A chill dug bone deep into Corabelle as the inky liquid spread through her veins.

  Stumbling back on shaky legs, her back collided with the slimy wet wall, water and chlorophyll soaking immediately through her white uniform.

  Her vision wobbled nearly as badly as her legs.

  Sensing their perceived prey had weakened, the crabs grew bolder, creeping out of their hideaway and rapidly approached Corabelle.

  They couldn’t seriously harm her, but their attempt would be unpleasant.

  Corabelle raised a hand toward the pests, squeezing her eyes shut. As she opened them, she found her vision had stabilized, but the mote of light she had attempted to hurl at the crabs to scare them away once again had the intended effect, but not in the way she tried to cast.

  Instead of a ball of heatless flame, a pulse of sheer force blasted from her palm, sending the nearmost spindly creatures tumbling away with a repulsive clatter of chitin against stone. Sparks followed not even a blink later, leaving a sulphuric elemental smell and dark ash marks on her palm.

  That seemed to do the trick at least, scaring the little beasts further down into the dungeon in a panic, surely knowing better than to return.

  While her body was slowly adapting to the chill in her veins, Corabelle was left shivering where she stood, her muscles jittering uncontrollably. Her tongue tasted of rust and blood. Her lungs burnt with every breath.

  The black sludge was obviously toxic. Of her limited knowledge of Dewsilver, she had known it was fairly poisonous, she had just assumed her mysterious benefactor had neutralized it in some way. Clearly this was an incorrect assumption.

  Still, she was alive. The toxicity wasn’t strong enough to harm her more quickly than she could heal.

  But what happened to my spell?

  She raised an unsteady hand, muttering the incantation once again to this time to discover a feeble orb of energy filled with rapidly dying spark and the smell of burning oil.

  Interesting.

  Force, energy, and fuel. Those were the basic elements of an orb of heatless flame. They were all there, but they seemed to be scrambled, not melding into their proper potential.

  The note of few words didn’t mention this as a possible effect. Though, Corabelle wasn’t entirely sure what the intended effect was supposed to be.

  The fact she could still see clearly even past her previous mote seemed to indicate her Runebinds, at least, were unaffected.

  The desired result of this strange ooze was that she couldn’t be found nor controlled, but how Dewsilver was supposed to achieve that, Corabelle wasn’t told.

  Maybe this was some sort of trick after all.

  Not from the Fae. They wouldn’t bother employing such a backward punishment to tamper with her magic. They'd simply curse her and be done with it and it would certainly be worse than shuffling simple spells.

  If this was a trick, it was human, but she couldn’t imagine it would be worth all these resources and surely they knew Dewsilver wouldn’t be toxic enough to kill her. It seemed an awfully convoluted way to not even fully incapacitate a single Faedemon.

  So there must be something she didn’t know. She’d already made the decision to trust them. It might be a stupid decision, but at this point, what more did she have to lose. If this was some elaborate mission to trap and kill her, so be it. She’d be brought back and resources would have been wasted on everyone’s part.

  She pushed herself off the wall, legs feeling like a newborn foal.

  North. The message said to go North and meet them at a village there. It wouldn’t be easy but if she really were invisible to her masters, a human trap was worth the risk.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  This dungeon led all the way down to the thin rocky shore beneath the castle, but navigating the slick stairs down in her current condition proved to be shockingly difficult. On more than one occasion her unstable legs nearly caused her fall before she could catch herself roughly on to the disgusting stone.

  By the time she reached the final layer of the dungeon, the first pastels of dawn were just barely shining in the sky and high tide had coated the slick stone in a layer of water that stained her white boots up to the ankle as more crabs and other aquatic life fled from the monster before them.

  Navigating the stone around the base of the cliffside was a challenge in itself even as Corabelle slowly became used to her shaking limbs.

  Prior to the Fae’s inhabitation of the castle, the dungeon had been decently maintained, algal grown had been curbed, and shellfish had been removed. Since their inhabitation, that had changed, leaving the interior of the bottom layer of the dungeon nearly as bad as the ocean rocks.

  Though, even in its terrible condition, the dungeon was at least sheltered from the crashing waves that pummeled Corballe as she made her way slowly around the cliffside. She didn’t even bother trying to keep dry, even as the wind bit her already chilled body.

  With every tedious step her heart pounded. What if she was found? Lesser Scout or other Faedemon could spot her at any moment, even as she stayed hidden, her tracks covered by the tide.

  If the Fae found out she had a way to shield herself, they would make certain no one could ever use it again. Dewsilver mines would be destroyed when they figured out the source.

  They almost certainly decide Corabelle herself was no longer worth the trouble she caused.

  Maybe this was a terrible idea. But it was too late to go back now.

  As she made her way down the shore, sun baking her and dried rough salt clinging to her skin, Corabelle kept her back hunched, doing her best to keep low behind the dunes.

  Scouts and patrols would occasionally travel these roads, but few rarely cared to venture to the beach, they rightfully found the sand and salt irritating.

  The beginnings of blisters formed and healed with every step in her wet boots, leaving her feet a constant raw feeling before she eventually gave up on the boots entirely. She’d risk the shells over this.

  Tying the laces together, she slung them over her shoulder. She couldn’t leave evidence indicating the direction of her travel, even if she no longer had use for them.

  The sun rose and fell with no sign of the village. Corabelle began to wonder if she’d somehow missed it as the sky began to turn purple and the stars began to dimly glow.

  She was about to double back, check further inland when she spotted it, the mossy edge of a dilapidated roof striking out angularly from behind a dune in front of her.

  Her hips, knees, ankles and the arches of her feet all ached through the trek through the sludgy sand, but she didn’t care. This was it. This had to be it.

  She stumbled up and over the dune, and through the dry grass to the edge of the village.

  It had clearly once been very lovely. Perfectly uniform houses that stood in rows all leading to large houses farther inland, old crop fields far behind, water by a freshwater stream coming down from the mountain beyond.

  It was quiet. The only sound was the wind whistling through broken windows and the occasional creak of old wood threatening to collapse.

  The village seemed empty, void of Martin or anyone else for that matter. But she supposed that should have been expected, they wouldn’t stand there in the open all day waiting for her arrival.

  She slowly paced down the old road, glancing in windows for any sign of life. It would be a strange prank for them to do all this without showing themselves. It could be an ambush, but it seemed risky. This village was too far from the kingdom to be along any of the major patrol routes but that didn’t mean that a scout couldn’t be sent this far out.

  The humans tended to carry out their missions under the full cover of darkness, it would be unlike them to attack at dusk, but then again it was far more unlikely for them to help a Demon.

  Suddenly she spotted movement, the shadow of a form emerging from one of the doorways, almost appearing from nothing.

  Her beautiful, oddly familiar brown eyes sparkled in the last light of dusk. She wore modest clothes and her ears were covered, her hair tied neatly in a black hair wrapping. An Aldrian woman.

  “You must be the Faedemon,” She said simply.

  “I am,” Corabelle spoke carefully. “You must be the mage.”

  The woman nodded, “Martin claims you are to be trusted. Is he correct in this assumption?”

  Trusted. No, so long as the Fae could reach her, she could never be trusted. Though, if she truly was safe from her masters…

  “I don’t want to hurt anyone,” Corabelle answered truthfully. “As long as your potion does what you say, I won’t.”

  The woman took a step closer, looking at her carefully. Her sodden dress, her mess of salt tangled hair, her tired posture.

  “I believe that,” She finally said, her eyes flicking over Corabelle's shoulder, casting a knowing look behind her. “I’m not alone,” She added. “Do not be alarmed.”