Elizah sat and waited tensely for Micah to come back home. He’d headed out to watch the duel, and Elizah was now waiting for him to come back with the results of the fight. She prayed that her little infusion wouldn’t be caught and that Jayden would manage this win.

Roxanne looked at her, noticing a tense look in her daughter’s eyes.

“Liz, is everything okay?” she asked, sensing something wrong.

“Huh,” Elizah was startled out of her thoughts, “Oh, it’s nothing, mother.”

She wasn’t being truthful, and Roxanne knew by her tone.

“How were the patients today?” she tried to ask.

It hadn’t been a great day for Elizah’s business since there was an infusion that wasn’t working as it was supposed to. She’d been trying to figure it out, but just she was confused and stumped at the moment.

“The infusion hasn’t helped the patient yet. I don’t know what I’m missing,” Elizah said

“Have you tried the inclusion of lemongrass in it? Or were you missing the bit of mint or anything simple?”Roxanne asked her. She’d been a master of tonics and infusions for a while, so she knew what it would be missing.

“I tried both. I only haven’t tried to make the elixir for the dozenth time,” Elizah said and brought out the leather-bound infusion book. She flipped to the recipe page she was trying and measured out the ingredients to pour into the bottle.

“You haven’t added the most important ingredient, which pulls the entire thing together. A small bit of this will do the trick,” Roxanne said and picked out a jar with tiny seeds.

“Sometimes, you need to change the proportion of things and mix it up. It tends to do the trick,” Roxanne said and shook the small jar vigorously.

“This could work. But if it’ll truly work, it should be able to change colour when I heat it,” Elizah said and put a few drops into a small container and took it towards the fire.

Sure enough, it switched colour from dull green to orange.

“That’s it. It’s perfect!”Elizah exclaimed, held the small jar in her palm, and gently heated it with her magic. She slipped the infusion into her bag and embraced her mother.

“Thank you so much,” Elizah said, and Roxanne smiled at her daughter.

“You don’t need to thank me, dear. That’s why I’m here,” Roxanne said, “Why don’t you head off and deliver the elixir? That’ll be the real test.”

Elizah slipped her bag on and nodded, “I’ll tell you what happens when I get back, mother.”

She slipped out of the door. She was about to make her way to the man’s house when Micah met her at the door.

“He won the opening duel Liz, but lost his second test duel. The king still felt quite proud of his son,” Micah said, and Elizah’s eyes lit up brighter.

“Really?” she asked with childish enthusiasm.

Micah only smiled and nodded.

“That’s amazing. I have to deliver this elixir right now. When I come back, I want to hear about everything that happened,” Elizah said and dashed off towards the man’s house hoping that she could get a chance to see Jayden after that.

When Elizah made it to the depths of the forest, she saw Jayden already waiting there, with his sword still in his hands and in the Larkspear colours. The colours of blue and lavender with a silver crest of a wolf emblazoned on the sides.

“I take that you already heard about what happened,” Jayden said, and his happiness was apparent in his face.

“I did. I’m glad to hear that you did well. Even if you only won the first round,” Elizah said.

“I hadn’t expected a second challenge. I was ready for swordsmanship and for an archer’s duel. But otherwise, the entire thing took me by surprise,” Jayden said, “But I wouldn’t have made it past the first round if it wasn’t for you.”

“I thought someone didn’t want the magical enhancement?”Elizah said and gave him a grin.

“Thank you, Liz,” he said, and he gave her a smile.

“Your father was finally proud wasn’t he?”Elizah asked.

At that, Jayden’s eyes lit up, and he was looking like a child again. “He surprised me as well. He actually came down to the arena and congratulated me,” Jayden said and was smiling widely.

“So you’ve passed, finally. Now you don’t need to worry about those expectations again do you?”Elizah asked and embraced him.

The two of them were nearly the same height, their eyes met, and the dancing happiness was reflected clearly.

“Congrats Prince Jayden,” Elizah knew that she was doing the one thing Jayden hated.

“You know how much I hate that,” he said and broke the embrace, and the two of them laughed.

“I’ve got to leave. It’s growing dark, and mother tends to get worried whenever I’m out too long after dark,” Elizah said, and Jayden nodded.

“I’ll be here at the usual time,” he said as Elizah made her way through the thick shrubbery.

The leader of the spies stood hiding in the darkness of the room of weaponry. His employer had to pay him, after which he was giving up on the job they’d given him. His loyalties had now changed, and it was a good thing.

“Where are you, coward?” he heard a voice slam the doors of the weapon room open.

They were yelling, and by the sounds, they were highly annoyed by what had happened at the duel.

“Come out of the shadows and face me,” they called out, and the espionage captain stepped out of the shadow he was hiding in.

There were no candles in the room, yet the room seemed to be dimly lit. The man looked around for a while and then found the light source to be none other than the other person’s hands themselves.

While he’d been busy observing the room, the other person was taking small steps and making their way to him.

“Why did you lie to me?” they asked him in evident outrage.

“I didn’t lie,” the man answered with honesty, but his voice was shaking.

“You and I both know that it wasn’t the case,” the other person answered sharply.

The spy began to look for a shield to protect himself from any chances of attack from his employer.

“Where are you trying to scramble to?” his employer asked mockingly and ran their hands of flame through the shield, clearly melting a part of it.

“What do you want from me?” the spy screamed out when the hands began to come closer to his face.

“You swore something to me, do you remember?” the voice asked and was still mocking.

“I never swore anything to a magic-user. I swore to someone else,” the man tried to distract his opponent as the flames edged closer to his face.

“Fool, I am that person,” the voice cackled maliciously.

“Show me proof that you are,” the man asked the person while he tried to look down at them with a terse expression.

He saw a smirk dancing on their face momentarily before their black cloak fell back, and the man gasped.

“Now are you sure? Or do you need my comrade to set you right?” The person said and raised an eyebrow.

“No. NO,” the man screamed as a flicker of flames touched his neck.

“Then tell me why it didn’t happen,” the person demanded and, with a swift move, withdrew their hand from the spy’s face.

“He did lose, didn’t he?” the man asked, surprised by the question.

“He won, you idiot. He won the duel, but it wasn’t like him in the arena,” the person said and let the flames extinguish themselves.

“He improved, probably,” the spy tried to come up with an excuse.

“No, you’re still lying,” the person clearly detected.

“He won fair and square,” the spy continued to object.

“There was someone’s interference, tell me who they were or else I’ll go and try to search for them myself,” the person threatened.

“The healer, she helped him,” the man screamed out when a tendril of flame touched his face.

“Which healer?” the person asked, clearly enjoying the torture of the man.

“Liran’s daughter,” he yelled out.

The other person withdrew the flames and swore a filthy string of curses.

“I--I’m not going to gather information for you anymore,” the man managed.

“What did you just say?” the employer screamed and wrapped their tendrils of flame around his neck, almost suffocating him.

“My-- lo-y-a-l-ties--have changed,” the man managed to say between coughs.

“Then my priorities have changed as well,” the other person said, and the spy fell back gasping in pain and clutching his chest. They’d been hiding a blade in their palm, and it was now embedded in the man’s chest.

“I’m going to enjoy this after a long while,” the person said and sharply retracted the blade.

The man gasped in more pain, and then the person decided to end his suffering. “Goodbye,” they said, and their flames left marks like blades on his face.

With that, the man was dead. The person rubbed the blood off their palms, strolled out of the weapon room, and shut the door behind them.