Oath of Steel

22 |A Different View|

"You still walk at dawn?" Grey didn't stop at Nathaniel's amused question coming from behind him. Instead he kept on walking, savoring the quiet that'd just been broken.

"Don't you have eyes?"

"One would think that after five years you would have grown out of this time consuming pastime." The two now walked side-by-side, eyeing their surroundings with an innate predatory gaze.

"One would think that wisdom too comes with time, but here you stand and talk like the idiot I met five years ago," Grey finished with a coy smile, watching his assistant's amused smile drop to the ground.

Nothing was spoken between them as they walked around the common green of the High Strands, passing fountains carved out of singular blocks of marble and benched crafted from the finest wood bended by the most skilled crafter.

The mist started subsiding as the distant sun arose atop of the high buildings of the High Strands, trapping everything in an ethereal sliver moment of eternity. A canvas of once dull colors filled his eyes with remains of ancient stars captivated his gaze, keeping his eyes ensnared until the burning star raised itself completely over the rooftops of the buildings.

"Still not used to the snow and the cold?" Nathaniel asked a while later, when they continued their walk.

"I'll never get used to it," honesty laced itself between his words. He found it fascinating, how water could turn something seemingly so virtuous, and at the same time into something so misleading.

White in the appearance, red at the core.

"To what?" Nathaniel's furrowed eyebrows made Grey chuckle lightly, dimples showing as hot air clashed against the frigid morning air.

"Both."

He would have never gotten used to the splendor of the plains covered in white, of when the oaks shedded their ethereal leaves for the silent winter to spread its long and lucid fingers in between their branches.

Such beauty did not exist in his homeland, a land where blooms of the rarest were considered trivial trinkets to fill their homes, where the cold season had never set roots.

Nathaniel hummed in reply, periodically looking behind his broad shoulders hidden by a navy blue coat, his dark eyes narrowing at every small sound, at every singular movement his eyes could land on. A squirrel rushed down the brined meadow, his pawprints arranging an irregular work of art.

"Any news from the Seekers?"

The wind changed direction, the treetops surrounding their path started shaking violently the pines freeing themselves from under the slumber the empire had fallen into

Nathaniel rubbed his hands to fight off the cold, warming them with curt warm breaths. All excuses in a poor attempt to stall as much as possible the conversation.

"Have you gone deaf now?" Their walk was coming to an end, the heavy iron gates demarcating the end of the park.

"They don't want to get involved," An ungovernable phantom laugh broke the air, Grey's figure bending as if struggling to breathe in air, both hands on his knees trying to not make him tumble to the ground.

A lie. And Nathaniel, still knowing about his ability, had lied to his face.

He touched his assistant's cheek gently, hand cradling his cold cheek before forcefully grabbing his chin, tugging it forward before squeezing it tight - the color draining from Gaunt's already pale face.

"You dare lie to me, Nathaniel?" Grey seethed, voice dropping below zero, making the other realize his blunder a second too late.

Nathaniel contracted his jaw, veins coming forward as Grey kept him in place, his gray eyes pinning Nathaniel's dark ones on spot.