Chapter 37: Wayward Son

Cen led the way on the search, holding Sapphire's glowing yellow crystal up before him to give the group light to see. Others might have had trouble picking out Rath's course across the marshy ground, but Cen's sharp eyes had no trouble finding the haphazard route. Estel and Sapphire followed close behind him, not wanting to risk getting lost in the thick fog shrouding the town.

No one spoke. Each of the companions was too busy contending with their own thoughts.

The path led out of the inhabited portion of Onrac to the ring of abandoned houses that the surrounding forest had not overtaken yet. Cen walked along narrow streets where the cobblestones had almost entirely disappeared into the wet earth, through bracken-choked gardens, and into a maze of thin alleys made thinner by the collapsing walls of the buildings around them. And here, in a dead-end created by a heap of moss-covered rubble, the companions found Rath.

He had half-fallen against the stone blocking his way, his head bowed against his arms and his back to the alleyway. His hands clenched against the damp rock. At first it did not seem as though he had heard his companions approach, but as they drew nearer, he took a deep breath and spoke.

"It didn't occur to you that my leaving meant I wanted to be alone?"

He tried to say this in his usual snappish tone, but it sounded more desperate than anything. Sapphire glanced at Estel, who was watching Rath with a frown. Cen, his expression not having softened in the least since the group had left the shelter, lowered the glowing crystal as he regarded Rath.

"Sorry about that," he said, not sounding particularly sorry at all. "But we need to know what's going on here, and we figured you'd rather clear that up yourself instead of letting your sister do it."

Rath cringed, but he still did not turn to look at the others.

"In case you hadn't noticed, I would rather the issue had never come up at all. I could shatter that damnable crystal of yours myself now, Sapphire."

Blanching slightly, Sapphire tried to apologize but could not quite get the words out. She ended up mouthing, "I'm sorry," without any sound.

"We'll start off easy, then," Cen said, again with surprising chilliness. "What's your name? Rath, or Raolin?"

A long pause, feeling all the longer thanks to the eerie atmosphere.

"'Rath' will suffice," came the answer at last. "Raolin has been all but dead for a very long time."

"Fine. Now—"

"What about Tenen?" Estel interrupted, releasing Sapphire's hand and stepping forward. He did not sound as cold as Cen, just slightly wounded. "I remember that name being in there somewhere too."

After a long moment, Rath straightened up and turned around. Out in the fog, he looked even more gaunt and wraith-like, with his thin, hollow face and shaggy, matted hair.

"I'm surprised you recognized me. It has been quite some time."

"Well, you still look about as sick now as you did then, just a lot less sunburned. Wasn't too hard."

"What?" Sapphire looked from Rath to Estel. "What are you talking about? What else is going on here?"

Estel kept his eyes on Rath as he replied.

"Remember when I was tellin' you about the last time me and Mom saw each other? On that ship to Crescent? Well, the ship came across some little stick of a kid floatin' on a plank out in the middle of the ocean. Passed out cold. The crew took him on board, and once he was awake and better enough that he could talk, he told us the ship he'd been on had wrecked in a storm. Everyone else'd died. Mom felt bad for him, so she pretty much took him in for the rest of the trip. Once we hit land, he left." He folded his arms. "He seemed like a good kid. But I didn't figure I'd ever see him again."

"I was just as surprised as you are," Rath said. He spoke with uncharacteristic quietness, and the companions could see on his face how difficult it was for him to keep his previous distress from surfacing again. He seemed to find Estel's digression from the more pressing matter at hand a relief.

"You could've told me," Estel said, a bit sullen.

"I didn't think it would be of any consequence to what we were doing."

"So? I'd still wanna know it was you."

"Hm." Rath almost looked as though he would smile, but the hint vanished as instantly as it had appeared. "Esme told me that in almost exactly those words when we were in Gaia. She seemed offended by my reticence."

"So that's why you were being so nice to her," Sapphire said, her eyes widening in realization. "Because…"

"Yes. I…couldn't be anything less than respectful after what she had done."

"Oh, but it was okay to act like a complete bastard to me?" Estel said with mock seriousness. "Gee, thanks."

"That is because, among other things, she did not believe that a valid method to help me recover was getting me drunk on bad rum."

Estel opened his mouth to argue, but then he stopped and thought about it.

"…Yeah, that was pretty bad. Okay, right, I deserved it."

"Alright, great, what a surprising reunion," Cen cut in. "You two can catch up later. There's kind of another problem that we need to get straightened out now."

Rath winced and looked away, clenching his jaw.

"I don't want to discuss it. Go talk to someone else; anyone in this town could give you a more or less accurate recitation of events."

"We don't want to hear what 'more or less' happened; we want to hear what you say happened." Cen stepped up beside Estel, the light of the crystal in his hand casting slightly ominous shadows up on his face. "And you can either tell us on your own, or I can make you do it the same way I make Estel tell me things he doesn't want to."

Estel sucked air between his teeth with a hiss.

"Just do it on your own," he advised Rath. "You're havin' a bad enough day."

Rath did not look at them, instead keeping his gaze on the moldy stone wall beside him. The fog hugged around him.

Sapphire edged her way around Cen and Estel and approached Rath. For once, Rath did not pull away when she reached out and rested her hand on his arm.

"We're not going to judge you," she said quietly. "If you say you…that this didn't happen the way Diona said, then we'll believe you. This is just something that it's very important that we know the truth about."

Again, Rath remained silent. After a long pause, Sapphire removed her hand from his arm and stepped back, frowning in concern. No sound broke the anxious silence that hung over the group; even the ocean in the distance sounded almost inaudible.

"…I appreciate the sentiment," Rath said at last, again making an attempt to sound like his usual brusque self, and again failing to do so. His hands clenched at his sides. "But what any of you think about this is completely irrelevant, because the entire situation is none of your concern. It is…something I must contend with on my own."

"Bahamut didn't seem to think so," Cen said, and Rath cringed again, shutting his eyes and drawing a sharp breath. "This is what he was talking to you about back at Cardia, wasn't it? And what Lukhan and the other sages warned you about. You should have told us about all this ages ago, instead of waiting until now, right before we have to fight the next Fiend, to freak everyone out and make this a hundred times worse than it has to be. Damn it, Rath—"

"If things had gone as I tried to arrange, this wouldn't have come up at all," Rath interrupted, again sounding desperate rather than harsh. "We could have come, done what we had to do, and gone without anyone being the wiser. We would have been far away before Diona or any of the others here realized what happened, and you all would have remained content in the impression that I was nothing more than your unpleasant, eccentric teammate."

"And you really thought it would've worked out that smoothly?"

"…It was a foolish hope. I should have known better, but…the alternative I found too repulsive to consider."

"Good thing we're going to keep this quick, then. The faster you tell us, the faster it's over with."

Rath did not reply, so Cen went on.

"Did you murder your parents?"

A flash of anger appeared for just a moment in Rath's golden eyes, easily missed in the dim glow of the crystal.

"I did not murder them. I already told you that."

"Yeah, but you didn't tell us what you actually did do. There must have been something, or you wouldn't be acting like this."

No answer. Rath seemed to be trying to shrink back into the fog, just as he would shrink into his collar when he was in a crowd. Sapphire touched his shoulder, lightly at first, then, when he gave no reaction beyond a slight twitch, she pressed it more firmly.

"It's all right," she said. "You can trust us."

"That doesn't matter," Rath said, sounding almost angry now. Still, it was a far cry from his usual bursts of rage. "I know what I've done, and I know how you all will react to it; and your reactions have no bearing on it or what I must do about it."

"Tell us anyway," Cen said flatly.

"No."

Cen scowled at Rath, then his expression became utterly dismissive. He shrugged.

"Okay. Fine. Let's go, guys." He turned and started to walk out of the alley.

"Huh?" Estel stared after him with confusion. "Wait, we're just…?"

"Yeah. We'll let him deal with his problem alone, just like he wants." Cen gave a quick wave over his shoulder. "Good luck taking down the Fiend all by yourself tomorrow, Rath. Let us know how that turns out."

"…What?"

Cen stopped at the end of the alley at Rath's stunned question. He turned back to face the others, looking Rath straight in the eye as he replied.

"You heard me. If you're just so good at doing things on your own, then you don't need us to help you fight the Fiend. For that matter, you might be better off without us; we won't be much good fighting underwater, but you would be fine throwing your spells around. Of course, there's the serious chance that the Fiend will rip you to pieces before you can so much as scratch him, but I'm sure you've already thought about that and have a great plan to keep it from happening."

Sarcasm dripped from his words. Estel winced but could not help looking slightly impressed, while Sapphire gaped at Cen, completely stunned. Cen did not acknowledge either of them, just keeping his deceptively cool gaze on Rath. Rath stared back at him, eyes wide and hands limp and shaking.

After a short, unpleasant silence, Rath clenched his fists, and his jaw tightened.

"Damn you."

"Tell us what happened," Cen repeated.

Rath turned his head away, his breath quickening, his hands still in tight fists, but in the end, Cen's threat proved to be too much. His shoulders slumped, his hands went limp again, and his face took on a blank, haunted expression.

"I did not murder my parents," he said. He stared at the crumbled wall beside him instead of looking at his companions. "But I did kill them."

Sapphire drew a quick breath and looked as though she wanted to move away from him, but she remained frozen in place, her hand still on his shoulder. Estel swore under his breath and turned away to lean against a mostly intact stretch of wall beside him. Cen just nodded and took a few steps back into the alley.

"Keep going."

"I had no choice. They were—" Rath broke off, shutting his eyes and clenching his jaw. "It was a mercy. I know you can all understand that there are times where the need for that arises."

No one replied to that.

"So what happened?" Estel asked, frowning down at the soggy ground.

Rath had to take a few steadying breaths before answering.

"They went…no, you need to know why first." He swallowed, his thin lips pressed tightly together. "The shard of the Water Crystal…was something of an heirloom in my family. That, as much as anything, is why Onrac wasn't abandoned decades ago. The town knew that, more likely than not, the Warrior who would save them would be one of us. Then, one day…the Fiend's activity ceased. The diseases in the water vanished, the ocean calmed, and the fog began to disperse. It was as though someone had defeated him, but Mother and Father knew that couldn't be possible. After doing everything they could to find out what had happened or goad the Fiend into action, they determined the only course left was to go themselves to investigate. They knew this wouldn't end well for them," he went on, before anyone else could point this out. "We all knew. But the rest of the town…demanded answers. They're too used to things being as they are. Change frightens them more than does the Fiend."

He paused for a moment, his blank stare unwavering on the wall. None of the other companions attempted to interrupt his narrative, just waiting patiently in the dark, cold fog for him to continue.

"I tried to convince my siblings that everything would be fine. I told them our parents were such strong wizards that they would be able to survive and return to us. Diona didn't believe this, of course—I couldn't blame her, because I didn't believe it myself—and Tessea…she was too young to understand what was happening. I don't think Aren and Kaide really believed me either, but the lie comforted them. That was the best I could do. I knew our parents wouldn't return. Saying farewell to them felt like a funeral, no matter how many times they assured us they would come back safely. …I was so frightened for them. But I had to be strong for my brothers; if they saw how I felt, it would only upset them worse. We watched Mother and Father disappear into the fog, and I watched the fog long afterward, knowing they would never come back out of it. …I can't describe how terrible it felt to know that."

Another long silence. Cen's gaze stayed fixed on Rath's face, both their expressions equally detached. Sapphire watched Rath as well, but with obvious distress, her hand over her mouth. Estel continued to frown at the boggy ground, his brow furrowed beneath the edge of his bandana.

At last, Rath went on, his voice just as detached and listless as his face.

"Over a week passed. Everyone now knew that Mother and Father would never be seen here again. The return of the storms, the fog, and the sickness just confirmed this even more. …Then, my cousin Kope found their bodies washed up on the shore."

Sapphire drew a sharp breath. Rath went on without acknowledging her.

"By all rights, they should have been dead. Yet somehow their hearts still beat, in spite of the state of their bodies." He shuddered despite of himself. "I saw them right after they were found. They had not simply been attacked; they had been tortured." His eyes took on a pained, faraway look. "…I don't remember what I did when I saw them like that. Others told me later that I was inconsolable, that it was all they could do to pry me away so they could take the bodies to our home."

All the color had gone out of Estel's face, and after a moment his knees buckled and he slid down the wall to sit with a wet thump on the ground. Sapphire, both hands over her mouth now, had tears in her eyes. Only Cen looked unaffected, his arms folded and his hand tight around Sapphire's crystal. Its golden light seemed weak and cold in the midst of the swirling fog and dead, heavy air.

"We did everything we could to help them after we found them," Rath went on. His gaze, still directed at the wall rather than his companions, remained distant. "My father…he had been our chief healer here and had taken me as his apprentice, so I knew a great deal about tending the sick and wounded. Even with my knowledge, however, this was far beyond anything I had ever seen or heard of. Nothing ever healed. The wounds remained open no matter how often we bandaged them, the broken bones wouldn't mend. Infections started and spread. I did everything I could. Anyone who knew anything of healing did all they could. Mother and Father remained just as injured as they had been when they had first washed up on the shore."

"How?" Sapphire whispered in horror before she could stop herself.

"The Fiend," Rath answered at once. "It could only be his doing. I don't know how, but…as long as their hearts beat, they would continue living like that, in that agony, until…" He trailed off, then went on from where he had been before Sapphire's interruption. "They remained silent and unresponsive during the day, which was almost a blessing. But at night… You heard what they did then, in the Citadel of Trials. You heard them crying and screaming. I heard far more. Every night, I heard them screaming for mercy, for freedom, for death. It was torture for me, for all of us, and continued on for months. Can you even imagine that? Hearing your parents crying out for help, and being unable to do anything for them? Knowing that every night they're reliving whatever horrible things were done to them to put them in such a state?"

No one answered aloud, but Estel nodded very slowly.

Rath went on, and as he did his hands began trembling almost imperceptibly.

"I did everything I could. I sent out messages requesting aid, even though I knew none could come. I searched through my father's books, trying to find something, anything, that could provide answers or help. I would have gone to the Shrine myself had I been able, but I didn't have the means, and the venture would likely have accomplished nothing other than my own death even if I did. And—" For a moment, he seemed on the verge of losing control, his breath quavering just briefly. He finally looked up at the others, his expression shockingly helpless. "I was only fourteen. I couldn't bear torture like this, or watch my parents bear it. But I couldn't give up, and I couldn't show how much it hurt me. I had to be strong for Aren, and Kaide, and Tessea, and even for Diona. So I continued to fight to save my parents, and kept telling the others not to worry, I would be able to fix everything, even as all my attempts failed."

He looked away again, his face growing distant and blank once more.

"I could only think of one other way to…fix what had happened. To let my siblings sleep through the night without being disturbed by shrieks of agony. To help my parents." His shoulders tightened. "I had never thought I would consider such a thing. But what else could I do? So…one night, I took a knife, went into their room, and…"

He trailed off, but he did not need to finish the sentence. Estel's eyes were wide as he finally looked over at Rath, an expression of inner turmoil on his face. Sapphire's hands still covered her mouth, and the tears in her eyes began to fall. Cen let out a slow breath and shut his eyes with a slightly pained expression.

"Oh, Rath…" Sapphire murmured.

Again, Rath continued as though he had not heard her.

"I left, then. I knew I couldn't remain here; no one would understand why my actions were necessary, and…I knew by then the crystal shard was mine to bear. I couldn't fulfill my duty if I remained, and that duty was the only way I could truly aid my homeland. So, I took the crystal and some of my belongings, and fled the town." He paused. "I remember nothing of my flight, aside from rushing through the forest in the dark. I suppose I must have fallen into the river and been washed out to sea, as my next clear memory is of waking on a ship and being tended to by a woman and her son."

He straightened up slightly and turned to look at the others through the dense fog. For just a moment, the helplessness threatened to return to his face, but it just as quickly vanished, leaving the hollow blankness undisturbed.

"There is your explanation. I trust you find it satisfactory enough to lure you back to fulfilling your own part in what must happen tomorrow."

Neither Cen nor Estel replied, the latter tipping his head back against the wall behind him and releasing a long breath, and the former continuing to watch Rath steadily. Sapphire, on the other hand, had tears running down her cheeks and seemed to be barely suppressing the urge to embrace Rath.

"I'm…I'm so sorry, Rath. For what's happened to you, and your family, and…" She wiped at her tears. "Of course we'll be with you tomorrow. Cen, he—" She broke off and looked up the alley at Cen. "You wouldn't really have made him go fight the Fiend by himself, would you?"

Cen shrugged. "He needed to tell us about this."

"That wasn't—"

"Stop that," Rath interrupted, in as close to his usual snappish tone as the others had yet heard since they had found him. "You have what you came for. Do me this one solitary favor now and leave me alone. I…" After keeping calm through his entire narrative, he began to crumble now; he slumped back against the heap of mildewed rubble behind him, his hands clenching as he fought to keep his face neutral.

Sapphire immediately went to Rath's side.

"We're not going to let you stay out here by yourself. It's late, and it's dark, and you've said yourself it's not safe. Please—"

"Pardon me, but why do you continue to think any of this actually concerns you?" More of the edge returned to Rath's voice, but it was mixed with a faint, tell-tale tremor. His eyes narrowed. "The Fiend of Water aside, these are my problems, not yours, and I don't appreciate you assuming they somehow are. This—" He jerked a hand in the direction of the inhabited part of town. "—is my problem. All this…" He pressed his fist to his forehead and gritted his teeth. "I wish I could have avoided all this. I…didn't want to see…"

He shut his eyes and fell silent. None of the companions took this as it was meant: a cue for them to leave. Sapphire and Cen remained standing right where they were. Estel straightened up and glanced over at Sapphire, but her gaze remained on Rath and she did not notice.

"Rath," she whispered. "Please…"

Rath drew a sharp breath, his lips pressed tightly together, then his eyes snapped open.

"What precisely do you all find so difficult about walking away?" He sounded more desperate than aggravated now. "Go back to the shelter."

Estel started to say something, but Cen cleared his throat and, when Estel looked up at him, shook his head. He gestured for Estel to get to his feet, and Estel did so, taking a few steps toward Cen and the exit of the alley once he had. Cen then turned to Sapphire, still at Rath's side.

"Come on," he said.

Sapphire shook her head.

"No. I'm not…I can't just walk away—"

"Damnation, Sapphire!" Rath suddenly yelled, but again there was no anger in his voice, only desperation. "Will you for once listen when someone tells you to do something? Why do you insist on being so maddeningly stubborn? Leave!"

Sapphire stared at him, but though she looked startled and was breathing hard, she did not quail before his outburst. If anything, she only grew more determined.

"I'm not being stubborn," she said. "I want to help you."

"You can help me by leaving!"

"I don't believe that. You've been alone for long enough; now you need someone to be with you and support you. I don't see how you could think you could deal with something like this on your own. No one could."

Rath slouched down further, his hands clenched, his unkempt dark hair falling forward to obscure his face.

"I can. The only help I need from any of you is in destroying the Fiend. After that…after that…" He made a strange, choked noise that may have been a humorless laugh. "After that, you never have to concern yourself with me again."

Sapphire's eyes widened, and she took a step backward.

"What are you talking about?"

"Do you really think I intend to return from that Shrine?"

A brief, stunned silence fell. Estel broke it with a vehement curse.

"No," Sapphire said, her tone firm despite how her face had blanched. "You're not going to do that, Rath. I won't let—"

"And again you prove yourself incapable of listening. I told you once: my goal in life is to complete this quest. Once my part in that is complete, what options do you see remaining?"

Estel stepped forward, now looking more resigned than shocked.

"Guess that's why you wanted me to get my magic goin' so fast, huh? You needed me to be your replacement after you offed yourself."

Rath nodded.

"And you've been plannin' that for a while."

"From the moment my knife pierced my mother's breast," Rath replied in a low voice, all pretext of anger gone.

Estel let out a slow breath, and then swore again.

"Stop that," Sapphire told him, without insistence. Her focus remained on Rath as her voice began to shake. "We won't let you do that, Rath. We…I can't."

"You will," came the short reply.

"No. I know you don't feel the same way about us, but you're our friend." Her voice shook, and tears spilled across her cheeks again, but her expression remained firm. "We can't let you die now, any more than we could in Jord Cave. If you'd just let us—"

"Are you truly deaf? Didn't you hear a single word of what I've told you?" At any other time, this would have been delivered as a biting rebuke. Now, only despair and desperation could be heard in Rath's voice. "My only purpose now is to kill the Fiend! When that is done, there will be no reason for me to continue living!"

"What about your family?"

"You saw yourself they would be glad to be rid of me! After what I did—" Rath broke off with a shudder. "After what I've done to them, I can't blame them in the least."

"You were just trying—"

"It doesn't matter what I was trying to do! They only see me as a murderer who has doomed our home, and a coward who flees his duty! I…I am worse than that, now… Oh gods…"

Rath sank to his knees, the boggy ground soaking his robes. His breathing became ragged and uneven.

"I thought I could help. I thought I would be able to protect them. But I couldn't. I haven't. All I've done—" He broke off, breathing hard, and when he went on his voice shook. "I've only made matters worse. Didn't you see the way they looked at me? Didn't you see her face, see the state she was in? I did that. I did that to her!" He let out a choked breath, and the other companions realized he was crying.

Sapphire tried to speak, to say something to reassure him, but could not, her own distress choking off her voice. Cen took a step backward, a flat, uncomfortable look creeping onto his face. Estel still looked only resigned, his shoulders slumped. He swore very quietly under his breath.

"Everything," Rath said, and now his tears were clearly audible in his voice, "everything, everyone, I touch…is ruined. No matter what I want, all I do is destroy the things I care about." He raised his head and looked up at Sapphire. "And you would force me to continue living with that…with all I've done."

He dropped his gaze again and turned away, covering his eyes with one hand. His breathing became more unsteady as he continued to weep. He said something else, but in Onracean, then he curled up further and began to sob.

Sapphire moved to kneel beside him, but before she could, Cen strode over to her, grabbed her by the arm, and started dragging her out of the alley. She stared at him in shock and tried to pull away.

"Cen, what are you—?"

"We're leaving," Cen said. His tone had become icy cold, and that startled Sapphire out of her attempts to escape his grip. "Come on, Estel."

He left without waiting for a reply, leaving Estel standing in the dark, foggy alleyway with Rath. Estel half-turned to follow him, then hesitated and looked back over his shoulder toward Rath's huddled silhouette. He started to say something, then stopped, shook his head, and hurried after Cen and Sapphire.

They had scarcely gone a dozen paces down the path outside before Sapphire renewed her struggles to free herself.

"Cen, let go of me! We can't just leave him there like that!"

"Oh yeah? Looks to me like that's exactly what we are doing."

"What's gotten into you? You're the one who's always sticking up for him! Why are you acting like this now?"

"Because I was actually listening, unlike you two."

"Hey, I was listening," Estel protested, navigating the uneven cobbles just behind Cen and Sapphire. Neither of them acknowledged him, though, Cen's hard gaze staying on the dense fog before him, Sapphire staring in astonishment at the back of his head.

"What? Cen, no, you stop this immediately."

Sapphire dug her heels into the ground. This did nothing to slow Cen at first, but then she caught on the edge of a large cobblestone, and that jerked him to a halt. Cen rounded on Sapphire and looked as though he would pick her up and carry her, but then Estel intervened, pulling Sapphire's arm free and drawing her away from Cen.

"Not cool," he said flatly. "What the hell's your problem?"

Cen scowled, the crystal he clutched casting hazy shadows up on his face.

"Am I seriously the only one here who has a problem with the fact that we've been traveling around with a murderer all this time?"

"Come on, you can't really call it that," Estel said, though he did not sound entirely certain himself.

"It wasn't his fault," Sapphire said, her voice quiet and trembling.

Cen's expression just became more stony. "Guess I am. I can't believe I'm the only one being smart about this. We're supposed to be the ones who go around saving people, and then we find out about him doing this."

"…We've killed people before," Sapphire whispered. She sounded a bit sick as she said it. "In Pravoka, remember?"

"That was different."

"No, it isn't. Monsters and the Fiends are one thing, but we aren't free to go around killing people just because we're the heroes. Even if they are people like those pirates. It makes us no better than they are."

"So then why are you okay with what Rath just told us?" Cen asked, giving Sapphire a dull, flat look.

"I'm not okay with it." Sapphire sounded on the verge of tears again. "I'm just saying that if you're angry at him, then you should be angry at yourself and Estel too."

"She's got a point," Estel said, shooting an apologetic look at Cen. "Besides, the guy feels rotten enough about everything. He doesn't need us makin' it even worse."

"We can't make him deal with this alone," Sapphire went on. "We can't. He needs our help, and we know it. Bahamut and the sages all said so. We can't ignore what they told us, and not just because they said our quest would be in trouble if we did."

"Because we're friends, right?" The biting sarcasm in Cen's voice made Sapphire cringe. "Yeah, fine, I'll buy that. Except it won't matter after this, because he's going to be dead tomorrow. Huh." He tapped his chin in mock-thoughtfulness. "You'd think they would've seen that coming."

"That's not funny," Sapphire said, both stern and teary. "That's not funny at all. How can you joke about something like this?"

"Because, surprise, I don't care. Neither of you should, either. He even said so, if you'd actually paid attention."

"Of course we care!"

"Yeah, of course." Estel frowned at Cen. "Seriously, why are you being such an asshole all of a sudden? You're the one who's been tryin' to get us to get along with Rath all this time, and now you're flippin' out on him like this?"

"Oh, come on, Estel," Cen said with some heat. "You know you'd be on my side here if you hadn't found out you'd known him before."

"How'd this turn into taking sides? I'm not sayin' what he did was good, but that doesn't mean I have to say you got a right to stand there and rip on him about it."

"Yeah. Sure. Whatever you say."

"I can't believe you." Sapphire's angry whisper pierced through the fog with surprising force. "Rath is tortured with guilt and heartbreak over what's happened and what he's done, and when we should be trying to help him, all you're doing is saying how you think he deserves it. That he deserves all these horrible things that have happened to him."

"I'm just being honest," Cen snapped back. "If you don't like it, that's your problem, not mine." He tossed Sapphire's crystal to the ground at her feet. It lay on the mossy stones, gleaming feebly through the dense fog. "Here. You two can go back and watch him blubber if you want. I'm going back to the shelter to get some sleep; in case you'd forgot, we have to kill a Fiend tomorrow."

Cen stormed off into the fog, his cloak rippling behind him. Estel and Sapphire watched him go in silence, Estel still with his arm protectively around Sapphire. As soon as Cen had passed out of sight, the sound of his boots on the cobbles fading into nothingness, Sapphire turned to Estel and clung to him, burying her face against his shoulder.

"Oh, Estel, what are we going to do?"

Estel held her close, resting his head against hers. He glanced back toward where they had left Rath, then forward to where Cen had disappeared.

"…I don't know, Saph."