The next day started exactly as we had planned it. A nice change for once. We got up early, dragged our feet and in one case crutches down the stairs and ate as much breakfast as possible because, honestly, the food was delicious and no one liked travel rations. James had brought out something he called coffee and was supposed to wake one up. At first I had eyed the brown (of all colors) liquid with careful interest and the first try was truly horrible, I almost spit out the bitter brew, on top of that I burned my tongue too.

I knew James said hot, but who could have thought that he actually meant, freshly brewed in hell hot?

But with a bit of sugar and milk it suddenly tasted good and we probably drained James' complete stock of the beans- Yes you heard right beans, apparently we had drunken the bean juice or something. The only negative side effect was that I became strangely alert and restless. A good thing that we were about to move anyway.

I was not the only one who suffered from what James' called caffeine shock. I had given up at this point to understand the complex secrets that was the coffee bean. Tino had transformed into a hyper active whirlwind who just wouldn't shut up and blinked with a rate of at least ten times per second. I had to look away after a while or else I feared I would start power blinking too.

Apparently Francis and Arthur were familiar with the beverage and had only drunken a moderate amount, which really I wished I had too. At least the effect on Berwald and Mathias was marginal. Emil on the other hand was busy with staring in the distance and stating very obvious facts. 'The sun has risen', 'it is cloudy' and my all time favorite 'you're not Emil' when Mathias tried to get his attention to help him on his horse.

Under other circumstances I wouldn't have thought as funny but in my caffeine inebriated state I had to laugh so hard that I almost fell from my horse.

I would never again drink coffee.

Or at least in this amount, the consequences were disastrous.

We had gotten new horses that David had brought with him when he came with the soldiers. I missed Ariadne already since my new horse was a mean spirited animal that tried to bite me the first time I came near its mouth. Mathias claimed he only wanted to get my smell but I wouldn't be fooled by that monster. It had evil eyes and I was sure he would eat me the moment I let my guard down. Needless to say the first few hours of the ride were exhausting since I tried to keep a look on my horse and at the same time wanted to see as much of the surroundings as possible.

But really that wasn't my fault; everything just seemed so bright and nice and was generally nice to look at.

Oh god, no more coffee.

David had returned to his scouting duties and wouldn't return with us but he had promised that Jan was just as capable of protecting us. Well Jan and the ridiculous amount of soldiers he had with him. Aside from my caffeine antics there was nothing really much noticeable at this first day of our journey and really I would have preferred if that had been forgotten too but I feared that would never happen.

The goodbye had been teary eyed but since we were all apparently men we didn't allow any tears to fall and instead settled on trading manly hugs that weren't allowed to last longer than a quarter second. Maybe I remembered that wrong, who could really say.

I came down eventually from the coffee and used about ten minutes to be embarrassed about what I had done before I decided that it was not worth it. It could have been worse. Better not let Emil know that though.

But damn that coffee had been delicious and hyper activity aside it had successfully chased away the tiredness. I just needed to get the dose right. Or maybe I should have simply listened to James when he told me that it would be better that I stopped.

We took a rest around noon to eat something and more importantly move our stiff bodies to get rid of some of the soreness. I was already looking forward to the end of the journey because blistered thighs were no fun at all.

The rest day went in a similar manner, well without the hyper activity of course and I spent a lot of time with talking to my various friends. I had never really used the opportunity to just ask questions and get to know them so I was making good on that. And in return I told them what they wanted to know, with omitting a few parts, not because I didn't trust them but because I didn't want to talk about it in the middle of a bunch of soldiers. There were things that not everyone needed to know. Not even Mathias knew the story of my birth and I had decided a long time ago that I'd rather wanted the world to believe that Emil's father was my true father. He could as well have been, since he had loved both Emil and me equally.

I didn't feel overly sad anymore about his death, too much time had passed. That seemed maybe cruel but after the death of our mother I had to rearrange my priorities and mourning had to be moved to the back of my list. I still was sad about my mother but even that pain had mostly faded. I had come to realize that she had been unhappy with her life since the day her husband died and that she had only carried on because of us. Essentially that had caused her to waste away and at least now she was reunited with her lover in heaven. If it hadn't been for us she would have followed him soon after his death.

I hadn't understood this before; it took Mathias for me to realize that it was possible to love one person so much that love without them was unbearable. However selfish that seemed.

The day closed without much noteworthy to happen, we were too tired to do much besides eat and build the camp so everyone just sort of fell asleep. Aside from those unlucky ones who had to do guard duty, but that burden entirely fell on the soldier's duty. They would have even built our tents for us but neither of us was the type to just sit while they got served. The only one who didn't lift a hand in camp building was Francis but that was because he insisted on helping with cooking, predictable turning into him doing most of the cooking while he sent the soldier designated cook on errands for him.

All in all a well functioning arrangement.

A few days passed like this, and I couldn't really say that that was a bad thing. It was nice for a change that things went smoothly without attacks, accidents or any other form of danger. But the more time went without anything happening the higher rose my paranoia. I was so used to having my peace disturbed, especially while we were on the road that I didn't trust the silence. Mathias tried to calm my worries and I managed to relax enough to enjoy the journey. It also helped that we had a small army with us, no wood bandits would attack us and the Orushian main army was somewhere behind us, preparing to face off our main army. Or something like that. I wasn't too interested in military details, but I had caught on to enough from the portions of conversations between Jan and Mathias I had listened to. The both of them seemed to have become rather good friends and eventually Jan had warmed up to the non noble parts of our group.

Ludwig and Jan got along rather well too, and at some point Jan even allowed Ludwig, Eli and Roderich to carry arms as an addition to his men. It was a bit surprising really, considering that Jan had openly distrusted Ludwig at first. Well, we were humans and humans can change their minds.

Eventually when we neared the capital my paranoia subsided, nothing had happened so far and it was highly unlikely that something would happen on the rest of the way. I could get used to this.

We reached the capital on a sunny day. It had been cloudy the last days, it kept threatening snow but the clouds had held on to their burden until the wind carried them off to unload somewhere else. The weather was unusual nice for this time of the year but I was the last one who would complain.

It was midday and we had shared the road with a lot of other people since the sun had risen. Traveling was usually quite during winter but not so close to the country's heart. Most people had kept a distance to us though. Not a surprise, we were a rather intimidating party after all.

As we neared the city gates, here a long trek of people waited to be granted admittance, but apparently we were not just anyone and so Jan barked a few commands, causing his men to fall into formation and he led us right past the masses to an annoyed looking guard who just loathed to be here and having to deal with us. I couldn't really blame him, I would be pissed too if there was a group of our site coming right at my gate, probably thinking that size equaled special treatment. At least he looked like he was thinking something along those lines.

He was not the only one unhappy, the people we had passed by shot us irritated glances and I could hear more than one muttering angrily to his neighbor in line. At least one thing seemed to be a constant, that we would always have trouble with guards.

Joy.

Fortunately this time we had authority with us and not only coin that spoke for us. Jan raised his hand a few meters away from the guards who had assembled around their leader, looking equally pissed and at least a bit intimidated too. I only half listened to the exchange, I was sure it was interesting but since I was somewhere in the middle of the party it was kind of hard to understand the details. Instead I took the time glace up at the city wall that rose high into the air above me. On the top I could make out a few moving helmets, most likely attached to other guards who patrolled the wall crown.

Outside of the walls there was a large field of pale grass and no tree nor boulder to take shelter behind. I could make out a camp in the distance, where many tents were raised and people swarmed between the makeshift houses. Banners flew in the wind, but I was too far away to distinguish any colors, not that I would have known that they meant anyway. This had to be the army the King was raising. It was smaller than I had expected but then again a part was already on the move.

Jan gave another signal, apparently he had convinced the guards to let us through and we started moving again. I didn't miss the disgruntled looks we were getting for being allowed in even though we had arrived last. Oh the merits of a wealth and power.

The first thing that struck me once past the gates was the smell. It smelled a bit like the city where we had met Francis and Arthur, only ten times worse. It smelled like human waste and rotting corpses and all things I usually didn't like to think about. The streets were full of people, swarming about this way and that, despite the cold of the winter day.

The city was bigger than anything I had ever seen but aside from the sheer size it was frighteningly similar to the first city I had seen. There were poor people and rich people, there was dirt any beauty side to side and over all hung the smell only humanity could produce when stuffed all in one small space. Suddenly I missed the countryside where I had been born, the peace of the landscape, the cleanness of air and over all the silence.

In a city like this it was never quiet, even at night there were people outside and it was even worse during the day. I closed off my ears against the constant buzzing of human speech, the sound of thousand footsteps on cobbled stones and the simple noise of living. After the long time we had spent in the peace of James' inn I wasn't used to being in the middle of so many people. Jan's men had been well behaved and mostly silent so this was a little like the shock of jumping into cold water.

At some point Mathias started to explain things on the way, pointing at various buildings or streets and telling stories of his childhood. I tuned in to him because it was way better than the wild noise around us and of course it was rather interesting. With every meter we advanced farther into the bowels of the city Mathias grew more and more excited as if he was recalling fond memories of his past that were triggered by familiar landmarks. Funny though, he hadn't even been away for more than a few months. But that was just him, being excited about the smallest things and pulling everyone with him.

I soaked up the information because this was going to be my new home and I better start to like it soon. And as we ventured up the low hill that the city was built upon the smell subsided and even the noise eased up as we entered the better parts of the city, where the people with money resided and Mathias' father obviously.

Buildings were larger here, surrounded by fences or hedges more than often and as we progressed the premises around each building grew in time with the quality of the building material. We were riding along a white marble wall that was so smooth that I could drag my fingers across the surface without bumping into an obstacle.

The merits of wealth indeed.

Many houses were guarded by men in prim uniforms, sporting different colors depending on the house they belonged to and they eyed us with suspicion but as soon as they saw Jan they saluted. He seemingly was well known among the household guards. The palace was at the top of the hill, a grand building, blazing in white and gold and there was another wall raised around the building. Flags waved from the two palace towers most likely embroidered with the King's sigil.

The house that seemed to be our destination was surprisingly simple and yet it was still showing off enough wealth to intimidate every visitor. At least every visitor who was not from this part of the city. There was no wall around the perimeters, only a neatly trimmed hedge but I could see the top of a silver fence poking out of the evergreen plants. That could be a nasty surprise for anyone who thought hedges were easy to cross.

The gate was open and flanked by two bored looking guards who just shot Jan a glance and waved us through. Talk about working morale. Jan made another gesture and his men saluted once before wheeling around their horses and making their way down the hill again. Their duty was done, only Jan remained to lead us the last few meters to the front door.

Mathias was grinning by now and he urged on his horse to pass the last few meters and I was sure for a second that he wanted to vault down from his horse but he didn't. Mathias leg was mostly healed but he still needed help to dismount from his horse, a fact he accepted much more cheerfully than I had at first when I had still required help.

Two stable boys appeared out of nowhere and helped us getting off our horses; they would stay here for a while before Jan returned them to where he got them from in the first place. It was a bit awkward for a moment because no one really knew what Ludwig's plan was but Mathias decided that they could stay for a few nights until they had news on Gilbert. I doubted his father would like that but I wisely kept quiet. I was a stranger here and so were Emil, Arthur and Francis, neither of us was used to so much wealth. Truly it was a bit overwhelming.

The main door had opened in the meantime and a servant was standing there, bowing to Mathias and after a short moment of hesitation also bowed to the rest of us before he bid us to follow him. Mathias wobbled up the stairs and entered first, already talking to the servant and making wild gestures with the one hand that was not holding on to the cane he was now using instead of the crutches.

It was almost a bit surreal. We were all dirty and tired from our journey, clothes full of dust and not ready yet to comprehend what was going on and out of nowhere popped up a bunch of other servants, all meticulously dressed in the same uniform and guided us with friendly forcefulness into the deep parts of the house. I didn't even have time to protest before I was ushered into a room with white doors and the most lavish interior I had ever laid eyes on.

The door closed behind me and I was alone.

Great.

Really, just leave me here without telling me what was expected from me, you know that is the way to treat guests. I sighed and rubbed the bridge of my nose in slight irritation. Since there was nothing better to do I slumped down on the giant bed that even had curtains and closed my eyes. I didn't care that I got dust and worse on the clean white sheets; it was their own fault for leaving me alone.

And where the hell was Mathias?