The market burned long after the fighting ended.
Smoke drifted upward in dark twisting pillars against the orange evening sky while shattered stalls smoldered beside overturned carts and frozen streets. The scent of ash mixed with blood, dust, and melted fruit until the entire district smelled strangely sweet and rotten at the same time.
People moved everywhere now.
Civilians searching for missing relatives.
Workers dragging bodies from rubble.
The chaos had not vanished.
It had merely changed shape.
The Royal Knights finally established order nearly an hour later after the attack began managing to break through the Revolutionists' barricades surrounding the market district. The streets flooded with armored soldiers afterward, though most civilians looked less relieved and more irritated.
Mostly because the Knights had arrived after the dangerous part ended.
Elias stood silently near the ruined center of the market with his hands in his pockets while Royal Knights moved around the immobilized Revolutionists scattered across the street.
Or rather—
What remained of them.
The four trained Votaries among the Revolutionists who had attempted to challenge Emma Gable lay collapsed across the broken stone roadway, their limbs twisted unnaturally from precise injuries. Severed tendons. Pierced joints. Clean cuts that disabled movement without killing.
To everyone else, the fight had seemed instantaneous. But Elias had seen it somehow.
Barely.
Emma Gable had manifested a weapon.
A Grosse Messer sword seemed to manifest itself from thin air.
Then came the cuts.
Fast.
Too fast.
Not wild movements but terrifying precision. Every strike landed exactly where it needed to. Shoulders. Knees. Wrists. Tendons.
Disabling.
Efficient.
Elias could still remember the sensation of watching it.
It felt less like combat and more like inevitability.
As though Emma had already decided where the blades would land long before the men moved.
Now the Revolutionists twitched weakly on the ground while Knights secured the area around them.
Then one of the men suddenly jerked violently.
A Knight frowned.
"What's wrong with him?"
The man began convulsing.
Foam spilled from beneath his mask.
Another followed.
Then another.
The Knights cursed immediately.
"Poison!"
"He bit something!"
"Hold them down!"
Too late.
Within seconds all four men went still.
Dead.
The surrounding civilians recoiled uneasily.
Elias stared at the bodies silently.
Poison hidden in their mouths from the very beginning.
They were prepared to die before the attack even started.
"What kind of cause do these people fight for," Elias wondered quietly, "to throw their lives away that easily?"
No one answered because no one nearby had heard him.His gaze drifted upward toward the smoke-darkened sky. In the end it all felt pointless anyway.
Revolution.
Kingdoms.
Wars.
People screaming about justice.
People screaming about freedom.
People screaming about survival.
Eventually they all disappeared.
Kingdoms rose,Kingdoms fell and the world continued regardless. If Aerthos was destined to collapse, nothing these people did would stop it. And if it survived another few decades, that outcome had likely already been decided long ago too. Human beings simply struggled inside outcomes they could not perceive. Why not just accept the unfairness of the world instead of wasting ones life on the unattainable?
The thought should have made him sad.
Instead—
He mostly felt tired.
Nearby, Jamie kicked a broken spear aside.
"Tch. Idiots."
"Tch. Idiots."
She looked genuinely annoyed by the turn of events. Jamie was not tolerant to weakness and she saw this mass suicide as an act of weakness.
Maria snorted softly beside Elias.
"Well that was dramatic."
Elias glanced toward her.
Maria looked completely unharmed despite the battle earlier. Her dark hair remained pristine, and aside from a little dust on her clothes she appeared like someone returning from an afternoon stroll instead of urban warfare.
"How are you not tired?" Elias asked.
Maria grinned smugly.
"I'm built differently."
"You got hit in the head with a hammer."
"Yes."
"And you smiled."
"Yes."
"That's disturbing."
"Thank you."
Elias rolled his eyes.
The knights followed protocol.Statements were taken immediately.
Witnesses questioned.
Survivors catalogued.
And unfortunately—
Elias, Jamie, and Maria received special attention.
The Knights were deeply interested in the fact that three children had apparently participated directly in combat while defending civilians.
Especially after multiple witnesses described Jamie as a saviour who created "walls of ice to protect them" and Maria as a selfless girl "putting herself between the people and danger."
The explanations took far longer than Elias wanted but that wasn't what irritated him.
'How come, I'm not remebered as doing doing something for them, I was literally in front.'
One Knight rubbed his temples while reviewing witness accounts.
"I'm sorry," he said slowly, "you're telling me you fought armed Revolutionists?"
Jamie folded her arms.
"I fought people trying to attack Auntie Araba."
"And civilians," the Knight added carefully.
Jamie shrugged.
"I guess."
The Knight looked exhausted already.
"So you were protecting civilians?"
"I was protecting Auntie Araba."
"And her son?"
"Junior?"
Jamie's face became blank.
"Hmm, I wouldn't mind if he got caught up in the fight but he survived so it is what it is." she shrugged.
Junior, sitting nearby wrapped in a blanket, gasped in betrayal.
"THATS MEAN!"
"That's unnecessary," Elias muttered quietly.
"It's true."
"I know but at least pretend to care."
"Where did you get the axe though?" The knight asked.
Both Children looked at him.
"What axe?" they asked in unison.
The Knight looked like he desperately wanted this conversation to end. Maria laughed openly nearby while answering questions from another officer. Elias eventually grabbed Jamie by the shoulder before she could complicate things further.
"Come on."
"But I'm explaining."
"You're making it worse."
"I don't think I am."
"You definitely are."
By the time everything finally ended, evening had already descended over the capital.
The sky had darkened into deep blue while lanterns flickered awake throughout the streets.
An Amberose carriage eventually arrived to retrieve them.
The ride home was quiet at first.
The interior of the carriage glowed softly beneath suspended crystal lamps while the rhythmic sound of wheels rolling over stone roads filled the silence.
Elias sat beside Maria. Across from them sat Araba with Junior pressed tightly against her side. The boy had not fully recovered from the day's events. He clung to his mother silently while she gently stroked his hair. Every so often he peeked upward nervously. Usually toward Jamie.
Jamie sat beside him with one leg crossed over the other while staring out the carriage window. Every time Junior accidentally met her eyes he immediately looked away again. Jamie noticed every single time and seemed deeply amused by it.
Eventually Maria broke the silence.
"So," she asked lazily, "what do you think of today's outing?"
Elias looked toward her.
"Needlessly excessive."
Maria laughed.
"That's one way to put it."
Araba looked between the children with disbelief still lingering in her eyes.
"You three are speaking very casually considering what happened today."
"Eh, its just another day in the week." Jamie said casually.
"Why do you children engage with danger so casually?"
Jamie finally looked away from the window.
"Shouldn't people defend themselves when attacked?"
Araba hesitated.
"Well yes… but…"
"But?" Jamie asked.
Araba's brow furrowed. She looked at Elias.
"But you're children. You shouldn't have to—"
"Being a child doesn't mean you should let adults do whatever they want." Elias's voice was calm as he leaned back slightly.
"Wouldn't dialogue be more beneficial than senseless attacks that don't benefit anyone?" Jamie added.
Araba stared at him.
Then at Jamie.
Then back at Elias.
The maturity felt unsettling.
But then again—
Awakened children matured faster than ordinary ones. It was common knowledge that awakening accelerated development of the mind, body, and spirit simultaneously.
Still...
Sometimes she forgot how abnormal these children truly were.
"That may be true," Araba said softly, "but you shouldn't get ahead of yourselves either."
Her eyes moved toward Elias' side.
You were injured."
"I'm fine."
"You were stabbed."
"I've had worse."
"Oh?" Maria immediately looked interested and leaned in.
"What others have you had?"
Elias counted on his fingers.
"Rammed. Shot. Stabbed. Thrown off a hill. Caught in an explosion. Bitten. Impaled through the chest."
The carriage became silent.
Junior stared at him in horror. Araba slowly covered her mouth with both hands.
"What?"
Elias blinked.
"What?"
"You were impaled through the chest?!"
"Oh yeah, you mean that big blue lizard." Jamie said remembering.
"Yeah that one."
"When?!" Araba asked.
"A a little over half a year ago."
Maria looked fascinated rather than horrified.
"What did that feel like?"
Elias thought about it honestly.
"Painful."
Jamie snorted.
"It pierced his lungs," she added helpfully.
Araba looked moments away from fainting.
"That's not helping!"
Elias tilted his head slightly.
"It wasn't the instant death I imagined either." Elias added thoughtfully, looking nup at the carraige ceiling.
"People assume impalement is immediate, but I remeber feeling like I was drowning before passing out. Must have been my blood."
Araba stared at him like he had personally traumatized her.
"I'm going to have a talk with Auro about how he's raising his children."
The carriage eventually rolled through the noble district toward the residential estates.
The roads became quieter here.
Cleaner.
Guard patrols moved calmly beneath glowing lanterns while massive estates stood beyond iron gates and flowering gardens.
When the carriage stopped, Elias immediately noticed two figures already waiting near the entrance.
Alaric.
And Gyan.
It seemed they had also just arrived.
At nearly the same moment another carriage approached from the opposite side. Kingsley Amberose emerged almost immediately the second it stopped. The transformation was honestly impressive.Inside the Council Chamber the man resembled a calculating predator wrapped in noble robes.
Here—
He looked like an overprotective husband moments away from cardiac arrest.
"ARABA!"
He practically sprinted forward.
"Are you alright?!"
Araba sighed tiredly as he immediately grabbed her shoulders checking for injuries.
"I'm fine, dear."
"You were inside the market during a terrorist attack!"
"Yes."
"You could have died!"
"But I didn't. The children protected us."
Amberose's gaze flickered toward Elias and Jamie. Something passed over his face—gratitude, perhaps, or suspicion, or both.
Junior jumped down next.
"Father!"
Kingsley immediately scooped the boy upward dramatically.
"My son!"
Elias watched silently.
Politics truly created strange people.
The same man who ethusiastically was out to get his father for God knows what reason was now fussing over whether his wife skipped lunch.
Humans were complicated.
Jamie stepped down from the carriage next and silently walked toward Alaric. Then simply stood beside him, watching the Amberose family like a mildly judgmental cat. Maria exited last then paused.
"Oh."
Elias followed her gaze upward. A window near the top floor of the Clementes estate stood open.
Maria smiled instantly.
"My father's back."
She walked toward her house, her steps light, her shoulders relaxed.
Jamie called after her.
"Maria?"
She turned.
"See you tomorrow," she said, and winked.
'Why did she even come with us today? he wondered. What was the point?'
He did not have an answer.
Araba meanwhile turned toward Alaric warmly.
"Since your'e here I'll make dinn—"
"No," Kingsley interrupted immediately.
Araba blinked.
"What?"
"We're are coming home."
Kingsley's tone left absolutely no room for argument.
Araba clearly wanted to protest, Elias could see it in her expression. But after a moment she sighed softly.
"…Fine."
Then she looked apologetically toward Alaric.
"I'll visit tomorrow instead."
Alaric smiled faintly.
"Then why not simply eat together eh Kingsley?"
Kingsley immediately glared at him like Alaric had personally insulted seven generations of his bloodline.
The silence afterward was incredible.
Alaric blinked once. Then shrugged casually.
"Worth asking."
Kingsley looked deeply offended by his existence.
Without another word he guided his family away toward their estatewhile Araba mouthed a silent apology over her shoulder. Junior waved at Jamie weakly. Jamie did not wave back.
Once they disappeared down the road, silence settled over the estate entrance again. Night had fully descended now.
The gardens glowed softly beneath lanternlight while distant city noises echoed faintly beyond the walls. Alaric finally looked toward the children.
"So," he said with a smile.
"I hear you had quite the exciting experience. Will you tell me about it?"