Slap. Creak, creak.

What was that, where was she? Straining her ears, Denirya heard birds chirping, a soft wind sighing through trees and rustling leaves, and someone breathing. As a child she'd learned the advantages of being thought asleep. Once she'd heard Mama talk about Papa with their neighbor Gyidr, whose shack leaned against theirs when the storms rolled in from the coast, whilst pretending to sleep.

Slap. Creak, creak, creak.

But by the Immortals, curiosity was her bane, and she could never keep her eyes shut for long. Opening one eye, she glimpsed an old man clad in sturdy white robes pacing a wooden floor. Every second or third step creaked. The slap came from the other side just above her head, a wooden shutter smacking the window sill when the breeze yanked at it. Wait, what? Where was the alley, Yviä and Tesh, the green-eyed stranger? Was this the afterlife? Was this man one of the great Fathers? The traitorous thought came before she recalled she'd denounced the Northern gods.

'Ah, you're awake.' The man had caught her with her eye open and walked closer.

Denirya dug in her sleeves. The knives were gone and so were the sleeves, with bandages and a white shift as compensation. Dear naked Fathers' asses, what the hell was going on?

'Where am I? Who are you?' Panic laced her voice though she tried to mask it. Never take an assassin's knives.

'Be calm, child. I am the Forest Mage, and you are safe.' The man's eyes were green, as green as the handsome stranger's had been, but his were older, smaller, wrinkled around the edges. The lines of his features were stark and sharp. 'You sustained some injuries, but your recovery has been speedy, and soon you'll be yourself again.'

A foreboding in the bottom of her belly warned that this man was dangerous and cunning. A shiver of awe sent goose bumps trailing up her arms. Not once had she met someone whose appearance alone could strike awe into her heart the way this man's did. This was a first. This man was powerful, and not like Yviä who, it struck her, seemed a mere child, an ant beside this dragon. This man's power rang true and deep, and in that face-slap moment she realized she wanted it more than anything. With a power so glaring, she could heal Mama. The respect due her would be commonplace, and her enemies would die choking on their fetid words.

'Are you alright?' The man leaned forward, stretching a palm to her head, and she cringed from it instinctually.

A throbbing pain started up at her temples as if it'd only just noticed she was awake. A groan floated from her lips, and her lips felt suddenly distant, as if she was drifting away from them. But that was impossible, wasn't it? With all the energy she could muster, which wasn't much right then, she urged her hands to her eyes, but the damn things wouldn't move. Blurry shadows leaked in at the corners of her view and swallowed her into darkness. Again.

#

A rushing wind howled in a myriad of trees that could only be the Grù Forest. It meant a storm approached. A crisp smell drifted in the air, the smell that came with the rain. When Denirya opened her eyes this time, it was dark. Though shadows cloaked the room, she recognized it as the same one in which she had met the Mage who crackled with power. Trees surrounded the place, rustling at each window, a green horde whispering of the storm to come. The walls, ceiling and floor were made of wood a light yellow wood. Voices came from another room, both sounded mighty familiar.

'So you killed them?' It was the Mage's voice.

'I could not leave witnesses.' That had to be the stranger from the alley with the glowing eyes.

'You know Shehëk would be up in arms if he knew we'd defiled his oh-so-holy Blood Moon Festival in his oh-so-holy City.'

A sigh. 'You are too brazen Ajivr,' the Mage said. So that was his name. There was a pause, and Denirya heard the crackle of fire devouring wood. 'Very well,' the Mage said, 'continue.'

With slow movements, she sat up and found the bandages gone and the white shift replaced with sturdy green robes. Still the knives were missing, and her cloak. The air against her arms felt unsteady, and her tail's freedom to flick felt wrong. She needed her cloak back.

'So I finished the movement,' Ajivr said, 'then the bang came, and the tailed girl leapt in at just the right moment as if she'd known what would happen.'

Yes, this was the man. Denirya rubbed her face with a hand and found, thank Sheia, only minor aches vying for attention.

'So the Lugkuns had her here in a flash like we'd planned,' he continued, 'but both the other girls had seen it all, so I...'

If Denirya was good at anything, it was listening, and that pause sounded an awful lot like a guilty pause, a thing she'd long been acquainted with considering her early introduction to thieving and Mama's perceptive nature.

'I used the Forbidden Art, the Blood Art. Just once.'

The atmosphere hung taut and tense, thick with a brewing anger. A longer pause ensued, this time the kind you get right before a slap or kick. Ajivr was a fool to taunt the old man who contained so much power.

'Ajivr Kneuser Anks!' The Mage's roar shook the planking of the wooden house, overpowered the wind's rushing outside, and knocked the breath from Denirya's chest.

'Or twice,' Ajivr mumbled.

'Oh foolish, foolish boy!' A chair scraped, and the creaking of floorboards commenced.

Muttering interspersed the wind's cry and the boards' creaks. 'It is called the Forbidden Art for a reason,' the Mage growled. 'Forbidden!' Denirya pulled her knees up and decided she'd rather not go in there. Not without her knives anyway.

'You think these are games, Aji? Perhaps I have failed in your tutelage, perhaps you should not have read the Book so early on. It has put damned foolishness in your blood.' A slap sounded then, and Denirya imagined it sounded close to the way a palm on the side of a man's head might sound.

Ajivr sobbed, snuffled. 'Kijs, forgive me.'

There was a curtain over the doorway leading to the other room, and Denirya snuck closer to listen in whilst searching the room for her knives. No cabinets, no shelves, no curtain on the windows, no carpets, no hinges. Where were they?

'You think tears will solve this? It is forbidden, boy, I swore an oath to the Fathers face to face.'

'Kijs, I-'

'No,' the Mage said, 'get out of my sight. Go practice the ways of the forest and pray the Fathers do not strike you down for what you have done.'

The snuffling and sobbing got louder, Ajivr burst through the curtains and stormed into the night. Denirya dodged just in time and watched Ajivr's retreating form through the doorway. Strange, he'd seemed so tough in the alley, and here he was sobbing at an old man's words, though the old man was very powerful. Maybe that was why.

The wind threw his cape to one side, then whipped it up and to the other side. His fists were clenched, the muscles in his arms bunched. She swallowed. It was time she figured out what the hell was going on, even if it meant facing the Mage without knives or her cloak. She sucked in her gut and pushed through the scarlet curtain.

The Mage stood with gathered fists behind his back in a room bathed in warm light, staring at a fire that crackled and danced. 'How long have you been up, Denirya?'

'Long enough.' She brushed aside stray locks of hair, walked to one of the seats at the fireplace, and sat, crossing her legs.

The Mage exhaled, seeming much older as he stalked to the other chair. His white beard reached his stomach, and his nose bent like a crow's beak. For a moment there was the near silence of a warm fireplace and a distant rushing wind. The flames set the shadows behind them dancing. Denirya spied the lines of a counter and some shelving behind the Mage, but it was hard to see any more. The knives had to be there, maybe her cloak too.

'You have questions.' The Mage looked into the fire. 'Ask.'

Denirya swallowed the nervous knot rising in her throat and nodded. 'Did...Did he kill my fi-, I mean the-, those girls I was with?'

The Mage nodded at the flames.

Was she disappointed or relieved? With Yviä and Tesh gone from the world, she felt lighter but emptier, as though the pleasure of their murder had been robbed from her with Ajivr's meddling. 'And what is Blood Arts?'

A long pause ensued. Denirya fidgeted with the tip of her tail and bit her lip till she tasted blood.

'One of the Arts of the Magii,' the Mage said at last, 'and you will learn of it when you are my apprentice.'

Whoa! Denirya had enough masters ruling her life, she did not need another. 'No thanks.' She stood. 'Is this why you brought me here.'

The Mage sighed. 'You are as obstinate as your father was.'

'My father?' She lowered herself slowly to the seat again.

'Yes. There is much you do not know.'

'You know him? He's alive? What's his name? Does he have a tail?' Her heart panged. Sometimes she imagined Papa had a gruff, prickly beard, and other times she imagined he had kind grey eyes and a smooth chin. Oh, what she wouldn't give to know.

'So many questions.' The Mage smiled. 'There will be time for that later, but for now I must know if you will be my apprentice; I can see the hunger in you for power such as mine.'

He was right, she wanted it. More than want, she craved it with insatiable hunger. She wanted it more than she wanted answers about her past. How was that possible? She frowned. Yet an outcast is slow to don chains. She had heard what it cost to be an Apprentice, a heavy price: subservience and obedience in all. Was the power the Mage offered worth her life?

He nodded as if he knew her thoughts. 'Alright, I will give you something in return. Name it and it is done, but then you swear your vow to me here and now.'

'Mama,' she said.

'You want her health.'

'Yes, for as long as I am your apprentice.'

'Oh.' The Mage's eyes widened. 'You ask much, but it is done.' He scratched his beard.

'One more question?'

The Mage nodded.

'Why me?'

The wind calmed, and the first drops of rain splattered on the roof, tap tapping. 'I owe a favor to your father.'

Curiosity about her father burned in her heart, and relief for Mama's safety stung in her eyes. She blinked the tears away, determined to do what she needed to for Mama's sake. 'I'm ready. What are the words?'