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It isn’t until Olberic sees the scar that he finally believes the man standing before him was once one of the Twin Jewels of Hornburg.
Olberic didn’t necessarily disbelieve Cyrus’s assertions of his true identity, of course, but the flighty teacher did not look like the stuff of legends. The Cyrus Albright found in history books was a regal figure, a master of the hidden magicks of Hornburg. The scholars in Atlasdam often lamented his loss–or, perhaps more accurately, the loss of his scholarship in the study of magic. When Hornburg fell, all the world thought him dead and gone.
Yet here he stands before Olberic now, alive and real as any: muddy from their quarrel with some froggens earlier, shivering as he divests the woolen vest and cotton shirt of a near-pauper at the riverbank, the pale expanse of his back exposed to Olberic in a show of thoughtless trust, the ugly pucker of a scar that couldn’t have come from anything but a devastating stab wound to the lower ribs.
Olberic has been a knight for many years, but Atlasdam has always been peaceful. The Kingdom of Wold has never known war as long as he has lived. The closest Olberic has ever come to such violence was his pursuit after Princess Mary’s abductors–the bastards he still seeks even now, chasing them all over Orsterra. Weeks, already, he has followed their trail with no real progress. Olberic doesn’t care if he remains banished from Atlasdam forever, or if his fellow knights continue to believe he played some part in the princess’s disappearance. He worries only for his charge’s safety. He wants nothing more than to see her brought safely home.
But he doesn’t need to worry about that now. Olberic takes a deep breath. It’s been a long day. As soon as they wash up for the evening, they’ll turn in for the night and get some well-earned rest.
“Is something the matter?” Cyrus asks, looking over his shoulder. He quirks a little smile, something Olberic has come to learn means only mischief. “Olberic, I must say, you have too handsome a face to be frowning like that! What shall the dashing ladies of your kingdom think, to see you return home with such dour wrinkles?”
“It’s nothing,” Olberic quickly replies, averting his gaze. No matter how tired he may be, he has no excuse for staring at something that no doubt holds a rotten memory. His curiosity has toed the line too many times–each time Olberic oversteps, Cyrus shuts down. The light leaves his eyes, his shoulders hang heavy, he falls silent. His past is too great a burden to bear, and there is nothing Olberic can do to lessen that weight. And so, it is best to leave it alone. Let his imagination fill in the blanks. Let this be but one more mystery.
Cyrus clicks his tongue. “If you’re worried about your princess,” he says, “you’ve no reason to be. Your captain said you’d find an ally in Quarrycrest, and I reckon we’re but a few days out. I can already see the canyons on the horizon, can’t you?”
The scholar Odette is bound to be less an ally and more of a punishment, but Olberic would do well to remain somewhat optimistic. For better or worse, she’s the only person who might have some clue as to who, exactly, kidnapped Princess Mary.
As for why a random scholar living half a world away from Atlasdam should be privy to that information….
Soon enough, the near-misstep is forgotten as their chatter turns to an inconsequential round of wondering Have you ever been to the Clifflands? No. Me neither, but I’ve heard their use of spice is comparable to the Sunlands–we’re bound to eat well. Olberic isn’t one for mindless chatter, but it’s different with Cyrus. There is an edge of insight to everything he says, no matter how banal. It’s the mark of an inquisitive mind that never stops, not even for a moment.
They fall into an amicable silence as they begin the routine task of setting up camp. Olberic pitches the tent because Cyrus never has the patience for it, and Cyrus starts a fire because Olberic can never get the flint to strike and keep a spark, and Cyrus has a knack for it. Which, now that he’s thinking about it, is a little odd. Cyrus has no problems with using magic for little things–he certainly had no qualms with constantly conjuring ice chips for them during their trek through the Sunlands–but he has never used magic to start their campfire. Or… to start any fire. For some reason or another, Cyrus tends to avoid using fire magic unless their foe is resistant to all other elements which, luckily, has proven to be a rare occurrence.
Before Olberic can hold his tongue, he asks, “Why don’t you use magic to start the fire?”
The change in the air is swift and cloying. An apology springs to his lips on reflex, but before Olberic can spit it out, Cyrus turns to him with a smile. It strikes him like a whip. A cruel expression pasted over with sympathy, desperately held up on cracking toothpicks. “I saw you looking at my back earlier. Wouldn’t you much rather ask about the scar?”
Olberic’s mouth is dry. He clears his throat, tries and fails to look away from Cyrus’s gaze, and mutters, “No. I thought mentioning it would make you upset, and I quite enjoy not upsetting my traveling companion. I’m sorry I–”
An incantation interrupts the half-assed apology. A small plume of fire effortlessly zips to the kindling, alighting the twigs in a sudden and brilliant burst of orange. Cyrus’s magic rivals the sunset at their backs. And of course it would. Cyrus is the most powerful mage known to their generation. He was Hornburg’s Crown Scepter, a living, flesh-and-blood myth, one half of the whole that once made Hornburg the most powerful kingdom in all of Orsterra.
“There,” Cyrus murmurs, more to himself than Olberic. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
“I’m sorry,” Olberic says again, though he doesn’t quite know what, exactly, he’s apologizing for.
“You’ve no reason to be. I should’ve….” He sighs. “You’re so careful with me, aren’t you? You put so much care and consideration into my feelings, and frankly, it makes me feel all the worse. And that isn’t your doing,” Cyrus quickly adds. “’Tis my own mind at fault. Because I think I’d like to tell you the truth, Olberic, but I’m afraid you’ll suggest it wasn’t my fault or, dare I say it, assert that I was as much a victim as anyone. Surely that’s what such an injury would suggest, isn’t it?”
Of course that’s what Olberic thinks. Cyrus lost his liege and home to the fires of insurrection. And now, Olberic has proof Cyrus only barely made it out of the fall of Hornburg alive.
“But the fact of the matter is, I gave as good as I got,” Cyrus says. Absently, he touches his hand to the side of his face, a gesture caught somewhere between a caress and a grab.
How fitting a punishment, to burn the Blazing Blade.
What an insurmountable weight of guilt.
Cyrus sighs. His hand drops back to his side. “And yet it still was not good enough. The king was already dead when I arrived on the scene. I failed to save him, just as I failed to avenge him. The rest you already know, I suppose.”
While, yes, he conceptually knows Cyrus escaped the kingdom and found his way to Cobbleston under the guise of a traveling tutor, it’s been nearly a decade since Hornburg fell. A span of so many years grappling with what happened, and how it could have happened. Olberic was a newly anointed knight at the time, solemnly reading the news as it gradually made its way north to Atlasdam. Many a night he lay awake and wondered how so great a kingdom could fall. He wondered what he would do in that situation. Would he be just another dead soldier left on the battlefield? Would he have forsaken his vows and tried to flee, knowing the end was in sight?
Would the same fate come to Wold one day? Olberic already fears the potential of war in the Flatlands, should he fail to rescue Princess Mary. Such a conflict would be his fault, too. Because he failed to protect her from her abductors. He was too weak to stop them, too slow to follow after them.
“I cannot fathom how you feel about what happened, and if I am careful with you, as you say, it is not out of pity, but rather an attempt to respect you as a person. I didn’t decide to join you on your journey because you’re the Crown Scepter. I care for who you are now, not what you once were, or what you did and did not do.”
Olberic finally joins him by the fire. For one audacious moment, he nearly tries to take Cyrus’s hand–but that’s far too forward. They’re barely even friends. Just two travelers sharing the same road for a while, working together for their mutual benefit. Even if it feels like he’s known Cyrus for years instead of weeks. Even if Olberic very much wants to keep him in his life, long after their journeys are over.
“Cyrus, I met you as a man trying to save a little boy. That’s all that matters to me.”
Cyrus reveals nothing as he thinks that over. Then, after a small eternity, he does what Olberic could not and reaches for his hand. It’s warm. It fits perfectly within his own, like it was always meant to be there. “Thank you,” Cyrus says before Olberic’s mind can run wild with any other embarrassing ideas. “To hear that means a great deal.”
As they return to setting up camp, Olberic feels like something fundamental has changed. He can’t pinpoint the signs, but he knows they’re there. And that’s enough for now. They’ve a long road ahead of them, after all. Olberic has a princess to save, and Cyrus has an old friend turned bitter enemy to confront–two tall tasks, indeed. But Olberic knows there’s nothing to worry about. Cyrus won’t allow another beloved monarch to die. Olberic will stand by Cyrus’s side no matter what he decides to do with Erhardt.
So long as they stick together, they can do anything. And Olberic wouldn’t have it any other way.
It isn’t until Cyrus sees the wound that he finally believes the man standing before him really and truly loves him.
Their travels have brought them to every corner of the realm, and in each new locale and setting, Cyrus has borne witness to every side of the errant knight. He has seen the way Olberic smiles with a single dimple when he’s truly happy. He has seen a flash of anger in his eye when standing in the face of injustice. He has felt that comforting hand cut through all of Cyrus’s doubts to pull him from the storm time and time again.
Cyrus cannot recall when, exactly, he began to harbor feelings for Olberic, but the inception means little in comparison to the realization of requital.
He spreads his hands across Olberic’s shoulders, taking note of the gooseflesh that arises under his fingertips. “I am very cross with you,” Cyrus says, swallowing his true thoughts until a more opportune time arises for him to confront them. “You know that I am good and well capable of defending myself, so there was no sense in placing yourself in harm’s way on my account.”
As he chastises him, Cyrus sets to work, dolloping healing salve on the magic-scarred skin, wishing he had more to offer than this. The spell Olberic intercepted was not a particularly life-threatening one, but Cyrus understands intimately the pain that arises from dark magic. It curdles the spirit along with outwardly damaging flesh, leaving the target lethargic or, in more severe cases, depressed and catatonic. At least Olberic appears to suffer only from the former, despite how he pushed through the last leg of that fight out of sheer stubborn will.
Olberic sounds like he’s already half asleep as he retorts, “You were preoccupied with the Headmaster. Had I not intervened, the wisp would have incapacitated you, and Yvon would have injured you far more severely.”
“Despite what you might think, I am no stranger to a few bumps and bruises. I went through military training the same as everyone else in Hornburg,” Cyrus says, though the quip falls flat. He doesn’t want to admit it, but Olberic is right. That thing they fought in the manse–that was no mere human. Foul, forbidden magicks transformed the scholar into something ghastly and physically powerful. A solid hit from that beast would have caused more than a few bumps and bruises.
Cyrus sighs, setting the salve aside. He rests his hands on Olberic’s shoulders. “Thank you for watching out for me,” he says at last. “But you’ll not do that again, Olberic Eisenberg. If you fall in battle, who is to save your princess? These scholars are harnessing magic too powerful for any old knight to combat. She needs a hero. She needs you.”
It’s not that simple. Cyrus knows it is not that simple. Sometimes, even the best warriors fail. Sometimes, no matter how desperately and ferociously someone fights to defend those they must, the hero still loses in the end. Cyrus is neither so foolish nor selfish enough to equate Olberic’s rescue mission with that of Cyrus’s failed attempt to save King Alfred, but the similarities make him sick. The knowledge that Princess Mary’s captors seek not only war and chaos across the Flatlands, but to harness the latent ancient magic in her blood to advance their own frightful ends–it makes him positively ill.
King Alfred was a good man, and, dare he say it, a good friend. His death was a tragedy. But Princess Mary is but a child. Worse, she was a student of these monsters. They knew her personally, and yet still chose to kidnap and harm her. Cyrus will not let that stand. He will do whatever is necessary to help Olberic save her from such a cruel, sad fate.
And then, he supposes, Olberic will return to Atlasdam. King Osred will reward him handsomely for saving the princess, and he’ll likely return to his old post as her personal guard. Olberic is a natural-born protector. Cyrus has seen proof of it time and time again. The proof, literally, is right before him, staining an arc of raw, angry skin across his back. There is no one in all of Orsterra who could better defend a future queen than Olberic Eisenberg.
So Cyrus knows he won’t have Olberic forever, no matter their feelings for one another.
His eyes burn. Cyrus only just tempers his tongue before his traitorous mouth can utter, I need you.
Olberic reaches up and places a hand over one of Cyrus’s. His hands are large and rough, hardened from years of drills and training and hard work, yet there’s still a softness to them that can’t be calloused away. “I cannot save her without you,” Olberic says. “I would not have uncovered the headmaster’s part in her disappearance without you. I fear I would have never made it out of Quarrycrest had you not accompanied me. I need you, Cyrus. Not only to save her, but….”
Fighting through lethargy and pain, Olberic twists around to properly speak with him. He takes Cyrus’s hands fully, keeping them warm. “I cannot fathom a reality where I am without you, Cyrus. If I were to lose you, I would lose myself.”
“Nonsense,” Cyrus says, voice tight. “You’re too–you’re too good for me, Olberic. I’m a washed up sorcerer. A bumbling tutor with a barn for a classroom. You’re the white knight they speak of in children’s stories. Noble, and kind, and impossibly brave–”
“Only because you are with me,” Olberic gently interrupts. “You inspire me to be noble, kind, and brave, because you are all of those things. I do not particularly care if you’re a washed up sorcerer and I certainly do not care if you led class in a barn. Those things do not define the whole of you. You are more than your shame.”
Before Cyrus even registers what he’s doing, he kisses that fool on the mouth to shut him up. Panic and embarrassment rush up to Cyrus’s face, but before he can pull back and issue due apologies, Olberic takes hold of his face and deepens the kiss, leaning into it like–like a lover would, all desperate and hungry and bursting with a love that cannot be expressed any other way.
It isn’t a pleasant kiss. His mouth tastes of bitter medicinal herbs and the dull, soured taste of old magic, but Cyrus cannot find it within himself to give two shits about it, because this is the first kiss he has had in a very long time, and it’s Olberic.
It’s Olberic. A man who merely stopped in Cobbleston for supplies, but wasted no time in charging up the mountain to help him save Phillip’s life. A man who sees past all the things Cyrus was and could have been, and focuses only on the present. A man who fought for him in Victor’s Hollow. Who followed him to the ends of the earth to confront Erhardt. Who took a painful spell at point-blank for him. Who holds Cyrus now like he’s something precious.
They pull apart at the same time, breaths heaving. “I love you,” Cyrus says first. “I do. And I cannot do this without you either. I wouldn’t want to, even if I could.”
Olberic smiles. Cyrus rubs his thumb across that little dimple, and Olberic turns to kiss his palm. “Then don’t. We’ll do this together.”
Together, then. They’ll worry about what happens after the journey is done later. For now, they’ll make the most of the time they’ve got. Soon, they will save Princess Mary, and they will kill the man who brought about Hornburg’s ruin.
But until then, they’ll stick together and enjoy each other’s company to the fullest. Cyrus wouldn’t have it any other way.