They made the mountains before nightfall.
Without hesitation Aiden had commanded that the jepats be left behind, and true to Elami’s words, Fjord had woken up from his slumber. He came awake groggy and with a frown. The entire expression was gone the moment his eyes settled on Aiden standing above his sleeping form. In the blink of an eye, he had gone from groggily displeased to alertly attentive, like a servant waiting for his master’s order.
Aiden wasn’t sure how he felt about it. A boy who had been nothing more that a spared life now looked to him as if he was some leader that had promised to lead him to paradise. He’d seen eyes like the one Fjord looked at him with. Those were the eyes of a person that would die for who they were looking at.
He still remembered the things he had seen on the other side of Nastild. He had fought in enough battles under false names and titles to win wars in the name of a king that was a lie simply because it served the Order’s purpose.
In times of fights and bloodshed, a soldier’s respect for their commander could easily skirt the lines and wander into veneration without them realizing it.
Often times Aiden had wondered which was worse, unknown veneration or known veneration. Either way, veneration was what made a commander tell a soldier to die where he stood and the soldier obeyed knowing nothing of the greater plan in place, simply knowing that the commander had to have a plan.
Aiden had been looked upon with veneration before, and he had commanded those who needed to die for the greater good to die for the greater good.
It had been necessary once, but not anymore. There was no greater good in this timeline. Only a way home.
Thinking of a way home led his mind to wander into territories of the others, of those who had come with him as they began their climb of the mountain. With the height of his level, the start of the climb was not the most tasking thing. The rocks were soft in his hand, almost like strong foam, and he pulled himself up as if he weight nothing, even though he knew that to be a lie.
Feira and Zen were the only ones who climbed as if they had never climbed in their lives. Feira kept on looking down, which was most definitely not doing her any good. On more than one occasion, he’d seen her hesitate to make a climb she was not supposed to hesitate to make. In time, he found himself gravitating towards her as they climbed.
If anyone was going to fall because of some kind of slip up, his money was on her being the first.
Melvet spared him a glance, proving that she was aware of what he was doing. The problem was that he’d noticed how she noticed him these days. She did not notice him as a friend of Valdan or a person of interest. Instead, she noticed him in the way a mother would notice the potential love interest of her child.
It was as if she was weighing if the interest would be beneficial or not. Aiden did not like being studied in such a manner.
Still, he ignored it, climbing next to Feira as if he did not know what he was doing. It slowed his climb, and every now and again she looked at him as if wondering why he was so close to her.
Aiden continued to climb in silence, but he remained aware of her. Of her hair. Of the way she breathed as if doing her best not to pant from the exertion of the climb. The way her eyes picked him out and worried for him even though she was the one lacking in climbing skills.
She was smitten and he knew it.
If he had the emotion to spare, he would be saddened for her. But he had none to spare. Unrequited love was a terrible thing, and he had forced it upon her in this timeline.
It was a while into the night when the moon was high and full, and its light threatened to bully the brightness of the stars into nonexistence when they found a large enough crevice in the side of the mountain to slip into.
Valdan found it first as they climbed. He beat his hand heavily against the body of the mountain to draw attention to himself. He hadn’t needed to because Aiden’s awareness remained stretched thin. For all the chaos of the mountain, he would be a fool to assume that no dangers lurked besides humans, even if the Acul tribe hunted the creatures on the mountain for food and gear.
When Aiden turned to look at him, Valdan had pointed, picking out the crevice. Aiden frowned mentally, knowing that most of the team could still keep the climb, reaching the point he wanted them to get to before sunrise.
Still, he followed, giving Feira one last glance before moving. He hoped that she saw the command in his eyes. Stay safe. He had seen the kind of grief losing Zen could throw her into. He did not want to see the kind of grief losing her would throw Zen into.
In the end, the crevice had been a tight fit to get into, but that was were its tightness ended. Within, it continued to expand, widening until it looked like a cave. Aiden walked into it, eyes scanning everything around him.
Rometo strolled in, eyes doing the same.
“It has an entrance of strategic advantage,” he said as if in a passing comment.
Aiden agreed. “Tight enough that if we were attacked we would hold the advantage.” His eyes moved through the darkness. Perception as heightened as it was, he could pick out shapes and details easily. The walls were rough and placed his hand to it. “They’ll need to be careful around here.”
“They?” Rometo inquired as the others slipped into the crevice, heads turning in wonder. Three heads, specifically.
Aiden nodded. “They.”
He meant Feira, Zen and Fjord. He could feel it in the firmness of the walls. Rough as they were, they were hard and strong, almost mana infused. It was the way with some terrains. At his level, he could go through a boulder and only lose a handful of the percentage of his health. He could walk under the blazing sun and not feel any heat unless he focused on it. He could sleep drowned in snow and his temperature would not drop enough to be noticed.
However, there were natural terrains on Nastild where such rules did not apply. There were places where the wind was sharp enough to cut through a person, places where the heat of the sun scorched even those who walked the levels above two hundred. Snow peaked places like the frost mountains where frostbite would take more than just a bite out of him.
The mountain, even if not all over, had places were the ambient mana was so infused into it that he would not go through it without the system registering the impact at nothing less than a critical blow.
He turned his hand into a fist and rapped it against the wall. It was a dull thud, a strong surface, thick as a mountain was meant to be, and rough edged.
Rometo’s brows furrowed slightly and he emulated the action.
“Hmm.” The sound was a simple agreement with what he knew Aiden had just confirmed. The wall was hard.
Aiden looked at him with a half grin. “You think you can go through it without a critical blow?”
“Maybe,” Rometo conceded. “But it will definitely be fatal for you.”
“Oh, that’s hard,” Ted groaned, rubbing his knuckles. “How about you guys warn me when you’re doing something stupid.”
Rometo looked at him for a moment, ignoring the others behind. Then he looked at Aiden. “Are you sure you would not want to join the Order?”
Aiden snorted. “Your master knows my answer to that question, and so do you. If I’d submit anyone to the Order,” his eyes moved past Rometo to the three weakest members of the group, “it’ll most likely be Zen.”
Rometo was already shaking his head. “We’ll eat him alive. The kid won’t survive.”
“I see.” Aiden folded his arms over his chest. “So, it’s not all of us that you want.”
“Please.” Rometo rolled his eyes while Feira, Zen and Fjord moved around, hands on the walls to keep themselves from falling. “If you know as much about the Order as you seem to know, you’ll know that we don’t just take anybody.”
“Uhuh.” It was as true as it was a lie. Aiden had once heard the master boast about how there was nobody alive that the Order could not transform into a useful tool. He had been sure not to say spy while looking Aiden dead in the eye. Then again, it was on the day Aiden was finally being informed that they were changing his position from a spy to an executioner on account of a few slip ups he’d displayed in the court of a specific royal family on the human side of Nastild. “Then which members of the group will the Order be happy to take?”
Fjord appeared next to them, as if out of nowhere, although they had both seen him coming. It was in the way he moved, though, always tiptoeing around as if he didn’t want to disturb.
“Are we joining the Order?” he asked.
“Only some of you,” Rometo answered. “Maybe.”
Aiden’s eyes moved in their sockets as he looked at Fjord. “Would you like to join the Order?”
“Nope,” Fjord answered without missing a beat.
That was a little surprising. People who were very much aware of the wicked ways of the world had dreams of joining the Order the same way children who thought their kings and royal families to be good and powerful dreamt of becoming knights, and the simple children who cared for neither dreamed of becoming adventurers.
“Why not?” Rometo asked. “I will be there to continue your training.”
Fjord shook his head. “I don’t think I’ll be given the attention I need. Also, I’m not really a fan of being sent to assassinate people.”
Rometo sighed and rubbed his eyes with thumb and forefinger. It was as much a tired action as Aiden had seen. “The Order does not spend its time assassinating people willy nilly, Fjord.”
“But it does assassinate people,” Melvet said, joining the conversation. “Just the other day they tried to assassinate Brandis.”
Valdan turned, eyes wide in horror. “What did you say, babe?”
“The Order tried to assassinate Brandis,” she repeated as if it was not a big deal. “But he’s fine.”
Rometo’s brows furrowed as he looked at her. “And how do you know this?”
“The church has spies everywhere.” She shrugged. “Nothing happens in a palace without the church being aware of it.”
“And nothing happens in the church without the Order being aware of it,” Rometo returned.
“Careful,” Aiden said in good nature, “You don’t measure cocks with a person who doesn’t have one.”
It was the way with spies of different organizations. Aiden always wondered what it was about spies who were aware of what they were and wanting to prove that their spy organization was better than the next spy organization.
He’d experienced it before, sure enough. That urge to prove that his side of the line was better than the other side. The master called it a simple measuring of cocks, like when you saw your peer as a child and just wanted to know if you were better than them at what you already knew you were good at. If you were a fast runner and you met a fast runner as a child, it was instinctual curiosity to want to know if you were faster, arrogance to prove that you were faster.
In the end, Melvet shrugged, unbothered. “Anyway, he is right, assassination is not all that they do. But if you choose to join them, Fjord, be prepared to assassinate a few people in your future.”
“And if you’re good at it,” Aiden added, drawing old memories of things that had happened and now unhappened, “expect to kill a lot more than a few people.”
They fell silent at his words. Valdan looked at Aiden in some touch of sympathy. Now that he knew of Aiden’s future-past, he understood better. Still, Valdan had not seen him as a thirty-year-old man stuck in the body of a nineteen-year-old boy. Instead, Valdan saw him as a nineteen-year-old boy who had seen far more than a boy his age was supposed to see.
Aiden wasn’t sure how he felt about it, but Valdan did not look at him differently and that was fine by him.
The silence remained, settling into Aiden’s memories of lives he had taken, of defenseless people who had been unable to fight back because they had been killed either—very rarely—in their sleep or while they sat awoken in their night wears just so that they could know why they were being killed and by whom.
Aiden did not feel remorse for it, not at all. He’d already gone through his phase of remorse and pain and potential regret long ago. Now they were nothing but memories, empty memories that had helped to make him the man that he was today.
“What of me?” Feira asked.