“So… you’re an ascetic?” I asked Nimor. Asking questions helped distract me from thinking too much. And it made Nimor seem more human. He was still a murderer though. I struggled to forget that.

“In the same way I’m a person, I guess, but I’d prefer to call myself a man, and in the republic, and really anywhere outside of the church, we’d call ascetics, seers.”

Nimor rarely gave straight answers, but he always answered. I didn’t know why. I’d yet to run out of things to ask him.

He had an annoying bandit charm to him. He spoke in twists and turns but you would listen closely just in case there was something important in the sleights of his tongue.

He would laugh often too, mostly at his own jokes. I tried to stay rational. In war, in conflict, people must lose, and between Velma and Nimor, Velma lost. She may have even been on the bad team too.

Once as a child, circus folk came to perform in our village. They brought this massive boar, with large dirty tusks and had it compete against men of their own for a show. All the village folk would cheer for me the circus men. One of the men was notable though. He would taunt the boar, prodding it with his spear, kicking it whenever it missed an attack on him. He made the boar angrier and angrier. The crowd loved it. They threw coins in support until the boar managed to catch his waste with his tusk. It mauled him. Grinding his flesh and bone into a pile before anyone could help him.

That’s what Nimor felt like. He felt like the boar that had one. I was sure Velma was bad, she may have even deserved to be hunted and killed for the beads. The man mattered more than the boar to me and she mattered more than Nimor.

So far, I’d only asked about him and the republic. And he answered, often theatric. I’d found out he’d grown up poor, but in a happy family, in a village in the Kingdom of Earth. A horde of wind wolves attacked it. The forest by their village had eiden trees. He said they helped nourish the craft innate in all living things, and wind wolves were a result of it: wolves able to manipulate craft. They killed his family and most of his friends. He was seventeen.

Then he went traveling in search of a way to fill the hole made and found a strong knight. He found him locked in battle against three others. He was of the Republic and the rest of the Church. The knight slew the three men and won Nimor’s respect. Nimor found a way to impress the knight and became his apprentice.

How you impress a knight of that caliber I did not ask. I had yet to ask about Velma or Emra either, I didn’t know if that was because I couldn’t get over Velma’s death or if I was worried about where those conversations would lead. He was always friendly, usually making a joke or talking with passion. Something in me wanted to trust him. But I saw him champion the bronzes and steal from an ascetic all in the same day. I knew not to.

“You asked me did I feel it, in the forest with the keep, the pyr-craft. How-what did I do?” I asked.

“Ah, you did, didn’t you? You felt it quick. Most of the boys were still trying to get a feel for it, even after I’d been there for months. Took me ten days of training to first use it… Ah, but you did have the beads didn’t you, that probably had something to do with it.” He felt at his pocket and I shuddered at the mention of the beads.

I was too scared to talk. I wasn’t sure if I should mention I hadn’t even seen the beads then, not until I found them in the tomes. But at least now I knew he definitely took them. He must have known then that they were connected to the book, and he was willing to kill Velma for that. He probably had me alive just to tell him where the rest of them were.

“I bet I know what you want to ask now,” Nimor said.

I could feel my blood rushing. It was time.

“Tense again, you need to learn to relax kid, or you’ll blow like Velma.” He smiled to himself as though he’d made a really good joke.

My blood rushed more heavy. I couldn’t handle him looking so lowly at her life. I felt a cold clarity; this man was a killer. Something snapped in me. I expected my fear to rise but what came was adrenaline. I swiped my hand across the table, sending both our platters flying. I wanted to cause a commotion. I couldn’t escape him. I couldn’t fight him. I had to give him other trouble…

Both Nimor’s hands flew, morphing into cliff stone daggers and stabbing the meats mid-air. Although the plates didn’t make noise, the scene was big enough for eyes to turn to us from all directions.

“This is why I don’t want kids,” he sighed.

“Republican scum,” A man hollered from across the room.

I surveyed the room and found a few eyes looking our way. All of them were dead on Nimor. If I caused enough trouble for him, maybe I could get free of him.

I saw a vein bulge on Nimor’s forehead. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen my mother, got a problem with me playing with my food?” Nimor half laughed, half growled back.

I saw more heads turn. Initially, the looks were privy of Nimor’s hands, but now they turned between us and the direction the slur came. Most of their eyes were expectant but some measuring.

The man who’d shouted rose from his seat and walked towards us. From the way he dressed you expected his steps to ring with the clang of gold. But his movements were sloppy and his eyes dragged; you could tell he’d been drinking for a while. “So, they don’t even teach you enough manners over there,” he said. “Maybe I should teach yah.”

“Should be interesting, I’ve had plenty of lessons but none from a court jester,”

The man’s brow twitched. You could see he was ready to attack. When his arms rose, I expected him to charge at Nimor and swing, but instead, he punched at the air. For a second, I was confused, then it came.

From his fist a wall of light-blue energy. Like a projection of his punch, it flew through the air, garnering size as it closed the distance to Nimor.

This is exactly what I wanted to build to, but I expected an argument, not a full-blown, craft charged fight. This was the perfect time for me to escape. But I stayed frozen to my seat. Lost in awe at the craft.

Something ticked inside of me. I saw Velma’s pulses attacks. Nimor’s kick. My mind even went back further and replayed the stories of great warriors I’d heard of, now they felt more vivid, they felt real.

I watched as the attack flew to Nimor. he’d yet to move and it was nearing.

He rose. I’d only seen him morph his limbs so far, so I was ready to see him block in the same way. Instead, he did what the guy had done, his own light-blue wall forming, but wider.