'Why the fuck did he say that,' Hajin thought, keeping his eyes on the road while the forest went on making noise around him.
He was the only person the Flint family had ever exiled, and they had cut the name off him afterward so the shame would stay buried under a generation of people who never spoke about it.
As far as the main branch was concerned, he had been dead for years.
'If she carries this back to the capital,' he thought, glancing over his shoulder at the princess, 'the main house will decide a rumour needs a body under it, whoever started the talk.'
Didi walked a few paces behind Juna with her arms crossed tight, saying nothing since she had dropped the question on him, content to let him stand in it until he chose to talk.
"Technically I am not part of the Flint family," he said, keeping his eyes forward on the road, "not anymore."
She moved up to walk beside him.
"Because you were exiled," she said without any lift in it, still watching him.
"Yes," he said, since lying had stopped being an option the moment Kenny opened his mouth, "I was born without talent, so they threw me out before anyone important noticed."
"As far as they are concerned I am a commoner," he went on, rubbing at the back of his neck.
No shock came off her, nor any pity, though her eyes narrowed while she turned the thing over.
"It sounds like nobody told Kenny," she said, her voice cooling by a degree, "he seemed very eager to remind you where you came from."
"Kenny is a side branch idiot with a mouth on him," he said, watching the trees instead of her.
"Promise me you will not repeat it," he said, dropping his voice though the road was empty in both directions, "if the main house hears the banishment has become public talk, they will send someone to tidy up the image."
She stopped in the middle of the path.
He had to turn around to find her, so he caught the cold court face she had worn for Kenny giving way to something far plainer that she made no effort to guard.
"You carried me out of that forest alive," she said with her chin coming up, "so I am not handing you to the wolves over a family name."
"Your secret stays where you put it," she added, holding his eyes until he was the one who looked away.
"Thank you," he said, letting his shoulders drop where she could see them do it.
They started down the path again with the quiet between them sitting easier than before.
'Kenny said zero talent,' she thought, watching the back of his head while he walked ahead of her.
She remembered the pressure of that monster, which had put her on the ground without any effort worth the name, then had gone on talking over her body as though she were furniture.
When she woke, Gazel was dead, while she was miles from the road in a cave she had never walked to.
'A failure does not carry a princess out from under a thing like that,' she thought, narrowing her eyes at his back.
His account had gaps a horse could walk through.
'Strange mana sits on him,' she thought, glancing at the beastkin girl on his other side, 'the same signature exactly, so who are the two of them really.'
Up ahead Juna cut her pace short until she was walking against his arm, her ears flat to her head.
"Master," she said close to his ear, keeping it under the sound of their feet, "I keep feeling this hatred toward the princess, and I have no idea where it comes from."
Hajin slowed his walk without meaning to, then he turned his head to check whether she was making a joke of it, though her ears were still flat and nothing about her face suggested humour.
'Is the system leaking into her,' he thought, glancing at Didi over his shoulder.
The system had wanted the princess dead for her bloodline, though he had swiped the order away in the cave.
Nothing in the interface explained how far its opinions reached into a summon.
"I have no clue," he whispered back, giving her about half a shrug, "maybe the two of you have met before."
She scoffed under her breath with her tail going fast behind her.
"Do not joke about that," she muttered, refusing to look anywhere near him.
They walked on while the word she had used finally caught up with him.
'Did Juna just call me master,' he thought, staring at the side of her face while his feet kept going, 'am I dreaming this.'
Since the day he summoned her she had either ignored him outright or addressed him the way a tenant addresses a landlord, so the title had gone past him for a good ten paces before it registered.
He opened his mouth to point it out, then he shut it again before he ruined the only pleasant thing in two days.
The walls of the capital came up out of the flat country later that morning.
A watchman on the parapet saw them before they reached the main road, so a horn went up over the gate.
Under a minute later a squad of armored knights came out through the gates at a run, moving in a rhythm that had been drilled for something a good deal worse than this.
They went past Hajin and Juna without a glance, closing into a ring around Didi with their hands resting near their swords.
A tall man came out of the formation wearing a golden captain insignia on his chest plate.
He dropped to one knee, got up almost as fast, then his eyes went over the state of her clothes.
"Your Highness," the captain said with his voice climbing, "what happened to your escort, and who exactly are these two?"
Didi opened her mouth, then nothing came out of it.
Her mind had gone back to the road, to the exact moment the monster put its arm through Gazel.
She looked down at her hands while they shook, unable to put a sentence together out of any of it.
The captain watched her shake, then his eyes came up and found Hajin.
'Ah, this idiot is about to get it exactly wrong,' Hajin thought, letting a breath out through his nose.
"What have you done to Her Highness?" the captain demanded, coming forward with his hand already out for a collar.
Hajin shifted his weight back so the gauntlet went through the air where his collar had been.
The captain stumbled half a step, with surprise on him for a moment before the anger arrived behind it.
He came again with the other hand in a wide grab, though Hajin stepped off the line to let the arm go past.
Juna growled low beside him, so he put a hand up before she could do anything permanent about it.
"Stand still, you rat!" the captain shouted with his face going red.
Blue mana came up off the armor, then three lit Shards pulled themselves out of the air into a tight orbit around his right arm, turning at a pace that let every man in the ring count them.
He planted his front foot to put Hajin on the ground before anybody could argue about the order of events.
"Stop," a voice said across the courtyard.
The captain froze mid step while the mana around him stuttered out of shape.
Didi stood straight with her face wiped blank, though the ground under her feet had begun to frost.
"What do you think you are doing to my saviors?" she asked, and the cold rolled off her across the flagstones.
The Shards around the captain's arm went out one after another.
"Your Highness, these two are not on the escort roll," he said, dropping back a step with his hand well away from Hajin, "nobody told the gate to expect them."
Didi crossed the space between them and put her open hand across his face hard enough for the sound to carry to the wall.
The captain held his position with his eyes forward while the mark came up red across his left cheek.
"Then the gate can start writing," she said, walking through the ring until the knights had to open it for her, "because both of them are coming inside with me."
'So much for slipping in quietly,' Hajin thought, following her through the gap the armor had made.