It was light—at least reasonably so. It had been made of leather and simmered in wax to increase its hardness. It wouldn’t slow him down like sheet metal armor, and it would provide him with extra protection against an opponent.
Shannon frowned. I’d still rather fight in clothes.
“I’m going with you!’’
Shannon glanced behind him. Pacifica came barreling out of the inn, wildly waving a broom around her head as if it could kill enemies in spades.
Shannon turned away from her and started strapping on the armor. “Go back inside,” he ordered.
“No way! This is my fight, and I’ll—”
“Use your brain, would you?” Shannon pulled his hair-tie free and slid it between his teeth. “You walk in there,” he mumbled around the twine as he pulled his hair into a new ponytail, “and you’ll be handing him what he wants on a silver platter. You’re the last person who should be going anywhere near that canyon.”
Pacifica’s face fell. Her eyes trailed over her brother’s body.
“I thought you said armor slows you down,” she said quietly.
“It does.” He slid on his gloves. “But I still need it today.”
“But that’s… Father’s armor.”
Shannon slowed to a stop. He looked down at the Brigadier Model Zero set that hugged his tall frame. Yuma Nanbu Casull, Shannon’s biological father, had worn it during his fighting days.
Shannon sighed. He slowly reached out and took the broom from Pacifica’s now-limp hands.
“Look. It’s not… I’ll be fine, all right?” When she didn’t look up, Shannon averted his eyes uncomfortably. “I’ll bring Winia back, I promise.”
Pacifica curled her shoulders inward, her trembling fist coming up to rub against an eye. “Th-this is all my fault,” she murmured, her voice taking on a slightly higher lilt. “If anyone else gets hurt because of me, I just… I don’t know what I…”
She trailed off. Shannon looked down at her lowered blonde head and felt a combination of guilt, pity, and depression well up inside him. He slowly leaned the broom against the carriage.
“Just stay here with Raquel,” he muttered as he reached for his sword. “You can make dinner while I’m gone.”
Pacifica sniffed. “I… I guess.”
“But pay attention while you’re doing it. Winia’s had a long day, so don’t make her come home to crap.”
Pacifica’s head shot up. “I don’t make crap!” she snarled, her cheeks turning red. “And you’re not such a master chef yourself, jerk!”
Shannon buckled his sword belt around his waist. “I have other skills to hone, thank you.”
Raquel stepped out of the inn and waved at Shannon. He nodded at her, then checked his equipment one last time as she walked over.
“Are you ready, Shannon?”
“Yeah.” He clenched and unclenched his newly gloved hands. “Look after Pacifica while I’m gone.”
“Of course.” Raquel smiled down at her sister, then raised cautionary eyes to her brother. “And Shannon, I’m sure I don’t need to tell you this, but don’t—”
“I know, Raquel.” He met her gaze. “Let’s do this.”
Raquel paused. Slowly, she stretched her right hand toward her brother and began a recitation.
“O, thou with whom we have entered this pact,” she called, “lend us thy great power now!”
He didn’t remember his parents. If he hadn’t known better, Chris would have sworn he’d never had any.
All tacticians in the Adamant Arrow, including Chris, were children who had been either abandoned or sold. Those who made it to the level of tactician had survived a long, brutal process of selection. The countless peers who failed the training process ended up in one place: the mass grave behind the training facility with a tombstone that read, “Here lie the fortunate losers.”
Well, Chris thought realistically, it probably is better to die. A tactician’s days were immersed in potentially fatal training activities. In order to proceed onto the next training level, he had to fight his peers, even the ones who had been kind to him. There was no one to protect him, obviously. No one to depend on. And if he died, no one would remember him.
Then again, what could one expect? Who would protect a boy if his own parents wouldn’t? Who would remember him if he killed half his teammates?
“Are you crying?”
Chris blinked. Furrowing his eyebrows, he turned to the girl beside him.
“Am I what?” he asked.
“Crying.”
The question made Chris pause, then give a short chuckle. Of course he wasn’t crying. He had long forgotten how, in order to learn more important skills.
“No,” he told her with a smile. “But sometimes, I wish I could.” He reached into a paper bag by his lap. “You must be hungry.”
The girl shrunk back from him. “No,” she said darkly.
“Really? Well, let me know when you are.” He pulled a roll the size of his fist from the bag. “I went to a bakery this afternoon and had one of these. They’re pretty good, so I bought a few extra for—”
“Stop it.”
Chris stared at her, confused. She suddenly looked extremely disturbed.
“Um… stop what?”
“This! All of this! You’re nothing but a killer!” The girl blinked tears from her eyes as she tucked her head against her chest. “You’re not a normal person,” she cried, “so stop acting like you are!”
Chris wasn’t sure what to say. Winia turned her head, and he could hear her sniff.
“You’re a murderer,” she whimpered shakily. “You came here to kill an innocent girl. So why are you… why do you look so…” She moaned weakly. “…Sad?”
Chris watched her turn away and said nothing. There was some strange feeling emanating from her, something in her hunched shoulders and shaking voice. He wasn’t quite sure what it was.
Is that…empathy? he wondered in disbelief. Is this girl actually feeling some connection to me?
It had been awhile since Chris had felt anyone direct such a feeling at him, so he wasn’t sure he was reading her right. After all, empathy coming from a hostage didn’t make any sense.
No. He was wrong—he had to be. She was just losing her nerve or babbling in a panic; either possibility was something he could handle.
Chris smiled wryly and returned the roll to its bag. “You’re something else,” he said. “Has anyone ever told you that?”
A long silence passed between them. After a minute, Chris could hear the girl take a long breath.
“When I was ten,” she began, her words slow and trembling, “I had a fight… with a very close friend.”
He raised an eyebrow skeptically. “You what?” he asked.
“He was a sick boy with a very kind heart. We played together all the time.” She paused. “I have some… gypsy blood in me, so I was bullied a lot as a child. He wasn’t healthy enough to play with the other boys, so he didn’t mind making friends with a girl with mixed blood.”
Gypsies. Vagrants. Chris knew them well—a >wandering people, largely made up of foreigners who migrated from the south, criminals, outcasts, and anyone else forced out of their hometown. To make a living, vagrants often took jobs that were generally considered “filthy.”
A few decades earlier, vagrants had finally been recognized as members of society. The long-standing discrimination they had always suffered still existed, but not as overtly as it once had. The only people who didn’t discriminate against vagrants were mercenaries, who had similar backgrounds.
“He was the son of a wealthy merchant, and his father and mother treated me like their own daughter. But then, one day…” She took another breath. “One day, I heard him say what he really felt about me.”
Chris said nothing. He wanted to let her continue.
“He was being teased by the other boys, the ones from Sunday school. They accused him of having a crush on me since the two of us held hands.” The girl dragged her knees along the gravel so she could tuck them nearer to her chest. “He said… he said he could never love a mutt. He was probably just saying it because he was embarrassed, but I was too young to know and too hurt to care. I stopped going to see him, and when he came with his butler to see me at my inn a few days later, I just threw dishes at him until he went away.”