Arius descended from the edge quietly, as if crossing the boundaries of danger without fear, and said in a low but firm voice, "I must go now." He left no room for doubt, immediately beginning to summon his energy soldiers, who fell around him like a breeze of charged energy, ready to carry out his orders.
He ordered the soldiers to spread throughout the place, and each of them began pouring and scattering the sleeping potion with extreme precision in every corner, on every ledge, and on every surface they could reach. As they distributed the doses, Arius's voice rose coldly, yet filled with anticipation: "I know this won't affect the powerful ones here, but it will subdue some of them. This potion is very potent; at the very least, it will allow me to control people like Nahira, or others, leaving them to sink into a state of total exhaustion after a while."
It wasn't long before all the soldiers finished their mission, and the halls and corridors were filled with a sudden silence, as if under the influence of a mysterious spell. Then, Arius moved on to the next phase of his plan. He waited until midnight, when everyone had subsided into sleep, and those unaffected by the potion had reluctantly gone to rest.
Arius went down again, this time more cautiously, spreading his soldiers inside every individual in the palace, even in the smallest rooms, as if they were roaming the souls themselves, monitoring every movement and sound. After finishing this precise deployment, he ordered a large group of his soldiers to search and inspect for any clue that might point to the identity of the lurker—the hidden eye watching them.
Hours of diligent searching passed, but the soldiers found nothing of note. Arius smiled with a faint, cynical expression and said, "At least I will discover their identity soon; wherever they move, my soldier will remain behind them, like a permanent shadow that never leaves."
Finally, Arius felt the weight of fatigue on his shoulders, and he announced to himself in a faint voice, "It is time for me to rest a little." He jumped lightly toward his room, closed the door behind him, and threw his body onto the bed. Sleep seeped into his veins quickly, and he fell into a deep slumber from sheer exhaustion, while the sounds of the night gradually faded, leaving behind a heavy silence that enveloped the entire palace.
The next morning, Arius rose from his sleep with a heavy stillness, as if the fatigue had not completely left him despite the hours of rest. He put on his clothes with mechanical order, and when he opened the door and stepped out, the palace was drowning in a cautious stillness—the kind of quiet that does not reassure, but rather watches you in silence.
He began to walk through the palace corridors with steady steps, but a strange sensation crept into his consciousness. It wasn't an illusion... it was a familiar feeling; the feeling of someone who knows they are being watched.
He stopped for a moment, his eyes sliding across the walls and corners, then he muttered to himself with biting sarcasm:
"How ridiculous... I am supposed to be the one watching everyone, and yet, I am the one being watched at this moment."
He closed his eyes for a fraction of a second, and when he opened them... he vanished.
He left no trace, no echo of movement. In the next instant, he appeared directly behind the one who had been watching him.
His eyes widened suddenly, and he took a step back, saying with genuine alarm:
"Ah! What is wrong with you?! You scared me, girl!"
Lorinda turned quickly, confusion evident on her features. She bowed slightly and said in a tense voice:
"Forgive me, sir... I did not mean to."
Arius exhaled sharply, then stared at her and said:
"And why were you following me in the first place?"
Lorinda hesitated for a moment before answering:
"I was ordered to do so, sir."
Arius knitted his brows, a tone of annoyance creeping into his voice:
"Ah... as usual, Nahira never stops doubting me."
Lorinda raised her head quickly, as if she felt the need to correct him immediately:
"No, sir, it was not Lady Nahira who sent me."
Arius froze in his place for a moment.
"Then who?"
She answered with cautious calm:
"Lady Clarice."
Surprise was evident on Arius's features; it was unexpected and, in his view, illogical. He stepped closer and said:
"Tell me... why would your mistress demand such a thing? What drives her to monitor me?"
Lorinda shrugged her shoulders with sincere surrender:
"I do not know, sir. I was only ordered to follow you secretly and to report to her anything you do when you are alone."
Arius stared at her for long seconds, as if weighing the words and possibilities together, then finally said in a cold tone:
"Fine... consider that you never saw me at all."
She nodded quickly:
"Understood, sir."
Arius turned his gaze away and said nothing more. In a fleeting moment, he used teleportation and vanished, appearing on the roof of the palace, where the horizon stretched out before him endlessly.
He stood there, the wind playing with his clothes, his mind boiling with questions.
*Why did Clarice do this?*
*Does she have ulterior motives?*
*Or does she suspect I am the spy?*
*Or is the matter more complex than it seems?*
He sighed deeply, and his internal tone was unusually confused:
*I don't understand anything anymore...*
He remained standing, staring into the distance, while doubts accumulated in his mind like clouds gathering before an inevitable storm. Arius descended from the roof with quiet steps, hiding a storm of questions behind his cold features about Clarice's monitoring of him. He made his way toward the massive courtyard, and there he found Lady Nahira standing with her usual dignity, beside her assistant. Her stern eyes were scanning the place, watching with clear annoyance the soldiers who showed signs of lethargy and extreme laziness, swaying in their stance as if an invisible weight was pressing on their chests—the lingering effect of the "potion" that Arius's soldiers had scattered last night.
As soon as her gaze fell upon him, she exclaimed with a tone mixed with reproach and interrogation: "Ah, Arius! Where have you been? You are very late!"
Arius answered in a neutral tone, trying to absorb the intensity of the situation: "I woke up a short while ago..."
Nahira was not entirely convinced. She turned again toward the swaying guards and said with a grumble: "In truth, I do not know what is wrong with the soldiers today. They are acting with a strange lethargy, and that is something I never like to see in my palace."
At that moment, Arius's mind was analyzing the situation with astonishing speed. He thought to himself with biting sarcasm: *"I expected that... she was not affected by the potion at all, unlike the rest. Even my energy soldier whom I tasked with watching her could not hold on; I felt him fleeing back to me yesterday as if her aura repelled him. It seems Nahira is very stubborn, and her Rizo refuses any outside interference, even if it were of my own making."*
While he was lost in assessing Nahira's power, she cut off his train of thought as she stepped closer to him and lowered her voice to say in a tone suddenly covered in seriousness and danger: "Regardless... I have received some secret news about the traitors who are infiltrating among us."
Arius's eyes widened slightly, and the word slipped out of him with a surprise he couldn't suppress: "Really?!"
Nahira cast a sharp look at him, a look that pierced his artificial calm, and said with firmness that accepted no debate: "Yes, and of course you must know what I have learned... so, follow me to the throne room now!"
She turned with her scarf fluttering behind her and headed inside, while Arius remained for a moment looking at her back. Had the "hidden eye" been revealed? Or were there other threads he knew nothing about? He moved behind her in silence, prepared for the coming confrontation in the heart of the throne room.
As soon as their feet hit the marble floor of the hall, Nahira locked the massive doors with a thunderous slam and turned to scan the corners with hawkish eyes, ensuring the place was free of any eavesdropping ears. With a swift movement, she tapped her index finger in the air, causing a spray of purple energy to explode and expand at lightning speed, forming a defensive dome that enveloped the entire hall, isolating it from the fabric of external reality.
She said in a tone that relaxed slightly: "Good... this way, no one will hear us now."
Arius asked her, his eyes tracking the shimmer of the purple shield: "My lady, have you truly learned who the traitors are?"
She cast him a mysterious look and replied: "Not yet, but I have learned something better now." He asked with cautious curiosity: "And what is that?"
Nahira headed toward her golden throne and sat upon it with overwhelming majesty, then signaled for Arius to sit before her. With a theatrical movement, she pulled out an old leather scroll and threw it before him. Arius opened it slowly, and the moment his eyes fell upon its contents, his eyes widened with a shock he tried hard to hide behind his usual mask of coldness.
Nahira said in a triumphant tone: "Do you see that? Those distributed points are the locations of the camps of that ragtag army."
At that moment, Arius felt a chill run through his veins, and his inner voice screamed with suppressed panic: *"Damn! These are all the locations... even Uncle Ken's location is here too?! How did they reach this depth?"*
Nahira continued speaking, unaware of the storm raging in Arius's head: "Why are you silent? Anyway... according to what has reached us, these stragglers have many very clear weaknesses, the most important of which is that their leader is in the most exposed place for us, so hunting them is just a matter of time, nothing more."
Arius swallowed his saliva, trying to make his voice sound natural as he asked with heavy-lidded eyes implying confusion: "And how did you obtain all that, my lady?"
Nahira looked at him, a confident smile etched upon her face. She tilted her head slightly and said: "Just as they have spies, I also have my own spies... so do not worry about this matter, my dear."
Silence prevailed for a second, while Arius stared at the map which had now become a death warrant for his old comrades, realizing that the game had become more dangerous than he had imagined, and that the "spies" Nahira spoke of might be closer to him than he thought.
As soon as he asked her: "My lady, could you at least tell me who your spies are?", Nahira felt his urgent desire to breach the fence of her secrets, so she turned to him slowly and asked in a tone devoid of expression: "And why do you want to know that?"
Arius panicked for a moment and tried to regain his balance, saying: "So that I might have an idea of who is working with us..." But her reply was final, cold, and insulting to his loyalty: "I will not tell you... not yet. When the time comes, I will reveal them to you."
That sentence fell like a thunderbolt on Arius, and he felt his being shake before her gaze, which seemed to read what was behind his mask. He asked her with bitterness he could not entirely hide: "My lady, does this mean I have never earned your trust?"
Without turning to him, while she gazed at the horizon from the side of her throne, she replied in a tone that carried a strange mix of appreciation and warning: "No, you are one of my most loyal soldiers, but I will not take risks... especially since you are very sympathetic to others."
Arius bowed his head, hiding his facial features which ignited with anxiety, and said in a low voice: "As you wish, my lady." He asked permission to leave, and once she granted it, he left the place with steps burdened by foreboding.
Now, Arius stands in the long corridor, his mind boiling. Nahira knows everything—the maps, the locations, even "Uncle Ken" has become in the line of danger. And worse than that, she views him as "sympathetic," a trait in their world that could mean weakness or treason.
Arius stood for a moment, and he felt his Rizo stir. *"What will I do now?"* He stared at his palm, around which particles of energy began to glow. *"If I move now, I will reveal myself to her spies whom I do not know... and if I remain silent, I will watch my comrades be exterminated."*
Confusion gnawed at him, and the silence of the palace, which seemed safe yesterday, had now become a giant spiderweb surrounding him on every side.
Arius raised his gaze toward the ornate ceiling, as if the answer were hanging between the folds of the stone carvings, and he muttered in a low voice filled with confusion: "What will I do...?" But his train of thought was abruptly cut off when the sound of confident, softly ringing footsteps reached his ears, approaching him through the long corridor.
Arius turned, and Clarice appeared before him. She walked with a dignity that imposed silence upon the place, stunning in her white dress that flowed like a waterfall, studded with pieces of luxurious purple fabric that matched the color of her long, dark purple hair. And her purple sapphire eyes shone with a mysterious luster, combining beauty and sharpness.
When she reached him, she offered her greeting with an overwhelming royal presence, and Arius bowed with respect befitting her status. She initiated with a mysterious smile, saying: "Strange... you are a polite man, Arius, is that name correct?"
Arius raised his head, trying to read what was behind those sapphire eyes, and answered calmly: "Yes, that is my name, my lady. I believe I mentioned it previously when we met."
She cast a cold look at him while caressing a strand of her hair: "Excuse me, I forget names quickly, especially those of people who do not matter to me... Anyway, you seem a little tired."
Arius tried to maintain his composure in the face of her wounding pride, and replied briefly: "No, I am fine."
Clarice tilted her head slightly, examined his features with a precision that aroused his suspicion, and then said in a tone not devoid of mockery: "Did my sister scold you? Things like that are expected of her."
Arius answered quickly, as if defending the loyalty that had been shaken just a moment ago in the throne room: "No, my lady, she is the best... she appreciates and respects me very much, and I do the impossible so that she may be pleased with me."
Clarice laughed a light laugh, resonant but cold as ice, and said as she moved one step closer to him: "Oh... an obedient boy! I wish you were my own servant, Arius, we would have gotten along very well together."
Arius stood silent, and the feeling of being watched that had been chasing him returned to loom on the horizon. Clarice's words were not just flirting or admiration, but rather seemed like "testing the waters" of his power and loyalty. Inside, Arius wondered: *"If she is the one who sent Lorinda to monitor me, why is she pretending now that I do not matter to her? Is she trying to lure me to her side, away from Nahira?"*
Clarice stood, and with a seductiveness that was not without danger, asked in a tone that carried sudden curiosity: "Tell me, Arius, what is your current age?"
Arius stopped, and quick questions revolved in his mind: *"Why is she asking about my age suddenly? Is she looking for a loophole in my time or the maturity of my mind?"* Then he answered in a quiet voice: "My age is currently 16, and soon I will be 17, my lady."
Clarice's delicate laughter rose in a way that did not befit the dignity of the palace, and she said: "And what do you expect my age to be?" Arius cast a quick look at her youthful, vibrant features and said: "18?"
She burst into laughter this time, and said in a tone that carried the weight of ages: "Wrong... my age is 300 million years!" Arius's eyes widened, and he felt a chill run through the place; the difference between her appearance and her reality was terrifying. She continued, saying: "I may look like a teenager in your eyes, but I am very wise, Arius."
Arius muttered with spontaneity he did not calculate the consequences for: "So you are an old woman..."
At that moment, the smile faded from Clarice's face completely, her sapphire eyes turned into two sharp blades, and she said in a terrifyingly low tone: "What did you say?!"
Arius was confused by the shift in the aura around her, and he took a step back while waving his hand: "No... nothing!" He tried to address the situation quickly by changing the subject: "In reality, I am also not as young as I appear outwardly. I lived 16 years in the past before this life, but I died and was reanimated again, which means my spiritual age is approximately 32 years."
Clarice raised her eyebrow with interest, and a new glimmer of curiosity appeared in her eyes: "Oh... you lived before now? And rituals of reanimation? It seems the matter is very significant..."
Arius felt that the conversation was beginning to draw out more dangerous talk, and that delving into his past before this "wise old woman" might reveal more than he should, so he gathered his wits and said quickly: "Well, excuse me... I must leave now!"
He did not wait for a reply, but ran off into the corridor, leaving behind the echo of his accelerating footsteps. Clarice stood in her place, watching him as he vanished at the end of the hallway, and a smile of mysterious malice formed on her lips as she whispered to herself: "So that's how it is... a soul returned from death."
She turned with total coldness and headed toward the doors of the throne room, where her sister Nahira resides with the secrets of the maps and the spies, and she entered to complete another chapter of intrigue.