fields in one sweep. A cloud of the red spice lingered in the air as they went and I wondered if it affected them at all.

Amber cleared her throat and straightened some. “Tyria is… very much on the Wilkit side. She thinks humans are causing us to lose our way.” She ran a hand through her tangled hair and sighed. “Wouldn’t be so bad if there weren’t others who believed the same. She was really unhappy when I decided to head top side to train in magic.”

“She has some magical ablitiy, too,” Brandi said. She walked on my right and looked everywhere that wasn’t Amber. “I could sense it when we first started down the path.”

“She does and my ablity actually pales in comparison to her. But I’ve made strides in controlling my gift while she still struggles with the simpler spells. Whatever my folk say of your kind, you are far more advanced when it comes to training magic.”

“Great, so she hates us,” I said. “But you want to bond with me. That seems like a good way to invite trouble.”

“She hates everyone, so it won’t change much.”

We came to a large gate that stood twice my height and wider than I was tall. Beyond it, the house stood in a sea of wavering stalks. The entire front area beyond the gate had been planted with spice with only a few walkways weaving toward the front door.

Amber pushed the gate open and then gestured toward the building. “Welcome to the farm.”

“Isn’t having all this spice so close to the house an issue?” Brandi asked. She stayed behind me and stared at the stalks around us. They came up to her shoulder.

“Nope. Until it is dried and grounded up, there isn’t anything special about the plant for most creatures. The grinding through is what brings creatures, it’s why we limit use of harvesting machines.” She gestured toward the fields I had seen on the way in and then walked up the rest of the pathway. “Come on, I’ll show you where to put your bags.”

She led us to the large red door at the top fo the steps. It looked very old, but well taken care of. Much like the rest of the house. The entire thing looked like it was made of very old lumber and yet there were few insect holes or large splits in the beams. The entire architecture was strange compared to what I had seen growing up, but it wasn’t otherworldly like I had expected.

Inside there was a faint draft, but the cold disappeared once the heat from the crackling fires in each room off the entrace way reached us. Chatter came from the back rooms, but it came too low to make out what was being said. Amber didn’t even take notice and instead led us to the right and through a couple large, rustic rooms. After the last room we entered a hallway with a long set of steps.

Following her up, we ended up in a long hallway, the wood darker here with few light sources. A fireplace stood in the middle of the hallway, the bottom of it filled with red embers as the fire had long since gone out. Amber sighed and threw a few logs on it.

“I’ll get the staff to take care of it later,” she said and then turned to the door right in front of the fireplace. “We have guest rooms here. I’m assuming neither of you have trouble staying in the same room? I’m afraid we only have one large room for guests.”

“We have no problem with that,” Brandi said in an annoyed voice that made Amber grin. “And where’s your room?”

“Just down there,” Amber said and pointed to a green painted door near the end of the hall. “The bathroom is opposite of it. No need to be invisible around here, though. I don’t mind company.” She gave me a wink as she pushed opened the door beside us and stepped in.

The room was completely open with poles every couple of yards. The ceiling was made of the same sort of timbers as the rest of the house, but these were in an A-frame instead of flat. The floor had rugs of different sizes across the wooden floor and sparse beds sat atop of them. There were eight beds in all and I really hoped we were the only ones staying. At the far end of the room were two large windows in an arch and the orange light bleed through the frosted looking glass.

“Sorry, only single beds here. I guess you could push them together if you really wanted.” She was enjoying teasing us, but I didn’t really mind. She wanted to be where Brandi was, so the teasing was just a way to release her own annoyance at not reaching it yet. “You have an hour before we should be at the meeting, so I’ll let you two get settled.”

The door snapped closed behind her, leaving us alone in the room.