The three of us returned to the Capitol. We took two horses from the stables and rode south. L was on one while Nigel rode the other with me sitting behind him. A few times here and there on the first day, he would ask if I was okay, but I didn't respond. The first two nights we camped, L even asked if I was okay, but I didn't respond to him either. The whole trip back, I didn't utter a word. It was obvious I wasn't okay; I felt like a corpse being dragged around. I wanted to go north, but every time I close my eyes, I see her face, that look she had on her face. Even if I did go, if I found her… that look. I knew she wouldn't want to see me again. I could try to explain it, maybe, explain that it was another sin that made me do it, would she believe me? Would she even care? I wanted to cry, to scream, yell, and hit something, but I did nothing. All I wanted to do was nothing.
Even in the last two days of our trip, Nigel had to force food into my mouth. I didn't want to move, I didn't want to eat, drink. I did want to sleep, though, and I slept as much as I could. I hoped that I could return there, to that good dream.
Before I even realised we had made it back to the city, we had already arrived at the palace. I recall the feeling of getting on the horse and the feeling of movement, but I was unaware of anything until we stepped off, when that massive, imposing structure loomed before me, and that loud creaking of the grand palace doors rumbled through my bones as the fat one, Xudo, emerged.
"Ah, you've returned. Where's the tall one?"
"Sir, we have a lot to report." L rushed up the stairs, leaving his horse unattended.
Xudos gaze moved to me, his eyes locked onto mine. It felt like he already knew what had happened.
We entered the palace and up the stairs towards the empty throne. Beyond it were two hallways, one left, one right. Each curving slightly, as if it were a large circle with doors along each side. We walked along one of the halls as it curved around, stopping after some time and entering through a door that was on the outside of the curve. Xudo walked into the room and around the desk, sitting with his back to the window that looked outside. It was a simple office with an open doorway to the side that connected to a bedroom. This was where he lived.
Xudo opened a drawer and pulled a book and pen, opening both and readying himself to write. L stepped forward once the tip of his pen hovered above the paper. Clearly, this was a routine for these two.
"Within the town of Snowfall, I discovered a cave that was kept secret and guarded."
Xudo wrote 'snowfall, cave, guarded. Si-' then he stopped.
"Inside the cave, we found… a sin."
He finished the word 'n' then stopped, pulling the pen back and closing the book. "Sin? Can you verify this report? Do you know which sin?" His gaze locked with mine, waiting for the answer.
"She said-"
"She? Dilindala, then, the sin of lust." Xudo interrupted. "There is only one sin believed to be female; it has to be her, then. Now what happened?"
"When I entered the cave, I found Haralda Godi, the matron of the Godi clan. Then I remember nothing until the next morning."
"Shinya and I entered the cave later and found L standing there, incoherent. But shortly after, I lost consciousness."
Everyone in the room turned to me. It was my turn to speak. "She asked me to open an urn that was in the cave. I did, and then she stood up, proclaimed herself as Dilindala, Lust unbound. Then I, too, lost consciousness."
"Unbound? Are you certain that is what she said? Unbound?"
I nodded. "Something about her-"
"Her soul." Xudo leaned back in his chair. "You opened her vessel, and now she's unbound. I will need to organise a response with his holiness. Anything else?"
"Yes, sir. We believe that at least eighty percent or more of the residents of the town are dead. The sin put each of us in some sort of trance. None of us had control of our actions clearly, and some of us turned out to be more dangerous than others." L glanced over his shoulder at me briefly; it was obvious what he meant.
"Hmm, I see. Either way, Job well done, you three. Dismissed." Xudo turned his attention back to his book, flipping through it once more. L bowed and turned to leave. I couldn't believe what I heard.
"Well done? Well fucking done!? We slaughtered a city and unleashed a sin, how is that job well FUCKING DONE!?" I marched forward, slamming both my palms down on the table as I leaned forward over to Xudo. My breath was heavy, my lungs empty from the outburst.
Xudo looked up at me, his eyes oddly calm as he met mine. "I sent you there to look into a secret; you did your job. Dilindala will be dealt with by the church, as they have done every time a sin is found for thousands of years. As for the town's residents, we will replace them with our own countrymen. You've just won us a city, a strategic one at that."
"Strategic? Are you at war with the North?"
"We are at war with everyone, all the time. It's just not the type of war you understand. It's a war of culture, of differences and influence. Not of sword and shield. 'Tis a war we've been waging for two hundred years and one that will not end soon." He spoke calmly as my body trembled, resisting the urge to hit him.
"You want to hit me, don't you, Shinya? Know if you do, it will be a punishment worse than death."
Begrudgingly, I pushed away from the table and turned to leave the room.
"Do you want to know what she meant?" I was stopped in my tracks by his question. "I could give you that as a mercy at least."
I turned my head slightly back to Xudo. I was curious what he was going to say.
"Dilinda, a sin unbound. What I'm about to tell you must never be repeated. 'Tis knowledge to which even Balim is ignorant."
Even Balim? Was he about to tell us the secrets of the sins? I turned to face him fully. I was still mad at him, no doubt, but this wasn't an opportunity I could walk away from.
"As we understand, Sins are comprised of two halves, much like men, a body and a soul. Though unlike men, the two can be separated, and both survive. You yourself house one such body."
Body? Wrath's body resides within me? Then what of his soul? Where is that?
"Souls of sins, much like men, are meant to be far away from the land of the living. For one such soul to exist in our world is most troubling."
Nigel stepped forward, walking past me and leaning over the table. "Do you know where the souls are? What do you mean by our world? Does that imply the existence of another?" He blurted out excitedly, I had neatly forgotten, he's a fiend when it comes to learning about this kind of thing.
Xudo raised his hand for Nigel to take a step back. "Much like the souls of the dead traverse beyond the great white, the souls of the sins are beyond mortal reach, at least they should be. If both body and soul combine as one, then the sin is unbound from its chains. They become powerful, very powerful. Though even still, we believe the sins are themselves parts of a whole. Wrath, Sloth, Greed, Pride, Envy, Gluttony, Lust. All seven used to be one, a singular being that was the antithesis of the seven saints. Its name is derived from an old Vekalin word, translated into Imperial, we call it an Exiled."
"The sins… can they die?" Xudo looked to me as I muttered my question.
"No, they only change into something new. If you desire to die, however, that is quite possible; whether HE will let you, though, is another matter entirely. Oh, and before you three depart, I have your next job ready. Another excursion, I'm afraid."
"Your will is my command, my lord." L bowed. I was disappointed with him then; it made me like him less, like the fact that he brushed off the murder of a city was the same as spilling water.
"You are to go to Balim and kill Rahǩãn. He has gone mad, started a doomsday cult and is currently preparing something my intelligence network believes to be a terrorist attack. Kill him and we'll replace him with some more… aligned with the interests of the crown. Leave in the morning, now off with you lot." he waved his hand, shooing us from the room as he opened his book and began to write.
We descended the stairs in the throne room and made our way to the barracks, where we had spent the night before departing for Snowfall. L kept walking as Nigel and I stopped and turned to the door. "Your rooms are this way. Follow me." We were confused by the following.
He led us through the hall and to a dead end with four doors on each side and one at the end of the hall. He pointed to two of the doors on the left side. "These are your rooms, this is mine." He pointed to the door on the right. His finger then drifted to the door at the end of the hall. "That's my… our training room." He opened his bedroom door, said goodnight, and vanished inside.
The two of us each entered our own respective rooms, locking the door behind us. The rooms were immaculate with ornate details, furniture and screamed luxury. It's the kind of bedroom one would imagine a king sleeping in. As I looked around, I felt incredibly out of place. I didn't belong here, and I don't deserve something like this.
To the side of the room, even another small room with a bathtub and a flushing toilet. I ran a warm bath and stripped down, lying in it, I kept thinking about what happened upstairs. Xudo almost wrote down the word 'sin' before L had even reported that one was there. Did he know? Did Xudo know there was a sin inside that cave the whole time? If so, his reason for sending us there was a lie. Did he predict what would happen if I went? Did he plan all this from the beginning? Is that why he tried to blackmail me the moment he met me? How else would it make sense? He must have already known; there's no other explanation as to why he would write that word.