Evay Maver: I woke up in a dark, cold, and really creepy looking infirmary. I looked around to see other soldiers like me sleeping in hospital beds. None of them seemed to be dead–which was good–but they were all a little too still. I couldn’t even tell if they were breathing or not–it was like they were in some death trance. I looked down at my body. I knew that I had sustained a lot of injuries in my last fight but nothing really hurt anymore. My body was riddled with scars and cuts and old wound marks but besides that I was good. The hole in my chest was gone, my legs were back, my hands had all their fingers again, and I felt good. I took off my blanket and turned to get some water placed by my bed when I was greeted, nose to nose, by Mars. I jumped out of my bed and put my hands up as Grace, Buffon, and Via all crept out of the shadows. I looked around, “You’re the guys I made a deal with right? The one to kill Ilia? I did it and now you guys owe me the thing that I wanted. I’ve been wondering where you were. Did you find her? Amie?” Mars laughed,

“Settle your tits kid. Sit down–have some of this….. Whatever the fuck this is.” He gave me my water cup which, upon second glance, wasn’t a water cup. It was filled with some green liquid which smelled strange and probably tasted worse. I didn’t move, “Nah–I’m good right here. You guys do know that I’m fully healed right? I do that pretty fast.” I clenched my fists. Grace nodded,

“Yes we are aware. Did you know that any soldier who took that much damage in a battle should’ve died? I mean, you had lost literally half of your body and more than half of your blood. But you lived and fought through it and to top it all off, you’re all back to normal now.” I looked at her,

“Yeah, so what?” Via barely looked at me and spoke with her usual monotone voice,

“It means you’re special–dumbass. We want to know how you–a child soldier–can sustain injuries that not even some members of the fifth legion can sustain and live to tell the tale. On top of that you beat a centurion. That’s the rank given to a senior soldier in other countries–someone who’s been a warrior for over ten years. That guy you killed–the one with crystal spikes–he had been a warrior since he was your age and he was twenty five. Do the math.” I spoke calmly,

“Hate math. But none of that is your business. If I’m strong so what? Did you hold up my end of the deal or not?” None of them answered and Mars spoke with a terrifying grin on his face,

“This Amie girl–is she your friend?” I nodded and he laughed, “Nice. Well did you ever think, with that thick skull of yours, that we wouldn’t find out she was a peasant.” My heart dropped for a bit. I can salvage this.

“So what? Warriors search for peasants all the time–”

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“Didn’t you just say she was your friend?” My heart dropped even further and Mars laughed like it was his wedding day. “Oh kid…. I tell you, if being a warrior doesn’t work out, please do not become a lawyer.” I clenched my fists,

“So what if I’m friends with a peasant? Does it matter? What? Are you going to tell everyone?” Mars shrugged,

“That’s not a bad idea actually. If word gets out that you're a peasant lover you’ll be ostracized, hated, people won’t like you, and if your own people don’t like you on a battlefield you’ll always have to be worried about two enemies instead of one.” I clenched my fists. “But no. That wasn’t our plan. You see we did some digging into your friend and in the process of doing so we did some digging–albeit accidentally–on you.” My heart rate quicked. “Once we found out that this Amie was a peasant–not hard to do considering that people with little connections, no background information, a citizencard ID, or significant family history are usually peasants–we traced her hometown and went there. They weren’t too happy with us–guess we brought up some bad memories,” golden sparks flew off of my body as my head pounded from rage. Grace put up her hands and I blasted her into the opposite wall as golden sparks flew off of my fingertips. Buffon and Grace started to move but Mars intervened, “Stop. What are all of you going to do anyway?” They stopped and Grace got up gingerly. Mars smiled, “Don’t worry–we didn’t so much as lay a finger on them. I can assure you that.” He leaned back in his chair, “I put all of these resting warriors into a deep coma–in case you didn’t notice. I burned the leaves of a plant called the Hydroxa. It releases a sort of calming and resting incense which–when used in large amounts–can also permanently alter one's brain. We hoped it would make you weaker but I guess it just doesn’t work on you at all.” I shouted loudly,

“Get to the point! Why are you telling me you went back to my–” I stopped cold in my tracks. Mars smiled,

“I was getting there but I guess you did my job for me. I WAAAAAAAAS saying that it was quite surprising for us when Amie’s town—or what was left of it after the nobles bought it—mentioned someone by the name of Evay Maver.” My heart beat quickly and my palms started to sweat. Mars stopped grinning and looked at me with cold, lifeless eyes that made the core of my being shiver. “So what I’m gettin at boy, is that you’re in no position to make demands. You got played like a fucking fiddle peasant-boy.” I grabbed his throat and flew into the air as all of Mar’s squad tensed up and got ready to pounce at me. Mars kept staring into my soul, “You can kill me—but you’ll lose the info about where your little friend is. If you think you can find her yourself—good luck. Try asking anybody in the world besides us where a peasant girl is and you’ll be ousted or you just won’t get any answers. Kill me—go ahead—if you don’t care about your little lady.” I bore my hateful eyes into his soul as I threw him back down to the ground. He landed and a creepy smile crept onto his face, “I'm not sure how you’re a peasant considering the fact that you clearly have liquor powers but if you so much as utter a word of caution about us to the government or your little military friends we will expose your identity to the world. If you want your information about Amie and if you want to keep your little identity a secret you’ll do what we say.” I clenched my fists so hard that they started to bleed,

“And what is that?”

Mars smiled, “Bring us the warrior named Lila Fairheart—if not then your secret gets out. We’ll give you a generous amount of time. Mind you, we also know where your little friend is—you know what happens if you don’t succeed right?” My heart started to beat so fast that my vision started to get blurry. “What do you want with Lila? She’s innocent.” Mars grinned,

“I’ll tell you later—just do the task. If you fail,” his eyes glowed a deep, dark, evil red as his voice seemed to shift into a demonic tone, “I’ll bring you Amie’s head on a platter.”