A week had gone by in a flurry of activity. The towers were complete, two of them. Loralie and the mages with her had moved into a tower attached to the wall surrounding my own tower. Their new tower stood three stories tall, and nearer to the back. If I drew a line from my tower to it from above, the line would continue and point directly at the cellar beneath my lake.

My new assistants had done well in the construction, with two basement laboratories and several decent-sized bedrooms. The beds and other furniture ordered from the town of Lark for Kine’s village had been diverted, but those villagers never complained to me about it. My former assistant was looking more worn by the day, but such is what comes with true responsibility.

The other tower to be completed was my guards’ tower. Situated next to the gate, the tower had been increased in size from just the kennel for Eni’s wolves to now hold several bedrooms, an armory, and a larger bedroom on top. With just Eni and Tond living there, it gave them a lot of room to themselves, but Leslie had sent word that a handful of renounced bandits were making their way here to pledge into service and I didn’t especially want them sleeping in the tower any longer.

I wasn't certain how many guards would show and felt that they should have their own space like a proper barracks. I no longer had the time nor the interest in sorting them out, either. I would leave that task to my current guards Tond and Eni whenever they arrived.

I was currently watching the sunrise from my tower and could see Loralie and Pyl doing the same from the top of theirs. A whispered cool morning breeze blew down from the mountains. The new wines I had brought from Sena City had done much to provide a needed variety for my drink and I was sipping on a delicious plum wine that reminded me of the vintage served at the castle. Chelsea had even prepared a breakfast of fruit-bread for me to nibble at. While it didn’t have the same sweetness as what I had tasted, it was close enough.

While the sunrise was interesting to watch, I was doing two other things while I ate. The fifth-tier assassin I suspected the king to send to try to kill me would arrive any day now, and I was retooling one of nearly thirty different traps for the man. I wanted to catch him alive, and I wasn’t sure entirely what his class skills would contain. In other times, it would have been a risk not worth taking, but I wanted revenge and needed the man for a step in that process.

I was also listening in on Pyl and Loralie’s conversation.

“I love it here! I am not looked down on by any of the villagers. My work is respected. Respected! And we work under Wizard Fargus, one of the most famous men in the entire kingdom. I am entirely glad to have come,” Pyl was telling Loralie in an animated fashion.

Loralie gave me an occasional glance that told me that not only did she know I could hear everything, but that she started the conversation just for that reason. With a mischievous smile, she asked him, “So, it sounds like you are happy here. But things cannot be entirely perfect. Surely, you have some complaint.”

Pyl sighed and shook his head, “No, nothing of substance. There is only one thing that bothered me the entire time we’ve been here. Other than that, it’s been a dream.”

“Oh?” Loralie egged him on.

I smiled and took a sip of my wine as I waited for his answer as well.

Pyl looked up at the sky and muttered to himself for a moment before straightening his robe, “Yes! It’s those stupid chairs at his table! For a wizard as powerful and famous as he is, why does he have such uncomfortable chairs?! I thought my rear had turned to zombie flesh that first day we met.”

Loralie laughed, a beautiful melodious sound, and smiled, “Yes, it does beg the question why would he have those chairs. Even I was uncomfortable.”

Pyl went on, almost as if she hadn’t said anything, “Uncomfortable is the wrong word for it. It rises above things like comfort. I believe those chairs are designed for torture.”

I chuckled at the melodramatics. Pyl certainly was an energetic fellow for a [Necromancer]. They continued on in that fashion, describing the painstaking effort it took to remain seated when we met until the sun rose.

I’d finished my breakfast and the latest trap for the assassin, and had only stayed after the sun rose to see if there was anything else of importance they were discussing. Pyl took his leave and left as Loralie leaned out over the small wall around the top of her tower. Her illusion made it look like the crone was resting her head on her hands, but her real body was propped up by her elbows.

“Did you enjoy that, Mister Fargus?” she asked, just loud enough for me to hear but no one else.

I smiled, “It was,” I paused to find a good word, eventually settling on a word that was close enough, “entertaining.” Knowing that my chairs caused the desired effect was a good start to my morning. The feeling of satisfaction paired well with the taste of plum wine.

“There is some distance between us,” she said, changing topics. While she might have meant the physical separation of the towers, I doubted it. “Do you know how long we half-elves live?”

It was a question I didn’t know the answer to. I hadn’t met another half-elf my entire life, and the one time I had tried to reach out to full elves I learned how they thought of my kind. If elves looked at humans like dogs, then half-elves were an abomination, evidence of a perversion. Raised with full elves, they might have looked at me as a pet. Raised outside I was a stray. “No,” I answered.

She gave the wind a pained smile. “Five hundred years, when we aren’t murdered. I have met three others of our kind, older brothers and a sister. Truly, we are likely siblings as well. Not many elves would lay with a human.”

I stored that knowledge carefully as my hopes of romance started to wither away, but she just tightened the noose on my emotions even more with her next words.

“Even as siblings, I could look past it. Being infertile has some advantages. However, there is something you should know about me, Nemon.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath before speaking, “I am four hundred and eighty years old. You would have more time with a human than I have remaining.”

She turned then, to look at me, and I could see the shimmering of tears not fallen in her eyes, “I am still interested, if you so choose.”

I was stunned by her words and the emotions she lay bare. Was she telling the truth of her age? Was this some kind of test to see if I would choose her even if she would die in a few short decades? Was she telling the truth that we might be siblings? I felt my palms begin to sweat and my mouth went dry.

There was a part of myself that had hoped, even when I knew I shouldn’t have. I thought I had prepared myself better for such an event. I thought I had divested myself of the dream of not being alone year after year. But, in a few short meetings with her, in less than a season’s time, I had my hopes raised and thrashed.

How could I be so arrogant to think that fate would find me a companion? Allow me love without the pain of loss? I was angry. Not with her, but with myself. Perhaps, because of that anger, I made a hasty decision, but… but I couldn’t find it in myself to extend more than I already had. There was only so much hope that could be lost.

With resignation, I looked back at her and dropped my illusion. The least I could do is show her my real face as I answered. Yet, I didn’t need to answer at all. The look upon my face must have been clear enough for Loralie.

I watched as a tear rolled down her cheek only for her to pat at it with her hand. “Oh, I’m crying. I thought I’d forgotten how, Nemon Fargus.”

She said nothing else to me as she returned into her tower. I waited until she left to breathe a shuddering breath. The feeling of guilt I felt from my decision mixed with the loss of hope and the well of loneliness inside me to set my stomach rolling.

Of all the ways today could have gone, this was perhaps the worst. The morning’s chilly breeze felt much colder now.