The following days of the journey to the Royal Academy were smooth, though Henric didn't seem to calm down from whatever rut he'd gone into. The boy's eyes followed Ambrose regardless of the chasteness of her dress or her disapproval. Whenever he spoke to her he would stammer and try to convince her to shift forms, as though she would willingly give him a show. The only moments of peace she garnered were the wee hours of the morning, when both he and Lyssandrea were still asleep, but Ambrose felt wide awake, and ready for the day. She didn’t quite know why.

  That aside, Ambrose had no interest in being his entertainment, and denied his request whenever he made it, but the rejection really didn't seem to deter him. He would simply sulk and stagger off, only to return again with renewed wind at his back, each time rosy cheeked and stammering again.

  It had been about an hour since one such request, early into the afternoon of the third day of their trip when the cart stopped unprompted. Ambrose looked about the cabin before focusing past her long bangs to Lyssandrea who seemed just as confused as she. If they were both confused, that boded ill in Ambrose's book.

  “Stay here,” Lyssandrea commanded as she turned and then stood, moving to the back of the cart and dropping out of it to walk around and check on the driver.

  Ambrose was about to follow Lyssandrea's advice when she heard the searing, scream of a jet of fire pass the canopy covering the cart, orange light casting intense, eerie shadows across the occupants of the cart as fire was sent spewing past. There was a yell and then the sound of clashing metal from outside of the cart before a burst for radiance and a surprised shout.

  Ambrose decided that now was not the time to stay in the cart. Ignoring Henric, who was reaching for a sword of his own beneath the bench, she went Lambda, her hair thickening and her body plumping even as she lost a few inches of height. She dropped out of the back of the cart, shield at the ready.

  The first things she noticed were their location. They were on a flat, dirt road following the edge of a lush, green, woodland area. To the north were plains and flattened farmland. To the south forest. Behind the cart, days further east, was Grimwater Keep. They were well in between civilizations, though Ambrose supposed that they were far closer to the Royal Capital than anything else. Rather than focusing on what was behind their cart, though, Ambrose turned to look at the front of it while Henric climbed out after her.

  Near the head of the cart there was a group of six people, each decked out in adventurer’s gear, and all staring down Lyssandrea who shone with a delicate radiance, her armor shimmering in flakes of brilliant light as the woman held her sword between her and the men who were likely accosting the cart. Their driver, a portly man, who seemed to actually have a cart driving class of some sort was nowhere to be seen and the horses seemed to have been cut loose as well.

  “Riggamond! What is the meaning of this?! Why are you attacking people on the road like a common brigand?” Lyssandrea demanded, her blade gleaming under the light of the sun.

  “You know why, ‘Professor Gulfrig’,” the man at the center of the opposing group, a tall, distinguished looking brown-haired man with a slender build and a well kempt, short beard and mustache, spat. He spoke Lyssandrea’s name and title as though both were foul on his tongue, and he glared at her with abject hatred in his eyes.

  “Surely you’re joking,” Lyssandrea said, pausing for a moment and even lowering the tip of her sword as she processed what he had said. “There’s no way you are so petty as to think I had some part in you leaving the academy, Riggamond! It happened-”

  “IT HAPPENED BECAUSE OF YOU!” he bellowed, fire spewing from the corners of his mouth as though the man was a dragon and readying to release another potent stream of fire. “It happened because the little light warrior was too pretty and special to pass up and the headmaster ‘collected you’ at the expense of the staff! Every success you have made was on the backs of men and women who struggled through the mud before you to keep your boots clean!”

  Lyssandrea was facing away from Ambrose, so the girl couldn’t see the disturbed look on her face. “Well, if I have hurt so many people, why have they not approached me? Why didn’t you approach me?! We could have spoken, talked through this!”

  “DO NOT PATRONISE ME, UPSTART!” the man shouted again, and this time gouts of angry flame did spew from his mouth every time his jaws parted. “I will not be lectured by my lessers! Nor will I suffer the counsel of a dead woman!”

  Lyssandrea immediately raised her weapon again, settling into a steady combat stance, her two handed sword held steady in front of her. “Then are they here? Your other accomplices, I don’t recognize these five,” Lyss asked, keeping herself between the students and her former colleague.

  “Oh Lyssandrea. Were I not the one who formerly walked these roads, ferrying the potential youth of the academy to and fro, I might not have been the first to set upon you. I doubt any of those you've... upset over the years will let you have a lovely little apprentice. Why not just give up now and save everyone the trouble? Not even returning my position to me would slake my thirst for your suffering. I am glad I have such a fine opportunity for revenge." he chuckled.

  “That guy talks a hell of a lot…” Ambrose mumbled to herself, figuring she’d gotten the gist of what had been occurring. Lyssandrea, powerful as she was, had made enemies on her way to her esteemed position in the royal academy. Those enemies wanted to kill her or hurt her in any way they could. So whoever was unfortunate enough to become her protege, had some prepackaged enemies to deal with. These people were here to either hurt her or to see if she had found a protege and lay the hurt down on the unfortunate souls, and right now, she and Henric looked a lot like a pair of potential proteges.

  “So you’re all here to ambush and slay me? Six on one?” Lyssandrea asked, looking around at the other five. “One S rank and five A rank adventurers?”

  “No, no. Not six on one. One on one. You and I have a score I wish to settle, Lyssandrea. These are only here to make sure that you can’t escape me, and to crush your little apprentice, there. I heard he was to be a hero. How unfortunate you were sent to retrieve him and his little whore, there. If it were anyone else, he may have been somebody,” the man snarked. Upon his explanation’s conclusion, the people surrounding the man began to spread out.

  Ambrose decided that she didn’t like this Riggamond person even mildly. There had been no reason to assume that Ambrose was a whore… Well… she supposed the silken body coverings might have led that impression, but she certainly resented the fact that he’d assumed she was Henric’s whore. That was unnecessary and revolting.

  Lyssandrea moved to block them off, but a surge of flame forced her to raise a hand in front of herself, calling up a heater shield of bright light that fended away the flames. Looking back, the scion spotted the two of them and shouted. “Both of you! Run! Follow the river to the capital! Let them know you were sent by me! I will meet you there! Protect one another!”

  Ambrose was not about to question the Professor and started moving toward the edge of the woods, though Henric made no effort to follow her.

  “You will never see them again!” The pyromancer shouted, using more flames to lock Lyssandrea in place as the group of enemy A rankers hurried around to cut off Ambrose and Henric’s escape into the woods.

  —

  With her warning shouted to the new students Lyssandrea charged forward, through the searing flames with her shield of light, her blade trailing behind her, ready for blood. Riggamond was forced to weave to the side as she closed in on him enough to break through his burst of flames and swing. The man ducked her swing and with a gesture of his hands called a surging pillar of flames up from underneath her, sending her 12 feet into the air as she used her shield to ride the heat.

  As she did so, Lyss tried to come up with a solution to her current issue. From what she knew, Riggamond might be a short minded idiot who had lost his job for soliciting the students of the royal academy and damaging his own reputation and the reputation of the academy as a whole, but he was under the impression that she had gotten him fired, and he was her equal in combat, as well as her senior. Where she was strong, fast, durable and spiritually potent. He was magically powerful, wise, spiritually potent, and fast. He was her magical equivalent, and without some powerful and draining skill use, this one on one would end in a stalemate. She could not afford a stalemate when her students were on the line.

  Rather than letting herself fall naturally, she angled her shield and pushed off of it in a burst of savage motion, bringing her blade to bear in a charging slash. Riggamond rolled to the side to escape her attack and narrowly made it as the light gleaming off of her blade cleaved a deep, straight line in the dirt he'd just stood upon. Since her actual blade was not in the ground, Lyssandrea angled it for a horizontal follow up, but was forced to use her light shield to protect her back as claws of flame raked toward her from behind, the force of them dragging her toward the man even while he evaded, keeping her in close quarters for his next attack.

  With a burst of searing flames that left her panting, her chest armor beginning to glow with heat, he blasted her in the chest with a retreating fireball. The burn hurt, dull, throbbing pain lingering in her chest behind the plate from the force of the blast alongside the skin cooking heat. Riggamond may have been a pervert and a terrible forward thinker, but his combat IQ had caught her off guard.

  With a little space between the two of them, Riggamond began to circle her, flames licking at the corners of his mouth as he panted and leered at her. This gave her a chance to look at how her students were faring, and she cursed internally. Things were not looking good.

  —

  As the fight between the S ranks began, Ambrose found that she couldn't dart into the forest and protect Henric at the same time. The boy had squared himself into an unrefined combat stance and was preparing to fight, rather than flee. If Lyssandrea hadn't just told them to protect one another, Ambrose would have allowed him to pay for his decision on his own.

  Alas, she was not so lucky. So rather than abandon him to his fate, she allowed herself to be backed and herded towards the cart and the stubborn boy by a tall, muscular human with a heavy axe in his hands. The double bladed implement looked well used and ready to cleave into flesh. The man behind it was large, bald and had a cruel grin on his face as he eyed her. Once he had her back in range of Henric, he stopped following her, giving her a chance to glance around. She and Henric were cornered by four of the five other ambushers, one of them standing in the back and observing.

  The warrior who had forced Ambrose back stood ready to attack. A thin elf in simple leathers and a cloak waited with daggers exposed near the back of the cart incase they tried to retreat into it. A slender elven woman in a simple tunic and cloth pants eyed them both, holding up a monocle to her face as she watched them. Ambrose had no idea what her class might be. Yet another elf woman stood to block them from the main fight, her robes and billowing hat denoting her as some kind of caster. The last of the ambushers, and the one not directly circling them was a human woman in priestly robes, whom Ambrose would have taken for a healer in any setting.

  The two of them were obviously at a severe disadvantage. Ambrose had no weapon, and while her special statistics might be potent enough to carry them through one on one odds, she was not confident of this situation at all.

  “Just two kids. One level one and a sheep?” the Warrior asked, eying them both. He seemed to be asking the question at large, but he didn’t look to whomever he was trying to direct it to, keeping his eyes on Ambrose and Henric.

  “Just two. But the sheep is dangerous. It has levels,” the elf with the monocle declared, her gaze firmly on Ambrose.

  “An illusion then,” hissed the cloaked elf, whose voice turned out to be more masculine. “One powerful enough to fool your enchantment. No beast would have a level.”

  Ambrose frowned at that, but didn’t go out of the way to correct the man. If he thought she was some powerful illusionist, all the better for her.

  “Then she must be the hero, if they’re casting an illusion to cover her up while traveling,” the warrior said, stepping forward and raising his axe.

  “Careful! That illusion could be hiding a real weapon!” the one with the monocle called out before the axe came down.

  Adrenaline kicked in and Ambrose batted at the axe head with her shield arm knocking the man’s blow to the side, stunning him with the force of her parry. He staggered and to Ambrose’s surprise, he was left open as Henric lunged with his sword, slicing into the side of the enemy warrior, cutting past his tunic and lightly into the flesh, though his attack didn’t pass deep enough to do more than draw a little blood. There was a surge of light that served as Ambrose’s only cue that someone was attacking Henric on his exposed side, twirling around the boy on the other side, Ambrose raised her shield again and caught a ball of electricity on her shield, the metal of the heater dragged the attack into her arm and Ambrose felt pain course through the area. Yet even as the pain surged, she felt it wasn’t enough to truly harm her. It was like a strong jolt after dealing with wool for long periods of time and then touching something made of iron.

  The mage frowned as Ambrose blocked her attack and did not fall. “How did she do that?" She barked at the other elf woman.

  “I.. I don’t know!” the one with the monocle answered, obviously taken aback by Ambrose’s resistances.

  Ambrose didn’t have time to press either of them as Henric shouted and she was forced to swing back around him to block the incoming dagger of the other elf. She nearly caught him with a headbutt to follow up, but he faded back, eyes wide as he recognized the danger her horns could pose. Henric pushed in and clashed with the enemy warrior, only to be pushed back into her by the bigger man’s push block. “This one’s strong. And the sheep has a wicked parry skill! Press!” he commanded, bullrushing Henric. Ambrose was forced to get between them, but with her body off balanced he forced the lambda back to the side of the cart. Henric, who was off to the side, screamed in pain as the elf surged forward and stabbed him in the leg, before backing off, evading the young warrior’s defensive swings. Things were not going well.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  —

  Lyssandrea charged though yet another gout of flames swinging down toward her enemy, who confidently rose his arms, a shield of flames materializing as his smile widened in manic glee. He thought he had caught her. The fire elemental repulsion shield was a shield that blocked the enemy attack by immediately exploding with incredible force. Should Lyssandrea’s blade hit the thing, she would only be harming herself. But when the sword melted into liquid light, flowing around the shield rather than impacting it and she too melted and became immaterial, the explosion didn’t go off.

  Lyssandrea reappeared behind Riggamond already executing a rising slash. Riggamond howled in fear and pre-emptive pain as her blade neared its destination, but a sudden shock of powerful electricity seized her muscles and her blow slowed, only drawing a shallow line up Riggamond’s back, rather than the spine cleaving fissure she’d intended. She cried out in genuine pain before Riggamond blasted her away, sending her tumbling back and down the road away from the cart.

  Lyss hissed in discomfort, groaning in genuine displeasure as her body openly protested the abuse.

  “What are you doing?!” Riggamond shouted at his lackey, obviously a little annoyed with the interference.

  “Saving your ass,” the A rank caster chuckled, “You forget that if you die I don’t get paid. I don’t care about your honor, asshole. I want our money.”

  “You will get your damned gold!” Riggamond hissed.

  Using the power of her purifying light, the scion took a large portion of her small mana pool to heal herself, the light around her being drawn in and soothing her burns and pained muscles. If the two mages were about to team up against her, she was going to have a hard time.

  “I'm just here to make sure of that,” the mage replied, keeping her eyes on Lyssandrea. “Besides, my group has the others handled. They're level one.”

  Riggamond shrugged and turned with a cruel grin back to Lyss. “Fine. I'll still get what I want in the end.

  —

  The warrior pressed his weight and strength onto Ambrose, struggling to pin her to the cart even as she began leveraging her own power against him. Yet while he was distracted with her, Henric charged from the side, his wounded leg helping him fall into the larger man and sink his sword into the Warrior's side from tip almost to cross guard.

  The warrior couldn't even scream as the wound and combined force of Henric’s weight pulled both of them to the ground. Ambrose saw the healer, past them, wide eyed and raising her hand to begin casting her healing. She seized the opportunity that Henric had earned them with his wild attack, charging the healer with surprising speed. Rather than shield bash the healer, Ambrose closed her eyes and lowered her horns. There was a scream of terror, then an impact. Moments later, Ambrose heard pained gurgling. She closed her heart and her mind to those noises, pushing with her shield and forcing the healer off of her and to the ground, running over her with hard, cloven hooves a moment later.

  The combination was brutal, and red obscured Ambrose's vision for a moment, but in that moment, Henric cried out in intense pain. Ambrose turned to see him stabbed in the back, the elf rogue trying to finish the boy off. Both Ambrose and the elf seemed to see that their allies were in deep trouble at the same time.

  The elf left Henric to his wounds, rushing Ambrose with his daggers gleaming in red and silver. Ambrose raised her shield to defend herself, blocking a flurry of attacks from the man. His frenzied blows began to occupy her mind as she tried to keep up with the specialized fighter. He zipped around her as fast as he could, jabbing and poking anywhere he thought he could reach to keep her focused on him as he attempted to harm her. His speed was beyond impressive for someone who didn't seem to be too leveled. It was either that this group was much lower leveled than the pyromancer with them, or that they had been toying with their food and were only now realizing the consequences of not fighting to win from the start. The Lambda wasn't at liberty to spend time guessing which.

  Metal rang on metal as she used the face of the shield to bat away attempt after attempt to sink into her flesh. Her eyes could barely follow his movements as he tried desperately to end her. Both combatants were so absorbed in their conflict they never saw what was happening with their comrades.

  Henric, as soon as he had partially recovered, saw the elven woman moving to kneel next to the healer with a red vial. He had lunged onto her and with savage strength begun beating her with his fists. The woman may have been a combat class of some sort, but she was neither sturdy enough, nor strong enough to force him off of her. It was over in seconds, and Henric stole the potion off of her, peeling it from her limp hand and downing it without remorse.

  He sighed as his wounds, both the ones on his thighs and the one in his back where the rogue had deeply wounded him, stopped bleeding and began to seal, the pain leaving him. Rather than wait out the effect, he turned, looking for a weapon, only to see the wounded warrior crawling toward him, fury in his eyes and his axe clutched in one hand. Henric didn’t hesitate. He threw himself at the warrior who tried feebly to fend him off, but it was no use, he was far too weakened by his fatal wounds to actually hit Henric, who stepped around to his side and retrieved his sword by yanking it out of the man, causing him to wheeze out a bloody, silent scream as his already terminal pain redoubled.

  Henric moved to stand over the man, raising his sword high over his head, before bringing it down in a savage chop. The blade clove the man's head in two from crown to jaw.

  —

  Lyssandrea was embroiled and overwhelmed as she struggled to fend off and hunt down two prepared casters. Whenever she managed to bear down or overwhelm one, the other would back them up and come in with protections or more damage than Lyssandrea was willing to take were it not for the sake of a sure finishing blow. She was already too low on mana to be able to safely afford her healing spell a second time, and had gained no opportunity to recover that mana.

  She ducked under a sweeping beam of heat, lunging, the tip of her blade seeking flesh and bone, but again she had to stop short as the crackle of electricity threatened to lock her in place. Kicking backward, she barely evaded the shock blast. She was losing this fight, and without being able to use a larger technique, she was sure to be overtaken by these two. Or so she thought.

  “Mirandaaa! Help! Kaitlyn’s down! We’re losing!” came a shout that halted the entire fight. Even Riggamond paused in his vehement assault to turn and observe. What the trio saw was… worrying even to Lyss. How had the tide shifted so quickly?

  The enemy team lay in ruins, three of the four left to capture her students on the ground, two barely breathing and one with his head bisected. The rogue was in peril, trying to fend off Ambrose and Henric. Both students seemed to be working in tandem, though she credited that more to Ambrose making openings and moving away than to the pair of them actually having a sense of teamwork.

  The one named Miranda was the first to move, casting lightning at Henric, who dove into the brush to evade, barely making it into the trees unscathed. As soon as he was out of sight, the woman cursed and started running towards her teammates.

  Lyss was right after her moving to cut down the mage before a wall of fire blocked her path. She hissed, turning her attention back to Riggamond, “Looks like your plan is falling through, Riggamond. As soon as they finish the rogue and mage, my students will flee and you’ll have no one to keep me from decimating you like you deserve!” Lyss threatened, trying to intimidate the other man.

  He cackled at her statement, standing tall, his shoulders bouncing with his mirth. “You think you were the only one holding back, scion?! Those five failed me. I don’t really need your students alive to disgrace you. I simply would have preferred it. Instead, now I’ll satisfy myself by burning them, and you to ash!” he cried before throwing up a dome of flames around himself big enough to dwarf the cart.

  —

  As soon as Henric was in the trees there was a huge burst of flame from the front of the cart and Ambrose decided that now was the time to make a speedy retreat. The rogue slashed at her, trying to lock her down again while his group’s mage advanced on them. Ambrose had other ideas. She didn’t block, instead switching forms as she swung a hand for the rogues face. What the rogue had hoped would be a trade of her punching him for him potentially hooking her shield, instead became his blades completely missing her in her new body type while four, razor sharp claws raked his face, catching him completely off guard and blinding him with pain and blood.

  Ambrose spun and hopped into a follow up, leaping and catching him in the side of the head with a bladed, flying reverse spin kick that sent him twirling into the dirt, insensate. The mage sent another blast her way, but she cartwheeled out of the path of the magic and into the trees. Following Henrick’s scent as the size of the fire in front of the cart suddenly doubled, then redoubled again, a blazing serpent towering over the cart.

  She ran, surging swiftly through the trees and the underbrush, following Henric, who was moving at a limping jog. When she caught up with him, she saw that his leg was singed, likely having been caught by the spell. Rather than slow down, she picked him up, princess style and fled toward where she knew the river was running towards the Capital.

  —

  Miranda moved as quickly as she could, diving past their Analyst to Kaitlyn, their healer. She found the woman with two coin sized holes in her chest, barely breathing. Swearing under her breath, Miranda tanked her own mana to cast a spell her class was not aligned with. “Greater heal.”

  The drain was immediate, and even with the heat burgeoning behind her, she couldn't coax her legs to move as the mana's tax took its toll on her body. She had been far lower than she had predicted. But it was worth it. Kaitlyn's wounds sealed up as shimmers of gentle light flowed off of her. Her vision cleared, and the blonde human woman looked up to see Miranda's gaunt face.

  Her eyes went wide with worry and shock and she sat up, looking around to see the rest of their group in complete disrepair. Every other member was laid out or dead. Kaitlyn took a deep breath, trying to keep her calm. First, she gestured to Luciel calling upon her innate pool of healing magic before her own mana, making the young woman's face stop swelling and fixing her nose and bruising.

  Once that was done, she shuffled over to Entaegen, their rogue, who was crawling towards them, clutching at his face. He seemed completely disoriented. She healed him as well, sealing his wounds, though he still seemed a little concussed after the fact. She didn't have time to worry about that. Benjamin was dead, and she only had so much time to get over to him and save his soul. Guidance allowed for resurrection through magic, but it was costly beyond belief, and far too powerful for a level 25 healer like herself. Still she had paid a small mountain of gold to get the one-time diamond of resurrection for just one such occasion as this. She could save him.

  “Miranda, Entaegen, pick up Luciel. We're leaving as soon as this is done,” she said, feeling even more intense heat beginning to surge from the fight in front of the cart. Looking up she saw the flaming serpent lashing and gnashing its teeth at a woman wreathed in light and cleaving furrows into the plains to the north. It was time to leave.

  “What about the job?!” Entaegen asked, only for Miranda to slap him upside his head.

  “The job is a bust, dumbass. We lost. Ben's dead. We lost more money on this than we could make from it. We're out,” Miranda agreed, moving to get her arms under Luciel’s legs.

  Entaegen grunted, then groaned in displeasure before moving to get his hands under the Analyst’s arms and help lift her so the group could move. “This fucking sucks!”

  —

  It was no more than a few minutes later when Ambrose reached the riverside. It was the very same river that passed into and through Grimwater. It trailed up and along the forest line before washing into a reservoir in the capital. With any luck, they could move along it safely, but if they were being pursued, or something horrible happened, Ambrose had a plan.

  Putting Henric down she let him lean on her as she started moving downstream along the side of the river. She chose not to be snippy with how hard Henric gripped to her, aware that he might just be in pain, and not just a pervert.

  “Thanks,” he managed past a groan of pain as he put weight on the leg, but managed to keep a reasonable pace with her holding him steady.

  Ambrose shook her head and was about to tell him that there was no problem and she had been told to help him escape, but before she could say anything, the entire forest shook. Above the canopy, miles into the sky, fire swelled and burst into huge motes that began to descend upon the forest. A mushroom cloud of roiling flames screamed into the sky as cracking BOOM like thunder nearly took both of the young awakened off of their feet.

  Seconds later, the forest began to rumble as those motes came crashing down, and something in Ambrose’s gut told her to flee and hide. She trusted her gut, and she trusted in her class. As much as she didn’t want to show Henric her new form, she shifted anyway. As always, the shift was immediate, but this form did not come with the silk coverings she was growing used to and she could tell that, because it suddenly felt exceptionally breezy.

  She could also tell, because Henric was staring wide mouthed like an idiot and had somehow idly begun reaching for her chest again. She didn’t have time for him to be a moron. Not now. Smacking away his hand she pulled his body to her and tried to ignore the weird noise he made before she threw them both into the water.

  The sudden splash of coolness felt divine on her body, the natural heat of the water pulling the dry heat of the forest and air from her body. She felt delightfully refreshed and mobile as she drew Henric with her into the shallows. The boy nuzzled his face into her chest and clung to her like a babe. It was very tempting to drown him, and not only on the normal intellectual level Ambrose would have had from being touched by the young man. No, on some instinctual level as a mermaid, dragging him into the deep sounded carnally satisfying to her.

  Ambrose had to resist that urge as she heard more crashes coming from the forest. They were drifting down the river, heads above water at the moment, but as Ambrose scanned the trees, she quickly began to understand why she had felt the need to leap into the river and flee. Something was coming. The great flame serpent she had seen in front of the cart was tearing through the forest, bowling over and scorching trees as it passed. It was headed straight for the river, and Ambrose did not want to be around or in view when it reached the bank.

  Turning to Henric she slapped his cheek to get his attention. “Deep breath! Now,” she said, taking one of her own to show him, even though she didn’t need to. Once he had gasped in a breath, she dove, pulling them twenty feet from the surface and along the current of the river. Her vision through the water didn’t blur, nor did the water sting her eyes, her body adjusted seamlessly to submersion, and she began to swim, jettisoning herself and Henric down the river.

  Seconds later, the light above the river changed, beams of orange light shimmering out into the turbulent waters. There was no significant change in heat, but Ambrose knew that the fire was passing over and along the surface of the river. Perhaps that Riggamond person was looking for them, eager to finish what he started and slay them before they made it into the capital.

  Rather than risk surfacing, Ambrose took them deeper, moving as quickly as she could downriver to try and outrun the madman trying to kill them. She was so focused on it that she almost didn’t notice Henric desperately begin pulling at her. Looking down at him, she saw him, face red as he pointed for the surface in desperation.

  Looking up, the light was still there, she couldn’t take him to the surface… She also couldn’t let him drown… Wincing and suppressing a primal cringe, Ambrose settled quickly on a course of action. Reaching up, she grabbed Henric by his cheeks, made sure her grip was firm and then pulled his face to hers. Their lips met, and she squeezed the side of his face to make his jaws part. Once his lips were open, she began to breathe into him. There was no issue. Her body didn’t seem to be deprived of anything by giving him air. She felt the tickle of him forcing his old air out of his nose against her face but continued breathing into him until his heart rate had calmed and he seemed to realize he wasn’t going to drown.

  Ambrose parted lips with him and he seemed to try and stare at her through the water as she carried him downstream, periodically breathing into him, as she refused to call what was happening a kiss. If she did, she thought she might retch.