Chapter Forty-Eight: The Bullseye

Chapter Forty-Eight: The Bullseye

“Buy it back,” Marika ordered me. “Buy it back, Robin.”

I sank back in my seat. This conversation was going about as well as I’d expected; namely, terribly. The air in the captain’s cabin had grown incredibly tense, with Eris fidgeting uncomfortably, Beni keeping his head down, and Soraseo standing still like a statue as she pondered what to do.

Mirokald was behind the steering wheel, his eyes set on the window separating us from the clouds outside. It hadn’t taken him long to learn how to pilot the Colmar. I suspected he used his Hunter power to immediately find which lever he needed to pull.

I was thankful for his expertise. Marika was in no mental shape to perform her usual piloting duties.

We’d left Greybeach immediately after Benicio received the Alchemist’s mark; both to catch up to Mersie in time and to protect the boy from any unwelcome attention. Morad and Mirokald had sworn the few beastmen who saw him inherit the class to secrecy, but someone was bound to slip up sooner or later.

At least Greybeach was quite remote from human population centers. The Knots’ agents in the Riverland Federation might never hear of the event.

But how long could we keep that up? Our enemies knew a new Alchemist had been chosen the moment the mark left Mount Erebia and would be on the lookout for Colmar’s replacement. The Knots likely allocated enormous resources to keep tabs on us; a mere glimpse of Benicio using his power would let them connect the dots.

Marika was right to worry for her son’s future. The truth would come out.

“Marika, you know very well that I cannot do that,” I reminded her. She understood my class’ limitations almost as much as I did by now, but motherly care compelled her to explore any alternative. “The marks are loans, not gifts. I can’t buy or sell them away.”

“Then the Fatebinder should take it back!” Marika insisted, her tone rising, her arms protectively wrapped around her son with the grip of coiling snakes. Beni looked terribly uncomfortable sitting on his mother’s lap, but he was too shy to move an inch. “That’s why the Artifacts created her class, did they not? To take back the marks when they pick wrong!”

“There is no error,” Eris replied with a sigh. She sympathized with Marika’s plight, but she understood classes the best among us and their intentions. “Not with these things. The marks’ choices may often be questionable, but they’re never outright wrong.”

“He’s nine.” Marika seethed through her teeth. “Nine, Eris. You were there for his birthday!”

“I have no understanding either,” Soraseo said. “Beni is a brave boy, but he is too young to fight. He cannot defeat demons.”

“He won’t have to fight them at all,” I said in an attempt to reassure Marika. “The likes of us perform better at the rear.”

The Alchemist and Artisan both descended from my own Merchant class, which was meant to play a support role for their fellow Heroes and the world at large. My one-sided fight with Belgoroth—if I could call having three of my limbs sliced off in a second’s time a ‘fight’—solidified that impression. I would never be a warrior in the same league as more martial-oriented Heroes, nor was I expected to be.

I was meant to spread skills, wealth, and knowledge to those who required it; to help them unleash their full potential and push themselves even further beyond. That same responsibility befell my Vassal classes.

“The Artisan and the Alchemist are classes meant to build and create,” Eris agreed. “You and Colmar fighting on the frontline was an anomaly; a desperate measure to deal with an exceptional situation.”

Marika scowled in despair. “You are very kind to mince your words, Eris... but you know better.”

Eris joined her hands, shifted in her seat, and failed to answer.

We all knew better indeed.

Colmar’s power was the main reason we managed to immobilize Belgoroth long enough for Roland to land the final blow. If he hadn’t fought—and paid the ultimate price for it—then all of Archfrost would be blanketed in flames by now.

And if another Demon Ancestor rose to threaten the world, Beni might have to put his life on the line to save it. That was a Hero’s duty to those who couldn’t protect themselves.

“You must tell Lady Alexios to remove the mark,” Marika all but ordered Eris. I’d never seen her so forceful with a friend. “The Fatebinder can do that, can’t she?”

“She can,” Eris confirmed with a grim expression, her gaze settling on Benicio. “But he would not survive.”

I feared she would say that. Marika paled and closed her eyes in defeat, while her son remained blank-faced. I had no idea what thoughts crossed his mind. It was too heavy of a burden to put on a child’s shoulders, especially someone who had suffered as much as Beni.

“Why?” Soraseo dared to ask.

“Because the mark binds itself to the user’s soul,” Eris explained. “Why do you think Colmar could inherit one as a ghost? Once a class bonds with its chosen Hero, only their final death can separate them.”

Marika suppressed a sob and wiped newborn tears from her eyes. Her son looked up at her in concern, as did I.

Marika had nearly lost her son to a demon once, and now, they would hunt him down for the rest of his life. Any mother worth their salt would tear up in anguish, even someone as strong as her.

“Marika–” I said, but she didn’t let me finish

“Why Beni?” she muttered to herself. “Why my son?”

Eris let out a heavy sigh. “I don’t have easy explanations since the classes follow their own logic, but I wager that he was chosen because of his future potential. The mark likely senses he has the moral character and intuition to make good use of his power.”

“Your son is especially bright, Marika,” I said. “Beni’s not even ten, but he’s assisted Snowdrift’s shipbuilders, showed great potential in the art of witchcrafting, and deciphered Colmar’s notes on resin. He’s... smart. Very smart.”

“Plenty of people are smart, Robin,” Marika protested. “Why my son over... I don’t know, anyone else?”

“I can’t tell, Marika,” I lied gently. “I don’t think any of us can answer that question. The mark alone knows.

In truth, I had a pretty good idea why Beni was picked.

Marks chose people wronged by cultists and demons as a priority, since they would possess the required motivation to hunt them down. Classes wanted Heroes who would go out of their way to confront our malevolent ancestors and their servants. What better pick than Beni then, who had nearly died at the hands of a demon—his own twisted father—and was the son of an already established Hero? He was already surrounded by allies who could teach him about his power, protect him until he reached maturity, and guide him forward.

We had inadvertently turned Beni into a Hero’s seed.

I wisely kept that information to myself. To tell Marika that her son was partly chosen because of her would devastate my friend more than she already was.

“The Knots will never stop coming for him,” Marika muttered in sorrow, her gaze lingering on her son’s mark. “This symbol should be a bullseye rather than a flask.”

“On my blade and honor, I swear that no one shall harm your son in my presence, Marika,” Soraseo promised; a weighty oath, when coming from a woman who’d dared face the Lord of Wrath in open combat. “I shall see no wound opened on him.”

Mirokald, who had remained squarely focused on the sea of clouds, voiced his thoughts. “Morad can hold his tongue, and he’ll ensure the others keep quiet,” he told Marika in an attempt to reassure her. “Your boy’s secret is safe so long as he keeps his head down.”

Eris’ lips twisted into a sad half-smile. “Is that all you have to say, Miro?”

“If I have nothing to say, Eris, then I don’t say anything,” Mirokald replied with a snort. “I don’t share Robin’s impulsive need to fill the void with words.”

“How can you expect to become good with them if you never practice then?” I quipped back. “The tongue is like any other muscle. Waste it and it will atrophy.”

“Use it too much, and you’ll get a cramp,” Mirokald countered before shrugging his shoulders. “I think that you should ask what the boy thinks. He’s the one with the mark, not us.”

His appearance and blunt manners often made me forget that Mirokald was quite the shrewd and wise yeti. He was right. I had been so focused on helping Marika calm down that I’d forgotten to reassure Little Beni himself.

I stared at the boy. His big eyes carried far more solemn maturity than any boy his age should. His father’s betrayal and his mother’s struggles had forced him to confront the world’s ugliness way too early.

“Beni?” I asked him. “How are you feeling?”

Beni bit his lip, his expression thoughtful. His mother had told me the way he smiled when she received the Artisan’s mark, and I could see a flicker of the same pride in him even now. Like many children his age, he had dreamed of becoming a Hero; the fact Marika had been chosen only reinforced that impression.

But he had lived through Florence’s attack on Snowdrift and Archfrost’s civil war, helped tend to our wounds after Belgoroth nearly killed us all, and read Colmar’s journal. He understood that being a Hero meant dancing with death.

Beni raised his hands to answer me with signs, but he didn’t go further than forming the word ‘want.’ He looked up at me, then at his worried mother, his gaze harshening into an expression of resolve.

“I...”

Eris scowled. “Lady Alexios doesn’t want to find out.”

And neither did I.

Heroes shouldn’t fight each other.

His arrow struck the black wyvern true from two thousand feet below.

The projectile punctured the beast’s eye with lethal precision, the essence-enhanced tip worming its way to its brain. The animal let out a quick and furious roar of agony as it lost control of its flight and plummeted into the earth below. Its body soon smashed into the bushes with a loud crash.

“Amazing strike, Father!” Erika congratulated him after lowering her binoculars. She cautiously approached the corpse as he taught her to, checked that the beast had indeed perished, and then brought out the bonesaw to sever its head. “Another one down for the count!”

“One arrow, one kill,” Chronius replied calmly. Unlike his daughter, he hadn’t needed binoculars to see the beast; nor a left eye to shoot with.

His daughter laughed at his remark. “It’s not like we can afford two, considering that arrow’s price,” she said after cutting off the black wyvern’s reptilian head and stuffing it into her bag, where it joined two other freshly cut off skulls. “I wish blacktalons would fly closer to the ground though.”

So did Chronius. He worked better with knives than arrows.

Blacktalons were a new and highly aggressive race of wyverns that attacked people in the area. He’d heard this was the Beast of Sloth’s work, though he blamed her Knot instead. The true Ranger’s followers loved to breed new horrors in the wild and then unleash them on civilization.

Whatever their source, blacktalons’ depredations and resistance to domestication caused Erebia’s authorities to put a price on their heads. The Arcane Abbey was wary of letting them proliferate and chase away the smaller domesticated wyverns.

Unfortunately, blacktalons spent most of their time high in the sky and only descended to hunt. Most armed parties focused on hunting down their nests and smashing their eggs, but Chronius preferred to shoot them down in midair. He had to pay top coin for enchanted arrows both capable of reaching the beasts so high in the sky and piercing through their thick-scaled hides. The price he earned from their heads barely covered the costs.

He didn’t care though. Hunting these monsters satisfied the urge and indirectly saved people, in more ways than one.

“That’ll be enough for today,” Chronius decided as he lowered his bow and put it over his cloak. He sensed the steel under the leather pressing against his chest. His true teeth lay hidden, waiting to bite. “Let’s go–”

His spine stiffened suddenly. His lone right eye glanced to his left at the rolling hills and ancient trees surrounding them. The countryside was quiet, save for the song of the wind blowing between rustling leaves. The air was crisp with the scent of pines.

So that’s how it is, Chronius thought as he gazed at the sunset. T’was about time.

His daughter noticed his unease. “Father?”

“Erika,” he said without sparing his daughter a glance. “Return home without me.”

“Huh?” His daughter raised an eyebrow in his direction. “Why?"

“I wish to stop at the old church to pray,” Chronius replied calmly. He had no idea when his stalker would strike, but the fact that they hadn’t yet meant that they didn’t want any witnesses. He would indulge them. “I might not return tonight.”

“No way...” His daughter blushed, her eyes alight with amusement. “Do you have a date?”

“A date?” Chronius scoffed. “Yes... you could say that.”

A date with Death herself.

“Is it Madame Hypatia?” Erika asked before quickly regaining her composure. “No, wait, don’t tell me. I love surprises.”

You won’t love this one, Chronius thought, though he entertained her fantasy. Erika kissed him on both cheeks, wished him good luck, and then had him promise to return home before morning. That was an oath he was unlikely to keep.

Most fathers would worry about their daughters of sixteen returning home alone with a handful of weapons and a bag filled with wyvern heads, but Erika could defend herself. He had taught her well.

Unlike Chronius himself, who hadn’t aged well, Erika had bloomed into a pretty flower with short brown hair, amber eyes, and a smile that melted the hearts of Wisepeak’s men. She was bright too, and studying to become an apothecary. Chronius was setting money aside so he could have a good tuition ready for her once she reached her sixteenth birthday.

Many wondered if they were related at all, since father and daughter looked nothing alike; and they were right to think so. Strangers often compared Chronius to an old scarecrow: lean, gaunt, and mean-looking. A black eyepatch covered his damaged left eye and the mark underneath, while the right one was an icy shade of gray. He was getting on his years with six decades under his belt, his face riddled with wrinkles and white hair falling to his shoulders like a wizened lion’s mane.

But his skills never dulled. Never for a second. Monsters and the occasional assassin kept him sharp.

Would they be enough today? The Wanderer had advised him to pack his things and flee rather than stand up and fight, and his stalker had slain Chastel. He could sense her killing intent and sheer hostility hanging in the air.

Chronius pretended not to notice and walked along the rolling hills until he reached an abandoned stone bridge. Moss and creeping vines covered the once sturdy structure, but it still arched gracefully over a small serene river. A rugged old church stood on the other side on a lonely rock platform, its rugged facade partly crumbling. This place used to be the local place of worship centuries ago until the people of Wisepeak raised new ones closer to their city. Only a handful of people visited it nowadays, mostly to pay their respects to their ancestors buried there.

Chronius had no one waiting for him there, but he liked the place. It was quiet and peaceful. He’d asked Erika to put a tombstone for him there once he passed away. The name written on it, Alcibiades, wouldn’t be his true one; but it was the one he would rather be remembered by.

Chronius walked the entire length of the bridge until he stood near the church’s broken gates, then stopped to examine it more closely. His power ensured that his projectiles would always hit their target, but it also carried other benefits. His depth perception, partly gone with the loss of his left eye, had returned; and his already legendary precision had only increased.

“They said,” Chronius declared out loud, “that when the Goddess crafted the Rogue class, she intended for her chosen champion to value what they would steal. She gifted envious Shamshir with eyes that could see the true beauty of everything.”

His stalker didn’t answer. Her boots didn’t even make a noise as she walked along the bridge after him with murder on her mind.

“I now see details I never noticed before,” Chronius said, his gloved hand tracing a line along the church’s ancient wooden doors. “The patterns on flowers’ petals. The tiny cracks on stones. The thin layer of dust blown by the wind...”

“If you see so many things,” she answered with a voice colder than Archfrostian ice, “Then do you remember my face?”

Chronius turned around to take a good look at her.

His pursuer stood on the bridge, her travel cloak and golden hair fluttering in the wind. She was a few years older than Erika, slim, slender, with the grace of a panther and the dangerous allure of a venomous flower. It was her sapphire eyes that caught Chronius’ attention though; and that familiar, intense stare of overwhelming hatred he had seen in his many victims.

He recognized her face instantly, alongside that vague feeling resonating through his own mark.

“Yes. I do,” Chronius replied. “I knew you would come here one day, daughter of Salvadoreen.”

He had known even before the Wanderer warned him that the Assassin would take his head should he stay near Wisepeak. She had urged him to take Erika and flee somewhere else. He had denied her request.

Chronius was done running.

“Good.” The woman revealed the dagger hidden under her sleeve. Its edge glittered in the dying sunlight. “I wanted you to know who did you in. That what’s coming to you is justice for your sins.”

Chronius let out a heavy sigh. He thought he could leave the past behind, but that had been a foolish dream. “Would it change anything if I said I regret everything?”

“No, it wouldn’t.” The Assassin sneered in absolute disgust. “If you truly regret it, then just lay down and die. I’ll gut you quickly.”

“I thought so.” Chronius threw away his bow and quiver, then opened his jacket. “I’m sorry, girl, but you’ll find nothing easy about this hunt of yours.”

The woman looked at the twin bandoliers strapped to his chest. Dozens of knives were sheathed there, waiting to be unleashed. That was his grim life’s work; an arsenal of weapons accumulated over decades of murder.

His teeth.

“I would have granted your wish once,” Chronius admitted. “But I have something to live for now.”

He didn’t ask her to stand down and let bygones be bygones. He could see in her hateful gaze that his words would fall on deaf ears. She had come for his blood, and she wouldn’t leave until it was shed.

The Archer grabbed his knives as the Assassin lunged to take his life.