THE LAST KEEPER

Chapter 214: 214. WEB

Sagiri shot up in bed with a start. In a comfortable inn bed. Things had completely gone wrong, as you could imagine. After the supposed affectionate display, the two had been swallowed whole by the elderly vultures. It’s not like Sagiri could kill them while they smiled and showered them with blessings for their marriage. Killing them would be cruel, and being stuck between the Haku and Bami would be troublesome.

Things had escalated from bad to worse after that. Besides the union trinkets they showered them with, they had been fed enough to feed a small village. Lira was eating too fast then, and the elders had scolded him for not feeding his young wife. The uncles had gone on to advise him on how to feed a wife, and the lectures had lasted decades. Those aunties could smell tiredness from miles away, and they had also accused him of tiring his young wife with too much of his youthful stamina. One thing led to another, and one inn owner offered them a place to rest when they said they were travelling to see other lands. That is how they ended up in an inn with an inn room special for couples.

They might have fooled everyone into thinking they were a couple, but sleeping on the same bed while not married was a taboo beyond all others. Sagiri had to stay out of the door and wait for Lira to use the inn’s cleaning rooms before he did the same.

”You can have the bed,” Sagiri said. Lira hesitated for a bit before sitting at the edge of the bed, her wide eyes looking at sagiri skeptically. ”I will not kill you in your sleep. I will not do anything to dishonour you,” Sagiri said in a curt statement. He might have never thought of marriage, but he knew what happened between couples through the medicine study. The human body was one of the units. Sagiri sat on the mat at the centre of the room and fell into a meditative position. He could have preferred that they leave already, but he somehow had the feeling that those aunties and uncles would lecture him for another decade on being a negligent husband, and it would not be too far to think that they were sitting outside the inn watching. All he could do was sigh and wait a few hours to pass before they moved out.

The girl fought her sleep for a while, but it was only natural after being fed that much that the body would fail you. It’d been three days since Sagiri had slept or rested. The unsteady breaths of Lira soon turned steady, and she passed out, breathing softly. Sagiri snapped his eyes and looked at her from his position on the floor. She looked peaceful now that she was not behaving like a half-human, half-puppet. The sun had risen now. He walked to the windows and pulled the blinds shut. He pulled the extra cover from the bed slowly, not to wake her, and for an assassin, she did not even stir.

Sagiri wrapped his body in the covers but still maintained his meditative position on the floor. Being too full, too tired, and too comfortable was indeed a curse because no matter how much Sagiri fought to stay awake, he was too tired to put up much of a fight. He must have passed out at some point for a few minutes or hours. He didn’t know.

He sprang awake in a pool of his sweat and darkness. He had been sprawled in a fatal position in his sleep with no care. How careless. It must have been the blinds, but he could tell it wasn’t them cutting the light. It was already night. His blades were still on him. After catching his breath, he wheeled around to look at the bed, but there was nobody there. Where was Lira?

Lira was gone!

Sagiri shot up straight. He was disoriented, but he was well rested. He felt reborn and as if he could topple a nation. Even so, he could feel that something was eerily wrong. The place was too silent and too dark. He had made sure to keep his right eye closed while the aunties and uncles tore him to shreds with lectures, but now he did not need to. The inn was silent, and he could not perceive any other life for miles. It was as if everyone who ran the inns and the couple of dozen inns on the street had coincidentally closed down and gone home. It was silent. Too silent.

Odd.

Sagiri could not even perceive Lira. As if she had disappeared, too. How had he been so careless as to sleep? Sagiri pushed his senses even further out, but he could not hear or feel any sign of life. It was impossible that everyone could have just died or left. The archive stirring must have been the reason he had woken up. Perhaps he could have slept till it was day again. The markings on his body started crawling rapidly under his skin. Nokai stirred too, and Sagiri stood even more still, trying harder to perceive any movements. Nothing. Just stretched silence.

Walking through the corridors of the inn was not a choice anymore. Sagiri moved within the archive and landed on the roof of the inn. It must have been well before midnight or after. The sky was starless, and the moon seemed to be sleeping as well. The night was too dark. He could not stop the feeling that someone had cast a long web, and he was standing at the centre of it. Sagiri crouched on the roof, not daring to move. The silence was too thick, and the markings were crawling too much. It felt almost like he was being watched, yet even with his right eye, for as far as it tore through the darkness, all he could see were houses and no movements at all. Even the trees were still. Too still

It was only a matter of time before the silence could be broken. Something had to give after all, especially if he did not move. Perhaps whoever had woven the web was waiting for him to move so the noose could tighten. All he could do was wait.