The waitress placed a steaming cup of tea on my table, and I thanked her with a nod and a tight-lipped smile. As she left, my gaze slid back to the building across the street, the place I’d been surveilling for the past fifteen minutes: Leyley’s Auction House.
It was a high-class place, not the kind of auction house someone like me could simply waltz into. Though I’d love to see them try and stop me today, I thought to myself, barely containing the seething anger within me. But I forced myself to wait. I only had one shot at accomplishing what I wanted, and I wanted to properly work through a plan before I barged in there. Accomplishing everything on my own meant being efficient, and that meant I needed predetermined goals in mind when I made my move.
Things would be a lot easier if Ren-
Before I could finish the thought, someone pulled the chair across from me and plopped themselves down on it.
“Great minds really do think alike, huh?” said the boy sitting across from me, a grin splitting his face.
My eyes snapped to Ren’s face, a small smile already forming on mine. “What are you doing here?” I asked in surprise.
“Same thing you are,” Ren answered. “The Tesserpine people told me. Not sure where they got their information, but it seems they’re more capable than we realized. They were already packing up when I found them. They didn’t know Zayr was using them as a bargaining chip, but they’d heard about what happened to the Fiercewater Clan and decided the prince was too much of a loose cannon for them to stay in the same city. They’ll be out of here by nightfall, at the latest.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “That’s good to know. Hopefully they can get out before word gets back to Zayr, but now we’ve done the most we can. Now we just need to worry about what we need to do.”
Ren nodded. “So, what’s the plan?”
I turned my gaze back to the opulent building across the street. As I’d been watching, fancy carriages had been arriving one after the other, which I figured meant that an event would be starting soon, or was currently happening.
“Well, I didn’t have much of a one for myself,” I started, a dangerous glint in my eye, “but now that you’re here, I think I might have an idea.”
Ren raised an eyebrow at me. “Goblin Village?” he asked, before turning and surveying the auction house again. “Hmm,” he said, “I guess it could work. You sure you can handle it, though? I’m sure they’ll have lots of guards right now. They just got quite the shipment, after all.”
A smile crept up on my face. “Don’t worry about me. I have no sympathy for these people, and bashing faces in is just what I need right now. Are you sure you can handle it, though? We don’t have a layout of the place, so you’ll have to find them on your own. ”
It was Ren’s turn to be indignant. “Oh, please. Long as you do your job, mine’ll be a walk in the park.”
I grinned at the boy’s confidence. “Well then, sounds like we’ve got ourselves a plan.”
The smile Ren returned was relaxed, but the rage reflected in his glossy eyes told me everything about how he was actually feeling. “Sounds like we do,” he echoed simply.
Leaving a single silver coin on the table along with my unfinished cup, the two of us quickly hopped the low fence separating the open patio from the street, making our way towards the auction house. Ren disappeared into the crowd of the street not long after, vanishing in that special way only he could.
I let the boy go with a smile, silently wishing him luck on his job while I steeled myself for mine.
There were a few rows of parked carriages in front of the building's steps and two guards positioned at the top of the staircase, on either side of the front entrance. But I’d scoped them out from the cafe, and I’d decided that they were placed there more for their appearance than their strength. They were too young and clean to have had any proper experience, so I didn’t count them as a threat at all.
They started when they saw me begin walking up the stairs – no doubt surprised that I was violating the unwritten rule of no commoners. But they maintained their professionalism – as much of it as they had, anyway – until I showed up before them.
As I walked up to the doors, they kept their eyes forward, not even sparing me a glance, as if I wasn’t worth their attention, but I could tell by the way their hands tightened around their spears that they were going to stop me the moment I tried for the door.
My patience had already been ground down into nothing at that point, so instead of seeing the farce through, I simply nipped it in the bud. A swirling ball of fire ignited in my hand as I shoved my palm right in front of one of the boys’ faces. The movement was so sudden and unexpected that neither had the time to react, and by the time they even realized the situation, my fireball was inches away from the boy’s face, the heat no doubt already stinging his cheek.
“Either of you move,” I said, my voice steely as I looked from one boy to the other, “and I burn your face off. Understood?”
The boy I was holding the fireball to swallowed audibly, forehead already slick and shiny with sweat. The two shifted their eyes to look at each other, weighing their options, before finally giving in and nodding slowly.
I smiled at their answers, satisfied. “Good. And you know what, while you're at it, just go home now. The two of you do not wanna stick around for the rest of this.”
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Without waiting to see if they heeded my warning, I kicked open the door and made my way inside.
Inside was a lobby of some sort, furnished with a lush red carpet and hanging chandeliers, artworks of all kinds and the general air of luxury the rich could never seem to live without.
I walked in, ignoring the derisive looks thrown my way by the few nobles who milled about. Looking around, I noticed there were four doors, two on each side of the lobby, numbered from one to four by metal symbols above each door. The metal of door number three was glowing a slight golden, and I took that to mean that was where the auction was happening.
It was about time for me to start doing my job by then, so I kicked the doors open and sauntered inside. The room was a theatre of sorts, dimly lit with descending rows of seats up to the brightly lit stage, atop which a woman in a flowing green dress stood.
At my loud entrance, murmurs rang out among the crowd, the masked nobles turning to find the source of the disturbance as they whispered. But I heard none of it, saw none of them. My attention was locked completely and utterly on the person at the center of the stage, the main spotlight focused directly on her small form.
It was Maya, standing tall and proud in the spotlight, her face set in defiant lines. Long flowing white robes draped her entire body, like the robes of an empress. And she looked every bit an empress, expression and all, except for the metal collar around her neck. Connected to the collar was a chain, the other end of it held in the hand of the hostess.
The sight of the collar on her small body brought up images I’d long buried in my mind, and as the safe I’d built up around those memories cracked, the emotions I hadn’t felt in years bubbled their way back up to the surface. A loud BOOM echoed out in the room, and before I knew it, my hand was on the face of the woman at the podium, my momentum forcing the woman’s skull through the wood of the wall a few meters behind her. My feet still smoked from the explosion I’d set off at the entrance of the theater, my soles so hot the wood of the stage hissed under my feet.
But I didn’t care for any of it; not for the screams of the nobles, not the guards rushing in to surround the stage. My eyes were locked on Maya’s unbelieving ones, the rage in me rearing its head as I got a close-up look at the girl. They’d dolled her up, make-up whitening her skin and reddening her cheeks, and they’d done a good job of it. Her skin was almost exactly as flawless as a doll’s, but the sight sickened me.
Ignoring the rest of the world, I wordlessly walked up to the girl and swept her up in my arms. As if she hadn’t quite believed it was real until I hugged her, the little girl finally broke out of her trance and started to sob in my arms, shaking with weakness and exhaustion.
As the little girl cried, I brought my hand up to the collar around her neck, my Flux-strengthened fingers crushing the metal until it shattered like glass. I patted the girl’s back slowly, my heart aching at the sound of her muffled sobs.
“Commoner!” came the stern voice of the commander of the guards, who’d finally arrived. “You are under arrest for assault and disruption of business! Comply, and you will be granted some leniency in your trial.”
Maya’s sobs calmed down by then, so I pulled back a little and looked down at the girl’s big brown eyes, ignoring the commander's presence entirely. “Do you know where Mama and the rest are right now?”
The girl nodded.
I smiled at her. “Great. You think you can get there by yourself?"
The girl nodded again.
"Of course you can. Ren should be there by now, so you should run into him on the way. This place is gonna get a little messy soon, and I don't want you to stick around for it, k?”
The girl nodded again.
“Alright then, princess,” I said, a smile creeping up on my face despite the circumstance, and pushed myself up to my feet. “Go find your mama. I’ve got some business to settle here.”
"What about you?" the girl asked suddenly, finally breaking her silence.
I grinned at her, brimming with confidence. "Don't you worry about me, princess. I'll be just fine. I'm strong, remember?"
The girl nodded, slower this time, worry still marring her expression. Dropping back into a crouch, I cupped the little girl's round cheeks and looked her in her big, brown eyes. "Listen to me, princess. I'm here now, so you don't have to worry about a thing anymore, okay? You and your mama and all your friends are gonna leave this ugly city behind and find yourselves a new home, a better home, even. And then you're gonna grow up big and strong, and you're going to protect other people, just like I'm going to protect you today, okay?"
The little girl smiled at me, the glow in her eyes brightening as I spoke, and especially so at the last part. But there was something else in her look, something I couldn't quite identify, but the girl gave me no time to think on it.
With a sudden, dazzling smile, the girl nodded and pulled back. "Thank you, Ruby," she said softly, meaning every word. Something about the way she said my name felt off, but the girl was gone in a flash, disappearing into the crack the auctioneer's head had created in the back wall.
With a lingering smile, and a slight unease, I turned to face the semi-circle of guards that had the stage surrounded, all of their spears pointed at me, their faces stern but hesitant. I smiled to myself, taking in the moment. I didn’t know why the guards were giving me so much time, but I wasn’t complaining. I wanted to savour this moment, to fully experience it. All the rage and frustration of the past had resurfaced in me, except now, I had the strength that I had so desperately wished for back then. And that meant I could finally do what I'd wanted to do all those years ago.
I breathed in deep, closing my eyes as I faced the confused noble crowd, before breathing out and opening my eyes. In the glare of the spotlight, I gave the people gathered a great big smile, and finally spoke.
“I will give the lot of you five seconds,” I said, my voice echoing in the silent theatre. “After which I will not take the slightest moral responsibility for any damages I may do to any of you. Understood?”
“Are you insane, commoner?!” the guard commander yelled at me, sounding panicked. “Do you know who these people are? If you touch a single hair on them, the death penalty will be the best you can hope for!”
Ah, so that’s why he’s holding back, I realized. He doesn’t want to fight if it’ll put the nobles at risk, huh?
I grinned at the man, ignoring him as I started to count down. “Five…” I started, staring down the masked nobles, who still hadn’t seemed to understand the situation yet.
“Four…”
Murmurs spread through the crowd like a ripple, some of the more quick-minded ones finally seeming to catch on to the fact that what was happening was not a joke or a part of the event.
“Three…”
A boy from the crowd stood up then, one who I recognized as part of Zayr's cohort. He jammed a finger in my direction, evidently recognizing me, too. “You damn Mountain Devil!! Do you think this is a joke? Do you know who I am? Or do you think your ties with the Young Prince make you untouchable now? I swear-AHHH!”
A fire bullet in the boy’s shoulder interrupted his tirade, which had already begun to grate on my ears even before he mentioned Zayr’s name.
“You barbarian!” the commander yelled again as he saw what happened. “You’ll regret this, I swear on my life!” As he spoke, he leapt up to the stage and rushed at me, spear aiming for my head.
I grinned as the man approached, the point of his spear less than a meter from my throat.
“Alright then. Time’s up, I guess.”