A blinding light flashed through the field.

  Phia and Lilly looked around in fear and confusion as the winged Fallen crashed into the ground, smoke billowing off it.

  Brune strode towards the girls, his yellow eyes burning. Behind him, the shaggy Fallen dragged itself on the ground, severely mangled.

  Phia instinctively stepped back as Brune thumped past her. He looked like a savage; white hair hanging wildly about his face, lips curled back to bare his tusks.

  Gripping his club, he abruptly pointed it in Phia and Lilly’s direction. Phia froze in fear. She saw Brune’s lips move.

  A shattering blast shook the earth, as if a clap of thunder exploded beneath their feet. Phia and Lilly screamed and hugged each other. Something behind them blew to bits; chunks of it flew all over the meadow.

  Ignoring Phia and Lilly’s terrified faces, Brune turned towards Endellion, who was still on the ground, barely keeping the dragon-like Fallen away. Brune laid it out with three swings of his club.

  Cenric watched, his mouth agape. “No! I can’t—It’s impossible!”

  Brune flashed him a look. The young man tripped over himself and tumbled into the boulder.

  Phia and Lilly stood in each other’s arms, watching Brune in awe as he stalked back towards the sorcerer.

  Dhar Jattab’s cloak was torn, and his apparently fragile face was bruised. Brune walked slowly, almost patiently.

  The sorcerer shakily raised his staff.

  “Mbulu, come to my aid!”

  The portal opened, just as Brune roared, “Ecnis Wnda!”

  A fiery surge rolled over Dhar Jattab like a tidal wave of flames. When it passed, his singed form rolled on the ground.

  A large, gangly creature crawled out of the portal. It was like Grundalin, only bigger and uglier.

  Brune launched his Arrow of Death before Mbulu had even stood to his full height. The black arrow blasted through its stomach, leaving a large hole.

  This made Mbulu angry. He landed several blows, surprising Brune with its extremely long reach. But Brune fell back and fired volleys of Chaos Wave.

  Mbulu dropped to his knees and disintegrated.

  Dhar Jattab leaned on his staff, his face partly melted from fire.

  “Is that it?” Brune said, striding towards him. “I’m a little disappointed. ”

  Dhar Jattab screamed and fired a bolt of lightning at Brune, before collapsing on the ground.

  Brune took the hit, dropping to a knee. After a moment, he got back up and raised his club.

  But the sorcerer’s form seemed to deflate: his black robe sunk to the ground and his head crumpled and shriveled until it had completely disappeared.

  Brune stared at the empty cloak.

  “You would vanish in the creepiest way possible, wouldn’t you?”

  * * *

  While Brune was battling Mbulu, Endellion lay on the ground, bleeding.

  Rolling onto her side, she clutched her ribs. Something hurt badly, especially when she inhaled.

  She looked at her hand: blood.

  Letting out a moan, Endellion felt around her pocket.

  “I have your potion,” Lilly said. “There’s one green and two red ones left.”

  The elf rolled over. Lilly and Phia were looking down at her with concern on their faces.

  Beyond them, another blurry shape loomed.

  Endellion shut her eyes tightly and blinked several times. Her vision cleared enough to recognize the figure.

  Of course. That boy—Cenric, or whatever his name was. He was standing there like an idiot, watching Brune, oblivious to the three women. He kept running his hand through his hair and saying, “I—I can’t fucking believe it…”

  Endellion snatched the green vial—a healing potion—and hastily drank it. That would stop the bleeding. Then she took the red ones, the Amesynth, a rare vitality potion that cured exhaustion and disease, and provided a strength buff, for 24 hours.

  She gulped them both.

  The pain dissolved quickly, like a mountain of weight lifting from her body. Her muscles tightened. Energy and aggression pulsed through her. Lilly and Phia got out of the way as she bounced to her feet and walked towards the boy.

  Cenric stepped back.

  “What’s wrong, boy? Scared?”

  He looked behind her towards Dhar Jattab.

  “I don’t think he’ll be coming to help you.”

  Cenric raised his staff. His face contorted into a look of bitter hatred.

  Endellion laughed. “You shouldn’t hold your breath for so long.”

  “Fuck you!” He lowered his staff.

  Endellion shoved the air with both hands, sending a ferocious blast of wind that knocked Cenric to the ground.

  “Get up,” she said, grabbing hold of his staff.

  “Don’t touch my staff!” He clung to it, but Endellion put her boot on him and wrested it away. She flung the staff into the grass. “Get up.”

  She stood with her hands on her hips, feet wide apart. Lilly and Phia watched uneasily.

  Cenric’s legs were shaking as he got up. Endellion swiftly grabbed him by the throat. He coughed and clutched at her wrists as she raised him into the air and slammed him on his back.

  Then she kicked him in the stomach.

  Endellion heard gasps behind her. She turned to Phia and Lilly.

  “This is why you girls can’t be adventurers. Too squeamish.”

  “There’s no need to hurt him,” Phia said.

  “Sure there is.” Endellion crouched down and grabbed his arm.

  “Ow!” Cenric yelped as Endellion rolled onto her back and threw her legs over him, locking him in an armbar hold.

  “Ah! Wait!” Cenric yelled.

  “Oh, don’t worry, I’ll wait. I wouldn’t rush this for the world.”

  Cenric screamed and gasped for breath as tears of pain streamed down his face.

  “Endellion, stop it!” Phia said.

  Lilly chimed in: “Please Endellion, don’t torture him!”

  “He deserves it.” She flexed her legs and arched her back.

  “Aaaaaah!”

  “Endellion!” Brune’s voice boomed as he strode over the grass. “Stop that. Now.”

  The dark elf paused for a second and then resumed the squeeze.

  Cenric screamed. Something popped and cracked loudly.

  Brune’s enormous hands gripped Endellion and pulled her off Cenric.

  “I told you to stop!”

  To Endellion’s astonishment, he was furious.

  “Let me go! You’d think I was beating up Phia. Why do you care what I do to him?”

  Brune released Endellion with a shove. “He’s just a boy.”

  “Yes. And I’m going to kill him slowly.”

  “No, you are not going to kill him at all.”

  “What’s wrong with you? You saw how arrogant he was.”

  “So what? You’re arrogant, too. It’s not a capital crime.”

  Endellion rolled her eyes. “Are you serious? When did you become so precious? He was trying to kill us!”

  Brune took out his healing potion and tapped Phia on the shoulder with it. “Give him this.”

  Endellion scoffed. “That’s your last one!”

  “Lilly’s going to make more potions, aren’t you, Lilly?”

  “Yes, Lord Brune,” she said, folding her hands.

  Phia poured the potion into Cenric’s mouth. His breathing gradually became less frantic, but he groped around in the grass and his eyes searched here and there.

  Phia and Lilly looked at each other. “He wants his staff,” Lilly whispered.

  Phia got up and stepped towards it, but Brune put his hand on her shoulder.

  “Just leave it,” he murmured. “He’ll pick it up himself. The most insulting thing you can do to a sorcerer is touch his staff.”

  Cenric shakily got to his feet. He looked across the field and squinted his eyes at Dhar Jattab’s black robe, heaped on the grass.

  “Your master left without you,” Brune said.

  Cenric scratched his strawberry blonde head and looked at the ground. “Probably thought I was dead.”

  “He didn’t seem to care one way or the other. But that’s your problem. Go on, get out of here before I change my mind.”

  Cenric recovered his staff as Endellion sneered at him, hands on her hips.

  Backing away, Cenric turned around and tramped across the meadow, a limp hampering his right leg and one arm hanging limp. He glanced over his shoulder before passing into the aspens.

  * * *

  Brune felt like he’d fallen off a mountain, smashed into rocks, and then dragged himself all the way back to the top.

  It was partly from the blows he received during the battle, but more so from the fatiguing effects of using so many powerful magic attacks and emptying his mana.

  Barely able to keep his eyes open, he lay on his blanket and watched the two girls as the stars shone above them.

  “You poor thing,” Phia said to Lilly, hugging her closer. The two of them cuddled in front of the campfire. Some of Lilly’s homemade concoctions were bubbling in pots over the flames, and the air was thick with scents of herbs and wood.

  “You’ve never been away from home, and then suddenly you’re enslaved and taken away. And then a sorcerer almost kills you. Your poor mama must be so worried, too.”

  Lilly chuckled softly as Phia squished her face into her breasts. The cat girl’s tongue flicked out and licked Lilly’s hair three times.

  Brune snorted. “Did you just lick her head?”

  Phia flung her hand over her mouth. Her cheeks colored.

  “That’s okay,” Lilly said. “It’s in your nature. It’s just your way of taking care of someone.”

  “Oh my gods, I’m such a weirdo,” Phia mewled. “I’m treating you like you’re my kitten.”

  “I don’t mind. But actually, I’m old enough to be your mother, believe it or not.”

  “What? No!”

  “Yes. Fairies don’t really age. My mom is like a hundred and ten and she looks the same age as me.”

  Brune took a deep breath and smiled dozily. Eternally nubile.

  The thought made him restless, despite his fatigue. He sat up and looked around the dark meadow. Endellion was still hanging out by the horses; she’d gone over there to sulk.

  Something glinted in the grass, over where much of the battle had taken place.

  Brune walked over and found a flat metal object, about three square inches. Lilly’s bondage sigil. Endellion must have dropped it during the battle.

  He took it back to the fire and sat down, studying the engraved sigil.

  Now here was something to occupy his attention—as good as a game of chess or a problem of logic. He wasn’t likely to solve it if Endellion couldn’t do it; she had more experience with sigil breaking. But it was worth trying.

  Taking regular, controlled breaths, Brune stared at the sigil until everything else melted into darkness. Against that black background, the sigil’s lines and shapes glowed green.

  Once he understood the sigil’s full meaning, its representation changed. He saw a glowing green mass at the center, with various coiling threads that protruded from it.

  Those threads were actually channels; Brune could go inside them with his mind. He entered one. Crackling sounds bounced around the channel as he followed it down various twists and turns until he finally came to a quiet hollow—the center.

  Keeping the entire passageway in his mind’s grasp, he left the chamber and went back the way he’d come. Then he entered another channel and did the same thing. He repeated the process with a few more.

  The sigil didn’t seem to be all that difficult. Brune felt it gradually weaken as he went through channel after channel. After traversing about a dozen of them, the sigil’s light swelled into a brilliant green.

  A flash of blinding light. Then... nothing.

  Brune opened his eyes. He looked at the piece of metal in his hand.

  I did it. Endellion must not have tried very—

  “Oh!” Lilly sat up straight. “What—Something—Something just happened!”

  Phia blinked her blue eyes at the fairy. “What’s wrong, Lilly?”

  “Nothing... I feel great.”

  “I just broke your bondage sigil,” Brune said.

  Lilly gulped. She looked at her hands and wiggled her fingers. Her eyes widened and a smile spread across her face.

  “Lilly?” Phia said softly.

  The fairy screamed and jumped to her feet, throwing up her arms. The blanket scarf fell to the ground. Phia stared, open-mouthed.

  Clenching her fists and pressing her elbows into her sides, she flapped her wings rapidly.

  Phia’s hair swirled around as dead grass and smoke from the campfire blew into her face. “Lilly! Watch it!”

  “I can heal the rest of my injuries now, no problem,” the fairy said. She threw her head back and let out a sigh as a pink light dusted over her. Then she smiled and did a little dance of joy.

  With a grin and a jump, the fairy took off like a shot.

  Brune saw her zipping across the starry sky, diving and spinning like an aerial acrobat.

  Twice, she whizzed over his head and circled low around the campfire, her laughter filling the air like a song.

  “Ow! Lilly!” Phia said. “She spanked my bum!”

  “I had to do it!” Lilly said, hovering overhead. “It looked so cute, it was just asking for it!”

  Giggling with delight, she swooped down and landed in Brune’s lap. He temporarily forgot how to speak as the fairy planted rapid kisses over his face.

  “Thank you, Lord Brune,” she breathed and hugged his head. One of her hard nipples pressed under his eye. He was about to take it in his mouth when Endellion spoke.

  “What’s going on?”

  “I broke her sigil,” Brune said after Lilly had released him from her breasty embrace.

  The fairy tittered and shot off again, soaring in circles over the field.

  “I don’t know why you found it so difficult—it wasn’t that bad. Didn’t even take me long.”

  Endellion stared at the campfire, her face inscrutable.

  “Yeah... Well... I was tired.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “HEY, THAT BIRD’S flying right towards us!”

  A pigeon flapped through the trees directly ahead, its squeaky wings ruffling the stillness of the sunny morning.

  Lilly hugged Endellion’s waist and screamed as the bird landed on the horse’s shoulder.

  It bobbed its head and cooed.

  “W-what—what is that?” Lilly said, peeking around Endellion.

  “It’s a pigeon. You’ve never seen one? I thought they were everywhere.”

  The pigeon ruffled its feathers and waddled closer to Endellion.

  Lilly whispered, “What does it want?”

  “It wants to be near the homing sigil,” Endellion said, showing Lilly one of her rings.

  Stopping the horse, she picked up the bird and removed a little scroll from its foot.

  “Your detective friend,” Brune said, bringing his horse next to Endellion’s.

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  Endellion unrolled the scroll and read it, nodding her head.

  “Can I see it?” Brune said.

  She held up the paper. It was blank.

  “Magic encryption. You didn’t think I’d be so careless as to make it visible to just anyone?”

  Brune shrugged. “Well? Does it tell us anything useful?”

  “Rowkis Fragan and Bozhidar Vladnoch go way back. They’ve been exchanging favors for a long time.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah, and Fragan seems to be involved in all kinds of corruption—bribery, embezzlement, cronyism. He and Vladnoch are running an extortion racket together.”

  “In Bambioch?”

  “Yup, according to my friend.”

  Brune nodded. “That’s good enough for me.”

  * * *

  They looked down at the city of Bambioch from the top of a ridge. Brune had never laid eyes on it before; a city of political climbers and clerics had never appealed to him.

  But now that he actually saw it—at least from a distance—he had to admit it looked beautiful. The Welna Sea sparkled under the blue sky beyond the city’s golden domes and soaring towers.

  “We’ll go straight to Fragan’s,” Brune said. “Can you show us the way, Phia?”

  “He won’t be home now,” she said. “We might as well go shopping.”

  “Shopping?” Brune’s face twisted in disgust. “What are you talking about, shopping?”

  “For Lilly! She needs something to wear—other than a blanket.”

  “That... would be nice, Lord Brune,” Lilly said in a tiny voice, touching the blanket that hung over her chest.

  Hmm. Panties and clothes for Lilly! Images of the fairy trying on underwear and skirts popped into Brune’s mind.

  He sighed, pretending to be aloof. “Alright then, where’s the shopping district?”

  Three hours later, Brune walked out of a fancy women’s clothing store, carrying bags of panties, lingerie, and two outfits—one of which was hardly more than a few strings of fabric.

  Phia came out behind him and held the door open. “Are you coming, Lilly? You’re not shy are you?”

  Brune looked back at the open door. “Where is she?”

  Phia shrugged. “I think she’s shy.”

  Brune shook his head. “Come on, Lilly, get your ass out here!”

  The fairy burst through the door and charged into the street, Endellion slowly walking out behind her. Lilly halted in front of Brune and performed a pirouette.

  She wore a short frilly dress that left her back bare—the only option, given her wings. As for the front, it seemed miraculous that her boobs didn’t bounce out.

  “Thank you for the clothing, Master Brune. It feels...so pretty!”

  “It suits you,” Phia said. “You shouldn’t be shy.”

  “I’m just not used to it. But I like it!” She spun around, watching the skirt fill up with air.

  Endellion leaned against a lamppost and watched pensively.