Chapter 122: Mira and the Guild [1]
Nathan left Selene’s house five days after the arrival.
His left arm was still stiff and his ribs sent him a pang every time he breathed deeper than he should, but the bandages no longer bled at the edges and his legs supported him without needing to lean on anyone. Selene had given him permission to go out on the condition that he not carry weight, not run, and return before nightfall. The rest of the time he had to sleep.
Liaraen walked beside him.
She wore a simple brown cloak over her clothes, no visible embroidery, no lineage sword at her belt. In its place, a small knife on the belt, the kind used to cut bread or rope. The sword stayed home. If anyone looked at her, the reading would be “girl accompanying a wounded Hunter,” not “armed major elven house heir.”
Nathan appreciated the detail without commenting on it.
They walked down the street leading to the center. The morning sun was still low. The shadows of the facades stretched to the other side of the cobblestone, and Nathan preferred to walk on the shaded side so the direct light wouldn’t strain his eyes, which were still hypersensitive from the blood loss of the previous week.
After three blocks, Liaraen spoke.
“Nathan.”
“Yes?”
“What are you planning to tell her?”
“The minimum necessary. That the mission is completed. That the formal report we deliver in writing. That I collect the reward when the guild verifies.”
“And if she asks about the switch.”
“If she asks about the switch, I admit it.”
Liaraen walked two more steps before responding.
“The whole truth, or part?”
“The whole truth on that specific point. What happened in Karak Forest isn’t the guild’s business. What happened with the parchment is. And if Mira already detected it, lying to her costs me the license twice over: once for manipulating the parchment, once for lying when I’m already caught.”
“Alright.”
“Problem with that?”
“No. Confirming.”
Nathan glanced at her.
“Sprout.”
“What?”
“If Mira gets aggressive, don’t intervene. This is between her and me. The professional relationship I built over months before you arrived in Greywall. If you step in the middle, it becomes something else.”
Liaraen walked two more steps.
“Alright.”
“Really alright?”
“Really alright. I stay close. I don’t intervene. If I see you’re about to pass out from fatigue, I interrupt with the medical pretext. That’s the only exception.”
“Exception accepted.”
They continued.
The guild building appeared around the last corner. The same gray stone facade with the carved wooden sign above the door. Two adventurers were leaving as Nathan and Liaraen approached. One gave Nathan a brief gesture of recognition, the kind used to say “you’re still alive, good,” without words. The other looked at Liaraen with obvious curiosity but didn’t comment.
Nathan pushed the door.
He entered with Liaraen behind.
—
The guild was at half capacity.
Ten or twelve adventurers distributed between the long wooden tables and the mission board at the back. Two or three at the bar ordering beer even though it wasn’t yet midday. The usual smell: sweat, tanned leather, weapon oil, fresh bread from the adjacent dining room.
The murmur of conversations dropped two levels when Nathan entered.
He didn’t stop. Just slowed. Heads turned, processed, and returned to their business with the speed of people who had learned not to stare for too long. But the partial silence was different from what had been there on previous visits. It was more attentive.
Nathan noticed.
He walked toward the main counter.
Mira was on the other side.
With the dark blue tunic she wore on heavy administrative workdays, her hair pulled back in a high tail, and a pen in her right hand that she was using to mark a long register. When she heard the footsteps she looked up. She saw Nathan. She saw Liaraen behind. Her expression didn’t change, but Nathan noticed both eyebrows rose half a finger and then returned to their normal position.
“Hunter Voss.”
“Mira.”
“You look better than I expected.”
“It’s the face I can put on when I leave the house. At home it’s worse.”
“How long have you been back?”
“Five days. Selene kept me in bed. Today is the first day she let me out.”
Mira set the pen on the register. She placed both hands flat on the counter, fingers spread, and looked at him for three or four seconds before speaking again.
“Alright. Let’s get to it. What happened with the low D-Rank mission I assigned you two weeks ago?”
“Completed.”
“The Karak Forest creatures?”
“Eliminated. Along with other things that weren’t on the original parchment but ended up related.”
Mira nodded once, slow.
“Hunter Voss.”
“Yes?”
“Before you continue, there’s something I have to ask. And I want you to answer me without dodging because we’ve been dealing with each other long enough for this to be resolved without theater.”
“Go ahead.”
Mira crouched under the counter. She took out a parchment. She placed it in front of Nathan with the red seal visible. The A-Rank parchment Nathan had taken from the board on the day of the switch, the one Yorel had left abandoned somewhere in the Karak settlement when they’d been attacked, and which somehow Nathan hadn’t thought would appear back at the counter.
Nathan looked at it.
“Mira.”
“Do you recognize the parchment?”
“I recognize it.”
“An adventurer handed it to me two weeks ago. He found it lying at the edge of the northern path, approximately four hours from Greywall, with dried blood on it that wasn’t his. He brought it to me because he thought it was a lost parchment from the board. I checked it. I confirmed it was the one I myself had placed in the A-Rank section the day I gave you your low D-Rank mission. The same parchment you refused in front of half a dozen witnesses when I verified your rank and confirmed you were still F. The same one you supposedly returned to the board before leaving the guild with your real mission.”
Nathan listened without interrupting.
When Mira finished, he didn’t speak immediately. He waited a second. He decided.
“I swapped it.”
Mira closed her eyes for a moment.
Then she opened them.
“That’s obvious—I figured it out the instant you left. Say it completely.”
“The day you gave me the low D-Rank mission, when Liaraen pulled me out of the guild by the arm, passing beside the board I activated Pale Rider at minimum intensity for half a second. Enough to swap the D-Rank parchment I’d just handed you for the A-Rank one you’d forced me to return. Then I left the guild with the A-Rank one hidden. I did the A-Rank mission instead of the D-Rank one. I didn’t tell anyone. That’s the complete truth of that point.”
Mira opened her mouth to say something. She closed it. She breathed through her nose.
“Hunter Voss.”
“Yes?”
“Do you know what that means in administrative terms?”
“I know.”
“Say it. I want to hear that you know.”
“Deliberate manipulation of official guild documents. Fraud in rank verification. Taking a mission above authorized rank. If you report me to the director, they revoke my Hunter license immediately, fine me an amount I probably can’t pay, and ban me from the guild in every city of the human kingdom for a minimum of three years. If anyone had died during the mission because of me, the charge of responsibility for aggravated recklessness is added, which carries jail time.”
Mira looked at him.
For nearly a full minute she didn’t speak.
Nathan stayed still. Liaraen two steps behind, also still.
Then Mira spoke, and her voice had dropped a tone.
“Did anyone die because of you during the mission?”
“Twenty people. Four children included.”
Mira went motionless.
“Nathan.”
“Before you respond with what you’re about to respond with, let me finish. The twenty people were infected by a major parasite. The one responsible for the plan was a Draken practitioner who’d spent twenty years preparing the ritual with them as sacrifice. The deaths weren’t from my recklessness; they were the inevitable result of the parasite’s collapse and of the practitioner mobilizing them as human puppets against me during the final fight. If I’d arrived with a real A-Rank team, the results would have been the same. I verified it with Selene during the formal report on day forty-nine. She drafted the report for the network of coordinators who oversee the small settlements in this area.”
Mira listened.
When Nathan finished, she moved her right hand toward the parchment and turned it. Then she slid it back, next to the long register she’d been marking before.
“Selene drafted a report.”
“Correct. She hasn’t delivered it to the coordinators yet, but the document exists. If you want to verify it before deciding what you do with me, I can ask her to show it to you under Veil confidentiality protocol.”
“You mention the Veil in front of the guild counter?”
“I mention it because between you and me, theater no longer serves a purpose. If you’re going to make a decision about my license, you need the complete information. If you’d rather not know it, I understand, but then you’re deciding without it.”
Mira leaned with her elbows on the counter.
For a long while she said nothing. Nathan watched her think. Her eyes went from him to the parchment, from the parchment to Liaraen still two steps back with her hands clasped in front of her, and from Liaraen back to him.
Then she spoke.
“Let’s go to my office.”
“Now?”
“Now. This conversation isn’t going to continue with twelve adventurers pretending not to listen.”
Nathan nodded.
Mira closed the long register, gave a short gesture to one of the guild assistants to take over the counter for the next few minutes, and stepped out from behind the bar. She walked around the furniture to where Nathan was.
“Your companion comes in too.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. If she’s going to keep walking with you every time you step into this guild, I’d rather she hear what I’m going to say to you and hear it from me, not from you afterward in a filtered version.”
Liaraen inclined her head once, without adding a word.
The three walked toward the side door leading to the administrative hallway.