"What exactly did she tell you? What was the mission you were given after finishing your training with her?" she asked in a similar tone as mine. "The Masked One needs something from Thoma, but what that is, he didn't say. Apparently, he's been trying to find a way to use you since our fight at Coltend," Irun said, eyeing me carefully.
"Use him? But what could Thoma have that he would want?" Ysevel asked, genuinely confused. "He said that there was something about you he saw during our fight in Coltend, but he never told me any specifics," Irun said, taking another swig of his bitter.
Is that what that spell was? I thought, recalling the draining spell I'd felt just before Irun escaped.
"Ugh, well, that doesn't help us much," she said with a huff. "There are still too many unknown variables, but we won't even begin to find out until Lady Kalia returns in the first place," she said, turning her bottle upside down. "In the meantime, let's get some well-deserved rest. I think we've earned it after almost thirteen cycles," she said, subconsciously putting her hand on my forearm.
It was my turn to blush.
Irun, apparently, had as well and raised an eyebrow at me before glancing back and forth between Ysevel and I. He allowed himself a small chuckle, then finished off his own bottle as I tried to do the same, but the lightheadedness was finally catching up to me.
I nearly stumbled out of my seat as I got up, finally feeling the full effects of the bitter. "Haha! I told you not to chug it," Irun chuckled as he watched me regain my balance. There was something to be said about the way he handled his own bitter that made me a little jealous, but I had to take into account the fact that I hardly had any fluids in my system at all.
Ysevel, however, wasn't doing too well herself, either, prompting Irun to chuckle at the two of us. "Are you going to make it up the stairs?" he asked in jest. "I'll be fine," I replied with a wave of my hand. "What about you? Are you staying down here?" I asked. "Just for a little longer. I need to catch up with Krozz a little more before I turn in for the cycle," he replied, to which I nodded my understanding.
Ysevel, on the other hand, had lightly stumbled into me and almost knocked me over just after I replied to Irun. "You alright?" I asked. "Yesh!" She said with a single nod and an oddly determined look in her eyes.
Irun, however, gave me a thin-lipped smile followed by a shrug.
I helped Ysevel up the stairs and did my best to match the markings on the key to the ones on the doors, but they all looked so much alike that I accidentally ended up opening the wrong door to a pair of creatures having some kind of mating ritual. What exactly was happening, I couldn't tell, but the room stank of whatever it was.
Needless to say, it nearly cost me my dinner and my life because those creatures were not happy to have an intruder.
After a few moments of sheer embarrassment and panic, Ysevel and I continued to make our way down the long hall, finally finding the marking that matched our key, and opened the door.
The room was well furnished with a single bed that was clearly made for a creature much larger than a human. The floor, still following the overall design of metallic-looking plates, was a smooth, matte color like the other interior walls. Just above the bed and on the ceiling, there were a few mana-flame lamps that were already lit, with a crystal dial at either side of the bed to control the mana output.
"Oh, wow. This is much better than I expected it to be," Ysevel said aloud what we were both thinking at that moment. I glanced around the room a little more to see if I could find anything we could use to clean ourselves of the ash-like dust we were covered in.
Thankfully, there was a corner of the room that was blocked off by a few of the metallic plates that stood from the floor to the ceiling by the large window on the far side of the room.
"It even has a place for us to clean up, look," I said, gesturing to the corner. "Thank the Gods. I've been needing a good wash. I'm sure this ash-like dust is in places we didn't even know we had, by now," Ysevel said jokingly before lazily tearing herself away.
We began to tiredly undo our equipment, trying to untie the leather laces that tied our scabbards to our hips. I got mine off with relative ease, but Ysevel seemed to be having difficulty with hers, as was evident by her fumbling with the loop she needed to pull on.
"Can you help me with this? I can't quite feel my fingertips," she said, turning to face me. I immediately felt a large amount of blood flush my face, but there was seemingly no secondary intent behind her question. Her eyes were a bit glazed, and her speech a little slurred, but otherwise she was standing on her own two feet.
"Of course. Give me a second here," I said, dropping to one knee so I could see where her struggles were. "Oh, gods! I don't believe it! Aren't we a little young for that?" she asked jokingly, putting one hand to her mouth and holding the other out like she was expecting something to be put on her fourth finger.
For what felt like an eternity with her in my head, in reality, passed in seconds as I wrapped my head around the thought.
"Oh, shit! I'm sorry! I didn't mean to…" I said, feeling my face trying to mimic a tomato's color. The resulting belly laughs from the depths of her soul immediately eased my embarrassment and was even followed up by an unplanned snort on her end.
Her laughing paused, and her eyes widened momentarily as we stared at each other for a few heartbeats. We suddenly burst into a fit of laughter, making light of the whole situation we were in and the ridiculousness of it all. "You should've seen the look on your face," she managed between laughs and another unwilling snort.
"I'm glad to know that I can bring you so much joy while being so incredibly embarrassed," I said with a chuckle, continuing to undo the lace anyway. "Well, you can only get so incredibly embarrassed if it's something you've either done or thought about before, right?" she asked inquisitively. "I'm not telling you shit," I said with a chuckle, desperately trying to hide my flushed face.
But alas, it was to no avail.
Before I could undo the final loop of her scabbard, I could feel strands of her hair draping over the side of my head. Her warm breath caught on the pointed tip of my ear, and I could feel gooseflesh riddling the right side of my entire body. "Hmm, what a shame. I guess I'll have to wait until you're ready to tell me," she said in a soft voice I'd only ever heard her use once before before she kissed my ear.
Yep! I'm fucked, I thought to myself.
She immediately stood back up before I could even properly react to whatever the fuck had just happened, feeling the full weight of her sword resting in the palm of my hand. "Thank you, Thoma," she said, pulling the fallen strands back behind her ear. I hadn't noticed it before, but either she was blushing at the realization of what she just did, or maybe it was the bitter actually getting to her system.
For the second time that night, I wished it was the former.
"In any case, I think you should go clean up first. I want to check something with my equipment after that fight we had in the woods," I lied, trying to make her feel as comfortable as possible.
She was royalty, after all.