Chương 36: Price on Her Head

The village of Dorkin thinned into silence as Stelle walked deeper toward its outskirts, the last scattered lanterns giving way to the raw, unlit dark beyond the last row of houses. The wind had settled into a low, steady hiss through the pines, carrying the mineral tang of the mountains somewhere ahead. She kept her pace slow, unhurried, the posture of a girl with nowhere urgent to be.

Behind her, at a careful distance that never quite closed and away, the same footsteps she'd been cataloging since the blacksmith's shop were still following. Still there, she noted without turning. Eight hours of patience is either professional discipline or genuine obsession.

I wonder what is running through his mind She let the walk stretch longer than strictly necessary, threading through the last quiet lanes of the village and out past the final crooked fence line, giving him every reasonable opportunity to either close the distance or lose his nerve. He did neither. Whoever he was, he had the kind of patience that came from doing this exact thing more than once before, and Stelle filed that detail away alongside everything else. She didn't have to wait much longer.

When the attack finally came, it was almost disappointingly simple. A gloved hand locked over her mouth from behind as an arm swept around her waist, yanking her back into a broad chest.

"Don't move," a low voice hissed, "and don't make a sound." Stelle let herself go still. This was the man who had traveled from the south, she calculated, running the variables even as he lifted her like a sack over his shoulder toward the treeline. The same direction the search would have spread from. The odds he actually knows who I am are low. Not impossible. Low enough to be worth confirming before I decide whether he lives to regret this. She didn't fight the grip.

A struggle now would only tell him more about her than she was willing to give for free, and there was considerably more value in seeing exactly how far this went before she decided to end it. Her hand rested loosely at her side the entire time, close enough to the small, invisible weight at her hip that she could have ended the walk in a single motion. She chose not to. Information, tonight, was worth more than a quick and quiet resolution.

The man carried her through a stretch of dense treeline before the trees thinned into a small, hidden clearing. A low campfire burned at its center, its light throwing long shadows across three other figures already gathered around it, weapons close at hand.

"Got her," the man said, shoving Stelle forward into the firelight and finally letting his hood fall back. Sharp, calculating eyes she'd already noted once at the blacksmith's shop swept over her again, more openly this time.

"Little thing barely put up a fight." One of the others—a wiry, lean-faced man with a long knife already loose in his belt—rose from his seat by the fire and circled Stelle slowly, studying her the way a merchant studied unfamiliar cargo.

"You're sure about this, Yorrin? She's just a kid." He reached out and yanked the hood of Stelle's cloak back roughly, exposing her face fully to the firelight. Someone near the fire let out a low, appreciative whistle.

"Here's the part that matters. Like I said." Yorrin's eyes narrowed with something between suspicion and greed.

"I heard talk at the last waystation, before we crossed into Dorkin. Union riders posting notices at the Grand Wall checkpoint. A missing girl around twelve years old. Silver hair, blue eyes, last seen somewhere near Oakhaven. This might be the person they're looking for." He tilted his head, studying her in the firelight with open calculation.

"Wasn't even a quiet notice, either. Coin behind it, and enough riders spreading word that half the checkpoints between here and the coast probably know the description by now. I don't know who you actually are, girl. But if the Union's spending that kind of coin looking for you, publicly, you're worth considerably more than anything else we've hauled out of these hills all season." So it was the Union. Stelle turned the detail over without letting it show on her face. Is it the Rakan or the Halden?

Since Vira knows I left without explaining anything to anyone, perhaps she hasn't explained it to the others or is just keeping it to herself for now. Voss also likely hid the fact that I'm missing my left arm, given its absence from this man's description. She's probably only shared that detail with her private search party—assuming she's still looking for me.

"So we ransom her," the wiry man said.

"Sell information to whoever's paying, or sell the girl herself if the price is better."

"Could've just asked her to come along," a third voice muttered from near the fire—a heavyset man sharpening a hatchet without much enthusiasm.

"Didn't need to drag her through half a forest for that."

"And risk her running the second we mention coin?" Yorrin said, dismissive.

"Girl's clearly got somewhere she's trying to get to. People running from something don't come quiet for a friendly conversation." He crouched down in front of Stelle.

"But you're going to come quiet for us instead, aren't you, little girl? Whoever's looking for you... the Union, family, whoever's putting up the coin—they'll want you delivered breathing. That's the only reason you're here and breathing." Stelle kept her expression carefully blank, cataloging each of them in turn—four in total. Two Tier 2 and two Tier 1. The same group that had tried to harass her yesterday, though their leader was nowhere to be seen.

Adventurers, or close enough to have called themselves that, she thought. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. People with a genuine grievance would simply ask. People like this decided somewhere along the way that asking wasn't worth the trouble when taking was so much easier.

The wiry man crouched down too, tilting Stelle's chin up with one finger, studying her with the particular cruelty of someone who'd already decided a captive's fear was part of the entertainment.

"You lucky... That bastard Doran saved your ass. So what should I do with you, kid?" The man let out a dark laugh.

"Aren't you awfully calm, though, for someone who just got dragged off the road in the dark?"

"Probably still in shock," the hatchet man said, using the flat of his blade to scrape dirt from beneath his fingernails.

"Kids usually cry more than this."

"Maybe she doesn't understand what's happening yet," Yorrin sneered, tapping the butt of his dagger against his thigh with ugly amusement.

"Doesn't matter. She'll understand soon enough." Stelle had gathered everything she needed.

"Can you stop grabbing me? Or I'll finally cut that wrist off." The two men traded a look before the wiry man threw his head back, barking out a harsh laugh.

"Oh? I thought you were frozen in fear," the man holding her mockingly gasped.

"Who would have thought you were braver than we imagined?"

"Oy, kid," Yorrin growled directly into her ear, his hot breath foul against her cheek.

"You'd better keep your mouth shut before I do something you won't like." Stelle simply closed her eyes and took a slow, steady breath, letting her shoulders relax as if everything were completely normal. There's no way out of this other than to silence them. These people aren't the kind I can talk my way past... and this is a good opportunity to test it. She moved. In a single blur, her right arm snapped back.

Her black blade flashed from her side, cleanly severing the man's wrist before his laughter could even fade. Before any of them could react, Stelle's entire frame was engulfed in a swirling purple-black shadow fire. The terrifying flash of spectral flame washed over the clearing, blinding them momentarily before her silhouette simply dissolved into thin air. Panic erupted instantly, raw and primal.

"Where did she—" A burst of concentrated dark purple fire shot out from empty air, engulfing the wiry man in intense heat. He shrieked in agony. Stelle didn't waste a second watching him burn. The flame from the concealed lantern burst forth again, encircling the battleground in a blazing wall of fire. She materialized like a phantom birthed from the inferno. Her face was entirely void of emotion, her glowing blue eyes making her look less like a girl and more like a creature formed from shadow and purple flame.

Closing the distance seamlessly, she stepped inside his guard's reach. Her hand whipped forward with terrifying, inhuman velocity, striking him clean across the neck. He didn't even have time to gasp; he dropped like a sack of stones while burning, before his weapon even hit the dirt. Then, as quickly as she had appeared, she vanished back into the flames. The remaining men raised their weapons, scanning the burning camp frantically, trying to figure out where the girl had gone.

"Behind you—!" someone screamed, but the warning was already obsolete. A second pulse of Shadow Lantern-fire hissed through the dark, taking the other Tier 1 in the head. The attack had exploded directly in his face, causing him to stumble backward with a blood-curdling scream just in time for the second to end it.

"Stay focused!" the hatchet man roared, his voice booming over the whistling wind of Yorrin's gale barrier. Instead of letting panic overtake him, he slammed his boot violently into the frozen dirt. A sudden, localized shockwave rippled outward through the earth, shattering the top layer of frozen mud and driving a wall of dust and stone into the air. The physical blast forcefully blew away the lingering, smoky shadow-fire clinging to the ground around them, clearing a wide circle of neutral space.

"Calm down, damn it!" he barked at Yorrin, raising his heavy hatchet with both hands as dense, gray stone began to sheath his skin and armor.

"She's just one girl! Keep your eyes open!" At the edge of the newly cleared circle, several yards away in the treeline, Stelle materialized out of the gloom. She didn't charge. Instead, she raised her shadow lantern, leveling it directly at the duo. Channelling her mana into the lantern, she unleashed a barrage of rapid-fire strikes. Dark purple fire lanced through the air, screaming toward them and scorching the snow into instant steam along its path.

The hatchet man stepped forward to take the brunt, bracing himself as the projectiles detonated against his body. White-hot sparks and blinding purple flames washed over his guard, the extreme heat cracking his earthen armor instantly and blackening the stone to ash. Before the blinding glare of the explosion even faded, the dark violet fire flared around Stelle once more, completely swallowing her frame in a roaring column of flame. She dissolved seamlessly back into the pitch-black shadows.

A fraction of a second later, she reappeared inside his guard. The hatchet man blinked through the smoke only to find the warm metal of the shadow lantern hovering a hair's breadth from his nose. Stelle's expression remained utterly blank." Ember." The spell didn't just burn; it detonated. Violet fire tore through the air in a concentrated shockwave, rendering his shattered earth armor useless. The blinding heat cooked him instantly from within, leaving little more than a charred husk to collapse into the mud.

The sheer heat of the explosion radiated outward, melting the snow for yards around and turning the tree bark to smoldering charcoal. And standing in the center of it all, amidst the lingering wisps of warm purple smoke, was the girl. Her coat was unruffled. Her breathing remained slow, shallow, and impossibly steady. She didn't look victorious; she looked like an entity that had merely adjusted an inconvenience. [SYSTEM] [Current reserves: 53%] The Shadow Lantern is surprisingly working well.

Though it had its own core, forcing out that much power required an extra draw of my own energy. This thing is powerful for a prototype. Stelle then turned her gaze toward Yorrin, who remained frozen in shock, kneeling in the dirt. She walked toward him, stopping close enough that he flinched backward.

"You," she said, "are going to answer some questions."

"What are you—" Yorrin's voice cracked. His eyes darting toward his fallen companions and finding no salvation waiting there.

"What are you?"

"Something you should leave alone." She studied him with cold, clinical patience, letting the silence stretch a moment longer than comfort allowed before she continued.

"The Union notice. I want the whole details of it." He answered frantically, stumbling over half-formed sentences—a waystation three days south, a rotating garrison of Union riders, a bounty notice that named no reward figure, only urgency, and a description detailed enough that he'd recognized her the moment she'd bumped into him at the forge. He named the checkpoint.

He named two other groups he'd overheard discussing the same notice—one heading east toward the coast roads, another still working the passes further south. She extracted every detail she needed with the same efficient precision she applied to everything.

"That's all," he said finally, his voice thinning into a desperation closer to pleading.

"I swear, that's everything I know. Please... don't kill me." She believed him, though it didn't particularly matter either way. She raised her lantern once more. But I don't trust him. Silencing him is the only logical choice. She was about to end it when a new voice broke the quiet.

"You handled them well, but I think that's enough killing." A pause followed—thoughtful, unhurried, making the stillness of the clearing feel suddenly much smaller than it had a moment ago.

"I'll handle the rest, so you should put that thing away for now." Stelle went completely still, her senses snapping toward the source of the voice. Yet nothing in the surrounding dark gave any hint of a body, and her [Echo-Mapping] returned complete emptiness. Even her [Quantum Optics] failed to pierce the woman's concealed energy. This presence again... How is she bypassing my utilities? She kept her expression flat.

A figure stepped into the firelight a moment later, unhurried and entirely unbothered by the bloody chaos around them. Dark violet hair fell loose past her shoulders, framing mature, composed features that carried an air of absolute calm. She wore the same robe adorned with that unique emblem. It was the woman from the corner table at the inn this morning.