Wraithwood Botanist

Graka honestly didn't know Brexton was there when he materialized, so the mercenary leader cried out slightly and stumbled back as his eighty-nine fellow mercenaries readied spells and swords.

Brexton stuffed his pockets with his hands and leaned against a tree.

"I fuckin' hate you lot," Graka said.

"I bet you do," Brexton said.

"Well, lucky for me," Graka said. "I don't gotta deal with ya. Deal's off."

"About that…"

"No 'about that.' Mira's travelin' with Dantes—and that was against the deal."

"You're not worried about the Hellara? Their whole troop's coming."

"Fuck the Hellara. No one fuck's with those fairies 'cause there's no reason to fuck with 'em. But no one fuck's with the Dante because no one can fuck with the Dante. That's the difference. If we kill one of their guys, we're dead."

"Then don't kill 'em." Brexton shrugged. "It probably won't be hard to manage. First off—there's one Dante. The Hollow. And he has to protect Mira's entire family. Mother, father, brother. Then you got Cassain and her squad. They're going to protect Felio. Neither of those groups gives two shits what happens to Mira. They have their orders. So lead 'er away, and you have Mira, the lurvine, and maybe her cat. That's it. Oh... and maybe Aiden. Kalas is refusing to come."

"Aiden?" Graka picked his executioner's axe off the ground, gripping it like a club—giving him strength to say what he needed to say. He took a deep breath, and said, "Tell me, Brexton," with with a voice so rough it sounded like his throat was ground on sandpaper. "Do you think we're weak?"

"Why ever would you think that?" Brexton mused.

"'Cause you gotta hard-on for that girl. And you ain't hidin' it from no one. Makin' exceptions, hookin' up your kid. I heard you spent a few months trainin' Aiden how to schmooze her and everythin'. Now you're hookin' them up right before the ambush?"

Brexton shrugged. "Not exactly. I gave him the option, but what he does with it is on him."

"Don't fuck with me, Brexton. You're really gonna tell me that you're gonna piss away your two cash cows for a few mil? No. There ain't no way. You're either plannin' to betray us—or you think she'll wipe the floor with us."

Brexton stuck out his lower lip and nodded. "Yeah. It's pretty much that one. 'Cause she's already so strong, you can't even follow her. She'd literally see ya a mile away… Don't know how, but that's what I want to find out."

"So you're sacrificin' us?"

"If you can kill 'er, what's there to sacrifice?" Brexton smirked. "But hey. I'll make ya a soul pact. 'I promise I won't betray you during' this event. That means, no scheming, and I won't help them... Help either of you. I'll just lead 'er to the ambush 'cause a thousand hawks says you can't, and then I'll just sit back and watch. Yeah?'" He held out a hand for a shake.

"You're serious?"

"I'm serious. Plus, your pay's tripplin' 'cause the guards."

Grask snorted. "Wintrah? They're seriously sendin' that croon?"

"Yeah. The rest are stayin' around the Mouth. Deal is, the Dante are protecting Mira from the legacies. So they're sticking around for a day after she leaves and coming back a day before. Hadrian's orders."

Grask gripped his axe and turned to his rugged, ragtag team of unkillables, and said: "What do you think?"

They shrugged and took drinks from flasks and kept whittling dolls out of wood chunks and grumbled out some, "Fuck that guy. Let's do it"-s. These degenerates weren't famous mercenaries for nothing. They were strong, mean, and stupid, ready to go. And Brexton knew calling them all weak would drive them off the deep end. Now it was time to up the ante, make his soul pact, and help set them up for the ambush. Then, he could just sit back and watch as the chaos unfolded.

Brexton was born from chaos, and his philosophy was that if Mira couldn't survive the ordeal, she wasn't worth wasting his effort over. She killed a torok after three months and had a year's training after; she had Kline—the "Rawkan" as spoken in whispers legends—and the Drokai. Oh, yes, the Drokai. That's information that he had but couldn't disclose or hint at, but he could certainly use that information, and what he wanted to know was whether they would save her.

'Cause Brexton Claustra got this funny little feeling after he learned about the ease with which Mira survived. It was that the reason that people didn't survive living in the forest was because these clandestine creatures killed them—and if people only killed them, the forest was free game. And were, say, one of these mercenaries to survive this ordeal and tell someone, and Brexton was to naturally buy this information and then kill everyone that knew—

—well, the Claustra would be the most powerful and wealthy family in Dronami and far beyond.

'Cause the thing about Claustra soul pacts is that they didn't operate like other soul pacts, and anyone dealing with them had to operate on the expectation that they were out to exploit any and every loophole—even the Drokai.

Someone up high saved Mira Hill from the Drokai—and that action had a price.

2.

Brexton had two "gifts" that year, and I wasn't sure if the "positive" one was even positive. I was sitting around a fire, telling crazed stories, when it happened.

"Wait, you killed 'em with aphrodisiacs?" Tyler blurted, falling onto his back with laughter.

My mom sneered at him and looked back. "Honey, that's disgusting."

"It was effective," I said. "Remember, even the bunnies here could rip open a pitbull. So you gotta do what you gotta do."

"Well… that's my daughter for you," Dad said.

"The hell does that mean?" Mom asked.

Tyler laughed even harder.

"Stop that!" she cried.

That's when his first gift showed up.

"Hey, can I join you guys?" Aiden asked, cockatiel on his shoulder, an entourage of animals at his feet—bunny in his arms, petting it like a melodramatic supervillain.

It was ridiculous, but it wasn't just his Snow White persona that separated him from the last time I saw him. He… looked different.

He was dressed up in a charcoal gray button-down and belted slacks and black boots and a stylish overcoat. His hair was sculpted with clay, and he had a lot more muscle than before. He was… attractive now, not some geek. I knew that this was the look of a gangster, but it still had a good aesthetic.

"Uh… sure," I said.

"Thanks. Can you take Lindy?" He offered me his bunny, which I accepted. The cute thing was a supernova of fluffiness, and I almost squealed as the rest of the animals swarmed me.

"Seems the animals love you," Dad said.

"Yeah… see this? This is the proper use of powers. You have a mighty beast tamer here and he chooses to use his powers for good. Look at him."

"He's a gangster, Mom," Tyler said.

Dad's eyes sharpened, and he glowered at Aiden, who put up his hands playfully and said:

"The good kind."

"Oh? What's a good kind of gangster?" my mom pressed.

"The kind that loves animals?" he suggested sheepishly.

He looked nervous, but he was smirking and both my parents started smiling and laughing slightly. They couldn't help it.

The fuck's up with this? I thought.

And then I couldn't live without knowing the answer, so I bluntly said, "The fuck's up with you?"

"Well that's one way to say hello," he said with a puckered smile.

I glared at him.

"What?" he asked with a wide grin.

"Seriously? Is this like… a play or something?"

"See this, Mira? This's why no one changes. The moment your gloomy ass starts dressing well and cracking a few jokes, suddenly you're a gangster and a con artist running gags."

Dad laughed, and Mom shot him a glare, and Tyler sat up with an amused expression.

"Yeah… but…" Tyler said. "Normally, the girls start swoonin' and start going, what happened to him? Is he cool now? Or whatever they ask. But you're… a bit too different."

"Yeah, it's a conspiracy," I said.

He didn't respond. He looked at his cockatiel. "You see this? All these accusations and not one person's question if it's because I'm surrounded by cuties." A white and black cat meowed. "Yeah, you tell 'em Tiny," he said.

I couldn't help but smile a bit when he glanced at the bunny in my arms and then back up at my smile.

"Well, conspiracy aside…" I said. "it's good to see you're okay."

"I am…" He turned to my parents. "And what about you guys? You've spent a couple days in paradise. Did it match the brochure?"

Mom scoffed and looked at the torok bones and the stack of massive corpses, and Dad touched her shoulder and spoke for her:

"It's as advertised."

Tyler burst into laughter, and I got dragged right into it.

"Oh, good. Now, you gotta go in deep sometime. See your daughter in action. She's always somewhere between, oh, pretty flower, and grrrrr I'm going to kill you! It's a great time."

"What are you doing?" I asked him, blushing and slapping his shoulder.

"What? I was your Damsel for like… a couple weeks. Don't tell me I don't get to speak about it."

I locked arms with him like a bull, and Tyler said, "Whoa. Get a room."

"Excuse me what?" I asked sharply. Discover exclusive content at empire

"Oh, that's rude. You can turn me down, but you don't gotta be so mean about it."

"Wait. Turn you…" I turned to him with wide eyes, only to find him smirking at me. "You jerk! When'd you get so annoying."

"Oh, calm down…" Dad said. "Aiden… right? I don't think any of us know much about you."

"Oh, forgive my rudeness. My name's Aiden Roe… I'm a beast tamer, obviously. I was pretty nerdy a year ago, but after the Oracle forced me to fly Halten over the Bramble—"

"Halten?" Mom asked.

"Oh, the wyvern. His name's Halten. Most animals have names if you ask them…"

Dad nodded and motioned.

"Right, I um… Wow, the pressure's suddenly a lot more intense." He saw my intense gaze, and his facade started cracking. "Right. Umm…. anyway. Like Mira, the legacies wouldn't leave me alone. So the Claustra picked me up. Since then, I've worked in the Nest as a bartender from time to time, but I'm not really a gangster or anything. I actually spend most my time working with the beasts I bring back from the Harvest, prepping them for travel to the upper domains."

"Oh…" Mom said.

"Yeah," he said with a mellow smile and distant eyes. "But I am a bad boy now, so watch out for me. I'm what you would consider a 'bad influence.'"

He popped the lapels on his jacket, and Dad chuckled and Tyler eyed him strangely.

"Hey. Do you think you could help me dress like that?"

"Tyler Hill," Mom said.

"What?" Dad said. "He's sharply dressed. We've been trying to get him in button ups for years."

Mom frowned. "Wouldn't be so bad if he wasn't killing people."

"What?" I blurted.

"Training to," Dad said. "Yes, you can, Tyler. But you're not to go to The Nest, and if Brexton shows up, you're gonna leave. Break our trust on this and you won't get it back. I'd rather you do heroin than hangout with that man."

Aiden laughed and looked down. "Good choice."

I looked between them and then sighed. Aiden did seem like he belonged, but there was something else to it, something that drove him here. I knew it.

"Hey… I'm enjoying you being here and all, but do you need something as well?" I asked. "The Aiden I know would've waited until tomorrow when he could catch me alone."

"But there is no tomorrow," Aiden said.

"Oh… right. So you know then?"

"Yeah. And, ummm…" He scratched his head. "Well, I heard you had this tour and that you have a non-disclosure pact. I wouldn't've been able to make it a year ago, but my pact's been modified to allow for the conditions. So if you… ummm…" he blushed and winced and looked away. "You know, wanna hang out again, we actually can."

I blushed, too, and looked away. So this's the gift. I thought. Fucker…

I didn't know what I thought about it. There was so much going on, and if it were the old Aiden, I would've said no, kinda viewing him as dead weight. But this Aiden… was interesting.

It didn't matter if this was a ploy or a theatrical performance. So long as he committed to my soul pact, which would literally kill him if he disclosed certain information or was lying about his intentions, he wasn't a danger to me. And I wanted to dissect his brain and figure out what was going on.

"I'll think about it," I said. "If you can keep up this shtick for a couple more hours, I'll allow it. 'Cause if you can't, and this was all some rehearsed event, it was impressive, but you'll need another year of training before I buy it."

I said it with a straight face, but when I turned, I cracked a smile, and he shrugged.

"I'll try."

And he did. It was so much fun that I decided to ignore the fact that he drank something out of a flask—the same type of flask that Brexton drank from—likely the same stuff Brexton drank.

It would be a long day tomorrow, and the last thing I had to worry about was whether Aiden Roe was walking down a bad path. That was his problem. It wasn't like he was living with me. Right?

With that thought, I drifted to sleep.

The party left at dawn. Hadrian made a morning declaration reiterating that no legacies were to leave for another day and was forced to come back a day early. He didn't give them a reason, but Brexton and the rest of the legacies loosely agreed. Except, of course, Felio's party and Aiden, all of whom were sharing lurvines, two guards for each lurvine, Felio and I on Sina, Aiden, and Tyler on Kael, and Mom and Dad on Nika, the most passive and gentle lurvine. Lastly, there was Malo the Hallow, as some called him, a bleakly depressed Dante who looked like he wanted to die. He was on his own horse-like creature, and that was good 'cause I had doubts he would be useful if push came to shove.

In truth, I was wondering if any of these people would be more useful than having a few of the lurvines unburdened. That way, they could go to town. I also didn't feel comfortable having my parents on Nika, who was known for being slower despite being as sharp as a razor. After all, I wanted them to be able to flee.

However, Aiden had a moment of leadership when he sensed my worry and said:

"Give 'em the weakest you can with the highest amount of general capability. When the fighting starts, you want the strong ones as unhindered as possible. This is the ideal setup that uses their strength and intelligence—both the humans and lurvine."

It was a nice statement that made everyone feel powerful in some way or another, and I couldn't help but smile. Then we set off, unaware that Brexton hadn't returned to his tent last night or that there was an entire procession of mercenaries moving along with him.