Chapter 36: Skyreach (3)
Nyxie immediately frowned. "We don’t need to work with them!"
Kylo clasped his hands behind his back and rocked once on his heels, perfectly pleased with himself. "Blackthorn will handle the quest. You can just sit back and watch."
Nyxie moved. She looked ready to punch the arrogance straight off his face, but Gerbaut’s arm shot out across her path. He did not even look at her. He simply blocked her with one forearm and kept his eyes at Kylo.
She glared at the arm in front of her face. "Move."
"No," Gerbaut said.
"I’m serious, Gerby."
"So am I."
Kylo chuckled. "Good. Keep her restrained."
Then his eyes landed on Misha, clearly only noticing her now. His gaze skimmed over her rapier, her clothes, then her face. He looked unimpressed in that practiced way people used when they wanted others to feel small.
"And you are?"
Misha took a step beside Nyxie. "The person deciding whether your face looks better with a bruise."
A few of Blackthorn’s men snorted before they caught themselves.
Kylo’s smile twitched. Only for a second though. Then his arrogance crawled right back over his face.
"Another stray?" He gave Yara a disappointed look, as if she had dragged mud into his house. "You do love collecting them. You should join us instead and choose competence, Yara. Like I did."
A long sigh drifted out from behind Misha.
Elyes.
He had stayed quiet until now, standing there with his staff and his permanently tired, handsome face, as though none of this nonsense deserved enough energy for him to react.
"How fascinating."
Kylo raised a brow at him. He probably ignored Elyes on instinct because of his low presence.
"You abandoned your old team, attached yourself to a bigger guild, and now you call it competence." Elyes went on, his tone flat enough to sound almost bored. "I suppose leeches also consider themselves strategic because they know where to latch on."
Misha blinked. Then she almost turned to stare at him. This was her first time seeing Elyes this way.
Kylo stiffened as he glared at him. "Watch your mouth."
Elyes looked mildly confused, as if Kylo had interrupted him during a nap for no good reason. "Why? You clearly don’t watch your own decisions."
Nyxie made a choking sound beside Misha.
Misha pressed her lips together. She should not enjoy this as much as she did.
Kylo’s face darkened. "I left a weak group."
Elyes tilted his head slightly. "No. You left a difficult one. Weak groups flatter cowards and difficult groups simply expose them."
"Careful, mage." Kylo stepped forward, his voice sharpening.
"I am." He met his gaze without moving an inch. "That’s why I’m speaking to the former member instead of wasting effort on the current mistake."
Misha couldn’t believe her ears.
Elyes stood there looking half asleep and still somehow managed to slice through a man’s pride with less effort than most people used to breathe.
Kylo let out a dry laugh. "You think you’re clever?"
"I am clever." He gave a faint shrug. "I just think you’re being obvious and loud. It’s a common error in mediocre men who get promoted too early."
Misha had to look away for a second. If she kept staring at Elyes, one of them might notice she was enjoying this far too much.
Nyxie leaned closer to her and whispered. "I forgot how mean he gets when he’s awake."
She whispered back, "He should stay awake more often."
Kylo stepped forward once more, his jaw tightened, pride and irritation sitting plainly across his face. Then his eyes slid toward Yara again, and that little smug returned to his face. "You should’ve left with me when you had a chance. You always were wasted on people like this. Then again, maybe this is the only place you can thrive. You only work around people who are desperate enough to mistake you for a leader."
The temperature dropped.
Kylo continued anyway. "You always hid behind that graceful little act."
No one in Skyreach moved right away, but something invisible locked into place between them.
Gerbaut stepped forward first. His spear angled slightly, not enough to count as an attack, more than enough to count as a warning. His face stayed unreadable, but his eyes settled on Kylo with a weight that made even the men behind him shift.
Nyxie moved next. She planted herself at Yara’s side and rested her claymore against her shoulder with a sharp little grin that held no warmth at all.
"Say that again," she said. "SlowIy this time. I want to hear what exactly I’m breaking your jaw for."
Jules swallowed, then stepped in too. He looked nervous. Even so, he squared his shoulders and raised his shield just enough to make his position clear. "D-Don’t talk to Yara like that."
And Elyes, somehow, looked the least dramatic of all.
He simply shifted half a step until he stood a little closer to Yara than before, staff loose in one hand, expression dull with boredom. That made it worse. He looked at Kylo the way someone might look at dirt on the bottom of a shoe.
"You spend enough time with capable people, yet you still learn nothing from them," Elyes said before letting out a disappointed sigh.
Kylo’s smile thinned. "What?"
"You mistake being seen for being important. Yara held people together. You just took up space in a way that was hard to ignore."
Kylo’s face darkened, but Elyes kept going.
"Men like you only recognize structure when they’re standing on top of it," he said. "That’s why you still can’t tell the difference between the person who draws attention and the person everything depends on."
He gave another small shrug. "Skyreach survived losing you. It would’ve broken without her so losing you doesn’t affect us at all."
"He’s making excellent points." Nyxie grinned proudly.
"You think a few smart words make you right?" He glared darkly at him.
Elyes looked mildly puzzled. "No. Reality does that. The phrasing only helps slower people to keep up."
Kylo’s expression hardened at once.
Misha bit the inside of her cheek.
She was going to laugh. She knew it. One more line and she was going to ruin the whole mood by laughing in Kylo’s face.
Gerbaut with his silence, Nyxie with her teeth bared, Jules trying not to shake and standing there anyway, and Elyes sounding half-asleep while he politely gutted someone alive. Misha understood it then. This was how Skyreach drew the line.
Misha stepped beside Gerbaut and drew her rapier.
No one can disrespect their leader. Whatever history he had with Skyreach, he no longer got to stand there and talk down to their leader as if he still belonged anywhere near them.
Yara stood in the middle of it, calm as ever, as if she had expected them to stand beside her from the start.
Kylo looked from one face to another, and for the first time, his smile looked strained.
"That’s enough." His voice cracked like a whip meant to remind everyone who thought he held power here.
Misha hated that sort of tone on sight. Men who talked like that always seemed convinced the air itself should obey them.
Yara moved before the argument could snap into something uglier.
"We do not have time for this," she said again, firmer now. "Time is running out. We need to defend the gate first."
Kylo looked at her. His face eased by force. He wanted to seem in control again. Misha could see the effort in it now.
"Blackthorn keeps command," he replied. "My shield line takes the front. My archers take the wall. Your people stay behind us and clean up anything that slips through."
Nyxie scoffed. "You really love hearing yourself giving orders, don’t you?"
Kylo ignored her. "You should feel grateful I’m allowing you near the gate at all."
Misha let out a breath through her nose.
She officially hated him.
「 〔SYSTEM NOTICE〕
Preparation Phase.
Time Remaining: 00:01:23
The first wave will begin when the preparation period ends. 」
A distant howl rolled across the dark beyond the wall.
