Chapter 25. Should I have let him die?
****
"Lord Kayan!"
Hulkan said, jumping up from his seat and gritting his teeth.
His eyes glowed with a dangerous aura, as if they could explode at any moment.
Whether it was a drunken stroke or a deep-seated grudge, he didn't hesitate to express his anger, even in front of the leader of the strictly hierarchical Black Wolves.
Kayan smirked, and this time slammed the glass in front of him down on the table.
Clang!
With a loud clang, the glass became a weapon that could harm people.
In the blink of an eye, it left Kayan's hand and struck Hulkan in the head.
"Aaahhh!"
Hulkan rolled on the floor, clutching his bloodied left ear.
Kayan slowly walked over to Hulkan, who was writhing in pain.
He grabbed Hulkan by the hair, still rolling on the floor.
"Damn, you've been drinking too much. You've torn a nasty gash in your skull."
The muttered exclamation of faint irritation froze the air around him in a sharp chill.
The color of Kayan's face remained the same, even in the face of a man whose ear was half torn off and falling apart.
His demeanor was that of a wild animal caught in a net, not a human.
Kayan dropped to one knee and grasped Hulkan's head in a vicious grip.
He slammed his head down on the floor with all his might.
Thud, thud, thud, thud.
The sound of his skull hitting the floor continued in a lively beat.
Hulkan didn't even moan as if he was already out cold.
The few Anut warriors still awake broke into a cold sweat and remained silent, knowing full well how angry Kayan was right now.
Anyone who interfered would not be spared.
They concluded that Kayan had lost his temper because Hulkan had dared to challenge his right-hand man, Doa Chatalq.
It was too much to ask if he did that because of a mere slave.
The dagger on the floor came into Kayan's view as he stood in silence.
In one fluid motion, he drew it and aimed it at the nape of Hulkan's neck.
The onlookers squeezed their eyes shut for a moment.
"No."
The words came out of Ihedia's mouth in fear as she watched Kayan's ruthless behavior from the sidelines.
It was a mere whisper that slipped out unwillingly, but the small sound was not lost on Kayan.
He turned to see the woman trembling, as if she had seen something she shouldn't have.
"Savage."
The contempt in her voice spilled out over the white-washed face.
"..."
A moment later, Kayan tossed the dagger in his hand to the ground and stood up.
With a clatter, the blood on his shoes stamped out like a seal wherever he walked.
No one in the room broke the eerie silence until he had disappeared completely.
"Ah.."
Ihedia let out the breath she had been holding.
It was unlikely that her barely audible words would have halted his terrible rage, but at least she had been spared the sight of a man dying before her eyes.
"What are you doing, not calling a doctor!"
One of the warriors who had been watching rallied around his belated comrade.
The atmosphere in the banquet hall was hellish, starting with the rampage of a man named Hulkan, but in the end, Ihedia was saved by Kayan.
If Kayan hadn't stepped in then....... she could only imagine what would have happened next.
She stared blankly in the direction Kayan had disappeared, waiting for her racing heart to slow down.
***
Ihedia made her way back to the kitchen, her mind still reeling from what had just happened.
She tried to shake off her depressed mood by focusing her attention on the constant stream of errands.
How much time had passed?
The day was winding down and the workday was almost over.
Her hands were swollen with a mountain of dishes when the chef called her on an errand.
"Take this and go to the outbuilding."
The chef handed Ihedia a large bucket of jumbled food.
Presumably, he was collecting the food left on the plates that had been brought in and out of the banquet hall and distributing it to the people in the outbuildings.
Aurora had heard that when there was a large banquet, the Anuts were allowed to eat the leftovers.
It's a little squeamish, she says, but where else can you eat meat?
But it didn't look like it was fit for human consumption.
"...."
When Ihedia stared at it, unimpressed, the chef yelled at her.
"What are you doing not moving!"
Ihedia reluctantly took it in her hands and left the kitchen.
Given the size of the mansion, the outside walkway leading from the main house to the outbuildings was quite long.
After being in the hot kitchen all day, the cold seemed even more intense than when she crossed the path to the main house.
She shivered like she was covered in ice water.
Blowing into her hands, Ihedia finally reached the outbuilding.
The women of the outbuildings, who had finished their first order of business and returned to their quarters, saw the bucket in her hand, and their complexions lit up.
She had mixed feelings about the fact that they were so happy to see what could have been a waste meal.
She looked around.
It was the middle of the night, and there was no sign of Aurora, who had not yet returned from the stables.
"I guess 30 isn't done yet.”
The women, each busy picking out their favorite food, didn't hear Ihedia's low murmur.
The outbuilding hadn't had any newcomers yet, and now that Ihedia had crossed over to the main house, Aurora would have more work to do.
As if reading her thoughts of going to the stables, 100, who lived in the next room, chimed in.
"We have strictly separate duties here, and if we help each other out or take advantage of each other, it comes back to bite us in the ass, 30 and you have to be especially careful."
This advice was probably given as a thank you to 77 for bringing food for them, even though they normally didn’t speak to each other.
Netira didn't want the women in the outbuildings to bond and take collective action; she wanted them to gossip and pick sides.
Because of this tense atmosphere, people here were wary of each other even though they were in the same situation.
This was another one of Netira's ploys to keep her slaves in line.
Moreover, Aurora's presence was a warning to be careful, as she was out of sight.
Ihedia turned and walked away, bitter in her heart.
She was heading back to the main house through the bitter wind.
"What the hell did you do to deserve this!"
Not far away, Netira was pouring out her anger on one of the Anut warriors she'd seen in the banquet hall.
Next to him, a middle-aged man who appeared to be a doctor stood with a puzzled look on his face.
The conversation was probably centered around the man who had been brutally beaten by Kayan.
It didn't do her any good if Netira realized that Ihedia had been the trigger for that disastrous event.
The last thing Ihedia needed right now was to be seen by them.
Nervously, she quickly turned down a different path.
There must be another way. She walked and walked, vaguely guessing.
But the entrance to the main house was nowhere to be found.
“Where the hell am I?”
Still unfamiliar with the manor's layout, Ihedia wandered for a while through the labyrinthine gardens.
The darkness made it even harder to find her way around.
Meanwhile, her hands and feet were frozen to the point of numbness, and a dry cough began to leak out of her lungs with every breath of cold air.
If she ran another errand and came back late, the people in the kitchen would accuse her of being lazy again.
Ihedia quickened her pace, almost running in her anxiety, but somehow she felt like she was getting farther and farther away from her destination.
A familiar voice stopped her in her tracks.
"You're wandering."
Ihedia turned to find a large man sitting on a bench, his face bathed in the white moonlight.
Kayan watched her stiffen and muttered softly.
"You're doing this on purpose?”
His voice was even slower than it had been in the ballroom.
In the calm of daylight, he didn't show any signs of intoxication, but she could tell by the tone of his voice how intoxicated he was.
One minute she barely escaped a lecherous man, the next she ran into an unhinged beast.
The day had been too much for Ihedia to handle, and she was exhausted.
Just as she was about to take off down any road in sight, he spoke again.
"If you go that way, you’ll come to the Wolf Forest."
Was this the path that leads to the back mountains, where dangerous wolves were said to roam?
Kayan, who had been watching Ihedia's embarrassment with amusement, let out a laugh as light as the wind.
Was it the moonlight that made everything seem like a dreamy fantasy?
Ihedia couldn't help but lock her gaze on Kayan's smile, which was as beautiful as a painting.
***
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Write a comment
Iona (Sunday, 21 January 2024 09:23)
Thank sm for the chapter!!❤️