2. Disaster Strikes A Match #3
“Absolutely. Immediate investigation. Top priority, I assure you,” I prattled, attempting to soothe his temper.
Ironically, I wasn’t afraid of him—some subconscious instinct recognised a strange, intrinsic safety in his presence.
Still, given that I preferred not to end up skewered like a roast chicken on the first day of the Great Market—or any other day, for that matter—I scrambled to distract him before he developed an urge to gut me on the spot. “Wait. What’s your name?”
“Commander Ke?lhem Renyés. The Highest Vanguard of the Realm.” He gave a shallow tilt of his head.
“Kill’em?” I swallowed, my throat producing an audible gulp. “As in, kill’em all?”
With that armour, the sabre and his size, didn’t that sound like a fitting name for a warrior?
This time, he cast me a straight-up are-you-insane look.
“Ke?lhem.” He grabbed a brush I’d dipped in the inkwell to write the prices of my items. Utilising a sheet of wrapping paper, he drew two exotic, rune-like signs in one fluid, deft movement of his wrist.
I cupped my chin and cocked my head, trying to make sense of the foreign characters. Aside from the excellent level of his calligraphy, they revealed exactly nought to me.
His heavy sigh told me he realised the futility of throwing pearls before swine.
“Did you say you were the Highest Vanguard—” I gave another cough, “—of the Realm?”
“Affirmative.”
“Err, sorry to appear obtuse, but allow me to ask… what realm would that be?”
Ke?lhem straightened. “The Elven Country.”
“Of course, of course. We’re all elves here,” I said, hoping my empathetic tone both placated him and distracted from the blank expression I must have sported. “Just so that I can fully grasp the, um, situation… So sorry, but where exactly are you from? Where were you born, I mean?”
“Asirhw?n.”
I stared.
“The Royal Capital,” he insisted, his tone taut with frustration. “Known as the Silver City?”
My despair spiked as every shred of data he supplied confirmed my worst fear. “Right. And that Mink Castle—oh no, the Ferret Bunker you mentioned earlier,” I rambled on, assorted luxury mustelids swirling around in my head, “is that also in the Elven Realm?”
“Sable Citadel,” he grated. “And negative. That is in Barbarian Territory.”
“Aha, I see. So that’s where it is. Splendid.”
Splendid indeed. Just fucking brilliant.
Fighting off the oncoming anxiety attack I felt creeping up my chest, I pressed the bridge of my nose and commenced the box-breathing technique Fern had taught me.
Inhale for four counts, hold for four… but my lungs refused to cooperate.
The market began to tilt, the chalk-tinted stalls blurring into a dizzying smear of watercolours.
A few hours before the Great Midsummer Market opened, I had summoned from another world a teeth-clenching warlord, itching to use his big stabby stick on me. Pun absolutely not intended.
Oh, Elian. This time, you’re truly, properly fucked.
My knees turned to marshmallows.
He levelled his gaze at me, a flicker of concern cutting through the frost in his eyes. His leather boots made barely a sound along the cobblestones as he closed the distance between us. “Are you all right?”
I felt his body heat radiating against me—a sensation familiar from my dreams, yet novel in reality. It did nothing to settle my nerves. On the contrary, his proximity left me even weaker.
I wiped my damp palms on my tunic. “Nope, I don’t believe I am. But thank you for asking nonetheless. Very kind,” I rabbited on, despite the heart palpitations and the sudden ringing in my ears.
“What’s wrong with you?” He clearly wanted to interrogate me further, but the dizziness sent me sliding down the side of the stall counter.
Before I could crack my skull on the oak timber, a pair of strong, armoured arms intervened.
Kill’em lunged forwards, catching me before I hit the ground.
The momentum of my slump pulled the commander down with me.
Still, he pivoted mid-fall, ensuring his own body shielded me from the stone surface.
With a fast grip, he secured me by the waist, cushioning our descent until we sat tangled together on the floor of my stall.
“Are you going to pass out?” he demanded, his deep voice vibrating right through my ribs.
With little conviction, I shook my head to deny it, even though, based on previous experience, this marked the exact destination where my nervous system headed.
He supported me in his arms, holding me as though I was a crate of unstable explosives, ready to detonate at the slightest tremor. Speaking took an immense effort, but I had to try. “Commander… would you mind checking if there’s a… a black matchstick with a lilac head anywhere on the counter?”
To my relief, he refrained from asking questions. Displaying a commendable efficiency, he craned his neck, straining upward to scan the display without letting go of me.
“The only match with a lavender head I see comes with a white splint,” he reported.
Well, the one he referred to—wisteria, not lavender-tipped, to be precise—held a guilt-relieving charm. While not without merit in this situation, it wasn’t what I needed right this second. Typical. On the day I performed a cross-dimensional kidnapping, I’d left my anti-anxiety medication at home.
“That’s a pity,” I whispered.
The black spots in my vision began to swarm, distorting the image of his handsome, worried face until they swallowed it entirely.
And then—I passed out.