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Chapter 68: Three Figures in the Darkness (2)
The three walked a fair distance, but in terms of flat ground, it was only about a hundred steps.
The uneven floor and thick darkness, lit only by their torches, made their strides barely a quarter of their usual length.
“Watch your step here. You might fall.”
Damion alerted them whenever the terrain changed or any danger appeared.
Unable to see the ground properly, the two others slowed their already cautious steps even more at his warnings, sometimes sliding their feet along the floor rather than lifting them.
The path grew narrower.
At times, it became so tight that their shoulders brushed against the walls on both sides.
When the passage was especially narrow, they had to turn sideways to squeeze through.
Inside the cave, the only sounds were the breaths of Jedrick and Charlon.
To block out those sounds echoing in his ears, Damion felt compelled to speak, but Charlon beat him to it.
“Do you really think Olga is behind this?”
Damion answered.
“They said they came because of the red smoke we released. That powder that produced the red smoke came from Hag Olga. She’s the one who told us to come to this temple.”
Speaking the words aloud eased some of his baseless jealousy.
“Stuga... Ram said Olga laughed.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Ram saw it. Back at the banquet hall, when I pressured her to divine the future, she hid her laughter by bowing her head where no one else could see it. I thought she was trembling out of fear, but it was the movement of someone suppressing laughter. She was laughing at us walking right into her trap. I asked her for the powder myself, walked in here of my own volition, and burned it with my own hands. We lured the enemy ourselves. How could she not laugh?”
“Why... why would Olga want to kill us? She was so kind to us…”
Charlon said in a sorrowful voice.
“It’s obvious, isn’t it? She wanted to kill me. Just like Maraka, she probably planned to eliminate the one who killed her kin and took over this village.”
Jedrick, who had seemed too exhausted to speak, suddenly said,
“Olga loved our father. And he loved her, too. Even before the war, he often stayed at Olga’s house under the pretense of divining the future. For long stretches—sometimes even the whole night. It’s not hard to imagine what they were doing. Mother knew, too. But for the honor of the house of Ehodin, she said nothing... she couldn’t say anything.”
Jedrick took a deep breath and continued.
“When Olga opposed the war, it was Mother who insisted on executing the Hag. It must have been her way of taking revenge. But Father didn’t execute her—he only imprisoned her. He had his reasons, too. Executing a Hag was unprecedented.”
In a weary voice, Charlon asked,
“But even without those reasons, your father must not have wanted to execute her, right?”
“Who can know what Father truly felt? But that’s how it must have looked to Mother.”
“Then this isn’t about a shaman avenging a defeated chief, Your Highness. It’s about a woman seeking vengeance for losing the one she loved.”
Damion found it hard to tell the difference between the two, or to judge which might spark greater revenge.
“She had plenty of reasons to kill me... but her method is strange. Why not kill us when we visited her home? That would’ve been easier and simpler.”
“You mean poison?”
“No. We didn’t eat or drink anything anyway, and Olga didn’t even try. She didn’t prepare poisoned tea only for me to refuse it—there wasn’t even a cup to begin with.”
That wasn’t particularly unusual.
No one would expect a conqueror entering enemy territory to trustingly accept food or drink.
Olga, being cautious, must have anticipated that they would be careful as well.
Poisoning was likely not part of her plan.
What about a sudden attack with a knife?
Even if there were guards outside, if she was ready to die with her target, it wasn’t an impossible task.
No.
Even if she had prepared for it, she couldn’t have gone through with it.
At the time, Damion had been wearing armor, with Ram guarding him.
Olga was a frail woman, lacking the strength to pull off such an act.
“What about… magic?”
Despite knowing he was veering into superstition, Damion couldn’t stop himself.
“Couldn’t she have used some kind of spell to kill us?”
“If you’re talking about killing spells, I don’t know of any.”
Jedrick’s voice felt distant.
When Damion turned back, he saw the other two had fallen out of the torchlight’s reach.
Caught up in the conversation, he had walked ahead without realizing it.
Damion stopped and waited for them to catch up.
They were still walking close together, pressed against one another by the narrow path.
Jedrick’s hand rested on Charlon’s side, and Charlon clung to Jedrick’s shoulder—both necessary adjustments for the cramped space.
“Maraka always boasted that he could kill anyone if he wanted to, but Olga never spoke of killing.”
“There was a song, wasn’t there? ‘Kill the Hak, spare the Hag.’ Is it possible Olga didn’t use a killing spell because she didn’t know how?”
Damion asked.
“She might have known but chosen not to use it.”
Jedrick reached Damion’s side and exhaled deeply before continuing his explanation.
Damion felt guilty for making him talk so much, but he didn’t interrupt.
“When we discussed how Hak Maraka’s spells failed, Olga said she didn’t underestimate his skills, even though she disliked him. If Hak’s spells failed, she must have thought hers wouldn’t work either. That might be why she came up with this plan instead.”
Damion visualized the situation but shook his head.
“She prepared all this in such a short time? Calculating where we’d go, predicting how we’d act? We didn’t even plan to come here. The archbishop’s whim brought us. There’s no way she predicted that!”
“Well, Olga can see the future…”
Jedrick’s voice lacked conviction.
Damion started walking again.
“General Terdin would’ve said this: ‘Always check your plans twice, three times, and have backup plans ready for failure. Prepare that thoroughly, and you’ll finally be one step ahead. Your opponent will think you’re a seer. From then on, the next steps will be easy because they’ll overreach, convinced you can predict the future.’”
“My father said the same thing.”
“Mantum and Terdin must have respected each other as strategists. That’s why their direct clashes were so frequent.”
Damion glanced back.
This time, the two were right behind him.
“I admit we fell for her schemes. But there’s no way she planned this alone. Some things were planned, some weren’t. One thing’s clear: She couldn’t have communicated with an outside tribe while imprisoned. There must be someone helping her from the inside.”
Damion asked decisively,
“Any ideas?”
“Sorry. No one comes to mind right now.”
Jedrick’s voice was weary.
“Fine. We’ll talk about it later.”
Damion stopped asking questions and focused on walking.
Silence returned, accompanied by the sound of heavy breathing.
The quiet made Damion think more deeply.
‘But the method still feels wrong. Why go to such lengths to kill me? There had to have been an easier way.’
Despite his pondering, his thoughts grew muddled.
Even if he found out, what good would it do?
Finding a way to deal with their immediate peril was more pressing.
All his years of study—strategy, warfare, governance—felt useless.
“At least the path isn’t narrowing anymore. It doesn’t feel like a dead end,”
Damion said, spreading his arms.
The walls were just beyond the reach of his fingertips—a significant change after the suffocating narrowness earlier.
“Then it must have been used by others before,”
Jedrick replied.
“Used, you say?”
“Do you remember what I mentioned earlier? About how our ancestors claimed this land? There were people already living here then. In their final moments, they hid in caves like this one to resist the Geronians. When the Geronians finally broke through the cave walls and entered, no one was left. According to legend, the sacred snake they worshipped swallowed them and helped them escape.”
“Leaving out the part about the sacred serpent, you're saying they escaped the Geronians’ siege through this very passage?”
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The sound of flowing water echoed faintly.
“Hold on a moment. It’s a slight slope ahead and could be dangerous. Let me check it out first.”
“Be careful, Your Highness.”
Damion gestured silently and moved forward.
The path wasn’t particularly slippery, and the slope wasn’t too steep.
Soon, he came to a fork in the path.
One side sloped slightly upward, while the other sloped downward.
Water from the upper path trickled down to the lower path, forming a tiny stream no wider than half a hand span.
Damion shone his torch down both paths, but neither end was visible. T
here was no sign or marker to guide him—not that he had expected one.
He returned to his companions, who were leaning on each other for support.
Despite the coolness of the cave, both were drenched in sweat.
“There’s water up ahead. Let’s rest for a bit.”
The three of them walked a few more steps and stopped by the stream at the fork.
Jedrick came to a halt.
“Which way should we go?”
“That can wait. Sit down first,”
Damion replied.
Jedrick carefully lowered Charlon by the stream.
“It’d be nice if we could drink this water, but we don’t have any cups.”
At Damion’s remark, Charlon cupped her hands, scooped up the stream water, and drank.
“It seems clean. You both can drink too.”
After sipping the water a couple of times, she smiled at Damion.
He responded with an awkward grin and drank some himself.
“I’m just holding you both back…”
Charlon began to say, but Jedrick cut her off, as though he had expected her to speak that way.
“Don’t think like that, Charlon. We’ll get out of here, and we’ll take our revenge. Damion will lead the army and crush the Tagda. Right, Prince?”
“Of course.”
Damion wanted to sound confident but couldn’t muster the strength.
“But if I can’t… will you do it for me? With the authority of Elhorn, unite the three tribes—”
“Don’t leave words like that behind, Damion. We never make wills while we’re alive,”
Jedrick interrupted.
He remained standing, too exhausted to sit down.
“Why not?”
“It’s bad luck.”
“Then how do you leave a will?”
“We don’t.”
“What about family inheritances?”
Jedrick let out a derisive snort.
“They sort it out.”
“Sort it out? Does that even work?”
“No.”
“Then?”
“They fight.”
“In your case?”
“I gave in, so it ended easily.”
“And if not?”
“When someone like Adian Mantum dies, with all his power and wealth, the fights can get huge. Wars, even…”
Jedrick exhaled deeply, as if recalling distant memories.
“In my time, I’ve seen it happen three times. Once, it was so large that many people died. If a volcano erupted at the same time, it’d be fortunate.”
“Why would that be fortunate?”
“If the conflict could be settled with a duel under the pretext of divine wrath, at least innocent people wouldn’t get dragged into it.”
Damion was struck by the pragmatic tone in Jedrick’s voice.
Normally, he would’ve kept his questions to himself, but now they spilled out unbidden.
“You talk about Adian Mantum like you’re not close. When you heard earlier that Ram killed your father, weren’t you angry? Didn’t you want revenge?”
Even the stoic Olga had sought revenge for her loved ones.
So had Maraka.
But Jedrick showed no such emotion, nor did he seem to hide any.
“I didn’t feel the need.”
“It seemed like you already knew.”
“When I was first taken hostage by Terdin as part of a negotiation, it took me less than two days to figure it out. Ram wasn’t exactly skilled at hiding secrets.”
“Even then, and even now, you weren’t angry at Ram?”
“No. I even hoped my father would die.”
The sudden confession left Damion momentarily stunned.
He tilted his head, wondering if he’d misheard.
“What?”
Jedrick sat down beside Charlon, cupped his hands, and drank from the stream.
“I lied.”
Water dripped from Jedrick’s chin and jaw.
Staring at the gleaming stream under the torchlight, he continued:
“I never shared a secret so deep it could bind souls together. Neither did you. None of us did. The only one who made such a confession was Ram.”
Damion couldn’t argue.
It was true.
Charlon didn’t deny it either, and Damion knew she wouldn’t.
How could one expose the secrets buried deepest within?
When Damion had set the cathedral ablaze, he hadn’t confessed his sins then and had no intention of doing so in the future.
But he harbored a secret far greater than that.
“You’re right, Jedrick. If that ritual was truly meant to bind our souls, we’ve failed. And it’s my fault. I kept the biggest secret.”
As Damion spoke with self-reproach, Jedrick shook his head.
“The biggest secret… is mine.”
Jedrick pulled out a small cloth from his pocket.
Unfolding it revealed a tiny vial, half-filled with liquid, glinting in the torchlight.
“I have to betray you both.”
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