Rurouni Familiar
Chapter Eleven
"Honor is dead." -The Way of Kings
Albion floated on a cloud it made itself, its rivers flowing off the edge and turning into mist. They had parted ways with the merchant vessel now that they had a ship of their own, and they sailed over the floating island as silently as the moons above them.
Wardes stayed up to steer the ship, trusting no one else to do so, and Soujiro stayed up because he wouldn't miss the sight for anything. Louise went to bed, though. She was dead tired.
"So," Soujiro said, breaking the silence. "Nice night."
Wardes sighed and gritted his teeth. "Why do you insist on fraternizing with me, boy? How long will you persist in this?"
He shrugged. "Until it stops being fun. Or until I figure out why you don't like me so much."
"Do I need to spell it out for you? I'm a knight, you're an assassin."
"And Miss Louise is a mage." Soujiro smiled apologetically. "I'm sorry, Mr. Wardes. I'm not that smart. Could you please explain it more?"
Wardes stared ahead stonily. "Assassins kill people."
Soujiro cocked his head. "So do knights."
"That's different."
Soujiro smiled patiently and waited.
"Knights protect people. When I became a knight, I took an oath to protect the princess, or, when she ascends to the throne, to protect whoever should become the future of the kingdom in her stead. And now, I act under her orders to protect Louise. While I may kill others in that task, my first and my last duty is protection."
Soujiro nodded. "So you're a sword that protects the weak." Did that make Mr. Himura a knight?
"A wand that protects the innocent," Wardes corrected. "Or, when the innocent cannot be found, one that protects the future."
"Ah." They stood in silence for a moment. "You know, I'm actually not an assassin anymore. I retired a while ago, gave my sword back and everything. And when I became a familiar, Miss Louise told me that one of the most important things I need to do is protect her. So if you think about it, we're—"
"Nothing alike. Don't even think otherwise, because we aren't. You do not decide to no longer be a murderer any more than the condemned can choose to be innocent upon the steps to the hangman's noose. Those bloodstains stay with you until the day you die."
Soujiro shrugged. "Does it matter, as long as we kill the same people and protect the same person?"
"It matters," Wardes said, "because one day you may decide to kill someone whom I choose to protect."
"Well," Soujiro said, "if it makes you feel any better, I promise not to kill Miss Louise."
His lips twisted into a sneer. "And what? Do you expect me to just accept your word of honor?"
"Word of honor?" Soujiro asked. "I'm sorry, Mr. Wardes. I don't think I know what that means."
He nodded. "And that, assassin, is the difference between us."
WWW
When they entered Newcastle, they did it with style. Soujiro always appreciated dramatic flair, though he had no head for it. Mr. Shishio had, and oddly enough, Wardes did too.
The castle that marked the last stronghold of the Royal Family was besieged by a massive warship called the Lexington. Big wasn't even a good enough word to describe it. If they were fish, then the Lexington could swallow their stolen pirate ship whole just by yawning. If fish yawned. Suddenly Soujiro wondered if they could.
Now and then, the Lexington fired one of its hundred plus canons at Newcastle, but most of the time it circled around, making sure none of the royalist ships tried to leave. A siege. It was such a waste of resources it hurt to watch. Even if they had enough food and gunpowder, every day they spent looking intimidating was one more day the royalists had to plan their escape or counterattack. Mr. Shishio had nearly managed to take over Japan almost before the Meiji Government knew he existed, and he didn't get that far by wasting time besieging anything.
Anyway, the Lexington was so busy encircling Newcastle, none of the members of the Reconquista noticed the stolen pirate ship until it was nearly ramming them. By then, Soujiro, Wardes, and Louise were already part falling, part levitating, and part flying on Wardes's griffon down to the castle's ramparts as their ship crashed, burned, and exploded against the Lexington, allowing the three of them to greet the Royalists as it literally rained fire.
The guards still confiscated their wands and weapons, but that didn't make it any less of an entrance. And after the guards decided that the three of them were not a threat, they escorted them to meet the prince.
WWW
Tomorrow may have been a good day to die, but today was a good day to live. Wales Tudor, Crown Prince of Albion, watched the finest blood of his kingdom relish their last hours and look forward for the glorious end that awaited them. Funerals, he decided, were somber things only when they meant a separation, and the loyal sons of Albion planned to die together.
They had started together centuries ago when their fathers' fathers had sworn to the first of his line, they had gone through earth and hell together in this nightmare of a war, and tomorrow they would end together. For Albion, for what it once was and for what it could have been. It was the only land many of them had ever known.
Not Wales, though. He had once had the means and the desire to "see the world," as though if he studied enough trees he could see a forest, and he had made friends who would not be dying with them tomorrow. As his men drank and sang and boasted of their futureless tomorrow, Wales felt his thoughts turn time and again to one person in particular who would not forgive him for leaving her behind.
He liked to think that if she saw him, she would admire his courage, but he knew her better. If Princess Henrietta, the flower and sky of Tristain, could be here now, she would not accept this ending. She would weep and beg and remind him of promises unfulfilled, and she would demand that the son of the King of Albion live while the Kingdom of Albion died.
But she couldn't be here with him at the Royalists' last stand on the eve of their final battle, so she sent an ambassador in her stead. Truly, that woman was relentless, but he could understand her drive. If their positions were reversed, then he would drag her down from heaven before accepting her death as fate. He lead the ambassador and her entourage to one of his sitting rooms to not interrupt the festivities.
"Prince Wales," the ambassador said, "my name is Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Valliére, ambassador of her royal highness, Princess Henrietta of Tristain." She was young, fifteen or sixteen at most with delicate features and an earnest face. Normally Wales received more experienced delegates, but somehow Louise fit the time they were in. Henrietta wouldn't need to use honeyed words and a silver tongue on him, and he had no patience left for politics.
"This is Viscount Jean-Jacques Francis de Wardes, Captain of the Griffon Knights of Albion," she said, presenting a man to her left. The Knight Captain bowed, but his steel-grey eyes never left Wales, and he didn't seem to need to blink as often as other men. Wales knew his type, and while he himself preferred his men to be able to sing and laugh as well as fight to the death, a man who was constantly alert, restlessly vigilant, and as taut as a thousand-knotted rope could be useful when escorting an inexperienced ambassador through a war torn kingdom.
"And this is Seta Soujiro, my familiar." She motioned to a boy to her right. Unlike the others, he wore no noble's mantle, and while Louise was full of earnest sincerity and Wardes of grim solemnity, Soujiro was all smiles. Wales had at first dismissed the boy as being a simple manservant, but instead he was …
"A familiar, you say?" He chuckled. "I swear, I will never understand Tristain's aristocracy." Louise's face tightened, but she didn't respond. Apparently she had heard that joke before, or perhaps she had an issue with the timing. Well, this was his funeral, he could jest through it if he pleased. "So," he said, making his tone and expression serious. "What can I do for Princess Henrietta? Much of my resources have been allocated to the war effort, but anything I can spare is yours."
"Her Highness believes that if Albion falls, the Reconquista will turn its eyes to Tristain," Louise said. "She requests information concerning their forces, organization, and tactics." She fished an envelope out of her pocket and handed it to him. "She wrote this for you, if you would like to read it in her own words."
He took the letter and held it in his hand. He recognized Tristain's royal seal stamped into the wax, but more than that he felt he could smell Henrietta's scent on the paper. Which was impossible, of course. If anything, the paper should smell like the young ambassador, but by holding the letter, he felt he was touching her again, separated only by a few days of time.
He broke the seal and read the letter.
Wales, my love, the letter said, written in Henrietta's graceful script. I need you now more than ever. Your kingdom's enemy has become my kingdom's enemy, striking from the shadows with blooded knives, and I fear it will not be long before they bring their armies in the day. But even this is not the purpose of this letter, Wales, my beloved. I write this knowing my own selfishness in my request, but I beg of you to take whatever path leads to life. If you are honor bound to fight the traitors, know that they can be opposed in any kingdom that they hunger for. Know that they have announced their desires for Tristain just as they have waged war in Albion. Know that knowledge of your death will strike me deeper than any poison, and finally, remember the promise we made to each other upon the shores of the Lagdorian Lake.
I love you, just as I swore to you in the presence of the Water Spirit, and I always will. You have never broken your word to me, Wales, my love. Please do not break that one.
Wales stared at the letter long after he finished reading it, his back to the ambassador, and his hand trembled as he held it. He remembered when they first met at a convention between the kingdoms. He remembered little of the recently crowned king of Gallia or the old Pope of Romalia, and even less of the different treaties his father and the king of Tristain had discussed with them, but he remembered her. She was so beautiful, he was half convinced that he had stumbled across the Water Spirit herself when he saw her, and even now he did not fully believe that Henrietta had only mortal blood in her veins.
And, his cousin loved him, loved him as honestly and completely as only a child could. He could never be sure if she had actually believed that they had any sort of control over their own futures or if she was just pretending that they could end up together, but he couldn't stay away from her. He was half asleep throughout the daily feasts and formalities, and at night he would sneak out to see her. Every single time her face would light up like Luna Major coming out from behind a cloud when she saw him, and he could remember her as clearly as though she were standing in front of him.
Oh, Henrietta, he thought. When did you grow to be so cruel?
He turned abruptly, a political smile on his face. "Where are my manners? Forgive me, Ambassador Valliére, I am sure you are tired from your journey. I'll have my remaining scribes compile all relevant military information for you, and it will be ready by sunrise. In the meantime, eat, sleep, and enjoy the festivities."
The ambassador nodded respectfully, but she frowned. "I noticed the feast when we arrived. May I ask, what are you celebrating?"
Wales let out a small chuckle. "Tell me, Ambassador Valliére, do you know many of my people?"
She shook her head.
"No? Well, let me tell you something about the sons of Albion. We are fiercely competitive in the most petty ways. The last battle of this kingdom will be waged at these walls, and after that we will be no more. Surely our enemies will rejoice in their victory, but my men will go to their deaths knowing that we celebrated first and better."
She blinked. "Oh. I see." She seemed confused, but honestly, so was he. Wales suspected that most of the nonsense in the world was the work of men and women too proud to admit how little they knew.
She bowed and left, and her commoner familiar followed her. The knight captain Wardes stayed. "Forgive me, Your Highness," Wardes said. "But if it's not too much trouble, I have one last request."
WWW
Out in the main ballroom, people laughed and danced and ate, knowing that they would soon die. Soujiro couldn't really blame them about the eating part, though. Waiters carried trays of a local delicacy known as nibbles, bite-sized carefully arranged snacks made of combinations of honeyed chicken, olives, bits of fruit, and things he didn't even recognize.
Louise didn't seem to want any though, so he ended up eating hers.
"Does ... does any of this make sense to you?" Louise asked softly.
"Not in the least," Soujiro said. "Honestly, I was hoping you could explain it to me."
She shook her head. "I don't get it either. Prince Wales is convinced they won't win, but they aren't trying to run, or negotiate, or–or anything!"
Soujiro nodded. "I've never understood people very well, Miss Louise, but if I had to guess, I'd say that everyone here is in denial."
Louise cocked her head at that. "What do you mean?"
He smiled. "They look happy. I've seen a lot of people die before, and none of them were happy about it."
He didn't say that most of those dying people fell by his sword, but she read between the lines and winced. She always seemed uncomfortable hearing about his past work, which was probably why Wardes always brought it up. Still, he had stood on both sides of the tip of the sword, there was nothing he wouldn't do to stay alive.
"So," Louise said after a moment, "they think they're going to win?"
"No," he replied. "Prince Wales seemed confident in his defeat. It must be something else."
"I don't think they're in denial. I think they're just hoping for an honorable death."
Honor. Wardes had used that term, and Soujiro hadn't understood it then either. "And that's worth dying for?" He let out a chuckle. "I guess it's not something you could survive, so it would have to be."
He had never considered anything worth dying for. Self sacrifice defied Mr. Shishio's creed, and even as a child when he had been willing to put up with so much pain to avoid hurting people, as soon as he found his life on the line he reached for the sword. The idea that anyone would die by choice was ... curious. It was curious, and it tugged at him.
He excused himself politely, and went back to speak with the prince.
WWW
Soujiro found Wales sitting in a shrine after the style of Halkeginia. It was indoors with rows of long wooden benches and painted windows. Stained glass it was called. You couldn't just take a window and then paint over it, you had to dye sheets of glass, break it into pieces, and then put it together in the window.
The main window had a picture of Brimir. There wasn't anything distinctive about the man in the glass, but no one else would be in the main window of a shrine. Four smaller windows surrounded the first. Above there was a series of colored lights, to the right a ring of swords, to the left a lion fighting a dragon, and below a woman on her knees with a hole through her chest.
There was probably a reason for that, but if there was anything he understood less than art, it was religion.
"I'm guessing you came here because you didn't want to be bothered," Soujiro said as he walked in. "That's great. I don't want anyone to bother us either."
Wales glanced back at him, but remained seated. "Soujiro, was it? That is not a Tristainian name, nor do you have the look about you. From whence do you hail?"
"Japan. I wouldn't be surprised if you've never heard of it. It's pretty far away. If I wanted to show you how far, I would need a really big map."
"Well, Soujiro of Japan, familiar of Valliére, what can I do for you?"
At a gesture, Soujiro sat down on one of the benches. "I have met two people in my life who understood everything. They agreed on nothing, but they were so certain of their beliefs, I still can't imagine either of them being wrong. Now you, Prince Wales, you could run if you wanted to. As far as sieges go, the Reconquista are leaving you a hole big enough to fit an army through. You could surrender and try to work out a deal with your enemies. Instead you've chosen to stay, fight, and most likely die, which makes me think that you must have some pretty fierce convictions."
"Conviction," Wales repeated. "Yes, you could say that. But what of you, Soujiro? Have you no convictions of your own?"
Soujiro shook his head. "No, not of my own. Only the ones I've picked up along the way."
Wales smiled at that. "Convictions are best homemade. Second-hand, they are good for little. What will you do if I give you mine? Will you put it on the shelf with the others? Believing too much can be as dangerous as believing too deeply, and far less useful."
"I promise to believe responsibly," Soujiro said. "Does your conviction have anything to do with honor?"
The prince fell silent for a moment. "Honor. The word is such a petty breath of air compared to the meat of the matter. The nobility never ceases to blather on about it, claiming to fight each other and face unspeakable peril for honor and glory, as though the two were interchangeable, and reminding their servants what an honor it is to serve. Wars have been sparked as an excuse for young fools to gain honor, and my own father was honor bound to execute my uncle when an elf-witch seduced him. If he had another twenty years to live, he might even come to terms with that. Though honestly, when you shear away all the wool, I doubt anyone truly understands what honor is until the day they die."
"So, what is it?"
Wales smiled at him. "What do you think it is? Surely they have honor in distant Japan."
"Yes, loads of it. There it has something to do with suicide."
Wales tilted his head. "Oh?"
Soujiro nodded. "Where I'm from, swordsmen used to carry two swords wherever they went. The first one was about the size of Mr. Derflinger here for their enemies. The second was about half as long for themselves. If they were protecting someone and failed or if they were captured, they were supposed to stab themselves with it."
The prince frowned. "What an odd custom."
Soujiro shrugged. "My last master before Miss Louise said it was nonsense." When Mr. Shishio had first stayed with him, he had given Soujiro his own wakizashi. It worked because a katana would have been too big for seven-year-old hands, but suddenly Soujiro wondered if there was another message in the gift. Mr. Shishio had just been freed, his masters having tried to kill him, so he no longer needed to die for anyone.
"Matters of life and death are seldom nonsense," Wales said. "If you took life and death out of the world, I wonder if you would have anything left. But I'm getting sidetracked. My choice to stay here is, of course, a matter of life and death. I could flee, cling to life, and go into hiding as the Reconquista rages unopposed, but I won't. I know what they will do. When they finish off what remains of Albion, they'll turn to Tristain, and won't stop until the world is theirs. My stand here at Newcastle won't stop them, but those who stand with me will serve as the lightning rod to the fury of their storm, so perhaps Henrietta with her armies will survive what I will not."
"Lightning rod?"
Wales blinked. "Yes. Do you not have them in Tristain? No, I suppose not. There are no storms in all the world like what we have in Albion. It's a metal spike you see on the tops of buildings to channel lightning safely to the ground."
"Oh, I think I've seen those. I just thought they were meant to make the buildings look more intimidating. Metal can do that?"
"Of course," Wales said. "But we are, once again, getting sidetracked. I've told you what I am willing to die for, and that is my honor. What of you, Soujiro? What are you willing to die for?"
Soujiro laughed. "Oh, that's easy, Prince Wales. I wouldn't die for anything."
Wales cocked his head. "Are you certain of that? Not for your home, your family, your friends? Not for the young ambassador who claims you as her familiar?"
Home? He was a wanderer; he had no home. He killed his family a decade ago. The first few were out of self defense, but the last ... he didn't like thinking about it. And friends? Did he have friends? He knew a few people, but they didn't know him. Louise?
"I don't mind helping people if they need help," he said. "But I'm going to live forever or die trying." He smiled. "I guess Mr. Wardes was right about me."
If you're strong, you live.
Wales frowned. "I'm sorry to hear that, Soujiro. Because you won't live forever, no matter how hard you try. The basest cowards die as surely as the brave, and so will you, either by your weakness or your choice. I hope you understand that while the choice is still yours to make."
Soujiro doubted that. He had spent his whole life without understanding anything. But he felt like he might be getting closer.
WWW
Louise stood alone at the end of the world. Was that a bit melodramatic? Yes, but that was how she felt. She was surrounded by people who cheerfully knew they were about to die. A ship was leaving the next morning through a hidden dock to carry the commoners and noncombatants to safety, but that left three hundred royalists who would not survive the Reconquista's assault.
She still didn't know how everyone knew when the traitors would attack. Maybe as an act of professional courtesy the different armies had coordinated their final battle together, or perhaps the royalists were just keeping track of the Reconquista's troop movements.
Either way, she stood alone. Wardes was … wherever he had disappeared off to, and Soujiro had left to bother the prince for reasons only he knew. Sure, Newcastle was the safest place they had been since she had left the Academy, but that didn't mean that she couldn't get lonely here, and with everyone around her enjoying their own funerals, Louise desperately wanted to talk to someone she knew.
Not that she knew either her fiancé or her familiar. She used to know Wardes. She used to be in love with him, but that was ten years ago. Now? She had hoped that when she was with him her heart would race, or that she would feel happy just knowing that he was nearby like in the books she had read, but instead she usually just felt scared. Admittedly traveling through a war torn kingdom on a mission that determined the fate of Tristain wasn't the most romantic thing they could do together, but she still felt disillusioned with her situation.
She used to think that she knew her familiar, but she never really did. She assumed she knew him when she first summoned him, and she assumed that there wasn't much to know. How was she supposed to know that the smiling boy Brimir had sent her was a professional assassin who could run so fast he turned invisible?
You could have asked.
Alright. That was on her. She hadn't displayed much initiative or curiosity when it came to getting to know her familiar. She had not cared. If she had asked, would he have told her? Maybe. He had seemed fairly candid with his past whenever it came up. Still, there was no point in asking now. It wasn't like Soujiro had yet another deep dark secret lurking in his past. And if he did, Louise would honestly rather not know about it.
So that's the plan? Keep dreaming because your dreams are pleasant? Keep dreaming because you're afraid to wake up?
She wasn't a coward. She was a noble, youngest daughter of the House Valliére! But she was still afraid, because she had a choice to make.
Wardes said he loved her. Well, men said a lot of things, but he also said that he wanted to marry her. She should be happy about that, but marriage was the ultimate commitment. If she wasn't willing to give up everything to be with him, then she wasn't ready. Maybe she was being too romantic about an arranged marriage, but she didn't want just an arranged marriage, she wanted a happily ever after and she wasn't going to settle.
The main issue, as she saw it, was that Wardes hated Soujiro. The man was stoic towards everything else, but Soujiro managed to get on his nerves just by being there. She didn't know if Soujiro deliberately annoyed Wardes in return, or if the boy was just socially incompetent, but it didn't look like the two were going to get along anytime soon.
Part of the problem was Soujiro's dishonorable past, but Louise suspected that most of it was jealousy. Wardes may have been engaged to her, but Soujiro was the one living with her. He was also much closer to her own age and by Kirche's estimation (not that she had standards), reasonably good looking. But no, it was worse than that. The two of them were bound together by a contract sealed by a kiss, so by that logic an outsider would consider them already married.
Which they weren't. Not even close. They had kissed once (not by choice), and that was it. Besides, if she and Soujiro were so "married," where was he right now?
"Hey, Miss Louise," Soujiro said, making her jump a good foot in the air. "Your face is all pink."
"Soujiro! Founder, don't sneak up on me like that!"
He smiled and bowed respectfully. Or mockingly. She honestly couldn't tell. "I promise that was not my intention. I just got back from talking to the prince, a nice guy, by the way, and I thought I'd check on you to see if you needed anything."
She hoped Soujiro hadn't bothered Wales too much. A commoner couldn't just steal an audience with a prince whenever he wanted. "I'm fine," she said. "I was just thinking about Wardes and … Wardes."
Soujiro nodded. "Yeah, Mr. Wardes can be pretty confusing, but I like him alright."
"It's not that I don't understand him, it's that, well, we're nearly done with our mission. After this, we just need to get back to Tristain and we'll be safe again."
"And everything goes back to normal," he finished.
"No, it won't. Eventually, sometime, maybe when I'm done with school, Wardes wants to get married."
"Good for him."
"To me."
"Good for you."
"Is it?"
Soujiro shrugged. "Is it?"
"I don't know! That's the thing with marriage; I'll know whether or not it's a bad idea ten years into it, but by then I'll already be stuck with him until one of us dies. That level of commitment is kind of intimidating, don't you think?"
Soujiro cocked his head thoughtfully. "I've known quite a few people who had promised to spend the rest of their lives together, but that was mostly because they had sworn to kill each other."
Louise sighed. "Well, I can't imagine any advice you could give me would be very useful anyway."
"Wait." He appeared in front of her, literally disappearing from her side and reappearing an instant later. "Are you asking me for relationship advice?"
She hesitated. "Do you have any?"
"Second-hand. Is that okay?"
She shrugged. "Why not?"
He grinned. "Wow! No one has ever asked me for advice before! Okay, so I had this friend named Chou."
Louise held up a finger. "Before you go any further, was this friend a mass murderer?"
"Of course. Where I'm from, you don't live very long without killing a few hundred people."
"Lovely. Go on."
"So Chou, he loved swords. He would spend his free time tracking down legendary swords made by legendary swordsmiths, and the weirder, the better. He made a collection out of them. He had straight swords, curved swords, singles, doubles, one that was twenty feet long and wiggled like a snake …"
"Is there a point to this story?"
"But he never knew any of them. A first-rate swordsman must know his sword like he knows himself, and Chou always wielded strangers. Mr. Shishio, on the other hand, only ever used one sword. It was the finest sword made by the finest swordsmith, and he knew everything there was to know about it, its weight, its balance, everything. He didn't need to waste time remembering the little unique quirks that each weapon had because he never forgot them."
Louise frowned. Why was she even having this conversation? Oh, right, because the alternative was thinking about how all the Albion royalists would be dead in a few days. "I'm not sure if I was clear on this, but I'm interested in getting married to a human."
"It's the same with people, too," he assured her. "Whenever we got to a new city, Chou would always head over to the first brothel he could find and ask for whatever they had that was weird. He would come back and tell us about contortionists, conjoined twins, girls with ropes, girls with whips—"
"Oh, please, give me all the details!" Louise said sarcastically.
"Actually, I don't remember any," he said, missing her tone. "I was never really paying attention, and Chou would always tell his stories to Anji, because Anji used to be a monk and … well, that's not important. My point, though, is that Chou knew those girls even less than he knew his swords, and I don't think he ever found someone worth returning to. Mr. Shishio, though, found the most beautiful woman in the country who hated the government as much as he did, and they lived happily ever after."
Louise blinked. "It's like a bedtime story," she said flatly. "Now, in this story, am I supposed to follow the example of the horny pervert or the man who was last seen assassinating the prime minister?"
"The second one."
"Right, because he seems like such a wonderful person."
Soujiro shrugged. "He'd be the last person to call himself a saint, but he and Miss Yumi got along perfectly."
"Well, there's someone for everyone, I suppose. Still, I'm not comfortable taking relationship advice from a homicidal maniac."
"Oh." He fell silent for a moment, and Louise worried that she might have offended him. "How about from a prince?"
"What?"
Before she knew it, Soujiro had led her to Newcastle's chapel, and she found herself standing in front of Prince Wales. One of these days, she was going to have to teach him proper protocols when addressing royalty, but Wales didn't seem bothered by the informality, and if it was fine with him, Louise wasn't going to bring it up.
"Ambassador Valliére," Wales said, slightly melancholy. "How may I be of service?"
"Um, I don't mean to bother you more than I already have, your Highness," she said, shooting a glare at her familiar, which he received, as usual, with a polite smile.
"It's no bother at all, really." He gave a wry smile. "And if it is, you're only distracting me from my imminent doom. Please, have a seat."
She sat down on one of the long oak benches. Chapel benches, even those in a castle, were left uncushioned to keep people awake for long sermons. She took a deep breath and began. "Well, see, your Highness, it's like this. I'm engaged to Viscount Wardes, have been ever since I was six. It was something our families set up. It's great, you know, having a plan for the distant future, so when I'm old enough we'll, you know, but he's old enough right now and he wants to take the next step, which is, you know, …"
"Marriage?" Wales supplied.
"Yes! And I understand that because he's, like, twenty-six right now, but I'm still in school, and I don't want to drop out, but I'm not learning much anyway, um, that's another story, but I've already made him wait ten years and if I make him wait two more he might find someone else and I'll be miserable for the rest of my life and die alone." She breathed in. "Sorry, is this unorthodox?"
"Very," Wales said. "Usually people come to me asking for advice on irrigation regulations and optimal ore tariffs. Talking about something that I've actually put thought into is quite refreshing. So. Tell me this, Louise—I can call you that, can't I? Tell me, do you love him?"
She deflated. "I don't know. I think so?" He was handsome, skilled, and of high class, and Louise doubted that she could do any better. "He might. He says he does, but …"
"But lying is as easy as talking. In a more peaceful age I'd tell you to take the relationship slowly and wait until you know him better before you promise him the rest of your life, but you never know how much time you have left until you don't have any at all." He fell silent for a moment. "I suppose Henrietta trusts you enough for me to tell you this, and I won't be here long enough for it to matter; we've been seeing each other in secret for several years now. I think I fell in love with her the moment I saw her, but I never knew for sure until today."
Louise blinked. "What happened today?"
He smiled the same melancholic smile he greeted her with. "I said goodbye. I realized I would never see her again, and I wished her happiness in her life, even if it's a life she won't spend with me. If I were driven by the same passions and appetites that rule so many, I do not think I would have been able to let her go. You want to know if you love the man you are engaged to. You want to know if he loves you back. If you have to choose between yourself and him, and find yourself choosing him, then you'll know."
She nodded like she understood. She didn't, but she had taken up enough of the Prince's time already. "Thank you."
WWW
Wardes was easy to find. Several of the royalists and staff were able to direct Louise to the Tristanian knight walking the halls alone. She left Soujiro behind, knowing that her familiar's presence would only antagonize him. The torchlight flickered from the sconces along the walls, burning, perhaps for the last night, for the royalists.
"Louise," he said, turning to face her. "Good evening." He spoke formally. He was always formal.
"Wardes, we need to talk."
He nodded. "Then talk."
She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. Without prodding or prying, he waited.
Say goodbye. "I'm breaking up with you!" Her words came out rough and shattered, like one of her failed spells.
He frowned. "What brought this on?"
Gentle! she told herself. Break up gently! But while he didn't seem happy about her statement, neither was he upset. "I'm sorry, Wardes, but I just can't love you, because I'm … I'm in love with someone else."
"Who?" His grey eyes narrowed in terrifying focus. "It's not that familiar of yours, is it?"
"No, it's …" Who else did she even know? Guiche? Eew. One of her teachers? Old and eew. "Princess Henrietta!"
He blinked. "What?"
What? She was horrible at thinking on her feet. "… yes."
"Oh."
"So … you see …"
"There's no problem."
"Uh, what?"
"Your situation isn't as rare as you might think," he explained. "But even if the Princess feels the same way towards you, there are too many factors to prevent her from expressing those feelings publicly. I've been trying to romance you this entire trip to make this easier for you, but let us be honest with each other. Our arrangement has always been political."
Louise gaped. "What? You mean … you don't love me?"
His shoulders gave a barely perceptible shrug. "Does it matter if you don't feel the same way towards me? That is rather petty, Louise. Surely you can see that."
Her mouth opened and closed like a fish drowning on the shore. "You—you jerk! I can't believe I fell for that, fell for you!" Suddenly it didn't matter what the political advantages of their union could be. Wardes did not love her, and that was all that mattered.
He frowned. "What? But you said—"
"I lied. I wanted to see if you really cared, and you don't!"
"That was a trick?"
"That was a trick? Everything you ever told me was a trick, you lying … liar!" She raised her hand to slap him, but he was too tall, so she hit his shoulder instead. It wasn't very satisfying, so she hit him again.
Before she could hit him a third time, he grabbed her by the front of her shirt, lifted her off her feet, and slammed her against the wall. "Look," he said, his voice cold. "You strike me as the sort of little girl who has only seen the world through story books, so I will tell this to you once. Grow. Up."
She considered kicking him between the legs, but she decided that making him mad would be a very bad idea. "Wardes," she said, trying to keep her voice steady. "Put me down. Put me down right now."
"People will live and die depending on your choices, Valliére, and if you think you're going to get a happy ending in this story, that you deserve a happy ending—"
"Soujiro!" she called, her voice echoing through the hall.
"Hello!" In an instant he was there, smiling cheerfully, a hand resting on his sword hilt. "Are you having fun, Miss Louise? Mr. Wardes! I've barely seen you since we got here. By the way, would you mind putting my master down?" He laughed politely. "Because if you don't, I'll have to cut your arm off, and that's going to make the return trip really awkward."
Wardes turned his hard gaze to him, unblinking, seeming to forget Louise entirely. "My apologies, I …" His eyes flickered to Louise, a courtesy, before returning to the threat. "Excuse me."
She fell from his grasp to the floor and watched him walk off into the night.
WWW
When he was a child, Wardes never planned a thing. He stopped when he discovered what disaster an unplanned life could be, but when he planned every step, every breath, and it still fell to pieces, that was a bitter drink, bitter as blood. Brimir looked down at him piously in stained glass, though if the Founder smiled in sympathy or mockery, he could not tell.
"So," Wales said, sitting down on the bench next to him. "No wedding?"
Everyone remembered Brimir as a saint, a savior. They forgot how many he had to kill to save the few who lived. "No wedding."
"Pity. I would have enjoyed it, if only to stagger the monotony of the funeral. Would you like to talk about it?"
Wales was a personal man. He flaunted his humanity to defy the pedestal upon which his title had placed him. Wardes had seen the same traits in Henrietta. Both tried so hard to be part of the people around them because they had no idea who they really were. "Do you think that if you didn't focus so much on the problems of others, you might have less of your own?"
Wales flinched, but he recovered quickly. "More problems, less problems," he said, his voice indifferent. "We'll never know, and at this point it hardly matters."
"Because you are determined and content to die?"
"Determined, yes."
"To die fighting your own people," Wardes mused. "Because they are your people, are they not? The Reconquista, each a son of Albion."
He hesitated, but smiled quickly. "Now, that is a philosophical quagmire I wouldn't wish on anyone. What is Albion? A landmass? A billion tons of rock and Windstones? Or is it a group people? People who die and are replaced by their descendants, people who come and go, trying their luck in foreign lands? I've thought about this, Wardes, I thought about it whether I wanted to or not. And I've decided that it comes down to faith."
"Faith," Wardes repeated.
"Yes. Those who believe in me are my people, and I lead them, fight for them; and those who deny me, I stand against."
Wardes nodded, still not looking at the young prince. He only looked at the image of the Founder in the glass, wanting to look at anything else, so he stared holes into Brimir, eye for eye until one of them blinked. "Is it such a precious thing, to be God?"
Wales frowned. "What do you mean?"
"You will lead all who believe in you to their death," Wardes said. "They cheer for you, fight for you, but must they die for you as well? You could save them if you step down, return their lives, and reject their faith. You could save Tristain, too. Princess Henrietta believes in you as much as any of your subjects. If you die on the wands of the Reconquista, she will never forgive them and will burn Tristain to the ground to avenge you. But if you swallow your pride join the Reconquista, you could save two kingdoms, and no one needs to die."
For a moment, Wales was silent, surprised that a knight of Tristain would voice unspeakable ideas. "No one needs to die," he repeated. "They only need to kneel."
"We all kneel!" he said. He felt angry. Why was he angry? "All but kings."
He could feel Wales staring at him from the side, growing suspicious that this was more than a philosophical debate. "I read a book long ago. I've forgotten the title, forgotten everything about it except for one phrase. 'The subjects do not kneel so the king can stand; the king stands to teach his subjects how.' And, I might add, when. I do not oppose the Reconquista because they oppose me, they oppose me because I oppose them. I recognize the appeal of a unified, continental empire, Wardes, I do, but not under the Reconquista.
"Their leader is a religious man," Wales continued. "Did you know that? Oliver Cromwell, he was a bishop before he decided he wanted to be a king. I met him before the war when he offered my father his false, undying loyalty, and even then he was a fraud. You meet a lot of churchmen like him, people who don't know what faith is, but have figured out how to use it to get people to give them money. He still prays poetically and speaks piously, and asks Brimir to bless his armies before each battle. He preaches sermons about the holy destiny of the Reconquista to take over the world. He doesn't phrase it like that, of course, but that's what it is: greed, lust for power. That's another trait about his sort of churchman; you can get away with anything as long as you declare it to be the Founder's will. Still, even if he defeats my army, even if he conquers the whole of Halkeginia, Brimir does not protect those who try to sit upon his throne, and Cromwell, his Reconquista, and all who allow themselves to be swept up in their lust and greed will find themselves at the left hand of God."
Wardes felt a shiver run up his spine as he looked up at stained-glass Brimir, framed by his four familiars. Mind. Heart. Right. Left.
"Perhaps we will."
WWW
Despite what Soujiro had said, Louise knew that the trip home was going to be plenty awkward already. Wardes doesn't love me. That stung. She thought she was loved, but she was only being used.
She wanted to talk to someone, hoping that talking would help her figure out what she wanted to say, but she couldn't talk to Soujiro. He was … it would be cruel to call him simple, but he didn't seem to understand her any more than she understood him, so that left Prince Wales.
No, there was more than that. It was his fault that she had stumbled into the truth in the first place, so he needed to help her clean it up. And, just as important, she only had a few more hours to convince him to live.
But when she opened up the doors to the chapel where she had last seen him, Wales Tudor, Prince of Albion, lay dead beneath the altar, Wardes, sword-wand bloody, standing over him. For a moment Louise stared, confused, as though watching a scene in a play. "Wardes? What's going—"
Wardes waved his sword-wand, and the door behind her slammed shut. Bloody sword over a body. Louise struggled to deny it. "What's going on?" she said again.
He stared through her. "You know."
She swallowed. "Why?" she demanded. "Why would you …" She motioned towards Wales' body. "So I break up with you and you start killing people?"
He laughed, a hollow, contemptuous sound. "I've been killing people since before I ever met you, girl. Wales was not the first, and you will not be the last."
Panic hit her. Her noble pride was too deeply ingrained in her to allow her to run even if she thought it would do any good, so she pulled out her wand. "Fireball!"
Everyone called her a weak mage, but she wasn't. Unskilled, yes, even incompetent, but her failed spells were powerful, capable of breaking the unbreakable and destroying the indestructible.
If she could aim worth spit she'd be fine. Instead, she missed entirely, shattering the stained-glass window of Founder Brimir twenty feet above her target.
Wardes glanced back, noting her spell's effect. "It's hard to imagine how powerful you could become if you ever figured out what you were doing. If it's any consolation, Louise … no, I suppose it wouldn't be."
He pointed his sword at her, and it began to glow. For a mage of his caliber, the only sort of spell that required any time to charge up were square-class spells. A quick death. A small mercy.
But before the spell hit, a figure stood in the window, a black silhouette framed by the twin moons.
Wardes released his spell, and something hit Louise hard … and she found herself on the other side of the room.
She sucked in breath, somehow still alive. She blinked, and found Soujiro standing right next to her. "What—Soujiro? What are you doing here?"
Her familiar smiled just like he always did. "Oh, I was just out for a walk, heard an explosion, and I thought I'd see what was going on. I hope you don't mind me intervening, Miss Louise, but you looked like you were about to die. So, Prince Wales looks pretty dead. What happened to him?"
"Wardes killed him." Wardes still stood over the Prince's body, his face unreadable.
"Well that's too bad," Soujiro said. "I kind of liked that guy. I don't know if he was one of the silliest people I've ever met or the first one I found in this world who understood anything, but I liked him. He taught me about honor, death—"
"Lightning Storm!" Lightning flashed, blinding her, but when she blinked away the afterimage she was still alive, with the acrid scent of burnt air in her nostrils.
Soujiro's sword stood embedded in the floor in front of them. "And lightning rods," he continued, pulling his sword out, "which turned out to be a lot more practical than I thought. You okay, Mr. Derflinger?"
"Ah! Oh yeah," the sword said. "That woke me up. But I'm fine. Highly conductive, thank you very much."
"Glad to hear it." He sheathed his sword and looked back to Wardes. "Still, I can't tell you how glad I am that you killed him, Mr. Wardes."
Wardes frowned. "Why is that?"
"Because ever since I met you, there's been something about you that I couldn't say, a connection that people like me don't get very often, and I finally know what it is! You're just like me."
Wardes' face twisted in disgust. "I am nothing like you."
"Sure you are. You're a hitokiri, a, what did you call it again? An honorless assassin. Sure you have facial hair and a cool hat, but other than that we're the same." He smiled. "Was your mother a whore too?"
"Air hammer!"
Wham! Something crashed into her—not the spell—and Louise was somewhere else again, in Soujiro's arms. He set her down. "I hope you have a few more techniques, Mr Wardes, because as Mr. Shishio always said, a technique is only half as good the second time you've seen it. But I can tell that you're getting impatient, so I apologize for taking so long. Still, if you could indulge me for a moment longer, I have one more question before we get started."
Wardes narrowed his eyes. "What?"
Soujiro didn't turn around, but he gestured toward her so she knew he was speaking to her. "Is it okay with you if I kill this guy?"
WWW
Soujiro waited a moment for her to respond. The wait was important—the command was important. He had wanted to become a wanderer, but that could wait until later. Now he was a hitokiri, just like he had always been, and he killed only on demand.
That didn't mean he didn't want it. Wardes was strong, and unless Louise intervened, Soujiro wouldn't have to share. The weak are food for the strong. He was going to get to see exactly what a mage was capable of.
"Soujiro," Louise said, "kill him."
He smiled.
Wardes cast a spell, and split into seven copies of himself.
"Wow!" Soujiro said. "I've never seen a trick like that before, Mr. Wardes. Are those copies real, or are they just illusions?"
"I assure you, boy, they are real."
"Really? Let's test that." Soujiro darted forward and drew his sword, slicing through one of them. The copy dissipated into smoke, offering no resistance. Of course, the people he cut through didn't slow his sword down much either, so … "I still can't tell."
"Then perhaps a demonstration is in order!" The six remaining copies began chanting a spell, and once more Soujiro let them finish. He was going to kill Wardes, but this wasn't about killing him, it was about feeding off of him, learning his spells and techniques so that the next mage he fought would fall that much easier.
And Wardes' next spell was outstanding. The air in the building came to life, swirling around them in the center of the room, and the whirlwind grew stronger and stronger, sending the hard wooden benches flying like dead grass.
The wind sent Soujiro running on the walls just to stay on his feet, but he had always been able to do that, and now he didn't even need the floor. He hopped whenever he came to a corner and kept running, so fast that even if Wardes shot him with lightning, he wouldn't be able to hit him.
Louise wasn't so lucky. She tumbled and rolled with the rest of the debris, neither as strong nor as sturdy as the wood benches or the stone walls. When he caught her, she wasn't conscious. He wasn't even sure if she was breathing.
Protect the weak. A command? A condemnation? Either way, the contradictions he was trying to reconcile could drive him mad, but not for a while. Now, he stuffed her in a closet for safe keeping while he gave Wardes the focus and consideration a mage of his caliber deserved.
Back on the walls, Soujiro ran towards the ceiling, as far up as he could go, then he came down to the floor. He went up and down and up again, turning the circle of his movements into an ellipse that became more narrow with each turn. Up, down, up, down, wall, ceiling, wall, floor. He had to dodge the shattered windows, but soon he had enough momentum to challenge the wind.
He shot down like a bullet and hit the floor without slowing down. He ran forward, straight for the six Wardes', the air whipping at his clothes and sucking the breath from his lungs, but still he ran.
And it still was not enough. A few feet away, he hit a wall of air, too thick to run through, almost too thick to cut. He stumbled and nearly fell, but kept running. He came back and attacked from the other side, and once more hit the invisible wall.
It was a perfect defense. With the whirlwind swirling around, Soujiro could barely attack at all, and those attacks were blocked by Wardes' air shield. He considered changing their fight into a battle of attrition to see how long Wardes could keep the spell up, but he was getting tired.
Endurance was for people who held back, at least that was what he had always believed. He may have been biased, considering how Mr. Shishio physically couldn't fight for much more than fifteen minutes, but few of Soujiro's enemies needed more than two.
Wardes, it turned out, was one of them. Should he leave and come back after the tornado died down? No, he couldn't. Louise was still stuffed in the closet. She wasn't just weak, she was his weakness, and though he could feel Mr. Shishio's disapproval, he couldn't leave her behind. That meant the only choice he had left was … well, he was short on options.
"Partner!" Derflinger said. "I just remembered something!"
"That's great, Mr. Derflinger." He was nearly out of breath, but that was no excuse for discourtesy. "I would love to hear about it after this fight."
"But it's important! I know my legend!"
"Again, that's great, and after this fight, I'll give your legend the attention it deserves."
"Okay, Soujiro, but just a quick spoiler, I can absorb magic."
He nearly tripped. "What?"
"Oh, so that got your attention."
Watch the window! "How does it work?"
"I admit I'm a little fuzzy on the details, but I need something from you: emotion. That's why it's taken me so long to figure it out, Partner, because you're pretty much a dry well, but if you got, I don't know, a whole lot of repressed anger for me to work with, I'll be able to shine like I haven't in a thousand years."
Anger? Towards Wardes? No, if anything, he liked the guy. Sure, he assassinated a politician in an act of war, but who hadn't?
Still, there wasn't much else he could do, so he opened his heart and felt like he hadn't since his fight with Mr. Himura, and found …
He found that after all these years, he was the same. It had been ten years since he had joined Mr. Shishio, but after all that time, he was, in his heart, still a child, crying in the rain.
He was, still …
Afraid.
WWW
Soujiro watched the fortress burn.
"So, Mr. Shishio is dead," he said as the smoke ascended over Mount Hiei. "Together with Miss Yumi."
He remembered when Miss Yumi started traveling with them. He had never been sure why Mr. Shishio had insisted on having a woman who couldn't fight or handle logistics at his side, but Soujiro had liked having her around. Having her around had made it seem like, he realized, he had a family. Mom and Dad, hard at work on the family business. He had killed families like that. His first kill had been a family like that.
Of course he never would have said that out loud. Mr. Shishio had no use for sentimentality, and so neither did Soujiro. Besides, he had been too broken from the start to realize how he felt. He had been too broken to feel anything until now.
And now it was too late. The fortress burned, filling the air with the thick, toxic smell of ignited oil, and sent the remains of Mr. Shishio's flesh, blood, and dreams up in smoke.
How had this happened? How? He knew how strong Mr. Shishio was, and he had given him the secret of Mr. Himura's Amakakeru Ryū no Hirameki. Hadn't that been enough? And if the Battousai was so much stronger, then what had happened to the sword that protected the weak? What had happened to his vow not to kill?
The fear, the anger, the guilt, the love, the pain, was all too much, and too fast. Yes, Soujiro had wanted to become a wanderer, but he had wanted to wander through Mr. Shishio's world, and watch him take over the country from afar. Now he just wanted things to go back to the way they were.
So he did the same thing he always did. He smiled, and felt nothing.
Before his heart closed once more, the last thought that entered it was that Mr. Shishio had died in battle, and Miss Yumi had died at his side, so in a way, both had gotten what they had really wanted.
But that was sentimental nonsense. Neither of them had wanted to die at all.
That was long ago. In the present, he screamed.
WWW
Louise woke up with a throbbing bruise on her everything, and found herself in a confessional. Forgive me, Founder, for I have sinned. Though, she felt like she had already gone through hell, so whatever penance she owed, she figured she had already paid.
Then she remembered. Prince Wales, lying dead on the floor. Viscount Wardes, ready to kill again. Soujiro, confident that he could handle it.
And she had let him. What was she thinking? What was she thinking? What sort of master sent her familiar off to fight a square class mage? She should have told him to run away, and if she was feeling particularly pragmatic and cowardly, to take her with him, not charge boldly to his death.
But … was he dead? He had managed to counter Wardes' first two spells, and if he had lost, Wardes wouldn't have left her alive. Of course, if Soujiro had won, she couldn't imagine him leaving her alone either.
In fact, how had she ended up in this tiny room anyway? She remembered being picked up by a tornado and … and that was it. She wasn't sure if they had killed each other, forgotten about her, or just left, but she wasn't going to stay hiding in a confessional when she had the strength to stand.
And she could stand, with effort. She pulled herself to her feet, gripped her wand, and stumbled out the door.
In the church, she found the remains of a disaster. Broken pieces of furniture lay strewn across the room, the stained-glass windows were cleanly shattered, and while the body of Prince Wales was nowhere in sight, the top half of Wardes' torso lay on the floor.
In the middle of the room stood Soujiro, with blood on his sword, and tears on his face.
"Soujiro?" she asked, stepping gingerly through the wreckage.
He looked up at her, and his lips twitched as though trying to smile. "Oh, h-hello Miss Louise. I was … I was just about to go wake you up."
"Are you okay?" There wasn't a scratch on him that she could see, but …
He glanced at Wardes' dead body and gripped his sword so tightly his hand turned white. "Y-yes." He smiled successfully—barely—and said again, "Yes, I'm fine."
"You're crying."
"What? No I'm not, I—" He felt his face, and looked surprised when his fingers came away wet. "It's raining," he decided. "The weather here is … you know."
Louise looked up at the ceiling, one of the few parts of the church that was still in one piece, and felt very, very small. Wardes shouldn't have lost to a commoner, no matter how skilled, but more than that, the Soujiro she knew did not cry. What had she slept though?
She didn't know what to do, so she did the only thing she could. She smiled and played along. "That's right," she said. "It's just the rain."
WWW
A/n It has been a long time since I updated, but this is the one story I have that has gotten onto the TV Tropes Fanfic Recs Page (and I will never stop being pleased with that), so I couldn't help but come back to it. Eventually. And I did, so go me!
Anyway, enough patting myself on the back, let me pat you on the back. You are the people who stayed with this story no longer how long I go without updating, and you haven't forgotten it, so go you! As always, your feedback is appreciated, so let me know what you thought. Finally, thank you Croniklerx for editing this and catching the different spelling, grammatical, and character errors and preventing me from subjecting them to you.