PreCursive

  A frown crossed my lips, as I began to feel a sense of impending dread.

  Meanwhile, Jason started ranting drunkenly at me. “I trusted you!” He screamed, swaying from his own inebriation and keeping an acg finger poi me. “And all along you were one of THEM! Youuuu…you were one of those evil BASTARDS FUG EVERYTHING UP!”

  Most of the aid workers in the surrounding area had stopped what they were doing to watch the frontation at this point, and the shouting was drawing in even more people. A crowd was f to watch. While not every look thrown my way was as acg as Jason was being, there were some decidedly unfriendly ones in that mix.

  “I let you into my HOME!” Jason bellowed, spit flying from his mouth. “And now it’s GO’S ALL YOUR FAULT!” At that, the proprietor of Jason’s Magical Brews staggered up to me with outstretched hands, as if to try and strangle me.

  I frown crossed my lips as I caught ahem effortlessly. Jason had oold me he’d never been serious about his Status, and it showed. The man athetically weak in parison to me. I didn’t even budge as I held the struggling man in my grip.

  Still, I sighed. In a way…he was right. Nerexxa had only kicked off her pn after the arrival of the Division here in Elderwyck. Everything was still her fault, of course. But we had factored into that pn, and even if it was nonsensical, I felt a measure of guilt over it. “I’m sorry, Jason,” I said quietly enough that I wasn’t sure he heard me. But he did, and stopped his struggling long enough to gre at me with hate painted across his face. “I talk to some people about finding you a pce to stay, if you need one. And I have…a little mohat you take to build a new life.”

  It was the best I could do for him, at this point.

  But Jason didn’t want to hear it. The drunken man s me. “I don’t want your PITY!” He shouted, before rearing back his head. He drove it forward in an attempt to headbutt me in the face, but it was easy enough for me to lean backward and dodge it.

  That was a mistake.

  It was only after I heard gasps from the surrounding crowd that I realized what had happened, in my evasion of the drunken headbutt.

  My hood had fallen backward with the movement. My altered features, including my ears, had been exposed to the astonished eyes of the crowd.

  I tensed up while Jason finally tired out in my arms. He stopped struggling a limp in my grip, now sobbing loudly. I numbly let go of him, and he slumped to his knees and buried his fa his hands. Meanwhile, I started to hear whispers from the mob.

  “Weren’t there rumors about an elf?” My new ears heard one man mutter to another. “Somethin’ about one freein’ all the Sculpted about the city?”

  “An elf in the Order?” I heard another say.

  Abruptly, one Uprising soldier shoved forward out of the mass and gaped at me for a moment, “Don't I know you? I swear I saw you iein a few months back. You look a little different, but aren't you Sir Nathaniel Hart? I heard you were the ohat killed the Camity!"

  My heart dropped into my stomach as the crowd went abruptly silent. Suddenly, everyone in the mob was looking at me with fused awe in their gazes. Slowly, I reached bad drew my hood up, but the damage had already been done.

  Heartbreakingly, a dirty little girl stepped out of the crowd, esg the grasp of his exhausted mother. “Is it true, mister Elf?” She asked ily. “Did you kill the monster?”

  “I…” I said aloud, paralyzed by the guileless curiosity in her young eyes. The rest of the crowd hung off my every word. “I…”

  I couldn’t get a word out. Panic was welling up inside of me now, in a way I thought I’d gotten past. White noise filled my head as I groped for something, anything to say.

  But then more fuel was thrown on the fire, from an unlikely source.

  “I heard it was true,” A voice said uedly, drawing mine and everyone else’s attention. An Order member stepped out of the crowd, and to my dismay, he was looking at me with near worship. “The higher-ups have been saying that it was a member of our Order that killed the Camity. Supposedly, it was Headmaster Grey’s apprentice who did it.”

  What?

  What the fuck? Who was saying that?! Had Woodrick or Leopold let that fact slip ‘actally’? Was I being used as a…PR campaign, or something?

  Suddenly I was feeling much more sure of my decision to leave with Azarus.

  “Are you him?” The Uprising soldier said breathlessly. “Sir…Hart?”

  The eyes of the crowd swung my way once again, and I was disturbed by the level of awe now radiating from them. I took a step back almost instinctively from the attention before I bumped into something a a hand fall on my shoulder. I whipped around in panily to see that it was Azarus behind me. Said dwarf leaned in closely. “We should probably get out of here,” He whispered o my long, hooded ear. “We don’t want this to turn into a riot. Pretty sure Grey is at the Guard Headquarters. Go o. I’ll meet ya there. I gotta find some things if we’re headin’ out.”

  That knocked me out of my panig enough to nod at him and start bag away from the crowd. Near worshipping gazes were being directed my way that were so disturbing that I felt my skin crawl from them. I had to get out of here.

  And so I did.

  Throwing out an arm, I cast Thrapple at a nearby rooftop and reeled myself in. Once up there, I started sprinting and hopping my way towards the guard HQ.

  Away from the reverent masses.

  …………………………………..

  The Uprising and the Order seemed to have takehe guard headquarters, when I finally reached it. They were very clearly in charge of things now that they’d occupied the city. Holy, it didn’t look like the Loyalists or the guards themselves were too bothered by it. Instead, they looked a bit relieved to be ordered around like they seemed to be.

  However, ohing did bother me.

  I was reized.

  Again.

  Disturbingly, even though I was being careful to keep myself cealed, the Order and Army forces had zeroed in on me once I’d touched down in front of the HQ. They were quiet as they parted before my form, leaving a clear path through the former chaos of the refugee efforts. Some of thees were visibly fused at the deferehat was being paid to me, only for some of the soldiers to lean down and whisper to them. When those people looked up at me again, awe was visible oired, dirt-streaked faces.

  I grit my teeth at the attention, doing my best to hide how it bothered me. With my Ag level, it wasn’t that hard.

  The soldiers guarding the door to the maually saluted me when I reached them. “Sir Hart,” one of them said respectfully. “How we help you?”

  I just looked at him for a moment, causing the soldier to fidget slightly from my attention.

  ‘Sir’ Hart.

  I hadn’t been called something like that since Rhoscara. But I had been bullshitting about that then, and noasn’t too sure.

  “I o see the Grand Marshal,” I said finally.

  The soldier saluted again. “Of course, Sir Hart. Private Maloney take you to him. Maloney!” He barked at a nearby pimply-faced teenager of a soldier who had been not so subtly eavesdropping on the versation.

  ‘Maloney’ straightened up and saluted sloppily. “R-right away, sir!” He said eagerly, before turning to face me with worshipful eyes. “This w-way, Sir Hart!” At that, the private jogged through the doors the guards had opened up for us, without even waiting for me.

  I stifled a sigh and followed the kid through the opening, finding him waiting almost impatiently for me. He brightened up and then motioned for me to follow him.

  It was damn busy in here, and as we walked through the halls of the mao wherever Grey was hiding, people stopped to watch us.

  Or rather, me.

  versations stopped, and heads turned, leaving pockets of quiet that followed in my wake. Always, furious versatioed wherever I passed.

  Just being here, I was disrupting operations through my presence alone. Even if people were just curious about who they had been told was the person to sy a Camity, I felt like a liability.

  I did my best to hurry the Private along.

  Eventually, he led me to a small offiear the top of the building, before departing.

  Inside, I could hear low versation, indig that Grey wasn’t alone in there. I was…simultaneously relieved and disappoihat I couldn’t hear Sylvia in there.

  Instead, there seemed to be three people ihat I could reize easily enough, even though Lifeblood Seold me there were four. Two were somewhat expected, while the other two weren’t. But I had wao see one of those other two before I left.

  If only to tell the little shit what I thought of him.

  I knocked on the door, causing the versation to cease for a moment. “Enter,” I heard Grey say from within. I opehe door and stepped through, findily who I had expected oher side.

  Grey was here, obviously. My mentor was sitting behind a desk absolutely stacked with various scrolls as, looking grateful for any kind of distra. He looked relieved to see me. Honoka, too, because she was standing right behind Grey, with her arms crossed over her chest and looking as annoyed as ever.

  She didn’t look relieved to see me.

  Instead, she looked away in almost shame. I…didn’t want to unpack that right now, in front of the other people in the room.

  Prince Oskar, and his asshole guard Augustine.

  I hadn’t seen the knight at the meeting earlier, and that had made me wonder if the man had even survived the Breaks. But no, he was here now. Maybe the Prince, or rather, Ki, had just ditched his bodyguard earlier.

  I wouldn’t put it past the kid.

  I exged a nod with Grey as I stepped ihe room. “Nathan,” He said in a relieved toanding up from his chair. “I see Azarus found you. Are you…?” He trailed off.

  I’m guessing he was about to ask if I was fine.

  Not really.

  Oh, whatever.

  “Not really,” I said out loud, ung about the presence of the Prince. Grey winced, while the Prince just looked fused. Honoka still wouldn’t look at me. “But yeah, Azarus found me. We talked, and came to a decision. He sent me on ahead while he got some stuff together,” I took a deep breath. “I o talk to you about something. But first…” I turo the Prind met his eyes. “I have something to say to you, yhness.”

  Prince Oskar winced. “Ah, if It’s about my earlier accusation, Sir Hart, I do apologize. I was merely -” He stopped in surprise when I held up a hand to cut him off. He was so shocked that it made me wonder if the kid had ever been interrupted like that in his life.

  “I don’t care,” I said bluntly, causing Augustio tense. I paid the attack dog no mind, and just kept my eyes trained on Oskar. “I’m going to be the bad guy here and say something that you o hear, Prince Oskar. You o get your shit together.”

  The Prince’s lips parted as he blinked repeatedly. “I’m…sorry?”

  “You’re not, and I don’t bme you for it,” I said unflingly. “I’m not sure if a royal like you has ever been told off in your life, so I’ll do it since everyone else has failed you. If yoing to be the King of this fucked up try, you ’t be a kid anymore. I don’t know what kind of problem you have with me,” I said, causing Oskar to wince. “I don’t care if you jump to clusions in my case. I take it. But the people of Herztal don’t deserve that kind of carelessness. Not after being put through a civil war. If yoing to be a King that hold this try together whehing is said and done, you o be more careful with what you say and do.”

  Silence desded on the office for a moment, as all four octs stared at me in shock at the way I’d just backtalked the boy who was going to be King. I stifled a smirk at how that little rant had made Honoka finally look at me, if only to gawk at my audacity.

  Well, whatever. I didn’t have the instinctive deferehat most Veredenese seemed to have for royalty.

  My people had cast off the trappings of s and thrones turies ago.

  Augustine audibly growled at that, stepping forward with a tight hand gripping his sword. “You dare?”

  I just met his helmeted eyes with a baze, pletely unfazed by the knight’s rage. It took more than the anger of a toady like him to intimidate me.

  Still, he backed down when Oskar cleared his throat awkwardly. “Ah…I will…take your words under advisement?” He said almost meekly, not meeting my eyes. “I…thank you both for your dor, and for the mercy you showed to Isolde. Rest assured, she will…not be a problem iure, as we have…reciled our differences.”

  “Good,” I nodded sharply, before turning away from him to look at Grey. “Then, if you don’t mind? Grey and I have business.”

  Prince Oskar took a deep breath and nodded. “Yes, of course. I have just one more thing to say, before I leave. It is in regard to my…previous accusation, ba Helstein. There, I…informed you that impersonating a knight was illegal. However, that is…no longer an issue. Although a formal ceremony has not be held, I have decided that for your service here in her Elderwyck, you are to be knighted.”

  I looked back at the Prince abruptly at that. “Is that why everyone has been calling me ‘Sir’ Hart? Were you the oo leak that I was the person who killed the Camity?” I said, narrowing my eyes at Oskar.

  Said Prince held up his hands almost defensively. “Ah, no. I believe the decision to inform the soldiery of that fact came from ander Woodrick. I merely tacked something on to the annou. I simply wao tell you that a ceremony for your knighting e after the clusion of the war. I will…leave to your busihen, Sir Hart.” At that, Oskar shuffled backward out of the room, aking his eyes off of me before he disappeared out of the door. Augustine followed after him after o attempt at an intimidating stare, which I pletely disregarded.

  Leaving me aloh Grey and Honoka.

  I took a deep breath before walking over and sitting in the chair befrey’s desk aing his eyes. “We o talk.”

  Grey sighed, set his hands down ft on the desk, and nodded.

  “Yes, I believe we do.”