While Ruger pondered, the bald man beside him kept stealing glances at him. Ruger ignored him completely.
"You may think I'm making excuses for him," the frail old man said after resting for a while, "but my suspicions have a basis. That dagger... appeared out of nowhere. He never chose to pick it up. Haya merely went to sleep, and when he woke... the dagger was in his hand..."
An old man, panting for breath, kept spouting one unbelievable thing after another.
That was the thought written across the faces of the God-Gifted.
The God-Gifted wore varying expressions, some clearly disbelieving. They might have seen people receive a calling from another god in their dreams, but never a real dagger delivered directly into someone's hand. It was utterly absurd.
Watching their expressions, Ruger's lips twitched into a faint smile.
Though he did not find it particularly unbelievable, he too felt the old man was hiding something. He still had not told them the whole truth-or perhaps everything he had said was true, but he had left some information out.
"That dagger was covered in rust, with corroded notches along both edges, as though it might snap at any moment... My son Haya went from laughing heartily to crying and begging for help," the old man said slowly, seemingly having finally found a pace that did not tire him too much. "That dagger, which he could never let go of, made him waste away... At first, I thought grief and terror were tormenting him. Then I saw the notches in the dagger mend, and the rust gradually disappear... Only then did I realize that dagger was eating my Haya..."
As he spoke, the old man raised a trembling hand and slowly pulled open his loose collar.
A gruesome wound on his