The Hero's Sidekick

I hate nightmares. They always frightened me more than any beast, warrior, or monster. The idea that you are powerless to fight your dreams is bad enough. What makes them worse is the suffocating fear that comes with that powerlessness. Somehow, the nightmare knows exactly how to unmake you, paralyze you, and strike to the very heart of what makes you, you.

Some berserkers choose to chain themselves while asleep so they do not thrash about as if fighting invisible foes. The danger of killing one's comrades is always present as our rage is instinctual and thus is shaped by our perception. In a dream, our senses are at the mercy of a foe with no flesh to cut, no will to break, and no fear to exploit.

Visualization is important to our training as a means to fight the unassailable. To give form and shape to a foe was to know it, to understand it, and ultimately to defeat it. It was another way to control both ourselves and our enemy, the goal being mastery of the self and of our skill in battle.

The Encroacher, as Kuro had called it, made a mockery of that.

The horrors it had shown me while we were trapped inside the Repository weren't real, and I knew that. It didn't stop me from wondering if they could have been. What I had seen reflected in the glimmering blue slime that made up the Encroacher's form wasn't so easy to dismiss, even now in the safety of Deotra's rundown shrine with the sunlight streaming in through the cracks in the boarded up windows.

My eyes stung as the light fell across my futon, and I lifted my hand to shield myself from it. My head was still throbbing from the wound I'd taken the night before, the bandage I'd applied stiff with dried blood and sweat. What we went through last night was more than I bargained for. If Alverd hadn't been there, none of us would be alive.

Not surprisingly, the fox beastwoman who had offered us shelter was already making some kind of broth in the hearth, her hand idly waving a fan to stoke the fire under the pot. She was humming quietly to herself, too busy with making breakfast to notice me at first. When I yawned, her ears twitched but she didn't turn around. "Breakfast will be ready soon. You should keep resting for now."

Grumbling, I stretched my arms. "Urgh, maybe I will. I feel like someone took a sledgehammer to my head." She turned around and looked me in the eye.

"You gave me such a fright when you came back. Some of you looked ready to pass out from shock. Don't take any chances. A few more minutes won't kill you." Her voice was stern, but not so much that I felt like she was being commanding; it sounded more like a light scolding than anything else.

Looking around, I found that I'd been the first to wake up. Alverd was sleeping soundly beneath the covers of his futon looking the most peaceful I'd seen him in days. Poor Alverd. He's been running himself ragged to keep us all safe more than usual. I don't know if Monaco put him on edge but after what happened with the Divernian Swords and the Legionnaires I would bet that he's been much more vigilant.

When he'd run his hand through my hair earlier, it had brought me both calm and a rush of emotions. The same had happened back at the Valley of the Last Sunrise, although I had been too distracted by other things at the time to process it. Am I really becoming so trustful of him that I'm willing to let him just do that?

Part of me felt childish, and it felt like I had every right to be offended. Such a gesture was reserved for children, and the idea that he felt like he could do such a thing to me should've made me feel angry. So why doesn't it? Instead it calms me. I always feel like smiling when he does it. Where is that coming from? Pulling my knees up to my chest, I rested my chin on them. No one has ever treated me like that with such kindness. Not even my father. He was always so distant, like he was looking ahead of me instead of at me. I know now part of it was that he couldn't afford to show favorites. But try telling that to a little girl who doesn't know how screwed up the world is yet.

Monaco and Sheena were sharing a corner of the shrine thanks to their truly atrocious sleeping postures. Sheena laid on her back and had her arms stretched out sideways to take up way more space than was necessary. By contrast, Monaco had somehow twisted herself out of her futon and now had both of her legs curled over Sheena's chest. She was also snoring loudly. For a thief, she sure is noisy even when she sleeps. Lucky for me I was too tired to notice last night.

Kuro and Deotra had their own section by one of the walls beneath a painted image of a woman riding a dragon. That's a curious choice of graffiti. I didn't think people revered dragons around here. Thinking about it proved tiresome, so I laid back down and sighed heavily. My thoughts still lingered on the gestures Alverd had shown me.

"I've seen that look before."

Deotra had paused her preparation of breakfast long enough to notice me lost in my thoughts.

"What are you talking about?" I asked. Come to think of it, I never stopped to question anything about this girl or her interest in Kuro. Not that it's any of my business, but she was awfully quick to let us stay here and I'm pretty sure she's squatting.

The girl's pointed ears twitched as she put down her fan. "You have the look of someone who doesn't know how to deal with feelings she's never felt before. You don't know whether you should feel happy, ashamed, self-deprecating, or some combination of all three." She folded her hands in her lap and smiled at me gently. "I've seen that face in dozens of people who didn't know how to admit they were in love."

My mouth hung open as I struggled to decide whether to just admit that she was on the right track or deny it instantly. Before I could make any kind of real response, she held up her hand. "I'm not trying to get a rise out of you. You really do look like you're in a bad way, and nobody who feels so strongly about someone the way you do should suffer so."

Slowly, I let go of my legs and scooted myself around to face her, crossing my legs beneath me. "Am I really so easy to read?" Mother Evros, I hope not. I'd be an easy mark if someone could exploit such a weakness. The last thing I want to do is be a burden on Alverd.

Her ears twitched again. "There you go again. There's something subtle in your face, the way your mouth turns down on one corner like you're ready to scowl. I may not be able to tell what you're thinking, but whatever has you preoccupied just popped into your head."

Yeesh, this girl is perceptive. Or maybe she really can read my mind? "How do you know? Maybe I just scowl all the time."

She giggled, her golden eyes twinkling like stars in the receding gloom of the shrine's interior. "If not your face, then definitely your sighing. Girls don't sigh like that unless someone has their heart all aflutter. I would know." Her tail wagged along the floor as she stole a warm glance at Kuro's still sleeping form.

Strangely, I didn't feel like being defensive around her. My usual instinct to deny and deflect faded in light of a chance to have an honest talk with someone who seemed like they might truly understand what I was going through. "My head is a mess. Sometimes I can't focus. That's not ideal when you're a berserker. One slip up and you lose your ability to harness your rage properly and then I might end up hurting someone." I stopped myself in time to avoid saying Alverd's name.

"Do you think having feelings is a weakness?" Her question was so unbelievably blunt that it caught me off guard. "Did anyone ever make you believe that second-guessing yourself was somehow a sign that you were weak?" There was no accusation in her voice, just honest curiosity.

I moved myself closer to her, so that we were only a few feet apart. "Quite a few people, actually. Most of them said a lot of things to make me feel inferior, and that was one of them." Images of my siblings flashed through my head, their mocking voices lashing me like a whip. "Most of the time I paid them no mind. But there were a few who made it sink in."

My father, sitting on his throne while he was still hale and hearty, his hand on his gilded scepter, and a dark look of disapproval on his face. A memory that was burned forever in my head. He wasn't angry with me. He was disappointed. Somehow, that made it worse. I think I could've handled anger. But the fact that he was ashamed of me at that moment hurt in ways my rage couldn't dull.

I remembered the question he had asked me. It was my answer that had caused him to look at me that way. Ten years old, the throne room of the Castle of Brimstone. Father had sent everyone out of the room. That was the only merciful thing about what happened. Nobody else had to bear witness to what he said. A young girl who had just lost her mother with no sympathy from anyone to light her way.

"Do you miss your mother, child?"

I nodded. "Yes, Father." The tears hadn't yet dried, so I sniffled as I used my arm to wipe them away. "I wish she hadn't gotten sick. She didn't deserve to die that way." My father did not speak right away, instead choosing to dismiss all present until it was just us two. As the doors to the throne room shut, he addressed me.

"Wishing won't change anything. Not everyone gets what they deserve in this life, good or bad." His voice was flat, no emotion or edge to it, as if he were stating a fact. "No more tears. Give the world an opening and it will tear your throat for it, child."

Child. It was always "child", never my name. Not until I turned sixteen. Then I was sent to study under a berserker mentor. Rutger forged me into something worthy of my father's attention, but even then I wondered if he ever really loved me. I'm still not sure he did, even after everything I've been through. Father might have given me a chance to be a good daughter to him, but he never felt like he needed to prove he was a good parent to me.

I was good enough to bet his kingdom's future on. But not enough for him to just come out and say he loved me. Or that he was sorry.

Deotra paused, considering her next words carefully. "Do you think it's wrong to feel hurt?" I was halfway through opening my mouth when she clarified. "I ask if you believe it's wrong, not what someone else demanded you think."

"I think I've spent too much time worrying about what others think." I was surprised at how easily the answer came to me. "It gets too hard to live a life where everyone waits for you to show weakness, so eventually I hid my feelings behind the rage. It's so much easier to deal with when you can almost see it as being washed away by the anger."

She thought about my words, then continued. "So if I told you that feelings are only a weakness if you allow them to be, what would you say?"

Her words confused me at first. It was like she was challenging my thoughts, my beliefs, and past pain all at the same time. A sense of irritation mixed with unease rose in my throat, but I fought it down in order to reply. "What are you getting at? Speak plainly. I don't like how you keep talking in weird circles."

Deotra took in a deep breath, letting it out slowly through her mouth. "I haven't spent time in Ishmar. Everything I know about Ishmarians is all secondhand or tall tales. I've heard you called murderers, butchers, pillagers, and opportunists. But if you've held your own against the mages of Algrustos for hundreds of years, then there must be something more to it."

Her voice seemed less shaky than it did before, and something about the way her eyes stared at me under her bangs unnerved me. "If Ishmarians were so concerned with what others thought of them would they be as strong as they are? Do they find they have to live up to others' expectations, or are they strong in spite of what others think of them?" She leaned forward and her eyes briefly gleamed the same color as her hair, which had to be a trick of the light. "I suppose to say it plainly as you asked, are you strong because you bury your feelings or because your feelings make you who you are?"

Understanding started to dawn in me as the fox woman spoke. Father said hurtful things. But they were hurtful because I let him have that power over me. I'd learned to stand on my own two feet for the most part since then, and faced down those who had used their words to put me in my place. I was stronger for it, but was it because they had forced me to be that way or because I learned to stop caring what they thought?

"I guess I'm thinking of it too broadly. That's what you're getting at, right?" She nodded.

"Your feelings are only a weakness if you want them to be if you perceive them to be. It's funny how such a minor shift in perspective is all it takes to change a person's mind." She picked up her hand and started to stoke the fire again.

"So, what's stopping you from following your heart?"

The image of Alverd being lashed across the face by a streak of sizzling blue fire while trying to lift me off the ground surfaced in my thoughts. Crushed under a psychic assault, I had left myself wide open to an attack from the Encroacher. The sheer force of the impact from one of its whiplike tentacles had not only spun me around but smashed me against the wall, tearing a gash across my forehead and dazing me.

He had knelt down to cover me, his hand fumbling around in the cloud of glittering darkness to search for me. While he did so, he wasn't concentrating on keeping his shield angled where his attacker would be, and the tentacle swept around and hit him from an unprotected flank. The entire battle had been much like that, the two of us fumbling to fight an enemy we couldn't see or attack with our weapons.

"I feel like a burden. Like I was a weight around his neck. Surely he can do better than me." Somehow it felt both liberating and yet horrible to admit that, like a dam had burst in my chest. "What do I add? How do I help? Won't I just make things worse? He's had to save me so many times that I don't think he takes me seriously."

Deotra cocked her head to the side, her mouth turning downward into a frown. "If that were true, why did he come to save you? If you were truly such a burden, why would he go out of his way to put his own life in danger to help you?"

"Because…" I thought back to when an elven assassin had cornered me in the Ivory Palace with the intention of murdering me in cold blood. I wanted Alverd to be the one to help me. Instead it was Albrecht who came. I was disappointed, and I hated that I felt that. It was so childish of me, but I felt it anyway. Because I wanted him to care enough about me to come help me.

When I didn't answer, she continued. "Deceptions are born in the mind, but the heart will never lie. It wants what it wants, and it's never shy about telling you. The job of your heart is to tell you what you desire, and the job of the mind is to spin the falsehoods that stop others from seeing into it. So I ask again: what is it you want?"

"I want him to stop seeing me like a child." Again the ache in my chest flared, the dual feeling of relief and admission seizing my innards. "I'm not a child. I'm an adult, I have worth, and I have feelings. They matter, I matter, and I want him to acknowledge that." Why did that feel so good to admit to myself? This time it didn't hurt as badly. It's like a weight just got lifted off my chest.

Deotra nodded sagely. "There you go. Tell him. Tell him the full truth of how it made you feel. Strength doesn't come from acting like nothing can hurt you. It comes from accepting your feelings, acknowledging them, and then overcoming the fear of what others will think of you. If he's anything like you build him up to be, he won't judge you for telling him the truth." Then she lowered her eyelids knowingly. "Whether you tell him where those feelings actually stem from, that's up to you."

I scratched the back of my head nervously. "We'll see. Maybe one thing at a time." She nodded at me. A moment later, I worked up my nerve to thank her. "How did you know all of that?"

She smiled wistfully. "A silly child running around in an old man's body once told me that I was allowed to feel my feelings. I didn't know what he meant by it right away, but I did eventually. I wish I could see him again so I could tell him he was right, but he could be anywhere in the world now, if he's even still alive." She reached over to pull the stewpot off the hearth. "Go ahead and wake the others. Breakfast is ready."

It didn't take me long to rouse the others. I nudged Monaco and Sheena with my foot, maybe a bit harder than was necessary, and they grunted in protest. Then Sheena realized where the weight on her chest was coming from and her eyes shot open, fully awake. "Mage's blood, can you stay in your own bedding you feral woman!" She pushed the still groggy Monaco off of her who grumbled as she rolled away.

The commotion was enough to wake Kuro on his own and he sat up and rubbed his eyes. "Gods, can you people keep it down? Kill each other after breakfast, or at least do it quietly." Monaco chucked one of her boots at him, which missed by several feet and smacked against the wall. "Thank the gods you're a better shot with a crossbow than you are with shoes." The second boot caught him full in the face, and he whimpered as he clutched at his nose.

Deotra swiveled her head in Monaco's direction, and even though I couldn't see her face I could almost imagine the look of utter hatred the fox likely had. Monaco shrunk away, back into the corner, her expression one of fear. So even the high and mighty thief can be brought low so easily. Who would have thought?

Alverd was the last to rise, and he still looked far too tired to be up and about. His eyes weren't focused nor was he quick to get to his feet. Instead, he propped himself up on his hands and blinked until his vision came into focus. "So, we're not dead. That's a win. And I can smell something delicious, so that probably means I didn't dream about making it back to the shrine in one piece."

Nobody said anything at first. We all saw something different in there, I'm sure. When we pulled Sheena out of the chamber she was muttering about Albrecht. Kuro mentioned to me that Monaco heard her father's voice in there. So did I, and he didn't have anything nice to say to me. So what did Alverd go through? Is he okay?

Deotra broke the silence by scooping some soup into a bowl. "We should probably keep to ourselves for now. When I went to the market a little while ago, people were scared. They said that the Legion pulled up their base camp outside the city and are now demanding to be let in to see the Emperor. There hasn't been any violence yet, but if their dragonriders take to the skies there will be blood spilled in these streets."

"Wait, a while ago? How long have we been asleep?" I asked. She perked her ears sideways as she did the math.

"For more than twelve hours now. It's past noon. You all came back just before midnight and collapsed in here. You didn't even bother trying to patch yourselves up, just pried yourselves out of your equipment and went straight to sleep."

If I had any exhaustion left, it disappeared the moment Deotra brought up the Legion. "Can they still get in?"

She shook her head. "Now that the diplomatic envoy has left city limits, it would take an order from the Emperor to unbar the gates to let him back in. Our walls are more than sturdy enough to keep out a platoon of Legionnaires, but if they bring dragons into it, the situation becomes dramatically more complicated." She held out the bowl of soup to Kuro.

"Right, because them entering the city without authorization is basically a declaration of war." Kuro took the bowl and sipped from it, making a loud slurp. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but Guunzel doesn't seem the type to let that stop him. Which means if he doesn't get the Hand by sundown, he'll use force. What that means for Blossom City and Kierhai as a whole I can't say."

I cleared my throat. "Guunzel won't wait to see if the answer is no. The moment he thinks the Emperor isn't going to bow to his demands, he'll strike with overwhelming force. Unlike most Ishmarian officers, however, Guunzel will do what he was ordered to instead of attacking indiscriminately like a child throwing a tantrum."

"He'll cause some kind of targeted chaos. While the city fights his troops, he'll launch a raid on the Repository with his dragonriders. Once he gets what he came for, he'll retreat and leave his Legionnaires on the ground to cover him. But when he attacks the tower, he won't find the Hand of the Usurper. More likely he'll let the Encroacher out."

There was a heavy silence in the room that finally came to an end when Monaco spoke. "Do you think they could get into the Repository? Or failing that, damage it enough to free that monster?" Her voice was full of quivering fear, and she didn't even try to hide it.

"We… I mean, I damaged the internal mechanism when we escaped. It's holding on by a thread. Guunzel won't have to try very hard to break what's left of the containment system. As impressive as the Repository's defenses are, I don't think they'll hold up against a squadron of veteran dragonriders for very long." Kuro said. "We need to see the Emperor. If he can declare the Ishmarian envoy enemies of the country, we might be able to stop Guunzel before he launches an attack on the city."

"Hear me out."

Monaco had spoken up. All eyes turned to her. "This isn't my problem. It's not my fight. Maybe you have some stake in this, but I don't. We could always just walk away and let everything just sort itself out." When she saw all the disapproving glances she was receiving, she scowled. "Hey, I'm just a thief, and I'm way in over my head. Good thieves don't get caught up in political nonsense or world-ending shenanigans."

From the corner, Sheena spoke with pure disgust in her voice. "If you want to leave, I won't stop you. You can run right back to Margloom and get murdered by your Guildmaster for all I care. The rest of us are staying." I nodded in agreement.

"Yeah. I guess even if you stole all the money in the world you couldn't afford to have integrity, Monaco."

She glared at me murderously, her sharp canines showing through her curled lips. "At least I still have a father. And I'll do whatever it takes to save him, even if that means throwing you lot under the wagon."

Before I could act, Alverd cleared his throat. "That's enough, all of you." His tone was neutral, but there was enough anger in his eyes to see that he was trying his best to keep the peace. "Nobody is forcing Monaco to stay. If she wishes to leave, she can. The rest of us will do what we must." The knight and thief locked eyes with each other, and after a moment Monaco broke contact, her face cast downward in shame.

Slowly she stood, trying her best not to reveal how unsteady she was. Without saying anything else, she stumbled out the door and into the afternoon sun, shambling away as if possessed. When she was gone, the rest of us turned back to the subject of how to deal with Guunzel.

"We should head over to the Imperial Palace now," said Sheena. "After what happened we might be able to persuade the Emperor to remove the Legionnaires from Kierhai. We just have to convince him of the danger Guunzel and his men pose." She was about to stand up when a shrill sound filled the air.

It was too loud and high-pitched to be a scream, but after a few seconds I recognized it as some kind of whistle. Then, there was the sound of a gong being rung off in the far distance. Soon after, more gongs sounded, closer this time. Alarms. Guunzel isn't going to wait. He wants the Hand and he's done playing nice to get it.

Pushing myself off the ground, I grabbed my maul and ran outside. The Graveyard District was one of the few places in Blossom City that wasn't covered in large buildings, so with the ability to see the open sky I saw what was going on right away. A group of dragonriders was already approaching the city from the west, flying in a tight V formation like a flock of birds. There were only five of them, but I knew that five was more than enough to reduce a gatehouse's guard detail to ashes in a single pass.

Guards outside the district were blowing whistles, and the overlapping sounds they made only added to the confusion. There was screaming on the other side of the graveyard's wall, and I was sure that people were already running for safety. There is no safety when there are dragons involved.

I wasn't keen on the idea of fighting my own countrymen again, but Guunzel's men were zealots. They wouldn't stand down unless it was an order from him. Like it or not, I was going to have to fight them. My hands tightened around my maul, and as the others joined me outside I pointed out the dragonriders to them.

Then the formation went into a coordinated dive, all five of them plunging downward, and the real chaos started.