My name is Devon FireRoot. Everyone calls me "Root", that's Poebe's fault. She's called me "Root" since we were little. We grew up together, her and I. The FireRoots worked the stables for a wealthy horse barron in Westgate. He was an asshole of a man and treated my family as less than the horseshit I shovelled every day. Phoebe was the baker's daughter at the edge of town. They would come over every day, about noonish to deliver breads, pies, etc. Mostly sweet breads that the Baron liked. She was just as sweet, innocent till the day is long back then. I loved that about her. She's not that way anymore.

When she was about 9, my father heard the horses stir and sent me to look. I saw that fat bastard slobering all over her with his cock hanging out. She was putting up as much fight as she could muster. Before he knew it I'd pulled the dagger from his belt and plunged it into his back. He turned to look at me. Phoebe took the dagger and stabbed and stabbed and stabbed. I had to pull her away and rest the dagger from her hands. She was a pit of fire and the blood in her once beautiful red hair made her look like a demon.

I threw a bucket of water on her then shoved her in the mud to cover all the blood she was wearing. "we've got to get out of here!" I started screaming at her. I cut the coin purse from the baron's body, saddled his worst nag and we rode.

I rode to the night watch and told them what I saw... that that fat bastard was in the stables having his way with his girlfriend, as he normally does. His wife came out and caught them and in a murderous rage she stabbed him over and over. Then I handed them the dagger. The man at the night watch thanked me and rushed out to the baron's estate.

We've been on the run ever since. I read the Baroness was executed a fortnight later for the crime. Im OK with that.

We moved from town to town for a while, conning a few suckers. A little Three Card Monte here, a few games of cups and balls there. Then she got a little older, and curvier. We found a new way to make a little coin. Do you have any idea how much those pervy bastards will pay for her long red hair and lily white ass? She was perfect at it too. And that bussboy she kept calling "Root", always around to fill thier cups, with a few drops of sleeping drought, and a litle salt peter of course. Never letting her get into too much trouble, heh. Pretty easy for her to explain away the whiskey dick considering no man wants to admit to it. She would boast of their "prowess" and them non the wiser.

Then, she has to go and make a mark of that warlock. She found his focus, that beautiful think of fey. She was mesmerized by it. He kept coming back for more. She kept realigning his drinks. I almost got caught one night as the brute at the next table passed out in his stew. It was obvious by that time, she hadnt marked him, he had marked her. He didnt want her lily white ass either, he wanted her soul. He wanted, more specifically, her soul bound to his master, the Archfey. It was too late when I found her a few days later. I'd never seen anything as beautiful and terrifying as I walked in on the ritual. And yet, I couldnt let her do it alone. I bound my soul that night as well.

I'd have gone through hell for her.

Of course, then there was that time I was running a particularly good round of Three Card Monty in front of this tavern with a tiefling statue flipping off the world. Little place called The Dirty Platypus. Thats when the real fun began.