Chapter 12: Bran

…wing since you left, My Lord, and currently hiding in the boulder.

I walk out of the gates with a smile on my face and even if they do still look at me like I got two heads, they don't really bother me. The boulder that Adrian is talking about is a bit far from the village but close enough to see what's going on, even if it's outside the gate. I grab the arrow I hid under my dress (don't ask how) and use my first fist to handshake the face of the man who kept following us.

He falls with a loud thud and an oof. I point the arrow at the side of his neck. He doesn't seem to realize he has blood in the corner of his mouth and I don't give a crap.

"It's you." I say.

It's him. The man who was following the village chief and Clyde when they took the vegetables' baskets from us. The buff man.

"You want to tell me why you kept following us?"

"I was ordered to bring you guys back but there's a few of us! Not just me! I was just lucky enough to actually see y'all and followed! I promise I mean no harm especially that I know you've Awakened! I was just — I didn't want to go back there and I thought it was safer to follow you, I'm sorry…" he starts crying. "Please let me go…"

Okay, so, see, Sophia's body isn't exactly big. What? She's like five feet and two inches, two and a half inches, if I'm pushing it, and she's not exactly masculine or whatever, she's fine. Like most of the reasons why I managed to take down Clyde before is because of the element of surprise and my instincts as a knight which just means my hesitation to kill is close to zero. I could take down this guy with difficulty, sure, but the funny thing is, seeing someone built like me to put the fear in God onto this man, it's just hilarious.

"Fine." I put away the arrow and move away. "Stop crying, for God's sake, people would think I actually wanted to kill you."

"You were about to!"

"Oh, don't be a coward." I hissed. "You were following us like some stalker, you bastard, and you are taller and bigger than I am."

"I heard you almost killed Clyde."

"He told you that?" I'm quite shocked he actually managed to tell someone.

The man nods, sheepishly as he sits up. "He told me to kill you just for payback. I have no intentions of doing so. I just thought… I mean, I just wanted to be safe."

"I hear you. You said that before."

"You had an arrow at my neck. Maybe you didn't hear me."

"Loud and clear." I snort. "Name?"

"What?"

"I just threatened to kill you, I didn't cut off anything. Name?"

"Brandon."

"Bra — what kind of a jock name is that?"

"What?"

I roll my eyes. "I'm calling you Bran. Brandon."

He looks confused.

So, I stand up and motion him to do the same. "Get up and come with me. I'm taking you in."

"Are you serious?"

"If I leave you here, you'd die." I say, as a matter of fact. "I was testing you before, trying to gauge if you would do something I would find unacceptable."

"So… I passed the test?"

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"You passed nothing. You're gonna work for us, you're gonna try to pull your weight, earn your keep and all that."

He rubs his face and slaps his cheeks. "That's fine. But you would actually pay me, right? I have siblings at home and your village chief isn't exactly paying in advance."

"Not my village chief." I corrected him. "But, sure. Follow me."

We go back to the village, and the two guards give me a look. I explain how he's a friend that got lost on the way and I just found him. What luck, right? I don't think they believe as much as they believe Euphemia so I'm just going to give her something to work with.

Why take him in, My Lord? Adrian asks in my head. Whatever you think he can do, I can do better.

I don't reply. I just… I don't know. I knew Bran was following us, I was waiting for him to do something but he didn't. He starved, almost froze and endured the heat with us. I don't think he's kind but maybe just like me, he was looking for something. I have no interest in finding out what it is but I guess this is the beauty of humanity; one can kill them as much as they can save them. And I chose the latter.

When we reach the house, I order Bran. "Stay here."

He nods.

I can hear someone unlocking the door from the inside. I enter the room and find that Euphemia is still asleep. So Adrian is the one who unlocked the door. I wake her up and after a few shakes, she slowly opens her eyes.

"Is it dinner?"

"No. There was just something I wanna run by you."

*

Euphemia isn't exactly happy but she isn't exactly mad either. Of course, she thinks it's stupid to take in someone like Bran who was ordered to follow us but the alternative is to let him die out in the wild and I think we're way similar than we let on, even if we aren't real siblings.

"How long have you known this?" She asks me.

I look at Bran who's kneeling in front of us. His name is Brandon, he's a teenager and had a few siblings back home. He was forced to work because their parents are dead and his other relatives are too poor to do anything about them. He followed some mercenary in some gig somewhere far and failed to realize 'somewhere far' is the Death's Forest. He managed to survive, alongside with a few other members of that party but most of them died there. He tried going back but it was close to impossible, so he did odd jobs here and there, and sent the money where his siblings are (apparently, there's a system here. Bird stuff. Quite fascinating, really.) And because he is big for his age, he gets quite a lot of requests of guarding someone, intimidating someone, killing someone but he never really killed anybody. Good for him. Killing will take something out of you, and most of the time, it's something you really would need to be human.

Anyway, that's what we found out after interrogating him.

"Know what?" I ask after a few moments of silence.

"That he was following us."

"In the beginning."

"And you never told me?"

"I didn't want you to worry and he's practically harmless."

"I still need to know these things, Sophia." Euphemia's tone hardens. "It's just not that he's harmless, it's not even about safety. Don't you trust me?"

"I do. I do trust you. I just — I had it covered."

"That isn't the point —" but before Euphemia can continue, Matt's voice echoes outside.

"Dinner is about to be served." He announces.

Euphemia says, "Coming." Then she looks at me and I can see disappointment radiating off her.

…Did I do something wrong?

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