Before Gaius could untangle that mystery of demonic matrimony, the front door opened and in came a woman. She was wrapped in a simple white toga with just enough fabric in it for a large handkerchief. The toga ended long before it reached the woman's knees and was struggling to contain all the bumps and curves she was blessed with.

  The white fabric contrasted with the woman's rich olive skin, a heap of red hair, and a thick pendant made of some blue metal that was resting in the valley of her chest.

  Mesmerizing as she was, Gaius managed to spot a crescent-shaped saber hanging around the woman's swaying hips. The blade looked sharp, but had clearly seen some action and wasn't merely a glorified piece of jewelry.

  Gaius' instincts were raising all sorts of alarms, causing him to tense up and put on an idle smile.

  "Hi, Gaius Chanter here, but you can call me Guy. How may I help you?" he blurted out.

  The woman said nothing. Her inquisitive green eyes were studying Gaius.

  He felt like an open book under the woman's intense gaze. In his attempt to avoid it, he landed on the pendant and its surrounding area. That sight restored some of his confidence.

  Gaius turned his smile into a sly grin and said, "Just in case you're a wandering artist on the lookout for models, I want to make it perfectly clear that I'm open to nude paintings."

  The woman was entirely unfazed by either his ogling or his remark.

  She squinted and asked, "Are you a druid?"

  The question caught Gaius off guard. It took all of his practiced self-control to not immediately start thinking of Brother Greenleaf, just on the off chance the woman could read his mind.

  "A druid? Lady, I don't even grow my own hair. No, I'm not a druid."

  Gaius' statement was full of indignation as if the mere idea of being mistaken for a druid was somehow gravely insulting to him.

  The woman looked around like she was just now realizing she was in a store.

  "So you're a shopkeeper. Do you by any chance remember any druids passing through here recently?"

  "Can't say that I do," Gaius said. "I've only just arrived here myself. It's my first day, actually."

  Gaius thought he was very smart, using the truth to his advantage like that. Noticing the woman shift her weight in a way that made her more battle-ready, told him he was mistaken.

  "And what's your story then? Where are you from?" The woman's voice was friendly enough, but Gaius wasn't buying.

  "That's kind of a personal question, no?"

  "Answer me, I command you."

  The woman's voice grew booming and forceful. There was something about it, something that made Gaius want nothing more than to kneel and tell his customer everything she wanted to know.

  The moment passed and Gaius was still standing. It took more than a simple suggestion to throw him off his game.

  "You command me?" He huffed. "The only orders I take from someone wrapped in a bedsheet are faster and don't stop."

  If not for his earlier observation, Gaius would have missed the lightning-fast movement that sent the woman's saber from her hip and towards his neck.

  Because he was borderline expecting for things to go south, Gaius managed to grab his axe and intercept the attack with a single sharp motion.

  The two of them froze, staring at one another.

  "Yeah, alright, you're quick with that thing, I'll give you that," Gaius said, internally kicking himself for getting goaded into revealing his skills.

  While he was talking, his left hand was preparing a spell behind his back.

  Coming to terms with the idea that Gaius wasn't a helpless merchant, the woman rotated the sword's hilt in her hand and tried to hook the axe away from Gaius.

  Gaius responded by sending the axe towards the ceiling. The idea there was to surprise his opponent, catch the axe on the way down and go from there.

  He was smart enough to realize the woman wouldn't just stand there and let him do all that. He coated his left fist with a thick layer of metal and stuck it out to catch the woman's saber.

  That part of his plan was a resounding success. The woman looked quite rattled when her weapon bounced off what seconds ago was Gaius' bare skin.

  But simultaneously, Gaius was in for a bit of a surprise of his own when the axe didn't return to him.

  He looked up just to confirm that his trusty old weapon didn't suddenly decide to unshackle itself from the laws of gravity.

  When that ended up not being the case, he saw the woman hold both the sword and his axe.

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  "Shit," Gaius said, desperately trying to figure a way out.

  When fighting someone, if your general level of prowess is at least slightly above covering your face with a shield and flailing wildly, you can't help but look your opponent in the eye. And even though initially Gaius tried to avoid just that, exchanging blows moved his focus from the woman's chest to the bridge of her nose.

  This allowed him to see her eyes fill with mist, then begin to glow with an inner fire. Radiant sparks streaked down her face like electric tears, forcing Gaius to consider the possibility he was fighting someone way above his weight class.

  "Wait," was the only thing Gaius managed to say before the woman mounted the counter and sent a sandaled foot at his chest.

  Now, Gaius had never been kicked by a horse, but he couldn't imagine the experience being that much different from what he was currently going through.

  The sheer force behind the kick sent him flying into the wall, and once he stopped there and slid down to the floor, a shield hanging above fell and hit him on the head.

  Sitting there with the shield in his lap, Gaius was focusing on not passing out. It seemed to be working. Gaius silently thanked his sturdy Mystlund ancestors for his superior constitution and looked up to see what kind of trouble was heading his way next.

  The woman was still standing on the counter above Gaius, and the front flap of her toga was doing a very poor job of concealing anything from that angle.

  "Shit," the woman echoed Gaius' earlier exclamation before jumping down, her face tinted red.

  With both weapons sitting on the counter, she fixed her garment to be the slightest bit more modest and glared at Gaius. Her eyes were back to normal, and Gaius, who had enough self-awareness to appreciate the sheer ridiculousness of the situation, burst into laughter.

  The woman soon joined him with a trill of her own.

  After a while, she got a hold of herself and offered Gaius her hand.

  With him upright once again, she said, "You know I could just smite you right now for being insolent and lecherous? And that's even ignoring the fact you dared to attack me."

  "Attacked you? What are you talking about? You're the one who attacked me. Who even are you, lady?"

  "I'm Isabella," she said.

  "That's not as helpful as you think it is," Gaius replied. "But still, consider me pleased to finally make your acquaintance."

  Gaius' subdued reaction to her introduction forced Isabella to rethink some things. She took a step back and looked Gaius up and down again. She then took a few moments to mull something over.

  "You have no idea who I am," she concluded. Gaius confirmed that with a nod.

  Isabella covered her face with a hand and looked at Gaius through her fingers. "I think we may have started this thing off on the wrong foot."

  Gaius rubbed his chest around where Isabella kicked him.

  "You're a funny one," he said.

  Isabella started to chuckle, only to be interrupted by Gaius clearing his throat.

  This sent her back around the counter where she gathered her thoughts before rapidly saying, "Yes, so, my name is Isabella, a knight of the Order of the Moon, a herald of Nova and Mallia, here on official Caladonian business."

  "And I'm Guy," Gaius said. He had a pretty good idea of what that official business was, and a lot of his energy right now was going to not showing that.

  "Yes, I know," Isabella nodded. "I also know that you're new here. But I'm only now starting to realize you may not have a clue what anything I just said means."

  "You've got me there," Gaius agreed.

  "My order gives me more authority than a local magistrate or bishop. I'm accountable to Nova and Mallia alone. And just so you know, disrespecting a herald of the goddesses is a heavy offense," Isabella explained.

  "So you just go around lopping heads off of anyone who looks at you funny?" Gaius raised his voice.

  "Oh, come on, if I did that, half the men in the kingdom would have been headless by now. And for what it's worth, I wasn't going to hurt you, I just wanted to put some fear of the divine into you. My blade would have stopped before reaching your neck."

  She seemed pretty confident in her abilities. Still, Gaius decided to press his current advantage.

  "Just like it stopped before it hit my wrist?"

  An echo of fire streaked through Isabella's eyes.

  "Hey," she protested. "I had no way of knowing you were a wizard. Thinking I was going to chop off your hand was much scarier for me than it was for you."

  "Fair enough," Gaius backed down. "But just so we're clear, I'm no wizard. I'm just a regular old merchant from Mystlund. We all learn some simple magics over there. But that doesn't mean I know anything about any druids."

  Isabella shook her head. "Shame. I really hoped to get this over with quick."

  She reattached her saber to her belt and once again fixed her clothes that seemed to have a real problem with staying where they were supposed to.

  "And what exactly is this big quest of yours, lady Isabella?" Gaius asked, already knowing the answer.

  "You really don't need to know the specifics, Guy," she replied. "Just if you see anyone who looks even remotely like a druid, you be sure to let me know."

  Gaius didn't like this.

  "Deal," he said. "How can I find you?"

  "I'll be keeping an eye on the border during day time. If the druid is here, he'll have to go past me. And once the gates close, I'll be staying in Nova's temple. I'm hoping you at least know where that is?"

  "Of course." When riding into town with Esven, he saw a large marble building surrounded by a tall hedge. It wasn't a particularly difficult guess.

  "Perfect," Isabella said. "Now, if you promise to not share the details of our interaction here with a single living soul, I'll be on my way."

  "Don't you worry, I'll keep all the details right here." Gaius tapped his temple with a crooked smile.

  The look Isabella gave him sent sweat rolling down Gaius' back.

  "You probably don't know this," Isabella said in a huskier tone, "but Sister Moon, the cornerstone of my order, encourages her followers to enjoy their lives to the fullest." She looked at Gaius' axe still sitting on the counter. "You're pretty good with that thing, Mystlunder. If you'd like to continue our exercise in a more social setting, you need only to ask."

  Pretty much everything Gaius did earlier was a fa?ade. An attempt to obfuscate his real identity and reason for being in Siembra. Having his empty posturing turned against him in such a simple way blindsided him completely.

  Sharing a bed with Isabella, enticing as it was, would be a colossal mistake. The mere idea of baring himself to someone like her, someone with real divine powers who could peer straight into his soul during a single moment of weakness, terrified Gaius to his core.

  He gulped. "I'll keep that in mind."

  Isabella interpreted Gaius' sudden shift in attitude in her own way and started laughing. She then blew him a kiss and walked away, leaving him with a show of her perfectly straight athletic legs.

  When he regained the ability to think straight, Gaius went to put the shield back on the wall.

  As he was doing that, he thought about everything Isabella said to him. And no matter which way he looked at it, he felt he was in the clear. The knight didn't recognize him, and that already was a load off his shoulders. She also didn't question his fighting ability, attributing it to his Mystlund origin. And sure, she was about to block off the nearest way into Mystlund. But thanks to his deal with Vasily, he wasn't going anywhere.

  Which meant all he had to do was sit tight, keep his head down, and let Isabella tire herself out fruitlessly searching every cart and caravan that came her way. He couldn't see her keeping this up for more than a few weeks, maybe months.

  As far as Gaius was concerned, doing nothing was always easier than doing something. When he got back behind the counter, he was smiling.

  Story Facts - Chapter 8