Work Text:
“Are you sure you want to do this, Silver?” Lilia asked. Maybe it was a selfish question. Maybe he was the one who wasn’t quite ready.
“Yes, father,” Silver said. His silver hair caught the moonlight. The light from the starry sky overhead cast a dim glow on the crumbling pillars and vine-covered ruins.
Lilia nodded. “I suppose you should get comfortable, then.” And so should he.
“I will defend you both!” Sebek shouted, his voice echoing off the crumbled stones. “No one will disturb your rest while you use your magic!”
“I trust you, Sebek,” Silver said, and Sebek beamed with pride. Lilia stifled a chuckle. Sebek could be so needlessly enthusiastic, but he had to admit, it was nice to see Sebek acting himself again after everything that had happened after Malleus’s overblot.
Of course, were it not for that overblot, Silver likely would never have seen the past, and learned of his own origins. Lilia should have told him, he knew, and had been planning to. When he was ready.
It had just been hard to determine when Silver was truly ready. And now here they were, preparing to view the past.
A combination of unique magics. Malleus had said it could be done, and had given them his blessing to try it. Sebek had been loathe to leave his liege, even for a few days during the summer break, but Silver had been insistent in his own way.
He must be curious, of course. It was only natural for an adopted child to wonder about what had happened to his parents.
Lilia tried not to worry as he lay down on the cold stone. Ordinarily, sleep in this situation would be difficult. But after a sip from the potion Malleus had made, it was easy.
Next to him, as his eyes fluttered closed, Silver muttered, “Meet in a dream.”
He had to do his part too. As sleep overcame him, Lilia muttered the words, and called his magic, centering it on the stones around them, the fallen ruins, along with the ring he held in his hand.
“All is as if it were days long past. No matter where it takes us, it will all be over in the blink of an eye. Far Cry Cradle.”
The magics mingled, a rush of power, as sleep claimed him. It was time to see the past—more than the past. The dreams of the man who had owned the ring he held.
If this worked, they would see the final memories of the Knight of Dawn. Silver’s father.
When he typically used his unique magic, memories danced across his mind, almost as if they were his own. He merely had to close his eyes and he could see what had occurred to the object, see it change hands, or see shadows of the people who had once been there.
Silver’s magic worked differently, though. For a moment, Lilia saw what he expected—the ring on the Knight of Dawn’s finger, being placed around the neck of a baby he remembered very well. But then the scene changed. Rather than viewing it as though he watched it on a phone screen, it grew in his perceptions, surrounding him. His heart pounded, and then someone took his hand.
Silver.
With a blink, Lilia stood in the stone room of a castle. Banners hung on the walls, red fabric slashed through with an image of a silver sword, and a fire burned in the fireplace by a large wooden desk. The room was lit with sconces that held candles, not by magic and certainly not by electric lights.
And then he heard it. Shouting, screaming.
Outside the windows, the city—and it was a city, though small by modern standards, but Lilia recognized the patterns humans made when they built their settlements—was burning. Lines of houses were awash in flame, fire leaping from thatched roof to stable to road. Shadows moved below, men in dark armor marching against those who wore silver. They outnumbered them ten to one.
“This is it, isn’t it?” Silver asked. He stood next to Lilia, and Lilia blinked. Silver was transparent, like a ghost, and when he looked at his own hands, the same was true of him. They were here, but not here. It wasn’t like normal dreams. This was a memory, a mix of magics. They had never existed here.
Lilia opened his mouth to answer, and then the wooden door at the far end of the room swung open.
A man entered, one who made Lilia’s muscles tense and Silver gasp. The Dawn Knight. The sight of him had Lilia clutching his hand on empty air, seeking a weapon.
But after him entered a woman with brown hair, holding a small, mewling child. Lilia knew that child.
He looked just the same as he had that day.
Infant Silver squalled in his mother’s arms.
“Sh, sh,” the woman said. She held him closer, and then looked to the Dawn Knight, her face streaked with tears. “My love, please,” she said. The tiny baby fussed in her arms, and she hugged him close. “Are you sure this is the right decision? For me to flee alone…”
The Dawn Knight shut his eyes as though the light pained them, warring with obvious indecision. When he opened them, though, they bore into Lilia.
Lilia’s heart thudded hard.
The knight’s eyes narrowed, then went wide. He tilted his head, golden hair catching the light of the sconces overhead.
Could he see him? Lilia tensed anew.
Then baby Silver cooed, and the knight looked back to his infant son.
“I am sure,” he said. “The castle has fallen. You needs exit through the passage behind the bookcase in the next room. I can’t quite explain it, but…I am sure he will be safe.”
“But what about you?” the woman said. Queen Leah. It must be. “You must come with us. A son needs his father.”
Lilia’s gaze flicked to Silver. He watched, his face hard to read.
“I will stay and defend the castle,” the Dawn Knight said. “I will make sure you and our son escape safely.”
“But—”
“It must be done,” the Dawn Knight said. “There is no other way.”
Leah bit her lip, and then turned. “I will wait for you,” she said. “At the barracks of the sword.”
“Take this,” the Knight of Dawn said. He took the ring from his finger—the ring Lilia knew well. “If…If you wait too long, give it to him.”
Tears fell when the queen nodded. Then she fled, disappearing through the far door. Lilia waited for the scene to shift, for the dream to follow the infant, but it didn’t.
So this truly was the Knight of Dawn’s last memory.
“Go with her,” he said to no one. Silver stepped forward, as if obeying.
But instead, the Knight of Dawn drew his sword, and lights danced on the blade. Diurnal fae, tiny sprites. “Go and keep her and my son safe. I…I no longer need you.”
The tiny sprites fled after the queen. The glow from the Knight of Dawn’s sword began to fade.
The shouting grew louder, and footsteps banged on stairs. The Knight of Dawn turned and readied his blade.
Lilia had seen enough war to know the rest.
“We’ve seen enough,” Lilia said. But Silver ignored him, stepping forward. Lilia’s heart thudded painfully.
“Silver?”
Silver turned to Lilia. “Father, I…I want to fight with him. I know I can’t, not truly, but I want to fight. Until…”
Lilia nodded. “I understand.”
Next to his father, a phantom, Silver drew his baton, the implement a dark reflection of the greatsword of the Dawn Knight when Silver stood next to him.
The Dawn Knight blinked, and then looked to Silver. He tilted his head. Could he see him now, illuminated in the last of the fading light from his sword?
Then the soldiers burst through the doors, clad in the same dark armor as those Lilia had seen outside. A man with a pike took the lead, charging toward the Dawn Knight, the sharp prongs flashing.
The Dawn Knight, a tad slower than Lilia remembered but still quick, weaved inside the pikeman’s guard and slashed him across the chest. Silver gasped as the sight of blood flowed. But that was his only hesitation.
As other men poured in, Silver fought by the Dawn Knight’s side. He and his baton were like a phantom, but here in the dream, the memory, it seemed to matter, cutting at weak points and causing the soldiers in dark armor to quail beneath his blows. Five men came in, and when two charged at once, Silver intercepted, allowing the Dawn Knight to disarm one and then finish the one who’s blade Silver had blocked. The Knight pivoted to parry and then stab the third, while Silver stared down the other two, blocking one’s blade and then using the riposte to turn and slash at the other’s knees as he ducked beneath the soldier’s sword.
Pride filled Lilia’s chest. He had taught him that.
The Dawn Knight turned and dispatched the two men Silver was fighting. For a moment, it was quiet, the only sound the Knight’s labored breathing.
Another man rushed in, and this time the Knight was too slow. Blood sprayed across the silver sword on the banners that hung on the walls.
The dream world fractured, the ground cracking, the stone castle beginning to fall. Lilia hurried to his son’s side as the Dawn Knight fell to his knees.
“No,” Silver called out. His hand stretched out toward the wounded man, the one who looked so much like him, who he looked more like every day. The word hung in the air, among the clashing of swords and the shouts of men. Lilia waited. But no other word came after it.
The room began to fade. The white of the dreamscape began to filter in like sunlight, illuminating the Knight’s golden hair as the soldier behind him raised his sword.
The Knight of Dawn met Silver’s eyes. The last thing they both saw was the Dawn Knight’s smile as his dream finally faded.
“I knew you would be alright,” he said.
***
“Silver!” Sebek shouted, his voice cutting into Lilia’s sleep. “What happened? Why are you…are you well? Talk to me!”
Lilia opened his eyes, and instead of a castle room from centuries ago, he saw the same ruins. If they truly had once been a barracks, now they were empty. Except for one last remnant of that time.
Silver stood, Sebek’s hands on his shoulders. “I’m alright,” he said. His eyes glittered, but no tears fell. He took a breath, and his fist clenched, his fingers moving as though he still held his baton like he had in the dream.
Lilia stood, and moved toward Silver. Sebek backed away as Lilia held out the ring.
Silver took it, blinking. “Thank you, father,” he said.
Lilia smiled. “I’m glad it worked.”
“What was it like?” Sebek asked. “Did you see him? Did you see his dream?”
“I did.” Silver nodded, pushing his hair out of his face. “He gave his life for me—for my mother. He was…” his gaze met Lilia’s, and he took another deep breath. “He defended his family. I will practice, and learn, and do the same, father! Just like him, I would defend those I love with all I have!”
Lilia nodded. “I know you would, Silver,” he said. “You’re a good man.”
As the two young men began to walk away from the ruins, Lilia sighed.
I would defend those I love with all I have. Of course Silver would do that. He was his father’s son.
But he and the Dawn Knight—Silver’s other father—had done that already. They had secured the future for their son, centuries ago.
One day, maybe, Silver would figure it out, Lilia thought with a rueful smile.
The whole point of what they had done was so that Silver would never have to do the same.