This was going much smoother than he had thought. Captain Kier had proved to be an arrogant man who talked freely. Sedgewick had already picked up several useful tidbits on their ride to the fortress. His rented horse plodded along reluctantly as a light mist of rain collected on their cloaks and reins.

"Where do you hail from, alchemist?" asked Kier from atop his dark brown warhorse.

"White Ridge," he said, naming a larger Northlandic city that was far enough for Kier to hopefully have never been stationed there.

"Ah, White Ridge," he said as they turned around a bend. They'd been moving steadily uphill from the village. "I've a cousin there."

Of course he did. Sedgewick refused to make the nervous swallow that his throat wanted. "Do you visit often?"

"He's a member of the Crystal Vial, an alchemy guild there. Are you a member?"

"Ah, no," Sedgewick answered quickly. "Nothing so prestigious."

Kier asked him several more questions about alchemy in general but thankfully nothing else personal. Soon the road widened as they finally reached the fortress and Sedgewick's eyes widened with it.

"Magnificent, isn't it?" Kier said beside him. "Never fallen."

Sedgewick could see why. Towering walls of impenetrable gray stone looked like they had been built from the mountain it sat on. Sedgewick stared down from the height they had climbed and saw the river snaking through a canyon below. A stone bridge crossed that canyon, connecting to the other half of the fortress. It was bare save for some emptied wooden crates. Crates whose contents had already been installed. Objects of cold, black metal sat on the bridge, glinting in the light. They were forged in the shape of a long, round barrel and aimed at the river below where any attacking ship would have to pass under. A rune disc the size of his head and etched with fire spells had been fitted into the back of each. Iron Firedrakes. Capable of shooting projectiles a great distance. A mage would make the rune discs and then any fey capable of blindly pushing magic out of his fingertips and into the disc could send a ball of stone or metal crashing into the ships below.

Those were why Abreyla needed to take Creststone.

Kier laughed, the sound bouncing across the stone and snapping Sedgewick out of his staring. "Most have that reaction. Come inside and we can talk."

Soon, Sedgewick was led across the bridge and inside the other half of the fortress itself. He followed Kier into a medium-sized room. A window let in morning light from the left, illuminating the bits of ash drifting from the fire roaring in the fireplace. A settee draped with heavy furs sat next to the fireplace and a wide, round table rested by a set of bookshelves. It had most likely held a map or strategy plans but now potion bottles and other ingredients were organized atop it. Pity.

"Have a seat, alchemist." Kier waved him toward the settee. "Drink?" he asked, pulling a bottle of wine from a small cabinet by the shelf.

"Please," Sedgewick answered. He licked his lips. Anything after that piss-cup he'd forced down last night. "Are you the leader here, then?"

Kier laughed, splattering wine while he poured it into a sturdy wooden cup. "Nearly. This area answers to Master Calrock. He travels between the fort and the Obelisk."

Sedgewick took the cup from Kier. Obelisk. He'd never heard of that place. The name slipped into the corner of his mind, ready to be pulled out when needed. "Master Calrock?"

"A mage, yes." Kier snorted, taking a drink from his own cup. "I prefer alchemists. Plants, brewing, mixing, all of it more solid than some energy whipping through the air."

"I agree," Sedgewick lied through his teeth.

"Now before we get down to business..." Kier called out several names and four of his soldiers entered the room. Sedgewick's fingers went cold.

"Oh, don't look so frightened. I question everyone who comes to the fortress." But the two burly soldiers now on either side of Sedgewick didn't inspire calm.

"Your alchemist license?" Kier held out his hand expectantly.

Sedgewick pulled a leather wallet out and opened it to reveal the stamped and sealed papers marking him as having completed the necessary apprenticeship to buy and sell potions and potion ingredients. He had a similar set back on the ship that marked him as a master mage. Unlike the one he'd handed Kier, that set was real.

Kier skimmed the document before returning it to him. "Good. Now if you wouldn't mind giving us a demonstration..." He waved his hand at the table.

Sedgewick tucked the papers away and strolled to the table. "What would you have me make?" he asked, running his hand along the small stone bowls of ingredients. Mages were required to be familiar with all forms of magic and that included potions. He had never much cared for potion-brewing—his master had often scolded him with how he would need the skill someday—but he could do it if called upon.

"Executions have been...messy," Kier said. "Make something deadly that will help fix that."

Ideas percolated in Sedgewick's brain. His hands reached for the ingredients and began measuring them out. All living things had magic, although only feys like himself could harness their inner magic essence and shape it into its true potential. The magic found in certain plants or animal parts, however, could be combined to form interesting results. He started with a fungal base and mixed it with swift rot and witch's bane to speed up the spread. Soon the mixture was bubbling above a burner one of Kier's men had lit. It sputtered and popped in flashes of green and black, a sign the remaining magic inside the dead plants had seeped out and begun their work.

A while later, Sedgewick had finished straining the potion through a sieve and poured it into a glass vial. He capped the top and held the finished product out with a flourish. "As requested."

Kier took the vial and held it to the light. "And this would kill someone cleanly?"

"And quickly and rather painfully too. Keeps the drama of an execution with none of the excess blood." Sedgewick explained with a flippant wave of his hand.

"Good. Bring in that Abreylian mage we found skulking around this morning," Kier ordered two of his men. The captain's mouth curled into a smirk. "We caught him on the edge of the forest near the village."

Sedgewick's ears turned cold and gave the slightest twitch of panic before he forced them still. "A mage?"

"He killed five of my men before we subdued him." Kier's smile didn't waver and neither did his stare.

"I— I should leave." Another of the Onryxian soldiers raised his spear to Sedgewick's stomach. He looked like one of the drunken men from the inn last night, but any sense of drunken good humor had been exchanged for cool professionalism.

"Stay!" Kier cut him off while his smile gained a bit of a bite to it. "We have to test your new potion, alchemist."

Two of Kier's men return, and being dragged between them, cursing all the way, was a boy with a familiar mop of blond hair. Rivian.

"I won't tell you anything you son of a—" Rivian cut his expletive short when he saw Sedgewick.

"So, you two are acquainted," Kier said, voice rising in smug triumph.

"I've never seen him!" Rivian shouted, covering up his hesitation in rage.

"Then this will be less painful." Kier held the potion to the light again. "Let's not play games, alchemist. Who are you really? Because you're not of Onryx."

"I am of—"

"Don't lie to me!" Kier shouted, anger flaring for the first time. "The Crystal Vial is a witches' guild that anyone in White Ridge would know of, not an alchemist guild."

The soldier with the spear pressed closer to Sedgewick's stomach and Kier spoke again. This time his voice dropped low and he twisted in the words like a knife. "And even if I was...distracted yesterday, I grew up near the Elberic Peaks and I would recognize the voice of one of those rebellious, useless, goat-sniffing, wyrm-eaten, dung-burning Peak's man bastards anywhere. You're not an Onryxian. You can barely call yourself a fey."

"But!" Kier raised a finger and addressed the room as a whole. "Does that make him a spy?" He snapped and the two guards pushed Rivian to his knees. Kier held out the potion. "I didn't know the mudskin barbarians had stooped so low as to send children into battle."

"I'm not a child!" Rivian snapped.

"Shut up!" The panicked words slipped free of Sedgewick's clenched teeth.

"Pour it down his throat. A way for even a Peak's man to prove his innocence. Redeem yourself, wyrm dung. You owe them nothing. Aid us." He held out the potion like he had the wine earlier.

Sedgewick looked from the potion to the spear to Rivian. He reached out his hand. The spear retracted slightly.

His magic encircled the vial. The glass rapidly heated and when Kier let go of the burning bottle, Sedgewick launched himself forward. He dodged the spear and snatched the vial from the air. "You're wrong." Glass cracked as he broke the vial—which was not the poison he'd told Kier—against the floor. A thick cloud of black smoke rapidly rolled from it and choked the room. "I owe them everything."

His hand grasped Rivian's and they fled.

***************
Author's Note: And the 8k milestone has been reached! Now to just actually pass round 2... Will Sedgewick and Rivian manage to escape?

Current word count: 9,148