CHAPTER 19 - THE HAVEN GUILD’S DARK HISTORY

No one said a word for the next minute. They were all too shocked- me included- at what had just happened that they simply had no idea what to say. In front of us was a crater big enough to fit four horses. At the bottom of it was stone. The sand had piled up in a circle around the crater.

Kearan sighed and spoke first. “Let’s take a break, shall we? Before June tries to kill us again.” He dismounted and took a sip from his water flask.

The rest followed suit, except Winter, who seemed to be struggling to wrap her head around what I’d done. “What in all of Erobeus was that? I’ve never seen any magic like it. You guys saw it too, right? That black orb thingy.”

“Oh hurry up, Winter.” Verity sighed and shook the dust out of her hair. “Just leave it, already. June’s obviously abnormal.” However, she didn’t answer the question.

Taking one last more curious than strange look at me, Winter dismounted her horse and walked over to where the others stood.

I glanced at my xera.

It was back to maximum capacity. And none of them could figure out what I’d done.

‘Hey, uh, Raul?’ I asked hesitantly. He was the only one still around.

“What's up, little June?” He said while fumbling around with his horse’s straps.

‘How do I see my xera regeneration rate?’

“Oh, that thing. Yeah, to see statistics like that, just ask the A.S.S.”

That made sense. I distinctly remembered G telling me to do that before. Now I felt a little embarrassed. ‘Thanks…’ I said awkwardly.

“No problem!” He replied.

On any other occasion, I’d have simply turned away and got back to my own business. But for some reason, I decided to do something I’d never done before.

‘Hey… You need a hand with that? Well, not a hand, because I obviously don’t have any, but help? Do you need help with that?’ I stumbled over my words, but he seemed to understand.

“Yeah, actually that’d be great. I’m not so good with these kinds of nitpicky things.” He raised his heavily bandaged hands and shrugged. “Just need some help undoing the knot that’s keeping the saddle bag tied, right here.”

I floated over to where he stood. It was a tight dead knot, and would’ve been hard to undo even with the nimblest of fingers. Luckily, telekinesis allowed me to move objects with immense precision.

‘So,’ I began, trying to keep the conversation going while concentrating on undoing the knot. ‘What kind of injury is that? Those bandages don’t look thin.’

“Hah! You’re right. They really aren’t. I’ve had this since I was… probably ten years old? One time I refused to train, so ‘he’ nailed my hands to my sword. It never really healed, but at least I can still hold a sword, right?”

‘I’m sorry… what?’ Did I hear what I think I just heard?

“Hm? I said that the reason why my hands are like this is because ‘he’ nailed my hands to a sword when I disobeyed him.”

‘A-are you s-serious?’ There was no way. He had to be joking.

“Uh, of course? Don’t worry, that wasn’t the worst punishment they gave us, I remember one time we-”

‘Stop.’ I interrupted him and lurched. If I had a body, I’d probably have thrown up by now. ‘Please just… stop.’

Staggering, I returned to my horse’s saddle bag, aware of Raul’s oblivious look.

H-his hands. Nailed. Nailed. To a sword. When he was ten years old.

What the fuck happened to these people?

I shuddered and tried to get the bloody image of nails twisting and grinding through a young Raul’s bones. Trying to distract myself, I called out A.S.S to do what I’d intended to do before.

‘A.S.S. What is my xera regeneration rate?’ I thought.

[Xera Regeneration Rate: {2/s (base)} x {100 (xera capacity) (Skill: Potato Battery)} = 200/s]

A complicated equation that led to… two hundred per second. My maximum was a hundred. I regenerated double that amount in a single second. I stared at the text blankly for a few seconds. Wasn’t this… a cheat?

Wouldn’t it mean that I could practically cast any spell or skill, no matter the xera consumption and immediately regenerate that amount back?

Woah.

A smile instinctively crept onto my face.

Heh. Hehehe.

I guess I was overpowered, after all.

This potato battery skill was literally insane. No matter my xera capacity, I would instantly regenerate that amount of xera in less than a second.

I giggled at the thought, and was still giggling by the time I fell asleep with a smile on my face.

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By the time I woke up, we’d already settled down for the night. Apparently, Kearan had decided to stop travelling and camp early. He didn’t want to camp less than a kilometer away from Rarq, Lena, and Fern’s position since we didn’t know their current situation. They could be surrounded by monsters and we wouldn’t have any clue until we ran straight into them. Even as an L’Der, he had no power to see the kind of situation they were in.

Winter didn’t talk to me much that night. She was probably still confused as to how I’d managed to do… whatever I’d done. Hell, I didn’t even know.

For now, though, Jay and I were both sitting on a fallen log, staring into the starless night. It was late, and everyone else had gone to sleep. Since I’d taken a nap earlier, I was no longer sleepy.

“We used to sit like this all the time, you know.” He said softly, breaking the awkward silence between us.

For a second, I didn’t realise he was talking to me. Then I remembered there was no one else around and replied slowly. ‘Who’s we?’

“May, Kearan and I.”

A thought struck me. This was my chance to find out what’d happened to him. And the rest of the group. A chance to get some long overdue answers.

‘Can you…’ I began, not quite sure if blatantly blurting out my question would be appropriate. I decided against it. Maybe prompting him would be easier.

‘You guys seem tight. How do you know each other?’

Jay took a deep breath in and opened his mouth to speak.

‘Here it comes.’ I thought.

He’d fallen straight into it.

“Ever since I could remember, I’ve been running. I don’t know who my parents are, or if they’re even alive. Life has never been easy for me. Abandoned as a young child, I had to steal to survive and sleep on the streets. I’m not going to lie, I got beaten up pretty often. It was a really rough lifestyle.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

One day, while I was running from an angry baker, I spied a little boy in a dark alleyway, dressed in rags and crying his eyes out.

It was my first time meeting Kearan.

I thought he was like me.

I was young, barely a six year old.

Every day after that, I’d go to the street opposite of that alleyway and watch him cry. As curious as I was, I always wondered what he was crying about.

It was only after ten whole days of watching that I decided to approach him.

But when I stepped with my naked foot onto the cold ground of that alleyway, something felt off. When I looked him in those golden eyes, I wanted to run away as fast as possible.

Before I could move, a tall man wearing a feathered brown hat slunk out of the shadows and snagged my tiny wrist.

‘Hello there’. He said in an icy voice, his grip tightening. ‘It seems like you’re a little lost. Are you hungry? Do you want something to eat?’

Of course I couldn’t say no.

You might think I was stupid, but you probably would’ve done the same thing.

He asked what my name was, if I had any family, if I knew any adults. Little did I know that these questions were aimed to figure out whether anyone would question where I’d gone if I disappeared.

Once that had been confirmed, he brought me to an underground bunker where I met everyone here for the first time.” He finished dramatically.

‘Wait.’ I said, a little confused. ‘So who was that man, and what did he want from you guys anyways? Why were you all in that underground bunker?’

“That man was the leader of the mercenary guild ‘Helix’. His name was Constantine. We were a part of a special operation unit that assisted with assassinations and infiltration. Each and every one of us didn’t exist on the public records and had nowhere to go.” He took a pause to drink a sip of water.

I was almost too stunned to talk. Almost. ‘Y-you killed people? W-when you were children? Why?’

Jay shrugged. “Because if not, they would punish us. Severely.”

That wasn’t what I meant, but that reminded me of something else. “Wait. Raul said something about punishment before. Was that what happened to him?”

“Oh, you mean his hands? That was because he grew tired of sword training and unfortunately, Constantine just so happened to be watching. For punishment, his hands were nailed to the sword handle and he had to stay like that for the next ten days.”

I grimaced. I couldn’t imagine that I would live if that had happened to me. ‘They taught you how to use swords?’

“Swords, daggers, even magic. They taught us everything needed to ensure we completed our mission. What they didn’t teach us, though, like academics and how to read and write, Winter did. Being the oldest, she acted as the mother figure and taught us things like that all the time.”

Suddenly, I remembered Kearan and May’s conversation. ‘You said that everyone was an orphan. Then who were Kearan and May’s parents?’

‘Ha.’ He smiled fondly at the thought. “His name is Darcy, but everyone calls him Poison, since that’s what he specialized in. He's a relatively high ranking member of ‘Helix’, and was one of the only ones who took pity on us and treated us as children, instead of slaves.

I don’t know much about what happened between him and Kearan and May, but they were partners on a year-long mission to assassinate the baron. When they came back, they had begun to call him father.”

‘I see, I see.’ Was what I said, but I was not thinking about that at all. One phrase had caught my attention.

Assassinate the baron.

Did he mean me? But I was still alive, so that couldn’t be the case.

Then it must have been the previous one. My father had told me he simply went missing after a hunting expedition.

Had that been a lie? Or perhaps, it was intentional for him to go ‘missing’.

I gulped.

It could have been me.

If this ‘Helix guild’ could so easily take out the previous baron, who had a dozen guards surrounding him at all times, they could’ve killed me even easier.

‘Why?’ I asked slowly. ‘Why kill the baron?’

Jay shrugged. “It was their job. But I suspect the people who hired us were jealous. Angry, probably.”

‘But why angry?’ I pressed on. I needed to know. ‘What did the baron even do?’

“It’s more of what he didn’t do, not what he did. In fact,” He chuckled a little. “We all probably would’ve done it even if we weren’t paid.”

I didn’t understand.

“If you still don’t understand, look at us now. What I just told you, all of it. Do you think we deserved it? That it was right for us to have to go through it?”

‘No…’ I said hesitantly.

“Exactly. The baron. The only one who could’ve stopped this from happening, chose to ignore it and relax in his castle. It’s not just us. The baron, who wasn’t diligent enough in doing his job, allowed assassin guilds like Helix to form, allowed countless towns to fall into poverty, allowed monsters to destroy the border cities like Omani, and neglected all citizens apart from the nobles.”

The wind fluttered softly through the forest, blowing Jay’s dirty blonde hair around and revealing a large burn on the side of his neck.

I felt guilty.

I didn’t know why.

It wasn’t my fault.

It also wasn’t like he was talking about me either.

He was talking about the previous baron.

So why?

Why was I feeling so bad?

Because you know you’re just as guilty. And you were aware of everything that was going on behind the scenes, but you chose to ignore it.

‘I’m sorry.’ I said, unable to look Jay in the eye. ‘I’m so sorry.’

He seemed genuinely surprised. “Why are you apologizing? It’s not your fault. It’s not like you were the baron.”

I wondered if I would ever tell him- no- all of them the truth.

‘So… what happened to the guild?’ I asked, trying to relieve the clamp that had clenched firmly around my heart.

“Oh, right. Slowly, over the years- I didn’t realise it- but we were getting stronger. Kearan, especially so.With an affinity for three elements, he clearly had the most potential out of us all. Thus, the guild began to split us up. We were no longer the ‘child assassins’ squad that had to be watched over by a senior member at all times.

They trusted us more, albeit not completely, and stopped the harsh punishments if we disobeyed. But that was simply because we didn’t disobey anymore.

Or so they thought.

Kearan also has an amazing ability to rally supporters and earn people’s trust.”

‘Divine being would’ve been much more suited for someone like him.’ I thought to myself.

“However, he also has always had one serious flaw.” Jay said, lowering his voice.

‘Which is?’ I leaned in closer.

“Ambition. Kearan has always been the most ambitious out of all of us, which has got us into trouble several times. In fact, he was the one who suggested leaving the guild first. None of us would’ve even thought that was possible- and it wasn’t.

Even though we were strong, stronger than the majority of the guild members, there were simply too many of them. They outnumbered us ten to one.”

‘But then how did you-’

“The magic stone. Kearan just so happened to find it. It had already been a week since the magic stones began to appear, so we all knew what they did. Without those new powers and our strong magic, we were able to force our way out.”

‘I see.’ But something didn’t add up. ‘What happened afterwards?’

Jay shrugged. “We stayed together. At least, most of us. May and Riyan decided to leave and live a peaceful life after the death of their daughter. They didn’t want to fight anymore. We, on the other hand, formed our own mercenary guild, ‘Haven’, with Kearan being the leader. We didn’t want our skills to go to waste, so now we kill monsters for a living. The guild has never bothered us since Constantine disappeared. Last I heard of it, Poison had taken over.”

‘Oh.’ That was a rather anti-climatic ending.

“Hey, uh.” Jay said as he stood up and yawned loudly. “I’m going to turn in for the night. It’s getting late and we have an early morning tomorrow.”

‘Good… night.’ I said a minute later, too lost in my thoughts to notice he had already crept into the tent.

I looked up at the purplish-blue sky and sighed. Why? Why had this band of young adults suffered so much? Who’s fault was it? Theirs?

Yours.

Surely it wasn’t all my fault, right?

Yes, maybe I could have listened to the desperate pleas from the mayors of towns a little more often.

Maybe I could have acted on the promises to send more support to the towns on the borders.

Maybe I could have worked a little harder to shut down the illegal trading happening behind my back.

Maybe I could have gotten out of bed for more than an hour a day.

But that was in the past, and I couldn’t change any of that right now.

You can.

‘It’s not my fault… It’s not my fault…’ I whispered to myself, trying to shut out my guilty conscience.

I needed to think happy thoughts.

I pictured the moment where I became the baron. My first time seeing my castle. My servants, bowing at my feet. The maids, with their pretty tied back hair and bouncing bosoms. The gold. The jewelry.

The small hooded figure behind one of the columns. My gaze passed over him like he was invisible

And slowly, reluctantly, my vision dimmed and I fell into a fitful sleep, right there on the fallen log in the middle of the forest.

Dreaming about that figure and the burning hatred in those bright, golden eyes.