Ascended

We didn’t find anything else useful.

Maybe if we’d hidden our swords, Eveth didn’t have such weird eyes, or it may have been my goggles, but as soon as people started waking up, they moved away from us as fast as they could.

We watched the sun rise over the port. As soon as the rays began to peek over the horizon, I could see a little bit of land out towards the east. I’d known of people who could swim that far, but I wasn’t willing to try it. I’d never seen a Bokor in the water for long and I’d never learned how to swim, despite living on an island. But the land did look close enough that we could take one of the smaller boats.

I sighed as Eveth trudged back over towards me while we were headed back to the house.

“They won’t talk to me.” Disappointment filled her voice.

“You’re Bokor now.” I shrugged. “Humans don’t like to talk to Bokor.” I smirked. “But they love to ask us for favors.”

“People would talk to the Wranglers.” Eveth watched a mother protectively herd her children away from us. “What’s so different about what we do now?”

“You’re not Human.” I was pretty sure that was true. Apprentices were taught that after the ascension, you became something else. Something that no longer needed to care about things that the Humans prized. Since we had magic and durability that allowed us to survive in most environments, there wasn’t much that the Humans prized that would be able to pass for a luxury for us.

“But…”

There was a crash a few blocks over. I heard screaming and cheering. A few people that I could see were hurrying in that direction, so I doubted that it was something dangerous.

“Come on.” I motioned to Eveth and headed down the side street.

The man in the middle of the street was one of the biggest men I’d ever seen. I was tall compared to most people, but this guy had to be almost seven feet tall. He was wearing loose clothes like most of the fisherman and his left arm sported a tattoo of a fish that I didn’t recognize. His long black hair resonated with his tanned skin and brown eyes.

I recognized the look on his face. He wanted blood, but not from anyone in the crowd. His attention was focused on whoever was in the building.

A second man rolled out, this one as round as he was tall, which didn’t take much. I wasn’t sure if he was even five feet tall. He had blonde hair and green eyes. His skin was fair, like he didn’t get out in the sun much. His clothes were also much nicer, a shade of purple that I’d never seen before. He scrambled on his hands and knees on the dirt road until he found a gold chain, which he picked up and threw at the larger man.

“Hugh! Hold that!” He rolled up the sleeves to his extravagant jacket. “I’m going to teach this strumpet a lesson!”

That got my attention. I wasn’t sure who he was referring to, but if they’d been able to toss both of the men out on the street, there weren’t many women that would be able to outmuscle a man that large. Not unless they were a Bokor or a Touched.

If they were a Bokor, I needed to get ahead of it and try to endear them to me. If they were a Touched, then there was a chance that the city was in danger.

“What’s going on!?” I raised my voice over the yelling and cheers as I pushed my way through the crowd.

“Who are you?” The short man turned to glare at me. “One of this harlet’s little playthings that she’s going to try to hide behind?” He nodded at the larger man. “Get out of here goggles, before I have my man throw you over the wall.”

I smirked and looked over my shoulder at Eveth. “I think he just threatened me.”

I heard some gasps as the crowd realized that Eveth wasn’t normal. Our swords were pretty distinguishable, so it shouldn’t have been hard to tell what we were, but there were instances where a Bokor died and one of the locals stole their sword instead of handing it over. While the Bokor tried to hunt down any lost weapons, there were still a handful that hadn’t been found. I had a feeling he thought I was just a scavenger, but Eveth was a lot harder to dismiss with her glowing white eyes.

“What are you?” His eyes narrowed as he focused on my blonde companion. “I’ve never seen anything like you before.”

Before she could answer a burly man rolled out of the doorway and bowled over the short man.

The hairy addition to the mix was around six feet tall, but his arms were thicker than my legs. He was wearing similar clothes to the other tall man and judging by the look on the dirty man’s face, they both worked for him.

I could see a curse on his tongue, but before he could speak it, the woman who had been roughing up the men appeared in the doorway.

“Is that how your mamas taught you to speak to a lady?”

I felt a chill run down my spine as I took in the short, just over five-foot-tall black haired woman. Her hair was much shorter than it had been the last time I’d seen her. Instead of shoulder-length, it was only down to the base of her ears. Her eyes were just as blue as I’d remembered, behind her goggles. I knew they were still blue when she took those off, but if she did, people would be able to tell that they glowed.

The woman who was standing across the street from me was the Touched who’d given me my goggles.