The scene was surprising and revolting. More than a dozen guards had suddenly appeared, and as well as arresting Robe, they were giving Wanda and Victor the go-ahead.
Wanda looked at her father, her heart pounding with a mixture of disbelief and panic. Then she looked at the guards and protested:
"This is a mistake! We didn't kill anyone!"
Her reaction of objection made the guards immediately draw their swords. The feeling evident in their eyes was one of fear and hesitation. They didn't seem to want to do this, especially as they were pissing off a Rank-S hunter, but they didn't seem to have a choice either.
Victor, keeping his expression calm, took a deep breath and stepped in front of Wanda, not letting her speak any further.
"We get it... There's no negotiating, right?" Victor looked seriously at the guards.
The leader of the knights looked impassive and nodded. "Duke Olyno demands justice, and we, his loyal knights, are only here to do his bidding. If possible, we don't want to use violence against two citizens who have served the kingdom for so long in the profession of Hunters. You will come with us and answer to the law, like normal citizens," declared the leader, raising a pair of handcuffs.
It was clear to Victor that this was all a set-up. He couldn't tell if these knights were already on the prowl while he was fighting Sable, or if they had somehow received the news of the assassin's death, but it was clear that arresting them was the duke's advisor's plan B to prevent the whole situation from spreading.
Victor looked at Wanda and, looking into her eyes, noticed how furious she was.
The duke's advisor was probably hoping that Wanda would try to react to the arrest, kill those guards and be officially declared not as a missing person, but as a criminal with no right to pardon for having killed noble officials, and if she tried to run away at that moment, it would be the same, she would become a fugitive. In other words, the best thing for them not to become declared enemies of the Kingdom of Athina, and to have the right to a trial, was exactly the only way out that the advisor seemed to be giving them now.
Noticing all this, Victor smiled with the corner of his mouth. The advisor's plan was ingenious, no doubt about it, but Victor couldn't have expected anything less from someone who had been able to manipulate dukes for more than a generation.
"Very well, we'll go with you without any problems." Victor declared, looking at the leader of the guards.
"What?" The guards and Wanda reacted in the same way.
Victor turned his face towards his daughter and said:
"Do you trust me?"
Without any hesitation, she nodded, but the surprise was still evident on her face.
"Then I'll take care of it."
"But what about your chest pain, Dad? You need to see a doctor, we don't know if you've had a heart attack or not."
"I'm fine, Wanda. Focus on the situation."
The clink of handcuffs echoed in the air as the guards approached, preparing to arrest Wanda and Victor. Wanda's heart was pounding uncontrollably, a mixture of anger, fear and confusion flooding his mind. She was a hunter of the highest level, she had worked hard for it and had received an invitation from the king himself to join the S-Rank squad, it was disrespectful of her years of service to be arrested without proof.
The worst thing was that Wanda never imagined that one day she would be facing the justice she had protected so much.
Even so, Wanda managed to calm down when she noticed that Victor was as calm as ever. He was her safe haven and, even in the worst-case scenario, at least they were together again.
The three accused were taken to a cart with a cage. Inside the cage, the silence was heavy, and only the monotonous sound of horses' hooves beating against the dirt floor of the slums could be heard. Wanda looked at her father, her eyes reflecting a mixture of concern and determination.
"Are you really all right, Dad?" she asked.
Victor nodded, forcing a reassuring smile. "I'm fine, my child. It wasn't a heart attack, just a momentary discomfort. It's been a long journey and I've needed Den more in the last few hours than I have in the last two years. Now we need to stay calm and wait for an opportunity."
Robe looked at them, and seemed to have a weight on his back. "I'm sorry about that, Wanda, Victor... I should have understood that the noise from the fight might have attracted guards, and I should have done something to throw them off..."
Victor raised a hand and placed it on the boy's right shoulder. "Kid, this isn't your fault. The duke's advisor set the whole thing up. He wants us behind bars so we can't get in the way of his plans."
Wanda looked at her father with concern. "So it was the advisor all along... I knew he wasn't totally innocent, but..."
"He's the one behind it all, I think." Victor said.
"What are we going to do? We can't just accept it." Wanda raised her hands and showed the thick handcuffs on her hands. "This is premeditation. They sent an assassin and you only defended yourself and Robe, Dad. Self-defense is not a crime."
Victor, with his head down, denied it. "Yes, but they might consider our testimonies biased, of course. So there's nothing to do for now, Wanda. Let's just rest and wait for the trial, surely no one will be crazy enough to send a Rank-S to the gallows."
"All right, Dad." Wanda replied with a sigh.
The carriage continued on its way through the narrow, dark streets of Kozáni, until it reached the center of the city, where a great castle, surrounded by another great wall separating the noble district from the other districts, stood magnificently.
The atmosphere inside the carriage was still stifling, not only because of the feeling of confinement in the metal cage, but also because of the palpable tension surrounding Victor, Wanda, and Robe. Time seemed to drag on at a painfully slow pace. Every jerk of the cart was a reminder of the uncertain fate that awaited the prisoners.
Wanda kept her eyes fixed on the handcuffs, her mind working frantically to find a loophole in the trap woven by the duke's advisor. She could easily break the handcuffs that bound her hands and kill all the guards to escape, except that would make her a highly wanted criminal, a future she did not want.
Victor remained calm, but inside, a storm of thoughts raged. He knew he had to act with caution, because any false step could jeopardize their situation even further. His instinct to protect his daughter's well-being was in conflict with his need to figure out what had been happening to him since he arrived in Kozáni.
Finally, the cart stopped in front of the imposing walls of the duke's castle. The guards climbed down and opened the cage, carefully removing the prisoners one by one.
Victor, Wanda and Robe were escorted through the dark corridors at the back of the castle, where their footsteps echoed in total silence. They were led to the castle dungeons, where darkness and the damp smell of wet stone embraced the narrow corridors. The atmosphere was oppressive, with gray brick walls that seemed to close in on them with every step.
However, before being taken to their cells, they were separated and divided into interrogation rooms, where there was usually just a wooden table, where their handcuffs were secured with a padlock, and a couple of chairs.
When it was Victor's turn, a large man in armor entered the room and sat down opposite Victor. Another guard accompanied him, but stood by the door.
The large man removed his metal helmet from his white armor, revealing an aged face with a strange beard and a clear bald head. He looked at the yellowed paper he was carrying, then looked at Victor's face and then introduced himself:
"I'm Lieutenant Lafbert. What's your name, sir?"
"You don't have to be so formal with me, Lieutenant. I believe we're almost of the same mind, although there's a big difference in... you know." Victor replied and looked at Lafbert's bald head.
It took the lieutenant a few moments to understand what Victor was trying to say, but when he finally did, he gritted his teeth angrily. Lafbert hit the table hard, crumpling the paper a little.
"Do you have any idea where you are, man?! You're in the Kozáni Dungeons! This isn't some police station that your partner Robe escaped from! Do you understand, Victor Shieldman?!"
"Oh, so you know my name? Why did you bother asking if you already knew it from the start?" Victor maintained his ironic tone, unconcerned by the guard's irritation.
A few meters away, where Wanda was being interrogated, there was hardly any difference between her interrogation and Victor's.
"And you're a Rank-S hunter, correct?" The assigned guard asked. He had young hair, wore glasses and looked rather young.
"If that's what it says on the form you have in your hands, why are you asking?"
Despite her ignorant answer, this guard wouldn't dare get angry like Lafbert and it didn't even seem to be his style. So the guard took a deep breath and continued without interrupting.
"Were you with the assassin at the time Miriam was attacked by him?"
"The only person to attack was that 'Miriam'."
"That's not what the investigations indicate, miss. Now, moving on..."
"Investigations? There were no investigations. The body was still inside the shed when the arrest was made." Wanda tried to argue.
The guard looked at the paper and replied:
"Victor Shieldman is listed as your adoptive father in some official documents of the Hunters' Association. Do you think you know him well?"
Wanda frowned. "I know him better than anyone else."
" Okay... On a scale of one to ten, with 'one' being someone harmless and 'ten' being someone of the most extreme level of dangerousness, how would you rate Mr. Shieldman?"
"Eight."
"So you admit that Victor Shieldman is dangerous to society?"
"For society? No. To you? Absolutely." Wanda smiled at the man.
Immediately, the green-haired guard looked at the other guard by the door and nodded, which made the other man leave the room to check on the progress of the interrogation conducted by Lafbert.
*
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