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The minutes were long.
Had it not been for the steady ticking of the clock on the wall, Cecil might have concluded that time had stopped completely. Sleep was elusive—a few minutes here, a half hour there, all too often broken up by nightmares.
Whether they were still nightmares if they were based on reality, he didn’t know.
He very much needed to sleep. Experience had taught him that if he lay awake until he felt tired enough to drift off, he’d fall asleep right before he needed to wake up. The colour of the sky was already shifting; it was now closer to dawn than dusk.
The minutes were long but the hours were short.
A heaviness started to wash over him, and he shut his eyes and hoped. For real, this time , he thought, and felt some relief as even his mind’s eye began to cloud over. The half-dozen thoughts that had been fluttering manically were giving way. Maybe, finally, sleep at last—
Orders are orders, but killing innocent people to get the Crystals isn't right.
His mind was cycling through the day again: taking the Water Crystal from the Mysidians by force; whispers of guilt and remorse on the flight back to Baron; admonishing his own crew for questioning their orders. Still, he couldn’t deny that it had all felt senseless to him, too. The least he could do, he’d thought, was take their concerns to the king.
And all that had done was get him stripped of his command and dispatched to the tiny village of Mist with some kind of parcel.
I went from captain to errand boy in less than five minutes.
The king’s behaviour had become more and more erratic in recent weeks. When he said that the Water Crystal was too powerful to be left in Mysidia, Cecil didn’t question it and rallied his troops. When ordered to use whatever force was necessary to obtain it, he assumed it wouldn’t come to that.
But it came to that.
Even if he wasn’t the one dealing the blows, those deaths were going to stay on his conscience for a long time.
He used to be able to ask questions; that’s how he and Kain were raised. The king had always encouraged them to speak up, to balance a healthy respect for authority with the courage to stand up for themselves and what they believed in. Today, that got Cecil demoted; Kain tried to speak up for him and saw himself added to the Mist delivery route. They would not be allowed to return until the task was done. Even that seemed out of place.
He closed his eyes again. Maybe if he sat with his guilt, he could rob it of its power just long enough to get the rest he needed before morning. Another wave of fatigue set in, and everything coalesced into darkness. There were only two warring thoughts left, and he let them circle each other until he was numb to both.
Never again. Not even if ordered.
I will not betray him. I can’t.
And then there was only blackness, lethargy, sleep at last.
There was a soft rap at the door. Daybreak? Cecil’s eyes fluttered open, and he noticed that the sky was still dark; it had only been a few minutes. If that wasn’t the chambermaid with his wakeup call, then—
Oh. Right. She said she’d come.
He did not want to face Rosa, not right now. He’d tried to excuse himself from their brief encounter in the corridor earlier; he couldn’t fault her for wanting to talk, but he didn’t know how. He thought it best to limit himself to a quick farewell before leaving in the morning, then clearing the air once he and Kain returned from Mist. It seemed best.
The thought that had done him in and changed his mind, after he’d reprimanded that crewman for questioning the king, was “what would Rosa think of all this?”
The door creaked as she slowly pushed it open, and he rolled over onto his side and pulled the blanket over his head.
“Cecil?”
He lay motionless under the covers, hoping slow, measured breathing would help complete the illusion.
“I know you’re awake, Cecil.”
Dammit. He gave himself a moment to decide whether to admit defeat or double down, and decided on the former. He wasn’t fighting any other battles today.
“How?” he mumbled; he left the blanket in place.
“Because you never sleep on your side.” He blinked, but didn’t move. She was observant, that one. He shouldn’t have expected less; she’d always had an eye for detail, even when they were kids. And she was the one who noticed the signs of his feelings for her, before he’d even figured it out himself.
“Why is he sending you away?”
Because I told him he’d made me a war criminal, he thought. But he said nothing.
“Cecil, look at me.”
He did not want to look at her; maybe if he explained why, she’d understand.
“Four.”
“What?”
He relented, but just a little, and pulled the blanket down a few inches. “If you’re wondering how many mages died in Mysidia today, the answer is four.”
Rosa shifted awkwardly; she stared down at her feet and interlaced her fingers. “Six, now.”
“What?”
“Two more succumbed to their injuries,” she said, quietly. The silence in the room was heavy. Everything had somehow been worse than he’d already come to believe.
This is how it starts, he thought. First you don’t question the orders when they’re given to you, then you talk yourself into seeing them through. Then you try to convince other people the casualties were warranted. By the time you find out the death toll is higher than you thought, you’ll be too hardened to care. That’s just how it is for a Dark Knight.
He rolled over. “How do you know?”
“Mages talk,” she murmured. “It was one of the last pieces of information to come through the Serpent Road before the Mysidians sealed off their end.” She sat down on the edge of the bed. “It’s bad, Cecil. Some of the mages here are openly talking about siding with Mysidia.”
“Well, they’d better keep their mouths shut about it if they want to live,” he said. “If the king is willing to throw me overboard for asking questions, I’d hate to think of what he’d do to people who weren’t commanding his air force.”
The room was dark, but he could tell by the glow of the moons through the window that she had looked away. He sat up as best as he could; part of the blanket had become pinned beneath her, but he didn’t want her to get up.
“Whatever you do, Rosa, don’t do anything that could get you imprisoned”—he felt a lump in his throat—”or worse.” He squeezed her hand. "I’ll be back in a day, maybe less. We’ll get to the bottom of this then.”
“Mom wants to leave,” she said. “She said she can’t stay here anymore.”
Cecil winced. Rosa’s mother had been a white mage, too. She already didn’t like him much—Rosa said it was because they reminded her of herself and her husband, who’d also been a Dark Knight. They’d had a long, happy marriage, but it was suddenly easier to see the havoc a Dark Knight could wreak when it was one’s daughter who loved one.
Being part of a mission that killed four—no, six, get it right—mages was probably not helping his standing.
“Where would you go?” he asked, quietly. He couldn’t imagine Baron without Rosa, and he couldn’t imagine Rosa without her mother. If one left, they’d both leave.
And maybe he’d leave, too.
She shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said. “I think she’s just angry right now. She might calm down in a few days.” She glanced back at him. “She told me not to talk to you anymore.”
“But here you are,” he said. “Maybe she’s right, and you’d be better off without me. I just bring death and destruction wherever I go—”
“Cecil—”
“I’m feeling remorse right now, but maybe someday I’ll be so used to it that I won’t—”
“Cecil .”
He knew that tone; it was the same one she’d used to break up scuffles between him and Kain when they were kids. They were never serious fights, just a bit of horseplay, but she didn’t like it and she told them so.
He stared up at her.
“You’re a better person than that,” she said. “You would never have questioned the king otherwise.”
“Well, I couldn’t defy him when it counted,” he muttered. “Asking him about it after it was all said and done didn’t bring anybody back.”
She reached back for his hand.
“Maybe it’ll help them rest a little easier,” she said. “It should at least help you rest a little easier. You’d better sleep. I don’t want you fatigued when you head out by yourself.”
“Oh, I won’t be alone,” he said, lazily dragging his other hand along the stone wall. “Kain’s coming too.”
Rosa blinked. “That’s supposed to make me feel better?” she scoffed, but her face softened quickly. “Just don’t let him try to turn it into a contest about who can slay the most monsters. Get over there, drop off the goods, and come back here.”
Cecil felt a chuckle building inside him—the first in a long time. Rosa simultaneously liked Kain and found him exasperating. Everything did have to be a competition with him: who could run the fastest (Cecil), jump the highest (Kain), slay monsters from furthest away (Rosa, though Kain was loath to admit it).
Still, she was relieved that they’d be heading out as a pair.
“Yes ma’am,” Cecil said, offering a mock salute with his free hand; her mouth curled into a smirk, and she stood to go.
“Come back to me in one piece,” she said, and turned towards the door. “That’s an order.”
I think I can obey that one.
She shut the door behind her, leaving only the sound of the clock and the noise of his thoughts.
Six mages.
Don’t compete with Kain.
Rosa might leave town.
Rosa doesn’t think I’ll become remorseless.
I hope she’s right.
Six mages.
The minutes were long.