Part of Vega wanted to protest as Daphni and Alster took her leave, so much that it crossed her mind to feign light-headedness again just to have the Sybaian healer stay at her side. Just to have some excuse not to be alone with her husband, and to endure the heaviness in the air between them. But both the Rigas caster and the healer were gone before she could attempt to make such an excuse, and now that she found herself alone in the presence of the man she loved the most (who also happened to be the man who’d hurt her the most), she was at a loss for words and for what to do. Haraldur was clearly in need of comfort and reassurance; something to remind him that there was a reason that he was alive, and a reason to be alive, and she wanted to provide him with all of the answers to his questions, all of the solutions to his problems…
But the truth was, the Eyraillian princess was herself still shaken by every turn of event from several days ago. And she did not know the truth, anymore. Not beyond what she had been told, secondhand, by Alster, Daphni, Teselin… all people who sought to placate her, for the sake of her health, and that of her children. And she was no longer sure what was real, and what had been coated with sugar to keep her calm.
Yet, if there was one thing she did know for sure… it was that her husband was not a child murderer. Not anymore. With or without Teselin’s testament to his innocence, she would never have believed he would harm a child. Not unless he was, as the summoner had suggested, mentally manipulated.
“You did not kill a child, Haraldur. I might not have witnessed the scene… but I know it is the truth, because I know you.” The Skyknight’s azure eyes lifted from the floor, where they had settled in the awkward silence that followed the departure of their comrades. “It is a small kingdom, Haraldur, and I have been forced to stay at the palace since the night you…” Her voice trailed off. While he was alive and well, so much as mentioning his death felt like a betrayal to their fortunate turn of luck. Yet another ‘second chance’ for the two of them. First, upon her resurrection, and next, upon his. Fate was just as determined to keep them together, it seemed, as it was to break them apart. “If a child had died at the scene, or has to be rushed to be treated at the Night Garden following some gave injury, you can bet that would be the talk of the town, especially considering there are so few children in Galeyn to begin with since the kingdom’s spell was lifted. Perhaps… perhaps you attacked someone. Perhaps they had donned the guise of a child, because your adversary knew that it would resonate with you. But you did not kill a child. I believe the summoner: you were set up. For what reason remains to be seen, but the fact remains that you command a powerful army of resilient soldiers. Perhaps Alster is right…” She stared into the distance, her gaze boring into the vine-covered wall of the sanctuary. “If this is the work of the sorceress, it would make sense that she may have intended to cut you off from your role as a leader to the Forbanne. The only thing you are responsible for is falling to a well-crafted manipulation designed to drive you temporarily mad. And, yes, you fell for it. But… what of Elespeth?”
Vega turned her gaze back on her husband, her eyes still overbright with the residual tears of her most recent blackout. “She told me what happened, in Braighdath. That she was impelled to murder an innocent person, her mind completely under someone else’s control. She was an ideal target because, it was like Alster said, she was vulnerable. Do you consider her a murderer, too? Because her hands are stained with the blood of the innocent, despite that her mind was not in the right place? Is she as guilty as you? Does she deserve hell instead of redemption and forgiveness?” It was a rhetorical question. She knew he did not blame Elespeth because he knew her well, knew her character and what she was independently capable of, and murder of the innocent was not one of those things. Nonetheless, he could not hold himself in the same position--as a victim, not an assailant--despite the similarities in his scenario, and that of the former knight’s. It was far easier to hold someone else in a more objective light that oneself.
The princess’s eyes strayed back to the frightening sight of his neck, bandaged from a self-inflicted wound that she still had difficulty fathoming. Just below the bandage, hanging between his exposed collarbones, rested a ring that was all too familiar, even sullied as it was with crusted blood. It tried to stop me, he said, and those words brought tears to her eyes anew. “Of course it tried to stop you. Because you aren’t meant to die, Haraldur. These children aren’t meant to be without a father. Can’t you see that?” Her voice had fallen to a whisper at this point, drained of the conviction it has possessed just moments ago, in Alster and Daphni’s presence. Without her bravado, she was just as vulnerable as her wounded and guilt-ridden husband. “Death could not have me. It could not have you. Whatever happens… I believe that we are meant to see life through, together. That is why I could never give up on you. No matter what you do or have done… I can never give up on the hope of our future, Haraldur.”
Leaning forward on her bed, Vega reached across to Haraldur’s to clasp his broad hands in her own. “There is always hope for you. For us. Haraldur, if I lost you, I… I don’t know what would happen, to me or the children. I don’t know what I would do. I just don’t know…”
To answer his inquiry, she then took his hands and placed them on the swell of her very pregnant stomach. “You may never stop having those nightmares. That you harm the ones you love. But they aren’t real… this is real, right now. You, me, them. Us.” Errant tears trickled down her cheeks, and it was all she could do to keep her body from convulsing in sobs.
“They’re just dreams. Manifestations of your guilt in your subconscious mind, because you’ve learned to identify with the Forbanne, again. Because you feel like this is not a life that you deserve. But not only do you deserve it, you are committed to it.” She reminded him in a tone that was firm and desperate, nodding to the blood-encrusted ring that dangled at his neck. Her voice softened ever so slightly after she took a breath to compose herself. “I’ve been having dreams, too. Where I see our children, and I reach for them, but I never manage to touch them because sudden we are separated by a sheet of water, and I am drowning… but it is just a dream. It doesn’t mean anything.” At least, she had come to that conclusion after Tivia’s reassurances. “Tivia told me that the children will be born, and as far as I know, her predictions have not been wrong. I dream this because I feel guilty for having put them in danger. I feel as though I do not deserve them… but the fact remains that they need me, and they need you. And we cannot let guilt or apprehension get in the way of that.”
Vega looked down at her belly, at his hands resting upon it, and smiled sadly. “I do not know that Caris or Eyraille will ever forgive me for what I have done. For leaving the way that I did… I am going to need someone at my side. Without you, Haraldur… I have no one. And no courage to eventually return to my home.” She looked up, meeting those moss green eyes with her own fierce azures. “If this really was Locque’s doing, then we have successfully evaded our most dire threat’s attempt to tear us apart. We were meant to be in this together, Haraldur. Please, see this through with me…”
While time and again she had tried to assure Lilica and the palace staff that it was not necessary, they had insisted that Gaolithe’s wielder remain comfortable and with access to whatever it was she needed in the palace. Sigrid Sorenson had lost count of the times that she had proposed she merely set up an encampment outside on the premises, but with the drop in Galeyn’s population following Theomyr’s spell finally lifting, they assured her time and again that there was a surplus of empty rooms, anyway, and it was a shame for them to go to waste. So give it to the D’Marians who are themselves without a home, she wanted to say, but it had become abundantly clear that the refugees would much rather settle in their own dwelling, a village on a hillside that Alster had been seeing to having erected. Not that they held themselves above the Galeynians (although she was sure some of them did), but they had lost so much that community was one of the last things they had left, and remaining cohesive as a group was preferable to losing themselves in the mosaic of Galeynian culture.
Although it was superfluous, on the bright side, it had certainly tempted Naimah to her bed more often, as the Kariji woman could hardly have ever dreamed about staying in a palace for such an extended amount of time. Sigrid had no doubt that part of their increased time together (when she was able to pull herself away from duties pertaining to the Dawn Guard, at least) might also have had something to do with the fact the enchanted sword stashed discreetly under her bed remained the unspoken elephant in the room. To her knowledge, ever since learning that Elespeth’s health had taken a turn for the worst, Alster had allocated what little time he had away from tending to duties as Rigas Head to invest his waning time and energy into finding a solution for her--which meant unraveling the mysteries of Gaolithe had largely taken a back seat. It doesn’t matter. It isn’t as though there is a way to put a stop to such ancient magic, the Dawn Warrior had eventually resigned. She would never give voice to as much, especially not in front of Naimah, but Sigrid had more or less come to terms with her eventual fate. That what she had would not endure, and that one day, she would save everyone she loved… and then, be forgotten by them entirely.
Knowing that made her cherish the moments that she had so much more, however. Moments with Naimah were more precious than ever. So she’d stopped arguing against staying at the palace, stopped questioning the privileges that cursed sword appeared to be awarding her. If she was a soul not meant to endure… well, perhaps she was meant to enjoy the time she had left on this plane among the living.
But not to the point that she would shirk her duties as a Dawn warrior. As Gaolithe’s current master, and the one who had accompanied Galeyn’s new Queen to the newly awakened kingdom, Sigrid had been delegated the task of mediator between Braighdath and Galeyn--a task that was no walk in a field of flowers, especially given the chaos had taken place in her home city just over a month ago. And this given morning, like every morning that she rose to the task, it took every ounce of willpower to pull herself out of bed and away from the still dozing Kariji woman. Sigrid dressed and donned her armor, as had become part of her routine, knowing well that come the end of the day, she would be able to return to that bed, to that woman, and forget one more time about the uncertainty of her fate. Getting lost in those small, meaningful moments had become what the Dawn warrior lived for, now. No longer some overarching goal tied to unraveling the mystery of her past: she didn’t have the luxury of goals that spanned beyond any given twenty-four hour period…
Just about to step out for that day, Sigrid secured her armor and leaned over a sleeping Naimah to kiss her forehead, just as there came a knock on her door. Frowning at who would be bothering her at this hour, she crossed the room to answer the call, only to find the untimely visitor to be none other than Alster Rigas. “Alster… to what do I owe the pleasure?” She raised an eyebrow. “Is something the matter? Last I heard, you were confined to the sanctuary in the Night Garden, after that scare during Chara’s birthday…”
He certainly was looking better than the last she had seen of him, which allayed her concerns to a degree, but Alster wasn’t here to discuss his health. For whatever reason, he was here to talk about Haraldur. “With all due respect, I’m not sure that my relationship with Haraldur is your business,” she responded in a flat tone. She had heard the news; heard what had happened, insofar as there were rumours that Haraldur had attempted to take his life. A good, caring cousin might have rushed to his side, but the news had only angered the Dawn Warrior. He had so much going for him… what could cause him to throw it all away, and leave the Eyraillian princess alone?
There was, of course, more to it, and Alster only proceeded to touch on the tip of the iceberg. The rest, he told her, was up to her to suss out when she spoke with the Eyraillian prince, while he and Vega would be away that evening--and not without pointing out that Haraldur was not the only one with explaining to do.
After all, she had yet to explain to him what she’d learned of Gaolithe… and what that meant for her future.
“I was advised that you might be in need of some company.” Later that evening, just after Alster and Vega had left by carriage and Night Steed to go and visit the necromancer, in the outskirts of the kingdom, Sigrid made well on the promise that Alster would not let her shun, and stepped into the sanctuary. It was empty, save for a lone, familiar figure on a bed. Haraldur somehow looked smaller, more shrunken than she remembered him. She had not known him for long, but she knew him well enough to be take note of the abnormality of this sudden change in him. He was so… defeated. Like the life had gone out of him, despite that it had somehow been saved.
“...I’m going to be honest. I have a lot of opinions about what you did. About almost leaving Vega and your children behind. About abandoning your friends and family, and the people who need you.” Clenched fists accompanied her accusatory tone, but she forced her fingers to relax. “...but I realize I do not know all of the details. And… neither do you. About me; about my… behaviour. So, I’ll make you a deal.”
Sigrid took a seat on the bed next to him, and folded her hands in her lap. “...tell me what happened to you. Why you thought it would be a good idea to do what you did. To throw your life away when you had everything going for you. And, in exchange… I’ll tell you what I found out. About Gaolithe. And…” She lowered her crystalline gaze to her lap. “About… a fate that I don’t think I can avoid.”
She had so much faith in his self-restraint, in his inherent goodness, that the praises for his character put him ill at ease. Even at his lowest, at his most reprehensible, Vega refused to paint him as a monster without redemption. It could be she was too invested in their marriage, in their family, to surrender to the uncomfortable truth of his numerous sins, the worst of which carried the implication that he’d rather die than be with her and the babies. In her devotion, sealed by the unborn children he sired, there was no choice but to see their marriage through, despite the interference of Fate’s hand that seemed to hover over their lives, waiting to smack them out of the air like insignificant flies. To admit she had erred in choosing him as a partner and accepting him as the father meant that she’d have to face her own wrongs, and question her sacrifices made thus far in his name. She was too proud to declare her mistake in pursuing him as a suitable mate; she’d rather stay on the sinking ship with him than swim safely to shore. For a woman who, in the eyes of her kingdom, in the eyes of her king, was judged so harshly for every wrongdoing, every misstep, if she walked away from him, what would that say about her convictions, her principles? Surely, she would lose the final smattering of respect from her royal standing. No one would believe in her integrity again; not as a shamed princess who’d fled her country and returned alone with two children and no father. No. No matter what she thought of him now, she could not abandon him. Because she risked too much to just say goodbye. Love didn’t factor in her decision; self-preservation did. As an expecting mother, the wellbeing of the children came first. She was right; they needed a father. A father...not necessarily their father.
“Whatever the case, it doesn’t inspire confidence if my first reaction to being backed into a corner is to kill the aggressor, no matter who they are,” he said, his eyes entranced on a particular hanging vine that resembled a noose. Condemnation. He is not fit for society. He’ll do it again. Hang him ‘till dead. “I’m an indiscriminate killer. It’s instinct. However much I think I’ve shaken it off, it comes back during the worst moments. I didn’t need to be manipulated, Vega. Did it expedite the process? Perhaps. But I would have done it anyway. Captain Solveig was already manipulating me to end the wolf. On both sides, I never stood a chance. And back during my so-called days of freedom...what did I do?” He closed his eyes, shuttering away the sight of that noose-like vine but its after-image branded itself behind his lids, manifesting as an orange ring of hellfire closing in on his throat. On reflex, he cupped a hand over the bandage. He could tell his wound had been cauterized shut. The fire had already licked at him and left its mark. “Nearly every friend and loved one has seen the end of my sword. You did. Elespeth did. Sigrid did. Your brother did. This...most recent result...is nothing new. It only proved that I am much worse than I thought. Worse...because I never stopped being Forbanne. So easily manipulated into taking life.”
At Vega’s mention of Elespeth and her similar experiences under Locque’s control, he shook his head in objection, opening his eyes a slit (but turning his head to avoid the noose). “It’s not the same. Elespeth is principled and disciplined. She is not a murderer by reasons of her upbringing and her moral code. What happened to her was unfortunate. What happened to me was expected. No one else believes it, but it’s true. Forbanne don’t integrate. Solveig was right. What a fool I am for trying. For falling into her ploys and losing my way so irrevocably that it killed me. Maybe I could have kept my head above water for longer if I had just stayed put like I wanted to. Then, I could’ve lived ignorantly in the delusion that I am more than...than...this.” He gestured to himself, a mere golem made from clay to obey, and not a receptacle that housed a soul, a spirit, worthy of love or salvation.
“I want to believe there’s hope,” he admitted, but the voice faltered, uncertain if he should harbor such an opinion. Fearful of what it meant to hope. “I want to believe I’m actually alive. That the worst is over. That these signs and symbols of perseverance are true. I want…” he hesitated, again too fearful to speak his desires aloud, lest Fate hears them and crushes his earnest wishes underfoot. “I want this. I really do. Vega--I want all of this. But...but…”
His words trailed off when she took his hands and laid them against her belly. His whole body recoiled, fighting the urge to pull away, but it was too late to rescind his request--not when Vega, as if anticipating his guilt-ridden retreat, held his wrists firmly in place and did not release them. “I-I know I said I wanted to hold them, but...but I-I shouldn’t. I’m not s-safe. I-I--” he stammered, his face heating into a flustered flush. Then, he felt it. A kick. He froze. Another kick. Immediately, tears sprung to his eyes and trickled down his cheeks. “Kynnet. Klara. They’re...I-I...No!” He forcibly wrenched his hands from Vega’s grasp and tucked them firmly beneath his underarms. “I don’t want to hurt them. My nightmares are real, Vega, because they’ve happened before. Mollengard...has an overpopulation problem. To combat it, we’ve...when we conducted raids on villages...I’ve drowned babies,” he hurried, almost incomprehensible in his rush of words. “Stabbed them out of pregnant women. Crushed them with my boot. Burned them, sliced them open, hung them up high on poles. East Mollengard’s Forbanne may have earned their reputation as the conquerors, but Central Mollengard’s Forbanne are known as the domestic enforcers. We cull the herd...and set examples so citizens will obey. They know, Vega.” He shivered from his recollections, his flushed skin paling into a sickly, nauseating hue. “Kynnet and Klara...they know. How can you say...I’m right for them? For this? For all of this?!”
In a fit of grief-induced illness, he bowled over the side of the cot and vomited into a chamberpot. The contents were less substance, more spitting, gagging, and heaving--owing to the meagre substances in his stomach. Weakness took hold, then; he was nutritionally deficient, dehydrated, and still reeling from recent events. He barely had the time to return to his cot before collapsing against the pillow and fading into unstable unconsciousness.
Perhaps it was from the aftermath of Teselin’s news about Locque’s interference, from his accumulating stress and frustration over situations currently beyond his control, or a bit or both, but Alster was reaching his limits on patience and understanding. Anger continued to burn its sun-like radiance in the core of his stomach, affecting the pain in his arm tenfold, and agitating the positive effects of his recent recovery in the sanctuary. While his heart pumped with healthful vigor, everything else wrenched and jerked; in particular, an increasingly more noticeable tic that twitched at his troubled brow.
“Yes, Sigrid, it is my business.” Aggravation won out over politesse and diplomatic decorum, as his blue eyes flashed with Rigas ferocity, typical on the faces of his brethren, but atypical for the gentle demeanor of Alster Rigas. “It is my business to look out for victims of Locque and ensure that none of my friends or loved ones are affected by her twisted machinations. It is my business because I make it my business. Because I am not fit to ignore a problem, especially if that problem, when allowed to burn and bloat in the sun, negatively impacts everyone else.” He slammed his hand against the doorframe in case she attempted to skirt around him and escape. “We do not live in isolation, Sigrid. Isn’t this the core of what your Dawn Guard preaches? Together, we are strong. We do not leave anyone behind. Alone, we crumble. I am holding you to this principle and reminding you of it in case you’ve forgotten. Haraldur needs unity just as much as you do.” An earnestness cut through the heat carried by his words. “Remember that your life is not yet forfeit, and believe me when I say I’m still looking for ways to save you from your cursed fate. But if you will do me the honor of helping yourself by helping someone who needs you, and letting others help you--and not shutting them down because it’s ‘none of their business,’ then maybe you won’t find yourself in a similar situation as your cousin somewhere down the line. Because yes, the two of you are alike in many ways. You shoulder things alone and wait for them to build. It happened with Haraldur. I failed him--so I’m not failing you, Sigrid Sorenson.”
“Now,” he sighed, dispelling some of his extant frustration into a tone more suitable for a public (insofar as they were standing in the hallway) conversation, “I am going to visit Vitali with Vega, tonight. Far be it for me to coax you into visiting your grieving cousin, but you at least owe him an explanation. And while we’re on the subject of your sword,” the tic reappeared on his brow, “I’m not going to spare you from this uncomfortable topic anymore. It’s about damn time we all sit down and discuss your options, Sigrid. Naimah and I have been hard at work and we’ve made some headway. Now if you’d actually hear us out instead of constantly skirting the issue, we can solve this...together. Yes. Together. Because that’s our only way of defeating Gaolithe, of defeating Locque. There’s no such thing as an army of one. You should damn well know that by now.”
Without another word, Alster swerved on his heels and stalked off to attend to the next orders of business on his wildly expanding list of tasks. Maybe I can’t help you right now, Elespeth, he thought, his straight-backed gait losing its confident strides with every step he tread alone, but if I can make this place safe for you, safe for us, safe for everyone, it won’t be a wasted effort. I can’t fail…
People die if I fail. You’ll die...if I fail you.
Haraldur awoke from his short coma shortly before evening. A young Gardener had been assigned to keep watch over him. The moment he opened his eyes and demonstrated awareness of his surroundings and independent motor skills, the Gardener all but forced him to drink and eat. While the Night Garden was allegedly keeping him “alive,” it would be a poor existence for him if he kept passing out from lack of nutrition or water. So he obliged, because obeisance was one of the first things he learned as a Forbanne soldier, and it was the easiest instruction to employ. When in doubt...obey. Obey. Even when lives were at stake...obey. Childrens’ lives; end them all. Obey. Obey.
No! In a small act of defiance, he batted away the tin of water. It flew out of the Gardener’s hands and rolled to the ground, spilling its contents through the sparse floorboards and into the rich-black loam of the Night Garden.
“Where is Vega?” he demanded, widening eyes searching the tiny space of the hut.
“She,” the young Gardener swallowed, unwilling to meet the unhinged expression of a man with the strength to snap his neck if he so chose. “...She has departed with the summoner and Lord Alster Rigas to see the necromancer.”
The necromancer. That’s right. He vaguely remembered discussion about paying the reprehensible man a visit. He cursed under his breath, fighting the returning panic that gripped his throat anew. Were he in his right mind, he could have stopped her. Last time she approached the likes of Vitali Kristeva…
Last time…
“She is safe,” the Gardener, sensing the tension building within his charge, assured him. “Before departing, Lord Alster Rigas relayed a message to me. He said that he will not allow any harm to befall her. He swears it.”
The news eased Haraldur a marginal amount, enough for the Gardener to sneak out of the room with promises to refill his water canister. In the space between waiting, someone else entered the now lonely room. Someone he didn’t expect. Someone that pained him to see.
“Sigrid.” He pushed aside the plate of food he barely touched (an abnormality for one who always had such a voracious appetite), and nodded a halfhearted acknowledgment. “Alster told you, didn’t he?” he muttered, keeping his expression hidden, his body closed off and turned away, as if in rejection. “You don’t want to be here at all. You’ve already made it clear your stance on me. Why else would you come if not at the behest of another? There’s not much else I can do now that’ll make you despise me more. So go ahead and tell me how I’m the worst. It doesn’t matter anymore. I lost your respect a long time ago. Nothing I say will change that.”
He was about to leave it at that, but with her added weight on the cot indicating that she was not yet ready to leave, he raised his head and listened to her ‘bargain.’ What was this about Gaolithe? Something new had transpired with the enchanted blade--something that had Sigrid awash with concern. There was a mournful finality to her voice. He recognized it. Knew it well. Hopelessness. Futility. The struggle to change fate but to no avail. The hint of relatability and understanding shared between them encouraged him to open up and speak.
“Deal,” he said, after a long moment of silent contemplation. “I,” he sucked in a breath, “I killed a child. I killed her. At least, I thought I did. She visited me on the night of my...of my death. I was...building a house. For Vega and the babies. For our eventual reunion. It gave me hope that I could see through my compulsory connection with Captain Solveig. That I could break free, and not be a danger to anyone, anymore. Most of all, to my family. In my fear of losing everything I held dear, I stayed away. Because you’re right, Sigrid.” He idly played with the blood-encrusted chain around his neck. “I had everything. It is so precious to me, but so fragile. It needs protection. But I couldn’t protect them when I was so compromised. I promised myself I wouldn’t be the cause of anymore destruction. I wouldn’t--”
Realizing he was deviating, slowly deteriorating into mindless, repetitive despair, he cleared his throat and redirected his discourse. “The child visited me that night. I’d seen her before, in dreams. She’d whisper that I was beyond saving because I am Forbanne. I killed too much to ever redeem myself. She said the same things to me, then, too, but also...she showed me those things. Showed me who I was, who I am. What I can do. My-my children--” he stared down at his hands, which shivered from the memory. “A-and..it was all so real. The screams, the fire. It all lives in me. The monster. And the monster did attack. It reared up and ran that little girl through with a sword. She stumbled, and fell, and with her dying breath, she cursed me. Nothing would change...until the day I died. Until the day I…”
He tightened his eyes, pinching away the tears that threatened to form. He was too dehydrated to lose anymore water. “...So I did it. So I,” he pointed to the bandage on his neck, “and...I died. And I am dead. No. I...I,” he clutched his head, “I don’t even know! Is this all real? Is this an illusion? Where am I? Is the child dead? Is she a child at all? Was this all a manipulation? An attack by the sorceress? Everyone seems to think so. And now,” he winced, “if this body really is alive, it’s all because of that damn necromancer! I’m here because of him. Here, and still cursed because the thought of even touching my children makes me want to die all over again. Because that touch could break them. I think I’m free of Solveig’s compulsion, but it still doesn’t change who I am. The darkness in me. Any provocation can set me off. Whether that girl was a child or not, it shows that I’m...that I’m still capable of killing a child. And I,” he hung his head, “don’t know what to do. I love my family,” he choked, restraining a sob by forcing the back of his hand against his mouth. “I want them. But I...don’t know what to do, because I don’t know how to live with this, now. I don’t know how to be the person everyone believes that I am. Haraldur Sorde...who is he? How can I be worthy again? How?!” He roared, and the volume of his outburst rattled the food dish at his bedside table. He sagged at such a severe angle he looked ready to fall over. “...how?”
Prior to finding her cousin at the Night Garden’s sanctuary, looking like a limp doll barely able to hold himself in an upright sitting position, Alster had certainly given Sigrid an earful by feeding her back the very philosophies that the Dawn Guard had instilled in her. Those being never to leave a brother or a sister behind… which was precisely what she had done to Haraldur, whether she cared to admit it or not. True, she had made a single attempt to repair the bridge between them that she had so recklessly burnt to the ground, but when it had not gone through as planned, the Dawn Warrior must, at some point, have given up. Not on Haraldur--but, in light of her growing acceptance of a fate that Alster (and everyone who knew) so desperately wished for her to challenge… she had slowly given up on herself. And what did it matter to repair burned bridges, when the person on the other side of that bridge would one day completely forget she’d ever existed?
But that, she realized, was thinking in the long term. And the people she cared about could still suffer and hurt before any of that occurred. It might come to pass that one day, the warrior named Sigrid Sorenson, regaled and held on such a high podium for being chosen to wield ancient magic, would no longer be, and it would be as though she had never existed in the minds and hearts of those for whom she fought. But in the here and now, those people knew her, had carved out a place in their heart for her, and she was only doing a disservice to them by shutting away and preparing for the inevitable. It was so much easier to skirt around the issue, pretend that it wasn’t there or that it could be dealt with at a later time, despite how it churned in her mind on those long nights where sleep would not find her. And, finally someone had called her out on that; Alster had called her out on that. She wasn’t sure that she was yet ready to face it, either, and lay all possibilities on the table, thereby confirming and validating the possibility of her complete and utter erasure from this world.
Right now, however, alive and well as she was… she had to be ready to continue to be that person that her friends and loved ones needed. Haraldur might forget about her, one day, but he hadn’t yet. And by the honour of her very own family within the Dawn Guard… she could not walk away and leave him behind, so long as the both of them continued to draw breath.
Regardless that, ultimately, she had resolved to oblige the Rigas caster in his request to step in and lend a supportive hand to the wretched man convalescing in the Night Garden, it had taken the good length of a day for her to muster up the courage to pay a visit to her desperate cousin. And not because she did not desire to see him, but as a result of the residual shame of her prior behaviour. Shunning Alster and Elespeth’s wedding, telling Haraldur that she was through with his foolishness and that she never wanted to see him again… and he was the only person who had fallen for her ruse. The only person who she had successfully managed to push away, in the end. It could not go on like this, and even if no apology or explanation on her part would suffice, Sigrid Sorenson would never forgive herself in life or in death if she did not at least try.
“You’re right. Alster did ask me to come,” Sigrid confirmed, after taking a seat upon the bed. “But I am not here because of him. He merely reminded me that… I could not let things continue as they are, between us. I tried to talk to you once before, back in Braighdath, but… circumstances were less than ideal, at the time, and I failed. And it is no one’s fault but my own that I neglected to try again since then. So… for whatever it is worth to you, and despite that it may not be worth anything at all, I am here now to tell you that you never lost my respect, Haraldur. Yes, I am more than unhappy to know the way in which you almost died,” she did not make any attempt to filter the disappointment from her voice, upon nodding at the bandage on his neck, “but I realize I also do not know the whole story from your perspective. And I want to understand, so I am here to listen, if you are willing to talk. And if you are willing to listen… I want to try and explain why I went to such lengths to push you away. And why I didn’t really mean any of those words I spoke to you, following Alster and Elespeth’s wedding. Even if you don’t care, or don’t want to know… you deserve to know. In case… in case I do not find the opportunity to tell you, again.”
Sigrid had expected resistance or hesitation from her estranged cousin, who was in no sorts to speak to people he wanted to see, let alone people who had hurt him (namely, her). It came as a surprise when he agreed to her terms, and opened up about what had occurred that night near the D’Marian village. How he had been haunted by the face of a child in his dreams, and had eventually encountered that child, who drove him to fulfill the very prophecy that he feared: that he would return to his identity as a child-killer. A monster. Someone to be reviled, someone who did not deserve the domestic comforts of a wife and children, and… he could not live like that. Not even the promise of Vega and their twin babies had been enough to reassure him that it was not something he need worry about, because he had more self-control than he gave himself credit for. It explained it… but it did not excuse it. His confession did not ease the anger or disappointment Sigrid felt for her cousin throwing his life and everything he had achieved away, all for a moment of weakness, especially when it had later been revealed to him that he had not, in fact, killed anyone. None of this took the edge off of the Dawn warrior’s desire to berate him and slap him until he came to his senses, but… it did provide context. A context for his weakness, and weakness was a flaw of every human being--her included.
“Not real? Does this feel real to you?” Without any additional warning, Sigrid did precisely what she’d wanted to do since hearing her cousin had tried to take his life--and she leaned across the cot to slap him. Just once, straight across the cheek. “Did it hurt? Good. Because pain is real, and so is this. So am I; so are you. Look, I am not as privy to the details as your wife is. But I was provided with enough insight to know that you were the only sorry sod who died, that night. And that there is high suspicion that magic was involved. Whatever you think, you were manipulated. And you can deny it as much as you like, but there are circumstances under which anyone would kill. If you provide the right conditions, it is possible to bring out the monster in anyone. Someone like you, like me, like Alster… like Teselin. That young summoner who would shed tears over accidentally stepping on a beetle.You are not excluded; neither am I, nor Elespeth, nor Alster, nor even your wife.” The Dawn warrior shook her head slowly. “Your burden isn’t that you murdered, Haraldur, and it was not that you fell for it in a moment of weakness. It is that you continue to let that moment of weakness attack you, and lessen you, and imprison you. But we all have those moments. I did, too… and in that moment, I pushed you and everyone I care for away. And none of you deserved it.”
Sigrid sat back on the cot and clasped her hands between her knees. There was no easy way to segue into what she was about to tell him. In the state he was in, with barely half a mind after the trauma he’d experience, she wasn’t even sure if her words would resonate or stick with him. She also wasn’t sure if she wanted them to. “Back in Braighdath, when Alster and I were investigating Elespeth’s case for traces of the sorceress, Locque’s magic, the necromancer’s sister lent a hand, being especially sensitive to all forms of magical energy. She happened to come across Gaolithe’s field of energy, just a little too close, and it… showed her something. Something that she then showed to me. There is nothing written about the sword’s prior masters. No one in the Dawn Guard or Braighdath alike as any memory of those who have wielded Gaolithe in the past. I even made a point to ask around Galeyn, these past months, given how connected the kingdom is to my city… it is the same. No recollection of any of Gaolithe’s feats or prior wielders. Just some loose, free-floating knowledge that it is a weapon of some divine Judgement. And it never… it never occurred to me to question why. It never occurred to anyone to question the price that comes with a weapon like that…”
The Dawn Warrior stared down at the toes of her boots, her hands pressed tightly between her knees as she jostled her foot. Only now did she realize how terrible her nervous tells actually were. “It… takes them, Haraldur. Gaolithe takes its wielders when it is done with them. It absorbs them such that it is as if they never existed in this word, all memory of them erased from the minds and hearts of everyone whose lives they touched. Everyone who knew they’re name. They are just… gone. And that means… that one day, perhaps soon, I too will be gone before my time. And given that the sword chose me just prior to all of these events--to Galeyn, to Locque… I can only assume that it awoke at this time for a reason.”
At last, the Dawn warrior looked up. Her face was no longer a stubborn mask of ire and judgement toward Haraldur and his reckless actions. It was… sad. Defeated. Her usually vibrant, cobalt eyes were dull and dark, as if the light had already been snuffed out. “I thought it would be… easier. Not for you, the lot of you, but for me, if I cut all ties before I disappeared. I thought it would be easier for me to disappear if I wasn’t really leaving anything behind, or if there was anyone to whom I was tied. And I’d have continued to maintain that, if Alster hadn’t stepped in. You know, the way he always inserts himself into other peoples’ problems because he thinks he can save the world. He put Naimah in the know, and… well. That was that.”
Sigrid sighed and spread her hands in a helpless gesture. “She and Alster have been researching tirelessly to find a solution, or some… loophole to all of this. But Gaolithe is ancient magic; it is rumoured to have been a gift of the Sun Deity, himself. And, frankly, there are more dire things for him to worry about. Not only Locque, or the D’Marian settlement, but Elespeth’s health. I cannot ask or rely on him to find a solution. There isn’t always one. But… although it took some time, I think I understand my place, now.” She pasted on a smile that was too sad to be genuine. “I’ll wield Gaolithe, and I will provide a safe place for those surviving to thrive. For Alster and Elespeth, for Lilica and Lady Chara. ...for you and Vega, as I imagine you won’t be taking off to Eyraille as soon as your children were born. For… for Naimah. She deserves to be dealt a better hand, and if I can give her that chance, then I will. Do this for me, Haraldur.”
The Dawn warrior leaned forward, and searched her cousin’s face for openness and understanding, hoping she could find a flicker of hope in the depths of his verdant eyes. “If I need to vanish, to ensure that my friends and loved ones do not… I don’t want it to be in vain. Please, try to find a way to forgive yourself, and be with Vega. Be there for her, and have that family that you want. Live in the house you are building, and take advantage of what you have. Be happy, be fulfilled. Can you… at least promise me that you will try?”
As soon as dusk crept over the horizon, later that evening, Vega, Alster, and young Teselin all made for the carriage that Queen Lilica had kindly arranged for them earlier, upon the Eyraillian princess’s request. On their way, they were intercepted by Daphni, who maintained that it would be safer for Vega to stay behind, given that she had fainted for a second time that week due to her wildly fluctuating blood pressure, but the Skyknight was in no mood to entertain the healer’s ideals. She shut her down as gently as she possibly could.
“While I appreciate the concern, Daphni, I am not going to get better if I do not know what happened to my husband. Nothing that the necromancer does is without a price, and I’m afraid that there is nothing you can say to make me change my mind.”
“Then let me come with you,” the Sybaian healer begged, her cheeks flushed with concern. “You lost consciousness again, today, in a matter of seconds because of more bad news. What makes you think that won’t happen again, if the necromancer reveals anything equally as upsetting to you?”
“I’m afraid that Alster and Teselin have already called for a seat in the carriage; and I am the size of practically three people, now.” She patted her round belly and flashed a half-grin. “I’m going to need the remaining room for myself. But besides, I’ll have Alster with me in case anything happens. He’s as capable as any healer.”
However reluctantly, Daphni agreed to let her go without further protest, but urged her to return that evening, before the sun crept over the horizon. Somehow, the outskirts of Galeyn no longer seemed quite so safe, following the event of Haraldur’s attempted suicide…
It really was something of a tight fit on the swift carriage ride to the farmlands, and Daphni hadn’t been exaggerating when she’d said it would be uncomfortable. Just to keep her body from jostling too much, the princess had to take an entire seat to herself and sit horizontally, with her back to one of the doors, while Teselin and Alster shared the seat across from her. The speed of the Night Steeds also did not make for a smooth ride, but mercifully, it did not take as long as they had thought. Some handful of hours later, they arrived at the doorstep of Tivia and Vitali’s shared farmhouse, and knocked on the door.
It was the star seer who answered, looking as though she had just been ready to retire for the evening, and Vega offered her an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry to show up unannounced, Tivia. But… we were hoping to have a word with the necromancer, if he is present. And if he isn’t,” some of that Sorde obstinacy flashed in her azure eyes, “then I am happy to wait for his return.”
His senses flickered before his eyes. The mist rolled in, fogging his vision into a murky black. His ears rang, overtaking his inner thoughts with disruptive noise. Lungs ceased functioning, allowing for a few last difficult breaths to spike out of his nostrils. His tongue, gluey from dehydration, stuck to the roof of his mouth. His skin, from his face, to his arms, to his legs, heated with a feverish temperature. It was as if he were shutting down, piecemeal, one physical or mental faculty after another. Too much; it was too much to relay the worst of himself not only to Vega, but to Sigrid. The back-to-back dissection of his flawed character, of his poor handling of what looked, back then, like an unavoidable fate--hell, which still seemed like an unavoidable fate--caused further dissolution. Vermicular traces writhed beneath his skin, ready to eat him from the inside. He wanted to rip off its top layer and yank out the invasive critters that had penetrated him because they knew he was dead. The worms roosted; he was their food--and the dirt, his home. Dead dead dead. Perhaps this really was the end. His earnest wishes were realized. He saw the people who meant the most to him one more time. Held his children, one more time. Explained his actions (he did not expect forgiveness; it was too much to ask) to his wife, his cousin. While he did not come to find peace, it was the closest he’d ever reach to absolution. It was enough; it had to be enough.
If you want me, Death, take me now. He concentrated his thoughts through the drone of his buzzing ears. Do it while you can. I don’t know what will happen if I stay a moment longer. It’s too painful to stay...but I don’t want to go. I don’t I don’t I don’t I don’t…
Smack! Just like that, his senses cleared. Taking in a sharp breath, his eyes snapped open as he looked at his aggressor. Sigrid’s hand, rattling from the aftermath of her blow, hovered about a foot in front of his face--as though waiting for another opportunity to strike. Reflexively, he cupped the apple of his cheek, the surprise pain slowly waning into harmless tingles. But the tingles lingered, determined to prove that he was alive. That existence was pain, but it was so much more. Supplemented by Sigrid’s words, he listened to the example. Listened to the sensations. The responses of his body. The flush, the skin-crawling details that identified him as a person with matter, form, and hue. A heart thrummed in his chest, pumping blood to the arteries and receiving blood from the veins. That was when he realized; there were no corpse-feeding worms burrowing beneath his skin. They were simply part of a network of capillaries that comprised him whole, and sustained him on this plane of reality. It was a pulse. Thump. Thump. Thump. What he felt...was life.
Life. I’m alive.
The wind-like roar in his ears faded, and the fog behind his eyes abated.
Alive alive alive.
“Yes. It is real,” he said in a reluctant mutter. An admittance of defeat, but all the same, he spoke the words with wonder and disbelief. “It’s all real. Why I could have doubted it, I…” he shook his head. “No, I know why. I tried so hard to believe I wasn’t alive, because I shouldn’t be. Perhaps it’s true, too; I shouldn’t be alive. Because unlike you, or Alster, or Teselin, or Vega--I’m a consistent monster. I’ve killed; I’ll kill again. Of course, everyone has their moments. But these moments of mine have defined me for most of my life. That’s why I thought everyone would be better off...if I removed myself. If I just...disappeared.”
No sooner had he said ‘disappeared’ than Sigrid used the moment to transition into her own mess of troubles. And it was not easy to swallow. None of it. It takes them. Gaolithe takes its wielders…
“Takes?” He stiffened, not liking the implications of Sigrid’s confession, or its trajectory. “What does that mean?”
Gone.
It chose her, and she would be gone.
No. No no no no.
“You don’t have to use it,” he said with a burst of energy that startled even him.“You’re not bound to it, are you? There’s nothing that says you have to use it.”
She was planning to use it. For some insane reason, she wanted erasure so readily that she didn’t even question the sword’s efficacy. Yet, she was quick to judge him for dying for the sake of protecting others? Killing himself to save his dear family--from the monster at their door. And now she chose to end her life, manipulated by the power of her sword’s promise? Accepting fate without a fight...was that entrenched deep in his family’s bloodline? Were they all so cursed, so damned, that the world devised increasingly more sinister methods for deleting them? Now, the Fates had perfected their art, and foisted their magnum opus on the latest victim; Sigrid Sorenson.
No, no no no no. I will not stand for it. I will not. This is enough. This ends now. No more. No more!
The world could target him all it wanted, but it was cruel, too cruel, for it to go after his last and only solid connection to a past before the Forbanne infiltrated and turned him into something else. He refused to let it kill the memory, his connection--his last living relative, far as he could tell.
“If I can’t vanish, then there’s no way in hell you’re vanishing, either,” he growled, and in his eyes, a sort of preternatural light seemed to form. Green, and livid, and done with Fate’s sick games. “You have no way of knowing if that sword will save us. If there’s no memory of its previous wielders, there’s no memory of their victories. It could all be a lie. A manipulation. How is it you’re so ready to believe I’ve been manipulated, but won’t view your weapon in the same light? Dammit, Sigrid,” he planted his hands against the edge of the bed and propelled his feet to the floor, “you can’t shower me with disappointment when you’re ready to give it all up, too! I’m not letting a God weapon be our savior. We can handle it ourselves.”
“No more of this.” With pure, furious willpower, he rose to his feet, towering over his cousin at a stolid, sturdy attention. The refusal to abide by her wishes circumvented his frailty. “I won’t have this anymore. I won’t accept these unavoidable, unshakeable destinies that toss us and ridicule us. That force us into twisted situations. Backing us into corners, leading us astray, convincing us there’s no way out but blood and murder and sacrifice. They’ve made a mockery of me, of you, of my family for far too long, and I’m not going to bow like an obedient puppet! Curse the gods; I’m done obeying, and you should be, too!” Rounding on her, he took her shoulders into a tight grip and forced her upright.
“You’re right; there isn’t always a solution. But I see a clear one, here; don’t use it. Because using that sword isn’t a solution! Defeating this Locque isn’t impossible; if what people say is true, and I was victimized by her, then I survived it. Elespeth survived it. So before you go off killing yourself because you think there’s no other way, pull back and think about it for a moment, Sigrid. This is exactly what I did. And,” startling clarity rippled through the cloud of depression that had settled and smothered his aura just before, “...it looks like it saved no one. I may be Forbanne until the day I die, but my death...saved no one. Maybe I’ll learn to accept that I’m...still here, if I can make this second chance at life worthwhile, and save while I’m alive. Please.” He took her hand as gently as he would that of a baby, in dreams where he was a father and not Forbanne. “Dying...isn’t great.” He snorted, shocked that he managed a somewhat humorous comment, of all things. “Not this early. Not when it’s completely unnecessary. And…” he leaned against her shoulder, drawing her into a one-armed hug, “I’m not ready to forget you. At any point. Give us more credit, besides. ...I have an army. Or did.” He shook his head, and the determination refilled the colors in his entire being. “I’ll get them back, without compulsion. And fight. For my family, Sigrid. That includes you. I’ll redirect the monster that lives in me--and destroy our enemies.”
While Alster was willing to ride on his own Night steed and relinquish his seat in the carriage for Daphni, the Sybaian healer had seemed mollified enough by the arrangement to retroactively change her mind and stay behind. He was somewhat relieved of her decision, concerned that Elias would tag along as well, thus swelling their little gathering into a full-blown entourage. Too many people attracted attention, and now that he was relatively certain of Locque’s presence in Galeyn, it was most wise not to stand out and be seen. Unfortunately, there was not much one could do about the conspicuous nature of their little trio; a pregnant princess, a powerful doe-eyed summoner, and a Rigas Lord with a steel arm.
As the carriage departed the vicinity of the Night Garden, Alster, who had spent much of the past week inside the sanctuary, felt the effects of its loss almost immediately. His chest seemed to sag and his heart, to flutter. Inflammation, traces of which he experienced even when stationed at the veritable heart of the Night Garden, where all the strongest leylines converged, spread like an all-consuming rash along the raised flesh bordering the ports of his steel prosthesis. However much he wanted to curl up in pain every time the Night steeds traversed each bump in the road like they would unmoor the carriage from the harness and send them all skyward, he didn’t want anyone to question the poor state of his health or suggest he return to the palace. If Locque preyed on vulnerabilities, she would have no trouble paralyzing him without needing to dig far beneath the surface or to his emotional core. Should he cast a spell of significant size, he wondered what might give out first; his heart, or his arm--which felt ready to melt off his body.
Of course, neither Vega nor Teselin needed to know his compromised abilities, not when he declared he’d protect them from danger. And he would...but he was aware of the cost. So long as he carried the symptoms of Elespeth’s failing heart inside his body, he was, unfortunately, more of a hindrance than a help. If the sorceress should stage a surprise attack on Galeyn, he, despite his magical might, would exhaust himself at the onset and be of no use to anyone. Elespeth was relying on him to maintain his health. Unfortunately, to do so, she would have to surrender the last vestiges of her own health, and the mere thought of seeing her reduced to a comatose shell of a person was more painful to bear than the actual pain. And thus, he was forced to face another crossroads, another choice. Do I build my strength for the upcoming battle, to stand a better chance of surviving, or do I choose you? Do I stay by your side and...die by your side? And if so, is the latter really a choice if it puts our lives, if it puts everyone’s lives, in danger? By choosing you, am I actually choosing you, or am I just avoiding the inevitable? That if we have any hope of moving forward...I would have to return it to you. The pain. All of it…
His deep, meditative contemplations were jostled back to reality when the carriage jerked to a sudden stop. They had arrived at their destination. It was full dark outside, too dark to see more than a foot in front of them. Offering his good hand for Vega to take, Alster led her with care down the narrow steps and cast a small floating light of etherea to guide them to the front entrance.
Tivia answered the door with an immediacy that suggested she was long-expecting their arrival. “Ah, Alster. Glad to see you’ve finally made good on your promise to visit our humble little farm. And Teselin--nice to see you again.” She bobbed her head in greeting before her eye drifted to the third guest, an outlier among the mages present, but definitely not unprecedented, considering recent events. “Vega. Don’t worry. Vitali has been anticipating your arrival. We knew you’d come,” she said with an offhanded shrug. “We’ll explain everything. Come inside.”
They entered the modest home and gathered around a small table beside the kitchen. Tivia hauled over the cushy chair that Vitali favored and offered it to Vega.
“Vitali’s in the back room. He’ll be out shortly,” Tivia said, lifting a steaming kettle from the hearth and setting aside five porcelain cups. “Would you like some tea?” She did not wait for a response before sprinkling a mix of herbs into each cup and adding the hot water. “I’m assuming you’re here to ask about your husband,” she distributed the cups to her guests and took a seat. “About what happened. The short of it was that we were in the area, curious about the development of the D’Marian village. And then...the stars intervened. They cried for me to investigate an aberration nearby. Something wrong, and sinister. The air choked of it. When we arrived, we found Haraldur, and he,” she swallowed, “was dead. If we had arrived sooner, perhaps we, or I, could have prevented it...but maybe not.” Her hands traced the floral patterns of her porcelain cup. “I have faith that if the stars wanted Vitali and me there sooner, it would have happened. There must be a reason for our specific timing. Whatever the case, it was fortuitous, because Haraldur’s soul had not yet departed his body, and Vitali had ensured that it wouldn’t. And--I’m sure you know the rest of the story.” She tilted her head at Vega. “How are you faring, your Highness? And…” she hesitated, “how is Haraldur? Has he awakened?”
Following the exchange of assurances that Vega did not suffer from any severe, lasting maladies and that Haraldur was awake and aware, albeit mentally unwell, Alster, who quietly sat blowing on his tea, nodded over to Tivia. “You said you found blood that did not belong to Haraldur at the scene,” he said. “Haraldur insists that the blood belongs to a child that he killed. It sounded like she manipulated him. Projected horrifying images into his mind that ostensibly drove him to madness. Although this appears to be the work of Locque, you did mention ‘The Wolf’ to me in passing, and we all know that Hadwin can do this with fears. I was one of his victims,” he muttered, as an aside. “Apologies, Teselin,” he dipped his head. “I’m not implicating him outright. I believe his alibi. But if he bears any relation to this incident, it behooves us to know. It’s pretty telling that I have found not hair nor hide of him at the palace, lately. I think he’s hiding something.”
“I agree.” Tivia set down her cup of tea. “I think he is hiding something. ‘The Wolf’ is involved. I could not say to which extent, but the stars hint that the blood is connected to him.” Her probing eye affixed on the summoner, its gray flecks swimming with suspicion. “But who could say? I can never elicit a straightforward response from the heavens. It’s a jigsaw puzzle where half the pieces are missing, and the other half have been warped by weather and don’t quite fit.”
Their conversation was cut short when the wanted man, himself, made his appearance. Although Alster had not seen him in months, the necromancer had not changed. Despite the blindfold, he was unruffled by his disability. Did it even affect him at all? The way he carried himself as always, oozing with self-assurance and elegance, seemed to suggest that it didn’t. A minor inconvenience and nothing more.
“Vitali.” Alster stood from the table to approach the necromancer. As per his usual interactions with the man, the Rigas Head exuded a cold but polite professionalism. “You’re doing well, I take it? Well enough, I assume, to travel freely about the majority of Galeyn. Perhaps your curse is temporary, then, if you are finding yourself able to enclose on the range of the Night Garden with gradual progress. Anyway,” he cleared his throat and glanced behind him, at Vega, “inquiring minds want to know about the aid you delivered to Haraldur Sorde several nights ago. While I humbly appreciate what you have done to preserve the link between his spirit and his body, others are left questioning if your efforts are entirely without their price. Do you mind clearing the air, and clarifying your intentions?”
If she were being honest with herself, Sigrid hadn’t anticipated Haraldur to react to her dark news in the slightest, if not for one reason, than another. Either because he was too far gone for it to register in his numb mind, or because he continued to hold resentment and hurt toward her for so openly and cavalierly shunning him as she had, back in Braighdath. That said, the Dawn warrior was not prepared for the light that suddenly built in his green eyes, like tiny fires that had been starved of oxygen for too long, suddenly roaring to life with a breath of fresh air. “Haraldur…” When she spoke his name, she wasn’t sure if she meant to stay his fears and shock with some mollifying words, or out of awe for the fact that life and vigor had suddenly seemed to return to his body and mind.
“Haraldur… I don’t know that I will have a choice.” Her voice sounded far quieter than she’d intended, but she couldn’t find the strength in her to give it any vigor. As if her confession had completely drained her of her conviction. “You are entirely right; I do not know of Gaolithe’s efficacy, and I am being manipulated. I do not know that it did, indeed, save anyone in the past. But I did not allow it to choose me, in the first place. I lost one of my brothers in the Dawn guard… the sword sacrificed his life to ensure that I lay my hands upon its hilt. And I do not know that I will have a choice when I wield it against Locque. Like I have already said… there are conditions under which anyone will do anything. And that includes my wielding Gaolithe. If it comes between your lives and mine… then I could not endure living with myself, knowing there was something that I could do to help. Even if there is some alternate solution…” Sigrid spread her hands helplessly in front of her. “Gaolithe may not care. I’ll be honest, Haraldur, I do not even know just how much I am in control, in this situation. It may not be a matter of my choosing to wield it or to not wield it, if it has a mind and a will of its own…”
Before she could protest, her cousin, suddenly filled with the strength she’d always remembered him to have, grabbed her shoulders and hauled her to her feet, with as much ease as if she were as light as that wide-eyed young summoner who appeared as though she had little to no substance. “Haraldur, it is not as though a part of me is not still holding out for an alternative,” she said, suddenly breathless and light-headed from rising to her feat with such haste. “But I need to prepare myself for the possibility that there is no other way. For the possibility that I will not always be here, and I will be gone before my time. I know this comes across as pessimistic… but I don’t know. I just don’t know how it will play out, and I do not want to instill false hope in anyone if there isn’t any to be found…”
The Dawn warrior then found herself pressed against Haraldur’s body, in a tight, abrupt hug, and for a moment, she wasn’t quite sure how to react. They had never been especially close, due to time, distance, and unfortunate circumstances, despite that the both of them had secretly desired a closer relationship, and this brief and sudden display of raw affection and emotion moved something deep in Sigrid’s core. Tears pooled in her eyes, for the first time since the night Naimah had called her out on her antics. She still wasn’t used to tears, and they stung a little as they trickled down her cheeks. “...why should you care?” She breathed, her voice sounding as unsteady as she felt. “You said it before… we are barely family. Only by some thinly related blood, and even that is only speculation, based on the star seer’s knowledge. I… shouldn’t be your concern. Vega should be. Your children should be. So… do as you say. Take that monster that you so strongly believe inhabits you, and use it so that it cannot use you. Use it to protect your wife, your children. And if we happen to meet at the end of it all, and I am still here at the end of it, then I will continue to contribute to a safe world where you and your family can thrive. And if not…” She gently pulled away, her eyes and face wet with fresh tears, “then I will have no regrets, knowing that I did what I could to keep you safe. I have yearned for a connection to my past for so long, Haraldur. I thought all of those ties had been severed by tragic circumstances, but when I learned of you, and that you are alive, it reminded me that I do not only fight to be cohesive with my brethren of the Dawn Guard. I fight for people like you. Just as you will continue to fight for people like me.”
While difficult, the Dawn warrior managed to hazard a smile despite the heavy emotion that clung to her like a thick fog. “When Vega returns tonight, tell her what you told me. That you are not going to give up, and that you can and will make a hero out of the monster you so perceive yourself to be. I believe in you, Haraldur. Vega believes in you. Alster believes in you. All that is left is for you to believe in yourself.”
Of course he knew we would come, Vega very nearly retorted with acid prepared in her voice. The necromancer was just one of those people who always managed to remain two steps ahead for his impeccable foresight. Evidently, going blind had done nothing to hinder his perception and observation.
Hopefully, for his sake, he also knew well enough than to expect unconditional thanks for saving (or restoring) her husband’s life. The princess would not be made a fool of again for the invisible strings that were always attached to any ‘favours’ the necromancer chose to provide.
Gratefully accepting the chair that the star seer pulled up for her, Vega took a seat, silently thankful for something more comfortable than what she had endured on the ride down. “Your would assume correctly,” she confirmed, at Tivia’s not-so-wild guess as to why she’d accompanied Alster and Teselin in the first place. “I will say that due to the necromancer’s… positive interference, Haraldur continues to draw breath. But ‘living’ is not exactly how I would describe his condition.” She looked at the cup of tea in front of her, feeling the warmth of it in her hands, without much inclination to partake in drinking it. “His mind refuses to grasp that he is alive. And whenever he has a moment of clarity, he cannot accept that he isn’t dead. Not even that he wants to be, but that he believes he should be. I… I tried to reach him. I thought that I could, for a moment, but…” She shook her head, and placed the porcelain cup on the table as her hands began to shake with barely-repressed emotion. “I am as well as you can expect someone in my situation to be. According to the healers, I am experiencing some problems with blood pressure which isn’t uncommon for pregnant women, which is what caused me to collapse at the… news. But rest assured, myself and the children are all fine. I just…” She looked up from her lap, her blazing, crystalline eyes fixed hopefully on the star seer. “I need to know what happened, that night. Before and after the necromancer tended to my husband. I had hoped you might be able to clarify some of the details.”
Alster almost immediately honed in on something Tivia had reported earlier; that whatever had occurred, ‘The Wolf’ had been involved, which immediately pointed to Hadwin Kavanagh, resident shape-shifter. Vega’s cheeks flushed with thinly-veiled ire. “He would not be without motive. Tivia, you yourself said that Haraldur would be lost forever if he succeed in killing ‘The Wolf’. There is no one else who fits that description. Who is to say he did not orchestrate this preemptively to take out a potential enemy before they could get to him?”
“It wasn’t Hadwin.” Teselin insisted, with a firmness that shocked everyone in the room who was used to her typically quiet, hesitant voice. Heat stained her face pink; she hadn’t intended to be so deliberate… “Please believe me when I say I would not defend him if I knew he was responsible for something so horrendous. If you cannot have faith in his character, then at least have faith in mine. But I am sure he was not ‘The Wolf’ who prowled the area that night. I consulted with Briery Frealy, the acrobat, about his whereabouts, and she confirmed they were together that night. Even Cwenha could attest to that, and she of all people most certainly would not be inclined to defend Hadwin. Someone was there with Haraldur, that night, and I believe they manipulated him into thinking he had murdered a child… but the magic signature was smudged and faded, almost non-existent…”
“Not non-existent. Just very… old. Not the type you are used to reading, nowadays.”
Who should round the corner, then, but the very (other) man in question, the necromancer himself. Vitali smiled an easy smile, as if the atmosphere in the room was not heavy and toxic with anger and accusation and fear. “Teselin, I am blessed that you would pay your estranged older brother a visit, again. And Alster--and your Highness.” He swept into an exaggerated bow before stepping up to the table. “I am sure you have already been asked, but for my peace of mind: how is that husband, of yours?”
“I was hoping you could tell me.” Vega bit off her words with the anger she’d been keeping at bay to the best of her ability. She would not hold back for his sake.
Vitali straightened his posture, his easy smile not wavering even slightly at the Eyraillian princess's ire, and took a seat next to Tivia, anticipating the star seer would save him a seat. “Your husband was medically dead, your highness. His body was not functioning, but his spirit had yet to depart the vessel. I tethered it to his corpse and bought him time; nothing more, and nothing less. Rest assured it was nowhere as risky and involved as it was dragging your own departing soul back into your body. He should not experience any residual side-effects.”
“What I want to know, necromancer, is why.” Vega pressed. Her hands had curled into fists on the table. “In what way did you benefit from the arrangement? Who bears the burden of your bargain?”
“Take a breath, your highness. With that much rage, you'd be at risk of miscarrying.” The necromancer reached for the tea that Tivia had kindly poured for him and brought the steaming liquid to his lips, ever the unshakable stone in the wake of Vega Sorde's fierce wind. “There was no bargain. We happened upon a situation where I was able to make a difference; it would have left poor Tivia terribly upset had I failed to act.”
Vega was not swayed. “Do you really expect me to believe such utter bullshit? Tivia--was it you?” The princess turned toward the star seer with a look of concern and reached for one of her hands. “What did he make you promise in return for my husband's life?”
But the star seer was quick to assure her that Vitali Kristeva was, however unbelievable it may be, telling the truth. It was almost too much for Vega to process, given that each and every time that despicable man had done a ‘boon’ for anyone, it had never been without a price… so how was it that the camaraderie of a damaged Rigas caster could sway him to act beyond his character?
“Vitali… you were there to sense the magic signature at the site.” Teselin finally changed the subject, when it appeared that the Eyraillian princess did not have any fodder left to feed her hatred toward the necromancer. “You just said it felt old, but not non-existent. What does that mean? What can you tell us? There is… suspicion that Hadwin might somehow be involved.” Her shoulders drooped visibly to face that accusation, but at this point, it was no secret. “We’d like to know your take.”
“So you think your surrogate brother is to blame?”
“He isn’t my…” The young summoner’s cheeks flared red, and she shook her head. “I don’t think he is. But Tivia senses otherwise. Which is why we sought your input.”
Vitali tapped his chin thoughtfully. “Something about losing your sense of sight does, in fact, make you keenly aware of everything else going on around you. Sounds, smells, touch… auras. I’ve been in the company of your canine friend; if I didn’t smell his presence first, I am confident enough to know I would sense it. It wasn’t the residual dregs of his particular presence that I felt, surrounding the Forbanne captain’s dead body.”
“What was it, then? As far as I know,” Vega frowned, “there is only one Wolf.”
“Perhaps that is a question you should ask the accused, then. Sadly, try though I might, I do not have all the answers.” Vitali spread his hands, palms up on the table. “All I can say is there was an essence in the air that I have not felt for a very long time. Whatever happened to our dear Eyraillian prince, powerful magic was at work, whether or not it happened to involve a wolf. Sadly, that is all I am able to tell you. That said,” he picked up his porcelain cup and took another long sip of tea, “I suppose the lot of you aren’t planning to stay for tea, now that you’ve gotten what you came for? Really, I don’t blame you for doubting me; something must be off in my head. First I save a life without so much as a genuine thanks,” he arched an eyebrow in Alster and Vega’s direction, “then I provide my insights on the terrible crime, completely free of charge. The only person at this table who hasn’t asked anything of me, here, is Lord Rigas.”
The necromancer flashed a sly smile at the Rigas head and leaned back in his chair. “Though I imagine there is only one thing you are in want of. My condolences on your wife’s poor prognosis, but sadly, unless you’d be willing to let her body die to the same extent as our Haraldur Sorde did, my skills will not benefit poor Elespeth Rigas.”
“That is uncalled for,” Vega hissed. Not only in defense of Alster, who genuinely had appeared to be grateful for what Vitali had done for Haraldur, but for the fact that Elespeth was her friend. And she would not be the salt in her own husband’s wound, just because this wretch of a man thought it might be funny.
“Of course--my apologies. Although… you did do me a boon, restoring my arm to a functioning state.” He lifted his formerly-afflicted arm to indicate how its range of motion and strength had, at this point, almost been entirely restored. “And frankly, I do not enjoy being in anyone’s debt. Sadly, I may not be a Master Alchemist like my brother, and as such cannot do anything if Elespeth Rigas is still alive, but if you are in need of another quick soul-tethering, by all means, you know where to find me.”
Alchemist…? The throw-away comment caught Teselin’s attention. She furrowed her brows in confusion. “Wait… Vitali, what did you just mean? By not being an alchemist… are you proposing that somehow, alchemy might be the solution to cure Elespeth?”
The necromancer snorted and shook his head. “Not the type that the blokes around these parts practice, no. What they do is superficial and of help to no one, unless you care to change your hair or eye color. Forbidden alchemy, on the other hand... well, that circumvents science and magic. Unfortunately, not many people are adept in it, considering that it is a highly risky undertaking, and… well, forbidden. Rather frowned upon--not so unlike necromancy, I suppose. Oh, damnit all, Teselin.” He snapped his fingers. “Now you are leading me to actually relate to Isidor, of all people.”
“Isidor--our brother. A Master Alchemist. And… based on your words, alone…” Teselin stared at Vitali’s partially concealed face, wishing she could see his eyes to read the truth in them. “...he is adept in forbidden alchemy. How was I never aware of this? And what makes you think it could help Elespeth, if her tolerance to magic leaves her unable to be healed by those means?”
“Because you’ve never met him? And it is only a matter of my own reasoning, but alchemy is that grey area that is neither science nor magic, and can pick up where either of the two leave off in terms of limitations. So by that logic, intolerance to magical intervention does not write one off as being intolerant to alchemical intervention. But anyway,” he made a dismissive gesture with his hand, “That is neither here nor there. Isidor Kristeva is off hiding somewhere in the forests bordering the kingdom of Nairit, and he doesn’t want to be found. My apologies if I was inferring false hope; I am rather guilty of the tendency to think out loud.”
“So we focus on our choices, first. That cursed sword is not a choice because it removes you from having a choice,” Haraldur retorted. “Anything that steals autonomy away from you, your rights, your decisions, and sacrifices your ideals by forcing you into compulsive servitude…That route is not to be trusted. It’s never to be trusted!” No matter how much he adjusted his voice, the wrinkles of his personal experiences, past and present, whipped his speech into something raw and desperate. He frothed and foamed and sprayed like a maelstrom, but his fury was only matched by the earthquakes which unseated his tidal strength from the depths of the ocean. He raged because he had no choice. Because they took his choices from him at a young age. What resulted from over a decade of slavery was this ugly welt on the world, and, though he tried to temper the storm that Mollengard tailored, if the winds of destiny never favored him, then it was no wonder his surface was always pocked with ripples and waves. Unshakeable destiny. There were never calm waters. He mistook calm for the eye of the storm.
Not anymore. He wouldn’t wait for the ripples to form by outside forces. He’d create those ripples, himself, and push back, back against himself, and he’d push back for Sigrid, too.
They got to me, in that tiny island home of ours, but they won’t get to you, too. You escaped. I refuse to believe that Fate is punishing you from escaping the life that I had to endure. I won’t let this pass. Never. Never…
“The will of one person is weaker than the will of many, especially when they’re fighting against the very thing you maintain will be our victory. This one, convenient object of divine providence. And doesn’t single-minded reliance on something so untrustworthy and sinister undermine the efforts of those who you trust implicitly? Wouldn’t you rather rely on their powers than be beholden to this wretched thing that is milking your vulnerabilities for a miracle? Look,” he sighed, “I don’t doubt you’ll do anything to save the lives you cherish, but again, you’re one person. Alster and Naimah...and me--we are three, and I’m sure there’s more who will oppose you, Sigrid. It’s not up to you and only you to fight. Besides, I’m in charge of my own destiny.”
Suddenly, something buoyant and airy rushed to his head. He stumbled as if receiving an invisible blow. He retreated a step and leaned on his dominant foot to regain his balance. What did I just say?! What nonsense, what ultimate hubris!
What an Eyrallian way of thinking.
He leaned into the feeling. Leaned into the flush of power that churned through his awakening body. It was blasphemous, true. With this mindset, he was screaming to the heavens to strike him down with a well-timed lightning bolt. He was asking for trouble. Courting danger, challenging Fortune by refusing to play against a stacked hand...he had too much to lose to subscribe into that reckless way of thinking. He was not Vega, or that shapeshifter, Hadwin.
But…
But...didn’t he already lose it all? His life…
He was so careful. He followed the rules. He exercised caution, kept his head down, and still--he was defeated. He defeated himself. And if Fate really had it in for him, if he was going to lose either way, why not adopt a different method? Why not forge ahead and take what he wanted? Perhaps he’d suffer the same result, but he’d reach that result through a different path. And maybe, just maybe…a new perspective would benefit his family. Protect them, even. Because I’ll use destruction to carve the way to peace. I’ll tear open the throats of our oppressors and open up a clearing where you can grow, shielded from fear and sorrow. For you. Kynnet. Klara. Vega. ...Sigrid.
“That’s right.” He laughed, half-delirious from the pent-up frustrations that had built and built like an unstable tower over his long, agonizing years of disciplined suppression. “I am in charge of my destiny. Hell, I can’t be reached. I already died. I severed my ties. This is a new life. I’m not bound. I’m not bound at all! And you…” the pure giddiness of his high melted a bit upon viewing her subdued expression and the tears that pricked at her eyes. “Even with your pessimistic approach, there’s nothing to lose. If you’re going to die, anyway, if no one will remember you anyway...if both of us are trapped in this labyrinth where no matter what we do, we’ll meet a violent or tragic end at every corner...we might as well do our best to make the biggest splash possible, right? Because the world might forget your time here...but it’s going to forget you, anyway. Eventually, we’ll all be forgotten. We’ll all be erased. It doesn’t mean we should all stop and wait for the end. Everything is meaningless, anyway. It’s all so damn meaningless. So let’s be as meaningfully meaningless as we can, Sigrid.”
When he pulled away from his impromptu hug, the tears that hinted beneath the Dawn warrior’s eyelids slid down, and down, and down, as she finally expressed ‘why’? Why was she important to him? Why did unconfirmed familial ties mean a lick at all? “I care, because when you pushed me away for all this time, I was...devastated.” He slid his arm from Sigrid’s shoulder. “In the short time we’ve known each other, you were...there for me. You helped me to remember myself. Twice. You didn’t give up on me, even when I was...a real pain in the ass to deal with,” he admitted with the slightest twitch of a smile. “And when you did turn away, when you cut our ties and closed the door between us for good, I...didn’t know what to do. You were a constant that I took for granted, until you were gone. Until you gave up--or, made me to believe that you did. Maybe you did, in a way. Give up on me. I wasn’t getting any better, and...I’m sure I was dragging you down.” He reached for a clean cloth draped over the bedside table and handed it to her. “It’s true, we may not be family. It may be a tenuous connection, and it was so long ago. No reason for our half-formed memories to hold ground after so many years. But in that short time since our introduction--our reintroduction--we made it matter. Because we wanted it to mean something. And it still does, to me. Yes, of course, I still mean to protect Vega. To protect her children.” He hesitated. “...Our children. They are my family, but...but you are, too. You forget...those are the people I fight for, too. And since death didn’t work out too well for me...I’ll take my sword, and do what I’m good at. And I’ll name that sword Orlog, and I’ll cut away the threads that bind us to our cursed, inherited ancestry. Promise me, Sigrid.” He offered his arm and its palm, face up, for her to shake. “That you’ll fight with me, not for me. You don’t need a meritless sword for that. That thing can save no one.”
It came as a surprise to no one in the room that, upon Vitali’s emergence from the back room, Vega demanded that he explain his intentions before any civil discourse could resume. Alster, who still stood between these opposing energies, was relieved, at least, that the pregnant princess did not physically rise to meet the necromancer with challenge in her eyes. She stayed seated, but her voice, nonetheless, vaulted over any obstructions in the room to hit the target honed in by her nocked bowstring. And while Alster was willing to believe the blindfolded man’s act of good will, when he glibly stated that there was no price to pay, even the Rigas Head’s shoulders slumped in a measure of disbelief. “Was...is this true?” He craned his head to address Tivia, who sat slurping her tea in a way that suggested mild annoyance.
“Of course it’s true, Alster,” she scoffed, as if to even ask was a ridiculous notion. “We came upon a harrowing situation that the stars themselves deemed worthy of fixing. It would be a terrible tragedy if nothing were to come from uncovering a dead body of an Eyrallian prince and expecting father with a necromancer in tow. I did not need to strike a bargain, Vega.” She daintily set her empty cup on the table, which, in the dead silence of the farmhouse, made a rather clamorous sound. “He came to my aid of his own accord. I didn’t need to ask, and there was never talk of payment afterward. Vitali traveled here to Galeyn for a new life. Why would he disrupt the harmonious energies of this place by causing such discord among common alliances? No one benefits. No matter how nefarious a person may appear, it makes no sense for that person to eschew logic in favor of a fleeting but unsustainable thirst for revenge.”
This argument, of course, circled back to the accused, Hadwin Kavanagh, who was placed on the figurative podium on the grounds of his suspicious character--a similar indictment to Vitali, himself. Only, this time, Tivia was not so willing to exonerate ‘The Wolf,’ for his purported crimes. “He bears a connection to this event,” she repeated her claims from earlier, stubborn pride turning down the visible right corner of her mouth in displeasure. “I cannot tell you the specifics because even I do not know. My ability is most potent when it involves people who share in my own blood, but I am certain that he is linked to that pool of blood.”
“You said something about reading an ancient signature, Vitali,” Alster said, after nodding at Tivia’s contribution. “As did you, Teselin. I don’t want to ask any leading questions that might tinge this investigation in a biased light but I must ask if you think this ancient signature might belong to the sorceress Locque.”
It was possible, came the answer, but mere conjecture did not, unfortunately, equal that of undeniable proof. Locque was still a mystery, too intangible to grasp with fingers that yearned to close on something solid and substantial. At this stage, she may as well be a manifestation of the unconscious evil of mankind. A concept more than a person. Alster sighed, but conceded, and instead focused on the problems that could be reasoned out and solved. “So our next course of action is to question Hadwin. That’s the next, and as far as I see it, the only viable step forward.”
“I will say this,” Tivia added, swishing around the dregs of her tea as if reading her fortune. “It happened already, Vega. That event where Haraldur would be lost forever if he killed ‘The Wolf.’ For he did kill...or he thought he killed a figure associated with ‘The Wolf.’ He killed and he died for it. And in another universe, he is lost forever. This is happening, this has happened, this will happen, somewhere else. But here, in this world, an anomalous streak suddenly burst through the sky and it...shifted the fates. Changed the mapping of his stars. Something intervened. In other words, in spite of horrendous odds, Haraldur Sorde survived out of sheer, dumb luck. And apparently, this has happened before. This man dodges death, or permanent death, anyhow, when he shouldn’t. It is not so uncommon, but the amount of times it has happened to him is quite impressive, and worth noting. It makes sense that your energies are attracted to each other.” Tivia tilted her head at the Skyknight. “Because you’re similar. Death can’t hold either of you.”
It definitely was worth noting, but Alster, who was still mulling about the mystery of the ‘Wolf’s’ identity, pushed aside the topic for the time being and shifted the discussion back to the night of Haraldur’s death. “Maybe…” He gnawed at the tip of his finger, churning around the information presented to him thus far. “You only said, Tivia, that Hadwin bears a connection to the pool of blood, not that it belongs to him. So,” he gestured to Vega, “Maybe you’re on to something, Vega. Maybe there is more than one Wolf. They typically travel in packs. It would not be unlikely to believe that there are more shapeshifters like Hadwin. That they’re related. I think it’s been mentioned that he has a--”
However, his revelations were cut short when Vitali had dug his proverbial claws into him. The verbal raking had manifested as a flare-up that throbbed a painful, burning ring around the inflamed flesh near his steel arm. So viscerally had those words penetrated that Alster could not help but flinch from the sting, both emotional and physical.
“I’ve thought of that,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper, in case Elespeth could hear of his intentions from afar and later berate him for ever considering necromancy as a solution. “I have. As a last resort. If nothing else could be done, I...would ask you to do that for her, yes.” It was shameful to admit out loud, not because he particularly abhorred the practice of necromancy, but because to participate in such a ritual, he would have to motion for Elespeth’s death. Considering the most recent events, the mere thought of losing her for a moment, of seeing her cross the event horizon with no promise of returning...it was maddening. If he could at all help it, he wanted her to bear no connection to death. He saw what it had done to Vega. While it may not have affected Haraldur in the same way, each case was different. And though it was absurd to consider...
Perhaps Elespeth would like it on the other side. Without him.
But then he heard the word ‘Alchemist,’ and he perked up, brushing away the demon of worst-case scenarios that often encroached in his mind. A Master Alchemist like my brother…
“You have a ‘Master Alchemist’ for a brother?” He was by no means an adept at alchemy, but as a well-read, self-proclaimed devourer of knowledge, especially of the sciences, mention of this ‘brother’ piqued his interest. He’d heard of the forbidden arts. Not much had been written on the subject, either to bury the practice until dead, or to keep it from covetous hands. Or perhaps, the covetous snatched up all traces of the science and hid the evidence from the world. Nonetheless, it had been hypothesized by scholars that such practices fell out of favor not so much for their immorality (though public outcry might have been one contributing factor), but because of its niche specialization. So niche, in fact, that forbidden alchemy rarely showed any utility or application in real-life scenarios. Any result of success was a burden on the user and often, the success rate was too low to justify continuous study. That form of alchemy was better as a theoretical science, and not so much a practical one.
So why, at the casual utterance of this ‘Master Alchemist,’ did Alster’s attention stiffen and his heart pound with the urge to find out more?
“Explain to me what you mean,” he said, reining in any vestige of hope. This was Vitali, after all. The man liked to puff hot air just to see how people reacted. “And why mentioning this brother of yours, even offhandedly, deserves attention at all. How is he adept at forbidden alchemy? From what I’ve read, it requires a steady hand and pinpoint focus. There can be absolutely no margin for error, even to the smallest iota of detail. Failure has...messy consequences. And yet you believe...Isidor, was it? You believe that Isidor is gifted enough in this forbidden art to-to...what--build Elespeth another heart?!” Cold, detached rationale fizzled out in an instant, replaced with a fluster of barely-contained emotion. The implications broached in the conversation had him in a tizzy. He lowered his head to breathe, to reclaim his composure despite the dominion of over-sensitive energies prickling at every exposed inch of skin.
“Have you seen him...perform? Can you vouch for his aptitude in practical applications?” And is he like you? Floated the unspoken question. “Nairit...that isn’t far from Braighdath. It would not be impossible to pay this man a visit by Night steed and...see what he’s capable of. I...of course--” he hurried, “am thinking out loud, too. There’s nothing to suggest that he holds any solutions for...restoration or replacement, or…” He shook his head, hoping to dislodge any outrageous suggestions before they took form. Too late. He was too curious, too intrigued, to let the subject fall between the floorboards and disappear. I said I would find a solution by any means necessary. I promised you that, Elespeth, he thought, twirling his wedding band about his finger. I have to pursue any leads, however ludicrous. However much this might end nowhere...
“You said he doesn’t want to be found, Vitali?” Determination glinted in his eyes. “Can he be found? I’d say you more than have the means to find people who don’t want to be found, if your illustrious career of collecting debts means anything.”
“Ah--so the possibility has crossed your mind? To inflict death in hopes of restoring life?” Vitali raised both his eyebrows in surprise at Alster’s confession. He didn’t need to have a sense of sight to know the Rigas mage was more than likely looking down in shame. “Well, that is something I never thought I would hear from the likes of you. Is it that you’ve given up, or you are truly desperate to believe there is still hope for your chronically ill wife?”
“Vitali…” Teselin sighed and gave her brother a pained look, only remembering after the fact that he could not see the disapproval on her face. But his words hardly seemed to register with Alster; at least, those words didn’t. Mention of Isidor, however, stuck and took over as the topic of conversation, even after the necromancer attempted to brush the issue away as a passing fancy or some farfetched idea. Alster latched on to the possibility like a drowning man to a piece of driftwood.
Needless to say, this appeared to amuse the necromancer to no end. “Yes, Alster. My sisters are a queen of an inherited kingdom, and a powerful summoner. Is it really any surprise that more unprecedented talent might run through my respective bloodlines?” He sat lazily back in his chair, one hand still gripping his mug. “Like I said, I was merely thinking out loud. That it deserves attention at all happens to have been your call, Rigas. I merely mean what I said: that I am related to someone who has achieved the standing of a Master Alchemist. He trained extensively and rather gruellingly since he was a child, and just so happened to exhibit the aptitude and resilience to fit the role. And actually,” he held a finger up, “it requires two steady hands… though I suppose that statement does not make much sense to you, if you aren’t familiar with what differentiates an Alchemist from a Master Alchemist. Almost anyone can achieve the former; it requires something inherently… special, for lack of a better word. Trouble is, you don’t know if you have that ‘special’ until you decide to strive for that kind of uncanny proficiency. I’m a necromancer, however, not an Alchemist, so I cannot attest to exactly what it requires, but I do know a good many people die tragically in the attempt to be something more than ordinary. It just so happened that Isidor didn’t.” He shrugged his shoulders and took another long sip of tea.
“With regard to the specifics of your question… Master Alchemists who are adept in forbidden alchemy have been known and sought out to craft entire bodies with their capable hands. Many happen to work alongside necromancers for that reason, which is why I suppose it is considered ‘forbidden’; in much the same way my arts are forbidden. Humankind has something against toying with the laws of nature, and the ebb and flow of life and death, for some strange reason.” He would have rolled his eyes, had he not been blindfolded. “Sadly, my dear brother has never seen fit to make a team with me. Such a shame; between his ability to make vessels and my ability to channel souls, can you imagine the power we would share?”
“I already like this man, if he has enough good sense to steer clear of the likes of you.” Vega muttered, folding her arms over her protruding belly.
Teselin also couldn’t help but wonder if their brother refused to associate with Vitali for… well, the same reason that anyone would refuse. But she had never made Isidor’s acquaintance, and couldn’t speak at all for his character, or his ‘good sense’, as Vega had so eloquently described. But she could not help but share in Alster’s curiosity as to the extent of their brother’s skills. How was a Master Alchemist any different from one who was not considered a ‘Master’? And what made it so risky to achieve that standing? “Has Isidor… has he ever… done that? Created a vessel, or… even a single organ? Like a heart?”
Vitali chuckled quietly and gently shook his head. “Look at the lot of you, assuming that despite what I have already said, my dear brother would see fit to become close enough to me to share such details. No, Alster, I have not born witness to what Isidor is capable of, nor am I aware as to whether he has ever put those skills into action, and created something brand new out of elements that would otherwise be entirely unrelated. Although…” He angled his head in Alster’s direction, “I’ve had the pleasure of peeking into just enough instances of his upbringing and training to say with certainty that you are unlikely to find anyone more capable to try and perform such a feat for your wife, anytime soon. To stand where he is now, bearing that title, he’d have had to demonstrate his skill set at one point, and that most certainly includes building a brand new body. But despite all that, I am afraid I have gotten your hopes up for nothing.”
The necromancer straightened his posture, and sat his now empty cup of tea upon the table. “Could I find him? Of course; he hasn’t moved since the days he served as an apprentice to the wretched man who trained him. I know exactly where he is. What I mean by ‘he doesn’t want to be found’ is that I can almost guarantee he will not have any interest in helping. There are those whose skills and services can be bought at a price; I am one of such people.” A slow smile crept across his smug face. “Isidor, on the other hand, has zero interest in ‘selling himself’, as he once put it. I cannot think of any instance where he had performed his skills for the benefit of another.”
“But… that makes so little sense.” The young summoner scratched the back of her neck and frowned. “Why go to the extent that he did to become what he is if he has no interest in gaining from it?”
“Who knows? Might have something to do that it was never his choice to learn to begin with. My guess is he’s agoraphobic and won’t admit that he’s too afraid to leave his precious tower, because that means he might actually be forced to talk to someone, gods forbid.” The necromancer snorted. “If you were to ask him for help, however you might plead your case, I guarantee you will only receive excuse after excuse as to why he cannot oblige. And when he runs out of excuses, he will shut the door in your face. Believe it or not, I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news, Alster,” he spread his hands, “but a trip to Nairit would be an entirely futile venture. My little brother is unfortunately neither someone who can be bought, nor persuaded. He cares about safety in his pitiful stone enclosure, and nothing more.”
Vega all but slammed her own mug of barely touched tea onto the table, with enough force that everyone except for the necromancer startled. “You don’t get to do that,” the princess’s voice was dark, and full of every ounce of contempt for the man who was both she and her husband’s salvation and undoing. “You do not get to dangle hope in front of someone like that and snatch it away. You said yourself that you owe Alster for what he has done for your arm. Will you not even try for his sake? What else are you occupied with at any given point in time?”
“Now, don’t misunderstand me--while I’ve been having some worrying slips in character of late, I am not a selfless person, Sir Vega Sorde of Eyraille.” Vitali crossed one leg over the other and folded his hands eloquently in his lap, entirely resilient to the emotion that hung heavy in the air. “Do not get me confused with some do-gooder, just because I happened to step in and save your husband’s life to avoid causing Tivia undue distress. It was of no great inconvenience to Alster to restore the function of my arm. In fact, I rather think he enjoyed the aftermath of the pain it caused me.” He raised a single eyebrow in the Rigas Head’s direction. “Just as it was of no great inconvenience for me to tether Haraldur’s soul to his body since I was already in the vicinity. It did not require me to leave the comforts of his quaint little farm home to venture off on the grounds of some uncertain mission. And like Alster has said, there is no guarantee that he will have the solution to poor Elespeth’s ails, anyway.”
“...I’ll find him.” Teselin, who had gone quiet for a beat, spoke up again. All eyes shifted toward her as her face morphed into a defiant, resolute expression. “If you have the means, Vitali, then certainly so do I. Isidor is my flesh and blood as well as yours; tell me where in Nairit’s forest Isidor can be found, and I will take Alster. Surely, giving us the details to make this venture on our own will be of no inconvenience to you.”
The necromancer did not reply right away, going quiet as if waiting for Teselin to follow up with something more, or for her words to segue into a plea. Instead, she merely awaited his response. “I don’t know how else to tell you this, Teselin,” he said evenly, “but I highly doubt that Isidor is even aware you exist. As soon as he set foot in that tower, he never actually left, and most certainly ceased to have contact with Solenice. Should you find him, you’ll be no more than another stranger, wanting to make use of his skill set.”
“And would he be any more likely to agree, were it you asking the favor?” The young summoner countered, no unkindly, but with conviction in her tone.
He had her, there. “...indeed, I see your point. But would you really be willing to leave your wolf friend’s side to seek the uncertain help of your other estranged older brother?”
Teselin’s face fell ever so slightly. Much as she was loathe to admit it, it was not difficult to understand why so many people took issue with the necromancer. Whatever fodder you could present against him, he always had one up, and he wasn’t wrong. She worried for Hadwin more than ever, now that it was clear Rowen had, by some means, caught up to them. And while she wanted to believe he was capable of looking out for himself, that he was a survivor like Vitali, she knew too well that a part of him yearned to surrender himself to his sister’s murderous ideal, just to be done with it. Just to sate her lust for his blood and have it over with, to spare any future pain… as if she would stop there, at his death. Were she to depart Galeyn with Alster, she could not look out for him, and without her there to remind him why he need not throw away his life so quickly… what could she expect to come back to? She wasn’t familiar with Nairit or the distance and time it would take to get there, but even a handful of days could make all the difference. And the thought of leaving Hadwin behind, and returning to find he was gone… it was a feeling that sickened her. Because the day that Hadwin died would be the day she would finally give up on that naive part of her that still clung so desperately to hope. Without hope, she would have nothing.
But… Elespeth was Alster’s hope. And without her… what did he have? What would the D’Marian’s have?
“Hadwin can take care of himself.” As much as it pained her to say it, and as much as she didn’t really believe it, Teselin was no one if not true to herself. And Alster, who had been a friend an ally to her, deserved a light in the darkness that had of late consumed his life. Standing from her seat, she gripped the edge of the table. “If you won’t help Alser, then I will. He and Elespeth have been through enough. Just tell me how to find Isidor, and we won’t be a bother to you any longer.”
When Vitali hesitated again a second time, this time it was not without an air of discomfort. The necromancer sighed heavily through his nose and unfolded his hands and legs, the corners of his smug smile falling into what might have been a frown. “...and there is nothing that I can say to change your mind, is there?”
“There is one thing, and I think you know what that is.”
“Damnit all, Teselin.” Vitali sighed and scrubbed a hand down the side of his face. “I don’t particularly enjoy that you are playing me to try and bring out the ‘better’ in me… although I do admire your tactics. Executed like a true Kristeva, after all.”
His sister shook her head, tresses of dark hair falling into her eyes. “There are no tactics. I’m simply not willing to entertain the ruse that you don’t care, Vitali.”
“By all means, please stop while you’re ahead.” The necromancer raked a hand through his own dark hair. “...that traveling circus you are so well acquainted with. They have caravans, do they not?”
Teselin paused and blinked, confused by the abrupt change in subject. “They do… why do you ask?”
“Because we are going to need one, if I am to take Alster on this fool’s errand. As I’ve already mentioned, our dear brother is going to be full of excuses. A caravan with ample storage will be enough to mitigate at least one of those excuses.”
“Wait… so you’ll agree? You will take Alster to Isidor?” It was impossible to filter the shock from her voice. A moment ago, she had determined to do the deed, herself. “What changed your mind? I don’t--”
“Let’s just say I’d like to be out of this man’s debt sooner than later.” He made a dismissive hand gesture, and left it at that. “Get the caravan, several night steeds, and we will take it from there. I will do my part, but do not blame me if it pans out exactly as I predicted.”
The haste at which Vitali provided the answer, however, gave Teselin pause to consider that that wasn’t the reason why he’d agreed. But she knew better than to push her luck. “Thank you…” Had he been Hadwin, she’d have rushed to his side and thrown her arms around him in a tight hug. But her blood brother was not anything like her chosen companion, much though she’d romanticized him to be the hero she needed. Perhaps that wasn’t such a bad thing; the Teselin Kristeva of today, so unlike the Teselin Kristeva of this past winter, was not so sure she believed in heroes, anymore. “Thank you, Vitali. I’ll speak with the Missing Links’ myself; Hadwin has sway with them, too, and their ringleader sympathizes with Elespeth’s plight.” She turned to the Rigas Head, her wide, dark eyes alight with the hope that was so characteristic of her.
“And if I might add one last thing. Alster,” Vitali nodded in the Rigas Head’s direction, “I strongly suggest you speak with your wife before we make any subsequent moves. Because the success of this is going to be entirely contingent on the consent of all parties. Just as I cannot draw a soul back into a body if it is ready and willing to pass, so too will a diseased heart refuse to heal if it feels it is better off dying.”
The more the discussion opened up about this mysterious ‘Master Alchemist,’ the more Alster’s intrigue grew. It wasn’t a common trait for someone like Vitali to give his full endorsement for a man--an estranged brother no less--with bloated claims that his forbidden alchemical arts could be the answer to solving Elespeth’s malady, despite the fact that no one had seen him perform a successful “transmutation,” so to speak.
You are unlikely to find anyone more capable to try and perform such a feat for your wife, anytime soon.
Try, Vitali had said. At the end of the day, the only possibilities to cure his wife’s failing heart was to wait and hope. And, just like her, he was tired of waiting and hoping. If a shady necromancer advocated for the help of a shut-in with no experience in a practical setting...what other choice did they have but to try? A solution was presented at his feet. Albeit, a mere hypothesis of a solution, one that required extensive testing to substantiate, but it was a start.
So, of course, as soon as Alster suggested a visit to the hermit alchemist, the necromancer shrugged off the proposal as if it were the most preposterous idea. Almost in tandem with Vega, a swell of anger, not so unlike that morning with Sigrid, burst through the surface of the usually mild-mannered Rigas Head. “I’ll get to decide if it’s a futile venture, Vitali,” he bit, filling his response with as much air and support to carry his intentions to the necromancer’s ears in a clear, commanding ring of authority. “You said you owe me, and I’ll hold you to that. I assure you, opposing me would make your life here a little...difficult.”
Tivia, who had stood to clear away the empty cups of tea, paused in her chore and glanced at Alster in disbelief. “You wouldn’t. Your threat doesn’t hold weight because you don’t have the gumption to execute it. Not with Teselin and me in the room.”
“Do I not?” he turned to Tivia, and the mass of dark, icy energy lurching about his aura like an avalanche about to descend made her reconsider her words. “I’m at my wit’s end. Don’t underestimate what I can do right now, Tivia.”
Fortunately, the escalating tension in the room was tempered by the summoner, who stepped forward to offer an alternate plan. “No, Teselin,” Alster said, his more gentle demeanor returning in place of the Serpent-like wrath from before. “That’s not...that’s not necessary. I won’t subject you to such a journey.” But his protests fell on deaf ears as she and Vitali argued about her decision, an argument that, admittedly, took a surprising turn when Teselin declared to accompany him over the companionship of Hadwin. The two of them were a near inseparable duo. Vitali wasn’t wrong to call him her surrogate brother. To cast aside a comforting presence all in the pursuit of aiding him on a fool’s errand--it was a touching gesture. But he would feel wrong in accepting her help.
“Teselin…” He aimed an appreciative smile in her direction. “That’s kind of you. I thank you for your thoughtfulness, but...you’re needed here. If I’m gone, and that sorceress dares to make a move, we can’t have the two of us absent, else we’ll have a serious hole in Galeyn’s security. And as I am,” he sighed, holding his steel arm against his stomach and his good arm over his chest, “I’m not much use. Even in the care of the Night Garden, I suffered a heart attack by casting a simple enough ritual spell, which didn’t even require drawing much from my energy or stamina. But you--you’re important. Too important for this.”
Whether Teselin had truly convinced him to concede or if it was borne out of the very thing his half-sister accused him of hiding--care--Vitali finally relented to the arrangement. “So we’re doing this, then?” Like Teselin, it was difficult not to exhibit a good deal of incredulity, in how readily the necromancer changed his mind. “Thank you,” he added, with a firm bow of his head. Though the blindfolded man before him could not see it, the intention was duplicated in his voice. “Perhaps I won’t have you motioned for exile, after all.”
Little did he know, their foray into the forests outside Nairit was about to get a little more...involved. “Wait--you want us to take a caravan? Even with Night steeds, it’ll take weeks to get there. They can’t go fast with a caravan lumbering behind them. All that aside, there’s no guarantee he’ll return with us--with or without the caravan. It’s best to go on a scouting mission first, ascertain his location, present our case, and then return with the caravan should he agree to lend his services.” But he knew there were holes in his plan. It was sound, it was logical, but it did not accommodate the agoraphobic alchemist and his peculiarities. They only had one chance at a first impression, and if their first impression did not include a cozy home on wheels with the space to fit him and his workshop comfortably, negotiations could crumble to dust, then and there. It was imperative they illustrate to Isidor that the transition from his tower to the caravan, and later, to Galeyn, would be as painless and as changeless as possible.
“Alright,” he agreed, after some quiet analysis of Isidor’s character and emotional state. “We’ll head out to Nairit with the caravan. You know him better than I do, so we’ll handle the execution as you see fit. However, once we arrive, I’ll do the talking. I’d say that’s fair; I can’t imagine what your mere presence would trigger in this poor man.”
“And the dream ends here,” Tivia, who had tucked herself in the little kitchen alcove and cleaned the stacked teacups with a wash-rag, muttered forlornly, her tone almost inaudible.
Alster, who did not hear his cousin, regarded the necromancer with cool-headed compliance. “We’ll keep in touch. But it’s as you say. I must consult my wife on this matter, first. I’ll...convince her.” And even if I don’t, he thought, I’ll go, anyway. I’ll go, because I have to go. Just don’t let go before then, Elespeth. Don’t go. Don’t go and leave me here…
Hadwin Kavanagh, noted pugilist of both physical and verbal confrontations, had been uncharacteristically absent for the past few days. He called it “laying low,” waiting for the worst to blow over before he decided to reemerge in the public’s scrutiny--or flee. It all depended on which angle he wanted to play. Did he continue to keep mum about the “incident” involving Haraldur Sorde--to which his darling murderous sister orchestrated--or did he come clean, and in so doing, discard Rowen like a slag of spoiled meat, the very thing he promised her he wouldn’t do?
In the end, he wasn’t left with much of a choice. On the morning following the Eyraillian prince’s dramatic suicide and dramatic recovery (by necromantic intervention), he and Teselin paid a visit to the site. He needed to know if the “little girl” Haraldur claimed to kill was, in fact, Rowen. And if he succeeded in ending her life...to which he doubted. When they arrived, it was as he expected. The secondary splotch of blood, which had since dried into a rust patch, reeked of Rowen. Luckily, it was all that was found of her. No body. No signs of carnage or maiming. The blood trail ended several yards into the sparse woods that surrounded the half-constructed cottage, indicating a rescue of some sort. Someone had collected Rowen’s bleeding body, and the familiar, yet vague scents reminded him of when he witnessed Elespeth’s encounter with the woman who burned his nostrils with the smell of ancient magic; of rot, decay, and decomposing matter. When presented with this information, Alster had linked the smell to Locque. And if that were the case, then Locque had his sister. No; perhaps it was more sinister than mere capture. They were working together.
Despite his common sense, Hadwin insisted on following a nonexistent trail. To plunge forward recklessly, as was his wont, and force his sister out of hiding. Not just out of hiding, but he wanted to check her condition. Faoladh were speedy healers and he was certain that she lived, and thrived, but dammit, he needed to know for sure!
He did not get far before Teselin stopped him. If he pursued, she said, a trap would await him. After all, to find Rowen was to find Locque--and certain death. He’d effectively surrender his life, and possibly endanger the summoner, too. He knew all that. He knew it all, and yet…
And yet…
No. He also made a promise to Teselin, in the alleyway at Braighdath. To survive. Even if it meant opposing Rowen, to die meant that surely, he would never hope to reach her again. So long as they both lived, there was a chance at reconciliation. A minuscule, hair’s breadth of a chance, but he was used to fighting abysmal odds and coming out on top. He’d do it again. And again, just to prove his gambler’s spirit.
Still, it was a tough decision to retreat from the site, from the sole evidence of the long-gone Rowen; long-gone, in more ways than one. It felt like giving up. And in a sense, he was giving up on her--because there was nothing else he could do to save her, unless he betrayed her--and her cause--for good.
Though he knew his next step forward, he delayed his course of action. For days, he said nothing, did nothing. He made Teselin promise to follow suit; ‘Don’t tell anyone about Rowen’s involvement,’ he said, in a barely-contained hiss of emotion. ‘I’ll do it, myself, but...I’m gonna need a moment.’
A moment...to say goodbye.
When they returned to the palace, he retreated. From everyone. Teselin, Briery, the Missing Links, Elias and Alster and everyone who he’d associated with since arriving at Galeyn. It was only a matter of time before Vega or the Rigas Head or hell, even Tivia, connected him to the event because he knew the honest Teselin would slip up, or reveal just enough information to render him suspect.
Whatever. Let them come. Let them wrench it all out of me...but only when I’m good and ready.
Good and ready translated to a few days in absentia, which flew by in a blur helped along by potent Night Garden herbs that, when smoked, provided the densest of highs, which obliterated his mind good and proper. He camped out in the bushes at night and passed day after day in a blissful haze of ‘I don’t give a shit.’ Not even the shadow with her mouth of glass shards could penetrate the layers of stink that surrounded him like a protective cloud. The vengeful spirit of his mother could not snag him with her vile and vitriol. No one could. He had well and truly vanished into utopia.
And into utopia he would have stayed, if not for the pinhole-sized break in the clouds; the faintest glimmer of sobriety, reminding him to take action, to take responsibility. No more hiding from his fears. No more, no more, no more…
He was getting too complacent, anyway. What did it matter, to preserve his memory of Rowen Kavanagh? Since when did he chain himself to a pole and refuse to budge? His dalliances with the past did not, could not sate his huge appetite. Hadwin was a man of action. He did not idle; he always moved into the path of totality, regardless of consequence, or danger, and he stared into the eclipsing sun. He was always destroying himself like that; a phoenix, burning the parts that did not serve him and rising from his pyre. Nothing was sacred in this world--including his fragile sentimentality. His tenderness for his sister...was next to go.
Burn it, burn it, burn it all down. Existence is flammable. Everything is kindling. So I’ll burn you, too, Rowen. I’ll burn you…
But there was no conviction behind his thoughts. Nothing but damp wood that resisted his strikes of flint and tinder. She would not burn, but dammit, he’d try. He’d fucking try, because if he didn’t, he wasn’t sure he could move forward. Not without lugging her like a lodestone strapped to his back. And like a lodestone, he’d sink into the water and never rise again. Never to burst into flames and experience rebirth.
It was late that evening when Hadwin, who wandered aimlessly around the Night Garden, spotted the pregnant princess on the dirt-lined pathways that wound sinuously around the strange, alien flora. No doubt, she was heading for the sanctuary to check on her husband. Well...it was now or never. Might as well rip off the bandage. Get it all over with before he found another excuse to delay the inevitability of his sister’s twisted works. Emerging on the path, he stuck two fingers into his mouth and blew, releasing a loud, attention-getting whistle. She startled from the noise, and turned around to face him.
“Hey there, mam-to-be. Late night romping, huh?” He trotted down the path to catch up with her. In the faint light emitted from the bioluminescent plants that lined the path, she could make out the red rims beneath his bloodshot eyes. “Word is you went to visit the necromancer. Guessing you just got back. By the way,” he gestured vaguely in the direction of the sanctuary, “your hubbie’s dead asleep. Ah, fuck, horrible choice of wording. He’s sleeping. I checked in on him, before. Breathing’s involved, I assure you.” With a long, winded sigh, he ran a hand through his russet hair. No more stalling. “C’mon, let’s walk. Got some juicy information that you won’t wanna miss, so let’s go before I change my mind.”
As she complied with his request, he pulled out his pipe and filled the bowl with a sharp-smelling odor. “Yeah, yeah, apologies in advance or whatever. I’m sure your children’ll live being near a smokestack for five minutes.” With an expert strike of the tinderbox, the pipe smoldered and smoked like a single glowing ember amidst the charcoal remains of a dead fire. “So I’ll get straight to it. Pretty damn sure I know who went after your husband. That ‘child’ Haraldur’s so sure he killed is my sister.” He stopped mid-stride to make a big, distracting show of kicking a pebble off the pathway. “Rowen Kavanagh. She’s far from a child, but she’s a stunted little shrimp of a girl and knows how to play innocent. She, uh,” he took a liberal puff of his pipe, “started going on this killing spree back in Braighdath. Started a whole blow-up with six dead D’Marians and a certain councilman that wanted Elespeth Rigas hanged and all. She was a slave to Mollengard for a while, so I take it she’s completely unhinged and out for blood now. Makes sense that she went after a Forbanne commander. You know how I can see fear? Well,” he shrugged, “she can see darkness. The absolute worst qualities of a person. It’s what she showed him to get his goat, I bet, and...it worked. She’s a mad evil genius. Learned it from the best of us, I guess. Or the worst of us--your take.”
He continued to suck on his pipe like it was his only salvation; a salve to numb the sting of his betrayal. “So that’s that. The truth. I think she and that sorceress are in cahoots with each other. Or that my dear little sis is getting conned by her, big time. You,” he hesitated, “might be wondering why I’m telling you this at all. I mean, you guys would’ve interrogated the hell out of me at some point. I’m too suspicious, right?” He chuckled without humor. “Nah. I’ve got another motive. And it’s foolhardy, and fuck, way too optimistic. She’s too far gone. I’ve known it for a damn while. It’s futile, but…” The lodestone. The lodestone, he reminded himself. Don’t lug it around. Don’t lug her around, he warned.
That’s right, his mam said from his periphery, grinning her glass shard grin. You’re already lugging me around
Dammit! He couldn’t do it. He’d find a way. Find a way to carry her and not drown. “I want her back. And I’m gonna ask for cooperation from Alster and whoever the hell wants to help--’cuz it’s possible, maybe not likely, but possible, that to get to Rowen is to get to that sorceress that’s causing the trouble. Anyway,” he retreated from Vega, whose personal space he all but attacked, “I just thought you’d like to know. Who did it. Who set your husband off and drove him to do what he did. In exchange for this information--you’ll leave her alone. I’ll handle her--keep her away from your blossoming family, if I can. She may be a fucking monster, yeah, but I raised that monster...and I’m not gonna let her hang out to dry. If that makes me a fool, I’m a fool, but a fool that won’t let this go. So keep your revenge fantasies to yourself, and I’ll forget that your husband tried to off her--oh, and me, too. Fair deal, no?"
Vitali wanted to laugh. Oh, how Alster must have been on the very edge of desperation to makes threats to such an extent, and with both Tivia and Teselin present! And all because he had mentioned an off-handed and far fetched possibility to Elespeth’s plausible recovery, at the will of a certain reclusive alchemist. It was amusing--or, it would have been, if he hadn’t known for a fact that the Rigas mage was in far better with his Queen of a sister than he was. While it was difficult to imagine Lilica--not Lilica D’Or, but the new Lilica, Lilica Tenebris, righteous and hopeful and responsible--announcing his exile simply for his lack of compliance in being helpful to someone who meant nothing to him, a part of him knew well that if she did side with Alster, and if she did decree that he was no longer welcome on Galeynian soil, no matter how far from the Night Garden… he would not be able to oppose her. Even if that made an enemy out of Tivia, who was likely the only one who would advocate for his permanent residence in a home that belonged to him as much as it belonged to the Queen, even the star seer would be helpless to overturn such an order.
What a bold statement, Alster Rigas, the necromancer quietly seethed, and even if it meant cutting off his nose to spite his face, he felt inclined to deny the man any further assistance just for the audacity to try and threaten him. Because threats could not sway him; but… other things could. And Teselin just so happened to have gone for one of his very few soft spots. Just as an annoying little sister would…
“Put out your fires, Rigas. Your threats aren’t necessary.” Vitali made a dismissive gesture, soon after agreeing to the venture, which would spare Teselin from making good on the journey, herself. “You’re lucky that I happen to be in a fairly good mood, this fine evening. If you’re so desperate that you’re willing to take weeks of your time away from your dear wife for the hair’s breadth of a chance that you can save her, then who am I to talk you out of your own madness? We’ll go pay a visit to my little brother in Nairit. But,” he tilted his head down ever so slightly, in a display of annoyance, “I am not your dog to command. We will not be doing this ‘your’ way, because your way has absolutely zero insight into my brother and what will be required to even attempt to convince him to be of any help, so you would do well to consider my advice.
“For one--yes, we will require a caravan. Simply for the fact that I am not going to make this trek twice.” The necromancer stated, as he straightened in his seat. “Alchemy isn’t the sort of craft you can carry in your pocket, so we’ll require ample space for whatever my brother deems necessary to bring--which I can assure you will be a lot. Even if that weren’t the case, I have my doubts that the man has ever pursued the opportunity to ride a horse. Can’t risk him not knowing how, can we? And as for who does the talking…” As if suddenly antsy, Vitali stood and stretched his limbs. “It won’t matter which of us does the talking. He isn’t going to want to agree to whatever it is we require of him. Of course I’ll have to leave it to you to put on your best show deserving of pity and show him just how miserable and despairing you are with your wife in such a miserable state, if for no other reason to make him feel bad… He isn’t heartless. Just an awful coward. But in the end, Rigas,”
The necromancer folded his arms and looked down his nose at Alster, as if he really could see him through the blindfold that protected his photosensitive eyes. “This is still my brother we are talking about--and I am willing to cooperate to get out of your debt, and to get your petty threats off my back. So allow me to clarify for you that if this is going to happen, I will be taking no orders from you whatsoever. I am not D’Marian, and you are not my venerable leader, so let us establish this now before we set out to spend copious amounts of time in one another’s presence for weeks on end. So, then; are we clear?”
“Vitali… thank you.” The thanks did not come from Alster, however; Vitali was certain that any choice words the Rigas Head had for him were far from thanks. It was Teselin who thanked him, and closed the distance between them to rest a hand on his arm. “I realize… this isn’t characteristic of you. And that you may not want to play a part in it at all, but… Alster and Elespeth have been kind to me. Elespeth looked out for me in Stella D’Mare; even when I didn’t want her to. I owe her this much.”
“Which I suppose means I also owe her, for being there for you when I was not? I am really not liking all of this owing people, Teselin. It is leaving a terrible taste in my mouth.” Vitali frowned, but did not shrug his sister off. “Much as I appreciated the company--in the past tense--the lot of you are giving me a headache, and Tivia is likely ready to retire for the evening. Go and figure things out on your end, Rigas, and send for me when you know the details. You know where to find me.”
The young summoner paused, after Alster and Vega filed out to return to the carriage. The others might not have taken notice of the way Tivia Rigas seemed to shrink, when all was said and done. There was no question as to why; Teselin might have been the beginning of the end of the star seer’s quiet, domestic lifestyle living alongside her brother, but this meant it would finally be put into motion. However it might have occurred, while reviled by everyone else, she had taken to Vitali, and was easily his only friend. Parting from him after all these months of peace… there was no doubt that this would not be easy for her. To live alone after being in the preferred company of another was no easy adjustment. “Tivia?” Teselin spoke quietly, maintaining her distance while wanting to reach out to her. I know what it means to be alone, she wanted to tell her. I know how hollow it makes you feel. I know… I understand more than you think. We aren’t so different… “If you need any help around this farm, in the meantime, I’d be happy to lend a hand in whatever way I can.” I know I’m not my brother, and I know I’m not who you want to see, were her unspoken words. But you don’t need to be alone.
She wasn’t going to give up--not on Haraldur, not on their family, not ever. Vega’s visit with her only recently coherent husband had not been ideal, and to say it left her a little bit crestfallen, even after Teselin’s reassurance that the Forbanne commander had been played, was an understatement. Paying a visit to the necromancer also hadn’t done much to alleviate her concerns, and if anything, upon returning to the palace that evening, the Eyraillian princess only felt more anxious at the heightened possibility that Locque was behind this--and that there was perhaps more to it than the young summoner, Teselin, had been willing to share.
It was late in the evening, by the time they’d returned, and while Alster and Teselin had been quick to declare their retirement to bed, adrenaline coursed through Vega’s veins and kept her wide awake, and eager to check up on her husband. She wouldn’t impose on him, wouldn’t stay if her presence was still too much for him to bear in his shaken state, but there was no possible way she could sleep well until she knew he was still safe. If Locque had by some means managed to get to him in Galeyn’s farmlands… who was to say he was safe within the walls of the Night Garden’s sanctuary?
She’d thought she was alone in the Garden at that hour, save for the small handful of Gardeners who were called to tend to it in the night, until she heard a whistle so sharp that she stopped dead in her tracks and gasped, resting a hand on her belly. Someone was inclined to make themselves known--and they did, as soon as she turned her head in the direction where she’d heard the whistle. “You,” she said, not in such a way that suggested hostility, but by the hot, blue fire in her eyes, it was well within the realm of possibility that she would lose her cool. “Yes, I did go and visit the necromancer. Because someone needs to provide me with details about my husband’s death… and you have been conveniently in hiding since the event occurred, it seems. And, might I ask, just what were you doing ‘checking in’ on my husband?”
Whatever the details, she assumed it had something to do with the information she ‘would not want to miss’, as the shapeshifter so eloquently put it. Though still realistically suspicious of the man and his intentions, if there was something that he knew with regard to this entire mad situation, and that he was willing to enlighten her… she was not about to turn down the opportunity. “Do you really need to do that in my presence?” The princess commented as Hadwin lit up his pipe, wrinkling her nose at the sharp odour and repositioning herself so that she was not down wind of it as she walked just slightly in front of him, and off to the side. He didn’t put it away, though, and she didn’t question it further. His face had gone worryingly serious, and she was far more concerned with what he had to say than the substance his pipe was putting into the air.
All ears, the Skyknight princess couldn’t possibly have prepared herself for exactly what he had to say, cutting straight to the point. She nearly faltered in step at the words, I know who went after your husband. And what followed was all the more perplexing. “...your sister? You… have a sister, and she targeted my husband? But… why? He doesn’t even know her, hasn’t done anything to ever harm her…!”
But there was more to it, beyond the shock that Hadwin Kavanagh wasn’t the only faoladh traipsing around Braighdath. Everything she’d heard about the chaos in Braighdath, those details that both Alster, Elespeth and even Sigrid had confided in her… the tragic deaths and missing D’Marians, none of it was random, and none of it had to do with the mysterious Locque (well, not exclusively). It had been his sister, all along… and no one would ever have come to that conclusion on their own. Tivia had been right; ‘The Wolf’ had been present at the scene of Haraldur’s death… but it was not the specific Wolf she’d have thought. “You knew this, all along… and you said nothing? You just continued to let her kill?” The incredulity in her voice rendered it little more than a sharp whisper. Vega’s azure eyes were wide with shock and confusion, and she searched for answers in the shadows of Hadwin’s face… but it was obvious as to why he’d kept quiet. He didn’t even have to explain. “Of course. You were protecting her. You could have stopped her, but you won’t if it means it will be her undoing.” Surprisingly, there was little judgement in her tone, although it did carry an air of disappointment. “And the summoner--she knew, too, didn’t she? We suspected she was hiding something, but couldn’t prove it. Figured she was protecting you… I guess we were not so far from the truth.”
Vega turned her gaze from Hadwin to the path ahead, confused by the feelings churning inside her. She didn’t know if she felt sad, or angry, or betrayed, or a sickening combination of the three. She wasn’t even sure that she was relieved to know who had attempted to take Haraldur’s life… “You should have said something. You should not have waited this long. I understand why you hesitated, but Hadwin, this involves so much more than your sister, especially if you are right to assume she is working with Locque.” The princess dropped her hand from her stomach and clenched her fingers into a fist. “So here is what I will tell you. I really don’t have much of a reason to trust you, aside from Teselin’s unwavering faith in your true character. But I realize what it took for your to confess to me what you just did, and I do want to believe you want to find a solution that will favour everyone, including your murderous sister.” She expelled a long breath from her lungs, tempering the simmering anger that still bubbled below the surface. Anger at the silence he’d kept for so long; anger at herself for managing to understand exactly why he had. Anger at herself for not managing to feel angry enough. “I am eight months pregnant, and in no state to entertain revenge fantasies. I trust that Alster and the others will handle the situation, and that they will hear you out on sparing your sister’s life. You are looking out for your family. But, you must understand… so am I. So, too, are the rest of us looking out for those we love. So here is my advice to you, Hadwin…”
She paused in step and looked at him full on, with promise in her gleaming eyes. And it was not just a promise to heed his request. “Deal with your sister, and fast. Because I am also looking out for my family, and I will not allow any harm to come to them. To my children or to Haraldur. And if she strikes again… then I will not hold back, nor will anyone else. Because I grant nobody the opportunity to threaten my family time and again at their leisure, regardless of their reason--or lack thereof. You’ve made yourself clear; and now, so have I.”
She hadn’t gone to visit him during his recovery at the sanctuary; she also hadn’t asked for him to see her, and none of it was out of a lack of wishing for his company. Rather, Elespeth Rigas was a victim of her own guilt, following the words she’d at last confided in her husband. Words that even Lysander had encouraged her to keep close to her chest, in favour of letting hope shine in their stead. Words that had pried themselves away from her failing heart, because they would not exist without voice. Words that suggested she would rather be dead, than live a life as a bedridden invalid… even if that meant a life spent with Alster.
The worst of it all was that the former Atvanian warrior wasn’t even sure she regretted it, because it was her truth, in the purest form. And Alster deserved her truth, regardless of how dark it seemed, or how much it hurt. Hell, she’d even felt better after getting what felt like a terrible secret off of her chest… even at the expense of the pain she’d seen in her husband’s eyes. So ready to give up, when he was determined to find another way…
It was for that reason that Elespeth had remained complacent with her bed rest for the days that followed, not once requesting to be taken outside, or for a merciful dose of that tea that Lilica sometimes brewed for her to give her just enough strength for a short stroll within the healing Garden. She was too ashamed of the utter lack of guilt she felt for her decision. Even if I agreed to live a life of this, she’d thought to herself over and over, in an attempt to reason her position, it would not be one where I could give Alster what he wants or needs. It would not be one where I would have what I want… and that is not a life that I wish to lead.
Elespeth therefore spent her time in silence and solitude in the days that followed, asleep more often than she was awake, until finally, several days after Alster’s collapse in the Night Garden, he paid her a visit. To her relief, he looked much better, with colour in his cheeks and energy in his step. The Gardeners had been right; a week convalescing in the sanctuary had returned him to excellent health. “Alster… you’re well again?” The former knight smiled, and leaned in to the kiss he hastily planted on her lips. “I’m so glad--the Gardeners assured me you were recovering well, but after you collapsed… you had me worried. You know that wouldn’t have happened if you would just let me bear the full burden of my defective heart…”
It seemed that he had come to talk to her about just that, she was quick to learn. There was something frantic in her husband’s blue eyes, but it was not panic or desperation, like she had witnessed the night he’d collapsed. It was hope; and he did not hesitate to explain its source. “Wait, Alster… slow down.” Elespeth covered his hand with one of her own. He was speaking so quickly she could hardly keep up, his body practically vibrating with excitement over this new option they were free to pursue. If only she could follow his train of thought. “You went and spoke with Vitali, and… he told you what? His brother is an alchemist… what does that have to do with me? With us?”
Evidently, it could either have nothing to do with them, or everything, and then some. Once again, Alster was grasping at the possibility of hope, no matter how improbable it might be. Because he could not give up on her--on them. Conceding defeat meant disregarding everything that they had gone through, and become, together... And as much as she did not want to deny him that possibility, she was not entirely happy with what it entailed. “Wait. So you… You’re going to travel to Nairit? With the necromancer? Alster, even by Night steed, that could take… well, weeks. You’ll be gone for so long…” And I can’t follow, were the unspoken words in her eyes. Over and over, you leave, and I can never follow…
“What if he doesn’t agree, Alster? By the sounds of it, this man… related to the necromancer, no less, is not one inclined to help others.” The former knight’s shoulders slumped, doubt heavy in her voice. It was obvious that she was all out of energy to grasp at straws, anymore. “You’ll be away for so long… I’m tired of you being away. I’m tired of you not going where I can’t follow.” Her voice quieted at her confession, green eyes softening into the helpless look of someone who was world weary of their circumstances. “And if he does agree… what are the logistics that he can be successful in helping me? In helping us? Of course, I don’t want to deny this opportunity if there is a chance it can help. But I’m just… I’m so tired of being away from you. Every time we come together, you have to leave. Again and again… and again. But...” Sadness was heavy in her green eyes when she met his gaze. “If you are willing to put faith in this possibility… then of course, so must I. Anything, if it means a better future for the both of us… together.”
“Yeah, I was checking in on your husband,” a glint of sharp canines revealed themselves in the low light of the garden, “because I wanted to kill ‘im. There’s your blunt answer, straight and simple. Can’t let the bastard live if he did my sister in, now could I? Family matters run deep, like trenches in the earth. It’s not like I don’t pity him; oh hells I do, but it’s a life for a life, and if she died out there, by his hand, I would have come to collect. So sputter and rage at me all you’d like. I know we have an understanding, because you’d do the same for your family, and I wouldn’t put it past you, either.” As they circled back to the sanctuary in question, Hadwin flicked a rogue ash from his pipe in its direction. “But I’ve learned from my impulses in the past. That’s why I went out there to investigate--to see if my sister was still bounding along and sharpening her knife for her next venture. It’d leave such a bad taste in my mouth to kill an expecting father, so I held off on my urges. It paid off, I’d say. As long as our respective loved ones are alive, there’s nothing to worry about. And that’s the arrangement I’ll shake on, Sir Vega Sorde.” He didn’t even wait for her permission as he plucked her arm from her side and held it between them.
“I’ll deal with her, not just because she’s my sister, but because I don’t want to make an enemy out of anyone here. I like you all too damn much,” he winked. “Even your husband, who’s done nothing but yell at me and try to kill me pretty much since we met. But what can I say? I love people, and for the most part, I prefer when people stay alive. I’m not keen on watching this utopia fall, not when it’s been good shelter for the Links and for the little scamp that accompanies me from time to time. But,” he sighed, and glanced skyward, at the hints of moonlight buffered behind a thin layer of ghostly clouds, “guess I idealized Rowen too much. Thought she’d tire of the hunt and come to finish the job. By ‘job,’ I mean me. She’s tried to kill me, too. She’ll try again; I guarantee it. I,” he chuckled, but it sounded more like painful gasps completely sucked of their mirth, “I’m deluding myself. There’s no hope for her now. But I owe it to her to try one more damn time. One more time,” he echoed, and the fierceness in his words threatened to crush Vega’s hand in his strong fingers. He released their connection, retreated a step, and offered her a faux little simper of half-apology.
“Guess I don’t know my own strength. Ah, well. You’re not here to watch me fall apart over sentiments of my sister. There’s nothing else to be said. Even if I fessed up about her involvement earlier, do you really think things would be different?” He scoffed aloud. “Doubtful. You’d have a name. That’s it. You got Locque’s name, too--and you’re no closer to sniffing her out, either. Now if you’ll excuse me,” he pushed the pipe stem into the corner of his mouth and heel-turned to the palace, “I’m off to get knock-out drunk. Go keep your husband company. Tell him about Rowen or whatever’ll ease his conscience. Spread the word to Al if I don't get to him first; not sure how many more times I can go on betraying her.”
He gestured to the figure that filled in the doorway to the sanctuary, a man who was not there a mere minute ago. “Well, looks like he’s up. Not sure his murderous thoughts for me persist, even after death and back, but I ain’t staying to find out. See ya.” With a mock bow of reverence, the faoladh ambled out of the Night Garden just in time for Haraldur to shuffle out of the sanctuary and join Vega on the path. For a while, he didn’t say anything at all. He only swayed, a formation decidedly uncharacteristic of the sturdy, immovable pillar that no force could vanquish. Now, that was no longer true. Haraldur vanquished Haraldur and Death, fortunately, did not want him. Not yet.
“Vega. You’re back.” He kept a respectful distance between her, not certain as to where to draw the line of their proximity in the dirt. Their relationship had suffered, to put it lightly, and he did not want to cross any boundaries with her. “I’m fine,” was his reply to her unspoken question. “Sigrid kept me company, before. I,” he stared awkwardly at his feet. “...I’m ready to fight. With your permission, I’d...like another chance. I don’t deserve it.” He raised his eyes to stare at the bump on her belly. “I want to feel worthy enough to hold them, one day. And maybe I will, if,” his hands twitched, “you let me hold you, right now. I need to know...if I can. If I’ll let myself.”
Despite his threats and the icy promise in his words, Vitali’s cooperation did not go unappreciated by Alster. It was not in his nature to so recklessly unleash his wrath without first researching alternate methods for a healthy dialogue that would benefit both parties. While his methods fell under strong criticism by his peers, by Chara, and by the Rigas council, who thought of his approach as weak, cowardly, and too optimistic, he persisted in his ways, nonetheless. As the son of a diplomat, he was raised to build ties through reason and understanding, not through the right to lead. Simply, he did not know how to lead through command, and seldom issued orders that could be construed as tyrannical or self-serving. He always leaned on his empathy and gentle persuasion, a reliable strength which he believed he utilized well. But as always, there was a breaking point to this rule.
Elespeth.
In situations involving and endangering her, he found it difficult to think with a clear head. And how could he be expected to perform as the venerable Lord Alster Rigas, benevolent ruler with a savior complex, when the heart that had nurtured and nourished him for the past year was winking closer and closer to oblivion? In the face of monumental loss, he hadn’t the time or patience for diplomacy. Unfortunately, it was expected of him. To stray from expectation, especially in the eyes of the people who believed in him for his kindness, was to lose the support from those who rallied behind him in sympathy and solidarity. Like Vitali, he collected debts. Unlike Vitali, he did not assume he’d get recompense for his deeds--and so, to so loudly demand he receive what was owed him, in front of his allies and friends, was to squander the image he’d been cultivating for the past year. Alster Rigas had to be the better person. He had no other choice, no other option, because people did not want anyone different. It was a lesson he learned the hard way, when he traded his consciousness for the Serpent’s influence, and steadily, lost the favor of his friends. The people wanted him as a savior, not necessarily because they wanted a savior, but because he rebranded Alster Rigas as such, and the qualifier stuck. In short, he did it to himself, and anything less than model behavior would do him a grave disservice. To err even once was to devolve into Serpent Bane. A lick less than perfect...and his fragile legacy would crumble and collapse into the worst of himself.
To rectify his faux pas, he addressed Vitali before taking his leave with the others. “I don’t intend to order you around, Vitali. You were never my subject. I will not hold a threat over your head. On this journey, we’re equals. Titles don’t matter at all. While I can’t forgive what you’ve done in the past, I also won’t disregard the good deeds you’ve done here in the present. So...let’s work together on this. I’ll respect you if you respect me….Thank you.”
He didn’t wait for his reply as he headed out the door, nodding to Tivia and thanking her for the tea. In moments, he, Vega, and Teselin were in the carriage, back to withstand the tumultuous ride to the center of Galeyn. Speedy traveling, especially in a conveyance pulled by horses of supernatural haste, came at a cost, and by the time they arrived at the palace, late into the evening, Alster was stumbling out of the carriage, desperate in suppressing the nauseating flips of his stomach and heart, or the crooked balance caused by the searing pain of his arm.
At Vega’s insistence that she would reach the sanctuary just fine on her own, Alster reluctantly retired to his quarters (after first emptying his stomach of their contents). Owing in part to his illness and in part to the news he’d soon impart on his wife, Alster took care not to swoon as he drew nearer to the room, reminding himself to breathe, to ease the burden of his pounding heart. But it was like telling a river not to flow to the sea. He could not broach the subject to Elespeth with a mellow mindset; it was simply not possible. So when he entered the room, surprised to see her awake and awaiting his return, the raging river from within overflowed with a flood of barely-contained information. He didn’t so much as say ‘good evening,’ and barely reached for a kiss, before the truth flubbed out of his mouth.
“Didn’t think you’d be awake at this hour; it was a hunch on my part to try and disturb you now, but this can’t wait. I paid a visit to Vitali, before--long story, but I was there with Vega and Teselin. He mentioned something about his brother, a ‘Master Alchemist,’ who is able to tamper with vessels with a high level of competency and...he believes that he may be able to restore your heart!”
He waited, out of breath, for her response, but she just looked at him as though he’d gone daft. Confusion--no, it went beyond confusion, beyond comprehension--plied at her brow. “He can restore the function of your heart,” he repeated, in a wheeze. “I won’t get into the details of how this is possible. I myself don’t have the greatest grasp of alchemical practices, but I’m inclined to believe that this man may have the treatment we seek! He resides outside of Nairit, and Vitali has agreed to go with me to find this alchemist brother of his. Though we’ll have to take a caravan to his tower to accommodate for all the supplies in his workshop--”
He abruptly stoppered his tongue from its liberal wagging when she pointed out the flaw in his plan; to fetch the alchemist was to venture out of Galeyn for a trip lasting up to a month, or more. “I know,” he sat on the edge of the bed, his wilting body curling around the weight of his arm. “I know what this means, Elespeth. It’s a long journey and the timing couldn’t be worse. Locque has ostensibly made her first move on Galeynian soil, and I am still acting as Rigas Head. But...I have no doubt that Chara has been acclimating to the position beautifully, and,” he hesitated, “as I am now...were Locque to attack, I...don’t think I would have the strength to defend anyone here. And yes, Elespeth.” He moved a hand over to his chest, “I’m talking about the burden I’m sharing with you. Please don’t think I’m being foolhardy or selfless by sharing in your symptoms; I did it so we could spend more time together. So that wretched sleep wouldn’t have you more than I have you. But,” he gazed into the verdant gaze of his wife, his expression tinged not with accusation but with hurt and regret, “...you didn’t come to see me, Elespeth. Not once. My week of convalescence, free from Rigas Head responsibilities… We had that time, and yet, you didn’t visit me. Those lonely nights, El…I yearned for you. I called, but you didn’t answer.”
He stood from the bed, a difficult top-heavy shuffle that almost toppled him to the floor, steel prosthesis first, “I can do nothing about our situation if we can’t take advantage of the time that’s afforded to us, no matter how compromised it is. I’m sorry that this must happen again, but if I don’t research this lead, this opportunity for a solution...I,” he turned away, ashamed for what he was about to say, “is there...really a future for us? I never see you anymore, and we live together. I’ve been busy, yes--this, I will admit, but...I’m trying, too. I’m really trying, El. Trying to make this work. Trying to be there for you when I can. And there’s only so much I can do, right now. I have limits; I hate having limits. So, if this is what it takes to help you, to help us, embarking on this short trip is worth it. It’s worth it for the next three hundred years or more.”
“I...can’t fail.” He returned to the bed and drew Elespeth close to his body. “I’ll convince him to help me. You know I’ll succeed in this. I have to, so I will. And if he can’t help you individually, that does not spell our end.” The fingers of his good hand played with the ends of her hair, which had since grown out from its crop-cut. “I’ll work with him. Surely, if a master alchemist, a miracle garden, a necromancer, and a Rigas healer can’t collectively restore your heart, then there is something wrong with this world. And if that’s the case, I refuse to play by its broken rules. So,” a sly smile twitched along one edge of his mouth, “I won’t. I’ll just rewrite the rules. We’re doing this, El. I will abandon my post for this option, that’s how strongly I feel about this lead.” Leaning forward, he planted a tender kiss on her lips. “Rest assured, I’m not leaving right away. There’s plenty I need to do beforehand. Seeking approval is only a courtesy--because I’m going no matter what, but I’ll need to consult Chara--lest she kills me--and I’ll have to pay Briery a visit for permission to use her caravan. Then,” he ticked a few more tasks off his fingers, “I have to follow-up with Sigrid--Haraldur, too, find Hadwin...and,” he showed her his thumb, “most important of all...I have to make it all up to you. Please don’t shut me away again, El.” He closed his weary eyes. “I’m piling everything on this arm of mine, but it can’t handle the weight on its own. I need your strength.”
It’s not her strength you need, but yours, a contrary voice said. To survive the journey, won’t you need to return what rightfully belongs to her?
His heart lurched as though it were nodding in full to this plan. Give it back, it thumped. The pain. The hurt. Or you’ll harm me, too. Irreparably. Two hearts damaged. Two hearts to fix.
His fingers knotted into his tunic, twisting the fabric in such a way to muffle the drumming of his heart’s loud, desperate requests. No, I can’t.
You must!
He opened his eyes, and read it in her expression, too. The unspoken condition. If he insisted on traveling, she would not let him go unless…
“I keep hurting you,” he whispered, barely audible beneath his breath. “I don’t...I don’t…El.” Tears appeared in his eyes. “I don’t want to give it back. Not now. Not now. Ask me later. Before I go. Maybe then...I’ll be able to do it.”
“No; you’re right. You don’t want to make an enemy out of anyone, here,” Vega agreed with the faoladh, keeping a steady gaze despite that he took her by surprise when he grabbed her hand. “Far be it from me to remind you that willingly living in a delusion is not going to solve any problems, Wolf; what you choose to believe is your decision, and yours alone. But when your delusion results in any more deaths, or attempted murders… you cannot blame anyone if they choose to take action, against your wishes or otherwise. It may not be me or my husband. But if you cannot reach your sister--or if you cannot stop her, then somebody else will.”
She rubbed her hand when he let go, trying not to let on that his grip was rather on the strong side. “If you choose to drown out your concerns with alcohol, then that is also your choice. I would make a liar of myself to claim that I never once had a habit of doing the very same…” A habit that did not seem so long off, despite that it had been at least a year since she had found herself overindulging. She hadn’t so much as looked at a bottle of wine since discovering she was pregnant; Elias and Daphni would have well killed her, and for good reason, for such a degree of utter negligence. “But speaking from experience--and I’m sure you are just as experienced--those problems will all return with your sobriety. And your sister’s actions will continue to affect lives other than your own, regardless of whether or not you choose to remain aware of them. I will respect your wishes and let you deal with her as you see fit… but you are right not to underestimate me. Should anything happen to me, my husband, or my children, I can guarantee you will have all of Eyraille to answer to. And regardless that my tyrant of a father is no longer in power…” Something severe flashed in the Skyknight commander’s fierce eyes, “I think you will find that Eyraillian wrath is still a force to be reckoned with. Tread carefully, Hadwin Kavanagh.”
Vega watched the faoladh walk away and disappear into the thicket of the Night Garden, before turning to face the sanctuary. Sure enough, Haraldur was not only awake, but up and about. He did not say anything, at first, and neither did she, unsure of where to begin. Unsure of where they stood, since she’d arrived in Galeyn well against his wishes (and against the wishes of her entire nation, no doubt), and since he’d seen fit to take his own life, because his guilt had overpowered his will to live for his family. She wanted to support him. She wanted to be that doting wife that kissed his worries away, and earlier that morning, she had tried so hard to be that perfect spouse. But one crucial fact remained, one that she had been trying to ignore for a long time, and that was that the Eyraillian princess was still nursing her own wounds, both old and new. Wounds inflicted by the lack of support and isolation she’d found in back in Eyraille. Wounds newly cut by her own husband’s less than welcoming demeanor when they had met up in in Galeyn after months apart. Wounds she had inflicted upon herself, creating her own isolation in her tiny cottage near the D’Marian village. Wounds that were still bleeding, upon learning of her husband had not only died, but had taken his own life…
It was impossible, she realized, to care for someone else when she couldn’t even care for herself, given her own emotional state. “I needed to check on you,” she explained, with a demeanor that suggested uncertainty with regard to their common grounds. “After this morning… I needed to know you were alright.” As per his answer to a question she hadn’t yet asked, he was, indeed, fine. Whatever had transpired between him and Sigrid must have woken him up from his fugue, and the princess couldn’t help but feel irrationally guilty that his cousin had managed to succeed where she had failed. That shouldn’t matter to her; she should have been relieved, and to an extent, she was. But none of that erased the damage that had accrued between the two of them… and moving forward would be impossible until they addressed it.
“I’m relieved to find you’re alright. I don’t know what I’d have done if you…” She trailed off, afraid to so much as whisper words pertaining to death, lest it swoop in and take what it had recently lost. “Do you remember what I told you? When I was barely a month along, and we were discussing our options? I told you that I--that we can do this. But that I cannot do this alone. But the fact is… I have been alone, Haraldur, and I am not alright. For this entire pregnancy, I’ve been alone, through morning sickness and pulled muscles and swollen feet and irregular blood pressure… I’ve been alone. I was alone in Eyraille because the same people who cheered at our marriage were the people who quietly shunned me for being pregnant prior to wedlock. And I tried to convince myself that it didn’t matter, because I am strong, and I can do this on my own… but I couldn’t. I’m not that strong. So I… came here.”
The Skyknight placed her hands on her belly, and looked down wistfully at the bump that contained two thriving little lives that would soon be ready to be born. “I know that is no excuse for putting myself or the children at risk. Nor for the fact that I had recurring dreams that they would be born, here… but when I arrived, I did not feel so alone. I was among friends, and Galeyn has been so… so kind to me. But I realize now that coming here did no solve my problems; it just made it easier to forget that I was alone… I thought that when I saw you again, everything would be right. That I would no longer have to put on some facade of strength for the Galeynians and the D’Marians as I helped organize the refugee camps. I wanted to see you again--I wanted you to see our children, how they’ve grown. I wanted you to feel their presence, and to have you at my side, but you… you wouldn’t even let me explain. You shut me down before I even had a chance to open up.”
Vega swallowed a lump in her throat, struggling to keep the quaver from her voice. “So I continued to be alone, here. Only, knowing you were within reach, yet somehow beyond my grasp… it made it that much worse. So at last, it made me wonder… have we made a mistake, Haraldur? Are the children a grave error in our judgement? Are… we a mistake?” There were tears in her eyes, glistening and building and threatening to fall at any moment. “I was foolish to think that this could be enough, for you. Family, an identity… but part of your identity, regardless of whether or not you are a father, still resides with the Forbanne. And that is something that I--that no one can change.”
When she blinked, those rogue tears trickled down her cheeks. She wiped them irritably away with the palms of her hands. “This is not about what you deserve. It is about what is, and I… I don’t know what is, anymore. I know that these children will be born, because I trust in Tivia’s word. But beyond that, everything is hazy, to me. So I suppose I can understand why Sigrid was able to snap you out of your fugue where I failed to. Because I don’t have any reassurances for you, and I can’t pretend to be strong and to have it together when I’ve been slowly coming apart at the seams for months. But… at least, I can tell you this much. What I learned just now.”
Vega straightened her spine and took a breath in an attempt to compose herself. “The one who manipulated you--the so-called ‘child’ you thought you killed. The wolf-shifter just came clean to me about what he knew with regard to the incident. That person, that ‘child’, was his sister, who is not a child at all. And it seems that she more than likely is working alongside this infamous Locque. She was a prisoner of Mollengard, once, so it would make sense that you would be a target for her evidently insatiable revenge. It is as Teselin said; you were set up. You killed no one, let alone a child. So you can rest easy with that off your conscience.”
When he neared her, hope glistening in his green eyes, and his hands outstretched in want of holding something, or someone, Vega did not advance to meet him. But she also did not turn away. “You have always been worthy, Haraldur,” came her whispered response. “The only one who thinks otherwise is you. I cannot give you permission to hold them, to hold me, because you have always had that permission. It was never rescinded, and it is only you who has yet to realize that. So tell me… tell me that this is it. That you are through with doubting yourself. Tell me…” She opened her arms to him and looked up to meet his green eyes. “Tell me that we can finally be the family that we both want. I left Eyraille in the middle of the night, Haraldur… I don’t know that I will have any friendly faces awaiting my return. I meant what I said, before.” Her face softened, and all of that helplessness and vulnerability she’d been so carefully containing behind a busy and competent demeanor was instantly visible. “You and these children… you may well be all I have left. I can’t lose you…”
Alster was not the type of person to rub salt into wounds, unintentionally or otherwise, and certainly not just to make a point. This was one glowing aspect about him, one of the many aspects in fact, that had endeared Elespeth to him in the first place, back when nary a kind soul was to be found among Messino’s troupes. And that aspect of him had not changed in the time she had known him, in the time that they had been together, however brief or long it seemed, interchangeably. It was for that fact alone that the former knight realized just how terribly she had hurt him, in this past week alone--however unintentionally, on her part. He had been confined to the sanctuary on Senyiah’s orders, and not once had she taken the opportunity to visit him. And it had not been for some grudge she held against him, or any anger on her part for his self-defeating habit of stretching himself too thin, as he was wont to do, but out of her own, deep-seated guilt. For bearing her truth; for placing the burden of her own misery on his shoulders, when he was already so close to crumbling under the stifling responsibility as Rigas Head.
And, she realized, this was not the first time she had withdrawn when he’d needed her… and for that, she had no right to complain about his absence, past, impending, or otherwise. Alster was right: they had time together. He had made sure of it, and had gone above and beyond what he was capable of to see her every time he was able. To make the best of that time, even if it was merely spent sitting quietly in one another’s company, in one another’s arms. Somehow, he bore no grudge for the first time she had fled from him, driven by her addiction to that Mollengardian stimulant that had been the beginning of her end, had stolen from her her identity and reason, and had planted destructive voices in her head which, to this day, she still suffered from time to time. It would be less painful for him if you were to die, it would sometimes whisper, when she found herself lying awake at night. Easier than seeing you in this sorry state, day after day, with no hope of recovery. Just what are you holding on to? Doesn’t he deserve to pursue something--someone better? Someone with more promise? Someone who won’t turn their back on him when he tries to help, only to stumble into their own dark path leading to demise?
She remembered Hadwin’s words, that fateful day before she’d committed murder by a hand that did not feel like her own. Don’t let her win, he had told her, referencing that very voice, the Elespeth in the mirror that sometimes made herself known in the periphery of her reflection. Don’t let her win… But, what choice did she have, if the Other Elespeth was right? She had walked away from Alster at a point when she had needed him the most, and it had nearly cost her her life. And just now, this past week when he had lain, bedridden and alone all but for Haraldur’s company, not once had she sought him out, and for entirely selfish reasons.
Elespeth Rigas had no right to complain that her ever forgiving husband was about to partake in another journey that would result in yet another extended absence between the two of them. She’d had her chance to spend time with him, to be there for him… and she’d shirked it, too ashamed to be in his company. And now, his company would no longer be an option for her, for yet another extended period of time.
“You’re right. You’re right about everything, Alster, and I… I was in the wrong. I’m sorry.” The once Atvanian turned her gaze downward at her lap, at the legs that all but refused to support her meager weight, these days. “I’m so sorry. It’s not that I did not want to see you; I did, more than anything, but I… I felt ashamed. For telling you my truth, the night you suffered a heart attack.” Her voice had gone quiet, drowning in its own guilt, and she barely spoke above a whisper. “You didn’t deserve to hear it. To hear that for the first time in my life… giving up seems to be the more attractive option than hoping. It has been weighing on me for such a long time; ever since I set foot in Galeyn and collapsed, myself. But I… I shouldn’t have put that burden on you, not after everything you have suffered, everything you have done for me--for us. And I regretted it as soon as I said it. So I… couldn’t bring myself to see you. I didn’t know what to say, and so I figured anything I had to say would only make a bad situation that much worse…”
She finally looked up, her overtired green eyes finding Alster’s clear blues. “But I shouldn’t have. I shouldn’t have squandered the time we could have had, together, knowing how it would hurt you. And I’m… sorry. But whatever my behaviour might imply… I just want us to be together. Now and in the future--truly, I do. It’s just, with everything that has transpired… it is so difficult to grasp the possibility that things can change for the better, at this point. Alster, I’m… I’m afraid to hope, anymore… look where hope has gotten us, so far? Stuck. Stuck, and unable to move forward, with the only option being to keep hoping, trapping us in this cycle that never results in positive outcomes… I’m tired.” Her shoulders slumped, almost as if in emphasis of her feelings. “I’m so tired of it. I’m tired of pretending to be strong in light of this, because that’s all it is--pretending. I’ve been pretending since before you arrived in Galeyn, and once you were here, I pretended even more, for your sake, and I don’t know how much longer I can go on pretending that hope is within our reach… I don’t know that it is worth it, anymore. I don’t know, and it is awful, and I was too ashamed to tell you that I… I’m giving up. I feel like I’m giving up, and I didn’t know how to say it. So… I did the only thing that I could think of. I avoided you.”
Elespeth didn’t realize that tears had been building in her green eyes until they trickled down her cheeks, only to be absorbed by the blanket over her legs when they hit the fabric. Soon after, her husband gathered her in his arms, which only encouraged more tears to flow, until her shoulders shook with compressed sobs. “How do you know you’re not just chasing another dead end? That you won’t be gone for a month, or more, and come back empty handed? If three healers of their own respective disciplines, and some miraculous healing garden cannot do a thing for me, what makes you think some Master Alchemist even has a chance? I don’t want to be doubtful. I want to share in that unyielding hope that is driving you to pursue this. But we have experienced let down after let down, and I don’t know how many more false potentials I can tolerate…”
Despair sapped her strength, and she found herself leaning into Alster, barely able to hold herself upright through the insurgence of emotion and perpetual exhaustion. “I don’t want you to leave. I don’t want you to go, because right now, you are the only thing I am living form.” She confided breathlessly, as she pressed her face into his shoulder. “I don’t want you to leave, but I don’t want to waste what could be our last opportunity. If you do this… Alster, if you are choosing to do this, then you realize the condition, don’t you? You don’t need me to say it.”
He didn’t need her to say it, but while Alster refused to confront the reality of this situation, she was forced to put words to the dreadful thought, anyway. If he would not acknowledge that awful elephant in the room… someone had to. Her husband could not leave this kingdom without addressing it; she wouldn’t let him. “You’re going to make a journey that can take a month--just you and the necromancer? And yet, we almost lost you in the middle of the Night Garden of all places, because you exhausted yourself past your limits. Because you’ve taken on pain that is not your own, that doesn’t belong to you… and it’s time for you to return it. You need to give it back, Alster. The damage you took from me… you need to give it back, and let me bear the full burden of it. Or you won’t be fit to make this excursion--listen to me.”
Elespeth knew Alster well enough to suspect when he was about to brush an issue aside, but this time, she wasn’t going to let him. She took his face in her hands, the both of them reduced to tears as they were. Right now, there wasn’t a single strong person in the room… and perhaps it should have been this way, from the beginning. Perhaps if he hadn’t tried so hard to maintain this guise of hope, maybe if she had not pretended that everything would be alright… If only they had been strong enough to be weak in front of one another, the clutches of despair would not be so tight. And they would not be so spent. “I’m not going to die, Alster. Not only because I am here in Galeyn, with the Night Garden and healers at my disposal, but the ring you gave me, enchanted so that death cannot have me. What is the worst that will happen? That I might fall into a coma? You are going to be away, anyway… as morbid as it sounds, it would keep me from missing you so terribly.” She made a half-hearted attempt at a smile, but it didn’t last. “You know what you have to do, Alster. Maybe not right now, but most certainly, before you leave. Because if you don’t… then nothing you do will ‘make it up’ to me. Not if I am spending every second of your time away worrying for your safety…”
The ex-knight dropped her hands and shook her head, her now shoulder-length hair falling in front of her face. “I can’t stop you from wanting to do this for us. I want a future where the two of us can really live, just as much as you do; where neither of us is bedridden. But it is going to require sacrifices. Your absence is just one of those sacrifices; my bearing the full burden of my ravaged heart is another. Like you said… it’ll be worth it for the next three hundred years.” When she blinked, more rogue tears trickled down her cheeks. “I want to fight with you. I want to stand with you, be there for you. I want to make love to you, again. If there is a way to make this all possible… then make it possible, Alster. Do what it takes to make it possible… no matter how much it might hurt.”
With assurances that he would be fine on his own, Sigrid left the sanctuary to retire for the night, while Haraldur tried to make good on that promise. But in actuality, he was still reeling from their earlier conversation. The words he had so boldly stated, the declarations of war against Fate and the slights against his family, blood-related or not...he had said all those things and backed them with a fervor so intense that, when alone to reevaluate his feverish ramblings, he feared that he had crossed the threshold into madness. Who awoke from catatonia, nay, Death, and suddenly brushed aside their values to chase a reckless thought process? Even Vega, upon her awakening, hadn’t “recovered” so readily. This, for certain, was an act of true, brazen insanity.
But what did it matter? His last life, his “first” life, didn’t serve him. It was a life constantly looking over his shoulder to determine friend from foe. A life borne from the fear of “What if?” It was this toxic mode of thinking which had gotten him killed--by his own hand. How could he protect anyone, let alone himself, if his philosophies and values defeated him?
His transition from loser to victor would not happen right away, of course. To proclaim his will to change the course of his destiny was one thing; to follow-through with his heated, in-the-moment promises was another. Nonetheless, to question himself was a good sign. Haraldur was a cautious man. If he did not exhibit resistance to his new, bolder, louder approach to living, he really would have marked himself as crazy and utterly beyond help. While Sigrid’s plight encouraged him to pledge his support, he was determined not to dismiss his emotional response as a momentary lapse in judgement. Stepping forward and becoming a competent, reliable human being once more--that was no lapse, at all. What he did before, what he was before--those were lapses. He stumbled. He fell, and refused to climb out of the hole he dug for himself. He was done lapsing; he could no longer afford to lapse.
I will ride this momentum, he swore. On his ring. On his wife, and children. On what little honor remained pumping within his wretched heart. I will not ignore what I said to Sigrid, however much she might chalk it up to madness. Nothing I said was a mistake. I have to believe...that I have the power to write my own future, my own destiny. And that I won’t allow her to give up fighting for life. No more giving up...for this family.
His thoughts were a comfort, a balm, and they were enough to lull him to sleep. Granted, a Gardener had presented him with an herbal tea that helped him in achieving blessed unconsciousness, but he would not discount the fixation on his newfound Eyraillian perspective of preemptive success. Its philosophy found a place in his wounded mind--for now. Some of its potency, however, faded, upon waking. Rising from his cot, he peered outside the sanctuary door. Vega, having returned from her visit with the necromancer, was heading towards him--and his appropriated confidence choked down his throat. Still, he could not renege on his pledge, despite the pain of moving into unknown territory, akin to scaling walls in the night with no conceivable handholds. What if he lost his grip? What if--
No! He berated himself. No more ‘what ifs.’ Right now--that was most important. Taking in a courageous breath, Haraldur moved from the sanctuary to outside, and approached his wife head-on. The weakness of his recent revival carried his limbs like strings tied to a puppeteer’s drunken hand, but he managed, somehow, to stand before Vega...and try not to fall apart all over again.
He did not quite succeed. But then again, neither did she.
“Vega.” He lowered his eyes in shame. “There isn’t anything I can do to make up for what happened in the past. I thought I was stronger. I thought the numerous blessings of Eyraille, our marriage, our children...I thought it would all see me through for my role in Stella D’Mare. I believed, I clung...and it wasn’t enough to fight Captain Solveig’s compulsion. It wasn’t enough the first time, when she initiated the link between us. It wasn’t enough for the subsequent times. My defenses thinned. I lost faith in myself, in our union, in the future we cemented for ourselves. I doubted, and I let that doubt overtake me. Physical distance soon turned into emotional distance. I closed myself off from everyone because I was convinced that I was alone. No one understood. Only Solveig. Only other Forbanne. Any attempts to reach me were misguided because no one could or would ever know me. The real me. That’s what I fed myself for months. The bitterness of truth I took with every spoonful. So when I saw you again, here in Galeyn…” He twisted his foot into the loamy soil. The Gardeners did not outfit him with boots, and they replaced his bloody clothes with a white shroud. Under the light of the pale blue bioluminescent plants, he looked more like an apparition than a man.
“...I did not see hope, or a long-awaited reunion between a husband and wife who had gradually worsened without each other’s company. I didn’t realize your need, or my need; to come together. To ease our individual suffering by...being the family we both yearned to have for so long. I didn’t see a good end for myself, Vega. It was impossible to look into your eyes and see you as the solution I needed. I let Solveig’s compulsion rule me, convince me that what we have is some maligned pipe dream that never should have existed. Forbanne can’t integrate with society. Her narrative started to rub off on me. I started...agreeing with her.” He shivered from a chill that did not permeate the balmy summer air. “That maybe I was pretending. That ‘child’ I killed--or didn’t kill--she merely preyed on what was already stewing in my mind this whole time. With or without her influence, I,” he hesitated, “I was giving up. I was thinking about death. If Forbanne can’t ever be free, then the only freedom I saw was…” Trailing off, he self-consciously concealed the bandage over his neck.
“I never wanted to leave you, or them.” His teeth sawed through his bottom lip, desperate to keep the words flowing; she deserved as much. Explanations. The truth. No time for gaffing, or pushing the difficult feelings inside to expand and fester. “I never stopped...wanting you, Vega. Never stopped wanting them. I may have thought--I may still think--that I couldn’t have you, or the children, because I am ‘Other.’ A Forbanne monster, built for fighting and nothing more. But to answer your question,” he shook his head. “no. The only mistake is in how I handled this situation. We’re not a mistake at all. I’m...so sorry I’ve made you so doubtful of me. Of us.” Boldly, he closed the space between them by stepping forward. “You’re a solution, Vega; never a mistake. I wish I could have proved it. Instead of dying, I wish I could redo it all. I wish I could have fought for what I have, and not lament about who I am. It doesn’t matter to you, anyway.” A sad, ironic twitch of a smile appeared on his lips. “It never did, did it? All this agonizing for nothing. I’d laugh if it wasn’t so damn depressing. You love the monster and...and,” he curled his free hand into a frustrated fist, “I’m an idiot of the worst kind. I was so ready to die for the unavoidable truth than live for a miracle. I spat at my fortune. Threw it all away just so I could prove that I’m nothing. So--I’m going to make it up to you. And...and to me.”
For the first time since their conversation began, Haraldur raised his head and met her eyes. “Yes, Sigrid snapped me out of it. I know now that I’m here, and alive, and I have a second chance. But it wasn’t what she said that reawakened me. It was what she revealed about her own fate. The catastrophic death that awaits her by her own cursed sword. It made me realize that I have no right to reject all that I have gained out of disgust of myself. That’s selfish and ungrateful. I’m...I’m not trapped, anymore. Solveig doesn’t have a hold on me. I can feel that she doesn’t. It was my self-defeat that made me so easy to manipulate, but no more. I won’t lean on my doubts anymore.” With care, Haraldur placed his hands atop her shoulders. Featherlight, they caressed; they faltered. They questioned and trembled--but most important, they persisted. “Keep me on task, Vega. Help me to learn the Eyraillian philosophy. Help me to be unstoppable--and I will be. For you, for our family. Two little lives await us. So much awaits us.”
He closed his overbright eyes and scooped Vega into a soft embrace. The press of her stomach met with his torso; he swore he could hear the two developing heartbeats flutter and respond to their father. No, to their parents, holding each other. Holding them. In spite of the tragedy that befell the Sorde couple, Haraldur did not wrestle out of their embrace, sickened by guilt. In her arms, his teetering instability had vanished, replaced by the steadfast pillar that Vega had needed, which he had so long denied her. Even when she dispensed her news regarding his recent death, he did not crumble, did not release her or withdraw out of shame. The worst was over; no matter what new insights or truths he learned, it didn’t change the fact that he was alive, and accepted...and loved.
“It won’t happen again,” he whispered as he kissed the lobe of her ear. “If that girl in child’s guise plans to attack me using the same tactics, she won’t win. Nonetheless, I’m...relieved. That she’s not dead. I bear her no ill will for targeting me; after all, I represent the establishment of Mollengard. Her rage is warranted. But,” his voice hardened, “if she dares to threaten me again, or you--I’ll take the appropriate action. Even if that pits me against her brother. I may not have the urge to kill him anymore, but I’ll do what needs to be done. ...For my family.”
“Why would you say that hope never led us to a positive outcome?” Alster, ever-patient, listened to her confessions and concerns, understanding her need to vent her frustrations, but unable to agree on one rather important point. “We’ve met every challenge, Elespeth, and survived. We’re still together. We’re married, and alive, and we’re surrounded by people who have the means to help us--who wish us well. Many are sympathetic to our cause. If asked, the majority wouldn’t hesitate to lend us some measure of aid. I know we’re in a less-than-ideal spot, concerning your health, but we’ve beaten the odds, before. I can’t, and I will not, accept defeat. Not when we’ve waded this far from the shoreline. Besides,” distance lapped into his eyes as he looked beyond at the proverbial ocean in which they traversed, “...hope is all I have. If I lose hope, I lose myself. Look at what happened in Braighdath.” It was not something he was keen to remember, let alone dredge up as an example, but now was the time for uncomfortable truths, as Elespeth so exemplified. “I offered my consciousness to the Serpent and retreated from the world. I couldn’t handle it. The pain was too raw. The very thought of a life without you...it rendered me in such a state of helplessness. I couldn’t function; I didn’t want to function. I know it’s not healthy, El, but you are my hope. So long as you are here, with me, there is a chance. I can’t shirk this chance. I can’t, and I won’t. It’s not an option. Never, never…”
He bit down on his tongue to keep himself from devolving into a drone-like possession of one-word chants. While successful in his mindless regurgitation, no amount of willpower could prevent the tears that streaked down his cheeks. “I’ll continue to hope. I’ll hope for you. Because you are worth everything to me. Do you understand? Everything. You don’t have to be strong; I’m not expecting you to be. Heavens know I’ve never been strong a day in my life; it’s all a farce, a facade, and it’s an easy mask to don because you’re here supporting me. There’s no shame in admitting your surrender, El. Just know that I can’t agree with you. To agree is...to kill myself along with you. And,” his finger traced the faint scars along his throat, “I’m not ready to die. Not after seeing what happened to Haraldur. If I must, I’ll carry us both over the threshold. There are no other options for me. However foolhardy it is, I will pursue all possibilities, Elespeth.” He gripped her tightly against his chest, both as a comfort and to be comforted. He couldn’t sink into despair with Elespeth, much as she seemed to encourage his honesty. It was too fresh in his mind; the pact with the Serpent, his desperate cries for an escape. Sweet nothingness. Blessed, dreamless sleep. Don’t you see, El? I need the delusion to keep me upright. Alster Rigas can’t be allowed to concede defeat. To do so is to forfeit both our lives. I won’t sink with you.
And therein lay the caveat. The subject he was terrified to broach, because he knew Elespeth was right in highlighting its importance. To be of use in his mission was to forfeit his share of her heart’s debilitating symptoms. For their future to have an inkling of a fighting chance, he would have to inflict harm on her for an indeterminate amount of time. While not a soul died in proximity to the Night Garden’s healing soil, what did it matter if she never awoke? It was a sacrifice too close to death, too horrifying to entertain, and so much as considering its possibility shook him to the core.
“My absence is not a sacrifice on par with your...your...” He couldn’t finish the sentence. Refused to give it voice. Panic seized his throat, throttled his airways and squeezed what precious little breath found the passage to escape. “It’s not the same,” he wheezed. “It’s not, El. To willingly put you in such a state...I can’t even fathom…” He forced himself to take a moment and review the facts. Logical, methodical rationale. To journey out to Nairit required peak physical condition. If he collapsed en route to the reclusive Master Alchemist, the necromancer was by no means responsible for his recovery, and might very well leave him to fend on his own. There was no workaround. For Elespeth’s future salvation, he needed to sacrifice her present. A deal with the devil, but in reverse. Short-term loss for long-term gain. In such a light, the decision didn’t seem too catastrophically crippling…
But only if his gamble paid off. If the Alchemist could do nothing for his wife, then it would all be for naught. Even if Alster siphoned the pain from Elespeth anew, there was no guarantee of her reawakening. If nothing could be done to revive her consciousness, he’d have to live with the fact that he essentially killed her. That hope killed her. And could he? Could he cope with the consequences of sacrificing his wife for a far-flung miracle cure?
No.
“Please don’t make me say it. El, don’t make me promise. I can’t give it all back. Some, but not all. Not enough to rob you of your connection to the waking world. No.” He shrugged out of her arms and stood, bowing over from his on-the-brink hyperventilating. “I can’t do that. No. I’m sorry. I don’t care if you ever forgive me. I...I’m sorry!”
Before Elespeth could stop him, he opened the door to their quarters and fled, a trip that only took him around the corner. His heart lurched, his knees gave out, and he collapsed, in a mess of tears and vomit.
Moments later, a figure emerged from the Night Garden and happened upon the scene. “Well fuck,” the figure muttered aloud. “Guess my oh-so-important information will have to wait.” Hauling the unconscious Rigas Head to his feet by his good arm, Hadwin Kavanagh dragged him down the hallway and into Elespeth’s quarters without so much as a knock.
“Ain’t this some deja vu for you!” He announced as he burst through the doors. “Reminds me of the time when do chuisle do chroi couldn’t handle his liquor and needed some conveyance by yours truly. I won’t make a habit of this. I’m a wolf, not a damned beast of burden. Here. Move aside.” Sweeping Alster’s feet off the ground, he carried him the rest of the way to the bed, laying his head against the pillows.
“Alster, it isn’t you who would put me in that state…” All the while realizing this was a relatively futile endeavor, Alster had heard her out on her own cynical rant about her loss of faith in hoping. The least Elespeth could do is return the favor and hear him out in turn, however misguided his thoughts were, but… he was doing what he was so inclined to do. Spiraling that down that hole of circular reasoning spurred by his need to help, help, help. She’d seen it in Tadasun’s war encampment, when he was so insistent on healing that young Sybaian girl that his own magic had very nearly eaten away at him. While he was no longer in danger of perishing at the expense of his power anymore, his mind, his reasoning, was never safe from that detrimental selflessness so embedded in his character… One that wouldn’t allow him to see the fact that sometimes, in order to help, you first had to hurt. “It wasn’t you. What happened to me then, and what will happen to me from here on out is not your fault. It was because of me that this happened in the first place. That I chose to become reliant on a drug that would later wreak havoc on my body and my overall health… hell, if you want to become technical and won’t let me shoulder the burden, it was because I could not stand up to Solveig. I faced her knowing that I would be overpowered, and yet went through with the plan, anyway. But that damage that you took from me, on my behalf… it was never yours to take. And if you’ll remember… I never once agreed to that course of action.”
Elespeth’s voice grew soft as her hand found her husband’s. At this point, she recognized that she’d hit a nerve, and would have to tread carefully moving forward, lest Alster completely shut himself off to all reason and refuse to listen. “Please do not misunderstand, I am not accusing you of doing wrong onto me, Alster, because you never have. Not since I have known you. And you are right--we have survived every obstacle that has been thrown into our path, separate and collective. You have a point there, and maybe--no, surely there is something that I am overlooking, because you are not alone in being overwhelmed and despairing.” She hazarded a soft smile for his sake, but as she’d suspected, it didn’t feel right, and it didn’t feel real. “But the fact remains that what you did--and even you knew it, at the time--was a bandage solution to a much deeper problem. What’s wrong with me now stems from far more than just symptoms, and more than just my heart. Elias was able to confirm as much when he examined me to see if it his own form of magical intervention might be possible. What I did--yes, what I did to myself, out of selfish and foolhardy reasons, harrowed in on my heart. But the rest of my body has suffered as a result. That stimulant…”
The former knight paused, taking a moment to consider whether or not now was a good time to relate the details of her affliction to her already stricken husband. In the end, she only went on given the realization that she might not have any further opportunities. “It ate away at my muscle mass; I don’t even remember what it feels like to be strong, anymore. All of my organs are exhausted from working to keep me alive and running. That I am conscious at all--between the buoying effects of the Night Garden and what you did to alleviate some of my symptoms… it is a complete anomaly. Under other circumstances--dare I say, under normal circumstances, I would be dead. I should be dead, for the way I neglected myself and the people I care about. But I’m not; far from it, I’m conscious and coherent, and as exhausted as I am of putting all of my expectations on hope… I cannot deny that you’re right. That this is just another obstacle that we will overcome, because that we are sitting here, talking right now, is nothing less of a miracle. We’ve been tested time and again, but the world is not through with testing us. So… that means we are faced with two choices.”
Dropping his hand, Elespeth brushed the blonde hair from her husband’s eyes. Not only were they sharing the symptoms of her diseased heart, but also those bruise-like semicircles beneath their eyes. For all Elespeth spent most of her time asleep, the exhaustion never lifted. And Alster… well, it seemed as though he just didn’t sleep anymore. And much like the situation in which they found themselves… it was her fault. “We can take a chance, just like one of many we have taken before, or give in to despair, and cease any further efforts to incite change. Because that is exactly what you will be doing if you do not return to peak health, Alster. You collapsed in the Night Garden; you’ve been convalescing for a week just to return to a shadow of the health you should have. So what will happen if you collapse in the company of the necromancer? He brings people back from the dead, but he is not a healer, and even if you were to die, there is no guarantee that he would lift a finger to bring you back. And then… and then what?” Elespeth’s eyes softened, overbright with tears that continued to collect and blur her vision. “I’ll forever be awaiting the return of a husband who I will never see, again, trapped in a body that cannot even survive on its own under normal, realistic conditions…” She looked away for a moment, down at her lap in that picture of shame that now seemed to define her.
“Is that what you want for me, Alster? Is it better for you--for us--to hope that nothing terrible will befall you on a long journey while your health is compromised, than to hope that the result of this journey will be enough to bring me back to who I once was? You tell me that we should not stop investing in hope, but then… where are you placing your hope?”
It was too late. Her words fell on deaf ears--perhaps they had, from the second she’d suggested he return the ailment that he never should have suffered on her behalf. Alster was already too far gone, and there would be no convincing him to change his mind--not now. “Alster… Alster, wait,” Elespeth reached for his hand, but he was too quick to stand and flee, the very thought or returning the damage he had taken too much to bear. She did not know where he was going, and it was not wise for her to pursue him on her own… but she could not leave their conversation to end this way. Not without closure. Not without knowing her husband would be alright. “Alster!” With what little strength she had, the ex-knight hauled herself across the bed and into her wheeled contraption that permitted her limited mobility. In her sluggishness, however, she did not make it quite as far as the door before she was interrupted by a familiar and unexpected visitor.
“Hadwin…” The novelty of seeing the mischief maker she hadn’t seen in what felt like weeks was quick to fade when she noticed a feeble Alster supported by the faoladh’s arms. “Please, get him into bed. He is… overwhelmed.” To say the least. But Hadwin did not drag her mess of a husband back to their bedroom to merely discard his stricken form on the floor, and to her relief, he was already helping the Rigas mage into bed before she even had to ask.
“Thank you…” Came the apology she breathed from exhausted lungs. Alster was still awake, or so it seemed, but their discussion had left him too distraught to respond. Reaching across the bed, Elespeth rested a hand on his arm. “Get some rest,” she whispered, not even sure that he heard her words, before turning in her chair to face Hadwin, who stood near the doorway.
“You really have a habit of showing up exactly when you are not wanted… or when it happens to be just the right time.” The ex-Atvanian commented with a half-smile. “This time, it just happened to be at the right time. I don’t know exactly what happened, today, but Alster tells me that he visited the necromancer, who put the idea in his head that his brother who happens to be a master Alchemist might be able to help me… well, to help us. And now he is determined to go on an excursion, all the way to Nairit, to find this person.” She expelled antother long and exhausted breath and raked a hand through her shoulder-length hair. Although she had only so much as hauled herself into her chair and wheeled across the room, she looked, felt, and sounded as though she had been running for a very long time. “But… back in Braighdath, Alster took some of my symptoms onto himself. He couldn’t bear to see me deteriorate, so he thought that taking just a little bit of my pain onto himself might make a difference. He’s been able to do that since we first formed our blood bond…”
Elespeth glanced at the palm of her hand, scarred not once, but twice, and deliberately so. The line of knitted flesh, once pale and white, had become raised and pink from reopening the wound a second time, at her naming ceremony. “Not only did it make such a little impact on me in the long scheme of things, it has made him drastically worse for the wear. He can hardly stand on his own two feet, and despite his desire to solve all of my problems, it isn’t doing a damned thing for me to see him like this. He suffered a heart attack in the Night Garden of all places, just last week. So I told him there is no way he can travel that distance in the condition that he’s in, and that if he really wants to pursue this, he needs to return the damage he took from me. But… he refused. Because doing that means I might slip away. And… there is no guarantee that I will come back from that.”
Dropping her hand back into her lap, the ex-knight shook her head and looked up, surprised to find that Hadwin was not only still there, but listening. She had to give credit where it was due and flashed an ironic smile. “Don’t get me wrong--I’m not expecting you to care. It isn’t your problem. I just figured you’d be interested in knowing why you found my husband an emotional mess in the hallway…” Elespeth paused, her hollowed eyes focusing on the open doorway without really seeing anything in particular.
“...I’ve been wondering this for a long time, but I never found the right opportunity to ask…” Those weary greens averted from the empty hall to refocus on the faoladh. “...why did you decide to help, in the first place? What I mean is… when you found me, barely alive in an unfamiliar forest. I know that it was Sigrid who alerted Alster, but she confided that she did not find me without help. You led her to me. I suppose I’m just trying to wrap my head around why you’d think to help someone who you made it clear was not a friend. I know you didn’t just happen upon me; I made sure I would not be easy to find, and surely it took time and effort to ”
Elespeth glanced over her shoulder at the sound of Alster stirring, worried that he was overhearing their hushed tones and eager to interject his opposition. But by the steady sound of his deep breathing, he seemed to have drifted off to sleep, however restless it might be. Only when she was certain of his slumber did she relax her shoulders and turn back to Hadwin. “And you didn’t stop, there. You saved my life in Braighdath. If you hadn’t walked in on me when you did, I don’t… I’m not sure that I…” She couldn’t finish the thought, because she did not want to dwell on whether she’d have slit her throat with that shard of broken mirror. It struck her with nauseating fear to pursue that truth. “You didn’t have to do any of that. And even after the fact, when I was lost in this fog because I thought I’d lost Alster forever… you offered a helpful hand, and hell, even gave me some decent advice. And after all that, you managed to bring my husband back…
“I guess what I’m trying to say is… I really don’t get you.” The former knight chuckled in spite of herself. “But I suppose that’s the point, isn’t it? You don’t make a very good bad guy because you’re too damn helpful when it matters--even to people who you should’ve give a rat’s ass about. People like me. Yet you keep yourself just rough enough around the edges that no one really wants to admit you’re one of the good guys, because that means you’d have an image to maintain… am I on to something, yet?”
Elespeth raised an angled eyebrow when the faoladh appeared to shift in what looked like discomfort, but shrugged it off as an itch. “You know, I guess it doesn’t really matter at the end of the day. You can still be an asshat and do good things occasionally. So I might as well take this opportunity to say thank you. For what you’ve done for me and Alster, and for Teselin and Chara, who we’d have lost had it not been for you…” While her smile still bordered on sardonic, there was something no less genuine about the gentle upturn of her mouth and the softness around her eyes. “Since I’m already being honest, and since you can probably already tell with your uncanny intuition… I’m terrified. I don’t know if I’m going to have another chance to say any of this to you, because I don’t know what the future holds for me, anymore. I don’t know if there is a future for me and Alster. I don’t know if he’ll manage to convince this Master Alchemist to help us, and if he does, if the guy will even be able to help. I don’t know that I’ll wake up again, when Alster returns the damage he took, and the worst part is… I don’t know that I’ll want to. Not if it means spending the next three hundred years in this body.” She gestured to her legs, which had grown thin from the decline of muscle mass. “I was a knight, once. I was strong, and I fought strong… I can’t continue to live like this. Not even for Alster.”
She let out a breath she hadn’t even realized she was holding, bottled up as it was with the tension in her chest and throat. “It doesn’t even matter, I suppose. We have a plan, and we’ll proceed with it, come what may. So in case this is the last chance I get to say this to you…” Elespeth extended a hand, to the person she’d never thought she would consider a friend. “I’m not sure what it is you want or what you’re looking for, or whether it has anything to do with Teselin or your acrobat friend… but whatever it is, I hope you find it. And I mean that.”
Hadwin found little reason to stay after depositing the emotionally spent Rigas Lord on the bed. With Alster indisposed, he was in no state to retain any information detailing the instigator to Haraldur Sorde’s suicide. All the better, really; the faoladh could walk away, satisfied in knowing that he had intended to reveal pertinent information to the person who most invested in the discovery of the sorceress Locque. Learning that she had potential cohorts preying on vulnerable Eyraillian princes and the like would give Alster a huge boost to whatever the hell he planned on investigating. Oh well; time to mosey on out of the room and locate the neglected wine cellar that the Galeynians didn’t care to preserve. He wondered if it was a sore point for them to drink something that, like them, unintentionally aged one hundred years. If so, he was more than happy to drink away their burdensome reminders that time, indeed passed, but did not change. For Galeyn, anyway.
“Ain’t that the truth,” he chuckled under his breath as he stepped away from the man whose fear-stunned eyes had slowly slid shut, to forget the world and all its complications--for however long he could feign negligence. For all his physical limitations, Alster Rigas cared far too much to remain asleep, or unaware. It wouldn’t be long before he came to, and Hadwin didn’t plan to stick around for the headache that together, he and Elespeth would generate.
However, his escape route, intentionally or otherwise, was blocked by the latter in her wheelchair. The soon-to-be signs of a venting session twitched around her mouth and heading in his direction. Oh no. No, no no. He was not drunk enough or high enough for this conversation--and he had run out of his precious Night Garden grade herb to smoke.
“Ah, yeah,” figuring he’d humor the pitiful woman with the heart condition (and also because it paid to be a marginally trustworthy figure...sometimes), he leaned against the wall and nodded along to her concerns. “So that’s where Al’s fascination for some third-party savior comes from. I can see the glimmer of hope like a lightning bug buzzing inside the fly-trap where fear’s imprisoned it. He wants to release that bug, but can’t wrench open those iron-clad jaws that grit together and growl how much he’ll lose if he misuses that hope. You’ll die, or never wake up, and there’ll be nothing left for him to salvage. All very tragic, and typical of your ill-fated little love story. But that’s what happens when you love intensely.” He ran a finger between his teeth with casual indifference. “Life likes to fuck with lovers. It’s a great pastime. Or any kind of close-knit relationship, really.”
“So,” he clicked his tongue, reshifting the subject before his halfhearted aside bloomed into some maudlin rant about broken ties and psychopathic sisters, “the necromancer has a brother. He’s mentioned him, briefly. Was essentially sold into slavery or some such. Guess their birth mam was running low on funds and needed to take on a bit of human trafficking to pay off her debts.” He flicked his attention to the shadowy corner of the room, where a pair of eyes always stared back at him. “Sounds familiar. Well, with a history like that, don’t be surprised if this alchemist is some kinda headcase. But desperate times or whatever; I’ve no doubt that husband of yours would sell his soul for you if it weren’t already connected to yours. So he’s gonna go out to get this dark horse and drag him here by his feet, no matter what you say to the contrary. If I were you,” Hadwin pushed off the wall and leaned into Elespeth’s ear to whisper, in case Alster overheard, “make him a promise he can’t refuse. And I’m not talking threats; threats shut him down, make him weak, or obstinate. Throw that damn hope back in his face. Even if it’s a goddamned lie, saddle him with so much of it that the jaws of fear will release what it’s trapping. Play out his fantasies; buoy the ever loving crap out of him until he abandons all reason. Tell him he’ll succeed and you were wrong to doubt him. Validate him...and you might overpower his fear of your demise. If he knows you believe in him and that he isn’t chasing some false lead, there’ll be less reason for him to cling so tightly to his share of your pain. No wonder he’s clinging now, if he thinks it’s the only thing keeping you alive. Give him a sweet lie, oh disgraced knight; honesty has no place here.”
Leaning back on his heels and straightening to his full height, Hadwin was about to leave his advice to simmer and--well, leave, but something he was not expecting passed through Elespeth’s lips. He raised an eyebrow when her words, not of their usual condemnation, but of a sentimental persuasion, flowered the room with a heady, oversweet aroma.
“Whoa...whoa, El, hold it. Back up--what the hell are you spouting? Has the sedentary life made you lose your bite?” He cackled, running a hand over his messy head of russet hair. “You’re reading way too into it. I’m an opportunist; find the missing wife of an affluent, influential man, and my future’s solid. Why wouldn’t I go out and start a one-wolf search party? ‘Sides, it gave me something to do. Gets pretty boring staying cooped up in a tiny caravan all the time. Believe me; it’d be harder if I disregarded you. Sitting there on the road, twiddling my thumbs thinking about everything I’d lose if I didn’t fish you out of that bramble and brush? You know by now I can’t let things go; I’m gonna go out there and poke ‘em with a stick.”
He rested his arms over the handlebars of Elespeth’s wheeled contraption; his fingertips barely grazing her shoulders. “I’m neither a good guy or a bad guy. Such singular fixations on judgement values like weights on a scale doesn’t serve or explain my complex nature at all. I just am. Whatever the hell I wanna be, I am. The right thing or wrong thing has fuck all to do with it. It’s all about if I have something to gain, whether it’s entertainment, information, pleasure, or a sense of feel-good accomplishment. I do it for myself, for the hell of it, and that’s that. It’s just that what I’ve been doing lately seems to benefit others, and hey, can’t argue if it puts me in good standing with some powerful folks. My rough act ain’t an ‘act’ at all, but by all means, put me on the scale and weigh me. See if I balance out to your liking. But it sounds like that explanation ain’t good enough for you, and--you’re right--if you’re gonna be out cold for however long, or dead, then I’ll tell you a nice bedtime story, even if it shoots me in the foot.”
Hadwin skirted around the wheelchair to face Elespeth from the front, his sharp, confident bearing curling a bit like burning parchment. He wouldn’t admit it to her, but her words hit their target right in the bullseye. For all the lengths he went through to ensure the protection of his family, his pack, he was getting predictable on one major point: “Yeah, yeah. I’ve been shown that I care,” he said, confirming it aloud. “It’s obvious with Teselin--and Briery, too. The Links...and my sister. And fuck, I cared when you tried to take your life, because that’s how my mam went, and she’s never let me forget that it’s my own damn fault. I cared when your love was in jeopardy cuz of my parents’ dumb folly. I care about Tes because she’s like a sister. I care about my sister because she is my sister, even when she gutted me like a fish and drove the Forbanne prince to slice his fucking neck open. Oh yeah, it’s that kind of confession, Elespeth Rigas--so listen up.”
He crossed his arms over his chest to hide the clawing of his fingers, the tight digging of his nails against flesh, the desire to ram his fists into the wall, over and over again, to streak the perfect, pure whiteness of Galeyn’s palace with blood just to make a statement. Nothing ever remained pure and untouched. Love didn’t always save people. Other channels ran deeper. Madness. Hatred. The unrelenting need to destroy in order to purge the world of sin. Rowen Kavanagh wanted death, not salvation. And yet…
He inherited his parents’ dumb folly.
“I found my sister outside of Stella D’Mare. She’s escaped Mollengard imprisonment. First thing she did when we met was eviscerate me.” He tossed his head with as much flippancy as his tone suggested. However heavy the subject, Hadwin seldom showed any emotional investment; he wore his poker face. “Then she followed us to Braighdath, and killed a bunch of D’Marians for shits and giggles. I hid the bodies. She killed your favorite councilman just to cause a stir. If you think I’m a masterful shit-stirrer--well, she learned from the master, himself. And now,” he let out an impressed whistle, “the student becomes the teacher. Now she’s in Galeyn and I got reason to believe she’s working with Locque. Had a hand in forcing the hand of your old comrade-in-arms, because she has a vendetta against Mollengard and an ability to see the darkness in other people. If she continues to run rampant, it’s kaput for anyone who crosses her, or vice versa. So, not to cut your profound well-wishes in half, but what I’m looking for is bust, now. Absolutely bust.”
Releasing his arms yielded spots of blood staining his fingers. He popped each digit into his mouth and sucked the blood clean. “She’s not all I have, anymore. I made promises to stick with the little scamp, and survive, and Brie’s keeping me at my word, too. People--fuck, people depend on me, and I can’t worm my way out of it. So,” he let out a noisy breath, “who the hell knows what I want? Hell, maybe I wanna watch it all fall apart. It’s always exciting to stand on that precipice, push a foot over the edge, and revel in the sensation that if you let go, you’ll fly.” He removed a finger from his mouth and pointed it to his temple. “Even if it kills you. Whatever, El; it’s terrible and terrifying, and there’s nowhere else to go.” He stretched out his unmarred hand and grabbed for hers. “So I’ll bloody shake on it. To oblivion, and whatever else comes afterward.”
After relinquishing her hand, he bounded for the door, which was still half open from his unannounced burst-in from moments ago. “It ain’t a secret, what I told you. Blab it to everyone you see before you knock yourself out of commission, or die. I betrayed my sister for non-family relations; I don’t think I’m long for this world, either. Let’s meet up in the other place; unless I go to the other other place. Hell’s a good fit for me, though. I think I’ll like it there.” With a parting wink, Hadwin swept through the doors and clanked them shut with a clamor loud enough to wake the entire palace wing. It was a send-off, in true Hadwin Kavanagh style. Go out kicking and screaming. Die laughing. Whispers were for the already dead.
Alster didn’t reach full consciousness until the following morning. Hovering between states, he existed on the threshold of two realms; his body in sleep paralysis, his ears open to the conversations and whispers surrounding him. He heard what Elespeth said, and the assertion haunted him on a repetitious loop that went on for eternity. I can’t continue to live like this. Not even for Alster.
Not even for Alster.
When he blinked into full awareness, the morning sun delivering beams of golden light upon his lap, he couldn’t enjoy anything about a consciousness that blared him in the face with the choice that was not a choice. Elespeth had made herself clear; to Hadwin, of all people. Death was preferable over an extended life that rendered her too compromised to function. This was not a shock of information; he’d suspected as much, and she told him as much, before. But to hear it from a third person perspective--
Not even for Alster
--squeezed his heart until it oozed pulp.
He was not enough. Nothing was enough. He could not keep her; she would not stay. Once he transferred his borrowed heart symptoms to its original owner and she collapsed into a coma-like death, would she ever awake? No, it didn’t seem likely. She did not want to wake.
Like a golem under command by its master, Alster rose from the bed. He did not acknowledge Elespeth beside him, who had awakened by the movement of the cushions between them. While he stumbled and fought to achieve balance, he did not cease ambling forward, step by step. Uneasy breaths bellowed from his chest. His breath smelled like death. His body shivered and the inflammation on his arm had spread to his shoulder. Red rashes stretched across his neck, his face. Sweat mired his hair into wiry clumps against his forehead. As he came to a stop beside the wash basin, Alster went through the motions, as he did every morning in preparation for a long day performing Rigas Head duties. He washed his face, combed his hair, freshened his breath with mint, sponged the sweat from his skin, and dressed in appropriate attire. In silence he prepared, his face a mask of plaster; cracked but in tact. At last, when he finished his routine, he turned on his heel to acknowledge Elespeth with the tiniest of nods.
“Are you ready?” His voice was soft, calm, but devoid of light or love...or hope. “Please prepare yourself, Elespeth. Make your rounds. Say your goodbyes.” He steadied her wheelchair and waited for her to climb into the seat from her position in bed. “When you’re done, meet me in the sanctuary. We’re going to do this right; within the healing jurisdiction of the Night Garden. You’ll be kept stable, and alive, and,” he lowered his eyes to his feet, “asleep, most likely. It’s your chance to tell me now if you even want to bother with this extra precaution, if you end goal is to sleep and never wake up. If that’s what you want, Elespeth, if you want all of this to be over,” a trembling hand feebly shook the frame of her wheelchair, “let me know. Let me know, and I’ll call off this excursion. There would be no point in it anymore. No point at all. It would save me the heartache of hoping for the impossible.” When he opened the door, he released her chair into the hallway, lowering his arms dejectedly to their sides. “Do whatever you want. I can’t make you stay. I don’t have that power. You’ve given up, and I’m...useless,” he whispered, shook his head to snap out of his self-defeating talk, and removed himself farther from Elespeth’s company--as if physical distance could lessen the evaporation of his spirit.
“No, on second thought--don’t tell me now. I need time. I need,” he clutched his chest. “Just...meet me in the sanctuary. We’ll discuss your options then. Wait for me.” He did not listen for a response before making a swift and stiff retreat. He half-ran, away, away, away from all his problems. By the time he made it across the palace, he was out of breath, panting, barely holding himself upright against a wall.
Our blood bond is strong, he thought, ramming two metal digits into his closed lids to squeeze out the tears that threatened to spill. We’re tied together. If you die...I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to resist the call, too. You must know this, El. If you die...I die. And if you choose to sleep forever instead...I’ll die, anyway.
Give him a lie. Those were Hadwin’s words of advice, after she’d unexpectedly shared the reason for his husband’s sudden flight into the corridor. At first, Elespeth felt overwhelmed and entirely guilty that the faoladh as right. She had presented her husband with the truth--her truth--and look at where it had gotten him; gotten them. The truth, insofar as what she felt, was not going to save her… save them. The worst part was that she had known. She’d known that revealing the extent of her vulnerability to him, that she’d been actively entertaining ideas of giving up because it seemed so much easier than investing in any more promises of vague hope that teased them with whispers in their ear, would inflict extensive damage on his already fragile psyche… and yet, selfishly, she had done it anyway. She had been real with him, and raw with him, and it had gotten her--gotten them--nowhere. And if that was the direction in which honesty would take them, closer and closer to devastation… then what was left but to lie?
She sat with that thought for a long while, hours after Hadwin had taken his leave. To lie to Alster--lie for Alster, reassuring him that she’d invested just as much hope in this farfetched plan of action as he did, could make a difference. It would taste bitter on her tongue and leave her heavily burdened with guilt to convey such falsehoods, ones that he might not even well believe, given their conversation that evening… but it was necessary. Because Alster, he had to believe for the both of them. And maybe through his blind, albeit well intentioned faith, she, too, could find the vestiges of hope along the linings of those perpetual storm clouds that suffocated the very light of her hope. Give him a lie… but would he even believe me, at this point?
Somehow, despite the burden of those thoughts stirring in her mind, the former knight managed to fall into the arms of a deep sleep next to her emotionally ravaged husband, late that night. And when she did, she dreamt. Not the sort of lucid dream that often brought her to the wisteria tree, the safe haven they shared, but the sort of random string of events an overburdened mind would dredge up in order to work through subconscious turmoil. Except, these random events were not nightmarish or despairing. They were… well, remarkably mundane, a glimpse of a life that she--that they--could have. Traveling together, sharing meals, facing everyday challenges that defined human existence. And in these dreams, she was not restrained by her crippling heart condition. She walked, she fought, she passed through life as she always had, walking and independent, two things that she hadn’t realized she’d taken for granted until she’d lost them completely.
There was nothing inspiring about those dreams and the images they portrayed. Nothing to make her want to believe in miracles. But… something about those mundane moments, those glimpses of a future that somehow could be, caused her to awaken the next morning with a refreshed frame of mind. The first thing she saw upon opening her eyes was Alster, crawling wearily out of bed, the crook of his arm inflamed from his steel prosthetic. He looked so lost and world-weary… for once, she understood his desire to take on another’s pain. If she could have siphoned the defeat from his face, she would have… especially knowing she was the cause for it.
“Your arm…” She commented softly as he washed his face in the basin. “Does it hurt, Alster? Perhaps the Night Garden can provide a more permanent solution than Sigrid’s treatments…”
He said nothing in response, as if he hadn’t heard her at all--which was very likely the case. She knew that faraway look in his eyes, and know that the pain he must have felt from the incompatible materials and weight of his steel prosthetic were far from the worries that currently weighed on his shoulders. She sat up in bed, then, and quietly waited for him to finish, to say something. When he did, and he turned to her wearing an eerily familiar mask--one that the Serpent had adorned him with--she felt a sharp ache in her damaged heart, and immediately, her hand flew to her chest. Give him a lie…
“Ready? You mean, you… you’ll agree? You’ll return the damage you took from me?” She should have been relieved, ecstatic that he would remove that unnecessary weight from his shoulders. But instead, the former knight found herself feeling… well, invariably sad. Because his voice was not laden with hope, as it had been before; instead, it was heavy with defeat. “It’s the right thing to do, Alster--it’s our best chance.” She softly reminded him, and smiled--or, tried to smile. Give him a lie. “Our chance at having chance, at all. Whatever happens, I will be fine. You know I will be fine, and even if it does not pan out, what you said before… you were right. We will find another way. There is always another way.”
He wasn’t hearing her, though. As if her words were going in one ear and out the other, Alster said only what he had seemingly spent the morning preparing himself to say. And they weren’t the words she’d expected. “Goodbyes…?” Her brows furrowed, and she shook her head. “That is...a very final way to put it, Alster. I am not inclined to say goodbye, because goodbye means forever. And this… whatever happens, it is not going to be forever. That, I promise you, from the bottom of my heart.”
But did she, really? Give him a lie… no. She couldn’t give him a lie, because it wasn’t a lie, anymore. Not after that simple, fleeting dream reminded her that she was not ready to give up life--or give up on them--so easily. No, she would not give him a lie. Just as before, she would only give him the truth. And her truth, in the past eight ours, had changed. “Bother? Precaution? Alster, of course we are going to do this right. Why would I even agree to it if I did not want to wait for you? We’ve been apart for longer than we’ve been together, it seems, and I’m not about to throw away this chance for us. I’ll be safe in the sanctuary. I’ll wait for you there, when you leave with the necromancer, but you… Alster, wait,”
No sooner did she ease herself into her chair, that Alster wheeled her toward the door, into the hallway, and… left. Took off, at what could only be described as a running pace. “Wait, Alster!” She called, but if he heard her, he did not acknowledge. She had hurt him with her doubts--no, beyond hurt him. She had wounded him, maybe irreparably. None of this could take place unless--or until--she fixed. It. “It doesn’t have to be today…” She whispered, her heart still physically aching from her husband’s reaction. It was no one’s fault but her own that she had squandered the time they could have spent together, during the past week, because she was too busy drowning in the very doubt that was now taking its toll on Alster, and for that, perhaps she did not deserve another day, or another chance. But… she wanted one. Because a lie would no longer be required to nurture the hope she’d singlehandedly extinguished in Alster’s heart. She would tell him her truth, her new truth. Even if it was too late.
He was already long gone, and the ex-knight had absolutely no speed, confined as she was to her wheeled contraption. Pursuing her husband was not an issue, however much she suddenly yearned for a single normal, stress-free day together. It had taken this much for him to muster the necessary courage to go through with what was necessary, anyway, so chances were, taking a day to step away from it all might cause him to lose his nerve. All the same… she craved it, what she had in her dream. Putting one foot in front of the other on her own, living a perfectly satisfying life, where she could fight and work hard with Alster at her side. It was as though with that dream, a veil had been lifted from her distorted vision, and now she not only knew what she wanted, but she could see it, within reach. If only she had a day to daydream about that possibility with Alster; it might have made it all the more real.
Since he requested she meet him at the sanctuary, Elespeth sadly wheeled herself down the corridor, feeling heavy and laden with guilt as she made for the Night Garden, and its sanctuary within. Navigating the entrance of the little hut with the burdensome chair was aggravating and not by any means worth the effort, so when she reached the terrace, she drew in a breath, and with all the strength she could muster, she stood, and pushed open the door. It should not have been any surprise to find Haraldur, there, after the crisis that had occurred with what she now knew to be Hadwin’s sister. Of course, she had not forgotten to pass on that news to Alster, in case he was not already aware, but for the moment… Locque and associated matters were not what weighed on her mind.
“Haraldur…” For a moment, it was as though she had forgotten the proper way to greet someone with whom she had not spoken (or seen, really) for quite some time. What had occurred between them en route to Braighdath had devastatingly damaged the bridge between them that was their friendship and camaraderie, and neither of them had really had the opportune circumstances to address it. It was those details that left this reunion painfully awkward. “I… I’m glad to see that you’re well.”
With her strength on borrowed time, frail legs supporting her weight, Elespeth was quick to take a seat on one of the beds. Just crossing the room was enough to leave her winded… it was downright embarrassing. For several moments, she said nothing, simply sat with slouched shoulders, looking down at her feet, until at last she found the only words that would come to her. “I’m sorry to intrude. Alster told me to meet him, here…” He had also told her to say her goodbyes; something she was not inclined to do, because by saying goodbye, she would be conceding defeat to giving up hope entirely. So she had no goodbyes for Haraldur, but… It’s now or never. I don’t know what is going to happen; I don’t know that I’ll have another chance. “And… I am sorry for not trusting you, while we were traveling to Braighdath. If I had let you help me the way you’d intended… I would not be in this situation, right now.”
It was impossible to traverse Galeyn’s palace without encountering a familiar face, and only a matter of time before Alster would encounter a friend during his time of need--whether he wanted to or not. “Odd place for a morning run. I’d sooner suggest you go outside, and get some sunlight.”
Ultimately, it was Cwenha who happened to cross paths with the stricken man. The tiny acrobat, who had long since gotten back on her feet after having dealt with a broken foot, appeared groggy, as though she had just tumbled out of bed--which was not far from the truth. She was clad in a simple beige gown, instead of her typical silver attire. The pale shade actually managed to look dark against her alabaster skin. “Not that I’m glorifying your obvious misery, Alster Rigas, but it’s kind or refreshing not to have to answer banal questions, such as ‘lovely morning, isn’t it'. Whatever has gotten you so flustered and running for your life in the middle of this palace, though… it renders you a far cry from the pillar of stability you always try to show me.”
The small woman crouched near the wall where the Rigas Head had all but collapsed and extended a hand to help him to his feet. “Whatever's eating you… not gonna lie, I'm shit at giving advice. But sometimes I can make a good listener.”
Cwenha wasn’t an idiot, though. She’d caught wind of the news that had been circulating the small kingdom, and she suspected--no, she was certain it had to do with Alster’s wife. The former knight who hadn’t the strength to stand on her own two feet, any longer. The former knight who’d attempted to take her life, back in Braighdath. The former knight that she and Hadwin, of all people, had team up to track down. That woman had certainly been the source of a good deal of turmoil… it made it hard to feel sorry for her, especially seeing what it was doing to Alster, who was perhaps the only person to find their way into the Silver Fairy’s good graces in a long time.
Sure enough, she was not at all far from the truth. What little Alster chose to share was all she needed to piece together the shards of his emotional agony. And for the first time since she’d found the woman, unconscious and barely alive… she could relate to her. “So your lovely wife has found herself in a dark place, and she’s dragging you down with her.” She surmised, withdrawing a handkerchief from an exposed pocket of her gown, and offering it to the devastated man before her. “Well, you’re in luck; I happen to have experience with dark places. Maybe my advice won’t be shit, after all. But here’s what I gather, Alster. Your Elespeth has been in a dark place probably for longer than you--or she--cares to admit. When did she branch off from your party and almost die of exposure? I’m willing to bet it started there. And once it starts, it builds, and it doesn’t let go until you acknowledge it. Sounds as though that’s what she’s trying to do; to stop lying to herself. Own that darkness so that it can’t own her.”
Rolling her shoulders back, the silver acrobat startled a yawn. Mornings never had agreed with her. “Why do you think I stay angry, Alster? Because it’s a survival mechanism at this point. Because if I’m not angry… then I’d be lost. Just like your wife.” Cwenha’s piercing eyes softened along with her tone. She rested a thin hand atop his shoulder. “You haven’t lost her yet, Alster. And there’s no guarantee that you’re going to. Let her acknowledge her darkness--it doesn’t mean it will consume her, or you. Take it from someone who’s contemplated suicide more than once: no one inherently wants to die. Not even someone like me, who can’t seem to find stable meaning walking this plane. They just…” She breathed air from between her lips and and tilted her head against the wall. “They can’t see the light, anymore. For some people… people like me, that doesn’t change. It doesn’t need to stay that way for Elespeth, though. She’s got you. Sounds as though you just have to remind each other of those vestiges of hope you’ve both forgotten.”
He was ashamed of himself for running away yet again. He ran away last night, too, and was reduced to a barely conscious heap on the floor. Alster vaguely recalled Hadwin fetching him from the floor and carting him back to his and Elespeth’s shared quarters. So much for investigating the faoladh’s suspicious behavior regarding the attack on Haraldur Sorde. Even if he remained coherent in Hadwin’s presence, would he have cared enough to ask any pertinent questions, or would his tunnel vision have prevented him from acknowledging anything beyond Elespeth and her dire condition?
He didn’t have to mull over the answer. Yes, of course; Elespeth’s case took precedence. Other issues demanded his attention, but they paled to the catastrophic loss that stared him in the face with sunken, defeated green eyes. At this stage of desperation, he would let Locque herself free to terrorize all of Galeyn if it meant protecting his wife from slipping into an unknown stasis from which she may never awake. But it didn’t matter what he wanted; Alster Rigas had chosen a life in service to peoples’ wants and desires. If Elespeth had well and truly given up, and no posed solutions or silken, idealistic words would sway her, then he had no choice but to accept her decision. Returning her pain wasn’t about mitigating his own, no; returning her pain would likely slip her into a coma, a fate far more reasonable than hellish consciousness in a compromised state.
It wasn’t enough, she said. Nevermind his daily battles juggling a borrowed heart condition, a weak immune system, and an inflamed nub of an arm grafted to steel. He knew it was petty to compare their differing experiences and question her love and dedication based on her pain threshold, but he couldn’t help it. He had done so much for her, and she was giving up. He had suffered, was suffering in near-constant agony, but he survived it all because Elespeth awaited his return. He surmounted adversity after adversity just for the promise of falling into her arms every night. But he was not enough for her.
Not enough not enough not enough…
So he ran before he could hear her excuses. Ran before she tried to blunt off the edges of her brutal, cutting truth and shower him with some harmless, affectionate fluff that did nothing but cushion her blow from last night. He always valued the truth before pretty lies, but to hear that he meant so little to her...was too much to bear.
It wasn’t fair. He wasn’t being fair to her. He was overanalyzing, overreacting, taking her emotions out of context and gauging them as an authentic, immutable truth with no space for course correction. He was not enough, end of story. Not everyone wanted to eke out a nigh unbearable existence with a loved one; apparently, he was the idiotic exception. A Rigas with a martyr-complex, assured in his existence so long as it hurt and screamed for love. Lose an arm; lose two arms. He would manage, because he had her. Could he really expect Elespeth to follow in his unstable, unsustainable footsteps? No; she was normal. She merely wanted an escape from her misery, and her misery was too great for the likes of him to heal and soothe. After all, no one could bind a heart back together with scrap metal. It was not as disposable as a limb. Her condition was internal, and affected one of the most essential organs of the body. She was well within her rights to want sleep and never awaken.
He was not enough.
Safe against the wall, safe in his distance from the source of his light and his darkness, Alster allowed himself to weaken. Unlike last night, this was a voluntary act. He slid down the wall, convinced that once he sat, he would not arise independently. Curling against the curves of the half-hidden alcove, he closed his eyes and, unimpeded, let the tears fall.
A nearby voice startled him so badly, sparks nearly shot out of his hand in a knee-jerk reaction to his fear. Widened eyes raised to meet his sudden visitor. “Cwenha.” The sparks dwindled, but residual pops of static hung in the air between them, the majority of which congregated around his steel prosthesis. With his non-lightning rod of a hand, he messily wiped the tears from his face, self-consciousness helping him to ignore the fact that she had seen him cry, before. “I suppose I can’t complain about the company. I’ve chosen a horrible spot to be alone. You flatter me, though,” a weepy laugh emerged from his winded lungs. “I never professed to be a pillar of stability. How can I be, when this arm weighs me down?”
Knowing that it might be his only chance to return to his feet, Alster accepted the acrobat’s hand and hauled himself upright, never releasing his contact with the supportive wall. His legs wobbled, but he wasn’t about to teeter over from emotional exhaustion--just yet. “It’s not--” he started to protest, but ended up sighing in surrender. What did he have to hide? Everyone knew Elespeth’s prognosis and how much it affected their marriage. “It’s...there is a possibility, however slight, that we could address Elespeth’s heart condition, but it requires a journey on my part. She wants me to return what I’ve borrowed; I took on a significant portion of her heart’s symptoms, and traveling under such physical duress isn’t wise. And I know that it isn’t, but if I return her pain, she’ll land into a coma and she might...never awaken. I overheard her with Hadwin last night. She...she said she might not even want to awaken. That I’m not enough...and--” he pressed a fist to his mouth to cull any melodramatic fit of hysterics; it was unbecoming to see Lord Alster Rigas lose his dignity and decorum, regardless of the person. They were still in a public space; he had no choice but to keep it together. So he did. He dropped his hand and listened to the acrobat’s advice, nodding politely even though all he wanted to do was crack like a rotten egg and drip rancid yolk everywhere. No one would dare to approach the mess if its malodorous scent alienated people from approaching.
“I know,” he fiddled with the segmented digits of his steel hand, not even reacting to the electrical charges that burned and nipped at his skin. “I’ve known about her dark place for a long time. Before anyone found her in the woods; I was the catalyst. Her confession from last night--and even last week--didn’t surprise me. I’ve suspected as much. She can’t hide her true feelings, least of all from me. I know dark places, too. I was locked away in one whenever I failed. The Serpent found me in one. My darkness manifested into a weapon that tried to kill me. Consequently, she saved me from the darkness, in all its varied forms. I want to save her from hers, too. The darkness I planted in her.”
His eyelids sagged, too heavy to stay open. “I want to be her light, but I’m not enough. She said so, herself. I’m failing her. Failure--trapping myself in the dark room. That’s where failures go, and stay. I know she needs to explore this darkness, but I can’t let it win. I can’t let it take her away from me again. No matter what I do, I always fail her. I always hurt her. I’m sorry, Cwenha,” he tilted his head at her, though his fast was a distant shade, half-gone in self-debilitating reveries. “You’re right. No one truly wants to die. They just want an end to the pain. And her pain is greater than her love for me. That is what she means. I am not enough. So we’ll see what she wants. I’m meeting her in the sanctuary, and...and we’ll see. It’s not over yet. I’ll see this through; that’s all I can do.”
Stepping away from the wall, he turned to Cwenha and swept his good arm in front of him in the closest approximation to a bow his frail body could afford. “Thank you, Cwenha. For sharing your experience. I’d love for you to see the light one day, too. If even you can detect hope in this harrowing situation, then it’s not too late for you, either.”
Haraldur spent several days holed up inside the sanctuary, and he was getting antsy. The self-inflicted injury on his neck, slathered on by potent Night Garden salve, had healed to such an extent, it had lessened in appearance to a cosmetic scar. Its reminder, however, would blare and burn even louder than the puffy scar on his wrist that had for so long persisted as a symbol of his surrender.
Back then, he tried to end his life, and back then, he would have succeeded if allowed to bleed out, alone in a secluded wood, but it so happened that a woman--his first wife--stumbled upon his body while fetching some herbs for her clients. She was a nomad, having fled her village with a few dozen survivors when a Forbanne raid razed it to the ground. They found sanctuary in the forests, comforted by its remote location. When Arina had carted his dying form into the village, no one knew of his brutal past. He never spoke during his short tenure among their dwindling ranks, and yet, they did not question him or his origins. In their eyes, he was another victim of Mollengard’s cruelty. Former Forbanne or not, they allowed him a place to live. It was the first time he had experienced true kindness, and he’d never forgotten. Though he did not stay, too afraid he would cause harm to a group of peace-loving people, he later paid it forward by hiring himself as a mountain guide for Mollengardians so desperate to flee the country that they would risk crossing into a relatively unstable territory like Eyraille. While serving as a guide, he encountered Arina for the second time, after a span of several years. She had lost the entire village; a Forbanne raid cleared them out of the forest, and stole her son as tribute. Their lives were not enough to pay for their insubordination, but they did release her in a rare show of clemency. Sometimes, at night, he would lay in bed and wish for a do-over. What if he had stayed with the village? He could have protected them, held the Forbanne at bay while they made their escape...or saved Arina’s son.
But he was done with asking ‘What if?’ Bemoaning the past was unproductive. He failed to do what he wanted out of fear and regretted it. Nothing but a miracle would erase his most severe of transgressions, the most recent of which was his suicide. Like his rescue in the woods, someone else had saved him. Vitali. Vitali. He saw the rune on his chest one morning, unmistakable proof that the necromancer had marked him, protecting him from Death’s reach. Fate, cruel Fate, had a sick sense of humor, but there was one major takeaway from all he learned, experiencing near-deaths; Fate did not want to relinquish him. And perhaps there was a reason beyond torture and torment; he was not yet done accomplishing what he set out to do. I want to help who I’ve harmed. I want to protect my family. I want to be a father.
So do it, the Fates intervened with a hiss. Stop blaming us for every wrong that you face. Take charge!
And he would take charge. He would implement this new philosophy, but only if the Gardeners deemed him well enough to leave the sanctuary.
“I am well,” he muttered to himself, pacing back and forth in the tiny hut. He was done resting. He needed to reintegrate, to prove to Vega, to Sigrid, that his hopeful words weren’t just for show. They didn’t believe him, feared he’d renege, or regress, or surrender to the severe doubt that always encroached during all important moments of transition. He didn’t blame them for their cautious optimism, but how was he to demonstrate his readiness for change if they didn’t let him go?
In mid-pace, he froze when the door to the sanctuary creaked open, revealing, on the other side, Elespeth, free from her wheelchair and trembling on her feet. “Elespeth.” In two strides, he was upon her, securing her by the arm and leading her to the closest bed. He dragged her contraption into the room, positioning it its head for ease of access. “I...what brings you here? Did you hear about--” He bit his lip to prevent the completion of his thought-- my suicide? Did you hear about my suicide? No, that was not the reason she was with him in the sanctuary; Alster told her to meet him, and she was awaiting his arrival. He nodded at her brief explanation. Allegedly, the Rigas Head had orchestrated his encounters with both Vega and Sigrid. It would come as no surprise if he somehow tricked Elespeth into the sanctuary with him, too. No one willingly wanted to see Haraldur; he supposed he made them uncomfortable. He had succeeded where some of them had failed, and the reminder that they, too, almost took their own lives stared them dead in the face, wearing the guise of an old companion. For he was only ever an old companion to most everyone he knew, now--Elespeth included. On that day, he effectively alienated the ex-knight for good; no matter of officiating her and Alster’s wedding could expunge the memory of their grievances and missteps of the past.
In a mirror to Elespeth, Haraldur clasped his hands behind his back and giving an awkward shuffle of his feet. I want to help who I’ve harmed, he reminded himself. Can I help her--or is it too late?
“No--I went about it entirely the wrong way.” He sat on the bed beside her, but still kept a broad enough distance in case his proximity made her uncomfortable. “I acted as a coldhearted commander and not a friend. You needed one, and I treated you like you were extraneous baggage. Not a person, but a thing that was impeding us all. Maybe if I would have helped you out of concern, instead of necessity, things would be different.” No, he berated himself. No more ‘what-ifs’!
“Yes, hindsight would have prevented us both from being here, right now. In this place of healing, as we nurse our self-inflicted wounds. I couldn’t help you, then. I don’t think you wanted help. We had no time for it; you wanted a solution, as did I. But our solutions differed, and clashed. And,” he traced the new scar along his throat, “no one could have helped me, either--because I didn’t let anyone help me. Because I thought I was beyond saving. Because I let her get into my head, and convince me that I am always Forbanne, and people who are not Forbanne will always spurn and misunderstand me. I lost the fight, too, Elespeth. And I don’t know if anyone will truly forgive me for what I’ve done. At the very least, I can offer my apologies--starting with you.” He held her gray-green gaze in his olive-green eyes. “Please forgive me. I’ve already forgiven you. I know this is coming to you too late. It doesn’t change what happened...to either of us. But,” he tried for a smile, “I have missed you, and I also missed the person I was when in your company. You treated me like a person. Everyone has, lately. And I fell short of seeing that. If there is a chance to make right by each other, again,” he extended his hand, palm open, “I hope that we can.”
Later that morning, Alster met both Elespeth and Haraldur in the sanctuary. After saying his farewells to Cwenha, the Rigas Head gave himself the solitude he needed to lose all his composure in exchange for exhausting some dry-eyed clarity out of him. There was no use avoiding his wife any longer; the truth didn’t stop being the truth just because he ignored it. Whatever Elespeth desired, he would listen, and come to terms with the ultimatum. And so, keeping his emotions at bay, he employed reason and logic as he entered the small space at the heart of the Night Garden.
“Elespeth.” His expression betrayed nothing, but it did not radiate the cold dissection of his Serpent persona. Something shone in his careworn eyes; the willingness to listen.
Haraldur, sensing the intensity churning through the air, shifted to his feet, suddenly uncomfortable remaining in between what looked like a very private matter. “I’m going to go out for a walk. Take your time.”
Alster, blinking out of his hyper-focus, glanced over his shoulder at the retreating man. “Are you allowed to leave the sanctuary?”
Haraldur shrugged. “I don’t know. But this gives me the chance for a prison-break. Don’t deny me this opportunity.” And with a parting nod at Elespeth, the Eyraillian Prince ‘escaped’ his cell, and closed the door behind him.
Now alone, Alster’s convictions wavered a bit. The vestiges of concern twisted at his brow. “I’m sorry I took so long getting here,” his voice was a level above a whisper. “As you know, this is....difficult. Willingly returning your pain, accepting what comes afterward...I--” he closed his eyes and turned away from Elespeth. “Is there even an ‘after’ for us? Please tell me, El. Am I enough? Do you see a horizon line? A future? Do you want a future? With me? Or...or…” he hissed through his mouth, struggling to stave off another emotional hiccup. “...What do you want, Elespeth? Tell me what you want--and I’ll do it for you.”
“So then, by that logic… For the fact that I continue to dwell in my own darkness, continue to pick at old wounds that will never heal… by your logic, Alster, should Briery feel the same way toward me? Should she feel that she is not enough, despite what she has provided for me, despite that what I face from day to day stems from a source so far beyond her control?” It wasn’t an accusation, but for the first time, she was somehow able to see herself in the debilitated form of Alster’s sickly wife. Which was nothing to scoff at, because frankly, she wanted to smack the woman upside her head for constantly putting the Rigas mage through so much pain--the one person, beyond her Missing Links family, whom she felt didn’t actually deserve pain. Although she was an expert at hiding any feeling that did not manifest as anger, it saddened her to see him go through trial after trial, without a light at the end of this endless tunnel, and it was difficult not to blame Elespeth for it. I wouldn’t do that to you, her heart had even once dared to feel, however quietly. I would not make you hurt like that, if I were here. If I were in her place…
Of course, she wanted to believe that, but she could not say it for certain. Not when she put Briery through the same thing daily, time and again when she snapped and ran off. I’m not much different from you, Elespeth, she’d only now come to realize. I can’t see the light, either. And that won’t change. Hurting the people I care for, who care for me… it isn’t going to stop. “You know Briery fairly well. You’ve seen what she has done for me; what she continues to do for me. Does she strike you as being ‘not enough’, Alster? Is she to blame for the fact that I cannot find my way out of my own darkness?”
It came as no surprise that, of course, Alster could not draw the same parallel between himself and Briery, the both of them fighting to their wits end just to be enough for the people they cared for. Because he knew the folly in his own hypocrisy, knew that he was being overly sensitive and that he was not the cause of his wife’s darkness, nor the reason she couldn’t find her light. Sadly, it wasn’t enough to change his mind, although it did force her to admit to her own guilt. “If you can blame yourself, Alster, then you also have to blame Briey--but you won’t, because you know it is irrational. She isn’t the reason I am angry. She isn’t responsible for what happened to me… and yet she suffers the brunt of my behaviour. I know this, but I continue to act this way, and… let me tell you, the misery perpetuates itself, Alster. Because I can’t even begin to express how badly I feel about it all.”
The Silver Fairy clutched her elbows and lowered her gaze. “I feel bad all the time. When I’m not feeling bad about myself, I’m feeling bad about Briery, to the point where when I’m not entertaining the idea of death… I can’t help but consider leaving the Missing Links, indefinitely. Because I contribute more harm than good. But I don’t leave, but I’ve found my comfort zone among them, and that… that selfishness eats away at me. There is no winning; I’m damned if I do, and damned if I don’t. And I am willing to bet your wife feels the same way.” At last she looked up, her deep, blue eyes filled with that very remorse she’d addressed. “You say she confided in you last week… but have you stopped to think what that must have taken her? To be so brutally honest with you, no dampening the blow with frilly words and kisses? I can only imagine that must’ve taken a lot out of her. I can say with certainty that it probably was not easy, and that she knew she would regret it, but if love’s all about honesty, then she probably figured you deserved to know. But Alser, there’s a chance that she isn’t actually admitting defeat. This could be her last, desperate cry for help… and you ran. You ran from her. I don’t think I need to tell you what that might do. How it might make her reconsider being honest with you in the future. Nor do I need to tell you what to do now.”
Cwenha rested a hand on his shoulder. Her oceanic eyes softened, and because she knew he needed one, she forced her heart-shaped lips into whatever semblance of a smile she could muster. “I don’t know what I believe is possible for me, Alster. I don’t know that I’ll ever find my light, because I’ve never had one. But Elespeth I’ve seen the two of you together, and I know how integral you are to one another’s lives… the light is still there. Your wife just doesn’t have the energy to open her eyes and see it. So go back to her, now, and be her eyes. I’m not a seer; I don’t have magic. But…” She dropped her hand from his arm and folded her arms, and righted her posture with confidence. “I believe there is a future for the two of you. Go and talk to your wife; go and find your future together. And you know that if there is anything any of the Missing Links can do to help… all you need is to ask. We have your back.”
Haraldur was perhaps not the reason that Elespeth found herself at the sanctuary that morning, but her reason did not detract from the fact that she was glad to see him well, up and about after the news of his near demise. Having caught wind of his brush with death, it had struck her with the fear that she might not find the opportunity to make amends for being a terrible ally and an even worse friend. And now, given brand new circumstances, this may well be her only chance. She couldn’t leave that bridge between them in tatters.
“This brings back memories. You being there to catch me before I collapse.” A ghost of a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth as the Eyraillian prince helped her take a seat on one of the beds. “I… I heard about what happened. But whatever transpired, I also know it wasn’t your fault.” The former knight looked up, her verdant eyes tired, but warm with understanding. “Hadwin came and explained everything to me, last night. He said his sister had something to do with it, and that she took her anger toward Mollengard out on you… though I’m sure you already know this. There is no way such pertinent information would escape Vega’s attention. But whatever the circumstances, Haraldur, I’m just glad you’re alright. And you… you are alright, aren’t you? Because I don’t know that Vega is. She hasn’t been herself for a long time, I think, and I’m sure it has to do with being parted from you. I can’t blame her; I also was far from my best self when distance parted me and Alster…”
And then she had only gone and made things worse. First by way of suggesting she was opposed to the fact he had merged with the Serpent, and then by fleeing from him (and the rest of her friends) when she was too afraid to let go of her dependence on that Mollengardian stimulant. One time after the next, over and over, she just continued to let down the ones she cared about… even now, by way of letting herself down. “I was baggage, though,” came her soft reply, green eyes trailing to the floor. “I was holding everyone back and causing us to lose precious time because I was insistent on making the journey in my less than ideal condition. I didn’t want to admit defeat, and for that, I defeated myself. You had no reason to help me out of necessity, Haraldur. You had to be a commander--with all of those Forbanne following you, I know and I understand that you cannot possibly be anything less. I turned my back on you, on Sigrid, and on Alster… and I’m paying for it, now. I have no one to blame for this condition but myself, and I know that. So whatever guilt you are still holding onto… don’t let any of it be because of me.”
Elespeth looked up from the floor, taking note of the hand he offered in solidarity. She hesitated to shake it, and not for a lack of forgiveness for whatever wrong he perceived to have done onto her, but because she was afraid of making a promise she could not keep. “There is nothing to forgive, Haraldur. You are still that person--that friend I’ve had throughout all of this mayhem. The friend I had when the both of us were still single, and wondering what the hell we were doing, fighting for a man like Messino. That person you think you lost… he never went away. I’ve always seen him in you. Perhaps that’s why I found it so difficult to perceive you as a ‘commander’. As far as I am concerned… we never stopped being friends.”
Slowly, she reached out to clasp his hand, a sad smile playing on her lips. “I’ll be honest with you, Haraldur; my prognosis isn’t great. The Night Garden can’t help me, and we are running out of options. And from this point on, I’m not sure what the future has in store for me. But, regardless… let’s go forward as friends and comrades. You’ve already made right, by me. Maybe someday… if luck is on my side, I’ll have the opportunity to make right by you, as well.”
Just as she’d always been, Elespeth was grateful for Haraldur’s company that morning, knowing well how easy it was to fall into that dark pit of despair when left to one’s own devices--and particularly in her case, when left alone with that voice that still whispered poison in her ear. The same voice that had almost convinced her that the only move left to make to restore her honour was to take her life… She didn’t want to listen to that voice right now. If she were to negotiate with Alster, then she needed a clear head.
Fortunately, by the time her husband came around that morning, idle chats with Haraldur had calmed her nerves to an extent. She was ready to sit and talk with Alster, without the vestiges of guilt clinging to her like vines climbing a tree, but as soon as he stepped inside the small, overgrown sanctuary, all of that trepidation returned to her in a heartbeat. Understandably, Haraldur stood and made to leave, to give the two of them privacy, and she was almost inclined to ask him to stay… but that wouldn’t have been fair, to him or to Alster. This matter was between the two of them, and the Eyraillian prince had his own domestic issues to sort through, what with a distraught and very pregnant wife, who was expecting to give birth in a month’s time…
“Alster, I’m… I’m sorry. I was only trying to be honest with you, but it was for entirely selfish reasons.” She spoke up at last when they were finally alone, but couldn’t look her husband in the eye. “I told myself you deserved to know the truth, but in all honesty… I was breaking. And this was just the result of finally breaking apart, after holding myself together for so long. I told myself you deserved my honesty, but really, I just wanted to get it off my chest. And it was not fair to you--not in the slightest. Not in the way I went about it, even after others advised me against it.”
The ex-knight spun her wedding ring around her finger. Once, it had fit so well. Now, even after she had regained a semblance of the weight she’d lost, it still spun just short of her second knuckle, not quite resting snuggly against her skin. “I’ve had this voice in my head, Alster. It’s my voice… or a fragment of what ‘I’ am. It’s the same voice that told me I should take my life, at one point. I still struggle with it. I still see it manifest in the mirror, and it… it still makes me doubt everything. Myself, us… and I think, it is still trying to convince me that the only satisfying end is one where I am no longer alive. And given that no one in Galeyn has been able to help me… it has really hit home, of late, that it might be true.”
Expelling a heavy breath from her lungs, she looked up at last, both guilt-ridden and defeated. “It is not that you aren’t enough, Alster. That is far from the truth. It is that I am not enough, and that voice… it speaks louder than yours. Louder than everyone’s. And ignoring it doesn’t make it go away. It doesn’t make me stop doubting everything… but last night, something changed. I had a dream. An unremarkable one, but it reminded me of how we were. And maybe… how we can be, if the plan that you’re proposing will work. A future where I can stand up on my own, again. A real future, Alster. Not some semblance of one, that involves me confined to my bed for the rest of my long life.”
She’d have reached for his hand, then, but he was too far away. And she was too weak to stand. “To answer your question… I don’t know what I’m seeing. Whether it is a horizon line, or an illusion. But I know that I want to take this chance. And in order to do it, I am willing to bear the full burden of my pain, if you’ll let me. And if I fall asleep, then at least that destructive voice won’t be able to reach me. I’ll be safe from it while I wait for you. That is what I meant, last night. I don’t… I don’t want to die. But if I have to suffer another stretch of time without you, and listen to those poisoned words, I don’t know that I’ll survive it. Does that make any sense at all?”
He didn’t answer right away, and she was afraid of the silence that settled in the vacancy of his words. “I know how hard this is for you. But… it is still morning. You cannot travel with the necromancer until nightfall; and you haven’t even had time to speak with Briery about borrowing her caravan, yet. So… can’t we have just one more day? Before you have to leave, again? I… I understand if you want to do this now. If you’re afraid you’ll lose your nerve, if we wait any longer. But if you’re willing, it would mean a lot to me, just to have a day, together. Where we’re both awake and both in the same place. Is that… is that reasonable, Alster?”
“N-No! I’m not blaming anyone!” Alster’s cheeks flushed in protest. “You misunderstand me, Cwenha. Briery and I aren’t comparable to each other. Our experiences differ. I would never suggest that she is not doing everything in her power to assist you and the rest of the Links. But I…” But what? Was he by default responsible for others outside of himself? If they stumbled or broke down, was he to blame? Yes...because they entrusted me to help, and I let them down. “You’re right; it may not be rational, but I see it as true. I’ve done so much for her in the past...and it’s never been enough to save her. I’m sure you can say the same for your relationship with Briery; that try as she may, you don’t feel you are saved. I also know you will say it’s not up to me, but it is. We swore to each other on sacred bonds. Blood ties our souls. She is much a part of me as I am a part of her. It matters what I do, because our actions are seldom isolated. They affect us both--deeply, spiritually. I am the crux of her pain, and she is the crux of mine. That’s...that’s how love works, doesn’t it?” He clasped his flesh and blood hand into his steel hand. “Two people causing each other pain all the time? If we’re being oversimplified about it, it’s true. And if that’s the case, then I have no choice but to admit that I can’t shoulder all the blame for what has happened--for what continues to happen. But I want to, Cwenha. I want to so badly, so she won’t have to suffer. But at the same time, I know how ridiculous I sound. The only force in this universe that has the power I seek is Death. For, in Life, if I suffer, she will still suffer. It never ends.”
Perhaps to deflect from the unbearable reality of the next several hours, Alster took an inordinate interest in Cwenha’s own troubled mind, to the point where he looked down in shame. It was cruel to consider her experiences as preferable over those of his own wife. Cwenha was not a distraction, and he would be doing both women an egregious disservice were he to choose the most manageable person and treat her like a case study--analyzing and drafting up the most proper course of healing. But Cwenha did not want a solution; she wanted a sympathetic audience. Never should he treat her like a patient. Someone to be fixed. But isn’t that what I do? I try to ‘fix’ people, and then bemoan the results when they remain broken. He wound his steel digits tighter around his pliable, breakable hand. But the world, and the people who live in it, is imperfect. They can never be whole. I am not God. It should be….it should be fine, if I let people be themselves sometimes.
Nodding to himself, he sucked in a bolstering breath of air, and decided to put his thoughts into practice. “It’s true, Cwenha. I ran. I ran because I thought I failed her. Because I could not abide by the thought that her darkness needed to persist. I wanted her to hope with me, but it was such a fragile thing, hope. It rode on Elespeth’s heels, so reliant on her state-of-mind to become whole and thriving. It died when the darkness swallowed it. But darkness, by your admission, isn’t inherently destructive, or terminal. It’s ever-shifting. It’s darkness, but not an abyss. Light can reach; otherwise, a person would not be able to exist. That includes you, Cwenha. You exist; therefore, you have light.” He rested a comforting hand on her arm. “It isn’t something you need to seek. It didn’t die, or drift off elsewhere. If that were the case, could you have helped me elucidate a problem? The darkness may be to thank for your analysis, but its execution came from a source that shines. So,” a smile erased the worried lines from his face, “thank you, and I mean it. You cannot spout such wisdom if you, yourself don’t believe in the possibility of a future. Hope for others is a reflection of the hope alive in oneself.”
He didn’t think he quite succeeded on allowing the darkness in others to settle, and persist, but he meant what he said, nonetheless. Some convictions burned stronger, and Alster always believed no person was ever truly lost. And if Cwenha was so convinced that her darkness filled like a void, then he was remiss to walk away without spouting some encouragement. He was not dishonest with her, but he hoped she could read the truth in his words: you are not beyond help.
Taking her hand, he brought it to his lips and planted a gentile kiss atop her knuckles. “I’ll see you later, Cwenha. Depending on how the conversation with my wife goes, I may need something from you and the Missing Links.”
Haraldur could not help but quirk a smile at Elespeth’s recollections of their past encounters with each other. “Some things never change. I’ve lost count of the times I had to catch someone. Better you than me, though. Just think of the damage I’d incur if you had to stabilize my bulk all the time.” His smile did not last, however, when she addressed the “incident” from a few days ago. As he took a spot on the bed, his shoulders hunched forward in a severe slouch. “Even though I’ve been told that Hadwin’s sister is responsible for the,” he tried not to shudder, “mind manipulation, I still see what happened as my fault. I isolated myself and became an ideal target. But I’m sure that’s how you felt, too? When the sorceress in the wood turned your sword hand against you?”
He closed his eyes and shook his head. “No, I’m sorry. You don’t have to answer that. I was thinking out loud. Trying to justify how it’s not my fault. That it’s guilt at play. It doesn’t make my decision any less of a betrayal. And yes, it was a decision. That girl--she never pointed my blade against my throat and forced me to die. She only mentioned that I’d never be free, otherwise. In the end, I still had a choice, and I chose to sever all ties with this life. So, my answer to you is,” he gripped the edges of the cot, “I have to be alright. People have lost their patience with this stubborn, stubborn man. If I’m not alright, I don’t know what it’ll do to Vega. So I’ll manage. I’ve let her down too many times and I’ve run out of chances. It’s now or never.”
In his personal challenge to change, to face his last chance at making amends by moving forward, not backward, he declared the words aloud; words he did not believe, but which were essential for healing. “It’s in the past, Elespeth. What happened. What we did. Yes, the past hasn’t stopped affecting us, but it doesn’t have to influence our actions from here on out. We made mistakes, but we’re still here. Alive. Forgiven. That has to account for something. You’ll beat the odds. You and Alster have done so, before. Prognoses change. And if you make it through this, we’ll pick up where we left off. I promise you that.”
He took her hand in his and delivered a strong shake, one that hearkened back to the person of stability who Elespeth had never doubted still existed. The exchange needed no words, so he didn’t befoul the moment by speaking. In silence, they sat, basking in each other’s company, content in the fact that they didn’t need to fill the air with chit-chat. The serenity lasted up until Alster entered the tiny cottage, and the fragile sanctuary they’d gathered while within the sanctuary-proper had swept away, like fog in a windstorm. Haraldur rose and said his goodbyes, knowing he would serve little purpose as a buffer between a lover’s quarrel, not if they would view him as a welcome distraction and veer away from dispensing some hard-hitting truths to each other.
Sure enough, with Haraldur gone, Alster was forced to approach and address Elespeth, a prospect which haunted him all morning long--even with Cwenha’s bolstering advice. “No. No. You don’t have to apologize. If you were being selfish, then so was I. For running away. Twice. By your admission, you were breaking; I knew you were breaking, and...so that I wouldn’t break, I trundled off like a coward. But...not anymore. I won’t run.” To demonstrate, he sat in the spot Haraldur previously occupied, still warm with his body heat. “Open your hand.” When she did as instructed, he rested his steel wrist against her palm. “If I try to leave, Elespeth, tighten your hold here, and don’t let go. You only need to apply the tiniest of pressure; a swift yank, really, and I’ll be effectively immobilized by the pain. I know you wouldn’t dare, but...the power is in your palm, quite literally. You hold my attention.”
Mollified by his sincere gesture, Elespeth confessed to him another detail which she had kept concealed from him for months. Like Haraldur before him, he sagged, but his head, at least, did not roll along with his shoulders. It did not shy away from her darkness. The mind listened, the mind considered. The mind had an answer. “Take it from someone who’s heard voices in his head and couldn’t, for the longest time, differentiate it between my voice and the Serpent’s voice. I’ve been there, too, El. It was under the counsel of such a voice that I...disappeared from you. From the world. I assume,” he hesitated, “...your voice had coaxed you to bring a shard to your throat, to end your life. And since you can confirm the voice is you, it is one invested not in your self-preservation, but in the preservation of your legacy. The longer you stay, the more you fear there will be nothing worth remembering of you. Nothing but the latter stages of your life; the disease, the disgrace, the guilt, the shell of a once proud warrior, reduced to gaunt cheeks and emaciated limbs. You have shriveled; you have lessened. You are not enough, nor ever will be enough. Not anymore. Is that right, Elespeth?”
Alster closed his eyes. A sketch of a smile, wistful and ghostly, twitched and trembled against his mouth. “Like I’ve said, I have a voice, too. It was most prominent following the destruction of Stella D’Mare, when I sent the Serpent back to Its home. I had served my purpose. I lost a limb and was slowly dying from a debilitating disease caused by my magic. What else was left but a shell? Why wasn’t I dead? Why didn’t I die? The guilt of my survival kept me awake every night, for weeks. I didn’t want to worry you, so I kept the crisis to a minimum. But it festered, and festered, and the Serpent took hold of my weakness from my inner-voice, and used it as a launching point to influence me. This isn’t a digression,” he hurried, his steel digits twitching in her light grip. “It’s an understanding. One that I should have accepted sooner, from you, because it’s so familiar. I know this pain. I drowned it in the ocean, and the Leviathan took it in Its massive jaws. I ignored my darkness, El.” It was a realization that hit him hard enough, he flinched from the phantom impact. “Because I didn’t want it. But it doesn’t just disappear. You’re right. We have to address it. I spent so much time banking on idealistic dreams because I didn’t want to face it again, El. What I left behind. The Serpent, what’s still there, the ongoing fear that I’m making everything worse by existing, that you are suffering for my mistakes...but what good would it do, to invite these insecurities? It benefits no one. I strive to be productive. To see results, not sink into a puddle of my own sorrows. But even at my most productive, I’m still sinking. So,” he opened his eyes and searched her face, “let’s explore our darkness, together. The voices, not being good enough--everything.”
Elespeth, however, was far from done discussing their course of action for the future and, in fact, posed a suggestion for their more immediate future. “That does sound like the kind of dream I want to experience, here, in reality. Of course it all makes sense now, Elespeth. You make perfect sense. I--frankly--I’m relieved.” He twisted in his seat to place his flesh and blood hand atop her own. “I know that may sound insensitive, to find relief in the persistence of your destructive voice, but it’s given me some clarity, because I think I know how we can defeat that voice of yours. Or at the very least, diminish it. You have the right idea. N-Not necessarily about silencing it via collapsing into a comatose stasis,” he stared at the ceiling, trying to hide his discomfort after uttering the inevitable aloud, “but about trying to replicate your dream. Let’s do it, El. Let’s build a solid foundation for each other, so when we’re reunited, it’s already there, waiting for us.”
In a sudden burst of excitement, he bounded to his feet, forgetting he had advised Elespeth to hold firm to his prosthetic wrist. Bouncing back as if bound by elastic, he flinched from the sudden stab of pain, lost his balance, and fell retrograde against the bed from which he’d sprang. Plopping himself atop the cushions and sheets, he let out a timid laugh, uncertain of how to gauge the humor in the situation. “Well, we’re off to a great start, huh, El?” He freed his prosthesis from her keep. “This mundane life of ours. Though I must say, you haven’t lost the strength of your grip at all!”
After a few moments of horizontal relaxation, Alster lifted up to a sitting position. “I’m sorry for my...uncharacteristic exuberance. I--would you wait here a moment, El? I’m not running away, I promise. I’ll return. I need to fetch something.”
Sure enough, about fifteen minutes later, Alster returned with a steaming kettle and a porcelain cup. “I consulted Lilica about her herbal concoction for you.” He set the kettle on the bedside table and poured the fresh brew into the cup. “If we’re going to have a normal, mundane day, you’ll want to be standing for its duration, I take it?” He handed the cup to her, but not before leaning forward to land a kiss on her forehead. “If you’re concerned that I’ll...lose my nerve the longer I have to wait, I can’t exactly allay those concerns for you,” he admitted with a simper of apology. “But I won’t back down. I’ll follow-through if that will guarantee us a future together. The truth is, I have my doubts, too. I fear the dead-end; that our union has, at last reached its physical limits, and this is where we separate. Were that true, though--I’m sure Tivia would have vocalized our doom, by now,” he supplied with a grin. “So we must not be out of orbit, yet.”
Reclaiming the spot next to Elespeth, Alster ran slight, kneading fingers across her shoulders. “What would you like to do today? If you want a massage, my steel hand can give your back a pounding. I’m afraid that’s about the closest we’ll achieve to physical intimacy, with our related conditions.”
Elespeth shifted uncomfortably, nervously, upon the bed. It wasn’t that she did not want to see Alster, upon his return, but she could not hide her trepidation upon not knowing just how he would return to her. Whether or not he would have once again resorted to yielding to the cold logic of the Serpent, which continued to reside somewhere deep inside of him. It wouldn’t have been the first time her own utter lack of hope had pushed him over the edge, and truth be told, she wasn’t sure she would have the strength to bear it a second time. If it was the Serpent which returned to her, and not Alster, then she feared any hope her mundane dream had inspired would dissipate entirely. Were it to come to that, she would welcome a retreat from this world, beg him to return what he had taken from her heart, and gratefully sink into a slumber that would make her forget entirely that she had singlehandedly driven away the man that was her husband, and coaxed the Serpent to take his place.
Fortunately, that was not the case, she was quick to learn after Haraldur left the husband and wife alone to speak in private. “I knew what it would do to you if I fell apart,” she confessed softly, staring at the tips of her slippered feet. “I knew how it would hurt you, and maybe… I don’t know. Maybe I could have held myself together for just a little bit longer, Alster. I don’t really know. But I should have tried. I shouldn’t have just let myself go so easily, knowing how it would hurt you. How I keep hurting you, over and over, every day by not getting better… if I were you,” she looked up then, and flashed a defeated smile. “I’d have run, too. It is natural to want to run away from the thing that is hurting us…”
When he asked her to open her hand, the ex-knight complied, curiosity getting the best of her when he lay his steel wrist in her palm. Instinctively, her fingers closed around it, but not from a need to force him to stay put. Rather, it stemmed from the desire to be near him, and to feel connected, before they were forced apart once again by circumstances beyond their control. “You continue to give me the power to hurt you when I have already done so without meaning to…” She sighed, and shook her head. “I am not going to stop you from running, Alster. Not only because I cannot chase after you, but I don’t want to be the burden that brings you down. If I cannot be your light… and right now, I fear I cannot be, then I don’t deserve your comfort and understanding.”
But his words were not lip service, and it appeared he fully intended to listen, no matter how ludicrous her reasons for falling apart. So Elespeth took a chance, took a breath, and confided in him. She told him about the voice that only Hadwin had ever learned about. The voice that was slowly destroying her from the inside out. Alster listened, but beyond that, he understood. More than just a passive recipient of her dark and convoluted thoughts, Alster made sense of them, coupled with the feelings of defeat that plagued her. Truth be told, she had never stopped to consider exactly what that terrible voice sought to preserve. It was as Alster claimed: it valued her legacy, but not her life. What she was… not what she had become. And not what she could become. “...sometimes, when I look in the mirror, I don’t see myself. Not as I am. I see a… a different Elespeth. Not Elespeth Rigas. She’s Elespeth Tameris, of a different time and a difference place. A time before I wore shame or betrayal of any kind…”
That Elespeth. One who had been at the very zenith of her proud existence. The person who had risen from the shadow of her older brother, and had become everything she’d ever strived to be: strong. Honourable. A person with a good sense of right and wrong, a righteous sense of justice. A person who knew a good decision from a bad one. A person who was proud when she looked upon herself in the mirror, donned in armor and with a sword at her back…
...how long had it been since she had been that person? And at what point had she decided that that was the only version of Elespeth that deserved to exist?
She hadn’t intended to cry. As emotional as she had been that morning, between Alster storming out, and finally confronting the damage done to her relationship with Haraldur, the former knight hadn’t felt sad, so much as she’d felt helpless and lost, as a result of current events. But she’d forgotten just how attuned she was to Alster, and vice versa. How in just a few words, a short confession about that defeatist voice in her mind, he had managed to completely dissect everything her heart had been denying. That it was more than just an intrusive voice: it was a mirror of values, woven so carefully into the fabric of her being, that would not allow for change. Would not allow for error, and would not allow her to forget, or to move on. This had nothing to do with Haraldur’s decision to send her away to recover, or to assume control of her drug use; it had nothing to do with Alster, and his having confiscated what was left of her stimulant. It had everything to do with her, and her alone, and as such, she was the only person who could offer herself reprieve from it all.
Once that first tear found its way down her cheek, there was no stopping the deluge of tears to follow. “It feels as though… everything I have built myself to be, every second of hard work to obtain my knighthood, to learn to fight and to use it for the right purposes… it has all unraveled. I unraveled it, all by myself, because I wouldn’t let anyone help me…” Elespeth clutched her arm with her free hand and dipped her head. Her chest heaved with poorly-repressed sobs. “I wouldn’t let Sigrid help. I wouldn’t let Haraldur help, and when you finally found a way to me, I wouldn’t let you help. I countered the very moral code upon which I built the person I am today; I turned my back on everyone I cared about. Because I thought I could do it without you. I thought I didn’t need you to be strong… and now, look at the result.” Letting go of her arm, she opened her hand, palm up. “I’ve compromised my future. I have compromised our future, and I can’t look at her anymore, Alster. I asked that the mirrors be removed from our bedroom because I can’t look at myself anymore. I don’t see myself. I only see her--the other Elespeth. And she doesn’t think I should exist…”
It was around that point that her words drowned in her violent sobs, which were muffled only as she turned her face into Alster’s shoulder. It was the only sound in the sanctuary for several minutes, until there were no tears left to cry, and the strain on her chest from the sobbing was too much. Slowly, she pulled her face away from her husband’s now tear-stained shoulder, her eyes red-rimmed and swollen from her tears. “I never carved out that space for myself, Alster. To not be ‘good enough’. To be a failure. I couldn’t fail, not when I was a woman pursuing what is traditionally a man’s right. Not when everyone but my own brother thought that I would fail. There was no room then, and there certainly isn’t any room now, not even when I need it the most. I don’t know how to be a failure, to let myself down, to let everyone else down. What’s more… I don’t want to admit that I can’t get that time back. All that time that I spent ‘failing’, whether it was myself, or you. I never made room for it… so instead, it took up room, where I used to hold my pride… it took over. And this is where I am at.”
She felt the warmth of Alster’s flesh and blood hand atop her own, then, and in that moment, she felt a sort of security she hadn’t experienced in a long time. A reassurance that even if they were to part ways again, eventually, he wasn’t really gone. He would never really be gone; they were too intertwined within one another’s unique existence. “I’m sorry I was not honest with you, sooner,” she whispered, finding that ever patient understanding in his blue eyes. “I wasn’t being honest with myself, either. But you’re… you’re right. If there was ever a time to face my darkness, then it’s now, when we’re grasping at what is possibly the last hope on our horizon. So…” She hazarded a smile, so relieved to once again see his own face alight with hope, “you think it’s a good idea? That we can have another day, before putting this plan into action?”
That certainly seemed to be the case; so much so that Alster, with an unspoken idea in mind, sprung to his feet while altogether forgetting he had curled her fingers around his prosthetic wrist. Before she could think to caution him about it (or let go, for that matter), he was on his feet… and just as quickly off them, all but collapsing from the pain of even a gentle tug on his prosthetic arm. “Why didn’t you warn me you were going to do that?” The former knight gently chided him, her brow furrowed in concern. “Don’t go and put yourself in even worse physical condition, if you’re going to embark on this journey… hey, where are you going?”
While she wouldn’t openly admit it, her heart sank just a little when her husband was on his feet for a second time (this time without putting himself at risk of having his steel arm yanked off), making for the door. Of course, she wanted to follow, but even if her wheeled contraption, she would not get very far, or move very fast. She trusted his word that he was not running away again, however, and complacently sat back on the cot to await his return. Fifteen minutes wasn’t long, but was still too long for her preferences; the morning was already almost over, and the daylight that they had left was not slowing down to accommodate a pair of tragic lovers. When at last he returned, holding a curious pot that she assumed must have contained tea, she could not hide her surprise. “You’re… okay with me, having this concoction?” The fear of his disapproval had always lingered at the back of her mind, considering what had happened to her the last time she’d used a substance to ‘pick her up’. But he had, in all fairness, taken no issue with her using it before, during his birthday celebration. If there was ever a time for her to indulge… now was that time.
“How about this. Let’s make a promise to one another.” Elespeth took a long sip of the hot tea, immediately feeling the tingle of its invigorating effects in her fingers and toes. “I know that what you have to do… I know it’s hard, Alster. It’s hard for me to tell you it is necessary, but it is even harder for you to do it. To return the pain you took from me, back in Braighdath. I know it’s hard because you have to hurt, when all you want is to heal. But healing is not always painless, right? And the payoff… it will be worth it, if it works out. It will be the solution to our problems. We’ll be able to put this behind us… and we’ll be alright. Maybe… maybe I’ll even stop hearing that voice. Maybe I’ll be able to look at myself in the mirror, again. So here is my promise to you.”
Taking another long sip, enough to drain her cup, the ex-knight set it aside on a table and turned her full attention to her husband. “If you can follow through, and restore your health… and just let me sleep for a little while, my promise to you is that I will wake up. I will open my eyes again. One way or another, whether or not this Master Alchemist can provide this elusive solution to our problems, I’ll wake up. The best case scenario? My heart will be restored. I’ll be strong again. I’ll be able to live again. And the worst… well, we’ll keep tying. We’ll keep looking. If you can be strong for me right now, facing uncertainty, I promise to be strong for you if it falls through. I promise… not to give up hoping. Does that sound fair?”
It was to her relief that Alster expressed that same sentiment: that despite having doubts, he was willing to follow through, and to keep this promise to her, just as she intended to keep hers to him. “I haven’t been using enough muscles to need a massage,” she teased, though the disappointment was heavy in her voice. “I never thought I would miss aching muscles… if only to be strong, again. But a hint of intimacy is only going to make both of us want it more. So… let’s save that for when I’ve recovered. Believe me,” her lips curled into a sly grin. “I’ll make it worth your wait. For now--let’s go and speak with Briery, first. See if you can borrow a caravan. After that… let’s just play it by ear. Go for a walk, explore Galeyn, whatever we feel like. Pretend like nothing else matters but the two of us.” Leaning forward, she wrapped her arms around his neck. “Because right now, to me… nothing else does matter.”
Vega hadn’t slept well, but for once, it had nothing to do with worry for her husband, and had everything to do with her pregnancy. Early into the wee hours of the morning, she’d awoken to what she dreaded to be labour pains, sharp and intense shooting through her abdomen. After catching the attention of an attendant maid, who had quietly crept in to place fresh towels near her wash basin, she immediately sent for Daphni and Elias, who were up and ready so quickly it was as if they never slept. Fortunately, it was a false alarm, and one that Daphni had advised her to come to expect at this point in her pregnancy. Perfectly normal, not uncommon, but not at all pleasant. A cup of calming tea was enough to put an end to the irritable pains, but even the healers’ reassurances weren’t enough to put her back to sleep. So she was up early the next morning, on Daphni’s advice to stretch her legs and go for a leisurely stroll through the Night Garden. Truth be told, she did feel better among the enchanted flora, but only to an extent. After all, she could only attribute so much of her discomfort to her pregnancy; the rest of it lay in the fact she had been mentally and emotionally unwell for what felt like far too long. Even the Night Garden could not buffer that.
...but the man she came across in the Garden could.
“...Haraldur?” The Eyraillian princess had to do a double take. It couldn’t be her husband she was seeing, strolling through the Garden like he was lost and with no place to go. No, that husband was resting, still recovering in the sanctuary… at least, she’d thought. Of course, the very first thing to come to mind was the first thing that Alster had said to him, just as he’d prepared to leave. “Should you be out here? Did someone give to leave to take time away from the sanctuary?”
Of course, compared to her, he did look relatively well-rested, while she sported dark circles under her eyes, and her copper hair lay in unkempt waves over her shoulders and back. It was obvious she hadn’t put much effort into looking better than she felt, that morning, and the Eyraillian prince was quick to pick up on it. “I had a rough night. Something about being toward the end of my third trimester with twins doesn’t seem to be agreeing with my standards for comfort.” She tried to joke, but it came out sounding flat and sardonic, instead. Vega rubbed her eyes with the balls of her hands and shook her head as he explained something that she only half-caught, about Alster and Elespeth currently requiring the space in the sanctuary alone. “You know, you might want to stick around the sanctuary for a while. I don’t imagine I’ll be very much fun to sleep next to until I’m two children lighter. If I roll over the wrong way, I might well crush you. But if you’re benevolently dedicating the sanctuary’s space to people more in need… I wouldn’t mind some company.” She hazarded a smile and extended her hand to him, palm up. “I plan on getting in as much walking as I can before my feet are too swollen to handle it.”
Alster realized his mistake after he finished speaking, when he saw the tears glisten and form in Elespeth’s eyes. Was he too insensitive in relation to her pain? Instead of providing a steady hand of support, did he slam her down with the cold, steel hand of hard-to-swallow truths? Were her tears healthy, and necessary for healing, or were they tears borne from a too-deep cut he’d lashed against her skin, an angry red welt that stung with the unearthed reminders of her past indiscretions? He agreed with Cwenha, with himself, with Elespeth, that he’d allow darkness to run its course in others, but he was he letting an infected wound drain, or was he prodding it open with a blunt instrument and spilling needless blood?
Leaning Elespeth against his shoulder to cry, Alster forced his worries into a shut-down. They were all unfounded, anyway. She needed to confront herself just as he, who conveniently neglected his own troubles in an overwrought pursuit of the light. In protest against the darkness, regardless of his quite literal embodiment of the two contrasting yet complementary elements, he attached lanterns to the feet of the people who shambled in shackles, unaware that he was not easing the burden, but adding to it. Light meant nothing if it shone in one’s face and obstructed the truth, however bleak and unbearable its message. And for Alster, it was unbearable to see loved ones suffer, bereft of a solution, however far-reaching, fantastical, or improbable. Because if he didn’t perpetuate hope, he faced failure. He couldn’t believe in failure. But it was not failure to feel, express, and doubt oneself. It was not failure to fail, once in a while. Failure was one of life’s greatest lessons, as well as its most debilitating, brutal, humiliating...and humbling. He taught these concepts to young Teselin, who trained under him in Stella D’Mare. Learn failure now so you know how to fail better, later, he had told her, or something similar. Why did he not practice his own teachings? Why did he set himself on a standard separate from everyone else?
Probably for the same reasons as Elespeth.
“I couldn’t fail, either,” he whispered, scooting so close to her that their bodies nearly absorbed each other. “From birth, I was raised to be nothing short of perfection. I was the scion of my family’s magic; its culmination, purposely bred to be carried in one person. I failed on purpose, out of despair and hatred and my need for revenge. It ruined me and I never recovered. Never again, I told myself. I can never fail. And yet, I did. Over and over and over. So I strove to do better. I forced myself to do better and punished myself severely every time I erred.” He rested his cheek atop her head. “I am like you in that regard, Elespeth. Circumstances wouldn’t permit me to fail. I thought I could be strong for everyone; that to seek help for myself was to deny somebody else help. I couldn’t be weak because I’ve been weak all my life, even when I had every opportunity to succeed. Why should someone with so much privilege need or even deserve help? That’s what I’ve always asked myself. So...our upbringing and our reason for success may have been different, but...here we are, now. Together for our own faulty doctrines. But they alone don’t keep us company. Look at me, Elespeth.”
With hesitation, she lifted her head from his shoulder, her eyes bleary from crying, her irises cracked--but not splitting. She was stuck in the mire of her own guilt, wracked with sin and past injury, but she was not unreachable. Not like before, when she had placed a physical barrier--the door--between him, in Braighdath. “You’ve made great strides, Elespeth. You’ve realized your flaw and have addressed it. Failing on purpose--that’s a terrifying prospect for some. Especially for those--like us--who have built our lives around service to others. Is it any wonder we’re constantly trying to please each other? To not fail in the eyes of our lovers, when all it took not to fail was, paradoxically, to fail? Is this nonsense I’m spouting, now?” To break-up the heaviness of their conversation, he smiled, but it wore the irony of their compatibility, in all its pathetic glory. “I have to learn, too, El. To seek help; your help. I don’t have to be strong around you and yet, somewhere in between my increasingly desperate attempts not to fail, I’ve moved away from you and upwards; taking flight to ascend as some benevolent deity who doles out comforts, righting wrongs and mending the broken, but barring people from giving me the same in return. Only when I deem it appropriate to my needs will I touch down and accept aid. How condescending is that?” His smile broke off and dangled, like a branch in a windstorm; a severe downturn of a frown. “That I wouldn’t deign to see myself as other people, even when I’m just as vulnerable and in pain and...yes, I’ll say it--a failure. Because we’re all failures; we all fail at what we’re supposed to be. But what you did to yourself won’t stop me from loving you any less, Elespeth, no matter where this path will lead us. Because you’re my kind of broken; because, regardless of the form you take, you’ve always grounded me and my tendency to make...outrageous plans.” He let out a slight laugh, but it caught on a snag in his voice, which caused it to waver in an unstable vibratto.
“That voice may convince you that you’re nothing without your legacy, but the legacy doesn’t stop building itself just because you’ve reached a patch so difficult that it threatens to unmake you. You’ve stepped through the bramble to the other side, Elespeth. The legacy continues--as does mine. For certain, they both wear different aspects, but we fight, and we fight on. Life doesn’t throw us away every time our morals shake and change, so we shouldn’t throw Life away, either. It’s just another challenge, and we have to be challenged to know who we are, and who we want to be.” He glanced at the hand that curled around his steel wrist, the unevenness of her skin where permanent calluses dimpled in some places, bubbled in others. “Warriors must fight battles. You were defeated, but you live to fight another day. So fight another day, with me. A month. A year. Until we exhaust our youth, and old age creeps in.” He pressed forward, nosing against the apple of her wet cheek to brush away her lingering tears. “Legacies aren’t fleeting, short-lived notches in time, anyway. They’re meant to last. Let’s make it last, Elespeth.”
When he returned, later, carrying the tea kettle mixed with Lilica’s herbal remedy, he shook his head at his wife’s worries in regards to the hot drink he presented to her. “Yes, I’m okay with it. I trust Lilica not to be feeding you an addicting substance. To be certain, I even asked her about the herbs she uses, and none are, far as I know, used to trigger levels of potency seen in that accursed Mollengardian stimulant. Of course, we should ask the resident herb-smoker if it’s something he can stuff into his pipe and smoke to the mind-altering effects he typically enjoys. I’m sure he’ll know,” a tease of a smile lit up his face. “But I digress. Even if it’s a strong tea, it’s only for one day, El. And I trust you, too.”
As he collected Elespeth’s drained cup, and in midst of returning it to the table, he froze at her spoken proposition. No, not so much a proposition. A promise. She even defined it as one. Whether or not they failed, she would awaken. And they would try again. Again. And again. So long as she stayed alive and proclaimed her willingness to pursue a solution, he didn’t need to say goodbye. This was not the end. She was ready to believe, and invest in, their future together.
When he turned back around to face her, his smile persisted, but his eyes could not hide the overwhelming emotions triggered by her words. Tears flowed from his lids and spilled like rainwater from a leaf. “El. Yes. Yes, of course that is fair.” After setting down the cup, he bent to one knee before Elespeth and took her hands earnestly into his own. “To hear that you’re going to fight with me...that alone will give me the strength to hand over your pain and embark on this mission alone. Well,” he scratched the side of his nose from a sudden itch, “not alone. Not really. But I’m traveling with Vitali. I’d rather be alone, to be honest. And that’s a bold statement, coming from someone who doesn’t like to sleep without another person in the room with me. It’s a small price to pay, though, if it will keep you hoping; if it’ll keep you alive.” As he climbed to his feet, he slowly helped Elespeth up on her weakened knees. Lashing a steady arm across her shoulders, he gauged her readiness to move by the twitching of her underactive muscles and the slight shift of her weight. “Lean on me all you’d like, El. I may not look it, but I’m strong enough to support you. Let’s go see Briery, and put our plan into solid motion.”
Haraldur had lost count of the times he watched the sunlight wax and wane through his sanctuary window. Days were like flickers of light on a candle that gradually melted into a puddle, replaced every morning with a fresh candle to burn. It waxed and waned, waxed and waned, and he grew tired of the parade that splashed glass-filtered sunrays upon his bed as it passed in a slow march. Away, away, away--and back around. Ever-repeating, ever-circular. But the circle existed outside his range; he, only a spectator, watched, helpless, from the window-pane.
He never fared well indoors. Enclosures of sturdy walls trapped him like a caged animal. If trapped for too long, the need to roam would sing in his legs and send him pacing. Back and forth, back and forth. Get me out, the footsteps drummed, in their rhythm. Get me out.
At Elespeth’s, and eventually, Alster’s arrival, he found his opportunity and ran off with it. The sunlight greeted him, an intensity too painful for his inside-adjusted eyes to welcome without blinking and squinting. It didn’t last, though; within moments, he was glancing, wide-eyed, at the landscape before him.
He’d seen the Night Garden in passing during his many yet brief trips to the palace over the weeks, but seldom did he take the time to explore its surroundings. Much though he wanted to, he had duties to attend to, none of which involved literally stopping to smell the flowers.
In all his years living on his own in the wildernesses of Mollengard, he never saw such alien flora. Multi-colored roses and spikes twisting from the ground like unicorn horns; gelatinous mushrooms that sparked in direct sunlight and trees which peeled sheets of blue and yellow bark. It was strange, wondrous...feverish. Like a child’s dream-fantasy rendered into existence. He walked the path, his limbs sore from inactivity, but grateful, nonetheless, for the movement. His idle sojourns veered him just shy of the path, where he stumbled to a halt by a large, protruding root.
The root was so massive, it spanned several feet high, and connected to another root of similar size. In between, a small pool of glacial blue water collected, its shallow depths so clear, he could see little golden fish swimming in between the algal blooms that swayed gently in the current. He knelt by the water’s edge, touching its cool surface with the tip of his finger. There was no way to test if the water was safe or drinkable, nor was he certain if all of the Night Garden grew beneficial, healing plants in its unique ecosystem. Nonetheless, he opted to watch the water, instead, a scene of serenity much needed and appreciated after spending days forced indoors.
Haraldur…
His body jerked, as if jostled awake from a dream.
Haraldur…
He heard something. His name, but no one was calling it. Not outside of himself. It hummed in his mind, but he did not think it. Pushing to his feet, he looked upwards, at the tree that towered even above the palace walls; the veritable centerpiece of the Garden and from where all life stemmed.
The humming intensified.
Al….Al…
Was the tree speaking to him?
giz….giz…
No. He was going mad.
Al...giz. Al...giz.
It was a song. No, a chant with a rhythm. It beckoned to be spoken aloud.
“Al…” he tested it on his tongue, but it sounded clumsy, out of key. He was not gifted with song like some people. And what was he trying to replicate, anyway? The wind? “Al...no.” He retreated from the pool, from the braided roots and their curtains of moss, from the tree with the limbs that creaked in human speech.
The tree inside a healing garden was not whispering in his ear. He was losing it, and losing it quick.
A crack sounded from underfoot. He recoiled from the sudden snap and vaulted away like a startled rabbit. When he lowered his head to investigate, it was nothing but a broken branch, having shrugged off the tree by the wind. But when he observed its shape, the curious three-staves that resembled a chicken’s foot, he had a name for it. The same shape bequeathed to him in his mother’s necklace, which granted him protection for so many years. The shape that lived on in his wedding ring. A rune of protection. A rune of divine guidance.
Algiz.
He scrambled back to the path, too spooked, too confused to notice that he nearly had run into someone. Whirling around, he was about to voice an apology…
But the words died. It was Vega.
“...Vega.” He coughed, straightened his shoulders, and collected himself into looking like he belonged among people again. Not mad; he wasn’t mad. He couldn’t be mad; it would not benefit his wife, nor Sigrid, or his unborn children. They’d send him back to the sanctuary. Trees did not speak. Though he vaguely recalled...that Klara sometimes spoke to the trees, and they answered, she’d said. They would answer.
“No.” He rearranged his stance into the stiffness he adopted when he didn’t want to feel anything. When he wanted to fool the world into believing his stability, his stalwart, unbreakable sturdiness. It didn’t fool Vega, he was sure. “No one gave me leave. I left of my own volition.” He nodded in the direction of the sanctuary. “Alster and Elespeth need it more than I do. She’s going to be resting there, for a time. For her heart. She’ll be asleep awhile, from the sound of it.” He offered her a persuasive smile. “Put in a good word to the Gardeners, for me? I can’t stay in that closed-in space a minute longer. But,” his smile faded into a frown, “you don’t look well. Is everything alright? Are the--”
But she allayed his concerns with a hurried explanation, and he had no choice but to take her word for it. With Daphni and Elias so closely monitoring her pregnancy, there was no cause for alarm.
“If...if you’d have me,” he accepted her proffered hand with a gentle grip, “it’s a big enough bed, and I don’t move around at all when I sleep. You can roll over me all you’d like. I assure you, I’m still hardy. I can handle you, Vega. But,” the mirth-lines around his eyes lessened, “if I’m welcome, that is. I know you said before that I always have permission and it’s up to me, but, well,” he stared at his feet, “it’s been a while. I take it we still need time to readjust...to each other. You, included.”
As they walked along the sun-strewn path, Haraldur chose trails that led away from the centerpiece tree, but to no avail; everything circled. Everything revolved around it. The tree remained in his periphery, silent as a sentinel. “Do…” he paused, hesitating, “do you think this Garden can talk? Not...metaphorically, but...well, a magic healing garden likely has some other interesting properties to its name. There has to be sprites or spirits or...No,” he sighed and continued walking. “I’m sorry. It was a stupid question. A poor attempt at conversation. I’m thinking out loud. It’s been a while since I’ve spoken to someone who wasn’t Forbanne, and it shows. I scarcely know how to communicate, now. Vega,” he abruptly changed the subject, “beyond the pregnancy...how are you faring? With everything that’s happened, I can’t imagine it’s been easy on you.” He bowed his head in supplication. “...I haven’t made it easy on you. It’s okay to say I’ve been the cause of the brunt of your troubles; you looked so happy before I came along to stomp on your reasons for coming to Galeyn. And if there’s anything else that’s bothering you, too,” he sidled closer to his wife, brushing his arm against hers, “you can tell me.”
