The S class Guide belongs to the Duke

~Chapter 12~

The third guiding had already drained Elewisa; who knew guiding even the lowest rank would take such a toll on her.

She wiped the sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand before moving on to the next person.

“Miss.” A bottle was nudged towards her.

“Thank you,” she said as she took the bottle and drank from it and the water seemed to have helped even just a tiny bit.

“I think you should take a break.” the man who had offered her the bottle said. His name was Brom, a dockhand with shoulders like barrel staves, the one with the worst condition; his core was extremely damaged and although he was an F-rank Esper it had taken her quite a lot to get it back up in shape.

“It's alright, I'm fine.” Elewisa smiled weakly, as she proceeded to guide the next person.

She had to wrap things up fast, report back to the free hall and head back to the manor before it got too late. Upon arriving at the inn she had learnt quite a lot from these men, like the fact that the inn they were at is secretly owned by the master of the free hall who goes by Master R, and the inn was used as a meeting place for Guides and Espers from the free hall and there are several inns just like this scattered across all sectors of the Empire.

A small gold figure burning in the corner of her sight.

Warning!!

[Mark Concealment: 0:43:53 time remaining.]

She had activated it before the first session. Four hours was enough for five Espers, if nobody lingered. She had not counted on how much they would want to talk.

"How do you feel?" she asked, Bram

"Like someone opened a window in my chest." Bram dragged his sleeve across his face. "I can breathe, miss. First time in two years."

Joss was the last to receive guiding; he was a young fisher with a burned arm, the man before him Old Hask had gone quiet and kissed her knuckles, which she had not known how to bear. Dalen and Pip had been so stunned they had not moved from the bench by the fire, and now all five of them crowded the little parlor, drinking weak tea and staring at her as though she might vanish if they blinked.

"Five coppers, one for each," Hask said, nodding at her hand. "That's the f*e, miss. The boss sets it. We could never pay more."

"Five coppers is all?"

"I'm sorry miss, but for us it's a fortune." Joss grinned, but it faded. "The last Guide I asked wanted forty silver. I'd have had to sell my boat, and it still wouldn't be enough."

"Even an F-Class Guide won't look at us," Dalen said, turning his cup in his hands. "They're as rare as hen's teeth, and they don't waste it on low ranks like us. Why would they? Better to serve some lords who pay in land and titles."

Elewisa understood that better than he thought she did; as a maid herself, she understood the hierarchy in this world. A high rank meant gold and honors and a place at the Emperor's table. It also meant a bracelet and a dawn collection and a life that belonged to someone else. She had watched a girl learn that in the registry hall only hours before.

"Then… who gives you guiding?" she asked.

"The boss, when it's bad enough," Hask said. "Sends someone, or pays the difference himself. Took in Pip's brother when no one else would. Most of us would be dead without him."

“We owe him our lives.” Pip nodded in agreement.

"He never asks for much," Pip said softly. "Only that we remember."

"Remember what?"

Pip shrugged, suddenly shy. Hask changed the subject with a cough. "Miss, forgive an old man's nosiness. But aren't you an A-Class guide? An A-Class Guide has no reason to sit in a dark room with the likes of us."

“Well, it just happened," she said. "And I don't think a person's worth is the mark on their wrist,"

“I don't mind in the slightest.”

The parlor went still. Then Hask lowered his head. "Then you are more rare than even an A-Class, miss."

She said nothing. She was watching the way they spoke of the masked man, with gratitude almost like prayer. A man who gave and also took. She did not yet know what he took, but she knew he was no ordinary man.

The corridor outside was quiet, lit by a single lamp at each end, and Elewisa walked it slowly with one hand trailing along the wall.

Her legs felt as if someone had unstrung them. Five guidings had drained her more than she had expected, a hollow ache behind her ribs where the warmth used to sit. She leaned against a doorframe and let her head rest against the wood.

The inn belonged to the Master R. One of the clerks had told her so, in passing, as if it were the weather. It made sense, she thought. A place on the edge of town, with private rooms and no questions, where people who could not afford a guide could be guided and no one reported it to the Crown. A kindness. Or a net.

A soft chime sounded behind her eyes. Gold light bloomed against her lashes.

Congratulations host

Task complete. Guide five (5) F-Class Espers. Reward granted. Claim at will.

System update achieved; open to read more

She pressed her palm to her forehead and almost laughed. Three coppers, five grateful men, and a reward she was far too tired to open. Tomorrow, she told herself.

“System update?” she said almost to herself what does that even mean?

She would read it in the morning, when her head was clear.

Warning!!!

[Mark Concealment: 9:58 remaining.]

She straightened. Nine minutes. Enough to get out of the building and back to the manor before anyone could see her collar. She turned toward the stairs.

A heavy thud shook the floor above her.

Elewisa froze.

Silence. Then a low, ragged groan drifted through the ceiling, the sound of someone in more pain than he or she could hold.

She hesitated. The corridor was empty. The clerks were downstairs. Everyone she had met tonight had gone home. She climbed the stairs anyway, one hand tight on the rail, and followed the sound along the upper hall to a door at the far end that sat slightly open, as though someone had left in a hurry.

"Hello?" she whispered. "Are you all right?"

A rasp answered. A single word, barely a breath.

"Help."

She tried calling down the corridor. "Is anyone there? Someone is hurt." Nothing answered her. The lamps flickered.

She pushed the door, and it swung inward without a sound.

The room was dim and smelled of wine and jasmine. A chair lay on its side. A cup had rolled across the floorboards, and beside it lay a crumpled sheet of paper with a smear of black wax. At the foot of the bed, a figure was curled on the floor, one arm braced against the mattress as if he had tried to climb back up and failed.

The thud, she thought. He fell.

"Sir?" She rushed across the room and dropped to her knees beside him. "Sir, can you hear me?"

She set her hand on his shoulder.

Energy tore out of her.

It was like a drain opening beneath her skin. Warmth rushed from her palm into his body in a hard, spinning current, and her knees almost buckled. She snatched her hand back, gasping. The man groaned, a raw broken sound, and his shoulders shook.

“An Esper,” she whispered.

I did not mean to guide him, she thought, horrified. I did not mean to.

For one second she had seen it, an impression like a flash behind her eyes. Something round and bright, cracked all over like a glass bowl dropped on stone, with light spilling through every fracture. She blinked, and it was gone. Exhaustion, she told herself. Only exhaustion.

"Help," he said again, hoarse, the word slurred and without direction. He was not asking anyone. He was not even awake, not truly.

She could not leave him like this.

She pulled her hood lower over her face, took a breath, and slid both arms beneath his shoulders. He was heavy, hot with fever, damp hair clinging to his brow. She rolled him gently onto his back and straightened his collar. Every inch of contact pulled at her energy, a steady dragging like a tide, and she set her teeth and let it.

His head fell to one side in the lamplight.

Her breath stopped.

Dark hair. A hard, beautiful face drawn tight with pain. The cold line of the jaw she had last seen above a shirt collar by the river.

"Duke Cedric," she whispered.

She started to draw her hands away.

His fingers closed around her wrist.

[Mark Concealment: 5:15 remaining.]

His eyes snapped open.

They were dark and glassy with fever, fixed on the shadow of her hood. He did not seem to see her. Yet his grip did not loosen, and beneath her collar the first warm pulse of the mark began to stir