In the dining room of Gregora's magnificent house, Felis had a realization. She is in a tied position. The braided metal rope spun around her body, forcing her to stay still. Her hands and feet were held together by dozens of knots. Her chest is tight.
The girl raised her neck slowly. Squinting her eyes, hoping that the light around her wasn't too high in intensity and made her head even more dizzy.
A man was sitting at the end of the room. His elbows rested on the table, while his chin rested on his fists. The man was so solemn looking out the window, he didn't even realize that Felis had coughed twice. He scratched his bald head.
In the middle of them a body was laid on the same table. A thick beard framed his face which was black and starting to stink. The dried blood changed the color of the jacket he was wearing.
“I am an orphan like you,” said Aldora. He didn't look at Felis at all. Felis listened carefully. Trying to remember this guy. Have they met?
“All my life I served Gregora. The old man. He loved me like his own son. He has taken care of me since my parents died.” Aldora whispered from where he was.
Felis still didn't say anything. She was waiting for the bald man's true intentions, to speak such things to her.
"You're Reeda who killed Jesse, right?" he asked again.
With an unusual speed Aldora was standing right in front of Felis. The girl jerked backwards. Memories of the day she tore Jesse to pieces came flooding back. It feels like just yesterday. When she ran away from the city of Este with Candramawa. Now, she is here again. And the problems it's been making for three months haven't changed, it turns out. So slow life in the city of Este.
If only Felis believed Candramawa's words, surely no one would have died last night. It was hard for Felis to imagine how she and Candramawa would end up with their aisiklas drawn from each other's bodies. Felis felt her wound ache more and more.
"Do you know this man?" Aldora pointed at the old man's corpse. Gregora.
"What makes you think I know him?" Felis asked back.
Buying time is the most powerful way. Felis wanted to know, all this time, what news she had missed.
“Because…” Aldora paused. He rubbed his hands together then lifted his head. “Because you are a Reeda.”
"If I kill him..." Felis amused herself. "The carcass won't be whole like that."
"But I found your aisikla on his body!" Aldora stuck her finger into the wound on Felis' right chest.
The girl screamed very loudly. That kind of pain, could kill her at any moment. On the other hand Felis knew, this man didn't want her to die so quickly. Felis tried to hold back the pain, but she couldn't hide her trembling body.
“I killed Jesse, because she killed Genta. Also Garg,” Felis voice hoarse, “But this guy, what for?”
"Hm..." Aldora had doubts. "Should I trust you? All Reedas are liars.”
"I'm not sure, because I think everyone is gifted with lying. Including Marlon, Garg, Candramawa. Even people who claim to be my parents are not my parents.” Felis smiled bitterly.
"You killed Jesse, Marlon, Gregora and Candramawa." Aldora assumed.
“Candramawa and Jesse. But the other two, I didn't. Although I think Marlon deserved it. And this man?” Felis shrugged.
Aldora turned around, approached Gregora's body. Deliberately, so that Felis did not notice his eyes were starting to water. He touched Gregora's beard. He blinked slowly, so that the tears were squeezed and flowed down his cheeks. Occasionally he swallowed his saliva, his throat hot.
Gregora's house is not very large. However, filled with confusing barriers. Some doors have no space, some rooms only have narrow openings that don't even deserve to be called windows. But that's normal for Aldora.
His childhood was spent here. Run through every room. Exploring through its lost. This house is so complicated, but little Aldora, gradually able to memorize all the colors, the signs of each maze in this house.
Since both his parents died, Gregora has taken care of him. They live alone. And living alone together made Gregora so trust him. Aldora has no other goal in life except to return the favor. He knew Gregora wasn't a good person. Not like the old man had portrayed in front of the people of Lumons and the Coalition.
Gregora was the one who started the rumors about the Quartz Bell and the future of the Lumons. It was Gregora who instigated the Seeka and Weesa nations to kill Reeda's descendants.
Aldora knew that, but he kept quiet. Because nothing was more important to Gregora than controlling the Lumons. Gregora wants to be a leader. Gregora even sacrificed his own best friend—a Reeda.
And Aldora doesn't care, what can bother her is only if Gregora wakes up in the middle of the night—when the nightmares about the hundreds of Reedas he got rid of rise from their graves. Haunts old Gregora.
“Gregora is a good man!”
"I do not care…"
“Gregora saved the Seeka and Weesa people from the Reeda people. The coalition was fine until Garg betrayed us." Aldora slapped Felis until the girl's teeth were covered in red.
Felis spat. “So you two were there when Garg died too?” asked the girl suddenly became serious.
Jesse, Marlon and his twins, then this bald guy and an old guy named Gregora. Who's the other one? Felis wondered.
“How many members of the Coalition are there actually?” asked Felis.
"Seven."
Felis looked around the room. She scanned every corner, to see if anyone other than herself and this man was here.
"What are you looking for?" Aldora wanted to know.
"Nothing," Felis said. She looked into the man's eyes. Staring at her sharply as if she was not afraid if she had to lose her life without being able to fight back now. Aldora felt no need to return the girl's gaze. The flashback was still floating in her head.
Morning cannot be called morning if the sun's rays have not refracted in the east. Twice a week Aldora will do the same thing. Go down to the dungeons, feed Deluna, a Reeda who is also Gregora's best friend. The only reason that made the most sense when he was asked, why not kill their captives.
But today feels different. The underground door is already open. The same width as Deluna's trellis. Aldora half ran to approach. It wasn't Deluna who he was worried about running away, his prejudice was confirmed when he found Gregora's body lying there. With a red aisikla.
Beside him, the corpse of a woman he no longer recognizes, her face shattered. Half of her body is left. The clothes she was wearing were exactly the same as what Deluna was wearing the last time he saw her. Someone must have killed Deluna first and then waited for Gregora to come, then finished that man too.
Aldora cried out loud, he shook Gregora's body, kissed the man's forehead. Hugging him like a little Aldora whining for sweet licorice. Since then Aldora has never slept again. Before he found out who the person who dared to do it. He knows that there is only one Reeda left alive, Reeda who split Jesse's body in two.
Aldora ran towards Weesa's village. Observe and refuse to leave from there. Until he saw the girl coming home, knocking on his own door. Now Aldora is sure, it was Felis who killed Gregora. Also Deluna.
Aldora waited until nightfall, Markus came, a moment later came out again with Mrs. Furla. Then Marlon—which happened after that he wasn't sure. Markus left there with an aisikla full of blood, his nephew-Candramawa followed him in there and never came out again.
Aldora discouraged confrontation, of course this man was outnumbered. He waited. It took so long that curiosity haunted him.
An hour later he decided to take a look. Aldora jumped lightly. A second is enough time. Aldora slipped through the back door.
The house smelled rancid. His stomach rumbled when he saw Mrs. Furla lay there. The woman's hand moved slightly. Before finally becoming the freshest corpse. Aldora ignored his appetite.
He wants Felis, Reeda's girl who is the suspect in the massacre in this house. The girl is still breathing. Aldora separated her from Candramawa's body and then carried her on her shoulders, returning to Gregora's house. If there was something he had to eat today, it would be Felis.
"Confess!" Aldora insisted. He turned to face his prisoner.
Felis replied to the man's question with just a smile. “You killed your own friends. And even ten years you do not admit it. Why do you think I should confess to a murder I didn't commit?"
Aldora was so quickly ignited with anger, with a kick he made Felis' body full of scratches. One by one the material of the clothes the girl was wearing withered down. Felis looked down on the verge of consciousness.
Pain haunted her once again. Then it's dark.