I spent the night mulling over her words. I knew very well my situation was abnormal, the things I’d done to survive. I knew better than anyone. She didn’t have the right to judge me. None that weren’t there with me, crawling through mass graves and scrounging through withered pantries for old food.

  She was a soldier—a soldier of Earth. Not even blessed if my senses served me right. She might have seen horrors, or might not have. But she hadn’t seen my horrors. She hadn’t shared in my fear. My pain.

  Her hands didn’t have the callouses and scars that a soldier’s should. Not like mine.

  I could hardly sleep that night. My mind raced, looking for ways to answer her, to push back without angering her. My temper was running short, and this old tin box was hardly large enough for someone whom others hailed a hero. A prophet.

  I’m sure Sera would agree if I could talk to her, but I couldn’t risk it. They kept eyes on me at all times, I was sure of it. They wanted me to think that I was alone, that my days spent listening to music and resting were composed of time to myself. They weren't. It was just a ruse to make me let down my guard. To show them proof of my abnormality.

  She didn’t show up the next day as I’d expected. Or the day after.

  It might have been for the best as I hadn’t come up with a good response yet. Still, it irked me to be left in the dark. The sounds of war drew closer by the day. During the third it wasn’t further than a stones throw away. A stone thrown by me.

  I stopped listening to music that day. All in hopes of hearing more of what was happening. I couldn’t stay much longer, couldn’t let them hold me. Not if it risked me getting caught in the flames unprepared. The time to break out, and break my guise was nearing. And with it, the hopes I had of reaching a somewhat normal life slipped away again.

  I ground my teeth watching as the vibrations of an explosion made the surface of the water in my glass ripple.

  If only I could discuss this with someone, if only I could keep myself from recklessly pissing off the first humans I met since returning. Alas, the world is not perfect. Far from it. I closed my eyes and exhaled, gathering the resolve needed to break the promise I made so lightly. Sera told me once that promises hold power, I always wondered why then it was so easy to lie and deceive.

  “Fuck it,” I mumbled and downed the glass of water, stowing it away in the small kitchen sink. Like the rest of the room, its surface was polished clear enough to show me my reflection. She was always so close, yet their surveillance kept her so far.

  I stretched my body as I always do before dressing for battle. How I wished I could have worn the guise of a crafter. It wouldn’t have been so far fetched. I did create the anchor after all. And my rifle.

  If only they could know me as a builder instead of a breaker. Maybe then I could live in relative peace. Only returning to the Forgotten lands when my body craved adventure. Gathering acclaim at a pace not dictated by my fear of death—but by my will to live a life worth living.

  If only.

  Outside, jumbled voices bickered, just barely loud enough for me to hear. They stand outside my door. I can hear the officer, she’s agitated. Maybe the need for violence could be avoided after all.

  She rapped the door with her knuckles, the sharp ring of it lingering in my sterile cell like a ghost. I waited. One second, two, then three.

  The lock clicked and the door swung open. Dishevelled hair framed her face. She nodded me in greeting, dark circles trailing her eyes. She sighed and stepped inside, not even stopping to consider the safety risk of me standing so close. Her brute on the other hand glared, confidently telling me that his vigilance never wavered. Almost challenging me to do something.

  He tried to step ahead of her to place the table between us, she waved him away with a tired grunt. With strength unbefitting her lithe frame, she grabbed the closest leg of the table and pulled it to the centre of the room. The legs scraped against the floor and let out a metallic screech that made me furrow my brows. Jarring.

  “I was beginning to think you’d forgotten about me,” I said and paced in circles on my side of the room.

  “Did we come at a bad time?” she joked and slumped down in one of my chairs, tossing her cap to the table and leaning back as far as the chair allowed to swing her feet up to the table.

  Her normally formal attire wasn’t buttoned all the way up, revealing a loosely fitting tie beneath the black military coat. The grunt showed no such signs as he stared me down from the corner near the door. Her guise as the perfect special operations officer was slipping. She didn’t even bring her huge stack of papers. I creased my brow at her leisure.

  “Sit,” the grunt rumbled, voice low and burly in an attempt to order me around.

  I stopped pacing, slowly turning my head to meet his eyes. The corners of my lips twitched, I tried to contain it at first but quickly gave up and let the mocking sneer bloom on my face.

  “Make me.”

  The officer’s eyes moved between us, wide with disbelief at the unfolding scene. “Can you just take it easy for once?” She stared at her bodyguard as she spoke, but I could feel that her words were directed to me as much as they were to him.

  The bodyguard nodded obediently. I pretended as if I didn’t just hear what she said and resumed my pacing once more.

  “So, where did we leave off?” She cleared her throat when I didn’t respond. Still I said nothing. “Are you that worried?” she asked.

  I scoff and snarl, “Worried? Me? Why would I be? I’ve just been locked in a fucking box for weeks, listening as the shitshow outside comes closer. Oh, and I’m kept in the dark, with no fucking company, not even a fucking window to see the sun. Even though I’ve not felt it for months. Months!”

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  I kicked my chair to the side, leaning over the table so that my face came close to hers. “I’m Unsung. Not some puppet for you to do with as you wish, no matter who you think you are, or who you work for.”

  The grunt stepped forward, confident in his ability to push me away from his master. I whipped my eyes to him and let the rage burn bright. He stopped in his tracks, like a deer in headlights. A critter faced with a wolf.

  The officer raised her hands in surrender and leaned away from me. “It was never our intention to treat you like…” She wrinkled her nose looking for the right words and gestured to the room with a swing of her arm. “Like this. But times are tough, and we can’t afford mistakes at the moment.”

  She smiled sheepishly and her eyes didn’t so much as waver as they met mine. Instead, they sparkled as she jerked forward in her chair, remembering something. “Oh! I’ve got just the thing to make you feel better.”

  With a focused expression she rummaged through the deep pockets of her officer’s coat. Within seconds she filled the table with a wide assortment of candy. Her smile as she presented me with the gift was one of pride, and loss. She didn’t want to part with the hoard, especially one of the pieces that she kept eyeing with regret. I swiped it all to my bed. For later.

  “The others?” I asked, pretending the gift pacified me and grabbing a chair to sit opposite of her.

  Her brow furrowed deep as she glanced at her lost hoard. But then, as if reminded of her situation she snapped back to her normal self and locked eyes with mine.

  “We shipped them away a few days ago. They’re safe.”

  “And yet you left me behind?” I asked and the anger that I finally managed to quell began to flare again. It would be a shame if my weeks of theatrics went to waste just because I couldn’t keep my temper. So I swallowed it—all the vitriol and hate of the moment.

  She tore her eyes away from mine, for the first time since meeting her, she couldn’t hold my gaze. “The logistics don’t add up. We have no secure way of transporting an unsung as things stand.”

  “So you let me rot here, as battle draws close?” I leaned to the side and grabbed the piece of candy her eyes always flit too. A triangular bar of chocolate. Her eyes widened as I picked it up and ripped it open. I tore into it as if gluttony personified.

  She reached her hand to me, but remembered herself and recoiled as she mumbled, “I was saving that.”

  “Not anymore.”

  She sighed in defeat and let exhaustion grip her once more. “I suppose not.”

  “So, what will happen to me?” I managed between breaths as I massacred the candy.

  “Either we stay and hold this ground, or we hold out till armoured transport arrives.”

  She wouldn’t look so ragged if the first option was a viable one. Waiting is not a horrible thing if you know rescue is coming. It’s the not knowing that eats away at you. It was what had been eating away at the officer the last few days. I could see it in the way her lips and fingers trembled.

  “You’re a smoker?” I asked, deciding not to keep pushing my luck. I’d made up my mind, I was leaving whether they liked it or not. No need to force them into raising their guard.

  Her eyes widened and flitted back to me. “You got a pack? I haven’t seen anything on the cam-”

  I chuckle and shrug away the sudden admission that they’d been spying on me. I always knew anyway. “Afraid not,” I said. “Not a smoker myself.”

  She perked a brow curiously and let the question hang silently.

  “That’s why you always have candy, right? Something for your fingers and mouth when they get restless.”

  She studied me for a few before conceding with a snort. “I’m impressed. Do you always study people’s mannerisms, or is that reserved for strange officers?”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “All the more reason to be wary of you,” she said and the exhaustion disappeared from her voice. An act.

  The last thread of my guise snapped.

  “You think being wary is enough? You say you’ve heard the rumours of me. You say you’ve got an idea of what I’ve done. So tell me, who is that you sit with?”

  The grunt’s fingers went wide as he gripped an accolade, it wasn’t there a moment ago. I eye it, it’s a pitiful thing. A club of dull wooden colour. A baton from simpler times.

  His eyes glowed with resolve. They told me all I needed to know of his character. I didn’t like the man, he never gave me reason to. But his resolve to throw himself into the maws of the unknown no matter the price was admirable. And I didn’t have to like the man to respect that trait.

  “I thought you’d never ask.” The officer beamed. “I think you’re a deceiver. You were locked up for months—alone. You killed a jailor—a corrupted blessed from times long gone—just hours after you received yours. You saved the woman who betrayed the survivors in the library, dooming most of them. Need I go on, or can you see where I’m going with this?”

  “It’s abnormal,” I concede.

  “No. It’s suspicious, and improbable.”

  Something under the table clicked. The sound was familiar, nostalgic almost. My eyes instinctively followed the sound and I looked down, only to be met by my own smirking reflection on the table. Sera’s eyes tell me to kill them and escape. Then again, they always say something along the like.

  “Is that a gun?”

  “You tell me, Harbinger. And while you’re at it, tell me how you expect us to believe someone without a physical blessing could beat a scourge beast of higher acclaim in close combat?”

  I sighed and glanced at the grunt, he kept his distance, foolishly believing the gun would keep me at bay.

  I raised my hands and interlocked my fingers behind my head while leaning back in the chair. What a pickle, I muse.

  I couldn’t summon jackpot, not only would it shift the interrogation into a Mexican standoff, but it wouldn’t be possible without earning myself a couple new holes in my stomach. The damn thing had to be summoned with a lightshow.

  The battle-worn thimbles on the other hand do no such thing. And with my hands conveniently placed behind my head, they couldn’t see the sudden shift as shining brass grew to encapsulate my knuckles and fingers in the ornate piece of jewellery.

  I smirked. “I’ll show you.”

  The grunt must have felt the shift in the veil as I layered multiple Bursts on top of each other. No matter.

  I kicked the gun out of her hand before flashing out of my seat. She yelped and recoiled, rubbing the hand that held a gun until just a moment ago. The covers on my bed fluttered in my wake, as did the officer’s hair. She sat frozen, rubbing her hands as her grunt’s body fell to his knees with a fleshy thud.

  His neck craned so that his eyes could meet mine. I let mine flow to his weapon and raise my brows. His hands trembled, and the baton clattered to the ground as I pressed my thin dagger against his throat. I didn’t even need to draw blood.

  Maybe not so brave after all.

  “Do you see now?” I asked.

  The officer turned to me, slowly. Her face paler than before. I didn’t think it possible. It felt like an eternity before she registered what happened. Her eyes trembled as they met mine.

  “With or without the right equipment, you cannot hold me any longer.”

  The officer’s shocked eyes closed into tight slits as she beamed a wide smile at me and clapped her hands, one of which bore a bruise already turning purple.

  “Wonderful!” she exclaimed.

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