Lia returned with a small loaf of bread and a scowl on her face. She sat down beside me and ripped off a tiny piece of bread, glaring at me while she handed it over. I let out a loud sigh as I rolled my neck in a slow circle. “I’m...sorry, for being difficult with you, Val. I’m worried about what we’ll find at the wall tomorrow, is all.” I stretched my arms over my head and tried to produce a convincing yawn. “I guess I’m pretty tired, too. I’ll have to turn in soon to have any chance of waking up for watch duty.”
Seemingly pleased with my apology, Lia tore the loaf in half and handed me the rest of my half. “Sorry if we worried you, Val,” she said apologetically. I shared a bit of my jerky with Lia, and we all ate quietly around the dark campsite.
Val’s face was as inscrutable as ever while she finished her small meal. “I understand. I must admit, I also have my concerns about the situation in Attetsia. If my demeanor has been off putting, or contributed to your anxiety during our journey today, I would like to apologize.”
Lia and I turned to each other with matching looks of bewilderment. “Uhm, no, that wasn’t…” I trailed off. “I didn’t notice, honestly.”
“Oh.” Val flicked her eyebrows up in surprise. “That is good, then.”
We sat in what felt like everlasting silence until Lia let out a miraculous yawn. “I think it’s about time I went to bed,” she said with a stretch.
“I’ll join you,” I replied quickly. Hopping to my feet, I gave Val an awkward half bow. “Wake me when your watch is done.” She gave me a curt nod in response.
“Goodnight Val!” Lia called out over her shoulder as we made our way to the back of the wagon. I climbed in and started the process of setting out our sleeping mats while Lia removed her gear. When our tasks were complete, I sat down to take off my boots, and Lia curled up under the thin sheet.
“That was an...interesting interaction,” I remarked quietly, keeping my voice low to ensure it wouldn’t leave the confines of the wagon.
Lia giggled under her breath. “I don’t think Val usually has to talk this much.”
I thought back to her surprise at being given a nickname as I lowered myself to the floor and slid under the sheet. “I doubt anyone has ever talked to her as casually as we do. She’s the highest ranking military officer in Kaldan, after all.”
“Yeah, that’s true. It’s too bad; I think she’s really nice.”
“She’s...alright,” I conceded. Lia reached out and punched my shoulder jokingly, and we both laughed quietly together. With the light of the moon and stars blocked by the canvas cover above us, the interior of the wagon was nearly pitch black. I had recently found that I could switch between normal vision and Detection magic without conscious thought when the need arose, and my surroundings quickly buzzed to life with neon clarity.
Lia’s amber aura was comforting and warm as it pierced the darkness. As I stared at her beside me, I began to notice tiny details in her face that I had never seen before. There was a faint crease at the sides of her nose where her cheeks pulled back when she smiled. I counted four freckles hidden on her forehead, just at the edge of her hairline. A shy smile spread across her face as I watched her, and I saw her ear wiggle reflexively. My lips curled into a dumb grin as my chest swelled, sending a rush of blood to my cheeks.
These little things, the quirks that make her undeniably...her. How could I have missed them before? I knew the answer before I finished posing myself the question: I hadn’t, but I had chosen to ignore them. Without a reason to suppress my emotions, I felt like I was getting to know her all over again. “Hey,” I whispered, sliding my head closer to rest my forehead against hers.
“Hey,” she replied, weaving her fingers in between mine.
“I’m not sure if I’ve told you this yet, but...I love you.”
She gave my hands a gentle squeeze. “You may have mentioned it, once or twice.”
“Ah. Good, then. Just wanted to make sure,” I laughed quietly, rubbing my nose against hers.
“You could say it again, though. I wouldn’t mind.”
I let out a contented sigh. “As many times as you want.” I pulled her hands up to my chest and held them tight while I leaned in for a kiss. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.” She returned the kiss before scooting in to snuggle against my chest.
The butterflies in my stomach took off in a frenzy at the sound of the words. No matter what happens, I will never forget this moment for the rest of my lives. Wrapping her in a tight hug, I nestled into a comfortable position as I closed my eyes. “Tomorrow will most likely be an eventful day. We should get some sleep.”
She nodded into my chest, and the wagon fell quiet. I listened to the low sound of her breathing as I gently drifted off to sleep, a contented smile on my face. Just before my mind shut off, Lia whispered, “Whatever happens tomorrow...we have each other. Nothing can change that.”
“You’re right,” I replied. “We’ll keep each other safe, no matter what.” Although I had slept next to Lia for the majority of my nights in Kaldan, I felt an unrivaled closeness to her as she curled tighter against my chest. The barriers I had built up in my mind to hide my feelings for her were gone, and there was nothing between us now but love. A wave of peace and acceptance washed over me as Lia and I fell asleep in each other’s arms.
---
The ancient form of the man reclined before me looked so frail and empty, I was afraid he might blow away as I walked to his bedside. I paused momentarily and watched for the rise and fall of his chest. It was difficult to see, but shockingly easy to hear; there was a heavy crackle to his breathing that made me want to cough reflexively. When I sat down in the padded wooden chair beside him, his eyes cracked open just enough to peer at me across the dim room.
“Lux, you look terrible,” the man said with a labored wheeze. He reached down for a thick blanket that looked to have been kicked off in his sleep, now just out of arm’s reach. “You should try sleeping sometime. I hear it helps.”
I leaned forward and pulled up the blanket, making sure to carefully tuck it in under his sides. “I could say the same for you, old man.”
“I’m not sure what you mean. I sleep all the time, nowadays.” He let out a rasping, wistful sigh. “I haven’t been in the lab for more than an hour this week.”
“You shouldn’t be in the lab at all,” I scolded. The lines on my face hardened into a frown, the natural expression I had held since my arrival in Hedaat. “Your work can wait, but your recovery can’t. What’s the point of another hour of research if you won’t live to see the results?”
He shook his head. “I accepted that I wouldn’t live to see my work fulfilled a long time ago. But I don’t have to; I know you can finish it in my place.”
“No, I can’t.”
The old man rolled to his side to face me with a painful slowness. “Yes, you can.”
“I can’t, and I won’t!” I snapped at him. “I didn’t ask for any of this, Jaren! You might have saved my life, but that doesn’t mean you own it. This isn’t my lab, and it isn’t my work.”
“It will be, once I’m gone.” Jaren spoke with a peaceful, accepting voice that only angered me further. “Your work here could change the world. You could make a lot of lives better.”
“I don’t care about the fucking world! They’re all miserable shits, and they deserve whatever miserable life they get. I’m not wasting my life on their account.” I turned away from him and crossed my arms. “You should have left me to die in that blizzard,” I murmured under my breath.
A thick silence fell over the room as I stared away from him at the wall. “What about Alda?” he asked in a sad, weak voice. “Does she deserve a miserable life, too?”
I whirled on him, eyes blazing and nostrils flared. “Don’t you fucking dare. She is not a piece of leverage for you to lord over me.”
“What then? What happens to her when I’m gone?” He lacked the energy to match my ferocious assault, and ins
tead slumped back against his mattress in defeat. In that moment, he seemed to age another ten years; his wrinkled face sagged further as a long lock of silver hair spilled down over his eyes, and the white wolf-like ears protruding from the top of his head fell flat. “You know they won’t accept her out there. Without this lab, she’s as dead as I am.”
With a furious kick, I stood and sent the chair beneath me flipping backwards into the wall. “Just stop dying, then!” My fists balled and swung impotently at my sides. Jaren’s illness had come on quickly; I identified the pneumonia early on, but without modern antibiotics or more in-depth medical knowledge, I had been forced to watch helplessly as he succumbed to the sickness. “What am I supposed to do without you?!”
Tears pooled in his eyes as he watched me. “You just have to keep going, Lux. If you fulfill our end of the contract with Hedaat, they’ll uphold their end. You’ll be fed, supplied, and safe.” He nodded weakly towards the door. “You both will.”
I froze in place as the emotions fought for dominance in my head. “It’s not fair!” I yelled, feeling powerless and pathetic.
“You’re right,” he agreed. “But it’s what we have. I know you haven’t had the—” A brutal cough interrupted his thought and doubled him over in pain. I rushed to his bedside and knelt down, placing a comforting hand on his back. When the fit was over, a thick coat of fresh blood stained the sleeve of his woolen shirt. “I think...it’s time. Go and...fetch Alda for me, would you?”
My rage died away in an instant and left nothing but sorrow in its wake. I took his hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze as I stood to leave the room.
Jaren tugged at my hand as I turned to leave. “Lux, wait. The lab, the research, it...doesn’t matter what you do. As long as you keep her safe.” His eyes filled with a determination I hadn’t seen since he had first fallen ill. “Understand me? Do whatever you have to do. Please.”
Tears streamed down my face as I knelt beside him again. “Jaren, you have my word. She’s the only thing that matters in this damned world. I’ll keep her safe, no matter the cost. I promise.”
A weak smile spread across his face as he nodded. The gesture seemed to cost him the last reserves of his energy, and he collapsed back onto the mattress once again. “Alda...please…”
I stood and hurried to the door. There was a loud thud as I pushed it open, and Alda bounced back into the hallway, startled. She stared straight down at the floor with her hands gripped behind her back as I closed the door behind me. “I couldn’t hear anything, honest. I-I just wanted to make sure, uhm, that he was okay,” she stammered.
An immense wave of grief washed over me as I thought about the days to come. I reached out and pulled her in for a tight hug, gently stroking her hair as I tried to find my voice. “He’s asking for you,” I finally managed to say, almost choking on the words.
Alda looked up to me, her icy blue eyes half hidden behind her silver bangs. “Sir? Are you...alright?”
“Everything’s going to be alright,” I lied through a false smile as I opened the door and led her inside. “I promise.”
***
10. THE COUNCIL CHAMBERS
The wagon rattled to a halt and woke me from my daydreams. “We’re here,” Val called out solemnly from the driver’s bench. I did nothing with the information apart from let out a long sigh. As hard as I had tried to convince myself that there was no true threat in Attetsia, sitting in the shadow of the country’s gates made tangible the basis of my fears. The city existed, the gates were closed, and there was nobody there to man them.
Lia gave me a reassuring nod as she stood and disembarked the wagon, and I followed close behind her. The late afternoon air was cool and the wind licked icily at my exposed skin, a reminder that winter was close at hand in Kaldan. I burrowed further into the hood of my cloak and made my way to the front of the cart to join my party members in examining the closed gate. It was two stories tall, made from sturdy looking wood with wrought iron fittings, and each door was wide enough to accommodate a full-sized wagon. There was no sign of a wicket gate, and the mechanisms that controlled the doors’ movements were well hidden in the surrounding stone walls.
Val approached the gate and gave it a push. “The gate is sealed,” she reported after a few moments of effort. I snickered and looked away, catching Lia with the same reaction. When our eyes met, she attempted to put on a serious face and nodded insistently towards the gate.
“Yes, it does seem that way,” I said in a level tone. With a quick scan of the surrounding area, I spotted an access door nestled into the corner where the gatehouse protruded from the wall. It was made of one solid sheet of steel similar in color to the stone around it, without any exposed hinges or latches. “There may be a way in over here.” I walked to the metal door and placed a hand lightly on the surface, mapping the structure with mana. It seemed to operate via one large lever on the opposite side, which could turn to lock a large iron rod deep into the wall.
“This type of door is notoriously difficult to breach,” Val explained as I focused my energy on the lock bar. “We may have better luck in circling the wall to find an easier target, or perhaps a spot we could climb—” A staccato screech of metal cut her off as I invoked the Shatter rune on my ring. The entire face of the door shuddered, and when I removed my hand, it creaked open a few inches.
How do you keep someone like me out at this point? A satisfied grin crept across my face as I pulled the door open and peered into the passage. “Wait here, I’ll go check it out,” I said as I stepped inside, mapping the space ahead of me with Detection. After another step I froze in place as the interior rooms of the gatehouse appeared in my head. Two lifeless bodies sat at a table in a small barracks upstairs, and a third was sprawled out on the floor of the gate mechanism room beyond.
I turned to Lia with concern, and her brow furrowed. A moment later I felt her mana spread over mine in a thin sheet, reaching out until she saw what I saw. I could feel her worry through the connection and did my best to exude a calm and level headed presence. The rest of the rooms ahead were clear of any movement or life, and the smell that had started to waft out towards us told me the guards had been corpses for at least a few days.
As to not raise more questions than necessary from Val, I moved through the gatehouse to confirm with my own eyes what I already knew. When I returned a minute later, I shook my head. “Three dead guards inside, all killed by crossbow bolts to the head. No real sign of a struggle from any of them.”
Val’s eyes hardened. “I had hoped this would not be the case.” We all stood in silence for a moment. “Can you open the gate?”
“I believe so.”
“Is there a door through to the opposite side of the wall?”
“Yes, just beyond the barracks.”
“Good.” She nodded and turned back to the wagon. “I will drive the wagon through once you open the gate. Close it after me and meet me on the other side.”
“Got it.” I motioned to Lia and moved back into the gatehouse. She closed the door as best she could, then followed me up into the barracks. “What a mess,” I muttered as I looked over the scene before us.
Lia carefully walked around the pools of clotted blood, observing the bodies with an expression somewhere between sadness and disgust. “What do you think happened?”
“Somebody snuck in quietly enough to catch them unaware, or they were killed by somebody they trusted. Either way, they were both dead before they knew they were in danger.” I moved past the table of dead men to the short staircase that led to the gate mechanism. “The access door on the Attetsian side is unlocked, so the killer came from inside the country.”
“Pirates,” she cursed.
“Could be. I think it’s more likely that one of the revolutionaries did it, though. If they have men from the city guard on their side, they would know where their targets were and how many there’d be.” I opened the wooden door to the mechanism room, revealing the last dead guar
d. That’s how I would have done it, anyway.
“So, they were killed by their friends?” Lia asked, joining me at the door. “That’s sad.”
“Yes, it is,” I said dispassionately. A system of gears sat partially inlaid in the far wall, directly above the corpse and its puddle of dark blood. “People can do terrible things when they believe it’s for a good reason.” I moved to the edge of the stain and hopped lithely onto the empty chair, sparing my boots of the rotten blood.
I scanned back out to the wagon to ensure Val was in place, then spun the large gear before me. Thankfully, the system was well oiled, and I watched the heavy gates outside creak to life. “Lux, I have a question,” Lia said with a small voice. I could tell by her tone that something was troubling her, unsurprisingly; the fetid stench of death sat heavily in the guardhouse, and corpses weren’t something most people were accustomed to.
“Of course. We’ve got plenty of time,” I nodded, continuing to crank the gate open.
Her eyes were downturned as she tapped her fingers together. “How many people have you killed?”
The question caught me off guard, and I faltered momentarily in my turning. “I can’t say for sure. Hundreds, certainly.” The room fell silent apart from the consistent clack of the gate mechanism. “I used to remember them all. Every time I put on my armor to go into another battle, I would see their faces from the moment that they died. At the time, I thought that if I remembered them, it made killing them...less bad?”
I shook my head. “I knew that what I was doing was for the greater good. I was fighting to stop evil, after all. To save the world.” To protect Amaya. “But the people I killed weren’t evil...not really. Most of them were probably normal people who got sucked into a bad situation through no fault of their own.” There was another long pause as I carefully considered my next words. “People can do terrible things when they believe it’s for a good reason,” I repeated. “Never forget that; for others, and for yourself.”
Restart Again: Volume 2 Page 17
