Refugees

The next morning gave Arawn a sense of deja vu. Right after he woke up and finished breakfast, the majordomo came to the door and asked if he was willing to finish his work. The lord promised that there wouldn't be anymore accidents.

Sylvester looked up from his cup of tea and motioned for Arawn to get going. "You can trust the old buffoon and his majordomo. They won't let anything happen to you if they can help it. Don't show your powers to anyone else though."

"Now that's a late warning, isn't it?" Arawn muttered under his breath, but he stood up and went to the door. Mutallu joined him, and they swiftly left the castle.

The journey wasn't long, and they soon reached the small wooden shrine that hid the huge underground complex. The lord was waiting for them there, but his complexion didn't look good. There were dark bags under his eyes, and his gaze was listless.

"Something happened?" Arawn wondered aloud before they reached the lord.

"After the feast, he finally found his people. The five were stuck into barrels, dead. And no one had noticed that until the whole castle was turned upside down," Mutallu told him from behind him.

Arawn whirled on him. "How do you know that?"

"Guess?" When Arawn didn't say anything, just stared at him with an unblinking gaze, Mutallu finally relented. "I went out at night. Not all of us are so blindly trusting as you," he mocked. "Just because your doctor says we can trust him doesn't mean we really can. What if they're working together?"

"Sylvester would never…"

But as Arawn started saying that, he fell silent. He had thought he knew Corwal after they spent more than a month traveling together, going through thick and thin, and what had that accounted to? He found out that he hadn't known anything about the man.

And what did he really know about Sylvester? That he was Corwal's friend? That should have made him more wary than trusting, if anything.

Yet Sylvester had healed Mutallu and him without any questions asked. He hadn't asked for any price or repayment and had wanted to leave it at that. It was only they who had chosen to tag along with him despite him having no interest in such a thing.

Could it make him turn on them? It wasn't impossible, but based on Corwal's style, and Sylvester had went through similar training, if they wanted to trick someone, that person would never see it coming. Neither of the two men would go around showing their dislike and anger for their target.

"Welcome, again," the lord said once they got close. He yawned and led them down the ladder.

All the blood and corpses had been removed from the tunnel, leaving it as clean as when they had entered the first time. It felt almost surreal. But it was a burial ground, so it was understandable why the lord took great care to ensure it was spotless.

The stones were still in place, but there were no more people around them, so Arawn quickly got to work. Ether blades flew from his hands like a murder of startled crows and sliced through the mountain before him.

It was around five meters in length and two in width, so he needed to exhaust some energy, but there was plenty of ether to go around. A dust cloud rose before him, occasionally lit up by flashes of light.

In over half an hour, the cave-in was reduced to half its height. The stones had been cut and cut again, until they fell into a manageable pile. There was still plenty of rubble, but it could be removed without any extra tools besides a pair of hands and a basket.

"Marvelous!" the lord praised in admiration. He picked up one small stone and checked the clean cut at its top. "Such a useful power. Where did you learn it? How can you call onto so much ether?"

"Born," Arawn answered simply. It was the truth anyway.

The lord nodded and let the stone drop to the ground. "I guess talent attracts talent. Let's go now. What do you want in return for your assistance? Within reasonable bounds, of course."

As they walked out, Arawn considered Sylvester's earlier suggestion. Should he really ask to be taught how to use a sword? It would certainly be useful, but could he still learn it? He had heard that people had to train from when they were six if they wanted to be great at it, and he was long past that age.

"Would it be possible for me to learn how the sword?"

"The sword?" The lord turned to him in surprise when they left the shrine. "What would you need that for? You probably have more ether than all my combat mages combined."

Arawn nodded, then frowned and shook his head. "What if I suddenly can no longer call upon it? I want to be able to defend myself."

"People don't just suddenly lose their powers... " the lord muttered, but Arawn knew better than that. The time Archmage had pulled all the ether to himself, leaving none for Arawn, was still vivid in his mind. "But if you wish to learn, I can help you with that. Come with me to the barracks."

On their way through the city, however, they were intercepted by a messenger on a wild-looking mare. It reared when the messenger came close, almost throwing him off.

The man cursed before getting his horse under control and jumping off. He threw its reins to a nearby man, who caught it out of instinct, and rushed to the lord. Once he got closer, Arawn recognized him as the young man from the gates.

"Lord Bernard! Trouble! Killed, burned! It's chaos in the castle!"

"Lorrick!" the lord hollered, startling the young man. "Slow down and tell me what happened. Who was killed? What's burning?"

The bright-eyed youth took a deep breath and visibly forced himself to calm down. "A village on the south border was attacked. Bandits and refugees. They ordered the villagers to share their food, and when they refused, they were attacked, women and children alike. Some escaped and came here.

"They're now in the castle, resting. Doctor Otshoa has went to tend to them while I rushed off to find you. The soldiers are already readying themselves for a punitive force to take down those 'Bretian dogs' as they put it."

Without a word, the lord went forward and confiscated his son's mare. He jumped on it and rode off, leaving the young man, Arawn, and Mutallu to run after him.

When they reached the castle, it was alive with motion. A good fifty people in villager clothes were sitting and lying in the courtyard with all sorts of injuries. Servants rushed around them, bringing water, bandages, and food.

Soldiers were collecting their weapons on the other side. Most were already armed and just watched the crowd of villagers with burning gazes. They spoke of murder and bloodshed for those who had hurt their fellow people.

One man was holding onto a girl and weeping loudly. From time to time, he would whisper names that Arawn didn't know and burst into another bout of tears. The girl in his arms just stared ahead, eyes empty despite her still breathing.

The lord's entrance caught almost no attention. Only when he dismounted and came to ask the villagers for details did they remember to bow to him and plead for revenge.

Arawn watched it from the sidelines, not certain how to feel about it. He was furious at the people who could do something like this, but the constant muttering against 'those thrice cursed Bretian dogs' made him feel guilty despite him having nothing to do with them.

"How long are you going to stand there?" Sylvester called out. "Didn't you say you want to learn about healing?"

As if broken out from a dream, Arawn blinked a couple times and saw Sylvester crouching by a man sitting on the ground. There was a wide gash on his arm, which Sylvester was cleaning with a damp cloth. The man was hissing in pain, but did push him away.

"Come, hold his hand steady. And watch what I'm doing."

With those words, Sylvester called to the ether. Like last time, he didn't go for all the ether around them like what Arawn did when attacking. Instead, he focused on the ether in the man's arm. Once he collected all of it, he sent it back in a torrent of white light only visible to their eyes.

But the ether, which normally stayed stuck to things, didn't stop upon touching the skin. It seeped into the muscles, the blood, and the bone, filling them with the energy that it was. Moments later, the scratch on the bone disappeared, the artery connected to itself, and flesh grew at a speed visible to the naked eye. In no time, skin covered everything, and the villager gazed starry-eyed at his arm that was as good as new.

He instantly prostrated on the ground, banging his head on the ground in front of Sylvester while thanking him profusely. The doctor spared him only a short glance.

"Instead of thanking me, better go help the others."

As if his words were law, the man rushed to his feet, bowed again, and ran over to help two people moving an old man who could no longer walk onto a stretcher. There was another doctor by their side, giving instructions to ensure that they didn't jostle the injured too much.

"How many doctors does a noble need?" Arawn asked in a whisper as he followed Sylvester to another victim.

It was a woman holding a baby while a small boy tugged at her clothes. He was trying to get into his mother's embrace, but she was too shocked to care for anything but the baby in her arms.

"The more the merrier," Sylvester said with a dark chuckle and crouched down by the mother. "Let me see him."

His voice was unbelievably gentle, and the woman actually lifted her head to look at him with wariness and fear in her gaze.

"I'm a doctor. I can help. Please, let me look at him."

The woman shook all over, but his confident demeanor and gentle words wormed their way into her heart. With trembling hands, she pulled the baby away from her bosom and showed it to Sylvester.

He sighed and closed its empty eyes. Then, before the woman could react, he pulled the baby out of her hands and pushed the small boy into her hold. "Take care of the child that is still alive. There's no reviving the dead."

Like a lightning had struck her, the woman rushed at Sylvester, but he held her back with a single arm. The little boy started wailing then, and the mother blinked, her gaze finally landing on him.

"Shtar, Shtar!" she cried and hugged him like she wanted to mold him into herself.

Sylvester stood up and brought the dead baby away to the cart where the dead lay. Not everyone who had escaped the village had survived. Some of the wounded had died on the way, and there were seven bodies already in the cart.

Upon seeing them, more than the wounded, Arawn understood the fires burning in the soldiers' gazes. Just like them, he wanted to rush out and end this atrocity. Why had the innocent villagers been killed? What did they do so wrong to deserve such horrible deaths as being cut down and then have to bleed out?

"You can't go," Sylvester said as if reading his thoughts. He placed the baby on the cart, and a mortician came to wrap him up. "You need to keep a low profile."

"Is that why the moment we entered you asked me to show what I can do to the lord?"

"If you hid everything, why would he trust us? One secret in exchange for his protection is a good trade."

"My secret, not yours," Arawn murmured, but didn't continue the conversation.

He followed Sylvester to the rest of the injured while pondering on that low profile stuff. Sylvester called it necessary, but he wasn't so sure. Wouldn't the king get more desperate and annoyed if Arawn made it obvious that he was having a good time away and not hiding like a frightened rat?

He would face more threats to his life, sure, but it wasn't like anyone could kill him. All the assassins could achieve was make him turn into the ether beast. That would be horrific, but in that underground passage, who would he have killed even if he turned?

From last time, he knew that as long as there were no more threats to his life, the ether beast would not go out of control. Otherwise, Rain, Val, and even Corwal would have long died in the mansion where they had looked for the princess.

That meant that as long as he got rid of his enemies before fully changing, everyone would be fine. It wasn't a foolproof plan, but it wasn't too horrible either. With Mutallu and his throwing knives around, it was unlikely for any would-be assassin to stay alive long.

'It's all good unless I turn into a beast. What then though?'

The thought chilled him, and he ran to catch up to Sylvester. There were plenty of wounded around, and he was better off helping them before he tried to think of ways to annoy a person who stood on top of half the world.