Cultivating Plants

After getting a well-deserved rest, Malik and his team rushed for the fortress town of Selen. Instead of going in a straight line like they guessed Ayad was doing, they diverted their route for the south.

The reason why Ydaz's coastline, at least the northern one, was awful was because of the Ridged Highlands. This uneven and rocky terrain that was even more infertile than literal sand mostly covered the coastline, making the construction of ports too costly of an endeavor to even begin with. But the mountainous terrain didn't stop there, it also extended north where the Tehen River separated Ydaz and Loyata.

For most travelers, the ruggedness of the terrain would be disadvantageous – though the Whistling Sands were hostile enough to make merchants think twice – but not for assassins.

The constant elevation changes, especially those in the shape of tall peaks, were a heavensent for those whose movement was based on sight rather than legs.

The detour took a bit of time, but once they reached the coastline, they were able to travel around fifty kilometers each hour. Certainly faster than what Ayad would be able to do, but not excessively fast. After all, shadow-stepping performed better over short distances rather than long ones.

They had to unfortunately rest for a few more nights as the journey was too long and even more exhausting to perform in a single day. Perhaps a Grandmaster would be able of such a feat of strength, but alas, Malik was the only Shadow here and his specialty wasn't shadow-stepping.

"Alright," Malik whispered to his team. "That settlement over there is Selen, I don't know how fast Ayad is, but just in case, one will remain back here in case she passes by, another will go forward close to the border at those mountains, and the latter one will explore the town in case she's already there."

"Dibs on the town!" Dareen and Zayyan shouted at the same time.

Malik gave them a friendly hit on the head.

"No one's calling dibs," he explained. "We will be rotating positions. The one who is most tired will remain in the town first, but every few hours we do rotate. This is a stakeout, fellas."

"I hate stakeouts," Dareen pouted.

"Everyone does," the leader sighed. "You will have the first turn in Selen. Your performance has been decreasing rather fast."

That seemed to satisfy Dareen, while Zayyan seemed like he was going to protest. A sharp look was enough to shoot down whatever he was going to say.

They quickly split the party after that. Zayyan remained behind as he was also in a poor state, whilst Malik rushed for the mountain before the Ydaz-Loyata border. He then smoked quite a few tobacco leaves. Not only to maintain communication through telepathy but also to detect people.

It was wrong to say that tobacco gave one telepathy, instead, it turned the one who consumed it more empathic. In other words, suggestible to other people. Telepathy was just a byproduct of such ability when two people were high on tobacco at the same time.

Any sign of Ayad? He asked Dareen with his mind when her time was nearing the end.

Not that I can tell. She responded. I went to the inn and there's a woman that fits her build there, but according to the innkeeper, she's just had a miscarriage.

That doesn't fit Ayad's profile, Malik admitted. They knew she was Rani-al-Sadina's whore and that the sultanah had bedded her, but nothing about male paramours. There was just no chance of the former scribe of commoners to be with a child. Zayyan, you there?

Yessir, the male assassin responded a few moments later.

Keep eyes on the woman who has had the miscarriage. His leader commanded. I'm not sure she's Ayad, we must play it safe. You and Dareen can switch now.

They kept this routine for a day, shifting every eight hours so one could rest in the city, but considering the mission, no one had really slept. Aloe Ayad had killed two Shadows already, so dealing with her with only one even if there were two near-Shadows as a backup was problematic as they were very tired.

Malik could only hope that their exhaustion wouldn't prove fatal.

Miscarriage girl on the move. Zayyan distastefully announced over their shared connection. Dareen wanted to cringe and did, but she didn't snark back. She would hate to be the one having a miscarriage and be referred by that trait at her back. Going for Loyata.

Anyhow, she took a puff of hashish to reawaken herself.

They had yet to know if the woman in question was Aloe Ayad, but considering they hadn't seen the woman in these last hours – or rather days – they assumed she was the one.

Well, Dareen did.

She preferred killing a bystander and getting it wrong than throwing her chances of cutting this task short.

Her sight was rather dull from the lack of sleep and the constant abuse of drugs, so it wasn't until a few minutes, cutting close to the hour, that she made visual contact with the woman. She lazily trod the inclined terrain, yet another proof against her being Ayad, but Dareen didn't take her eyes away from her.

It wasn't until the moment that the woman stopped and played with some plants on the ground that Dareen was alerted.

Why the woman removed her hood and stabbed a rock Dareen couldn't know, but what she did recognize was the face under the hood.

It's her. Dareen promptly announced over their connection and jumped into action.

It was a misplay of monumental proportions, but her head wasn't right from drug consumption, lack of sleep, and frustration at the stakeout. Besides, not many could react to a shadow-step at close range. Only Master Assassins and above or experienced cultivators donning one of those stances of them. The exact name she didn't know.

And yet… Aloe Ayad somehow avoided her assault.

In the few heartbeats that it had taken Dareen to get to the fugitive's position, she had sprinted out of it.

Ayad turned and looked at her in confusion, her pupils dilating at the sight of her residual shadows.

Dareen took advantage of the surprise and lunged at the woman, yet she sidestepped as if it was nothing, her body becoming a blur. Zayyan and Malik shouted at her over their connection, but she growled at their voices as they were drowning out her thoughts.

For the next attack, Dareen wasn't as careless. She shadow-stepped out of Ayad's sight, over the peak of the mountains again. It would have been easy to just teleport behind her, but something she had discovered was that people always guessed their backs when they acknowledged that their opponent could vanish, even if they had no prior knowledge of Enlightenment at all.

Instinctively, Ayad had thought exactly that as she turned to her back and now was bewildered to not find Dareen anywhere.

Instead of remaining still on the spot, the fugitive scribe broke into a mad dash for the mountains, her intention clear.

For some reason, she took some sort of ball out of a satchel and consumed it. Drugs? Dareen pondered as she lurched on the cliff's edge of the mountain. They had already pondered the fact that Ayad had some knowledge of Enlightenment, but until now they didn't have tangible proof.

After consuming the pellet, Ayad instantly became faster.

Even more so.

That scared Dareen. So much so that she forgot precaution again and lunged for the woman. If she could become faster, then she could outrun them again. Unfortunately, now that Ayad was on the move, she couldn't drop directly on top of her but instead had to shadow-step a few meters before her after calculating her speed.

Even though Ayad only had a few blinks to react, she did react, Dareen saw it in her eyes. But her momentum was so elevated that she couldn't just stop.

Oh heavens, she can't stop. Panic filled the assassin's mind, and she gathered all her focus to instantly shadow-step away. Barely in time, Dareen managed to do so, teleporting a handful of meters behind Ayad.

She panted from stress and heard the sound of boots scratching the ground as the cultivator stopped in her tracks. Ayad unsheathed the knife she had used before with the rock. Her hands were trembling.

Dareen grinned at the gesture. Nice. Even after killing two assassins, Ayad was unused to bloodshed, meaning that she would hesitate.

The assassin would not.

The would-be-Shadow unsheathed her own knife, more of a dagger, and pointed at Ayad. The gesture was enough to destabilize the woman. That was when Dareen lunged for the strike.

No matter how fast the cultivator was, her posture was all over the place and as she readied again her knife, Dareen vanished during her dash. Mid-sprint, she shadow-stepped on top of her.

Ayad had expected that Dareen would be in some advantageous position after the shadow-step, so she sidestepped. And she had been right.

Nonetheless, the assassin's intent wasn't to end the fight in a strike but to close the gap between them. But as she landed, a maelstrom of blades assaulted her.

Dareen had miscalculated the cultivator's speed, but beyond all else, her viciousness.

Aimlessly and maniacally, Ayad hacked and slashed with her pocket knife faster than her eyes could follow. The assassin's only saving grace was that the knife's blade was short, so as painful as the cuts were, they didn't hit anything vital.

But pain didn't matter when one was high off the rocker with drugs.

Dareen fearlessly pushed her dagger forward and hit the petite woman's bicep. Ayad bit her lip in pain and took a step backward, yet for some reason, her pained lips curved into a wry smile.

"Burn," Ayad whispered.

And Dareen's vision was swarmed by red.

Epsilon_Twilight

I want to publically thank RR User PlueRyvius for their contribution by letting me know that Aloe had evolved an Aloe Veritas on Book 2 to test if she could.

I had totally forgot about it.

This realization hasn't meant many changes mainly chapter 9. Murderer and chapter 17. Decision of Book 4 (plus another one on Patreon), and these changes have been a rephrasing of a few sentences so there's no real need to re-read the chapters. Mea culpa. Maybe some things would have changed in Book 3, but I doubt Aloe would have risked having an Aloe Veritas close to the palace of Sadina. If you ever notice such inconsistencies let me know, please.

I will do my best to fix them.

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