Did he just say Heartless?

Krulg lifted his hand and stared at the blood-soaked nails. He growled and spat on the ground before engulfing the crimson liquid in a ball of flames. The flames burnt the blood to blackened bits and he flicked the ashes aside with a disgusted look on his face.

“I shall pay for the sin. I hope you find the information worth the sacrifice.”

I glanced to Alice but she was no longer looking at Krulg. Her eyes were distant but even her calm facade showed its cracks. Her fingers squeezed down, and she pressed her fists into her side.

“Thank you, Krulg. I’ll make sure we do.”

“Good. Now is there anything else, Cain? I have things to attend to.”

Alice continued to remain silent so I cleared my throat. “Just one. The Blood Harvest, do you know why we needed the Keeper’s blood?”

Krulg sighed and began walking. “The blood of a Keeper is a material that greatly empowers the ritual needed to draw the monsters to our reality. Without it, we’d allow free reign of the Harvest over the worlds we protect. You should know this, pup.”

Yeah well, there’s been a lot of crap to get through.

He was already making his way down the hill and toward the town. I cupped my hands to my mouth and raised my voice.

“Nobody I know has any real information on what we’re supposed to do. They’re not old enough.”

Krulg didn’t turn around and he kept walking but his voice reached over the clinking of the iron chains as the wind picked up again.

“Ask Quinn. She’ll have a spare memory shard. Don’t shame your kin, that’s the most important task. Remember that, or I’ll fix your mistake!”

I chewed my lip and waited till he disappeared behind the nearest building’s wall before moving. Alice continued to stare past me, even as I blocked her line of sight.

“Alice.”

“You heard him,” she replied.

“Of course I did.”

She finally focused. Her eyes narrowed and she glared. “He’s a liar.”

“We don’t know what he knows. Remember. Elias lied to Devon too.”

“He lied to you. He could have explained all this. And he might be lying about Eli too.”

I grabbed her shoulder and gently shook her. “Might. You said might be lying. We. Don’t. Know. What I do know, is that Devon in his own messed up way, was trying to protect us somehow. The same Devon who looked furious about Elias’ strain being different.”

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“Hjartalauss. Devon’s heartless. The Erlking called him that. So did the Prime.”

Seafoam reached our feet and I dragged us away before conjuring some flames to creatively burn off the moisture. Freki emerged and pushed his horned head into Alice’s side. She relented and ran her fingers through his fur.

“Not just them. The crone called him heartless as well,” I sighed.

Alice didn’t outwardly react other than nod.

“This doesn’t change much. I understand your angry, I get it. But it doesn’t change anything. We’ll see him at the funeral, we’ll corner him and talk. And then proceed as usual. Most likely by being jerked around by someone bigger and more powerful and then we chop some heads and survive. Be mad, just save the effort for when we can actually do something about it.”

“How are you not?”

The giant chains swayed, and I watched the shadows float across the roofs of the buildings underneath. The towns weren’t the same, none of the building designs were similar to each other. But in each one I had visited over the last couple of months, they had at one point held people–people I would save or fail to save. Monsters I would hunt and reap experience from.

“Because I don’t know what I’m supposed to do if all I am is angry all the time. I can be mad at Grim for being insane and endangering our lives on a whim. It's infuriating. Especially not knowing why I’m supposed to do things and being expected to just do them. Trust me, I’ve had plenty of time to be angry at Devon. But I’ve come to expect it. And I still believe Devon cares about us–enough that he went through pain to protect us. That has to count for something.”

And you’re too much of a coward to bring up Garret’s words.

It made me anxious just thinking about it. She was angry now but under control.

Fine. You’ll tell her after the funeral. No matter what.

Some minutes passed as Alice calmed down. I fed Freki extra mana as a reward. No matter if it was a scary hellhound or a poodle, it was hard to stay mad with an innocent beast forcing affection.

“You know,” I said as we started walking back toward the village. “One day, I want to ask questions and not leave with triple the amount I asked. Krulg was both helpful and entirely useless. And now we’re playing telephone with the Prime’s disciples. I don’t know what I’ll do if Quinn is just as bad as the rest.”

“Respectful,” Alice said eventually.

“What?”

“Their partner returned as a corpse. More than likely, they’ll be buried with Elias. We can ask the day after.”

“I’m surprised you’re not suggesting we ambush her after the funeral. Be direct, strike fast.”

Alice shook her head. “That’s for Devon. And he will answer me. Even if I have to freeze myself to him.”

“I’m not as against that as I should be. At least he wouldn’t be able to get away without hurting you.”

“That’s the point.”

I bumped into her side. “So besides, the potential betrayal for which I still am neutral on, and the apparent organ-eating bomb in my chest, what now? We’ve found Krulg, asked him some questions, and we’ve pretty much accomplished what we came here for.”

“We can ask him more,” she suggested seriously.

“Too fast, might snap our necks. I’m sure we’d regenerate but that sounds needlessly painful. Better to wait for Quinn before we circle back around through the list.”

Alice stopped. I stopped with her and waited even though we were standing awkwardly in the middle of the road. People passed us, and a pair of Grimms glared our way.

“Tomorrow will be the night I lay my brother to rest.”

That tense feeling returned, this time creeping up to my shoulders.

“Okay.”

“I don’t want to spend the rest of today angry.”

I almost sighed in relief, but then again, to Alice, sweat-covered and dripping blood was her idea of relaxing.

“So what do you want to do?”

She tugged on her cloak and adjusted the strings keeping it clasped over her chest. “Let’s find Kierra, and see which weapon she chooses to hunt with.”

“Alright. Though I don’t think that’s much of a bet. She’s obviously choosing a spear.”

“We’ll see,” Alice said before resuming our march back to the Warren.