When he woke up in his room in the inn he was still wearing all his clothes. He vaguely remembered that one of the guards took him there. Outside his door there was a lot of commotion. Gael tried to focus on what they were talking about but that only reminded him of his headache. He lied in bed looking at the ceiling and decided that he would wait until peace returned before getting out of his room, but then there was knocking on the door.

  ‘Give me a minute!’, Gael called as he sat upright. But the door already opened. It was the alderman Marvinion again, looking at him angrily.

  ‘That's him sir’, the alderman said.

A big man, rivalling Gael in size, came standing in the door opening and gave Gael a hard look.

  ‘Take a seat’, the big man said with a commanding voice and pointed to the chair in Gael’s room. Gael slowly switched from the bed to the chair and looked at the man. On his breast was a metal emblem with the coat of arms of the empire's constabulary, which could only have meant that the man was a marshal.

  ‘Good morning’, the marshal said.

  ‘Good morning’, said Gael, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Behind the marshal there was the alderman, the guard and some more townspeople. Again the barkeep was leaning over the counter to listen in.

  ‘I’m Marshal Athelton and I have been brought here because you are being accused of criminal activities. Trespassing on the village walls and the ignoring of a direct command given by village officials.’

  Gael felt courage leaving him as sat there, cornered in his room with the marshal and the rest of the town at his door.

  ‘So tell me what happened yesterday’, the marshal asked. Hesitant Gael started:

  ‘Well I don’t know what you know’.

  ‘Start where you want to start’, the marshal added. He picked a stool from behind the bed and placed it in the door opening, opposite of Gael. He sat down and folded his arms.

  ‘I am doing a case in service of the University of Challiste. The case is about finding the hindsblue: a flower believed to be extinct. I thought I would find it here, in the Yeavinkhall forest. Because I was fully aware of this town curfew, I thought I would leave before the gates would close. But then I was made to stay inside.’

  ‘And then you decided to climb over the wall?’, the marshal said stern.

  ‘Y-yes then I climbed over the wall’.

  ‘And the blood’, the marshal said and pointed at Gael’s hands and head.

Gael looked at his hands. The brown dried blood was under his nails and in the folds of his skin.

  ‘I tripped and fell. It was too dark to see’, Gael explained. Gael felt his head but to his surprise he felt no wound, it wasn't even painful any more. From behind the marshal the alderman interfered: ‘He broke into our storage and broke a barrel!’

  ‘Ah, so you are a burglar too? and a vandal?’, the marshal asked Gael.

  ‘No no! Definitely not. I just wanted to get to the top of the tower!’, Gael answered.

  ‘What was in the barrel again?’ The marshal asked over his shoulder.

  ‘Well uh... Party decorations… ‘, alderman Marvinion answered, confused.

  ‘Party decorations’, Marshall Athelton said dry. He leaned forward and beaconed Gael to come closer.

  ‘And? Have you found it?’

Gael had almost forgotten what he had found the night before and quickly looked around in search of the shoulder bag. He saw the strap under the bed. To his relief he felt the weight of the notebook when he pulled the bag towards him. Carefully he picked it out of the bag. Both to his surprise and his disgust he saw that his bloody hand prints were all over the notebook. He scrolled through the pages and suddenly the fear crept up on him that the flower was gone, or worse, the flower wouldn't be blue. At the end of the notebook some pages seemed to stick together because of the blood. When he flipped the page it revealed a small flower. Its petal squished by the book, but indistinguishably blue. Gael sighed in relief and tipped the book over so that the marshal and the rest of the people could see it. The people exclaimed and a murmur rose through the inn. Gael admired the flower and the marshal grinned satisfied. He turned to the Alderman:

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

  ‘What say you, Wilter? A University official has found a valuable resource in that haunted forest of yours. You must be thankful of this man!’

The alderman’s face switched back and forth between anger and disbelief.

  ‘These people are not above the law!’ The alderman barked.

  ‘I don’t believe your ‘law’ is part of the Imperial conduct’, the marshal said and stood up from his stool.

  ‘You held this man captive on false accusations, unable to do his work. You were in his way which resulted in him finding his own. No actual harm was done to the town or any of his inhabitants. And to top that off instead bailing he offered himself to you at the gate’, the marshal said and looked at Gael

  ‘This man should be written up for a commendation!’

  ‘He- he could have died! Look at him!’, Marvinion cried.

  ‘Then next time, offer someone a light!’, the marshal sneered.

  'Alderman Marvinion scoffed but the marshal continued:

  ‘Wilter, I suggest you give this man whatever he needs’, he said and took a step towards the alderman.

  ‘And don't drag me out here again for such a triviality’.

Alderman Marvinion turned red and barged out of the inn. The marshal turned towards Gael again.

  ‘You are not dressed in university attire, you work external?

  ‘No I’m not officially part of the university. This case is for me to somewhat prove it my worth’.

The marshal chuckled.

  ‘Well I think you’d be a great addition. I wish you luck in the future’, the marshal said and turned towards the moustached guard:

  ‘Now I think it is best we should leave this man in peace, he has had a rough night. Would you be so kind to lead these people out of here.’

  ‘You heard the man, get out, come on!’ The guard said and waved his hands to herd the townspeople as if they were cattle.

  With that the peace returned in the inn. Gael fell back into his chair and looked at the flower. Its petal’s were a light blue. Gael closed his hands around it to see if it was glowing as it did the night before. It didn't and he smiled as he felt foolish. He reached to his head and felt the dried blood fall from his hair. At that moment there were knocks on the door frame. The innkeeper was standing in the doorway.

  ‘Would you like to wash up?’, she asked.

  ‘I would like that very much, thank you’, Gael answered. She nodded in a way that it could be called a small bow, and disappeared. Gael centred the flower in the middle of the page, and closed his notebook.

  Later that day Gael went back to the forest to carefully dig out the hindsblue he had marked with the stick and the large leaf. One of the townspeople gave him a large pot in which Gael prepared the suitable soil for the plant to live in. He carefully folded away the green leaves to confirm the blue petals were inside the bulb. The first few nights following the find he went inside the forest with a handful of reluctant townsmen. They searched for more of the hindsblue plants but found none which resulted in Gael going into the forest alone.   

  Each night he returned with seeing no hindsblue’s in the forest and even less and less hindswhite ’s. Much to Gael’s displeasure the townspeople started to call the plant ‘the last hindsblue’. The name seemed to stick but the flowers wouldn't bloom any more. Because the potting of the plant Gael expected this would happen but even he was a little disappointed.

  After a week one of the University clerks rode into Yeavinkhall. As soon as the University heard about the hindsblue they sent him to bring Gael and the plant in. It was a tough hard man, who smiled as little as he said, dressed in the blue and olive green that characterized the clerks. The University used the clerks as runners, to send and receive files, book’s and other information. That this work had his fair share of difficulties was cemented by this man carrying a weapon.

  Gael packed up and left Yeavinkhall behind for the journey to the University. During the journey Gael had put the hindsblue in the moonlight but without avail. It would probably take another year before the plant would show its flowers again. A web of merchants arranged for cart rides all the way back to Challiste. They are all very interested in the last hindsblue. Gael had told the story of him climbing over the wall probably more than ten times. Although he never told the part where he hit his head and saw the lights. He said he cut himself as he showed the blooded pages of his notebook. Gael thought all the attention was a bit too much, but even the University seemed to be interested a great deal because the clerk didn't move from Gael’s side and made sure he, and probably the little hindsblue even more so, arrived safely.