Book 3. The Long Journey. Chapter 60. All Good that ends Good.
“So in the end, I’m relegated to intelligence-gathering?” the Shade asked with a sigh. “Teacher, it’s the highest time you create your own group of Shadows. Wouldn’t it make everything much simpler for you?” he complained halfheartedly, knowing that the old man wouldn’t listen to any of his advice anyway.
“Don’t I already have such a group?” The old man asked in such a tone that the Shade could swear he had a mischievous smirk, unbecoming of a person his age, on his face. “I have all my three precious disciples and all the Shades you’ve gathered for me, it’s more than enough!” the old man said with a laugh, then raised his hand and flicked his finger two times, telling his disciple to hurry up and get moving.
The Shade felt like cursing this damned old man who had nearly killed him on multiple occasions, but he didn’t dare to disobey him. He might have grown incomparably powerful since the time of his Trials, but he unchangingly had no confidence in being able to stand up against his teacher. He was already a martial master of the ninth rank, but he couldn’t see through his teacher’s strength at all. In his opinion that old man was a total monster who could have easily unified the Starlight Continent under his rule had that been his ambition; as much as it angered him, it was pretty reasonable for his teacher to treat the Shades as Shades would treat their Shadows.
“Ugh, I should have brought more Shadows with me… I should have known I would need to do the job of two people,” the Shade thought bitterly as he employed his movement technique. He merged with the Shadows and transformed into a few barely noticeable strands of darkness, heading towards the nearby roofs where his subordinates were waiting. “Doing the work personally… how long has it been?” he wondered, a smile actually emerging on his face. It would be an amusing enough task to personally infiltrate the Grand Palace under the watch of a powerful wind-element practitioner in form of the Grand Yimar Mustafa. Maybe it wouldn’t be all bad in the end?
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“They aren’t coming out.” Flora kept grinding her teeth while looking out of the window of a large residence. The building she and her allies had chosen to all gather in was naturally protected by a runic formation she had set up, so she didn’t need to worry about the people in the market spotting her through the glass. However, she wasn’t even thinking about such a thing at the moment. They had failed to come up with a new plan after a Grand Yimar, who they later discovered to be none other than Mustafa, arrived early with his White Guard. By this point, all they could do was hope for a miracle to happen… but none of them had the heart to hope for it.
They had gone through too much; they had somehow survived the events of the Bloody Dusk from a few months ago, but there wasn’t one of them who hadn’t lost someone important. Back then, during those horrifying events, they had gone as far as to pray to Karta, to the God they had long since forsaken, but their prayers had fallen deaf on Karta’s ears… just like every other time in the known history of the world when someone prayed for a miracle. The God didn’t exist, or he didn’t want to help them; either way, it meant they had none to rely on but themselves. Hoping for a miracle to happen… just this mere act brought pain to their hearts.
“Teacher,” Claire approached the window, leaving the silent group of their allies, which consisted of the majority of women, alone. “We should begin preparations to leave the country. When Arakar arrived in the winter, the Bloody Dusk happened in the spring. Who knows what will happen now that one of the Grand Yimars came?” she urged, very much tired of sitting idly and wailing the failure. Her nephew was most likely lost; it pained her, but she accepted the fact and moved forward. Flora needed to do the same, else they would all be in danger.
The Great Prophet’s Sword of Rala, Arakar, had brought a disaster upon the Eulene, so they could expect Mustafa to plow out the last bits of resistance and establish a firm Ikarian influence over the southern Eulene. There was no time to lose if they wanted their last few precious ones to live.
“You can take care of it then,” Flora said with a deep sigh and looked at Claire with a gaze that was almost lifeless. She then glanced through the window once again and continued looking at the walls of the Grand Palace. “You might not have been completely serious when asking those kids for help, but I was. Nathan means the world to me… if he is lost, then I…” She wanted to say more, but her voice shook and her throat clenched, leaving her unable to utter another word. She had been the Mage Protector of the Faren Republic, but she allowed her country to change into something else. Yet, if it was just that she might not have cared as much, but that something had also swallowed up her family, her friends, her whole life… if Nathan died too, she would truly have lost everything.
“If you want to commit suicide, go ahead,” one of the few old women in the room commented with a snort. “However, do that after you’ve fulfilled your promise to us. We stayed here and agreed to help you only because you promised us a new life in the north,” she reminded angrily, her patience slowly approaching its limits. She had been friends with Flora for over five centuries, but Flora had gone as far as to threaten quite a few of their mutual friends with selling them out to Ikarians when they refused to help her with that reckless plan of saving her grandson. They had had no choice but to agree, but as a result, the relationship they all shared had become very strained.
“I will do what I promised,” Flora said sternly, her voice sounding much older and weaker than usual. “Once the fate of my grandson… and of Louis, is confirmed, we will leave this country.” Having forced herself to say the words, she appeared to have aged by a few decades in a matter of seconds. She had still been hoping for the four boys to appear out of nowhere, for them to jump over the high walls and flee with those two’s guards that were still waiting for them to come… but when she gave into her old friend’s pressure, she gave up all hope.
“Good Karta, what have I done…” she muttered so quietly her voice was pretty much inaudible. She regretted not having left this accused city earlier; she shouldn’t have tried to fix something that was already so thoroughly broken its original shape couldn’t be even be seen anymore. She should have left… if she had, Nathan would be fine, so would Louis… and those two boys would have never gone to risk their lives in the Grand Palace. To her, it felt as if death and misfortune followed her in step wherever she went for the past decades. She didn’t want to bring more death and pain to those around her, so she silently determined herself to live out her remaining days in seclusion once this last task of hers was over.
“I should at least do this last job of mine properly,” she thought to herself and after giving the tall walls of the Grand Palace one last look, she turned away from the window and went over to the few dozen of her companions. “I trust all of you have your families and close friends prepared for the journey like we’ve planned. The only part left is for us to decide the path to the north. We originally intended to go all the way around the Forbidden Lands, but since we didn’t reveal ourselves we might as well go by ship and dock somewhere in the northern Eulene,” she suggested, thinking that it would make a marginal difference in danger if they went by the Sea of Betrayals.
Although it would be somewhat risky to travel through the Ikarian-controlled part of the sea and it would be almost equally troublesome to get past all the countries located around the Forbidden Lands. She would rather go for a short journey by the sea, but if others preferred to go all the way around she wouldn’t express discontent either. She didn’t care much anymore, to be honest.
“Teacher… come here for a second,” Claire said rather quietly, so it was quite lucky for her voice to be heard so clearly as no one else spoke at the same time.
“Claire…” Flora shook her head and sighed a little. She knew Claire for long enough to recognize that tone of her pupil’s; Claire probably wanted to comfort her in some way, but there really was no need for that. There also wasn’t anything that Claire could console her with, thus it was all the more pointless.
“Just come here and look!” Claire uttered in a voice that was still quiet, and yet seemed to be loud at the same time. She was pressing her hand against the window so hard that the runic formation activated and the markings on the glass lit up as they prevented the glass from breaking. “Come here! Look at that and tell me I’m not seeing things!” she exclaimed in shock, her body trembling all over. It was one thing to see those four boys there, but the group surrounding them was ridiculous!
Flora frowned slightly, but despite being wary of being too hopeful she hurriedly went back to the window; and when she looked at the open plaza in front of the walls of the Grand Palace and saw the scene unfolding there, her jaw dropped so hard it nearly dislocated itself.
“What is it?” the old woman asked a bit dubiously. She and many others began standing up from their seats and approaching the windows, after what she and everyone else adapted similar expressions to the ones Flora and Claire had. That person in white-golden clothes walking along the small group of horsemen… it was the Grand Yimar Mustafa, was it not? And the dozens of olive-robed young boys walking to the side… weren’t Nathan and Louis in the forefront of this group? There appeared to be even more olive-robed children and young men and women getting out of the gate, or being taken out on large wheelbarrows…!
What was this crazy situation?! was the Grand Yimar planning to execute all those people? No, that made no sense; they all had good eyesight so they could tell the children all had relieved looks on their faces; those two boys about which Flora had told them about were even smiling and laughing while chatting with the Grand Yimar… was there some kind of powerful hallucinogenic drug in the room they were in? It was impossible for what they were seeing to be a reality!
“Nathan…!” Flora could no longer constrain herself. She covered her body with the black Jiran and ran towards the exit, intending to receive her grandson and take him away to safety before this miracle happening before her eyes could have a chance to turn into a pipe dream.
Before the old woman could say a word of a warning, Claire, Darcy and a few other women present also put on the black cloth and headed downstairs in a hurry. Claire had of course gone to take Louis with her, but as for those other women, they simply spotted some of those they thought to be dead since the events of the Bloody Dusk. The old woman let out a long sigh, wishing that those reckless ones were at least going to have enough sense not to do anything too suspicious while retrieving their precious ones. It would be terrible if any information about their secret organization ended up leaking was one of them captured and interrogated… however, just as she thought about that, her eyes suddenly went wide and her hands trembled.
She would never forget the golden hair of those adorable twins, of the two eight years old girls, her own descendants which she had been teaching magic. She thought they were killed alongside their parents… but now, she saw undoubtedly saw those two walking out from the Grand Palace while holding each other’s hands…!
The old woman instantly forgot about everything she had thought about Flora’s and other’s actions; she put a Jiran on and ran out of the building in a great hurry.
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“Should I say…” Ruan began with a wry smile. “just as expected? I shouldn’t have worried for them,” he said with a laugh, looking at Laien and Yin who had just left the Grand Palace at the head of a grand procession. They had a Grand Yimar by their side and hundreds of the Grand Yimar’s White Guards following behind, along with what appeared to be… freed slaves?
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“Those kids walking along should be Nathan and Louis,” Liza said with a relieved, warm smile on her face, one which she hadn’t shown anyone for a very long time. She was happy that Laien and Yin succeeded, but it was looking at all those olive-robed kids and youths that made her feel so good. She was honestly glad for them, glad that they wouldn’t need to suffer in the harems anymore.
Ruan caught himself staring at Liza, so he shook his head quickly and strongly and returned his gaze to the emerging procession. He didn’t want to think about it, but he needed to admit that he was bewildered by that smile of hers. Her expression too… it was so different from her usual one that he couldn’t help being startled. He had always thought that a woman like Liza, who was a bit too open in various meanings of the word, wasn’t his type, but he still couldn’t not think this one word when he saw her warm smile; beautiful.
“They spotted us,” the black-cloaked man pointed out with a smile. For a second he felt his gaze meeting Yin’s through the small window of those small stables Shahash had prepared for them, then saw the two boys exchanging a glance and both looking in this direction. He already knew it from the time they had spent in the Anarchic Lands, but those two had exceptional senses.
“Should we go and meet them…?” Dinne questioned worryingly. What if that Grand Yimar or whoever it was got angry? Wouldn’t it be suspicious that they were waiting for them to come out?
The black-cloaked man smirked, while Ruan shook his head a little; afterward, the former of them spoke with some ridicule present in his voice. “You shouldn’t assume everyone is as straightforward as you. The Grand Yimar must have realized what those two wanted to do in the Grand Palace and must have somehow come to an agreement with them; else what, do you think he would be releasing all those slaves for the sake of another two slaves he took a liking to?”
Dinne’s expression sank a little, but he could only nod grudgingly since what the black-cloaked man said made sense. “I think I liked it better when you didn’t speak with us at all…” he murmured, though his voice ended up being loud enough for everyone present to hear his words.
The black-cloaked man laughed, caring little to not at all about Dinne’s opinion. “Come on, our young masters surely want their horses back. They must be tired of walking along on foot,” he said with a smirk and pushed the door wide open, pushing away the people who happened to be in front of it without a care in the world. He ignored the sounding curses and words of complaint and rode out, releasing his aura of a martial master of the third rank and quickly shutting the people who were making a fuss.
Ruan laughed weakly, then followed after their black-cloaked friend while leading his own horse by the reins with his right hand and Laien’s black War Horse with his left hand. Liza followed in step, taking care of her own horse and of Yin’s brown War Horse. Yin, Dinne, Rishe and Ethane followed behind them at a slow pace, the four of them riding on their own mounts comfortably.
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“Do not crowd! Make the way for people to pass! Do not crowd!”
In the accompaniment of the orders being shouted out by the men under Yimar Sharu’s orders, Laien and Yin watched the multiple women and a few men hurrying towards the walls of the Grand Palace to receive or look for their children or siblings. Judging by how many people were coming over already, most of those who had been abducted must have come from the high-class families that lived around the center of the city. However, if the number of released slaves was any indication, many more caretakers would come from other parts of the City of Pale once the news spread; counting roughly, there were well over one thousand children and youths outside of the gates already and only more were coming.
“They’re all coming,” Laien thought and laughed quietly. Their guards finally left that building and were bringing them their horses, while those women in black bags… Jirans, or however they were called, were almost certainly Flora and Claire. After all, no one else was reckless enough to run directly in the direction of the spot occupied by the Grand Yimar and the head of his White Guard.
Having taken notice of the two women running towards them, the look in Reian’s eyes stiffened by a degree. “Grand Yimar…?” he asked, but Mustafa simply smiled at him and shook his head slightly. He also was aware that the people who came to receive those two friends of Laien and Yin’s would be related to the resistance operating in the City of Palee, but he didn’t wish to capture them. Needless to say, he wasn’t worried about the potential danger those rebels posed to his son at this time either; with him standing at Arslan’s side there would seldom be anything that could hurt the boy, not to mention the presence of Reian and Jasmine just a few steps away.
The short-haired and frailer Nathan, and the long-haired and sturdier Louis were both hopeful and surprised when two Jiran-clad women ran up and kneeled in front of them. However, when they heard Flora and Claire call out their names and had the women hug them tightly, the realization that they were finally safe and out of that hell hit them like a ton of bricks. Their eyes watered, their faces grew red and they began crying loudly while holding tightly onto Flora and Claire. The two of them were of similar age to Laien and Yin and had similarly lived through some hardships, but in the end, they couldn’t compare to those two; now that their minds accepted that everything was over, they couldn’t help but break down into tears.
“Well, at least that worked out nicely,” both Laien and Yin thought along the same lines. The two of them looked at each other and chuckled a little; they were pretty sure they had done a really stupid thing and somehow lucked out, but if they were given a chance to turn the time back and make the choice of whether to help or not again… they would still have done the same thing.
Unexpectedly to them, they both experienced a pleasant warmth appear from within and spread through their bodies. They didn’t quite know what was going on in the first instance, but they quickly sensed a change happening within their souls; they closed their eyes for a second, submerging their consciousness into their soul realms for a brief moment.
Within Laien’s soul, the three orbs of omnicolored strands of light were present. One of them represented the Aspect of Tranquility he had obtained early on, another one was the Aspect of Wrath he had begun understanding when fighting Anatis and completed when he was furious when he had been furious for Siana’s sake. The Aspect of Awareness was something he had slowly completed beginning from his fight with Yin during the Grand Tournament, through his struggle with guilt after the events involving Siana, and finishing at the lesson Altair had given him at the temple.
The three essences of the Aspects had complete foundations. At most times, the three orbs slowly circled around one point, which was coincidentally the very middle of Laien’s soul realm; the strands of the omnicolored essence would rise from their respective orbs and intersect in the soul space, merging and mixing with one another. However, the three orbs suddenly stopped rotating and the essence exchange between them was also stirred up, as if the ground shook and a stir of wind clashed against the strands of floating omnicolored light.
Within Yin’s soul, three complete orbs similarly rotated in the very middle of the soul realm with one more rough and incomplete cluster of essence floating outside the circle. The three complete orbs naturally represented Humility, Pride and Awareness, with the cluster of strands representing Desire which didn’t yet have a foundation and wasn’t yet fused into the other three essences.
The three main orbs and even the cluster of essence all ceased all movement for a moment, as if they were startled by something.
The same phenomenon was happening within Laien’s and Yin’s souls; after the already present essences reacted, yet another essence began forming within their soul realms. The clusters of omnicolored strands of light which appeared quickly began taking shape of an orb, though the process slowed down at one point and left the newly created orbs half-complete. After taking shape, the half-complete orbs moved on their own and joined the rotating circles of essences, then began gently resonating with the already present fused aspects.
In both soul realms, the new essence slipped into the present fusion, after which the now four sources of essence once again began slowly circling around the center points of the souls they were within. Laien and Yin were very pleasantly surprised as they sensed the strength of the fused essence grow and become… perhaps not easier to control, but easier to mold and manipulate? They couldn’t quite tell without trying it out in practice either, but they felt that the current four-way fusion wasn’t complete. The new essence slipped into the system due to its properties, but it wasn’t truly fused as they didn’t possess the insights necessary to do so.
“Oh?” In Yin’s case, one more thing happened. The cluster of strands which was the Aspect of Desire moved, being drawn in by the half-complete orb of the new essence. It attached itself by a few of its strands to the new half-complete orb as if by a rope and began following it on the outside of the circle, exchanging essence with it at a very, very slow pace. It looked like the properties of this half-complete orb of essence were quite marvelous as it allowed the strength of fused Aspects to grow again, albeit just by a little bit.
Those around them didn’t notice anything weird when Laien and Yin opened their eyes. They could only be bewildered when the two youths looked at each other and grinned widely for no apparent reason, though none of those who noticed this small exchange between the two youths thought much about it. Most of them simply assumed the two were satisfied with how everything resolved and didn’t wonder about it too much.
“That should be ‘Compassion’,” Laien said quietly while aiding himself with some Qi to prevent the sound from leaking. They had unexpectedly gained a really nice prize from the whole event. Neither of them would have thought that they would both awaken the Aspect of Compassion without intending to do so, just by thinking deeply about what they had done. Despite the unusual problems they had encountered in the Grand Palace, it looked like they had come out on top of it all.
“Are those people your guards?” Reian asked before the group of horsemen making their way towards their group got too close. Permitting the boys’ companions to join them was obvious, but he didn’t feel like dealing with some nobles who had come to fawn over Mustafa to court favor.
“Yup,” Laien confirmed lightheartedly, then raised his hand and whistled. Immediately, Bellicose rushed ahead so suddenly that his reins slipped out of Ruan’s hand.
Yin smiled heartily and raised a hand of his own, looking his brown War Horse in the eye. Despite a few hundred meters separating the two of them, the horse also forced its way forward and got out of Liza’s hold; though mainly because Liza didn’t intend to try and stop him at all.
When the two War Horses, which had fairly larger frames compares to the Hisan Horses, stopped right in front of Laien and Yin and lowered their heads to be praised Mustafa couldn’t help but laugh. “Nice handling. Your southern breed is said to be harder to control than even our prideful Hisan Horses, these two seem to be quite devoted to you,” Mustafa praised without a second thought, perhaps because he had gotten too used to giving comments whenever he saw Arslan do something impressive.
Laien and Yin glanced at Mustafa. Both of them smiled, not minding a compliment of this kind at all. The two of them mounted their horses in one agile leap.
Having found themselves in the saddles, it occurred to them that their clothes weren’t fitting them in a way they always did. The two of them laughed; somewhere along the way, they had completely forgotten what they were wearing and stopped paying attention to the light make-up on their faces. Without thinking about it much they swapped the current flashy clothes for their usual comfortable white clothing; they didn’t need to exchange words for Laien to create some water in front of their faces and proceed to clean the make-up of them.
Two or three seconds later, the two of them were pretty much back to their usual appearances, with but one exception; the earrings.
“Are you thinking of keeping them?” Laien asked with a little smirk, looking how Yin fiddled with one of the black earrings with his finger instead of taking them off.
“So are you,” Yin pointed out, in response to what Laien could only laugh awkwardly. He had been pretty reluctant to the idea in the beginning, but he needed to admit that black earrings looked good on Yin… and it was pretty fun to have their earrings match in some way.
“The idea is fun,” Yin agreed with a laugh. “But I don’t quite like how it came to us wearing them. Maybe some other time,” he said lightheartedly but lowered his voice quite a bit for the last few words. He raised his left hand up and held it by his ear. He took out one of his original golden interspatial rings and stored the two rings in his ears into it, then put the ring back on the index finger of his right hand and produced the second, identical one on the index finger of his left hand.
As for the little holes which remained in his earlobes, they began shrinking visibly thanks to the abundant vitality of his body. After a dozen seconds or so there would no longer be any mark left from the interspatial rings he had worn as earrings.
Laien removed his golden earrings in the same way and put the black gold interspatial ring on the ring finger of his right hand. He didn’t use magic to heal his earlobes, but even though his physical energy couldn’t match Yin’s there would similarly be no mark left after a minute or so passed.
“So, do we leave?” Laien threw the question up in the air, not really speaking to anyone specific. He quickly swept his surroundings with his gaze, looking for an answer from some of the many people who gathered around him and Yin; there were their old guards, the guards who were coming along with Arslan, there was Mustafa and there was Arslan himself. There also were the people to whom this question wasn’t directed to like Flora and Claire, but Laien was no longer concerned with them.