Shadow's Oath

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Chapter 38: Ikarum (2)

‘So Stuga had already picked up Maraka’s dagger. I knew that, but I was too distracted to deal with it properly. I should’ve told him not to bring it here.’

Jedrick worried that the situation might take a bad turn.

Even when Ikarum pointed out the dagger, Stuga showed no sign of surprise.

It wasn’t as if he had sneaked it in and gotten caught.

He hadn’t even been asked to disarm when entering the room, and he was already carrying a larger sword.

A small dagger was hardly something he thought of as additional armament.

That’s why he didn’t hesitate to draw it from his belt.

“A moment ago, Hak, dagger, this. Returning it…”

He unsheathed the dagger and stepped toward Ikarum, which naturally brought him closer to the other elders and the Ehodin as well.

The elders in the room immediately stood from their seats in unison.

Sensing the unusual tension, Stuga stopped in his tracks.

To show he had no intention of threatening anyone, he stepped back to his original spot, keeping the dagger calmly resting on his palm without making any further moves.

Ikarum raised his hand to calm everyone.

“The meeting is over. Everyone, please leave. Except for Jeje and the Southerner. Both of you stay for a moment.”

“What about Stuga? Why does he need to stay?”

Jedrick added his question with a tone of caution.

“He’s the prince’s Stuga. He must not be harmed.”

“I know. I just have a few questions for him.”

The elders and the two Ehodin left the small chamber without complaint.

It was partly because they were relieved to be away from Maraka’s dagger.

Once everyone had left, only three people remained in the room.

The door was firmly shut.

“If the Southerner doesn’t understand me, Jeje, interpret for him. And vice versa.”

Jedrick nodded, and Ikarum continued speaking.

“That dagger is the one Maraka used for casting curses. Do you know that?”

Stuga immediately placed the dagger on the floor.

“Curse, don’t know. Found it, picked it up, brought it to return.”

His speech was still hesitant, but it wasn’t because Ikarum’s tone intimidated him.

Ikarum didn’t even glance at the dagger on the floor as he spoke.

“Keep it.”

Stuga, unsure if he understood correctly, looked at Jedrick.

Jedrick, equally puzzled, asked,

“What do you mean by that?”

“Not so much ‘keep it’ as ‘continue to carry it.’”

Stuga looked confused and didn’t pick up the dagger.

Ikarum elaborated further.

“That dagger carries Maraka’s curse. Hak’s dagger is said to harm anyone who possesses it except Hak himself. It’s a blade rumored to bring death to its holder. I don’t want to keep such a weapon myself, and I can’t just dispose of it recklessly. Nor can I give it back to Maraka, who’s been decided to be imprisoned. It’s better for the one who picked it up to continue carrying it.”

‘Better? What’s better about carrying a cursed dagger?’

Jedrick wanted to argue but knew Ikarum never reversed a decision once made.

He decided to explain the situation to Stuga and ask what he wanted to do.

But before he could, Stuga, apparently having understood Ikarum’s words, picked the dagger up from the floor.

As always, he simply accepted what he was told.

‘Wasn’t he once a slave? Is that why he doesn’t know how to refuse orders from superiors? Strictly speaking, Ikarum isn’t even his superior.’

Ikarum observed Stuga’s movements as he picked up the dagger with great interest, a rare smile playing on his face.

“To see one untouched by the curse.”

Ikarum murmured.

Both Stuga and Jedrick turned to look at him.

Ikarum, resting his chin on his hand, was smiling.

“Hak Maraka once said, when his curse failed to affect Mantum, that the deed was done by someone untouched by the curse. You’re holding that dagger without any harm coming to you.”

Stuga didn’t respond but simply tucked the dagger back into his belt.

“If you find it difficult to dispose of the dagger, seek Hag Olga. She can lift the curse embedded in it. Jeje will guide you to her. But don’t leave it anywhere else. I don’t want this village tainted with that curse.”

Stuga nodded.

“You may leave now.”

At Ikarum’s words, Stuga gave a short bow and exited the room.

Jedrick was about to follow but paused at the door.

“Don’t you have anything to say to me?”

Ikarum, still lounging in his seat, replied casually.

“You’re the one who should speak to me.”

“My answer is still ‘I don’t know.’”

“Then I have nothing to say either.”

Ikarum remained in his chin-resting pose.

The fiery energy he had shown while abruptly ending the earlier meeting was nowhere to be seen.

‘Father always said that to be the leader of a group, you must conceal your emotions and remain calm and restrained at all times. But maybe he didn’t realize there’s another way. Someone like my brother, who always seems agitated and angry, can use that very temperament to mask his true intentions.’

Even the elders, who weren’t afraid to criticize their father, were wary of Ikarum.

When he lost his temper, he was known to decapitate people in a fit of rage, only to acknowledge and apologize for his outburst afterward.

This made people extremely cautious around him.

But Jedrick couldn’t shake the suspicion that even Ikarum’s outbursts were calculated.

‘He always looks like he’s losing his temper, but he’s colder than anyone. His anger is a performance.’

Jedrick opened the door and left.

Stuga was waiting outside.

“Go ahead. I’ll follow shortly.”

“Understood.”

After confirming that Stuga had left, Jedrick closed the door to the small chamber.

Ikarum was still seated in the same spot.

“Maraka barging into the gathering has nothing to do with you, right?”

“What do you mean by that?”

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Ikarum asked back with a piercing glare.

Jedrick shrank under his brother’s intense gaze.

‘When I was little, I used to cry just from him looking at me like that. He never once apologized for it.’

The only reason Jedrick could even muster the courage to talk back now was thanks to years of effort.

“I’m asking if you intended to kill Prince Damion for Father’s revenge.”

“If I’d planned to kill the prince, do you think I’d use something as petty as a curse through Maraka? Even if there were a hundred southerners in iron armor, and even if I had no weapon in hand, I would have strangled the prince with my own hands. What I need to do now isn’t to stain my hands with the prince’s blood. It’s to save the villagers.”

He deliberately added the qualifier “now.”

Then what did he plan to do “later”?

“Prince Damion must return safely. Not a hair on his head should be harmed.”

“Why? Have you grown fond of him?”

Ikarum sneered.

“No, I’m saying it for the same reason as you. Triton Kingdom hasn’t even used a tenth of its forces in this war. Their king only gave General Terdin that much to attack here. But if Prince Damion dies, their entire army will march. If Lady Charlon, who we saw today, gets injured, Boron will send twice that number. Those two cannot be harmed under any circumstances.”

“I know.”

Ikarum growled and continued,

“Father knew he would lose. All he wanted was to show one final act of dignity. That’s why he always fought on the front lines, the place most likely to die. That’s why he told me to surrender if he died.”

“Father said that?”

Jedrick asked in shock.

Ikarum turned his head, looking as if he regretted bringing it up.

Without even glancing at his younger brother, he spoke.

“Go back to the banquet hall, Jeje. Convince the prince. Our future sovereign must not be angered.”

Jedrick couldn’t ask any more questions and had no choice but to return to the grand banquet hall as his brother instructed.

‘Then what does my mission even mean?’

Jedrick still remembered the instructions Ikarum had given him when he became the head of the clan.

He was debating when and how—or even whether—to bring them up.

But now Ikarum was acting as if those plans no longer mattered.

‘Jeje, after you surrender as clan leader and are taken as a hostage, you have only one task.’

Ikarum seemed prepared to sacrifice the entire village.

‘Find out who killed Father!’

Ram thought all his worries would end once he handed Maraka’s dagger to Ikarum.

But that wasn’t the case.

‘Tomorrow, if you go to the barbarians’ village, you’ll find a barbarian’s dagger…’

Ram kept replaying the words of the sorcerer Kura from the day before.

‘…and there will be a moment when Iliam is alone. That’s when you strike…’

Ram touched the dagger of Hak Maraka at his waist.

The cursed blade hurt just to touch, like it was piercing his skull. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

He knew the pain was mental, but it felt like a curse nonetheless.

‘Maraka’s target with this dagger was definitely Prince Damion.’

Ram recalled the moment Maraka threw the blood-stained, powder-coated dagger.

It didn’t seem aimed precisely.

The dagger had merely fallen to the ground and slid across the floor.

All Ram did was stop it with his foot.

A bloody dagger?

So what?

Ram had handled worse blades.

He had been drenched in enemy blood countless times on the battlefield.

The cursed powder?

It smelled the same as when the two wizards had scattered powder, explaining the difference between sorcery and magic.

That was all.

Nothing seemed particularly harmful.

What bothered Ram wasn’t the blood, the powder, or the dagger.

It was Maraka’s gaze.

Until the royal knights and the Geron elders pinned him down, Maraka had been staring at Ram with an unsettling look.

‘It’s a look I’ve seen before.’

When assassinating, the rule was to avoid showing oneself to the target.

But when carrying out Lord Selken’s orders to let the target know who had sent the assassin, Ram had to reveal himself.

In those cases, Ram would wait in the most familiar space to the target.

The best place was their bedroom.

When someone finds a stranger in a space where only family is allowed, confusion comes first.

Fear follows.

Maraka’s gaze was like that.

When he flung the dagger at the prince, he seemed resolute to accomplish something.

But the moment Ram stopped the blade, Maraka’s expression changed to that of a target recognizing their assassin.

That expression always conveyed the same questions:

Who are you?

Why are you here?

The words Maraka muttered as he was dragged away were also suspicious.

From the start of his spell, he had been uttering incomprehensible words.

So Ram thought what he said while being taken away was more of the same.

But he understood it.

That one phrase wasn’t in some ancient tongue.

It was in Geron.

“Kill that Tanu.”

In the chaos, spoken so softly, almost no one else would have heard it.

Even if someone did, they wouldn’t have paid it any mind.

‘He was definitely talking to me.’

After that, the mood in the banquet hall shifted, and the sudden tribal leaders’ meeting meant there was no chance to bring it up.

‘Kill Tanu? What’s Tanu? Did I hear that right?’

Ram couldn’t ask Ikarum or Jedrick about it, and he found himself back in the grand banquet hall.

‘It seems Maraka didn’t really intend to harm Prince Damion. He had another goal. And so does Ikarum. But neither of them has good intentions.’

Ram wanted to discuss this.

But who could he trust to share such secrets with?

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