Chapter 16 – In which night visits are made

Usually there was at least one attendant always at Amara’s side, even when he was sleeping.

At night they would stand in the darkest corner of Amara’s spacious bedroom and watch over him. They were there so if Amara needed them, they would step to his side immediately.

But usually they were just like stone statues.

Completely still and silent.

‘They must have seen me do pretty embarrassing stuff, yet they never said anything about it.’

For example, the day Amara woke up with his old memories for the first time, he rolled down from the bed and then just laid on the floor for some time.

‘No, maybe it wasn’t funny to them at all. It was probably quite terrifying.’

The attendant couldn’t approach or do anything unless Amara called them, so if he fell off the bed and hurt his head, they still weren’t allowed to do anything unless he gave them an order.

Amara sighed to himself and then looked at Phlox, who stood in the attendants’ usual corner with a very serious expression.

Tonight there was no attendant. Only Phlox.

Because Amara needed to sneak out tonight, he would need either someone to cover for him or to knock out the attendant, who would be watching over him tonight.

He didn’t want the second, because it may get an attendant in trouble, but he also couldn’t just drag a random attendant into his plan to cover for him.

A solution appeared unexpectedly when he was discussing his plan with Phlox.

— Your Excellency, don’t worry. I’ll be your blind watchman today!

It seemed that, from the beginning, she planned to watch over him tonight, to prevent any other heretics from approaching.

And now, when the night fell, only he and Phlox were left in his room.

They exchanged glances, silently confirming the beginning of the operation.

They didn’t talk, as the walls may have ears.

The only thing Amara could be confident about was that no one was watching him besides Phlox.

Long time ago, Saf honed that skill into him so deeply that he was able to sense someone's gaze even in his sleep.

After his reincarnation, this skill seemed to only get stronger.

Without a sound, Amara lit up a candle and then, after confirming that light spread evenly and covered the area he needed, he took out a fan and a whisk.

He observed his shadow in the light of the candle and then…

He started the shadow dance.

Behind him, Phlox gasped very softly, but Amara paid her no mind.

He put all his concentration on his own shadow, which thanks to a flickering flame of the candle, grew sometimes additional arms or legs, twisted and contorted, and disappeared from one place to appear in the other.

The completely silent dance of shadows continued.

And then, with the last step of the ritual, Amara extinguished the candle.

The darkness swallowed him and the shadow.

Amara closed his eyes and felt as shadows cling to his back, covering him from head to toe.

Now, he was one with shadows.

Unless he makes a sound that attracts someone's attention, he will appear to be only another shadow.

After bidding goodbye to Phlox, he quietly left the room.

*-*-*

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The place Amara came to had little to no light.

The cold stabbed his back as he passed through the corridor.

Smell of old rotten blood filling his nostrils.

*Huh? Is this hell?*

*Dare! My hell is much better.*

*Indeed, the uneducated should not speak. We have at least some sense of style.*

*And hygiene.*

*Right, there are actually very strict guidelines about hygiene and cleanliness in hell. For example, beetles are prohibited in some circles…*

*Why beetles?*

*Have you ever seen a demonic mealworm?*

A constant chatter of gods in Amara’s head helped him to calm down.

He slowly descended deeper into the under-temple prison, holding on to the wall to not lose his way through the darkness.

Though the road ahead was only straight.

A few minutes passed, and he finally arrived at the most isolated prison cell.

There wasn’t even a guard here.

Nor was there any source of light.

Amara sensed a living person behind the bars of the cell, but his light was unstable. Showing signs of exhaustion, pain and desperation.

Amara drew on mana in him like Ver taught him a long time ago and created a small ball of light.

The small light hovered between him and the person inside the cell.

The assassin was startled by the sudden appearance of light. It seemed he didn’t even notice Amara drawing mana, even though his sense of magic flow should be much better as he was a mage.

Amara looked at the man in silence.

It seemed that guards ‘roughed him up a bit’.

His fingers seemed dislocated, there were weird stains on his shirt and his face was half blue. Besides it, his entire body bore bruises and swollen wounds.

The man stared at Amara with bloodshot eyes, full of hate, killing intent and fear.

A minute or two passed in silence.

“What are you staring at?”

Finally, it was the man who said something first. His voice was closer to a quiet shriek of a wind in an old forest. Scratchy, hollow and dry.

Amara didn’t answer, but took out a tightly wrapped bag he hid in his robe and tossed it before the man.

“Take it.”

The man didn’t. He looked at the bag suspiciously.

“Inside there is some food and herbs, it's best if you use it. They will probably keep you here completely isolated for the next two days, without food or medical attention. Then they will show you to the public. If you have a plan to run away, do it before that. When everyone knows your face, it will be difficult to run and hide.”

Amara had a rough idea of what Rasin was planning.

So he took some food and gathered some medical herbs in the garden to bring here.

The man looked at him and then laughed:

“And why would you do that, dear saint? Give those things to me? Say those things to me? Feeling saintly today, are we?”

His gaze was full of mockery.

Amara took this gaze calmly, rather his eyes lingered on the bandages around the man’s armpit.

Though Amara didn’t aim to kill the man, the pain would be enormous.

Still…

“Do I need a reason?”

Even if he didn’t make him suffer such pain, he would do it.

His siblings didn’t need a reason to make foolish choices, and neither did he.

Amara didn’t wait to hear the man’s answer to his murmuring.

He asked:

“Are you from Rubrun?”

“Asking questions now, huh?”

The man’s smile grew more twisted at the mention of the word ‘Rubrun’.

“Sure, I’m from Rubrun.”

Amara detected no lie in this statement. He couldn’t be completely certain, of course, but…

“I see, you’re from Rubrun, but it wasn’t Rubrun which sent you.”

The man looked at him weirdly and spitted out:

“I sent myself, no one sent me. It’s my revenge. My only.”

“Your appearance, skills and methods bear too much political intrigue for it to be only ‘your revenge’. But it’s not important. Do you have a name?”

“Why should I give you my name?”

“So I don’t call you ‘the guy in prison’. Well, I can just call you seven. It was supposed to be a lucky number.”

“You have some nerve kid…”

“I’m aware of it, Mr. Seven. Thank you for conversing with me. I wish you luck.”

With that Amara didn’t wait any longer. He extinguished the light and turned to leave as silently as he arrived.

*-*-*

Citrie quietly closed the door behind him and then, after reaching the center of the room, he kneeled down.

“Hi, I’m back.”

His voice was barely a whisper.

“Today many interesting things happened.”

Citrie smiled as he remembered the panic and chaos, which broke out after Orche opened the door of the meeting hall to go out.

And then frowns and dark expressions of people, who followed Orche out of the hall, when they saw rotten flowers.

Citrie described the entire situation in detail.

“When Orche discovered the flowers, he was ready to rush to interrogate Young Lady Saffra about it, but just then Young Lady Mimosa appeared in front of him and smacked him in the face. Haha, the look on his face was very funny. Even better when Young Lady Mimosa said ‘That’s for my younger sister.’ and then left without any other explanation.”

From the perspective of people who didn’t know exactly what was going on among the General’s family members, it must have been quite a shocking incident.

They had many bizarre theories.

Citrie heard some of them already.

Some thought that bloody flowers were a political move on Mimosa’s side, to tarnish Orche’s reputation.

But they struggled to explain how Mimosa pulled it off when no one of her followers was around Orche. One of the things Orche was very good at was picking out spies around him, so every servant who would be involved in decorating the hallway, would be his supporter.

They also struggled to explain how those flowers appeared there, because according to testimonies, no one noticed anything before entering the meeting hall and after the meeting started, no one came close to the hallway.

Other said it was a bad omen, sent down by dark spirits (because they couldn’t say gods outloud in Flavun).

Wasn’t Young Lady Saffra seen in a bloody dress the other day? Maybe it wasn’t Young Lady Saffra at all!

They shouted.

But it was Flavun. No one would easily admit the existence of dark spirits or gods, less their involvement.

And even if, wasn’t it just Purplus’ trick then? They were known to like flashy and disturbing things.

“It’s really fascinating how no one suspects Young Lady Saffra…”

Of course, if Citrie didn’t come into direct contact with Saffra, he also wouldn’t suspect her.

She was famous for being so docile that when once Orche spilled a drink on her head during a semi-public event, she was the one who apologized to him and to the guests.

But it didn’t align with Saffra, which Citrie saw.

Given, Citrie couldn’t judge if something about Saffra changed or she was always hiding her own agenda.

He only started to work as a knight at the manor where General’s family lived a week ago.

During that time, he had almost no interactions with Saffra

“... But she is an interesting lady, for sure.”

Perhaps she was ‘interesting’ enough to join his suspect list.

Then he sighed.

“I talked too long. I’ll be going now, there is a lot to do.”

He then stood up and was about to leave, when he stopped as if he just remembered something.

He took out a stem of catnip neatly folded in paper for protection.

“Here. I received it as a gift, but I thought you may like it.”

He put the catnip on the table.

And then he left.

In the room which Citrie left, there was no one.

Not a living soul was in this room.