46.

Through Vehk, To Aeon

Second of Sepus [10], 207CA

Cedric and Faunia were separated from Rosgir. They weren't made to return their housetents, nor was anything said about it by their acquanintances; when they woke up the next morning, their traveling companions were simply… gone. They were left with nothing to do except carry on, in one direction or the other.

Faunia had asked Cedric what he intended to do. He answered, "We continue to Aeon. There was something notably suspicious about that behavior last night, and Ithlo’vatis agrees that something's going on."

"You think Heji is in danger?"

"Only if we missed our chance to get there before one of the Twelve did."

They set out to the west. It wasn't much farther to Aeon regardless, and they made sure to take a separate path than that of Rosgir, so they wouldn't be caught in an ambush, or brought to bear arms against the messenger unnecessarily. Their only detour was to the south, just to make sure they wouldn't be taking any obvious paths. Faunia mentioned a portside city named Garenteth where they'd make a short rest to eat, now that they’d run out of rations, and perhaps to fetch more courtly uniforms, as Rosgir had implied they would need before an audience with the king.

It was Hammerache then, and it was getting cold again, especially up the mountain. It had been two years since his Relistar had come to life, two years since his life was completely torn apart and he was set on a suicidal mission to Freiya. He'd survived. He was two years better for it, he thought, even if he couldn't remember most of that time yet. It would come eventually. And it should reveal the secret to killing Rykaedi, when the time would come that they could defend Calamon without her.

I find myself wondering what we were doing last Hammerache. That was after I joined the Hunters, after me and Faunia took the better part of a year to travel the long way to Harth, avoiding the Sylvet Deadline.

Cedric gave a long-breathed grunt as he clambored up a particularly steep stretch of rock. There was some sort of path carved up the mountain, and an alleged pass on the other side that would bring them right down to the village. But if the 'path' on the other side is as steep as this one, there's not a shot of us getting down alive.

He gave a sigh atop that mound of rocks, gave a careful glance backward to make sure that Faunia was still keeping up. She was, and so, he continued forward. The grey rocks began to grow higher around them, and they'd finally been met by the mouth of a cave. Faunia made it again to his side. Cedric could hear her short, gentle breaths. The climb had been hard on her, too.

"Maybe we should take a rest." said Cedric.

Faunia shook her head. "I'm alright. I'm okay, let's keep..." She swallowed. "Let's keep going."

He looked at her for a long moment, and then nodded. "Alright. We'll keep going."

Cedric was careful on his way into the cave, where the rocks had grown especially slick with rained-upon erosion. Faunia cast a spell that summoned a glistening bulb of light above them, to guide the way, and to illuminate the short, stalactite-laden ceiling, and the pool of stillwater beside them.

They could already see the light on the other side, not so far away. It would be a short spelunking excursion, thankfully for his claustophobia — he was surprised to feel his heartrate accelerating at the mere sight of the place.

Then, as they continued in, there was a crunch of something ahead, a shifting of pebbles beneath something's foot. The light ahead became blocked out.

Cedric narrowed his eyes, trying to see.

"Bear!" Faunia shouted. She didn't even bother reaching for her sword, instead backpedaling toward the entrance again.

Then Cedric watched it rise onto its hind legs, roar out with frightening, bone-chilling ferocity. Spittle sprayed all onto his face, onto his robes.

He held a hand up. "Stay."

And Tirolith grabbed the ley. And when the bear fell back to all four of his legs, he appeared docile. He made some exhaled noise, then waddled away back to his stone bed.

Cedric turned back to Faunia with a chuckle. He could see her in her own magelight, frozen in place on the ground with a look of exasperated horror stuck to her face. Her horror turned to fury when she saw him laughing. "It's a damn bear, Cedric! Don't expect me not to get scared by that!"

"We have Etherians, don't forget."

Faunia's fury fell. She pressed a hand to her chest, feeling for Tirolith's weight within herself. "How did you command her? She's with me, isn't she?"

He nodded. "It's a trick I've been working on. We can communicate with Etherians speechlessly, so I thought I might try commanding one the same way."

"And if it hadn't worked?"

"That's what Serkukan is for. But, I'd really rather have not had to kill him."

Cedric reached a hand out for her. She accepted, and stood from the ground. They started toward the exit.

"We're really getting too powerful for our own good, aren't we?" Faunia half-joked, half-wondered.

"Too powerful for Kogar's good, I hope. Too powerful for Rykaedi's good. Once this whole damn thing is over, I'd be happy to get rid of all the rest of the Etherians, make sure this kind of power can never be attained again."

"You're starting to sound like that other one..." she mused.

"Algirak? He killed Etherians to fuel his own delusion of killing Azafel. I want to..." Suddenly the word kill seemed too harsh, considering his affection for Tirolith and Okella, his 'reconciliation' with Serkukan. Perhaps he didn't want to kill them all. Maybe there was a better way. Maybe there was something in those schematics... "We'll cross that bridge when we get to it. At least I'll have you by my side when we get there, as well."

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Faunia did not answer to that query. Cedric suddenly realized how embarrassing that must have sounded, and left the conversation at that.

And then he stepped out of the crevice on the other side. The light was blinding compared to how dark it'd been inside.

"It's a castle." Cedric lifted his eyebrows in surprise.

Faunia nodded. "Tilerith Castle. We've been here."

The stone cave ground almost seamlessly turned into large beige bricks from decades past, jutting out in the shape of a cliffside castle, covered in creeper and vine and moss. The path led straight to the parapet which had once looked over the Kylinstromi ocean, but now looked over a very large stonewise city surrounded by shattered docks, ocean-bound infrastructure that had been uprooted by the sudden appearance of Kylinstrom back to its rightful place. There were ships and boats jutting outside of the mountain walls around them, and shattered crafts spread all over the sloping ground far below the cliffside-castle.

"The city..." Faunia muttered. "They couldn't have expected the Rejoining. I hadn't even thought to consider the implications that an appearing landmass would have on portside towns..."

"We'll check on them when we come back through. We need to see, first, if Heji is willing to accept our help. Then we can negotiate our terms.

"Terms?" Faunia hissed in joyless surprise.

Cedric held up a dismissing hand. "We're going to help them either way. But I want to see what Heji would offer for our help. There are things we need from him, and there are surely things we can provide him."

Faunia exhaled a gentle sigh, leaned over the parapet beside him. "I never expected you of all people to be planning strategic negotiations."

"The times have changed. There's things that need to be done." And he swept away toward the castle doors, towards the great, winding staircase of a thousand steps that once led to a sandy beach far below.

It didn't take long before the roads began to change below, began to populate with carriages of traders and eager workers paving the eastern road of their glorious empire toward that uninhabited castle, likely already claimed by Aeon in some capacity. That was one of the first time that Cedric had considered who exactly might be taking charge of that patch of country called Kylinstrom. He almost wondered for a passing moment whether he might claim it for himself.

"How about this one?" asked Faunia Vleren, holding up a soldier's jacket of blue with gold accoutrements. They’d snuck away into a cluttered cranny of a shop in the commercial district, some bargain store in the lowest slum of Garenteth, even if it could hardly be called a slum, with its glistening white walls and beautiful, high-class architecture. The windows on every store, every building were lined with gold, every floor neatly tiled with marble, every building illuminated with glowing golden magelights embedded in their walls and chandeliers. The counter and shopkeeper themselves were well-kept like nobles, finely dressed and neat and… Faunia could hardly imagine anything cleaner.

The same could not be said for the rest of the shop. It was some dark closet that went far too deep through disorganized and messy racks of clothes. It was like a dungeon unto itself beyond the polite entryway where the keeper sold snacks and candies and allsorts — his priorities were evidently not helping his business.

Cedric sniffed at the uniform and made a face of disdain. Faunia placed it back on the rack with a singular dull chuckle.

"And how about this, for you?" Cedric mockingly held up a white gown that was made of very little fabric. He couldn't rightly tell where it began or ended.

"As if." snarled Faunia, somewhat more indignant than either of them expected. Then her face softened. "No," she rephrased, "I'd rather not."

"I'd prefer something with black. Or, rather, I don't care especially for color."

Faunia thumbed through another sequestered rack. "I've always thought the opposite."

"You don't need to tell me twice, Silver Sword." He said the title as though it were a curse word. "What do nobles wear, anyway? I can't think of any nobleman I've ever seen. Akvum wore those trousers and his bandolier — that was about it. His servant-man, whatever his damn name, wore black. So black seems a fine color for me."

"We have to match, Cedric. We want to look unified, not like we're at odds with each other."

"Unified with a Hunter. Never thought the day would come."

"Like it or not, you're technically a Hunter, too." Faunia smiled a winning grin.

Cedric grimaced and wrestled an outfit away from an especially tight rack.

He tilted his head either way in consideration. "You're not wrong. But my Hunters are better. Marisol has made sure of that."

Then he held the multicolored neon uniform in front of his body. Faunia didn't look long before she strictly shook her head. He put it back.

“I would have chosen a different name.” When the Ordinators come…

“We could wear the colors of Calamon.”

“Calamoni colors… Blue and…” He pulled out a bright blue gambeson. There was an orange circle in the center of the uniform. “Orange.”

Faunia mockingly gagged at the appearance of the thing. She waved it away with a hand, pressed into Cedric’s back as she squeezed past the congested racks, deeper toward the back of the store.

Then a whistle caught Cedric’s attention. He looked to the skinny shopkeeper, who said, through a very thick and nonfluent accent, “There are historical outfits from every empire in the back of the store.”

Cedric nodded at him, “Thank you,” and pressed toward the back of the store. Faunia pointed up at a sign that he couldn’t read, couldn’t even discern what dialect it might be.

“This’ll be it.” she said. “Outfits from every era of Aeonic culture, Jinnish culture… even Kylinstromi culture…!”

Faunia fingered through the rack of Kylinstromi clothes, so curious to know what secrets might be held within. Cedric only plucked through the Calamoni section disinterestedly. None of the uniforms were as he would have preferred. He gave a great sigh.

Faunia dropped her hand limp and gave him a kind, practically maternal sigh. “It’s not going to be easy, Cedric.”

“No. No, it’s not.”

There was the jingle of a bell at the shop’s door. Busy clatters of footsteps rushed into the store.

Cedric spun, just too late. Swords jutted out from every angle, around every rack, all pointed at their faces.

A golden guard stepped forward and grabbed Faunia’s collar. She wrapped her own hand around his wrist. “Release me.”

Cedric watched in silent approval as her eyes flitted between red and light blue, then back to silver. The knight complied with her order. He lowered his hand.

But then more guards came forward and threw their cold gauntlets all over Cedric. He gave a single meager protest before they wrapped his arms behind his back and slammed him down through one of the racks, knocking clothes all over the floor.

Cedric twisted the ley. Faunia, facing her own cluster of swarming guards, cast him one stern, knowing glance: don’t, Cedric.

He scoffed, averted his gaze.

And that was the abrupt end of their shopping trip, and the end of their lackadaisical time in Aeon...