“That was so cool!” Clarisse exclaimed as the adventurer pair made their way down the busy streets. She moved her hands around in exaggerated motions, mimicking some of the moves they had seen from the multitude of duels the two had witnessed over the course of the day. “I gotta have some sick special moves like that!”

  “Most of the special moves you’ll ever see are just improvised,” Nikolas brought her enthusiasm back to the ground, looking up at the shady sky. “Magic is just another tool in your toolbox, and the way you use it can make or break scenarios.”

  “I get that!” Clarisse grinned, thoroughly inspired by the combatants. It seemed that even Nik’s warning was incapable of dampening her mood. “I want to figure out how to freely use my fire so I can do that too… Can we train for that tomorrow?”

  “If you think you’re ready for it, okay,” Nikolas agreed with a short nod, “I’ll see you tomorrow at the guild then?” he asked, seeing as they had reached the street of her apartment building.

  “Yes, I’ll be there!” she headed off towards the stairwell after waving to him. “Have a good night!”

  “You too. See you tomorrow.” Nikolas watched her disappear into the stairwell before turning away and heading down another street, as he had been doing every night. He had only been walking down the path for about half a minute before his ears perked up again. It was the sound of familiar footsteps speedily coming his way, much to his distress.

  “Nik?” Clarisse called out as she turned the corner and spotted the kitsune down the street. “Sorry, I just remembered I needed to ask you something…” she took a moment to catch her breath.

  “Alright, what’s up?” Nikolas closed the gap so they wouldn’t have to talk loudly. He was unsure if he should have been concerned by the redhead’s sudden curiosity given the events of their day.

  “Where- where do you live?” Clarisse’s intonation coupled with a slight narrowing of her eyes betrayed that that wasn’t the only thing she wanted to ask about.

  “I have a place on the other side of the city,” Nikolas began, before recalling the incident during their party registration that morning. His ears fell flat on his head as he raised a hand to correct himself. “Technically…”

  “You… don’t really have a place, do you?” Clarisse mumbled, confirming her suspicions from the reaction of his ears drooping immediately once she had caught onto the truth.

  “. . .” Nikolas let his shoulders and ears sag with a sigh, realizing that the fox was out of the bag for that lie. “I don’t.” he nodded, shifting his weight towards one foot while tapping the other one at an anxious interval.

  “Do you want to stay in my room?” Clarisse offered, raising her eyebrows slightly as she put the proposition forth. “There’s space! I- I’ll set up a mattress and blankets for you.”

  “I’ll be fine, don’t–” Nikolas began, raising his hand to deny her offer and beginning to turn away. There were many things he found wrong with that idea, but most of all, his own sleeping habits were not conducive to existing with someone else.

  “I really mean it! You’ve helped me a lot, and we’re in a party now. It’s not a big deal…” Clarisse tried again, stepping around him to meet his gaze as he turned. Looking up at the rogue, she pleaded with him by making her best impression of puppy dog eyes.

  Nikolas lowered his arm, resigned to letting out a sigh. There was a hint of annoyance in his body language, considering how he had let himself fall into this amidst the crossfire of curiosities from Rika and Clarisse. “If you’re okay with it…” He conceded, unable to deny her request when she looked at him like that.

  “I am, don’t worry!” Clarisse reacted with joy immediately, leading the way back to her apartment. She was confused by his hesitation for a place to stay, but chalked it up to the rogue’s usual solitude.

  It didn’t take long for them to rig up a mattress and blankets next to Clarisse’s bed by pushing some of the other furniture into the corners of the room. Looking at the quaint setup, Clarisse felt awkward for making Nikolas sleep in it but reassured herself that it was probably better than nothing. “And there you go! It’s not as cramped as I imagined it would get…” she smiled, sitting cross-legged in her own bed in her pajamas as she looked down at the state of the room.

  “You’re really okay with letting someone you barely know stay the night, in the same room?” Nikolas asked, the usual tinge of sarcasm noticeably missing from his voice. He genuinely sounded more concerned for her safety than having a place to spend the night.

  “I’d like to think that I can trust you enough,” the redhead shot back at him with a pout. “And where were you actually spending your nights before this?”

  Nikolas let out a defeated sigh at her naivety, taking off his cloak and folding it into his backpack. “You’re lucky… very lucky.” was all he could say in response as he sat down in his new abode, leaning against her bed.

  “What’s wrong with loosening up around friends?” Clarisse asked with an upturned expression. Yet again, he was being profoundly confusing with his peculiar behavior. “You have plenty of time to act cool and aloof around everyone else.”

  “You’re not wrong, but there are people out there who would immediately take advantage of that kind of kindness,” Nikolas countered, despite letting himself sit on the mattress. “You can’t really trust someone unless they’ve helped you through thick and thin.”

  “Well, haven’t you?” Clarisse smiled smugly, having found a higher ground. “You definitely fit that criteria for me,” she got up to walk over to the oil lamp hanging from the ceiling for illumination.

  Nikolas’s eyes widened slightly as he realized he had walked into that one. “I suppose I have… still, try not to trust people so easily.” he advised, before slinking lower into the mattress to rest.

  “I won’t, I won’t…” Clarisse rolled her eyes before dimming the lamp completely, leaving the incandescent glow from Nikolas’s eyes and the wall clock to be the only lights in the room. “Good night, Nik.”

  “Good night, Clarisse.” Nikolas closed his eyes to envelop the room in darkness save for the wall clock’s barely intrusive glow.

  It was somewhere in the middle of the night when Nikolas next opened his eyes, glancing at the wall clock to confirm the time.

  02:34:18

  02:34:19

  02:34:20

  He moved carefully, slipping out of the blankets he had loosely pulled over himself for the guise of sleeping. There was a slight creak in the floorboards when he sat upright, making him glare down at it in hopes that it hadn’t already sabotaged him.

  Luckily, Clarisse didn’t seem to budge at the noise and Nikolas was safe to continue. He leaned back against her bed, staring straight ahead at nothing in particular. He checked around himself out of instinct, but there was nothing to catch him off-guard there anymore. Sera’s doll was in his bag and Clarisse was asleep, and the rest of the world had been shut away by the apartment’s hardened clay walls.

  Nikolas reached to the back of his head, slipping his hands under his hair and pulled his mask off. With it, the rest of his helmet came off as well, removing the pair of fox-ears and the ashened wig which had been a part of it.

  He turned the helmet around in his arms, looking down at the empty face of the mask. He thought back to his conversations with Sera, and then back to his current scenario.

  “What am I- No- what are you doing here?”

  “. . .”

  “So are you eager to throw away your cover now?”

  “No, not at all.”

  “Liar. Hypocrite!”

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  “It doesn’t matter. You have no say in what happens here.”

  “The hell I don’t- it’s MY BODY!”

  “Oh really, then? Take it back over, by all means.”

  “. . .”

  “That’s right, you can’t.”

  “Someday… someday. You’ll pay for this.”

  “I was here before you, and I’ll make sure we both go when it’s my time.”

  “Hah! If you had that kind of courage, you would’ve ended yourself a long time ago.”

  “. . .”

  “And-? Where’s that silver tongue gone now?”

  “You’re right. I will kill myself, just not today. Not until they’re all safe.”

  “Bah! If only our places had been reversed that night…”

  “We wouldn’t be here today if that were the case.”

  “Better than being here and squandering our potential nonetheless.”

  “. . .”

  “Slaving away to your dreams of complacency while our vengeance lays unclaimed.”

  “I already told you to drop that.”

  “I could fix things if you just let me use Tegor.”

  “But I won’t let you. Not Tegor, and not a single other soul.”

  “What remains so precious to you, that you can still abide by these insipid rules?”

  “We won’t use anyone else. That cycle will end with me!”

  “The meanderings of a mortal and a fool… the efforts of one man cannot end the cycle.”

  “Then I’ll die trying. I’ve already done that once.”

  “You know this is our destiny, our prophecy. To use our power to exact justice.”

  “No it’s not… I live the way I choose to.”

  “Denying it won’t save me, and it certainly won’t save you.”

  “. . .”

  “To think this is what remains of Father’s dream… once I return – the day you break, and I know you’ll break… this world will burn for what it’s done to us! These mortals will be like ants to my magnificence, the first and only –”

  In a quick motion, Nikolas donned his helmet to escape from his inner dialogue. There were many things to notice upon his return, first of which being that he was breathing, and quickly too. He grabbed onto his neck tightly, constricting himself of air until he reverted to his usual demeanor and his body returned to stillness.

  The rest of the night passed without any notable event for Nikolas, save for staying awake. He sat there, perfectly still and entirely unresponsive to all the world’s stimuli until he heard Clarisse’s voice.

  Despite the calm atmosphere of the small apartment room, Clarisse wasn’t having an uneventful slumber either that night. She was subconsciously aware that she was in a dream, but it was still hard for the redhead to refute that her dream felt quite realistic that night compared to any dreams she had had in the past, and so she treated it as such.

  Standing in the middle of a city, Clarisse wrapped her arms around herself as a cold breeze wafted by. She looked around herself for anything she would be able to recognize, but despite the strikingly clean features of her immediate surroundings, everything looked quite foreign to her. The infrastructure of the city looked far more esoteric – a jumble of slanted roofs at various heights, sitting atop intricately designed, rather lightweight architecture. Snow-capped peaks lay in the backdrop, but everything else seemed to turn blurry when she tried to make out the details.

  She could see many people walking by on either side of the street she was on, though everyone seemed to be in a rush for some reason. Most were clad in heavy armor and carried a menagerie of weapons as complement – pikes, halberds, axes, swords, bows and daggers – each soldier was armed to the teeth, and some even armed their teeth. The nuances of each non-human race bled through their plate mail panoply – kitsune with bushy tails and ears, wyrmlings with twisted horns and claws, and avians with majestic wings flying overhead in formation. Each platoon was marching – or soaring – in unison across the city, ennobled by shared purpose.

  “Hello?” Clarisse called out, but it seemed as if nobody heard her. She tried to reach her hand out and tap another passerby on the shoulder, but her hand simply passed right through the man. “What the- ” she staggered back, before she felt another person phase through her as they rushed past. “Whoa!” she caught onto a nearby streetlight to stay on her feet.

  It took a minute for Clarisse to come to terms with her status as a passive observer in the scene. Trying to speak had no use, and she couldn’t touch anyone either. Their faces were not privy to her either, reduced to a blurry haze for the ones that should have been visible to her. Strangely enough, she still seemed bound by contact to her physical surroundings.

  She shambled along the sidewalk, unsure of what her purpose there was until she spotted something peculiar. Among the hazy faces, a pair of individuals seemed far too well defined compared to the rest. They were approaching her – a young boy, perhaps not even a teen, and an older man holding his hand. She couldn’t help but assume they were father and son from the cadence with which they walked, without a hint of the urgency the soldiers seemed to have.

  They seemed to be comfortably clad for the cold outside, with the father confidently sporting an expensive, dark fur overcoat over a grey suit and top hat resting on a head of jet black hair. He was holding a bouquet of pristine red roses in his hand. The son was dressed entirely in white – a quaint coat protected his sickly, fragile figure, but nothing to cover the crop of jet black hair, combed back and oiled neatly.

  Clarisse was intrigued but content to see them pass by until the boy cast a glance in her direction and their eyes met, making her do a double take. They were eyes she recognized, quite the peculiar pair of mismatched irises. She questioned herself if the boy’s glance had just been a coincidence, but curiosity got the better of her and she began following them. Keeping a discreet distance, the redhead watched as the pair walked independently from the clamor of the city. It didn’t take long before they made a turn, leaving the populated streets for the calm of a secluded hill dotted with gravestones all over, shaded by the giant tree at its peak.

  Clarisse continued to follow them into the cemetery, feeling both intrigued and sympathetic as they crossed all the graves to their destination. She had been hoping that the bouquet was for the boy’s mother or at least a happy occasion, but her heart sank as the father-son pair slowed down next to a series of gravestones all clumped together – a family graveyard.

  Clarisse maintained her distance as the father kneeled down on one knee next to one of the graves, and added the bouquet he had brought to the collection already present around it. She said a silent prayer to Thened for the deceased, wishing them a peaceful slumber.

  Slowly, the redhead built up the courage to step forward, approaching the cluster after the father had gotten up. She leaned in and squinted her eyes to read the name on the main gravestone – Angen Xzephroz. There was an epitaph etched into the stone as well.

  A leader and father like no other, and dear friend of the crown. May he rest avenged.

  It was a thoughtful requiem for a strange name, one she vaguely recognized but couldn’t place a concrete relationship for.

  The child was focused on a different grave in the same familial clump, solemnly standing in front of a very small headstone with his gaze low. Clarisse slowly walked over to where he was standing, leaning down to check the name and epitaph written on it.

  The grave was completely blurry, at least for Clarisse. She squinted and tried to get closer, but it was as if the stone carvings were moving like fluid water, leaving nothing discernable. From where she was standing behind the boy, she could notice him trembling. He seemed taken aback by what he read, clenching his fists as anger welled from him.

  Put-off by the gravestone’s insistence for anonymity and concerned for her safety, Clarisse took a step away from both the boy and the grave. “Who are you praying for…?” She mumbled under her breath, glancing at the presumed father as if he was capable of providing her with an answer.

  “This… what does this mean?”

  Clarisse froze upon hearing the voice. Looking to her side, she saw the boy shared in her gaze towards the older man. “Who am I? Why does that exist!?” He asked indignantly, the hostility and roughness in his voice becoming more and more apparent as he pointed at the grave.

  “This can’t be true. It can’t!” The boy pressed again in the face of the older man’s calm disposition. Even as soft as his voice was, the threat was clear from his demeanor, only to be doubled as he unveiled a dagger from under his coat’s sleeve and brandished it. “Then everything you told me that night, you lied to me! You made me do… this… why?”

  “Come now,” The father finally spoke, his voice as sultry as cold water. He didn’t seem the slightest bit bothered by the knife his ‘son’ held, standing with his arms crossed and a slim smile. “You’re thinking too hard about this. I brought you here for acceptance. Nothing you can do will change it anymore, so just let it go…”

  “How can I!?” The boy yelled back, catching a glint of light on the knife’s edge as he raised it and charged at his ‘father’. The timid frame gave way to nimble, surprisingly agile movements as he pounced atop the older man and swung at him with murderous intent.

  Clarisse staggered backwards from instinct when the boy dashed past her. She felt herself trip on the edge of the cluster of graves as she stepped back, holding both her hands up to protect herself as she fell. She could hear their scuffle from the ground, the boy’s wild cries and man’s sweet laughter filled the air. She sat up to see the child being thrown to the ground, at which point the space around her became darker. He charged once more, only to be effortlessly picked up by his neck and choked to submission mid-air. Clarisse cupped her hands over her mouth, watching in horror as everything faded to black in sync with the boy’s consciousness.

  The redhead opened her eyes with a start, relieved to realize that it was all a dream and that she was still in her room. Glancing down from her bed, she saw the familiar frame of Nikolas’s ears poke up. Everything was fine as far as she was concerned. Everything had remained just as she had expected. Still, there was a doubt lingering in the back of her mind. Had it really been a dream, or fathoms from the past?

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