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A Stubborn and Foolish Notion
Verve inhaled the scents of jessamin, lavender, and sweetgrass. Her head rested on something soft, which meant she wasn’t on the floor — or the hard ground, where she’d spent many nights camped out on some mission. So she wasn’t dead and she had shelter. Both were pleasant realizations. But the more her consciousness returned, the more she noticed the furious pounding in her head. Although she wasn’t gagged, her tongue tasted like someone had shoved heaps of dirty rags into her mouth.
After some internal grumbling, she forced her eyes to open. She was indeed inside what looked like someone’s home. Colorful woven tapestries covered the walls and floor, and a small altar of the One god sat at the window opposite her. A single crystal hung from a circular wooden frame resting on the windowsill, casting hundreds of tiny rainbows throughout the little room.
“Alem,” Ivet said from her side. “She’s waking.”
Even the quiet words roared through Verve’s head like a thunderclap and she groaned, turning her face into the pillow. The throbbing increased, like her brain was a blacksmith working to outfit an entire cavalry. A door creaked, and footsteps pounded against the floor, coming to a halt beside her.
Cool fingers pressed against Verve’s temple. She flinched away, but he kept his place and murmured, “Be still.”
His touch was gentle and although Verve’s better sense urged her to flee, she held still. Gradually, so gradually she might have imagined it, her headache meandered away, as if it had realized it had taken a wrong turn. The absence of pain left her hollow until she opened her eyes again and met Alem’s gaze. His face was stoic, save a tiny smile in his eyes that sent a flutter in her chest.
“Better?” he asked.
In response, Verve twisted to look at her calf, where the shiftling had sliced her last night. Save a few odd freckles and an old burn scar from a past battle, her dark-brown skin was uninjured. There wasn’t even a scar.
Her mouth went dry.
Alem was a dendric mage. The most rare of all the magic-users, dendric mages could manipulate particles of blood, flesh, and bone. Verve had never met one before, only heard stories that would curdle milk. Her ribs threatened to crush her insides, but she worked to quell the sudden, desperate urge to snap the magic-user’s neck. He’d used his magic to help her, after all. But no doubt the moment he learned what she truly was, he’d turn against her.
Act casual, she scolded herself. At least Ivet seemed concern for her well-being. Even kindness could be a weapon in the right hands. No one needed to know Verve’s true motive for being in Lotis.
But when she looked into Alem’s dark eyes, what came out of her mouth was, “What in the stars and moons is a dendric mage doing here, curing cuts and hangovers?”
His lips pressed together. “There’s no such thing. I’m afraid you’re mistaken.”
Shit. Most normal folks had no clue about dendric mages, so Verve scrambled to correct her error. It’d been a long time since she’d let herself get spellbound by a pretty face. She wouldn’t make that mistake again. “I’ve been around. I’ve heard stories.”
“I’m sure.” He looked over at Ivet, who stood a pace away. “I told you, bringing her here was a bad idea.”
“Compassion is never the wrong choice,” Ivet replied. “Isn’t that why you’re here?”
Alem’s eyes flickered to Verve, and he flushed again. “Point taken.”
Ivet offered Verve a warm smile. “Please don’t say anything about Alem’s… gifts. As you can well-imagine, many lives depend upon him.”
Verve nodded, but she hardly heard the words because her throat went tight at the familiar cadence to Ivet’s voice. But she pushed through the feeling of homesickness. To feel homesick for a home that didn’t exist any longer was pure foolishness. She sat up slowly, rubbing her eyes and glancing around the small room. Her hematite gear, crossbow case, pack, and the rest of her weapons—including her wire bracelet—lay neatly together at the foot of her sleeping pallet, covered in tiny rainbows cast by the morning light that pierced the crystal.
Surely they’d seen the hematite in her gear. But it sat unmolested and within easy reach. Which meant they didn’t see her as a threat — or they had reinforcements waiting outside the door.
A normal person—or at least, not a trained mage-killer—wouldn’t feel nervous or intimidated right now, so Verve tried to pretend. But she couldn’t look at Alem—a sodding mage—right now, so she focused on the Sufani woman. “The shape-changer?”
“No sign after she left,” Ivet said, coming closer to kneel beside Verve. Alem retreated to the other side of the room, glowering. Ivet ignored him and studied Verve. “I thank you, stranger, for your interference last night. How are you feeling?”
Verve rubbed her forehead. “Well enough. I…” She trailed off when her fingers brushed her still-damp hair — and felt the absence of her scarf. She sucked in a breath and looked toward her belongings, only to see Ivet hand her the scarf, clean and neatly folded. Verve snatched it from the other woman and tucked it into a pocket on her tunic.
Ivet smiled. Lines bracketed her eyes and mouth; all spoke of a life of laughter. Verve’s heart twisted, but she forced herself to speak normally. “Thanks for the heal, I suppose.”
Alem grunted.
Ivet chuckled. “He means, ‘you’re most welcome.’”
“I mean nothing of the sort.”
Verve hid her amusement. Focus, she told herself. Do your job. To Ivet, she said, “I’m still in Lotis, right?”
“The one and only,” Ivet replied, sitting back, placing her single, weathered brown hand in her lap. “Did you mean to arrive in our little corner of the world, or did the One god have their own plans for your path?”
