I Became the Bully Extra in a Novel I Hate

"You can’t be serious."

Arthur looked up from the letter, his voice low.

"...You’re actually doing this?"

Cael met his eyes without looking away.

"Yes."

For a second, Arthur just stared at him.

Then he laughed once.

A dry, humorless sound.

"So after everything we’ve done..." He gestured toward the window, toward the fortress behind them, toward the memory of Veris lying dead in the snow. "After nearly dying. After exposing Vak. After rescuing those elves."

He took a step forward.

"Your answer is to hand me over?"

"You misunderstand."

"No." Arthur’s voice sharpened. "I understand perfectly."

His breathing grew heavier.

"What am I supposed to be in all of this?" he demanded. "A pawn? Some convenient sacrifice?"

His eyes locked onto Cael.

"You guys sent me here. To investigate a shop and fortress full of murderers. You let me risk my life. Then the moment the job’s done..." He held up the letter. "...I’m the one being thrown under the bus?"

"Vex..." Theodore spoke carefully. "Please calm down."

Arthur didn’t even look at him.

Cael finally spoke.

"The Archmagus anticipated your reaction."

"Oh, don’t give me that."

"He has his reasons."

"Then tell me!" Arthur snapped.

His voice echoed through the room.

"If we’re supposedly on the same side, then why am I the only one being kept in the dark? Why does everything have to be wrapped in this mysterious, cryptic bullshit?"

Silence.

Cael’s expression didn’t change.

"I cannot."

Arthur stared at him.

"...You won’t."

"I cannot."

Arthur took another slow step back.

"So that’s it."

Cael inhaled quietly.

When he spoke again, every trace of familiarity disappeared.

"I repeat."

His right hand rose.

"Vexis Lestilaut."

"Stand down."

Arthur’s gaze dropped.

Cael’s shadow.

A black thread had already slipped into it without anyone noticing.

He clenched his fist.

"Bind."

The shadow exploded upward.

Dark tendrils wrapped around Cael’s ankles and climbed his legs before he could react.

His eyes widened.

"...What?"

"I am not letting you do this."

Arthur’s voice was steady now.

Steadier than it had been the entire conversation.

"Not after everything we’ve been through."

The shadows tightened.

"If you want to arrest me..."

Arthur raised his eyes.

"...then you’re going to have to earn it."

’What is he doing.’ Vexis’s voice came sharp, urgent, right at Arthur’s ear. ’Arthur, this is Cael. He’s not one of those Covenant bastards. Talk him down, don’t fight him—’

I’m trying.

Vines erupted from the floor near the door, fast and thick, crawling up the frame and across the gap in seconds. Theodore stumbled back, hands raised, face somewhere between shock and panic.

"Please don’t fight, guys!"

The vines kept spreading. They came off the door and reached for Arthur next. He perfused hard, Stima lighting under his skin, and threw himself sideways before the first tendril closed around his ankle.

He fired a water marble at the door. It hit clean, cracked the surface, and the vines regrew through the crack before the water finished draining.

"Cael. Listen to me." Arthur ducked under a vine that came in at his shoulder. "You’re seriously going to act like a loyal dog right now? Can’t you let this one sit out, just this once?"

’Arthur—’ Vexis, quieter now, something careful in it. ’Don’t call him that. You don’t know what that word does to him.’

What do you mean?

Vexis didn’t answer fast enough.

Something shifted in Cael’s face. The calm cracked, just slightly, the bind on his ankles keeping him rooted while his hands kept working.

"A dog." His voice came out flatter than usual, and colder underneath it. "You don’t know my life. So shut up."

"I don’t know everything." Arthur rolled clear of another vine, came up on one knee, breathing hard. "But from where I’m standing, all I see is someone following orders without asking a single question about them. You didn’t even hesitate, Cael. You just raised your hand and said the words like you’d rehearsed them."

"I’m telling you, Arthur." Cael’s jaw tightened. The vines pulled tighter around the room, closing the space between them. "The Archmagus must have a plan. Comply, and we figure it out from there—"

"No." Arthur straightened. Dark water gathered at his fingertips, thick, wrong, pooling instead of dripping. "I’ve done enough complying. I complied when he sent us into that fortress with a plan that got Veris killed. I complied when you decided not to tell me about this order until it was already too late to have a calm conversation about it. I’m done."

Cael raised both hands. More vines answered, tearing up through the floor around his boots, roots snapping the wood apart with a sound like something breaking on purpose.

"You think I wanted to keep this from you?" Something raw slipped into his voice now, underneath the flatness. "You think this was easy for me? I’ve followed the Archmagus since I was seven. He took me in when my own father couldn’t be bothered to remember my name most days. You don’t get to stand there and call that being a dog like it’s nothing to me."

Arthur froze for half a second. Just long enough to register it.

’There it is,’ Vexis said, quiet. ’His father. I forgot about that. He never talks about it.’

Then a vine caught Arthur’s wrist.

He tore free before it tightened, water bursting off his fingertips in a wave that scattered the nearest cluster of roots, but three more replaced them in the same breath. Cael wasn’t holding anything back now — vines came from every angle, floor, wall, the ceiling beam overhead splitting open to let another one drop straight down.

"I spent years wondering why my father never wanted me." Cael Extended both of his arms.

Arthur didn’t answer.

"I spent years believing I wasn’t worth remembering."

Cael smiled.

It wasn’t a happy smile.

"When the Archmagus found me..."

"He remembered my name."

Silence.

"He gave me a future."

"He gave me purpose."

The smile disappeared.

"So..."

His magic exploded.

The entire room shook.

Wood splintered.

The table shattered.

Every vine in the room erupted simultaneously.

"You don’t get to call that being a dog."

"Cael, I mean it." Arthur backed into the corner, water pooling defensively around both palms. "I’ve bled next to you. I watched Sable pull your own blood back into your throat two nights ago. You think I’m doing this because it’s fun? Because I enjoy fighting you?"

"Then STOP RESISTING." Cael’s voice cracked, louder than Arthur had ever heard from him. "I don’t want to drag you back in chains! I want you to just LISTEN for once—"

"Then TALK TO ME instead of ordering me around like I’m some soldier under your command!"

’Arthur.’ Vexis’s voice again, urgent, cutting through. ’He’s not doing this because he wants to control you. Look at his face. He’s scared. He’s scared of what happens if he doesn’t follow through.’

Arthur didn’t have time to look.

The vines surged.

He threw himself sideways, aimed a marble at the base of the nearest root cluster, and it barely slowed anything. His breathing had gone ragged now, water and Stima both running thin, the room too small and too full of green to keep dodging much longer.

Cael’s hands came up for one final push, both arms extended, the whole floor about to come apart at once—

A burst of wind tore through the room and scattered everything in it.

Vines flew apart mid-growth, snapped clean, whipped into the walls. Arthur went backward off his feet, hit the far wall, and slid down it. Across the room, Cael went the same way, his bind snapping loose as the force ripped through the floor beneath him.

"That’s ENOUGH." Theodore stood in the middle of the wreckage, one hand still raised, his bellus hovering beside him with both ears flat and still beating from the gust it had thrown. His voice shook, but it kept going anyway. "Please. Don’t fight each other. I thought — I thought we were friends here."

Nobody said anything for a moment.

Cael pushed himself up first. He looked at Theodore. At the splintered floor, the smoking scorch marks where the water had hit vine. Then at Arthur, sitting against the far wall, chest heaving.

His face had gone back to flat. Controlled. But his hands weren’t quite steady when he lowered them to his sides.

"I don’t have a choice, Arthur," he said, quieter now. "You don’t understand what it means to disobey him. Not for someone like me."

Arthur looked at him. At the tightness still sitting behind his eyes, the thing he’d almost said and hadn’t.

’He means it,’ Vexis said. ’Whatever debt he thinks he owes the Patriarch — it’s not the kind you talk someone out of in one afternoon.’

Arthur pulled his knees up and pressed both palms against his forehead.

"Sorry." His voice came out smaller than it had all fight. "I lost my cool."

Cael didn’t answer that right away. He looked at the ruined floor between them, at the door still hanging half off its frame.

"So did I," he said finally.