The week before Sir Aeron finally felt ready to head back to the Barracks he was informed that “his guest” was waiting for him in the games room. Confused, expecting no visitors today, he enters to find a gaunt woman sitting at the chessboard. Her hair matted, and in patches missing, showing grey scalp beneath. A pale bruise covered the back of her withered hand as she set up the board. Even after she spoke, Aeron barely remembered his old friend-turned-tool.
Afterwards, he sent a runner to check her grave and it was exactly how it should be. Well entombed and undistrubed. The runner’s boats were the first to disturb the dust there in decades – the grave of an old bishop’s wife, nearly thirty years after her death, was forgotten.
Between feeling the warmth of Lady Morelli, staying in his childhood home, and now hearing the meloncholy promise of his murder, something might have changed with Sir Aeron. Maybe.
He returned to his new home to cheers of joy from the Fourth Company. They had many stories to fill him in on. The extravaganza of Hunts they’d done without him. Their macabre enthusiasm called his malevolance to the for once again, and he tried to put his home stay behind him. The holiday for his soul was over.
His character wasn’t tested again a few weeks later, when a name he recognised was pulled from the Hunt Hat.
It’s not like Everet Bening is a particularly important person to Aeron. But…
Aeron couldn’t make a case for the man. What was he supposed to tell his bloodthirsty brothers and sisters? That he’d met a woman and she’d probably not like it if her friend was eaten. No. The Fourth Company was heartless. Aeron knew that. He knew it when he tasted the Dust and felt their hearts as if he shared them.
His men all pledged loyalty. But after so many decades, the pledge sounded routine. They were all strong. Some of them stronger than him, Aeron was sure. Especially of late, when he’d fed only in uncontrolled bursts – but not in the way he used to. Not for some time. Would these men and women follow him, if he needed them to? Now wasn’t the time to figure that out, he decided, worried about the answer.
So Everet was moved to the cabin that Aeron had built recently near the Dust farm.
It was isolated but infinitely better than being holed up in hell. The hunt for him continues though, and it likely would never end until one of them finds him.
Some luck in the hunt for Taleb and the girl (now a full, grown woman, of course) that had entered into cahoots with him.
Amandla was found with anti-Company propaganda that looked to have been written by Taleb, or one of his followers. Frustratingly, it seemed that a number of people now whispered about Taleb and the Krishna girl.
The rest of the Fourth know of it, and hunt them down as if playing cops and robbers, but there’s something worrying Aeron about it. He’s kept this Amandla girl safe, away from the eyes of the Fourth as they’ll surely just off her.
The unusual thing though is that his method of information gathering is quite subdued. He’s not hurt the girl. Everet has been instructed to feed her and make sure she’s well. What the heck is Aeron playing at?
