Free The Seal of Oblivion by Holly Dae

from before.
    “Excuse me,” Laqiya said trying to
be nice even though she wasn’t in a nice mood.
    The woman appeared to ignore her,
but Laqiya caught her glance her eyes up away from her task before looking back
down.
    Laqiya sighed, “Look. I don’t want
to be here all day, but I do have all day. I’m in no rush, and I won’t leave. I
was forced all the way down here to get something, and I don’t plan for this
dumb trip to be for nothing when I could have gone to the movies today.”
    The woman raised her head to look
at her with a raised eyebrow.
    “Says who?” she asked.
    “I don’t want to be here about as
much as you don’t want me here, but I don’t have a choice alright? Three men,
who called themselves Anaxars and have been stalking me since I was seven,
kidnapped one of my best friends and I barely was able to fight them off. I’d
like to ignore it, but I can’t. Nightshield and Isis won’t let me.” Laqiya
shook her head. The woman really didn’t need to know all of that. “I know
there’s a staff piece in that chest and I’ll bet your family has been guarding
it for the last seven thousand years waiting to give it back to its rightful
owner. I don’t want to be its owner, but I figure if I can get that,
Nightshield will back off for a while.”
    “Funny.”
    “What?”
    “You want something that will bring
you the attack, but you don’t want the fight,” the woman pointed out brushing
past Laqiya and back into the front of the shop.
    “Tell me about it,” Laqiya muttered
following her.
    “Hm.”
    “So what do I have to do for it,”
Laqiya said standing directly behind the woman.
    “Do for what?”
    “The staff
piece.”
    “Be the White Rose for one.”
    Laqiya winced. “I don’t want to be
the White Rose. I’m hoping I can pass this along to someone else.”
    The woman huffed and grabbed
Laqiya’s jacket by the lapel. “Look at you, coming in here all demanding. As
if. You’re just some prissy bourgeois-y rich girl cry baby. Doesn’t even want
to be the hero, but ironically wants the hero relic. What are you going to do,
pretend in your house for a while and then when the real fight comes, cower?
That staff piece isn’t a toy to be played with or a nice antique for over the
fireplace.”
    “That’s where you’re wrong,” Laqiya
said in a matter-of-fact tone. “I don’t even want to pretend be the hero. There
are about ten people trying to drag me into this. I would rather be worrying
about my status and wardrobe to be honest. In fact, I might make a better
villain. I’m selfish, self-centered and hate not getting my way. I just want
Nightshield to leave me alone for a while.”
    Laqiya then grabbed the woman’s
hand and removed it from her jacket. “You don’t have to touch me by the way. I
got the point when you said, bourgeois-y.”
    The woman glared at her, and Laqiya
resisted the urge to cringe. That might not have been the best way to be nice.
This was probably some test of will that she had to pass, to test her
determination to get what she wanted (not that she really wanted to pass it,
just get the staff piece), and it was likely she had just failed.
    To Laqiya’s surprise though, the
woman only laughed.
    “Always was the reluctant warrior,”
she muttered putting the book she had been stacking down. She led Laqiya to the
chest again, but this time, she opened the false bottom. It revealed a two foot
long or so gold piece that had roots at the bottom and small thorns all over
it.
    “How much do you want for it?”
Laqiya breathed as she looked at it, mesmerized by its beauty and happy to see
it for some reason, like it was an old friend.
    “If it’s really yours, I’ll take
nothing for it,” she said. “But you have to pick it up first.”
    “Pick it up?” Laqiya asked. “Is
this some kind of booby trap or something?”
    “If you’re meant to have it, you’ll
be able to hold it.”
    “Is the ground going to open up and
swallow me or