The Demon Frontier, as it turned out, was considerably less empty than the woman who created it remembered.
The narrow forest trail gradually widened until it merged into a packed-earth road scarred by wagon wheels and hoofprints. Cultivated fields appeared beyond crude stone walls, where broad-leafed violet plants grew in meticulously arranged rows.
A wagon passed us heading west, pulled by something resembling an ox if an ox had six muscular legs, overlapping black scales, and horns curling backward along its skull. The demon holding the reins gave us a bored glance before returning his attention to the road.
Fucking rude. Am I not sexy?! And what about Tsundere throat goat Seraphina? How does her ass not draw attention!!
Anyways, further along, two Beastkin hunters approached from the opposite direction with the enormous carcass of some tusked monster suspended between them.
A merchant caravan followed several minutes later, protected by armed escorts from enough different races that the procession looked more diverse than most cities I’d bothered describing in the novel.
Then I saw houses.
Actual houses.
Smoke curled lazily from stone chimneys beyond the fields. Children chased one another around a fenced enclosure while an elderly horned woman hung strips of crimson meat from a wooden rack beneath the afternoon sun.
I found myself staring.
In my novel, Roland had crossed the Demon Frontier several times. I specifically remembered describing one particular journey as three grueling days through the desolate eastern frontier.
"Desolate" had included farms, families, merchants, trade roads, and entire communities I’d never bothered mentioning because Roland hadn’t stopped to speak to them.
I had written the world.
I definitely hadn’t written that six-legged ox.
Yet there it was, taking an enormous shit in the middle of the road.
Seraphina stepped around the steaming pile without breaking stride before glancing back at me.
"Are you coming?"
I carefully stepped around it. "My worldbuilding is mocking me."
Her brow furrowed. "I have no idea what that means."
"Neither do I anymore."
By late afternoon, the road descended toward a sprawling settlement surrounded by enormous black stone markers positioned at regular intervals. Intricate runes glowed faintly across their surfaces, and even from several hundred feet away, I could feel mana flowing between them.
The settlement beyond was larger than I’d expected.
Stone buildings crowded around intersecting roads filled with merchants, hunters, mercenaries, and travelers.
Colorful awnings shaded stalls piled with monster hides, weapons, herbs, crystallized materials, and enough unfamiliar food to remind my stomach that walking half a day required significantly more calories than sitting behind a laptop.
The smell of glazed meat roasting over an open flame nearly pulled me away from our objective.
Seraphina noticed immediately.
"We’re not stopping," she said, catching my arm before I could drift toward the stall.
I looked at her in disbelief. "You didn’t even ask what I wanted."
"You’ve been staring at that food for the last twenty seconds."
"Maybe I’m watching the road."
Seraphina slowly turned her head toward me.
I smiled.
Her fingers released my arm.
"I hate you."
"No, you don’t."
The faint color that immediately touched her cheeks made the entire half-day walk worthwhile.
Unfortunately, we had business first.
Velessa’s records led us away from the busiest market streets and into a quieter district where the buildings became larger, cleaner, and considerably more expensive-looking.
Eventually, I spotted the symbol Lyra had shown me.
A silver skull surrounded by three concentric circles.
The same merchant’s seal was pressed into Velessa’s records.
The building beneath it wasn’t remotely what I expected from someone whose profession involved raising the dead.
Enormous windows displayed meticulously arranged magical materials, preserved organs floating inside crystal vessels, bundles of carefully labeled herbs, antique weapons, and several objects that looked expensive enough that I was afraid breathing near them might put Ashfall into debt.
Then something moved behind the glass.
A skeleton walked calmly across the immaculate shop carrying a wooden crate in both arms. It carefully set the crate beside a polished counter before disappearing through a doorway in the rear.
I looked down at the silver skull stamped into Velessa’s records.
Then back through the window.
A slow smile spread across my face.
"Well," I murmured, reaching for the door. "I think we found our necromancer."
A delicate silver bell chimed overhead as I pushed open the door.
The smell hit me immediately.
Not rot.
Something sharp and sterile lingered beneath old parchment, dried herbs, and the metallic tang of preserved magical materials.
Shelves stretched across the walls, every bottle and specimen arranged as though whoever owned the place would notice if something moved half an inch.
The skeleton we’d seen through the window passed us without acknowledgment and disappeared through a doorway behind the counter.
"Try not to start anything," Seraphina murmured beside me, although her hand had already drifted toward the hilt of her sword.
I turned toward her, genuinely offended. "Why are you telling me that?"
"Experience." The faint satisfaction in her expression told me she’d been waiting for an opportunity to use that answer.
Before I could defend myself against such an unreasonable accusation, movement behind the counter drew my attention.
The woman who emerged was pale enough that the silver-blue hair falling in loose waves around her shoulders almost seemed dark by comparison.
She appeared somewhere in her mid-twenties, although magic had already taught me not to trust appearances, and her slender frame was wrapped in layered black robes embroidered with intricate silver patterns along the cuffs and high collar.
Her features were delicate rather than severe, but there was something immediately disconcerting about her gray-blue eyes.
Her gaze moved first to Seraphina, lingering briefly on the consecrated sword at her hip, before shifting toward me.
I placed Velessa’s silver seal on the counter.
Her expression changed immediately.
The detached curiosity vanished beneath sudden concentration as she reached for the emblem. "Where did you get that?"
"Velessa," I answered, watching her thumb move slowly across the engraved skull.
A faint crease appeared between her eyebrows. "Velessa doesn’t lend her seal."
"She didn’t."
Her hand became still.
The woman looked at me again, and something considerably more perceptive entered her gaze. "She’s dead."
"Three nights before I inherited Ashfall."
There was no visible grief in her reaction, but there wasn’t satisfaction either. She absorbed the information before lowering her attention toward the seal.
"Unfortunate," she eventually murmured. "She was reliable."
The woman carefully placed the seal down before turning her attention toward me. "And you?"
"Kira. New Mistress of Ashfall."
Her gaze traveled over me again, lingering briefly on my horns before dropping toward my tail. "Succubus."
"Very observant."
Something flickered behind her eyes. Then it disappeared beneath the same composed expression.
"What are you selling?"
Straight to business. I liked her already.
We’d brought what we could reasonably carry from the Sacred Dawn expedition: weapons, enchanted accessories, spare equipment, and several pieces Seraphina had identified as valuable enough to justify hauling them half a day across the frontier.
The merchant examined everything meticulously.
Unfortunately for her, Seraphina proved equally meticulous when money became involved.
"Four silver," the woman eventually said after examining a cracked Sacred Dawn insignia.
Seraphina leaned slightly closer to the counter, her pale eyes settling on the insignia. "Six. The silver alone is worth five."
"The silver isn’t pure."
"The consecration matrix is intact."
"Mostly."
Seraphina picked up the insignia and angled it toward the light, exposing the faintly glowing lines buried beneath its damaged surface. "Five silver and eight copper."
For several seconds, the two women stared at one another.
"Five and four," the merchant finally countered.
Seraphina’s mouth curved slightly. "Done."
I looked between them as another handful of coins joined our growing payment.
I’d brought my own angry blonde accountant. Who would have thunk?
By the time the transaction ended, a respectable pile of coins rested on our side of the counter. It wasn’t enough to transform Ashfall overnight. Still, for the first time since inheriting the dungeon, I’d made money through something resembling an actual economy rather than stripping valuables from dead people.
That felt suspiciously like progress.
Once the final weapon had been appraised, I reached into the cloth bag hanging from my shoulder and carefully placed the damaged Spatial Satchel on the counter.
The merchant’s reaction was different this time.
Her professional detachment cracked as she picked it up with both hands. One fingertip traced the damaged inscriptions along the ancient leather, and the concentration in her expression steadily deepened.
"Where did you get this?"
I rested one elbow against the counter. "Can you repair it?"
Her gray-blue eyes lifted toward me. "That wasn’t my question."
"And mine was first."
For the first time since we’d entered, she smiled. The expression was small, fleeting, and somehow slightly unsettling.
"Yes."