The Princess and the Blade

[Emora Deen]

Laurius turned to Tenara. "Fish it out," he said.

"If your nails were no good, then mine—"

"Not with your fingers. If a sorcerer got it in there, then you can get it out. Pull it out," he said.

Tenara pursed her lips and glowered at the brick. She scrounged around for something, a trigger to light her magic. It had come so easily in the dining room, even if she'd been to weary to wield it. But she'd been angry and afraid... This would be much easier if she had the blade, and could run her finger along it and use it as a match. But, she didn't have it, so she would have to do what she should have been doing all along... practice.

Tenara focused on the brick, and conjured up every emotional trigger she could bring herself to think of, staying far away from all the ones she hadn't the courage to tread close to. She settled on the feeling healing Havitharon gave her, the warmth of bliss and longing that warmed her soul. Happiness and belonging. A bud of red light bloomed in her eyes and she looked at the brick, it wiggled halfway out of the channel before Tenara wobbled on her feet and plopped back down onto the couch.

Laurius was so happy the brick had moved he barely noticed the pale, woozy look coming over the princess. When he turned back to congratulate her, he frowned. "Still not quite there, aye?"

"I don't think one plate of food is going to erase three days of starvation," she said. "Not to mention the magic takes a lot of energy. You're lucky I'm not like my Kingly father, who will face-plant into the floor if he pushes too hard. I have some of my other father's stamina..."

"You did that earlier. The face-planting. And what do you mean, your other father? Genetically you can only have one, and it can't be the vampire." Laurius went back for the brick. He was just about to pull it free when he paused and turned back to her, as if suddenly remembering something. "He wanted to use you to make a god... And he went so far as to do it in secret. That's why he burned the manor, and erased the evidence..." The merchant's gaze swept the room as if he could find the last clue written somewhere on the wall. "You said you had three fathers. You were high on mushrooms so I didn't think anything of it. What does that mean? Three fathers."

Tenara clenched her teeth. She had only ever told Havitharon, and that was because he had been her ghost and he couldn't tell anyone else. No one knew for certain, even if they suspected. Elias had been the only one to ever really figure it out, thanks to connecting the dots of what he'd heard whispered in Hajaran's palace walls. Now, Laurius was doing the same, and what did it matter? They were not on her world anymore.

"I have three fathers," she said. "My true father was made using a spell from the same book that forged the blades. He's an amalgam of Vladimir Dracul and Atul Hajaris, created to kill the God of Darkness."

Laurius blinked at her as if she'd grown a second head. "So you're..." He faded off and turned stilted towards the brick, curling his fingers around it and trying to wiggle it the rest of the way free. He muttered a slew of things under his breath, some of them sounded like numbers, and Tenara began to wonder if the impossibility of her story had broken his big brain. Tenara conjured a little more focus and energy into helping him pry the brick loose. It came free suddenly and Laurius lost his balance.

[Soran Nightblade]

At Tenara's apparent wooziness, Ren rushed to the pitcher that was left for them and filled her glass. He brought it to her while barely following what they were talking about. Her lineage? The sounds of their whispering voices just made him too tired to think. But with the brick tumbled loose from the wall, dropping within inches of Laurius's crotch, he was awake again. "Master!" he kept his voice low as he bent to check on him.

Instead, a glint of metal attracted his gaze to the empty space they'd just created in the wall. It was deeper than the brick. "Shit," he murmured, reaching inside. His blind fingers found a hard, rectangular object and pulled. What he drew out was a box made of ornately etched metal. Familiar runes ran the length of the box's edges. He knew them well... he'd just spent several all nighters studying ones just like them. "This belonged to a Sorcerer," he breathed.

[Emora Deen]

Laurius took the box from Ren and admired the runes. He traced them with his fingers, also recognizing the language in what he'd come to learn of it. He thought he remembered one of the words, though he was likely to be pronouncing it wrong. "Sarra."

To Laurius's surprise, the box clicked open. Tenara slipped down off the couch and crouched with them on the floor, gathering curiously as the merchant opened the lid. There was a soft, plush velvet-like interior the color of deep purple. Nestled within the box was a collection of odd trinkets. Among the trinkets was something that resembled a feather, a large polished marble, a vial of blue powder, a lock of blue-black hair wrapped in silver thread, and a silver ring that was much too big to go on a finger. "Great, we found a sorcerer's junk drawer," Laurius said.

Tenara reached in and plucked out the silver ring.

[Soran Nightblade]

Ren glanced through the objects, battling panic. He'd been so sure something about this might help him send them back home. He tried to be curious anyway, and lifted out the lock of hair cautiously. The color was a little too familiar. "Was this from Thvoros?" He thought of one of the countless rumors about the condemned sorceror: that he was the reason Thvoros never gave in to his ruts or accepted a Yurivis.

[Emora Deen]

Tenara looked at the hair and reached out to touch it. "It does look like his hair," she said, brow furrowing. "But... aren't there other of your kind with that hair color?" Why would this person have a lock of Havitharon's hair? What did that mean? People only had locks of hair where she came from as gifts from lovers or to remember lost loved ones. Which was it for this sorcerer?

[Soran Nightblade]

"It not a common color, but it's not like it's completely unique," Ren muttered. It's just a bit of a coincidence to find it here. The details of the trial were never made public, but there are many rumors that her crimes had something to do with Thvoros."

[Emora Deen]

Tenara touched the hair again and thought about Ren's words. She bit her lip. "Havi had a mark on him when I first met him. He said he paid a sorcerer to give him a mark that would keep his rut at bay. Magic-blocking chains eroded it, and it failed, which is how... How we... How I became his Yurivis." Tenara looked up at Ren with wide blue eyes. "I am his Yurivis, aren't I? Even if we aren't bonded?" She said the last part almost under her breath, as if the room was spelled so that anyone might hear her words.

[Soran Nightblade]

Ren was not the type to win at cards. His apprehension was written all over his face. He didn't have ruts at all? But he did spend one with her? "You acted as his Yurivis, but you have not claimed him properly. It is like... having a favorite horse in the stables, one that you ride and plan to buy one day. But until you bring him home, anyone else could try saddling him or even buy him out from under you."

[Emora Deen]

Tenara was still staring at Ren as if he'd told her a riddle, but there was something sad dawning in her eyes. Laurius wondered if she was recalling when Havitharon had angrily proclaimed she would never bond him. The being had done everything in his power to hold off his rut so he could not be bound to a woman, even going so far as to make a deal with a sorcerer. He had allowed Tenara to be a proxy for a Yurivis without the power of one, and had never intended to give her that power. It was then that the merchant came to Ren's side of thinking. Perhaps Havitharon would screw them in the ring. He was back in a position to never have a Yurivis if he did not wish for one, and had a clear track record of holding off those suitors.

"Well," Laurius said, trying to shift the subject. "What else do we have here. Oh, look, some of that blue fire powder stuff and... is that candy?"