Chapter 44: A Successful Heist

Kaelen didn’t wait for the Baron’s answer. He drew his blade, the silver steel singing as it cleared the scabbard. “Someone’s on the balcony.”

The Baron fumbled with the vial, his toad mask tilting in confusion. “Impossible. The Ivory-Quartz would have alerted—”

The French doors didn’t swing open. They simply ceased to be closed.

A gust of cold night air flooded the room, extinguishing the candles on the Baron’s desk. In the sudden gloom, the only light came from the moon and the faint, toxic-violet glow of the Fox Mask standing in the doorway.

Kaelen’s heart did a slow, painful somersault. He recognized that posture. He recognized the way the air seemed to “thin out” around the figure.

“You…” Kaelen’s voice cracked, the memory of a sewer-boot in his mouth flashing across his mind so clearly the taste returned.

Aden stepped into the room, his movements jagged, echoing the Minor Glitch he was using to keep his presence stuttering in the Baron’s scanners. He didn’t look at Kaelen. He looked at the vial in the Baron’s trembling hand.

“That’s a very pretty toy, Baron,” Aden said, his voice distorted by the mask into a metallic, gravelly rasp. “It would be a shame if your heart rate spiked and turned it into acid.”

The Baron gasped, his pulse leaping. The vial began to hiss as the Bio-Sonic lock detected his panic.

“K-Kaelen! Kill him!” the Baron shrieked.

But Kaelen didn’t move. He stood frozen, his sword trembling. He was looking at Aden’s silver hair, then back to the mask.

“If you scream,” Aden whispered, turning his gaze toward his brother, “I’ll tell the Princess exactly what your breath tasted like tonight, Brother.”

Kaelen’s face went from pale to ghostly white. The word Brother was a lie, he knew this and should have taken it as a provocation, but the mention of the Princess threw his mind into disarray.

“H–how dare you! Do you know who you’re talking to?!” Kaelen screamed in an effort to hide his shaken state.

A jagged laughter sounded as Aden took two steps forward. “I hear you’re a Redwyn, but from what I heard, they’re supposed to be powerful, no?”

Kaelen clenched his teeth. His grip tightened on his sword, but he didn’t take a step forward.

“Kaelen!” the Baron screamed again, his voice cracking with a high-pitched terror that made the golden liquid in the vial bubble violently. “What are you doing? Strike him down!”

Aden didn’t move. He stood in the center of the room, a jagged silhouette of void and shadow, his fox mask tilted mockingly toward his brother. He could practically see the gears grinding in Kaelen’s head—the paralyzing fear that if he fought, this ’demon’ would spill his humiliating secret to Elara, and if he didn’t, he was a traitor.

“The Baron is a bit loud, isn’t he?” Aden rasped, his metallic voice scraping against the walls. “And he’s shaking. If he keeps shaking, that ’Essence’ becomes a puddle of poison. We wouldn’t want that, would we, Lord Redwyn?”

Kaelen’s grip on his sword slipped. A single bead of sweat rolled down his temple. “What… what do you want?”

“I want you to be a good friend to the Baron,” Aden said, his eyes glowing with a malicious violet light. “Take the vial from him. Carefully. Before his heart gives out and ruins my dinner plans.”

“Kaelen, no!” the Baron shrieked, backing away toward the obsidian desk. “He’s a ghost! A thief! Guards—!”

In a flash of movement too fast for the human eye, Aden Glitch-stepped.

He appeared directly in front of the Baron, his hand wrapping around the man’s throat not to crush it, but to vibrate it. The Minor Glitch hummed through the Baron’s vocal cords, rendering him incapable of producing anything louder than a wet wheeze.

“Don’t interrupt the adults when they’re talking,” Aden whispered into the toad mask.

He turned his gaze back to Kaelen, who was watching with a mixture of horror and awe.

“Well? The Baron is too stressed to hold such a delicate thing. Take it. If you do, I might forget the wetness of your throat. If you don’t… I think the Princess is still awake in the West Wing, isn’t she?”

Kaelen’s heart skipped as the weight of boackmail weighed on him. He looked at the gasping Baron, then at the vial—the very thing he was supposed to be protecting.

With trembling hands, Kaelen stepped forward. He reached out and pried the hissing vial from the Baron’s limp fingers. The Bio-Sonic lock recognized a Redwyn’s signature and didn’t harmonize, but it didn’t incinerate either. It went silent.

“Good boy,” Aden mocked. “Now, hand it over.”

Kaelen stood there, the stolen treasure in his palm, his soul feeling like it was being dragged through the mud.

The feeling of being an accomplice to the very man who was responsible for humiliating him, left a bitter taste in his mouth, but there was nothing he could do.

As he handed the vial to Aden, their fingers brushed. For a second, Kaelen felt the sheer, cold wrongness of Aden’s energy, and his eyes met the slits of the fox mask.

’That’s not Resonance,’ he realized with wide eyes.

“Who are you?” Kaelen whispered, his voice broken.

Aden took the vial, tucked it into his storage ring, and let go of the Baron’s throat.

“You’re too weak to understand my existence,” Aden replied.

He stepped back toward the balcony, the night wind whipping his silver-white bun. He looked at the broken, shamed figure of his brother and the unconscious, wheezing Baron.

“Thanks for the ’donation’ to the Redwyn house, Brother. I’ll be sure to spend it wisely.”

With a final, jagged flicker of purple light, Aden vanished into the darkness, leaving Kaelen alone in a room full of silence and the smell of his own cowardice.

Aden landed silently on the fence he climbed to get to the balcony of the Baron. His feet glided on the fence as he ran to the southern side of the Manor.

The party was already coming to a close as the first ray of sunlight cast it’s bright shadows.

The guards on night duty were going in to take their rest and their posts immediately replaced by the bright eyed guards.

Aden tip toed past them, his eyes closely watching their body language from the roofs.

Making sure they didn’t sense his presence, he took large strides forward and eventually jumped over the large gate that led out of the Manor.

The drunken snores of the guests as they were hauled into their carriages by their attendants caused Aden to frown.

’All drunken nobles send their citizens to ruin.’

Aden fixed the fox mask and ran into the cover of the bushes while munching hungrily on a succulent piece of meat. The demon mask poster with the bounty clearly written above occasionally blurred past him and he internally noted the increase in their numbers.

’Good thing they didn’t get my hair colour. I just have to stay under the radar for a bit and it’ll all blow away.’

Aden smiled wryly under the fox mask. ’Who am i kidding?’

He knew Elara wouldn’t give up on finding him, not after she came this far. Immediately she was done with the Purification Ceremony that would happen today, all her time would be dedicated to finding him.

’Can’t she just play some video games to alleviate her boredom?’ Aden whined.

Sliding on the water under a bridge, Aden decided to meet Horen to see how the Essence could be multiplied to reach all the citizens.

But all of a sudden, his head throbbed so hard he thought it was going to explode. His heart hammered wildly against his heart and he lost control of his speed.

He fell and crashed against the ground multiple times before colliding with a tree.

A groan left his lips as he stood up and bent his back. The mud that attached themselves to his cloth refused to leave no matter how much he cleaned them with his palms.

He tossed the cracked mask to the side with an annoyed expression and brought out the gold vial.

The Void energy within him vibrated violently. A painful hunger welled within him, sending waves of dizziness through his head.

“What in the world?”

Blinking his eyes multiple times, he laid on the dividing ground with his back while staring at the vial.

“Is it attracted to the essence?” He mumbled. “How greedy…”

He could feel his insides twist unnervingly at the selfish request of the energy. He tried sending a surge of Resonance to surpress the urge, but it was the same as sending a drop of water inside an empty well.

“…I guess I have no choice.”

He sat up with a twisted expression and placed the vial between his legs. His hands moved to uncork the vial, but a sudden fluctuation in the environment forced him to place it back into his storage ring.

His eyes narrowed dangerously as he fumbled with the mask he’d once discarded.

The pangs of internal hunger circulated through every fibre of his being, but he was forced awake by his instincts.

“Come out. I know you’re there.”

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