Simo most of the few weeks and months in the library. He started going on longer and longer walks, aually, he went to the gym. That was mostly for the restorative hot springs, though he did eventually try to spar with men he’d once been able to beat handily.

  The results of those bouts were ugly, and when his oppos asked him what had happeo him, Simon told them a story about bei upon by a small pack of orcs while he was out gathering herbs one day. In the broad strokes, the lie erfectly adequate; he’d fought more than his share, and few men alive knew more about the sheer urained power of the brutes than he did. Still, all of the details were outndish without the use of magic to back them up.

  Eventually, he stopped going to the baths when his scars got a bit too much attention. Curiosity he could handle, but open disgust… well, Simon already thought little enough of his body, so he didly hat.

  The Queen noticed that, though, aually offered to let him use the Royal Baths. They were not se as the public baths, but they were about a huimes nicer, with white gzed tiles and marble statues. Either way, the water did him good, but after a couple mix-ups where he almost walked in on the Queen while she was using them, he decided that maybe he’d healed enough that he didn’t hat magic warmth for his joints anymore.

  Magic wasn’t something he was doing a lot of these days. That wasn’t because the Queen's Vizer was supposedly keeping an eye on him, either. It was because he wasn’t sure what to fix after all the work he’d already done on himself.

  In his games, when you drank a potion or you cast a healing spell, you were restored to full hit points and were as good as new. In this world, though, he still suffered from any number of aches and pains, even after the st bandages were removed and the st wound was closed.

  He’d cast a few lesser healing spells to fix the cartige in his knees when that had started to bother him. That had seemed to work well enough, but other problems were less easy to quantify. Was his poor bance brain damage, or was a bohat had healed crooked, or a muscle that had gotten weak during all this bed rest. He had no idea.

  Simon had a couple options that he thought would fix that. The first would be to drain the life out of some mists or vermin. He knew from experiehat definitely made everything feel better. He also knew how addictive that was, though.

  He sidered trying to filter lesser trahrough a sword or a dagger to see if that would mitigate that problem, but that solution had the same problem as the other one he wao try: he simply cked the privacy for plicated magi the pace. Whether this mysterious visor or anyone else was actually watg him didn’t matter.

  There was always a servant or an official walking through the room, no matter whi he was in. Now that Simon was out of his sick bed, he was quite popur, which meant that unless he was going to lock himself away, real, plicated works of magic were out of the question.

  That ity, too, because he thought that if he tried the same sort of ritual he’d tried with Freya, he might just be able to draw the power necessary to fuel the spell from the world around him instead of from an unwilling donor. Hell, I could probably fuel that sort of ritual with the heat of the volo, he thought as he looked up at the still-sm mountain. Too bad there’s no way I’m climbing that thing right now.

  All told Simon retty sure he’d only used up a handful of years in that fight. This life was getting a little long, though, at least for him. With everything he’d done, plus some of the magic he’d used before he even arrived in Ionar, he retty sure he ushing 40. Only a couple of those years had been lived, but… well, either way, he wasn’t old enough to be this iual and weak just yet. He had at least 10 or 15 good years left in this life, and he was determined not to waste them.

  Between books, Simon tio work on his map, using the ats he read to fill in the missing areas that he hadn’t yet explored. When it was all do was very impressive, showing off tens of thousands of square miles with retively high levels of detail. That’s only a state or two, he reminded himself as he looked over the way the mountains and rivers were id out.

  The Kingdoms of Ionia and Brihe most detailed by far. That was both because those were the pces that Simon had been the most often and because that was what the Queen's library taihe most information about.

  Charia was what ied him the most, though. The rugged mountains seemed to forbid explorers and historians from talking about them, and there were huge bnk spots Simon was going to o dig through. At least one of those beloo the dragon, and he retty sure he’d be meeting it again soon, but the others? He had no idea.

  “When you are doh it, I shall hang it in my study,” the Queen told him. “Outside of a fetains' hands, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a map half so fine.”

  “Well, it's easy to work oails when you have nothing but time on your hands,” Simon answered. “I aily moving around a lot these days.”

  “Nonsehe Queen decred, “Yettier every day.”

  “Yeah,” he agreed. “Better at walking around the garden.”

  They both ughed at that. She was right, of course. He was gettier. Just not fast enough. That was silly sinyone else would have been in a wheelchair for the rest of their life after what happened, but he didn’t accept that. After all, wheelchairs hadn’t been ied yet.

  He tio spend as much time with her as ever, though after he was there for almost a year, she insisted that he started calling her by her given her thaitle, at least when no one was around. “It’s Elthena, please,” she insisted in one of their many versations. “I do not let my friends call me by my title unless we are in public.”

  “So I’ve graduated from guest to friend?” Simon asked. “It sure took long enough.”

  “Well, you’ve been a very demanding guest,” she answered with a smile. “Troublesome to no end! You should hear what my physi says about you!”

  “I’m sure,” Simon smirked. “The man ’t shut up about what a miracle worker he is after saving my life. He should be paying me for all the free advertising I’ve given him.”

  It was a me joke, and it ly, both because of that and because she probably didn’t even know what advertisi. It was a mistake he still made sometimes, even after all these years. Still, there was a moment there that huween them as she tried to think of the right response where he was sure he could have kissed her without getting spped.

  There’d been a growing tensioween them of some sort ever since he’d gotten out of bed. He avoided it for his own reasons, of course, but also because he knew getting involved with someone who was literal royalty was a terrible idea.

  The moment passed almost as quickly as he noticed it, but after that, he made an effort to keep a little more distaweewo of them so as not to plicate things further. He made other friends among the courtiers, or at least people who spent time with him to ask him about his travels. In the right mood, those were almost the same thing.

  Even living in a pace could beonotonous when one yearo get ba the open road, though. Injuries notwithstanding, this was as fine a life as Simon had enjoyed during his time i. He had all he could eat, a fortable bed, and more knowledge about the world of Erden than he could have hoped for in any of his previous life. Still, after a while, it did not satisfy him.

  He loo get back to being a hero. He didn’t so much crave finishing off more levels i as he did just finding wrongs tht. Just because those good deeds would be erased with his death didn’t mean that they weren’t worth doing.

  At one point, Simo weeks making eborate pns to go all the way back to Bckwater to see if the portal was still there. He decided the best routes, made lists of supplies, and decided what he would do on subsequent levels if he made it that far.

  He didn’t go, though. As long as he couldn’t hike to the base of the volo or wield a sword like he meant to use it, spending any serious time on the road was a terrible idea.

  Instead, he let first two, then three years, pass by iive fort. Things might have tinued on that way for months or years more if he hadn’t had a bit too much to drink one night while he was having dinner with the Queen… or rather, Elthena. He didn’t remember quite how it happehe day. Why should he? That was the least memorable part of the whole evening.

  The two of them had been sharing a private dinner in one of the small rooms, and the wine had flowed freely enough that the kissing, along with everything else, quickly followed. That he never made it back to his chambers. Instead, he woke up in hers with her curled against him.

  Simon hadn’t meant to end up there, of course, but in the m, he did ly regret it either. Certainly not enough to stop her from starting things all ain when she woke shortly after dawe the painful protests from parts of his body.

  “Should we be doing this?” he asked, finally, when they were both spent.

  “Well, I ask my physi if you like, but you certainly seem healthy to me,” she answered with a smirk.

  “That’s not what I mean,” he said after a moment, appreciating the view. “You’re—”

  “An unwed woman?” she asked. “It’s true. I am, and I think you’ve been pying hard to get quite long enough.”

  “You’re also the Queen…” he said. “Won’t this cause problems?”

  “Simon, I’m a queen that’s forbidden to marry lest she bring about the doom of her people,” she said with a smile. “The only perk of that arra is that I take a lover whe suits me withard to such things. After all, I ’t exactly marry you, I?”

  “We ’t get married,” he said, feigning shock. “Whatever will we do?”

  “Oh, I’m sure you’ll think of something,” she teased.

  Simon smiled. There were a lot of things he could think of, but right now, none of them mattered half so much as the beautiful, dark haired woman whose bed he was sharing.