David Niemitz
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Guild Mage 102
🕑 Added 2025-02-14 20:50:32 +0000 UTCChapter 102: Skinner
Storm eels.
Liv grimaced, already thinking through all the ways this could very quickly go wrong. Professor Blackwood had described how they could release a shocking pulse into the water around them, strong enough to stun a human. Once you couldn’t move, it was an easy matter for the eels to latch on with their mouths and drag you under. If you didn’t recover use of your body before you drowned, that was it. And even if you did, at that point you were bleeding with a pack of monstrous eels chomping down on your flesh.
If she’d had more time to practice with Luc, Liv was fairly confident that she could have simply shielded them all from the attack. Gather up the shock and push it aside, or even turn it back on the eels as a counterattack.
Unfortunately, she hadn’t been able to practice - or at least, not nearly enough to feel confident that she wouldn’t actually make things worse. On top of that, there were too many witnesses. Out of everyone in the team, Liv thought that she might be able to trust Rosamund to keep a secret. But past her? They barely knew each other. Venetia, the team leader, had been actively hostile. And then there were the mercenaries. Without knowing more about who they worked for, or why they’d really come to Coral Bay, Liv couldn’t chance letting them see her use the royal word.
“Try not to fall off!” Liv called out to her team. There were eight of them, counting Wren and the journeyman. Liv made certain she had their locations fixed in her mind, and then invoked her word of power: “Celent’he Aiveh Oktō Stelim!” A flood of mana rushed out of her: seven rings on a single spell, an extravagant cost, but it needed to be done urgently, and it needed to be finished quickly.
Pillars of ice, flat at the top, rose beneath Liv and all of her teammates, lifting them up out of the salt water, high enough that the eels wouldn’t be able to reach them. “The ice is as pure as I can make it,” Liv called out to them. “It will stop the shocks from reaching you!”
Brom nearly slipped and fell, but by dropping his shield, he managed to hold on. Venetia and Isabel let loose with knives of coherent mana, which hit the waves with a succession of small splashes, and caused blooms of red blood to rise up from wounded eels. Rosamund kept her shield, but clipped her hammer to her belt, and reached out with a hand. At her incantation, the sand of the ocean floor rose up like a gaping mouth, and swallowed two of the eels, carrying them back down into the waves and, presumably, burying them far beneath the sea floor.
Bryn lashed out with a wave of her hand, and steam began to rise from the water where two of the eels had dragged under another of the mercenaries. Wren kept an arrow fitted to her bow, but seemed content to let others handle the fighting while she kept an eye on their surroundings. Liv concluded that the rest of her team had the eels essentially under control, and scanned the shallow water to see whether any of the wounded mercenaries had survived.
“Celet Ghesia,” she intoned, making a deliberate effort to lower the volume of her voice again, now that the immediate crisis seemed to be passing. She raised her left hand, clenching it into a loose fist, and lifted. A hand of ice rose out of the ocean, scooping up a wounded mercenary, who immediately began coughing up water and sucking in desperate breaths. Liv used the magical hand to gently deposit him in the mercenaries’ rowboat, and then glanced around to see if anyone else needed help.
The mercenaries, most of them panting and bleeding, hadn’t lowered their weapons. Indeed, they seemed to be waiting to find out whether the college students were going to keep right on going after dealing with the Storm Eels, and tear into them. They weren’t far wrong; only it happened with words, and not magic.
“What in the name of the trinity do you think you’re doing out so far?” Venetia yelled from her perch on top of an ice column. “Have you got even the slightest bit of magic among you? Is this your first king tide, or were you just born stupid?”
“Listen, girl,” one of the men, thick as a tree trunk and with a mustache that reminded Liv of a hound with a particularly drooping jowl, began.
“That’s journeyman, to you lot,” Venetia interrupted him. Liv took inordinate amusement out of the fact the woman’s ire was directed at someone other than her, for once. “Alright, get back to shore, now. You’re done for this tide.”
“We have a contract with Master Cartwright,” the man protested.
“Then Master Cartwright can take it up with the college,” Venetia told him. “You can be certain I’ll be making a report to Professor Jurian and the archmagus. Get your people, get your little boat, and get moving.”
The mercenary leader looked over the students, and Liv’s smile slipped away from her face. That was a look she’d seen before - in an alley in Freeport, for instance. It was the look of a man who was willing to kill everyone in front of him if only he thought that he could get away with it. He was doing the math in his head: how many of the young mages in front of him had any magic left? How much of a fight would they put up, and how many could his men take out before anyone knew what was happening?
Liv raised her left hand, clenched it into a fist, and watched as the mercenaries' eyes all drifted over to the enormous fist of ice that mimicked her every movement. Mustache looked over to her, and she met his eyes without flinching. Go ahead, Liv urged him silently.
He looked away, and the moment of tension broke. “You heard the journeyman,” Mustache grumbled. “Pack it up.” His men set to work, but Liv thought they had a rather small catch for how far out they’d come. Once again, she wondered what they were really after.
“I’ll have your name,” Venetia said. “For my report.”
“Skinner,” the man with the mustache said. “Bill Skinner.”
Liv watched them until they had their rowboat back at the second sandbar - far enough distant she was fairly certain they weren’t going to turn around and launch a surprise attack. She glanced over to Wren, and saw the hunter had never put her nocked arrow back in the quiver.
“What rusting idiots,” Venetia said. “They’re lucky we were hear to haul their bacon out of the fire. You can put us all down now, Brodbeck.”
Liv blinked, and looked over her teammates while she used up her stored waste heat to melt their columns. None of them looked at all like they were watching for an ambush. Had they completely missed what just happened - or had she imagined it?
With a splash, Wren tromped over, holding her bow up above the water to keep the waxed string dry. “None of them have ever been in a real fight before,” she murmured. “Duels don’t teach you everything.”
“I didn’t imagine it, then,” Liv said, hopping from her own column into the palm of her frozen hand. She used it to carry herself closer to the reef, which was half exposed to open air by the king tide.
“Watch yourself, there,” Venetia called over. “Don’t get too close. I can see the Flowering Urchins from here.”
“I’m just making certain they didn’t leave anything behind,” Liv said. In truth, she was trying to see what they’d been after, but the reef was an explosion of life and color of a kind nearly entirely unfamiliar to her. Professor Blackwood’s dead, broken bits of coral were all well and good when for class discussion, but the dizzying variety of plants, coral shapes, and flashing schools of fish before her was too much to take in at a glance.
Liv chanced a glance back over her shoulder, and saw that the journeyman had the others gathering up the slain Storm Eels. They made a good soup, from what Liv understood. While everyone else was distracted, she twisted the handle of her wand to extend it into a sword of adamant ice, and then, perched on her magical hand, leaned over and slashed an ‘x’ shape into the coral. She felt a slight twinge of guilt at the thought of hurting something that was alive, but she wanted to be able to find this part of the reef again.
“Everything looks fine over here,” Liv said, melting the sword, and turned her hand about so that she could ride it back to the others. Then, she unfurled the fingers, slipped back out into the warm water, and sunk the ice beneath the waves, where it would be gone soon enough.
“Right. I imagine everyone’s tapped out after that, and we’ve got a good haul,” Venetia said. “Back to shore it is.”
Liv almost spoke up to let the journeyman know that she had enough mana left for another fight or two, but decided there was no need to advertise that at the moment. Over her first few weeks at Coral Bay, word had gotten around that Liv could hold a lot of mana, but most people still seemed to underestimate just what that meant.
They made their way back over the three sandbars at a slightly different angle, covering some of the ground the mercenaries had neglected on their own route. There were plenty of clams, mussels and oysters to dig up, and Liv ended up pulling the hem of her linen shirt out of her breeches to use as a kind of sack, piling up shellfish on the fabric and wrapping them into a sort of bundle in front of her. It exposed her back and belly for everyone to see, but the fact the other girls were doing the same thing made it a bit easier to stand.
By the time they’d got back to the beach, she realized that Venetia had been right to turn them back. Brom and Sawyer used their hammers to crack their way through a few of the smaller crabs, and the journeyman had held back enough on the way out to provide finishing blows with her blades of mana.
On the strand, piles of crabs, eels, lobsters and sharks had been tossed up, with crossbow bolts sticking out of them. Townsfolk sorted the carcasses, separating what could be eaten from what was, like the reef crabs, toxic. The first and second year students remained on watch above them, behind the wooden barricades on wheels.
Venetia led them to a series of enchanted storage barrels; Liv recognized the runes worked into the wood as the work of her own family, and couldn’t help but reach out a hand to touch the wood after she’d emptied her own load. It was like touching a piece of Kelthelis.
Their team’s barrels were labelled with their names, so that when the sorting was done they’d each receive their share of pay. From her lessons in Guild Law and History, Liv knew that half the value would go to the local noble - in this case, the college. From what was left, Venetia got a double share as team leader, and all of them would get first opportunity to purchase anything they wanted out of the hall. Liv wasn’t interested in the meat, but if there were any pearls in those oysters, she intended to get one.
“Alright, over to the healers,” Venetia commanded. “Everyone needs to be checked over.” Liv turned away from the ocean; a team was already heading out to replace them, and she knew the rotation would continue until the king tide had passed, and the shore was safe again.
Arjun was one of the people manning the medical station, so Liv and Rosamund headed right for him, with Wren trailing behind. He wrinkled his nose as they approached. “You both stink like fish guts and blood,” he complained.
“That’s a nice thing to say to two ladies,” Rosamund teased him, and Liv laughed.
“It’s true though,” she said, picking at her ruined linen shirt. “I can’t wait to get back to High Hall and get clean again.”
“Injuries?” Arjun asked, and though all three of them shook their heads, he checked them over anyway. If any other young man at the college had run their hands over her legs, arms, and sides, Liv would have felt self conscious, but her dark-haired friend had such a cold, matter of fact way about it that he might as well have been inspecting a lame horse.
Even when Rosamund teased him – “Watch where those hands are going!” – he just shrugged and went right on about his business.
“You’re all fine,” Arjun declared, after inspecting Wren last. “Go get dry and warm up by the fire. Have something to eat. Your next rotation will come soon enough.”
Behind the barricades, the enchanted barrels for storing shellfish and the rest of the catch, and the medical stations, bonfires had been lit, with camp chairs set up around them and trestle tables from which first years were spooning great helpings of hot chowder into bread bowls. Liv, Rosamund and Wren were each given a thick towel and sent into line. Soon enough, they were seated around one of the fires, across from Venetia and the rest of their team, filling their bellies with fresh-caught, mana rich seafood.
Liv was just tearing hunks of bread off her bowl when Cade made his way over with a slate and chalk. He caught her eye and smiled, but it was to her team leader that he addressed himself. “Good catch,” he told Venetia. “Lots of meat to be sold. There was even one small pearl in one of the oysters.” He turned the slate around and tapped a finger against it.
Venetia looked at the share price for a moment, and then nodded. “Not bad. And we’ll get out at least once more, I think,” she said, taking a moment to look out at the bay and judge the tide. “Anyone want to buy the pearl? I’ve got my own,” she said, and tapped the lobes of her ears, each pierced and carrying a black pearl set in silver.
“I would,” Liv said.
Cade turned to her and nodded. “I’ll have it set aside; once we know what your total share is, we’ll see whether you cover it all, or if you have to pay a bit to make up the difference. Come find me once the tide is done; I’ll be at Professor Blackstone’s station.”
On his way past her he paused, leaned down, and lowered his voice. “And after you’ve had a chance to get cleaned up, I’ll take you out to dinner to celebrate your first tide.” Liv grinned, and nodded.
☙
The prospect of not only hot water at High Hall, but also a clean, warm change of clothes, and dinner after, carried Liv through the rest of the tide. By the time her team was judged warm and rested enough to go back out, the tide was coming in. The third sandbar and the reef were too deep to reach - Liv judged she could have swum it, but the prospect of fighting while treading water didn’t appeal.
Still, they brought back another good haul, if not quite equal to their first outing, and Liv was able to take a small black pearl, still salty and wet from its time in the sea, back to High Hall with her. She’d only had to kick in a gold piece to make up the price, and they’d found a secod pearl, as well. On the spur of the moment, she’d bought that one for Rosamund, recalling that her friend hadn’t declared a single enchanted item before their duel.
The hot water at High Hall was just as decadently wonderful as Liv had been anticipating, and by the time she’d dressed and met Cade downstairs, she felt an entirely new woman. Over dinner and wine at the Crab and Gull, he answered her questions about what assisting Professor Blackstone in the sorting involved.
“In all truth, I’m lucky he’s taken me on,” Cade admitted. “Most people in my position would probably be heading home by now, since I won’t be joining the guild. I do a lot of the work his journeymen do, except without the rank.”
“Did you stay just for me?” Liv asked him, unable to keep a smile from her face. The wine went very well with her butter-drenched lobster.
“Perhaps I did,” Cade answered.
On the way back to High Hall, she couldn’t stop smiling. The confrontation with Skinner and his mercenaries was going to be trouble, but they’d avoided a fight, and it was trouble for tomorrow. She’d give Venetia time to make a report, and then have her own private conversation with Master Jurian. In the meantime, she’d gotten a taste of what it would be like to cull a rift with adequate numbers and support, for once, and compared to what happened in Whitehill it was a relief. At no point had she felt like she was actually in danger, things were so well organized, and she’d come away from it with a beautiful pearl to do – something with.
When she’d reached the door to her shared sitting room, Liv wasn’t ready for the night to end. Cade kissed her there, the taste of wine on both their tongues mingling, and rather than let him leave, she took his hand and tugged him through the shared space and into her own bedchamber.
After all, she reasoned, this was Coral Bay, not Whitehill. And Matthew and Triss had seemed perfectly fine.
Neither Liv nor Cade went to sleep until quite late that night.
Comments
gogetacookie
What a wild take on Cade
Rip Woodham
I had to look AOB up after seeing you talk about it. Thanks for the rec. :D
Larc
Because in whitehill it was considered immodest and possibly suggestive, and she grew up there? There's a whole world of difference between exposing yourself (whatever that may look like for you) to a bunch of stramgers, compared to getting comfortable/intimate with a boy you've been romantically thinking of for the last six years.
Gopard
She didn't want to wear pants though... Why would she who spent the most years it of any first as year student travelling fighting and riding be concerned about pants? And "showing off her shins" she WAS written as a true pride for some reason? The huge disconnect is so strange.
Gopard
I think her being with Cade is super unfair to Cade has been from the start... She was almost always going to end up being kind of bitch to him saying "yeah no sorry doesn't work out for me".
John Koor
I don't see him as bragging about it, but I see him as seeing this to mean a wedding is guaranteed and becoming much more possessive as he believes her to pretty much be his wife. Definitely the wrong decision if she wants to defuse the situation in the future.
John Koor
I think the issue is that Liv is the first in her little clique to get into a sexual relationship. She's always been a prude up to this point, and it seems unnatural for her to be the first to hop into bed at college. Sure, she's had 2x the teenage years in hormones to play around with the idea, but it would have made a lot more sense for at least one of her immediate friends in school to be in a sexual relationship. We've seen no other examples of first years hooking up, so the "everyone's doing it" excuse doesn't seem valid. Liv seems the type to only get physical if she's seen everyone around her doing it, because she's a commoner, kitchen maid, and not fully human. She would be reluctant to also risk being labeled as easy as well. Even at their castle, there were no examples of casual sexual relationships. Her mother is practically a virgin saint, having seemingly only had sex once and then being fated to be an untouchable single mother destined to die unloved. I'd think her more likely to let her hormones pull her into an encounter with Rosamond since she's having urges in that direction. Her Cade relationship has thus far just come across as logical decisions on her part, with no passion. She's blushed because of his attention, but that's about it. She's stuck with the betrothal because it's been logical with no downsides thus far. To push the relationship this far forward with no hints She's been lusting toward him seems unnatural and comes across as her making a decision to do it with no logic to it.
Larc
Cade has been fine. They've courted for years and now it was Liv who pulled him in her room. He hasn't threatened to end the relationship or done much coercing at all, other than gaining enough liquid courage after drinking to try and take things further. If Liv were any other noble, he would be right to think they're going to get married for sure. His behavior is inline with that. To go as far to say that her being with Cade is unfair to the character is just mind boggling to me.
Larc
Lots of oddly puritanical people in the comments. Apparently consenting adults having sex after years of courting is weird now.
Dave N
Thank you!
Sebastian Lachs
There's a "you're" that should be "your". "Once we know what you're total is." You're welcome.
MAS
FFS this YA romance BS is crap. Useless, tasteless, immature.
Tyler Hamilton
Wow.. many many emotionally immature people in the comments. Livs a lil cradle snatcher hehehe But otherwise both are consenting adults IN A RELATIONSHIP ffs. ya bunch of pick me’s.
n
I don't understand why people are thinking Cade is a scumbag/creepy. He hasn't been nagging Liv about sex, and respected her decision not to take things further a few chapters ago, and I haven't seen anything else I would label as creepy from him.
Femboy
Whoa! I was thinking there were death flags and they were gonna get ambushed not smash flags lol
307Bookworm_AOB
ya...we'll see if subscription is maintained....sadly.
FauxPraetor
I suspected she'd go for it sooner or later given how the romance was mentioned in the description, but Cade comes off as exactly the type of person who would seek to make a big deal out of this. I worry about him or anyone else trying to use that as something to hold over her, if she lets them.
Daemon Ursus
Sadly they will probably make cuts we dont like. I would rather no cuts, but I also know that would make the show longer than is probably really feasible. While I would be excited for part 3 to take 3 24 episode seasons to finish, (which is what I suspect would be needed to cover everything fully) I doubt that is in the cards.
307Bookworm_AOB
i just hope they dont gloss over certain events like they did with Rosina's coming of age. was a huge disappointment for me
Tarrim
It's unlikely he will be there that early they are much further south. Depending on just how far the distance and far east the hall is it could easily be 1+ hours difference between dawns. Combined with travel time I'd expect at least one hour after dawn for the college.
Rip Woodham
I don't think he's a scumbag but I think he's come off as a bit creepy so far and definitely selfish/pushy. Liv just got to the college, Cade's been there a long time now. Liv is extremely innocent and making a lot of assumptions. She probably doesn't know about the concept of bases or whatever it's called there, etc. She thinks of Matthew and Beatrice but I imagine she doesn't realize how much faster than them she's probably moved. Something tells me taking a guy back to your dorm for the night soon after arriving even if you are courting, is not a good look, and neither of them are thinking of Edith (who probably heard them) at all, when the whole school except perhaps Cade because he is so singularly obsessed with Liv knows how she feels. To top it off Keri probably gets there tomorrow and might even be at her door waking them up in the morning with others. :\
sings_with_toads
It's also a fade to black moment. They're not necessarily having sex. Might just be some heavy petting and drunken make outs going on
sings_with_toads
I wouldn't say she's 'whoring it up " but I agree with the various comments here that she's moving really fast for someone who was overwhelmed by the idea of an unchaperoned stroll or a chaste kiss not long ago. Cheapens it a bit. And yeah, her consistently going past her sober consent boundaries when drinking isn't great. And also very college.
Daemon Ursus
As I understand it, its still going to be called Ascendance of a Bookworm, its just that the subtitle is going to be changing from "I'll do Anything to Become a Librarian." to something else as she is now a Librarian of Alexandria. Its also not going to be called part 6. I agree with both choices honestly, restarting the part counter as well as the book counter is a good idea, its hard for newcomers to see a something listed as "book 34" and decide to start reading it. The clear delineation between part 5 and the new series should better allow the books to attract new readers without putting off existing ones. I like both Elvira and Effa, they play their respective parts well, and I hope in the continuation, we get to see more interactions between Elvira and Rozemyne, though given the distance, that may be difficult. Personally, I think she has already begun to understand what she is feeling has been love for some time now. I think Tuuli dragging her nose in it during their reunion was the tipping point. Her embarrassment and general reaction leads me to that conclusion. Though we will need to see that from Rozemynes perspective to know for sure and I am hoping we will. Also, her insistence that she will take as long as needed to fill his cape with all of her feelings in the epilogue comic serves as a minor confirmation of this for me personally. The gatherings should all be good, but even more than them, I am looking forward to the concert. Wilfried's day at the temple should also be quite enjoyable. I am glad that part 3 is getting adapted by a better studio, I liked the part 1-2 adaptations well enough, but part 3 needs better animation for the action as well as the complicated noble clothing and such. Also, the fact that Studio Wit likes longer adaptations gives me hope that we might see part 4 and 5 get adapted as well eventually.
Daemon Ursus
Grayson, some do, some don't. Not everyone abandons reason because they are at school. I also don't think this is a little whoopsie on her part. She is a bastard, in a society where premarital relations are clearly looked down on and considered unacceptable, especially among the upper class. Her being who she is and what she is takes it beyond being a small indiscretion. It is remarked on repeatedly just how lucky Liv and her mother were that they were not thrown out of the castle because her mother, a peasant cook, had a child unwed. This isn't a story in 2025 where the small town girl goes to the big city and finds out its 2025. Its a repressed medieval society, and she is now a member of its nobility. It is frankly beyond a simple poor choice for her to behave that way given who she is and her upbringing.
Jake
Perspectives rightfully shift rather rapidly upon entering college - (shit, I know they did for me) - but this feels a little too fast for someone who, only a couple of weeks earlier, was embarrassed by the prospect of wearing pants.
Tarrim
Wasting mana on unneeded stuff when fighting is dumb imo. Arguably the worst thing about this is that Liv hasn't really confronted what Cade thinks is going to happen after school and the actual status of their relationship.
Grayson
Many college students drink too much and do things things out of character...
lenkite
Don't really care about the sleeping as long she makes it clear soon that she isn't going to marry him and that she has used the Maiden's chant/charm. She can't afford to get pregnant now of all times - that is a sure shot way of becoming a [Blood Sacrifice] when the cultists come for her after her identity and location were so conveniently broadcasted. Why is she carrying all the catch in her shirt - she used [Ice Hand] as locomotion with no issues to carry a [Big Monster Skull]. Why didn't she do so this time ? Can't she also make an [Ice Wheelbarrow] or something? Lots of water in the ocean!
307Bookworm_AOB
i know right. I know it wont be called Ascendence of a Bookworm anymore since she has ascended. But I so wanted a continuation of her story, how her duchy fares, struggles, prospers, kids and so forth. Maybe she will actually understand that what she feeling is love and not convenience. But after so many years, Rozemyne and Angelica continues to be my favorite characters and I put Elvira higher than Effa in terms of Mother figure, but thats prolly because we see more of Elvira and her influence. And the fact that she knew her origins at the start and still supported her was enough to win me over.. AND YES!!! Long live Lessy!! I can't wait till they animate the gatherings, especially the Schnitsturm scene with iedenshafts spear.
Daemon Ursus
I really appreciate that even in about 37 books so far in the series, there hasn't been a single dud. I am excited for HY5 as well as the sequel series she is supposed to start writing later this year. It feels like there are a lot of places for the story to go still, which is shocking considering how much there is already. Every other story I have ever read of that length feels like its dragging on and its long past time for it to end. Not Bookworm, it still feels like the story could only just be getting started if Miya Kazuki wants to keep writing it. I am personally looking forward to the Part 3 adaptation we are supposed to get next year. I cant wait to see Lessy break Ferdies brain.
ashsalt
once we know what you’re total share is -> your On his way past her he paused, leaned down, and lowered her voice. -> his voice Secod pearl -> second
307Bookworm_AOB
i agree. Its just fun to read for me. Prolly read the entire series 10 times and still enjoy, cry or get anxious every time I do.
Daemon Ursus
Yeah, I am inclined to agree with you 307Bookworm. I didn't mind it quite as much right after I read it, but now that it has sat in my mind for a couple hours and I've thought about it more, I hate it as well. It feels out of place and more like a "its about time we had a sex chapter" than proper plot and character progression. Also, I like your name and profile picture. Ascendance of a Bookworm is easily my favorite light novel series of all time. They aren't good lightnovels, they are just good books which truly separates them from 99 percent of other lightnovels and web novels.
307Bookworm_AOB
For someone who was all about the details and firm about just courting and such to fall into this is dumb. She cant be that naive or starved for that kind of attention. On top of Cade really pushing her towards said situation without actually acknowledging her feelings. In a sense of coercion and manipulating her, it really turns my stomach. I love the story up until this point. I held it in high regards and recommend it to everyone I talk to, so they can read it. But to basically shit on the main character with a douche canoe makes me regret. Sorry if judgmental about it and in no way do I feel that Liv should be protected at all costs, but there are occasions (in my opinion), its unnecessary and just plain mean to the character. On top of that everytime he was putting his hands on her, was after drinking. She wanted to blend in at first, threw it out the window and now wants to conform with everyone else and whore it up. Pick a direction...either way, prolly be my last month
307Bookworm_AOB
i honestly hate this chapter....
307Bookworm_AOB
Pretty sure im the biggest fan :-). you might be a distant 2nd.
Tarrim
I'm a bit curious as to when Keri is showing up next chapter for Liv. Considering how far north it is if straight north dawn could be like an hour later. Although if it's further east it could be closer to matching up. Maybe even 2 with travel times.
Daemon Ursus
I mean it would be nice if they didn't sleep together, however thats clearly not what is implied here. Especially because of Cade's already feeling her up. Liv would know exactly where it would lead if she took him into her room in the middle of the night and let him stay. Which is not having a dignified conversation about the merits of platonic cuddling.
Larc
Honestly, I don't think Liv was particularly prudish, rather just needed some time to adjust to a new perspective on what is considered decent. She already had different ideas of monogamy and commitment, for example, due to how her father's people view such things. I'm not surprised she decided to fool around a bit as soon as she processed the fact that it wasn't frowned upon to do so. Also, great combat this chapter. I'm curious if the ice hand is essentially a construct telekinetically moved? My other idea was a hand where the wrist is essentially being re-frozen to give the illusion of movement. If its the former, does it mean Liv can sort of fly? So many questions!
Elinar Godly
I agree with you. Them sleeping together, as in having sex, doesn't feel right. However, Mr Writer, didn't say they did the hanky panky. Only that they fell asleep much later. I don't know about you but I can imagine lots of things to do that don't include proper coitus.
Tengerr
I just hope hew he will not betrayed her
Gopard
Thanks for the chapter! Was about to comment on that too with the Valentine's lol^^ I do wonder what the mercenaries wanted? Reach the Way stone or something or searching for something?
Daemon Ursus
Honestly pretty disappointed you had them sleep together. It feels wrong. Her first time didn't need to be with her one true love or anything, but given how reserved she is, bordering on prudish, and how just a couple chapters ago she pushed him away and remarked that she hadn't agreed to marry him, it feels too abrupt and very out of character.
Guilherme Vasconcellos
im not sure if i missed something that makes him a scumbag. is there something specific? I already know they aren’t a good match but I don’t recall what makes him awful. i am the biggest AOB fan of the world and I greet you fellow fan
307Bookworm_AOB
of all people...why the scum bag...
Guilherme Vasconcellos
i like it but I would have thought that Liv would be more restrained and “proper” if we consider her relation with clothes. and this is just a few months after years without seeing each other
Dave N
I think it is super ironic that this chapter happened to hit on Valentine's Day, and it was not planned. Tomorrow should be interesting :)
