Impossible, his thought said, for Grisla had no leads on just who manufactured the instrument of his fall. And it was right here, in his hand? He eyed it cautiously, for the vial size he’s holding is far bigger than the one he’d seen long ago. It done well, crippling him. How many other victims could it be with this amount? An involuntary trembling came about, one in which that was embedded deep as victim to it; his core had more than half his share of terror.

This was no coincidence. Obviously. His father had some private talks with the Pillmaker, at least from what he overheard way back. The result of that brought up nothing. But no man who wasn’t an idiot knew there are very few suspects knowing of Mortal Reminder, and even less who had both the means and skill to produce it. In a sane world, Olimuth would be strung up on suspicion alone. He half-turned to the door.

…In a sane world.

Grisla couldn’t break the vial—not at all, he has to calm down!—instead, as he let the crashing waves settle inside, he fired a grin. A nasty sort that is required to any devious plot born in a flash.

Playfully rolling the vial in his hand, “Olimuth’ll have to wait. It looks like my schedule’s been accelerated for me,” Grisla said.

The moment he broke the shackle escape is a necessity, for who knows what Olimuth might do. Besides, Olimuth promised his father and his father asked for him to promise, but, as terrible as it felt he’d decided to take his own path. The time for waiting, has died; like the candle in the wake of his leaving.

He’d never expected to be in the Pillmaker’s shop and had forgotten that there’re multiple stories in his business. With that said, he was clueless as to where the old man might be, if he even was asleep. The unlit hallway had enough doors for a miniature mansion, and was as infested with the stench of herbs and mud as the room he just left; blindfold him and he would’ve assumed Olimuth tossed him on a bed in a forest.

Luckily, Steps of the Alpha descended from a creature that moved with stealth as its ally. As his aura was inconsistent at best; nonexistent at worst he had the same impression as a pebble on the road, or a book on the shelf. The movement technique was nothing more than a bonus. If there ever was an oversight, unwittingly giving a boy with a vendetta the presence of a ghost made him into an assassin candidate no one could’ve expected.

And he’ll abuse it like no other.

Starlight greeted Grisla upon his landing outside. A gibbous moon was up, and he had no time to appreciate. Onward and over the wall. Leimuth after dark was a performance of stillness, of absent excitement to the point of being unrecognizable to its dawn counterpart. Lanterns swayed at the wind’s soft command, and where trees created shadows hidden life exposed themselves with reedy calls; and shuffling of the undergrowth. An owl’s patrol soared on by, and, possibly its dinner who’s already on the run. The high walls of Grittus courtyards once was a point of pride, as he was both protected and given proof of their clan’s majesty, their reach and rule. Every turn under their vigil was a guess as to where the maze would waylay him. A prison without a cell.

Details changed in every step taken, especially when everything had to be regarded with caution. Simultaneously he could relax, Olimuth wasn’t lying when what happened at the Orlith site will be kept under tongue, for now. So long as the man didn’t see him or anyone in the know—at the Fang family that number will be low as possible—he was a free man, for all intents and purposes.

Didn’t keep his hood off his head, though. Confidence and caution weren’t separate.

He stopped, to his left, where the stars were most populous, and underneath, a gigantic structure jutted out of the hills in an arrogant manner, or like a child dragging at you for attention. That’s it, then? Where he intended to go would be straight ahead and a hard right to the Upper District, however, he needed to see it for himself.

Funny what emotion can do to one’s perception; the world will seem bigger, folding in on itself to reappear as a colossal threat to everything he cares for, and in his laser-guided attention at the time he’d missed details even though it wasn’t that far from his home—the area stolen first was once a complex for their servants and other work left untouched, now gone and replaced for a larger purpose. Those men he nearly exploded on were in the midst of laying down marble brick, each fitting like a puzzle into what they could call a road.

Grisla’s jaw cracked, while under the coliseum’s great arch. Too much on his shoulders. Gihren was missing, on a quest of his own to a place of enough secrecy he kept it from his own son, who needed help the most. The Cardinal Four’s true intentions and reason for their contract has yet to be divulged, and doubtless it never will. And Seri; in eternal servitude for them, it’ll be impossible to squeeze information out and the very attempt will have her lips seal tighter, she’s not stupid. Two years. The Chosen, even as he stands, they’re training, and no different from the workers, they’re building up to something: strength. A gap that widens day by day.

He closed his eyes. “I’ve no idea who replaced the sixth, but, excluding that it should be: Chosen Five, Rei Rangwha; Chosen Four, Hanying Yulin; Chosen Three, Nang Herma; Two and One, Fang Lai and Xinrei Grittus.”

They will all be in attendance here, two years hence. He of today was a different man than the Grisla of nearly a year ago, but it still wasn’t enough. At times, it never felt like. No matter how much conviction he held, it’s pointless if his core isn’t adequate. He turned back. All the more reason to…

…His gait bled speed, to finally come to a halt not so far from where a figure stood at the base of the stairs.

Hands behind his back, “I knew you’d be here,” Olimuth said

“You’re too simple to read.”

“It wasn’t my intention to hide,” Grisla said impatiently. “I had to make a stop, now I’ll be on my way.”

Olimuth raised a serious sneer. “You’d think I’d just let you, what, run away? Did you miss or not understand the part where you’re now not only an outcast of the clan from a former great family, but also a boy soon to be on trial and sure as the sun will rise, to be convicted? I promised your father.”

“You promised him! I’ve no fondness for a future laid out for me by my captor. That’s smalltalk, compared to what you’ve brought me.” Grisla raised the vial.

“Mortal Reminder. Why was it in the room? There’s no coincidence when it comes to you. Planning to betray him? New orders perhaps?”

The Pillmaker’s trademarked scowl brought terror to more than one apprentice at any moment, and could be the difference between a miracle pill to change your life or a mediocre work to take the edge off, whether he was doing it consciously or not Grisla couldn’t tell. “Both you and your father can be morons when your reason knows better. But as for you, I’ll take it as two-parts immaturity. Before I educate you, humor me: Should it happen that I did have a part in your crippling, what comes next?”

“You’ll… kill me?”

The grass rustled. And a Orlith abstained from answering.

After a pause, “I am not stupid,” Grisla muttered.

Olimuth snorted. “I thought so too. But we wouldn’t be here if that weren’t the case.”

“Answer my question.”

“When you answer mine. Why are you breaking out?”

“Going to the Fang’s,” Grisla said, and he saw Olimuth’s mouth open. “Fang Lai had told me he did have the cure. To my affliction, I mean.” It wasn’t a lie. But there’s no need to confess anything more.

“You believed him?” The man looked as though he held himself back from admonishing him further, maybe calling him stupid was too soft. “The boy could lie to a god and be safe.”

“I don’t have much choice, do I?”

Olimuth shrugged.

“Well, I can’t confirm whether or not it’s true. Your father asked me to do everything in my power to find a cure, and nothing’s worked out. I am only a minor Pillmaker for the Grittus, who’s only subordinate to a greater power that hosts Pillmakers with talent that eclipses mine by a landslide. Holding neither talent nor the authorship of this nasty concoction, I can say my expertise to reverse the damage is insufficient.”

“However, the Fangs are the family with the closest ear to the Patriarch. And they’re the direct contact to the Guild, not the Lord. So, I suppose it isn’t far-fetched.”

Then it hit him.

“Are you…?!” He then looked around anxiously. “No, what madness has possessed you! Even if it’s true—Even if it is, what makes you think that any man, woman or child in that family will utter a word about it to you!”

“I have a promise to Gihren. And I am still a retainer of the Lord Patriarch. Consequently, there’s no choice for you but to be stopped here. I will not allow you to cause any harm to yourself—or the Fang! This idiocy will ruin everything!”

“It already is ruined!” Grisla retorted.

He wasn’t about to let Olimuth interrogate him. At the very least, a crucial thing needed to be known to make the pieces all fit. “What a joke. You’re as suspicious as me, more so. From the very start, you still haven’t answered the question—in fact, you’ve been keeping up your mouth just to distract me from this point. There are no coincidences, honorable Pillmaker. I found it, Mortal Reminder. The vial. You’re here to see what happens from then on, is it?”

Olimuth hesitated. A man who looked as though he were struggling with something that is, and something that it shouldn’t be. His eyes shined like the moon. “I only wanted to see… if you’ll think on the consequences before leaving the shop. I left it there. Because… because I felt I had to atone, in some way.”

“Long ago, I used to work for the Guild. Contractually. A part of my business, revenue nothing more. I had no idea that the product would be used to—” The Pillmaker clasped his hands. “…My shop produces about one every year, for the ingredients too fickle and expensive to bother with anything more. The Guild—they have branches everywhere, on Hannamith and on the mainland. There isn’t any need for me to know where they’re sent to and for who, it’s just a product to be sold.”

Grisla winced at that. “I thought the Guild were assassins.”

“Assassination is but one part of their many ventures. Not everyone whom you bear a grudge needs to be killed,” Olimuth mistakenly said, and grimaced at Grisla’s turning face. “So, they have other means for capital. Before any of that grim stuff, they send out mercenaries and protection. For daughters of monarchs and the like.”

Grisla raised his chin; stashing that for later.

“Everything makes sense then. And you, have loyalty still to the Patriarch even after knowing their methods?”

Olimuth furrowed his brows. He looked like a man trying to rephrase something he saw as self-evident. “It is not the Patriarch I am sworn to. The clan. Don’t you get it? Cultivator or no, a man will always die. You, me, your father, the Patriarch we will all die. But the clan will outlive us. Before your time and Gihren’s, the clan is unrecognizable to what it is today. And that goes forward, too.”

“I don’t care,” Grisla sighed. “None of it is of any importance to me. Once, that speech could’ve worked. But the time has passed, Pillmaker. If you cannot convince me, then you’ve no choice but force. Enough talk.” He hadn’t much Juva to make use of, and what he had he cringed at the thought of using so soon; it was to be used for the plan, not squandered now!

Naturally, Olimuth’s advancement and possible battle experience made an actual serious attempt at a fight an exercise in stupidity. Making it look like one shouldn’t be hard. A speedy escape was in the cards. He had to test just how fast he could be at the crux. The Pillmaker had no idea how improved he really was, and like Fang Lai, no matter the strength being taken unawares is a thing.

Olimuth made no stance. Stirred no aura. He simply looked at Grisla like an oddity with no description.

He raised a brow, “Huh?”

“Oh no, not I. That’s exhausting. Perhaps, if I were fifteen years younger, I’d happily agree with your idea. But I do have to be awake in a few hours, so, scrapping with you just isn’t ideal.”

Grisla made a face, He can’t be serious. “Then what was all that about, earlier? With Fang Lai?”

Olimuth looked at him as though he asked why the sky’s blue. “A bluff,” he said shamelessly.

He is!

Olimuth’s hand waved, “Go. I won’t stop you.”

“What about the Fang?”

“They’ll have to suck it up. Or where else can they go for their pills?”

He had a point. But Grisla didn’t like including other people in his troubles; the burden’s meant for one alone. “My father? You said you promised.”

“I did, but I’m not your grandfather or even kin. And I did keep up half of my bargain, Gihren might understand. Besides, the promise will be as good as complete if you don’t die in the next forty-eight hours pursuing your asinine idea.”

“…Olimuth,” Grisla said softly, “you’re a very hypocritical man.”

“That I am. I also believe in giving both sides a fair chance. Take that as you will.”

Blinking, he couldn’t understand what drives such a man to play both sides and still expect to not be burned. Loyalty to the clan, as he says? Thinking on it, maybe the last point was correct. Possibly, in some, old man’s twisted wisdom, this very act was in service to the all-encompassing entity called a “Clan,” and he’s the only one who sees this. Then, following that reasoning did it answer his actions for before? The impassable wall of implications slowed thought, and he discarded the task for the now.

Walking together, Olimuth and he stopped at final point of the Coliseum grounds. Saying nothing, the two men had appreciated the view of the hill overlooking Leimuth.

“It’ll be a lonely journey, child.”

“I’m never alone,” he remembered the amulet still hung at his throat. And, as from what they told him, they’re a group he’s stuck with. With a final look over his shoulder, he said: “One last thing. What do you get for winning?”

Olimuth eyed him curiously, now. A dash of skepticism washed it away just as quick, a sort that didn’t mean to offend but, “Top three earn entry into Rosewater University; additionally, first place is granted the privilege of requesting anything of their heart’s desire to the Queen. Do you mean to…?”

“How about a bet again, old man?”

He couldn’t make any promises or bring up bold declarations; what could he say that wouldn’t sound like a junior’s brashness? It was a feeling he had. Nothing more. Can’t sell on that, but hope isn’t exactly a bad thing either.

Olimuth guffawed. “Don’t try to rob me child. I’ve already lost once. Your stuff and the agreed upon will be sitting back at the shop once you’re done.”

The man was a mystery, he didn’t understand it but, with everything he’s experienced, he supposed that anyone worth his interest did have something like that.

Hand-in-fist, Grisla bowed. “Thank you Olimuth.”

Snarling, “What did I say before about that? Do you… no, never mind. There’s no coming back from this, I hope you know,” Olimuth said.

“I don’t intend on it.”

“…Goodbye then, Orlith.”

Olimuth nodded, “Follow your Path, and none shall impede.”