"Let me see!"
"Move aside!" People hurried to take a look at the fabulous promise.
All of them, those who, as soon as they were old enough to enter the sinuous alleys of the darkest corners of the city, rushed inside the infamous hostel to talk about the announcement.
Never before could Arthur compare such a wide range of ages. For a little bit of time, he admired the decay and flourishing of life. His mind was paralyzed with the hundreds of faces depicting their surprise and envy. The tongues untied as their owner brandished the poster like a trophy, all were eager to find a better life under the royal promise.
No one knew who the prince was. Gossip around a white-haired man coursed through Tash during the night, it was a little far for the inner-city population to reach the Last Pillar before the execution. The details revolving around the frantic runaway were scarce, but the few that existed were already crawling their way to the castle.
Two reptilian eyes landed on Arthur's face. Bast's doubts were fond, she knew hair could lose its colors because of an overdose of fear, but his noble blood was too obvious.
As soon as she judged the people to be too distracted to look at her, she took Arthur by his collar and dragged him back into her room, if there was a way for her to exploit his weakness, she was about to discover it.
Before passing through the corridor's door frame, she picked up an untouched plate from a nearby table as well as a cup of milk.
The small chunks of meat were steamy and the gravy covering the vegetables was thick and moist.
Only after putting the boy down did she realize he was gone for another mind trip. His eyes were lazily venturing on the ceiling as his cloak's shape took back its former silhouette.
"Lance...?" Bast asked with hesitation. She was afraid to aggravate the boy's fragile state of mind, most of the few reactions he had to their interactions were negative.
She rolled her eyes back before turning toward a low shelf. She proved to be very skillful with a pair of scissors that barely fitted her fingers. While she was intensely focusing on cleaning the skin surrounding Arthur's head injury, she saw a blue reflect again coursing through the walls, the boy had come back to his senses.
"A discreet leech..." He whispered with a regretful tone. The reproachful words he let out were meant for himself more than Bast.
"See, boy? You have to build your backstory as soon as you encounter troubles." She said, carefully irrigating the wound with a smelly liquid.
He was reluctant to ask because he was almost certain of the answer. "Will you let me go if I was to ask you?"
"Not before I clarify the mysteries hovering above this pretty face of yours."
It was straightforward. The wyrmfolk was undeniably ready to question her guest on all points.
"I heard a longer story concerning the castle while you were asleep. It might sound foolish but you should lay your cards on the table here and now before the backlash crushes you down, boy. Tell me, why would you cower to the guards?"
Her question turned out to be an order, with just the twist of her wrist she could inadvertently worsen Arthur's wound.
"Then make sure to spare me until the end of the conversation."
Bast's voice hissed in his ears with enough venom to kill every guest. "Talk. Convince me."
A dim reflection caught her attention.
By reflex, she caught the silvery coin mid-air and looked at the tiny number carved on the first side of it. It was like a token, a few seconds he just bought to give a plausible explanation.
"This is how much I am worth to you." The boy said, turning his entire body toward the giant woman.
The coin that fell from the table when Bast's guildmate paid the bill gave Arthur the means to plead his case more than humbly.
"It doesn't look like much, I don't think you're using the right object to picture your situation..."
Arthur's index moved left and right, but his head moved up and down. He was pushing the matter away with peripheral details.
"This coin has no dent. It was taken from the place it belonged to... From the bartender's pocket, though he doesn't know about it yet."
He put a little bit of pressure on the other side of the coin and continued.
"You have no idea of the origin of this coin yet you're now paying peculiar attention to every detail I came up with. Alone, it can't do much, it won't ever change the world. This should be how much you value this coin up to now."
Arthur forced his hand into hers and made the piece of metal rotate.
"And here I stand, just to prove I can change your point of view. This is a token."
He pulled the air at the top of his head backward and gave his gloomiest glare. Bast's eyes went wide open when she noticed how similar his face was compared to the one on the coin.
It was old, more than twice the boy's age, yet the royal effigy fitted in too many points for it to be a mere coincidence.
His cyan eyes pierced through the dark ambiance of the room, there was no way for Bast to stop comparing the two. The boy's aura abnormally resonated with the coin, his creepy stone face, and his straight posture further emphasized his seriousness. The weight of the secret almost made the wyrmfolk's knees buckle.
Instead, she burst out laughing. The devilish smile that twisted her face was corrupted by the growing uncertainty in her mind.
"That's the best prank anyone has ever pulled on me!"
"Isn't it a little far-fetched for a prank?" Arthur said, pointing at the bloody bandages she just finished replacing. "Why don't you give it a try then? Go ahead, turn me in."
Her jaw muscles relaxed with the hammering beat of her heart, enough for her lips to part ways out of doubt. She saw the boy opening the only window and moving close to the balcony. He let go of her cloak and raised one hand toward her, the only means for her to take back her chance.
He looked disappointed in her reaction, and Arthur shrugged. "I'll come back. And I'll make this place burn down. I'll cage every one of your guild mates here just to make you realize how much you had to lose."
He allowed Bast to choose her fate, using the only tool his father never bothered to teach him, Arthur used the terrific traits of the king to pressure down the woman.
Deep inside, he wanted to resemble his father. He needed to improve the image he had of himself in front of the woman from the depths of society. Their gazes were welded to each other.
"This is what taking hostages looks like." He said, sipping milk from the wooden cup as if it was his usual expensive tea.
Bast was left speechless. Every string she pulled on to manipulate the teenager turned out to help the boy do the same. Her breathing accelerated and drips of sweat rolled down her wide forehead.
The first information had yet to sink in when she used the bed as a physical and mental support to parry the shock.
The two reasons she had to hate the kingdom until death exited her mouth in a whisper she couldn't add strength to. She muttered the names of the two children she had to give up because they were to serve the country.
And there, in front of her, stood the most powerless, unknown person in the world, the infamous prince of the Tashran kingdom.
She pulled the boy from the window and forced him into her embrace, she did imagine the terrible life one had to endure to be willing to improve others. The reasons behind Arthur's runaway hit her right in the gut.
Rather than venting her hunger and opening a crater in his face, she used Arthur like a teddy bear to repress her everlasting suffering.
The boy felt it again, the unidentifiable sensation that emanated from the giant lizard. It was a motherly embrace, nothing he ever experienced before, even though they were thinking about different matters, both were pulled deep into their worst loss. His fingers twitched and his face distorted under the weight of his memory.
Soon, he had no more strength to push the woman away nor the will to. It was his first gateway to let go of his remorse and he took it. He accepted the restraint like a gift as if the missing piece of his terrible puzzle was given without being asked anything in exchange.
The only words that came to his mind were the short recollection he had of Lancelot's execution. "He made me kill him..." He sobbed, unable to stop the flow of his tears.
The diamond in the rough that faced for the first time a true emotional reaction from his threat was falling apart. He never knew he could share his misery with someone, let alone a thief who lived her whole life running away from her responsibilities. The higher the step he stood on, the harder the fall he went through.
He was straining the compassion out of a stranger, and it terrorized him to see her in distress.
It took them forever to calm down. The reptilian tail was still coiling around Arthur when Bast finally let her questions out.
"How will you fulfill your duty? How come you believe it's even possible?"
"I have seen a map, I know where to go, I'll overpower my family with the legendary treasure and create a perfect world, one where you'll have your children back, the ones you were meant to love."
She let out a dry laugh. "The shock on your head must've been much stronger than I thought, for you to get this degree of insanity..."
He sat more comfortably, away from their awkward cuddle before starting a long monologue during which he described with sordid details, Lancelot's death. He added everything that made Lancelot the friend he was, the inextinguishable flame that made him different from others.
Bast heard every flickering in the boy's voice. However, there was such a strong resolution she trusted every one of his words. His perfect face doubled by his immaculate charisma pushed his clear speech to its paroxysm when he locked his eyes on her.
She picked up her affairs scattered left and right in her room, opened up drawers, and emptied each of them, once so often she did bother sniffing her snot back into her nose.
"You got nothing to wear, right?" She asked.
"I don't care, even if I have to rot in those." He replied, pointing at his underpants.
After pushing the plate forward, she reached for his tainted hair and spoke with another warm smile.
"Lance, you do realize it will be no easy task?"
His head trauma started to corrode his senses anew. He could see the ghost of the omnimancer standing silently in the room, he was telling him to carry on.
"I do, Bast. I do."