††† Ryden †††

Ryden excused himself early as he had no intention to get drunk. He wasn't in the mood for jokes and merriment right now. The bartender walked him through the back door, a massive wooden block with hides spanning over the edges to block the sound. The building was more spacious than it looked from the outside. A small arena with elevated benches dominated the middle, framed by sturdy columns and a round walkway. The guest rooms were hewn into the stone walls behind it. The bartender pointed out Ryden’s room and went back to his customers.

Ryden sat down on one of the benches, staring into nothingness as he dwelled on his dark thoughts.

His solitude was disturbed just a few minutes later as Sally took a seat next to him.

"You're thinking of your mentor again?" she asked nonchalantly.

Ryden let out a long breath, considering how much he wanted to tell the former enforcer.

"I know that we are close to him," he answered. "Chances are good that he set himself up somewhere in this area if the disappearances happened at the same time he came down here."

Sally fidgeted next to him while trying to appear composed.

"You never told us much about Cain, other than he being your mentor."

Ryden snorted. "No, I did not. You wouldn't understand. Especially not Siegfried," he said in a bitter tone.

"Cain was never a father figure like Bolverk was for Siegfried. But he was the one who took me in when no one else would." Ryden eyed Sally for a moment and made up his mind.

"I was part of a small village of regular humans far in the north. We survived for countless generations because of our village chief, a man with a ridiculous ability that made it his life goal to shelter the weak. It was the only refuge for humans that I knew of except for the City of Nemeah. But same as in the city, some of us started to change in the past two decades. And I was one of them."

"And they threw you out because you changed?"

"Not right away, no. But they did when I started to use my power for the first time," Ryden admitted. He stayed silent for a few minutes after that, ordering his thoughts.

"I've been bullied a lot before that because I wasn't particularly strong." Ryden laughed, thinking back to those days. "Okay, maybe I was really weak. I hardly did any hard work and fancied studying with our old woman on the few topics we had any knowledge about." Rydens face darkened as he remembered the day everything changed. "I've broken the only law we had in that village. A young lad managed to get under my skin. I just wanted to hurt him for what he said. Maybe give him a black eye in exchange for the beating I would get from the others. But at that moment, my power manifested with the rage I felt. I killed him with a single punch."

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"The village elder banished me, as he should. But Cain took me in. He was the village's healer, and not even the elder who kept us all safe complained. Cain was untouchable."

"So you lived with him till then. And what was he like?"

Ryden snorted. "Like a grumpy old man that hated the outside world and everyone living in it. But his knowledge was astonishing. No matter what topic or how deep into it we went, Cain always knew more than I could learn. He taught me everything I know about the human body, everything necessary to heal people and even bring back someone from the brink of death."

Ryden let his head sink down into his hands. "And then he was gone. Just like that."

"So this is why you are searching for him? Because you want to know why he left?"

"No. It doesn't matter why Cain left. It will have nothing to do with me," Ryden muttered. "What I want to know is why he taught me. He has a reason for everything, and he spent a lot of his time preparing me. I just don't know for what. What was all that training meant for? What is the purpose? I can't believe he spent that much time without a goal in mind. So what is it that I should do?"

"Maybe he really just wanted to do something good for the world, and that's why he helped you get into your powers," Sally said, laying her arm around Rydens shoulder. "You are special, Ryden — no, not just special but unique."

Ryden felt the atmosphere change, and it wasn't to his liking.

Sally took his silence as an invitation and leaned over to Ryden, bringing her face close to his.

When Ryden instinctively reclined his head, he could see the hurt in Sallie's eyes. "I'm sorry Sally, but I—" he searched for the words, but the truth wasn't what he wanted to tell her.

Sally still took his silence for the answer it was. She excused herself with a whisper and left the room.

"Shit," Ryden muttered, burying his head into his hands again.

††† Sally †††

Sally silently made her way through the drunken customers of the establishment. She made sure to keep out of sight of her companions' table but still felt as if she saw Siegfried flick his eyes to her location for a fraction of a second. That man still caused her to shiver in her boots and was the source of many bad dreams she had since he embraced Damien in the equivalent of an iron maiden.

Still, right now, she couldn't care less. Her eyes were watering as she stalked down the dark alleys, aimlessly wandering while ignoring the stares she got everywhere. When she finally was alone, her mask broke, and she sobbed quietly.

It wasn't just the subtle rebuff from Ryden. She had known that her chances were low on that side. But the whole atmosphere had been weighing her down since they entered Victor's Bounty. Since she was trapped in this vast prison just after she was freed from the cage that was her life.

She knew she had a lot of emotional baggage pulling her under and while Siegfried and Haylee were nice enough, she didn't feel like she could open herself to them. Or that they would want it. Who knew what was going on behind that thick skull of Rak. And now Ryden would be reluctant to befriend her too.

"All alone in the dark?" a raspy voice startled Sally out of her thoughts. Her eyes darted up and down the alley and found that she was surrounded. How could she have been so stupid — she'd just walked through the district as if nothing could hurt her. As if she could still use her powers. And now she really messed up.

"I'm okay," Sally answered, wiping away her tears. "My friends will be here so—"

"I think not," another voice interrupted her. The deep rumbling came from a thick-skinned giant of a man. "Our scouts followed you for quite a while — no one else was close. No one else was dumb enough to enter my territory uninvited," the brutish looking man grinned.

Before she could reply, an iron fist connected with the back of Sally's head and everything went dark.