Chapter 2030: Unfair Treatment

"Black reached them first. We heard them screaming and ran toward the sound. He was standing in their cell when we got there. The guards were dead."

"I helped undo the bigger girl’s shackles," Della added. "She kept looking at his helmet with worry, so I told her she was safe and that he was a good man."

Tavi said, "The other one went straight to her father. He held her so tightly..."

Her voice weakened. Brena reached across the space between their chairs and squeezed her hand.

"They’re both fine," she reminded her friend.

"I know."

The Guildmaster allowed them a moment before continuing.

"Black spoke highly of the travelers. Did they work well together?"

"Yes," Della replied. "Their shieldbearer fought beside me. She made sure I wasn’t hurt afterward."

"Their healer helped Lady Seraphiel with the prisoners," Brena said. "Everyone helped."

"They seemed comfortable taking his assistance?" Veshara asked.

Della looked up at her.

"He helped them get their children back, Captain. I think they were grateful."

"I’m interested in what else you noticed. We know very little about them."

"Neither did we."

For a moment, Della considered leaving it there. Then she remembered Black asking for her judgment while people far stronger than her waited to hear it.

"They listened when we could help. They didn’t push us aside because they were stronger. The father kept thanking us, even though we’d barely done anything compared to Unbound."

Veshara studied her before settling back into her chair.

"All right. What about Black?"

"What about him?"

"Did you learn anything interesting while traveling together?"

Tavi made a sound that she hastily disguised as a cough.

Brena looked at her.

"About his abilities," the Guildmaster clarified.

"Oh."

"He built a fortress," Brena offered.

The Guildmaster’s pen paused above his paper.

"Where?"

"At our campsite. We were putting our bedrolls down, and he started building walls around us. There were towers. We could stand on them and watch the paths."

"For the night?" Veshara asked.

"He said his wives were at least having walls around them if they were sleeping outside."

Della could still hear the casual certainty in his voice. At least. As though an ordinary campsite became intolerable the moment someone he loved put her blanket down in it.

"His women treated us very well too," she added. "We shared dinner. They lent us things. Asked about our work."

"He was quite comfortable with you, then," Veshara observed.

"Yes."

"Yet you still know nothing about where he’s from."

"We didn’t ask him to explain his entire life over dinner, Captain."

Brena’s hand touched Della’s sleeve. Della pressed her lips together, regretting how sharply that had come out.

Veshara seemed amused.

"I hoped you might have learned something about the man beneath that helmet."

"Oh, he took it off for dinner," Tavi chirped, eyes beaming.

The captain stopped smiling.

Across the desk, the Guildmaster lowered his pen.

"He took it off?"

"Yes."

Tavi looked between them, only now realizing that she’d supplied an answer neither had expected.

Veshara leaned forward again. Her long tongue passed slowly over her lips.

"You saw his face?"

"All of us did," Brena replied.

"Would you be sweet enough to tell me what he looks like~?"

"Oh, Goddess..."

The words escaped Tavi in a breathy little sigh. She pressed her thighs together beneath her skirt, remembering that mouth smiling at Della across the fire.

"Handsome," Della said. "Very... handsome."

Brena turned toward her with outright disbelief.

"That’s what you’re going with? Handsome?"

"I’m trying to answer the question."

"Badly!"

Tavi agreed with Brena. "I’ve seen handsome men. That was... He looked at me, Captain. I had something to say, and then he looked at me."

"What were you going to say?"

"I don’t know! I still don’t know!"

Veshara’s golden eyes moved to Della, who had begun rubbing her palms against her knees.

"Perhaps you could describe him?"

Della tried to remember how a normal person described a face.

His smile came to mind first. Then the warmth of his eyes when he’d thanked her, and the deep voice saying her name while she stood there holding his dinner like an idiot.

Her cheeks burned.

"He’s the most handsome man I’ve ever seen. By far."

"There," Brena said. "Was that so difficult?"

"You describe him, then!"

"I was agreeing with you!"

Tavi leaned toward the desk, apparently deciding that the captain deserved a more useful account.

"He smiled while thanking her for dinner. Just smiled. Della nearly dropped his food."

"You pulled my arm!"

"Because you were gawking at him!"

The Guildmaster cleared his throat.

All three women faced him.

"What is his race?"

"Human, sir," Della answered, grateful for a question she could manage.

"No signs of demonic traits?" Veshara asked.

"No."

"Pointed ears?"

"Human ears," Brena confirmed. "A human face. A very, very unfair human face."

The Guildmaster wrote a note beneath Black’s name: human appearance.

Veshara watched the pen move, then looked back at the women.

"And he simply sat there eating with you?"

"What else was he supposed to do?" Brena asked. "We’d cooked dinner."

"I asked him to feed me," Tavi admitted.

Della closed her eyes.

"Did he?" Veshara asked immediately.

"One of his wives got there first. Lady Vex... She doesn’t like letting other women go near him. Especially not when he has his helmet off."

The captain made a disappointed sound that Della understood far too well.

Beside Veshara, the Guildmaster looked up from his notes.

"Why does he conceal his face, then? He’s been unwilling to show it here, yet he revealed it to you so freely."

Della’s eyes opened.

"Freely?"

"You’d only just begun traveling together."

"He trusts us."

The answer came before she could consider whether she ought to soften it. Across the desk, both officials were watching her again.

"He said we’d earned his trust," Brena added, sitting straighter. "Those were his words."

"I’m sure he appreciated your company," the Guildmaster replied. "But given how closely he guards every detail about himself, you can understand why we would ask."

"Honestly, sir? I think I understand why he keeps them to himself."

Brena’s fingers stopped against Della’s sleeve.

Della knew she should stop. Her chest felt hot, however, and she kept seeing that woman in the Church crying because someone had given her clean clothes.

"He could have taken better work. He came with us because he didn’t want to hear we’d been dragged into a nest and violated. Then we found those people, and he helped them too."

"We aren’t disputing that," the Guildmaster said.

"Then why does it sound as if we’re supposed to help you find something wrong with him?"

Tavi’s hand closed around the edge of her chair.

"He didn’t even take the father’s money," she said. "The man offered, and he wouldn’t. What kind of adventurer does that?"

"Nor did he complain about the contract," Brena added. "In fact, the clerk wanted to chide the scouts for the wrong information they brought back. He asked her to go easy on them."

"He even asked the Guild to cover their Church fees," Della pressed on. "After everything he’s already done for those women! He wants them to have a chance at a new life!"

Veshara opened her mouth, but Della was still speaking.

"You didn’t see those poor women in the cages. They thought we were there to hurt them too. We had to tell them we were adventurers before they understood they were being rescued."

Her voice shook with anger now. She remembered reaching for Feng, trying to assure a frightened girl that the towering man in black was the person who’d saved her.

"There were children in there. Those girls had been stolen from their families, carried across the sea, and chained to a wall. Lord Black brought them back. He’s a hero to those people. He’s a hero to us."

Tavi nodded fiercely to Della.

"And now we’re sitting here while you ask why he won’t tell you all his secrets. Look at the two of you... He showed us his face because we behaved like he was the kind man that he is, not some threat in need of investigation!

"He’s done nothing but make Sarthal a safer, better place, and now he even saved three of your adventurers."

"And the reward he gets is more suspicion, more scrutiny, even after ’someone’ attacked him in his home, with his wives present. We, people of Sarthal, should be counting our lucky stars that he hasn’t left yet!" Brena added, eyes on Veshara.

"Exactly," Tavi agreed.

The room went silent.