The Forsaken Hero

With my eyes fixed on Elaine, I urged Fable into a trot. He loped ahead, quickly catching the woman. She looked at me, expressionless, and I swallowed hard.

"You care a lot about them, don’t you," I asked.

She raised an eyebrow. "Pardon?"

I gestured at the people around us. "Them."

"An interesting observation, given the circumstance."

"But it’s true. That’s the real reason you released your aura, isn’t it? To disguise that you were actually holding your Mana in case I tried to hurt them. Besides, everyone looked so surprised when you snapped at that woman, offended even."

"I threatened their lives. Such responses are only natural," she said.

I shook my head. "You were kind to the guards, even when they apprehended us at spearpoint. How could you then be so cruel to a mother and her daughter just for tripping?"

She frowned, looking directly at me. Not my horns or Fable, but me. I returned her gaze unflinchingly.

Whatever remained of her cold posterior melted in a gentle smile. "Forgive me for the deception. It wasn’t my intention to offend but to learn how you would respond. I would never truly hurt one of my people. They’re all so sweet."

She gestured to a father with his son on their shoulders standing beside the entrance to an inn. The boy was holding his father’s hair like the reigns of a horse, laughing as the man wove between wagons and stalls. It was a scene I’d witnessed many times in the humble villages of Heartland but never in the cold, upper districts of a city. Even more shocking was that the father’s soul was in the upper stages of the fifth level. Someone like that belonged on a battlefield, commanding thousands. Not in the street having fun with a child.