[https://i.imgur.com/xDEYv8R.jpg]

I immediately threw my hands in the air in surrender. If there was a white flag nearby, I definitely would have flown it high above my head. “Lio, put your hands up!” I urged Lio to submit to them as well, but he was gawking at the shields they held. They were round and made of pure white steel, but with a triangular engraving that glowed a light blue. Just like when I write stuff in my tome.

“Mr. Meyne, put your hands up in the air, and do not reach for anything,” the captain of the Military Knights said while sliding his sword out from its sheath. He was still blankly looking right at those shields. His behavior was starting to make my knees shake and my hands wobble. He struck still like a statue.

“Lio!” I screamed at him this time. If he continues acting like this, then the Military Knights will attack us. Lio’s strong, but I don’t think he could beat twelve knights trained to fight mages. I was very concerned for the both of us, and I couldn’t just force Lio to do it, any quick movements and I’d be a goner.

I still remembered what Lio said about fighting a swordsman, they’re way too fast to keep up with and wouldn’t let mages even have the space to cast spells. No way did I want to get caught up with a dozen of them aiming their blades right at me. So I began screaming at Lio as loud as I could, trying to pierce his focus with my terrified eyes. Doesn’t he understand the gravity of the situation?

“Mother…” Lio muttered. His lips quivered the instant that word left his mouth. His eyes continued to glue onto the shields of the knights. He stepped forward a step.

“Sir, you are not complying. We will use force.” The captain of the knights ordered them all to lift their shields and advance towards us. It was only a matter of time before they lost their patiences. Lio needs to snap out of it.

Before I could even urge Lio further to get him to comply, a knight had advanced close to me and reached out a hand. There was nothing I could do but submit to their force. The knight grabbed me by the collar and yanked me forward towards the rest of his allies, and I squealed as he dragged me.

It seemed my hoarse scream snapped Lio out of his trance. He turned to see me being tugged away by the knights, and his eyes basically bulged out of his socket. He shot up his hands in the air instantly. “We surrender! Just don’t hurt anyone.”

From where I was held, among the Military Knights, I saw the faces of dozens of people within the Soaran Bull Head peak out of the door, and they all were just as terrified as I was. A dozen knights showing up in front of a restaurant would seem like a scary experience, especially since the people they were after were in that very building they were all in. AKA, Lio and I. I was still trying to piece together what we’d done to deserve this treatment.

“Lay your hands off Miss Glaciare,” the captain barked at the knight restraining me by the collar. He relented his grip on me finally, everyone seems to love to grab onto my collar. “You two are under arrest for assault and attempted murder.”

“What? We didn’t hurt anyone!” I turned around, my hands still in the air, and yelled back at the captain. I will not stand the mistreatment we were receiving, for no good reason nonetheless.

The captain of the knights snapped his fingers, the cowlick on the back of his blond head bouncing with every movement he made. Then two knights in bulky handcuffs came over to me and Lio and clamped them on.

These handcuffs were strange, almost as if it was draining the life out of me. No, it was draining the magic energy out of us just enough that we don’t have any to caste spells. Almost immediate after the soldier clamped one down on my wrists, he cocked his head back and clicked his tongue.

“Huh, guess you don't’ have a lot of that juice in ya’,” he said. He got that right.

Once our magic energy was drained, they dragged us away like prisoners in shackles. I still wanted to know how we got charged with murder and assault…

X X X

All the guards escorted us to a very familiar place: the headquarters of the Military Knights. I was glad we had friends with influence in there like Alurek and Dallon, but something tells me they wouldn’t want to interfere. Aiding “criminals” would make them look bad, so they had to maintain that façade of enforcers of the law.

It was not a warm welcome like last time, every knight that glared at us did so very solemnly as if to shame us. We didn’t do anything, so I was quite looking forward to the interrogations in order to see what’s truly going on.

It was just like before where many knights were outside in the large grassy courtyard, striking dummies with swords and sparring with each other. These men were the future of Kori Soaro’s law enforcement, which made me sorry for all the criminals in the future to come across these guys. They were clearly very strong, each of them seeming too fast for me, even if it was a sparring session. I felt bad for myself too, seeing as how we’re on different sides of the coin at the moment. Not for long though, I plan to talk my way out with a silver tongue.

“Hey, Captain Eiri, these the you guys were searching for?” A man walked out of the Military castle entrance to see all of us in the distance making our way towards it.

I squinted hard and realized it was a man we’d met before. It was Alurek.

“Yes, these two mages fit the description down to the letter: a male Fire Mage with chestnut hair and a normal build, and a female Water Mage with jet black hair and a slender build. The male’s armed with a white magic staff, and the female a dark green magic tome. These are definitely our guys.”

“Great!” Alurek bursted in a cheerful grin, for what? I hoped he would bail us out. “Let me question them myself.”

The Captain, Eiri, shook his head resolutely. “Definitely not. You and Commander Dallon have connections to these people, therefore you will be biased. I will question them myself as an unbiased party.”

There went our chance of sliding our way out of this mess. I cleared my throat and began thinking of what to say, but it was hard to do when we didn’t even know why we were charged in the first place.

Alurek sighed and shot glances at Lio and I. He didn’t have to look so guilty, he tried his best, at least. Our only hope was that I could talk our way out of this. Assuming that Lio freezes up like last time.

Eiri shooed away Alurek and escorted us inside the castle, which was still as clean as ever. The weapons on the various racks were as shiny and polished as ever, and the cobblestone floor was freshly mopped. I didn’t have time to take in the atmosphere, though, since Eiri shoved me forward and placed a hand at my shoulder to restrain me even more. Lio was oddly silent throughout it all. He’s always silent, no biggy.

It wasn’t long before we turned a corner that there was a huge wooden door outlined in metal. This was their interrogation room, meant to break the strongest of wills in criminals. The ominous door beckoned me forth by force.

Eiri flung the door open and threw us inside. The rest of the knights were posted outside the door, disappearing from sight when the wooden door recoiled shut from Eiri’s aggressive force upon it. There was nothing in the room aside from a chipped wooden table and three tree stump stools to sit on. Of course, the interrogator’s stool had a plump pillow on it for cushioning.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Eiri walked over and sat at the cushioned stool. His sword that was hanging on his belt struck the side of the table and cluttered. “Sit down.”

“Yes sir,” I replied right away. No use in being cheeky, that wouldn’t help us this time. My strategy was to be both honest yet backboned to not be manipulated by interrogation tactics. Lio and I sat next to each other in sync.

“So,” The Captain began, “Normally the procedure is to interrogate you two separately, but all the other interrogation rooms are full, and I honestly don’t want to initiate two separate interrogations one after another, so we’ll have a chat with all of us together. I am a busy man, after all.”

I nodded my head and kicked Lio’s foot under the table to get him to do the same. His response was weaker than mine. I’ll have to puppeteer him for the entire interrogation, it seemed.

“Let’s get straight to the point.” Eiri leaned forward and crossed one leg over the other, obviously trying to look calm and relaxed. “What were you two doing this morning?”

“Sir, Mister Meyne and I were practicing magic. He was teaching me Water Magic.” I stuck to my plan of being as honest as possible in the hopes that it would clear up any misunderstandings.

He tapped his feet repeatedly against the stone floor. I couldn’t tell if that was a good sign or not. “Where were you guys training at?”

“At the plains near the outskirts of the city.”

Mhm, I see now,” He said, nodding.

I was sure I knew their tactics like the back of my hand, from reading quite a bit about the Military Knights since I was a child. But it was way different when they employ their tactics to you instead of just reading about it in a book.

Their main objective in interrogations like this was to force a confession out of any suspects they genuinely believe to be guilty. Therefore, by us simply being here, that meant we were considered prime suspects to a crime. I really wanted to know the details of that crime, since we were still in the dark in that regard.

“And was there another person with you two?”

“Yes, a boy. Around sixteen years old I’d say.” While I shot out answers to every question Eiri blurted out, Lio sat pretty in his stool, staring at us as we conversed. Eiri then turned his head to target him.

“Miss Glaciare, please withhold from speaking for now, I want to hear from Mr. Meyne.” He shoved a hand in front of me to shut me up. I did exactly what he said and zipped my lips shut. Guess I was a tad too dominant in the conversation, which left Lio in the dust. “Mr. Meyne, what type of magic do you specialize in? We know its Fire Magic, but specifically what type of fire magic?”

Lio looked dazed as he lifted his head to make eye contact with Eiri. He took a deep breath. “I specialize in Projectile Fire Magic, sir.”

“What’s confusing me, Mr. Meyne, is your lack of qualifications to teach Water Magic to Miss Glaciare.”

Lio winced at that question. I knew it wasn’t an issue for him to answer, but the tone Eiri held in his voice was extremely imposing. “While it is true that I am not qualified whatsoever to teach any other type of magic aside from Fire, I at least know enough of the basics of Water Magic to give Miss Glaciare a foundation in the field.” He heaved out a large sigh after saying that.

Lio’s explanation seemed to work, going off of Eiri’s slow nods of approval. “Okay, I see now. About the boy, though… What were you guys doing with a young boy? You two are grown adults, right? Why hang around with a boy that age?”

I opened my mouth to speak, but The Captain hissed at me. “Shush! You’ll get your turn soon enough.”

I sank into the depths of my stool. I really had mentally prepared for this, but for what? The guy wouldn’t even let me speak anymore. I had to rely and Lio to pull through for us.

“Uh… um…” Master Lio’s eyes darted all around the empty room. It was like he was echoing himself with how much he repeated “um” and “uh”. Good strategy though to stall for time.

“What were you guys doing out in the field? I know more than just magic training was going on, so don’t even try to bullshit your way out of this.” Eiri began tapping his finger on the table restlessly. The conversation steered off of small talk and into the matter at hand. Stage two, if you will, of the interrogation.

Ah, the dreaded stage two where the suspect is confronted about the crime. Stage one was setting the scene and giving the suspect a chance to build a timeline. Stage two was ripping that timeline apart and getting to the truth. It was hard for us to predict what type of truth they wanted and defend against it if we still aren’t even sure what crime we’ve committed. Only thing we had to work with was “assault” and “attempted murder” , both of which are two of the most serious offenses one could commit, aside from straight up homicide.

“I had a magic duel with the boy,” Lio finally was able to squeak out.

“You’re lying.” Eiri pointed a finger at Lio and planted his other forearm on the table with so much force that it wobbled. “Magic dueling is a dead tradition, so no one does it anymore. You want to know why?”

“Huh?”

“Because those magic duels were used as a coverup to attack and murder someone. That was why the Royal Family had to wipe it from Soaran culture entirely. So don’t lie to me with such a subpar excuse. I know you did exactly what our predecessors did.”

I just couldn’t keep my mouth shut any longer, especially since what Lio said was the absolute truth. I jumped out of my seat and slammed my hands on the table, scowling at the Captain before me. “He’s not lying! He’s telling the truth!”

“Sit down, Miss Glaciare, right now. Don’t you dare test me.”

“No, there’s no way I’m letting you put words in our mouths!”

Eiri also got off his seat and growled at me.

“Charliette?” Lio looked to me like a frightened puppy. “Please, just sit back down.”

I was boiling with rage that I snapped at him. “No fucking way! Someone has to stand up for us.” It looked like Lio shrunk smaller, lowering his head as Eiri and I faced one another.

“What did I just say, you damn brat?”

“I don’t care what you said, we were telling the truth, and you had the audacity to assume we’d assault the kid!”

“Because you guys did! The evidence points to it!”

“What evidence? Some charred grass? Did you even talk to the boy? I’m sure he’ll tell you exactly what we’ve told you.”

He pursed his lips. “I don’t need to talk to the boy—”

“The Military Knights are supposed to uphold the law and righteously judge by truth, but what happened to that? All you’re doing is trying to twist that truth to convict us!” I was too caught up in the moment to take a break, cutting off Eiri and not holding back anything. I poured my heart and soul into every word I spoke.

This provoked Eiri even more, and he forcefully grabbed me by my shoulder and cocked back his other hand, making a fist from it. He gritted his teeth and his eyes were dilated out of sheer fury. I got under his skin with my last words.

He really wanted to hurt me, so I stood there and glared at him right in the eye without blinking. I was not backing down. He could punch me all he wants, that wouldn’t change a thing. But he didn’t. Eiri inched his now shaky fist towards me, but stopped dead in his tracks. He still locked eyes with me, yet bit his bottom lip and grunted. I thought he had the gusto to go through with it, seeing as how only moments ago his eyes were burning rage and his teeth gritted in frustration.

“Wait!” Lio got up from his seat and ran to me. He pulled me behind him, and he spread out his arms to protect me. Eiri witnessed it all. Why would we be so quick to stand up for each other, and for the words we say, if we truly are the heartless attackers they say we are? Hell, it would’ve benefited the other person if one got convicted but not the other, like what was going on with Lio, because then the other would run off scott-free. But we protected each other.

Eiri groaned and struggled to move his fist further. Seeing Lio jump to the front made his eyes wide in surprise, but softer. No longer was there a furious rage seeping out of him, I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was.

Eiri couldn’t hold it up any longer, and his arms fell to his side. From the face he was making, I could make out even the bags under his eyes, and the distraught drop of his mouth. He looked utterly defeated.

“You two…” he began, “I believe you.”

He collapsed into his stool and put his head down onto the table. “What kind of knight am I?” he said, although muffled by the table.

“Sir.” I walked in front of Lio and caught his attention. “Tell us everything about what’s going on.”

He looked up then nodded. Sorrow still swept over his face. “Sure… and I’m sorry.”

We sat down across from him yet again, but with a brand new atmosphere in the air. Finally, we’ll get to the bottom of this. I twirled the ends of my hair in anticipation. “The one who reported the crime in the first place…”

Lio and I grasped the ends of the table, on the edge of seats as well as we intently listened in.

“...was a man named Dalat.”