Chapter 3 A Night Walk

The power and status of the Frostmoon family made it even more strange why and how his mother died without any sort of retaliation, his father went silent all of a sudden, forgetting all about the strange man like that incident never happened.

But it had actually happened and his mother was still dead, after several years he had thought deeply about it and came to the same conclusion as any other person would come to.

"It must've been one of the other three families, father going silent about it meant he made some sort of deal with them but that doesn't mean I'll also let it go." He muttered with clenched fists, as for the accuracy of his suspicion? Even he wasn't sure of it but that was all he could hold on to, baseless accusations.

'Either ways, even if it's actually one of the three other families there's nothing I can do about it, I'm just the son of a concubine I don't even have the rights to the control of the family or the main assets I can only dream of revenge but if, if I ever get the chance to I'll dig out the truth myself.' he thought, preparing to return to the mansion, it had already been over two hours and it was getting late.

If he didn't return in time Silas might actually set the forest on fire, besides that he didn't have the intention to disobey Silas's words, he had been with Nathan ever since he was young, comforting him and training him after the loss of his mother and held a certain level of control over him.

Turning around, he strolled down the narrow path leading back to the mansion when he suddenly froze in place.

Creek~~

'What was that?' He thought, his muscles frozen in place, straining himself to listen to the rapid steps coming from the narrow pathway.

"Hurry up Alex, we need to leave the city as soon as possible, we can't afford to risk getting caught." A voice came along the path, followed by the rapid echo of footsteps marching along the forest.

'This area is usually deserted, no one should show up here after it has been claimed by the Frostmoon family.' Nathan thought, he slowly stepped away from the pathway then hid behind a tree.

The steps gradually became louder as they approached the tree where Nathan was hiding.

'About three of them are rushing over here and it seems like they are running from something, or running towards something, I don't get it.' Filled with curiosity he decided to take a slight peek at the fleeing party, a decision that changed his life forever.

Three men were running along the path, the three wore light grey clothes with tiny black stripes marked on it, two of them were running bare handed while the third had a young girl in her teens slumped over his shoulder.

"Why can't we just kill her? That would make things a lot easier, getting out of Stormguard city without getting tracked down would be a lot harder with her here." One of the men said with apparent frustration.

"The bounty to bring her back alive is over ten times higher than just killing her, I hope you know what that means, we'll just finish this then forget all about being mercenaries and go into hiding for a few years with the money from the bounty." The man called Alex who had the teen slung over his shoulder replied then sped up.

"Huff-- once we're out of the cit---" the man ahead said then suddenly froze on the spot, his eyes darting around.

"What's wrong Aeric?"

"Someone's here, I can feel it." He replied then walked over to the tree where Nathan was hiding with slow measured steps.

"Come out from there, whoever you are. Don't make this hard for me or we'll be having a very long discussion together." Aeric said in a slow voice making Nathan's heart thump rapidly in fear and trepidation.

'He found me, I didn't give off any signs. How did he manage to figure it out?' Nathan thought while pulling out a short dagger from his pocket, a safety measure he made sure to always keep with him after several warnings from Silas.

Dashing away from the tree he clenched his right fist and punched at Aeric who ducked to dodge it, taking advantage of the opening Nathan ran along the pathway back to the villa in an attempt to get away from the scene.

"Son of a--"

"Let him be, he's not going anywhere." Alex said in a calm tone, alerting Nathan who glanced upwards to find another man running up along the path, the two met point blank with no other way for him to run.

'There's only him ahead but there are three others behind, I would rather go ahead than turn back to face the unknown with those three.' he thought then pulled out his knife which emitted a cold gleam in the dark night, its sharp edges screaming for blood as Nathan ran forward, his face filled with madness.

Clang!

A sound similar to that of metal hitting each other resounded upon contact with the man, Nathan's eyes opened wide in shock.

Eyes trembling, his mind wandered towards the only reasonable explanation for his current situation.

"A genetic warrior? That guy earlier was able to detect me easily also, you all are not humans are you?"

"Well what do you think?" The man said, wriggled the knife out of Nathan's hand then pulled and hurled him over his shoulder.

"Don't kill him Jack!" Aeric said while rushing over, he collected the dagger from Jack and pointed towards a crest which had the semblance of an eagle surrounded by light crackles of lightning with wings spread.

"The heir of the Frostmoon family resides nearby it seems we hit the jackpot, I bet the Frostmoon family will pay a nice sum of money to retrieve their third son." He said with a wide grin plastered across his face.

"You wish for us to blackmail the Frostmoon family? What if we get caught? If they get pushed back to a desperate situation the lords could create something akin to a disaster that would affect everyone on Aetherion!"

"We won't go that far, just poke a little and collect the ransom then vanish from the face of the world."

'A bunch of criminals, how did I even get myself into this?'