Before the flour-dust even settled, Mira was already at the sewer mouth.
Her bright blade pressed to the Medicine Peddler’s throat, cutting off every retreat.
The air fell into an uncanny stillness, like frost smothering sound.
Too fast—like lightning snagging a flag.
Varie’s eyes flared wide, a hawk startled mid-flight.
She alone saw Mira hadn’t blinked in from thin air.
Her gaze chased her like a hawk chasing a comet.
Even with her sight and reflexes, her eyes could barely keep pace, a hawk chasing a lightning bolt.
Yet she was a Hero of the Nacha Tribe — the Lionheart Hero, the strongest, a banner in storm.
Her title rode on strength and skill, not raw speed, stone over stream.
Even the Fleetfoot in the clan chronicles, master of sudden rushes, wouldn’t match that first-step detonation.
A bowstring snapped into thunder.
Such terrifying acceleration wasn’t mere muscle.
It was the Time Domain, an inherent magic Varie knew only from tales, a storm that ripped sails.
They’d fought side by side before; this was her first time seeing Mira unfold the Time Domain, a curtain thrown wide.
That didn’t stun her by itself; Adelaide had told her Mira could do it, a rumor woven like thread.
What froze her jaw open was that Mira could still use it now, like ice climbing stone.
All those “inherent domains” and “soul curses” sounded like long-eared scroll-talk to her, ink and vellum.
Yet Adelaide had said an Imperial bastard sealed her sister’s inherent domain with a vicious curse, chains in the dark.
Before this, Mira never used her domain even in dire straits, which backhandedly proved Adelaide’s claim, iron clamps shut.
Unease pricked her like a thorn.
Why could Mira use it now, an unexpected flame?
Was Adelaide lying—like a wobbling mirror?
No—like a stone dropped in the gut.
She hadn’t used it against Soul Devourer Sormaidon, on the knife-edge of life and death.
So why now, when it barely seemed necessary, ripples on a quiet pond?
A bad omen chilled her like night wind.
She strode over wrecked market stalls, teeth of wood and clay, to Mira’s side.
“You stubborn mute, what the hell are you—”
Her words cut off as her gaze fell on the Medicine Peddler nailed in place like a moth.
The mask was gone; the face lay bare, familiar like an old scar in a song.
Murky yellow beast-eyes. A gray triangular ear nicked at the edge.
A signature scar, from right lip to cheek’s rear, a lightning slash.
Varie froze, more shocked than at the Time Domain, ice pouring down her spine.
Behind her, the others she’d sent to help Mira clean up trailed in, dust ghosts.
They started to report, then saw the captive, words snapping like broken twigs.
Shock stamped their faces like a seal into hot wax.
No one could speak; they hung in the tense air like flies caught in resin.
“Hah, hah... hah... I’m dying from running...”
Human stamina fell short; Kabos arrived late, lungs on fire, cheeks flushed like apples.
He leaned—no, hung—on Beanpole’s shoulder, one hand on his knee, a flag drooping.
“I’d rather fight that damned lizard again... Oh! Wait!
We caught someone! Brothers and sisters! We did it! Hell yeah!”
He spotted the Nacha man subdued by Mira.
His eyes lit; he pumped a fist, sparks like a struck match.
He quickly read the off-beat in the air as no one cheered, drums gone silent.
Beanpole turned with a complicated look and shook her head, a wind dying.
Awkwardness pricked him like a thorn in the heel.
He straightened and yanked his hand off Beanpole’s shoulder, cursing himself for being a dummy, a donkey braying.
He kept forgetting she was a woman; grabbing her like that was bad form, a muddy boot.
But he realized he’d misread it, like mist parting.
Her look wasn’t disgust; it was lost and rattled, cold sweat beading at her temples like dew.
What the hell was this, a maze without doors?
Kabos had no clue; he followed the crowd’s gaze like a compass needle pulled.
Predictably, every eye fixed on the Medicine Peddler pinned to the ground.
No one dared breathe; Mira’s blade felt laid across all their throats, a silver line.
They held as still as he did, statues under a storm.
Sure, the guy mattered, heavy as a millstone.
Snagging a butcher of Nacha folk was huge, a hunt concluded.
But did they need to be this grim, mute as stones?
Kabos almost rolled his eyes; then he squinted and really looked, shutters narrowing.
He felt a familiar itch, a splinter under skin.
He’d never seen the Medicine Peddler before, same as the rest, strangers in a crowd.
But that butchered face, carved by a cleaver, brands a mind with one glance, like fire on hide.
His eyes went round; the source surfaced like a drowned coin.
A years-old picture; he’d seen it while visiting the elder chieftain with Varie, tea steam fading.
It sat on the desk nearest the door, set to be seen by anyone entering, a warding charm.
That picture, placed like a warning charm, clarified two things.
Why every Nacha here recognized him at once, a bell rung.
And the real reason everyone held their tongues, beyond tangled feelings for a fellow tribesman, knots in rope.
His head knew, but his mouth outran it, a horse bolting the gate.
Raised in the human Empire, fed summer-night ghost stories by house maids, Kabos blurted a heartfelt superstition, moon-white.
“Ghost—there’s a ghost! Wasn’t this guy supposed to be long hanged?!”
“Shhh!”
Beanpole clapped a hand over his mouth, but his shout shattered the calm like a stone breaking a pond’s skin.
Every muscle tensed like bowstrings.
Their eyes snapped between the Medicine Peddler and Mira, a shuttle going back and forth.
They watched her longer, moths orbiting a flame.
Yes, a publicly hanged man reappearing was shocking, a grave disturbed.
But the urgent thing wasn’t solving that, smoke after fire.
It was stopping the golden-haired “Elf” whose blade needed only an inch forward to kill him, a razor at vein.
On the road to central Sanda, Varie had repeated it a thousand times, drumbeat steady.
Capture him alive at any cost, iron vow.
A living Medicine Peddler beats a “possible Medicine Peddler” corpse ten thousandfold, scales tipped.
On that point, the squad was united, arrows in one quiver.
Yet with danger spiking, no one dared step in, feet rooted.
Even Varie, who had demanded it, didn’t truly dare restrain Mira, a hand frozen mid-reach.
They knew Mira wasn’t truly an Elf, a mask over bone.
Her real identity and the Medicine Peddler beneath her were knotted in a war to the death, iron and blood.
That’s why every mouth stayed shut, lids sealed.
Any word might prod her, spark her wrath, and one twitch would turn this vital witness into meat, a butcher’s smear.
They thought it, like a storm held behind teeth.
The Medicine Peddler, blade at his throat, thought it harder, heart drumming in a cage.
He trembled, hands raised in surrender like reeds in wind.
Sweat streamed as he swallowed, rain down stone.
He readied a plea; he got out “mer—” when Mira’s face, ice tangled with hate, shifted, winter with knives.
Power sigils flared on her arm like small suns.
The blade dipped another fraction; Varie’s face drained like the tide.
“Wait—Mira, calm down—”
Varie’s words cut off like a blade sheathing itself.
The blade didn’t go further, and not thanks to her, restraint coiled.
Before she finished the name, Mira set the sword to prick skin exactly, stealing his voice, not his life, a needle pinning wings.
Do. Not. Speak.
Her voice came hoarse, each word squeezed through teeth, a fire language couldn’t hold, embers under ash.
But even so, she didn’t do what everyone feared, storm held at bay.
She didn’t finish him with one stroke; the blade halted at a cliff’s edge, sea pounding below.
Varie froze where she stood, body locked like winter bark.
In that heartbeat, she remembered the question by the campfire, sparks in the dark.
Back then, she’d been certain how Mira would treat this “faceless ghost,” a verdict carved.
Now Mira’s actions proved her wrong, certainty cracking like thin ice.
