The Girl Who Would Not Fall
"…"
Bariya stared flatly at the three men, then started by cramming the ornaments still clutched in her hands into her pockets, stuffing them in however they would fit. Packed past full and threatening to split, the pockets answered with a bright, restless clatter as the ornaments knocked against one another.
One of them looks like an auction-house clerk. The other two… the men from the alley? The pheromone pressing in on her was unusually strong, identical to the one she had felt from that unidentified young man who had said he meant to buy a tiger.
Her gaze flicked to the youngest of them, the one standing in the center. Unlike Baden, whose golden hair looked as if it had been freshly spun from gold itself, this man's was a brighter platinum blond, and his eyes were nearly yellow. Handsome enough, if a step short of Shirca—and of the three, his clothes were the finest, his air the least ordinary. Anyone could see he was no common beastkin.
"I only stopped in while I was passing by, so the rest of you can get back to your work. I'll be going, then."
She gathered the tiger that had been perched on her head back into her arms and made to slip outside. The auction-house employee planted himself in the doorway.
"You—you, what are you! Who do you think you are, walking around with that tiger!"
"This is my comfort doll. His name's Blackie."
At that shameless lie, not only the employee but the tiger himself—christened Blackie on the spot—looked utterly done with her.
"Cut the nonsense and hand him over! Where is the owner, and what in the world is he doing!"
"Hold on."
The moment the young man with the bright yellow eyes cut in, the employee flustered and bowed his head at once.
"I—I'm terribly sorry, Young Master. We failed to keep proper watch over the merchandise. We'll take it back immediately, so—"
"Be quiet."
Having shut the man up, the young man bent at the waist and studied Bariya with unhurried care.
"How curious. What do you think, Torman? A girl with long honey-colored hair and brown eyes, holding the very strange tiger we came to see. A coincidence, would you say?"
"Well…"
The young man's aide, Torman, nodded with a reluctant grimace.
"She looks a little younger, but the description matches exactly."
"I can't say I see anything special about the tiger beyond that mottled coat. But a girl we've been looking for, matching the description to the last detail, happens to be holding it—now that interests me a great deal."
The young man smiled. The yellow eyes that held Bariya carried not a shred of feeling. To him, she was nothing more than a tool for satisfying his curiosity.
"I'm not, though?"
And Bariya had already been looked at that way far too many times. As if something so petty were going to make her shrink.
"What?"
"I don't have honey-colored hair or brown eyes. Your eyes must be going, mister."
"Aha. You don't? Then what are they?"
He took her for a child talking nonsense, and smiled the way one smiles at a cute little toy. It lasted only a moment.
Bariya swept her hair back with one hand.
"Wh—what?"
"What?"
Through hair that had been an ordinary honey color, streaks of white and black slowly surfaced from the roots. The change unfolding before their eyes threw the employee and Torman into confusion. But it did not stop there.
"Look closely, mister. How do my hair and my eyes look to you?"
She closed her eyes with languid ease and opened them again, and the irises that had unmistakably been a pale brown had turned a glittering gold.
"Hah."
At Bariya's unabashed smile, the smile left the young man's mouth for the first time.
Is that even possible? A beastkin whose hair and eyes changed color in a heartbeat.
There are beastkin who can shift the color of their bodies, like chameleons. Even they, though, could only blend toward their surroundings the way camouflage did, or change the color of their hair all at once. To alter it into something that felt wholly severed from everything around her, as this girl had done, was impossible.
"This only makes it more interesting."
"Ugh."
At his murmur, Bariya made her disgust perfectly plain.
"So you really are a pervert, mister."
"How dare you! Do you have any idea who this person is!"
Torman shouted.
"You never introduced yourself, so how would I know? Anyway, I'm not the beastkin you're looking for, so I'll be going."
"Going? Where do you think you're going!"
Bariya tried to step out the door, and the employee blocked her again.
"Leave that tiger behind!"
"I told you, this is my Blackie."
She grumbled, and stole a wary glance around her all the same. Can I use my Authority? The other two she could probably deal with easily enough. The problem was the young man with those unhinged eyes. He was a considerably strong beastkin. The odds were high that he possessed an Authority, the way Sabrina and Shirca did. Until she at least learned what power he held, it would be wiser to keep her own hidden.
Why did this bastard have to show up now, of all times! If it weren't for him, she could have gotten away cleanly!
"Lady Bariya!"
At the voice that reached her then, Bariya hurriedly squeezed through the gap and stuck her head out the door. Obli, whom she had parted from in the alley—how she had known to come here, Bariya had no idea—was running toward her with an urgent face.
"Young miss! …Miss?"
But the woman faltered at the sight of Bariya with her hair and eyes changed. Afraid Obli might fail to recognize her and go charging off somewhere else, Bariya shouted at once. With no ally in sight, Obli's presence was as good as a light in the dark.
"Obli! Bad perverts are bothering me over here!"
The uncertainty in Obli's eyes sharpened in an instant, like a tiger's. She closed the distance at once, set herself before Bariya, and turned a flaring glare on the employee blocking the way.
"I am a vassal in the service of House Caliph. The young lady you are harassing is one whom Baden Caliph, Family Head of the Caliph clan, cherishes most dearly. Should so much as a hair on her head come to harm, the Family Head will be gravely angered."
"Ca—Caliph?"
The employee who had been intimidating Bariya startled and backed away. Torman, too, looked thrown. The only one who showed no reaction at all was the young man. Obli looked him straight in the eye.
"I trust the Young Master of House Leotel has no wish to make an enemy of the Caliphs."
Leotel! Only then did Bariya understand who he was. In the world of predatory beastkin, the lion house of Leotel wielded a power matched only by the Caliphs—and the young man was Lioric Leotel, heir to that house.
And the Leotels possess an Authority. Since she had no idea what it was, refraining from using her ability in front of him had been a very wise choice.
"Ah. So the honored guest House Caliph presented not long ago is this young lady?"
Lioric Leotel looked down at Bariya with laughter bright in his eyes. Into the vivid yellow gaze that, until a moment ago, had seen her as nothing but a tool, a deep curiosity settled.
"Then I shall take the young lady with me now."
The moment Obli drew near, Bariya scooted to her side at once.
"Ah, no! Wait!"
The employee cried out in alarm and reached after them.
"What seems to be the matter?"
"Th-that's, I…"
When Obli's gaze stabbed at him, he could not answer, and only bit his lip with an anxious face. Well, of course. Before Obli Glosa, a tiger beastkin, he could hardly demand that they hand over a tiger that had been about to be sold as an auction lot.
"That little—ah, no… the young lady took merchandise from our shop without paying! If—if you look in her pockets, you'll see!"
"Merchandise?"
Obli looked at Bariya's dress, and found two pockets swollen fit to burst. Caught red-handed, Bariya shrugged with perfect brazenness all the same.
"They watched me put these in my pockets and didn't say a word. So I thought they were giving them away for free."
In truth, they had been so preoccupied with the tiger that they'd had no attention to spare for a girl stealing ornaments. Still, a story was only as good as the way you told it.
"W-we were merely startled, that's all! So please, just pay for the goods. That is the only thing I ask."
The employee forced a smile and rubbed his palms together in a fawning scrape. He was plainly lying about the price of the ornaments, angling to collect the price of the tiger instead.
Dream on. I'm not paying for the tiger, and I'm not paying for the ornaments either. The tiger's price was absurd to begin with, and the trinkets were coming with her at a thief's pittance. Not a chance she would hand over a single coin.
"Not happening."
She had barely begun to sneer when Lioric cut in.
"That 'merchandise' was already promised to me. And as it happens, my curiosity has been piqued. I can't very well let this end here."
"Young Master!"
Obli cried out, but it did no good. A thick greed clouded Lioric's eyes as he looked at Bariya, the black tiger gathered in her arms. The moment his presence shifted, Obli, standing guard in front of Bariya, went rigid with tension.
"And to think an honored guest of the Caliphs is holding the 'merchandise.' I think I'll simply take her away, just like this."
Lioric's eyes curved into half-moons.
"Young lady, run!"
Obli shouted.
"I told you I won't be letting you go."
But it was already too late.
A heavy thud.
"Ugh!"
"Ghk—!"
A smell like something scorched in a fire surged up, and in the same instant Obli and the auction-house employee crumpled to the floor. Obli's face went white.
Lioric Leotel's Authority!
Telekinesis.
The fearsome power that had made Lioric heir in a single stroke, though he was not even the eldest son, crushed down on her entire body. Frantic at the thought that Bariya might be taken from her like this, she forced her head to turn—and her eyes flew wide.
"Young lady…?"
Astonishingly, Bariya was standing on her own two feet, her expression perfectly calm.