Blood and Mud

Chapter 16: Chapter 16

The obsidian coin sat on the velvet pedestal, swallowing the light around it. Commander Erula Fion Buros didn’t even wait for the priest to formally close the proceedings. She stepped past Miklas and walked directly up to the two trembling low-born girls.

”What are your names?” Erula asked, her voice calm and piercing.

The girls clung to each other. The slightly younger one, tears streaming down her dirty face, was too terrified to speak. The other, despite shaking like a leaf, managed to lift her chin. ”I am Elara, my lady. And this is Myra.”

”No, you are not,” Erula replied flatly. ”From this moment onward, your past is dead. You are Elara Fion Buros, and Myra Fion Buros. You are daughters of my House. My servants will wash you, clothe you, and teach you how to speak without sounding like peasants.”

She didn’t offer a comforting hand or a motherly smile. It was a cold, calculated transaction. The girls’ biological parents, still weeping on the marble floor, were dragged away by the temple guards without Erula even glancing at them.

The Commander then turned on her heel and glided toward Miklas and me.

She looked down at me with her blazing red eyes. ”Go speak with your new peers, girl. The three of you will be spending a lot of time together from now on.”

Before I could reply, she shifted her gaze to Miklas, her expression hardening into a mask of pure military authority. ”And you, Captain. Do not think your duty ends with border patrols. That duty extends to your family now. Your daughter, and my two new wards, will undergo a grueling curriculum here in Shepfold for the next three years.”

”Three years?” Miklas repeated, his jaw tight.

”Yes,” Erula smiled, a sharp, dangerous curve of her pale lips. ”Because in three years, they will travel to the heart of the Empire. They will face the entrance exams for the Imperial Academy in The Crown Jewel. See to it that your bastard doesn’t embarrass the 7th Legion, Captain.”

Leaving Miklas to process the heavy burden she had just dropped on him, I walked over to the two girls. They had been ushered to the side of the altar by one of Erula’s armored inquisitors.

As I approached, I immediately analyzed their body language. The shared trauma of the assessment and the brutal auction had bonded them instantly. Myra, the younger one, was quietly sobbing, wiping her eyes with the sleeve of her ragged tunic. When she saw me, she quickly bobbed into a clumsy, overly polite curtsy.

”M-my lady,” she hiccuped, her voice soft and subservient.

But Elara instantly stepped in front of her, acting as a shield. Her eyes, red and swollen from crying, locked onto me with fierce, undisguised hostility. She stood guarded, her fists clenched at her sides.

”What do you want?” Elara snapped, her voice trembling but defiant. ”Come to mock us? Or just checking the quality of the Commander’s new pets?”

I stopped a few feet away, keeping my hands visible and relaxed. She is in survival mode, I thought. To her, I was just another spoiled aristocrat in a silk dress. She didn’t know that Miklas had just tried to buy them to set them free, and honestly, explaining it now would be a waste of breath. They were too scared to trust anyone.

”I am Elvit,” I said evenly, keeping my voice devoid of any arrogance or pity. ”And I don’t care about mocking you. We are going to be bleeding on the same training grounds for the next three years. I just wanted to see who I’ll be working with.”

Elara narrowed her eyes, clearly confused by my tone. She was expecting a cruel noble. Before she could retort, a subtle movement at the periphery of my vision caught my attention.

I shifted my gaze slightly toward the shadows near one of the massive bronze side doors.

It was Valerius and Livia, the Commander’s discarded protégés. They were huddled together, whispering furiously. Valerius’s face was twisted in a mask of pure, humiliated rage, while Livia stared daggers at Erula’s back. After a brief exchange, they slipped through the heavy doors and vanished into the darkness outside the temple.

A wounded animal is the most dangerous kind, I noted silently, a cold knot forming in my stomach. The Empire had just stripped them of everything, and people with nothing to lose were a variable I couldn’t afford to ignore.

”Come, Elvit,” Miklas’s voice broke my train of thought. He placed a gentle hand on my shoulder, guiding me away from the girls and the altar. ”We are going home.”

The journey back to the noble district was a stark contrast to the overwhelming chaos of the temple. The elevating stone carried us smoothly upward, leaving the noise of the desperate crowds far below. For a long time, neither of us spoke. I stood rigidly by the wooden railing, my mind racing through everything that had just happened: the auction, Erula’s terrifying wealth, the hostile glares of Elara, and the sheer weight of the three years looming ahead.

As we finally stepped off the elevator and walked through the manicured gardens toward our mansion, Miklas suddenly stopped.

I turned, expecting him to give me a stern military lecture about my new responsibilities. Instead, a massive, genuine grin broke across his scarred face. All the aristocratic stiffness and the heavy burden of the Captain’s mantle seemed to melt away.

He let out a loud, booming laugh that startled a nearby flock of birds, and before I could react, he reached out and heavily ruffled my perfectly styled hair, completely ruining the maids’ three hours of hard work.

”Hey!” I protested, trying to swat his large hand away.

”You did it, you little girl!” he laughed, his amber eyes shining with absolute, unfiltered pride. ”Did you see their faces? The ’bastard daughter’ from a border village outshining half the pureblood aristocrats in Shepfold! By Jute, I thought I was going to burst when that crystal lit up!”

”It was just a lucky chance...” I muttered, looking away, though I couldn’t stop the small, traitorous smile from forming on my own lips.

”Luck, my boot,” Miklas chuckled. He knelt down slightly so his eyes were level with mine. The rogueish humor faded, replaced by a deep, grounded warmth. ”You are strong, Elvit. I knew it when you pulled me out of that pile of cadavers in Oakhaven, and the crystal just proved it to the rest of the world. The Crown Jewel and the Imperial Academy won’t know what hit them.”

I looked into his eyes. In my past life, I had been a grown man, a soldier who relied on no one but his squadmates. When I had woken up in this fragile body, having lost my new family ,I had viewed Miklas merely as an asset—a meat shield and a ticket to safety.

But standing there in the quiet garden, feeling the heavy, reassuring weight of his hand on my shoulder, the cold, pragmatic walls I had built around my mind cracked just a little. For the first time since my reincarnation, I didn’t feel like a lonely soul trapped in a hostile universe. I felt protected. I felt like I actually belonged somewhere.

It was supposed to be a fake register entry, I thought, my chest tightening with an unfamiliar, warm emotion. Just a lie to bypass bureaucracy.

But looking at the genuine joy radiating from the Knight-Mage, I realized the terrifying truth. I didn’t just want him as an ally anymore. I wanted him to be my father.

”Come on,” Miklas said, standing back up and nudging me toward the front doors of the mansion. ”Let’s go tell Hunti to prepare a feast. We have a lot of training to plan for the next three years.”