God. Fucking. Dammit. I knew this whole running away together thing was too good to be true. I should have killed that third son of a bitch that saw us running out of the castle when I had the chance.

  Good thing this guy’s drunk as shit. I push him off his barstool and say, “Try it.” Then I draw out my sword.

  Seems he has friends. While this particular horse turd goes tumbling to the ground, his cohorts all stand up and unsheathe their blades. Four of them by my count. Unless I’m seeing double. I am far too drunk for this.

  Before any swords are thrown, an arrow flies haplessly into the wall to my right and the whole place goes dead silent. I reflexively duck backwards to dodge it long after it’s landed. Off to my left, I see Piper stumbling into the table next to her as she drunkenly nocks another arrow into her bow.

  And now I’m scared for my life.

  She sends it into a whiskey barrel behind the bar, setting it on fire now that she’s enchanting the things. This whole place could be about to burn down.

  The first bounty hunter to take a turn at me is a big ’un. He swings his blade and I have to collapse to the floor to avoid getting my throat slit. This is sloppy fighting. I try hacking at the guy’s ankle for a second and when that doesn’t do any good, I bring my knee up to my waist and then thrust it at his shin to kick his leg out from under him. All I’m trying to do is bring him down to my level but I actually get lucky and his chin collides with the wooden barstool as he falls, knocking him clean out. But then I realize it wasn’t lucky at all because the hefty fucker lands right on top of me.

  I get the wind knocked out of me and then desperately try to shove him off. Then another blade comes at my face. I use my sword to deflect it toward the stone floor and have to shut my eyes when sparks fly out. Then I quit fucking around and just plunge my sword straight into the man’s boot. He staggers backwards and I’m finally able to wriggle out from under the first fucker. But now my weapon is gone, still embedded in the other one’s foot.

  The next attacker is halted by a flaming arrow that gets lodged in his neck. He was about to swing his sword but now he’s tumbling over a table with the fiery tip resting just outside his jugular, sending glasses to the ground and patrons to the door. I glance at Piper and see her getting ready to fire another one at close range now that the attackers have turned on her as well. She staggers sideways with one eye closed, pushing her tongue out as she concentrates on aiming—despite the fact that the guy’s only about four feet in front of her. Then she lets the arrow loose, hitting her attacker in the torso and catching his clothes on fire. He drops his weapon and runs to the exit as he fully engulfs. Enchanted fires aren’t like normal ones and he is really cooking. Mazi says from my waist, “Well done, both of you, but perhaps you could do less rocking about in this skirmish? Don’t forget my nausea!”

  “Shut up, mask!”

  The only attacker left is the man from the barstool. The one that recognized me. He’s standing now, squaring off with a dagger in each hand as he monologues, “You’re a dead man walking. Everyone’ll be looking for you by the time—” A sword splits his skull in half and ends the conversation. Piper stumbles backwards as he crumples to the ground in front of her. Then she presses her boot against the man’s back to pry the weapon free.

  After drawing her sword out of the man’s head, she and I stare at each other until I say, “Let’s get out of here.” Then we make for the exit as the barkeep gets the flaming whiskey under control behind the bar.

  The guy that ran out of the pub on fire is taking a bath in a horse trough just outside. We jog around a corner to avoid him and then when the coast is clear, we start hobbling back to the inn as casually as we can in the state we’re in.

  A few seconds into the walk, Piper says, “I’ve never killed an actual person before.”

  I throw an arm over her back. “Well, at least you picked someone who actually deserved it. I’ve killed way more upstanding individuals than that greasy shitkicker.”

  Piper leans her head against my shoulder and I’m not sure if it’s for comfort or to keep herself from falling over. Either way, I’m happy to be this close to her. While we walk, she pulls the sword up and waves it around in the air. “Good thing you gave me this. I left the rest of my arrows at the inn.”

  I push two fingers against her arm to direct the blade away from my face. “Yeah, well, you’re actually not bad with that thing. I’d say you’re kind of a natural.”

  “I have a good teacher.” She lowers the sword and lets the tip scrape against the ground while we walk. But then I inform her that she’ll chip the blade doing that. When she pulls it back up to wave it around some more, I grab hold of her wrist and help her resheathe it before she hurts herself. After that, we stumble the rest of the way to the inn in silence, swaying to and fro against each other to hold one another up.

  If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  I stop before crossing the threshold to tell her, “Thank you. You’ve saved my life more times than I can count now.”

  She slides out from under my arm to turn around and face me. Then she lifts a nonexistent skirt to give me an adorable, drunken curtsy. “Who knows, maybe someday you’ll save me for once.”

  I shrug it off. “Also, thanks for just…being here. For coming along with me. I’d be on my way to the front line in Fornia to get killed right now if not for you. So thank you.”

  “What’d you do to piss those people off, anyway?”

  I sigh and tell her about the kidnapping charges and the reward on my life and the fact that we’re both pretty well royally fucked.

  Her eyes dart all around. “What are we gonna do? I’m not going back to the castle.”

  “You know we can’t keep this up forever though, right?”

  “Why not?” She steps backwards and raises both arms in a big, exaggerated shrug. “Why can’t we? We’ll just keep going. As far as we have to. We’ll leave Valencia for good. Be mercenaries until we’re too old for mercenarying and then we’ll have a little sheep farm or something out in the countryside.”

  I’m too drunk to even try and force my grin into submission. “You and me? Like, us together?”

  She waffles about. “Well no, I mean…or, I don’t know. What’d I say?”

  I shake my head. “It’s alright. Let’s just get inside before any more trouble finds us out here.”

  We make our way into the inn and up the stairs to where the rooms are. Piper’s is two doors down from mine. Most travelers can’t afford their own private rooms but with the gold we stole from her father we both get to live like kings while we're on the road together.

  Piper leans her whole body forward against her door to open it and then hops back around to face me with a smile. She has to lean against the edge of the door to stay on her feet. She doesn’t say anything at first so I go ahead and tell her, “Good night.”

  Her smile straightens out and her gaze drops to the floor as she tells me, “Good night” back.

  Before she gets the door all the way closed, I put a hand on it and say, “Hey…” Her gaze climbs back up to meet mine. “Don’t worry. We’ll figure all this out in the morning.” She nods and then pushes the door the rest of the way closed with a slow click that reverberates down the hall.

  I can’t help but think there was something different she wanted me to say just now. But alas, I’m too drunk to deduce what it is so now I’m just staring at her door while my brain sputters. I give the feeble thing a few seconds to come up with what it was I should’ve said before throwing in the towel and heading toward my room. I only make it a few feet though. A low thud from behind Piper’s door halts me. Hopefully she didn’t injure herself falling over. God knows it wouldn’t be the first time. Or even the tenth.

  Better make sure she’s okay just to be safe. I trot back to her room and just as I’m swinging my fist to knock on the door, it swings open for me and my fist and Piper’s forehead are both involved in a violent collision.

  Holy shit, I must be even drunker than I thought. Piper’s eyes cross as she winces and staggers backward. She has to keep a grip on the door to steady herself. I throw up both hands in horror. “Oh ffffuck! Are you okay?”

  She reaches up to massage her head while I stare in shocked disbelief of my own stupidity. “Uh, OW!! Was it necessary to hit me that hard? What were you trying to do, break the door down?”

  “I uh…sorry. I heard a noise and wanted to make sure you were okay.”

  She lowers her arm and squints up at me. “Well I was okay. Until you punched me in the head just now.”

  I scratch the back of my neck even though it doesn’t itch. “Yeah, sorry again. What was that loud thud?”

  She glances into her room and then back at me before pointing her thumb over her shoulder. “I was just throwing my pack down on the floor. What’d you think it was?”

  I’m not sure if she would take offense to me insinuating that she’s drunk enough to hurt herself falling over so I guess I’m not answering that question. “I…don’t know. Why were you leaving your room?”

  “Oh I was just…um.” She looks surprised I would even ask. “I was going toooo the stables.”

  My eyebrows drop. “The stables? What for?”

  She puts a hand on her hip while holding onto the door with the other to keep from toppling over. “Does it matter? I wanted to see the horses.”

  “Oh. Okay. Well, do you want me to go with you?’

  She lets out a big sigh as she swats my offer out of the air. Then she rests the back of her hand against her probably-soon-to-be bruised forehead. “No, I changed my mind anyway. Good night. Like you said, we’ll figure everything out in the morning.” After that, she pushes the door shut and leaves me to stare at it alone once again.

  Defeated a second time, I head down the hall and commit to actually making it to my room this time. But after taking about three steps, I hear a voice from my waist say, “I wouldn’t mind seeing the horses. If it isn’t too much trouble.”

  …...

  Fan-fucking-tastic. So glad there was an audience here to witness all that.

  “No, Mazi. Look, I…” I stop in the middle of the hall and sigh at him. “…Actually yeah, screw it. Let’s go see the horses.”

  “Delightful!”

  “Then we’ll figure all this out in the morning. I can’t think anymore tonight.”

  ***

  Except that none of us are able to figure out shit because when I wake up the next morning, five of Raspian’s goons are standing over my bed with their swords drawn.