Chapter 7: Glenhaven
The well-maintained cobblestone road was a welcome change from the complete lack of anything resembling a pathway the group had been traveling through only two hours earlier. After setting Kibb to his final rest on a peaceful grassy patch overlooking a small but beautiful waterfall along the river Jamie and Ember had been following south, Grack had led the group northwest, deeper into the forest.
Jamie had quickly learned that her initial decision to follow the river south had been the wrong call.
Grack had explained that the river would indeed eventually lead to civilization. If Jamie and Ember had continued following it, they probably would have reached the edge of the forest within a week.
Unfortunately, it wouldn't have been the kind of civilization friendly to a newly arrived Dryad.
Apparently, the lands south of the Great Dryad Forest had a thriving slave trade, although it came with one important caveat: only Spirit-folk were legally allowed to be held as slaves. Dryads very much fell into that category. Even among other Spirit-folk, however, Dryads were exceedingly rare, which made them highly prized. According to Grack, a single Dryad could sell for tens of thousands of gold.
Jamie had been told that was a lot of money in this world.
She still didn't have enough context to understand exactly how much money they were talking about, but tens of thousands of anything sounded like more than enough incentive for the wrong sort of person to see Jamie walking alone through the wilderness and start thinking about profit.
The thought of being captured and sold sent a cold shiver down Jamie's spine. That feeling had only gotten worse after she'd learned one of the primary reasons Dryad slaves were so highly prized.
Dryads apparently made for excellent sex slaves.
Jamie had needed a minute after hearing that one.
Being reincarnated as a beautiful woman had come with a growing list of complications she hadn't exactly anticipated when she'd decided to make the best of her new situation. Getting kidnapped and sold to some wealthy creep because she was a rare and particularly desirable piece of merchandise had now found itself a comfortable spot near the top of that list.
“So, you can really dispel curses?” Shaman Eriy asked with great fascination as she looked up at Jamie.
The goblin shaman wasn't at all what Jamie had envisioned a goblin would look like after finding out the people approaching her campsite had been goblins. In Jamie's imagination, the word had conjured up something small, ugly, hunched over, and vaguely monstrous. Eriy wasn't any of those things.
Well, except small.
She only came up to about Jamie's shoulders, which Jamie guessed put her somewhere in the four-foot-six range. Eriy was slender but still had a distinctly womanly shape to her, and while she wasn't gorgeous in the same way Jamie's new body was gorgeous, there was a cuteness factor about the goblin shaman that was difficult to ignore. Her skin was an unusual gray-green, and the red hair framing her face stood out beautifully against it. Most striking of all were her green eyes. They weren't quite the same brilliant shade as Jamie's, but they were close enough to immediately draw her attention.
Under the right circumstances, Jamie could easily have imagined making a move on Eriy.
The circumstances being that Jamie was still in her old body.
“Yes, I can, but to be honest, I haven't actually used the spell yet,” Jamie confessed.
“Wow,” Eriy said. “I've never heard of a spell being able to do that before.”
“Well, that's not entirely true,” Eriy quickly corrected herself. “There are legends about such Skills, but they were just that—legends.”
The fascination in Eriy's voice was unmistakable, and the conversation was pretty representative of how the journey had been going ever since the group reached the cobblestone road and Sergeant Grack declared that they'd entered the safe zone.
Before that point, the five goblins had been completely different people.
For the first leg of the journey, not one of them had spoken a single word after leaving Jamie's makeshift camp. Every goblin had remained on high alert, their heads constantly turning as they searched the surrounding forest for the slightest sign of danger. Grack had led from the front while the three archers kept their bows ready, their attention shifting constantly between the trees and the path ahead. Even Eriy had been quiet, keeping her crooked wooden staff close at hand as they moved through the undergrowth.
Then their feet had touched cobblestone.
The change had been immediate. The archers had relaxed, their bows no longer held quite so tightly. Grack still kept a watchful eye on their surroundings, but even his posture had lost some of its earlier tension. Whatever this safe zone was, the goblins clearly trusted it.
Eriy, apparently, trusted it enough to make up for several hours of enforced silence.
Her mouth had barely stopped moving since.
She was extremely excited to meet a Druid for the first time in her life, and she'd fired question after question at Jamie about what Druids could do. Unfortunately, Jamie knew very little about what Druids could do herself. She'd politely explained that fact to Eriy more than once, but it didn't seem to have any effect whatsoever on slowing the shaman down.
Jamie was beginning to suspect that nothing would.
That was until Eriy mentioned Kibb's name and his love for stories of legend.
The Shaman grew quiet.
“I'm sorry about what I did to your friend,” Jamie said apologetically.
She felt horrible, and this wasn't the first time she'd tried to apologize for what she'd done. In fact, Jamie was pretty sure it was the fourth.
“No. Lady Dryad, we will speak of this no more. As I told you, the fault is mine, not yours,” Sergeant Grack said over his shoulder.
He stopped walking and turned to face Jamie. Ember was perched atop Jamie's rucksack, her weight barely noticeable against Jamie's back, but the emotions coming through their bond were anything but.
Jamie could still feel the same shame in Ember that she was struggling with herself. Ember blamed herself for putting Jamie in that situation.
I didn't know, Ember sent again. They felt dangerous. They are dangerous, even now. I still sense that in them, but I think feeling dangerous isn't the same thing as threatening.
It's okay, Ember, Jamie sent.
In truth, it wasn't okay. Jamie wasn't okay, either, but she was doing her best to fake it.
“Like I said earlier, it was my choice to bring recruit archers on this mission,” Grack continued. “A veteran archer would have known better than to let you get that close, Princess.”
“The blame is mine. And it is my mistake that calls for atonement.”
The rest of Grack's explanation slipped away as one word completely dominated Jamie's thoughts.
“Princess?”
Grack's eyes widened.
“Send me to the hells!”
“Please forget I said that, Lady Dryad. I already have too much to atone for. If the Elders find out I just told you, they'll have my head on a spike.”
Jamie wanted to press him. Badly.
She didn't.
She had no idea whether have my head on a spike was metaphorical in this world or disturbingly literal, and after what had happened with Kibb, Jamie wasn't particularly interested in finding out. She was already responsible for one death today. She didn't think she could bear having any more blood on her hands.
Grack shook his head once before turning away and continuing along the road northwest.
Jamie watched him for a moment, the word Princess now lodged firmly in her brain.
“Please forgive Grack,” Eriy said quietly beside her. “Kibb was married to Sergeant Grack's younger sister. Now he has to bring her the bad news.”
That stopped Jamie cold.
Whatever questions she'd been preparing to ask about the whole Princess thing suddenly didn't seem nearly as important.
For several uncomfortable minutes, they continued their journey in silence. The only sounds were their footsteps against the cobblestones, the rustling canopy overhead, and the distant calls of creatures somewhere deeper in the forest. Jamie could sense that the sun would be coming up soon. Jamie had only gotten a few hours of sleep before the goblins came and after burying Kibb they had walked through the night.
Eventually, Eriy spoke again.
“You know, as a Shaman, my strongest spells are all curses. I have three, in fact: Curse of Agony, Curse of Despair, and Curse of Weakness.”
Jamie looked over at her as Eriy continued.
“Agony and Despair both come with damage-over-time effects, along with other things, and if I put all three on the same target, their chances of survival are almost nil,” Eriy explained. “I've never fought anyone or anything that could counter that.”
There was a brief pause before Eriy looked up at Jamie with renewed curiosity.
“Do you think your de-curse Skill can really dispel them?”
“I think so,” Jamie said, although she wasn't entirely sure whether that was true or not. The Skill description certainly seemed to imply it could, but Jamie was rapidly learning there could be a fairly substantial difference between reading about one of her abilities and actually using it.
“Would you mind terribly if I cast Curse of Weakness on you, Lady Dryad?”
Jamie gave her a sideways look.
“That one won't hurt or damage you,” Eriy quickly explained. “It only siphons away your mana, and even if you can't dispel it, the effect will go away on its own in twelve seconds.”
“I guess so,” Jamie said.
Truthfully, she was almost as eager as Eriy to find out whether the spell worked as advertised.
Quicker than Jamie thought she could move, the Shaman raised her staff and pointed it directly at Jamie.
“Curse of Weakness.”
Even though Eriy had claimed it wouldn't hurt, the spell hit Jamie like a truck.
The effect was immediate. Jamie felt her mana slipping away at an alarming rate, as though something had reached inside her and opened a drain. The sensation was so sudden and unnatural that panic immediately began clawing its way into her thoughts. For one terrible moment, every instinct screamed that something was horribly wrong before she remembered why they'd done this in the first place.
Jamie fumbled for her wand. Her hands shook as she fought to pull it free, and several long seconds passed before she finally managed to yank it from its holder.
The curse was brutal. She could feel her mana disappearing by the second, and Jamie realized with growing alarm that she wasn't going to make it the full twelve seconds before it was completely depleted.
“Dispel Curse!” she shouted far louder than she'd meant to as she thrust the wand above her head.
And just like that, the curse was gone.
The relief was immediate, but the aftermath wasn't. Jamie's stomach rolled violently, and a splitting headache drove itself through the center of her skull. She swallowed hard, fighting down the sudden urge to vomit as she tried to get her breathing back under control.
“I am sorry, my Lady,” Eriy said.
Before Jamie could respond, the Shaman raised her staff and pointed it at her again. By then the entire group had stopped to watch the display, and everyone seemed nearly as unsettled by Jamie's reaction as she was.
“Cure Wounds.”
Warmth spread through Jamie almost immediately.
“Restore Mana.”
The second spell followed right behind it. Within the span of only a couple of seconds, the pounding in Jamie's head disappeared, her stomach settled, and the awful emptiness left behind by the curse vanished as her mana returned.
Jamie straightened, blinking in surprise.
“Wow. I didn't think that was possible,” one of the archer trainees said.
Jamie wasn't completely sure, but she thought her name was Lilly.
“Do you know what that means?” one of the other archers asked, wonder filling his eyes.
“Yeah. Everything just changed,” Grack said.
Jamie wasn't sure what that was supposed to mean. At the moment, she was mostly just glad the curse was gone.
“Holy crap, that curse sucked.”
Eriy looked mortified, so Jamie gave her the best smile she could manage.
“Shamans are no joke. I'm so glad you guys came to bring us to safety and not to kill us.”
That had been more honest than Jamie intended, but it was the plain truth.
“If that curse was that bad, how bad are the other two?” Jamie asked.
“If you panicked that same way with all three on you, you would have died,” Eriy explained matter-of-factly.
“Oh... Yeah, that's on me,” Jamie admitted. “That was my first time ever being cursed.”
She glanced at the wand still clutched in her hand.
“I'll be more prepared next time.”
The look Eriy gave her suggested she had serious doubts about that statement.
“Then I think we should try,” she suggested. “Only this time, we should use Agony. It is better for you to learn how to deal with this now and not when it counts for real.”
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Jamie wasn't particularly thrilled by the name Curse of Agony.
“Don't worry. I can keep you alive with healing magic,” Eriy continued. “Plus, I want to see if you can cure all curses or just that one.”
That was a good point.
“I'm not going to beat around the bushes, though,” Eriy warned her. “Even with me healing you, you're going to wish you were dead.”
Jamie took a deep breath to steady herself before answering.
“Hit me.”
Eriy was right. It was better to do this here, with a healer standing beside her, than to discover what the curse felt like in the middle of a real fight. Jamie hadn't handled the first one well. She'd panicked, fumbled for her wand, and wasted precious seconds she might not have in the future. If she wanted to survive in this world, she needed to do better.
The echo of her thoughts had barely faded when the curse hit.
Eriy hadn't been lying.
If Jamie had been holding a gun instead of a wand right then, she wasn't sure she would have thought twice about putting herself down. Pain pulsed through her body in vicious waves, centered around her lower back. It felt like someone was standing over her with a jackhammer and taking turns drilling directly into both of her kidneys.
The name Curse of Agony didn't do the spell justice.
This time, though, Jamie knew what she had to do.
Faster than she'd managed before, Jamie forced her wand up and choked out the words through clenched teeth.
“Dispel Curse.”
The agony vanished.
Jamie stood there breathing heavily, her wand still raised as her mind caught up with the sudden absence of pain.
HOL...Y...
“Let's not try the other one,” Jamie managed after collecting herself.
No one answered.
Jamie slowly became aware that the road had gone completely silent. Not one of the goblins spoke. Even Ember had gone quiet.
Jamie didn't know when she'd done it, but Ember had jumped down from the top of her rucksack. The little Kitsune stood between Jamie and Eriy with her body low to the ground, three tails rigid behind her and her hackles raised. A deep growl rumbled from her throat as she stared at the Shaman.
Jamie, are you okay?
Yeah, Ember, I'm fine. Stand down. I asked her to do this, Jamie sent.
Ember didn't move immediately. Her eyes remained fixed on Eriy for another few seconds before her hackles finally began to smooth out and the growl faded. With that problem handled, Jamie shifted her attention to the goblins.
All five of them were staring at her.
More than one had tears in their eyes. To Jamie's surprise, Grack was one of them.
“What?”
Nobody answered.
“I'm fine.”
“Did that hurt like all hell? Yeah, but I'm fine.”
“It's not that,” Eriy finally said. “It's just that you changed the world, and you don't even know it.”
Jamie considered that for a moment.
“It's true. I am pretty special,” she said with complete seriousness.
The journey continued in near silence.
Whatever Eriy and the others believed Jamie had just done, none of them seemed ready to explain it. Jamie considered asking, but after the curses, Kibb, and the revelation that Grack would soon have to tell his younger sister that her husband was dead, she found she didn't have much appetite for another heavy conversation.
Besides, she was exhausted.
They had been traveling for most of the night, and Jamie had long since stopped trying to guess how far they'd gone. Five miles since reaching the cobblestone road seemed reasonable. Maybe more. The forest made distance difficult to judge, and exhaustion wasn't helping.
At least the road made walking easier.
The farther northwest they traveled, the more Jamie began noticing signs that they were getting close to something. The cobblestones had been the first, but soon there were others. The underbrush along the road had been deliberately cleared back several feet, and drainage channels ran alongside the stones wherever the ground dipped low. Every so often, they passed waist-high marker stones set just off the road, their surfaces carved with symbols Jamie couldn't read.
There were smaller paths now, too.
Some disappeared between the trees while others eventually curved back toward the main road. Jamie spotted wagon tracks in the damp earth beside one of them, and not long afterward they passed an old wooden sign mounted between two posts. Several lines of unfamiliar writing had been carved into its face, accompanied by arrows pointing in three different directions.
Jamie couldn't read a single word of it.
She smiled anyway.
A road was one thing.
Road signs meant people.
After nearly twenty-four hours in a forest where almost everything she'd encountered had either tried to eat her, frightened the hell out of her, or turned out to be considerably larger than nature had any business making it, a boring wooden road sign was unexpectedly wonderful.
And not a single slime to be seen anywhere. It seemed someone besides Jamie understood the need for a slime-free world.
Jamie found herself looking for more signs after that.
They weren't hard to find.
A wooden footbridge crossed a narrow creek feeding toward the river somewhere to the south. Farther on, Jamie noticed sections of the forest floor where deadfall had been cleared away and stacked neatly for collection. Some of the enormous trees carried small carved plaques, while others had lanterns hanging from iron hooks driven into wooden posts beside them rather than into the trees themselves.
That detail caught Jamie's attention.
Whoever lived here apparently didn't like putting nails into living trees.
The forest itself was changing as well. It was still unmistakably ancient, but it no longer felt untouched. Jamie occasionally caught movement well beyond the road—not animals this time, but people. Once she glimpsed a small figure carrying a basket before it disappeared behind a massive trunk. Later, something winged crossed between two trees overhead and vanished into the canopy before Jamie could get a good look at it.
Nobody else seemed concerned.
Grack barely glanced in either direction.
Eventually, the road began to climb.
The slope wasn't particularly steep, but Jamie's legs had opinions about encountering a hill after she'd spent most of the night walking. She leaned forward slightly and kept going, promising herself that wherever Grack was taking them had better contain somewhere she could sit down for about twelve consecutive hours.
The trees grew thinner as they climbed. More of the predawn sky became visible through the canopy, the darkness overhead gradually softening from black to deep blue. Birds had begun calling somewhere among the branches, one answering another until the forest slowly filled with their songs.
Jamie hadn't realized how close morning was. They reached the crest a few minutes later. Grack walked over it without slowing.
Eriy followed.
Jamie took another three steps—and stopped.
The road descended before her into a hidden valley surrounded on every side by steep, forested slopes. Mist still clung to the lowest places, pale ribbons drifting between trees and across narrow streams as the last remnants of night slowly surrendered to morning.
And nestled in the middle of it all was Glenhaven. Jamie had been expecting a village. This wasn't a village.
Hundreds of buildings filled the valley below, spreading outward from a broad central settlement and disappearing in places beneath the trees. Some were built from stone, others from timber, while still others seemed to have been constructed around the enormous living trees themselves. Jamie could make out homes, workshops, barns, bridges, towers, and structures whose purpose she couldn't begin to guess. Narrow waterways wound through portions of the settlement, crossed by arched bridges and smaller wooden footpaths.
Lanterns still burned along the streets.
From this distance they looked like hundreds of tiny golden stars scattered across the valley floor, gradually fading beneath the approaching dawn. Smoke rose from dozens of chimneys in thin gray columns before spreading into the cool morning air.
Jamie could see people moving down there. Tiny figures from this height, but unmistakably people. Lots of them.
She forgot how tired she was.
Behind them, the first edge of the sun finally broke above the distant forest. Golden light spilled across the hilltop and rolled down into the valley, touching the highest branches first before reaching the rooftops below. Windows caught the light one after another. Wet shingles gleamed. The streams winding through the settlement flashed silver, and the lingering mist turned gold around the edges.
Jamie just stood there. She didn’t have the words.
Since waking up in this world, her entire experience had been wilderness. Her campfire. Her bedroll. Ember. Trees that went on forever. Every decision had ultimately come back to the same handful of questions: Where could she find water? What could she eat? What might be hunting her? Where could she sleep without waking up inside something else's stomach?
Even the goblins, despite everything she'd learned about them since the fight, had initially entered her life as another danger coming through the trees.
This was different. Somewhere down there, someone was making breakfast. It was such a ridiculously ordinary thought that Jamie almost laughed.
People were waking up. Fires were being lit. Shops would be opening. Children would be complaining about whatever children in this world complained about in the morning. Someone was probably already late for work.
Like Jamie, Ember had gone completely still on Jamie's shoulder.
Glenhaven, she sent softly.
“Yeah.”
Jamie felt a smile slowly spread across her face. Glenhaven. She liked the sound of that.
Grack gave them several minutes before finally continuing down the road. Jamie appreciated that he hadn't hurried her. She suspected the view was nothing special to him or the other goblins, but she couldn't stop looking as they descended into the valley.
The town seemed to grow with every turn in the road.
What had looked like a dense collection of rooftops from the hill gradually separated into individual buildings and streets. The outskirts were much less crowded than the center of town, with homes sitting on larger patches of land surrounded by gardens, small orchards, and fenced areas Jamie assumed were meant for livestock. Several buildings had been constructed against enormous trees, incorporating the living trunks into porches and exterior walls without appearing to damage them. Others were built from dark timber and pale stone, their steep roofs still wet with morning dew.
Glenhaven was waking up. Jamie could hear it now.
A hammer rang somewhere in the distance. A wagon creaked along a road below them, accompanied by the occasional clop of hooves. Voices carried through the valley, too distant for Jamie to make out individual words, and every so often laughter rose above everything else. The smell reached them next. Woodsmoke at first, followed by something cooking that Jamie couldn't identify but which immediately reminded her stomach that breakfast had yet to occur.
They began passing people as they drew closer. Most greeted Grack or one of the other goblins with a wave or a few words, although Jamie noticed more than a few conversations falter when people caught sight of her. Some simply stared. Others whispered to whoever happened to be standing beside them.
Jamie tried not to stare back. She was only moderately successful. There was simply too much to look at.
They were passing one of the larger gardens when something shot out from between two flowering bushes and flew directly across the road.
Jamie stopped.
It was a woman.
A very, very small woman.
She couldn't have been more than twelve inches tall. She had two arms, two legs, a tiny face, and long hair that streamed behind her as she flew. A pair of translucent wings beat rapidly at her back, moving so quickly Jamie could barely follow them. The little woman carried what looked like a rolled bundle of cloth nearly twice her own size, but despite the ridiculous load, she didn't appear to be struggling with it at all. She flew with the unmistakable urgency of someone who had somewhere important to be.
Jamie watched her disappear between two buildings.
Another flew overhead almost immediately afterward, this one carrying a basket that looked far too large for her size.
Then two more followed, doing much the same.
Now that Jamie knew to look for them, they seemed to be everywhere. Some carried baskets or bundles, while others flew between homes and shops. One zipped overhead with a small sack tucked beneath each arm, banking sharply around a building without losing speed.
That one had been male, Jamie noticed, and he seemed to be carrying considerably less weight than any of the females she'd seen so far.
Huh.
Did that count as gender inequality in this world, or was Jamie jumping to conclusions based on a sample size of about five fairies? For all she knew, the males had already finished their work and were enjoying a well-earned breakfast somewhere.
She could practically hear her mother already. She'd been gone for years, but while she was alive, the woman had held some very passionate opinions about the difference between what Jamie's father considered his fair share of the household work and what she considered his fair share.
Probably best not to start an international gender-relations study before breakfast.
Another fairy hovered beside an upstairs window while speaking animatedly with someone inside. Several more darted across the road ahead of them, weaving around pedestrians with the casual ease of people who had apparently been doing this their entire lives.
A few carrying even larger loads worked in teams, coordinating their movements as they hauled bundles through the air that Jamie wouldn't have expected creatures their size to move at all.
Jamie pointed.
“What are those?”
Eriy followed her finger.
“Fairies.”
Jamie looked at her, then back toward the tiny woman disappearing down the street beneath a load that should have dragged her straight out of the sky.
“How are they able to fly like that carrying such heavy loads?”
“First day dealing with magic?” Eriy asked.
“Well... yeah,” Jamie answered.
“Oops. My bad. I knew that.” Eriy glanced toward the fairies. “So, yeah. Magic wings. They're way stronger than they look. A fairy can carry twenty times their own weight.”
Jamie looked up again.
Twenty times?
“And with their energy levels, there's not much that doesn't get done before the day ends,” Eriy continued. There was a note of genuine respect in her voice now. “Fairies are the workhorses of the Spirit-folk. We couldn't live without them.”
Jamie watched another one streak overhead carrying a bundle almost comically larger than she was.
Suddenly, the number of fairies flying around Glenhaven made a lot more sense.
The outer palisade came into view not long afterward.
From the hill it had blended into the surrounding forest, but up close Jamie could finally appreciate how substantial it was. Thick timber formed a wall considerably taller than Grack, reinforced at regular intervals by stone and heavy wooden supports. Living vines wound through portions of the structure, and forest-green runes had been carved into several of the larger posts. Some glowed faintly even in the growing morning light.
The gate itself stood open.
Several goblins guarded the entrance, dressed and equipped considerably better than Kibb and the other recruits had been. Jamie noticed the difference immediately. Their armor fit properly, their weapons were well maintained, and none of them had the slightly nervous alertness she'd seen from the younger archers during the journey.
One of the guards smiled when he recognized Grack. Then his eyes moved over the rest of the group. The smile disappeared.
Jamie watched his gaze move from Grack to Eriy, then to each of the three young archers.
His expression changed. “Where's Kibb?”
Nobody answered immediately. Grack stopped.
The ease Jamie had gradually seen returning to him during the journey disappeared.
“Kibb's soul has been given back to the forest.”
The guard lowered his eyes.
Jamie felt something twist painfully in her stomach. No one looked at her.
The second guard bowed his head as well, and for several seconds there was no sound beyond the distant activity of the waking town and the rustling leaves overhead.
Then the first guard stepped aside.
“May the forest remember him.”
Grack gave a small nod and walked through the gate.
Jamie followed. Glenhaven opened around her.
The difference between seeing the town from above and actually walking into it was almost overwhelming. Streets branched away from the main road in several directions, winding between timber-and-stone buildings, enormous trees, shops, workshops, and homes. Lanterns were being extinguished now as daylight strengthened, while shutters opened overhead and merchants began setting out tables and signs.
The river Jamie had glimpsed from the hill was much larger than she'd realized.
It ran directly through the middle of Glenhaven, broad and slow-moving, dividing much of the town into two halves. Several bridges crossed it at different points, some made from stone and others from timber. Buildings crowded closer to the banks, and small docks extended into the water.
There were people everywhere.
Near one of the bridges, several children were playing along the riverbank. Some were obviously goblins, although seeing goblin children for the first time was almost as strange as seeing the fairies. They were smaller and thinner than the adults, with oversized ears that seemed to move almost as much as they did.
The other children were something else entirely. With their storybook looks, they almost didn't seem real. Any one of them could have belonged in a Sears catalog modeling children's clothing.
At first, Jamie thought they were simply unusually pale children playing in the shallows. Then one of them dove beneath the surface and stayed there.
Jamie watched the spot where he'd disappeared.
Five seconds passed.
Then ten.
The child didn't come back up.
Another disappeared beneath the water after him, followed by a goblin boy who launched himself into the river with an enormous splash.
Jamie's amusement faded. She started looking around for a lifeguard, a parent—anyone—who might have noticed that two children had just disappeared beneath the water and apparently had no intention of resurfacing.
Nobody seemed concerned.
Jamie was becoming concerned enough for everyone.
Just as she was seriously considering whether she needed to jump in after them, one of the pale, blue-haired children suddenly broke the surface halfway across the river. The little girl was laughing her head off as she swam toward the opposite bank at a speed Jamie wouldn't have expected from someone her size.
A few seconds later, the blue-haired boy surfaced near where they'd originally disappeared. He spun around in the water, clearly searching for his missing playmate, only to spot her already halfway to the other side.
Jamie let out the breath she'd been holding, feeling slightly ridiculous about the minor panic.
Farther downstream, several adults of the same unfamiliar race stood waist-deep in the river. One held a long fishing spear, watching the water with patient concentration, while another sat partially submerged beside a small wooden boat, sorting freshly caught fish into a woven basket. None of them seemed remotely bothered by spending their morning half underwater.
Jamie decided guessing was becoming inefficient.
Analyze.
A familiar screen appeared.
STATUS SCREEN
Race: Naiad
Jamie read the word twice.
Naiad.
She looked back toward the river with considerably more interest.
Whatever differences existed between goblins and Naiads apparently hadn't prevented their children from discovering the universal joy of making a ridiculous amount of noise near water.
Jamie smiled. This place was weird. She liked weird; always had.
Jamie’s group continued along the main road, following the river deeper into Glenhaven. Jamie kept finding new things to look at faster than she could process the old ones. Fairies zipped between buildings overhead. Goblins pushed carts or opened shops. Naiads moved between the river and the streets as naturally as anyone else moved between rooms. She saw more than a few Naiad fishmongers selling their early morning catch.
“Fresh fish!”
That made Jamie smile. Then a shadow passed overhead. She looked up.
Five figures swept over the rooftops in a tight formation.
These weren't fairies.
Jamie knew that immediately.
They were larger—still small compared with Jamie, but about the same size as the goblins. More importantly, there was nothing whimsical about them. Jamie didn't need Ember's Danger Sense to tell her these people weren't to be taken lightly. She could feel it in the way they moved. Their formation was too precise, their attention too focused, their movements too disciplined.
They looked like people who knew how to end problems.
All five wore armor, fitted close enough to their bodies that it didn't interfere with their wings. They maintained perfect spacing as they crossed above the town, weapons strapped to their bodies and morning sunlight flashing against metal as they banked together toward the southern edge of the valley.
Jamie stopped walking again.
“What are those?”
This time it was Grack who answered.
“Sprites.”
Jamie watched the five warriors disappear beyond the rooftops.
“They're soldiers?”
“Warriors,” Grack corrected. “They're heading out to patrol the safe zone.”
Jamie looked in the direction they'd gone. Five of them had passed overhead in seconds, moving considerably faster than anything traveling on foot could hope to match.
“They're strong?”
“Very,” Grack said.
Coming from a level-fourteen Shieldbearer who had knocked Jamie several yards through the air with one hit, that answer carried considerably more weight than it otherwise might have.
Grack resumed walking, and Jamie hurried a few steps to catch up.
“Goblins and Sprites make up most of the military strength of the Great Dryad Forest,” he explained. “Our people hold the roads and settlements. The Sprites patrol from above and can cover ground much faster than we can.”
His expression hardened slightly.
“They are one of the reasons slavers do not dare travel too far into our forest.”
Jamie glanced back toward the open gate behind them. The beautiful valley suddenly looked a little different. Glenhaven wasn't safe because danger couldn't reach it.
It was safe because the people who lived here had made damn sure danger knew better than to try.