Chapter 22

“It’s ok, I won’t tell anyone,” she continued.

“Tell anyone what?” Mei asked, her hoarse voice barely audible.

“There’s just no way you got injured like that in a regular fight,” the girl said, pointing to the pink scar tissue visible above his collar.

“Uh,” the sword said.

“Everyone’s saying the two of you are going out, but I know it’s more than that. There’s no way you’re an [Aristocrat],” the girl said, which produced a squawk of protest from Mei. The sword didn’t entirely understand why, the idea was so unlikely he didn’t really think people could believe such a thing. Although Mei did seem very concerned about people knowing she was a [Monarch]. How had the girl with the headphones found out?

Arthur looked like he wanted to say something, a wide grin splitting his face, but the girl kept talking.

“I’m an [Alpha] too, I get it. You think you’re in control and then the heat starts in your chest and,” she shivered. “It’s overhwelming. Especially the first time you find your [Omega], it’s so hard to hold back. And it always happens at the worst times, doesn’t it? I found mine when I was kidnapped too, would you believe it? Just me and him in the Duke’s dungeon, headed for the Bed of Thorns when suddenly…It’s early days for you two, if you need someone to cover for you when it gets to be too much, let me know. I know it’s hard to find privacy in the dorms. We have some useable rooms in the clinic.”

“Hey, can I use those too?” Arthur asked, but she ignored him.

“The Chief says he’ll be able to spare someone to walk you back to the dorm soon. Your friend is going to be fine by the way.” She slipped her headphones back over her ears and shut the door on them.

The sword considered the girl’s words carefully, and decided he was missing some crucial context. “Do you know what an [Alpha] is?” He asked Arthur.

The tips of Mei’s ears, the sword noticed, were a little pink.

“So,” Arthur said to Mei, ignoring the sword’s question, “the story is Nick fought for you in the camps. He got rid of your guards I’m guessing, and that’s where his injuries came from? And now you guys are dating? Why though?”

Mei straightened her back, the sword had noticed she did this when she was uncomfortable. An instinctive action, like a duelist falling into a neutral pose.

“I didn’t--I did not say, at no point did I,” Mei cut herself off, then started again. “I did not say that we were dating. I said that Nick saved me in the camp,” she said evenly.

“But that isn’t what happened,” the sword said, puzzled. “So why did you say it?”

Arthur sighed. “Oh my sweet little sheltered weapon of mass destruction. Humans lie all the time, they don’t really need a reason for it. Sometimes they don’t even know why they do it, it just comes as naturally as breathing.”

The sword didn’t find breathing to be all that natural, in fact whenever he thought about it too much he found it quite hard to keep doing it, but then when he didn’t think about it at all, it seemed to happen without any issue. But he understood the comparison.

“I had a prefectly good reason,” Mei said, talking mostly to Arthur now. “I needed an explanation for my escape that would be easy to believe,” Mei said. “They already know what Nick is capable of, I merely…made him look good. For my own reasons. I did not,” she said again, “say anything about…more personal matters [here 9/11/25, 3:56 PM].”

“Yes and I’m sure your vast experience with court rumors taught you that they remain exactly as you intended,” Arthur remarked snidely.

Mei looked like she was about to say something to Arthur, something quite angry, but the sword spoke first.

“Are you ill?” The sword asked. “Your voice is quite hoarse.”

Mei closed her mouth. Straightened to her full height. “No,” she said, her voice nearly normal, but still with an unevenness to it that made her regal tones ring false. “I am not ill.”

“Ok,” the sword said. He didn’t know much about illness, usually wielders who got sick a lot didn’t tend to hold on to the sword for very long. Still, she didn’t seem ill, and she had just gone through a whole series of practice fights.

“And I will deny what anyone says about the two of us being…romantically involved,” she continued.

“While still telling them that Nick was horribly brave and single-handedly freed you from the horrible lizardmen,” Arthur said agreeably. “I can’t imagine how anyone will get the wrong idea.”

Arthur’s real skill, the sword suspected, was his ability to irritate absolutely everyone. Mei was no exception.

“What do you care?” She snapped. “It’s not like it will harm him for everyone to think he’s a hero.”

To be honest, the sword was also confused why Arthur seemed so upset about this. He himself did not particularly care, his classmates believed all sorts of things that he found confusing and likely to be false. It was hard for him to see how this was any different. But he was also confused about Mei’s actions in a way that he could not quite let go of.

“You don’t want to be my wielder,” the sword said. “Why are you doing this?”

Mei pulled a hair-tie from her wrist, drawing her hair back into a pony-tail. Her face was as blank as stone. “You wanted me to use you, didn’t you? So I won’t be your wielder. Is it really so different if I use you in this other way?”

“I can think of a few ways in which its different,” Arthur muttered. This time both the sword and Mei ignored him.

The sword was still very confused. Was it different than having her be a wielder? Of course it was. How different? He wasn’t sure.

“Why didn’t you tell me if that was what you wanted to do?” He asked. “Did you think I would say no?”

“I should have told you when I first saw you,” she admitted. “But please. It would be of great use to me if you would let people believe you rescued me.”

The sword recalled the tremble in Mei’s hands. He couldn’t see a reason to say no, so he didn’t.

True to the girl’s word, soon after they were escorted back to their dorm, where a frazzled Ms. Lopez pounced on Arthur and dragged him back to his own room.

Mei lived on the floor below the sword’s. They didn’t speak as they walked up the stairs together, nor did they speak when Mei went to her floor, and the sword kept climbing.