Chapter 95: Strangers in Blue

CLANG!

A sharp, ringing note cracked through the air, steel meeting steel just above Jeanne’s head.

Lucian had just barely gotten his own blade up in time.

It wasn’t only him. Another strike came for Jeanne from her other side in the same breath, but she was ready for it this time, her sword already rising to answer.

Elder Petrovel and the rest of the Phantom soldiers found themselves under the same sudden assault, attackers pouring in from the opposite direction, every one of them wrapped in dark blue cloaks, caps pulled low in the style of some specialized soldier corps.

Seven of them, at least, cutting into the Phantom line all at once.

The soldiers who’d first stumbled against the surprise found their footing fast, matching the rhythm of the attack and turning it back on their assailants within moments.

Lucian’s own opponent felt different from the start, his footwork, the clean, economical way he turned aside every strike Lucian threw, marking him as a genuinely skilled swordsman in his own right.

And in that same instant, Lucian understood something else. Whatever was attacking them tonight wasn’t the monster Jeanne had feared finding in this village. It was people. Human beings, their purpose still a complete mystery.

A half second of distraction cost him. He turned his hip too slowly, and the stranger’s blade found him before he could pull clear.

This bastard has to be carrying a high Core tier. There’s no other way he lands a hit on me like that.

The man didn’t press the advantage further. He fell back a step instead, studying Lucian with an intensity sharp enough to feel through the rain and the dark both.

Lucian still couldn’t make out his face beneath the low-pulled cap, but he understood, with total certainty, that whatever came next would hurt far worse than the cut he’d already taken.

He was right. The man lifted his sword level with his own shoulder, a stance that seemed almost designed to confuse, and then, impossibly, he split.

One became five, the copies peeling away from each other and fanning out around him.

Is this a clone technique? What in the hell is this?

Whatever Lucian was looking at, it wasn’t an illusion. The moment the figure multiplied, he surged forward, all five silhouettes circling Lucian at once, closing the distance while he was still trying to make sense of what he’d just seen.

One of them lunged in, blade driving straight for his stomach, exploiting the half-second of confusion the trick had bought.

Jeanne caught sight of him struggling and tore herself free of her own opponents, kicking two of them hard enough to send them crashing into the far wall of the building.

She pushed everything she had into closing the distance to him, and still, somewhere in the back of her mind, she understood she wasn’t going to make it in time, not even at full speed.

Then, without Lucian willing it to happen at all, something shifted behind the cloth covering his eyes. A pattern of lightning-shaped runes bled into existence there, and a fast, fine tremor rippled through him.

It didn’t hurt. What it did was change everything he was seeing.

The world around him slowed, every movement dragging into something almost lazy, stretched thin across a span of time that no longer matched his own racing pulse. Even his own body, mid-motion, felt like it was wading through something thicker than air.

And his vision sharpened past anything he’d ever experienced, resolving into threads, dozens of them, woven in shifting colors, trailing off every person in the room like something alive.

He understood almost instantly what he was looking at. Mana, made visible, flowing from each person like a signature written in light, connecting them to whatever power moved through their bodies.

This has to be something tied to what I already carry.

And it handed him exactly what he needed. Among the five identical shapes circling him, only one of those threads carried any real weight, any true source behind it. The rest were nothing, empty afterimages dressed up to look like a threat.

He read the real one’s movement before it finished committing to the strike, and turned his blade into its path, deflecting the attack clean.

Shock broke across the man’s face, visible even in the dark, a raw, unguarded bewilderment at how Lucian had just countered something he shouldn’t have been able to touch moments ago.

He understood, almost at once, that something had changed. Every motion he made now seemed to be read before he finished making it, and worse, Lucian’s own blade had started moving faster than his eyes could track.

He tried to retreat, unwilling to keep fighting something he could no longer predict.

Jeanne’s own sword was already there to meet him, its edge resting flush against the back of his neck before he’d finished the thought.

She ordered him to stop moving entirely, or the blade would finish the motion for him.

She wasn’t the only one who’d turned the tide. Across the room, the rest of the Phantom soldiers had the fight well in hand now too.

Behind her, Elder Petrovel crouched over the fallen attacker’s body, checking through his clothes and gear. Something caught his eye almost immediately, an emblem stitched into the fabric, shaped like a river, a wave, and a mountain together.

Recognition hit him hard enough to widen his eyes.

"Damn it. You’re from the Republic of Rippledale!"

Fury broke across Elder Petrovel’s face at the realization, foreign soldiers somehow slipping across the border and striking Bravenheart’s own people without warning.

Jeanne’s jaw clenched hearing it, and she swung at the man in front of her with fresh force, the full weight of having nearly died at the hands of an enemy from outside her own empire finally landing on her.

Before her blade could connect, a cluster of soft, clear water orbs rose into the air beneath it, drifting between her and her target, stopping the strike cold.

"Gentlemen. Ladies. I’d ask you all to clear your heads for a moment."

A woman’s voice carried from the left side of the room, near a staircase leading up to the second floor.

The voice belonged, unmistakably, to whoever was descending those stairs now. With each soft footfall, the inn’s lanterns flickered on, one after another, until the whole room filled with light, revealing exactly what kind of place they’d broken into.

But the light wasn’t what held everyone’s attention.

The figure on the stairs wore a long gown of deep navy blue, trimmed in jewels and ornament enough to mark her as someone of considerable standing.

Beside her, a man in full armor bearing the Republic of Rippledale’s own military crest kept pace, his black hair tied back, his bearing every bit as composed as hers.

The two of them walked straight toward Jeanne.

"Why are people from the Republic of Rippledale here? What business do you have in this empire?"

Jeanne’s voice cut sharp across the room, and the Phantom soldiers still standing closed ranks around her, Elder Petrovel among them, blocking the pair’s path.

"We meant no harm to any of you. This was only a misunderstanding."

The man in armor offered the explanation, and it did little to help their case. Everything Jeanne and her soldiers had just lived through looked nothing like a misunderstanding. It looked like an ambush meant to kill.

The woman insisted all the same, laying the blame on her own people’s mistake.

Then something seemed to occur to her, something she clearly hoped might finally earn Jeanne’s trust. She reached into a pocket sewn into her gown and drew out a letter, offering it toward Jeanne despite Elder Petrovel’s immediate move to intercept it for safety’s sake.

Jeanne studied it the moment it came into view regardless, catching the edge of real gold leaf along its border, and a sun emblem pressed into its seal, the unmistakable mark of one of the largest Orders on the continent.

She let the letter through.

Pulling the paper free, she found a name and a full likeness printed there, and whatever she read left her visibly stunned.

"You’re the White Awakening bearer from Rippledale?"

The woman nodded, a smile settling easily onto her face, while more than a few of House Sarnel’s own soldiers looked on in open disbelief.

"Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Eleonor Barbosa. I carry a White Awakening, recognized by the Order of Lumielle."