Elves are an incredibly long-lived race, living for five hundred years. It's no surprise that out of boredom, they might succumb to every kind of depravity. Demonology, severe addictions, orgies, and other wickedness are the daily bread for elves, something most other races have no clue about. Hidden away in their forest cities and mountain fortresses, where the eyes of other races seldom reach, they take full advantage of this longevity and very extended youth.
Some elves and most half-elves live among humans—a rare sight, but in most towns, you might occasionally find an elf or half-elf. And sometimes, very rarely, you come across someone like Tamira.
Tamira was an elf who had inherited only one thing from her human parent: a complete, absolute, and embarrassing lack of grace. Somewhere in the genetic lottery, she had lost on all fronts. She possessed neither the elven grace that makes one move like a breath of wind, nor a supernaturally melodious voice. Her movements were clumsy, and when she tried to dance, she looked like a thrashing victim of an epileptic seizure. Her singing, meanwhile, resembled the sounds of dying poultry—a comparison notably favored by her pure-blooded cousins, who turned their backs on her at every family gathering.
The half-elf, however, was not one to give up easily. Having inherited stubbornness from her human parent as well, she decided her destiny was to become a bard. Perhaps not the kind who moves hearts with a beautiful voice and virtuosity, but the kind who... well, who endures. Her performances could not be called concerts, they were more like heroic acts on the part of the audience, who had to endure these auditory tortures.
Her "career" began at the local tavern, "The Dead Griffin," a place where the standards were so low they lay in the ditch, and the taste of the beer was explained by a legend about a jealous god who had cursed the brewer. Tamira's luck was that the village had no competition whatsoever, making her the best by default. The last wandering minstrel had been in Larnwick Stream decades before Tamira's mother arrived, meaning the local villagers could hear music only if they suddenly traveled back in time about 200 years.
On the first evening, when Tamira clambered onto the makeshift stage made of barrels, the audience consisted mainly of local farmers, their wives, and a few migrant workers. They were accustomed to the sounds of brawls, frog croaks, and cow moos, not to music. Tamira took a deep breath that sounded like an asthmatic roar, and began.
Her voice, which she had hoped would be low and full of elven melancholy, let out a shrill shriek that made several older villagers instinctively duck, as if avoiding a blow. She sang a ballad of love and loss, an old elven masterpiece that in her rendition sounded like a marketplace brawl.
"Oh, my love, like a leaf on the wind..." she wailed, her fingers clumsily plucking the lute strings, producing sounds reminiscent of a cat whose tail had been caught in a door.
The audience froze in silent terror. One man, who had been raising his tankard to his mouth, went completely still, beer slowly spilling onto his trousers. Another woman unconsciously gripped her husband's hand so tightly he turned pale. It was a kind of focus, but not the kind an artist desires. It was the focus of a victim watching an approaching carriage.
Tamira, consumed by her "passion," closed her eyes, swayed dangerously on the barrel, and screeched on, completely unaware of the effect she was having. Her lute emitted a particularly pathetic twang as she fumbled a chord.
"Is this all there is to this art?" one villager whispered to his neighbor, who just swallowed and wordlessly shrugged.
When the last pathetic chord of Tamira's lute faded into the tavern's stifled silence, a single, lonely, uncertain clap rang out. The half-elf opened her eyes, full of hope, only to find it was the bartender, Borin, slapping his thigh to shoo away a persistent fly. The rest of the audience collectively exhaled, as if regaining the ability to move after being petrified.
A murmur of conversation, throat-clearing, and the scraping of benches filled the room. No one threw coins, no one called for an encore. A few older villagers got up and left, shaking their heads with expressions of deep concern etched on their faces.
Borin, muttering under his breath, approached Tamira, who was still standing on the barrel, her lute hanging limply in her hand.
"Well..." he began, scratching his bald head. "That was... something. For sure."
"Thank you!" Tamira choked out, feeling the burn of a shameful blush on her cheeks. "It's an old elven ballad about..."
"Yeah, yeah, I heard," Borin interrupted, looking at the puddle of beer spilled on the floor and the customer still wiping his wet trousers. "Listen, girl. You're... energetic. That's for certain. But maybe... maybe instead of singing, you could help me clean up here? Pour beer? Anything. Just please, not the lute."
Tamira stood on the barrel, and Borin's words washed over her like a bucket of cold water. The offer to clean or pour beer instead of playing wasn't an invitation to collaborate. It was a merciful alms, a way to take her in because he saw she was a musical disaster, but also a desperate attempt to protect his business from her "art."
For a moment, the half-elf felt hot shame turn into a cold, stinging bitterness. She opened her mouth to protest, to say that she was an artist, that her soul needed expression, that it was a matter of practice... but she looked at the patrons' faces. She didn't see hatred there, only pity, embarrassment, and relief that it was over. And then she looked at her lute—a cheap, poorly tuned instrument that had let out one last pathetic twang as another string snapped.
A bitter sob rose in her throat, but from her human ancestor, she had also inherited a damnable stubbornness. She didn't cry. She climbed down from the barrel, her clumsy movements nearly causing her to fall as she grabbed the edge of a table. She hid the lute in its case as if burying the corpse of her dream.
"Y-you uncultured boors!" she exclaimed. "Y-you should be herding swine, not discussing art!"
Tamira stormed out of the "Dead Griffin" tavern, and the heavy door slammed shut behind her with a dull thud that stole her last remnants of hope. The night was chilly, and the streets of Larnwick Stream were empty and muddy. Her last, clumsy words, thrown in the faces of the villagers, still roared in her ears, hotter and dumber than they should have. Shame and humiliation burned her from the inside, mixing with a stubborn, unquenchable anger.
"Peasants," she whined under her breath. "They have no concept of true art. Country fools."
For the next few days, she lived in a state of numbness. She didn't set foot outside her room. Her lute, with two broken strings, lay in its case like a guilty conscience. The village, which had seemed like her launching pad, had now become a prison full of mocking glances and whispers. Children mocked her, imitating her shrill singing, and adults averted their eyes when they saw her clumsy figure.
In her darkest hours, her thoughts returned to her mother. Sylanna, a true elf, daughter of one of the minor aristocratic houses, which had long since gone bankrupt in both significance and wealth, leaving her only a title and a sense of superiority inadequate to her actual standing. Sylanna did not work. Her "profession," her source of income, and her favorite pastime was being charmingly and carelessly kept. She was a courtesan, a mistress, an ornament first of elven courts, and then, when even there she found no place due to a certain scandal involving a priestess of Ceresti's husband, of human courts as well. Her life was an endless, dreamy duel between another cup of intoxicating moonpetal liqueur and choosing which admirer was the most generous, the most handsome, or simply the most available that evening.
Sylanna was the embodiment of elven sensuality, but devoid of any depth or melancholy. She was a beautiful, fragrant flower that never questioned its destiny to be plucked. Her world was limited to bedrooms, ballrooms, and boudoirs. Art? It was a pleasant background for her, like music playing at a banquet—nice as long as it didn't drown out the conversation.
She also thought of her father. Father. The word sounded like an insult in her mind. She never called him that, not even in her thoughts. It was Lord Valerius, the Count of Larnwick. Once the ruler of these lands, before debts, failed investments, and political misfortunes shrunk his "county" to this backwater Stream, a few surrounding villages, and a crumbling manor on the hill.
Sylanna, always practical in her frivolity, had seen him in her youth as a good maneuvering ground. A local lord, rich enough to keep her in luxury, and insignificant enough that her elven family wouldn't intervene too assertively. Lord Valerius, in turn, saw the beautiful elf as a trophy, a sign of the prestige that was slipping from his grasp. From their short, passionate, and mutually cynical union, only Tamira remained.
For Lord Valerius, Tamira's existence was a living, clumsy proof of his decline and poor judgment. A daughter devoid of the elven grace that could have brought him at least a sliver of glory by association, yet too awkward to send to some court as a lady-in-waiting or even a maid to squeeze any benefit out of this wretched union. His "care" amounted to one stern order given to Sylanna when she announced her pregnancy: "Deal with it. I don't want to see it or hear it. I will assign a modest stipend. Just please, make it disappear from my sight."
And Sylanna, with relief, dealt with it in the way most convenient for herself. She rented an old hut on the edge of the village for Tamira, paid a eccentric old woman named Agata to bring the girl food once in a while and check if she was still alive, and quickly returned to her real life, the life of an eternal party, for which Lord Valerius had stopped paying, forcing her to find new "patrons."
Agata was silent and treated Tamira like just another part of the landscape, a peculiar rock or a stunted tree that needed to be tended to in passing. Her visits were not acts of care but rituals, a ticking off of a boring obligation.
Tamira stared at the rotten ceiling of her hut. The smell of dampness, stale bread, and her own helplessness was so thick she could almost taste it. Her thoughts circled like flies in a jar: the laughter of the villagers, the pity in Borin's eyes, the emptiness of the purse that was never full, and the broken lute lying in the corner like a dead bird.
Agata brought her bread and cheese in the morning, placed it on the table without a word, and left, slamming the door. That sound, just like in the tavern, was like a blow. She was nobody. An insignificant, ridiculous half-elf without a penny to her name and without a future. Even her own mother treated her like a troublesome monthly expense, and her father preferred she didn't exist.
The rage that had smoldered beneath the layer of shame for days suddenly erupted. She couldn't go on like this. She wouldn't let them. She wouldn't let herself. She stood up so violently that the stool overturned. She bent down, grabbed the lute. Two strings hung limply. For a moment, she wanted to smash it against the wall, burn it, get rid of this symbol of her failure. But instead, her stubborn, human heart beat stronger. No. I will not give up. If Larnwick Stream didn't want her art, she would find a place that appreciated it. And if the whole world didn't want her... then the world was wrong.
Determined, though still clumsy, she reached under the straw mattress and pulled out her purse. She dumped its contents onto the table. A few copper coins and a small, worthless pebble she had mistaken for a gemstone in childhood. That was her entire fortune. It wasn't even enough for new strings, let alone for travel.
She had to find a job. Any job. Just to escape this place. She knew Borin wouldn't take her back, even for washing dishes. Her presence was too compromising for his business. That left the notices on the post in the market square. Usually, they posted wanted posters, notices about selling a cow, or requests for help with the harvest.
She pulled her hood over her head, hiding her distinctive, though not perfectly pointed, ears, and stepped out into the street. Avoiding gazes, she headed straight for the village center. On the worn post, next to a notice about a missing cat, hung one fresh piece of paper. The handwriting was clumsy, but the content made Tamira feel something tighten in her stomach.
"Volunteers wanted for the elimination of a haunting in the Dead House in Landom's Nook near Ghauruth. Payment: five silvers for successful cleansing of the area. Discretion and a strong stomach for unpleasant sights required. Inquiries to be made with the Head Mortician, Villem, in Landom's Nook."
Five silvers. It was a sum Tamira could only dream of. It would be enough for a new lute, for strings, for decent clothes, for food, and for a roof over her head for some time. But a "haunting"? A "Dead House"? It sounded like something beyond even her wildest, most inept artistic attempts. This was a job for... paid wraith-slayers, for people with nerves of steel and hardened hearts. Not for a half-elf who could trip over her own feet.
Yet it wasn't the sum that caught her attention and made her throat tighten. It was the location. Landom's Nook. A city. A real, large city, a week's travel east of this backwater Stream. A place with taverns, street musicians, audiences. A real audience. And a city just a stone's throw from Ghauruth, one of the imperial capital cities. This was her only chance to escape, to reach a place where no one knew her shame, where she could try to start over.
The thought of the Dead House and the "haunting" gripped her stomach with icy fingers. She was no warrior. Her greatest battle was fighting with a stubborn lute peg. But what else could she do? Stay here, where children mocked her walk and adults looked at her with pity? Wait for Agata to bring another stale loaf and look at her like a piece of troublesome furniture?
Well, if her art couldn't move human hearts, maybe her clumsiness could at least deal with some undead? There was a kind of grim, desperate logic to it.
She tore the notice from the post, clumsily crumpling it in her hand. Her fingers, which were so poor with chords, now trembled with adrenaline. It wasn't beautiful, it wasn't artistic, but it was something. A goal. A direction. Landom's Nook.
First, however, she had to get those silvers. And that meant she had to somehow get to the Nook and face whatever was haunting that mortuary. Alone? That would be pure suicidal folly. Even she knew that.
She also knew there was no one in all of Larnwick Stream who would go with her. No one trusted her enough to lend her a horse, let alone risk their lives facing wraiths. Her stubborn mind, inherited from the human father she refused to think about, began to work. The notice said "volunteers". Plural. It assumed a team would apply.