Thirstfall - Memory of a Returnee

"I need to deal with a problem in the Red Squid Slums."

My voice comes out steadier than my body deserves. Zhang Xi closed what needed closing, but the fight against Veric still lives in the joints, the abdomen, the bottom of my lungs. The body works again. That doesn’t mean it’s ready for what comes next.

Veric opens his eyes on the arena floor, still pale, dust caught in his hair and dried blood at the corner of his mouth.

"You’ve barely solved one problem, bastard..." He tries to sit, fails on the first attempt, and pretends it was part of a stretch. "And you’re already hunting another."

"You know problems find me."

"Then this time I’m in."

Rhayne looks at the two of us as if facing a contagious disease that learned to talk, her eyes saying we’re both absurd. Oliver sighs, takes Veric by the forearm, and helps the prince to his feet. Veric accepts it with wounded dignity, too proud to admit he needs it and too unsteady to sell the act.

"I’m coming," Rhayne says.

"Me too," Oliver adds.

Zhang Xi doesn’t wait to be asked. "After what I saw today, letting you leave without a healer would be spiritual negligence. I’d rather not pay for it in the next life."

"Is that a yes?" I ask.

Zhang Xi nods, but her eyes carry something tired.

I start walking toward the academy exit to reach the Oathmark before my body remembers that sitting was the better option.

That’s when Freya speaks up. "I’m coming too."

I stop.

The first answer rises ready: this isn’t her business. Red Squid isn’t an academy, a duel, or training. Bringing Freya into an alley full of despicable Divers smells like an expensive accident.

Then I actually look at her.

Freya still watches me with that old suspicion, the same that files my name near rat, corpse, and trouble. To her, I’m a talented bastard who kills too early, smiles too little, and hides too much intent. Maybe part of that is fair. Maybe I fed the impression in nearly every meeting we’ve had.

But Red Squid can show something words can’t.

"All right," I say. "Just don’t make a mess."

She raises an eyebrow. "Do you know who you’re talking to?"

"Unfortunately, yes. Her Excellency, the Ice Valkyrie."

"What’s this about?"

"Wait and see."

She looks like she hates the answer, rolling her eyes upward, but she follows anyway.

The Azure Prime Oathmark receives our group with its cold glow. I pay for the teleport without arguing with the system.

[Scales: 656 → 600]

The light swallows us.

Red Squid appears on the other side with the same smell as always: rotten salt, damp wood, old oil, and poverty too tired to keep asking permission. The ocean sky above stays buried under gray, dense clouds, as if even the suspended water raised a wall of steam off the ruin that place was.

We head straight for the Central Tavern.

I call for silence with two fingers before the last corner.

The group stops with me in the shadow between two crooked buildings. From there, I can see the front of the tavern. The door is still shut, with the makeshift braces I helped Zoe build.

Outside, sixteen Divers are spread along the narrow street. Some Rank E. Some Rank D. Tools in their hands. Crowbars, thin blades, hooks, smaller and more delicate picking instruments.

They aren’t breaking the door.

They’re trying to open it without breaking it.

That says enough.

A thin man, hair shaved at the sides and a stained leather coat, shoves a Rank E forward. The boy can’t be much over twenty, maybe less. He grips an iron bar too hard.

"Go," the man says. "If the system charges you, I’ll cover your OXI Bleeding."

The Rank E hesitates.

"I swear," the other presses. "You open it, we go in, and the girl’s father pays what he owes."

A lie.

Promising to cover another man’s OXI Bleeding in a slum alley is buying a disposable tool. If the boy breaks the door, he carries the Ocean’s Law debt alone. The entrance opens for the others, and the man in the coat vanishes behind a cheap explanation.

Freya watches the scene in silence.

I tip my head toward the tavern. "You wanted to know what this was about. Those Divers were tormenting a Drowned teenager. Her father stepped in. Now that Ocean’s Law marked him, they came to collect the price."

Her expression shifts. The jaw hardens first. Then the eyes go cold. Bright particles of ice begin to form around her.

"You’re protecting the father from being lynched and killed?"

"More or less." I keep my voice low. "The rope always ties around the weakest neck. And I don’t like watching people pull."

She says nothing for a few seconds.

I don’t try to fill the silence. Freya doesn’t need a speech. She needs to look. To see the door, the men, the tools, the boy shoved forward to take a punishment for stronger people, and maybe remember that the world always has a polite way of turning abuse into routine.

Then she moves.

Without asking permission.

"Freya," I murmur.

She doesn’t stop.

The group stays twenty steps back, still in the shadow of the side street. The Divers in front of the tavern don’t notice us at first. They notice the red hair. The elegant armor. The face too beautiful for Red Squid. Some look at her before they look at her rapier.

That was the first mistake.

The man in the coat turns slowly, annoyed at the interruption. Others follow the motion. One of them smiles, small and ugly, as if her presence were cheap entertainment before the work.

Freya stops in front of the Central Tavern’s door.

Her posture looks relaxed. Like she’s posing for a portrait.

"Hey, assholes."

Sixteen faces turn to her.

Freya points at the locked wood behind her.

"Got some problem with this tavern door?"

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