Bacorium Legacy (41 page)

“As would I,” Selphie said, with a kind smile.

“Very well, I'll have my servants prepare rooms for you and your entourage.”

Marcus rose and left, his wife following behind him. Prince Halt also rose, said something to a servant, and left to a different part of the palace. Only Prince Gera remained, sitting at his seat and finishing his meal alone. Everyone else, the lords and other members of the court, were gone within minutes.

Luca turned to Ash. “Why did you say that? Why did you tell him what he wanted to hear?”

“Because it's the truth,” Ash muttered, before getting up and leaving as well.

<> <> <>

Luca wandered through the dimly-lit corridors of the palace, passing guards and servants who did not spare him even the briefest of looks. It was odd to him - he was used to drawing gazes due to his white hair, but these palace servants were so used to keeping their eyes to themselves that even that didn't divert their attention.

He wasn't sure where he was going, nor did he really care. He was mostly just walking off the anger from earlier. He was still furious about what Marcus had said, and even more so about Ash's response. He didn't want to stay in the palace, but Selphie had explained to them that she couldn't say no Marcus' offer without looking rude, especially after he had insulted one of the people in her group. A lot of the delicacy had to do with the fact that they were at Marcus' palace - were Marcus the one who was the guest in Sono, and he had said those things to one of Selphie's guests, things would have gone down very differently.

Luca hated pretencion, and he was at a royal palace, the kind of place where pretence was most easily found. He was too frank, and he had no respect for authority, so seeing people saying things they clearly did not mean to avoid angering the king was unbearable for him. He wanted nothing more than to go to Marcus and give him a piece of his own mind, as he very nearly had, but he now realised he could not without making Selphie look bad. Doing so could compromise the mission, which was the whole reason they had stopped in Serenite in the first place.

A massive shadow passed over Luca, and he looked up to see a massive guard in his path, who stood a whole head higher than him. The guard had a trimmed black beard, just faintly visible within his helmet, and cold eyes.

There was a tense silence as they stared at one another.

“Excuse me, sir,” the guard said very politely, before stepping around Luca and continuing on his way.

Luca blinked. “That was weird,” he muttered.

He heard a shout of revelry from a nearby room, and he looked around and quickly spotted it. Within the guard barracks, a group of five or so off-duty guards were laughing over a pint. As Luca drew closer, he heard a familiar voice, so he decided to step inside and see what up.

Brand sat at a table surrounded by around half a dozen guards. They all had pints of ale in their hands, and they were laughing at some joke Brand had told. As Luca drew near, Brand noticed his presence, and the guards followed his gaze. The smiles dropped from their faces as they gradually realised who was there.

Luca stood there for a moment. The guards stared at him, their expressions telling him that he wasn't welcome. Without a word, he left and continued down the hall.

He heard footsteps following after him. He didn't need to turn around to know who it was.

“Luca, wait up!” Brand called after him.

Luca turned around as Brand reached him. “I don't think your new friends like me very much.”

“Yeah,” Brand said apologetically. “It seems they agree with what the king was saying.”

“I passed one of them a second ago,” Luca said, looking down the hall where he had come from. “A really big guy.”

“Ah, him,” Brand said. “Devith, his name is. The other guards call him the bear. Things got really quiet in the barracks when he came in. They all waited until he was gone before they started talking again.”

“I don't like this place, Brand,” he said. “There's a lot of tension here. I feel like something is going to happen.”

“I know, I feel it too,” Brand replied, drawing closer. “Listen, I've learnt something interesting I think you should know. Remember how you said that Zinoro's sword is a Rixeor Fragment?”

“How could I forget?” Luca muttered, remembering how the blade of his short sword had ended up in his lung after being cut clean off by Zinoro's magick blade.

“In order to match him you would need a Rixeor Fragment of your own,” Brand continued. “The sword that Marcus carries,
Altair
- it is one.”
 

“Marcus' sword is a Rixeor Fragment?” Luca said slowly, disbelief in his voice.

“Remember how he said he was once a paladin?” Brand said. “He wasn't just a member, he was their leader.
Altair
was the holy treasure of their order, and he took it with him when he left.”
 

Luca found that he'd made a fist. “That hypocrite!”

He calmed himself, and thought rationally. “That does me no good,” Luca said. “Unless I were to kill Marcus, I could never wield his sword. A Rixeor Fragment is bound to its master and no one else. It will burn anyone else who tried to take it.”

“Indeed. I just thought you should know.”

“Besides, I would never consider stealing from him - that would just be proving him right.”

<> <> <>

A few minutes after parting with Brand, Luca found himself at the palace library. He wasn't sure why he had ended up there, but he wasn't surprised to find a certain blond-haired girl there, seated at a table with a thick tome open before her.

Wiosna looked up from her book as he approached, and she beamed. “Look who it is.” She had a new pair of glasses on.

“Indeed,” he muttered with only token enthusiasm, sliding into the seat next to her. “What are you reading?”

“
A History of the Nations
,” she replied, taking a bookmark and setting it between the pages. She closed the book. “Are you still upset over dinner?”
 

“I am.”

“I trust you haven't done anything rash.”

“I'm not that foolish. Have some faith in me.”

“We are of the same kind, you and I,” Wiosna said, smiling. “I do have faith in you, but I understand that you would have trouble accepting what happened back there.”

“I don't care about that.”

“Then what is bothering you?”

What was bothering him, indeed? There was far too much on his mind. He had no idea where to begin.

Yet he knew what it was he wanted to tell her.

“It's Emila,” he said.

Luca noticed a very slight change in Wiosna's expression. Surprise, or perhaps disappointment. He wasn't quite sure.

“What about her?” Wiosna asked gently.

“She hasn't been herself lately,” he said. “She's been distant and melancholy. We've hardly spoken since we left the Acarian camp, ever since you and I...”

Wiosna frowned. “Do you think she has the wrong idea about us? Exactly what is your relationship with her?”

“It's - hard to explain.”

“Were you two - together?”

He shook his head.

“Well, I don't really know what to tell you. It could be something between the two of you, or it could be something ailing her that's her own business. The only thing I can suggest is going to her and talking about it.”

“I've tried that. She always brushes me off.”

“Find a situation where she cannot. It's possible that she's nervous. Sometimes you have to be a little forceful.”

Forceful? Luca doubted that under any circumstances would Emila tolerate him being 'forceful' with her...

Still, it wasn't a bad idea. If he went right to her and gave her no option to get out of talking with him, perhaps he could find out what it was that was causing the distance between them.

Luca nodded, and began to rise. “Thank you for the advice. I think I'll go talk to her now.”

Wiosna said nothing as he left, watching him go with a strange look in her eyes. He left the library, and shut the door behind him, leaving the large room in silence.

“She causes him nothing but confusion,” Wiosna said to herself. “She is too weak for him, and she only burdens him with her indecisiveness. I am not like her. If she were out of the way, I would not trouble him like she does. Things would be much simpler.”

She returned her attention to the book.

<> <> <>

Night came quickly as Luca made his way once more through the palace. Soon there was only the flickering magitech lanterns hung on the stone walls to provide illumination. Luca was making his way to Emila's bedroom. He had earlier asked a servant where she was staying, and he was now doing his best to find the right room.

Eventually, after asking a second servant to make sure, he was led right to her door. He took a deep breath, hoping she was not asleep, and knocked.

“Coming,” was her muffled answer.

He took a step back as the door swung open. Emila stood there, wearing only her white nightgown, and looking rather surprised to see him.

“Luca...” she said. “What is it? Is there something wrong?”

“There is,” he said. “Can I come in? We need to talk.”

Emila hesitated, biting her lip and glancing in the room for a moment. “Okay...”

She moved aside to let him in, and closed the door once he'd passed the threshold. Inside, there was a candle lit on the nightstand, and a book set beside it.

“What do we need to talk about?” Emila asked him.

“I think you know,” he told her, giving her a stern look. “Something's wrong. You've been avoiding me for the past two weeks. It's been bothering me.”

Emila looked away from his gaze. “It's nothing to worry about. I just wanted to give you space, that's all...”

“Space? Emila, c'mon...”

She sighed, and walked past him, taking a seat at the edge of the bed. “Brand and I have been talking,” she said. “He thinks I should tell you, and I'm wondering if he might be right.”

“Tell me what?” Luca asked, following her over to the bed.

Emila beckoned to a chair on the other side of the room. Luca went and grabbed it, and pulled it over to the bedside. He sat down.

“Luca, what do I mean to you?” she asked quietly.

He froze. What sort of thing was that to ask?

“I - I'm not sure what I'm supposed to say.”

Emila frowned, and looked away slightly. “I guess - a better way to ask would be what your feelings are towards me.”

“My feelings towards you...?”

He still didn't know what to say. What would...?

Ah, of course. His first suspicion had been right after all.

“Emila,” he said, placing his hand over hers. She looked up and met his gaze. “There's nothing going on between Wiosna and I. She's a good friend, and she's easy to talk to, but I have no strong feelings towards her.”

Emila frowned again. “You joined her in her tent that first night.”

“I'll admit, I was a little confused about that, but nothing happened then, and nothing has happened since. She just wanted to talk to me then.”

Strangely enough, Emila looked disappointed.

“What, you don't believe me?”

“No, I do,” she sighed. “That's the problem.”

Luca blinked. “I don't understand.”

Emila looked to him, and slowly placed her hand over his heart. It beat, but it was the artificial beat, fuelled by her mana. His true heartbeat had yet to return, for his heart still had yet to heal from the two times Dreevius had stabbed it.

“We're no good for each other,” Emila said to him. “The Soul Tether - it's altering the way we think and act. Whatever feelings we have for each other are false. It's fake emotion, just like your fake heartbeat. If we don't distance ourselves from one another, it will only get worse, until we're so obsessed with each other that it drives us both mad.”

“That's - no, that can't be right.”

Emila looked him right in the eyes, her expression hard and challenging. “Tell me you don't feel something.”

He looked away, unable to answer that.

“I was actually hoping that there might be something between you and her,” Emila continued. “If you had feelings for her, it might keep you from becoming too obsessed with me. And it would keep me from being around you too much. So I hoped that if I kept to myself and left the two of you alone...”

“And you want to be with Brand?” he asked her, feeling that bit of jealousy again.

Emila shook her head. “Brand has zero interest in me. It will never happen. But he's a friend, and he's easy to talk to. He's the only other person I've told these things to.”

Funny, that was nearly the same as what Luca had told her about Wiosna.

“Even though if it hurts me, it's better in the long run,” Emila said. “I hadn't realised this before, but the thing in the Acarian camp was sobering. We shouldn't spend so much time together. Wouldn't you agree?”

“How can you know this for sure?” he asked her instead. “You didn't know that I would survive when Dreevius stabbed me back at the temple. You said that this magick is taboo and little is known about it. So what makes you so sure that it's messing with our heads?”

“My father told me the dangers of using this magick,” Emila said, bowing her head. “He taught it to me, and he told me to never use it unless to save a life. It's an old magick, but he was able to rediscover it. He knew little about it, and was wary of the side-effects, but as a healer he could not deny the life-saving possibilities it had.”

“Did he ever use it himself, or was he just making guesses?”

Emila did not answer that.

“I just can't believe something like this,” Luca insisted. “I know myself well enough. What I feel for you, the things I do for you, these are my decisions.”

“But don't you see?!” Emila cried suddenly, sitting up and looking at him with pleading eyes. “You've already done awful things for me! You killed that Davik boy in the woods, just because he threatened me.”

“I would have done the same were it a stranger he held hostage.”

“But the way you did it...!”