Killing the goblin nest before it could become an even bigger problem turned out to be a great move. According to locals, this type of goblin really could breed worse than rabbits. It wasn’t unheard of for goblins to multiply into tribes large enough to require armies to deal with them. The rescue of one of their own also earned Hadiin and Marian a lot of goodwill.

In exchange, the people of the hamlet went so far as to award the two with the farmer’s horse and wagon out of gratitude.

“Actually,” Marian confided after things had calmed down again, “I overheard someone mention that, by presenting the goblin heads to the adventurer’s guild in Belleville, they’d receive compensation, perhaps enough to buy the farmer a new horse and wagon.”

“That much for a few goblins?” Hadiin’s eyes widened. “How can eliminating them be worth so much?”

“I think it’s a special case?”

He mulled it over. “Perhaps they’re going to claim that they hired us as private adventurers and are claiming the expenses? Perhaps there’s some kind of policy in place because there are no soldiers or adventurers officially stationed here.”

“Maybe!”

“So? Now what? You’ve got a horse and wagon. What do we do with it? Are we supposed to get the cryo slimes now?”

It was a good question. Hadiin looked around in thought. “What could we fill the wagon with, that we could sell in the next town?”

Marian shrugged. “We’re in a tiny hamlet and next to a forest. Monster parts? Leather scraps? Slime. Goblins might drop some coins, but we just killed all the ones near here. And they didn’t have any spoils in their lair.”

“Hmm. I’m not sure…”

Marian waited, tapping her foot, looking a bit like she was considering leaving their association.

He snapped his fingers. “I’ve an idea. The rudimentary foundation of a plan.”

“Oh?”

“We have a wagon that can hold a lot of goods. We’ll offer to buy whatever we can here and sell it in the village. Belleville, was it? If we let it be known that I have the merchant class and that I will be back to buy more in the future, a possible source of income for this hamlet, they should give us fair prices to encourage our return.”

“So we get the locals to collect as much as they can for us, serving as our labour.”

“And while they’re hunting or crafting or whatever, you and I buy some buckets and collect cryo slime.”

“I suppose that works,” she agreed, seemingly content with that. “But how much money do we have?”

“About three hundred silver.”

“What? How?”

“I got some starting money with my class. Perhaps because I didn’t get much for skills?”

“Wow. Ok. Let’s put that money to work then.”

The two of them split up and jogged all over the village and surrounding area, hunting down locals. To each, they offered coin in exchange for anything the people here could come up with. They made it clear that they would continue to buy as much as could be provided until coin ran out.

Some locals weren’t interested, but others definitely were. Anyone with a bow ran into the forest to hunt. The family making bandages approached. The leatherworker sold them everything he had. The old woman cooking went into a frenzy to produce as much smoked jerky as she could make.

While the locals were producing goods, Hadiin and Marian went into the forest and hunted cryo slimes. It turned out that there were magical frost flowers growing in a patch and that this was likely contributing to the formation of the slimes. Marian melted as many as they could and Hadiin filled all the buckets that they could buy with the chilled remains, each container frosting over on the outside because of the contents.

In the evening, the two stood next to the wagon, collecting raw goods and paying out coin. Between Hadiin’s charisma and Marian’s voluptuous physique and winning, female smile, they built upon the trust already established with their victory over the goblins.

By the time night fully fell, a very worn-out Hadiin and Marian stood next to the wagon, his purse empty. The wagon bed was full to the brim with leather pieces, jerky, bandages, and several buckets and barrels of cold goo.

Hadiin stared at the slime. “I do hope I’m not foreshadowing when I say I hope buckets of slime don’t reconstitute into actual slime monsters.”

“We made sure to remove all the cores. It should be fine.”

“But where do the cores even come from?” Hadiin wondered.

“Dunno.” Marian eyed the goods with a margin of doubt. “Is this stuff really going to be worth anything?”

“The slime? Not in its current form.”

She gave him a flat look. “Then what did we go to all this effort for? You’re being way too secretive.”

He laughed. “A merchant, my lovely, beautiful Marian, makes money two ways. The first is to buy low and sell high. The second is to add value. They brought us bandages and jerky. That we can sell in the village for a few silver, though it won’t be much. I suspect that we’ll barely break even. It did buy us a lot of goodwill though, and reputation is very important. It will spread and be very valuable in future transations.”

“True. But we also need money to live on. What about the leather?”

He gestured to the brown pieces piled high. “I can’t do anything with them in this village. The leatherworker here probably doesn’t bother to make a lot of leather or hide here because there’s no one to buy or use it and it’s a pain to transport raw stuff unless he has bulk. He probably only goes to town once a year to sell anything. With the wagon full of other goods too, however, we can make it worth our while to collect and transport it now.”

“And you want to sell it in the town to people who actually use it to make leather goods?”

“Exactly.”

“And the slime?”

“For that, I have plans.”

“Are you going to continue being mysterious?”

“Absolutely. A merchant has many secrets.”

“Whatever.” She looked around, obviously trying not to get miffed. “It’s pretty late. I heard the forest and road are a lot more dangerous at night. Maybe we should wait until morning to go to town. Besides, I’m tired.”

Hadiin nodded, but then his eyes drifted to the wagon and something occurred to him. And unease spread through his body. “Oh my. What are we doing to do about all of this while we’re asleep? What’s to stop someone from coming along and taking off with the wagon, the goods, and the horse?” This was important because he’d pushed himself to the limits buying as much as he could. He was down to a measly two silver. The entirety of his wealth was now tied to this wagon and the goods inside. Should he lose that, he’d be down to zero.

He pondered. This was bad. He had no security whatsoever. Except for Marian and she would be asleep. This is why travelling merchants hired mercenaries to guard their wares. Marian’s presence just became even more important. Really, if he were painfully honest with himself, she was far more essential to this whole venture than he was. And he could not afford to lose her. Or to even make her angry.

“We’re going to have to either leave now or set watches,” he decided.

“You mean, take turns staying up and guarding it?” She barked a laugh. “No. I’m tired and I want sleep. For the entire night.”

“Marian…” he begged.

She rolled her eyes at him. “I’m going to sleep. Wake me if thieves show up. If you wake me and there are no thieves, I’m going to set you on fire.”

“We could split the night, six, er, four hours each.”

“Yeah, no.” She climbed up onto the wagon seat, curled up and closed her eyes.

Hadiin tsked. But at least she was sleeping on the actual wagon and would likely wake if anyone disturbed the vehicle. He looked about. No late-night coffee shops here, huh? Drat and sour bagels. He was in for a long night.

💰

The morning sun cracked the horizon like an eggshell and spilled golden sunlight all over the land, the way a yolk floods a cool saucepan.

Hadiin sat with his back against the wheel of the wagon, head nodding. Cold jerky in hand, he’d tried to eat to stay awake during the night but then had forgotten it as he’d drifted in and out of consciousness. Luckily, no one had come by in the night. Well, that made sense. This was the edge of nowhere.

“Oi!” Marian called from overhead. “Stop sitting around and let’s go!”

He blinked and tried to think with a very fuzzy brain. She was awake? Good. He stared at the half-eaten jerky in his fingers and then tossed it away. Time to go at last.

Hadiin sat in the driver’s seat, hands on the reins while Marian lay across the leather inside of the wagon, munching her own deer jerky.

They left the village behind, moving down the only trail towards the next town. He was still having a very hard time keeping his eyes open. Fortunately, driving the horse didn’t take much effort. Once he got it started, it seemed inclined to keep going on its own. That was good. Maybe he could even go so far as to close his eyes for a bit. Just a little bit. He was soooo sleepy…

The gods of weather must have seen him. In a generous gesture, as he nodded off, they dimmed the lights. Dark-gray cloud cover rolled in, obscuring the sun. This made it cooler, and therefore easier to sleep.

Then the first drops started coming down. And then a few more.

Crack. BOOM!

Hadiin jolted back to alertness. The rain came pouring down.

Marian lazily poked her head out for a moment, shrugged and then curled up once more on the leather—under the wagon’s arched cover. The rain pelted off the cover with sounds like a drum but otherwise left her completely dry.

Must be nice, Hadiin sourly thought, rapidly drenched to the bone. “Who bloody designed this thing?” he grumbled. “You’d think they would have wanted to keep the driver out of the rain, too!”

“Are we there yet?” Marian asked.

“No!”

Lightning flashed. Thunder crashed. The road filled up with enough water that it was a wonder that dolphins didn’t swim on by.

The water turned the dirt road into a mud one. The wheels of the wagon slowed, despite the horse’s best efforts. And then they broke free of the forest they’d been travelling through and hit open grassland. And without a barrier to prevent it, down came the wind.

Marian screeched as rain now slashed down sideways. Frantically, she jumped up and undid the ties holding the sides of the cover up and dropped them down. Then she did the same to the front and back. “Ah. Much better,” she happily announced once they were all in place.

“I’m so happy for you!” he shouted over the storm, which seemed to be doing its best to drown him in his seat. The road was rapidly becoming a river.

“Hey, I’m the muscle remember? You have to keep me happy so no one steals all this comfy leather I’m laying on.”

He grumbled more quietly. But as they splashed along, he soon grew bored and sought a way to distract himself from the cold, sopping wet, misery that he was sitting in. He spoke to Marian over his shoulder. “So. Why a dragon sorcerous?” he asked.

The cover rustled and rose slightly. “Hmm?”

“Why that class? Why did you choose dragon origins?”

She grinned. “Well, it’s not as fancy as a witch or wizard with all their creepy curses and spells. They can do things a sorceress can’t. And mages do have a ton of versatility. But I prefer the idea of raw power. Which is also why I picked the dragon ancestry. Dragons have more raw magical potential than humans do.”

“Oh?”

“Uh huh!” She excitedly grinned. “And if I level up enough, my dragon ancestry might manifest even more than it already does. What if I grow wings? How cool would that be? I love dragons!”

His brows rose and he mentally increased her value in his mind. Not that consciously calculated a person’s worth in such explicit terms— Ok, he did. But that was true of everyone, wasn’t it? Don’t we all look at one another and build some general idea of how helpful they might be to us? Don’t we assess what others might be able to do for us? A man calculates a woman’s breeding potential. A woman calculates a man’s lifetime earning potential and how much protection they might offer. On some level, we’re all ruthless and selfish in the cockles of our hearts, are we not?

Perhaps he should undertake a more intimate analysis of her assets in the future. Or would that be an unwise complication to their working relationship?

Something to think about.

They travelled through the grasslands and entered another forested area. The trees broke the wind again, which was a great relief.

Yet this particular stretch of forest seemed to have a particularly unwelcome atmosphere that left goosebumps. Perhaps it was the way that the ancient oaks and elms arched over the road, darkening the day even further. Or maybe it was just how mysterious and impenetrable the shadows between the trees were, preventing Hadiin from seeing into the forest at all. Whatever it was, something about it felt creepy to Hadiin, and even Marian quieted and nervously peeked out from within the wagon.

Suddenly, lightning blinded them. Thunder shook the air. Then an object swung out from the side of the road, hanging from a rope tied to a branch high above. It was a human corpse.

The horse neighed in fright and ground to a nervous halt.

Hadiin cursed and leaped to his feet. “Bandits!” Unfortunately, he had no weapon. He sat back down and whipped the reins but the frightened horse only rolled its eyes and tried to back up away from the dead body, which it couldn’t do because of the weight of the wagon and the mucky road.

The corpse swung back and forth in the rain. It appeared to be an adventurer. Blood stained the clothes.

From the left side of the road, shadows split and green-and-brown shapes emerged.

Marian gasped. “Elves!”

💰

Marian

They revealed themselves in the flashing light of the storm. They were not what one might expect when picturing elves.

Green and brown clothing was ragged and bore stains of dirt and grass. Weapons were simply made and there was no metal. Instead of swords, they wielded spears with stone heads, like the ones the goblins had used but of a much finer quality. A couple had bows that looked quite well made.

Most telling and worrisome of all, the rain trickled down gaunt features: hollow cheeks and sunken eyes, bony arms and legs. Grayish skin was pallid and unhealthy.

“Undead!” Marian screamed, fear running through her. She flung the side cover of the wagon open and frantically began to cast magic.

The elves rushed the wagon.

Hadiin leapt to his feet and imperiously threw his hand up at the charging group, his voice ringing out, “Stop!”

There was some kind of power in his voice; even Marian felt herself holding back from unleashing her spell.

She and the elves looked up at him, somewhat stunned.

“They’re not undead,” Hadiin softly said to Marian, his voice difficult to hear over the weather.

Marian took another look. Now that they were closer and the initial shock had worn off, she saw the truth. They were not undead, merely starving. And their gray skin… “Moon elves?” she muttered, guessing at the equivalent in her world’s fiction.

An elf in the lead, spear aimed at her chest, narrowed his eyes at her. Perhaps he’d heard her? He took a step towards her.

She triggered her fan of flames spell. Orange fire washed through the air over the heads of the elves, driving them back a step.

They growled in anger and readied to attack again.

“Hold!” Hadiin told them. “There’s no reason to fight!”

Once more, something in his voice checked them all.

The male leader spat at Hadiin’s feet. “You are human. It’s reason enough.”

He looked affronted. “OK, that’s just outright discrimination. Didn’t your parents teach you better?”

The elf, already tense, bloomed with outrage. “My parents are dead! Killed—murdered—by your kind!” He rattled the stone head of his spear in the man’s direction.

Hadiin held his hands up in defence. “I don’t see what that has to do with us. We certainly didn’t do it.”

There was deep anger and hatred in the elf’s eyes. “Your kind is guilty. Humans have been slaughtering us for over two hundred years. You expand your cities, build towns, cut down the forests, till every open spot of land. And you send your bloodthirsty adventurers against us, time and time again, murdering us all and cutting off our ears as trophies.”

Hadiin looked disgusted. “Ew. Really?” He turned to Marian with a frown. “People do this? Seriously?”

She shrugged. “I dunno.”

“That’s deplorable!” Hadiin scowled. “Elves are noble. Kind. Wise. And elf girls are hot.”

A female elf with a bow sidled forward, pointing her drawn arrow towards him. Her thin clothing clung to her too-thin body. “We’ve suffered enough at the hands of rapist adventurers like you!”

Hadiin looked at her. “Hey. Don’t get the wrong idea. I’m simply appreciative of your refined features and gracefulness. And that lovely skin. Is it so wrong to see beauty in someone who looks a little different from oneself?”

She sneered. “Humans look like overgrown maggots stuffed into clothing.”

Hadiin opened his mouth to reply, then shrugged, apologetic. “Yes, some do. Obesity has become a problem, I admit. It’s all-too common. But we, as a society, are working on it. Some of us, anyway.”

Marian found her voice. “Why do you all look like you’re starving?” she asked the leader.

His head whipped around in her direction. “Because we are! Because you humans have taken all of our food! You hunt the animals to extinction, take all the fish, rip every herb and wild vegetable you find out of the ground so that it can’t spread. And where we might cultivate the soil, you storm in with your knights and mages and take the land, fertilizing it with our blood and dead.”

She rolled her eyes. “Ok… That’s dramatic.”

He bared his teeth at her.

She raised her hands at him, flames dancing between her fingers. “Want to see what burning alive feels like? Bet it smells super disgusting. But I’ll do it.”

Hadiin waved his hands in a downward motion. “Come now! Good elves, neither I nor Marian here,” he gestured at her, “bear you any ill will. We’re not from around here and we love elves. And we’re not adventurers at all; I’m a merchant! Please. Neither side has drawn blood yet, so why don’t we just calm down?”

Another male elf, with feathers braided into his limp, wet hair, nodded towards the wagon. “We’re here to take everything you carry. Hand it over to us and maybe we’ll let you live.”

Hadiin tilted his head, perhaps puzzled. “You have a use for cryo slime too?”

The elf looked confused. “Slime? What?”

“Oh! You probably want the deer jerky. That makes more sense.” He studied the elven bandits before him. “Tell you what: I’ll trade you for whatever you want: leather, bandages, jerky.”

The leader looked appalled. “Trade? With you?”

“Yes. Trade,” Hadiin said matter-of-factly. “Exchange. I give you the jerky, you give me something in return.”

“You’d deal with us after we’ve just killed one of your own kind, a human?” The leader pointed to the corpse still dangling from the nearby tree branch. “You think we could trust someone who would think so little of their own as to betray them?”

Hadiin shook his head. “Oh, I’m not racial. Or specisial? Is that a word? Speciesist? Politically correct vocabulary is so confusing. Whatever. What I mean is that I don’t give a damn about a person’s so-called kind. I don’t care about their skin colour, their ear shape, their culture, or their creed. Frankly, it’s all superficial, isn’t it? I mean, it’s really no different than wearing different clothes. Except it’s harder to take off and change your skin, I suppose. Maybe it’s more like a tattoo?”

“What are you talking about?” the elf snapped.

Hadiin opened his arms. “Friendship! That’s all I care about. Whether you’re elf or dwarf or giant ant, I don’t care. If we’re friends, that’s all that matters. And if we can’t be friends, then if we can at least cooperate in a civil and mutually profitable manner, whereby both of us happily benefit from association with the other, then what’s the problem?”

A couple of elves looked uncertain.

He continued. Perhaps his charisma skill was working? “Why should we focus so much on grouping ourselves by physical characteristics or giving ourselves these silly labels of one kind or another when what really matters is whether we can help each other? Aren’t values a far more important part of one’s identity than skin colour or who you have sex with or what your grandparents did to someone else’s grandparents before you were born? Surely cooperation is more valuable, is it not? Surely a person’s values are more important than the shell we wear?”

The female archer looked askance at him. “So you don’t care that we killed a human?”

He hesitated. “Well, I wouldn’t say it speaks highly of you. Unless the human personally did you wrong. I mean, let’s face it, how much would you trust another elf that went around murdering people willy-nilly just for fun or because they got angry, hmm? But as far as that individual goes, I did not know him, so I have no particular regret that he’s dead other than in a general sense that indiscriminate killing is wrong and that it’s a shame that someone had to lose their life for no good reason. Again, unless you had a reason, then it would be justice, wouldn’t it?”

“And if we kill her?” The leader pointed at Marian.

Hadiin’s eyes turned flat. “Marian is a friend. So I’d burn your forest down and turn everyone in it to ash.”

Marian looked at him in surprise. He’d really do that? She…hadn’t expected him to feel so strongly.

Hadiin’s smile reappeared. “Enough murder for today. It’s raining, it’s cold, and we all have better places to be, yes? So, I propose a trade. I’ve got enough deer jerky in the wagon that it would take all of you to carry it off. And bandages.” He paused, thoughtful, then resumed. “You probably have nothing on you to trade at the moment. So I’ll give it all to you now, on trust. And in a week’s time, I’ll return. You can give me something in exchange for it then. Unless you have coin hidden somewhere?”

The man with feathers eyed the wagon with a touch of desperation and snarled. “Trade? We’ll just take what we want.” He stepped forward, wringing the spear in his thin hands. “You can’t stop us!”

“Yeah,” Marian said, not really afraid of the stick-like elves now that she’d seen them up close, “you can try. But again, probably gonna burn you all to a fiery death.” She felt kind of sorry for the group. At first, they’d seemed scary. But the longer they’d spoken, the elves now seemed kind of pathetic. It was sad. She was so disappointed. These were elves! She’d hoped for a majestic, beautiful people. These looked like refugees.

“What if we take your food now,” the leader said, “and just run off with it? Why would we come back or pay you anything?”

“Actually,” Hadiin snapped his fingers with a smile, “even better. I’ll bring another wagonload with me, this time full to the brim with nothing but foodstuffs or whatever you’d like as well. And we’ll trade for that, too. And if you don’t have the coin to pay me with, that’s ok. Perhaps you have some fine, elven crafts to offer? Or raw materials, like hides or metal ore?”

“Liar!” the elven bow-woman shouted. Her eyes blazed. “You’ll come back with adventurers and slaughter us all. We’ll not fall for your trap!”

Hadiin sighed, looking frustrated. “No, really. I’m being quite honest here. I’m not an adventurer, I’m a merchant. My goal is to make money through trading. And to help others along the way, if I can. Killing you all would not be profitable. No matter how much the misguided adventurer’s guild might pay for your ears, it certainly wouldn’t be worth as much as you and I building a healthy, long-term relationship, would it? And relationships are far more valuable than a few silvers.”

The elven woman didn’t seem to believe him.

He gestured at them. “From the look of you, and I don’t mean to be rude, but you do seem to be in rather desperate straights. You need resources, yes? Food? Supplies? I can help. And if you can provide something in return, we can both be happy with the exchange. Perhaps we can continue to exchange for months or even years to come. That sounds better than killing each other, yes?”

The leader hesitated. For a few moments, the only sound was the rain and the wind in the tree branches above. Then lightning and thunder crashed quite close by, startling them back into action.

Feather-hair shouted, “We can’t trust him!”

Others voiced agreement. Though the woman with the bow seemed a tad conflicted. She still had her arrow aimed at Hadiin though.

Hadiin spoke calmly. “I shall give you the jerky and bandages now, without a fight. No one has to get hurt. No one will be left with horrible, disfiguring burns thanks to Marian’s fire spells. Take the food and eat it and enjoy. And in one week’s time, I’ll return along this same road. Just Marian and I, no adventurers. And we’ll trade.”

“Why would you risk this? Your kingdom hates elves. They banned all trade with us decades ago. If they discovered you dealing with us, would they not throw you in prison? No snake-bellied merchant would dare.”

Hadiin looked serious. “As I said, we’re not from around here. And we don’t hold to such disgusting values.”

“You’re the first elves we’ve ever met,” Marian added. “And I’ve dreamed of being friends with an elf ever since I was a little girl. I really don’t want to fight.” It was true. What if they could become friends? Did the elves live in some gorgeous, magical, ancient city that she could visit? Given their appearance, probably not. But still—elves. This was so neat! She was trying to act tough on the outside, but a part of the little girl in her was giggling and dancing around.

The leader slowly lowered his spear. He coldly eyed Hadiin but spoke. “We’ll take all the food you have.”

Feather-hair looked ready to tear someone’s head off. “No! We should attack—!”

The leader held a hand up. “We will take the food. And no one risks their life today.”

The other elves grumbled. But most lowered their weapons. Except the bow-woman. She aimed her weapon at Marian while the other elves came around to the back of the wagon to fetch the food.

Marian, for her part, kept her gaze on the bow woman, spell at the ready. The other woman might be pretty, in a tragic sense, and Marian would so love to hang out and get to know her, but she figured there was a good chance she’d get an arrow in the head if she lowered her guard at all.

After a few minutes, arms loaded with all the deer jerky and bandages that they could carry, the elves backed away, then started streaming away into the dark forest. Feather-hair glared at them with murderous eyes before he vanished into the shadows.

The leader threw a suspicious look Marian and Hadiin. “We make no promises. Perhaps next time we’ll show up with more warriors and take it all. Be grateful we’ve left you with your lives.”

OK, Marian had had enough of the lame posturing. She sent fire over his head, forcing him to duck or be scorched. “Is that how you talk to friends? Be grateful for our generosity and offer of friendship, idiot. And that I didn’t torch you.”

The leader glared at her, then silently strode off.

After they were all gone, Hadiin sat down in his seat. He exhaled a big breath. “Well, that was interesting.” Despite his earlier confidence, he seemed shaken. Then he brightened. “Look at that. A whole new revenue stream just fell into our laps.” He grinned at her. “Lucky!” Then he turned back and gathered up the reins.

Marian sat back in the now less-full wagon. She suspected that most encounters between humans and elves around here didn’t go like this. Either you were supposed to kill the elves or run and escape from them. But talking to them and even setting up a future trade deal?

She looked at Hadiin’s scrawny back, appraising him. That Charisma skill must really be something. Maybe there was more to it than just higher quest rewards or an advantage in bargaining. If he could stop hostile people from attacking like that and even turn them to his own will… That was powerful stuff indeed.

And power turned her on. Along with money.

She’d only intended to stick around with him a short while to see if she could get some easy coin out of hanging around with him and doing some quests together. It’s not as if he was very attractive, perhaps average at best. She was unsure of whether she liked that curly moustache or not. And he didn’t seem overly brave or cool.

But he might have a different kind of power. And he just might end up making a lot of money. And that was very sexy, too. Maybe she wouldn’t ditch him after reaching the next town and getting paid. Maybe she’d stick with him a while longer. See how things played out.

“Hey, Hadiin,” she called to him.

He looked over his shoulder. “Hmm?”

“What’s your end game?”

“End game?”

“Yeah. Like, what are you going to accomplish as a merchant? What are your goals?”

“Ah, easy enough. I’m going to make a truly stupid amount of money.” He grinned. “And then I’m going to buy the crown.”

That floored her. She blinked and then leaned forward. “The crown?”

“Yes. I’m going to do something nobody else has ever done. Because most people probably try to take kingdoms with force and blood. But I’m a merchant and I can do things that others can’t. I’m going to become king. Well, first I’ll have to buy myself noble titles. Work my way up the more money I make. Then I’m gonna buy the crown.”

“King.” She slumped back. It was crazy. Silly. Impossible. And yet, he seemed so sure of it when he spoke of such a lofty dream. As if it was only a matter of time before he achieved it. How could he be so sure of himself?

She looked back at the way they’d come, at the spot they’d met the elves and thought about how he’d turned that encounter into something unexpected. She raised her brows. Could he actually become a king here? Was such a thing possible?

Maybe, for a merchant, or at least for him, it would be.

A greedy smile spread over her lips. She pictured herself in a crown by his side, a princess or a queen, bathing in gold coins and champagne. She would have servants. She’d pick what she wanted from a feast for every meal. And other women would claw their own eyes out in envy.

Marian would be a true dragon, surrounded by treasure.

Yes, she’d stick around for a while. See just what this guy could do. If she could get filthy rich by being in his party, richer than she could from crawling around in dirty dungeons for treasure… That did sound preferable and much safer.

They exited the forest and once more the wind came down on them. Marian closed the walls of the wagon and huddled in the shelter while Hadiin sat outside in the downpour alone.

Leaning against a relatively soft stack of leather, she was just about to nod off when she heard snapping, growling, snarling, and then a roar from somewhere outside.

Monster attack!