Lament of the Slave

“Wait! Isn’t it odd that Liryadon showed up here just a few days after I got back? I mean, my . . . scent couldn’t have reached him that fast, could it?” While the idea of a soul mate following me across the planet was rather intriguing, the fact that I should have no say in the matter cooled any heat stirring in my heart - or elsewhere - before it could blow up into so much more.

“That does indeed seem impossible, Grey,” Sah agreed to my relief. Yet there was a BUT. “Several explanations come to mind. There have been a number of studies on the resonance between mates of certain beast species at the mana level - you don’t want to know how I know that. Then it could be magic cast upon you, a city, or an area in general that we have no knowledge of or way to detect. Nor can we rule out the possibility of him being here long before your return, as you implied. Last but not least, the whole premise of him - whether he is a dragon or just a powerful beast - looking for his mate could be flawed. Personally, I’m leaning towards the latter.”

“You do?” 

Relief to hear, disappointment too. 

When the Imperial Agent nodded, my mind went into overdrive trying to find a way to cover my pounding heart. “Co-Could he be a mind mage, a powerful one who slipped through your search?”

“Unlikely.”

“I have to agree with Agent Sah, Grey,” Rayden said, giving me a weary look. “And this isn’t some stupid confidence in my abilities. That’s simply not how mind mages operate. Most of the time you meet their proxies, pawns, people who have no idea they’re under their control. And when you do come face to face with one, it will be at a time when it doesn’t even occur to you that the person in question might be one.”

“. . . or when they have mindfuck meat bags around them,” Deckard added his piece of Mind Wars’ harsh experience.

“Hal - I mean the fake agent and the bitch in Esulmor, right?”

“Good examples, both suffering from the monumental self-confidence of those bastards. Laughable. Those mind fuckers won’t face you until they’re convinced they can overwhelm your mental defenses whenever they want.”

“Liryadon was confident as fuck,” I argued, thinking back to my encounter with the peddler and how it fit with what Deckard and Rayden had just said. “I may not have felt him in my mind, but . . . what if . . . the way I felt . . .”

“That doesn’t explain your elevated lust for other men, Grey,” Agent Sah said, with no regard for my discomfort at the whole thing, and continued. “One of the many reasons I’m willing to believe that this Liryadon is not a mind mage. But, mind you, that doesn’t rule out the possibility. Perhaps . . .”

“I understand, Agent,” Captain Rayden raised her hand to stop him and gestured to me. “Come here, Grey, let me see if someone did mess with your head.”

***

“Not a trace, as far as I can tell,” Rayden stated after a few minutes of her aura flooding my mind. “The man is either not a mind mage or a very cautious one.”

“Whatever this man is, he’s dangerous, and we need to tread carefully around him until we’re sure who we’re dealing with. That’s why I’m considering enlisting the help of Sandoval and Mooney.”

“The two librarians?” Deckard raised an eyebrow at Sah’s idea.

“They have proven themselves capable. They’re already quite familiar with the assorted beasts, the issues concerning Grey here, and most importantly, they’re under the Oath.”

“They don’t know that I have the Heart of Mana.” As much as it weighed on me not to tell them the whole truth, not knowing about my connection to the drakes was for their safety. At least that’s how I rationalized it.

“I’m aware of that, Grey, but I think you’re giving them too little credit. With what little they had, they found the origin of your ear mutation, didn’t they?”

“Ah, so it’s those Sail-Ear Foxes, Little Beast?”

I was tempted to give Deckard the middle finger, stick out my tongue, or just tell him to fuck off. The bastard knew and didn’t say anything the whole time. On the other hand, I was glad that he left the joy of telling me about their find to the two librarians. And so I took a deep breath and let my ears grow to their full glory.

“Damn! Can you fly now?”

“N-no,” I growled, taken aback by his blunt question.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, Grey,” Rayden said, eyeing me from head to toe. “But you’re getting weirder. Any use for those ears?”

“Besides better hearing? Just extra annoyance, ma’am.”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” Sah smirked. “She can hear me when I’m doing my best to go unnoticed.”

“Maybe you’re just bad at it,” Deckard remarked, a smirk on his lips.

“I suppose Grey’s ears aren’t the point you were making, Agent Sah,” Rayden said promptly, before the two guys could start fighting again. What a spoilsport.

“No. It’s the fact that those two saw Grey’s inner self, just like we did. They may not ask - out of courtesy - but they will wonder which beast the huge reptilian eyes behind all the others we saw more clearly might belong to.”

‘Shit! True.’ There was no doubt that they would scratch their heads and look through the books. “But I saw them yesterday, and they didn’t say a single word about the beast.” Not even a hint. I mean, Hazel wouldn’t be able to hold back, would she?

“Well, they wouldn’t until you told them yourself. Like I said, out of courtesy.”

“Did you threaten them?” It was kind of strange how he insisted they did it ‘out of courtesy’.

“For fuck’s sake! No! Seriously, Grey, I didn’t.”

The way his breathing quickened, the rhythm of his pulse changed - he was telling the truth - at least according to my instincts. That didn’t mean he couldn’t have faked the whole thing. After all, he was a trained imperial agent.

At that thought, my heart skipped a beat, my anger quickly turning to a wondering what else he could have been trained in.

“Personally, I don’t see it as a bad idea. Even if Liryadon turns out not to be a dragon, which I hope he isn’t, it’s better to know as much about them as possible,” Rayden interrupted my train of thought. “Maybe if they looked into the drakes, too? And other potential beasts?”

“Won’t that put them in needless danger?” I voiced my concern, trying to steady my heart once more. It was so annoying. Especially since [Indomitable Will] didn’t seem to have any effect on my ‘condition’.

“No more than anyone else in Castiana,” Sah said frankly. “It’s not like they’re going around asking about dragons, Grey. The one in most danger is you.”

“Tell that to Freyde!”

“Welkes knew what he was getting into and made his choice.”

“Oh, so if they go along with it and die, it’s all good, huh?”

“That’s not what I meant, Grey.”

“All right, that’s enough,” Rayden stopped us sharply. “I understand your concern, Grey. And I’ll make sure everyone involved knows what they’re getting into, but we can’t just sit around in the dark. You, of all people, should know how dangerous that can be.”

Ready to give her a piece of my mind, fearing for my friends, my pack, I swallowed the curses, caught off guard by the last sentence. “What do you . . . oh, you mean, Eleaden?”

“Yes. And the system. And the Oath. And Idleaf - until you stumbled into Esulmor, we had no idea there was a World Tree growing in its heart. We simply cannot afford to be caught with our pants down again. If we blunder around blindly, Castiana may not survive.”

“I get it, okay, ma’am,” I growled, not liking the idea of involving those I knew one bit more.

“Good. Because to do that, to rip the blindfolds off our eyes, I’m going to need your help.”

My mind swirled with ideas, each more awkward than the last. “You’re not asking me to seduce Liryadon, are you?”

“I see what you meant, Agent Sah. That could indeed be a problem,” Rayden sighed and looked me straight in the eye. “No, Grey. You shouldn’t even try. What I had in mind was the idea of you and Private Palemoon teaching the rest of my men the proper use of the system. I like that, a lot. That’s the kind of initiative I look for in my men. You see, I’ve been struggling the last few days with how to tell my men. My attempts have been, shall we say, rather cumbersome - mostly because I didn’t really know what to tell them, where to even start.

“I have no idea either,” I blurted out as the thought of teaching someone hit home. It was a responsibility I wasn’t prepared for. I could ruin their lives if I taught them bullshit.

“It’s not that hard, Little Beast.”

“That’s easy for you to say. You had me to teach. I was already a mess. But this . . . if I . . .” I stopped short once I realized Deckard used to be an army instructor. “S-sorry.”

“Don’t fret.”

“So . . . you wouldn’t mind giving me some tips on how to handle this?”

“Of course not. Besides, I’ll be there.”

“You will?”

“How could I pass up the opportunity to learn more about my skills?”

“But you already . . .”

“Yeah, I switched them all. So what?”

“You did what?!” Rayden shouted so sharply, a whimper ripped from my throat, my ears ringing like hell. Pulling them back to their regular size didn’t help, nor did covering them with my hands.

“You heard me, San,” Deckard said, unruffled, obviously expecting her reaction. “I got rid of my bottlenecks.”

“No, what you’ve done is make yourself a target at a time when we may need your strength more than ever.”

“Oh, so you admit that staying holed up here was a mistake, that you and the others grew weak?”

“That is . . .” Rayden gritted her teeth and clenched her fists. “You know very well why we stayed.”

“And you know why I left.”

The story I was familiar with, too. She and the other lieutenants had had enough of the war and a promise to keep, while Deckard had shouldered the responsibility of stepping up to protect his family in times of need.

“I do. But . . . I’m worried about you, Dec. If the wrong people find out.”

“Then I’ll kick their asses, anyway.”

Rayden frowned, piercing him with her gaze. “How much has your strength dropped?”

“To level 250, give or take. Like I said, I can still kick most of their asses. So don’t worry.”

“How could I not? You said it yourself - most, not all.”

“If I may, ma’am,” I raised my hand, mindful of butting into their argument.

“Want to defend your mentor? Go ahead, Grey.”

“I mean, what he did was stupid. But he has actually mastered his skills up to level 250. The same cannot be said for others at a similar level. And before long . . . well, in the long run . . .”

“I’ll stop you there, Grey,” Rayden said, massaging her temples again. “This is why I think it will be excellent of you to teach others. I see what you’re saying, but deep down I still . . . I would think twice and then second-guess myself before doing something as foolish as your mentor did.”

Hearing that took my breath away. Rayden was the one preaching all the time about the importance of keeping an open mind, and now she was telling me how hard it was for her to step into a world where the system wasn’t a given. Unbelievable.

At least she was aware of the problem. Only . . .

“But how am I supposed to convince others to swap their skills if you . . . ?”

Rayden beamed. “Well, you may be hard pressed to find another brave fool like Deckard among the City Guards, but your squad seems to have found a way. Welkes and Breadbaker, namely.”

“They did? Wait, they swapped their skills?”

“Not all of them, just a few, while they were drunk and . . . well, I’ll let them explain the rest, but yes. Though in an unusual way, they found that people might be willing to switch their skills for some they’ve been itching to try all their lives.”

“Interesting.” Sah took the word from my lips. “I can see some downsides to this approach, but for better or worse, desire, curiosity, if you will, can be a powerful motivator.”

“Exactly. I can see myself trying skills like [Pottery]. I’ve always dreamed of creating something with my own hands, not just . . . killing.”

Eyes wide, I failed to picture Rayden at the potter’s wheel, shaping a piece of clay with her bare hands. It just didn’t fit the image of her in my mind.

“Don’t give me that look, Grey. And think about yourself instead. Isn’t there some skill you’ve always wanted to try?”

I didn’t even have to think. “[Flower Care] or something to do with flowers.”

“There you have it. Far easier to consider swapping skills for something like that than anything else, isn’t it?”

“With all due respect, ma’am, why don’t you tell your men yourself?”

“Because I have yet to take the step while you and Private Palemoon are deep in the hole. So what do you say? Will you do it? Will you show my men and me how to utilize the system the right way?”

Although there was still some reluctance in my heart and so many questions in my mind, I had already made my decision. “I will, ma’am.”

“Excellent! I’ll have Travis arrange for you to teach as soon as possible. But first, we should take care of your ‘heat’ condition. I can’t have you drooling over my men on the training grounds.”