Chapter 250: Going Into the Wilderness

Aether woke slowly, the kind of waking where the body moved before the mind fully followed. Truly, he didn’t know what had happened.

His eyes opened halfway, unfocused at first. The ceiling above him came into view little by little, wooden beams running across rough planks darkened by age. A thin line of morning light slipped through the shutters of the window nearby, cutting across the room in a pale stripe.

For a moment, he just lay there.

The bed beneath him was softer than it had any right to be.

That was the first thing he noticed.

Where was he, and what had happened exactly… wasn’t he trying to find an Inn?

Well, this was the Inn, he had just taken a rest, and had overslept, and forgotten all about his goal

The bed wasn’t soft like luxury, but soft enough that his body actually sank into it slightly instead of pressing against hardwood or stone. The blanket was thick, a little rough, but warm. It smelled faintly of soap and old linen.

It was quite nice.

Aether blinked slowly.

Right.

He still had something to do.

It took his mind another second to remember that part. The harbor, the market stalls, the endless noise of the port. Walking through streets he had never seen before, until they found this place.

He exhaled quietly and stared at the ceiling again.

Sleeping inside a room still felt strange.

Most of the time, it was forests, ruins, cold ground, or the deck of a ship that never stopped moving. Compared to that, this almost felt unfair.

His body clearly agreed.

He shifted slightly under the blanket and immediately felt how heavy his muscles were. The trip across the sea had drained more out of him than he wanted to admit.

The boat.

Aether frowned slightly.

He really wanted to stay like this, under the warm blanket, but he knew he couldn’t; they still had an important job to do.

For a brief moment, he could almost feel the rocking again, the endless rise and fall of the waves beneath the small dinghy. The wind pulling at the sail, the creak of wet wood, the dark water climbing higher than the boat itself.

He rubbed his face slowly.

Yeah. That part he did not miss.

His gaze drifted toward the window. The light had grown stronger now, slipping through the wooden shutters in narrow lines that stretched across the floor.

Morning, probably.

He covered the light with his hand, got off the bed, and looked out of it

The city outside had already begun to wake. Faint sounds reached the room through the walls. Distant footsteps. Someone even moving furniture below. A voice calling something out in the street.

Stormfell.

Even thinking the name made something in his chest tighten slightly.

The island was massive. Bigger than anything he had walked before. Entire civilizations spread across it, places that could take months just to cross.

And somewhere inside all of that…

Pieces of the rapier were waiting.

Broken fragments scattered across a land large enough to swallow entire kingdoms.

Aether stared at the ceiling again.

“…Great.”

If he didn’t have the tracker Kael that was given to him, it would definitely be impossible, so he was really grateful for it; it made their job a lot easier. Still, they still had to make it to every single one of them, and he doubted they were all so close to each other that he could have to do the other side of the planet to find one, and then back for another.

Well, at least on this journey, he will be able to see the many civilizations inside Stormfell, all the cities and places there are to see; he was going to see all of them.

Stretching his body, he walked over to Kade and shook him awake.

The boy seemed tired, really tired. He wanted to let him sleep, but he knew that they were probably going to get kicked out soon enough, and he wasn’t going to pay for another night.

In the end, the boy got up. He was almost asleep, but he was awake, which was better than nothing.

Sadly for him, he had to push through, since they were leaving today, and not the Inn, which was the easy part, but rather they were leaving the Great Harbor.

The compass pointed in a direction, and they had already gone deep into the city, so it was safe to say it was outside of it, and even if it was in another city, they still had to pass through the land between the cities.

From what he has learned from shadows and humans around this place, Stromfell was extremely dangerous, but only in the zones between cities, and really, for a city to be safe, it needs its own military; others won’t help.

They’re on their own.

Every civilization has its own rules and laws, fees and traditions, their theyr own kingdoms, surprising since you would expect them to be helping each other in these conditions, but it was completely the opposite.

Dragging Kade with him, they quickly left the Inn, well, not before Aether gave the receptionist a cold gaze for the money he had to give her to stay.

He never would have though he would be this type of person, who cared so much about money, after all, when he was a kid he had all the money he wanted, and when he lived in the Withered, he had Clarisse get it and spent it, and after she died, he used his earring to steal all he wanted, so he just kept them until he had something to buy.

But now, there are many things to buy, but not enough money, and more importantly, no way to make it.

But he did have a plan; resources from between cities are really valuable, so he planned on grabbing some and selling them in the city. It wasn’t something that was unique; a lot of people did the same thing, but it was the only thing he could do right now.

Aether kept the tired boy next to him with care, even holding him by his hand sometimes. His stamina is something they were going to have to improve, but that’s for another time… though, there was something he still wanted to do before leaving the city.

It was risky, but in his opinion, it was really important.

In front of a store, he signalled to Kade to stay there until he walked back.

Entering, he felt a weird sensation, as if he was being watched… and he was, as on the main counter, was an owl.

“Ah, a customer, how may I help you?”

Behind the counter was a man who seemed to be in his thirties, well-fed, with a pretty big bump in his belly, with a pair of binoculars in one eye.

“Yes, hello…”

The man approached the counter, patting his own with his hands.

“So, what do you want to buy, kid?”

’Right… the owl is distracting me.’

Taking out the bag from his pocket, he poured all the embers he had left on the table and gave the man a serious gaze.

“Is this enough for two sleeping bags?”

The man’s eyes widened as he started to count all the money carefully, before quickly picking them all up with a sweeping gesture.

“Two sleeping back coming right away…”

He knew that spending all their money in an instant was a bad idea, after all, if the next city had a fee like this one had, he couldn’t even get in to sell him stuff… but at the same time, he knew that they were going to need them.

After all, even if the distance between this city and the next is crossable in a day, not all will be, so it’s safer to have the sleeping bags with them, this way they could rest if anything happened.

With this stop done, their next stop was the border.

…

As they slowly made their way through the city, Aether noticed a massive steel gate in the distance, attached to two stone walls on both sides, that probably went across this whole place.

’Here we go.’

Aether walked up to one of the guards at the gate, and the guards noticing, instantly stopped him.

“Sorry, kid, if you want to leave, you have to put in a request some time before.”

Aether’s body suddenly stopped walking.

“What?”

The guard sighed.

“You heard me, the people who want to leave have to make a request at least two days before the day they leave… so you’re going to have to wait.”

Wait? How was he supposed to wait? He didn’t even have the money left, so how was he supposed to stay?

He was going to have to figure out something…

Yet before he could leave, a man called out to him.

“Hey, you guys want to come with us? We are preparing to leave right now.” He pointed behind him to a big cart attached to two horses. There were some other people inside.

“We plan on going to the next city, and you seem well-geared; you can come with us in exchange for protecting us if a monster attacked… what do you think, eh?”

Aether mumbled something under his breath.

He wanted to say no, after all, this was suspicious, but he couldn’t; he had no other option.

Glancing at Kade, he gestured for him to come with him.

This was probably some sort of trap.

But he was going to take the bait.

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