Flower Parade V

The trip back to the mansion was a quiet and lonely one, but Kies didn't mind it. In fact, he preferred it this way. Although it could have been a bit better if Nina was with him. It was late afternoon. The sun was beginning to set and the skies were colored with streaks of red and orange. He hadn't realized how much time had passed since they were having so much fun at the festival.

Kies arrived at the mansion and went upstairs to drop the bags off in front of Nina's room. He noticed that there were no servants or guards at the mansion at all. But before Kies went back down the stairs, he was curious about something. What kind of necklace did she buy?

He looked through the bag with all the dresses and all the accessories. He searched through the jumbled-up jewelry and found two necklaces. One was the one that she had worn, which was decorated with gems and had a blue chain that was made out of some kind of strange metal. The other one had a leather strap with a small wooden carving of a bird at the end.

Kies raised one of his eyes in surprise. Nina had said that this necklace was a gift for someone and interestingly enough, birds were his favorite animals. Could it have been for him? 'Well, I can't be the only one that likes birds.' Kies reasoned. Nina was quite friendly with most of the maids at the mansion and it wouldn't be surprising if this had been a birthday present or just a present in general for one of them.

Kies put the necklace back into the bag and then walked back down the stairs and out of the mansion. Although Nina had told him to wait at the fountain, he was a little curious as to what caused the explosion and so he started making his way to where it had happened. Furthermore, he wanted to make sure that Nina was okay as well.

***

The knights saw that the smoke was getting bigger and bigger as they rode closer to it. They also heard more yelling and screaming.

"There may really be a fire, else there won't be this much noise," one of the knights to the rear reasoned.

"Strange, we're hearing all this panicking but yet we don't see anyone," another knight pointed out.

A third knight that was at the front of the group saw something ahead and said, "What's that?"

As the group got closer to it, they saw that it was a person laying on the ground.

"Halt!" Siegfried commanded. The knights all stopped and watched Siegfried trot over to the body. The man was covered in blood and when Siegfried got off his horse to turn the man around, he was shocked to see that the man was dead. Siegfried turned to the knights with a grave expression on his face and they immediately knew what was up. The atmosphere quickly turned serious and the knights awaited Siegfried's orders.

"You five in the front, go scout ahead, you in the back deliver a message to command that there's an emergency, and you over there, go back from where we came from and evacuate everyone," Siegfried said. The knights immediately set off as they were ordered. Siegfried then turned to Nina and said, "Miss Trevan, you best head home."

"What happened? Is he alright?" Nina was concerned about the man and wanted to help him.

Siegfried shook his head and told Nina, "He's dead."

Nina's eyes widened and she quickly angled herself on the horse to get a better look at the man to see for herself but was unable to. Several of the knights' horses were blocking the way.

"It's better if you don't see," Siegfried told her. "Miss Trevan, have you noticed that despite all the screaming, that the stalls here are all empty and there is not a single person other than us and that man here?" he asked.

After hearing what Siegfried said, Nina glanced around and saw that there was truly no one else here. "What's going on..." Nina was confused about what was going on. It seems to her that the knights already had an idea of what was going on.

"Where is the blood coming from," asked a knight. He was crouching over the body and examining it. He saw that there were no wounds on the body at all despite all the blood. It made no sense.

Siegfried turned around and went over to the knight. He then leaned down and inspected the body more carefully and saw that there really was no wound. "Huh?"

Some of the knights dismounted and walked over to check it out for themselves. There was indeed no wound but yet there was a lot of blood. The knights started talking among themselves to try to figure out what might've happened here.

"Someone might have tried to save him and healed his wound, but since he had already lost too much blood, it was too late," one of the knights reasoned.

"I do sense magic being used on him, so that might be the case," a second knight nodded his head in agreement. The majority of the knights were magic users so they were able to identify this fact.

"I also sense it but doesn't the magic feel... different?" a third knight pointed out.

"Dark magic," Siegfried said. Everyone turned to him.

"Doesn't that mean-"

"Yes, a demon did this," Siegfried said gravely. He then went over to Nina who had just managed to climb down from her horse, picked her up, and seated her back on it.

"Huh? Wait!" Nina protested. "I want to try to help him!"

"You can't revive the dead."

Nina stopped flailing and looked at Siegfried's eyes. They were cold and expressionless. "Is he really dead..." she asked.

Siegfried nodded and then turned to one of the knights and said, "Take Miss Trevan back home. It's the mansion by the river."

"Yes sir."

The knight climbed the horse and took the reins. He then directed the horse back towards where they came from and rode away from the group, leaving the rest of the knights to deal with whatever was going on.

***

Kies took a shortcut through some alleyways and quickly made it to the site where the explosion happened. 'Strange, where is everyone?' He looked around and saw nothing. He was pretty sure that he was in the right place so where was everyone and where was the explosion as well.

There was no sound at all. The stalls were all left unattended and there wasn't a single soul on the streets.

Had they all gone to see the flower field by the lake? It was where the biggest field of silver flowers was and everyone would crowd there at the end of the festival to see them. No, it was still too early. The sun had only started to set and it was too bright for flowers to glow. Kies looked around the area when a voice suddenly came out of the blue.

"Oh, would you look at that, it's a little lost lamb."

---

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