8. There Is A Light

The Devirma program had received their own building by now. The longer a boy belonged to this army, the higher the floor on which they slept.

Enra now stood at the entrance, on the first floor, chasing his own doubt away.

He had become the boss of Devirma. He didn’t need to convince anyone, he could command all the boys to join him in taking over power tonight. The army was his, and as was clear to him now, that also meant Ottojon was practically his. The final obstacles, Otto and his princes, just needed to be removed for good measure.

It was also clear to him now that a leader without truly loyal followers will eventually be killed by inside threats.

So Enra stepped inside and softly knocked on the first bedroom doors. He woke up the newest recruits and told them the plan. They could walk with him and watch the army seize power in Ottojon—or they could walk away and receive their freedom.

Because these animals had only been recently snatched from their homes, almost all of them wanted to leave. But they didn’t believe Enra: they thought it was a test for their loyalty. He had no time for long conversations and had to hope they made the right choice, and that nobody ran to Otto to reveal his secret.

Using this method, he visited all the rooms on the lower floors, where he found nearly zero loyalty for Ottojon. Only at the higher floors, with soldiers who hadn’t seen their families and fought for Otto for centuries, he found serious resistance.

“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want,” said Enra. “You get a choice. Either go back to your family and don’t stand in my way, or get behind me and see how we revive Ottojon. I can’t rule out a short fight and several deaths, but I promise that’s the worst that could happen tonight.”

“U forget the third option, commander,” an elephant said. “We don’t want to leave, but we also don’t want you as sultan. Nobody knows you or thinks you’d be a good leader.”

“Who says I want to be sultan?”

He left these rooms with only a handful of followers and uncertainty about what the others would do.

The time had come. The moon had just arrived at the heavens—there was no turning back.

When he entered Otto’s bedroom, the doors were wide open and guards were nowhere to be found. Enra snuck inside suspiciously, but there was truly nobody here. His heart raced. Someone snitched on him. Or Chonib had done something—

He looked through the window. Otto lay in the gardens, alone, as if he expected someone.

To his satisfaction, Enra noticed more and more Devirma joining him. They walked downstairs together and met Otto in the beautiful gardens that he had started to call home.

The snake looked up with lazy eyes, as if they had woken him up.

“Chonib said that the Moon predicted an important meeting,” Otto said. “One I was to have in the gardens, naked. That I had to listen to the wise words that would be spoken, to prevent bloodshed and terror.”

He spit on the floor. “Normally I’d laugh at such advice and ignore it. But if my little moon tells me to …”

Enra gave precise hand signs and the boys circled Otto on all sides. He felt the burning eyes of Devirma boys looking from their window, at a safe distance.

His best friend, the rhino with the scarred face, stood beside him and gave him renewed confidence.

“Dear sultan,” Enra started with faked calm. “When I was still a boy, you took away my body, my home, and my life. I am afraid that tonight I must respond with the same—”

An arrow zipped through the night sky. Otto dodged just in time.

Reflexively, Enra searched the windows for the perpetrator, and he even felt the need to protectively shield Otto. No, none of his boys did this. But who—

Aratto, the oldest son, also appeared in the garden. As if he’d always been there, lurking in the shadows, looking down at his vulnerable father.

Soon after, his other two sons appeared in other corners of the garden. They’d all spotted an opportunity tonight, but which of them decided to grab the chance?

Enra wanted to make one of the sons sultan, just for show, while the army actually led the empire. The best solution for all. Logical. But who fired the arrow? Who is the traitor that wanted Otto dead for centuries now?

The princes stepped closer as if the army wasn’t there.

Enra yelled his command: “Stop the princes. Search them for weapons.”

“Excusssse me?” Bitto hissed. “Who do you think—”

Otto smiled and nodded to Enra appreciatively.

Enra went insane. He laughed as if he’d gone mad and had to use a tree for support.

It had happened again! Tonight, he could protect Otto and catch his criminal son, and Otto would reward him even more! What next? The sultan would reward Enra for his loyal service by adopting him into his family? All history books would write that Enra was by far the most loyal and brave Devirma that ever lived.

The all watched Enra in disbelief and worry.

“Enough is enough,” he said, once he’d calmed down. “Otto, the army will seize power tonight. You can die fighting or walk with me to your jail cell.”

Otto revealed his full size. The first soldiers who tried to grab him were swatted away by his uncoiled tail, but then the sultan was overpowered and bound.

“Traitor! After all I’ve given you! Have you not lived peacefully in my beautiful empire, for centuries? Have I not always rewarded you for your good deeds?” Otto flailed and bit anyone that came close, but his powerful snake body could not escape. His voice turned wild, his eyes red. “Where is your loyalty!?”

Enra stepped forward, spear pointed at Otto’s heart. “You can have my forced labor or my voluntary loyalty,” he said. “But not both.”

He pretended he was about to kill Otto. Instead, at the last second, he pulled back and studied the three sons.

Crotto went white as a sheet and asked for mercy for his father. Not the killer?

Bitto instinctively looked away, but also didn’t stop him.

Aratto stood closest to him. He took a two-sided sword between his long teeth, then dropped it clumsily. Suspiciously clumsy. The sharp blade narrowly missed the tip of Otto’s body.

Chonib stepped from the shadows too, illuminated by moonlight, beautiful as always. Otto quickly realized she also wasn’t here to save him.

“All of you are traitors! All the talk about art and culture. About Moonreading. It’s all useless, a waste of money. Millions of paint brushes have not prevented Ottojon from shrinking to half its original size! Millions of swords would have.”

He spit at Enra and Chonib. “You’ve always kept me for a fool. Manipulated me.”

Then Otto looked at “his” soldiers, one by one.

“Will you remember what happened here tonight? Will you allow such a weak traitor to assume power?”

“To be honest,” the rhino said, “we just want to go home.”

“Ottojon is your home!”

“It’s a ruin where no child even dares play. Home is not just survival. It also means living.”

Slowly but surely, the fight drained from Otto’s body. He stopped struggling and his eyelids drooped over his yellow pupils. He couldn’t win.

Enra stepped forward again and rapidly pushed his spear forward—only to test the sons again.

Now they all asked for mercy in exactly the same words. As if they’d rehearsed it. Aratto could have easily stopped Enra—he even had the better weapon and was a great fighter—but he didn’t.

The same was true, though, for the other two sons.

Until he realized the truth and turned his anger to the three snakes.

“You have all spread the rumor that Otto was dead! You were all out to kill your father and take his throne. The only reason it never happened, is because Otto abolished the law that one of you would inherit his throne when he died!”

Before they could defend themselves, the not-princes-anymore were also pushed to the floor by the might of half the army.

“Lock them all up,” Enra said. “And I mean it. Who wants to go home, can go home. Whoever remains meets me tomorrow to discuss what should happen with Ottojon. For now, my only order is to immediately abolish the Devirma program.”

The soldiers responded with smiles and cheers. The entire royal family was carried to the dungeons below the palace.

“Thank you,” he said to Chonib.

“You know how to thank me,” she said playfully.

“Why do you want this?” Enra whispered through gritted teeth. “I can’t give you anything. I’m a demigod who doesn’t even know his powers. I …”

He stopped whispering and pushed his snout into hers.

“I can’t give you children! The only logical reason nature wants to be together! So let me go!”

“I do not care!”

“But—”

“It is not a trade. It is love. I don’t want anything from you, but I want to give you all.”

“It’s illogical,” he mumbled. He also felt it was all he’d ever wanted.

Chonib sauntered away.

“There is a light …”