The S class Guide belongs to the Duke

~Chapter 5~

The golden shimmer was still hanging at the edge of her vision when Elewisa realized she'd frozen solid in the doorway, and it was that — not his voice — that made her heart lurch first.

"Are you okay?" Caius's voice cut through her spiraling thoughts, and she blinked hard, forcing the strange, glowing text to blur into nothing before he could see whatever expression had settled on her face.

"I'm fine," she stammered, the words tumbling out too fast to be convincing. "Have a pleasant day, my lord."

She was gone before he could respond, feet carrying her down the corridor faster than propriety allowed, faster than her still-aching head could really tolerate. She didn't stop until she'd reached her own small room, until the door was shut behind her and her back pressed hard against it, chest heaving like she'd run twice the distance she actually had.

The small mirror above her washstand caught her reflection, pale and wide-eyed, and just beyond it — impossibly, maddeningly — the golden shimmer of text still hovering at the edge of her vision.

This isn't real.

She crossed the room in three unsteady steps and plunged both hands into the wash bucket, splashing cold water hard against her face, desperate for the shock of it to wake her from whatever fever dream this had become. Water dripped down her chin, soaked into the collar of her dress, and when she opened her eyes again, the words hadn't so much as flickered.

If anything, the cold, undeniable reality of water against her skin only confirmed what she'd been refusing to accept — she wasn't asleep. She wasn't dreaming. Whatever this was, it was happening to her, wide awake, in the unglamorous privacy of her own small room.

She splashed her face a second time anyway, some stubborn, frightened part of her still hoping for a different outcome. The screen remained exactly where it had been.

Elewisa froze.

A faint warmth had begun blooming just beneath her collar, soft and pulsing, and with hands that wouldn't stop trembling, she reached up and drew the fabric aside.

The gasp that left her was involuntary, sharp enough to hurt.

A mark sat just below her collarbone, delicate lines curling into a shape she didn't recognize, glowing faintly gold against her skin like something had been carved there while she slept. She stared at it in the mirror, heart hammering, and then — because some primal, panicked instinct demanded she try — she seized the damp cloth from beside the washbasin and began scrubbing.

It didn't fade. It didn't smudge. She scrubbed harder, desperate now, until her skin had gone raw and pink beneath the mark and tears blurred her vision, and still it sat there, patient and unbothered, glowing softly no matter how hard she tried to tear it away.

What is happening to me.

A sharp chime rang out in her mind, and she flinched so violently she nearly dropped the cloth. The golden timer she'd glimpsed earlier reappeared, hovering steady in the air before her, counting down in small, silent increments.

She sank onto the edge of her narrow bed, cloth forgotten in her lap, and pressed both hands against her face.

Who do I tell?

The answer arrived almost as quickly as the question — no one. There was no one. Caius would think her feverish, perhaps still concussed from the fall. The other staff already thought her strange enough, and after this morning, after Petra's threat still throbbing beneath the ache in her skull, she couldn't imagine confiding in a single living soul within these walls. She had no family left to turn to, no friend she trusted enough to whisper something like I think I'm losing my mind without fear of where those words might travel.

She was entirely, terrifyingly alone with whatever this was.

The timer pulsed once, insistent, and beneath it, an option flickered into view — open task. Her hand hovered in the air above nothing at all, feeling faintly ridiculous even as she did it, and then, because the alternative was sitting here in ignorance until the thing simply happened to her anyway, she gathered what courage she had left and reached for it.

[Task: Guide one (1) F-Class Esper. Failure to complete will result in Host penalty.]

Beneath it, two choices glowed in soft light — Accept and Reject — and beneath the second, smaller text warned that rejection, too, carried its own punishment.

A disbelieving, almost hysterical laugh escaped her. Guide. She wasn't a Guide. She was a maid who scrubbed floors and delivered tea and had spent the last thirteen years grateful simply to be alive and useful in this house. Whatever absurd system had attached itself to her mind had clearly made some catastrophic error.

Tomorrow, she told herself, desperate and unconvinced even as she thought it. Tomorrow this will be gone. I'll wake up and none of this will have happened.

She closed her eyes, willed the golden light away, and when she opened them again and it was still there, she simply looked away instead, curling onto her side atop the blankets and refusing to touch the task again.

The river caught the afternoon light in long, silver ribbons, and Cedric stood at its edge exactly where he had the night before, watching the water move as though it might explain itself if he stared long enough.

"Captain."

Nevan Severos jogged the last stretch toward him, breathless, his B-Class Guide markings faintly visible along the back of one hand where his sleeve had ridden up. He was younger than Cedric by several years, sharp-featured and quick-tongued in a way that made him useful in negotiations and insufferable everywhere else.

"You're late," Cedric said, without turning from the water.

"My apologies, Captain. I was seeing the unit settled." Nevan fell into step beside him, glancing curiously toward the river as though trying to work out what could possibly be so interesting about it. "The count's staff pointed me your way. Said you'd been out here a while."

Cedric said nothing to that.

"Everyone's settled, for what it's worth," Nevan added when the silence stretched too long for his taste. "Quarters, supplies, the usual grumbling about provincial accommodations. Any progress on the mission, Captain?"

"None yet." Cedric's gaze stayed fixed on the water a moment longer before he finally turned. "I need you to run a background check."

Nevan straightened instantly, all business now. "On who? Is this connected to the mission? Do we have a lead on—"

"Elewisa, her name is Elewisa.”

Nevan blinked. "Elewisa." He turned the name over like it might mean more the second time. "One of the count's people?"

"A maid at the manor."

The silence that followed was almost comedic in its length. "A maid," Nevan repeated slowly, and something like dawning, delighted disbelief crept across his face. "Captain. With respect. Are you telling me the coldest, most insufferably serious man in the entire Esper Royal Army has developed a sudden, personal interest in a maid?" (This part should be his thoughts)

"I'm telling you to run a background check," Cedric said flatly.(you can keep this but make Nevan ask a more reasonable question to get this response)

"Because if that's what's happening here, I need you to know this is the single most interesting thing that's happened to me in the last three years, and I intend to—"

Cedric's stare could have frozen the river solid.

Nevan's grin faltered, then vanished entirely. "Right. Background check. On it." He cleared his throat, straightened his collar, and made a valiant, visible effort to look like a professional soldier rather than a man who'd just been handed the gossip of a lifetime.

Cedric turned back toward the water, and the motion cost him more than he expected — a sudden, wrenching pain lancing through his chest, sharp enough to steal the breath from his lungs. He staggered half a step before catching himself against a nearby tree, jaw clenched tight against the urge to make a sound.

"Captain!" Nevan was at his side in an instant, hand hovering near his shoulder, not quite daring to touch. "Are you—"

"I'm fine." The words came out through gritted teeth, entirely unconvincing.

"You are very clearly not fine." Nevan's voice sharpened with genuine concern now, all teasing gone. "You haven't had proper guiding in weeks. This is exactly what happens when you keep refusing—"

"I said I'm fine." Cedric straightened, forcing his breathing steady through sheer will, though the tightness in his chest hadn't fully released.

Nevan studied him a moment longer, clearly unconvinced, before exhaling and deciding — wisely — not to push further on that particular point. "The Emperor sent a replacement," he said instead. "For your last Guide. Had them brought all the way from the capital in Sector One."

"I don't need one. Send them back."

"Captain, with respect, I don't think that's an option this time." Nevan's expression turned careful, the particular carefulness of a man delivering news he already knew wouldn't be welcome. "His Majesty was quite specific in his letter. Said, and I quote, he'd hate for his finest Duke to collapse from stubbornness before the mission's even finished." A pause. "They're already settled at the inn just outside the estate, Captain. Waiting on your word."

Cedric's jaw tightened, the pain in his chest still humming faint beneath his ribs, and for a long, silent moment he said nothing at all — because there was, infuriatingly, no version of this where refusing the Emperor's gift ended well for him.

"Fine," he said at last, low and clipped. "I'll see to it tomorrow."

Nevan's relief was visible, right up until Cedric turned back toward the manor and added, almost as an afterthought, in a tone that promised this conversation was far from over: "And Nevan. I want that background check on my desk by morning."