“It all sounds very romantic, in a way,” Victoria said. “Exactly the sort of relationship that I can imagine appealing to Vidalia. Confident, competent, dominant man, morally ambiguous, crushes any obstacles in his way…”

  Appealing to Vidalia? Mariella thought. But not you? Or you’re just keeping your feelings hidden…

  “That’s a good summary,” the fire mage said aloud. Her hands shook slightly as she spoke. She wished Tybalt was there so that she could do something more fun than explaining how he made her feel. She would rather be giving those feelings physical expression right now. The skirmish with the squad had raised her adrenaline, she had come down, and now her heart rate was spiking again. Having her lover awake to help her use that nervous energy would have been nice.

  “How did he do all this to you?” Victoria asked, gently touching Mariella’s shaky hands.

  “Part of it was just in me, and I never realized it completely,” the fire mage said. “I’ve always been a follower, not a leader. But when we were alone, I would do what he wanted, follow where he led, even though I outranked him. It took me a little time to realize I might want to follow him even after we left the Army. When that happened, I gave myself to him. But he never did this to me. It was a reaction to who he is. What he is. The way he acts. The way he smells. You might experience something like it if you’re not careful.”

  “I guess I don’t need to ask if you’d still choose him if you had it to do over again.”

  “I don’t know if I would!” Mariella exclaimed. “I’m still not sure if I’d even call him a good man. But he will be a great one or die trying. I really believe that. I think he’s destined to achieve great things. For a short time, I was afraid of that. Now I’ve accepted, maybe the things he’s going to do are too significant for me to judge him or his methods from my own narrow perspective. Maybe I should learn to accept going along for the ride. Let others judge.”

  “That’s something I’ve struggled with, whenever Vidalia talks about him,” Victoria said, frowning. “She says he’ll be a king and a conqueror or a dead outlaw, and he’s supposed to be reshaping the world even now. He was chosen by the gods—by Lord Mudo—for something important, and I get that he’s special. But I can already see what it’s taking out of him, without having even met him properly.” She gestured at the room Tybalt lay in, where he was recovering from his battle injuries. “I just don’t know if I want to—”

  “I’m back!” Vidalia’s voice came from the entryway. “You’ll never guess who I ran into!”

  Mariella turned and saw the foxgirl was carrying a cod.

  “A fisherman?” Mariella guessed.

  “Well, yes, but—I mean, I guess that was easy once you saw what I was holding,” Vidalia said, laughing. “Luka had a good haul today, and he wanted to thank our dear saviors for their hard work saving the village.” Her facial expression changed subtly, and she leaned over to look at the fabric that hung between her room and the main room. “Um, is darling awake yet?”

  Mariella shook her head.

  “Vida, you’d be able to tell if he woke up suddenly with your powers, wouldn’t you?” Victoria asked.

  “Yeah, but… a girl can hope! I didn’t get to meet him properly yet. I can caress and cuddle his unconscious body all I want, as long as Uncle Edmund doesn’t realize how much time I’m spending in that room. But—oh, um…” She seemed to realize she’d just said something embarrassing and turned pink.

  How did she get so attached to someone from dreams alone? Mariella found it unexpectedly cute. She and Vidalia were allies in having fallen for Tybalt out of nowhere.

  “Don’t feel weird,” Mariella said. “I miss him too. He’d be making fun of you right now for what you just said, but the way he’d do it would just make you like him more.”

  “Want to go lie down next to him? Maybe he’ll wake up faster…”

  “Food, Vida,” Victoria said in a lovingly teasing tone. “Food. Remember the fish? You’re holding a fish right now. Cook the fish first, and eat. You can’t live off longing looks alone, and Tybalt isn’t an egg. He won’t wake faster if you keep him warm with your body.”

  “Well, Mom always used to say that was the best medicine if you really cared about someone,” Vidalia muttered. “Keeping them warm with your body.”

  Mariella smiled, but she noticed Victoria’s face freeze for a moment and then shift rapidly through a few different emotions: annoyed discomfort, sadness, shifting into a small, begrudging smile by the end.

  “You can go and harass our savior’s unconscious body after we eat, then,” Victoria said. “Better cook fast.”

  The three women shared a laugh.

  Then Vidalia went to work turning the liquid in the pot into fish stew.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  The room was relatively quiet—Mariella and Victoria could not return to their previous subject of conversation while Vidalia was there, they both understood—and Vidalia was focused on her task.

  The stillness was finally broken by a knock at the entrance.

  Three heads snapped to look over there. Vidalia and Victoria looked slightly nervous, while Mariella was just curious who would be coming to this place and needed to knock. It couldn’t be the uncle and cousin, or they would have just walked in. No one in the area was a physical threat to Mariella with Tybalt comatose.

  Then he poked his head in. Baldwin.

  Or rather, Tybalt’s creature, the monster who had formerly been Baldwin.

  It was easier to make that distinction in her mind, because she saw the deep scratches on his face, the gouge that a blade of some sort had cut out of his neck, and other assorted wounds that he’d accumulated. None of them bled, nor were they scabbed over. They were just there, like damage to any dead body that had not been repaired or covered over by a skilled mortician.

  “Hi,” the undead said awkwardly.

  “Child-killer,” Mariella growled, first to respond. Her hand leaped to her sword hilt.

  Tybalt should have killed you before. Now I can correct the mistake.

  “Why are you calling me that?” Baldwin asked, apparently startled. “Wait, is it because of him?”

  His body besides his head and neck had remained outside the hut, but now one arm reached inside, holding part of a child.

  Mariella recognized the head as the same one the squad had been playing around with earlier that day, but now the upper half of the torso was attached, too, minus an arm.

  The half-child raised the arm it had and waved.

  “It’s truly an honor to meet you, ma’am,” the undead child said. “I’ve heard only good things from the master and Baldwin.” There was an unnatural air about him, but Mariella focused more on the fact that he had somehow been restored to a more complete version of his physical form.

  “You… you fixed him?” Her hand that had been poised on the sword flattened against it, less certain than she had been about drawing it.

  That doesn’t matter, this child isn’t the real child, he’s a perversion of the real one—that was what she told herself, but on some level, it did matter to her. If Baldwin had enough regard for the undead child to repair him, perhaps he wasn’t as monstrous as Mariella had judged him. Perhaps Tybalt was right that his bad behavior could be corrected by proper leadership.

  “I saw some of the pieces moving to rejoin him, so I brought them close enough to reattach,” Baldwin said. “Hieron’s body does that on its own. Uh, if I’m unwanted, I’ll just get out of here. It’s a big mountain. Lots of wilderness to explore. I just wanted to drop in and check on the master.” He gave her a small, nervous smile that told Mariella he’d recognized her hostility.

  The master? Right, the boy said it too. Is that what Tybalt has them calling him? The word sounded interesting in her mind. It fit with the dominant, pushy Tybalt she had fallen for. Master.

  Somehow it felt more powerful than “Lord” as she pronounced it in her head.

  “If you’re going hunting, bring us back some meat!” Vidalia said. “Darling—I mean, ‘the master’—needs to get well fast, and meat will help with that.”

  “Um, yes, ma’am,” Baldwin said in an embarrassed, subservient tone. “Did he, um, get married while we were separated?”

  That was right. Vidalia had used a form of the word “darling” that implied a very close relationship, like marriage or engagement.

  “Not yet,” Vidalia said casually. “Only a matter of time, though.”

  The exchange had defused some of Mariella’s anger. Treating Baldwin like a servant, someone beneath them, felt like the right way to behave for now.

  Perhaps having been resurrected from the dead, forced to serve a master who did not truly respect him, and now even taking orders from random girls who he would have gladly killed two weeks ago was the best punishment that could be contrived for him.

  The foxgirl’s flippant words also made it difficult to take any situation entirely seriously, but the fire mage was not put off her purpose so easily.

  “Answer me one question before you go, Baldwin,” Mariella said tightly.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said stiffly.

  “Tybalt has absolute control over you, correct? Preventing you from disobeying him?”

  If that’s the case, I’ll treat you as a piece of his property, much as you still sicken me. I won’t destroy you without his permission.

  “That’s right, Lieutenant,” Baldwin said. “I know what you want to ask.” He lowered his gaze. “I’m not going to kill any more children. It’s not worse than what the Commander had me doing, but I recognize that the master wants us to hold ourselves to a higher standard than the Kingdom.”

  Mariella was, if not satisfied, at least momentarily placated.

  “Get out, then,” she said. “Don’t come back without meat for your master.”

  She took a little more pleasure than she should have in the stiff discomfort on his face.

  Yes, this might be all right as a punishment. A life sentence, obedience to people he didn’t like who also didn’t like him. If Tybalt didn’t want him destroyed, this might be even worse from Baldwin’s perspective.

  The undead man stepped back out of the hut, and he took the undead boy with him.

  “So, who’s hungry?” Vidalia asked.

  Victoria raised her hand and smiled at Mariella, who returned the expression weakly.

  Today has been one of the strangest and most disturbing of my life, the fire mage thought. If I try to eat, won’t I end up feeling nauseous and throwing up?

  “I’m not sure—” she began.

  Then Mariella’s stomach growled loudly, cutting her off. An awkward moment of silence passed.

  “I suppose I could eat something…”

  Life had to go on.