Chapter 93: A Valuable Frien:)

Kōya sat by the narrow garret window while iron-rimmed wagons and late-night laughter rumbled up from the street three stories below, sorting the dwindling contents of his heavy travel bag across the table.

"Medicine." He lifted a flat paper packet of healing herbs and shook it once. "Nearly empty."

He checked a second leather pouch. "Bandages."

He opened the third. "Cooking supplies."

Running a scarred hand through his dark hair, he set the pouches in a neat row on the pine board. "We need to visit the market tomorrow."

Across the cramped room, Lyra stood in front of the cracked wall-mirror in a loose linen sleeping shift, drawing a wooden comb through the tangles of her dark hair.

"You know," Lyra said without turning around, "you are becoming more of a pervert every day."

Kōya’s hands froze over the medical kit. "What?"

Lyra pulled the comb smoothly from crown to shoulder. "I said you are becoming more of a pervert."

"Based on what evidence?"

She met his eyes in the diagonal crack running across the mirror glass. "You’ve been traveling with me for quite a while now."

"And?"

"And your behavior gets more suspicious every single day."

Kōya frowned at the back of her head. "I haven’t done a single inappropriate thing."

"Yet."

"I am not a pervert, Lyra."

Lyra smiled in the glass, a teasing glint in her dark eyes. "You say that with impressive confidence."

"Because it is an objective truth."

Turning slightly toward the table, she leaned her hip against the washstand. "Then why do you act so strange whenever I’m changing my clothes in here?"

Kōya turned his chin away and stared hard at a roll of linen bandages. "I’m not acting strange."

"You definitely are."

"I am looking at the medical supplies right now."

"You were looking directly at me less than five seconds ago."

"I was looking at the mirror to check the reflection of the hallway door."

"You were looking at me through the mirror."

Kōya opened his mouth to deliver a logical defense, weighed how the geometry sounded aloud, and closed his teeth.

Lyra let out a bright laugh. "There."

"What?"

"That exact face."

"What face?"

"The face of someone who knows he has been caught."

"I haven’t been caught doing a thing."

"Really?"

"Really."

Shaking her head in fond exasperation, Lyra turned back to the mirror and resumed combing her hair. "You are completely hopeless."

Kōya pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a long breath.

Behind his eyelids, an unbidden fragment of memory surfaced from years ago: pouring rain on a ruined border street, a fierce silver-haired tiger beastwoman glaring down at him in the mud, a striped tail brushing his wrist, and his own hand shooting out to grab it during their chaotic first encounter.

The memory flashed past in half a heartbeat, yet down on the table, Kōya’s right hand moved on its own.

His scarred fingers curled inward over the wood, executing a small, rhythmic squeezing motion in the empty air.

Over by the washstand, the comb stopped dead.

Silence settled over the small room.

Kōya looked down at his right hand.

Through the mirror glass, Lyra looked down at his right hand.

Whack!

The heavy wooden comb flew across the room and struck Kōya square in the center of his forehead.

"Ow!" Kōya clapped a hand to his brow as the comb clattered onto the floorboards.

Lyra spun around, her face flaming bright red from collar to hairline. "What was that motion?"

Kōya rubbed the red mark on his forehead. "What was what?"

"Your hand!"

He looked down at the table. Unchecked by his brain, his fingers were still performing the slow, involuntary squeezing motion above the bandage rolls.

Kōya’s eyes went wide. "Wait—"

"You’re still doing it!"

Kōya slammed his left palm down over his right wrist, pinning his fingers flat against the tabletop.

They stared at each other across the narrow room in shock.

Lyra covered her burning cheeks with both hands. "What were you picturing in your head right now?"

"Nothing!"

"That hand motion is not nothing!"

"It was a random memory!"

"A memory of what?"

Kōya hesitated, weighing how the truth sounded. "Kaela."

Lyra blinked, lowering her fingers an inch from her eyes. "Kaela?"

"Yes."

"What kind of memory with your master involves that grip?"

"The very first time we met in the rain."

Lyra stared at his face, dropped her eyes to his pinned hand on the table, and looked slowly back up.

"Kōya."

"What?"

"Please tell me your first memory of meeting your master isn’t—"

"It isn’t!"

She arched a skeptical eyebrow.

He looked away toward the dark windowpane, sweat prickling along his collar. "...Her tail brushed my arm in the mud."

Lyra folded her arms tight across her chest. "You were definitely imagining something else."

"I wasn’t."

"Then what was your hand doing?"

"I honestly don’t know." He looked down at his own knuckles as if they belonged to someone else. "It moved on its own."

Seeing the distress in his expression, the heat in Lyra’s glare softened.

Kōya took a slow, steadying breath and met her eyes squarely. "Sorry."

She blinked in surprise. "What?"

"I am sorry," he said evenly. "It really was an old memory."

For a long moment, Lyra stood quiet beside the washstand. Then a small, warm smile touched her mouth. "You know..."

"What?"

"I think you’re the first person in the world who has ever apologized to me like that."

Kōya frowned slightly. "I don’t understand."

"You don’t have to." Setting the comb down on the stand, she walked over and sat on the edge of the narrow bed. "When I was being moved from one awful place to another, nobody ever apologized. When something cruel was done to me, nobody apologized. When strangers decided my future over a ledger, nobody apologized."

She looked up at him under the low candle flame, her dark eyes shining. "You say it the second you think you’ve crossed a line."

Kōya stayed quiet by the table, absorbing the weight of the words.

Smoothing the blanket beside her knee, Lyra gave a light laugh. "Sometimes I wonder whether you really are my master now. We went through the slave registration together, you dragged me out of the cages, you buy things for me, and you keep telling me to make my own choices."

Kōya shook his head at once. "No."

Lyra blinked at the sharpness in his voice.

He turned his chair fully toward the bed, his expression dead serious. "You are a valuable friend. Never consider yourself my slave."

The small room went completely quiet.

Slowly, color climbed up Lyra’s neck until her pale face turned bright crimson. Snatching the pillow beside her hip, she buried her entire face straight into the feathers.

Kōya stared at the back of the pillow in confusion. "Are you okay?"

No answer came from the feathers.

"Lyra?"

Still nothing. He tilted his head, baffled.

After a long beat, a muffled voice spoke from behind the pillow. "...Thank you."

Kōya’s mouth softened as he turned back to tie the supply bag. "You’re welcome."

She lowered the top corner of the pillow enough for one dark eye to peek over the seam. "Thank you for everything."

Burying her face again for another minute, she finally scooted across the mattress to the wall side of the bed. "Good night, Kōya."

"Good night."

She turned toward the plaster wall and pulled the blanket to her chin while Kōya leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.

On her side of the mattress, sleep refused to come. Beneath her palm, her heart beat fast and hard against her ribs. She had heard soft words before from men who wanted something from her;

Kōya spoke without a trace of manipulation, stating only what he meant. Pressing her hand flat against her sternum in the dark, she pressed her lips together and let the tightness in her chest settle on its own.

Morning light slanted sharply across Slane’s rooftops.

Already dressed and buckled into his harness, Kōya stood by the table checking their empty sacks when Lyra stepped out of the wash-alcove tying her hair back.

"We need medicine, food, and climbing rope," Kōya said, tapping the dented camp pot before looking at the frayed left cuff of her dress. "Our cookware is bent, and you need new clothes too."

Lyra looked down at the split seam on her sleeve. "I suppose I do."

"We’ll go to the market right after breakfast."

She nodded—and the entire stone building jumped on its foundation.

BOOOOOOM!

A deafening blast tore through the street outside, rattling the thin window glass in its lead frame.

Lyra’s eyes went wide.

Kōya was already wrenching the door open. "Stay right here."

His boots cleared the threshold before she could answer.

Down on the cobblestones, the morning thoroughfare had dissolved into panic. Peddlers and townspeople bolted in every direction around an overturned fruit cart, their shouts muffled by a rolling cloud of pulverized brick dust.

Kōya vaulted from the inn’s lower stone ledge, landing lightly on his boots in the mud—right as Lyra’s voice rang out through the smoke:

"Let her go right now!"

Kōya spun on his heel, his expression turning to ice.

Thirty feet down the road stood Lyra, having taken the back stairs at a run. Cowering behind her skirt was the innkeeper’s young daughter, both small hands twisted into the back of Lyra’s dress.

Facing them across the mud stood a tall man in the wool coat of a wealthy merchant. To Kōya’s senses, the dense, suffocating miasma beneath the cloth was unmistakable: a disguised demon servant.

The creature bared his teeth in a cruel smile. "Move aside, little girl."

Lyra raised her trembling right hand, summoning her mana. "No."

The demon took a slow, heavy step forward.

"She is registered collateral belonging to my master."

"She’s young!"

"And?"

Lyra’s jaw set hard. "You aren’t taking her anywhere."

"Then I’ll take the pair of you."

Orange flames gathered around Lyra’s raised palm, and she launched a concentrated bolt of fire straight at his chest.

Raising one forearm, the demon released a concussive gust of wind from his open palm that scattered her fire harmlessly into the smoke. Backwash from the gale slid Lyra’s boots six inches backward through the mud. As he advanced, she threw a second burst of flame; with a lazy wave of his hand, the demon bent the air currents around his coat, parting the fire without slowing his stride.

Lyra gritted her teeth. "Wind magic..."

"Fire is troublesome only when the caster has lungs behind it," the demon mocked—and vanished from the center of the road.

Before Lyra could flinch, he materialized directly above her head. One heavy arm hooked around her waist while his other hand clamped brutally around her throat, lifting her heels off the cobbles.

"You’re worth ten of the tavern brat," the demon hissed against her ear as she clawed at his iron wrist.

"Let—"

He squeezed harder, cutting off her breath as he leaned in. "Why is a piece of stock with a face like yours walking the street without a collar? My master would love to add you to his house.

Let’s inspect what makes you so expensive—" His free hand sta the wool of her collar.

Slash.