“You...” Orthur, the former High Priest, said, his expression shifting from neutral to disgust upon seeing Tomar and I.

Bren closed the door behind us and we now stood face to face with the former leaders of Alarna for the first time. I felt like this was supposed to be an important moment in time, but really, after they spent five days in a dirty prison, they didn’t look very imposing at that moment.

“That you would dare to show your faces in front of us!” Orthur said, apparently not having been humbled too much by the experience.

“Is that behavior really necessary?” I asked him. “The people have spoken, and you will have to find a way to accept that.”

“Tsk... you will get what’s coming to you very soon!” the priest spat.

“Orthur...” the king said admonishingly.

“So I’ve heard...” I said. “We know about Arax.”

At this, both their eyes widened in surprise, and they were clearly at a loss for words for a moment. Orthur eventually glanced at Hertar with suspicion, while the former king seemed to wrack his brain about who might have told us. If Hayla was right, this information would’ve had to come from the Rulers’ side, because the High Priest was the only member of the temple who was supposed to know, so it had to have been either someone from his family or one of the two guards who were involved.

“Who told you...?” Hertar asked.

“That doesn’t matter. What’s important is what’s going to happen now. We need to know the procedures for the delivery.”

“You want to make the delivery...?”

“We do. I assume we could find at least the destination ourselves, examining the tunnels, but your help would be appreciated. And maybe we can avoid Alarna getting destroyed.”

“You’ve learned a lot in those past few days...” Hertar said. “Are you planning to make a new deal?”

“We’re currently considering our options.”

“Options...? You mean... You can’t be serious...” Hertar said, perplexed.

Since there weren’t too many options available, he could probably guess what I implied. If you didn’t make a deal with this beast, you could maybe try to flee, but since we evidently weren’t doing that, one of the very few other options was fighting it.

“We haven’t made any decisions yet, but we will do what we can to ensure the citizens’ safety. From what we’ve heard, that’s important to you as well, and I hope that you will give us the necessary information.”

He looked at us appraisingly. Based on everything people were telling us, Hertar had been a pretty good king, all things considered, and I assumed he would want to do what he could for the town as well. If he thought that we wouldn’t be up for it, however, he might not want to tell us.

“I have to say, you appear astonishingly calm for someone who has learned the truth,” Hertar said.

“I’m not. But it is what it is, and we’ll deal with it.”

“I see... Before we go any further though, I must ask you a question.”

“I don’t mind, go ahead,” I said.

“How is Berla?” he asked.

She had told us that her uncle loved her, and that he only distanced himself from her due to social pressure, but I was still positively surprised that this question was one of the first things on his mind. Good man.

“She’s doing well,” I said with a smile. “She’s healthy and happy.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” he said with a content sigh, but then he looked at us with uncertainty again. “If you make a new deal though... what will happen to her then?”

“We won’t sacrifice her if that’s your question. Never,” I said decisively.

Should we go down that road, and have to sacrifice people, using the previous laws would actually make a lot of logical sense. Though we would obviously never send Berla away. Maybe we would have to justify that decision to the citizens at some point down the line, but I wouldn’t worry about that now. Not to mention that, in my mind, she was doing her job pretty darn well, despite her handicap. Though the king might not have heard about that in here.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Interesting. I would really like to see how that goes for you, though you seem confident that you can make it work. Very well, I’ll tell you about the delivery.”

“Hertar...” Orthur hissed. “What are you doing!?”

“You wouldn’t have had to bring the High Priest here, he knows almost nothing about the beast,” Hertar said.

“I know, but we needed to talk to him as well,” I said.

“Orthur,” the king said, “would you rather see the town in pieces? They already know. Two rules have been broken, and telling them any more won’t have any negative impact. However, they might be able to save Alarna. Trust me.”

The priest looked at him in total confusion and was about to say something, but he refrained and stayed quiet for the moment. The king kept going and explained to us the details of the delivery that Hayla hadn’t known about.

There was apparently one tunnel that was larger than the others on the east side of town, for a cart to fit into, and this was regularly laden up with the items Arax requested. It had already been prepared for the next delivery, and all we would have to do was take it from below a house close to the east gate to the location where the beast would be awaiting the king, at midnight on the first day of next week. It would usually be accompanied by two other beasts, and they would leave with the wagon, bringing it back later, for the next delivery.

“If the wagon is returned, it will include a list for what Arax requests for the next time. That is all.”

The process was pretty straight forward, as one might expect for a “delivery service.” The only curious part was that the king was making these deliveries himself, especially if you pictured a king as an old man, with a crown, expensive clothes, and a cape. Though Hertar really looked more like a businessman in his suit, which made this easier to imagine.

“Thank you,” I said. “We’ll make sure that you won’t have to stay here for much longer.”

“Huh!?” Orthur said, interjecting himself once more. “What about me!?”

“I have a question for you as well, remember? Maybe we can do something for you too, if you show that the town and its citizens are more important to you than yourself as well for a change.”

The former High Priest was fuming, but he stopped to listen to me.

“What is a Split One?” I asked.

His anger was nowhere to be seen for a moment, as his eyes widened in surprise. Though it quickly returned. “What...? Where...!? You went through my documents!?”

“You’ll understand that we had to learn what we could about the town, which required us to look through everything we could find. And technically it was Tomar’s file. Don’t you think he should be allowed to take a look at it?”

“How dare you!? You’re just a little girl who’s playing divine messenger! The gods will surely—”

“Don’t start with the gods,” I said, interrupting him. “We both know they don’t care nearly as much as we lead people to believe. Out of curiosity... Why are you constantly acting like you’re something better? We’ve heard some pretty damning things about you, you know.”

His type always annoyed the hell out of me. We had only ever met twice, and both times he had acted like he was some grand ruler everyone had to bow before, while the literal king seemed like a pretty down to earth guy. Maybe because he was the one actually making the tough decisions, while the High Priest could just wallow in his supposed superiority.

“You will pay for this some day...” he said threateningly. “Mark my words...”

“So you won’t tell us. That is unfortunate. How about you,” I said, turning to Hertar, “do you know anything?”

“I can’t say that I do,” he said with furrowed brows.

“Alright. In that case, we’ll take our leave now. Thank you again for your help, and we’ll see each other again soon.”

The king nodded, and Tomar and I left the cell. We hadn’t gotten all the information we were looking for, but at least we now knew how the delivery worked. On our way out of the prison, we instructed a guard to bring Orthur back to his own cell. Meanwhile, we made our way over to the temple, where we would have to tell the others the bad news. Filled with anxiety, I thought about next week, and how it might mark the end of everything we wanted to do. At least for the moment.

***

“Are you out of your mind!?” Orthur said once he and the king were alone in the cell once more. “Our best chance would’ve been if Arax had come here! The people would’ve been terrified! It would’ve surely killed these children, and we could’ve tried to broker peace once more, showing the people why the way of this town had always been the right and only one!”

“I thought the same thing... but this might be the better option.”

“Nonsense! If they make a new deal, the citizens might never learn about the beast, and we will stay in here!”

“You’re forgetting something, Orthur. It will never agree to a new deal with them. Meeting with Arax is the last thing they will ever do, and Lilly silently disappearing somewhere out in the woods is good for us. Afterwards, we can argue that the deal is still in effect, when everyone who knew about it is dead. The beast is ruthless, but curiously, it’s important to Arax to keep up agreements. It has proved that time and time again over all these years. This might very well be our best option.”

“You’d better be right about that...”

“What I’m more interested in is Lilly’s question to you. Have you been hiding something from me?”

“I won’t even grace that question with an answer!” Orthur said evasively.

“Of course you wouldn’t...” Hertar said, having expected such a response.