Chương 63: Handholding and Terror

POV: Evelisse Ardentia Mel gave me a thorough check in her room. Fortunately, there was nothing serious; only mild burns and some bruises, the kind an ordinary healing spell could mend. Once my light armor was off, she held out her palms, a soft green glow blooming across them, as she passed her hands over each wound, the bruises and burns faded under the light.

"Thank goodness, they're nothing fatal," she said, as the glow faded.

"Yeah, Milo got there in time to bring the thing down. If he hadn't, it might have gone a lot worse. Nyx saved me too." Mel's brow creased at that. Sis, sitting on the far edge of the bed, leaned in with a smirk already forming.

"So, did Milo look cool out there? Charging in to save his princess?" Heat rushed straight to my face.

"W-why are you asking that?" I could see Mel's eyes went wide in front of me.

"Just curious." Sis' smirk deepened.

"You got saved by him the first time you met, from what you told us, and now it happened again. Did you fall for him all over again?"" What—" Mel found her voice first, alarmed.

"Eve, you need to think this through! You said you still don't understand what it is, and—""Mel, calm down." My hands lifted, placating.

"I'm not naming anything yet." Sis, meanwhile, showed no sign of letting the subject go until she got an answer.

"Well?" she said, smirk still fixed in place.

"He…He looked…cool. When he beat the monster, I mean." The words came out smaller than I intended, trailing off toward the end.

"Oh? Cool enough that you were holding his hand? And didn't let go until we came running?" The heat on my face went from warm to scalding in an instant.

"T-that was unintentional!"

"Hmm, I don't think it counts as unintentional when your fingers were curled around his palm." I glanced at Mel, hoping she'd leap in and shut all of this down, but she was frozen, eyes huge, mouth slightly open, evidently not going to be much use for the foreseeable future. Then sis leaned in close and dropped her voice to a whisper against my ear.

"I asked him what he thinks of you, like I promised. You are going to love the answer." Just when the heat seemed like it couldn't climb any higher, it did, and a tingling ran clear through me from head to foot. Sitting still in that room for one more second was no longer possible.

"I'll—I'll be outside! To discuss a few things!"

"Oh?" Sis called after me, delighted.

"With him?" There was no dignifying that with a response. I got up and walked out, closing the door louder than intended. With my back against the closed door, I took a deep breath in, held, and released. Slowly, the heat drained out of my face and I felt like myself again. Ever since we'd arrived here, sis had been far more proactive about this whole... matter of feelings than I was used to. And for some reason, her words surfaced again, unbidden. Cool enough that you were holding his hand?

My fingers curled on their own. I turned my hand over and studied my open palm, and the warmth of his came back to me; the memory of his fingers closing around mine gently, and the heat crept up my neck all over again. When he'd offered his hand, I had simply taken it. It was only when his fingers folded over mine that it occurred to me he might not have meant it like that, the wrist would have done just as well, the way Nyx did it, and then the thought had come: if I pulled away too fast, he might— Might what?

Be hurt? Offended? Surely either could be smoothed over with a word, a quick clarification that it had been a simple misunderstanding on both our parts. And yet, even after the teleportation, some part of me had been waiting for him to let go first. He did not. It was only when sis and Mel came rushing over, and the pressure of being seen became too much, that I'd finally slipped free. A sigh escaped me, and I glanced around the room. Empty. Some part of me had expected Milo to be here already, but no.

Faint voices carried through the wall from the room beside mine. Milo, most likely, in with Nyx, talking through something. Though, from the tones of it, the conversation wasn't a friendly one. What were those two to each other? They didn't behave anything like a Dark Lord and his assistant should. The previous Dark Lord's assistant had been calm, obedient, doing whatever she was told without complaint. I had never seen their private moments, of course, but surely they hadn't been as... strange as Milo and Nyx.

Should I just ask him? Though I doubted he'd give me anything beyond 'she's my assistant.' And besides, this wasn't my business. Why did the question of who they were to each other even pop up in my head? If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. Setting the thought aside, I crossed to the dining table and sat. There was still the terrorizing to discuss with him, and that was what I ought to be focused on.

Ideally we should settle the question of our status first, whether the Church had formally marked us as fugitives yet. That would decide which paths were open to us. After that came the harder question, which would be how to carry out the terrorizing. Milo had extorted food from Milly without killing a soul. Nyx and Luke had leveled Lunareth without a single casualty. Eremiah, the same. And yet, destruction carries consequences whether anyone dies or not.

Homes, livelihoods, the work of entire lifetimes, all of it undone. Nyx had challenged me to find a way to raise the Terror Level without walking the path of destruction, and, honestly? I still could not think of a proper, viable long-term answer. But a short-term one had begun to take shape. Milo had told me Ywain's new party members were captured and kept here, likely in Nyx's room. I had no idea where Ywain himself was now.

Either back in Astrea, or somewhere else, given the way that bald man had teleported so many people away. If Ywain wasn't in Astrea, then the entire Hero's Party had simply vanished for days. If he was, then he'd returned alone, and almost certainly reported his companions taken. Either way, the Church wouldn't make such a loss public so soon. Not unless it was already beyond salvaging. The families of the missing would be quietly instructed to keep it to themselves, to avoid stirring panic.

That was almost certainly what had happened. Which was the opening. If someone were to spread that loss, to carry word of it out into the world, with proof, with something that made ordinary people truly fear the Dark Lord's strength, then Milo's Terror Level could climb without a single building being toppled. We can use the exact thing the Church was working to contain as a weapon. The how of it would take working out together, but it was, at least, a place to start. Then the door opened, and there he was.

He looked faintly deflated, his shoulders a touch lower than usual, a small crease of frustration still sitting between his brows. Something had gone wrong in there. What had Nyx told him? The questions began creeping in, and I gave my head a small shake, hoping it would somehow erase them from my mind.

"Are you all right?" Milo asked, crossing toward me.

"Y-yeah. I'm fine. Mel healed me. It was only some burns and bruises. Nothing serious."

"Okay. Good." A silence settled, and it was an awkward one.

"So... um, I wanted to talk to you," I said.

"Oh, r-right." He rubbed the back of his neck.

"The terrorizing thing?" I nodded, and he drew out the chair beside mine and sat.

"Okay, so…" He looked at me.

"Where do we start?" I gave Milo the overview, that the plan depended on getting word out that the Hero had failed, and that members of the Hero's Party were being held hostage. Throughout, he listened closely, his eyes fixed on mine and never once drifting. Which, oddly, made it difficult for me to hold his gaze in return; I kept finding my own eyes darting off to other corners of the room, then back, then away again.

"That's amazing!" He sat forward.

"Now I'm wondering why I never thought of it. Spreading fear through words alone might not hold up forever, but with enough proof behind it? I think it could work." A small, warm satisfaction settled in my chest at that.

"Though, like you said, we'll have to work out how to get the message across." He tapped the table, thinking.

"If Astrea's one of the biggest kingdoms, and it's where the Hero comes from, then maybe starting there makes the most sense?" He wasn't wrong. Chaos in Astrea would spread panic faster than anywhere else. It was an enormous kingdom on its own, but it was also home to the Central Church, and if fear took root there, other towns would catch word of it quickly, and the dread would ripple outward from the center. If even the strongest kingdom wasn't safe, then nowhere was.

Going in to cause direct chaos would be difficult; Astrea was among the most heavily guarded places in the world. But simply carrying information in? That was doable. I laid this out for him, and from there we began turning ideas over between us. Milo's first suggestion was to go in and announce it himself, hauling the two hostages along in their unconscious state. It might work, but the risk was too high. We didn't know whether Ywain was there.

Besides, there were trainees and high-tier Hero candidates capable of neutralizing serious threats. It was also where Lord Luminaryn had the strongest presence over.

"So we can't just show up, make a speech, and run," Milo concluded.

"Especially not the Dark Lord, and probably-wanted people. Figures." He frowned.

"But even if we did send someone else to slip in quietly, do we really need to drag the two unconscious ones there? That sounds hard to pull off."

"We don't need to," I said.

"The fact that they haven't returned already tells its own story that something went wrong. All we need is someone believable to say it. Some proof will definitely help, but that can be potentially solved by bringing something of theirs, such as their weapons or anything else that is easier to carry."

"I say we cut their heads off and bring those." That wasn't Milo's voice. I turned, and Nyx was standing between us, arms crossed. Milo nearly came out of his chair." Jesus— Nyx! How long have you been standing there?" Jesus? Who was that?

"Anyway." Nyx pushed off the wall and strolled closer, ignoring him entirely.

"If the two of you are sitting here plotting out terrorizing, wouldn't it help to have someone smarter in the room?" Milo squinted at her.

"Are you saying you're the smart one?"

"I'm smarter than you, pig-brain, obviously." She dropped into a chair.

"But no. I meant the sister." And so what had started as a conversation between just me and Milo became a brainstorming session with everyone. Sis and Mel took the chairs across from ours; Milo sat between me and Nyx. Once everyone was settled, I summarized what we'd covered so far, including the current problem of how to get the information into Astrea in the first place.

"So we simply need someone to carry the news in," Lunessa said.

"Someone people are inclined to believe, who can walk into the kingdom without drawing suspicion."

"Yes, and that person would need to be able to make it spread, once it's there." I turned my palm up.

"Right now only the Central Church knows. The party members' families may know as well, but they'll have been told to keep silent about it. So it isn't enough to whisper it to one person." Sis fell quiet, thinking it over. Then her gaze drifted, past us, toward the backpacks sitting on the rug. The ones holding the loot. A slow smile spread across her face, and she raised a single finger.

"Why don't we make use of Arkhay?"