Mannat and Sarpanch changed hands with the guards at the bottom of the hill and continued their journey to the hilltop manor. Sarpanch opposite Mannat, holding a smile that was in stark contrast with Mannat plain display. Two soldiers accompanied them. One sat opposite Mannat and the other opposite Sarpanch.

Both the soldiers carried expressionless faces throughout the journey. Neither the weight of the token nor the presence of its master brought any change to their demeanor.

There were many kinds of tokens. The token Sarpanch held gave him visiting rights. Although the token represented no physical power, it gave Sarpanch the identity of the count’s friend.  

In reality, only powerful merchants and nobles had held the token before him. The virtue of which puts any token holder at a much higher position compared to the soldiers.

No wonder the soldiers didn’t disturb their guests and were even kind to them in respect.

The younger soldier, who sat opposite Mannat, sighed in relief when they arrived at the Manor gate.

“Stop and State your objective!” A stern voice came from outside.

For the first time since they had taken the carriage, the young soldier opposite Mannat saw the boy raise his head. A tingling sensation arose in his chest as their eyes met. The boy had the fiercest green eyes the soldier had ever seen on a boy so young. He would have acted to detain the kid if it wasn’t for the token. The boy was too determined. He wondered what would happen to him and the others on the job if something happened in the manor. He glanced at his partner, saw him shaking his head, and decided to believe in the veteran officer.

The senior between the two soldiers stepped out of the carriage before returning a minute later. The thick wooden gate opened ahead of them and the carriage started moving again.

The white marbled manor was entrenched in darkness. Even the burning braziers of fire standing near the walls couldn’t hide it from the cold night's grasp. Still a hint of life could be sensed from the balcony above where a firelight burned brightly, giving a touch of warmth to the marbled white halls of the still manor.

Mannat’s heart started beating as soon as he got off the carriage. His calm disappeared with the sonnet of footsteps that rang under him. The soldiers standing at the entrance were different, but their expressions were the same, indifferent, cautious, and impartial.

Ignoring his longing, Mannat sensed a keen breath awash his body when he stepped into the open maw of the sleeping beast. The fanged pillars supporting the porch ceiling trembled at the taste of their flesh. A musty gust accompanied them inside and then the beast engulfed them.

Heart raging, Mannat clenched his fists and pushed toward the stairs following a different soldier. Beside him, the Sarpanch could not stay calm either.

Unlike the boy, the plum man walked in excitement. Finally, his wait was coming to an ending. Soon he’d no longer be bound to the outer extremities of the region, an outcast of his own making. He had been looking for a chance to return to the town. He had completed his mission. With the Inquisitor's blessings, the count would have no choice but to restore the respect and position taken from him.

Up the stairs, through the long empty hallway, Mannat reconciled with peace, broke up with hatred, and looked deep in search of confidence. He created a façade of weightless emotions in an attempt to ready himself for the performance. A hint of his craft faded into dusty bitterness when he heard the sound of familiarly tapping footsteps. A bitter taste sloshed in his mouth. He missed a step upon seeing Moore walking toward him.

The flamboyantly dressed man was alone in presence, yet carried the weight of a general in his footsteps. The flames burning in the braziers saluted him on his way out who, even in his casual demeanor, was a halting figure of prestige and pedigree.

Feet engulfed in darkness, pants that seemed an extension of the same sticky nothingness. His face alone cleanly represented his stature. Moore was an enigma at most times, but in the moody fire light, Mannat caught a hint of emotions and bitterness in the man that he hadn’t witnessed during his prior meeting with him.

They met in the middle of the hall. Arm's length apart, Mannat sensed a growing distance separating them, one that was more a representation of their identities than the reality.  

“You have grown up,” Moore greeted. A faint smile on his lips; it was neither tender nor haughty.

Mannat nodded in return, calm and restrained. He didn’t dare take his eyes off the man. He could sense a hint of motive from Moore and it scared him. The man didn’t owe him anything.

Moore continued briskly, not waiting for Mannat to speak, knowing the boy wouldn’t say more than he had to.

“I heard about your mother,” Moore said and for a moment Mannat couldn’t understand what he meant by his words.

What exactly did he hear about his mother?

“I know you must have tried your best to save her, but miasma poisoning is an uncommon illness. You have my condolence.” Moore grabbed Mannat’s shoulder and patted him twice before going his way, leaving Mannat still and thoughtful about the meaning of his words.

Mannat turned around fast. “Why are you telling me that?” He asked, but Moore left without stopping, answering the question with his silence. As if saying he had done the best he could and the rest was for him to handle.

What Moore had given him insight into the conversation between his father and the Inquisitor so he wouldn’t blunder the chance his father had created through his sacrifice. As for why Raesh did so, Mannat was sure it was his way of saving his mother, Noor.

No one had seen Noor in a year. The villagers only knew that she had fallen ill, and Mannat started working for the witch. The sensible kind would applaud him for trying to save his mother, but the gap of a year was enough to fill even the most faithful ones with doubt. Miasma poisoning was fatal and incurable. It wasn’t an illness that could be suppressed for a year under normal circumstances.

 “Your mother is alive, isn’t she?” Sarpanch said sneering. “You and your father might have fooled the world, but I understand the truth. I know you became the Witch’s slave to save her and you are still working for her. Your father might have duped the count and the Inquisitor, but don’t think you fool me. Don’t worry,” Sarpanch's lips curled. “Your secret is safe with me. I promise to keep it safe if you don’t make a mess of things today.”

Having finished saying his piece Sarpanch moved away from Mannat.
 
Mannat knew well enough that someone who could send two teenagers to their death without baiting his eye wouldn’t keep things to himself unless it profited him. Sarpanch did have something to gain today and the reason he had warned Mannat.

Mannat’s last steps were the hardest to make. It followed a quarter of breath and a lifetime of turmoil. Where the corridor ended the hallway continued, a path to the balcony. The white marble palace hid cold fogging breaths. Mannat followed the soldiers toward the balcony where a moonless sky awaited him, visible past its bordered periphery.

There stood soldiers by the balcony walls, ten of them, all in the count's dark red colors. Three more soldiers in red and yellow stood confidently behind the chair on which sat a red-haired man in leisure, playing a game of chess against the count.

The count looked distressed. Frown on his forehead, trouble in his eyes. He sat motionless. Whether the pressure he felt was from the game or the man himself was of no particular concern to Mannat, for he could sense a deep but foreign sense of aversion from the red-haired man.

The game stopped as soon as Mannat turned up at the balcony. The red-haired man, who wore an ostentatious back leather overcoat with golden cuffs, raised his head toward the entrance and smiled. Mannat for an instant could no longer keep the calm facade and panicked. The man’s brown eye looked through him in that instance and stripped him bare of all defenses. Or so Mannat thought.

The smile remained on the man’s face for only a moment before it faded into a frown. Mannat realized that the man had failed to inspect him. However, it was not curiosity or interest he had earned in respect but trouble.

The man stood up and approached Mannat. His silver long sword glanced through the rip of his overcoat. While the three strong men in red followed quietly behind him at a distance.

Mannat didn’t react; his attention stayed entirely focused on the man’s face. Mannat found similarities between his and the man’s face, at least in the shape of it, but not in the intensity of his expressions or the sharpness of his eyes.

Interested in the weight that the man carried with him, Mannat examined the man and succeeded, which went unnoticed by the red-haired man whose surname for one reasonable level left no doubt in Mannat’s mind of his identity.

[Teej Agneehotri][Lv-11][Class: Silver Streamer][Job: Swordsman(10), Royal Knight(6)]

Teej stopped a distance from Mannat, unaware, and perhaps uninterested in the reason behind his nephew’s sudden shocking appearance. Perhaps, he connected Mannat’s shock to his appearance and his red hair. He himself had never seen another with the same set of hair outside the lineage. And they would have never met if a plain act to find blacksmithing talents that were created out of bickering laziness hadn’t brought the name Raesh, a newly appointed master blacksmith, to Teej’s attention and ended his decades-long search for his sister.

Mannat didn’t sense any belonging with the man who stood solemnly opposite him; it was as if Teej was sad to see that he existed.

“I thought you were an imposter posing as my sister’s son,” Teej spoke silently. His voice was calm, much like the voice of Mannat’s mother. It was no wonder the boy's eyes turned wet upon hearing him.

“But that face and that head of red hair can’t be faked. You are indeed Noor’s son.” Teej said. “I guess I was wrong about you then but was I wrong about my sister too?”

“Where is my father?” Mannat Interrupted.

Teej sneered. “Oh, you might be my sister’s son, but I can’t agree to you calling that man your father.”

“I don’t care what you think. Tell me where you are keeping my father or--”

“Or?” Teej couldn’t believe the threat and burst out laughing. “Are you implying you will make me regret imprisoning that man you call father?”

Usually, he threatens others. Never thought someone would do one over him in the backwaters of the Empire where even the dead don’t shit.
Mannat glared at the man and Teej stared back at him. Teej was the one who resigned first.

“You are as stubborn as your mother. Fine, you give me the whereabouts of my sister and I’ll tell you where I’m holding Raesh.” Teej said. “Do we have a deal?”
“She’s dead,” Mannat answered without batting eyes. “Believe me or not it’s the truth.”

They stared at eachother again before Teej sighed.

“All right, I believe you.”
“You do?”
“What can I do when you are being so stubborn? But you do know what that means, right? We don’t have a deal. Now I can’t tell you the whereabouts of your father since you didn’t tell me anything about my sister either.” Teej behaved like a Person with a heart, an adult chiding a kid. 

Mannat wasn’t confused by his Teej’s antics. He had seen Teej’s status, and from what he had learned fighting Demons, he knew Teej was not the kind of softhearted man he seemed. It was all a ploy to get what he wanted. 

If only Mannat could see through Teej’s attributes and skills. It was the first time he had failed to examine someone. His mind told him the failure was a result of Teej’s class. The man had a class! And his level was beyond 10! Goes to say, Mannat was right to think there were others who knew how to gain levels and classes. The topic was an elephant in the room but Mannat had better things to do. So he could only drop it for now or risk garnering Teej’s attention.

“It is fate that we are standing here in front of eachother. I never thought this day would come, but then again, no secret can be kept forever. Your father tried, but he failed in the end.”

“I’m not lying. My mother is dead. She is dead and she died from miasma poisoning.”

Teej smirked as if he had been waiting for Mannat to admit it himself. “You see, that is impossible. Miasma could have never harmed Noor.” His eyes turned sharp like the edge of a sword and started gleaming with silver light. “Do you know why?”

Teej didn’t give Mannat a chance to interrupt and yelled out, “Because Noor would have been the youngest magician had she not run away with your father!”

A gust broke into the balcony and suppressed the fire burning in the braziers, allowing the night to sneak into the dwelling for a moment.

“That is impossible!” Mannat didn’t believe in the nonsense. “I never saw her using magic. You are a liar!”

“But you can.” Teej’s hands moved so fast Mannat didn’t see when he had pulled out his sword and attacked him. The sword rose diagonally toward Mannat’s neck. Mannat couldn’t see, but his brain calculated exactly where the sword would strike, how deep it would cut and how fast he would die. He was sure the man proclaiming to be his mother’s blood brother, his uncle, was attacking to kill him. Mannat’s heart raged as mana poured out of his heart and into his veins.

Teej was fast as a ray of light, but Mannat’s blood was still faster. The boy didn’t have the time to raise his hands to perform a mana blast, but he didn’t need to. Ever since he had started cultivating he could release mana from any part of his body. He had only twice breathed out a mana blast in the past, and this time became the third time.

Teej abandoned attacking him and raised his sword to protect himself as a furious ball of raging mana condensed to the point it was glowing blue and shot toward him at a blinding pace. The sword nicked Mannat’s chin and gave him a bloody cut before merging with the ball of mana.

There was a booming noise as Teej was pushed back a couple of steps. Mannat’s worry disappeared entirely when neither the sword left Teej’s hand nor was he hurt in any way.

The mana ball exploded as it should have and a burst of wind made Teej’s overcoat open and furl behind him. That was the extent of the damage that the skill caused to the man who, though had to bend his knees, came out of the attack entirely unscathed.

When the dust settled and the groans and gasps ended, Mannat found Teej standing still with his sword glowing in silver light so thick it appeared tangible.

“What the hell happened?”
“Protect the count!”
“Bind the boy! Don’t let him escape!”

The soldiers came into action around Mannat at the same time. Mannat waited for either the count or Teej to restrain them. The order never came. The soldiers took their leader's silence as command and encircled Mannat to obstruct him from leaving.

“Keep your hand.” The count finally ordered the soldiers. His eyes were shining; he hadn’t thought wrong. The boy was indeed marvelous. The son of a master blacksmith, he wanted to rope them both in to protect his future, and he regretted letting them slip away from his fingers. He glanced at the Inquisitor and wondered if it was for the best that he had never managed to close ties with the boy.

“Impressive,” Teej flexed his wrist and the sword traced a silver circle in the air beside him that faded as soon as the sword stopped moving.

“How old are you anyway? Fifteen? Sixteen? The royal academy is filled with people twice your age who can’t even blow out a candle with magic and here you are in the ignored outskirts and you are already an apprentice.”

“How is that possible?” The count trumpeted out in shock. “The boy hadn’t even started reading a year ago! He can’t already be an apprentice!”

Teej ignored the count and drilled Mannat. “Do you think your talent comes from the air?” He shook his head in disdain. “We would have been nobles had your father not coerced my sister into eloping with him. He is a sinner, a demon.”

“Stop lying!” A vein popped up on Mannat’s forehead. “My mother would have never been a magician. She didn’t even like to read. And it was her who coerced my father. Not the other way around. You see, there is only so much pressure one can take before succumbing to it or breaking free. My mother broke free. I think you are jealous of her. You are jealous that she got to do what she wanted, while you remained stuck on the ladder made of your parent’s wishes. Forced to give up everything you loved and climb higher and higher. Yet you could never make them happy. Isn’t that right?”

Teej smirked and touched his nose. “Is that what your father told you? Noor wanted to be a magician so much that was all she talked about all the time. If that cursed man hadn’t forced her to choose between him and her family we wouldn’t be here right now.”

“That’s a lie,” Mannat called out his bluff.

Teej was none too mad. He graciously accepted his defeat.

“You can already sense mana, can’t you? You don’t know how proud I feel to have someone like you in the family.”
“That is also a lie. You are scared of me. Of what I can become.”
“You don’t hold back do you?” Teej licked his lips and glared dangerously at Mannat. “You must have examined me back when I failed to Inspect you. Did you see my job, and my…” Teej hung the words to distract the others. Mannat knew what his uncle was talking about this time.

Teej continued sarcastically. His voice rose with every sentence he spoke. “You have no idea the kind of prestige a magician can bring to a family. We would have been nobles! We would have stood alongside the emperor! We would have been kings. All the ambitions, the dreams, everything went down the drain because we allowed the son of a slave around our hope.” Teej snorted and continued after rubbing his nose to scratch the disgusting itch that had appeared out of nowhere to mess with his plans. “We gave her a pet and she made it the master. That man you call your father took away the most precious one of us. I spent a decade looking for him. And I’m going to enjoy making him pay for his actions. He will suffer for his sins.”

“Haven’t they paid enough already?” Mannat said through gritted teeth. “Your family never cared about her. Her father wouldn’t have tried to marry her off to some noble if he cared about her feelings. She held back because she thought you all cared. She left because you all gave her no choice. You were selfish. She didn’t elope with my father because he insisted, but because you all tried to separate them. You made her choose and she chose my father and the boring life that came with it. I believe she was happier here in this place you call the backwaters than she must have been with the lot of you.”

Teej’s face fell. The sword drooped low, almost leaving his hand. “What do you know, Brat!” He shouted and swung the sword, sketching a sharp line in the marbled floor. “You think we had a choice? In those days only nobles were allowed to study in the academy! Noor might have lived a peaceful lie here, but there is no way she lived to her greatest. She deserved so much more! She deserved the world! She could have easily voided the marriage after becoming a magician, but she chose to be lazy. She abandoned us! She always was naïve in the sense of responsibility. She never saw the big picture.”

“I can give you prestige if that is what you want,” Mannat said calmly, hoping his words would work. Hoping the man to see the bigger picture, and see that he could do it. “Release my father and I’ll bring glory to your household. I'll uplift your name. I’ll become a magician.”

Teej's eyes glowed silver. He looked interested for a second before the light disappeared leaving behind a set of cold ruthless eyes. He started laughing. The sword undulated in his hands, making metallic sounds against the marbled floor.

“Sorry, no can do,” Teej said. “My father clung to the hope of Noor’s return for a decade before the hope poisoned him sick and ate away his health. I can’t let him go through the same pain and suffering all over again. Once there was no choice. Now…” He snorted. “We don’t need the choice. We might not have noble lineage, but I have already brought fame to our name. I am the judge. I am the executioner. I am enough. We don’t need you.”

A sharp glint passed through Teej’s eyes.