“Be careful of an avalanche,” she warned him.
He smiled at the memory of their strange conversation and Idith turned when she heard his easy laugh.
"Your Grace?
Concentrate, please." Idith said.
Aden composed his expression and pressed a finger to his lips playfully.
As Idith wanted to say something, he looked ahead and his horse neighed as if sensing his master's emotions.
The horse was different from those in the empire, as it had to run in the snow.
‘An avalanche.’ Biflten, being from the Winterlands, has had more than its fair share of avalanches and winter monsters wouldn't live in places where something like that would happen and they existed long before humans arrived.
“We will arrive soon.” Idith's words were short and the other knights followed them in silence, Aden looked around with his blue eyes.
The low hills and falling snow were what he saw every day in Biflten.
Of course, except for the fact that red mollies lived nearby.
‘Beware of an avalanche?’ Aden smiled again as he remembered those words for the second time.
As he watched Idith shrink, Aden continued to think about other things, he knew he was very relaxed during this advance, but he couldn't let go of that summer smell that constantly occupied his mind.
"All ready.
We'll be there soon." Aden spoke softly and Idith conveyed his words.
It only took a few seconds for his order to spread to all the knights and he didn't need to shout for them to attack.
They were about to move when Aden heard a strange sound, it sounded like something big was shaking and shaking under the ground.
“What is that sound?”
A knight looked around as Aden felt the earth tremble beneath his feet, he raised his hand to stop the knights, again it only took a few seconds for Idith to convey her message.
Horses born in Biflten were very close to their owners and although most did not allow any other humans to ride them, they followed their masters' sudden orders immediately, so their formation did not break.
“What is this?”
Mollies had inhabited this place for centuries and although avalanches were common during January storms, this was not normal.
Aden looked around in disbelief and saw a blue light spreading across the snow in the distance.
It seemed to come from the cliff.
“Back off.” Aden said frantically and Idith turned to him.
"What?"
“Retreat to the castle!”
Idith asked again as if she couldn't believe his orders:
“Back off?”
Aden made a hand gesture instead of answering as they had to get out of here as quickly as possible.
“Your Grace, we cannot attack here again if we retreat now.” Although Idith knew that her master did not give meaningless orders, she had to ask again.
There would be no reason for them to have come here if they retreated now.
“If the mollies start breeding again in April…”
“Everyone, retreat!” Aden didn't have time to explain and couldn't anyway, he knew that these tremors could be caused by reasons that Aden couldn't imagine despite having lived his entire life here.
However, Aden couldn't ignore Ilyin's words, if this was an avalanche, they had to move now, it was now or never!
He remembered his fiancée's clear words yesterday.
His violet eyes were clear when up close and all of the knights' horses turned back.
“Retreat at full speed!” Idith's scream resounded in the air and the tremors became loud enough for everyone to hear and the horses ran as the riders understood Aden's intention.
A strong avalanche had started and they managed to escape in the nick of time.
***
Aden had returned to the Biflten Estate that afternoon, all the servants were speechless because of his unexpected return.
Delrose's maids had prepared clothes and bath towels for him and said the lady had asked them to prepare this, saying he might return sooner than expected.
Aden went up to the seventh floor with his head full of questions.
All of the Delrose riders were alive and only the mollies suffered from the avalanche.
He clearly remembered the blue light coming from the cliff and could only assume that the mollies used magic, which was normal for them.
The problem was that the mollies might have other monsters as allies, as they intentionally buried their habitat in snow.
Although this situation needed urgent discussion, he had somewhere to go first.