I couldn’t believe it. The more I thought about the captain’s decision to leave us behind while the rest of the Passguards fight in what might forever be a turning point in the security of the Berin Mountains, the more furious I grew. We met—even exceeded—his challenge when he pit his most ruthless mercenary against us! Galen knew precisely how effective we were, and even then, he cast us aside because he didn’t like that a local with a little magic neckce upstaged his handpicked soldiers.
Janine stared at the map on the back wall in a daze as other Passguards who didn’t immediately depart to prepare for a ten-day venture conversed about the mission. Most sounded enthusiastic about the opportunity, others wondered about applying for new jobs after the mission—if they succeeded, would the Passguards even be necessary anymore? A few seemed hesitant about the dangers, or leaving family for nearly two weeks. Had the captain instead asked for volunteers to stay, he surely could have found four hands.
This would not stand. Janine clenched her fists, storming down the hall toward Galen’s office. She swung the door open to reveal the captain as he stood near his desk, parchment in hand as he studied the report from his scouts. “Sir, this isn’t fair, and you know it.”
“Fair?” The captain set the parchment down, but never took his eyes off it, uninterested in Janine’s protests. “Fairness isn’t my business, Denholm. I make my assignments as I see fit to ensure the success of our mission. You have your assignment. That is all.”
Unsatisfied, Janine entered the office, coming close enough to Galen that he could no longer pretend to ignore her. “Being part of this mission is really important to me, captain. I lost my mother in the first Py’riel attack, I watched most of Quinn’s Peak burn down, I—”
“Everyone loses someone, that’s the nature of the world. I lost soldiers, good ones, every day in Jaegrius. You know what I did when that happened?” Galen sat down in the chair, resting his hands on his desk. “My job. I followed orders from my superiors instead of arguing with them so I could fulfill a revenge fantasy.”
“Why, though?” Janine’s voice wavered, but she held firm, leaning forward over the opposite side of his desk. “I’ve spent nearly a third of my life training to join the Passguards. Maybe I don’t have the combat experience of your mercenaries, but I’m also not tripping over my own feet or fumbling with my sword like other new recruits, and yet you’re taking them along. You’ve seen what I can do, wasn’t my fight with Rufel enough?”
Galen narrowed his eyes, holding back a growing frustration with his subordinate. “All I saw was a disobedient trainee who exploits magic in combat, and I wasn’t impressed. I don’t care how many years Warren trained you, nobody fights like that against a career soldier without decades of training or some sort of unnatural enhancement. I didn’t expel you from my force that day only because the mayor thought it might tarnish the Passguard’s image in the town’s eyes. But as long as you wear that neckce, you’re not setting foot on a battlefield under my watch.”
With a defeated sigh, Janine closed her eyes and turned toward the door, ready to leave. I wasn’t done, though. The way Galen reacted to my presence, he must have known profound secrets about some powerful relics. If I could just get him to tell us what he knew, maybe I’d know more about myself—and then maybe I could help convince him to reconsider his pns to include us on the journey to the woods. I had just as much to prove against the Py’riel as anyone! Something about his resistance toward me made me wonder what he’d seen, maybe some relic caused him pain, or fear, or—
“What is it about my relic that scares you so much?”
Janine turned around and said the words before either of us realized what had happened. In my haste to ‘nudge’ her into interrogating Galen further, I pushed her at the wrong moment, and the words burst forth. Too far, Janine!
Too te. Galen rose from his seat, gring down at Janine, keeping his distance only because the desk forbade him from advancing further. The captain let his stoic demeanor fade away as he stared Janine dead in the eye.
“You have no idea what’s really around your neck,” Galen said, a growling harshness in his voice increasing by the moment. “I told you before, I’ve seen my share of enchanted relics in combat. I watched knights boiled alive in their armor at the touch of a witch’s ring. I’ve seen a warlord wielding an arcane staff rip houses from their foundation and use them as battering rams against the neighboring structures. The users of relics think they’re in charge but they’re not, the relics twist their mind and corrupt their soul. A pacifist might pick up an enchanted knife only to be compelled to kill everyone in sight before sinking it into their own heart. Those old magics cannot be tamed, they cannot be trusted, so forgive me for being cautious while you walk around with what might as well be an arcane bomb around your neck. Like I said, you won’t see combat with your trinket so long as I’m in charge.”
Janine flinched as to Galen’s words pierced her core—as well as mine—but she still tried to respond in a st gasp effort. “And like I said, the Viridian Sphere is an amulet of protection, it saved my life before. It’s nothing like what you described.”
“No? Do you know how to tell when someone’s being corrupted by a relic?” Galen leaned closer, his face inches away from Janine’s. “It’s in their eyes. The old magics always burrow in there. Go look in a mirror, Denholm. You can’t tell me those brown eyes of yours don’t have flecks of viridian in them.”
