Feral Mage 3: Chapter 17

Janna took a deep breath as she held her naginata with a light grip in both hands. The training yard was empty except for her and Vex, which meant it was the perfect time for her to receive a lesson from her unusual instructor.

“Your left hand is too low, bring it forward. Otherwise, your grip will be weak when you attack,” Asahi said from where he sat on the ground, his legs crossed and nine tails still. “Now push your magic into it.”

Her pyromancy surged through the weapon, and soon the blade was covered in flames.

“Good! Now condense it,” Asahi advised.

This took more focus, and she struggled to accomplish it without collapsing her magic and extinguishing the fire. The blade went from being wreathed in fire to glowing a bright orange.

“Strike now!” Asahi yelled.

Janna slashed at three of the straw training dummies with the naginata. She was fifteen feet away from them, but the weapon sent a stream of orange flames at them, turning the dummies into an inferno.

She heard a gasp from the archery range and turned to see Vex watching her.

“Pretty,” the wolfkin said, grinning. “And deadly.”

Janna smiled at the praise and looked back at her grandfather, who also gave an approving nod.

“I agree. It’s a good start,” Asahi praised before turning and attempting to shoo an approaching Omelet away. “Begone, beast!”

Of course, Omelet couldn’t see her grandfather. Only she could because she was holding the naginata. Still, the spot where Asahi was sitting was where Omelet decided he wanted to roll in the dirt. Curses and threats escaped the nine-tailed fox as the griffin chick kept rolling through him.

A snort escaped her as she watched the scene unfold before she burst into laughter. Omelet stopped rolling and looked up at her. As the laughter died down, she noticed Vex was also watching her with a confused look, her head slightly tilted.

Janna cleared her throat as she felt her cheeks redden.

“I just remembered a funny joke Bryce told me,” she said, trying to cover her outburst.

Vex’s brows furrowed in confusion as she tilted her head the other way.

“Bryce has jokes?” she asked.

Before Janna could follow up with another lie, three new people stepped into the training yard.

“I thought I heard your voice,” Nicole said to Janna, her eyes scanning the yard. “Where’s Bryce? Is he inside?”

Bellamy and Olivia stood beside her, packs flung over their shoulders as if they were just returning to town. All of them wore tired expressions as if they hadn’t slept.

“He’s on a job with Lady Thea,” Janna answered.

Vex said something in Beastkin with a shake of her head, which caused Nicole to nod and reply in the same language. Janna couldn’t understand what they said, but knowing Vex’s dislike of Thea, she was betting it was about the Princess.

“Will he be back soon?” Bellamy asked, urgency in her voice.

Janna shook her head.

“It was an invitation to visit the Duke of Witchbrook. Bryce said it would be late evening or tomorrow before he returned,” she answered.

Bellamy swore, causing both Vex and Janna to exchange worried looks.

“What happened?” Janna asked.

Bellamy turned to her, but Nicole shook her head.

“Not outside. We need to tell the old berserker anyway,” she said before moving from the training yard to the door of the guildhall, Olivia and Bellamy following her. Vex and Janna exchanged a final worried look before joining them.

“Nicole, Olivia. You’re back!” Alice greeted, the smile fading from her face. “What’s wrong?”

“I need to talk to Mark,” Nicole said.

She didn’t slow as she marched to Mark’s office, knocking on the door when she arrived.

“This better be important,” Mark called out. “I’m busy doing the guild’s budget in here.”

Nicole knocked again, and cursing echoed from the office before the door opened.

Mark glowered at Nicole, who pulled out a folded letter with a blue wax seal and handed it to him.

“You’ll want to read this,” Nicole said.

He opened the letter and read through it, his one eye widening.

“Is this accurate? Where did you get it?” he demanded.

Nicole nodded.

“It had a decent illusion glyph hidden in the original message. Once I broke it, what you hold is the message that replaced it. A glyph like that is a lot of work for something fake,” she replied as her tail lashed with agitation. “We looted it from a group of soldiers across the river in the Kingdom of Deathridge.”

Mark swore before he looked past her toward Alice.

“Alice, cancel all untaken contracts and send someone to get me the Captain of the City Guard, now!” Mark barked before looking back at Nicole. “Do we know when they’re attacking the city?”

Duchess Frozenveil

The salt air tasted sweet today as Duchess Frozenveil stared out from the deck of her ship toward an island. The island. The one that would grant her immortality. No longer would she wake up with the taste of blood in her mouth or feel her lungs struggle to take a breath. She longed for when every day wasn’t a struggle for survival—longed for when she didn’t have an illness she needed to hide so as not to appear weak among the wolves of her court.

Sluggishly, the ship made its way to the island. Her gamble had worked, but even so, her vessel had been damaged in the clash with the Saltland Kingdom. A hundred ships now lay at the bottom of the North Sea—the brave men and women of the Winter Kingdom who gave their lives for their future Queen.

“I’ve heard your former capital was once renowned for its beauty before the lich invaded. The history books call it the Coral City due to the colorful buildings, as if the coral itself climbed from the sea to make shelters for the elves that called this island their home.”

Even from this distance, she could see a few ruins in what had once been the harbor of the city. The colors that had once made the place famous were now gone, leaving only dull stone walls choked by overgrowth. Leaving only a monument to the power that had united the elves in its place.

“A shame it’s now lost. Perhaps when I claim the powers sealed on the island, I will rebuild it one day. I may even grant it to one of your siblings should they realize their mother’s mistake and swear fealty to me,” Frozenveil said, her eyes going to the bowspirt of the ship.

There, the corpse of a sea elf man was tied, gulls perched on his body, pecking away at the rotting flesh. The second son of Queen Camilla Salt and the one who had led the Saltland Kingdom’s grand fleet against this hobbled-together navy she had constructed in the last few months.

My, how confident he must have been.

There should have been no hope of Frozenveil’s fleet winning the confrontation. The Saltland Kingdom had the best navy on the continent. Shipwright secrets known only to them and honed for centuries, the most experienced admirals and sailors, and even a greater number of vessels. However, they underestimated one thing: her desperation to reach the island.

Her hobbled-together fleet was a trap. Barrels of oil, fire mana crystals, and a motivated mage waited in the hull of each one. Their families kept aboard Frozenveil's personal vessel to ensure compliance with the plan. Her fleet sailed full speed into the heart of the Saltland armada, weathering arrows, spells, and boarding attempts, only for the mage to ignite the oil, causing an explosion that turned the sea into a field of flames among the Saltland ships.

She had watched the inferno burn for over an hour and found the young prince in a charred lifeboat an hour later. He had confessed immediately who he was in hopes she would ransom him. The poor fool.

He lasted a week before she finally killed him while learning what secrets he knew.

“My Queen, the crew is preparing to make landfall,” a sailor said from behind her.

Frozenveil smiled at the title as she turned to face the man. She wasn’t a Queen yet, but she wouldn’t correct those who called her such. Those on this vessel were her most loyal. Tested and faithful supporters of her claim to the Winter Kingdom.

“Good. Select five of the hostages to bring with us. Ones that look like decent runners,” Frozenveil said as she moved from the bow of the ship toward her cabin. “We will use them to distract the undead.”

“Yes, My Queen!” the sailor said before she heard him hurrying away.

Once she was in her cabin, she moved to the large oaken desk and opened a drawer. Her fingers shook as she pulled out a small box and lifted the lid, revealing three keys.

“Soon,” she said, running her fingers over the keys.