Bacorium Legacy (51 page)

He was sitting there in the middle cell, his legs crossed and his eyes closed. He looked like he was meditating. He did not open his eyes as Luca approached, though the sound of his footsteps echoing off the stone walls were unmistakable.

“So you survived, after all,” Trunda said to him. “Those wounds I gave you were no mere scratches. By all the laws of nature, you should be dead now.”

“Dreevius thought he could kill me,” Luca said. “I killed him instead, and left his body in the mud.”

“Indeed,” Trunda replied, opening his eyes. “We all know about Dreevius. King Zinoro told me about the present you left for him. He told me to tell you that he appreciated that you returned a piece of Dreevius to him. And that he looks forward to his next meeting with you.”

Luca chuckled. “I don't think he will. Because I'm going to kill him.”

“Wrong,” Trunda said in a perfectly level voice. “My king is a god among men. He has powers that nobody else in Bacoria can even dream of. And you - you are but a child wielding a stick who thinks he is invincible. I have beaten you twice now. How do you think you can kill Zinoro if you cannot even last an encounter with me? I have had two opportunities now to grind you into dust, which you have survived only thanks to my mercy. Do you think the girl's healing can patch you up if you've been torn into a hundred pieces?”

Luca had nothing clever to say to that. He couldn't deny that he had lost to Trunda twice, and Zinoro was far stronger than his acolytes. Until he had a Rixeor Fragment, Luca stood no chance against him.

“Did you kill those guards at the border station?” Luca asked.

“I did.”

“Why?”

Trunda smiled. “It was a message.”

So Emila was right after all, he thought. The dungeon suddenly felt a bit colder.

Luca asked him, “And what kind of message was that supposed to be?”

“A fair warning. I was showing you what I am capable of.” Trunda had not moved a muscle, but Luca felt like he had been drawn closer to him. “We acolytes are all special. That is why Zinoro found us, and brought us together. Dreevius was one of us only because of his gimmick - the ability to take another's appearance. But if you think a self-righteous, pompous weakling is what to expect from the other four of us, you are sorely mistaken. I am not even the strongest among us, and I could kill all seven of you in a fair fight. Against Serpos, you would be as insects on a summer day - an annoyance for him to swipe away.”

“Then tell me how you were captured,” Luca said.

“I am waiting,” Trunda said. “Waiting until I feel like it. This is all just a game to me, you see. If I took this more seriously, I would have just pulled the head off your shoulders and punted it over that waterfall. Or I would have just crushed your skull into thick paste back in Serenite, when you were helpless before me. But why win so easily? There is no fun in it unless the other side at least thinks they have a chance. Just as you do now.”

“I know you think it's a game. That's why you went after Emila in Serenite, instead of Selphie, when you knew full well she wasn't the real princess. You were just playing the fool.”

Trunda laughed aloud, the sound reverberating off the walls. “Indeed. The fool.”

Luca looked around at his surroundings. “Well, it looks like you waited a bit too long. You're trapped now. And while your reinforcement magick might be enough to let you punch through a guard's armour, you're trapped within a mana-binding circle right now. Good luck bending those iron bars with the strength of your arms alone.”

“You make too many assumptions, son of Lodin.”

“As do you!” Luca exclaimed, feeling that he now had some ground in this verbal jousting match they were playing. “Because you said that you could kill all of us in a fair fight. But you have yet to face me in a fair fight. In Serenite - something happened and I lost consciousness. And earlier, I was so drunk I could barely lift my sword. Some accomplishment of yours this is, to brag about your own strength after having beaten a man in his weakest conditions. Only a coward would choose to duel a man only when it best suited him.”

Trunda thought about that for a moment, then smiled. “You're right. Perhaps I have been underestimating you. I would like to see you in your ideal conditions. Would you say you would be there by the morning?”

“After a meal and a few hours of rest, I would certainly put up a better fight than I had before.”

“I see,” Trunda said, closing his eyes and returning to his meditation. “I will hold you to that.”

Luca, sensing that Trunda was ending their conversation and had no more to say, turned around and went back upstairs. The captain was still there at the table, though the six on-duty guards from outside had joined him, and were standing around, impatiently waiting for Luca to be done.

“You certainly got more out of him than the princess did,” the captain said to him as he passed.

Luca stopped, turning to the captain. “How much of that did you hear?”

“Not a lot,” he admitted. “Just echoes and the sound of him laughing.”

“He's pretty confident,” Luca said. “I think he has some kind of plan to escape. Make sure there's men watching him at all times. Take no chances. This guy is brutal - his punches break bones. And he's a lot smarter than he looks. Take no chances at all with him.”

“You seem like you know what you're doing,” the guard captain said. “Very well. Just remember that you're taking him with you when you leave. So get back to the inn and get some rest.”

Luca turned back and continued on out the door. The captain waited a few minutes, while his men stared blankly at him.

“What are you waiting for, you blank-faced dolts? Get down there and watch the damn Acarian!”

Three men immediately darted downstairs.

<> <> <>

When Luca stepped back outside to the night air, there was a girl waiting for him. But it wasn't Emila.

“What are you still doing here?” he asked.

“Obviously, I was waiting for you,” Wiosna said with a big smile. “I wanted to walk with you back to the inn.”

Luca raised an eyebrow, somehow not believing that. “Emila went back without me, but she had no problem with you staying behind?”

Wiosna giggled girlishly. “Nooo... Emila doesn't know I'm here. I went back with her and Selphie and Jared, and then I waited until they were asleep, and then I came back here.”

“Why do all that?”

“Because I want to talk to you, Luca,” she said. “I was worried too when I saw you in the river. We were all worried. But Emila - well, she's so clingy. She tries to keep you away from me. I haven't had a chance to talk to you since we were in Serenite.”

That was true, he had to admit. Emila had been rather clingy lately - but after what had happened in Serenite, and again tonight, he understood that she was upset and worried about him. And it was also true that he hadn't spent much time with Wiosna lately, either. There was no harm in walking back with her. Besides, what was he going to do, send her away? They were both going to the same place.

They started down the streets, passing houses on their way, the lights once again off now that the excitement had died down. The only illumination was the stars in the sky. Luca could have used magick to create an illuminating orb, but he could see fine.

He wasn't sure about Wiosna, though. As they walked, she had taken off her glasses, placing them in a case and putting them in her pocket. He couldn't fathom why, but he wasn't complaining, because it reminded him of how much more fetching she was without them.

“What was fighting Trunda like?” she asked.

What an odd question. “Painful,” he answered truthfully.

“I know,” she said, wincing and rubbing her shoulder. “I remember, back at the library. He put his sword through my shoulder. But he wasn't carrying a sword now.”

“No, he was just using his fists,” Luca said. “He doesn't need a sword - he's actually better at fisticuffs. He does a lot more damage with his reinforced fists than he does with a blade.”

Although, that didn't quite explain how he wasn't breaking his hands at each punch.

“What did he say to you in there?”

“Not much,” Luca muttered. “Mostly just bragged about how tough he was. He said he could kill all seven of us at once in a fight.”

Wiosna scoffed. “That's a bunch of crap. I was matching him fine in that library before he caught me off guard. “Against all seven of us, he'd have no chance.” She then smiled, and added, “Fighting him was fun, though.”

Luca silently disagreed with that.

They arrived back at the inn, and Luca went inside, with Wiosna following behind him and closing the door a bit more quietly than she needed to.

“Um - Luca?” Wiosna spoke, her cheeks tinted red.

“Yeah?”

“Well, I have something I need to confess,” she said, laughing nervously. “Don't laugh, okay?”

Well, that had aroused his interest. “I won't laugh. What is it?”

“Well - I kind of need your help with something,” she continued, looking more and more nervous with each word. “Can you do something for me? It's not very difficult.”

“Sure, what is it?”

Wiosna's expression immediately changed, her eyes lighting up in excitement. “That's a yes, then?”

Now Luca was the one who was nervous. “Err - I guess?”

Her pink lips curled into a mischievous smile. “Good.”

Wiosna separated the distance between them, wrapping her arms around the back of his neck and pressing her lips against his. Caught completely off-guard, Luca fell back, tripping and fall on his back on the floor. Wiosna followed him, straddling him and pinning him down to prevent any escape.

“Wh-what are you-?!”

“Shh, you said yes,” Wiosna giggled, capturing his mouth again with her own.

Momentarily stunned by the confusion and the not-unpleasant sensations he was feeling, it took Luca a few moments before he was finally able to bring himself to push Wiosna off of him. He pushed a bit harder than he meant to, and she hit the polished wood floor right on her behind.

“Ow!”

“What do you think you're doing?!” he demanded.

Wiosna looked like a child who'd been caught taking a cookie. “But - you said yes...”

“Not to this!” Luca said. “If I'd known this was what you were intending, I wouldn't have.”

Wiosna looked confused and hurt. She looked down in shame, pulling her knees close to her chest.

Luca stood up, shaking his head to clear it. And that was when he noticed that Emila was standing at the top of the stairs, with a look of shock and betrayal.

“No...” Luca said. “This isn't...”

Emila turned around and ran upstairs.

Swearing to himself, Luca followed after her. Wiosna watched him go, wishing that he would have stayed and comforted her instead. But she knew that Luca cared more about Emila than her. Wiosna made a fist and pounded it against the floor in frustration.

“Why didn't he want me...? I asked him, and he said yes...”

“Because he's a grown-up. I'm not a little kid, and neither is he. This isn't a stupid game. When am I going to learn that?”

“It's that stupid little Emila's fault, it is. If she wasn't around, he'd have eyes only for me.”

“I remember when I almost killed her. If she had told him about that... They're both better people than I am. I shouldn't come between them like this. It's not fair to them...”

“No, it's fair enough. She's weak. She's so weak, always clinging to him and sobbing about how hard it is to be her.”

“I - I think maybe I should go to bed.”

Wiosna stood up, her behind sore from hitting the floor. Now she felt guilty for what she had done.

“In the morning... He'll hate me, too. I've really screwed it up now, haven't it?”

Defeated, and choking back tears, Wiosna went up to the room she shared with Brand.

<> <> <>

Luca found Emila sitting on her bed in their room. She wasn't crying, though she looked up at him with hurt eyes as he entered.

“Emila - that wasn't what it looked like.”

She took a deep breath, and nodded. “I know. I saw all of it. I'm just... I'm just hurt, that's all.”

He sat down beside her, putting his hand around her shoulder.

“I can't believe she did that,” Emila said.

“Me neither.”

“I don't know why she hates me so much,” Emila said sadly. “Everything she does is some effort to hurt me.”

Luca frowned. He now had a lot on his mind, at the worst moment for it. He'd just wanted to go back to the inn and go to bed, putting Trunda and everything he'd said out of his mind until the morning. Now he had Wiosna to think about.

“Was that - your first kiss?” Emila asked.

He hesitated. “No.”

Emila blinked. “It wasn't? Who was your first?”

“This girl named Arlea, back in the Arimos village my father and I were staying at,” he told her. “She was a nice girl. She liked me, but I didn't really return the feeling. She was killed when Zinoro attacked.”

Luca realised that a few months ago, he would not have told her that much if she had been trying to pry it from him. Now he was all but offering such personal information up.

Emila looked regretful. “I'm sorry to hear that. But - I'm glad that wasn't your first kiss.”

He looked at her, confused. “Why's that?”

“Your first kiss should be in a different situation than that. It should be something you know is coming, so your heart is beating in anticipation. Something you never forget, and not a random attack from someone like Wiosna.”

Luca sighed, realising that this conversation was getting a bit uncomfortable. But still, now that he'd told her, he was curious why she felt this way. “So what about you?”

“Well,” Emila said, smiling and blushing cutely. “I had a little boyfriend back in my hometown. Nothing serious, just a few kisses here and there. I was still very young then. But I didn't have much time for romance, as I had to train to be the next healer.”

Luca had grown quiet. He had realised the direction this conversation was going, and he didn't like it. They were coming dangerously close to saying aloud that thing they both knew, but could not admit to each other or themselves.