“So how did he start training you?”

“He taught me how to hold the dagger he gave me, yelled what parts of the monsters I should aim for when one pounced on me,” Amaryllis could practically hear him rolling his eyes with the amount of scorn dripping from his words. “Things like that. Plus, they used me for grunt work so I learned how to break down a monster carcass to sell, and that makes it easier to know their weak points to kill them too.”

“In a way it was harder work than being a blacksmith apprentice,” Vincent mused as he continued. “The monsters are heavy and so are armor and weapons. Even the tools for breaking down drakes and wyverns and the like are massive. A lot heavier than lugging around carts of coal and whatever else the smiths sent me to fetch.”

“No wonder you got so big,” Amaryllis mused and then blushed, realizing she had spoken her thoughts aloud.

“It certainly helped,” he shrugged, unphased by her comment. “The longer I was with the band the more tasks they gave me. I learned a lot. Including what my work was worth. I started demanding pay and was able to buy myself better supplies than the leftover scraps they tossed my way. I really started growing once I could fill my stomach every meal.”

“I guess you weren’t as useful then,” Amaryllis mused.

“Not for small stuff, but there’s ways around those things,” he shrugged. “A few of the mercs were more wiry in build so they could wiggle into the crevices when needed. Hated it of course. No one likes the feeling of bugs and dirt falling down the back of your shirt, but that was their job. I was still underage so even if I couldn’t do those jobs, the captain could keep me on grunt work and make me fill out the numbers on the commissions no one wanted.”

“What kind of commissions were those?” Amaryllis couldn’t stop herself from asking. They had to be dangerous if no one wanted them, but mercenary work was terribly dangerous on its own. She struggled to imagine what he could be talking about.

“The messy ones, the rural ones, or the ones with the low-ranking nobles,” he ticked off each one on his fingers.

“I can understand the first,” Amaryllis frowned. “But why the last two?”

“Rural areas take time to get to. The roads are terrible and hard on the supply wagons. The inns are terrible, and there’s nothing to do to celebrate a successful commission. Just a long trek back to somewhere with a clean bed and decent ale,” he sighed. “Nothing worse than getting paid for a job well done and choosing to camp because the inn beds are full of lice and fleas.”

“Though for some mercs that’s the best thing for their coin purse. Instead of wasting it all on ale and women they actually saved a bit. The blacksmiths and tanners would practically pounce on the convoys coming back from rural commissions to get some of that coin.”

“That was probably for the best,” Amaryllis guessed. “Surely new or better equipment helped them survive?”

“To an extent, but money can’t fix stupid,” he sighed and dark look took over his features. Amaryllis pressed her lips together into a thin line as she studied him. It didn’t take a mind reader to know he was reliving some brutal deaths, but she wasn’t quite sure how to pull him out of his thoughts. She inched closer, lifting their hands to rest his in her lap and leaned against him. Sir Vincent tensed and she felt his head turn down to look at her, his breath tickling the crown of her head.

“So why were us nobles so annoying?” she asked, trying to make her tone light and teasing. She kept her head turned to the forest to hide the nervous expression she knew was on her face.

“You rank too high to count,” he murmured after a long moment of quiet. “Mid-level up and they’re not so bad. Sure, they’re arrogant, but they also don’t particularly care to interact with the mercs directly so its not like we had to deal with that directly. The knights they sent usually wanted whatever monster mess we were tasked with done quickly, so they chose efficiency over flexing their authority. Interacted with us as little as possible. I knew it meant they thought we were worth about as much as the dirt beneath their feet, but didn’t care since they paid decent. Keeping their mouths shut because they simply couldn’t be bothered to deal with us still meant we didn’t have to deal with that sort of talk.”

“But the lower nobles tend to have something to prove,” Amaryllis nodded as understanding dawned on her.

Most viscounts had land and a hereditary title, but the same wasn’t true to the barons and baronets who were lower in the ranks. About a third of barons got a small castle or an estate with a few peasants to get taxes from. The rest were left to reside wherever the lord who had given them their title chose and do whatever work was given to them. They were largely second, third, and fourth sons who had no way of inheriting their family’s name and holdings. The title of baron was usually a demotion in rank and rarely one they grew from.

The baronets were even worse off. The title was usually given to commoners who had distinguished themselves in one way or another. It put them above the other commoners, but their humble beginnings were impossible to hide. They were often scorned so chose to work even harder to prove their skills over those born into their titles. Many of the craftsman bound to her father’s estate were baronets whose talents he had recognized and cultivated. Their skills were undeniable so few dared to openly shun those he had elevated to that rank.

For a noble, the title of baronet was an unbearable insult. It ranked them equal to commoners they thought themselves better than. It also signaled to all that they had been demoted and were barely holding onto their peerage.

The barons and baronets would be the ones tasked with searching out, hiring, and managing mercenaries. She’d been around enough of them to know just how fragile their egos were. Amaryllis could easily guess as to how they’d spend their time trying to make themselves feel better by mocking the mercenaries.

“They only prove that their idiots,” Sir Vincent chuckled and gave her hand a squeeze.

Amaryllis was relieved to hear the ease return to his voice. She tilted up to see him smiling down at her with an almost impish grin. She raised an eyebrow, silently inquiring at his thoughts.

“I was in Tesslands once and we were clearing out some goblins, nothing unusual or too difficult. The baron who paid us would not stop talking though. He’d go on and on about his noble lineage that’d been around for so long and so he was just so special,” he rolled his eyes. “He was absurdly disdainful whenever we came back covered in muck and blood from dealing with the den, burrow really, the goblins had made into their home. Nasty place. The man wrinkled his nose like he was trying to make the extra ridges permanent.”

Vincent squinted down at her with his face scrunched up like a child responding to a sour smell. Amaryllis giggled and put her head back on his shoulder while he continued the story.

“By the end of it we were all sick of him. Even the knights with him seemed exhausted by his babble so we decided to take a bit of a chance,” he gave her a conspiratorial wink. “We planned to mess with him a little. Just bring back a bit of the muck and get it on him. But the goblins seemed to have something else in mind.”

“Now we’d though the place was clear, no lie. But there was a little tunnel that we’d missed. Just a little nook that had a bit of a natural overhang from a rock they’d dug around. Not a big space mind you, but enough to hide a goblin.”

“You see the baronet, since we all, even those knights escorting him, thought it was clear, well he came to the entrance of the den,” he snorted. “Didn’t step foot inside mind you, but I suppose he wanted to look like a brave man so he stood outside. Started going on and on about how goblins weren’t that big of a deal and the lord, some marquess I think, would have left it to him if he weren’t so busy handling the lords other affairs.”

“But it sounds like he was just a nuisance.”

“Exactly. I think the knights had their visors down just so we couldn’t see them roll their eyes. Anyways, he was babbling and we were idling, waiting to get paid so we could get out of there, when that goblin bolted out of the burrow,” he snickered. “No idea why it chose that moment. Just shows how brainless they tend to be. Didn’t even have a weapon. Darted straight out and collided with the baronet.”

He started chuckling.

“He looked as shocked as the goblins did. The knights killed the thing almost immediately but that didn’t matter. The baro- he,” Sir Vincent covered his mouth, trying to contain the laughter that kept erupting mid-word. “He fell flat on his face into the pool of goblin blood and mud and scrambled up, running like devils were after him. That fancy jacket and boots he’d been bragging about the whole time completely ruined.”

He was full on laughing now, shaking so much that Amaryllis had to sit upright. After a few minutes he managed to calm down and gave her a sheepish look.

“We didn’t see him after that. He was too embarrassed. Honestly even the knights with him looked embarrassed. They paid us a little extra, probably hoping we’d keep quiet about it.”

“That seemed to work well,” Amaryllis teased.

“Oh, I didn’t say a word till now,” Vincent chuckled. “The others did of course, and the locals at the tavern all told us their own stories of his foolishness. There were many reasons that man’s father didn’t choose him as successor. Would have run whatever estate that was straight into the ground if he had.”

“I’ve seen a few-”

Suddenly Sir Vincent tensed and his hand flew over her mouth, cutting off her words. Amaryllis’s heart raced. The sudden movement had startled her, and she’d flinched back instinctively. He paid her reaction no mind, firmly holding his hand in place as he looked to the right. He narrowed his eyes and shifted his body to block her from sight a bit more.

After a moment her thoughts settled enough for her to realize that someone was nearby and that Vincent meant her no harm. Reason didn’t easily win out over her fear and she struggled to calm herself.

Amaryllis patted his hand gently to let him know she would stay quiet. She could manage that much. He let his hand fall to her shoulder, and she could feel how tense he was by how tightly his fingers gripped her. Not enough to bruise, but close. The pressure was oddly comforting. It helped calm her, although she still held her hand over her heart in a vain attempt to steady at. She only barely remembered to move it over to the space between her heart and mana core where her heart used to be.

He released her after a few moments and she could still feel the ghost of the pressure from his grip. The absence felt strange and oddly unfamiliar. Sir Vincent pulled her to her feet before she had time to puzzle over it, and kept his gaze towards the forest.

“They’re gone now, but we should go,” he told her quietly, already leading her back to the annex.

Amaryllis’s heart did not slow even with the knight’s reassurance. People so rarely came along these paths during the day that she was shocked someone had been nearby this late. She wasn’t sure how close, but the fact that it was enough to unsettle Sir Vincent set her nerves on edge. He stopped them a few feet back from the edge of the forest to carefully check for people rather than right at the garden’s edge like usual.

“Walk, don’t run,” he gently pushed her forward. “That’ll only draw more attention.”

She merely nodded, not trusting her own abilities to whisper when she felt like a knot had lodged in her throat. The walk to the annex’s back door had never felt so long. She strained her ears for footsteps or voices. The longer she heard nothing the worse she felt, like a thread ready to snap after being stretched too far.

Finally, after a minute that felt like an hour, she reached the back door. This time she did not look back. Instead, she bolted inside, wrapping her shadow cloak around herself as soon as the door was shut.