It was late in the evening when Indres returned from the village elders' meeting, so he had expected the family to sleep. However, the man found his wife sitting in the kitchen with a cup of tea in her hand.

"Welcome back." Sofra greeted but did not get to her feet.

She looked exhausted, so Indres did not mind, rather he felt guilty.

"I am back. You shouldn't have waited." He tried to convey the usual calm in his voice.

" I couldn't sleep. Would you like something to drink?"

"No, we had enough there." The man responded.

"Oh, I see..."

It was clear that Sofra was waiting for something, most likely to discuss the meeting.

"Are the children asleep?" Indres looked down the hall towards the bedrooms.

He had noticed that his son, despite his age, often tried to stay close to his parents, especially if they were talking about something important. Indres didn't know how much the boy could understand, but he didn't want him or Safia to hear too much, especially on such a dark subject.

"Yeah, it's been a while," Sofra assured.

Sighing, the man sat down next to his wife.

"I think I'm going away for a few days." He announced.

"You're not going back there!?" Sofra's eyes welled up.

"No, me and a few others are going to the city." Indres tried to reassure the woman.

"To the city? Why?" She didn't understand.

"You know I shouldn't talk about it." Indres sighed and shook his head.

"Reyte spoke today about the tower, the treasure, and your arguments at the meeting. The cat is long out of the bag if it was ever there." Sofra's gaze was implacable.

Women... Indres was thinking with an irritation in his mind though he knew it wasn't fair.

After all, the first to divulge information was one of the men in the meeting - Indres' comrades or elders. In fact, he himself was not guiltless in discussing these things with his wife. Unlike other gossip babblers, however, Indres trusted in Sofra's ability to hold her tongue, even if she was a naturally curious person.

"It's all for the same - some still don't really believe and think it will be better to leave the damned place untouched. Some others are frightened and want to ask the Lord, the Mages' Guild, or the Temple for help. The rest believe they can manage on their own and get whatever is hidden in the tower to themselves." Indres eventually said.

"This is the third meeting in a week and still to no avail?" The woman shook her head.

"Not quite, like I said, I have to go into town. The goal is to find someone, who is willing to help but won't ask too much."

"So, this is about treasure? Possible treasure?" Sofra emphasized a specific word.

Her voice and body language clearly expressed her lack of support for this plan.

Indres sighed again. He wasn't too keen on the idea either.

"I already said, the undead themselves were not too much of a problem. At least the ones that attacked us I was able to destroy easily. The problem was the strange specter and the tower itself. There's a powerful curse or black magic, it's not something that can be solved with a few prayers and simple rituals. We need someone trained in these things. A Temple minister, a magician, or someone else with right wisdom."

"But if you formally asked the Temple, the Mages' Guild, or the nobles for help, they could take the matter under their control and, having freed the Tower from the curse, take everything of value for themselves?" Sofra confirmed rather than asking the question.

Indres could only smile dryly at his wife's insight.

"Is that even legal? I thought the villages owned the land between the forest and the mountain peaks." She pointed to another problem.

"The land belongs to the throne; we only have the right to use it. Also, the northern half of the forest. The tower is in it."

"I don't think the lord and the other nobles will be satisfied with that explanation."

"That's one of the reasons the elders wanted to keep the matter secret."

"Half or more of the village already knows. And soon the other villages will know too. It's only a matter of time before news of this reaches the rest of the province, including the city."

"And that's why I have to leave tomorrow," Indres told the unpleasant news.

His wife did not reply, but her fingers gripped the tea cup tighter.

"I was thinking of talking to Neter, perhaps one of his fellows specializes in undead curses and will agree to help," Indres added.

"Even if you manage to free the tower of its curse and find something of value, I don't think the powerful ones will be content with us taking everything for ourselves." Sofra was rather negative about the prospects.

"Maybe, but only if there is something really valuable. Even then, they will probably respect the finder's fee."

Silence fell again for a while. Indres saw that his wife's face became darker than before.

"If you manage to find help, will you go there again?" Sofra broke the silence.

"Yes."

"Is it... because of the money?"

Indres hesitated a moment before answering. Although he couldn't say that his wife's words were without cause, the main reason was something else.

"It is my responsibility. I started all this." The man stated.

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"Not you alone."

"Aegar and Arwain were only listening to me. I talked them into coming this far. If I hadn't insisted, we wouldn't have found the tower." Indres' voice grew firmer.

"This is not a hunt of the spawn swarm, bound by the pact, you can refuse. No one has to do that! Leave the problem to the Temple or the nobles."

"I cannot ignore the will of the elders and act on my own head. And whoever comes to help, will need a guide through the forest. I'll have to go back anyway."

"Someone else can be the guide."

"I told you, it's my responsibility!"

*Tud!*

Indres had forcefully placed his palm on the table, causing nose. It wasn't very loud, but he realized he'd lost his composure for a moment. Hunter saw that his wife didn't flinch, just furrowed her brows, her gaze sharpened.

"Is there anything else?" she asked suspiciously.

"Why do you ask?" Indres didn't look at his wife, instead making sure the hallway was still empty.

"From the beginning, I got the impression that you weren't telling me everything. Is there something else that makes you take this... excessive risk?"

Indres know how to be silent, to show restraint. These were useful qualities for a hunter, even if they sometimes annoyed friends and others. But it didn't mean he could lie or pretend, even if sometimes that was better. The man was sure that his wife clearly understood that he was hiding something.

"I mentioned that there were dead spawns... " Indres spoke slowly after a moment of silence.

"Yes, the undead used their bodies as a disguise, I remember." His wife urged him to keep talking.

"There was probably a fight between the two groups of monsters, but I don't think the spawns attacked the undead just for fun. I was under the impression that they wanted to get inside the tower, but the undead killed them to protect... something. Maybe the curse is forcing them to stop anyone trying to get in."

Sofra nodded that she understood.

"I didn't study the monster carcasses for long, but I got the impression that they all died at the same time, that it was a single attack. Normally spawns don't attack together without a strong leader, so it's suspicious." Indres stopped talking.

"You think... it might be related to the attack on the village?" The woman's face paled.

Less than half a year had passed, so the memory of that nightmarish night was still vivid. Indres put his hand reassuringly around the woman's palm.

"I don't think we're in any danger, but we'd better make sure." He tried to ease his wife's worries.

It seemed to help, Sofra relaxed a little, but her gaze grew harder.

"Is there anything else?" Her expression was still insistent.

"Is that not enough?" Indres looked sideways again.

"I... heard from Arwain that you wanted to head that way before the tower was found. As if you knew it would be there. Is that true?" There were almost accusatory tones in Sofra's voice.

Indres was mentally cursing his chatty pupil, who was obviously, longing for hard and painful lessons. True, he had not forbidden the two comrades to talk about this subject, hoping that they would forget it because of everything that happened afterward.

"When did you speak to him? Did you specifically try to find out?" Indres's voice held irritation.

"I told you I noticed something strange in your behavior, but you won't tell me!" Sofra's voice also had a sharper tone.

"If I don’t speak then I have nothing to say." He replied bluntly.

Silence fell again, but now the atmosphere between the two was more tense.

Indres felt guilty. He was guilty. But it was also because of guilt that he could not say.

Because of guilt and shame.

"Daeh!" A muffled cry came unexpectedly from the direction of the children’s room.

Furrowing brows, Indres got to his feet and headed for the hallway. Opening the door to the small bedroom, he saw in the dim light from the kitchen Tao sitting on the floor by the threshold rubbing his cheek in. Safia in the meantime sat in the bed looking sleepy.

"What's going on?" Indres asked, leaning close to his son.

"I was goin' toilet... I fell." The boy responded, holding a hand to the side of his head as if in pain.

"Show me." The man gently turned Tao's head to the side and recited words of light, using his hand to illuminate the child’s face.

Indres saw no injury on his son's head or anywhere else, so he decided it was nothing serious.

"If it doesn't hurt, go, but be careful." He allowed.

Meanwhile, Sofra had also come to the bedroom door.

"It's all right, Tao fell, but he's not hurt." Indres said before his wife could ask a question.

"I see..." she followed Tao with her eyes, then looked at her husband again.

"It's late. I have to get up early tomorrow." He said and headed towards his bedroom.

Indres didn't want to lie and wouldn't. But he knew how to stay silent if he wanted to.

***

Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Tao unconsciously started swearing in Japanese in his mind while he went to the toilet.

Ever since he learned the local language, Illarit, even his thoughts had begun to formulate in it. In Japanese or English, the boy usually remembered only terms that did not exist in the local language. What had happened had shocked him so much that it triggered something in his brain.

Shit! I hope I didn't burst the eardrum... no, the sound was normal, it was my perception... damn! He tried to calm himself down, which was not easy because of the ringing in his ears, or rather in one ear.

Hearing amplified by the spirit power had a serious drawback.

In Tao's understanding, the hearing mechanism in the ears was as sensitive as the eyes, so he handled this organ with the same care as the eyes. His control over small doses of spirit power became more precise, allowing him to more effectively increase the tissue's resistance to supernatural influences. The sinsura would have been useful, but Tao was able to enhance hearing without it. Although slightly different, basically it was the same as a pulse of force in the muscles - to make more effective the function that the tissue was performing. The boy reasoned that knowledge of the desired target also helped - fortunately, he remembered enough from his biology lessons to understand the approximate appearance and working principle of the organ - the eardrum, the tiny ear bones, and the cochlea with its nerves.

Unfortunately, Tao could not yet use the spirit power as a continuous flow, or rather the flow was too uneven and could damage such a sensitive organ as the hearing mechanism. The boy was therefore forced to concentrate tiny impulses one after the other to be able to amplify his hearing with much less regularity.

He was forced to start using this skill. Not only his father but also other adults had begun to speak less often about important things when Tao was around. Partly through his fault, the boy had begun to put more words together, demonstrating his ability to repeat what he heard and answer questions. Tao remembered that his older sister had done something similar when she was about three years old, so he figured that a 'gifted kid' might start doing it a little earlier. As the boy had planned, this did not surprise the adults too much, but it did influence their behavior around Tao.

The enhanced hearing worked as expected, putting his ear to the door of the bedroom and concentrating the spirit power in the ear region, the boy could hear quite clearly what his parents were discussing in the kitchen. Until...

"TAO, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"

Someone yelled right into his ear.

Actually, Safia spoke up in a normal voice, it just sounded like a terrible scream to the enhanced hearing. Tao panicked and screamed himself, which was an even crazier noise to the sensitive ear:

“DRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAA!”

He felt completely disoriented and slumped to the ground, while the echo of the horrible noise continued to rattle his hearing nervous system like an invisible ringing of bells. Fortunately, as Tao lost concentration, his ear no longer received the spirit power, so the new noises could no longer harm him.

The boy entered the toilet chamber closing the door behind him. He needed time to recover.

Usefulness be damned! I have to think of something better, otherwise, I'll lose my mind!

***

With Indres to the city went one of the village elders and the fire magic user, Vern. The families of the riders were not the only ones who came out to see them off. As Sofra had mentioned, other people in the village knew quite a lot and understood where the trio was going and why, so many eyes were on the southbound carriage.

Tao looked at his mother's face, trying to understand what she was thinking. In the morning, Sofra cooked breakfast for the family as usual and also prepared food and other things for her husband to take with him. She did not mention yesterday's conversation, probably because of the presence of the children, but the boy had the impression that his mother's attitude was chiller than usual.

This was the first time Tao noticed a more serious disagreement between the parents. This was worrying. All the more so because everything could have been his fault, the boy hoped he would also have a solution - a tiny voice in his ear.

***