Author's note: Remember, no pairing at this point in time is permanent. I also need to think of a better story description. Oh, and reviews are always appreciated! They let me know how I'm doing. A big Thank You to those who have already commented!

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Tremors of Fate

Chapter 3

Jad

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Ignoring the glances of curious villagers, the princess of Rolante stretched out her back on the wooden pier in Jad, feeling it pop in a release of tension. It had been a cramped, uncomfortable boat ride. Lise really didn't appreciate the stares she was getting, but she supposed it was to be expected. It wasn't every day that an Amazon left the windy peaks of Rolante to fraternize with the townfolk of the lowlands, especially in such a backwater town as Jad. Maybe she should change her clothing to fit in better with the common folk. It would make her journey easier, at the very least.

However, as Lise searched for the nearest shop, the streets were unusually empty despite it being midday. Even more ominous were the burly men who paced back and forth, from one end of the street to the other, as if they were on patrol.

On patrol? Suddenly, Lise became nervous about the lance she wore strapped to her back. She had never seen such strange, feral-looking men before, and realized that they were in no way native to Jad, or she would have recognized them earlier. Her stomach sank to her feet as it occurred to her that she had just obliviously walked into an occupied city.

First things first. She spotted a tattered wooden sign bearing a painting of two crossed swords and quickly ducked into the door beneath. Carrying a lance on her back not only meant attracting attention, but trouble as well. She was loath to part with it, her only means of defense, and it would be like giving up her identity as an Amazon. But there were more pressing matters, such as finding Elliot and avenging her kingdom. Her sense of attachment to her personal effects could wait. With the money she got from selling her lance, she could always purchase another one in the next town over, provided it wasn't under martial law, either.

As soon as she entered the shop, however, she wondered if picking this particular weapon shop was a wise thing to do, because there was an armored man having a heated argument with the shopkeeper.

The man was quite young, she realized, not much older than herself. He would not have been so intimidating had it not been for the leather gauntlets and burnished breastplate—not to mention the rather large broadsword hanging from his belt. In Rolante, he would have just been another oversized bully who the Amazon warriors would have gladly put in his place, but to the citizens of Jad, he must appear rather frightening. Bellowing at the top of his voice did not help, either.

"What kind of a weapons store DOESN'T SELL ANY WEAPONS?" he fumed.

"That's what I've been trying to explain to you," the shopkeeper said, cowering behind the register. "Ever since the Beastmen took over, they confiscated all our weapons. I'm afraid I don't have the sword you're looking for."

"Then why is your store even open?"

"I have a wide selection of scabbards and hunting knives that you might be interested in. Fortunately for you, I've had to lower my prices to stay competitive, so—"

"I don't need a hunting knife, I need a SWORD!" the young warrior exploded, then stormed out the door.

When he was gone, Lise stepped up to the counter, and the bespectacled shopkeeper eyed her warily. "Excuse me," she said politely, "but since you aren't selling any weapons right now, I have one I'd like to sell to you."

But instead of enthusiastically accepting her offer as Lise expected he would, the wiry merchant frowned deeply. "Don't be ridiculous," he snapped. "The Beastmen would only take it from me and I'd be left with nothing. Less than nothing, because I'll have lost money to you as well! However, if you're that eager to get rid of it, I have no objections if you would like to donate it. And lucky for you, I have a few hunting knives in stock! This one here is popular with the ladies, and the slim hilt would fit perfectly in your hand. Not to mention this handy little feature that lets you clip the sheath on your belt—"

"No thank you," Lise said tiredly, waving away the knife in question. She had been hoping to exchange her lance for a few coins, since the ones in her purse were not going to last her forever. And as conspicuous as her weapon was, she was not about to just give it away—she might as well have thrown it into the sea. The shifty shopkeeper was more likely than not to make a profit by selling it to one of the Beastmen anyway.

"Well, it looks like I'm forced to close up shop," the man said sourly, glaring at Lise as if it was all her fault. He began to lock up the display cases, and Lise winced as he closed the lid of each one more loudly necessary. Sensing now was probably a good time to leave, she hurried out the door, which slammed behind her. As soon as she left, the shopkeeper flipped the sign in the window to read "Closed" and drew the shade.

Stung by the man's rudeness, Lise stalked down the street, trying to figure out what to do next. By now, every shop in the district had closed or was boarded up. Carefully avoiding the paths and stares of the patrolling Beastmen, she decided there was nothing for it but to find the inn.

The common room of the only inn in town, to her surprise, was bustling with activity. Scattered through the room were travelers of every shape and size, and the bar was nearly full, too. Lise guessed this was where everyone who was not a native Jadite gathered, as nothing else in town was open. Slipping into an empty seat at the corner of the bar, Lise ordered a mug of sweetly spiced ale. She had already eaten dinner—which was admittedly not the most palatable—on the ship, and it was not late enough yet for her to want to retreat to her room.

The day had gone by in such a whirlwind, she hardly had any time to sit down and think about it all. Her father was dead, and her kingdom had gone up in flames. And her brother Elliot had been kidnapped. She had failed them and lost everything in her life that was precious to her. On top of that. she had failed her country, if there was anything left of it.

Lise had never felt so orphaned before. Numb was the best way to describe her current state of mind. She had only one purpose in life, now, and that was to find Elliot. He was still alive, he had to be. She dared not think otherwise. She would find him, even if it took the rest of her life.

Lise was so lost in her thoughts that she started in surprise when the bartender slapped the bill down in front of her. Blinking away the tears that had started to gather, she looked at the piece of paper and gasped from shock.

"Twenty luc for a drink?"

"Business these days, ma'am. It's hard to make much of a profit what with Beastmen scaring ships from coming in to port and closing off the entrance to the city."

Shock quickly melted into disbelief, then anger at the bartender and then at herself for being so foolish as to waste money on ale, when she should be doing her best to scrape away as much as she could. There was no telling how long her gold would last, or where her next meal or bed would come from next.

With gloomy resignation, she reached into her pouch for the necessary cash. But when a male voice spoke from somewhere from her left, her hand froze. "The lady's drink is on me."

Lise looked up in time to see a slender man next to her flip a shiny twenty-luc piece to the bartender, who nodded with satisfaction and went back to serving his other patrons. Where on Gaia had he come from?

Carefully, the princess appraised her savior. No, not savior, she thought, checking herself. Calling him her savior was a tad too generous. He was just the guy who paid for her drink.

The man next to her was decked in a rust-colored tunic and black pants, and his pale lavender hair was swept rakishly out of his eyes, the length of it wrapped into a thin, long rope that trailed down his back. Most strikingly, his skin was a deep bronze, in sharp contrast to her and the rest of the people in the room. As she paid closer attention to his appearance, however, she began to wonder how he was able to come up with that kind of cash. His boots were heavily scuffed with dust, and there was a long tear across his shirt that appeared to have been stitched up—rather crudely, in her opinion. Only the dark color of the fabric and the dim lighting of the room were able to conceal it at first glance.

But more than where the money came from, she wondered what he wanted. Leaning a little too close for comfort, he whispered conspiratorially, "If you want to leave the city, it's best to try at night. The Beastmen guards will turn into wolves, and they won't raise the alarm if you try to sneak past them." Dropping his voice even lower, he added, "They might end up attacking, though. It might in our best interest to sneak out together."

Lise pondered his proposal. Who was he, a complete stranger to ask her to accompany him on such a risky venture? Then again, she did want to get out of Jad eventually, and he seemed to know more about the situation than she did. There was something vaguely familiar about him, too, but she couldn't quite place him. Drawing back to put a little more distance between them, she nodded somewhat reluctantly.

"Meet me at the gates in an hour," he whispered. Then, straightening, he announced, "It's a date, then!" Sliding fluidly off his stool, he gave her a deep bow. "My lady, we shall meet again at our appointed time," he said, and disappeared into the bustling throng.

Lise felt the color rising to her cheeks as the heads of nearby patrons turned to stare at her. What must they think, with her agreeing to meet with a stranger so late at night? Announced so publicly, too! Of all bold-faced, impertinent things…!

-

Nevertheless, one hour later found Lise walking alone on the dark streets of Jad. Crossing a deserted intersection, she began to wonder, not for the first time, if she should be doing this. She had only just met the man, and now she was going to rendezvous with him all alone, and in the middle of the night, no less! Well, middle of the night was not exactly correct, as it was only nine-o-clock, but it was dark enough that it might as well be. Paying for her drink was a nice thing for him to do, but he clearly wanted something out of it. Besides, it wasn't as if she couldn't have paid for it herself. But she did let him pay, and she did agreed to meet him at the city gate. She couldn't go back on her promise. She sighed. At least she had the comforting weight of the lance hanging from her back.

Lise crossed another empty intersection. That was another thing making her nervous: the lack of any guards anywhere. The mysterious man in the bar had said that the Beastmen turned into wolves at night. She glanced down side streets and alleyways for signs of anything skulking in the darkness, and drew her lance for good measure. It wasn't that she was afraid of being attacked, necessarily—her skill with the lance was unmatched in Rolante—but she did not relish the thought of being set upon by a pack of wolves.

Thankfully, Jad was not a large city. The city gate shortly came into view, the stout wooden doors standing wide open, the archway between them eerily empty. The lavender-haired man was nowhere in sight. Just as I thought, she muttered silently to herself. He didn't seem all that reliable to begin with. Even though she was relieved to be free of the bronze-skinned stranger, she couldn't help feeling slightly disappointed. Walking through deserted streets had an unsettling effect, and it would have been nice to have some company at least.

"Pssst!" came a hiss from a cluster of barrels. Lise cautiously edged her way around them, and sure enough, the lavender-haired man was crouched there in the shadows. "Glad to see you could make it," he said as she knelt down next to him. "There were four guards at this gate, but a little while ago, a man with a sword took down two of them and ran off. There was a girl with a staff with him, too. The other two guards are around somewhere, but I haven't seen them in a long time."

Lise was dumbfounded. "How long have you been sitting here?"

He shrugged casually. "Long enough to plan our escape. The remaining guards are in wolf form now, so they're probably roaming somewhere beyond the gate. We need to slip out quickly, and if they attack us, we can fight them outside the city without causing a ruckus."

All this talk about fighting was fine with Lise, but what was the man going to do, strangle the wolves with his bare hands? He didn't have a sword or club or anything remotely resembling a weapon. Lise drew her lance and rested it on her shoulder. So this was why he had enlisted her help, Lise thought with exasperation.

"All right, let's go," she said, already resigned that she was going to be the one to get them out of there. At least he had the foresight to study their escape route. "Stay close to me, though. I don't want you getting hurt."

"With pleasure, my lady," he said, managing a small bow despite being crouched in cramped quarters.

Was it her imagination, or was he mocking her? As princess of Rolante, she never had this kind of behavior directed at herself and had only observed it with other people. Not quite sure how to respond, she simply got to her feet and started walking.

She made it through the city gates without incident. The tree branches swayed like stiff, feathery hands, as if the nighttime had given the trees a more threatening personality. The idea of wolves lurking in the bushes did not sit well with her, either. But worse than her being alone was the nameless man being alone, and it was then that she realized he had not followed her.

Lise turned around and called, "Hey, where—eek!" She gave a small shriek as she nearly bumped noses with him.

"What? I'm right here."

"Wh—where did you come from?"

He frowned in puzzlement. "I've been behind you the whole time." Then he grinned, the first time she had seen him smile. "You said to stay close, so I did."

Well, he didn't have to take her words so literally. Lise shook her head, trying to clear it. The man's strange behavior was becoming a distraction. Maybe she should have gone ahead to clear the way, after all.

She hefted her lance, peering for any signs of movement in the shadows. "Just keep an eye out, ok?"

No sooner had the words left her mouth did a dark, growling shape bound out of nowhere, leaping for her throat. Instinctively, she flipped her wrist and ducked, the pole of her lance windmilling and slamming the wolf to the ground. The animal whimpered, but it tumbled to the side and was back on its feet in a split-second. It lunged at her again, but this time Lise took the initiative. She ran to meet it and speared the beast's throat on the blade of her lance. Her weapon suddenly became heavy with the wolf's dead weight, and she tossed the body to the side, where it lay in a heap of fur and blood. Heart pounding with adrenaline, she whirled to face the other wolf, which was sure to be drawn to the scuffle. Fighting beasts was nothing new to her, but the needlebirds in Rolante were nowhere near this fast.

But instead of coming face-to-face with another snarling wolf, she found the man kneeling next to a second dead wolf, wiping off two long daggers on its hide. However, Lise did not notice how deftly he handled the weapons, nor how the blades seemed to disappear altogether when he sheathed them at his waist. She did not notice these things because she remembered, finally remembered, why he seemed so familiar.

"Don't move another inch," she said through gritted teeth, pointing the sharp end of her lance at him. She should have known. His garb, his skin, the way he moved so quickly and soundlessly. That stance, those blades, were the most telling clue. How could she have missed it before? "If you have any last words, now would be the time to say them, because I am about to send you to the Goddess."

"Whoa, wait a minute," he protested, but to his credit, he did not even flinch. "Before you do that, do you mind telling me what's going on?"

"Don't play dumb, thief," she hissed. "I've lost my father, my brother, and my home because of you. And now you're here to finish the job, but you'll find that the princess of Rolante is no easy prey."

The thief's dark face paled at the mention of Rolante. "Rolante…fell?"

"Don't act so surprised, desert scum," Lise spat. "Now that I've seen through your act, there's nowhere to run."

"I assure you that I had no part in it," he replied, a hard expression briefly crossing his face.

But the Amazon could not be placated. "But you knew about it! That makes you equally guilty!" Blind with rage, she could only envision him as one the faceless raiders of Navarre who slaughtered her countrymen. She rushed the thief, who bounded out of the way, grabbed onto a low-hanging branch, and flipped himself into a tree.

"Get down here and face me, you coward!" Lise shrieked, shaking her lance at the thief, who had scrambled to a safer altitude.

But he held a finger to his lips and shushed her. "If you keep this up, every Beastman in Jad will come running and then we'll really be in trouble."

Lise scowled, but he was right. "Fine," she said, and sheathed her lance. She grasped the same branch he had used, and tried to walk her feet up the trunk. But the bark was damp and slippery, and she lost her grip and fell into a heap. So instead, she straightened herself out with what remaining dignity she could muster and settled for watching the scoundrel from the base of the tree.

After some time, he spoke again. "Listen, at this rate, neither of us is ever going to leave Jad. Either you have to trust me and let me down, or the Beastmen will find us in the morning and throw us in jail."

The thief didn't sound terribly thrilled about the latter option, and neither did Lise. "Fine," she said. "I'll let you down, and we'll settle this in the woods."

He dropped out of the tree and landed next to her. "How about we work together and try to reach the next town?"

"Work together?" Lise said incredulously. "With an assassin?"

That hard look flitted across his face again. "I told you, I'm not—" he started to say, but cut his sentence short. "What I'm trying to say is that if I wanted to assassinate you, I would have done it a long time ago. There were plenty of opportunities to do so before we came all the way out here. But that's not why I'm here."

"Then why are you here?" Lise demanded, lance at the ready.

"I couldn't help being drawn to your beauty," he said, flashing her a roguish grin.

"Watch it, thief," Lise warned, pointing the blade at his face. She was not about to accept his rationalization just like that, nor was she so easy to distract. She was not some air-headed woman he had picked up in a bar. Although…he had picked her up, hadn't he? Technically speaking. Face growing hot, Lise tightened her grip on the lance. I was NOT picked up! I simply agreed to go with him! I—

"I'm going to Wendel to find out how to remove a curse that was placed on my friend."

His response was so far off from anything Lise had expected to hear that she lowered her weapon, astonished. "Wendel?"

"Yeah," he said, shrugging. "They say the Priest of Light can lift curses and cure illnesses."

He sounded like he might actually be telling the truth. "All right, I'll come with you," she conceded. She was going to Wendel, too, but she wasn't about to tell him that. "But I'm warning you, I'll be watching your every move."

The thief had the nerve to grin again. "I'm so flattered. Please, be my guest." Then, putting his hands behind his head, he sauntered off unconcernedly into the dark woods.

"Hey, wait—don't just walk away from me!" Lise hurried to catch up with him, not wanting to let him out of her sight and, though she would never admit it, not wanting to be left behind.