Another Secret Spilled

Kies and the two girls headed into the building. At first, he wasn't sure about Wompa coming with them but decided to let her. He was being the immature one, thinking that the two of them were too young to handle seeing dismembered bodies. Back then, when he first met them, Kies cut a bunch of soldiers in half but they didn't bat an eye. He really needed to stop thinking of them as princesses who haven't seen the outside world.

They definitely experienced a lot, considering how they were framed and chased out of their own kingdom. Yeah, he really needed to stop thinking of them as weak girls. Kies took the led and went into the building first. He poked his head in, carefully looking around for traps. The room reeked of blood and had a dusty smell on top of that. There was also very little light as the room lacked both ventilation and natural lighting. A perfect hideout for a bunch of criminals...

Kies took another foot into the room seeing how he didn't get hit by a trap yet, and the moment he took a step, he felt something soft under the soles of his shoes. *Squish!* Kies looked down and saw what it was that he stepped on. "..."

"What happened?" Iris poked her head in after him and looked down and also saw what it was that Kies stepped on and had to turn her head away to avoid getting sick.

"I did warn you..." Kies told her. It wasn't a pretty sight in the room. Kies kicked away the severed hand and looked at the body next to it to which it belonged to. From the looks of it, the victim was a young soldier that had plenty of years ahead of him but was unfortunately met with this grim fate. Kies silently offered his condolences to any family member that the young soldier may have and continued into the room. By now, most of the blood had dried, but there was still a thin layer that was still wet, causing his feet to make a small splashing sound whenever they hit the floor.

Iris and Wompa hesitantly followed him into the death-filled room. "Remember. Follow my footsteps," he reminded them. There were still traps in here and he didn't know where they were. He tried to search for them with his winds before they entered but couldn't find any other than the ones that have already been sprung or activated. These traps were very well-hidden and they had to be extremely careful.

Kies looked around and found the stairway that the thieves escaped with the trapdoor open. He went over to it and looked inside for any potential traps and found one. There was a knife attached to a wooden stick. From the angle, and direction it was coming from, it seemed that it was designed to hit the first person that walked down the steps. The trap didn't look like it ever hit its mark. It was frozen in a block of ice before it could even fully come out of the hole in the wall it was hidden in. Rui wasn't a royal guard for no reason. Her reaction time was inhuman for her to be able to freeze it the moment it triggered.

Kies pushed the trapdoor over to widen it so that the three of them could enter and went down the stairs. "Behind me," Kies told the two princesses. If there was a trap, he wanted to take it on behalf of them since there was a near 100% chance that he survived while a near 0% chance that they did. But to make things safer, Kies secretly surrounded the two in a layer of wind that they couldn't see or feel, that would explode upon contact with anything that would hit them.

The three of them continued down the stairs in this order: Kies in the lead, Iris in the middle, and Wompa in the back. It was rather narrow and Kies didn't like it because it felt like he was being trapped in a small space. Anyhow, they made it down without any problems. At the bottom, they found a hallway with a couple more traps that had been frozen by Rui.

"So, which way do we go?" Iris asked, looking around at the empty hallway. There wasn't a single door or entrance or anything. It was quite literally an empty tunnel... Other than the couple of torches that lined the walls, there was nothing.

"That's easy. There are four doors," Kies told her, all of which were hidden.

"How do you know?"

"Instinct."

"Instinct?"

"Yes."

"What? Were you an ex-thief, bandit, or something?"

"No," Kies obviously stated. When he said instinct, he meant his magic. He used his winds to feel the walls and found several gaps on them that outline what seemed to be doors. He was pretty sure that Iris could do the same thing too by channeling her magic into the fragment and having the winds search the place for her.

"Well then... I guess you're not going to tell us, are you?" Iris asked with her arms crossed.

"No."

Kies went directly over to the closest door which was on the left on them and examined the wall. Iris and Wompa also walked over to him and inspected the seemingly normal wall with him. Kies tried knocking on it, kicking it, punching it, but none of those worked.

"Let me try," Iris offered. Kies moved back and let Iris have a go at the door. She searched around for a switch, button, anything, but couldn't find it. It was expected though. If Kies couldn't find anything with his winds then how was she supposed to find it with her eyes? "Hmm..." Iris backed from the door but didn't give up. She continued looking around for a way to open it but Kies stopped her.

"Move back," he told the two.

"What are you going to do?"

"I'm opening this the old fashion way."

"Old-fashion? Oh..." Iris and Wompa immediately understood what Kies meant and moved back. Kies drew his sword and lifted it up as high as the ceiling would allow him. The corridor was rather narrow and the ceiling wasn't that high either. It was perfect for small weapons such as knives and daggers, and terrible for any weapon that was bigger than that. In other words, this place was practically designed to give the thieves a fighting advantage over the soldiers if they ever came down here.

Kies swung the sword down with all his might, channeling the winds into the strike as well. The sword cut through the stone wall like bread and smashed a hole in the wall. "There." Kies put the sword away and went through the small hole he made. *Zzzsh!* Something shot out at him and he caught it just as it was about to hit his face. A green liquid trickled from the side of the object that was facing Kies and pattered against the cold stone floor. It was a poisoned arrow.

"Are you okay!?" Iris concernedly asked Kies.

"Stay back!" He held out his arm and blocked the two, stopping them from stepping foot into the room. Seeing how the hallway was safe, Kies took the winds away from the girls and did a quick scan of the room with it, and didn't find any other traps other than the one that activated.

"..." Kies continued into the room, cautiously walking around, checking if there were any more hidden traps. He was sure that there had to be another one somewhere. There was no way that there was only one trap here.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Iris asked him.

"Don't worry. I can react in time," he told her. After circling around the room twice, he confirmed that there were no traps other than the initial one he triggered and beckoned for the girls to come in. "I think it's safe..." Kies told them The arrow trap was the only thing in the room.

But it wasn't safe. Iris walked into the room and the same hissing sound filled the air as another arrow fired from the same spot. "Sh*t-" Kies tried grabbing the arrow as it flew by but it zipped right through his fingers and flew towards the two girls.

Iris instinctively moved in front of her sister, using her own body as a shield to block the arrow for Wompa. She closed her eyes and braced for the impact, but it never came. Iris slowly opened her eyes and turned around to see the arrow hovering in the air right before her, poison dripping down from the tip and hitting the floor.

"What in the world..." The two girls looked at Kies and saw that he had his hand extended towards the arrow. Kies muttered a curse and with a snap of his wrists, flung the arrow aside with his wind magic.

"D*mn it..."

Iris and Wompa stared at Kies in shock. "You... You're a-"

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