ALL NOVEL ARC 7-Cursed Fates-122-Umphrieltalia
The hunters weren’t terrible hosts.
As their group suspected, the hunters were more interested in certain members of the family. Talia was not too far from what the kingdom would consider a master caster, having mastered all the core spells of the interrogators and possessing a coefficient of over 400, but she wasn’t much of a combatant. Her affinity worked best against a restrained target in a quiet place where she could take her time whittling down their defenses and shifting through their secrets. She was confident fighting one caster of her level. Perhaps two. There was nothing she could do when she and the two Stars guarding her were surrounded by half a dozen named hunters.
The men that apprehended them had been quite rough about subduing them, leaving red marks across her arms that would turn into nasty bruises. However, they restrained themselves to just that. Talia was restrained, blindfolded, and separated from the Stars. They stuffed her into a carriage for a few minutes and then they forced her to walk through a building, one with long, narrow halls. The journey ended in a small room with no windows, a thin bed, a simple desk with a pitcher of water sitting on a wooden tray, and a single chair. She was thrown inside and left to her own devices.
Talia glanced at the gray walls and drab furniture before settling down for sleep. She wanted to be well-rested to face whatever they had planned for her, as she didn’t believe for a moment that they would stop at just keeping her locked away.
She was surprised how difficult it was to fall asleep. During her childhood, her bed had been nothing more than a wooden board with a thin blanket laid atop it. Throughout her training, she’d fallen asleep in even more unenviable positions. It was something she thought she was accustomed to. Taking charge of the Gold Dorm for the Hall entitled her to a room no less extravagant than the richest nobles could afford but she still hadn’t felt much difference between sleeping in her soft bed or falling asleep in her office.
It took a while to realize that she didn’t miss Lou’s bed but the company in it. Since she had dedicated herself to the Tome clan as Kierra preferred to address them, it was rare to spend a night alone. A warm body was a different kind of comfort, one she missed.
Sometime after she woke, morning she guessed from the small amount of light that seeped under her door, a knock interrupted the silence. Talia changed the way she circulated her mana and her normal sight reverted to the mana sight of her birth. It didn’t care about obstacles and she clearly saw the vaguely human-shaped mass of mana waiting patiently for her response. A single wind affinity. It not being a mental caster gave her hope that they didn’t have unsavory intentions toward her.
“Enter,” she called.
She heard the door swing open and the wind caster moved closer. She swapped back to normal sight, still feeling a little thrill as she did, and took in a man with tired brown eyes entered. His thin stubble had several unkempt hairs, speaking to stressful days and long nights.
“Good morning.” The man kept a respectful distance, lingering near the door. “How are you feeling?”
She hummed, her pointed stare telling him to get to the point.
He cleared his throat and motioned toward the pitcher of water on the desk. “May I?”
A useless gesture. As a potential interrogator, she had been taught all manner of techniques to pry someone’s secrets out of them. Instilling a false sense of power to lower a target’s guard and foster trust was a basic tactic. A part of her was offended he’d even tried. But she played his game, waving for him to proceed. He smiled wanly as he poured himself a cup and drank of it heavily.
“Thank you. It’s been a long night with no time for small considerations.” He set down his drink and his faint smile turned down. “My name is Lucas Macklemore. You may be familiar with my brother, Lane. He tells me that he gets around the Hall.”
She stared at him silently until he cleared his throat.
“There’s no need to introduce yourself. Your reputation extends well beyond the capital. Particularly that you are intelligent and fair.”
She continued to stare.
“This isn’t an enviable position but I’m hoping that you will see why we had to do it. Your…housemate is an unnecessary complication in an already turbulent situation. An unkillable enemy makes people nervous and the guilds need to be united against the threat of the north.
“Surely you can understand why we are taking such drastic actions.” His hands moved as his speech became agitated. “This March cannot be allowed to proceed. The entire premise is ridiculous, a thin excuse for the north to rob us. I don’t agree that they’re poised for war, as I’ve participated in a campaign and witnessed their fanaticism firsthand, but it is a precedent that can’t be allowed. Who will be the next to make irrational demands of us at the point of a sword? The clans? The capital? Will our hunters be shaken down outside our walls until they’re too busy defending themselves to make a living? No!”
One of his hands slapped the table with force as his emotions surged but he quickly calmed down, composing his expression. “We debated long and hard. After all, it’s not easy ordering people to die. This is the choice we came up with to save the most lives. I give you my word that we will release you once we have settled things with Victory.”
His words would be a lot more trustworthy coming from his mind than his mouth, but she doubted he would allow her to validate them. “How long?” she asked.
“How long will we keep you? That intends entirely on the north. It could be a few weeks. It could be months. There’s even a chance it could be years…but there is a way that you can shorten that time significantly. In fact, we would be willing to release you today…if you tell us the secret to Lourianne Tome’s apparent immortality.”
He held up a hand. “Before you say anything, I want to emphasize that we have no intention of killing her. As I said earlier, this is an issue of morale. Our people think she is some kind of monster in a woman’s skin. They think she is a creature of the Abyss born from ten generations of dead James or some other nonsense.” He sighed. “The people of Quest are more than happy to fight the north, but their resolve is being shaken by a single woman’s reputation. It’s completely ridiculous, but it’s the fact of the matter. If we want to protect this city, we need to humanize her. I don’t care how outlandish it is nor do I want to replicate it. I just need an explanation rooted in logic. Then we’ll send you on your way.”
Talia had little experience judging cues like facial expressions and body language because of her eyes but that made her especially sensitive to tone. The voice was unexpectedly honest. It rose and fell with emotion, making it a dependable tool for discerning the speaker’s intentions.
He sounded earnest, which interested her. She wasn’t arrogant enough to brazenly declare herself intelligent, but she was far from stupid. More relevant, she had experience with…interesting situations like the one she was in as the head interrogator’s only disciple. There were times that their duties skirted the boundaries of both the law and ethics.
Her benefactor had lectured her on the allure of power and the power of rumors. It made sense that the regular hunters, the masses that would face the brunt of the north’s aggression, would balk at the thought of fighting Lou. They might be accustomed to risking their lives, but it would be unreasonable to ask them to throw their lives away for no chance of winning. Some people thought that there was nothing scarier than the unknown, but her teacher disagreed. Those of courageous nature could face the unknowable.
What broke even heroes was futility. The certainty that one’s efforts would amount to nothing. The futility of fighting Lou was poised to crush the guilds without the north swinging a single sword and that had to scare the leaders of the city.
That kind of power wasn’t something that someone let slip through their fingers. Lucas might not know it, given his earnest tone, but Talia was sure they very much wanted to replicate Lou’s miraculous durability and she would be going nowhere until they did. She would also bet all the generous allowance Kierra gave her that the others weren’t being treated quite as courteously. Her abilities weren’t well known but those that did know of her understood that trying to rip the information from her mind would be another venture in futility.
It occurred to her that if she didn’t cooperate, someone far less polite would be sent in to get the information.
Not that the possibility was relevant. The thought of a little “hard questioning” wasn’t enough to make her betray herself, as her loyalty to Lou was the basis for her entire future, but even if she wanted to betray the noblewoman, she couldn’t.
“I don’t know.”
“Huh?”
Her lips turned up a fraction. “I said, I do not know her secret. I can’t tell you how to bring her down.”