Sophia frowned. “That’s an awfully precise prediction.”

  Los’en shrugged easily. “It’s close, based on what’s happened elsewhere after the Templars take over a city. I saw it happen in Agathon-on-the-Sea. I saw it fail in Hailport, but that was mostly luck. The Registry Master, Arryn, set the Templars to hold vital but dangerous positions because of their strength. Many fell.”

  Sophia glanced at Dav and sent him a silent question. “Does he mean the Arryn we know, the old merchant?”

  “Has to be,” Dav answered telepathically without even looking at Sophia. “He was the Registry Master during the fight against the cats.”

  Dav continued the thought out loud. “That would be after Catshold turned people into cat monsters, right?”

  “You know about it?” Los’en sounded startled. “That was a decade ago, more or less, wouldn’t you two have been children then? It wasn’t all that close to Casterville, either.”

  “We met Arryn,” Sophia answered. “He talked about it. He’s a traveling merchant now.”

  “Aymini, too,” Dav added. “She told the story a little differently, but it was definitely the same event. You were involved, too?”

  “Yeah, that was one of the last trips I made outside the Skylands,” Los’en agreed. “I was no one important, just another sword to kill the Warped. I was strong enough to be placed with some of the Templars and I heard some things that made me take another look at what happened in Agathon-on-the-sea. It seemed natural until I added some of the things I heard together with what I saw.”

  Los’en paused, sighed, and shook his head. “My last trip out of the Skylands took me back to the ruins of Agathon-on-the-sea. It lasted no more than fifteen years after the Templars took control. It was a weaker node point than Izel and closer to its capacity, but how long had they been pushing for that before they took over? That I cannot say, but I see the same happening here and it must stop.”

  Sophia frowned. “Is Hailport a spot where mana is stronger, then, like Izel? I thought it was a Nexus city, like Casterville.”

  “Ah, no, sorry,” Los’en shook his head. “I’ve confused you. Hailport is a Nexus city, a place supposedly safe for the weak with little defense. It is also very close to a Wilderness, an unsettled place full of magic. They were sending out expeditions and even settlements into the Wilderness, trying to tame it with a new Nexus network. It can work; that’s how Hailport itself was settled.”

  “Wow, you’re old.” Amy’s words sounded breathless. Sophia didn’t even have to look at her to know she was being heavily sarcastic.

  “And you’re still a foolish pup,” Los’en countered with a glance at his niece. “I’ve read the journals. I know you have, too.”

  “Ehhh,” Amy temporized. “Read, yeah. Remember, well, Lan’ti’s the heir, so…”

  “Uh huh,” Amy’s uncle gave her a doubting look. “Is this the girl who gave me an entire lecture on the sea monsters in the Dyssa River before I left when she was twelve to try to keep me home, mostly cribbed from that exact journal?”

  Amy turned bright red. “I thought you forgot about that!”

  Los’en smiled at his niece. “Now how could I forget such a detailed and timely project?I did go by the Dyssa on my journey after all. I didn’t see any of the monsters, but I also didn’t take a barge down the river.”

  Amy fidgeted with her belt for a moment, then admitted, “Okay, yes, I’ve read the journal. Doesn’t mean you’re not old though.”

  Los’en chuckled. “Old enough to remember when you were a wee thing, ‘tis true. I’d just gotten back from my own walkabout when your mother went and had you.”

  He sighed and the smile fell off his face as he looked up at Sophia and Dav. “I came back without a team, couldn’t find anyone I trusted enough to travel with, and that was before I knew what the Broken Temple was doing. The fact that you two aren’t Templars is a good start, but it’s not enough. Who are you two and why should I trust you with my niece?”

  “I’m working with them, not marrying them!” Amy exclaimed. “What the heck, Uncle! You don’t have to make sure they can take care of me!”

  Los’en laughed. It wasn’t a happy laugh; if anything, it sounded bitter. “That’s exactly why I have to ask them who they are. If they were local, like Lan’ti’s team, I’d already know who they are and who can and can’t be trusted. I don’t know them and really neither do you. Especially not since I know you didn’t meet them before Casterville and you came here directly from Casterville.”

  He paused for a moment, then added, “And yes, I already know about your experience in the Spirits of the Woods Challenge. It’s an impressive set of results, but that only makes me more worried. We taught you everything we could, and the Skylands is one of the few shards with a long history of using stable Challenges for Abilities. Are you from the Ice Mountains or the Far Desert? Those are the only others I know of, unless you count the Maze settlements.”

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  “We’re not from the Broken Lands,” Dav answered easily. He wrapped his arm around behind her, then set the hand comfortingly on her shoulder. He was telling her that she had his support, but that he didn’t see any way around telling Amy’s uncle some things. “Sometimes an outside perspective helps. We both have tricks, but I have to give most of the credit to Sophia. I wouldn’t know anything about magic without her.”

  Sophia didn’t disagree with Dav, even if she wished she’d had a chance to prepare. On the other hand, how could you really prepare to tell someone that everyone around you was missing the obvious? She reached up and covered Dav’s hand with her own, then took a deep breath. “Where do you want me to start? The rewards from stable challenges are setup like they’re supposed to be read as spellforms, but the script is weird, the connections are missing, there are no Intent descriptors, and the outer form of the reward seems to have something to do with what Ability it becomes but not what spell it becomes. The whole Grand Spell or Grand Ability and Fragments thing is weird and kind of pointless, too; why are there even limits on how many spells you can learn? They’re just spellforms, a different shape and Intent for the magic.”

  Amy’s uncle gave Sophia a long look. His lips twitched, but he managed to keep enough control of his expression that Sophia wasn’t certain what it meant. She suddenly wished he was in the mental link the way Dav, Amy, and Taika were; then she’d know what the expression meant.

  “That’s good to know, but not what I want to know. Who are you? Where are you from?” Los’en paused for a moment, then added, “And are you actually Warped? You look a lot like a Desert Elf and Dav resembles a lizardkin, but neither of you are quite what I’d expect.”

  Dav didn’t wait for Sophia to answer. He back stiffened and his expression went cold. “Sophia isn’t, but I am. Warped, that is. I used to be human, but when we fell between worlds, we were in a place that both was and wasn’t at the same time. She could take it. I couldn’t. Is that a problem?”

  Dav was clearly upset, even if he tried to hide it. His hand tightened on Sophia’s shoulder as he spoke, so she tightened her grip to make sure he knew she was there for him, too.

  Weirdly, Los’en seemed to relax a little. “No. Not unless you make it a problem.”

  Sophia frowned, then glanced at both Dav and Amy. Neither of them seemed to have any more idea of what Los’en was talking about than she did. “Then why did you ask?”

  Amy’s uncle sighed. “Both Desert Elves and lizardkin live in the Far Desert. I don’t really think that’s where you’re from, but if you’ve come here for bad purposes, hiding your origins might be important. People from the Far Desert would never hide behind being Warped, whether it was true or not; it’s far too much of a taboo. I’m sorry, but I had to know.”

  “Is there something wrong with the Far Desert?” Amy tilted her head to the side as she asked. “I know you and Modir didn’t want me to go there, but I thought that was because it was too dangerous.”

  “It is,” Los’en agreed. “Your mother probably told you there were too many dangerous monsters, which is true, but they also have their own customs, and that’s even more dangerous. If you went there on your own, you’d have to be prepared to defend yourself. If you went with Dav and Sophia … actually, that might be fine. They’d probably guess that Dav and Sohia are from somewhere remote in the desert, and no one messes with the people who live deep in the Far Desert’s Wildlands.”

  “People live in the Wildlands?” Amy sounded shocked.

  Los’en shrugged. “A few. They’re either people who are strong enough to survive or people who are stealthy enough to not be noticed; either way, you don’t want to piss them off. Sophia has good enough aura control to pass, certainly; I can barely tell she’s there. Dav feels a little strange, which also fits.”

  “Why do people keep mistaking me for an elf?” Sophia wasn’t certain if she was amused or annoyed. Most people didn’t comment on what they thought her heritage was, but both of the people who had thought she was some kind of elf. She’d never heard of a nonhuman species that called themselves elves, any more than she’d heard of one that used the term dwarf.

  But then, there were an awful lot of people here that looked almost like humans but weren’t. After the stories she’d heard about the Warped, it was enough to make her wonder if everyone here was actually human, with a few alterations they’d inherited from their ancestors.

  “It’s the ears,” Los’en answered helpfully. “Pale skin and pointy ears means elf of one sort or another. I know you’re not a wood elf, because their horns look more like antlers, but desert elves have several different horn types; I think there’s a hornless group as well. Actually, now that I think about it, there are some elves in the far east of the Skylands with horns a lot like yours. I think they call themselves moon elves?”

  Sophia shook her head. “Well, I’m not. I’m half dragon, more or less, I just look mostly human. We think that’s because Mom appears human. Dad can look almost human, I’m somewhere between that and Mom.” She paused, then muttered the same thing she thought almost every time she opened her Status. “Not that the Guide seems to know what a dragon is. It seems to think I’m a Warped human.”

  Los’en frowned. “Dragons are mythical monsters, sort of like a large basilisk, right? Basilisks are bad enough, I don’t want to think about trying to fight a basilisk that is the size of a person.”

  Sophia sighed. It was clear that he didn’t know what a dragon was, either. At least he’d heard of her kind, even if it was just in stories; that was something. “A large dragon could be bigger than this building,” Sophia informed him. “They eat rocs. I mean the bird, not stones.”

  “Bird?” Los’en didn’t seem to have ever heard of a roc.

  Somehow, explaining that turned into talking about Sophia’s home planet and other worlds she’d been to, along with dungeons she’d seen, monsters, and alien species. Los’en and Amy compared them to what they knew and what they’d seen in Challenges. Dav didn’t say much, but every time Sophia glanced at him, he was happily listening to the tales. Taika couldn’t add much; he didn’t remember much of his life before he landed in the Broken Lands.

  Three hours later, when Los’en said for the sixth time that “he really should be heading home,” he actually left. Sophia was pretty sure he was far happier about them accompanying Amy than he was when he arrived. He even seemed to be convinced that they weren’t from the Broken Lands.

  I find natural banter surprisingly difficult to write; all too often, it just feels stilted. I’m pretty happy with how it came out in this chapter.