May 23, 1302

Brunya City

A woman walked by, catching Ayden’s attention. He leaned to the side to get a better look out of the forge window, but it wasn’t her. Of course it wasn’t. Tess was still on her annual birthday trip to the Savage Jungle. She was eighteen now, the same as Ayden. She was visiting her parents’ friends: Tikki, a three-and-a-half-foot-tall, bossy gnome, and Badger, a seven-foot-tall, gentle orc.

Tess loved the Savage Jungle. There she would run wild like Tikki did, to flip and jump and swing from tree to tree as if she were a little savage as well. She did a fair amount of that at home, too. She would flip down off roofs or jump from one housetop to another. A day didn’t go by without Tess practicing. She had to be the best at everything physical—the best archer, the best with her daggers, the best acrobatically. Ayden practiced daily as well, but he was the opposite. He spent his time reading and practicing his spell-casting, whenever he was away from his father at least.

Still, he liked to think that he and Tess complemented each other. He was the brains and she was the brawn. Not that she was dumb or big—actually, they were about the same size. He was two inches taller than her five-foot-eight height, but they were both very slender and could wear each other’s clothes. They had, in fact, on a few occasions when they had gotten them mixed up after he had spent the night, and it didn’t help that they basically had the same wardrobe. But Tess' body was lean, adding to her grace and lithe athletic abilities. Ayden’s body was just lanky.

“Stop staring out the window like a moron and get those swords finished.”

Ayden started at the sound of his father’s deep, scratchy voice. He quickly picked up the rag he had dropped, and got back to polishing the order of weapons.

Jarden ran a hand through his short black hair as he came out of the furnace room, stepping into the shop where Ayden was working. He looked around and sighed. “Well, I’m going to the tavern. A delivery should be here soon. When it comes, make sure you put everything in the right place this time.”

“Yes, sir,” Ayden replied as Jarden walked out the front door, making the bell on top of it jingle.

The last time a delivery came in, Ayden had put everything away correctly. But Jarden was often too drunk by the end of the day to remember where things went, so he would think they were in the wrong place and Ayden would take the blame for it. He always took the blame for everything.

It had been that way since his mother died. It didn’t help that he looked like her either—the same short brown curls, fair skin, gentle features, and large hazel eyes. He even had her long fingers, mage hands, his grandmother said.

He got his magical ability from his mother as well, but Aylanna’s real magic had been in her sweet personality. Ayden missed her cheery smiles and soft voice even more than usual on days like this, the days when he had to spend a lot of time around his father.

Jarden had been a different man when his wife was alive, a kinder and happier man who wasn’t drunk all the time. Since she died, Jarden could barely tolerate anyone even talking about magic. He knew his son had magic in his blood, since it was hereditary, but you weren’t an actual mage until you started casting spells. Magic stayed dormant until that first time; then it became a kind of hunger, an energy that begged to be used like a stomach wanting food. But Ayden made sure he kept the fact that he was a mage a secret from his father. Twelve years’ time had done nothing to improve Jarden’s opinion of magic.

A knock pulled Ayden from his thoughts. He walked through the furnace room and answered the back door to find the delivery man, as expected, and then he spent the next hour carefully putting the order away.

It was almost dark by the time Jarden got back. “Why didn’t you light the lantern outside?” he barked immediately.

“Sorry,” Ayden said, “I forgot.”

His father slapped the back of his head, causing him to flinch and stumble forward a step. Jarden was a burly man and extremely strong from working as a blacksmith his whole life. He didn’t know his own strength, especially when he had been drinking, so his light tap was more of a forceful blow. “Your memory jogged now?”

“Yes, sir,” Ayden answered quietly and started for the front door.

“I already did it!” Jarden snapped. “Now where’d you put my damn tongs this time?” It wasn’t as if he actually needed them at the moment, it was just something to complain about.

Ayden pointed to where they always were, hanging from a hook on the wall. “There.”

“You know I don’t like them there,” Jarden grumbled. “Why haven’t you moved them yet?”

“I didn’t know you wanted them moved.”

“You should know that’s a bad place for them. It’s just common sense.” He sighed and rubbed his stubbly beard. “Why’d my only son have to be so useless, eh? Who’s gonna take over here when I’m dead? Some damn stranger, that’s who. After all my years of hard work. And for what? Nothing!”

“I can move them now,” Ayden offered. “Where do you want them?”

“I’ll do it,” Jarden growled, “like I do every damn thing around here. You get to making dinner. You can reorganize this mess in the morning.”

“Yes, sir.” Ayden set his rag on the workbench, then obediently headed for the stairs at the back of the room and up to their apartment.

The place was actually on top of the weapons shop next door to the workshop, on the south side. The furnace room was to the north of the workshop, but still, their apartment was always very warm.

It was just a long narrow corridor that had rooms off to either side. It had been a storage area once, but his father had converted it into a home when he married Aylanna. She had lived there for seven years, but you couldn’t tell that anymore. Her colorful paintings had been taken down from the walls, the pillows she had embroidered were gone from the sofa, and her books had been removed from the shelves. They all reminded Jarden of his dead wife, so he had put them away. Now they were stored in the dining room that was never used, behind the door that was never allowed to be opened.

Ayden turned into the first room on the left and lit a brass lantern that hung down from the ceiling, illuminating the tiny, orderly kitchen that had the same wood-paneled walls as the rest of the house. He opened the window on the far wall, glad that the evening breeze was cool, and started making dinner.

A while later, he left a covered pot on the stove for his father and took his own bowl of spaghetti with him to his bedroom at the back of the apartment. His room was the only one that had any decoration—maps and diagrams of monsters were tacked to the walls, all in neat rows.

The room was small, but very tidy. The twin-sized bed that sat against the wall below the window on the opposite side of the room was always made, and always covered with the yellow-and-blue quilt that had been given to him by his grandmother. His desk, in the corner at the foot of the bed, was well-organized; pens, paper, a couple of newspapers, a few small pieces of wood, and a whittling knife all put away in their designated places.

Beside the desk, on the adjoining wall, was a sturdy dresser. On top were three wooden figurines that he had carved when he was about ten. The largest, as big as his fist, was a dragon. Well, it was supposed to be a dragon—he hadn’t been very good at carving at the time, and dragons were difficult. The smaller two carvings were of him and Tess; he had a little ball in his hand to represent a fireball, and she had her daggers. Otherwise, they were unrecognizable as them, they were just generic human shapes.

On the other side of the dresser, to his left, his bag was sitting on a chair that was only big enough for a small child. He had been five years old when he and his father had built it together. Jarden made simple things like that in his spare time; chairs, shelves, even their dining room table had been made by him.

But this chair was the only thing they had made together. It had taken a long time to build because Ayden was bad with making things like that—especially since he had been afraid of the hammer. But his father had been patient; he had chuckled a lot and said, “You’ll get there, son.”

Things had been different before Aylanna died. When she had gone, she had taken the best of Jarden with her. He had been a mess for the past twelve years... and now his son was leaving him, too.

He and Tess were finally setting out to go adventuring. They had been made to wait longer than they had wanted since Tess' parents were supposedly from another world and insisted eighteen was the age of adulthood, not sixteen as it was on Kelstone.

I’m not really leaving, Ayden thought. I’ll be back. I’ll visit all the time.

But no matter how much he told himself that, he still felt like he was abandoning his father. Who was going to keep the house and forge organized, cook his meals, do his laundry? Ayden was going off to be with Tess... but to do that, he had to leave his father alone. Happiness and sadness, joy and guilt, excitement and pain... it all came down to him feeling torn. It was a feeling he was used to.

He just wished he could leave on good terms. He wished that he could tell his father he was going and that Jarden would be happy for him, that he would say things like, Write often, come home when you can, I’ll miss you. But that would never happen.

Ayden had broached the subject before, a couple of times actually. The first time, Jarden had thought that his son wanted to go off to join those mages in the city, meaning the Arcane University. He had flown into a rage and threatened to make Ayden stay home, even bar his window.

The second time Ayden tried, he quickly made clear that him leaving would have nothing to do with magic. Just traveling, he had said. But Jarden’s reaction had been pretty much the same; as far as he was concerned, Ayden would be staying in Brunya City for the rest of his life, and would eventually become a blacksmith.

Ayden touched an envelope that was sticking partly out from a side pocket of his bag. He wouldn’t even be able to say goodbye properly. But he hoped that maybe his father would come to accept it by the time he came back for a visit.

He shook his head and sighed, pushing those thoughts away the best he could. He finally walked over to the bedside table and set his dinner next to a small portrait of his mother. Luckily, his father never came into his room, so it hadn’t been taken away with the rest of her things.

Ayden touched the lantern beside the picture and cast a spell on it. It instantly lit, up bathing the room in soft, white light. The lantern hadn’t been lit manually in years—it didn’t even have any oil in it.

Sitting on top of his bed, he opened the window and gazed out at the town square below. Brunya City was a quaint-looking place, with light cobblestone roads and buildings made from cream-colored stone. Across the square from his house, to the north, was the Mages Guild. It was a place he always visited without Tess; she wasn’t a mage, and therefore wasn’t allowed inside. He usually studied there while she was training with weapons at the Fighters Guild, on the south side of the square.

Someone exited the castle-like building now and caught his attention. Falcon, the captain of the guard, stopped just outside the heavy wooden doors of the Guild, and smiled fondly up at him. Tess' father was the opposite of Ayden’s. He loved his daughter to the point that he couldn’t seem to bear not giving her whatever she wanted, and she adored him in return. She looked a lot like him, too. She had the same brown hair—though his stopped at his shoulders while hers fell to her waist—and the same deep brown eyes. She didn’t get her build from him, though. Falcon was a large man with a loosely muscled build, while Tess took after her slender mother, Julia.

“Stop looking so miserable,” Falcon called to him in a warm, teasing voice. “She’ll be home tomorrow.”

Ayden smiled sheepishly.

Falcon chuckled. “Have a good night.”

Ayden nodded. “You too.”

After he ate his dinner, he double-checked that he had everything ready to go. He went to the closet beside his bedroom door and looked inside. A few jackets and button-up shirts that he never wore were hanging inside, and a small chest was sitting on the floor below them. It contained a bunch of folded-up pieces of paper—notes he and Tess had passed back and forth when they were at school together. He had kept most of them. Their writing hadn’t changed since then; Tess' was still big and sloppy, and Ayden’s still very small and neat.

He smiled at some memories of their childhood that the box conjured, as he closed the closest door and looked around the rest of his room. It seemed he had remembered everything, except... he took his mother’s portrait out of its frame and put it in his journal. It reminded him of another journal, one he didn’t need but would never leave behind.

He went to his bookshelf on the other side of the bedside table. It was filled with books about monsters, geography, languages, and magic, as well as all the journals he had kept since he was six or so. He quickly found the one he was looking for and opened it to the important part.

He smiled at the little dried daisy that was pressed between two pages midway through. It was the flower Tess had given him when they had first met. She didn’t know that he had kept it all these years; she already teased him enough about being such a girl.

He slipped both of the leather-bound journals into his bag and took a deep breath. He was ready. He had already taken the rest of his and Tess' things to the stables. He had been bringing them there little by little over the last week; the stable master had agreed to hold the stuff for them along with their saddlebags, and was even kind enough not to charge for it. Ayden was pretty sure it was because the man knew his father, and knew Ayden was trying to sneak away.

Ayden sighed and pushed thoughts of his father away once again as he went to lie on his bed. He turned instead to thoughts of the future and sighed again, happily this time. In a few days, it would be just him and Tess. He would be spending every day and every night with her, never having to be away from her again. That was what he really looked forward to. Being a hero was good; the world needed people to help keep the monster population down, and he was excited about it, too. But the real reason he was doing this was to be with her.

It was always for her.

__________

Ayden waited impatiently for Tess the following afternoon. He had already organized the forge to his father’s liking, but he still wandered around, finding little things to do, trying to keep busy.

He had just decided to sweep the floor again when he finally heard the bell jingle on the front door, and his stomach fluttered excitedly. He smiled when Tess' cousin, Sera, walked into the workshop. She was actually Tess' adopted cousin—their parents weren’t really related, they just considered each other family.

Sera was the daughter of Cael, a half-elf, and Lotus, a half-nymph, and though her parents were generally thought to be two of the most beautiful people on Kelstone, their daughter was even more so. She was the very image of an angel, with a personality to match. Today she was wearing a light sundress, as usual, and slip-on shoes. Her long, loose ringlet curls fell almost to the middle of her back, and were the lightest shade of gold, almost white. Her eyes were the color of a summer sky and when she smiled, as she did now, dimples appeared in her rose-touched cheeks.

She hugged Ayden as soon as he put the broom away, and grinned when she let him go. “Not happy to see me or anything.”

It wasn’t just his smile that told her how he was feeling; it was her empathy. She was marked by the goddess of healing, born with a birthmark in the shape of a sun—Aryst’s symbol—on the back of her neck. It meant that Sera had been chosen to serve the goddess, and it was that mark which gave her the divine gift of feeling the emotions of the people around her, as well as the powers of healing.

Ayden smirked. “Not at all. Absolutely hate that you’re here.”

Sera laughed softly. “Well, hurry up, Tess is being hyper and impatient.”

“When isn’t she?”

Tess had to wait outside, as she wasn’t allowed to come in. Unlike her cousin, who would never say a harsh word to anyone, Tess had a hard time controlling her mouth and keeping her opinions to herself. The last time she had come into the apartment, or even the forge, was over five years ago. She had been quite vocal about her dislike for Jarden and the way he treated his son. Jarden had ordered her to get out and, as he was an expert at holding a grudge, that rule still stood.

Sera led the way to where Tess was waiting on the sidewalk out front. Ayden’s heart felt full at the sight of her, it always did; seeing her after being separated for two weeks was like going home after a long journey. Suddenly everything was as it should be again.

Tess was wearing brown leather pants, her favorite tall combat boots with her fourteen-inch daggers sheathed in them, and a blue t-shirt. Unsurprisingly, Ayden was wearing the same thing, though his boots were short, under his pant legs and had no blades. She was in what she would call a casual outfit—she just didn’t go anywhere without her weapons.

Her long hair fell loose, with a few wispy bangs framing her face. He knew that Sera had brushed it out for her when they met up in Chendal, at the temple where Sera served. Tess' hair was always a complete mess after she left the jungle, though luckily not as bad as Tikki, who had dreadlocks. Tess never dealt with her hair; it was always Ayden or her parents who took care of it and kept it braided for her.

“Let’s go to the river,” Tess said as soon as he stepped out of the forge. “I wanna go swimming.”

Ayden chuckled. “Hello to you, too.”

“What? Did you miss me?”

He rolled his eyes. “Duh.”

“Well, I didn’t miss you at all,” she said with her best lofty attitude.

Sera shook her head and smiled. “Liar.”

“Okay, maybe a little,” Tess allowed, then broke into a grin and threw her arms around him. “Okay, maybe a lot.”

He smiled and held her tightly. “Brat.”

When she let him go, she linked her arm through his. “Come on, we don’t have much sun left.”

Sera took his other arm and they started walking. They passed shops for a couple of blocks, then turned east onto Shane Road—a long cobbled street that went down the side of one of the steeper hills in Brunya City, and the two-story homes that lined either side showed they were in a more expensive part of town. It was one of Tess' favorite areas to jump from rooftop to rooftop because, she said, the buildings were like huge steps down the hill. But today, Tess stayed with Ayden and told him about the jungle and about Tikki and Badger. Although it was the same old stuff, he listened, just happy to hear her lively chatter again.

They came to the end of Shane Road ten minutes later, crossed through a park and then climbed over a low hill to the grassy bank by the Wahyan River. Tess stripped down to just a blue tank top and underwear, then ran and dived into the water. Meanwhile, Sera and Ayden sat under a cherry tree. It was just starting to lose its white flowers, so the petals of it were scattered on the ground and more drifted down on the breeze every so often.

“So, I had the loveliest dream last night,” Sera said conversationally.

“About a beautiful man who you fell madly in love with?” Ayden guessed.

She smiled. “How’d you know?”

He chuckled. “Because it’s always about falling in love with you.”

“Yes, well, not everyone is lucky enough to meet their soul mate when they’re six years old.” She let out a small sigh. “And here we are, twelve years later, and you still haven’t told her that you’re in love with her.”

He shrugged as he continued watching Tess swim. “She knows. She’s just not ready to be like that yet.”

Sera put a gentle hand on his leg. “Don’t worry, Ayden, she’ll get over her fighting obsession enough to think of romance someday.”

“I’m patient,” he said easily. “And it’s not like I’m going anywhere.”

“Are you talking about me?” Tess called from the water’s edge.

“Always think it’s about you,” he called back teasingly.

“Is it?”

“Yeah. We’re saying how much of a goober you are.”

“Oh really?” She smirked as she got out of the water and sprinted toward him.

Sera wisely scooted a few feet away.

“Don’t you dare!” Ayden told Tess, but seconds later, she tackled him. “I so hate you,” he grumbled lightly as he lay under her, his clothes now wet. He got even wetter when she sat up and shook her head, slapping him softly with her soaked hair.

She laughed when he pushed her off of him. “So, you ready?” she asked, sitting cross-legged beside him. “It’s almost the big day.”

“’Course.”

“Excited?”

He smiled as he started playing with the end of her hair, twirling a wet lock around his finger. “Yeah.”

“Sure you won’t come with us?” Tess asked her cousin.

“The adventure life is not for me,” Sera told her, once again. “And I would never leave the temple.”

Sera spent most of her time at Aryst’s true temple, the one that led all the others around Kelstone. She had been training there since she was twelve, and it was now her fourth year working there as a healing cleric. But her almost-white hair was special, a rare gift. Sera was also a dream healer, someone who had the power to enter people’s dreams for the purpose of mental healing, which went hand-in-hand with her specialty: counseling.

“Such a devout holy woman,” Tess teased.

“Such a devout fighter,” Sera returned.

“Yep,” Tess agreed proudly. “And soon I’ll be helping keep the helpless little people like you safe from all the big scary monsters.”

Sera smiled. “The temple and town guard keep me safe enough.”

“Yeah, till you’re traveling between cities,” Tess said dramatically, “all alone in the countryside, and suddenly a goblin comes out of the forest, thinking you look like a tasty meal.”

“They wouldn’t eat her,” Ayden put in. “She’s too sweet for goblins. They’d just spit her back out.”

Sera laughed. “Thanks... I think.”

Tess stood up then and grabbed Ayden’s hand. “Come swim with me.”

“No. The water’s cold,” he told her. “It’s not even technically summer yet.”

“Don’t be a baby.” When he didn’t move, she pouted. “Please?”

He looked away, trying to avoid the power of her deep brown eyes. “No.”

She tugged on his hand. “Ayd, come on,” she said with the same honey-sweet voice she used on her father to get her way.

It worked on Ayden, too. He rolled his eyes and sighed. “Fine, brat.”

She grinned triumphantly as he got up. Impatient, she helped pull off his shirt while he kicked off his boots. Sera shook her head and gave him a look that said, You’re so easy. He just smiled back.

Tess took his hand again and led him to the river. When he paused at the edge to test the water with a toe, she shoved him in and jumped in after him. He wiped the water off his face, then splashed her. She giggled and splashed back.

Sera sat back against the tree and smiled as she watched them be their usual playful selves. They might be going off to fight monsters soon, but no one thought they would ever really grow up.