When Leonard left to follow Alysia and the woman with her, I stayed at the academy and waited for a while.

I didn’t need to rush.

I had plenty of time.

As long as everything happened the way I had in my mind, there would be no problems, and that was the important thing.

And… that the person I was looking for would show up just before I started to put the plan into action.

I raised my arm, checked the time.

Fifteen minutes had passed, even though he had said he would be right away. For some reason… he was late. It should have taken him a maximum of five minutes to get from the training building to where I was.

Still, I didn’t mind. I lowered my arm, held my cane between my hands, and kept waiting.

And, finally…

“Aiden! Sorry I’m a little late…”

I turned my head slightly behind me, in the direction of the voice.

His lips were slightly curled upward. His silver hair was slightly disheveled as if he hadn’t bothered to wash or tidy it after training and had just come straight here. His emerald-green eyes were the same as always, sparkling with confidence. He was wearing casual clothes.

“No problem.”

He took his eyes off me after that and turned them to the bench where I was sitting.

Yes… the bench where our friendship began.

Without opening his mouth, he slowly approached and sat down next to me. He neither sighed nor opened his mouth for a while as he turned his eyes to the view the bench had.

Still… it didn’t last forever.

“Why… did you call me here? It seems like something important has happened.”

He paused after what he had said, a look on his face as if he was angry with himself.

“Though… something important has happened, yes. I’m sorry… If you wanted to talk about it, about ’that’ or anything else… I’d be happy to do so, Aiden.”

I didn’t turn my eyes to him, I turned them to the landscape, just like him.

“It’s not about me, Adrian.”

He opened his mouth to say something, but I continued without letting him speak.

“It’s you.”

Suddenly stiffening where he was, the mouth he had opened to speak remained that way for a while. Then, he swallowed and closed it, turning his eyes to me.

“What?”

There was a look of surprise and curiosity on his face, and rightly so.

He had done almost nothing lately, except train, after all.

It was impossible for him to have made a mistake or something like that…

There was no way anything could have happened that concerned him.

And it hadn’t.

“Listen carefully to what I have to say, Adrian. Because this is really important for you.”

I turned slowly toward him, narrowing my eyes slightly.

I could see the nervousness in his face. He didn’t understand what was happening… and I didn’t expect him to.

“Your parents… you vaguely remember them, right?”

And with this, his expression changed in an instant. All the nervousness, the confusion, the curiosity… all of that and more disappeared in an instant.

First, his eyes squinted slightly, then his lips straightened and his expression fell.

“Yes. I sometimes forget their faces, even.”

“And… do you know who their families were too, why they were hiding in that forest… and why they were killed?”

His expression became more serious with each word that came out of my mouth.

He had a look that seemed to burn through everything he looked at with his eyes after my question.

“I’m sure I didn’t tell you… that we live in a forest.”

He was right.

He didn’t.

Whenever he talked about his childhood, it was often not about the time he lived with his parents, but about the streets he was forced to live on after their deaths.

But that was not the topic.

“I know who your family is, Adrian.”

I breathed slightly into my lungs and continued.

“I know why they were killed.”

Again, he opened his mouth to speak, but I wasn’t finished yet.

“I also know… that your grandfather on your father’s side is still alive and that you actually have an older sister.”

And that was the last straw.

Adrian suddenly stood up.

His breathing was ragged, his emerald green eyes widening and narrowing.

He didn’t stay next to me any longer. He moved in front of me, right between me and the view, and looked at me with an expression of confusion and… anger on his face.

“This… this is no joking matter, Aiden.”

He was trying to collect his thoughts. He didn’t seem… stable.

“But I know you wouldn’t lie to me, I know you wouldn’t make a joke like that.”

He opened his mouth, then paused. He had just swallowed his words when he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. After a short time… he managed to regain some composure.

“I don’t know… where you learned what you said, but…”

His expression looked more serious than ever.

He was firm, this time.

Not puzzled, curious, or confused.

“Please… tell me everything you know.”

He trusted me.

He thought everything I would say would be true.

And he was right.

“First of all… follow me. We’re going somewhere. And forgive me, you’ll have to wait… a long time before you learn the truth. Probably until midnight.”

“I don’t care.”

I stretched slightly and stood up, supported by my cane.

“Then follow me. First… there’s somewhere I want you to go.”

As I made my way toward the nearest gate… Adrian stood for a while in front of the bench. He didn’t move, he couldn’t move, even though he was aware that I was getting further and further away from him.

But then he clenched his fist, his teeth.

His eyes filled with resolve again as he took his first step.

He started to follow me.

*******

My family…

What I knew about them was literally close to zero.

Except their names and their looks, at least.

Ethil Caleo and Sophia Caleo.

Nothing more than that.

So… the moment Aiden told me that he knew something about them, all my thoughts went blank.

And then to say that I have a… grandfather and an older sister who are still alive?

I had to try so hard to collect my thoughts, to calm myself down… that I could hardly contain myself.

And yet I did it.

Aiden wasn’t my enemy, he was my ally.

Friend.

He had no reason to lie to me, especially about something like this.

So… he had to have a reason.

That’s why I decided to listen to him completely, not to question him.

When we left the academy, I said nothing.

When we got into a car, I said nothing.

Even when we traveled for almost… hours, I didn’t say a word.

I waited.

I waited…

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I kept waiting.

At the end of about four hours… we passed a farm. A farm where the car slowed down a bit for the first time as we drove pretty fast until now.

There didn’t seem to be anything special about it. It was just an ordinary farm where ordinary people worked.

And Aiden didn’t stop next to this farm, he just kept going.

Only after a short while he stopped the car, got out without saying anything, and looked at me, waiting for me to do the same.

I did, I walked next to him and waited for him to say something… what his next move would be.

But he didn’t. The car just left us there and drove off. And Aiden took a device out of his pocket and put it in the air.

It glowed with a blue glow, creating an invisible barrier around us. Then it turned to dust and disappeared.

“We’re moving on. And don’t worry, we’ll start talking soon.”

He just walked into the forest. Without saying anything, he went deeper into it.

After ten minutes of walking, he stopped in front of a certain tree. He dug into the soil under the tree with the foot of his cane, and uncovered a… button.

He took out another device from his pocket and threw it on the button.

Sparks flew from the button and the device, followed by smoke. But Aiden ignored it and pressed the button with his cane.

The tree in front of us suddenly began to tremble. And, soon, not only that, but also the ground beneath our feet.

As I tried to comprehend what was happening… the earth slowly began to move, to move to the side. Layer by layer, the whole soil moved aside as if to reveal a secret path.

This continued until it finally reached a metal lid. And when the ground stopped trembling, the metal lid opened to reveal a staircase leading to the ground.

“This…”

It… actually was a secret path.

“We’re continuing.”

Aiden was not surprised, did not react in any way. He went straight into the darkness as he descended the stairs.

We stepped into a cold corridor, well below the floor. It was quite dark, though there were places with dim lights.

And… there were a few people who seemed to be working in these corridors.

Although, rather…

Elves.

None of them were looking at us. They were all… acting as if they couldn’t see us.

Or they really couldn’t.

I continued to follow Aiden, choosing not to speak.

And, after almost twenty minutes of just walking… we reached the end of this cold and dark corridor.

There was a stone staircase leading upward.

Aiden used this staircase too.

Together, we went even higher up than we had come down from the ground. And at the end… what we reached was another hatch.

Aiden once again took out a device from his pocket, which I didn’t know what it was, and threw it at the hatch.

Sparks came out of the hatch, just like the button before. But this one lasted longer…

The process must have been successful, though, because when the sparks stopped, the hatch opened wide.

Aiden walked in more slowly than he usually did.

We came out through a wall, and the moment we entered, the hatch in the wall closed back, completely disappearing.

I don’t know why, I couldn’t stop swallowing. I started to examine the room.

It looked like an… office. It was extremely cold, for some reason. And although it was quite large, it was dark because it was dimly lit. There were luxurious-looking things everywhere. Armchairs, cabinets, even paintings that seemed to take up almost all of the walls…

Although I had been silent and patient until now, I finally succumbed to the curiosity that had been building up inside me. I didn’t try too hard to suppress it this time, since it seemed like our goal was to get here in the first place.

“What… exactly is this place?”

Aiden sat down in the chair at the table, not caring whose it was.

Maybe it was… his?

What were the chances that this place… belonged to him?

He turned his gray eyes on me, silent for a moment as he stared at me with a blank expression.

But then…

“This is your grandfather’s personal office, Adrian.”

My grandfather’s… office?

“And where this office is located… is his manor.”

I paused at what I heard, my brow furrowing and my eyes squinting.

“Manor…?”

Aiden leaned back in his chair, taking his eyes off me and looking around.

“Welcome to Laute Manor, Adrian.”

My eyes widened slightly, and I swallowed the words I was about to say.

In my mind… only one thought appeared, after what I had just heard.

“What the hell is Laute?”

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