Two days after handing Owyn the note, Cassian was travelling with a group of five branch Crescents including Owyn and Jacob. Although he’d been reluctant to let the tag-along happen, Jacob knew he could at least help the process go smoother and so joined them.

  Curiously, the squad’s leader, Sylvan, was missing. Whether skipping out on missions was a habit of Sylvan’s, or he was particularly shaken by the blackmail, Cassian wasn’t sure. Whatever it was, it worked in his favour. Sylvan not being there to question his presence was one less loose end for him.

  The squad had been travelling on mounts for half the day with the sun blazing brightly overhead. The mining operation the squad needed to escort was located in a mountainous region somewhere north of the Moon Estate. For commoners, the journey would take many days even on horseback through well-worn roads.

  For the Adept-ranked Crescents of House Moon, the journey took only the lesser part of a day. That was in no small part thanks to the magic beast mounts all Crescents were provided with. These beasts were called Lesser Ragehounds, named after their similarity to their more ferocious counterpart, the Greater Ragehounds. Unlike their ravenous cousins, the Lesser Ragehounds were much smaller, around the size of a regular horse but shorter. Where they differed from normal horses was that their bodies were empowered by a magic organ, allowing them to move with unnatural speed for even more unnatural durations.

  Their loyal and mostly docile dispositions made them ideal mounts for mages who could handle their rough rides. Being Adepts, the Crescents and their superhuman bodies had no problem weathering the bumps and tosses of their speeding mounts, only pausing occasionally to feed them mana-rich foods for fuel. Cassian on the other hand was not having such a great time.

  He reminisced to his Master-ranked body, rebuilt from the ground up to cater towards his old Moon icon. Excruciating as the process of ranking up was, the moment it was done he felt reborn. His bones felt dense and strong, but also curiously weightless; his muscles flexed and crushed stone into sand; he lifted off the ground with weightless ease.

  Now, his body ached with sore spots all over as the Lesser Ragehound tossed him from left to right with no mercy. It was a struggle to even hold on to his ride at all and it wasn’t an exaggeration that he considered just letting go many times.

  The other Crescents were bemused, but wisely hid their smirks from the young scion. The only two not amused by their circumstances at all were Owyn and Jacob. Jacob stopped the squad more often than he usually did under the guise of feeding his mount, but it was plainly obvious who he was actually doing it for. Owyn on the other hand was still skeptical of the young scion. From Sylvan’s horror at reading the note, he knew that Cassian was telling the truth about his dirty secrets. But rather than assuaging his concerns, Owyn only found himself more suspicious of what else the young scion was hiding.

  As they stopped for the umpteenth time to let Jacob feed his curiously fat mount, Cassian took the precious chance to recover his spirits. The soreness invading his body felt bone-deep, and it would take more than just a few minutes rest to recover. Nevertheless, he relished every moment of the break.

  As the other Crescents chained their mounts to nearby trees and wandered off either in search of water or for scouting, Owyn approached Cassian.

  “Not doing too well, are you?”

  “I’ve been better.”

  “Maybe I was wrong to bring you along after all. If you can’t take-”

  “Do not.” Cassian felt a pang of anger rise up in him.

  Sensing that he was wading into murky waters, Owyn stopped short. “Apologies, young master.”

  The over-formal apology froze Cassian’s growing rage in its tracks. “No, you’re right to question my capabilities when I can’t even ride a goddamn lesser hound.”

  “I don’t imagine many people expect non-mages to be able to ride them, much less a child,” Jacob said as his mount gave another satisfied burp. “Which has me curious, young master. What do you get out of this tag-along? The binding ritual is less than a fortnight away, is risking your condition worth the menial experience you gain here?”

  Owyn silently gestured at Jacob to stop with the questions, but he admitted to himself that he was just as curious.

  Cassian sat up to stroke the back of his resting hound, which in term licked his face. “Now that we’re already here, I suppose I can tell you. I won’t be following you to escort the miners.”

  “You didn’t inform me of this before,” said Owyn.

  “No, I didn’t. You don’t need to worry about me. Escort the miners, secure the cargo and when you’re done, I’ll be right there waiting for you.”

  “What are you even going to do out here?”

  “Hunt a beast.”

  The two Crescents shared a look.

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  “I hope I’m not overstepping, young master, but you can barely hang onto a lesser hound. You aren’t a match for the magic beasts that roam around here.”

  “This entire deal is predicated on all of you knowing how unusual the circumstances are, and deciding to let me be here anyways. You need to stop thinking so hard about this.”

  “It’s hard not to,” Owyn finally spoke up. “If you die or disappear, that’ll be on us.”

  “No, it won’t. The only people who know I’m on this mission at all are the five of you. If I did die and you all know what’s best for you, you’d keep it under wraps. For all anyone else knows, I probably ran away from home again.”

  Jacob looked at Owyn, but found his squadmate unwilling to meet his gaze, instead staring blankly at his feet. After a moment of morose silence, Owyn left to join the others in their scouting.

  “If it were my choice, I’d stay behind to accompany you, but I can’t abandon my squad,” Jacob said.

  “You don’t seem to have much confidence in me.”

  Jacob sighed. “I have a younger brother your age. He’s a Starling too. Curse of our family to have talented children, I suppose. When I see you, I can’t stop seeing his face, and I worry.”

  Cassian listened silently.

  “I can’t convince you to change your mind?”

  “No.”

  Jacob nodded and called to his squad, ready to set out for the last time.

  Soon enough, they were speeding through the mountain forest again. Giant trees of various sizes, shapes and colour sped past them as their mounts pounded away. After 2 more hours of bone-breaking travel, Cassian and the team had arrived at the base of the mountain. They followed its path until they saw remnants of the mining operation; make-shift huts and magic equipment littered the ground.

  The entrance was set into a particularly rocky and barren wall of the mountain. Its cavity was large enough to fit a three-storey building, and Cassian had to crane his neck to see the full height of the entrance. He’d known House Moon engaged in all sorts of trades and governance, which included large-scale resource extraction operations, but he’d never personally seen any of them up close on account of his early separation from the house.

  From where they stood, the entrance was a massive hole of darkness reaching far into the side of the mountain with a slight downward descent into the ground. All manner of groans and bellows echoed from inside the cave like a broken church bell.

  Hearing their arrival, a foreman with a soot-stricken face emerged from one of the huts to greet them. Although marred by sweat and dirt, the rugged features of his face were still plain as day. The man resembled the many miners and commoners Cassian had come to know during his time outside the House. Stout, rugged and muscular, the foreman was no beauty, but he looked every bit the work horse that he was.

  “What’s the situation down there?” Jacob asked.

  “Our base of operation is still safe, my lord, but the journey there is ridden with magic beasts and rough terrain.”

  The foreman’s dignified speech did not surprise Cassian. To work for a noble house in a position as high as he had, the foreman had no doubt been properly educated and trained. Young nobles and their families would not deign themselves to work as lowly as mining, which left many of them avoiding icons beneficial to mining operations. The result was noble houses being forced to recruit and train up talented commoners who were willing to bind to the pickaxe or rock icons common for foremen.

  “I can navigate the terrain on my own, but protecting the men and the cargo against the beasts is beyond me,” the foreman continued before stopping to glance at Cassian. “I’m not terribly certain this is a safe expedition for a child so young.”

  “No need to worry, foreman. He will be staying here without us,” said Owyn.

  The foreman gave pause and sent another weary look at Cassian before relenting. There was no point in poking into the business of nobles as a commoner. “Very well, my lord. If we set off right away, we can be back by late morning.”

  It wasn’t long before the squad disappeared into the darkness of the cave. Cassian didn't stay to watch the little bulb of flame they carried with them gradually dim into nothing as they descended. Before they had made it ten steps into the cave, Jacob and Owyn realised the young master was already long gone.

  Now alone and unbothered, Cassian set forth into the dense forestry with his lesser hound, urging it to go slower. The reduced speed wasn’t only for Cassian’s still-aching body, it was also to give him ample time to send waves of mana out from his body. Branches tingled and dew droplets fell to the forest floor as his mana waves subtly brushed past his surroundings.

  The waves rippled out in concentric spheres before stopping short and shrinking back into Cassian. This kind of mana technique was extremely rare, and many times more advanced than most Unbound-rank mana techniques. Aria and her Vessel level understanding of magic had been the key factor in deciphering the technique from an ancient set of books they found off the continent. It involved sending out waves of mana consciously, allowing it to be altered by its environment, then reabsorbing it to understand the environment as a combination of all the alterations experienced by the wave.

  In his past life, the technique was a serviceable tool for gathering information from battlefields before Cassian fully grew into his icon. But once he’d manifested a proper scouting spell, the technique was not only slower and less precise in comparison, but also alerted enemy mages to his position.

  Reduced back to nothing but an Unbound, Cassian found himself relying on the technique again. Slowly but surely, Cassian and his mount creeped through the woods, unrelenting in their pursuit of his target.

  Occasionally, his senses shimmered against the edges of mana waves that smelled of magic beasts, and he promptly redirected his mount to avoid them. He was searching for something specific, stirring trouble with any other beast was unnecessary, and at his current rank, dangerous.

  ***

  The search continued deep into the night, with the moon rising into the center of the sky, showering the woods in its dim glow. Cassian felt the strain on his body. The injuries from the trial were already taking its toll on his young body, and the rough journey only made him worse for wear. Being unable to sleep after all that was simply torturous on him, both in mind and body.

  Still, he trudged on wearily until something brushed at the edges of his senses and his eyes snapped open.

  “Found you.”