Haelsith is another major city of the Desert Triarchy and is near the border of Desolation. The city is the primary source of food due to irrigation and trading with the towns within Desolation to the north. They are also the primary researchers of Blight Magic, both in use and how to cure the tainted it leaves on the land.

Lukou

Analais and me exit my little hut and walk over to his own. As much as I would like to listen to K telling others how great I am, there are things to do and I don’t really want to hear about the other things are bound to come up in the path that their discussion is going.

As the two of us enter into the hut, Analais asks “so, what did you want to talk about?” as he sits down at his table.

“Food, if I can’t hunt because Ragnor abuses his power I need another way to get food and you bring more meat than you and Alana can eat before it goes bad” I answer.

“I can’t bring in the food for four people every day.”

“You don’t have to.”

“You have a solution for overhunting?”

“No, but I did find a lot of salt in my extradimensional stash.”

“Oh, just how much salt do you have?”

“Not sure, more than would fit on your table.”

Analais just stares at me for a moment before he asks, “how large is your extradimensional pocket?”

I shrug, “I don’t know, I can’t sense an end to wherever it is. So, how about a trade of salt for meat?”

“Alana usually handles this sort of thing for the two of us but she’ll probably accept. Kythia will probably end up doing the same for you.”

“Why would she?”

“Division of responsibility and power; while the balance between you and her may differ, it’ll probably end up being the same as the division that the two positions of alpha are.”

“What is that actual division?”

“Well, the alpha male has final say in all matters of war, travel, hunting and the like while the alpha female has the final say in all matters domestic.”

“That doesn’t seem very good for the girls, and a bit sexist.”

Analais shrugs, “it’s a system that works and they’re in charge of more than you think. Spend a moment to think how much Ragnor was really able to do to you with the authority he has.”

I pause for a moment, he’s right. Ragnor couldn’t really do much of anything to me. He won’t let me hunt ‘legally’ but that really only cost me maybe an hour to get around his pathetic plan to prevent me from getting food. Though bartering it from Analais is only a temporary option, regardless of how much I do have in Void Cache it will eventually run out if all I do is trade it away. I need to add to it. I want to have more not less, even if it is something that is as plain as salt.

“That is a fair point. Do you think they’ve finished up with the topic they were on?”

“It’s possible” Analais says while getting back up and we begin to walk back to my small hut.

As Analais and me reenter my poor hut the women inside look at us. They had apparently been waiting a short period of time for our return. On the makeshift table lies a bow, a piece of what seems to be leather armor, and some blankets.

“Kythia has already received the gifts on your behalf” Alana says after giving me a moment to take a discrete count of the table's contents.

I know what comes next, I am supposed to give gifts of appreciation to those that housed me the past months as well as a gift for the mother of my mate. Though that does not have to be at this exact moment. I could probably give Kylana a random book from the piles of them in Void Cache but I don’t really have anything to give Analais and Alana.

“I apologize that I was not present to receive them, and thank you for the gifts, I am sure Kythia will enjoy showing me them. Unfortunately, I have not yet prepared anything to give you all” I say.

“Oh, you didn’t find anything that could be a gift sitting around in that odd extradimensional storage of yours?” Kylana asks.

“No, I was too busy chasing your daughter to look through it all” I counter for the sole purpose of embarrassing K as I put an arm around her waist.

K blushes as I pull her to me and as she submits to me, both of the other women laugh. My hand slips slightly under her shirt on accident but I just enjoy holding my K. I don’t care that the few people here can see my actions, at least during such a small token of my affections.

“We’ll see ourselves out” Alana says with a smile.

I nod at her and the odd smirk on Kylana’s face. Which in all honesty bothers me a bit that she seems to be so interested in what I am about to do to her daughter again. Is she not getting enough love from Ragnor?

After everyone has left my small little hut, I nibble on the tip of K’s ear.

“Already?” she asks half excited, half exasperated.

“Of course, how could I not want to give you all the love and attention that you deserve” I whisper in her ear as I get a little more handsy . . .

Thalia

Sister and me began the return trip from the expedition father sent us on a few days ago. The journey itself has been boring as the most dangerous things we’ve run into are desiccated and dissected corpses of the tainted. The older elves are terrified of some guy their calling the blood elf lich but I never heard of any such person.

“Don’t be mad sister, at least we got to leave the city” Lysan says as we exit the mountain pass towards Daerth.

“But we didn’t get to actually do anything” I complain.

“Quiet, something is wrong” Vallen says as we reach the woods.

If only I think for a moment. I should have pushed to get back to these woods in time for whatever that Paring Howl was rather than for more time in the Darklands so we could actually fight something.

My thoughts are disrupted as Vallen knocks sister and me to the ground. I almost hit him before a wave of heat explodes from behind me. The screams of my guards echo across the pass as they burn and both terror and excitement run through my mind. The scent of burning flesh hit my noise as Vallen says, “I need to get the two of you out of here.”

“No, I can fight” I begin before sister cuts me off saying, “sister, no we’re surrounded.”

A moment later, Vallen speaks a word I do not recognize only to finally notice that we were not alone. That we had walked straight into a trap, a trap that was concealed in some sort of illusion. No, not a trap, they are not surrounding or flanking us.

Sister shouts something out, a spell that I did not know she knew. The air seems to take on a sheen as a barrage of roughly a dozen arrows knock against the empty air.

“There’s too many to fight like this” Vallen says as he pulls me up to my feet.

He glances at the barrier that sister set up or more specifically what lies beyond it. A moment later, he pulls two vials of something out of his bag and passes them to me as he says, “drink them, you’ll be invisible for a few minutes. Go to the Bloodclaw, they’ll help.”

He then draws the thin elven blade that shows his rank as a Bladesinger, that he is a master of the blade and use of magic to augment his martial skill. The blade glows and blue-silver flames race along the blade, as he begins to swing the blade in an arc towards those that had ambushed us in one of the flashiest ways that he could have.

The silvery flames draw my eyes as they pass through the air before sister pulls me away and uncorks one of the bottles before emptying it in my mouth. I choke for a second before swallowing, and begin to follow the tug of my sister to the side. When I turn to look at her I do not see anything, not even my own hand. Invisibility? Sister doesn’t know that spell, how. . .

The potion, Vallen gave us potions of invisibility to sneak away. I want to fight, I never get to actually fight but there are a lot of Althaen. Too many for Vallen, sister and me to win against. Too many for them to have been gathered to deal with our small group.

Sister and me run into the woods, I don’t want to and my vision begins to blur as I know that we are leaving Vallen to die. That all of the elves that we traveled with are either dead or we are leaving them to die.

It is late in the night and hours after the invisibility from the potion had worn off when sister and me finally stop. We don’t know where in the woods that we are or where the werewolf village is but Lysan seemed to know where she was going in. We stopped in a clearing that is covered in broken pieces of wood and torn grass as if people fight or spar in the clearing every day.

“Why did you lead us here?” I ask.

“Rúloaña, told me to go here” sister answers.

“When did you have the time to call on her?”

“I, didn’t. It just came in a dream last night.”

“Why, why would she tell you to go here?”

“I don’t know. The gods don’t often tell the why but we will meet with the Bloodclaw if we wait here.”

I just look at my twin sister, I have never understood the divine side of magic or the actions of the gods as she can. All I do know is that gods have their own plans and problems. If Rúloaña told sister to come to this place there is a reason but it may not be for the reason that she thinks.

“Are you sure?” I ask and she nods.

“I’ll watch as you take your rest then” I say as I know she had a harder time running for as long as we did than me.

She nods and I begin to circle around the clearing, laying down the lines of mana for the detection field in an Alarm spell while looking to see what I can learn about those that frequent the clearing. I can’t tell what magics have been cast here nor anything other than that at least two people come here often.

Once my Alarm spell is set I pace around the clearing thinking as I keep watch, at least I can see with what little light the moon still gives off. Now, why would a small army of Althaen be in these woods for? They couldn’t have known that we would be passing through. If they were here for us the ambush would have been up the mountain pass just after the keep that guards it. . .

What else is in these woods that they would even want? Or were they on their way to the Darklands to cut down the population of the tainted as we were? No, not the Darklands. They would not have made a camp where they did for that. They were trying to conceal the camp we walked into. . .

The forest, they have to be after something here and they’re waiting for something. The only thing I know is in this forest are the Bloodclaw, but what would the Althaen be waiting for? Maybe the right time to attack?

I look up at the night sky to see a waning crescent that barely exists. Tomorrow would be a new moon, tomorrow is when the Bloodclaw would be their weakest. If they are the reason for the Althaen to be here then they would make their move tomorrow.