“No. My parents were married and my father owns the Trishan trading company.” Her stoic tone couldn’t hide the fact that her eyes were filled with an infernal hatred for the woman. If looks could kill, Craeft was sure that Madam Valentinovich would’ve been a smear on the ground.
Nadia had a satisfied smile on her face. “It seems I was correct. I do have quite the capable squire with me, and one of class too. Perhaps you can regale me with stories of your father’s travels. The life of a trader seems very interesting, and I find myself growing a bit bored.”
She looked at the wares around her, the town square they had walked into was quite large, with several big trees in the middle that sprouted beautiful pink flowers from several limbs. People were still walking out and about, even near midnight, though it was considerably less than during the daytime.
Craeft couldn’t blame them. Personally, the nighttime made the older feeling of the city, with its statues and religious iconography, seem a bit menacing, if beautiful.
“Unfortunately, Madam Valentinovich, I can’t recount any stories to you. My father left me back home whenever he traveled, so the only thing I could tell you was of my village growing up.” Veliane replied, her voice tight and clipped, as if she’d rather be anywhere else. “Perhaps you could tell us stories of your own?”
“And bore you both to tears?” Nadia let out a laugh. “The life of a noble may be rich, but it is not the most exciting.”
“Surely there is something?” Veliane asked, her eyes looking worriedly over at Craeft as he remained silent. He had nothing to say really, nothing that he didn’t believe would be shot down by the noblewoman when he dared to open his mouth in her presence.
“Well, I guess with the recent Lusus invasion, you could count that as something exciting.” She recounted, a wistful smile on her face. “Normally, the nobles hold up in their manors, content with simple governance. Someone has to do the taxes you know, the boring details and the laws. The common man things that we’re living like kings in our manors, but they don’t understand that we’re under the scrutiny of His Majesty. One screwup, and our entire family could be thrown out of our position, or like the families that sided with the Recusants, culled entirely by an inquisitorial squad.”
“Sounds stressful.” Veliane said. “The most I had to deal with was a bit about bargaining and trading.”
“Oh, don’t get me wrong, it has it’s perks.” Nadia’s smile grew larger. “But it is not a job, just anyone could do. However, I am glad to see that my city is doing well.”
“Glad?” Craeft asked, his voice filled with incredulity. It was a mixture of anger at the woman and incredulity at her happiness. After all, his experience with nobles left much to be desired. Madam Valentinovich was just another on the long list of ones he viewed as scum.
“Why would I not be?” She asked him, incredulity of her own coloring her tone. “I know that someone like you may find it difficult to understand with your bad upbringing,” Craeft glared at her, his emerald eyes looking at her with nothing but hatred. “But I want to see my city succeed. Most nobles do. I want to see my citizens happy and healthy, outside of a few like non-humans and…other undesirables.” She glanced at Craeft. “Only the insane would dare to hurt their city.”
“Which makes the Lusus invasion all the more worrying for you, right?” Veliane asked, briefly looking into Craeft’s eyes. There was a pleading gaze in them, as if begging him to calm down lest he screw up the mission. He let out a deep sigh, his breath visible in the cold winter night, as he pushed his anger down and calmed himself.
“Yes. Those abominations destroy everything they touch.” The noblewoman looked genuinely angry, furious even. “They dared to come into my city, no, let into my city if what your superior said over the Talker was true, and try to destroy it and its people. Dared to ruin everything my family has spent centuries building. Do you know what that’s like? To have something so utterly fixated on destroying your legacy?”
“I can’t say I do.” Veliane replied.
“It’s infuriating.” She growled out through clenched teeth, her pale face slightly reddening. “But-“ She seemed to regain control of herself, probably thinking that a noble shouldn’t be seen acting such a way in front of others. “But, with the help of those alchemists who fused the rubble back into complete wholes and builders who rebuilt the buildings, the city is back in perfect condition, barring a few more repairs.”
“I bet you’re very proud of that.” Veliane said.
“I am. It’s why I like taking my evening walks, to see all that my family has spent centuries building, and all the acquired effort that it took. The sights, the sounds, the people, all of it built upon my family’s vision and guidance.” Generve’s voice was filled with a sense of awe and wonder, almost child-like. “It’s beautiful, in my eyes.”
“I can see why.” Craeft finally spoke again, his tone carefully neutral, giving nothing away. He wasn’t lying at the very least. The stores and buildings they passed by were indeed beautiful. Statues of the Saints of Miion decorated a few open areas, while neon signs alight with fire magic pointed them towards stores to browse their wares. It was something that was alien to him, having spent most of the time he could remember in Athsbane. Rubrary was but a distant memory to him, and one he wanted to forget considering what happened there. “It is beautiful.”
Nadia glanced at him for a moment with something like approval in her eyes. “I see. Even someone like you can appreciate beauty when you see it. Perhaps I have underestimated you, if only slightly.”
Craeft could tell it was a backhanded compliment, but considering what she had spoken of before, it was positively tame in comparison. And far easier to shrug off.
The night went on and on, the hands on the massive clocktower in the middle of the city slowly going upward till it read that it was midnight. The noblewoman seemed to be growing tired, as the fact she talked less and less became more and more apparent, and she started to complain about her feet.
“I must be returning to the manor.” She said as they traveled through a small park area. A few trees and flower gardens laid about, with a small pond in the middle of it. “These shoes are terrible on my feet.”
Craeft could feel the hairs on the back of his neck rise up. It wasn’t the slight chill that was doing it, the cold barely affecting him due to his use of ice magic. No, it was something else.
It was the feeling of being watched.
“Madam Valentinovich, please step behind me.” Craeft gently grabbed her by the arm, and tried to drag her behind him, attempting to keep her safe. Veliane’s eyes widened, before she took a more defensive stance, her fingers twitching as her violet eyes looked around. The noblewoman on the other hand, didn’t seem to understand their situation as she struggled against him.
“What are you on about? I know that you-“ A whistling sound filled the air for just a moment. Craeft saw the glint of steel and forced the noble back, a knife landing right where she had been. Her eyes widened and jaw dropped as the sounds of steel meeting concrete echoed throughout the park, a figure having leapt off a nearby building.
It was a fair-skinned man with light brown hair tied up into a ponytail, blue eyes that shone in the night looked towards Craeft with an intensity the teen had never seen. He was adorned in bright red armor that covered his chest and legs, but left his arms exposed. Knives were strapped to his waist, and in his right hand was a short sword with runes covering it, some of them familiar to Craeft from his time spent with his mother. On his right, was his amulet glove, the teal jewel on it standing out against the red glove.
Landing softly behind the man like a ghost was a strange figure. Craeft could see nothing beneath the black cloak it wore, ratty and full of holes. All he could see was the plague mask sticking out of it, shaped much like a crow, made of some bone-like material, and the teal glow coming from the eyeholes of the mask.
The knife that had landed in front of him shook brie
fly, before flying back to the man’s right hand, sparks dancing across the amulet glove’s surface.
“Step aside.” The young man said. “I only want the noblewoman. Give her up, and I’ll be on my way.”
“I can’t do that.” Craeft replied, his eyes glancing towards Veliane. She was supposed to have used the excandescant spell to fire off a flare, but she seemed frozen in place, her body shaking. “Veliane.” He whispered, trying to get her attention, but she seemed to have not heard him.
“Why not?” The man asked calmly, yet his body portrayed a different story as it was rigid and ready to fight. “Do you honestly think she doesn’t deserve it after the way she talked to you? Looked down on you?” He took a step forward, spreading his arms wide open as if they were simply talking between old friends. “I was following your group, you know, waiting for my time to strike. I overheard what she said about you, and I realized that you and I are the same. The cast offs, those that society deemed worthless. Just step aside, and let me kill her. I’ll make it quick and clean, and I can knock out your friend and switch up her memories so no one but you and I will ever know. All you need to do, is step aside.”
“Coming from someone who unleashed the Lusus inside a city, I doubt that’s all you’ll settle for.” Craeft’s eyes pleaded with Veliane, looking to her in desperation to fire off the spell, but she still stood there, the night not hiding the fear clear as day in her eyes. “Veliane.” He whispered harshly, yet she did not hear him.
“That…I did not plan for that.” The man eyed the strange figure, the crow man looking back towards him. “And I am sorry that so many lives were lost. But that is irrelevant. It will not happen again, I assure you. Now just step aside.”
“I refuse.” Craeft replied, his swerdan appearing in his hands. “It is my duty to protect her, and I would disgrace myself and the knighthood by letting you kill her.”
“Disgrace yourself even more than she already has? Just like her and her whole family saw me?” The man ground out. “Do you even believe the words coming out of your mouth, or are you just hoping that one day, you will be accepted? If you are their obedient little mogon for long enough, that they’ll want you? I doubt you even believe the words that are coming out of your mouth.”
“I-“ Craeft bit his lip. The man’s words bit him deeper than any of the wounds the Lusus gave him had. He had spent his whole life wanting to feel the same acceptance that everyone else got, to not feel the sting of rejection over and over again. He had found some relief with Veliane and Finguine, but they were only two people out of the hundreds of millions that made up the Ascean Empire. He knew what the man was talking about, he knew it deeply, but he would not refuse to do his duty and shame his family. He promised he would make them proud, and he would not betray them like that. “I may not like it, but I will still protect her regardless. Just because she spoke to me like that, doesn’t mean she deserves to die.”
“I see…” The man replied. “You are still very much a child, barely younger than I was when I discovered the truth. You will learn, but in the meantime, I cannot let her leave here alive.”
Craeft braced himself as lightning danced across the man’s skin, his hair flaring up as he moved forward. Within a blink of an eye, he was upon Craeft, the teen’s emerald eyes widening in surprise. He swung his swerdan in an arc, seeking to cut him down in a single strike, but the man dodged around it, getting in close before attempting to jab a knife into the joints of his dugnir-steel armor near the shoulder. Craeft covered the joint in a layer of ice, causing the blade to slide across his armor, sparks flying from it as he aimed his palm at the man and fired a blast of small icicles at the man. It forced him back, but the fierce gleam in his eyes hadn’t died down any since he first showed up.
“Veliane!” Craeft yelled. “Use the spell!”
The shaking girl was knocked out of her stupor, her body no longer shaking as she nodded her head. “R-right!” She held her hand up and fired it off, a shout of “Excandescant!” leaving her lips as a bright blue ball of fire flew off into the sky.
“It seems I’ll have to pick up the pace.” The young man grumbled. He was in front of Craeft in a flash once again, and Craeft tried to blast him back with more icicles, but the man would not be deterred. He drew closer to Craeft and made to stab him once more in the joints, but it was only at the last moment that the squire realized it was a fake out. The man put his hand on the back of his shoulder and forced him forward, using him as a springboard to launch himself at the noblewoman.
Craeft sprawled on the ground, quickly righting himself as he made to shoot the man with an icicle. But as he drew closer to Nadia, he knew it was a lost cause. There was no way he’d reach her in time.
“Barrius!” Veliane quickly said, a blue barrier springing up in front of the noblewoman, Nadia’s eyes wide with fear as the man’s knife was only inches away from her. It ground against the barrier for an instant, before the man placed a foot on the barrier and used it to launch himself towards Veliane. She raised another barrier, but this time he drew his short sword, slashing downwards.
The barrier held for just a moment, before it collapsed with a sound like shattered glass. Her eyes widened and a look of terror appeared on her face as she quickly backpedaled, the man’s sword cleaving through the air where she had stood. She held her hand up, her voice one of horror as she quickly created another barrier, but it was for naught as he slashed through it. He reached out for her, the girl cringing back from him as she tried to get away.
“Get away from her!” Craeft yelled out. The man didn’t seem to comply with his wishes, Craeft wildly swinging his swerdan to hit the man, but it was to no avail. He was simply too quick, too swift to hit with the lightning dancing along his skin, seeming to enhance his movements. He threw his swerdan, the blade disappearing as it was unsummoned. He sought to skewer him with blades made of ice, sharp edges of the cold element forming along his wrist.
But the man proved to be a formidable opponent. He holstered his sword and held knives in both his hands, using them to parry Craeft’s newly formed weapons. Craeft tried to freeze the knives to them, disarming his opponent and leaving him vulnerable, but electricity lanced throughout them, causing any ice to instantly melt.
In frustration Craeft slammed his foot down onto the ground, forming ice to trap the man and keep him still, yet it was not quick enough. He leapt back, but that had proven to be a mistake as Veliane created another barrier, a cry of “Motus Barrius!”, a strange yellow circle appearing behind him. It exploded outward, the motion reversing and forcing him back onto the ice where the frozen substance began to crawl onto him.
He fell onto his hands and knees, and Craeft forced more and more of his magic into the ice, seeking to keep him immobile till their allies arrive. But it failed, as it simply melted as he covered himself with lightning, and burst forward, sword in hand.
Craeft covered himself in ice, the frozen substance quickly forming as he put his all into making his icy armor.
His greatest technique would surely be able to weather the bite of his sword.
But it did not.
Because it did not need to block his sword.
Craeft let out a small gasp as, instead of slashing him with his sword, the man grabbed him by the head. The ice melted as electricity coursed into Craeft, the teen’s mouth open in a rictus of pain as white hot agony filled every nerve, if only for a brief instant. He kneeled to the ground, his limbs refusing to move as he went down on all fours, breathing heavily as the man walked past him.
He briefly heard Veliane let out a cry of pain before he heard the sound of fist meeting flesh, and he looked to his left, seeing her form crumpled on the ground.
“N-no.” His teeth jittered as his vision blackened for a moment, before he tried to force himself to stand. “Get up.” His flesh refused. “Get up.” He grit his teeth as he shakily stood, agony lancing throughout his body as his fist randomly clenched and unclenched. “GET UP.�
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The man was drawing ever closer to Nadia, his gait one of confidence and victory. He raised his blade high and brought it down. There was no scream, no cry of pain, nothing like he had heard from his step-father’s accounts. Instead, it was a sickening wet gurgle as she collapsed, her fair skin becoming a deathly pale as her breathing grew slower, blood leaking out beneath her in a large red pool.
Craeft felt the weight of his failure crashing down on him.
“And that is it. One down, a few dozen more to go.” The man said as he wiped his blade on his arm. He eyed Craeft out of the corner of his eye, blue eyes alight with a hint of respect. “You fought well, but, in the end, it is the righteous who are victorious. Take comfort in that.”
“Y-you,” Craeft slouched forward, struggling to stand as his body failed him. “Why?”
“I know this failure may hurt you, but these nobles only care for their standing with the king. You shouldn’t weep for them, rather, take heart that new ones, better ones will take their place when I cull them. And if not, I shall judge them too, just like her.” He looked at her with disgust. “Goodbye.” He began to walk towards the strange figure standing in the shadows, the man having not moved a single inch since their fight began. He formed a swirling black portal, and the assailant moved towards it, intent on leaving.
He was forced to abort that action by a burst of flame, causing the man to leap forward in a burst of speed to get away.
Craeft would never outright admit it, but he was happy to see his cousin for once in his life. Cenric smirked, looking so sure of himself with his comrades around him…till he saw the body of the noblewoman. That expression quickly shifted to one of fury so potent, that he was sure that the heat from his cousin’s flames intensified.
“You…you dare to cut down your betters like this?! Like some dirty mogon?!” Cenric held his hand out, and two axes appeared in his hand with a flash of light. The handles for them seemed to be made of bronze while the blade of it was a hellish red. A crimson jewel poked out of the bottom of the handle, showing it as the Swerdan it was. “I’ll cut you to pieces for this Damir!”
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