We find Bae sitting under a cherry tree, her fingers tracing the leather that covers the book she is reading under the last rays of the setting sun. We stride toward her in silence, listening to the steady chorus of the crickets. Their voices rise and fall, a whispering lullaby that weaves through the meadow and creeps into the hollows of the trees. Some birds stir in the branches, their calls sharp and sudden, alarmed by our arrival. They seem to scold us with their trills before they relax again when we pass under them. Only a lone nightingale sings on. High-pitched notes drift through the air like silver threads, delicate yet unwavering. Then, Kylo wanders over and huffs at us in greeting. The nightingale falls silent, too.
“Well?” asks Bae, looking up from the book. Her voice carries the weight of expectation. “How did the gathering go?” She closes the book with a clap and leans closer in anticipation.
Master Wen exhales slowly and sits down next to her. “You know how it is,” he answers, his eyes glinting with something unreadable. “The same nonsense and petty jealousy as always.”
Bae frowns. “Right.” She looks between him and me as if expecting more details.
I don’t know what to say. I’m still unsure about what to make of it.
“Minae made quite an impression.” Wen pauses, smiling wryly. “They all would love to see their brats in her position, or if not, to somehow be able to influence or control her actions. The Lin patriarch declared that she was part of his clan. Offered to sponsor her and all.”
Bae raises a brow before looking at me. “Huh? Do you think he is right?”
I wince. “How should I know? If your theory is right, I could be a Lin, a Han, or whatever.”
I could ask The Crow. Not that I think he would tell me. He would at least charge me for the information, the bastard. Should I tell them that he was there? How would they react? For some reason, his name sits heavy on my tongue. It’s not that saying it out loud feels dangerous, not here, but I still feel scared about the consequences. Do I owe The Crow anything? I clench my fists until my fingernails bite into my palms. I’ve lived all my life without knowing my parents or if they are alive. It’s not like I need more strangers trying to control my life.
Bae’s chuckles pull me out of my thoughts. “You would not be the only one. It’s a common fate of Peruvian bastards. Their young masters are, how should I say this?” She tilts her head. “Prolific?” She leans her back against the trunk of the cherry tree, making it sway slightly. “All of those offspring who don’t know their fathers try to get the recognition of one of the clans. It doesn’t matter much which. And with time, they all mix their blood without knowing it. That’s why it doesn’t matter if they are Lin, Han, Meng, Koen, or whatever. They all look similar.”
“Huh?” I blink. “So, in theory, I could choose which clan I want to belong to?”
Master Wen coughs. “No, you are a Lin now. Not even the Han would challenge their rival’s claim at this stage. Well, unless you take on a new persona.” For some reason, he winks at me. Then he claps his hands together and casts me a beaming smile. “I think I have an idea for your training!” He looks me over, muttering to himself under his breath. “You want to be a rogue, ninja, or spy, or something like that. Right?”
“Yes?”
“Good, good. I’ve never trained a spy.”
Well, he is not exactly offering to train me now, either. I almost roll my eyes at his comment.
“Speaking of rogues. Do you think someone will send assassins after her?” asks Bae.
“What? Sure, if they think they have a chance, they will try,” answers Wen, as if it were obvious. “Well, they will try once she leaves the valley.” He grins. “It will be great training.”
I freeze. What are they talking about? Are they kicking me out already? “I thought I would stay here to train with you?” I stammer after finding my courage.
“What?" asks Wen, scratching his chin. “Emm. I’m more of a believer in a hands-off approach. Guiding someone by the hand can’t take anyone far. Sooner or later, they will have to make their own mistakes. Find opportunities in the larger world.” He looks towards me. “You have grown a lot in a short time. What you need now is some real-world experience to settle your gains. A few years of wandering and surviving alone should do the job. You have all the knowledge you need for a while. Come back when you start compressing your core so we can check for flaws in your advancement before you rank up to what you call platinum rank.”
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
They are kicking me out! What did I do? Is he too lazy to train me? Would he do the same if I was some noble scion? Am I an excuse for him to relax on his duties with the empire? Breath! I can’t do anything about it. It was too good to be true. I knew that there would be a catch sooner or later. But did he need to kick up that noble wasp hive? I wouldn’t have gone knowing I had to leave so soon.
I glare at him. “Where should I even go? You said yourself that there would be assassins after me.” I start to feel the heat rising in my chest. “And everyone knows my face now!”
“True,” acknowledges Bae. “It may be a bit much.”
Master Wen only grins. “Don’t worry. I’ll send you to Peruvia to give you a head-start. They look all like you anyway. It should be possible for you to hide until you return if you want to choose that approach. Or kill them and plunder their belongings if you want to. I don’t care.” He sits straighter, leaning a bit forward. “I have a task for you. Humm, a challenge, you could say, if you are up to it. It would be good training of your wit and skills.”
I sigh. “What is it?”
“Well, you see…” He leans even closer as if about to let me in on a secret. “The Han clan have something that I want in the treasury of their clan compound in Thousand Lakes City. I would take it from them myself, but if they sense my presence close to that city, they would make a fuss and probably call over one of their old ancestors from their clan’s main branch on the Eastern continent.”
I roll my eyes. Does he think I am a thief for hire? “How would I even recognize what you want.”
“Oh, that is easy. Those idiots call it the Supreme Heart of Fire or some other nonsense, but it’s just a beast-core. It’s as big as your fist and looks like a red gemstone. It should also glow and feel hot. It’s hard to mistake it for something else,” he explains.
“Okay,” I mutter.
Bae claps her hands together to demand our attention. Her eyes seem to gleam, catching the last sunrays. “I know! Why don’t you take Kylo with you? He seems to like you. And his complaints about being bored are getting annoying. It would be good for him to see the world!”
“Huh? What?” What would I even do with the cat?
“Great idea!” exclaims Wen.
Before I have time to answer, the valley disappears. I find myself somewhere dark, far enough away that it is the middle of the night. Those bastards didn’t even let me respond to them before they threw me wherever this is? Somewhere in Peruvia, I guess. There are no buildings anywhere in sight. Just a vast sea of grass, silver-tinged under the waning moon. It gently ripples with the wind, hiding the movements of possible wildlife. Every few hundred paces, I can make out patches of dense brush and the ghostly shadows of gnarled trees standing like sentinels against the horizon. There are crickets here, too, filling the silence with their chirps in a ceaseless lullaby that seems to dance with the shifting blades of grass. I hear a faint rustle somewhere in the distance, breaking the illusion of being here alone with Kylo. This place is alive.
Kylo jumps up, startled at the sound.
“What? Where?” His ears twitch, seeking the echoes of the rustle in the darkness. I can hear his fast and shallow breaths. His whiskers tremble as he takes in the unfamiliar scents. “Wrong,” his mind-speech sounds almost like a whisper.
Somewhere in the distance, something moves. The wind carries the sound of cracking twigs. I can see Kylo’s fur bristle, his body coiling tight. Then, the sky in the distance illuminates, and we both flinch back.
What was that?
The night flickers alive again, like a storm trapped upon the earth. Firebolts streak over the plain. They carve furious arcs of red and orange against the black sky before colliding with the ground, setting the grass aflame and illuminating figures locked in fierce combat. Knights dart around at high speed, their swords flashing. Mages wreathed in flowing robes hurl the elements onto other mages or try to shield their companions in the chaos before getting physical when the distance to their enemies wanes.
“What the heck?”
The air trembles with a deep and thunderous hum. The ground under our feet seems to vibrate in resonance. Spells clash against shields of shimmering mana, exploding in showers of sparks that rain down like falling stars, igniting even more patches of grass. Swords clash against enchanted armor in sharp and furious rings, merging with the guttural cries of the warriors into an unrelenting symphony. Smoke and dust whirl in the flickering light, shrouding the battlefield. But the haze and poor visibility do nothing to slow the battle down. It rages on and on, an unceasing tempest of fire and steel against the endless night.
Where did those two idiots send us? They should have checked before teleporting us close to a battlefield!
I can feel Kylo trembling beside me. His ears flattened to his head. I sigh. I can’t leave him here even if I wanted to. He is out of his element. Darn Bae! What the heck was she thinking? Did she want some alone time with Master Wen or something? They could have told me. I would have understood.
“Come. Let’s get away from here before those crazy people decide to include us in their mess,” I propose. Kylo looks at me with his wide-open eyes.
“Good!”
“Use your invisibility rune. We don’t want them to see us.” I bite my lower lip. “What can we do not to lose each other?”
Kylo tilts his head. “Carry.”
“What? You are way too heavy to carry you!”
He glares at me. “Dumb, not heavy.”
I see him shrink before my eyes until he is the size of a house cat, a small one. “Huh? Since when can you do that?”
“Bae,” he explains, sounding smug.
What? How does that even work? Where did all the extra mass go?
He moves toward me like a shadow, swift and silent. I feel his tiny claws piercing into my calves as he scrambles up my back to burrow himself into the folds of my hood. I feel his warm and fuzzy body pressing against the nape of my neck, his heart hammering like a trapped bird, giving away his anxiety.
“Okay, whatever. Let’s get out of here!”
I want to read a Bonus Chapter featuring...
