"So tell me, Marcus, how did you know about my special force?" Garnell asked him.
"I... I had a dream, as stupid as it sounds," he responded.
"I see. And did this dream of yours offer any other information that might be useful?"
"Maybe," Marcus responded after a brief pause. "It was only the night before yesterday I made sense of it enough to figure it out."
It was the day after the exam. That morning, guards had arrived and taken the three children who had been chosen for the Guard. A little while later, the commander had come, personally, to take Marcus and his friends a secret, undisclosed location.
"You alright?" Elanor asked Bran as the other two talked, noticing a change to his usual demeanour.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," he responded with a smile.
They travelled South for a short while before stopping abruptly in the middle of the empty road.
"Why are we stopping here?" Elanor asked. Looking out of the small window at the back of the carriage, she saw that they were flanked on both sides by a dense, dark forest.
"It's easier to get to the hideout on foot," Garnell told her.
After walking for a few minutes through the wet, uneven, ground of the forest, they stumbled out of the forest, dirty and out of breath, at the opening that housed the hideout.
"Here we are," Garnell informed them. "Hard to believe that not much more than a decade ago this was little more than a run-down, out of business tavern, isn't it?" he said before leading them inside.
The inside of the hideout looked like any generic tavern, complete with an upstairs that presumably held bedrooms, although the emptiness of both the seats and the display behind the bar gave away its identity.
There were three figures sat inside. One was sat at the furthest table, their back facing the door. The back of their head was covered by a black hood.
At the bar, a man leaned over and grabbed a bottle from underneath. After lifting it up and shaking it, he threw the bottle against the far wall, angered by the lack of liquor inside. "Fuck!" he yelled with an accent.
"Ivor, shut up," the third person, a woman judging from the voice, yelled, raising her head to look at him. She looked at the door as the four walked in, and her jaw dropped.
Marcus recognised her from his dreams, and from another place.
He had seen that black hair and those hazel eyes somewhere else before.
"You were that woman from back then, right?" Marcus asked her, drawing strange looks from Bran and Elanor. "You remember, Bran? That time with the creature just outside the orphanage, years ago?" he added in response to their confused look.
"How..."
"How can you remember that? You were four."
"You knew how old I was then, too. Who are you?"
"Commander... Marth, what's going on here? Why is he here? Why now?"
"He knew," the commander answered flatly.
"He... knew? Knew what?"
"About this."
"He KNEW?" she repeated, her eyes widening as she spoke. "How?"
"A dream, apparently."
Tess answered with silence, a confused expression spreading across her face.
"So... who are you?" Marcus asked, breaking the brief silence. "Didn't you have a thing with your cheek?" he quickly added as the thought entered his mind.
"My cheek?" she asked, raising a hand to her face subconsciously. "That doesn't matter now."
"I... I'm your sister."
The room fell silent, save for the sound of breath catching in Marcus's throat, and distant murmurs from the other two in the room. His eyes widened as he took in what she said.
"M... my sister? But where are... why did you... why was I..."
Words caught in his throat as he tried to comprehend what he had just heard.
"Isn't that the first time he's ever got emotional about something?" Bran whispered to Elanor.
"Pretty much," she responded, as Marcus shook his head.
'No, now's not the time for that,' he thought to himself as he drove the emotion that welled up inside him back down.
"Is she why you brought us here? Specifically here?" he asked the commander.
"No. But I do think she's a good choice to tutor the three of you," he responded.
"Agreed," Tess added. "First, I need to know what I'm dealing with. What are their ranks?"
"Branhen Tarno, rank B," Garnell said.
"Elanor Loxley, rank E," he continued.
"And, you already know Marcus's."
"So, the girl is an E, the boy is a B, and Marcus is S."
"An S?" Marcus exclaimed.
"He's an S rank?" Elanor asked.
Tess nodded. "I asked that it not be put on the official documentation until you were older, back when the tests were first done."
"It does make more sense than you being a D," Elanor said to Marcus. "After all, what D would have two elements without having little to no stamina for it?"
"Okay," Tess said, standing up. "I'll plan some training for you based on your rank. First, let me show the three of you upstairs to the rooms." As she spoke, she began moving to the stairs on the right.
"Hang on," she said, turning back around. "Where's the other boy? Wasn't there three of you?"
Marcus and Elanor looked around and found no signs of Bran.
"I'll take a look outside," Elanor said, before passing back through the open door.
She didn't have to search far, finding Bran over by the trees surrounding the building.
"What's the matter with you?" she asked as she walked over to him.
"It's nothing," he responded sharply.
"There's clearly something. I noticed something was off with you earlier."
"I said it's nothing," he snapped.
"Just... talk to me, okay? I might be able to help."
"You couldn't. You wouldn't get it."
"Is it a boy thing? Do you want to talk to Marcus?"
Bran gave her a mocking laugh. "Typical."
"Typical? Bran, what's the matter with you? Let me help."
"You always turn to him for help. You can't help, because you can't understand. Your parents died, I was abandoned," he said in a malicious tone. "You and him have always been commended, I was only ever scorned. I was never chosen for anything, never accepted. I thought, finally, that I was chosen by magic more than him, and that's all I could cling to, whenever I was criticised for something, and he was praised, at least I had that. And now I don't."
"It feels like I'm destined to always exist in the shadow of another, and I don't want that. I can't have that. I'm not cut out for this place, so I'll go back with the commander."
"To be honest, I'm not sure if I even want to be here. He just sprung this bullshit on us, without considering what we want. Just think about that before you commit to anything."
Without giving her a chance to respond, he walked back to the building and spoke to the commander, taking him to one side to avoid the conversation being overheard by those in the hideout.
"Marcus."
Marcus looked around, hearing a woman's voice calling his name, but saw nothing with his eyes.
"Marcus."
Upon hearing the voice a second time, his confusion grew. He knew it probably wasn't a hallucination, yet had no explanation for the sound.
"Marcus, it's Angelina."
A wave of familiarity washed over him upon hearing that name. Where he had heard it first he didn't know, but it gave his a form of comfort.
"One of your assigned missions is at risk."
Looking over at Bran, Marcus realised what was happening.
'He's planning on leaving us here, isn't he? Why? Surely he can see this is for the best?' he thought.
'What did I do wrong? What didn't I do? The Guard is a bad choice for him, right? I have to try and stop him.'
'No. I don't have to do anything. If he's too much of a fool to see what's good for him, then I don't have to force him to stay. I just have to make sure he doesn't die, so I can let him be stupid.'
"Marcus," Elanor said, hurriedly coming back into the building. "Bran said-"
"I know. Let him leave, he'll see how bad it is for himself," Marcus responded, barely shifting his vision to her.
"Leave him? We can't do that, he's our friend," she said, a hint of shock creeping across her voice.
"He won't listen to us. Believe me, he has to choose to come back to us by himself."