Chains of Vengeance

Chapter 40: Whispers of Betrayal

Parallel to Leshy's "adventure in the healing room"

Narinder closed the door to his house, cold sweat soaking his forehead. "Leshy is here... he is here..." he muttered under his breath, as if the words carried a weight impossible to ignore.

He walked over to the mirror in his room, his own reflection staring back at him with an intensity that seemed alien to him. He was distraught, fighting a tide of conflicting thoughts that he could not silence. The voices in his head intertwined in a silent, but deafening chaos.

"You must get rid of him," his reflection said, his voice heavy with urgency.

Narinder looked away for a moment, as if the thought made him uncomfortable. "Don't do it... you need his relic," he corrected himself, trying to convince himself of something he wasn't even sure he believed.

"As long as you don't see him, he's planning to seal you away again! Do you remember what he did last time?" His reflection insisted, once again standing firm in his mind, a voice that did not want to disappear.

"He is the only one who knows where the relic is," Narinder reminded himself, clinging to the little that was clear in his head.

"Then read his mind... problem solved," the reflection suggested, with a grim smile, as if the solution were as simple as reaching out his hand.

Narinder shook his head. "I can't. He is not a believer in my faith... power doesn't work like that," he whispered, feeling trapped.

"Finish him, he is still a threat... he has betrayed you before and he will do it again."

"The relic first," Narinder insisted, although each word cost him more. The internal debate consumed him, and he felt that he could not trust his own thoughts. He did not know which side of the scale he should lean on.

The room seemed to close in around him. Each shadow grew denser, and the weight of the air on his shoulders crushed him. Narinder felt the world crumble around him, a feeling of suffocation that only increased.

He shook his head violently, as if trying to scare away the ghosts that haunted him, and inhaled deeply. "The relic first," he repeated quietly, trying to convince himself once again of his course of action.

Finally, he stepped away from the mirror, shaky but determined to move forward. He knew that the decision he made would change the course of everything, and he couldn't afford to fail now.

Narinder left his house, seeing that it was already nighttime, he didn't realize how much time he wasted talking to himself.

All the cultists were asleep, he saw Leshy in a secluded place sleeping on a bed of leaves and twigs. He transformed his crown into a hand and grabbed his brother and took him to the temple.

Leshy, falling to the ground of the temple, shook himself quickly, getting up with difficulty. Even though he couldn't see, his instincts told him something wasn't right. Narinder, his own brother, had dragged him away without a word, and now faced him with a coldness that chilled the atmosphere of the place.

"What the hell do you think you're doing, Narinder?" Leshy said, his tone filled with a mix of confusion and rage.

Narinder remained silent for a few moments, his gaze fixed on him as if assessing every aspect of his current misery. The red crown on his head pulsed with a menacing glow, reflecting the tension in the air. Finally, Narinder spoke, his voice laden with contempt: "We need to talk."

Leshy, trying to hold her ground despite the situation, replied with a crooked smile. "Talk? Do you have anything else to say to me other than another useless threat?"