What happened next wasn't exactly what Raika would call an agreement. It was survival.
They had no choice. If they said no, it wouldn't even be a fight. Everyone here knew it, even Zarvana. Especially Zarvana. They were bound for Central anyway, but this wasn't how they'd planned it. Their route had been cautious and meticulous. Every step calculated to avoid unnecessary risk.
And now they were riding with the risk. Willingly.
Well, it was better than dying cold in the snow.
Vastarael—or Mr. Vastarael, as he insisted—was a complete mystery. There were stories, of course. Survivors from villages that shouldn't have survived at all had sworn up and down to never underestimate him.
Some called him mercy incarnate. Others said he was justice dressed in gold and black. But every story, no matter where it started, ended the same way.
You didn't cross him. You didn't question him. You followed him or you died.
The entire group moved in silence at first, following him without complaint, their stags' hooves sinking deep into snow as they rode. Raika found herself constantly glancing at him, even when she told herself not to. Even when she felt the heat crawling up the back of her neck for reasons she didn't want to explain.
He rode ahead of them on a massive beautiful white horse—an actual horse—not a stag, its pale mane streaming behind it like a banner.
And in front of him, seated sideways on the saddle with her legs draped neatly across it, was Chrysanthemum.
Chrysanthemum.
The golden-haired, crimson-eyed beauty with chubby cheeks and a smile that could cause men to misplace their dignity.
The same woman who, right now, was squirming as if being slowly tortured.
And Raika could only stare as Vastarael—Mr. Vastarael—proceeded to lecture her the entire way.
It wasn't the words themselves that made Raika's jaw tighten. It was the way he said them, all casual and clean, like someone going over notes on how to trim a garden hedge.
But instead of hedges, he was listing all of Chrysanthemum's flaws in combat.
"Your second strike was too shallow," he said, his right gloved hand resting easily on the reins as if this conversation wasn't happening in front of an armed escort that looked one word away from wetting themselves. "And you left your back exposed for three seconds longer than you should have."
"I didn't—!" Chrysanthemum started, twisting slightly to face him.
"You did," Vastarael interrupted smoothly. "You turned after your fourth cut instead of pressing the momentum. I'm not raising someone who panics because she smells her own blood."
Chrysanthemum actually huffed, cheeks puffing out in an almost comically dramatic way.
"I wasn't panicking!"
"You were sloppy," he corrected.
"I was—"
"You think you're ready to be an Insignia Knight," Vastarael continued, his tone still level, "but you're not. You have gaps wide enough to be seen by a beginner."
He let the reins go entirely for a moment to pinch the bridge of his nose, sighing softly.
"You need another round of training."
Raika watched as Chrysanthemum's crimson eyes widened, the color in her pale cheeks somehow deepening with dismay.
"No," Chrysanthemum said quickly. "No, no, no! I'll do better! Just don't—"
"I'll send you to Obsidian."
Chrysanthemum physically flinched.
"No!" she said, louder this time. "Please! Master, please, I hate training with Obsidian!"
"You need it."
"No, I don't!" She begged, her hands shooting out to grab at his cloak as if trying to anchor herself. "I'll do better, I promise! I'll focus! Obsidian makes me run drills until my feet bleed! You said I was improving! You said it last week!"
"Last year, you remembered to block. You forgot it today."
Chrysanthemum groaned like someone dying of a broken heart,. Raika swore she heard her whimper.
"I hate Obsidian," Chrysanthemum mumbled sadly.
"She says the same about you," Vastarael said, completely unbothered. "Why do you two hate each other though?"
Chrysanthemum pouted harder, and he reached up without even looking to flick her forehead with two fingers. She yelped, rubbing at it immediately.
"Ow! You're mean!"
Raika nearly choked on the sound that left her throat.
"Is this normal?" She asked no one in particular.
Veyn, riding quietly beside her, gave a slow shake of his head. "I don't think anything about them is normal."
Raika smirked. "Jealous?"
His look this time was all dry ice and resignation..
"I'm reconsidering every decision that led me here."
But the scene ahead kept going. Chrysanthemum was still pleading, still offering all the reasons why she didn't need more training.
"I'm strong enough to fight alongside you," she said, reaching up to grab at the edge of his cloak again. "You said so yourself! You said I could stand next to you in battle!"
"You can," Vastarael agreed. "But you'll die in the first two minutes."
Her face crumpled. "I won't!"
"You will," he said.
"I won't!"
He sighed. "You will."
"You're evil."
Raika swore the man smiled.
"If I were evil," he said, leaning in close enough that Chrysanthemum stilled, "you wouldn't be here at all. I would have killed you back in the Frozen Ruins. I'm a good guy."
The girl went quiet completely. Her red eyes searching his face for a long, silent moment. And then she finally sighed.
"Fine," she muttered.
"You'll go to Obsidian?"
"Fine," she groaned.
He nodded, satisfied with himself.
Raika had no idea who or what this Obsidian was, but from Chrysanthemum's reactions, she wasn't eager to find out. Still, the whole thing was surreal.
Because the man ahead of them wasn't barking orders, wasn't demanding loyalty through threats. He wasn't cruel. He wasn't soft, either. He was balanced, disciplined and devastatingly effective.
Every time he corrected Chrysanthemum's mistakes aloud, it wasn't just for her benefit. Raika realized that Zarvana's guards were listening. He spoke like a commander teaching not one, but all of them how to survive.
It was terrifying but fascinating. And maybe, Raika admitted quietly to herself, a little attractive.
"Alright. Listen up. We are going to spend the night at my camp. Believe me, you're captured by me so if you resist there, I swear I can't protect you from me subordinates. They are... strange knights. Sometimes I wonder why they didn't just let me explore the Fallen Bridge alone..."
°°°°°°°
When Raika finally met Mr. Vastarael's knights, she was scared. Everyone was.
The camp consisted of hundreds of tents that were too advanced to be from the Fallen Bridge. The knights didn't look like knights at all because they wore outfits that were too strange for someone to wear in the cold.
But when they compared their power compared to theirs, even Zarvana couldn't hold her amazement.
Each knight was at least twice as strong as her and being the strongest in the group, they meant that they had no chance of saving it.
When they saw Mr. Vastarael riding his horse, they all bowed their heads in respect, welcoming him. Zarvana shivered when she saw each and every one of them showing respect to a man who didn't look powerful at all. In fact, he looked like he was extremely weak, or maybe he was hiding his power a little too well.
They rode up to the center of the camp where Raika was even more shocked to find a selection of knights even more powerful than the rest, and more beautiful at that.
"Master, you've returned. I didn't expect you to be back so soon."
The woman who said that was definitely the most powerful knight among all of them, with blonde hair and deep crimson eyes. She didn't wear a knight outfit but rather, a black turtleneck and pants as she held a wooden greatsword.
She was training with another beautiful woman who used chains. She was the second most powerful of the knights and and she only nodded at Mr. Vastarael.
If it wasn't for her golden hair, one would mistake them for sisters, mostly because of the same eye color. The only difference was that the greatsword woman was actually taller and more muscular than the other.
"Were you training?"
"Yes Master," said the greatsword user. "I was teaching Chainless here how to dodge using her weapon. She's actually getting better than expected, compared to Chrysanthemum—"
"Oi! I'm a High Priestess, Obsidian, not a knight! I should be a mage instead!"
"Not in this place," Obsidian spat back. "Believe me, you're going to die with that mentality. Master, let me teach her."
"Go ahead. She slacked off today. Actually, fight both Chainless and her at once. That way you can get used to handling more than two enemies," Mr. Vastarael said as he got off his horse as the others did the same to their stags.
"Understood. But master, who are they?"
"Oh them? Guests. Since we're all going to central, they are joining in. We're going to use them to get in. Apparently, there's a meeting of all the Chieftains happening there—"
Before he could finish...
"Dad! You're back!"