“What the fuck did you say?”

  Aiden swallowed. It was a little difficult with Torat’s hand on his neck but his anxious saliva went down nonetheless.

  Still, he did not show his fear. The first rule of lying that he had learned in life was that just because your lie was called into question or your victim showed doubt, it did not mean that you had to cave. Caving and telling the truth at the first sign of doubt was the purview of good people. And if you were a good person, then you had no business lying in the first place.

  So, Aiden allowed his eyes to move past Torat to check on Ted and Valdan once more. After reconfirming their state of unconsciousness, he looked back down at Torat. If the Order’s fighting style was similar to the way a [Sage] fought, according to Jang Su, the other summoned of earth from Nel Quan whom he had fought against on his first ball in Nastild, then the Order had to have ties with [Sages]. This was the new piece of knowledge that he found himself working with.

  As for the old piece of knowledge, that one was simple. In his past life, he had learnt of the [Sages] directly from the mouth of the master of the Order. And he refused to believe that there was anything the master of the Order told a member of the Order that Torat was not afraid of.

  Torat’s hand tightened around his neck. It brought pain and halted the air going into Aiden’s lungs. If the action had been designed to stop him from thinking, he had succeeded.

  “I will ask you not to lie to me, boy,” Torat warned. “I do not like being lied to.”

  It was a funny thing to hear when Aiden considered the fact that Torat had been one of the people who had tried their best to make a perfect liar out of Aiden when they had been preparing him for the position of Order spy. If he remembered correctly, Torat had been disappointed when Aiden had proven himself to not be the kind of liar fit to be a spy.

  Aiden opened his mouth once more, but sound did not come out. He raised his hand and pointed emphatically at his throat.

  Torat’s scowl softened but was still there. His grip relaxed once more.

  “Are they conscious?” Aiden asked.

  Torat’s answer was immediate. “No.”

  “Then no, I’m not lying.”

  “How did you meet this [Sage]?”

  “At the Naranoff territory.” It was the only place where Aiden had ever been alone long enough to have met anyone. It was the only time he could’ve possessed a secret that only he knew about.

  “And what did the [Sage] request of you?” Torat asked.

  Aiden gave him a weak smile. “I watched that old man create a giant tree with a wave of his hand, then turn it into a monster that crawled into the ground. I’m more afraid of him than I am of you.”

  A tense moment settled between him and Torat and Aiden knew that Torat was currently taking his measure. To his surprise, a slow smile touched his lips. He looked amused. Intrigued.

  “Then what did this [Sage] tell you about me?”

  “Nothing normal,” Aiden choked out. “He said that someone would come for me. They will be powerful and they will ask of me.”

  “Go on,” Torat urged, not seeming so menacing anymore. In fact, now he felt like the instructor that had taught Aiden a thing or two, firm but not unkind.

  “He gave me your name.”

  “My name?” Torat asked, allowing his surprise show on his face. “And what name did he give you?”

  “Torat of the Hoard,” Aiden answered. “He said that there is only one thing that I must do when I see you.”

  Torat cocked his head to the side in amusement. The man clearly wanted to know how a [Sage] judged him.

  “And what must you do when you see me?” he asked.

  “Run,” Aiden answered.

  Torat chuckled lightly. “He was not wrong.” He looked back at Ted and Valdan. “And those two?”

  Aiden shrugged, only for the action to tighten Torat’s hold on his neck. Noticing it, Torat released him, and Aiden fell to his feet. He kept his balance and prevented himself from dropping to his knees.

  He watched Torat take note of the fact that he did not fall to his knees.

  “They are a part of the plan,” Aiden coughed, leaning his back against the tree. “I don’t know how. I was to get the knight to the other man—my brother—then I was to get the three of us to the northern gates. I swear, that’s as much as I’m allowed to tell anyone capable of taking my life.”

  Torat raised a brow. “Capable of taking your life? You make it sound like taking your life is not an easy feat.”

  Aiden shrugged.

  “Fair.” Torat rubbed his jaw in thought. “Level forty-nine at your age is definitely unadulterated talent. Did this [Sage] tell you where I’m from?”

  Aiden opened his mouth to blame his knowledge of the Order on a [Sage] but stopped himself. “I asked him why you were coming for me.”

  “And?”

  “He said that I would not want to know.”

  “Would you like to know?” Torat asked.

  Aiden blinked. “If you tell me, will you have to kill me?”

  Another moment of silence settled between them. Then Torat laughed. It was a slow thing, a rumbling baritone like a volcano teasing at eruption.

  Torat brought himself to order before his laughter filled the night and nodded.

  “I would have to kill you if I told you,” he confirmed. “You are a smart one. Perhaps the [Sage] has chosen right. However, by his actions, he has broken a clause of the accord. You will describe this [Sage] to me.”

  Aiden shook his head very quickly. He would not be describing any [Sage] to Torat for any reason whatsoever. There was only one [Sage] he knew how to describe. And he knew what it meant to break an accord with the Order. If you broke an accord, it was the Order’s duty to kill you.

  The last thing Aiden needed was to start a war between the Order and the [Sage] in Bandiv. Nothing good could come out of it. Especially if they talked before or during their fight and found out that he was lying through his teeth.

  At his current level, if the Order decided to punish him, Aiden knew for a fact that he would not live any longer than they allowed him.

  Every lie had possible consequences, and it was the duty of the liar to pick the possible consequences that they could handle and work with those.

  Torat stepped menacingly into Aiden. Aiden’s first instinct was to pretend to cower. But if Torat had in fact been watching him, then it would go against his character. The only reason his lie had been successful so far was because he had lied with the impossible. A boy from nowhere was not supposed to know what he knew. The fact that he knew what he knew was the only reason Torat had not crushed his skull for lying.

  If a child told an adult that the sky was falling down, the adult would laugh. But how would the adult react if they knew for a fact that the child was not supposed to know what the sky was?

  They would take a look to see if the sky was, in fact, falling down. Regardless of what Torat wanted, Aiden was banking on the man taking a moment to confirm the piece of information that he had just shared. Confirming it would buy Aiden the time he needed.

  “Their description?” Torat asked.

  Ever the active mind, Aiden’s brain latched on to Torat’s use of a gender-neutral pronoun. Was it just a random use of lexicon or was it an implication that not all the [Sages] were male?

  “I don’t know,” Aiden answered abruptly, backing away from him only for his back to press up against the tree. “I can’t remember. I’ve been trying since I left the Naranoff territory.”

  He would play the part of being a victim of mind magic. If the [Sage] had the ability to turn back time by eleven years, there was no way he could not erase memories of his choosing from the mind of a nineteen-year-old boy at a measly level forty-nine.

  It was a taboo on Nastild but Aiden had seen enough unsanctioned mind magic being used to know that it was possible. Outlawed as mind magic was in every kingdom with any modicum of civility, like every other forbidden practice, people still practiced and used it in secret.

  Aiden used to find it odd that kingdoms would outlaw mind magic but not necromancy until a queen had once explained to him that necromancy used in an evil way would hurt the feelings of those who knew the deceased while mind magic would mess with their feelings. In the case of the latter, the feelings at least belonged to the person.

  Also, necromancy was tolerated because it could be governed. Mind magic was banned because it could not be governed. A mind Mage could make you kill yourself and there would be no way to know what had been done until it was too late.

  Torat frowned at Aiden, then sniffed the air around him. “I don’t smell any mind magic on you,” he muttered.

  Aiden didn’t know that Torat could smell types of magic. Unless the man was also lying to him in his own way.

  Torat’s frown returned, and he looked back at Ted and Valdan. His expression seemed thoughtful. Whether he was contemplating leaving them alive or something else entirely, Aiden did not know. He hoped it was the latter.

  When Torat took a step away from him, Aiden breathed a sigh of relief. But the man with the [Dragon Knight] class wasn’t done.

  “The massacre in the building,” he said. “Why was it done?”

  “They were all cannibals,” Aiden answered. “Their deaths were deserved.”

  “Judge, jury, and executioner. You play a dangerous game, child. Too powerful, too young.” Torat shook his head sadly. “And the method of killing them, how did you come to learn it?”

  “Same person taught me,” Aiden answered, more than happy to just blame everything on a [Sage] that he already claimed he could not describe.

  “In one visit?” Torat asked, doubtful.

  Aiden nodded. “It took me a while to get it down properly, though. It was an annoying thing to learn, but he said it would be helpful.”

  “And you believed him?”

  Aiden shrugged. “Him, her, doesn’t matter. When a powerful person teaches you how to do something, you learn. What is insignificant to the powerful is powerful to the insignificant.”

  Torat had said those exact words to him in his past life.

  “And you learnt it well,” Torat confirmed.

  Aiden’s heart calmed, knowing that he was no longer in trouble–for now. Sadly, when a long wry smile stretched Torat’s lips as if he had just found the ultimate excuse to kill him, Aiden’s panic returned.

  He’d been playing it fast and loose with all his explanations. But he’d had no choice. His life hadn’t been the only thing hanging in the balance. The lives of Valdan and Ted had been at stake too.

  “This is just amazing,” Torat chuckled, stepping away from Aiden. “The [Sage] has broken the accord.”

  What other accord? Aiden wondered. Did all the [Sages] really use the same style of combat? Was there some kind of agreement to not teach it to those outside of the Order? Was that why the [Sage] training Jang Su had refused to teach him?

  In saving myself, what mess have I caused? He asked himself, more worried about how he would get caught up in the mess than the actual mess itself.

  “The next time your [Sage] approaches you,” Torat said, still looking overtly happy, “inform them that the Order is aware. Let them know that the Order does not forget.”

  Aiden nodded slowly as Torat turned and descended the roots of the tree.

  “Also,” Torat paused at the foot of the tree, turning to look at him. “That thing you did when we met, enchanting me, did the [Sage] also teach you that?”

  Aiden shook his head. “I have a skill.”

  “A skill,” Torat mused. “Well, considering the fact that you spared me, I took the liberty of sending your demonic problem halfway across the world as a show of goodwill. It will not be bothering you anytime soon. As for what you did to me, it was not without its benefits. If you ever have the misfortune of running into me again, remind me that I owe you a gift.”

  Aiden couldn’t help but feel slightly giddy. As Torat had once told him, what is insignificant to the powerful was powerful to the insignificant. And right now, Aiden was insignificant, and Torat was powerful.

  And Torat’s gift-giving was very famous in the Order. He, after all, had access to the hoard of an ancient dragon. And dragons only kept powerful things in their hoards.

  Containing his excitement, he rushed off to check on Ted as Torat slowly disappeared into the sea of trees. When he was certain that his brother was still alive, he let out a relieved sigh and sat back on the ground. He grimaced when he realized that he was sitting directly behind his brother’s raised butt.

  This would’ve been one for the photo gallery, he thought, imagining how much fun it would be to have a picture of Ted in this exact position to post on his birthday.

  Aiden couldn’t remember the last time he’d missed owning a camera. Nastild had its own way of capturing videos, but it involved spells, and enchantments, and artificing the likes of which had not yet been made portable enough for people to carry around. Most kingdoms used them mainly for grand ceremonies or equally grand tournaments.

  Now we just have to get out of here, he thought, going to check on Valdan.

  If they were fast enough, they could get to Fjord’s room, get his gift from the Naranoff household and be on their way before Elaswit thought to come looking for them.

  As for Fjord, the possibility of the boy betraying him didn’t cross his mind. Even if he told the princess of Aiden’s plans to meet him in a month, Aiden was sure to spot something out of place when they met. The instructor was curious to see what he could make of the [Gambler] class, but it wasn’t that curious.

  Aiden could abandon the boy in the beat of a swollen heart if he had to.

  His thoughts on the subject of Sam and his growing murder spree annoyed him, though. Personally, he wanted nothing more than to hunt Sam down right now and end his killing spree, but he could not. Sam’s killing spree was the result of experimentations, and as horrible a person as he knew Sam would end up becoming or even currently was, the boy was not important enough to derail his plans. Finding Sam right now would risk him running into the princess which would be a whole lot of other issues.

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  Hopefully, the king would deal with Sam or the princess would do so herself. Brandis might’ve been hesitant to punish Sam, but there was no way he would not do something about it if he found out that Sam was also a threat to the summoned as well…

  Right?

  Doubt settled in Aiden’s mind. He did not know a lot anymore. Brandis might’ve been a good man once, but what good is there to a man who keeps bad council and follows the advice they present to him.

  No matter.

  Whatever Brandis planned on doing didn’t matter. Aiden had his own plans to put into place. Once he was done with them and ready, he would make his move. If Sam was still alive by then or worse, running loose, then he would deal with him.

  Because no matter what levels of evil Sam had amounted to in Aiden’s past life, the man had ultimately become of no true consequence in the larger scheme of things. He had been nothing more than a mad alchemist performing terrible human experiments while the world was at war.

  Evil, but inconsequential to the overall reality. An inconsequential microcosm to the macrocosm that was Nastild.

  Aiden was still going to put him down if Brandis did not, though. He just wasn’t in a hurry. As for Anita? Aiden looked back at the tree and the girl who dangled from its side. It was sad but there was nothing more he could do for her.

  He only hoped that Ted’s summoned creature’s anesthetic poison brought her some level of comfortability in her demise.

  Adjusting Valdan’s position on the ground, he tapped the knight on the face. “Come on, Valdan,” he muttered, still patting his face. “It’s time for us to move.”

  …

  Drax could not believe what he was looking at. The sight broke his heart, and he felt a sniffle tickle the back of his throat. He held it in, then crushed it until there was no threat or tickle.

  Men don’t cry, he told himself, repeating words his grandfather had told him once upon a time when he’d fallen and skinned his knee.

  According to his father, his grandfather had only said those words because Drax had been a very loud crier as a child and his grandfather had really not wanted to have to deal with the noise at the time, but Drax had held onto the words, regardless.

  It didn’t mean that he hadn’t cried a few times. He just never did it in public, and he always made sure to hold his tears back for as long as he could. Drax only cried when he could not hold back the pain in his heart.

  And as the sun continued on its ascent into the sky where it would reign supreme at the peak of midday, Drax feared that he would not be able to hold his tears back.

  A heavy hand rested on his shoulder.

  “Not all sights of evil need to be committed to memory, Lord Lincoln,” Sir Thompfer said from beside him.

  Beside the knight, Letto looked up at the sight in front of them, tears spilling from his eyes. He cried but no sound left his lips. He did not sniffle or sob. He did not wail. He simply looked up at the massive tree with massive roots and let the tears run down his cheeks.

  Letto took his sorrow quietly as he stared at what was left of Anita Rogers, Level twenty-two [Doppelganger], and short time friend.

  The girl hung out of the side of a massive green tree, her body as green and wooden-like as the tree itself. She was as much alive as she was dead.

  “We will inform the king,” Sir Thompfer said, his hold turning Drax aside gently but firmly. “If there is anything that we can do for your friend, we will. The king will make sure of it. There is life in her still, and if there is life in her, then she can be brought back to the conscious world.”

  Drax understood what the knight was saying but couldn’t wrap his head around where things had gone wrong. Since coming to this town, the worst they had encountered was the occasional goblin every night. They had been a threat but nothing serious. In fact, the difficulty of the village had proven to be in accordance with what the king had told them to expect. The only true strain was in the investigative part, the mental part.

  There had been no real threat. Then they’d come out tonight and Ted had either wandered off or gone missing. Drax had no idea what he was going to say to Aiden when they got back to the palace, if they didn’t find Ted or if they found him in the same condition as Anita.

  Aiden had been distancing himself from them since they had arrived on Nastild, but they had still been friends once, relatively speaking. Acquaintances, at worst. But it did not make the idea of breaking the news of a missing or dead brother to him any less daunting.

  “We must return,” Sir Thompfer said. “This quest has proven far more dangerous than we had anticipated.”

  Drax could not disagree. Not too long after Ted had gone missing from the group, their attention had been drawn to the sounds of fighting in some part of the forest as well as the show of yellow light that Sir Thompfer had been certain had come from the use of skills. So, they’d made their way there in the hopes of running into Ted or Sam or Anita. Even Ariadne who they had left back in the town would’ve been a welcome sight.

  When they had gotten there, they’d been welcome to a mist of poison that had almost knocked Drax and Letto out, if not for the knight’s presence and ability to dispel the mist. In the absence of the mist, they’d been privy to the sight of a large monster that looked eerily like the one they’d almost done battle with in Ted’s room.

  But while it had resembled Ted’s summoned creature, it had been far larger in size. Sir Thompfer had done some investigation and confirmed that while it had been a summoned monster, it had not been Ted’s. The amount of power required to summon a beast that powerful and still have its corpse remain physically present after its death was far more than Ted could handle.

  From there, their search had led them to a cave. The search had been long and arduous, with the fear of being attacked by a similar monster lurking in the back of their minds. Eventually, they’d come upon a mysterious cave where Sir Thompfer had pointed out signs of combat.

  When their mana stats had started fluctuating, Sir Thompfer had paled and insisted that they leave the cave. He had been worried ever since, refusing to share what had made him so worried.

  The day had broken by the time they’d left the cave.

  Now, here they were, in front of their friend.

  If there was one thing that Drax could agree on, it was that the knight was right. This quest had become far too dangerous. They needed to go back and regroup, then return to deal with the problems in this town.

  “Tell me that we will find the fucker that did this and kill them,” Letto said in a quiet voice. There was determination in his voice, though, a silent rage. A desire for vengeance.

  Vengeance won’t bring her back, Drax thought, leaving the words unsaid. As much as he tried to be a good person who stood against immoralities and evil, he was no fool.

  Sometimes, even if it was the right thing to say, you had to be conscious of when it was said. Just because you had the right thing to say, it didn’t mean you were at the right time to say it. Saying the right thing at the wrong time was nothing but arrogance and hubris or, perhaps more forgivable, stupidity.

  “We must leave this place, my Lords,” Sir Thompfer said, reminding them of his words. “As for the person responsible for this, they will be found and punished according to the laws of the kingdom.”

  Letto nodded in agreement, turning and leaving as Sir Thompfer led.

  His face was hard now, the tears gone from his cheeks. As they left, Letto spared a single moment to look back at Anita.

  “Your laws,” he said, “better prove satisfactory.”

  Drax couldn’t help but worry for his friend. Grief and or guilt often drove people to points that they could not come back from. He had seen it enough times to know.

  “To the letter of the law,” Sir Thompfer said.

  Something about the way he said it told Drax that the culprit would not want to be caught.

  …

  Elaswit stared down at the boy in front of her. He was on a single knee, showing the level of respect reserved for the royal family. Even with the chaos outside the building of some kind of mass murder going on outside, the boy in front of her held her entire attention.

  “What did you say?” she asked, the words sputtering out with so much confusion that she was surprised she had not made a mistake.

  “Lord Lacheart asked me to inform you that he is responsible for the chaos currently going on outside. He said that you should not waste time investigating it and know that this is a town of cannibals and those in the building were killed by him.”

  Elaswit staggered back. She remembered the boy, recognized him from her time in the Naranoff estate. And the fact that he’d walked straight up to her despite her shawl after entering the building Aiden had picked out when they’d arrived last night was all she needed to believe him.

  “There is more, princess,” the boy said.

  Elaswit found herself dreading what else the boy could possibly say after claiming that Aiden had admitted to mass murder, even if he arguably had a good reason for it.

  “What more?” she asked.

  When the boy spoke again, Elaswit had proven herself right. The information he gave her made it certain that she had no other choice than return to the castle. It dashed her dreams of returning only after she had achieved level fifty. But who else could be trusted to tell her parents that one of the summoned was dead or that the said summon had been killed by another summoned who so happened to be in charge of the deaths that had befallen the castle while she had been in the Naranoff manor.

  This entire trip was turning out in a way she had wished against. Things could not get any worse.

  Wait. Elaswit frowned as she realized she was missing something important.

  “Why are you the one delivering the news to me?” she asked. “Is Lord Lacheart chasing down this Sam?”

  The boy, Fjord, sucked in his lips in worry, and Elaswit paled.

  “No,” she said in despair and disbelief. “No.”

  But the boy was nodding. Elaswit stepped back, placed a hand on the wall to hold herself.

  The jepats are still in the back. She had checked when she came back. It’s not possible.

  Still, Fjord’s nodding head told her otherwise.

  “Lord Lacheart has said that I should inform you that Sam should be punished accordingly as he is currently busy,” Fjord continued. “He said that you should be informed that if the punishment proves to be insufficient, then he will make out time on a day that no one expects and deal with him in a way that… the royal family will not like.”

  This could not be happening to her. It just couldn’t. Elaswit could feel the despair settling in. It was wrapping itself around her heart like a disgusting thing.

  “Lastly," Fjord continued, "the Lachearts have tasked me to inform you that they will not be returning to the palace, and that you are free to do as you please.”

  The boy’s voice trembled as he spoke now. It had taken him a while but now he feared that he would be punished for being the one to pass on the message.

  “Was there anyone else with him?” Elaswit asked, not sure if any of the answers would even be hopeful. How was Valdan going to feel about this? They had built a friendship of sorts and Aiden had just turned his back on him and the crown.

  “Yes, princess,” Fjord answered. “The knight that was present at the estate with Lord Lacheart was there.”

  “And?” Elaswit couldn’t believe that Valdan had not put up a fight. Had Aiden and his brother, Ted, subdued Sir Valdan?

  “The knight..." Fjord paused, wet his lips, swallowed. "The knight... has asked me to inform you that he will also not be returning.”

  Elaswit’s knees trembled beneath her, threatening to buckle under the weight of the boy’s words. She had, for as long as she could remember, always thought of women swooning or fainting from being given one piece of information or the other as overtly dramatic and unreasonable.

  Now, in this moment, she understood it. She understood the urge to faint over the weight of the weight of news received.

  Aiden and his brother would be in the wind by now.

  And Valdan gone with them.

  Now she had to pretend to know nothing about Sam as they all rode back to the palace, because she would most certainly be returning to the palace with them once she’d found Sir Thompfer.

  She looked down at the boy and reminded herself that none of what was happening was his fault. Sadly, while she wished that she had kind words for him that would assuage his fears, she couldn’t do much in the way of stringing words together right now. The only thing she could do was sit and think. So, she did just that.

  Elaswit sat down on the dusty ground of the building and thought. At least, she tried to. Sadly, it seemed her thoughts had been rendered useless by the news.

  Today was officially one of the worst days of her life.

  …

  Ted stared with his mouth hanging open, flabbergasted, as Aiden dropped from the window.

  Aiden hit the ground with an almost soundless thud, courtesy of the [Weave of Lesser Silence] he was currently under the effect of.

  “Did you break into houses in secret back home?” Ted asked.

  Aiden paused with a boxed package in his hands. “What?”

  Ted shook his head, then looked at Valdan. “No, I know my brother. He wasn’t that daring. Were you the one that taught him to do this? Climb walls and sneak into rooms?”

  Valdan shook his head. “Most of the skills your brother has displayed in front of me have all come from him.”

  “Alright.” Ted nodded as if he was solving the mysteries of the world. “And you’re also not going to tell us what happened with that guy that ambushed us as well.”

  Aiden thought they’d left the subject behind after he’d told them that the man had spared him.

  “He attacked us before we came here,” Valdan pointed out. “That he would let us live after what we did to him is very—”

  “Hold up.” Ted waved his arms between them. “What have you two been going around doing to people?”

  Aiden sighed. When he breathed in again, he was happy for the absence of the smell of blood. While he’d been in Fjord’s room, he had taken the liberty of having a bath and a change of clothes. Fjord’s clothes were a little tight, but Aiden figured he could just buy new clothes and change on their way.

  The bath and change were necessary since the sun was out and the last thing he needed was people wondering why he was bathed in so much blood.

  Frowning, he adjusted a little. The pants were a little too tight and were choking his groin area.

  “Can we just be on our way?” he muttered. “You know how much I hate explaining, Ted.”

  Ted looked from Aiden’s face to his groin, then back, and smirked. “Are the boys unhappy?”

  Aiden groaned. “I’ll shoot you if I had a gun.”

  “What’s a gun?” Valdan asked.

  Ted made a gesture, dismissing Valdan’s question as unimportant. “Just something back in our world that people used to kill people since we don’t have magic.”

  “Oh.” Valdan seemed more than happy to let the matter die.

  “So,” Ted said, returning his attention to Aiden. “What’s in the box, and what did you tell the man to make him leave us alive? Because personally, I don’t feel comfortable not knowing how or why I survived a man capable of knocking me out without my knowledge, even when I was looking right at him.”

  Valdan raised his hand. “I agree with Lord Lacheart.”

  “Ted,” Ted corrected.

  “This is what’s in the box.” Aiden opened the box and pulled out a coat. It was a green trench coat, long enough to sweep the ground. It had a slit down the back that allowed for its wearer to comfortably wear it while riding equestrian on a jepat.

  “What is your obsession with that design, Aiden?” Valdan asked with genuine curiosity.

  “John Constantine,” Ted said in explanation.

  “Who’s that?” Valdan asked.

  “A comic book hero, something of a grey character in my opinion. He’s also Aida’s favorite hero. He uses magic like spells and enchantments to save the day.” Ted gave Aiden a pointed look. “And sometimes ruin it.”

  “Constantine means well,” Aiden defended before he could even stop himself. “He just gets caught up in terrible situations.”

  “I can’t believe this,” Ted grumbled. “You get sent into a magic world with spells and enchantments and you choose to remake yourself in the image of John Constantine?”

  “I didn't choose to do anything. It just happened.”

  But it hadn’t just happened. When he’d been given the option of choosing his preferred combat attire when he’d been in the Order, he’d chosen it because of the comic book character. With his enchanted items and his childhood love of the hero, it had been an easy decision.

  This time, it wasn’t about the hero, though. It was just his most comfortable method of fighting.

  When he put the coat on, it settled on him nicely. It had the proper weight to remind him that it was there but not so much that it would be a distraction. He checked the lapels and the material and found the coat thick enough to withstand simple stabs and cuts. Attacks with enough force behind them would definitely penetrate, especially if the attacker was actually stronger than Aiden.

  Certain weapons would, too.

  “It fits you nicely,” Valdan said.

  Aiden nodded in appreciation. “Thank you.”

  “I still think we should’ve taken the princess with us.”

  “Someone had to inform the king of the situation surrounding everything,” Aiden explained. “If not he would’ve assumed us missing or dead, and he would never have found out what was going on in the town.”

  “And resources would be wasted on the massacre,” Ted added. “And Elaswit might blame herself for everything since she was the representative of the royal family on hand.”

  Valdan looked between the both of them. “Really, Lord Lacheart,” he said after a while, addressing Ted. “He makes up an excuse and you just… support it?”

  Ted clapped him on the arm amiably. “I make a play, he backs it. He makes a play, I back it. As long as there are no girls involved, we work well together. Whether we like it or not.”

  Aiden ignored the obvious jab about Tasha.

  Ted noticed it and laughed. “We’re like two balls in a sa—”

  “No.” Aiden pointed a warning finger at his brother. “You will not finish that statement.”

  “Two balls in a sack?” Valdan asked. “It seems a fitting analogy.”

  Ted stared at Valdan with his jaw hanging open. The knight had just blown his mind.

  Valdan looked at the both of them. “What?” he asked. “Is it something I said?”

  “Oh, my God,” Ted burst into laughter then grabbed Valdan by the arm. “You and I, dear Valdan, are going to be the best of friends. I can just see it.”

  Valdan looked very disturbed. Still in Ted’s grasp, he looked at Aiden. “Your older brother is more relaxed than you are. Fitting for his age. Is this how it is with most of the siblings back in your home?”

  Ted laughed louder. “He just keeps getting better, Aida! Why have you been hiding him from me?”

  Aiden groaned, realizing that in this life, Ted was going to be the less mature one of the both of them. What he had once seen as carefree would now feel more like childish to him. It was odd to think that he would inadvertently become the grumpy one between him and Ted. Then again, he had always been the grumpy one between the two of them... just a different kind of grumpy.

  A groan almost escaped his lips. Even in his head he was sounding like an old man.

  Because you are an old man. You’re thirty.

  Thirty was not old. And that argument was a hill he would die on. Figuratively speaking.

  With his coat on, he walked out of the alley they’d gone through to sneak into Fjord’s room. He discarded the box to the ground as he walked while the others followed behind him.

  “Littering is in poor taste,” Ted pointed out.

  Aiden said nothing on the matter. Instead, he said, “We should get going. Between the three of us, we have enough funds for our own jepats and a new map. Then we need to get out of the city.”

  “But we have a map,” Valdan pointed out. “What’s wrong with that one?”

  “It’s not complete.”

  Aiden knew that the maps the royal families liked to use did nothing to point out the darker side of the kingdom. It did not address the hidden shops, the illegal shops or anything underground related. They definitely had a good reason for it. It was either because they didn’t know where all of them were or because they didn’t want to go advertising the bad side of the kingdom. Whichever one it was, Aiden didn’t care.

  “So where are we heading, then?” Ted asked as they walked out into the open street and the bustling commotion of people coming and going on a busy street.

  “Somewhere dangerous,” Aiden answered. “As the both of you are right now, you’re too weak.”

  “I’m stronger than you,” Valdan pointed out. “In case you have forgotten.”

  “Only in level, Valdan,” Aiden smiled. “Only in level.”

  “Still haven’t answered my question about that guy,” Ted pointed out as they walked.

  “And I told you before,” Aiden answered. “He spared me because I stopped Valdan from killing him. The only reason he followed us that far was because someone issued a quest to him to find me.”

  “And that doesn’t worry you?” Valdan asked.

  Aiden shrugged. “Not really. He said he’d give us a one-day head start before he tells the person where he found me. By then, we should be long gone.”

  Valdan frowned but didn’t say anything.

  As they walked in relative silence against the backdrop of the noise of an active day in an active city, Aiden wondered how he was going to convince Valdan to swap out his own bank card for a forgery.

  For whatever time period the [Knight] chose to continue using his bank card, Brandis would always be able to track them if he put his mind to it.

  I could probably just steal it and dispose of it, Aiden thought.

  It didn’t sound like a bad idea.

  All that was left now was for them to find a quiet and secluded place where he could proceed and ask Valdan to cut out a chunk of the skin of his neck once more.

  For all Torat had to say, Aiden couldn’t put it past the man to mark him once more with how long he’d held on to his neck.

  As for whether he had marked Ted or Valdan. He had a less drastic method for those.

  There was also Valdan’s sword.

  But Aiden was willing to take each stride one step at a time.

  For now, there was no rush.