Kargan leaned back in his chair and suppressed a satisfied belch. “That was excellent, Mistress Drima,” he said with feeling.

"Not quite up to Guild standards, I imagine, Magemaster Kargan,” Drima replied, smiling and revealing a set of flawless, pearl-like teeth.

"You do yourself an injustice, madam,” the mage declared, wiping his lips and beard with his napkin. “I often suspect that our cooks disguise indifferent ingredients by smothering them with sauces and spices. You have no such need to hide the quality of your cooking. A simple meal it was, but deeply satisfying."

Drima opened her mouth to speak, but her words were interrupted by the creak of a door. Kargan turned around to see Loras standing in the doorway, no longer wearing his rough smith's clothes. Instead of patched, stained dungarees, he wore a full set of scarlet, silk robes. The full sleeves and voluminous cowl might have looked foppish on a lesser man, but not on the tall, muscular Loras. Black eyes blazed from under the cowl, as if daring any man to mock their owner. The former Questor looked almost terrifying in his intensity and his bearing. The seven-ringed Mage Staff in Loras’ right hand completed the image of a powerful and dangerous master of thaumaturgy.

Drima's eyes widened and her jaw dropped, as if she had never laid eyes on this red-clad man before in her life.

"Loras!” she exclaimed. “You look so…"

"Dangerous,” Kargan added, after a few moments.

"I am,” the smith said in a cool voice. “I am a Mage Questor of the Seventh Rank, and I was betrayed by a man who swore undying brotherhood to me-a man I regarded as my most loyal friend. For all these years, he allowed me to wallow in guilt and self-condemnation; a far worse punishment than the most painful death.

"Worse than what I will now do to him in the name of justice."