Shadow Oath

Chapter 45: Divination (2)

“Then, what you’re saying is….”

Terrdin summarized after listening to Ram’s story without blinking.

“…His Majesty the King ordered you to kill me. One of the two mages we encountered informed you of this, and my son Astian appeared in their guise, saying you would obtain a weapon to kill me tonight. Is that correct?”

Ram realized how absurd his actions had been.

“When you put it that way, my story makes no sense at all. I shouldn’t have said anything. It seems like I… might have misunderstood something.”

Terrdin picked up the dagger of Hak Maraka from the table.

Ram tried to stop him.

“General, that dagger might be cursed by Hak Maraka.”

“Cursed? Boy, I don’t fear such superstitions. If you’d said it was poisoned, I might have believed you. But you’ve been carrying it all this time, haven’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Has anything happened to you? Are you paralyzed, struggling to breathe, or suffering stomach pain?”

“There haven’t been any such symptoms… but poison can sometimes take time to manifest, can’t it?”

“You said Hagra Olga held it too, didn’t you? As a fellow shaman, she would be familiar with Maraka’s methods. She wouldn’t have held a poisoned dagger. If she could hold it, then so can I.”

Terrdin inspected the dagger’s wooden handle, turning it over in his hands.

“If I were an assassin, I might hide a poisoned needle in this branch-like handle. If only I knew the needle’s exact location, anyone else gripping the dagger would unknowingly prick themselves and die. Witnesses might call it a curse.”

Ram was impressed by his insight.

“Do you want to examine it again?”

Terrdin set the dagger down again. Ram picked it up, inspecting the wooden handle closely under the lamp. He found no small needles or anything similar. He hadn’t felt any stinging pain while holding it until now.

Suddenly, he thought to inspect the blade. From what he could tell, there was no sign of poison on it.

“So, were you planning to stab me with this dagger?”

Terrdin asked.

Ram put the dagger back down.

“That thought has never crossed my mind.”

“Not even when the king gave you the order?”

“No. Not even once, from the very beginning.”

He had calculated it a few times, though. That was just his habit.

How could he kill the person in front of him?

It was something he was still doing, even now.

“Then why are you only telling me this now?”

This wasn’t his usual gentle tone. After hearing about a plot involving his own death, he was understandably not in a good mood.

Especially when his son was involved. What father could remain calm after hearing that their child might be implicated in such a matter?

“I didn’t know what to do, as it was an order from the king.”

Regretting his decision to speak, Ram nonetheless shared everything honestly since he had already started.

“If I disobeyed the order and ended up dying, that would have been the end of it. I didn’t see the need to tell you. But after thinking it over for several days, I realized that if I died without informing you, I wouldn’t be able to prevent any harm that might come to you. If I didn’t carry out the assassination, the king would find another way. I wanted to warn you.”

Terrdin scratched his chin.

His expression didn’t seem particularly serious.

“It’s no secret to anyone in the royal court that King Gallant wants me dead. He must have hoped I’d die on the battlefield, but instead, I ended up victorious again. So now he’s resorting to an assassin? And not just any assassin—he’s using you, my shadow? Did he think that would work?”

“He promised me land and a title. It’s a tempting enough offer.”

“But you didn’t take it.”

“That means His Majesty thought I might be tempted.”

“And yet you confessed everything to me. Did the king fail to consider that possibility? Taking such a risk seems less like stupidity and more like something strange. Don’t you think?”

“I… I don’t know.”

Ram struggled to follow Terrdin’s line of thought. However, there was one thing he was curious about.

“If a mage is involved in plotting your death, why would they go to the trouble of using me? If they’re truly mages, couldn’t they use magic or sorcery to kill you anytime?”

Cura had infiltrated Ram’s barracks without him even noticing. With that level of stealth, she could have killed Terrdin easily.

“Mages don’t want to directly intervene in events. They prefer to manipulate them. Why did they appear in my son’s form? Or could it be that Astian is actually this Cura?”

Ram had no answer for that question. It was something he had wondered about as well. He found it hard to speak carelessly on the matter.

Terrdin, seemingly not expecting an answer, shook his head without waiting.

“There’s a lot to think about. And… Ram.”

There was no one who called him by name these days except for Terrdin. Hearing it felt comforting but also unsettling, as though the general was holding a secret over him.

Ram couldn’t go against Terrdin.

Not that he had any reason to.

“It might sound like an old man’s nagging, but there’s something I want you to remember. It’ll be very difficult to grasp. You’ll need a lot of experience now and in the future to fully understand, but for now, just listen and keep it in mind.”

“Yes, General.”

“The moment you killed Mantum and brought his head to me, you put yourself in a position where you would always be used by someone. Because you can kill anyone you want, you can become an enemy to anyone. The moment you disobeyed the king’s order and revealed it to me, you became the king’s enemy.”

“I understand.”

He could accept that.

“If you had killed me as the king ordered and returned to him, you would still have been killed. Killing me would have meant you could also kill him.”

That, too, he already knew.

He was capable of it.

He simply hadn’t done it.

“Your power now is like that of the God of Death. People want the God of Death on their side, but no one truly wants him near them.”

“Tanu… Tanu… Tanu…”

Suddenly, Olga’s song echoed in his mind.

It wasn’t just a memory. He could hear her voice as though she were truly singing somewhere nearby, her song reaching his sensitive ears.

“Someone who must keep killing to survive… Who will I kill today to live for tomorrow?”

Ram instinctively turned to look behind him.

All he saw was the closed door.

He strained to listen.

Only the faint sound of the cold northern wind reached his ears.

Terrdin, unaware of Ram’s unease, continued speaking.

“You will be used, Ram. Because of your unique power, you will always be in a position to be exploited. To avoid being used, you must do the using. But you lack the experience to pull that off. The more you struggle to avoid falling into someone’s trap, the more you’ll end up ensnared. In this world, there’s only one thing you can do.”

Ram already knew the answer.

“Trust no one. Listen only to my orders.”

It was the answer Baron Selkon had given.

Ram believed it was correct as well.

However, Terrdin gave him a completely unexpected answer.

“Find someone you can trust. And use your abilities only for that person.”

"Someone to trust…?"

“If you were just an ordinary strong warrior, I would have advised you like this: Do what you believe is right… But you can’t do that. You possess a power that’s too dangerous to act solely based on what you think is right. I’ve seen countless people commit evil while being certain their actions were righteous. I don’t want you to become one of them.”

It was more confusing than it was an answer.

A slave follows their master.

But he was no longer a slave.

So, now he was supposed to find someone to trust and follow them?

How could he use his abilities solely for that person?

What if what they believed to be right was actually evil? What should he do then?

As always, when he didn’t understand, his first instinct was to respond obediently.

“Yes, General.”

“Don’t tell anyone about this. Not even Prince Demion. If you tell him that his father hired you to kill me, the already troubled prince will become even more confused.”

“Yes.”

“And it goes without saying, be cautious of Astian. Whether he appears in the form of a mage or as my son.”

Terrdin’s expression darkened as he said this.

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

“No. Your mission for tonight remains unchanged.”

“Yes, General.”

As Ram turned to leave, Terrdin spoke.

“You should take the dagger. It’s yours.”

The words “it’s yours” rang oddly loudly in Ram’s ears, almost as if they echoed.

Why does this dagger keep coming to me?

The thought crossed his mind without him realizing it. At the same time, he remembered what he had said to Hagra.

“It’s as if you’re describing this dagger as if it’s alive.”

Ram picked up the dagger and tucked it into his belt.

The commotion that had started as he left General Terrdin’s quarters continued until Ram entered the grand banquet hall.

The argument was between Borne knights and the royal knights over who would guard which areas of the banquet hall.

Inside the hall, only Demion, Charlon, Jedric, and the prince’s shadow were allowed to remain. Ram wasn’t sure when he had been decided as the prince’s shadow.

The royal knights were not allowed to guard the inner areas of the hall. Ruseph had refused to let Charlon be surrounded by “men” from another kingdom. To him, whether they were Geran warriors or royal knights, they were all just men.

Ruseph had offered to take charge of Charlon’s security himself. However, Charlon opposed it, arguing that it would appear as if she didn’t trust the prince and that it would seem like an insult to the Geran people.

Thus, Ruseph requested that four of his Borne knights be included in the security team. Since it was his final condition, they had to accept it.

The issue had been resolved with Terrdin’s mediation, but when Ram arrived, the argument was still ongoing. The Borne knights were insisting that they alone would guard the area around the lady’s chamber.

The banquet hall had six attached chambers. Charlon was to stay in the innermost chamber, and Demion in the outermost chamber. This meant that the Borne knights would guard Charlon’s chamber and also end up standing in front of the prince’s chamber.

The Triton knights opposed this, arguing that it was inappropriate for knights from another land to guard the prince’s quarters.

“Fine! Then no one will enter the banquet hall! If you don’t like it, go back to Ruseph, renegotiate, and report back after resolving this!”

Demion’s temper flared as he settled the matter.

Ram was left wondering if he should call General Terrdin again, but eventually, the knights managed to come to a compromise. However, they finally raised an issue with the dagger Ram carried. With both sides lacking a representative inside the hall, the presence of a single armed person—the prince’s shadow—became a point of contention. Frustrated by the prolonged procedures and stubbornness on both sides, Demion ordered Ram to relinquish his weapon.

Ram complied without protest.

However, he retained Maraka’s dagger. It wasn’t hidden, but no one dared to take it from him. This proved that the dispute wasn’t about security but about pride.

In the end, aside from ten knights guarding the outside, only the four people remained in the hall. Jedric and Ram weren’t assigned chambers, but neither of them minded.

By the time everything was resolved and Demion and Charlon retired to their respective chambers, it was past midnight.

“Tanu? How do you know that name?”

Jedric asked.

“Maraka said it while being dragged away.”

Ram confirmed there was no one else around by listening carefully before speaking.

He and Jedric sat facing each other by the spot where the banquet fire had once burned.

“I can’t be certain of the pronunciation, as it was noisy, and I’m not fluent in the Geran language. But I’m sure the word ‘kill’ was said.”

Ram hesitated, unsure whether he should mention hearing the name from Olga as well.

“How much should I say? How much should I hide?”

When he had worked as Baron Selkon’s assassin, everything was simple. He just needed to keep his mouth shut or speak when told. Now, he had to think for himself.

“Kill Tanu…”

Jedric repeated the words, then continued as if it wasn’t a big deal.

“We have many gods. The War and Fire God Akamantum, the God of Prosperity Glon, the God of Wind and Thunder Munholm, the God of Ice and Rivers Ablim, the Earth God Nanan, the Sky God Ramelon, the Father of Gods Raham, the Mother of Gods Krena…”

Jedric threw a few dry logs into the dying fire as he went on.

“But among them, there’s a god even the others fear and keep their distance from: the God of Inevitable Death, Tanu.”

“Can you tell me more about Tanu?”

“It’s a long story. To understand it fully, you’d need to know the relationships between all the sibling gods. If I skip everything and only tell you about Tanu, it’ll be a dull tale. Is that fine with you?”

Jedric implied that this could touch on significant matters. Ram, however, didn’t care about entertainment.

“That’s fine.”

“It’s a complicated story, so I’ll tell it in Geran. It might confuse me less that way. Is that okay?”

“I’ll do my best to follow.”

Jedric glanced at him, as if to double-check his sincerity, before starting the lengthy myth.

“Tanu was the youngest of the children born to Raham, the supreme god…”