Though I should have anticipated the question from the moment we began sharing stories, I was taken off guard when Layne asked how Lia and I had first met. Luckily, Lia came to my rescue before I finished my nervous chuckling; she told a lovely story of love at first sight, beginning the day I had tried to convince her father to trade my wares in the Yorian market. Our initial introductions had gone so well that we planned to meet again that night, and I arrived at our predetermined meeting place just in time to find her being accosted by a particularly unsavory town guard. After repelling the man and returning safely to her family, her father had become so distressed from the news that he decided to relocate his family to Lybesa. The plans took a month to finalize, during which time I stayed with the family as a guard and welcome guest.
The remainder of her story was an abbreviated version of the truth. We had made the trip across Kaldan just as winter arrived and passed through the Mountain Gate just before “some incident” seemingly closed it for the foreseeable future. Marten had made contact with an old business associate who helped him reestablish his trading business and build our new home, and our lives had returned to the perfectly normal routines we had before, with no thoughts of dangerous adventures, corrupt kings, or monsters.
Our topic of conversation shifted once again after Lia finished the story, and we continued talking without pause until just before dusk when we reached our destination for the day: a small roadside town with a prominent inn. We rented our separate rooms and took a moment to put our traveling gear away, then reconvened in the common room for dinner. The provided meal of stew was cold and bland, but the good company was more than enough to compensate, and we parted ways for the evening in high spirits.
When the door to our meager lodgings closed behind us, I shrugged off my cloak and sat down in the solitary chair against the wall with a contented sigh. “That was...nice.”
“Yeah, it was,” Lia agreed, sitting on the lumpy straw mattress across from me as she began to unbuckle her armor. “I’m glad I said hello to them on the road, aren’t you?”
“I am now,” I chuckled. “I can’t say I was at the time, though. I’m not used to meeting people like them. You know, good people.”
She shook her head as she slipped a bracer from her arm. “That’s what most people are like, Lux.”
“You’re probably right. It’s just—”
“I am right,” she corrected.
I gave her an exaggerated roll of my eyes. “You are entirely, perfectly right.” After removing my boots, I continued with my original thought. “That’s not something I’m used to. My track record so far in this life has been less than stellar.” I paused in my disrobing and gestured towards her with a large smirk. “Apart from a few shining exceptions, of course.”
“Of course,” she echoed, holding up her nose with theatrical pride. We finished undressing, then climbed into bed for the night. “I’m glad you like them,” she said as she curled up against my chest.
“I’m glad they liked us, too,” I said. “Well, most of them, anyway. Josephine wasn’t exactly thrilled to have us join their group.” I reached out to the bedside table and turned out the lamp, then settled in beneath the thin blankets.
“She wasn’t?” Lia asked, confused. “Miles said she...oh! Right!” She tapped excitedly against my bare chest as she looked up at me through the darkness. “What was she really saying?”
“Well, she definitely speaks Kaldanic. It sounds like she isn’t too fond of foreigners.” I nodded towards the two piles of armor at the foot of the bed. “Plus, given the way we were dressed, she thought we were some kind of thugs and was mad that Miles told us where they were going.”
She let out a hearty laugh. “We are sort of thuggish looking, aren’t we?” Her finger traced lazily along my collarbone as she continued. “You can’t really blame her, I guess. It seems like everyone is a bit on edge traveling right now. Plus, with her hip the way it is, it’s probably hard for her to…” she trailed off, her finger pausing on its trek across my chest. “Could you do something about her hip?”
I shrugged. “Maybe. It feels a bit weird to invade her privacy like that, but it would be for her benefit, right?” Lia gave me a firm nod of agreement, and I took a moment to center my breathing. “Let’s find out.”
A pulse of mana ran out into the hallway and through the surrounding rooms, scanning each chamber quickly until I found my target. Josephine was asleep in the room two doors down from ours, propped up on the mattress by various pillows and balled-up clothing, while Miles reclined restlessly in her wheelchair. The mana in her core was a pale yellow, so faint that I could hardly see it even against the black void of my view through Detection. As I carefully suffused my energy around her hip, her ailment became immediately apparent: multiple osteoporotic fractures running along the surface of her right hip and femur.
I absentmindedly spun the ring on my finger as I activated the healing
