Chapter 6: Hamel.

It was quiet on the way back to Hamel.

Even Ash did not speak. Marsh sat with his arms folded, watching the road behind us. Tom tried twice to start a conversation and both times it died before it drew breath. It might have been more pleasant, had my mind not been turning the same thought over and over again.

There was no [System]. There were no [Classes]. There were no Roles, and there were no chains. My gambit had been an attempt to break my leash. I had succeeded, and now I stood in a world that had never known leashes at all. It was hard to say if this was victory, defeat, or something else entirely.

The cart stopped with a groan. “Lad, unload the wagon. You two dears, would you help him?”

“Of course,” Ash answered for both of us. I let it pass.

The sounds had reached me first -laughter. Then the scents, the many, many scents. Some of those made my mouth water. I knew none of them. Small huts of mud and clay clustered along a dirt path. The dirt path was surrounded by tiny houses, if they could be called even that.

Children ran alongside the cart. They peeked in, saw me, and didn’t so much as break stride as they kept running. “Old man Tom! Did you bring them?” Their voices were high. I had only ever seen human children through a spell, and demon children had been far more vicious. Those would not have been laughing so.

Marsh stepped out first. He’d had a strange look to him since the battle. Did the fool think I did not notice his gaze? Occasionally, I would meet it. He would shrink back, then attempt to stare at nothing at all. Ash stepped out second. She stopped at the edge of the cart and held a hand out towards me.

I stared at it and huffed. “No.”

Ash retracted it and moved out of the back of the cart. The two began to lift the boxes and pile them one by one. I stepped out too. It was good to get my feet on the ground again, away from the contraption.

Hamel was nothing.

It was a handful of mud huts with thatched roofs. The dirt paths were turned to muck. The wooden wall would struggle to keep out a determined rabbit, and it ended in a gate that did not dare earn its name. There was no watchtower, and there was no garrison. There were no defenses at all that I could see. If this was a village, I dreaded what they called a hovel. These villages had been far more fortified in my time.

My gaze lingered.

It lingered on dried flowers hung from a doorway. On lanterns that glowed through shuttered windows, casting warm yellow light onto the mud. On an old woman sat beneath an overhang, watching the last of the drizzle as if it were something worth truly looking at. A child ran past me, chasing another, and neither so much as glanced my way.

I had ordered villages like these burned. Dozens of them, perhaps more. I had never walked through one.

“Hey.” A strong hand shook me. It was Ash.

“What?” I snapped. I did not know why I did.

Ash frowned at me. “He’s offering us a place to stay with him. I would accept, but I thought I would ask you first.”

I looked past her at the bumbling merchant. He was currently directing Marsh to carry a large box towards the nearest of the tiny huts. “You expect me to stay here?”

“There are bushes instead, if Your Majesty prefers those. There’s likely even a stable.”

I glared at the girl and finally nodded. Ash moved away from me, ran up to the stack of boxes, and picked four up at once without breaking stride. Marsh looked like he was struggling with one. I followed behind them. The boxes were piled high. I picked one up, channeling the barest of mana. It was light. The Hero could have carried ten of these if she’d wanted to.

I set it back down and moved closer to the hut as I gazed around. There was a smell here that the forest didn’t have, and it made my nose curl. Ash stepped back out of the hut and ran past me, presumably to get more boxes.

“Oh, you must be her friend!” An old woman said, her head peering out past one of the now un-shutttered windows. “Lily? We don’t get many of your kind around these parts, but you see a few.”

Right. That fool had given me this absurd moniker. This was yet another diminishing of myself, as if the rest wasn’t enough.

“That is not my name, woman. You address-“

“Right, right. Lysanthia.” The grandmotherly woman smiled, and when she did, I could barely even see her eyes. “Come inside, dear. You don’t want to catch a cold now, do you?”

Did this fool truly not see the difference between us? She must have at least seen the [Dark- the Darkness Binding. Then something else filled my nose. That earthy thing I had smelled when I’d first stepped in. It made my mouth water. I smelled the air.

What was that?

“The stew’s nearly done and there’s bread -my Tom brought the good flour back,” she said. “Come in, come in. Before the chill gets worse.”

I regarded her for a moment longer. Then the scent hit me again, richer now, and closer. “Very well,” I said, and walked inside. “Let us see this ‘stew’.”

The inside was no more impressive than the outside. It was a single room, barely large enough for the few pieces of wooden furniture that filled it. Three doors led out of it. There was a table with five chairs and a hearth against the far wall, where a pot hung over a low flame. There were shelves lined with jars and dried herbs I didn’t recognize. It was cramped and warm. The air was thick with that scent. It clung to everything.

A rug lay across the stone floor. It was old, its colors long since faded.

“Come, dear. We were just about to eat.” The woman pointed sagely at one of the chairs. I stared at it suspiciously.

Marsh appeared from one of the two doors. “Ma, you’re really kicking me out this early?”

The old woman laughed as she made her way over to the pot. “Come now, we both know you’ll leave when your belly’s full.” There was something odd in the tone. “Let the young lasses out of the rain for a few days.”

Marsh grunted and met my gaze. His face twisted first. I raised an eyebrow, and his face lost some of its color.

“F-fine,” he said, moving over and slotting himself down on one of the seats.

I knew etiquette well enough. The strongest sat at the head of the table, and that was what I made for. I sat down and stared at the fool boy who was staring at me.

“What?”

“That’s-” He raised his hands and looked away. “Never mind.”

Ash came back in then, carrying five of the boxes this time. I couldn’t see her face past them, though she didn’t seem to struggle at all. Heroes were good pack mules, if little else. She set the boxes down. “Is there anything else I can help with, Auntie?”

“Oh, no, dear,” the woman said, turning away from the pot. “You’ve done more than I ever asked. That shameless husband of mine made you carry these in. You must be tired. Come now, sit down.”

Ash smiled and moved towards the table. She took a seat next to mine. It was a small acknowledgement of my place above her.

“Tsk,” the elder woman muttered. “That’s not quite right.” She pulled up her sleeve. There was a marking there, a single dot that glowed a faint orange.

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I frowned and leaned close. Small trickles of flame poured from the woman’s hands, attacking the pot. They were gone a few seconds later. I hadn’t been the only one watching, Ash had leaned in close too. It was something to do with those marks, obviously, though I had never seen them before. This marking was different from the one on the adventurer, which doubtless explained its different effect.

Marsh cleared his throat. “I’ve been sitting on this, but I have to ask. What marks do you carry?”

Ash went still beside me. I felt her leg press against mine under the table. That was a warning; I could tell by now.

“Marks?” she said lightly. I turned to regard the two of them. “We, uh…we have…” The Hero floundered.

“You don’t have to share,” Marsh said. “But after what I saw with those wolves…” He shrugged. “I’m just curious.” His gaze was steady and sharp, even if his words had not been.

It reminded me of Seryth.

“They’re nothing remarkable,” Ash said. “We’re just experienced.”

Marsh studied her and then me. He didn’t push further.

“Marsh, dear,” the old woman said, her tone tight. “Don’t bother the guests.”

“But Ma, they’re kind of off, don’t you think? They killed a pack of wolves like it was nothing! They must have some fancy powers or something.”

Ash raised her hands in front of her. “Friend, it wasn’t that impre-“

“We do not have them.” The table went quiet. Ash’s hand found my arm under the table and I ignored it. I pulled the battle dress from my right forearm, exposing it for inspection. That was where this boy and that old woman’s marks had been.

“There, human. Now do you see?”

It wasn’t just Marsh who was staring. The old woman was too. The silence went on long enough that I heard the fire crackle.

“That’s not possible,” he finally said. His voice was strange.

The woman had gone very still. She set down the ladle she’d been holding and looked at me -not at my arm, but at my face, as if she were seeing me clearly for the first time. The expression on her face was an odd one. It was certainly not one I had ever seen on the face of a Demon. No, perhaps Zera had made that expression sometimes.

“Oh, child,” she said softly. She stepped over and pressed a hand against my shoulder. It almost made me flinch.

“I’m so sorry.”

“No marks at all?” Tom said again over supper. Why did he keep repeating himself? The answer wouldn’t change. He kept looking between us the way one might look at someone missing a limb.

I ignored him. The stew was far more worthy of my attention. This stew was different than the rabbit had been. There were more flavors and so much more texture. I was sure some of the food was made from plants and herbs, though surely neither could have tasted like this. On my demand, the woman had revealed it had rabbit meat, but it tasted nothing like the rabbit I’d had just yesterday.

“Dear,” The old woman said gently. “That’s your third bowl.”

I did not dignify this with a response. I was on my fourth. It was, so far, a better meal than any my chefs had ever made for me, and it came from this meager woman’s even more meager skill.

“I’m sorry for hiding it,” Ash said. She hadn’t touched hers yet. Hers would make an appropriate tribute.