"The messenger ship must have departed by now. You missed your chance, Kon."
The young man was furious in the corner of the cell. He stared at the bars and the guard behind them with flames in his eyes. The fingers of his right hand were broken, but that pain did not bother him — not nearly as much as the humiliation he felt.
The guard wore heavy armor, and his helmet made his voice ring with a metallic echo. He leaned comfortably against the wall as he mocked Kon's situation.
"When have you ever seen a serpent invade a hawk's nest? What did you think would happen to a bastard who challenges the nobility? If you dream of freedom and independence, make sure no one can knock you down. Harald can."
"Shut up! He, you, and his grandsons and sons are all cowards!" Kon roared.
"Maybe we are. But you're the one on death row."
There was a brief silence, filled only by the whisper of the wind slipping through the small window of Kon's cell — a special cell, isolated from the rest.
"Do you know what death is, Kon?"
Kon did not answer. He didn't want to.
"It's one side of balance. Harald believes things would be perfectly balanced if you died. For him, they would — from a family point of view. But from a political standpoint, it would be nothing but chaos. He would have to deal with Regius and an enraged population, those who fight for life, which is the other side of the balance."
"What the hell are you talking about right now?" Kon asked.
"You'll understand in a moment."
There was a bang at the corridor door, which burst open so violently it shattered and fell to pieces on the floor. Harald came storming in, unhinged, his steps hurried and firm. The guard straightened up and opened the cell before the head of the family even asked. Kon sprang to his feet and ran toward the door, only to be shoved back inside.
Harald hurled him against the wall as easily as a rag doll.
Kon got up again, but the old man knocked him to the ground with a punch. Similar scenes repeated for ten minutes. In the end, the young man's teeth were broken and blood flowed like a river.
"I can't kill you because I have a very emotional friend who loves you. I promised him I'd hand you over alive — I always keep my promises. But I didn't promise not to beat you a little," Harald said, his voice calm, though rage burned in his chest.
Kon was utterly shocked. He was completely powerless, with no room or strength to counterattack. Something was draining his strength, his power. Of course, Harald did not explain how he was doing it.
The floor of the cell was trampled and smeared with blood. Kon's breathing was now accompanied by the sound of his own blood slowly choking him in his throat. Harald finally stopped beating him and pulled a small cork-sealed vial from an inner pocket of his clothes. He opened it, and a medicinal smell immediately spread.
He rolled Kon's body over with his foot.
"Open your mouth," he ordered.
Kon did not respond, and Harald couldn't tell whether he was having trouble understanding or simply being stubborn. To be safe, he lightly kicked the young man's head.
"Open your mouth."
Kon did not respond again. Instead, he opened his eyes in fury, revealing his intent and stubbornness. He would rather die than give in.
"Very well."
Harald crouched to pry Kon's mouth open. Just as he was about to pour the liquid into the fallen youth's mouth, a thunderous boom came from outside. An explosion.
It immediately caught Harald's attention. He recognized the sound as coming from the direction of his mansion a few kilometers away. He didn't hesitate and ran off. A thousand thoughts raced through his mind about how Regius might have been infected by Kon's revolutionary desires and was now tipping the balance of power in the city.
"Lock the cell again! Don't let anyone in or out of here!" were Harald's last orders to the guard before leaving.
"That thing in his hand would have made you lose contact with your great spirit, if you even have one. You did well to resist — you have my respect," the guard said once Harald was gone, without locking the cell.
"G-go to hell…" Kon replied. For the first time in his life, his face was nearly unrecognizable.
"This isn't the time. Come on, get up and get out of here. There's a horse outside — ride far from the city," the guard said as he entered the cell and helped Kon to his feet. The young man still tried to resist, but without success.
When they left the prison, the sunlight shone brightly. The guard whistled, and an apparently ordinary horse appeared a few seconds later. He then released Kon so he could mount on his own.
"Go. You don't need to thank me now."
"To hell with your kindness!!!" Kon roared, pulling himself together as best he could. "This won't end here! I'll kill every last one who carries Rei blood or serves them!"
"I hope so. But for now…"
The guard threw a single punch into Kon's stomach, sending him flying ten meters back, blood spilling from his mouth.
"You're simply too weak. Go."
The guard returned inside the prison, but Kon still took a few minutes before mounting the horse and riding away, his chest boiling with seething revolt.
Harald spent the rest of the afternoon at House Rei's mansion, putting out a fire that had taken over the garden and reduced all his most beautiful flowers to ash. When he asked, no one could say what had happened; they all gave the same answer.
"It started suddenly! We didn't see anyone come or go, or any attack approaching…"
That infuriated Harald. He hated answers that bred uncertainty. Someone had deliberately attacked his residence with flames, but now he wasn't sure whom to blame. Politically, it was dangerous to point the finger at Regius, his prime suspect.
"Then clean this shit up! I have unfinished business — when I return, I'll decide what to do about the garden and these mysteriously sourced flames!"
With that, he stormed out of the mansion. Night had already fallen. When he returned to the prison, he found the guard outside, arms crossed, leaning against the wall beside the entrance.
"How lovely. Getting some fresh air? Who gave you permission for that?" Harald asked as he stepped out of his carriage. He approached the guard calmly.
"I was making plans for the future. I'm tired of this place. I finally met someone interesting, someone who will soon give meaning to my existence," the guard replied, speaking as casually as if he were talking to a relative.
"Have you lost your mind? I'll overlook your foolishness for now. Get inside and open that bastard's cell for me," Harald said as he started to enter, when the guard interrupted him with a single sentence.
"He's not in there. He's gone."
"What do you mean, 'gone'? He escaped? How did you allow that?!"
"I didn't say he escaped. I released him."
Harald stared at the guard, stunned, incredulous, utterly speechless, his mouth hanging open. He opened the door and looked down the corridor of cells and saw that Kon's cell was indeed empty.
There were no more words. Harald clenched his fists, and a powerful gale rose, tearing apart even part of the structure of House Rei's private prison. The guard was bigger than he was, but a patriarch would bring down even the greatest warrior — if that warrior were not properly bound to a great spirit.
Harald raised his fists to strike, but the guard caught his hand calmly and firmly. The gale ceased, and the old man could not free his own hand. The guard's metallic voice remained serious and soft.
"For this to be worth it, you must at the very least sacrifice your life. Otherwise…"
The guard tightened his grip and crushed Harald's wrist as easily as dry straw. The old man screamed, shocked and in terrible pain. He fell to his knees, and then the guard released him.
But the Patriarch of House Rei would not give up so easily. He rose and moved as fast as the wind, forming a blade of air with his left arm and unleashing countless slashes. The guard dodged them all in such a way that Harald began to doubt the man even obeyed the laws of physics.
In the end, not a scratch. The guard was unarmed, which made Harald feel even more useless. He roared and attacked like lightning, and still could not even claim to be causing the man in armor any trouble.
"AAAAAATTTHHHAAANNN!!! I'LL KILL YOU!!!!!"
Athan. That was the guard's name, and he was irritated by the old man's futile shouting.
Harald's left hand came down, and Athan caught the very wind blade with his right. Not a single scratch appeared. And yet—
"I love chaos, Harald Rei. That's why I won't kill you now. No. You are Kon's prey — and he is mine!"
A shadow accompanied by a dark crimson glow burst from Athan's right hand, the one holding Harald's blade. Never before had the old man felt terror like what gripped him in that moment. He tried to pull free, to dispel the wind blade, but failed. The great elemental spirit of wind was not answering his prayers… and in the next instant, a powerful black-and-crimson explosion hurled Harald's body hundreds of meters away.
The blast swallowed the prison structure, reducing it to ashes in less than a second. Every tree within a seven-hundred-meter radius was virtually erased, and a vast dark-gray scar on the ground marked the evidence of what had just occurred.
"I focused the destruction on secondary targets — consider it mercy. Farewell, Harald. Please don't forget to send assassins after me and Kon. If I'm not mistaken, he fled north," the guard said before turning his back and walking away slowly, without the slightest fear.
Harald was still conscious when Athan said these things, and it didn't take him long to realize who had caused the fire in his garden.
But how?
What kind of power was that?
The shadow, the dark crimson glow…
Was that the work of the great elemental spirit of fire?
Everything suggested so. But what kind of bond must a man have to wield such power?
Was Athan one of those monsters found only in the capital and among great houses? It made no sense.
Or perhaps—
"Another no-name bastard? Ah… I hate them! I will… hunt… every last one…"
With those thoughts and doubts, Harald fell unconscious, his body lightly scorched by the explosion Athan had unleashed.
Regius Lane learned of what had happened at House Rei's mansion and set out for it, worried, early in the evening. Yuna followed him everywhere like a shadow, always anxious to see her friend again. Nigel Hart also heard of the incident, but chose not to interfere. A few burned plants were nothing that genuinely concerned him — especially since they were not from his own residence.
Regius received the same explanations as Harald had, but had the faint impression that his old friend would blame him for it. The fire was extinguished, but the stench of smoke would linger for quite some time.
Shortly thereafter, a carriage arrived at full speed at House Rei's mansion. Everyone immediately recognized it as Harald's personal carriage. The driver looked shaken, in shock, terribly anxious.
"HELP ME, HELP ME, DAMN IT!!! HELP!"
As he shouted, he jumped down and opened the side door, pulling out Harald's charred, unconscious body. They carried him inside.
Amid the family's worries and Regius's sorrow, Yuna was the only one who at first approached the coachman and asked what was lodged in her throat.
"Was it Kon?"
"Kon? It was worse than him! It was the prison guard, Athan! Harald didn't even touch him, and suddenly he was swallowed by an explosion… and now we're here. Ahhh… he's going to kill me! I'm dead! Dead, dead, dead…"
"Where is Kon?"
The man was so disturbed and anxious that he could not answer any more of Yuna's questions. She was infinitely worried as she ran out of House Rei's mansion. She had no destination. Where should she go? Everything was far away, and she was on foot. She didn't know how to ride a horse and had no authority to borrow one of the Rei family's carriages.
To the west of the Rei District lay a stretch of the Patriarchal Forest. Kon lay on the ground at the foot of a tree, his eyes open and burning with rage. The pain of his disfigured, bleeding face was trivial compared to the pain afflicting his spirit. He felt truly humiliated.
Only after he had gotten far away did his body begin to regenerate on its own, as it should have done inside the prison. Bathed in his own blood, Kon swore vengeance against Harald Rei — and now against that strange guard, whose name he did not yet know. He didn't even know what his face looked like.
"It doesn't matter. I will reach the pinnacle."
He decided.
He rose from the ground and mounted the horse again, riding aimlessly deeper into the forest.
Throughout all of Fallen Flowers, a feeling of revolution and confidence was spreading. After news of what had happened to the garden at House Rei's mansion spread through the city, an uproar began. When people learned of Harald's condition, they could only raise Kon's name higher and higher. Only he could have done it. Yet — there could be no other. In a single day he had publicly challenged Harlan Rei, been imprisoned, and on the very day of his confinement, freed himself and taken revenge on Harald!
That was what people said. It would no longer be possible to contain the fervor or to cover the truth with lies.