"What do you mean?"

  A chill went through Edgar, an ominous feeling that his life was about to change in some unavoidable way. He was the ruler of Beornia, and stability in the leadership meant stability in the realm. If something shifted here, would it be a good result? Could he afford to go along with what this man adrift in his own life had planned?

  Drifter, for his part, was attempting to look down at his restraints. He could break them - they were just steel - but it would just cause Edgar to call for help. Or the guards outside would hear it themselves; steel shattering tended to make an awful noise.

  "Do you mind if I loosen these restraints a little?" Drifter asked, thinking a couple of the weaker chains would snap more easily and quietly.

  Edgar was on edge, but it had little to do with the physical risk Drifter posed to him. The man, for all his oddity, seemed to bear him no ill will. Which was incredible, in and of itself, since Edgar had ordered his brutal and public death. So he agreed.

  Drifter flexed. His neck muscles bulged against the thin chain holding his head against the pillar and it snapped in an instant. His pec pushed against heavy steel, but a rusted link under his armpit cracked and the whole chain fell loose in response. His thighs crushed the steel links between them, giving him a few inches of space to shuffle his legs around.

  He was much more comfortable. Still restricted, still stuck to the pillar, but with the flex room to adjust himself as desired.

  And so the conversation between Drifter and the Regent truly started. I present here a facsimile of sorts based on what I could glean from Drifter, and what people like Even with some third-hand knowledge of the event could relay, and from statements the Regent made after everything came to light that fill in some gaps.

  I assume, in reality, that Drifter said much less, alas, I lack the skill to present his words with more brevity and he lacks the memory to present them himself.

  "So," Drifter started, ready to work on the Regent's well-being, "Guilt. It is a difficult emotion. You feel you have done wrong, or you feel that some wrong cannot be reconciled. To the first half, have you done wrong?"

  It seemed to be an odd question coming from the man Edgar had sentenced to death. "My hasty decisions ended with you, an innocent man, marching to the executioner's block. Is that not obvious?"

  "It is. But which part was wrong? Your hastiness? My innocence?"

  "You are innocent, so it's wrong." Edgar frowned, unsure of why such obvious questions were being asked.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  "So if I wasn't innocent, but you had still rushed through the conviction, had still pressured others to accelerate the process, had still advertised my death as a great event, would you have done nothing wrong?"

  "Ah, I see." Drifter was trying to say that he was not the cause of the guilt, but Edgar's own actions. "But I would have done less wrong, and I would have felt less guilt. Henry Noman, unlike you, deserves to die."

  Drifter nodded. "So it isn't the action that causes you guilt. It is the inability to reconcile the consequences. You would do the same thing again, I think, and your guilt only comes how you act now that you know the repercussions."

  Edgar's eyes fell to the floor in shame. "That feels right." If he knew how to take it back, how to pretend it all never happened, but in a way that didn't shake confidence in his rule, he would. But every option weakened him before his opponents, made the people angry, broke the rule of law even more than he already had. "I feel trapped. The truth has not given me comfort or closure, but simply more unease."

  "That is normal," Drifter replied with a chuckle, "Everyone thinks the truth will set them free, but the truth is a chain constraining your life to reality. The ignorant can think what they want, can believe any lie they tell themselves, but those who know the truth can only know the truth."

  "So that's it? That's the fix? That I'm trapped by my own decisions?"

  "Sometimes, maybe, but not now. Now your problem that you do not know enough of the truth."

  It was an odd statement. Truth locked you into the truth, but more truth would unlock him? Edgar could follow and agree with Drifter up to this point, but he was a bit lost.

  So Drifter continued. "Tell me: what do you think is the truth behind your guilt?"

  Edgar wanted to say his guilt came from his actions causing the death of an innocent man, but he knew that wasn't it. If that was all, there were mechanisms he could use to reverse his decision. It was difficult, in some ways, but the levers were there for him to pull.

  But he wouldn't. He had a number of reasons, but they all boiled down to a simple truth: "If I back down, my power will be threatened, and thus my nation could be threatened. So I must choose the death of an innocent man in order to protect my people."

  "Ta," Drifter nodded, "You make a choice, and you believe it is the best choice, so you accept terrible consequences that go against your base morality." Edgar felt some relief as Drifter's words washed over him, but that would not last long.

  "So let me tell you the truth that you are lacking: you cannot kill me, so there is no need for guilt."

  Edgar looked up at Drifter, the olive-skinned bundle of muscles loosely chained to a stone pillar, the man who had spent the better part of the week in a dark hole without food or drink, without even the most basic comforts. And he feared that Drifter was right.

  The conversation was over. Drifter reached the chains around his chest, snapping the ones holding his arms in the process, and tore them apart. He broke the chains on his legs, around his stomach, and even an extra chain locking his chair to the stone pillar.

  The noise brought the guards from outside, who saw Drifter standing free amongst shattered chains and went pale. Drifter turned to them and said "I will return to my prison cell now. Please escort me." They nodded and moved aside as he walked by.

  Before Drifter left the room, he had one last line for the Regent: "I will fulfil my vow one last time."

  The black stone ring dropped to the floor. Lord Edgar Braven II felt like he had not only failed, but had admitted his failure. But that was undercut by a more pressing anxiety: what monster was now walking through his castle?