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Chapter Text

Little Moment: The Sorceress And the Knight

By Eric ‘Erico’ Lawson

Prologue: Her Name Was Bezel

Once Upon A Time, In an Age of Wonders…

  The world of Terra existed on the fringe of the galaxy, and was avoided or ignored by almost all the other strange-looking travelers from the stars, who spoke with a thousand tongues and wore a thousand shapes. When they came, they almost always walked lightly, came with deference in their hearts, and usually left in a hurry. They had reason to be fearful. Terra was protected. The whole of the world was watched over by the vigilance of the guardians who hailed from the great, artificial continent of Atlantis, a flying, enspelled landmass that sailed through the world’s skies. 

  Terra was a world of magic, and Atlantis reigned as its guiding light. 

  That was what everyone said, but the dark-haired boy who sat in the park by the pond while his mother watched from nearby wondered about that. If Atlantis was really so wonderful, why was his mom always working? Why, when she had time to play with him, were they only able to visit places that were free? What was so wonderful when he could see the worry that always pinched at her eyes, that her smiles and distracting laugh never quite covered up? He glanced back at her for a second, and saw her slumped on the bench, her eyes closed. It made him feel worse, made him ignore the hunger in his belly for a little bit more. She was so tired. She lied about it to make him feel better, to keep him focused. But he was never focused. He wanted to make it right. 

But he couldn’t. He was a child, as everybody who bothered to talk to him always said. Some said it in pity, others with scorn. And what could a child do to change anything? 

“You okay?” A girl’s voice cut into his bitter fuming, and he jerked his head up in surprise, whirling around to the source. He froze when piercing green eyes, open with concern and honest curiosity, pinned him to the spot. It took him a second to remember to breathe.

It wasn’t until she frowned and poked at his forehead that he remembered how to move, scooting back away from her with a noise of surprise. “What are you doing?!” He yelped softly.

Back farther away from the girl with green eyes that sparkled like wet grass in the morning, he was able to pay attention to the rest of her. She had been crouched next to him, and her clothes were much finer than his; she was clearly of a higher caste. Was he even allowed to be next to her? Sure, the castes weren’t separated by law , but his mother had always warned him to not stare at those above their station. To not talk to them unless they spoke to you first. 

Mostly, though, he stared at her plaited red hair that hung to her shoulders; red like a fire, not dull like the color of blood or rust. For a moment he wondered if it was soft as it looked, and he reached up into his own messy dark hair, clean but coarse. 

The girl pouted and stood back up, dusting off her skirt. “You looked sad and angry.” She explained. “Why?”

He should have gone back to his mother then. He should have walked away from this crazy little girl with the big curious eyes. He didn’t. 

“Just worried.” He muttered. “S’not fair.”

“What isn’t?” She pressed him, tilting her head to the side.

And what was a good answer to that question? What would sum it all up?

He waved a hand around them, encompassing the whole of his world, and let out a grunt.

Maybe she understood. More than likely, she didn’t. 

She had a leather satchel on a strap over one shoulder, and it bounced lightly off of her waist. “Wanna help me feed the ducks?” She asked him brightly, and dug out a paper bag full of torn bread chunks, with a little clear window in the side that let him see them. 

His stomach growled loudly at the sight of so much food, and he winced when he saw her blink in surprise. He turned away from her.

There was the sound of her digging through her satchel again, and then something cool touched his shoulder; an apple, he realized, when he turned to it. It was enormous , and cold, and so bright and crispy looking without a blemish on it.

“Here.” She said, smiling at him. “You can have it.” He stared between the fruit that was so much more delicious than anything he’d ever seen in his life and the girl with hair like fire and eyes like grass, and took it from her. Hunger won out, and he practically inhaled it . 

It was only after he’d finished it down to the core and stem that she giggled that he remembered to feel embarrassed. “Thanks.” He said through his blush.

“You’re welcome.” She told him. “ Now you wanna help me feed the ducks?”

“Okay.” He said, because for as nice as she’d been to him, he probably owed her a favor. And feeding the animals that coasted out on the pond? Well, if that’s what she wanted…

They sat by the water’s edge with the bag between them, tossing out bread crusts and even pieces of the softer interior into the water. The fowl quacked and came in closer, out of reach but close enough to grab and tear at the nourishment they were being freely given. He snuck a piece for himself every so often as well, because even the apple hadn’t touched the bottomless pit of his stomach. She caught him doing it, but she never said a word. She just smiled at him. He felt the need to explain anyways.

“I’m hungry.”

“Doesn’t your daddy feed you enough?”

“I don’t have a dad.” He said. “But mom tries. She works a lot.”

“I don’t have a mom.” The girl looked away sadly. “Is she nice?”

“Yeah.” He plucked out another handful of bread chunks and stared at it for a moment before offering one to her. She got a squinty look in her eye, like she was trying to figure out if it was okay to eat it or not, but she finally gave in and popped it in her mouth. She seemed to get more enjoyment out of how naughty she thought it was than how it tasted. “I mean, I take care of myself a lot. And sometimes she sings for me. She would sing a lot when I was younger.” He gestured up behind them, and the girl gasped to see his mother sleeping on the park bench.

“She’s pretty!” The girl whispered, as if them talking in a normal voice might wake her up even at a distance. “Why is she sleeping?”

“She’s tired.” The boy said, and when the girl got confused, he explained. “She works all the time.” He shrugged, knowing that it was a part of life. It wasn’t fair, and it wasn’t right, but…

But it was. And he couldn’t change it, no matter how mad he got. His mom was always telling him to stop getting so angry about the things he couldn’t change.

The lesson didn’t always stick.

“It’s not right.” The girl pouted. “What if she wanted to play with you? What if you wanted to play with her?”

He shrugged, but he didn’t look away from the girl, who was scowling now. He could see it in her eyes; she knew it wasn’t right, either. But there was something about her that burned at it. Like she thought it was wrong, sure, but that she could change it . 

What could he say to her? She ended up picking up the bag of bread pieces and dumping the rest out onto the pond all at once, then she stood up and held out a hand to him. “I’ll play with you, then.”

He blinked. “You will? But...but I’m not…”

“You’re not what?”

He pulled at his faded shirt, then gestured to her much nicer clothes, made from nicer fabric, which didn’t look like it had been washed and reused and patched up over and over again. “We’re different.” He said, because even if she was just a girl , she should have understood this much about the world, that her kind didn’t associate with his. 

But she didn’t understand it, or she didn’t care. She scowled again and grabbed at his hand, tugging ineffectively until he finally surrendered and stood up, balancing her so she didn’t fall backwards.

“We’re not different.” She insisted, with the weight of stubborn finality. 

He blinked a few times, grinned. “Wanna play tag?”

It turned out she did, and they kept chasing after each other after that, laughing and screaming when one got close enough to the other to reach a hand out and smack them in the arm or on the back. And once, when he stopped running after that, she tried tickling him.

He proved to be a lot better at it, as she started shrieking with wild laughs, trying to squirm out of his grip and failing at it. She only stopped when a loud shouting voice got close enough to be heard, and then her face went shock white. He stopped tickling her, wondering what was wrong.

“Princess!” Along the path through the park came a middle-aged woman with worry lines streaking across her face. She’d seen them and was charging as fast as she could, and from behind, the boy winced when he heard his mother shouting his name as well. 

The boy and the girl could do nothing but wait as the women came racing towards them, but while they separated, she kept hold of his hand and refused to let go. He didn’t know why, but he stayed put and managed to not be afraid. But his head was swimming. 

Princess?

The older woman came to a stop in front of them, panting and livid. “Princess Bezel, you cannot go running off like that!” She admonished the little girl, and at the sound of her name, the boy jerked his head to the side and stared at her in shock.

Princess Bezel?  

Merciful mana, he had been playing with the youngest daughter of the Mage King . They would punish him for this. They would hurt his mother. They would throw them in prison, or…

But Bezel, undaunted in the face of the woman, stepped in front of him protectively, never letting go of his hand. “I’m fine!” She snapped in her high voice. “We were just playing!”

The older woman scowled again, and looked past the children. The boy knew she was staring at his mother, because not a second later…

“Forgive us.” He shut his eyes, because he could hear her settle into the grass. She was kneeling . “My son, he was…”

“He should know better than to associate with one so high above his station.” The other woman growled. 

“Why you gotta be so mean?!” Bezel snapped. “Stop it! He’s my friend! You’re just my Nanny, you don’t get to talk to them like that!” 

He jerked a little at the title of friend , and looked at the girl who he’d never really known. Did he know her now? Or did nobody understand who she was, with a head and a heart full of fire?

The other woman looked like she’d been sucking on a lemon, but settled for a snap of her fingers. “Come, Princess.” She said in a crisp voice that would brook no argument. “We are leaving and going home.”

“But…” Bezel nibbled at her lip.

“ Now , Princess. And we will tell nobody about what happened here if you stop fighting me on this.”

“...He won’t be in trouble?” Bezel murmured, looking back at him in concern. 

“No.” The nanny sighed. “Not if we leave right this instant. Agreed?”

“...Fine.” Bezel let go of his hand, and he missed it the second her fingers drifted away. There were tears in her eyes, but she looked between him and his mother and kept on smiling. “Thanks for playing with me. I had fun.” She gave an elaborate curtsy, then toddled over to her nanny, who turned her around and walked her off, never letting go of her arm. Not her hand, just her arm, clutched by the elbow.

Princess Bezel, the youngest daughter of the Mage King of Atlantis, looked over her shoulder as she was led away, and the boy couldn’t help but stare back at her.

It wasn’t fair, he said to himself again. She had only wanted to play, and…

His mother engulfed him in a warm hug a second later, killing his thought. “Are you all right?” She asked fearfully, pulling back and examining him. “I woke up and you were gone and…”

“I’m fine, mom.” He tried to keep her from panicking. “I’m fine, see? We were just playing.”

“Did you...Did you know …”

He looked down at the ground at that. Did he know he was playing with Princess Bezel? No. No, he hadn’t. He shook his head, and she sighed in relief. 

“Was she friendly?” She asked him, when she was less scared and back to being herself again. Tired, but cheerful. He looked up at his mom and nodded with a smile. “So, what did you play?”

“Tag. And tickle fights.” He explained, giggling when his mom let out a choking gasp. “I won.”

She just sighed and ran a hand through his hair before hugging him tight. “Did you have fun today then?”

“Yeah, mom. I did.” And he meant it, and he wasn’t as hungry. He wondered if he’d ever taste anything as delicious as the apple Bezel had given him ever again. He wondered if he’d ever see Bezel again.

When his mother was walking him home, though, he got the feeling that he wouldn’t. It was an ache that wouldn’t go away.

That night, he learned he’d been right, as over a dinner with more food than usual, his mom tried not to cry while she told him that they would be moving. To the Below. To the lands beneath Atlantis. She tried to make it sound like an adventure; she had a new job there, and there would be more to eat. Probably. 

He should have been sleeping. He knew that. Tomorrow was going to be a busy day, his mom had said. They would be packing up their belongings, leaving. He would be tired for most of it.

He didn’t care. His mother slept somehow, and he snuck past her, got outside, climbed up onto the roof and sat on top of their shack and stared up at the spires of the castle that stood at the heart of Atlantis, miles away. He stared at that castle and tried to think of Bezel, a Princess who had just wanted to be a normal girl for one afternoon. 

He stared at the castle and wondered if she would even remember him. 

He stared at the castle and remembered her green eyes and her fiery red hair and knew that he would never forget her.

He stared at the shacks and smelly huts all around him, and up at the castle, and remembered that it wasn’t fair . 

Don’t get angry over the things you can’t change, my precious one. He heard his mother’s words echo in him, as they always did, his guide and his conscience both.

He had trouble listening to it now.

The anger that Bezel had shown, even for a flash of an instant…

That came so much easier.

Chapter Text

Little Moment: The Sorceress And The Knight

By Eric ‘Erico’ Lawson

One: And He Protected Her

The Below

Euros, Granpeal Province

Banali City

The Below wasn’t like Atlantis. The weather wasn’t controlled down here, and the first thunderstorm he experienced in his life lashed against their tiny one bedroom home and made the thin wooden walls rattle a week after they’d arrived. His mother had held him tight as he whimpered through it, stroking his hair and his back and shushing him as one concussive boom after another made him clench his jaw tight. 

There was a school, but it wasn’t like the one he’d gone to when they lived up on the floating continent. It was crowded and they had even fewer supplies to learn with. There wasn’t an auraboard, just a slate with chalk of all things. They drew on stone with softer stone, and wiped it away when they needed to keep going. 

There was medical care, but there wasn’t. Everything at the doctor’s was years out of date, the walls needed fresh paint, and they didn’t have the medicines that he used to get when he was sick up on Atlantis. He’d gotten the flu when he’d been younger and it had taken him a few days to get over it up there. Down here, in the Below, he got it again on his second week of school, and he didn’t go back to school until two weeks more had passed by.

They lived in Banali City in Granpeal Province, on the continent of Euros. It was ruled over, ‘Protected’ by a noblemage called Duke Filitas. They were forced to stand up at the start of every school day and bow to the picture of the duke, a fat man with an unamused expression, before they turned to the portrait of the Mage King of Atlantis to recite the pledge of gratitude. 

We pledge our gratitude to our protectors, to Atlantis. We give thanks for our lives and our freedom. We offer our service to our guardians.

He had never had to say it when he lived on Atlantis. Down here, everyone said it, like it was expected, but nobody meant it. The boy could see it in their eyes, hear it in their voice. They said it because they had to, and nothing else.

His mother worked as a supervisor at a ‘processing plant.’ That meant, as she tried to explain it to him, they refined stone and metal from mines that were around them and changed them so they could be useful up on Atlantis, and for construction down in the Below.

There was food, but it wasn’t like the food he was used to. He saw vegetables, and grains, and they usually had meat every second day. But he didn’t see fruits anymore, or nuts, and he definitely didn’t see desserts and candies. When he had been seven, his mother had gotten them a small cake the size of his hands put together and they’d split it. It had been delicious. 

He was ten now, and cake was a distant memory.

Don’t get angry over the things you can’t change, precious one.

The other kids looked down on him because he hadn’t been born down here; There was even a group of bullies whose parents worked at his mom’s plant that took to harassing him. They beat him up once, and afterwards, he always made sure that he kept by an adult at school.

After school, he got better at running...and when he couldn’t do that, he learned how to fight. He still came home scraped up with bruises, and sometimes in blood. 

His mother didn’t smile as much anymore, but the times that he wasn’t able to clean himself up in time, she took to wiping away the dirt and the blood and using what little magic she had to make his bruises hurt less. Then she would hug him tight, tell him that things would get better, and that she loved him. Even that much of a comfort always made him feel better.

He learned that, for as rough as things were for him, that others had it even rougher. On one of the days that he didn’t have school and she didn’t have to work, she dragged him out of their house and went into an even rougher part of Banali City. He spent the rest of the day standing behind a table and handing out sandwiches and ladling out soup for a line of hungry, emaciated people that never seemed to end. He had whined and complained to his mother when they’d gotten there that he didn’t want to do it, that they should go have some fun.

By the end of that day, as they were sitting down themselves in the back of the kitchen at the shelter and having their own meal, his mother with gray-blue eyes undaunted by life looked at him. “We will be judged by the state we leave the world in when we leave it.” She said, in the tone that he knew meant she was talking about something important and he needed to pay attention to it. “I want you to remember that, my precious one. Remember that people are more important than things .”

And he had nodded, and tried to remember it as well as all of her other lessons. She had so many.

But it was hard remembering them when that first, most important lesson about not becoming angry kept slipping to the wayside. Especially when a week after they’d helped out in that soup kitchen, she had taken him to an art festival on the other side of the city. They had needed special passes to get past the guards and the gates that separated them, passes that he’d never seen before, and which the guards had warned his mother only allowed them access up to curfew in the evening and no longer. If they tarried past that, they could be arrested.

He remembered her fake smile as she nodded to the stern guard dressed in armor, and thanked him for his concern. They had brought their own lunches on that trip, and he realized why as soon as they passed food vendors past the gates and goggled at the prices.

Past those gates, everything was clean and beautiful and it was almost like being back in Atlantis again. Aside from being half-starved and living far away from everything. Which they still were, he realized. It was just now they were Below.

Atlantis was lost to them.

***

The buildings were made of sturdier materials, made to last instead of just to be affordable. They walked past all of them and went to one which had windows that made up entire walls , and inside the doors there was a massive water fountain that spun and spiraled with water and magical lights. They looked at paintings done by people his mother had heard of and he could care less about. They looked at statues of the great heroes of Atlantis from years before, from its founding and from battles past.

But it was one exhibit, placed in the museum almost as an afterthought, that his mother insisted on stopping at. 

“It’s a traveling exhibit.” She explained. “It goes from province to province down here. It’s only here for this week, that’s why we’re here today.” It was set up in a smaller lobby with lots of benches around it to sit on, and they sat down and ate their sandwiches and vegetable sticks and drank their water. Others in finer clothes than theirs came by as well to examine it, and most of them ignored him and his mother. At least, they were ignored after one good sneer or upturned nose. His mother sighed as he started to glare back, touched his arm.

“Don’t let them see them getting to you.” She told him, another one of her lessons. One about finding pride in yourself when nobody else offered it. So he sighed and let go of that puff of anger, and stowed the rest down inside of him. He felt it burn for a few seconds before it disappeared, and he focused on the exhibit again.

It wasn’t a statue. It wasn’t a painting. It was a thing of glass and metal, and the pieces of it hovered above a glowing pedestal base, slowly rotating around each other in a complicated pattern he couldn’t figure out.

It was magical, of course. It would be hard to miss that, the air fairly sang with it. But it was magic without a purpose. So the pieces floated. Why? The pieces twirled and rotated. Why?

He didn’t quite get it, but his mother prodded at him. “Go ahead. Take a closer look at it.” She urged him. “There’s a sign on the pedestal that will tell you what it’s named. It’ll give you a better idea of what you’re looking at.”

He really didn’t want to, but one thing that the boy had learned by paying attention today was just how much his mother had arranged just for them to get this chance. She had felt it was important for him to come here. To see this piece of art. No matter how humiliating it was for them with everyone looking at them like they didn’t belong. No matter how much it must have cost her to make this happen.

So he finished up his lunch, gave the wrappings to his mother to be disposed of, and pushed off of the bench. He went over to the artifact of spinning, hovering metal and glass and stared at the base, and read the message there.

Ducks On a Pond- Animated Artifact

Enspelled by Princess Bezel Lantea (Age 9)

He blinked and stared at it again. And then again, wondering if the name would change.

It didn’t.

Princess Bezel had made this? But she was just a girl! And younger than he was! Sure, it was just a year’s difference, but…

And then he felt his mother come up behind him and rest a hand on her shoulder. “Try looking at the artifact again, dear heart.” She urged him. 

So he did, looking with fresh eyes now that he knew who had made it. He squinted at the shards of glass and metal, blinking as he realized that the glass was colored, and the metal was reflective on every side, and…

And when it moved, from the distance at the right angle, in the right light…

He saw a picture of a boy and a girl beside a pond, throwing bread to a flock of ducks floating close by.

She remembered.

She remembered him.  

He’d eventually told his mother about everything that the princess had done that last afternoon before they moved away from Atlantis. He told the story, and after the telling, began to doubt himself. Doubted that it had happened the way he’d remembered it. Why would a princess care about a boy she had only known for an hour? 

But she remembered. And it…

He…

For her to work magic into glass and steel...

He didn’t realize he was crying until his mother pulled him into a hug and wiped his tears away with a napkin. 

“Don’t let anyone ever tell you that you’re not important. That you don’t matter.” She whispered fiercely into his ear. “Maybe the world will never know your name, or care that you lived. It doesn’t matter what the world thinks about, or cares about. You mattered to her . So you keep going, my precious one. You keep going, and you find the people who do care about you. And you never stop caring about them in return.”

“I promise, momma.” He whispered, and hugged her tighter for giving him the chance.

They went home afterwards, passed through the gates again an hour before curfew, and when he was in his room, the boy took graphite to paper and tried to draw a rough copy of what the princess had made. It looked horrible, but his mother still laughed and hung it up next to the foodbox. He eventually forgot the bad parts about that day at the art museum, started to only remember the good parts. Lunch with his mother, looking at the artifact and wondering if Bezel really remembered him, or just recalled an afternoon in the park with a commoner. 

And then, six months after they arrived Below, all of Banali City was suddenly full of nervous energy and people preparing for a parade and a festival.

Members of the Atlantean royal family were coming to visit for Unification Day.

***

The parade was to be held on the Midway, the long stretch of road between the Upper and Lower sections of the city. It was the traditional route for ceremonies, his mother told him when they walked with collapsible chairs to get seats for the parade four hours before it was set to start.

But the boy knew better. He was eleven now, had just passed that mark a few weeks before. His time Below had opened his eyes. He knew why they used this road; it was meant to divide them.

Those from the lower castes weren’t allowed to cross the street to the upper caste side of the road, even though there were so many of them that they crowded the poor side and there were wide open spaces just across from them. Mage constables patrolled the line, but most of them were on the poor side, as if to keep them back.

Because of his mother’s foresight, they’d been able to get a spot along the parade route close to the provincial Duke’s box. Not directly across, but twenty yards down the way was close enough as the crowds kept filling in and the warmth of the morning increased. He nibbled on one of the snacks that they had brought with them and kept staring at the Duke’s box, where Duke Filitas and all of his royal guests would be sitting.

Once they arrived, that was. He added it to the reasons to seethe that it stayed empty for so long, even as the appointed hour of the start of the parade approached, and felt that boiling pit of rage inside of his chest bloom a little bit higher before he shoved it back down. There were guards stationed all around the empty box, and his mother snickered a little before letting him in on the joke. They were protecting nothing but air, after all. One had to find the humor in that.

With only ten minutes to spare before the start of the parade, the ‘guests of honor’ finally arrived, accompanied by a triumphal fanfare from brass horns that stilled conversations. The Duke appeared first, waving at the top of the steps before moving to the side and bowing slightly as another figure appeared. Close by, a herald announced off every member of the Duke’s Box as they appeared and came on.

Duke Filitas, naturally, then Prince Greeve Lantea, the Mage King’s brother and fourth-in-line for the throne after the Mage King’s two sons.  There was Duchess Flora Vanwell, Prince Greeve’s wife, and their son Nereas. Apparently, they were attending in place of the Mage King himself, who had been extended the original invitation.

But it was the next two attendees, or specifically, the younger of the two that made the boy startle and stare. Walking hand in hand with Duchess Filitas was the Princess Bezel, resplendent in a dress that probably cost more than his mother earned in a year. She’d changed how her hair was plaited, but he still remembered her face, and even at a distance, he could see that her hair still glowed like fire, and her eyes sparkled like wet grass.

No. Like something more precious.

His mother must have caught him staring, because she nudged him in the shoulder and chuckled, and he blushed and looked away. He kept looking at Bezel, but he made sure that he wasn’t staring. Furtive side glances worked just as well. He paid no attention to the rest of the attendees in the Duke’s Box: Local administrators and factory managers well beyond his mother’s pay grade, and other officials of middling rank who had sucked up enough to the Duke for the honor of attending in his personal stand.

The parade started up in earnest, and soon bands of musicians and local representatives of the guilds and the factories came strolling by, bearing instruments and banners. Unification Day had begun as a celebration of Atlantis taking to the skies and Terra being protected at last from the threat of outsiders, but over time it had taken on a decidedly less serious air. Children screamed and went running for tiny sweets that were tossed out haphazardly by people on the larger floats, and then were forced to scatter as the impressive hovering spell-transports used by the local police and mage garrisons drove by. His mother crowded over him and protected him from flailing limbs as one float came by and started lobbing entire loaves of bread into the crowd, setting off a near frenzy. 

Bread and Circuses , his mother had once scoffed derisively, explaining it as a mechanism to distract. Funny that it took almost being trampled on for him to understand what she meant by it. They didn’t really care about the people they were handing out food and pocket change to; they scattered it to the winds and laughed as people fought over it. He saw it all and felt that burning sensation in his chest deepen. 

Only one thing stopped it from burning out of control; Bezel. While the rest of her extended family sat either laughing and jeering at the sight of everyone across from them fighting over scraps, she shifted in her seat uncomfortably, looking like she wanted to be anywhere else but here, watching it. Being a participant in it. 

Surely she knew that this was what happened? Or had she been so sheltered about the world that when suddenly exposed to how things really were, it left her squeamish?

That discomfort, that look of growing alarm and pain and…

Anger . She was angry that this was happening.

It poured over him like a balm, quenching his own fire. She was different. She wasn’t like the others.

She had made a statue because of a single afternoon’s joy. He held onto that thought and wished that he could ask her what she was thinking. 

Ask her if she remembered him at all, months later. But she never looked that closely at the crowd, never saw his face. Or if she did, she looked past him and didn’t see him for who he was. 

He didn’t have time to think about it, unfortunately. Because it wasn’t long after the bread float that another one came rolling down the street, bearing a flag of the local miner’s guild.

And then the entire float exploded into magical fire and shrapnel, and his world filled with screams.

***

He had been far enough away to survive the blast, but his arm still stung where a splinter of burning lumber had embedded itself. All around him were the screams of the dying, the silence of the dead, and the bellowing terror of those fleeing from the scene. The Duke’s Box was ruined, the protective wards were cracked and barely hanging on, were, in fact, shattered in places with injured people there as well. And into the chaos came a wave of over a dozen men armed with knives and sledges and makeshift shields, all of them burning with magic. There were red auras and orange ones, and even one man with a sword who glowed yellow. 

“Death to the Duke! Death to the Royals! ” Came their shout, and bolt after bolt of mana slammed into the already crumbling wards, blasting them apart. And when the wards fell, the people who had been inside of them struggled to defend themselves…

And they failed, with the guards falling first, and then it all…

The boy saw it even as his ears kept ringing. He started running as soon as the first shouts from those men echoed in his ears like he was underwater and they were speaking in long, slow words. He felt something grab his arm, hold it tight, and he whirled about to see his mother bleeding from her scalp but still alive, still standing , and worried out of her mind screaming at him.

He couldn’t hear her, but he knew that she was begging him to run, to get away.

The boy couldn’t. He shook his head and pulled his arm away from her, leaving her stunned. He tried to talk to her, but he couldn’t hear himself. He screamed instead, and that , he barely heard.

“I can’t let them hurt her!” It was enough to shock his mother from grabbing at him again, and he turned around and ran as fast as he could, hoping, praying…

None of the men slaughtering the people in the stands paid any attention to a boy that ran towards the danger instead of away from it. He didn’t dare charge up into the stands, into the middle of it all. Spells and wild blasts were flying everywhere , as the few people able to defend themselves tried desperately through concussions and their injuries to do so. He looked up into the stands, and…

And he couldn’t see Bezel there any longer. He saw the Duke, gutted and choking on a dagger shoved through his throat, and his wife lying in a heap on the stands, her head bashed in. But he couldn’t see Bezel, who had been by the Duke’s wife’s side…

In a flash of insight, he ran around the side of the Duke’s Box and ducked underneath.

She was huddled on the ground, her face shock white and a hand clamped over her mouth. It was what kept her from shrieking out as she spun around to look at him, her dress spattered in blood and dirt. None of it was her own, though, he could see that from one look.

The boy held out a hand towards her. “Come on!” He whispered, and prayed that he wasn’t shouting it. She stared at him, locked in fear, and…

Princess Bezel blinked. She got up and stared at him even closer, and reached a hand out towards him.

Did she remember him? No, the boy shook the thought off and grabbed her hand. She didn’t remember him. She was just scared out of her mind and taking any help she could get. 

His hearing was slowly starting to come back as he pulled her out from underneath the bleachers, and scouted a course away from the massacre that kept them out of sight as much as possible. He got them a block away and around a corner before someone caught up to them, and he almost started flailing before the smell of his mother’s arms calmed him down. 

His mother was here, and she hugged them both tightly. “You’re alive, thank mana you’re both still alive …” She cried softly.

Bezel still hadn’t said a word, and when his mother released him, the boy looked at her.

She was crying. She needed to cry, what had happened, what was still happening was horrible. 

But she reached a hand up towards him, and he froze. She traced the side of his face with her fingers.

“I remember you.” She whispered tearfully. “What are you doing down here?”

“...We moved.” The boy answered. And then her arms were around him, and her face was buried into his chest and she was crying.

He stood there, not sure whether to push her off or hold her back. His mind swirled. 

She remembered him.  

As the screams of the crowd began to diminish, the shouts of the attackers grew louder. “The Princess got away! Find Her! Find her and kill her! ” 

His mother grabbed their hands, the terror back on her bleeding face. “We have to run. We have to run . I need you both to be brave, and be quiet, and run. Can you do that?”

The boy nodded. He knew how dangerous this was. Life Below had prepared him better than most, and while he was afraid, he could move.

He looked to Bezel and saw her still struggling to not freeze in terror. But she grabbed his hand and squeezed it tight, and managed to nod.

He squeezed her hand back. If she could stay with him…

If he kept her close, they would be okay.

***

They made it another five blocks and another ten minutes before one of the killers found them. It must have been Bezel’s red hair that did it, or her fancy clothes. She stood out too much in the lower quarter. They ran anyways, but all of them were flagging. His mother must have been exhausted, and Bezel was stumbling, kept up on her feet only by the boy’s arm constantly pulling her along. 

One of the men caught up to them just as they turned a corner, and he must have been a local, because he cut off their retreat with a wild swing of a scythe meant to cut at the winter wheat that grew outside of the city. Both he and the princess screamed and tumbled clear, but his mother didn’t dodge in time, and it gashed a wicked slice out of her leg. Somehow she stumbled clear and put herself between the man and her son and the Princess, and then…

He had never seen his mother conjure up magic for anything more elaborate than a minor healing cantrip. He had figured she lacked the ability. 

But in that moment, with death staring at them, she conjured up two handfuls of bright orange mana in her fists and threw it, and the man with the scythe burned and screamed.

It wasn’t enough, not for a quick kill. Somehow, the man struggled one step at a time as his clothes burned, as his flesh burned, as the fire melted down to his bones and managed one last swing, aiming for her neck. She tried to dodge, and failed.

He buried it into her spine instead, and they both fell to the ground; him dead, and her, dying. And the boy screamed for her and raced to her side.

“Mama.” The boy whispered, running his hands over her face. Why wasn’t she moving? Why wasn’t she getting back up? Why couldn’t she even lift up a hand to touch him?!

“It’ll...it’ll be all right...my precious one.” Her eyes were so full of pain, and tears, but she held on. “You’re okay. You’re both okay.”

He held her tight, wanting to cry, but his throat closed up on him, denying him the chance.

“You’re so brave.” She whispered, somehow still smiling. “Don’t ever stop being brave.”

“Don’t go.” He begged her, and felt Bezel come up beside him, kneel down. The princess of all the world reached a trembling hand out and stroked it over his mother’s forehead.

“I’m sorry.” Bezel whispered. 

“It’s all right.” His mother shushed her. Her breathing was shallower now. Her eyes were duller. “It’s...right.” Her eyes moved between them. “Together.” She wheezed out. “Stay...together.”

She died on the streets of Banali City, with only her son and a princess to bear witness to her end. Bezel started to cry.

The boy screamed inside his heart. He screamed, and he felt it burn, and this time, he couldn’t stop it. Somehow, he stood up and took Bezel by the hand, and didn’t cry.

“We have to go.” He heard himself saying, but it didn’t sound like him. Not exactly.

“But...your mom…”

He tugged her hand hard and started running, forcing her to keep up. Behind them, he heard the shouts of at least two more of the killers.

***

It hurt. It all hurt too much. He wanted his mother, but she was dead. The Princess remembered him, half a year after one afternoon together, but she was being hunted. And he was pulling her away from it all, trying to escape , when his legs felt like lead and his head was still swimming from the pain of it all. He wanted to scream. He wanted to burn it all.

But then he felt Bezel’s hand squeeze his, and the rage in his heart banked just enough to keep him going. But they were still kids, and they were both exhausted and hurt, and she had never run this much in her entire life. And the adults were stronger, faster, and they knew the terrain. He’d lived here for six months and only seen spots.

The last two killers who’d been able to keep pace with them caught up ten blocks later, and trapped them in an alley.

“No way out, princess.” The first of them, a fellow with two long daggers, leered. The other brandished a thick hammer that would break bones with even a glancing hit. 

  Hammer man’s eyes fixated on the princess for a long time, and then he finally stared at the boy. “Shove off, kid. You can’t save her. You shouldn’t have even tried.”

Bezel whimpered and squeezed his hand tighter, and the boy felt her bury her face into his back.

The boy could have shouted a hundred different things then. He could have asked them why . Why they were doing this. Why his mother had to die. He could have told them to back off. He should have told Bezel to let go of him, to run . But she couldn’t run any longer, he could feel it.

There was nowhere else to go. Nobody else to turn to. And he had nothing now. No mother, no home. Not even a name, because nobody else ever cared enough to remember it.

He felt the weight of a princess pressed into his back, shaking, crying. Expecting the end.

No more.

She was the only person left who still cared enough to remember him.

No more.

That burning rage inside of him swelled up, and the boy knew what it was, even though he had never been able to reach for it before. 

No. More!

They would kill her, the last bit of life and warmth in his life. They would kill a princess who got angry at the unfairness of the world and remembered a boy from one afternoon playing together.

NO MORE!

And he felt the magic explode around him, a boiling nimbus of green light that made him feel invincible. 

Bezel pulled back from him with a wild gasp, and he chuckled darkly when both of the men took a step back and went pale at the sight of him.

“A green? He’s a Green ?!” The man with the daggers got out. 

“Shut up, he’s just a kid !” The other killer snarled, and charged for him while the other hesitated.

He tried to remember what his mother had done. She’d called up her power, and...and she had thrown it . Hers had been a wave of fire that clung and stuck to the man who had killed her, burning him slowly.

The boy’s attack came as a concentrated pulse, a blast. He aimed dead center at the man with the hammer, whose eyes went wide as he tried to dodge out of the way, and dodged too late. 

It took off his arm at the shoulder, and the rest of his shoulder with it, and the hammer fell to the ground beside the killer as he screamed and screamed .

Then the boy stumbled back a step, feeling an impact in his stomach. He looked past the wounded dying killer to the second man, who held one dagger back and who had one arm stretched out towards him, shaking in terror. Had he tried to fire magic back at him?

The boy’s rage increased when he heard Bezel scream behind him. That man had hurt her.

He had HURT Bezel!

And the boy howled, and unleashed it all; all of his rage, all of his fire, and it flew down the alley as a wave of burning force, and both men were reduced to charred corpses. The screaming, armless killer didn’t even have time to turn away from it.

In the wake of that last attack, all was silent. No other killers came. The boy stumbled on his feet, feeling so tired, so drained…

So dizzy . He…

He must have fallen down, because he was looking up at the sky. And now he could feel pain in his stomach. He reached a hand to it and froze when his fingertips touched…

Oh. That was where the man’s other dagger went. He hadn’t hit Bezel.

Bezel.

And there she was, leaning over him, her green eyes full of tears.

“No. Don’t go.” She sobbed, and he felt her hands shaking his chest. “Please! Don’t go!”

Everything hurt. He smiled anyways. “You’re okay.” He said, grimacing. Speaking loudly hurt too much. “You’re...okay.” He repeated, whispering it this time. And that didn’t hurt. 

Her hair had come unbraided in their flight from death, and wild red strands the color of fire hung over him like a curtain. It hid them from the rest of the world. 

Made it seem like it was just him and her. And he…

“You remembered me.” He said, and pulled the hand away from his stomach to touch her face. He didn’t realize until after she recoiled and brought a hand to her face and came back with blood on her fingertips just how badly he was hurt.

The world started to slip away then, going dark at the edges. She screamed at him again, and then he heard footsteps coming near, shouting her name in fear.

More killers? No, she wasn’t terrified. She was still afraid, but not of them.

“ Help !” She screamed, her young voice cracking. “He’s hurt! Help him! ”

You’re so brave. Don’t ever stop being brave. 

The boy heard his mother’s voice, and closed his eyes.

Bezel’s sobbing was the last thing he heard before peace finally came for him.

***

He woke up, and wondered for a few seconds why he was still breathing. Why he was still alive. 

He shifted and winced and wondered why he was lying in a bed that was so soft. He’d never had a bed this soft. The boy took in a breath, and wondered why everything smelled so clean . He heard a soft beeping, some kind of machine close by, but not right next to him. 

None of it felt right. None of it seemed like it was real, and he didn’t dare open his eyes. 

He didn’t have a choice after a low chuckle. “Finally back in the land of the living, boy?”

The boy’s eyes cracked open. He was in a healing room, but so much nicer and cleaner than any he’d ever been at in his life. There were pads on his right arm, which seemed to be sending a signal to the machine that beeped. 

Sitting across from him, in one of the chairs left there for visitors was a man dressed in armor reading something on a handheld manaboard. The armor of a Mage Knight.

“It’s a miracle you pulled through.” The man went on, helmet lying beside him. He set the manaboard down and ran a gloved hand through his pepper-gray beard. “Stabbed through the stomach like that, and...and you still managed an incineration wave. Untrained.”

The boy opened his mouth to speak, coughed and felt tears form in his eyes. The soldier got up from the chair and came over. “Easy, kid. Easy. Here. You’re probably parched dry.” He grabbed a cup of water from somewhere nearby and held it up for the boy to drink. The boy coughed at first, but finally got a few mouthfuls down. Enough to lubricate his throat. Enough that he could talk.

“Where am I?”

“You’re on Atlantis.” The soldier said. “At the Royal Medical Center. The Princess insisted on it.”

The boy slumped back against his pillow. “She’s okay?” He asked weakly.

The soldier’s face twitched a little bit at that. “She’s safe. She was the only survivor out of that whole fucking mess. The king’s brother, the Duke, their families, the other delegates...She was a little scraped up, plenty scared, but she’s alive, and healthy, because of you.”

The boy just breathed at that.

“I’m Knight Commander Alastair Sloane, by the way.” The soldier went on. “My unit was the one that found you and the Princess. You were touch and go for way too long. She never left your side. Not once, not until we got here, and...And her father…”

The soldier closed his eyes, and the boy wondered what had him so upset he had to stop talking. Whatever it was finally passed, and the Knight Commander sighed and let it go. 

The boy filled the silence. “Who were they?”

“The rebels? Malcontents. Just dirt-grubbing Below-ers. Angry at having to pay their due for living protected lives. They thought they could strike a blow at the royal family. Well. That won’t be happening again. The city’s under Martial Law. We’ll weed out all of the traitors.” There was heat in Sloane’s voice at that, and the boy winced.

“My...my mother, she...did you…” He asked the Knight Commander, who schooled his face into a blank mask again and shook his head.

“The Princess told us about her. I’m sorry, we couldn’t recover her body, not in the time we had.”

The boy shut his eyes and thought of his mother’s body still lying there in the streets of a city on fire, and screamed inside of his head again.

Don’t get angry over the things you can’t change, my precious one.

“Do you have anybody else? Any other family?” The Knight Commander asked him.

I have no one. The boy wanted to say, but it stuck in his throat. Sloane saw it anyways. 

“Can I stay with Bezel?” The boy finally asked, his voice full of pain.

“You’re not royalty. And you have the Crown’s gratitude for saving the Princess, but...no. It wouldn’t go that far. We could restore your citizenship, though. Make you a ward of the state.”

An orphanage, the Knight Commander meant. The boy had heard and seen enough of those to go screaming in the other direction.

“What else?” He asked Sloane, who drew in a long breath and then let it out just as slowly.

“The Mage Knights serve the Crown.” Sloane declared. “And with your mana, your instinctive command of battle magic...The Order wouldn’t turn down your application. Not with my recommendation.”

“Would I be with her?”

“With her how ?” Sloane asked in a suddenly icy, pointed tone, and the boy flinched and wondered why he was angry. “Don’t get ideas, boy. Even as a Knight, you’d still be leagues beneath her caste. If you’re sweet on her, then get rid of those dreams right this second. They’ll never happen.”

But the boy had nothing else left to him, no family, no home, nothing else but the dream of Bezel. The dream of a princess who saw him as a friend.

He opened his eyes and stared back at the man. “I will serve her .”

Knight Commander Sloane stepped away and sighed. “You’re not going to have an easy go of it, kid.”

“Life isn’t easy.” The boy countered. He refused to look away. He refused to blink. He just kept staring until Sloane finally broke.

“Miracles don’t happen, kid.” He said, but after a pause, added, “At least they didn’t before you lived.” And it was as close to a concession of maybe as he was going to get. So the boy nodded.

“I’ll join up.” He said, and Sloane nodded.

There came a knock on the door, and shortly after, a healer came in with a medical manaboard tucked under one arm. The woman looked through thin wireframe glasses between the Knight Commander and the boy in the bed and smiled. “So, up at last are we, young man? You had everyone worried.”

He shifted in the bed, realizing that he was dressed in a thin shift meant for ease of access to his body by the healers. “Who cares about me?” He mumbled.

The healer’s eyes crinkled up at the hollowness in his question. “Princess Bezel, for one. And because she cares...the rest of us do.” She came over and leaned over the machine to take the readings, then came over and kissed his forehead. “You saved her life. On behalf of all of us...thank you. You’re a hero.”

I’m nobody , he almost said. He blinked back the tears. He didn’t dare cry here. Not around all of these adults. 

The healer brushed his hair back anyways. “You are. And if anyone tells you differently while you’re here, you tell me. And I’ll scream at them until they apologize.” She waited, and he finally nodded to let her see he’d heard her. “Your readings are all improving, but we’ll want to keep you for another day or two yet. Make sure that you’re well and truly on the mend. Gut wounds are notoriously problematic for complications.” She stepped back away and nodded to Sloane. “Knight Commander. I wasn’t aware that you’d been stationed as a guard for the boy.”

“I’m off-duty.” The older man supplied calmly. “And it’s still visiting hours. Didn’t have anywhere else better to be.” The woman glared at him, and he met her anger with cool indifference. “I was just having a chat with the boy.”

“Any questions you might have pertaining to your investigation can wait until after he’s fully recovered. He’s not a suspect, the last I heard.”

Sloane chuckled. “He’s anything but a suspect. He’s a recruit now. Just volunteered.”

The healer’s face went pale and looked back at the boy in horror. “You didn’t. Why? You didn’t have to...You don’t have to do that!”

He didn’t understand why the healer would care what he did with his life. He had nothing now. Nothing but…

He shut his eyes. He didn’t even have Bezel. She was a Princess, and he was...He was only…

“He’s a Green .” Knight Commander Sloane declared, bringing the weight of his authority to bear. “The Crown could use him. Especially now. The Mage King’s brother, his wife, his son, are dead. The line of succession has been damaged. If it hadn’t been for him, Princess Bezel Lantea would be dead right now. There is no better place for this boy than the Order. For the Royal Family...and for him as well.”

The healer’s face fell further, and she came back to the boy, kneeled down to look at him on his level. “If he’s forcing you into this...if you’re being coerced, tell me. I can protect you.”

She was a nice woman. Nicer than most he’d known in his painful life, and she worried, but she didn’t get it . 

It was the only way he would ever get close to Princess Bezel ever again.

“It’s my choice.” He said, and left it at that. The healer didn’t like it, but she stood back up and removed her glasses to wipe at her eyes.

“I see. But you aren’t going until you’re fully healed. And that will be as long as I say it is.”

“Whatever he needs.” Sloane chuckled. “I won’t argue that point.”

“Now, then.” The healer said, slipping her glasses back on. “Do you feel well enough for a visitor, mister hero?”

The boy blinked. “A visitor?” He wasn’t sure who the healer meant, but he nodded hesitantly. The healer smiled and ruffled his hair, then went for the door and stuck her head out, saying something softly.

Seconds later, Princess Bezel herself came racing in, followed at a more sedate pace by an exhausted looking woman that the boy vaguely remembered...her Nanny?

Bezel let out a happy cry at the sight of him awake and sitting up in his bed, and charged at full speed to grab him tightly around the ribs. He grunted slightly in pain, but the healer must not have been too concerned, because all she did was laugh.

“Bezel?” The boy whispered, when he could breathe again. The princess let out a happy noise and squeezed him tighter still, burying her face into his shoulder. “What are you doing here?”

“That’s Princess Bezel to you, young man.” The Nanny snapped, and both the boy and Sloane sat up a little straighter afterwards. But all Bezel did was pull back out of the hug and glare at the old woman.

“I would like to speak with my rescuer, if you wouldn’t mind.” She declared, suddenly sounding formal and stuffy as any member of the higher castes that the boy had ever seen. She wore a simple dress of blue and silver, made of high quality fabric, but lacking the adornments and frills of the dress she’d been wearing at the parade. Her shoes were flat-soled and functional, not like the ridiculous shoes that he’d seen others wearing at the art museum in Banali City. Her hair was plaited in a different weave this time, a simple knot more than halfway down the length of it that left a clear sign of its full body behind her head. She folded her arms in front of her in a motion too practiced to be natural, and held herself as tall as a nine...maybe ten year old girl could. 

Sloane and the nanny and the healer all shifted and looked at one another, and Bezel’s placid mask shifted into a scowl. “In private .” And to make the point clear, she lifted a hand and pointed to the door.

The healer laughed and went first. “As you wish, your highness.” 

Sloane cleared his throat and went for his helmet, sliding it back on. “Well. I’ll leave you to it then, boy. But remember what we talked about. Do your best in training. I’ll try to keep a spot open for you once you graduate.” And before the nanny could protest or try to stay, the Knight Commander grabbed her by the arm and dragged her out as she squawked the entire way. The door clicked shut behind them, and when Bezel looked back to the boy, the mask disappeared. She bit her lip.

“What did he say? About training?”

The boy stared down into his lap. “I’m...signing up.”

Bezel rocked back and forth for a bit more, then started to climb up onto the bed. “Move.” She said, and he snorted as he did so.

“Bossy.” The boy complained. She ignored it and settled for staring at him, poking and prodding him and nibbling on her lip. “What’s wrong with you?”

“...You almost died.” She whispered, and he realized that she was trying not to cry. “Why?”

“I got stabbed.” He said, answering what he thought was her question, and winced when she smacked him in the shoulder with an angry hiss. Then he sighed as she leaned into him and hugged him as tight as she dared, trying to steer clear of his still healing injury. 

“Why did you do that?” Bezel clarified, softer than before. “Why would you...For me?”

He felt the tears prickle at his eyes. His hand moved on its own, going around her shoulders. “I...I saw your duck pond statue. You remembered me. Nobody ever remembered me before. I’m not important.”

She squeezed him tighter then. “You’re important to me .” His throat closed up on him again at that, and his mother’s voice rang in his head.

Don’t ever let anyone tell you that you’re not important. That you don’t matter . 

“Why are you signing up?” She whispered. “You don’t have to. I can...You can go anywhere . And I’ll find a way to visit. We can be friends anywhere.”

She was trying to talk him out of it. She almost succeeded. But the boy shut his eyes and leaned the side of his head down against hers, and rubbed his cheek against her hair. It was as soft as he’d dreamed, and it smelled like strawberries. It was a pretty little lie, but it was still a lie. Just a fancy dream from a little girl who didn’t know any better.

“It’s the only way I can protect you.” He answered, and tried not to feel the hurt that built up inside of himself again.

Princess Bezel Lantea sniffed once, twice. Nuzzled his shoulder, and just held him, like he might float away from her. Like he almost had.

“I’m so sorry about your mom.” She said, croaking on the words. “She was so beautiful. She...She loved you.”

The boy swallowed down the hurt, and didn’t stop the tears. Couldn’t.

“She loved you too.” He cracked, and slumped against her as he finally cried it all out.

And she held him the entire time.

Chapter Text

Little Moment: The Sorceress And The Knight

By Eric ‘Erico’ Lawson

Two: She Made Him Her Knight

            The boy didn’t see Bezel for another three years.

            Mage Knight training was thorough and exhaustive. He learned to harness his mana, how to draw upon the living land safely for more. He learned martial combat and the Arts alike. He learned of the spectrum, the scale by which mages were measured from the lowest users capable of red and orange auras, to the yellow auras that served as the cutoff mark for the Mage Knights’ combat squads. Those who had red and orange auras would be shunted to support and logistics roles after graduation. His magic was green, right in the middle of the spectrum. The only ones stronger were the blue auras of the most experienced mage knights…And very rarely, the pink hues before indigo. Of the last colors on the spectrum, indigo and violet? The instructors had only one word of warning; Run.

            His schooling in the basic subjects became much more intensive; he learned of the languages of the world, though no time was spent on learning to speak them, for Atlantean was the only state-sponsored tongue. He learned about mathematics and the history of Atlantis in much greater depth than any class he’d ever been in before.

            He was younger than the rest, and smaller too. His classmates were all true Atlanteans, born and raised either on the island itself, or in the walled districts of the cities Below, masters of their petty holdings. They had never gone hungry, or needed to develop a survival instinct. They had never killed before. Occasionally, they would come after him because of his status as a Below-er, or because they were jealous of his success. He took his lumps. He gave worse back.

            The recruit learned about the threats from the stars that the Knights stood against. They were fewer than before, because Terra had gained a reputation. Now only the most foolhardy dared to try anything stupid. Most either left Terra alone, or traded for the few items that the Order hadn’t outlawed for sale. Terran foods were quite prized on other worlds, apparently.

            Through it all, he never forgot his promise. When he took his vow of service at the start, he lowered his voice amidst the throng when they pledged themselves to the Mage King, and instead whispered Bezel so that nobody could hear him.

            He thought of her every day when things grew quiet. He kept to himself, he met every trial, and he never forgot the fire in his heart.

The recruit remembered his mother’s lessons. He remembered them above the ones his drill sergeants and his teachers forced into him, and valued them above all others.

            In the practice ring, he struggled at first. He had more experience in scrapes, and a survivor’s instinct, but the others were healthier. He did not develop the rippling biceps and bulging pectorals of his peers, but he gained strength of his own. He was faster than any of them.

            The recruit had been running for too long in his life. The rest had never needed to run from anything. Or to anything. Or anyone.

            He was second in the class rankings when their three years of training were over, even though he was a year younger than all the others. He would have been first, but one of the teachers refused to give him full credit for an essay question on his final exam on ethics.

            He took the half credit and stood behind his answer, because he refused to accept that an Atlantean life was worth more than someone who lived on the ground below. And though it hurt to be denied the chance to stand up on stage at his graduation and give the Valedictorian speech, he refused to dwell on it. It didn’t matter, anyways.

            Don’t let anyone ever tell you that you’re not important. That you don’t matter.

            He mattered. His mother had died to prove that. And the princess had come and cried with him during his hospitalization when he had been recovering to prove that.

            But he hadn’t seen her since. He hadn’t expected to, not really; royalty walking into the barracks of a training camp would have been impossible to explain, and intolerable for the rest of her family more than likely. It would have been nice, however.

            On the day of his graduation, there was a showing of the class out on the parade grounds. The royal family would be in attendance.

            She had remembered him after six months.

            The recruit wondered if Bezel would remember him after three years.

***

The Royal Mage Knight Academy

Furkansia District, Flying Continent of Atlantis

            It still galled him slightly to stand at parade rest in his crisply forged dress uniform while the top-ranked graduate of their class broke ranks and marched up to the podium in the stands, passing through the wards around the dais where the school’s administrators sat. And up in the most protected seats of the parade grounds stands, surrounded by active Mage Knights sat the Mage King himself, his sons, and…

            And Bezel. All of them looked out impassively over the class of graduates with varying levels of disinterest and polite distance. The king scanned the rows of the newest mages as if sizing them up for their potential. His sons, the two princes Desmond and Jorran Lantea both looked as though they wanted to be anywhere else but here while the Superintendent had been droning on. Bezel was older now, but her bright green eyes and her fiery red hair were unmistakable. The recruit couldn’t help but look down briefly at himself and try to imagine how he used to look, compared to now. He was taller than before, he’d have to be. His voice had deepened some. He had muscles now. But his dark hair still went wild when it grew out enough to escape the short-cropped cut they made all the recruits get, and his eyes were the same sky blue and gray that let him remember his mother when he looked into the mirror.

            He still had trouble smiling, because there was so little to smile about.

            And then the class valedictorian, Milas Whins, cleared his throat and started speaking. There came the usual greetings and platitudes and gratifications. The pomp and ceremony of verbal kow-towing to the Mage King, to the Order, to Atlantis as a whole. He spoke of the tragedy of three years before, dredging up old memories and trying to revive them into fresh insults. The recruit tuned him out, because he thought of that day too often already.

            Whins’ speech was something that could have been churned out by rote, by a machine that spliced together lines from a thousand other graduation speeches. It was only at the end that the recruit snapped back to attention, when Whins brought the speech to its end that he started to pay attention again.

            He listened, and felt every hair on his body rise on its end.

            “The deaths of Prince Greeve, his wife and son, and everyone else who attended that fateful parade three years ago has put the state of Terra into new profile. Once, the Mage Knights of Atlantis needed only to stand as the aegis against the other peoples of the universe, the things between soil and void. Now, the people of Below have become our enemies as well. If we are to secure the peace that the Order has always guaranteed, we must stand strong. We must hold the line. We must pursue our enemies with dogged tenacity, and ensure that they never threaten the stability of Atlantis ever again. Atlantis is the shield of the world! When that goes forgotten, when gratitude stumbles and fades, then the people of Below are children that must be disciplined. Brought to heel. As we take our first steps forward in the Order, I shall hold that pledge hard to my heart. My oath is to the Mage King. His enemies are my enemies. Atlantis is my home, and it will be defended.”

            The gathered audience clapped, and even the other graduates broke parade rest at a gesture from the marshal to meet his words with favor.

            The recruit felt something terribly wrong in Milas Whins’ words as the Mage King himself rose to his feet and applauded the speech.

            They were a shield for all of Terra. Not just Atlantis. At least, that was what his history texts had said. The recruit wondered when that had changed. Or why it should.

            Through it all, he looked up at Princess Bezel Lantea who sat there emotionlessly, a living doll that clapped politely, reflexively. She was so different from the girl he held in his precious memories. It had been three years, the cynical part of him said.

            Bezel never looked at him, even though his name had been announced. She hadn’t even reacted.

            Three years of his life, gone. He was fourteen now, a graduate of the Mage Knight Academy. No longer a boy. No longer a recruit.

            He was a squire.

***

            Princess Bezel left with her family after the ceremony. The Squire was given his first deployment orders, and he was surprised to recognize the name of his new commanding officer.

            Knight Commander Alastair Sloane.

            The man’s peppered black and gray hair was more peppery than three years before, but he held himself no less proudly than he had in the Squire’s hospital room. If anything, he was even more menacing. He likely felt he had to be. He was in front of a troop of a dozen fresh faces.

            “You’ve graduated. Congratulations, squires.” He growled out, helmet on his head and a flicker of green fire dancing around his fingers before he waved it off. “My name is Knight Commander Alastair Sloane. I head the 242nd Rapid Response Division. Maybe some of you thought that you would be getting deployed to easy areas. To safe positions, because your fathers are nobles, or because you think that there are favors that can be cashed in. Tough tits.”

            He’d said it for effect, and the Squire could see that more than a few of his fellow graduates had shifted uneasily. “You are here because you had the marks and the talent for the work. And let’s get one thing clear; I give no shits about what caste you came from or who your daddies were. I give no shits where you fall in the Spectrum. I’ve known Blues that were useless softbrains and Reds that outlasted everyone who dared to go up against them and laughed themselves sick while beating their enemies to death with their own severed limbs.”

Sloane walked up to the line of them and strolled the entire length, his arms behind his back and his head never turning away from them. Many flinched. The Squire didn’t.

            “Maybe some of you don’t know what you’re in for. Allow me to enlighten you. The Rapid Response Division is not like the rest of the Mage Knights. We don’t sit still or guard positions. We are not a police force that manages day to day affairs. The RRD are the ones that the Order calls on when things go absolutely, terribly, ball-clenchingly wrong. When the creatures from other worlds try to sneak in and cause trouble, they call us. When the Veil thins enough that the things between worlds are able to slip out and go searching in their hunger, we are deployed. You will see things that may drive you mad. There’s no shame in it, I’ve seen better, stronger men than you pubescent pud-pulling pricks wash out because when things went wrong, and they do go wrong, they couldn’t hack it. For those of you who manage to survive your first three month deployment, congratulations. A good tour with the RRD guarantees your career advancement. For those of you who don’t make it, maybe you’re better suited for logistics or supply.”

            He caught the Squire’s eyes, and though it was faint and he might have imagined it, the Squire thought that just for a second, Knight Commander Sloane’s hard eyes softened.

            Then the moment was gone, Sloane turned his head, and kept on walking.

            “Pack up your supplies and report back in half an hour. We’re headed below to one of our outposts on Aroca.” The men hesitated, and Sloane smirked. “I see the training’s done its job. None of you jumped up.” The smile faded. “They beat that into you, and I’m going to have to beat it back out again. Down there, where the real work begins? Hesitation gets people killed. If you’re lucky, it’ll only get your own stupid ass killed instead of everyone around you. Dismissed. Except for you two.” He pointed a hand at the Squire, and another at Milas Whins.

            The Squire and Whins looked at one another, and Whins sneered a little as everyone else filed out. It disappeared from his face as soon as Sloane turned back around to address them.

            “You two ended up as the Valedictorian and the second in your class. Your instructors feel that the both of you have the right set of skills, talent, and leadership to go places in the Order. You’ll get a chance soon enough. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be seeing just how well you and the rest of the squires manage in the RRF. The position of squad leader will be up for grabs. Impress your lieutenants, impress me. We’ll see if either of you has what it takes.” And then Sloane scowled. “I’ve skipped over the most promising candidates and given it to diamonds in the rough before, so don’t think the post is yours just for the taking. Any questions?”

            “No sir!” Both Whins and the Squire answered back quickly.

            “Then get your gear together. We’ve got places to be.” Sloane waved a hand at them and turned around. Whins gave the Squire another hard glare before sniffing and walking out of the room.

            Sloane stood there in silence, and the Squire lingered.

            “Is there a problem, squire?”

            “No, sir.” The Squire answered reflexively, stiffening. Had Sloane forgotten about him as well?

            Then the old man chuckled and slipped off his helmet. “Just decided to stick around and poke the bear, kid?” Sloane turned and smiled at him.

            The Squire felt the tension leave his shoulders, and he chuckled softly. “I was...worried you might not remember me. Sir.”

            “The kid who channeled an incineration wave untrained and saved the princess?” Sloane raised an eyebrow. “Doubtful. I told you I’d try to keep a spot open, didn’t I? I don’t make a lot of promises. The ones I do, I uphold. But I can’t do you any favors. You’ve come this far on your own. You did well enough I was able to pull you into my command.”

            “Why?”

            “Why what?”

            “Why did you want me in your unit?”

            “To keep you out of trouble, for one.” Sloane answered. “And second? I needed to figure out just what your intentions were.”

            “My intentions, sir?”

            “You joined up for a reason.” Sloane pointed out. “Is it still the same?”

            And the Squire’s first impulse was to immediately blurt out that yes, of course it was still the same. That he’d joined up for her, to protect her, but…

            But Bezel had been like a statue in the stands, not really there, pristine and separate and beautiful the way a painting was beautiful, because you couldn’t touch a painting or hug it or play games with it. You could only ever look at it.

            Sloane sighed. “Relax, kid. I can see the gears grinding in your head. It’s just something to think about. Now get going. The trip down to Aroca’s going to be a short hop, but you’ll be worn out afterwards.”

***

Portstand Rapid Response Division Encampment

Dalum Province, Aroca

The Below

It was said that humanity’s origin came from within the heart of the jungles at the center of Aroca, but the true origin of power on Aroca these days was found in Dalum Province, which stretched from the Midworld Sea along the eastern coastline of Aroca, and concluded along the banks of the Great Aroca River. At the end, along muddy river deltas full of trees and fertile lowland farms was the provincial capital of Zolim. Portstand, however, stood much further upriver, situated to take advantage of the freshwater and to ferry troops and messages downstream without exhausting the more mana-intensive options of skyships and translocation circles.

            Knight Commander Sloane ran twelve squads, 4 full strike teams in the 242nd Rapid Response Division. The Squire’s squad lieutenant was a dark-skinned woman with a long, red scar down the side of her cheek that went up into her hairline. Her name was Freska Baynes, and the first thing she’d done after introducing herself was to plant one uppity jackass who questioned how a woman could lead them into the ground facefirst. Without magic. She kept it cut short in military style even though she had the option, by her rank, of growing it out to personal preference. She never smiled, and made it her personal mission in life to make everyone as miserable as possible through extensive training that usually resulted in bruising and the occasional broken bone.

            “You plebes can bleed in training or bleed out there in the fight, and you had better not bleed in the middle of a fight or I will by mana cauterize your wounds shut with my bare hands! If you’ve got enough air to complain, you’ve got enough air to run another klick!”

            The Squire kept his head down, his mouth shut, and endured. If he’d proven one thing to himself over the past three years and some odd number of days, it was that he could endure almost anything. Almost.

            The training was hard, but he welcomed it. Lieutenant Baynes was a firm believer in self-improvement, and while only sword and magic practice was mandatory (“Fragging Regs”, she’d muttered once), she offered electives in other areas. Which was how the Squire found himself dressed in form-fitting physical training garments, with his arm being twisted around and being lifted up and…

            Ow.

            He blinked and looked up at the ceiling from the mat that was never quite soft enough to not hurt.

            “You’re dead again, kid.” Lieutenant Baynes snorted. “You lasted five seconds longer, though. Keep this up, you might actually have enough time to write a will first.”

            “Again.” The Squire exhaled, ignoring the pain and pushing himself up off of the floor.

            “Later.” Baynes dismissed the idea of another match. “I’ve got reports to work on, and as much as I enjoy cleaning the floor with your face, you could use a break. You want to train more, fine. Just make it something mental. I catch you in the gym before tomorrow, I’ll give you a reason not to come back for a week. We clear, squire?”

            “Perfectly clear, Lieutenant Baynes.” The Squire paused, considering his options. “Do you think I should learn Arocan?”

            Baynes grabbed a towel for herself and threw a second one at his face. “You asking me, or your lieutenant?”

            “...Both?” The Squire guessed uneasily, pulling the towel off of his head.

            “Lieutenant Baynes would tell you not to bother. Atlantean is the official language of the state, taught the world over.” The scarred woman who could beat every last one of them in spite of only having a yellow aura immediately said. But the Squire had heard a catch in that sentence, and so…

            “And what do you say?” He asked her. And Lieutenant Baynes finally cracked a smile. Maybe. She wasn’t frowning as hard anyways, so it was probably the same thing.

            “It’s good to learn the language of wherever you’re working. Makes your life easier in the long run, even if the high mucky-mucks on high would consider it a waste of time.” She finished wiping the sweat out of her scalp and off of her arms and bare midsection. “The camp cook’s Arocan. A lot of the base personnel in sanitation and cooking are; frees up our guys for supply and keeping the place running. I’d go with him. But offer to trade him a favor for it. Arocans are keen on bartering.”

            “I’ll remember that. Thank you, lieutenant.”

            “Carry on, squire.” Baynes threw her own towel in the hamper beside the door on her way out, not even bothering to change to her standard uniform. The Squire however, felt the need to. He was still under the microscope.

            The Squire had showered and was putting on his armor when his least favorite person on the entire base walked in; Milas Whins. He was everything the Squire wasn’t. Fair-haired, statuesque features, an upper torso that flexed with raw power from constant upper body workouts and a childhood of healthy eating. Beyond healthy eating. He was a few inches taller than the Squire and never let him forget it. Just like he was doing right now, in point of fact.

            “Hey, washout.” Whins started with his favorite insult as he came in, stripping off his fencing gear. He was better than the Squire at swordplay, was trained in the classical styles from a young age.

            “Whins.” The Squire went to reach for the last piece of his armor in the changing room’s locker he’d been using, and snapped his hand back when Whins slammed the door shut on him. “Problem?”

            “You’re my problem, washout.”

            “I placed second in our class, Whins. I’m hardly a washout.”

            “If you’re not first, you’re not anything.” The blonde-haired boy sneered, and Whins wondered for a moment if he believed that on his own or if he’d been fed that line from a young age. “I caught the end of that spar with the lieutenant. You’re still getting your raggedy, Below-er ass beaten. You’d be better off practicing your swordplay and your magic and not bothering with the rest.”

            And what about when you lose your sword? The Squire wanted to snap back at him. Or when you exhaust your own mana, and you don’t have the time to concentrate and siphon more from the living world around you? But he didn’t ask either of those questions. He’d learned long ago that there wasn’t a point. Whins would rant and rave and ignore anything that didn’t fit his schema.

            “Whatever it is you think you’re doing, you can forget about it. It won’t help you land the position of squad leader.” Whins snapped, and the Squire merely smiled and opened his locker back up, retrieving the greaves he still was missing.

            “Then you don’t have anything to worry about, do you?” The Squire said, and went for the door. He paused before walking out, looking back at Whins who was stripping off his leggings next. “Unless you’re afraid I’m better than you.”

            “Keep dreaming, washout.” Whins said, giving him a rude gesture. The Squire rolled his eyes and walked away.

            Whins at least knew better than to get in a fight with him, as much as he hated the Squire’s guts. The last time he’d tried, he had two of his Academy goons as backup, and Whins had still ended up with a black eye and a split lip.

            The Squire had suffered much more severe bruising and contusions, but the price had been worth it just for how much it had slowed up the evening beatings.

***

            Lieutenant Baynes had been correct about the Arocan love of the barter system; the cook had agreed to teach him conversational Arocan in exchange for two weeks’ worth of assistance in the kitchen. To the Squire’s surprise, he found he wasn’t horrible at peeling tubers and making soup.

            “You’re getting better.” The cook chuckled, shaking his head in a way that let the Squire know that he meant, but you still sound terrible. “The glottal stops are tripping you up still. That will come with practice.”

            “My lieutenant said that I should pick up the local tongues wherever I’m stationed.”

            “She is a wise woman.” The cook nodded, rubbing a thumb over the dark skin of his wrist. “Hers is not a common opinion, though. I am heartened that she is trying to pass it on to her subordinates. Trying to teach Arocan to a willing student? And in the Mage Knights, no less? It is a joy.”

            The Squire blinked at that, pausing in his work. “If it is a joy, then why did I barter for the opportunity?”

            “Because you think better when you give your hands something to do.” The cook said. “And there is no better place to learn a language than in the kitchen.” He set another peeled root vegetable into the pot and reached for the next on the stack, and when he leaned forward, the Squire caught sight of something underneath his sleeve.

            “What is that?”

            “Hm? Oh, this?” The cook pulled his sleeve back after the Squire gestured to it, and a small wooden bracelet about his lower forearm came fully into view. “It is my depapas.” At the Squire’s blank look, the Arocan smirked. “A bracelet exchanged between lovers.” He tilted his arm over closer to the young Squire so he could make out strange marks wholly distinct from Atlantean burnished into the finished wood. “A man carves the bracelets as a pair and gives them to his mate. She, or occasionally he as the heart follows, then burns markings into the wood to give representation of them both. This mark here is mine; The laughing heart. And this mark was the one my wife chose for herself, The Steady Stone. For I am the laughter that brings joy to those around me, and she is the rock that weathers the storms of life.” He smiled and pulled his sleeve back. “Of course, I am sure that you Atlanteans have a similar tradition.”

            The Squire tried to think back of what he remembered about courtship rituals on Atlantis. The rich would give rings or necklaces, but only ever from the husband to the wife. It was a mark of ownership more than belonging.

            His mother had never worn anything like that. Maybe they had been too poor to afford it, but she held onto things with sentimental value. Even the terrible pictures he’d drawn as a boy.

            “I don’t think we do.” The Squire answered the cook, and they kept on peeling.

***

            For a solid month, the Squire and the rest of his squad continued to train. Whins continued to distinguish himself in both swordplay and his magical skill, not terribly surprising given that as a Blue on the magical spectrum, he was the strongest of the twelve members. He still defeated the Squire in both of those areas, but in everything else…

            In everything else, the Squire outmatched him. And yet, in the end, it had been Whins who had received the appointment of squad leader. Knight Commander Sloane hadn’t minced words when he’d called the Squire into his office one day after the announcement was made. He’d merely poured a small snifter of potent distilled spirits across his desk to the boy, lifted a glass of his own with a far more substantial serving, and told him why the decision had come down that way.

            In the end, Sloane, with complete disregard to his rank, his years of service, and his authority over every squad stationed at Portstand, had been sent a missive from the Knight General. A missive that had informed him, in as between the lines as a direct order could come, that Milas Whins was to be promoted to squad leader. Word had gotten out of his skill in blade and magic, and more importantly, his family had been asking about it.

            Nepotism, in the end, had beaten out every other virtue.

            Don’t get angry over the things you can’t change, my Precious One.

            Years later, and he still had trouble following that one rule of his mother’s. So the Squire and Sloane had drank their liquor and let their bodies burn as much as their throats did. Sloane drank for being reminded how little power he actually had when it came to decisions about promotion, and the Squire drank and raged about how the world hadn’t changed at all. 

            His first missions were simple ones; rounding up foreign smugglers from the worlds beyond Terra who had tried to sneak in past Atlantis’ watch. The decent ones had merely been trying to sneak the grains and vegetables and livestock that Terra was famous for. The dishonorable ones had tried to make off with people. They stopped them all, with the sundries smugglers being arrested for deportation proceedings. The slavers? They never got the chance for a trial, and the Squire felt no guilt over it. The exenos, a word he’d picked up in the Eurosian dialect from Lieutenant Baynes, had marvelous ships that could sail through the sky and through the void beyond, and weapons that could shoot fire and metal and lightning. None of it did them any good against the power of a trained Mage Knight...or a full squad of squires. Even with Whins acting as squad leader, being a complete and total ass with only the lieutenant to keep him in line, they were starting to build a sense of cohesiveness. A sense of belonging.

            The aches and the hurts in his heart were too numerous for the Squire to count any longer, but he had found purpose. He’d found a place to call his own.

            The Squire should have remembered just how impermanent everything in the world really was.

***

Sky Skiff 9, 242nd RRD

Enroute to Zolim

            The Sky Skiffs were a marvel of form and function; they were ships that looked as though they would be as comfortable slicing through the waves of the oceans as they would the blue and white skies of Terra, but they sported no sails. They had massive wings, fragile constructs of latticed manaweave metal that drew in power from the currents of mana in the living earth and fed it to the engines, the steering, and the antigravity runes. Two full squads could fit on every ship, and while they lacked weapons, with that many trained warriors aboard, offense and defense were hardly an issue.

            They were all dressed in full kit, and the Squire felt the same frission of nervousness that the rest of his squad did. Lieutenant Baynes had her war face on, and had even added paint to supplement her open-faced helmet. There was significance in the lines, but she had never shared them. Then the speakers droned to life, and the voice of Knight Commander Sloane, who was stationed on a different skiff, echoed in their ears.

            “Approximately 1 hour ago, the Aegis Sensors detected an enormous buildup of mana in Dalum Province. Five minutes after, an emergency distress signal was dispatched from the Order’s district headquarters in Zolim, but it only repeated for ten seconds before going dark.”

            And if that wasn’t troublesome, the Squire didn’t know what was. He felt the hair on the back of his neck go up and managed to keep his focus.

            “We are flying into an unknown situation, and that’s why you were ordered into full kit. Zolim has gone dark, and something is very, very wrong. Team 1 will be deploying to the provincial estate. Team 2 will move to ascertain the status of Mage Knight district headquarters, and offer assistance as needed. Team 3 will head to the upper city for search and rescue, and Team 4 will do the same for the lower city.”

            Team 4 was the strike force that the Squire’s squad was a part of, which meant that they had the most space to cover, but the fewest number of ‘critical assets’ to protect. The lower castes outnumbered the higher by a factor of 3 to 1, but the value on their lives…

            “Stay with your teams. Remember your training. Stay in contact. And may mana preserve us all.”

            The farspeaker went silent, and Lieutenant Baynes filled the emptiness with her own shrill voice. “All right, you heard the man! Put your game faces on and don’t take them off. We’re touching down in five minutes!”

            The Squire was close to one edge of the skiff, and he leaned out over the side to stare on ahead. In the distance, along the Great Aroca River, lay the sprawl of buildings that marked Zolim.

            He could only see the tops of it. The rest was engulfed in dark, shadowy smoke.

***

Zolim

Lower Section

            They’d been out on the ground and patrolling for less time than it had taken them to reach Zolim after Sloane’s briefing for everything to go to hell. It hadn’t been smoke that had covered Zolim, they discovered right after they touched down. It had been fog. And after they charged into it, that was when the screaming started.

            And the voices. Not the voices from their communications spells that every one of them knew how to cast, no. Those had all broken as soon as the fog had touched them, the last thing that the Squire heard being the panicked voice of Knight Commander Sloane demanding all the teams to report. The voices…

            Everyone in their squad panicked. They’d trained to fight monsters. To fight exenos. To, if need be, even fight other people. But you couldn’t fight voices.

            And Lieutenant Baynes’ face was locked in a rictus of terror, and she was shaking.

            “You brought more sacrifices to the slaughter? Oh, you’re so thoughtful, Freska...But then, you always were. So happy to let others do the dying for you.”

            “Shut up.” The lieutenant whispered. “Shut up. Shut up.”

            And then the voice in the fog changed, to a dying, raspy wheeze of some man. “Why’d you do it, Freska? Why did you leave us? We died waiting for you!”

            “Sir!” The Squire grabbed her by the arm, and shook her hard, and when she snapped to him, the terror was still there. It took her seconds to recognize him. “Lieutenant!”

            “Code Violet.” Freska Baynes wheezed, and the Squire stumbled back. He felt fear at last.

            Code Violet. A threat of the highest caliber. Engage in force or retreat and call down the full fury of Atlantis to sanitize the area completely. They had no business dealing in a Code Violet. They weren’t ready. None of them could ever hope to be ready for this. He didn’t know what it was, but his lieutenant, a woman who ate pig iron and spat out nails, was trembling like a leaf.

            The voices kept going, a hundred different whispers in the wind, and then he heard the screams cutting through the fog. Screams of pain, and sick gurgles, as if clawing their way out of mutilated throats.

            “Fall back!” The lieutenant screamed. “It’s The Liar! Fall back! Get out of the fog!” She tore out of the Squire’s hand and fled in the other direction. She made it thirty feet before an enormous lumbering shape on four legs, as large as a horse and horribly unnatural, scrambled along the rooftops and lunged towards her in a silent pounce that split the fog. Then there was the sound of a wet impact and bones breaking as the fog swirled around it, and the dying, screaming form of his lieutenant, and…

            And chewing.

            The rest of his squad pulled in together, their hands on their swords. Only half of them used shields; Whins used one. The Squire favored a double-handed style that allowed him to revert to one-handed if the occasion called for it.

            “Hold together!” Whins barked out the order, and his natural smug air of command almost made it sound like he wasn’t intimidated. He forced his blue aura up around his hand and channeled it into his blade. “Fire! Don’t give it a chance to recover!”

            Nine rays of yellow, with two greens and one blue from Whins himself pierced through the shrouding fog around the lumbering shape of the fell beast that had made a snack of their lieutenant, and the thing reeled up and squealed in a shrill cry that made the Squire wince and want to cover his ears. Two of his squadmates did. The thing charged for them and went for a clump of his squadmates who had dropped their swords to cup their ears. The Squire lunged, and landed a wide gash into the thing’s side, forcing it to stop its charge and dive to the side, turning to look at him.

            It was a nauseating thing of rubbery, pallid flesh, its four legs were covered in broad clawed toes. But worst of all was its head, a lower half that split open like the petals of a flower to reveal two rows of serrated teeth coated in blood and gore, and four enormous eyes that shimmered with all the colors of a rainbow. It roared again, the squeal of a pig crossed with the whinnies of a horse and a goat that pierced the eardrums, and for a second, he wanted to vomit.

            You’re so brave. Don’t ever stop being brave.

            Somehow, the Squire found the strength to grip the hilt of his sword in both hands and suck in a breath of air into his lungs. It was fetid and damp and smelled like death, but he endured.

            Whins let out a scream of his own and raced past the Squire, unleashing another blast of power through the conductive manaweave of his sword’s core. The beast turned its head away from the blast, then brought a hand up, snapping it at Whins. Whins braced his shield…

            The thing’s claws carved through it like it was butter and knocked him flat on his ass, and the beast followed Whins. It reared up over the squad leader’s head, preparing to crush him.

            But then the Squire was leaping through the air on a mana-fueled jump and landing on the thing’s back, and he drove his sword down through the thing’s skin and into where he hoped its spine would be. The beast squealed in pain and tried to buck him off, but the Squire had trained for this. He dug his heels into the thing’s sides, clenched his legs as tightly as he could, and shoved his sword into the thing’s body until only the hilt remained. Until he wasn’t sure if he would ever be able to pull it back out again.

            And the beast spasmed and bucked five more times before letting out a piteous moan and collapsing on the ground.

            Silence, aside from the whispers in the misty air around them. Shaking, the Squire pulled himself up and tugged at his sword twice before it finally jerked free. He went over to Whins, who was still slumped on his ass and staring at the dead creature with wide eyes.

            “Squad leader.” The Squire said. Then, after a pause, he said it forcefully. “Squad leader!” Whins finally snapped back to himself and looked up at the Squire. “Sir, the lieutenant is dead. You’re in command. What are your orders?”

            The rest of their unit were all squires as well. They’d been deployed with a team of knights to support them, but they’d gotten split up and lost in the fog. They were just a dozen squires, ten boys and two girls. And one of them, Whins, a 15 year old child, was in charge of them all.

            “We...we need to…” Whins gasped, looking around for his sword and shield. The sword he recovered, and he blanched further after seeing the broken remains of his shield. “I…”

            The Squire wanted to scream at him, slap him hard in the face. If Baynes was here, she would have done that. But Baynes had panicked first, and died.

            The Squire could feel other things moving in around in the fog, keeping a wide berth of the squires, but prowling and watching. For now. If they broke ranks, if they…

            The Squire turned to the others, hanging on to their sanity by a thread. He wondered why they were all so afraid, so terrified. So frozen.

            It took him a moment to realize why. They’d never had to fight for their lives before.

            “We have to re-establish contact with the rest of Strike Team 4. With the other squads.” The Squire called out, not letting his voice waver. “That is first priority. Lieutenant Baynes is...is dead. We have to find a superior officer before we move on. Everyone close formation and stay together. We’re not alone out here.”

            Milas Whins was the squad leader, and a little over one year older than the Squire, but the rest of their unit had needed a strong voice of authority. They deferred to the Squire’s orders. Maybe they thought he knew how to keep them alive.

            The Squire hoped he could.

***

            Lieutenant Baynes had said The Liar before she lost her mind, ran off calling for a retreat, and became a snack for the beast with kaleidoscopic eyes. The Squire tried to think back to their studies about the kinds of threats that they might encounter. There had been a lot said about the different varieties of exenos that they might encounter. Of the ‘things beyond the Veil’, there had been significantly less for them to go over. Usually, it boiled down to two things; kill it with magical fire, and seal every rift you found. The Squire had been frustrated at the lack of information available at the Academy.

            Now, though, he began to wonder with dawning dread that perhaps there was a reason for it. That few Knights came back to pass on intelligence when things went this wrong.

            Their squad was moving as fast as they could safely. The pack of things that he had felt moving around them in the fog had darted in closer, small and ominous shapes the size of wolves before they unleashed baleful screams and came in from all sides. Their formation and their training, and the Squire’s (and eventually Whins’s) shouted orders were all that kept them from immediately being overwhelmed.

            But as they batted off one creature after another that carried the same chromatic eyes and smaller, but no less dangerous versions of the terrible circular mouths, burning as many as they could, the susurrus of ominous whispers only intensified in the background of their senses. The Squire winced as one squadmate after another became disheartened, turned to scream or shout or beg forgiveness from people who weren’t actually there. As if their mothers, their fathers, their former lovers would be here, in this hellish place.

            The Squire didn’t hear any of that. He wondered why. The only voice he could hear beyond that of his squadmates was a haunting, feminine voice full of power and cruelty, mocking and playful above it all.

            “Oh, come on, children. Make it a little harder for me. I’m so bored when I can’t play with you all, where’s the fun if you don’t make me chase you around first?”

            The Liar. Code Violet. And then another beast was on him, and he let out a scream and slashed out with a sword full of fire, and cleaved its head and a part of its shoulder off the rest of its body.

            “Hold together!” Whins shouted, even as the Squire almost cut him off by screaming, “Whatever those voices are telling you, ignore them! They’re not real! They’re not here! It’s all a ruse, a distraction!”

            And the whispers stalled for a moment as the squad of squires finished carving up the last of the creatures attacking them, and…

            “Ohhh. Oh my. Now this one...this one is special. Hello, boy.” The voice purred, and the Squire felt it almost pressing in on him. He shivered, and said nothing. The Liar, Lieutenant Baynes had called it.

            He refused to call it a her.

            The fog was thick, but bolts of searing magic from their hands unclouded the air enough for them to make out the next street ahead of them. Enough for them to pick out the sight of bodies in the distance.

            Bodies that they recognized as belonging to the other squad that they were supposed to be paired with on this operation. All of them lay torn apart, bitten, clawed, shields rent and swords broken. One of the other squires whimpered and fell to his knees when they came across Lieutenant Bores, a softspoken Mage Knight of some experience who had smiled at them before they’d embarked on the sky skiffs and told them all he would see them soon. He wasn’t seeing anyone now. He was dead, and his eyes were gouged out by a massive claw mark that had shredded his nose as well. He would have been just a pile of meat if not for his badge and rank insignias. Another squire vomited at the massacre.

            And Whins screamed up at the sky. “Damn you! Damn you, you monsters! I’ll kill you all for invading!”

            “Oh, you poor fool, little Whins.” The voice sighed, louder than before, and the whispers increased. “You think I just came here? Oh, no no no nono. I was invited.” And it laughed in that high, reedy, feminine tone full of madness, and the Squire shivered again.

            Whins swallowed down air like he was drowning, and the Squire breathed as he felt the weight of that presence slide away from him. It must have settled on his squad leader instead. He turned to the rest of the men, as Whins was back to being his useless self again. “Spread out and look for survivors!” He ordered, and they jumped to the task, if only to give themselves something else to focus on besides that mad, mad voice.

             “No one would dare allow such a monster into our world.” Whins wheezed, trapped in the conversation with the entity hidden in the mists.

            “Oh, but they would, little fool with a sword.” The voice purred. “They screamed for vengeance. They screamed for justice. They brought their power together, two hundred of the creatures that scurry in the filth of this world, and prayed for deliverance from tyranny. They wanted their enemies destroyed at any cost. And who would I be to refuse to help?” It was almost pitying for a moment before the fierce and insane glee came back, twice as strong as before. “Of course, they never specified not to do the same to them afterwards. And I am so very, very lonely and hungry, after all.” And then it broke into a wild, piercing laugh.

            While Whins stood frozen in paralyzed horror at the revelations, the rest of the squad had broken up and spread out into the surrounding shacks and houses. One of the pairs came back with a family of four in tow; a father and mother, a girl that clutched at her mother’s hand and a little boy carried in the father’s arms. They were dressed in the threadbare rags that the Squire recognized all too easily; members of the lowest caste. The forgotten ones, who could not even find work at the Atlantean sponsored workhouses.

            The Squire sighed in relief, went over to them. He greeted them all in their native tongue and smiled when they all reacted, staring at him with hope.

            “What did you say to them?” Another squire, one of the two girls on their squad, asked.

            “Hello.” The Squire said, before reverting to Arocan. “We have come to help. How many more survivors are around here?”

            The father started to answer, but was cut off when a searing beam of heat blasted past the Squire and struck him dead in the chest, gouging a hole clean through him. Everyone screamed, even the other squires, and the Squire whirled about with sword in hand to defend the other Arocans from…

            From Whins. Their squad leader had one hand outstretched, the blue magic of his aura gathered around it. He had killed a civilian in cold blood, and the look in his eyes…

            And the Squire could hear the whispers around the young noble.

            They brought the monster here, they’re all traitors to Atlantis, kill them kill them all, for the King’s justice, they aren’t worth saving…

            Whins snarled. “Filthy animals. Gutter trash. All your fault. All your fault!” And he fired again…

            And the Squire was there, catching the blast on the edge of his empowered sword, deflecting it up and away. “Hide!” He screamed to the surviving family members, and they did so.

            Whins’ focus shifted onto him, and the wild gleam deepened as the whispers changed.    

            Another traitor to the King, traitor to Atlantis, he cares about the traitors, kill him kill him kill him kill them all…

            “Traitors, all of you.” Whins raved, and he hurled a wild wave of furious blue incineration away from him, towards the rest of his gathered unit.

            “Shields!” The Squire shouted, already throwing up a hasty one of his own. Only about half of the others managed to do so in time, or had shields strong enough to resist the incineration wave.

            The other half burned and screamed and died as the blue flames took them. The Squire screamed. Whins just smiled.

            “For my King. For Atlantis.” The squad leader whispered, and the mad voice in the fog laughed all the harder.

            And the Squire charged right at him. He was gone. He had given into the voice and the whispers, just like Baynes.

            No. The lieutenant had tried to run away. Whins just wanted to see it all burn.

            “Oh, how precious!” The maddening voice that had to be The Liar crooned as Whins switched to a single-handed duelist’s style, easily blocking and deflecting the Squire’s charge. The Squire spun around and managed a wild backhand to block the stab meant for his spine, then danced out of reach of the lung that followed. “Two squires, dueling over me? Is it my birthday already? Put on a good show, boys!”

            It was a duel, and Whins had always beaten the Squire in their duels. Nobody else in their Academy class ever had. The son of Atlantean nobility had lived with a blade since he’d been young. The Squire hadn’t picked one up until the Academy.

            While the rest of the squad hung back, shields raised, Whins and the Squire fought with magic, wild blasts that burned and drilled. Their swords glowed with green and blue light, with Whins using his power to great effect. The Squire’s armguards bore the tattered marks of nearly a dozen close calls he’d shoved clear at the last second, and there was a thin graze along his midsection, where Whins had snuck a blow between the plates of his armor.

            In a one on one fencing duel, or a contest of raw power output, Whins would always win. But the Squire had fought for higher odds before. He was fighting for them now.

            It was survivor’s instinct, and he used every scrap of training Baynes had forced into him through one grueling training session after another. He didn’t just fight sword to sword and blast to blast. He ducked and weaved, leading Whins on a chase. He blindsided the older boy with kicks that came out of nowhere and dirty fighting techniques that he’d learned on the streets of Below, and had improved on in the Academy. He fought to get Whins angry, to keep him off balance. It wasn’t even that hard. Whins hadn’t been balanced since they’d deployed. It was much worse now.

            It didn’t make it easy; the Squire was exhausted when the opportunity came. A lunge that just barely overextended, and he danced inside of the thrust, their swords scraping against one another long enough for the Squire to grab hold of his wrist, twist, spin around.

            Like water, he remembered how Baynes put it. Water flowed. One leg around behind, a bump to the back of the knee. Whins’ stance broken, his wrist, twisted and the sword released. And then the Squire yanked, and Whins was flung over his shoulder, slammed to the ground…

            Stunned long enough for the knight to bring his sword up and plunge it down through the older boys’ throat, the most visible soft spot available to him. There was a gagging noise, and a splash of blood, and…

            And Whins expired, and the Squire lived.

            Too late for five of his squadmates, taken in the rampage. Too late for a civilian.

            The voice laughed again, but this time, the Squire froze, for it had finally settled into a voice he remembered. “My precious boy.”

            It took one of the other squires shaking his arm to snap him out of it. “What do we do now, sir?” The mage asked him worriedly. “Can we...can we even escape this?”

            The Squire thought about it, and the voice used the silence.

            “Oh, you and I are going to have such fun. Bring your friends if you like. I’ll want a snack before I finish with you.”

            And then the whispers slowed, the voice disappeared. For the moment. The Squire turned to the rest, all of whom stared at Whins’ cooling body with disgust, and who looked at him in desperate hope.

            “The only way out of this mess is to stop the entity causing it.” The Squire said, and knew it was right, even for how hopeless it might truly be.

            A Code Violet. Half a squad of squires to stand in its way.

            But there was no going back. There were survivors, and they could not be rescued, or led out of the fog. The rest of their strike team was missing or dead. Nobody else could help them now.

            The Squire took up Whins’ blade in his free hand and sheathed his own.

            “We’re moving out.” He said wearily, and trudged in the direction where the fog thinned. The Liar was inviting them into its parlor.

            Nothing for it but to spring the trap.

***

            They were followed the entire way. More of the small doglike creatures trailed them from the rooftops, and in the distance, the Squire could make out the heavier footsteps of larger things, perhaps more of the fell beast that had killed the lieutenant. They were either being escorted, or herded, and both were terrible possibilities.

            And the whispers had come back. The other squires were hanging on by a thread, but they were hanging on. They just kept looking at the Squire for support, for reassurance, and saw him march on. He didn’t know if he was making a face at all. He tried to keep his face as blank as possible, because the whispers took on the voices of the people that you were close to, if the reactions of the others were anything to go off of. But the Squire must not have had enough people in his life for the whispers, which had to come from The Liar, to dig in hard enough.

            “You let me die. I trained you, gave you the skills to survive, and you let me die.” The voice said in Lieutenant Baynes’ hard, accusing contralto.

            “You ran. You turned your back and never saw the attack coming.” The Squire murmured under his breath.

            “Squad leader at last, washout. You must be pleased with yourself. You finally have everything you ever wanted, and you just had to murder me to make it happen.” It tried next, in Whins’ voice.

            The Squire snorted at that attempt to get under his skin. “You only cared about yourself. Nobody will mourn you, nobody that matters. And you know nothing about what I want.”

            The third whisper was a bit closer to the mark, and his steps slowed for half a second before he picked up into a steadier jog, pulling out Whins’ sword and kept going. “You’re a real piece of work, kid. You think you stand a chance? You’re just a squire! This thing eats Knights and comes out laughing. You should have run when you had the chance.”

            “You would never have recruited me if I was the kind of man who ran away from danger.” The Squire growled, and ignored everything else that the thing using Sloane’s voice sputtered out. After that third failed attempt, the whispers turned away from him and focused on the others. He thought that it had given up on playing mind games with him.

            They all skidded to a halt once they reached a courtyard in the Zolim slums, and he realized with a scream that it wasn’t the case.

            The Liar sat on a throne of bones still slick with fluids, an honor guard of terrible beasts flanked around her. And she sat there, smugly, smirking down at them in the form of a living goddess with a crown of lustrous red curls and smoky emerald eyes, in a low-cut blood red dress that revealed just a glimmer of the treasures beneath the fabric.

            Princess Bezel Lantea.

            “My heroes.” She purred, and reached a slender, sleeved arm down to the beast seated off her right hand. She petted it, and the thing leaned into her touch with an aching croon. “So brave. Torn apart, more than decimated, your numbers reduced by half. Mere squires, when they should have sent entire squads of heart-hardened killers with no levers to come and put me down.” She laughed at that, and for a moment, the green in her eyes flickered and gave the impression of mouths, mouths full of gnashing, screaming teeth, and then they were back to normal.

            Normal, in that it was a lie for what was really underneath. The Squire tasted acid in the back of his throat, swallowed it back down.

            “You’re not her.” One of the other squires stammered out, holding his sword low and level, a good defensive position. “You have no right to take the form of our princess!”

            “Excuse me?” The Liar laughed in Bezel’s sweet voice, still sounding as she had when he’d been eleven, even though her appearance was her at thirteen. “What do you mean, ‘our princess?’ You think I wear this skin for you?” Those false eyes drifted over to the Squire, and her cruel smirk deepened. “Only one of you dreams enough of her for me to mimic her form.”

            It was meant to sting. It was meant to be agony. The Squire gripped his sword tighter and managed not to scream back at the thing in the false skin of a girl who had not bothered to visit him in years. “It’s trying to distract you. Don’t let it win.”

            “Your new leader is right, you know.” The thing in Bezel’s skin went on with a haughty sigh. “It is a distraction. But it’s one made with good intentions. You poor Terrans, you’re just so fragile.” It examined Bezel’s hand for a few long moments. One of the other squires got the bright idea to attack while it was distracted, and a burning beam of yellow light shot towards it.  One of the guard beasts around her jumped in front of the blast and took it with a yelp of pain, and The Liar looked back down, irritation plain on her face. “Dirty pool. There’s rules to this, you know! And the first rule?” Then she shot her hand out towards the squire, and to everyone’s surprise, the human hand and arm disappeared for a long, whiplike tendril with a blurry mass of fingerlike protrusions on the end. It was the work of less than a second for that grotesque limb to rip the squire’s throat out, and the boy fell dying, choking on his own blood.

            They all snapped into sturdier defensive postures, but the thing wearing Bezel’s shape merely pulled its arm back, reverted to its normal appearance, and glowered at them all.

            “Never interrupt me while I’m monologuing.” Her glare vanished for a grin right after. “I get so few opportunities to do so, after all!”

            “Take that face off!” The Squire snarled. “It does not belong to you! You are not her!”

            “Am I not?” The Liar questioned far too innocently. “Has she not lied to you as well? The princess you threw yourself into servitude for?”

            And then another whisper burned at his ear. “You were so surprised that I remembered you. But I didn’t really. I just needed someone to save me, someone willing to throw their life away for me. And there you were, gullible, worthless you. No one will care when you die here, boy. You’re no Squire. You’re no recruit. You’re just a boy, a worthless boy with no name. You don’t even see yourself as deserving of a name, you exist through titles alone.”

            The Liar had finally found an arrow that hit home, and he felt his eyes burn at the edges. He forced it down, took in a shuddering breath. The Squire hefted the sword of a useless squad leader who had fallen to madness and slain an innocent, and invoked the ancient words.

              He conjured up his magic as he spoke them, infused them with power, felt it reach out and wrap around The Liar as a Geas, purchased at the risk of his life. If he perished, the spell would fade. If he triumphed, the entity would be driven away.

            The thing in Bezel’s form hissed and flinched as the magic covered her like a shroud, and there was finally a flash of real anger out of her.

            “You’re just a squire.” She snarled back at him. “Not even a full Knight yet. You dare to bind me with your power? You think it will hold?”

            “I took an oath.” The Squire replied, and smiled at her discomfort. “Rank matters not.”

            The Liar stared at him for several seconds, then broke out laughing. “Oh, you are different. You don’t break like my other toys did. Not yet. And you’re so hard to get a read on. It’s like nothing matters to you, like nobody does!” She got up from her throne and clapped her hands, and the fell beasts all around her let out a bloodcurdling howl and ran off into the fog. “Oh, don’t disappoint me, my unbroken boy. Please don’t disappoint me, it’s been so long. My pets will make sure we won’t be bothered.” Her eyes gleamed, and she knocked her throne of bones aside with a wave of her hand, scattering the debris across the street.

            “Four squires and an unbroken boy.” The thing that looked like Bezel licked her lips, and then…

            Everything went fuzzy, and she shifted and changed, and Bezel disappeared. The monster underneath took her place, and the last surviving girl squire on the squad dropped her sword howling and clawed her own eyes out.

            The Squire felt his heart seize in his chest at the sight of the true abomination. Where one would expect eyes, there were mouths. It towered twice as high as he stood, easily three full heads above even Sloane, a slavering mess of mouths, mouths, mouths everywhere, on the fingertips and in the palms of hands that extended from slender whiplike arms, over its chest, over its feet. Around its head lay a sickening crown of ten eyes, eyes that looked everywhere and saw everything.

            Saw into their minds, tore out the essence of their doubts and fears…

            And whispered them all back from a hundred mouths over its body.

            Another squire vomited at the sight, and only two came up to stand beside the Squire, to hold the line.

            The whispers promised their deaths, vowed untold suffering.

            “Remember your training.” The Squire whispered, and channeled power into his feet, into his arms, into his aura until it swirled around him as a living spell of preternatural reaction and speed that he would need to stand against the eldritch horror that lived in the darkness between worlds.

            The Liar howled and charged at them, and the battle was met.

***

            They had trained to fight exenos, they had touched on things beyond the Veil. They had been a part of the RRF for only a month, and they were fighting a thing that was a top tier threat. They fought it because there was nobody else left. They fought The Liar because they had sworn an oath.

            They fought it to survive, and all it took was the space of two minutes for the eldritch horror to eliminate every other squire but him. The thing laughed the entire time as its twisted limbs tore, broke, and ate.

            And ate.

            The Squire screamed, locked between sheer terror and a dogged need to endure. In desperation, he’d pulled out his own sword and switched from a double-handed grip to a twin-bladed style, rough and unpracticed. Whins’ thinner blade was meant for lunges and stabs and to deflect. His own sword was heavier, slower, with a sharp edge intended to slash. With the foil in his off-hand and his own held in his main as he kept magic infused in both, he blunted and deflected and worked his way around the whiplike strikes that kept him at a distance.

            All of the whispers turned on him; there was nobody else left for them to torture. The Liar danced, and he raced to keep up. To keep up was to survive. And yet, the Squire still felt like she was just playing with him.

            “So young. So delicious.” Saliva drooled from its largest mouth beneath its crown of eyes, even as rubbery flesh snapped out, coming back singed from the magic he pumped into the swords. Grazing blows only made it flinch, and it chased him through the streets. “So full of pain. You’ve suffered terribly, boy. So much heartbreak. Why fight for them? Why fight for anyone in this world? I see the same darkness that my summoners had within you!” It lashed out with another lightning-quick whipstrike, broke through his guard. He felt teeth grabbing at his armor, heard the squeal as the metal was shredded like an axe through wood. “They hated it just as you do. The imbalance. The inequality! What are you, what have you become? Nothing more than a puppet, a disposable weapon for Atlantis to use.”

“A weapon for me to use.” The whispers said in Bezel’s soft voice, one he still heard perfectly three years later. “A weapon to be sacrificed. You did it to yourself, I didn’t even have to ask you! Your mother died to save me, you almost died to save me, and when you were free, your power discovered? You walked right back into the blaze to burn for me!”

            “You think that I would let you past me for that?” The Squire screamed at the monster, and adrenaline allowed him to finally see an opening. He fused even more of his strength into Whins’ blade until it screamed green, and when the hand with its palm and the mouth inside raced for him, he shoved the sword down into the maw and kept pushing.

            The sword and the magic that infused the edges of the thin tang split the Liar’s rubbery limb clean down the middle and blew the shredded strips out and away from him. The shrieks that came from its mouths were deafening. The Liar pulled back, left with nothing but a stump trailing cauterized streamers.

            The Squire wondered if it could feel fear as keenly as he did. It gave him time to swallow down air, check his mana, make sure that he wasn’t bleeding. “You don’t care about anyone.” He growled at the creature, and somehow kept his eyes on it without going faint, or getting sick, or going mad. The image burned into his brain nonetheless, and he knew if he were to close his eyes, he’d still see it. “They wanted to be saved, and you just used them to make a door into our world. I didn’t put on this armor for Atlantis!”

            The Liar hissed angrily, and used its other arm to shear away the ruined tatters of its first one, leaving a bloody stump behind. And then it laughed.

            “Oh, you are right, my unbroken boy. You didn’t become the Squire for Atlantis. But you didn’t do it for these people either, did you? You did it for her.”

            “Like I would notice just another soldier.” The twisted voice of Bezel scoffed with a cruelty that no child’s voice deserved. “So I visited you. Do you think I wanted to? You were the peasant who saved a Princess. Protocol demanded it. And I haven’t come for you since, have I? I couldn’t even bear to look at you! Didn’t your mother teach you properly? You never associate with someone above your caste, or beneath it! The miserable witch deserved to die for raising such a disobedient son!”

            It hurt to hear it said, but…

            Don’t let anyone tell you that you’re not important. That you don’t matter.

            Even as tears came to his eyes, the Squire kept his grip on his mind. Because it was wrong. Because maybe he didn’t know Bezel Lantea now, but he had known her then.

            And the Bezel who had visited him in the hospital…

            She would never have said that about his mother. She’d said something completely different.

            It was a lie. It was all just lies based on his own fears. Not memories.

            “You’ve lost.” The Squire rasped. “You have nothing but lies, pain, and suffering. You have nothing that can stop me from fighting you.” He smiled at the thing and gestured to the stump of its arm. “And if you can bleed, you can be killed.”

            The Liar was down to one arm, its legs, and all the mouths that covered its body. The Squire was exhausted, emotionally overdrawn, and almost drained of mana.

            “Nothing but lies?” The Liar hissed, and closed the gap with another scream that made the air shudder. Down to one arm, the thing from beyond the Veil gave up on subtlety, gave up on merely toying with him. The Squire realized too late that it was done using him as a cat would a mouse. The blows were heavier. He lost Whins’ blade, watched it fly off uselessly and disappear into the mists around them. The strike was severe enough to smash his armguard clean off and leave his arm bruised from the torn leather.

            Down to one sword, the Squire backpedaled away, trying desperately from suffering a mortal blow.

            “Lies, he says. As if my eyes could not pierce that which you could only dream of. I call you the unbroken boy, but you will break! You will break, and the world will break with you! You will scream her name and she will be lost to you! You will pledge her your loyalty, but when she asks it of you, you will tear it away!”

            The Liar howled with nothing but pure noise after that, and the Squire brought his sword up in a wide slicing arc. The demon caught it in its hand, held the blade in spite of the burning aura around the edge, gripping the flat of it with the gibbering mouths full of teeth at the end of its fingertips. His green magic flickered around the edge of the blade, fading. Collapsing. He was running out of mana to give.

            The Liar knew it.

            “She will die in your arms, and you will fall apart. Atlantis will fall, and all that you swore an oath to defend her people from will come as a hungry wave.” The thing cackled. “Better to die here to me. It would be less painful.”

            “You lie.” The Squire hissed. “You always lie! You do nothing but lie!” He had to scream it. It was too terrible to not be another falsehood. Another barb. Another attempt to break him.

            And the horrible thing laughed again, and uttered one last whisper in the one voice it hadn’t yet tried. His mother’s.

            “Don’t let them see them getting to you.” It crooned sweetly.

            The Squire broke.

            He broke, and he screamed, and in his pain, reached to the living world and took what he needed. His green aura flared back to life and whorls of blue danced in it. He forced it up through his arms, through his sword. It burned at The Liar’s hand and it recoiled, and he struck, cleaving a deep gash that severed arm, shoulder, and most of its head as he pushed up off of the ground with the last of his strength.

            The Squire hit the ground behind it and collapsed, and the whispers slowly began to fade. The Liar teetered once, twice, and slumped to the ground.

            One of its eyes, still intact on part of its head, fixated on him. One of its mouths, still moving, whispered.

            “My broken boy.” The Liar wheezed, laughing even in defeat. “Broken. I’ll see you in 100 years.”

            And the Squire wanted to scream at it, to remind it that in 100 years he would be dead. But he had no energy left to him, his aura guttered back out and faded, and he was dizzy. He slumped to one knee and watched as The Liar began to fade away, turning translucent, then transparent, and then disappearing entirely. The fog left with it.

            He slumped to the ground, tears in his eyes, and clung to the memory of his mother.

            You’re so brave. Don’t ever stop being brave.

***

Portstand Rapid Response Division Encampment

Dalum Province, Aroca

The Below

2 Days Later

            “By every measure...this operation was screwed up by the numbers.” Knight Commander Sloane said. Speaking at the hastily assembled inquiry back at the 242nd RRD’s base, he stood behind the witness’s podium as the leadership of the Order of Mage Knights, either in person or telepresent by astral projection spells, listened impassively. The Squire sat in his own chair, his left hand in a sling after the healing that had set the hairline fracture beneath his bruised skin steadily to rights. His own after-action report, given in person, had been the last thing before the brief recess for lunch. It had been a grueling morning, and had almost collapsed him again. They’d nearly treated him as a hostile witness, with two of the inquiry board members all but accusing him of murdering his lieutenant and squad leader, and trying to gloss over his guilt with tales of cowardice and insanity.

            “We had no idea what we were flying into. The moment we saw the fog...we should have expected it. The testimony of the last surviving squire from Strike Team 4 only confirmed what my suspicions were moments after I put down my first chromatic-eyed fellbeast; a demon of whispers and madness codified in our threats index as The Liar. Not seen in over 100 years. Lieutenant Baynes knew what it was. She knew the category. Code Violet. She was right.” Sloane got through the words like he was eating a plate of ashes and dying for a glass of water. “By the time we realized what we’d walked into, it was too late to retreat and call for a sanitization archspell. We were surrounded, swarmed, and cut off. It could have killed all of us, if the squire you spent all morning belittling hadn’t found the courage and the will to succeed where so many have failed.”

            “And yet we still are left contemplating the cause of this...tragedy.” One of the generals who was there by a projection spell said, a momentary flicker in his image hinting at the distance. “According to the squire’s testimony, civil unrest led to a sizable portion of the populace working up a summoning spell that got out of hand. The Order maintains several layers of protection around Terra, and yet something like this is able to get through? Perhaps further restrictions and curfews need to be put into place to keep the inhabitants of Below from causing another tragedy like this again.”

            Sloane worked his jaw. He was angry, the Squire realized. “Future policy is not the focus of this inquiry, so far as I was made aware at the start. You merely wished to confirm the accuracy of my squire’s initial reports, and to verify that no charges needed to be filed. Has this board found cause for articles of prosecution?”

            The assembled leaders of the Order looked to one another, and a few shook their heads. The head of the inquiry board took that as his signal, shaking his head as he addressed Sloane.

            “Under the circumstances, this board finds no evidence that the last surviving member of Strike Team 4 did anything that would require further investigation or prosecution. The presence of a Code Violet threat always comes with casualties and consequences. Indeed, given what apparently occurred to the rest of his squad, your squire is to be commended for his actions. There are few men who would be able to function effectively in such a crisis, much less a 14 year old boy. That he was able to survive an encounter with that entity, defeat it, and cast the banishing Geas beforehand speaks to his training and the furthering of his education while under your command.”

            Sloane nodded. “He was always pushing himself into further training, picking up skills that the others in his squad did not take the time to develop.”

            “Perhaps he will inspire others to change and adapt to his methods in the future.” Another board member that had been sympathetic to the Squire announced. “Given the casualties suffered by the 242 RRD, you might consider placing him on the fast track for promotion. His talents will benefit Atlantis in the future.”

            “I have been considering steps in that direction, sirs.” Sloane said.

            “In that case, as chairman of this inquiry board, I declare this inquiry closed.” The chairman slammed a rock down against the desk, and everyone in the room stood up as the board members filed out.

            The Squire slumped back into his chair as everyone else filed out and closed his eyes. He saw The Liar again for a few moments before he shook it off. “Is it over?”

            “The inquiry? Yes. But the work never stops.” Knight Commander Sloane walked over and sat down beside him, letting out a long sigh. “How are you holding up, kid?”

            “I just want to sleep. But I can’t.” The Squire confessed, and he pushed his right hand through his mop of messy hair. “I...I keep seeing them all. Seeing it.”

            He felt Sloane set a hand on his shoulder, and cracked his eyes open. The older man watched him with understanding. “Survivor’s guilt. Battle trauma.” He pulled his hand back. “It can hit anyone. But with you...You need to tell yourself something. It wasn’t your fault. Okay? That anybody lived through that mess is nothing less than a mana-blessed miracle. Your lieutenant lost her mind, your squad leader went insane and killed a civilian, of course you had to put him down. You managed to keep the others together long enough to approach and identify the threat...and then you ended it. You. Nobody else. The Liar? Kid, nobody gets out of an encounter with that….that thing and isn’t a little bit shaken up. The last time it appeared was 150 years ago, and it took an entire division fighting her and her pets to stop her. Half of them didn’t make it back. For you to be able to take her down, on your own?”

            Sloane sighed and looked up at the ceiling. “I had a feeling about you, kid. That you were something special.” He dug in his pocket for a bit, then set something cool and metallic into the Squire’s open hand. “Here. You’ve earned this.”

            The Squire grabbed it and held it up, and was stunned to see a badge bearing the emblem of a Mage Knight on it.

            A new rank insignia, meant to be adhered to his armor.

            “But...I’m a squire.” He protested.

            “You faced a Code Violet threat almost entirely on your own. You’re the last surviving member of your squad.” Sloane kept staring at him. “You’ve earned it. As soon as I heard you lived, even before the inquiry? I had it made for you. You’re a Knight now. And maybe you don’t believe it now, but you are one. So wear it until you do. And don’t ever feel guilty.”

            The Squ...The Knight looked between the badge and his Knight Commander before chuckling weakly. “That...That first briefing you gave us. For a while there, I thought you were just trying to intimidate us. But you weren’t.”

            Sloane looked so tired then, as his eyes drifted away from the Knight’s face. “No. I wasn’t.” He agreed. “And mana help me, there are never enough knights around for what needs to be done. So after you’ve healed up, squad leader, the work starts again. I just need to find a team for you first. Got a lot of openings to fill now.”

            The Knight nodded, and they both stood up, finally heading for the doors that led out of the board room. Sloane pushed them open and led the way out, then froze with a hiss and bowed on reflex. The Knight almost stopped still inside of the room, but his curiosity got the better of him, and he joined his commander.

            And he froze as well, then, for it was Princess Bezel Lantea, flanked by two Knights from base security who had been waiting in the hall for them. Her face wasn’t as stony as it had been at the graduation ceremony, but she still stood rigidly, precisely, in the posture expected of royalty. Her bright red hair was tied in another elaborate braid, and her fine dress lacked the frills, but was still fancier and more expensive than even his armor must have been.

            “I see that manners and etiquette are not subjects that the Rapid Response Division bothers to learn.” Bezel said imperiously, and the Knight blinked, snapping back to attention when the hiss of Knight Commander Sloane beside him pulled him free of his open-ended ogling. His superior was bowing deeply, but had his head turned to glare up at him.

            The Knight finally bowed, and Bezel made a small noise of satisfaction. “Better.”

            “Your royal highness. What brings you to Below today?” Sloane said, rising back up. The Knight followed his posture shortly after.

            Bezel lowered her head down to look at them both properly. “Even in the halls of my father’s castle, there were stories told of a young squire who survived a terrifying ordeal and single-handedly defeated a beast from the space between worlds.”

            “He has been Knighted since then.” Sloane said, and the Knight unfolded his curled fingers to show his new badge, marking him as having completed his squire’s tenure. “Not more than two minutes ago, actually.”

            Bezel smiled, and...Maybe the Knight was looking too hard for what he wanted to see, but the smile seemed genuine. For a bit, anyways.

            “Good. In that case, as he has completed his training, I require his services.”

            “My lady?” Sloane asked, surprised at her request. “His services?”

            “I am at an age where my father believes I need a guardian instead of a caretaker. I had been willing to make do with a squire if their skills in combat were adequate, and there was talk that the soldiers in your supervision, Knight Commander Sloane, were among the best in that regard. However, as this boy has been promoted to the rank of Knight, I will take him, and leave your squires to receive further instruction from you.”

            Sloane drew in a breath, as did the Knight, but for different reasons. His superior’s wrath was never far from the surface, and he was clearly holding it back now.

            “I am sure that there are plenty of more willing candidates for the position of...a bodyguard, milady.” The Knight couldn’t help but just stare at her as she bandied words with Sloane.

            She wanted him? Why? Did she…

            “I am the daughter of your mage king, a royal princess of the blood. I deserve the best of all things, and from what I have been told of your newly promoted knight here, he fits the definition of the best.” She narrowed her green eyes and watched Sloane like a hawk. “Or are you saying that I am to be denied my wishes, Knight Commander?”

            Sloane breathed slow and deep, and settled for a shake of his head. “No, Princess Bezel. Of course my knight is at your disposal, if you feel you have need of him. However, he is still recovering from the battle of Zolim, and will not be fit for duty for another week yet. Once he receives his medical clearance, we could begin his transfer to the royal guard.”

            Bezel’s eyes stayed narrowed, but she smiled again, with less warmth than before. “That is acceptable. I shall expect him to report for duty on Atlantis within a week, then, or sooner, should his recovery be speedier than your estimate. Just be sure that he is fully recovered. I do not wish to supervise damaged goods.”

            She spun around and walked off, and the two base guards gave Sloane and the Knight an apologetic bow before following after her. Sloane waited until she was gone and out of earshot, and then punched the wall hard enough to chip off masonry.

            “Stuck up, presumptuous, arrogant little bi…” Sloane growled, cutting the last word off. He fumed for a couple more seconds, then turned to the Knight with sorrow in his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

            “For what?” The Knight asked, puzzled.

            “I’m sorry that I couldn’t protect you from them.” Sloane explained. “It’s dangerous here, but...up there? On Atlantis? The royal guard is something else entirely. That close to the throne, the Order is...different. You can lose yourself up there. Forget what’s important.”

            Sloane was probably right, and the Knight found it harder after her haughty and self-absorbed explanation for wanting him as a guardian to believe that anything would ever be good again. He’d sacrificed three years for the memory of a princess who had played with him and who he’d nearly died for.

            It was nothing but a memory now, he accepted. The laugh he let out was bitter.

            “My life is hers.” He admitted, seeing the invisible chain around his neck for what it was. “We never get to choose.”

            “It’s not right.” Sloane protested, and the Knight surprised even himself when he reached a hand out and set it to his mentor’s shoulder.

            “Don’t get angry over the things you can’t change.”

***

            In the end, he only needed five days to recover, physically anyways, from the ordeal that was now being called the Battle of Zolim. Mentally, he was still a mess, and Sloane knew better than to press him, even getting the base physician to sign off that the full weeks’ estimated recovery had been accurate. He spent the last two days doing his best to get back to his routine, only to find it shattered. There were no lessons to be had with Lieutenant Baynes. There was no sense of belonging, his squad was gone. The barracks that had once held two full squads was empty as a jar of air, quiet as a tomb. Of the survivors in the 242nd, there were two groups; those that whispered at a distance with awe and reverence, and those that stared with unforgiving eyes, resenting that he had lived when so many they’d known had died. He was either a hero or a living traitor to them. He pushed it away, relying on his mother’s lessons. They were all that he had left of her now.

            The Knight was beginning to forget her face. It became another weight on his tired spirit. On the morning of the seventh day, he packed up his belongings, strapped on his armor that now bore his Knight’s sigil, took up his sword, and walked to the transportation pad, where he was whisked away to Atlantis, processed within the royal guard for his reassignment, and then assumed his post.

            Sloane had been right about the royal guard. They put far more stock in appearances, ceremony, and minutiae. The Knights there were the sons of the higher castes, bound in orbit around the royal family, educated in the trappings and finery of their role and their office even before they had reported for training. Within minutes of his arrival, he had been mocked, sneered at, belittled. With every word, he betrayed his simple upbringing and exposed another nerve for them to cut into.

            The Knight endured it in silence. The first days as Bezel’s guardian were torture. He was so close to her, but he could not look at her. He stood behind her, but could not talk to her. He was charged with her safety, but he could not touch her.

            She would wake in the morning and he would be waiting by her door. She would give him the barest nod, a single word (His rank), then walk past him and expect him to keep up.

            Bezel would lead him to social functions that seemed endless, each less meaningful than the last. Tea parties and social gatherings. Art unveilings and galas.

            There was even a dance where he was required to stand to the side with the rest of the guardians as she passed from one suitor to the next, wearing a placid smile in a gown that made her seem a goddess (So far as the men she danced with always took the opportunity to remind her), and all the while she remained as aloof, as distant, as self-assured as all the other royals.

            She laughed when someone made a jibe at the Knight’s presence, bemoaning the fact that she was forced to deal with a guardian who hailed from Below instead of a properly trained Mage Knight of the royal guard. She deflected the insult by giving one of her own. ‘Well, he is considered something of a dangerous warrior. There was apparently some trouble down on the surface that he helped to put down. We took him on as a personal favor to another member of the Order who did a service to us in the past. Some allowances must be made for his rustic ways, but it has been trying nonetheless.’

            His hand shook on his sword after that. He didn’t sleep at all that night. Every time he tried, he flashed back to the Liar, who had worn her face and spoken in her voice and said such horrible things to him.

            They didn’t seem like lies anymore.

            With every passing day spent on assignment in the royal guard, the Knight’s bitterness and hatred grew. At the two week mark, the princess at last had a clear spot in her calendar, an entire day where she had no formal commitments. The Knight thought that it would be an opportunity to leave and collect himself, but that morning, he was roused and chastised for not assuming his post, and all but shoved out of the royal barracks with no breakfast and five minutes before the usual time she emerged from her rooms to begin the day.

            When she did so, it was ten minutes later than her normal schedule, and she wore a simple dress of light purple fabric. Her red hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail and shortly after hidden by a hooded cloak of green. She carried a satchel which she handed over to him without a request for aid, then spoke to him directly for the first time since he had taken the post.

            “I have decided to go for a walk about Atlantis today. You will accompany me, knight.”

            He wanted to refuse her, to shove the bag back in her face and slice his own throat.

            The Knight slung the bag’s strap over his shoulder, nodded once with glazed eyes, and fell in three steps behind her as she strolled for the palace’s exit.

***

            It was agony, and he fell on the same rehearsed routine that he had developed over the past two weeks to endure it. With Bezel leading, he glanced at her only out of the side of his eye, and only ever long enough to confirm she was still leading him. The rest of the time, he swept the perimeter for threats, sized up possible hindrances. He missed the shift after they left the palace grounds, slipped out of the royal’s safety net, and walked out into the streets. He missed the shift when they crossed the unspoken boundary between the territory of the higher castes into the spaces reserved for public use.

            “I’m...I’m sorry.” Bezel said, a raw ache in her voice capturing his attention. He finally whirled to look at her, and found her shoulders drooping, her hooded head bowed. She stopped walking ahead, and then turned to face him.

            She was crying, and the Knight stopped breathing.

            “I am so sorry.” She repeated. “I...I’ve said so many hurtful things since you arrived here. Or I’ve said nothing at all. You didn’t deserve any of it. Their scorn, or my indifference.”

            He blinked rapidly, wondering what she was building towards. She held out a hand and gestured to the satchel, and the Knight wordlessly handed it back over. Princess Bezel slung the strap over her own shoulder and sniffed. “Do you remember me?”

            “I remember the girl I knew when I was younger.” The Knight rasped, the sound clawing its way out of his throat. “But she’s dead now.”

            “No. She isn’t.” Bezel shook her head rapidly. “She’s drowning, but sh...I’m still here.”

            She was trying not to cry, and there was pain in her voice. She was saying things that were close to what the Knight wanted to hear. But he had hoped before and suffered for it. Was still suffering for it.

            “I wish I could believe you.” He heard himself tell her. Bezel shuddered and took a step back from him, and the pain in her face doubled.

            “What can I say to show you that you can?” She asked him hollowly. “What do you need to hear to understand that I’m the same Bezel you knew before? That every disparaging word I ever uttered or let others utter in your presence hurt me as much as it did you?”

            “What could you say?” He countered, getting angry and not caring. The scars on his heart were too numerous for him to care. It broke every regulation about decorum and conversation between royalty and the Order. But he had been silent for too long, screamed inside his mind for too long. Wouldn’t it be easier to just let it all burn? “Words. Empty, lying things.”

            Bezel pushed her hood back, and he watched her lip tremble. “I just wanted my friend. I wanted one good thing in my life that wasn’t...wasn’t tainted by what I was born into. When you told me that you were joining the guard, I knew that it wasn’t going to be easy.”

            “I saw you at my graduation.” He accused her. “You couldn’t even look at me.”

            Bezel choked on a sob. “First row. Four down.” She said, and he went still. “I knew you were there. I wanted to run up to you, to grab your hand. I couldn’t. And after? They watch everything I do. My father and his minders. I had to leave you alone for three years. It was the last thing I wanted. My life isn’t my own. Do you understand that?”

            If she was telling the truth...The Knight knew all too well what she meant. He had lived it too.

            “Words.” He repeated, and closed his eyes. He waited for her to try and say more to him, to try and convince him that it wasn’t all just another lie. Another dagger to his heart.

            “...If you...if you can’t stand to be around me, I...I will release you.” Bezel stumbled through her words, and every syllable tumbled out of her like a stone. “You can go back...back to your unit. I’ll never bother you again. If that’s what you want.”

            “What I want, nobody can give me.” The Knight whispered back, standing still as a statue.

            His eyes snapped open when he felt Bezel press something into his palm. Tears streaked down her face, but she refused to wipe them away. The Knight looked down at his hand and found a locket resting there, a silver chain hanging from its setting.

            “I made it for you.” She said, unable to meet his eyes. “Years ago. After I heard about what happened in Zolim, I was out of my mind with worry. I thought I’d never be able to give it to you. It...it can be your farewell gift.”

            He snapped it open, and sparks of magic from inside rose up and formed an image of a woman, smiling sadly. The Knight let out a ragged gasp as it spoke.

            “You’re so brave. Don’t ever stop being brave.”

            His mother. Bezel had somehow enchanted the locket with the exact likeness of his mother. Given it his mother’s voice. He had forgotten what she looked like.

            He would never forget her again.

            “How?” The Knight asked, tracing the edge of the locket reverently. He looked up at the princess, still crying silently. Crying without breaking. “How did you…?”

            The princess held up her hand and summoned up her aura around it, a faint blue glow. “I’m good at making things. I always have been since I was little. But it’s just little things, tiny works of artifice.”

            He closed the locket and squeezed it. “This is no little thing.” He said, his bone-deep weariness fading at last.

            “She was your mother.” Bezel said to him sadly. “I made it while I could still remember her. She deserves to be remembered.”

            The Knight would carry the burdens of Zolim for the rest of his life. He would wear its scars. He doubted words, because words could lie.

            “I’ll stay.” He sighed, and reached a gloved hand up, using his thumb to brush away the tears on her face. “I’ll stay.”

            Her lower lip trembled, and then she flung herself at him, wrapped her arms around his waist (He was taller than she was now, they’d been the same height as children, but now he was a head taller and still growing), and buried her face into his chest.

            “Do you promise?” She asked him, still breaking. Free of his own mind and the spiral of hate and suffering it had been trapped in, he listened and finally heard her. Heard how tired she sounded. How afraid she sounded.

            The Knight realized that she was more like him than he’d known. Yes, there were differences. She wanted for nothing in her life; she didn’t starve, she had a warm bed every night, people that fussed and fawned over her endlessly. All the trappings of nobility and royalty, but they were a trap nonetheless. Because she had to act a certain way. Speak a certain way. But in the ways that mattered, she was like him. She could not break out of that mold. Had not been able to. And yet, she made statues and lockets, hiding treasured memories in them.

            Who did she have in her life that knew her for who she was?

            The Knight awkwardly patted her on the back with the hand that wasn’t tightly clutching the locket with his mother’s picture in it.

            “I am your Knight, princess.”

***

            He should have expected it. After separating and laughing in relief, Princess Bezel Lantea had led the Knight along a path and into a park full of trees and walking paths that he had not seen since the day he and his mother had left Atlantis behind. They came to a stop next to a pond he remembered perfectly. A pond that still had ducks swimming along its surface.

            Bezel dug into her satchel and came out with a paper sack full of bread pieces, taken from the palace kitchen. She smiled nervously at him and handed the sack over to the Knight, and he plucked out a piece of bread before popping it into his mouth. She giggled as he gave the bag back to her, and took a piece out to eat herself.

            It was their ritual, he realized. Then they sat down side by side and fed the ducks as slowly as possible, throwing out bread one chunk at a time. Both of them wanted to make it last. Neither of them wanted to leave.

            Out here, nobody bothered them. There were no courtiers watching her with hawk’s eyes. No royal guards sizing him up so they could leap on his faults of decorum. A feeling he couldn’t place took hold, and it was the work of several minutes of silent contemplation before he realized that he was finally calm, and at peace.

            “I was so scared.” She confessed, ending the easy silence between them. “Hearing about Zolim...about what you had to go up against. That you lived, and so many others died.”

            “It…” The Knight started, and froze up.

            Her hand sought his out, coming to rest on top of his glove.

            “It was bad.” He admitted, meeting her bright green eyes for a moment before he looked back out over the pond. “And then, everyone thinking that I…”

            “They were wrong to accuse you.” She growled, and her fingernails dug at the leather covering the back of his hand for a moment. “You’re a hero. You’re my hero.”

            “They don’t want heroes, milady.” The Knight said. “They want obedient soldiers.”

            “And what do you want?” She asked him.

            The Knight swallowed at that, and tried to remember his place. He was a fourteen year old knight. She was a thirteen year old princess of the blood.

            “I want to be happy.” He said, because it was vague enough, and safe enough of a thing to say. “I want what I do to mean something.”

            “I want that too.” Bezel said, and the sense of truth rang between them. “That’s why I wanted you here. By my side.”

            The Knight snorted. “I thought you wanted the best.”

            She raised an eyebrow at him. “Are you saying you’re not?” They stared at one another before Bezel broke down into giggles, and the Knight let out a sharp barking laugh. “No. I wanted my friend back. I feel more like myself when I’m around you. I didn’t have that for a long time.”

            “So I’m to be your living conscience then, princess?”

            “No, you…” She cut herself off and sighed. “Just be you.”

            The Knight watched her for any sign of a falsehood, but found none. “I can do that.” He assured her. “Is this the real you?”

            Bezel drew her knees up towards her chest and hugged them. “I don’t know, honestly. But I want it to be.” She shut her eyes. “You are the only thing that feels real. And I like how I feel when you’re around.”

            After two weeks spent in hell, her actions, her words, her truth washed over him like a wave. He was left feeling tired, and he slumped back onto the grass, staring up at the sunny sky through the treetops. There was nobody around to judge him, and only the sound of nearby nesting birds and the wind rushing through leaves battering at his ears. Not the screams of the dying, or the shrieks of monsters. Not sick, twisted lies that tore at his heart.

            “Are you okay?” Bezel asked him.

            “I’m tired.” The Knight said, and closed his eyes. He felt her hand rest on his arm.

            “Then rest.” She encouraged him.

            The Knight breathed, feeling his bone-deep fatigue taking hold of him. But he lingered on the edge of awareness, no matter how sweet the grass smelled, or how warm the sun felt on his skin.

            “Will you still be here when I wake up?”

            “Always.” Bezel vowed, and there was a tremor of power in that pledge, unintentional, but still there. He let the quiet darkness claim him, and fell into dreamless sleep.

            When he snapped awake some unknown time later, the sun was still in the sky, and the birds were still chirping. But he didn’t hear Bezel. He looked around and froze, startled to find her lying beside him on the grass, turned on her side and leaning on an arm. She had been watching him sleep.

            You keep going, and you find the people who do care about you. And you never stop caring about them in return.

            Bezel smiled, and the Knight smiled back, touched the locket in his pocket. She had offered to let him go, in spite of how much it would hurt her. She had given him the freedom of choice. And he had chosen. He was her guardian. Her Knight.

            His life was hers.

Chapter Text

Little Moment: The Sorceress And The Knight

By Eric ‘Erico’ Lawson

Three: And He Gave Her The World

When Princess Bezel Lantea had been nine years old and going on ten, her nanny had taken her on a trip out to one of the public parks situated between the elite quarter around the capital city and the lower-caste tenements on the outskirts. Tired of being doggedly pursued and supervised and having her life organized to the minute, she had escaped and gone running into the park while the older woman had been distracted, making her way for the duck pond that she’d been told about.

When she was nine she met a boy there, a boy from the lower castes who looked miserable and hungry, and gave him an apple. They fed the ducks together, nibbling on bread crusts themselves, and then played. She had reveled in it. No expectations, nobody bowing or simpering or belittling her with hollow praise. The boy saw her for her, and Bezel loved it. She remembered that day enough that when she went back home, she went to her artificing, the one thing in the world she was actually good at with her magic, and made a statue. Some passing cultural minister’s assistant had spied her working on it and begged for it to go on tour Below, as a mark of ‘charity’ from the royal family to the masses. Bezel let it go because her father had insisted on it, but she regretted its loss. She had been using it to remember the boy.

When she was ten, she was dispatched as the royal family’s representative along with her uncle and his wife and children to attend the Unification Day ceremonies held Below. That year, they were attending in Banali City with Duke Filitas acting as their host.

When she was ten, she almost died. She would have died like everyone else had when those horrible men charged the stands after the bomb had gone off. They had gutted everyone else, the nobles, her uncle, her cousins …

She’d slipped between the risers and was whimpering with blood dripping all around her, losing herself, and would have been found by the killers. But he found her first. The boy from the park.

Her hero.

He and his mother grabbed her and they ran, and they ran and they fought and then his mother died. Bezel had never known her own mother. But his mother was everything she ever wanted in her own, and she died protecting them.

His mother’s last words burned into her brain. “You’re so brave. Don’t ever stop being brave.” It wasn’t fair, and it was wrong, and she wanted to cry. She wanted to cry and hold him so he could cry, but the world was still wrong, and they were running again. 

When she was ten, the boy had stood between her and death, exploded with magic from a green aura, saved her life, and almost lost his own.

When she was ten, Bezel visited her hero in the hospital and learned he had just volunteered to join the Mage Knights. To protect her. When she was ten, he finally cried for his dead mother, and she went back to the palace and made a necklace to keep the memory of her alive, and hoped that he was still her friend.

When Princess Bezel Lantea was thirteen, she went to his graduation and suffered in silence with the weight of formality and her father the king and everyone’s expectations keeping her from doing what she wanted to do. He was second in his class. She knew where he was sitting. Bezel had long ago learned how to look at things without ever turning her head. She had learned how to act like people expected her to, and how to hide how she really felt, not betray what she really wanted to say. 

When she was thirteen, she listened to a nobleman’s son give the valedictorian speech at the recruit’s graduation to the rank of squire, listened to him talk about the tragedy of three years before and use it as a cudgel for the same brutal agenda of suppression her father was so vociferous about.

You weren’t there , she screamed inside of her head, never moving her neck. But her eye flickered down to her friend, the boy who wasn’t little any longer, and saw him sit rigid and struggling to keep up his own mask. We were there, you have no right. You didn’t suffer like he did, like I did. 

But the speech ended, her father (the Mage King) rose and began clapping, and Atlantis moved on, and Bezel kept screaming inside of her mind.

When she was thirteen, she learned that her squire had been assigned to a Rapid Response Division, under the same Mage Knight that had been in the hospital room with him three years before. She tried to trace his progress as surreptitiously as she could, a process made somewhat easier once her father insisted that she was old enough that a nanny was no longer good enough. She needed a proper guardian now instead of just a chaperone. The death of his brother and his brother’s entire family in Banali City had rattled him terribly, rattled them all.

She was a princess, she told herself, building up the flimsy excuse in her mind. If she was going to have a Mage Knight as her guardian, it would be him. It could be nobody else but him. Royalty would only get the best. There was nobody better than him. He’d almost died once to save her, would anybody else in the royal guard manage as well?

When she was thirteen, she learned that her squire’s entire division had been deployed to Zolim, the jewel of Aroca, that a Code Violet threat, the sort that ate Mage Knights alive and usually took the full weight of Atlantis to quell, was the cause. She felt her heart seize up in her chest as the casualty reports filtered out, and she learned that his entire squad , his entire strike team had been killed in action.

All except for him. 

When she was thirteen, she declared that she had come to a decision regarding the status of her guardian and ventured Below, transporting to Portstand Encampment where what was left of the 242nd RRD had returned back to. She had expected to find her squire in the infirmary. Instead, she was informed that her squire, and Knight Commander Sloane, were at an inquiry regarding the Zolim massacre. To determine if charges needed to be assigned.

How dare you all try to do this to him, when all he’s ever done is sacrifice himself for others! Bezel screamed in her mind, and set off with her escorts trailing behind her. But when she finally found him, was looking at him face to face…

He was so tired, and exhausted, and haunted , and somehow she managed to keep a straight face instead of running right for him and wrapping her arms around him and burying her face into his chest like she wanted to. But all he could do was just stare at her, stare at her with such terrible longing.

When she was thirteen, Bezel wore the mantle of the royal highness Princess Bezel Lantea and spoke with derision and haughty dismissal (like everyone in her caste was expected to) and declared that she was looking for a guardian, that she had come for the best. And since a squire had apparently not only survived the Zolim massacre, but been instrumental in putting it down, she would make her decision not on rank, but on merit.

Then she had learned that Sloane had just promoted him to full Mage Knight. Her boy had become her squire. Her squire was now her knight. But it was still him.

She hoped it was still him, underneath that face that one tragedy and trauma after another had chiseled onto him. As it was, she still had to go home and wait another week.

A week later, he was there beside her. But he wasn’t .

Do you remember me? Do you hate me? Are you still the same boy who saved my life, who played with me in a park when I was so lonely?

He walked behind her everywhere she went. He stood like a statue, looking towards her but never looking at her. And then that dinner party.

That stupid dinner party, where that harpy asked about the far too young knight who had come with as her guardian and stood less than fifteen feet away as she talked about him. Like he couldn’t hear her. Like he was supposed to ignore her.

And Bezel knew what was expected. She knew what she couldn’t say. The smallest bit of her rising up in his defense...blood in the water. She had seen glimpses of how the courtiers actually were when they weren’t kowtowing to the royal family. So she breathed in…

Please forgive me I don’t mean any of this please please don’t hate me…

...And lied about him, belittled him. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw his hand shake on the pommel of his sword.

When she was thirteen, she knew that she had broken his heart, and she didn’t know if she could make it right. But she had to try. For all that he meant to her, for all that she might have meant to him three years, four years ago, she had to try. So she stole a bag of bread from the kitchens, packed up her bags, and palmed a locket she had kept hidden, kept safe, since she had been ten. Bezel opened it one last time, and drew strength from the image of his mother, and pretended it was her own.

“You’re so brave. Don’t ever stop being brave.”

I’ll try , she had whispered to a ghost frozen in time, and slipped the locket into a pocket of her dress and rang the bell to summon her guardian.

The walk to the park was a long one, because he never said anything. He never had a reaction beyond keeping three steps behind her, watching their surroundings more than he watched her. The perfect soldier. The perfect guardian.

They were both still wearing masks and she hated it, and she screamed inside of her head until finally, she broke. Bezel broke, and she apologized, and…

And he was so tired , and broken, and…

Words. Empty, lying things.

She had lost him. The boy was gone, and all that was left was a broken knight. She gave him the locket she had made for him years ago, intending it as a farewell gift. He was lost to her, but she could at least give him the memory of his mother.

But it was no small thing .

She hadn’t lost her friend after all. 

When Bezel was thirteen, her knight told her he would stay. They were both broken, both screaming behind masks. But he was still himself. Still her hero. 

He was still her knight. And he was so tired after they fed the ducks, that he slumped back in the grass and asked if she would still be there when he woke up.

Where else would I want to be, if not with you? She thought, and promised him she would be. So he slept.

And when he woke up, hours later...she was still there at his side.

When she was thirteen, her knight smiled at her.

When she was thirteen, Bezel realized she loved him.

***

One Month After the Zolim Incident

The Royal Palace

Floating Continent Of Atlantis

Princess Bezel Lantea woke up with the sun in her eyes through the window of her bedroom and a soft breeze drifting through the curtains around her four-poster bed. The scent of mana lillies, blushing purple flowers with star-shaped petals and yellow stamens, lingered in the room from a cutting of them sitting in a vase by her dresser. She stared over at the precious flowers that grew only in an environment abundant with magic and breathed in the smell of them. The start of a new day, with promise and potential. Most of it was going to be boring, more time spent with her tutors in magic and history and languages and mathematics. The last was her favorite, really.

No. The best parts of her day had to do with what happened between all of those appointments, when she was escorted about. Because of who her escort was. Her guardian. Her hero.

Her knight.

With practiced speed and the (unnecessary) assistance of her maid, Bezel cleaned and dressed for the day, going with the most functional, least frilly gown she could get away with. She dismissed her maidservant and waited precisely 16 seconds before putting on her most cheerful smile and opening the outer door to her quarters. She was used to wearing a mask. In the mornings before they saw anyone else was one of the few times she could wear a genuine smile.

Standing at attention outside, her knight made a slight bow, not as low as he should have, lower than she would have preferred. “Good morning, your highness.”

“Good morning, my knight.” She greeted him in return. “Did you sleep well?”

“Well enough, my lady.” The fourteen year old boy replied, falling in step behind her as she closed her door and started down the hall. “And you?”

“Fair.” She said, looking at him. He wore the breastplate of a royal guard, but kept the greaves, dark manamesh trousers, and hardened leather boots of a member of the RRD. Other royal guards had the option to grow their hair out, but her knight never let his dark hair grow more than an inch and a half away from his scalp, letting it jut up in wild spikes. The sword at his side was embedded with an emerald in the pommel, the mark of his power, and he kept a dagger on his opposite hip.

Other royal knights dressed to be noticed, to shine with polish like living statues. Hers dressed for function over form, and always looked deadly when they were around others. 

Like every other day, as soon as they appeared in a more public hallway and passed by another guard, Bezel schooled her smile to placid and gracious, and saw her knight stiffen his posture and even out his gait. He would stay like that for as long as he needed to. For hours.

She attended breakfast with her father and her two older brothers, Crown Prince Desmond and Jorran. Her father was more pleasant in private quarters, but was still a stern man. Still, he liked to dote on Bezel, and had doted on her more after the massacre at Banali City. It had meant he indulged her whims more often and didn’t press her quite as hard; it helped that as the third child, she was unlikely to inherit the kingdom, and the troubles of rulership that came with it.

Still, there were some days that he remained all too focused on her. This morning was one of them.

“Bezel, your magic combat instructor has sent me another report.” Mage King Volkas Lantea declared, after setting his fork down on his plate. Bezel didn’t flinch, and met his gaze head on. “You have been remiss in your lessons. He is displeased with your progress.”

“Oh, is our dear little sister struggling?” Prince Jorran teased her with more malice than was necessary. He was three years older than her, with their oldest brother Desmond already in his 19th year. And unlike Bezel, Jorran thrived for combat. With Desmond taking on the mantle of rulership and learning politics, Jorran had been training since he was a boy in the arts of warfare so he could serve as a trusted general. “Perhaps girls just aren’t cut out for it.”

The taunt was deliberate and clumsy, and Bezel ignored it. “Father, I do my best in training, but it just has never been a good fit for me. There are other things I am much better at, runecrafting for example, and…”

“You are a descendant of the Royal House of Lantea.” Her father thundered, tapping the table hard with a finger to make his point. “You possess the blue aura of your mother. We are expected to be able to wield powerful magics to rule Terra. It is our birthright. You will do better in your magic lessons, or I shall find ways to encourage harder study. Perhaps the loss of your time idling away in that workshop of yours will suit. Your hobby is nothing, compared to ensuring that you uphold the family honor.” His voice softened after. “If you had been stronger before, you could have saved yourself in Banali City, my dear girl.”

Bezel stared down at her half-consumed plate, swallowing the hurt those words caused.

“If I had been there, sister, I could have slaughtered them all.” Jorran pointed out.

“You were not there, Jorran, so you will silence your boasts.” Their father snapped, ending the conversation. “Bezel shall do better in her training, and you will not hold your own skill over her. You are siblings, and I will not see you fight.”

Bezel waited until silence hit the dining room, and then she pushed her chair back and rose up, her brothers and father watching her carefully.

“May I be excused? I should like some time to prepare before the day’s lessons.” She said crisply.

“Of course. Train well, Bezel.” Her father said. “You will make me proud, I am sure of it.”

She wondered about that, because nothing she ever did ever seemed good enough for her father, and was never good enough for her brothers. She was the youngest child, the daughter, and nobody expected anything out of her. All anyone seemed to think she was good for was to be hoisted off in an arranged marriage when she came of age at 17. 

As soon as she slid out of the dining room, her knight slipped in behind her again, and spoke softly.

“I didn’t know you were having trouble with your magic.”

“My magic is fine .” Bezel said curtly, and as quietly as she could manage. “I just have trouble using it to...to hurt people. As if that was all it was good for.”

“The strong rule over the weak.” Her knight said, but she turned and looked back at him, because it didn’t sound right. He didn’t look like he believed it. Or he didn’t want to believe it.

He stared at her, as if waiting for an answer, and she couldn’t think of one. So she turned back around and kept walking.

Her knight followed, always watching her.

***

Royal Training Hall

“More control, your highness!” The battlemage instructor that her father had hired for the children was as shrill and demanding as ever, wire-thin and caustic. Solern Drake was a career royal knight, dressed in the finest embroidered silks he could, and he was only holding up a shield of blue-tinted mana with one outstretched arm to protect himself from the wash of Bezel’s wild incineration wave. “You are merely releasing your strength in one direction. You are giving it no form, no shape!”

Bezel’s lungs pumped like a bellows, her red hair was tied back behind her head and she was dressed in the duelist’s uniform made for her training. Perspiration made the fabric she wore stick to her body in the most uncomfortable ways. Even worse than the grating, disappointed voice of her instructor, Bezel knew, was that this would be another negative report that would filter back to her father. 

Both of her brothers could do this easily. Jorran had moved to homing darts when he was her age, and he too commanded a blue aura, equaling her in power, surpassing her in ability. She had the power, she just couldn’t use it.

“Enough.” Instructor Drake sighed, and threw his shield at her, guiding it through the flow of her spell. Bezel let out a yelp as it forced her to cancel the attack and then dive for cover to avoid being smashed by it. She lay there gasping on the floor while Dake stepped over in a crisp cadence and stood over her.

“Princess Bezel.” He said, his polite words undermined by the irritated tone in his voice. “You are a daughter of the royal blood. It is expected that you will command your power and wield it effectively. We have been at these lessons for many months now, but combat magic continues to prove... difficult .” He bit the word off, and Bezel could hear the one he’d wanted to say. Impossible. She got up slowly and refused to look behind and to the side of her, where her knight had stood at the beginning of her lesson. 

She couldn’t bear to see disappointment in his eyes as well.

“I’m trying.” She insisted. “I am trying , Instructor Drake. I can manage shields, but...attack spells…” And what was a good way to say, I don’t want to hurt anyone if I can?  

Her instructor closed his eyes for a moment. “I will see you tomorrow for another lesson.”

“But, I only meet with you every third day…” Bezel began, only to stop when his eyes snapped open.

“We will repeat this lesson.” Drake snapped. “If, by tomorrow, you are unable to conjure a successful incineration wave and overwhelm my mana shield, then further measures will need to be taken. There are expectations of you, and of me, by your father. Your brothers were never so much trouble as you have been.” 

Bezel felt those words of condemnation smash into her like a blow to the head. It left her reeling as she stood back up, bowed to her instructor out of reflex, and then started to walk away.

“If I were you, Princess, I would spend whatever time you have available tonight practicing.” Instructor Drake added nonchalantly. “While you still have free time.”

Her shoulders bunched up at the final barb, and she kept on walking towards the ladies’ dressing room. Her knight stepped in front of her when there was still ten more feet left to walk. 

“Are you all right, my lady?”

“No.” She whispered, staring at his feet, not daring to look up.

Don’t look at me. Don’t look at me with eyes that say that I’m not worth it.

She stepped around him and shuffled into the changing room.

***

Princess Bezel’s Chambers

Early Evening

Bezel had never held her knight to the same standard as others who worked closely in her presence. She had told him that she had wanted a friend more than a guardian , and he had accepted that request with a worn and weary smile. She would often invite him in to sit in her chambers and talk about small things, about how he got along with the others, what interested him. She would tell him about how her lessons had gone, which ones she liked, which ones she didn’t.

She liked to sing. Nobody else knew that about her, she was shy about it. He had just looked at her for a long time when she told him that, and then asked if she might sing something for him one day.

Her blush that night, Bezel was sure could have been seen from Below. He never put her on the spot about it, he just said it was something he wanted to hear. 

But this night, he came inside without her extending an invitation, as he’d done the last two nights before, and then stood by the doorway as she sunk into the chair at her desk.

“Please leave.” She told him faintly.

“I cannot do that, princess.” Her knight said, calm and unflappable. Bezel leaned forward and rested her forehead against her arms.

“I gave you an order, guardian.” She said hollowly. “Please.”

“I am charged with defending your safety against threat and harm.” He said, still not moving. She would have heard his boots shuffling on the floor if he had. “That includes physical threats...and emotional ones.”

“You can’t defend me from a problem inside of me.” Bezel said. She sat back up in her chair and sighed, then reached for one of the drawers on her desk as her hair settled back around her shoulders. “All that matters to them is power; the power to kill . But I can’t. Every time I...They tell me to cast that spell and picture destroying someone completely. And I am repelled by it.” 

She dug out one of the small trinkets she had made months ago, a small sandstone engraved with a simple rune. She let it sit in the palm of her hand and whispered a word to it, and it came to life, glowing brightly and spinning before making stars dance over the ceiling of her darkened room. “I’m not strong . I’m not a real mage, my brothers always say that to me. And they’re right. I’m not. I can make trinkets, baubles, tiny workings of magic tied to artifice.” She let out a single bitter laugh and closed her hand around the stone, snuffing out the light show. “Weak. Helpless. Only good for small things. What good is an artificer next to a Royal Mage? Or a Mage Knight?”

She didn’t know how long she stared up at the ceiling, but when she brought her head back down, her knight was standing by her desk, frowning at her.

“What you can do is no small thing.” He said. “Could any other mage have made that traveling exhibit?” He reached underneath his armor and came out with the locket she had given him; the one containing the likeness, and the voice of his dead mother. “Could they have made this from their memories? ” 

“Probably not.” Bezel conceded, smiling at him weakly. She did like looking at him; The boy she had known had the same courage and resolve, but now he had a body fast coming into its prime. Her eyes didn’t linger long, and she slipped the stone back into her desk. “But I still can’t cast a spell designed to kill. And that’s all that matters. It’s a mark of the Lantean line; the power to rule.”

“I can kill. Do I deserve to rule?” Her knight questioned her, and Bezel blinked. That was twice now he’d said something about the weak over the strong, but this time it came as a question.

One she still didn’t have a response for. His stormy blue-gray eyes softened, and he stepped back and ran a gloved hand through his tousled short hair. 

“Have you ever studied the history of Atlantis?” He asked her finally. 

“Some.” She allowed. “I know that my ancestor, Lantea, was the one who first united the defenders of Terra to a common banner, so they could protect the world together.”

“Atlantis was a captured rock, taken from beyond the edge of the sky, brought down safely. In time, they built weapons and a fortress into it, and made it fly. The castle and the kingdom came after.” Her knight went on from there. “We studied the kingdom’s achievements at length in school. Long before Atlantis ruled Terra, it was the world’s protector.”

Bezel blinked. “You learned that?”

“The major events, yes.” Her knight said. “The rest...The rest, I hope is true.”

“Why?” 

“Because I didn’t join the Mage Knights to kill either.” He explained, and just gazed at her lazily. “A Mage Knight defends the people of Terra from the threats beyond the sky and beyond the Veil. That you value life enough to not want to take it…” 

He mustered a small smile, and her heart quivered a little. “I’m glad of it, Bezel.”

She found herself smiling back hopefully, then looked away before he could catch her blushing. “I still have the same problem, though. Instructor Drake won’t be satisfied until I can prove that I can use my power offensively.”

Her knight thought about it for a good minute, long enough that she began sneaking furtive glances at him to relieve her nerves. “As I recall, his specific phrasing was that you needed to be able to ‘overwhelm his shield’, not that you needed to harm him or destroy him.”

“Why does that matter?”

“It means you might be able to prove yourself against him after all, my lady.” Her knight said thoughtfully, holding a hand out to her. “It’s still early. If we leave now, we should be able to find a quiet place to practice.”

“Practice?” Bezel wondered, and reached for his hand. “But I can’t cast an incineration wave!”

“I wouldn’t ask you to.” Her knight said with a smile as he pulled her up to her feet. “I’m going to teach you something else.”

***

Royal Gardens

Sundown

Magic, Bezel knew as any mage did, required three elements; will, focus, and intent. Will was what gave a mage access to his power, which was drawn from within or from the living world. Focus was what shaped the mana into its form, and intent guided what a spell did.

“I’m not questioning your power.” Her knight explained, as she held up a hand glowing with blue light and he held up his own gauntlet, which was surrounded by a green nimbus streaked with faint traces of blue. “Your will is strong...stronger than most people’s, I think. And your focus is there, you channeled that wave, and you’re able to direct your magic to much smaller and delicate work. It’s the intent that’s tripping you up. You’re casting a spell that everyone says kills, and you don’t want to do that.” The knight flexed his hand, then dismissed his aura. “When I was assigned under Knight Commander Sloane in the RRD, he said that he knew mage knights of the lower colors on the spectrum who consistently defeated stronger goes. I wondered how that could be, and then I started doing extra training.” He smiled faintly, pain buried underneath, as he kept going. “While I had the chance, anyways.”

“One of the people you lost at Zolim taught you, didn’t they?” She asked, and her knight nodded once.

“She was a tough old bird, but she taught me more about fighting than three years of training at the Academy did in the weeks I worked under her.”

“I’m sorry.” Bezel whispered. He shook his head, and the distant expression faded.

“Thank you, my lady. But she would prefer that we spent our time getting you ready for tomorrow instead of reflecting on lives lost.”

And if that just didn’t irritate her again. “We are alone, you know. You don’t have to be so formal.”

The knight blinked. “But it wouldn’t be proper for me to take liberties with your name so often, my…”

Bezel groaned and stomped her shoe into the ground. “I have an entire castle full of people who want to suck up to me and use damned formalities like a shield! You’re my friend before you’re my knight, you...you…”

“Fine.” He chuffed, and ran a hand through his hair. “Honestly. I’m trying to help you here, and you’re trying to insult me.” Her knight’s eyes sparkled. “And you’re terrible at it.”

“Well, excuse me if I don’t get out as much as you do.” Bezel muttered. “Just call me Bezel. When it’s just us...I want someone to look at me as something other than a princess.”

He pursed his lips and nodded slowly. “All right, Bezel. Can we get back to it now?” 

She breathed in and out. Her knight was correct. They had come out here to try and spare herself the embarrassment and pain of another failure tomorrow. With a nod to her knight, she moved back into the pose he’d shown her.

He had done this when he was ten. Instinctively. He had killed men with it to save her.

“It should come to you as easy as breathing.” He said, stepping back away from her and preparing a shield spell in his hand. “Call the mana from within you. Let it bubble up. Picture in your mind what you want to do with it. You don’t want to kill with it, you just want them to stop, to go away.” 

Bezel did so, breathing in and out as she felt her mana swell up and move towards her hands.

“An incineration wave...it’s nothing but raw power, unleashed for destruction. But for what you want to do, you need to shape it. Condense it. Give it a blunt edge. Think of a sword. You can swing with the edge leading if you want to cut, to hurt, to kill. But...if you turn it…”

Bezel had seen too many swords in her life, and the analogy worked.

Blunt side out. Gather it up. 

“Don’t hold back.” Her knight went on, still calm, still patient. 

He believed she could do this. 

“Don’t let out slowly. Release it out all at once. Like you wanted to punch someone. Put it all into your fist...and throw it.”

Bezel drew in a breath, pulled her hand back, and swung it forward with a yell. Her blue aura darkened slightly from the shape of the spell, and to her amazement, it seemed almost solid as it charged for him, a flat-end first cylinder of magic that even surprised her knight.

He yelped in surprise and tried to increase the power to his shield. It wasn’t nearly enough. Bezel’s strike smashed through the barrier and hit him in his chestplate with the force of an enormous hammer, knocking him backwards into an uncontrolled tumble and roll that went on for fifteen feet before he finally lost enough momentum to collapse to a halt flat on his back.

“No!” Bezel shrieked, panicking as she dismissed her magic and ran towards him. “No, no, please no! Did I hurt you? I wasn’t trying to, I swear, I just…”

His sudden laughter interrupted her fearful episode and left her stunned. Her knight threw an arm across his face as he kept on laughing, loud and long and unrestrained.

“You...you just...knocked me ass over teakettle!” He got out between guffaws. Fear gave way to relief as Bezel slumped to her knees beside him, finally laughing in concert with her guardian after a few more seconds. When his laugh finally gave out, he pulled his arm away from his eyes and smiled up at her.

“You’re really okay?” She asked again, needing to know.

“Oh, I’m bruised and I’ll be a little sore tomorrow, but it’s nothing I need to see a healer for.” He reassured her, grinning like an idiot. The sheer amount of emotion on display calmed her, he wasn’t hiding behind pretenses any longer. “Bezel, that was...that was incredible. I’m so proud of you.”

“I just did what you said.” She mumbled, blushing under the praise. She reached down to the armor over his chest and traced the metal with her fingertips, searching for the dent she was sure she’d put there.

It was small, but it was there, not even visible. At least not in dim light. His eyes went wide and he didn’t blink as he watched her.

“I hurt you.” Bezel said softly, feeling the small divot in the metal. “Your armor…”

“It’s armor. It can take it.” He said, and slipped an armored glove off, then laid his own bare hand over her own, pressing it against his breastplate. “I wanted you to do that.”

Bezel drew in a shallow breath, not daring to move as their eyes met. He was holding her hand. He was holding her hand to his chest. “You wanted me to hurt you?” She whispered.

“No.” He said, still smiling confidently. “I wanted you to defeat me. And you did. You do that tomorrow, Bezel, and Instructor Drake won’t be able to say anything against you.” He patted her hand twice, then released it and started to sit up, and she fell backwards in blind panic. Her knight reacted, tried to catch her, but all he succeeded in doing was grabbing onto her and being pulled back down himself, with her lying on her back and staring up at him as he loomed over her body, neither of them daring to breathe.

He seemed just as stunned by the position with their legs tangled beneath them, and neither moved for a bit. Decorum finally won out as he blushed himself and pushed himself up and away from her. “Clumsy of me.” He muttered to himself, offering her a hand. “I apologize for my...clumsiness.”

“I’m fine.” She squeaked as he pulled her back up to her feet, and suddenly found she couldn’t look at him.

“Um.” He coughed. “Maybe we should...Practice.”

“Practice.” She repeated numbly. 

“Yes.” Her knight quickly agreed. “You need to be able to do that in the work of a few moments. If not even less time.” He dusted himself off, walked back several steps and snapped up a shield. “You knocked me down once, Bezel. Let’s see if you can’t do it again.”

She didn’t know what possessed her to say it, but a quick surge of courage made her smirk as she channeled her mana back into her hand. “I knocked you down twice , dear knight.”

“Oh ho ho.” He laughed, and she beamed wider. “Then make it three for three, my princess.”

***

Royal Training Hall

The Next Afternoon

Instructor Drake, if anything, saw Bezel as even less of a threat than he had the previous day. She took up her stance, he counted off fifteen paces away and positioned himself in the duelist’s posture with his dominant hand and shoulder leading out to diminish his cross-section, and held up his hand out towards her, palm open and away.

“Whenever you are ready, your highness. Cast an incineration wave, and try to hit me.”

Bezel drew in a breath and lit her aura up, blue light forming around her arms and fingers like a second skin. She glanced over her left shoulder to her knight, standing up against the wall on the side of the wooden-floored training room. He was standing at attention, but only just. There was no real stiffness to his posture, he was relaxed. When he saw her looking, the smallest smile came to his face.

He had faith in her. 

“You should prepare your shield, sir.” Bezel said to the veteran royal knight. “I do not want to harm you.” The simple ponytail of her red hair danced slightly between her shoulders as she spoke. 

The middle-aged man raised an eyebrow and smiled a little. “I should think you would be more concerned about your impending failure than my own condition, your highness. But I shall oblige you.” He crafted up a thin shield of blue magic, then gave her the slightest nod. “Whenever you are ready. Try to overpower my shield.”

Pull it into you. Gather it in your hand.

Bezel pointed her leading foot towards the man, just as her knight had showed her. She concentrated on the feel of the magic, the beat of her heart as the magic pulsed with it.

Pack it in. Make it into a fist.

She brought her glowing hand slightly behind her, breathed out loudly, breathed in loudly.

Don’t hold anything back. Release it all at once.

She shouted, punched her hand forward, and let go of the spell. Not an incineration wave. A Repulsion Blast , as her knight had decided to call it after being upended for the fourth time last night. 

Solern Drake had only a moment to realize that she wasn’t firing the droning, endless burning river of power that was an incineration wave before the shot hit. He tried to funnel more power into his shield, but just like her knight had discovered last night, a shield kept too weak was useless against her attack. He let out a cry as the blast struck him full in the chest and threw him across the room to smash backfirst against the wall.

All the other royal knights who had been training (And watching her while pretending not to look like it) stopped what they had been doing and stared as the man who could best any of them on a bad day with one arm tied behind his back slumped to the floor in a dazed heap, his fine silken shirt and leather jacket rumpled and marred. 

“Instructor!” One of the other royal knights cried out, and then they were racing towards him, moving to render assistance and healing spells. Bezel was a little alarmed at how easily she’d overpowered the man, but she couldn’t help a thin sliver of pride and vindictiveness to cut through it either. She looked back to her knight for reassurance.

He just smiled narrowly and nodded at her. 

It took a good minute before Solern Drake was back on his feet, red in the face, mad as a hornet, and glaring at Bezel like she had performed some unspeakable crime.

“ That was...that was not an incineration wave!” He snapped.

“No.” Bezel answered, shaking her head. “That was a Repulsion Blast .”

“You were meant to use an incineration wave, your highness!”

“No.” Bezel glared back at him, lifting her chin and for once not ashamed of relying on the training of royal presence and authority. Instructor Drake deserved to feel it, full blast. “You told me that I needed to overwhelm you with my magic. I have done that. Your lesson has been passed.” 

The man’s face twisted up into an ugly snarl, like he wanted to yell at her but knew he could not, because of her status. “Who taught you that?” He hissed. Bezel hesitated. “ Who. Taught. You. That!”

Bezel flinched and fell back a step, her royal mien melting in the face of the man’s unconscionable anger. 

“I did.” Her knight suddenly announced, and every eye in the room turned to look at him. The outlier. The royal knight who gave lip service to the uniform of the royal knights and remained an RRD Knight at heart. His gray-blue eyes were calm, but hard as he looked back at the instructor. “You were teaching her wrong. She’s different from your other students. What works for them wasn’t working for the princess.”

Unflinching in the face of a man who held a higher rank than he did. Unafraid, and always brave. Bezel stared back at her knight, and found it hard to look away. Even now, here, in Drake’s domain, he defended her, uncaring about the slings and arrows that would come his way.

And they did come.

“You?” Drake bit the word off, and he dusted off his uniform and bore down on her knight with one angry footstep after another until he towered over the adolescent. “A fledgling mage knight, barely out of basic training and squiredom? You presumed to think you were worthy of teaching royalty?”

“You weren’t.” Her knight countered. “Someone had to.”

It happened fast, and yet Bezel knew that her knight had let it happen. Drake’s face was a rictus of rage, and he drew off one of his duelist’s gloves and slapped the boy hard across the face with it. Bezel gasped along with the rest of the training room, her hand rising to cover her mouth. 

The elder royal knight had just challenged her knight to an honor duel . 

Her knight worked his jaw around a little, clearly feeling the sting of it. He wasn’t looking at her any longer, but she could see stormclouds gathering behind his eyes.

He ripped off his gauntlet and smashed it across the man’s cheekbone with the hard sound of metal striking flesh, and Instructor Drake fell back, gasping in pain and bleeding openly. “I accept.” Her knight growled out. “Heal yourself first. As the challenger, you name the place and time. As the challenged, I name the terms of the duel.”

“Here. Now. ” Solern Drake hissed, cupping his face as another one of the royal knights raced up to address the injury. “And if you lose, you will surrender your position in the royal knights as the guardian of her royal highness, Princess Bezel Lantea.” The declaration made Bezel’s face pale.

Her knight huffed once, not even flinching at it. “Done. And when I win, you will write a note to the Mage King declaring that the princess has exceeded your skill level. Your Second?”

“I will be his Second.” One of the other royal knights declared, racing up to stand beside his instructor with fire in his eyes.

“Duggins. I should have known.” Her knight said flatly, clearly knowing the older boy and clearly not impressed by him.

“And who will be your Second, I wonder?” The other knight sneered at him.

“I need no Second. I fight my own battles. Unlike some people.” Her knight countered. 

“Ha! The regulations of an honor duel require a Second.” The other knight named Duggins laughed. “Without one, you forfeit automatically.” That finally did make her knight flinch, and she quickly scanned the room for anyone who might volunteer for it.

Not a one did. Not a one so much as smiled or called out a word of encouragement for her knight. He stood alone, and Bezel’s heart sank as she realized what that meant.

He had always stood alone in this place. He had always been an outcast among them. But he stayed anyways, in spite of being ostracized. He stayed for one reason.

He stayed for her.

“I will be his Second.” She blurted out, caught up in a wave of rash impulse that she didn’t dare silence before it ended. To that, the gasps were even louder than when Drake had slapped her knight in the face and started the charade. Her Knight turned and looked at her with the same surprise, but there was a faint glimmer of something else there as well. Something she didn’t recognize, and lacked the time to try and identify.

Drake’s face, so red before, blanched. “You...your highness, that is hardly appropriate…!”

“Not a one of you would stand beside your brother in arms to fulfill the terms of a duel that is being forced on him. If you will not, then by the honor of my family’s name, I will.” She countered, ignoring Drake and staring down the room with as much fire as she could muster, in spite of the wild panicked beating of her heart. This is crazy, this is crazy, this is crazy…

“I have my Second then.” Her knight recovered, pulling the focus off of her and back onto himself. She breathed out shakily once the eyes were gone from her. “Here are the terms of the duel. Blunted blades, no armor, no lethal magics. The victor will be the one who renders his opponent unconscious.”

“Agreed.” Drake snapped back, motioning to one of the other knights in the room who quickly moved to one of the weapons racks. “I will admit, I have been looking forward to this opportunity for a long time now, boy. A knight from Below, taking a place of honor as a dedicated guardian for a member of the royal family? It grates against everything I stand for. I will enjoy taking you to task and sending you packing back to the RRD rats you scurried out from underneath.” 

Her knight didn’t respond to Drake, but instead walked over to Bezel and breathed in and out, trying to control himself.

“I’m sorry, I...I didn’t mean for this to happen.” She apologized, because it could all go so wrong after this. Drake was the most skilled duelist in the royal knights, it was why he served as the instructor to the royal family. 

“They’ve wanted an excuse for weeks, my lady.” He shrugged. “If it hadn’t been this, he would have found a different reason. I just wish you hadn’t needed to be my Second.”

She swallowed. “Do you not want me to be?”

“I don’t want a Second.” He admitted, smiling sadly. “But if I must have one, I’m glad it’s you.”

“Tell me what to do.” She said, holding on to her courage and wishing for the first time in her life she was wearing more layers than just her training outfit. She was certain her skin was glowing under the dark fabric, and if he saw it…

He shook his head, and after slipping his gauntlet back on, lightly touched her arms. “As my second, you are to observe the duel carefully and make sure that the terms of it are not violated by either party. In the event that they are, you are to declare foul, point it out for all the witnesses in attendance, and call for an end to the match.”

“Blunted blades. No lethal magic. Fighting until unconsciousness.” She repeated the terms, dizzy at what sort of a fight it portended. 

He nodded, his short, curly dark hair ruffled up in spikes over his head. “The other royal knights will create a shield around us for the duel, to contain any magic blasts that might splash outwards. In a standard duel, you would be within your rights to intercede should my opponent continue to fight after violating the terms, but I don’t want you in here if things go wrong. I want you standing outside of the shield where I know you will be safe.”

“I’m not helpless.” Bezel insisted. “Why would he attack me?”

“Because he’s mad with rage, and angry people don’t care about who they hurt.” He said, pain passing over his expression from the ghosts of his past. “Please, Bezel.” 

It was the sound of her name, the honorifics missing, that made her weaken. “It’s not fair.”

“Don’t get mad over the things you can’t change, princess.” He replied. “Do you trust me?”

She blinked at the question. “With my life.” She answered back, meaning every word. And given how he smiled briefly, he knew it too.

He stepped back away from her, walking back to the center of the training hall where Drake and his Second were waiting with blunted swords in hand. As Drake and her knight watched, Duggins drew one sword across his bare arm, reversed it, and drew it again to show that the blade was indeed dulled. He repeated it with the second sword, then slipped end caps on the points to blunt them completely. Now they would be swinging steel without an edge; still enough to break bones and inflict blunt force trauma, not enough to pierce the skin or make the other bleed out. 

“Raise the shields.” Duggins ordered, and the room filled with yellow and green light, a mishmash of shields that blurred and blended together for a color somewhere close to dried, sunbleached grass. Inside of it, her knight, Instructor Drake, and Drake’s Second remained. Bezel stood on the outside of the wall with a hand pressed against the blended shield spells, her fingernails scratching against them. 

Duggins stepped to the back of the space, and her knight and Drake squared off and raised their swords in salute.

“No lethal spells. First to unconsciousness loses.” Her knight repeated. Drake snarled and charged in. 

Her knight raised his sword and stood his ground.

***

At the first clash of blades, Bezel wanted to scream. Drake looked like he was out for blood, and her knight nearly buckled under the mature knight’s downblow until he dodged to the side, shoved the blade away with his own and followed up with a concussive blast of magic that forced the duelist into retreat. Just a few paces, but it was enough for her knight to roll his shoulders and ready himself. “You’re fast.” He said in a quiet drawl that was full of the tension he didn’t voice. “I’ve seen faster.”

“Oh, have you now?” Drake spat back, and his blue aura flared to life, concentrating around his feet. Her knight summoned up his own and Drake lunged again, moving at thrice the speed they had before and displacing air as he did. The instructor’s blade came like a scythe from multiple directions, and Bezel’s eyes goggled.

The Knight deflected every one without shifting his stance once or moving a step, then slammed his free hand forward and struck Drake square in his center mass, releasing a burst of power that knocked the other man back and almost made him lose his footing. It did leave his shirt smoking, a hole clean through it, and the skin underneath reddened from a welt.

Bezel gasped in wonder. The other royal knights gasped in shock. Drake, the wind knocked out of him, choked for air. Her knight just stared at the older man.

“Surrender, Drake.” He said. “You aren’t going to win this.”

“Like...hell!” Drake snarled, using the precious time to get air back in his bellows. “I will not...stand for some upstart Mage Knight from Below that is more than half my age betraying the honor of the duel in this way!”

“Honor?” Her knight rumbled, a dark sound that finally revealed the rage he’d been holding onto. Bezel shivered at the sound of it, at the beast inside of the boy. “You want to speak of honor? I doubt it. You’re just upset that I don’t fight like you do.”

“It is not the way of a true knight! ” Drake shouted, and came after him again, unleashing a salvo of homing bolts that finally sent her knight running. But he didn’t just run on the floor. Conjuring a shield in his free hand, her knight dashed across the floor at augmented speed, then leapt up and ran along the side of the shield wall surrounding the duel as staccato bursts of aquamarine radiance smashed into the floor behind him and tore up the floor. The rest he either batted away with his blade or used his shield to defend against, and when Drake finally caught up to him with a swift slash, he jumped off of the wall and somersaulted behind the man, twisting his sword over his shoulder to blindly deflect the horizontal slash that followed. Then he turned, knocked the sword away, and smashed his shield spell into the man’s face hard enough to break his nose and leave him dazed. While Drake reeled from the hit, her knight kicked him back against the wall of shield spells...then drove the crossguard of his blunted sword, the full weight of a punch behind it, into the man’s dominant forearm.

The sound of breaking bone rang out like a bell, and the scream of agonizing pain that followed was even more so. Drake crumbled to his knees, clutching his right arm with his left while his sword clattered to the floor. 

Her knight calmly jumped backwards to the center of the pavilion, sword pointed down at his side and stared at Drake, then repeated his words from before. “Surrender. Your sword arm is broken.”

“Never.” Drake grimaced, letting his shattered arm dangle freely as he reached for his blunted blade with a trembling left hand. “You’re no knight. You’re a brute, a barbarous Below-er! With blade and with magic, that is how true Mage Knights duel! You fight without honor, boy!”

Bezel’s hands trembled as she watched it all, and she clasped them together to keep them from shaking too visibly. She caught sight of a glimmer of magic in Drake’s sleeve, the sign that he had not yet given up.

Don’t lower your guard , she thought desperately, hoping that her knight would see it. 

“I don’t think any of you actually remember what that word means.” Her knight mused, walking slowly in a semicircle in front of Drake as he struggled back to his feet. “But I do.” His head turned slightly to the side, to Drake’s Second. “Knight Duggins. Your primary is incapacitated. I offer him the chance to surrender without further pain and submit to the terms to the duel.”

Duggins was clearly shaken at the skill and ferocity her knight had demonstrated. “Sir Drake, you should…”

“NO!” Drake shouted, and his aura flared to life, going from a soft blue to the darker hues of cerulean. “I refuse to submit to someone who uses underhanded methods!”

“Who do you fight for?” Her knight asked the injured fellow.

“For my honor, for the honor of the royal knights, for the royal family!”

“That’s why you lost.” Her knight growled out. “You don’t train hard enough. You don’t have enough to fight for. If you had been down in Zolim like I was, you would have died in minutes.”

“Wait. Zolim?” Drake’s eyes widened, and everyone stilled at that. Bezel bit her lip. It had not been common knowledge, or spoken of publicly that he was the lone knight to survive who had been in the heart of that event. She had done her best to keep it quiet when asked, even to the point of belittling her knight to others when asked about it. “That Code Violet...That was you?” Drake went on, scowling. “Impossible. You’re just a boy.”

“I was there. I learned from the best. You know how to duel, Drake. I know how to fight . Last chance. Surrender.” Her knight raised his sword up, pointing the blunted end right at his opponent. “You already require hospitalization. Don’t make it worse on yourself.”

But Instructor Drake rocked on his heels, and funneled his magic into his sword. Bezel instantly recognized the enchantment on it; a sharpening augmentation.

“Watch out!” She screamed as Drake rocketed for her knight, his sword’s dulled edge gleaming with magic that made it as sharp as any sword ever was. “He’s…”

If he tried to block it, Drake would slice his sword in half and then gut him for his trouble. If he summoned a shield spell, the blade would eat through it. 

Her knight did neither, because he didn’t fight like the royal knights. He didn’t fight to demonstrate technique or to be flashy. He just ended the fight.

He ducked out of the way of the first blow, rolled from the second, slashed up wildly and had his sword sliced in half with the third. But it bought him the time he needed to piledrive into the injured man, grab him by his good arm, and use leverage and torque to flip him completely over while dislocating his shoulder at the same time.

He was finally breathing hard after the exertion of lifting a man close to seventy pounds heavier than he was, but it had the desired result. The fight was well and truly ended.

“You attempted to use a lethal spell after being offered the chance of surrender. Twice.” Her knight growled at the barely conscious man, now sporting two broken arms. “By the terms of the duel, your services with Princess Bezel are no longer required. I will be handling her training from now on.” 

Drake’s eyes went dull, and he passed out at last from the pain. Her knight just stared at him for a few moments, then turned and addressed the Second. “Duggins. Get him to the hospital.” Then he turned, eyes still full of thunder, and walked for Bezel. The shield spells that had been layered around them dissipated one after another, clearing the way.

Bezel knew that he was skilled, he’d survived the Zolim Incident, after all. But knowing that he was skilled, and seeing it being displayed so clearly were two different things. 

Everyone else, men and boys just a little older than he was, all stepped back and cleared him a wide path as he walked on. She could see the fear in their eyes. All their pride about being royal knights had just been shattered in minutes. Her knight checked his sword and its scabbard one last time as he rejoined her, then nodded. “Your lessons are done, your highness. Where do you need to go next?”

“I…” Bezel croaked, wincing and coughing to collect her thoughts. “Escort me back to my room, knight. I have studying to do.”

“As you wish.” They left the training hall behind and made their way back to her chambers. The entire time, she was sure she was a bundle of raw nerves, held together only by the need to keep up her idyllic appearance and his presence. 

As soon as they were in her rooms and the door was shut, she whirled on him. “You...you just…”

He seemed sad. “Are you afraid of me now?”

“What?” Bezel blinked. “No! No, never.” Her answer was quick and horrified. “Did you think I could hate you?”

“I saw how you looked during the fight. You were terrified.”

“ For you!” She snapped, pounding a fist on his chestplate. “Please, never do that again! He could have hurt you!”

“No. He really couldn’t have.” Her knight said flatly. “I’ve faced exenos and a thing from beyond the Veil that thrived on Lies and pain. Compared to them, he’s just a bully.”

She pressed her forehead against his chest and put her arms around him. “You don’t have to do that for me. You don’t have to defend me from the likes of them.”

“I do.” 

“Why?” Bezel whispered. Why do you care so much? What do you feel for me?

“I am your knight.” He answered with a sigh. “My life is yours.”

“I can’t believe the royal knights are so...so horrible. Not a one of them moved to help you. I’ve trapped you here in a place that hates you.”

His hand came to her back and gently stroked it, and she shivered from the feel of his fingers through the thin cloth of her training uniform. “It’s not so bad.” He reasoned.

“Did you mean it?” She asked him.

“What?”

“That you...that you would train me.” 

“If that is your wish.”

“I...I don’t want to kill.” She said hesitantly. “But I need to know how to be better. How to protect myself.”

“I can teach you that.” He agreed. “But you might want to get changed for dinner first.”

She reluctantly separated from him, embarrassed after the fact. Before she turned to leave her parlor for her bedroom, she looked up at him. “I didn’t...Back there. None of them knew had an idea that you were at Zolim. That you were the one who stopped it. That isn’t why I wanted you to be my knight, you know.”

He smiled at her confession. “I know. But it was an answer that would get them off my back for a while.”

She shifted her feet, eyes darting between his face and the floor. “I’m...I’m glad you’re here.”

“I don’t want to be anywhere else.” He said with a shrug, and she turned and walked fast for her bedroom and a fresh change of clothes.

It was getting harder to hide the blushes she felt.

***

Things were quieter after that. True to his word, and likely due to the pressuring of the royal knight that had been his Second, Instructor Solern Drake did in fact pen a letter to her father stating that she had exceeded his expectations and would in the future be taking lessons on magic use and self-defense from a different tutor. The letter failed to specify who that tutor was. What training she asked for, her knight gave her out in the gardens, and he placed a high focus on endurance, basic conditioning, and a more varied regimen of techniques beyond magic. Beyond that, she found that the hole in her schedule freed up time for her to continue her experiments in artificing, a hobby that interested nobody in the palace save for her knight.

But there were strange days as well. Every second end-day of the week, her knight was allowed the day off, and Bezel would seek him out, hoping to join him in a relaxing activity, or a trip to the park, or something equally innocent and enjoyable. But both times, he had slipped out of the barracks and disappeared. After he disappeared the first time, she had asked him what he’d been up to, and he cryptically stated that he had been running errands . The second time, she was a little less polite about it, informing him that she would have liked to go with him to a park or anywhere else. He’d felt badly about it, but again insisted that he had been taking care of something important, something that had to be done. His sincerity had mollified her, but her curiosity only grew.

The third time that his day of rest approached, Bezel prepared for it. She set a magical alarm so she could wake up earlier in the morning, before the sun even came up. Dismissing her lady’s maid last evening, she had told the woman to take the morning off. It gave her the freedom to carry out her plan, but it did keep her from wearing any of her more complicated garments. For lack of anything more subtle, Bezel settled on her training uniform, a set of soft leather boots, and a vest with enough pockets to store money and a few of the trinkets she had been working on recently. Tying her hair back in a loose tail that would have made her lady’s maid gasp in horror, Bezel slipped on a dark purple cloak with a hood that she used when it was raining and tiptoed through the corridors of the castle towards the royal knight’s barracks. Upon reaching it in the castle’s north wing, almost situated on the lowest level, she ducked into the shadows of a cleaning closet’s doorway and waited for her knight to emerge.

  She had anticipated his departure by only five minutes. When the door to the barracks opened, her knight stepped out without any of his usual armor or adornments. Instead, he wore only a loose shirt of knitted plant fibers, his own leather boots, and comfortable though well-laundered and faded leggings. Of his office, he kept only his sword, tied to his belt in its usual place. He glanced once around the hall and Bezel ducked deeper into the shadows, trying to make herself look as small as she ever had in her life. Whatever he was looking for, her knight didn’t find it, and he nodded to himself in satisfaction before walking in the opposite direction. Towards the kitchens, Bezel realized, as she followed a few moments later after he turned a corner.

Trying to keep up with him was a delicate balancing act, and she was glad that she had worn soft-soled boots. His crisp cadence, even quieted by the early hour, gave her a signal to follow and muffled her own presence. She caught sight of him slipping through the servant’s entrance as she made the last turning, and quickly hedged over, pressing her ear to the door. Nothing but muffled voices, and she risked cracking it open to hear more clearly.

“...all business, aren’t you? And without so much as a how do ye do?” The airy voice of a woman with a thick Eurosian brogue seeping into her Atlantean was the first thing Bezel overheard. 

“I’m in a hurry is all, Moira.”

“Oh, aye? A hurry, is it? On your day off, when you’re dressed like that? You’re not going anywhere to start trouble or finish it, so you can linger around and tell dear Aunt Moira what you’ve been up to.”

“You’re not related to me, you know.” Her knight said, and Moira must have smacked him with something, because he yelped right afterwards. 

“Now don’t be sassin’ your Aunt Moira, lad. You’ve not even grown any fuzz on that chin of yours, so until you do, you be respectful, d’ye hear?”

“...Yes, Miss Moira.” He sullenly replied, and Bezel smiled into her hand to keep from giggling. She didn’t know this woman, had never seen her, but she liked her already.

“Good. Now that that’s settled, I’ve your parcels here as usual. A bit more than you asked for last time, though. Are you sure you can carry it all?”

“I’ll manage.” Her knight said, and Bezel wondered at what he was actually doing. Was he making off with food from the kitchens? Why? Bezel had heard stories of servants being sacked and punished for theft and malfeasance; stolen silverware, bottles of fine wine being walked off with, jewelry missing. The punishments were typically severe.

If he was doing anything like that...She had to stop him, and stop it now. She couldn’t bear to see him arrested and carted off to suffer hard labor Below like others had in the past. She would save him from himself if she had to!

Why didn’t you tell me you needed money…?

He whirled about in surprise as Bezel pushed the kitchen door open and walked in, a plump middle-aged woman with graying fair hair sizing her up as well.

“I’ve finally caught you, it seems.” Bezel said airily, pulling her hood back and glaring at her knight with her green eyes. She looked between the woman (Moira) and her knight, and crossed her arms. “So this is where you go on your days off, my knight.”

“Princess Bezel.” Her knight said, shocked but not looking panicked by any measure. If anything, he seemed exasperated. “What are you doing here? This is hardly the place for royalty.”

“Oh, stuff it.” Bezel muttered back, and Moira gasped a little. She sighed. “Are you stealing?”

“No, never my lady!” Moira gasped and quickly denied the charge. “He never takes food that is to be used by the castle, he only takes the scraps, leftovers, and the items that we’d have to throw out anyways!”

She breathed a little easier at that, and she looked at her knight, whose face had darkened.

“You followed me.” He said, working his jaw. She nodded. “You think that I am...what, exactly?”

“You said it was errands. But what errands would require you taking kitchen scraps and expired food? I don’t want to see you lose your job over a misunderstanding. You are my guardian, and I find that I prefer you in the role over any other Mage Knight.” She answered sadly. “What secret are you keeping from me? Are you selling the castle’s food for profit? Perhaps splitting it with Moira here?”

Bezel had seen him angry at others before, but she had never seen it directed at her. Her knight just stared at her, his face twisted between hurt and fury in a combination that left her wanting to apologize. But for what?

“...No. I’m not selling anything.” He spat the words out like hot coals. 

She looked away. “Are you...is there a girl out in Atlantis you visit? One you take food to, perhaps?”

“Do you think I have the energy or means to find and date another woman when I’m stuck with you almost every day?” Her knight shot back, and the hot words dug into her skin. Moira gasped.

“You! You can’t say that to her, she’s the blooming Princess!”

“Yes. She is.” Her knight growled out, and the rumble from his chest pulled her wide eyes back to him. “And I thought she trusted me.”

The words stung at her. “I do trust you!” Bezel cried out, walking towards him. “You are my knight! I trust you with my life!”

“But you don’t trust me with my secrets.” He accused her, and took a step back before she came within arm’s reach.

His reserve stopped her cold. “I…” She started, blinking widely. “I didn’t think there were any secrets between us.” She said in a quavering voice.

Her knight stared at her for several long seconds, then sighed loudly. “You’re going to be a pain about this, aren’t you? Do you really want to know where I go on my days off?”

“Yes.” She said, grasping at the opportunity.

“Do you ask because you’re just curious, or do you ask in earnest?” He asked her seriously. 

She pressed her hand to his chest, and felt his steady heartbeat under her hand. It picked up in tempo as she kept her fingers there, and they stared at one another for several long seconds.

Moira broke the moment with a clap of her hands. “Honestly, look at you two. Princess, you’re not carrying on with some secret love affair with this scruffy, lovable oaf, are you?”

Bezel’s face burned hotly, and she ripped her hand away, stepping back and shaking her head wildly. “No! Of course not!”

Moira just laughed. “Why not? I would, if he were my age!” Bezel gawked at the woman, and Moira just laughed harder. “Aah, you two. Couple o’ dearies.”

Her knight wasn’t immune to Moira’s teasing either, and he was blushing as brightly as she was, Bezel thought. He cleared his throat twice, then looked at the ground. “If you want to come with me, Bezel, you’ll have to change. Where we’re headed, you don’t want to be dressed like royalty.”

“Ach, leave it to me, lad.” Moira said, sweeping over to Bezel and resting her worn hands on her shoulders, pushing her to another door. “She’s about the same size as me dear daughter was. I think I’ve still got some of her old things tucked away in my room.”

“What?” Bezel squeaked, still embarrassed. “No, you don’t have to, it’s all right, I can go back and change into…”

“Something that’d still make you stand out like a sore thumb where he’s headed, love.” Moira insisted, pushing her along. “I’d normally be agog at sending royalty out unescorted, but...Well. You’ll be going with him, so I think he’ll protect you.”

He always has, Bezel thought, and wondered what she would learn about her knight today.

***

The clothes Moira had loaned to Bezel were not perfectly tailored, and were loose in the chest and tight around her hips. Moira’s daughter had apparently been an early bloomer, and she adjusted them as they walked on. Her bright red hair was tucked underneath a bonnet, and in place of her soft boots, she now was wearing hard-soled shoes that pinched her toes slightly. They were coarser than anything she’d ever worn before, but they were remarkably close to the clothes that her knight was dressed in. They each carried a handled cloth bag full of wrapped and sealed parcels, walked out into the streets of Atlantis as the sun rose in silence, and stuck to the quieter backroads and alleys. 

They approached a checkpoint staffed by members of the city guard, and Bezel tensed up as they neared. Her knight leaned over and nudged her elbow with his own. “Act casual. Don’t say anything.” He said softly, then waved to the guards at the checkpoint, making sure his sword was visible. 

  Taking note of it, the guards seemed to recognize him and waved him on. “Bringing company with you this trip, eh?” One of them asked lightly.

“More than usual to carry.” Her knight explained, not once breaking stride. Bezel kept her head down and followed, sure that at any moment she would be recognized as her heart beat wildly.

The checkpoint guards never gave her a second glance, and she sighed in relief once they were on the other side and out of earshot of them. Her knight turned and looked over at her, smiling slightly. “See? You did fine.”

“I just know that I’m going to get in trouble for this.”

“You didn’t have to come, princess.” He reminded her calmly. “You’re the one butting in on my one day off I get every two weeks.”

She winced. “I...You’re right. I’m sorry.”

He nodded once, turned his head back forward and kept on walking. Bezel took the time to examine their surroundings in the early morning light, and steadily, she began to notice that the neighborhoods changed. They had passed from the inner circle of Atlantis to the middle ring, where the middling castes of artisans, guildworkers, and others of their rank stayed. The mansions disappeared and were replaced by houses, well-taken care of but clearly of lesser cost and value, made from less pricey materials and compacted into smaller areas. This wasn’t the route that had led to the park where they first met. This was leading somewhere else. 

“...Where are we going, sir knight?” She asked him carefully, wincing as her shoe pinched at her foot again. The smooth roads of the inner district had been replaced with cobblestone streets, and were harder to tread on.

“We’re making a delivery.” He said, walking on. “Try to keep up. We’ve got about another twenty minutes’ walk ahead of us yet.”

“But we’ve already walked so far!” She protested. 

“Are you scared? You want to turn back?” He asked, and held out his other arm. “Promise never to follow me on my day off again, hand over your bag, and we’ll never speak of this again.”

Bezel wasn’t entirely sure, but it felt like a test. She puffed her cheeks out and shook her head. “No. I said I was coming with you, so that’s what I’m doing.”

He smirked at her. “You complain a lot. Is that because you’re royalty or because you’re a girl?”

“Why, you…!” She huffed. “Stop teasing me!”

“Stop making it so easy.” He replied, and started walking again. “Come on, Bezel.” Her irritation at him helped to spur her forwards, and she stopped thinking about her shoes.

She had more to worry about after they passed a second checkpoint, and found themselves in a far more rundown neighborhood with streets made of packed dirt and gravel. The houses became smaller and more dilapidated, factories and workhouses took up more space, and then at last, there were shacks. Everything was dirty and in need of repair, but there were no signs that such work was forthcoming.

It was appalling to look at.

“Where are we?” Bezel whispered. This didn’t feel like Atlantis.

“The outer district. The portion of Atlantis where the lower castes, the workers who work in the factories and refineries can afford to stay.” He said, still unfazed. “Why?”

“I...how can a place like this exist? Here? On Atlantis?!” Bezel stammered. “We’re not Below! Atlantis is supposed to be the beacon of hope for humanity!”

He came to a stop, and she stumbled to a halt to keep from crashing into him. Then he turned and looked at her, and something deeper than usual hung in his blue-gray eyes.

“Did you really think everyone lived in castles?” Her knight asked her softly. “You wanted to see where I went on my days off, princess. I gave you the chance to turn back. But you’re here now. So come on. What are you really upset about?”

“I don’t know.” She muttered. “But this is wrong.”

“Was it ever right?” He asked, looking around with old eyes. 

“How did you know this was here?” She asked him. Her knight always knew so much, but this was one time she needed to know how. How did he know that a place like this existed, when she didn’t? When she had never been told about it?

He breathed in almost silently. “I grew up around here.” He explained, and started walking again.

Bezel stood frozen for several seconds, letting that tumble in her mind. 

Her knight had lived in this squalor. Had been born in it. 

She didn’t know whether to cry or scream.

***

They found themselves in front of a large one-story building that advertised itself as a ‘shelter’ and walked inside, where they were met by a tired looking man and woman in their early 30’s that greeted them warmly. The knight quickly introduced them as Samiel and Willys Geene. 

“We’re so glad you came back.” Samiel said, shaking her knight’s hand warmly and taking the first sack of food. “And you brought a friend this time!”

“Hello there, dear.” Willys Geene cooed, taking the bag from Bezel and setting it down before pulling the girl in for a warm, squishy hug. “What’s your name?”

“She’s Ella.” Her knight said in a casual tone as she froze to think of one that wouldn’t immediately betray her true identity. “She just started working in the kitchens at the castle. I needed a little extra help carrying things, so I invited her to come along.”

“Oh, wonderful!” Willys beamed, giving Bezel’s cheek a wet kiss that made her squeak in surprise. “We could always use more help. You are staying to help, aren’t you?” She asked with hopeful eyes.

“Of course she is. I’m staying after all, so she is as well. Aren’t you, Ella ?” Her knight said, pointedly enunciating her false name.

Bezel blushed under all the attention. “Um. Yes. Of course.”

“Wonderful!” Willys beamed, releasing the girl and grabbing the bag of food again. “So, are you skilled at preparing meals?”

“Uh, not really?” Bezel stammered, trailing along behind the woman. “I’ve just started, and they...they haven’t exactly let me do anything like that.”

“Well, now’s a perfect time to learn, I think, Miss Ella.” 

The next two hours were a riot of activity and preparation; her knight and the husband Samiel set up tables and readied trays and dishes while Willys and Bezel unwrapped the food that they had brought from the castle and got to work in preparing a meal. In the end, they made several trays worth of sauteed and mixed vegetables baked into a maize slurry, a beef and chicken noodle stew, and a mess of fruit that they cooked down into a loose jam to be spread over a cracker crumble crust for tart slabs. Bezel did her best to help, and in fact had better luck with slicing up vegetables than she would have thought. Her time in runecrafting and artificing with sharp knives and etching into stones paid off, but the finer techniques of cooking eluded her. She was almost positive that if Willys hadn’t had to watch her every step of the way, the woman could have prepared a much finer meal, even with the scraps brought from the castle. Willys still pronounced the meal a success when her knight and Willy’s husband came back into the kitchen to check on their progress. Bezel was tired and exhausted after the work, and she felt the need to pose a question.

“What’s all this for?” She said. “Are you having a party today?”

“A party?” Samiel frowned, looking over to Willys. “No. No, nothing like that. This is a shelter , Miss Ella.” 

“The people who live here in the slums, they don’t always have enough money to buy the things they need.” Willys explained. “For some families, that means that sometimes they go hungry.” Bezel’s eyes shot wide at that, and she couldn’t help but look over to her knight and wonder.

He didn’t meet her eyes, and she knew.

“Some mothers have to try and make ends meet on their own. Some parents throw their money away on frivolities. The ones who end up suffering for it are the people who are powerless.” Samiel explained. “That’s why we’re here. These people need the help, and we can give it to them.” He smiled sadly. “I only wish we could do more. Right now, we can only manage the odd meal, and give a few people a warm place to sleep when they lose their home. And those are the lucky ones. The unlucky ones get sent Below.”

Bezel sucked in a sharp breath at that.

Oh.

“The biggest problem is that nobody looks out for each other.” Willys murmured, patting her husband’s arm. “We live on Atlantis. The gem of all of Terra, and yet people struggle for scraps. That’s why my husband and I started this shelter. If you want to make a difference, you have to make it yourself. When your royal knight here found us, he immediately volunteered to help us with these meal days. We don’t see him often, but he’s made a world of difference.” Willys squeezed her hand. “I don’t know if he’s seeing anyone, dear, but you might want to get him interested while you can. He’s going to be a real catch!”

Bezel had never felt so guilty, or so ashamed of herself as she did then. She’d never gone hungry. She’d never slept rough. She’d never had to wonder where her next meal had come from, or if she would slip away in her sleep from hunger or illness.

Her knight had. Her knight had faced every pain imaginable, and yet he still smiled and protected her. He still stayed by her side.

At last, it came time to serve the meal. Over two hundred people passed through, most at least twice until the food ran out, and Bezel stared out into a sea of faces she’d never imagined before, had never considered. Only her lessons in etiquette kept the mask of a placid smile on her face as she dished out the stew one ladleful at a time, standing next to her knight who did the same with a more honest smile. Some looked malnourished, others were just gaunt. Some looked ill. The worst faces were the ones of children who passed through the line and stared at the food like it was the first decent meal they’d seen in days.

These were her subjects. These were her people. Suffering. 

At the end of it, she had nothing left to give, not even a comforting smile. Pale and nauseous and hurting, Bezel stumbled out of the shelter’s back door, slumped back against the brick wall, sank to the ground, and cried her eyes out. She was still there when the knight appeared and stood over her, watching her with an apology writ plain on his face.

Bezel sniffed and wiped at her eyes with the sleeve of her borrowed servant’s dress. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Some things you need to see for yourself to believe.” He said quietly. 

Bezel nodded at the truth in that. She would have never believed it, even from his mouth, if she hadn’t seen the squalor and ruin with her own eyes. Her knight sighed and sank down to the ground beside her, and she immediately leaned into his side, needing a hug and reassurance. He obliged to pull his arm around her shoulder and hold her close, and she rested her head on his shoulder.

“I didn’t know.” She confessed. “I didn’t know.”

“Now you do.”

“You...you lived like this. You suffered like they are. How did you keep smiling?”

“I had my mother.” He said.

“But you two were sent to Below. And she died.”

“By then...I had you.” He added, and she sobbed again and clutched a fistful of his shirt as she buried her face into him. She could feel him reach into his shirt, and a moment later came the snap of a metal clasp.

“You’re so brave. Don’t ever stop being brave.” The voice of his mother, taken from Bezel’s memories, sounded off again.

She didn’t feel brave at all. But he was so brave. And so strong.

I don’t deserve you.

“This is wrong.” Bezel muttered, finally done crying into his shirt. She sniffled and looked at him. “How can my father and all the advisors under him not see this? How can they let this happen?”

Her knight shrugged, and she knew that he had thought of it as well. Thought of it, and then…

“Don’t get angry over the things you can’t change.” He said, sagely. She’d heard him say it before, but grief and pain for her people, for him, made her unwilling to simply accept the pat answer for once. She jerked to her feet and glared, fire returning to her and burning freely.

“And what about the things I can change?!” She demanded. 

Her knight paused at that, considering the question. He finally broke out into a smile, stood up, and nodded at her. “Then change them, Bezel.”

“I will.”

“Good.”

They stood there, looking at one another, Bezel wiping her tears away, the knight dry-eyed but resolved. 

If you want to make a difference, you have to make it yourself.

“Are you still glad you insisted on tagging along today, Ella?” Her knight inquired. 

“Yes.” She replied, meaning it.

Her knight’s eyes darkened, held a hand out to her. “Do you trust me?”

“With my life.” Bezel said, and slipped hers into his.

***

Four Days Later

Bezel had slipped out of her room, beating her knight’s approach, and made her way down into her workshop. It was a small space off of the main royal alchemist’s laboratory that the king had given to her as a gift for her 12th birthday, and lacked the bubbling beakers and the sting of noxious chemicals. What it did have in abundance were polished stones, a bookshelf thick with texts and treatises on runecrafting and spell-forging, scraps of metal and glass and latticed manafilaments and half a dozen projects in various stages of development. 

She consulted her notes and the readings taken on previous days, then examined the output readings from the newest device in question and winced. Uneven mana collection; leyline interference? Need to duplicate experiment Below, confirm results.

Her door opened, and Bezel glanced over her shoulder to see her knight stick his head inside, looking a little alarmed. He immediately relaxed when she smiled back at him. 

“Good morning, your highness.”

“Good morning, sir knight.” She said, and finished writing out her note. “Come inside and close the door, would you? It keeps the smell from the alchemists out.”

He did so, and there was a faint accusatory note in his voice when he spoke. “You were not in your rooms when I came this morning. You could have told me last night you were coming down here.”

“I am capable of wandering around this castle unsupervised, no matter what my father thinks.” She pointed out, and filed the document away. “Grab my cloak, would you?”

Her knight turned to the coatrack beside the door, speaking even as he retrieved her gear. “What are you working on today, Bezel?”

“I’m trying to run an experiment to see if mana absorption from the living earth can be standardized.” She explained. “Some mages have the habit of drawing more than is necessary, while others aren’t able to draw enough as quickly as they need to. This would be a...well, I suppose capacitor would be a fitting term for it.” She held up the square-shaped mishmash of etched stone, conductive metal, and manalattice. “Right now, though, the collection rate is too erratic for it to be viable. I’m just not sure if it’s a flaw in my design, or if the path Atlantis flies through the sky is making it vulnerable to the ebbs and flows of leyline interference from everywhere we cross over.” She stared at it for a moment more, clucked her tongue, and set it back into its collecting pad next to the mana monitor. “I need more data to confirm my hypothesis, though.”

Bezel turned about fully and paused, blinking as her knight grinned back at her. “What?” She asked unsteadily.

“You’re really something else.” He explained, shaking his head. “I don’t think anyone else could have come up with an idea like that, much less built it.”

“It doesn’t work yet, sir knight.” She sighed.

“It will.” He insisted. “You’ll get it, I promise.”

“You believe in my creations that much?” Bezel smirked back at him.

“No. I believe in you that much.” He answered, leaving her blinking and wildly flustered. She grabbed her cloak from him and brushed past him, and after they were both out, she locked the door behind her with a wave of her hand and a whispered word.

“You seem in a good mood this morning.” Bezel observed as they passed through still quiet workspaces, not yet attended by their workers. She brought her cloak over her shoulders, tied the clasps on the front together, and kept the hood down.

“I suppose I am.”

“You must have heard, then.” Bezel wagered carefully, giving him a sidewards glance. Had he? Her discussion with her father had been last night in private, but it wasn’t unreasonable that the Mage King had thought to mention it to his manservant. From there, the gossip would have spread like wildfire.

“Heard what?” Her knight asked, curious. She looked at him for another moment, then shook her head. Then again, maybe he was just unusually happy for some reason today.

“I had some time available to me yesterday while you were training, so I went and spoke with my father when he was not busy at court.”

“About what?”

“I told him that perhaps a softer hand was called for.” Bezel explained. “That perhaps if we were more generous to the people under our care and protection, they would not be so unhappy, and would thus be in less of a mood to rebel.” And that had been a terribly hard sell; her father was a hardliner through and through, and the mere mention of concessions in any form tended to make him foam at the mouth. It had taken every bit of female cajoling, debate technique, and outright emotional blackmail before she’d finally gotten her father to budge. Just a little. “He was not entirely convinced by my arguments, but he did agree that I could sponsor a small effort, in my own name. So, I have a limited budget with which to create some ‘token of charity and goodwill’ as he called it. But I find myself horribly uneducated to whom it could help the most.” 

She turned her head towards him fully and mustered her best blank stare, as they were now out in the more public corridors of the castle. “Perhaps my knight guardian has some idea of where such funds could be placed to do good?”

The corner of his mouth twitched. “I know of a person or two who could use the money, your highness.” And she knew exactly who he was talking about.

Bezel looked back ahead and smiled in triumph. “I thought you might.” Her knight chuckled, and it took everything she had not to laugh along with him.

***

By the next day off her knight had, Princess Bezel’s charity had been set up and the money was sent along by special courier (her knight, of course, she would trust nobody else with the task) to the shelter in the slums run by Samiel and Willys Geene. They’d had the span of about a week to put it to use, and for once, she wished her knight well on his day off and didn’t worry herself about where he wandered off to. She knew where he would be spending the first part of his day; it was selfish of her to not give him some time to himself. He gave so freely of himself otherwise. To herself, to the Geenes, to people he’d never met before. She felt so small in comparison. The only things she had ever given had been a statue of their first meeting, a necklace with his mother’s face and voice, and now, money to a shelter that housed and fed the poor of Atlantis. 

He had given so much more.

The morning after, she had somehow managed to sleep in spite of her nervous energy, but she sprang up at the dawn and raced to dress, leaving her lady’s maid rushing to catch up to her midway through the process. At the woman’s insistence, the loose braid she’d been favoring when she was left to her own devices was ignored in favor of a three part braid that was impossible without help. Only when she was dressed and plaited in accordance to her maid’s satisfaction was Bezel finally allowed to step outside of her chambers, and she glowed when she found her knight standing in his usual place. 

“Good morning, your highness.” He greeted her with the slightest nod of his head, and she nodded back to him. “How are you today?”

“Well. But nervous.” She said, slipping into their old routine of false faces and personalities. “I found myself wondering last night as I went to bed how things were proceeding with the charity you recommended. Have you heard any further details from them, now that the funds have been distributed?”

“I have, your highness.” He said formally. “The shelter your charity has decided to support was able to buy better food for their visitors. They’ve also hired additional workers, expanded the temporary housing, and they were even able to bring in a doctor to treat the sick children.”

“That’s...that’s wonderful news.” Bezel said, and she meant it. “Anything else?”

“The shelter’s owners, Samiel and Willys said that they were grateful to your highness for your kind efforts, but they were confused as to how you had heard of them.”

“Oh?” Bezel said, blinking at that tidbit. Had her knight been forced to out the true identity of Ella?

“I simply indicated that I’d mentioned it back at the barracks, and that the gossip must have filtered up to you from there. They seemed satisfied with the answer.”

“Well. Marvelously done then.”

“They were disappointed, however, that a certain young lady did not come back to help out with food preparation again. Willys had been looking forward to working with ‘Ella’ again, and perhaps improving her cooking techniques.”

It was subtle, and done only after he checked the halls for watchers, but her knight grinned and winked at her after that. Bezel glared at him as he rolled his shoulders. 

“Do you know who this ‘Ella’ is, sir knight?”

“A scullery maid down in the kitchen, I believe, princess.”

“Well. Since she was apparently missed, perhaps you can inquire after her and make arrangements to see that she is there the next time you stop by to check on the shelter’s progress.”

“I will speak to Miss Moira later today about that then, your highness.” The knight said, and the two shared one last secret smile before they walked out and continued towards the dining room for her breakfast with her father and brothers. 

Princess Bezel would find one reason after another to never accept the invitation to the Geene’s shelter. 

Ella, on the other hand, would try and make it as often as she could.

***

The Royal Court

Atlantis

2 and a Half Weeks Later

Princess Bezel did not often make an appearance at her father’s court; she was not a presence in politics, had never been one, had never wished to be. Her eldest brother the Crown Prince had found his role in the art of intrigues and politics, and Jorran in warfare. 

Bezel knew what most thought of her; just a girl with silly ideas in her head, no real power. A piece to be traded off to cement a political alliance. In three years, that was almost exactly what her father intended.

She had other plans now. With the success of her first social experiment buoying her up, with the freedom that her knight’s duel and oath-bound demand had bought her from her family’s immediate expectations, it was time to go farther. 

The courtiers and nobles in attendance, all of them either of Atlantis or rulers of Below currently not down in their domains, watched her as she walked down the elaborate carpet towards the throne. For once, she was dressed in full regalia, her hair was immaculate in an up-do full of jewelry, and she’d even allowed for a hoop skirt , useless things that they were. 

She didn’t look for her knight, knew that he had stopped at the end of the carpet as she had kept walking forward. His absence, even momentarily, should have panicked her. But he had squeezed her hand tight that morning while she had been fretting and doubting the wisdom of this impulse, leaned in, and looked into her eyes until she couldn’t look anywhere else but back at him.

You are stronger than anyone thinks. Especially yourself. 

She drew on his faith and her courage as she stopped five paces short of the throne and dipped into a formal curtsy. The Queen’s throne sat empty beside him, as it had for all of her life. “Your majesty.” 

“My daughter.” Mage King Volkas Lantea rumbled, stroking his trimmed beard. “You have requested time for a formal request at court. For what purpose do you come before us today? Is it to report on your charity?”

“It is not, father.” She explained. “Although the charitable works being done in my name are producing great results. The less fortunate of the lower castes here on Atlantis look on the royal family with greater favor now, from the reports I have gathered. No, I come today with a different purpose in mind.”

“You wish to spend more of my money, daughter?” King Volkas Lantea suggested lightly, and the room filled with low chuckles and high titters from the men and women who hid their predatory smiles behind hands and expensive paper fans. “Who shall we throw it at now? The farm animals?”

“No, father.” She said, not losing her composure. She had expected a rocky start, he hadn’t given in easily the first time. She hoped this would be an easier sell. “I wish to broaden my horizons.”

The king blinked and leaned back in his throne, while her oldest brother Desmond set a hand on the top of the throne and looked at her with new consideration.

“In what regard?” The king asked in a casual tone that she’d heard him use right before ordering someone thrown into the stocks.

“Brother Desmond is the heir to the throne, and will rule when you fade from Terra. Brother Jorran is a skilled warrior, and will be a vital part of the Mage Knights’ leadership in time. I have thought often of what I might do to be of use to the world as well. I am thirteen, with my fourteenth birthday coming very soon. Yet I have seen very little of Terra, of the domain under our protection. It is a weakness, I think, and one that must be shored up if the house of Lantea is to rule with wisdom and fairness.” She pressed a clasped fist to her breast. “I wish to travel to Below, and see the world, traveling in the lands under our domain and the wilderness beyond. I would know the world with my own eyes, so that when my brother is Mage King, he will have one advisor who will tell him the truth of things.”

“You think that his other advisors would lie to him? Or that mine do to me?” The king pressed her, hands squeezing the armrests of his throne. 

“I think that they would be willing to muddle around inconvenient truths if it suited them.” Bezel smiled. She sensed the trap, but her father wasn’t a cruel man, just a hard one. Make him see the hard logic in something, and he would concede the point. “Perhaps for gain, or to mask their own failings, or to not risk your anger on a given day. But I am of the royal line, your daughter, Desmond’s sister. I have no reason to give anything but the truth of my opinions and experience.” She narrowed her eyes, and summoned up her blue aura around her. “The House of Lantea rules by virtue of our power.” Then her eyes flashed an even more brilliant blue, the aftereffect of the long hours spent training with her knight. “We should rule with wisdom as well.”

She kept her eyes on her father, never wavered, never flinched. She stood strong, displaying her strength and her dedication to her argument. Murmurs passed around the room, some impolite and mocking, while others seemed agreeable, respectful. 

Only one voice in the room mattered, and Bezel let herself be like a mountain in front of its owner. The king stroked at his chin and looked consideringly to his oldest son, standing off of his right side. Desmond must have found something in her words to be of merit, or at the least, humorous, given how he smirked and leaned down to whisper in their father’s ear.

The king listened, nodded, and then looked back to Bezel.

“My daughter, Princess Bezel Lantea, has spoken. My son the Crown Prince finds that there is merit in her suggestion, and I am inclined to agree. It would be good to have someone close to the throne with firsthand knowledge of the places in Terra that may one day cause trouble to our subjects. The particulars we shall discuss later in private; for now, Princess Bezel, you have our blessing to make a tour of the world. But given the recent troubles that have plagued Below, suitable protection will need to be arranged.”

“I have suitable protection, father.” Bezel said, breathing out and releasing the mana gathering around her back into the air. Restored to her normal appearance, she smiled. “My knight guardian shall accompany me.”

“A single mage knight as the sole protection for Atlantis’s only princess?” Crown Prince Desmond protested. “It does not seem suitably adequate, sister.”

“And yet, my knight was the sole survivor from the heart of the Zolim Incident. The one who struck down the fell demon from beyond the Veil when all of his comrades could not.” Bezel declared loudly, and the whispers in the room died suddenly, then increased threefold in number and volume.

She and her knight had talked about it the night before; she had not wanted to bring up that bit of information. He had insisted on it. She’d wanted to protect him from the attention that secret would bring, but he had won out. For them to give way, they needed to know just how strong he really was. 

Bezel registered the shock on the face of her brother, and the less visible arched eyebrows her father displayed. She couldn’t help but smile.

“You told me to find a suitable guardian, father. I selected the best.”

“So it would seem.” Her father sighed, and his dark eyes drifted back towards her knight over her shoulder for a long second before he looked back to her. “Very well. Assuming that your knight guardian takes the proper precautions for your safety, you may take him as your escort. I consider this matter closed.” 

The Mage King gestured to his court announcer, who tapped his staff twice on the floor in a heavy cadence. Bezel bowed once more to her father, took three steps backwards while still facing him, then turned and walked out with her royal mien picturesque. She passed by her knight, keeping him in her peripheral vision until he disappeared, and knew by the sound of his armored boots that he had fallen in step three paces behind her. 

They left the court and the lower levels of the palace behind, heading upstairs to the royal suites until they were finally back in her chambers. Only when the door was closed did Bezel let out a happy squeal and whirl about, dancing for joy. 

“He allowed it! He allowed it!” 

“You thought he wouldn’t?” Her knight grinned. “You even managed to convince him to let me tag along.” Bezel stopped dancing at that, scowled, and marched over, poking a finger against his chestplate.

“You are my knight.” She said, not bothering to hide the possessiveness she felt. “Your place is by my side.”

His smile dimmed a bit, and he brought a hand up, taking her own away from his chest and cradling it in his gauntleted hand. “Am I not?” He asked her softly, and Bezel’s racing mind ground to a halt. “I told you, Bezel. I am your knight. Never doubt that.”

She swallowed. “Yes.” She got out, and tried to remember how to breathe. All of a sudden, the corseted dress felt so tight and confining.

She didn’t know what went through her knight’s mind then. She never had, not really. There was so much of him that was wrapped up in secrets that he never spoke about unless matters forced him to. Yet every time another glimmer of him was revealed, it just made her admire him all the more.

She loved him, and was falling further into love with every passing day.

“We…” Bezel started, pulling her hand away and swallowing to whet her dry throat. “We should...prepare.”

Her knight blinked, and the moment between them ended. “Prepare.” He repeated. “As in, pack?”

“Pack. Yes.” She agreed. “And I need to...to change out of this mess.” She exhaled, feeling more like herself again now that there was space between them. “I’m not going to Below dressed in all this frippery.”

“Will Miss Ella be coming along on this trip as well?” He asked her carefully. 

“Of course.” She replied, because her time following her knight into the slums of Atlantis had made that fact abundantly clear. Princess Bezel would never see the whole picture. She needed to have the freedom to go where she needed to. “Will Miss Moira mind if we borrow more of her daughter’s old things?”

“Oh, I doubt it.” Her knight said. “She’s taken quite the shine to you, honestly. Keeps trying to invite me down to have a cup of tea late at night after the kitchen’s been closed up for the day. But there’s something else you need to remember to bring along.”

“What’s that, my knight?” Bezel asked.

He tapped a finger to the side of his temple. “Your mind. And your experiments.” She blinked and realized how right he was. 

She beamed at him. “The measurements and recordings I need. I can...I can finally take them! Figure out what I’m doing wrong! Oh, you’re wonderful , my knight!” She jumped into his arms and kissed his cheek before she knew what came over her. A moment after it happened, the realization made her stumble back with her face burning and her eyes low. “Oh, I’m...I’m sorry, I...I didn’t…”

“You didn’t mean to kiss me?” He uttered, and she looked up to see him rubbing his gauntlet across the side of his face. He was blushing as well, but…

“I...That is, I...I did , but…” She wavered, not sure what answer he wanted to hear more. Her heart thundered even louder in her chest than when she’d watched him duel against Instructor Drake. What was the right answer?! 

He stared at her until she ran out of words and fell silent. “Do you trust me?” He asked her.

“With my life.” She responded instantly.

He nodded. “Then...it’s fine. I was not offended.” He looked away as his own blush receded. “But you should be more careful in the future. People...would ask questions.”

And they would be right to, Bezel realized.

“But…” He said carefully, still not looking at her, “If your plans take us into the wilder places of the world, you will not always have to be the princess.”

“Does that mean you’ll leave the guise of my knight behind as well?”

“Never.” He quickly refuted her, meeting her eyes again. “I will always be your knight.” And then he bowed shortly, excused himself, and left her standing in her room with her head swimming and her heart pounding.

She suddenly began to question the wisdom of a trip to Below with him as her sole companion.

***

The City of Zolim

Dalum Province, Aroca

The Below

2 Days Later

They could have started anywhere. When they’d stood in the harbor of Atlantis with their skyship standing fueled and ready, her knight had taken her to a magical projection of the world of Terra, a globe of blue oceans and green forests and snowy mountains in miniature with dots and lines of the provinces overlaid on it, and asked her where she wanted to go first. 

He had stared at the map after she spun the image of the world, stopped it over Aroca, and jabbed her finger into the city that had almost taken his life. Stared at it, and then at her, as though she were mad.

“If I’m to learn of the world that you want to protect and that I am to guide…” She’d said to him, trying to sound braver than she felt, “then let us start here.”

So now, an hour’s flight later after descending from Atlantis during its orbit of the world, Princess Bezel stood beside her knight on the banks of the Great Aroca River, miles upstream from the great city’s edifices and cordoned off mud and brick buildings and huts. There was no great procession that followed them, no train of servants and boxes of clothes and finery. The knight carried his armor, his weapons, a rucksack of clothes, and a traveling case with supplies and funds. Bezel had the clothes on her back, a satchel of her experiments and artificing gear and a hefty purse of contingency funds when they could not draw more from Atlantis’s coffers, a larger suitcase with several fancy dresses and gowns for entertaining, and a few simple dresses and garments borrowed from ‘Aunt Moira’ in the royal castle’s kitchens. 

Anything else, they would find along the way.

“Is it strange? Being back here?” She asked her knight. He hadn’t said anything on the flight down, which wasn’t unusual when they were around others who expected her, and expected him, to act in specific ways. Now that they were alone, she had thought he’d be more willing to open up. But he just stared at Zolim on the horizon with empty hands and a clenched jaw.

“It is...different.”

“We don’t have to stay long.” She quickly said. He blinked and looked over to her. “I have to understand.” She went on resolutely. “The...the thing you faced, it could not have come here on its own. It was invited, and it had to have taken a great deal of power. The Veil is watched.” She shivered. “Sacrifices. Why would they do that?”

“If you think about it long enough, Bezel, you’ll have your answer.” Her knight said. 

And Bezel had thought about it. When she wasn’t thinking about her artificing or her knight, she was thinking about the event that had almost taken him from her. She wondered how her father, her brothers, everyone who thought like them and acted like them could dismiss the tragedy so easily. 

But then, they had never been chased down and hunted by angry men in a riot just for what their name and their lineage was. They had never stared into the faces of the sick, the hungry, and the dying, and wondered how such people could exist on Atlantis. Could exist anywhere, when there was such wealth and bounty. 

“I’m not good enough for you.” She said, thinking of her knight.

“Hm? What was that, Bezel?” 

She blinked, dismissed the thought away. “Nothing. We should make our introductions to the ruling noble, I think. We won’t stay long, though.” She dug out one of her trinkets, a mana-sensitive monitor that recorded leyline activity. “If at all possible, I’d like to head west for a while. Take some readings of the leylines along the Grand Savannah of North Aroca, before heading back south again. We should have plenty of time to see all of the settlements in the area. Are there any places you would particularly wish to visit?”

The knight considered the question. “I wouldn’t mind checking in at Portstand again. Seeing Knight Commander Sloane.” He looked at her. “Could we do that?”

Bezel smiled at him. Of all the places he might ask to visit…

“I think we can arrange that.” She agreed, and reached for his hand.

When Princess Bezel Lantea was thirteen, she decided to learn about the world that her family ruled. She left her palace and her life of easy comforts behind, and decided to walk a harder path.

When Bezel was thirteen, she traveled the world with her knight.

She had never been happier.

Chapter Text

Little Moment: The Sorceress And The Knight

By Eric ‘Erico’ Lawson

Four: She Lived In His Heart

Northern Aroca

The Grand Savannah

It had been around two weeks since Princess Bezel Lantea had managed to excuse herself from the company of Zolim’s appointed noble, and ever since then, her Knight had served as escort, personal trainer, and campground specialist while they traveled into the wilderness.

Well, the Grand Savannah of North Aroca wasn’t completely without civilization, but compared to Zolim and to the other cities, settlements were few and far between. Bezel had been all too eager to race out and minimize her time around others. She had stowed her ceremonial vestments and her fine gowns and had started dressing more frequently in the simple dresses and shirts and skirts that they had borrowed from Moira before leaving Atlantis. The reason was twofold; the first was comfort, because Aroca was warm and even the Knight had taken to wearing minimal kit to avoid sweating himself out. The second reason was more probable to being the primary motivation for her, the Knight decided; out here, with nobody else around, she wasn’t the princess, in line for the throne of Atlantis and the rulership of all Terra. She didn’t have to be Bezel Lantea, or even Ella, the pseudoname she’d used to accompany him in the slums of Atlantis. 

Here, in the wilderness, she was just Bezel. He had never seen her happier.

The Knight woke up shortly before the dawn, as he had for years now. Three years at the Academy and his all-too short residence in the RRD under Knight Commander Sloane had beaten the habit into him. His eyes snapped open quickly, and he yawned and stretched as his mind slowly reeled itself back in. He reached out with his senses and smelled woodsmoke and heard the faint crackling of new kindling on old embers. He blinked and sniffed, wondering if Bezel had decided to get up early and cook breakfast. It would have been out of character for her; the girl loved to sleep in, after all. Still, there was nobody else around, and the wards he’d erected before they settled in for the night had kept both insects and the larger creatures away from their campsite.

He pulled himself up, still tucked in his bedroll, and looked over to the campfire. The cookstand was in place, but swiveled away from the fire, and the old, dented kettle that the Knight had secured for them in Zolim after Bezel had sold away the more ornate one they’d departed Atlantis with was wafting a fair amount of steam still. 

Bezel had woken up, stoked the fire, and made herself tea, and then disappeared. He could not see her around their campsite. The Knight blinked a few more times, grimaced, and grabbed his sword as he crawled out of his bedroll and flung an overshirt and some decent trousers on. 

She hadn’t gone far, thankfully. Couching his panic and worry behind a disapproving scowl, he slowed his footsteps as he made his way over to where she was sitting under a tree on the top of the small bluff overlooking a tiny creek running a small walk away from their campsite. In the slowly brightening blue sky, with her back to him and a soft breeze blowing around her, she was...she was…

Something must have given him away, because her head turned slightly, cutting into the wind that had been playing in her unbound red hair and the blanket tucked around her slender, curved figure. He didn’t see her face, but he could feel her smile as she spoke up, a tin traveling mug full of tea held in one hand, and one of her measuring devices glowing in the other.

“Good morning, my Knight.” She greeted him, as soft as the dawn and as warm as the sun would be in thirty minutes. For the span of three heartbeats, he let himself feel, want, want , WANT …

And then he closed his eyes, took in a deep breath that carried the scent of her soap and her sun-kissed hair and pure Her, tamped it all back down, and came back to himself.

“Good morning, Bezel.” He said in reply, at ease if not entirely at peace, and reminding himself that this is good, this is good enough . “You should not be wandering off from the camp like this. What if something were to happen to you while I was asleep?”

“You’re usually up before I am, you know.” She pointed out.

“Clearly, that is no longer the case.” He countered, trying to assert the minimal authority that another year of life and his harsh training and harsher living supposedly garnered to him. “Is something wrong?”

Bezel paused at that, then turned her head back enough to look at him. He could make out the shape of her face, but he couldn’t see the light in her eyes, and he refused to call up a magelight and break the quiet peace of the early morning. “Would you come sit with me, sir knight?”

He did so, allowing himself to feel the tension and the electricity that the simple act of sitting beside Bezel in a place where there wasn’t another human soul for miles brought forward. He only hoped he hid it well enough. She seemed lost in her own mind with something important. She didn’t deserve the burden of his own troubled thoughts. 

When she didn’t say anything for another minute and continued to just sit there, staring across the savannah and taking another small sip of tea to indicate that she was still breathing than from any real desire, his impatience and concern got the better of him. So much seemed reversed now, with her quiet and peaceful, and him, impatient and talkative. Maybe he was just terrible at relaxing. 

“Bezel. Please. What’s wrong?” He asked her.

She let out a single amused huff and took another sip of her tea, then handed the cup over to him. “Nothing. Here, drink some.”

“This is yours.”

“It’s my second cup. Besides, this is one of those times you should just nod, say thank you, and move on.”

The Knight laughed a little, took the cup, and drank the tea. Slightly bitter and oversteeped, but palatable. “Thank you.” He said, completing her circuit of instructions. “Now. Are you going to talk to me? What are you doing out here?”

“Feeling.” Bezel said, and the succinct response made him blink.

“You’re...feeling.” He repeated, and she made a soft murmur of agreement before gesturing with one hand out ahead of them in a 180 degree arc.  “Feeling what, exactly?”

She repeated the gesture. “All of this.”

“Ah.” He said, not understanding her. Bezel caught on, because her nose crinkled up a bit as she turned and glared at him.

“Are you making fun of me?”

“No, Bezel.” He quickly replied, stung a bit by the accusation. “I don’t understand you.”

“Oh.” She blinked, reorganized her thoughts, then nodded. “I think I’m getting close to done with all the readings I can take from the Grand Savannah now. But yesterday, I...I tried something different.” She set her mana monitoring device down and powered it off, then breathed in slowly. “I just reached out with my magic, and... felt for the leylines.”

“You can do that?” The Knight asked, when he got over his shock and stopped staring at her like an idiot.

“Apparently.” Bezel nodded. “But it didn’t...Well. I was feeling for the leylines we’re out here to record and chart, but I felt something else instead.” She gestured out ahead of them, and now that he was really looking for it, he could catch glimmers of movement in the distance from the corners of his eyes. Creatures moving, prowling around in the grasslands even before the sun came up. “I felt the great cats, and the tusked beasts. I felt the insects and the toothed lizards in the river. I felt the grass.”

Not for the first time around her, the Knight was at a loss for words. She could feel all of that?

“Why hasn’t anyone ever talked about this before?”

“Probably for the same reason that nobody ever wrote it down.” She shrugged. “Nobody ever tried to. Or if they did...nobody else thought it was important enough to remember. I was feeling for the magic of the world. Instead, I felt the life in it.”

He thought about that for a while, sipping at the tin cup of tea, then drinking out of it more heavily once he realized it was lukewarm. “So. Life is like magic?” He guessed.

Bezel shook her head. “No. I think it’s more than that.” She whispered. “But I’m not...I don’t see the answer yet.”

“You will.” He promised her, because he was her Knight, and he always believed in her. “You’ll get this, Bezel.”

“My Knight has faith in me, then?” She asked him sweetly.

“Yes.” He said, blinking twice at the earnest warmth in that word, and then quickly tempered it. “If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be training you. Even if you are a horrible student some days.”

“Hey!” She shoved his arm after that, jostling him slightly, but not enough to even make him spill any of their shared drink. “Just for that, you don’t get any more tea. Give it back, you.”

Realizing he could use the moment to further her training, he rolled away from her grasp and stood up. “If you want it back, your highness, then you’re going to have to catch me.” He taunted her, and took off running.

It wasn’t their usual morning workout, but even with all the screaming that startled the wildlife around them, the Knight wouldn’t have had it any other way.

She was beautiful when she got mad at him.

***

Though it was technically a vacation away from Atlantis and a means of collecting valuable data about the leylines and the flow of magic around Terra carefully hidden under the veil of a tour of the world that Atlantis ruled over, the Knight still insisted on keeping up with his own training. And hers as well, because she wanted her own training to be thorough.

‘I want to be strong enough and skilled enough to defend myself, and to be able to do so without taking a life.’ She didn’t know how tall of an order that really was, but the Knight wasn’t one to back down from a challenge. Neither was Bezel, he had discovered. She could be stubborn and immovable when she was fighting for something she believed in.

Or someone.

They lowered the carved tree branches that he’d made for their spars days ago, Bezel’s face and hair matted with sweat and the knight breathing a little harder than usual. The mock swords looked worse for wear, and he sighed as he realized that they’d reached their limit. To do anything more, he would need decent training equipment. Which meant returning to civilization. “Enough.” He said, setting the branch aside and grabbing for the towels out of his secondary rucksack. “You are improving.”

“Am I good enough to survive an ambush now?” Bezel asked, taking her towel from him and vigorously rubbing the sweat off of herself. 

“You are improving.” He conceded graciously, because she was still a long ways off from being self-sufficient in her defense, magic aside. He saw the towel coming when she threw it at him, and allowed it to strike him in the face, just so he could pull it off and glower at her afterwards while she flipped between pouting at him and giggling. “But you have said yourself, Bezel, you don’t want to take a life. You just want to stop anyone from taking yours.”

She got serious at his assertion and nodded. “It is so.” He hesitated to go on, and she caught him, narrowing her eyes. “What do you not want to tell me?”

“There are...other choices for weapons.” He explained, sighing. She had a way of seeing right through him, and ordinarily, he didn’t mind it. In this moment, it was irksome. “The staff, or quarterstave, doesn’t see active use among the Mage Knights. Swords are the regulation weapon. But I did do some training with one when I was assigned to the 242nd under Knight Commander Sloane.” There was a pang of regret as he remembered Lieutenant Baynes, and how the fierce woman’s harsh extracurricular training had been what saved his life during the Zolim Massacre. But it hadn’t saved her.

Bezel brought a hand up and brushed her red hair back over her shoulder, considering the idea. “A quarterstave. Hm.”

“Of course, I’m hesitant to trust your life to a carved stick of wood.” The Knight added. She blinked, then pointedly looked down to the training weapon and then to his. He sighed and rolled his eyes. “Point made. But still.”

“Would it not be better if I could get my hands on one and decide for myself?” She asked him. “Isn’t that one of the things you said once, that some weapons didn’t work for every person, and there was probably one way of fighting that a person would be better at than others?”

“I did.” The Knight conceded. She perked up a little at winning the argument, and he shook his head. “But there’s nowhere around here we could get our hands on one.”

“Would they have one at the base you were first assigned at? The one I found you in after Zolim?” Bezel asked excitedly.

“Yes.” He blinked. “Why? I didn’t think you were done out here.”

“I’ve taken all the readings out here in the Grand Savannah that I need. And yes, I have data to review and things to think about, but I can do that anywhere.” She looked around, a whimsical smile on her lips as her eyes gazed around the wilderness. “I really did love it out here, though. Just the two of us. No titles or…”

“Just me. And just you.” He said, and she slowly turned her head back around to look at him. She was going to miss this, he realized. It made him impulsive, and he blurted out the first thought that came to mind. “We don’t have to go, if you don’t want to.”

Bezel blinked a few times, then sighed and shook her head. If she hadn’t smiled, he would have insisted that they stay another few days, regardless of his wishes.

“No.” She refused his offer. “No, it wouldn’t be fair to you. This entire trip is something I thought up, and you’ve done so much for me. Are still doing so much for me. You only asked one thing; you wanted to visit your friends in the RRD before we kept going. And we need to go there anyways, if I’m to try out this quarterstave you mentioned to see if it’s a better fit for me than a sword.”

“I suppose.” The Knight hedged. “If you’re all right mixing business with pleasure.”

Bezel laughed softly at the joke, and the way she tipped her head back, the way the sun caught in her hair and made her eyes glow took his breath away.

“Who am I to deny my Knight anything?” She said teasingly. 

The Knight found he couldn’t speak and swallowed to try and make the lump in his throat go down. 

He was truly lost in her presence.

***

Portstand Rapid Response Division Encampment

Dalum Province, Aroca

The Below

10 Days Later

It occurred to The Knight about ten seconds after their small skyskiff settled down on the outskirts of Portstand’s perimeter to avoid being shot down by incineration blasts that this would be the second time that the RRD operations base had hosted royalty with absolutely no prior warning. He wanted to feel guilty about it, but really, there hadn’t been a good means of sending word ahead. Only a few mages had the talent of far-messaging, and they were all decidedly relegated to critical Atlantean operations. 

Besides, he was too busy being excited at catching up with Sloane and the few others he was on speaking terms with before his reassignment to linger on fears for too long. And Bezel was fairly glowing as well.

A guard continent marched out to meet them accompanied by Sloane, and the older Knight Commander paused at twenty paces out before he groaned a little and took a knee, the rest following suit.

“Your royal highness.” Sloane declared, polite and formal as decorum commanded when the princess of the royal family appeared unannounced. “We were not informed of your arrival.”

“You didn’t know that the princess of Atlantis was making a tour of The Below?” Bezel asked, wearing the simplest outfit that was still of royal make and fitting. Her emerald eyes sparkled with mirth as she watched Sloane genuflect, then let them swivel over to her Knight. The Knight merely raised an eyebrow, wondering if this was an act she intended to drop, or if she intended to keep up appearances. He could live with either, though he dearly wished that she didn’t feel the need to act like the Princess all the time. 

“We knew that you were making a tour, yes.” Sloane answered her. “I was not aware that you would be visiting military installations as a part of it.”

“Well, you were here. And my Knight evinced an interest in visiting his former posting.” Bezel said airily. When Sloane didn’t speak and kept his head bowed, Bezel sighed and looked to the Knight again. He blinked and then made a gesture of ‘get on with it’ towards her, and the princess fell into an easy smile.

“Please, Knight Commander.” Bezel implored the commanding officer of the 242nd. “Rise. I get enough of that at home. I no longer have a chaperone who expects such worthless gestures.”

Sloane’s head jerked up in surprise, and Bezel smiled at him. “This is an informal visit, Knight Commander. As a personal request, could we please do away with royal decorum? At least for a day or two?”

Sloane slowly stood up, gesturing for the others to do so. The old soldier kept looking between Princess Bezel and the Knight, and the young man didn’t quite know what to make of the mixture of curiosity and What Have You Done Now that Sloane seemed to wear. 

“If you wish.” Sloane finally conceded. “So, an informal visit.”

Bezel nodded. “I didn’t come here for a parade review. I was being perfectly serious. We’ve been exploring Northern Aroca for some time now, and I wanted to do something nice for my Knight. He wanted to visit Portstand. May we stay for a few days?”

“Of course.” Sloane immediately allowed the request. “We would be happy to house and shelter the royal princess, and her…” Sloane paused as he stared at the Knight, and then he cut himself off and sighed. “Boy, you’ve been letting yourself go. That haircut is not regulation. When’s the last time you had it cut?”

The Knight ran a gloved hand up across his scalp, and did find his dark hair a little thicker than usual. 

“I rather like it that way.” Bezel harrumphed, folding her arms. “Honestly, I thought Sloane was your friend , my Knight.”

The sheer lunacy of the conversation made one of the knights in the ranks let out a nervous giggle, which they stifled for all of two seconds before Bezel broke out into a laugh herself, and then everyone else followed, save for the Knight and Sloane, who settled for amused smiles.

“All right, all right.” Sloane waved off the pack of mage knights. “Back to your posts, I’ll see to the princess and her escort.” The band dispersed, and Sloane came up to the two of them and quickly clasped the Knight’s forearm in his hand. “You look good, boy. You’ve been taking care of yourself, I hear. It was all the news down here, you wiping the floor with that uppity Royal Knight in that duel of yours.”

“I was merely exercising my duties in protecting the princess from harm.” The Knight answered stiffly.

“I’ll bet.” Sloane said dryly, and his eyes narrowed in a gaze which meant that he and the Knight would be having words later. “So. Came for a visit, eh? Got tired of living the easy life on Atlantis and decided to come play with the real Mage Knights, did you?”

“Actually, I was hoping that the princess and I might borrow one of your training halls.” The Knight explained. “The Princess wanted some additional practice in her self-defense.”

“Mm-hm.” Sloane squinted at them again, then rolled his shoulders and passed them to get to their skiff. “Come on. Let’s get you two inside the base and see about finding you some rooms. We have the guest quarters available for you, your highness. And your Knight Protector can…”

“My Knight will stay with me.” Bezel cut the old man off, unfazed as his head whipped back around in astonishment. “I’m certain you have an adjoining room he can use. Should anything happen, it would be better to keep him close.”

“Hmm.” Sloane grunted and climbed into the skiff, clearly having something else on his mind, but keeping it to himself for the time being. “We’ve got some decent food on hand, but it’s not up to royal standards.”

Bezel and the Knight followed Sloane into the skyskiff and sat down as he powered it up.

“Whatever you have for your men will be more than adequate for us.” Bezel reassured the base commander, and grinned playfully at the Knight after. “I’m certain your cooks do a better job at preparing a meal than my Knight does out in the wilderness.”

Sloane sputtered and immediately demanded to know just what the Knight had been feeding the poor girl, and the Knight found he couldn’t speak over the blush on his face. Bezel’s laughter kept the mood light and the silence filled for him, at least.

***

The rest of the Mage Knights in the 242nd Division watched Princess Bezel at a distance as the girl, having changed out for some simpler clothing and actual leggings made her way from one side of the camp to the other constantly staring at a strange device in her hand with a squinted up look of concentration. Even had they not known it was her just by dint of keeping tabs on royalty on the premises , she would have been easy to pick out by the brilliant fire of her red hair.

The Knight sat on the balcony of Portstand’s main building, trying not to just stare at her as she glided about without a care in the world. His stare would have betrayed him in an instant, not that the alternative, of sitting here and looking at Knight Commander Alastair Sloane was any better. The old man had poured them each a drink of slightly alcoholic fruit juice five minutes ago, and hadn’t stopped staring at him since. He hadn’t said a word, dressed in his fatigues and the thinnest layer of armor possible. His hair had, if the Knight had to wager, gone a little more pepper-gray, the black fading out even more.

“So,” Sloane said, having waited until the Knight brought the cup to his lips to take another drink to break up the motionless faceoff, “have you kissed her yet?”

The Knight immediately choked on his drink, and leaned forward so he didn’t spray it all over his shirt. “What?!” He gasped, once the danger of asphyxiation had passed. Sloane just stared at him even harder for a moment and then relaxed, leaning back in his chair.

“Boy, I could tell how you felt about her the moment you touched down on the base.” The old Knight Commander sighed. “I wasn’t expecting her to look at you the same way.”

“She doesn’t.” The Knight said hesitantly, and took another drink to brace himself. He made sure he swallowed it before Sloane could speak again, and raised a hand to keep him from trying, talking after. “She’s never said anything to me. We’re friends. Nothing more.”

“Friends.” Sloane said flatly, setting his glass down and looking out over the compound to where Bezel was now shaking her head as she tapped the side of her gadget against the side of a wagon. “What is she doing anyways?”

“Mapping leylines.” The Knight said. “It’s a...project of hers. She’s trying to see how magic flows over all of Terra.”

“Why?”

The Knight shrugged. So much of what she did was beyond him. Her skill in Artifice was leagues beyond anything anyone else in the world was attempting. “Something about collecting mana more efficiently.”

Sloane blinked. “When I need mana, I take it. The world’s full of it.”

“Some people take more than they need, she said. Others don’t take enough.” The Knight pointed out, marveling that he could remember even that much of the strange technical jargon she’d thrown at him back on Atlantis. “She’s trying to make a device to fix that.”

“Hm.” Sloane murmured. “So, this grand tour of The Below…”

“Sort of a cover story.” The Knight nodded, smiling a little. He glanced at Bezel for about two seconds, then let his eyes slide back to Sloane. “Of course, I’d appreciate if you didn’t tell anyone that.”

Sloane sighed again and scratched at his scalp. “Fair enough. I doubt the Mage King would have let her wander Below just for an experiment. Have you been visiting the territories?”

“Some.” The Knight conceded. “We’ll be visiting more. She wanted to come here, though.”

“No. You wanted to come here, and she allowed it.” Sloane corrected him. “Neither of her brothers or her father would have granted a boon to anyone working under them like this.”

The Knight sat, blinking at that realization. “But she...She needs to train, and this was the best place to…”

“Excuses. A justification.” Sloane dismissed his protest, picking his glass back up and taking another long drink. When he set it down, the hard look in his eyes was back. “What. Did you. Do.”

The now wide-eyed Knight threw up his hands. “I don’t know!” 

“You saved her life, boy.” Sloane pointed out with a growl. “A girl remembers something like that. And then after three years of not seeing you, she turns around and shows up after you’ve just survived a Code Violet incident and snaps you up to be her personal guardian. Again, something that raised a flag in my mind. Sure, she justified it by saying she wanted the best...But if that was all, I’d have never seen you again. Instead, I get to hear that sometime later, after you’ve been in her service for a while, you take it upon yourself to train her to fight in a way that no other royal instructor or tutor would have ever allowed, much less thought of. The divine right of power, the key to the royal family’s right of rulership, and she turns it on its head by not casting an Incineration Wave, but a...a…”

“Repulsion Blast.” The Knight filled in the name for him. 

Sloane growled again, and jerked up to his feet. He spun away from the Knight and used the space and the time to get himself back under control.

“She made you her combat instructor.” Sloane breathed in a loud, slow breath and turned back to face him. “And that’s just what I know. She’s different than anyone else, boy. She’s changed from what I expected from a member of the royal family.”

The Knight rankled at the insinuation. “Maybe she’s always been different, she’s just never felt like she could show it!” 

Sloane stared at him again, and fell back into his chair with a disbelieving laugh. “Crazy. Absolutely crazy.” He drew a hand across his face, and looked ten years older afterwards. “You didn’t listen to me.”

“When?” The Knight asked, genuinely confused.

Sloane closed his eyes. “When I first visited you in the hospital, after you saved her life? I told you not to get any ideas about her.”

“I became a Knight for her.” The Knight declared firmly, jumping up to his feet and staring down at Sloane defiantly.

“To protect her.”

“Yes!”

“Because you love her.” Sloane accused him.

The wind got sucked out of his sails, and the Knight slumped back into his chair. “Yes.” He croaked out, and crumpled when he saw the pain that confession caused in his mentor.

“You really are too much like me for your own good.” Sloane muttered, and poured himself another glass. “Why is she different? Just having you around can’t be enough. What have you been teaching her? What have you been showing her?”

“I…” The Knight started out, and then sputtered to a halt. He remembered it all. The trips to the shelter on Atlantis. The history lessons about Atlantis and the royal family and the Mage Knights that Bezel knew, but everyone else had forgotten.

The locket around his neck that carried his mother’s image suspended in magical light, and her guiding words to the both of them, the children she had died to keep alive. He took his glass in his hand and drank the rest in one long draught.

“The things she needs to know to be a better princess.” He finally said. 

“She’ll never rule Atlantis, you know.” Sloane pointed out, because the line of succession was very clear on that point. Both of her brothers stood in line before her. 

The Knight shrugged and pushed his now empty glass across the small table towards Sloane. “She’ll never rule. But she can guide the world.” 

“Mind your bearing.” Sloane warned him softly as he refilled the cup. “She is a princess of the blood, and you are…”

“I know what I am.” The Knight interrupted him, taking the glass back and turning to look at Bezel down below, a hundred paces off. Maybe it was just timing, or maybe she sensed him, because she looked up in that moment and grinned at him, full of life and joy.

He broke his gaze away from her when it became too painful to keep wearing the smile, and drowned his sorrow in a long swallow. “I am her Knight, and she trusts me with her life.”

“And that’s all that the world will ever let you be.” Sloane reminded him, no real hint of censure left in his voice, and only the sadness of someone who saw the pain waiting for a friend and could do nothing to stop it. “You’re older than she is. You have to be the voice of reason for the both of you.”

“I’m just a friend to her. She doesn’t think of me like that.”

“Yes, she does.” Sloane disagreed.

And they both took another drink.

***

Portstand RRD Encampment

2 Days Later

The quarterstave, the Knight decided after a couple of days worth of sparring, was definitely not his weapon of choice. Bezel on the other hand, seemed to be made for it. 

The sword had a point and an edge and the flat and the crossguard. It could stab and slash, and with the right spellwork, be used to channel or deflect certain direct magical attacks. It required poise and finesse and focus, but there was basically a pointy end and a not pointy end one held onto, and that was enough.

The quarterstave Bezel took to like a waterfowl on a pond had no such limitations or simplicity. It could be held anywhere along its length, and though it was made of wood, Bezel’s natural talent with materials had her hardening it with spell infusions until it took on the punishing qualities of a steel rod of equal size, without any of the added weight. She was still rough and unpolished with it, but her analytic mind had picked up early on that there were two striking ends she could use, and every blow he blocked was followed up by another that swung around from the other end as she kept him at arm’s reach. The few times he tried to close in she either lashed out with a foot, or once, with a smarting pain in his nose still an hour after it happened, by slamming the middle section of the staff straight into his face.

They were both breathing hard and sweating as he stumbled back from her next defensive smashes and held up a hand for a pause. “Enough.” The Knight wheezed, and set his wooden training sword down on the floor of the hall. “Land’s sake, Bezel. Where are you getting all this aggression from?”

“I keep thinking about all the insults my brother Jorran likes to throw at me about how I’ll never be anything more than a useless girl.” She answered, her chest heaving for air. “It gets me angry enough to put up a good fight.”

The Knight nodded to that and fetched them both bottles of water, and nearly choked on his when the very first thing Bezel did with hers was to pour some of it over her scalp and let it trickle down her neck and soak into the tight covering beneath the thin training armor. Watching those small rivulets of water join with the perspiration just above her breasts was…

He closed his eyes and turned around, all too aware that the pounding of his heart wasn’t all due to the workout. Even with his eyes closed, his mind filled in the gaps of longing with a fleeting memory he had tried, tried and failed, to bury; 

The day that the King had allowed her to leave for the Below and make a proper touring of their holdings, she had kissed him on impulse in her joy and excitement. That brief moment had seared itself in his mind, and it appeared, as always, right when he could least afford it.

She’s the princess, she’s the princess, she’s thirteen….

And none of that mattered, none of it remained when Bezel smiled at him or laughed. It was torture, and he found himself aching from it. 

He found himself unwilling to drive it, or her, from his mind. “If you keep practicing,” He started, and coughed when his voice spun into a high, squeakier octave, “erm, sorry, if you keep practicing, you’re going to be very good with that.”

“It feels natural. But...I don’t know, I’m probably overthinking it.” Bezel admitted, finally taking a drink and exhaling loudly as she reached for a towel. 

“That’s why we practice.” The Knight said reassuringly, finally turning to face her properly as she wiped herself down and thankfully (Or not) covered herself up with her towel. “You practice until you become good with a weapon and its maneuvers. And then you practice until you can do it while you’re distracted. And then, until you can do it without thinking about it at all.” His eyes darkened as he thought back to Lieutenant Baynes and Zolim all over again, and that last desperate fight with The Liar that had pushed him to the ragged edge of his limits. 

Bezel sighed. “Three years?” She asked him, and the Knight nodded. “I’m not a very good student, you know. It may take you longer to get me that good.”

“Who said you weren’t a good student?” The Knight demanded. When she hesitated, he guessed. “That Royal Knight I drove into the ground in our duel?” Bezel ducked her head and nodded, and the Knight growled. “He was a fool. You are a wonderful student. You always have been.”

She blushed at the praise and looked up at him with shy green eyes. “Maybe it’s just that you’re a good teacher.” She offered. 

The Knight blinked and swallowed, then mustered a small laugh. “Perhaps we can compromise and say that it’s both, your highness?”

There was a laugh buried in her smile. She nodded and removed her helmet, and the hair she’d carefully put up underneath it came undone and rolled out behind her head, coming to rest between her shoulders. The Knight stopped breathing, and just stared at Bezel as she glowed, messy and flushed and perfect.

He welcomed the distraction that came with a loud and particularly jarring knock at the doorframe, and spun around to face the source. It was another staff officer on the base, who was holding a formerly folded up missive with wide eyes.

“Your highness,” the middle-aged man began politely, “we just received a dispatch from Atlantis reminding us about your upcoming 14th birthday. Is it true?”

The knight blinked and thought; he had forgotten about it, but her birthday was coming up. In the past it had meant an extra sweetmeat at the Academy and a small ceremony wishing her good health and continued longevity, the same as for every child of the royal house. The Mage King’s birthday was a much more elaborate affair.

Bezel exhaled. “Yes, it is. But you don’t have to do anything special for it, it’s just…”

“Oh, no, your highness! That simply wouldn’t be proper!” The base officer protested. “So long as you are in residence here, it is only appropriate that we plan a more lavish affair! You are the princess of Atlantis, after all. I will make the arrangements with supply so we can give you a proper feast!” And he took off like a shot before she could try and talk him out of it.

Bezel went over to the wall and slid down against it with a soft groan, and the Knight joined her at her side a few seconds later.

“My birthday is a week away. I don’t suppose there’s any chance that we could get them to stop?” She asked him plaintively. 

“I doubt it, Princess Bezel.” The Knight said plainly. “Besides, these knights rarely have anything to celebrate. If it helps, think of this not as something they do for you. Think of it instead as an opportunity that you give them to make merry.”

Bezel tipped her head back, then rolled it over to side-eye him with amusement. “That does help.” She admitted. “But tell them no presents are required. The celebration is gift enough.”

“I will pass the word along, your highness.” He said, smiling. “So. You turn 14 this year.”

He expected the good mood to remain, but instead her smile disappeared.

“Yes.” She admitted. “I do. Old enough to be courted by the sons of nobility.”

He blinked rapidly at that, and only just managed to get out a single word in response. “Oh.” He hadn’t thought of that. That she was...that she might be…

Bezel huffed once and rolled her head back to neutral, staring across the room. “How old are you, my knight?”

“I turn 15 in a month.” He answered softly. She nodded once and stood up.

“I will remember that.” She said, offering him a hand to help him stand. 

His stomach twisting in knots, the Knight reached for her hand.

***

They could not be safer in Portstand, surrounded by over a hundred Mage Knights and easily twice that many support personnel who wished no harm on the Knight and certainly no harm against Princess Bezel Lantea. He was her assigned protector, and this should have been one of the times that he could actually relax a little from that job and not be so on edge.

But all of those feelings meant nothing in the realm of nightmares, where older fears and terrors didn’t pay attention to should have beens. Flashes of The Liar, the callous laughter of the monster that hid in the flesh of Bezel and the voice of his mother, who whispered such horrible things and tried to break him…

There was a hand on him and he snapped up gasping for air and snapping his hand out at the thing attacking him. A quick and sharp feminine cry that was more of a gasp made him come back to himself, and the Knight blinked and panted in the dark, his sweat-soaked shirt sticking to his body. His hand was still wrapped tightly around something, and…

And then he heard Bezel’s whimpers, and let go of her wrist. “I’m sorry.” He whispered, because he remembered where they were, and there was already the chance that someone else had heard him, or heard her scream, and would come running…

His eyes finally adjusted to the dim light, and he could make out the faint outline of her nightgown, a soft opaque lavender-colored satin with pearl white sleeves and a hem that went down to just above her ankles. She cradled her wrist to her chest and watched him with her emerald-colored eyes that glinted slightly in the moonlight that came in through the room’s blinds.

“I had to check on you.” She said, in a voice only a shade below normal speaking volume. “You were...you were having another nightmare.” 

The Knight blinked at that. Another? She must have seen the confusion in his eyes because she shook her head. “You had them every third or fourth night out in the wilderness. There...there was nobody else around then, and I didn’t know what I...If I could even…”

“I’m all right, Bezel.” The Knight quickly tried to reassure her. They were his demons, his fears, it wasn’t her responsibility to deal with them.

“You are not all right.” She snapped at him, and he froze when he heard the grief in her voice. “I’ve had to wake up listening to you crying out and shouting in your sleep for too many nights now for you to lie to me and tell me that you’re not hurting!”

He hissed and pressed a hand to his head. “Quiet, you’ll bring everyone else on the base running!” The Knight warned her in a harsh whisper.

Bezel sniffed. “No, they won’t.” She held up a small stone engraved with a rune that pulsed gently with blue light. “Sound dampening bubble. Nobody outside of the effect can hear us.”

His breathing finally under control, the Knight stared at the rock, then to her. “I...thank you. For your discretion.” He wasn’t breathing hard, but his mind was still running a mile a minute. “I will get a handle on this, Bezel. It’s nothing. You don’t have to worry about it.”

He had meant to be reassuring, but that was apparently the worst possible thing he could say. Her face crumpled, and she shoved his shoulder with one hand, knocking him back against the headboard, and she got up onto the bed, dropping the stone on the comforter between them as she grabbed his shoulders and shook him.

“Stop it! Just stop lying! Stop lying to me, just…” She snapped, and her voice cracked and broke, and she slumped forward, burying her face against his breastbone. His arms folded around her and held her tight as she shook and wept silently.

“I’m sorry.” He repeated, and hated how hollow it sounded. He said it again and again anyways, every time she let out a whimper that cut through the trembling. He held her and felt her tears stain his tunic that was already sweated through, and hated himself for doing this to her.

“You are my Knight.” She finally said, some quiet minutes later. “I trust you with my life.” She pulled herself out of his arms and leaned back, kneeling with her bent legs on either side of his lap to stare him in the eyes. “Why don’t you trust me with yours?”

He felt fresh shame rise to the surface, and shut his eyes. He was hurting her, keeping all of this bottled up. They had traveled to Zolim first, because…

Because she wanted to understand him. Because she’d wanted to help him.

“The Liar.” He forced the name out, and kept his eyes open so he wouldn’t see the image of that abomination covered in horrible mouths and eyes. “It...Once we were cut off from all of our reinforcements inside the mists, the only option we had left was to try and get to the center, destroy the source of it. It got to everyone, somehow saw inside of our heads, picked apart the things that would hurt us the worst. Another squire gouged her eyes out to keep it from looking at it. The lucky ones were dead before we ever got to it. Somehow, it had trouble looking into my mind, or maybe it just went after the others first for its own pleasure. There was another squire, first in our graduating class...The one who gave that speech at our graduation. Whins. The thing’s voices got to him. Convinced him that he needed to kill everyone. He slaughtered innocents in cold blood, the very people our oaths charged us to protect. I was forced to kill him. In the end, having his sword saved my life in single combat against The Liar. It used the voices of those we were close to, the faces of those we trusted.”

He met her worried stare, then looked down to the still pulsing stone between them. “It wore your face. It used your voice. It used my mother’s voice.”

“Whatever it said, whatever it told you, it wasn’t true.” Bezel insisted, pressing her hand to his chest. “I promise you. It wasn’t true. It isn’t coming back. You cast the Geas and then slew it. You’ll never see it again.”

The Knight let out a single, sick laugh. “It said I would.”

“It lies.” Bezel cut in grimly. “It always lies. I read up on it in the archives. It delights in suffering and pain and death, and it especially loves to torment the minds of its victims.”

“I know.” He answered her wearily. “I know it does. I know all of that, but…”

But he still saw it in his nightmares, remembered that dark version of his Bezel sitting on a throne of corpse bones, taunting him with all of his worst fears. 

He remembered it, and she saw it in his eyes.

“Please.” She begged him. “Tell me what I can do to help you. Don’t face this again alone, because you aren’t. Let me help you.”

The Knight shook his head. “I don’t know. I...I’m just so tired. ” He always was tired, the day after one of these nightmares. Fits and sudden starts, hours spent trying to forget and to go back to sleep, and then waking up early as he always did, like his body was accustomed to regardless of the quality of his rest. 

Bezel finally climbed off of his bed and picked up the stone. She pressed it into his hand. 

“What’s this for?” He asked.

“A reminder.” Bezel told him gently. “That you are not alone. That you’re never alone.”

That I Am With You was the unspoken intent that glimmered in her eyes, and in the light reflected off of them.

“I can’t take this. This is yours.” He protested, but she wrapped his fingers around it before he could pass it back to her. 

“Then I’ll make you a lightstone of your own tomorrow.” She calmed him. “For tonight, though, I want you to hold onto this. Please. For my sake. Let me be your strength in the dark.”

“You are.” He found himself saying to her. He was surprised he’d said it, because it was true, and it was one of the things that, were he more put together, more awake, less panicked, he would have never said to her. Should never have said to her.

That tiny piece of unexpected honesty, though, made her face light up and glow.

“Can I get you anything?” She asked him.

“No.” He shook his head. “Just...could you sit with me for a while? Until I...Until I get sleepy again?”

Bezel huffed a soft laugh and nodded, then went and got the chair from his room’s desk and plunked it down beside his bed. At her nod, he forced himself back under the covers and sat the glowing charm on the stand next to them, focusing on that soft blue light that pulsed like a heartbeat. 

“How did you make this?” He asked, partly because he was curious, but mostly so she would have something to talk about in her technical jargon. It usually went over his head, and he was hoping it would have an anesthetic effect. Eager, she dove into her explanation, somehow sensing that he might want a more technical blow-by-blow of resonance channels, leyline affinity, power reservoir, mana circuiting and mana capacitance.

He went from hurtfully awake to drowsy, and then to flickering awareness, and then finally, fell asleep with his eyelids closing against the reassuring sight of her runestone on the bedside table, and her soft, melodic voice nattering away in his ears.

He didn’t dream of The Liar again that night, or on the next night either. Her replacement lightstone, dutifully charged before she bid him a good night, helped to put him to sleep.

***

Portstand RRD Encampment

Princess Bezel’s 14th Birthday

Despite what she had hoped for, the celebration held by the Portstand division turned out to be rather posh. The kitchen staff had clearly put in a lot of work, and while nowhere near as elaborate or expensive as some of the dishes made by the royal kitchens, it was clear to the Knight that they had definitely put some money into this. He wore the dress uniform of the RRD with his old rank insignia and felt right at home in it. He could have worn the one crafted for him after he’d received his transfer to the Royal Knights, but it didn’t mean nearly as much to him. The princess had conceded to the formality of her role, and wore the simplest royal gown that she had carted along with them, a fine dress of purple and blue colored silk with the royal family’s emblem embroidered along the front of the skirt.

He paced behind Bezel as the princess made her way through the serving line, motioning to various dishes and asking questions about their ingredients and the cooking process. For the local Arocans who worked on the base, it had been a chance for them to show off their traditional dishes. There were a few Atlantean delicacies, but Bezel had only taken token servings of those, little more than a bite each, before zeroing in on the dishes of rice and eggs and seasoned meat and local fruit and vegetables cooked in every conceivable variety, and more than a few of them with a fair amount of heat and spice.

She accepted a small skewer with a fried bit of goat in a blistering red sauce and tried it out, immediately widening her eyes as the fire of the peppers used in it hit her tongue. The Arocan servers panicked and quickly scrambled to offer her a glass of milk, but Bezel waved off their concern even as she drained it quickly to put out the fire.

“I’m all right.” She reassured them after, still gasping and with a beat of sweat on her brow. She smiled and laughed a little. “I think we could stand to have a little more spice in the dishes on Atlantis. Um...How to say this again? It was good very.” She intoned in stilted and slightly incorrect Arocan.

It might have been wrong to their ears, but the dark-skinned Arocans brightened up visibly at the praise, and at the princess even bothering to try and speak their tongue. “You speak Arocan, your highness?” One of the cooks asked eagerly.

Bezel shook her head. “No, not well. But I am learning. My Knight apparently had some lessons before he entered my service, and he has tried his best to teach me.” She leaned forward a bit and beamed at the man. “Although I would dearly love to try and learn some more. If you have any time free tomorrow, perhaps?”

“Just tell us when, your highness.” The man quickly agreed to it. Bezel’s smile broadened, and she took her tray full of dishes up in her arms as she looked back at the line, and blushed. 

“My apologies for taking so long, everyone. You really did go all out, and I thank you for it. But this party is more for you than it is for me. My desire is that you all find a measure of happiness, and that you know you have my gratitude for everything you do to keep our people safe and protected. Now, I’m going to go sit down and let you all try some of this wonderful food, the cooks really have outdone themselves! May the blessings of sky with you be!”

The Knight chuckled at the second attempt at Arocan, which made the locals cheer. He took his own plate and followed Bezel to the table of honor while the rest of the division quickly descended on the buffet like ravenous beasts.

“Very diplomatic of you, your highness.” Knight Commander Sloane said, seated next to the princess off of her left shoulder, the knight on her left. Bezel went rigid and slowly turned to look at Sloane, while the Knight watched them both in his peripheral vision.

“Diplomacy has nothing to do with good manners and giving thanks to ones’ hosts.” Bezel pointed out curtly. “And while this base may be run by you, Knight Commander, the Arocans who call this land home were the ones who were tasked with preparing the meal. I owe them my thanks.”

“I see.” Sloane nodded. “Although I would caution you to be more careful going forward. Here on the base we are able to control things, but elsewhere, there would be a higher risk of someone trying to poison your food.”

Bezel sighed. “What reason would they have to harm me?” She held up a hand when Sloane went to open his mouth. “Yes, Knight Commander, I am aware that there is precedent. I was there.” She glanced past Sloane and locked eyes with the Knight. “We both were.” He didn’t breathe until she looked away again. “I am less interested in being afraid of such incidents as I am in trying to prevent them. Banali City, Zolim? There is a common theme. Something made those people angry enough, desperate enough, to do the unthinkable. I am sure that my father and my brothers and many others within the Mage Knights believe that suppression and brutal crackdowns are the answer.”

“You don’t?”

“Do you?” Bezel countered, lifting an eyebrow, and Sloane held his tongue.

She took another bite of sauteed vegetables mixed with fluffy seasoned rice and hummed appreciatively at the taste. “Perhaps if we spent more time getting to know the people of Terra instead of pushing them around, they might fear and hate us less. And we might be better protectors.”

“Rulers, you mean.” Sloane corrected her.

“Did I?” Bezel asked innocently, and let the conversation die.

Half an hour later as the meal wound down, a band of musicians made up of Mage Knights started to play music, and the tables were pushed out of the way to clear space in the outdoor pavilion for those who wished to dance. Many Knights of the 242nd stood up with their fellows and joined in festive line dancing, while others were braver and asked the hand of the few female Knights within the corps. And a few even asked for a dance with the princess herself, who smiled and refused each until Knight Commander Sloane forced the issue by standing up and invoking his right as host to claim the first dance with the guest of honor.

The Knight watched as Sloane, three heads taller than the young woman, guided her around the pavilion of polished river stone in leveled mortar. He’d felt on edge and a half-step from interfering when some of the other Knights in the corps had asked for a dance with her, but seeing her with Sloane, a man well old enough to be her father and who led her in a ritsando where only their palms touched calmed him down a lot. Touching the amulet she’d crafted for him underneath his dress uniform and his undershirt did a lot more.

And then another member of the RRD, a young man only two years older than he was, sauntered up with a cup of alcohol, red in the face already from a few previously imbibed. “So, you decided to come back.” He drawled, grinning at the Knight. “You got bored of how quiet things were in the Royal Guard?”

The Knight recognized him; Haulison. He’d been on one of the teams on the Zolim mission that hadn’t gone into the mists that slaughtered everyone but himself. Pretty cocky, but he’d proven himself during the few operations that the Knight had been on with him before that. He was also an outspoken critic of the Royal Knights, no small part of which he’d likely gotten from Sloane and the other career officers. 

“My life has been many things, Haulison.” The Knight mused, feeling the weight of the amulet against his chest before letting his hand drop back down to the table. “Quiet has not been one of them.”

“So I hear.” Haulsion harrumphed. “Sloane was bragging up a storm about how you took down that pantywaist Drake. They must be in a sad state if a flake like you can defeat their best duelist.” The Knight blinked at the insult and re-evaluated the man, and was surprised to see no anger, only playful determination there.

The other knight was angling for a duel and goading him on, he wasn’t saying it out of spite.

“Perhaps if time allows tomorrow, I might find the time to educate you on how woefully inadequate your standard training regimen is.” The Knight countered coolly, lifting his glass of pressed fruit juice. The other knight let out one barking laugh as they touched glasses, and nodded. 

“Make the time, little man. It’s bound to be more exciting than leading that spoiled brat of a princess through basic form exercises.”

The Knight felt a flare of anger at that, but tamped it down. What did anyone know of Bezel’s heart, or her courage? Did anyone else know her well enough to see the blazing beacon of warmth and compassion wrapped in iron determination? The Queen hidden away behind the shroud of a princess that only acted as expected when there were eyes on her?

“She is stronger than you might think.” The Knight settled on the quietest defense of her character that he could think of, and hoped that Haulison wouldn’t see right through him. Even though the other man was likely well on his way to drunk, he didn’t dare risk it.

“Pft. She’s just like all the other royals.” Haulison muttered darkly. “Thinking that they’re better than us. She couldn’t even be bothered to have a dance with a single knight aside from Sloane, and even that was just because of protocol.”

The Knight watched Sloane and Bezel continue to dance to the slow-tempo song that the band was playing, twirling around one another and making scant and meaningless conversation as they kept their point of contact limited to only a single hand. He’d missed it at first, distracted by Haulison and the pendant with his mother’s precious image and words, but now he could see that on almost every second or third turn as Bezel’s face swiveled past the table he was still seated at, her eyes were instinctively locking onto his face.

Like she was looking for something. Or waiting for something.

He dared to dream that she was waiting for him. He refused to give the thought space to breathe.

She was just fourteen, he was less than a month away from his 15th birthday. She was a princess and he was just a Mage Knight and her protector and they were surrounded by an entire base full of soldiers who loved to gossip. It was nothing but a disaster waiting to happen. He could be censured. The hint of impropriety might see him stripped of his rank, thrown in irons and result in the princess being disgraced.

But she kept looking at him as the dance went on, and another thought, one that the Knight’s pounding heart refused to let his mind wash away, crept in.

That maybe she hadn’t refused the other knights a dance because she thought it improper by social custom because of her station...but because she wanted one with him.

And here was Haulison, besmirching her good name because he thought her a prudish and uppity princess who refused to socialize with commoners. Haulison, who had no idea of the persona of Ella that Bezel took on when she went with the Knight to volunteer at the Geenes’ shelter. Haulison, who did not know how she had wept to find her people suffering at the heart of Atlantis, which should have been a land of plenty. 

The Knight found himself standing up from the table, moving in opposition to every bit of screaming common sense in his mind. His heart had taken control of his faculties.

“Perhaps we should test that.” The Knight heard himself say, and didn’t bother to wait for an answer from the inebriated Mage Knight. He walked onto the pavilion and moved straight for Bezel and Sloane, who saw him coming and stopped their dance when they were five paces out.

“Is there something I can help you with?” Sloane asked the Knight carefully. 

The Knight shook his head. “Not you, sir.” And he looked to Bezel and held a hand out to her. “May I have this dance, milady?”

He knew all of her smiles, and like the dawning of the sun, the rarest and most precious of them, an honest grin full of happiness and yesyesyes blossomed as she pulled her hand away from Sloane’s still extended palm and rested it in the Knight’s. 

“Who am I to deny my Knight anything?” She answered cheerfully, and the Knight heard Sloane’s eyebrows snap up. 

He had taken many classes, including one on dance, and there had only been one day dedicated to ‘regional uncivilized dances’. The band, finishing up the ritsando moved instead to an uptempo melody that the Knight recognized as Arocan in origin. A local dance, not a formal one that one would see in the royal courts.

This was a dance of the people of the land, and he guided Bezel’s arm out to the side while his other hand came to rest in the small of her back, pulling her in close to him in a gentle motion that still had her gasping slightly, and left her face flushed.

“Oh my.” She got out in a shaky voice as they took to the dance, losing themselves in the song and the rhythm and each other’s eyes. “Where did you learn to dance like this?” She asked, staring into his storm-gray and blue eyes. 

The Knight shrugged and smiled and continued the dance, realizing only near the end that every other couple on the dance pavilion had stepped off and given them the whole of the space to move around in freely. It made him blush only a little less than she was, but when they stopped at the song’s conclusion, both of their faces were burning when the applause came.

In the noise and the thundering of his heart, the Knight found the courage to dare one more blasphemy. He took her hand and brought it up to his lips, and then looking down her arm to capture her emerald eyes in his stare, branded a feather-light kiss on the back of her fingers.

“Happy fourteenth birthday, Princess Bezel.” He congratulated her, ignoring how the applause became scattered as more than a few Knights on the grounds took to whispering and staring at him in shock.

In the moment, the Knight found he didn’t care.

***

2 Days Later

Two days later, in the dead of night, birds took to the skies in angry flocks and every milking and slaughter-bound animal in the vicinity suddenly went mad with agitated noise. The Knight wondered at it, but dismissed it because of his need for sleep and quickly nodded back off. He wasn’t sure how much later afterwards it was, but then the ground took to shaking wildly, and the entire building rattled and trembled around them, bits of the ceiling crumbling down on his bed and his head as he fumbled in the dark until he got off a light spell, tinted green with the glow of his mana. 

“Bezel!” He shouted, lunging out of bed and gasping as he tripped and fell. He saw an entire piece of the ceiling give way and fall towards him, and he shoved a hand forward and incinerated it completely with a wild blast of flaring fury, called up on instinct. He took a moment to breathe and focus, then dashed into her room and found her whimpering, huddled up tight beneath a shield spell of blue mana while another piece of ceiling leaned against it and pressed her into her bed. He snarled and ripped it away with his bare hands, shouting her name twice more until she realized she was free and safe and let the shield spell drop, lunging for his arms. The shaking finally came to a stop, and there was about two seconds of dead silence before shouting and yelling from everywhere in the camp began.

“What...what was that?” Bezel stammered.

The Knight held her tightly, feeling a thundering against his ribs and wondered if it was his heart beating away or hers. He knew what this was, indirectly, from stories that had been told to him by other Mage Knights who had spent significant time deployed in The Below. 

An earth-shake. 

“The earth moved.”

“I...I thought that was just something people liked to say as a joke.”

“No.” The Knight shook his head. “Earth-shakes are very real. And very dangerous.” The danger passed, he finally realized their state of undress and let her go. “Get some clothes on. Grab everything you can. We need to get out of this building.”

Less than three minutes later, they stood outside, grabbed halfway in their dash out of the main Portstand building by several guards and escorted to safety. The Knight had barely had time to strap on his sword, and wore no armor in the blitz of movement. Everyone who had been so relaxed and cheerful two nights prior during the princess’s birthday was now somber-faced, and more than a few were being tended to by medics, with bandages being applied and the faint glow of countless yellow and green auras blazing away into healing spells. Everyone had made a blitz for the outside, and while a few of the structures in Portstand were looking a little worse for wear under the blazing light of two dozen magical sky-fire flare spells, it was clear that nobody had been trapped in a collapsed building. In the midst of the chaos, Knight Commander Sloane bellowed out orders and conferred with the other ranked officers who were presenting status reports and carrying out his commands.

The Knight found himself trailing behind Bezel, who had shaken off her shocked state and was now fully awake, dressed in a simple outfit devoid of any royal markings, and wearing a thick red shawl that one of the Arocan base staff had given to her as a birthday present. The Knight shivered, remembering too late how chilly Arocan nights could be without the sun beating down on him. 

“Knight Commander!” She called out, her resonant female voice just starting to turn and deepen from its girlish origins. Sloane paused and turned as she approached, glancing once to the Knight who flinched under that accusing stare of falling behind his charge. “Was anyone badly hurt?”

“No fatalities, your highness.” Sloane told her, professional and gruff. “But we weren’t as close to where this earth-shake started. We’ve got some lumps and bruises and more than a couple of concussions, but the rest of the unit stands ready.”

“Ready for what?” The Knight latched on to Sloane’s words, and his danger sense was ringing. He knew his former Commander well enough to hear the undertone within it...there was a mission.

“We just received orders from RRD Central Command.” Sloane explained curtly. “They have pinpointed the earth-shake to the eastern quarter of Aroca along a known fissure. It is close to a refinement plant that processes mana crystals for weaponry and armor used by the Mage Knights. It has suffered damage and they wish us to…”

“Sir! Commander Sloane!” An out of breath knight raced up, paper in hand. “A message on the emergency spell-band!” The Knight looked closer and spotted the familiar band around his forearm that marked him as one of the rare and specially trained far-messaging mages within the corps; the vital link in communications to their outposts around the world. “The settlement of Dapana has suffered catastrophic damage, and the automatic distress Sending triggered!”

The Knight flinched, already bringing up what he knew of Dapana from his memory. Over 10,000 people called it home. It was close to the great fissure that ran across eastern Aroca, next to a wide lake. It wasn’t important enough for a member of the nobility to call it home, didn’t qualify as a separate district, and more or less kept to itself. It exported nothing of value to Atlantis in terms of wealth or manufacture, but was home to many farmers and regional merchants. It had never called for help before, routinely protested Atlantean oversight, and wasn’t important to the RRD, or logistics, or anyone. It was, in a word, one of the few major Arocan settlements that Atlantis didn’t have a foothold in, and had gone ignored only by dint of its inconsequential status.

His heart fell when he pieced it all together and realized exactly what the official response would be. And when Bezel found out…

“Dapana.” Sloane sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Has the message been heard by other RRD Divisions?”

“Uh, I...I believe so, sir.” 

“Has Command issued any orders for anyone to go to it?” Sloane pressed on. The far-sending knight closed his eyes and chanted for a bit as he aligned himself to the invisible whispers of message spells flittering this way and that across the world, then came back out after fifteen seconds. “No, sir. No orders to render assistance to Dapana have been issued.”

Sloane’s eyes flickered over to Bezel, who let out a gasp of dismay at the news. “Something to say, your highness?”

“Are you telling me that nobody in the whole of the Mage Knights is going to help the people of Dapana?!” Bezel demanded, her face pale in the scope of the disaster. “How many call it home?”

“Over 10,000.” The Knight said lowly, though not so quiet that Sloane didn’t hear him also and glower at him for cutting into the conversation.

“And you’re not going to save them?” Bezel demanded of Sloane, staring up at the man with graying hair who was so much taller than her, so much more capable, and while probably weaker than her in raw magic, was ten times more dangerous.

“We have been given our orders, your highness,” Sloane told her patiently, “and…”

“You have a duty to save those people!” Bezel snapped at him. “Wasn’t that the entire point of the Mage Knights, of Atlantis? To protect the people of Terra?”

Sloane stopped talking and blinked at her, curious and suddenly wary.

“Where did you hear that, your highness?” He asked, some quiet note in his voice that the Knight had never heard before. He found himself standing straighter, because something plucked his spine like a string. Listen, it said. Listen, for this is important.

Bezel worried her lower lip. “My Knight told me when he was giving me instruction in self-defense. He said that the Mage Knights, that the royal family were protectors before they ruled. Was this not so?”

Sloane’s eyes narrowed, focused on her with blazing intensity, and then all at once the pressure faded. “It was.” Sloane conceded. He looked over to the Knight, and the disapproval eased off. For Sloane, who was so hard so often, it was the closest thing to praise one usually got. 

“Then explain to me why all of the RRD, who are the first units summoned to defend Terra against the threats from beyond the sky and beyond the Veil, are going to let 10,000 of our people suffer and struggle and likely perish for...What was your mission again? Weapons components?” Bezel spat the words out.

The Knight bit his tongue, but again, the voice of his mother sounded in his heart.

Remember that people are more important than things.

Sloane sighed, and this time, it was a sigh full of regret and fatigue. “We have been given our orders, your majesty, by RRD Command. Such orders cannot be ignored or dismissed, or superseded by anything less than a royal decree.”

And there was the thrumming along the Knight’s spine again. This is important.

Anything less than a royal decree, Sloane had said. Someone else might have said it sarcastically, or meant that only the Mage King could retract or replace such an order. But this was Alastair Sloane, the man who had brought the Knight into the fold, and he was never anything less than brutally honest or gratingly polite. He was, above everything else, precise in his words.

The Knight drew in a sharp breath as the subtle hint was laid bare before him, and both Sloane and the princess turned and looked to him. The Knight blinked several times, and stared at Bezel.

“Don’t get angry over the things you can’t change.” He said, repeating the most important lesson his mother had given him, and that he had passed on to Bezel. And then he inclined his head towards her. I can’t say it directly. I cannot suggest this to you, you are royalty and I am just a Mage Knight and if Sloane hears me telling you what to do he can argue you are influenced.

Bezel parsed out the words, staring at him in wonder in the early hours of the morning, and the Knight mouthed two syllables. El-la.

And she finally caught on.

“But what of the things I can change?” She whispered, searching his face, and the Knight smiled at her. His brave, beautiful, brilliant Bezel.

The princess whirled about on Sloane, standing tall and slipping on the mien practiced and perfected for years in the court of her father as a young girl.

“Knight Commander Alastair Sloane. I, Princess Bezel Lantea, royal born of Atlantis, issue a decree. You are to ignore your issued orders from Command. The Princess hereby orders the 242nd Division to travel to Dapana and provide rescue and aid to the afflicted.”

Sloane blinked once, then took a knee and pressed a clenched fist to his chest. “As my princess commands.” He said gravely, standing back up and whistling so loud that every head in the yard turned to him and went silent. He channeled magic into his voice until it thundered into the night. “Listen up you maggots! We’ve got new orders! I want EVERY Mage Knight geared up and ready for search and rescue in the fastest Skyskiffs we have! Support staff, clean out our shelves and warehouses, and load up every scrap of food, bit of cloth, and emergency medical stock that we’ve got. We’re emptying out Portstand, and we’re flying for Dapana! I want our lead units IN THE AIR in ten, and everyone else following quick as you can. Anyone who can speak Arocan, you’re heading up our lead units! MOVE, people!”

Like scattering rats, everyone took off running, Portstand transforming into a sea of movement and intent and wild energy full of new purpose.

The Knight shook his head and marveled at it all. Did Bezel have any idea how truly incredible she was?

He felt her tug at his arm, and he looked at her. “Hm?”

“Come on.” She scowled. “We’re going with.” 

Sloane, who had stayed close to them, jerked his head up at her announcement. “What?” He uttered incredulously. “Your highness, I can’t allow you to come with us. We are heading into an unknown disaster zone, and…”

“My place is with my people, Commander, not hiding behind on a military base while civilians suffer and the soldiers of Atlantis risk their lives to save them!” Bezel snapped back at the older man, still running on righteous fury and drunk on purpose.

Sloane recoiled as if she’d slapped him in the face. “But…” Bezel just scowled and stared at him even harder, and Sloane finally shook his head. 

“Do as you will. But take no chances. Your life is too important, your highness.”

“My Knight will be with me.” Bezel informed the military leader, grabbing hold of the Knight’s hand and squeezing it tight. “I fear nothing while he is with me.”

Sloane looked from her to him, and then to their joined hands, then sighed and ran a hand through his hair. He stabbed a finger at the Knight.

“Boy, you keep her safe. No matter what.” He growled out.

“I will always protect her.” The Knight vowed, and only the severity of the crisis in progress kept him from blushing as she squeezed his hand even tighter.

***

The Town of Dapana

Eastern Aroca, by Lake Changas

Dapana was burning when the 242nd RRD flew in. The fires were spread all around, brighter than the first glimpse of the pink dawn over the horizon clouded by black smoke, and punctuated by screams.

The Knight shivered a bit, but with Bezel already on edge and going pale as the enormity of the task ahead of them set in, he falsified a strength and surety he didn’t feel and slipped into the mien that he had picked up in training, and in the short time he’d been a squire in Sloane’s command before Zolim. 

When he set their skyskiff down on the edge of Dapana, he grabbed for Bezel’s arm, holding her still before she could charge off into the fray. In the darkness of just before the dawn, in the glow of firelight and a slowly brightening horizon, he pulled out the small amulet she had made for him, and given to him, at the start of his tenure as her protector, Her Knight.

“You’re so brave. Don’t ever stop being brave.” The voice of his mother whispered between them as he snapped it open. Bezel’s terrified eyes settled at that, and the Knight nodded to her.

“Stay close to me.” He warned her. “Remember what we came here to do. If you panic, if you don’t stay in control, you might get hurt. Other people will get hurt. People will die.” He blinked. “ Your people.”

Bezel blinked twice and nodded, removing her arm from his grip. “I’ll be careful.”

“Good. Please remember how important you are.” He told her firmly. 

“You and Sloane both.” Bezel muttered, shaking her head. “You can relax. If the king even breathes a word about me being in danger because of you, I’ll tell him off. I’m not that important to him, not really.”

“You are important to me Bezel.” The Knight declared angrily, and winced and shut his eyes afterwards. Damnit. Of all the... why had he just opened his mouth and said that?

His eyes snapped back open when he felt her hand cup the side of his face, and he stood frozen as she smiled at him with slightly watery eyes. “I know.” She said. “But you have to be careful as well. All right?”

“Yes.” The Knight rasped, wondering and hopeful and praying that the open longing pulsing through his body didn’t show up on his face. “Do you trust me?”

Bezel’s head went up and down exactly once. “You are my Knight. I trust you with my life.” Her hand dropped away from his face and squeezed his. They shared a smile, and in the darkness of the early morning, the Knight found the courage to dare a little more, stroking the pad of his thumb across the back of her hand. She breathed a little louder, and he let go.

“Stay close to me.” He repeated, and then they were running into the collapsed town, running towards the fires and the screams.

***

2 Hours Later

The 242nd Division still wasn’t quite at full strength after the Zolim massacre, and the wounded from Portstand had slowed down the followup wave of emergency tents and supplies and medics. The first wave of search and rescue poured through the city from all directions, doing their best to manage a semblance of a grid search. As the sky lightened further and honest morning light settled over them, the searching got easier. It also became much more pressing, because the more time that passed without help getting to the still trapped Dapanians, the more likely that injuries would become serious injuries, and serious injuries would result in casualties. 

The citizens of Dapana who had been lucky enough to escape the devastating earth-shake with a minimum of damage helped out, and the Atlantean tongue passed between rescuers and survivors with more than a smattering of Arocan. The Knight found himself pressed into the role of translator for one squad of RRD Knights who lacked anyone capable of speaking the native tongue, and it was only Bezel’s presence right by his side that kept him grounded enough to keep going.

There was just too much. Too much destruction, too much rubble, too much pain and screaming, or worse, not enough screaming. Somehow, through exhaustion and fatigue, he found the strength to keep going. 

And then the aftershock hit. 

Buildings that they hadn’t yet gotten to collapsed completely as the land trembled, still not done moving, and the Knight hissed as he helped Bezel up off of the ground. A splinter of wood from a house’s cross-beam had sliced across her forehead, bleeding profusely as such nicks around the face tended to do. She let out a gasp as he dug out a clean cloth from his back and pressed it to the wound.

“I’m all right.” She told him, her eyes slightly dizzy.

“You are not all right.” He snapped back at her, looking around to yell for a medic and swallowing it back when he realized that they were cut off and alone. The two story affair that they had been next to and about to check out had given out completely. They were cut off from the main street, and the unit they had been traveling with was somewhere on the other side of the pile of what used to be a building. “Damn, this better not scar. And hold still already, you’re hurt!”

“There...there were people in that house.” Bezel stammered, and she pushed him off of her, spinning around to the entire block of the neighborhood that had at most one standing wall left to a house or building. “There were people everywhere! We have to find them!” 

“I have to get you to safety first!” The Knight shouted at her, grabbing her shoulder and refusing to let go, and refusing to shake her as well. She was hurt, she was dizzy, and if she didn’t have a concussion, she was lucky.

“No!” Bezel pushed him away from her with some lingering trace of strength, and shook her head wildly. “The people, they…”

The Knight did the only thing he could to keep her from fighting him off, to keep her from hurting herself. He pulled her into his arms and held her tight, refusing to let go.

She crumbled against him, quiet aside from her sniffling. She still wanted to save everyone in Dapana. The Knight didn’t want to tell her that it might be too late.

A skyskiff flew overhead and located them, and Knight Commander Sloane himself descended down the ship’s rope ladder, yelling his name. The Knight nodded to the man as he raced to their side.

“Is the princess all right?” Sloane demanded breathlessly.

“Splinter grazed her forehead.” The Knight answered. “She might be concussed.”

Sloane breathed. “Okay. Come on, your highness. Up into the skiff. We’re pulling back, we’ve done all we can.”

“No.” Bezel protested, but weaker than before. Her hands were scraped as raw as the Knight’s were from digging through stone and wood and smoldering thatching and charred ruins. “No, there are still...still people here.”

“And we can’t do anything for them.” Sloane told her gently. “We don’t know where to look, and everything’s rubble now. The after-shake did what the first upheaval started. This place is a crater of ruins. We could still dig, yes, but without knowing exactly where to dig, we’d be wasting our time and our strength.” The Knight stepped back as Sloane knelt down. “Climb on my back, your highness. I’ll get you up to the ship.” 

It was a burst of power that the Knight Commander wouldn’t have ordinarily expended, but the spell-fueled leap took him and the princess up to the deck of the skyskiff, while the Knight, too tired to repeat the trick, settled for climbing up the ladder. Once aboard, he checked Bezel and found the medic on board already applying a bandage to stop the bleeding and then running a low-grade healing spell over her forehead.

“We can’t stay any longer, your highness.” Sloane told her. There was apology in his tone. “We cannot save who we cannot find.”

Bezel blinked at that, tears in her eyes. She didn’t want to accept it, the Knight knew. She didn’t dare to think of a thing like acceptable losses. In that moment, flying in the skies above a town turned to burning ruins, she was exactly the same as the girl who had stumbled out of the shelter up on Atlantis and cried herself sick to see everyone that went hungry and hurting and abandoned by the royal family and their subordinates. 

And then there was a moment of stillness as she blinked, and something wild and ferocious appeared in her stare. The Knight recognized it. 

Bezel had an idea.

“If...If you could find them?” She asked, low and hopeful and just short of a plea. 

“We can’t. Not in time.” Sloane repeated.

“But if you could.” Bezel shot back. “If you could find them, trapped in the rubble…”

Sloane cocked his head to the side, finally catching on. “You can find them?” He asked carefully.

“I...I have to try.” Bezel stammered, and tried to walk to the rail of the skyskiff. Her legs gave out on her, and the Knight was at her side in an instant, catching her, picking her up, cradling her in his arms.

“You need to rest, Bezel.” The Knight insisted, and ignored how the others within earshot gasped at the complete lack of formality in his address.

Her head swiveled back and forth. “Put...put me down. By the rail.” He stared at her, and she stared up in growing frustration. “Please.”

“I’m not letting go of you.” He swore, setting her down on the deck, and she curled into a sitting position, grabbing the vertical slats of the guardrails with her hands and pulling her legs and her skirt up underneath her. 

She pressed her forehead against the bars, hissing against the pain, and closed her eyes.

“Please.” She whispered. “Please, please, please work.”

The Knight didn’t dare ask her what she was doing, didn’t dare interrupt her. He knelt down beside her, one hand on the rail and the other resting on her back, just to reassure her. Just so she would know that she wasn’t alone. 

She breathed in and out, over and over again, and the faint glow of her blue aura manifested, glowing and going dull in equal measure. 

“What is she…” Another knight on the skyskiff started to say, and the Knight whirled about and glared at him.

“Quiet!” He snapped in a blazing whisper, and everyone on board the vessel went silent and stopped moving. The Knight glanced up to see Sloane looking down at him, and then at Bezel, no longer accusing, not wary or suspicious, but...sad, almost. 

Bezel kept breathing, and whatever Working she was conjuring up built up slowly. Bezel had strength, but she never expressed it as an oppressive force, demanding obeisance. 

A full minute after she started, Bezel inhaled sharply and her eyes opened.

The emerald eyes he saw in his dreams were gone, replaced by the brilliant glow of a pale blue tinged with pink.

Bezel pulled her head back from the bars, and one of her arms separated. It was the motion of a moment for her to point to the ground beneath them. “There.” She whispered, indicating the rubble that had been the building they had been next to. “Three people. One’s...they’re fading, I...I think they’re dying.”

Sloane whirled around and barked out orders, and another skyskiff blazed in, the knights jumped out and started using spells of telekinesis to lift away the debris, guided by her remarkably accurate directions. Three people were dug out of the ruins; a man and a woman, and a young child, gasping for air that wouldn’t come because of a punctured lung. The healers got to work, and more ships flew in as word got out over the far-senders’ messages that they were finding more survivors and needed help now . 

The Knight stayed at her side, grounding her as Sloane guided the skiff over the ruins of Dapana, and one block at a time, one rescue crew guided at a time, for countless minutes or hours, the princess became the diviner for them all.

All those lives saved, and somehow, she didn’t stop. Couldn’t stop. Not until she looked around when the sun was high up in the sky and her eyes fluttered and the glow disappeared. Then her eyelids slid shut and she gave out, falling backwards into the Knight’s arms, exhausted and depleted of all but the barest trace of her magic.

“Did...did we…” She tried to talk. Tried and failed, and lay in his arms trembling slightly from the work.

“You did it, Bezel.” The Knight reassured her. “You saved them.” He looked up to Sloane, surprised to find him staring at them in wonder.

No, not at them. At her. And so was the rest of the crew.

“You saved them.” The Knight repeated, and Bezel’s timid smile came in response. 

She finally gave into the bone-chilling need for rest, and fell asleep in his arms.

***

242nd RRD Relief Camp

The Outskirts of Dapana, Eastern Aroca

Evening

Over 200 tents had been put up in a matter of hours, even as more supplies were flown in and the rescued Arocans were brought in one skiff-load at a time. Among that sea of tents was one where two Mage Knights were posted as guards, and where inside, the Knight sat vigil while Princess Bezel Lantea, the royal who had ordered an entire Rapid Response Division to hang the supplies and save the people, lay sleeping and insensate to the world.

She lay there on a cot with no trace of finery and only a rough woolen blanket to keep her warm, looking paler than he had ever seen her before. The only color was in her blazing red hair, and even that was a shade lighter than usual. He had never seen her so tired, so worn.

Bezel was just fourteen years old, and...and she…

The Knight sat at her bedside and clasped one cold hand between his warm ones, as if he could pass more than just the warmth of his skin to her. He sat there and watched her breathe in shallow, steady paces, and stayed mute. He didn’t dare open his mouth to say anything, because he knew if he did, it would all come spilling out of him, and it would ruin everything.

There was a muffled shuffling as the canvas flap at the front of the tent was pushed back, and he turned to see Knight Commander Sloane step inside. The Knight started to rise and salute, but Sloane shook his head and then forced him back down. “Any change?” Sloane asked in a rough voice. He’d been giving orders all day, and it seemed to have finally caught up with him.

The Knight shook his head. “Not yet, sir.”

“Mana exhaustion.” Sloane explained, looking down at her face before pulling up another collapsible chair and sitting on the opposite side of the bed. “It doesn’t matter who you are. If you push yourself to the limits of your strength, there’s a rest period that goes with it.” The old knight smiled a little. “She’s a spitfire, our princess. I didn’t think she had it in her.”

“She is more than people think she can be.” The Knight explained, humming a little. 

“Just like you were.” Sloane agreed, and intentionally glanced down to their hands, joined against protocol. The Knight looked from their hands up to Sloane’s face and squeezed her fingers again, and silently dared him to say something against it.

Sloane closed his eyes and sighed. “What kind of spell was that that she used?” He inquired, dropping the matter. “She was finding...everyone. With no failure rate. Every place she pointed, every person she warned us about, they were right where she said they would be. Right as she said they would be.”

“I wish I had the answer, sir.” The Knight told him. “She’s been trying to map out the leylines of Terra, and…” He paused. “In the Grand Savannah. She...I got up one morning, and she was already up and outside, just watching everything. She said she could feel everything. That she was looking for magic, but that she felt life instead.” The Knight shook his head. “Her eyes weren’t glowing at the time, though. That was new today.”

“If she could find out a way to duplicate it, to teach others how to do that...it would revolutionize search and rescue operations.” Sloane went on. “She could change the world.”

“She already has.” The Knight said, and smiled down at her. “She could do so much good, and she despairs that she cannot do more.”

“She does it for you.” Sloane accused him, and the Knight’s smile faltered as he jerked his head up. “I’m serious, boy. She is nothing like her brothers. She...she’s becoming a princess worth following.”

“She would still be that if I weren’t here.” The Knight protested. “I am just her knight. Nothing more.”

Sloane looked pained at that, but he was deprived of the chance to say anything further when Bezel finally stirred, squeezing down on the Knight’s hand and letting out a soft moan.

“Your highness?” Sloane exclaimed, leaning forward a bit. “Princess Bezel, how are you feeling?”

“Tired.” She said, her eyes fluttering open. She looked up to Sloane, and then turned her head slightly until she saw who was holding her hand. It made her blink before she smiled and relaxed for all of a second, then remembered where she was. “Dapana! The people, are they…”

“They are alive, your highness.” Sloane told her. “More than I had thought we would be able to save. They are alive because of you.”

She all but slumped at the report. “Good.” She breathed out. “That’s-that’s good. And your knights?”

“Tired and worn out, princess, but they’ll live as well. We’ve currently made camp outside of Dapana, and we have our staff treating the injured and seeing to some decent meals for everyone.” Sloane paused. “Your highness, that spell you used…To find everyone? How did you do that?”

“I don’t know.” Bezel confessed. “I have an idea, but I’m still working on it. There’s still so much I don’t understand.”

“When you do complete it, your highness, I would love to see the finished product.” Sloane said. “We were able to save so many people today because of it. If we could find people trapped like that all the time, it would make our jobs so much easier.”

“When Command allowed you to.” Bezel pointed out bitterly. Sloane nodded.

“When we are ordered to.” He corrected her. “By Command...or by royalty.” Sloane pushed himself up out of his seat. “Your highness, now that you’re up and about, we need to get some warm food into you. The best treatment for mana exhaustion is good food, lots of rest, and no spellcasting for at least two days.”

“Three.” The Knight said automatically, because that was the number quoted in the regulations.

“Two.” Sloane rebuked him. “That is about as long as I should expect either of you to slow down. Having spent significant time with her highness outside of the confinement of expected decorum, I have learned that our princess is rather forcefully impatient when it suits her.”

“When it matters.” Bezel spoke up with a harrumph, and then went pale as she realized that she had spoken up as though it had just been her and the Knight on their own. Sloane stunned the Knight further by only chuckling a little and shaking his head, walking to leave the tent.

“I’ll be waiting outside to escort you two. Take your time getting up, your highness. Dizziness is also another symptom.” The Knight Commander departed, and Bezel slowly started to sit up, with the Knight steadying her.

“They’re really safe?” Bezel asked him, when they were alone.

“Yes.” The Knight said to her. “There are likely still dead in Dapana after the earthquake, but everyone that we could have rescued, everyone who was still breathing and holding on…” He paused. “Don’t scare me like that again, Bezel.”

“I am not weak.” She berated him. “I do not need you to coddle me and tell me I cannot do things. Isn’t that why you have been training me to defend myself?”

The Knight paused, stung by that bit of temper that sank into her words. It could have so easily just been a minor protest, but it could have also been something more. And he had to know.

“Do you still need me?” He asked her, and she jolted at the question.

“You are my Knight.” 

“Do you still need me?” He repeated, and looked away, not wanting to see the refusal in her eyes. Because she was so strong, and brave, and wise, and she had stood up to a military commander and defied his orders to save so many lives.

He startled when her hands came up and wrapped around his face, turning it so he could not look away from her. She wasn’t crying, but she was sad.

“You are my Knight, and I trust you with my life. There is nobody else that I would want by my side.” She paused, looked down and worried at her lip, then her eyes came back up again. “If I do not need you, sir knight, am I allowed to want you?”

His blood thundering in his ears, afraid to blink, afraid to breathe, afraid to say a word because he was so close to breaking now at her confession, the Knight settled for a nod.

“You will stay with me?” She pleaded with him. He nodded again.

An easy relief fell into place between them, and Bezel let go of his face, smiling. He stood, stepped away from the bed as she threw the blanket back and eased herself out of it. It was too much, too much too fast, and he desperately needed the distance and the space.

That momentary reprieve lasted up until they stepped out of her tent and took two paces past the guards protecting it.

Then, Bezel and the Knight found themselves staring agog into a sea of faces. Arocan and Asan and Eurosian civilians from the flattened town stood in the dark, illuminated by candlelight or the floating orbs of red and yellow spell-lights above the heads of the few magic users among them. There was even a single green spell-light conjured between two girls clasping hands. All of them looked on Bezel in wonder, in reverence, and in awe. Whispers came from the crowd in Arocan and Atlantean, indistinct and hard to place exactly. Bezel. The Princess. The Finder. 

Three steps to the right of the tent, Knight Commander Sloane cleared his throat. “They wanted to see you, your highness. They wanted to thank you, for what you have done for them. For what nobody else would have thought to do for them.”

She was shaken, so terribly shaken at the sight of so many faces who looked at her in gratitude and care. The Knight wondered if any member of the royal family had ever been given such looks of loyalty and goodwill in generations.

The loyalty of those who knew that someone in power cared about them.

Bezel reached for his hand, grasped it tight, and pulled the Knight beside her, and they walked forward. The crowd parted like a wave. Some kneeled, others merely stood and whispered thanks in Atlantean and in Arocan. Hands reached for them, fingers traced their arms, his shoulders, they brushed past the red shawl of Arocan design and make that she had been given and worn all through the rescue. Somehow, she kept from weeping, though he still saw the tears gathering in her eyes. He knew she wanted to tell them to stand, that she didn’t deserve this, that she didn’t want this. But she kept her silence, and let them say what they needed to, let them make their gestures of thanks and praise. She would not dare cheapen their feelings, lessen the value of what they offered up.

It was when she whispered back to them in Arocan, “You saving deserved,” that the singing began.

Arocan songs of joy and gratitude followed them all the way to the mess tent.

***

Portstand RRD Encampment

Dalum Province, Aroca

1 Week Later

The 242nd Division could not linger around Dapana forever, and once the last of the survivors had been treated and patched up, and the worst of the debris had been cleared away to make room for rebuilding, they had packed up everything that the survivors did not need to keep surviving as they put their lives back together and flown back to Portstand where Knight Commander Sloane had filed a long and very thorough after-action report, detailing the bravery and heroism of Princess Bezel Lantea in first prioritizing the rescue of civilians over equipment by royal decree, and her further involvement in locating so many survivors that would have died buried without her assistance. For the part of the Dapanians, they had made sure to craft gifts for their rescuers. Every Mage Knight and medic and staff member who had been there to save them, heal them, and cook for them received a carved wooden trinket from a local tree, an icon of no real magical power but which was famous in their folklore for granting good luck. Bezel received a much more impressive gift, in the form of a carved and lacquered wooden staff empowered by small spells of hardness and durability by the local shaman ‘so that you will carry the strength of Aroca with you always’ as the town’s surviving Elder had explained to her as it was passed over. The Knight could find no fault in the gift. She would certainly put it to good use. As time passed back at Portstand, she’d quickly adopted more and more clothing appropriate to the region, and relied less on what she had brought with her. The result made her look even more exotic and alluring than she had been from the start, and endeared her even further to the Arocans who continued to educate her and the Knight in their native tongue.

They had stayed at Portstand for a week as she finished her recovery and waited for supply to finish requisitioning all that the 242nd had expended in the rescue of Dapana. There was much that the base needed first before they could take what they required for the next leg of their trip around the world, and while Bezel rested and continued to learn Arocan from the base staff who were natives and glowed to be in her presence. The Knight made himself useful by joining the men on hunts, trying to hone his skills of stealth and bringing back much needed meat for the cookfires while the foodstores were depleted. 

The morning of their appointed day of departure, another knight greeted them at breakfast and passed along the message that Knight Commander Sloane wished to speak to the princess before she left. The Knight, as her protector and guardian, knew his own attendance was mandatory. 

Sloane was sitting at his desk when they walked into his office, and the older knight rose and bowed his head when she walked in with the Knight three steps behind her.

“Your highness.” Sloane greeted her. “I trust you are feeling much better?”

Bezel smiled and called up her magic, letting the soft blue aura linger in her open hand for a bit before she dismissed it. “Well enough. You have been a most gracious host, but it is time for us to move on.”

“I suppose there are those who would wish you to continue your tour of the provinces.” Sloane said diplomatically, and the Knight held back a wiry grin at the subtext. There had been a message passed on from Atlantis, her eyes only of course, where her father told her in so many words to stop fooling around in matters beneath her concern and do what she had been sent Below to do. Not that the classification kept her from talking about it with him afterwards...or shoving the letter in his face at first when she was too angry to do even that much.

“There have been some words to that effect.” Bezel nodded. “Of course, I find that one can achieve much between places of interest.”

“One certainly can, yes.” Sloane agreed, hesitating. “Is...there anything you would wish me to pass on to the troops? Or to the Dapanians?”

“Only that I wish them well.” Bezel’s formal tone softened. “And that I hope that your knights will continue to remember that the oath they took was not meant to serve a king; it was to protect the people.”

“After last week, your highness, I don’t think any of my knights will forget that lesson anytime soon.” Sloane told her. “We fight exenos and the things from beyond the Veil and can so easily be lost in that. Unofficially speaking, I am glad you gave the order to mobilize for Dapana. It has caused some tremors within Command and among the other divisions, and that shakeup was needed.”

The Knight Commander reached into his desk and pulled out a small, overly thick metal token, branded with the symbol of the 242nd Division. He set it on his desk and then slid it across in front of them. “Your Knight can tell you what this is.”

Bezel looked from the gold and silver medallion to him curiously, and the Knight swallowed as he reached a hand out and traced the surface, searching with his magical senses just enough to feel the charge inside of it. “It is an emergency beacon.” He said, picking it up and then pressing it into Bezel’s hand. “It contains the Working of an alarm spell coded to the division it comes from, and if you concentrate on it, you will be able to cast it. Depending on how much mana you can feed into it, the range of that signal will be augmented.”

“Your Knight, in practice, was able to empower it enough to broadcast halfway across the continent of Aroca before the signal was lost.” Sloane explained further. “If you were to cast the spell inscribed in it, your highness, I have no doubt we would hear it from anywhere you were in the world.” The old knight smiled. “I suspect you are in the habit of looking for trouble. It would do my old heart a world of good to know that you can call for help if it is needed.”

Bezel squeezed the enspelled token in her hand and looked to the Knight Commander. “Why are you giving this to me?” She asked him. “Were you ordered to?”

“No. I wasn’t.” Sloane quickly dismissed that idea. “I want you to have it.”

“Why?” Bezel wondered aloud. “I had thought that…” She bit her lip and looked away. “I thought that you disliked me.”

“I did.” Sloane admitted. “When I first met you after Zolim and the hearing, I thought you were just like your father and your brothers. Just another member of the nobility who thought that everything in the world was theirs for the taking, and people were only slightly better than objects.”

The Knight’s eyes shot to his hairline as he listened to Sloane speaking treason, or at the very least, comments that were wildly insubordinate. Bezel shook her head wildly.

“I’m not! I didn’t!” She protested.

“I know that now your highness.” Sloane said warmly. “You must be an incredible actress when it suits you. You had me and everyone else believing that you wanted this boy over here as your protector only because he was the sole survivor of the Zolim Incident.” He held up a hand to stop her as she stammered and blushed. “I don’t need to know why, and I don’t want to. Your reasons are your own, and they’re between you and him. The less I know, the better. The point, Princess Bezel Lantea, is that I took you for your father’s daughter, and I was wrong.”

Sloane set his hand flat on his desk and peered at Bezel with sorrowful, longing eyes. “You are your mother’s daughter, and so much like her.”

Bezel inhaled sharply, and the Knight’s hands squeezed at the tops of his greaves. 

The Queen. Aine Lantea. Dead in childbirth, bringing her third child and only daughter into the world.

“You knew my mother?” Bezel whispered. Sloane kept looking at her, and the girl’s green eyes trembled. “Nobody ever talks about her.”

Sloane finally closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair. “I never did give you a proper birthday present, your highness. Allow me to give it to you now. I am going to tell you a story. And you might just believe me.”

Bezel went still, her breathing stilled to silent cycles, and she sat and watched with the Knight beside her as Alastair Sloane drifted into memory behind his closed eyes and found the strength to talk.

“Her name was Aine Aibulwalt, and she lived on the isle of Cault off the coast of Euros, the youngest daughter of a minor lord. A boy lived there, the son of a merchant turned herdsman, and grew up with her. She could summon up magic and cast illusions, and loved to sing and dance when she wasn’t knitting things out of wool. She had hair the color of a warm sunset and her eyes?” Sloane wavered. “She had your eyes.”

Bezel’s eyes watered up at that, and the Knight felt a thundering in his heart growing fast.

“She was the boy’s dearest friend, and as w... they grew and came into their power, they realized that…” Sloane stopped, breathed in fast and out slowly, and shook his head. “He made a vow to her. She was nobility and he was a commoner, but her family wasn’t prominent. She had an older brother set to inherit, and her parents liked him. She dreamed of traveling the world and singing, telling stories and making people smile. He only wanted to be at her side, and keep her safe against whatever life might throw at them.”

Sloane finally opened his eyes, one single bitter laugh escaping him. “Now imagine that the royal family of Atlantis is conducting a tour of its holdings. Imagine that a young and beautiful noble-born daughter from a lesser house who loves to sing and dance is asked by a more prominent Duke to make an appearance as part of the evening’s entertainment. And imagine that a brash and assured Crown Prince Volkas Lantea happens to be in that mansion when she sings for that room.” He looked to Bezel for a moment, then spun his gaze, those hard and bitter eyes whose depths were finally revealed, onto the Knight. “Imagine how little the protests of that young woman matter, imagine how little her dreams matter when the prince of all the world decides that she is lovely enough, powerful enough, to be his bride, and her family dare not refuse the dowry and incur the wrath of Atlantis.”

Sloane breathed through his nose. “Where do you suppose that leaves the boy who grew up herding sheep, selling wool, and training to be that lady’s husband and defender?”

“No.” Bezel whispered.

It was an old, old pain, the Knight realized. It hadn’t crushed him and forced him into the ground, but as Sloane sat there and stared at his desk, the Knight saw the cracks running through him.

He saw all the bitter warnings and doubts and angry remarks that Alastair Sloane had said to him over the years about not becoming attached, learning to accept his place, in a new light. Not one born out of a desire to spare the Knight’s career, or because it would be an embarrassment.

You really are too much like me for your own good.

Sloane had warned him against it because he had lived through that pain and come out on the other side forever changed.

Sloane brought a hand up to his mouth, rubbed at it. Mustered the resolve to keep going. “So. Aine Aibulwalt was wed to Prince Volkas Lantea, and a little over a year later, he was crowned Mage King after the death of his father. Their firstborn son, Desmond, was born. And as for that sheep herder’s son?”

Sloane reached into his pocket and produced a small bit of waterproofed leather, bundled tightly and held by a drawstring. He set it on the desk and shook his head. “He left before the wedding took place, enlisted in the Mage Knights. She never saw him again, never even had the chance to explain herself. Aine’s mother met the boy before he left, and gave him a token that the future queen wanted him to have.”

Eyes wet and blurry, Bezel reached for the small parcel and undid the string. It hadn’t been opened often, but the leather was worn from where it had been rubbed against whatever was inside countless times over.

Inside that bag, smaller than her palm, was a shorn lock of dark red hair tied around a plain silver engagement ring. Not a ring that the nobility would have, golden and bearing gemstones, but a ring of less precious and more affordable metal. The kind of ring that a shepherd’s boy might be able to afford.

“I thought that everything...Everything that I loved about her was lost. That she became queen and never looked back, and that nothing of the girl, the woman I loved, survived after Volkas claimed her as his own. I joined the RRD, vowed never to look on her face again, and learned what I needed to survive. I looked on her sons and saw nothing but their father in them, and nothing of her warmth and compassion. But now? I look at you, princess, and I,” Sloane’s voice caught, “I see her. She is in you. You never had the chance to know her, but she is with you. All the best parts of her are in you. The way you laugh, the way you smile. The way you care when the rest of your family does not. My Aine would be proud to call you her daughter, Bezel.”

Bezel was out of her chair and running around Sloane’s desk before he finished, and she hugged him tight and buried her face into his neck. The Knight watched, his chest aching for a hundred different reasons as Sloane, the unbreakable mountain of a man who weathered every storm, held her back and cried from tightly shut eyes.

“You would have been such a good father.” Bezel whispered to him.

Sloane choked at her words.

“Thank you for telling me your story.” She added, finally pulling back from him. She too was crying, but there was happiness there as well. “It was a wonderful gift.”

Sloane shook his head, and motioned to the ring and the lock of red hair tied to it. 

Her mother’s hair. “That is your gift.” He told her, pulling himself together.

Bezel looked at it, shook her head. “No. She wanted you to have that. It’s yours, it’s all you have to remember her by.”

Sloane laughed and wiped his eyes dry. “No. I have the memory of Aine, and her daughter lives in the world at last, traveling just like she wanted to.” He nodded to Bezel. “You deserve to have something of your mother. You deserve to have a reminder of who you came from. And I may not be your father, but...If you’re ever in trouble, you use that emergency beacon, Bezel. You use it, and I will come running.” He looked to the Knight, the weight still there in his face, but once more hidden away, stored, filed. “I’ll come for both of you.”

The Knight found himself woodenly nodding his head while Bezel laughed again and wrapped up her mother’s hair and the forgotten engagement ring back into its small leather pouch. 

He didn’t dare speak, for fear of going mad from screams or sobs.

***

The Continent of Asa, Waddi Province

The Shore of the Crimson Sea

The Evening of The Knight’s 15th Birthday

By mutual silent agreement, the Knight and Princess Bezel both opted to leave certain topics alone. Or rather, he never brought them up, and she was observant enough, or patient enough, to not press the subject of Sloane’s past, or their mothers, or how the Knight was dealing with the revelations that Queen Aine Lantea had loved another before the king, and how the loss of her had driven Sloane to become the hardened mage knight who refused to step foot on Atlantis. He never talked about it, and he never stopped thinking about it.

They weren’t children, not really. He was old enough to serve. Old enough to die. And she had told him faintly that she was old enough to be courted, and it had long been spoken of that she would be married off when she turned 17. 

And Sloane had lived all of this before. He had loved Bezel’s mother, lost her when she became queen, and steeped in silence and bitterness as everything that they had wanted in the world was torn from them. And Sloane had known, known that the Knight loved Bezel even before he did. Had tried to warn him away from it. Had failed to, and in the end, told Bezel and him the truth that made up their broken world.

They traveled at a sedate pace, in no hurry and with no real desire to go directly from Portstand base to the next province capital. She still had readings to take, and the spell she had cast to find the trapped Dapanians to figure out. They trained, Bezel steadily improving with the staff that the Arocans had given her, and the Knight steadily increasing the difficulty of their spars. She could still overpower him on magic alone, and probably always would, but he saw stronger traces and lines of blue that shot through his green aura as time had gone on. They traveled together, cooked together, ate together, washed their clothes side by side in the rivers and streams they passed by. 

And yet, for as close as they were, the shock of Sloane’s past, the heavy weight of a forgotten engagement ring bundled in a lock of Aine Lantea’s hair had opened up a chasm between them. He still smiled at her, but it was guarded, and as time went on, she picked up on it.

He was Her Knight, and she trusted him with her life. She reminded him of that every day, and the Knight sometimes found himself answering back when she got worried that the same was true. That he trusted her with his life. But there was so much he did not say, could not.

How could he tell her the truth? I am in love with you and Sloane knows, and if I give into it I will end up just like him, broken and old and bitter. Even worse, he feared, was what it might do to her. She had her whole life ahead of her, a life so full of promise, a life that would change the world. He could stand by her side and protect her and keep her safe, but that would be all.

A little over two and a half weeks after they left Portstand, they had flown over the Crimson Sea and made camp on the opposite shore of that long expanse between the continents of Aroca and Asa. Dinner had been consumed and he tended the fire after finishing the cleaning of their dishes, setting it so that it would be down to embers by morning. Bezel had set up their tents, side by side, and worked in silence. He could see the tension over her as the first of the night stars appeared in the darkening blue sky. It was in the way she moved so slowly and methodically when their time in the wilderness had given her the experience to set up and break down their tents and bedrolls three times as fast. It was in the way she would look in his direction from the side of her eye when she swept her lustrous red hair behind her ear. It was in how she nibbled at her lower lip when she thought he wasn’t looking.

She had been doing that for days now, but hadn’t demanded him to open up and tell her what he was thinking about. Tonight, though, something changed. Tonight, she went to her satchel and dug out something, hiding it behind her back before turning and walking to him.

“Sir knight?” She said to him softly. “Could you stand for a moment?”

He did so, and looked down at her, for he was now slightly more than a head taller than she was after another growth spurt. “Yes, your highness?” And hid his wince when her face fell.

“You know my name, and we are alone.” She reminded him.

“I’m sorry, Bezel.” He apologized. “What did you need?”

She fidgeted at his question. “Do you know what day this is?” The Knight blinked and thought about it. He did not.

Bezel pulled out the object from behind her back and held it up to him. A small honeycake wrapped in wax leaves. “It’s your birthday.” She told him.

“Oh.” The Knight blinked again, more rapidly, and reached out for it. A cake.

She had gotten him a cake. Nobody had done anything like it for years, not since his mother…

“Thank you.” He told her. “You didn’t have to. I’m not…”

She jammed a finger into his chest. “One of these days, I am going to get you to admit that you matter just as much as I do.” Bezel scowled, and the Knight heard another voice beneath hers, soft but never forgotten, kept enshrined in long ago lessons.

Don’t let anyone ever tell you that you’re not important. That you don’t matter.

“As you say.” The Knight smiled, and gestured for her to sit beside him. Creating a thin blade out of magic, he carved the tiny dessert into two halves, just enough for each of them to have three bites each. He relished in the flavor of it, flour that wasn’t coarse, and with wild honey soaked through it all. His fingers were coated with the sticky sweetness after, and he carefully sucked them dry, watching with a now familiar ache as Bezel did the same.

She looked at him again after they were done, grinning in the conspiratorial fashion she had when they shared in something that would have been improper or illicit in a setting around others.

As though sharing a dessert out in the wilderness were a great and terrible sin.

“You’re fifteen now.” She declared, and he nodded. “I’ve been told that there’s a tradition among Eurosians. About looking up at the stars, and wishing for something.”

The Knight cocked his head to the side. “I think it needs to be a falling star, Bezel.”

“Does it?” Bezel wondered. “But what if there isn’t one on your birthday?”

“The tradition doesn’t require it to be a person’s birthday.”

“Oh.” She blinked. “That would make it easier.” She looked up and he followed her gaze, and as though the heavens had heard them, a bright flare appeared and streaked across the night sky before disappearing. She looked at him after in wide-eyed wonder. “Did you see it?”

He had, and he nodded. “Now you make a wish.” He told her, and closed his eyes.

“Any wish?” She whispered. “Even...even ones that can’t come true?”

“Especially those.” The Knight replied, feeling the ache in his chest deepen as he thought of this girl whose life he was so tangled up in, who possessed him in every way that mattered, and who he could never belong to the way he wanted to.

A long silence passed between them before she spoke again. “Did you make your wish?” Bezel asked, and he opened his eyes to find her looking at him with those emerald eyes of hers, dark and full...And resolved.

The Knight nodded. Bezel bit her lip and looked down at his chest. “I wished for something too. Can I do that? Can we share a wish on the same falling star?”

“I think so.” He struggled to get out, mustering false confidence. “But it’s less likely to happen if they were different wishes. At least, my mother used to say that.”

Her hand reached out, and she pressed her palm over the middle of his chest.

“I…” She got out, as he forgot how to breathe. “I have another present for you. Can I give it to you, my Knight?” She looked up at him again, those dark eyes so full of promise.

He could never deny her anything, and he stood there, his heart thrumming like a plucked string, and--

And her hand came up to the side of his face--

Her thumb caressed his lips--

Bezel, his fire-haired, emerald-eyed princess leaned in and up and closed her eyes, and he closed his--

It was their first true kiss, and it lasted nowhere near as long as he wanted it to, even as it blasted away all his resolve and the press of want Want WANT became a drumbeat beneath his skin, a writhing, coiling mess that snapped and ached for her.

She pulled back, blushing madly, and started to turn away.

He could let her walk away, the Knight knew. He could let that be the end of it, and they would go on, the princess and her knight, and nothing between them would change. They could be just like Sloane and the queen, torn apart by the expectations of the world, living empty, bitter lives. Because in that small, trembling kiss, one last detail he had missed out on became apparent.

The Knight had thought his love was unrequited. It wasn’t. And Sloane had known it wasn’t. Maybe she didn’t feel as strongly for him as he did for her, but…

His hand snapped out and grabbed hold of her arm, stopping her from retreating. She stilled, turned around, and looked at him.

Her eyes were so open, so torn, and in this one moment, the Knight knew, if he asked, she would tell him the absolute truth, even though she was afraid of it. Even though he was.

“Bezel?” He croaked out. 

“Yes?” It was less of a whisper and more of a breathy moan. Ask, that word seemed to beg him. Just ask.

He brought his hands to her face and held it gently, cradling her jaw and letting his fingers slide into the soft locks of her red hair. She breathed in sharply, and her chest rose towards him as her eyes flew wide open.

She said nothing, just stood there with her face in his hands, balancing on a precipice, waiting...Waiting to fall away or towards him.

The Knight licked his lips, whetting them, for they were so very dry, and his mouth was so very wet. “Do you trust me?” He asked her. Begged her. 

He waited then, too, waited and worried and wondered, for he wished for only one thing in his life, and had gone for so very long thinking it was an impossibility. But now...but now…

Tears gathered in her eyes, and her hand went to his chest again, her fingers curling over his thrumming pulse. “With my heart.” She answered him. He leaned down and in and kissed her as he had always wanted to, and her arms came around him and pulled him tightly to her as she kissed him back.

They fell together, not a princess and her knight, just a boy and a girl, and the rest of the world didn’t matter. It never had.

Chapter Text

Little Moment: The Sorceress And The Knight

By Eric ‘Erico’ Lawson

Five: And He Lived For Her Smile

The Eurosian/Asan Wild Borderlands

Morning

Princess Bezel Lantea wondered sometimes why she, of all people, should have been born a princess of Atlantis with the world laid out at her feet. It was a thought she never dared give voice to. Certainly her father and her brothers would either laugh at her for her strange girlish thinking or would chastise her and force her tutors to make her life hell again.

She knew what the standard answer was; that they were born to rule by divine right, that others were lesser than they were. That their power, the strength of the magic in their blood was the symbol of their right to rule. But Bezel had seen enough of the world to know that everything that the royal family and nobility based the hierarchy of wealth, power, and labor on among the citizens of Atlantis and Below was wrong. That truth had been a gift from her Knight.

She knew the truth of their history now, because of her Knight and Knight Commander Sloane. That the royal family hadn’t been royal, but that her distant ancestor had merely been the head of Terra’s defenders, a skilled and powerful mage that surely must have loved their people. Bezel knew that the Below was just as important as Atlantis. No. It was more important. She couldn’t give the words to it, but her heart felt it, knew it as truth. It was another gift from her Knight, who had shown her how deeply the less fortunate among her people suffered. She had cried when she saw how wrong it all was. How wrong she had been. How wrong everyone else still was. That pain was another gift from her Knight, because through it, he had shown her the world. He had given her something to work for, a purpose, when nobody else had ever thought that she was important enough to be given one.

Bezel knew now who her mother had been. That before she had been the Queen of Atlantis, that Aine had been a girl who loved to sing, who had fallen in love with a boy. A boy who became a man, who never forgot about her, even when the world took her away from him. She had been told that her mother would be so proud of her, not because of her magic, but because of her heart. That had been a gift from Sloane, the man who in another life she would have known as her father. A man who acted as one for her Knight. She would have never met Alastair Sloane without her Knight, would never have known. 

Bezel sometimes wondered how her life had become what it was. She was 14 now, and was ‘touring’ the Below to learn of it, ostensibly to serve as an advisor to her brother when he assumed the throne. But really, it had all been a chance to leave the palace, to leave all of the expectations behind for as long as possible, for her to figure out who she was. And what was important.

Her Knight had given her so many gifts. Her life. Her dreams. Her truth. Her heritage. And even...No. Especially his love. She had fallen in love with him when she was 13 and he woke up next to the duck pond in the park, and smiled at her. When he had turned 15…

It had only been a week ago, and she could still feel his lips on hers, his hands around her waist, buried in her hair, and the feel of his tongue inside her mouth. 

He had given her so much, and she felt so guilty about the unevenness of it. What had she ever done to deserve him, all of him?

Even now, as the morning broke over them again and she looked over to where he was sleeping, she misted up a little, wondering that question. Wondering how she had earned the love, the trust, the heart of her Knight. 

Bezel slipped out of the side of her bedroll, shivering a little in the cool morning air. He always slept with his sword close, no matter how potent the wards they put up. He’d always slept so lightly, but ever since he kissed her, he was more relaxed. More sure and steady. 

Her Knight didn’t wake up until she slipped into his bedroll and wrapped herself around him, and even then, it lacked the knee-jerk rush to full alertness. He let go of his sword and pulled both arms around her, then buried his nose into the top of her head and breathed in the smell of her hair.

Bezel hid her face in the side of his neck and closed her eyes.

“I don’t deserve you. You have given me so much.” Bezel spoke brokenly. “Please. Tell me what I can give you in return.”

He reached up and clasped her left shoulder, pushing her back far enough so he could look into her eyes. His gaze softened, and he brought his fingers up, wiping her tears away.

“How quickly you forget how much you’ve given me.” Her Knight said, his smile in his voice. “This is enough, Bezel.”

“But, I…”

“Do you trust me?” He interrupted her. Bezel went still, searching those perfect eyes of his, storm-blue and gray. 

“With my heart.” Bezel whispered, tracing the side of his face. 

Her Knight kissed her then, and her eyelids fluttered shut. “This is enough.” He said again, and held her close as he sighed and fell back asleep. She cuddled in close and listened to the sound of his heart beating, and thought of her mother Aine Aibulwalt and Alastair Sloane.

We won’t be like them, she thought to herself. She loved this man, and she would not suffer being torn away from him. She didn’t deserve him, but she wanted him. In one thing in her life, she would risk being selfish.

She still worried, though. They were coming up on the next province’s capital, where she and her Knight would once again have to slip on the masks that Atlantean society expected of them. This would be the first time since his confession that those masks would be tested.

The impulse to grab him and run away and disappear had never been so strong.

***

Ganarus Province, Far Eastern Euros/Asan Border

Capital City of Khav

The Baron of Ganarus Province was a man of dark, slicked hair and piercing brown eyes who had lived for 25 years. His name was Roland Gobeas, and he had the look of a man who had never gone hungry, but wasn’t prone to overindulgence. He did, however, believe in the finer things in life. And he believed in very little else.

“It is so kind of you to take an interest in the affairs of Terra, your highness, but there is really no need for it.” Roland informed Bezel, as she sat with him for a light lunch in his mansion. “Surely your father has the best of men ruling in the Below to see to his interests. Even here, I am His Majesty’s loyal servant. Though I am afraid that Ganarus has little to offer Atlantis these days.”

“Oh? I am sorry to hear that.” Bezel remarked, pausing with her soup spoon halfway up to her mouth. She brought it up the rest of the way and sipped back the warm vegetable bisque, using the pause to use her peripheral vision to take sight of her Knight again. He was standing at attention just like the guards that Baron Gobeas had waiting along the back wall. His face was as calm and as cold as a stone, but Bezel could see the tension he carried so clearly now. Long days and nights of indeterminate length had helped her to paint a wonderful portrait of him, a portrait of how he looked when he was relaxed and at peace. Her Knight was not relaxed right now, and he certainly wasn’t at peace. He was constantly scanning the room, as he had the rest of the mansion on the way in, like he was searching for a threat.

  “My knowledge of your province must be slightly outdated. Under your grandfather, there was a great deal of mining done in the Wul mountain range, and in your father’s time, there were innovations in farming.”

“This is true,” The Baron hedged, “however the mining veins were beginning to dry up in my father’s time, and the food crops are of mundane fare. Nothing which could be used for trade goods, really, aside from the horses that populate the steppe, and Atlantis has little use for such beasts of burden.” He shrugged nonchalantly. “I am Baron of a poor province, your highness, and must make do with what the land provides. I only wish that I could do more to be of service to Atlantis.”

Bezel made a polite nod and stopped after another sip of bisque, leaving the bowl with a third of its contents remaining. Baron Gobeas had promised a light five course meal, and years of dining in the royal court along with her classes on formal etiquette had made one thing clear; if you were going to make it through an entire formal meal, you never ate everything that was on your plate.

Traveling with her Knight, she’d been witness to the much simpler and more appealing option of having only one course for a meal, usually a heartier dish of what could be foraged or hunted. 

Signaled by the baron, a pair of female servants came out to collect the dishes, and new plates were placed down in front of them, a small roasted fowl on a bed of wild grains, seasoned to perfection. Bezel admired it for a time, but as she turned her face up to thank the server, her mouth froze, partly opened. The woman’s face was pale, gaunt, and her cheeks were sunken. It looked as though she hadn’t had a good meal in days.

Bezel breathed in and out slowly to keep her magic from flaring around her, and tried very hard not to think of all the starving people who she had served up on Atlantis on the trips she took in secret with her Knight. It seemed the problem wasn’t unique to her father’s immediate territory.

“Baron.” She said, not moving to start on the course. “Tell me, how do your people fare?”

“They manage.” He explained calmly. “They are protected, and they enjoy the benefits of Atlantis. As much as they can where we live.”

Bezel’s right hand clenched up for a second before she forced it to relax again. “If that is so, why is it that your servants go hungry?” She asked innocently. The look from the baron almost made her smile. It was something between gagging, looking guilty, and being infuriated. 

Bezel had become more and more frustrated with the trappings that came with being royalty, but there was a benefit to being the daughter of the highest power in the land; very few people were willing to openly contradict her. It was time that that paid off again. 

She pushed her chair back and stood up, all bright smiles and easy calm as she picked up her own plate, then sauntered around the long table to the other end to scoop up the baron’s. “I find that I am full, and I thank you for your hospitality. But I would hate to see this food go to waste. Sir Knight?”

In a moment, her guardian, friend, and romantic interest all rolled into one was moving to stand at her side again. “Your highness?”

“Carry this for me, would you?” She said, half of it a request and the other half an order as she pushed the baron’s plate of roast fowl into his gloved hands. Bezel didn’t look at the nobleman as he sputtered in disbelief, and instead looked to his guards. “You there. I don’t suppose you could direct me to the kitchens, and the servant’s quarters?” 

The man did, though not before giving a careful sidelong glance to the baron, whose face wasn’t quite going apoplectic. Her Knight masked his smile, though she noticed how he bit his cheek to manage it.

The servant’s quarters were buried in the lower levels of the mansion, tucked away beside the kitchen and their small dining room. The cooks were close to panicking when Bezel and her Knight and the guard appeared, fearing that some insult had been leveled or that she was unsatisfied with the meal. When Bezel explained her purpose in coming, they were confused, but did as she asked. A half hour later, the servants in the baron’s home were dining on the meal that had been meant for a royal audience, with Bezel asking them questions about their families, what they did, and innocent sounding things about the province. The guard had disappeared at her urging, but when she looked over to her Knight, who sat and ate with everyone else, she caught him looking at her once with crinkled eyes and nodding, ever so slightly, in approval of the stunt.

It had been upsetting and uncharacteristic and wholly unbecoming of a princess of the blood, and she didn’t give a damn about any of it. The servants got a decent meal, she actually got dinner conversation she could stomach, and the smile her Knight gave her made her feel warm from the inside out. But for some reason, he never stopped being on edge. She refrained from asking why until they’d said their farewells and headed out for an impromptu tour of the capital city.

“Why are you so troubled, my Knight?”

He had one hand on his sword as they walked down the road away from the Baron’s mansion. They would be expected back later that night, because she was a royal guest that the Baron was honor-bound to give hospitality to, but the day was theirs. Her Knight kept scanning everything around them.

“Sir Knight?”

He looked at her, a sidewards glance that didn’t last anywhere near long enough before he started searching for threats again. “Go nowhere without me, princess.”

“What?” Bezel blinked at the order. “Why?”

“I don’t trust this place.” 

“Because of Gobeas?” Bezel said, more quietly than before. She shook her head. “He’s rude and horrible to the servants, but…”

“If Atlantis collects so little in taxes from this province because it is so poor, where is the baron getting the funds to support his lifestyle?” Her Knight cut her off tersely. “You saw his mansion. You saw the things inside of it.”

Bezel had, and she’d put it out of her mind, too blinded by her own preconceived notions about how the nobility she knew of always lived. To her, it hadn’t seemed out of place. And yet now, at her knight’s urging, she saw a different picture. 

Dining utensils of silver; polished, but not aged, recently made. Recently upholstered furniture and a carpet in the main parlor by the fireplace which showed no signs of soot...or frequent washings. 

Added to the servants he clearly didn’t care much for, and it didn’t paint a very flattering picture at all. 

“I suppose we had better have a look around, then.” Bezel breathed out, moving to walk a little closer at his side. They were coming up on the local garrison of mage knights a few blocks away, and that would likely be a good place to start as anywhere else.

The sound of a powerful explosion in the direction of the garrison, followed shortly after by screams, had Bezel cursing that she had left her Arocan staff behind. Her Knight wasted no time in drawing his sword.

“You’re coming along with me, aren’t you?” He asked her, sighing once.

Bezel answered by running ahead of him and forcing him to catch up.

***

After the murders in Banali City, after the news of the ‘Code Violet’ incident in Zolim, after the earth-shake and the search and rescue that she and her Knight had participated in at Dapana, Bezel had thought she had seen the worst that Terra could throw at her. It was clear that it wasn’t the case a block later.

The screams she was, unfortunately, used to. People running away from the danger, she was also familiar with. But people openly attacking the mage knights? That was new. What was worse was that they were winning. 

As they raced through citizens going anywhere that wasn’t in the open fighting, the garrison finally came into view. Those in uniform were scattered, few and far between, and a force of attackers in nondescript leathers and hooded clothes meant to hide identities smashed into them and overwhelmed them, throwing smoke bombs that stung the air at a distance and striking with crude single-edged cudgels and clubs or daggers or staves and sickles and even a whip, which was very effective in disarming troopers. 

“Stay close!” Her Knight commanded, and Bezel kept in tight behind him as he charged in, channeling power into his sword. One of the attackers met him with a red aura around a dagger and sickle wielded in tandem, and the clash of blades was ferocious and over too quickly. The Knight tore the sickle away with a twist and a yank of his blade, and while the man defended himself with his dagger, Bezel slammed him in the torso with a repulsion blast that knocked the wind out of him and dropped him hard to the ground. After his head hit the dirt, the fellow stopped moving, and they pressed on.

“Bloodless, Bezel?” The Knight asked, already sizing up the next opponent who closed in on them with a heavy staff as thick around as her forearm.

“Are we here to take lives or save them?” Bezel countered, and her Knight snorted once, but smiled and conceded the point with a shake of his head. The next warrior who came at them with a staff definitely knew his way around the weapon, and though he didn’t have an aura, the Knight found that his sword was unable to cut through it, in spite of the lack of a visible reinforcement spell. The shock of it allowed the man to land a hard kick into his gut, and the Knight fell back a few steps with a grunt, coming up just in time with a parry to keep from getting smashed in the face. Bezel moved to cut in with magic glowing around her hands, but the attacker, his face covered by a shroud with only his eyes visible, hurled out a small sachet at her feet, which hit the ground and exploded in noise and light that made her fall back, half-blinded and with her ears ringing. 

When she came back around again, the staff lay on the ground in front of her while her Knight smashed the pommel of his blade into the face of her attacker, clearly breaking his nose and sending him sprawling. Bezel grabbed for the staff and drew in a breath as she felt the heavy wood settle in her palm, and something along the weapon tried to bite into her. Like it was trying to fight her magic. She hissed and dropped it, staring at the weapon in wonder. It was a problem, and a mystery, and she wished she had the time for it. 

But the Knight was picking her up right after, pulling her forward. “They’re pushing into the garrison building.” He told her. “Fighting them normally is taking too long. It’s time to put your skills to the test.”

She drew in a breath, but nodded. Her Knight had been training her not only in weapons, but in offensive magics as well. She had learned to adapt her style of suppressing a threat instead of killing it to a broader scope; for a situation just like this. 

They were racing through the compound and going for the main building when the front doors slammed open and every cloaked and masked attacker that had been inside of the building came pouring out carrying bloody weapons and either escorting other exhausted and battered looking people in various states of dress or outright carrying them on their shoulders. 

A jailbreak? A rescue? Was this what the attack on the garrison had been for?  There were too many of them to take on directly. Bezel brought up her aura and sucked in a breath, channeling her strength and firing it out as stunning blasts meant to overwhelm and subdue. Her aim wasn’t perfect, but more than a dozen of them collapsed after the shots either hit them directly or crashed next to them and went off in puffs of dust. 

The response was over a dozen more sachets being thrown in her direction, and she raised up a shield of glowing blue force streaked through with pink strands, expecting noise and light. Instead, when they hit, it was with the heavy whumps of piles of dust being unleashed on impact, and the clouds of fine particulates curled around her spell and…

She cried out as she felt it eating at the spell, eating faster than she could reinforce it, and some of it got through. She breathed it in before she could stop herself and immediately felt dizzy, unable to concentrate. She coughed it out and stumbled away, but the damage was done; her mind felt foggy, and she couldn’t concentrate enough to conjure up anything else. Her magic slipped away from her. She heard the roar of her Knight, angry and protective as two more of the able-bodied attackers closed in and met him head-on. One was armed with simple weapons, but the other wore no mask, his dark-haired and rugged features on full display. He wielded an older, ornate, and very functional sword with manaweave channels forged into it, the sword of a mage knight, and his aura glowed a faded green, with faint traces of yellow light within. He had the Knight beat out in age by four or five years or so at a first glance, and seemed very skilled. Not skilled enough to best her Knight on his own, but working with his partner, he was keeping him at bay. 

“My, you’re new.” The swordsman taunted her Knight, his bladework nowhere near as fast, but grounded in technique and form. “Has Gobeas finally sprung for decent help?”

“You’re just one for bad luck, I’m afraid.” Her Knight snapped back. “To attack my fellow mage knights while I’m in town. You think you can get away with attacking innocents, you murderer?”

“Innocents? You think these monsters are innocents?!” The swordsman’s cocky grin disappeared in an instant as he growled in response and started fighting harder, pushing her Knight back with punishing blows that sought every momentary weakness in his stance. He sucked in air and fought harder, but the swordsman never went for the kill, even though he started striking out with his fist and his boot to land bruises and painful reminders. It was dirty fighting, and for as skilled as her Knight was, it was clear that the swordsman, while not quite his equal in raw magical strength, had learned harder lessons. And he was using them not to kill her Knight, or cripple him, but to slow him down and keep him from going after the rest of his allies.

The swordsman was delaying him, Bezel muzzily realized, and she tried again to reach for her magic. It still skittered away from her grasp. She could only watch as the others of the swordsman’s party made for a pack of bridled horses nearby - actual horses in the place of a skyskiff or a driftwagon. They climbed aboard, helping the injured to get seated behind them or in front of them as it allowed, and then they turned around and rode off as another explosion ripped through the garrison, tearing a hangar adjacent to the main building apart in wild flames. One of the retreating brigands whistled loudly, and the swordsman fighting her Knight with his partner laughed and flashed a triumphant smile.

“Gain more bearing, foolish stripling. See me again when you’re worthy.” He whistled loudly as he pushed his aura out in a forceful blast that came too fast for her Knight to defend against, and he went tumbling end over end as the sharp thrust of the swordsman’s aura shoved him away. The Knight came up onto his feet in a crouch, sword ready to defend against a finishing blow, but instead the swordsman and his partner leapt onto two more horses that had answered his whistle. They turned around and fled off into the distance, leaving Bezel and her Knight alone in the burning ruins of the local mage knight garrison, the hangar and its skyskiffs utterly destroyed, making pursuit impossible.

Bezel came back up on her feet as her Knight came over, checking her over with worried eyes and probing fingers. “Are you hurt?”

“I’m...They did something. They did something to my magic.” Bezel said, wheezing as she choked out the last of the dust in her throat and tried again to summon up her aura. It stuttered and flickered, but without the threat of open combat, and the haze of the dust having been blown away by the wind, it finally responded. “Their weapons, they…”

“I know.” Her Knight growled, stowing his blade. “I should have been able to slice through their weapons easily. But they were somehow resistant. It was like striking with a blunted blade.”

Bezel turned around to look for the staff that she had tried and failed to pick up, keen to examine it for clues, and gawked to find it missing. In the confusion, someone had picked it up and disappeared. The trail, and the mystery of who they were and how they could resist Atlantean magic, had gone cold.

***

“They are criminals and outlaws, your highness.” The Baron was grim-faced and clearly restraining himself as they sat for dinner back in his mansion. Bezel risked a glance outside the dining room’s windows, taking note of the increased guard presence around his home. “The people who turned to theft and robbery and brigandry when the mines ran dry, and who sequester themselves in the wilderness. They have been a nuisance for a long time now, interfering with the policing of the province, but this is the first time that they have been so brazen, so bold as to attack the main stronghold of the regional Mage Knights under my command in my capital city.”

“What were the casualties?”

“Two dead, my lady, and fourteen more injured or incapacitated.” the Baron tapped his flatware against his plate. “It would have been worse, if the day patrol hadn’t been out seeing to their duties.” He looked up, his eyes inquisitive. “And have you recovered, Princess Bezel? I was horrified to learn that you were out walking nearby and got caught up in it.”

She had done more than just being nearby, but Bezel wasn’t about to advertise the fact she’d charged into combat alongside her Knight in hopes of quelling the violence. Nor was she going to expose her Knight to criticism for allowing it. “My protector performed his duties admirably. He was able to fend off many of their number who might have otherwise harmed me.”

“A knight worthy of his station, then.” Baron Roland Gobeas managed a weak smile and a nod to her Knight, who had been allowed to join them at the dinner table at Bezel’s request as ‘reward’ for his heroic efforts. “You have the gratitude of all of Atlantis, sir knight. We could not bear to lose another ornament of the royal family...particularly one as beautiful as our fair princess.”

Her Knight’s jaw worked slowly as he nodded, not saying a word in reply. Bezel decided to cut back in, because after all she had seen, she had questions.

“Most of the attackers we saw were using simpler weapons; farm implements, sticks, and the like. But one of them who met my Knight head-on was carrying a sword as his favored weapon, and he certainly knew how to use it.”

“He had a green aura flecked with yellow.” Her Knight added grimly. “I was surprised to meet someone so strong. Who is he, baron? A former mage knight who went rogue?”

“No.” The Baron shook his head. “The Mage Knights of Ganarus Province are loyal; they are loyal to me. The man you encountered, did he have dark hair and a short-trimmed beard over severe features?” Bezel nodded, and the Baron swore and reached for his wineglass, holding it up as one of the servant moved forward to refill it. “I know of him, your highness. He is not a mage knight, he is the leader of the renegade band that plagues my lands. His name is Danel, and in the countryside, where loyalties to Atlantis and to my office are more tenuous, he is also known as The Wolf. He is not a man to be faced lightly. But I see now that perhaps I have been too lenient in my hunts for him.” The Baron took a deep drink of his wine and set the glass down, then clenched his hand into a fist. “The Wolf struck at the heart of Atlantis’s power in this region and got away unharmed, freeing all the imprisoned criminals and brigands that were being held in the cells below. He must not be allowed to do more than he already has. The Wolf must be brought to heel.”

Bezel kept her face calm. “I am sure my father will be pleased to hear that you are intent on restoring law and order to your lands, baron. How will you go about achieving this goal of capturing Danel The Wolf and bringing him to justice?”

“I do not intend on arresting him, your highness.” Roland snapped. “No. He is a poisonous weed that I cannot let grow. It is my intention to hunt him down and kill him, before he is able to do here what occurred in Banali City.”

“Never again.” Her Knight growled, and the anger in his voice surprised her. He so rarely got angry, and even then, it was controlled. When he had dueled for the right to train her, there had been fury, but he kept it behind his eyes, flashing and steady and measured. Now she looked at him, and it was like a wildfire that burned out of control.

But then again...Banali City had been where his mother had been killed. It may have come as a surprise in the face of his usual composure, but she could understand why this incident so incensed him.

“But you need not worry about it, your highness.” The Baron reassured her. “It is a local problem, and we shall handle it locally. There are many things, I am certain, of more importance to your father than the minor troubles of a minor province. For instance...I understand that you recently passed your 14th birthday.”

Bezel’s hand tightened around her dining utensil. “Yes.” She got out, setting the spoon back down again. Suddenly, the whipped dessert had lost its appeal.

Roland Gobeas smiled, wide and hopeful. “I know that many will be seeking you in the hopes of courting you in the fashion that a princess of the royal blood deserves. You are as fair and beautiful as you are wise and caring, and such are qualities much prized in a wife. I know that you are not in the habit of staying long in any one place as you tour the lands of The Below, but would it be forward of me to ask you to accompany me on an outing tomorrow? After today, I would dearly love to show you the finer qualities of my lands, and to wash away the unpleasantness of this dark affair with The Wolf and his band of rebellious brigands.”

Bezel drew in a measured breath, not moving, not daring to turn her head. She could feel the eyes of her Knight on her, just as focused as Roland Gobeas’s were, but infinitely more intense. More heated.

“Are you certain that is wise?” Bezel asked diplomatically. “I doubt very much that the danger posed by your rogue elements will be quelled in the course of a single night, if they have been operating with growing impunity in your lands. An outing seems almost inappropriate when you have more important matters to be tending to.” 

Bezel had grown up sheltered and protected and pampered, but also powerless to control her own destiny, and her very first weapons, before her magic and before her training with her Knight and even before her growing talent in artifice had been her words. And she desperately needed them now.

“Still, an outing does sound lovely. Perhaps I shall go on my own tomorrow, while you tend to the affairs of state and try to seek out this Wolf who so taxes you.”

“On your own?” The Baron sputtered. “But your highness, that is terribly improper! And imprudent! The danger…”

“Is not quite so severe, as I go nowhere without my protector at my side. He has been my steady companion for a year now, and I trust him with my life.” Bezel smiled, glowing with tranquility and genteel grace. She slipped her napkin out of her lap and dabbed the corner of her mouth with it. “Yes, I think that will do nicely. I thank you for the offer of your company, baron, but there is work that you must see to. I traveled the breadth of Aroca with only my protector beside me before I came north, and I will manage well enough now with the same. Besides. I am only 14, and there are years yet before I turn 17 and reach the age where I become marriageable. There is time enough for such outings. Later.”

She rose from her seat, and her Knight and the Baron both rose as well, as decorum dictated when someone of higher rank moved to adjourn. 

“As you wish...my lady.” The Baron answered, displeased with her answer, but unable to argue against it. Then Bezel turned and walked out, and her Knight followed three paces behind until they reached her quarters.

Her Knight shut her door and she sank into the settee at the foot of her bed.

“So. We leave tomorrow, then?” Her Knight asked her softly. 

Bezel nodded. “If we want answers, we will not find them here.” She looked up at him, staring into his perfect eyes of gray and storm-blue. “We need to know how they were able to disrupt my magic. We need to know why they are doing this.”

“They’re criminals and murderers.” Her Knight snapped. “They want death and desolation and chaos. That is why.”

Bezel looked at him, and for the first time, saw something in her Knight’s countenance that she did not find attractive. “Like the people of Zolim did?” She asked him lowly, and he winced, for he had told her about what The Liar had said. About how the people who summoned it had been driven to it out of desperation because of their suffering. “There is more going on here than we know. They are not just a problem, sir Knight. They are a symptom.”

She leaned back in the settee and went to remove her shoes. “We must find the cause.”

***

They left Khav behind the next morning, and made it a point to travel away from the capital before taking rooms at a larger village. The registry reported that Princess Bezel and her knight protector took adjacent rooms and settled in for an early night, and the parked skyskiff outside lent credence to the notion. 

When a young lady in a hooded cloak dressed in region-appropriate garb strolled out onto the streets carrying a satchel of her most precious belongings and a sturdy wooden staff of slightly unfamiliar wood slung over one shoulder, nobody batted an eye. That she was accompanied by a young man hefting several packages also went noticed and disregarded, though Bezel had to smile as they walked out of the town’s borders and ventured into the countryside. One of those packages was her Knight’s sword, wrapped loosely in burlap. It would take him only a second to draw it out if they were in danger.

It had been her Knight’s idea; he had a wonderful mind, though it turned in different directions than her own. More tactical. Less analytical. “If The Wolf and his outlaws ride wild animals and disable perfectly good skyskiffs instead of stealing them, then it is possible they can do without the advancements of civilization we take for granted. And if that’s the case...then we’ll have better luck chasing him down in the wilderness than we will in any of the province’s larger towns or cities.”

That it gave the two of them another precious chance to disappear, for her to be someone else than Princess Bezel Lantea, was an incidental but highly welcomed bonus. They faded away in the dead of night and put a hill between them and the village before making camp. While her Knight prepared dinner, Bezel set up their shelter and their bedrolls. She put them together, and after they had eaten and they prepared for bed, he froze at the arrangement. Bezel brushed by him and settled in, and a few moments later, he did what she had hoped he might. He joined her, and slipped in behind her and held her close. And he never said a word.

A morning’s worth of travel, after consulting their maps, led them in the direction of an impressive river that they had taken note of on the flight up. “Everything needs water, Bezel. Plants. Animals. People.” Follow the water, he had said, and they would find people. And they did, although it was noon before they came across the first signs of fields being tended by farmers, and after speaking with the hands, mid-afternoon when they came up on a much smaller village in the area. It was so small that the houses weren’t even built out of proper materials, but were constructed with walls of packed mud and straw and earth and thatched roofs.

The language they spoke was different from Arocan. It was more guttural, the consonants were slurred. Even her Knight hadn’t heard it before, but there was something about it that was lyrical. They got by on stilted Atlantean, asking about Danel, which got many looks of confusion, but a few guarded expressions as well. Suspicion, but no hostility. Her Knight hadn’t drawn her sword and neither of them had manifested their magic openly in the presence of others, having no need for it.

They were in the home of the village elder, or at least the person in the small settlement that everyone else deferred to, drinking a smoky-flavored tea masked by wild clover honey and notes of cinnamon. The old woman, Sava, spoke better Atlantean than anyone else, and cackled as she talked with them.

“No, no wolves here, young ones.” She said in a thick accent. “Nothing to hunt, you see? Yes. We hear of Danel, but he not come here.”

Bezel sighed and nodded her head. “I see. What else have you heard?”

“Why you want Dai Kuryak , hm?” Sava asked, squinting over her drink with an eye half-fogged over. Her eyesight had to be failing. “What you young people want with dangerous man? To join? To protect, as he does?”

“You think Danel is protecting people?” Her Knight asked bitterly. 

“Wolf protects pack.” The old woman shrugged. “Is why they are dangerous. Wolf never fights alone.”

“Wait.” Bezel held up a hand, quelling her Knight from offering a sharp rebuttal to the old woman’s remarks. “You think Danel The Wolf is a...protector. Who is he trying to protect people from?”

Sava just stared at her, and for a moment Bezel flashed back to how one of her old tutors would always glower at her for asking a ‘stupid’ question. It was usually followed up by a short diatribe that left Bezel feeling humbled and inadequate. The elder didn’t do that. She merely sat silently and took another drink, and Bezel did the same. The elder seemed to think that the answer should be obvious to Bezel, and it was anything but.

But then the sound of a skyship roaring overhead, a bigger one, dominated the attention of everybody. It was followed by screams soon after, and the elder swore and put down her cup, standing up faster than she had done before.

“You. Stay. Hide.” Sava hissed.  

“What?” Bezel gasped, paling as she kept hearing the screams from outside. “What’s going on? Are we under attack?”

“It’s The Wolf, isn’t it?” Her Knight snapped, and Sava glared at him.

“You know nothing, boy.” And then she hobbled out of her house, leaving them alone.

Bezel shivered as the screams from the outside picked up in volume, punctuated by angry shouts and wicked laughter. The new voices prickled at the back of her mind, and it was a few seconds before she sussed out why. 

They were speaking in Atlantean. 

“It’s not Danel.” She said, and by the way her Knight had his head cocked so one ear was towards the closed door, he was hearing the same things she was.

“No.” He finally admitted. “It’s not.” And he exhaled and reached to the wrapped burlap in his possessions and drew out his sword. “Stay inside, princess. I’ll see what’s going on”

Bezel hated that idea. “If you think that I’m going to let you run off on your own…”

“That is exactly what you’re going to let me do.” He cut her off. “Something odd is going on. I’m not putting you in harm’s way.” Then he was gone as well, leaving Bezel to seethe and clutch at her staff and twist it in her hands. 

She lasted for all of a minute before the sounds of conflict outside and her own nerves got the better of her, and she slung her satchel crossways over her body and pulled her hood up tighter over her head. Bezel raced out into the night, braced for trouble. She found chaos and brutality instead.

Mage knights were attacking the village, and they seemed to be scooping up the inhabitants with indiscriminate attention. Her Knight was engaged with four of them, holding his own in spite of his lack of armor. But there were still a half dozen who were dragging people out of their homes and either subduing them with magic or knocking them unconscious with vicious blows to the head before hustling them towards a landed skybarge, a larger aerial transport used by Atlantis. And overseeing it all was a snarling mage knight in the uniform of an RRD officer with a unit insignia she didn’t recognize.

“Let’s hurry this up, we’ve got a quota to meet!” The man snapped, and Bezel’s blood boiled. Quotas? Kidnapping people? Who were these mage knights? Were they impostors? “And somebody kill that green-aura bastard, he stole one of our swords!”

No. Bezel gripped her staff so hard that her hands creaked. No, he had earned that sword. He had faced terrors they’d never seen before. And whoever these people were…

They were nothing like Sloane. They were nothing like her Knight. They brought pain and terror and suffering, and she would not stand for it.

She felt someone coming up from behind her and spun around with her staff in a basic strike, infusing the durable wood at the last moment with a concussive spell. Sure enough, another mage knight had noticed her and tried to close in while she had been distracted, and used his armored greave to block the strike with his forearm. He hadn’t anticipated the spell, hadn’t anticipated the strength of her blue aura, and the blow when the spell detonated snapped the staff back with recoil and sent him flying into the side of Elder Sava’s hut, likely with a broken arm. 

It had the intended effect of silencing the screams and the shouted orders for a precious moment, with every traitorous Mage Knight and more than a few of the villagers turning to look at the girl in the hood who had dispatched an attacker in a single swing. Bezel felt the moment stretch like silk over a sharpened blade, slowly falling and just waiting to be cut.  

She cut it before anyone else could, letting her blue aura burn bright and channeling her power into her free hand. “You will not touch these people, or harm them ever again!” And she fired off a full salvo of Repulsion Blasts, aiming for the most exposed of the corrupt knights. Most of them hit, with only a few getting up a shield in time to spare themselves the worst of it. Her Knight, ever adaptable, used the distraction to gut one of the fools and disarm, in the literal sense, a second of the four attackers who had squared off against him.

The fight lost all sense of reason after that. Utterly panicked in the face of a blue aura, the madmen dressed as knights stopped worrying about capturing people and came after her in full force. Rushing her en-masse and firing bolts of magic all the while, they forced her on the defensive and prevented her from launching off any more attacks of her own. Armed and armored, they crowded in around her with swords glowing hot with cutting enchantments of yellow, and their commander’s blade was a wicked green.

“You bitch.” The man snarled. “How the hell were these barbarians able to hide a Blue from us?!” Bezel’s staff swung about in tight circles as she batted their blades away and weaved clear of the ones that she could avoid outright. The pressure of the fight was like nothing she’d ever experienced before; all of her training with her Knight had been one on one, and he found herself gasping for air as her muscles and her head burned from the drain of both physical and magical combat. And she kept hearing screaming the entire time. She thought it was her attackers’ screams at first, but to a one, their jaws were either clamped shut in glares or kept in soundless snarls. Then she thought it was her own screams, but they were too deep, too masculine.

It wasn’t until one of her attackers spun around and dashed to intercept her Knight that she realized he had been the one screaming. 

One of the knights that had been attacking the village finally got past her defenses with a lucky strike that threatened to either stab her through the face or to behead her, and she jerked away on reflex. The sword caught the edge of her hood and tugged on it a bit before slicing clean through it, and her head and her hair were exposed for all to see. 

“Oh, you’re a pretty one, ain’t ya?” One of the knights finally sneered. “Pretty and powerful. Might be the commander decides to keep you for hisself instead of sending you on like the rest!” 

“NO!” Her Knight screamed, and his aura blazed high enough that she felt it through her exhaustion, felt him rage as he tore into his opponent and the other knight bellowed in agony.

He was fighting so hard for her, to save her. His panic and the sickening words of the knight were enough to break something inside of her.

For just the span of a heartbeat, her blue aura intensified and pulsed a wild pink. She threw it out away from her in an explosion of force that knocked every one of her opponents backwards. Their armor, their shields were torn to shreds as she howled from the wild attack, and they collapsed on the ground bleeding and unconscious, some of them possibly dying.

But their leader, the knight with the green aura, held on, buckled down on one knee and bleeding from wild cuts along his face that a hastily erected shield hadn’t been able to fully defend against. There was no mercy in his eyes, and no rage, and it stunned her. His eyes were dead, devoid of even a trace of sick pleasure. He rose up and gripped his sword, and his aura flared.

A speed enhancement. He was going to charge her down and end her, and she didn’t have the time to…

And then her Knight was there, standing in front of her as the blur of him raced to follow and swinging his sword with another howl. It was over in a moment, and the other knight’s head flew clean off of his shoulders. The rest of him collapsed to the ground a moment later, leaking blood from the stump of his neck into the soil. It wasn’t her attacker’s blood that had Bezel frozen in place, though.

It was the blood dripping down the sword that had run her Knight clean through, pouring from his back in a steady trickle.

“No!” Bezel screamed, and rushed to his side right as he started to crumple. This couldn’t be happening, not now, not here. He had survived a Code Violet, he had taken on the best of the royal knights and made it look like child’s play. Her hands came around him, not stopping him from falling, but keeping him on his side so the sword through his chest wouldn’t be disturbed any further. Bright red blood, frothy and aerated, coated his lips.

“You stupid, stupid, stupid man…” Bezel tried to bite back a sob and failed. “Why…”

“M’life...yours.” Her Knight wheezed, and he somehow smiled, which only made her cry harder.

The shouting of the villagers returned as they raced back with farm implements, killing off the unconscious or dying soldiers one after the other, sparing nobody that had tried to attack the village and kidnap them all. Bezel could hear them, but she didn’t look up, and didn’t look away.

“Don’t do this.” She pleaded with him. “Don’t leave me. Don’t make me do this alone!” She grabbed at his hand, squeezed his gloved fingers tight.

The squeeze he offered in return was so weak that she barely felt it. “I love you.” He got out, and closed his eyes. Bezel shattered. 

Then she felt rough, ageworn hands pulling her away from him, and the sharp voice of Elder Sava yelling in her ear. 

“Move, stupid girl! He not dead yet! MOVE!” Somehow, Bezel did as the old woman commanded, and Sava pressed wrinkled hands against her Knight, one on his chest and the other on his back, and sucked in a long breath of air before conjuring up an orange aura and shoving it into him. A spell of healing. 

“When I say, you pull sword.” Sava huffed, the spellwork taking a toll on her. The bleeding was slowing down from its rapid pace, and Bezel struggled to breathe as she wrapped her hand around the hilt of the blade sticking out of his chest. This wasn’t the end. This wasn’t. He had to live.

“Now!” Sava shouted, and Bezel pulled with everything she had. The ensorceled steel slid out of him, and then Sava was shoving thick wads of cloth into the sucking wound. 

She finished and sighed. “He live, for now. But he need better healer. He need Ama Yagi.”  

That name dropped like a stone in a calm pond, and the ripples of it spread outwards as the other villagers echoed it in reverent whispers. Tired, emotionally exhausted, still fearing for the life of her love, Bezel knew that somehow it was important. She just didn’t have the capacity to deal with it. 

The villagers set fire to the skybarge and the now dead knights, which they piled up like cordwood along the ship. They loaded up their belongings and themselves into horse-drawn wagons and became a caravan which set out deeper into the wilderness of the steppe in the shadow of the mountains. 

Bezel rode in the lead wagon with Elder Sava, the old woman clucking and prodding at her injured knight with a low-grade healing spell every so often to try and keep him stable. He remained pale, shallowly breathing. Bezel sat beside him, with her staff and his sword and the sword that had almost killed him lying behind her as she stroked his hair and prayed for him to hold on.

I love you. His last words rang in her ears. They haunted her, and they had been perfect, as perfect as she thought they would sound. 

It terrified her to think that he might never wake up, and that she could never say them back.

***

It took them hours to get to wherever they were going, and it was the dead of night when they arrived. Bezel hadn’t paid any attention to their course, or in trying to mark terrain features. Everything she had left to concentrate with was focused on the young man who meant more to her than almost anything. The wagon finally came to a stop and Bezel finally looked up from where she had been sitting and staring at her Knight, running a hand through his hair while she used her strange ‘lifesight’ spell, rough as it was, to keep tabs on him. The spark of life in him, or at least what seemed like a spark of life, clung on like a dim ember. Never shining any brighter, but never extinguishing either.

The voices outside grew louder, and she cancelled her spell and looked up just before the flap of canvas over the wagon’s rear entry was pulled back. A pair of older men rattled off a question in their native tongue. Elder Sava answered back, and then reverted to Atlantean for Bezel’s benefit. “They take him to Ama Yagi’s hut. You go with. I see to my people.”

“Yes.” Bezel nodded and whispered. “Thank you.” She hunkered to the side of the wagon as the men came inside and grabbed the stretcher that her Knight had been laid down on, then followed after them with her staff and the two swords in one arm, pulling her cloak and torn hood tighter around herself with the other as a chilly wind blew across their path. She was able to get her first good look around, and was surprised to see no permanent structures at all. Instead, circular tents braced up on wooden stilts were dotted around what looked like a campsite meant to be torn down and moved in minutes. Most were small, only a little bit bigger than the tent that she and her Knight used in their travels. The one they were walking her wounded heart towards was the largest of all of them, easily the size of a proper Arocan house, and there was a woman with gray hair streaked with brown that emerged from inside of it, dressed in layers of green and red and gray cloth. She frowned at their approach, and gave Bezel’s Knight a glance at a distance before fixing her gaze to the girl trailing after him, pinning Bezel to the spot for a heartbeat. 

If this was Ama Yagi…

“You, girl.” The woman shouted out, crisp and authoritative and in no mood for pleasantries. “Better come along, I don’t think your lover will survive the night if we don’t see to his wounds.” She should have blushed madly at being called his lover, but she was too tired and too worried to care or contradict the woman. Bezel walked up after the men bearing the stretcher, and the woman came in after her. Bezel left her staff and the rest of the weapons beside the door, then went over to stay within arm’s reach of her unconscious Knight.

The men and the middle-aged woman with the graying hair yammered on at each other in the coarse language they shared, with the men throwing in gestures as well. It was enough that Bezel was able to suss out that they were trying to explain the nature of his injuries, as well as how he’d gotten them. She nodded and waved them off, and then Bezel was alone with her.

Bezel swallowed. “Are you Ama Yagi?” She asked.

The older woman narrowed her eyes and mustered a faint smile. “Some call me that.” She answered, and Bezel took note of her barely accented Atlantean. “Ama means ‘mother’ in our language. I am Yagi Rusla. They call me that because they see me as mother to all of them.”

“All of who?”

“The Ganarusa .” The woman explained, and turned her attention to the young man bleeding on a bench that stood at waist height. “Which includes Elder Sava and those of her village. You have my thanks for what the two of you did to save them.”

“Can you save him?”

“Yes.” Yagi tore open his shirt to better examine the wound and hissed lowly. “Clean through. Speared his lung.” Her hands glowed yellow as she felt around the edges of the cloth packed into the wound, and she sighed in frustration. “Sava’s usual work, I see. Lovely.” She stepped back away and began to remove her outer vestments. “Any chance you know healing magic as well as whatever tricks you used to fight off the knights who came for the village?”

Bezel didn’t, and something in her expression must have tipped the old woman off, because Yagi scowled again. “Right. Why would they bother teaching a princess how to do anything else but destroy things?” She muttered to herself, walking over to a shelf and grabbing one jar after another, stocking them into the crook of her arm. Bezel’s head descended into ringing at her so casually uttered words. Words of what she really was.

She was still gaping as Yagi returned to the side of her knight, and the woman had to yell at her to get her to snap back into focus. “You need to concentrate, girl!”

“You know who I am?” Bezel whispered faintly.

“I have eyes, don’t I?” Yagi sighed, shoving a few of the jars into her hands. “Red hair? Blue aura? And the services of a mage knight as your personal protector?” She glanced pointedly to the weapons stacked by the door, gesturing with her flinty gaze. “And yes, I’m sure you have a good explanation for why you’re all the way out here, in Below, barely supervised and traveling in disguise. I don’t care to be lied to right now, so I’ll save us both the headaches by not asking about it. Now, Sava’s healing has kept him stabilized, but your friend here is in horrible shape.”

“All the royal healers are Greens.” Bezel pointed out. “You’re just a Yellow.” She felt right to be concerned at that; The most serious injuries took a significant amount of power. More than Yagi possessed. If only she could do it herself! “How can you save his life?”

Yagi just snorted. “How much you have all forgotten, living up on that damn island in the sky. You can throw power at an injury and brute-force it to recovery, yes; that’s how they teach it.” She conjured up her yellow aura around her hand and popped the lid off one of her small jars, which smelled of bitter leaves and pungent alcohol. She dipped her hand in it, then brought it back up and quickly scrubbed her hands together until they stank of it, then reached for the packed linens tucked into his chest. The other hand she used to reach underneath him and lift him up away from the bench slightly, and Bezel drew in a breath as Yagi pulled the bloody bandages out of his chest and carelessly threw them in the direction of her firepit. The linens hit the fire and started to smoulder, and would be burning away to nothing soon enough.

Then Yagi jammed her hand into the wound, and even unconscious, Bezel’s Knight let out a soft groan and shifted. Yagi paid his discomfort no mind, and instead made her entire arm and her hand glow even brighter. 

“But why work harder than you need to?” She snipped. “What do you need for a healing spell, girl?”

“Uh.” Bezel blinked, trying not to faint at the sight of her Knight squirming in his sleep because of a woman’s hand shoved into his chest. “The same as any other Working. Will and a Focus and Intent.”

“Intent.” Yagi growled out, and Bezel flinched. “Your Intent guides your magic. Your Intent is everything.”

“I...Isn’t Will the most important?” Bezel asked, for that was always what she had been taught. That your power was a reflection of your Will, and your control over it. 

And yet as Yagi stood there, snorting again like she was some addle-brained delinquent at her lessons, she was reminded of something that her Knight had said to her once, back when he had taught her how to rechannel the strength of an incineration wave into a Repulsion Blast. 

It’s your intent that keeps tripping you up.

“Will.” Yagi breathed in and out slowly, not looking at Bezel. Her concentration and her eyes were focused on the patient under her arms. “As though one could ever put a leash on the world. Or should want to. Do you ever control a river when you dip your hands into it to drink the water? Can you keep it from flowing? If you throw yourself in its path, can you make it turn around and flow upstream?” She was slowly pulling her hand back out of the Knight’s chest, ever so slowly, and it took Bezel a look every half a minute or so to realize that she was actually moving it. “No. Intent. Always intent. Everyone fails at Intent.” She jerked her head slightly in a beckoning motion, and Bezel drifted over to her side, looking down as she worked. 

“When you heal someone, what are you doing?” Yagi asked Bezel, softer than her curt remarks had been. “Where does the power go?”

“It goes to the injury. It...it takes it away.”

“Sloppy.” Yagi muttered, her hands still glowing a brilliant, sunny yellow. “Does the magic replace what is lost? Can it become the tissue of his lung, the torn muscle, the savaged skin? No.” She pulled her hand out of the Knight, and held the wound’s edges apart so Bezel could see inside. 

Bezel saw...healed tissues. Undamaged tissues. Still a work in progress, but…

“How?” She whispered, looking up to Yagi in hope and wonder. 

Yagi smiled. “Intent.” The woman summarized it in one word. “You are ignorant, girl. Not stupid. You can learn this. As my Ama taught me, as her Ama taught her.”

“As you will teach your daughter?” 

Ama’s smile was a sad and broken thing, and her graying brown hair wavered around her face as she shook her head. “I have no daughter, and my son...it is beyond him. No. You will learn this. You and your knight protected my people. You will take this as my thanks.”

She took Bezel’s hand and dipped it into the bitter concoction of leaves and alcohol, then let go of it. “Rub your hands together, girl. Spread it everywhere. Every finger. Every wrinkle.” Bezel did so, and then with a look to Yagi Rusla to check for confirmation that was answered with a nod, she slipped her hand into the wound and hissed. To feel him like this...it felt so wrong.

“Intent.” Yagi Rusla said again, quietly. “Bring up your magic. Tell it not to burn, or to freeze, or to shock. Tell it not to explode or to grow hard. Let it be like water. Let it flow over the hurt.” Bezel took in a breath and did so, and her blue aura, streaked through with lines of pink, manifested to wakefulness. “The body wants to be whole. It wants to be healed. And it is always healing, always. You merely give it a push. Like a flower needing water. And then you give it the sun. You let it grow and recover. You give the body what it needs to heal, and you ask it to heal.”

“Ask?”

“We like to be asked.” Yagi told her. “More than we like being told.”

Bezel reached for her magic, and let Yagi’s rough lesson ring through her mind. She let her magic flow out of her, let it go into his wound, closed her eyes, and felt for it.

And she asked.

She didn’t know how long she was standing there over her Knight, trying to heal him, asking his body to take her power, to use it to heal. She only felt the constant asking run through her mind, and the pulse of her magic as it thrummed and lined up with his, and then she felt Yagi’s coarse hands pulling her away from him.

“Enough.” Ama Yagi rasped, and Bezel came to feeling lightheaded and worn out. “Enough, girl. He’s safe now.”

She looked down at him, and her green eyes went wide in wonder. He was breathing normally now, buried under sleep and still recovering, but the horrible injury that had run him clean through was little more than a faint, puckered scar on his chest. She felt underneath his back where Yagi had started, and she found the skin smooth to her touch.

“He’s…” Bezel swallowed, finding it hard to believe. But it had to be believed.

“He lives.” Yagi said sagely, and there was the start of a smile on her face as she nodded to Bezel. “Well done, your highness.”

Bezel wanted to believe her so readily, but she needed to know for sure. She pulled in a focusing breath of air, concentrated, and then opened her eyes, activating the Working she had used in Dapana so successfully.

Under her gaze, she saw the fire of his life burning away in his chest, tired but strong. The bonfire pulsed in time with his heartbeat and carried a faint sheen of green light with it. He lived. He would live. He would wake up tomorrow, and she…

Oh, she would yell at him for being so stupidly self-sacrificing, and he would grimace and wither under it and she would probably feel horrible afterwards. But he would be alive to feel abashed, he would be alive for her to feel guilty about it. 

She let out a shaky laugh and pressed her hand to her mouth as her eyes teared up. And then she heard Yagi make a confused, startled little noise at her side, and turned to look at her.

Yagi stared at her like she had grown a second head. “What was that just now?”

“What was what?”

“That...that spell you just did. I couldn’t sense all of it, but it...it felt like you were looking inside of him.”

After being humbled over the older woman’s harsh education on the proper nature of effective healing magic, Bezel puffed up a little bit. “Something I started working on back in Aroca. I was looking for a way to examine magical leylines and flows of mana. I ended up coming up with...a lifesight spell, I suppose.”

Yagi kept staring at her, and Bezel cocked her head to the side. “What?”

“You aren’t what I expected from royalty.”

Bezel sighed, because Knight Commander Sloane had said the same thing. So had every other person in The Below that she bothered to get to know and learn the name of. Everyone thought of the royal family as...Somehow, uncaring. Distant. Removed.

And Bezel could not bring herself to be any of those. She preferred caring about people. 

“What will happen to Elder Sava and the other villagers?” She asked Yagi Rusla carefully. “They cannot go back home.”

“They will make a new one.” The woman said, reaching for the other jars and smearing a paste of honey and other ingredients over the Knight’s remaining scar. “The Ganarusa endure. We are like our horses; we go where we may flourish. It is only the foreigners who do not know how to live at the pace of the land.”

“They look up to you.” Bezel said. “Are you a...a priestess? Or a chieftess that the Elders all look to?”

“I am an old woman who cares enough about her people to look after them and mend their hurts when I can. I didn’t ask for power and I do not rule them.”

Bezel frowned at her carefully chosen words. “It does not mean that you are not a leader to them.”

Yagi Rusla smiled at that, a thin and enigmatic thing that left a trace of spice in the air as she finished dressing the Knight’s healing wound, pulled a blanket over him, and then went for her outer wrap again. 

“Leaders do not need power. They look after their people, and their people look after them.” She went over to her stove and set a pot of water over the hot metal grate. “Come. We will have tea before bed. You will need rest as much as he does.”

Bezel found her fatigue was thick enough to not argue the point, and she drank the clove and peppermint-flavored drink that was shoved into her hand out of politeness to their host. It spread a low-burning warmth through her all the way down her throat and radiated out from her stomach, and gladly fell into the bed of a straw mattress and furs that Yagi had some of her people set up for her in the corner. Bezel turned herself so she could look at her Knight, sleeping peacefully at last, and listened to the gentle cadence of his breathing.

As Yagi Rusla and her Knight slept away inside of the large circular tent that was the old woman’s home, Bezel cried a little more.

His last words haunted her, even now when she knew he would live to hear her answer to them.

I love you.

“I love you too.” She whispered into her palm, pressed against her mouth to keep from shouting it. Tomorrow. Tomorrow, she would tell him that. Bezel closed her eyes and fell asleep, feeling safe at last.

***

Bezel was up before he was, and Ama Yagi Rusla had been up before either of them. The old healer wasn’t in the tent when Bezel came to, but she found another pot of water on the stove, a premade packet of herbal remedy waiting next to the teacups and another clearly marked sachet of tea leaves next to it with instructions to boil the remedy for her Knight and to not mix them up. Bezel thought that was eminently sensible, as tea might feel good, but it wouldn’t be of medicinal use to her Knight’s recovery. She saw to her morning constitutional behind a privacy curtain, then washed her hands in the bitter disinfectant Yagi had left out the night before before getting started. 

The smell of it ended up being what pulled him from his rest, and he made a groaning noise as he hoisted himself up onto his arms and looked around in obvious confusion. Bezel was at his side in seconds, and handed him the foul-smelling brew she’d just finished preparing.

“You’re not dead.” She told him, answering what she assumed would be his first question. “Drink this.”

“Is that a command, my lady?” He asked, trying for a smile and coming up with a wince instead.

Bezel drew in a measured breath and looked away from him as he took the mug, grimacing at the smell of it. “Don’t you dare make light of this. Not now.” He didn’t say anything else and drank his strange herbal tea, while Bezel drank her own full-bodied brew and tried not to think of how much she had oversteeped it. 

“Don’t.” She swallowed the hurt that word brought up, and forced herself to push on. “Don’t ever do that again.”

“Do what?”

“...Throw your life away like that again.”

“My life is yours, Princess.” He insisted.

“If it is really mine, my Knight, then you will stop trying to die for me and start living for me!” She snapped, and her power flared out around her, giving her words an echo that rattled the air. Everything went blue tinged with pink, fluxing with a power that she could see her Knight struggling to draw a breath against, and she pulled her magic back inside of herself and turned away from him to hide the tears she felt stinging at her eyes. “Please. Don’t ever do that to me again. Don’t…”

He must have been feeling better, or he was at least able to struggle through it, because she heard the shuffle of his blanket, and then the sound of his feet on the floorboards, and then he was behind her, and his arms were pulling around her, pulling her in, holding her tight as she shivered and felt the warmth of his bare chest press against her through her dress. 

The way he buried his nose in her hair had her shivering. 

“Do you think I could stand by and watch as that bastard slaughtered you?”

“No.” She managed lightly. “I know it’s your duty, but…”

His arms tightened around her waist. “You think that anything I did, or said when he ran me through was because of duty?”

Bezel’s heart pounded away furiously, and she made a noise low in her throat that she tried to make sound like a negative response. All of him felt too real and too close and she was torn between trying to break away from him or turning around in his arms to pull his face down to kiss him until they couldn’t breathe. 

“Did you mean it?” She whispered, when she could hear something other than the blood rushing in her ears. “What - what you said when…”

He held her tighter for a moment, and then eased up so she could turn around and look at him. She lost herself in his storm-blue and gray eyes, which were dark and full of promise. “When?” He murmured, and didn’t flinch when her hand came up to his face. She traced the curve of his jaw, and he started to lean in…

And the flap of the tent opened up, and Ama Yagi came stomping in, scraping her feet on the coarse brush beside the entrance with a basket in her arms. She took one look at them, noting the Knight’s bare chest, and glowered at them.

“Considering you were all but dying on my doorstep when you got here last night, boy, you really have no business trying to seduce any girl. Much less one that’s in my home.” Bezel squeaked and pulled out of his arms, blushing and trying to hide her face in her hands, and the older woman snorted once and shook her head. “Go and sit down, boy. Did you drink your remedy yet?”

“Some of it.” He answered, and Yagi scowled again.

“All of it, you foolish boy. All of it.” She insisted, pointing a bony finger at him. Bezel peeked at him between her fingers and watched him roll his eyes before moving back to his mug of foul-smelling drink and downing it as quickly as he could without breathing it in. 

The Knight looked around afterwards, and caught a homespun shirt that the woman threw at him from the basket. “Thanks.” He said, slipping it on. “Now. Who are you, where are we, and what in mana’s purpose did I just drink?”

“Ah.” Bezel spoke up. “This is Yagi Rusla, a wise woman and healer who lives on the steppe. This is her tent - ”

“Yurt, girl.” Ama Yagi interrupted her. “A Yurt. A much more proper and homey thing than a tent.” She looked from Bezel to the Knight. “And you drank a remedy that I prepared when I woke up this morning, before either of you were moving. You were stabbed through, and very nearly died. If Elder Sava hadn’t managed even her stopgap solution, the princess here would be alone in the world.”

The way that his already pale face whitened was enough of a cue to make plain that the woman’s words had gotten through his thick skull. After that, she softened up some. “You saved my people. I would have saved you for that alone. The healing, we both did. But you are weak, and you need time to rest, and to recover.”

“The other villagers…” Her Knight started carefully.

“Safe.” She told him. “The knights sent after the village were dealt with, after you and the princess fought them back.”

Bezel knew that her Knight was one who was always quick to examine threats and seek the best means of dispatching them. She tensed up at the mention of her title, knowing he would react to it, and sure enough he turned himself at an angle towards Yagi, and his hands lowered down to reach for a sword that wasn’t there. Not that he couldn’t manifest one in a pinch. Yagi just seemed amused at his wariness.

“You know who she is?”

“Red hair. Travels with a mage knight in disguise. And I have seen portraits of her. When she was younger.” The woman hummed. “But you can stop your growling, guard dog. She is in no danger here.” When he still didn’t move, the older woman let out a huff and threw her arms in the air, then rattled off something in her guttural native tongue that sounded disparaging before she reverted back to Atlantean. “Sit down and stop barking at me. Honestly.” Yagi ran a hand through her hair and looked over to Bezel with a long-suffering humor. “What do you see in him that I don’t?”

The Knight sat down. Bezel blushed again. Yagi, perhaps feeling entitled due to the fact that it was her home, made herself some tea and patiently waited the both of them out to say something.

Past the crushing weight of her Knight’s mortality revealed and her other worries, Bezel finally started to turn her mind towards other questions. 

“Why were those knights rounding up the villagers?” She asked Yagi. “One of them said something about a, a ‘quota.’ A quota for what?”

Yagi sat down on one of her chairs, sipped at her tea, and stared into the fire of her cookstove. “I do not know.” She admitted. “But Elder Sava’s village is not the only one that has been attacked. Sometimes, the people are able to fight back. Other times, we hear nothing from them and our people only find the village empty when they check, days after the fact. This is the first time that the attack was repelled from the start.” She looked up at Bezel. “You did not travel into the countryside looking for missing villagers though, did you?”

“No.” Bezel admitted. For a moment, she contemplated if she should reveal the nature of their mission, but then she realized that Sava had known who they were looking for. That Sava had probably told Yagi exactly what they were doing. With a shrug, she told her the truth. “We were looking for clues of the whereabouts of Danel The Wolf. He led an attack on the knight garrison in Khav. Freed several prisoners and then took off running. And he...He was very skilled at disabling magic users.”

Yagi snorted at that. “You chase a wolf into his own territory? Risky.”

“Necessary.” Her Knight declared. “The last time some armed thugs decided to go around attacking district capitals, Bezel’s uncle and his entire family were all slaughtered. So was my mother. This Wolf is strong, and he needs to be put down.”

“Good luck, then.” Ama Yagi rolled her eyes. “You will get no help from any of the Ganarusa. The Wolf is a hero to our people.”

“He is trained in combat. He is dangerous.”

“As are you.” Yagi countered, staring down Bezel’s Knight. “Should you be hunted down like you wish to do to him? Or is it because he slipped the leash when you did not that makes you so angry with him?” 

The Knight had nothing to offer to that remark, and Yagi looked back over to Bezel. “You and your man can stay. I offer you bread and salt until he is recovered. You will be safe with us, both of you.” She went back to the basket she had brought in and started digging out wrapped packages of smoked meat and root vegetables. 

“Wait.” Bezel said, narrowing her eyes as she remembered what Elder Sava had said before everything went wrong. “Will we be allowed to move about your camp? Speak with the others?”

“You are a guest. Not a prisoner.” Yagi pointed out. “I would ask that your protector not do anything strenuous and spend more time in bed than out of it, though.” Bezel blinked at that and the woman just frowned at her, sensing the silent question and looking particularly unamused at it. “I will make sure that you have a proper and separate bed for your guardian, princess. You are welcome to keep using the bedding you did last night.”

“You claim to be a woman trusted by her people, and you can speak the language of the locals easily.” Her Knight spoke up suddenly. “But you speak Atlantean fluidly, even when so many of the Ganarusians we have met struggled to do so. And you hold yourself as an educated woman.”

Ama Yagi Rusla raised an eyebrow and waited expectantly for him to come to the point, and he sighed. “Who are you, Yagi Rusla? Really?”

The gray and brown-haired woman smiled thinly at the question and kept quiet, clearly feeling no particular need to provide an answer so quickly to it. She seemed perfectly fine with holding onto her secrets, like so many of her people did.

It was humbling to Bezel, to see how much trust there was amongst the Ganarusa. What Ama Yagi had implied short of outright declaring it was that she and her Knight were welcome to hobble around camp as they recuperated and speak to whoever they wished. They were welcome to speak to anyone they wanted, because nobody would give them a straight answer to the questions that broached on sensitive topics.  

“You would do well to try and learn some Ruscovy while you are here.” Yagi said thoughtfully. “Atlantean is not a language our people find much reason to learn.”

“I learned how to speak Arocan. I can make the attempt here.” Bezel declared. “But you are a woman of many secrets.”

“As you are.” Yagi replied, clearly enjoying the exchange. She would have probably kept it up if the sounds of stampeding horses driving into the camp with reckless speed hadn’t distracted her. “Ah. So soon? He must have picked up your trail.” 

“Who? What trail?” The Knight demanded, looking to burst back into a full alert status. Yagi just looked at him sharply.

“You are under my protection, and you will follow my rules. Bring no violence to our home.” Bezel and her Knight had only seconds to try and sort out the mess of that warning before the yurt’s tent flap was torn open and a menacing figure with dark hair and a strange mixture of Ganarusan and Atlantean features came storming inside, a too familiar sword bouncing off of his hip. He had eyes only for Yagi Rusla and went right up to her, pulling the slightly smaller woman into his arms.

“Ama.” He said tenderly, hugging her tight. The graying woman sighed and patted him on the back.

“I am fine. We are all fine. You come racing in here without any manners at all, Danel, what if I had been with a patient?”

“You weren’t.” Danel grinned, and Yagi sighed and pointedly looked off to the side towards Bezel and her Knight. Danel followed her gaze and the relieved smile he had been wearing dropped clean off of his bearded face.

The murderous glare that her Knight sent to Danel made Bezel glad that their weapons were still waiting beside the entrance, and well out of reach. If he’d had his sword on him, she was certain he would have drawn it on Danel. 

Danel just stared back at them, letting go of Yagi and  moving to stand between her and them. That lasted up until Yagi sighed and slapped his arm, and stepped around him.

“Princess Bezel Lantea and her guardian. This is my son, Danel Rusla.”

Ama Yagi’s son. Well. This was bound to be interesting.

***

Ama Yagi’s Village

They passed the rest of the first day inside the older woman’s yurt with Bezel helping Yagi to make soup to replenish the strength of her Knight seething as he lay in bed. He had finally insisted on reclaiming his sword, even if he wasn’t quite in perfect shape to use it yet. The injury was repaired, but he had lost too much blood, and grew weak quickly. Danel had left after their awkward second meeting and had not darkened his mother’s door since. And every time that Bezel or her Knight tried to ask about him, they were ignored. Not dismissed or frowned at or yelled at, but Yagi quickly and suddenly became a touch deaf every time that he was brought up. It made for an awkward night of sleeping, but they were safe nonetheless.

By the second day, Bezel was quickly suffering from cabin fever. She didn’t have to put on airs and slip on the mask of a royal princess like she had to on Atlantis and in the presence of other nobility, but being stuck in one room with a very nosy chaperone keeping her from doing what she wanted to and saying what she wanted to was irritating nonetheless. Yagi must have felt it, because she finally told Bezel that it was time to continue her training in the healing arts and all but forced her out the door. Her Knight made a face, clearly wanting to escort her, but Bezel quelled that urge with a look and a silent wish for him to get better. He sank back onto the cot, cuddled in his blankets, and gripped his sword even tighter. 

Bezel and Yagi went from yurt to yurt, and she carried a smaller basket to the larger one that Yagi did.

“Magic can do much.” Yagi explained, as they treated a young boy who coughed wetly and looked miserable as he shivered under several furs, in spite of the roaring fire filling the small space with heat. “And if one forces themselves, they can heal a terrible wound all in one go, bring someone back from death’s door. But it should not be a talent used lightly. Or often, not to that degree.” She switched to Ruscovy and chattered something away to the boy’s mother, who answered in the same. Yagi hummed thoughtfully and went digging in her bag, then came up with a small glass phial of some sort of powder. She measured out an exact spoonful of it and reached for a shallow metal bowl, pouring it in and then filling it with hot water.

“His lungs are full of ill mucus. It is the fall sickness. The old and the young are more susceptible to it. We could burn it out of him in seconds if we wished to waste our power, but he is already weak, and it would make him weaker. Weak enough, perhaps, for the next round to take hold and overwhelm him. So, we will be gentler.”

“Gentler how?” Bezel asked. “Will you give him that to drink?”

Yagi laughed, a throaty noise full of warmth and amusement, and totally unlike any noise that the royal healers had ever made in Bezel’s presence before. “No, girl. Not to drink. We will turn it to steam and he will breathe it in. And while he does that, you get to learn a new trick; healing without healing.”

It sounded terribly confusing, and Yagi just smiled as she placed the metal bowl inside of a slightly larger wooden one and then heated it up with a touch and a careful application of magic until the water and the powder that had dissolved into it was boiling furiously. As Yagi held the steaming mixture under the boy’s head and he breathed in the wafting fumes of it into his infected lungs, she had Bezel press her hands to the boy’s back and use her magic in a different way entirely than she had with her Knight. Her hands warmed, and the skin beneath her fingers vibrated slightly as Yagi guided her through the process. The end result was that after five minutes of breathing in deeply and slowly as he could manage, the boy shivered and then started coughing up wet, viscous globs of thick yellow mucus into a spare bit of cloth Yagi had him hold up to his mouth. It went on for another fifteen minutes like that, with Bezel managing a spell where the problem was not running out of mana, but forcing herself to not use too much of it in spite of her impatience, and Yagi speaking words of encouragement in Ruscovy until finally, his coughs sounded nowhere near as wet, and color was finally returning to his cheeks.

“Good. Good. He is getting air into him, at last.” Yagi hummed, setting the now boiled dry bowl and its wooden coaster aside, and taking the cloth full of sick away from their patient. She examined it and then turned it around for Bezel and the boy to see. The boy made a noise of disgust, and yet leaned in for a closer look, and Yagi snorted. “Boys. Always so interested by disgusting things.” She rolled her eyes, and Bezel giggled. Yagi wrapped up the bundle and then dragged it over to the fire, using a stick to tuck it in deeply among the embers so it would dry and burn completely. “Now, girl. You need to say something to them. Repeat after me, very slowly.” And then Yagi spoke another phrase in Ruscovy, with a deliberate cadence through the syllables and the strange slurred consonants. 

Bezel shakily repeated it, and the boy and his mother both brightened up and smiled at them, and the boy even reached over and hugged her in the tight and awkward fashion that all children did. She patted his back gently and then looked over to Yagi. “What did I just tell him?”

“The only thing that matters to someone who is sick or hurting.” Yagi explained, and her smile this time had no hidden agenda or enigmatic mystery to it. “You are going to be okay.”

Stunned, Bezel worked her way through the syllables again, and demanded Yagi to test her on the walk over to the next yurt, this one full of refugees from Elder Sava’s village. That time around, she made it through the three patients they treated inside with flawless accuracy. You are going to be okay.

After their fifth house, Yagi sighed, smiled, and patted her on the shoulder. “You have a talent for delicate work, Bezel. In spite of your power.”

“How come Atlantis doesn’t learn healing magic like this?” Bezel asked the older woman, genuinely curious. “This works!”

Yagi thought about that for a moment, then gestured for Bezel to follow her, and they came closer to a river and a small copse of trees there. Yagi leaned up against one and made a gesture for Bezel to copy her, which the girl did.

“I have heard that the Mage Knights are...selective with their membership.” Yagi began carefully. “Is this so?”

“I think so.” Bezel nodded. “They only take mages whose auras are a Yellow or above. And there is no member of royalty whose aura isn’t Blue. My Knight’s aura is green, and that was a deciding factor in why he was recruited. That, and…” She paused, but Yagi just waited her out placidly before Bezel shook her head to dismiss the bad memories. “When my uncle and his family were murdered, he saved me. His mother died protecting us both, and he woke to his power and nearly died defending me.”

“How old were you?”

“I was 9. He was 10.”

“Hm. That early?” Yagi mused, smiling gently. “And has your magic always been...unusual?”

Bezel stiffened. “Unusual? In what way?”

“Elder Sava said that you knew how to fight a little, and that staff still sitting in my yurt speaks to it. But you do not have the bearing of a warrior, like I suspect your older brothers do. You seem...more a scholar.”

Bezel breathed. “Yes?” She said in a clipped tone. “If I answer your question, will you answer one of mine, Ama Yagi?”

The older woman laughed. “A secret for a secret, princess? Very well. You first.”

“Artificing.” Bezel surrendered the answer with a sigh. “I am talented in artificing and runecrafting. The enspelling of items. I made my first one when I was 9. It was a - a moving portrait.” And she blushed a little to think of it and who she had made it for, never thinking she would ever see him again. That her life would be so bound to his that he would become the most important person in it. Eager to not let Yagi pick at that detail and get her really blushing, she pressed on. “That’s one of the reasons that I’m down here on Terra. I’ve been trying to track the leylines around the world so I can design a magic capacitor.” She saw the curious look on Yagi’s face, and explained. “An enspelled item that can absorb mana flowing about freely in the currents and then hold it. If I can manage that, then I might be able to help those who have trouble with gathering power, or use it as a tool to help those who gather too much to control themselves more so their spells don’t become overpowered.”

Yagi stared at her after that, and Bezel made a face. “What?”

“You really are different, girl.” Yagi mused softly. “You said that’s one of the reasons you came down here.”

Bezel narrowed her eyes. “That’s another question. I get one of mine now.” Yagi smirked and waved a hand in front of her, beckoning the girl to keep talking. “How is it you can speak Atlantean so fluently when few others among your people can?”

“My father taught me.” Yagi said, and Bezel realized that the woman meant to leave it at that, and glared at her. The woman rolled her eyes. “My father was the Steward of the late Baron Gobeas when he assumed the title.”

“Wait.” Bezel held up a hand, parsing that out. A Steward. She’d heard of the role, but most nobles she’d heard of preferred to rule directly without a second-in-command, someone closer to the population, to aid them. “The former Baron Gobeas? As in, Roland’s father?”

“Yes.” Yagi nodded. “And my father trained me from when I was very young to take his place.” The old woman folded her arms. “Now. What other reasons brought you to the surface? What the island-dwellers call the Below with such scorn?”

“Officially?” The girl began. “It’s so my brother will have an advisor who actually knows what is going on in the rest of Terra, instead of some noble who will lie about things or speak in half-truths. And there are plenty of people to meet and help. There was an earth-shake in Aroca before we came up to Euros and Asa, and if I hadn’t been there to make the RRD division change their orders, nobody would have helped them. And it was touch and go in the rescue until I…”

“Until you what?”

“That’s another question. You get one next. You were the previous Baron Gobeas’s Steward. Like your father was for his father, and for a while, for him.”

“Yes.” Yagi pulled away from the tree she’d been leaning against, done with her rest, and Bezel followed her. “I became the Steward for the province under Roland’s father, back when his mother was still alive. She died two years after I settled into the role.” She kept walking along, and if Bezel hadn’t been watching her like a hawk, the princess would have missed the memory of sadness and warmth that passed over the older woman’s face. “He loved her dearly, and losing her almost broke him. Roland was just five years old then. I believe he’s...twenty-six now?” She waved it off and pointed to their next house. “One more stop to make. My question next. What did you do during the rescue that had you hesitating?”

To Bezel, it had been a desperate act that worked wonders. “When I was examining my Knight, you had the strangest look on your face. Like you couldn’t figure out what I was doing.”

“Your lifesight spell.” Yagi nodded. She looked to Bezel. “You used it there, too?”

“For a longer period of time. At a greater distance, and while looking at more than one target. I collapsed afterwards, but I could...I could feel all the lives trapped in the rubble, and it helped us to dig them out more quickly. I was trying to look for mana, and I found I was watching life. And I still haven’t figured out why my spell, meant for one thing, would fail so horribly and reach for something else.”

“The work you are doing, this research, nobody else could manage it.” Yagi told her. “Nobody else has even thought of it. But you shouldn’t think too hard on it. Sometimes, answers come when you stop looking for them. And we still have another patient to see.”

“You care for them a great deal.”

“Steward or not, girl, I never stopped looking after my people.” Yagi said crisply, and picked up her speed. Bezel allowed herself to fall behind and think on something that revelation brought to mind, but which she didn’t dare expose herself to any further reciprocal questioning to see answered.

Baron Roland Gobeas had no Steward, at least from what Bezel had seen of his mansion during their short stay in Khav. 

It begged the question as to when Yagi Rusla had resigned her post and started living in the wilderness of the steppe as a healer and wise woman...and why.

***

The Knight continued to recover, confined to Yagi’s yurt on her orders and on Bezel’s wishes. The rounds of tending to the injured and ill had only taken them a few hours that second day, and for a portion of the rest of it, Bezel had sought to improve her Ruscovy first with Yagi until the old woman was tired, and then with Elder Sava, who was more than happy to walk her around, point to things and then give the proper term. By the time evening rolled around, Bezel felt confident in the basics of the language; hello. How are you doing. Where does it hurt. You’re going to be okay. I am hungry.

She was buzzing during dinner and a little stir-crazy from the energy she was hanging onto, so after the meal was consumed, she went outside of the yurt and sat on the steps, looking around the camp. It was all so much rougher in form than the settlements she was used to, and transient for all of the people that lived there. Yet as she listened to the laughter of children and songs being sung as they moved about the camp, there was a sense of peace and belonging that she hadn’t felt during their stay in Khav. It was the same sense of community she had felt in Dapana, and in the soup kitchen run by the Geenes, but without the tragedy. Even for the villagers who had been attacked by those rogue mage knights and had come here along with Bezel and her Knight and Elder Sava, there wasn’t that feeling of loss. Anger, yes. Resentment. Bitterness that stretched back beyond further than just three days ago. 

They were community, and they were together, and as long as they had that, they were happy.

Bezel reached for her power and called it up, letting it glow through her eyes as she looked around the transient village. She could see the sparkle of life in all of them as she rested there, the flickering candles of all the living Ganarusa who congregated in their homes to stave off the chill of the bitter fall night. This time, though, she didn’t just see the light of their lives, burning bright and strong. She watched with sharper focus and more experience and thought she could see them oriented, like those living lights were turned in towards one another. The yurts, the fencing around the horse paddock, the land started to blur and fade away from her senses. The lights, the living creatures around her were all that were left.

She had been trying for a spell to let her see the flow of magic in the world, and ended up coming up with a spell that let her see the living things around her. It was, by all measures, a fluke of triumph in a failed experiment. Bezel had used it to save lives in disaster. It meant something.

But it meant something else, too. She sat there, staring at those lights, sensing connection in them to other lights, and image began to blur and shift. The candle lights spread outward, becoming…She swore she could see the outlines of grass, of horses, and trees, and people. Dozens of people, and…

“Good evening your highness.” A voice greeted her, and Bezel startled and lost her grip on the spell, and it drifted away from her in a rough collapse, leaving her back in herself with the noises of life and the darkness of the night and the flickering light of the campfires all assaulting her senses.

She rubbed at her eyes with a soft hiss and looked up, meeting the amused expression of Yagi Rusla’s son, watching her.

Danel Rusla. Danel The Wolf. The man who had attacked Khav and the knight garrison there successfully, neutralized her power, and escaped laughing with an untold number of prisoners. 

And yet in the wake of her Knight’s almost fatal injury, she couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something more going on. 

“Come to check on your mother?”

“Yes, I did. I don’t get the chance to see her often, so the times that I can come to visit, I try to make the most of them.”

Bezel smiled. “She taught you Atlantean very well. You have less of an accent than Yagi does.”

“Yes, well.” Danel shrugged. “For a time, I learned under the former Baron also. He knew the importance of proper Atlantean.”

Bezel felt old questions bubbling up at that. “I met Roland, you know.”

There was a brief spark of utter rage and loathing which Danel quickly shifted into grim amusement. “Was he everything you hoped for in a regional lord?”

“No.” Bezel admitted. “The experience left me somewhat disappointed. And my Knight was suspicious of him.”

“He had good reason to be.” Danel nodded, pleased at the confession. “He is nothing like m...like Marten Gobeas was. He abuses his people, mistreats them, values wealth and objects over lives. And his corruption has been spreading. Mage Knights assigned to the province became crueler after his father died. At first, it was just harassment, higher taxes. But then people started going missing. And then villages.”

“Elder Sava’s village being attacked...there have been others?”

Danel was only four or perhaps five years older than she was, but the lines and healed wounds on his face spoke to suffering and hard living and harder fighting. “Too many.” He admitted bitterly. “My men and I are used to riding in afterwards and finding the villages burning and everyone missing or dead. What you and your protector did...it was the first time that we rode into a massacre where our own people were not the ones who had died. And what was left behind confirmed our fears. There was no reason for a skybarge that size, not unless they were taking everyone in Sava’s village and relocating them somewhere else. They’re taking them somewhere, and I have been racking my brains since I spoke with my mother and with Sava. I don’t know where they are going.”

Bezel absorbed that, and he waited for her to gather her thoughts. To offer a suggestion, perhaps. Or to wait for a question. Bezel always had so many questions.

“Why do they call you The Wolf?”

“A wolf is a pack animal.” Danel explained. “His strength is not in how well he fights on his own, but in how he fights with the others. The knights that Roland commands? They do not know the strength of unity. Not like my people do. The knights sit confident in their power, in their supremacy, and overlook the danger of the pack. There is strength in our bonds to one another. A strength that they forget. That Atlantis forgets.”

Bezel blinked, taken aback at the assertion. For a moment she blanked out, trying to think of what she had seen in her lifesight spell when he had interrupted her. She failed to Danel seemed amused.

“You have been training with my mother. She...she likes you, you know.”

“She is a good woman. She cares. She looks after them all.”

“My Ama always did.” Danel smiled, coming closer and sitting on the steps next to her. He sighed as he settled into place. “Steward or no Steward, the title never mattered. She knew her duty, and I try to follow her example. But there is too much of my father in me. Too much of the warrior, and not enough of the healer. She has said that you will be even better than she is, in time.”

“I can’t stay, though. You know that. She must know that. Her place is here, but mine…”

“Is Atlantis?”

“No.” Bezel said, shaking her head softly. “More than here. More than there.”

Danel raised an eyebrow. “You would be Steward of the world?” He seemed confused at the idea, and Bezel looked away from him, blushing a little. 

“There are enough people who want to rule Terra. There aren’t enough who want to take care of it.” She said. Danel snorted in agreement at that, and Bezel looked over at him.

Paused. And looked again. And froze. His eyes were his mother’s, but his hair, the line of his jaw, the way his face moved when he smiled sardonically…

Oh. Oh, it couldn’t be, but…

“Danel.” Bezel whispered, staring at him, unable to blink, unable to look away. “Who was your father?”

Danel looked back at her, eyes appraising. “If you ask with that much fear in your voice, I think you know already.” The younger man, younger than his half-brother by 7 years, said in a far too calm voice. 

Bezel bit her lip. “Yagi loved the former Baron.”

“She loves him still.” Danel sighed. “My mother was the woman who kept him together when his wife died, and he gave her the gift of my life. I think that is why Roland despises us, despises me. She loves this land and her people and taught my father Marten to care for them. Roland knows only the venom of it all. I could have forgiven him sending my Ama and myself away after his father died. I will never forgive him for who he has become, and for what he does to our people now.”

“You think he is behind it all?”

“Who stands to benefit the most?” Danel pressed her, and stood back up with an angry grunt. “If I could learn where he was taking my people, I could stop it and expose him. But he does not hide them in Khav, or in the villages he controls.”

Bezel thought on it a bit more, dredging up every detail that Roland Gobeas had uttered during her thankfully short stay in his company.

Maybe it was because her brain was still shorting out from making a wild lateral connection that made so many things about this mess even a little bit clearer, but the answer screamed away at her in seconds.

“Do you and your men track the movements of the mage knights in the province?”

“Yes?” Danel blinked several times. “Why?”

“Roland Gobeas insisted that the mines in the mountains had all given out, that there was nothing of value left in them.” Bezel explained as she walked herself through a longer, vocal explanation of what her mind had deduced so much faster. “Do ships still fly to them?”

Danel blinked even more after that. “I need to make inquiries.” He stated, and walked off at a brisk pace.

Bezel shivered and made to go back inside Ama Yagi’s yurt, where a warm room and a warm bed and her still recovering Knight were waiting for her. 

The night air was too full of dangerous, enervating thoughts to linger in it any further.

***

Three days after they had arrived, Bezel knew enough about healing to make Yagi Rusla start smiling more often and let her take the lead on minor cases. It remained a challenge to Bezel, and one that she suspected her brothers would always fail at. In healing, there was nuance that the royal healers paid no attention to. A balance between taking away a wound completely and letting the body heal some of it, which Yagi explained as the difference between keeping them at the same level or letting the broken body grow stronger. And her command of Ruscovy, the language of the people who lived on the steppe, grew. She suspected it would take years of exposure and practice before she felt fluent in it, but what little she did know put the minds of the other villagers at ease, and made them smile. Many had been wary of her, in spite of what she and her Knight had done to save Elder Sava and her people. She was Atlantean, and a princess, and there was no hiding that when she had been exposed so openly. But the Ganarusa started to look past that, to see, as her Knight had, the girl behind the role. They stopped seeing the princess, and saw the person she was.

Five days after they had arrived, her Knight was finally declared hale and hearty enough by Ama Yagi to resume his duties, and he spent two hours every day outside training with his blade to rebuild his strength and endurance. He guided Bezel through her own exercises after that, and sword and staff crossed with his kept calm and her mana blazing through the wood’s natural conduits to make it stronger and resist chipping. 

Seven days after they arrived, as Bezel and her Knight were working through another spar without magical spells or augmentations where she was finally putting him on the back foot, Danel The Wolf and his men rode back into camp with grim looks on their faces. Bezel hadn’t seen him since the night they had talked and the truth of his complicated heritage had come to light. His men came to a stop at the village’s edge and walked their horses in, greeting people as they came. Danel didn’t slow his horse or dismount, and instead rode right up to Ama Yagi’s yurt, and to them.

Her Knight stopped the spar and shifted to stand in front of her as Danel finally slowed and dismounted in a smooth motion before his horse had even come to a full stop. He smirked as he watched her Knight stand with sword held in both hands defensively.

“Put that thing away, boy, you’re in no danger from me.”

“It didn’t feel like that the last time we crossed swords.” Her Knight growled, and Bezel gasped to hear the heat of his rage. Danel just sighed and looked to Bezel. 

  “I need to speak to my mother, and to the both of you as well. Is she inside?”

“She is.” Bezel nodded. “Some of the other villagers came back with a supply of tubers, and she’s pickling them with a few of the other women for the winter.”

“Good.” Danel said. “Pickling is something that will allow for a break. I have news that must be shared in private.”

Bezel’s sense of danger grew. “In that case, let us not waste time. You seemed in a hurry, it must be urgent.”

“Very.” Danel growled, and walked past them with green fire burning in his eyes. 

Inside of Yagi Rusla’s yurt, Danel wasted no time once the other women of the village were dismissed. He paced around a bit while his mother sat placidly, sipping her tea, and Bezel and her Knight sat on the edge of her bed. She reached for his hand and he held it tight, more for his own sake than hers, it seemed. 

“The princess here mentioned something that the baron had stated to her in earnest. That the province was poor, and that the mines had given out. That they were no longer used.” He began, looking to Bezel. “Was this true, mother?”

“Yes. Far as I knew.” Yagi answered, putting two fingers to her chin. “The mines were closed. The veins had given out, and to dig deeper would be to risk the collapse of the mountain.” She looked up grimly. “That has changed, then?”

“Yes.” Danel nodded. “Skyskiffs and skybarges flown by the mage knights of the province were observed my by scouts flying to one of the largest abandoned mines in the Wul, loaded, and then leaving flying much faster, their cargo gone. My men and I were able to intercept one skybarge on the way to the mine, and stop them from escaping. Another thirty-three of our people were saved, and we learned something disturbing when we went to interrogate the survivors.”

The Knight twitched, and Bezel gave him a warning look before she glanced back to Danel, motioning for him to continue.

“They are selling them as slaves. To who and to where, we do not know. The one who broke was just a mid-ranked officer, but he did confess that the scheme was known to the highest echelons of the leadership of the local mage knights. That they were the ones who had arranged it. And we know when that exchange will take place.”

“When?” Bezel heard herself ask woodenly. 

“Tomorrow night.” Danel said. “Which means I must leave, within three hours at the latest, if my men and I hope to intercept them and stop the sale. We stole the skybarge and their uniforms, and we will be taking the place of the unit we stopped. They are expecting a ‘shipment’ and I intend to sneak my own people in.”

“And why are we here then?” Bezel’s Knight asked suddenly. “Are you trying to recruit us?”

“I would not turn down the help.” Danel admitted, looking to him. “Even out here, we hear things. And the story of Bezel’s Knight, the only squire who survived the Zolim Incident is one that gave us all pause. I don’t know what you faced, that part was too classified even for rumors to deduce, and I don’t care to ask. I just know, based on that and on our duel, that you are a skilled warrior. And that we could use you.”

Her Knight wasn’t pleased by the idea in the slightest, Bezel knew, and she stood up and reached for her Knight’s arm.

“We need to talk about this, Danel. Can you excuse us for a few minutes?”

The outlaw resistance leader nodded. “My mother and I still need to go over a few last details. If we succeed, there will be a great many survivors that will need medical care and aid in resettling. And heads will roll for this treachery.”

Bezel had no doubt that Danel was perfectly serious in that claim. He could be caring and warm in his own way, but in what he had said of his mother, and what Yagi had said of her son, was also perfectly accurate as well. Danel was The Wolf, a man who defended his Pack and his tribe, and aspired to the role of guardian. He was no caretaker like his mother and his father and his mother’s father had been. To Danel, there was only one solution to this crisis.

Stop the selling of his people into bondage, discover where they were being sent, and unmask the bastards responsible for the sickening scheme. And spill as much blood as the cause of justice demanded, even though the thought made her nauseated. 

She walked herself and her companion outside, turned, and looked at him. He was angry, but resigned as well.

“You’re going to insist on coming with.” It wasn’t even a question. 

It made her smile. “You really do know me.”

“I know your heart.” He sighed. “You cannot look on suffering and turn away from it. You try to change it, to fix it, every time. But this is one time that I would ask you not to. This will be dangerous. And I am not certain if we should go at all. If we can even trust him.”

“I am.” Bezel said, insistent. She knew Danel, and knew his mother. She knew the complicated web of family between them and Roland Gobeas’s late father Marten, and the current baron. They did what they did to protect their people, a people now in jeopardy, bound for a fate worse than death. “If you cannot trust them, my Knight, when they took us in and saved your life and gave you a place to heal and regain your strength, then trust me. Can you do that?”

His jaw clenched, and for a moment that lingered far too long, she wondered if he might actually say no. If this time, his hatred for the rabble rousers of Below would take over the better angels of his nature.

She watched him with hopeful eyes. “Danel has more reason than anyone to hate the baron, but he does not attack him. He fights to protect his people, just like the Mage Knights are supposed to. This isn’t Banali City, my Knight.” Her hand came over to his shoulder. “These people didn’t kill my uncle and his family. They didn’t kill your mother.”

He flinched, but still wavered. Her hand went to the front of his shirt, and she reached inside, bringing up the chain and the enspelled item on the end of it. The locket she had given him last year. Her fingers snapped it open, and the portrait of his mother glowed in the air between them.

“You’re so brave. Don’t ever stop being brave.”

His hand closed around hers and closed the locket, silencing that precious voice and dispelling the haunting image.

“No fair.” He whispered, and pulled her to him before resting his face against her shoulder. “No fair.”

“You are my Knight.” She said, her body humming again from the closeness of him. “Your place is by my side.” 

He held her tighter at that. “You asked me something before we reached Khav. Do you remember it?”

She did, but found that she lacked the voice to repeat it. She had asked him what she could give to him in return for all he was, all he had done for her, all that he was to her.

“I have thought of something you can give me.” He went on. “A promise.”

She nodded her head, only a small squeak leaving her throat.

“Promise me that you will not go somewhere I cannot follow you.” He begged her. “Promise me that you will stay alive no matter what.”

She finally regained her voice as she pushed him back, looking at him through suddenly blurry eyes. “Why?” Bezel whispered. “Please, tell me why.”

His hand came up and cupped the side of her face, and his thumb traced her lips. “You know why.”

“Say it.” She begged him, and his face crumpled into grief. “Please.”

“Because I love you.” He confessed, and her heart swelled at the ache in his voice.

She kissed him then, hard and deep, and he groaned when he pulled her close again, stopping only when they separated to gasp for air. 

Bezel was crying, and found it the most wonderful thing to be doing in that moment. She had begged mana and fate for him to live, so she could answer him. She would not waste the opportunity.

“I love you too.” She whispered into his ear. His smile lit up her world more than the midday sun.

Soon, they would be going with Danel The Wolf and his pack to save the captured villagers of the Ganarusa from captivity, from those who had forsworn their oaths of duty and protection for wicked ends.

They would do it together.

***

The Wul Mountain Range

A skybarge marked with the emblem of the Mage Knights and flying a flag declaring it as belonging to the provincial forces sailed through the gray skies of the borderlands between Euros and Asa. It was a no-man’s land in Ganarus Province, overlooked by everyone because there was nothing of value to be dredged up out of the earth. There should have been nothing out here.

There was an entire camp, hidden from view from the ground but visible from the air on the southern side of one of the mountains, with ships and soldiers and tiny people scurrying about both outside, and constantly flowing more and more people into the mountain, into the shafts thought abandoned and empty.

Not quite so empty now. Not quite so abandoned. All of this was relayed to the people in the skybarge’s hold from the ones on deck, dressed in the uniforms and armor of other mage knights of the province. And this skybarge wasn’t quite so well maintained as the Atlantean units or the ones of the RRD; the provincial guard made do with what could be spared, or what was discarded and could be repaired. The people in the hold could hear the wind howling outside, feel the chill of the air seep through the boards that forced them to huddle close together.

Not that Bezel wouldn’t have huddled next to the young man next to her anyways. The fact that she was shivering, and not just from the cold, made it easier. Their hands were bound with rope in loose knots, and she leaned into his shoulder, feeling him lean back. A length of her hair came down in front of her eyes, and she blinked at the color.

Not red, not glowing like a fire like she was used to. Mottled, acorn brown. Dyed by Yagi Rusla’s magic to hide her most distinctive feature. For this, she could not be herself, she could only be another girl caught up and captured by the provincial knights. 

She spoke enough Ruscovy to make the deception plausible now. For his part, her Knight wasn’t wearing his armor, downgraded to the rough woolen homespun and animal hide that was commonly worn. His hair, like hers, had been treated in a poultice thick with Yagi’s magic, and the dark color had been replaced with a pale, sickly washed out blond. Yet Yagi’s warning hung between them. To not call on their magics, not until they were sure. Because their magic would melt the minor spell within the dyes she used. Their magic was the truth of them, and the truth melted Yagi’s illusions. Always. 

“Get ready.” One of Danel’s ‘wolves’ called down to them, and then they were out of time. 

“Don’t go where I can’t follow you.” Her Knight whispered to her.

“Don’t you dare do something stupid like die on me again.” She answered him, finding herself terrified as they reached the moment at last. He leaned over and brushed a kiss to her cheek, witnessed by the dozen other ‘captured’ men that Danel had set up as his main strike force. 

“You’d bring me back.” He said, conviction shining through his voice. “But I’ll try.” They went still as the skybarge rumbled, settling down on solid terrain.  And then the yelling and the grabbing and the stumbling along started.

Hoisted out of the hold, they were quick-marched down the skybarge’s boarding ramp and made to stand in a line for inspection as another bored mage knight gave them cursory once-overs and wrote tiny notes in a clipboard. Bezel’s eyes went to the less bored trio of knights who came up to meet with the ‘squad leader’ who was anything but. Though Danel’s training and poise, likely a byproduct of whatever training his father had given him, made him fit the part as well as the armor that had belonged to a dead man. 

The officer who led the greeting party didn’t offer a hand and kept his palm settled over the hilt of his sheathed sword as he met Danel. “You’re late.” He said imperiously. “Mind telling me why you’re a day overdue with your delivery, soldier?”

“The village we went after had packed up and cleared out by the time we got there. We decided to do a little foraging.” Danel shrugged. “It wouldn’t do to show up empty-handed, after all.”

The officer, a man in his thirties, made a too eager smile at that suggestion. “I like seeing initiative in you younger pups. It’s a good trait to cultivate. Well, let’s have a look and see who you’ve picked up.”

As he worked down the line, Bezel used the opportunity to get a better look at the camp and the environment around her. The landing yards were enormous , much larger than a dozen skyskiffs or even a handful of skybarges would need all at once. Everything else was just as the disguised wolves up on the deck had told them. 

She’d meant to distract herself from what she was doing, but she’d done too good of a job. When the hand of the officer struck out and grabbed at her chin, she yelped aloud in surprise and tried to flinch away. It got her slapped for her trouble, and she crumpled to the ground with her jaw aching. The bastard had put the full force of his hand behind that blow. 

“Insolent peasant bitch! Get up, and don’t you dare flinch away from me again!” The officer snarled, and Bezel’s arms trembled as she pushed herself up with her bound hands. He jerked her up the rest of the way, and she heard her Knight snarl, saw him twitch. She caught him in her gaze, and remembered to yell in Ruscovy, instead of Atlantean. Her Atlantean was too refined and perfect for a peasant girl from Ganarus to speak. 

“No! Don’t do it!” She snapped at him, and though his command of the language was far more rudimentary than her own limited exposure, it was enough to keep him from doing something he’d regret. 

One of the other knights escorting the officer laughed at that. “Oi, get a load of this one. He looked angry enough to spit fire, didn’t he? What do you suppose, big brother or a boyfriend?”

“There’s a difference with these savages?” The other one snorted, and the two laughed as the officer ignored them and gazed harder at Bezel, turning her face one way and then the other even as her bruised cheek kept burning. 

“Hmm. Yes.” He smiled, pleased with what he saw. Even disguised, Bezel must have appealed to him. “Quite lovely. They’ll like you. Perhaps I should see if we can just keep you around for ourselves instead…” He hummed, and Bezel’s eyes went wide as she realized what he was saying.

“Hands off the merchandise, soldier.” An older, sharper, and far more menacing voice cut in, and the hand around her jaw let go and jerked away from her like she had burned him. Bezel’s eyes swiveled over to the new presence, and she noted how everyone was cowed in the face of the man who had spoken. He also was dressed in the uniform of a local mage knight, but his rank insignia was that of a knight commander. He had sharply trimmed gray hair and cold brown eyes, and his body was thin and coiled like a spring, even with his arms tucked behind his back and his swords bouncing off of his hips and longcoat as he paced along casually. There was a menacing scar down the side of his cheek from some past injury that hadn’t healed right, and there wasn’t a mage knight in the camp who didn’t stand a little straighter when they saw him. 

This was the man in charge of this...this operation, and every bit of Bezel’s slowly developing danger sense screamed at her that he would, and could, kill in an instant. His eyes were unlike any other set of eyes she’d ever seen.

She had seen warmth and compassion. She’d seen concern and anger. Even her brother’s sadistic streak could be reflected in his eyes when he smirked, and the brooding depths of her father’s irritation still made her shiver.

What Bezel felt from looking at the old and wiry knight commander was a sum total of nothing. Like he was devoid of any normal emotion at all.

He scanned the line of fresh captured slaves, and when his gaze passed over Bezel, she shivered on instinct. “A little late, but some quality goods. We’ll be able to up our asking price with this lot. The Surgalans prefer the younger ones; they get more work out of them. And more pleasure.”

The lower-ranked officer who’d been manhandling Bezel made a face, and his superior’s eyes flickered over to him. “Problem, lieutenant?”

“Sorry, sir. Just get a little nauseous thinking about one of them pawing over one of us like that.”

“After we sell the chattel, they’re no longer our concern.” The knight commander drawled. “Remember, this lot isn’t worth your concern. They’re subhuman, after all. And they don’t go missed. There will always be more of these mud-crawlers to take their place.”

The way he said all those horrid things so casually stung at Bezel’s heart.

“Move them out, soldier.” He said, directing those cold eyes at Danel. “Our buyers will be arriving soon.”

Bezel and the rest were marched away from the compound’s yard and taken into the tunnels under the mountain, kept lit with magefires dotted on wall sconces and marched past a checkpoint, which gave them directions. Then they heard the sounds, the noises of suffering and panic, and worse, the silence of hopeless surrender. In cages filled with more shadows and darkness from the indirect lighting than clear visibility, she could see the outlines of other people of different sizes, men and women and children either huddled together for comfort or curled up as far away from everyone else as they could get. She tried to meet their eyes as she passed by cage after cage that was dug into the wall and sealed with iron bars. Few did, and her heart ached for it. She would have cried, if she could afford to fall apart. These were her people, and they saw no future, no hope, and nothing but pain and suffering ahead of them.

Because this was what the poison of Atlantis’s supposed supremacy had led to. People who didn’t possess magic, or didn’t have enough of it being marginalized, being ostracized, being separated. Being seen as less until it wasn’t just a matter of their value to society, but the worth of their very lives that the elites saw as an expendable commodity. Like they were livestock. 

It built up inside of her, a scream of rage and sorrow and endless hurt. She felt the pain of seeing the shelter that her Knight had taken her to that very first time multiplied a hundred times over. Every cage held a dozen people, crowded in until the smell became intolerable. The tunnels, curving and unsure things, held dozens of cages in uneven rows.

Hundreds of people. Hundreds. And how many times had this happened? How many ‘shipments’ had been sent off? 

Sweet mana. Thousands. The number of the lost could number in the thousands. Or the tens of thousands.

She and her Knight were split off from the others who had been in the insertion team, with the older men being taken to a different cell while she and her lover were forced into one slightly less crowded, more cared for. It was full of young women and a few young men, all of them handsome in face and body. 

This, Bezel realized, represented the cream of the crop. And it wasn’t just full of Ganarusa. She stared to see two dark-skinned Arocans, five fair-haired Eurosians, and even a dark-haired girl maybe one year older than she was with almond-shaped eyes in a slightly dirty and ornate robe she’d never seen the like of. An Asan. 

They were all on edge, all either crying or looking like they had nothing left. The language barrier had clearly been a factor, and as Bezel bit her lip, she cursed herself that she didn’t know more of the languages of Below. A lapse in her royal education, intentionally made by her tutors. Why would a princess ever need to speak with those who were beneath her? 

But they weren’t. Here, in this cell, they were all the same. 

Her Knight waited until the guards closed the door and walked off before speaking up, whispering into her ear. “I don’t know who the Surgalans are. I’ve never heard of that group of humans before. I don’t know where they’re taking these people. Tell me you activated the emergency beacon.”

She jumped a little, because she hadn’t, and his face went hard. “Trigger it. Now.” Even surrounded by this miserable sight, her Knight stayed focused on the mission. Perhaps because he had seen worse, dealt with worse. 

Even with her hands bound, she had been careful to place the emergency beacon that Knight Commander Sloane had given them before they left Aroca in a place that could be reached, so long as one knew where to look. She raised her hands up to the front of her dress and tried to slide her hands down to her small breasts, and to the beacon tucked in the binding around them. But she couldn’t manage the angle, not here, not when it counted, and she bit her lip.

“You have to take it.” She whispered back to him, and his eyes shot to hers with incredulity. An untempered blush filled his face, and she blushed as well. “With my life. With my heart.” She repeated, for that was what lay between them. She trusted him, utterly and completely. Even with this.

It didn’t stop the fluttering of her heart when his hands, cold from exposure to the chilly air, snaked down the front of her dress and his fingertips brushed the fabric covering her bosom. Nervousness made him fumble, and he apologized as he felt around the edges for the metallic token that should have been so easy to find. She shivered when his coarse fingertips brushed her hardened peak through the underbinding, and he froze in place, as though he had committed a terrible sin. She just smirked at him, and he let out a soft chuff, blushing even more before he finally found the token tucked carefully away. Then his cold hands and the warm token, warmed by her body, pulled out of her dress. He held it in his cupped hands between them, and Bezel reached a hand towards it, remembering what Sloane had said. About channeling power into it to activate it. 

If she used her full strength, it would echo around the world. But already she could feel the Working over her hair and her face strain at the edges as she felt for it. She couldn’t use it fully, and she frowned. 

Her Knight must have realized the problem, because his hands squeezed over hers, keeping the beacon held between them. “Together.” He whispered, and she nodded. 

Neither of them could use their full power, but they each fed a little of their strength into it, and the combination of a fraction of her magic and his...it felt like it was enough.

It would have to be enough. They could feel the spell inside of the beacon pulsing away, releasing a silent signal that couldn’t be picked up by any other mage knight division save for the 242nd under Sloane. They only division that they could trust.

Into that activated beacon, Bezel offered a prayer. Please, please reach him. Please let him come in time.

“Where?” The Knight rasped, and Bezel opened her eyes, realizing what he was asking. Where to put it again.

“Put it back.” She said to him, licking her lips. He swallowed loudly and did so, and this time they both shivered when his hands touched her again, and she sighed softly when his palms lingered, cupping her bosom. Remembering the feel of her. Like he would never touch her again.

“This isn’t the end.” She told him, raising her voice just enough so he couldn’t mistake the steel in her voice. He came back to himself, blinked, and nodded once before pulling his bound hands away from the inside of her dress. “We’re going to get through this. We’re going to be all right.”

“I know.” He got out, his voice a horse and raspy thing. He leaned forward and pressed his forehead to hers. “I know.”

“I love you.” She got out, and she saw his eyes snap open, looking at her in the darkness across the small gap between them. “I love you.” Bezel repeated, fierce and possessive. 

He smiled again at that, wider than she’d ever seen him smile before. “Do you know what you do to me, when you say those words?”

Bezel thought she knew. But she could still be wrong. She could be wrong about so many things, she’d been wrong about the world and Below and Atlantis and the role of the Mage Knights.

She didn’t want to be wrong when it came to him. So she separated, gave him one last smile, and did the one thing that she knew was right. She sought out the Arocans and knelt down beside them, and spoke the words they needed to hear, in their own language.

“You’re going to be all right.” Their heads snapped up at hearing a friendly voice speaking in their native tongue, and Bezel smiled at them for a long moment before looking over to the Ganarusa prisoners, and she repeated the phrase that Ama Yagi had taught her. A phrase that came more fluently than anything else in the language. Then she said it one last time, in fluent Atlantean, keeping her voice low enough that it wouldn’t carry out of the cage. In a voice meant just for their ears.

Bezel could tell that they didn’t quite believe her. What reason would they have to believe her, really? When they were still in cages, still buried under a mountain, just waiting to be dragged out and sent off to who knew where?

She stood strong and proud, and steady. She would be their strength. 

These were her people, and she would protect them.

***

Two hours later, a new source of commotion came stumbling into the tunnels of slave cages, complete with angry shouting and stomping feet. Bezel and her Knight came to their feet while everyone else in their cage either stared blankly or turned away, not caring who was there. 

To Bezel’s shock, it was Baron Roland Gobeas who came storming into the tunnels looking like panic and thunder all in one, with the knight commander of the corrupt knights in the camp at his side.

“...absolute chaos right now, and I have Atlantis and agents of the Rapid Response Divisions breathing down my neck!” Roland stammered, working himself into a high dudgeon. 

“Unfortunate.” The knight commander said blandly. “But not my problem. The sale has been scheduled, and it’s not as though we can exactly send our buyers a message to get here sooner. You should have kept the princess in check instead of allowing her to traipse all over.”

“As if there was any stopping her. If I’d insisted and forced the issue, she would have gotten suspicious.” The Baron muttered. “Right now, there are entire units of mage knights out there, combing every inch of my lands for her. The men we trust are ‘searching’ in this area, but eventually they will get here. And your buyers need to be gone by the time they do, Knight Commander Keral!”

For once, an emotion crossed the older knight’s face, something dangerously close to irritation. Bezel, partially hidden in the shadows of their cell found herself reaching for her Knight’s hand to keep herself from whimpering. 

“You knew the risks of this operation when you came to me and presented your idea. Providing political cover is your responsibility, Gobeas, not mine.”

“That worked up until that bitch decided to wander off the map and get herself lost. Or killed.” The baron growled out. 

“So your seduction didn’t take? Pity. You pride yourself on your talent with women.” Keral replied coolly. “Or perhaps you only go after the unwilling ones who don’t have a choice in the matter. What would be a better outcome, Gobeas? If she showed up on the other side of your lands dead, or if she was never heard from again?”

“Is it possible that some of your men caught her up in one of their sweeps?” Gobeas asked eagerly. “If they killed her, I could blame it on Danel the Wolf and his outlaws…”

“My men have orders to capture people for the slave trade, Baron, not to kill them.” Keral said, turning and looking into the cage that Bezel and her Knight inhabited. “And I think that the princess’s coloring is distinctive enough that they would notice it. To say nothing of her aura if she fought back. No, my men have not encountered the princess, so far as I have been made aware.” His cold eyes ran over the bodies of every person inside Bezel’s cage, as though measuring their value. “If they had, she would have ended up in here.” 

His hand shot up, and a bright green glow shot through with blue streaks illuminated the small space. Some of the others in the pen let out shrieks and turned away, and a globe of light that shifted to pale white as it detached from his hand flew into the space.

A True Light spell, an advanced Working that betrayed no hue of the caster’s aura when wielded. But it also made clear visual details that might have been shaded by lights of aura color. Like her hair.

Bezel didn’t breathe as she stared at the light, and found herself wincing from the pain. It took her a moment to realize that it was the pressure of her Knight’s hand squeezing down on hers, urging her to silence. To not give anything away. She didn’t dare look at the knight commander with the cold, calculating eyes, she just kept staring at the light and telling herself My hair is brown, not red, I am disguised, you do not know me over and over again.

Many seconds later, the light spell faded away, and Bezel watched as Keral blinked again and swiveled to the Baron. “Not a single red-haired girl in there. And my men are trained too well to let a rare beauty like Bezel Lantea be shoved in the worker cages, even if they hadn’t known who she was. No, it is far more likely that she’s dead, either at the hands of my men or your outlaw rebels.”

“That’s not good enough.” Roland was still sweating. “Not for a missing princess of the royal blood. They will tear my lands apart looking for her until they find a body.”

Knight Commander Keral blinked again, and then stepped up next to Roland Gobeas, gently patting the younger man on the shoulder in consolation. “You’re right, of course. They really won’t stop looking until they have a body.”

The move was lightning quick and revealed the depths of violence contained within the wizened old mage knight. In a single thrust of his hand, he manifested a short dagger of pure mana focused to a razor’s edge and stabbed it deep into the nobleman’s stomach. As Gobeas gasped in pain, Keral twisted the blade of blue light, ripped it back out again, and let it disappear, all without getting a spot of blood on himself.

“It need not be hers, though.” Keral added after the fact in thoughtful repose. 

Gobeas lurched backwards, his hands coming to his stomach and trying to hold it in as he began to bleed freely. His back slammed against the wall and he slumped to the ground, looking up at Keral with glassy eyes. His gaze flickered to the mage knights guarding the prison wing, who hadn’t moved to defend him or attack Keral for the betrayal. “Why…”

“Such a pity, that this betrayal would come from such a minor noble lord of the Below.” Keral went on, cutting the man off. He set his arms behind the small of his back and paced about with confidence. “A man with appetites for wealth above his station, so hungry for the pleasures of life that he would sell his own citizens for material gain. A crime enough, depriving the Mage King of servants that tilled the earth of Below to make sustenance, who would serve him under his watchful protection. But then, to have that same baron turn around and use the opportunity of a visiting royal’s presence to carry out one grand sale...Endless, bottomless greed. They will look for Bezel, and they will not find her, ever. For how can they? She has been sold, the same as all of the other captured citizens who no longer reside here. Such a crime would be unthinkable to proper servants of Atlantis and the Crown. But then, you never were. Lying all the while about your true assets, depriving Atlantis of taxes? Your guilt knows no bounds.” 

Roland’s breathing came shallowly. “You’ll- never-”

Keral ignored him, waving an arm above his head. “And what of I? Knight Commander Finna Keral, loyal servant of Atlantis for more than forty years in the Mage Knights. I, who was fed the same lies as everyone else and realized too late the depths of your cursed ambitions? I was too late to save the princess from your scheme, too late to fight back against the invading slavers you sold them to. But I was not too late to exact vengeance upon you, and upon your regional knights who were more loyal to you than to the Mage King.” 

Keral knelt down in front of Gobeas, whose eyes had gone glassy and whose face was paler than it should have been. “It will be a terrible tragedy. Terrible, especially after Banali City’s massacre of the King’s brother and his family. Another royal, taken too soon, another light of order and justice gone out in the world. Your family name will be cursed for generations, your lineage will be ended. But the lands endure, Atlantis will endure, and they will need good men, loyal men, to rule The Below. Men who place loyalty and devoted service to the Crown above all. Men like...me.”

Roland Gobeas breathed his last, and his head lolled to the side, staring out blankly. The knight commander didn’t even do him the service of closing his eyes for him, and rose back up on his feet, turning to one of his men.

“After the sale is completed, kill the Baron’s personal guards outside.” He told the mage knight calmly. “This will be the last sale we will be able to make, but we will all be retiring very rich men. Pass the word on to the men. They can be silent rich men, or poor, dead men.”

“Yes, sir.” The nearest knight said with a cruel smile, and left to spread the plan. 

And then the mountain began to shake. Keral looked up in partial interest and smiled. “Ah, good. They’re here.” He looked back to Bezel’s cage and made a gesture to one of the other knights in the corridor. “Bring this lot out with us. As we’re burning this bridge, let’s show off our very best merchandise first and get them to raise their offering price.”

The other knights in the corridor, loyal either to profit alone or to Keral personally, moved quickly to carry out his orders. Shouting in Atlantean, they forced Bezel and her Knight and the others out of the cell into the hallway, and marched them back out of the mines.

Bezel stared at the cooling body of Baron Roland Gobeas as they passed by, and found her stomach twisted up all over again. He deserved to pay for what he had done, but to be murdered…

Her stomach twisted all the harder as she realized that there was someone worse than a corrupt noble left for them to deal with.

Keral was a corrupt mage knight in charge of a corrupt army. Their plan had collapsed in the face of that fact.

***

Bezel had thought that the ‘Surgalans’ they’d overheard these traitorous monsters talking about were some unknown pocket of humanity somewhere on Terra with deep pockets and a need for cheap labor. She had thought wrong. The way that the mountain had rumbled should have been a dead giveaway.

Her panic picked up in intensity as she, her Knight, and all the other ‘attractive’ prospective slaves were led outside, and she got her first good look at the ship that belonged to the ‘people’ that Keral and his troops intended on selling them all off to. A ship that didn’t look anything like the skyships that Bezel knew of. A ship that was meant to fly higher, and farther...and probably faster. 

It was no skyship sitting in the yard, dwarfing every other vessel, but a thick and garish boxy thing painted ash gray with toxic yellow running lights. A star-ship. And at the bottom of a large loading ramp with the tail end pointed towards the mountain and the mine entrance, a large band of the Surgalans waited. Close to 100 in number. She wondered if there were any left in the ship at all. 

Exenos. That was what her Knight called them. Creatures from beyond the stars. Who the Mage Knights were supposed to defend Terra from, along with the eldritch horrors that snuck in from beyond the Veil. The people who had gone missing before, who had been taken before…

Sweet mana, they weren’t even on Terra anymore. And the things in front of them, standing at attention were anything but human.

They were taller than humans, and their faces were sharp and angular with pointed snouts and beady black eyes. They looked like a twisted mix of human and jackal. Fur of varying color covered their bodies, ranging from dark black to stone brown and pale yellow and amber red. They wore shimmering skirts and went bare-chested, save for their jewelry. And they carried enormous staves with apertured bulbs on the ends, pointing up into the sky. If any of them were female, Bezel couldn’t tell. They all looked male. They all looked dangerous.

One of them, wearing finer jewelry and even golden armbands encrusted with some kind of precious stone that shimmered aquamarine stepped slightly ahead of the rest, holding up a strange metal sphere in one hand and a boxier device in the other. They were stopped ten paces away from the jackal-headed Surgalans, and Knight Commander Keral advanced two more steps, nodding once at the leader of the exenos. The fellow nodded back and hefted the orb, which glowed around its equator before rising up and hovering in midair. Then he brought the other device up to his snout and started...barking? Yipping? There was some growling in there as well, but somehow, it was a language, because the orb floating beside him spritzed once and then started talking in monotone, horribly stilted Atlantean. It didn’t sound like a person. It sounded like a facsimile of a person.

“We bring greetings from Gala Mar, Terrans, and silver and gold. You have slaves to offer in trade?”

“If the price is right.” Keral said, and the hovering orb spat out what he said in the strange Surgalan language of barks, yips, and growls. Bezel looked over to her Knight, searching his face for a sign. A sign that he had a plan to get them out of this. That she hadn’t just walked them into a trap, into slavery or a quick and sudden death when they fought for their freedom out of this mess.

He didn’t say a word, but the look in his eyes wasn’t hopelessness. No. He seemed determined. Focused. He brought his bound hands up to his chest...and tapped over his heart.

Right where she had hidden the emergency beacon for the 242nd RRD that Sloane had given them. Her eyes widened, and she looked to him for confirmation. He gave the barest nod of his head, so slight that she would have missed it if he had been anyone else. But he was her Knight, and she knew him so well. In that hint, in that gesture, was everything she needed to stay calm.

Her Knight was tense, but not worried. He still saw options. He still had a plan, and he knew something, or suspected something that she did not about the beacon. An answer she hadn’t puzzled out yet. So she focused on that, and gave the bartering between Surgalan and traitor to the Mage Knights and Atlantis and Terra only part of her attention. She’d missed quite a bit of their ongoing dialogue in her need for reassurance.

“You are saying that this will be our last shipment?” The mechanical voice from the orb translated, and there was no heat in it, though the animated gestures from the Surgalan representative of the slave buyers had clearly meant to evoke irritation. Or outrage.

“The Atlantean authorities have been closing in. We must finish our business quickly and send you on your way. Besides, you have not been lacking for slaves from us. By my count, you have purchased well over 3000 Terran slaves of varying breeds from us since Atlantis closed off your supply lines.” Keral examined his fingernails in an exaggerated gesture of boredom. “Of course, you and the other slave-using outsiders from the stars may continue to try your luck at coming to Terra and gathering slaves yourself without payment, but you would not get very far. That you have taken so many is due only to the assistance of my men and myself. After today, events will make Atlantis more vigilant. So, yes. This will be your last shipment. But we have gathered a fine selection for you. Workers of older years, children who will grow into the roles, and these; the cream of the crop.”

More mechanical barks and yips came from the orb translating between Atlantean and the alien language, and then several seconds went by as the lead Surgalan punched a button on his remote that made the orb’s lights dim; a silencing effect? He and the other exenos quickly started to talk with one another in sharper barks and yips, evaluating their options. A full minute went by, Keral watching in obvious boredom, before they finally came to a consensus and all turned back to them. The orb brightened again, and their representative spoke.

“We wish to examine these slaves before making payment or taking them aboard. It is the way of sellers to try and pass off diseased and elderly animals instead of healthy ones, demanding the price for younger, fertile slaves.”

“As you wish.” Keral said unflappably. “We have approximately 350 slaves currently in the mountain. If you wish to see them all, we can walk some of your men inside to examine them. I just hope that your deliberations after do not take so long. Our time grows short.”

“Why do you not just bring them all out?”

Keral smiled a cold smile. “And give you the opportunity to attack with your weapons blazing and make off with them for nothing but the cost of your shed blood? No. Until payment is made, the rest will stay where they are. Try to betray me, and I will collapse the mountain and bury them inside, and you will get nothing.”

After the orb translated it, the lead Surgalan’s ears went back flat against his skull, and his snout opened enough to let out a low, angry growl. 

“You are a hard Terran. Very well.” The jackal-headed outsider made a gesture, and a dozen of the Surgalans in the band behind him stepped forward and started towards the mountain. Keral also gestured, and a formation of his corrupt knights went to escort the Surgalans. The speaker turned and examined Bezel and the others who had been brought outside, and his snout curled into a grimace that might have counted as a smile. “These ones look as though they will bring good pleasure.”

Bezel couldn’t hold back the shiver at that, and the timing was suspicious enough that Keral glanced in her direction with a narrowed eye. She looked between the orb, and the Surgalan, and the corrupt knight commander with wide eyes, finding it very easy to evoke the fear she was feeling. I can’t speak Atlantean, but I can read faces well enough and I know enough Atlantean to be afraid. She barely breathed until he looked away, sizing up the ship and speaking with the Surgalan more.

And then her mind, which had been spinning away for possibilities, finally hit on why her Knight had been so cool-headed during all of this. Why he had relaxed as soon as Baron Gobeas came stumbling in and blurted out the mess that the operation was in because of Bezel.

She almost gasped, and clamped her mouth shut so all that escaped her was a muffled whimper. 

Gobeas had said that knights from elsewhere in the world had been tasked with scouring the province for the missing princess. Even knights from the RRD.

And who did they know in the RRD? Who had promised them that he, and his entire unit, would come running if they needed them? Who would kick over every stone, search every scrap of land and cavern and wilderness for them if he thought for a second that they were in trouble?

Her Knight wasn’t worried about their fate, because they had called for reinforcements, and those reinforcements weren’t a day away. They had been hours away when they activated the beacon. Or less.  

That burning thought, like a ray of brilliant sunlight through overcast skies, made Bezel look up into the skies around them. Look for a rescue she was sure was coming, but that she couldn’t know the timing of.

Nobody else was looking up. The Surgalans were looking at the corrupt knights or at their new slaves waiting to be purchased. The knights were looking at the Surgalans, on guard for betrayal. The slaves were looking down at the ground, defeated, crying silently, seeing no salvation ahead of them.

Bezel looked up into the gray skies above the Wul Mountains and saw a horde of tiny specks emerging from them.

Skyships. A full two dozen in number.

“Everything will be okay.” Bezel uttered in Ruscovy, and then again in Arocan. And the others who had been in her cell and were now outside with her jerked their heads up and looked at her, wondering how she could be so reassuring, so hopeful when they had no hope left.

Keral was looking at her again. Really looking at her, with eyes that were piercing and evaluative, like she was an insect under glass. But Bezel wasn’t alone now, and while she was afraid, she wasn’t paralyzed by it. 

She wanted him looking at her, really. She needed him and the others on the ground distracted. 

“Nobody is getting sold here today.” She announced in perfect Atlantean, feeling the Knight come up behind her hiding long enough for him to work just enough magic through his hands and wrists to burn through the ropes binding them. She held off on freeing her own, and listened as the orb hovering by the Surgalans translated her voice into the barks and yips of the jackal-headed exenos . “Knight Commander Keral. For the murder of a nobleman, for high crimes against Terra and its people, for treason and selfish ambition, you are under arrest.”

“You sure this is the smart play?” Her Knight muttered in her ear, just loud enough for her to barely hear him. It only made her smile more.

The smile that Keral fixed on her, while the orb translated the message back to the uneasy, shifting Surgalans that fingered their weapons, was one of thin amusement, like someone waiting for an excuse to exact terrible violence.

“And who are you, girl, to speak such perfect Atlantean and yet come from here and look the way you do? Some cast-off bastard of true Atlanteans whelped on the locals? A former servant of Gobeas? Some stripling mage knight trying to make a name for herself in a suicidal raid?”

Bezel didn’t dare look back up into the skies again, but she knew they were coming. She could almost hear them, a faint buzzing of the winds blowing over their wings and their hulls. 

The truth will melt my illusions, always, Ama Yagi had said.

Bezel called on her aura and let it flare high and strong, a beacon stretching high into the air of blinding blue light. The illusions on her dissipated in an instant, and the rope around her hands burned off just as quickly. Brown hair bled away, revealing the bright red underneath. The Surgalans shrieked and fell back paces, lowering their staves towards her in a panic, while Keral’s placid features went stone blank as what little color was in his face disappeared.

“I am Princess Bezel Lantea, and I am the vengeance of those you have wronged.”

And then the skyships of the 242nd RRD screamed in, and the mage knights aboard started firing blast after blast, keeping clear of the blazing beacon of her presence.

The battle was joined.

***

The mage knights above took aim at the skyships parked on the ground, at the alien star-ship, and at the Surgalans themselves. Bolts of magefire and gouging funnels of incineration blasts tore through Atlantean shipcraft and foreign star-hardened metal with explosions and burning holes that disintegrated the armor plating instantly. The Surgalans howled and raised their staves, and the bulbed ends came to life, firing blast after blast of white hot light up into the sky. A few shots landed onto the skyships, but they were too numerous to be truly held back, and it only exposed them to even harder magical crossfire, sending the Surgalans scattering.

Knight Commander Keral at last wore a face with proper emotion on it, glowing with a mixture of exasperation and utter loathing. “Princess Bezel. How unfortunate. And you even brought friends.” 

“Mage knights who have not forgotten the oath they took.” Bezel said, and for as sorely tempted as she was to bring the man to task, she knew better than to try. She knew what her focus had to be. “Unlike you.” She ignited her aura in a blinding flare that burned at the eyes of Keral and the apparently more photosensitive Surgalans, who reeled away, yipping in pain. Keral grimaced and shrouded himself in a potent bubble shield meant to defend him against any attacks that would strike at him while he couldn’t see. 

It was the opportunity she needed, and Bezel turned around, grabbing for the others and ripping the ropes and chains around their arms off before telling them to run. And run they did, away from the Surgalans, away from the burning skyships and the dreaded star-ship, while behind them the sounds of battle escalated. 

Keral’s cold voice bellowed into a shout he directed to all of his men. “You want to live through this? You want to be rich? Then fight! Kill them all!” She ran a little faster after hearing that.

“What’s the plan?” Her Knight asked her, keeping pace with her easily. 

“Get to the mines. Rescue the others before they’re taken away or sold off.” Bezel said, huffing as they ran along. “And pray that we can find Danel in this mess!”

“After that little stunt of yours…” Her Knight started, and let out a grunt as he conjured up a green shield to deflect a blast aimed for them. He hurled a counterstrike of burning force at the offending renegade knight that had fired it and kept on running. “...it’s more likely he’ll find us.”

Another squad of armored mage knights came running towards them, swords raised and magic glowing, and the former imprisoned slaves that they were escorting yelled in a panic. 

Two steps, a held breath, and Bezel fell into the familiar steps of her favored spell. A Repulsion Blast tailored for multiple targets blasted the troopers backwards and flattened them on the ground, knocking the wind out of them and making them lose control of their magic. Her Knight dashed in on the pack of them in a blur of magically-augmented speed right after, stealing one of their swords and using the hilt and his boots to knock each of them in the head to put them out. He could have killed them far more easily; was he holding himself back for her sake? 

Another squad was closing in, but unlike the last batch, the one in front tore off his helmet and yelled her name, and she crumpled in relief to see him carrying a familiar wooden staff in his hand.

“Danel!” She shouted, and the name had a bolstering effect on the Ganarusa among their rescuees. The other man laughed and yelled out an order to the ‘knights’ flanking him, and they quickly closed ranks around Bezel and her Knight and the refugees. The very first thing he did was to give her back her Arocan staff, and the second was to extend the Knight’s personal sword back over to him. Only then did he pull Bezel in for a quick hug that left her squeaking in surprise.

“Damn, princess, you don’t do things by halves. How in the devil did you get an outside division of Mage Knights to come in here guns blazing?”

“Sent up a distress call.” Bezel answered, separating and quickly looking around for anyone trying to come after them.  Most of the other renegade knights had their hands full, and were trading blows with the 242nd RRD, who had finally begun landing and sending troops out onto the battlefield. The Surgalans were scattering, but putting up a fight for their lives, and even more of the creatures were pouring out of the ship, which was apparently crippled enough that it couldn’t take off. 

“My Knight figured out that our friends must have been nearby, and would be able to respond to our signal quickly.” She paused. “Danel...there’s no easy way to say this. Roland Gobeas is dead. You were right about him. He was behind this entire slaving operation, and started to panic when my disappearance complicated things. The knight commander back there, Keral...he murdered him. Wanted to use him as a scapegoat to take the blame for this, and walk away with a promotion for ‘uncovering’ it.”

Danel’s shoulders slumped a little at the news, but he shook it off. “I wanted him brought to justice, not slain. But he was a poor lord, and I won’t waste tears on someone who never saw myself and my mother as family. Not when I still have people to save.”

“We’re headed there now.” Bezel said, digging in her shirt and coming up with the emergency beacon, still flaring with blue and green light. “Keep this with you. If the RRD sees you as an enemy, surrender and demand to be seen by Knight Commander Sloane. Tell him who you are, tell him that you’re working with us. Tell him that…” She swallowed. Mana, so many things going on. So much to do. Too many variables at play. The 242nd was on a warpath looking for her, Keral probably wanted her dead, and Danel and his wolves needed to live through this. She needed a message that Alastair Sloane would know she would never have an untrustworthy soul pass on.

“Tell him that Aine’s daughter vouches for you and your men.” She finished firmly. “There are a lot of tunnels in the mountain. You and your wolves go one direction, my Knight and I will go down the other. Take everyone here with you.” She quickly rattled off an order in Arocan for the others to follow Danel, gesturing very broadly for the few who didn’t speak Arocan or Ruscovy and who didn’t understand Atlantean. The message got across well enough; those who didn’t understand her clearly got the intent, and were unwilling to separate from the other rescued slaves who went with Danel and his band.

They ran into the old and once abandoned mineshafts, the most crucial leg of their rescue mission coming into focus at last.

***

There were knights inside of the mines, knights that Bezel knew were oathbreakers. With no orders passed on from outside, some had raced towards the sounds of clamor and battle, likely suspecting that the Surgalans had reneged on the barter. That had been her best guess, but as soon as it became clear that they were under attack from mage knights not in on the scheme, the reactions ran the gamut. Some saw Bezel, her hair and her aura unmistakable in spite of how she was dressed and surrendered, dropping their swords at their feet. Those she bound with a paralyzing spell that her Knight had taught her, with him mirroring the motion on duplicates she didn’t have the time for. The few who came at them with steel and magic swinging, they put down hard. Undoubtedly, they would have broken bones after being slammed into walls and iron bars from her repulsion blasts, to say nothing of her Knight’s more directly violent tactics. He rarely bothered using his magic when fighting them, save to augment his speed and his resilience. The ones he didn’t cut down usually ended up bleeding from shattered noses or groaning in a heap from concussions and battered ribs, even with their armor. 

Every door they passed by, they smashed open. Every cell full of frightened slaves they set free, they screamed at them to run for their lives and hide. A few went for the dropped weapons of their captors, and Bezel let them take them. She only had to intervene once to keep one particularly enraged man from killing a subdued knight who had surrendered rather than raise a sword against the princess of Atlantis. Most were too terrified to consider a violent response; they wanted to escape more than they wanted vengeance.

Halfway through their race through the old converted mineshafts, Bezel and her Knight finally came across the cell where the rest of Danel’s wolves had been taken. Or rather, the remains of it. It had been blown open from the inside, and the guards around it were dying or incapacitated, victimized by the same kind of attacks that had been so effective against her and her Knight back in Khav. And the swords of the guards were missing.

“They’ve been busy.” Her Knight mused. “Guess they heard the party going on outside and decided they wanted to join in on it.”

“They didn’t head for the exit.” Bezel reminded him, relieved that Danel’s resistance fighters had their priorities right. They hadn’t come to slaughter the corrupt mage knights, they had come to save their people. She closed the eyes of a dead mage knight in the hall and stood back up. “We need to find them and get everyone out. I’m not certain that Keral wasn’t telling the truth back there with the exenos.”

Her Knight startled a little. “You think he’s rigged this mountain to blow? They don’t make spell-bombs that big. The mana that would take would be enormous!”

“Unless you knew the fault lines.” Bezel reminded him, starting back up at a brisk jog. “You can do a lot with a less forceful push if you target the right joints. You taught me that.” Her Knight ran faster at that bit of information and she struggled to follow, quickly getting winded as she tried to match his pace. 

Two more sharp turns in the darkness brought them closer to the sounds of battle and had them passing by even more broken cell doors, although nobody had come running towards them to escape. The reason became apparent when after a third turn that took them even deeper underground, they were met with the sight of several escaped slaves doing battle with a very dedicated group of guards, and only the fact that they had numbers on the corrupt mage knights spared them from the slaughter. That, and the few sachets thrown on the ground whose fumes robbed the knights of their ability to call up their magic effectively. 

“How many more?!” Bezel shouted at them in Ruscovy, and one wolf less engaged than the others looked over his shoulder, recognizing Bezel and her Knight. 

“Don’t know. There - fewer- knights around. Close to end, maybe.” She picked out the words she could from his far more fluent speech and nodded, then she looked to her Knight and gave him a look with an order embedded in it. 

He jumped ahead and swept into the line of the prison guards like a scythe, cutting them down and battering their swords and weaker auras aside with the strength of his magic, his arm, and the combination of the two that made the tang and the edge of his blade gleam aquamarine. 

Overwhelmed by the sudden presence of two capable combatants in the mix of enemies that had previously only held desperation and numbers, the last of the clustered guards in the tunnels finally crumbled and were defeated. Bezel bound the ones that would live and kept on moving, swirling amidst a sea of bodies of protectors and the protected.

Her people. Every cage they came across, they smashed. Every band of humans who had been taken and bound for slavery found themselves reaching to the others who were freed, looking for friends and family that they had been separated from. The ones that broke her heart the most were when they found children in the cages, too small to fight, too scared to run or to even follow instructions. Or when they found mothers holding babies screaming tightly, babies whose diapers were soiled days ago. 

She had never felt so angry, not even when those in the leadership of the Mage Knights had dared to speak against her Knight. He, at least, could defend himself. But nobody had helped these people, nobody but Danel and his wolves. And now her and her Knight. 

“That’s everyone!” Another wolf shouted, brandishing a stolen mage knight’s sword and waving it over his head, where it glimmered with red light channeled from his aura. Combined with the magelights embedded into the wall sconces, it gave an eerie glow over the nearly hundred people choking the tunnel. 

“All safe? We’re leaving! Follow us!” Bezel shouted in the same language, quickly reverting to Atlantean for her Knight. “The last cells are open, we’ve got everyone. Come on!” 

They moved as one, Bezel and her Knight on point as the procession left the tunnels the way they had come in, the mountain still shaking from the battle happening outside and sending dust over them. She looked up at the ceiling in fear and somehow found the strength to keep moving. More lives than her own were in peril. She was the princess of Atlantis, and more than the opulent dresses, more than being waited on, this was what it meant. It meant standing strong when people looked to her, protecting them. It meant never giving in to the same fear that had gripped her as a little girl. She was still there, under the bleachers of a parade turned into a massacre with the blood of her family dripping down on her, curled into a ball and whimpering. Only now there were others hiding there as well.

Her Knight reached for her and pulled her up. She reached to everyone else, and they all kept running.

They ran until they couldn’t, until an obstacle stood in their path. An old and hyperlethal knight commander with gray hair and a sword that burned with green light, so deep and dark that the emerald gleam cast everything into shadow.

“You bitch, you’ve cost me everything.” Keral announced, his voice very nearly a growl as his eyes flashed the same ominous color. 

“You are no mage knight.” She countered, raising her staff into a defensive stance while her Knight gripped his sword in both hands, standing beside her and channeling his own green mana tinted blue into his body and his blade. “And you will not hurt these people. You will not bury your sins. You will be judged for your crimes, and then punished for your treason and greed.”

She risked a glance over her shoulder, seeing the wolves hurriedly hissing orders to the freed slaves they were escorting as they pulled back and quickly took defensive poses of their own.

“Shield all. We stop him.” She barked at them, and then jerked her head back towards Keral right as her Knight let out a hiss of warning and flew into motion.

Her eyes went wide as their swords met barely a foot and a half from her face, throwing sparks in every direction. Keral bared his teeth and turned his ire on her Knight, who threw him back a step and then charged in to try and gain advantage.

They were a moving blur of green on green almost too fast to follow, and at every stroke, Bezel could feel that the more experienced Keral was pushing and pushing to get past him and strike her down. The grunts she heard came more from her lover than the cold-hearted man who was out for vengeance. Behind her, auras of red and orange and even yellow burned brightly as the wolves cast out shield spells that blurred and meshed into each other’s fields, creating a wall of burning sunrise light strong enough to hold back any glancing attack aimed in the direction of the noncombatants. Anything that could break it, Bezel knew, would require time to channel and cast. 

Time that her Knight, and she, could not give Keral. Did not.

She couldn’t move as fast as her Knight. She’d practiced with him, but the frenetic pace that he and Keral set was unlike anything that she had ever done in training. She channeled her magic through her body, felt it burn in her muscles and her mind as every part of her began to twitch with greater reflexes and potential. She could see them better now, make out the shape of the old man and her lover as they clashed. Bezel could see that Keral still wanted to end her, he made no secret of it. The only thing keeping him from it was her Knight. But he was tiring out, and for all that her Knight had survived Zolim, Keral was clearly skilled as well. She raced in, using her staff less to try and strike at Keral and more just to deflect him. She could be a wall to hold him back, to give her Knight a chance to catch his breath. 

It was working up until Keral suddenly conjured up a blade of pure magic again in his off-hand, and then came at her using both an enspelled blade and one of raw mana. Somehow he found the reserves to move even faster until it was all she could do to keep him from striking a mortal blow. 

One of his swords slid past her head, caught on her guard, and he extinguished the manablade and crooked his arm, smashing his fist into the side of her head and sending her reeling. She slumped to the ground, seeing stars, and could hear the agonized roar of her Knight through a dull roar of ocean that rang in her ears.

“Pathetic boy.” Keral was taunting, angry, goading him. “I’ve heard of you. Bezel’s Knight. Her Protector. You can’t protect anyone, boy, not even yourself.” Bezel tried to say something, to warn him, because she knew that kind of voice. She’d heard it time and time again from Jorran on the few opportunities that she’d been unfortunate enough to bear witness to his duels and his ‘spars’ which almost always ended up with his opponent requiring immediate medical attention. Jorran, who was a pre-eminent warrior, more skilled on the battlefield than their older brother Desmond. Jorran, who was cruel and calculating and used his words like his sword, making a dozen smaller humiliating cuts that bled freely but rarely with mortal effect. 

Her head was still spinning and the air tasted wrong and she wanted to throw up. But her staff was on the ground ahead of her, and Keral was still there, fighting him, and if she didn’t help, he would die. Her Knight, the boy she loved, the boy who loved her and made her life mean something beyond obligation and expectations and duty would die, and she would die after him. And then everyone else in this mine would die after. 

Keral would perish too, but he didn’t care. He was past the point of caring, she could hear it in his voice. The cool, calculating math that drove him to the most pragmatic answer was gone. Whatever happened, there was no positive outcome for Keral, for his operation, for his reputation. There was no way for him to pin all of this on Baron Roland Gobeas, whose body was still going cold in the mountain, not when the 242nd RRD had caught his entire division red-handed in the presence of the Surgalans. Not when an emergency beacon belonging to Princess Bezel Lantea had brought them right on his doorstep.

He meant to kill everyone, to cause as much pain as he possibly could. Keral was a man with nothing to lose, and that made him the most dangerous man in the mine. Everyone else was afraid of dying. Keral wasn’t. 

She hurt all over, and she was tired. Her head kept spinning, and she couldn’t concentrate long enough to cast a spell. Head injuries. Head injuries were always a problem. But she could hear the cries and the whimpering from the freed slaves, the shouts of encouragement from Danel’s wolves behind their shield, hoping and praying that her Knight could stop Keral. But her Knight had had a foot in the grave only a week before. Her Knight was still tired, still weak. 

She had told him that his place was at her side. Bezel remembered that much, and she pushed down the nausea and grabbed her staff and forced herself to stand back up again. Because surely the reverse was true.

She belonged at his side just as much as he did hers. Even now. Especially now. Now, when she could hear his screams, hear him struggling to stay alive, and heard the whisper of his voice underneath it all.

I know your heart. You cannot look on suffering and turn away from it.

Bezel Lantea forced herself to focus, to see the world as it was, and the blurriness finally disappeared for sharp lines of two figures whose auras gleamed dimly. A boy, bleeding from a gash along one arm, using both of them to hold back the steel blade of the old man who kept forcing him down, down, down to the ground onto one buckled knee. And Keral’s other hand, hanging from his side and bleeding just as badly as the Knight’s injury, twitched, and formed a cupped fist, turning slightly inwards at an angle towards the boy’s sternum.

He was preparing to draw his manablade one last time. At that distance, it would be instantaneous, a clean stab needing less than a second to manifest and jerk his arm forward. 

Bezel screamed and her aura ignited around her, the blue burning bright and shifting until half of it was a blazing pink. The power swelled up on her emotions and she lunged at Keral, swinging her staff like a two-handed club. It was enough to make Keral startle and react, jerking his sword up to block the messy strike that could have caved his skull in.

It was all of a moment’s worth of distraction, but that was enough for her Knight. Enough for him to push up off of his good leg, turn his sword, and spear the old man through the heart with it. Keral shuddered once from the hit, but he didn’t register the pain. Not right away. His head turned away from Bezel and her staff, and he looked down at the steel buried in his chest with a numb, unblinking expression of surprise.

No last words of rage, no apoplectic expression marred his face in his final moments. The old man stared at the sword for two seconds, then three, and looked first to the Knight still holding on to it, and then to Bezel.

He closed his eyes and sighed, and the Knight pulled his blade free, and Keral fell dead as the blood poured out of him.

She dropped her staff and moved to her Knight’s side, running her hands over him. “Are you all right?” She asked him dizzily. “Please, tell me you’re…”

“I’ll live.” He told her, exhausted and worn out. Bezel smiled a little at that, but then the pain of her blinding headache came back twice as hard, and she lurched away from him and vomited onto the ground.

It was all screams and concerned voices after that, and she found herself being picked up, being carried with one arm under her knees and the other under her back. She tried to keep her eyes open, everyone kept telling her to stay awake, even though that was the last thing she wanted. 

My staff, she tried to say, and almost laughed right after. Nauseated, concussed hard enough to throw up, bone tired, and running for their lives, and she was worried about her staff.

“Keep talking, Bezel.” Her Knight said in a hoarse voice above her. “Don’t fall asleep. Just keep talking.”

Her eyes were only open a crack, the light was too bright and the noises were too loud and she just wanted to curl up into him and let the world fade away. But she could focus on his face. On his eyes.

“So pretty.” She got out, trying to smile. One hand came up and she aimed it for the side of his face, and ended up missing and shoving a finger into his nose, making him snort and cough. “Got p’tty eyes.”

“I do, do I?” He asked her, sneezing once as her hand fell away. 

“M’ staff…”

“We have it.” 

“We did it.” She said, blinking rapidly. “We...we saved everyone?”

They had. Keral was dead, the Surgalans were grounded. The 242nd was…

“Your highness!” A bellowing road, and loud footsteps came running towards them right as the dim light of the tunnel gave away for gray cloudy daylight. She whimpered and slammed her eyes shut.

“Sir!” She heard her Knight shout. “We have hundreds of Terran citizens from the province and elsewhere in need of medical attention, and Bezel is…”

She felt a large, warm hand press against her forehead. Not her Knight’s hand, but a rougher one. Broader. Sloane’s.

“I have you, your highness. Please. Stay awake. Please.”

“Hurts.” Bezel whimpered, and the hand stroked her hair back again. 

“Healers!” Sloane bellowed, and Bezel stopped fighting the current. She slipped into darkness and let it take her away from the light and the noise of the world.

***

When she came to again, she felt warm, warmer than she had since leaving Aroca, and she was surrounded in softness and comfort that she couldn’t place. Not until she opened her eyes and found herself lying swaddled in blankets on a cot that must have had extra layers of padding underneath was she able to place why it felt so different. She’d gotten used to sleeping on hard ground in a bedroll, in the company of her Knight. It was little wonder she’d woken up.

The very next thing she saw was her Knight stirring at her bedside, slumped in a foldout chair with a blanket thrown over him, and his sword sitting across his lap. She felt exhausted and sore, but she didn’t have a headache and that surprised her. Or maybe not. They would have thrown their best healers at her, after all.

The look on his face, though, had her almost holding her breath. Longing. Love. A steady fear that only now seemed to abate as he saw her awake.

He went for a smile. “Welcome back, Bezel.”

“I...Where am I?” She mumbled, reaching a hand up to her head. She couldn’t even feel a lumpy bruise.

“We need to stop waking up in a healer’s care.” He answered her. “It sets a bad example.” The offhand remark made her giggle a little, but she looked at him expectantly and he finally shrugged. “It’s been a day and a half since you collapsed. You had Danel and his wolves and Knight Commander Sloane and all of the 242nd ready to burn the world down if it would save you. Danel insisted on bringing in Ama Yagi to treat you.”

“And Sloane let him?” Bezel asked, surprised that a declared ‘outlaw’ would be so trusted.

Her Knight pulled his blanket away and scooted his chair in closer to her bed, still smiling. “You gave Danel your emergency beacon, remember? When Sloane came charging in and found him instead of you...well. It was touch and go for all of six seconds, Danel told me, but they got the people out of his section of the mines and then came looking for us.”

“And, and what about the Surga…” She started to ask, only to be silenced when he brought his bare hand up in a halting gesture.

“Later.” He told her gently. “You can worry about everyone else later. Right now, I want you to worry about yourself.”

It was a poor admonishment, but then he was so rarely ever angry or disappointed with her. She heard it for what it really was; a plea for her to take better care of herself.

Don’t go where I can’t follow you.

“Did we save them?” Bezel asked, feeling her eyes mist up. “Can you tell me that, at least?”

His hand came to the side of her face, and his thumb stroked her cheek gently. “Everyone who was in the mine, we saved. Some of them were hurt, or in poor shape, but we saved them. You saved them, Bezel.”

She took his hand and cradled it against her face for a moment longer, then brought the palm to her lips and kissed it gently. “I’m sorry I worried you.”

“You saved my life. I just wish you didn’t have to.” He murmured, taking her hand back from her and stroking at her hair. “I will get stronger, Bezel. I promise you.”

He was strong enough, she wanted to tell him. Strong where it mattered, in his heart and in his spirit. There were so many things she wanted to tell him, of her fears, of her worries, how she was so glad that they were both alive, and how she was afraid that she would lose him after this. 

She wanted to say all of that, but all she got out was a sob of relief, and a whispered “I love you.”

It was enough, and as she closed her eyes, another presence came walking in, muttering curses in Ruscovy. Ama Yagi.

“So, girl. Tried your best to be a hero, and look where it got you. You need some more practice. And also some more rest.” Bezel smiled and started to open her eyes. Yagi scowled at her. “No, don’t you dare get up out of bed. I’ve got everyone out there believing you’re still resting, and the moment that old soldier hears you’re awake he won’t stop bothering you. So close those eyes and go back to sleep. And you!” Bezel heard the old woman scowl, likely at her Knight. “Stop with the flirting, and don’t you dare go kissing her now. Not around this lot, yes?”

“Believe me, I haven’t forgotten that lesson for an instant.” Her Knight rumbled, and the happiness of the moment was tamped down.

They were out of the wilderness now, and back in the sway of Atlantis. Sleep was a very appealing option in the face of that.

“You will watch over her?” Bezel heard Yagi ask him, softer than before. He made a soft noise, and must have nodded his head, because Yagi seemed satisfied enough to walk up to the bed and lean down, kissing Bezel’s forehead. “Sleep, Lak Maiya. Sleep and dream.”

She knew so little in Ruscovy, but it was the work of seconds to translate that as Yagi retreated for the outside again.

Daughter Mine.

Still feeling her Knight close by, and listening to the sound of his soft breathing, Bezel sank back into her blankets and allowed herself a few more moments of peaceful rest.

***

The summary of events was delivered in the auricular presence of the Mage King, who eavesdropped in on Knight Commander Sloane’s report through the aid of the 242nd RRD’s most experienced far-messager and the royal equivalent up on Atlantis. It was a little eerie to hear his voice coming from a speaker and seeing every soldier in the tent stand rigidly at attention, as though he were actually there or could see them. Bezel assumed it was because of how spitting mad the ruler of the world sounded. In comparison to her father’s usual pique, however, he seemed almost frantic this time around. Only Sloane seemed unaffected by it, deferential but neither kissing up to the man or cowed by him.

Bezel couldn’t help but think of her mother again, and how she had loved Sloane and been claimed by her father, against her wishes. She wondered how Sloane could stay in control and not scream his head off for a life and a love lost to the whims of royalty.  Time, perhaps, was the key in keeping the wound sealed. He stood at parade rest as he addressed the unit far-messaging mage keeping the connection up and intact, formally informal as ever.

She learned that it had been her father who first started raising a ruckus after she and her Knight left Khav and weren’t heard from for three days. When the provincial mage knights were tasked with locating her and only found an abandoned skyskiff before the trail went cold, a measure of holy hell had been raised, with the full focus of Atlantis turning onto the region. And then while Baron Roland Gobeas likely sweated under the pressure, outside investigations from soldiers not under the sway of himself and Knight Commander Keral began to circle in, and discovered that Bezel wasn’t the only person who had gone missing. She was just the only one that anybody in authority had bothered to go looking for.

Finna Keral, as Sloane went on, was a career soldier who had started out as a squire long decades prior and worked his way up through the ranks. He descended from nobility, albeit a lower house that had little to it but a good name. His assignment to Ganarus Province had been seen as the bookend to a long career, a place to retire to. He’d had a reputation for being ambitious, and many had noted that he was more brutal than most when it came to enforcement. He’d ‘assisted’ in the search for Bezel, and volunteered his men to focus on searching the far-eastern reaches of the province, which he claimed was rugged terrain that the foreign reinforcements would have trouble with. Only after the fact did everyone realize why he’d been so insistent on dividing the search areas that way.

“In total...we estimate that this plan which the Baron and Keral cooked up together has resulted in perhaps as many as two-thousand residents of Terra being taken from their lives and sent into bondage out among the stars.” He concluded.

“Three thousand.” Bezel cut in bitterly, and every head in the large command tent turned towards her, resting on a chair with a fluffy cushion. “Over three thousand. And it wasn’t just people from this province that were being taken. There were Arocans, and Eurosians, and Asans among the people we freed. This corruption may have started here in two men we can no longer bring to task, but it has reach. There must be others who were cooperating with them.” It made her sick, now that she had time and distance to reflect on it. There was a poison infesting the world, and she didn’t know deep it went.

“We arrested a great many of the knights who were in on this conspiracy, your highness.” Sloane reassured her, growling a little at the end. “It will take time, but I give my vow that I will root out every corrupt officer and soldier in the corps.”

“I would trust nobody else, Knight Commander Sloane.” Bezel smiled at him, relieved for that much of a solution to it. She knew Sloane, knew his heart by his words and his actions and how he cared for her and her Knight. It would be done.

“True, this is troubling.” The Mage King’s dark voice rumbled. “But you shouldn’t have been anywhere near this mess, daughter. Much less in the thick of it, joining with...with partisans and outlaws and riding into battle! You said you wished to travel the world and learn of it, I expected that you would act with more decorum than this.”

Bezel’s eyes narrowed, and she stared at the speaker broadcasting his voice through the magical connection of their far-messaging mages. “If you will recall, father, I did suggest to you that there might be those among the nobility who would be willing to stretch the truth or lie outright for their own gains. That is exactly what happened here. Roland Gobeas felt he was owed more than his lot, and sacrificed his own people for ill-gotten wealth. He has destroyed any trust and faith in Atlantis that these people had. I did not travel to the surface to be feted and fed lies while the corrupt and the self-serving spread suffering over people who do not deserve it!”

She should not have spoken so freely, the part of her that was used to cowering and holding her silence reminded her in a panicked voice. Nobody spoke to the Mage King with such bold audacity, not even his own blood. But that part of her had been dying off slowly, for years it seemed. Ever since Banali City. Ever since her innocence was torn away from her and she saw a truth to the world that all her tutors and her minders had kept away from her, locked as she was in a gilded cage.

Bezel Lantea was no longer that girl who could be lied to. Her Knight had saved her, shown her the world, and now…

“You speak very freely, daughter. Too freely, perhaps. We will have words about your conduct later on.” The King answered her. “But other matters take precedence. As things stand, we have a province of Below which now lacks duly appointed authority, and the entire military presence is compromised. I will need to appoint a new baron to act as regent in my stead, and new mage knights will have to be commissioned while the Corps finishes its investigations and court-martials.”

“I have an answer to both of those empty roles, father.” Bezel cut in, still tired, but finding the energy to speak. She couldn’t leave this decision up to chance, or worse, the nebbish favoritism of the hour. “It is my considered opinion that there is nobody better to serve as the Baron of Ganarus Province than Danel Rusla.”

“You would make a...an outlaw a member of the nobility?” The King demanded incredulously.

Bezel smiled. “Danel Rusla is the son of the former Steward who served under Roland Gobeas’s father...and he is also the son of the former Baron as well. In terms of ability and temperament, we could find nobody better suited to the role; nobody else will be as well received by the Ganarusa as he is. They know him, and trust him. And if blood and magic is all that accounts, then he is the last living descendant of the Gobeas bloodline.”

“A bastard offshoot of it.” The Mage King mused, and some in the tent stirred a little. Bezel winced and looked towards Danel, expecting to see him seething at the insult. She was shocked to find him just gaping at her, not at the speaker, gobsmacked by her proposal.

“If you want stability in the region, father, you will choose Danel as the new baron. His mother was Steward before and can be a Steward again, and his fighters can take on the role of protecting and safeguarding the province while the corrupt elements of the mage knights are investigated and stripped away.” She kept her eyes on Danel as she spoke, never looking away.

“Without regard to tradition, or the ranks of succession, or to the other nobles?”

Bezel forced herself to breathe, to not yell at her father. She’d come this far, she had to make him listen. She had to make him see that her solution wasn’t the rash decision of an instant, but one considered, evaluated, and selected as the best possible choice.

“Mage King Volkas Lantea.” She intoned, formal when she had never been quite so formal before. “I came to Terra to learn of it, so that I could serve as an advisor to my brother when he assumed the throne and took up your mantle.” Bezel pushed herself up out of her chair and stood on shaky legs, forcing herself to still until she was rigid as the mountains of the land. 

She willed herself, for this one moment, to be unbreakable.

“Allow me to advise you now.” Bezel Lantea declared darkly. “If you assign another Atlantean noble to Ganarus Province to rule as its Baron, you are making a statement; that the sins and missteps of the past will happen again. You will be declaring that Atlantis does not care about the suffering of its people on the surface. You will be telling them that even though they have lost friends and family to the creatures from the stars, people that we will never be able to rescue and that they will never see again, that Atlantis does not care. You will be making a statement to the other nobles who would use their people as barter, sell them into slavery. You will be telling the rest of the nobility that you will do nothing to check their corruption. And if they can do this, then how long will it be before their loyalties are no longer assured? This problem has been years in the making. The frustration that the people of Below feel is real and tangible. It is strong enough that they will pray to monsters for salvation from their suffering, and commit outright murder just so they can say that they did something instead of withering away.”

Nobody in the tent moved, not a soul breathed save for Bezel, who panted as her heart thundered from fatigue and the adrenaline of the moment. Not even her father spoke, the speaker on and active and silent as he absorbed her message. She took the reprieve and charged on.

“Appoint Danel Rusla to the position of Baron in Ganarus Province. Tell the world that Atlantis is not the heartless monster that rules on high and cares for nobody but itself.”

“I...will take your words under advisement.” The Mage King finally said. “For now...Knight Commander Sloane? I give you and the 242nd operational and ruling authority over the province in the interim. Chase down the traitors who worked under Keral and Gobeas, and bring them to trial. You have my permission to...utilize outside resources. This Danel, for example. Your success, and his conduct, will be things I take into account when I render my final decision.” He paused. “Bezel, I still find your involvement in all of this distressing. You are a princess of the royal blood, and you act in ways that are heedless of your safety. Heroics are something you should leave to other, lesser people.”

She bristled at the inequality within that statement. “You never cared about me before, father. I see no reason why you should start now.” It was a barb she knew to be at least a little untrue, but he had never invested much time with her, focusing his energies instead on her older brothers, and leaving her care to the governesses and escorts. Or perhaps she was tired enough to let the anger felt by others rise up in her. 

Whatever had made her say it, the words clearly had hit hard. The king made a soft choking noise, and it took him several tries to compose himself.

“Return home at once, Bezel. You and your knight protector.”

She blanched. “But, my tour of Below…”

“It is postponed.” He growled in response. “You’ve been filling your head with strange ideas, and I should have your Knight tied to a post and lashed for everything you’ve gone through, which he has failed to protect you from.”

“He was only doing as I ordered him!”

“I know.” The Mage King snapped. “That is the only reason I will allow you to keep him as your personal guard. But only if you get on a skyskiff with him and return home within the day. Is that understood, princess?”

Really, what was there for her to say to that? She should have listened to that whimpering voice earlier, but…

Bezel closed her eyes. “Yes, father.”

“Then I will see you soon.”

The connection clicked off, and the far-messaging mage who had been powering it slumped forward a little, exhausted after the constant demand. Danel kept gaping, Sloane blinked rapidly.

Ama Yagi took a knee, an excessive labor for the older woman. Sloane was the next to kneel, and then her Knight, and then it was like a wave around her, leaving Bezel to turn left and then right and stare as everyone in the tent knelt in her presence. 

Knelt in the presence of royalty. 

“Your highness.” Yagi croaked out. “Would that every Mage King had a heart like yours.”

“Get up.” Bezel whispered. “Please. Please, get up.” She moved to the woman who had cared for her, who had taught her, and who had healed her, pulling on her arm until she did so.

“You want me to rule here?” Danel finally gasped the words out, as gobsmacked as she’d ever seen him. Every scrap of the man’s composure, predictable and solid, seemed to be faded. “I know nothing about - about being a noble! I was only ever trained to be a Steward!”

Bezel had pushed herself to the limit, but she found the emotional strength to give him a soft smile. “I think perhaps we need more Stewards and fewer entitled nobles in charge of the provinces, don’t you?” She squeezed his mother’s arm. “Besides. Yagi here can help you out. I was perfectly serious. What has happened here is a tragedy that never should have taken place. You are the only person with the right experience and temperament and trust of the people to hold them together. To rebuild. Besides, I’ve gone and made a fool of myself in front of my father now, so it would be poor form for you to refuse.”

Danel shook his head. “How can I be a good leader, when so many of our people have been lost?”

It was Sloane who answered in her place, and she was glad for his strong words. “Be a good man, Danel Rusla. The rest follows.”

And that, Bezel realized bitterly, was that.

“There are multiple skyskiffs outside, your highness.” Sloane told her gently. “We recovered yours, if you would care to use it.”

She’d run out of words, Bezel realized. She opened her mouth, and nothing came out of it. Her Knight must have seen it, because he was at her side in an instant and speaking when she couldn’t.

“We will. Thank you, sir. Thank you for coming when we needed you.”

Sloane’s hard eyes softened. “I promised I would.” Bezel couldn’t help but smile at that, giving him a grateful nod before she looked to Ama Yagi. 

The old woman pulled her into a tight hug, and spoke in a fierce whisper for her alone. “You take care of yourself, Lak Maiya. Don’t let them change you.”

I won’t, Bezel promised silently, for there were no words left. Then her Knight was collecting their things, guiding her out of the tent, walking them to the skyskiff that they had left behind when they ventured into the wilderness. In minutes, she was seated belowdecks as the skyskiff raced up away from the ground, and towards the heavens where floating Atlantis beckoned.

They had gone searching for an outlaw plaguing a province with violence and attacks on mage knights, and had exposed a conspiracy of rot and ruin. Bezel hoped that her father would listen to her, and leave behind something better than what they found. She didn’t regret risking her life, or in standing with her Knight to save the people of Terra. She mourned the loss of those taken to the stars, never to be heard from again. 

It was minutes before another deeper loss hit home, and she fell into silent tears that went unchecked until her Knight came to the cabin and wiped them away with the pad of his thumb.

“None of that, now.” He soothed her.

“I’m sorry.” She told him sorrowfully. “I’ve ruined everything. Our trip, our...My research. And your freedom.”

He smiled, sad but brave for her sake. Brave when she couldn’t be. His mother would be so proud of him, and Bezel wondered if that wonderful woman who raised him would be proud of her as well.

“I think that we could convince Sloane to send a knight or two to take the rest of the readings you need.” He told her. “Especially if this investigation reaches out as far as you think it will.”

“And what about you?” She pressed him.

“What about me?” He reflected back at her gently, taking her hands in his. He seemed resigned to it. Like it didn’t matter. Or perhaps he was already shoving everything that she loved about him back into the box that was marked do not open in the presence of Atlantis and tucked on a shelf in his mind. 

“When...when we get back, we…” She started, and bit her lip.

“You will be the Princess. And I will be your Knight.” He finished.

“But you are more than that.” Bezel whispered. “I don’t know if, if I can do that to you again. Lie about you like that again.”

“You will do what you must.” He told her. “I know you love me. You know I love you. Nobody can take that from us. If we have to hide it, then we hide it. Because I would rather hide it, than lose it. Or lose you.”

“You’ll never lose me.” She promised him fiercely, squeezing down on his hands. “Never.” And the tears came in earnest, until his kisses took them away. Kisses to her forehead, then her closed eyelids, and her wet cheeks, and finally her lips as he held her close and comforted her.

He deserved so much more than this. He deserved to be free, to love her the way he wanted to. She wanted to love him without reservation, but she couldn’t. The ache it left behind made her mourn for what they should have been. What they might have been, if he had just been a boy and she had just been a girl, and Sloane had been her father.

But then, nobody would have saved the citizens of Dapana. Nobody would have rescued the captured citizens of the Ganarusa and beyond. Bezel’s mind could see it so clearly, how worse things would be for so many people if she had not been the princess, and he had not grown into the role of her Knight.

Pulled in so many different directions, she clung to him fiercely as the ship flew itself towards Atlantis and breathed in the smell of him, remembering it for later.

“What can I give you?” She begged him, trembling in the quiet of the skyskiff’s cabin. He deserved so much more than he had been given. He had given her the world, and nothing that was hers was its equal in value.

His hands stroked along her back, and one hand came up to the back of her head, holding it gently as she nuzzled into his shoulder.

“This is enough.” He whispered to her. 

It was enough, she told herself. For now.

Chapter Text

Little Moment: The Sorceress And The Knight

By Eric ‘Erico’ Lawson

Six: She Crafted Wonders

The Royal Palace

Floating Continent Of Atlantis

There was a shift in the Court of Atlantis after their return, and one that the Knight did not recognize immediately. In those early days and weeks, he was too busy trying to slip back into the mask and the role that was expected of him. To go back to standing behind and distant from his beloved Bezel when every part of him screamed to pull her into his arms and pepper her with kisses and soft touches that he knew she missed was enough of a challenge. He could feel it in how she inhaled sharply in the mornings when she opened the door to her chambers and saw him waiting outside, how her green eyes gleamed in the rejoicing of his presence. There were times that she started to reach for his hand or his sleeve, or even towards his face underneath his helmet, then stilled and forced herself to stop.

There were whispers and rumors all around them as the reports from the 242nd RRD filtered back and were added to the surprising news out of Ganarus Province. The Knight could hardly miss how the servants did a double take as Bezel passed by them in the halls. She would smile at them, ask them how their day was going. For Bezel, it was simple kindness, an acknowledgement of their humanity and their worth. After her time as Ella and the rescue she ordered and aided in Dapana, after Aroca, after Danel and Ama Yagi she could do no less than that. Yet for the servants who worked and lived in the castle that were accustomed to being forced to lower their eyes and speak in quiet reverent tones and show nothing less than total deference, it was a quality that set her apart from her father and her two older brothers.

She is like her mother, the whispers came when the servants thought they were alone. The Queen always was kind to us too. The Knight never spoke to them, never shared in the gossip, never told them why Bezel’s heart was so open and so kind. Everything they admired was everything that he loved, and to give voice to it would be to betray his true feelings.

There were other whispers too, less kind whispers that came from the halls of the Court. That Bezel, a sweet girl that nobody expected anything from save to look pretty and be wed off to whatever noble was in favor or needed buying off was becoming a member of the royal family worth keeping eyes on. Some that had never given her a second thought now sought to sidle up to her as she passed by, to make idle conversation and to introduce themselves, and to offer gifts. She was polite at first and then coldly dismissive when they persisted, and her Knight was always there to stand in their path when they didn’t take the hint. The Mage King had thought Bezel in danger down Below, but up on Atlantis, the Knight was forever on edge. 

  Bezel paid no attention to any of the whispers and even less to the blatantly obvious sycophants. She was fortunate in that regard. Forced to return home and essentially kept under house arrest in those first months, she buried herself in her studies and in research. Maps of Terra and books of lore borrowed from the royal library were soon stacked all over her room and over the small space set aside for her off of the royal alchemist’s laboratory. Burying herself in her work was easier than facing the changes happening around her, because of her. Especially when they were happening while she could do nothing about them.

Through it all, the Knight stayed close to her. Trapped in the palace, trapped behind their masks, they couldn’t love each other like they wanted. He never failed to offer her his hand when he could, when nobody was watching. When nobody could judge them.

She held it tightly every time. 

***

The Knight knocked on the door of her study and waited a moment to let her settle if she’d been caught by surprise at the disturbance. He walked inside after and paused, observing perilously stacked piles of books and notes scribbled out in Atlantean, most of them borrowed. A slate board was marked with dimly burning blue letters and equations, dotted by question marks.

Bezel herself was wearing one of the simplest dresses that she got away with and was scowling as she transcribed something from a very faded scroll of parchment onto new paper. She was muttering angry swear words in Arocan as she did so, and he couldn’t help but smile when she reverted to Ruscovy, of which she knew less.

“Did the scroll say something to offend you?” He asked glibly, and smiled wider when Bezel let out a startled yelp and jerked herself away from the desk. When she recovered and turned her wide eyes towards him, he allowed himself the honest laugh she’d evoked in him. “Sorry, sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you. I did knock. You must have been really engrossed in it.”

“Yes. I was.” Bezel sighed, and he watched as it extended out into a yawn. The Knight frowned and looked out into the hallway that led to the rest of the laboratory space before closing the door behind him and then leaning against it.

“What time did you wake up this morning?” He asked her, afraid to hear the answer. “I’m always up before you. I have to be, but I was standing outside your bedroom for an hour after you usually come out before I got brave enough to look inside and found it empty.” Her face fell, and his heart sank a little with it. “You didn’t sleep at all, did you?”

“Woke up at midnight.” She confessed, looking down at the page. “I couldn’t sleep. I just - I feel trapped.” She explained, moving in a rush. “I wanted to be anywhere else but the palace. Doing anything else. Traveling the world to meet people, learning more about magic, tracking the rest of the leylines. But I can’t do any of that. And I can’t sleep.”

“So you came down here.” The Knight summarized. She nodded, and there was little else he could say to that. He could cheer her up at least. “Please try and sleep tonight. Tomorrow is my day off, and if you’re still willing…”

Her tired eyes brightened. “The Geenes?” She said in a soft whisper, becoming eager. 

“My friend ‘Ella’ always does love to come along with me.” The Knight mused, finding his smile again. “But I won’t take her if she’s too tired to move.”

Bezel stuck her tongue out at him and he just kept smirking at her. “Fine.” She conceded with a roll of her eyes. “I will try and convince Miss Ella to get some proper rest. Even if...even if it’s difficult.”

The Knight nodded, accepting her concession. He looked to the paper she’d been copying and motioned with a nod of his head. “So. What has you so worked up you started swearing in Arocan, Bezel?”

The Princess of the whole world sighed, smiled, and then started to explain the idiocy of modern magery and lost practices in excruciating detail. He only caught about one sentence out of every three, but it was still time well spent. It was time spent with her.

***

The Royal Palace was more than an imposing edifice that stood at the center of the floating continent. Hundreds of servants worked there, from the lowliest of scullery maids to the personal attendants of the royal family and whatever members of the Court were present on any given week. The easiest means of seeing to the feeding of them all were the larger subfloor dining halls, simply decorated and with tables and chairs made for durability over opulence. 

The Knight had gotten used to the rhythm of life in the palace, as much as he did not wish to. Coming back to it after his journey Below and seeing the world with Bezel only made him long for what they’d had in those precious weeks. For one, it was always too noisy. And for all that he appreciated his solitude, he never seemed to get it. Most of the other royal knights knew better than to interact with him; the ones who didn’t scorn him outright because of his low birth and station were usually too afraid of his potential. The thorough beating he’d given Instructor Drake to get Bezel out from under his ‘tutelage’ was legendary in the corps. 

There were some servants he could tolerate; the ones who were all of low birth like he’d been and grown up in rough living he understood and sympathized with. The low servants and the royal knights were by and large the two groups that he dealt with the most, but there were others. Those were the ones who didn’t know him well enough to avoid him or know when he just wanted some peace and quiet while he ate. The ones who sat by him and held loud, obnoxious conversations just because they saw a mostly empty table, and didn’t pay attention to who was sitting in it. 

  Like today, with the gaggle of alchemists from the royal laboratories that Bezel’s workshop had a small corner of, bringing their meals and laughing their heads off.

“Honestly, I know that she’s good at making trinkets, but she has no business trying to tell us how to do our jobs. We’ve trained for this, it’s our livelihoods!” The first one said, and the Knight tightened his grip on the spoon he’d been using to ladle up his stew. He’d had occasion to pass through the alchemical laboratories before, and he knew very well that there were only ever men employed there. There could be only one ‘she’ that they were speaking of.

“Well, to be fair to her, that thing she made when she was nine was quite elaborate.” Another alchemist hesitantly defended her. “Although why she would bother to craft such a simple image in that much of a Working is something I still wonder at.”

“Sympathy for the commoners, I suppose.” A third suggested. 

“Aside from her choice in materials, the enspelling was rudimentary. There was nothing in it that was particularly revolutionary.” The first of the alchemists scoffed, tearing off a piece of bread and shoving it in his mouth. “She’sh not doin’ anyfhing orighunul!”

“Swallow, Ced.” The second chastised his companion. “You know, I overheard the Chief Alchemist complaining about her while she was on her tour of Below. It wasn’t his choice to even give her any space to ‘play in’, it was all set up by request of the Mage King.”

“And he’s upset with giving up that old storage closet? It was hardly ever useful. It’s too far away from our other work areas, it never got used. Why would he be upset about giving it up when it was just sitting there?” The third pointed out. The Knight relaxed a little, sensing that at least one of them, if not defending Bezel, had enough good sense not to criticize her. 

“Because we’ve got better things to be doing than catering to the whims of the unimportant royal.” The first alchemist, Ced, answered. He’d swallowed his food, at least. “Look, it’s all an act, you know? Her oldest brother’s going to become the Mage King. Her next brother Jorran is going to become the head of the Mage Knights. Nobody expected anything out of her except a couple of kids to some noble house brought into the fold, and now she’s running around Below, getting caught up in all kinds of trouble?”

“Oh, and that’s even juicier.” The second preened. “I heard from my cousin, who works on the skyship docks, that she didn’t finish her tour. That the Mage King made her come home. And nobody’s been talking about why.”

“D’you suppose she was doing something scandalous?” Ced hummed, way more cheerfully than was necessary. 

The Knight could hear the thundering of his blood in his ears. They didn’t know. They didn’t know why she’d been recalled. That it had been her father overreacting, angry at her forwardness, or maybe just scared for her. Because of what she had done, what she and the Knight had been forced to go up against. Exenos and corrupt nobles and corrupt knights, all working together to sell off the people that should have been protected to the jackal-headed slavers from the stars. 

They didn’t know that the scandal wasn’t hers, but that of the nobility and their wrongs left to fester for too long. Which meant that the truth behind it had been hidden. Not silenced completely, he’d never gotten any orders to not speak on it, but it hadn’t been encouraged either. 

The Knight and Bezel had both known that they were returning to a place where the masks they wore needed to match the expectations of those around them. For his own sake, he could care less what people thought of him, but it galled to think that these alchemists who were hired on to be the premier researchers of magic in Atlantis would dismiss Bezel so easily, and fail to see her for who she was. 

His mug of tea suddenly had a small light flicker inside of it, and the Knight shook off his scowl and reached for the delicate chain that hung out and over the rim. Pulling it up, he removed a small polished river stone tied to the end of it, and let it hang in the air and drip dry. A single rune was carved into its surface, the Atlantean letter that could mean warmth or gentle heat or candle flame depending on the context of the sentence. The rune on the stone flickered in a pulsing white light until the last of the tea had sloughed off of it, and then it went inert. The Knight smiled as he looked down at his mug of tea, now warmed to the proper temperature.

“Oi, you. Knight. What’s that you’ve got there?” The second alchemist rudely demanded of him. The Knight glanced up and glared daggers at the man, ready to tell him to piss off. Especially when the first one, Ced, looked at the stone and snorted.

“I think it’s an attempt at runecrafting.”

There was a rune, true, but the Knight knew that it was so much more than simple runecrafting. His tea warmer had been a gift from Bezel not many days ago, and he’d been using it every day since. It had come about because of an offhand remark he’d made about how the servants only were given cold tea, because it was considered too prohibitively expensive to keep the large serving pots hot for so many people of low station all at once. Eager to do something for him, and just as eager to try out a new bit of artificing, Bezel’s tea warmer had fit the bill.

The third of the alchemists leaned in closer, and with eyes that were sharper than those of his partners, he took in the rune. His eyes glowed faintly with orange light as he peered beneath the surface of the stone and tried to make out the Working hidden in it.

He must have seen something that impressed him, because he gasped and pulled his head back, blinking rapidly. “That is a very precise Working. The parameters for activation and deactivation...Where did you get that?”

“Hey, Pikras, what are you jabbering on about?” The second alchemist demanded.

Tired of holding it up for inspection, the Knight stowed it back in the inner pocket of his jacket, underneath his mail.

“Yes, Pikras, what are you jabbering on about?” Ced added, staring at the Knight with narrowed eyes. “So the knight has himself a little trinket that can warm a cup of tea. So what?”

“That charm is designed to activate only if placed in a small amount of water, and only for a certain amount of time, and it shuts off if removed.” The third alchemist Pikras explained, and the other two sat up a little straighter. The Knight kept his tongue, wanting to ask why that was so important that the charm had such conditions set on it, but not particularly feeling up to giving them more ammunition to work with. Pikras was doing a good enough job on his own. “And...how are you powering that?” He asked, finally looking at the Knight.

“I’m not.” The Knight replied. Pikras blinked in confusion.

“It has no mana reservoir. There is no means of charging it.”

Of course there wasn’t, the Knight knew. Bezel had told him as much. It drew power directly from the ambient mana about Atlantis, a trial run as she pieced together her research on the leylines. It was the prototype for her ‘magical capacitor’ that she’d mentioned to him long ago. A trickle charge, at best, and one that wasn’t always active. The amount of power it drew from the mana around Atlantis was negligible, compared to the other spell effects that kept the continent aloft and circling Terra. 

The Knight stood. “And yet it works.” He said, taking his tray in one hand and sipping at his tea in the other.

“Please, tell me where you got that. Tell me who made that for you.” Pikras begged him. The Knight paused and stared at him.

Ced, the first alchemist had been caustic and now looked jealous. The second alchemist looked doubtful. Pikras, the third, looked as though he’d seen a sliver of some greater truth and had seen the door slam shut in his face. Which, the Knight supposed, it had.

Trying for a shade of disgust a few degrees beneath murderous, the Knight looked at the alchemists. “Even though she has no business telling you how to do your jobs?” He rebuked them, staring at Ced as he threw the man’s harsh words right back at him. He waited for the light of recognition to come into their eyes, and then he turned and walked away.

Bezel was making miracles, the Knight realized. And the first miracle had been when she confessed that she loved him.

***

There were other parts of Court life that the Knight could have done without, and chief among them were the days when the Mage King insisted on Bezel’s attendance for events. Her father couched it in terms of ‘learning the other side of advising the king’ but the Knight found it telling how most of the court appearances Bezel was forced to attend were on days when there were nobles interested in ‘seeing the princess’ as they genuflected before the ruler of the world. When they were looking to see how she was turning out.

When they did everything but drool over her. 

It was on one such day, perhaps half a year after their return, that the Knight found himself standing at attention in the royal knight’s uniform in the throne room. Volkas Lantea sat in the high throne, the queen’s throne was empty, and three smaller seats had been brought up and positioned on the dais for Bezel, to the left of the Queen’s throne, and for her brothers Desmond and Jorran who sat at their father’s right side. 

Then the doors opened and a piece of their other life came strolling in as the herald announced the new lord of Ganarus Province; Baron Danel Rusla. The Knight shot a look to Bezel, and she caught his eyes briefly as she looked away from the approaching Baron before she turned her eyes on her father. The king either didn’t notice her stare or didn’t feel it necessary to look back at her. The King had ended up taking Bezel’s advice after all, and she had been surprised by it.

The dark-haired ‘Wolf’ of the steppe looked much different than the Knight remembered him being at their last meeting. For one, he was dressed in dated, but acceptable finery. For another, the sword he was so used to seeing him carry was missing. And though he was nervous, Danel stood tall and carried himself well. No doubt, lessons taken from his mother had paid off.

As formally as any other noble ever was, Danel stopped at the foot of the stairs that went up to the dais and the throne and took a knee. “Your Majesty.”

“Danel Rusla.” The king said, solemn and with all the gravitas that the Knight had been expecting. “You come before the Court today to take the oath and provide an accounting of your province.”

“Yes, your majesty.” Danel stayed kneeling as the king stood, and a servant approached with his ceremonial sword made exclusively for this purpose. The king drew the blade and stood before Danel.

“Do you swear to serve Atlantis, and defend it from the threats from within, and from without?” The king asked, setting the blade down on his left shoulder.

“I swear.”

“Do you further swear that you will oversee your province, and be truthful to its value and service to Atlantis?” The sword moved to Danel’s right shoulder blade.

“...I swear.”

“And do you finally swear that you will serve the welfare of Atlantis above all other things?” The king asked as he raised his sword and laid it atop Danel’s head gently. The Knight had heard the vows of loyalty so many times during his stay as Bezel’s guardian that he could nearly quote them verbatim.

He was less used to hearing nonstandard answers to them, but that was what Danel Rusla offered. The man once called ‘The Wolf’ finally lifted his head and the sword both, and stared at the king. “I will serve the welfare of her people above all other things.” 

A low murmur passed through the Court, and the Knight smiled in spite of himself. The Mage King paused for a moment, seemed to accept the unusual response, and handed the sword back to the servant who had brought it out to him.

“Then rise, Baron of Ganarus, and be welcomed.”

Danel stood, nodding again to the king. “It is strange, to be standing here among you all.”

The king did not make to speak, and instead lifted a finger from his right hand off of the armrest, a signal that meant that others could speak. Desmond, his eldest and the Crown Prince, took up the opportunity.

“Indeed, many of our ruling nobles from Below find the Court to be intimidating the first time out.” There was a low susurration of chuckles that swept the room from the other courtiers, and Desmond smiled thinly. “Some have remarked that they felt as though they didn’t belong.”

Danel smiled back at that, perhaps not seeing the challenge, or more likely seeing it and not caring. “Oh, I don’t feel that. I do feel relief at seeing my friends in here.” And then in what would have been the height of rudeness for any other noble to try, Danel moved his gaze from Desmond, past the king and the empty seat of the Queen, and settled on Bezel. And his smile shifted into something warmer. “Your highness, Bezel. It is so good to see you again.” He broke his gaze away and searched the room until he saw the Knight, and his smile increased. “You and your guardian both. Are you well, sir knight?”

The Knight, not trusting himself to speak, merely nodded once and allowed Danel to look back to Bezel. “And you, your highness?”

“Very well. Doing my best not to be bored.” The princess explained, rolling her eyes with a good-natured smile of her own. “How is your mother, Danel? Is she in good health?”

“Nothing can keep Ama Yagi down for long, you know that.” Danel laughed heartily. “She has taken to her former duties as Steward of the province quite well, and she is loved by the people. She regrets that she could not come with, but she did ask me to inquire if you have been keeping up with your healing lessons.”

“Not as much as I should like to.” Bezel confessed. “There is little call for it up here.”

“Well, then perhaps to make sure my mother isn’t scowling at me for letting you slack off when I return home, we should seek out a training hall so your knight and I might cross swords again. Then you can patch us both up, call us ridiculous and foolish as all warriors are to the healers who have to take care of them, and I won’t have to lie to my dear mother about it.”

Bezel laughed, bright and airy, and the sound carried in the room, startling everyone. Nobody more than the Mage King, who stared at his daughter as if she’d grown a second head. Like he didn’t recognize her.

Perhaps he didn’t, the Knight realized. How often had Bezel ever been encouraged to laugh and smile and be herself in his presence?

“Oh, that sounds wonderful.” And in the height of impropriety, Bezel stood from her chair, smoothed out a nonexistent wrinkle along the front of her dress, and bowed to her father. “Your majesty, I will be borrowing Baron Rusla for a time so he and my guardian can have themselves a little contest.”

Nobody was supposed to leave the throne room, save at the bidding of the king. And yet his daughter the princess now brazenly made to do so, not as a request, but stating it as fact. 

The Mage King’s face purpled. “The new baron has yet to make his report…” He began, and Bezel sighed, interrupting him, which was another impropriety stacked on top of what was a rapidly growing list in the past two minutes.

“Danel.” Bezel said, turning away from her father to stare at the new Baron in his 20’s. “Have you and your Steward finished the census of your people and discovered how many are missing?”

“An exact number has been impossible to pin down, but with the help of Knight Commander Sloane and the 242nd RRD, we believe that around 2600 of my people are lost to us forever, sold into slavery to the outsiders from beyond our world. Given how many ruined villages we have discovered and based on our estimates of their populations before they were attacked and burned, it is as close a number we can attribute to the predations of the former baron and the Mage Knights who forswore their oaths for Gobeas’s plans.”

Outright gasps of surprise swept the Court at that, and the Knight flickered his gaze up to the Mage King, who now had his lips pressed together tightly. So. He’d been keeping that little detail under wraps, after all. And Bezel and Danel Rusla had just upended the apple cart.

“To say nothing of how many other people from other provinces were drawn into the web.” Bezel uttered darkly. “I will make separate inquiries with Knight Commander Sloane as to his progress later on. For now, though, how does Ganarus fare?”

“We are rebuilding. The mines are still empty. For now, there is little we can offer Atlantis save what can be grown, although I will be happy to turn over the ill-gotten wealth kept by Gobeas in Khav from his schemes. I can scarcely look at it all, and have been keeping it locked away in chests, rather than decorating the Baronial Estate.”

Bezel nodded and started down the steps. “Perhaps it is time that some of that ill-gotten wealth was sold off and used to help with the rebuilding of your province and the restoration of your people. I am certain that there are reputable traders here in Atlantis who, after the surtax collected in the King’s name, would still be able to pay quite handsomely for the precious metals and gemstones.”

“I will defer to your wisdom in the matter, your highness.” Danel told her graciously, and the Knight didn’t fail to notice how the way he said her title was with more warmth and respect than he had ever said your majesty to the king. 

Bezel stopped at Danel’s side and looked back up to her father. “Is there anything else that you require of the baron at this time, your majesty?” She asked coolly.

The Mage King, unable to bring himself to speak, merely shook his head left and right.

Bezel smiled, turned, and took Danel by the arm, walking him down the carpet. She glanced to the Knight, and he stepped out of his place in the lined courtiers and fell in step behind her, three paces away as usual.

“I need to brush up on my Ruscovy, Danel. I hope you can find it in your busy schedule while you are up here to fit in some language lessons for myself and my brave guardian.”

“Your highness, I would be happy to.” Danel chuckled.

They left the intrigues and the whispers of the Court behind them, and the Knight at last felt as though he could breathe again.

*B*

For Bezel, being back on Atlantis was like shoving all the best parts of herself into a box and only ever taking them out in a dark room when the door was shut. It had been six months of living up on Atlantis, being stuck in expectations and behaving like a princess was supposed to before Danel Rusla, a baron at last (And that meant that even after all of his posturing and angry words, her father had actually listened to her for once) had appeared in the Court. 

She had been so tired of acting like the perfect princess, of not being herself. For too long, all she’d had to keep her sane was her training with her Knight, her research into the leylines of Terra, her experiments in artificing, and the all too rare moments when she could be alone with her Knight. The trips to the shelter run by the Geenes were nowhere near as often as she would have liked, but she loved every one of them. As Ella, she could be herself. She could hug her Knight, even kiss him, and nobody said a word even if the Geenes both smiled and chuckled good-naturedly. 

The names were false, but the love between them was real. She was always feeling pulled in a dozen different directions, and the only ones that she ever seemed to care about were the ones where her Knight stood beside her. When they were helping people.

At least in her morning training, as she spun her Arocan-made staff around herself and imagined an opponent whose blows she was deflecting, the thoughts of the day could disappear. Her Knight had insisted that she keep up her training, and she had taken to sneaking out before he could reach her door some mornings just so she could have some time to herself before his regimen began in earnest. 

Thinking back to the fight with Finna Keral kept her going. The way that he’d used his mana not just to throw blasts of power, but to conjure up a second sword of pure magic. The way that he’d reinforced his body so that he could match and surpass the speed of her Knight, even when he was augmented. The way he’d effortlessly dismissed that manablade to cuff her upside the head and give her a concussion.

Before Ganarus, before Danel and Yagi and Gobeas and Keral, Bezel had thought of combat in two categories; Dueling and actual fighting. Dueling had been what Instructor Drake had taught, and he had been soundly beaten by her Knight. Her Knight practiced actual fighting, striking blows to wound and to kill. What Keral had added to the equation, Bezel realized, was sleight of hand and misdirection.

Channeling mana into her staff as she spun it, Bezel tore her hand away and held it aloft, keeping the length of reinforced wood spinning in midair as her aura encased it. With a sharp inhalation, and imagining a host of foes in front of her suddenly surprised by her ability to defend as she called up another spell, Bezel slammed her shoe into the floor and scattered a pulse of mana out and away from her, blue tinged with pink, that would have knocked any foe in front of her off-balance. It went for fifteen feet and then dissipated.

As she caught her breath, the sound of slow and deliberate clapping made her turn about and stare. Her Knight never clapped like that to anything she did, and it wasn’t him standing in the doorway of the combat training hall now. It was her brother Jorran, the middle child, who leaned against the doorframe and smiled a not quite right smile as he watched her. 

“Jorran.” She said to him, respectful though not very gracious. Because he had never been all that gracious to her growing up, or respectful. He’d never really played with her or looked after her, and when he roped her into games it was always an excuse to shove her to the ground and laugh as he ran off to be with Desmond and the other boys.

“That was quite a show you put on last week with that new baron, sister. You got close to the rustics while you were gone.” Jorran said. “Tell me, did you learn to fight from Danel?”

He was goading her, and Bezel turned away, grabbing her staff and releasing the minor spell that kept it aloft. “My guardian trained me, for the most part. But Danel is a capable warrior.”

“So I was told.” Jorran mused. “You’re here quite early today. Ordinarily, your training sessions with your knight protector are a little later. But I can understand why you would wish to train beforehand. With a technique as sloppy as yours, I would not wish anyone else to see it either.”

Her hand clamped down on her staff, and Bezel breathed in softly and slowly. That was all Jorran ever seemed good for, in her experience. He was a bully who thrived on making others feel miserable, belittling their talents and abilities. That he was a capable warrior in his own right only made it worse. Were he less skilled, someone would have put him in his place and chalked it up as a ‘training accident’ long ago.

“If you wish the use of the room, brother, you need only ask for it.” She told him curtly. “There’s no need for you to go about your usual routine of insults with me; I no longer care what you think.” She turned for the exit and made to walk past him, but Jorran shifted his weight and barred her path.

His eyes narrowed. “You think you are better than me now, sister?”

“I am 14 and a half. You are 17.”

“Almost eighteen now.” He pointed out with a growl.

“Exactly.” Bezel waved a hand at him. “Your ability is not the topic here. You have trained for far longer than I have. You are expected to take over the command of the Mage Knights when our brother Desmond ascends the throne.”

“And yet, now members of the Court whisper otherwise.” Jorran said, gesturing for her to step back. “Do you have your eyes set on the role of High General, sister?”

“That is your aspiration, brother. Not mine.” Bezel narrowed her eyes, wondering what he was driving at. So members of the Court gossiped. They did little else, what did it matter to her? “Now step aside.”

“Defend yourself.” Jorran said, and with a flicker of blue light from his eyes, he summoned one of the blunted training swords along the wall to his hand. 

Bezel flinched. “I am not going to fight you.”

“Then it’ll be just like old times, won’t it sister?” Jorran grinned. Then he charged at her her in a burst of mana-fueled speed that made her eyes go wide, and she snapped her staff up right in the nick of time before he could slam the blunted blade down across her clavicle. It still forced her back a couple of steps, and Jorran laughed once as he yanked his sword away. “Wow, look at that. You actually learned how to block.” His eyes gleamed a dark blue, the color of the ocean under moonlight. “Now show me something else.”

If Bezel had thought that she had been working herself hard before, it was nothing compared to the brutal form of ‘sparring’ that Jorran brought to bear. She tried yelling at him to stop, and he scowled. She stuck to only deflecting his blows and it made him scream at her to hit him. She was shaken, more shaken than she’d been when Finna Keral kept trying to kill her, because at least in that fight she hadn’t been alone, and she knew that there was no other way to stop the man but to end his life. But here, in her home? Against her brother?

“You go wandering off into the wilderness for a month and suddenly you think that you’re better than the rest of us?” Jorran snarled, slamming his sword against her staff and then sliding it down the shaft. The Knight had tried that trick before, and as the blade forced the angle in, she swept the far end of it towards his skull, forcing Jorran to evade and jump backwards from her. He only laughed at the maneuver and lowered the point of his blade, beckoning at her. “What do you know of putting down insurrections? What do you know of war?”

“More than you think!” Bezel snapped back at him, tired of being pushed around and belittled by him, tired of being dismissed as just a silly girl. “I have suffered and bled to keep the people of Terra safe!”

“And what have you done for Atlantis lately, digging around in the mud?” He snapped back. “Your head’s full of strange ideas, Bezel! There’s a reason we’re up here and they’re down there! We’re better than they are!”

He actually believed that line, the logical fallacy that Atlantis used to justify the state of the world, with everyone Below subservient to the people who lived above them. It enraged Bezel like nothing else, and she screamed and finally let her aura explode with power. It flowed around her, blue shot through with blazing pink, and to Jorran’s own aura of dark ocean blue it outclassed him in raw mana potential alone.

In potential, but not in the use of it to cause harm. After she caught him in the midsection and knocked the wind out of him in one hit, Jorran rallied and used his own mana to reinforce his body and to enhance his speed, wearing her down until he caught the end of her staff after one wild swing in his free hand and brought the pommel of his blade down on her wrist. She screamed again, in pain this time, and crumpled to the ground cradling the broken hand to her chest. The staff fell to the ground and rolled up to his boot, and he pressed the toe down on it. 

Then he kicked it back to her. “Pick it up.” He hissed, and Bezel stared at him through pain-blurred eyes. “You want to fight? You want to run around in the dirt with all of your mud-grubbing friends and pretend that you aren’t the princess of the entire world? Then pick. It. Up.”

Bezel, shaking like a leaf, could not. But as Jorran stood sneering over her, someone else did. The staff was surrounded by a green aura, then it jerked roughly through the air away from her, forcing Jorran to dodge away with a surprised grunt.

It didn’t fly unerringly, but it flew with purpose, until it slapped into the gloved palm of her Knight. And his eyes were burning.

“And here I thought a royal prince would have better things to do than abuse his younger sister. I can tell by the look on her face that you are not welcome here. You have interrupted her highness’s scheduled training time, and have injured her as well. Leave. Now.”

Jorran’s face purpled. “You forget your place, knight. You should hardly dare to speak to me without first being addressed.”

“My place is between you and her.” Her Knight snapped. “I am her protector, and you have put her safety at risk.”

Jorran leveled his blade. “So. You will put yourself to the hazard to save her?”

Bezel inhaled sharply, going dizzy as she remembered all of the times he had. How he always did. She remembered him being stabbed through and bleeding out on her, and bit back a scream.

Her Knight just smiled, calmly set her staff to lean up against the wall, and then drew one of the blunted practice blades.

“I am her Knight.” He told Jorran firmly. “It is what I was made for.”

The fight that followed would be mutually agreed on by both Jorran and her Knight as a ‘training duel’ that got out of hand. Bezel could only watch as Jorran, taller and stronger and more vicious than her love, laid into him with ferocious strikes and callous blows. For his part, her Knight never gave an inch and never showed weakness. Jorran ran on scorn and indignation, but the glow of her Knight’s marbled green and blue aura burned with even stronger emotions. Rage, protectiveness. 

Fury tempered by years of suppressing how he truly felt.

What her Knight lacked in raw power and the sturdier build that Jorran carried from his age, he made up for in his emotional focus and his experience. The result was a knockdown drag-out fight where neither was able to land a truly crippling blow to end the fight, but one where they both ended up with black eyes, cut lips, and bruises over much of their bodies. In the end, Jorran spat a glob of blood on the floor and stormed off, his sword arm hanging strangely after a solid blow to the shoulder joint that must have struck in just the right spot, and her Knight limped to her side on a badly bruised or possibly broken ankle.

“Why did you do that?” She whispered to him, as she put her healing skills to work, delicately sending her mana into his body and focusing her Intent as Ama Yagi had taught her, willing it to heal along more natural pathways. 

Smiling thinly through the pain, her Knight let her pull his head onto her shoulder. He let her cradle him close as she worked over the aches and the damage he’d taken protecting her from Jorran.

“You know why, Bezel.” He sighed.

“I told you, if your life is mine, you don’t get to throw it away for me.”