Chloe blew right out the door, the small building seeming to grow larger in her absence. Would that have been her aura pressing on him? Ezra hadn’t noticed because Georg’d gotten him nervous before going into the room, but evidently the Pseudo-Knight’s mere existence had been so much of a pressure on him that he’d nearly suffocated just by being near her. He went to follow her, but a voice called him back.
“Ezra, a moment, if you would.”
He’d heard this voice maybe once a day since he’d arrived here, when the Captain gave his address to the assembled army before breakfast. Captain Riyal was an older man, maybe 40, Ezra guessed, given the amount of gray in his beard and hair. He took care of himself, his face tanned and wrinkled in a way that didn’t show that he smiled often, but that he did scowl a whole lot.
“Yes, sir,” Ezra said as he stepped back towards the leader of this army he was a part of, falling into parade rest in front of the desk Riyal sat at.
“I admire the loyalty,” Riyal said, “you showed in turning down her offer, but I must confess, it doesn’t make sense that you did. We haven’t done enough for you to warrant this loyalty, if you asked me. So why stick around? I’ll be the first to say that the Count doesn’t have a Pseudo-Knight to teach you. Of the three of us Adepts that he has under his command, I’m one, another is his personal guard, and the third is a scout and currently operating under the Duke of Brayton’s command. None would be able to give you single-minded instruction, and even if we could, it wouldn’t compare to Chloe.
“So, again,” Riyal’s voice cut through the air, ”why stay?”
Ezra had to fight not to scratch at the back of his head in response to that, because while he knew his answer, he knew the honest one wouldn’t win him any allies.
“I do right to those who help me, sir. I feel like leaving would be a betrayal to you and to Lieutenant Georg, specifically. He’s helped me out, signed me on as an elite, and gives me training every day,” he reported, telling the truth but far from his real reason.
“Son, that’s bullshit,” Riyal replied. “Good turns return good turns, but that’s not the real reason. You don’t have to tell me the truth, but don’t go thinking you can tell me half truths and I won’t care about it.”
Ezra nodded slowly, acknowledging what the Captain said. Finally, he decided that if this burned a bridge entirely, he did have another which had just opened up in front of him.
“Permission to speak honestly, sir?” Ezra asked.
“Yes. And don’t worry, none of us will care too much about what your answer is.”
“Alright, sir. It’s just that I don’t believe in free handouts,” Ezra shrugged. “Anytime someone gives you something, they want something. Learned it young, cause even people giving food to orphans in the slums want something, even if it's small and petty like someone else thinking they’re a good person. The bigger the thing that someone’s offering you, the more they’ll want in return.
“I know what you want from me, to continue working for the Count. You’ll probably give me better and better terms the longer I stick around and the stronger I get, hoping to make sure I stick around. I know the price I’m paying to stay around here, it’s freedom in exchange for pay and training. The price you’re paying for my freedom isn’t much, but I’m getting valuable training. It’s worth it for me. I don’t know what Chloe and the Duke want from me. He commands multiple Pseudo-Knights, so I’m not worth a whole lot to him right now as a possible Adept. But Chloe thinks he’ll be willing to pay off my service to the Count? Shady shit.
“So I’ll stick around here, if that’s alright.”
What went unsaid was that Ezra knew he wasn’t going to be experimented on or abused based off of Chloe’s reaction. He absolutely would be treated well under the Duke. He’d give Ezra training and equipment and who knew what else. But every single gift he gave to the slumrat kid would be another hook sunk into his flesh, another band of servitude tied around Ezra’s neck. And the Duke would be able to keep him there if he wanted to. The Count, though, wouldn’t be able to contain Ezra once he became an Adept, he was sure.
“Thank you for your honest answer,” Riyal answered with a nod. “I think I can better understand you now. In case you couldn’t tell, I value that honesty, which is why I offered it to you in the first place. I’ll give you one last word before I let you go see what our guest has to show you.
“I believe the Duke to be a fair man. The price he would have you pay, were you to enter his service, would not be an overly heavy burden.”
Then, Riyal waved Ezra off through the door, which he immediately obeyed regardless of any confusion on his part. Why would the Captain shut down Chloe’s attempted recruitment if he was just going to push Ezra in that direction right after? It didn’t make any sense. Did he want to tie Ezra down or was it that he didn’t trust the Count?
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
There wasn’t any answer to get for now, so Ezra instead focused on the square in front of the mess hall and the Captain’s quarters. Chloe was standing there, watching for him to approach, and she smiled widely as he did so. Unlike on another’s face, it wasn’t a cute expression, but more of a baring of her teeth. He couldn’t place her age, but she wasn’t old, and, if she wasn’t wearing armor that screamed danger just as much as her literal aura did, he could see her as being pretty.
Instead, with the natural intimidation that she walked with, her smile was like a beast’s growl, and she welcomed his approach with a nod.
“Everyone gather up!” she shouted, and the soldiers that’d already been milling about looked at her, unsure of whether to listen. When a couple of the sergeants came out and echoed the same command, the hesitating men and women fell into formation without any further delay.
“Thank you,” she nodded at the sergeants that’d assisted her. “You may call me Captain Chloe, and I’ll be one of the two chief commanders of the expedition to clear out this Dragonkin expedition. I’m a Captain under the Duke of Brayton’s command, and this will be the seventh expedition I’ve been sent on, the second under my command. I’ve been sent here to ensure that you all coordinate well with the rest of the armies that’re approaching from the various Counties.”
As she finished, the soldiers were quiet but listening, and she continued, “Now, there’s something I need to explain to you recruits. Veterans, you’re free to leave, but you’ll miss a demonstration, so make your choice quick.”
Nobody moved.
“On top of being a captain in the Duke’s army, I’m also a Pseudo-Knight and have been for two years. You recruits might have heard about aura, correct?”
There was a faint whisper that went through the soldiers with each new declaration she made, but most shook their heads no when she mentioned aura by name.
“It’s not much of a surprise, since if you’ve never spoken with someone on the path to Knighthood, there wouldn’t be much of a reason to talk about it. But aura is what makes someone a Knight, and there’s steps to it. People hear Pseudo-Knight and know more or less that they’re a weaker Knight, but not much else. Knights destroy armies and win wars all by themselves, or so the stories go, right? The way they do that is through developing aura, and I want to show you what kind of strength you have on your side when we face these Dragonkin.”
Jormun was mumbling something about the path being to Sainthood, not Knighthood, but Ezra didn’t pay him any mind. He’d seen the dream where Jormun tore through hundreds of demons, but it’d been a while, and he’d never seen anyone use aura in real life. The thought that Chloe was going to show him right now was more than enough to get him interested.
“We don’t have a great target for me to show off on,” Chloe said as she rolled her shoulders and Ezra felt the aura pulse off of her in waves, “but there’s a rock here that should be fine for me to use?”
She said it as a question that she was posing to the sergeants, who glanced among themselves before Sergeant Oscar nodded his approval. He seemed to have some knowledge of what was coming and said, “It’ll be your responsibility to replace the stone with something of about the same size, though.”
“Sure,” she waved him off.
“Only at the level of the Pseudo-Knight can you do this,” she said as she balled her fists together and was suddenly wreathed with a brown aura. “This is my aura shroud, and it protects me while also making every one of my attacks stronger. Like this!”
She seemed to be done giving instruction as she lunged forward towards the stone that she’d designated as her enemy. The shroud that covered her whole body grew brighter on both of her fists, and Ezra suddenly learned why she didn’t carry a weapon.
He’d seen dozens of brawls, and been in a dozen more himself. It wasn’t long before Ezra decided that having a weapon when the other guy didn’t meant that he didn’t get hurt and the other did, so he’d stuck with that, but Chloe didn’t seem to ever have gotten the message that weapons made fighting easier. The steel studs on her knuckles darkened with her aura and she let out a blistering combo of punches. She moved with a smoothness that Ezra’d never seen in a fistfight, her feet dancing from one place to the next but bracing when it was time to punch. Each hit against the stone rang out like a hammer blow, and the stone was reduced to a single stone half its size surrounded by gravel in about thirty seconds.
“We talk about aura,” Chloe said as if she were talking to the army as a whole, though her eyes settled on Ezra with a painfully obvious frequency, “because it’s what makes a person a Knight, and because it’s what allows us to overcome the natural defences of the Dragonkin. Without it, the draconic blood that’s made them what they are will turn most weapons’ blades away. None of you will be facing the Dragonkin yourselves, but the goblinoids will be your responsibility. They’re weak to your weapons, and you’ll do fine that way. If you want to become more than just soldiers, though, you’ll need to learn how to use aura.”
She didn’t say anything more, didn’t offer her services to anyone, just dismissed them all with a wave of her hand, leaving a pulverized boulder in her wake as she strode back into the Captain’s quarters. In her wake she left a surge of excited conversations, mostly from the recruits, but evidently her display was impressive enough to garner attention from the veterans as well, several walking forward to feel the powder her display had left in her wake.
Interesting. Her aura is mostly stone, but that seems to be more a product of what she wants it to be, not what she herself is, Jormun mumbled, pulling Ezra’s attention towards him. She’ll need to better understand what makes her her to become a Knight. But she’s still pretty new, so that’s a good showing.
“And what do you think of what I did? Should I have turned her down like that?” Ezra asked Jormun as they walked towards the next exercise.
I think you need to make your own decisions, and I’m your mentor when it comes to the path towards Sainthood. Every decision you make impacts your inner world, and I won’t take a single choice from you, whether I would make them in your place or not.
Without anything else to say, Ezra jogged towards Leah, Boyd, and Cord, to begin their exercises for the day.