Aurelius woke up in a village Cade had managed to drag him to before she passed out from exhaustion as well. Cade'd had to bear that reality while he had just slept through it.

When he first woke a few days later, she was already awake and had taken care of everything. She buried Balgair, she made sure nobody knew Aurelius had a bounty on his head, and she paid the debt they owed the village head, the same old woman who had treated their wounds.

The worst thing was that he felt at peace when he woke. Aurelius remembered what had happened, the peace turned to emptiness. Eerily similar sensations, but one destroyed your soul while the other caressed it.

Then he realized he could barely move from all the pain, food tasted bad, and he couldn't keep himself from throwing up dark red and black. It came from his eyes and nose as well. Someone came in once while it was happening and ran out yelling something about a demon. The amount of scars on his body had increased from wounds he didn't even remembere and the skin on his back and side was no longer smooth.

To top it all off, if someone came while he was in this state, he would be killed in a second. Just a little anxiety to boot. Cade didn't seem to have the same problem, but maybe she just knew pain better than him. Yeah, that was definitely it. But even knowing that, Aurelius couldn't bear it any better.

While he couldn't move, people had come and gone. They prattled on and on about things that Aurelius couldn't care less about. The voices had gotten so annoying he'd yelled and nobody came after that. Not even Cade.

***

Balgair's grave was on the side of a mountain. There was a stone with his name on it. Nothing more. Just the one word. Balgair.

Aurelius saw it and wanted to rage. To take the boy from the grave and wake him up. Make him look at his pathetic grave and say, "Hell no, man. Gotta have a few more words on there before I'm done."

What was there to write now? The date of birth was unknown. No other worthy names. Snake-eyes? Aurelius laughed at the idea, but his face went straight when he realized there was nothing funny about it.

He sighed before crouching down and materializing a small blade at the tip of his finger. In the stone, he carved the words "A dear friend". And below it, even if it might have been a lie in some mind that wasn't his, he wrote, "A little brother".

When he stood up and looked down at the words below, he would have given a tear if there were any left. There were not. They'd all flown out with the blood.

An image flashed. He stumbled back and held his forehead. More angry at the thought than anything. But it wasn't just a thread of masochism taunting his mind. It was a warning. A possibility.

What he saw was Cade's grave. And what he would write on it.

"A loving partner"

***

He sat and ate, dressed in familiar, low-quality, light brown clothes. Nobody talked. They were mimicking him. He'd barely said a word in the full week they had spent there. But it was time to leave soon. That night would be their last.

Aurelius grumbled before putting his spoon down beside the bowl of rabbit stew. It was a sign. Talk.

They got it. The village head cleared her throat and with her raspy voice she asked, "Aurelius, I have heard what you plan to do. I say go back to your mother. She will take you back like all mothers and you will be able to leave this life you have mixed yourself up in."

Aurelius looked at her, wanting something more.

"Come now, you are a young man," she said. "You have lost someone, yes. But that does not have to define you. It doesn't have to define the rest of your life. You have a good heart. Do not let yourself become heartless."

Aurelius looked down and sighed. Then he tilted his chin up and snorted. "What would you know about me? Cade's told you stories, but do you have any idea of who I really am beyond the loving eyes of a teenage girl?" He looked at Cade sitting on the far right. And then eyed the village head's family as he sat at the end of the table, opposite the village head herself. "Let me tell you all exactly who I am. I'm the man who left his widowed mother alone with her piece of shit brother. All so I could go play hero under the guise that I was doing it for other people." He shook his head. "I wasn't. I never cared as much about other people as I cared about living up to the idea I had of my father. The people worshipping me like I was their god. That's what I wanted! Not for them to be happy or well off. I never cared! I just want to murder people and be thanked for it!"

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He stood from his seat, slamming his hands on the table and breathed raggedly as he looked around.

"Aure—" Cade started.

"Shut up! Just... shut up."

It was then Aurelius knew what he looked like despite not having seen his own face for a while. The beauty was no longer there. His face was smooth, scarless, and cut to perfection, but he was no prettier than a bloodthirsty dog. He could feel the ugliness on his face even without observing the disgust that was all over the faces around him.

"I shoved my hand through a man's chest by my own initiative. I took a father from a child. And since then, I have taken many more. Everywhere I've gone, people have died. And now we're at the point where merely the idea of me kills people even when I'm not there. I'm a damn monster. I'm like a nightmare come to life. And all this because I wanted to be my father." He laughed, his eyes wide. "And you tell me I have a good heart. A good heart!? What is wrong with you?" He looked at Cade's shocked face. He knew she tried to keep it still, indifferent, detached. But it was too late. She'd let him get close and now she would pay the price, as he broke her. "All this time I've been lying to myself, thinking we're good people... we're not. Me and you, Cade, we're monsters. We kill and kill and kill because it's what we're good at. And because we're so good at it, we can't help but like it, so in order to keep doing it, we make up all these theories and go on killing only specific people with our excuses ready at hand. That's how we make our paradise of blood." He shut his eyes tight before continuing. "In these past years, I've become like you, and you love me for it. But for the very same reason, I ha—" he choked on the words before. "I hate you."

Cade jumped up from her seat and walked around the table while Aurelius stood there, frozen. Then a knuckle dug into his right cheekbone. Piercing pain blooded his skull. It only got worse when she took him by the hair on the back of his head and slammed his face on the ground.

He looked away, but she turned his head to the side so he would see her. And she wasn't broken. He was just an idiot.

"So you want to rush into Acelot by yourself, and now you think, 'Hmm, but what about Cade?'. So then you go on a rant about some shit and now you think I'll just leave your life because of a couple of words?"

"I—"

He didn't get the opportunity to continue as she put him on his back and mounted him before hammering his face. She wasn't even using essence and neither was he, but he couldn't get out from under her. He could only move his head around while his cheekbones and teeth ached and blood started spitting from his nose.

There wasn't the slightest hint of sadness in her as she pummeled him. And despite people telling her to stop and prying her off of him, she kept going.

"I killed Balgair's gang. I killed the twins. I murdered every single person I had to to keep you by my side, and after I was done with them, I put you back together. Physically and emotionally!" She took him by his collar and put his bloody, bloated face against hers. "I carried you here and Balgair to his grave like I did with my mother and father and every other companion I had. Why do you think I did it? Why?!"

"Because... you had to."

"Because I move forward! I live my life like they would want me to. I'm not a petty, childish sack of shit like you. I don't push people away after they walk through hell for me," she yelled, her spit flying into his miserable face until she let his body flop back to the sullied ground. "I want to go to Acelot more than you, and despite whatever amount of essence you can conjure up, I am stronger than you. You don't understand because you're never been alone. But when you find yourself in the dark with nobody to talk to or complain to, you will know my pain. And if you survive, you'll finally understand it."

"Cade..." the village head toucher her shoulder.

She slapped the hand away. "I know. I will make up for this. But this child needed to be taught a lesson." He looked down intensely as her weight rested on Aurelius' upper body. She she out her hand on his face. "Your suffering is your own. You've always taken the ones who share that suffering for granted. It's about time you realize how very lonely this world can be, and how graceful it has been with you. You go to Acelot, I follow. Not for you, but for Balgair. Other than that, I don't give a shit what you do."

Finally, she stood up and walked away.

Aurelius' head swam. He lay there in his blood for some time before he wiped his nose and sat up without minding the eyes on him. Thankfully no children of the village head's family were present. Aurelius' eyes were teary, but only as his body's natural reaction to the damage to his face. He had no sadness or tears for himself. What Cade said was true. Every word. And now he knew he had lost something too large to process.

'D— did... she mean it?'

What if he begged? Now was his chance. Make her know he realized it now. He knew it now, so there was no problem anymore!

But as he stood up, he had no intention of going to her.

There was a knock on the door.

There was still a problem. Aurelius couldn't move past it. He should suffer.

The door opened and a young boy with messy hair walked in. A startled look came on his face as he saw Aurelius. But he didn't look away. On the contrary, he focused on him. Then he raised a scroll. "A man gave me this. He said it was for you."

Aurelius knit his brows as anxiety filled his head and his hair stood on end. 'How...'

"Gaas? The scroll is from Arkryk," the village head noted the material.

The scroll was handed to him and he opened it. Then his stress turned to horror.

His eyes zipped through the text.

From Oprheus, Supreme of Nexus, the criminal organization with a wider range of influence than even Numen.

An ultimatum.

During the next year, he was to either assassinate Gadreel, the Ruler of Mircrest or his mother would be killed.