Chapter 170 — He Came Back

Chapter 170: Chapter 170 — He Came Back

Two Years Ago

For several seconds, Nikolai could do nothing but stare.

There were too many of them.

He counted six before movement farther between the trees made him stop trying, dark cloaks appearing one after another until the trail ahead seemed to belong entirely to them.

They had entered the Run grounds somehow, crossed the academy boundary without raising an alarm and cut off the signals before anyone outside this section noticed.

None of that should have been possible, yet before Nikolai could make sense of it, he felt Jaden’s grip around his arm loosen.

He glanced over and immediately knew something had changed.

Jaden was no longer looking at the Moonless insignia or the figures blocking the trail. His attention had shifted past them, fixed on something deeper in the forest, and whatever he saw there slowly emptied the expression from his face.

"No."

The word came out so quietly Nikolai almost missed it.

Jaden took one step forward.

"No."

"Jaden?"

"No, no, no..."

Nikolai followed his gaze.

At first, he could not tell what Jaden was staring at. The hooded figures blocked most of the trail ahead, and beyond them there was only the uneven forest floor, broken by roots, fallen leaves and patches of shadow.

Then Nikolai noticed an arm.

Someone was lying on the ground behind them.

His gaze shifted farther and found another person several feet away, then another beyond that.

Bodies.

They were scattered through the trees beyond the Moonless Court.

He recognized one of them.

The girl they had passed earlier on the Prymont route.

She lay facedown several yards beyond the nearest Moonless wolf, one arm stretched awkwardly in front of her. The same academy band she had been wearing earlier was still tied around her sleeve.

Nikolai’s stomach tightened as his gaze moved from one body to the next.

He recognized another face almost immediately—Jaden’s older relative from Hale.

Then another.

And another.

Everywhere he looked, the same realization waited for him.

Arden.

They were all Ardens.

"Jaden."

For a second, Jaden did not seem to hear him. He stood staring at the bodies ahead, his breathing growing uneven, then took one unsteady step forward.

Another followed.

By the time Nikolai realised what he was doing, Jaden was already walking toward them.

One of the hooded figures shifted aside as he approached, and Nikolai tensed, expecting the attack to come the moment Jaden entered reach.

It never did.

The man simply let him pass.

So did the next.

Jaden did not seem to notice. His attention never left the bodies beyond them as he moved through the opening they had made for him.

Nikolai should have followed.

He knew that immediately.

Move.

His body refused.

Something had locked around his chest so tightly that even breathing felt wrong. His eyes moved and his mind understood what he was looking at, but his legs remained planted where they were.

Jaden reached the nearest body and nearly tripped over his own feet.

His gaze moved frantically across the people scattered around him, searching face after face until it suddenly stopped.

Several feet away, a man lay on his side among the leaves.

Jaden went completely still.

"Dad?"

Nikolai’s breath caught.

He knew Alpha Arden by sight. Anyone raised around the Great Houses did.

But the Alpha of House Arden had no reason to be here.

This was a student competition inside Valerius grounds. House leaders did not wander into the middle of the Four-Wing Run, and there was no reason Alpha Arden should have been anywhere near this part of the forest.

Yet there he was.

Jaden crossed the remaining distance so quickly he nearly fell beside him.

"Dad."

He dropped to his knees and grabbed his father’s shoulder.

There was no response.

Jaden shook him once.

"Dad."

Harder this time.

"Dad, wake up."

Nothing.

His hands moved frantically, first to his father’s neck and then his chest, as though he might find something there that everyone else had somehow missed.

Nikolai watched Jaden’s fingers begin to shake.

"No. No, come on."

Jaden looked around.

That only made it worse.

His family was everywhere.

One of his siblings lay only a few feet away. Another relative had fallen near the base of a tree. Blood darkened the ground beneath several bodies and streaked the leaves where someone had clearly tried to crawl before they stopped moving.

Jaden’s face crumpled.

The sound that left him barely sounded human.

He bent over his father, one hand still gripping the front of the man’s clothes while the other pressed uselessly against his chest.

"Why are you here?"

His voice broke.

"Why the fuck are you here?"

No one answered.

Jaden bowed his head, shoulders shaking now, and Nikolai finally saw the tears falling from his face.

He had known Jaden most of his life. He had seen him injured, furious, humiliated and once so drunk he had spent half an hour arguing with a wall because he thought somebody was standing behind it.

Nikolai had never seen him cry.

Not once.

Until now.

One of the Moonless wolves shifted nearby.

Jaden heard it.

Slowly, he raised his head.

The grief remained on his face, but something underneath it had changed.

Essence began pushing out around him, little more than pressure at first, enough to stir the leaves around his knees. Then it strengthened.

The Ascendant aura rolled outward hard enough that the closest hooded figure took an involuntary step back.

Jaden slowly released his father’s clothes and pushed himself to his feet.

Tears still tracked down his face as his hands curled into fists at his sides.

"I’ll kill you."

Nobody moved.

Jaden looked across the people surrounding them, his chest rising and falling too quickly.

His voice rose with the next words.

"I’ll fucking kill every one of you!!!"

A cough came from the ground.

Jaden froze.

So did Nikolai.

The sound came again, wet and weak.

Jaden turned so quickly that the aura around him shuddered.

One of the Ardens lying behind his father had moved.

Barely.

Jaden dropped beside them at once.

"Hey."

The injured wolf struggled for breath.

Jaden slid one hand behind their shoulders and carefully lifted them from the ground.

"I’m here. I’m here."

Their eyes opened slightly and found Jaden.

"Run."

Jaden’s expression changed.

"What?"

"Run."

The word was barely more than air.

Jaden shook his head at once. "I’m not leaving you."

The dying Arden’s hand caught weakly at the front of his uniform and pulled him closer.

Nikolai saw their lips move.

He heard nothing.

Whatever they whispered lasted only a few seconds, but Jaden’s expression changed as he listened. His breathing stilled, and something sharper than grief entered his eyes.

Fear.

Understanding.

Something Nikolai could not read from where he stood.

Then the hand gripping Jaden’s uniform loosened.

Jaden looked down.

The Arden in his arms had stopped breathing.

He remained there for another moment before carefully lowering them back to the ground.

When he stood again, his attention moved across the forest as though he were suddenly seeing the clearing differently.

That was when he noticed the opening.

There was enough space between two Moonless wolves to reach the old boundary path beyond them. Nothing stood between Jaden and the trees.

He could run.

Jaden turned toward it.

For one second, Nikolai thought he would take it.

Maybe he should have.

Jaden took a step before stopping.

Slowly, he looked back.

At Nikolai.

Two Moonless wolves stood between them now, with more spread across the trail behind him.

Jaden could still run.

He knew that.

Nikolai knew it too.

But leaving meant leaving Nikolai behind.

Years of training together.

Fighting together.

Growing up together.

Every stupid argument, every competition Nikolai had taken too seriously while Jaden laughed at him for it.

Jaden looked toward the open path one last time.

Then he swore.

"Fuck."

He turned around.

And came back for him.

The first Moonless wolf barely had time to raise his arms before Jaden hit him hard enough to take both of them off their feet. He drove the man into the ground, twisted away before the second attacker reached him and caught the incoming strike against an essence-covered forearm before driving his elbow into the man’s throat.

The attacker folded.

Jaden kept moving.

Another came from his left.

Jaden ducked beneath the blade, caught the man’s wrist and drove him into one of the trees before wrenching the weapon free.

The next wolf took that same blade across the chest.

For the first time, the circle around Nikolai broke.

"Jaden."

He heard himself say the name in a whisper.

Nothing else followed.

His body still would not move.

Jaden fought through another attacker, then another.

He was not charging blindly.

Even furious, even half-broken by what he had just seen, he was still Jaden. He moved around the worst of the numbers, used the trees to keep them from surrounding him properly and forced each fight into the smallest space he could manage.

He was Ascendant, and grief had not made him careless.

When one of the attackers lunged too far, Jaden caught the man’s wrist before the blade could reach him, twisted sharply and tore the weapon from his hand. He drove the stolen blade into another attacker almost immediately, then turned back on its original owner and put him on the ground before either man had properly understood what had happened.

The fight shifted around him.

Another hooded figure rushed in from the side, and Jaden turned the attack away hard enough to send both of them stumbling into the roots of a tree.

The man’s hood tore loose in the struggle.

Nikolai saw his face.

Recognition made even less sense than everything else happening around him.

He knew him.

Not personally, but he had seen the boy around Valerius often enough to recognize him now. He was not Hale, and Nikolai could not remember which Wing he belonged to, but there was no mistaking the academy uniform visible beneath the torn cloak.

A Valerius student.

Before Nikolai could process that, another cloak split open farther along the trail.

There was a uniform beneath that one too.

Not Valerius.

The cut was different, and the insignia stitched near the collar belonged to an academy Nikolai did not recognize.

His attention moved rapidly across the people surrounding them, noticing details the identical dark cloaks had hidden before.

They were young.

Most of them were young enough to be students, with different colours and different crests hidden beneath the same Moonless insignia.

Only one man seemed out of place among them.

He stood several paces behind the others, older and broader than the rest, watching the fight without joining it.

Nikolai knew without being told that he was the one in charge.

Jaden never looked at him.

He was still forcing his way toward Nikolai when a blade caught him across the side.

Nikolai flinched as though he had felt it himself.

Jaden barely slowed. He caught the attacker’s arm before the weapon could be pulled free, drove his forehead into the man’s face and tore himself away from the blade.

Blood spread quickly across the side of his uniform, but after one staggering step he recovered and kept coming.

"Nik!"

Something inside Nikolai finally shifted.

His fingers moved.

Barely.

It was almost nothing, but Jaden saw it.

For one brief second, relief broke through the rage and grief on his face.

He was close now.

Only three people stood between them.

Jaden dropped the first with a strike that folded the man at the waist, then used his falling body to block the second long enough to slip around him.

Two became one.

Nikolai forced his legs to move.

This time they answered.

He managed one step.

That was when someone Jaden had knocked down earlier pushed himself back to his feet behind him.

Nikolai saw the blade rise.

"Jaden!"

Jaden started to turn.

Too late.

The weapon drove into his back.

Whatever had been holding Nikolai in place shattered.

He was already moving when the attacker ripped the blade free and Jaden stumbled forward.

Somehow, Jaden was still standing.

He spun around with a broken sound and struck the wolf behind him hard enough to send him crashing into the roots of a tree. By the time he turned back, Nikolai was already running toward him.

There were only a few feet between them now.

Jaden tried to close the distance, but before he could take more than a step, another attacker came in from his right.

Nikolai saw the blade too late.

It drove beneath Jaden’s ribs.

Jaden stopped where he stood, his mouth opening around a breath that never became a sound. The attacker ripped the weapon free, and his body swayed as blood spread rapidly across his side.

Still, his eyes searched for Nikolai.

They found him almost immediately.

"Nik..."

Nikolai was nearly there when Jaden’s knees finally gave out.

He reached for him, but Jaden collapsed before his hands could close around him, hitting the ground with barely a few feet left between them.

Something inside Nikolai tore open.

He would remember that much afterward. Not exactly pain, and not anything he would ever be able to explain properly. It felt more like something that had been stretched too tightly inside him finally snapping all at once.

His wolf surged with it.

Essence exploded outward so violently that the nearest attackers staggered beneath the sudden pressure.

Someone shouted Nikolai’s name.

Another voice shouted something else.

One word cut through everything.

"Dominant."