My travel bag sat in the

  corner, staring at me from the corner of my eye. I knew I had a

  choice to make and I had been stalling with the decision. There were

  a lot of potential outcomes to weigh and risks to balance and

  consider, but the fact still stood that every day I took longer to

  decide on my options, the less time the House would have to make

  other arrangements and prepare.

  Begrudging as it was to admit,

  Toria had been pretty lenient in letting me have time to try to chase

  down my contacts and attempt to paint a better picture of what

  exactly was bubbling into fruition in the Great Church. Also, I knew

  she was taking pity on me. My glamour was holding up, but the

  physical limitations were becoming much harder to hide. In recent

  years it had been noticeably harder to keep my back straight, tall,

  and regal, and now I found myself slumping forward without thinking

  or needing to use a hand on a steady surface to rise from my seat. At

  least my neice was aware enough to not even begin to suggest that I

  stop or do something as silly as to retire all together. The longer I

  kept moving and active, the longer I would last.

  I read through the letter in

  front of me again, it was not good news. The contents spurred the

  desire to figure out the best plan of action and quickly. One of my

  oldest contacts in the Church had sent word that they were stepping

  up training regimes and opening their doors to new alliances. In

  itself, the news wasn’t something too far out of the ordinary.

  Periodically, they would posture some show of force to demand

  compliance from a rogue kingdom or to get a more favorable deal, but

  the timing was suspicious.

  The informant had also said

  there were hints of a new, powerful acquisition that would allow them

  to house and feed many more people directly under the control of the

  Church. The extent of how much they were planning to expand was vague

  and she had no exact figures, but the fact it was a hushed rumor and

  not just general news led me to believe it might be the beginnings of

  their own army. There were several kingdoms who would be made

  uncomfortable by the idea of the Church having their own military

  might, so it would be better to keep that kind of news under wraps

  for as long as they could.

  There was a missing piece

  somewhere that I couldn’t quite figure out. The Church had to have

  suddenly come into a pretty big chunk of wealth and land to be able

  to expand in earnest and while kingdoms generally tried to give

  generously to seem pious, if they were planning on an army, that

  would take forfeiting more power than any monarch would ever consent

  to.

  A frown formed on my lips as I

  recalled Toria’s suggestion that I train someone to help me with my

  contact network. It felt so insulting for it to have been brought up,

  but I also couldn’t stop wondering if a fresh, young pair of eyes

  and a quick wit might make shorter work putting all the pieces

  together. It did not escape me that in my prime I would not have

  backed down from Aela’s warning and instead probably should have

  pretended to leave, but instead re-hid and did some snooping about

  why she wanted me to leave.

  The fact that I was not as

  cunning as I used to be was a bitter pill to swallow. Perhaps the

  idea of being off the road in the comfort of the castle with a warm

  bed every night was becoming too much for me to ignore and it was

  time to start passing the proverbial baton. In my mind, the House

  Yser had always been just Evonia and myself, but the reality was that

  the House Yser had transferred on after Evonia’s passing and while

  I was still a part of it, I would be gone before a gray hair intruded

  on Toria’s regal head. If I truly cared about the House lasting and

  achieving glory, perhaps it was time to put aside my pride.

  A knock on my chamber door

  awoke me from my thoughts. It was a timid knock, without having honed

  senses specifically to hear what wasn’t meant for me to hear I

  doubt it would have been noticed over the general footfalls and taps

  heard normally in the castle.

  “Enter,” I commanded.

  For a long moment I wondered

  if I had mistaken a different noise as knock as there was absolutely

  no movement, but eventually the door pushed open slowly and a girl

  that I would place no more than ten peaked her head inside. Unruly

  dark brown, curly locks fell down her back and swept into her face as

  her cheeks reddened out of trepidation for having disturbed me in my

  private quarters.

  “Speak, child,” I

  commanded.

  She was not one of the

  recruits, I was certain I would have remembered, but I could not

  place her among the servants. She was young enough to likely have

  just been allowed to start training to become a proper servant in the

  kitchen or as a maid.

  “Mistress Mari,” she

  whispered, “Mistress Mistra requests you meet her in the Queen’s

  private study.”

  “Does she?” I said with a

  huff.

  I did not like Mistra thinking

  she could command me around one bit. It didn’t matter that Toria

  seemed to place a lot of faith, in my opinion potentially blind

  faith, in her. It didn’t feel right to have a consort hold so much

  sway.

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  The girl did not answer my

  question, instead looked to the floor and shrugged her shoulders,

  waiting for me to dismiss her.

  “Fine,” I grumbled and

  rose to my feet, “you may go, I do not need escorted around my own

  castle.”

  In the short time it took for

  me to leave my room, the girl had scurried herself out of the hallway

  and was no where to be seen. Her being so fearful of me put a dose of

  much needed confidence in my step and I held my head high as I went

  to the impromptu meeting. It was good to know that even though I

  might not be up keeping my regal and timeless demeanor all the time

  that the servants were still wisely ignorant.

  “Hello, Mari.”

  Mistra rose to her feet and

  extended a hand in greeting when I entered the study. I paused and

  looked around the room, leaving her hand outstretched for a moment

  while I surveyed the room. I swept both my observational skills and

  magic around the room, but my eyes and ears found nothing out of

  place and my aura felt nothing but the pull of Mistra’s own magical

  aura against mine. Once I was reasonably certain this was not a

  trapped meeting of some sort, I graciously extended my hand and

  accepted her greeting.

  “It is not often you request

  a private audience of me,” I commented and took a seat across from

  where she would be sitting.

  “That is unfortunate,” she

  began, “I feel that if we were to meet more often we could not only

  have much to discuss, but much to learn from each other.”

  I raised an eyebrow and

  inclined my head to signal for her to continue. Despite not fully

  trusting her, I couldn’t argue that having at least a surface

  friendship with someone tied to another realm could be beneficial.

  “I know that we do not have

  the best relationship, which is a shame considering how very close we

  are to the same person.” She paused a moment and gave what I

  assumed was mean to be a disarming smile, though I am not so easily

  swayed. “There is something that bothers you about that and I

  understand you do not really trust me, but I think it’s a

  misunderstanding.”

  “Do you?” I scoffed. “A

  demon wants me to trust them. My dear, I am pleasant enough to you,

  but I can not even trust Rafe fully and he wears his motives on his

  sleeve.”

  Her lips curled into a smile

  and she nodded her head. “You should not trust a demon, I won’t

  fault you there. My family legacy is not exactly built on truth and

  transparency, but I do want you to consider the effect of me being

  not only human but being deeply tied to your niece and having vested

  interest in her succeeding.”

  “Out with it,” I

  commanded. “I know you have an ultimate goal here and you’re

  beating around the bush trying to appeal to my sense of family or

  whatever. I just want to know what you’re trying to get out of me

  or what deal you’re trying to strike.”

  She leaned back in her seat

  and let out a low laugh. “Even when I’m trying to be open and

  sincere, you cannot accept that maybe I’m not your enemy.”

  “I don’t think you’re my

  enemy necessarily,” I corrected, “but are you seriously going to

  tell me you didn’t have a motive behind this meeting beyond trying

  to make nice with me?”

  “Your magic is fading,”

  she said suddenly with a shake of her head.

  I wrinkled my forehead into a

  frown and narrowed my eyes at her.

  “Your gut instinct is to

  deny and act like I’m trying to instigate instead, but deep down

  you know I’m seeing the situation correctly.”

  She was right, I did want to

  immediately go into a tirade about how I couldn’t believe she would

  say something like this to me. Against my normal judgment, I instead

  sat quiet for a long moment, exploring if she could be correct and I

  had overlooked a change in my magical powers. I couldn’t deny that

  it seemed like magic was harder these days, but I hadn’t let myself

  equate that to it becoming weaker.

  “If you leave this world

  without a successor to your contacts you leave Toria at a great

  disadvantage,” she continued. “You will leave her essentially

  blind and fumbling around to get some sort of system into place. We

  both know that system wouldn’t hold a candle to what you’ve been

  cultivating for decades now. Therefore, I believe it is in this

  kingdom’s best interests that you accept me as your apprentice.”

  There is was. That was what

  she had been working up to. She knew that had she opened with that

  request I would have stormed off and not listened to anything else. I

  had to admit that she was at least skilled at the manipulation

  tactics that would be necessary to fulfill the role.

  “How convenient that such a

  position would let you have all sorts of control over this kingdom

  and it’s direction,” I stated tersely.

  “If not me, it will be

  someone else. Someone not as closely connected to Toria and that

  would be worse,” she countered. “I know you will likely never

  come to fully trust me, but even so, you know that there is no one

  else. None of the girls you have brought so far are anywhere ready to

  take on such a task. Most of them haven’t even scraped the barest

  surface of what they need to learn. It could be over a year or more

  before one of them advances enough for you to begin just the basics

  with them.”

  I absolutely hated that she

  was right. The girls were advancing painfully slow, to be expected

  from people of low birth with mutt pedigrees. I wasn’t even certain

  that any one of them would eventually be powerful enough for me to

  trust taking on the whole task themselves and if my time was growing

  short, I didn’t have the luxury of waiting around and hoping that

  one of them would prove me wrong. There wasn’t anyone else that I

  knew of that I would trust any more than the half demon before me.

  Which wasn’t saying much, but it was better than waiting to hand it

  over to someone I couldn’t guarantee would be competent.

  “Fine,” I muttered out,

  “you can be my apprentice, but one whiff of some sort of

  underhanded trickery and I will be the first to show you the wrath of

  the Yser.”

  Her

  face turned up into a grin and she extended her hand for a handshake

  to seal the deal.