The moment I stepped out of Amanda's shop I heard it.
I didn't need to push through the crowd to know what was happening. My vision locked onto them before anyone around me had finished turning their heads.
Torra was crying.
Sia was pressed behind Harold, both of them backed against a market stall. Harold had his arms out, putting himself between the children and three knights who were close enough that there was no mistaking what kind of conversation this was.
"Give it here. People like you couldn't possibly own something like that. Hand it over."
One of the knights pushed Harold. Not a shove. A push with intent, the kind meant to move someone out of the way because they had decided he didn't matter enough to go around.
Harold stumbled back. Sia went with him.
I was already there.
I caught Harold with one arm and Sia with the other before either of them hit the ground. I steadied them both and checked them in the same motion, fast, without looking away from the knights.
Torra launched himself at me immediately. I caught him against my chest and held him there, one hand on his back, firm and steady.
"What do you think you're doing?"
My voice came out level.
But the temperature dropped. Not metaphorically. The air around us changed, the way it changes before a storm decides to commit. Everyone in the surrounding market felt it without understanding what they were feeling. Conversations stopped. People stepped back without being told to.
Everyone except my companions.
"That artifact." One of the knights managed, fighting against something he couldn't name that was pressing down on him from all sides. "The child had it. People like you don't own things like that. You stole it."
I looked at him.
Then I looked at the ground beneath him.
Gravity disagreed with him suddenly and completely. He went down like something had decided he belonged there, the stone cracking and reshaping around the outline of his body as the pressure increased. The other knights stumbled, all of them feeling the edges of it, fighting to stay upright.
"Harold." I kept my voice the same. "Take Sia to Amanda's shop. Stay inside."
"Leigh, what's-" Amanda had come out of the shop at the sound of the commotion and was moving toward us.
"Let them in. Lock the door. Don't come out regardless of what happens outside."
Amanda took one look at my face, or whatever the illusion was showing her, and made a decision immediately. She took Harold's arm and steered him and Sia back toward the shop without another word.
Torra's arms tightened around my neck.
"I'm not going." He said into my shoulder. His voice was still wet. "I'm staying with you. I'm not leaving."
I looked at Amanda.
She understood. She took Harold and Sia and went.
The moment the shop door closed I cast the barrier around it. Layered. Dense. The kind that would hold against more force than anything in Amlada's kingdom could produce on a good day. Then I cast a second one around Torra, invisible, settled against his skin like a second layer of air.
I patted his back once.
"Now." I looked at the knights pressed into the cracked stone below me. All of them struggling. None of them succeeding. "Let's try this again. What happened."
"The artifact." The one doing the talking forced the words out against the pressure. "The one the child had. National treasure grade. A child doesn't just have something like that. How does a child have something like that?"
"Because it's his." I said. "It's his toy."
"A toy." Someone managed a scoff, disbelief winning briefly over discomfort. "Nobody would believe-"
"I told you it was mine." Torra lifted his head from my shoulder just enough to hold up the fireworks, still glowing faintly in his small hand. His voice had the particular dignity of a child who has been saying something true and not been listened to.
I wasn't looking at the fireworks.
I was looking at his wrists.
The bruising was already showing. Finger-shaped. The kind that comes from someone gripping hard and not letting go when a child pulled away.
The temperature dropped again.
The pressure I was running through the ground doubled without me deciding to double it. The stone around the knights deepened. The crack spread outward in lines from where each of them was pinned.
"Who put their hands on this child."
No one spoke.
The silence had a quality to it. They could all feel what was underneath my voice and none of them wanted to be the answer to the question.
"Don't make me repeat myself."
The captain moved. Not voluntarily. His arm twitched, a reflex breaking through before his pride could stop it, his finger pointing sideways at the knight who had done most of the talking.
I looked at where he pointed.
Then I looked at the bruises on Torra's wrists again.
"You put your hands on him." I said. "He's a child. You gripped his wrists over a toy."
The repetition landed on the crowd the way I intended it to. A toy. Said again. Said plainly. The appraisal the captain had staked his authority on being reduced, word by word, to something a child carried in his pocket for fun.
I stepped forward and put my foot on the knight's head.
I didn't even add much strength on my foot, yet blood splattered.
I covered Torra's eyes with my hand at the same moment I pressed down. A soundproof layer went up around Torra's barrier, cutting the sound off cleanly.
It was over in a second.
The knights who saw it went rigid.
The captain recovered faster than the others. He was good. I could see that much. He pushed back against my aura with everything his mana could produce and gained approximately nothing from the effort, but the attempt itself told me something about him.
"You killed a knight of Amlada." His voice was controlled fury. "You've made an enemy of this entire kingdom. Make an enemy of us and you make an enemy of the King himself."
I looked at him.
"You have it reversed." I said. "You hurt this child. His bruises matter more than any of your lives. Make an enemy of me and Amlada is gone by tomorrow."
The crowd had gone completely still.
The captain stared at me. Every instinct he had was telling him something his pride was refusing to accept.
"Bluff." He said. "You're strong. I'll grant you that. But you're not the Hero. The Hero is dead. There's nobody left in this world that the Kings fear. Not anymore."
I looked at him for a moment.
Then I laughed.
Not loud. Not warm. The kind of laugh that comes from someone who has heard something so far beneath the truth that the distance itself is funny.
I didn't say anything.
I turned my attention to Torra. I lifted his hand carefully and ran healing mana through the bruised wrists, steady and quiet, watching the discoloration fade and the swelling pull back until his skin looked the way it was supposed to look.
I made sure every knight still conscious could see it.
The captain's voice came out differently this time.
"He's a healer." Almost to himself. "A divine healer. No chant. Instantaneous. Full recovery."
The pressure of what that meant settled over him visibly.
A magic swordsman was valuable. A healer of this caliber was something wars were fought over. Kingdoms reshaped their alliances for access to healers who could do a fraction of what he had just watched me do without effort.
A healer could change the outcome of battles. They were sought after.
He had just watched his subordinate get killed by someone who could turn the tide of any conflict Amlada ever faced.
And he had threatened me first.
I removed the soundproofing from Torra's barrier and lowered my hand from his eyes gently.
And also put an illusion on the bloody ground below me. Used cleansing spell to remove the stains away from my clothes.
Stains, Torea doesn't have to see.
I don't want him to see blood. Or anything that could trigger the memory of his family's death.
Not now.
Not ever.
"You're okay." I said quietly.
Torra looked at his wrists. Then up at me.
"They hurt." He said.
"Not anymore." I said.
He looked at them again. Then nodded, accepting it, and put his head back against my shoulder.
I looked at the captain.
He was still on the ground. Still holding himself together. But something behind his eyes had shifted into the particular expression of a man who has just understood the shape of his mistake.
I said nothing else.
I let the silence do the rest.
I removed the pressure around the sprawled knights, and retracted my aura.
They're all able to breath again. But until when? Tht depends on how Amlada reacts.