Kamu was not disappointed in his feelings at all. That particular dinner with friends dragged on much longer than he would have liked. Of course, he was aware that the whole evening would not consist of eating and then everyone going to their own business, or rather, sleeping, but that didn't help the fact that he really didn't feel like being there.
When his friends started chatting, Kamu already felt that he would rather be anywhere than here in this yurt. He would have so much to do, they had recently received a particularly exciting request and Ajtony and he had been talking about it for days. Yes, the younger Teike boy didn't feel like a part of the circle of friends he was in at the time.
In a weaker moment, it crossed his mind that he would rather be with his family than here. However, this thought managed to freeze him completely. If he took it very strictly, he was with his family now, even if his sister wasn't there. He still didn't feel like he was with his family. The more he thought about it, the clearer the situation became for him.
Even though it connected him to his blood twin brother and little sister, he still didn't consider them his family anymore. Of course, if someone had asked him who his family was, they would have been the first, but his second family, with whom he felt at home and loved these days, were his assassin friends. The time spent together had forged them into a big family.
And Kamu, sitting here in this small yurt among his brother's friends, decided that now was the time for the family that was just as close to his heart to have a name. So he set about finding a suitable name. Something that would describe how invisible they were, how ubiquitous they were, how elusive they were, and how no matter how hard someone tried to escape them, just like the power of Mother Earth, they couldn't escape them.
Ten or twenty names ran through his mind, but he wasn't satisfied with any of them, and it was slowly starting to frustrate him. He felt the word on the tip of his tongue, but somehow he couldn't find it. It slipped out of his hands like the morning mist sliding across the water of a lake. He could almost see white smoke billowing between his fingers. Smoke? No. Fog? No. Mist! Yes, that was it, these were the Mist itself.
His heart was filled with satisfaction, yes, that was the perfect term for them. They would be the Mist, the elusive force of nature that took lives and protected the innocent. He couldn't wait to meet the others, to tell them this seemingly great idea and ask everyone's opinion on it. Even if he was almost sure that everyone would agree with him.
Although he was deep in thought, he kept listening to the conversation going on around him with one ear. So he immediately snapped back to the present when a more interesting topic came up. Kele's friends had been talking about how they had been brought under Athira's command, the two boys, and the girl sitting next to Kamu's brother had already told their stories. The lady with the lion didn't care what they asked her, she wouldn't answer anything about her past.
Now, however, it was the Zawkaan girl's turn to tell her own story. Kamu wasn't even interested in that, the boy didn't care who had come under Athira's command for what reason. What caught his attention was that the girl with the strange eyes had started talking about her blindness.
"It all started with that boy. He was the love of my life." Here the girl lowered her head and continued in a lower voice. "Only I wasn't his." Tears started to fall.
Kamu's lips twisted into a grimace for a moment, it was rare that he wasn't happy that the information he had gained about someone was true, but this was one of those moments. Kamu knew exactly what had blinded the girl, the way he knew everything about everyone in the yurt. The younger Teike twin, had been looking into all of his brother's friends as best he could. After all, he couldn't let his brother get involved with bad company, he had to protect him.
Thanks to his research, he knew what had happened to the girl who was now on the verge of a complete collapse just five years ago. According to the information he had obtained, Szilvia had been in love with the boy in question since she was a little girl. They were always together, they went everywhere together. The boy even promised her that he would marry her when they grew up.
Then that fateful day came, barely half a year before the dinner in the yurt. Szilvia's lover went hunting in the mountains, but returned home half dead. He was attacked by a wild animal and could barely make it back to the village. Not even the local táltos, or shaman, could heal his wounds. As Etele told the children, most of the hegin who are called táltos do not have the power of a real táltos, most of them are just shamans with a slightly stronger flow of kí and therefore heal more effectively.
However, no matter what the village healers could not cure the boy. The young Szilvia cried for hours and begged her ancestors to save her love. Then, according to rumors, Kamu gathered, a demon probably heard the girl's cries and crossed over to their world, from the Shadow World. Only Szilvia knew exactly what had happened, and she had not told her friends about it yet.
The gist of the story is that she offered her eyes in exchange for her love's life. The boy was indeed healed the next day, but when Szilvia told her what she had done for him, instead of thanking her, he left her and married another girl less than a week later. Szilvia stopped crying, but her pale peach-colored eyes, which had been her trademark since she was a little girl, no longer saw anything.
Then, from one day to the next, black crows appeared in the girl's eyes, constantly flying around in circles in her iris-less eyes, and the Zawkaan girl acted as if she had regained her sight. No one knew why the girl had regained part of her sight, or if she had regained it at all, but now that the girl was sitting here in front of Kamu, the assassin was sure that the theory he had previously established with the help of Teike's ghost had proven true.
"She has the seal of a demon on her." Teike appeared behind the girl and smiled down at her. "Your idea was right. Although, to be honest, I didn't think you were right." The ghost sighed. "He loved her, the demon loved her, but everything has a price." The ghost looked sadly at Kamu. "The girl is pregnant, she is carrying the children of a demon under her heart. He couldn't give back the light of her eyes, but he probably sacrificed himself so that she could see at least a little bit again."
Kamu had to concentrate hard so that his face wouldn't show how touched he was by the girl's life story. Although he thought it was stupid that the girl had given up her sight for a boy, it was still love that could give her back a part of the world in her eyes. And considering that the girl had been putting her hand on her stomach almost without thinking all evening, she was suffering because of love again. It must be horrible to lose love twice, but how honorable it is to still be able to fight and live your life.
Love is a dangerous and painful thing and that's exactly why Kamu decided that he would never fall in love. He leaves this to Kele, who is already looking at the girl sitting next to him with stars in his eyes. If Kamu had to guess, he would have dared to bet that he would soon become an uncle. But first, he had to survive the rest of the evening, after all, he didn't want to be a ghost uncle.