A/N: If the last chappie seemed rushed…it was. I am sorry. But now I wonder….just how do I make a goblin character that's not so typical??? Oh, yeah, FYI: Awraen is not 'like that' for Ria. He's an ancient man(?) and she's a fourteen-year-old girl. So…no. Just no. Only I know why he acts like he does.

I have a feeling this will turn out to be an epic fantasy, and the way I wrote the plans for this and the other books in the series, that seems more and more true. But please don't think of it as typical and dry like most epics. I'm going to try my hardest to make it rise above- if I don't, then it won't sell on the shelf, now will it?

.The True Priority.

"So how are the knights?"

For the past seven minutes, Riarith had spent every ounce of energy she could upon not looking at Awraen, his black cloak and hood hardly covering the grotesque form the Black Cauldron had cursed him with after the years of consummation. Breath shuddering, she tore her eyes away from half-heartedly admiring Jonnason's cleaning work— he had just finished dusting the towering maple bookshelves and was started on sweeping the floors of white marble when Awraen's cruel voice cut through her thoughts. Ria straightened her posture and turned back to him.

"They're fine," she said. "Well behaved, orderly, ruthless…smell like pigs…."

"As do you. Only your stench is much less like pigs and more like a rotting horse."

Ria bristled but said nothing in her defense save for a hasty rude remark. "And you are still the same ugly sack of bones I remember." A smile flashed across her face.

She always had a great fear of this man, something she tried to hide with jokes and warm-heartedness, a fear that was now broiling deep in her chest and tickling the edges of her nerves. How Riarith could fear her own master, a man who had been kind and nurturing to her for the entire eight years since she was declared the Priority and sent away from home, was a mystery to everyone, and especially bothering to her. Perhaps it was because fear was the general emotion everyone felt upon coming close to him. Commoners would leap off cliffs just to get away from him. Still…It seemed ridiculous that the King's own Priority was scared stiff just looking at his face, feeling his cold touch, hearing his worn breath and voice as silky, deep and cruel as fate's river. The blood-red eyes, and jagged smile, flesh decaying slowly, skin and bone graying…

The King laughed genuinely from across the polished wooden table. Porcelain tea cups, painted with tiny pink flowers and filled to the brim with pure olive-leaf tea and sugar honey, had been arranged for the both of them upon a scarlet red cloth. A violet curtain flapped madly in the breeze across the room. Behind it was the balcony. For a moment, things were quiet and awkward again in the monumental room.

Just as Ria's thoughts began to drift to the worries of the night and just what sort of things might be hiding in the dark corners, Awraen spoke.

"So, you're wondering why I called you here, right?"

Lowering his cup back to rest on the table, he seemed confident enough. And it was an easy question. She shouldn't have had any trouble answering it.

"…Y-yes?" The last part of the word came out sounding higher noted, and instantly became more of a question than a statement. Ria wanted to kick herself.

"Riarith. Honestly. It's a rhetorical question, dear. Why would you even need to answer?"

Because I'm an idiot. She felt her cheeks burn and sunk lower into the cushy chair. Jonnason was busy attending to the King's bed in the far right corner. He straightened the crisp white sheets and rearranged the velvet pillows, stopping to check for proper alignment in the tapestries that hung from the bed's canopy.

Another laugh. "Don't worry yourself over nothing. To be frank, I suspect you still have a fair amount of child in you. It isn't everyday you find a first-class knight blushing and hiding in the folds of her chair."

The girl jumped instantly and righted herself. This was turning out to be more of a journey of embarrassment than a proper meeting, but Ria wasn't about to complain.

"Anyway," continued Awraen, "On to the job." Ria's ears perked at the mention of the word and she sat up even straighter. "A book has been stolen from our library here in the castle."

"What book?"

"A book on magic, elementary dark arts, nothing too powerful. But it was an act of thievery nonetheless and the persons responsible must be dealt with."

Oh, how she had waited for this! Her last real job, handed straight to her by her master, had been over a year past, possibly longer. "Do you know who did it?"

"Yes, we do. Our dragons caught Whispers of the two gentlemen whilst they infiltrated the castle. We didn't train the beasts to guard for nothing. Their power is greater than one would think, Riarith. They traced their Whispers to a cottage outside Dea Anima, in the lower valley. Predictable that the two would live in a place so far out of human contact."

"What do they look like?" Ria was trained to pry deeper and sort out every last detail before jumping into something—many men had died for lack of preparation. Not to mention the fact she was deeply involved head-first from the moment Awraen mentioned the word "job."

"Well, I could be wrong, it's not like the dragons can see a person's looks, but I think one is just a boy-child, possibly only twelve, and that's wishful thinking. The other is an older gentleman, could be sixty or so. It wouldn't be necessary to know any more. Their cottage is isolated and I doubt they get many visitors you could mistake them with."

Suddenly his voice darkened into the sort of tone she could only recognize as 'listen and listen well, I'll only tell you this once.' "I want the two of them dead. Don't care how you do it, though it would be kind of you to spare the young boy any suffering. The house is to be burned. I want no remnants of writing or magic left in that place. The book is to be returned to the library, without a single page dog-eared or tattered on your behalf."

"Understood, master." For once, the words came to her automatically. In the back of her mind, it occurred that the King seemed to be talking down to her, like he was picking words easy for a child to understand while explaining a textbook lesson, but it was such a fleeting image that she brushed it away. "I'll do my best in the name of your Kingdom."

"Wonderful. I feel you're going to do a fine job—at least you have before."

The meeting was dismissed unanimously. She nodded before rising up out of the chair and bowing. At the last moment, she decided she wanted one last greedy sip of tea and turned back around, only to down the contents of the entire cup. Riarith apologized for her manners and resumed her trek to the door.

And then she froze.

Sharp nails dug into the flesh of her shoulder. Silently, like a ghost, Awraen had managed to move from his chair to stand behind her in a matter of seconds. He yanked her back to rest against his body.

Huff.

The King snorted, and her tangles of mouse-brown hair flapped in the wind that snort created. "You know I don't like leaving anyone with that dreadful accomplished feeling, don't you?"

No, he didn't like leaving people happy. And she knew it very well.

This close, his presence was less nerve-racking and more terrifying. In spite of how many times she had been around him, even gotten this close to him, it was no relief. Riarith's legs felt incapable of movement, and they did not so much as shake while she stood in front of him. Her heart raced incalculably, beating slow at first, then faster and faster, and then coming to a seeming halt before repeating the process over again.

Jonnason, that clueless goblin, paused in his cleaning duties to watch them in amusement.

Awraen's bony hand found its way to the side of her face, where it stroked invisible lines down her cheek lovingly. The fingers where in no way metaphorically compared to bones, and now Ria understood just what people meant when they said such things about him. The hands, the fingers, they were literally bones. Not so much as a scrap of flesh clung to his graying appendages.

Finally, she could take no more and acted upon her thought. She spun out of reach of Awraen's grasp and made a mad dash for the door, only a few feet away at the moment…

"Stop, Riarith."

Damn. She stopped. Contracts of servitude were terrible things.

Even turned the other way, the girl could sense his smile, justified in its own right. "I hope you know just how important you are to me. Just how much I care about you. The horrible death that would come to anyone who harmed you." He laughed a laugh that could have been pity just as much as humor. "I would love to tell you why, but it would be better if I save it for a more…appropriate time." Ria trembled. The Lord of All went on, his smirk continuing to pierce her back. "Look at it this way. Now you have something to look forward to in that short-lived existence of yours."


The ending was real rushed, I know. But so is my life. This is kind of by-the-seat-of-my-pants, and that's the only excuse I have for this awful peice of writing. That's saying something, because usually I LIKE my writing...I think it's just because I'm going too fast. Can't be helped, though, I HAVE to go fast. -_- At least I have Awraen acting evil! How I love my evil people...Yes, he DID have a reason for leaving her miserable instead of joyful, but once again I am the only one who knows. :P