Classrooms are strange places. She couldn’t get used to learning alongside other students, especially when several of them kept LOOKING at her. It was nerve wracking, it always made her think she had slipped on her illusions. Even for a city of sorcerers and magic, a creature of myth and legend would have caused problems, so it was decided that she would keep up her glamour to pass as human at all times.

While in the greater public this wasn’t an issue, most of the population of Gaerbron was mundane. The academy though, was very different matter all together; any student, any professor could notice even the smallest slip. And while Corana had taken to being her personal tutor in the arts, she did not have the time to fully apprentice her, with her works in restructuring Gaerbron’s council. But the academy was still the best place to learn, and learn she must. While her control of the dragon fire was natural, she was still a best a rank amateur with an unreasonable amount of power. For her own safety, let alone that of anyone else, she had to learn, and fast.

The real reason for the stares according to both Arron and Corana, was a combination of things. Both assured her that she was breathtakingly beautiful, although she didn’t see it. Cute maybe, but she couldn’t see why the boys would trip over themselves, or why the other girls would give her such spiteful looks. The other big reason was the story Corana had spun, that Xabriar’s former apprentice had always been a girl. So she hadn’t managed to escape her old fame of being some kind of once-in-a-lifetime prodigy.

“Rana, going home?” Valerin called from the entrance to the lecture room. She had long brown hair with hazel green eyes. She seemed a bit more eager then normal, until Rana remembered promising to take her home for some of her mother’s blue berry pastries. Valerin had been one of the first real friends she made since Greta had left with the caravan two weeks ago.

It had become very lonely without Greta and Larenmireil. While Arron was still there, things hadn’t returned to the way they were before. Back when they would just pal around with each other for hours on end. Not that they weren’t still friends, but there was now a tension that hung in the air which always made things somewhat awkward. Besides, she was quite certain he was dating her teacher.

“Yes, want to come with me? I bet my mom has some fresh pastries ready, and it’s blueberry season.”

“Rana, are you hitting on another girl?” Greta called out, and Rana turned to run to her, all thoughts of Valerin and pastries fleeing her mind.

“You know I only have eyes for you, Greta. Well, and Larenmireil.” Rana chuckled. She couldn’t help but notice Valerin looking shocked as Rana and Greta kissed right there in the entry hall of the academy in front of several other students, but she couldn’t bring herself to care.

“I thought you wouldn’t be back until tomorrow!” Rana mentioned in surprise after long, sweet moments, still reeling a bit from a rather sound kissing.

“I told Father I was going ahead to scout and got here ahead of the caravan. I think he’s on to me though. We should take advantage of the free time today.” Greta’s saucy wink made her message clear in case Rana had missed it, which of course she hadn’t.

“I think I’d like that. But first, this is Valerin. She’s in several of my classes, and I promised her some of Mom’s blueberry pastries.” Rana collected Valerin, who looked as if she might run away. Greta shook her hand firmly, grinning.

“Don’t worry, I don’t bite. Come on, you can’t miss Illia’s pastries, they’re the best!” She dragged Valerin along, not releasing her hand, and Rana smiled. She never did get tired of Greta’s boundless energy, a trait she shared with Larenmireil. The two together could even be a match for her newfound stamina.

She could hardly wait until the summer break in a few months, she and Greta had already made plans to spend the summer with Larenmireil at Windrunner village. She very much missed her, but they both planned to make up for lost time with Larenmireil.

Valerin nodded “Okay, if I’m not ummm, intruding?”

Sticking her tongue out at Valerin, Rana giggled. “Don’t worry, Mother always has a lot of left over pastries.”

Valerin grinned and then gave Rana a playful shove ‘Oh stop, you make me sound like a glutton, they’re just very good!”

“Blah blah blah, stop your chattering and lets go already!” Greta pronounced as she grabbed both their arms, leading them both forcibly down the hall way.

“The girl is right.” a mental nudge came from her draconic partner, “There is food to be eaten, and we are hungry!” Granth’s hunger seemed to be infecting her, she could almost taste the pastries already.

Rana smiled, things seemed to be looking up for the time being.

----

Staring at her desk and the ever-increasing amount of parchments and scrolls, Corana groaned in despair. With the fall of Xabriar and the death of Woric, the council had fallen into disarray. The power vacuum had deadlocked the council on all but the most trivial of matters, even the possibility of war with the Imperium failed to unify them. The only silver lining was that the council had, by a slim majority, elected her to the position of Praetor. But she was already beginning to regret the position, the inner politics of Gaerbron was a messy business and very trying. There was always something that needed signing, or an ambassador to speak with. At least the merchant guilds had been lenient to her so far, in no small thanks to Greta’s father Valan.

Her days held two bright points in spite of all the tedium. She made time each day to spend teaching Rana. For Corana, teaching Rana was both satisfying and a challenge. She was so frighteningly bright, able to grasp difficult concepts with ease and manipulate her own power with such dexterity Corana often forgot she was tutoring a novice.

The challenge came from her dual nature, the draconic magic was foreign to her and carried with it sheer raw power. Rana also seemed to have instinctive knowledge of magics from Granth. Once she understood a theory, Rana would begin to connect it to this instinctive knowledge, then relentlessly question her on it. Frankly, many times Corana had a hard time comprehending Rana’s questions and assumptions. Most of which had her running to other masters of Gaerbron seeking answers. She was also quite sure that some of those inquiries had inadvertently sparked more then a few research projects among her peers.

The other shining beacon of her days was Arron. It confused her how she could fall so completely for a man so much younger than herself, one who could at times be so terribly naive. But at the same time she knew that innocence was part of what drew her to him. She never meant to let their interlude in the forest affect her so, but she spent the long, long hours of the day looking forward to yet more moments stolen in the hidden passages of the Academy. They didn’t have to hide their relationship any more, but she got a thrill out of doing so anyway, and he seemed happy enough to play along. Speaking of which, it was just about time...

She crept to a wall in her office where she knew a secret catch was seated, he would be patiently awaiting her three flights down and a short walk through the western passage.

---

Waiting in the darkness in his guard uniform, Arron mused on the way things had come to pass. He was now not only a guard, but was training in the Academy with the sorcerers. Corana’s research suggested that the lake god had altered him somehow into a kind of water elemental.

His old friend was still the same as ever, except that she was completely different now. Rall had always been a little, well... girly, Arron had to admit it. He slipped into his disguise entirely too perfectly. And he could see Rall in Rana now, too. But oddly, Rana had become something of a tomboy, always getting into trouble and roughhousing. She clearly wanted things to be the same as they were before, but Arron couldn’t help seeing the beautiful young woman she’d become, and the terrifying dragon she was also. Even so, he was continuing to teach her to use the sword effectively, just like before he bundled her away on Valan’s cart.

His own training had also resumed fully. Arron took a solid drubbing from the head guard on his return over skipping his training for so long, but shortly after he was promoted to Academy Campus guard duty. He had a sneaking suspicion that was Corana’s doing, being that it granted him better access to training for his elemental nature, and also better access for trysts. Which line of thinking returned him to the present, as she appeared in the hallway.

Life was good.

---

Cale leaped from one roof to the next in a dizzying marathon high above the streets. His pursuers were good, he had to give them that, perhaps even the best the Guild had to offer. But he was better. His enemies had not taken his return to Lussax lightly, the fallout from the assassination of the prince had earned him a nice bounty on his head. Now every thief, mercenary and rival assassin that had a grudge against him had a compelling reason to truly hunt him, but he didn’t really care. He almost felt like he didn’t care about anything at all.

But he did care. Seeing Bekah again after all this time had brought something back inside him, something he thought long dead and buried. He wished it had stayed that way, because having it reminded him that old wounds still hurt. But it was this very thing that kept him from just letting the killers catch him.

Hope.

Somewhere out there, she still existed. And she forgave him for everything. She still loved him. And somehow that gave him hope that maybe he could forgive himself, maybe he could be worthy of the forgiveness she so lightly offered him.

----

“Forgive me Duke for my interruption, but you have an urgent missive from our agents in Arizal.” The urgent yet calm voice of his Chancellor Alex spoke as he presented the scroll.

He move to grab the scroll with some hesitancy. A part of him truly did not wish to read the intelligence. With each passing day the news become worse, in the last month alone they had heard of the recall of the Imperial legions from north of there boarders. A decree from the Empress herself had tripled their standing army through forced conscription of all able fighting men.

Slowly unfurling the parchment with unsteady hands, Duke Veston gripped his viewing glass. Placing it over the code text he waited for the letters to magically rearrange themselves for reading.

“My lord
I bring to you news of some urgency. I have personally witnessed the delivery by ship of several tons of Dwarven iron, clearly meant for the building of weapons. The Imperial army swells to bursting, as smiths work daily on a great steel blockade of chain and spikes.

My lord, it is my strong personal belief they mean to blockade the entire river and choke off trade, even as their armies fall upon our lands. I will continue my efforts to sabotage and gather information until I receive further orders.”

The missive was not signed, but Veston knew precisely which of his men sent it. Jordon was the only one of his spies to survive infiltrating the city. His network suffered sorely from lack of its leader, but only Jordon could have managed to enter the Empire unnoticed. Chancellor Alex had taken up the spy network in his place, temporarily.

The only good news that had come in the weeks since the prince’s death was that the sorcerer city of Gaerbron had suddenly become attentive to the needs of the alliance, ever since the death of that vile self-serving madman Xabriar. He truly did not know the circumstances of his death, but strongly suspected the new Praetor Corana had something to do with it. If so, he would have liked to kiss her.

And to make bad matters worse, the massive earthquake of a few weeks ago was followed by the spread of a thick black cloud from the western wilds, deep in the mountain range. Some wild stories were spreading already, the kind of doomsaying that tends to follow in the wake of natural disasters, but it set his teeth on edge given the situation with the Empire.

---

Larenmireil sang to Drarilein, resting at the bow of the ferry. It felt good to sing again, death it seems was not something one simply recovered from in a week or two. It had taken the better part of a month to work up the energy to return to her duties. But return she had, if in a somewhat diminished capacity for now.

She hoped to be fully revitalized by the summer months when Rana and Greta where scheduled to visit for the season. She had such wicked plans for them... Her voice trailed off as she sank into slumber, thoughts of her lovers drifting through her head and the games they would play on there bodies.

The sky filled with black doom, the summer sun dropped away into black as dark as midnight. But no stars shone in this pitch sky, and all was as still as the dead.

A man dressed in black robes approached a throne made of ivory and silver, and all that stood between him and the seat of such power was a thin waif of a girl dressed in white and gold colored silks, her eyes where a sparkling gold that contrasted against her pale skin. He reached for her-

Larenmireil started awake in terror. She had felt the black-robed man’s hatred for the girl and knew, somehow, if he ever touched her that throne all would be lost, and with it all hope.

---

Seris knocked heavily on the old wooden door. ”I know you’re in there, the guards saw you return!” she yelled as she began pounding on the door once again. The old, worn, flaking painted sign that read ‘Martello’s Trinkets, Curios and Antiques’ squeaked back and forth in protest to her abuse. The old man had left her in charge of his supposedly sickly old dog, but when she went to feed it she found that it was in fact a spry old cat that wanted to be free of the shop.

Once the beast escaped it had taken her over a week to painstakingly search the city for the rogue pet. She had managed to track it down in the farmers’ market. The orange and white tabby had made his home at a local cheese shop where it had been stealing scraps for days. Getting it back home had been a trial unto itself. The damned beast simply would not go, it clawed and hissed at her the whole ten minute walk back to Martello’s shop.

Of course the moment she put the cat inside his door, closed and locked, she find the vile beast next to her leg as if it had never been inside at all. She had finally given up trying after the tenth time, she was fairly certain it was playing some sort of game with her. She decided the crazy old coot must have enchanted his pet with some kind of escape spell.

At her own home the beast did not act any better. It screeched relentlessly for food or water, accepting nothing but slices of cheese or fine pork. She finally had it when she found her bed reeking of cat urine, and her shoes filled with droppings.

“Martello! I know you’re there! I have your cat, or dog, or whatever! I’m done, take your unholy beast back now!”

“I say dear girl, why are you screaming? I can hear you just fine. What’s this about a cat?”

“Here! Take it!” She turned to storm away after handing the bewildered old man the cat.

“Tinkerbelle, is that you? I must say, you make a fine cat! But you shouldn’t pick on dear Seris, that’s a bad kitty! I think no cheese for you tonight, we have much work to do before next time...”

“Things will get much worse before they get better...” she heard him mutter as he closed the door. Something about it chilled her right to her core.

---The End---

Special Thanks to

Amber for beta reading since the beginning, and general just helping out with ideas,

Maggie Finson for just general support and ideas, along with beta reading the final for us,

and Auly for beta reading from the start and giving feedback.