Once Yuer returned to his own quarters, he sat at his desk and dipped his brush into the small ink urn. He glanced briefly at the empty bed before returning to his task. He used his memory of his visit to the Undercity to draw an outline of its main street. He marked the building which used to serve as Lone Eye’s office with a dot. He let the paper rest and looked at the bed, “Would you like to come out now?”
A moment of silence greeted him before bony, little arms crawled from underneath the bed. Soon enough, the Valquari child stood, his hands nervously twisting around his over-sized tunic.
Yuer beckoned him over, “Come.” The little boy waddled his way to the older youth. Once he reached him, Yuer hoisted the child up, settling his gaunt figure upon his lap.
He pushed put away the still drying map and spread another clean sheet of paper. He took the brush and placed it between the child’s fingers, “Would you like to learn how to write?”
The child looked up at Yuer, confused. The latter let out a small chuckle before closing his hand over the boy’s and guiding the strokes of his brush. A moment later, smeared and uneven characters appeared against the stark white of the paper.
Yuer explained, “This is my name, Yuer. These characters are as follows Y-u-e-r. What is yours?”
The child stared at the wet ink for a while; his eyes held a mixture of awe and what looked like apprehension. At last, he vehemently shook his little head.
Yuer patiently probed, “You don’t have a name? Or is it that you don’t want to learn to write?”
The child kept shaking his head. Yuer tried again, rewording his question, “Did someone tell you that you can’t learn to write?”
The little boy suddenly stopped shaking his head; his hand which was still clasped within Yuer’s trembled slightly. The older youth realized he must have guessed correctly, “Was it your mother, perhaps?”
The child replied with a weak, shaky nod.
“Did she abandon you to that man?” asked Yuer, referring to Lone Eye.
The boy, as if suddenly drenched in icy water, started to violently tremble. The sound of his teeth clattering against one other grew more and more frantic.
Yuer recognized this behavior so he didn’t hesitate to hold the little boy to his chest. He run his hands across the little boy’s back, trying to soothe him. At the same time, he didn’t stop whispering the same words over and over again, “It’s alright. That man is gone. He can never touch you again. You are safe.”
Yuer didn’t know for how long he sat there, holding the child but he did noticed that the boy no longer trembled as furiously as he did before. Instead, little hiccups came out of him. The older youth could feel the hot, teardrops as they gathered on the exposed skin of his neck. He didn’t say anything and kept patting the boy’s back, letting him cry out his fear, pain and sorrow.
A while later, the child lifted his head up, peering at Yuer. The latter met his tearful gaze with a warm, gentle smile, “Now that you have finished crying, let us go back to our lesson. I will teach you to read and write so that one day you can write your own name for me, would you like that?”
The child wiped his face with the long sleeves of his tunic and slowly nodded.
Yuer chuckled, “Good. You will stay with me for now. Tomorrow, I will buy you a soft collar so that the city guards won’t pry into your identity. You can pretend to be my servant until you are old enough to decide what you wish to do.”
The little boy responded by tentatively taking the brush back into his hand and offering Yuer the tiniest, most precious smile.
Yuer’s frigid heart melted a little at the sight of that brave, sweet little smile. He caressed the child’s tear-stained cheek and said, “You are strongest little boy I have ever met.”
The older youth then went back to guiding the child through the Semani characters. The pair lost sense of time, engrossed their task until their little writing session was interrupted by a shuffling, yawning Hasha.
She didn’t bother to bow to Yuer and dropped herself unceremoniously on his bed.
“It’s almost sunset, couldn’t sleep anymore.” said the Mesrin youth as a way of greeting.
Yuer glanced at his window, noticing the streaks of orange that painted the late afternoon sky. He gently put the child down and rummaged through the mess of papers on his desk. He eventually brought out three sheets, rolled them up and tightened them with several strings of thin fabric.
He then strode toward Hasha and instructed her to stay still. He summoned his Light Echo and enveloped the redhead’s body in a white haze. Some moments later, Yuer recalled back his Echo and threw the now patched-up redhead the scrolls he was holding.
She swiftly caught them in her hand and asked in Mesrin, “The portrait?”
“Yes and a map. The map is an outline of the main street. I only sketched what I could remember so it is incomplete. I marked down the office of Lone Eye for you. You should check around it first. Tamine might be loitering around that area. The third paper is a list of instructions. They are written in simple Mesrin. You must learn them by heart before you leave. Burn the paper once you are done memorizing its content.”
“Duly noted.” acknowledged Hasha.
Yuer reminded her, “To get in, simply pretend that you are a commissioned mercenary that came to close a deal with Lone Eye. Pretend that you don’t know he is dead. Just drop his code name at the door and the guards are likely to let you in. Be careful. The Shakoura should be investigating his death and they might let you in just because they are suspicious of you, so up your acting skills. If that doesn’t work, find some other way.”
Hasha nodded and lazily rose to her feet, “I can’t just go in like this. I need new clothes and weapons in case I exhaust my Echo.”
Yuer responded by walking to his dressing table and pulling out three silver pieces. He handed the coins to Hasha, who, for some reason, felt compelled to bite on them.
The youth fixed her with a blank stare and the latter huffed, feeling aggrieved, “What? I had to check if it’s real silver.”
Yuer sighed, “Get going.”
The Mesrin girl dragged her feet to the doors. Before she was about to leave, she glanced back at the little Valquari child standing next to Yuer, “I saw this kid in the carriage before. Is he your long lost child or something? Who would have guessed that Valquari girls were your thing. You certainly don’t look like it.”
Yuer walked to the redhead, pushed her out of the room and closed the sliding doors in her face.
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Less than a candle-hour later, Sakina returned. She brought along with her the news that Ivak of Kersa was currently staying at an inn called ‘The Song of Solace’. The inn targeted well-off Dasrari masters and mistresses and was famous for its expansive, inner garden where clandestine meetings could take place. It was located at the heart of the Dasrari District, facing the central plaza where the status of the first Rezas stood.
Yuer turned to Sakina, “Did you manage to slip the note I gave you?”
The girl nodded in response, “Yes, esteemed young master. I bribed one of the servants responsible for cleaning. They agreed to slip the note into the Second Reznal’s room.”
Yuer clarified, “Tomorrow the Dasiri will definitely send someone to tail us. So, we won’t be meeting the Second Reznal at the inn, but at an inconspicuous bookstore in the area.”
“It’s good to be cautious, esteemed young master. Did Hasha leave?” asked Sakina.
“Yes, a candle-hour or less before you returned.” Yuer stared at the starry night sky and whispered to himself, “I hope she won’t disappoint me.”
Hasha’s chest rose and fell as she struggled to catch her breath. Several splatters of fresh blood stained her black cloak and clang to her once clean and new leather boots. She staggered toward one of the still bleeding bodies strewn on the ground and retrieved her dagger from a corpse’s chest. That corpse belonged to the last of the Shakoura underlings. There were twenty of them in total. There had been several Echo Listeners among them, including three Dark Listeners and one Earth Listener. Despite her harrowing triumph, Hasha wasn’t pleased in the least. She felt like she had truly miscalculated the situation. How could she have known that this insignificant wimpy boy, whom she had found after much difficulty, was tailed by a slew of Shakoura scum? The fuckers had ruined her new boots; the once shiny leather on them had dulled beyond recognition.
What a mess, she thought.
She wiped her dagger clean with one of the dead men’s cloaks and then removed it from the body. She walked back to the boy cowering at a corner in the alleyway. She lightly kicked his feet with her stained boot and grunted, “I should really kill you by now. You’re more trouble than you’re worth, little fucker. Good thing, he wanted you alive more than dead.”
The redhead then used both her hands and roughly hauled Tamine up. She draped the cloak she took off from the dead man over the terrified boy’s shoulders and gruffly ordered in harsh Semani, “Move. Or you die.”
Tamine who was too scared to utter a single word, simply nodded and rushed to guide the older youth toward one of the less known exits of the Undercity.
Hasha followed a step behind the boy as he led her into a musty, dim tunnel several alleyways away from where she killed the Shakoura men.
The Mesrin’s keen senses remained on high alert as they trod through the muddy floor of the underground passage. In her previous fights, she had mostly relied on her physical, combative abilities, trying to reserve as much of her Echo as she could. Despite her best efforts however, she could still feel the shadow of Echo-burnout as it slowly crept upon her body. She worried about possible unpleasant encounters.
Shortly after reaching the end of the tunnel, Hasha’s foreboding prediction came true. A lone, willowy figure stood at the exit, looking back in her direction. They seemed to be waiting for her, as if they had prior knowledge she would pass through this very route. Hasha glanced suspiciously at Tamine, her hand slowly moving toward her dagger. In an instance, she conjured her Earth Echo, willing the wet ground to reshape itself into a solid wall of rock. She then swiftly pulled Tamine to her side and directed the dagger to his throat, about to stab him dead.
Before she could pierce the boy’s skin however, her wall of rock melted down in less than an instance. An intense wave of unbearable heat wafted in her direction and the next thing she knew, she was violently flung into the air, dropping to the ground some considerable distance back into the tunnel.
Hasha spat a mouthful of blood as she gingerly rose back to her feet. The stench of scorched wool assaulted her nose. She looked down at her cloak, or rather at the burnt tatters that were left of it.
The Mesrin youth sighed, A Fire Listener. This night just keeps getting better and better.
Her white-haired opponent didn’t waste a moment and dashed to her, his fists glowing in bright orange. Hasha stomped her feet on the ground, rising up several boulders. She willed the muddy boulders to reshape them into jagged, solid earthen spears. She sent them hurling toward the Fire Listener, hoping to slow him down a bit.
The bright orange enveloping the Valquari’s fists suddenly darkened in hue, becoming a deep crimson. The red flame extended to the rest of his body, engulfing his entire form in a layer of crimson blaze. Without hesitation, he met Hasha’s spears head on.
The earthen spears, unable to withstand the heat of his Fire Echo, melted upon impact. Hasha’s amber eyes widened in genuine surprise. At this moment, it dawned on her that she was in true, deep trouble. Only a high-level Listener could change the aura of his Echo at will and with such practiced ease.
The Mesrin redhead was well aware of her own capabilities, her Earth Echo was at best somewhere between middle-level and high-level. She could take on several middle-level Echo Listeners. However, she could not take on several middle-level Echo Listeners and a high-level Listener without assistance.
The agony ringing through her head was all she needed to know that her Earth Echo was exhausted. If she was to persist any further and force her Echo to materialize, she could easily lose consciousness or in worst case possible, lose her own life. She understood at this conjecture she couldn’t win against this young man. Therefore, she had to either kill Tamine here or to negotiate with the Valquari Listener so that he would let her leave with the boy.
She chose to try her luck with the latter option first. Thus, she started in Mesrin, “I have no quarrel with the Shakoura. All I want is to bring this boy out with me. You can name whatever price you wish.”
The long-haired Valquari fixed Hasha with an impassive gaze. He retorted in surprisingly fluent Mesrin, “And the many of my men you killed a while ago?”
Hasha was slightly taken aback by the Valquari’s casual handling of her mother tongue. Yuer had instructed her in the note to speak in Mesrin and she had thought him foolish for assuming violent, criminal scum would bother learning foreign tongues. Now, it looked like she was the one who had no understanding of the Shakoura and how they trained their people.
She collected herself and replied in a careless tone, “Your men wouldn’t listen. I tried to get through to them but the moment they showed up, they immediately attacked me. I had to defend myself.”
The young man titled his head. His black eyes scrutinized every inch of Hasha as he commented, “In truth, I am quite impressed. A mere middle-level Earth Listener who has yet to break through to high-level managed to slay twenty of my men. Four among those incompetent fools were Echo Listeners. To be precise, three middle-level Dark Listeners and one beginner-level Earth Listener. Yet, somehow you annihilated them all. How capable, indeed.” He then sharply demanded, “So tell me Mesrin girl, where is he?”
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