Jenna took a moment to look around the room, silently surveying our mostly quiet surroundings. Most of the tables were bare, and an elven woman was going between those that weren’t and quietly cleaning them off. Clanking and clattering from dishes and cookware echoed out of the doorway to the kitchens proper, sounding just like any kitchen in any operating restaurant I’d been in back home.

  “That’s a lot to take in,” Jenna noted. “Earlier, one of the staff in the back called this the family villa, but the way they said it— am I imagining things? It felt like families are rare for the Syr.”

  I wet my lips and refilled my glass. “They are. Literally every family in the Glade is housed in this building. When I said they didn’t have the forces to deal with what’s going on, I wasn’t just talking military force. They’ve been operating on a skeleton crew of survivors since the Wardens saved them. There are a few hundred individuals here and that’s largely it. Aoibheann says there are more survivors spread out along what used to be their borders, but they’re spread thin.”

  I stared at my glass for several long, silent seconds before taking a drink and adding, “In exchange for her help finding you, I offered to help find those survivors and lead them back here.”

  A pained look came over Jenna’s face. “But— I’m— I’m just me. Why?”

  I reached across the table, putting a hand on hers. “Jenna, I might not have been the best brother, but you’re my sister, family. If family has no meaning, then what does? I couldn’t not come save you.”

  After a few seconds, she slowly nodded. “That’s not the man you are.”

  I squeezed her hand and sat back. “Exactly. I joined the Army for all the stereotypical teenager reasons, excitement, adventure—”

  Jenna grinned as she interrupted. “Sex with women you’d never meet otherwise.”

  I bit back a laugh and shrugged. “Well, that too I guess, but that’s more of a Navy thing, let me assure you. Once we’re deployed, there’s not a lot of opportunity for shenanigans unless you like risking your career, and when we’re not— well, Fayetteville isn’t a good place to do that kind of fishing, for a variety of reasons. Still, what I was trying to get at is I didn’t stay in the Army for those reasons. It took a bit, but I realized the recruiting slogans about defending your country had a lot more meaning to me once I’d actually signed that blank check. I stayed in because I believed in that part of the mission, protecting the innocent, defending Americans. Sure, it’s not all rainbows and there are some ugly truths I’m not going to get into, but that’s what I’ve set my mind to, defending the innocent.”

  Jenna’s mischievous grin quirked back into existence again. “And?”

  “And what?”

  “For every male I’ve seen, there have been at least seven or eight women. Given the military’s reputation for certain things—”

  “We’re not talking about that, Jenna.”

  She snorted at my reddening face and laughed the entire time she topped off our glasses. “Sam, I was joking around, but good for you.”

  “I didn’t—”

  “You did, just not with words. I’m not about to throw stones. You know what I read, like you said. Was it either of the two with us on the way back?”

  I breathed in slowly, deliberately. “Genevieve Bryne.”

  As much as I wanted to be irritated, Jenna’s sudden laughter cut the legs out from under my anger. “So, unlikely to be the case. Change of topic since you’re obviously uncomfortable, what are we up to today?”

  I glared at her for a good long while before answering, “I honestly don’t know. I was going to check in with Rowan to see if anything came of last night’s surprise.”

  Jenna’s raised eyebrow prompted me to continue.

  “After they lost their Lord and most of the military, the Glade’s been cruising along with a ruling council of sorts. There was a motion last night to give the former Lord’s title to Rowan, but the actual decision was put off until today.”

  She blinked a few times. “There’s no way that will end well.”

  I grinned. “Shit sandwich. Free samples. I warned you.”

  “You did. Please tell me they have hard liquor here. Or wine. Okay, if I’m honest, coffee would be better than either right now, but those sorts of problems beg for alcohol.”

  I shrugged. “Honestly, I have a hard time believing they don’t have wine somewhere, given the amount of fruit I’ve seen, but as for distilled spirits and coffee, your guess is as good as mine. The alcohol certainly exists in this world anyway, considering how fond of taverns Tomas apparently is.”

  “You don’t know? Really? I thought alcohol was one of the major food groups for soldiers?”

  “Jenna, please. I’ve kinda been on-mission since I realized I had to save you. At least give me a little credit. Now that you mention it, I could really go for a beer or three.”

  She playfully winked at me. “Maybe I could help set you up with one of those two? They’re both remarkably cute.”

  I chuckled, but frowned, nonetheless. “Look, the twins have their own issues.”

  Her face brightened a little more. “Twins, you say?”

  More irritation leaked into my voice than I intended. “Jenna, I know you’re probably dealing with all the stress of this bullshit by being playful, but this isn’t a video game or some hentai manga. They’re not just RandomElfChick_01 and _02. Aine and Cailleach are trained assassins and neither of their backgrounds are happy ones. Aine isn’t exactly well-adjusted and she knows it.” I nearly bit my lip when Jenna’s eyes sparkled. “Jenna, if you even think about making a grippy socks joke, I will seriously lose my shit.”

  She held up her hands in surrender. “Relax, okay, point taken. I’m sorry.”

  I sipped at my water. “It’s okay. It feels wrong to make that kind of joke at their expense, not after they fought shoulder to shoulder with me to save you.”

  Jenna offered a conciliatory smile. “That’s fair. I didn’t know about any of that. Trained assassins, huh? Not fond of getting assassinated, myself. Speaking of which.”

  Jenna directed a nod to something behind me. I turned in my chair in time to see Cailleach pause a few paces into the cafeteria long enough to notice us and head in our direction.

  “Good morning,” Jenna greeted the assassin brightly. “My brother was just telling me about you.”

  Cailleach’s eyes narrowed, and she directed them toward me. “All positive things, I hope.”

  “No complaints here,” I deadpanned after a quick decision to not give Jenna a chance to continue down the last line of conversation. “You were looking for us?”

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  “I was. Lady Rowan wishes to speak with you.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Lady? So the Council made their decision?”

  Cailleach responded with an abrupt nod. “They did.”

  “I bet that’s caused quite a mess,” Jenna commented.

  “It has,” Cailleach said, sour expression on her face.

  “Well, no time like the present,” I noted and stood. We policed our dishes and set off.

  We arrived at the Harvester’s hall and found Rowan behind her desk and another elf sitting across from her.

  Rowan looked up at me with eyes weary enough I was pretty sure I’d seen people on the tail end of their deployment to the sandbox look more chipper. “Ah, Samuel, we need to talk. Samuel, Jenna, Fiachra. Fiachra, Samuel and Jenna.”

  I glanced at the elf and saw only bone-weary exhaustion in the eyes that met mine. We exchanged polite nods, and I held out my hand. “Pleasure to meet you. Nice to put a face to the name.”

  Despite the man’s appearance, Fiachra’s handshake was firm. “Likewise. Our Lady—” Fiachra paused long enough to return Rowan’s sudden glare with one of his own. “—has had a lot to say about you. I do regret not having time to spare.”

  The mage’s face lit up as he turned his attention to Jenna. “Now, you, I’ve heard many things. Not to steal time from our Lady, but I look forward to having another set of hands to help with my work. As I was saying just now, the workload is simply too much for one person.”

  Closing her eyes as she breathed in, Rowan’s silent sigh gave me the distinct impression this was far from the first conversation on the topic she’d listened to. Beside me, Jenna’s expression closed off ever so subtly, the mark of a person internalizing the fundamental truth of why people being happy to see you is never a good sign in a work environment.

  “So,” I opened the conversation and glanced at the papers spread out in front of Rowan. “Cailleach said you needed to speak with me? That’s an impressive number of maps you have there.”

  Rowan’s eyes fell to the table and seemed even more weary when they came back up to meet mine. “Samuel, I know you’re not one of mine, but I— We could really use your help.”

  Despite the room drowning in what felt like an ocean of worry and exhaustion, I tried to keep my tone positive. “With what?”

  Rowan sighed and reached out for a cup that wasn’t there. She caught herself, frowned, and shrugged. “Well, considering I haven’t slept yet, I guess it stands to reason I’m having problems focusing. Sorry. First thing I need you to do is to accompany Aoife and the militia I’m sending with her to Fiddler’s Green. Fiachra, Cailleach, Tomas, and Uilleam will be going with you. Aoife is going to the Green to welcome them into the fold and figure out what we can do to defend the area.”

  I raised a finger. “Aoife? She’s the Harvester I met when I first showed up here?” When Rowan nodded, I asked, “Where’s she been?”

  “Most Harvesters are on a rotation. A month out in the forest, a month back here. She left not long after you met her and I cut the rotation short early for everyone. Obviously, not everyone is present at the moment, but all eight of us are here.”

  I nodded. “So, am I going back to the Green as escort? Show of force? Some other purpose? Also, if Fiachra is going, is Jenna supposed to come too?”

  Rowan nodded. “I hope she is amenable to going. As for why you’ll be present, much like Fiachra and Cailleach, I believe you might have some unique insights that might be of use to Aoife. Also, seeing as the Green’s mayor knows you, your presence should make the process a little easier for both sides. As soon as Aoife is comfortable with how things are proceeding, she’ll be releasing you for the second part of your mission. It will likely be grim business.”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  “I’m having a copy of the map altered for you and Tomas, but the important thing is we’ve narrowed down roughly where the people he saved likely came from. It won’t be a short walk, and quite frankly, we’re sending you two through territory most of our neighbors refuse to enter. To add to that, you’ll need to make as good a pace as you can. I’m not sure how long we have before we see a response from the Kharkans, so if you do find survivors, I need as many of them as you can find back here as soon as possible.”

  I chuckled darkly. “Is that all?”

  Rowan and I shared small, unhappy smiles briefly before she looked back down at the maps before her. “Samuel, I wouldn’t ask this if it weren’t utterly necessary.”

  Slightly shaking my head, I responded, “I know. Tasks always pile up, and only so many people to go around. The latest is mostly my fault anyway. Where are we going and why is this terrain so hostile?”

  Rowan motioned me over to her side of the desk, sorting through layers of papers and scrolls as I moved to stand next to her. She motioned to the map she unburied, one that would’ve looked at home nestled in the pages of a Tolkien fantasy epic.

  “So, this is— was the region we controlled around the Glade,” Rowan said, wincing at her correction. I noted the crater had multiple named dots scattered about inside the rim just as she shuffled out a second map with far fewer localities, most notably, every locality stretching from the Glade to the northeastern corner were simply gone. “This is our current understanding of the layout, based on the information Tomas gathered over the last few years.”

  “Last few years? What about the preceding forty?”

  Rowan frowned and glanced away. “Things were chaotic. We did send out scouts, scouting parties even. The few that returned from the area we’re sending you spoke of vast swaths of land denude of all life, stretches where the land was burnt down to bedrock, and worse.”

  Jenna’s head quirked to the side. “Burnt to bedrock? As in the soil was burnt to the point of exposing bedrock?”

  Fiachra nodded and shifted his stance. “I was there when that particular one happened. We did not go silently into the night.”

  Rowan raised an eyebrow at that comment, but didn’t interrupt when Fiachra added, “Depending on your path, there are a few places I’d ask you to investigate. There may be artifacts thought lost that we could still recover, but I will warn you, releasing tremendous power on the scales seen that night almost always has lasting side effects, none of which are likely to be pleasant.”

  I met the man’s gaze. “What sort of side effects are we talking?”

  “Depends on the type of magic, the source, and the amount. The more mundane effects should have long faded by now, so you’re unlikely to encounter them. Though, on the off chance any still linger, should you come across a fog tinted pale green and unnaturally dark at the same time, stay as far as feasible. Stray too close and it will be the last thing you do.”

  The way his face contorted with disgust there toward the end struck up some morbid curiosity on my part. “How close is too close?”

  “When it feels like the fog is calling to you, you’re within a few feet of the last steps you’ll ever take. The cloud is—” Fiachra’s brow contorted for several long moments. “—corrosive to both body and soul. Before the Fall, our priestesses could heal almost any wound, and in some cases even return one from death itself, but not so where this fog is concerned. Avoid it at all costs.”

  “Jesus,” Jenna whispered.

  I echoed Jenna’s sentiment with a grim nod. “That’s a mundane effect?”

  Fiachra shrugged. “Compared to the other things you’re like to encounter, yes. You can sense it before you wander into the area of effect, and the spellform should have depleted on its own long ago. I only mention it because even if it’s widely known that sufficient release of power can alter the local area in the short term, no one has studied the use of that much magic in small areas, much less what the long-term implications of that are. Were things not so dire here, I’d very much like to go with you to do just that.”

  “What did they use that spell for, normally?” Jenna asked.

  Fiachra shifted uncomfortably. “Maintaining Syr supremacy on the battlefield, mostly. Its use was remarkably rare, mostly due to the rarity of those who could cast it at all. The majority of the capable found its use distasteful, a violation of the natural order.”

  Jenna raised a finger. “I’m sorry, but I’m a bit lost. The people who could use it were rare?”

  Fiachra glanced to Rowan, who nodded in response. “Not to derail our Lady’s reason for calling you here, so I’ll try to be brief. With humanity, you might have one out of every hundred have some capacity for magic. For the Syr, it’s possibly a dozen. Out of those dozen, all but maybe one or two will reach their limits at trivial magic. Think small spells, still useful but limited in scope. Taking dirt out of clothing, making it dry faster, food cooks quicker, that sort of thing. The ones that can reach further can and should be sent for further training. We had entire colleges of magic just for that purpose. Ultimately, three paths exist for those sent for formal training. Those with lesser abilities end up following the path of the Craftsman. Certainly no shame in that, considering how accomplished our craftsmen are. Those with longer reach have two paths, depending on their proclivities, and end up as either war mage or sage. There are ranks, but they’re not important to this. I, myself, followed the path of the sage and while I’m no neophyte to the order, I was not terribly far from it when the Fall happened. This is a bit of an oversimplification, but suffice it to say that just reaching the lowest rank of either of those two paths is something maybe only one in a thousand, possibly ten thousand accomplish. A place like the Glade at its height might have seen two, maybe three of its sons and daughters attain that rank. That spell, the fog, was used as a mark of mastery for the War Mage examination, the final rank. If you could cast nothing else, succeeding in that one task was sufficient for recognition as a War Mage. At the start of the Fall, amongst the entirety of the Syr’d’Sylvan, we had ten War Mages, only six of which could manage the spell safely. When the Infested finally came for the Glade, three of those six were here.”