Reborn, Its Time To Save My Family And.. My Enemy!

Rhistel’s jaw tightened. He had listened longer than he should have. The air between them thickened, a storm gathering between silence and tension.

"If it’s land you want..." Rhistel finally spoke in a low and cold voice, "Then I will give you land. I will grant you a title far greater than these frostbitten villages. In exchange," he stepped forward, his eyes burning with sharp resolve "tell me where the witches are!"

Clondoire didn’t move. He looked at Rhistel for a long moment, and then, he laughed. A slow, hollow sound that echoed across the barren garden like a funeral bell.

"Oh, your grace," he said mockingly. "How noble of you. You are ready to give up your title and land for something you will never reach in time."

Rhistel’s nostrils flared. "Answer me."

"You don’t need to pay me anything," Clondoire said, in a cold and cruel voice, "Olivia is already with them. Or should I say, they are with her. Wherever she is, they will find her. They will come. Or..." He smiled like a fox eyeing a trap. "You could just stay here. You have hired a room in that inn, right? You can wait in your little inn with your guards and your people. The witches will come to you."

Rhistel’s face darkened like thunderclouds rolling over the horizon. "You’ve orchestrated this from the start."

"Yes," Clondoire admitted freely. "I did. After all, you have asked my daughter to bring proof of the witches. How could she refuse your command when she had been deeply in love with you?" the man laughed softly as if life and death were nothing but a bet for him.

Rishel could not keep his calm anymore, he snapped. He lunged forward, drawing his blade in a fluid motion and swinging it with a force that made the wind hiss. Clondoire barely had time to parry, but he took out a strange dagger. It looked so harmless yet it had abundant power, it stopped Rhistel as if he was bitten by freezing waves.