Arion's tone, when he spoke again, was as mild as a country breeze—but with steel beneath the softness.
"Oh, I think you understand well enough."
A flicker passed over Cedrik's brow. "Do I?"
"My leg," Arion replied, "has not the strength for long walks. I would prefer to remain here. You may see what you wish, and we shall reunite after. I trust you'll find your way without incident."
Cedrik gave a sharp, short laugh.
"You're a poor host," he said, his tone descending like a hammer. "But I suppose I can't expect refinement from peasant stock."
Arion raised an eyebrow, as if considering a curious insect.
"A poor host?" he echoed, with the gentle disappointment of a tutor addressing a dull pupil. "My dear Cedrik, I am being exceedingly generous."
"Generous?" Cedrik scoffed. "Is that what you call neglect?"
"I call it freedom," said Arion. "Freedom to do precisely what your father sent you here for. To observe. To report. To take careful notes on all the little things your spies missed."
That struck. Cedrik's mouth thinned. Had Arion guessed the truth—or had he merely played the odds and won?
"You presume too much."
"Do I?" Arion's gaze did not flinch. "Seems living in the capital hasn't sharpened your wit."
Cedrik's eyes narrowed. Whether it was because Arion had seen through his mission—or because he'd insulted him outright—he didn't know. But either way, Cedrik wasn't going to let it pass.
Cedrik's jaw clenched. "Where," he said, almost too quietly, "does your arrogance come from? Your father's fading name? Your child's delusion that House Aren still matters? Or are you truly so empty-headed that you believe you matter at all?"
A long silence followed. Arion regarded him not with rage, nor even disdain, but with something colder: disinterest. As if Cedrik were a passing noise, a thing to be endured.
And still Cedrik pushed.
"Ah," murmured Cedrik, leaning in as if to offer a confidant's kindness, though his breath carried no warmth. "Did I strike a nerve?"
He gave a soft laugh—dry, humourless, the sound a man might make at a funeral for someone he disliked.
"Your father, at least, is a man who earns a grudging nod, even from his enemies. But you..."
He paused, as if considering whether the next words were worth the effort.
"You are something else entirely. You're an abomination. In our house, we'd have taken you at the moment of your birth, before your first cry could shame the name, and we'd have drowned you in the nearby river and called it mercy. And truly, it would have been."
He drew even closer, until Arion could see the fine tension in his jaw, the cruel light dancing in his eyes.
"But perhaps mercy was never yours to receive. Perhaps you remain because your mother whispers still into the dark. Perhaps she bargains, nightly, with the spawn of the void—exchanging prayers for your breath, dreams for your heart's continued beating."
He smiled then—a soft, dreadful thing.
There it was.
No mask now. No pretense of diplomacy or duty.
Cedrik had not come merely as a guest, nor even as a spy. He had come to see the infamous 'child of darkness'—the rumored demon spawn of House Aren.
Stories had said Arion bore fangs, horns, and black eyes like coals. A monster in a child's form.
He had expected a monster.
But what Cedrik found was worse: someone ordinary, with no monstrous deformity to hate. Just a calm, cold boy who looked at him like he was the strange one.
Cedrik hated that most of all.
He hated Arion's poise, his quiet voice, his veiled intelligence. He hated the way Arion didn't acknowledge his superiority—not once.
He hated Arion.
Arion finally spoke again, voice gentle, almost melancholic.
"Seems your father came to ask for my help."
Cedrik recoiled as if struck. "What help," he sneered, "could we want from you, you bastard?"