Free Web NovelChapter 27: Soul Sense
Liaraen followed the direction of his gaze.
And saw what he had seen.
Behind the trees, partially hidden by shadow, there were men.
Several of them.
They stepped onto the road with the specific coordination of people who had been waiting for exactly this moment, not the urgency of those who had just discovered a target.
*This was planned.*
*They knew exactly where we were going to pass and at what time.*
"My lady," Roen said, his voice suddenly calmer than his breathing. "When I tell you to run, run back down the road. Don’t look back. I’ll buy you time."
"Roen."
"Please."
"No."
Roen looked at her briefly.
And in that second of eye contact, Liaraen understood that the guide had already processed the complete situation. Eight men on the road. No reinforcements. A cart with a slow horse. An elven noble and a civilian guide. Any attempt to flee was going to fail. The only option that gave Liaraen any chance of survival was for Roen to delay them while she ran toward the fields.
And Roen had decided, in a matter of seconds, that this was exactly what he was going to do.
"Roen, no."
"My lady," he said calmly, "I’ve been doing this journey for twenty-two years. I know how it ends when it ends badly. Do me the favor."
The cart stopped.
The eight men approached.
The one in the center, wearing light black leather armor reinforced with silver plates on his shoulders and chest, raised a hand to signal a halt.
Roen, with a movement Liaraen hadn’t anticipated, jumped from the driver’s seat to the ground. He drew a long knife from his belt. And placed himself between the cart and the men.
"My lady," Roen said, without turning around. "Now. Run."
Liaraen didn’t run.
Not because she didn’t want to. Not because she didn’t understand what he was asking. But because, in the exact second Roen gave the order, Liaraen calculated that running wasn’t going to work. She was barefoot inside new boots she hadn’t had time to break in. She was far from any shelter. She was exposed. Any attempt to flee was going to end with her being recaptured in less than a minute, and Roen dead in vain.
Instead, Liaraen stayed very still on the cart. She closed her eyes. And pushed the sensitivity of the Yeva Seal to its maximum.
It was a desperate gesture. She knew it. Her affinity for natural magic was basic. But there was a technique her botanical tutor had taught her the previous year—one that required contact with nearby vegetation, one that under normal circumstances she would never have used because of the social embarrassment it generated.
A Cry of Yeva. A distress signal amplified by the plant network.
She emitted it.
Nothing visible happened. Nothing any nearby human could detect. But the Seal on her forearm glowed for exactly half a second, and the signal traveled outward on specific frequencies that only another entity with Yeva affinity could pick up.
Or any Class bearer with detection sensitive to mana emitted on unusual frequencies.
Any bearer.
For example.
A Grim Reaper with active Soul Sense.
Even if he was in another part of the city.
Even if the protections of Selene’s house had been installed specifically to block that type of detection inward but not outward.
Even if he’d promised not to use Soul Sense at maximum inside the house.
Roen raised the knife.
The black-armor leader took a step forward with his sword already partially drawn.
And the fight began.
Nathan, standing beside the guild counter in Greywall, was in the middle of his explanation when Soul Sense reacted.
"...and the bandit got away with the box," Nathan was saying, with the specifically defeated tone he’d practiced on the road. "I escaped through the forest beside the road. I reached the city without the merchandise. I came immediately to report the loss. Brenwick, the contractor, should be notified by the guild according to protocol, which was exactly what I was going to confirm before—"
"Hunter Voss," Mira said, without looking up from the ledger she was writing in. "Stop."
Nathan stopped.
Mira finished writing the line she was working on. She blew on the ink. Closed the book. And then, finally, looked up.
"I knew you were coming today."
"Excuse me?"
"I knew." Mira looked at him with the specifically tired expression of someone who’d been waiting for him all morning. "Brenwick reported the package loss last night. He sent three different reports, one every four hours, demanding that the guild activate a formal search for the carrier due to contract breach. The third report arrived two hours ago. Which, considering the guild normally receives a loss report with a twenty-four-hour margin, suggests the client is more nervous than reasonable."
"Ah."
"And then, this morning, before the office officially opened, you arrived. Dressed in clothes that aren’t from recent combat. Without visible injuries. Walking with the specific naturalness of someone who clearly did not just escape from bandits on the road." Pause. "And you started giving me an explanation I didn’t ask for."
"Mira—"
"I’m not finished."
Nathan closed his mouth.
"Hunter Voss." Mira placed her hands on the counter. "I’m going to do my job. I’m going to accept your report. I’m going to record it in the ledger. I’m going to transmit it to Brenwick through the official channel. And I’m going to apply the standard penalty for merchandise loss on an F-Rank mission—which is four silver coins deducted from your accumulated earnings. I’m going to do that regardless of what you say."
"Alright."
"What does interest me, personally, is that the version you’re giving me doesn’t match your usual way of telling things. And that worries me—not because I think you lied, but because it makes me think the reality was worse than what you’re willing to tell. Which implies something bigger is happening."
*This woman.*
*This woman is going to be a problem for me in the future if I don’t learn to lie to her better.*
"Mira."
"Yes?"
"I appreciate your attention to detail."
"Don’t thank me. Just record the report and leave."
"About the report—"
And then Soul Sense reacted.
It wasn’t like the other times. The other times had been ambient perception—a gradual expansion of the internal map, a slow identification of presences. This time it was a specific pulse that traveled from the southwest of the city toward him like an arrow. It wasn’t a presence. It was a signal. A call.
And Nathan, without having learned it from any book, without the System having explained it, knew exactly what that signal was.
It was Liaraen’s Yeva Seal.
Calling for help.
Actively.
Which meant something had gone catastrophically wrong.
"...Mira," Nathan said, in a voice that had changed texture between two words. "I have to go."
"Hunter Voss."
"I’ll come back. Tomorrow. I’ll accept the penalties. I’ll answer any questions. But right now I have to go."
Mira looked at him for a full second. Her face changed—not because she specifically understood what was happening, but because she recognized something in Nathan’s expression that clearly wasn’t pretense.
"Go," Mira said, simply.
"Thank you."
"Hunter."—just as he was turning toward the door—"if whatever you’re doing ends with you dead in some alley, I’m going to be very upset with you personally. I want that on the record."
"Noted."
Nathan ran out of the guild.
And three steps from the door, in the middle of the street, he activated Pale Rider without thinking twice.
The skill activated instantly. Speed multiplied. The morning market crowd barely registered a draft of air passing between the stalls before Nathan was already two streets ahead.
The southeastern road passed beside him in blurred lines.
Soul Sense fed him information. Roen was on the ground. His vital signature was weak but still present. Liaraen was a few meters from the cart, sitting, held by the arms. Her signature was stable but surrounded by presences. Eight men in the encirclement. Three with active visible Seals, glowing with the specific intensity that indicated high Ranks. B. Probably A.
And beside Liaraen, on the ground, there was something else. Something familiar. The silhouette of a wooden box, open, waiting.
*They were going to put her in it again.*
He covered the distance between the lower district and Greywall’s southeastern edge in approximately three minutes. When he reached the last stretch of the road, before the curve that led to the open area where the cart was, he slowed down. Deactivated Pale Rider. Walked the last fifty meters at the normal pace of someone approaching a conversation, not someone coming at a run.
Soul Sense kept recording everything.
He rounded the curve.
