{ IN THE MEANTIME… }
As soon as he had read those few words in his daughter's letter—"Father: cell number 31 is empty!"—King Arthur had left the maritime outpost of Thalassia with the utmost urgency, setting out once more overland to return to the secluded Royal Palace deep in the heart of the woods.
After two days of forced marches, the royal carriage finally reached the outer walls, passing through the heavy gate that rose slowly to allow passage.
As the vehicle advanced through the darkness of the night along the avenue leading to the castle, the king remained motionless in the shadows of the cabin.
The night wind, the singing of the crickets, even the clatter of the horses' hooves faded before the single, relentless thought hammering in his mind:
'I must track down that brat as soon as possible and put an end to this matter once and for all!'
And to do that, he already knew whom he would have to turn to…
* * *
Once past the outer walls, the royal carriage came to a stop in the castle's front courtyard.
As soon as King Arthur and his special escort stepped down from the vehicle and set their boots on the paving stones, wrapped in the dim light of the outer braziers, a patrol guard hurried forward to receive them, bowing his head with deep deference.
"Welcome back, Your Majesty," the soldier exclaimed, then cast a quick, tense bow toward Grand Knight Leonard and the Seven Infernal Knights, who stood in formation behind the sovereign, clad in their dark black-and-red armor. "We are glad to see you again."
Arthur fixed him with the cold gaze of a man whose mind was elsewhere.
"Report on the southern section," he ordered curtly, going straight to the point. "Word has reached me of a fire during my absence."
The guard swallowed, nodding rapidly. "Yes, Your Majesty. Fortunately the damage was contained. The portion of the walls that was struck has been entirely rebuilt and secured. The investigation into the cause yielded no conclusive results: the most likely explanation is that it was a tragic case of negligence on the part of a sentry, someone who, during the watch, handled a torch carelessly and ended up setting the climbing vines alight."
King Arthur remained motionless, his face a mask of ice.
He said not a single word.
After all, he knew perfectly well there had been no negligence: that fire had certainly been Mirac's doing, a calculated diversion to create an escape route and get past the walls undetected.
But of course he could not reveal this truth to anyone without admitting that he had locked the young Prince away in the underground prisons.
"Excellent work," Arthur said at last in a flat voice, then turned toward the eight silent figures wrapped in crimson cloaks and black-and-red armor. "And to you as well, excellent work."
Grand Knight Leonard and the Seven Infernal Knights returned the commendation with a rigid, synchronized bow, answering in a single solemn chorus:
"It was an honor, Your Majesty."
Immediately afterward, at a signal from the king, each of them took their leave, heading down the corridors to retire to their respective chambers.
It was by now the dead of night.
A sepulchral silence reigned over the castle, broken only by the measured tread of a few servants finishing their final tasks and by the rounds of the night guards along the battlements.
No one else was awake.
Once inside the castle, King Arthur strode up to the third floor.
He reached his private office, closed the heavy solid-wood door behind him, and turned the lock with a metallic click.
Without losing a moment, he activated the hidden mechanism among the shelves: the bookcase rotated slowly, revealing the mouth of the spiral staircase that plunged into the foundations of the fortress.
He descended into the darkness—guided by a sphere of fire floating above the palm of his right hand—making his way through the long, damp underground tunnel until he reached cell number 31.
But what greeted him was nothing like what he had expected.
The first thing that struck him, making his breath catch in his throat, was the sheer emptiness: the door had simply vanished!
It had disappeared completely, as if it had never existed, leaving an open rectangular breach in the stone.
'He managed to get rid of the door without triggering the Fire Runes I had inscribed on it?' King Arthur wondered.
In his eyes there was no astonishment, but a cold, visceral hatred that burned like live coals.
His free hand clenched into a fist, tightening until the knuckles creaked.
Without lingering further on that outrage, Arthur resumed walking with heavy steps along the underground corridor.
He continued for several meters, passing dark and forgotten cells, until he stopped before a solid steel door.
The very material it was made of set it apart from the other doors in those dungeons, but that wasn't all: it was the only door along the entire tunnel without a peephole or slit through which to peer inside.
The king laid his open palm on the freezing metal surface.
He closed his eyes and, concentrating his Mana, began to unravel the dense and lethal web of instant-activation Fire Runes that he himself had so carefully engraved upon that metal slab.
When the last seal dissolved with a dull hiss of heat, King Arthur pushed the heavy steel door and crossed the threshold.
Inside, the room was austere, square, and almost entirely bare.
With a quick gesture of his right hand, Arthur extinguished the sphere of fire that had lit his way along the tunnel, leaving the chamber illuminated now by the four fixed torches at the corners, whose glow cast trembling shadows across the stone walls.
At the far end, carved directly into the masonry, stood a rectangular alcove hung with heavy red curtains, roughly the same size as a door. Beside it hung a golden cord connected to a small brass bell suspended from the stone ceiling.
King Arthur remained motionless for a few seconds, his eyes fixed on the closed curtains, as though trying to peer into the emptiness concealed behind them.
Then, with a rigid movement, he stepped forward, seized the golden cord, and pulled it decisively downward, sending a crystalline chime ringing through the silence of the crypt.
Having done so, he took a few steps back, returning to stand vigilantly beside the threshold of the door.
He remained motionless in his place, his green eyes fixed on those scarlet drapes.
The seconds slipped slowly away, swallowed by a sepulchral silence broken only by the lazy crackle of the torches.
Then, after several minutes of waiting, something moved.
From the center of the red curtains, the drapes parted slowly.
A figure completely wrapped in a dark cloak emerged from behind the fabric, their face and every feature of their body concealed beneath layers of cloth and darkness.
The only unmistakable detail, revealed by a low, velvety voice of unnatural calm, was that the figure was a man:
"It's been a long time, Your Majesty…" the figure whispered, tilting his head slightly in the darkness of the hood. "To what do I owe this summons?"
"You know perfectly well why I have called you here…" Arthur began, his voice heavy with a cold urgency that brooked no argument.
The figure let out a faint, amused chuckle, barely audible beneath the heavy fabrics. "Well yes, you are right… I've read a few newspaper articles over the past few weeks, and I couldn't help but wonder. Tell me: has Subject 7 truly escaped?"
"It is more complicated than that," King Arthur explained through gritted teeth. "I had locked him in a cell because someone at the castle discovered his nature as a Chaotic and sent me an anonymous letter warning me of the fact. I haven't the faintest idea who the sender was, how they found out, or why they chose to inform me rather than expose the matter publicly. The fact remains that, during my absence, the boy managed to escape his cell simply by making the door vanish, despite the instant-activation Fire Runes I had personally engraved upon it to block every possible way out. Now I don't know where he is, and I need your help to track him down."
"He made the door vanish, did he? Fascinating…" the stranger murmured, genuinely astonished by those words.
Then, in a tone that bordered on boredom, he added:
"Be that as it may, regarding your request, I am rather undecided whether to help you or not…"
"Excuse me, what did you just say?!" King Arthur snapped, his voice turning into a low growl as his expression suddenly hardened.
"You heard me perfectly well…" the hooded man shot back. "I mean, how am I supposed to work with someone who keeps doing whatever he pleases? Years ago you put an anonymous bounty on Subject 7's head, promising a Chaotic Artifact to anyone who eliminated him, and by taking such a reckless step, all you accomplished was attracting that assassin, who came within a hair's breadth of succeeding. Absolutely insane!"
The hooded man's voice did not rise, yet every word seemed to slide through the air with an unpleasant weight.
"And I wager that before you threw him into the cell you once again tried to take Subject 7's life with some other stratagem. Am I right?"
Arthur had not deliberately brought up that detail, and yet that individual had figured it out all the same, with disconcerting ease.
"Tsk! Damned Chaotic…" The king's jaw clenched violently. "Yes, that's right: I tried to poison him before locking him up, but it didn't work. And so what?"
The figure slowly shook his head in the darkness of the hood.
"Good grief, you're still convinced that Subject 7 can die just any old way… And yet, I seem to recall explaining to you more than once that this is simply not the case! His death must take place under my close supervision, otherwise these last fifteen years of work will be lost forever, and neither of us will end up with a single thing to show for it."
The king glared at him, narrowing his eyes in a futile attempt to discern something beyond the shadow of the hood.
"This has been going on for years now," Arthur hissed, visibly irritated. "Ever since that damned day when it all began, you've done nothing but tell me to wait for the right moment, to 'let the fruit ripen before plucking it'. But enough is enough: I've lost my patience! How much longer am I supposed to wait?"
A long sigh escaped from beneath the figure's hood. "Ahhh, for heaven's sake… This is the first time I've ever dealt with a father who so viscerally desires the death of his own son…"
"He is not my son!" King Arthur roared, his voice charged with a primordial fury that made the stone walls of the room vibrate. "Or at least, not yet… So see that you do your damned job, or I'll make sure not even a grain of dust remains of you…"
"Oh my, what brusque manners!" the figure quipped, flinching slightly. "Would you really do away with me? Well, I understand your frustration, and you're welcome to try killing me if you truly wish… But in doing so, you would eliminate the only person on this continent capable of tracking down Subject 7."
King Arthur narrowed his eyes, swallowing that inconvenient truth with the cold composure of a predator. "So…?"
The figure sighed yet again, resigning himself to the inevitable. "Well, I have no other choice… I'll help you resolve this situation, but on one condition: from now on, you will never again act behind my back with rash, unilateral decisions."
Arthur pierced him with his gaze for a few moments, weighing the significance of those words, before granting a rigid, silent nod of assent.
"Excellent!" the cloaked figure exclaimed. "But first of all, there is one crucial aspect of this escape that we absolutely must consider…"
Arthur remained silent, forcing himself to listen.
"Think about it for a moment," the figure resumed, articulating each word with cold precision. "There are fundamentally two scenarios. The first is that Subject 7 managed on his own to counteract your poison and orchestrate the escape by exploiting an unexpected surge in his Anomalous Syntony. But the second hypothesis, which cannot be ruled out, is that someone inside the castle gave him a hand, helping him both to neutralize the toxin's effects and to flee."
The king did not bat an eyelid, allowing him to continue.
"And if that is the case," the hooded man pressed, "then that person can be none other than the sender of the anonymous letter that exposed Subject 7's nature as a Chaotic to you. After all, think about it: since the prince escaped, have you received any further news or demands from them? Of course not, because now your blackmailer has stopped hiding behind a sheet of paper and is operating directly alongside the fugitive."
Those words struck Arthur like a silent thunderbolt.
From the very beginning, his wife and three daughters had attributed the boy's survival to some mysterious Divine Blessing—a supposed gift bestowed for unknown reasons by Mother Nature, thanks to which Mirac would always return to life.
But unlike them, King Arthur knew full well that things stood differently: deep down, he had always been convinced that Mirac had somehow countered the poison by drawing upon the powers of his Anomalous Syntony, the true extent of which neither he nor the hooded man knew.
Therefore, the idea that there might have been an accomplice within the fortress who had secretly contributed to his survival and escape—and that this accomplice was none other than the anonymous sender—had never crossed his mind.
Or at least, not until that moment.
"An accomplice…" the king hissed, his jaw clenched in a grimace of pure rage. "I hadn't considered that possibility in the slightest… But even if it were so, it still remains to be understood how they discovered that Mirac was a Chaotic. And above all, how they knew where we had locked him up."
Arthur narrowed his eyes, a shiver of calculated distrust hardening his features.
"Did they perhaps follow us in secret that night, while we dragged him to the cell? Or… did they have an informant who kept them apprised of everything?"
If this last hypothesis proved well-founded, however, the only people aware of those details—Mirac's nature as a Chaotic, the exact location of the cell—were precisely his wife, Queen Ginevra, and his three daughters, Camilla, Veronica, and Michelle.
People of whom, until that moment, he had never harbored the slightest suspicion.
The mere thought of such a betrayal, coming from the very heart of his first family, set his blood ablaze.
The four torches at the corners of the room, as if sensing the sovereign's inner turmoil, suddenly flared higher, the flames leaping with unnatural vigor and casting frantic shadows across the stone walls.
The air itself seemed to grow denser, almost stifling, a rising heat that spread through the chamber in a matter of moments.
"Oh, it feels rather like being in a sauna," the hooded stranger murmured, fanning his face with a gloved hand.
Then, with a dismissive gesture, he brushed aside the absurdity of that thought.
"Now, however, I must ask you to calm yourself," he said, his tone tinged with a hint of condescension. "None of them would have had any reason to betray you, much less to aid in the escape of a Chaotic. After all, if Subject 7's true magical nature were ever to come to light, the entire royal family would suffer the consequences, without exception. The queen, your daughters, your other wives… All of you would be executed alongside him. So why on earth would any one of them have helped Subject 7 escape, knowing that every day he remains free only increases the risk of discovery, and therefore of being condemned to death? I sincerely doubt any of them values her own life so little as to commit such a reckless act."
Then, in a tone that just bordered on insolence, he added:
"Well, unless the tendency to act rashly and do whatever one pleases is a family failing…"
The flames of the four torches, still agitated by the sovereign's repressed fury, wavered for an instant, as if they had felt the blow just struck.
King Arthur clenched his jaw, a muscle visibly twitching beneath the taut skin of his face.
He did not reply.
There was nothing he could truly say in response to that observation, however unwelcome.
A dull grunt escaped through his clenched teeth, the only outlet he allowed himself, while the rage slowly folded back upon itself.
The flames, almost responding to that inner shift, subsided in turn, returning to burn with the same measured intensity as before, their glow steadying across the stone walls.
The silence stretched on for a few moments, dense but no longer incandescent.
It was the hooded man who broke it first, his tone returning to its usual calm, professional register, now stripped of every trace of the earlier insolence:
"In any case, you may count on me, Your Majesty," the figure resumed, letting the irony fall away with an abrupt change. "I have already outlined a meticulous plan not only to track down Subject 7, but to finally deliver to you the fruit of this long project. However… I will need your full cooperation."
Those words sent a jolt deep through Arthur.
Fifteen long years of waiting, of calculations and sacrifices were finally about to converge toward the ending he had so fervently longed for.
Without hesitating for a single instant, the king granted a curt, definitive nod of assent.
"Speak, I'm listening…"
* * *
{ THE FOLLOWING MORNING… }
Thursday, March 18.
Sunlight filtered through the windows of the house, casting golden beams across the wooden floor of the kitchen.
The air was fresh and clean, laden with the aroma of freshly brewed coffee and the peaceful stillness of the morning.
After sharing a hearty breakfast together, Carmen and Blake were the first to get ready to leave.
The woman, her red hair gathered into a practical ponytail, gave the masked boy one last look as she adjusted her glasses. "All right, we're off then. See you back here for lunch."
Mirac, who had remained comfortably seated at one end of the table while sipping from his steaming cup, simply waved them off casually.
As soon as the front door closed behind them with a dull thud, leaving the house immersed in silence, Mirac rose abruptly from his chair.
'There's no time to lose!'
The masked boy headed swiftly into his room, donned his heavy black coat, checked that the new sword at his left hip was firmly secured in its scabbard, and finally smoothed down his tousled hair.
'They've really grown a lot lately!' he commented to himself, running a hand through the rebellious locks. 'Maybe I should ask Carmen to give me a trim…'
With that thought in mind, Mirac left the house, shutting the door behind him, and drew in the crisp morning air.
'All right, let's go!' he thought resolutely, setting off at a brisk pace through the already crowded streets of Raerno.
That day on his own was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and he had already planned exactly how to make use of it…