With Louis in clear danger, Iuwine stepped in front of him and motioned for him to back off. Louis knew that some wolves weren't a threat to Iuwin, so he actually did as he said. He pulled Brelle to him, who was the only one of the trio with low fighting skills.
"Nielle, wouldn't you like to join in?" Brelle asked nervously.
"No need, have fun," Nielle said.
Shane wasn't going to make any effort, so he quietly moved to the nearby trees and watched the situation. Nielle looked at him and laughed dangerously, as if he knew he'd caused it all on purpose, but he didn't speak.
Shane expected Nielle to be afraid since there was a pack of wolves in front of him, but he seemed quite unimpressed. He stood idly between Louis and Iuwin without fighting.
Shane watched as Iuwin scared off several wolves with a few secs and tried to get to the carriage with the princes, not too far away from them. Shane walked beside them, though not close, assessing the prince's behavior. However, as soon as one of the wolves jumped towards Brelle, Louis pulled him closer and simply slashed the wolf. The hit didn't kill it, but forced it to run away.
Although Brelle held his own sword, he didn't use it, which was also true for Nielle. Nielle had a pretty good strategic position where he wasn't in contact with the wolves and whenever one came close Louis or Iuwine would deal with it.
During the entire fight, Nielle had no reason to draw his sword, so they reached the carriage as a whole. Once they were close enough for the accompanying soldiers to see them, none of the princes had to fight anymore. Within moments, the wolves were driven into the forest.
"Louis!" came out the king who didn't understand what happened, "Oh, what's that smell?!"
Louis explained the situation and waited for the king to finish his stressing.
"I'm so glad you're not hurt. If something happened to you, I wouldn't have survived." He touched him lightly, although he was visibly disgusted by the smell.
Nielle and Brelle aside weren't bothered by how the king apparently doesn't realize that if something happened to Louis, he would still have two sons. They waited while the soldiers took their clothes out of the carriage and escorted them to a nearby water to wash off the smell. While all the princes walked away with the escort, Iuwin and Shane remained by the carriage to be scold.
"Iuwin! How could you let Louis be in danger!!" The king shouted.
"I'm deeply sorry, I didn't act in time," he didn't sound stressed.
"What if something happens to Louis?" The king slammed into the carriage.
"I'll be more careful in the future, sir," he promised.
Shane took a moment to absorb why the king was berating the innocent Iuwin for something before he left them. Iuwine and Shane entered their carriage.
"Why did you needlessly create problems?" Iuwine didn't understand as he had noticed Shane's earlier trick.
"You said that Nielle was afraid of dogs. Since he said there were loads of them, I wanted to know how he felt about wolves," he summed up.
"You fool. Prince Nielle isn't a child, he won't cry for a few wolves, you just caused trouble for Prince Louis and for me," Iuwine added.
"I saw. A person has no real reason to be afraid if he knows how to defend himself or is with people who know how to get him out of the situation," Shane summed up Nielle's performance today.
"Prince Nielle knows very well how to use both his sword and the people around him. You've made incredibly unnecessary trouble for everyone except him. If you're planning anything else, stop. I didn't say any of those things to make you try them on prince Nielle but to find out something human about him, to get closer like Prince Louis wants." he clarified.
"Of course, he seems to be able to understand if you talk to him." Shane didn't deal with getting along anymore. He tried several times, several times Nielle didn't listen to him and used him as a thing, so he didn't see the point in his persuasion and had other plans.
"If he isn't afraid of group of dogs, how would he react if he was alone?" an interesting question ran through his main thoughts, and instead of paying attention to Iuwin's words, he thought about how he could make Nielle's journey in Alycante uncomfortable.
And since watching Nielle at a disadvantage today was the first really fun time he'd had in this hideous land, he didn't plan to stop. As Nielle was pisssing him off, he intended to pissed him off even more all the way.
***
Since he didn't believe that Luck was completely mad at him, Rue assumed that he would at least get some sleep. He guessed that it would explain the situation to him or at least give him some indication of what to do. But it didn't happen, and Rue didn't understand why it wasn't addressing him at all.
The actual dream from tonight wasn't something he could do to solve the situation. Although it was a nice dream, although he was very fond of reminiscing about the good old days and it aroused in him pleasant emotions combined with nostalgic bitterness, as he knew they would never return, it was not usable.
Qie, whose appearance he couldn't even fully recall and all he knew and was left with was the favor he felt for him whenever he remembered their dim moments, was no longer within his reach.
And although he would normally sit in his cell all day trying to get back into that dream, today he couldn't. He had other things to think about.
He wanted some explanation, he wanted to know why now, after two hundred years of no signs of anger, Luck wanted to punish him and expel him. But he didn't get anything, so he just sat down on the bed and thought.
Ylre noticed his lack of interest in the day and therefore brought sweet pastries from the inn. He put it next to Rue and began.
"I was down and asked what all the festivities were about. It's nothing complicated, I'll get you all the prizes," he clarified.
Not wanting to sound ungrateful, Rue sat for a moment before taking the food and declaring, "You're really nice, you don't even know why I want them."
"It doesn't matter why, I saw how you were
yesterday. I want you to be happy, if it makes you smile, I'll get them all" he promised.
Since Ylre's words sounded sincere and nice, Rue smiled softly and nodded, "Thank you," he truly appreciated, "and how do the games work?" he wanted to know.
"You must register before participating. Every day you register for the next day, you can't play all of them at once, as these are dangerous games and not everyone can complete them all in a suitable condition. I heard that Luck would say whether a person could participate or not. That's it, if you don't have luck, you don't even register and sometimes you don't even have the opportunity to watch," he explained.
"Ugly system. I don't know why Luck wouldn't want someone to watch people play games. Nonsense, right?" he didn't understand.
"Yes," Ylre agreed, ,,anyway, the participation is anonymous, we get masks and numbers. Not names, which I guess is fine," he knew.
"I've got quite a few enemies in town," Rue nodded, adding, "and I don't know if Luck will even let me participate."
"You don't have to, I'll get them for you," he clarified.
"At least I'll try. I don't want everyone to make an effort to get something I want without making any effort myself," he added.
"I see," Ylre nodded, "we can try."
Since they couldn't stay in their room all day, Rue followed him down to the inn and out. The city was alive as always, a bunch of people were doing their normal activities and another bunch was enticing others to sign up for competitions. There was no way that someone wouldn't find the check-in stations as there was a really large group of people shouting in their direction. A few women pushed address papers into their hands along the way, a few vendors even gave them a nice selection of colorful competition masks to buy.
Ylre was convinced that he could participate on his own. He first planned to pay some of the right people to compete for him and then gave Rue the prizes, since not everyone in Alycante wanted Luck, but some wanted real profits. Especially in this part of the year, there seemed to be enough people who offered to win prizes for someone and came here purely for this purpose.
However, since the competitions were masked, he was able to win without admitting his identity to the Infeys who wanted to capture him. As he knew they wanted to at the moment.
It didn't take long at all to reach the center of Alycante, which was a large square filled with countless people. They waited and chatted in long lines without even thinking that the person next to them was their future opponent, with whom they would soon compete in some game.
Ylre watched them move for a moment before stopping behind them.
"We'll wait," he said.
Since everyone currently had one of the masks to make the registration truly anonymous, Ylre gave himself a red piece and Rue a gold piece.
Ylre didn't know why there really was a masked tournament, but he assumed it was specifically because of them. None of the Infey would have guessed that they would go to the competition in person if their identity was clear to everyone. However, from what he heard, that was always the case. Anyway, Ylre knew he was heading into a clear trap.
By the time they reached the counter, an hour had passed and it was really hot outside. As soon as they passed into the shadows, the young man at the check-in booth laid out dice and papers in front of them.
"Hello, if you want to be entered into the first game, roll the dice, the winner may enter the game," he summarized.
"Only one?" Ylre didn't understand.
"Yes, your Luck will determine who will join and who won't, registration is done in pairs. It is strictly forbidden to tell today's rules to people who have not yet registered after leaving. Thanks for your cooperation. Feel free to throw," he added.
"Bullshit." Ylre snapped.
"Every year the entry is made depending on Luck so roll the dice or try your luck in the second game," the guy stated.
"And if I don't want to be in the game against him, can I compete with someone else?" Rue wanted to know.
"No, you compete with whoever you reach the counter with, one throw," he added.
"Everyone came here with someone," Ylre was angry.
"Never mind," Rue laughed and took the cube, "at least I get to play with someone I want." he added.
Ylre watched him for a moment before taking the dice and stating, "You wanted to go to the first game too. I don't want you to be disappointed."
"I'm not. We have no influence on the laws of the game. Let's play, we'll come up with something in the second game," he added.
As soon as they were ready to throw, the guy started them off so they wouldn't go separately. The dice landed on the table, rolled several times. Ylre's six easily beat Rue's one. Ylre obtained a crystal that he activated with his own blood so that he could use it when entering the game only by himself and a number, for spectator bets.
"If you want to know what kind of games they might be, you can buy them in the stalls further on, good luck," said the guy.
Ylre didn't hesitate and walked towards the stalls with Rue.
"Aren't you sad?" Ylre tried.
"I'm not. I don't know why, but I have the impression that I can trust you," he didn't hesitate.
"You can, always," Ylre promised.
"But it won't hurt to find out what kind of game it should be," Rue clarified, stopping with Ylre at a booth.
"We heard you can let us know what games we can expect, how much you charge?" Ylre wanted to know.
"Diamond, boy or white Luck level." the guy didn't expect the young man to have anything to pay with.
He was quite surprised as soon as Ylre pulled out the diamond. He wasn't going to use his kind of luck in case the Infey patrols were able to recognize him. Which they clearly planned and Ylre knew.
"Say what the game will be," he ordered.
The guy took the diamond and laughed lightly. He beckoned Ylre to come closer and whispered a few words.
Ylre blinked in confusion, "What?" he didn't understand, "Isn't there usually a fighting or hunting type of game in these festivities?"
"It happens. But not exceptionally,especially don't shout," the guy silenced him.
Ylre fell silent, shook his head and walked away. He silently wondered if this was really his first bad luck in a long time.
"Ylre, what was he saying?" Rue didn't know, he just noticed that he was unusually uneas which he wasn't used to.
Ylre kept his voice indifferent, as if he had no hesitation that he would win and fulfill his words as promised, "Something with horses, but I don't know."
And even though nothing about the riding discipline should be scary, even though none of the normal races and riding games should be difficult, and Rue didn't want to hesitate to let Ylre get his valuables, he was suddenly filled with a strange feeling, familiar and uncomfortable.
The feeling of knowing that riding with Ylre wasn't a good combination flooded him with something he hadn't experienced in a long time. And although he couldn't explain his emotions in any way, Rue felt that his gut wasn't lying. He he didn't know why, but he was sure that a worse discipline couldn't have been chosen.
And he wasn't wrong about that.
And Ylre knew it.