That night, Caruncle had a dream. Felicity, Evelyn, Zuriel, Percival, all those noobs, were there. The sky was a deep, dusky purple, where gold hues still clung to the edges of a fading horizon. The air was thick with tension, and in the distance, the flurry of footsteps and the twang of bowstrings cut through the quiet foliage. Archers lined the hilltop, arrows at the ready, their eyes locked on a shadow that moved with swift, predatory grace across the plains.

At the side of a pyramid did lie a griffin, six times bigger than any lion. The huge beak, the long wings in which the first primary was the longest, and the vigorous talons almost covered the archers' whole field of view. Its wings curled inwards, the feathers gleaming with the golden light of the setting sun. The whole sight stunned me a bit, after thousands of books I had read, I still had never seen the drawing of a griffin in all that I could remember of my existence. It was a bit of a silly concept, but seeing it by myself was different. Where a falcon or an eagle would have the twelve feathers of its tail, the griffin grew the body and legs of a lioness. It had its beak lying on the breast feathers. It was terrifying.

Valentin pushed through the ranks of archers, his heart racing. His breath came in short gasps. His eyes scanned the huge thing and saw a scar that crossed both of its eyes in a diagonal line. What did the scar mean or how it got it, I did not know, but when he saw it, his pulse quickened.

"Hold your fire!" Valentin cried out. He pushed forward, standing between them and the creature, his voice more urgent. "Hold your fire! This isn’t a common beast! This is Caruncle!"

The griffin turned its amber gaze toward Valentin, its feathers ruffling in the wind, though its expression remained inscrutable. Valentin took a step forward. "Caruncle, please, can you understand me?" he asked softly, his voice trembling as the archers muttered behind him.

The griffin stood still. Its face gave me the impression it was grinning at him. The archers shifted uneasily, their bows still raised but fingers hesitating on the strings. His family lowered down their bows but kept staring at the thing. For a moment, silence hung heavy in the air, and the archers remained poised, watching for any sign of movement.

“How could you let them do this to you?” He asked. I saw the Caruncle griffin looking at Valentin with what felt like a puzzled expression, I don’t know, I don’t know, it tilted its head somewhat and stared at him with some sort of smile.

“Do you understand what I am saying? Do you recognize me?”

The griffin looked confused to me, it kept staring at Valentin with a slight amusement and bemusement.

“Why… if I could just…If I had listened to you sooner…” Valentin fell on his knees and started to cry, I looked at the griffin which was now looking at him with pity. How I was noticing this I don’t know, it was something in his brow, or maybe it was just my distorted perception of things. The griffin put his left wing and patted Valentin slightly on its back, since it was so big that it still made him fall, so at the end it stopped moving it and left it resting on him.

“Caruncle… oh, Caruncle…” Valentin hugged part of its wing and held it with his two arms as he cried his heart out.

They stayed like that for a while. After he had calmed down a bit, he looked into his crossbody bag and got a dress out of it. It was a silk dress that looked a bit like the one the maids gave Caruncle to try on the other day.

“Look, Caruncle… it’s your dress, the one you wanted,” Valentin said, smiling at the griffin, even as tears streamed down his face.

The griffin gave a soft smile and gently took the dress with its other wing, carefully tucking it away beneath its feathers as if to keep it safe. Then, it attempted to pat Valentin again, but realizing it was hurting him, it stopped and let its wing rest, allowing him to hug it instead. The griffin appeared somewhat sad, but remained calm and serene. I could hear it thinking, Caruncle was happy to have his brother around him.

“Caruncle… thank you, Caruncle….”

I was starting to hear the crickets of the night, while everyone stood still, I played around in a puddle of rainbow colored water.

***

When I woke up I felt I had lost something important. What was I even doing? This dumb plan of getting close to Caruncle’s family, what on earth was I thinking? I was incredibly ashamed, I got out of the body and decided to not interfere further. I was done.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Caruncle was listening to Sebastian talk with one of his maids when a letter arrived.

“Did I ever tell you how I got into the circle?” Sebastian handed Caruncle a letter from Valentin, he turned around and opened it slowly. “It was when I fell in love with a girl that was into dark magic and sorcery. Back then, I thought she was sent by demons to destroy me, but… hey? Are you listening? Hey!”

Caruncle finally opened the letter, it read as follows.

“I know that you believe deeply for the freedom of each man. This is something I have discussed a lot with my party, but yes, as I have said, the compensation would be made for the owners, not for previous slaves. These people have been investing in their own business and therefore we would have to compensate them for the loss of their property. Please understand, the idea of persecuting owners in what has been a well established business for a long time is unfeasible. If you want to see a change, it needs to be at its own peace. If you finally decide to support our party economically and follow through with this proposal, you can always write to me back.”

It was a lot of bullshit.

Caruncle felt like about to cry, he would get like a little child when things didn’t get his way. After calming down for an hour or two while looking at the park, he decided to write a new letter, this time, to Custodio.

“You said that I could count with you as a family, if that is the case, I will count with you, however, I will need to put you through my own test as well. I need you to bring Mr. Lopez to your home. Write him a letter and have it ready for once I go back. I will also need an axe ready. I have heard that he always has a guard at his side. Make sure he goes to your home too, I do not know how careful this man is with his possessions or communications, tell him that he is in danger and to bring the letter with you. If he leaves a copy or not in his home, that is a risk you and I will have to take. I am done with this and I want to get it solved as fast as possible. If you can do what I am asking, then I know I can trust in you.”

He sighed and after finishing the first draft, he wrote the letter over and over again. He was trying to avoid having the tears fall into his face, he was crying again.

After a while he stood up and went to the balcony where Sebastian was still talking with one of the servants.

“...and I told her what I felt, that I thought she was a demon sent to destroy me at first, I was afraid, I was angry at her, I had tried to do an exorcism on her, so she could become clean, so I could become clean again, I felt that by falling love at her I had lost everything, my soul, my being, but it was because of my attempt to find the truth in her facade that I realized that my religion was a lie, that my world was a lie, and I wanted to thank her for that.”

“That’s crazy.”

“I know the people in the circle spend too much time doing nothing, of course I know that those spells we have found are the best we will ever get, but… I still appreciate those people, that is why I will always stay in the circle.”

Caruncle tapped him in the shoulder, when Sebastian looked at him, he motioned him to go to the studio, Sebastian stood up and followed him.

“I need to tell you something, it is time.” He wrote in a notebook and gave it to him. Sebastian read it a couple of times and looked back at him.

“Are you sure about this?”

Caruncle nodded.

“Sigh, I thought you were going to reconsider.”

“I did.”

“And you are still angry.”

“I’m still angry.”

“This is fucking stupid, I hope that you are aware of that.”

“I am.”

“Okay,” Sebastian looked in a drawer and took out a notebook. “I have already asked someone to go to Lopez’s place. Contrary to what you described to me, it is not located on any street, it is in the countryside just like this or Esparza’s home. It looks very small from the outside, but inside it is like a maze. I know you would prefer to make him go to Esparza’s house so nobody can see us going to his property, but once that man leaves, the people he keeps there will starve, what are you going to do about them? I think that we should go anyway and free them, we don’t have to stay, just make sure they can get out on their own.”

“I don’t think I want to leave any witnesses.”

“So you just want to leave them there, to slowly die.”

“We could speed up that process.”

“What?”

“I’m serious.”

Sebastian scoffed at her, he looked through the window into the countryside, he seemed lost.

“Okay, let me go, by myself, I can free them, and if anything happens, I will carry with the risk.”

“I don’t think I can let you do that.”

“Why not?”

“It would still be a risk, you are connected to me, after all.”

“For fuck’s sake!”

Sebastian stood up and started walking in circles around the room, I saw him slowly trying to breathe in and out.

“One murder is one thing, two might be another, but… how many people are going to end up dead? I don't think I can do this.”

“You don’t have to, this is all on me.” Caruncle had written this out on a piece of paper, but this time Sebastian didn’t read it.

“You know what, it’s not that complicated. I can go the day after Lopez is dead, with enough luck, most people will still be alive, and I can free them out. My story will be that I just went to buy someone and I found the place empty.”

He looked at Caruncle, who was frowning at him.

“You must let me do this, yes, there is a risk, but it's a lower one, besides, if you don’t let me do it, I think I will lose my mind.”

Caruncle sighed and looked down at Elena’s knees. He extended her palms and stared at them for a while.

“Have you talked about this with Mr. Esparza?”

Caruncle pointed at the letter he had written on the desk.

“Do you trust him?”

“If he does this for me, I can trust him.”

“What about the marriage matter? How are you feeling about all that?”

“It doesn’t matter anymore, as long as he does this for me.”

“Alright, suit yourself. I’m gonna take a drink…”