With the evening of the birthday ball for Princess Serapheena approaching, the Mixer was abandoned. That was all the better for Alfread. His sponsor, Master Emmalyn Panacea, walked him through her subterranean laboratory, explaining the duties he needed to perform as her assistant. She lectured him on the proper care and organization of reagents, the inventory ledgers, how people acquired reagents or tools, the processes of purifying and storing the various tools, and the necessity of storing each reagent with careful regard to temperature, humidity, and light to retain their maximum potency.

Emmalyn spoke matter-of-factly and quicker than an arrow in flight. Yet, underneath that stern, hypercompetent exterior was a person committed to teaching her student. She checked for his comprehension, offering praise and critique in both hands. She reprimanded him for lingering at one of her recipe books but also encouraged him to be curious and pursue what stirred his passion. When he wasn't on her time.

The tour ended in her office. Emmalyn's desk was neat with several well-labeled compartments for recipe ideas and student manuscripts that were under her review. Alfread noted that she had an entire compartment labeled "PSR Experiments" and spent a moment trying to unravel the acronym before Emmalyn gave it freely.

"Those are experiments that I oversee for the birthday girl. The princess plays with fire and my job is to make sure she doesn't burn down the Mixer every time she tries to expand our knowledge of potioneering."

Alfread smiled. The idea of studying beside "PSR" made him giddy, daydreaming about futures where they worked side-by-side, mobilizing Leveria against the Celegans and making discoveries. He couldn't wait to see her, this precocious wonder that created new arrow designs, wrote treatises on the Celegan attacks, sparred with Crimsonblades, and had a stack of experiments in Emmalyn Panacea's desk all to herself. He recalled, with shame, his rhyme about her not being a visual delighter.

Eyes up in daydream, he noticed a window behind Emmalyn that looked out into dirt several feet below the surface. He pointed at the window. "Nice view."

Emmalyn rolled her hazel eyes, flashing a grin before setting it straight. "One of my predecessors had a senseless sense of humor. That window is as useful as robes without pockets."

Alfread grinned at her from within the pocketless cassock that rode up to his knees. He'd been assured he'd find green novice robes in his room in the Cradle.

Emmalyn smiled fondly at him, breaking her stern image. "You usually look like your father. Always out to prove something to the world and write your divinedamned story. Yet, sometimes, you get this pensive look. When you are deep in thought, I can see your mother in front of me again. I've missed her, Mirielda's son. Equal parts compassionate and clever with Seraxa's altruistic passion and Yadeen's storied wisdom, your mother was."

"She's still that way, Master Emmalyn. Your comparison is an honor."

"You face quite the predicament being her son. It tends to create a stir when an archlord's prized daughter spurns the betrothal of a prince for a knight with no family name."

A prince! His mother had been betrothed to a prince? Alfread's eyes widened, his fingers gripping the edge of the table for mental stability.

"Meladon have mercy. You didn't know?"

He shook his head. "She never told me. She never even told me her family name."

Emmalyn's frown deepened. "She wanted you to be free from her family. Free to follow your heart without shame, yet burdened to a harder life with no family name."

"All she ever wanted was to give me a chance to be me."

Emmalyn smiled. "That sounds like her. Yet, you are free now. You may choose your own path, not the one she laid out for you. Would you like to know what family your mother was born to?"

He did want to know but he was afraid of what that knowledge would do to him. Would it diminish his resentment toward all lordlings and focus it? Or would it make him yearn for their approval more? He decided he wanted neither. "To them, I was a mistake. An inferior being unworthy of their blood and name. I wish to have no association with them and I fear that knowing who they are will only make my time here more challenging."

Emmalyn looked tired, or perhaps sad, her features drooping. "I understand but I do not agree. With your talents, they would adopt you without hesitation."

"I would rather they leap off a ledge."

Emmalyn slapped the table. "Listen, Alfread. Life here is going to be a challenge. Your examination score and your," Emmalyn coughed, "appearance will make it impossible to hide away. I imagine Irvaine Celvine has already given you a small taste of the food that most of the male lordlings here will be serving you. Most of the lady lordlings will either give you the same taste or they will strip away your humanity trying to taste you. The families of any who would support you will pressure them to avoid you. Your days are going to be full of isolation, harassment, and mockery. Outside of this office, and possibly a few small pockets of safety, you will be an outcast scorned. This can be avoided if you claim your mother's family name and become one of them."

Alfread sank in his chair. He wanted to hide. He wanted to scream. He felt an urge to run away into stories, to dream of the lives of their characters—protagonists who faced challenges without ever wanting to run away. He put his head in his hands, closed his eyes, and drifted away from reality.

He imagined being in a room full of Irvaines and they were all calling him a coward. They chanted that he didn't belong. Yelling at him to go back to his farm with his tail between his legs. It would be so much easier if he begged for the name that his mother had been denied. Alfread was ready to surrender when arms wrapped around him from behind.

The arms set his soul afire. He would blaze the trail. He would be true to his mother and his father. He would prove to Leveria that one did not need a last name to be a worthwhile person.

Alfread opened his eyes, divided no more. "My name is Alfread son of Evan. I am not one of them! Let them come with their words. I will answer with mine own!"

Emmalyn's face went flat, which seemed its default state. She inhaled, held, and slowly exhaled, just as his mother taught him. "Very well. Let us see where this hard road leads you, Alfread, and I will help you find strength to walk it. Now, we need to determine what fields of study you will pursue."

Alfread opened his mouth to speak. He wanted it all. Emmalyn cut him short with a raised finger. "I recognize that twinkle in your eye, novice! You cannot study them all. If you put too many reagents into the cauldron, your potion becomes inert or even poisonous."

"I can do it," Alfread asserted.

Emmalyn glowered at him. She leaned back in her reclining chair and folded her arms under her broomstick bosom. Those arched eyebrows were a thing straight out of a Mirieldan horror. "Maybe you could. Master Serapheena does and your brilliance might match hers. But you would do yourself irreparable harm. Your potion would be thin and impotent. Why make eleven tonics when you can mix five elixirs? You came here to make your shots, Alfread. It isn't how many arrows you shoot, but how well you place them, and last I checked an arrow to the heart is better than two to the toe."

Alfread lowered his eyes, stubbornness relenting to Emmalyn's logic. He had been battered this way out of bullish thinking plenty enough times by his mother to take a step back and see wisdom where it was. "You're right, Master Emmalyn."

Like his mother, Emmalyn didn't revel in her victory. She moved forward like an arrow fired straight at the target. Alfread respected that. "Let us decide on the five elixirs we shall make. What fields of study will help you make your shots?"

"Potioneering," Alfread answered instantly.

"Naturally," she said in a humorous matter-of-fact tone that didn't conceal her agreement.

Alfread mirrored her smile. "I need to have the knowledge to guide kings. The Celegans are coming and I won't idle away while Leveria's leaders continue to make the wrong decisions."

"Law and History. Master Ticus Ogden was ready to adopt you after the questioning. I am going to have to console him at the ball tonight," Emmalyn said with a snarky grin. "However, Master Talen Dalardor is a traditionalist that bears animosity towards you. Apprentice Valice spoke of you with very high regard and the blind fool likely expects her to run off with you much the way your mother ran off with Evan of Astoria."

"He thinks—"

"That his daughter is enamored with you. As I said, he is a blind fool whose eyes cannot see much beyond the past and what they want to see in the present, let alone anything at all in the future. Do not count on Valice Dalardor for support, Alfread. Without your mother's family name to protect you, Talen Dalardor will see that you do not get as much as a passing glance from her without threatening to send her back to Erudition."

"But she has no such interest in me! She…" Alfread didn't let himself finish. It wasn't his place to share that, even if it seemed Emmalyn Panacea already knew.

"Anybody that has seen her get starry-eyed stealing glances at Sebreena Ruby knows that she's not interested in you." Emmalyn leaned forward. "That doesn't matter, Alfread. These masters see you as a golden opportunity to further their fields and as a danger to their family tree."

Alfread shook his head. The indignation he felt wasn't surprising but that didn't make it any less maddening. Funny how that was. The things that weren't surprising were even more disappointing that they blew the wind right out of your sails.

"How about Physiology and Herblore for your final two?" Emmalyn asked, blowing wind into sails that led them to safer waters. "Master Felore and Master Engela would love to have you. It wasn't too long ago that medicans thought leaching and bloodletting were lifesaving practices. How many thousands of patients had to die for the medicans to discover that they were killing them, I wonder? What advancements will the science of medica make because of Mirielda's son?"

While her belief in him staunched his anger, Emmalyn missed his target. "No. I have already learned from my mother all I need to pursue my goals in medica. I need to learn how to win wars and guide policies. How to change the world. As you said, Master, I need to ensure I have five elixirs and leave the extra reagents out of the cauldron."

"To advance the science of healing others without Cognitive-Affectomancy is not worthless. It can even deepen our understanding of the body so that cognitive-affectomancers are better at what they do."

"I have spent my childhood in a master medican's library and in her clinic. I need to know beasts, Master, so that I can turn my mind against the Celegan tamers. You do not place a redundant reinforcement on your shield when you have a blunted blade. Ethology is my fourth."

Emmalyn narrowed her eyes. She knew he was right in this. That didn't mean the old witch would acknowledge that she was wrong. "Ethology will be important for you. Your fifth reagent should be learning the Gidiite-Celegan language. It is exceedingly complex and vastly different from Leverian. The Archwizard is fluent." She raised an eyebrow. "Master Blazelord was quite taken with you, you know. I think he'd find time in his schedule for private lessons."

The ability to understand the speech of Celegans might prove the most important skill of all. Few Leverians were fluent, having little use to communicate the language since the fall of the Gidiite Empire. And Kai Blazelord could open doors for Alfread that not even Emmalyn Panacea could. Yet…

"We've chosen your five elixirs," Emmalyn said with cold finality.

Alfread responded viscerally, like a mindless creature clinging to its life source. "Literature!"

"Is a distraction from your goals. You won't find your answers in Matron Mabel's stories."

Alfread clenched his jaw. Would being better at writing stories make him the man he needed to be? Would it make him worthy of Asa? Would it help whether he could craft polished prose when chimaeras were attacking Seraxa's Wall?

He needed to learn how to advise kings and commanders; those answers were in history and law. He needed to be able to contribute against the Celegans; those answers were in potioneering, ethology, and the Gidiite-Celegan language. Literature was a pleasant distraction that would only take him away from what mattered. He made his choice when he selected Emmalyn Panacea over Charlotte Dalardor. He chose what he needed over what he wanted.

Yet, refusing to study literature at Leverian University was antithetical to who he was. Besides, was there no wisdom in the minds of authors? Could he learn nothing from imagination? Was it not true that learning how to craft words might become his greatest weapon?

Alfread did his best Workhorse emulation and stood his stubborn ground. "I can make six elixirs. Literature may prove to be the panacea among them."

Emmalyn exhaled dismissively. "We shall continue this conversation another time. Ask an attendant at the Cradle to show you to your room. Then you are welcome to explore the Athenaeum tonight and register for any lectures and seminars that are in your fields of study. Tonight, I will personally inform the Archwizard of your interest in private lessons. You will be expected to perform your duties in the Mixer on alternating days with time off for any lecture or seminar you are registered in. Report to my office tomorrow at first light and we will end this discussion while you perform your duties."

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Alfread opened his mouth to accept her truce, extending grace for her guidance and support. He closed it when his ears caught a humming sound echoing down the hallway accompanied by the patter of footsteps. Alfread recognized the tune. Everybody would. "The Nagging Dragon" was a witty ditty that tended to elicit laughter from all but the most ill-tempered or humorless people. Mirielda and Evan often sang it at each other to lighten the mood. But Alfread had never heard a voice so beautiful humming the tune.

Emmalyn scoffed, shaking her head with enough disapproval to make Alfread fear for the humming lass's auditory health. "That girl," Emmalyn muttered. She bustled into the hallway. Alfread followed, his curiosity piqued, a grin riding high on his lips.

A young woman with flaming-red hair garbed in gold and with patches covering her sleeves strode toward the apothecary. A very large orange cat with black stripes followed at her heels. Alfread immediately recognized her as the girl simultaneously reading two books and writing notes in the Athenaeum earlier.

His heart lit up, burning, remembering why he came here. One word rang clear in his mind: Firemaiden.

Alfread forgot Emmalyn existed. He studied the Firemaiden like she was the most important subject to be learned at Leverian University. She was towering, nearly as high off the ground as he was and taller than any woman he'd known since Melody's passing. Alfread wished she would lower her recipe book and offer a better view of her face. Her robes were loose, preventing him from taking better inventory of her curves and edges.

Emmalyn reminded him of her existence. "You shouldn't be here today!"

The girl lowered her potioneering book, challenging Emmalyn's glare with a roguish smirk on her gaunt, long, narrow, angular, foxlike face. Alfread felt his heart flutter as he studied her, open-mouthed at the wonders he found. Her eyes were an icy blue that surpassed the beauty of a wintry pond covered in ice surrounded by a snowy glade. The contrast of her flaming hair to those icy pools, set against a sea of light freckles was striking, more striking than anything Alfread had ever experienced. As she tilted her head and winked at Emmalyn, her hair whipped to the side. Alfread's mind kept repeating one word: Firemaiden.

The gold-robed girl met his eyes and her humming trailed off into a catcalling whistle. She smiled at him as if she had known him all his life. "You are late," she said.

Alfread took in her voice. It was the most sophisticated he had ever heard. It was elegance incarnate and a resonant melody. It carried the passion of the hottest fire and Alfread wanted that heat to warm him.

Alfread's lips curled upward. "Late for what?"

She stepped toward him. Alfread's heart rate accelerated. His breathing fell out of rhythm. "I sent for you angles ago. You are the comeliest man in all Ruby, are you not? I ordered you with my breakfast and Panacea has been hoarding you in her cellar."

"Alfread, this is—" Emmalyn began, but she was cut off by the flame-haired girl.

"—Alfread!" she exclaimed.

The young woman—Alfread estimated she was his age—moved nimbly and faster than flames fed by oil. She tucked her book in a satchel and grabbed his hands. Her touch was remarkably passionate, but tender, and her hands were rough and powerful. Alfread felt waves of gentle heat wash over him as he lost himself in her eyes. She smiled up at him, speaking in a foreign tongue. "Tesmelfrea. Einlevte, Belfreadal."

Her elegance made even that harsh language as lovely as a grand piano's keys. The Firemaiden's voice rang out like a song from the greatest story ever written. Her words were quotes from the pages of his soul, even if he didn't understand them yet.

Alfread's mouth opened, but his clever wit failed him. "What?" he echoed.

The Firemaiden laughed. She released her clutch on his hands. The absence of her touch seemed to deprive his body of all its warmth. Surely, he had never been this cold before.

She put on a haughty expression worthy of the snobbiest lordling. "This one does not speak Volqori or Leverian? Let me try Huckleberry." The Firemaiden's voice sounded like Kenneth's, spoken so fast and expertly that he could've sworn she spent her life wearing a straw hat and overalls while sucking on a mouth full of chewleaf. "Yer so 'ot ye mel' me pannies an' make meh swit, perdy boy. Tek me ter yer sheep cassle an' embrace meh til the morrow."

Her grin stoked the flames. Alfread couldn't decide whether this girl was mocking him or japing with him. He resolved not to show any weakness. If the lordlings spat fire at him, he would chew it and spit it back twice as hot. He quickly scanned the girl, looking for anything to guide his counter. Her face was gaunt and her long body was swimming in her overly large robes. Her complexion was beautiful and pale like snow falling. Two golden, but simple, earrings hung from delicate little ears dotted with freckles. That fire hair ignited something within him, despite, or perhaps because it was unkempt. Alfread found her ravishing but there was room to prod at her.

"Yera firee un', city gal. I reckon' yer so skenny ye mus eta strehburree an' glass-o'-milk fer yer sup. An' ye ent sen no sun en yairs, hidin' en yer pepple cassle."

"Alfread," Emmalyn warned. Alfread couldn't hear her, even if his ears could.

The Firemaiden chuckled, her mirth dispensing Alfread's tension. "I will have you know, I eat two strawberries for my evening meal and I manage to go out around dusk and dawn."

Without any preamble or transitional comment, Firemaiden hummed "The Nagging Dragon" and raided reagents from the apothecary—packing them quickly into a satchel or her robe pockets—while searching through Emmalyn's recipe book. She didn't emerge from behind the recipe book as she shifted from humming to sarcasm. "What kind of name is Alfread?"

She bombarded him with quips before he could form his own. "Al-Fred. Your parents wanted to give you two farmboy names? Are you twice as good at farming? Did your mother believe that giving you two half-wit names would make you a full-wit? All-f-f-f-read. Could it be an acronym for 'always fucking reading'? T'would be a shame if that is all you did." She winked, making Alfread swallow his heart into his chest.

She kept going, faster than he could formulate responses. "I am available. For reading and for f-f-f. Elf-read." She mimed drawing an arrow and releasing it toward his heart. "You stand like an archer planning his shot and move like one practiced with carrying bow and quiver. How fare the trees, fair one? Are you boringly perfect in every way like the storybook elves?

"Ail-Freed. Are you going to free Leveria of all ails? T'would be nice if you could salve all our problems. Who freed you, All-freed? Freadal is the Volqori and Gidiite term for freedom but your momma got the name backwards. You come with me and maybe I can straighten you out." She bit her lip and purred at him.

Alfread watched her helplessly as she continued to seamlessly multitask her potioneering work and demean his name without pausing either. If this was what lordlings were capable of, maybe he wasn't fit for the university after all. His wit felt like a dull, broken blade beside her meladonite edge.

"Do I need to speak in Huckleberry again to get a response from you? What are you from Bear's Crossing or some other Podunk?"

He lowered her recipe book but she continued to place a dragon's maw herb in her satchel. Their eyes met. "Flame-hair, icy-eyes. She thinks herself wise. She is in for a surprise; a verbal demise. Icy-eyes, flame-hair. Is she aware, she pokes the bear? Yet does not scare."

The girl's hand flashed to his arm and he knew that his face showed surprise at her speed. Her grip was much firmer than he anticipated. Her squeeze betrayed strength that hid beneath baggy robes. "Should I be scared of this bear?" she asked with a soft, dramatized voice that would've been a perfect portrayal of a helpless princess in a minstrel performance.

"In Bear's Crossing we have a saying. If you poke the bear, you better say a prayer." He grabbed her arm with his own flash of movement and watched her icy-eyes widen.

He found, to his surprise, that her arm was eminently muscular, not gaunt like her face. Warmth flooded into his body. He felt an urge to run his other hand across her face and through her hair. Her flame-hair and icy-eyes were so striking that it maddened him, made it hard to gather his thoughts for they were so compelled by the sight of her. He wanted to melt into her and kiss her. The Firemaiden flooded oil into his soulfire and made him explode with lust.

She smirked at him the way a wolf would at a wounded hart. "I have a similar saying. Feed the bear some honey and he will hop like a bunny." She licked her upper lip. Her tone almost a moan, she asked, "Want some honey, bear?"

His brain didn't register Emmalyn's frustrated excusal or warning that it was his neck to slip into the noose. He chased that honey, wanting it more than anything.

"Bear wants to dance. Think you stand a chance?" He flipped his grip on her so that he regained dominance with his left hand and she just as quickly swapped into dominance with his right arm.

The Firemaiden squeezed his bicep. "So strong. I bet you could do one-handed pushups while a princess rode you like a horse."

The cat meowed at Firemaiden's feet. Alfread didn't have a spare iota of brainpower for the creature. He squeezed her bicep. The muscle was dense and powerful, though not as thick as his own. It made him ravenous. Athletic women had been arousing since he first read an illustrated edition of The Warrior's Pride with one hand.

He couldn't stop himself, knowing that his next thought was one Evan could get away with on his wife, but perhaps too daring for a stranger. Yet, the Firemaiden didn't feel like a stranger to him. She felt like home. "I am offering lessons to stimulate vas deferens. Beware of the ride. It will split you wide."

The Firemaiden rolled her eyes, but her smile lifted higher, and she rolled them all the way back to his. She was fire made flesh but Alfread thought he saw a few more embers sneak their way onto her face. She batted her eyes at him and spilled out honeyed words from her coveted lips. "I believe in balance, farmboy. Leverith would not give you a big toy. That would be cruel and unfair. You must be small somewhere."

Alfread shook his head and placed a hand consolingly on her shoulder. Again, he was taken aback by how firm her body was. Their eyes remained locked. "Leverith took liberty with me. Balance had somewhere else to be." He ran his hand across her cheek and through her tangled hair. She shivered at his touch but tried not to show it. Her mouth opened as her smile broadened. Alfread felt the Coward urging him caution but the Firemaiden pulled him forward with reckless abandon. His face was but a handspan from hers when he uttered, "Just as she has blessed thee. So hath she encumbered me. Doth icy-eyes yearn to see?"

She pushed him backward with surprising force. Her palm masterfully pressed against his chest, expelling the air from his lungs. He hunched over, recovering breath. She eyed him with fiery defiance. "That is what all the boys say, before their toys are out to play. Then it becomes a cold day that makes their girth go astray."

Alfread laughed as soon as he regained lung control. Leverith! This was exhilarating! "I could never feel cold in your presence, Firemaiden. T'would be like feeling cold on the hottest day with all of the world's blankets in your possession."

She licked her upper lip and winked. "Alfread, launch your arrowhead. I swear I shall spread. You're the one I dream of. Embrace me for the sweetest love."

Alfread knew he was flushed. Those last few lines shifted the conversation from bawdy play to something different. Firemaiden's face was bright and for a moment she appeared nervous and uncertain. He wanted her to know that he saw her and wanted to take her uncertainty away. Never in his life had he felt such heat. He felt an urge to hold her, to kiss her. Alas, the memory of his failed attempt to kiss Asa held him frozen in place. He settled for words. Yes, he could do words instead. He urged himself forward. "For you, I prepare my aim. For you, to Rubinia I came. Firemaiden, you set my soul aflame. My body is yours to tame. My heart is yours to claim. I would love," he reached out his hand to her, "your name."

Leverith! Those blue eyes set against the flame hair and freckles! For a few moments, the Firemaiden was contemplative. "My name?"

"Yes. Must I speak in Huckleberry to retrieve it?"

The Firemaiden's adorable smile returned. Her cheeks puffed out as she held air in her mouth. "You do not know who I am?"

Alfread shook his head. His glee was tainted by the anxiety of whatever cues he had missed. He was too frazzled and aroused to attune his brain to any sleuthing of truth. The Firemaiden stepped toward him and Alfread felt his chest flutter. She accepted his hand.

"Sera."

"Sera, as in…" Thirteen Divines! He couldn't go any further. He shook as if thrown into an icy pond as he kept losing himself in her eyes.

She nodded, fighting off laughter in a manner Alfread could best describe as adorable. "As in."

The speed, the lean muscle, the flame hair, the wit, the multitude of patches on her sleeves, Emmalyn's warnings. It all connected, making Alfread realize that he was, in fact, a dumbass. Perhaps even the prince of dumbasses.

He tried to make sense of how he could miss this. He was already primed to think of her. It was her birthday, the rest of the University was going to her ball, he saw her recipe stack, had realized she was the best ally he would find in the city, had even daydreamed of meeting her. He overlooked it all because everybody said Serapheena Ruby was the ugly sister and this woman wasn't anything shy of splendid.

He couldn't comprehend how this perception spread across the kingdom like fire in a dry forest. This Firemaiden, this princess, was beautiful. Alfread was ashamed to have participated in the slander, devising a rhyme about it back in a forest saturated with tamed wolves. He wished he could go back in time and pummel that utterly loggerheaded jackarse. Leverth's loving heart, Serapheena Ruby was stunning, and a princess, and he'd crossed every respectable boundary imaginable.

He was Prince of the Dumbasses.

The best he could do was prostrate himself on the apothecary floor and beg the precocious princess's forgiveness. "I apologize, Your Highness. Out of ignorance, I have spoken most improperly."

She laughed, raucously, and placed her outstretched hand on the top of his head to steady herself. It took the princess about twenty turns to finish having her cruel laugh. All the while, Alfread worried at what severity of punishment he would face and whether Emmalyn would help him receive clemency. Yet, when Serapheena Ruby cleared her throat, her voice carried like a sweet melody.

"You only have to apologize for making me wait eighteen divinedamned years for someone to spit my own fire back at me. I promise you, this has been the best part of my day."

"Blessed birthday, Master Serapheena," Emmalyn called from her office. Evidently, she could still hear what was happening, even if she refused to look at it.

"It is blessed indeed." Serapheena lifted Alfread's chin so their eyes met. "Alfread, Alfread, Alfread." She made a sucking sound that could've been sympathetic or shaming. She beckoned him to rise. "Stand up. You are insulting us both with this display."

Alfread obeyed, so embarrassed he thought he might vomit. He sheepishly took her hand. "Welcome to Rubinia, Alfread. Now, you must excuse me. I have been out in the sun too long and I need to return to my people castle and eat a pair of strawberries."

Alfread smiled easily even as his stomach lurched. Courage and cowardice raged within him. He kept his hand-hold submissive and the princess didn't abuse him to squeeze his fingers and palm into oblivion, as he knew her superhuman Volqori physiology could. He locked eyes with her, hesitating to let go even as the embrace extended well beyond the socially acceptable duration. Seraxa! Her smile warmed him. "It has been one of my life's greatest honors to meet you, Serapheena Ruby."

Her hand tensed around his, more powerfully than Alfread would prefer. Words spilled out of her, as if this princess was anxious. "Come to my birthday ball tonight."

Alfread's cowardice multiplied exponentially. He didn't want to be surrounded by all those lordlings at once. He stammered, "I... I cannot. I don't belong."

She frowned. "You do belong here and I expect to see you there. Consider it a royal decree. Alfread son of Evan shall return to me. Tonight, we shall spit fire. This I do require."

Alfread couldn't say no even though the Coward within had assumed full control of his fear. "I will be there."

"I look forward to it." With a wink, she let go of his hand, then turned toward the exit. Her cat looped through Alfread's legs before following its mistress.

"Princess Serapheena!" She stopped and turned. The contrast of those blue eyes and all her fire threatened to melt his heart all over again. Alfread investigated his autobiographical recall, retrieving what he sought. "What does 'Tesmelfrea. Einlevte, Belfreadal' mean?"

The Firemaiden tsked again, wagging her index finger. "I will tell you when dreams come true." Alfread could make out the final word she whispered to herself. "Belfreadal."

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