Chapter 91: Chapter 91: Honesty
The morning road stretched before them like a ribbon of dust and memory, the sun still climbing slow and gold behind the hills. The nobles rode cushioned in their lacquered carriage, its wheels turning with a steady groan upon the stones, while silken curtains swayed to shield delicate faces from the glare.
Perfume drifted faintly from within—powdered rose, amber oils, and that faint undertone of wine that clung to Augustus wherever he went.
But behind luxury always came weight.
The soldiers marched on foot, armour clattering, banners snapping faintly in the morning breeze. And among them, riding with a posture half-born of pride, half-forced by necessity, was Aiden.
His horse was not the finest beast—no barded charger or sleek-bred courser like those of the veteran knights—but a sturdy farm-trained mare, chestnut hide gleaming with sweat. Yet the creature obeyed him with the ease of familiarity, and Aiden felt a faint flicker of gratitude.
Riding was not new to him. Back on his grandmother’s farmland, the fields wide and unbroken, he had ridden bareback at dusk while the world smelled of earth and grain. The memory slipped across his mind now, a faint whisper of a life that was gone.
He shifted in the saddle, the leather creaking beneath him, his gauntleted hands tight on the reins. To his left and right, the line of knights stretched—steel glimmering, shields etched with heraldry. Crest after crest, sigil after sigil: stags, ravens, wolves, and lions. Each one a house. Each one a story. And each one, potentially, an enemy.
He felt their eyes before he saw them.
Luna and Flora. From the small window slit of the carriage, they turned, stealing glances. The faintest smile ghosted across Luna’s lips, her gaze lingering. Flora’s eyes, by contrast, carried worry—her stare sharp as a mother’s, protective, almost chastising.
Aiden, are you well? Her look seemed to say it without words.
It was absurd. He was not a child. He was no fragile ward to be pitied. Yet that gaze—it pierced him deeper than any blade. His chest tightened, then burned. He fought to school his face into calm, but inside, something twisted.
"They look at me as if I am some boy lost in the woods," he thought bitterly, keeping his chin high beneath the shadow of his helm. "Do they not see? Do they not know that I have already begun to outgrow their pity?"
And still, against his will, warmth stirred in him at the thought they cared at all.
Around him, envy smoldered.
He was one of three chosen to be knighted from Augustus’s fief. At his side rode the son of an earl—face sharp, eyes bright with contempt barely veiled—and the son of a baron, smaller but no less bitter. Their glares were not subtle; they burned like torches in the morning light. Aiden could feel them like arrows across his back.
They hate me because Augustus himself presented me, he thought. Because his badge rests on my armour, because I ride with his favour. Because I—of no noble birth—stand among them, equal, perhaps more than equal.
He shifted his shoulders slightly, the etched sigils catching the sun—the crest of House Leonidus, and beneath it, the ancient knot of House Merlin. Weight heavier than steel rested there. He felt their envy sharpen at the sight. Good. Let them choke on it.
Yet it was not only the young who watched him.
The heavy knights—the true iron of the march—rode near, armour not merely steel but reinforced with mineral alloy that caught the sun like dull stone. They were men of breadth and bulk, scarred veterans whose silence weighed more than words. And as fate would have it, one such man edged his mount closer to Aiden.
Aiden’s lips curved faintly. Here comes the entrance. Can they not keep their envy quiet? Must they stride forward like mid-bosses in some tale, demanding notice?
The knight’s shadow fell over him. The man’s armour bore both the leonine crest of Wessex and the standard of Leonidus. Old lines, heavy with legacy.
"Boy," the man said, voice low, weathered, not mocking but direct.
Aiden drew a breath, forcing composure. He turned, smile carved into place. "Yes, sir knight? How may I help you?"
Beneath the man’s helm, aged eyes glinted, deep and weary. They carried the weight Aiden had seen in only a few—Augustus himself, Catherine, and now this one. Eyes that had marched across battlefields, seen comrades die, seen victories turn to ash. This was no jealous whelp. This was a veteran.
The knight’s voice carried hesitation, but no malice. "I only wished to ask... how you came to stand here, to be raised by Lord Augustus. Considering your... background." His tone faltered, then steadied. "And your current strength."
Not scorn. Curiosity. Honest, heavy curiosity.
Aiden’s smirk softened into something more genuine. This one, he could respect.
"And your name, sir?" Aiden asked carefully.
"Sir John," the man answered.
Aiden almost laughed. How many Johns must this land contain? But he swallowed it down, branding this one in his mind as Big John.
"Sir John," Aiden repeated with a nod. "Then I will tell you the truth."
He let his voice carry, let it brush against the ears of the men marching nearby. He wanted them to hear. He wanted them to wonder.
"In truth," he said, steady, "I did not reach this path by strength, nor by skill, nor by talent. Not even by the humility that shines in honourable knights such as yourself."
Murmurs stirred faintly behind him. Aiden ignored them.
"No," he continued, smiling faintly. "I reached knighthood through this." He tapped his lips with a gauntleted finger.
"The mouth?" someone muttered.
"Yes," Aiden said clearly, turning his head so more could hear. "I was fortunate enough to be literate in English. Fortunate enough to learn how nobles speak. Not merely their words, but their language. The one that says one thing and means another. The tongue of masks and daggers."
He let the silence stretch. Knights shifted in their saddles. Veterans exchanged glances.
"You know it," Aiden pressed, his tone almost conspiratorial. "Every one of you has endured it. The orders dressed in velvet, the lies wrapped in silk. Nobles speak with two mouths, and they demand that we listen with blind ears. I chose not to be blind."
A faint ripple of nods moved through the riders. Resentment softened into recognition.
"Bold words," one of the older knights called from behind, voice rough as gravel. "So you admit—you did not earn your place with honour."
"No," Aiden said without hesitation. His voice rang like steel. "I lied. I deceived. I drummed my way forward. I am not an honourable knight, nor will I pretend to be one."
The words cut sharp, deliberate. He spoke not with shame but with the audacity of truth wielded like a blade. The trick, he knew, was never to confess in weakness. Always in strength. Boldness unsettled judgment; confidence confused condemnation.
A beat of silence—then Big John laughed, deep and genuine. "Hah! You are a strange one."
Aiden shrugged with a grin. "I get that a lot."
From the rear, another voice piped up, younger, sharp-edged. The son of a baron. His armour gleamed, too polished, too perfect, as if to mask the boy rattling inside it.
"Sir—I mean, Aiden, was it?" the youth called, pushing his horse closer. His tone held not weight but arrogance, that peculiar immaturity of those who had never bled. "I am Leonard, son of Baron Leonard."
Aiden looked at him once, and at once he saw it: the scrawny boy beneath the steel, drowning in his own arrogance.
The boy smiled, falsely magnanimous. "I have heard Lord Augustus himself speak of your... talent."
Here it comes, Aiden thought.
"I also heard," Leonard continued, "that the engagement between Lady Flora and Sir Gail has been annulled."
Aiden’s grip on the reins tightened. A warning flickered in his chest. Don’t. Don’t you dare.
"So I wished to ask, as one close to the lord himself..." Leonard’s grin widened. "Is Lady Flora available for another marriage? Under certain... conditions?"
The words fell like acid.
For a heartbeat, time fractured. Aiden’s vision narrowed, red creeping at the edges. His ember stirred hot, climbing, biting. He imagined snapping the boy’s neck, imagined steel parting flesh, imagined blood spilling into the dust.
His breath hitched. His jaw clenched so hard it ached.
Now I have to kill you, he thought, the words coiling like venom in his skull. Now, or later. But kill you, I will.
And though he smiled faintly, no one who looked at his eyes could mistake the truth.
"...die."