Chapter 105 Return

In the end, Aion decided to do his research by himself and wait until the opportunity arose to get some relics, but his father never visited his territory in the next months. Around the port of his territory was finished, Aion was already twelve, and Henri's marriage ceremony was only two weeks away.

"Sorry, mom… but to avoid that from happening again, I guess you should come with me," Aion said. "I can leave the guards behind, but if they are keeping an eye on you, they will eventually find a breach to capture you."

"Yes… it can't be helped," Artemisia said. "If it is only for a few weeks, then I will be fine. Your father and the others might find it troublesome if you bring those three with us, though."

Aion looked at the Articirius… they were grown in the last year enough to make them look like giant cats. They weren't of the size of the scarlet tigers, but most people would still fear them. Still, Aion won't be able to stay with his mother all the time, so he has to find a way to keep them with her.

"I will find a way to solve this problem," Aion said.

They began to prepare for the trip, and to make their stay in the capital as short as possible, Aion decided to depart only ten days before the ceremony. Honestly, Aion wasn't in the mood for that kind of event, but it would be complicated to miss that and then go to the marriages of his other brothers.

In any case, since the attack, Artemisia spent most of her time lost in thought, probably thinking about depressing things. The trip only made her more sullen. Before, she asked Aion every day to go look for a girlfriend, but it had been a while since she did that.

As one would expect, not many people were waiting for them in the capital. Even though Aion was wearing that same armor in which he used to win the tournament, few people recognized him. People really do have short memories… even though that was convenient for Aion. Still, Aion found the other members of his family in the garden and they received him in a good mood. It was hard for everyone to meet like that… in any case, Henri wasn't around, he probably would be too busy in the next few days.

"Come on… you are three years younger… how come you are as tall as me already?" Georges asked and then sighed before offering a handshake.

"You probably aren't sleeping enough," Aion said.

Aion was already 1.7 meters tall. He was at least fifteen centimeters taller than he was at the same age on Earth. While he was growing taller, his muscles still weren't developing that much. Regardless, that was a matter of little concern to him. It bothered Georges since he also was older and as tall as him…

"Aion, I am going ahead and unpacking some things in our room," Artemisia said.

"Sure, mom," Aion said. "I will take the heavy stuff later."

Everyone noticed that Artemisia was a bit down and while she had all the reasons to be. While she wasn't invited to the ceremony, it was because Henri knew that it would be unpleasant for her to be surrounded by people that didn't like her lineage. Aion was a bit of a different matter.

"Are you worried about her safety?" Elio asked. "We heard about that someone invaded her room in the middle of the night and that you killed them, but…"

As expected, the spies of the king took notice of that… it wouldn't be weird if one of Aion's servants were a spy… Still, they didn't catch everything since Aion worked fast to hide the evidence that her mother's people were still alive.

"She got surprised since she was attacked while she was sleeping… I guess that would shock anyone," Aion said.

"You should have asked father to help with the investigation," Philip said. "With his help, you would have found the main perpetrator… if there was one. Still, it is hard to imagine that random assassins would think of invading your house with your fame."

"I went too far when I dealt with them, so their bodies became unrecognizable. Finding their possible allies would be impossible," Aion said. "Still, my visit here will probably help me avoid problems like that in the future, so such a matter won't be a problem anymore."

Soon after, Aion's brothers helped him unload things from the carriage. They wondered why he had so many heavy boxes when they were only going to stay for ten days or so in the capital, but they didn't ask anything. As soon as they left, Aion opened the boxes, and then the Articirius showed up… they only stayed in there for half an hour, but Aion still felt bad for them.

"No meowing while you are here, all right?" Aion asked. "Mom, don't let the servants of the house see them no matter what. We don't want people saying out there that we brought monsters to the capital."

"Not like only that much can damage our reputation even further," Artemisia said and then laughed.

Aion could easily imagine things escalating to the point that people would say in a week or two that he had brought something akin to Godzilla to the capital… he didn't have much faith in the people there, after all.

After unpacking his things, Aion had planned to rest a little… traveling on the usual way was kind of tiring and time-consuming… Still, his brothers called him to do some training in the garden like they used to. It seemed that their plan was to walk around the capital, but they changed their minds after considering that Aion wanted to keep his mother's safe. They thought that just being nearby was enough, but it wasn't…

That being said, they still wanted to see how powerful their brother had gotten in the last two years. Just the rumors of him defeating Caelis weren't enough to make them imagine it.