Chapter 26. The Smallest Voice in the Loudest Square

Chapter 26: 26. The Smallest Voice in the Loudest Square

I was shocked seeing Millie was the loudest one to protect me. And now... She was crying.

Tears ran down her face and dripped off her chin, and she didn’t wipe them away. She kept her eyes on the crowd, on the wolf mother, the bull-horned women, even to all the furious faces, and she didn’t say she was sorry.

"He didn’t buy me," she said. "He doesn’t own me!"

"He opened my cage, and then he asked if I wanted to hold his hand!"

"That’s all he did...! He asked...! NICELY...! AS A LOVELY HUMAN!"

Nobody spoke.

"Nobody else ever asked." Her voice cracked on the last word. "Not once... Not in my whole life as a beastwoman..."

"But this... human... he’s not supposed to be called lowly other than lovely..."

"He was the one who asked... as a human... my human...!"

Silence... thick and heavy... spread over the square. And I didn’t even dare to say a word other than look at her, still with that shocking expression.

Behind us, someone stepped forward.

It was Seraphine, with Pip pressed against her hip, and she walked to Millie’s side and stood there without a word.

A second prisoner followed her, a lean cat woman with a limp, the same one Millie had hauled down the hillside.

Then a third, and a fourth, until a ragged semicircle of freed captives stood in front of the crowd, shoulder to shoulder with a rabbit who had never in her life been allowed to stand in front of anyone.

"He took a spear for us," the cat woman said hoarsely. "I saw it! He could have run away like a coward, but... he stayed, and that’s the truth!"

"He didn’t ask for money," Seraphine said. "He didn’t ask for anything from us all!"

"He just kept saying we shouldn’t have been in cages!"

A murmur rippled through the crowd.

The wolf mother’s mouth had gone tight and trembling, and she was staring at Pip with a strange, aching look.

Then Elsbeth stepped forward too.

"I am Elsbeth Evershade of the Northern Wolf Clan," she said, and her voice rang out over the square like struck iron. "I was dying in the snow..."

"This man found me, and he gave me his coat."

"He dragged me to shelter, and with what he did... he saved my life, even though he’s a human." She paused, and I saw what that cost her, the stiffness in her shoulders and the way her ears flicked back. "He saved it three times... And I do not say that lightly."

I stared at her. ’What...? Three times...? I’d only counted two.’

I realized she was counting the coat, and that she had said it in front of a thousand people, and a ridiculous, stupid warmth rose in my chest all of a sudden.

Magnara pulled her axe out of the ground and rested it on her shoulder. "Isn’t that clear enough for you all?!"

But still... it’s dead silent for all the crowd.

"Anyone who lays a hand on this man before the council decides his fate," she said calmly, "will answer to the Gate-Breaker."

That did it...

The tension in the crowd hit a breaking point, and for a heartbeat I thought it might snap in the wrong direction.

Then something strange happened.

I’m not sure how to describe it, but... I was standing right behind Millie, so I had the best view, and I swear! I’m not making this up.

As she stood there trembling and crying with her fists clenched, a faint silver glow began to rise around her feet...

It wasn’t bright, and it wasn’t dramatic.

It was just a soft... pale shimmer on the cobblestones, like moonlight on still water, and it spread out around her in a slow circle that was about two feet wide.

What the...? What happened to Millie?!

Nobody said anything.

A few people in the crowd drew in a sharp breath, though I doubt any of them could have said why...

Ysolde’s ears twitched. And the wolf mother took half a step back, and her hands relaxed from fists.

Only Elsbeth turned her head... very slowly, and stared at Millie with narrowed eyes. She didn’t say a word.

She just watched, and I could see her thinking about something she wasn’t going to share.

The glow faded after a few seconds, and Millie never noticed it... She just stood there, shaking, with her chin up.

The crowd stood in silence a moment longer. Then, one by one, they began to lower their hands.

It wasn’t that they had stopped hating humans, but... I don’t think a single person there had changed their mind about the whole species.

But it’s very hard to throw a stone at a girl who has just stepped out of her chains and put herself between you and the man who freed her.

The rage ran out of the square like water from a cracked bucket. The wolf mother covered her face and turned away.

The bull-horned women spat on the ground, but she stepped back. A hundred small, sullen movements rippled through the crowd, and the surge became a slow, grudging retreat.

I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. "Fuhhhhhh..."

"Thanks, Millie..." I whispered to Millie’s back. "I owe you, like, a hundred meals!"

She turned around and looked at me with swimming eyes, and then she collapsed into my chest and started sobbing.

"Millie..." I held her with my one good arm, and I couldn’t think of a single joke.

Warden Ysolde took over from there, and I was grateful because she was exactly the kind of person who knows what to do when things go sideways.

She cleared the square with a handful of sharp commands, ordered her guards to take the rescued prisoners to the healers, and then turned just to look at me with those cool, spotted-cat eyes.

"The council will decide your fate," she said. "It will take several days..."

"Until then, you may remain within the gate district, under watch."

"You will not leave this area, and you will not carry any weapons."

"You also will not speak to the citizens without a guard present."

"That’s more than I expected," I admitted. "I was kind of picturing a pit here..."

"We do have a pit," she said, perfectly deadpan. "It is currently under repair."

Fucking hell... I decided not to ask about that further.

"Your sword," she added.

I looked down at the rusty sword hanging from my belt. It was a terrible weapon, honestly, notched and pitted and about as sharp as a spoon.

I’d carried it for four days, and I’d killed a man with it. I unbuckled it, handed it over, and tried to look solemn.

"Take good care of it," I said. "It’s the greatest sacrifice I’ve ever made."

"You said that without anything, this is... a very poor sword."

"And that’s what makes it special... a sacrifice was behind it."

Ysolde looked at me for a long moment, and I swear one corner of her mouth twitched. She took the sword, gave it to a guard without looking at it, and moved on.

Before the freed prisoners were led away to the healers, Seraphine hung back for a moment. She glanced at Pip, then at me, and gave a small, formal nod that I could tell cost her a great deal.

"Thank you so much," she said. "We don’t know how to repay you other than saying thanks."

"Maybe someday... we can help you back."

I raised my hand while I shook my head. "N-no... it’s alright."

Then I giggled while scratching my head. "All of you already helped me enough from getting killed in Elarune anyway..."

Pip sneaked out from behind her skirt, ran forward, and hugged my leg for exactly one second before bolting back.

"Bye, scary rabbit man!" she squeaked.

"Whoa there! I’m a scary rabbit man now?"

"You said you screamed at a rabbit!"

"That’s fair..."

Millie refused to leave my side, and I think Ysolde would have argued if the old healer hadn’t spoken up. The healers of Elarune, it turned out, flat out refused to touch a human.

But Millie had testified in front of a thousand people, and she was a rescued captive, and she could do the work herself under the supervision of an experienced hand.

In the end, Ysolde gave a curt nod and assigned us a small stone house at the edge of the gate district, near the healers’ hall, with two guards posted at the end of the lane.

Well now... at least It was the nicest prison I’d ever seen.

The healer assigned to supervise us was a stooped, ancient woman with the thick, curled horns of a ram and a face like a walnut. Her name was Marrow, and it didn’t surprise me at all that she did not like me.

"I will not touch him," she announced, standing in the doorway with her arms crossed and a satchel clutched against her chest. "I will tell the girl what to do, and she will do it, and if he dies... it will be his own fault."

"That’s... very reassuring," I said from the bed.

"I am not here to reassure you, boy... I am here to see that the girl does not make a mess of it."

She proceeded to boss Millie around from the other side of the room like a general, pointing her cane at various bandages and herbs, barking instructions in a crackling voice.

Millie followed every one with painstaking care. She washed my wound with warm water, laid out strips of linen, and packed the hole in my side with a green, foul-smelling paste that made my eyes water.

"Ow," I said. "Ow, ow, ow... damn, that’s cold..."

"Millie, what is that stuff...? Is it made of regret?"

"It’s crushed willowroot and moss, you dumb human!" Marrow snapped.

"Yuck...! It smells like a swamp’s armpit."

"It smells like a medicine that works for you."

I tried to bite back the rest of my commentary and... failed.

Millie was bent over my side with her tongue between her teeth, concentrating hard. And I couldn’t resist it.

"You know, Millie... you’ve got really gentle hands." I smiled. "It’s kind of nice actually..."

"I’d say it’s even a little intimate, in a medical way. " I didn’t realize what I just said could make me a creep instantly, but it’s just my playboy instinct as usual.

Millie’s ears shot straight up. Her face went red from her chin to her hairline.

She pressed down on the bandage with a firmness that I can only describe as punitive.

"OW! Okay, okay...! I deserved that!"

"Yes," Marrow said with grim satisfaction. "You did."