One of the things you miss, that you don’t think of as something you’ll miss, when away from civilization long enough, is music. And, yeah, I know, I know, I was technically born into this world and not the other, but for some reason my mind was on a Mozart loop.

  It made me think, if I could write music, I could really introduce this world to endless hits. Of course, we’d need to invent all kinds of instruments. Hundreds of years down the road, they’d be playing my Mozart pieces. And Mozart’s instruments were probably the easiest to make. The harpsicord. Just some stretched out wires and something to pluck them!

  I’ll concede that’ll be difficult. Perhaps I could just skip classical music and head straight into electronica, though doing so would require a series of inventions.

  A voice broke me out of my music thoughts, from behind me, “Lady Sarah?”

  “Yes.” Turning in the saddle, it was the major, dressed in dull grey chainmail and dusty, brown riding leathers that didn’t match his early salt and pepper hair. As he rode up to me, I courteously and kindly moved my horse to the side of the path – which was wider right now – because I had manners, unlike a certain mage trailing somewhere behind us.

  He said, “Captain Gyges informs me that you wouldn’t be forthcoming with him. About those monsters, about that army that attacked us.”

  “Also true. But a note of contention, Major, the army did not, in fact, attack you.”

  He furrowed his brows, and then spoke slowly and deliberately, as if explaining things to a young child, “Because these troops are a division of our army, the enemy attacked us.”

  I scrunched down a bit in the saddle, mumbling, “Yeah, yeah, sorry.”

  Giving me another disapproving gaze, he said, “I suppose that means you outrank him, in your eyes.”

  “Huh.” Cocking my head, I couldn’t help but wonder if all my falsehoods were about rear up and beat me. I decided to go with it. This, at least, was true. Both fake princess me and deity me well outranked the captain. And the good major. “Yes, that’s also correct.”

  “I was thinking, you see, that your institution no longer exists, now that there are no longer mages, excepting the one. Therefore, you must be absorbed into our forces, and I was unsure what rank to give you.”

  “That . . . is not what I was expecting, Major. Regardless, I’m not sure rank translates well here. We, uh, my fellows and me, were given orders directly from Grand Magister Tye himself.” ‘That or,’ I did not say, ‘you all could simply begin worshiping me in lieu of rank.’ Maybe I’d get my powers back through active worship! I marked down starting a cult on my list of priorities.

  “And now he is gone. I have a suggestion. If you wish to remain as part of our military, that is.”

  “Go on.”

  “That you report directly to me. Not the other majors, nor the general, but to me, personally.”

  “You want your own assassin?”

  “Is that all you are?”

  I tried a smile, saying, “There’s still one mage left.”

  “You believe that you now owe allegiance to Talaren? The renegade mage?”

  “Ah, not really what I was thinking. However, since the old grand magister is dead and gone, isn’t Talaren the new one, by default?”

  “He can’t even get the irons off him. He’s as much a mage as you or I are.”

  Not quite correct, but not information the major here needed. We could get those irons off him by simply taking him to their temple, where magic ceased to function. Talaren know this. The evil nuns knew this. But this ambitious man did not need to know. “I will concede the point.”

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “And there are no other mages to police. No, the way I see it is that if you want to remain part of our military infrastructure, you must fit into our command structure.”

  “And you can’t have me going around ignoring captains?”

  He idly brushed flies away, “Ignoring captains perhaps ranks you above them. But that is part of what I’m offering you.”

  Looking ahead, I shut my mouth before something untoward came out. Perhaps the wisest action I’d taken in days.

  He continued, “If what they’re saying about your skill in combat is true, I want you on my side. I’ll give you rank, protect you from the others.”

  “What do you mean, protect me from others?”

  He took a brief moment to look up and down my body, crooked smile on his face, then said, “Aside from your youthful appearance, you won’t have captains badgering you anymore.”

  “Ah. And what do you get out of this arrangement?”

  “I think that should be obvious.”

  “Your own personal assassin? Are things really that bad in this army?”

  “Power is power.”

  “What? Are you . . . trying to overthrow your general? Is that how this army functions?”

  He smiled. “As there are things you can’t or won’t reveal to the captain, there are details I’d rather not discuss with you, until we come to an agreement.”

  I didn’t know what to say. An agreement would be extending my dishonesty – which got me into this mess in the first place! – though disagreeing might make life difficult in the short term. But something bothered me about this man. I didn’t really want to get to know him, which is why I hadn’t asked his name.

  On the other hand, it didn’t really matter what his future plans were. If I could get Talaren to leave with me, we wouldn’t be around for the plans. The major could kill all the generals he wanted. Yet, given what the monsters likely meant, that the Others were beginning to exercise their power, possibly even being close to escaping their trap and coming to this land, it might be wiser to restore the mage’s abilities rather than end his life. I wasn’t a goddess anymore, so what did I owe the divine?

  Perhaps I owed this planet more.

  “Major, if I am to agree to these circumstances, I must tell you in advance, and you must accept, there are many, many . . . complexities which I cannot divulge, nor discuss with you. I’ll need your agreement here.”

  “Such as?”

  “You see, this is the problem.” Though the sadistic part of me wanted to tell him. ‘Hey, the apocalypse is coming, mainly because I accidentally let out some otherworldly horrors you guys were keeping trapped. My bad!’

  “Forgive me, I misspoke. These issues, these are in your past?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then, they’re nothing I need concern myself with. Unless they directly affect our army. I will need to know about the enemy army, everything you know.”

  “Not a lot I can say on that front. Like Gyges, I think they’re after Talaren. But I don’t know why or where they’re from.”

  “And the monsters?”

  The dumb part of me wanted to just make it up. Tell him the monsters are from the enemy army or something. Yet that would just come back and bite me later. Honesty, I’d go with that, but in small doses. “I’m going to need some time on this one, Major. Let me consider your offer.”

  “You have until nightfall. Oh, and if you reject my offer, I’m going to station you under Gyges.” He winked at me, then road ahead.

  To his back, I was sorely tempted to give him the finger but stuck my tongue out at his back instead. Then, I considered my options. Option insanity: tell them everything. That’d be fun, I do enjoy a good torture session. I slumped in the saddle, and my horse craned her neck to look at me. “Yeah, not a great day.”

  Option two, point them at Talaren. Not a wise choice, since I wanted to make off with him. I couldn’t think of anything I could tell them – warning that he was plotting something or other – that wouldn’t increase his guard instead of just having me around.

  Option 3 and on became murkier. I could try explaining the monsters were part of the evil nun army. The problem with that is that Talaren must know where those nuns hail from, since they were the stewards of the temple where his magic came from. He’d been there, was locked in the magic-dampening irons there. And he hadn’t said anything to the others. Ergo, he figured they were after him, too. The nuns would, after all, know how to get those irons off of him.

  I still didn’t see how anyone could control Talaren after they took the manacles off. If they tried to break him through torture first, they’d risk his retribution. And what deal could be made that he could not later subvert? No, the only scenario I could imagine after Talaren’s leash was broken, was him becoming ruler.

  In any case, those monsters were after me. That much was clear. So, telling the major anything about them would invariably lead back to me, and then, boom, my anticipated torture session. Nope, had to avoid the topic of the enemy army.

  Probably, I should accept the Major’s offer and then convince him to capture a nun. If and only if I could be the only one asking her questions. I’d like to know more about their army, too, but so would everyone else. And she’d tell them about me. So, no, another no go plan.

  Throwing my hands up in the air, I wanted to scream! This was all getting too complex!

  The horse craned her neck, staring again at me with her eye, then went back to walking forward.

  Alright. I had to go talk to Talaren, get him to come with me. It was that or accept the major’s offer and hold out as long as I could and hope he didn’t want me to kill anyone for him. No, that didn’t feel right. And anyways, I was getting sick of this bunch of self-important, pathetic soldiers. Mage stealing it was!