“Is he an Elementalist?” asked Annette in a whisper.

Kez looked at her, surprised that she remained relatively calm. “Yes, Wind Creator most likely.”

The black-robed man was now standing on the road, ready to cut them to pieces with his wind blades. Keziah motioned Annette back into the carriage. He didn’t want to face the mysterious man while also trying to defend her.

With the door closing behind her, Kez shouted, “Who are you?! What do you want?!”

No response was given back. Kez quickly cut the ropes tying the horse to the carriage and urged it to run, which it did. With resolve, Keziah then dashed from behind the carriage, rushing straight at the hooded man. Augustus was already drawn and aimed at the man’s side. Nearing its target, he was pushed to the ground by a strong blast of wind. With his sword slashing through the mud, Kez dodged the stab of a dagger, while trying to grab the man’s wrist to shock him unconscious. He could hear him muttering something under his breath and another blast of air pushed him back.

Kez felt something unnatural from the robed man. His mana response was incredibly fast, faster even than his own. And the strength of it wasn’t on par. Normally, with mana channels, you improved efficiency, strength, and response time at the same time. There were some variations, of course, but the general rule of thumb was that you could focus on one of the three, but the other two would also improve.

Sending electricity throughout his body, Kez decided that he had to overpower his opponent. He might be slower, but with his muscles pushed to the limit, he hoped it would be enough to push through the wind blasts. His opponent left him little time to prepare as another batch of small, concentrated air flew at him.

He tried sending a wave of condensed lightning at it, hoping that maybe with his recent, short practice, his mana core would be fixed. Alas, as soon as the lightning was further than three feet away from him, it dissipated. Catching most of the small cuts on the left side of his body, he ducked to the right.

Immediately after, he got hit with a wave of something. It wasn't his opponent's. He didn't notice it until it was almost on him, not causing any damage. Instead, it gave him information. Somehow, he knew his surroundings more intimately than before. He had to think about it later, as the man now rushed to cut him himself. Kez's muscles tensed as he prepared to finish it with one strong strike, not giving his opponent a chance for another attack.

He swung Augustus at the man's neck, wishing that if it would get deflected, it would be into his torso. The black-robed attacker stopped mid-slash and passed his knife from the right to the left hand. Putting the now free hand as to receive Augustus. His mouth moved again and a gust of wind, identical in strength to the last, pushed against Kez's sword.

Keziah focused only on his blade. He was imagining it cutting through this hard-blowing air and separating the man's head from his shoulders. After a few seconds of intense struggle, his imagination was becoming reality. The wind wasn't strong enough to keep Augustus off for long and with a swift slash, it was over.

The man's head rolled off the road, into the small borrow ditch, surprise painted permanently on its face. Keziah wheezed heavily, having strained himself fighting the guards and now this ambusher who appeared out of nowhere.

He felt like he was given only more questions and not a lot of answers. Who was the attacker and who hired him to kill Kez? Why was his mana control so bizarre? Maybe he could find out about this at least, he thought. Moving with strained muscles, he inspected the headless body. On the palms of his hands were strange burn scars, almost like branding on a cow. Kez didn’t recognize the symbols that the scars resembled, but they looked like some kind of letters. Similar to the common tongue, used on the entire continent of Erythia, but somewhat simplified. Wider, and almost rune-like, but Kez knew what real runes looked like. This was more of a combination of the standard writing and what some pirates used to engrave on their weapons. He has never seen anything like it.

Keziah didn’t want to remove any clothes from the corpse to check for more symbols. It just didn’t feel right to him. He did notice more of them on the already exposed neck, cut in half. Same style, but different symbols. The man was tall and thin. Hardened skin with calluses made him look more like a farmer than an assassin.

“Is it over?” asked Annette quietly from inside the carriage.

Kez, almost forgetting that she was there, stepped in front of the body to cover it from her, sheathing his word. “Yes, it's alright now,” he assured.

“I think I knew this man…” she said, uncertain. “I recognized his face when you cut his head.”

There goes trying to not make her look at it. At least she appeared to have been used to seeing blood, so it didn’t terrify her.

“He was with the doctor when they visited the palace to check if they could take me…”

Now that’s interesting, thought Kez. “Wait, the palace?” he asked, suddenly realizing what she had said.

“Yes, they came to my father offering to cure my ‘condition’” she said the last word, almost rolling her eyes.

“You don’t believe you are sick?”

“Nobody does. It’s a mana mutation,” she replied. “The sickness is just an excuse to keep the ‘bastard princess’ away from the royal family.”

“Princess? I didn’t know that old Clemen had a daughter.”

“Not many do, only the closest to the royal family. And Captain Sebastian,” she said, initial timidness now turning into slight cynicism.

So the Captain must have been fully aware of what he was ordering Kez to do. “So how did this ‘doctor’ know about you?”

“My ‘father’ probably told him himself. He wanted to get rid of me without any controversy, accidental death in a fire, for example.”

“This ‘doctor’ then wasn’t a doctor at all then.”

“I don’t know. The king seemed to be treating him like he was who he presented himself as. Even when no one was around.”

“No one but you?” he asked.

“I can be quiet when I need to,” replied Annette.

“So let me get this straight. The king wanted to get rid of you by sending you to a far away doctor, which then sends an assassin on you, while you are still on the way there?” asked Kez. “Why did the doctor want to get rid of you as well?”

“I don’t know. I have never seen him before.”

“He must have acted independently of the king, considering that the king hired me to burn this carriage with you inside it,” Keziah wondered aloud.

“Which you won’t do… right?” asked Annette rhetorically, trying to confirm her safety.

“Could have done it already if I wanted to,” he replied, reassuringly. “What do I do with you now? Can’t take you to that doctor, can’t bring you back to the palace…”

“You could… kidnap me?” asked Annette, like it was the most normal thing in the world to come up with.

“Huh?”

“The king wants me removed from the picture, the doctor wants me dead. I can’t remain in Avinea, that’s for sure. Or Aldunis, for that matter.”

“Do I get a vote on this subject?”

“You can’t stay in Aldunis either. Sooner or later, Sebastian will know that you didn’t kill me and he will hunt you down.”

“I can also just leave you here and run away from Aldunis alone. What then?”

“You won’t do that,” she said while getting off the carriage.

“Oh yeah? What makes you so sure?” He crossed his arms.

“You didn’t burn me when you had the chance, like you said. You also didn’t leave me for that man to slaughter.”

He didn’t have an answer for that. He wasn’t sure himself why he even checked the carriage to begin with. It wasn’t like him to burden himself with unnecessary information or someone else's troubles. Taking a look at the girl in the ornate dress, he said, “Don’t you have any other family? Or relatives?”

“My mother was murdered when she came to Alvinea claiming that Clemen raped her and that I'm his child."

Ouch

“There is one person who treated me like family, but she isn’t in Aldunis right now, anyway.”

“Do you know where this person is, if not Aldunis?”

“She is journeying for the past 2 years to train herself,” said Annette. “The last letter I got from her was from Nardan.”

“The port city in Minyth?” he asked to clarify.

“Yes.”

“Well, at least we have a destination.”

“So you agree?” asked Annette excitedly.

“I will get you to… What’s her name?”

“Evelyn.”

“I will get you to Evelyn and she will then take care of you, alright?”

Annette beamed a radiant smile, which looked somewhat out of place amidst the unconscious and dead bodies. Keziah then started to cover the carriage in oil, trying to at least buy themselves some time with the Captain having to check if the order was executed correctly.

While he was doing this, Augustus flared in his head, <You are almost like a real hero now, helping lost children, taking them to their families… I’m so proud of you! > he said, amused.

“It’s just to Nardan, then it’s back to minding my own business,” said Keziah, not sure how to feel in this new situation.

<Right, right, > answered hurriedly Augustus. <‘Just to Nardan’ he says… > he let the words hang in the colloquial air, as Kez continued to cover the coach with oil.