Chương 122: Lady Azh'vail

Azh'vail? Cal turned the word over in his mind, urgently examining every facet of it. [Perfect Memory] offered nothing. No hint of a noble house or Dominion bureaucrat, nor whispered rumor from collective years of overheard gossip. The stranger himself hadn't moved. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back, the picture of composure, already past any reaction to the devastation around him.

"For your sake, Selara, I had hoped it would not come to this." The lady herself had just died, resurrected, and killed a D-tier assassin in the span of minutes, yet the fire of her rebirth seemed to have burned away all exhaustion, leaving her utterly restored. And something deeper had come to the fore. She drew herself upright and lifted her chin. Her shoulders squared, and her feet shifted into a stance that was more… regal.

Sidestepping, she placed herself more squarely between Cal and the stranger, and when she spoke, it was with an authority Cal had never heard from her. Gone was the teasing sister who ribbed her brother over his surly behavior. Gone were the pragmatic forager and businesswoman who guided Cal with a patient hand. What emerged was a woman who expected to be obeyed, and every syllable showcased an exercise of status.

"The young man behind me is my apprentice and under my protection. You will. Not. Harm him, Macarious." Macarious really looked at Cal for the first time. The assessment lasted for but a second, a dismissive glance that cataloged him from boots to ears, apparently deeming him irrelevant.

"Your father will suffer no witnesses to this matter, my Lady. You know that—""The consequences are mine to bear," she interrupted him, slashing through the air with her free hand.

"My apprentice has proven both loyalty and ability. Whatever my father's protocols demand I will answer for him personally." Macarious studied her face intently for a span of breaths.

"Very well. The boy's fate be on your head. But we shall depart immediately. Your father's patience has limits, and you have tested every one of them."

"My father has been waiting years, Macarious." Selara held firm as she sheathed her sword.

"One more day will not kill him."

"That is not my judgment to make." Something shifted in Selara then. The commanding mask slipped, a hairline crack that spread through her expression until what lay beneath was exposed. The noblewoman receded, and the person underneath looked very, very tired.

"You know what is in store for me, Macarious," she whispered.

"Please. Let me have this. Give my brother and I a day to set our affairs in order, and say goodbye to our home." Macarious' stern features held for another few seconds but eventually loosened in a nearly imperceptible softening of the muscles around his eyes.

"You always did this, Selara. Always had to make things more difficult than they needed to be." He sighed.

"You have twenty-eight hours. Do not make me regret this." Selara closed her eyes tightly, nodding in gratitude. Macarious turned his attention to the clearing with renewed interest. He surveyed the destruction, tracking from the scorched treeline to the craters, across the still forms of Kamari's party and finally settling on the headless corpse of Cillian Drekcil.

"You were ambushed following the drake engagement," he stated.

"Your bloodline manifested upon death, and then you killed the assassin."

"Yes."

"Was he working alone?" Selara hesitated for a fraction of a second.

"That man did nothing without the blessing of the C-tier alchemist in our village. Zarven Mault." Macarious looked towards the northeast and gave a short nod.

"I shall return shortly." He vanished. Cal detected nothing. There wasn't a surge of Mana or hint of Stamina usage. The air was calm and ground unmoved. One moment the stranger occupied a space; the next, he simply didn't. The transition was so clean that Cal's senses briefly insisted the man had never been there at all, and that the entire exchange had been a hallucination born of blood loss and trauma. Was his energy so perfectly self-contained that nothing leaked?

Or are his attributes just that far beyond my comprehension? The devastated clearing didn't have an answer for him. Selara maintained her composure for almost two seconds before she broke. Making a small sound, her shoulders curled inward. She pressed a fist against her mouth and the sob that escaped around it was raw and ugly and completely vulnerable. She crossed to Cal in three quick strides and pulled him into a fierce hug.

With desperate strength, she locked her arms around his shoulders and he felt her shaking against him, the tremors running through her whole body as she wept into the space above his collarbone. Before he could get over his shock and start to comfort her, she pushed him back. Her face was wet but her eyes were already clearing.

"I need a moment to collect myself." She shuddered.

"Please, Cal. Strip Cillian's effects. Take everything of value from that monster, especially his rings." She released him and turned away, walking toward an undamaged portion of the clearing. Cal stood alone among the dead. The clearing still smelled of burning wood and meat, charged with the magical aftertaste of high-energy combat. He forced himself not to look at the bodies of fallen friends for too long. He'd grieve later. Right now, Selara had given him a task, and tasks were anchors.

He trudged toward Cillian's corpse. Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. This would be considered a desecration back home, the part of him that was still Caleb Foster observed. You're about to loot a dead man's body. But he was Cal Valorn, the Sovereign Aspirant who'd killed E-tiers on his own; he got to work. The man's daggers came first. He retrieved both hands from the torn earth, prying the weapons free from fingers already stiffened into their final grip.

The blades were beautiful, their edges still keen despite the fight and he couldn't fathom their value before stowing them in his pack. A hefty coin purse lined an inner pocket and Cal cut it free, noting the weight surpassed any amount of currency he'd ever carried. He couldn't find any throwing knives, however. A chain around the neck led to a strange amulet tucked beneath the ruined shirt. Cal pulled it free and wiped the char away with his thumb.

A small, etched design caught the light: a silver potion vial with a snake curving around it, its mouth open to drink from the vial's rim. He'd never seen the sigil before. The rings were last. He worked them off the cooling fingers one by one. Two were decorative gold bands with small gems. A third was a signet ring bearing the same snake-and-vial design as the amulet. He paused at the fourth. A plain iron band, unadorned and unremarkable to the eye.

But when Cal turned it in his fingers, the light caught thousands of microscopic symbols etched into the metal's surface, packed so densely they resembled the grain of the metal itself. The construction reminded him of Selara's void ring. Is… is that a void ring? And on some backwoods assassin? They don't seem to be that common, as I've only ever observed them on the Veils and their old dungeon team. Shrugging at his good fortune, he pocketed the items and stood.

When he turned, he saw a transformed Selara standing at the edge of the clearing. Her back was ramrod straight. A finely tailored tunic of midnight blue replaced the travel clothing, and matching trousers fell to polished boots that had no business being in a forest clearing. Her vibrant orange-red hair, still glinting with threads of luminous copper, was pulled back in a functional bob that fell just below her neck. A pair of elegant silver earrings caught the light against her ears.

The char was gone from her face, and the tears gone from her cheeks. Lady Azh'vail had emerged in full. Cal opened his mouth, found nothing useful to say, and closed it. Just then the air parted again, and Macarious stepped through as calmly as the first time, his expression no different from when he'd departed. In his left hand, held by the hair at arm's length, dangled a severed head. The face had frozen in a rictus of surprise, the mouth slightly parted and dark eyes wide and glassy.

Silver-streaked black hair hung lank from the scalp. Cal didn't recognize who it had belonged to. Macarious held the head out to Selara like a clerk presenting a receipt.

"Is this the one?" Selara stared imperiously down at the head before confirming, "Yes. That is the head of Zarven." Cal's legs went numb. He stood very still and processed the fact that a C-tier powerhouse, the man who'd controlled Deadfall's alchemical trade and much more through an apparatus of enforcers and economic warfare - the man who'd sent Cillian Drekcil to murder them - had been located and decapitated in the time it took Cal to strip a corpse of a few valuables.

"Tell me," Selara demanded.

"Were there any D-tiers with him? A weasely man?" Loric. Macarious shook his head in the negative.

"I dealt with the alchemist and left the others. It is time to go." He extended his free hand. Another portal spun into existence, and through its aperture Cal recognized the cluttered interior of the Golden Mortar's laboratory. Selara stepped through without hesitation. Macarious followed, the severed head swinging slightly at his side. Cal took one last look at the devastated clearing before making his way through the portal.

Aurelian stood at his usual workbench, bent over his bubbling cauldron, a glass stirring rod turning slow circles in a viscous brown liquid. He looked up and his mouth was already forming the shape of a harsh reprimand for the interruption. His expression stilled instantly, his eyes glued on Macarious. Recognition was evident as the color quickly drained from his face.

"Master Macarious, what—" Then he glanced at the severed head and he frowned slightly, only for the edges of his lips to briefly turn up before relaxing once more. His hand stopped turning the rod. He drew breath to speak again but stopped himself, clearly in deep thought as he processed everything. Then he looked at his sister. He stared past her clothes and new hair, looking at the pattern of scar tissue on her forehead.

"Oh. Oh no," he whispered. The rod slipped from his fingers. In five strides, he rounded the bench and pulled Selara into an embrace, his arms wrapping around her shoulders as he pressed his cheek into her newly colored hair. They held each other without words for a long moment. When Aurelian released her, his face was a ruin. The arrogant genius and insufferable alchemist who treated the entire world as a remedial class unworthy of his time; all of it was stripped away in front of his grief.

Stumbling back to his station, he glared at a glass apparatus nearby, a branching array of retorts and cooling coils. Then a guttural sound tore from his throat, and he swept his arm across the surface. Glass detonated. The implements of his craft smashed to the floor in a mess of shattering glass and scattered liquid. Aurelian stood amid the wreckage, his shoulders slumped, chest heaving. Broken glass crunched under his shoes as he turned back to Cal, who stood in shock near the still-open portal.

Something passed behind Aurelian's bloodshot eyes.

"What about him, Selara?" The hollowness in his voice made it almost unrecognizable.

"Do we bring him with us?" Selara looked at Cal. The silence that filled the lab was heavier than anything Macarious' presence had produced, and it pressed against him, questions stacking up faster than he could process them. She met his eyes, and in her own he saw the calculation happening: the weighing of his safety against her desire, the cost-benefit analysis of dragging a young man into whatever world "Lady Azh'vail" inhabited. Her eyes began to water, and she squeezed them shut.

Held them closed for a few heartbeats. When she opened them, Cal could see the decision had been made.

"No. That would be too dangerous for him." She looked over at her brother.

"And besides... he has his own path to follow." Aurelian looked at his sister for a moment, then away.

"Yes, well. It is probably for the best." He drew a ragged breath.

"Nothing for it then. I shall get the rings and start packing." He moved toward the storeroom door, shards grinding underfoot with every step. Selara watched him go, softening for an unguarded instant before the noble mask reset on her features. She turned to Macarious.

"Dispose of that." Macarious glanced at the severed head he still held at arm's length. Then it dissolved. Without burning or crumbling, the head transformed from solid flesh into fine ash and then into nothing at all; the process completing in under two seconds. The blood that had pooled on the laboratory floor followed soon after, the dark stains lifting from the stone as thin wisps of grey vapor that dispersed before they rose six inches. Cal's [Spiritual Perception], again, caught nothing. How?

What is going on? Macarious shook his now-empty hand, as if shaking off water. Selara drew a long breath through her nose and gathered herself. Her posture was impeccable and features composed; she was the picture of a woman about to project her authority into the room. Which made it all the more surprising when it came out more like a request.

"Macarious, I would ask a favor." He looked from her to Cal. A frown formed on his angular face, the first actual expression Cal had seen from the man.

"A personal favor," she pressed.

"One that could one day be worth much." Macarious considered her for a long moment. The laboratory bubbled and steamed around them, its surviving apparatus indifferent to the politics of noble houses. Through the open storeroom door, Cal could hear Aurelian rummaging, the scrape of heavy objects being dragged across stone. Finally, the mysterious stranger answered.

"I'm listening."