Chương 9: Kyritus Senaco

Kyritus Senaco was five years younger than he was when Sara originally met him. He didn't have a thin, trimmed beard. He was clean-shaven: free of scars. He was… a child. Nineteen, sure, but way too young. It was only then that she realized she was thirty-six and here to charm someone who was literally half her age. Even if she looked the same age; even if she had pearly white teeth and a tennis player's body, she wasn't his age. What she was looking at was an impossibility—something that she couldn't contend with.

Even if he regained all of his memories, would it be enough? Worse, why would she restore them? His memories involved two bloody years on the run, followed by Tiber dying in an ice-covered hovel in the Miralands. Then there was nothing but warfare, fighting, and trauma—and she was the reason for all of it. Jason didn't put a bounty on a tavern owner. He put a bounty on her. Sara stumbled backward as she stared at him.

"It's… you," Kyritus said, a statement that was categorically correct no matter who it was said to.

"I-I'm who?"

"The person I dreamt about…" he whispered.

"Well… that was unfortunate." She glanced at the ground and saw that the cobblestones were arranged well enough to hide the array for the next few weeks.

"I gotta go." She turned, but he yelled, "Wait! Don't go!" She turned back.

"No," she said preemptively.

"Y-Yes. Who are you?"

"Someone you don't want to get involved with," she said. His eyes glazed over, and Sara panicked. Somehow, she triggered a memory. Fuck! If that wasn't bad enough, Edico released a divination pulse. She activated a counter-divination spell that used Edico's own mana to see through his eyes. He was in the tavern, speaking to the woman. The next moment, he flew out of the tavern, en route to her. If he sees him… Sara thought. It'll trigger… fuck. Fuck, fuck, Fuck, Fuck, FUCK! Edico turned onto the street.

He was a few seconds away.

"Hide! Kina mi atalia morkin!" Chants weren't necessary to use magic, but they activated the parts of the subconscious that could use them. After a chant, she needed only a basic flash cast to become invisible. She grabbed Kyritus and slammed him into a wall, chest to chest. She could feel his breath and heartbeat. He was strong even then—a necessity for running a reaper tavern. She felt his heartbeat pounding in his chest. She was so close to him.

Yet she stood still, an empty mana-cloud blur as Edico stopped before the Break Street alleyway. He looked right at them. For a moment, she thought all would be lost. That Edico would see her and Kyritus, and suddenly, he would remember everything—the day that he found her and Kyritus in the Miralands and begged them to seize the kingdom from King Newborn—the Tyrant. It would solidify Edico's feelings toward her and reveal the location of her greatest weakness. That would be the ultimate problem.

Right now, she doubted her "Secret Admirer" knew where Kyritus was. Sara was famous enough to know all of her actions after she became a queen. Yet no one was following her when she left the Hero's Party, and his existence only came to light through bounties. By then, Kyritus had switched his name to Atlas, and they had crossed borders into another kingdom's territory. His existence was a secret—until now. Her heart raced as Edico stared directly at them.

She felt Kyritus's terrified, suppressed breath against her face. He held it again. Then Edico ran away. The second he did, she released the spell, stumbling away from Kyritus, completely visible. Her body was weak from mana deprivation and an overheated core.

"W-What's going on?" Kye asked.

"Nothing," she replied.

"Now go back to your tavern and keep your mouth shut. One word about me, and I'll kill you." Those words spoken, she ran back to the original tavern, heart confused and pounding in her chest. The woman wearing her cloak was standing outside, smoking a spliff of some variety with a shaking hand. Her cloak was on the ground.

"Here's another swan," Sara said, hand shaking in her pocket as she pulled out another platinum coin.

"Keep it," the woman said.

"Too bad," Sara said, dropping it. It clanked on the cobblestones as Sara lifted her cloak gingerly.

"What did he say?"

"Where'd you go?"

"And you said?"

"Who the fuck knows."

"Good." Sara put on her cloak just in time for Edico's next divination pulse. He came back within five minutes and then stared at her.

"Can't a girl have a drink in peace?" she asked, woozy from mana deprivation. He scoffed in exaggeration, eyeing her core. He looked her in the eye.

"We need to go, don't we?"

"Immediately." Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. Edico asked no more questions. He just looked at the woman and said, "This didn't happen."

"The cloak didn't fit," the woman said.

"Wise words." He motioned his head toward the stables.

"Let's go." Sara walked back to the stables, mounted her monta, and then fell limp as she rode through town. She was terrified when they rode past Break Street's access road. She couldn't tell whether she was more terrified about Edico seeing Kyritus or her seeing him. It luckily didn't matter. Kyritus was wise and went home. Edico never saw him. Time went on. During the first break, Edico unloaded an entire drug collection of elixirs.

"One day's rest," he said.

"You're not expanding a core in your condition." Her eyes drooped.

"You don't need to worry about that." She downed each elixir like shots. Each burned her core like rye whisky burned the throat. Then, she collapsed, falling into a deep sleep. 2 —Kyritus Senaco—"The Harvest" stood erect three streets down from Break Road. It was a tavern that neither reached the standard to be an inn nor was small enough to be a hole in the wall. It fit thirty reapers at any given time, and that was enough. Reapers and mercenaries were the only people who showed up.

A wild businessman or two would bring dates to the place to show that they weren't afraid of the crowd, but the dates always remained nervous when they saw massive beast heads adorning the walls, each with teeth sharp enough to chew through the massive tables that stood in the main hall. Large tables made from wood slabs were the most expensive, but they were the only tables that didn't break during the fights. That's what his father told him when he started the tavern. His father was dead. The tables outlived him.

Kyritus walked into the tavern with eighty doves in his pocket. The people he owed that money to were waiting for him at the bar. He pulled out the pouch, but the men put up their hands.

"Look, I don't know what you saw, but… I don't know anything," Kyritus said.

"Neither did we," Mainas said dryly.

"No, I mean. I really didn't see anything."

"And I didn't either. Just here to tell you that. That, and to tip this place thirty hawks. For the hospitality." Torin, the other man, motioned to the four crows on the table. The cost of a single mug of twalla. The actual tip was already spent, borrowed money from shady people. He had no choice but to borrow from them. Tiber needed medication. Now, the people he owed were buying off his debt for seemingly no reason at all.

"Okay," Kyritus said.

"Just don't tell other lenders I'm a flake."

"Won't say a word," Mainas said venomously and walked out of the bar. Heian, Kyritus's best friend and substitute daytime bartender, stood close behind the bar when Kyritus reached it. He whispered, "What happened?"

"Nothing," Kyritus said.

"Somethin' no one was supposed to see."

"Understood." Heian said that and let it go. The Harvest brought in all types of reapers and thrill seekers, but it never brought in 'witnesses.' If you drank at The Harvest, you saw nothing. Whatever that woman did to his lenders before Kyritus met her was enough to shake them to the bone. He knew it was best to drop the subject, but he couldn't get her out of his mind. (Someone you don't want to get involved with.) Those words transported him back to his bar.

There was a woman wearing a cloak lying on the floor of his bathroom, soaking in two twallas' worth of vomit. He helped her to the bar and appraised her. She had golden hair and blue eyes that would be striking if her cheek wasn't marred by a massive scar that hooked around her cheekbone. She only had golden hawks and was spilling them on the floor as she said, "Sorry," over and over again. She had plenty of money, so his curiosity overtook his common sense and he asked her a sensitive question. That scar a prize?

he asked. Anyone with that much money could get a scar removed with a good healer. So if she had a scar like that, she had it on purpose. A reminder, she said. Well, it's a good one. Best there is. Wanna tell me about it? Do I look like I want to talk about it?

'Course not. But the people who talk least are the people who wanna talk most. She laughed. Trust me. I'm someone you don't want to get involved with. Kyritus returned to the present—changed. It was strange, but just that memory of her was enough to jar something within him. He could feel a difference in how he breathed. The memory ate at him, making him dull and distant as he struggled to run the bar that night. Heian approached him.

"Get some sleep. I'll take over for the night."

"No…" Kyritus replied.

"I gotta go back to Break Street."

"What part of not seeing anything did you not get?"

"It's not that… it's that… she wasn't finished looking for whatever she was after. If I don't find it, Mainas will. They've got basic common sense, but if it's worth more than thirty hawks, it'll go right down the drain."

"Okay, but… what about Tiber?"

"Don't worry. If I run into 'trouble' there, I'll be in the safest place in Helscope." Kyritus spoke of the woman. She wasn't gonna kill him. He somehow knew that for a fact. Kyritus returned to the Break Street alley in the moonlight. Mainas was wise enough not to return that night, so the alley was silent when he bumped into the woman. These cobbles are mended, he thought, wondering how he could tell the difference.

Using the bottom of a dagger, he cracked through the messy cobblestones, and sure enough there was something underneath. Something that made his skin crawl. An array. A seven-layer array. An array that no one in Helscope had any business having. If he took it to a local arraymasters' guild, their people would kill him for it. He knew this—because he recognized it. A teleportation array…

Kyritus found himself in another memory, one of him standing on one and teleporting before burning the parchment and running to another one. Running with a woman. A woman with a golden ponytail, ducking side streets before finding another array. She was older than before. Pulling out zinconia crystals and dropping them like hawks the night he picked her up off the bathroom floor. Something was chasing them. Something or someone. He flashed back into the moment. I need to hide this 'til she returns…

he thought, but where was he gonna hide it? He winced as he searched for other access roads, but there was nowhere he could keep something so intricate safe. Nowhere but his bedroom. With a grimace, he ran to his bedroom and unrolled it onto the floor, then covered it with a rug. He looked at his sister, who was wheezing as she slept on their bed. If this thing goes off… He winced. A mana blast of that size would thrash his sister's broken core—but where else could he put it? Nowhere safe. She won't activate it.

Not around Tiber. Kyritus didn't think about the fact that running into Sara wasn't part of her plan. He just moved the array to the spare bedroom he usually rented out. Meeting that woman again was worth more than any amount of money, and luckily, he could afford it. After all, she had just saved him thirty hawks.