After sitting in a horse carriage for 4 hours and subsequently "running" Another 10 kilometers, Ashoka finally arrived at his first destination.
"Huff huff — I really should have huff — trained my stamina huff — before the Nightmare!"
Who the hell thought that surviving a Nightmare didn't require a lot of stamina?
Well, as it turned out, he was exactly that "who the hell" Guy!
Ashoka stood bent over with his hands braced on his knees, panting heavily, as it turned out, 10 kilometers was, in fact, a very long distance to run. Four hours in a horse carriage followed by this. His legs had let him feel every single second of that journey.
After a minute, he finally straightened up and looked around.
Since it was close to midnight by now, everything was dark, only a few dots of light illuminated the silhouettes of the 3 or 4 small houses in the entire darkness enshrouded farm plains.
As one travelled closer to the border, the houses grew fewer and further between. Because the danger of a corrupted abominations breaching through the walls was alway spresent, people usually tended to form small but fortified villages of farmers. These people would travel to their faraway farms during the day and return by evening.
Although he was already a few kilometers away from the border, with the danger already very low, this trend still seemed to be followed, with only a few outliers.
At this moment, Ashoka was looking at one of those outlier houses in particular.
If what information he had was right, this would be Cathal's house, the ascended that Ashoka had met earlier.
"So..." A hesitant voice came from behind him. "What am I supposed to do here?"
Ashoka turned around.
The merchant was a round-faced man with the permanently startled expression on his face as if he was someone who had agreed to something before fully understanding what it was. Ashoka had found him in a nearby village, freshly arrived from a small trade caravan.
In one of his talks with Gaius, Ashoka had talked with him about the "buffer time" That one had before they were fully Integrated or reintegrated into the pillar's domain. It was basically his way of telling him that they wouldn't have to venture into the wilderness everytime they had discuss some important matters.
Unexpectedly, Gaius had immediately pointed out a detail that Ashoka had basically missed, which was the exceedingly ignored usefulness of the people who arrived into casamir with the trade caravans, as they would also still be in the "buffer time" And hence, outside the influence of the pillar's surveillance. They could be used to perform task that Ashoka and Gaius couldn't perform personally or which risked exposing them.
This was also why, when executing their plan tonight, Gaius wasn't afraid of his disguise being found out by the pillar when going to the Awakened healer.
Ashoka adjusted the cloth covering his features and turned fully to face the man.
"You see that house?" He pointed at the building a couple hundred meters ahead. "There's a mother and daughter living there. Meredith and Georgina. Your job is to get them out and lead them to the warehouse a kilometre to the west, then lock yourself and them inside for the next four days."
He reached into his pocket and produced the bronze-cast emblem Gaius had given him. "If they don't trust you, tell them Gaius and Cathal sent you. Show them this."
He put the emblem down and pulled out a leather pouch instead, tossing it across. The merchant caught it with both hands.
"First half of your payment. You'll get the second half in four days." Ashoka looked at him flatly for second, and then added coldly. "Also, if anything happens to those two, expect to loose your head very soon. Nod if you understand."
The man nodded, very quickly.
"Yes, yes — wouldn't even dream of it..."
He turned and walked off, and within moments was whistling a cheerful tune, the pouch swinging slightly in his grip, as if he'd won some kind of lottery, although, Ashoka doubted they even had a lottery in this era. He silently watched from behind the tree as the man passed the already cultivated farms and arrived in front of the house by the road side.
After a dozen minutes, the torch inside was extinguished as two figures appeared from inside, carrying a small luggage. Soon, they disappeared into the darkness, heading west.
Sometime later, Ashoka left his hiding place and approached near the now empty house. Taking out a bronze flash from his satchel, he unscrewed its cap. Then, circled around and then within the house, dropping a single drop of dark blood on the ground every few metres.
Although this was part of the plan to deal with Oswald, at the same time, it wasn't really. The task that Ashoka had been intrusted with was to create an unnoticeable blood trail leading leading from the border wall to one of the nearby densely populated town. The place that it was leading to was, of course through the hidden passage below the wall and into the wilderness, where presumably, Gaius would have caged an unconscious Fallen monster captured from the Corrupted Tyrant's massive hoarde of abomination. His job was also to open that cage before the monster woke up, and then getting the hell out of there.
Letting loose a Fallen monster into Casamir would definitely have disastrous consequences, but Gaius had assured him that his men would be able handle the problem before any real casualty occurred.
Of course, Cathal's house wasn't included anywhere in this, infact, the original route he was supposed to follow wasn't anywhere even close to this place. Instead, it was one of Ashoka's own arrangements that even Gaius didn't knew about.
Still, he wasn't the kind of person to sacrifice an innocent life like that, so, he had made further arrangements to get them out of here, since them being here or not wouldn't affect the future developments anyways.
Finally finishing with what he was doing, he exited the house from the front door. He raised his head to look up and the starry night sky reflected in his dark eyes.
Sigh...
If everything went well, today will be the end of Prince Oswald.
***
The door opened before his hand could reach the handle.
She had always done that, heard him coming from some distance he couldn't account for, one of her strange magic that he couldn't ever grasp despite being an Ascended. He had never fully believed her. He had never bothered to disprove it either.
"Welcome home," she said.
He stepped inside.
The house smelled of soap and something warm drifting from the kitchen. It was a small house, ordinary and unassuming, and he had chosen it for exactly that reason, years ago, when choosing had still felt like a simple thing. He closed the door behind him, heard the familiar click of the latch, and felt something in his shoulders loosen fractionally.
She had already gone back to the kitchen by the time he had his boots off.
He moved to the kitchen first, drew himself a glass of water from the clay jug on the counter, drank half of it standing there. She was at the stove, her back to him, stirring something that smelled of onions and herbs. It was a scent that he immediatelyrecognized. He didn't say anything. She didn't either. He finished the water, set the glass down, and went to sit on the sofa.
The cushions were the same ones they'd had for 2 years. She had wanted to replace them twice. And... he had kept forgetting to.
"There's stew," she called from the kitchen. "It's been sitting, so it'll be thick."
"That's fine."
"I can thin it out if you want."
"It's fine, Sera."
There was a short pause and then the sound of a ladle against the pot.
"There's also bread, but it's from this morning, so—"
"Sera."
"—it might be a little hard, but I can—"
"The bread is fine."
She went quiet. He could hear her moving around the kitchen, the sound of a bowl being set down, a drawer opening and closing. He leaned his head back against the sofa and looked at the ceiling.
After a while, she came out of the kitchen, drying her hands on a cloth. She sat beside him — not far, just the familiar proximity, and folded the cloth in her lap.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Then she looked at him.
"You're sullen," she said simply.
He turned his head. "Am I."
"You have a particular face you make. You're making it now." She tilted her head slightly, studying him. "What happened?"
He looked at her for a moment. "You don't know?"
"Should I?"
"It was the talk of the entire city today." He watched her expression. "The royal court."
She shook her head slowly. "I didn't go out today. I was cleaning." She gestured vaguely at the room around them, and he followed the gesture, and the room did look clean, cleaner than usual, and yet—
She's lying.
He didn't say it. He didn't say anything, just held her gaze for a moment longer than necessary and then looked away.
"It's nothing," he said. "A setback."
Perhaps she didn't want to make his time here awkward or suffocating. Or perhaps that wasn't the reason she lied, perhaps—
She made a sound that meant she didn't believe him and wasn't going to press. That was one of the things about her — she knew when the door was closed. She had learned, over the years, not to stand at closed doors. Such was the complicated life of a Prince after all.
She leaned back beside him. Her shoulder was warm against his arm.
Outside, somewhere down the street, a child was laughing at something. The sound filtered through the walls, brief and then gone.
He thought about the day. He thought about the boy in the common clothes standing in the center of the royal hall, reading names from a piece of parchment with that patient look, that image forver burned at the back of his mind. He thought about the fifteen people standing behind him, about the twenty-five who hadn't come, about the hall going very quiet in the space between.
He thought about Eldrin's face during the verdict. Thirteen years old, and already learning to put away the uncle in favor of the king.
A setback.
That was one word for it.
His eyes moved across the room without seeing it. The lamp on the side table, the curtain that needed hemming, the small clay figure on the windowsill that she had bought from a market stall a few months ago and he had initially thought was ugly and had never said so and had quietly come to like.
It had been a good idea, this. Keeping her apart from all of it. Keeping her name out of every room he occupied in that palace, out of every conversation, out of every calculation that anyone who might someday want leverage against him might make. He had never regretted it, even when the blood of many stained his hands to keep her existence a secret from everyone else. Even on the days when the distance felt like a weight, he had not regretted it.
If they ever had a son — he had thought about this, more than once — the boy would have no claim. No position in the succession drama that had consumed every person of his line for two generations. He would simply be a boy, living in an ordinary house on an ordinary street, with a father who visited too rarely and a mother who noticed his footstep from the end of the road.
A few more minutes passed. She came back from the kitchen with the bowl of stew and the bread, set them on the low table in front of him, and returned to her seat next ti. He ate slowly. At some point in time, the familiar frown had once again appeared on his face, soon becoming a constant on his expression. She watched him silently, as if she was trying to determine how bad it actually was.
"The headache again?" she asked, after a while.
He didn't look up from the bowl. "Yes."
"How bad?"
"Worse than before." He set the spoon down for a moment and pressed two fingers briefly against his temple. "I had someone bring me a bottle of the Aldwine reserve before I left. The good one, Ascended grade." He picked the spoon back up. "Didn't work."
She was quiet for a moment. "Nothing at all?"
"Nothing." He said it flatly, without drama, which was somehow worse than if he'd complained about it. "It's getting stronger. The alcohol doesn't decrease the pain anymore."
She looked at him for another moment. Then she set down her cloth, shifted toward him, and opened her arms.
He looked at her.
"Can mine fix it?" she asked with a smile.
The corner of his mouth moved up.
There was still a hint of hesitation in his eyes. He still didn't knew what thought she had regarding him and the trial.
Eventually, he leaned into her without saying anything for a moment, and she closed her arms around him, and the fire in the lamp on the side table burned low and steady, and outside the street was quiet.
"I won't stay long tonight," he said, into the silence.
"I know."
"Then I will rest while I can..."
His hand reached up and touched her cheek gently, his thumb moving once across the line of it.
***
His hand gripped tightly around the frail neck of the old farmer.
The house was burning.
It had started with the barn — always the barn, always first, the most visible and the most flammable — and spread from there like an unstoppable hoard of hungry abomination. The field beyond was lit orange, the smoke thick enough to leave a taste in the mouth.
The man in his hands was older than he'd looked from a distance. Closer, he looked weathered, like someone who had spent decades in sun and wind and cold, the kind of face that kept its youth until it didn't, and then aged all at once. His hands were scratching at Gaius's forearm, weakly now, the motion becoming less coordinated with every second.
"Please—" The voice was a rasp. A whisper with no breath behind it. "Please forgive us, my lord—"
His eyes were wide. In them, Gaius could see the reflection of the flames — and, presumably, himself. The hood had come down at some point during the struggle. The man could see his face now. The scar. He couldn't know what it meant and yet his eyes kept returning to it, as if they had found something that doesn't fit the shape of their understanding.
'Forgive us.'
He didn't know what the man was apologizing for. That was the part that Gaius kept returning to, even now, with his hand around the man's throat. He had been at the court case today, and also a week ago, kneeling to the throne with rivers of tears flowing down. He had stood with the others who had come forward, given his account the way he had been instructed to. It had only been a few hours since he had been returned his stolen land. The mood had still been joyous and celebratory when Gaius had arrived, and now he was here, in the burning dark, apologizing to a stranger wearing his brother's scar.
Dying for something he would never fully understand.
Gaius felt pity for him, perhaps even sorry.
Almost.
He remembered what Ashoka had said — the boy had been quite specific about this.'Property damage only. Nobody gets killed.' He had said it with the particular certainty as if he believed that the line between those two things was stable, that you could draw it and stand on one side and remain there.
Naive.
Not stupid — Gaius did not think Ashoka was stupid. He was like someone who had read about the world rather than lived in it, that kind of naive, confusing the map for the territory. He had been like that once, back when he was young and when the only source of knowledge about the world outside the palace were the words of his father and mother.
You do not burn a man's house and leave him standing in the ashes and call that mercy.
It wasn't possible.
It had never been possible.
What Ashoka wanted to build required a foundation, and foundations required weight, and weight required something to press down on, and that something was always, in the end, a person.
This is the honest shape of things.
Gaius tightened his grip one final time.
The scratching stopped.
He let the body down without ceremony, and stepped forward, and his foot came down on something that gave differently than the ground. He looked down.
The son, younger than the father by thirty years, maybe more. Still in the plain clothes he had worn to the court that morning, now with ash on the collar. His body was as cold as a snowy meadow despite the world engulfed in flames around him, eyes open, looking up at the smoke-dark sky with an expression that had been surprise and had not quite finished becoming anything else.
Gaius looked at him for a moment.
Then he straightened up, turned, and let his body go loose. His shoulders dropped. His feet found a different weight distribution, less deliberate, less controlled. He took two steps and let them be slightly wrong, slightly uneven, and brought a hand up to press against the side of his face — not the scarred side, the other, the one that still looked like his own.
From a distance, in the firelight, he would look like a man who had drunk too much and wandered in from the road.
From a distance, the two figures approaching with speed from the south — moving faster than what any mundane or awakened human could ever manage — would see exactly that.
Corvin and Cathal.
He recognized their silhouettes without even needing to see their faces.
stumbling deliberately, he caught himself with a step, and began to hum something tuneless.
One of the figure seemed to have heard it and his running posture changed slightly. In the next second, an ear piercing whistle tore through the air as a grey blur ascended high in the sky. soon turning into a silver streak plummeting down towards Gaius with unimaginable speed.
"OSWALD!" Corvin's roar shook the ground, echoing across the burning plains. His eyes glinted with unbridled fury as he unsheathed his sword from the scabbard at his hip.
Gaius laughed loudly as he dodged the silver spear thrown by Cathal by just a hair's breath. Instead of running away, he pulled out a metal rod from the burning rubble and pointed it at the two. "BRING IT ON, YOU GAIUS' DOGS!"
.
.
.
.
[A/N: first time trying to write a scene with heavy imagery, tell me how it turned out.]