Kara and Gareth travelled for three more days before they reached the outer wall.

It was about three times taller than her, but it also looked like it had been a part of the Kingdom’s most recent expansion project. The hasty woodworking left many small bumps and edges of roughly cut lumber sticking out, and she idly noted that it would be easy to climb. She quickly discarded the thought. Soulblades were forbidden to travel across Astranta without an escort.

She looked around, but couldn't see the gates. There were no markers that hinted at their location or direction, and the walls extended far past her field of vision.

"Hello?" she called out, cupping her hands over her mouth to help her voice travel. "I'm a Soulblade, back from an extermination. Could you let me know where the gates are?"

She waited for a response, but when it was clear that none would come, she looked back at Gareth.

"You want to split up, or walk together?" she asked.

Gareth shrugged. Kara wondered if he actually had no opinion, or if he just wasn’t comfortable enough to offer it. Though he didn't flinch away from her or actively try to ignore her whenever she spoke, the past few days of travel had still been spent in relative silence, with Kara being unwilling to push him to speak if he didn’t want to.

"We should stick together," Kara decided. "If we split up, we'd just have to run to catch each other after we've found the gate anyways."

"Okay," Gareth said.

As they walked, they kept a healthy distance away from the metal pikes that occasionally pointed out from the otherwise wooden walls. Though she knew they wouldn’t jump out at her, Kara couldn’t help but give them a wide berth and a wary eye. They both knew how painful just a brief touch of metal could be to Soulblades.

After five minutes of steady walking, a brief glint of light shone directly at her eyes. Looking up, she noticed a man wearing a large metal helmet, standing on top of the walls. Even though the helmet didn't cover his eyes, Kara couldn't tell if he had noticed her from so far away. She squinted her eyes, trying to focus on him, but nothing he did gave his thoughts away.

The wall guard turned his head and the light glinted off of his helmet again. At that point, Kara had to assume that the man was new. Not many wall guards kept up the pointless endeavor of keeping watch. In her experience, they mostly just slept at their posts or passed the time by indulging in idle hobbies.

"Excuse me," she yelled.

The wall guard paused and turned his head towards her direction. Kara was still too far away to see his expression, but she couldn't miss how he nearly dropped his spear when he noticed her.

"We're Soulblades, returning from a mission," she said uselessly. There wasn't anything else they could be. Though he was likely too far away to see their solid coloured eyes, Gareth's bright red hair was an obvious giveaway.

Kara waited for a response, ignoring the way that the man grabbed at the strap that secured his leather armour to his chest. She sighed and snuck a glance at Gareth. He was grimacing and something in his expression made her wonder if he was rolling his eyes. She didn’t know how long he’d been a Soulblade for, but it was possible that he’d picked up the habit during his life as a normal kid. The act of rolling your eyes was highly ineffective when your eyes were one solid colour.

“Could you direct us to the gate?” Kara yelled at the wall guard, taking her attention off of Gareth.

The man nervously pointed in the direction that they were going, and by following the direction of his finger, Kara could just barely make out something that looked slightly different from the monotonous pattern of metal pikes that littered the rest of the wall.

After a short walk, they stood in front of it. The gate was made mostly of wood, but was secured and reinforced by several metal plates that stretched over its length. They gave it a wide berth, standing several meters further away than they needed to.

The wall guard was gone from his post, but the loud clanking of a chain being pulled from behind the gate told them that he was turning a crank to slowly lower the gate to let them in.

Kara and Gareth waited until the gate was fully lowered and the wall guard stepped away from the crank to step on the lowered gate and walk through. Though she knew that reasonably, the wooden gate was strong enough to support her weight without cracking underfoot, she couldn't help but step gingerly, knowing that there was metal on the other side of the fallen gate.

She tried to ignore the thought of metal touching her skin and looked up at the wall guard, who continued to clutch at the leather strap on his shoulder, no doubt secured by a metal buckle. She tried to look directly at him, but her eyes kept wandering up towards the metal helmet he wore.

She chided herself for staring, but couldn't help but continue to be wary of the object. She didn’t quite blame Gareth either for staring so obviously. A touch from that much metal would likely melt through her flesh in seconds. It was a shame that it would be equally effective against an Umbra, or else the shivering man in front of her wouldn’t be armed in such a terrifying uniform.

She fought hard not to shudder as she stopped a respectable distance away.

"Do we have an escort ready for us?" she asked.

The wall guard, who looked a few years older than her, shook as he spoke.

"Yes, Miss Soulblade. If you would please follow me?"

Kara glanced back at the open gate.

"Don't you need to close that?" she asked.

The wall guard froze and rubbed his head with his free hand. If his face wasn't so pale with fear, she was sure he would have blushed.

Wordlessly, he returned to the crank, not-so-subtly looking behind him constantly, as if he feared that Kara and Gareth would kill him if he wasn't looking at them.

As it was, Kara’s wariness of his armaments shifted to pity at how clumsy he looked, turning the crank with only one hand, with the other being permanently fixed to his metal buckle. From beside her, she heard Gareth sigh, though he made sure to hide it well.

She wanted to compliment his tact, but kept quiet. She was almost certain that if they made any unexpected sounds or movements, the wall guard was liable to do something stupid.

Following Gareth's example, she muted her own sigh.

---

When the wall guard finally guided them to a small building that contained a carriage, Kara and Gareth climbed in without prompt. There were no horses attached to the carriage yet, and the wall guard cursed under his breath when he saw that nobody was stationed outside it, but Kara and Gareth were both eager to sit down on something comfortable.

The wall guard shouted an assurance that he would find their escorts soon, and Kara shouted back to thank him.

Being designed to house three adult Soulblades, the carriage was more than big enough to be comfortable for a child and a teenager. Wordlessly, Kara and Gareth sat across from each other, stretching their legs as far as they could. With how tired their bodies were from the days of walking through the untamed woods of the Dead Zone, and with how comfortable the plush velvety cushions were, compared to their past few nights of sleeping on the stone floors of the safe houses, they quickly fell asleep before the wall guard came back with their escorts.

When Kara woke up, the carriage was moving and its interior was pitch black. Though the lack of windows made the interior of the carriage permanently dark anyways, during the day, a few rays of sunlight would still bleed through the thin wood. With her falling asleep midday, she must have slept at least eight hours for it to be so dark.

Kara fumbled around in the darkness, making extra care not to make any noise and avoiding the spot where she remembered Gareth was occupying. It was difficult, but eventually she managed to find the string that connected to a small bell that hung outside the carriage and pulled it twice.

A moment later, the door to the carriage opened and Kara stepped outside.

"Washroom break," she explained to the rough-looking man who had opened the door for her. Unlike the wall guard, this man was armoured in thick leather armaments with the symbol of the Mediators etched into his chestplate. Though there were no hints of metal buckles binding the pieces of armour together, and the tip of his spear was made of stone, Kara knew that somewhere on his person was a metal dagger, but she also knew that he probably had never had to draw it before. With no plans to give the man a reason to make her its first victim, she actually felt much more comfortable around him than she did the wall guard.

"Could you also get me some water?" she asked. "I forgot where I threw my bag and I don't want to accidentally wake up my companion," Kara pointed a thumb at the interior of the carriage. Even with the door open and a few hints of moonlight and torchlight illuminating the edges of the darkness, it was still impossible to make out anything inside.

The man nodded and signalled at one of the five men surrounding the carriage. They all wore the same armaments that he did, and each rode a horse of their own, with only the horse pulling the carriage missing a rider. "Of course, Ma'am," he said.

Kara walked a few feet away from the road. Though she knew she wouldn't be allowed complete privacy, she could at least escape the eyes of most of her escorts. Only the man who had opened the door followed her. She was too used to going on missions to be embarrassed by the situation, but was still grateful to see the man pointedly turning away to give her as much privacy as he could.

When she walked back to the carriage, one of the men on horseback held out a canteen. Her escort took it and held it out to her.

"Would you like to bring this into the carriage with you?" he asked.

Kara thought for a moment. "Would it be okay if I drink it outside?" she asked. "I'd like to get a breath of fresh air while I'm at it."

"Hmm. I'm not sure we can afford any long breaks."

Before Kara could insist that she wouldn't take long, the man continued to speak.

"Would you be fine with sitting on the roof of the carriage?" he asked.

Kara couldn't quite tell if he was joking or not. For the first time since he opened the door, she looked at the man's face. He was younger than she expected, though he was still likely about thirty years old. From the way that the other guards seemed to defer to him, she had expected a more experienced captain, but from the multiple scars on his face, it was still clear that he'd seen his fair share of trouble.

Though not unkind, his expression showed no hint of mirth.

"Excuse me?" she asked.

"If you don't want to, forget I asked," the man said.

"No, I'd like to," she said quickly without thinking. "I just didn't think it was allowed?"

The man shrugged. "It's not."

Kara's eyes widened. "You're breaking the treaty?" she asked.

The ninth clause of the treaty stated that the civilized world must be protected from Soulblades. While the vagueness of this clause meant that the different kingdoms could interpret it in varying ways, Astranta had taken this to mean that interactions with Soulblades were to be kept limited, hiding them away from regular civilians as much as possible. Letting her travel on the roof of a carriage on a public road, even at night, was likely a violation of the rule.

"The treaty was created to protect the people in this world," the man said. "The way I see it, giving you some fresh air won't hurt anybody."

Kara didn't know how to reply.

The man's eyes narrowed and stared at her, locking on to her eyes with an intense focus that a Soulblade's eyes could never show. It had been a while since a normal human had locked eyes so easily with her, and she felt a sudden urge to look away.

"If you're gonna make a big deal out of it, then don't bother. We've got to get you kids back home and immediately head back to our post without any sleep, so pick something quick, or I'll throw you in the carriage myself."

The way that the man spoke so aggressively and casually was a surprise, but the shock left over from his casual disrespect of the treaty still hadn’t left Kara’s mind.

"So?" the man asked.

"I'll go back in the carriage," Kara said without thinking.

The iritated man jerked a thumb towards the open carriage door.

Kara quickly walked into the carriage and pulled the door gently shut behind her. Soon after, the carriage lurched slightly as they started to move again.

Kara struggled to fall asleep. She had forgotten to take the canteen of water from the man, but wasn't thirsty enough to want to ring the bell again.

As she sat in the complete darkness of the carriage, she wondered what she was supposed to do.

As a Guardian, it was her duty to eliminate any threats to humanity and unlike Gareth, this meant the enforcing of the Grand Treaty, rather than the elimination of Umbras. A single Soulblade gone wild could create much more destruction and chaos than a colony of a million Bone Rats ever could, and the Grand Treaty was enforced to ensure that Soulblades could never bring about the mass destruction of all life on the world.

Typically, this meant that she was in charge of overseeing her peers as they worked, ensuring that they kept complete control over their magic and neutralizing them if they couldn't. Any breach of the treaty was considered to be a death sentence, and with her own magic, she was granted both the responsibility and power of judge, jury, and executioner.

But while she knew what she needed to do with her fellow Soulblades, she had never come across a situation when a normal human had so brazenly offered to break the treaty before.

Was it her duty to kill a normal human if it was a danger to humanity?

Though the carriage was much too dark to actually see them, she stared at her hands, as if willing them to tell her the answers. She grabbed at her wrist, seeking the gold chain that gave her restraint.

She judged Soulblades because she had the tools to. If a Soulblade ever went wild, manifesting their magic without control, her own manifestation would be the best way to deal with that. She imagined it would be the same for normal humans, and wondered if the escorts around her also had a man designated to kill his fellows if they ever went wild.

Of course, if a normal human decided that they would kill every other human they came across, they could never do enough damage to justify Kara's action. Kara had not taken notice of her surroundings when she stepped out, but as the carriage wheels rumbled beneath them, Kara could easily assume that they were travelling on one of Astranta's cobblestone roads.

If she decided to take the escort's treasonous words into her own hands, manifesting her magic there and then, all forms of life within sixteen hundred meters would die instantly. While effective against other Soulblades, who typically manifested at a range of approximately five hundred meters on average, it was quite overkill for a man who could be killed just as easily with a knife to the gut.

As her heartbeat pounded in her ears, the quiet sound of Gareth's breathing somehow managed to overpower it.

Kara tried her best to synchronize her shaky breaths with Gareth's. The younger boy was consumed by a deep sleep and the steady pattern of his breathing provided a good example of calm. As well, Gareth's presence was a good reminder of what she was.

Surprisingly, in the darkness of the carriage, her imagination conjured up the memory of Silver’s words.

"The treaty says nothing about intent," she whispered to herself.

Kara felt the grip on her golden chain loosen. It was possible that she had saved her escort’s life by refusing to take up his offer to break the treaty. After all, nothing had actually happened.

As the relief washed over her, sleep followed soon after.