17a - Oaths (Part 1)

The mysterious tribal lady was telling the truth. She didn’t know what the woman really wanted but Liara had never seen this coming at all.

She pushed the door open and couldn't believe what she was seeing. Sila wasn’t really her lover but she couldn’t help but swallow a gasp at the scene that was laid before her.

The grown girl was in her scantiest clothes, all but ready to give herself up to a man. Liara had never seen the girl make such a face before. She might wear a scowl but Liara knew that look in her golden eyes.

Sila was also doing this in her place and toward Ake. The only man who had ever shown the faintest genuine interest in her half-blood self. She would be yelling at the other girl if she didn’t already know what was at stake or what made her act like this.

But if her sworn partner was this bold to get what she wanted then she decided that she should be brave too. Liara walked in and took a seat beside Ake. She placed her hand on his thigh and leaned in even though it reminded her of his painful rejection.

She just couldn’t let this one go. Unlike others, he didn’t distance himself as if she was an infectious disease. A man finally wanted her as she was and not because they just wanted to satisfy their sick imagination.

However, to think that the man had to be an other-worlder. She still had to hear it coming out from his lips even if she already knew it for a fact in her heart.

“I’ve heard of the [SpellBerserker] but I need to know something else first,” she began. “What do you think of a half-human like me?”

“Wait, you are half-human?” The man answered with a question but Liara stayed silent and demanded the true answer by staring into the man’s eyes.

“I mean, I don’t mind it really, I mean it doesn’t change anything. I still think you are very kind, honest to a fault, and very cute-”

“But then why did you push me away?” the question came out before she realized it.

Ake was taken aback as did she.

“It is too fast, too sudden, and I don’t want it to ruin anything,” Ake shrugged while Liara knew that the man was still hiding something.

She didn’t mean to ask the question and so she didn’t really mind it if he wasn’t ready to tell her the truth. Emotions were a very strange thing to talk about unless you were shardless.

But she couldn’t deny it was too sudden. He was not lying to her at least.

Liara took his arm and buried it into her.

Sila looked at her as if she was both jealous and envious.

It was only she who felt like she had been waiting forever for someone like him. A man who could accept her as she was. A half-blood who didn’t have a place in human society or even worse among the halflings.

“I understand,” Liara said and sighed.

“So, can I ask what your other half is?”

“My mother is a halfling, my father is a shardless human, a hunter by profession.”

“A halfling, wow,” the man chuckled with a big smile on his face.

Liara had never seen anyone with such a reaction which somehow made her feel very special. Taluna was right again. Ake is a treasure. It made her feel a lot better to strike a deal with the mysterious tribe guardian.

“Why, don’t you have a halfling in your world?” Sila asked on their behalf.

“No, only humans,” Ake answered and chuckled again.

A gasp escaped her mouth. A world with only humans? She couldn’t imagine something like that at all. She had heard of stories, but a magicless world with only humans? This was the first time she had heard such a thing.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

“But should you, I don’t know, feel at least odd being so close to a half-human?” Sila continued.

“Why should I?” Ake said. “She is pleasant to be with, doesn't that matter more?”

Sila’s eyes narrowed as she stared at the man.

Liara knew what those men had done to the poor girl and she wouldn’t blame her.

Sila still could not figure men out yet as she had grown sheltered by her doting and rich shardless father in their huge place. All her friends were already vetted by the father so they would be a nice experience for her growing up.

No one around her had ever tried to trick her or used her for their personal gains regardless of her thought. No one had pushed her down just because they wanted to pretend she wasn’t an adult and live in their sick dream.

Money did not equal strength, and without the shard, the shardless could only endure. The foolish aging man had tried his best to shelter the grown girl but it came shattering down when strong enough force came by.

Sila’s sudden and violent introduction to men had shuddered the cave she had been living in all her life. The poor girl now looked at all the men other than her father from in the very small opening of the collapsed cave her father had built around her.

“I don’t care if you don’t believe me, Sila,” Ake said. “But what if I offer this ability with only your [Oath] of secrecy and nothing else?”

Liara gasped for the second time in the night.

“But this is the very same ability that opens the path to [SpellBreaker], yes?” Ake shrugged at Liara’s demand. “This [Class] is only known to exist in the Kalahan Empire, how can anyone give away something so precious just to prove his point? What has she done for you that made you want to change her opinion on men?”

“It is not because of her, Liara,” Ake sighed and shook his head. “It is because of you.”

“Be- because of me?”

“Truthfully, I could have never said no to you if you had asked. You saved me back there and you’ve shown me the way even when I’m a white,” Ake chuckled. “You stayed by my side even when you could simply watch me from afar like anyone else would do. And I know you two are very close. You would never be fine with it if I only shared this with you, right?”

Liara found herself shaking her head.

“But, Ake-” he had saved her as much as she had saved him.

Liara continued only inside her head. She knew this but she couldn’t say it out loud as it may cost her dearly. The ability was the only key to a much better life.

In the dark underground prison, everyone else around her had given up. Most even pissed themselves after realizing the terrifying picture of their future. She had no one else to hold on to at that moment and she was about to give up herself.

Liara knew that she would be dead and forgotten if he had never stepped up and saved the day for all of them. Ake had given that hope back to her.

No one knew this, but at that moment, she would have done anything he asked, anything at all, just to save her own skin. Her body was a tiny price to pay, as also at that moment, the foolish thought of saving others had long been forgotten.

Allowing herself to be there was a terrible mistake.

Liara had seen the worst of what could have happened to the victims, but stupidly, so very stupidly, she just could not let it be. She knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep knowing she could have made a difference.

The foolish girl had still volunteered even if she knew it was a huge mistake.

Liara wanted to be seen.

She wanted to be heard.

To be desired.

But she wasn’t hailed as the hero she wanted to be, and it was only worth it because he was there. It was when Ake was the very outcome of her stupid desperation.

And she just could never imagine herself culling the young man just because he couldn’t control the wild essence-driven desire. It was her who had been baiting him all along. She almost lost it at the river as the man stared at her hungrily.

If it did happen she would probably be more than happy to pack her bags and run away with him. Liara had been kind to him because she wanted him to like her, to desire her.

There were also other very crucial things she had to tell him about the shards, but she could never risk it at this moment. No one would have dared when such an ability was offered as the reward of her ‘kindness’.

It was just not fair to him to do this to her.

To place her in this position.

“But are you sure, Ake? Because you can never take this back,” Liara said to the man sitting beside her.

“It cost me nothing, Liara,” the man chuckled. “My only worry is it being used against me somewhere in the future. That’s it.”

“Then we’ll add that to our [Oath],” Liara said, burying her guilt down.

Sila nodded in agreement and Ake sighed.

She promised herself that she would make it up to him, no matter what he thought when she told him the truth. She just really needed this ability to secure her future first.

If Ake hated her later, then perhaps it was meant to be. Whatever he decided to do later, she would support him, even if it meant from the shadows. She would need this ability as her survival depended on it, it was either together with him or not.

‘Yourself first,’ her father had always told her, despite her grievance.