After he'd finished crying, Gusion slumped into the sofa.
Damn it, Dyrroth.
Helcurt was dead. He'd come to regard the Shadowbringer as another fixture in his life-even though they'd known each other for only two weeks, they got along like a house on fire.
And now he'd died, without avenging his family.
Gusion closed his eyes, and swore to himself that he would kill Dyrroth on Helcurt's behalf.
With that thought, he let himself doze off after barely catching an hour of sleep the previous night.
Harley was tired out.
He prodded the bandage on his chest, and wincing as it stung slightly.
"Stop poking your bandages," Rafaela admonished.
"Alright," Harley reassured, with the most angelic grin on his face. Rafaela sighed and turned around, and Harley poked it again.
"I SAID STOP THAT!"
Harley snickered to himself. It was fun winding up Rafaela.
The familiar screech of tyres against the road sounded as the blue car Lesley drove pulled up.
Harley bounded into the car, waving goodbye to Rafaela.
"How's the wound?" Lesley asked from the front.
"Pretty good. I should expect a violent death in about an hour."
"Very funny."
Harley grinned as Lesley turned the steering wheel. "So that was Dyrroth?" he asked casually.
Lesley gripped the wheel so tight her knuckles went white. "Yeah," Lesley nodded. "That was Dyrroth, Alice's general."
Harley nodded. "Why haven't I seen him before?"
"He generally goes for fighters, not mages," Lesley explained.
"You're a marksman."
"He's salty at me for some weird reason because I shot him once. He's been trying to kill me ever since."
"So when Gusion was babysitting the other day…"
"Yeah." Oddly, when the topic was brought up now, the steely edge that his sister had to her tone was drained out.
"What about you?" Harley asked.
"What about me?"
"You got cut the other day."
"Just scratches." He noticed the bandages on his sister's arm and inside him, anger swelled.
"Can you kill him?" Harley blurted out.
Lesley's eyes flicked to the rear view mirror, and Harley saw her gaze harden. "I'm working on it."
The car ground to a halt, and Harley realised they'd reached home. He and Lesley climbed out, and Harley noticed the slouch in his sister's posture.
"Is everything fine?" he asked.
"Sure," Lesley snapped, and Harley's brow furrowed, which Lesley noticed. "Everything's great."
Harley raised an eyebrow. He was very familiar with his adoptive sister, and he could easily tell that something was off.
Harley stepped into the house, and he blanked out, as an irrational terror took hold in his mind.
When he came too, he was halfway out of the house, and Lesley was dragging him back, straining angrily.
The sudden lack of resistance on Harley's part led to him being yanked off balance by his own sister, and Harley nearly blanked out again until Lesley fired a shot into the air.
The sound was oddly calming, and it was a sign that his sister was by his side.
The lamp which Lesley had accidentally fired at fell to the floor with a resounding crash and both brother and sister winced.
"Why did that happen?" Harley asked, voice slightly quavering.
"Residual shadow magic," Lesley explained. "The echoes of the Shadowbringer's power still remained."
Harley recalled reading about the effect. "It caused my mind to recognise the place as dangerous and enter its fight-or-flight mode."
Lesley grimly nodded, and they stood there, breathing heavily.
"Right," Harley inhaled, and stepped in, bracing himself.
Almost immediately, every nerve in his body started buzzing, and his magic cards began unconsciously vibrating against his leg.
The buzzing only seemed to increase with each step Harley took, until it finally died down when Harley stood right in the middle of the room.
"Nice," Lesley clapped him on the shoulder, walking past.
"How was there a Shadowbringer?" Harley asked, finally realising what had had him on edge for a long time.
Lesley tensed up, turning around to face him. She was almost double his height, and that was annoying, given that she was only three years older than him, him being fourteen and her seventeen.
"It doesn't matter," Lesley muttered. "I killed the abomination."
Harley's eyes widened. He'd never gotten his sister's maniacal obsession with wiping out Shadowbringers, but had never questioned it until now.
"It fought Dyrroth," Harley indignantly stated. "Why do you want it to die?"
"It could have killed us."
"You'd think I'd be more upset about that."
"You aren't?"
Harley stopped. He didn't feel like the creature deserved to die.
But then again, it had stabbed him, and made a mess of both his chest and his weekend. He didn't like the idea of encountering the creature once again, and it had been trying to kill him.
It didn't mean to, though, and Harley figured that was enough for him.
"I am upset, but I don't want it to die."
Lesley's expression was incredulous. "It tried to kill you!"
Harley calmly shrugged. "It was mind-controlled."
"And you think it wouldn't have done so without the control?"
"Lesley, are you even realising how nonsensical you sound?"
Lesley's composure slipped, as she clenched her fists. "Shadowbringers are evil," she hissed angrily.
Her tone irked Harley, and he narrowed his eyes. "You can't pigeonhole an entire species from no real fact."
"They were literally murderers who didn't collect fees. They killed because they liked it. How sick do you have to be for that? You think that creature wouldn't have murdered you without a second thought? You were lucky to survive."
Harley's patience began crumbling. "I don't get it. You always tell me to give something the benefit of the doubt. And here you are, claiming that these creatures, as sentient as you and I, are vile creatures."
"Did you not hear me?"
"The thing was mind-controlled."
Lesley's eyes turned cold. "You aren't listening to me."
Harley raised an eyebrow. "I don't need to. You're telling me that you killed another sentient being for a crime where it had no choice. And your justification is that it would have done it anyway?"
Lesley opened her mouth but suddenly sagged, and Harley took in her appearance for the first time. She looked exhausted, both emotionally and physically, and he saw the dark rings encircling her eyes as he realised she hadn't slept throughout the night.
Her posture was slouched instead of her usual confident pose. Harley had seen her as a terrifying force to be reckoned with, but she currently looked like a complete wreck.
Dyrroth rattled her, he realised. She'd thought that she could take Dyrroth, but he managed to get to her through him.
Lesley took a deep breath, and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Harley, please," she started, and Harley's eyes widened at the defeated undertone in her voice. "I really don't want to fight now. Can we just agree to disagree?"
Harley didn't want to concede the point, but also knew that his sister wasn't in the best frame of mind right now. "Right."
Lesley turned around wordlessly and trudged up the stairs. She pushed the door open, and Harley saw her close the door behind her.
Harley prodded the bandages around his chest before bounding up the stairs to his room.
Gusion was rudely awakened from a peaceful slumber by a pounding at the door.
He blearily stumbled across the hall, his sleep-addled brain trying to recall the events of the previous night that had left him completely drained out.
He pulled open the door to see Lancelot and Tigreal.
"Why is it," Gusion sighed, pulling the door open fully and letting them in. "That you two always interrupt my sleep and act as if I've done something wrong?"
Lancelot placed a finger to his lips from behind Tigreal as the latter walked in, his footsteps resounding through the house.
Gusion swung the door closed. "Anything wrong?" he mouthed at Lancelot, who pointed at Tigreal and twirled his finger around his head-the universal sign for loony.
Tigreal strolled up the stairs and Gusion and Lancelot followed, Gusion rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.
Tigreal pushed open the bedroom door with a loud creak which all three of them winced at.
"You need to fix that door," Lancelot said to Gusion.
"But this way, no one can sneak up on me when I'm sleeping," Gusion countered.
Tigreal, meanwhile, strode into the room and stabbed his sword into the floor, closing his eyes before they flickered open again.
"What did my house do to you?" Gusion asked as Tigreal withdrew his sword. "It's going to take ages to fix that?"
Tigreal walked over, placed two hands under the bed, and lifted it up with almost no effort, throwing it aside, revealing what lay under.
For a moment, Gusion, Lancelot and Tigreal stood there, unsure of how to proceed.
Then the thing opened one eye.
"Could you please switch off the lights?" Helcurt asked, squinting. Then his eyes widened. "Wait, you're not Gusion."
Gusion became acutely aware of both Lancelot's and Tigreal's gazes on him at the moment.
Tigreal shattered the silence and raised his sword, the light reflecting off the blade.
Helcurt's eyes widened from slits to bright circles and he disappeared, leaving a ring of shadows that dissolved quickly.
Gusion turned his gaze on Lancelot, who had drawn his sword.
Gusion couldn't win against Lancelot, of all people. Lancelot was just as fast as Gusion, if not more, and had seven extra years on him. He'd also spent time as a knight, and had been trained in swordsmanship and hand-to-hand combat.
Lancelot shot towards him like a bullet from Lesley's rifle and Gusion let his magic pull him, and in the blink of an eye, he was where Lancelot had started from.
Lancelot turned around, readying himself for another strike, and Gusion had seen Lancelot use the executioner's strike enough times to recognise it.
Gusion scrambled to the side as Lancelot moved faster, his blade swinging out in a wide arc as it slashed into Gusion's arm, and Gusion hissed as blood dampened the area around his bicep.
Gusion backed away from Lancelot, concentrating on the possible ways this fight could go when Tigreal's arm wrapped itself around Gusion, choking him.
Gusion gagged as any and all training he had had flew out the window, desperately flailing wildly in an attempt to dislodge Tigreal's arm.
He pulled futilely at Tigreal's arm only for his nails to scrape across the bronze armguard Tigreal wore.
Black spots appeared in his vision as somewhere in the back of his head, he recognised that this wasn't a sleeper hold.
Tigreal intended to kill him.
He inhaled desperately, trying to suck in oxygen through his mouth, but Tigreal tightened the hold as the pressure on Gusion's windpipe increased, and he felt around him, trying to grab something, anything to get him out of this.
And he felt the handle of his dagger.
Gusion pulled it towards him and the handle settled in his palm. And even as his consciousness faded with every passing second and his lungs felt like they were getting crushed under a boulder, a cool, calm confidence surged through him.
Lancelot saw the dagger before Tigreal did. "Watch out-"
Gusion plunged the dagger into Tigreal's thigh and he grunted as his iron grip slackened. Gusion shoved his arm away and Tigreal drew back and Gusion fell forward, his vision blurring and refocusing before blurring again.
Lancelot's sword flashed and Gusion tried to move, but his muscles felt like jelly.
Out of nowhere, Helcurt reappeared and bit at Lancelot's arm, yanking it back right before the sword cut into the skin of Gusion's neck.
His tail coiled around Lancelot's leg and Helcurt threw Lancelot out of the room, flicking his tail as Gusion got to his hands and knees.
Tigreal's shadow loomed over him and Gusion rolled out of the way and scrambled to his feet as adrenaline coursed through him. He tucked his dagger into his belt and braced his shoulder before charging for the window.
Tigreal moved but Gusion was faster, and the glass shattered and Gusion flew out, his mind just registering that he had leapt out of a window on the second floor.
