It took Kai less than a quarter-hour to reach General Kear's residence. All lights were already out, and he had to knock for ages till somebody finally opened the doors. By that time, Kai was already gritting his teeth in anger.

Without a word, he pushed the sleepy servant away and barged into the hall. General Kear came down the stairs, looking very surprised.

"Your Highness, is something wrong?" he asked in his usual slow manner. General Kear had always annoyed Kai with his habit of dragging out vowels as if he was too lazy to speak.

"Where is General Minn?" Kai decided not to beat around the bush.

General Kear raised his eyebrows.

"Pardon me, Your Highness, but how would I know that? Shouldn't he be at his residence at this hour? Or are you implying that General Minn spends his nights in my company, Your Highness?"

Kai winced at Kear's words and got even angrier. Without saying another word, he made his way further down the hall, planning to turn this whole mansion upside down to either find Adnan or at least discover some clues about his whereabouts.

Suddenly he was blocked by several burly guards with long spears.

"Where do you think you're going, Your Highness?" Kear smirked.

"I'm going to search your residence, General Kear. Let me through. That is an order," Kai spat out.

"What if I respectfully decline, Your Highness?" At this point, Kai could clearly hear the mocking in the General's voice.

"You dare?" Kai was livid.

"I dare," General Kear shrugged. All of the sudden, he dropped any pretense of any politeness. "Do you have an army behind you? Do you have the power to make me submit? Once you take the throne, you might be able to barge in on honest people unannounced. But so far, I just see a weak boy who is throwing a tantrum."

"Wait and see what will happen to you once I take the throne," Kai narrowed his eyes.

"Oh, I doubt that it will ever come to that. Your uncle will invent some other bullshit reason for you to stand down, and you will obey just like a little bitch you are."

Kai leaped towards Kear and was about to throw a punch when the guards blocked him yet again. Now, there were suddenly even more of them in the hall.

That was when Kai realized that he shouldn't have come alone. If Kai activated his spiritual power, he would have no problem dealing with the guards, of course. Unfortunately, his powers were still very unstable after the recharge. He feared he would summon too much by accident and blow away half the city in the process. So he had no other choice but to temporarily back down.

"Your Highness," General Kear gave him an amused look. "Why are you making it so hard for yourself and for all of us? Just join us in overthrowing your uncle and his ridiculous rules, and you will be able to sit on that fancy throne in no time."

"And be your puppet Emperor?" Kai snorted. "I already told you what I thought of your offer."

"Yes, you were... very explicit, if I remember correctly. But we don't really need you now, do we? It's easy to find someone else who would take your place and do exactly what he's told to do."

"Good luck with that," Kai turned around to leave. He had no interest in continuing this conversation. Besides, he didn't want to waste any more time.

If he wanted to threaten Kear and find Adnan, at this point, he had no other choice but to ask help from the most despicable person to ever exist. But desperate times call for desperate measures, and Kai's father had always told him that compromises were important.

While riding back to the palace, Kai reasoned that it would be in his uncle's best interest to make sure that Adnan was safe and alive. The Double-death curse was no joke, and Reo Atarian wasn't a suicidal man.

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Without even catching his breath, Kai dashed towards his uncle's bedroom, hoping that it wasn't one of those nights when Reo was "mysteriously absent" doing gods know what.

"Go away," Kai heard a weak voice from behind the door.

"Uncle, it's about General Minn."

After a long moment of silence, the door finally opened, and Kai was dragged into the room by his collar.

"What is it about him?" Reo looked at Kai with bloodshot eyes. It seemed the man hadn't had a good night's sleep in days. His bedroom was also messy, and it looked like the Regent had thrashed every single vase in a fit of anger.

Kai proceeded to tell his uncle about the message he received from Niki, quoting Adnan's words verbatim. And then he shortly recounted what happened at General Kear's manor, leaving out certain details that were not for his uncle's ears.

"And you're only telling me now when you have spectacularly failed, my dear nephew?" the Regent sounded completely calm, and Kai suddenly knew that the man was livid.

Well, of course, he was livid. All this power-hungry asshole cared about at the moment was his own life. Now he must be so, so sorry about performing that curse.

"Be happy I'm telling you anything at all," Kai scowled. "I want to know why is General Minn sending you secret messages out of the blue? Was maiming him not enough? Are you now using him for your schemes?"

Reo rolled his eyes.

"That is none of your business, nephew. If you had just stayed in your lane for once, instead of inviting trouble... Do you realize that General Kear is currently busy cleaning up his tracks? Now I have probably lost the only possibility to catch him red-handed. And who knows what he has already done to Minn!"

"Then let's not lose time and lead an army to his door now," Kai said impatiently. That was the only reason he even decided to involve his uncle.

The Regent suddenly laughed out loud.

"Nephew, what are you talking about? What army? There is possibly no one left in the empire's troupes who is still loyal to me."

Kai blinked. He had suspected as much. "Then what are you going to do?"

"Order Hayl to gather his men," the Regent sighed. "I wanted to keep him a secret till the actual coup, but alas..."

Kai smirked. "General Lox is also not loyal to you."

"Well, he is also not disloyal to me either. Which is the next best thing under current circumstances. So, I'll take it. This is my last ace, nephew."

"Oh, don't be so humble, " Kai shook his head. He doubted that Reo was being truthful. His uncle was resourceful and devious – he probably had more than 100 other aces up his sleeve, but he just didn't want to expose them in front of Kai.

However, he had no time to argue at the moment. He felt in his bones that Adnan was in danger, and he needed to get to him as soon as possible.

Kai didn't even bother checking Hayl's room – he knew that the former General was most likely sticking as close to Niki as possible. That pervert.

Luckily, as soon as Hayl heard the code word, he didn't give Kai any hard time and just nodded. In less than half an hour, a small army consisting of the best-hidden talents in the whole empire had gathered behind the palace. Lox exchanged a couple of words with the Regent and then gave the orders to depart.

Turns out that General Kear hadn't expected uncle and nephew to join forces to take him down so quickly. Or maybe he hadn't expected that the Regent still had an army under his command.

"Tattled to daddy?" Kear asked Kai after his mansion was taken over, his guards slaughtered, and he himself was tied up and kneeling on the floor.

"Where is he?"Kai ignored his quip.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Kear spat right under Kai's feet. At that moment, the Regent came up to them and kicked the General in the chest so hard that Kear lost consciousness.

"He won't say anything useful anyway," Reo wiped his foot on Kear's cloak.

Hayl's men were meticulously searching through every corner of the estate but even after an hour, they couldn't report anything useful. They found a lot of valuables, sure, but there was no sign of Adnan anywhere.

Kai had already lost his patience and was about to take it out on Kear when he noticed his uncle walking around funnily. He was touching and listening to the walls like a crazy person.

"What are you doing?" he asked, confused.

"There is a secret passage here somewhere," the Regent frowned. "There must be."

Kai grabbed at this straw of hope with the desperation of a drowning person. And so they spent the next hour exploring the walls in the countless rooms of this enormous manor.

Kai was about to give up when he heard a long creaking sound from downstairs.

"It's here," his uncle exclaimed. Kai headed towards the sound, his heart beating so fast, it almost jumped out of his mouth.

Behind the moving wall, there really was a tunnel. Presumably, the one that Adnan was referring to in his message.

At first, all Kai could see was darkness and all he could smell was blood and rot. But as soon as Hayl brought in a torch, he finally could distinguish a figure chained to the wall.

Both he and his uncle barged towards the person.

It really was Adnan.

Or what was left of him.

His left arm was missing, and his leg was bent at a weird angle. His eye was gouged out, and he was covered in blood from head to toe.

The Regent put his finger under Kai's nose and announced: "He's still breathing."

Kai didn't doubt that Adnan was alive – his uncle was still not dead, after all. Why would he even need to check?

"Take him to the palace," the Regent ordered, and Hayl leaned down to pick up the battered man.

Kai pushed him away and took Adnan into his arms, ignoring his uncle's weird look.

"I'll carry him," he announced to everyone around him as if daring anybody to object.

After all, he was the only one good enough to put his hands around this man.