Chapter 6

United for disparate reasons with unique goals, no two adventuring parties are ever precisely alike. This is one of the reasons different groups so seldom come to blows. We do not seek the same things, and thus we have collegial respect without the burden of competition. We have all chosen a life of danger, hardship, and adventure. We are, by any rational metric, a bit mad.

The Mythseekers were devoted to exploring the lost and forgotten areas of the world. There were those who considered us foolish and even those convinced we would awaken some ancient evil, but we were known for a relatively peaceful brand of adventuring. We sought treasures both material and intellectual.

The Redmarks were as far from this purpose as could be. Their name is likely unfamiliar, even to those readers who fancy themselves scholars of my life. I never joined them, and we united only on a single quest, and this was by chance. Aside from that one time, my association with the Redmarks was entirely of that collegial variety. Though we sought different things and fought for different purposes, we understood the way of life of adventuring. Bonds of respect and friendship existed between each group even as membership shifted over the years.

The Mythseekers first met the Redmarks not long after casting the Iceheart's dread city into the abyss. We followed frozen creek to frozen stream to frozen river on the way out of the mountains, eventually finding ourselves in the northern reaches of Esmia, at a flyspeck on the map with the inappropriately grandiose name of Queenswall.

The four of us were half-frozen and ravenous. We huddled in our winter cloaks, miserable after our trip through the mountains. As we approached the village at the edge of the foothills, little more than a mill and a few low buildings on the shores of a small lake, Velena put her hood over her head. "Esmia," she muttered, her face shrouded.

"Our sister is exiled from this place," Xeiliope said. "Perhaps we should go elsewhere."

"We're out of provisions," I reminded her, "and exhausted besides. I don't believe there is an elsewhere."

"And I don't think these people will be able to hurt us if they want," Alia said. "I see one watchtower. A bunch of millers and fishermen aren't going to try their luck against a full party of adventurers, no matter how tired and hungry we are."

"I agree," Velena said. "But I'm not going announce myself."

Our goal was the inn. Built on the shore of the lake, complete with a modest dock, it was the only two-story structure other than the mill. Smoke threaded out of its chimney. I led the way to the door, the prospect of real warmth putting some spring into my steps. I was scarcely thinking of the sex we were likely to enjoy in the room later, so intent was I on hot food and a fire.

I pushed the door open, stepping inside and sighing as the warmth of the fire caressed my face. Alia stepped in next to me, throwing her fur-lined hood back. Xeiliope was next and Velena followed, lingering in the Amazon's shadow.

The people inside all turned to see the newcomers. Most of those in the room were obviously villagers. Humans and halflings were scattered throughout, eating and drinking in groups of twos and threes. They dressed in simple, yet warm clothes of deerskin and fur. All the men sported rough beards and hair that fell beyond their shoulders, like wild things themselves. A single barmaid circulated through the room with trays of food and mugs of beer. She was a handsome woman, only a few years past being fair, with a pretty, round face and a heavy bosom that exuded warmth like the blazing hearth touching every corner of the room with its heat.

"Sit where you like," she called in an accent that was cousin to Velena's, with rounder vowels and rougher consonants.

Only one table, the one farthest from the door, stood out from the others. Four adventurers sat there, a group even more motley than my own. They bore their worn, but well cared for arms and armor with confident ease. They nodded as we recognized one another as walking the same path.

"Shall we say hello?" I asked, but Alia was already approaching them. I shrugged and the three of us followed. The other adventurers watched us, sitting up a little straighter as though to give a good impression.

Alia was already in the middle of introductions when we reached her. The one closest to the door, who'd had his back to it, was a massive half-orc with pale green skin and eyes a deeper shade of the same color. His shaggy black hair was shaved along one side, revealing orcish tattoos running down his scalp and disappearing into his collar. Fetishes of bone and fur adorned his neck and arms, and his clothing was a collection of hides and skins. Alone among them, he carried no weapon. His name was Cull Callen.

Across from him was a red-bearded half-elf with pale lavender eyes and shoulder-length brown hair wore studded leather armor under a green cloak. He carried a golden bow, a full quiver at his side. A pair of hatchets hung from his belt. His features were sharp, his nose hawkish. He was Thrandlas the Red.

Next to Thrandlas, in the corner, was the woman I'd come to know as their leader. Her silver was nearly shaved to the scalp everywhere but the top of her head, and that wasn't much longer. Despite her hair color, her features were youthful. Most striking perhaps were her eyes: the left was a sapphire. The right eye was hidden beneath a jeweled eyepatch, and a scar ran from her forehead, through the patch, and down her cheek. She wore tight leather armor in red and black, and anywhere she could conceivably hold a sheathed dagger, she was. They called her Razor Rose.

The last of the Redmarks sat across from Rose and next to Cull. She was plainly not human, her beautiful face covered in fine burgundy scales. She smiled with sharp teeth and watched us with vertically-slitted eyes the color of fire. Black hair, wild and long, spilled down to the middle of her back, shining with subtle gray highlights like wisps of smoke. She wore fine robes, more suited to a noble than an adventurer. A spear tipped in obsidian leaned against the wall by her. Though most will recognize her already, I shall name her: Allegeth ur-Udraeg.

"You look like snowdrifts," Rose said. "Sit down and let us buy the first round."

Gratefully, we sat. As the barmaid brought us warm ale--an acquired taste if ever there was one--we shared the stories of our recent victory and listened to theirs.

We learned that their group was called the Redmarks. While we went into unknown places, the Redmarks eliminated threats. Assassins, yes, but they took care in selecting their quarry. The world was never made a worse place thanks to the Redmarks slaying a target. They were on the trail of a half-giant warlord who had been massing the various tribes and gangs in the area into an army. Queenswall was the final stop before they struck out into the deep wilderness to the frozen lake where they believed the horde was gathering. We were on opposite ends of our quests.

"When you return," I said, "we'll buy the first round."

"I'll hold you to that," Allegeth said, baring her teeth in what I think she thought was a smile.

"Tell me something, witch. Why do you cover your face?" Cull asked.

"She's been exiled from Esmia," Alia supplied.

"Thank you, Alia," Velena said. To Cull she said, "I don't want to provoke the locals."

"They're barely Esmian," Rose said dismissively. "This place might be within the borders, but the High King hasn't sent his phalanxes here in a hundred years."

"And if they come for you, witch, it will be through me," Cull rumbled.

"I appreciate your gallantry," Velena said, blushing prettily.

Our conversation returned to our adventures. Xeiliope was in the middle of talking about a storm I'd brewed in the depths of the necropolis. "I did not believe I would have ever seen the Iceheart afraid, but our wizard managed it," the Amazon said, laughing.

"Storms, hmm?" Allegeth said. "I find fire more effective."

"I'm certain you do," I said.

"Would you stake your storm against my fire?" she asked. Her lip curled, showing off teeth suited to stripping meat from bone. A gift from her ancestor.

"What did you have in mind?"

"A simple challenge. Out over the lake. Entertain the people of Queenswall."

My youthful pride wouldn't let me refuse, and as the stew and the warmth had put some strength back in my limbs, I had no excuse. "As you wish, sorceress."

Her eyes blazed, her pupils narrowing to slits so tiny as to be nearly invisible. "Come."

Rose laughed. "Good luck, wizard." The way she said it made it sound like I was being marched to the gallows.

I followed Allegeth outside. Velena was at my shoulder, her pale eyes filled with concern. "Bel, you're exhausted."

"I feel much better now."

"You're certain?"

I shrugged. "As certain as I am of anything."

Murmurs chased us out of the inn's common room and by the time we were striding through the streets, we had a trail of not only our companions but the people of the inn. They broke off, knocking on doors and having whispered conversations with those who answered. More villagers joined these, gathering on the north shore. Velena put her hood up, but none were looking. Still, Cull walked closely by her. The sun had begun to set, clouds turning pink.

"I will take the east," Allegeth said. "The west is yours. When the sun vanishes, we begin. Tell me, Belromanazar, have you ever taken part in a Magus Duel?"

"This will be my first."

Her eyes lit up. "Wonderful. I will not be merciful."

"Nor will I."

"Cull, you and the witch will be on the north side. Judges."

"Her name is Velena," rumbled the half-orc.

"Rose, you are my second. Thrandlas, you will go with Belromanazar."

"Alia, go with her. Xeiliope, you're with me."

"I will defend your honor, wizard," Xeiliope said.

We followed the bank of the lake into the sun, looping along the curve of the shore. Finally, I judged that I had gone far enough and stopped. The air was chill, but with my belly full it did little more than wake me up. On the other side, I could see the three figures, the tallest of the three, Allegeth, in the center, flanked by a shorter one with silver hair and an even shorter one with red.

"What is this?" Xeiliope asked, flanking me with typical martial discipline.

"A peaceful way for spellweavers to resolve differences, Rhadoviel taught me. Though he advised that I'd be wise to either strike or run while my opponent was distracted."

Oddrin shifted on my shoulder, looking over at Thrandlas and hissing.

"Your master had no honor," Xeiliope spat.

"To be fair to him, he lacked a lot of decent traits."

"Then how did you become thus?"

"Rhadoviel was a collector. A library of heroic sagas will leave a mark, no matter how churlish the master."

The half-elf snorted. "Can't always pick our teachers, can we?"

I glanced over my shoulder. The sun was only a tiny golden rind over a few of the western peaks, casting this world into frozen gloom. I threw my hood back and settled into a comfortable stance. My senses reached out, past the chill of the lake. I caught the whiff of cinnamon, the caress of a campfire. She was beginning.

I would do the same. I started my invocation. My power first revealed itself as a mist rising from my side of the lake, coalescing into clouds. They flashed, a rumble rolling over the surface of the water.

On the other shore, more fog, but this was darker, greasier. I caught the scent a moment later, like an open fire. Yet it was a fire without fuel, smelling purely hot. It wasn't fog, but rather smoke, burning above the water's surface.

My clouds pulsed with white, raking claws of lightning along the lake as hers burned with curls of red, orange, and yellow. Mine loomed high, a castle-like thunderhead. Hers spread out, consuming whatever area it could. Impossibly, fire now burned across the lake surface beneath a roiling storm.

Lightning stabbed down, flame reached up. In the middle, contact. I felt it in my fingertips, as though I held them too close to a fire. The middle of the lake was now a false day, the blaze of her inferno joining the blinding flashes of my storm. The rush of fire and the boom of thunder echoed over the water and to the distant peaks.

I lost sight of Allegeth on the far side of the lake. Instead, I felt her. As sure as I had felt her gaze upon me, heard the music of her words, I felt her. The essence of her, close to me, an arm's length away. My mind put the silhouette of her body in the smoke. The flames took the cinnamon scent of her skin. As my hands directed the path of the storm with ritual movements, I felt her fingertips against mine, her weight braced against me. Pushing, the two of us, balanced on thunderbolt and inferno.

Her eyes blazed in front of mine. Though she was distant, she was close. I could look nowhere else, only the twin fires before me, the slits of her pupils like obsidian shards. Her cinnamon scent enfolded me and I tasted fire on my tongue.

The amber of her eyes rippled, red, yellow, and orange. They were twin pyres that I felt through my fingertips, the flames licking over my forearms, up to my shoulder. My body burned with her fire. I could only coat her with lightning, let her feel the ineffable kiss of the storm.

The sight along the banks of the lake must have been apocalyptic. A fire reaching into the thudding storm clouds, threatening to break the world in half.

Her flames retreated from my assault. Somehow, I was overpowering her, my storm crushing her fire. I reared up, a wave of cloud, lightning slashing her with its claws. Her flames were knuckling under, only a matter of time.

And then, a sudden blaze. Her consciousness was in mine, her eyes inches from me. The attack was sudden, out of nothing at all. The blaze was so quick, a wildfire, that it broke my concentration. That was all it took. The storm vanished into wisps of cloud, a forlorn boom of thunder the last that rattled over the lake.

My sight returned to me long enough to see the flames rise into the form of a great dragon, take flight, and vanish into the night sky, leaving only a rind of greasy smoke that washed away from the surface of the water.

"You should be proud," Thrandlas said.

"I lost."

"You lasted longer than any others have. Allegeth is a master of this...whatever this is."

"I understand not the ways of the magus," Xeiliope said to him, "but I trust this one with my life."

"Aye," said Thrandlas, his gaze wandering the length of the Amazon. He turned to me, as though waking from a dream. "Come, wizard. Let's get back to the inn."

"I owe Allegeth a drink," I said.

Thrandlas patted me on the back. "Now that is the right attitude."

Approaching the town, we saw the villagers were dispersing, though their conversation was animated. We'd given them a bit of entertainment. I even saw a coin or two change hands.

As we neared the inn, Allegeth, Alia, and Rose came into view. Allegeth picked up her pace, baring her teeth. Now I saw that as a smile. I'm not sure if the change was solely in my mind, or if something between us had melted and real affection shone in her expression. "Belromanazar, thank you!" she called.

"For being defeated?"

"For fighting. I have not had such a pleasing match in too long."

"May I buy you another hot beer?"

"You may," she said, taking my arm. Her hand fell on mine. Though she wore gloves, I felt the heat of her through them, like a fire blazing in her skin. Her cinnamon scent closed over me. With barely any distance between us, I could trace the lines of her scales. "Your opening gambit, masterful."

"Mine? You pulled me in and let me overextend."

"I can't decide if they're cute or obnoxious," Rose remarked.

"Both!" Alia decided.

We returned to the table and Allegeth energetically spoke of our duel, eyes sparkling, hands waving. She tutored me, refusing to call my missteps "mistakes." On our second beer, I noted that the group had split into pairs, Xeiliope and Thrandlas talking about their battles, Velena and Cull trading stories of forestcraft, and Alia and Rose reminiscing about their shared origin in Freeport. We stayed up far later than we had planned, far later than we should have considering our fatigue after our recent adventure.

Late into the evening we parted. I gave Allegeth a final look, and she shot me a grin before we went into our separate rooms. Sinking into the bed, exhaustion took me. As Alia, Xeiliope, and Velena had sex with one another, sleep pulled me down into its velvet embrace.

When I awoke the next day, I learned that the Redmarks had left just before dawn.

***

The next time we encountered the Redmarks was completely by chance during a visit to the ruined city of Witherborne. Most don't know this, but Witherborne was once in the middle of the most fertile farmland in Chassudor. A millennium of wars over that very farmland had reduced it to haunted saltwastes. At that time, the inhabitants lived amongst the ruins. In Witherborne, the dead outnumbered the living.

There were those who found Witherborne horribly dreary, but I enjoyed its funerary beauty. The winding paths through the necropolis were especially lovely if one's tastes run in that direction. Our destination this visit was their famous Nightmarket, where the locals sold the relics of ancient wars they were always turning up on the salt flats.

Velena was in the midst of negotiations with a veiled vendor inside a tent stuffed with antiquities when I caught a scent on the wind. Absent any stronger smells, Witherborne tends to maintain a miasma of mildew and ash, kept in place by the perpetual fog that clings to earth and structure like moss. Now, I caught an unmistakable whiff of cinnamon, spicy in my nostrils.

I went to the entryway, past where Xeiliope watched Alia, ensuring the little rogue didn't pocket something. Out on the broken cobbles of the street, I saw Allegeth. Her open cloak revealed the embroidered gown slipping over her body beneath. It sported two slits, going up to the middle of her thighs, revealing her shapely legs. The scales there carried a pattern that was not quite diamond and not quite flame, yellow and orange, outlined in black, on a field of burgundy. Similar patterns ran up her arms.

She broke into a smile when she saw me. "Belromanazar! I thought I smelled rain."

We embraced. Her scales were warm and dry, like sandstone beneath a desert sun. "It's good to see you, Allegeth. I would have liked to say goodbye, but you sneaked off."

"Oh, yes. Thrandlas had us on a trail. Our quarry needed to be caught, and he was. Tell me, are your companions about?"

"Right inside. Velena is trying to acquire a map fragment."

She bared her teeth. "Of course. There are times I think I might like to try what you do. Lost and forgotten civilizations. But I do so love burning the cruel."

I laughed. "Is that what you're doing here? Tracking down some future charcoal?"

"Future charcoal, yes. I like that. Yes, we are attempting to acquire our current quarry's weakness." She held my arm. "But let us talk not of work. Do you know the Saltmaiden?"

"Who?"

She laughed, an intoxicating, throaty laugh. "Not a who, but a place. Will you meet us there for supper? Cull has not stopped speaking of your witch and for a taciturn soul like him..."

"Velena is remarkable."

"You will meet us?"

"I'd love to. I'm certain my companions feel the same."

"I would say sundown, but how can one tell in this place?"

"We'll know."

She bared her teeth again, razor sharp. "You will, won't you? Good. I am so pleased to see you Belromanazar." She pressed her lips to my cheek. She was warm and dry, and I felt a sun blooming in my breast.

"Supper," I confirmed.

She let me go, and with a wave, disappeared into the foot traffic along Market Street.

"Was that Allegeth the Redmark?" Velena asked. My companions stood in the entryway of the shop.

"It was." I filled them in on her invitation. I was surprised that it was Xeiliope's face that lit up.

"Good, yes," she said, seeing my reaction and returning to her more stoic expression. "Let us find an inn and clean off this road stink." We all looked at her. She looked down, color touching her bronze cheeks. "We want to be at our best for the Redmarks, do we not?"

"I can clean us up with magic without too much trouble," I offered.

Velena gave me a playful smack. "And how is that more fun than a nice hot bath in a strange city?"

We found an inn that at one time had been some kind of fortified building, holes in the crumbling stone edifice patched over with wooden frames. The innkeeper was a pale woman with thin white hair, and though she had a funerary air about her, she was pleasant and accommodating. We had ample coin from our recent adventures and she was pleased to deliver us a tub and hot water.

Each of us took a turn and Velena consented to allow me to freshen the water a bit between. We went in the order of least- to most- dirty, which meant I was allowed to go first. There were benefits to the use of my magics to maintain a certain level of cleanliness. I was in and out fairly quickly and Velena slipped into the hot water after me. I momentarily considered hopping back in with her, so appealing were her pillowy curves. Instead, I put on my robes, enjoying myself as Alia's gaze lingered on me.

Xeiliope was next in the tub, pausing to kiss Velena as they traded places. The Amazon sank into the water, sighing as it loosened battle-hardened muscles. She washed herself and emerged soon after, looking like a statue after a hard rain. Alia scampered into the pool last.

"The water is barely warm!" she complained.

"You're the one who crawls through every filthy passageway," Velena said, adjusting the way her black gown hung on her frame.

"That's my job. That would be like penalizing you for cursing people."

"If cursing people made me smell like a goat, then penalizing me would be the correct thing to do."

Alia stuck her tongue out and washed up. When we were all dressed, we rushed downstairs, eager to make our engagment. We obtained directions to the Saltmaiden from the innkeeper, learning that it was not distant. We soon found had once been a watchtower, but the upper stories had long since fallen away. The second floor was now the roof, a fire built in the center where the food was being prepared, with tables arranged in concentric circles. The air was thick with the aroma of charred and salted meat.

As we came up the steps out into the rooftop, the Redmarks rose from their table against the edge of the platform and waved us over. We weren't the only ones to clean up. Each of them looked to be wearing fancier clothing than usual, though in Cull's case, this was a matter of his hides being better fitted.

They stood as we approached. "What luck Allegeth ran into you," Rose said, taking Alia's hands but addressing us all. Then she turned to Alia. "You look ravishing, of course."

Alia's cheeks reddened. "You too," she said. Rose's costume of fitted leather included a tunic with a bit of flare at the waist. Her outline was that of a duelist.

Allegeth embraced me, showing off a gown slit up both legs nearly to her waist, and cut midway down her ample breasts. Panels open on the sides revealed more of her lovely scaled flesh. "Long time," she said with a smirk, leading me to a seat, pulling it out for me, then crossing the table.

We were all across from our opposite number, me with Allegeth, Alia with Rose, Velena with Cull, and Thrandlas with Xeiliope. This was the first moment it truly dawned on me what was happening. Forgive me, for despite some of my worldliness, there was still part of me that remained the boy from Thunderhead. What surprised me was that I felt no jealousy. For all of my love for my brave companions, I had no possessiveness.

Although perhaps Allegeth's attention assuaged all harms.

Her beauty was staggering. For whatever else one may think of them, dragons were aesthetically pleasing creatures and they passed this along to their interspecies descendants. Her features were bold, with high cheekbones, those strange and luminous eyes, a long-bridged but slender nose, thin scaled lips around an expressive mouth, and a small and sharp chin. Her teeth, those of a predator, were intimidating, her incisors featuring subtle points, while her canines and premolars were as sharp and pointed as daggers. Her tongue was a deep red, nearly maroon, but sinuous and agile. When she reached across the table for my hand, I saw that her nails were sharp and black. After Thalalei's talons, though, they were positively quaint.

"Thank you for accepting our invitation," she said, her fiery eyes bright.

"I didn't realize what it was until now," I admitted.

"Had you known, would you have accepted?"

"I can only speak for myself, but yes. I was hoping to see more of you." Perhaps I was too earnest with her, but I could not lie. Allegeth was a kindred spirit, and I wanted to be close to her.

"Good," she said, one black nail tracing circles upon the table. "Rare is one of your kind that can keep up with me."

"My kind?"

"Wizards," she said with a grin. "Always in your books."

"We need to be. We can't rely on a magical ancestor."

She cocked her head. "Of course you can."

I frowned, my apprenticeship offended at the very idea. "I can assure you I can't."

"Do you know your family?" She reached across the table, not quite far enough to touch.

"Of course not."

"Then you don't know." Her hand crossed the last few inches, and she stroked my finger. Warmth spread from the simple contact. "Be not offended, I mean no insult. But you were born this way, were you not? That little night eft watching over you in your crib?"

"That is what my master told me."

"Wizards like to think themselves different from we sorcerers, but we are the same. Some of us are merely lucky enough to know our progenitor." The touch of her finger was maddening. I wanted to take her hand but I feared any movement might make her stop.

"I must confess, I'm curious," I admitted. As much as her contact distracted me, her question fascinated me.

"I would be insulted if you were not. Bashamerax the Mountain's Flame." She smiled at my reaction. "You have heard of him."

"He's ruled the Infernium Peaks for over a thousand years."

"Have you ever met a dragon?" She asked, her vertical pupils expanding, for a moment eclipsing some of the flames of her eyes.

I shook my head. They were rare enough that most could go their entire lives without seeing a true dragon. "Not yet."

"Not yet. Yes, I like that. I have met my only progenitor once. Those of us who bear the mark of his favor are presented to him. I believe I know what it is to be in the presence of a god. The weight of his attention, the quake of his passage. He bestowed his blessing and consecrated me in flame."

A serving woman brought us food in courses. The meal was salty, though not unpleasantly so. I noted that Allegeth never touched the few vegetables on her plate, and would learn later she was a strict carnivore. The others were all engaged in their own conversations, Velena holding forth, Alia blushing, Xeiliope setting out some point with martial hand gestures. I turned my attention to the sorceress across the table. Torches burned out in the fog of Witherborne, imparting an ethereal look to the ruined town.

We finished and split up, each in our new couples. Allegeth took my arm, leaning into me as we walked along the streets of Witherborne. She guided us along the Old Wall, what had once shielded the city that Winterborne had been a millennium ago, now a crumbling pathway that meandered along the north side of town. Allegeth's fingers, dry and warm, laced in mine.

"Is this what you expected for the evening, Belromanazar?" she murmured.

"I thought you would challenge me to another duel."

"That comes later," she said.

"We will fight?" My heart leapt as I imagined my storm mingling with her fire.

"Not precisely. There is something I wish to try with you." I heard the blush in her voice, as the scales on her cheeks would not betray her.

I raised an eyebrow. "Oh really?"

She bared her teeth, her eyes meeting mine, the fires within blazing bright. "I think you will enjoy it. If you do not perish."

"Do I need to be frightened?"

"You've attracted the attention of a descendent of Bashamerax. You should be terrified." She leaned over and pressed her lips to my cheek. They were soft and dry.

I turned my head and caught her mouth with mine. She uttered a tiny moan in the back of her throat, surprise mingled with desire. Her breath was hotter than any I have ever breathed, her agile tongue burning like meat fresh off the fire. My arms slid around her waist, where the cut-out panels of her gown allowed my fingers on the scales of her body. I pressed her against the old masonry of the wall, ready to take her then and there.

"Belromanazar," she gasped. "You are forward."

"Would you prefer I wait until we happen upon one another again?"

Her pupils had grown, the amber fire about them blazing. "I would not ask that of you, since I did not ask that of myself." She kissed me again, and this time I felt the caress of her teeth on my lips and the sharp sting of copper. "Are your companions as direct as you are?"

"I'd be shocked if Velena isn't already naked."

That throaty giggle escaped her. I found I craved it. "That will please Cull. He is besotted with your witch."

"I should ask him how much you spoke of me."

She toyed with the laces of my tunic. "You would not be pleased. A dragon's heart is a private chamber."

"Speaking of private chambers, I don't have one."

"Then you are lucky that I planned ahead. Come."

She led me into the city proper, along the winding, foggy streets. Flames blazed in the mist, lending an ethereal glow to the haunted city. Ahead, the fog cleared for a moment, and I glimpsed Rose leading Alia into an inn built from the remains of some long-destroyed building.

"Oh well," Allegeth said.

"What?"

"A little wager. Which of us would have our Mythseeker back here first. It appears Rose won."

"I assure you, Cull beat you both," I said.

"Let us waste no more of the night."

She pulled me inside and up a flight of stairs. Oddrin took his leave of my shoulder, fluttering up to the eaves to keep watch until I emerged.

Her room was small, the persistent mildew scent subtle, and soon buried beneath the spiciness of her. One wall was stone, the remnants of the original building, while the rest was wood. A single bed stood against the stone and a window opened out onto the foggy street. The bed was little more than hay inside linen but I was not worried about comfort or warmth then.

The instant we were inside, I pushed her against a wall, my mouth finding hers. Her tongue sought the wounds her teeth left inside my lips and I relished the sting. I wanted her to drink of me. Blood first, and then, would I truly brave my manhood to that mouth of razors? The thought was enough to make me painfully hard.

I caressed the scales of her waist, longing to get a more complete look at her nudity. Gently but firmly, she pushed me away. "Not yet, love. I told you I wished to try something."

"I was hoping you meant the cleric's kiss."

"The cleric's...what?" She shook her confusion away, pointing to one side of the room. "Stand there and do not approach. Though you will want to."

She turned and walked away, her full hips rocking like a pendulum. Then she turned about again, her feet scraping lightly on the wood. She doffed her cloak. My eyes went to the slits in her gown, the way they seemed to reveal far more than they hid. She then dropped her gown to the floor and I saw everything.

Allegeth's figure was breathtaking. Tall and statuesque, her breasts were full and round, capped with nipples covered in tiny orange and yellow scales. Her waist was narrow, blooming into lovely round hips. Her legs were long, muscled from a lifetime of adventuring. The bulk of her body was covered in burgundy scales, but in places, the pattern changed. Running down her arms and legs were diamond patterns etched in orange and yellow and bordered in black. What drew my eye was the other grouping of such scales.

Rising from her sex, up her gently curved belly and between her lovely breasts, was a pattern of flame. It was as though her slit was a blazing fire, and it shone like a beacon for my desire. Her scent was stronger now, like cinnamon boiled in milk over an open flame.

"Now you," she said. I dropped my robes and stood nude before her. Youth and adventuring had made me lean; my magic had kept me groomed. I was at full mast, straining to join with her. Her eyes widened, her pupils nearly vanishing, as she beheld me. "You are certain you have no dragon ancestry?"

"Come and find out," I said.

"You are insistent, but I have told you. We have something to try." She widened her stance, then threw her arms out, and spoke the words of her magic, hot and jagged. Smoke rolled out from her like an unfurling carpet.

"Allegeth, what are you doing? A Magus Duel? We'll tear this place apart!"

"No," she said, "this is something else. Do you trust me, Belomanazar?"

Perhaps it was foolish to assent, but faced with her unique beauty I am certain she could get me to swear an oath to almost anything. "I trust you, Allegeth."

"Good. Bring me your storm, but do not attack."

I sighed, trusting she knew what she was talking about and we weren't about to bring this inn down around our ears. Soon my cloud billowed over hers, pregnant with thunder. She bared her teeth, her breasts heaving. She didn't sweat, but her scales shone with the flickering light of her burgeoning flame and the bright flashes of my lightning. She appeared to be sheathed in perspiration, but I knew her flesh would be warm and dry. I longed to touch her, but I stood my ground. I owed her the experimentation she desired.

Fire blazed several inches above the floor, the flames centered around me, the air glowing white before giving way to yellow, orange, and red. Out at the edges of the circle around me the smoke went gray like old coals. The flames covered my feet, then my ankles, climbing my bare legs. I felt no pain, instead only a comforting warmth, right on the edge of unbearable. This was walking along the razor's edge, only her willpower keeping me from immolation. The sensation was incredible, at once terrifying and comforting, a caress of death.

Breathlessly, Allegeth said, "Do you see?"

"Yes." I wanted to match her. I weaved my clouds with word and gesture. They climbed down her body like serpents of fog, lightning flashing in segments, tiny rumbles over her flesh. She moaned with the first of these, shivering as the lightning climbed over her limbs.

The fire tickled me as it rose higher. Like thousands of light fingers running over my flesh, I found myself shivering in pleasure. The flames swallowed me to my waist, consuming me in the blaze. The flames licked my staff, a light touch that united the teasing sensation into something more insistent.

"You feel it," she said hoarsely.

I nodded, my clouds slithering down her body. They wrapped about her, thickening, thinning, always moving. They writhed over her breasts, converging between her legs, flashing with lightning, booming with thunder.

In my mind's eye, we were wreathed in gray smoke about our feet and clouds about our heads, heat of flame offering comfort and the chill of rain pulling shivers. I ran my fingers over the magic connection, my lightning caressing her sex. The bright blue fingers teased her apart, raking over her pearl. She gasped, and now she was moving her hips against the magical touch.

"You're brilliant," I said as the fire ran over me. The heat had found a home inside me, a boiling that threatened to make me lose control. She swallowed me with her flames, stroking up and down with little more than heat and air.

"I know," she said with a breathless grin, "but you are kind. What you're doing now, I want you to keep doing it."

The storm billowed into her. I saw her body before me, writhing in pleasure, the clouds covering and revealing her at turns. Her sex burned beneath my magic, the ineffable limbs of the arcane penetrating, stroking, loving the earthy center of her glorious body. Her scent bloomed before me, that cinnamon milk I longed to have on my tongue. I exhaled, blowing a chill wind into her as the thunderbolts gripped her pearl. This was the most dangerous part, to finish her. If she lost her control, I could be killed, and yet I needed to fill her with joy.

She cried out, throwing her head back, shuddering helplessly. At the same time, the heat erupted from me. I saw only fire, the flames continuing to tickle. As the first pulsed out of me, I heard a sizzle, the sharp scent of my seed being burned.

If this was how I died, I would be pleased.

But I did not die, as you well know. Before my eyes, the flames retreated, the smoke returning into Allegeth. My clouds flooded into my mouth with a gasping breath. I took a few shuddering steps to Allegeth and she fell into my arms. Her scales were soft, her body warm. I helped her to the bed, peppering her temple with soft kisses. My mouth went to her throat, then to her lips.

"What are you doing?" she murmured.

"We are not finished, Allegeth."

She grinned. "Oh? What will you do with me?"

"I am going to taste you. Then I am going to take you." I brushed her thick, wavy hair from her face, kissing her lips, then her forehead.

"Oh, gods. The way you look at me. I see desire often...I see fear more. But I never see what I see in your eyes."

I kissed her mouth again, her tongue hot against mine. "I will look on you as much as you like, Allegeth ur-Udraeg."

"Yes, Belromanazar. I want to know how that look in your eyes feels on my skin."

"I can promise you that."

I made my way down her body with my mouth, my lips sizzling against her scales. The cinnamon taste was everywhere on her body and I found myself seeking it, craving it. I found my way to the soft swell of her breasts. I explored them, the scales over the pillowy flesh a fascinating contrast. A lick, then two, and I took her nipple in my mouth. It hardened between my lips, the scales a delightful change from the spongy feeling I would find on a woman without a dragon ancestor. She sighed happily as I laved attention over her, but I couldn't stay long, leaving her breasts to travel the road marked by her flame scales. I paused at her navel, where the scales were a bright yellow, almost white, dipping my tongue inside. I found that cinnamon, cut with a musky bitterness that only made her more compelling.

Then I found myself between her spread legs, where the flame of her scales began. Her sex was closed, soft scales about her hairless lips. I kissed her here, sucking in the cinnamon milk scent of her. I traced my tongue about her outer lips, the scales giving her a strange texture that inflamed me. I parted her, and her flavor opened in my mouth, mysterious and ancient and complex. The cinnamon spice opened up my palate, unlocking deeper tastes, of deep minerals, of fire, and of a wonderful womanly musk.

She moaned as I spread her, her hands at the back of my head. She opened her thighs wide, rolling her hips into my explorations. Her insides were blue, like the hottest flame. I penetrated her with my tongue, her flavor only growing more complex, her body hotter. Inside, she was burning. It was a fire that I could never quench. I was the moth hopelessly enraptured by the light, and I would fall in if I could.

My mouth moved to her pearl, and I eased a pair of fingers inside her. It was like tickling an oven. Her moans grew louder, her undulations more violent. I sucked her pearl, hot like it had been cast into a forge, and she broke with the hiss of water thrown over hot coals. Her flavor rushed into my mouth, and I greedily took what she gave, lingering at her sex, lightly hunting for it, until she pulled me away.

"Please, love. No more," she begged.

I crawled up her, my staff protruding with a life of its own between us. She sighed, kissing my sodden lips, her eyes blazing. She frowned as I kept moving, pressing a kiss to her forehead. Soon, I knelt just beneath her arms, my staff sticking obscenely at her face. She looked up at me, her eyes dancing like hungry flames.

"Open your mouth," I told her.

She bared her teeth. "You are not frightened."

"I am laying with you. I am terrified. That's why I need your mouth."

She licked her lips, then looked at my staff with some concern. "I am not...experienced in this art."

I touched her face. "I want you, Allegeth. You will be perfect because you are you. The only thing that will stop me is if you don't wish it."

"No! I want to do this for you. This look...I see it there."

We shifted, me on my knees, Allegeth before me on her knees and elbows, her scaled back serpentine before me. Another flame climbed her spine and abruptly I wanted to run my tongue over those scales and give her the cleric's kiss. It would be some time before I was able to satisfy that particular fantasy. Tonight was for other things.

She reached out, opening her mouth. Her tongue, long and sinuous, tasted me, just a lick over the head of my staff. She cocked her head thoughtfully, then looked up at me, her pupils slender, her amber eyes bright. "I will not hurt you, love."

"I know," I said, stroking her cheek. Then, firmly, I guided her forward. Her hot breath, like a desert wind, bushed over my length.

She opened her mouth to take me in, her breath now sultry. Her tongue wrapped around me, impossibly agile. I felt her trying to milk, but here skill failed her. That did not matter, for what I could not stop thinking of, were the razor-sharp teeth poised about my manhood. A bite, or even a violent shift, would slice me open, bleed me dry. I was at her mercy.

She took me deeper and blanched, moving her head back. Her eyes teared, the flames now wobbling like magma. Her teeth slid past my soft flesh, again and again and she swallowed and released, swallowed and released. The heat was overwhelming, a sauna for my staff and my staff alone. I sighed happily as her tongue laved me, and noting the reaction, continued at it.

It was not some special trick, some change in sensation, some masterful technique, that brought me to boil. Her steady attention at my staff, coupled with her agile tongue, was lovely. But it was those sharp teeth that truly inflamed me. I could not escape the idea that I could be castrated at any moment and yet was not. She wanted me in her mouth.

This was the knowledge that took the churning storm inside me and spilled it from my staff. I bucked between her teeth, and several points of white-hot pain shot through me. That only multiplied my ecstasy, the pain joining the incredible pleasure as now I spilled both blood and seed into her. She stayed suckling at me, her tongue washing over my hurts, swallowing every bit of me as I had done.

Finally, she moved her head away, letting loose one of her throaty giggles I found so alluring. I fell next to her, cuddling close. "You are staying the night?" she asked, one nail tracing the muscle of my chest.

"I would like to," I said, kissing her mouth again.

"Good," she said, caressing my face. "I would like to do this again. When our paths cross."

"That I can promise."

"I am sorry I drew blood."

"I'm not."

She shivered, her eyes aflame. She rolled onto her side to face me. One black nail traced the scars on my shoulders that Thalalei had left. "You like the danger."

"I like you," I said. "That you bring danger is simply something I like about you."

"Are you...oh!" I was turgid again, a stripe of bright blood down my staff, poking her belly. "Again?"

I kissed her softly. "Again."

She embraced me as I rolled her onto her back and slid inside her. She was as hot as ever, and as she moved against me, I was nearly burned. Only when we once again found our bliss were we able to sleep.

***

The next morning, I kissed Allegeth goodbye and made my way down to the street, where I encountered both Alia and Velena, all of us wearing our clothing from the previous night. We all broke into laughter at the disheveled sight of one another.

"You had fun," Velena observed, gesturing to the red stripes down my neck.

"That's not the worst of them," I said. "Where's Xeiliope?"

"Thrandlas must have exhausted her," Alia said.

We returned to our room and when we opened the door, Xeiliope sat up in bed. She was still wearing her clothing from the previous night as well. "Where have you been?" she demanded.

"On our dates?" Velena ventured.

"That was last night!"

"Yes," Alia said. "All of last night. And once this morning."

Xeiliope blinked in surprise. "You lay with them?"

"You didn't?" Velena asked.

"No! I thought...he seemed friendly, but I never thought...I could have had sex?"

"Probably," Alia said.

"Poor Thrandlas," I observed. "He seems like a nice fellow."

Xeiliope slumped her shoulders and cursed. "Next time we meet them I will have more sex than all of you put together."

***

Adventurers have no control over the idea of next time. We are leaves on the wind, flotsam on the tide, or perhaps a rogue spark that might bloom into a wildfire.

While it is true that the Mythseekers and Redmarks had purposes that could not be more distinct, once and only once they overlapped, though we did not know that at the outset. All we knew was that the mythical island of Adrax had reappeared and it would be filled with treasure and a lost civilization that would need exploring. The siren song that would summon the Mythseekers from halfway across the continent.

We purchased a boat and docked at the southern bay of the island. Xeiliope, having lived her first two decades on an island, was an adept mariner and conveyed us safely hence. I learned a bit of sailing from her, though I regret that I did not pay more attention.

Alia had the worst of it. Though the poor thing hailed from a port city, any trip onto the water made her violently ill. Velena did her best to soothe the little rogue, but some things are stronger even than a witch's ministrations. Alia would not be right until she had solid ground beneath her feet.

We made for the interior, where allegedly Ul Adrax, a city of gold, awaited us. We were forced to plow forward through thick jungle, along game trails barely worth the name. The carnivorous inhabitants mistook us for a new kind of food, and after a skirmish with a pack of strange, flightless birds that sported teeth rather than beaks, we hunted for a place to tend our wounds. Wounded and tired from the overland trek through the jungle, found a river and followed it upstream.

After a short walk, we found a rock path leading up into a clearing with a wide but shallow pool. A waterfall on the far end spilled down into the river basin below with a happy babble, and this would well do for our purposes. The eastern shore was covered in rocks, but the western was sheathed in soft grass. Trees hemmed us in on all sides. Strange hoots and whistles surrounded us from the jungle.

We undressed, keeping our clothing and weapons in easy reach, and went into the pool while Velena started on Alia, who had gotten the worst of the skirmish. Perhaps the odd bird-things had thought she was our young, but they were quite intent on devouring her. Xeiliope and I sank into the pool. While I was considering seeing if the Amazon was game for a bout of love, Oddrin flapped down from his place in the trees, chirping and hissing. It wasn't quite a warning, but it was something close.

"Something approaches," I said.

Xeiliope picked up Daybreaker, her spear, and emerged from the pool, water dripping from her muscles in rivulets. She set herself, ready to receive a charge. Little Alia fetched her blades, while Velena prepared to fling a curse and I to summon my clouds.

The foliage rustled. Thrandlas the Red stepped into the clearing. His eyes fell on Xeiliope's nude form and his jaw fell open. The arrow that had been nocked on his bowstring clattered to the ground.

"Xeiliope?" he asked, averting his eyes while he retrieved the arrow.

"Thrandlas? What are you doing here?"

"We are on the trail of Rollin Maidenbane. He fled this way--"

"Thrandlas? What are you doing?" Rose demanded from somewhere in the trees. A moment later, the plants rustled, disgorging the rest of the Redmarks.

"Velena!" boomed Cull, striding forward, a happy smile spread across his face.

"Cull," she said with her own affectionate smile, holding her arms out. She squealed happily as he swept her up in an embrace.

Alia scampered to Rose and stood on her toes to kiss the other woman. "I missed you," she said shyly.

Allegeth met me at the edge of the water. As she stepped into it, I heard a soft hiss as the water around her was warmed. I kissed her, and she was certain to give me a tiny cut on my lip. "Belromanazar, you are naked."

"So I am."

"You are all naked."

"Makes it easier to find their wounds," Velena said, leaning on Cull and making no move to cover herself.

"And to see them all in the altogether," Rose remarked.

"Serves multiple purposes. If you would all like to disrobe, I'd be happy to inspect you as well."

Cull was already getting undressed when Rose stopped him. "As much fun as that sounds, we have a man to kill. What are you doing here?"

"We're hunting for the city of Ul Adrax."

"It is here?" Allegeth asked, clapping her hands.

"This is the lost island of Adrax."

Rose raised her eyebrows. "Rollin sure picked an interesting place to run."

"You may uncover your eyes," Xeiliope said to Thrandlas. "You look foolish."

"I am sorry," Thrandlas said, looking at her for a moment, then looking away, his skin going red beneath his beard. "It's just that you're..."

"Mainlanders have strange attitudes about nudity, but I will don my armor if that makes you more comfortable." Xeiliope pulled her undergarment on over her body, followed by the Valkyrie armor. It momentarily glowed blue as it locked into place. "Better?"

"Yes," said Thrandlas, then turned red as he realized Alia and Velena hadn't bothered to dress. He kept his eyes on Xeiliope, who preened under the attention.

"I've an idea," Allegeth said. "What if the Mythseekers aided us in collecting the Maidenbane's head and we help them find and explore this city."

Rose chuckled. "You finally get your wish."

"A real lost city!" Allegeth exclaimed.

"We're open to it if you are," Rose said, addressing Velena.

"I think we could do that," Velena said. "But we need to get dressed."

"Shame," muttered Cull, watching Velena as she pulled on her dress. Allegeth handed me my robes and I put them on, picking up Spire. Oddrin fluttered down and alighted on Allegeth's shoulder.

"Your familiar likes me."

"Oddrin's never perched on me," Velena observed.

"He senses the magic," I said lamely. The night eft purred on Allegeth's shoulder, while the sorceress stroked the azure scales along his head. From the witch's dubious expression, I could tell she didn't believe me for a second.

With us armed and armored, the Redmarks led the way, Thrandlas tracking and Xeiliope by his side. We followed the trail of Rollin Maidenbane into the lost city of Ul Adrax itself. He had found his way into the temple complex at its center and when we caught up with him, he was in the process of being taken by one of the long-slumbering deities of this place. We were forced to fight this half-god half-man before the possession was complete. The battle was a titanic one.

Any other chronicles that mention this--The Fourfold Chronicle remains the most accurate of these on this phase of my life--will concentrate on the battle. Who struck first, who struck last, who sustained the most grievous injuries, those details are for those other volumes. Here, I will say I was impressed with the Redmarks. They were effective combatants, more so than we. The Mythseekers were explorers first. The Redmarks were fighters, and it showed in their discipline, the precision of their movements and attacks, and the way each of them covered for the others.

What is germane to this volume was this was the first time I went into combat with a fellow spellweaver. Though we came from different traditions, our night together meant we knew one another intimately. There is a knowledge you gain from another after laying with them. I knew Allegeth's movements and she knew mine. I knew the measure of her heartbeat and the volume of her breath. Inferno and storm were in accord.

Her magic and mine intertwined over the battlefield. The heat of her smoke coiled sinuously over my clouds. My lightning raked its talons over the seething sea of flames. I felt her in the spaces between magic and mundane. Her cinnamon was in my mouth, my nose, her heat on my fingers, her throaty laugh in my ear. I glimpsed her nude body in the smoke, mere shapes, firelight dancing over her slick curves.

Fire climbed cloud, lightning danced through smoke. We were pressed together in our minds, though whether I held her or she held me changed. Perhaps it didn't matter. Our power was about us, our bodies alive with sensation. She was all over me, and I her.

When the battle ended and our power dissipated, we were both left gasping, our chests heaving. We had won. Rollin Maidenbane was dead and the god had been forced back into deep slumber. Rose collected his head, fitting it into an enchanted pouch on her belt. I was momentarily horrified, but it was better than carting the dripping thing around.

Their task finished, we could concentrate on ours. We explored the city. Allegeth was adorable in her wonder at the lost civilization. While I had grown somewhat jaded to the mysteries of the past, through her eyes I found a newfound appreciation for this magical place. We collected our maps and our rubbings, our packs heavy with treasure. This was where I found...well, I suppose readers would know her as Fidget, though I've never liked the nickname. She was a jade-and-obsidian figurine of one of these bird-things, powerful magic radiating from her, carrying the scent of feathers and the taste of blood.

Wounded but triumphant, we returned to our former clearing. My heart pounded, for I knew what would happen next. Everyone was breathing more quickly, Allegeth's pupils tiny. We were all nervous energy and stolen glances. "Now, disrobe," Velena ordered, beginning the festivities.

This time all of us doffed our clothing, the Mythseekers more readily than the Redmarks, and the rest of the Redmarks more readily than Thrandlas. To no one's surprise, Cull was first to have his injuries tended. In battle, he transformed into a massive dire wolf, and suffered the worst punishment as he worked hard to protect his companions.

I reclined in the pool next to Allegeth, her flesh warming the water.

"It feels strange being near you without..." she trailed off.

"We don't have to go without. I would prefer to have my injuries taken care of first, but if you can't wait, I won't say no."

"Belromanazar! You would lay with me in front of your companions?"

"Yes. Besides," I nodded over to Velena, tending to Cull's wounds, one hand on his manhood. "I suspect they will whether we do or not."

She looked from them to Alia, sitting on Rose's lap, their bare breasts glistening with a sheen of water, then over to Thrandlas, doing his best to look only at Xeiliope, but somehow not stare, then to me, my staff hardening in the water.

"I see," she said. "The Mythseekers are remarkably...free."

I kissed her. "We are."

Cull was soon finished, and Xeiliope took her turn, then Alia, Rose, Velena, Thrandlas, and finally Allegeth and myself. By the time I returned to Allegeth in the pool, two of the other couples had gotten started. Rose was kissing Alia, the rogue's face lit with a happy smile. Xeiliope had led Thrandlas away by the hand, and we could only see swatches of flesh moving against one another in the foliage. As I returned to Allegeth, Cull passed me, sitting down on a rock and gently lifting Velena into his lap.

The clearing was filled with the sounds and scents of loveplay. I took Allegeth by the hand and brought her over my lap, where she knelt. My staff jutted between us. She smiled at it wistfully, her scaled hands caressing me gently. The heat from them bordered on blistering. I remembered how she had felt inside, molten and gorgeous.

"I admit, I like the idea of them seeing us," she said.

"Good."

"I have been thinking...the next time we were together..."

"You've been thinking of me?" I teased.

Her black nail traced patterns over my chest, too light to draw blood, but an implicit promise she would--a promise I wanted to see fulfilled.

"I think of you often," she said shyly. "Do you think of me?"

"Constantly," I assured her, bringing my lips to hers.

She writhed against me, her body already mimicking the motions of lovemaking, yet I was not inside her. Maybe it was the moans coming from Velena and Cull or the wet sounds from Alia and Rose, or the glimpses of flesh of Xeiliope and Thrandlas, but she was ready. Her sex, gently scaled, was already open, and when she lifted herself from the water, the cinnamon-milk scent caught my nose and the flash of sultry blue called to me. Her breath shuddered from her mouth, and she reached for me, capturing my lips, then my tongue.

"Call your magic, love," she whispered. She had already done it, the arcane words on her lips spoken in the gasps of passion. Smoke rolled from out between us like a carpet. The beginnings of flames leapt up over the pond.

I whispered my words into her mouth and she drank them with her kiss, savored them on her tongue. My clouds rose from the water, piling up overhead, filled with flashes of light and thunder.

One of the other couples murmured, but I didn't know which. I had no care for anything other than the sorceress on my lap, watching the flame pattern in her scales dance beneath her intoxicating movement.

Running my tongue up the flames of her body, I pulled her mouth to mine. My clouds reached their tendrils onto her, slithering down her shoulders, over the smooth expanse of her back. Her smoke rose up over me, lines of the gray and black enfolding me in its heated arms.

She went up on her thighs, guiding my staff to her entrance. I watched the blue innerfolds take me, and I vanished, inch by inch as she accepted me inside. Her sex was blistering, on the edge of being unbearable, joining the persistent heat of her smoke.

The chill of my clouds pulled a shiver from her body as she swallowed me to the hilt. Her incantation broke, only for a moment, her hands now on my face as her lips and teeth and tongue explored me, as if she couldn't believe what was happening and had to take me with her senses, to verify that I had gone nowhere. That I was inside her, pushing against her, loving her with every part of me.

Sheets of fire now burned over our flesh, webs of lightning chasing them. She lifted herself, and now I saw my staff was sheathed in fire, her orchid spanned with lightning. The two elements touched one another, heat and sparks, sinking into us with delicious pain and ecstatic pleasure.

Our magic merged as it had before, inferno burning storm, storm enveloping inferno. We were together, united in multiple planes. She was all around me, those signifiers of her, the cinnamon, the heat, the smoothness of her scales. My hands found her wild mass of raven locks, holding her in my kiss. Her teeth sliced me, and my blood bloomed in our mouths. She gave a choked cry into my mouth as the pain spurred my ardor.

Suddenly we were no longer in the water. We were above it, floating on a raft of cloud and smoke, our bodies covered in elemental glory. We were a bright star now, the two of us the core, a blaze wreathed in lightning. She was everywhere on me now, volcanic bliss and razor pleasure. I followed her rising moans, matching her increasingly frantic motion, driving myself ever deeper into her.

Our pleasure crested as one, the rush of fire and the boom of thunder. I held onto her and she clutched me while I filled her. It was forever, the pleasure of our coupling fueled by the incantation worked by our love. And then, after a hundred years of ecstasy, it receded. Flames floated from us, the lightning fell to the earth and vanished. The cushion of cloud and smoke lowered us, and we held one another as we were set gently back into the water. We had touched the divine in one another and we basked in its shadow.

She kissed me softly. "My Belromanazar."

I brushed her hair away from her face. "My Allegeth."

She looked around and uttered her throaty giggle. I flinched, as her insides stroked my overheated manhood. She erupted in laughter because six pairs of eyes were on us. The other couples had stopped their loveplay in mid-thrust, as they could only gawk.

"Gods!" Xeiliope said, from where she had mounted a prone Thrandlas. His shame was apparently gone, or at least drowned beneath his amazement as he stared at the two of us.

"Sorry," I said, "carry on everyone." Laughing, Allegeth hid her face in my shoulder.

"You heard him," Velena said, looking over her shoulder. She was on all fours, Cull clutching her ample hips. "Get going."

I held Allegeth close in the shallows, kissing her from time to time as the two of us watched the others. Before long, it had the desired effect and we had to satisfy one another again, though we didn't invoke our magic this time. We merely took one another, content to reaffirm our bond with the caress of simple flesh. Our fingers intertwined as we rocked against one another, and I thought of our walk along the Old Wall in Witherborne. Love for Allegeth filled me and I spilled it into her.

Not long after, we took our boat back to the mainland, and the island would soon vanish into the mists once again. We parted from the Redmarks, each giving our opposite number a loving goodbye.

I think if Allegeth had asked me, I would have left with her. Retired maybe. But that was not who we were. We were adventurers, and still young. The love between us would bloom eventually. But those who know of me already know this. The name of Allegeth ur-Udraeg is caught up with mine and I feel fortunate every time I reflect on this wonderful fact.