Regarding Blades, Regarding the Mine (End)

This was the first time Wraith had seen Kael angry.

He stood in the darkness, feeling a trace of unease at the scene before him. Not because of the slaughter about to unfold, but because of Kael's emotions.

"How many?"

Kael demanded an answer, his tone colder than Wraith had ever heard it. He sounded almost nothing like Kael Lohars—more like someone else.

A stranger.

He had a man in a bloodstained apron by the throat and lifted him off the ground. The man's left hand was missing from the elbow down, and blood kept dripping from the stump.

A shudder spread across his face.

The man was afraid, just like the others. Wraith could see it in his expression, but he couldn't see Kael's face. He didn't know what Kael was feeling.

After all, Kael had his back to him.

He stood beneath the light in the butcher shop's basement, covered in blood.

"One hundred and twenty-three," the man answered, barely able to breathe.

"One hundred and twenty-three people? How much did you pay?"

"..."

He couldn't answer you, Kael, Wraith thought. You're choking him to death.

Kael released him the next second, and the man fell to the floor.

"We didn't pay, sir! We didn't pay!"

The man who had nearly been choked to death knelt on the ground and spoke. His voice was broken and full of terror, but even so, it couldn't compare to that of Hakan, the miner.

Wraith didn't want to remember Hakan's face, but ever since they'd left, that face and that voice had kept appearing before his eyes.

"So it was an exchange of favors—you'd send half of them over once the work was done. Is that right?" Kael asked calmly.

"Yes, yes, we've already sent them over! Sir, which gang are you with? Balier? For the love of the Night, sir, take whatever you want! Just don't kill me, I beg you!"

Kael smiled.

He hauled the man up and pressed his head down on the only table in the butcher shop's basement. It was made of iron, its surface covered in a strange, dark-red rust.

Kael held him down, then broke his collarbone.

A shrill scream rang out, accompanied by tears and snot. Wraith watched silently. For a brief half-second, in a moment of distraction, he glimpsed Kael's true feelings.

Kael was smiling—but the real Kael, the person behind the smile—

He was furious, Wraith thought.

"I don't want anything," Kael said. "Listen carefully, and remember what I'm telling you—I don't want anything. Do you understand?"

"I understand! I understand!"

"Good," Kael said calmly, then snapped the man's neck. He crumpled limply at Kael's feet and lay still.

"One hundred and twenty-three."

A voice rang out in the basement.

It passed through the iron table, the butcher's knives, a dozen sticky iron barrels used to store offal, and several long shapes wrapped in black bags and hanging from the ceiling—then finally reached into the darkness.

It reached Wraith's ears.

One hundred and twenty-three.

He listened silently, preparing himself to hear what Kael would say next.

"I'm sorry," Kael said. "I lost control. I'm sorry, Wraith."

"...Why do you always have to apologize?"

"Because I made a mistake."

"But—"

"—because this isn't something I should have done, Wraith."

Standing where he was, Kael continued. "I told you that you shouldn't let personal feelings get mixed up in your work, and now I'm the one leading by example in breaking that rule."

He paused for a few seconds, then went on.

"All this time, I've been telling you what's right and what's wrong. I didn't realize how patronizing that was. I only see it now. That's the second thing I need to apologize for."

Wraith emerged from the darkness. He wanted to say something, but didn't know how to interrupt.

He had no choice but to keep listening.

"And... this, too." Kael's voice was low. "I realized I couldn't resist the urge to do this. That's the third thing I need to apologize for."

"Of course, I should apologize to them, too. I was driven by some so-called noble morality down a path of self-destruction, and along the way, I forgot a lot of things. These people deserved a better fate. Their deaths are on me."

"...You used to be a miner. How long did you do it, Kael?" Wraith asked hoarsely.

"Three years," Kael answered calmly. "I hadn't gone down that path yet. I wanted to see if I could light a fire, so I went to live among them."

"I didn't find any soil where a fire could take hold. They'd grown numb, like ice. All they wanted was to melt or keep freezing. They'd never think of burning. In truth, a rational person shouldn't try to make ice burn, either."

"...So you knew them?"

"Yes. I spent three years in that mine. After I left, I went back from time to time. That's how I met you."

Kael turned his head. His pale face held something complicated that Wraith couldn't understand at all.

"Don't be like me," he said softly. "Don't chase after the light of a flame so single-mindedly that you forget what's right in front of you."

"...I don't understand."

Wraith spoke in confusion. "I really don't understand, Kael. Your countdown is gone, and you said the fire had already been lit. You said the way forward would gradually reveal itself on its own, but now..."

But why are you still so sad?

"Is it because I wanted a blade?"

He lowered his head, then raised it again and asked cautiously, "I don't want it anymore. Is that okay?"

Kael gazed at him calmly.

He didn't answer or react in any other way. He only gazed at him. Then he said, "No. This has nothing to do with your blade."

He smiled, and Wraith's eyes slowly widened as he realized that the familiar Kael had returned.

"All right," he said with a smile. "All right, Wraith. Sigh..."

He sighed.

"Thank you," Kael said sincerely. "Thank you."

A butcher's death meant nothing in Quintus. People died every day in the Underhive. Why shouldn't one of them be a butcher?

Kael knew no one would care.

The Great Purge was coming. Even if someone wanted to care, they'd make themselves forget everything at a time like this.

He sighed and sat at the edge of the Sanctuary as usual, eating nutrient paste. Wraith had gone on patrol, far more enthusiastically than before. He'd always been conscientious about it, but today he seemed even more eager.

Kael knew why. He had a few scattered clues he could piece together: his own loss of control, Hakan's face, and the expression Wraith had worn when he said he didn't want that blade.

He would remember these things for the rest of his life.

But what he wanted to know more than anything now was how the other nobles in the Upper Hive would react.

That was important. Everything that came after depended on it.

Kael ate his nutrient paste expressionlessly and began thinking about something else.

That Prometheus had said he would bring Wraith—or rather, Konrad Curze's brothers—to Nostramo.

Kael didn't know when they would arrive, but he was certain of one thing.

That Prometheus was almost certainly no ordinary person.

The evidence was as follows.

First, his memories, and the things he had shown Kael within them.

Second, Wraith's strength.

A year-and-a-half-old infant could tear an armored car apart with a wave of his hand, dart and weave through the darkness at speeds no ordinary person could ever detect, and heal at a shocking rate—every visible wound could be healed.

That wasn't how anyone would define an infant. In fact, if Kael had to choose a single word to describe Wraith, he would choose "weapon."

And that Prometheus claimed to be Wraith's father.

What kind of father would turn his son into a weapon? And what kind of father could make his son into a weapon like that?

But that was precisely the problem.

If Prometheus saw Wraith as nothing more than a weapon, why had he placed all that knowledge in Wraith's mind? And what about that innate sense of justice? There were too many unanswered questions.

Then there was Prometheus.

The Fire Thief.

Kael narrowed his eyes and stopped eating. His thoughts grew slow and cautious. He realized that the things beyond the Veil hadn't seemed to be lying when they'd reacted that way.

How fascinating. A Fire Thief. A Fire Thief feared by the things beyond the Veil—one who could speak across great distances, even resurrect me, and change me.

Prometheus. The Fire Thief, the god who betrayed the gods.

A god.

Never mind.

There was no point in thinking about it. He had no idea when Prometheus would arrive.

He should focus on the things right in front of him, Kael. Like finishing your food, then taking a trip to the Upper Hive. Then going to see how the workers who had once stopped to look at the nobles' corpses were doing now.

A spark needed tending.

And then... and then...

He sighed slowly.

There was always a then.

He always made a habit of planning everything before taking action, but plans never kept pace with change. He'd intended to move those miners to the other end of the district, but he'd attacked the Upper Hive before he could do it...

Now they were dead, Kael Lohars.

This was your fault.

Admit it. You've never been one to stick to a plan. You'd planned to blow up the Upper Hive and die with it, but Wraith changed your mind. You lit the fire, but you have no idea how to make it burn brighter...

Kael lowered his head with a bitter smile.

"Turns out that what you learn from books is never enough," he murmured.

Plans never kept pace with change.

Thinking this, he slowly stood up and decided to save the rest of his nutrient paste for a few hours later.

It wouldn't spoil, anyway.

Five minutes later, he left the Sanctuary and headed for the Upper Hive.

Eight hours after that, he would feel an urge to have the words plans never keep pace with change tattooed on his body. As for the plate of nutrient paste he'd left behind, he would never get the chance to eat it.

First, an apology. Readers hoping to see a rebellion may be disappointed. For one thing, I don't really dare write about that in detail. For another, if I keep writing about it indirectly, this section could go on forever...

And then this book might have to change its title.

So, after weighing everything, I've moved some things up.