They made their way to the open yard near the groves of cloverfields. On the far end was a bow range with gauged targets. By the range was an equipment shack. Inside he found that his personal case was left undisturbed.

In it was his suit of leather armor vestments. Not quite as tough as the hides made from geilli dragons but stiff enough to resist a low-impact arrow or the bite of a medium sized mammal.

Well suited for an off-manor hunt.

Beside the armor lay a belt with a sheath for a broad curved machete and a composite longbow with a quarrel of arrows. All of which, he strapped to his body.

"Ready to fight off an ogre are we," Renua teased.

Barathiel laughed at the quip as he led them to the fields of clover, drawing close to the outlining woods.

"Let's leave the heroics for the heroes. We'll make it easy this round. How about a quail to start off the hunt?"

"Well, then…" Renua stretched his hands out, then his hands glowed. "There is one barely a mile to the east."

Barathiel heard the bird shriek. A common reaction to displacement from both men and beasts.

"To your right," Renua called.

The bird was gliding to the ground. One arrow he managed to get off in front of the quail's descent. He shot too soon. The bird was forced to scurry up as the arrow passed beneath it.

He got off his second shot before the bird was fully recovered. It flew by the bird's left flank.

He missappraised the bird's position. Off on time and off on sighting. Doing little but studying for the bar for the last four years, he was out of practice. The bird flew back east, out of Barathiel's range.

He cursed, "I'm growing soft as moist horseshit. It's all too apparent I no longer have a clue what I'm doing with this bow."

"Would you like me to grab the bird again," Renua asked.

"No. I've terrorized it enough for one evening. My neighbors have to live with it."

"There is no risk of turning the creature fell. Displacement is not the same thing as teleportation. I'm grabbing him from where he is and pushing him between space closer to me.

"His location is affected, not his loci. Teleportation, however, is one of those magics that batters a creature's soul, turns them fiendish or fell, or even demonic or undead when diabolism is involved."

Barathiel shook his head.

"I'm not one of your students, and the grounds of your school have been long reclaimed by the marshlands."

"Pity you have so little patience. I was going to elaborate on why the conditions of dire and rabid occur only naturally and not by magic. What kind of creature do you want me to attempt to displace next?"

Barathiel tested the poundage of his bow, one he had been using since he was twelve. He had definitely lost muscle mass while at university.

"Likely you shouldn't try anything too dangerous," he asked the wizard. "At least, not until I get my bearings back."

"Honey badger. There is one, a large one, oh, is it ever so dire near enough you could track it yourself without any assistance from me."

Barathiel's free hand went for his machete.

"Good gods, man. Nothing that can kill me out right."

"I had nothing to do with it," Renua protested. "It showed up on your grounds of its own accord. Shut your yapping, child, it hears you."

Barathiel refastened his machete as he crouched low. Raising his bow, he felt along the inner arches and twisted the screws and clamped the shunt on a pair of yew bindings that increased the composite bow's pound resistance.

He could draw the bow at the highest weighted setting a half-dozen times in quick succession without overly straining his muscles before leaving for college. If he could do it even twice now he was uncertain.

"Do you see it now? Three hundred and ten odd yards towards the east side of the yard. Careful, you are downwind from it."

Barathiel could hear a hissing noise, but couldn't spot the creature.

Renua continued speaking.

"Many creatures are preternaturally hostile to my presence. Even if they can't see, hear, or smell me. He may just go into a frenzy from the confusion I evoke."

Barathiel notched his arrow.

"I still can't see him. Where in the infernal blazes is he?"

He felt the ends of Renua's fingers on the back of his neck. A tinge of static electricity shot through, into his skull.

"There," said Renua. "Now, reach into its mind."

Thick clover parted in a jig jagged fashion. Grass shifted leftward and rightward as the beast crawled forward as an all too intense sharpness burned in the creature's eyes. The grass whipped his fur like razorcuts. The clover smelled of decay. There were shouts, human shouts in the distance.

It stopped, peaked it's head up, looking to the Northwest. It moaned a sound guttural like a pissed-off cat.

"Oh shit, oh shit. Shit, shit, shit," a man yelled as he rushed across the clover in a dead sprint. It was cousin Erotche running from the glow of silver eyes approaching from the western donjon. It was the Sgöethe albino. She was nude and gaining on Erotche.

"I told you what I would do to you if I ever caught you spying on me, you little fucker," Leresai yelled.

The honey badger crouched and it kept quiet. It now circled away from Barathiel and Renua. At first, he assumed it was simply scared off by the sudden activity.

Then he realized as he peeked into its mind, it had anticipated where Leresai would catch up to Erotche. It was planning to pounce them.

Barathiel began to move to the creature's previous location.

"Please don't piss on my face," Erotche pleaded in a high-pitched screech. "Oh, please don't piss in my face!"

When she caught up to him, she threw Erotche down on his back. Leresai straddled on top of him with taunt, muscular thighs crushing against his ribs. His face red with tears, his cheeks and jowls blubbering.

In spite of his cousin's dire circumstances, Barathiel admired her body with abandon. Muscular and powerful. Tendons in her arms and shoulders tight and mightily ribbed in the moonlight yet set within the graceful curves and ethereal paleness of her womanly flesh.

Her arms lunged for Erotche's trousers. Clutching the loose, cotton material she pulled with her thumb and fingers until it was shredded in several ribbons.

His hardened penis writhed around, as he tried to twist his hips, as it dodged a vengeful and merciless hand in pursuit of it.

Finally, she caught the cock in her palm. Grasped it and started pulling on the shaft.

"What's this," Leresai said in a teasing voice.

"Are you excited? Of course you are. You're never actually been with a woman have you? Else you wouldn't be lurking around with your hand on your dick. I should -," she held his penis up stiff with her fingernails, "- shred this like I did those trousers. You will then never truly know the pleasure a woman can give you."

"Please, no, Princess Leresai. Dear, dear, most beautiful princess. I'm not like that. I would never spy but you are so, damn it to those Wretched Sisters, beautiful. That is no fault of mine."

Though he felt no changes in the condition of its mind, Barathiel stole a glance towards the honey badger just to be sure the connection was still there. The dire creature was entirely focused on the spat.

Barathiel needed to get a clear line of sight on the beast.

"All right, you flattering little shit. You get to your keep your dick."

"Oh, what a merciful goddess you are. Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you."

She did not let up her grip on his shoulders that held him down. She leaned down into his face with her hair practically pummeling him.

Then in a tone darkly given, "I'm exacting exactly the price I promised you, and trust me, you will swallow. That is, if you care to ever breathe again."

Barathiel glanced to see Leresai grab his cousin by his throat as she slipped her haunches down above his face. Her ass faced Barathiel now.

A smoothly arched ivory white rump with taut muscles curved away from a heat engorged vulva mound whose scarlet flesh contrasted distinctly with the paleness of her thighs.

He couldn't make himself pry his eyes back to the honey badger, but neither did he feel any changes in the tempo of it's feral mind.

From under the Sgoëthe's knees, Erotche grasped for air and he choked. Barathiel could hear a strong stream of piss hit the back of his cousin's throat as a raw gurgling noise uttered from deep within him.

Reverberation pulsed through the firmament of the badger's mind at this action. Barathiel finally tore his eyes away from Leresai's nude form.

The badger was twitching its nose curiously, and gave the Sgoëthe a side glance. It felt what still lingered of the silver magic, and was growing more disturbed by it.

Barathiel closed in on the beast, but still unsure if the range of the shot was within sound accuracy for his current ability.

He heard the stream of piss stop. She unclasped Erotche's throat, and let him spit her urine out. Leresai stood up, half prone, allowing Erotche to turn on his side. He coughed violently before puking up the piss.

She was not finished with Erotche just yet. She forced him back down on his back.

"Now. You are going to lick my cunt clean. So tasty she is now with the drench of my piss."

"Oh, gods. That's disgusting," Erotche yelled.

Leresai pressed her thumbs against the side of Erotche's neck. He started to cough once more.

"What good will you ever be for a woman if you can't keep her clean down there? Time for you to learn."

Erotche complied to the Sgöethe's demands. She ground her vagina in his face. Deliberately smacking her cervical into his chin and laughing as she did so.

He humphed with a uncomfortable whine at the caustic, rhythmic torture of her thighs squeezed against his neck and ears.

With a moaned giggle, she pulled her head back and she squeezed out an orgasm.

Leresai stood up. Erotche gasped and spat at the ground. He grunted and spat again.

"What was that? What was that you shot in my mouth," he asked, horrified. He jerked his head up, giving her vagina a careful study as if he suspected she sported something else.

"Women do that?"

This caused her to burst out in laughter.

Her cum oozed on the sides of Erotche's mouth and his chin. He dangled his fingers helplessly.

Still laughing, Leresai, "oh, mercy. I haven't had so much fun in so long. Get up Erotche, and prop yourself in stance beneath that tree. I have one last lesson for you.

"This one is most fundamental for you to learn going forth if you do so deign to court women."

She tightened her lips to moisten them, the gaze she gave him most wicked.

"It is called reciprocity," she growled low.

As Erotche moved away from her, the badger's mind became unraveled with alarm. It had come to a decision. It hissed and its paws pointed to the Sgoëthe.

Barathiel read its intentions.

It feared Leresai and now believed she was finished with one victim and was seeking another. When it pounced, Barathiel's rushed forward between Leresai and the honey badger.

He placed his first shot in the center of its forehead. It tumbled back and writhed, trying to shake the arrow out. Barathiel rushed up closer and placed another arrow into its body through the gut, planting it down. It still struggled, clawing wildly. A third and fourth arrow secured it to the ground.

Barathiel turned back to Leresai. She stood there stunned. Eyes wide and focused on the honey badger. Erotche ran back towards the donjon as fast as his feet would allow.

Barathiel walked up to her and placed a hand on her shoulder.

"Are you all right," he asked.

She wiped a tear from her cheek. With a jolt to the heart Barathiel realized he could read her thoughts just as clearly as he did the badger's when he patted her shoulder to comfort her.

Was father right about this Solugarr?

"You saved my life, Barathiel. No one has ever done that before. I have never been so ill-prepared to defend myself than just now."

He wanted to know more of what she thought. What did she mean? What was the context? This Solugarr. She meant him. He held her arm, and now there was no mystery in her eyes.

Many years faded away as her memory became clear. A man of the highest regal bearing stood in his Great Hall.

He bore blond hair down to his shoulders, parted at the middle of his forehead. A trim beard and deep-set eyes like a hawk graced his visage.

He was her father, Draidaï Fervarryn. He was telling her about Barathiel, a boy who would not reach his majority until nearly a decade.

Yet the three blind crones who lived in a mound formed from the skull hollow of a weirding giant nearby Tos-Fervarrynn told Draidaï this when he visited them for consultation on the matter of Rhoethela's request, 'they should be wed.'

"I asked them, 'why' and they would not go any farther," the Lord of Tos-Fervarrynn told his daughter.

The Sgoëthe, the Godless of old, no more believed in inevitable Fate than any of the other peoples of the Imperium. They were, however, less prone to burn soothsayers at the stake to appease the Empress.

It is up to you, my daughter. Even a goddess cannot force my hand when my daughter's ultimate freedom is at stake. I will feel like half a man, and I suppose that is the point, to my dying day for letting them take you to Temple. It is up to you, my dearest, Leresai, and it will always be up to you, from henceforth. Go speak to this Rhoethella, or shun her entirely. Either way, you have and always will have my blessing.

It came to Barathiel in an instant and then her mind drifted away from him like an echo. He wiped his own eyes from the ache of salt.

"Damn," he whispered as he offered Leresai his hand. She took it, but half collapsed, leaning into his arms. She once more stared at the honey badger's many times impaled corpse.

"It's all right," he consoled. His face pressed against hers. He smelled a bitter herb on her breath.

"It will never be all right, Barathiel. That is not the trajectory either of us is set upon."

He began to walk her through the cloverfields back to the manor.

"Do you mind," she began. "I hope it wasn't too extreme of me what I did to your cousin."

Barathiel gave it a moment's thought. He glanced back at Renua who followed by his side. The wizard frowned as if the same conclusion came to him as it did Barathiel. Erotche wasn't temperamentally a pervert as far as could be discerned from knowing the young man his entire life.

Tareth must have put him up to it. Reckless Tareth. Leresai caught Erotche because he is untrained. An untrained man used for Obisvyrre business. It made Barathiel furious. What in the infernal reaches was Tareth thinking?

Barathiel stroked the hair off of Leresai's neck. She offered no resistance, nor made any effort to cover up her body.

"I suppose I don't mind what you did, giving it never occurred to me to be offended. It even appeared you were ready to make amends with him right then and there."

This prompted a chortle from the Sgoëthe princess. He continued, "my only concern was with that dire beast. The territories of the upper Midvries is no place to be running around outside naked. Though I would be lying if I told you I minded you doing that in the least."

Another sweetly aired chortle came from her throat.

"You're going to turn this pale girl pink, Barathiel, but honestly, I never want to be out of your good graces. I've been daydreaming about giving him that lesson for a few days now, ever since I caught him in the closet of the guest room I now reside."

"Given Erotche''s voyeuristic inclination, such a violent introduction to the wiles of women will do him some good."

"I was thinking the same. Barathiel, but there is a question I have for you, if it's not too presumptuous of me to ask. Who is that man tagging along with us. You both seem familiar with one another, from what I have gathered."

Barathiel stopped, and realized the origins of that bitter herb on her breath. She had been in his Deadsift Brandy stash. He turned his head back to Renua who appeared as perplexed as himself.

"You see me," the wizard asked.

"Yes, I gather you believe yourself invisible by that casual demeanor of yours. Staring at my rump like you want to bury your face in it, and picking at your nose as if you had the entire world to yourself.

"Now, why is it you believe yourself invisible to me, and Barathiel, you just as casually accepted his incognito as partial to the natural order of things. So, who are you, little man?"

Renua rubbed his hands against his gray and azure robes and clinched the folds.

"I live aslant from the material plane."

"Dead," she asked.

"No. I once fought a wyvern that turned back to ferel due to my inattention to it. I threw up a magic defense when the beast turned on me. The magic went wild and out of my control due to the bloodheat coursing through my veins.

"One of the side effects of that torrent of mana going rampant being trapped as I am. Young Solugarr summons me as he deems I'm needed. I can only exist in his proximity."

Leresai turned her head back around, and she asked,

"Barathiel?"

"My friend, until you confirmed to me just now you saw him with your own eyes I considered it most likely I was manifesting some form of insanity that also had the useful benefit of unleashing in me extraordinary magical talents."

"Magic," Leresai repeated, suspiciously. "I ask once more, who are you, little fellow?"

"Renua Lyoneid."

Leresai's eyes lit up.

"I remember the legend of you. Your college at the old castle disbanded shortly after you're supposéd demise."

"That's correct."

Barathiel was eager to explain.

"I discovered Renua when I was seeking consultation at the university to find a cure for my mother's condition."

With an accusatory tone, Leresai asked the wizard, "did you create that honey badger, Renua, with your sorcery? It was a beast most fell."

"No and no, dear princess," Renua clucked as if he was addressing an ill-prepared student. "The badger was a dire creature, not fell. The dire affliction is a natural condition that occurs when the sylvan glades are starved of nutrient and they wither into primal woodlands as we see occurring in much of the Nin these days. I'm afraid that effect is bleeding into the Midvries now as well. No, I merely spotted it for young Salugarr's hunt.

They reached the entrance to the donjon that exited closest to the cloverfield of the hunting yards. Leresai put a hand up to motion Barathiel to stop. She ducked inside and peaked up at the stairwell.

"Renua, could you give Barathiel and myself a little privacy?"

He shrugged and he began to walk away.

"Merely a matter of getting out of young Solugarr's range of perception," he called back to them.

When Renua disappeared, Leresai continued.

"I left Brietess soundly in an entranced slumber as soon as I heard the shuffle of your cousin's feet by the drain pipes. I had to run up a corridor, pass the hall and out the other end of the donjon over there to catch up with him.

"Your cousin witnessed something he should not have. He will be a jabbering idiot for the next several days once he stops to rest and his bloodheat runs thin. It will last until the memory of what he witnessed is erased from his being in hole.

"The more rest he gets the sooner he'll be back to his normal self. I thought you should know at least that much, but please do not ask anything further concerning it as It is a most delicate matter."

"I understand."

Leresai's lashes fluttered. She let out a sigh with a forbearing twitch in her brows. She leaned against the entrance post.

"You really shouldn't be so understanding. You're going to break my heart one day with that sweet nature of yours. I'm sorry, Barathiel, you are a beautiful man in your own right, but you're also one quite forbidden to me."

She grabbed his hand to her left breast. Lunar radiance flowed off her skin. It was a warmth that gathered in the bones of his hand, and it felt as if it flowed even deeper within his being.

"Do you feel that? That risidual heat? Most days I feel like I'm trading my blood essense, my humanity, for what little good the silver does me. But then, do you feel that the longing of my heartbeat?"

Renua's magic was still with him, however feint now with the wizard gone. Her heart's motive was clear to him.

"Yes, I do."

"That granule of essense left in me is retained in that merest of beats. Yet, it gives me great comfort just knowing it's there, and I am not so lost that I cannot return to it. So I would like to believe."

"Barathiel, could you just hold me for a few minutes and let me do something I haven't done in ages. Can I break like a proper lass in your arms right now?"

He welcomed Leresai in his arms under the doorway in the donjon. He leaned with his face into her hair. Her thoughts gently stroked up against his mind.

Wild strawberries.

She thought as a breeze billowed up from the clover. He felt the light of her eyes retreating and the totality of her thoughts concentrated once again in distant memory.

Snow drifted down whipping across her face. She was on the glacier again. The last prints she had spotted were a few dozen feet away. The giants were nowhere near. Their movements were brazen until now, as if they feared nothing. Now, however, they scattered to their hiding places.

Where did they go?

Leresai moved forward with her bow drawn. What spooked them? She glanced at the sun and followed the course of the current shadows cast to see if anything was out of place.

A flurry of snow rose up in figure-eights in her eyes and then scattered away. Along the ridge line westward someone was walking towards her.

A long tall elven creature. Easily seven foot tall. Rhoethella.

Leresai notched her bow. The goddess was not close enough for a voice to naturally carry well, but as she spoke she sounded as if she were a mere few feet away from Leresai.

"You chose to ignore my request to meet. Quite arrogant of you, but you come from a very arrogant people, Sgoëthe."

Rhoethella was at least one hundred and twenty yards away. Leresai took quick aim and fired an arc well above the goddess. It fell from the sky in a graceful descent and struck Rhoethella in the heart.

The goddess fell, but laughed as she did so. She got up, pulled the shaft out of her chest. She snapped the arrow like a twig. Her robe seemed to mend as if it crawled with near invisible silkworms. She continued to walk forward. Rhoethella spoke.

"What could this bitch goddess who now approaches you possibly say to change your mind? All you want now is to return to the life you had and forget the dreadful year the Sœurarchy stole from you, but how can you possibly forget?"

Leresai drew her bow skyward, springing her step forward with weight planted on the front knee. Four arrows in breathtakingly rapid succession shot true into Rhoethella's naval cavity.

The goddess wore a set of leathers that exposed too much of her flesh to be effective in her defense. In the corner clubs in many cities it was a popular affectation for women who were more rogue than warrior.

Rhoethella stopped. As she stared down at her navel, long silver blue strands of hair slid down the length of her. She pulled her hair to the side revealing a smile on her angular face a wolf would do well to copy.

The goddess pulled the four arrows out. Entrails jetted along the length of the shaft wrapped tight. As she twirled the shafts, she broke off an arrowhead and used it to cut loose intestines that refused to slide off easily. She threw the arrows aside and stuck the remainder of her innards back in place.

Where skin ripped Rhoethella folded the dermis back down and new bonds formed. Satisfied, she continued forward with her smile all the more widened.

"But how can you possibly forget, Leresai? We made you, a proud godless Sgöethe, fuck any man who paid the tithe. When you were impregnated and how many times was that? Yes, seven, we unceremoniously strapped you into a gurney.

"We dript the blood of a troll over your stomach and pubis to find out if it was the 'one'. When the results were unsatisfactory, we forced you to drink bitter abortificants to miscarriage and did so so many times they rendered you sterile.

"So, I ask of you, Leresai, how can you possibly forgive or forget what we did to you? Is it well and good for you to return to your life here in the Northern Isles, or will you not be satisfied until the Great Temple in Meizsol is shorn brick by brick? Don't answer; it isn't necessary. I know the answer. Madame Luna herself whispers to me the secrets that lie in our souls at night, and I know what is in yours."

Rhoethella stood over Leresai now. The Sgoëthe frowned and eventually stopped staring back into the goddess' own silver eyes. She cast her gaze downward.

"I know it will take more than words for me to convince you to return and serve as my Handmaiden, I so euphemistically call those who do my bidding in the skulduggery art. Look at me, Leresai Fervarryn."

The goddess smiled. She held a coin of platinum in her hand. She leaned down offering it to Leresai. For a moment, Leresai was offended. I don't want even a partial of your filthy wealth, she had thought before she understood what the goddess was offering.

She quickly realized there was something special about the coin. She took it from Rhoethella's hand. It was dated fifty-two years into the future. On the front side was a picture of a handsome young man.

She flipped it over.

On the other was a picture of an older Leresai clothed as an empress. In her arms she held an infant.

"Who is that beautiful child?"

"Your son, so it claims, the first emperor of our lands in over one thousand years."

"This can't be real, Leresai protested.

"None of the sisters thought so either as frauds of this sort have been perpetrated since the Mandate banning augurs of Fortune, Fate and Destiny was first decreed. But then, you show up at the Temple in the flesh so very much real. They wanted to slaughter you.

"I stayed their hands. You're the first interesting thing, a catalyst in our social alchemy, in several generations. So, I couldn't let that happen. Come with me, Leresai. It isn't a threat if you refuse.

"I won't let them harm you no matter your choice. But look to that infant. Look at him as a promise from me. I never give promises lightly"