A few weeks after completing the last request, Kamu received another letter with a black raven. However, the letter was not an order, but an invitation. Since there had never been an example of such a thing happening before, Kamu curiously took on the roads of Madüjawr to enter the clearing that particular evening, where he was to meet the mysterious requester, dressed from head to toe in reddish orange, with a hood pulled over his face.
As he had expected, there was no one near or far, but that was exactly what made Kamu think. No one was anywhere, only he stood in the clearing, in the quiet night. Not even the scurrying of moonwalkers could be heard. However, the leader of the Mist was not worried, he trusted his knowledge and abilities enough to be able to escape easily, even if someone tried to attack him from an ambush.
"Forgive me for being late." Kamu turned around in surprise when he heard the voice behind him. "I don't want to waste your time, so I'll get straight to the point. I'd like you to kill three people for me in the next month." The man said with a serious face. "Here's the payment." He pulled out a bag and handed it to Kamu.
"Names." Kamu also spoke, deepening his voice. It was better if he didn't give away more recognizable things about himself than his stature showed.
"Teike Kele, Koál Kamu and Koál Laik." The man said the three names.
"So you were hired to kill yourself?" Teveli stammered into the story, blinking heavily.
"Yeah. Like I said, yes." He nodded.
"And what was your reaction to it?" Suk asked curiously, but the ghost-man just raised his hands.
"I'm sorry, I'm bound by secrecy." He shrugged, when purple smoke appeared next to Rahul, from which a hegin in his twenties stepped out, his long hair tied in a ponytail, one hand on Rahul's shoulder.
"So, brother, are we going to get through this tonight, or do you want to say goodbye to sister first?" The newly appeared figure spoke.
"Laik?" Etele and Razvan blinked at the young man at the same time.
"You hired him to kill you?" Rahul also looked up at the man in confusion.
"I had to." Laik shrugged. "I had no other choice, but I must admit I was quite surprised that Kamu was the leader of the Mist." He looked towards the ghost-man sitting on the throne.
"I guess that means I can talk about the case freely, right?" Kamu tilted his head to the side and looked at his former half-brother with a questioning look.
"It doesn't hurt anyone if they know." Laik waved a hand.
"You asked him to kill us?" Kele pointed at himself and even in his ghost eyes you could clearly see the anger mixed with disappointment.
"Like I said, I had no other choice." Laik ran his free hand over his face. "If we hadn't died, terrible things would have happened." He sighed.
"Of course, it would have been horrible to watch my son grow up, if either of us had been able to raise his son. You left your own son to our sister. Did you even think for a moment about what it would be like for her to raise a child as a widow?" The older Teike twin shouted.
"Kele..." Kamu tried to stop him when he saw that his brother was only taking a breath to continue his questions.
"I hope your soul never calmed down for a minute. We were all innocent, none of us deserved what you did to us. But if nothing else, at least you could have loved Keche so much that you wouldn't leave her alone!" The ghost foamed.
"I still love her!" Laik exclaimed, and unlike the ghost's, his tears began to flow from his brown eyes, but he didn't let go of Rahul's shoulder for a moment. "But I had to, I saw what would happen if I didn't. Madüjawr would have been bathed in blood, the empire that Athira and our father fought for would have become nothing." As he began to speak, it was almost as if the words were flowing from him.
"How did you see it anyway?" Kele's hands clenched into fists. "You weren't a seer!"
"But I was!" The statement surprised everyone in the room, even Kamu and Etele, who literally took two steps back in surprise.
"Then why didn't you change the future?" Kele asked in a much weaker voice.
"I did." Laik bowed his head. "The original path that our fate took led to the bloodbath, I changed it. And before you jump at me that I shouldn't have done this, believe me, if you were in my place, you would have done the same. You have no idea what it's like when you're aware of the possibilities in the world. If Keche hadn't been, I would have killed myself much sooner, even before ypur death, father." He looked at the surprised Etele.
"Now I'm curious about that. What could have been so bad that you wanted to die even then?" Kamu asked and leaned forward on his throne to get closer to the storyteller.
"Four kinds of paths stood before me. Two in the east in our homeland, two at home in Madüjawr. In the east I would have either become a great seer or taken over the leadership of one of the chán clans. In Madüjawr I would either stay with father and I will watch him go crazy and destroy the entire country after Athira's death, or he dies with Athira and I take his place as chieftain. I didn't want to choose, I wanted to jump off a cliff into the great river, I felt that everyone would be better off without me, none of you would miss me." Laik closed his eyes, and Kamu, Kele and Etele looked at each other. "But Keche stopped me. She said that I was important to her and that she loved me. She took the decision out of my hands."
"Why?" Kele swallowed hard.
"Because there was only one future where she was by my side. I set out on the path of becoming chieftain and asked Kamu to kill my father." He said in a calm voice, still with tears in his eyes.
"You know, it's been almost a thousand years, so I don't really care about it." Etele shrugged. "But tell me, how were you a seer?" He asked, looking at his son with narrowed eyes, but he just smiled.
"If it were time for you to know, you would already be aware of it. But this way I can't say anything. I've played with time enough. After my death, I decided not to do that anymore." He shook his head.
"Have you said goodbye to our sister?" The sudden question came from Kele, before Laik's figure began to fade and disappeared in the blink of an eye.
"He's tired." Rahul announced, shrugging his shoulders.
"Then he won't speak for a while." Etele continued. "So that leaves the other eyewitness to the event, Kamu?" He asked, turning to the ghost-man.
"He already came to the meeting saying goodbye to her. I was quick as always. He didn't even feel anything. Ajtony's poisons always worked very quickly. I took his body to the edge of the forest so that the hegins returning from the moonwalk would find him, and then I began to prepare for the last act of my life." Here he looked at Kele and continued sadly. "We always knew that one last fishing trip awaited us."