Tales of Thistledown Ch. 01

"Certainly. Bring me a bowl filled with water." He rose and stretched, his muscles rather gloriously taut against his bare skin. Reaching to a nearby table, he took the earthenware pot I used to wash my face in the mornings and set it on the mattress in front of me. Then, he kneeled and pulled a small flask from his discarded trousers, uncorked it and poured its contents into the pot.

I sniffed it. "Spirits?"

"Will it work?" He climbed back onto the bed, legs crossed and waiting patiently.

"It'll do." I reached to my neck and held the owl pendant. Closing my eyes, I muttered a few words of magic, and images began to swirl in the clear liquid in front of me. A grisly scene of a massacre, disemboweled horses and human corpses littered around a dirt road, whisked away in a moment and replaced with a hissing serpent, a cawing rooster, and the mouth of a cave surrounded by vines.

"There you have it." I let go of my medallion, watching the images fade away into the liquor, fragmenting and dissolving in wisps of color.

"What? I didn't see anything," he protested.

"Because you weren't looking."

"I was, too! It just turned sort of murky for a moment, that's all."

"To you, maybe. Scrying is an intricate and mysterious form of art."

"Well, don't leave me in suspense." He sat forward eagerly, chin in his hands.

I closed my eyes and opened them. "The monster's a cockatrice."

"Cock, did you say?"

"Are you serious? This is a dangerous beast!" I exclaimed.

"All right, all right," he laughed. "Any idea where my quarry might be hidden?"

"I saw its lair. Some cave."

"How helpful. An intricate and mysterious art, surely."

I scowled. "I gave you the information you wanted. Now what?"

"Now I do my job. Something needs killing, I kill it."

"Surely you don't mean to stand alone against a cockatrice!"

"Sweet of you to be concerned for me." He yawned, pushing dark locks of hair out of the front of his face. "I can handle myself, though, I assure you."

"I'm not concerned," I hissed. "But this thing is above your pay grade, and you know it."

He shrugged. "I do this, or I walk back to the Order with my tail between my legs. Not much of a choice, if you ask me."

I wet my lips. I didn't have his blood, yet, and I probably never would if he got himself killed fighting a cockatrice. Could I afford to accompany him? Horace would be delighted to have me out of the castle for a few days, no doubt. Then again, it could be fun to have him worry if I left without telling anyone. Let him stew over what plots I might be devising behind his back.

"All right." I took my discarded chemise and pulled it over my head.

Marion stared at me, bemused. "Leaving already? I thought we might have another round."

"No time to lose." I smiled sweetly at him. "After all, you do want to impress your precious Order, don't you?"

"Well... yes." He looked at me, blankly. "Do you mean to assist me in some way?"

"Why, of course, dear," I laughed. "I mean to kill the monster for you."

His eyebrows shot up, and he clambered off the bed in a hurry. "You're serious, aren't you? If this is about harvesting the beast's body for your magic, I'm afraid the Order takes one hundred percent of the spoils unless otherwise stipulated in the contract... "

"You can keep your spoils," I snapped. "I want to keep you alive. That's what I'm getting out of this."

"Ah, the blood magic. And my cock, if we're being honest with ourselves."

I snorted. "If we're being honest. Let's go."

"What, right this minute?" He nearly pouted. "I had been planning to depart at first light on the morrow, perhaps spend an evening in town gathering information, as one does."

"Whoring or wenching, you mean. We leave immediately."

"How immediately?" He grinned, putting his hands on my waist, the flimsy chemise the only separation between my breasts and his hungry, dark eyes.

"Immediately." But I could already feel my resolve wavering.

We left a few hours later.