Verona sat at her bedside and waited. And waited. Jules had told her that he’d come by her room to see her first thing in the morning. Three hours in, however, and not a sign of a scraggly old man.

  He warned her not to leave the tavern room. He’d reserved it just for her so she could rest up and hide from the guards. Else, she would have to sleep in the streets through the night, in the cold, wary of any shadows that passed.

  She quickly grew impatient of waiting for the older man. She decided to set out on her own.

  Verona pushed herself off of her bed and wandered to the door, opening it slightly and looking both ways.

  Lord Demarian’s home is in another city, away from Rathalin, and he must have left by now, right? What was that city called? Perote or something like that. It rested to the west of Rathalin, two days worth of travel away.

  No one seemed to stir in the tavern. All remained quiet. No creaking of floorboards, nor footsteps anywhere.

  Verona carefully exited her room and shut the door behind her. She descended down the stairs. Only one person stood behind the counter, wiping off mugs.

  “Hey,” she called to the man. “An older man was supposed to come by and come see me, do you think you may have seen him?”

  The man raised an eyebrow.

  “Aren’t you a little young to be an escort, miss?” the man asked.

  “What’s… an escort?” she asked curiously.

  “Nevermind,” the man spoke. “Business has been slow lately. After Lord Demarian left, the inns in town have not been getting as many visitors. So this old man of yours isn’t here.”

  Verona pursed her lips and nodded. “Dang. Thanks anyways,” she said before leaving the inn.

  Jules only told her he paid for the inn, but she was unsure of how many days he bought. She brought the key along just in case.

  The streets were empty this morning. The city, from what she’s seen, is usually bustling with activity, but there were about half as many people today. Still, she could notice people in the shadows, lurking and watching. Those people creeped her out. They remained there, doing nothing but loitering around, and no one seemed to pay them any heed.

  One of them moved. Then the next, and the next. Verona stood frozen, concerned. A couple meters up ahead a man walked, whistling tunes. The people from the shadows pounced on this man, attacking him relentlessly.

  What?

  Verona stood still, not able to move. The way they moved, the way they struck, it was beautiful. They carried no weapon on them, but was deadly all at the same time.

  After they were done beating the man, he lay in a pool of his own blood. The men walked away from the body, the one at the head throwing up a couple of gemstones. Verona noticed a ruby and a sapphire.

  Jules had been telling the truth. If you were seen with gemstones, then the king would take action.

  More men rushed out of the shadows and chained the crumpled figure, dragging him away.

  Verona could tell that man didn’t possess the same abilities. If he did, then he would have used it. Instead, he was just an innocent passerby who most likely didn’t know of the new laws instated in Agnius.

  As Verona passed the men with the gemstones, she reached out with her mind and Absorbed in some of the sapphire. She felt a rush of power as it surged through her body, so she reached out for more.

  Three words slithered its way into her mind, different from when she’d Absorbed ruby.

  Mind, Senses, Serenity.

  She focused on Senses, using all of the essence in the sapphire to fuel her.

  Every single sensation became a hundred fold more powerful. The smallest footsteps sounding like roars of thunders, the light from the sun blinding her, the humid air feeling like a waterfall against her skin, the smell of sweat, and delicious food intertwining with one another and attacking her nose. Everything became brighter.

  She closed her eyes to try and shut out the senses, but it was too overwhelming for her. She walked, a dizzying feeling passing through her body. She leaned against one of the buildings and sweat began rolling down her face.

  No, the gemstones were supposed to give her power. Not make her weaker.

  She drew in a deep breath and focused. She forced herself to ignore the overload of senses, and focused only on improving her hearing. The light died down and the streets returned to normal.

  Still, she could hear the bustling of noised from all around her. She focused on calming it down, thinking about Jules’s voice in her head. What he sounded like, his slight accent, the way he enunciated his words.

  There. A couple streets over, she could hear a matching intonation. He was muttering to himself.

  You’re an idiot. Nothing but a worthless failure the words seemed to sound to her. Verona dashed in the direction, running as fast as she could to Jules.

  She stopped herself from entering the pub he was in, thinking about it. She could disappear, run off somewhere, away from Rathalin. Into the mountains or something, and just hide. That way, no one else she would come to care about would die. Chatham flashed through her mind, stabbed and laying on the ground, convulsing. Siva, pushing her to leave, making her don the suit of armor, and then dying for her. Too much death.

  She was about to leave when the door to the pub opened, and Jules stood there, staring down at her. His eyes were puffy red.

  “I need a drink,” he muttered, shoving her to the side. “Dumbass put me in an inn with no alcohol.”

  “Jules!” Verona called, running after him. “What happened? I thought you were going to come see m in the morning.”

  “Jocie, I’m sorry,” he said. “Something else came up that took the majority of my mind. I was going to teach you how to defend yourself. You should have waited. You shouldn’t have come out like this.”

  He stumbled around again for a moment before stopping in his tracks, slowly turning towards her. “How did you know to find me here?” he asked, a raised eyebrow. He reached inside his pockets and pulled out nothing. “The ruby I took is gone, and you didn’t have any other gemstones, did you?”

  Verona shook her head. “A passerby had a sapphire,” she explained. “It was taken from him. You can have the ruby.”

  “I told you,” the older man muttered under his breath. “Now are you going to follow me or am I going to have to train open air?”

  Verona got knocked to the ground. Again. And again. The sun shone high above them now. They’d been going at it for about three hours, and no matter what she did, Jules somehow manages to find a way to disarm her.

  She took the wooden training staff and charged him once again, remembering the training Siva had given her.

  The older man easily maneuvered his way around the pole, attacked her wrist, forcing her to drop the weapon, and then shoving her to the ground.

  “How do you keep doing that?” she said, after what seemed like the hundredth time she got knocked to the ground. “I can’t even do anything against you!”

  Jules stared at the staff and shook his head. “You focus too much on attacking,” he said.

  “No, I’m just not used to the weight,” Verona replied. “A spear is different. It has a weight on the end which helps me balance my stance out.”

  Her teacher shrugged. “If you want to grab a spear and try your luck, then go ahead,” he said.

  They’d decided on going out of the city of Rathalin for training. They moved past the barracks and into the desert, where there weren’t many people passing by.

  Verona decided to take Jules up on his request. Luckily, there were ten camps on the outskirts of Rathalin, always bustling with people training. She could sneak in, take a weapon, and then sneak out. Easy enough.

  She could feel Jules’s eyes on her as she made her way, sneaking and hiding behind some dead brushes.

  Verona stared at the camp, deciding on how to get closer. Then she moved in, running as fast as her legs could carry her but remaining silent at the same time.

  If there was something positive from all her years as a slave, then it would be that she’s good at being unnoticeable. It’s usually the unnoticed that survived the longest, and after many months of doing it, it’s become second nature to her.

  As she neared the camp, she started walking normally, acting inconspicuously. Of course, there would be people that questioned her motives, and she stuck with the same old lost child.

  Soldier didn’t care about lost children. They jut ignored them in the hopes they’d go away. She took advantage of that, and wandered through the camp.

  She came to one of the barracks and snuck her way in. Inside, there were metallic armor hung on armor stands and a weapon stand with many different weapons.

  There were machetes, swords, daggers, spears, maces, hammers, you name it. She fitted on an armor herself and lowered the helmet.

  A wandering kid, they would think nothing of it. A wandering kid walking around with a spear, however, is sure to raise some eyebrows.

  Verona took a spear off the weapon stand and held it in her hands. It had a familiar feeling to it, and nothing like the training stick she was using before.

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  She held the spear at her side and left the barracks. As she moved through the camp, she studied the other soldiers, seeing how they moved, the exaggerations in their steps, the movement of their arms as they walked. And then she mimicked it.

  Nobody batted an eye at her. Although it wasn’t customary to wear your helmet while there wasn’t any immediate danger, no one paid attention to hers.

  She moved further and further away from the camp, walking up to where Jules stood, hands clasped behind his back, watching with a bemused smile.

  When she was out of sight of the camps, she quickly took her armor off and stashed it behind a rock nearby, making a mental note of where she’d put it. That might be useful in the future.

  “That’s a nice spear,” Jules noted.

  “Do you want to try and hold it?”

  A look of pain contorted on Jules’s face and he stepped back quickly, waving his hands around. “No thanks, I would much rather not,” he said.

  Verona stared at him. “Why not?” she asked.

  “It’s just… I was in the army once, a long time ago. The spear was my goto weapon, and I’d been one of the best at it. Until they took my family away from me because I refused to kill a kid.”

  Jules pointed at the weapon she held. “That thing symbolizes everything I hate about my past. My past as a soldier within the imperial army, and I’ll be damned before I ever hold it again.”

  Verona shrugged. “Suit yourself,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind if I use it.”

  Jules shook his head. “Not at all, it is the weapon you’re most comfortable of after all.”

  Then she trained, falling into the same routine they’d been doing for the last three hours. Every time she struck out, her teacher was able to easily disarm her. He didn’t even seem to break a sweat. What’s worse, he was able to disarm her without ever even touching the weapon.

  It frustrated her. Made her feel weak. It’s no wonder she couldn’t fight for the ex-slaves in that cave…

  No, enough thinking about that. She had to move forward. She needed to be strong enough to protect the things she cared about.

  What exactly would that be? She didn’t have anything to fight for. Jules? She just met him yesterday. Herself? Death would be a blessing, actually.

  Vengeance? Yes… that might be it. She won’t fight for those alive, but for those who’ve died unnecessarily for other’s greed. Siva, Chatham, Kirith, the faces of those that died for her coursing through her mind.

  With that thought, she fought harder, countering Jules’s move to disarm her, and slamming the butt of her spear right into the older man’s gut.

  He let out a yelp of surprise and pain before falling backwards on his bottom. “Impressive,” he said. “But your technique is awful, no offense. Whoever taught you needs to learn himself.”

  “Whoever taught me is dead,” Verona replied solemnly.

  “Oh,” was all he said before they got back to it.

  After another couple of hours, Jules had decided to change gears.

  Verona was dripping with sweat, her shirt wet and cold. She could feel the temperature switching to Agnius’s evening time coolness. She’d get sick if she kept that shirt on, but didn’t want to stop either. She felt herself growing more confident in the spear.

  There were times when Jules suggested they stop for the day, but Verona kept on pushing. Now instead of her showing him what she could do, they switched things up.

  Jules now acted like an actual teacher. She could feel his eyes on her as she moved to a stance, one that Siva taught her.

  “Horrible form,” Jules noted. “The spear is not to be used like a sword. It’s a spear because it provides certain advantages that a simple blade cannot. The way you fight, you move in too close to your opponent. If you kept your distance, then I wouldn’t be able to disarm you as much.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  Jules nodded to the weapon she held. “Look at the length of that thing! Every time you strike at me, you come close enough for me to reach to you. That’s not necessary at all.”

  He began kicking at her feet, moving them into position. Then planted a foot on her knee and pushed it down.

  She was in more of an uncomfortable position now.

  “That stance is better,” Jules said. “You don’t want your legs to be straight, it’s easy for you to fall. This stance is good for defending. Battle is all about attacks and counterattacks. An attack could be something like I swing my sword. What would your counter attack be?”

  “I’d… raise my weapon like this to block it,” Verona answered, holding her spear upwards, the wood of the weapon in such a position to block a sword strike.

  Jules shook his head. “No, that is not right. Again, you’re thinking of the spear too much like a sword. A counterattack doesn’t have to be a movement to block their attack. It could also be a movement to attack them yourself before their attack reaches you. Or it can be you avoiding their attack.

  “What I would do is use my speed and the spear’s reach advantage to go in for a strike before theirs could hit, but it might take practice to get to that point. Something else you could do is propel yourself backwards, land in that stance, and watch as they miss their attack.”

  Verona nodded along, listening intently. In theory, it sounded like it made so much sense. In practice, however, instinct took over and she found herself falling back to the same techniques.

  She could tell that Jules was working hard to change that aspect about her, but when she kept doing the habitual things, she could tell he was growing increasingly frustrated.

  After their drawn out session, Jules was the one that ended it. “That’s enough,” he said with a wave of his hand. The way he said it had a ring of finality to it, so Verona didn’t bother convincing him otherwise.

  Back in their little inn, Verona and Jules sat at a table together. He bought her food, and she was chowing down on it as if it was the last meal she’d ever eat.

  Verona hated the awkward silence between the two of them while she ate so she tried to start a conversation.

  “So tell me about yourself? I already told you I’m a runaway slave who could go back if captured, and my entire family is dead, so what should I know about you?” she asked while eating a spoon full of soup.

  Jules shrugged. “What do you want to know about me?”

  “Your family?”

  “Dead as well.”

  “Dang that sucks.”

  “Yep.”

  “I guess that’s something we have in common then?”

  “Indubitably.”

  “Why are you here? In Rathalin?” Verona asked. Another spoon full of soup went into her mouth.

  “I’m a part of Justicar,” Jules said.

  At that, Verona’s eyes grew wide and she dropped her spoon, letting it splash soup on the table.

  “Why didn’t you tell me that?” she asked incredulously.

  Jules frowned at that. “Well, I don’t usually go around telling people that. You know they’re outlaws, so I’d get imprisoned immediately.”

  Verona nodded. “Makes sense,” she said.

  “Well, I was a part of Justicar,” Jules spoke on. “Until I got kicked out this morning. By our leader.”

  “Stupid. Why would you get kicked out?”

  “Because I drink alcohol,” was his simple reply.

  “Does your leader, whoever he is, not want you drinking alcohol? Seems pretty restrictive to me.”

  “Well it’s more complicated than that. I am a heavy drinker. I spend lots of nights in the pubs and get blackout drunk. He didn’t like that very much.”

  “I can see why,” Verona said. “Did you do it before or was this the first time and he kicked you out because of it?”

  Jules let out a hearty laugh. “No no, this is definitely not the first time. He just told me to stop, and I guess I just kept doing it.” Jules had a mug of ale in front of him as the two of them spoke.

  Verona eyed it, staring at her reflection in the clear liquid.

  “Then just stop drinking,” she said.

  “It’s not as simple as that,” Jules protested.

  “Do you still want to be a part of their group?” Verona asked. “Ever since they freed me in the gem mines, I’ve admired them. Even before then. They were my heroes, and they’d saved me from my darkness.”

  “I do,” Jules said. “I want to get vengeance for my wife and daughter. But their smiles always haunts me, and I miss them terribly. I have a lot of hatred and anger in me, and at times, it’s too much to bear. So I turn to alcohol to numb it all.”

  “If you want to be a part of their group,” Verona began. “Then it sounds like you just need to suck it up.”

  Jules cracked a weak smile. “You know, you’re very blunt,” he said.

  “It sounds simple enough. Just stop drinking, be there for the organization, and fight for them. You’re being selfish for dragging them into your alcoholism problems, it sounds like.”

  Jules let out a sigh. “Yeah. Perhaps you’re right. I just don’t know.”

  “Well you got kicked out, so go ahead and drink. Drink until there’s no tomorrow. Drink until you can’t remember who you are. Maybe then, you can find peace. But you’d be a coward to not face your realities,” Verona said, taking in another spoon full of soup. Despite it tasting bland, it was better than anything she’s ever had while working in gem mines.

  Jules stopped mid sip. He set the mug down. Verona could see tears welling in his eyes. She continued sipping away at her meal.