Chapter Twelve: Snow Frost of Dreams.

  “You there!” the guard boomed, his voice echoed in the silence between the walls. “State your business! This is a restricted alley!” They were looking right at Grig, at Mo Fei's blood-soaked clothes, at the obvious, desperate wrongness of them. An awkward silence took place, and the sound of frozen wind was denser than ever.

  Then

  The lead guard’s shout shattered the frozen moment. “Apprehend them! They are fugitives! They must have escaped.”

  The four guards surged forward, swords clearing their scabbards with a sharp, metallic sigh. They moved with the brutal efficiency of men used to holding slaves; they moved not like a warrior of elegance, but a crafted force of order.

  “Elara, behind me!” Han barked with the protective instinct of a veteran man, snatching up a loose piece of timber from a collapsed market stall. Grig carefully but in urgency lowered Mo Fei’s unconscious form against the wall, a shelter. He then turned with a roar, his massive hands curling into fists prepared to fight back. “Come on then, thugs, I'm no longer your slave that doesn't fight back!”

  The fight began ugly, but with a reason. Han’s timber clashed against a sword of one of those guards; the impact jolted his arm. He was a stonemason, not a soldier, and he gave ground quickly, his defense a desperate series of blocks and retreats; he fought like a newbie who never got any chance of defending himself. While Grig was a force of nature, naturally strong, he caught a guard’s wrist, twisted, before he could swing his sword. From the left side, another guard glanced off his temple and rushed for an attack, attacking blindly.

  Grig steps back, retreating, his gaze lay on Han, who was struggling against two guards, which was natural.

  “We can't fight them, they are more in numbers, and we are only two,” Grig shouted, waiting for the response of Han.

  But then Elara screamed as a guard broke past the two men, his eyes fixed on the vulnerable Mo Fei slumped against the wall. She threw herself in the way, the wrapped Glaive held like a staff.

  “D-Do not come closer, I have a weapon!” Her voice was threatening, but the stutter made it a useless threat of no head or tail.

  The guard turned it aside contemptuously, the blade wrapped in cloth swirling through her numb fingers to rattle on the icy cobbles. He backhanded her, pushing away, sending her sprawling at another wall.

  He raised his sword over Mo Fei.

  “NO!” Grig bellowed, but he was held by two others. Han was holding another guard. He desperately tried to push him back, but the guard resisted.

  The sword descended with a killing intent, aimed directly at Mo Fei’s already wounded side, to also ensure he could not run.

  The blade bit deep, piercing through cloth and into the torn flesh beneath.

  In his state of exhaustion, Mo Fei felt the pain. His eyes flew open as he coughed out blood that was already precious at this moment.

  When he looked above for a disorienting second, he couldn't see anything; everything looked blurry, his eyes trying to process. He couldn't see the guard; only a blurry figure with blurry lines stood in front of him. He also couldn't hear anything clearly, and his ear was damaged.

  Mo Fei gasped, a wet ragged sound. His hand moved toward his side, and he felt a sharp blade being stabbed as he felt the metal of the blade. Then the world snapped into focus, horrifyingly clear.

  He saw Elara on the ground, a guard standing over him with a bloody sword, Han struggling, and Grig being overwhelmed by two guards.

  Move.

  Instinct screamed. The guard took out the sword, and his face held a grin of fulfillment. Mo Fei rolled as the guard raised his sword again, the movement tearing out a cry from his lips. His hand scrabbled on the ice, finding the muffler covering of the Glaive. He seized it quickly and immediately dropped it with a strangled yelp.

  The metal was still blisteringly hot from the ritual, a deep, residual heat that seared through the muffler. The Glaive hit the ice near Elara with a hiss.

  Sssssssss-CRACK.

  The ice started getting warm. A small plume of steam erupted, and the fierce heat bled away; it had been neutralized by the frozen ground. It took some seconds, the metal cooled from a branding iron to a more chiller.

  If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Mo Fei snatched it up again, the cold hilt biting into the fresh wound on his palm. He pushed himself up, using the wall for support, his legs trembling like crazy. Barely breathing calmly. He was a weaponized ruin.

  “Mo Fei, stay back, don’t!” Han’s voice cut through, seeing the young man raise the Glaive. It was a tool of ritual, Han was suspicious about the Glaive as because it was a weapon found in an abandoned temple that demanded ritual what could be the cost of using it while on the other hand he was more concerned about the wounds of Mo Fei it was tragically bad if he moved too much, he'd lose more blood and would eventually die.

  The guard sneered at this bloody, shaking boy with a strange, sharp double-bladed Glaive. He leveled his sword for a final thrust to cut off his very connection to this world.

  Mo Fei didn’t lunge. He simply couldn’t. Instead, his eyes turned faint silver; it was now once again the same sight as he saw the spirit threads of the guard; the world seemed to focus only on them. Mo Fei saw his movements; he could foresee hits and where his feet would land on the ground.

  A fragment of his authority, The Apprentice's Eyes. He didn’t have the strength to use a full thrust. Glaive was near the land, so it was a perfect idea. So he interrupted the guard's movements.

  With a grunt of effort, he drove the butt of the Glaive’s haft down onto the land at the man’s forward foot.

  It wasn’t a hard strike. But it was a precise hit. It struck the heel of the boot, just beside the 65-degree support point.

  The guard’s thrust wavered, his balance distracted for a fraction of a second… Then his foot slid on the ice when his boot got stuck in the ice. It was enough force. The man went down with a shout. The other guard, who got distracted by this Han, quickly fell him down, crossing up his leg, making a scape.

  “Fall back! To the alley!” Han commanded, grabbing Mo Fei’s arm and pulling him away from the wall. Mo Fei stumbled, the world tilting, his newfound sight flickering like a failing lamp, sometimes clear and on the other hand a mess of radiant blur. His hand twitched, almost falling off the Glaive, but he held it tight. He was half dead already at this point.

  When they decided on the next step, Grig threw off the last two guards with two strong hits. Afterwards, he quickly grabbed Elara, and they fled into the dark alley Han had indicated, leaving guards groaning on the ground.

  They staggered only a dozen steps before the same sweet scent washed over them again, thick and cloying this time, filling the narrow space. The scent was close…Really close. The sounds of the city muted, as if submerged in oil.

  At the far end of the alley, where it met a softly lit courtyard, a figure stepped into view.

  He was a tall man, around six feet; he was dressed in robes of deep indigo and silver that seemed to absorb the faint light, his hair perfectly arranged and softly flattering when a blow of wind hit his pale-skinned face. His facial features were sharp, elegant, and held an expression of mild curiosity and interest in his sharp, soft eyes that were the color of a twilight sky, depthless and calm. This was no brute guard. This was the ‘Royal Guard’ of the ‘Honourable Court’. The Dream-Weaver’s subordinate, but certainly not loyal. How? His expressions of self-centered ideals were said out loud.

  He did not draw out a weapon. He simply looked at them, his gaze lingering on the blood soaking Mo Fei’s side, on the peculiar Glaive in his hand, and finally on Mo Fei’s face.

  “How… untidy,” the man said, his voice a smooth, melodic tone that resonated in the hushed silence in the air. It was not loud, yet it carried perfectly, devoid of anger. It was the sound of pristine disappointment. “What a pitiful situation. I have to admire you for your actions, congratulations, congratulations, congratulations for escaping.” Those words were clear to Mo Fei’s ears by passing his hearing, he thought

  “I can't hear anything else, but his voice is bypassing the damage. How can I hear him?!”

  He took a single, graceful step forward. The ice on the ground near him bloomed suddenly with tiny frost flowers. His eyes looked at Mo Fei’s wrist, the ribbon wrapped around it, and he recognised it.

  “This untidy man, the one who bleeds the new light,” the ‘Royal Guard’ mused, his head tilting to the right side slightly. “So unlikely.” A faint, almost unnoticeable sigh escapes. “You should have chosen a softer path. Or simply lie down waiting for death… In the end, that'd be another day for you.” He was neutral. Not good, not evil. His very voice gave a statement that Mo Fei had no clue about.

  “What?... How do you know this!” Mo Fei questioned, demanding an answer. “Who are you? DO you know about this?”

  An amusement in the face of the ‘Royal Guard’, he put his one hand on his cheek, feeling the cold hand. “Isn't it too cold? My skin, they should have sent someone else.” His voice complained instead of answering.

  “That doesn't answer my question.” Mo Fei persisted once again.

  The man's sharp eyes looked at Mo Fei, and he finally spoke. “I do know that iocertainly… You seem weary. Would you not rather lie down in the soft grass of remembrance? This struggle is so... Unaesthetic.” He stared, his voice distasteful.

  This shook Mo Fei entirely. Someone who finally knew about the worlds, once again he asked another question. “No! Not before you answer my question. What did you mean by choosing the wrong path? And how do you know about the worlds?”

  “I do not want to tell you.”

  “Why?”

  “Do you think I've any interest in a slave's question?”

  “Tch, a fucking narcissist.”

  “I didn't hear you right,” The man said, his voice now sharper when Mo Fei said that.

  Before Mo Fei could say something else, Han stopped him and interrupted.

  “Why are you not catching us… You are our enemy, not an ally.”

  The man sighs as if explaining something obvious to a child. “Catch you? You are already caught, don't you know that? You are in the story where I decide beauty.”

  His gaze sweeps over them. "A runaway slave, a broken mason, a terrified girl… and an ascended splinter of an empty god’s authority.”

  Suddenly, just as the pressure of false peace became unbearable, a clatter of armored boots emerged from the alley behind them.

  The four city guards they had beaten stumbled into the courtyard, bruised and furious from the previous confrontation. Their leader pointed a shaking finger.

  “There! The fugitives! Kill the-!”

  His command instantly died in his throat. His eyes landed on the indigo-robed figure and widened in pure terror. All four guards immediately dropped to both knees, heads bowed so low their helms fell on the ice.

  “L-Lord Xue Lan!” the lead guard spoke, his voice stuttering barely taking out whispers of reverence and fear. “lord, forgive our intrusion! We did not know you were here, I beg no, I request… no, I..I-” He was finding words that wouldn't make him die right there.

  Xue Lan.

  The name fell into the silence like a drop of freezing water. The Royal Guard ‘Xue Lan’ didn’t even glance at the guards. His mild smile remained fixed on Mo Fei, as if sharing a joke that they couldn't hear.

  “You see?” Xue Lan said softly, his eyes holding Mo Fei’s. “Even the hounds of the empire know their place. They understand their role is to bark, and then to kneel.” Yes, this was the joke he said in the face of Mo Fei, almost anticipating a laugh or chuckle from Mo Fei.

  He finally looked at the guards, his tone shifting to one of gentle, final instruction. “These are not fugitives. They are some interesting fellas. Damaged, but of interest. You will withdraw to your place. Ensure our… conversation is not disturbed.”

  “Yes, Lord Xue Lan! At once!” The guards scrambled backward without rising, then turned and fled crouching away hurriedly, their fear palpable in this moment.

  Xue Lan’s attention returned to the group. The brief interruption had done nothing to ease the crushing, sleepy weight of his presence. If anything, the demonstration of his absolute authority made it worse.

  “Now, where were we?” Xue Lan murmured, taking one final, decisive step forward, now only ten paces away. The frost flowers had reached Mo Fei’s boots, and a profound numbness began to spread. “Let us end this conversation… And think about the next step… Tell me, were you the one who interrupted the elders' execution?”

  “Elder’s execution? What do you mean?” Mo Fei’s voice was puzzled. He knew about the execution, but it got interrupted? He had no idea about this.

  “Yes or no.”

  “No”

  Hearing this, Xue Lan stared at them, his eyes moving to Han, Grig, Elara, and Mo Fei one by one, ensuring that they weren't lying.

  Suddenly, he lifted his hand almost as if catching something. Then his hand holds the paper from the mid air, bending the space of air and grasping it.

  “Interesting…” Xue Lan said when he found out someone else was here.

  And from the rooftop above, a calm voice cut through the silence.

  “A story only gets an end if you agree it’s the end of the sentence, Xue Lan. What if it’s just a semicolon of the story?”

  Everyone looked up.