He always asked himself the same thing over and over.

How long? How long ago was he able to shout out his feelings? How long ago was he able to close his eyes peacefully? How long until there was a hand he could trust and pull him from the depths of despair?

People from different race looked for him. A new group would appear in every few days, begging him to save their country. Every time he refused to help, they criticized and ignored his reasoning. Some went as far to try and kidnap him from this place. They all looked at the Oracle and not him. They treated him not as another person, but as a tool.

Over time, his view of the world changed and looked at it with disgust. From that day, he became a living corpse. He sealed away his feelings, then his personality and lastly, his will. The ‘Kihet’ who was naïve, idiotic, self-sacrificing and eccentric was on the verge of disappearing forever.

In this seemingly everlasting nightmare, one voice forced its way into his heart. At first, he thought it was the same thing everyone repeated; nonsense, honeyed words to trick his trust. Once she caught him in her arms and whispered praises for just being himself, he realized there was someone that didn’t care if he was the Oracle.

Praises for just enduring. Praises for just living. The words of gratitude cracked the hard shell manifested through isolation for many years.

When she embraced him, a soothing warmth rekindled his will to live. There was nothing he could do other than submitting to her kindness. This was the safest he felt in forever. This blissful and fuzzy feeling of being cared by someone, was something he wanted. How long ago was it since he felt this feeling?

And… soft?

Something soft pressed against his face. He couldn’t describe the feeling, but it smelled nice and the sound of a beating heart calmed him.

He carefully moved away and got a good view at the girl sleeping beside him. Her silky long jet black hair was all over the place. The bracelet was still on her wrist, torn and repaired by mismatched colored threads. She slept with childish grin only to remind him of the happy child she used to be.

It was simply nostalgic.

“Up from your beauty nap?”

The voice had caught Kihet off guard. He immediately put himself in front of Lily when he Henrick called.

“I saw you were in a good mood and decided to pop by. It was nice to know you didn’t kill this group of visitors for once. Is the girl beside you that special?”

Kihet nodded.

“That makes sense! Nobody would trust strangers. That’s why you killed everyone you didn’t know. All those lives begging you to save them and you just destroyed their dreams and threw them down a cliff. You mur-der-er~.”

He remained silent and glared at Henrick.

“It’s a joke. A joke. Anyways, I’ll leave you two alone. She’ll think you’re weird if you keep talking to me. Ciao!” Henrick phased through the tent.

He felt a tug on his sleeve and was greeted by a half-asleep Lily barely opening her eyes.

“Morning…zzz…”

“Lily. Up.”

“Few more minutes.”

And she went back to sleep.

Using this chance, Kihet brushed her hair and examined her horns. One was broken from a long ago but the other was well taken care of. It was as polished as a gleaming ruby gem.

“Excuse me-.”

Sensing the curtains moved, Kihet tackled the suspect lifting the covers. He raised his fist and stopped inches from the person’s face just as he screamed.

“WHHHAAAA, wait, wait, wait! Don’t hurt us! We’re with the Priestess!”

It rang a bell. Kihet remembered Shiba mention Lily was a Priestess since Xu had a tradition for females of the Royal Family being unable to inherit the throne.

There were about six soldiers in the area. The group was mixed with Devils and Ogres. The only difference was the type of horn on their forehead. Ogres have their horns under their skin while Devils have horns resembling a blood crystal. All of them have one horn as opposed to Lily who had two, though one was half broken.

They were in the middle of distributing rations, but since Kihet caused a commotion, he became the center of attention.

He released the soldier and watched him run off.

“Kihet… morning.”

Lily crawled out of the tent. Without her armor, she wore black tights clinging her body like a cocoon. There were openings that exposed her stomach and the skin of her shoulders. Her hair was frisky. She rubbed her eyes then her long ears slowly perked up when she looked at Kihet.

“I was a bit scared, but I’m happy you were able to let loose last night. I could barely sleep because of you.”

Ignoring the soldiers’ glare, Kihet pointed at the cooking station.

“Oh, food? I’m hungry too. Grab one for me, please.”

They were served watery soup made from dried beans and meat from Oriks, the boar-wolf hybrid creatures. Kihet was surprised they knew which parts of the Oriks were edible. Well, it wasn’t difficult to tell, but the rest of the materials could’ve been made into useful items. He thought it was a shame they drained and threw out the blood. Only the thighs were taken as other parts were too hard.

The soup was warm, but there wasn’t a lick of flavor. His stomach couldn’t argue since it was nice to have something warm flowing through the body.

“Where are you going?”

“Want.”

“That hatchet?”

He pried the hatchet off a trunk and moved over to the carcasses. He raised the axe and put on a murderous expression, cleaving down. When he butchered and ripped out the innards, soldiers behind him shrieked in terror as if they witnessed a madman.

He scraped out the bubbly fat and carved his knife underneath the fur. He separated entrails into a pot, moved the bones in a pile, claws and fangs in a bowl.

“Here.”

No one listened. They were more focused holding back the urge to vomit over their breakfast. Lily also put on a similar face.

 “Kihet, you have to think of the time and place. You can’t act out like that. Ugh… I think you made me lose my appetite.”

He looked at her weirdly, gulping the rest of the food like it was normal and asked for seconds. He was the only one who managed to complete breakfast.

By this time, they packed up their belongings. They checked their equipment, sharpened their swords, fixed the dents on their shields, wounded the strings of their bows. Their equipment was worn, no better than mismatched pieces Kihet salvaged from past visitors.

He sat alone in a corner until Lily squatted in front of him.

“Kihet, I’m sorry but I need you to come back with us. The world needs you.”

The duty of the Oracle. His job was to recruit seven heroes around the world to defeat those Shadows, like the Knight, Wizard and the Executor.

He was afraid to leave, but he couldn’t bring himself to upright refuse to help Lily.

Lily waited for his response. Her hand still extended to him. Her big emerald eyes looked at him with big expectations. She retained the same blooming smile on her face that brought him out of despair.

Kihet subconsciously reached out without knowing. He pulled his fingers touched her palm, but he tried again like a frightened tiny animal. She had a ‘take your time, I’ll wait forever for you’ expression. When he eventually put his hand on hers, her fingers gently wrap over his hand and pulled him up. He felt the different textures of their skin. His hands were rough and dry while hers were smooth and soft. It was like their roles reversed since the time he first met her.

She squeezed his hand. “I’m really happy right now.”

Although he appeared unfazed with his iron masked expression, he was completely lost for words. While he tried to form words to show his gratitude, Lily was called to check the area the soldiers cleaned up.

“We’ve finished packing, Priestess. We can return to the palace on your orders.”

“Xu…?” Kihet asked.

“That’s right. We’ll be going to Xu. Before that, I’d like to investigate that tower. There’s one in every country.”

One in every country? I don’t remember seeing one in Xu or Rozzosea. You would think I’d notice a big spiraling structure in the middle of nowhere.

“Is there anything you need before we go?”

“Promise.”

“Promise?”

To fulfill one of his promise, he strode to the edge of the graveyard holding an old shovel.

Lily exchanged looks with her soldiers as they wondered about Kihet’s promise. When they reached him, there was a pile of dirt next to an empty tombstone as he dug deeper and deeper until it hit a solid object.

Kihet grunted and tossed the leather pouch into Lily’s hands. He made small gestures for her to open it.

“This is the promise?” She rummaged through the bag, slowly feeling its shape. While carefully pulling it out, tears voluntarily welled up. “This… is the Royal Crown?”

“Royal Crown?!” Her soldiers exclaimed.

“Shiba…”

“My brother…? You kept it for my brother?”

“Sorry.”

Lily hugged the crown tightly, wiping the stream of tears off her face. She took a deep breath, collected herself, then put on a strong face examining the crown with a hopeful smile.

“No. Don’t say that. You kept it safe for my brother for all these years. You don’t need to apologize.”

“But…”

“I do regret I couldn’t spend more time with him, but this is my brother we’re talking about. He trusted you, knowing you’re essential to the world. In the end, he was able to make the Devils and Ogres cooperate and gave us a fighting chance to survive after the Shadows first wandered across Xu’s lands.”

Kihet was envious of Shiba. Even years after his death, Shiba’s actions carried on and reached his people. Shiba’s effort weren’t completely in vain.

“With this, we know Eizan doesn’t have the crown. My nephew can inherit the crown without oppositions now.”

“Nephew?”

“Big sister Miyabe had a boy. He’s twelve this year.”

Lily’s nephew wasn’t born when he was in Xu. It meant he stayed in these ruins for at least twelve years. Twelve whole years. An Enui could live for thousands of years and yet, these twelve years felt like the longest in his life.

He regretted leaving Lily to live in a world suffering from those Shadows for that long. He regretted he couldn’t do more during that day.

Lily suddenly popped into his view. “Are you curious about him?”

He shrugged. He wasn’t sure he had the right to meet her nephew.

Lily pulled out a paper doll written with strange characters. As she pulled the edges apart, it bloated. She held out a magic crystal whispering an incantation, giving it artificial life as it took on a shape of a small bird. It took off, circling around once then roosted on her shoulder. It pecked a small rolled up note in its beak off her fingers.

“Deliver this message back. We found the Oracle and the Royal Crown.”

Mystified, his eyes were glued on the paper bird.

“Hm? This?” Lily pointed. “You don’t remember? It’s origami. I made you a paper crane before. I infused wind magic into them to make them seem to come to life. I’m amazing, aren’t I? I can teach you. When we get back, let’s make lots!”

“Priestess, we’ve finished the repairs as best we can.”

“They’re done. Kihet, how does it look?”

While he was fulfilling his promise, the soldiers of Xu repaired most of the graveyard. Although the tombstones were rebuilt a bit rushed, they managed to carve the names of the people in the Enui’s language. Withering flowers were replaced by fresh blooming ones planted around Hannah and Lemi’s grave.

He dipped his head, giving the soldiers a tiny nod. Afterwards, he kneeled in front of Hannah and Lemi’s tombstone and prayed.

Hannah, Lemi, what would you say if you two saw me like this? You’re both angry, aren’t you? I have no excuses for losing myself, becoming a monster in front of your graves. I just couldn’t face the rest of the world because I’m a coward. But I promise that’ll change. I’m given a second chance to go out there and make a difference. Please watch me.

There were others as well. The chances were slim, but he prayed for Malth, Megith, Draigh, Vol, Elius and especially for Sorah. Their bodies have yet shown up at the temple which meant they’re out there, somewhere.

When he opened his eyes, he found Lily kneeling beside him with her hands together. For the first time, this place where he’d always hear the dead’s curse, it was silent.

“I figured these two were important people to you. I’m showing my gratitude for them.”

Lily’s a good girl, really. Kihet made a fist away from everyone’s eyes and made a small prayer to Shiba although his grave wasn’t here. He vowed to watch over Lily and to protect her from all harm towards her.

“Lily.”

“Hm?”

“Ready.”

She gave me a powerful nod and great big smile formed on her face. “En!”