Chapter 54: Circus Animal

Once Arawn's breathing calmed, signaling that he had fallen asleep, Corwal sat up. He looked at the boy who had already kicked off his covers and was now shivering from the cold. Shaking his head, Corwal went up to pull them up.

As he stepped back, he wondered about his own wording. In his mind, he always referred to Arawn as 'the boy', even if they were only a couple years apart.

'I keep treating him like one of the kids despite him not being one.'

It made sense, and yet Corwal wasn't sure if he wasn't making a mistake. Children were impressionable and easy to re-teach, but adults possessed already formed values and ideas about how the world worked. That was why he had never tried to help them.

Midnight wasn't the time to dwell on such thoughts though. Corwal glanced at the moonlight streaming in through the curtain and went to open it. The world outside was quiet and dark. Not a single soul could be seen walking the streets.

"Good," he murmured to himself and grabbed a whiff of ether.

It surged into his body, setting his veins on fire. After a momentary burn, his muscles filled with energy, and he lightly jumped onto the desk. Without making the slightest sound, he opened the window and jumped out.

The first floor wasn't high, but he still used a gust of wind to slow his fall. It was better to be safe than sorry. There was always the off chance that he would break something by being careless, and explaining why he had been jumping out the window would pose more than a few problems.

Dust rose in the air upon his landing. He dusted off his pants and straightened. There were no lights on the ground floor of the inn, but who knew if the innkeeper was a light sleeper. It was better to avoid the danger altogether.

Once he was sure that no one had noticed his actions, Corwal jogged down the street. He aimed for the outskirts, just before the wall. The inn wasn't far from it, so he hoped he could return before dawn and still catch a few hours of sleep.

Footsteps came from behind the next bend, and Corwal moved into a sidestreet. He flattened himself against the wall and stood still. The footsteps came closer, and he saw two guards pass by in their uniform. They didn't even glance at the alley.

Corwal waited a few minutes until they disappeared from the street and continued on his way. The town was a different beast during the night, but it was a sleeping one. As long as he kept to himself, no one would bother him.

Soon, he reached the street where Mutallu had said he'll wait. The youth was already there, casually leaning against the wall. His dark skin helped him merge with the shadow, making him almost invisible.

"I wondered if you would come. I saw you leave with your burden."

"I'm here because of him," Corwal said while listening to the surroundings.

Ether had improved not only his strength and agility, but also his eyesight and hearing. There were two people sleeping in a nearby building and four more on the other side. A group of mice were busily scurrying through one room, most likely the kitchen, in search of something to fill their bellies. They didn't know, however, that a cat had slunk into the house and was watching them from above.

It seemed that Mutallu was really alone. He seemed to have been telling the truth, but Corwal did not let go of his doubts. Scarlet Treason was his greatest mistake. Nothing good ever came out of it.

"What does that mean?" the youth asked, sounding defensive. "I don't see him around."

"Doesn't matter. I'm changing the conditions for our cooperation. You'll be traveling with us and will train Arawn."

The youth stared at him for a moment. "And if I refuse?"

Corwal smiled and turned to go. "It was nice meeting you, but I'm tired. Maybe next time."

When he was about to return to the main street, Mutallu gritted his teeth and his expression tightened. "Why would you ask that of me? He's a nobody."

This statement couldn't be more untrue, but that was what happened when secrets were kept. "As were you six years ago."

That gave Mutallu a pause. He looked around as if seeking some other answer, then returned his dark eyes to Corwal. His expression relaxed a little, but he still looked unhappy.

"I owe you my life, but that does not mean I'm obliged to do everything you ask."

"This is not about you and me," Corwal said while looking back. "I'm dealing with a representative of Scarlet Treason, aren't I?"

Once again, they entered into a staring match. After a while, Mutallu was the first to look away. He frowned and looked at the ground. "Why did you pick him up? I thought you only helped kids?"

The memory of a starved kid being kicked in front of him rushed to Corwal's mind. It had happened years ago, but he could still remember the stubborn and determined look on the child's face. He had grown well after being given some care.

"He saved my life. I had finally found a way to land myself into a situation from which I couldn't get out."

"Do they actually exist?" Mutallu asked with genuine surprise, looking up at him.

Corwal raised his hands in a helpless gesture. "Apparently. I was caught off guard too, you know. It was a first in a long while."

"What happened?"

"Got drugged and thrown into the Gutter."

Mutallu gasped, his hand instinctively going to rest against the nearby wall. "You-you— How are you still alive?"

"Arawn. He kept me alive and then helped me escape," Corwal explained in a few words. He didn't think that a full story was necessary, especially not for his enemies. "That reminds me, have some people investigate what happened there. It wasn't normal."

"You mean?"

"Arawn could have escaped at any time, but he didn't. He was brought up like a circus beast, held in a cage until the show. Yet around the time I landed in the Gutter, he was pushed to escape. He hadn't wanted to, but he had to."

The frown on Mutallu's face grew deeper. He almost looked like an old man with wrinkles on his forehead. "We're talking about the Gutter, right? No one escapes from it. Did you hit your head on the way here?"

"You saw us train. Did any of that look normal to you?" Corwal asked with a raised eyebrow.

He had sensed the youth sneaking around, but it hadn't mattered. As talented as Mutallu was, Corwal didn't fear him. If the youth attacked, he could defend himself even while facing Arawn's onslaught of light.

"You noticed?" The corners of the boy's lips went down. "So what? He has a little more ether than the rest of us. It would help him little in the Gutter."

"If you changed that little to a thousand times, you might still not get close. He could use ether in the Gutter."

"Impossible! It's made of onyx! Everyone knows that!"

"Which is why I brought him along. Such a monstrous power shouldn't be allowed to roam freely."

Mutallu didn't seem to believe it fully, but his expression grew thoughtful. Ether gathered in his hand, and he glanced at it, then let go. "I'll have our people take a look. Any other demands o great teacher?"

"Not at the moment," Corwal said with a laugh. "See you soon. Oh, and do try to be civil. Your coldness the day before was most loathsome."

The youth snorted and turned to leave first. When he was about to enter the main street, Corwal whispered after him. "You've grown up well."

Mutallu turned his head back, and a smile graced his lips for the first time. It made him look younger, or more like all of his sixteen years of age. "I'm glad you're still alive and kicking as well."

He disappeared into the street, and Corwal waited for a while before venturing out himself. The conversation with Mutallu left him feeling old. He was only twenty-four, yet his children had already left and grown up. It had been three years since he had last seen Mutallu, and the kid was barely recognizable.

If not for his skin color which made him stand out in Mairya, Corwal would have had trouble recognizing him. And the boy was one of the more memorable children he had taken in. Prideful and stubborn, he never listened and did whatever he wanted, which usually meant getting into trouble from which Corwal had to save him.

Ether was all around, and Corwal pulled a little bit more of it into himself. It was a bad habit, like an addiction, but he couldn't resist it. The shot of adrenaline woke him up, and he ghosted through the small town without any reason.

He knew that he would regret not sleeping the day after, but at that moment, he couldn't resist the freedom offered by the nighttime. He could let go of his smile and stop pretending that he knew all the answers.

Peter came to his mind, and he kicked a nearby wall. It cracked from the force with a loud noise. Guards two streets away heard the disturbance and rushed over.

With a curse, Corwal looked around and saw a majestic oak a bit farther away. He had ventured to the center of the town where the holy tree grew. It was sacrilegious to get close to it, but Corwal had long lost his awe of the gods. They didn't exist or didn't care about humans, so why should he bow down to them?

In a few long strides, he reached the giant oak and scaled up its trunk. With ether enhanced strength, it was a child's play. By the time the guards arrived, he was already nestled high in the branches, hidden away by the leaves.

The whistling of the wind among them was strangely comforting, and Corwal made himself more comfortable. He found a branch thick enough to sit and leaned against the trunk. It was ancient, and a sense of calm enveloped him.

He closed his eyes and rested.

His mind ran in circles, however, constantly returning to the same old problem. Peter was his personal demon, a ghost that kept on following after him. In the Kennel, any notions of family had been beaten out of hounds like him with blade, fire, and acid. Corwal still had scars which had never healed to remind him of that.

And yet, on dark days like this when he did something that should revile him, the question resurfaced in his mind. What exactly did he do to end up where he was now? It was a thousand coincidences, but when there were so many, could they still be called just bad luck?

Peter's sister had died when Corwal was still learning to walk, the king despised him for having a relation with her, he himself was too cowardly to run away when he heard the sentence, and Peter was too engaged in trying to win the king's favor to bother with it. After that, it was too late for Corwal to change his life. Once sent into the Kennel, people didn't come out until they were nothing more than lethal weapons.

"Child soldiers," he murmured to himself, remembering the many missions and how his classmates had decreased in number with each one. By the graduation, there was barely ten percent of them left, if even that.

The dark memory had him wishing for alcohol to distract himself, but there was none around. And mixing it with ether was not a good idea to begin with.

Ether's potent energy was still running through his system, and Corwal jumped out of the tree. The momentary freedom of the fall was exhilarating, but it ended way too soon. Once on the ground, he jogged to the wall and made his way over it by abusing the guards' blind spots.

His legs aimed straight for the clearing, and he pulled out his sword. The training had exhausted him, but it was long in the past. With ether, tiredness was not a thing one had to consider. He fell into a familiar fighting position and used the basic cuts he had practiced a thousand times under his tutors—slash, stab, parry, block.

His body moved on its own, instinctively raising the sword and taking a step forward, then parrying and breaking through the enemy's guard. It was a shadow, an invisible man before him, but Corwal fought like it was real, using all the tricks he had learned in his long practice of the weapon.

In time, the tension left his shoulders, and his mind regained its clarity. While blocking an attack, he thought about what he already knew. It was about time he spent some effort in figuring out what was happening instead of chasing afterimages. The princess was gone for over a month, and it should have become public knowledge, raising the nation to its feet.

It was obvious that someone wanted a war between the two lands, but it made little sense. Corwal stabbed his opponent, frowning. With the many debts and lack of natural resources, Ayersbert was not a tempting target for anyone. There was simply no reason to attack it.

He raised his sword to parry an attack and took a step toward the man with a dagger already in his left hand. The shadow fell after being stabbed only to be replaced by another, an even more talented adversary.

As he faced it, Corwal couldn't help thinking about Ayersbert's defences. Even though there was only a token force to act as an army, the country was famous for its mercenaries. They would certainly fight for their home, making any kind of attempted conquest a bloody business.

Who would profit then, if it was certain that it would not be the attacker?

With an underhanded slash, Corwal took the shadow by surprise and cut him in half. Before a new opponent came, he raised his head to look at the dark sky. The moon hid behind the clouds, not sharing its light with him.

"These bloody prints, are they yours? Please tell me you're not that cruel."

An ominous feeling settled in Corwal's heart, and he raised his sword once more. Alone in the night, he fought against shadows that could never be defeated. Only once he could no longer lift the blade did he make his way back to the inn. It was two hours before dawn.