Mister Hallem squinted across the arena to figure out what the outcast had been looking at. This task was made easier as the rain reduced from a downpour to a drizzle before fading out entirely. All eyes drifted from the combatants to an initiate standing on the outer band of the circle, furiously issuing commands to the device without success.

Quin was fruitlessly pressing buttons on the Challenger’s Rack light display, but he couldn’t conceal the timer fast enough to hide it from Khazmine or the gallery of onlookers. An accidental slip of his clumsy fingers expanded the display's range on the stopped clock for all to see.

Fifteen minutes, eleven seconds.

Mister Hallem's expression curdled at the realization. Sure, he'd beaten this filthy half-breed, fair and square, but she'd also managed to profit by the spar. Hallem’s blood ran ice cold at the idea of owing this lousy stain of a half-breed anything, and he stared daggers down at the filth who would cost him over a month’s pay in losses. In the end, he may have won the battle, but Hallem was still a sore loser.

That’s thirty gold pieces, you horrid beast, Khazmine thought to herself as she stared up at Mister Hallem expectantly. She held out a hand with an open palm for the spectators to see what she was waiting for. Come on, man. You don’t want to lose face in front of the others.

Not having that kind of money on his person, Mister Hallem grumbled as he decanted a handful of stags into Khazmine’s burned palm and removed the stick pin rank insignia from his leather armor. He thrust the insignia into Khazmine’s outstretched hand and nearly punctured her palm with the pin’s point. The outcast had enough sense to pull away before Hallem had the chance to hurt her there twice in one day.

“Be sure to give my pin back when I trade for the rest of your bloody riches, half-breed,” Hallem growled at Khazmine between a faltering veneer of a smile. He faced the crowd with a raised fist to indicate victory and honor, but the gesture seemed hollow and forced to the outcast standing beside him.

Khazmine didn’t have time to poke holes in Mister Hallem’s laughable display of affability as the brute continued to rouse the spectators to continue cheering. Her attention was diverted by the arrival of Lieutenant Mevralls and Rida, who pushed through the crowd to enter the training circle and get a look at the injured combatants. The healer’s arrival was slowed, due to an overly full medical bag laden with extra supplies that threatened to burst in his scrawny arms. Rida was soon left behind while Mevralls charged ahead to meet the outcast and her tormenter.

“Damage report,” Mevralls commanded to both of them, though his gaze lingered on Khazmine much more than on Mister Hallem’s injuries.

“My face, sir. Whip slash,” Hallem replied. His superior officer didn’t seem to care much that the outcast had struck him with her weapon and tried to garner Mevralls’s attention by adding to his injuries. “And possibly a bruised tailbone.”

“And you?” The lieutenant turned to Khazmine and raised his hands to check her burned palms. Something about the curtness of his question intrigued the outcast, and she struggled to place the emotion on Mevralls’s face.

“It’s nothing,” Khazmine evaded, turning away so that her mentor wouldn’t notice her wincing expression or trembling limbs. The outcast wanted nothing more than to expedite this interrogation so she could flee the camp and make arrangements for the two little boys waiting for her back in Cheapside. “Minor injuries, sir. Nothing fatal.”

The lieutenant flinched at Khazmine’s report, and the outcast realized that she’d struck a nerve in her teacher that left him fidgety, anxious, and worried. His eyes kept darting around the arena, as if searching for something, but he found nothing and focused on the outcast instead. “Very well then. Rida, can you look after these two?”

“I need care first, healer,” Hallem demanded. It was true that Hallem’s face was significantly damaged, but it was also possible that his sword strike had broken Khazmine’s arm during their fight. Regardless, Hallem couldn’t have cared less about the half-breed’s well-being, and he continued to insist on being treated before Khazmine had a chance. “Did you see what she did to my face?”

“Yes, yes, I’ll have a look then,” Rida sighed as he instructed Mister Hallem to bend low enough for the pint-sized physician to treat him. “This looks angry. It’ll take some time to get all this muck out of the wound and patch you up. Miss, you may want to seek care outside of the camp for those injuries. I’ll have my hands full with this one for a little while.”

Khazmine nodded to Rida and took off towards the gate leading out to Cheapside at her best speed, leaving the three men behind. Mister Hallem scoffed at the coward’s hasty retreat, while the lieutenant trailed behind Khazmine in haste.

“Wait, Miss Khazmine!” Lieutenant Mevralls called out to her as the outcast brushed past the dispersing gaggle of Solanai to reach her next objective. Khazmine was so focused on the task at hand that her mind had numbed to the lieutenant’s repeated calls for her to stop. Finally catching up to her at a brisk walk, Mevralls reached out a hand to grasp onto the outcast’s free arm as she approached the outer gate. “I said wait!”

A strained, high-pitch yelp escaped Khazmine’s lips as she cried out in pain. Without knowing, the lieutenant had clamped onto her injured arm, and he felt a crackle underneath his hand as he’d squeezed to get Khazmine’s attention.

“I’m sorry,” Mevralls apologized and retracted his hand to avoid worsening the situation. He hadn’t meant to press so hard, but the outcast looked like she was truly about to leave the camp, caked in mud and untreated by a healer. A nameless sensation from within threatened to bubble up to the surface of the lieutenant’s mind, and the thought of it turned his stomach. “You said it was nothing. How badly are you hurt, really?”

“You’d know better than I,” Khazmine retorted, with squinting eyes and tense muscles that were only partly a result of the lieutenant’s eager grasping. “You ‘saw’ the whole thing, yes?”

In truth, he wasn’t sure what happened in there. The lieutenant was so worried when he heard that Hallem had requested a rematch against Khazmine that he thought the worst and sent out intermittent ether spikes to check on them. At the time, Mevralls was only concerned with confirming Khazmine’s health, and wasn’t entirely in control of the spikes he sent into the arena. The fact that the outcast had managed to absorb one of them was a welcome bonus, but not one of his design or knowledge.

“How did you—? I-I can’t interfere with challenge matches, you know that,” Mevralls answered unconvincingly. A gentle push of his hand against her back guided the outcast to a secluded corner of the camp, allowing them to chat in relative secrecy. “The training circle won’t allow me to help. I just, well, I wanted to make sure you were all right.”

“It’s fine,” Khazmine assured him.

“No, it isn’t fine,” Mevralls countered with and exasperated tone. One of his spikes hadn’t returned during the match, and the lieutenant was convinced that Khazmine had something to do with it. Regardless of how Khazmine knew about the spikes he’d sent, there was still a larger question that begged asking. “What were you thinking, accepting a rematch with that lout? I’m sure he’d made no secret of his dislike of you, so why did you accept his challenge?”

“I need the money,” Khazmine confessed as she pushed past her teacher and made for the outer gate again with a limp. Tired, achy limbs made themselves obvious as Khazmine stepped away slower than she would have liked. “And playing his game was the fastest way to get it.”

“What could you—” Mevralls exclaimed before lowering his voice to a whisper and leaning close to Khazmine as they strode out through the gateway. “What could you possibly need that much money for?”

Khazmine clenched friction-burned fingers around the stags Hallem had dropped into her palm until the whole hand stung from the coins’ hard edges digging into blotchy skin. “I need money to take care of my family.”

“Family? What family?” Mevralls asked in surprise. He’d ordered a background check on the outcast some time ago, but it didn’t say anything about a family to support. Khazmine was just a lonely, common cut purse, destined to perish in the slums of Old Sarzonn, as far as anyone knew. “The only family you had was a sister, R—”

“STOP!” Khazmine commanded after turning on the lieutenant and silencing him with angry, quivering eyes. She clenched her teeth shut and willed herself not to break in the lieutenant’s presence, but Khazmine couldn’t hide the agony in her expression or labor in her breathing. Whatever Mevralls was about to say hurt Khazmine more than when he’d wrenched her arm, so he backed off when the outcast continued. “Don’t say that name. I mean it.”

Khazmine was no physical threat to Lieutenant Mevralls, but he knew at once that her esteem for him was dwindling in that moment. A great deal more than Mevralls currently understood was at stake here, enough to risk the outcast’s own life on it, and the lieutenant opted to change his approach.

“I’m sorry, I… I didn’t know,” Mevralls replied, struggling for words. “I’d just assumed that you didn’t have any—no, that’s no excuse. Look, I didn’t mean anything by it.”

The outcast scanned Lieutenant Mevralls’s face with an icy blue stare. Khazmine had learned in her younger years that one could trace sincerity by doing so and decided that the lieutenant was being genuine with her just now. The angry peaks of his brows earlier had softened to gentle arcs, and he bore no markers of deception on his face.

“I believe you,” Khazmine mumbled as she turned away to resume course for Cheapside.

Khazmine continued to shuffle towards the shabby boarding house with the lieutenant at her heels. The Solanai warrior had insisted on ensuring that the outcast explain her situation clearly and seek medical attention at once, but Khazmine pressed on towards home undeterred.

Lieutenant Mevralls was skilled in the underappreciated art of nagging and had pressed Khazmine for compliance as they neared the dingiest part of Cheapside. The lieutenant was about to renew his objections to the outcast’s stubbornness when she halted abruptly at an intersection, causing Mevralls to collide with Khazmine at the sudden stop.

“What is it? Why did you—” Mevralls asked.

“Wh—we, we have to go,” Khazmine insisted nervously as she turned around to clasp the lieutenant’s surcoat in a shaking hand. The pain on the outcast’s face was eclipsed by a deep and pervasive fear that caused poor Khazmine to tremble from head to toe as her eyes bore into Mevralls’s confused viridian stare. “The back way. Come on, hurry.”

“What are you talking about?” Mevralls asked as he poked his head forward to figure out what was wrong.

He didn’t need to look very far to see the cause of Khazmine’s distress. The streets of Cheapside were teeming with stars of men patrolling every nook and cranny in their fine, shining armor and crisp linen cloaks. Several higher-ranking officers were hassling the residents of Cheapside with their questions, slapping or detaining anyone that failed to provide satisfactory responses. Two local men were seen retreating to a back-alley healer’s hovel to seek care for burns inflicted by the Star Guards’ searing gauntlets. It was fair to assume that they weren’t educated enough to know not to lie to the soldiers of the holy house…

“Wait! Where are you—?” Mevralls called out with a forceful whisper as Khazmine started to dart around him. Handfuls of crackling mud came off in his hands as the lieutenant tried to corral the outcast with a benign grapple.

“I’m not leaving without my boys,” Khazmine snapped back at him, clearly more afraid of a host of holy soldiers than anything her Solanai mentor was capable of. “You can either help me or stay here where it’s safe. What’ll it be?”

The lieutenant grumbled at the prospect of losing Khazmine to the Star Guards and weighed his options over whether to get involved with the outcast’s problems or wait it out to see what would happen. It was almost certain that the holy house had some nefarious intentions for the Deceiver once she was captured, and Mevralls would likely never see her alive again afterwards.

Khazmine would only delay another moment or two before taking off without him, so the lieutenant had only a second to decide. Mevralls sighed and clenched his eyes shut briefly before trailing after the determined half-breed while sorting out his rationale. “Well, better a loser now than a sore loser later.”