Nya walked with two mugs in hand, pushing past the crowd of eager and thirsty people. She found it a bit amusing, seeing she had acted in a similar manner once upon a time.

  And as she made it to the door, she noticed Kenneth standing there looking around.

  ‘Is he looking for someone?’ Nya wondered as she walked out of the great hall. ‘Sorry, but tonight I got someone I need to talk to.’

  She looked for a bit, but it wasn’t hard to see where Ulric was. Sitting close by, sharpening his spear just as he always did.

  Nya felt a shiver of nervousness in her gut that only grew more and more with each step she took; however, she couldn’t let that deter her. Not now.

  “I see you are as busy as ever,” Nya remarked, dangling the second mug of floor juice in front of Ulric.

  “I thought you’d be inside having fun,” Ulric responded, his loud booming voice a more respectable, quiet one as he took the mug in front of him and placed it on his side before getting back to sharpening his spear.

  Nya was getting the feeling he wasn’t in a talking mood and considered just leaving, but… she had been avoiding this for long enough.

  “It’ll take a long time before Di has traded places with Ki,” Nya said as she took a seat next to Ulric.

  For a short time, neither said anything.

  The only sound there was the murmuring of the crowd inside the great hall and the bard and his band playing. And, of course, the scraping sounds coming from Ulric and his spear.

  “Is this a social call or something?” Ulric eventually questioned, never once looking away from his spear.

  “I… I don’t know what to call it, honestly,” Nya said nervously before taking a sip from her mug.

  “Well, while you are here, do you have anything to report in regard to Kenneth’s bag?” Ulric questioned.

  Nya silently looked down into her mug, barely seeing her own reflection before answering. “Not much. I looked inside while he was asleep, but it was empty. There is nothing inside it.”

  “Have you made any progress on finding out more about him and the bag then?” Ulric asked.

  “I… I… have learned more about him as a person as well as his family,” Nya answered, sipping from her mug three times.

  “Family…” Ulric said silently. “For many, that’s not something they just talk about. Tell me, how did you manage to make him talk about that subject?”

  “I talked about my own,” Nya said, and for the first time tonight, Ulric stopped sharpening his spear.

  “Was it your grandfather?” Ulric questioned.

  “And my mother and father and you,” Nya answered.

  “I see…” Ulric said as he went back to sharpening his spear. “If that’s all you have to report for now, then just go enjoy the party.”

  “Can we… Can we just stop with this,” Nya sighed before drinking most of her mug in one gulp.

  “With what?” Ulric said stoically.

  “With this!” Nya exclaimed. “This formal tone of voice and those responses like I’m nothing more than your second in command!”

  “Have you forgotten your place?” Ulric sternly questioned.

  “Stop that!” Nya said angrily. “Stop trying to make your standing speak for you and have a real conversation with me!”

  “A real conversation, you say,” Ulric sighed as he placed his spear on the ground and grabbed the mug to his side. “Fine, what about?”

  “For starters, what happened to you?” Nya questioned. “I still remember when you were a part of my grandfather's outpost. You used to be fun, lie and play tricks on people, but after that, vixen threw you out, and we met again; you were just so different.”

  “You had sworn an oath to Heka, and it felt like you had that spear up your ass.”

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  Ulric sat there silently for a moment before he took a few sips from his mug. “…Is that all?”

  “Answer the question!” Nya impatiently growled. “After what I gave you!… After what we gave each other and all this time, you owe me an explanation!”

  “A leader takes on responsibilities and has to lead by example; otherwise, his subordinates won’t follow,” Ulric explained, taking another sip. “I shouldn’t be the one to teach you this.”

  Nya dug her claws into the mug as she grew from annoyed to angry. “Just stop and tell me the damned truth already instead of all those pretty truths you use to avoid answering my question.”

  Ulric just sat there, not uttering a word as he looked up at the clear sky and all the pretty lights that glinted. “I didn’t change after I was thrown out by your mother. I was always trying to change and be better.”

  “We just happened to meet while I was still mostly a scoundrel.”

  “What…?” Nya silently gasped.

  “If that was all, I’ll be leaving. Enjoy the party,” Ulric said as he got to his feet.

  Before he had a chance to walk away, Nya grabbed his hand. “You can’t just say something like that and leave.”

  “You wanted the truth. I gave it to you,” Ulric said, never once turning around to face her.

  “You gave me a little part of the truth but not all of it. Please, you owe me,” Nya pleaded.

  “Fine,” Ulric sighed before turning to face Nya. “But if I tell you, you have to answer one question truthfully, no lies, no running away. No staying silent.”

  “Ulric, if you wanted to ask me something, you don’t need to ask in this manner,” Nya said, feeling uncertain and afraid.

  She had a feeling he wanted to ask THAT five-word question, one she had been thinking about herself since she got here.

  “I’ll take it as a yes,” Ulric said, sitting down beside Nya once more, their tails unmoving and flat on the ground.

  “As you know, I used to lie and play tricks,” Ulric started, every so often, sipping from his mug. “If you can believe it, I used to be much worse. Every word that left my mouth was a lie, and my hands would just take what wasn’t theirs.”

  “They took everything. Even I didn’t know why they would take some things, but they did, and I felt no remorse or fear because of what I was doing simply because my lies would protect me each and every time.”

  “The nuns always knew they had a thief among the children, but they never knew it was me. Ironically it appeared that some of the nuns trusted me the most since I was such an honest kid,” Ulric laughed.

  Nya sat there, her eyes wide in shock. Never in her life had she imagined that this was Ulric’s previous life before she ever met him.

  “Children are selfish and only care about themselves, yet I had one true friend in the orphanage… Jigki. He was always honest and selfless. Someone who was born to be a true priest of Heka,” Ulric said in a sorrowful tone yet with a stoic expression.

  “He was my true friend, and what did I do in return for him? I lied! I stole from him! And…! And….! And…” Ulric said the words, getting stuck in his throat as his tail stood standing, and he bared his teeth in anger.

  “And… I let him down,” Ulric managed to finally say, his voice breaking and his tail limply falling to the ground.

  “What do you mean?” Nya asked.

  “I let him down! I got him killed!” Ulric yelled, throwing his mug away. “One day, a nun approached and asked if I had---”

  “Ulric, stop; you don’t have to continue,” Nya interrupted, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder.

  Ulric slumped over, and head hanging low, turned it slowly until one eye was staring at her. A single solitary tear was running out of it, yet even in the darkness, Nya could see there was more than sorrow in his eyes.

  There was also loathing.

  “This is what you wanted. This is my truth,” Ulric said, shaking Nya’s hand off his shoulder.

  “She asked if I had seen some suspicious people around. I had, but I lied and said no. Too late, I found out they were part of some heretic cult.”

  “They took Jigki as well as some other orphans, and for the first time in my life, I felt remorse for my lies. Every day I waited for the guards to bring him home. But he never did.”

  “You know about those cults, right, and how they sacrifice the living and pure to their heathen gods?” Ulric asked.

  “I’ve heard some stories,” Nya answered. “None of them pretty, and a lot of them bloody.”

  “Years passed until I was forced to accept the fact he was dead, and I was responsible. I knew the only way I could atone for my sins was to end the war and kill as many heretics as possible.”

  As Ulric finished, both sat there silently, uttering no further words for some time as the party behind them raged on, getting louder and louder.

  They remained silent even when Kila and Fenik were thrown out of the great hall.

  However, eventually, Ulric let out a sigh as he leaned back and looked up at the pretty little lights in the sky.

  “So this is a real conversation between long-lost… acquaintances,” Ulric said, still looking up at the clear shining heavens. “Was it everything you imagined or hoped for?”

  “I just wanted an answer to a question I’ve had for so long, but if I’d known the price, I think I would just have things be the way they were,” Nya sighed, scratching her head in frustration over how uncomfortable she felt.

  “It was a high price. That can we both agree on, but--”

  “Yeah, I know I owe you a question that I can’t run away from or choose not to answer,” Nya said, looking down at the ground.

  “Truthfully, I don’t know if I want to even ask this question, but I know I can’t just spend the rest of my life wondering,” Ulric sighed.

  “What… What happened to our children?”

  Nya immediately froze, her eyes wide in shock, her gut cold as winter, and her hearts skipping every other beat.

  Meanwhile, unbeknownst to both Nya and Ulric, Jubo came angrily walking out of the great hall where he encountered Wilf.

  Jubo had made up his mind about killing her as he extended his claws and bared his teeth, itching to bite into something soft.

  “Ohhh… perhaps you are more feral than I realized,” Wilf said in an amusing and degrading tone of voice.

  However, Jubo didn’t listen as he rushed at her, crossing the distance in the blink of an eye.

  He swiped his claws, aiming at Wilf’s throat.

  However, Wilf, with a calm expression, didn’t take a single step to avoid. She only leaned backward, avoiding her assured death by the skin of her teeth.

  “How funny,” Wilf chuckled mockingly. “I would be dead if you hadn’t tried to beat my little prey.”