Chapter 38: Suzy backstory [01]

The only noise left was the sound of Suzy crying against me, her shoulders shaking violently as she held onto my jacket. I kept my arms wrapped tightly around her waist, holding her close against my chest so she wouldn’t fall on ground.

The sword lay completely forgotten in the dust near our feet. I didn’t turn back into a snake. I stayed in my human form. I just let her cry, keeping my grip steady and protective, letting her empty out all the pain she had been carrying for long.

After few seconds, her sobbing slowly began to quiet down into a low shaky breath. She didn’t pull away from the hug, but she rested her forehead gently against my shoulder, her fingers still clutching the fabric of my back.

"It’s over, Suzy," I said softly, my deep human voice sounding very calm and clear in the quiet vault. "He can’t hurt your family or your guild ever again."

Suzy took a ragged breath, her heart still thumping fast. She slowly lifted her head, her eyes looking up at my face through her messy hair. Her cheeks were completely red, and her eyes were watery, but the intense murder look from before was totally gone.

"I did it" she whispered, her voice sounding incredibly small, thin, and raspy. "I finally did it. But... my hands are shaking so badly right now."

"That’s just the adrenaline fading out, Suzy," I said, giving her a gentle, reassuring look. "You did all the hard work on the floor. Now, sit down before your legs give out completely."

I helped her slide her back down the side of a large coin crate, letting her sit flat on the floor right in the middle of the gold piles. I sat down on the floor right next to her, crossing my legs in my , keeping my focus on her .

Suzy wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand, staring blankly at her sword resting in the floor. The scary director mask she always wore was completely gone, leaving her looking like a regular girl who had been carrying a terrible secret for a lifetime.

"You must think I’m a complete monster after seeing that, Barry," she said quietly, her voice dropping into a sad, distant rhythm. "But you have no idea what that bastard took from me when I was just a child."

I leaned my back against the crate, looking at her out lines in the dim light. "I don’t think you’re a monster, Suzy. In my past life, I knew a lot of people who got crushed by bad bosses and corrupt executives. If someone ruined my branch and my life, I’d look for an audit too. Talk to me. What did he do to you back then?"

Suzy closed her eyes, a single tear sliding down her nose as she finally opened the hidden ledger of her past.

"Ten years ago, my life was completely perfect," Suzy whispered, her fingers curling tightly around her knees. "I had a real home in this very city. A happy one."

Suzy kept her eyes closed for a minute, just listening to her own slow breaths.

"My father was the smartest man I ever knew," Suzy said, her voice dropping into a calm tone as she looked back at her childhood. "He wasn’t a warrior. He didn’t care about tiers or cultivation paths. He just sat at a large desk in the inner palace, managing the kingdom’s trade ledgers. He kept the supply lines running perfectly so the common people in the outer villages always had enough grain and clothes."

She looked down at her small hands, a gentle smile showing on her face. "Every single evening when he came home, he would pull out a small piece of paper with numbers written on it," she continued. "He would sit me right next to him on the floor and show me how to track the merchant wagons. He taught me that numbers never lie, Barry. He always said that a real manager doesn’t just look at the profits—they look out for the people who do the actual work. I learned everything about business from watching him handle the palace accounts."

"Sounds like he was an excellent branch manager," I said, keeping my voice low and steady.

Suzy nodded softly, her black hair shifting over her silk shirt. "He was. But because he was an honest civilian, he always worried about my safety in a city full of high-level experts. That was why my older brother, Alan, took it upon himself to be my personal guard. Alan was three years older than me, very tall, and had the loudest laugh you ever heard."

A tiny laugh escaped her own lips, though her eyes stayed a bit watery.

"Alan didn’t want to sit at a desk," Suzy whispered, her fingers tracing the smooth silver guard of her father’s sword. "He spent every single afternoon in our back yard, training with a wooden practice blade until his hands were covered in cuts. He was training to join the royal guard force. Every time he finished a session, he would run over, pull my hair playfully, and promise that nobody in the capital would ever dare to touch me once he wore the uniform."

She leaned her shoulder against my arm, her frame still feeling a little bit cold from the shock of the fight.

"Alan was the one who taught me how to move fast," Suzy said, her voice turning quiet and serious. "He told me that if I wasn’t going to learn magic, I needed to learn how to step between the shadows and dodge. We used to spend hours playing hide-and-seek in the palace gardens while my father worked. Alan would show me the blind spots in the guard routes, teaching me how to disappear from sight. We were just two kids playing games, totally unaware that he was actually training me to survive the worst night of my life."

I kept my back pressed against the coin crate, letting her lean against me while the numbers in her head sorted themselves out. "Your brother gave you the the right thing, Suzy. He taught you how to dodge, and your father taught you how to count. That’s why you’re the director today."

Suzy rested her head right against my jacket, her breathing finally turning regular and calm. "We thought we were the happiest family in the province, Barry. We had a good home, a safe routine, and we trusted the crown completely. We had no idea that Prince Raymond was already looking at my father’s ledgers, planning a move that would completely destroy our lives."