"What’s your na, by the way?"
The question ca late, almost awkwardly slipped in after everything else had already settled, after the blood, the noise, the pretending.
I didn’t answer right away.
Not because it was so guarded secret, and not because it carried any weight worth protecting.
It was just that nas had a way of turning monts into connections, and I wasn’t particularly interested in letting this one grow roots.
My gaze drifted past her instead, toward the street that had already erased itself, people moving again, voices returning to normal, the corner sealing shut as if nothing had ever folded inward there.
Then I exhaled.
"...It’s Rael," I said, flat, almost careless, as if I were handing over sothing I wouldn’t need again.
She blinked once out of surprsie or the simplicity, then repeated it quietly, under her breath, like she was fitting it into a place it hadn’t occupied before.
After that, she straightened, scythe shifting slightly behind her as if rembering her role.
"I’m Lunera," she pursed her lips, "A bearer, from the church of rebel as you might have figured out already."
Of course I didn’t bother masking the faint note of disinterest either, and just gave a small sound from my throat, only the nas were exchanged afterall.
"Ah, and about your earlier suspicion, I need to clarify that I have just awakened, a few hours ago to be precise.
Rebel-archetype.
I had originally planned to arrive at the Church... that was until you appeared with your shenanigans."
The mont those words slipped out of my mouth, her face went visibly pale, and her mouth shut closed as if so unseen hand had pressed a seal over it.
She looked baffled beyond comprehension, frozen in a way that had nothing to do with the vocabulary I had just used.
This wasn’t confusion.
It was recognition colliding headfirst with disbelief.
It was the look of soone who had stumbled upon sothing she knew existed, sothing she had been taught about in hushed tones and carefully chosen taphors, yet had never been allowed to confirm.
And I knew the exact reason for that predicant.
---
Even though free practitioners were heard of, treated more like a cautionary subject, she would never in her life span heard, let alone eting soone who had awakened initially as an Icon.
That was the part that unsettled her.
As far as I could rember, there were many people besides , both now and in the future, who would awaken as an Alignnt, or sothing feeble even above that threshold.
Most of them, however, were free practitioners.
Unaffiliated.
Unrecorded.
Which ant they were never truly heard of by the crowd.
Their existence slipped through registries and sermons alike, reduced to rumors that never gained enough weight to matter.
Even within the entirety of the Rebel-Church’s domain across the world, there were only finger-counted figures who had awakened as such from the start.
The highest ranks, almost without exception.
The kind of people whose nas were preserved deliberately, not accidentally.
Not that I’m going to et one anyti soon, I thought to myself.
Though so secluded part of my mind disagreed, quietly, insistently, as if it already knew better.
After that, things settled into relative ease.
Lunera did not speak much.
In fact, she barely spoke at all.
She simply invited herself to follow along, moving beside us in a gloomy daze, her silence heavy with unasked questions.
Supposedly, she wanted to confirm whether what I had said held any truth, both the archetype, and the rank.
Not to ntion, she insisted on guiding us through the roads and streets herself.
According to my driver, it was a public route, well-known among the locals and outsiders alike.
Which only made her insistence feel a little less casual than she wanted it to appear.
---
...
---
Clank.
A sharp sound rang out and echoed through the hall, multiplying itself as it bounced across black andestine walls and an equally dark ceiling.
The material swallowed light strangely, dulling it rather than reflecting it, though decorative lamps hung at asured intervals, their glow carefully placed, almost ceremonial.
Whatever beauty the space possessed was deliberate, restrained, and clearly never ant for everyone.
The hall was enormous.
Gargantuan, even.
And empty.
Plain, to the point where the absence of ornant felt intentional rather than neglectful.
Nothing drew the eye for long.
Nothing except the tal ragdoll standing at its center.
Or what remained of it.
Its fra was bent and twisted, joints strained past their intended limits, plating half-torn and caved in where repeated strikes had landed.
Fresh dents overlapped older ones, telling the story clearly enough.
Whatever had done this had not taken long.
"This dummy... it falls into the category of swords and daggers, doesn’t it?"
The thought drifted through my mind as I wiped sweat from my face, my hand coming away damp.
It ran down my body in steady streams, a quiet reminder of how long I’d been at it, and how little rest I’d allowed myself.
Letting the sword slip from my fingers, I allowed it to fall freely, the sound of tal against stone swallowed quickly by the vastness of the hall.
I moved instead toward the lone chair placed off to the side, almost as an afterthought.
A basket rested there.
From it, I picked up a fruit and turned it slowly in my hand.
It was unlike anything I’d seen back on Earth.
Small enough to fit neatly in my palm, yet faintly warm, its surface glowing with a subdued purple hue that pulsed ever so slightly.
According to the Rebel Church, it carried enchantnts ant to enhance spinal reflexes, strengthen respiration, sharpen the nervous system.
I brought it closer to my mouth, inspecting it one last ti, before taking a bite.
Speaking of the Rebel Church, my entrance... well, it was received.
Just not in the way one would normally hope for.
I had insisted, quite clearly, on not letting my Alignnt-rank surface.
Parasocial reasons, practical reasons, survival reasons.
Any one of them should have been enough.
Lunera, however, was stubborn in a way only church people ever were, the kind that mistook insistence for righteousness.
And so it happened.
Boom.
Disaster, neatly reinforced.
Reviews
All reviews (0)