Chapter Text
Weeping Peninsula got its name for the weather and there was not prophecy or augury in this. These lands were always bathed in water, whether it was lingering and weak rain falling on the rocks of castle Morn, or a storm on the western coast, or a mist-like drizzle in the depths of the valleys. But that day… Ordovis was doomed to remember it all in detail for the rest of his life, that day the rain was pouring down like a wall, turning everything in sight into indistinct silhouettes.
It was an awful weather to take the sea, and yet the departing warriors – the Tarnished – continued to outfit the ships, though they still blamed the rain quietly, with their voices almost perished into its noise. Lord Godfrey’s army was used to long campaigns and stern conditions and nothing could change that – not the fact that this would be their last march with no glory, leading not to the desired homecoming, nor the two witnesses overseeing the preparations from the nearest hill.
Ordovis saw out of the corner of his eye how Siluria shook her head nearby and then reached out to pull back her black braids now heavy of water. The knights had not been waiting for long so far and yet the wait was excruciating, not so much because of the storm as because of their enforced inaction. Ordovis’s greatest desire was to go down the hill to help stow the last of supplies on the ships, pack his own minor belongings and finally go out to the sea, as far as possible from this accursed land that betrayed them all. Nonetheless, their Lord commanded him and Siluria to wait here, and the Lord’s will was an absolute law, the last one that remained since the witch-queen had robbed them by taking their hard-earned grace. Ordovis felt rather than heard it when a huge yet undoubtedly human figure emerged from the rain near him. Siluria reacted half a second earlier and bowed her head to their Lord.
“My Lord Godfrey.”
“I greet you as well, my loyal warriors,” no matter how strong the storm was, his voice cut through it like a sharp knife through butter.
“My Lord, you wished to see us and here we are,” both knights straightened up and Ordovis stepped forward. “But tell us, why? Shouldn’t we be with the others right now to prepare for the Great march?”
“The ships are leaving soon, my Lord,” Siluria added. “I am afraid we’re going to muster in hurry.”
Godfrey gave them a long glance and Ordovis was ready to swear that he saw regret in his Lord’s grey and graceless eyes.
And then Godfrey said something that shattered the knight’s entire world.
“You have to worry not about the ships nor the march,” he said. “For you’re remaining here, in the Lands Between.”
Siluria did not gasp, but she pressed her armored fingers to the mouth with a gesture more eloquent than any words. Water from skies ran down her face like tears and the drops trembled on tips of her wet braids and long eyelashes. At that moment, the woman looked so vulnerable – and so generally wrong – that Ordovis couldn’t find the strength to look at her. He couldn’t find the strength to think how he himself looked like at that second either.
Lord Godfrey said that they were remaining.
Their sovereign, their first and only master, true Elden Lord who’d led them into the most horrific of battles, for who they’d gone through ice and fire, with whom they’d shared joy and grief… he went into exile, dishonored and robbed of everything he had ever owned and they… They were remaining.
“No,” Ordovis muttered. It was harder to say this single word that to stay still under the flame of ruin.
“I said so,” all of regret perished from Godfrey’s eyes, replaced by hard and relentless silvery steel.
“No. No, my Lord, no, not after all of that. Not now. You cannot. You can…”
“Ordovis.”
The name slapped him like a heavy smack and similarly knocked the air out of the knight’s lungs. He tried to open his mouth to say something, but he couldn’t. Something scorchingly hot was arising from his chest up to throat to strangle him. Something like… Siluria clasped his hand so tightly that it almost hurt. Ordovis turned to her, but the woman’s face blurred before his eyes. The raindrops sliding down his cheeks to his lips tasted salty for some reason. Godfrey, unshakable and motionless like a rock, was looking at them. A sheer Lord indeed, the Lord whom they both served and would serve forever, no matter what he ordered them. Even…
“I’m leaving you in these lands for a reason,” the words brought Ordovis out of the daze and he blinked, trying to focus his eyes on his master. “I have a mission for you. A sacred duty which I can entrust only to you, as you two are the most loyal and worthiest of all who ever served me.”
Godfrey looked away and up, as if he was trying to see something behind the tight veil of rain. There, somewhere in the north, the Erdtree towered up the royal capital. Bathed in golden light, a home to which there would be no return.
“I will be off, and yet I’m leaving here, in this land, something of great importance to my soul. Something I can neither take with me nor forget or abandon. And thus I called on you,” former Elden Lord once again turned back to his men. “Here is the final and most important of my orders – from this very day, this very second you will serve my sons as you served me. With the same valor and same loyalty, with all your heart and soul. Have you heard me?”
“Yes, my Lord,” Siluria opened their clenched hands and kneeled down beside Ordovis, littoral grass, already battered by a downpour, crumpled even further under her weight. Something had moved in Godfrey’s gaze and a phantom smile brightened his stern face for a second.
“Rise then, Siluria, shield and blade of Godwyn the Golden. From now, you will only kneel before your new master.”
The woman rose to her feet, but Godfrey already shifted his gaze to the second knight. This glance, turned into unbearable coldness again, put more pressure on Ordovis’s shoulders than the heavens could have done. He kneeled slowly, without fully understanding what he was doing.
“Yes… my Lord,” the knight murmured with his voice was almost inaudible behind the rain.
“Rise than, Ordovis, shield and blade of Mohg and Morgott,” the voice of his Lord rumbled somewhere above him.
The knight rose and suddenly felt a strike of anger when Siluria standing next to him gently touched his elbow. She seemed to feet it or simply saw by his face and took her hand away, after that, the anger gone as quickly as it had appeared before. Ordovis exhaled slowly with a sudden and inhumanly strong tiredness.
A subdued sound of a trumpet coming from somewhere along the coast cut the veil of rain. Godfrey turned towards it.
“So, this is the end. Preparations are finished and the only thing that remained is…” He put the hand under his sopping cloak and took out a casket from under it. And then, to Ordovis’s surprise, handed it to him. “I entrust this to you. When you return to the capital, my wi… queen Marika will tell you, what is this and what power possesses. Soon by her will you will be able to use it and face your duty.”
The former Elden Lord met the gazes of his knights for the last time.
“Farewell, my friends.”
“Farewell, my Lord,” Siluria said quietly from somewhere on the side while Ordovis was mutely watching as his only true master, against all odds and for all time, vanished into the rain.
Ordovis had been standing like this for a while, pointlessly looking towards the sea with Siluria by his side at first. Then, after rejecting her softly outstretched hand and watching her return deep into the land of peninsula, he stood alone. The wooden casket weighed down his hands despite being light on its own, so Ordovis finally decided to open its carved cover. Inside it, there were two fetishes lying on simple cloth backing, sparkling with the untimely bright golden magic. The magic of the Golden Order. The magic of Marika.
Ordovis clenched his teeth tightly and slammed the casket. Something not yet identified even by himself was scratching in his heart – something dark, withering and very cold. He didn’t know when, he didn’t know how, but one day… oh, one day he would see this gold would tarnish, and then his Lord would finally be avenged.
One day, Ordovis thought, finally turning his back on the sea. One day, when a son of Godfrey would be the king.