Chapter 20: Betrayal

"Our servant arrived last week but we've taken her blood. She's only a Santor halfling," Jaius began to speak before Krella could stop him.

"Hmmm— and where is this servant of yours?" looking around as he asked.

Jaius wasn't the only one with a worried expression on his face as Jario his twin brother was the same.

"She-she ran away my lord," Jario responded, when his brother began to stutter in fear unable to respond in time.

"How convenient!" Hozar sighed, fixing his gaze on Jario longer than any of them was comfortable with.

Krella was the most terrified, jumping in front of Jario in a split second, and wrapping her arms around him.

"We have no idea what's—" only to pause with a horrified look on her face as she watched Hozar raise his sword a little higher than before, almost like he was ready to attack.

"She probably escaped after killing the boy," Misha said, terrified that Hozar was indeed seconds away from wiping out the entire family.

But Hozar looked even more pissed than before, clenching his fingers tighter around the exquisite sword he held.

"For all I know you all could be lying. You tasted her blood and decided to hide her away!" Hozar slowly responded, flinging out his sword the very next second.

Implying Jaius through his chest with enough force to carry his body and pin it to the ground.

"AArgh—" Krella screamed instinctively letting Jario go with tears streaming down her face only to grab Jario again, seeing Hozar pull out his sword from her son's chest.

"You still have one son but not for long!"

In the cart, Rye had her eyes tightly closed having decided not to make a move but that was until she watched Jaius die.

She didn't particularly care about Krella'a's sons but the fact that her identity was bound to be discovered, made her reluctant to watch Krella's sons die for nothing.

She had just taken one step out of the cart when she heard Misha's voice in the distance.

"She-she left the village! You must have seen her on the way if you took the front path," Misha spoke, with her forehead touching the ground.

It was already enough that Krella had to bow her head when talking to Hozar, a servant like her wasn't supposed to speak in such a situation.

Yet, she had done it twice already.

"Please! My master knows—"

"I'm-I'm the servant!" Rye yelled at the top of her voice, stepping out as quickly as she could the moment she saw how Hozar again tightened his hand against his sword.

'They've already caught me! Hiding will just get more people killed'

Rye had barely finished speaking when everyone's attention was instantly fixed in her, even as she repeated herself without looking up.

"I'm the servant!"

"The Santor Halfling we picked on the road!" Hozar said, snapping his attention back to her with an intense look in his eyes, as his gaze scrutinized her from head to toe.

"For a halfling, you look more—"

"I'm human!" Rye confessed with her gaze fixed to the ground, ignoring the gasps of shock that echoed from around her.

Continuing to hide it would only give Hozar, the leader more reason to cut her open and find out.

"I'm the human you're looking for. I-I escaped from the slave tower," Rye confessed with tears in her eyes as she realized that she could no longer run anymore.

The memory of the humans being assaulted in the hall, flashing in her mind as she realized that, it was bound to be her new beyond reality as she felt the desirous looks from every direction.

Krella, who had been standing with her son Jurio, was beyond alarmed at the new information they got as she felt her knees weaken.

Even Jurio, her son, couldn't keep her standing as he fell to the ground beside his mother.

'She's lying! We tasted her blood. It's sweeter than most but it's still bitter,' he wanted to shout out but couldn't as he watched Hazor approach the servant girl.

Misha sighed, lifting her head off the ground with a look of resignation on her face.

It was clearer to her than anyone there that, even if Krella's family survived, she would be killed.

"Hand!" Hazor demanded the second he stood only a foot away from Rye who shaking lifted her left hand up.

She was beyond terrified, enough to find difficulty in breathing as her hand trembled visibly in the air.

'He-he wouldn't cut it off cause I'm human would he?' Rye thought as she watched the bloodied sword in his hand go up again.

She cringed in pain as she felt a deep stinging feeling in her arm as she watched a deep cut appear, one she couldn't have prevented even if she wanted to.

Her blood dripped down to the ground, with Rye shutting her eyes close expecting the Red to latch onto her arm only to hear him speak.

"She's Human!" but Hozar had barely spoken when he turned his attention away from Rue almost like she was nothing but a pesky fly.

Instead, he turned his attention back to Krella, who had an expression of horror on her face.

"You lied to me!" Hozar bellowed at her, making her swallow whatever words she had been planning to say.

"My Mother—" Jurio bravely began.

"I mixed the blood!" Misha screamed, piercing through the heated tension as she instinctively felt that Hozar was about to move.

"I mixed the blood! They know nothing about it!"

Krella had taken her in when she had no place to go and the last thing she wanted was to be the reason the entire family was wiped out.

Rye was still angry at Misha but at the same time wasn't prepared to watch her die. Even if the reason she helped her wasn't a good one.

"I-I forced her to help—" Rye opened her mouth to defend Misha only to be interrupted by the heavy sounds of horses approaching them from a distance.

Rye wasn't the only one surprised, as even the villagers were also completely shocked to see a multitude of people on horses approach them.

'Reinforcements,' they all thought, wondering why so many officials would be deployed to such a small village.

"How many humans are among us?"

"At this point, we'll all be killed even if they are found,"

"We have done nothing wrong!" They murmured amongst themselves.

Yet, among the crowd, the one person who seemed to worry the most was Klaton as he fixed his eyes on Mino who had moved to stand right beside Hozar.

Refusing to glance at him, no matter how hard Klaton fixed his gaze on him.

A fleeting thought had just popped into his head when he instantly shook his head turning his attention back to the new batch of soldiers and the huge carriage in their midst.

'It's impossible!' he thought to himself, wiping the worry off his face until there was nothing left but a blank expression.