I returned to Hakorhi with the refined essence of the Lion-Ant King. The details of how I ended it's miserable life, I will spare you. I just knew it wasn't something I ever wanted to do again, much less in the prescence of my little brother. The three of us were considerably traumatized on our return journey.
But there are things that an alchemist must brave.
I let the other disciples administer the antidote to the infected, while I went into solitary cultivation, warming my imprint on all the places it was placed so they would know where to find me, should anything happen.
I wasn't so sure why, but I'd never felt so alone. I was not an Hakorhi, but Thzarmir and Shathelia had loved me as much as their own daughter. Whoever knew how far Canolita was, yet there, alive and well, were my true family.
I wondered how it would feel, having living parents. It had been a long while since I felt that way. I wondered if I resembled my mother or father. I wondered why my uncle had taken me away. Who was the one who had imprinted on the Lion-Ant King? How had he known what was going to happen? How had he imprinted before uncle had taken me away?
I lay my back on the bare rock and looked into the moonlit sky. There were night birds flying in the sky, on their way to hunt. Once or twice one would swoop, with a flutter of wings, and disappear into the grassy plains.
I sat up as, in a long while, I heard a human cry.
They were a group of poison masters, holding someone hostage between them. It was not difficult for me to walk right up to them without any of them noticing me. I had cast a cloaking seal on myself, and I looked right between the gaps to see who they were holding.
A young boy. He appeared to have been beaten up. His lips quivered as one of the poison masters closed his hand, with claw-like nails, on the boy's throat.
No!
It happened in a split second, almost due to impulse. With one gruesome seal which I had never dared to use before, due to it's brutality, needles injecting poison into the vital points of the half dozen poison masters. I almost scoffed at their title as they all dropped to the ground. Uncloaking myself, I rushed forwards to steady the boy, who had screamed at the sight of six poison masters dropping dead and fainted.
I revived the boy with just one seal. He looked startled when he saw me, and I patted my chest to signify to him to be calm. Seeing that, he sat up and grabbed at the flask of water sitting by him and downed it in one gulp. I gazed at him. He was about thirteen years old, puberty just kicking in, with ash colored hair and bright blue eyes. His clothes were tattered, and his left sleeve was torn. Through the torn fabric I saw ancient rune markings lining his wrist coiling up all the way up his arm. He noticed me starring and covered it with his other arm, blushing furiously.
"Umm--" he stammered, "please stop looking,"
I was startled.
"What are they?" I asked curiously.
He looked down at the floor.
"Nothing," he muttered.
"That's a very flamboyant nothing," I joked. His grip on his arm tightened.
"Well," I changed the topic, "I saved you from those group of poison masters. Who were they? What did they want with you?"
He gulped.
"My father sold me to them." He replied after a while, trying hard to conceal the bitterness and pain and failing, "I tried to run away from the main troupe. But the Zalek sent these ones after me," he shivered, "I thought I had escaped, but you saw that they caught up to me. The Zalek had said they could kill me and drain my essence to bring to him. You arrived just in time,"
"Who's a Zalek?" I asked.
"They are the leaders of a Poison Sona troupe. Just like a mercenary company," he explained, "when I was with the troupe, I gathered that they were going to join the battle at the Rashar Plains,"
My heart skipped a beat.
"The Royal Family of Inkblack have already sent seventeen Sona troupes to the Rashar Plains."
My heart dropped all the way to my stomach. Iria was camped at the Rashar Plains, fighting against the Valencian army. With seventeen Sona troupes added to the mix, then Iria was in trouble!