They did not bind him.
Even if they wanted to, they knew they couldn't. They saw a man die—yet reality decided otherwise. In front of them was a hunter and a creature he already killed. A Concierge.
The beast's body was wrong in deliberate ways. A reinforced core carried multiple limb structures, each specialized—locomotion, restraint, sensory acquisition. Pallid tissue was overlaid with hardened Song accretions, forming natural armor fractured only by catastrophic force. There were no eyes. Sensory tendrils lined the skull and spine, now inert.
This was not a creature felled by chance. An Apex—one that normally demanded a town's worth of manpower and a seasoned adventuring party to bring down. Sawyer had done it alone.
Freedom was given. With great reluctance from the priestess.
Aluna stood as the only person in their party who understood just what Sawyer was.
And more importantly, what he was not.
Distrust settled into the space between them—heavy, unspoken. What should have been a few measured steps stretched wider, warped by caution. Hands hovered near hilts. Eyes lingered a heartbeat too long.
Then the hooded woman broke.
She stepped forward, movements rhythmic yet uneven, as though her body struggled to keep pace with her thoughts. When she spoke, her voice cut cleanly through the tension—unsteady, threaded with awe.
"Woah—!" She caught herself, then laughed, breathless. "I mean—gods, I've never seen anything like that. How did you even do that?"
She leaned in despite herself, eyes bright, hungry.
"You're… you're some kind of high-tier knight, right?" Her brow furrowed. "Your Aura was so refined I couldn't sense it at all."
The swordsman snapped a sharp look her way.
"Agnes. Enough."
She flinched, stepping back, chastened—but still watching Sawyer as if afraid he might vanish if she blinked.
The swordsman turned to Sawyer then, keeping his distance. His posture remained open, but his hand stayed near his blade—not a threat. A habit.
"My apologies," he said carefully. "My companion speaks before she thinks."
He paused, weighing Sawyer with a gaze that missed nothing.
"Whatever art you used… it was precise. Deliberate." His jaw tightened slightly. "I've never seen a Concierge fall so cleanly."
He inclined his head—not quite a bow.
"We meant no disrespect."
Sawyer regarded them in silence.
Not the charged quiet that followed violence, but a measured pause—long enough to invite assumptions, short enough not to invite questions.
"I am not a knight," he said.
True. And safely incomplete.
Agnes blinked. "Oh. Then—what? A mercenary? Some kind of specialist?"
Sawyer let his gaze drift, unfocused, as though considering whether the answer mattered.
"I work alone," he said. "Orders complicate things."
That was enough.
Agnes nodded immediately, relief slipping into her posture. "Right. Yeah. That makes sense." She hesitated, then added, "It's just… I couldn't read your Aura at all. It was so tight I thought—"
"Disciplined," Sawyer supplied calmly. "I keep it that way."
The word landed exactly where he intended.
Agnes brightened. "That's—gods, that's impressive."
Across from her, the swordsman did not relax—but something in his stance eased. A mystery solved was safer than one unanswered.
Aluna's light flickered.
Just once.
Sawyer felt it without looking.
"No resonance bleed," Agnes continued, warming to the idea. "No excess output. It's like you sealed it inside yourself."
Sawyer inclined his head a fraction. Neither agreement nor denial.
Aluna stepped forward.
"That's not how—" she began, then stopped herself.
Every eye turned to her.
She inhaled, visibly steadying the Song around her before continuing more carefully. "Such control is… rare."
Sawyer met her gaze at last.
For an instant, the world narrowed to the space between them.
She could not sense him. Not because his Song was refined—but because there was nothing there at all.
And he knew she knew.
Sawyer looked away first.
The swordsman cleared his throat. "Regardless, we thank you. A Concierge like that…" His eyes flicked to the corpse. "It would have cost lives."
Sawyer nodded. "It won't trouble anyone again."
Aluna watched him closely now. Not with suspicion—but calculation.
"You should be mindful," she said quietly. "Places ahead are sensitive to… imbalance."
Sawyer answered without hesitation. "Then I'll keep myself contained."
Another truth. Carefully shaped.
They began to move.
The formation settled naturally—Sawyer ahead, unchallenged. The space around him remained empty, not out of fear now, but respect. A powerful man. Controlled. Dangerous, but understood.
Only Aluna lagged behind.
She stared at his back as the jungle thinned and the stone road emerged, smooth and humming faintly beneath their feet.
The ground sang.
Sawyer did not react.
He adjusted his breathing instead. Slowed his stride. Mimicked the rhythm of the world around him with practiced ease.
Let them believe he was holding something in.
Aluna felt the lie settle into place like a loaded weapon.
Because a man suppressing his Song was rare.
A man without one at all—
That was heresy.
The spire rose ahead, pale against the sky.
Sawyer walked toward it without hesitation, wearing the mask he had chosen.
And Aluna realized, with a tightening in her chest, that once he reached consecrated ground, the truth would no longer be his to hide.