The laughter lingered long after Eleonora had fled the adventurers’ guild hall, clinging to the air like a thick, acidic smoke that refused to disperse. Tankards were slapped against scarred tables. While various hands struck their mates backs hard enough to sting. A few of the louder adventurers had already risen to their feet, reenacting the moment in broad, exaggerated pantomime with wide eyes and trembling hands meant to mimic a frightened noble girl. In the guild hall that day, imitation was not a form of flattery. “Did you see her face?” one adventurer crowed, leaning toward his companion, a broad-shouldered man with a long scar carved down his cheek, a mark earned, he would gladly remind anyone, from a large wolf he had killed single handedly.

  “Aye,” the scarred man laughed, pounding his tankard down hard enough to slosh ale over the rim. “Thought she was going to faint right there. Never seen a noble look so close to wetting herself, “ he stated. “By the saints,” another chimed in, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes, “the way she ran. Like she’d just seen a real monster.”

  Their laughter swelled, fed by shared memory and shared resentment. These were men and women who bore old wounds beneath their armor, who measured their worth in scars, contracts fulfilled, and friends buried along the road. They had clawed their way up from nothing and every coin they carried had been paid for in blood, sweat, and terror. To them, nobles were creatures of silk and soft hands, born into comfort they had never earned, quick to judge and slow to understand what survival truly cost.

  Before the guild doors had even finished swinging shut behind Eleonora, someone called for another round for the house, and the cheer that followed was immediate and thunderous. Beer flowed freely, voices rose, and an impromptu celebration erupted, lasting well into the next hour. They drank to their victories, to contracts completed and monsters slain, and most loudly of all to having driven off what they mockingly called the most dangerous beast of the night, a foolish noble girl who, in their eyes, had dared to step into a world she had no right to enter.

  Meanwhile, in one of the darker booths toward the back of the hall, where the lamplight thinned to a murky amber and the raucous laughter softened into a distant, indistinct roar, two figures had sat and watched the events unfold much differently than their compatriots. They did not join in the cheers or the mocking reenactments. Instead, one of their gazes tracked the room with measured intent, while the other lingered on the faces and gestures. Noting the way the other adventures bravado had curdled into cruelty when given an audience. Here, the tavern’s noise gave way to a different rhythm altogether: the quiet, methodical scrape of chairs, the murmur of professional voices, the steady work of the guild dolls at their desks. The dolls moved with efficient precision as quills scratched across parchment while keys on the few auto-memory recorders the guild hall had clacked in a crisp, mechanical cadence. Now and then, a doll paused to confer with another in low tones, their expressions neutral, professional, betraying nothing of personal opinion as they worked.

  Kavisha reclined against the booth’s cushioned back as though it had been built expressly for her comfort, one leg crossed neatly over the other. Her posture was always loose and almost cat like. It was the posture of someone who understood the power in a performance and how to appear untouchable even when the world was anything but kind. As an apsara, she stood out even among the guild’s collection of oddities, as they were not usually found this far east. Her skin was a smooth, pale gray that caught the lamplight softly, setting off the sharp planes of her cheekbones and the elegant angle of her jaw. Red eyes watched the room with lazy attentiveness, their intensity softened by the faint scatter of bioluminescent freckles dusting her face like fallen stars, glowing gently whenever she shifted in out of the lantern light.

  Her white hair was tied in an ankalipin (braided pig tails) with black ribbon and worn in a way that was intentionally provocative by apsara standards. It framed her face and drew the eye to her neck and shoulders, an effect she was well aware of and exploited shamelessly. She wore light leather armor, dyed black and fitted loosely enough to allow freedom of movement without revealing too much, paired with baggy trousers tucked into calf-length boots scuffed from honest use. The cut of her clothing blurred expectations by design, concealing as much as it suggested, inviting mistaken assumptions and then punishing those foolish enough to act on them.

  Weapons, however, were never concealed for long around Kavisha. Daggers rested openly at her hips, with others hidden in places only she seemed to remember. She had once joked and more than once, that if she ever forgot where she’d hidden a blade, she deserved whatever happened next. A curved scimitar rested within easy reach on the table.

  The ensemble was meant to evoke an exotic image while also serving a practical purpose of disguising her gender. Among her people, apsara men and women were nearly indistinguishable when clothed. With men only lacking breasts and the glowing freckles, though few non-apsara knew this distinction well enough to notice. Both sexes dressed alike, differing only in subtle variations of cut, fabric color, or ornamentation. Long hair braided into the ankalipin was traditionally reserved for only men and was about the only fact non apsara knew of Apsaran culture in order to tell the genders apart.

  Kavisha knew all of this, and she used it expertly to her advantage. Knowing one wrong slip could land her in life worse than hell. She had watched the guild doors with a faint, knowing smile as they finally stilled. “Ah,” she murmured, voice low and velvety. “And there she goes.”

  Across from her sat Lucien, who did not so much occupy the booth so much as overwhelm it. In truth, he rarely seemed to fit anywhere at all, a problem that had begun when he and Kavisha had turned 12 and the orc had begun to grow at an alarming pace.

  Lucien was massive even by orcish standards, and especially so for one who had grown up hungry and orphaned on the city streets. Most orcs topped out at an even six feet with broad shoulders. However, Lucien stood just over seven feet and weighed a staggering thirty-five stone. He had shoulders wider than 2 stout dwarfs and arms as thick as tree trunks. While his chest was a great barrel beneath his tunic, rising and falling slowly as if even breathing required consideration. To most he was the very image of an orcish barbarian who might have terrorized the imperial heartland a century ago.

  Lucien's green skin even bore many scars. The pale lines and puckered marks, however, told a story far less heroic than most first assumed. Most of Lucien's scars were the ugly souvenirs of childhood cruelty. The older boys and even some of the girls liked to pick on Lucien who was often too timid and mild mannered to fight back. They would take out their own frustrations at the world out on Lucien whose large size made them feel strong and superior whenever they beat him up. Kavisha had been the exception, having been with Lucien since they were at least 4 though neither had any memories other than growing on the street. Time and again she had stepped between Lucien and his tormentors. She would often fight 4 or more of his bullies at once and while at first, she had gotten a beating like Lucien, she'd learned how to fight and by the time they were old enough to join the adventures guild most of the bullies had learned to walk away if Kavisha was around. He was perched sideways on the bench, one knee jutting awkwardly into the aisle. His shoulders were hunched forward as he tried to make himself appear smaller than he was. And as usual he failed.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Behind Lucien, leaning against the wall was his mage’s staff. It was an old thing, and its wood was darkened and smoothed by the countless hands that had used it before him. The enchantments woven into the staff were tired and the magic was thin and unreliable. Unfortunately, staffs were expensive and far beyond what a street-born orc could easily replace. Thus, since it still worked, most days, it was good enough.

  On the table between them lay Lucien’s spellbook, open and unmistakably well-loved. Its pages were warped and stained from long use, corners softened and darkened by countless turns. Within the margins had been written in a very neat, painstakingly small script with various notes. It was remarkable for someone who was farsighted and cursed with hands so massive that most quills felt like twigs.

  Magic had fascinated Lucien since he was a small boy with the patterns, the principles, and the quiet logic beneath magic speaking to the deeply scholarly part of his mind. Unfortunately, learning magic was nearly impossible for an orphan and harder still for an orc. But Lucien had persisted with stubborn indifference and thanks to Kavisha.

  Because of her, he had learned to read and write and only because Kavisha had talked a reluctant tutor into giving them lessons in exchange for chores. After their first year of adventuring together, it was Kavisha who had pressed the spellbook and the battered staff into his hands as if they were nothing special. Lucien had cried then and nearly crushed her in a massive, grateful embrace that she complained about for days afterward.

  As Lucien wiped ale from his mouth with the back of his hand. With the motion an excuse to hide the flicker of disgust that tightened in his stomach. The laughter which was still echoing through the hall scraped at something old and raw inside him. As it was too close to the way boys his own age had used to laugh at him when they knocked him into the ground for sport. His eyes briefly lingered on the guild doors as if the girl might still be there, trembling on the other side. “Poor girl,” he muttered, voice low as he glanced across the table at Kavisha.

  Unlike him, Kavisha was grinning broadly with the same wide, sharp, and bright-eyed grin she always wore when the world presented her with a problem she could turn into profit. Lucien recognized it instantly. He sighed, heavy and resigned, shoulders slumping just a little.

  “That girl doesn’t deserve sympathy,” Kavisha said, clicking her tongue as if correcting a child. She leaned back in the booth, boots braced casually against the bench. “Why she was even allowed down here by her minder, I don’t know.” Her lips curled in contempt. “Idiot nobles. Always assuming the world will bend out of their way.”

  Lucien blinked, then tilted his head, considering her words with the slow, careful thought which she loved to mock him for. With Kavisha often saying he spent more time thinking than talking. He opened his mouth then closed it again, deciding to not speak. He already knew where this was going, and part of him didn’t want to hear it spoken aloud. So, he said nothing, lifting his tankard instead and taking a long, steady swallow.

  Kavisha watched him over the rim of her cup for a moment before finally huffing. “Cat got your tongue, big brother?” she teased, sticking her tongue out at him in a childish, familiar gesture meant to provoke a reaction. To which Lucien only shrugged amiably, his ale sloshing in his tankard as he set it down.

  “Fine,” Kavisha snapped, exasperation flashing across her face. “I’ll tell you what I’m thinking.” She said as she began rolling a coin across her knuckles, the metal flashing once in the lamplight before disappearing neatly back into her purse. When she spoke again, her tone shifted once more to be all business. “All right. As you know, we’re down a front-liner,” she said. “And of course it happens right when we’ve got a job no one wants, even though it pays a pretty shilling.” Lucien winced despite himself at the statement.

  Their last front-liner, Turon who was an arrogant blowhard, had been many things, none of them admirable. A former soldier who had somehow survived the eastern frontier despite possessing the survival instincts of a concussed goat, he’d swaggered through life convinced nothing could touch him. Then he’d stepped on a trap two days after they’d accepted the sewer contract, laughed it off, and slapped a healing potion on the wound, which he hadn’t even bothered to clean. He’d been dead of sepsis forty-eight hours later. “Idiot,” Kavisha muttered angrily at the thought of their dead former comrade. “And now it’s Monday.”

  Lucien nodded in understanding. Just three days, that’s all they had left to find a replacement before the contract defaulted and they’d have to forfeit the job and pay a large fine. And despite the generous pay, no one was lining up to hunt monsters in the damp, stinking city sewers.

  Kavisha leaned forward, resting her elbows lightly on the table, her posture casual. The shifting shadows caught the bioluminescent freckles scattered along her cheekbones, coaxing them into a faint glow, like distant stars emerging at dusk. “You noticed her armor,” she questioned Lucien. To which he nodded, lifting his massive shoulders in a shrug and said, “Hard not to and it looked expensive.” “ Yup and custom-fitted,” Kavisha agreed smoothly. “I even noticed some protection runes, which had to have been etched by a professional.”

  Lucien frowned, scratching thoughtfully at his chin. “So… she’s a rich noble.” “Yes,” Kavisha said without hesitation. “And young. And painfully earnest.” Lucien hesitated, then added, “And alone?” For the first time, her grin faltered. Just for a heartbeat. “Most likely not,” she said. Then, after a pause, she continued. “In fact, I think I have a very good idea who her father is.” Lucien’s brow furrowed as he turned the thought over. His eyes widened a fraction. “No, Kavisha.”She smirked. “Oh yes. My money’s on her being the duke’s daughter.”

  Lucien groaned softly, dragging a hand down his face. Every instinct he had screamed trouble, but he knew better than to interrupt her once she’d set her sights on something. Still, he tried. “Kavisha...” She shot him a sideways glance, which was as sharp as a thrown blade. “Don’t start,” she said. “I just mean,” Lucien said carefully, choosing each word like it might explode if mishandled, “maybe we don’t need to...”

  “We do,” she cut in smoothly. “We need a front-liner.” That shut him up. Kavisha’s smile returned, slow and predatory. “A noble knight,” she murmured. “Trained. Armored. Desperate to prove herself.” Lucien looked up at her. “You’re thinking...”, he started. “I’m thinking,” Kavisha said, voice low and satisfied, “that she’s perfect.” He frowned. Sympathy twisted uncomfortably in his chest for the girl. “She was humiliated,” Kavisha said flatly, already following the shape of his thoughts. “That makes people pliable. "Lucien swallowed. “That feels…Bad.”

  Kavisha tilted her head, studying him with fond amusement, the same look she always wore when he said things like that. Like a fox watching a very large, very loyal hound who didn’t quite understand why teeth were useful. “Oh, Lucien,” she said softly. “You’re too nice for this world.” She leaned closer, lowering her voice until it slipped easily between the cracks of the tavern’s noise. “We won’t hurt her. We’ll help her.” His eyes widened slightly. “Help her?” “Of course,” Kavisha purred. “We offer to mentor her. Guide her through the adventurers’ guild. Teach her how things really work.” “And we take…?” Lucien asked, already knowing the answer.

  “Most of the pay,” she said lightly. Lucien sat with that for a long moment, staring into the amber depths of his tankard. He didn’t like it. He didn’t like it at all. But he knew better than to think he could stop her and worse, he knew she was probably partially right. “Well,” he said at last, voice resigned, “when you put it like that…”. Kavisha smiled as he agreed. Lucien raised his tankard, hesitating only a moment. “To… helping nobles,” he said uncertainly. Kavisha clinked her own untouched tankard against his, her eyes bright with anticipation. “To opportunity,” she said.

  The Apsara are inspired by the Indian nymphs of the same name, as well as the Muses of Greek mythology and Chinoiserie architecture.