The closer to port they got, the more people even looked at Vel and Amalia. Sigurd even had some luck talking to the locals. Half of them thought him to be mixed with Islander instead of Alnonor. Aden didn’t take long to run off, talking to folks along the docks while Amalia and Vel stood at the edge of the cobblestone. Notably, they were away from where Sigurd talked to the dockmaster.

  “I suppose I imagined them to be less racist after all the years we spent trading with them,” Amalia said, watching several burly men carry crates. They were tall, significantly so. That was a theme Vel was realizing, which also had her curious. Did her height come from these people? Amalia was more average height for an Alnonor, but Vel? Taller. It wasn’t unheard of though.

  “Mango man thought I dyed my hair,” Vel said. “Are hair dyes normal?”

  “Of course not! I’ve never heard of such a thing,” Amalia answered, “but I suppose . . . this is a trading people, so they might have seen products we couldn’t even imagine.”

  Vel nodded, eyes shifting from the trio of men to the ships that laid beyond. They were unlike the ships she’d seen at Alnonor’s docks, though they did have a few cogs like there were on the island. However, the large majority of the ships were small sailboats with space to row, and equipped with large harpoons and cranks.

  The boats were much less fascinating than the people, she decided. People watching was fun, given that she had the time for it here. Or rather, watching a new kind of people was fun. The fashion was outrageous, some women have one or both shoulders exposed, and the colors! Oh, she’d never seen such vibrant colors before! It was like they were splashed onto the fabric in a mishmashed array that seemed like they shouldn’t work together, but they did. Others had complex patterns that looked to have been painstakingly painted.

  Could [dye magic] do that? Vel wondered. Something else that caught her eye was painted nails.

  Gazing down at her metal nails, Vel considered coloring them. They’d blend in, maybe even look normal again. More importantly, could she use [dye magic] to make a shape? Vel pressed one index finger to the nail of the other, and thought about making a simple shape━a circle. She wanted orange. Not a color she normally picked, but after seeing a particularly pretty burnt orange on an older lady’s dress, she found that she quite fancied the color.

  The color spilled from her finger, and while it went further than she intended, the oblong circle did give her the impression that it was possible to create designs with the skill, just that hers was too weak.

  [Dye Magic level 11]

  Wiping her thumb over the nail, Vel was glad to find that the color didn’t simply rub away, but clung to the metal. Smiling, she finished the job on the singular nail, then proceeded to dye the rest of her nails in a vibrant pattern of orange and blue.

  [Dye Magic level 12]

  [Dye Magic level 13]

  [Dye Magic level 14]

  [Dye Magic level 15]

  [Dye Magic level 16]

  [Dye Magic level 17]

  [Dye Magic level 18]

  [Dye Magic level 19]

  “Look,” Vel beckoned, holding her hand up for Amalia to see.

  The singer gasped, taking her hand and holding it close to inspect Vel’s nails. “How did you do this?”

  “[Dye magic].”

  Amalia looked up, looking straight into Vel’s eyes, her expression deadly serious as she said, “Me next.”

  A few moments later, Sigurd approached as Vel finished dying Amalia’s nails an array of pink, purple, and blue, [dye magic] giving her a list of notifications up to level 25. Vel looked up at the hunter, a grin etched upon her face.

  “What did you do?” Sigurd ask, raising an eyebrow.

  “Look!” Vel said, holding her nails up for him to see.

  Sigurd look . . . unamused. “That’s . . . nice?” he said, his eyes starting to roll, but he refrained. “Edard’s been through here,” he said.

  Vel’s heart skipped a beat. “Did they say where he went?” she asked, words nearly running over one another to get out fast enough.

  “Took asylum with some guards. The standard is to take anyone who requests it to the capital now,” Sigurd raised an eyebrow as he said it, glancing back at the dockmaster with a distrusting look.

  “That didn’t used to be?” Amalia asked.

  Sigurd turned back to them, shaking his head. “No. They used to get processed in the dock cities. This is a new change since the last time I was here. Makes me think that maybe the crown has passed on.”

  “Which . . .” Vel started, pondering that for a moment. Her mother in her previous life was this land’s queen. Unless she’d died earlier, then she’d still been queen until recently. “My mother is dead?” she asked, voice slipping. She hadn’t considered how much that would hurt. All this time, she’d been thinking about Edard, and yet she couldn’t help the small sliver of her that hoped she could have a mom. A real one. One that, notably, didn’t want to kill her.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  “Mother?” Amalia asked, brow raised.

  Sigurd ignored her to answer Vel, “Maybe. Queens in Ymril have passed the crown on earlier as they’ve gotten weary in age, especially if there was someone available too. However, the queen here never had another daughter. I would expect her to have been reluctant without a blood heir.”

  “Mother?” Amalia asked again, more pressing.

  “Shouldn’t you know who she was in a past life?” Sigurd asked.

  “Well, yes, but I suppose I hadn’t quite put the part together that Vel’s mother in a past life was queen here, no thanks to you.”

  “It’s basic math. Keep up,” Sigurd said.

  Amalia scoffed. At least, in Vel’s opinion, their arguments were growing more tame, if a bit slower than she wished.

  “So I could still have a mom then?” Vel asked.

  “And brothers. Too many damn brothers,” Sigurd grumbled.

  For a brief moment, Vel imagined what it would be like to have so many brothers, and by the way Sigurd put it, she expected about a dozen of them. While she wouldn’t look much like them, she imagined, she still felt almost . . . relieved. As if a family simply existing could help her face the gods.

  “Can we take asylum too?” Vel asked, looking up at Sigurd.

  “We can try,” Sigurd said. He turned, pointing his finger towards the little booth the knights were stationed at, and opened his mouth to say more.

  Vel brushed past him, moving towards the men in royal blue uniforms, not bothering to wait for Sigurd’s next words. No, not when she was this close. Edard. Brothers. Family. Yes, she’d come to see Sigurd as family, and gradually Amalia, perhaps even Aden, but not how she felt so connected to Edard, nor how she desired to know of her roots, albeit from a previous life.

  Walking up to the counter, the tall man behind it raised a blue bushy eyebrow.

  “Asylum, please,” Vel requested, and the man crossed his arms. Weeks ago, a man of this size, standing so straight and tall, would have intimidated her. She’d have cowed beneath that piercing black glare, and silently moved along without so much of an utter. Knights, even non-church ones, were to be respected. Today, however, she. Didn’t. Care. Instead, she stood just a little taller, and met his gaze, challenging him. “Asylum,” she repeated.

  “You can’t request asylum like a patron requests bread,” he rumbled.

  “Velmira,” Sigurd said from behind her, placing a hand on her shoulder. He tugged, but she resisted. She wasn’t moving until she got passage to the capital; until she got passage to Edard.

  “How did Edard get it?” she asked, furrowing her brow.

  “Pardon,” the knight behind the first stood from the stool he’d been resting on, and in comparison, was quite a bit shorter. “Did you say Edard?”

  “I did,” Velmira nodded, hope melting her insides, but determination keeping her upright and straight-faced. She placed a hand on the counter between her and the knights, her fingers curling into a fist. “I’m trying to find him.”

  “What for?” the shorter knight asked, pushing passed his blue haired companion.

  “To be with him, to . . .” use his possible seer-like abilities to end the gods and maybe marry him, or something? she finished in her head, feeling warmth come to her cheeks. Who was she kidding? None of this was going to stay inside her head for long, and she certainly didn’t have the damn time for this! “Because I love him, and I need him. And he’s going to help me overthrow the very gods themselves.”

  She heard Sigurd smack his forehead.

  [Skill gained: Sense Motive]

  [0.5 Acuity added]

  “I don’t know if I should call you insane or praise you,” the knight said, “You actually believe that’s what you’ll accomplish with Edard?”

  “Yes.”

  “More importantly,” blue-head started, rolling his dark eyes, “why should we give you asylum?”

  “Because the gods are trying to kill me,” Velmira answered.

  “Okay, Vel, we’re done with that,” Sigurd placed a hand on her shoulder, shoving her out of the way as he stepped in her place. “We escaped from church in Alnonor. Their priests are trying to kill us, and I’m sure they’re not far behind. Most lightly they’re at port northward, if they haven’t turned around by now already. We also were attacked in your jungle by church-led goblins, so if you’d please, asylum and an escort to her majesty?”

  Wow, he even said “please”, Vel thought.

  The blue-haired knight frowned while the short one sighed. “I’ll check with our captain, but I can’t make any promises that we can take you,” he said.

  As he turned, Vel pushed past Sigurd, thinking up of one, final desperate attempt to ensure their asylum. One very stupid one, and yet, she didn’t care. “I’m the [sacrifice],” she blurted.

  Both knights froze, the short one staring at her like he’d seen a ghost. He should have, considering that she should have been dead already.

  “I understand that your prior heir was also the [sacrifice] many years ago,” she added. “That she was stolen from your people, and that it dawned your reformation away from the church. Please, I beg of you, take me to your queen.”

  “Very well,” the short man said, then saluted with a fist to his chest. “I will take you myself if I must. Still, I need to report this to my captain.” He left out of the back of the booth, leaving blue-head all alone with the four of them.

  “We need to talk about your negotiating skills,” Sigurd noted. “Not everyone needs to know that you’re the [sacrifice], Vel.”

  “Eventually, everyone will know,” Velmira said, turning towards Sigurd. She looked up at him, his gaze hard as always, though there was someone soft behind those eyes━a softness she’d seen when he held her. He was family to her at this point. “Sigurd, I’m going to kill the gods,” she said, “and I think they know it.”

  “We’ll be runnin’ out of time then,” Aden noted, stepping up beside them. “More than just priests and church knights are going to be after us. If the gods are so sure you can kill them, why don’t they find you themselves?”

  “Because I have a skill━a boon━that allows me go . . .” she trailed, staring at the teenager as she realized she’d never added him to her allies list. “Oh . . . oh no,” she whispered, and looked up at Sigurd.

  “What is it?” Sigurd asked.

  “We’ve been traveling with someone who can be tracked this entire time. Previously, I added you and Amalia to my boon so magic or gods couldn’t track us, but I never added Aden,” Vel said, getting a sinking feeling in her gut. She looked towards the docks and the water beyond, half expecting to see a church ship on the horizon. No, they couldn’t be so brazen as to come to the docks of enemy territory, could they?

  “That could be how the goblins found us,” Amalia said. “I had no idea you had such a boon, I just thought we’d been lucky up until this point.”

  Velmira nodded. Purple fairy, add Aden to allies.

  [You have met 1 Aden Cros (Healer) in your life. Add to allies?]

  Yes.

  [Aden Cros has received Allied Boon of Safety]

  “By the gods, even I forgot you had that boon of safety,” Sigurd huffed, running a hand through his hair. “We need to move.”

  “So . . . what’s all this about?” the knight asked. “You’re being tracked?”

  “Most likely, well, not anymore,” Velmira said.

  “Wait, so ya added me?” Aden asked.

  “Yes.”

  “But I didn’t even get a notification. Shouldn’t I get a notification for somethin’ like that? Like, even a little blip?”

  “I don’t know how it works, entirely,” Vel sighed, pushing loose hair behind an ear.

  The door to the knight’s booth creaked open as the short black-haired knight returned with a man in a decorated uniform.

  “Your majesty,” the decorative knight said, “We will take you to the high queen immediately.”