A New Mission (4)

Everyone was crowded into Marc's room, and Eloise and set up a sound-proof barrier to make sure Theo couldn't hear their discussion.

"As I'm sure James and Eloise have already told you, the procedure to break the oath went perfectly." Marc gave everyone a thumbs up. "Which means we have a lot to discuss."

"Can we start with why you're letting that criminal sleep on your couch?" Marie asked.

"Theo is under an oath of his own." Marc started. "I don't know why or how he ended up with the oath in the first place, but he's forced to obey Dullahan's every command."

"Why did he put you under an oath?" Giselle asked. Scourge was currently in her lap soaking up all the attention.

"Seems like a hostile move." Henley added.

"Exactly." Marie shot a glare at Marc.

"Are you going to let me talk?" Marc rolled his eyes. "He was using it as a loop hole to feed me information about Dullahan without violating his own oath."

Owen nodded. "So, if we break the oath that Theo's under, he wouldn't help Dullahan anymore."

Marc nodded.

"Great, so what are we waiting for?"

"Well, I need a couple drops of blood from the person who cast the spell. Theo of Dullahan was happy to give us his blood, but I doubt Dullahan himself would be so agreeable." Eloise said.

She scrunched her nose up. "It's a fatal flaw of the procedure as I have it, but I'm sure with a few more years of experimenta-."

[Are we going to talk about his blood?] The divine dagger asked.

"We all know his blood is weird." Eloise said. "Moving on."

"How can we get Dullahan's blood?" Giselle murmured.

"I can attack him if it's for Mortal Theo!" Scourge puffed up his chest.

Scourge was unanimously ignored.

"I have plenty of information about his organization." Owen said. "If we organized a small strike force."

"That is way too risky to save a criminal like him." Marie spat. "Even if he's under an oath, he's the one who decided to join hands with Dullahan in the first place."

"Besides, I'm sure he's moved base since he knows there was a traitor." Giselle added.

"I actually have the location of the new-" Marc tried to speak up, but the siblings kept arguing over him.

"There's got to be a reason-"

"He murdered his own family." Marie stood up. "That's what you're defending."

"I'm sure-"

"I'm with Marie on this." Henley said.

Owen stood up and linked his arm with Marie's. "Hey, I'm being crazy here, but what if we asked what happened with that situation."

"The parent murdering situation?"

Marie rolled her eyes. Owen sighed.

Marc chewed the inside of his cheek. "The oath Theo is under would probably make him jump through hoops to properly explain why he joined Dullahan."

[I still want to talk about the blood thing.]

The divine dagger tried to speak up. He was ignored almost as soundly as Scourge had been.

"Why don't we ask Carrot?" Giselle suggested. "He's not under an oath."

"Fine." Marie stalked out of the room. "Let's ask the unicorn."

The group swarmed down the stairs and into the backyard. Theo raised one eyebrow at them as they paraded past the living room.

It was a small yard, and it barely fit both the unicorn and all the people. Everyone had to stand shoulder-to-shoulder.

"What's with the parade of humans?" Carrot whickered when they walked up.

"I got my oath broken." Marc quickly filled Carrot in on the situation. "So everyone wants to know if there's any justification for the Greenbridge Village Massacre."

Carrot turned his head. "You know, I lost my family during that, too."

Everyone paused. Nobody had considered that Carrot had endured losses of his own during the massacre.

"My family and Theo's worked together."

Giselle patted Carrot's neck. "I'm sorry. I know it's a lot to ask this of you." She whispered. "But I think, what you have to say could help everyone understand Theo better."

Silence seemed to hang thick between everyone until Carrot spoke again.

"What happened wasn't Theo's fault. There were mercenaries that came that day. Everyone was out in the fields, working with horses. They tried to take some horses, and, worse, Theo's sister."

Giselle continued stroking Carrot's neck, attempting to sooth him.

"His parents begged them to leave Theo's sister, but when the mercenaries refused, they tried to fight them. They were slaughtered instantly.

My parents were rushing over to help, but they were too far away. Theo was only 13 at the time, but he tried to stop the mercenaries. Me, I was just frozen in fear. They stabbed Theo. He was too weak and young to actually do anything.

That was when Theo's mana manifested for the first time.

Two monsters were summoned with Theo's blood. They shredded through the mercenaries. The mercenaries threatened to kill Theo's sister if he didn't stop them, but one of the monsters killed her before they could.

That was when Theo's mana completely spiraled out of control. So many monsters were summoned, and then Theo collapsed to the ground. He was begging for it to stop, but he couldn't stop it. I didn't know what to do, so I grabbed him and ran. I guess it was luck that I survived. No one else did.

That was when Dullahan found us. He stopped the bleeding. He – he seemed like a savior. He told Theo that he could make it so that Theo never caused an accidental death again, but that Theo would need to enter an oath.

So Theo did it.

It turned out to be the worst decision of his life."

"But he was young and had just lost his whole family and caused a calamity." Giselle patted Carrot's neck. "You did well to take care of him. You had just lost your family, too."

Marie squatted on the ground. "Then what about the day I saved him. Was that an accident, too?"

"Theo has no control over whether or not his blood summons monsters." Carrot said. "Dullahan sometimes made use of that by bleeding him out in cities as a punishment for disobedience."

"Then, I just sent him back to Dullahan without a fight. I thought I saved him, but I was delivering him straight to hell. Why did I just blindly believe what Dullahan told me? I didn't even question it."

Owen wrapped an arm around his sister.

"I'm glad you didn't question him. You would be dead if you had tried to stand up against Dullahan back then."

Marie wiped a tear from her face and stood up.

"So what are we going to do about it now?" Marie said.

"We're going to break his oath." Marc said. "We have one week and five days to do it."

"That's…an oddly specific timeline." Marie turned toward Marc.

"So, about that-" Marc began to fill the group in on Theo's latest orders. Orders that happened to tell Theo to report to the location of Dullahan's new base.