THE LAST KEEPER

Chapter 328: 328. FREE

”You shouldn’t have come.”

His voice carried an echo through the underground. His words carried no emotion either. Yet Sagiri could feel that he meant every word.

Sagiri trembled with rage for a few minutes before he finally paused.

”You think I have a choice?” Sagiri almost snarled.

”Your sand shade did not teach you the importance of staying calm, did he?” The man was not disturbed by Sagiri’s outburst. In fact, his energy remained the same. Like a sea of calmness. ”I thought someone was here to kill, seeing as how much distress, intent to kill, and revenge you carry around. Even the beast on your hands seems to have grown forcefully because of your distress. You should know rage is not good for it. You will taint it,” The man said, his eyes were still white before he finally blinked, and they went back to a normal brown with streaks of pale sand.

”Well, everyone is hell-bent on pissing me off and treating me like a beast,” Sagiri said.

”So you act like one?” The man asked again, and Sagiri touched the bars again, but retracted his hand.

”Stay back!” The man warned.

”I am not scared of these stupid traps. I will kill everyone who sets this up.”

”You intend to kill everyone who offends you? That is not what a keeper does.” The man said, still sitting in the same position.

”A keeper should be accepted by his people and not be pushed to the wall even by his own people. And imprison the man who made sure the bloodline of N’folu still lives.” Sagiri said with a cold tone. This time, he placed his hands on the archive and power-sucking threads inside the bars.

Even when they were tempted to suck him dry, he did not move back this time. Koru looked between the lass standing before him and his hands curled on the bars, and sighed.

”Do you plan to kill everyone then?” The man asked his hands, moving from Sagiri’s hands to his face and back, but slowly.

”Yes. I will kill them all. I will start with those who imprisoned you here, and then I will kill those who are chanting outside, demanding I leave this place. A place that my ancestors built. I will not be denied even my roots. I was chased in the north and almost killed because I am from the south, and now that I am here, they dare to put me in bed with the people who wiped out my clan?” Sagiri snarled the last part as the power-sucking threads burnt the skin off his hands.

The stupid threads leeching on him, thinking this was his first time.

”Then you will be no better than those who wiped your tribe.” The man finally stood up. Sagiri paused before he laughed. A slow, tormented laugh that slowly rose higher and higher until it swallowed the whole place.

Koru tilted his head to the side slowly. The boy did indeed look like his master. The shape of his head and even the colour of his left eye were the same as those of Nathira. Yet, the boy lacked the softness of his mother. How could two people look the same yet be so different?

”Perhaps it’s my fate. I don’t belong in either the North or the South. I have no tribe and no clan. Who am I to even claim to be N’folu? I haven’t even done my last rites for them. I kill people when they never used to. Perhaps everyone is right. I can’t escape my fate. Perhaps I deserve to die too. But I won’t do it so easily. Everyone who tries to kill me will... die.” Sagiri’s voice changed from one pain in the last part to a cold one.

Koru, now having listened to the boy, could tell that he was in pain. So much pain, and it made something in him stir. Perhaps he had misjudged him way too quickly. The boy still possessed the strength of his mother, her softness too, but also the stubbornness of his father. Koru could not help but remember that day he had held him as an infant and run north with him for days. Then he had left him with that cowardly soldier running from the massacre. Then, that healer who did not care that the boy was clearly from the south.

That woman with the heart of a lioness and a coward. Somehow, he had seen it as a good choice to leave the last keeper in the hands of a coward and a woman with the heart of a lioness.

Now the boy had also grown to have the heart of that lioness. A careless heart. Koru wished that the boy could have taken a little of that cowardly heart of that man. Perhaps then he could remain in hiding and not come here. The pain the boy carried now could only consume him.

The boy’s right eye suddenly turned a bleeding red. A glowing red as he said the last sentence, and Koru shot to his feet.

The boy’s hands, however, curled into the bars, and Koru had to step back in that moment.

The moment Sagiri’s hands closed around the bars this time, Koru felt something shift. The threads awakened instantly, crawling over the young man’s skin and latching onto him with desperate hunger. For a brief moment, the prison seemed to come alive with just the intention of sucking the boy dry.

Then the markings covering Sagiri’s body moved. Koru’s eyes narrowed. Black patterns flowed toward the boy’s hands before spilling from his skin as living threads of their own. The prison glowed instantly and fought them. The ancient restraints that had endured for generations began snapping apart one by one.

A deafening shriek echoed across the underground pool as the bars bent inward beneath his grip. The stone cracked. Ancient runes shattered and snapped before the power-draining threads snapped one after another like overstretched rope. Sagiri roared and pulled. The entire section of reinforced bars tore free from the wall.

Stone exploded outward as the bars came loose. The floating cell shook violently. Then, with a single motion and an angry roar, he ripped the prison gate completely out of the mountain and hurled it away. The twisted mass of metal spun through the cavern before crashing into the darkness beyond the steaming pool.

”Now then, mother’s keeper. You are free to come now, you can come and watch me pay your imprisoners in full.” Sagiri said his eyes were lingering on Koru as he panned slightly.

Silence prevailed as the two men stared at each other. Finally, after a painful, prolonged moment, Koru finally parted his lips.

”So you can now use the echo’s eye.” He said, looking into Sagiri’s eye.

”The echo’s eye...”

Sagiri tilted his head to the side, not understanding what the man was saying for a while before he finally understood.

”Your sandshade doesn’t know or teach you anything, does he?” Koru said with regret before he stepped forward.

”This eye...” Sagiri said, pointing to his right eye. ”Activated long ago.”

”That is not good...”Koru went to say, but Sagiri suddenly groaned at the screaming coming from the pool.

”This damned thing can’t shut up!” Sagiri said in an irritated tone before he turned around. His eyes fell on the pool below before he jumped down from the floating cell.