Chapter Fifty: The Dream-Bordering World
From the palace rooftop, he had a perfect, unobstructed view of the villages below, of the endless forests, of the mountains that stretched for miles across the kingdom's borderlands. The river, crystalline and calm, cut gentle curves into the landscape and headed out of sight into a mountain pass. Most importantly, he had a perfect view of the stars. Millions of them – billions, more; he would never know – clustered together across the black eternity of the worlds beyond the sky, many more standing out just as clearly against a milky white backdrop painted over the darkness.
The midsummer night was warm, the breeze gentle when his stargazing ritual was once again interrupted. "Captain?"
He leaned his head back until he saw the upside-down, curious face of Prince Astral's personal bodyguard, dressed in a pristine white jumpsuit and red armor. "What is it, Lieutenant?"
"His Grace asked me to pass this along to you." He held out a roll of parchment. "Lord Faker and his sons are coming to visit in a few weeks and His Grace wanted to ensure their safety while they were staying here."
The captain sighed and took the parchment. The lieutenant gave him a polite bow and turned to go. "Yuma."
The lieutenant paused. "Yes, Captain?"
The captain gestured for the lieutenant to sit next to him. After a moment's hesitation, he obliged, shifting the gleaming sword at his waist for a more comfortable sitting position. "You've been quiet lately. Are you overwhelmed by your duties?"
"N-no, not at all." Yuma idly brushed his white pants and wouldn't look the captain in the eyes. "It's an honor, it really is. To be able to serve my king and queen and prince… is more than I deserve."
"You deserve more." The words slipped out of the captain's mouth before he could think them over. But it was too late to take them back, and they were true words, regardless. "It's been two years, Yuma."
"I know, but…" Yuma wrapped his arms around his legs and rested his chin on his knees. "I still wonder how she died, Ry- Captain."
"You know that you can call me Ryoga when we're not on official duty," the captain said. He smiled wryly. "I've never told you, but I'm glad I decided not to send you with her that day. You're better off untainted by the horrors of war. You're better off not knowing how they killed her." They'd found her body, weeks later. The animals had gotten to it, and she had been almost unrecognizable save for the fang necklace still dangling from her shredded throat.
"I think that she would be proud of you," Yuma said quietly, still not looking at him. "You've kept this kingdom and your people safe from the Barians for two years."
And that, Ryoga thought, was puzzling. The Barians had taken over Arclight two years ago, and had made no movement toward conquering another kingdom. Not the tiny Tenjo Kingdom to the south, or the wealthy Heartland Kingdom. The Barians would never be content taking just one kingdom. But two years had passed and nothing had happened. No hint that the Barians were mobilizing, no aggressive actions or anything that might be construed as aggressive. Nothing. Ryoga was, however, confident that the Barians wouldn't be able to break through the Dragoon Village to the east. It was warded from the Barians, safe. "Not much to do to keep safe from them lately," Ryoga muttered. He turned his head to Yuma, who was gazing at the sky, a crease in his forehead from how hard he was frowning. "What's up?"
Yuma shook his head. "Nothing. I should get back so the prince can complete his prayers sometime before midnight." He made to stand and Ryoga grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him back down.
"The prince can wait thirty seconds longer," Ryoga said with a scowl. "You haven't looked at me since last week. Any reason why?"
Yuma's incoherent mutter was not sufficient, and when Ryoga told him so, Yuma closed his eyes. "I… overheard something that… um… you and your sister… you were arguing about, uh, me. I think."
Gods. Ryoga shoved the strands of hair that had escaped his hair ribbon back behind his ear. "Rio and I have a lot of arguments. Most of them are unfounded. You shouldn't let it bother you." He knew exactly which conversation Yuma had overheard. The same conversation about the law that they'd had ever since Mara's death two years ago. Rio had accused Ryoga of lying to himself. Yuma's name must have come up at that point.
"You're right." Yuma shifted away slowly, as though wondering if Ryoga would grab him again. "Well… good night, Captain."
"Yuma."
"Yes?"
Ryoga looked up at him. "In the morning, I am headed out to the Shrine to do inventory. I wanted to make sure it is well-supplied for when… if the Barians invade. Would you like to accompany me, if I can convince Prince Astral to let you go for a few days?"
"I…" Yuma shifted his weight from one foot to the other and back again. "Yes, it would be my honor."
Ryoga greeted the soldiers in the Shrine, who seemed excited to see him – probably because they had been guarding the area for months with nothing much to do but drink and play cards – and they eagerly chatted about the supplies that were getting low, complained about how hot and foggy it had been, and asked for the latest palace gossip. It must be terribly boring, keeping watch at the Shrine while the Dragoons kept a constant vigil not thirty miles away in their village. Ryoga hadn't been back in three years. They – the village elders, particularly – would doubtless berate him for dereliction of duty when he was seven years past his prime marrying age and still remained unwed without children of his own. He did miss his mother, though he did not regret leaving the village on his seventeenth birthday. To serve his king and country, he insisted, but truthfully, it was because he was expected to marry Mara. The thought of being married at all terrified him, let alone to one of his closest friends, and like a coward, he'd run. She followed two years later, along with his sister, and neither of them had married. No, the elders did not have much fondness for Mara Simin or for the Kamishiro twins. That was fine. Mara was gone, and he had little love for the elders and their moralistic rules, either.
"Gods, they drink so much," he muttered, counting the bottles in the cool cellar. "Only thirteen bottles of whiskey left. I'm reasonably sure I said to leave it for medical emergencies."
"They might consider the slow process of going mad from boredom to be a medical emergency," Yuma said lightly, and Ryoga couldn't help but laugh. He couldn't remember the last time he'd laughed. It felt… nice, being there with Yuma.
But mostly he felt guilty.
His fingers felt along the stone wall, near the torch brackets. He had no idea what he was looking for, if he was looking at anything at all, but a faint nagging feeling in the back of his mind drew him there. He searched for a hidden door, a message carved into the stone, anything – but there was nothing. Every inch of the stone wall was as solid as the inch before.
"Captain?" Yuma stood nearby, leaning against a wall with a sealed bottle in his hands. There was a mischievous grin on his face that Ryoga hadn't seen in over two years.
"Is that whiskey?" Ryoga was glad for the chance to take his hands from the wall. There was something missing; something should be there but wasn't. It didn't make sense. "Knocking our supply to twelve bottles, are you?"
"Medical emergency."
Ryoga couldn't help but laugh again. "You can't drink that whole thing yourself."
"I could share with you, if you insist."
Yuma looked five years younger, with that sly smile and playful tilt of his clean-shaven chin. "I'll duel you for it," Ryoga found himself saying. Something was wrong, something was… so wrong. It seemed like Yuma should have tears on his face, not a smile, and he should look five years older from all the pain he had experienced in his young life. But Ryoga never wanted to see tears on Yuma's face again.
Ryoga found his back against the ground, Yuma's practice sword at the base of his neck. It wasn't the first time it had happened, and Ryoga had a nagging feeling it wouldn't be the last. He couldn't bring himself to be angry this time.
"Looks like I win again, Captain." In the setting mountain sun, Yuma's face glowed in warm hues of gold and purple and red, his bright eyes full of life.
For a second, Ryoga saw those eyes full of fear and despair, but he blinked and the warmth was back.
The men who had gathered on the Shrine grounds laughed, and there was the unmistakable clink of money exchanging hands as Yuma helped Ryoga to his feet. Betting on who would win; how rude.
"I'll still share," Yuma teased softly as they headed back into the Shrine together.
Ryoga was paralyzed under Yuma's touch, under Yuma's sloppy, drunken kisses that half the time missed Ryoga's lips and ended up on his jaw, his chin, his neck. Ryoga's fingernails dug into the smooth skin, the taut muscles on Yuma's naked back that didn't feel right because Yuma had scars on his back, didn't he?
Why would he have scars on his back?
It was risky to do this in the Shrine where someone might walk in or hear the whines and moans and heavy breathing - it would ruin him, would exile him from the clan and make him an outcast - but gods did he want this. So did Yuma, he thought, but Yuma had consumed more than half the bottle and nothing he had whispered as he tugged longingly at Ryoga's armor made sense and Ryoga didn't know if it was drunken release of suppressed physical needs or desire for his captain that led to Yuma pushing their lips together for the third time-
-no, first-
-but at that moment, Ryoga didn't care which it was, because Yuma felt… good.
When he woke, Yuma's warm arm was draped across his chest and he snored softly into Ryoga's hair. He slept so peacefully. He looked so content. He always did.
Even though Ryoga was sure now that Yuma was plagued by nightmares every time he closed his eyes.
"Is this what you wanted?"
Rio sat daintily on the table by the bedside, head tilted at the two men lying in the bed. If Ryoga hadn't already accepted that this was a wishful dream, he would have… well, he didn't know. He'd never thought about what Rio would say to him if she saw him like this in reality. He'd always tried not to think about Yuma in this way.
"I don't know." Ryoga looked down at Yuma, who hadn't moved. He wouldn't. This was, after all, not real. "I want Yuma to be free from his burden that those bastards in the Astral World are dragging him down with." He wanted to be free of the knowledge that his race was gone, that he had never been a part of it to begin with. But he didn't want the Barians to take over, and he didn't want Mara to be dead.
He couldn't have everything.
She slid from the table and plopped on the bed. "You don't think this is real."
"Of course it isn't."
"What if I told you it was?" She smiled knowingly, and Ryoga found himself kneeling across a small altar with Mara. "What if I told you that every choice you never made" –he stood by Prince Astral, who was being crowned King- "every possibility that never happened" –he held the unmoving, bloodstained body of Yuma Tsukumo- "is real here?"
He closed his eyes and tried to remind himself that Yuma was not the decaying corpse in his arms. "I don't want this. I don't want a future where this is real."
When his eyes opened again, he stood on the roof of the Astral Palace, staring down at the river and the forests and the village. The banner that waved over the kingdom was the emblem of the Astralite royal family instead of the crest of the Barian Empire.
"You can live out lifetimes here," Rio said softly from behind him. "An eternity of hypothetical lifetimes. Things that could have been, but weren't. This is the world that exists outside of time, where realities collide."
"But I knew," Ryoga whispered. "I knew it wasn't right, that… life."
"Because you're not dead. You're too tied to the reality that is to be completely immersed in what could be, or could have been." She rested her chin on his shoulder, arms wrapping around his waist. "Ryoga, I've seen the future where you lost your internal battle with your emissary. Yes, the Barians were destroyed. But so was everyone else you ever cared about."
"You told me to accept it." Ryoga squeezed his eyes shut again. "Gods, Rio, you told me it was the only way to save my soul."
"And your soul is saved." Her hand found his. "And so is mine."
"I don't understand. You're stuck in this… this in-between world. How are you saved?"
She hit the back of his head lightly, the way she did when they were younger when he made a stupid comment. "I'm not bowing down to Don Thousand. That's a start."
Everything Mara had told him about life in the Astral World had made him question whether it was worth his life to have a soul void of feeling. Everything he knew about the gods who ruled over the spirits there, all the strict rules, made him question whether that was truly paradise. "Is this better than the Astral World?" he whispered.
"Sometimes." Rio's forehead pressed into his hair. "Sometimes it's Paradise." He would never forget how warm the hypothetical Yuma felt in his arms as they made love, or how he smelled of whiskey and sweat and earth. He would never forget the calloused fingers in his hair, or the warm, sloppy kisses the smiling man left on his face, neck, and shoulders.
Ryoga gave Rio's hand a gentle squeeze. "And sometimes it's Hell." He would never forget how cold and heavy and rigid the hypothetical Yuma's body felt in his arms, how the decaying corpse smelled of rot and bile and blood. He would never forget the pale lips and the dull, hollowed eyes and sallow skin.
"Sometimes it's worse than Hell, Ryoga. Sometimes the pain is too real and you want it to end but it doesn't."
He would never forget how the real Yuma felt in his arms, how the real Yuma's tear-covered lips tasted as Ryoga held him and promised him something he knew he could never do.
"I wish we could… cease to exist. That there was no Paradise. That there was no Hell. That we could just die and that's the end." He never would have held back doing things he had been afraid to do because he would face eternal consequences. Not that any of it mattered in the end.
"You're oddly philosophical," Rio murmured. "Why not convince the gods that true Paradise… is everything good about living? What if how it is now isn't how the Astral World is really supposed to be?"
"They've got their heads so far up their asses that I don't think they can see anything but their lungs. What the hell good is reasoning with them supposed to do?"
Rio sighed. "You've got a lot of goddamn work to do, Ryoga Kamishiro. You can beat the gods and get your body back and make a new future. A new hypothetical reality that doesn't exist here because it's not hypothetical anymore. It'll be real."
When his eyes opened, the first thing he realized was that he was on his back. The second was that a sword was at his throat again, and it wasn't accompanied by a playful smile.
What the hell, Kaito he wanted to say, but his mouth moved on its own. "Untie me."
Yes, his arms and legs were both tied to the bed. Kaito held his sword arm steady as he gazed down into Ryoga's eyes, and Ryoga found himself staring right back, though he willed them to blink, to move. It was the wrong time for a joke, but with his body tied to the bed and his armor stripped from his body, he wanted to make a light comment out of it.
Kaito, you kinky bastard.
Instead, his voice repeated its first command, harsher now. "Untie me. Now."
"No." It was Yuma's voice now, quieter, from behind Kaito. Ryoga's gaze finally shifted from Kaito's face to Yuma's, which was pale but set with soft determination. "Where is Ryoga?"
Ryoga felt the relief wash over him – Yuma knew, then, knew that this wasn't Ryoga – but it didn't show on his face, as his eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched painfully. "What the hell are you doing? Untie me, and I won't ask again, Yuma."
"Not until you tell us what you did to Ryoga Kamishiro," Kaito said. His voice was annoyed, almost bored.
"I am Ryoga Kamishiro, you stupid man. Who else would I be?"
"Ryoga would have made a snide comment about my romantic preferences when he saw that he was tied up on the bed," Kaito said curtly, and Ryoga could have laughed if he had any control over his body, because that was exactly what had happened. "In fact, he would have made several snide comments since I've been here. And yet he has not."
"My sister is dead; did you expect me to keep up with our witty banter?"
"Yeah, actually, I did." Kaito tapped the side of Ryoga's face with the flat edge of his sword. "Against my will or knowledge, I accidentally transferred a part of my soul into you when we first met. Do you remember?"
Of course he did. It had hurt worse than being pierced with Barian weapons, whatever Kaito had done, and it seemed to have hurt Kaito, too. It never left a mark, and Ryoga never knew what had happened. "What do you mean you transferred your soul into me?"
"I kissed your beautiful face when you were sleeping," Kaito said, voice dripping with contempt. "What the hell does it sound like, you asshole?"
Tone down the sarcasm, my lord, Ryoga thought, amused, but Shark Drake thought otherwise. "You have no right to speak to me with such coarse-"
Kaito barked out a laugh. "Oh my gods, I can't believe you're pulling this. Imagine, Ryoga Kamishiro telling the prince of the Tenjo Kingdom that he has no right to speak to him coarsely. You are so full of shit."
"Kaito," Yuma murmured, but Kaito silenced him with a sharp glare.
"No, I'll tell you something. When I transferred my soul into you, I could feel you, Ryoga Kamishiro. From a distance, I always knew where you were. I could feel your emotions. I could feel your pain and"-he grimaced- "your pleasure."
Shark Drake glanced at Yuma, who looked at the wall with worried eyes. And Ryoga wanted more than anything to tell Yuma that he didn't regret it. That it wasn't a mistake, regardless of what Shark Drake had made him say. But he couldn't; he couldn't open his mouth, he couldn't make a sound or blink or twitch a finger, no matter how much effort he put into it.
Don't struggle, Ryoga Kamishiro. It won't make any difference.
Don't make him hurt any more than he already is, you son of a bitch.
"You don't understand the circumstances," Shark Drake said calmly.
"Sure I do," Kaito said over Yuma quietly clearing his throat. "Your sister died, you got sad, and Yuma was there for you."
"My sister took her own life," Shark Drake hissed, and Kaito's sword arm slacked. "You don't know what that's like, Kaito Tenjo. To lose everything. To want so desperately to make one thing in your life right. All I want" –and his gaze went back to Yuma, who stood with his eyes closed and arms crossed in resignation- "is to defeat the Barians and put Prince Astral on the throne where he belongs. Isn't that what you want, Lieutenant?"
"Of course," Yuma said quietly. "It is my duty to protect my prince and restore him to his throne. I will serve him to my last breath."
"Why did she kill herself?" Kaito interjected.
Ryoga didn't bother praying that the gods would will Shark Drake to keep this secret from Kaito. After his tirade, he was sure they wouldn't lift a finger to help him ever again. But he could ask Shark Drake directly.
He doesn't need to know this.
Kaito Tenjo should know this about you. His purpose has nothing to do with you, anyway.
"My sister and I were born of a Barian and a Dragoon."
Kaito was silent for a long moment, staring down into Ryoga's eyes with a curious combination of pity, disgust, anger, and suspicion. "I see," he said finally, pulling his sword away. "I was right about you, then. You are a half-breed abomination after all."
He sheathed his sword, heading for the door. Yuma stared at Ryoga for another moment before following. Shark Drake strained against the ropes.
"Untie me!"
"You were wrong on every account," Kaito said without turning around. "I do know what it's like to lose everything. I've lost my brother, my only friend, and my kingdom. Don't go pretending that you're the only one who's suffered at the Barians' hands." The door slammed behind them.
Shark Drake grunted in frustration and Ryoga laughed.
You do a piss-poor job pretending to be me, he said conversationally. Throw in a few insults and roll your eyes a bit more and you might have been passable.
It is offensive to my pride pretending to be you. I will not suffer the indignity of stooping to your levels.
No wonder they think I've been possessed or something.
I tire of your commentary. Will Yuma Tsukumo do as he is told?
Ryoga didn't know. Part of him thought Yuma trusted him enough to do anything he asked. But the other part knew that Yuma would put Astral first. If Shark Drake's plan threatened Astral in any way… You're asking Yuma to die. If it is for his prince and kingdom, he will.
Good. It is his purpose.
I won't let you do it.
Shark Drake laughed. It sounded bizarre coming from Ryoga's own throat. You can't stop me now, Ryoga Kamishiro.
