"Miss Bonnie?" Ashen set down his cup.
Her face lit up in response. "Mr. Ashen! I've been looking for you ever since the Reserve Army came back!"
She dropped into the chair across from him without waiting for permission, satchel hitting the table with a soft thump.
"Looking for me?" Ashen raised an eyebrow. "How'd you manage that? There are millions of people in Ashbastion right now, and I'm just one soldier among thousands."
"Oh, that's easy!" Bonnie leaned forward conspiratorially. "Mister Ash, you're a minor celebrity at this point. Aren't you aware?"
"Hah?" Ashen gave her a genuinely dumbfounded look. "Celebrity? What for?"
He knew he had a bit of reputation among the Reserve Army—the Guardian Captain, the Ghost Warrior, whatever other nonsense they'd coined. And back in the Bloodwall from his time before imprisonment. But that didn't warrant calling him a celebrity, no matter how minor.
"What else?" Bonnie clapped her hands together, eyes sparkling. "Your romantic elopement with Lady Alice, of course!"
Ashen's brain stuttered. "My... what?"
"The story's everywhere! The soldier who fell in love with a lady far above his station and risked everything for that love!" Bonnie's voice took on the breathless quality of someone recounting a fairy tale. "They say you resisted torture in the Pit, refusing to give her up. That you're gathering merit through heroic deeds against the Narkals, hoping to one day stand at her side as an equal!"
The coffee in Ashen's mouth suddenly tasted more bitter than it should have.
'What the actual fuck.'
"It's so romantic," Bonnie continued, oblivious to his internal crisis. "Everyone's talking about it. There's even a betting pool on whether you'll get pardoned before the war ends."
Ashen set down his cup very carefully, fighting the urge to put his head in his hands.
It wasn't even logical. Since the embodiment of Sins became widespread, especially Lust, relationships between nobles and commoners had become commonplace in Esperra. And Alice wasn't even nobility, just higher-ranked in the military hierarchy.
The entire foundation of these stories was nonsense.
But boredom didn't stop people from conjuring whatever tales suited them, apparently.
At least they hadn't painted him as some evil criminal. Small mercies.
"That's..." Ashen searched for words. "...creative. But it still doesn't explain how you found me specifically."
"Do you have some kind of stalking skill?" He asked with a faint smirk, thoughts momentarily drifting to a certain pink-haired woman with lapis lazuli eyes.
Bonnie laughed. "I wish! No, it's nothing so mysterious."
She gestured subtly toward the bar, where a waitress in a skimpy outfit was serving drinks. The woman caught the motion and winked at them.
Understanding clicked.
"Since we last met," Bonnie continued, voice dropping slightly, "I've been working on expanding my network and building connections. I've become... well, somewhat known among the working girls, at least."
She pulled a small notebook from her satchel with worn pages covered in neat handwriting. "We talk… and we share information. A soldier matching your description shows up in a pub? Someone mentions the Guardian Captain drinking alone? Word travels fast when you know who to ask."
Ashen studied her with renewed interest.
This was going far beyondjust survival instinct. Bonnie had built herself an intelligence network using the oldest profession's natural access to loose-lipped soldiers.
Clever.
"Impressive," he said genuinely. "That takes more skill than people give credit for."
Pink dusted her cheeks. "It's just... usable. Knowledge is currency when you don't have much else to trade."
The lightness in her expression faded then, replaced by something more serious.
"Which brings me to why I sought you out." Bonnie's hands folded on the table, knuckles white. "I wanted to inform you about some things. And warn you about others."
The pub's noise seemed to recede. Ashen leaned forward slightly.
"I'm listening."
Bonnie glanced around, then pitched her voice low enough that only SA-enhanced hearing could catch it clearly over the background noise.
"The reinforcements were ambushed."
Ashen's expression didn't change, but his pulse quickened.
"The higher-ups are trying to keep it quiet to maintain morale. But everyone can see the truth from the numbers." Bonnie's fingers worried at the notebook's edge. "Clients... talk. When they're drunk, when they're scared, when they need someone to listen. And soldiers talk a lot after they've—"
She cut herself off, refocusing.
"It wasn't the Narkals that hit them. It was cultists. Dormant cults that waited until now to strike."
Cultists. 'The Veiled Moon's work, almost certainly.' Ashen instantly guessed.
"How bad?" Ashen asked quietly.
"Bad." Bonnie's voice dropped even further. "They say it was a small elite group. Fewer than fifty operatives. But their skills and coordination—" She shook her head. "Millions of soldiers, Mr. Ashen. The reinforcements numbered in the millions. And this group... they killed most of them before the army could even mount a proper defense."
The coffee sat forgotten on the table.
"Some survivors won't even talk about it. They just... shut down. Start shaking if you press them. Whatever they saw—"
"It broke them," Ashen concluded.
Bonnie nodded miserably. "But there's more. The cultists knew exactly where to hit. From routes to positions and timing. Everything…" Her hands clenched into fists. "It was determined that there was a leak. Someone inside fed them intelligence… and now… The whole command structure is probably compromised."
That explained the paranoia. The unwillingness to let them in the Ashbastion, even when the Reserve Army, which was actually comprised of the real criminals, got a pass.
Being on a leash in the form of poison had ironically granted them more trust than official soldiers.
"The Ashbastion commanders are terrified," Bonnie continued. "There are even rumors that the citadel itself will be attacked." She looked up, meeting his eyes directly. "Mr. Ashen... I came to warn you. If you can find a way to leave, you should take it. Run while you still can."
Silence stretched between them.
Ashen looked at this young woman… a prostitute who'd built herself an intelligence network, who'd tracked him down across a citadel of millions, who was risking potential consequences just to warn a soldier she barely knew.
Gratitude wasn't a strong enough word to explain her actions.
"That's..." He smiled faintly. "Unexpectedly considerate of you, Bonnie. Thank you."
"You saved me," she said simply. "When you didn't have to… and when most wouldn't have. This is the least I can do."
He helplessly laughed, You've already thanked me enough, Bonnie, there's no need to feel indebted, I thought we were on the same page…?"
"Mr. Ashen, I'm not doing this out of debt, beyond gratitude and thankfulness… I genuinely don't want to see such a good man meet his end here… So please… run…" tears shimmered in her eyes by the end of her sentence.
But Ashen could only answer her plea with a troubled look, 'Run? If only it were that simple.'
He didn't bother explaining that he was poisoned… that the Pit's shackles followed him even here, that SA still couldn't purge it despite his best efforts. That running meant dying in three days from internal hemorrhaging.
But even if the poison weren't a factor...
There was no running. Not from this.
A contract bound him to Seravelle, duties to defend the people who resided here, Bonnie included, obligations to the Reserve Army soldiers who'd started to depend on him. People who trusted the Guardian Captain to keep them alive.
And beyond that… beyond duty and contracts and poison… There was the simple, unavoidable truth: If he ran, what then?
Watch from safety as the monsters destroyed everything in their wake? Wait until it was Alice's turn? Seraphine's? His family's?
The apocalyptic vision haunted him still—domains fallen, humanity's last bastion surrounded, Soldiers too scared to even come to arms…
That future would be much worse if he ran.
What would it turn into if he, with the power to fight and the future of a Godkiller, chose safety over standing his ground?
All these thoughts churned in the back of his mind... poison, contracts, loved ones, visions of futures that might still be prevented... but outwardly, Ashen just smiled.
"I appreciate the warning. Truly."
"Then…?"
"I think I'll stay." He finally shook his head.
Bonnie's expression crumpled. "Mr. Ashen—"
"I have people depending on me," he said gently. "They are soldiers who follow my orders because they trust me to keep them alive. I can't abandon them. Not when they're counting on me."
"But—"
"And..." His smile turned wry. "My 'wife' is somewhere in this citadel. Can't very well run off and leave her, can I?"
That earned a weak laugh despite Bonnie's obvious distress.
Ashen's white lie about his "wife" on their first meeting was obviously seen through by Bonnie long ago, so it wasn't lost on her who he meant here.
"You're too principled for your own good," she muttered.
"Most of it is stubbornness and pride, really..."
They sat in silence for a moment, the pub's noise washing over them... soldiers drinking away fear, prostitutes plying their trade, gamblers chasing temporary distraction from inevitable death.
"If you won't leave," Bonnie finally said, "at least let me help. Information… rumors... Whatever I can find out through my network." She pulled out a small card handwritten with the locations where he could find her. "Find me if you need anything. Please."
Ashen accepted the card, tucking it away carefully. "You've already helped more than you know. Thank you, Bonnie."
She stood, gathering her satchel, but hesitated.
"Mr. Ashen? That story… the romantic one everyone's telling about you and Lady Alice?" Her lips quirked. "I don't know if it's true or not. But... I hope you get your happy ending. Both of you."
Before he could respond, she slipped away into the crowd, blending in just like any other working girl navigating the mess of The Bleeding Coin.
Ashen sat alone with his now cold coffee and even colder thoughts.
Millions of reinforcements were reduced to thousands. Cultists with inside information. A compromised command structure. An impending assault on humanity's last major stronghold.
'Well played, Cassius… well played. You're truly holding nothing back.'
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