A Price Paid Ch. 01

Chapter One

Everyone laughs.

Everyone laughs for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes it's done because something is, well, funny. Sometimes it's done in mockery. Sometimes it's done as a surrender to absurdity. Sometimes it's done when the only alternative is to sob and one just refuses to give in to the misery. But one of the better reasons is in the midst of a lovely evening with friends, with good food and drink and the feeling of warmth that flowed to and from one another that came from mutual affection, respect, and the passage of time.

Such evenings happened with some regularity for Bryana Lia these days and it seemed that only now, after some years having passed in the normal world, was she beginning to get the hang of them. Mages had associates and acquaintances, but they had few friends because knowing who to trust was always a risk. Within a guild, the risk was usually in opening yourself to becoming part of someone's political play to raise their own position or diminish another's, perhaps even your own by the time it was all said and done. Some guilds thrived on such internal politics, believing that the strongest emerged victorious and all benefited in the end.

She even believed that once, but had long since abandoned the notion, as life and practical experience showed her that it weakened a guild more than helped. Some were so immersed in trying to emerge victorious within their own walls that they spent precious little time building wealth or, as Bryana believed as one of the most important functions of a guild; to pass on their knowledge to future generations and build upon it so knowledge could be gained and archived.

And they had fewer still when it came to mere mortal friends. Choosing to tell the wrong soul could mean that one would sway in the breeze with a rope around their neck one fine dawn. In some ways, for all their power, a mage's life was more fragile than almost any other. Sometimes the slightest mistake could shatter it. But these friends, while unskilled in the art of the forbidden magics, knew of her and were unafraid. It was so because they had all traveled together years before to face a sorceress that threatened the known world and beyond. They had traveled to it via magic, and, over the march of days, had seen it unchained, for good and ill.

They fought at Bryana's side along with their general, Neral Jaye, along with Neral's husband by law and Bryana's mate through love, Deres Valtise. The three of them were one, and together, along with the soldiers assembled, saved a world that didn't know it needed saving.

Bryana had sort of expected for them to go their separate ways afterward and was somewhat surprised when they not only reached out to her, but embraced her. For a soldier of Erette, one that they shed blood and tears with was not left behind or forgotten. Finally, after years, and sometimes conscious awareness and effort to lower her guard, she felt comfortable with them.

So tonight found her with three of those friends, Anna, Abren, and Dion. They met every few weeks for games, after dinner drinks, and just to talk. She often teased Neral about her similar gatherings with her sisters and Bryana had been a part of those too, occasionally, so she knew of what she spoke. Those could be raucous, probably, Bryana surmised, because their station demanded a certain strict propriety as part of their station in almost every other circumstance, so they took the opportunity to be loud and unrestrained.

Bryana's gathering with friends was usually a quieter affair even though it could tend toward the unrestrained, which was fine. It was closeness and familiarity. It was that sense of both that she basked in as they gathered in Dion's home. Ynesa stood as Neral Jaye's second and among the most trusted of her officers. They had seen much together in their years and found even more in common now with young children of the same age, both of them upstairs.

"That book was awful, Anna," Bryana chided, wincing at even the thought of some of the passages.

She was amused by Bryana's pain. "I told you."

"Why did you make me suffer a book like that? 'The night was so hot and wet, no one could remember a night so hot and wet?'"

Anna laughed at the line and the groans from the other women. "Why should I suffer alone? Besides, relax and embrace the badness, and it's hilarious. You laughed. You laughed your ass off. Try and tell me you didn't."

Bryana's deep blue eyes carried the humor before she lost the ability to maintain a straight face. "I did. It was deliciously awful. If the author was attempting humor, he succeeded spectacularly. Unfortunately, my sense was that it was supposed to be a serious effort. In that event, I pity him. Truly."

After another wave of laughter passed, Dion declared, "I must read this book."

"I shall be sure to give it to Neral to pass it to you."

"Start it after you've had a few and it's even better."

Dion raised her brow and smirked with Anna's comment, "I'll keep that in mind."

"But not too many because then the words blur."

"Understood."

Abren wanted to know, "Is there a drinking problem going on, Anna?"

"I polish off alcohol fine, it's not a problem at all."

"As long as you're sober for duty, no one cares."

Anna raised her glass with a smile, "And that's why Colonel Dion and General Jaye are so beloved."

The adults were reminded of the presence of children in the home when a thud emanated from the ceiling of the study, followed by a deafening silence.

"Sounds like they are asleep to me," Anna observed with wry amusement.

Dion's brown eyes mirrored that, her pale golden skin creating a striking contrast. "Did you ever actually sleep during a sleepover?"

"Not before dawn usually," she admitted. "Not going to do anything about that though, huh?"

Abren, mother of five children herself, still very fit for service, and proud of it, really only displaying her years through some gray on her temples and some fine lines, chimed in in equally good-natured defense. "Why should she? Unless you see blood, smell smoke, or hear screams, it's children being children. They will be ashamed of getting caught and be on their best behavior for one minute per year of age, which, in this case, means about five minutes, then they'll be back at it."

"You should check, Dion," Anna quipped, sipping her drink and folding her legs into herself as she relaxed her archer's sinewy frame into the plush antique chair. "Maybe Khylen blasted a hole through the side of the house." She shifted her gaze to Bryana with another sip and a playful smile. "Did you teach her that yet?"

Bryana blushed, "No, I have not taught her that."

"Going to?"

Bryana tried to defer. "Someday. If she chooses to know."

"How could she not? Her father and her second mother know all sorts of incredible things. How could a curious child not want to know?"

"Because she may not want to. Her path is hers to walk."

"I bet she does." Anna laughed, contemplating the possibilities, raising her arm an extending her fingers in her imitation of how she'd seen Deres and Bryana unleash mage fire in battle before creating her own appropriate sound effects. "You're it."

The women laughed at that, and even Bryana chuckled at the notion. She often considered how some of the bullying of her childhood might have gone differently if she knew then what she knew now. Also, if she'd had the confidence of now then, she would not have gone down the path of the bully herself and then maybe other things would have been different, too.

Abren sided with Bryana. "As much as we might like them to be little versions of us, so that maybe "we" really sort of go on and maybe we can watch them fix some of our mistakes or maybe take the roads we didn't, they're their own people and will make their own choices and own mistakes. By the Goddess, Anya is a scientist," she said, referring to her youngest. "She picks apart what makes the world work and all I've ever done is march and slash."

"But you do both with aplomb," Dion told her with sincerity.

Abren agreed with a nod. "I do. But if I expected her to be a soldier, or worse, tried to force her to be one because Abren Keel has to go on somehow, one or both of us would both be bitter, either from her telling me to go to the depths, or she would be, after following dutifully out of love and respect for her family tradition, and not living the one life she gets the way she would have wanted. It's not for us to choose for others, even our own children, that way."

She sighed, feeling like she'd put a slight damper on things. "Anyway, Anya Keel is a fine scientist, even if sometimes I can only listen to her and wait for the places to nod and then be awed when I start reading about what she's studying. Khylen Jaye will be the best damn...whatever she wants, too."

That reminded Anna of something, and that something set her to giggling again, "I was teaching recruits blade work last week and General Jaye did a walk by with Adjutant Jaye in tow; nothing unusual there, obviously. So, the General does her walk-by and observation and talks to them, then asks me who I think is worth watching."

"She moves on like she does, and before we can get back to it, I hear one of the men mutter to his friend in Nelina's direction with," her voice mimicking the masculine, "Must be nice to have the name Jaye. I'd love to use it to coast into a nice, easy job like that."

Bryana was the first to laugh, but everyone else was right behind. "A hundred gold to them if they say that to Nelina's face," she said.

"He wouldn't have a face left," Anna declared.

They all knew how the Jaye women worked. They set high bars and then did everything possible and more to clear them. General Jaye would never have it said that she played favorites, even for a niece who admired her and lived to follow in her footsteps, so the bar for her was set higher than it would have been for any other soldier and, while Nelina might have struggled to reach that bar, she understood and that was what she wanted in the end. If she made it. If she thrived in the service and earned the positions she sought, no one who had been there could say that she wasn't among the best. They couldn't say she was a Jaye in name only.

Abren pointed to Anna, "You simply must have this plebe spar with her."

"Already set for day after tomorrow; blades, then hand-to-hand at ten.

"Oh, I'm there," she responded enthusiastically.

"You are evil, Captain."

Anna managed to look positively pure of heart. "Some plebes require an attitude adjustment. I don't have to remind the Colonel of that, do I?"

"You're quite lippy tonight."

"Just the usual lippy for off duty."

"Hmm." Dion thought to debate it, but decided that Anna really wasn't wrong.

"Forgive me, Bryana, for taking us off topic."

"What was the topic again?" she wondered hoping to dodge it for just a moment more, "terrible books?"

"Children," Anna corrected. "So when are you going to make a little mage with your man of choice?"

Bryana shook her head and put on a smile. "When are you going to have a little one. Time only goes one way."

She frowned. "Are you calling me old?" Playful pride chimed in. "I'm still young, fair of skin, and fine of body. I have plenty of time to find a man man enough to handle me." She laughed, "Or man enough to manhandle me."

"So I'm old?

"She with the golden mane, eyes of blue, and with the long, lovely body is not at all old. But she is settled and has a man in her heart. She may as well let him into the rest of her and make herself another little magician."

"I have," she hesitated, "no desire for a child of my own. Khylen is handful enough for me just helping where I can to raise her."

"Pity," Anna said with a verbal and physical shrug before tipping her wine glass all the way back to make sure that nothing was left behind. "You make a fine mother. You should have your own."

She hesitated, flushing from what she wanted to tell herself was the wine. "I'm not her mother."

"She disagrees," Abren was quick to point out. "When she calls you 'mother Bryana', or just plain 'mother,' she's not saying it like a nickname, or a tease, or just something to call you. You're her mother, too. Not just from me, and my view of what I've seen of you, it's what she thinks, too. I know children, and I should because I raised enough of them."

"Vina says the same thing," Dion added. "She tells me sometimes when Khylen tells her things she has to ask which mother she's talking about that did this or said that."

The heat Bryana felt in her cheeks, she was now certain wasn't just the wine. "I really wouldn't be a good mother."

"And why do you still think that," Anna wanted to know.

Memories came to her unbidden and unstoppable. "For much of my life, certainly longer than you've known me, I was not a good person. There were those that called me evil and they had good reason. They spat my name in anger and fear and when they saw me I could watch the color drain from their faces and it pleased me to see it."

She looked to each of them. "If you knew what I was then, we would not be sitting together so amiably now. You would be disgusted at the sight of me as I am disgusted by the thought of her."

"And you would poison the child, is that it?" Dion shook her head. "Do not forget that I have glimpsed her directly." Dion pressed forward quickly, not intending to bring up the past to hurt her. "That person is not before me. That person is not who you are. Do you think I would drink with you, invite you into my home, and call you friend if that was who you are? You are changed. You are kind, loving, and give of yourself. The person you are would shape the little one, not the one that was."

She gave voice to the thoughts that always followed her after she would hear Khylen comment to someone about how great mother Bryana was. "And when my child finds out what I was? When they look at me and cannot believe the thing I was? When I have to tell them what they've heard is true?" The answers she contemplated left her blood cold.

Abren was clear, having had the experience several times already. "There will always come a day when a child begins to grow up and sees their parents are imperfect. They will come across your mistakes and judge you for them, sometimes if they have cause or not. Be as honest as you can and trust that you've raised them well. They come around, sometimes only when life forces them to confront their own imperfections, but they do."

"Yours will hear those things, and hear your shame, and look at the memories built and time together, then they will come around. Khylen will, too, when and if that moment comes to pass many years from now. As you ask them to trust you, you have to trust that you raised them well."

"And you shouldn't be afraid because you think the Goddess will punish you for your actions of the past through your child."

Bryana huffed and shifted her weight, "You know I am not religious, Ynesa." She didn't bother to mention that the thought had occurred anyway.

"But I am, and, just in case you wonder, the Goddess is just. "If She wanted you to pay, you would pay, not an innocent soul." Her tone dismissed the thought. "Just in case you decided to contemplate the religious aspect."

"Now, now," Anna scolded, wagging her finger at her superior officer. "I did notcome here to chat about scripture."

"Then what did you come to chat about?" Abren already knew the answer.

Anna put finger to thumb as she counted, "This evening we've gone through, wine, song, piss-poor literature, child-rearing, and motherhood. What's left?"

"Here we go," Abren said with an accompanying eye roll.

She had an epiphany. "I know. Sex."

"We always talk about sex with you around."

"I like sex. I make no apologies. You obviously like sex, so let's talk it. When was the last time you got it?"

"You first?"

"Last week," she said easily, "Lakam, the new stable hand at the barracks."

Dion's eyes widened, "You didn't."

"He's a civilian. It would be no different than if we met at some dance or something. He looked tasty." She grinned wickedly, "So I tasted."

"Where?"

"I thought you were," she began, rolling her eyes, "about sex."

"You started it," she said defensively, but with a grin, "so finish."

"In the field behind the stables. He was quick, but he was very excited and one can't entirely blame him, can one?. It was a good quick though; good enough for me to give him another try at some point."

"Slut."

"Sometimes," she agreed. "So, how about you?"

"Does 'myself' count?"

"Self-love is almost always good love, so why not?"

"Petra is away, so, in bed by myself a couple of nights ago. I know how I work, so it was nice; shivery, and quivery, and lovely."

"Last night," Dion offered, unbidden.

"With a light on?"

"Why, yes," she said, dismissing the barb. She'd known and served with Anna long enough to know that, for her, it was just an attempt at humor, and it was usually fun to play along. "We decided to be truly adventurous. It was interesting, as I'd never seen his cock before in all our time together."

"I imagine it's nice," Anna pondered.

"You've imagined my husband's cock?" Dion was clearly surprised. "That's news to me."

"Shouldn't be," she responded. "I'd guess a lot of women do, Dion. He's yummy looking."

She smiled. "He is...quite yummy looking." The smile turned coy, "And quite yummy."

Laughter pealed across the room and Anna sounded victorious at being able to label Dion. "Slut."

Dion tipped the bottle and freshened her wine as she made her way to the couch with Bryana. "We are all as She made us." She raised her glass as if to toast. "She just made me as one who loves to suck his cock. I just...love everything about it. Sometimes I just take it because I want to and it's mine."

"See? Slut." She looked across the room. "You, Bryana?"

She groaned. "This morning, if you must know." Honestly, she was grateful for the change of subject.

"That mage of yours and the general's is yummy, too. Rugged, chiseled looks; muscles like he could pull a fucking wagon by himself. I bet it was good." She sighed in want in the long, drawn out, wanton manner that alcohol and friendly company allowed for. "I'd try that."

"You. Are. Incorrigible."

"Don't be offended, Dion, I'd try yours, too."

The colonel used a throw pillow for its named purpose, tossing it in her direction. "That is not allowed."

"If you want him, ask him," Bryana said, plainly as the girlish giggles died down. "He is free to do as he pleases. So long as you do not parade the fact in some drunken brag and bring embarrassment to Neral, she truly does not care. She knows men rut, and with her soldiering taking her away from her husband now and then, she expected it to be a thing no matter who she married."

Anna shook her head and spoke soberly in the moment, "I would run my dagger across my own throat before I willfully brought shame to General Jaye." The exclamation of assent from the soldiers with her was immediate. Anyone who served with her felt the same. For many of them she epitomized what it meant to be a soldier and a warrior, and they tried their best, in their own ways, to live to that example.

Abren chose to be the one to try to recapture the mood. "I doubt he'll have time for you anyway. He has his wife, our lovely friend, and Traymis Elan is his happy slave that I'm sure he uses frequently."

Elan, fellow soldier, and considered one of the elite in her own right, had traveled with them on the quest some years before, had nearly been taken and enslaved by the sorceress Drexa. Her mind, all but emptied and prepared for servitude, floated waiting for the sorceress to cage her forever. Deres claimed her instead in order to save her. He gave his will to a woman who surrendered hers, restoring her to the person she once was as much as could be done. The end result was a woman still herself, but bound to him as a slave all the same.