Hounds Rising

Lyla took in Myla’s vision and tried to think of what it all meant, but she was distracted this morning. Bouncing her left leg quickly, her eyes moved around the room as she waited for the rest of the party to wake. She wanted to talk, but doing it all at once rather than one at a time made more sense.

“I must say, it is delightful to see how accommodating this tower is,” Darion mentioned casually. “Fresh food when needed, drinks available at an arm’s reach, and even the bed it gave me last night was almost as good as the one I have back at Berkton Academy.”

“Do you have any plans today, Darion?” Rhokhishi asked.

“A few things. I have several meetings to attend to. Then, I must write a letter to Berkton to ensure things are running smoothly there. I hear that you all have met a person named Humboldt?”

“Yeah,” Lyla answered.

“I’ll be meeting him with the Queen later today. She has some plans for him, and I was asked to be there for my expertise. Anything I should be aware of when it comes to this man?”

“He’s a friend of Mr. Muffins. A traveler who sometimes visits the carnival from time to time and usually meets with Mr. Muffins. He seems nice but a little eccentric,” Rhokhishi replied.

“Overall, it will be an easy day, though. What about you lot? Any plans?”

“Some plans,” Leaf’s voice echoed out.

Lyla looked over to the stairs to see Leaf stepping down. He nodded to Darion, then turned and sat at the table.

“I assumed everyone would be awake by now,” He mentioned.

“Me too,” Lyla stated.

Getting tired of waiting, Lyla stood up and walked over to Mr. Muffins’ door. She knocked on it once, waited a few seconds, then knocked louder again.

“What?” She could hear Mr. Muffins’ voice shout through the door.

“Come out here. We need to talk.” Lyla shouted back.

She didn’t wait for a response. She immediately walked over to Ana’s door and knocked.

“Yeah?”

“Come on out, Ana.”

“I don’t feel so good. I think I’m going to stay in here and rest.”

“No. We need to talk first. Come on.”

Lyla returned to the table and placed her hands on the back of her chair. After a moment, Mr. Muffins and Ana both emerged from their rooms. She could see Mr. Muffins’ eyes were bloodshot, possibly from not sleeping much. He walked over to the drinking cart, poured himself some coffee, then sat down and started drinking. Ana’s eyes were also bloodshot, but Lyla wasn’t sure if it was from a lack of sleep as well or not.

“I’m not trying to be rude, but you wanted to talk?” Mr. Muffins asked.

“Yeah. I wanted to have everyone together for this,” Lyla answered.

“Well, let’s get it over with. I have some things I want to work on before it gets too late in the day.”

Lyla could feel her heart beating in her chest, blasting in waves across her body. She felt angry, sad, and frustrated, but she wanted to get her point across without that being the emotions she showed. She took a deep breath as everyone looked at her, then she spoke.

“So, I would like us all to discuss… what we remember from last night.”

“Hardly anything…” Myla replied, holding her hand to her head and rubbing her temple.

“Do you mean the part where you decided to do something in the back room?” Leaf sneered.

“Hey. It’s not about that. It’s about what happened after,” Lyla snapped back. “Sure, I didn’t make the best decisions then, but it led to things that shouldn’t have happened. We may have shut down something, but we handled that completely wrong.”

Lyla paused. She looked around the room at all of them, hungover, tired, bruised…

“I don’t know how the rest of you have been brought up in these situations, if at all, but these were wrongful acting civilians. Yes, they were attacking us, but we had more than enough opportunities to incapacitate them and let the justice system do its work. There was no point for anyone in that bar to die.”

“Wait, we killed people!?” Myla spat out her drink as her eyes widened.

“Four people,” Lyla answered her sister. “So I would like to hear from those who delivered those kills. Why the fuck did it have to happen this way?”

“Well…” Rhokhishi sounded. “Ana did try to persuade them not to fight. Then, they stabbed her, and they attacked us.”

“We could have done better,” Lyla stated.

“What should have been done? Run and go to the authorities?” Rhokhishi asked.

“We could have done so many things. We incapacitated one of them. We could have done the same to the others. It is always an option. Killing should never be the answer unless there is no other choice.”

Leaf sat up and pointed across the table.

“To be fair, on Ana’s end, the spell she used to transform herself into an animal… It’s not something you can always control. You take on the mental attributes of that creature, and sometimes, there isn’t much that can be done about it.”

“Then don’t fucking morph into a monster!” Lyla shouted, her eyes turned towards Ana. “If you can’t control it, turn into something smaller, run away, do something else!”

Ana stood up, knocking her chair over, and ran toward her room. Lyla could hear her cries until the door slammed behind her, then it was silent. After a moment, Darion grabbed one of the papers before him and read aloud.

“Surge. Aroben. Lorabelle. Kurtis Lowell. Danas Gadorsath. Those are the names of the people you fought last night. This report, given to the Queen today… This is your legacy at the moment. Yes, one of them is alive and is probably being interrogated by the guards who took her and dealt with accordingly, but the other four are dead.”

He set the paper down and put his hands together in front of him. Leaning on the table, he took a second to look at each of them, then spoke again.

“Now, I may not be the one to tell you how to do things. I have not always been an upstanding member of the law either. I have also done bad things in my past, but what you leave behind is what you will be remembered for.”

“We uncovered an illegal basilisk trading ring. That’s at least something,” Rhokhishi mentioned casually.

“Our legacy shouldn’t be that we murdered people,” Lyla stated.

“It was self-defense,” Leaf said in a matter-of-fact tone.

“What?”

“It was self-defense. They attacked us, and we took care of things.”

“It should only be if it’s your only option!” Lyla shouted. She raised her hands into the air, anger taking over her limbs’ movements.

“I’ve been studying necromancy for years now, Lyla. Death isn’t a situation’s ‘end all, be all.’ I understand it’s a bigger deal for you, but I’ve had to grow accustomed to it over these years.”

“If that were the case, Archmage Leaf, then you never would have left Rutherglen, right?” Darion responded. His words etched venom, and Leaf’s face became paler. He looked at Darion, then stared at the floor.

Darion looked around again at the group, speaking in turn as he focused his words on specific members of the party.

“Because of this, I now know that we have twins in this group who are on the run from something in their past. We have a disgraced member of The Eternal Pillars. We have a dropout from Westford Academy. These things were brought to my attention this morning before you even woke up. There is much more going on in this group, and discretion seems important in thought but not action.”

Lyla stopped immediately. Her mind turned to her sister.

He knows? How…?

I don’t know.

“Personally, I don’t care where you all came from. I am only here as a request from the Archmage to work while he becomes stronger. I can keep these secrets for you and defend anything that comes my way because I want to believe that you are good citizens who want to do the right thing. Am I correct in believing this?” Darion asked.

“We appreciate you having our backs, and further support will be most gracious of you,” Rhokhishi offered.

“Honestly, I doubt it’ll be much to worry about. Captain Rosara is the one who is writing the report, and I’m sure she’ll be truthful while also keeping a kind eye in your direction, considering you all did save her brother.”

“I want this addressed because I don’t want this to become a problem,” Lyla whispered. Her hands shook slightly, and she focused on breathing, trying to calm herself.

It didn’t feel like the rest of them understood what happened. They all sat there, food and drinks in hand, as if it were another day. It angered her. It filled up inside her and felt like fire released from her lungs.

“I wish our prissy little noble heard all this. I feel like she needed to hear this more than anybody else.”

“I have a feeling…” Myla whispered, “That she is carrying weight right now. She needs time to process before she can hear anything. Given how much that weighs on me when I killed someone that I did not wish to. Indeed, it is not natural to kill another, regardless of the situation. It still… It takes time.”

“That’s something that she should have heard,” Lyla growled.

Lyla’s lack of control gave way to her anger. She pushed down to the side, flipping the chair across the floor, skidding away. She walked over to the front door, which opened for her, and left the tower without another word.