The goodbyes were brief. Cassian told the old man everything he needed to, and the old man did the same, wasting few words on sentiments. It was fine that way.
Manes walked in and produced a heavy, dark-sheathed sword, offering it hilt-first.
"For your travels," the old man said, his voice as rough as gravel. "I doubt you'll find anything like it in a while. You'll need it."
Cassian took the weapon without hesitation. It was necessary. Had the old man not offered, Cassian would have asked for it anyway; he was heading into the unknown without a blade to his name, and this was probably the only reliable stop he would find for weeks.
The metal was cold through the grip, well-balanced and lethal.
As Cassian fastened the sheath to his belt, the old man turned to walk back toward the cabin.
"Don't neglect training."
"What?" Cassian turned to look at him, pausing on the edge of the dirt path.
"Your training," Manes said without stopping. "You'll meet people as you go. People who are stronger than you. If you keep using what you've learned, you'll be able to keep up. It'll be hard in the beginning, but eventually you'll get better."
"I hope so," Cassian muttered.
"I know so, boy," the old man called back, pausing to look over his shoulder. "You'll be fine. For what it's worth, you actually have the talent to keep up with all the other swordsmen out there…"
He paused to think
"Well, most of them at least… Okay maybe some"
"I get your point Manes"
"You'll do fine boy"
Cassian held the old man's gaze for a long moment, feeling a strange tightness in his chest.
"Okay. And you shouldn't burn down the kitchen when you try to cook."
A faint snort escaped the old man. "I managed fine before you came around, but thank you for the advice."
Cassian walked up to him. They shook hands once—a firm, rough grip that acknowledged everything unsaid—and Cassian turned away.
He started on his path, passing the treeline into the dense forest with the sword bumping steadily against his hip. As the trees closed in around him, filtering the sunlight into pale green ribbons, he found himself wondering how the old man would manage alone. It felt odd—wrong, almost—that he cared. He had grown attached to a stranger he had only known for a brief fragment of his life.
Cassian forced a sharp, bitter laugh and shook his head. There was no time for that anymore. He had to change. Starting now, he would don the mask of the betrayed. The mask of the man who had lost everything. And leave behind the foolish boy who cared about a lonely blacksmith.
He pulled a worn map from his coat, he traced the faded ink. Solmere.
It was a long journey. Dea had instructed him to go, even if she refused to explain why. He had nowhere else to go anyway.
The trek through the woods was quiet, broken only by the chatter of wildlife and the steady crunch of leaves beneath his boots. Eventually, the dense thicket thinned out, and Cassian popped his head out of the brush to find himself back on the main dirt road. The very road he had been running from days prior. The map was accurate. Now, he simply needed to keep heading south.
By the time the sun began to sink into the horizon, casting deep purple shadows across the dirt, Cassian pulled off the road and built a small fire beneath a rock. He sat with his knees drawn up, watching the wood crackle and burst into cinders under the moonlit sky while crickets chirped in the dark.
"Why Solmere?" Cassian asked aloud, his voice barely above a whisper.
Silence met his question, though her presence lingering at the edge of his mind.
"I'm not saying I won't go," he pressed, staring into the flames
"I'm just saying I wouldn't mind knowing why."
"If it won't change anything,then why. is it important?" Dea's voice echoed in his mind, smooth and distant
"I never said it wouldn't change anything," Cassian countered softly. "Infact, it could change everything. If I knew why I was going, I'd be more eager to move. Maybe I'd pick up the pace. Walk through the night if I had to."
A long, sigh resonated in his thoughts.
'You are going there to retrieve someone."
Cassian blinked. "Retrieve someone? Who?"
"Someone just like you."
"What?" He frowned, pulling his cloak tighter around his shoulders. "What does that mean?"
"She has a mark," Dea said. "One of the seven."
Cassian froze, his breath hitching in his throat. A mark like the ones described in the ancient text. "How do you know this?" he demanded, needing certainty. "How do I know you're not lying?"
"Did you forget that I am a Celestial being?"
"Between your whining and your nagging, can you blame me for forgetting?"
Dea scoffed softly, the sound vibrating behind his eyes.
"Which mark does she have?" Cassian asked.
"I don't know."
"You don't know, or you won't tell me?"
"You've become rather mouthy these days."
"Can you blame me?" Cassian muttered, stoking the fire with a dry stick. "It's your fault for leaving me with so many questions and giving me so few answers."
Silence settled over the camp again, heavy and tense.
"Why are we retrieving her?" Cassian asked, his mind racing. "Are they trying to have her killed too? Is making a move now even the right play?"
"All will be answered when you get there."
"All could be answered now if you tell me now."
"Go to sleep, Cassian."
Cassian let out a weary breath and leaned back against the cool rock, staring up at the stars. Someone just like him. Dea was probably exaggerating. She had a mark, that was where the resemblance ended.
What could she possibly have gone through? Would the temple try to kill her too?
The unanswered questions circled endlessly in his head as a night breeze whistled softly across his face.
He closed his eyes, forcing the curiosity down, letting the quiet take over. He didn't know what to expect in Solmere, but he knew one thing for certain: whoever she was, she better not become a hindrance or he would leave her behind.