Livia immediately became alert. Danger was a word Amaryllis had used before to mean the presence of someone with bad intentions.

“Where?” Livia asked as she discreetly slipped her hand toward her weapons.

Amaryllis pointed in the direction the child had been running from. “There.”

In the distance, there was a small group of people that appeared to be wandering about and focused on their own business. But upon closer inspection, their eyes were actually roaming the crowd as if searching for something. Something, or someone. Like a child.

“They’re looking for someone.” Amaryllis whispered. “Quickly divert your eyes before they notice you looking at them.”

Livia did as she was told, but her hands didn’t stray from her weapons. “What’s going on?”

Amaryllis focused a little more. While she couldn’t read thoughts, sensing people’s emotions and intentions usually explain enough of their story.

“They’re looking for the child I saw earlier, but the child is trying to escape them. I don’t know what they want with the child, but their intentions aren’t good.”

Livia let out a slow breath. Then in. Then out. “Where is the child now?” she whispered to Amaryllis.

While Amaryllis couldn’t see it, she could pinpoint where the source of acute fear was coming from. That was another way her ability was useful—detecting presences accurately.

“Under a crate near the vegetable stall.” Amaryllis whispered back.

“Should we help the child? I can distract them while you save the child and spirit her away. We can find out why they’re after her or who her guardians are later.”

“What if I’m wrong?” Amaryllis asked. “I can’t read minds.”

“Trust your intuitions. How many times has it saved our lives in life-or-death situations before?”

Amaryllis nodded, then quietly slipped away.

Livia took a deep breath, then launched into the best performance of her life.

“You bastard!” Livia shrieked as she pointed at one of the men. “You told me you would marry me as soon as you served your time at war, but you actually dumped me for another woman! And through a letter of all things!”

The random man she had singled out looked both scared and confused, and began stammering.

Amaryllis couldn’t help but grin as she slinked away toward the child’s hiding place.

“Are you safe, child?” She whispered, making sure none of the people hunting the child was looking.

The lid of the crate lifted ever so slightly, revealing a set of sparkling violet eyes peeking through the small gap. A set of jeweled violet eyes.

Amaryllis suppressed a gasp. Another person with jeweled eyes? She had gone years without seeing one, yet in the span of three months, there was Evan, the oracle, and now, this mysterious child.

“You have jeweled eyes too!” the child exclaimed in delight. The child widened the gap just a little more, enough that Amaryllis could see it was a little girl about the age of eight.

“Yes,” Amaryllis tried her best to keep the child calm. “What is your name? Mine is Amaryllis.”

“Mine is Sybil!”

“Are you in danger? Are those people hunting you?”

At the mention of the people, Sybil shuddered and the feeling of fear intensified. 

“They want to use me,” Sybil’s eyes were wide with terror. “They want to lock me up because of my ability.”

“Come with me,” Amaryllis said. “I’ll take you to the priests. They’ll find a way to help you.”

Sybil nodded and grabbed Amaryllis’s hand. Then, the two ran off in the direction of the Temple.

However, they didn’t get far before someone stepped directly into their path. A tall and burly man, staring right down at the two of them. There had been another person looking for Sybil aside from the group that was still distracted by Livia’s acting.

“Found you,” he addressed Sybil with a grin that looked more like a snarl. “You little rat.”

Amaryllis pulled Sybil behind her and pulled out Evan’s dagger. “Stay back,” she warned. How did she miss him earlier? Perhaps his emotions had been at a low enough level that it didn’t trigger her attention until he spotted Sybil just now. 

“You think you can hurt me with that toothpick?” The man laughed at Amaryllis’s attempt to threaten him. 

Well, he won’t be laughing after Amaryllis severs his achilles tendons. 

She was well versed in the arts of healing, which also meant that she knew how to harm the body in a way to maximize the damage. On top of that, all the nurses in the nursing program had taken self-defense lessons. She might not be very strong, but she was fast and precise. It won’t be enough to hold up against a group of skilled soldiers, but a single man? She could handle that, especially if he was underestimating her as this man was doing now.

She covered Sybil’s eyes with one hand and was about to strike at him when someone beat her to it first. One of the Terravalen soldiers from before grabbed the man by the arm and tackled him to the ground.

“Are you all right, miss?” The soldier asked her while pinning his opponent to the ground. He suddenly froze a little as he looked Amaryllis in the face for the first time. Amaryllis was used to having that kind of effect on others. It wasn’t even the first time today.

Amaryllis blinked when the soldier addressed her. He had moved so fast that she barely detected him coming. She checked on Sybil, who was still shaken, but also appeared to be fine.

“Yes,” she answered. “Thank you, but why did you…” Her voice trailed off as the unfinished question hung over them.

He pointed at Evan’s dagger, still in her hand. “I knew it! That’s Co- er, Captain’s dagger!”

“Captain?” Amaryllis echoed. “Evan is a captain?” Evan was a captain? Also, why did the soldier feel a brief flash of worry when he mentioned the word Captain?

“Yup!” The soldier confirmed. “Evan told everyone that if we were to see someone with this dagger, we need to help her to repay the favor he owes you.”

He then turned to the rest of the soldiers he had been with, “Hey, look! This is the girl who saved Evan’s life!”

The rest of his friends quickly ran over. Amaryllis nearly took a step back in anxiety, but decided to stay due to the lack of animosity she was feeling from them. Indeed, everyone seemed excited and happy to see her.

“Evan?” Someone asked, only to be elbowed by the first soldier.

“You know! Captain!”

“Oh!” Realization dawned on his face. “Right! Captain!”

“I saw her holding his dagger when she was confronting this man earlier.” The first soldier gestured to the man he still had pinned below him. 

“Good eye, Ralfe!” Another soldier praised him. “Hello, Milady! Evan has told us so much about you, but he never said you were such a beautiful lady. No wonder he keeps thinking of you night and day.”

He was then smacked by someone to his left, “Stop prattling, Seymour. You’re making her uncomfortable.”

“Um,” Amaryllis wasn’t sure what to say in the face of all this attention. Sybil shyly peeked at them from behind Amaryllis’s skirt.

“I can’t thank you enough for saving C-Captain, Miss Savior!”

“You don’t know how happy we were when he came back! We thought he died!”

“You have jeweled eyes too? And so does this child! Is she your sister?”

“A benefactor of our Captain is a benefactor of ours!”

Amaryllis didn’t expect for them to be so close to Evan. They were clearly more than simple comrades. They act as if Evan was their family.

“Hey!” Livia’s voice cut through the chatter. “Who are you and what do you want with my lady?”

She appeared behind the men with a fierce expression and her hands on her hips. Amaryllis knew that she kept her hands in that position because her hidden weapons were strapped to her hips.

“It’s all right, Livia.” Amaryllis reassured her. “They don’t mean any harm, they’re just repaying a favor.”

“Terravalens repaying you a favor?” Livia raised an eyebrow.

“I saved their Captain once.”

Livia only continued to gawk in confusion.

“What happened to the others?” Amaryllis asked, referring to the other mercenaries.

“I was in the middle of explaining that I mistook him for someone else when they suddenly fled. I think that was when they saw the Terravalen soldiers flocking around this child.” Livia explained.

“By the way, who is this man that was bothering you?” Someone finally got back to the right topic. He gestured to the man still pinned in Ralfe’s hands. The man was now belligerent, struggling to break free with all his might, but could barely breathe due to the weight Ralfe applied on his back.

“I don’t know,” Amaryllis admitted. “He was trying to take this child against her will. Sybil, do you know this man or the other ones from before?” Amaryllis turned to address the young girl again. She wondered if they were trying to kidnap Sybil simply because Sybil had jeweled eyes. Were they hoping to exploit whatever ability she has?

“Not really. I think they are mercenaries hired by someone.” Sybil spoke surprisingly well for someone her age. “I heard a voice telling me to run to the Temple as fast as I could, so I did. They also told me to trust the girl with jeweled eyes, and that’s you!”

“A voice?” Amaryllis asked. Usually when children mention hearing voices, it’s most likely made up by their own imagination. But in this case, Sybil had jeweled eyes. A theory started forming in her head as she decided to ask a test question. “Wait, Sybil, do you know what the weather's like tomorrow?”

Sybil tilted her head thoughtfully. “It’s going to drizzle a bit in the morning, but the afternoon and evening will have clear skies.”