Mistra and I had been walking

  in stunned silence for over an hour, her arm protectively wrapped

  around me helping to bear some of the weight off of my painful legs.

  Not only had I damaged the

  muscles in my calves and thighs by pushing myself to run faster than

  I ever had in my life before, but the flames I had managed to summon

  from the bowels of the demon realm had lightly singed the back of my

  body. It was not burned enough to become a problem, though every step

  moved my clothing just enough to rub over the raw skin and cause pain

  and discomfort.

  “We should be drawing near

  now,” Feros said cheerfully.

  A whistle had been on his lips

  the whole time he had been leading the way with the ball of light

  before us. I did not know how he could manage to be so upbeat after

  the terror we had just experienced, he had been quick to shirk off

  the fact that we had all nearly escaped a terrible death, myself

  especially. I had not addressed the fact that he had not lifted a

  finger to aid me when I was surely dead and had tried to prevent

  Mistra from saving me, but it would not be something I forgave and

  forgotten so easily, as soon as the time was right I would make him

  explain and atone for his actions. The major issue preventing me from

  causing a huge scene about it was that he was the one who knew the

  way and without allowing the journey to continue as planned might

  cause me to miss this window of opportunity.

  “You said that half an hour

  ago,” Mistra said curtly. “I hope you actually know where you are

  going and not just leading us into something else terrible.”

  “Now is not the time to let

  your faith in me dip, my dear,” the fiend said, turning his head to

  flash a toothy smile. “Neither of you need to worry about anything

  like that happening again, there is nothing so dangerous here in the

  human realm. Even the most terrifying beasts here will turn tail and

  run at the first threat of magic.”

  “My faith in you?” I

  chuckled darkly.

  “Yes, I echo that

  sentiment,” Mistra sniffed, “you have not done much to kindle our

  faith in you.”

  “Oh you are both just tired

  and weary from the stressful part of the trip we just weathered. Once

  we get on the horses and off of your feet your spirits will perk back

  up.”

  “You truly are something

  vile.” Mistra adjusted her grip on me, pausing our slow gate long

  enough to be able to take a bit more pressure off my feet.

  “Mistra, you have known me

  for your entire life and I have yet to fail you or let you down,

  extend your thinking beyond this one unfortunate incident and I think

  you will come to remember all the times I have been a positive force

  in your life.”

  She let a huff of air out

  through her nose that served as a sarcastic laugh. “Now is not the

  time for this, we need the horses soon so that we can get Toria to

  some place where she can rest.”

  “No,” I interjected,

  “there is no time to rest. I do not want to miss out on this

  opportunity.”

  “Taking back your kingdom

  surely will not be so simple as walking into the castle front gate

  and asserting your authority,” Mistra reasoned. “It will be much

  safer and be more likely to succeed if we can get you healed up a bit

  before we arrive.”

  “The little usurper is

  barely old enough to walk the gardens without someone looking after

  him to make sure he does not toddle off so far, I hardly think he

  will put up much resistance.”

  “What about the guards?”

  Mistra pressed. “I know that there is an issue of who actually

  holds the power of the kingdom at the moment, but surely they will

  feel some sort of duty to protect him, and while we three are

  powerful enough, it is best not to take too much risk when it is

  unnecessary.”

  “The two of you alone could

  blow through the whole castle guard since the army will have no

  reason to be on alert and ready to defend,” I countered. “My

  being there might as well be superfluous if I did not feel like I

  personally wanted to do some of the dirty work myself. I am confident

  that no harm will even get close to befalling me by the castle guard

  either way.”

  “The sooner we get there,

  the better,” Feros added. “Striking while the iron is hot is

  always the better option. The Church is going to be distracted for a

  bit with the fae, but that will only be true for as long as the fae

  stick around in this realm. Eventually they will move on whether that

  is to try to pursue the girl or return back to their own realm to

  prepare for their war, either way once they are gone I am completely

  certain that the Church will be swift in returning their attention to

  snapping up a vulnerable kingdom. It is imperative that when they

  return to try, they find a strong, proper monarch at the helm that

  they cannot manipulate. In fact, this move may avoid a direct war

  with them all together.”

  “It sounds like you had this

  speech prepared to convince us to continue when something inevitably

  went wrong along the way.” Mistra laughed dryly and glanced at me

  with a suspicious look on her face to let me know there was something

  about his words that she found unsettling. “I decided to be quiet

  and let Toria make the decision to go without telling my father

  without me putting up a fuss about it, though I think it was obvious

  that I am not as sure that it was the correct way to go. However, I

  know that there is something you are not telling us, probably many

  things. In fact I would stake my own royal claim that there would be

  a near endless list of things you have left unspoken that we might

  find relevant to this situation.”

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  “Mistra, you have always

  been the brightest member of your family and I realized before I even

  proposed this trip that you were going to dig your heels in

  eventually and want answers.” Swinging the light at the end of his

  finger around to his right suddenly revealed a small stable at the

  edge of a small village just big enough to support a tiny, cramped

  inn. He inclined his head towards the building to indicate that was

  where our horses were located. “You will have your answers about

  why I am so focused on getting us progressing forward as fast as we

  can, I am willing to promise at least that, but not until we are

  poised to strike inside the kingdom proper. Your family has trusted

  in me enough with all kinds of deep secrets and hidden plans for over

  a century, in all that time I have never done anything that has

  harmed your family or double crossed them.”

  “That we know about,” she

  replied. “I shudder to think of all the time you have spent setting

  up things to precisely point all of us towards what you exactly want

  to happen. I am certain at this point that every single thing that

  has happened this whole time has been carefully calculated by you and

  none of this has been happenstance, both the fortuitous and the

  terrible.”

  The fiend stopped walking and

  turned to face us, allowing a long sigh to escape his lips. “Neither

  of you can come close to being able to understand the reality of the

  existence around you. How could you? Your lives are fleeting, mere

  specks in time like a flash of a lit match in the darkness, there for

  a mere, insignificant moment, then gone and forgotten. I have learned

  and forgotten many more things than you will ever have to the chance

  to experience in your lifetime and I understand that fact alone makes

  me something terrifying and esoteric to most people, but I need you

  both to understand that for the moment I need you to pull together

  what little trust in me you might still have and go along for just a

  little while more.”

  “What trust I might still

  have?” Mistra said with a quiet laugh.

  “Then evoke your

  self-preservation,” Feros pleaded, “we need to keep moving to

  keep all of us safe. If you need me to throw my own peril into the

  conversation to give you my own selfish reasons to convince you, so

  be it. My own well being is very much at the forefront of my mind as

  well, does that help convince you that the desire to move on is

  indeed driven by danger? I could just leave you both and disappear to

  safety, it would be far from the first time I have abandoned someone

  to the wolves to save myself, the fact I am not should be evidence

  enough that I have some desire to see you both live and succeed.

  “Then wolves nip at our

  heels.” I was beginning to understand just how far over my head the

  situation at hand may have been. It was beginning to fall into place

  in my mind, of course it was not just a lucky break for me that I

  needed to rush to go fulfill a lifelong dream, Feros needed us to

  leave and swiftly. “Let us get going then, I do not want to see the

  kind of wolves that make someone like you afraid, in the flesh.”

  Feros nodded his head with a

  small smile. “Very astute conclusion. Mistra?”

  “Everything,” she

  demanded. “You will explain everything at the first opportune

  moment. I am tired feeling like I am dealing with only a tiny

  fraction of the information I should.”

  “You will not like what I

  have to tell you,” Feros warned as he quietly pulled open a side

  door to the stable and glanced inside.

  “I do not expect to, but I

  think we both deserve some clarity after the blind trust we have put

  in you thus far, especially since most things connected to you have

  been less than positive.”

  The warm light of a lantern

  illuminated the doorway and a very sleepy young man blinked in

  surprise. He immediately began to fumble with his free hand at his

  side from what I assume was a hidden knife to defend himself.

  “Calm yourself,” Feros

  said, voice notably more even and syrupy than his normal timber. “We

  mean no harm, just travelers needing horses.”

  “Then why did you not go to

  the inn first?” the man said.

  He went to hold up the lantern

  to better view our faces, but Feros snapped his own hand forward and

  clamped down on the lantern, keeping our faces in the shadows. Eyes

  widening, the man began to tremble, his hand resting over the knife

  lay in his pocket and his face gave away that he was considering what

  might happen if he took the risk and drew the blade against three

  people.

  “Three horses is all we

  require and we will be gone without any trouble,” Feros insisted,

  his hand not releasing its tight grip on the light. "No ill

  needs to happen to either of us, just hand over the horses and go on

  with your night like you never saw us."

  “All the horses belong to

  patrons, I cannot just give away the horse of someone staying in the

  inn.”

  “Resistance is not worth

  your death.”

  “There are only three of

  you,” the man whispered, afraid but apparently still more afraid of

  the wrath of the innkeeper, “if I yell for help right now I will

  wake the two others and then it will be an even match.”

  “I will not allow the words

  to leave your lips before you are struck down,” Feros warned, voice

  morphing from something calm and soothing to dark and foreboding.

  “This is your last warning, you are standing in the way and I will

  remove you if you do not choose to remove yourself.”

  The man drew in a breath and

  opened his mouth to yell for assistance and magical might trickled

  out from the fiend. Even though the stream of power was tiny, it

  caused me to feel dizzy from the sheer potential it contained. He had

  never performed any sort of magic around me, at least not without a

  significant amount of distance between us and now I understood why.

  Whatever type of magic he possessed felt wrong. A kind of wrong that

  made me feel uneasy to the very core of my body, like I would never

  be able to scrape away the imprint of it on my very soul. There was

  something terrible and twisted with his magic, something that caused

  a very visceral repulsion in me and it took every bit of my will

  power not to give in to my instincts to turn and flee as far away

  from him as I could get.

  The stream of milky white

  magic wrapped around the man’s chest and did not hesitate in

  constricting, collapsing his chest cavity on itself, and replacing

  the yell with a quiet, wet gurgle as blood poured from the man’s

  mouth. He dropped to his knees, the lantern staying in Feros’

  grasp, his eyes looking up pleadingly, but even if Mistra or I had

  wanted to help, there would have been nothing either of us could have

  done to heal his shattered torso. Mercifully, Feros snaked the magic

  farther up and quickly strangled it around his neck, snapping it in

  one quick movement. The light of life left his eyes and he slumped

  forward, face down into the doorway. With a flick of his magic, Feros

  slid the body away from the door and held the light aloft in front of

  him and stepped into the stable to acquire our horses. Mistra and I

  stood in shock, neither of us wanting to move to follow him. I could

  only imagine how much worse feeling his magic must have been for her

  with her higher magical sensitivity, even in the darkness I could see

  her face was a mask of disgust.

  “He

  is truly something abhorrent,” Mistra whispered to herself.