Chapter 13. Alicia Said ’System’ Out Loud, and Now I Have to Lie

Chapter 13: 13. Alicia Said ’System’ Out Loud, and Now I Have to Lie

But wait a goddamn second...

The moment Alicia said the word "system" out loud... I knew we were in trouble. And I didn’t know that Alicia can be so naive, but maybe I was the one to blame for forgetting to tell her that this is supposed to be our secret.

Technically, I know that she was the one who had screwed up, but I was the one standing there with a guilty face, so it felt like a shared disaster.

Laura’s head turned toward us slowly, the way a hawk’s head turns when it spots something moving in the grass.

"What system...?" she asked. "What is that...?"

Alicia opened her mouth while raising her finger, but she closed it again and gave me a look that said, very clearly, ’This one is yours.’

Wow... thanks a lot, Alicia. I didn’t know she could act like a bitch for once.

"Curse," I said. "She means curse... It’s a long story actually, and I’m not proud of it."

"But she just said system."

"Alicia said system, yes! She likes to call it that when she’s making fun of me... and also she’s a... you know... idiot." I rubbed the back of my neck and put on the most innocent smile I could manage. "So anyway, it’s a curse!"

"It showed up yesterday when a number of Drevane knights jumped us on the road, and it’s been making me stronger ever since..."

"But the cost... you see... it’s also really annoying, and you don’t want to know about it."

Laura studied me for a long second, her pale eyes narrowed. "A curse that makes you stronger, huh?"

"Strange, right? I know."

"What are the side effects?"

"Ehh... Mostly embarrassment."

Alicia coughed into her fist to hide a laugh, and Laura looked back and forth between the two of us like she was trying to decide whether this was a joke at her expense.

In the end she let it go, probably because she was bleeding and tired while also having bigger problems to care about, but I could tell she’d filed it away for later.

I made a mental note to never let Alicia say that word in public again, and a second mental note to find out whether I could keep my own mouth shut about it, since I have never been good at that either.

The truth was that only Alicia knew about the panels, the Bond, and the quest that came with them. To everyone else, I appeared to be somebody with a strange curse that made me dangerous.

That was a lot easier to explain than "I gain power by sleeping with strong women," and I’d like to point out that I had a lot of respect for my own survival instincts at that moment...

Plus... I don’t want to be called a womanizer.

...

Dunmore took the rest of the afternoon to put itself back together.

The villagers crept out from their hiding places one at a time, then in bunches, until the whole street was full of people checking on neighbors and stamping out the last of the fires.

I helped a farmer drag his overturned cart upright, which turned out to be a lot easier than I expected. The old me would have needed three people and a prayer.

But the new me... yes, me! I lifted one end with one hand and held it there while the guy got his wheel back on, and I was so busy being quietly delighted about it that I almost forgot to say something modest.

Alicia was across the street with a group of children who had been trapped in a cellar. She was kneeling in front of a small boy with a scraped knee, telling him in her calm older-sister like voice that he’d been very brave.

Laura, who had at least two wounds that I could see, was hauling the bandits’ weapons into a pile and refusing to sit down.

I noticed her looking at me about the fourth time I glanced her way. Every time our eyes met, she turned her head and suddenly became genuinely interested in a broken sword.

Strange... Don’t tell me it is that easy to melt that ice? Or maybe it’s just me getting ahead of myself.

But eh... I let it go for about a minute. Still... I couldn’t help myself; well... it’s because she’s so fucking beautiful when she’s showing that cold look.

"You know," I said, walking over and picking up a dented helmet, "if you keep staring at me like that... I’m going to start thinking you’ve fallen in love with me."

WHAT THE FUCK! WHY DID I SAY THAT ALL OF A SUDDEN?!

Laura gave me a look that could have frozen a pond. "I was just studying your combat technique."

"Of course you were, hahaha! And here I was thinking it was my handsome face that was being a magnet."

"You’re... unbearable."

"Eh. I get that a lot actually... Usually followed by ’but he’s growing on me.’"

"I have never once thought about that useless thought."

"How about give it a few days, eh?"

Behind me, Alicia let out a short, helpless laugh. She had come back from the cellar and was standing a few steps away with her arms folded, wearing the expression of a woman watching two strangers argue over a fence.

I think she’d known me long enough to understand that I was only teasing Laura to see what she’d do, and I’m fairly sure she was enjoying it more than she wanted to admit. But I’m glad that she’s not being jealous about it.

Laura set down the sword and drew in a slow breath. When she spoke again, the frost in her voice had thawed a degree or two.

"What you did back there was reckless! You didn’t know who I was, and you didn’t know how many of them there were!"

"No," I agreed.

"But I would be dead if you hadn’t." She said it plainly, the way someone states a fact they don’t enjoy. "I owe you my life... I don’t take that lightly, so thank you."

Oh wow... and here I thought she was going to fucking punch me or burn me with words. But she just gave me the word that was too dangerous to be said to my face.

Owe... like in debt? Hell yeah! I’ll make sure to use that wisely in the near future.

"Look..." I tried to be modest by saying. "You don’t have to owe me or anything like that."

"I do... it’s from my pride as a knight."

"No, no, no! Don’t you remember that you were the one holding that crossroads alone when I got there," I said. "You’d already saved half the village before I showed up."

"And let’s say... I just returned the favor."

That seemed to take her off guard. She opened her mouth, where I could tell that she couldn’t find a viable counterargument, and looked away at the burned roof across the road.

I had the feeling that nobody had ever told her something like that, that her work counted for something even when she was losing, and that she wasn’t sure what to do with it.

Before either of us could say anything else, an older man hurried up the street toward us. He was Dunmore’s village head, a bony fellow with a gray beard and soot all over his jacket, and he was holding a rolled letter sealed in dark red wax.

"Knight Lapisfield," he said, a bit out of breath. "A courier left this for you three days ago, and in all the chaos I forgot to deliver it..."

"I’m so sorry...! It bears the royal seal!"

Laura took the letter, broke the wax with her thumb, and read it. I watched her face harden by degrees, from mild curiosity to concentration and then into something darker.

"Well..." she said when she finished. "This changes things."

...

We held the meeting in the village head’s kitchen because it was the only room in Dunmore that still had four walls and a table.

The letter, it turned out, came from the royal knight garrison that handled the border regions. Laura had been assigned to investigate a string of disappearances along the trade road to Elarion, which was the closest kingdom and the biggest city in the area.

Over the past several weeks, several wagon trains had vanished with their cargo. All of them had been carrying some kind of energy crystals.

"Energy crystals," Alicia repeated. "The ones the kingdoms use for their barriers?"

"Exactly those." Laura laid the letter flat on the table and smoothed out the edges with two fingers. "Elarion’s protective barrier is powered by a steady supply of them..."

"Without enough energy, the crystal results in the walls weakening, and the monsters that normally can’t get near the city start getting closer..."

"A couple more missing shipments and the outer districts are exposed."

"And the witnesses say bandits did it?" I asked.

"Every report says bandits. " Her mouth twisted. "But bandits don’t normally know a caravan’s route before it leaves."

"They don’t wear matching gear... and they don’t coordinate three ambushes along the same road in two weeks."

"I’ve been following the evidence for a month, and the men we fought today wore the same marks."