Chapter Text
The King’s Blade is an unforgiving one, carved out of the pure alluring ice that masses in Evermore’s land, deadly and impossibly cold, shaped for his fingers to easily wrap around, never slipping out of his grasp.
The matter of wielding a double-edged sword is about technique, picking up slack for the holes in its defence and bathing in the sheer exhilaration from its explosive power. Facing the King’s Blade means eternity in the Ghost Realm.
Howbeit, a larger threat awaits. A prophecy clumsily stumbled out of the Shrill Witch’s mouth that forsakes prosperity and glory, the treason for which she was dismembered and her limp body parts hung on the inner city’s gates, permeating the spot with a rancid stench lasting an entire eldfather’s reign.
From the North to the East, death prepares a feast. A conqueror who knows not the path to tame his heart and the royal crown robbed, a soul who doth not play his part.
A raven takes flight and the frost shall thaw as the sun rises. Evermore’s war will not lay down arms until the King forfeits his fight and the castle collapses.
His head rolls and upon his blood spilled, a single mournful bell tolls!
And as foretold, on a dark unsuspecting winter night, Kevin of Evermore flees and leaves behind only his beloved Jean worth noting. A gift bestowed upon him by the King no gold in the world could buy.
An intimidating, straight and refined longsword the common folk compose tunes about.
O’Day’s Jean glistens under the moon
oh so bright, so light
a dangerous and ominous sight,
the iron sings and strikes fear
for when O’Day unsheathes his sweetheart,
evil has noon other wey but to depart!
When his Jean comes down,
when the tip aims for your heart,
when all is torn apart,
when the battle turns to carnage,
you shall not escape
even if you hath the vantage!
The lyrics seem to echo throughout castle halls, lap around the heavy pillars and cascade down into the dungeons, haunting the darkness and crimson stained cobblestone where the King drew his own sword against his dearest sworn brother.
Now The King sends his Blade after the runaway Raven. Assurance that the whole prophecy is not to be fulfilled. No secrets can be wrung out of Kevin’s mouth if the Blade comes for his tongue.
Yet, the hilt on the Blade has been loosening with great care in the years that have passed since the Witch’s Trial, and The Raven King is not prepared for what is to come.
The King’s Blade has a name, but it no longer belongs to him.
“I want his head in my hands soner so the sun begins rising our way,” the King orders. “Brighter days are ahead of us, my Blade.”
The Blade bows and waits for The King’s dismissal. In his head, he counts the expenses and the days it’ll take to reach Kevin, on whose side time resides. It is the one upper hand His Majesty granted him. “You need not rush. He can run as far as he favours, whiche so hole he crawls into, he will not outrun you,” The King said earlier.
“You may go,” The King finally allows. “Return to me in one piece.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” the Blade curtly responds and whirls around, heading for the door.
He visits Kevin’s chambers before setting off on the pursuit after him. Hopefully, a clue or two lying in there can point him in a more certain direction.
Jean leans against Kevin’s bed, sheathed in firm leather and bound at the hilt by flattened fae wings, a true beauty possessed by an even fairer beauty.
The Blade dares not covet it, but no one is here to see him lay a finger on it out of curiosity, and so he gently presses his bare fingers against the fine craftsmanship. He becomes daring. On the whim, he pulls Jean out of the sheath.
A low whistle rings in the room. The Blade studies Jean, turning it and staring at the scars from battles it accompanied Kevin in. Some scars remind the Blade of fights he himself aided in, some scars he recognizes not.
“You are not Kevin.”
A smooth accented voice startles the Blade and he instinctively assumes a defensive stance. His hand tightens around Jean as a substitute for his Mary and the blood pumping in his veins burns in shame at missing signs of an intruder.
His eyes rake over the room and—no one is here but him.
The missions must be taking a toll on him, the Blade thinks. A bruise at the base of his throat aches in approval.
“Who are you?” the voice says.
This time, the Blade catches on to the source. His head dips and he trains his focus on Kevin’s longsword.
He feels ridiculous even entertaining the conclusion, but his words venture out into the world nevertheless.
“I should be asking that,” the Blade says.
“…I’m Jean,” the sword replies. The sword talks!
Honest to the Realms, has the Blade lost his mind? He fishes out a vial from his pouch and unscrews the cork at the top before pouring a bit of it on Jean.
“Did you just use holy water on me?” Jean asks, silent fury edging those words.
Four Realms, listen to yourself, the Blade curses. Fury edging those words?
“I suspected Demonic Arts to be at play,” the Blade withdraws the vial and secures it in his pouch as he explains. To a sword. Because that is his circumstance as of now.
Jean stays silent.
“I am The King’s Blade,” the Blade offers. “My duty is with His Majesty.”
The sword hums. He swears to the Heavenly Realm, it hums. “Kevin has spoken about you. You must be Nathaniel.”
The Blade supposes once he embarks on the journey, he must refrain from using his title. He needs to lay low and pounce on Kevin when he least thinks it so. A predator hunting, just like how his father raised him.
“You are correct,” the Blade says. He does not utter the name Jean ties to him, he is undeserving of a name.
Stillness sullies the air and weighs heavy on the Blade’s shoulders. You’d think for someone who acts in stealth, he’d be more than content with silence, but that is not in wise the truth.
Too quiet and he hears his mother’s final words. Too silent and he hears the prophecy barrelling out of her cracked lips; her once-upon-a-time envied powers ultimately dooming her to an executioner’s cleaver and a condemned’s platform.
It is then that Jean asks, “When is Kevin bound to return?”
And the Blade knows not an answer. He lets a mere jade town night pass before stringing together an appropriate response.
“The day I bring him back,” the Blade says.
“Where has he gone?”
The Blade wishes he knew. He sheathes the sword and sits it up against the bed, attempting to remember in which position Kevin deserted it. He matches the memory as best as he can and approaches the study desk nestled between Kevin’s bed and the main arched window.
Aged books litter the space, but the one the Blade finds himself drawn to is slim, untitled, and at the bottom of a pile. The cover has begun shedding and five pages plummet to the floor as the Blade pries it open.
“A faraway land. A kingdom where the sun never sinks below the horizon,” the Blade reads out loud. “Their foxes make the finest fur. Their meat, on the other hand, is too tough and not worth the hassle.”
It dawns on the Blade at once. This is a journal. He sets it aside for a short while and bends down to pick up the mess he spilled on to the floor. He scoops the pages into his arms and notices an odd one amongst them.
Poor and coarse in comparison to the other silky pale pages his fingers brush against. Wrinkles crease its surface, rooted lines sprawling across to gather at the base. Kevin must have messily rounded it into a ball and regretted the action since the Blade discovered it straightened out.
The Blade inches it closer to his face and examines the contents. The first words address the Master—the previous King—forthright: Well-beloved Tetsuji, the letter begins.
The Blade’s eyes glide over the paper, fingers clutching harder and harder as his brain soaks in a dangerous secret Kevin’s late mother inked down and confided in the Master. Her last words make the Blade choke on his own spit.
Kevin is Wymack’s son.
The High Elder ruling over Fox Tower! The East’s Heart where the sun stands erect amidst the sky, where the people know not of the night and the heat makes even the Southborn folk shy.
Low growling jolts the Blade out of his thoughts running amok. The faint threatening sound shifts into a displeased mewl. It ricochets off the stone walls and strums the chords of unknown uneasiness hardening around the Blade’s heart.
“Jean?” the Blade tries.
A purr quivers Jean’s sheath. The Blade is certain he had not lost the firm grip on his mind, last time he checked.
Kevin’s sword, honest to Gods, purred.
The silk draping over Kevin’s bed curls along the trembles to prove the Blade not a madman.
The Blade strides over and unsheathes Jean in one fluid movement.
“Take me with you,” Jean spits out. “You must take me with you,” it repeats. The request is wild and so absurd even the court jester himself would laugh. Arming the man he has been ordered to kill? Lugging around more weight?
Understanding the Blade’s hesitation, Jean continues, “You can use me if you must. My power is unmatched. No blade remains unscathed when faced with me. It would be foolish to cling to your weapon of any sort when I stand right here.”
“Does Sir Kevin know you are a talking sword?”
“Watch your tongue. I am no mere sword,” Jean says, but does not expand upon it. “He is aware.”
“A better question, then, does Sir Kevin know you are willing to turn against him?”
“I will not answer that,” Jean says.
What possibility is there of the height of Kevin’s fondness for Jean climbing well over the Dancing Pavilion’s Peak?
It is reckoned to be the tallest structure crafted by mortal hands positioned in the dead centre of all land. They say the ancestors who built it hoped to reach the Heavens themselves, and upon touching the veil separating their realms on the roofs wrought of the hardest Sacred Dragon scales, the Gods thought them too arrogant and banished them from ever stepping a foot inside the Heavenly Realm.
The ancestors vowed to atone for their sins, and transformed their home into a trial court, swearing to the Four Realms and the Fates their justice shall be unbiased, unwavering, and united, and the evil in the world to be banished. Now their peak symbolizes not their shame, but their influence in the Human Realm comparable to that of Gods.
The Blade remembers Kevin’s utmost care for his longsword since childhood. After a rough battle, his calloused hands with dirt and blood caked under the nails would be dipped into fragrant water and scrubbed raw until pristine skin alone emerged from the basin. Only then did Kevin dare lay the sword on his lap and treat it. The Blade can picture Kevin’s small content smile meant for Jean as clear as the East’s skies.
An opportunity presents itself to the Blade. It bares its neck at him, goading him to sink his teeth in and seize it by force. The Blade accepts.
He can use Jean as bait. He will simply see to it that the sword does not fall into Kevin’s grasp.
With the winds howling and bidding the Blade a cold farewell on a long gruelling journey ahead, he sets forth with a horse and Kevin O’Day’s Jean strapped to his waist.
Gravel crunches under the horse’s hooves as they close in on Kevin—on Palmetto State. Kevin is in all likelihood heading towards there for his father.
Honest to the Ghost Kings, how could Kevin believe the High Elder would trust his bare word? The Blade finds it humorous and dullbrained, but these are the opinions best kept silent.
The Blade stops by the inns with the greatest number of patrons and sumtide pays for the latest tidings. He listens to the regular happenings and asks about a man possessing a proper and noble stature and the eyes of the Eternal Spring Lake. Other times, he points Jean at a throat or five, and the people sing like canaries on the spot.
What the Blade hears confirms his theory. He rides to Palmetto State another full night before Jean nudges him awake and tells him a further hysterical truth.
“If you feel as though the road is too long on a horse, you may fly on me,” Jean admits.
The Blade thinks himself still in deep slumber and nods, but Jean says it thrice in the following noon. The Blade is tempted and indulges in his wonder. He pays a livery stable to look after his horse in the meantime.
A mere five fingers off the ground to see how he fares is what he proposes to Jean, somewhat suspicious of the sword’s motives and alliances.
“Aye, that sounds just,” Jean says.
The sword is laid flat on grass freshly trimmed by the Blade’s practised swings. He chose a fairly desolate corner two rivers down a village.
“Do I give a command or…” the Blade trails off.
“Kevin is my only master,” Jean declines.
It sounds wrong in a way the Blade can not pinpoint—mayhap in a way he does not wish to pinpoint.
“Aye,” the Blade mutters.
“Step on me,” Jean orders.
Jean is a sword. A talking sword. One must not forget.
The Blade plants his shoes and digs into the hard shape of the sword. He hears the iron beneath his feet creak.
“Bend your knees,” Jean chimes in.
The moment he does, the sword lifts off the soil. His body thrusts into the air, barely severing touch between the grass, and hovers at five fingers length above.
“Great Empress!” the Blade curses with a voice so stout.
“You are not a jester, are you? So furiosus,” Jean scolds.
The Blade is overcome with a great desire to stomp on the sword, but who knows what the talking flying sword is capable of next? A curse dies on his tongue. Instead, the Blade sighs and balances himself, finding his core stable and steadfast in the face of a new altitude.
“Jade Town is to be our first stop in Palmetto. How fast can you fly?” the Blade inquires.
“The ride will last three days at most, you have my word,” Jean swears.
What a monstrous pace. The Blade swallows an insignificant lump knotting in his throat and braces himself.
“Let us depart,” Jean says.
“Granted,” the Blade approves.
Jean heeds the Blade’s words and shoots above the trees to scrape the clouds silhouetted by clay tiles of cottages scattered in the village. The sun tiptoes across the horizon but as Kevin described, it dips not below.
Gentle breeze bends around the Blade, whisking the russet hair out of his face and veiling him in a thin sheet of cold. It is a familiar feeling on his skin, a welcomed one.
It reminds the Blade of home. Not Evermore. A Western castle long lost to battle. Stone tooth walls and autumn coloured fields where the mornings shuddered the Blade to the bone and the nights had his back drenched in enough sweat to fill the Passing River in the Ghost Realm.
The hairs on his body spring up and tickle against the linen tunics layered under his padded leather guards and a skilfully stitched vest. He ditched the heavier armor at Castle Evermore, aware it would be a greater hindrance than an upper hand in the East. The heat would have not been kind to him.
The East’s heat is, at best, tolerable towards the Blade when he descends the sword for the final time on day three, as Jean promised. The past two days have taught him something, and he hopes to never use it again after this is over.
The Jade Town bordering the East and the South spans a third of the Ancient Mountains of Palmetto and a quarter of the Path Bridge encompassing the South’s gates.
“It reeks,” Jean remarks.
That forces a scoff past the Blade’s lips. “You can smell?”
The sword jerks and yanks the Blade along with it. His feet tangle, and in the blink of an eye, the soil connects with his face. He finds his bearings at once and swipes a gloved hand over smeared dirt on his skin.
“You forget yourself,” the Blade warns.
“Pardon me,” Jean says, not a hint of pleading in its voice.
“You are forgiven,” the Blade says in the time he rises off the ground and dusts off his clothes. “But shall this happen once more, I will see to it that Sir Kevin will never lay his eyes upon you.”
Panic grips the sword. It hisses, but dares not act more bold. The Blade sheathes Jean and fastens the strap around his waist.
He bunches the hem of his outer tunic and rubs it against his face. When the dirt transfers from his skin to the tunic and he looks a beggar no more, he walks to the front entrance of the Jade Town with a bowed head and sagged shoulders.
His footsteps are light and fast, soundless and utterly undetectable. He blends into the currents of merchants and travellers flowing in. Unremarkable insignias blur in the Blade’s vision as he slips past them and proceeds to a bustling inn on the lower hill.
Idle chatter and piercing laughter greet him first, the aromas and warmth second.
A chiefly group beats on the tables in the far right. The loudest of the bunch jumps on the tabletop and slurs to all in the inn, “Sing with me, now!”
“O’Day’s Jean glistens under the moon, oh so bright, so light, a dangerous and ominous sight!” The voice carries throughout the entire room.
Her table joins in and chants in chorus, “The iron sings and strikes fear, for when O’Day unsheathes his sweetheart, evil has noon other wey but to depart!”
The Blade pays no mind to the rest of the song. He heard it countless times ere now.
When his Jean comes down,
when the tip aims for your heart,
when all is torn apart,
when the battle turns to carnage,
you shall not escape
even if you hath the vantage!
“How may I serve you, good sir?” the innkeeper calls out upon his arrival at the counter.
“I am in need of a room. Any will do.” The Blade slides three round shiny gold coins across the bar and weens a key in exchange, but no such thing happens.
“I am terribly sorry, sir, but the last room just went to the man over there,” The innkeeper apologises and tips his head in the direction of a cloaked figure.
The Blade’s heartbeat quickens. The figure is lesser in stature in comparison to him, but one would be blind to not notice the broader shoulders and the built trunk, all heavily armored and partly covered by a cape twelve fingers length above the wooden floor.
The key to the Blade’s shock lies not in the intimidating air around the figure, but the tawny fox head on the hood.
“Great Empress,” the Blade curses under his breath. This is a knight of Palmetto. A Fox.
To his dread, the knight sluggishly twists his head and casts him a knowing look.
Air takes flight out of the Blade’s lungs at the closer glimpse of him.
A sunset seeps through cracks in a forest on the brink of browning in the knight’s eyes. His eyelashes flutter, as pale as the snow in Evermore, and the Blade is sorely fettered in the sight of him.
The Blade weaves a false heart-rending story in his head and strolls over.
“Good sir, is it the truth you have been sold the last room?” the Blade softens his voice, rounds his vowels and slows down his tongue.
“It would seem so,” the knight says flatly. He purses his lips into a thin line. “What of use is that business to you?”
“The Heavens will save a spot for you in their realm if you spare me a shred of space in the room, Sir,” the Blade begs. “I have travelled here for my aunt’s burial at daybreak, an entire two weeks on the road with barely any food or companions. But alas the Demon Realm has me for a greater fool; to crown it all, I have been robbed!”
The knight’s lips twitch at the corners, oh so amused, and he raises one eyebrow at the Blade.
Now, the Blade regrets wiping the dirt off his face. Mayhap a beggar appearance might have tugged on the knight’s heartstrings better. No matter, the Blade must do what he can.
“Robbed, but you wished to be provided a room at the busiest inn in town?”
He heard me ask for a room, the Blade understands.
“They are the only coins I have left after the robbery,” the Blade says. “May the Heavens strike me should they deem my words that of a dastard.”
“It is hard to believe a greedy man leaves you with anything to begin with,” the knight says. “Your clothes, your sword, your coins.”
“Belike a good soul pushed to his limits rather than a man infected by greed,” the Blade answers. His face never falters, his body still as the water in the Northern lakes. He must be persuasive. “Needed ‘nough coins for food, shelter, any sort to survive ‘nother day.”
“Is that so,” the knight says, unmoved and doubtful, his attitude unbefitting that of what the common man pictures when he thinks ‘knight’.
It is not rare to stumble upon knights who kneel before the Upper Realm folk, but deem the Lower Realm worthless. The Blade’s ragged disguise screams Lower Realm scum.
During the earliest ages, when the Gods had not yet forged the Heavens and the demons had yet to plunge the humankind into a savage bloodbath, the Human Realm split into two, grounded in spiritual prowess and influence, and thenceforth the mortal world bore an Upper Realm and a Lower Realm.
Jade Town has the materials to blossom into an Upper Realm town, standing amongst even the likes of Castle Evermore, and yet, their streets are in a poorer condition than the barren roads the Blade skimmed through on his journey here.
It is no secret as to why. The name bestowed on the wasted locus has root in the finest smooth stones the town is teeming with, the riches they are notorious to be stubborn about. Their path to a better future in their grasp left to rot.
The town itself borders not just the East and the South, but the Human Realm and the Ghost Realm.
When the first humble abode was built here, the Ghost Empress descended her palace and struck a deal with the family huddling underneath a hatch roof with bare feet and no food. The father offered his soul, but the Great Empress saw no worth in it unless both he and his wife surrendered their lives as a married couple.
She granted them their wish, and in return, wanted two wishes of her own fulfilled to uphold their deal. First, the jades must not fall into the wrong hands. Second, the town must send twenty married couples to her realm each year.
And so the abundance of jades, undeniably touched by the Great Empress’ spirit, grew and grew, but the number of buyers dwindled.
Who is to say who the wrong hands are? That is for the locals, and none but.
“It is so.” The Blade holds his ground.
“Find a new inn,” the knight coldly says.
The Blade frowns. “This is the only inn in town.”
“Yes, and you have feet, do you not? Find a new town,” the knight insists.
“My aunt’s burial is at daybreak. The journey to the nearest next town alone would take me full three days, and that is if I rush,” the Blade says.
The knight’s shoulders stiffen and his eyes narrow.
The Blade hears before he sees.
Iron cutting the air, a sword unsheathing and aiming at him!
His fingers draw Jean against the knight’s blade. A bone-chilling clank and bright sparks flying from the joined parts usher the inn into silence.
The knight bridges the gap between them in an instant. His wide cape flutters in the aftermath.
Dull pain wracks up the Blade’s arms as he bears the brunt of the knight’s attack. The knight presses his sword into Jean further and the Blade grips the hilt tighter. His hands shake not, but his feet scoot a step backwards.
“Do pray tell, good sir, what do you employ yourself with?” the knight throws out at ease, playing as if they are not deadlocked with swords intending to cut down one another.
“I am a humble traveller,” the Blade says in a low tone, rough around the edges, dropping his earlier performance of a pitiful mourning nephew.
“Do other humble travellers such as yourself oft withstand the force of a grand knight?” the knight says.
The Blade sews his mouth shut. The High Elder Wymack has very few grand knights under his wing.
“Hm, have you, at last, matched a name to this face?” the grand knight says.
“I see the rumors were false, then,” the Blade pretends he does. “They say you are not fond of the outside beyond the Fox Tower’s walls,” he lies.
“I do not care for gossip,” the grand knight firmly says.
At once, he withdraws his sword in an arched swing, and the Blade follows suit. Jean hums quietly at his hip, but utters not a word.
“Sir Andrew Minyard of Palmetto,” the grand knight introduces himself, a hand outstretched and welcoming the Blade’s hand.
The Blade spurns the gesture with a stoic face and clears his throat. “I am Nathaniel,” he says. It unravels something he thought long forgotten. A pit in his stomach threatens to swallow him whole. He bites down on his tongue, hard, to drive away the feeling.
“Of nowhere,” he adds.
“I find that hard to believe,” Andrew says.
“It has been found for you, then,” the Blade says.
“So be it,” Andrew hums and lowers his hand. “After me.”
He brushes off the patrons’ stares and the turning heads and marches to the stairs stretching into a spiral behind the counter’s walls.
Upon the Blade’s presence not at his back, he glares from the first step on the stairs. “You wanted a room, did you not? Unless, of course, the dirt outside makes a better bed.”
The Blade races after him and climbs the same step on the stairs. “Aye, Sir Andrew, the Heavens look down on Your Worship favourably tonight.”
Fleeting amusement glimmers in Andrew’s eyes. “I do not care for the Heavens.”
“…The Great Empress looks down on Your Worship favourably tonight.”
“I do not care for the Ghost Empress.”
“I am in your debt, Heavens thank your boundless benevolence,” the Blade says.
“Out of all, I care for you the least,” Andrew scoffs. “Benevolence? Do not make me laugh. My sword was at your throat.”
“And now it is not, and I have a room to stay in for the night,” the Blade counters.
“You are quite the traveller, Neil,” Andrew says.
“Nathaniel,” the Blade corrects.
To deaf ears, it seems. “Neil will do,” Andrew says.
“A grand knight is incapable of pronouncing a full name?” the Blade ridicules.
“His Worship hath no desire to utter the full name,” Andrew says.
“Very well, Your Worship,” Neil says.
Their room is located on an upper floor. As they say in the East; the closer to the sun, the closer to fortune.
Andrew jams a key into the door and unlocks it.
Jean mentioned it before, but it does reek. It was less noticeable outside, mingling with the stalls’ snacks and fragrant trees, then down at the counter, masked by cooked meals and alcohol, but up here, it penetrates Neil’s nose.
A foul rotting scent clings to the floorboards, the ceiling and the walls alike.
“It smells like death in here,” Neil mutters, his face scrunched.
Andrew’s brain busies itself with an entirely different matter. His eyes burn a hole through the bed sulking in the left corner.
The one bed in the room.
Andrew pinches his nose’s bridge and solemnly stares at the floor. “You may have it.”
Forthwith, Neil remembers. Grand knights, of any land, swear a soul-binding oath. They are sacred vows shared between the Gods and their chosen incarnations.
He wonders how many vows the Palmetto Grand Knights shoulder. It can not even begin to compare to the one thousand nine hundred and nine vows the Grand Ravens Knights swear to live by. Well, two Grand Raven Knights.
Riko Moriyama, who ascended to the throne, and Kevin O’Day, whose title His Majesty wished to elevate to that of a Duke’s before he fled.
The vows frame a codex for the knights to abide by.
The strong protect the weak, Never put your needs above that of a common man and Never turn away from one who seeks help are the first Palmetto Vows that come to Neil’s memory.
This means Andrew never truly planned on throwing Neil out on the streets, Andrew simply made a fool out of him for his own entertainment. Neil, who forgot of the existence of the Knight Oath.
Andrew, the arshole. So chivalrous. So knightly. A charmer, indeed.
“Many thanks to His Worship,” Neil humbly accepts, much to Andrew’s teen.
A thick bamboo screen shields a round tub far away from the window. Neil is more accustomed to hard wooden screens from the North, but it feels sturdy and sufficient under his fingers’ pressure. He judges the painted strokes on the screen, a blend of nature’s wildest maidens swayed and layered to birth a woman adorned with beads, hair tied into a high bun and wrapped in long flowy robes frayed at the bottom with flames.
Eerie green fire hoards the space on the screen; a symbol of decay and the Ghost Realm. That, along with a phoenix crown painted on her head tells Neil who she is at once.
“They certainly made the Ghost Empress look flattering,” Andrew says as he leans in to inspect the painting alongside Neil.
Maladroitness hangs in the air, and any ideas on how to thaw the stiff cold between them is lost to Neil.
Andrew speaks little and calls for soap and clean bathing water to be brought up.
Neil hears his armor and robes come undone behind the screen and sees his silhouette dipping into the water.
Steam rises out the tub and gathers at the ceiling, heating up the whole room. Faint sweat pools on Neil’s back under his tunic. The blazing sun piercing through the openings in the window worsens the sweating.
“Humble traveller,” Andrew mocks, “I have to ask,” he prompts.
How toilous would it prove to be to behead Andrew the very next breath he sucks in? Neil lacks faith in his ability to carry out the attack. He was trained for stealth, apt and fast strikes, not protection like Andrew.
Then… poison? But a grand knight’s vitality differs from an average swordsman. Who knows how much poison Neil might need to encumber him?
“My tongue lies at your mercy, Your Worship,” Neil says.
“When did the message of your aunt’s death reach you?”
“Two weeks ago,” Neil says. “I set off the day I received the tidings.”
“I see,” Andrew says, and that is that. Or Neil thinks so, at least. “In such wise, I will accompany you to her burial,” Andrew adds.
Neil lurches forward, abandoning the bed’s edge he was perched on, and claws at the bamboo mat and the rosewood to not break his jaw on the floor.
“No such need, Your Worship, I dare not possibly hinder you like this,” Neil profusely declines.
“Malevolent spirits sense souls weakened by grief,” Andrew says. “Your life will be in danger. As the knight closest to you, it is my duty.”
And Neil knows not an answer to dispute those claims.
“A simple warding talisman will suffice, Your Worship,” Neil opts for.
“Nay,” Andrew says.
Neil wishes to refuse, but it is not in his powers to do so. “As you wish,” he says.
In the stead of more flat-toned irksome words reaching Neil’s ears, a groan chokes the air.
A dull crash shakes the floor so hard, it sends trembles up the bed’s legs.
The lack of a familiar silhouette pulls Neil in with great urgency. He hops off the bed and rounds the screen to discover a bare Andrew crumpled on the floor, hair stuck to his face and the water dripping everywhere.
An innkeeper’s nightmare unfolds before Neil’s eyes; the water seeps into the floorboards, treating fresh wounds in the wood—chipped parts broken off by the tub’s landing.
Andrew’s built muscles glisten in the light, edges soft, hard and firm in all right places, and a pillar belonging to the Heavens themselves. The monstrous size diverts Neil’s gaze to Andrew’s bandaged shoulder.
Crimson blooms beneath the wet linen cloth coiling around a presumed injury. Sloppy work for a grand knight.
“I was untying my bandage,” Andrew drawls out. Pink dusts his ears, and Neil prays to the Heavenly Realm he does not so much as smile. This is ridiculous. …And an opportunity.
From day to day, the Master instilled into Neil to see matters in sundry lights, never a lone one. The grand knight’s clumsiness is laughable, yes, but it is the key to opening the door to Andrew’s inner soul.
Neil determines it a good idea to not insult the knight and lend a helping hand, two helping hands even. Mayhap it buries half the impression Neil left on Andrew downstairs.
“May I lend a hand?” Neil keeps his focus on Andrew’s face. Do. Not. Look. Down.
Andrew curls his shoulders inwards, not so keen on the offer, but he clenches his jaw and grits out, “If ye be able.”
In end, they settle on the bed together with Andrew clothed and the bamboo mat shifting under their shared weight. Then, Andrew shrugs off his inner robe and gives Neil his back. It appalls Neil, his heart spiking upholding the claim, and the aching in his arms from their clash downstairs seemingly fades.
Does Andrew trust himself so? Does he think Neil weak and lacking the strength to leave a scratch him? Perchance both, perchance neither.
Neil loosens the linen cloth around Andrew’s injury and scowls at horrid silk sutures adjacent to the knight’s shoulder blade.
“You did these yourself, Sir Andrew?” Neil says.
“I lack eyes on my back, lest ye be blind,” Andrew says, and Neil battles his fingers itching to drive Jean into his back.
“Pardon me,” Neil says.
Andrew winces as Neil rips out the silk sutures, but sits without passion when he slices off the dead skin clumping around the wound. By chance, Neil cuts into a bit of living flesh as well and thin blood trickles down Andrew’s back.
“Pardon me,” Neil repeats. He could be mistaken for a repetere bird, echoing likewise words over and over.
Neil clasps the silk string and smooths out the skin with his thumb. Andrew passes him a needle from his trousers’ pocket and Neil loops the string around it.
The needle’s tip sinks into Andrew’s back. Neil skillfully braids a pattern, straight precise lines lapping over one another and biting into the wound.
“You have careful hands for a humble traveller,” Andrew says.
“Many thanks, Sir Andrew,” Neil says.
Neil chops off the waste at the end of the string and ditches the ragged linen cloth on the floor. Andrew risks an infection should he continue wearing it. Once the task is completed, he distances himself from the knight.
For an East man, he is oddly cold. Neil shares a similar predicament, his body warmth is not ordinary for Northern folk.
“My pleasure, Sir Andrew,” Neil says.
He hands Andrew the needle, but the knight does not retrieve it.
“Sir Andrew?”
The knight slumps into Neil’s arms. Up close, Neil marvels at the colour of his lips, rosier and plumper than the South fruit.
Had Andrew fallen into a swoon?
Hold! An enemy rests unaware and vulnerable in his touch!
“Jean,” the Blade calls out.
The sword hums and flies out of its sheath. It floats at the Blade’s side.
“Long time no hear, Nathaniel,” Jean says.
The Blade grabs the hilt and slants it against Andrew’s throat, wholly prepared to slit the soporales in one single slash.
A voice outside their door knocks the sword out his slippery hands.
“This room?” The innkeeper, the Blade acquainteth himself with.
“Aye,” an awfully familiar voice says. “‘Tis be it.”
“Sir, you need not stick by me. I will see to it done without burdening you any further,” the innkeeper says.
“By your leave,” Kevin says.
“Godspeed,” the innkeeper says. The Blade hears no retreating footsteps, but knows Kevin returned to a room somewhere in this inn, his faint spiritual trail on his heel, his true power likely disguised. The Blade swears to His Majesty, he shall find the location before the day’s final hour.
Knuckles rap against the door. “Good sirs?”
The Blade rolls Andrew on the bed flat, straightens a woven wool blanket over him, and sheathes Jean. He rushes to the door and unlocks it open.
“Good sir! I mean no harm, but a patron spoke of water leaking from his ceiling, and the room above his happens to be yours, you see,” the innkeeper says.
“It is no trouble at all,” Neil comforts. “Please, do come in.”
The innkeeper steps over the threshold and screams his lungs out. Temptation to silence him with Jean washes over Neil. Can the innkeeper not see Andrew still in slumber?
“Heavens’ Grace, you have brought chaos to the room! Look at the floor! Look at the puddle!”
Neil fetches gold from his pouch, half of the coins His Majesty blessed him with. He pours it into the distraught innkeeper’s palm and observes the knitted eyebrows on the man’s face melt.
A timid smile spreads on the innkeeper’s face. “Aye, good sir, I will have a talk with the patron.”
“Gramercy,” Neil says and guides him out into the hallway. The innkeeper’s figure shrinks as he descends the stairs, seeking out Kevin.
The Blade seeks him out, too.
The innkeeper and Kevin trade hushed words and murmured quarrels. Fury bulges across Kevin’s forehead in the form of a pulsing vein.
“Gods’ wounds!” The Innkeeper combs through his hair in frustration and stomps on the floor. “Away with thee!”
“I paid for a full week,” Kevin says. “Return me the coins.”
“Who will testify in your stead?” the innkeeper says.
“You—!” Kevin yells, but the innkeeper cuts him off with a dismissive motion.
“Pack your belongings! The room best be vacant by the time the night passes!”
The Blade dunks his fingers into the darkness of his sleeves. He caresses a woven bracelet hooked around his wrist and thumbs the blessed metal binding it; a silver eye imbued with deceit.
The air thins and the Blade loses sight of his own body.
“Heavens be with you,” the innkeeper bids Kevin farewell and turns the corner in the hall. He crosses paths with the Blade, now invisible to the naked eye, and descends the stairs.
Kevin sees the Blade not, but his instincts do it in his stead. He whips his head around and stares intently at the spot the Blade stands.
“Jean?” Kevin whispers, unsure.
The sword purrs and shoots out of the sheath. The invisible protection of the bracelet cracks.
“Kevin!” Jean yells back, and the Blade curses under his breath.
The Blade seizes Jean in a bruising grip and buries the entire blade up to the hilt in the floor. Jean struggles, stuck and wobbling in the wood. For good measure, Neil latches a Thousand-Skies Talisman onto the hilt, activates it with his spiritual energy, and the sword sinks deeper.
A whimper comes from the sword, “W..hat i..s th…is?”
The talisman hurls the weight of a thousand skies on anyone it embraces. And a sword, it would appear so.
“Nathaniel,” Kevin greets gravely. He knows he can not outrun The King’s Blade.
“The King wants your head.” The Blade reveals a spare dagger tucked under his vest. He brandishes it with a flick of his wrist. “And I will gladly deliver.”
Kevin favours his right side. His left arm shies away from the Blade’s sharp eyes.
That must be where His Majesty struck him on the night he fled.
The Blade flings the dagger and it curves. It whistles and cracks through the air. It lodges into a wall hair’s breadth away from Kevin.
Not possible, the Blade thinks.
Kevin’s feet glide across the floor, his forefoot angled to escape. He knows he will not come out victorious in the chase between them, but he is not a man who permits death to sing him to sleep. Nay, he rather fight tooth and nail before death drags him to the Ghost Realm.
“Will you abandon Jean once more?” The Blade takes a shot in the dark.
The firm features on Kevin’s face crumble and he darts a contrite scowl towards Jean embedded in the floor.
“No I…” His body goes rigid, his breath stutters.
In spite of his guilt, Kevin bolts. The Blade recovers his dagger and runs after him.
“K..evi..n, wha..t ab..ou.t t..he cur..se? Wh..at of th..e pr..omise yo..u m..ad…e me?” Jean’s voice chases after them both. “Yo..u lie!”
They leap out a window. Shards of glass scrape against the Blade’s simple garments.
He lands on hard-packed earth and dives through the dust cloud it summons.
Kevin’s stature amongst the people outside is not what stands out, it is his grace. His steps are fluid and each one holds unshakable conviction; I will not die lying down.
That is fine with the Blade.
As long as Kevin’s soul boards the boat sailing across the Passing River, the Blade does not care for the methods used.
Scarcely any people group in the streets as it is night, although the sun hangs high in the sky. It happens so that due to the Ghost Realm bordering the town, it does live through a night sky every day, but the darkness lasts a mere fraction—blink and you miss it—unlike the rest of the East.
Most locals have gone to sleep at this hour, making the only witnesses to the Blade’s chase insignificant drunkards.
Kevin’s hair bats in the wind as he ducks and jumps.
The shadow of his running figure stirs something within the Blade.
He sees not a traitor to His Majesty, but a sulking boy dashing through piles of snow.
—
Nathaniel cupped his mouth and called out, “Kevin! Come back!”
“Go away, Nathaniel!” Kevin cried out. He tripped and disappeared under a soft white pile. Nathaniel heard the crying swell.
His hands plunged into the snow and found the crown of Kevin’s head. He pulled the boy out and laughed madly, the sounds blowing away with the wind.
“Are you and His Highness quarreling again?”
“He is so infuriating!” Kevin sobbed. “I want to go back home.”
“You are home, Kevin,” Nathaniel said, confused.
“I am not, I am not..” Kevin shook his head, tears streaming down his freezing cheeks. “My mom is not here…I miss her so..”
Kevin choked on his sobs. “Your mother is very well alive, how can you understand me?” he weeped.
“I do not have to understand you, but I can feel for you,” Nathaniel said. He dabbed tears off Kevin’s face with his sleeve and shivered. “You will freeze to death if you stay here. His Highness does not wish for that.”
The corner of Kevin’s lips hiked up. “It sounds bizarre hearing you call him like that.”
“And so will you when the time comes,” Nathaniel said.
“…Can the moment simply not arrive?” Kevin asked, voice barely above a whisper. “I want to stay like this. I want to stay Kevin and Riko. Not His Worship and His Highness.”
“Time does not wait for anyone, Kevin.”
“Is that something your mother said?” Kevin hit the target.
Nathaniel blushed faintly and nodded. “She is the Oracle, I best heed her words.”
“But she said you will not be knighted,” Kevin said.
“I know,” Nathaniel sighed. “It matters not. You and I will become knights, by hook or by crook.”
“From Land to Heavens,” Kevin agreed. “I suppose even an Oracle is not capable of being aligned with the Fates all the time.”
Nathaniel opened his mouth to respond, but the cold rattled his bones and he sneezed. Snot swayed under his nose.
Kevin burst into a cackle and clutched his stomach, his tears dried and faded. “Honest to Gods, you look a fool!”
“Shut up, Kevin!”
—
The memories of a past before the Witch’s trail—his mother’s trial—arise and taste like ash on his tongue. Whoever told him that fondest memories taste sweet speaks no truth. They are bitter, dry, and acrid.
They taste like pain. They taste like longing for a place the Blade knows he can never return to.
He forbids himself from dwelling on it any further and bites down on his inner cheek. It draws blood and he savours it.
The Blade vaults onto a roof, steering clear of visible sight, and maps out the neighbourhood.
Kevin passes an alley and corners himself at a linked street uphill. He mimics the Blade and sweeps over the roofs in one elegant leap.
The Blade hunts him down.
The sun casts a glance at them, tawny heat beating down their back. So why is it snowing?
Pale specks fray his vision’s edges. Is he suffering an illusion? What tricks is Kevin up to? The Blade thought his spiritual core weakened from the clash with His Majesty. Was it all a lie?
The Blade needs to rid the world of Kevin. It is his duty to The King.
But does he want to serve The King?
It matters not.
Weapons feel no want. His King says, and the Blade does. It is atonement for his mother’s treason, and he must comply.
Yet, it sickens some part of him. He blinks and her eyes flicker in the darkness, the light in them bottomed out. Spurting crimson ribbons as the cleaver hacked her into pieces. Her head impaled on a staff and paraded around the city, a show of what fate awaits those who betray the Royal Crown.
They beheaded his father next.
And the Blade winded up alone, no honor, no title, only his family’s sins to bear. He remembers the Evermore dungeons and the chains chafing around his wrist. Worse, he remembers all five years he spent down there.
His vision is blurring. The Blade wipes a gloved hand over his face and it returns wet.
This is wrong.
The Blade feels not. The Blade lives not. The Blade…cares not.
He chucks his dagger at Kevin and it pleasantly connects with his calf, punching an opening through his trousers.
Kevin staggers and drops to his knees. He smothers a grunt with his hand and tears his eyes away from the scenery ahead.
No more running.
A faint voice in the Blade’s head murmurs, “You or him?”
Snow dances around Kevin, a stark contrast to the sun behind him. Once the Blade takes his life, the illusion will surely perish.
The Blade towers over Kevin. He locks eyes with him and Kevin strains his neck to hold the mutual gaze.
He looks too similar to the boy in the Blade’s soft lingering memories. The Blade can not stand it.
A kick cracks Kevin’s nose. Blood spatters onto the roof.
Still too similar.
Knuckles break skin. The blood pouring out adds an awful squelch to the Blade’s punches.
The Blade’s breath hitches and he digests Kevin’s appearance in slow, numb blinks.
Swollen eye, crooked nose, wet coughs slick with blood—beaten past knowing, no skin spared. No man can put the name to the face anymore.
Killing Kevin in this manner should weigh less on the Blade’s shoulder, right?
The Blade’s heart clenches, and he fears.
“Close your eyes, Kevin,” Nathaniel softens his voice.
Kevin rebels even in the face of death cradling him.
“No,” he coughs.
The Blade lifts his hand and flattens it against Kevin’s eyes. They carry on resembling the boy in the Blade’s memories, and it haunts him as great as his mother’s tranquil visage when her heart beat for the last time.
“Nathaniel,” Kevin weakly croaks, terror laced in his words. It does not hurt the Blade. It does not. It must not.
“The Ghost Realm waits for you, Kevin, why prolong this?” Nathaniel says, but his voice wavers.
“It is you who prolongs my death,” Kevin says. “Not me.”
The Blade can not disavow his words.
—
The gown she wore oft was stained, the sewed patterns she adored lost under a sea of red.
Her unkempt hair clustered at the base of her neck, stubbornly clinging there thanks to fresh blood. Nathaniel wanted to touch her face, kiss her forehead, and swear to her he will never disobey her words again should she open her eyes.
But the kiss he planted on her cheek three weeks ago was his last ever. And Nathaniel had not known at the time.
He regretted not visiting her more. He regretted not laughing with her more.
A hand unfamiliar with gentleness grasped his wrist. Nathaniel flinched and backed away from the severed head he was reaching out to, unbeknownst to him.
“Do not shed tears for her, Nathaniel. They will see you, they will think you a traitor in cahoots with— with the Witch,” Kevin said.
Nathaniel nodded and inhaled a sharp breath.
When his mother’s vision suited the King, they called her an Oracle. When it ceased to benefit them, they called her a witch. The Shrill Witch, named for her screams that plagued the city day and night, an echo of her agony when the executioner brought down his cleaver.
They had started with her legs.
Nathaniel remembered the cruel snap of her bones.
“I can not understand, but I feel for you.”
Kevin’s words meant the world to Nathaniel. Kevin meant the world to Nathaniel. For his true world was slaughtered before his very own eyes and gone, never to smile at him or pet his head ever again.
—
The Blade digs his dagger out the calf and tilts it against Kevin’s soporales. His hands do not shake, he tells himself.
“Sleep, Kevin. Dream for the both of us,” Nathaniel whispers.
He swipes the dagger across Kevin’s throat.
No blood rushes out. The Blade missed.
The dagger slips out of his hand onto the roof and the sun’s light glints off it. The Blade catches a glimpse of himself reflected in the iron, his curls framing his face dishevelled from sweat and running.
Darkness hardens his eyes and restlessness sags his face. The youth in his cheeks is hollowed out and his lips are dry and cracked.
His arm rests on Kevin’s chest, and the Blade feels the shallow rise of it. Kevin is alive.
I want that, the Blade thinks. It is a thought left unsaid, yet the world appears to hold its tongue as if he was heard by the Heavens themselves.
Will the Blade truly let The Crown take all the people he cherishes?
Nathaniel lost the chance to live years ago, reborn as the Blade, but the boy full of dreams lives on in Kevin.
Will the Blade kill the last remaining piece of Nathaniel?
He…can not.
He refuses.
He uncovers Kevin’s eyes and rises from the roof. The snow in his vision melts, and the sun no longer feels like an enemy.
It is as warm as Neil and it welcomes him amongst its people in the East. The streets below them look like life’s paths freshly unlocked, every corner and alley leading to an entirely different outcome. Roads Neil dared not step a foot on before as the Blade.
“The High Elder returns to the Fox Tower in a week,” Neil says. The sun blinds him, and for the first time, he wishes for it. The world drowns in light, it washes away the shadows and along with it, he hopes the sins staining his rough hands.
Kevin sits up and prods at his swollen face with tender fingers. “Why did you spare me?” he chokes out.
Neil does not search for an answer he already knows.
“I want to dream for myself,” he declares in a voice stronger than ever. This is the right path. The sense of discomfort and wrongness on his skin peels off, and he is reborn anew.