Chapter 273

Zesshi could not remember having ever been knocked down. Not by anyone. But the little half elf child's words were a heavier blow than that of any monster. And like anyone caught in a desperate circumstance, her first response was to deny it.

"You're lying… you've got to be." Zesshi accused, her heterochromatic eyes glared daggers at the girl until she moved behind Brain and hid from Zesshi's view.

"Why would you even suspect that?" Brain demanded, crossing his arms in front of his chest. "Your father was human, wasn't he?" Zesshi stared at him as if he'd grown a second head.

"No… no he wasn't, was he?" Brain guessed, his mind raced while the silent half elf girl stared at him, watching him come to the only feasible conclusion. "I've heard stories about the Elf King… you're one of his children, aren't you?"

"The first half elf he made." Zesshi answered, "Humans rescued my mother. Humans protected and raised me. Humans promised me revenge… elves-"

Brain interjected, "Are just like you. I've traveled almost everywhere, and that includes the Elf Kingdom. I went anywhere there was somebody I can learn from and lemme tell you something... Elves are his victims too."

Brain felt the young half elf put her hands on the back of his shirt, her little hands balling up into fists. "Explain the girl." Zesshi said. It was a pointless diversion of a demand, but she couldn't help herself.

"Driftwood?" Brain said, and Zesshi looked, for a moment, very confused, she scratched her head, and only when she saw the girl poke him in the side with her finger did he elaborate.

"I found her in the river some time after we parted ways." Brain explained, "Layali, come out, she's not a slave catcher, if she were, we wouldn't be talking, besides, anyone that good wouldn't be hunting slaves."

Zesshi accepted the praise with a polite nod as the girl moved beside the human again, "Thank you, while you weren't a challenge for me, you're one of the strongest opponents I've ever faced. On par with Clementine, a former member of our strongest scripture, or better."

Brain's rugged face wasn't one to blush, but he did sigh with relief… "All I want is the peak, looking at it now, knowing how far away it is, had you not said that, I'll be honest, the gap between us would have broken me. I'll rest easier for your praise." He looked down at the girl, "Layali, why don't you tell her…"

"She's dangerous, scary… do I…" Layali began to ask, and to her surprise, Brain crouched down to her level and said, "She's ignorant, somehow, tell her how you ended up traveling with me, and start at the beginning."

The half elf's newly restored pair of eyes grew wide as she understood the emphasis of his words.

'The beginning… everything…' She blinked both of her eyes as she understood what was being asked of her, but there the woman stood, waiting, a half elf like herself but worlds apart lay between the two. 'If she doesn't believe me, what if she turns on us again? Brain can't beat her, this is our only chance, I'll 'make' her believe me! That's our only chance to come out of this alive.'

The look in the large human's eyes was hopeful, encouraging, unblinking. "It'll be alright." He said to her, and resolve steeled in her heart. She looked at the well dressed woman in her fine travel clothes, and it was hard not to feel disgust for her ignorance as much as for her evident wealth.

"I was born on a farm, I think, about ninety years ago, my father was my mother's owner…" Layali began her story, and Zesshi sat down to listen.

"I saw the children my father had with his human wife, those children were loved. I saw him read to them, play with them, talk with them. They were his brood, his heirs, his family. I was just an increase of his wealth. I knew they were my half siblings, but I was never allowed to play with them, and they never played with me. But they were allowed to hit me if I was 'bad'. Maybe because I was his, at least I didn't spend as much time out in the fields as the others…" She clenched her little hands hard enough that she shook, though rage or pain could have both accounted for it, the squeezed shut eyes denied Zesshi any chance to guess which it was.

'Maybe both?' The half elf wondered.

"Lucky me. I got to take care of the house, I picked up toys I wasn't allowed to play with, washed clothes I never got to wear, and followed his wife around as a servant when she had visitors. My father thought of me as an asset, but otherwise I was nothing, just a servant he got for free. He joked with his grandson that when he bought my mother and made me, it was 'two for the price of one.' It always made them laugh. It made all of them laugh. I hoped I'd live to see the old man die, but somehow he's still around. My mother, he gave to his grandson, and I have a little brother now as a result. The old woman is still around too, and if her husband and his other children thought of me only as an asset, just a tool that works? She thought of me as proof of her husband's infidelity, and since she couldn't punish him, she punished me. And when her grandson's wife moved in and he made my mother carry a new servant… I can already see the hatred in the next generation… going toward my baby brother. He'll live like me…

The reason for Lialah's tight shut eyes was manifesting when little shimmering tears made their way out despite her effort at hiding them, "I got sent out to the fields more often in the last year or two, planting takes a lot of work, and the lash stings a lot, I'm too small to beat like they do men and women, but they have little paddles full of holes, and use that on the ones my size if we don't work fast enough. That was when I met Master Cerebrate… I was busy pulling weeds, and a stubborn one wouldn't come up. The overseer saw, said I was too slow, and he made me grab my ankles… and he rolled past while I was taking my licks… he bought me on the spot… I thought I was in hell, but that was just a nightmare. What Master Cerebrate did… that was hell… please… please don't make me talk about that…" Layali finally ran out of steam. She bit her lip hard enough to draw blood and little choked sobs began to make their way past her pursed lips despite her best efforts.

"Layali, cover your ears." Brain said with more gentleness than she expected, she nodded a little bit and plugged her ears with her forefingers.

"Why'd you have her do that?" Zesshi asked, looking down at the little half elf and seeing the increasingly red face deepen.

"Because I saw all her injuries, and I doubt she'd want to hear them recounted." Brain explained. "When I found her, I thought she was dead…"

The story did not improve from there as Zesshi listened, the litany of injuries, down to and including the intimate ones, left the heterochromatic half elf stunned into silence.

When it was over, Zesshi's hands folded together in her lap and she looked down in shame. "I didn't know. I really didn't know."

"How? Aren't you from this country?" Brain asked when Layali went to sit beside him on the bed. He looked at Zesshi with his face drawn in disbelief, and the half elf nodded.

"I am, but I don't get out much, skills like mine make me humanity's trump card, so they put me in charge of the treasury and only… bring me out… only bring me out when they need me… dead gods!" She suddenly exclaimed, her head snapped up, startling the human and younger half elf into nearly jumping out of their skin.

"What?!" The two cried and looked around for a threat that wasn't there.

"They knew. They all knew." Zesshi hissed, "The Cardinals, the Pontifex Maximus… they all knew. Raymond knew… they kept all this from me, all this time."

She balled up her fists tight enough to whiten her knuckles and gritted her teeth. "I never really believed the whole, 'chosen of the gods' nonsense from the priests. Just let me kill my father and that'll be good enough. But I never thought…" Zesshi glanced at the half elven girl and recalled the empty socket where the newly restored eye shone brightly, and the look of abject terror on her little face when Zesshi entered the room.

"I thought I was coming to you for answers, human… no… Brain. But it looks like all I found were a lot more questions." Zesshi pinched the bridge of her nose and looked down at the floor.

"So you intend to go back?" Brain asked, 'I don't like the sound of that, Raymond is the name of one of the Cardinals, she talks about them all like she knows them, that would mean 'that' Raymond, is 'the' Raymond, and if something she says gets her ire up towards…' That train of thought did not need more baggage. Brain's mind flailed for a solution while he listened for her answer.

"I don't know. I think yes, I'm going to slap him till he talks, I want to know what else I don't know, but should." Zesshi frowned deeply, her foot tapped faster than grains of sand dropping through an hourglass.

"You could come with us!" Brain jumped at the answer and did his best to ignore Layali's gawking. "I'm a traveler, I know the way to where you're going, you can see things with your own eyes and not through some filter the cardinals want to force on you."

Zesshi almost took a step back, "Are you serious? I almost killed you."

"That's a Tuesday, to me." Brain laughed and tapped his hand over the hilt of his sword, "Hardly something to hold a grudge over, and it was just a misunderstanding. Besides, I'm betting you don't have any money and know nothing about fieldcraft. If you don't want to eat garbage, steal, or make a bloody mess of yourself, and get lost a thousand times a day… I'm your best option."

Zesshi furrowed her black and white brow at him. "What do you want?"

Brain shrugged, "Promise to help look after this one until we drop her somewhere safe, give me some lessons, and take direction when it's time to lay camp… we'll call it even. I've got enough money to fund the three of us."

Zesshi thought that over, the blue haired swordsman wasn't wrong, far from it, but he made very unpleasant, very true points. 'I don't even know how to start a damn campfire…'

"Fine, you win, Brain, we have a bargain. When do we leave?" Zesshi asked and thrust out her hand for him to shake.