NOVEL NEXT Chapter 106: To a new beginning.
"Anybody else?" he asked, his voice rough, caught between challenge and jest.
Flora was the first to answer. Her breath came fast, her eyes burning with a hunger that went beyond mere desire. "…There is no need for anybody else." She leaned closer, each step a deliberate trespass into the fragile space between them.
"Our moms are already married, so just marry us both." Her words carried more weight than her years, pressing into Aiden with a need sharper than steel.
Aiden's chest tightened. The room felt smaller, the air hotter. He thought of the countless nights his blade had struck sparks against steel in lonely training halls, yet none of those battles left him as unsteady as this moment.
"Wait a minute, what's up with that? I also love Aiden, this isn't fair…" Catherine's voice cracked through the air, edged with both indignation and fear.
Her hand clenched the sheets as if anchoring herself to the present. "You both are young and the same age as Aiden, that doesn't mean you can hog him…" Her voice rose, a note of desperation hidden beneath her anger.
Her plea cut deeper than intended. Catherine, always proud, always the center of gravity in every gathering, sounded small now. That smallness frightened Aiden more than her fury ever could.
She turned her eyes on him, glassy with expectation. "Aiden, tell these kids you won't abandon us. Tell them you won't abandon me. I am your favorite after all." Her voice trembled at the end — a crack, almost inaudible, but it pierced him like a needle.
Sabrina did not let the silence stretch. Her presence carried the scent of rose oil and the weight of maturity.
She leaned into him, pressing her ample chest against his. "Indeed," she murmured, her voice low, silk wrapping around steel, "your father doesn't know our value. Aiden does. He knows us — knows me — inside out."
Aiden's throat tightened. Four voices, four truths, four demands. All colliding into him, all demanding a crown he wasn't sure he deserved.
They looked at him now not as girls or women, not as nobles or mothers, but as seekers staring into a single flame in the dark. They wanted belonging. They wanted certainty. They wanted him.
The easy path would have been words — hollow reassurances, soft comforts, the kind a bard would spin into pretty lies. But these women were not tavern maids.
They were noble-born, sharpened by duty and expectation. Words alone would be seen for what they were: smoke.
And so Aiden's silence thickened, stretched taut like the pause before a sword is drawn.
Why did Luna even bring up that topic… His thought burned hot. It was always her — the one who slipped questions into the night like daggers, forcing the truth to bleed.
"Eventually…" Aiden said at last.
The word hung in the air like an axe suspended on a fraying rope.
"Eventually what?" Flora's voice pressed.
"Yes, be more clear…" Catherine demanded.
"We want straight answers," Sabrina added, her tone deceptively calm.
Aiden pushed himself upright, the sheets whispering away from his skin. The room felt colder suddenly, though sweat clung to his back. He met their eyes one by one, his chest rising and falling with the rhythm of a soldier before battle.
"Eventually," he said, his voice low but steady, "when I reach the summit, I will cradle you all with me…" His throat tightened, his chest aching with the weight of confession. "I still don't deserve you all. Not yet. Not truly."
Catherine parted her lips, her protest rushing forward. "No, I—"
But Aiden silenced her with a hand raised, his gesture as firm as any command on the battlefield.
"Listen to me first." His eyes flicked between them, golden in the candlelight, glowing with a fire barely caged. "You all will be mine — in soul, in paper, in name — when I reach the summit. Until then, have patience."
The word "patience" struck them differently — Flora's lips trembled, Catherine's brow furrowed, Sabrina's gaze softened even as her chest pressed harder against his arm. They wanted certainty now, not later. Yet his voice held the weight of inevitability.
Sabrina moved first, stepping forward, her hand brushing his jaw, her breath warm against his skin. "Aiden… what summit? Where is your goal? How long do you mean to make us wa—"
His finger pressed against her lips, stilling the question before it was born. "I said patience," he whispered. "I will share more… eventually. Until then…" He pulled Flora and Catherine by the waist, their bodies colliding with startled gasps, the mother and daughter set side by side before him.
"…enjoy this. Enjoy me. Because you won't be able to taste me again for a while." His voice carried both promise and farewell.
Their silence was heavy, their eyes wide, their breaths caught in their throats. In that moment, he was not a boy among them — he was a storm they longed to be lost within, even as he threatened to drift beyond their reach.
.
.
.
The next day
The morning rose pale and unforgiving, the sunlight a blade cutting through the last vestiges of warmth.
Aiden's body still carried the memory of their touch, their breaths, their pleas. Yet as he dressed in his knight's garb, the weight of duty pressed heavier than flesh.
The time had come. No more silk sheets, no more whispered confessions. The world of steel and blood called.
As a new knight, he was sent to the garrison — the military heart of Leonidus. A place carved by centuries of conquest, echoing with the ghosts of battles long past. The empire's quartered strength pulsed there: the soldiers of two dukes, three viscounts, four earls, and eight barons. An army not of men alone but of legacy, ambition, and power.
The garrison lay half a day's ride from the Leonidus palace, nestled between the capital's grandeur and the plain towns beyond. It stood like a fortress of iron, vast and sprawling, its walls etched with the scars of training and war. The air itself smelled of oil, leather, and sharpened steel.
Aiden's horse snorted as it stopped before the gates. Dust clung to his boots, and weariness gnawed at his muscles. At his side rode the son of an Earl, his armor polished brighter than his smile. On his other, Big John, grumbling as ever.
"Finally," John bellowed, rubbing his rear as though it had been flayed, "the long journey to the Leonidas house and then to the dukes. My arse may never forgive me. Utter torture!" He spat into the dirt, then leaned closer. "Aiden, let me give you a warning. This is now the turf of the two earls and the four barons. Augustus is not here…"
Aiden reached out, tapping his friend's broad back. He tossed a golden coin toward him, the glint catching the morning sun. "I don't need him, Big John," he said, his tone sharp as drawn steel. "I have myself. That's all I need."
He nudged his horse forward — but before he could cross the threshold, a shadow blocked his way. Their commander, the Bloody Knight, strode ahead, his presence a wall of disdain. With deliberate force, he shoved Aiden aside, his armored shoulder knocking Aiden from his horse.
The ground rushed up. Pain shot through Aiden's arm as he landed, dust exploding around him. Laughter rippled from the watching knights, harsh and cutting. Rage flared hot, but he forced it down. This was not his ground to claim — not yet. If he struck back now, they wouldn't kill him; they'd break him slowly, grind him beneath cruelty disguised as camaraderie.
Patience. Again that cursed word.
Aethal, the Earl's son, hurried over, offering a hand. "That shithead doesn't like you, it seems," he muttered, hauling Aiden upright.
Aiden brushed dust from his tunic, jaw tight. "What did I do? He should be indebted to me. Augustus gave him fifty gold coins because of me."
"Well, he's a scumbag, through and through," Aethal said. "That's how he rose. But you… you attract attention, Aiden. Too much. Like at the ceremony — more than half the women were looking at you." He laughed bitterly, shaking his head. "Maybe he got jealous. Hell, even I got jealous."
The knights around them strode past, their laughter still sharp, their eyes full of mockery. Aiden didn't bow, didn't break. Instead, a smile curved his lips — not of joy, but of inevitability.
This was only a stepping stone. They didn't know. They couldn't know. Augustus had given him power in secret — authority to root out corruption, to judge the rot festering beneath the banners. And with that power, Aiden held the final say.
"Just watch, Aethal," Aiden whispered, his voice carrying the weight of thunder yet to fall.
"Watch what?"
Aiden's eyes burned, gold flickering like fire trapped in flesh. "Watch as they all beg…" He paused, letting the silence hang, letting the world lean in to hear the rest.
"…beg for their measly fucking lives."