Bacorium Legacy (48 page)

“Trunda,” Emila said immediately. “It had to be Trunda.”

Everyone in the room looked at Emila. Under the pressure of their gazes, she shrank back a little bit.

“That Trunda guy was certainly big and tough,” Wiosna said. “But I don't think even he could so this...”

“Putting that aside, it makes no sense that Trunda would have gone through here,” Selphie said. “Why would he flee into Sono, and not back to Acaria? He'll be the most wanted man in the entire Alliance soon, and he doesn't exactly blend into a crowd.”

Luca looked to the small girl, who was standing close to him. Something was definitely bothering her of late. She had grown very quiet, sticking close to him often. Now, at her mentioning of Trunda, this behaviour had gotten worse. “Emila, what makes you so sure that it's Trunda?”

She hesitated, and then said, “Because this didn't need to be done. He could have easily slipped through, or climbed over the wall. But Trunda - he knows what he's doing. You could see it in his eyes. The things we think are mistakes are just part of his plan. Killing these guards like this - it was a message for us.”

“A message?” Selphie repeated quietly. “You think he'd trying to tell us something by this? Like he's trying to frighten us?”

“I don't know what the message is supposed to be,” Emila said quietly. “I just know that he's ahead of us, and he knew we would be coming through here. He wanted us to see this.”

Everyone pondered her words silently for a few minutes.

“Now that we're out of Serenite, he may be going after you for real this time,” Jared said to Selphie. “He could be picking up where Dreevius left off.”

“Then why announce it like this?” Selphie asked him. “Why sacrifice the element of surprise?”

“Perhaps he has a degree of honour?” Jared muttered, before glancing around the blood-stained room. “Hard to believe a man who would kill so many innocent people could believe himself honourable, but I've seen men who have their own twisted view of the concept.”

“In any case, we should clean this place up,” the princess said to everyone. “It wouldn't be right to leave it like this, when other travellers could come through and see this. They likely have messenger ravens here. I'll write a letter to my father and let him know what happened.”

Luca looked to Emila, who had grown quiet once again. Her eyes were downcast, like she was doing her best to avoid looking at the blood before her. She had an unreadable expression on her face - a mix of fear, disgust, and guilt.

<> <> <>

After finishing their business in the guard station, they crossed the border and Luca found himself on Sonoian soil for the first time. In his travels with his father, they had never passed through the largest and most populated of the eight kingdoms of Bacoria. They had often stuck to the inhospitable southern nations, and later, the far north of Arimos. But he had never gone through Sono before, so he was excited to see what it was like.

For the first few hours of their trip, it was much of the same - green fields and farms. They were travelling on the highway, which led straight from Serenite to T'Saw. There were enough small towns between them and T'Saw that they would no longer need to camp in the woods. So many travellers used the highway that inns set up by it had little difficulty staying open.

They spoke little as they walked, the guard station having left a bad taste in everyone's mouths. Emila had her head bowed, and she said nothing the entire time.

The sun had just set when they reached the town of Reven. It was a quaint little village beside a river, which did well enough for itself off the business of the travellers who passed through on the highway. As they walked in, the streets were all but empty. The inn, which was conveniently placed at the town entrance, glowed golden from within.

They went in, paid for their rooms, and sat down to eat. All except for Selphie and Jared, who left the inn and went into the town for something.

Luca, Emila, Ash, Brand, and Wiosna sat at their table in an uncomfortable silence, picking at their food while they waited for the princess to return. Brand initially tried to get a conversation going, but when the others responded with only short answers and grunts, eventually he gave up.

Ash was the first to leave, as usual. Wiosna followed shortly after, and Brand some time after her, leaving Emila and Luca alone at the table.

Noticing he was looking at the door once again, Emila asked Luca, “What do you think is taking them?”

“I don't know,” he replied. “I don't know what they left to do.”

“Do you think we should go look for them?”

He shook his head. “Selphie said to stay here.”

Emila looked worried. Luca turned and saw the worry in her eyes, and he took her hand in his and gave her a reassuring smile.

It was late - everyone else staying at the inn had already gone to bed. Even the innkeeper had gone to bed already. They were the only ones around. Their seclusion was suddenly strongly felt.

He didn't say anything to her, he just put his arm around her and pulled her close. She did not object. She closed her eyes and rested her head against his chest. They remained like that for a while - neither of them could say just how long.

Knowing that he was concerned for her, she spoke to him in a soft voice, “Luca, I'm afraid.”

“I know you are,” he replied.

“That man won't stop. Nothing is going to stop him.”

“Trunda?” he asked.

She shook her head, still against his chest. “Zinoro.”

He didn't know what to say.

“You have nothing to fear from him. He's - he's my enemy, not yours.”

Her hand tightened around his cloak. She looked like she was about to cry. “I wish we could just leave. That we could just forget about Zinoro and go away. Somewhere far away, where he would never bother us.”

She sounded like Lodin, in those last moments before his death.

He didn't voice those thoughts. “We could never hide from him. And I could never hide from him. Not after what he did to my father. He has to pay.”

“Why?” she whispered.

He looked down at Emila like she had just uttered something incomprehensible. She looked up and met his gaze, her eyes silently pleading.

“What?” Luca asked her.

“Can't you just let it go?” she asked him.

“How could I just let it go?” he demanded. “He killed my father. If I just - forgave him for that, I would be betraying his legacy.”

“You don't have to forgive him,” Emila said. “Just - don't become a monster in the name of revenge. You're a good person. Don't throw that away...”

An image flashed in his mind's eye. He remembered himself, standing over the dying form of Dreevius, whom he had thrown into the mud. He remembered the horrible, cruel way he had let Dreevius die, his justification for it, and his disregard for his prior code of honour.

“Emila, you seem to be wrong about me,” he said. “Whatever it is you see in me, you're mistaken. I am a killer. I always was. I killed Dreevius, and if Trunda comes after us again I'll kill him, too. And when the time comes, I'm going to either kill Zinoro or be killed by him. Regardless, the man must pay. I will not turn away from my father's justice.” He didn't quite believe those words, but he hoped Emila would.

“It is easy to excuse atrocities in the name of justice,” Emila said slowly, her lip trembling. “Please, Luca. I can see the path you're on. Don't become him. Please.”

He blinked. “Become him? Become who? What do you mean?”

“Sometimes I see the things you do and the things you say, and I'm frightened by how similar you are.” A single tear had gone down her cheek. “I'm not afraid of what Zinoro can do, Luca. I'm afraid of you, because you're turning into him.”

Luca stood up. He was staring at Emila like she had just plunged a knife into him.

“You're wrong,” he insisted, as much to himself as to her. “I'm not him. I'll never be him. He killed my father, Emila! Don't you understand that?”

“Your father killed his father,” she countered, wiping her tear away.

“That's different, it-”

No, it wasn't different at all, he realised. At least not to Zinoro.

“Luca, I'm so torn,” Emila continued, her eyes growing hazy again with the coming of yet more tears. “I can't follow you to Acaria, but I can't leave you, either. If I just abandon you to die, I'll have failed at my last chance to do something good.”

“So this has all just been you trying to save me?” he demanded. “All I ever was to you was just something broken to fix?”

“It's not like that! It was never like that...” She looked heartbroken. The tears were running down her cheeks freely. Luca felt a sharp stab of guilt in his chest, knowing that he was the reason she was in so much pain.

“Then what has this all been for, then?” he asked her, refusing to back down even at this point. “Why did you save me at that town? Why did you follow me to Allma, and continue to follow me after the temple was destroyed? Why are you still here, pleading with me to give up my mission, if not because you feel you need to fix something that's wrong with me?”

“Because I care about you, damn it!” she all but shouted. “Because I-!”

At that moment, the door to the inn swung open, cutting their argument short. The silhouettes of Selphie and Jared stepped in, looking tired and disappointed.

“I'm sorry. Are we interrupting something?” Selphie asked. The words were not sarcastic - she was actually concerned.

“It's nothing. We're fine.” Emila had turned away from them, presumably to hide that she was crying.

Selphie frowned. She didn't look convinced, but she seemed to understand that the matter was personal, and she had no right to get between them. The young princess turned to Jared. “I'll be going to bed now,” she said to him.

Jared nodded. “I'll be up in a bit. I need a drink before I retire.”

Selphie nodded and smiled.

“I'm going to bed, too,” Emila said, before starting up the stairs, not waiting for anyone else.

Luca watched her go, wondering if he should perhaps follow her and apologise. She vanished up the stairs before he could make a decision. A moment later, he felt Selphie's hand on his shoulder.

“Everything will be alright,” Selphie said to him. Despite how tired she looked, her smile was not diminished in the slightest.

Luca nodded in reply, and Selphie went up the stairs as well. Luca knew that Selphie's words were not just a kind lie to cheer him up. The princess was a true optimist, much like Emila. She genuinely believed that things would work out fine if they just believed they would. The two girls were a lot alike, but they had their differences. Selphie was an optimist because she was naive - all her experience came from her father's teachings in the palace. Emila on the other hand, had experienced awful things - things she had yet to fully tell him about, and perhaps never would. All Luca knew was that the Acarians had destroyed her home, and that she had lost her family. Emila knew what people were capable of - she just chose to believe they were good at heart in spite of that.

Luca didn't know how much of Selphie's cause Emila believed in, if any of it at all. She wanted to run away with him. Perhaps, like Wiosna, she believed that the war with Acaria was inevitable. What did the others think? Did Brand believe in the cause? Ash certainly didn't.

Sighing, Luca turned away from the stairs. Jared had found his way over to the bar, where he had poured himself a beer from the tap. His halberd had been placed against the wall beside him. Luca went over and sat next to Jared, pouring a drink for himself.

“What were you two doing out there?” he asked.

“We went to the town's mayor,” Jared replied. “We talked with him about the guards at the border station, and about Trunda. We asked if there had been any sightings of the Acarian nearby.”

Jared took a drink from his glass. “He said there were none.”

“Do you believe him?”

“He didn't seem to be lying. There was no fear in his eyes. But I'm wondering where else Trunda could have gone, if not here. Eventually, he would run out of supplies. Hunting for food is tough in Sono, where we have paid hunters whose job it is to keep monster populations low. Out here, it is harder to come by such things. Sooner or later, he will have to show his face.”

“Perhaps he isn't in Sono, then,” Luca suggested. “Emila thinks that those guards back at that station were a message for us. Maybe, whatever that message was, he left it and went back home. Perhaps he's playing games with us, just like he was at Serenite.”

Jared frowned and stared deep into his mug, as though the answer were hidden deep within the golden drink inside. “Perhaps,” he finally concluded. “Either way, we must be careful. Even here in our homeland, there are still enemies. We must protect Selphie until she is safe, back in T'Saw.”

Luca took a drink from his own glass. He set it down, feeling tired and melancholy. “And then what?”

“What do you mean?”

“When we get to T'Saw, what happens next?”

Jared thought about it. “At that point, it will come to what King Zaow decides for us. By the time we get there, he will likely have received a letter from either King Edmund or King Marcus requesting his presence at the Elder Hall to discuss the possibility of invading Acaria. Whatever he decides to do, it is my duty, as well as Selphie's, to carry out his orders and support him. I don't know what his plan for you and the Allmans was, but if he still wishes to carry it out, then we shall do that.”

What Jared hadn't said was that Zaow would have two options once he got that letter. Either he could go and meet with the other kings, and give the support of his armies to the war with Acaria, or he could refuse. But if he did refuse, then once Saeticia and Torachi were done with Acaria, it would be Sono they invaded next.

Zaow, the king who preached peace in a world of bloodshed, would not want two of Bacoria's most powerful nations marching on his very doorstep. It was said that King Zaow cared for his kingdom and his people more than he cared for anything else. There was little chance that Zaow would refuse Edmund and Marcus and become their next enemy. What Zaow had been trying to do was delay the summon as long as he could, sending Selphie to Serenite to try and convince Marcus against the war. He had been trying to hold things off until he found a way to stop the war from happening.