🏆 THE AMBY AWARDS 2023 TOP PICK - DIVERSE LIT 🏆
It's Rin and Hye-jin against the world. Or so it should have been.
Nagara Rin and Joon Hye-jin, college sweethearts and passionate gamers, have lived a fairytale marriage. Not even a decade after did...
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Cavya's gloved hand played with the pommel of his rapier as he stood inside the tent illuminated only by the flickering flame from the oil lamp. The amber light bathing his gray and white fur almost made him some sort of a golden statue. I swallowed against the growing lump in my throat, knowing full well what I was about to hear.
"You broke protocol today," was all Cavya said without turning to me. His gaze on the single cot joined by a pile of stingers and mandibles he collected himself never wavered.
I clenched my jaw. "Someone from the eastern guild is in trouble," I reasoned. "Of course, I have to go and help."
Cavya whirled to me then, the butt of his rapier's sheathe hitting the topmost mandible with a faint click. "By putting the rest of us in danger?" he said. It wasn't a question, not that I planned to answer anyway. "I expected better judgment from you."
Yeah. It's my fault. I shouldn't have acted on impulse and followed the chain of command in reporting incidents before moving on my own. "I apologize, Cavya," I said as earnestly as I could. "It won't happen again."
The cat-headed langkoor hummed. Its translation was It'd better not. "That initiate..." he pondered aloud, talking about Seline as if I was in a different league from her. "What is your relationship with her?"
My spine turned rigid. I opened my mouth, my brain scrambling for an answer, but nothing appropriate seemed to come. What would I even say to the equivalent of my corporate boss? That I was having problems at home and that Hye-jin and I were once together and now we're not? Did they even have the concept of marriage here? Besides, if I told him...that's going to give rise to more questions and, consequently, more suspicions. I got to where I was through unorthodox means, so I wasn't sure how much more I should allow myself to stand out.
"I...Nothing more than an acquaintance, sir," I said, before wincing at having thrown in the honorific as if by habit.
If Cavya noticed my slip-up, he didn't give any indication. Instead he tilted his head to one side. "She's quite special, yes?" he said. "A crafting spiria who managed to fly below our noses until she used her magic today. Why do you think that is?"
I didn't even know what a crafting spiria was. All I cared about was Seline having an interesting set of special skills I wished to have chosen way back when we were starting out on Legends of Solarlume. "She is good at keeping secrets?" I quipped.
My humor flew by Cavya's eternally twitching ears. "I think not," he tapped a finger against his furry chin. "Her comrades are in on it. They hid her together. Do you recall what Heather said about her when we were talking about ranks?"
I rummaged around in my head, but the draining fight earlier occupied it to the full. "Uh..."
"They claimed she would sail past the Class rank if given time," Cavya did it for me. His cat-eyes narrowed with something I could only describe as intrigue. "It's strange, don't you think so? This particular scouting party interests me. But one thing stands in my way, keeping me from fully seeing their potential."
