“Belanor, the dagger, please.”

Belanor gave a heavily decorated dagger to the man who had welcomed them in Ratho just before. He seemed to be in charge of the whole Fada cult, as everyone obeyed him. But that wasn’t what kept Mahon’s attention.

The dagger that Belanor gave to the head of the cult wasn’t an invoked weapon. It lacked the vagueness that came with everything in Nightmare. Apart from the Amentiae, everything else appeared almost ethereal and fuzzy.

Mahon hadn’t seen such a tangible and clear object since his fight with the Amentiae’s general. From its look, it was obvious it didn’t come from the monsters.

Where did they find such a thing?

“Swearing allegiance to the Fada is easy. You simply need to cut your hand with this dagger to draw some blood and pronounce these words.” The man paused before speaking loudly in a solemn tone. “I swear on my lives to exist by the Colors and protect the Fada. You will repeat this sentence twelve times while holding the dagger’s blade.”

He then went to Mahon and handed him the dagger. “You start.”

“You said my lives, right?” Mahon asked, emphasizing the plural of life.

“Exactly. Wouldn’t you consider you’re living multiple lives? Ratho, Nightmare, and whatever you were doing before losing your memory. That’s at least three.” The man answered.

Mahon nodded, pensively. The thought had crossed his mind before, but he’d never phrased it so blatantly. Without thinking too much about it, he chased away his reflections and pushed the dagger into his palm. A deep red blood came out.

“I swear on my lives to exist by the Colors and protect the Fada.” Mahon swore for the first time.

I doubt it means anything, but I’m fine to live by the Colors, anyway.

“I swear on my lives to exist by the Colors and protect the Fada.”

Mahon continued his monologue, and upon the twelfth reciting he was almost disappointed that nothing happened. The inner members, however, applauded him, and the head of the cult gently pushed him away from the other candidates in the direction of the other members.

“You’re one of us now. Welcome again, brother.”

Mahon walked to the other group, where he was welcomed with warm embraces and congratulating claps, as if he had known them for a long time, and they were finally reunited.

The ritual continued with the next candidate, and until all of them swore their allegiance and were welcomed by the other inner members. Once the process was done, the head spoke again.

“You’re now real members of the Fada cult. You’ve every right to know the content of the book I mentioned before. Let’s go back to Ratho, and we’ll introduce you to everyone and our true beliefs.”

Mahon opened his eyes back in Ratho and waited for everyone to wake up. Soon, Belanor and Maïa entered the room, and together with the head of the cult, they led the fresh members to a bigger room with more people inside.

The men and women already there welcomed them with the same warm cheers as they did previously in Nightmare. They exchanged a few words and their names, which Mahon tried to print in memory. Once the enthusiasm died down naturally and everyone was seated, the head, which went by the name of Oncith, stood up. In his left hand, he had a small book.

“As promised, let me tell you about this.” He said while raising the book up in the air. “This book is not just a book, it’s a journal. It’s the journal of one of the twelve Fada that came to Ratho.”

Immediately, the new members erupted with questions and remarks, but the head gestured for calm.

“Please, my friends. I’ll answer each of your questions in time. Don’t worry. Let me first tell you more about the book, and then you’ll ask anything you want. It’s the way of the Blue, and you swore to live by the Colors.”

The suggestion easily convinced them, and Oncith continued his story.

“The book details how Hylde, one of the Fada in charge of White, met the humans and began the quest of twenty-eight tasks. Unfortunately, the book isn’t complete, and a lot of its pages are too worn down to be readable. Nonetheless, there is multiple vital information contained in this book. One passage describes humans as they really are. Let me read it for you.”

Oncith opened the book and started reading aloud.

“Humans appear to be similar in nature to many of the already known intelligent species. They have four limbs and walk on two. They used the other two as hands to grab the tools needed for their everyday life. As most of us, they need to eat and drink to survive. The interesting differences start with their mode of life. Humans spend approximately a third of their day unmoving, laying down on what they call beds. We’ve done a quick study of the said objects, but they appear to be perfectly normal and do nothing special. We’ve heard rumors humans could even do this kind of ritual directly on the ground, although it might be less comfortable for them. They do this every day, sometimes even more than once. We think it might be linked to their unusual low longevity, which we have already estimated to be between fifty and seventy years old.”

The head of the cult closed the book with this sentence, and a stunned silence followed his words.

It didn’t last long, however, as the new members asked questions under the watchful eye of the head and the older members.

“What does this mean, exactly?” Rizzo asked.

“We aren’t fully sure, either.” Oncith started. “Even though the journal was written millennia ago, it seems unlikely that we improved our longevity from mere decades to a thousand years in such a short time. From our previous discussion with the older members, we’ve come to two conclusions. Either the nobles used Nightmare to change our beliefs, because there is actually no certain evidence we could live up to a thousand years. Nightmare started thirty-four years ago, and we can’t trust the few who survived through it. Only the noble families have memories or documents from before Nightmare, and they inferred most of our traditions from them. But who could actually believe them?”

“What’s the second conclusion?”

“The second possibility, as strange as it may seem, is that… we aren’t humans.” Before the crowd erupted again in questions, Oncith pursued. “Although it is very unlikely. Hylde, the author of this book, stated they found strangely unique that we sleep, and their physical description, that goes into lots of details in the following pages, matches our actual bodies, so…”

“How can we be sure we’re indeed sleeping, though?” Another candidate asked. “When I sleep I go to Nightmare. And when I don’t, it’s because I take a no-dream pill.”

“That’s a good point. What is sleep? Is it Nightmare? Or is it something else? Did our ancestors lay in bed to go to Nightmare, whatever it is, or was it just a peaceful sleep like with a no-dream pill? Again, there are only a handful of people who know the answer.”

“Nobles.”

“Exactly. It all comes back to Nightmare, and what happened before. The only ones with such data are the nobles. And yet, strangely, the only historical data that reaches our hands depicts something quite different from what we were taught.”

“How did you find this book, then?” Mahon asked.

His beliefs had been shaken by what he had heard. What if Jorik tried to make him believe the cult was wrong when, in fact, it tried to bring back the truth? He had never realized before how much the nobles controlled their lives by holding their past. Who was really being manipulated? Him or the cultist? Mahon would never agree to the way the cult was trying to bring out their opinions. They were too close to fanatic for him, but the truth still mattered.

Mahon had to know where this piece of evidence came from. Depending on the answer, it could change everything and lead to even more problems. Deep in his heart, he could almost feel some hope of understanding better Nightmare and the Amentiae.

Oncith smiled at Mahon’s question. “Perfect timing for this question. I didn’t find this book myself. It had been brought to my attention by someone you must know. Without him, this Fada cult wouldn’t even exist. Without him, we wouldn’t have the means to resist the oppressing nobles and city guards. Please, a warm welcome to our savior!”

As he gestured behind them, the people turned back to see a person, draped in obfuscating clothes such that one couldn’t even see if he was a man or a woman, walked inside the room.

A young woman followed in tow. Her head was cleared, and by her scrutinizing look at the assembly and her hands resting on the two swords hung at her sides, it was evident to all she was the mysterious person’s bodyguard.

Impervious to the new questions in every new member’s head, Oncith continued his introduction.

“He is both the founder and backer of our Fada cult, and he wants to know the truth as much as we want! Let’s…”

Mahon stopped listening after a moment and sighed internally. He had almost hoped for real answers to his questions. Alas, it seemed the world was less than he thought. Jorik had been right all along.

A mysterious backer, holding a piece of evidence that only the nobles should have, suddenly appears and asks someone for a crusade against the noble families? What a joke.

Mahon lost interest in their supposed amazing discovery, and everything that ensued. Instead, he refocused on his original task. The reason why he had agreed to join a group of murderers. Stop them.

He scrutinized with attention the mysterious backer of the cult. The faster he could identify from which noble family he came from, the faster the cult would be stopped. Alas, the backer only wore a gigantic black tunic, covering him from head to toes. He didn’t talk, nor did anything else than walk to Oncith and stayed there.

Maybe he’s just another decoy, and Oncith is the real noble?

Mahon focused on the head of the cult, but all in his manner denied nobility. His words spread his hate of the nobles with authenticity, and his way of speech was similar to Belanor. He was a true commoner.

A few months before, Mahon would have trouble to tell them apart just with that, but he had spent more than a few times at Zac’s house, and he had met his fair share of nobles at school. He also had talked with city guards and cultists for long enough to know the subtle differences of speech and mannerism.

Either Oncith was a perfect comedian, or he had never once been in noble shoes before. The only clue left was the dangerously looking young woman acting as bodyguard.

Mahon took his time to observe her. She had nicely drafted features, and she could have been qualified as very pretty if not for the cold, harsh look in her eyes. She regularly scanned the crowd in front of her in addition to scrutinizing all along the room, as if to make sure someone wasn’t coming from behind.

Besides her head, she stayed perfectly immobile, and her hands never left the hilt of her swords. She emanated such a strong, dangerous feeling that Mahon couldn’t imagine her not being a real bodyguard. Zac had told tales about how nobles loved decoys and schemes, and he remembered well enough the stories about the real person acting as a servant or a bodyguard while someone else took the spotlight.

Here, however, he didn’t think it was possible for the bodyguard to be a decoy. She seemed too focused on her task, and Mahon could recognize an impressive warrior when he met one. And everything inside his head screamed that the woman was dangerous. Even to him.

But since she was potentially the one with the most tells regarding which noble house everyone came from, Mahon couldn’t miss the occasion to analyze her. After a prolonged look, the bodyguard suddenly glared back at him, and Mahon felt as if two blades had impaled him.

Her gaze was so cold and empty, almost as if she wasn’t actually living, or as if she had never expressed a feeling once in her life. Mahon looked away the next instant. Not by fear, but by shame of what he had seen. An empty shell. A life devoid of emotions.

If he hadn’t met Zac after Margot’s death and trained alone as he had first planned, he could as well have ended up just like that. He silently thanked the Blue counselor for her offer, and the Fada for putting Zac in his way, and focused back on his mission.