Chapter Text
Kloe met the gold-haired archer's eyes with a steady gaze. The fingers drawing her bow trembled, but not from fear--the fire in the girl's scarlet eyes was proof enough of that. There was something else, a shadow in her taut lips and tense brow, that spoke of troubles far beyond a single trespasser. Yes, Kloe thought, because that's all she was, here and now. It would be foolish to expect anything else when she had gone to such lengths to conceal her identity. The falcon feather pin suddenly weighed heavy in her uniform's pocket, and Kloe's fingers twitched, but she did not move to take it. Instead, she held up her palms and bowed her head.
"Please," she whispered, "listen to what I have to say."
"I'm not sure I need to hear it," the archer snapped, her words like arrows in their own right. From the edge of her vision, Kloe could see the archer had not relaxed her guard for an instant. "You're on Erebonian territory, and you're clearly not an Erebonian. With the way things have been, I can't take chances."
"Even to speak?" Kloe inquired, her heartbeat remaining mercifully even. She had faced worse alongside Joshua and Estelle, but there was something about this girl that was familiar--and familiar was frightening. Time and again, Kloe had been called upon to steel her heart and show the world only an iron will. There was truth in that display, she liked to think, in the princess that stood fast and proud against the headwind. She would not be who she was without it. But this girl was different, more human than iron, ready to tear through the wind like a bloody blaze in search of a world to burn. Almost like Estelle, if Estelle had been even more fiery, more stubborn, and ready to kill.
Right now, the gold-haired girl's murderous intent was infused in her every breath and blink, almost suffocating in its intensity. This girl was in tune with her primal nature in a way Estelle never was. Aidios knew what she had gone through to get here.
"Only if you have something worth listening to." The girl's aim, while trembling, remained firmly fixed on Kloe. "And right now I'm only interested in one thing."
Kloe was silent. Watching, waiting, her mind half on the rapier at her waist and the arrow leveled at her forehead, half on the words that flitted about her tongue.
"Where is Rean?" the girl snarled, and in an instant, the shadows lurking behind her blazing gaze became clear. A raven-haired assassin and a girl with a heart of gold, pinned beneath an immovable force and yet utterly unmoving in their resistance, flickered to the fore of Kloe's mind. "Tell me what you know."
Love, Kloe thought, can be just as deadly as hate in the right hands.
"Don't say you don't know anything," the girl plowed on. "You're armed, and I don't have to know who you are or where you came from to see that you're skilled. You were with those--those things, too. People like you don't just show up for no reason."
Kloe took a measured breath. "You're correct," she said softly. "I'm not here for no reason."
The girl watched her intently.
"I am here for the sake of a friend," Kloe continued. "She called for my assistance. I came from Liberl by train and was on my way to our rendezvous point when you stumbled upon me."
"And?" the girl prompted. "The monsters? You're just going to say you were attacked, aren't you. Never mind the fact that you cut down Erebonian soldiers to get this far--never mind the fact that you hurt my friends to get this far--"
The blood staining her rapier and dotting the fabric of her uniform seemed to stand out all the brighter against the sun-stained snow. "I did," Kloe admitted. "I had little choice in the matter."
Something cold flashed across her cheek, drawing a line of crimson through the air. "How could you?" the archer screamed, with such force that Kloe felt for a moment as though the girl's voice would tear her from the ground. "You hurt Elliot! He didn't even try to fight, and you still--"
The staff wielder, Kloe thought with a pang of guilt. The little red-haired boy who had hesitated to attack when the other soldiers surged forward. It was either break through the point of least resistance, or slaughter all the rest and build a bridge out of their corpses. She pressed her hand to her cheek and felt blood swelling beneath her palm.
"I did," Kloe whispered, allowing her voice to waver. "I know."
"Why?" the girl demanded. "Why him, and why Rean? And how can you have the gall to look so Aidios-forsaken guilty about it?"
"I am being pursued." Kloe raised her head and took in the archer's red, tear-streaked face. In her outburst, she had failed to nock another arrow to her bow--an amateur mistake, Kloe thought wryly, but so very understandable. "I am being pursued and I must outrun them if I wish to live. Any apologies will ring hollow. I will make no excuses and accept whatever sins my survival may entail, but I cannot fall."
The archer lifted her head and seemed to look down her nose at Kloe. "Everyone thinks the same thing," she spat. "Nobles, commoners, it doesn't matter. You don't get off the hook for wanting to live."