Pedr could barely breathe in the crowded streets of Ryuso, cram-packed with citizens marching to Town Square to see Lord Aidan Payne give his speech for their Liberation Day. He couldn’t take a single step without rubbing against the shoulders of the passing humans. The streets outlined with caravans acting as makeshift food and drink carts impeded the movement from block to block.

He held onto Belch’s hand, only so she didn’t get lost in the sea of Aidan’s biggest supporters. And there was an uncomfortable amount of them. Whenever he looked down at Belch, her eyes wandered around the city, gazing at the colored lights hanging off the top of the tall buildings to their sides. For once, in this dull city, Dormoor had colors. Rows of Red, blue, green, and yellow bulbs connected to copper strings pulled from the sides of the buildings, curving down to overlap with some windows.

It was a shock to see so many people support Aidan. How much had they known about their leader? They were clueless to the fact that Aidan had killed a hundred tributes, and all of them were practically children. It had been a miracle that Belch survived and not another addition to that counter. If she hadn’t lived, they would still be testing. And if they didn’t stop at a hundred, then Pedr didn’t see them stopping at a thousand.

Pedr knew all the kids that died too. He at first assumed they were going to serve as bodyguards for high-end nobility across Valoria. He thought that was the only purpose of training them, building their physique from youth before they sold them. That had been one of Dork’s most lucrative resources. Aidan had a point. They were all too similar to slaves, and Pedr still felt guilty for his involvement.

He did nothing to them but stand by when they were getting abused. He made his living off their misguided punishment for what? Having green eyes?

And that hurt. It cut deeper than any blade could. Everything Pedr thought he was against, he’d been a part of. He didn’t know if he could forgive himself for what he’d done. The kids he grew up helping were now buried six feet deep under the dirt of Aidan’s agenda.

But he could rebound off of his guilt by doing some right in the world for once. First things first, he could undermine Aidan’s plan by taking Belch out of his domain.

Pedr pulled at her hand, bringing her along through the street, his arm a leash. Town Square was still three blocks away, and Aidan demanded Belch be present by the time his speech began. It was a drag, coming out so late. He thought leaving two hours early for the event would be enough, but he underestimated Aidan’s popularity among his people.

At this rate, he didn’t think he could even reach the middle of the city in time. Dirty looks hit Pedr as he walked, though they were a lot less critical than the ones he received in Dork. How come that a nation that allowed swole slaves was more tolerant to his kind than dorn, a country which abolished slavery soon after the rest of the Valorian kingdoms?

Being swole in a human land had its complications at times. For one, his size. The doors here were built by humans, for humans. While most humans hated the elves far more than the swoles that they had enslaved, they always viewed themselves as the superiors of Gemkind. He could see that every time a human spoke to him, always with a little bit of condescension in their voices. Belch had been the only human who hadn’t spoken down to him, but that too could be a result of her upbringing. He couldn’t expect Belch to act like most humans when she never grew up considering herself one.

Belch saw the celebrating city as new and exciting. She didn’t comprehend that the darkness was still there under the bright colors, and perhaps she didn’t even consider just how bad Aidan Payne was. She told him once that Aidan offered his eyes in exchange for hers. Did she know what he meant by that?

Pedr drew his conclusions a while ago. Naming her “Vessel” and offering an exchange of eyes? It seemed evident to what his intentions were with her.

And if she didn’t understand, the blame shouldn’t be on her. It should be on Pedr, who helped raise the beasts to not think for themselves, but to obey every command of others.

Minutes passed, and they turned a corner to finally see the stage ahead. A wooden platform lifted by stone pillars without any guard rails. In the middle of the stage, a white marbled statue of Aidan Payne posing with his sword drawn to his right. It even had the lightning spiraling off the blade.

“Huh?” Belch uttered from Pedr’s side.

Pedr turned his head to the right, searching for her, barely able to find her connected by their hands. Some space cleared and revealed Belch holding the wrist of a short, white-skinned man. He had long, black hair, though not as long as Belch. He smiled with a look of amazement on his face.

“What’s going on?” Pedr asked. The man was shorter than Belch too. And from his skin tone, he was a foreigner to this country. “Who is this?”

“He reached his hand in my pocket,” Belch said.

The man laughed, embarrassed. “Orry, I’ve never been caught before… Not like this.”

“You’re a thief?” Pedr asked. He took a step forward.

The man shook his head. “No, I’m ‘ot exactly a thief. I… uh…”

Pedr frowned. “Yet you put a hand down her pants—” he paused, thinking. “You’re a perv!”

The man went red. “No! Gem God no! I’m not a ‘erv.”

Belch looked confused. She looked back and forth between the man and Pedr.

The man flushed. “Can you ‘et me go, madam?”

“Um, sure,” Belch said, releasing him. He immediately retreated through the crowd.

“Hey!” Pedr shouted after him, “Who are you!”

The man turned from the crowd. “You should worry about what I’ve taken from your ‘ockets.”

“What? Ockets?” Pedr huffed. He turned to Belch. “Did you have anything in your pockets?”

“The card!” Belch said, reaching into her pockets to check. She frowned, appearing to feel something else. She pulled out a folded piece of paper with a muddled expression. “What’s this?”

Pedr snagged it from her, opening it up.

Pedr. We are here for you, it read. His eyes widened reading. You are to attend the opening of Aidan’s speech. Let him see you from the crowd. When you feel that five minutes have passed, retreat to the gate in the east, where you will find a blue carriage in Midhelm’s colors. They will hide you and escort you out of the city. You will be awarded heavily for your heroism here.

“Pedr?” Belch looked up to him. “What’s wrong? You look sad.”

“No…” Pedr said. His face was in awe, easily mistaken for sadness, as he started shaking. “I’m quite happy, actually.”

What if she doesn’t want to leave? Pedr thought. He sighed. “Belch,” he said sternly. She looked at him, anticipating what he was about to say. “How would you feel if we get out of Dormoor and got away from Aidan.”

She raised her eyebrows.

“Would you go?” Pedr asked. “There is a kingdom called Soucrest to the east, right across your home country of Dork. It has beautiful green fields and flowers everywhere.” He spoke, citing words he knew she liked reading about.

Belch stood speechless, frozen in place.

“Aidan is dangerous!” Pedr pleaded with her. “He wants to take your body from you, wear your skin like a suit of armor! We aren’t safe here!”

Pedr scoffed, looking around as people passed them. None seemed to stop at the sight of a swole raising his voice to a young woman.

“I can’t promise your life will be much better…” Pedr admitted. What Soucrest would do her, Pedr had no clue. “But there, they’ll treat you with dignity, I’m sure of it. That card Kiba gave you was of their leader, Ranun Spring. He’s a good man. He freed my kind, whereas Aidan enslaves them! Please! I’m begging you!”

“I thought it wasn’t possible,” Belch said, softly speaking.

“What? What wasn’t possible?”

“I feel like I must leave,” Belch said. “Something told me since my first days here that I needed to leave. And this place you speak of, Soucrest, I want to go there! I don’t know why, but I do.”

“The man who put this in your pocket,” Pedr said, pinching the letter in his fingers. “He wants to bring us there, okay? We have a certain set of instructions to follow first, alright? We can leave.”

She nodded.

That went better than I thought, Pedr smiled, bringing her through the crowd to approach the center stage. The first person he saw was Kiba, sitting on the head of Aidan’s massive, stone statue, legs wrapped around the neck, a weird object in his hand. An inch thick, long iron slab holding a globe pinching between arching jaws from the metal. He waved, somehow spotting Pedr’s eyes through the large crowd. He supposed his body stood out in the ocean of humans attending the speech. Still, he waved back, grateful to the poor comedian.

It wasn’t long until Aidan arrived to resounding applause, heard all around the city. The cheers reached around buildings, bouncing back with roars of support.

Aidan coughed in the microphone, connected to amplifiers chained together throughout the city. Then he spoke, and Pedr thought he was about to go deaf.

***

Slater snuck through the crowd, slipping through the reverberating crowd and finding the two agent carriages still waiting in line to enter the city. They couldn’t have arrived at a better time, as by the time they entered, the speech had just begun, and by the time they circled back through this mess of a traffic jam, Pedr and Belch would arrive just before the escape, as walking from the stage would be a whole lot easier than walking out.

He knocked on the door to Mason’s carriage behind the one Slater traveled in.

Mason opened, with a cheerful smile, inviting Slater inside.

“You wouldn’t believe our ‘arget,” Slater said. “She ‘aught my hand planting the letter.”

“You’re kidding!” Mason laughed. “She caught you? Is this the first time that has ever happened to you?”

“Not the ‘irst,” Slater admitted. The plan was to put it in her pocket, undetected, before yelling a distance away at them to check their pockets. Mason wanted it that way, thinking a pair of eyes from Aidan’s side would also be watching over them, and if they spotted them together, they would grow suspicious. Unfortunately, that didn’t even matter. “But she ‘iterally caught my wrist as I pulled out. Managed to score ‘omething quite valuable from her though.”

Mason lowered a brow.

Slater turned his head to the left, seeing Dean preparing to scout. Quin napped, resting her head, using the top of a barrel as a stiff pillow. She must have had excellent infiltration skills of her own to sneak aboard their carriage. Then again, Mason was the type of man who would orchestrate Quin joining the agents on this operation.

Slater turned back to Mason, handing him the card he looted from Belch.

He handed over the card he picked from her pockets.

“She had Ranun’s card?” Mason asked, shocked. He glanced at it before handing it over to Delta, who studied it, eying the pink mist rising from the face of the holographic card. “This is worth a fortune! Where did she get this?”

“We’ll ‘ave to ask her,” Slater grinned. He looked to Delta. “I think you’ll like her! She ‘eems as feisty as you!”

Delta frowned, handing Mason back the card.

“You don’t have much more going on for you on this mission, do you?” Mason asked.

Slater shook his head. “Just a quick ‘weep to see if they find their ‘ay back to the carriage.”

“Then hold onto this,” Mason said, handing the card back over. “You should probably give it back to her. That probably left her with a bad first impression of you.”

Slater nodded. He was used to getting no impressions with his skill set. He tucked it into his pocket, knowing that the card was near indestructible and proofed to mostly anything that could deteriorate its value.

Dean went outside first, bringing his mask with him, only putting it on when he was in the crowd so they couldn’t trace him back to the carriage.

Slater kicked his legs back, resting his back against the wall before slumping down.

Curious woman, Slater thought, feeling his wrists. He still felt her light touch, gripping softly around his wrist. She didn’t snatch him hard like most would if they ever got the chance, yet she still had a sense of control over their exchange. I can’t wait to work with you…