1. Research

The library lurked in the bowels of Ompex's Tower of Wizardry like a dusty corpse with ribs of tall bookshelves. A cluster of candles illuminated a table at the library's center like a glowing heart. Amid a semicircle of open volumes, the old man mumbled to himself and flipped parchment leaves. The hours slipped past. A few of the candles sputtered out.

The old man gasped. His tall wizard hat shifted, then fell forward. Its fall suffocated two lit candles. Through good fortune the hat did not catch fire, but soot and wax impregnated the fabric.

Ghomarck paid little attention. "This is it!" he crowed. He bent his head even closer to the aged description of magical artifacts and he traced the faded line of runes with his finger.

He straightened and the wrinkles in his forehead deepened. "A circlet of subversion? How could he? How did he dare to trade away something so dangerous?" The wizard blew air through his lips. "He must not have known its import. The fool."

Light flooded the gloomy book repository and its door boomed open. Journeyman Ee flapped in. So short was she and so vigorous her habitual movements that her robes always flapped. "Master Ghomarck!" Tension squeezed her soprano voice into a frightened squeak.

"Not now," grumped the wizard. "I'm busy."

His dismissal only served to accelerate her reply. "Master Ghomarck, it's Ter-Ferras the high mage."

The old man raised his head and frowned ferociously at the journeyman. "What about him?"

"He's dead, master. Ter-Ferras has been murdered."

2. Coitus Interruptus

"We need to do more of this," Séa said, between coos of delight.

Tash trailed fingers along the paladin's bare, muscular rump as it squeezed and relaxed in a hypnotic cycle. The pair entwined amid useless twists of bedclothes. Light from the window glowed upon their coupling. Currently, their legs interlaced and they pressed their enflamed, leaky vulvae together. Their coordinated circles sent wave after wave of clitoral pleasure singing through their nervous systems. Their hearts pumped with the slow burn of sexual heat and they panted between tender kisses.

"Hmm?" Tash murmured. "What do you mean? We've been bumping our mice for, like, half an hour, now."

"I know! Isn't it great?" Séa closed her eyes and rotated her hips a few more delicious rounds. "But I meant more sex and less, um, riding around and getting saddle sores."

Light brown braids spiraled around the paladin's head to lightly frame her bland features. Muscles rippled in her arms and shoulders as she writhed high on a plateau of ecstasy. Her massive thighs competed in girth with Tash's trim waist. The rogue's black hair flung loosely behind her on the bed to reveal ears with slight points. A dramatic scar sliced through eyebrow, forehead, and cheek of her olive skinned face. Delicious dew misted her face and the skin between her breasts.

Lightly, she slapped Séa's ample buttocks. "Mmm, you big softy."

The paladin opened her gray eyes and gazed into Tash's browns. The rogue quivered and caught her lower lip between her teeth. "That look," she whispered. "Gets me, every time." She squeezed Séa close and ground her hips with sudden urgency.

The room swam in a miasma of breathy moans. The world around them dissolved into an indistinct haze of vibrant bliss. The universe burst with wetness the temperature of body heat, the color of flushed roses, and the scent of honeydew poured atop ambrosia.

They clung to each other, skin on skin, vibrating with shared euphoria. Gradually, they melted into a sweaty heap of careless, boneless limbs. Between languorous caresses, the rapt eye-gazing continued.

Fists pounded upon their inn room door.

Initially, neither woman noticed. Eventually, Séa blinked. "Somebody's at the door, sounds like."

The pounding intensified.

Tash mumbled. "Maybe the inn's on fire."

"Is it important enough to get up for?"

"I don't know."

"Well. I'm thirsty, anyway." Séa levered up on an elbow and rolled to her feet. She giggled. "For some reason."

"Open in the name of the king!" A reedy voice drifted through the closed door.

The paladin slid the bolt back and pulled enough to open a vertical gap. Two guards in royal livery flanked a herald clad in flowing purple from ridiculous hat to ground-brushing hem. The herald's beak nose and bulging voice box struck Séa as familiar. "Hullo. Aren't you the fellow that hung a medal on me a couple of weeks back?"

"What? I mean, yes? I mean—" His eyes strayed low and glimpsed only skin tones in the slot between door and frame. He cleared his throat, disciplined his eyes to stare horizontally, and proclaimed, "Séa of Torugg, you are hereby summoned to appear in audience before King Pharing of Omnius immediately and forthwith."

Tash's drawl floated through the gap. "What the feck?"

The skinny-throated dandy piped, "Tash of Liria, you are hereby summoned to appear in audience before King Pharing of Omnius immediately and forthwith."

The rogue grumbled, "Gnoll nads."

3. Audience

"But they're mine," growled Tash.

The female guard remained polite but firm. "Milady, all weapons must be left for all persons. It is only sensible."

Tash, Séa, and a dozen royal guards stood outside enormous, gilded, arched double doors. The king's great hall lay just beyond. The rogue spread her hands. "I wore all my weapons last time I was here."

An unseen cloud darkened the guard's expression. "Things have changed." Her eyes flitted left and right. She leaned closer to Tash and whispered, "There has been a murder. Everyone's on edge."

With effort, the rogue cleared the scowl from her face. "Bulging ball sacks. Fine. Here." Steadily, she drizzled her boot daggers, a garrote, spike knuckles, a push-dagger, and a saber into a chest.

"Thank you," said the guard. "You may enter."

Two burly guards strained to swing the gilded doors wide. Marble floored the vast space, and high windows admitted bright sunlight. Squared columns marched along the hall beyond, converging on the dais and its throne. The king occupied it. His left leg bounced and his right fingers drummed on its upholstered arm. He was a young king, well-liked, and fresh from brokering a peaceful end to a war. Another half dozen guards stood in a phalanx, flanking their king. A middle-aged woman in a fancy but practical dress and a gem-studded headband stood beside the throne. Vaguely, Tash remembered her: Dame Ophelle, royal steward. A fully armored warrior loitered on the other side of the throne. Tash knew him: Sir Fawk, newly elevated from ducal knight to royal knight despite his nigh complete incompetence.

Tash and Séa strolled with confidence toward the king and his retinue. At their previous audience, King Pharing had showered them with gratitude and boons. The worry that pulled at his handsome features could have nothing to do with the duo.

Right?

"My liege!" Séa bowed.

Tash curtsied, although her sour face betrayed an inner residuum of disgust at the classist pomp.

The paladin chirped, "The princess is well?"

But Pharing ignored the niceties and heaved a hundredweight sigh. "Lady Séa and lady Tash, you are hereby accused of murder. Due to the—"

"The feck?" Tash came alive. Her eyes flashed and a scowl pinched her face.

The king gritted his teeth. "Due to the heinous nature of the crime, you are to be imprisoned until trial. I have spoken."

Séa's mouth fell open, and her brows knit. "Um."

Steward Ophelle said, "The king has spoken. Guards?"

Tash whipped her head left and right. All eyes rested upon her and Séa, and all hands rested upon sword hilts. The guards seemed completely ready to stop her if she bolted, violently. "Not true," she hissed. "Utter fiction."

"Who died?" Séa's forehead furrowed.

But four guards closed in, two per woman.

Old reflexes die hard. In all the whorls and eddies of Tash's complicated past she had never simply given in to capture. She ducked and spun. There were only a dozen guards. Maybe there was a back door. With luck, she could escape.

But an iron telepathic command gripped her mind and shook it. Be still, the unstoppable voice seemed to say.

Her springy legs loosened like overcooked noodles and she spilled to the floor in a heap. Before she could shake the fog from her mind, gauntlets encircled her arms and dragged her to her feet. Wildly, she spun her head, eyes roving. The king stared at the floor. Sir Fawk's droopy features resembled those of a whipped dog. But Dame Ophelle's knowing gaze met hers, and a tiny smile of satisfaction touched the dame's lips.