Ferdinand imagined that he would find a good part of Orleand's riches somewhere inside his home, but aside from a lot of really old wine, he didn't find anything worthwhile. Although he was a fool in Ferdinand's eyes, he was smart enough to invest all his money in his business. That way, he had prepared himself for incidents like that. It almost looked like he was buying time…

"Stupid old man…" Ferdinand said. "It doesn't matter, he is and all the others are out of the picture so I can take over all of their business and no one had the power to try and stop me."

  The sun was rising when Ferdinand was taking a nap on the char in Orleand's office when Crow suddenly opened the door. He hadn't slept all that much during the night since he was waiting for some good news coming from the assassins, so he felt pretty annoyed when Crow appeared.

"What?" Ferdinand asked without trying to hide his displeasure.

"The second group didn't return, I assume that they failed as well," Crow said as if that wasn't something to worry about.

"You sent almost two times more assassins and you still failed at killing twenty or so guards?" Ferdinand asked.

"Yes, but I didn't send them with the order to defeat the guards, I sent them with the order to kill the heir of the Sielders family," Crow said. "Since neither of the assassins returned, I assume that they failed at that."

"Crow! Tell me how much I am paying you?" Ferdinand asked after he punched the table in front of him and made it crack.

"Not enough to cover the lives of one hundred and fifty men," Crow replied with his ever calm tone. "My men killed all the guards of all the great families here, with the exception of the Ojala family. I believe we know why that happened… your Intel was incomplete. Not to mention, you were the one who devised the whole plan. Unless you and the others are thinking of cutting me loose, I will continue to follow your orders, but not before you pay me for the losses of the man that I trained for many years."

  Ferdinand almost shouted that he didn't train them well enough, but he controlled his anger since that wouldn't change anything. He couldn't let such unreasonable actions ruin his plans right now. Ferdinand thought Crow's assassins would be enough to deal with the people that escaped, but apparently, the soldiers of the Sairus kingdom were used to fighting these kinds of enemies.

"Very well…" Ferdinand closed his eyes and then took a deep breath. "Let's hear what you have in mind. What do you think we should do to deal with them?"

"Use my men to silence the allies of the great families in the other islands," Crow replied. "Meanwhile, call all the soldiers that you can control to this island. We can't underestimate this for any longer."

"Do you want to raise an army to take down twenty soldiers and a bunch of civilians?" Ferdinand asked.

"I am telling you to solve this problem swiftly as possible, before it can escalate even further," Crow said. "As long as those people are alive, your plans might be destroyed at any given point."

  Ferdinand didn't want to admit that, but it was the unavoidable truth. He couldn't let such loose ends exist for long. As long as he works smoothly, few people will mind if he becomes the new leader of the whole Vezar. After all, it doesn't matter in the vision of the common people who are the richest; they just want to live their own lives without trouble.

"I will send some ravens today," Ferdinand said. "What about you, can you bring an army of soldiers to exterminate these little rats?"

"The people who are really trusted are too far away from here," Crow said. "Aside from my assassins, I can't offer much else right now."

  Ferdinand didn't even know where Crow was, but it didn't matter. If he didn't want to bring his allies, it was because he couldn't. After all, he loved money as much as any other mercenary. During the next three days, Ferdinand worked to bring out as many soldiers as possible to the main island; he also hired some mages without telling them what they would need to do. Considering that one of the enemies used weird magic, at least that much was necessary.

  When Zaos opened his eyes again, he felt like he wasn't in his body anymore. Pretty much every single part of his body hurt like hell and seemed as heavy as his sword.

"Phew… you finally woke up," Ameria said.

  Zaos's vision cleared up, and then he noticed that he was inside one of the mines. The ceiling above him was that rough. Despite the fact that his body hurt like hell by making any effort, Zaos still got up. Then he saw most of the people that had escaped with him sleeping inside the cave. However, Erean and the other soldiers weren't nearby. Only Ameria, Drannor, and the Ojala family were. And with the exception of Ameria, all of them were sleeping.

"What happened after the battle?" Zaos asked. "I remember that I got hit many times by many bolts, but…"

"You lost a lot of blood, even though you protected your vitals," Ameria said. "That was why you slept for three days a three nights. Drannor and eye tried to heal you as much as possible, but in the end… we didn't have enough mana to completely heal the wounds."

"Three days, huh…. Oh, shit," Zaos face palmed after sighing. "Well, I guess I owe you guys one."

"I am sorry, Zaos…" Ameria said. "Because of me…"

"Oh, please, just shut up," Zaos said. "I decided to come on my own volition, don't get all sentimental on me."

"At least let me finish my sentence…" Ameria said.

"No, thank you," Zaos said. "I already have too much drama in my life and I don't need anymore. Instead of that, just tell me what happened while I was out cold;"