Sineater

Once we got upstairs I realized that he’d said room.

Starna and I exchanged a glance before she was able to compose herself.

“Thank you very much for your hospitality.” My Elf companion gave him a little bow. “What time would you like for us to meet you in the morning?”

“Hahaha!” Tharkun’s belly jiggled as he laughed. “It’s already morning, but you can ask the receptionist downstairs when you get ready. I’ll probably be in the mines, but I’ll make sure you get an appropriate guide to take you to the palace.” He gestured at the large bed. “Don’t worry about making too much noise. The room is soundproofed.” He slapped me on the back.

I winced as Starna’s face turned blue. While I was glad for the privacy of soundproofing, I hadn’t been planning on using it the way he was insinuating.

“Thank you for your consideration.” I realized that I needed to end the conversation sooner rather than later and Starna was having trouble getting her cheeks to not be so blue. Different races had different colored blood, which would influence the color they turned when they blushed. The hue was getting deeper and had spread all the way to the points of her ears. In a few moments Starna had gone from tanned to mostly blue, which seemed to only increase Tharkun’s amusement.

“We really should say goodnight.” I tugged on Starna’s arm as I stepped into the room. “It’s been a long day and we still have to talk to the Queen before we can go to sleep.”

“Sleep. Ri-i-i-ght.” Tharkun laughed again as I pulled the door shut.

Starna was still standing stunned by the door, so I left her standing as I surveyed our accommodations. There wasn’t much in the room beside the bed, a desk with a chair and a glowstone lamp. The walls had a few paintings of major Dwarf events that I didn’t know about, but were otherwise plain stone walls.

The bed itself was covered in a thick, black fur blanket, with what looked like white silk pillows. I wasn’t sure what type of monster they had gotten the fur from, but I was sure that it was in here as a trophy type of conversation piece.

Starna still hadn’t moved as I sat down on the bed and looked at her.

“Aren’t you going to contact the castle?” I knew it was late and we’d probably wake up my cousin, but we were under orders to report in even if it was in the middle of the night if it was important. Considering the Cult of Kinwell was after a powerful living entity below the Dwarf capital, the sooner we knew what to do, the better.

“I-uh…” Starna blinked a few times, then took her collapsed staff off of her belt and extended it to the full six foot length. It was slightly taller than she was and I wasn’t sure what type of wood had been used to make it, but it looked like it belonged in her hands as she began to channel magic through the staff.

“There is a listening spell.” Her voice was flat almost like it wasn’t her speaking. “I’m turning it off.”

I felt the pulse of magic. I wondered what Tharkun would say about us turning off his spy device, though something told me that spying on guests was expected. It wasn’t something we’d done on the ship, but Garm ran things a lot differently.

There was also the complication of my brother. Magical items didn’t last long around Camadt and my brother wasn’t exactly gentle with things. Being over six foot tall and three-hundred-pounds, one would expect him to be hard on things. When we were younger, he’d tried to find ways to insulate magic items so he could use them, but in the end, it was simply easier to just not rely on magic than to keep replacing things.

So really, even if my father had wanted to spy on people, it would have been almost impossible. That may have been why the confirmation that the nice Dwarf patron put us in a soundproof room where he could listen in on us felt so wrong.

“You seem to know that magic pretty well.” I watched her cast the spell in less than a minute. “Shouldn’t it take longer to deactivate a stationary spell?”

“I got plenty of practice at the palace.” Her eyes widened. “Not like that! It was just some times Lessa and I wanted to talk and didn’t want our babysitters listening in.”

“If you say so.” I smirked as her cheeks got bluer.

“It’s the truth!” She pointed her finger at me. “You should be nicer to me, you know. I could polymorph you into a frog or something.”

I raised an eyebrow. That was pretty difficult magic, if the sailors I’d been around were to be believed.

“I thought you specialized in ice?”

“I do!” She must have seen where I was going. “I mean, I could give you a rash that you couldn’t get rid of…” She grumbled and looked down at her feet. She’d probably realized that as a Singiver, I could just give whatever condition she threw at me back to her.

“I’ll try to control my teasing.” I nodded at her staff. “Are you ready to call Alessa?”

She nodded, though her cheeks were still a deep blue and she was still looking at her feet.

“We better start it before Tharkun turns his spy spell back on.” I took a step back so she’d have plenty of space.