Behold! Lieutenant Vivian Fallenfire and Proxy Knight “Zeke”! By @cherry_berries !
She’ll make an appearance again later in the story.
[CHAPTER 2: TEMPORAL PRICE CONTROL]
SEPTEMBER 5th, 1849
0830 - MORNING
The small sailboat scraped against the ruined shoreline with a harsh, splintering drag of wood on stone before settling just enough for Zeke to step off. The man who had brought him here didn’t bother tying it down properly, already shifting his weight like he meant to leave the moment Zeke’s boots touched land.
“That’s far enough,” the merchant muttered, not even bothering to hide the unease in his voice. “Storm came outta’ the Dark Sea two nights ago. Place is absolutely busted now. But I ain’t gonna question why you wanna’ go here. So good luck, I guess…”
Zeke appreciated that.
He had already paid him—more than the trip was worth, and with drachma he couldn’t afford to spend. The near-empty weight in his pocket was reminder enough of that. This had to work. He had to get a return on this no matter what.
“…Merci,” Zeke said simply.
Thank you.
The man only grunted before pushing off again, the small sailboat retreating into safer waters, leaving Zeke alone on the broken edge of Harvest Island. For a moment, he didn’t move. Then he shifted his weight, and paused. No sway…
No subtle pull beneath his feet…
No constant need to adjust his balance against the rhythm of water…
Just… stillness. The solid, unmoving ground that didn’t fight him, didn’t shift, and didn’t move. For some reason, his body didn’t quite trust it. He supposed that feeling came from spending most of his life on a merchant vessel. But even then, he still didn’t understand why it always came to him whenever he left a ship.
“…Right,” he muttered quietly, more to himself than anything. He didn’t have time to linger on pointless thoughts like this. He had a job to do.
He exhaled once, gathering his wits together in one fell swoop, then stepped forward.
The trees of Harvest Island weren’t just broken—they were split. Torn open in jagged lines that didn’t match wind patterns. The ground had been churned in uneven patches, as if force had struck in bursts rather than sweeping through. Crops, herbs, and wild berries lay scattered in ruined clusters, but not all of them were dead.
Zeke slowed slightly as he passed one such patch—what once was a clump of borage—and crouched without thinking.
“…Still viable,” he murmured, brushing dirt from a crushed stem. “If someone harvested this within a day or two—drying, preservation—you’d still get something for it…”
His fingers turned the leaf, examining the edges as he mused to himself.
“…Storm damage—even if it’s from a Dark Sea storm—is surface-level. Just what was the market value for borage again…? Twenty drachma per gram? No… that can’t be right… But this can still be saved.”
Against common judgement, Zeke dug his fingers into the ground, testing the soil. “And this land… looks well drained. Nutrient rich. Sand loam soil, maybe? You could make a mean pumpkin patch here… Something worth investing into, for sure.”
His hand moved without thinking. The notebook was already in his palm before he realized it. He flipped it open, half crouched in the dirt, and began writing quickly.
Temporary supply shock—local scarcity can increase value! If recovery window is short, early harvest yields disproportionate profit. To control timing is to control price.
He paused just long enough to underline the last part.
Control timing = control price. “Temporal Price Control”.
“…Yes, yes,” Zeke mused to himself. “This is why seasonal fruits are more expensive in the months they are out of season… Or if something like a storm ruined all of the harvest. It’s the perfect opportunity to gather what I can here and resell it, or place a good investment and…”
Zeke trailed off, the realization slowly reaching him by the degrees.
“…Merde.”
He stared at the page for a second longer than necessary like it had betrayed him, then snapped the notebook shut.
What was he doing?
He wasn’t here to write entries. He was here to do a JOB. Not… this.
This didn’t matter. None of it did. Not anymore. He was a KNIGHT. A BOUNTY HUNTER. And he was supposed to act like it!
Zeke straightened slightly, adjusting the collar of his uniform as his eyes finally lifted past the ground and toward the island itself, forcing his attention forward. He was here to look for O’Neill, and if there was any place in the Bronze Sea where a criminal as notorious as him could be hiding out, it would most definitely be in this DUMP.
This… dump with so much potential for crop harvesting. This dump that… is just one massive, juicy investment just asking to print drachma out of. This—
Zeke mentally slapped himself.
“Se concentrer!” he hissed.
Focus!
JOB. He was supposed to do a JOB.
He straightened fully this time, forcing his posture into something sharper, something more deliberate—more predatory—his gaze narrowing as he scanned ahead instead of down.
“Find the target. Assess the situation. Execute. Behead. Leave,” he muttered under his breath, repeating it like a set of instructions he didn’t quite believe but needed to follow anyways.
And then the smell hit him before he could repeat the mantra. Ozone. It flooded his senses, thick and metallic, cutting through the damp air—and beneath it, unmistakable, fresh, and heavy—
Blood.
His posture shifted instantly, all focus gone as he moved toward it, steps deliberate now, cutting through the wreckage with purpose instead of wandering curiosity. The scent led him cleanly through the broken terrain, over uprooted soil and splintered trunks until it stopped.
There. A man was pinned to a tree.
A jagged branch was driven straight through his side, embedding him into the trunk behind him. The break was clean, and the wood itself carried a faint shimmer—residual magic clinging to it like heat in the air. Blood had soaked into the bark, dark and thick. Wet and dry.
Alive.
Zeke slowed as he approached, eyes narrowing slightly as he took in the details. Dark hair. Scarred face. The build of a man that suggested he had survived far more than he should have. And the eyes… Even like this, with the devastating amount of blood loss he had endured, and his sheer exhaustion, they were sharp, focused, and glaring at him.
“…Ryan O’Neill,” Zeke whispered.
He didn’t need to check the poster to know who that was. He carefully stepped closer, his gaze dropping briefly to the wound, tracking the angle of the branch, the placement, the depth. He must have been here for almost two days already. Perhaps thrown by the Dark Sea storm into the most unluckiest position—and left to slowly die from the consequences. Zeke exhaled quietly, attention returning to the man in front of him.
Six hundred thousand drachma.
Impaled to a tree.
On the verge of death.
And served bright and easy just for him to take…
But… O’Neill was still alive, and still glaring at Zeke.
“…You gonna keep starin’, Proxy Knight…?” he rasped, eyes flicking over the green and white uniform with clear recognition. “Or are you here to finish the job?”
There was a brief pause as he shifted against the branch with a tiny whimper—just enough to show he could still move. “…Go on, then. Quit gawkin’ and take the head. I’m dead anyways.”
O’Neill’s words hung in the air—dry, blunt, already resigned to the outcome. And Zeke… didn’t move. Instead, his eyes dropped—not to the man, but to the wound. Then to the branch. The angle. The depth of it. To the problem.
“…Non,” he murmured under his breath, expression tightening as a familiar urge—a familiar instinct—took over. What was he thinking? This wasn’t cargo. This wasn’t something to fix. This was a man. A living, breathing human being who had done horrible, horrible things. He had a bounty. Zeke’s job was to kill him. And if he didn’t, he’d go on to do even more horrible, horrible things. And yet his gaze stayed where it was, measuring blood loss, tracking what had been missed, how long O’Neill had left—
“Idiot…” he muttered.
At that, O’Neill shifted slightly, his glare softening into a look of confusion—before he closed his eyes and went still. Zeke moved immediately, catching his head before it drooped too far, checking for breath, a pulse, for any sign of life. He was still alive, but barely. And fading quickly. Zeke exhaled sharply, dragging a hand through his hair. This was it. The easiest moment. No resistance. No fight. He could end this right here, right now. But his hand didn’t go to his Proxy Knight’s issued blade. It went to the branch impaled on O’Neill.
“…Putain!”
Zeke braced himself and pulled.
The wood tore free with a wet, sickening sound, blood—both bright and dark—following immediately. Zeke flinched despite himself, brows furrowing with focus as he lowered O’Neill carefully to the ground and pressed down on the wound.
“Stay alive, espèce de fils de pute maléfique!” he muttered under his breath, already working.
His hands moved fast—imperfect, but practiced. He’d done this before, in situations where doctors weren’t around. Every merchant in Norman’s command was required to know basic first aid, and it pretty much boiled down to pressure, wrap, and stabilization. Keep them breathing. Keep them warm. Keep them alive!
When Zeke finished, his hands were covered in blood. He cleaned them off at a nearby puddle (unsanitary, sure, but what other options did he have?), then hesitated—before pulling the notebook out again. He stared at the page for a long moment. Then slowly, he wrote—
“Not all losses are measurable.”
He paused, then underlined it once, just for good measure before gently snapping it shut. He glanced at O’Neill. The patchwork he had done wasn’t clean, but it would hold as long as the guy didn’t do anything too crazy.
And that was more than enough for him.
SEPTEMBER 5th, 1849
1100 - MORNING
Zeke had tied O’Neill to a tree—securely, but not tight enough to hurt him. Just… enough to make sure that when O’Neill woke up—and Zeke had surmised he most definitely would—he wouldn’t immediately regret everything he’d just done. When he stepped back, the weight of it finally settled in.
“Qu’est-ce que tu fais…?”
What are you doing…?
He had just saved the man he was supposed to kill. A dry, humorless laugh slipped out.
“…Quel lâche.”
…Coward.
His gaze flicked back to O’Neill, still unconscious, but alive. Now what to do before he woke up…?
SEPTEMBER 6th, 1849
0930 - MORNING
The smell of smoked fish reached him before anything else. Ryan O’Neill’s eyes opened with slow, hazy awareness.
He didn’t move at first. Didn’t test the rope binding him to what felt like a tree. Didn’t speak. His gaze settled instead on the small fire burning a few feet away, where thin strips of fish—enough for two—had been set carefully over low flame. Then his eyes shifted. A white-haired boy—no, a Knight—sat nearby, hunched over a worn red notebook, muttering under his breath while scratching away with more frustration than clarity.
“No, no… that’s that doesn’t make sense,” he muttered under his breath, dragging a line through the numbers and flipping back a page. “I didn’t use that much—fish, water, cloth… time counts, yes, but not like that.”
He exhaled sharply.
“Merde… this is completely off…”
He stopped, exhaling sharply, tapping the page again like it had personally offended him. Ryan watched him in silence. Then his gaze dropped—to the boy’s hands. Clean. No shake from strain. No callouses. And when the wind shifted direction slightly—
The Knight tensed, almost as if on instinct. It was extremely subtle. So much so that Ryan would’ve missed it if he weren’t paying attention, but it was there. His eyes narrowed.
“Heh.”
The sound was rough, dry, but enough the Knight’s head snapped up instantly, posture tightening as he shut the notebook and hid it away a little too quickly.
“You’re awake,” he said.
Ryan ignored that. He just looked at him. Taking everything in. The uniform. The stance. The distance he kept. The way he hadn’t drawn that serrated blade on his waist (A blade that Ryan surmised the Knight had used to flay those fish flanks, instead of what it was obviously intended to be used for).
“…Knight,” Ryan said at last, voice low and scraped raw from blood loss, “you’ve got a funny way of doing your job.”
The Knight stilled.
Ryan tilted his head slightly against the beam, eyes never leaving him.
“Over six hundred thousand on my head,” he continued. “Proxy Knight standing right in front of me…”
A faint pause.
“And I’m still breathing.”
The words weren’t accusatory, no. They were amused.
“…What is this?” Ryan went on. “You run out of nerve halfway through? You planning on torturing me? Or is this some kind of charity act? I don’t need your goddamn pity.”
Still no answer from the Knight. Ryan’s gaze flicked briefly to the bandages, then back to him.
“You patch me up, you’re cooking enough food for two, you tie me nice and neat so I don’t run… You treating me like a job, a toy, or a stray?”
he huffed a quiet, humorless breath.
“…Or maybe,” he said, slower now, “you just couldn’t do it.”
The Knight’s eyes narrowed just slightly.
Aha. Bingo. Ryan filed it away. “What’s your name?”
The Knight hesitated.
“…Zeke. Zeke Cutlass.”
Ryan’s brow lifted faintly.
“…Zeke,” he repeated, testing it once before letting it settle. “Alright.”
Then his gaze sharpened again.
“…Zeke,” Ryan continued, quieter now, “you’ve got the Lost Magic, don’t you?”
Zeke flinched. It was subtle, but Ryan saw it anyway.
“…and you’re trying very hard to pretend you don’t.”
Zeke’s posture tightened at that, something sharp and defensive flickering beneath the surface. “Absurdité… I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
It was an easy lie, really. Ryan would have done the same.
“Actually,” he murmured. “You do.”
His eyes flicked, not to Zeke’s hands—but around him.
“I’m not guessing you’ve got Lost Magic. I’m only saying because I can see it.”
Zeke looked a bit confused now. “…What?”
Ryan nodded toward him faintly.
“Your aura,” he said. “It’s loud. Heavy. Doesn’t behave like anything normal outta’ mages.”
A small pause.
“…Most people can’t see that,” he added. “So you’re mostly safe in that regard.”
Zeke’s shoulders didn’t relax, but something in his expression changed—just slightly. Ryan saw it.
“…Takes a certain level to pick it apart,” he continued, almost casually. “Experience. Power. Almost always both.”
His gaze lingered.
“My point is: You’ve got something rare. coveted,” he said. “And you’re walking around acting like no one’s gonna notice.”
A faint breath escaped him.
“…That’s bold. I respect that.”
Zeke didn’t respond. Ryan watched him for a moment longer, then leaned his head back again, voice dropping just slightly into an almost threatening timbre.
“But what I don’t respect… is hesitation. Self righteous pricks who refuse to kill… People like you… PISS me off.”
Ryan leaned forward slightly against the rope.
“You didn’t save me because you were kind. You saved me because you couldn’t finish it.”
A beat.
“No,” Zeke said.
“No?” Ryan repeated.
“I chose not to finish it” Zeke said, sharper now.
For a brief moment Ryan didn’t respond. Then—
“…That’s worse.”
The words landed venomously.
“Because now,” Ryan continued, “you don’t even have an excuse.”
He learned forward even more against the rope. It creaked under the tension. His wound throbbed painfully, but he ignored it.
“You made a choice,” he said. “You just don’t like what it says about you.”
Zeke didn’t answer, but something in his posture shifted—just slightly. Ryan saw that too.
“And now, instead of killing me, you just made this a whole lot more complicated for yourself. I’m not stuck here with you, Zeke. You’re stuck with me.”
Then, quieter, almost threatening—
“…So what are you going to do now?”
The fire crackled softly between them. Ryan watched the way Zeke held himself—too rigid, too deliberate, like he was bracing against something that hadn’t happened yet. He felt his fingers tighten slightly against the rope behind him, slow and careful, testing the fibers again as he waited. He didn’t rush it. Didn’t push. Just let the silence stretch, let it sit heavy between them until it started doing the work for him. Zeke exhaled. It wasn’t a sharp or defensive type of sigh. It was just… tired.
“C’est évident… I’ll complete the bounty,” he said finally, though it didn’t sound like conviction. “Turn you in to the Grand Navy. They’ll handle you from there.”
He paused, swallowing audibly.
“…Probably kill you, but it’s what I’m supposed to do.”
Ryan almost smiled at that.
Supposed to.
He shifted slightly, just enough to mask the subtle pull of tension against the rope, feeling one strand begin to give beneath his fingers.
“Mn,” Ryan hummed, voice low. Thoughtful. “And you believe that?”
Zeke didn’t answer, so Ryan took that as a sign to continue.
“You say that like it’s not your choice. But it is. I’mma bet you’ve been telling yourself that since you got here. What I’m supposed to do. What I’m supposed to do. What I’m supposed to do…”
Zeke’s gaze hardened at the mocking repetition.
“You tied me to a tree,” he continued. “You patched me up. You’re planning on feeding me.”
He felt another fiber loosening with another careful pull.
“You’ve already decided something,” he said. “You’re just too ashamed to say it out loud… So why not say it…? You’re obviously not cut out to be a bounty hunter. Or a Knight, for that matter. You’re just a dainty little sheltered boy.”
Zeke’s brows furrowed with annoyance. Or maybe it was frustration. Ryan reckoned he must have struck a nerve somewhere.
“You don’t know anything.”
“Sure,” Ryan agreed easily. “But that doesn’t make me wrong, does it?”
Zeke didn’t answer right away.
His gaze had dropped again—not to Ryan, not to the rope, but somewhere in between, like he was trying to find the words and coming up short. His fingers twitched faintly at his side, then stilled, his posture tightening just enough to give him away. For a moment, it almost looked like he might deflect again—brush it off, shut it down like he had before. But he didn’t. Instead, he let out a quiet sigh.
“…You make it sound so simple,” he said at last, voice lower, more grounded. “Like I can just decide that I don’t want this. That I can just kill you and walk away and everything will be so much better for me.”
A faint pause, before Zeke lifted his gaze to meet Ryan’s.
“But… well, I already did walk away. I’m here now because of it. And…”
Silence again as Zeke trailed off. He shook his head, gathering his wits, before he continued.
“I need the drachma to survive. Not like I have anything else going for me. It’s nothing personal against you, Monsieur.”
Ryan tilted his head slightly.
“No.”
Zeke frowned. “No?”
“No,” Ryan repeated. “That’s what you tell yourself.”
He gave the rope another slow pull. It strained faintly.
“You’re not doing this to survive,” he spat. “…You’re doing this so you don’t have to decide who you are.”
Zeke shuffled uncomfortably. Ryan saw it.
“Take it from a guy like me,” he said. “You ought to decide what you want to do with your life now, or the War Seas’ gonna decide for you.”
Zeke didn’t respond.
So Ryan spoke instead. “So you tell me now. What are you?”
“I’m a bounty hunter. A Proxy Knight.”
Ryan’s grip tightened. One last strand.
“No you’re not. What are you?!”
“I told you—I’m a Proxy Knight,” Zeke snapped, with more force than conviction.
Ryan gave him a dark look. And Zeke opened his mouth again, like he meant to reinforce it, to say it again to make it stick, but the words fell on nothing. Zeke said nothing. So he defaulted to glaring at Ryan instead. And Ryan—just looked at him. Really looked this time.
He saw a kid who ran away from home. A kid just discovering the world. A kid with… an immense amount of potential. A kid who… could very much shake up the War Seas should he choose to. But he also saw a fool making a choice that could cost him his life. A fool who was about to learn just how cruel these seas could be. Ryan almost hated that he just happened to be the one with the chance to do the honors.
“Hah. That’s what I thought,” he said.
Silence.
The rope was now fraying strands between his fingers.
Ryan smiled.
“…Shame. World like this doesn’t wait for people who hesitate.”
The rope snapped.
SEPTEMBER 6th, 1849
0935 - MORNING
Zeke heard it before he fully understood what it meant, a sharp little tearing sound swallowed almost immediately by the rush of shadow magic that moved before Ryan did. One second he was standing there, still caught in the weight of Ryan’s words, and the next the man was on him.
It happened too fast.
Shadow curled up from the ground like something alive, surging around Ryan’s movement and closing the space between them in a blur. Zeke barely had time to register the shift in his posture before Ryan slammed into him with all the force his injured body could still muster. The impact sent them both to the ground, but Zeke took the worst of it—his back hit first, hard enough to knock the breath from his lungs in one violent burst. Pain exploded through him.
Confusion followed. Then instinct.
His hand shot up. Platinum flickered at his fingertips.
For one brief, terrible moment, Zeke had the shape of a spell half-formed in his mind. Not a killing blow—not even close—but something sharp enough to throw Ryan off him, something heavy enough to crack bone and obliterate flesh if he wasn’t careful. And that was the problem. That was his magic at his fingertips. If he wasn’t careful, he could—
For an instant, another figure occupied the space where Ryan was.
Norman.
A wooden floor of a frigate’s barracks. Platinum light. A child trying to show figure out what he could do. A larger hand slapping his own.
Pain.
And then—
Don’t you ever fuckin’ use that again.
The memory vanished as quickly as it came.
Zeke’s fingers trembled. The aura sparked, and then the spell died in his fingertips. The exact moment Ryan understood what he was doing—what he was not doing—something in his face hardened into something venomously uglier.
Offense.
Like the action of inaction had insulted him. The fist came a split second later. It slammed into Zeke’s jaw with enough force to burst light across his vision. His head snapped sideways, pain cracking so sharply it almost felt unreal, and then something small and hard hit the dirt beside him. He tasted blood instantly, and when his tongue moved against his teeth, there was suddenly a gap where there had not been one before.
His canine… Ryan had punched one of his teeth clean out.
Before Zeke could recover, Ryan grabbed him by the front of the uniform and hauled him back into place with surprising strength, pinning him beneath his weight despite the injury that should have made that impossible. Zeke raised his hands again, but they felt slow now, clumsy, his thoughts lagging behind the pain in his face.
“You were gonna use it,” Ryan rasped, breath hot and uneven, his voice rough with pain and fury and disgust alike. “I saw it. I saw it.”
Another shove. Hard enough to slam Zeke’s shoulder back into the ground.
“But you didn’t. YOU DIDN’T!!!”
His hands fell to Zeke’s throat, his fingers locking tight around his neck as he squeezed. Zeke’s eyes widened. Both hands flew to Ryan’s wrists, clawing at them, trying to drag them, but Ryan held fast, his face close enough now that Zeke could see the strain carved into it—the pallor, the sweat, the twitch in his jaw every time his own wound pulled. He was in agony. Terrible, burning, excruciating AGONY. Zeke could tell. That was the worst part.
He was in agony, and he was still WINNING.
“You hesitate,” Ryan hissed, a low, drawn out sound that was almost akin to the whimper of a wounded animal, “Even with that.”
Zeke tried to breathe, but couldn’t. His vision blurred at the edges. Platinum flickered weakly at his fingers, uselessly, like even his magic had recognized what he was too cowardly to do. Ryan’s grip tightened. Zeke let out an airless wheeze.
“Do you know what that makes you?” Ryan asked.
Zeke couldn’t answer. Couldn’t even think—
Ryan looked him dead in the eye. “ Dead.”
Then, just as suddenly as he had choked Zeke, he let go. Air tore back into Zeke’s lungs so sharply it almost hurt. He coughed and rolled halfway onto his side away from Ryan, one hand going to his throat while the other pressed into the dirt to keep himself upright. His mouth throbbed. His jaw throbbed. Every breath he took tasted like blood. Across from him, Ryan staggered back, and only then did Zeke really see how bad it was. The movement had cost him dearly. The effort of lunging, pinning, punching, choking—it had torn right through whatever patchwork Zeke had amatuerly managed. Fresh blood was soaking through the bandages now, darker and faster than before, and Ryan had to brace himself against the nearest tree just to stay on his feet. His breath hitched once, sharply. Then again. His face had gone pale beneath the grime, but his eyes—
They were still locked on Zeke.
“…Don’t get it twisted,” Ryan muttered after a moment, each word dragged through pain. “You had me. You really did. If I didn’t get the jump…” he trailed off, but he didn’t need to finish. They both knew what he meant. If Zeke had committed to the spell, if he had not flinched at the idea of hurting a wounded man, if he had just done something instead of nothing, this would have ended so much differently. Ryan pressed a hand harder to his side, teeth gritting against whatever fresh wave of pain hit him.
“Consider this even,” he said, quieter now. “You still saved my life.”
His gaze dipped briefly to Zeke’s bloodied mouth, then rose again.
“I just spared yours.”
Ryan drew one more ragged breath and pushed himself away from the tree. He stumbled on the first step. Nearly collapsed on the second. Still, he forced himself forward, disappearing slowly into the ruined edge of the forest with the stubbornness of someone too hateful to die where he stood. Before he vanished from view, he spoke once more without turning back.
“You’ll figure it out: What you should do moving forward,” he said, voice thinner now, dragged raw by pain. Then, after the slightest pause: “Or you won’t. If that’s the case…”
Ryan turned to fully face Zeke then, his gaze burning with pure, burning hatred.
“I’ll fucking kill you.”
And then he was gone.
Zeke stayed on the ground for a long time after that. He didn’t go after him. Didn’t reach for the serrated blade he had used to flay fish flanks at his side. Didn’t even reach for the torn Proxy uniform collar Ryan had used to drag him around. He just sat there in the dirt, breathing hard, tasting blood, one hand still at his throat—which was burning with a pain that he knew would bruise later—while the other hovered uselessly near his mouth.
When his fingers finally touched his teeth, they found the empty space immediately. He pulled his hand away and stared at the bright red blood on it. Ryan had been half-dead. Bleeding. Barely able to stand, and Zeke—Zeke with Lost Magic, Zeke with a bounty hunter’s uniform on his back, Zeke who had spent days telling himself he only needed to act the part because he was “STRONG”, and the need for survival would overpower his fear—hadn’t been able to hold a candle to him. Not because he couldn’t fight, but because he couldn’t commit. His gaze dropped to his own fingers. Platinum shimmered there for the briefest instant, annoyingly persistent, even now. Ryan’s voice echoed in his head with cruel clarity.
You hesitate. Even with that.
Zeke shut his eyes. For a moment, the only things he could hear were his own breathing, the distant sea, and the terrible, humiliating truth settling into place piece by piece. Not just that he had failed—but that if he didn’t decide what he was willing to become, the War Seas would decide it for him.
And he knew was not a Bounty Hunter.
And most definitely not a Proxy Knight either.
He could wear the uniform, speak the words, take the contracts, pretend the bounty board made sense to him—but when it came time to do what they actually did, when it came time to kill, to finish, to become the sort of man the Knights Proxy demanded—
He had failed.
Not once, but twice.
First when he saved Ryan, and then again when Ryan gave him every reason to strike back, and he still couldn’t do it. Zeke slowly pushed himself up to his feet.
His legs felt unsteady beneath him, but they held. He looked down at the green and white of his uniform—all dirt-streaked and blood-marked—and suddenly realized how ridiculous it looked on him, like a costume he had put on because he’d thought it might make him into something better.
It didn’t.
Zeke lifted a hand to the collar and gripped the fabric hard. Then, with no ceremony and no dramatic flourish, he tore the outer layer off over his head and let it fall into the dirt at his feet. The morning air hit colder after that. He stood there for another second, staring at the discarded uniform as if it might say something to him, explain itself, tell him what he was supposed to be now that he had failed at this
It said nothing, because of course it didn’t.
Zeke swallowed against the ache in his throat and touched the gap where his canine had been one last time. The pain flared sharp and immediate.
“…Je ne peux pas,” he said quietly.
I can’t do this.
Staying with the Knights Proxy would get him killed. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but eventually someone would do what Ryan had nearly done—and next time there would be no mercy on the other side to save him.
So he left it there.
The uniform. The pretense. The last miserable attempt at becoming something he was not. And when he finally turned away from the path Ryan had taken through the trees, Zeke did so knowing that whatever happened next would be worse in some ways, free’er in others, and almost completely his fault.
That, at least, felt honest.
