Hajin sat with the red text hanging in front of him while the fire went down to coals behind it.
'Eliminate the carrier to prevent future threat,' he thought, reading it again.
The prompt held its position, waiting on an answer.
He looked past it at Didi, curled tight under the thin blanket with her face still blotched from crying.
'She carries the bloodline of the thing that broke the Goddess,' he thought, breathing out, 'though she has never looked at me with any hostility.'
All she had done was watch the only person who cared about her die in front of her.
'I am not an executioner working from a script,' he thought, looking at the red letters without touching them, 'so if the Underworld King becomes my problem, I will find him myself.'
He put his hand through the panel, so the warning came apart into red pieces before it went out altogether.
The cave went back to the sound of coals settling under the ash.
'My life, my choices,' he thought, letting his head rest against the wall while his eyes closed.
Birds in the trees above the cave mouth woke him a few hours later.
'Morning already,' he thought, getting up with a yawn while the early sun came in flat across the floor.
He kicked earth over the last of the embers until nothing red was left under it.
Juna was already up, both arms over her head in a long stretch while her tail went back and forth behind her.
Didi sat with the blanket gripped in both hands, put back together a little overnight, though the weight of it still sat in her shoulders.
"We need to get moving," he said, pulling his shirt straight, "the capital is a few hours out on foot, so sitting here does nothing for anybody."
She folded the blanket into a neat square and held it out to him without a word.
"Keep it," he said, pushing it back toward her, "you will want it before we get through the gate."
The walk ran quiet, the forest ordinary again now that whatever had soaked the ground yesterday was gone.
At the corner of his vision the chat moved slower than usual, mostly people going over the night before.
[ CringeSlayer91: ] walking the princess home after all that, sure, very natural
'They stayed awake all night for this,' he thought, holding a branch aside until the other two were past.
[ ShadowMage44: ] wait until the kingdom finds out, they are going to lose their minds
Didi walked through the gap in the branches without appearing to notice who had made it for her.
[ ashley (Mod): ] Let's just hope the walk back is peaceful; they've been through enough.
'Agreed, Ashley,' he thought, letting the branch swing back, 'a boring walk is genuinely all I want.'
"You are quiet," Juna said, coming up on his left with her ears turned back toward the road, "you have been quiet since the fire."
"I have been thinking," he said, keeping his eyes forward, "it is a rare condition, so let it run its course."
"You think loudly," she said, unimpressed, "your face does most of it out loud for you."
Didi looked between them, the first interest she had shown in anything all morning.
"Is he always like this?" she asked, her voice still rough at the edges.
"Worse," Juna answered, picking a burr out of her tail, "you caught him being polite."
An hour short of the gate, hooves came up the road fast enough that Juna had turned before Hajin heard them properly.
A squad of plate-armored knights broke through the trees ahead to block the path, so Juna dropped into a crouch with a growl already building, until he laid a hand on her shoulder and the sound died.
'Crossed hammers over a silver anvil,' he thought, reading the crest while the dust settled around the horses, 'of every house on this road it had to be that one.'
The lead knight pulled up and took his helmet off, which gave Hajin a clear look at a side-branch cousin six years older than him, a man who had used him as entertainment for years before the exile.
He saw Didi first, then he found Hajin, then the smile arrived.
"Look what the forest dragged in," Kenny said, one gauntlet resting on the saddle horn, "I wondered where the family trash ended up, and it seems you became the royal family's dog."
'Family trash,' Didi thought, her eyes going sideways without her head turning.
'He belongs to the Flints,' she thought, matching the crest against everything she had been made to memorize, 'so why does one of their own speak to him like a stray?'
Hajin let the breath out while the panel picked up speed at the corner of his eye.
[ CringeSlayer91: ] a rival shows up on the road at exactly the right moment, incredible writing
'Somebody up there thinks this is entertainment,' he thought, pulling his attention off the panel.
[ NewViewer_02: ] hang on, Hajin got kicked out of his own family?
Juna moved a half step across without being told, which put her shoulder between Didi and the horses.
[ ashley (Mod): ] looks like some rich kid who thinks he owns the world
'Two seconds of him was all she needed,' he thought, while his hands stayed loose at his sides.
"Still standing there saying nothing," Kenny said, leaning forward over the horse, "you used to do that as a boy, right up until somebody made you move."
"I heard you were scraping a living out of the outer slums," he continued, letting his eyes travel down the cheap shirt, "so you admitted you have no talent and took work as a servant instead."
Didi came forward before he could get a word in front of her, and the air dropped until it stung to breathe.
"That is enough," she said, putting herself level with the horse's shoulder, "you will speak to him with the respect he earned, or I will ask my father to strip your posting before sunset."
Kenny did not move, though the smile changed shape while he looked down at her.
"With all due respect, Your Highness," he said, in a tone that carried none of it, "the Flint family are not your dogs."
"We are not some minor house you can order around a courtyard," he continued, gathering the reins into one hand, "so watch your mouth."
She held her ground while frost ran out from under her feet and crawled across the packed road.
"Are you certain," she asked, her voice dropping under the temperature, "that you can carry the weight of what you just said?"
Kenny gave no ground at all.
Silver mana came up around his armor and pushed the frost off without any strain, then five lit Shards turned themselves into the air beside his right arm.
[ ShadowMage44: ] she has the ground covered but he is not worried, that is the part I do not like
'That is not a bluff,' Hajin thought, reading the weight still folded away under the man's armor.
[NewViewer_02 donated: 100 credits]
'Kenny is arrogant, but he has the record to back it,' he thought, 'and five Shards will bury her before she gets a second spell out.'
[ NewViewer_02: ] my money is on the ice, she looks terrifying
A fight here was a loss with extra steps, so the only thing left was the King's name.
He moved up to her shoulder, inside her line of sight, before she could say anything worse.
"We are late," he said, pitching it at her rather than at the man on the horse, "your father already has people out looking, so every minute out here is one he spends worrying."
Kenny stayed on him for a long moment, eyes narrowing, before the five Shards went out of the air.
"How considerate of you, thinking of His Majesty," he said, the silver dying back into the plate as he turned the horse, "run along, then."
"We have a gate to clear before noon," he continued, lifting two fingers so the squad came up behind him, "and we would not want to hold you up."
He walked the horse past Hajin and took the column through the frost without looking down.
Hajin let go of the breath he had been sitting on since the helmet came off.
'That was close,' he thought, watching the riders shrink down the road, 'if she had thrown one spell, the Flints would have carried it into court and bled her father for a year.'
'They wanted her to move first,' he thought, 'which is the only reason he stood there talking that long.'
The frost sank back into the road while Didi lowered her hands and turned around.
"So," she said, brushing melt off her skirt with more care than the skirt needed, "the Flint family."
He found something worth looking at in the trees.
'I am so fucking dead,' he thought, while she waited on him with the folded blanket still under one arm.
"It is a long story," he said, starting to walk again, "and the capital is still ahead of us."
"Then keep walking, Hajin," she said, falling into step on his right side.
"He talks less when he is losing," Juna said from behind them, sounding pleased about it, "so keep going."