Winstrova was hot. At least it was what Saer had been thinking all the time but spending a half an hour inside the dungeon made him reconsider. He was freezing in contact of his back on cold wall.

Shackles were not warm either. His cotton clothes did nothing to keep himself tepid whereas something capable of keeping him warm was on his head.

A merciless guard had put a sack over his head before leaving the dungeon. He did not want the itchy and smelling sack on his head or anywhere near to his body but he could not reverse the guard's decision.

As a result, Saer had irritation in his eyes. And like the torment was not enough, Saer had been stretched on wall and already had suffered from some chest cramps. Nervousness worsened his muscle movement of his upper body. He knew the anxiety would not leave him until Rikilda was quiet.

"I will kill you, white man." Rikilda said, pulling the chain which had fastened her arms.

Saer could only listen to her threats and do nothing about it. He would have explained everything to her if a piece of cloth was not strapped on his mouth. Regardless, it did not stop himself from saying in stifled voice, "Nortze."

She stopped yanking the shackles when she understood his gagged voice.

"Did you say Nortze?" she asked the man shackled alongside her.

Saer nod his head.

The slight gesture had a different effect on Rikilda. Saer, blacked out, observed her silence. In the duration of doing so, it did not feel to him like she had stopped wrestling the chains. He could still hear metal chiming even though they were not violent like before. Saer wondered what it could have been till he heard an unmistakable crack.

She is using sorcery to free himself. Saer's guts came to his lips. Saer who had dropped out of Rudolph's lesions on third day was unaware of the procedure to perform the same magic so he started doing he always did.

Showing faith on his muscles, Saer jolted the chain back and forth in desperation but couldn’t move the nail holding the chain an inch. Saer heard a snap.

It had not come from the chains typing him, however.

The same kind of sound happened twice from there. A final clang and the angry girl was no more in chains. He heard her angry breathing and went through her wrath.

Saer felt as if someone was squeezing his body from all sides and was draining blood from his nostrils. He stiffened when Rikilda used more force in sorcery.

"First I will kill you then the doppelganger…" Rikilda said, "…until the truth is out."

"RIKILDA!" Saer heard a male voice before his eardrums were about to burst. What followed next was a loud thud. Saer assumed someone had taken a fall.

A mumble from the girl assured it was not the person who had rescued him. He could recognize Nortze's voice even though he was in verge of getting deaf. Wetness around on his cheeks made him think his ears were bleeding too.

The sack came of his head, bruising back of his neck. Nortze pulled down the cloth over his mouth. His hands then went straight for Saer's throat and the grip intensified.

"You took her fertility?" livid Calajhan said, "You did not have to do this."

"I - I –did not - do – it." Saer gagged.

"What did you say?" Nortze left his throat.

"You were involved in this too, father?" Rikilda intervened.

"Quiet." He said to his daughter and turned to Saer, "What do you mean you did not?"

"She is still fertile." Saer whispered, "I did not know you would take me under your wing so I had planned to make this doppelganger only to trick Wernh'An. Had thought he would come here, think this girl is not a Calajhan and would leave, causing no harm."

"She is fertile?" Nortze's lips were about to smile but tears had not left his eyes.

"Yes she is." Saer narrowed his eyes, "Why are you asking me about her fertility?"

"Doctors did a fertility test on them and announced Rikilda infertile."

"Test?" Saer said, "Who brings doctors in the wedding?"

"If she is fine then why did doctors declare her a doppelganger?"

The door opened and Braden came in with a violent shove. Gisella also wasn’t spared of the same treatment but the young man became the one to take a fall. Nortze could catch her in time.

"How dare you?" Nortze bellowed.

Door got shut in no time. A tiny slide on shaft of metal door slid open and a set of eyes Nortze was familiar with peeked in.

"The girl out there is a doppelganger." Jehaule said, "We don’t want to ruin prince's wedding so the marriage will continue. We will kill her as soon as the guests leave."

"Good." Rikilda jumped, "The truth is out."

"Girl, I wouldn’t be hoping to marry him if my brother and mother were thrown in here like this." Jehaule resumed, "Your family will be our prisoner here for this betrayal."

"You don’t know what the circumstances were." Nortze said.

"And how does your family explain those circumstances? By lying?"

"They were not big lies."

"Hmm….allow me to measure it." Jehaule said, "What is your real name?"

Nortze glanced at Saer. The mercenary, unprepared, gave him a look of disapproval.

"What a shame. First question was the hardest."

"King, prince, you. All of you are alive because of my lies. I did not let death reach to anyone of you."

Jehaule chuckled.

"I can kill you for laughing."

"Sometimes you say you saved us. And sometimes you threaten to kill us. Your contradictions tickled me."

"I can't denounce you an ingrate since you don’t understand what we have done for safety of this royal family." Nortze walked near the door, "We could have left last night but chose to make this wedding happen."

"You should have left. It would have been less shameful than presenting a doppelganger to the crown prince of Winstrova."

"Shame would have been leaving and letting all of you die."

"Doesn’t matter. You and your family are your prisoners now."

"Do you think these walls can confine us?"

Nortze pulled his sleeve and spun. Saer and Braden along with the family members got consumed by the whirlwind of bright light. Jehaule and the guards near to him put their palms infront of their faces to obscure luminosity coming from the shaft.

Jehaule blinked and the dungeon went dark again.

"I was not talking about walls." Jehaule whispered.