Aithne heard his voice before she saw him - there was no mistaking that gravelly baritone. Her feet hurried as if of their own volition, until she was nearly skipping when she came upon the classroom.

 

Urag was doing the spriggan demonstration, one of his favorites. The leafy creature stood in its glass enclosure, a slight buzz the only indication it was anything but a gnarled tree. Aithne leaned against the doorway and watched, her mouth lifted into a small smile. She had heard this lecture many times, had even assisted him. In fact, she noted, he was going to need the sap in just a few seconds.

 

It wasn’t a decision; not really. She shifted from the doorway and made her way around the edge of the room, trying to remain inconspicuous. She needn’t have worried – all eyes were on the creature, the first time seeing one for most.

 

She reached the front of the class just as Urag said, “The sap is potent.” He reached behind him and Aithne lifted the jar and handed it to him. He glanced back and she felt the jolt of surprise go through him, but he took the jar as if it was part of the plan and his voice did not falter. “Just a small splash of this could be deadly.”

 

He opened the lid with care as Aithne pushed the human-shaped mannequin covered in rat skin forward. Urag applied a dab of the sap to the mannequin’s arm and, in moments, green shoots sprouted on the spot and grew rapidly, until the entire arm was covered in thin vines. The class gasped and some mumbles broke out, but when Urag spoke again, the commotion ceased.

 

“If it reaches your heart,” Urag splashed more of the sap on the mannequin’s torso and watched as it took root again, this time spreading throughout the chest and stomach, with some climbing the neck toward the head, “you will die, and a brand new spriggan will be born from your corpse.”

 

This was the best part, and Aithne couldn’t stop from grinning as she cast the spell. As the shoots reached their zenith and began to slow, the mannequin jumped forward as if alive, eliciting a few screams from the audience, then waved its arms as if in agony before suddenly stiffening then, with a groan, crashed with dramatic flair to the ground, where it writhed for a few seconds then lay still.

 

Silence greeted this as all eyes – including Urag’s, whose thoughts and emotions betrayed the startled surprise he kept well hidden from his visage – stuck to the “dying” mannequin. Which was Aithne’s favorite part of her favorite part. With a subtle wave, she enticed it to finish the show – sitting up abruptly, raising one fake arm to its fake brow, then falling dramatically back to the ground again, this time dead for good.

 

As always, the surprise of the moment turned to uproarious laughter as the tension broke. Several of the students broke into applause, which Aithne copied, trying to give all credit to Urag.

 

“All right,” he garumphed after a few seconds, “that is it for today. Read the spriggan chapter in Mallory’s. There will be a test tomorrow.”

 

Good natured groans met this as the students gathered their books and headed for the doorway, with not a few casting curious glances in Aithne’s direction. She focused her attention on gathering the tools and setting them in place – the last thing she wanted was to hear the unsolicited thoughts of the curious student body.

 

One of the older students – not a slave, Aithne noted with some surprise (it had always been a slave in the old world) wheeled the spriggan away as Urag and Aithne finished placing the supplies on the cart. Then Urag turned to her.

 

“That was an impressive trick. What was it?”

 

Aithne’s mind went blank for a desperate moment. She started her lips moving before she knew what she was going to say. Fortunately, her brain caught up just in time to form the words into something coherent.

 

“We…you and I, in…in my old world, came up with it together. We called it Urag’s Crashing Cadaver.”

 

Urag laughed, and the sound of it was like a balm to Aithne’s shattered soul. “He thought the presentation was lacking a finishing touch that would make it truly memorable.”

 

“A smart orc, this other Urag of yours!”

 

Aithne didn’t need to read his mind to know he still didn’t believe her story, but she didn’t blame him. Not that that mattered right now - she cast about in desperation for something – anything! – to keep him talking.

 

“Did you know the Archmage has a large number of your books in his rooms?”

 

Urag growled and Aithne tried to hide the hitch in her breath.

 

“Yes. Several of them are ones I need for my research. He keeps assuring me he will bring them back, but…”

 

Aithne grinned and turned her voice sly. “Want me to sneak in and grab them?”

 

For the second time since she had re-met him, Urag laughed. “That would be fantastic! But he has that room warded in nine separate layers. You wouldn’t be able to get in without his permission and, even if he invited you, it would be difficult to sneak any books out.”

 

Aithne frowned. The previous Soren had not had wards of any significance, that Aithne could remember. She had teleported right in after his death. Another curious wrinkle, but not important right now – all that mattered in this moment was to keep him talking.

 

She moved to one of Urag’s favorite topics: “Perhaps his example is what is causing the students such boldness. I noticed there were books from Section MZ that someone had put back in Section D.”

 

“I know!” He looked aggrieved, almost yelling the words, and Aithne quelled another pang of lust as he added, “I tell them not to put away their own books, but do they listen?”

 

“Some things never change. One time, someone filled the entire first row in section R with theoretical arrays books. I have to assume it was on purpose.”

 

That gave Urag pause. “Why would it be on purpose?”

 

“Probably for the pun. Some people think they’re funny.”

 

Urag’s brow wrinkled and Aithne just managed to keep from laughing. “What pun?”

 

“You know.  Here are the books on arrays in section R-A.” It was one of their oldest jokes, from before, made up between them in fits of snorting and guffaws as they worked it out together.

 

He burst out laughing for the third time and Aithne let her pent-up emotion turn into laughter that joined his and, for a moment, it was just the two of them again, husband and wife, and everything was right in the world. She reached out a hand to place it on his arm, half expecting Chtonji to charge into the room demanding food.

 

“Are you ready?”

 

Colette’s voice was like a pail…no, not a pail, an entire ocean of ice-cold water splashed into the room. Aithne froze in place, the laughter dying on her suddenly dry lips as her lungs forgot how to breathe. Urag did not seem to notice – he glanced up, gave Colette the smile that should have belonged to Aithne, and turned toward her.

 

“I am! This will be interesting – I have not gone to town in…years, maybe decades.”

 

Colette laughed, and to Aithne’s ears, she sounded like a braying mule. “I can say for certain it has changed a great deal since you saw it last. Shall we?”

 

“Let me just grab my coin purse.”

 

“Fear not, love, I took the liberty of picking it up from our suite.”

 

The emphasis on the word “our” could have been a trick of Aithne’s ears, born of her growing jealousy and dislike of her once-upon-a-time savior. She knew she was being unfair; knew, for instance, Colette actually had a lovely tinkling laugh that had always made Aithne smile.

 

But as Urag reached Colette and she stepped into his arms, there was no mistaking the brief look of triumph on Colette’s face as she stared at Aithne over Urag’s shoulder. The look was brief because Colette immediately turned the hug into a kiss; a long kiss, the kind usually reserved for private rooms, most often accompanied by a general strewing of clothes. Urag, being his orc self, met her kiss straight on and they continued for long tortuous seconds as Aithne fidgeted, unable to leave because the pair were blocking the door.

 

After they finally left (with Colette tossing one last meaningful glance at Aithne before turning and walking away with an exaggerated sashay of her hips), Aithne found she couldn’t leave after all – her shaking knees would not hold her weight. She collapsed onto a chair and buried her head on her arms on the cool table and tried to choke in the sobs that threatened to wreak her body. In this, as in her futile efforts to seduce her not-husband, she failed.

 

 

Next chapter

 

Previous chapter

 

Start from the beginning