1st Draft Fridays - A Fistful of Deception: Book #4, Chronicles of Marsdenfel

Year 253 of the Bynding - Pardyam - as autumn turns to winter, part V

A/N: Oh, I think y'all are gonna love today's update. *grin* (I'm posting it a little early this week out of consideration for folks on the other side of the globe, where it's already Friday.)

But also I have some news: I'm putting together a cookbook, Fistfuls of Food, featuring recipes for how to make various foods that appear in my Aleyi stories. I still have to perfect recipes, though, and you can help! Do you have a favorite recipe for something you've seen consumed in these stories? If so, e-mail author@mistiwolanski.com with Recipe in the subject line, and include a link to your favorite recipe. (If it's offline-only, please include it in the e-mail, no attachments, and tell me your source for it.)

For copyright reasons, I won't be able to use anyone's recipe exactly, but if I use your recipe to help build mine, I'll give you (and your recipe's source) due credit. You'll be named (by legal name or username—your choice) and get a link to a safe-for-work website or site profile.

In the meantime, enjoy today's update!

— • — • — • — • — • —

After killing the mother superior, meeting a woman who claims to be my brother’s ex-girlfriend and to have a child by him, and discovering that the high protector of the Protectors of the Rock has fallen from grace, I would’ve expected the day to get less surprising from here on out.

The dwarves have a saying about assumptions that proves particularly fitting, today.

The high protector’s woman keeps her cloak on even once we’re in the guest area of Zeke’s abode, but after Aldrik pulls another delicious-smelling fish stew off the stove and sets the tureen on the table, she hesitantly reveals herself.

And my jaw nearly drops.

Even Aldrik freezes in the middle of setting bowls down, but he merely stares at her for a few blinks, then resumes what he’s doing without even having to rally himself. I’m a bit surprised, since there’s no reason for him to be too familiar with the results of a burning…but I suppose it’s not all that different from the desiccated husks that result when he kills someone by yanking the water from their bodies.

I glance sidelong at the high protector. “I’m surprised you didn’t ask my brother for help.” It’s possible for earth magic to heal burn injuries, but it has to be done while the injuries are fresh, before the body’s incorporated them as part of its natural state. Sometimes we can reach back and cause the body to revert to an older natural state, but that’s beyond my skills.

“A montai woman in Marsdenfel said she could heal it, but it was best to wait until after the child was born.”

Which montai would go out of her way offer to heal an elf? I doubt Lallie’s returned—particularly since I’d told her where to find directions to one of my caches, so she’d at least have equipment and money for wherever she is now. Sometimes you need a break from life to stay sane. Besides which, I’d bet a gold that Lallie can’t heal that, either.

“She was a shadow walker,” the woman says quietly, her accent matching Iluka’s.

My magic isn’t bringing the language up, and reaching to grab for it would be unwise, so I can’t soothe her by speaking in her native tongue. I sigh and grab some spoons. “That would be my aunt, Bruneli. Her daughter is lulni and queen dowager of Marsdenfel, and her son’s sweet on the dead king’s mistress. I believe their father was the old…”

I have to poke at my magic a little to pull up the word, and my stomach lurches and does a slow turn. “The old cryssan? I could be wrong, but he matched all the descriptions of the Shifter who had the human Crystal, back before Liathen the First helped steal it so it could be bound and hidden. Arach and J’Azpi never did confirm it, but they never denied it when I asked them, either.”