New fandom! Finished playing the Definitive Edition and got a strange, uncontrollable urge to write something. So, here's my take on a concept that's undoubtedly featured in TOV doujinshi, but that I've yet to see in a long (very long!) form English fanfic. I'm aware that Raven's backstory was given more detail in a light novel/drama CD/spin-off manga, and I've looked over the Japanese raws of the last and been reading dokidokimaster's awesome scanlations on Tumblr (/tagged/kokuu+no+kamen). But, suffice to say, this will be going pretty dang AU in regards to Alexei's relationship with Schwann, and likewise all the rest from Casey/Canary's name to the post-game world order is subject to my possibly misinformed, overly liberal interpretation. Anyways, I hope I've done the setting and characters justice. Please enjoy! Constructive criticism is welcome!
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Allora, Magari
Falling (Falling Further)
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If Raven had known what a mess delivering Yuri's packet of letters would make of his life, he'd have thrown them into the hands of the first Royal Guard he met at the castle gates, maybe shouted that they were for the Commandant on his way out of Zaphias, then hied himself down to Nor Harbor quick as can be and jumped aboard the next ship back to Dahngrest or even Nordopolica. Better yet, he wouldn't have volunteered to play messenger boy to begin with.
Was Yuri's need to share all the gossipy guild news with Flynn and Estelle so great that he really couldn't wait for Judith to return to Aurnion with Ba'ul? She could've detoured to the capital in less than half the time Raven spent traveling by sea and overland, and everyone would've been happier for it, himself foremost. Privately, of course, Raven admitted he never could've refused Yuri's request, casual as it was. His life belonged to Brave Vesperia, after all, and besides, like the big old sap he was nowadays, he found it hard to deny that crazy bunch anything which might please them in some small, innocent way.
Especially where it concerned Estelle and Flynn. Whom he hadn't done any favors as Schwann, leaving them and His Majesty Ioder to root out corrupt councilmen and the last of Alexei's supporters among the Knights while he mostly bummed around three continents, occasionally four, in his rather anomalous position as the Empire's liaison to the Union and the Union's liaison to the Empire. On top of that, neither Ioder nor Harry had seen fit to revoke his authority as Captain Schwann or a ranking guildsman of Altosk, despite him being a traitor and generally negligent in his duties to both. An honorary member of Brave Vesperia, too—inducted into the five master guilds, to Karol's pride, in place of Ruins' Gate alongside the Hunting Blades, for the Blood Alliance—Raven figured hardly anyone could tell who exactly he was working for.
Honestly, it was enough to make even his two-faced head spin, during the joint conferences that sprang up every few months as the world coped with drastic changes in the wake of vanquishing the Adephagos. And Raven was fine with that! His loyalties, though many and varied, were plain for all to see, and for the most part, he just did as he felt was right. None of his current masters was as demanding or ruthless as Alexei and Don Whitehorse were. The idealism of youth, he mused, not untried but still fresh as the blossoms of Halure in spring.
Which was why, when Flynn asked Raven for a favor, he agreed. When Flynn explained further that he meant to send a number of Alexei's recently unearthed coded journals to Rita, Witcher, and the former mages of Aspio in the Tarqaron ruins, Raven swallowed his unease and let the young Commandant lead them through the castle halls as if Schwann hadn't lived there, on and off, for more than a decade.
"Since you're here," said Flynn, "I was hoping you might have some insight on where else Alexei could have secreted away his research. We thought we'd cleared his rooms and the library of all his notes but, well, then these journals turned up in a light fixture on the ceiling." He sighed, shaking his head. "I doubt we'd ever have discovered them if the workmen hadn't been removing blastia housings throughout the entire castle."
Flynn stopped in front of a closed door Raven knew, in a corner of the castle he'd scrupulously avoided after betraying Alexei. It was by then far too late to flee Zaphias without raising questions he wasn't sure he could answer. Oblivious to Raven's growing horror, Flynn unlocked the door to Alexei's personal quarters and waved him in first, shutting the door again behind them with a quiet, very final snick.
Nothing had changed, that Raven could see, aside from the missing light fixture. The furniture, all tasteful dark wood, was unmoved: bookshelves, lining one wall from floor to ceiling; an imposing desk, lodged between the two rightmost of the room's four tall windows, that adjoined the canopied bed with its wardrobe; a pair of upholstered couches and their matching armchairs around a low table; a glass-paned cabinet for serving drinks. How like Flynn to be respectful of a dead man's belongings even as he ordered every drawer and every book searched for evidence of Alexei's treason. The bed was made, pillows fluffed, and the rich red drapes drawn open, as if the maids had come to clean and air the room in expectation of its former occupant's return.
Raven couldn't help it. He felt Schwann stiffening his spine; his heels came together and his shoulders squared to create the image of an obedient soldier at attention. Only without Schwann's curtain of hair, his face was suddenly too exposed. Though he'd reported to Alexei here more times than he could count, when resuming Schwann's duties after a long stint with the guilds or his information was deemed too sensitive to be heard in the Commandant's centrally accessible office, there was something about being in this room that immediately set his hackles on edge.
Every muscle in his body screamed with an impulse to either pull out his dagger and strike swiftly, at what he couldn't say, or cast his most powerful wind spell as a distraction to escape, from what he couldn't say. That wasn't right or sane, Raven was well aware, but he didn't want to look too closely at what was wrong.
As much as he and the others joked about his conveniently patchy old man's memory, the sad truth of the matter was that there really were things he couldn't remember: people and places familiar to him but empty of any sensation, like he'd read about them in some book, not experienced them himself, and worse, gaping holes in his mental timeline of events, mostly as Schwann, that frightened him in a way death no longer did. Because if he could recall in perfect detail the men he'd murdered on Alexei's orders, what deeds of his were so terrible that his mind sought to hide them from him?
For years until he fell in with Yuri's strange collection of friends, to Raven's shame, Casey and his comrades in the Canary Brigade were in the first category. Intellectually, he knew he fought in the Great War. He remembered training as a Knight, the fellowship of his brothers in arms, and could picture his dauntless captain, peerless in his young eyes, even recognize that he admired her deeply, before it all came to a bad end, the good ones dead too soon. But there was no strong emotion attached to these memories.
He must've been mad with pain when he awoke to the hum of a blastia in his chest—inexplicably, inexcusably alive. He'd tried to kill himself, or so Alexei claimed. His own impressions of the weeks and months his body spent trying to learn how to function again were hopelessly muddled. When his consciousness finally cleared, he was Schwann. Thankfully, not so physically ill he could barely crawl out of bed, but cut off from his previous life as sharply as if he were truly a different person.
It was easier then to just pretend that was so and do as Alexei wished. Raven was grateful Brave Vesperia's chase of Judith led him back to Temza. Where he couldn't distance himself from his past or deny his ghosts their due, much as he hated it at the time. Perhaps one day he might travel to what remained of his hometown, too, and rescue those memories from the hazy isolation they were still abandoned in.
That didn't mean he had any desire to fill in the rest of the blanks. With Casey and his old brigade, his family and his earliest years of harmless, if naively blithe, troublemaking, there were happy moments he could recover to treasure. From context, however, his missing memories all involved Alexei, and that was a warning to leave them be which Raven fully intended to heed. He'd already told everything he could remember of Alexei's plans to Flynn, Ioder, and Estelle that might be relevant to reforming the Empire. Likewise, he'd shared everything he knew, which wasn't much in the end, about his blastia with Rita, who didn't need his help once she got exclusive access to the blastia itself and Alexei's research.
What was left, Raven decided, wasn't anybody else's business. Who wanted to hear about how desperate he was to please Alexei? Beyond the threat of death hanging over his head, like a sword he at last prayed would fall, Raven thought he was simply so starved for some purpose in his wretched waste of a life that even Alexei's attentions, which were probably never more than a master's for his dog, seemed preferable to none at all. Though Don Whitehorse's hand was gentler, Raven was a tool to be used either way. And he'd found a perverse sense of pride in being a finely honed one that he didn't dwell on these days, lest he slip into bad habits that would see Flynn clapping him in chains.
Difficult enough that he was forced to accept the Knights would always consider him Schwann first and foremost. Well, with the exceptions of Leblanc, Adecor, and Boccos. They only called him Captain Schwann half the time when they forgot to call him Sir Raven, bless their earnest, bumbling hearts. Both the Knights' latest recruits and the veterans of established brigades, on up to retired old soldiers like Drake, continued to hold Schwann as worthy of their respect.
Personally, Raven blamed Flynn, who couldn't quite manage to shake his regard for Schwann. Young men and women from every walk of life, dazzled by the lofty ideal of defending the now barrierless people, flocked to Zaphias to serve under the charismatic new Commandant who, besides being as young as they, was unfortunately prone to singing the First Captain's praises when he got into the mood. Schwann had nearly ducked out of the initiation ceremonies for several brigades of fresh-faced Knights when Flynn started a speech about how he was an example to them all, his promises of a dignified public appearance be damned.
He blamed the misguided notion that he was in any way critical to saving the world or fostering peace with the guilds for the others. Which he owed to Estelle and her wildly popular book about Brave Vesperia's adventures. She'd written him as some sort of tragic hero, kept captive to Alexei's madness by his devotion to the good man the former Commandant once was. His noble act of self-sacrifice at Baction featured prominently; the fact that they wouldn't have been in such a fix to begin with had he not kidnapped Estelle was glossed over and mentions of his blastia heart excised completely with a deftness he frankly admired.
The final result, at any rate, was that there were rather too many well-meaning folks who had no idea what a coward Schwann really was and, to Raven's bemusement, he was in no hurry to disabuse them of their hopeful view that not every remnant of the old regime was rotten to the core. An infinitely easier role to play if Schwann could refrain from giving Raven more reason to think him a pathetic mutt begging at Alexei's heels.
No, there was nothing to be gained in unraveling the mystery of his memories. He'd survived for years half a shadow of a dead man, half a reflection of that shadow, and he counted himself lucky that Raven proved to be made of truer substance than he believed.
As usual when he was resolved to take a certain course of action, however, people and events conspired to deliver him another fate entirely at odds with what he wished. Flynn was talking. He slowly paced the room to study the wall sconces and decorative relief carvings—presumably in search of more hidden compartments—tapping the floor here and there with his armored foot. But Raven had stopped listening.
Shadows lingered at the edges of his vision where they shouldn't exist, and he twitched restlessly trying not to see them. White and black and red, they were. The weight of half remembered conversations was suffocating. He felt dizzy, like he couldn't get enough air. And queasy with nerves, his stomach churning. "Captain Schwann, are you well?" a man—Flynn, Raven thought—said.
It was Flynn—he knew it was—but the voice twisted in Raven's ears, bright tenor dropping lower, growing deeper and darker. Nobody had asked after Schwann so damn tenderly, had cared enough for him to bother, since—he closed his eyes against the sudden stab of memory—Alexei, always Alexei. Normally, he'd berate Flynn for calling him Schwann when he was out of uniform, having given up on convincing Flynn that name and guise ought to be retired permanently.
Now, though, his tongue was leaden in his dry mouth. Raven didn't think he could summon the will to smile and banter and brush off his moment of panic if the whole world depended upon it. And panicking he was, as a hundred, a thousand forgotten memories sleeted over his mind like glass shards. The firm press of a hand on the crown of his bowed head, the ridge of his bared spine. Fingers stroking idly through his hair—no, yanking on it so hard tears welled in his eyes. A bruising grip on his wrists, his jaw. Was his hair down then or tied up? The ache of strained muscles in his arms soothed by cool sheets, a warm cocoon of blankets. Shit, shit... He remembered waking in Alexei's bed. Slicking the back of his throat was a bitter, salty wetness. Raven almost gagged at the taste.
A hand fell on his shoulder. Light as the touch was, it burned like a brand, and he jerked out of reach with a cry. Up came his dagger from its sheath and into guard position. His breathing rasped in his ears, far too fast, as his gaze darted about the room in search of the Commandant. There was only Flynn, of course, brow creased with worry. "Captain Schwann," he said again, hands raised in surrender, "it's me. Is something the matter?"
Raven wanted to laugh but was afraid he'd sound hysterical. All this time, he figured Alexei saw him as little better than a dog. Turned out that assumption was wrong, though it was for sure no comfort to realize Alexei deemed him human enough to fuck. Or perhaps—dammit, Raven had to stop his mind from reeling over every ugly implication before he did something rash, like put his knife to his own throat—Alexei just upped and decided one day that his tool had other uses than spying and killing.
That's me, all right, he thought sourly. Multipurpose and ready to serve! Had Alexei needed stress relief from long hours of being a sick, evil bastard? Raven's chest hurt, and he clutched at his blastia. The pulsing energy of his false heart warmed the metal that housed it, the sharp hooks sunk into his flesh, and seeped through his shirt into his palm, as it did occasionally when his emotions ran too hot. For a second, he could hear darlin' Rita scolding him for letting himself get so wound up. Calm down! Gotta keep my cool here... This was not the time or place to fall apart. Not in his present company.
With a mental wrench, he forced himself to focus on Flynn's surcoat: a clean, loyal blue that was the complete opposite of the rich red Alexei preferred. Hand clenched white-knuckled on his dagger, he managed to sheathe the blade, nearly fumbling an action he could do in his sleep as his arm trembled uncontrollably. The ghost of a touch brushed across the nape of his neck, and it didn't take much to imagine fingers closing tight about his throat like a collar. Lips at his ear, whispering in a voice he'd once known to obey.
"Captain Schwann?" Flynn again. Stubborner than Repede gnawing on a tasty bone. Raven supposed they both had to be to keep pace with Yuri. Alexei always called him Schwann, too, the name particularly heavy coming from him. Possessive, in a way the Don wasn't, despite each having a claim on his life, and more consuming than Alexei's creation of his identity as Schwann warranted. Or so he believed. "Can you hear me? Please respond!" With these unwanted memories crammed into his head, Raven couldn't find fault in Alexei's presumption that Schwann belonged to him and him alone.
If Raven didn't leave soon, he'd go stark raving mad and blurt out all the sordid details to Flynn. Who really didn't deserve to be saddled with cleaning up another of Alexei's messes. "H-Hey, Flynn," he said and hated how his voice shook. "Looks like I ain't gonna be able ta do ya that favor right now."
He edged away—steady, steady, can't show fear—from Flynn's grave look of concern until his outstretched hand found the wall, the door, and could begin groping around for an exit. "In fact, if ya don't mind, I'll just be goin'. Won't be back ta Zaphias for a spell, got other places ta visit"—that was the truth—"other people ta see"—a lie and hopefully one that'll send his pursuers chasing rumors from town to town as his trail grew cold—"you understand how it is."
Finally, the door handle! "Ol' Raven's in demand these days! I'll make it up ta ya later, Flynn!" He laughed, and it was a thin, pathetic sound. Then he turned on his heel and ran, not ashamed to be a coward in this, Flynn's shouts to wait echoing ignored behind him. None of the Knights standing guard or on patrol tried to stop him, to his relief; he barely noticed their confused salutes as he sped past them.
Out the castle doors, through the gates he fled and down the stairs to the public quarter before he had to slow, his lungs afire. Pay no attention to the disheveled old man panting, bent over hands on knees, in the middle of the square, he thought at the market crowds, fruitlessly. The sensation of eyes watching him crawled over his skin; he itched to gouge every inch of it bloody and raw. For once, he wished his coat wasn't such a bright purple but, no, he gripped his head in one hand and berated himself for even considering altering the colors and pattern the Don said suited Raven.
Eventually, he pushed his aching body into a brisk walk back to the lower quarter inn he was staying at. What was it about him that made people want to see him in garish clothes? The archer's set gifted to him by the Schwann Brigade and His Majesty Ioder, which he wore on missions for both the guilds and Knights nowadays when he anticipated a bit of fighting, was fine as anything his wardrobe could boast yet green as fresh shoots of grass and not in a fashion that might pass for camouflage. Hell, the staff of the Sagittarius had dug up that cheerfully lurid yellow outfit for him when Brave Vesperia was still doing odd jobs around Dahngrest. Struggling to wait tables, in this case, as a smirking Yuri relaxed at the bar with Repede.
It was soothing to remember Leblanc, Adecor, and Boccos, the pride glowing on their faces, and Brave Vesperia's antics that night. Estelle so graceful as she threaded between the tables and gracious as only a born princess could be while Karol was too embarrassed to leave the kitchen, where he was naturally roped into helping cook, his apron not so bad in the end. Rita's pleased flush every time a patron complimented her on how cute she looked; Judith, beautiful as ever, wearing a scandalous number with a queenly poise that, if Raven were honest, was more attractive than her long legs and curvaceous figure. The quivery feeling that he was holding the pieces of himself from flying asunder eased, and he swallowed a grateful sob. Until he remembered, too, that Alexei had chosen orange for Schwann.
Was there no part of him that Alexei had left untouched? Meticulous as Alexei was, it was probably no accident that Schwann was neatly trimmed in the red of the Commandant and Royal Guard. Had Alexei also stripped him out of that uniform? Raven just wasn't sure. He needed time and someplace quiet with no witnesses to sort through his new-old memories. And why, why, by the spirits, couldn't he seem to decide whether Alexei forced him or—he choked on bile, rushing up the inn stairs to his room—he was willing? Which would be worse?
Does it matter? he wondered, heaving his guts out into the small sink in one corner. Wasn't that the story of his life? Choosing when all the choices were equally terrible, only to discover later that his choices didn't change a damn thing. Casey was still dead and Don Whitehorse, Yeager, his comrades, his family gone to the grave, every last one of them, and still he lived on and on.
Exhausted, Raven stumbled over to shut the door, locking it, then slumped down to sit curled on the floor at its foot. His cheeks were wet. So he wrapped his arms around his knees and buried his face in the folds of his sleeves. Finally, he let himself cry. Great shuddering gasps wrenched their way out of him, until he felt his chest would burst from the pressure, what remained of his ribs splintering. But he couldn't stop, weeping like a child.
Some sick part of him missed Alexei. Missed Alexei's hands carefully cupping his face, Alexei's smooth voice telling him he'd done well, and the prickling heat of another's body sharing his space, so near and present. Why do I still feel for the bastard? Was he really so pathetic? He must truly be desperate for any scraps of affection, even half remembered, to return to the man who used him for years and abused him to beg for more, more—oh, please, master, please. That was the worst thing of all.
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Captain Schwann was much admired in the Imperial Knights and so the object of endless talk by the lower ranks. Word of his doings in Zaphias would inevitably reach even Alexei's ears. As overawed as the men seemed standing at attention before their commandant to make a report, it was remarkable how easily they forgot his presence when seated at an unobtrusive corner table, head bent over a tall stack of papers. These training yard and mess hall rumors usually amounted to little more than an embellished retelling of Schwann's daily routine:
A guard on the eastern gate watched the Captain ride in at dawn, his shoulders still straight though his uniform was dusty with the many leagues he must have traveled on another of his secret missions for the Commandant. (Alexei knew Schwann kept rooms at boarding houses in near every town and village from Zaphias to Dahngrest, each rented under some entirely different guise, with changes in clothes, gald, weapons, and other stores. It wouldn't do for Don Whitehorse's right hand man to be seen in the Imperial capital too often, after all, when he had no guild business there.)
The Schwann Brigade was out at the archery butts again this afternoon. No doubt part of the Captain's efforts to impress upon the men at his command that learning how to hold a bow, perhaps fire a couple arrows might come in handy. It was certainly no surprise that a warrior as dedicated as Captain Schwann had taught himself to be proficient in more arms than the sword alone, where he was a match for the best the Knights had to offer. (Schwann was far beyond merely competent with a bow, Alexei knew, the sword not his weapon of choice but one Alexei had trained him in to further distance him from the long dead Canary Brigade.)
When did Captain Schwann sleep? That was a topic of heated debate ever since the midnight patrol, espying a lantern's glow in the darkened castle halls and fearing theft, burst into the Captain's modest office to instead catch him writing correspondence at his desk. Once chuckles at the watchmen's reactions to their superior's bland inquiry about what the emergency was quieted down, speculation turned to how frequently the patrols found the Captain hard at work now that they'd adjusted their rounds to report to him. How did the man stay on his feet, never mind have the energy to spar and order them about in grueling exercises, with what couldn't be more than four hours of rest each night?
(None had guessed what Alexei knew. While Schwann regularly toiled into the wee hours of the morning appeasing the Empire's bureaucrats, whom Alexei too despised, as to the supply and running of his brigade, the guilds in contrast committed little to paper aside from oaths of membership and contracts, the financial records of Fortune's Market excepted. Filing documents was not a task Whitehorse would set for his spy, emissary, enforcer, and sometime assassin. When the Don didn't require the services of Schwann's alter ego? If the way Schwann, playing this Raven character, would seize any opportunity to be arrested for carousing and tossed in a cell to sleep off drink he didn't imbibe were an indication, Alexei had to assume Whitehorse let him do as he pleased and what pleased him best was to waste the day napping.)
Listening personally to the gossip of common soldiers would be beneath him, had the matter not concerned his First Captain. And so far as Alexei heard, Schwann was sober and disciplined, talented, intelligent, and unfailing in his every duty; he was the very model of an Imperial Knight, though rather too humorless for friendly company. Yet his habitual grimness was readily pardoned in light of his famed role in the Great War.
For who could say what horrors Captain Schwann had witnessed? If he hardly smiled and never laughed, always attentive to his subordinates but not one to fraternize after hours at the local taverns as did most other officers, well, who could blame him? That the Captain continued to hold his grief for his lost comrades so close to his heart so many years later just made him a good man. There was not a worthy knight in his brigade or, indeed, the whole order who didn't respect Captain Schwann's need to keep them all at arm's length or honor his moral courage in leading them ably despite that.
Schwann was nothing like the slovenly persona he'd created for Whitehorse. His two lives were painstakingly crafted to be as different as possible, so even the most astute observers were left with but a passing thought of strangeness. When Alexei considered how smoothly Schwann maneuvered between them, he felt a distinct sense of satisfaction for having chosen rightly.
However excellent a tool Yeager was for acquiring research materials and undermining the guilds from within, his mind wasn't as strong or steady as Schwann's. Too flighty and unreliable, full of eccentricities and prone to fits of emotion—that foolishness with the orphanage in Capua Torim—no, Alexei couldn't count on Yeager to be his second in dealing with the cutthroat politics of the Empire. Thus Alexei was almost alarmed to discover one day that some of Schwann's habits were changing.
It began with the flowers. A group of off-duty Knights was surprised to find Captain Schwann at market and not browsing the grocer's wares, the vintner's, the tailor's, or any of the other luxuries they imagined he could afford on his officer's stipend. He was instead at the florist's, and as they peeked furtively at him from behind a nearby stall, he purchased a small bouquet of flame-colored blooms, then returned to the castle without once noticing his watchers. By evening the next day, the story going around was that the Captain had a mysterious lady love. So beautiful and charming, it was said, that only for her would he let down his soldierly guard.
That was nonsense, Alexei knew. Schwann understood all too well the dangers of becoming intimate with a woman when he had an illegal experimental blastia for a heart. Alexei himself made certain to impart that warning to Schwann not long after he was resurrected a new man, by the simple expedient of sending him to silence the civilian doctor who'd confirmed his death and operated on him at Alexei's bidding. What's more, Alexei had no worries that Schwann would ever seek to break this prohibition. It was obvious Schwann hated the thing in his chest and would've clawed it out were it not vital to keeping safe what Alexei owned.
Assured that Schwann was barely fit for friendship, so thoroughly repulsed was he by his very existence, Alexei dismissed any thought of the Captain and romantic liaisons. It would not be the first time a tale based on hearsay grew in the telling. Then, during the funeral service for a Knight without family who'd died defending a merchant caravan from monsters, Alexei spotted a bright splash of color upon the grave of the Canary Brigade's commander.
Not until that moment had he realized Schwann might be trying to reconnect with his past. When he was a young rake of a noble who would've delighted in frivolous gestures like buying flowers for a lady and when he was the amiable lieutenant of a close-knit unit whose fellows would've teased him gently for his admiration of their captain. Alexei didn't care what relationship Schwann had with a dead woman, of course, but that sentiment could irreparably weaken the tool he favored most and had come to trust?
Bad enough that Yeager doted on the two girls he'd adopted, to the detriment of furthering Alexei's agenda for Leviathan's Claw. At least they served as additional leverage on Yeager when Alexei demanded his obedience. Schwann's memories of his life before, should he finally accept them as his, could only prove harmful to Alexei's cause, for they were marked by an idealism Alexei had already discarded as useless. Hope that people can do right if shown how to had no place in the heart of a man whose work relied upon his ability to deceive and murder without qualms.
Seeing the solitary fire lily, well cared for, in a vase on Schwann's nightstand later during a rare and, in this case, orchestrated visit to the Captain's personal quarters substantiated Alexei's doubts. There was something stirring in Schwann's hollow breast that Alexei wouldn't appreciate. Unfortunately, closer observation revealed more cracks in Schwann's perfect facade.
All the speculation about when the Captain took his rest came to an abrupt halt upon the head gardener discovering Schwann asleep in a tree. The elderly man narrowly dodged getting his head lopped off along with a broad swath of the hedges he was trimming. His yelling at who he assumed was some hooligan to climb down out of his prized centuries old willow startled the Captain awake and into casting a scythe of wind at the noise, though thankfully not into falling from his perch. One question about the order's most elusive commander seemingly answered, the rank and file soon occupied themselves with asking others:
Was Captain Schwann always so capable at the magic artes? While not unheard of, given the extensive repertoire of strike and arcane artes Knights were expected to master once finished with the basic weapon forms, few had the opportunity and fortitude to learn magic, too, healing or offensive, unless assigned to those support roles. That the Captain had again exceeded the norm wasn't precisely a huge shock, save for the fact that nobody guessed his skill in magic at all.
(It was he who had permitted Schwann the use of magic artes as a preemptive measure to secure Raven's standing in the guilds, whose members, Alexei knew, often could not depend on dedicated healers or spellcasters as the Knights had and trained accordingly. Now Alexei regretted not taking a direct hand in Schwann's instruction. Whatever amateur mage he'd hired in Dahngrest to teach him, if indeed he sought any formal lessons instead of experimenting blindly himself, must have skimped on the essentials. Schwann had developed the deplorable habit of substituting for a proper magical incantation with a shortened command phrase of his own invention.)
He had never cast any spell in the field or combat drills, much less one powerful enough that the head gardener was still bemoaning the utter ruination of the royal hedge maze. Nor had his name ever been mentioned as among those an enterprising young Knight might curry favor with to seek tutelage in advanced magics. And his wind affinity! Notoriously resistant to control, wind was said to be the element of the fickle and free-spirited, neither of which was a description that suited the Captain.
(Schwann may not have the temperament of a wind mage, but Alexei knew Raven of Altosk did. Even had his distinctive magic not connected Schwann to his guild persona, Alexei would have ordered him to desist from casting the rest of his spells, however helpful they might be. That style was sloppy and far too revealing of the poor quality of the artes schooling the practitioner received—or, as Alexei came to suspect more and more with every wind blade he saw, the sheer lack thereof—for a man of Schwann's reputation and resources to show. Little could be done to hide Schwann's familiarity with the novice spell, which at least he could cast wordlessly, and this Alexei imposed on him.)
The royal gardens were shut away from trespassers in a large sunken courtyard with high walls tucked into the castle's upper levels. How did Captain Schwann even get in? That was an answer the head gardener, who possessed the only key, greatly desired to hear from the Captain. So much so that the man, puffed up with rage at the affront, hounded the Captain whenever he could be found until he at last pointed out that the royal suites had balconies facing the gardens.
Opinion was split on whether Captain Schwann was serious. With no reigning emperor, the royal suites were likewise barred to entry, Prince Ioder and Princess Estellise having chosen to reside nearer the council room and the wing where the Knights were quartered. Some argued that the Captain was a man of hidden talents—his secret missions for the Commandant!—but were at a loss to explain why he would apply those talents here, others that it just wasn't honorable for him to sneak around like a thief in the night and so he hadn't, all evidence to the contrary. The head gardener couldn't believe such an outrageous lie. Especially after being reassured the suite keys had never left the chamberlain's person.
(Entertaining as it was to imagine how the naysayers would change their tune if they knew, as Alexei did, that picking locks and scaling balconies was well within the estimable Captain's purview, the whole episode was a headache for him. The head gardener was too slow and too blind to catch an intruder as practiced at skulduggery as Schwann. Having failed to keep Schwann out a dozen more times since he first disturbed the Captain's sleep, he finally appealed to Alexei for help. It galled Alexei to remind Schwann, of all the inane things, that he needn't nap on a bench or under some bush when he had at his disposal a perfectly acceptable bed in a room of his own, but remind him he did. To no avail, as the lapses continued, and tired of dealing with the complaints, Alexei was forced to grant Schwann a special dispensation to be in the royal gardens.)
Now he watched from behind a pillar upon another balcony as Schwann relieved the Princess Estellise's regular escort to stand guard on her himself. At a respectable distance, Alexei noted, half concealed by a tree and his back turned politely to her so that, unlike her previous minders, he didn't loom over her reading. Irritated, Alexei wondered if Schwann had simply forgotten that, as the royal successor supported by the council, the restrictive protection detail assigned to Lady Estellise was an intentional display of the Knights' power, lest she become more of a puppet to the nobility than she already was.
Quiet as the garden was except for the soft gurgling of a small fountain in the corner, their voices drifted up to Alexei clear enough for him to distinguish words. The Princess, seated on the grass, tried at first to concentrate on the book spread open over her lap. She soon grew too engrossed in staring at the back of Schwann's head to read, however. Closing her book with a determined hitch of her shoulders, she said, "Captain, would you share with me again some tales of your travels?"
Alexei ground his teeth. Again? It seemed there was much these days that Schwann saw fit not to inform him of. Below, Schwann was shaking his head, and for a moment, Alexei thought himself wrong to assume Schwann could be baited from his cold reserve by the Princess's pretty face and sweet voice.
"They would be of no interest to you, Your Highness," Schwann was quick to reply, tone flat, "and I am not skilled at telling them." Yet he made no move to excuse himself from her presence, almost as though he were waiting for her to take the next step in a dance they'd done before. Alexei frowned.
"I beg to differ, Captain," the Princess said firmly, and Alexei could picture the pout that no doubt pursed her lips, the spoiled child. "Personally, I've found them to be quite illuminating. Sir Schwann, you do yourself a disservice." Her bright smile suffused every line of her body as she straightened, hands balling into excited fists, and proclaimed, "You are an excellent storyteller!"
Schwann's stance was rigid and still he refused to face her, but he tilted his head in curt acknowledgment and asked, "What would you hear tell of, Princess?" At her enthusiastic request for "a swashbuckling tale of high seas piracy," Schwann paused, surely as struck by the absurdity as Alexei was. This naive little girl had no notion of what true pirates were like. It was a hard man who was willing to bloody his hands in the name of something so base as his insatiable greed for treasure, adventure, and more plunder.
He couldn't listen to this farce any longer. As he left, Alexei caught the beginning of Schwann's tale: After the legendary Captain Aifread disappeared, pirates in Imperial waters were generally a tame bunch much more inclined to negotiate the surrender of a prize than their fearsome reputation suggested. Provided one was bold enough in the parley, of course, as Madam President Kaufman of the guild Fortune's Market most certainly was, when she swindled the hapless buccaneers who'd foolishly hoped to rob her. Lady Estellise giggled at that.
Kaufman and Aifread! The latter was a sore point for Alexei, having escaped the trap he'd so meticulously laid only to vanish with no confirmation of death, and the former a persistent obstacle to his efforts to discredit the Union. Fostering prejudice against guilds was an uphill battle with the impression most Imperial citizens had of their local Fortune's Market vendors being shrewd but fair, altogether friendly and reliable sorts. A grimace twisted his mouth unbidden. What possessed Schwann to speak thusly to the Princess? There must be a reason for his recent caprices.
Yeager's instability Alexei had all but dismissed as the unavoidable side effect of having resuscitated him too late after a messier blastia transplant, given the less than ideal position and severity of his wound compared to Schwann's. But, no, Alexei did not feel it likely that Schwann was suffering from any delayed complications of his blastia. And this made the situation damnably difficult! For the blastia Alexei was confident he could fix, if it were a matter of tweaking the formula, checking it for accumulated errors, or some such repair work. Schwann's mind? A more delicate instrument by far, that he would have to be cautious not to break.
A few minutes' furious pacing in his quarters yielded a conclusion that should've occurred to him much earlier. He'd been wrong to believe Whitehorse acted carelessly in his arrogance when he chose to keep his would-be killer at his side and even bestow upon the man a trusted position in his guild.
Schwann could offer no explanation for why the Don spared his life then beyond Whitehorse's glee at the prospect of fighting him again. While Alexei understood how men of their prominence and ability might want for the thrill of a true challenge, he perceived also a weakness in Whitehorse. A certain desire to present himself as a hero, perhaps, one who would pity a defeated enemy and show mercy. Both of these motives still had merit, but Alexei should not have discounted Schwann's blindness to his own worth nor forgotten the history of the guilds and of Whitehorse personally.
The man who'd led a covert resistance movement into a successful popular uprising against Imperial rule, Whitehorse would not have failed to see Schwann for what he was: a potentially high-ranked source in the Knights, his blastia marking him as above the common run, if his combat prowess hadn't already, that might be turned to inform on his masters in Zaphias with the right incentive. And skilled as Schwann was, Alexei couldn't depend on him to rationally assess any situation that came too close to fulfilling his frustratingly chronic wish to die.
No, Alexei thought, hand clenching on the back of his desk chair, it was he who'd acted carelessly. Wood creaked under his fingers. That Whitehorse dared to so contest his ownership of Schwann was maddening... But prudence was called for here. He released his grip, shaking the stiffness from his arm, and poured himself a generous glass of red wine at his liquor cabinet. Though he may have underestimated Whitehorse's cunning, neither would it serve to overestimate his foe now.
He had eyes in Dahngrest aside from Schwann and Yeager—none so highly placed, of course, and most for the purpose of conveying his orders to one or the other—and he did not doubt that Whitehorse had his own agents in Zaphias, particularly in the lower quarter. Alexei smiled at the smooth roll of the wine in his glass. It took a great deal more effort to insert a spy into the Knights, however, than it did for one to join the guilds, who routinely recruited whatever riffraff blew in off the streets.
Despite the council's criticisms, Alexei's policy was not to induct a rabble of ne'er-do-wells looking to live on the Empire's largess into the Knights unconstrained. The selection process was rigorous, from trials of physical and mental fitness to investigations into the enlistees' stated backgrounds, the last under Khroma's uncompromising supervision. He allowed himself a chuckle at the council's horrified recoil when he proposed extending these requirements to the nobility and age-old custom of sponsored apprentices. Did those reactionary fossils truly imagine he wouldn't be able to divine their little plots to subvert his authority or appoint moles into the Royal Guard?
One additional benefit of his and Khroma's semiannual purge of council plants was that it rendered the existence of any guild spies within the ranks exceedingly unlikely. Whitehorse must surely know that Raven was an Imperial Knight of some standing, but that his right hand man was Alexei's, too? He scoffed. No, only a lunatic would suspect sober and dedicated First Captain Schwann Oltorain of haring off to Dahngrest disguised in purple, pink, and a general air of seediness when he wasn't busy marshaling his brigade or the Royal Guard in the Commandant's stead.
The paper trail of Schwann's secret missions—dangerous solo expeditions to the wilds of Hypionia in search of ancient artifacts and suitable sites for colonization—was impeccable and available for the perusal of a councilman who dug hard enough. And there was an entire contingent of Knights loyal to Alexei ready to claim that for any given period of time Captain Schwann was ordering them about on special field exercises in the vicinity of the capital. Word of which Alexei would have spread after Schwann was gone to Whitehorse's side but never so regularly as to fall into a pattern. He had yet the opportunity, he decided, to bring Schwann back into line without sacrificing all the gains he'd made.
Whitehorse hadn't realized who exactly he had in his grasp. Else he would've tightened his hold and approached Raven with the means to forsake the Empire or, failing that, killed him rather than risk Schwann reporting directly to Alexei. Instead, Whitehorse's efforts to win over Schwann were slow and, though insidious in a way, practically aimless. They seemed to be guided by the notion that appealing to Schwann's buried emotions through Raven's happy lie of a life would eventually break him free of Alexei's bonds. He drained the rest of his wine in one deep draft, resisting the urge to sneer.
First, a test of how much influence Raven's thinking had on Schwann's actions. At least, Alexei corrected himself with a sigh, when it came to matters of greater consequence than what he bought at market, where he chose to sleep, or how he told tall tales to gullible princesses, foolish as all of those were. Then Alexei would judge whether Schwann's infiltration of the guilds had to be abandoned. A few eccentricities he could abide, so long as Schwann did not betray his trust.
A month later, Alexei summoned Schwann to his office for talk of an assassination. "Captain Faulks," he said, paging through the relevant files. "Are you familiar with him?" When Schwann nodded after a brief moment's consideration, Alexei was pleased but not surprised. Schwann had a talent for remembering names, faces, and personal details that belied his reputation among the Knights for reclusiveness; it was one of the traits that made him such an effective spy. "Faulks recently announced his retirement. While I hoped to promote Cumore to his post and the garrison at Heliord, it appears he finds fault with my selection."
Cumore, too, was familiar to Schwann, and he could not hide the slight shift in his expression, the gaze of his visible eye sharpening, from Alexei's close watch. The scion of a minor noble family whose lineage wasn't too many generations removed from being upjumped merchants, Cumore was an entitled little prick who kept it no secret that he despised the opening of knightly ranks to the lowborn. Schwann, by virtue of his fame as a hero of the Great War the most widely recognized as well as the most senior Knight of supposedly common birth serving—save for Alexei himself, whose qualifications Cumore wasn't quite so stupid as to impugn—was a frequent target of Cumore's ire, though tellingly never in Schwann's immediate presence.
Neither were Cumore's deluded ambitions to crown himself commandant exactly a mystery to Alexei. He had nothing to fear in that regard, however. Cumore hadn't won many friends by disparaging the well-liked Schwann or with his comically abysmal performances in the regimental sword drills Alexei mandated even officers must participate in five times a year at minimum. But to raise Heliord as a staging base for future military operations against the Union, Alexei could use a scapegoat to implement less savory policies and speed the city's construction.
So, he continued, "I believe Faulks has the connections on the council to overrule me. That would set an unwelcome precedent of council meddling in troop assignments." They'd had discussions like this before, and Alexei appreciated that unlike Yeager, who required a blatant statement of intent to act upon since becoming head of Leviathan's Claw, Schwann followed his reasoning without being prompted to and simply proceeded to do as he wished, no need for any further incriminating direction. He put down the personnel files and, relaxing into his chair, tapped a finger on another form.
"Faulks is scheduled next week to accompany several of his lieutenants on one last foray beyond the barrier—more a camping trip than the scouting mission he submitted—then plans to repair to his secluded family holdings on an indefinite basis." There were two possibilities for dealing with Faulks, both viable. A fortified estate posed no problem for Schwann, walls no higher than those he climbed into the royal gardens and the premises not as patrolled as the castle.
If Alexei's enemies refused to show their faces outside the grounds of their mansions, they would just have to die in their parlors, their beds, and once at their dining table. With disturbances in the royal quarter under, naturally, the jurisdiction of the Royal Guard, the inquiry into Captain Faulks' murder would inevitably conclude it was the result of a burglary gone wrong and that the perpetrators had, sadly, long escaped the city, leaving no clues as to their identities or whereabouts. He was more practiced at covering Schwann's tracks than the flimsy claims of illness that marred their earliest executions. Faulks' loyal lieutenants, though, could prove to be trouble.
They were as resistant to Cumore's appointment as their captain was, and while they hadn't the rank or pull to dispute it, as any commander soon learned, you couldn't retain control over the men without the support of your subordinate officers. And Cumore was far too spineless to assert his authority in case of mutiny. "What a shame it would be for politics to intrude on his leave," Alexei added after a weighty pause.
As always, Schwann caught on quickly. Only when normally he would nod in silent assent or tell Alexei what he wanted would be done, Schwann glanced away for a heartbeat, the small movement as obvious to Alexei as if he'd flinched. Alexei felt his eyes narrowing. "You have something to say, Captain?" he asked mildly.
He is at least aware that he erred, Alexei thought, as Schwann straightened a bit more in his position of attention, shoulders stiff. The clenching of his hand where it rested upon the hilt of his sword betrayed him, but his voice remained toneless. "Captain Faulks has served the Empire faithfully for many years," he said, "and trained his lieutenants to do the same. He..." A creak of armor as his gauntleted grip seized tighter. "He would be glad for some... peace and they..."
Deserve to live? Alexei steepled his fingers and leaned forward over his desk onto his elbows. Though Schwann's gaze had again wandered during the course of his rather ponderous answer, this time receding inwards, his mind snapped back from wherever it went, Schwann blinking like a sleeper startled awake, as Alexei spoke:
"No faithful servant of the Empire would balk at sacrificing his selfish desires for the greater good." Had Schwann been swayed by the sentimentalism cultivated by Whitehorse in Raven? Or... "Cumore at Heliord is essential to my plans." Suddenly, a different explanation presented itself.
In the days following the blastia transplant, Schwann had tried over and over to undo Alexei's work. He clawed at the edges and anchors that joined the blastia to his flesh, ripping his skin into raw strips even when drugged unconscious, and nearly succeeded in killing himself with a spoon a witless nurse had left in his soup bowl despite the removal of every other piece of metal and glass from his room that Alexei had ordered. He'd been keen on wringing that woman's neck with his bare hands after he found Schwann—hardly alive, by the grace of fainting from blood loss before he could finish prying the blastia out of his chest. The madness didn't subside until he gave Schwann a remote to switch the blastia off. Or what he said was the control unit.
What that remote actually controlled Alexei had forgotten, if he ever knew. Probably a ceiling fan in some other room of the hospital. Nobody had yet devised anything like a network that could link multiple blastia cores together or to an independent command tool over a distance, but that hadn't mattered to Schwann. Nor that his blastia didn't so much as flicker regardless of how he pressed the remote's buttons, Alexei recalled. Still, for hours on end, he fiddled with the remote. Turned it ceaselessly in his hands, fingers caressing its sides and thumbing its buttons with a click, click, and a strangled sound that was half a sigh, half a sob.
Alexei stood abruptly, hands planting on his desk with a stinging thump. His fingers curled with the urge to grab Schwann by the arms and shake sense into him. "Remember who you are," he said sharply. When Schwann accepted the uniform of his new role, Alexei had deemed the worst danger safely past. Much as he would've preferred that Schwann not hate his existence and the blastia which ensured it, Alexei was forced to settle for a Schwann who wouldn't actively attempt suicide, apathetic though he was at the prospect of his own demise.
Peace may be what Captain Faulks sought in quitting the Knights, but what Alexei heard in Schwann's words was his yearning for the grave, stronger than it'd been for years. And in his unarticulated desire that Faulks' lieutenants be spared, his crippling regret that he survived where his once comrades hadn't. Why had these feelings resurfaced in Schwann to interfere with his duties now?
"I need you," Alexei said, the same argument he'd used then. "That hasn't changed. Do you mean to cast away all that we have achieved?" Had he tired of being Schwann so badly that he wanted Schwann, too, dead and gone? Alexei's breath hissed out between his teeth. To become Raven in truth? "Who are you?" It was a demand. He might have struck Schwann, if he were nearer, rage flooding his veins.
The reply was swift as he could have hoped: "Schwann Oltorain, First Captain of the Imperial Knights." It didn't satisfy Alexei, however, who scowled at how weary Schwann seemed, a noticeable slump to his shoulders. He closed his eyes, swallowing shallowly, and the shadow upon his face cleared. The stare he met Alexei's with was dull and blank as a sheet of slate. Finally, he said, "I'll take care of it, as you wish," then bowed his head before departing, every step precise.
For minutes afterwards, Alexei could only glare at the door Schwann had so courteously shut behind him. Was he aware of how erratic his behavior had grown? The strange habits, distant and distracted one moment, then as focused as ever, at turns ready to be rid of his life as Schwann and resigned to continue as him. Anger clouded Alexei's thoughts, and he had to restrain himself from sweeping the papers on his desk to the floor in a violent fit of temper.
He collapsed back into his chair, one hand kneading at his temples. Schwann was a ghost of his old dream for the Empire, before the Great War ended so many hopes. Before he saw in a ruinous flash that the rot had spread too deep, impossible to root out until all the world's callous fools—the shortsighted and blundering dross of humanity—were eliminated or cowed by force. Not even with Khroma had he shared that vision, as much as she knew of his plans. Partly because the years had taught him to be wary and partly because he could not risk exposure further tarnishing the future.
Was Schwann unworthy of the trust he'd accorded him then? No, Alexei rejected that idea. He honestly had not expected Schwann to be alive to report to him when he woke days after his surgery and the botched assassination. With him indisposed, Schwann was freed from the itinerary that kept him busy at Alexei's side or in the public eye, on recruiting missions and the traditional pilgrimages, and he might have taken advantage of the lessened watch.
Instead, he organized the search of the rubble that was once headquarters for survivors and evidence of the culprits responsible for the attack, secured the auxiliary barracks, armory, and other potential targets against intruders, ordered a constant guard upon the Commandant and rest of the wounded, pushed through emergency supplies to feed the men, heal them, clothe and house them, and to stave off despair for their lost comrades. The thousands of details required to protect the weakened Knights that Alexei would have implemented himself, Schwann had seen to when he was incapable of doing so and while under no obligation to. Alexei would never forget that.
Perhaps, he'd thought at Schwann's willingness to be his sword in the darkness, he could still achieve all he dreamt of, if there was one who understood him to follow wherever he led. A bitter laugh rose in his throat that he stifled. How naive of him, in the wake of a disastrous reversal and as familiar with the shape of Schwann's demons as he was, to believe that Schwann's resolve to stay the course he charted would always be equal to his.
Yet what could he do to steady Schwann's wavering devotion? Words and arguments he had tried. To little effect, as the most they had accomplished was to temporarily avert Schwann dying by his own hand. And the casual existence that Whitehorse was dangling in Raven's reach like a lure, Alexei could not promise. Schwann was necessarily weighed down by the strictures of the Empire, of the Knights, and his uses in Alexei's struggle to bring both to heel. Could he release Schwann from his debt?
Something in him snarled at the mere suggestion, red in tooth and claw. To let Schwann run to Whitehorse's side, Alexei's blastia in his chest and Alexei's secrets in his head? He couldn't help the peel of his lips back from his teeth, baring a smile that slit his face in two. Alexei would kill Schwann himself rather than allow that.
A week later, Captain Faulks and a number of the young lieutenants in his brigade died tragically on what should have been one last easy mission before his retirement. Zaphias was astir with rumors about how their bodies had been recovered by the search party—mangled by beasts, strewn like flotsam in a clearing of blasted trees not a day's ride from the city—and an impending monster incursion. Had the Lord of the Plains moved hunting grounds? Would food shipments from northern Mayoccia be waylaid? The council clamored for Alexei to address the threat.
Captain Schwann was dispatched to Halure with the Royal Guard, his brigade and two more in support. There he sent forth scouts to confirm the Lord of the Plains remained in its territory northeast of Deidon Hold, though all were under strict orders not to engage. In a show of altruism that marked him again as an exemplary Knight or a deft bit of political theater, depending on whom one asked, Schwann commanded the expedition return to the capital via the Quoi Woods. Monsters were routed, their skins and meat delivered to local farmers, who were reassured and whose produce was then escorted to Zaphias in a convoy that also made safe the most traveled roads. Food by the cartload, triumphant Knights, and freshly slain monsters arrived together at their destination to put the public's fears to rest.
While Alexei could not fault Schwann's handling of the campaign, his suspicions that Schwann was slipping from his grasp went unabated. Schwann had attended Faulks' funeral, looking wan and like he belonged in the closed casket in Faulks' place. The other mourners might have mistaken it for grief, assuming the two captains were well acquainted or maybe that Schwann simply respected Faulks. Alexei knew better.
Faulks and his lieutenants should not have given Schwann much of a fight in their shock at the ambush and who their assailant was. No, if Schwann were injured or had overexerted himself and his blastia, it was he who had likely hesitated and left an opening in his defenses. Each time he unleashed his blastia's stored energy, there was always a risk that it would be the last. Alexei had warned him that the more explosive, the harder it was on his body, to the point of losing consciousness.
Was he disappointed at waking, Alexei wondered sourly, still alive? He kept an eye on Schwann as he and Khroma exchanged pleasantries with the nobility after the service. And he watched Schwann's face pale further and further with every mention of Faulks' lieutenants. How he mentored them from when they were promising recruits, how he would've gladly died so their lives would not be cut short. Finally, Schwann excused himself from the company of a woman who was loudly lamenting how senseless the deaths of those poor boys were, and Alexei pursued him, with a quick word to Khroma.
He didn't wander far. Alexei felt his jaw clench, teeth grinding, at where Schwann had stopped to toe the edge of one of the unfilled graves that awaited the bodies of Faulks' lieutenants, yet to be interred in private ceremonies for their families. "Captain Schwann, are you well?" he said, as he walked up to Schwann's right side near enough to study his face. It was an effort to smooth his voice into something that could pass for concerned with his fingers tensing to grab Schwann by the chin and jerk that deadened eye away from peering into the pit before him as if praying it would swallow him whole. Not at all certain Schwann heard him, Alexei nevertheless added, "Will you be able to travel to Halure and undertake a monster suppression?"
"No matter what he did or how he begged," said Schwann slowly, half whispering to himself, "he could not have saved them." Alexei sucked in a breath, alarmed now, but Schwann continued without a pause. "I'll do as you want. Then..." Flat as his tone was, his features carved from cold stone, it burned Alexei to see a faint spark brightening beneath the gaze Schwann turned on him and know it to be a sign that Schwann had, in the heart he bestowed, begun to betray him. "Should I leave for Dahngrest?"
Treacherous as the depths of a frozen lake thawing, Alexei thought, hidden by a thin, brittle shell of ice. "Yes," he said, the words acrid on his tongue, "I expect Whitehorse will grow impatient at your prolonged absence." Schwann's eye widened a touch. Alexei, in no mood to explain his ill temper to its cause, gritted out, "After Halure, you may go," and stalked back towards the somber gathering, a furious knot twisting in his stomach.
I have no choice. Alexei waved off Khroma's curious glance, mind worrying at the problem, as he stepped into her conversation with a few of the council moderates. Schwann was his, and he would not surrender his claim to Whitehorse or anybody—anything—else. Not even the death Schwann sought so unrelentingly. Harsher measures were needed.
· · ·
TBC