"Find what you were looking for?" Priscilla's voice was calm.

  Vaan turned slowly, his heart still racing.

  She sat upright in the bed. Her eyes gleamed in the dark, no trace of sleep in them. In her hand, a dagger; small, silver, quiet. Like it had always been there.

  Vaan swallowed, his throat dry. The coin he nicked was hot in his palm. “You’re with the Mercenary Guild.”

  She didn't blink. "Yes."

  The word hung between them like a drawn blade.

  “Your father sent you to kill me. For the sword”

  A breath left her, not quite a sigh. “That was never the plan,” she said gently. “Not mine, anyway.”

  Vaan stepped back. His voice hardened. “But it was his.”

  Priscilla nodded once, eyes never leaving his. “He doesn’t trust what he can’t control.”

  "I see… So he sent you to slip your blade in while I slept. That’s the plan, isn’t it? Stealth Blade! Isn’t that your class? Thought you’d level up off me? A little gift from dear father after initiation. Let his daughter earn a kill like him."

  Priscilla sighed. “Killing you was never my intention,” she said, her tone almost gentle. “It’s about your sword... it’s more powerful with you than anyone else. It’s a soulbound sword, Vaan. It chose you. No one else can wield it like you can.”

  His jaw tensed. "So now you want me to serve as your swordhand?"

  His gaze slid past Priscilla, over their cots, to the table where the sword lay.

  “Wield the blade that cost my father his life? For the man who gave the order? I’ll pass.”

  “Garix’s death was a consequence of my father’s ambition,” she said. “Unshackled. Shortsighted. I won’t justify it.”

  “That wasn’t ambition,” Vaan snapped. “That was murder.”

  “Yes,” She rose from the cot slowly, fluidly, stepping toward him. “And I won’t defend him. I’m not him, Vaan. I didn’t lie earlier. I won’t follow his path. I will make my own! And I’m starting with you. This is my choice as well as yours”

  "Using me?"

  “I don’t want to use you, Vaan. I want you to work with me. For House Veldrane. You don’t have to forgive my father. But this is real… you’re real. That blade may never bind to anyone else again, even if you die. And it’s too valuable to be left to rot. That’s just the truth.”

  "How progressive," Vaan sneered. "Your father's method required a grave. Yours requires my soul. A Veldrane blade by proxy!"

  Priscilla stepped closer, her tone pleading. "I want you to see beyond this feud. Your father’s legacy isn’t just his death! It’s that sword. The last thing he ever forged. There aren’t many weapons in this kingdom that chose its wielder." She gestured to his blade lying dormant on the corner table. "You think honoring him means clinging to vengeance? Or is it wielding what he created to shape something better?"

  Vaan stared at her. “Is Petros part of this?” he asked. “The Watch captain. Is he part of the Mercenary guild?”

  “Petros?” She said in a weary respect. “Too stubborn. Too proud. He doesn’t sell. My father stopped trying years ago. Why do you ask?”

  Her gaze searched his face. “He gave you a coin like mine? I heard he used to be with the mercenary guild before he quit and moved to Wragford.”

  Vaan said nothing.

  “I see. Well! It just shows he had noticed too. You’re more than just some lowborn with a lucky sword,” she continued. "Your class is Orderly Blade. But your flair… it’s Order, isn’t it? Not Blade. Even among nobles, few know what that means. But I do. Tell me. Your coin? Does it whisper to you?”

  He tensed. Her words stirred something. Not fear. Recognition.

  “How do you know?”

  “There are few in the Empire who understand what all this means,” she said. “Even fewer who can protect you from what comes next.”

  She lifted the dagger with slow deliberation, its tip gliding beneath the tied sash at her waist.

  A soft pull.

  The strings fell.

  Her robe slid from her shoulders, pooling silently at her feet, baring her to the faint candlelight.

  “You and me,” she said, voice like silk, “we could grow strong together. Win the Grand Trial. Shape the pieces on the board instead of being moved by them.”

  Still holding the dagger, she stepped close to him. Close enough that their breath mingled.

  She brought the blade up to his chest, slipping it under the knotted ties of his shirt.

  One by one, she cut them.

  His shirt fell open.

  Then she slid the blade lower, easing it to his waistband.

  He caught her wrist.

  Held it. And slowly removed the dagger from her hand.

  She stiffened for a moment, breath held—but calmed when he set it gently on the nearby table, in her reach.

  Then he turned back and pulled her close, arms wrapping around her.

  She melted into him, lips brushing his shoulder, then his jaw, until they found his mouth, soft and lingering, tasting of warmth and something wild. Her perfume blurred his senses, dizzying.

  She wrapped her arms tighter around him.

  But his hold only grew stronger.

  Too strong.

  Her breath hitched… then caught completely.

  She jerked and tried to pull back. His arms stayed firm.

  Her hand darted toward her braid. He barely registered the motion until a sharp sting exploded in his back.

  Vaan gasped, the breath ripped from his lungs. His grip slackened.

  She tore away as he staggered, one hand clutching the slender pin-blade lodged in his back. It looked ornamental but meant to kill.

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  Snarling through the pain, he dropped into a roll, fast and desperate, weaving between the cots toward the far table where the soulbound sword lay. She dove the other way, snatching the dagger he’d set down.

  When Vaan turned, sword in hand, blood staining his side, she was already facing him again.

  Dagger ready.

  Hair half-loosened.

  Eyes burning.

  Two weapons. Two bare bodies. And nothing left between them now.

  No pretenses.

  A breath passed as she glared at him.

  “I had hopes for you Vaan. Big ones,” she said sadly.

  “I’ll never work for you,” Vaan replied calmly.

  She smiled. “And here I was willing to share all of myself with you. What a disappointment you’ve been.”

  She shrugged and turned the dagger in her hands, wrists loose. “But maybe we’ll still have some fun. Just not the way you expected.”

  Vaan raised his sword, thrumming alive in his grasp, and he realized something.

  He was out of mana.

  Too much soulflame burned in the earlier fight.

  Priscilla Veldrane didn’t wait.

  She launched forward like a panther, all motion and momentum. But she wasn’t Joy.

  Vaan swung wide with what little reserve he could muster, invoking [Unwavering Blade]—the sword screamed through the air in a precise arc, splitting wind and nearly cleaving the nearest cot in two.

  But she was already gone, flipping up and off the wall, her body coiling and springing to the ceiling beams before dropping toward him like a dagger herself.

  He rolled, pain blooming in his back, momentum carrying him across the floor toward the door. Her style was clear now. Precision and speed. A Finesse-oriented class. She was built for one kind of fight: the kind you didn’t walk away from. Assassination!

  She didn’t give him time to think. A brass candle holder flew at his head.

  Vaan ducked. It smashed against the door behind him, metal clattering.

  Too quickly, she neared him again… was already inside his guard.

  But this time, he was ready.

  He brought the blade up only for her to twist away at the last second and throw something else.

  Not a dagger.

  Another innocuous-looking hairpin blade.

  It spun a silver blur and struck. A skill!

  Pain exploded in his gut as it buried deep.

  Her laugh was soft, edged like broken glass. “Just because we got our classes the same day, you thought we were equals?” She licked her lips, eyes glittering. “I’m Veldrane, Vaan. You think you stand a chance? Not after you refused me. A Redbone, refusing a Veldrane? How quaint.” The way she said "quaint" was the same as her father, Erik Veldrane. She was her father’s daughter.

  He moved.

  Faster than she expected.

  Faster than he thought he could.

  It wasn’t just Vaan who struck! The sword lunged with him, eager and unrelenting, sinking clean into her stomach.

  No mana behind it. Just a brutal swordsman with a soulbound sword.

  Duskiron sank deep into her stomach.

  Her expression froze. Horror flickered through her face as she looked down at the blade, realization dawning.

  The door creaked open.

  The innkeeper blinked in, face sour with annoyance. "What in the-“

  Priscilla’s hand jerked. One last move.

  She threw the dagger.

  But this one was different.

  It shimmered.

  Imbued with a killing skill, every shred of her dying mana poured into it, seething with hate and lethal intent.

  The blade flew at Vaan, who twisted. The innkeeper behind never had a chance!

  It struck clean.

  The man dropped where he stood, face frozen mid-sentence, never even registering the end.

  Priscilla coughed blood on her lips and fell beside him. Eyes still open. Frustration and hatred were her last breath.

  Vaan staggered forward, breath shallow, and retrieved the soulbound sword from where it lay.

  A notification flickered into his vision.

  Level Up! (Lv. 4 → Lv. 5)

  And for a moment, he just stood there alone in the room of the dead until he heard hurried footsteps thudding down the hall, then halting.

  Remy appeared in the doorway, squinting into the dim room, a bedsheet hastily wrapped around his waist. One hand gripped the door frame, the other holding the fabric in place. His dark umber skin glistened faintly from the hallway lights.

  Lisa stood behind him, just as bare, her breath still catching from whatever they'd been doing before the noise. Then she saw the body.

  Her scream shattered the stillness.

  “Tomas!” she cried, stumbling back as she stared at her husband’s corpse.

  Remy winced but didn’t move. His eyes swept the room, first to Tomas the innkeeper, then to Priscilla, her body limp by the bed. A flicker of light drew his gaze to the floor, where the Mercenary Guild token glinted under the edge of the rug. In Vaan’s hand, the bloodied sword hung low, still wet.

  He swore, dragging a hand through his disheveled hair.

  “Harpy’s tits. What fresh devilry is this?”

  Vaan said nothing, his breath ragged.

  Remy gave him a look. “Speak, boy. My patience ain't your strong suit."

  “What’s there to say?” Vaan bit out. “She tried to buy me. Learned the price too late.”

  Remy stared at him. “So sword was your only answer? No pretty lies, no ‘beg pardon, milady’? Just straight to murder?”

  “She had a concealed dagger.”

  “You had a fucking sword,” Remy countered, “which, last I checked, out-reaches a pigsticker.”

  Vaan’s grip on the hilt tightened. “Easy for you to judge me. Where were you? I know! Screwing the dead man’s wife.”

  Lisa let out a fresh sob as she sat hunched on the floor, her arms wrapped around her knees.

  Remy went still. When he spoke, his voice was ice, stripped of his usual mirth. “You will mind your tongue. Or by Irzhan’s vanished bones, you’ll learn what happens to men who mistake cruelty for courage.”

  Vaan's jaw worked. His eyes locked onto the naked weeping form and for a breath, something like shame flickered across his face. "Sorry," he said, the word rough but deliberate.

  Then his grip tightened on the sword. "But Priscilla… She was a mercenary!”

  Remy sighed, rubbing his temple. "Listen, boy. Most mercs take contracts just to fill their bellies - farmers' sons who never held a sword before hunger forced one in their hand. Some are pressed into service by debts or threats. And yes, there are those - few, but real - who live by codes sharper than their blades. Men who'd starve before breaking an oath, who protect caravan orphans without pay."

  His calloused hand gripped Vaan's shoulder. "Who are we to judge who lives and who dies? You start making those calls, you're no better than the worst of them. That what you want?"

  Vaan said nothing. The sword in his hand felt heavier now.

  Remy bent down, plucking the Mercenary Guild coin from beneath the rug. He turned it over, his thumb brushing the faint grooves along its edge. "I'll keep this. Probably etched with tracking runes."

  Vaan stiffened, his hand darting to his own coin.

  Remy's eyes tracked the movement. He sighed. "Keep yours. Didn't Petros give you that one?"

  Vaan gave a slow nod, his fingers tightening around the coin. "Probably a mercenary once," he muttered. "What’s his word worth now?"

  Priscilla lay with lips curled in a final snarl, eyes wide with fury. Blood still seeped from the wound in her chest. "Erik will want blood for this," he said. "My family won’t be safe."

  "I don’t make a habit of digging through men’s pasts," Remy said quietly. "But Petros? Even in mercenary circles his name carried weight. Served the Ashwa Kingdom with honor. Turned down Ashwa’s ivory towers and ranks to play guard dog for dirt-road nobodies."

  He looked at Vaan. "An Elite Guardsman's oath isn't given lightly. Their class gifts let them sense threats to those they've sworn to protect. If Petros promised to shield your family?" A sharp exhale. "Only death would stop him."

  Despite Remy's assurances, Vaan’s heart remained troubled. His thoughts were drawn to his family’s safety. Pride and hatred warred within him, but he resolved to seek out Vincent Ferrel, Elijah’s father, his mother’s former husband. Perhaps the man could help move Brenda and Marianne somewhere safe.

  Of course, Vaan doubted Brenda would ever agree to such a thing, not with their history. No, he was certain she wouldn’t. And deep down, he realized he didn’t want her to. Something in him recoiled at the thought. His memory of the man was hazy. After the accident, after Elijah had pushed him into the cave, anything that came before was fuzzy, like a half-remembered dream.

  Vaan watched Remy rummage through Priscilla’s coin purse. Two gold coins, several silvers. Priscilla had been stacked. For a moment it looked like the adventurer might pocket it. Instead, he handed the purse to Lisa and told her to take Remy’s ringhorn and flee. Go far. Stay hidden. Keep her head down. Just in case Erik came looking, even though she had nothing to do with Priscilla’s death.

  Maybe under other circumstances, Vaan would have asked what would happen to the inn. But right now he found that he didn’t care.

  He turned to something more pressing.

  “I leveled up,” he said. “Got five free attribute points. Where do I put them?”