The convoy was finally moving again.
The afternoon was wearing on, and the delay in the forest had put them well behind schedule. The mounted soldiers had returned to their places around the carriage, and the supply wagon rolled along behind with the recovered belongings and the surviving bandits, who were bound and under guard.
Inside the carriage, Owen shifted in his seat and regretted it immediately. His ribs had been bruised badly enough that every jolt of the wheels sent a dull ache through his side, even with the cut there bandaged.
Hugh had arranged the seating before they set off. Agnes rested in one corner with her shoulder and side properly dressed now, though the claw wounds the tiger had left were still serious. Clara and Elise sat together across from her, close enough that their shoulders touched, and their maid sat beside them with their few recovered belongings at her feet.
Hugh had gone back to his horse. For a stretch of the road, he rode alongside the carriage and spoke to Owen through the window.
"The escort’s all accounted for, Young Master," he said. "The prisoners are secure, and the valuables are under guard in the wagon. We’ll need to stop at the next decent town. Between the injuries and the time we lost back there, we won’t get much farther today."
"Agreed," Owen said. He glanced at Agnes. "She needs more than what the soldiers could do in the forest."
"I’ll find somewhere suitable."
"How’s your arm?"
Hugh flexed his bandaged forearm slightly on the reins. "It’s fine for now. I can still do my job." He paused. "I’ll have it looked at properly when we stop."
"Make sure you do."
"Yes, Young Master." Something in his voice was a little less formal than it had been that morning. Hugh touched his heels to his horse and rode back up the line.
Once the journey had settled into a quieter rhythm, Owen’s thoughts turned to the tiger’s core.
He kept seeing Wraith dissolve into vapor and pour across the clearing faster than he could follow, then reform beside Garrick. He remembered the moment it had swatted Hugh’s sword aside, when Hugh had been an instant away from ending the fight.
A slow smile spread across his face.
Steel had already turned out to be far more useful than he had expected. But this was something else entirely. If the Arsenal could give his sword even part of what that tiger had been able to do...
He wanted to find out. He wanted to find out very badly.
During a quiet stretch of road, while the others were dozing or watching the trees go by, Owen opened his Status.
He hadn’t looked at the whole thing since breaking through to Resonant. With everything that had happened since, he was curious.
[STATUS]
[Name: Owen Ferrers]
[Age: 18]
[Armament: Empty Arsenal]
[Cultivation: Resonant — Trace]
[Strength: 61 → 91]
[Agility: 65 → 97]
[Endurance: 58 → 88]
[Perception: 52 → 80]
[Core Capacity: 42 → 72]
[Master Class: Blades]
[Blades Class Mastery: 77% → 82%]
Owen looked over the numbers with real pleasure.
His Strength and Endurance had both jumped, but Agility was still his highest. What pleased him most was his Core Capacity. When he first started running fire and steel together, it had drained him fast. Seventy-two meant he could hold both for far longer.
The numbers gave him something to think about too. Even with all of this, Garrick had still overpowered him in nearly every exchange. Being stronger and faster helped. It just wasn’t enough on its own, which was exactly why Edith never stopped going on about positioning and control.
He grinned at the last line. Weeks of switching blades, sparring with Edith and fighting for real had sharpened his judgment for choosing the right sword under pressure, and there it was in the window. He had come a long way since the day his sword first appeared.
He closed the Status window and slipped Wraith’s core out of his coat.
He turned it over in his hand. It was hard to believe something this small had come out of the creature that had given all three of them so much trouble. Fire, then Steel, and now possibly a third. He was more eager than he wanted to admit.
Owen glanced around the carriage. Agnes’s eyes were closed. Clara was leaning against her sister, and Elise and the maid were both looking out of the opposite window.
He held the core low against his knee, where no one would see it, and offered it to the Arsenal.
[Absorb Monster Core?]
[Confirm / Cancel]
He chose Confirm.
The core began to dissolve in his hand, its surface softening and fading until there was nothing left between his fingers.
[Monster Core absorbed.]
[Analyzing core property...]
[Property identified: Vapor]
[Compatible Master Class: Blades]
[Integrate Vapor into Blades?]
[Confirm / Cancel]
Owen’s eyes lit up.
Compatible. He had been hoping for exactly this, and he sat forward without meaning to, ignoring the protest from his ribs. He knew what came next from the Steel core, but knowing it didn’t make him any less excited.
He chose Confirm without a moment’s hesitation.
[Integration complete.]
[Vapor added to Blades.]
[New ability: Vapor Form]
A wide grin broke across his face.
Three powers now. Fire gave his sword its destructive force, and Steel made it far tougher. Vapor was going to be something different altogether.
He kept thinking about the way Wraith had vanished out from under Agnes’s sword and reappeared beside Garrick. He remembered how helpless Hugh’s blade had looked against it, and how hard it had been to hit something that could simply stop being solid. If his sword could do even part of that, it opened up possibilities he had never had before.
For a moment, he was so eager to try it that he nearly summoned his sword right there. He caught himself just in time, glanced around at the others and remembered he was sitting inside a moving carriage with four other people.
He sat back. He couldn’t quite stop smiling, though.
For the next stretch of road, he kept catching himself thinking about it. Could a sword spread out as vapor move as fast as Wraith had? Would he still feel it through his core while it wasn’t solid? Every question made him want to reach the next town sooner.
It was Clara who finally pulled him out of it.
"My lord," she said. "Have you been to the capital before?"
"No," Owen said. "This is my first time. I’m going to Princess Adelaide’s ball."
Clara’s eyes widened slightly. "So are we. That’s where we were going when—" She stopped.
"When everything happened," Elise finished quietly.
"Then we’re going to the same place," Owen said. "Have you been before?"
"Once," Clara said, brightening a little. "Two years ago, with our father. Elise spent most of the trip complaining about her shoes."
"They were new shoes," Elise said. "And we walked everywhere."
"We did walk everywhere," Clara admitted. "But it was worth it. There’s a market near the old bridge where you can find almost anything."
"Almost anything you don’t need," Elise said.
Owen found himself smiling. "What else is worth seeing?"
Clara had plenty to say about that, and the conversation carried them for a good while. Elise said less, but as the road went on, she began to join in more, correcting her sister now and then or adding something Clara had forgotten. When the carriage jolted over a rut and Clara bumped into the window, Elise laughed for the first time since they had found her.
By the time evening began to settle in, the forest had given way to open road, and then to the edges of a town.
The streets got busier the farther in they went. Merchants were packing up their goods for the night, people moved between the shops and houses, and carts rattled past over the stones. The smell of cooking drifted from the buildings on either side. A few townspeople stopped to watch the convoy go by, their eyes going to the Ferrers crest and the soldiers riding around the carriage.
Hugh rode ahead and was back before long. He led the convoy into the courtyard of a respectable roadside inn, large enough to take noble travellers and their escort. It had guest rooms on the upper floors, a dining room below, and stables along one side of the courtyard.
When the carriage stopped, Owen climbed down carefully. His ribs had stiffened up badly after hours of sitting. Around him, the soldiers were already helping the injured out of the carriage.
Hugh dismounted and went to meet the innkeeper, a heavyset man wiping his hands on his apron.
"We need rooms for our party," Hugh said. "One private room for the Young Master. One for the two young ladies, with their maid close by. Another for a wounded member of our household. And space for myself and the escort."
The innkeeper’s eyes went to the Ferrers insignia and then to Owen. He bowed. "My lord." Then he turned back to Hugh. "How many in your escort?"
Hugh told him.
The innkeeper rubbed his jaw. "I can manage the private rooms. The soldiers will have to share. Three to a room, maybe four in the larger ones."
"That’s fine. We’ll also need meals, hot water and stabling for the horses."
"That can all be done." The innkeeper named a price for the soldiers’ lodging.
Hugh countered, and they went back and forth briefly before settling on something in between.
"Several of our people are injured," Hugh added. "Is there a physician in town?"
"There’s one on the next street. I’ll send my boy for him."
"And I’ll need to know where the local authorities are. We have prisoners to hand over, and an attack to report."
The innkeeper looked toward the bound men in the wagon and swallowed. "The magistrate’s office is near the square. I’ll have someone show your men the way."
Until custody could be properly transferred, Hugh had Ferrers soldiers keep watch over the prisoners. Then the inn staff started carrying the luggage inside, the stable hands took charge of the horses, and Hugh assigned soldiers to guard the recovered goods and secure the convoy’s equipment.
Owen went with Agnes as she was helped inside. Her shoulder and side were clearly hurting her badly, but she was doing her best to keep up her usual composure.
Once she was settled in her room, Owen stood in the doorway.
"Rest," he said. "Let the physician look at you properly."
"I will, Young Master." She glanced at him. "Do you have everything you need for the evening?"
"I can manage my own things for one night."
Agnes raised an eyebrow. "I suppose you’ll finally have to look after yourself, then."
"I’ll try not to make a mess of it."
"That would be appreciated."
Owen found himself smiling, though his eyes went back to the bandages on her shoulder before he left.
The physician arrived soon after. He cleaned and dressed Agnes’s wounds properly and spent the longest with her. Then he looked at Owen’s ribs and the cut along his side, and after that Hugh’s forearm.
"Nothing broken," he told Owen, prodding at his ribs. "You’re badly bruised though. Don’t do anything reckless for a few days."
Owen thought about the sword waiting to be tested and said nothing.
Once everyone was settled, Owen went down to the dining room with Hugh and the Ashcombe sisters. Agnes stayed in her room to rest. Owen had made it very clear that she wasn’t to come down and look after anyone tonight.
The dining room was still busy with other travellers. Conversations drifted between the tables, dishes clattered, and every so often a burst of noise came from the kitchen. After the forest, it felt almost peaceful.
The food was simple: stew, fresh bread and cheese. Owen found he was hungrier than he had realized.
"What will you do first when we reach the capital?" Clara asked him.
"See as much of it as I can before the ball, probably."
"You’ll want to see the market by the old bridge," she said. "I told you."
"You did. Several times."
Elise hid a smile behind her cup.
"And you?" Owen asked them.
"Write to our father," Elise said. "First thing." Her voice was quiet. "He’ll want to know we’re alive before he hears anything else."
Clara’s smile faded a little, and she nodded.
"And after that?" Owen asked, more gently.
"After that, we find something to wear to the ball," Clara said. "Everything we packed was in that carriage, and the bandits went through all of it."
"Some of it’s still in the wagon," Hugh said. "Whatever we recovered from their camp."
Clara brightened. "Really?"
"I can’t promise what condition it’s in."
"That doesn’t matter." Clara turned to her sister. "You see? We might have something after all."
"Whatever’s left of it," Elise said, but she looked relieved.
Hugh excused himself partway through the meal to check on the soldiers guarding the prisoners, then came back and finished his stew without comment. When Clara asked him whether all Ferrers aides were so serious, he considered the question for a moment.
"Only the ones who have to look after the Young Master," he said.
Elise actually laughed at that, and Owen decided to take it in good humor.
He found himself enjoying the meal. The day had been long and difficult, but sitting here now, he was genuinely looking forward to seeing the capital, to his first imperial gathering, and to meeting young nobles from all across the Empire.