Chapter 67 Chapter 66: The Forge and The Blade
My insides leaped and twisted into a fresh knot. Will this never finish? I just wanted to be home, to feel Silver's arms around me, to let the solid reality of her drown out the memories of blood and polished marble. Where to even begin? How could I possibly order this chaos into a coherent report?
"I... I can't start there," I stammered, my voice tight. "I have to first explain things from the very beginning, or none of it will make sense."
Saul offered a small, knowing smile and a slow, respectful nod, as if he had been waiting for this. Lord Vincent, his expression now one of intense focus, simply said, "Go on."
"I don't know how to order things, and I might leave things out, but... here goes." I took a steadying breath, the bubble-vin doing little to calm my nerves. "From the very first meeting, Isa's aide Zeb, and especially Karn Zul, spat venom at me. Calling me a whore. I wrote it off as cultural differences, crude sexism, but it never let up. And when I was hiding in the Gardens, I heard them searching for me, using that same word. But before that, during the initial attack, I felt it, the violence was centred on me. They weren't random terrorists or fanatics; they were paid soldiers on a mission. And for some reason, that mission was me. I think Chup-chup knew this. And if I'm not mistaken..." I looked directly at Saul. "...Chup-chup is working for you."
Saul glanced at Vincent, a grim satisfaction on his face. "I told you. Nanda's too smart for her own... damn, his own good."
Lord Vincent just nodded, his eyes never leaving me. "Go on."
I took a large, unsteady gulp from my glass, and Lord Vincent leaned forward immediately to refill it. "Well," I continued, the words coming faster now, "Chup-chup basically gave his life for me. And like I said, in the Gardens, I heard them. But I could sense... if they had found me, and not you, Saul, I would not be here today." As I said the words aloud, the truth of them settled over me with a chilling finality.
"Then, in the night, the change took me. I woke as a Nate. Those beasts weren't normal warndars; they were polfluks-warndars, put there to kill me in a way that could be written off as a tragic accident. And they had sent assassins, the Night Blades, Chup-chup called them, to kill my chaperone and the guards, to clear the path for their 'pets'. If the change had not come... I would be dead. They were Zul's own polfluks-warndars, of that there is no doubt. You saw the way they were with him. So, I... I returned the gift."
"By winning the game," Lord Vincent said with a solemn nod. "A splendid, political revenge."
"No," I corrected him, my voice flat. "By giving him my used underwear."
Saul took a sharp, hissed breath. "Fuck... I knew it. You're the one."
Lord Vincent looked utterly lost. "I don't understand."
Saul spoke out, bold and blunt, with no regard for hierarchy. "The polfluks-warndars, you fool! That was what made them go mad and attack! The scent!"
Lord Vincent was actually silent for a full minute, a rarity so profound it was unnerving. When he finally spoke, his voice was low and intense. "And you... you can control the change?"
The question I had been hoping to avoid. "No, sir. I can't. I don't know how it happens."
Lord Vincent almost spat the next sentence out, his face a mask of frustrated disbelief. "So, it was all luck? You were just lucky, Nanda?"
Saul rebuffed him instantly, his voice a whip-crack of authority. "Fighting and living through an enemy's planned attack, outnumbered ten to one, and using the enemy's own weapon against them, is not luck. It's cool, hard intelligence and survival instinct. Yes, there was luck involved, but you make your own luck." He was looking at me not as a subordinate, but with the fierce, proud look of a veteran acknowledging a natural. "These changes everything."
Lord Vincent exhaled slowly, his eyes wide as the full, terrifying, and revolutionary implications began to dawn on him.
“You,” Lord Vincent began, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial, steel-edged whisper, “will not repeat a single word of what you have just said here to anyone. Especially not to the ‘goons’ back home. Saul and I will hatch you a story on the way home, something plausible and clean for them to file away.” He looked over to Saul, who gave a single, sharp nod of agreement, his expression one of grim commitment.
“From this moment on,” Vincent continued, turning his intense gaze back to me, “you will work and report only to me and Saul here. You are a crude piece of steel, Nanda, raw and unrefined. We will temper you. We will be your forge. You will be our blade. Our weapon.”
He leaned closer, the bubble-vin forgotten. “Your skill set is… remarkable. In all my years, I have never seen anyone leave Saul impressed. Until you.” He let that hang in the air, a testament more powerful than any medal. “You are good. We will make you better.”
He paused, letting the silence stretch, waiting for my response. My mind was a whirlwind, trying to process the enormity of what was being offered and demanded. I had no words.
After a long silence, he pressed, his voice low and intent. “Do you understand what we are saying to you?” His eyes locked with mine, demanding absolute honesty. “You are to be our new recruit. An agent. A spy, if you will. Nothing you have ever thought about your future exists now. It is gone. You are ours, and you are Polli-Nation’s. Do you understand?”
A strange cocktail of emotions flooded me. A part of me felt numb, the freedom of my old life dissolving into smoke. But beneath that, a thrilling, terrifying excitement ignited. Had I, in all this chaos and violence, actually found my place? My true worth in this crazy world?
“And” Saul added, his voice a low rumble, his practical mind already on the next objective, “we need to hone that gender change. We need to be able to control it. To weaponize it.”
Another tall order, I thought. But for the first time, the impossible challenge didn't feel like a burden. It felt like a purpose.
The rest of the journey became a gruelling rehearsal. Lord Vincent and Saul crafted a clean, sanitized story for me, a tale of diplomatic tensions, a regrettable but contained skirmish in the gardens, and a political victory achieved through shrewd negotiation. They made me repeat it again, and again, drilling me on every detail, every inflection, until the words felt hollow and foreign on my tongue, a script designed to bury the brutal, bloody truth of what had really happened.
I was so lost in the repetition that I barely noticed the changing landscape outside until the porty glided to a smooth halt. I looked up, my rehearsed lines dying in my throat. Suddenly, we were outside my parents' dwelling. The familiar, slightly overgrown garden, the worn path to the front door. It was seven o'clock in the evening, and the golden-hour light cast long shadows. My younger siblings were playing a noisy game on the driveway, their laughter a sound from another lifetime.
"We will come and get you in the morning for your official debrief," Lord Vincent said, his voice softer now, but no less firm. "After that, your new life starts. Say your goodbyes tonight, Nanda."
I looked through the tinted window at the scene of domestic bliss. I could imagine my mother at the stove, preparing dinner, my father in his favourite armchair, the evening news humming in the background. It was a picture of everything I had fought to return to. But as I watched my siblings chase each other, a cold certainty settled in my heart.
It's not them.
The most painful goodbye wasn't here. The anchor I needed, the person whose face had kept me sane in the darkness, wasn't in that house.
I turned back to Lord Vincent, my voice quiet but resolute. "Please," I said, the request feeling both selfish and utterly necessary. "Can you take me to another address first? I need to say goodbye to someone else."