QUEST WORLD

No Subtlety in Taverns

"We came to Arderis for Osra," I say, wheeling my horse in the direction Sela's facing, "so we're going to see Osra."

Thertan starts to protest, but Sela kicks her horse and takes off, so I follow. Let him run off to the adventurer training school if he wants to—I'm going to find this augurwitch, get her to tell me who I am, and then—

But that's the question, isn' it? Then what, Amelie?

I'm suddenly glad that Sela is a few paces in front of me and Thertan, Imina, and Steel are scrambling to keep up behind us. It gives me a now rare moment alone, and I fist my hands around my saddle's pommel, hoping my sudden violent shiver doesn't derail my horse.

Then what?

When Osra does her relation spell on me, Thertan, and Imina, and it shows that Thertan and Imina are related, but I'm not, then that proves I'm not Dynwar's child, doesn't it? Though I guess all that would really prove is that I'm not related to them, not that any of us has a connection to Dynwar. But that is still the best result—I can tell Steel and Sela to leave me out of any warmongering world-saving plans and...

Go back to The Dizzy Ogre? Just like Steel said. Go back to being a barmaid.

The thought sours my stomach.

But if Osra does her spell, and it shows that neither Thertan, Imina, nor I have any relation to each other, then they aren't related, they aren't Dynwar's children, and I have no reason whatsoever to not believe everything Steel has told me. In which case, I am Dynwar's heir; I am some magical all-powerful Author; and I will...

Stay? Stay and help them fight him.

Eight and a half gods, I think I'm going to be sick. I don't know how to fight! I don't even know how to use whatever magic I have—but Osra can supposedly help me get a quill for that, too. Even if I do, what am I supposed to do against a king who's kept himself alive for centuries and is so powerful and terrifying that all other Authors fled this world to escape him?

Steel said his family wrote this story—my story—specifically to overthrow Dynwar. They picked me for this task. Didn't they? Or does it not matter who I am so much as the steps I take, the tasks I fulfill, the battles I wage? Anyone could do the things an Author has written—does the character they've picked even matter?

"We're here," Sela says, dismounting.

My horse has followed hers into Arderis.

Around us is a nondescript town very much like Morine. Wooden buildings of varying heights sit along a hodgepodge of mud roads with people in dirt-streaked clothes rushing from errand to errand. I half expect to look up a road and see The Dizzy Ogre's sign, and the thought hits me with unexpected homesickness. Or maybe I just long for Morine because when I was there, I was ignorant to all this Author-ness.

I dismount and land, unsteadily, gripping the saddle for support.

"Are you all right?" Sela ties her horse to a hitching post, eyeing me.

"Let's just get this over with." I'm five seconds away from evaporating right on this street. "Where's Osra?"

Sela nods to a window three levels up. "Last I was here, she worked out of that apartment."

"I'm sure she's still there," says Thertan, behind me.

I turn to see him, Imina, and Steel all tying off their horses too.

"Didn't scamper off to the adventurer school?" I cut at Thertan. "What if Daddy Dearest is there right now? You could sell me off without breaking a sweat."

Thertan glowers. "Don't tempt me."

"Follow me," Sela says. "Stay quiet. Don't speak to anyone unless you have to—the less people who know who and what we are, the better."

"Agreed," I say, and I feel the need to look pointedly at Princess Imina.

"What?" she chirps, almost innocent.

"You seem like the one most likely to cause trouble for us, and not accidentally."

She grins.

"Come on," Sela demands, her voice cold. She's in no mood for bantering, and honestly, I'm not sure I am, either. I'm overcome with nervous energy and I feel like I might vomit.

We head for a door under a sign that promises frothing ale tankards—a tavern, of course. Sela, Thertan, and Imina file in, leaving Steel and I to take up the rear.

"It'll be okay," Steel whispers.

I give him a look that says just how absurd his attempt at comforting me is.

"Fair enough." Steel holds the door for me. "But we're with you."

"Is that supposed to be comforting, too? I barely know you."

"I'd like to think that's not entirely true anymore." He pauses. "Is it?"

"It is. It has to be." Because if I get too attached to any of you, I won't be able to make the decision I need to make.

I push past him, into the tavern, not reading the expression his face. But I think he's hurt.

I crowd inside with Sela, Thertan, and Imina. Steel comes in after us, and the moment the door thuds shut behind him, the whole of the tavern looks at us.

Half a dozen bleary-eyed men crowded at banged-up tables swivel to us. The barkeep, wiping down the counter, freezes, the towel dropping from his hand. Even a fiddler in the corner screeches his music to a halt.

It isn't that they recognize us—no one leaps up and screams Prince Thertan! or Sorcerer! This is the same way people in Morine would get whenever someone new came to town and there wasn't a well-known adventurer quest going on.

I roll my eyes and wave at everyone in the tavern. "Subtle, really. Hello, everyone! Yes, we're strangers! Idiots."

"Amelie!" Sela hisses.

"Stairs." I point at a hall off to the side that shows steps leading up.

The oh-so-subtle silence lingers until the last of our party is up the stairwell, then dishes clank below us, music starts back up. We climb the three flights with the tavern's noises as the only sound—no snarky banter, no annoyed grumbling. It hits me then—everyone in this stairwell is as nervous as I am, for their own reasons, but still. We're in this together, like Steel said.

That makes me stand a little straighter when Sela leads us to a door on the third floor. She hesitates, takes a steadying breath, and uses her index finger to trace a sigil in the middle of the wood.

Then she goes still.

"Shouldn't we knock?" I ask.

"That is knocking. In way." Sela glances at me. "It'll tell her one of her sisters is here, and not some—"

The door flies open.

Beyond stands a thin old woman who must be Osra. Her apartment is darkness behind her, giving her an air of secrecy and horror as she stands illuminated in the hall's one lit sconce. Chunks of gray hair are braided back from her face, showing vivid green eyes and skin darker than Imina's.

She takes in all of us with a single sweep of her eyes, and I feel like I've been thoroughly sized up. Like that one glance has told her all she needs to know about me, a half-Brownie nobody from Morine, and we won't even need to do the relation spell at all because—

"Sela," the woman says.

"Osra." Sela bows her head. Her lip trembles. "I—I'm glad to see you're all right."

She hadn't even known if Osra was alive. The last she's seen of any of her kind, they were piecing themselves back together after an adventurer massacre.

I start to back away. All Sela has done for me, the sacrifices she's made in these short days—the least I can do is give her a few minutes to let her walls down around someone she trusts. 

***

The story continues in Dragon's Breath Whiskey.