TW: nothing specific I think

……………………….

Rosie squinted at the cruel brightness of the sun as she stepped out of the car the next morning. The sky was a rosy tan color, and when she held her hand up to shield her eyes, the tone of her skin made her hand look nearly camouflaged.

“Look,” she said to Droya, her hand in the air. “I’m invisible.”

He shook his head at her and shut the car door behind her. She was wearing a red pencil skirt that accentuated the curve of her hips, red high-heeled pumps, a flowing floral blouse with a light scarf tied in a bow at her neck, and a small blue purse on a long strap. Her dark brown hair was pinned up high, back from her face, the long wavy curls cascading down the back of her neck. Skillfully applied eye makeup almost completely masked the puffiness from her drunk crying the night before.

“Far from invisible,” he muttered as she walked toward the looming black tower, clutching her folder and notepad nervously.

A valet conferred briefly with Droya, and he surrendered the car to the young woman reluctantly. Even though the cars weren’t his, he always felt an urge to protect the beautiful machines he was tasked with. It was part of the same instinct that led him to accepting work as a bodyguard, which in some ways he resented, as it was exactly what Hellish society expected of him.

Zete hovered at Rosie’s shoulder.

“This building was originally constructed 340 years ago as a sentry tower during the 4th Shade War,” he explained to her as they approached. “Since then, it has been used as an armory, a prison, a plague hospital, and for the last 80 years, a government office.”

Rosie stopped and stared up at the imposing tower. It had obviously been renovated to suit its new purpose, but at its bones, it still looked like it was built for war. She took a deep breath.

Droya stepped up next to her and elbowed her gently.

“Time to go inside,” he said. “You should lead.”

Rosie steeled herself and walked up to the main entrance. There were plenty of people going in and out, purposeful-looking people with pressed suits, big horns, and elegant wings. They all seemed to glance Rosie’s way at least once, but they were busy and task-driven enough that they went back to minding their own business quickly. Rosie was too preoccupied to notice, but Droya eyed them all, gauging threat levels. There were plenty of people here with things to hide, but so far none of them seemed intent on violence.

Two men waiting at the door perked up when Rosie approached, and one of them stepped out to her and offered her a handshake.

“Ms. Everley?” he asked. He was dressed in an American-style business suit, his hair gelled and styled around his pale yellow horns. His skin was a pale teal color. Droya pegged him as a liar. Rosie shook his hand, and he accepted that as confirmation of her identity.

“My name is Sevanall Croy. It is lovely to meet you. We have a conference room set up on the 9th floor, if you would be so kind as to follow me?” His English was near-perfect.

As they walked through the first set of double doors, the other man that had been waiting stepped out and took Droya’s arm.

“You can wait here,” he said in Hellish.

Rosie stopped and turned back, but Droya nodded to her and put up a hand in reassurance. Zete whispered something in her ear and she nodded back to Droya, turning to follow Mr. Croy again.

Droya watched her disappear into the tower. He pulled his arm back from the tall man, looking up at him warily. He was stahala, a minor noble caste. A couple hundred years ago, he would have been spending his time as an estate manager or advisor to more elite nobility. Stahala were common in government, so it was not strange to see one here. Many of the people near the tower were stahala. However, Droya was used to shadowing his clients everywhere, and did not like being stopped, by anyone.

“A word?” the stahala said quietly, jerking his head to indicate that Droya follow him, then walking toward a quieter part of the courtyard on the side of the tower.

He had mottled red and brown skin, short, curved horns, and small wings that could never carry his thick body in flight. His tail was long but not very flexible. Stahala tended to look more impressive than they were. His hands had no claws, and he even wore shoes. Droya was not particularly impressed.

They stopped at a small group of tables under some shady trees, and the stahala gestured for Droya to take a seat. Droya was curious. The man was definitely a threat, but not imminently violent. They both sat on the metal stools at the bistro tables, and the taller man reached into his pocket. Droya was ready to react quickly, his eyes attentive to every minute move the other made. But the stahala did not pull a knife or gun from his pocket, just a small purple disk. He held it up to his eye, and Droya could see that it had a complicated pattern on it, engraved in gold. As he examined it, a chill overtook him, and a stabbing pain in his temple made him gasp.

“Are you with me?” the stahala asked in Hellish, putting the disk back into his pocket.

Droya blinked a few times and put a hand to his throbbing head.

“I… am here, Tennan,” he responded back in Hellish after a moment.

The stahala visibly relaxed, his shoulders softening.

“I need your initial impressions,” he said. “How does she seem?”

Droya squinted at his friend.

“You pulled me too early,” he said. “It’s only been one day.”

Tennan frowned. “I was anxious,” he admitted.

Droya shook his head, annoyed.

“She’s…” he sighed.

The color of the midmorning sky.

“Naïve. Soft. Vulnerable,” he said.

Kind, honest, unpretentious.

“But self-aware, and passionate also.”

Too quick to trust, too easy to like.

He winced. “She has also managed to gain my trust far too quickly. She is charming in a way we did not anticipate.”

Droya looked Tennan in the eye ruefully.

“I made a contract with her to answer any of her questions and try to tell her the truth," Droya said.

Tennan groaned, squeezing his dark red eyes shut.

“Why?” he asked. “How? Even with two years of your memory gone, you should not be so easily controlled.”

Droya slouched and stared at the filigreed metal tabletop, deep in thought. How had she won him over so easily? It couldn’t have just been her pretty face and enticing eyes. There was something about her. But did it mean something? Was this some indication?

“I’ll have to use this again, then,” Tennan complained, pulling the purple disk from his pocket.

Droya nodded.

“You know I can only use this two more times before your memories start to disappear permanently,” Tennan reminded him.

Droya looked up at him sharply.

“Then do your job and let me do mine,” he spat at Tennan. “Don’t pull me out before I can learn anything.”

Tennan winced.

“I apologize,” he grumbled. “You’re right.” He sighed and drummed his fingers on the table.

“Do you think it’s her?” he asked Droya. “Do you think there’s anything to the prophecy? I know you don’t have any real intel yet, but what’s your gut feeling?”

Droya shook his head.

“I really don’t know,” he admitted. “She seems so ordinary. Sure, charming and all, but still, just a human. I haven’t sensed anything special, nothing that would make me suspicious. The only thing… Well, the portal affected her strangely. It destabilized, and after she came through, she fell unconscious.”

“Destabilized?” Tennan repeated, leaning closer, his attention piqued. “In what way?”

Droya tilted his head back and forth in ambivalence.

“Unclear,” he said. “I didn’t investigate. Without my memories, I didn’t know it was important. And it still might not be – sometimes the portals do that on their own.”

“Hmmm,” Tennan responded. “It could be nothing. I will reach out and see if I can find any data on that particular event. She didn’t say anything about it?”

“Nothing,” Droya said. He was hit with a pang of guilt, thinking that he should have asked her more about the potential trauma of the journey. Not just because it was valuable information, but because it was Rosie, and she’d been hurt, and it bothered him. The realization gave him a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. Her charm had him even now?

Droya, get a hold of yourself.

“Wait,” Tennan said. “You don’t think she could have it with her? Did she bring it through the portal? Something like that… it would definitely affect the portal’s integrity.”

Droya squinted, combing back through the last 24 hours of his memory. “She barely packed anything,” he said. “Just one bag. But, depending on how it could be hidden…” He shrugged. “It’s possible. I didn’t search her things, I had no reason to, as her bodyguard. But you are right, something with that sort of power could destabilize the portal.”

Tennan squared his shoulders and grunted.

“I can send someone in to search her things,” he told Droya. “But you will likely notice and become suspicious.”

Droya nodded. “It’s a risk,” he said.

“We may be short on time, though,” Tennan said. “Yellette has no intention of keeping you on staff after tomorrow.”

Droya tensed and leaned forward.

“What?” he snapped. “Why? Is she suspicious?”

Tennan rubbed his chin.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “She seems to think that if she keeps the girl at the Cainella, there’s no need for more safety precautions. It makes me think she doesn’t know what’s going on higher up, that she doesn’t know who the girl might really be.”

Droya growled softly, balling up a fist. It would be ten times harder to protect Rosie if he had to do it secretly.

Protect her? Investigate her. He was investigating her.

“The tests are in preparation regardless,” Tennan told him. “If she has it here, we will find a way to draw it out. I know you won’t remember when it happens, but I apologize now for any injuries you take.”

Droya shrugged uneasily. It was part of the plan. He would do what was necessary to find out if she was as valuable as the council seemed to think she was, and if she really had what they thought she did. To find out if they had interpreted the prophecy correctly, or they were just chasing their own tails. And to find out if she could be used to overthrow the council, or if she needed to be eliminated to keep Tennan’s goals alive. It was all part of the plan.

So why do your muscles tense and your heart pound, to think of her in harm’s way?

“We don’t need to draw further attention to ourselves,” Droya said stiffly. “Put me back under.”

Tennan smiled at him sadly.

“I wish you luck, brother,” he said, and raised the memory amulet to his eye again. Droya focused on it and the familiar chill ran through his spine.

He winced and grabbed his head, hissing.

Tennan stood, a haughty look on his face.

“Don’t be a nuisance to your betters,” he sneered. “Keep out of the way until your client exits. This is a civilized area, shaya are an eyesore here.”

Droya glared at the stahala’s back as he walked back toward the tower’s main entrance.

What an absolute tool, he thought.