119 Busy return

Emp had many busy days following his return in Dark-glint. Everybody requested his attention for all sorts of things on top of the already long list of task he needed to complete on his own.

When he woke up the first day, Calla was already up and about. He dressed himself and was about to walk out of his room when he suddenly stopped at the door. Feeling that something was slightly off, he listened carefully and looked in the corridor from inside the room, there didn't seem to be anything abnormal if one disregarded the breathing he could hear from above the door.

He shoved his arm out and over the door and caught something he dragged down in front of him. Erin cried out as he dangled her by her sword arm in front of him.

"Ha! He caught me Leo! Run!"

Leonni jumped on the wooden floor by the side of the door with a loud thump and ran off towards the stairs. They tried to ambush him first thing in the morning? They did, they had their wooden swords in their hands! Those two rascals!

"You breathe too loudly, that's why you died this time. You need to be calmer. Also, we need to establish some rules once I catch your sister."

He let Erin go and used a space step to get to the end of the corridor. Leo was just escaping by the front door so Emp jumped down from the window and caught her right away.

"You jumped from upstairs! That's unfair!"

"It's not, you should have thought of a better way of escaping before you tried to ambush me in front of my bedroom. Come here now, we have rules to put in place."

Leo groaned in disappointment but let herself be carried back inside.

Emp stepped in the main room to see that something was already cooking in a large cauldron over the fireplace. Calla wasn't looking at it and was instead mopping and dusting the floor with the help of Svae. Calla had been a bit awkward with the new face yesterday but apparently, they were getting along just fine now.

He removed the boots he had just put on in his room before walking in the house, he ddin't want to dirty the floor they were cleaning. He sat at the table while Erin was walking back downstairs. Once the two of them were in front of him he started talking again.

"We need to place down some rules because I'll be really busy for a while. I don't mind you ambushing me or running around but there are three places were you can't challenge me to the game. You can't disturb me while I'm in the study upstairs, while I'm in the workshop over there or while I'm at the forge of my mom. Disturbing me in any of these three places could be catastrophic for you two because I'm likely to get very angry, do you understand?"

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The two girls nodded fearlessly.

"Aside from that, anything else is fair game unless we're eating, don't play around at the table because it's Calla you'll make angry. Don't forget to remove your boots inside once they're done with the floors, if you forget, I'll have you two clean it yourselves. I think that's all the rules, do you have any questions?"

"What will you be busy with? What work do you do? We asked Svae but she wouldn't tell."

"Can we get hired too?"

"No, you can't. What I'm going to be working on isn't about my actual work, I'm going to craft an item and it will take me a lot of time and concentration. As for the work I do, It's still secret, I won't tell you anything until its worth it to tell you or you find the answer yourself."

The two complained because they wanted to be told right away but Emp didn't change his mind and walked into the workshop to start preparing what he'd need for the gift he planned to give Mable.

On the table he placed a whole bunch of orange gems he still didn't know the name of, a whole length of silken string and all the pale gold he had. What he planned to do would all be in the details and since the crystal he possessed didn't match the idea he had, it wouldn't be used much. He felt that this gift would take less time to make than the first he did simply because the materials where easier to work with.

He was eager to start but he couldn't yet because Manley and Willow's marriage hadn't happened yet and he wouldn't want to stop his work halfway to see it.

Since that was the case, he left his tools and materials in place on his workstation and left for Marcy's forge. They had talked a lot the previous day but she would surely want to talk more and also, make him work for all the time he missed.

He was absolutely right and Marcy worked him to the bones for the whole day. While he was smelting and hammering, she kept asking about everything he did while he was away, about the sisters, the vaelian girl, his classes, the old duke, the trip, the new mage and so on.

Emp told her everything she wanted to know in details and did his best to work properly after such a long break away from forging. He also told her about the list Blackbull had made for him and how he would have a bunch of noble girls come here to chose some to attend to Calla.

Marcy didn't really mind as long as they didn't disturb her in her work and did their job properly. However, she told him that he would have to mind his manners with them and that they might not like his house. It was amazing for a village but it really wasn't up to the standards of what you would expect from a noble of his status. She also believed that they might quickly get on Calla's nerves because his wife was the sort to enjoy the little things in life. If they tried to teach her things too strictly or zealously, or if they tried to have Calla act according to her rank, she'd regret her ordinary life in no time.

Emp promised he'd keep this in mind and went back home to get a taste of the meal that Calla cooked the whole day. It had been a while since she could last prepare something that needed so much time and she was really proud of herself. The two sisters had not participated this time around just like the previous day and had to admit with a really disappointed face that they shouldn't help with any meals at all because it was way better when they didn't. They knew they had been messing it up but had not realized that it was this bad compared to what Calla could do.

Emp usually disappointed them in some way but this time around, he was the one to comfort them with words.

"It's not a bad thing that you can't cook properly, it just means that your hidden talent lies elsewhere. Enjoy the food Calla made you instead of making those faces and try new things tomorrow. Its just a matter of time before you find out what you're strong in and meanwhile, you'll get to eat well everyday."

They felt reinvigorated by his words and went back to how they were on the trip to here.

In the next few days, Emp caught them again many times and dodged a good amount of ambushes while he did a bunch of things. He built a few drying racks for meat or clothes, he made a tanning rack too, far in the back in case he needed one later, he made a list of things they still didn't have in the house he'd have to buy later, assisted to Manley's marriage and listened to Gilberts complaints about the guard work.

Gilbert was bothered because it was far from as exciting as he wanted it to be and it had not fixed his problem with Eda at all.

"She said that I still didn't know what I was doing! Can you believe it? I'm just poking at things without a clue on what I'm doing, she says! You're not really a guard, you're just trying it out and then you'll give up and do something else again! She's so frustrating!"

Emp found sort of funny how he had never cared at all about what she thought until he was told she liked him and now he kept complaining about her. Emp kept his serious though because Gilbert was clearly feeling frustrated.

"She just want to be sure you won't turn around five dozen times and end up like the two girls I'm housing with no work or money. You keep saying the guard job is boring, will you quit like she says you will? I promise that knights don't live a more exciting life than that most of them time."

"It can't be more boring than standing at the gate all day long."

"You could be standing at a door all day long instead, the only difference would be that the armor is heavier, stuffier and if someone sees you not standing straight you get scolded."

"Well at least they still get a better pay and they know how to fight properly. I don't mean to say that the guys are weak but they don't have the same range of skill a knight does, they're way more impressive." He grumbled.

"They don't have the same range of duty either. If you really want to, I'll try to turn you into a knight but you need to understand that you won't really get more action than that. When they do get action, it's not a good thing for everyone else usually. Don't you remember about the last two times the guards here fought for real? Hoping for action is the wrong attitude."

Gilbert answered with a really sour face. He did remember, one was when the blood-spitters attacked and killed a bunch of villagers and guards alike and the other was when Vesa and Chase died on a hunt.

"You know that's not what I mean, I just want to do more than stand around all day. There must be something more useful for us to do. We could go out and do stuff you know?"

"That's the work of hunters and death seekers. Guards are paid to stand and be prepared to react in case something goes wrong. Knights are the same as the guards but with more responsibility and they have to go to war like soldiers on top which is way more dangerous than a single monster roaming too close to the gate."

"I know already, you keep talking about that. I'll go swing my sword a bit to calm myself. I'll think about it some more."

"Tell me if you take a decision."

"Arg, that's the exact same thing Eda told me." Gilbert complained as he left his house.

Emp let out a small sigh and wondered what else he could do today while he waited for the marriage on the morrow. Maybe he had the time to do some training too?

He walked to the vestibule and then stepped back out again as Erin tried to jump onto his back from over the door like the other day. He caught her before she touched the ground, spun around, threw her in the air and caught Leo too before catching her older sister a second time with the other hand. All the while, there was a chorus of girly screams as the two of them flew around.

"That one was good, you moved just a bit early, don't be too eager, take your time." He told them once everything had ended.

The two sisters made frustrated pout for being defeated again. Emp thought it was a huge improvement though, Gilbert hadn't seen them at all. They were surprisingly good at ambushes.

Erin hesitated for a second while he was putting them both back down and asked him something he had not expected.

"You said you'd turn him into a knight if he wanted. Can you really do that? Could you turn us into knights like cousin Vinia?"

Apparently, they had listened to his talk with Gilbert.

"I can try, if you beat my game and you want me to." He answered.

"Are you a knight?"

She tried to guess what he was with more doubt than conviction.

"I'm not, try again another time. For now, come outside with me, I have some time to train with you."

They tried to escape Emp all day but didn't win once that time either. Svae looked at the whole thing from the roof of the house with interest and maybe a bit of envy. Emp hadn't invited her to the game for the simple reason that she could fly. Unless he forbade her from flying, he would never have a chance of catching her and that wouldn't be useful practice for her. In a real situation of danger, she would just fly out of reach like everyone from her race always did. Learning to run and hide was pointless.

She seemed a bit pitiful though... Should he invite her to play next time anyway, even though she wouldn't benefit? He asked her later and she reacted with great excitement at the idea. He didn't understand why she wanted to train this way so much but since it was not really disturbing his training at all, he had no reason to say no.

Then, the next day, everyone gathered in the central place to celebrate Manley and Willow getting married.

Being the one on the stage and just being sat in the crowd to watch felt really different. It was their turn now to feel nervous about the situation and Emp just watched the ceremony from a bench midway through the crowd.

Bor was the one to preside the event like last time and everything proceeded in a similar way. Manley awaited his future wife in his best clothes, behind him the giant heart sculpture imposed its rule and in front of him, Willow slowly walked up to the stage in a colorful dress. Emp thought that she looked great even though her smile wasn't as radiant as the one Calla showed him back then.

She climbed up the steps and left her mother and her daughter to sit down in the front row as she parted with them.

Willow and Manley had an easier time saying their lines than Calla had but the small Shana started crying loudly in the arms of her grandmother at the halfway point. Willow had to almost scream her words to be heard over her daughter and rushed through it in order to go back to her baby as soon as possible.

At his side, Calla had tears running down her cheeks while further on the bench, Erin and Leo seemed utterly bored. Emp had warned them strongly that they were not to disturb the event in anyway. No talking, no moving from the bench until it was over and no mishaps.

As for Emp himself, he was just glad that everything went well for Willow and Manley. Willow seemed a bit hesitant, probably because she always believed that Chase would be the man waiting on the stage for her, but she wasn't against it either because she still came and said the vows. Emp also knew that Manley sincerely loved her so he expected everything would be fine.

At the party that followed, Calla stayed close to Emp and went with him to give her congratulations and wishes of happiness to them. Emp gave his own while thinking that he was really glad he didn't have to go meet everyone again. This time, it was Manley and Willow that had the hard job. All Emp had to do was enjoy himself.

The sisters and Svaenaha stayed close to them because they still felt like strangers in this place and didn't know what to do with themselves. Emp thought it was just as well since its stopped them from causing any trouble. He just made sure that they ate properly but didn't worry too much about them.

At some point in the evening, Jenna and Paul the shoemakers came to talk with them. There wasn't anything specific they wanted to talk about and just enjoyed having a good talk with them after such a long time. The conversation eventually drifted to how Jenna helped the two girls find the lost wagon the other day and the girls themselves.

"That's kind of you to help those two. Was it an idea from Calla to adopt them or did you want to do like your mom?"

Emp didn't understand what she meant right away because it seemed too out of place for him. He spent a few seconds asking himself if he had heard right before answering with an uncertain tone.

"No, uh, we didn't adopt them. We're just housing them while they're staying here in Dark-glint."

"Oh."

Jenna and Paul made a surprised face. They were rather embarrassed by the misunderstanding they had.

"They already have a family and Erin is just a few years younger than us. That would just be odd."

Erin agreed in a very upset tone from the back.

"Yeah, fathers are disappointing, we don't need another one. Even less someone that looks like a bad guy like him."

"You said you'd stop calling me a bad guy."

"No, I didn't, Leo said that."

"She said we!"

"It could have meant anyone, "we" doesn't necessarily includes me."

The shoemakers laughed in front of this ridiculous argument and defended Emp a bit by telling the two sisters how he had fought an unnameable of chaos to protect the village once. They described the monster to them in as much details as they remembered form the corpse.

"Did he really beat that kind of monster?"

"He did!" Paul exclaimed. "He went to fight it along with a large group of hunters that came from out of town and half of them died when fighting it. Emp came back with a bunch of bones crushed, he was scary to look at."

"But then he didn't really win, the monster was beaten by the hunters." Leo said.

Emp agreed with her, he had not really won that time, he had just survived thanks to Calla's apple.

"All the huntresses said they would have died if he had not been there and also, he was the one that did the final hit on the monster."

"Well I would have died too if they weren't there. It was a team effort." Emp protested.

The two girls kept hovering between an annoyed face and a pensive air for the rest of the feast. In their eyes up to this point, they had thought that Emp was unbeatable because he was so fast and strong but today, they had learned that some things were even stronger than that. They kept thinking about it and tried to figure out just how strong and scary Emp and the monster were respectively.

As for why they were angry, Emp had no doubt it was about the adopted thing. They really didn't trust parents and disliked to be told what to do. It was understandable, they had been kicked out of their home by their own father and forbidden to use their family name. Erin was even more angry because she felt she was old enough to take care of herself, she didn't someone to watch over her... Except she did need help because she couldn't earn money on her own.

Later, while they were all walking back home, Erin asked him something else.

"The creature they talked about. It was stronger than you but you didn't run. Why do you keep telling us to run and hide if you don't even do it yourself?"

That was all too true. Emp had the extremely bad habit of not running when he should. He kept getting badly injured because he didn't know when to retreat.

"Maybe I should have ran away, yes. It seemed like the wrong thing to do at the time. If I had, maybe all the huntresses would have died instead of only half. I think there's a time to stand and a time to run. I have a friend that keeps telling me that risking my life isn't worth it but I think that sometimes, you have to face what's in front even if you might die."

"I don't get it." The two girls said together with an unsure tone.

Emp came up with an example to help them understand.

"Let's think about it this way then."

He let go of Calla's hand and grabbed Leo instead, lifting her up under his left arm like a bag. She made a yelp of surprise but didn't resist more than that.

"If I was a monster and I caught Leo like this, would you run away or would you fight?"

He asked so in a very calm manner but the way he carried himself and formed the words dazed Erin. She looked into the eyes of her sister and then at Emp, a guy she perfectly knew that she couldn't ever beat. She bit her lips as she thought about it, just this alone made her understand how hard it was to make that sort of choice.

Leo on the other hand was just plainly confused. She told her sister that obviously she should run because she couldn't beat Emp.

"If this was real, your head would be screaming at you to escape right now and your whole body would be shivering. Your legs wouldn't move but you'd have to take a decision quick, you have to move now. Look at Svae, she knows what you'd do already."

Erin did as he said and took a peek a her friend. She had a bright confident smile as if she truly did know what Erin would answer. Erin wondered if she had guessed right and if what she was about to answer was the right thing to do.

"I wouldn't be able to leave without Leo." She said with a defeated tone.

She had been told many times that she couldn't win and that she could only run so she felt like she was disappointing everyone by answering that. Aside from Leo who felt like her sister had failed however, everyone else was looking at her with a large smile.

"I knew you wouldn't run." Emp said before placing Leo back on the ground. "Sometimes, you have to stand because you can't afford to pay the price of running away."

The two girls still seemed confused but Emp didn't know how to give a better explanation than that. They walked back home in silence and shortly after, Emp left the others in the main room to get started on his gift. Now that the marriage was over, he needed to get to it properly before Mable got upset at how long it took him to do it.

He began by making plans and outlines on how he would forge and cut each pieces, how they would tie in together and where everything would go. He took his time because he wanted to know exactly what he was doing once he would stand at the forge.

A long time after he had started, he heard someone walk into the workshop behind him. He thought it was Calla that came to tell him he should go to sleep but it was Erin instead. She still seemed a bit downhearted from earlier.

"I told you to not disturb me in here... Where's Leo?"

"She's asleep already, I wanted to ask you something so I came here. I won't touch anything I promise."

Since she didn't look like she felt well at all, Emp agreed right away. He gestured her to come closer.

"Alright then, what is it?"

"Earlier, how did you know I would answer that? How did you know I wouldn't run?"

"That sort of thing is easy to see in people. At least for me."

At first, he had some real trouble gaining a basic understanding of anyone at all but now that he had seen many different sort of person, he could tell from their acts and their eyes what they would stand for and what they would not. Some like Odilon would stand for nothing, others were more like Erin.

"You care too much for your sister to let her die like that, even if you can't win and even if she screams at you to run, you would never be able to do it."

"Is it bad?" She asked, while crossing her arms in worry.

It was true that Emp had told them it was best to run but he didn't want them to misunderstand. He might have gone too far trying to convince them to run away all the time. He tried to correct his mistake right away.

"No, of course not. There is no right choice. The important thing is to make the choice knowing what will happen and not regret it after. If you ran, you would regret it forever because this is the sort of person you are. I stand almost every time too even though I'm told I should run because I keep thinking of those behind me that can't run as well as I can. If I don't stand, they will suffer and I can't accept it. I need to help even if its really dangerous and everyone tells me to run."

Her brows were furrowed as she tried to figure out what he was saying and why he was saying it.

"Why are you teaching us to run then?"

"Because if you can both run well, than no monster can grab Leo and force you to stand. I want you to stand because you can win, not because you don't have a choice. To do that, you need to be able to run and then, you need to be able to win. Only with those two do you have a real choice on what to do."

Emp felt he was speaking like his mother, Love. Talking about choices as if it was more important than anything else. Always giving him a choice even when there was a clearly better answer.

"If no one can catch Leo, no one can make you stand your ground if you don't want to. Protecting others at the risk of your own life isn't a bad thing, that's what knights do all the time but if you do it, it has to be because you want to help others, not because you have no other choice. You do your best to help if you want to and if you can't do anything more, you can run instead of loosing your life pointlessly."

"Is that really what knights do?"

"It is, they can't leave until everyone else is saved, even if it cost them their lives. They need to protect everyone."

"My cousin Vinia is a knight but I don't feel like she would do that."

"Your cousin is the sort to care more about the rules than the people isn't she?"

He was answered with a nod.

"Since she's a knight and she cares so much about the rules, she will stand anyway, not because she wants to help, you are right, but because the rules told her to."

She nodded again as she could see her cousin do that easily and stayed silent for a moment as she thought about everything she was just told. It didn't take too long before she calmed down and took a more relieved attitude.

"So I'm fine, there's nothing wrong with me."

"Of course not, protecting your own sister will never be wrong, I'd be more worried if you chose to run instead."

She gave him a more lighthearted smile, satisfied with this new explanation. Emp figured this was also part of what it meant to have family. You need to stand for them no matter the odds else they end up in trouble like Galana or the two Porter sisters.

Thinking about Galana, hopefully he would have some news from her brought by the caravan that crossed theirs in the village. He had not heard from Galana in a very long time now.

"Thank you Emp, that's all I wanted to know."

Erin turned around to leave but Emp called her back right away.

"Erin! I don't know if you have the talent or not but you would make a good knight I think. I know you would stand for what is right. You jumped in to save Calla when you thought she was in danger, you'd do the same for any good person, I know."

Erin made a grimace strangely mixing disgust and pride.

"I don't know... We were wrong that time and my father didn't have the talent to be a knight so I must not have it either. I just need a way to earn money reliably for Leo. I don't need to be a noble."

"Your father didn't have the talent but he didn't have the right attitude either. He ran when he should have stood, from what I see, you're nothing like him."

"What do you mean he ran? My father never fought anything, how could he have ran?"

"He ran from his responsibility towards you two. He could have endured and sacrificed something else than two of his daughters. Instead he chose to escape by throwing you and Leo out."

"You know nothing of him, how could you say that?"

"You are right, I don't know, I wasn't there. The only things I know are those you and Leo said and from those words, the only conclusion I can reach is that he is a coward. You are better than him, I know, I saw. You could have been just fine on your own, Leo is the true calamity, isn't she? She fell in the river, she burned my papers, I'm willing to bet she was the one to drop the sword and break the porcelain too. You could have left her behind like your father did but you didn't, you chose to stand with her and suffer at her side, always sharing the blame and protecting her. You might not know how to use a sword but you have the will of a true knight. I can't replace your father and I don't want to but I'd be glad to have you and your sister as my friends."

Her eyes turned red halfway through his speech and by the end, she walked up to where he sat and hugged him strongly. Emp felt some tears fall down on his neck and his shoulders. He returned a light hug of his own just to let her know she was welcome.

He always spoke his mind but this time, it happened to be exactly what she needed to hear.

"As long as you keep your strong heart, you'll always be welcome in my house and my side. You can take all the time you need to find your way."

She didn't say a word to acknowledge this or thank him but he knew she had heard and he knew she was grateful. After taking a deep breath, she let him go and walked back to the door.

She shook her head to put her ideas back in place and asked one last thing before leaving. Hoping that maybe he'd forget about what she just did.

"Uh... How about Calla's brother, would he make a good knight according to you?"

"He certainly knows how to stand his ground but that's just his problem. He's the sort to stick with anything at all once he took a decision, even if it's a bad one. He takes a lot of time to figure things out but once he does, he never changes back his mind, he doesn't know how to run and that's what scares me. Running is important too, I don't want him to die because he didn't fall back when he should have. Both running and standing are important, that's why they teach both in the imperial school."

Erin didn't seem to really listen to his answer, it was just a pretext to have him talk.

"I see... Also, by the way, you were wrong. I was the one who dropped the sword, Leo couldn't even carry it. I make many mistakes too."

She waved her hand once and walked back out. Emp really thought it was Leo but he wasn't all that surprised to hear it wasn't. Erin shared the darkness element of her sister after all and everyone made mistakes.

Emp stretched his shoulders and went back to work. He wanted the plans to be done before he went to bed.

The work continued on the next many days. He used the forge many times to smelt his pale gold and silver and like last time, focused all his attention on this.

The gift he prepared for Mable would be a large amulet made of pale gold representing the sun. He first took a long time to sculpt the gold into a wild crown of flames around the central circle of the sun, he wanted the rays to be wild like her.

He took days to craft a complex amalgam of pieces he wanted to attach and detach at will from the central sun. Each was made of long pins of pale gold and could be socketed into the main piece to look like one of the many sun rays. When all together, they were a simple amulet but if all the pieces were detached, they formed a long string linked by fine silk, each small section being it's own hair pin forming together a large ornamented net. Mable had a lot of hair after all, with all the pins being bundled together or not at will, it would give her a lot of freedom on what to do with her hair and if she didn't want to wear the gift in her hair, it would still be a pretty amulet.

Every single piece had a crowning orange gem, with a huge one occupying the central circle of the sun. They became quite visible in front of the pale gold. Silver replaced the gold in the parts where he expected that it was more likely to break or in the pins themselves because it was more resistant than gold. It wasn't that apparent however because his silver and his pale gold were almost matching in color.

Along the lengths of silk, he hung many pieces of gem, purple crystals and sometimes, bits of excess gold, all pierced to let the string through and spread them over if tied in her hair.

At the back of the main sun, he placed two important things.

First was an unused locking mechanism. He didn't want to make an armor for a confirmation gift but if he made one later, that lock would fix the amulet in place on it.

Second, he engraved a set of runes at the back. Those were simple runes, they were almost the same as the ones on his sword ray. The difference was that he had far from enough space to make them all correctly so he had to remove the pieces that made it permanent. Instead, it would only be activated on command when Mable poured some magu into it.

That enchantment would let the amulet glow brightly, a bit like the sun it represented, all Mable would have to do would be to say "light" and pour her personal magu into it.

That sort of magic items wasn't often made because most of the times, when it wasn't a permanent magic, most preferred to take external magu to power the magic. The difference was that if they didn't know how to feel and control their internal magu, they wouldn't be able to activate it at all. Using external magu was more convenient in most cases but one would need a sacrifice every time.

In this way, using the internal magu as fuel was more practical.

Maybe such an item would be useful to learn to feel one own magu but it was the sort of shortcut that wasn't recommended. It resulted in things like Emp currently did where one just found a workaround instead of truly feeling the magu inside.

He could make a few simple enchantments to help the sisters learn but he'd rather have them actually find it, unlike himself.

Once he was done, he poured some magu inside and was satisfied to see the bright glow coming out of every piece connected to the web of silk. Her whole head would shine if she placed that in her hair.

Now he just needed to work on all the details. He wanted that sun to truly look like a piece of art, he wanted each little claw holding the gems to look like tongues of fire holding on to them, he wanted his goodwill to shine in the efforts he was going to put into it.

"That's pretty, what are you working on?"

Leo and Erin were now standing on either side of him. He was so focused on his task that he had not heard them come in.

"It's a sun amulet that's also a hair ornament. What are you two doing in here?"

"You've been locked in here for more than a week already. We can't beat your game if you never come out so we came in to see." Erin said.

"It looks really good, and super expensive, who is it for? Calla?" Leo asked, still staring at his work.

"No, it's for Mable. It's a confirmation gift."

"I don't remember meeting someone named Mable." Leo said.

"You're making a confirmation gift? You're going to get a second wife soon? Does Calla know?"

"Of course she knows! We went all the way to Bêtéclair just to see her. we're not getting married anytime soon however. She hasn't given me an offering of Holia yet."

"But you're making a confirmation anyway? Isn't that weird to work on it this early?"

"It's complicated."

"That's just something people say when they don't want to answer." Leo complained.

"I don't want to answer because it's too complicated and I need to tell you more about me for it to make sense. Beat me at the game first."

Erin threw her arms in the air in exasperation.

"But we can't because you're in here!"

"I'm almost done, I just need to work on the details now. Ask Svae to run after you instead in the meantime. She can fly so it should still be hard and a good practice while you wait to challenge me again."

"We did already, we've been playing with her the whole week." Leo said in an excited tone.

"Really? Then keep at it. Like I said, I'll be done soon."

The two didn't seem to think his answer was acceptable but in the end, they had no way to make him move so they had to leave.

Since he had already been disturbed, Emp went around the workshop to check on all the candles and replace those that had died. He then sat back down and checked into the bag once to see if he had a message from the other him. There was nothing more easy because he could see all of its content in his head as he pleased.

He found a new piece of paper asking if he could be recalled right away in emergency. Even in emergencies, he wouldn't be recalled without agreeing to a note beforehand because he never wanted something like the first hunt of Chase to happen again. He marked the paper and placed it back in the bag.

Moments later, he vanished and reappeared. His heartbeat had now quickened to a pace he only experienced in real battles. It truly was an emergency, he needed to move now.

*-*-*-*

Juniper was pacing in her room, wondering what to do.

She had received some really special news with the caravan that came in from Red-water. Special in the sense that it was as heavy as a mountain and as dangerous as a dragon.

The mining process of the crystal had been going really well lately and her workers were starting to come back from the village. When she heard the words going around between them, she had to round everyone up and forcefully detain them in an inn while she thought about what she was supposed to do.

"We witnessed a marriage." They were saying.

"There was an old duke that came and bowed to the bride like a knight bend in front of his lord!" They claimed.

"The smith over there is the famous Marcellia Gladius! She repaired my pick!" They boasted.

"Her son was the groom, he left with the duke." Those morons told around as if they were speaking of the sun and rain!

Were they all daft! Didn't they understand what this all meant! Why did she have to deal with this now? What was she supposed to do with that information?

She wasn't an information broker, she was just in the glass business. Information were scary to deal with, they were dangerous, she would rather have not known that her classmate Emp was obviously a Muracier. Who else would the duke bow for?

Maybe the imperial family or the royals of Artefine. It couldn't be the royals of Artefine because she knew all their faces, their palace was covered in glass windows and expensive chandeliers.

There was the imperial family and the Muraciers left. They had learned all the princes names in the class and Emp fit none. The most damning evidence was the name of Marcellia suddenly popping up. Yes, of course the fiance of the great general's brother would be the mother of a guy who the duke bowed for just by coincidence!

Bloody underground, may those empty headed idiots be taken by rot!

If no one knew where the great general went and no one knew that a younger Murcier existed, it shouldn't take a genius to figure out it was a secret. One she should never have learned.

Things were going so well lately too! What in the world was she supposed to do with that!

She wasn't even a noble, she just studied here to gain contacts. If the duke or worse, the Muraciers thought she was a menace to whatever secret they were hiding in Dark-glint, they wouldn't have trouble making her disappear for good.

Maybe she should make the workers disappear first? That way everyone would shut up for good and she'd be safe.

She thought about it for a moment but then discarded the idea in disgust.

It would feel way too dirty to do that, she wouldn't murder the whole group of worker because she was scared.

But then what should she do, pay them handsomely and hope they'd never speak of it again? If they suddenly grew a brain, they'd understand there was something important in their random story and they'd try to do something stupid with it.

Juniper continued to pace inside her room, biting down on the side of her index as she stressed over the matter.

She could give the info to Aglaya who she knew was desperately trying to figure out his identity since forever. Maybe in exchange she would be able to find a solution to her problem.

On the other hand, she could also go confront Emp about this. She felt that from what she knew about him, it was unlikely that he would do something to her.

"Mistress stop! You're bleeding!"

One of her two servants rushed to grab her hand. She had bit down too hard on her finger in her state of panic and made it bleed. It was surprisingly painful but sadly, the pain didn't help her come to a decision.

She wouldn't be able to keep the workers under wrap for much longer, she needed to do something fast.

She didn't wait for her servant to finish the bandage around her finger and walked with hurried steps all the way to Emp's room. She knocked hard on his door but she was soon told by his human servant that he was too busy to receive anyone right now.

What could he possibly be busy with now!

What to do, what to do...