Camus knew that had sealed his own fate the instant that he chose the knighthood he had worked so hard to earn over the Princess, as bitter as the decision was. That past was done, for all intents and purposes, and anything other than duty to her was over with. Fate, whatever its machinations, had decided to ask him the same question once more.
Others within the army moved away from him as he sat outside the room where Sonya recovered with a grave expression. He clenched his fists tightly, feeling the bones of his hand press into his palm. Somehow, the motion soothed him, but Camus found a little comfort in the knowedge that everything had come in its proper place. As his memories returned, they didn't cancel out the recollections he had picked up since the day that he was mercilessly branded a traitor and set adrift. It didn't matter that since then, Zeke was someone conjured out of his imagination, his knowledge of combat, and the grave of a dead man. When it came to honor and respect, that patched-together name was worth more than Camus' true name now.
"We've been working to try to tend to her wounds. I promise you that the moment you can see her, you will." Celica patted his arm gently. "I'm not certain what happened bretween the two of you, and, erm…I'm not the most experienced at talking about this myself, but if you need someone to talk to…" She trailed off, looking off somewhere in the distance.
Camus recalled that occasionally the young princess spoke wistfully of someone wiht the name 'Alm,' who matched the name of a young man known to be fighting his way across Rigel at the head of the Deliverance. He appeared to be a fine warrior of good character, and likely just as good a match for Princess Anthiese. Both nobles, though young, had a soudnness of mind that allowed him to follow them with no doubts
"Princess, there are many ways that you may be wiser than I," remarked Camus. "Please get some rest. I will keep watch over her."
"Ah, one more thing. When Sonya wakes up," Celica added, "Please tell her I lent her this." Something strung on a fine chain of gold fell into his palm, and he found that he held an intricate pocket watch set in pale rose mother-of-pearl.
With a small nod of understanding, Princess Anthiese disappeared off to the mess hall to retrieve something ot eat for her and her fellow cleric. Both girls had worked tiredlessly to stem the damage from an Aura spell cast by two powerful witches, both of which had struck Sonya square in the back.
The moment he learned of the news was when he realized that the man he was and the man he had become had different reactions to learning of her fate. Camus would have steeled his nerves and pressed on. Zeke would move heaven end earth to turn back and run towards her side. The spear that was his by right lay in his chambers, yet it felt like a leaden weight at his back now. A flurry of options, paths and feelings cut through him like the flying daggers of assassins that were said to live in foreign lands.
"Hey." Another person sat down next to him in narrow bench of the inn's hallway. Looking up, he saw the face of a girl that had watched him curiously each time they crossed paths, before her two sisters usherered her away. He had tensed whenever the pink-haired girl was in sight for reasons that he wasn't sure of.
Only now did Camus realize Est was, and what part she had played in the past they shared in Archanaea. A vision came to him of a sacred blade taken from its place by the pink-haired knight, who took the skies alongside her compatriots just as easily as his cavaliers could charge across the plains on horseback.
"It was not long ago that your Princess and I stood on the opposite sides of a battlefield," he observed, drawing a breath at the weight of everything that had happened between the masters that he and the Whitewings respectively served.
"We're a long way from the war, Sir Camus. Well, the one that concerns Macedon and Grust, anyways. But not war itself." Est straightened her posture and faced him with a direct, frank expression that was serene at the surface and all steely hidden strength undereneath.
"Has Macedon sent you to this continent, then?" The fiery-headed Queen was known to have a rash nature, but sending her knights to pursue him wasn't something Zeke expected that she would do readily.
"No," Est pursed her lips. "I got into a bit of trouble, and my sisters followed. It's a long story." Catching his pointed glance, she glared right back. "And no, I'm not going around taking relics from here. That was then, and this is now."
The outspoken pegasus knight was never someone he had thought would be a comforting presence in an instance when his mind, his memory, and the path forward all seemed to be in simultaneous turmoil. Yet like just about everything about Valentia, the rules worked differently enough that he could take nothing over from Archanaea and make it work. Camus suspected that the Whitewings, talented knights that they were, were running into the same problems.
"What did you wish to speak to me about?" It wasn't easy speaking to the three young women who had avoided him for months, and less easy was the task now that he knew why.
"Sonya. We were talking when she was guarding me, and I think that she's got a good heart. We told her about you. The real you." The young knight's solemn answers sunk into Camus like leaden weights. There had been moments within the past weeks where she had looked towards him with a mix of curiosity of dread. It had always happened when the heat of battle had sent back bits and pieces of memory before the familiarity of Gradivus had finished the job.
"She knew,"
"Yes, and it looks like she doesn't get hurt easily, but….Just be careful, okay? Sonya's got feelings to think about just like anyone else." There was a pleading earnestness in the young pegasus knight's eyes. It was clear that she had befriended the mage, which didn't surprise him. Sonya's dty wit lit up a room effortlessly, and the sound of her mirthful laughter crackled like leaves drying by a deliciously warm fire that he wanted to lay hours besides.
It was unnerving, how the girl broke out into a grin. "Alright, I've said enough. Go visit. I'm sure you'll have a lot to talk about."
"Mmmm?" Sonya's voice was a mumble as she groggily braced her shoulders against the wall to pull herself up. The resulting pain burned her so much that she drew a sharp breath and let out a hiss of swears that made the girl blush.
"Ah, praise the Mother. You're awake!" chirped the young cleric, wringing out a towel with a pleased smile on her face. "Your back is going to be sore from the spell-burn, but I think the worst of it is just about over with."
Genny, a young cleric with a surprising tenacity for devouring thick books and novels when traveling, was the most tired that Sonya had ever seen her. Her frizzy orange hair stuck out from head at odd angles, and her face had been flushed, likely from fiddling with the contents of a cleric's medicine bag that looked to be spread out throughout her surroundings. She had been sleeping in a comfortable but simply furnished inn. For how long, she was uncertain.
"Where am I?" Sonya mumbled. She felt the need for a glass of wine to take the edge off the stinging ointment applied to her back, but knew better. Given the somewhat imperious edge that crept into Genny's voice when she worked with patients, it was a request likely to be turned down in a manner that she would find irritating to the highest degree.
"A small village near the abandoned church," answered Genny. "Zeke got worried after you didn't come back to base, and asked Celica to take a few men to try to find you, and—" She heard a knock at the door. "Yes? She's awake. Would you like to see her?"
The idea of pretending to be asleep was appealing for a moment, but Sonya decided against the tactic, knowing well enough that they would have to have the conversation sooner or later. A small but insistent part of her wanted to hold onto him feel anchored to something, even if it was the last time they would see one another.
Zeke was as uncertain as she had ever seen him as he entered the room, exhaling audibly as he saw her sitting upright, eyes open and alert. Her nerves tensed as he stood off to the side, talking quietly with the cleric taking care of her. She had never allowed him to see her without makeup, even when they spent nights together. But now, she was haggard, weary, and looked the every part of a woman that had gotten too recklessly entangled in a secret she couldn't keep hidden.
Sonya heard the door shut, and looked up to see him sitting by her bed. For the first time in a long while, she found herself without words. But the fact that he was there, alive and well after his bout in the arena, said one thing.
He drew something from his pockets, and she felt something slip onto her temple. Sonya looked up into Zeke's eyes as he worked carefully to tie her headband back into place, smoothing her hair over over where the ribbon was secured so that it fell over her shoulders once more. If anything, it was a cold comfort to watch tenderness seep past Zeke's stern facade the same way it always did when he looked at her. He had loved to sweep her hair across her shoulders to get a better view of her shoulders and the generous neckline of the close-fitting dresses she liked to wear. But now, he moved with a reverance, and she wasn't in the mood to do anything but sleep and resolve everything between them.
Sonya had suspected that he had made her sentimental years ago when they had met among a series of graves when he was wandering about, lost but true to an idea of honor that he clung to like a liferaft.
"I hope you're not going to tell me that what I did was foolish," she began.
"Sonya, I am many things, but a hypocrite I am no more. Not with what I've done." With his memories back, Zeke—or Camus— spoke with a weariness that at once signified the weight he carried and the relief that he had distanced himself from it. "If there was something you were searching for, even at the price of death— that's a path that I'm quite familiar with."
"When you decided to stay with that oaf of a king. Well, I don't know if he was an oaf or not. But from all accounts…" Sonya's features pressed into one of disgust. "If it were me, I would have stayed with that Princess. Even if that meant, well…" She laughed bitterly. "Even if that meant the two of us would never meet, General."
It was funny, watching him look so stricken at her mention of someone he must have loved once. But if he was going to go back to a Princess elsewhere, she preferred to hear it from him directly.
"That is a chapter of my life that has closed. I rule no armies, and I fight as a servant of Princess Anthiese just like any other soldier." Camus closed his yes, breathing out the acceptance of a difficult truth. But when he opened them again, she saw clear relief and a man at ease with what he now faced.
"It was my duty to protect that land, and protect the princess." She felt the weight of the words, steady but certain. "But that has changed."
"Oh?" The question was as simple of one as could be. Yet it carried more hope than Sonya dared to put into a great many things.
"I had once thought that I could never throw away who I was, and poured every part of myself into defending the land and the commanders that knighted me." He glanced off towards the open window as the wind picked up, rustling his golden hair.
"No longer," murmured Zeke— or, rather, Camus. It was silly to go by the name that he had been given by a king that he did not truly serve. "No, Sonya. My heart and my home is with you, if you wish it."
Reaching over, he pressed a small object into her palm, and brushed a soft kiss against her temple.
"Princess Anthiese is lending it to you. She asked me to pass it on." Sonya felt the mattress give as he stood, sweeping his coat aside and preparing to depart.
Love was an incredibly frightening phenomenon. Sonya had seen lovers get too attached when it was time to move on to a different job, or when a different town or village called out to her. Yet there was never pain in parting from anyone but "Wait." Her words were uncertain, but as he turned, she reaffirmed her decision. "I want you to see this. I looked into your secrets. It's time you knew mine as well."
Hand in hand, they watched as the quiet click of clockwork brought the information Sonya sought for years to life.
"She has shown the potential to cast spells twice as fast as the others. In time, she will make a fine soul for the Faithful," murmured the cloaked man. In the alcove, two young women stood just out of sight of the group of robed clerics, who continued to talk in hushed tones among themselves. The tallest among them was growing more and more excited as he ranted.
"Sonya will be the finest offering for Lord Duma. Such spirit, such fire!"
"Lord Jedah, what of the other two?"
"They are too old to go willingly. But the young…they are far more easily convinced into the fold, are they not?" The older priest grinned, flashing bright teeth.
"Halt," One of the women said, holding her hand out.
"Father, we have a proposition," Marla's voice was calm as she stepped out from her hiding place. "Sonya's life for ours."
Hestia's voice quavered as she nodded. "You must promise to leave her. In return, we will join the Faithful as soldiers." It was clear from her eyes, which darted towards the exits of the room, that it was a choice she did not take lightly, and one that she already regretted.
"My two beautiful daughters," sneered Jedah. "Why, this is a sudden change of heart. I thought you were content to languish in that priory, wasting your potential."
"They do possess the potential to feed Lord Duma two souls' worth of magic…" murmured the cleric next to him. "Lord Jedah, this is quite a bargain you've stumbled into!"
"Indeed," nodded the cleric. "Well, girls, come along." He beckoned to both purple-haired women. "The night is wasting away, and I intend to make good on your promise."
"But can't we say goodbye—" Hestia began, her gaze frantic.
"I do not recall including time for such sentiments in our agreement," snapped Jedah.
Hestia only clutched tighter to Marla's hands as the robed cantors circled around them, leading Sonya's sisters farther away from the priory's main chambers into the secret rooms that the Duma Faitfhul carried out rituals unknown to the other priests. After one shuddering breth, they were gone.
The turnwheel's mechanisms slowed and stopped, as the cog's power ran out. With her sisters' last words still swirling about in her head, Sonya reached out and took the little turnwheel. Clutching it to her chest, she allowed herself one solitary moment of relapse in years of a well-practiced mercenary's iciness. Her chest heaved and in one shuddering sob after another, she mourned.