CHAPTER 2
He couldn’t have cared less that he was standing in the rain.
His long hair -- so wet it was nearly black -- stuck to his neck uncomfortably. His scowling blue eyes looked more ominous than ever. The two soldiers he’d sent out as spies had returned, carrying the filthy body of the king's advisor between them. His dirt-crusted cheeks were white as wax, like a corpse that had suffered a torturous death.
"Is he dead?"
"No, it's only suspended animation. It looks like he did it to himself so the arrow's poison couldn’t spread."
"Understood."
Lord von Voltaire gestured towards the church with his chin before entering the shelter of the building himself.
On one of the benches his youngest brother and a girl were leaning on each other, shoulder to shoulder.
"Gunter has been found."
Lord Wolfram von Bielefeld nodded; his hair glowed copper in the light of the torch he was holding too close to his body. Greta’s lips were clamped together tightly as she sat wrapped around Wolfram's arm.
Gwendal went slowly to his knees.
"What happened?" he asked Greta in a quiet voice so that those of his people nearby wouldn’t be able to hear.
"How should a child be able to answer that question?"
His expression closed, Wolfram spun the torch, which had become unnecessary by this point.
"Who else should I ask?"
"But she isn't in any position to --"
"Yes, I am," the girl interrupted decisively.
"Then please explain it to us."
Greta began to speak in an agitated voice. She looked no one in the eyes or face. She didn't stumble or pause even once and barely took a breath, as if she didn't want to waste a single second.
"Gunter and Conrad hadn't expected the enemy to penetrate so far. We had to hurry like crazy to get to Yuri. Nobody called him, but the highest priestess said it seemed like Yuri's soul was on its way to this place. The time and location were exactly correct. It was so dangerous they didn't even want to bring Yuri back to the castle first. They said that this was the only possible chance to meet up with him. That's why I was allowed to come along. They planned to send Yuri directly back home again. Why was that?"
"Because this country is no longer secure."
"Is that because of the weird box thing?"
"Mhm..."
Finally Greta looked Gwendal in the eye. Her energetic eyebrows and long eyelashes shook as she sought something at which she could unleash her anger. She had swallowed down her emotions; now she was breathing out more air than she was taking in.
"And then, then we went out the back door to get to the horses, and Gunter's nose helped with that on the dark street. Then somebody shot at Gunter and Yuri with bows and arrows. And then Gunter fell off the horse. We fled to this church, only the three of us. And Conrad, over there..."
She pointed at the painting, whose middle section had melted away from the fire.
"He said Yuri could travel through that painting that looks so much like Wolfram. But then there were these guys... Conrad defeated more than half of them, but... they had these fire-spewing pipe things, which they used to break down the door. It was so dangerous they made me hide, so I crawled under one of the chairs. Then Yuri kicked out the door over there. Maybe he escaped outside from there. But... maybe something went wrong... these guys... with the fire... they were shooting... at Yuri and Conrad."
Greta rubbed at her eyes with her small palms. "I got an eyelash in my eye."
"Greta..."
Wolfram held the torch higher and pulled the child to his shoulder. Gwendal laid his hand on her auburn curls.
"Are they dead now? Yuri and Conrad? Like my mother? And like Hube?"
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