A month before.
Two guards led Alya into the dining room of the Meijer mansion, lavishly decorated with sky blue walls, the edges of which were painted with intricate and careful ornamentation. Silver curtains swayed in the wind blowing through the long windows.
'Why are they watching me as if I was a criminal?' The girl asked herself, glancing at one of the two guards who were escorting her. 'Did they forget that I used to live in this mansion?' The men carried spears and wore a silver and olive green uniform. On the chest, they had the sigil of the Meijer house: two white wings.
In the center of the dining room, there was a long mahogany table, almost empty, except for the last seat, that of the owner of the house, on which sat the patriarch of the Meijer house, who had his back to the fireplace in the room.
The man was stocky, with a wrinkled, hard face. He still had olive green hair, similar to Alya's, though with a layer of gray near his ears. "What do you want?" The man asked, chewing on a piece of chicken. His voice echoed in the room.
"Lord Meijer," replied the girl, lowering her head, "I have come to inform you of some unpleasant news: my mother, Lady Julia, the wind swordswoman, has passed away."
The man kept eating from his plate as if Alya wasn't there. As if the girl hadn't just said out loud that her mother had died.
Alya waited for an answer. There was none.
"My lord?" She broke the silence.
"Girl?" The man sounded upset.
"My Lord, my mother, Lady Julia…"
"Yes, yes, girl, I heard you fine the first time," he stopped chewing and sneered at the girl. His voice held suppressed rage. "What do you want me to do about it?"
"Well…um…. Perhaps… you could… publish a statement… you know, words of condolences on the death of my mother, after so many years of service to the Meijer household…"
"Beg your pardon?" The Lord interrupted her. "You must be joking, Isn't that so?"
Alya tensed.
"No, my Lord, I…"
"What do you REALLY WANT, girl?"
The girl clenched her fists. 'What I really want…'
Alya looked up, at the wall above the fireplace. There, horizontally, was hanging the High Honor sword, the legendary weapon wielded by the leaders of the Meijer house.
"My Lord," she spoke, looking at the sword, "I... want to return to the mansion."
The man raised an eyebrow. "Back to the mansion?"
"Yes, My Lord. I want to follow in my mother's footsteps. I want to serve the Meijer house."
Lord Meijer took a bite into his mouth. "No."
"My Lord?"
"Are you deaf, girl?"
"But…"
"Your services will not be required in this house," the man's voice was strong, authoritative.
Alya's chest rose and contracted, rhythmically, like the drum of frustration and rage.
"Father…," she uttered.
"What did you say?" Lord Meijer rose abruptly from his chair, his eyes wide.
Alya looked at the man defiantly. "Father," she repeated. "I ask you to allow me to be the heir to your legacy. Let me carry the banner of the Meijer house."
"Have you gone mad, girl? Do you want me to cut out your tongue?"
"You know the truth. You know that the blood of the Meijer runs in my veins…"
"SILENCE!" The Lord exploded "ENOUGH! I will no longer listen to the craziness of a bastard!"
Bastard… that word hurt her more than the cuts of a sword.
Lord Meijer approached the girl and looked at her with contemptuous eyes. "Listen to me, girl. You may have gotten out of my cum, but you are not daughter of mine. You are not worthy to wear my sigil. I shall see this mansion burn to ashes, before I see my father's name and my grandfather's name, in the hands of a dirty brown skin bastard like you."
Those words cut her soul. They hurt. So, so, much. She didn't know what to do, or what to answer. She just fell silent, willing a hole to open up beneath her and swallow her.
The man turned and walked back to his seat. "Now, go away. I do not want to see you again."
Alya turned and strode forward, almost running toward the exit. She didn't wait for the soldiers to guide her. She cursed inside. None of it was fair.
When she reached the gate of the mansion, a crazy thought came to her mind. A crazy idea.
'I will take the sword. It's mine by right," she thought. It was the fair thing to do. Lord Meijer had no male offpring. He would die alone, with no heirs. 'Yes, I will take High Honor and uphold my family's legacy.'
In the present.
Alya had been alone in the ship's cell for a long time. They had taken Igneous and who knew if he was still alive. Would they have killed him? No, it didn't make sense for him to be killed and Alya left alive. It had to be something else.
Her stomach growled . A rat ran across one end of the room and climbed through a hole in the black wood. If there were rats on the ship, there must be food somewhere.
'As hungry as I am, those rats don't look too bad,' she thought. Then she remembered the spider she ate in that cold cave. 'I never thought I would miss spiders.'
Time passed. Perhaps it was already late at night. The girl was about to fall asleep when she heard footsteps coming down the stairs.
Alya jumped, was Igneous back? She surprised herself by realizing that she wanted to see him alive again.
However, it was not Igneous. It was a demon guard.
"What happened to my... partner?" She was unable to utter the word 'friend'.
The guard did not answer. Silently, he unlocked the cell's padlock and gripped the girl's arm tightly. "The captain requires your presence on deck."
'What?'
With a thick rope, the man bound Alya's hands. She then followed the guard to the surface. She calmed down when she saw Igneous, alive and apparently unharmed. He was by Captain Kalina's side, surrounded by the other members of the crew. All demons. Her heart skipped a beat as she saw that the boy had High Honor in his hands.
She then warned that the ship was getting closer and closer to the Legion ship.
"What's going on here? Do you plan to fight the Legion?" She asked.
"Hello," the captain smiled at her, maliciously.
"What is the meaning of this?" Alya asked tensely.
"Tell him, Igneous," the captain requested.
The boy looked at Alya, with a grim smile. "We are going to hand you over to the Legion."
"What?" The girl felt that she gasped for air and that her blood rose to her head.
"We are going to make a deal with the admiral of the Legion," Kalina interjected, stroking Igneous' neck. "We will hand you over in exchange for letting us through."
Alya processed in a few seconds what she was hearing. They were betraying her.
"DAMNED YOU!" The girl was about to launch herself at Igneous, but Kalina's men subdued Alya. "TRAITOR! TRAITOR! YOU HAVE NO HONOR!"
"Honor?" The boy replied, with a mocking tone. "You wish! Don't make me laugh my ass off. I'm from the streets. Honor is useless. That would only get you killed."
"I never should have trusted you!"
"But you never trusted me, thought. You were as cold as ice. You didn't even tell me your name when we met. What did you expect? I won't be loyal to you when you have only shown me contempt," Kalina walked over to the boy and kissed him on the cheek. "At least the captain treats me well. With respect and kindness."
Alya felt a fire burning through her veins. She wanted to gouge out the eyes of Igneous and Kalina. "At least let High Honor go!" She shouted. "You are dishonoring my family's relic with your dirty hands!"
Igneous raised the sword and looked at it proudly. "No, the truth is that I love it. I think I'm going to keep it."
"DAMN YOU DIRTY PIG!"
Kalina let out a derisive laugh that was heard throughout the ship. "You dare to accuse Igneous of tarnishing the sword when it was you who stole it."
Alya hesitated and swallowed hard.
Kalina twitched the corners of her lips. "Yes, I know what you did in Yish. You stole the sword from the Meijer family. The news quickly spread throughout the region. And it reached my ears, of course. That's why the Legion is looking for you. To bring you before the justice of the king of Yish. The only dishonorable person here is you, bastard girl."
'Bastard...,' that word that she hurt more than a fist to the stomach.
Kalina took out the Fire Treasure from her pocket and handed it to the boy. "As I promised."
Igneous looked at the Treasure in his hands and nodded slowly, with that macabre smile that he used to make. "Thank you, captain."
He then looked at Alya and winked at her. "Transformation!"
Fush! A flash of red light. Then a quick slash freed Alya's bound hands. Everything happened in a rush, the girl had to think and react fast.
"Take it!" Igneous threw the sword at her and she caught it in midair.
***
Meanwhile, less than a mile away, Nahuel saw the Legion's fleet of ships, ringing the harbor like ominous sentinels, still, watchful, awaiting the order to attack.
'How are we supposed to get through?' He wondered, standing on the bow, looking out at the dark horizon.
Elian had convinced a sailor named Justan; to lead them through the night, between the ships of the Legion fleet. The sailor was a frog demon who had a fishing boat, slightly larger than the other fishing boats in the harbor. According to Elian, that demon was an old acquaintance. Apparently, that boy of few words had some friends who could be useful.
"I don't like this," Nahuel said, frowning. "They can take us down with a single shot from their cannons."
"Do you have a better idea?" Elian replied, standing next to Nahuel, at the bow of the ship.
"The Legion had never laid siege to the port," Justan the frog demon interjected, wearing brown pants, a once-white shirt, and a gray jacket, faded and stained with sweat. "I don't understand why they surrounded us like this. Something must be going on."
"What do you think is going on?" Elijah asked.
Justin shrugged. "I heard things..."
"What things?"
"I heard the Legion was looking for a couple of Marked Ones. A girl with green hair and cinnamon skin and a red-haired boy with eyes like fire. From what I heard, if the port handed over those two Marked Ones, the Legion would not attack."
Elian frowned as if he didn't like what Justan was saying at all.
Nahuel heard that. Were there others Marked Ones? Interesting… Possible allies, perhaps?
'Think, Nahuel, think. How can we get through?' He said to himself. 'Where is this pair of Marked Ones that the Legion is looking for?'
The answer would come soon. In front of them, a ship of black wood and white sails was approaching a Legion ship. It was big and carried many cannons. It looked like a pirate ship.
"I think they are going to attack," Nahuel pointed out. "We will take advantage of that attack to slip away."
"That won't work," Elian warned, "we'll have to fight."
"I hope we don't come to that."
"We have the powers of the eons," Elian held up his purple Treasure, "we can defeat the Legion if we fight together."
Nahuel looked over his shoulder and focused his attention on Yaima. She looked nervous.
'I'm not so sure she can fight an entire fleet.'
The girl spoke as if she could hear Nahuel's thoughts. "I can help. The system told me…"
"The system?"
Yama nodded. "The... the... system explained to me that I had this... this ability... so that my allies can walk on... on..."
"Walk on water?" Nahuel completed, opening his eyes wide.
Yaima nodded quickly.
'Walking on water? Now that was a very big advantage!'
Fush! A red glow on the pirate ship. Then screams and… Fire?
'I think we will have a chance against the Legion,' thought Nahuel.