“Will you behave?” said Dorian, frowning.

Leo nodded, goggle-eyed. “Really?” Dorian shot him a stern look. “You’re not just saying that so I’ll let you go, are you?” More frantic nodding. “Fine.”

Dorian released the restraints and Leo leapt back to his feet with an instant.

He dashed to Lin’s side, spreading his arms before her. He had the posture of a very scared scarecrow. “Call the guards, Miss!” He cried. “Sound the alarms! I’ll hold him off! Run—“

That was all he got out before Dorian clamped a chain over his mouth. “Naughty,” sighed Dorian, wagging a finger. Grappler builds are fun. I should’ve tried them more in past lives.

“Let’s try again. Will you behave?”

Lin was steaming. “Um,” she said. She stood there, mouth a little open, her tongue staging a mini-revolt. Then she gulped. “Leo,” she said, struggling to scrounge together the shreds of her composure. “Io is a guest here—my guest. Please, be calm. I’m fine! More than fine. I was a little excited earlier and… I, ah, made a bit of a mess. That’s all.”

“MMDMH?!”’ said Leo.

Lin blushed. “Um.” She swallowed, met Dorian’s eyes, blushed, and looked down. She shuffled her feet. “He won’t cause a fuss anymore. Will you let him go?”

Leo stared at her in horror.

Dorian scratched his cheek, pretending to think for a moment. How amusing. Then he shrugged and unraveled the chains; Leo collapsed to his knees, gasping. Dorian helped him back to his feet with a hearty slap on the butt. The boy’s yelp reached an octave hitherto unknown to man. He scrambled straight out the door.

Then Dorian turned to Lin and held out a hand. “Please show me the way, Miss Lin.”

“Of course,” she breathed, nodding shyly. “This way…”

***

Minutes later, Leo Ouyang was dashing up the highest spire of the Artificer’s guild, taking the steps by twos, trying to hold back tears. What happened to his dear Lin, his lovely Lin? Mind control? Some perverse elixir?

This was the worst thing to happen to him since mother revoked his day-drinking allowance. He frowned. This might hurt even more. “AHH!” he cried again.

The savage had to be punished, that much was certain. And Leo knew just the man to do it.

He rounded a corner and came face-to-face with a Wyrm skull, broken in half down the middle. He flinched, and couldn’t smother the squeal as it left his lips. He must’ve seen it a hundred times, but it still always got him. It meant he was getting close. As he ran, he passed an armory’s worth of axes and gauntlets, all won in honor duels; teeth; the horns and bones of great beasts, mounted as trophies on the walls.

Finally he arrived at a door. At the top, etched in stone by a rough hand with a jagged knife, read: MARTIAL ELDER KAL. ENFORCER.

And underneath, written in blood, was a red sign: DO NOT DISTURB.

Leo gulped. The last time someone had annoyed Elder Kal, that some-one had become a no-one, and then promptly had his skull mounted on the wall. This was the same Elder Kal who’d broke the back of the Beast-Horde of 327C, the man who’d shredded the legendary drake Whistlethorn with his bare hands! For a moment, Leo paused. That sign did look very convincing.

Then that memory of Lin making love-eyes at the savage wormed its way into his mind again…

Shrieking, he shoved his way in.

***

Martial Elder Kal sat curled-up atop his dragonbone seat, giggling under his impressive set of mustaches. He held in his hand the latest of a kelp-book—a delightful invention, printing flashy tall tales on leftover, low-grade kelp, released once a week. It was just the thing to unwind with after a long, stressful day cracking idiots’ skulls together.

This one was named Forbidden Romance #78. It was his favorite of the kelps; a love story between a brave Oasis Young Master separated from his family and a Tribes-girl with gravity-defying bits. Finally, after months of flirtations—stumbling upon her bathing at a nearby sinkhole (incidentally, also the scene chosen for the cover art), fending off rivals in his love-quadrangle, and finally getting her stodgy old goat of a father’s approval—Kal had cheered aloud at that scene—they were finally on a moonlit walk together. They confessed to each other, kissed; she arched her back, his hands went lower…

“Oh my,” rumbled Kal, red-faced, reading the page between his fingers. Now the Young Master was removing her top, which an accompanying illustration depicted as having the thickness of a drawstring. Things were getting steamy. He turned the page, transfixed.

Then the door burst open.

“Martial Elder!”

Kal sat bolt upright, chucking the book to the floor. “WHAT?!” In times like these he was thankful his beard covered up the bulk of his face. He was red all the way to his ears.

Oh. It’s this fucking moron again. His friend Duke Ouyang’s moist blob of a son. “Didn’t you see the godsdamned sign?!” He hissed. “What fills that thick skull of yours, you dickless boob? Fluff and fucking earwax?”

“This junior is wrong!” babbled Lilly. Leon? Kal frowned. Leo. Yes. That was his name. “This junior is not worthy—“ Kal took a step at him and he flailed back on his ass. “P-please don’t hit me!” He cried. “I can’t take it! My skin’s really sensitive, mother says I bruise easily!” It took a second for the boy to re-collect his thoughts. “Urk—um—I—I wouldn’t have come if it wasn’t urgent—“

“Spit. It. Out.” Kal’s beard bristled with each word.

“Your Niece—she’s been kidnapped!”

Kal froze. Then his blood froze. “What?!”

Leo dabbed at his sniffling face. “We were walking along, her and I, when this savage ambushed us in the hall! He sneak attacked us… before I knew it, he ran off with her!”

The full force of Kal’s Earth-Realm cultivation base exploded. Every glass cup in the room shattered in an instant. A sudden gale of fuming heat swept over the room.

“WHERE?!”

“I saw him running for the testing rooms—“

Kal charged out the door like a cannonball.

***

“One Tier 1 Test, please,” said Lin to the gray-haired lady manning the desk. Behind them was an archway which lead to the guild’s state-of-the-art testing rooms, a grid of scaled-down furnaces and mini-toolboxes.

“Right away, Mistress Lin,” said the lady. She paused to look at Dorian, bewildered. “And who is this? He isn’t the test-taker, surely…?” “My guest,” said Lin with a smile. She squeezed his hand. “And he is. If you must be formal about it: I, Lin Zhang, hereby authorize this test by my authority as a Tier 3 Artificer.”

The lady blinked at her behind two wide-rimmed glasses. Even standing near Dorian seemed to make her uncomfortable. “I see…As you say, Mistress.”

She jotted a few notes down on a pad. Then she flicked a switch attached to the desk. Above, a white light turned on.

“A Proctor will be here shortly,” she said. She nodded to Dorian, then flinched as he nodded back. “Kindly follow me… at a distance…”

She disappeared beyond the archway. He moved to do so, but was stopped by a hand on his wrist.

Lin was looking up at him hopefully. “When will I see you again?”

Gently, he pried her hand off. “If I pass, we’ll surely see each other around the guild often.” He bent down and kissed her hand for good measure—a short, chaste kiss—if only for the look on her face. She looked like she was on the verge of toppling over. It’s far too much fun to mess with these silly mortals. “It’s been a pleasure,” he whispered.

Then he turned and, without another look back, went past the archway.

***

Lin felt like she was in the middle of a very pleasant dream. Everything was brighter, somehow, glowing. She couldn’t keep a smile off her face. She could feel lots of eyes on her, could feel rumors swirling about, but she didn’t care. She wished this could last forever.

“Good day, Lin,” said a breathy voice, and the feeling crumbled. She whirled around to see the last person she wished to see.

Eudora Azcan, in all her annoyingly tall glory, surrounded by her posse of lapdogs. One of the brightest stars in the year above Lin’s class, the sixth daughter of the Oasis Lord. Long, rosy-brown hair flowing to a slim waist, two perpetually scornful eyes, and a smirking mouth all sat atop two long legs. If Lin was honest, she’d been jealous of the girl for years—she herself had grown to only average height by the most generous of measures. And that was before she’d stolen Lin’s first beau when Lin was barely thirteen. It’d been six years, and Lin still wasn’t over it.

Lin had never saw the appeal of the girl. Those legs were too long, she decided. Like stilts. Lin thought she looked like a jester atop them.

“So,” said Eudora. “I see you’ve found a new toy. Bored of the Healer’s son already?”

Lin bristled at her. “He’s not a toy, Eudora. He’s a friend. I’m not surprised you can’t tell the difference. Don’t you have better things to do than poke around my affairs?”

“Don’t flatter yourself. You’re not half as interesting as you think you are,” drawled Eudora. “But it’s hard to avoid when half the Guild’s blathering about this new savage-boy you’ve adopted. And to rush him to the testing chambers, no less—without a thought about the Guild’s face!” She giggled. “How typical of you.”

Before Lin could retort, a wall of heat whooshed in from across the hall.

With it came the massive meatball of a man that was her uncle—the Martial Elder Kal, decked in full battle regalia, his forest of a beard streaked red at the tips. His whole body was a massive knot of scar tissue. Lin felt for his foes in the dueling arena or the battlefield. Fighting this big lump of a man must’ve been like trying to scale a cliff face with no footholds. Where would they even start to resist, with a man like this?

“WHERE’S THAT BASTARD?!” boomed Kal, little fires in his eyes. Lin frowned. “Good afternoon to you too, dear Uncle. Where is who?”

Then Kal took her in. He looked surprised. The weight of his fully-flared aura dimmed a few notches. “Lin?”

“Who else? And must you make such a scene every time you enter a room?”

“But…” When Kal frowned, it looked like his whole face was swirling. He waddled up to her. “Are you hurt? Did you fight him off?”

“Why would I be hurt?”

“What? You were kidnapped! …Weren’t you?” Two canyons of a frown settled into his face as Lin shook her head. “Fuck! I should’ve known. I’ll whip the piss outta that boy…”

“Don’t you worry, Martial Elder. Lin wasn’t kidnapped,” said Eudora over her shoulder. There was a note of gloating in her voice. “She went with the savage quite willingly. They had to pry her off him.” Eudora sighed. “Hardly known him three hours, and she’s already fish-eyed over him. How precious.”

“What,” said Elder Kal.

“She’s insane. Don’t listen to her,” snapped Lin. “And will all of you stop calling him ‘the savage’? He’s got a name. It’s Io. And he’s got as much a right to take the Tier 1 exam as anyone else!”

“You… brought him—a sav—Outsider—who you’ve just met—to take the damned Tier test?” choked Elder Kal.

“Yes.” Lin thrust out her chin. “Do you have an issue with that, uncle dear?”

***

Martial Elder Kal felt like his brain was leaking out of his ears.

His niece had gone cracked in the head, but he’d known that about her for years. She was headstrong at her core—just like him. How would he handle her?

That Eudora girl was a right bitch and a troublemaker, but liar was usually a stretch too far for her. Did his niece really have the sweets for some savage-boy? She did look a good deal ruddier than usual…he didn’t get it. Why?

Then, out from the unwashed corners of his mind floated Forbidden Romance #78…the Young Master, seduced by the exotic savage girl with the gravity-defying tits…

He stiffened. Alarm bells were clattering in his brain.

“Listen,” Kal heard himself saying. He tried to affect a soothing tone, but in his voice it came out as gruff and rough as usual. “This ain’t a good idea, niece. You can’t be letting sav—Outsiders in willy-nilly. I don’t care how big his tits are!”

“I see,” Lin crossed her arms. “So now it’s your role to parent me and decide who I can and can’t befriend—or, for that matter, who can and can’t take the tests! Remind me, uncle, are you the Martial Elder or the Overseer Proctor?”

A pause. Kal wracked his brain for an answer. When she got mad, Lin was a small ball of distilled spunk. There was no winning with her, not when she was like this. He took a long, deep breath.

“You’re right, you’re right. As usual,” Kal nodded, grinning a big ugly friendly grin. “S’not my place to herd you about. Clearly I wasn’t much informed of the full picture. Now that I think on it more, it’s great you’re making new friends from Outside. Huzzah, I say! Huzzah!”

“Uh-huh,” said Lin, a brow raised.

Kal squinted at the desk-lady. “Has the boy gotten started? How long’s he been in there?”

“We’re still awaiting a proctor,” intoned the lady.

“Say. I’m an Elder of the Guild. I’m a Tier 5 Artificer, and as it turns out—I’ve got some spare time on my hands. Why don’t I proctor this boy’s exam?”

Lin gave him a sharp look. “Uncle…” she warned. He raised his hands in mock surrender. “Why must you look at me like I’m some villain? I’m your chummy Uncle Kal! Look, I’ll be fair. I’ll be good. Swear it on my honor.”

Which would’ve been a more convincing oath if he had any honor to start with. Without waiting for a response from Lin or the desk-lady, he cracked his knuckles and strolled on through the archway.

He was on his merry way to fail this savage-boy harder than anyone had been failed in the history of Tier testing.

No Forbidden Romances. Not on his watch!