The Sixth School Book II Ch. 016

Author's note.

1). Remember, your help in pointing out errors will help keep me from having to take long periods off to edit. Your help in this is much appreciated.

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All Characters in the story are 18 years of age and above...

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Chapter Sixteen: Not My Slave...

Calyn hadn't been sure what to expect. The fearful part of her had been scared that living with Roka would be like living with a tyrant, someone who expected whatever he said to be treated like law. Reality, however, entirely contradicted this. Not only was he not the kind to order others around, but he made it a point to consult with those close to him when making most decisions. And more than just consulting, he actually listened to what advice the ones he consulted had to offer. That in itself wouldn't have been that odd if those around him were powerful mages with a deep knowledge of either magic or the world at large. However, only two out of five people around Roka had any magic to begin with. The first was his guard, Olivia as he'd called her. Calyn had yet to establish what school of magic she belonged to. The other was the flame-haired young man who was seated at the same table as Roka on the Airship. Lothar, a fire mage of the second tier. The other three around Roka were just mundane women. Two of the three were his immediate family, so Calyn could understand why he kept them close. In a way, it improved her opinion of him to see just how much he cared for them. It reminded Calyn that, despite the scary fact that this young man was somehow linked with a deity, he was still human. He had people he loved and worried about. And from what she could see, the feeling was mutual. The one that had left Calyn completely confused was the final woman. Despite straining her mana senses, she couldn't feel even a hint of magic coming off her. And yet, for some reason, Roka had repeatedly referred to this woman as teacher.

Beneath the fear, some small part of Calyn had been curious about what profound secrets of magic she would learn by serving a deity for a hundred cycles. Even with the prospect of a hundred cycles of being the deity's servant, Calyn's obsession with rising through the tiers and growing in power hadn't abated even in the least. A small, optimistic, and perhaps even naïve part of her had been hoping that the deity would share some knowledge that it considered trivial but would take her understanding of magic to the next level. Reality, however, was sorely disappointing. Forget sharing with her, the deity wasn't even sharing knowledge with his vessel. Any hope that world-shattering secrets would be shared with her was firmly laid to rest when she discovered that of all people Roka had a mundane woman as his teacher. But beyond her shock at how normal Roka seemed, how weak the people around him were, and the fact he had a mundane woman for a teacher, one odd fact still stood out to her. None of them were scared of him.

Calyn had been around enough powerful people to know how people acted around them. Unless the powerful individual was in a bad mood or known to be erratic, they rarely showed open fear. Instead, the people around them would do their best to act casual, maybe even try to be friendly. It, however, was a thin veneer. Underneath it all, there was always a subtle tension. The realization that you were in a cage with a tiger and that any breath you took was only because that tiger deigned to let you do so. Should that change at any time, then as sure as the rising of the sun, you would stop breathing. There was none of that with those around Roka. Here was someone who had stood toe to toe with two seventh-tier mages from the Draknar alliance and gotten them to back down. He had crushed a fifth-tier mage like he was little more than a bug. And yet his sister felt comfortable enough to joke and tease him over his losses at a board game. His mother had lightly admonished Roka when he'd been late to join them for dinner with zero fear that anything bad would happen to her for it. And to his credit, rather than flexing his power, Roka had instead apologized to his mother before kissing her on the forehead.

The only one who showed the reaction she expected was Lothar. While he did his best to play it down, Calyn had noticed the unconscious tension in the fire mage any time Roka was around. After three days of observing them, however, Calyn hadn't seen Roka mistreat the young man in any way. It didn't take long for her to work out the fact that he was afraid not because of anything Roka had done, but because he knew who Roka was linked to. In other words, like her, he was aware that Roka was the vessel for a deity, which he couldn't help but fear. But as for Roka's conduct, after three days of observing him, if Calyn hadn't been at the steps to the Governor's castle, she would have had no way of knowing that Roka was in any way linked with a deity.

As for her, she was in the awkward position of not knowing what to do with herself. Roka's guard, Olivia, was the one who had come to pick her up from the airship at the end of the day that she had been given to bid her family goodbye. On the way to the inn they were currently staying at, Olivia had made it clear that she was not to speak of the deity unless someone else brought it up first. She was only to abide by whatever instructions she would be given and try to carry out her tasks to the best of her ability. She had also been warned that should she try to harm Roka or anyone close to him or betray them in any way, her death wouldn't be quick. Calyn couldn't help but shudder as she remembered the woman's dark gaze as she said this. The look that Olivia gave Calyn told her that the woman was fully capable of dragging out the torture for weeks, months, or even cycles before she was granted the mercy of death. With such a cold reception from Olivia, Calyn had been expecting more of the same from Roka. When they got to the inn, however, all Roka did was turn to the others with him and introduce her. "This is Calyn, she'll be staying with us for a while." With that brief intro, he'd asked Olivia to show her to her room and help her get settled in.

That had been three days ago.

When Olivia had come for her, Calyn had prepared herself for the worst. Who knows what dastardly thing Roka would ask of her? She'd even been prepared to heed her aunt's warning. She wasn't happy about it, but she had made peace with the fact that she might be forced to serve Roka sexually. Rather than fight the inevitable, she'd instead do what her aunt had advised and use it to her advantage in whatever way possible. Now three days later and with next to no interaction with Roka, Calyn almost wished that he would give her an order or do something that would allow her to know where she stood and what was expected of her. This was why she was currently walking towards Roka's room. A part of her was screaming at her that this was a bad idea. That she should just sit and enjoy the lack of attention from Roka. That part, however, was overshadowed by the part of her that hated being left in limbo, to squirm and wonder when the executioner's ax would fall.

Calyn could feel the pace of her heart pick up right after she'd knocked on the boy's door. Her tension, however, turned to confusion when the mundane woman that Roka referred to as 'teacher' pulled the door open. The woman herself seemed a bit surprised that Calyn was the one knocking. Still, a small smile graced her lips. "Come in," she offered, taking a step to the side to allow her passage.

"Is this not Roka's room," Calyn questioned, uncertain if she was in the wrong place.

"It is, come in," the woman reiterated,

With that confirmation, the tension was back even as Calyn walked forward into the room. Once inside, it took her a second for her to recognize what she was looking at. "A space expansion formation," she muttered as her eyes moved from one formation plate to the next. Calyn had always been fascinated with formations and how they worked. Whenever she wasn't too busy with ascension towards the next tier, she'd dabble in them, trying to learn what she could. She couldn't by any means claim to be a prodigy in them. Her understanding was at best a bit above average. Still, she knew enough to recognize this formation. This was a common enough formation that was often used to expand space making a room bigger on the inside than what its dimensions on the outside would suggest.

The formation here, however, hadn't been used to increase the size of the boy's room. Instead, it only covered a small section of the room. If her assessment of the formation plates was correct and this was a tier-three space expansion formation, then the space inside the formation was probably ten times bigger than the rest of the room. This was why Calyn wasn't confused by the fact that both Roka and Olivia seemed to have shrunk to about half her size. From outside the formation, it might seem like they were just a few steps away, but in reality, they were quite a distance away in terms of actual space. This miniaturization effect was the mind's way of making sense of the distortion in distance.

Trailing after the mundane woman, the two of them stepped inside the bounds of the formation just as Roka was sent flying across the vast carpeted expanse by a blow from Olivia. Had she been a mundane human, Calyn wouldn't have been able to follow the fight. She, however, was a second-tier body-enhancing mage closing in on the third tier. Her eyes could easily track what would have otherwise been little more than a blur of motion. Besides, as a member of the Sydrak clan, she'd had the chance to watch seniors in the clan at the fourth or fifth tier duel each other. In such bouts, even she struggled to keep track of their movements. Compared to that, keeping track of the two before her was child's play. The fact that she could follow everything that was happening, however, left her eyes wide with shock at the brutality on display.

Neither one held back in their attacks. Roka had barely stopped flying across the field before them when Olivia's foot landed on the ground where his chest would have been if Roka hadn't immediately rolled away. He'd barely risen to one knee when he crossed his arms to block Olivia's kick from slamming into his chest. Using the force of the kick, Roka jumped backward onto his feet. Barely half a second later, he was charging forward ready to body-check his guard into the ground. Back when she began fighting, Calyn would have seen this as a slugfest and nothing more. Each party seemed intent on landing as many devastating blows as possible. Now that she was a more experienced fighter, however, Calyn could pick out the subtleties of each party's approach to the fight.

While it might have seemed that Olivia was landing a lot more blows, she didn't seem to be doing as much damage as an equivalent blow from Roka. By the same token, however, while he was taking more blows than Olivia, Roka seemed capable of taking the hits better than his guard, making him more willing to take damage in exchange for causing damage of his own on Olivia. So this was an elaborate dance where they each tried to guide the combat in a direction that would benefit them and disadvantage their enemy. Roka did his best to limit Olivia's maneuverability and force the fight into close quarters where he could do the maximum damage. Olivia on the other hand, was an elusive ghost, always dancing in and out of Roka's reach and doing everything she could to ensure she could attack and withdraw freely.

"You might as well sit, they'll be at this for another hour or so," a voice reached her from the side.

Calyn turned to find the woman that Roka considered his teacher seated cross-legged on the ground. Calyn couldn't help but glance back at the two rampaging individuals just a short distance away from where they were. "Aren't you worried that you might be hurt unintentionally?" She questioned.

The woman smiled, looking amused at the prospect. "I'm not that easy to hurt," she stated calmly.

Calyn believed her. It was such a jarring realization that she had to check her mana senses once more to confirm that she was indeed a mundane woman. Having grown up around powerful individuals in the fifth and sixth tier, there was a subtle confidence in the bearing of such people that Calyn had come to unconsciously pick up on. Looking at the woman before her, there was that same confidence in her bearing. A part of her was tempted to test the woman. Calyn was, after all, a second-tier body-enhancing mage, to be cowed by a mundane woman hit at her pride as a mage. The thought, however, vanished as quickly as it had appeared. Roka, her new master, considered this woman to be his teacher. From what she had seen the past three days, not only did this woman command a lot of Roka's respect, but he cared about her a lot. If Calyn hurt her, there'd be no telling what he would do.

Taking a seat beside Roka's teacher, Calyn watched the two before them go at it. The woman had been right, Calyn was treated to another hour of pure carnage as Roka and his guard almost seemed intent on breaking each other down. If not for their resilient bodies, both of them would have both been a broken mess on the ground. Calyn was glad to wait as it gave her time to compose her thoughts. She had decided to approach the young man, but she didn't really know what to say to him. She wasn't even sure that there was a particular thing she wanted to say to him, she just hated the ambiguity of his silence and wanted to know where she stood.

An hour later, the ground was flecked with blood from Roka whose body was covered in various bruises and injuries. He may have been a lot tougher than a mundane human, but he wasn't impervious to damage. One of his eyes was swollen shut, his lip was split, and Calyn could see red on his teeth as the boy grinned in wild satisfaction as if he'd just engaged in a most exhilarating pastime. His whole body was covered in several bruises that left parts of him discolored. On her part, Olivia seemed completely undamaged. If she had met the woman just outside Roka's room, Calyn would never have been able to tell that she'd just spent the last hour pummeling Roka and likewise being pummeled into the ground. Calyn, however, wasn't surprised by this in the least. The woman was a shape-shifter. Trusting the appearance of a shape-shifter was something only a fool would do.

Besides, this was a hive scroll clone. At first, Calyn had thought that Olivia had a twin when they arrived at the inn to find someone looking exactly like her, already there. Just yesterday, however, the clone that was always hanging around Roka's family had run out of magic and broken up into motes of light that dispersed into the air. The clone that had led her here had then taken its place. The fact that Roka's family didn't seem surprised by this, told Calyn that they were used to this by now. Calyn had mustered up the courage to ask about it and learned that all the versions of her that were currently at the inn with them were her clones. The real her was actually at the Governor's castle negotiating with the mages from the Draknar alliance.

Favoring his right leg, Roka limped toward them, or more particularly, toward his teacher. There was a look of slight surprise on his face when he noticed her seated beside the woman. Still, the pain he was in didn't allow him to dwell on it too much as he continued his approach. Roka's teacher held out her palm to him just as he reached them, on it was a storage ring. Roka pulled it onto his finger before taking out a weeping flower tincture from it. Calyn couldn't help but wince when he emptied half the vial into his mouth. Weeping flower tinctures were one of the highest-quality healing potions of the third tier. Having one could mean the difference between life and death in a critical situation. Not even she, someone from a powerful clan, had that many vials of it. She most definitely would never use one to recover from training injuries, other less potent and more commonly available potions would suffice for that purpose.

Still, the effects of the potent potion showed immediately as all the bruises across his body faded, his split lip sealed up and the eye that was swollen shut slowly came back to normal. In short order, Roka was standing before them bare-chested and fully healed. Calyn had to force herself to look away when she found her gaze drifting down from his face, to his broad chest and his rock-hard abs, the sheen of sweat covering him somehow making him even more alluring.

"Just because you can take damage and keep going doesn't mean you let every attack land," the woman next to her spoke. "I can understand a sacrificial strategy and taking damage in exchange for causing it, but at least half of the injuries you suffered were unnecessary," she advised.

"Sorry, I got a bit carried away," Roka answered with a sheepish smile. He then turned to her. "Calyn, I didn't expect you here," he voiced, clearly curious about what she wanted.

Mustering up her courage, she spoke. "It's been three days since I was brought here by your guard, and in that time, you've barely said anything to me other than introduce me to those with you. If I'm going to be serving you for the next hundred cycles, I need to at least know what is expected of me," She said choosing to be direct rather than beat about the bush.

A sigh left the young man, a grimace crossing his face that told Calyn that for some reason, he hadn't been looking forward to this conversation. "Let me bathe first and we can talk after," he conceded.

Calyn had to bite down her tongue to control the impulse to say that she was perfectly okay with him staying as he currently was. "I'll be waiting," she eventually managed.

***

There was a long silence at the table as Roka seemed to take his time and compose his thoughts. Calyn herself didn't know how to proceed now that they were sitting face to face. What was she supposed to do? Should she ask what his orders were? Or was that too direct? Should she try to get to know him better? Or would he take it the wrong way and think she was being too familiar and overstepping her station as a servant? Should she seize the initiative and try to seduce him? Or would she be cheapening herself in his eyes? Before this conversation, had someone asked her if she was the nervous type, she would have said no. Now, however, with her heart hammering inside her chest, Calyn couldn't help the questions and doubts that plagued her whenever she thought to speak or do something. Mercifully, the boy spoke up in the end, sparing her the need to.

"Morpheus," he began. "That's what I call him, the deity that I'm linked to. He and I are like two riders on the same horse. When one takes the reins the other can only sit back and watch where the rider takes them," Roka laid out.

Calyn wasn't sure why he was explaining this to her, but she couldn't help but feel her dread spike as she asked. "Does... does that mean he is watching right now?" She questioned, not at all liking the idea of having a deity's attention on her.

Rather than answer, a small smile crossed Roka's lips even as the color of his eyes changed. The light caramel-brown color of his irises faded even as what looked like a nebula of stars took their place. Back at the Governor's castle, this had been what Roka's eyes looked like when the deity had taken him over. Calyn swallowed hard, doing her best to push back down the spike of fear that threatened to overwhelm her. Last time, those from the Draknar alliance had been the deity's true focus and those from the Sydrak clan only a side distraction. Now, however, she was the sole focus of the deity and Calyn couldn't shake the strong urge to shrink under that gaze. Before she could bow, however, color quickly seeped back into his eyes and Roka was once again in control.

"He is always watching and listening," Roka said with a shrug. "I'm telling you all this, not because I want to scare you but because I need you to understand that I am not him, and he is not me. Other than the fact that he can sometimes commandeer my body, we are two different individuals," Roka insisted.

"You don't have to worry, I wasn't about to mistake you for a god," the words slipped out of her lips before she could catch herself and Calyn couldn't help but tense up wondering if Roka would interpret it as a put-down.

Much to her relief, however, an amused smile crossed Roka's lips. "Not yet I'm not," he concurred with exaggerated haughtiness in his voice earning an eye roll from her. A sigh left Roka as the light moment passed. "To be honest with you, I would rather have waited a few more days before having this discussion," he revealed.

"Why?" She asked, not sure what difference a few days would make. She was, after all, bound to him for the next hundred cycles.

"Because the negotiations between Olivia and the Governor and mages from the Draknar alliance should draw to a close in the next day or two. From what she tells me, the two mages from the alliance can't wait to get away from her and this city altogether," Roka said sounding amused by this. "She suspects, that the moment the negotiations are over they'll probably get on their airship and leave. As soon as that happens, I plan to let you go. Though, now that I think about it, it was probably unfair to leave you in suspense and unsure of what to expect. Sorry for that," he said.

Calyn barely heard Roka's apology, the revelation that he planned to let her go still ringing in her mind. At first, an overwhelming flood of relief hit her as it dawned on her that she might not lose the next one hundred cycles of her life. The relief, and desperate desire to accept this as the reality, however, was why it felt like spikes were being driven into her heart as she forced herself to reject the possibility. Calyn had been raised in one of the most powerful clans on the continent of Farendel. With the amount of intra and inter-clan politics that she had been exposed to all her life, she had learned a core truth. No good thing was ever given for free. The shinier the offering seemed, the deeper the hooks hidden within would dig into you. If Roka was willing to give up on having a servant for the next hundred cycles, then it was probably because he wanted something else in return. She needed to figure out what it was and if she was willing to pay it before she agreed to anything. "Why?" She repeated, unable to hide the suspicion in her voice.

Calyn didn't miss the strange look that passed through Roka's eyes for a second before it was gone. "Where I am from, the idea of owning another human being is completely unheard of. Up until almost a cycle ago, I lived in a little town in some remote mountains a few continents away from here. In that town, everyone worked hard just to survive. It was taken as given that you were born free and lived free till the day you died. The idea that one person could own another as if they were property would have been thought ludicrous," the boy laid out. Calyn wasn't sure why, but she got the impression that there was a lot more that Roka wanted to say on this, but with a sigh, he chose not to. "This is why I began by making it clear that I am not Morpheus, and he is not me. While I can see everything he does when he takes charge, I am only an observer and can't stop him from doing whatever he wants. To be honest with you, I find the idea of owning another human being as if they were some trinket to be odd at best and completely evil if I'm being blunt. When I arrived at the Governor's castle, my only goal was to face the seventh-tier mages after me. When all was said and done, however, you had been made into my slave."

"To be completely frank with you, I would much rather that you guys had run away. As the training session should have proven, your guard never really posed any danger to Olivia. Had she not managed to find a way to escape, she would have died in that fight. I never even once wondered who sent her or contemplated revenge against you. If you had run away like your guard did, it would have spared us this current situation. You, however, didn't and here we are. Nevertheless, you don't have to worry. As soon as the seventh-tier mages have left, you'll be free to go your way," he stated with a small smile at her.

There was a while of silence between them. A while in which Calyn was sorely tempted to just agree with the boy and figure out a way to get back to her clan. Unwilling to lose it to the boy, she had given ninety percent of the resources she'd gained over the past few weeks to her aunt for safekeeping until the day she returned. What she had left in her storage ring wasn't much, but if she sold it, she was certain it would earn her enough to pay for an airship flight back to her clan's area of control. From there, getting back to her clan would be a breeze. Freedom was so close she could almost taste it on her tongue. And yet, a bitter sigh left her as she answered him "No I won't."

For a second, Roka regarded her with a blank look, as if he didn't know how to process the words. Confusion, however, quickly followed after. "You won't?" He repeated.

"Believe me when I say that a very big part of me was tempted to do exactly what you suggested. Just keep quiet about what I'd ordered my servant to do, go back to the clan, act like nothing had happened, and hope you never came for me. There was, after all, a chance that you didn't care what altercations your guard got into in the course of her duties. Before making that decision, however, there was one question I had to answer. A single question that superseded everything else. And that was, could I afford to be wrong? Even if the odds were nine out of ten that the deity wouldn't care about what had happened, could I afford that one out of ten chance that I was wrong? Could I afford to risk bringing down the wrath of a deity down on my clan?" Calyn verbalized the one question that had kept her from taking the coward's way out. Shaking her head, Calyn spoke. "No clan is perfect just as no family is perfect, but my clan has given me everything I have so far. I couldn't repay that with treachery, and so here I am," she explained.

"Let's say that I take you up on your offer to give me back my freedom. And believe me when I say that it's eating me up on the inside that I can't. If I were to take it and go back to my clan, the first thing they would do is interrogate me to find out why and how it was that I had returned. As my actions should have already demonstrated, I am not willing to put my clan in harm's way, not even for my own sake. If they ask, I will tell them the truth. That Roka and the deity he is linked to are two individuals each with their own view of the world. That, unlike the deity, Roka abhors the idea of owning another human being and chose to let me go. Do you know what they will ask me?" She posed rhetorically. "They will ask me, did the deity let you go? When I answer honestly and tell them no, they will brand me a traitor to the clan and banish me from it. They will then capture me and either leave me to rot in the clan dungeon until the day you come for me or send someone to seek you out with me in tow as a captive.

"You said it yourself Roka, you are not the deity, and the deity is not you. You aren't the one who enslaved me, Roka. Which means that you equally can't free me. Unless the deity comes out and gives me back my freedom, I am bound to you for the next hundred cycles," she stated.

Calyn felt herself instinctively tense up when for a second time, the color of Roka's eyes changed. Rather than their usual bright caramel hue, she found herself looking at a nebula of stars. "Do as the boy says," came the forceful words from the boy.

Calyn's lips curved upwards in a smile as she found herself feeling touched that Roka would be willing to try and trick her into accepting freedom. "If you hadn't already shown me the transformation of your eyes, the surprise of that transformation might have been enough to trick me. However, seeing it a second time, I can easily tell that it's still you Roka. Back at the Governor's castle, just being in the presence of the deity left me feeling like I was suffocating. When he spoke, it felt like reality itself was quaking with the weight of his power. You can mimic the look of his eyes, but you can't mimic that power," she explained.

The stars once more faded from Roka's eyes leaving him with a sheepish smile at being caught in the lie. "I promise you, Morpheus doesn't care one what or another what happens with you. Whether you stay or leave is entirely up to you," Roka made another attempt to get her to accept her liberation. From the look of him, however, he seemed to be giving up the attempt as a lost cause. He seemed to recognize the fact that she wouldn't be easily moved.

"If he is willing to come out and grant me my freedom, then I'd be more than happy to be out of your hair as soon as the seventh-tier mages leave. Until that happens, you're stuck with me," she stated with a weak smile.

There was a long silence following her words. Long enough that Calyn found herself thinking that Roka was unsure how to proceed from here. But just as she was about to try and say something to put him at ease, it clicked. He was speaking with the deity, probably trying to convince him to let her go. This time, there was no hope sparked inside Calyn's heart. This same deity had watched her aunt bare open her heart and quite literally beg to take her place. Aunt Lina had even gone as far as offering to serve for five times the amount of time Calyn was obligated to do and yet, it hadn't moved the deity even a bit. Aunt Lina might as well have made her plea to a tree stump for how moved the being was. If her aunt's begging and pleading didn't move the deity, then she highly doubted that Roka's objections to slavery would be enough to move the god. A frustrated sigh finally left Roka and Calyn smiled, both to show that she appreciated his effort to free her and to show that she didn't blame him for this outcome. "He said no," she wasn't asking but rather stating.

"Worse, he doesn't care. His exact words are, if she isn't willing to take your offer of freedom, then let her serve out her time. I'm not going to take you over at the whim of a child," he quoted. Calyn could hear the frustration in Roka's tone at the deity's indifference and her heart grew light. Even if she was not going to go free, someone who would fight so hard on her behalf, wasn't likely to turn around and abuse the power he now held over her. "Are you certain that you won't take my offer of freedom?" Roka finally posed after a while of silence.

Something about the way he asked the question made her realize that this was the last time he would offer. If she refused him, then her enslavement for the next hundred cycles would be set in stone. For a second, Calyn's resolve wavered at the prospect. Calyn closed her mouth tightly, not trusting herself to speak even as she gave a firm nod, not letting any of her doubts show on her face. Luckily for her, she didn't have to dwell on it long as Roka produced a piece of parchment from his storage ring. Calyn wasn't at all surprised by the fact that Roka would expect her to sign a mana contract. All her servants had to sign one to ensure their loyalty and minimize the chance of betrayal even if they fell into the hands of their enemies. The part that made her eyes go round as saucers was the aura of power that came from the mana contract placed before her. As the niece to the Clan head, she had on occasion gotten to see the clan head sign contracts to seal an agreement with another clan or powerful organization that the clan needed to work with. Often, not even those contracts were as powerful as the one that had been placed before her. "I... is this a tier-seven mana contract?" She couldn't help but stammer the question, looking up at Roka.

With a single nod of confirmation, he spoke. "During your time with me, you will probably learn some of my secrets and that of others around me. Secrets that, if revealed, would probably turn the whole world of magic on its head. Secrets big enough that one might be tempted to risk the punishment of a weaker contract just to divulge them to those closest to her. I can't take that risk. Try to breach this contract, and you'll be dead before the first word is fully out of your mouth," Roka spoke in a steely tone of voice.

Both by the look in his eyes and the tone of his voice, Calyn could tell that Roka wasn't trying to be dramatic or anything, he truly believed every word he'd uttered. The excitement and anticipation for gaining some earth-shattering knowledge during her service started to bubble up within her once more. It was a shame that she might not be able to share it with others close to her but if it could benefit her, then she'd be content with just that. At the same time, however, she realized that she had misjudged the young man before her. When she heard his opinions on slavery, she had thought him a bit naïve. By his own admission, he'd been living in some remote town in the mountains. A fact that had probably left him sheltered from the realities of life. This was a cruel world where the strong had their way and the weak could only comply. What did right and wrong matter if you weren't powerful enough to enforce it? Of course, she wasn't stupid enough to voice her thoughts on this given that she was now occupying the role of slave. Despite his strange views on slavery, however, the contract before her told Calyn that he wasn't some naïve fool. He might not like the fact that she was made into a slave, but that didn't mean he was about to trust her with his secrets just because of her unfortunate circumstances. Even more chilling was the look in his eyes as she regarded him. Even if she somehow managed to survive the backlash of the contract, there was no doubt in her that Roka would track her down and kill her if she ever betrayed him!

With a deep breath to calm herself, Calyn began to read the document. She was careful to capture every word in it, not because she had that much negotiation power in this situation, but because she wanted to be clear on what was expected of her based on the contract. As Roka had said, a tier-seven mana contract was powerful enough to kill her if she breached it. The contract wasn't that long. The first thing it stipulated was that she was not allowed to try to either harm or kill his family and his teacher. Curiously, neither Olivia nor Lothar was mentioned here. Whether that was because they weren't that close or because he thought they could take care of themselves, Calyn didn't know. Lothar and Olivia were, after all, the only other mages in this group. Calyn didn't ask either way.

The second condition was that she was required to do everything in her power to protect him, his family, and his teacher if ever they were in danger. Calyn wasn't all that surprised by this one. After watching him for the past three days, she could tell that he deeply cared about his family and the one he called teacher. The third and final condition on the contract was as the boy had delineated, a requirement for secrecy. Unless she was given explicit permission while Roka was in a sober state of mind and not mind-controlled in any way, then she was not allowed to divulge any of the things she learned about him and those closest to him in the course of her servitude. While the two other clauses expired when her time as his slave ended, this last one was eternal, until the day she either died or grew strong enough to withstand the backlash of the contract, then she would be required to keep his secrets.

"There is nothing here that requires me to obey you," Calyn couldn't help but observe, not sure if he was overlooking it. Had it been anyone else, Calyn wouldn't have pointed this detail out. After what Roka had so far revealed of himself, however, she did not feel any trepidation.

Sure enough, he just shrugged. "You are not my slave, Calyn," Roka said.

Picking a quill from her own storage ring, Calyn poured her mana into the contract through the quill as she signed it. Calyn had just slid the contract back to him when the door to the room burst open and Olivia's clone walked in smiling. "I did it. I got us an airship!" She declared with a grin...

***

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