Chapter 1

Brialla ducked as she entered the large, Kaldorei building through its circular doorway. Instinctively, though the interior was made for a people much larger than hers. Larger still than her, having always been rather diminutive, even for a blood elf. She scanned what she saw of the cross-shaped structure, noting the heavy and always wooden furniture, the opaque blue windows, the difficult-to-place scent of mouldering undergrowth. Not pleasant, exactly, but not awful, either. Pine needles and leaves breaking down, interspersed with grasses and a reminder of rain at the back of every other smell. And, shutting off the end of the cross directly opposite the entrance, her eyes settled on the single, towering sentinel standing guard before the very door she had hoped to enter.

She’d spent long years trying to convince her father that it was time to let her step into a position of responsibility in the family business. A minor trading house, specializing in exotic imports. With the occasionally tenuous but somehow lasting peace between the Horde and the Alliance, and her father’s lingering distaste for their distant cousins, Brialla had eyed her opportunity to escape the cloying womb of Quel’thalas, if only for a time. Take upon herself the responsibility of traveling to Kalimdor, to the deep forests, to parlay with the night elves.

Having been granted that opportunity, she’d wasted little time. The intent was not to return in a ship laden with goods, but rather to establish a few contacts, examine wares, and then for the next trip to involve actual goods. Risk. For now, she only had to learn who the right people were, people with influence, and then ingratiate herself with them.

This proved a difficult task, even knowing, as she did, that the Kaldorei despised anyone associated with the Horde. For understandable reasons. She had not expected to be inundated in friends, but, at least, to find a few someones to talk to. Instead, talk ceased when she entered any given room. People withdrew. Went elsewhere.

It was a shame, too, because quite a few of the warlike, tall, purple elves were easy on the eyes. She hadn’t mentioned it to her family, of course, but she would’ve been considerably less enthusiastic about a trip to Ironforge, or Stormwind. The statuesque Kaldorei, on the other hand, made the trip more exciting. Would’ve made it more exciting, had a single one of them deigned to talk to her when not being paid by her for something. A place to stay, a meal.

The guard, at least, could not leave. Even if Brialla had hoped there would be no guard outside the coastal settlement’s resident Priestess of the Moon’s home.

Before leaving, she had sought out the counsel of others who had made similar trips recently, and had received much bland and generally useful advice. And, having been pulled aside by one of the ladies of a minor house, she had also learned that the night elves were as susceptible to the oldest tricks in the book as any others. More, even, as a significant amount of sentinels seemed to have a particular interest in sin’dorei women. And, if Brialla was honest with herself, the interest was mutual. Certainly with this guard.

Imposing. Large, not just relative to her, but compared to her kin. Centuries of careful, consistent training, no doubt, leaving her corded with muscle. Chiseled. Smooth skin. Dark green hair, a pale red pair of glaives tattooed on her face. Exposed midriff, which Brialla’s eyes lingered on for a moment too long, drinking in the contour and divots of abs.

“If you have no gag reflex, and don’t mind spending 10 minutes on your knees, you can get farther than you’d think,” the lady had confessed. Not quietly, exactly, but in confidence. Brialla looked up at the cool expression and cooler, pale blue eyes of the sentinel, somehow still feeling as if her chin hugged her collarbone. She noticed herself swallowing. Was she producing more saliva than normal? Now wasn’t the time. She hadn’t even talked to the sentinel. She stepped forward, trying to put on a more self-assured, proud air.

“I’m here to speak to the Priestess.”

“The Priestess has no time for you, blood elf,” the sentinel said.

The warrior’s gaze felt as if it burned into Brialla’s skull. As if a raking line of arcane power shifted down as the sentinel’s eyes did, charring a pattern down her front. She should have worn something that didn’t push up her chest so much. Or something that pushed it up more? She shook her head.

“I’m here to establish trade between my house and your kind, sentinel. Do you think your Priestess would take kindly to you denying this town the wealth that would accompany such a connection?”

“I not only think, I know that my Priestess fully supports me handling inconvenient and unwelcome guests in whatever manner I see fit,” the sentinel said.

“Your name?” Brialla felt her cheeks warming with anger. Imagined them coloring, turning pale skin reddish. She wasn’t quite certain why she wanted the sentinel’s name, but the idea of threatening to report her to someone played in her mind. Report her to who? The Priestess she apparently had authority to protect in whatever manner she saw fit?

“Kerendra.”

It was said with such ease, in such a worry-free tone. Brialla shrank from that confidence, mentally. Physically, she had long ago done what she could to immunize herself from showing reactions she did not wish to. Unfortunately, she hadn’t managed the same success when it came to conjuring up snappy replies, and so, she looked back and very far up at the huge night elf. Conveying, she hoped, searing discontent with her eyes. And not the odd light and somehow also constricting feeling in her throat, seeing Kerendra’s sharp, angular facial features.

“Are you waiting for me to ask your name in return? Leave,” Kerendra said, with little force behind the words. “Or stay, if you’ve decided to spend your time admiring me.”

Brialla narrowed her eyes. “You’re making a mistake,” she said, turning on her heels and walking back outside. The fresh breeze, the salty air, the faint scent of seaweed rotting on the beach, all of it reminded her that all that separated her from the ocean and a humiliating trip home were a few sand dunes and strident, low, wind-blown vegetation.

In the largely untended greenery fifty feet from the entrance to the Priestess’ residence, Brialla found a smooth rock that marked some kind of border between houses, and sat. Rested her head in her palms, elbows on her knees, and remained as such for a little while. Got tired of the position, and gathered her hands in her lap, staring ahead, seeing nothing. Registering the large, wooden halls and houses, the purple roofs, the patrolling guards, the docks and seagulls in the distance, but never truly processing them.

Should she have moved on the lady’s advice, instead of leaving? No, it was too odd, too awkward. Too transactional. Surely, the sentinel would happily accept her efforts, and then tell her to get lost again, afterwards.

Brialla decided that she had been given bad advice. Not that she was unattracted to the Kaldorei – at all – rather just that mixing it with business was a bad idea. She could pursue someone romantically while on Kalimdor, but do so separately from her efforts to establish contacts for trade. Unless that sentinel was interested, of course. She hadn’t seemed entirely dismissive, had she? And a brief, stolen glance at something obscene in her trousers had made it clear she possessed the necessary equipment.

A slow, overly dramatic sigh later, Brialla reached up to shield her eyes from the afternoon sun. Scorching, though it didn’t feel it with the ever-present breeze. She’d turn into a tomato with golden eyes if she remained sullenly on the stone, though. And she’d turn into a laughing stock, unlikely to be allowed to do anything on her own for at least another decade, if she didn’t return with something. Some speck, some hope of a deal.

She stood, resolving to try again. And again. Eventually, surely, the sentinel, Kerendra, would tire. Let her in. Surely.

When Brialla stepped back into the house, Kerendra was not at the door. Unfortunately, another sentinel, a palm’s width shorter, but much more angry-looking, had taken her place. And, spotting a sin’dorei, it seemed this second warrior’s temper soured more than it already was. Purple skin scrunched around the nose, eyes narrowing. Not even trying to hide her distaste, the sentinel addressed Brialla before she had taken two steps into the building.

“It would be in your own interest to fuck off,” the second sentinel said.

“Excuse me?”

Brialla halted, a single step past the doorway, looking first at the warrior, then the rest of the house. To think that Kerendra qualified as the nice one of the two.

“I’m here to talk to the Priestess, not to be offended. Move aside,” Brialla said.

What she had hoped would instill some measure of respect or pause in the sentinel instead inspired a cruelly amused expression.

“As I’m sure my comrade told you, we can do almost anything we want, as long as it’s to protect the Priestess. Given that I’m armed, and you have a knife suited for chopping radishes, poorly, do you really want to find out what ‘anything’ entails?”

The moment of hope, of inspiration, left Brialla. This second one really was much worse than the first. Kerendra.

“When’s your partner coming back?”

“None of your business. Now, step back outside. You won’t like what’s going to happen if you don’t.”

Taking a breath to try to calm the stubborn side of herself, the one that wanted to talk back, to court trouble, Brialla shot what she hoped was a look of arrogant pity at this second sentinel, and then turned to leave again. Head high, pouring her everything into signaling that the guard’s behavior was a miserable, regrettable mistake.

Twice denied, and feeling jabbing emptiness in her stomach, she decided to seek out a place to get something to eat that wasn’t too native. The Kaldorei had an odd taste for spiders that she did not share in the slightest. Perhaps something freshly caught. Something that skittered a little less, had less exoskeleton. Shuddering at the thought, she yet lingered on it to distract herself from failure.

Shortly, stomach rumbling, Brialla set off in the direction of the buildings clustered closer to the dunes and the sea. Surely someone would be selling something edible. Perhaps fried, if she was very lucky.

There was little point in trying to contend with uncooperative guards, Brialla thought. While she’d received a little martial training, mostly to make her parents feel safe, her tricks largely started and stopped with kicking someone in the groin and running. Even soldiers, even Kaldorei, were vulnerable to this time-honored tactic, but it seemed a poor choice if her goal was to then make it into a room to which they also had access. A quick way to get tossed in whatever passed for a dungeon in night elven lands. No, rather than stew endlessly, she resolved to put the fiasco behind her, and look for new opportunities.

And, as luck would have it, she found one. The first sentinel, Kerendra, just finished with her meal, sat on what looked to be a woven, and struggling and aged, wicker chair. Stretching without concern. Showing off her densely muscled core. Why did sentinels not cover themselves on guard duty? Was it a ploy to distract would-be enemies with their physique.