Page 64 of A Tale of Mirth & Magic

I froze, my brain trying to take in the person before me. That familiar, unsettling voice.

Felsith.

My lip curled. I blinked furiously to clear my vision. It was darker here, the main road half a block away. No one around.

Reaching for my belt knife, I took a breath to bite back at him.

Something stung, sharp and cold, into the side of my neck. My fingers found a small dart there as the edges of my vision quickly darkened, fading to black. From a far distance, I felt myself stumble and slump to the ground. Someone behind me caught me low before I smashed my head on the cobblestones.

“She’s out,” a woman’s satisfied voice said close to my ear. And then, as everything slipped away, “Told you that I’d make you pay…”

“Good,” Felsith replied, a distant oily purr. “Let’s move her fast.”

A response from the other person, indecipherable. My numb arms thrown around shoulders.

Then everything went dark.

22

BARRA

Elikki was gone.

Just a few short hours ago we’d been together in this room. Talking. Fucking. Laughing. And now she’d left.

I thought back to that moment when I asked her to come stay with me. I had truly believed that her gift—this beautiful necklace that she had poured so much of her time and magic into for me—meant something.

Not just that she valued our time together. But that she wanted more. More of me. More of our… relationship? What I had started to hope was the beginning of a relationship, at least.

The way Elikki had looked when she gave me the necklace, when she kissed me—a sadness like she was mourning the loss of me while I was still in the room. I’d thought she might want another option. A future together, or at least the possibility of one.

I had been so fucking wrong.

Inviting her to Nepu only hastened our ending. It was the same story I’d written for myself time and time again with previous people, just in a different font. I’d put myself out there again. Scared off someone wonderful again. Got my heart broken. Again.

When would I learn? Elikki had been completely honest with me from the start. She didn’t do serious. This was supposed to be short-lived, just fun. Two travelers on an unexpected road trip, fighting bounty hunters and having some amazing sex.

I should have kept my mouth shut. Swallowed my feelings and enjoyed the time we had, whatever days were left. It still would have broken my heart when she eventually moved on, but all those extra memories… I could have had so much more Elikki to think about, hold close, in the months and years after I returned to my monotonous life.

Who invites someone home to live with them after a week? Who tells someone that they love them as that person is actively leaving you, rejecting you?

She was right to go, I berated myself as I dragged a palm over my face, rubbing away tears. I had to get out of this room. Maybe I’d go see Pebble. It had been a couple of days since I checked in on my horse at the inn’s stables. Dragging myself to my feet, I took a few steadying breaths, then headed downstairs.

When I entered the inn’s main room, still half full despite the late hour, the innkeeper behind the bar looked over. She was talking to a cloaked figure who leaned forward, listening intently.

I stopped abruptly. Bounty hunter.

We thought they’d given up. There hadn’t been any sign of one since we’d arrived. Thank the goddess Elikki was gone, safe somewhere else for the night.

The innkeeper nodded and jerked her thumb at me. I tensed. There was nowhere to go. I’d have to deal with them here. The cloaked person looked over to where the innkeeper pointed, to where I stood like a seven-and-a-half-foot-tall statue by the stairwell. I desperately wished I’d strapped on my sword before leaving my room.

Their face was partly in shadow. Shaking their hood back, they peered across the candlelight room at me—

“Telen?” I cried in disbelief.

My eldest sister’s dark brown face broke into a wide grin. She strode toward me, hands in her pockets.

“Well, well. Glad to see you’re alive, little brother.”