I hereby relieve you of command of the Red Wings.
The king's words echoed through Cecil's troubled mind again and again, and it seemed the numbness that seized his heart in a vice grip since Mysidia only spread as he and Kain set out for the valley. He was only scarcely aware of the weight of his dark blade cleaving through scale and bone, blood and ichor splashing bright against the obsidian steel which encased him. Again and again, Cecil tirelessly swung the blade, dispatching the mindless creatures that infested the road with all the precision and deadly skill he'd honed through years of training. Again and again, as if his sword were light as air.
The weight of that sword was trivial when measured against the weight of his sins, in truth.
At this time the previous day, it was the blood of innocents staining his armor, and Cecil firmly believed that monsters were far more satisfying an opponent. There was a certain comforting simplicity in their aggression, evoking from him the most basic survival instinct: slay, or be slain. And it demanded no more from him than the answer of shadowsteel, cold and resolute, in the expression of that instinct. Monsters never leveled defiant gazes at him, and he was never forced to watch the light of reason-the light of hope-fade and extinguish within their eyes in the hairbreadth span between the faltering heartbeats silenced by the crushing darkness of his cursed blade.
Monsters never screamed for their gods.
Sir Cecil Harvey, disgraced Lord Captain of the Royal Baronian Red Wings, screamed for his own the previous night, starting awake from a sleep full of visions of blood and anguish, gaining not a single moment of rest.
Cecil's soul-weary body went through the coldly clinical motions of combat against fiends. He fought beside his childhood friend and near-brother Kain, detached and numb. Perhaps he should have wondered if it were truly such a disgrace to suffer the king's displeasure, given what led to it. Perhaps it was better to wonder if it was so terrible to be cast out, if it meant never again watching another young mage fall before him as black steel sank into her flesh like water, and a vast red stain spread across her pristine white robes.
And he would have wondered it, that is, had it not by implication meant that he lost his men in the process, and lost the skies he once swore to protect before the creeping shadow of ambition fell upon his homeland. He would have wondered, had it not meant by implication that he would lose the man he had known as his father ever since he was an abandoned babe in the forest, bearing little but a blanket and a name. The king had been a man of great compassion, a just and honorable knight who believed fervently in the tenets of the chivalric code which Baron held sacred. He took Cecil in without hesitation, raising him as his own flesh and blood.
How could his father have demanded such an atrocity of him? How could the king cast him out for the mildest questioning of it? The king Cecil knew would not have given such a despicable order to his cherished knights; the father he knew would not have asked it of his beloved son.
To say it troubled him was beyond understatement. The very notion of it was an absurdity. Yet there Cecil was, coldly dismissed, traversing and fighting along the path to the Mist Valley as a testament to that reality. Cecil, who had commanded the most elite fighting force in the Baronian military, was set here on a courtier's errand by his liege in the most callous manner of indifference, enduring humiliation before the whole of court as though he were a stranger to the king, and not the young man he had raised from boyhood. Cecil had no answers for any of it.
So he pressed on, heartsick and dazed, fighting and walking by turns in brooding silence. When the late spring sun began to sink below the horizon and bathed the verdant plain in a warm shower of violet and gold, Cecil and Kain made camp at the edge of a copse of towering evergreens.
The master dragoon's mere presence was an immense comfort to Cecil. Perhaps it was selfish of him, but Cecil's one consolation was that he had not been forced to endure the king's displeasure alone, and his most cherished friend was beside him as ever he had been. Steady and true, Kain made quick work of their monstrous foes in combat. When the danger passed, he merely walked alongside Cecil, offering silent solidarity rather than meaningless platitudes. That was always Kain's way; he had never been the sort of man desperate to fill silence with the sound of his own voice, and it was something Cecil had always appreciated about him, particularly in times when he was troubled. Kain was always content to allow his actions to speak for him, and they did: it was Kain who secured their provisions and supplies for the journey, and Kain who saw to their equipment.
It was also Kain who started the cheery little fire after the two of them erected their tent, with military precision and efficiency. Kain saw to their simple evening meal of salt pork and spiced lentils; soldier's fare to be certain, but it was warm and filling, and Cecil was more ravenous than he thought, devouring his portion in silence. A pang of guilt rose up in Cecil then, a lump in his throat, and he'd offered to help clean up, but Kain dismissed him brusquely; he told Cecil to rest, to recover his strength for the passage to the valley, and insisted that he would take first watch.
Though Cecil tried to rest as he was told, his efforts were ultimately in vain. He'd stripped himself of his armor and padded undergarments, and laid down upon his rough bed roll, staring up at the canvas ceiling. Though he was weary beyond all description, his muscles aching from combat and bearing the heft of his armor all day, he found that sleep simply would not come. It was all he wanted—and yet all he feared. When he closed his eyes, all he could see was blood and horror cast upon the shadow of his eyelids. He found himself reliving that terrible day in Mysidia once more, forced to confront the martyrdom of her mages over and over again.
For generations, the sages of Mysidia plumbed the secrets of the arcane and the divine, of Light and Dark, and passed this knowledge from Elder to student within the vast shadow of their holy mount. Baron's own mages were as children to their learned eyes. Yet, at the hour of their greatest peril, facing down the might of one of Baron's most elite fighting corps-one led by the king's own ward himself-they brought none of that legendary power to bear. Not even in the defense of their greatest treasure, the glory of their birthright and literal crown jewel of their people, did they employ their arts.
Instead, they deliberately placed themselves between Cecil's soldiers and the quarry the king sought: men, women, the old and infirm beside the young and hale. A multitude of unarmed civilians stood then against a battalion of knights, and the Red Wings carved a path to the crystal drowned by rivers of innocent blood. Cecil led them in it; his king commanded it, and he was too craven to gainsay the man who had raised him from childhood and given him a purpose.
They gathered there, the sorcerers of Mysidia, within their sacred tower of prayer; with silent dignity, they fell like chaff before the mighty scythe of Baron, manifest in a shadow-forged blade.
That they went to their deaths so willingly was what disturbed Cecil most. Not a single incantation was uttered, not a single spell cast. It might yet have saved them, but they offered no resistance-only prayers for their assailants to gods unknown, amidst anguished screams.
As a dark knight, if his suffering was indeed his strength, as the king and his knight preceptor instilled within him since the time of his novitiate...then, truly, Cecil was the strongest man on life. Never in his life had he known suffering as he did that night, fruitlessly seeking the comfort of sleep while his blood beat in his ears and his mouth was parched. In the solitude of night, alone with his thoughts, he found himself on the verge of weeping, and he feared that if he succumbed to the overwhelming power of grief and self-loathing, his weeping would not cease.
In time he decided to seek another manner of comfort, since sleep proved elusive. He rose from the bed roll, and parted the tent flaps to the night air, emerging outside to the sound of owlsong and the sensation of a spring breeze cooling the pearls of dewy sweat upon his flushed, bare skin. For once he didn't mind the slight chill, though he wrapped his arms about himself nonetheless as he inhaled deeply the scent of pine and grass. It felt oddly purifying, in a manner even he did not quite fathom.
And, as always in the dark of night, Cecil lifted his gaze and sought the moons, shining full and softly resplendent above in the heavens, ever watchful and serene.
It seemed that no matter how troubled he was, the moons' eternal presence was solace to him. It had been so ever since he was a boy, and particularly when he took up the dark blade. What had once been a mere source of aesthetic pleasure to him had become a powerful symbol of resiliency, once he came to wield the eldritch power of dark. Then, the moons became a sign to him that no matter the deep and all consuming the darkness, the light could never be wholly consumed, and even when it seemed devoured by shadow it would always return, brilliant and undying. It was something he clung to-a strange manner of hope that he would have been at a loss to explain to anyone.
On this night, however, as he gazed upon them, he was not so certain of this symbolic truth. A dread threshold was crossed in Mysidia, terrible and absolute in its horror, and Cecil was not so certain the light within him would ever return, Rosa's tender sympathies notwithstanding. He sighed deeply, shutting his eyes against a fresh wave of anguish at the thought of her gentle eyes, brimming with concern and a mercy for him he by no means deserved. How could he face her, as the spineless butcher he'd become? How could he face anyone at all with such blood on his hands and such a loathsome stain upon his soul-much less that dear, beautiful girl? She was doomed, it seemed, to watch him lose himself piece by piece, until there was little left but a shallow husk of the childhood friend she once believed in so resolutely.
It was yet another sin that weighed upon him. He opened his eyes, searching for that soft, radiant light above, and searching within it for answers he was not certain he would find anywhere at all.
"Can't you sleep, Cecil?"
He was startled out of his silent reverie by a familiar, subdued baritone which caressed his ears like velvet, smooth and warm. The gentle kindness within it was almost enough to bring Cecil to tears; Kain had always been far gentler than most commonly believed. Cecil's eyes lowered from the sky and onto the face of his oldest and dearest companion, who sat at the edge of their little camp only a few feet away, stoking the dying embers of the fire with the tip of his spear as he stood guard.
"I cannot," Cecil finally answered Kain, sighing.
"Then join me," Kain offered, and Cecil nodded his assent, crossing the short distance between them. Kain sat tall and stiffly upright, still encased in his armor, and the light of the full moons coupled with Cecil's near-preternaturally sharp night vision made it a trivial thing to gaze upon him even in the darkness. As he did so, taking in the dragoon's profile, it struck Cecil once again just how beautiful his friend was.
Kain's was an old, aristocratic manner of beauty that marked him well as a scion of the great houses: he was all edges as keen and bright as his draconic armor and carved seemingly from marble, with high cheekbones and a straight, sharp nose, and clean-shaven skin a smooth and flawless shade of olive that gleamed a warm bronze in the dim firelight. His sensuous lips rested as always in a slight frown beneath the half-mask of his helm, full and tinted with balm of indigo like Cecil's own—it was the manner of Baronian gentlemen-though the color had faded somewhat with their evening meal. From the back of his helm, thick golden hair cascaded down past his shoulders in a waterfall of shining silk only slightly mussed from the day's fighting.
Glancing at it, a memory came to Cecil then of Kain seated upon the floor of Rosa's house, as she gently loosed the ponytail and combed out the tangles earned after a fierce round of sparring on the practice field. He smiled, thinking on it, and on the way Kain grinned like a fool even as he protested lamely that soaring through the sky didn't mean he needed to be preened like a bird. Rosa quite naturally ignored him and continued her ministrations, humming softly to herself as she did. Cecil rather strongly suspected she simply liked to play with Kain's hair, though he was not so remiss—or unwise—as to give voice to such suspicions.
Would that life could be so simple once more, uncomplicated by the grim demands of his blade and his king. Would that it could again be filled merely with the pleasures of companionship, he thought silently to himself. Cecil sighed again. It pained him beyond description to think that nothing would ever again be so simple or so pure. He wondered what else duty would demand from him, how else it would change him and deny him such simple pleasures.
Most distressing of all, when he thought of how even if he found the courage to reject such a heinous duty, he grew certain that the dark power he wielded would inevitably tear him away from the two people who had been the center of his life since his early youth. At that notion, Cecil's blood went cold and his heart nearly shattered.
But regardless of Cecil's fears...there was Kain at his side, strong and beautiful, and utterly nonplussed by the complications of their present circumstances. Some may have called it arrogance—and some did—but Kain possessed a fundamental belief in his own strength that Cecil often found himself quietly envying. The mission was always paramount to him, and he never wavered in his tenacity, or his audacity.
It was something Cecil took comfort in, now more than ever. With Kain he could overcome any manner of adversity, always secure in the knowledge that there would be a spear wielded with tremendous skill at his side, held by a man who continually pushed him to be better, stronger, and faster ever since they were green lads on the practice field. Truly, Cecil believed rather firmly that he would not have been half the knight he was, were it not for Kain perpetually challenging him, spurring him to greater heights. Though his future was bleak and uncertain—as an understatement—it seemed somewhat less grim, with Kain there to face it at his side.
"I never thanked you," Cecil said aloud, to break the silence at last.
"What for?" Kain's tone was one of mild puzzlement.
"For backing me as you did before the king," Cecil replied. "Few would dare question their sovereign even in the defense of a friend."
Kain's lips curved into a slight smile of self-deprecation. "Few are as rash as I."
"True," Cecil chuckled softly. "But I am nonetheless grateful for it. It was no mean thing to defy him as you did; I know it all too well. That you did so on my behalf means more to me than I can ever say."
The laconic smile upon Kain's face spread a bit wider then, and he turned his masked eyes to meet Cecil's gaze with his own; masked eyes that were the deepest shade of sapphire blue Cecil had ever seen, near black in intensity; the dim light caught them just so, and they gleamed like jewels in the night. "You would have done the same, for me," he said quietly, his voice dulcet and faintly rumbling. "You did, remember? When I refused the dark blade and sought to walk my father's path. Thorwald was sorely vexed with me, and you bade him to treat me kindly. He did, too, in the end, and understood. He might not have agreed entirely, but he always listened to you."
"He was not so quick to anger then," Cecil said gravely. "I've never seen him so quick to anger as he is now."
"Nor have I," Kain agreed. "Still, I don't believe he'll remain so wroth with you for long. He loves you well and always has. Quick though he is to anger of late, he'll not be so quick to condemn his precious ward over a mere trinket. We'll slay this Eidolon and deliver the signet, and everything shall be as it was. You'll see."
"I wish I possessed your certainty, my friend," Cecil said, reaching up to absently run a hand through his pale, ivory hair. "There is little of which I am certain anymore, where my liege is concerned."
Kain stared at him. Cecil felt as though he might wither in the shadow of his friend's sapphire gaze, steady and penetrating.
"You're a prince, Cecil," Kain said. "By fosterage, not blood and birthright, but a prince nonetheless by any measure. Not even his recent…strangeness would cause his majesty to cast down the closest thing he has to an heir."
"I was not alone in my fosterage, Kain," Cecil countered, "and you were no common orphan, not like I."
"You jest," Kain said, with a little sardonic snicker. "Before I came to dwell in the Royal House of Baron, I was a Highwind, and my father cared little for thrones or titles. The only one that meant anything to him was that of Lord Commander Dragoon. If there is a legacy for me to bear, it is that, and that alone. Thorwald knows it well. I shall always be a Highwind, orphaned or no. A Prince of Dragons perhaps, but little else. As it should be."
"You're bold as dragons, at any rate," Cecil said, with a gentle, teasing smile. "And betimes as fiercely disagreeable."
"You'd have it no other way, Sir Shrinking Violet, and you know it," Kain said, flashing him a grin by way of response. "Gods, you're pale. Have you gotten a single lick of sun lately? You're a damned ghost, man."
It was perhaps something of an irony that Kain's comment roused color in Cecil's cheeks, in a rush of warm crimson, and for a moment he was grateful that Kain's night vision was not nearly so clear as his own. "Not all of us are treated so kindly by the sun as you," he said a bit archly. "Some of us it burns, rather than kisses."
"Perhaps that's why you're so enamored with the moons," Kain mused. "I suppose I would be too, in that case." His expression turned serious once more, his gaze steady and penetrating. "You've not been sleeping well. The shadows beneath your eyes are darker than your blade. Perhaps it was foolish of me to believe you'd ever cease to overthink anything. Do you wish to speak of it?"
"Would that I could sleep. I've never felt so tired. But every time I try, I…" Cecil's sentence trailed off rather helplessly, and he buried his face in his hands for a moment, rubbing at his weary eyes with his palms. There were no words he could find to describe his anguish. How does one speak of such pain, even to one's dearest childhood companion?
Kain was a soldier, true, and knew well the burden that came with the power to take life as they did, even were the cause righteous. Mysidia was not a righteous cause. Beyond that, however, Kain was no mere soldier, but his oldest friend, and in many ways his dearest. None knew Cecil the way he did, except perhaps Rosa, and even then there were burdens he was reluctant to share with her. It was Kain upon whom he leaned when he took his first human life in the field, when he trembled and vomited in a ditch and started awake from dreams haunted by the of a vacant eyed stare of a bandit, mouth agape as he was impaled upon his blade.
Cecil thought he knew something of guilt then; that was nothing compared to this. The slaying of highwaymen and brigands who preyed upon travelers and waylaid merchant caravans and refused to submit to the king's justice was one matter. That was the sort of order Cecil swore oaths to carry out, and burdened him little. Butchering unarmed mages who refused to defend themselves, and doing so in the pursuit of their sacred treasure, was somewhat else entirely. It cast a shadow upon his heart that would not be banished with simple words, not even Rosa's—she tried—or Kain's. Such an act would surely be etched upon his soul forever; Cecil believed that fervently. There was no comfort for that. Cecil did not deserve any comfort besides, least of all from his best friend.
That Kain's eyes were so deep with concern now did not help matters. He shook his head lightly in disbelief. "I've never seen you like this. What on earth happened in Mysidia?"
Cecil lowered his eyes, unable to bear the weight of Kain's regard, and the well of yet more undeserved empathy within it. He stared at the rusty ochre glow amidst the smoke within the firepit instead, as the glowing ashes withered to white dust, and he swallowed down the bitter lump in his throat. "An atrocity the likes of which I never wish to commit again," he said. "And that is why nothing shall ever again be as it was, Kain. Nothing can ever again be as it was. Not for me or my men."
"Thorwald is stern betimes, but never needlessly cruel. He would not have asked such a thing of you or your men, were the need not great. You must believe that," Kain said firmly.
"What possible need could there have been to seize by main force the very lifeblood of a peaceful ally, Kain?" Cecil cried. "We've not needed crystals to prosper thus far in Baron, not with trade and diplomacy at our disposal. Nor have we ever slain men out of hand for any purpose, much less for knowing too much of them. What possible threat could anyone pose us, when we alone control the skies? Why is the king so intent upon seizing these crystals, even at the cost of innocent blood? It's madness, Kain. And I have no answers for any of it. That is what terrifies me. Will my father drown the world in blood for this madness? I fear for our homeland, and for this world. There are four crystals, and I fear a single one will not sate this sudden, strange covetousness of his. What birthed it, and to what purpose? I do not know, and I am terrified."
"Cecil, I cannot know his mind—" Kain started, but Cecil pressed on, ignoring him, so overwhelmed was he by his doubts and fears.
"Will I have the strength to defy him the second time he demands it of me, or will I falter a second time, and send yet more innocents to the grave with no mercy? How long will I feel remorse for these transgressions, for dutifully butchering civilians before this accursed blade claims my soul entirely? Will I even care that I've become a monster?"
Cecil's voice cracked beneath the weight of his own self-loathing then. It was as though a dam burst within him, when he voiced those fears aloud, and he could not help it; he could not help the hot tears streaming down his cheeks, the tears he held back for Rosa's sake the previous night in trepidation that it would only exacerbate her own fears for him, and cause her to fret even further. He felt no such apprehension in the intense, steady presence of Kain, however; perhaps he believed Kain would not be crushed by such a burden...or rather, that he could not.
But even so, Cecil buried his face in his hands once more and kept it there, weeping as he never had before in life, at last surrendering every ounce of anguish and shame festering within his heart.
As Cecil wept, after a moment he felt arms wrap about him, arms stronger even than the steel which encased them. It was awkward at first, of a surety, as the steel was cold against his bare skin, but Cecil clung to Kain nonetheless. The dragoon was an implacable rock of strength, it seemed, with Cecil's pain dashing against him like waves breaking upon a cliffside. Kain wordlessly took it as it was offered, with no condemnation given, no judgement—only solace.
The dragoon had removed his gauntlets; Cecil felt a single strong hand upon the back of his head. The other, warm and calloused, rested against his shivering back, drawing him as near to Kain as the armor would allow. Somehow, the steel did not feel quite so cold any more, and it was a purging Cecil felt as he rested against it, his shuddering slowly halting to stillness, and the tears ebbed to rivulets before ceasing entirely. He should have pulled away; he felt more than a little foolish clinging to him that way, but he found himself quite unable and unwilling to do so. He was content to rest against that rock of strength, drawing immense comfort from the heat of Kain's hand sinking into his skin.
Cecil may have felt more than a little foolish, but this was more than a little wonderful, this feeling of tranquility and warmth.
"You've always been stronger than me, Cess," Kain spoke softly to him, calling him by the old boyhood diminutive, and with a tenderness that made Cecil's shattered heart ache anew. "The stronger of us by far. Still, you do not have to be strong alone. My spear is yours, come what may."
"But the king—"
"Can go hang," Kain said with quiet firmness. "He may have stood as a father to me, but you were a friend. A friend when no one else was-even when I did little to deserve it, treating you as poorly as I did. I was an angry, grieving, hellion of a lad, and you cared for me in spite of it."
There was a sudden chill atop Cecil's head, when the hand resting upon it removed its soothing warmth, but then he felt it return, gripping his shoulder with strength and vigor. When he glanced up, he saw Kain's masked eyes boring into him, glittering with conviction. "No one…nothing shall ever come between us, Cecil."
Cecil's heart was pounding within his breast, and he found himself quite at a loss for words. It meant everything to him, this manner of unwavering loyalty and support. Friends, rivals, near-brothers…this bond they shared meant everything to Cecil. Perhaps it would see him through these trying times. He had to believe it, and it was easy to do so within Kain's embrace, the way he looked at him. His heart, faltering though it was, seemed quite a bit lighter then.
"Thank you, Kain," Cecil said, and it seemed terribly inadequate, but they were the only words he could find.
"It's of no moment. Try to get some rest. We've still a long journey before us on the morrow, and you'll need your wits about you," Kain said. He smiled a bit wryly, then. "I'm not carrying dead weight in that passage. I suppose I could claim all the glory, though, if I bore you through-armor and all."
Cecil felt a quiet laugh rise up from within him, and it seemed like ages since he'd last had reason to do so. It felt good, and he returned Kain's smile. "Claim all the glory? Not if my blade has anything to say about it."
The grin etched upon Kain's face grew wider then, dazzling in the light of the moons, and it made him look rather boyish. "That's the spirit," he said. "Now, go to sleep. I'll wake you for second watch."
"Aye," Cecil said, nodding. "Goodnight, Kain."
With that, and one last smile, the dark knight returned to the tent, and laid down upon his bedroll. When he shut his eyes that time, the prospect of sleep was no longer so daunting as it had been, as his heart felt lighter than it had in days.