11 - VIGILANTE DAYS
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Wyvern Moon, 1180
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Sylvain
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"This is insane," I muttered.
"Then go home," Felix said.
"And let you do something stupid alone? Never. But I swear to god, if you throw me to the dogs like you did with the royal sword, I will never speak to you again."
"What a tragedy that would be," he said.
We ducked into an alleyway off the street once we grew close to the edge of Sir Morcliff's manor. Although the house of Morcliff didn't rule over any lands like our houses did, Francis Morcliff was still one of the richest men in Fhirdiad and his manor was like a small castle. He could certainly afford to have our deaths covered up as tragic accidents if we were caught trespassing.
And yet here we were like absolute idiots, about to sneak into his vaults to see if the legends were true and he did in fact have an ancient sword made of dragon bones, which Felix had become obsessed with. Mostly I was here just so we could get this over with and he would shut up. The entire week of our visit to the capitol, he had been going on and on about it.
"Dimitri's going to be so jealous," he whispered with a grin.
"And how exactly are you going to tell him the story without admitting you committed crimes? If he tells our parents, we'll get expelled from Garreg Mach after less than a semester of being there."
Felix shrugged. "I'll think of something."
We took off the cloth masks hiding our faces and huddled deeper into our coats to ward off the autumn chill.
"Where's this girl of yours? Isn't she supposed to be here by now? It's nearly midnight," Felix said.
"Be patient."
"She's not coming. We'll have to find another way in."
"She'll be here," I insisted. I couldn't help but smile and add, "They always come back for more."
Felix's look of disgust made me laugh.
Sure enough, several minutes later we heard footsteps and Sona, one of Morcliff's maids, appeared.
"Sylvie!" she said, running into my arms and kissing me passionately.
Felix coughed behind us and she stepped away from me.
"I'm Sona," she said, holding out her hand.
He shook it brusquely and said, "Felix."
"I know," she replied with a wink. "I've heard a lot about you."
"What?" he said in alarm. "What have you heard?"
She laughed. "Only good things. Don't worry."
"Sona, my goddess, my everlasting love, my muse, tell me you are going to work miracles for us tonight," I said, taking her hands and giving her my most charming smile.
"Anything for you, my love," she answered. "Come with me."
We put our masks back on and followed her to the manor. When she stopped to fish out her key to the back door, Felix poked me. I glanced over at him and he whispered with a snicker, "Sylvie?"
I glared daggers at him then returned my attention to Sona, making sure my eyes held nothing but adoration for her.
She led us through the servant's rooms and passageways until we came to stairs leading down to a basement.
"The vaults are down here," she whispered. "I can get you to the door but I don't have a key to get inside. Can you really pick the lock?"
"I should be fine," I replied.
"Are you a thief?" she said, arching an eyebrow at me with a slight smile.
"The only thing I have ever stolen is your heart," I answered, tugging my mask down to give her a quick kiss. "I only know how to do this because once Felix locked his keys in his room and I had to break in to get them."
I could practically feel him seething behind me in rage.
Sona laughed quietly and said, "I'll be waiting for you in the broom closet we just passed by. Don't take too long. I can guarantee you half an hour but after that I'm not sure."
"We mean only to see the legendary weapon and then leave. We won't touch anything, I promise." I kissed her again and said, "You are a gift from the goddess, my love. My life would have neither meaning nor joy without you. Thank you."
"Go," she said, shoving me away. "I'll see you later."
"I owe you a favor. While you wait, start thinking of what you'd like me to do to make it up to you."
"I know exactly what I want you to do," she replied.
I winked at her and opened my mouth to reply, but Felix grabbed my arm and yanked me towards the stairs.
"I need to shower after listening to that filth," he muttered.
"Did you have a better ticket into this place?" I asked. "Yeah, I didn't think so. Stop complaining."
We followed Sona's directions until we came to the right door. Then I pulled out my lockpicking tools and while Felix kept watch, I worked on breaking in.
"Hurry up, Sylvie," he whispered.
"Don't you dare call me that."
Finally I got the lock open and we entered the vault. I could tell from the deep darkness and chill that it was huge but I couldn't see the full extent of it until I summoned a small flame to my hand and held it out to illuminate the room.
I was going to make some quip about Professor Manuela being proud of my spell, but I was too overwhelmed by the opulence of the storeroom to speak. The room was filled with glass cases inside which gleamed treasures of every kind.
"There it is!" Felix whispered in excitement as we caught sight of a gilded weapons rack on one side of the room.
He raced over, beckoning for me to follow. I held up the fire spell as he examined each of the weapons. After a few minutes, he found the one he was looking for and reached out to pick it up off the rack.
"No touching!" I said.
"I just want to see if it's real. I won't break it, I promise."
As he took the sword and slowly drew it from its sheath, I cursed under my breath. We were going to die. Morcliff was going to catch us, then the police would tell Rodrigue, then Rodrigue would have Felix expelled from Garreg Mach, then I would be forced to drop out in solidarity, then we would both get disowned from our houses and become travelling mercenaries, struggling to earn our bread with nothing but our good looks and swords.
Alright, so perhaps that wouldn't be so bad. In fact, that sounded rather fun.
"It's a fake!" Felix whispered furiously. "It's a fucking fake!"
"What? How can you tell? It's not like you've ever seen dragon bone before."
"But I've seen porcelain. It's just polished and carved to look like bone! This thing would break if you so much as dropped it on the floor."
"Then for god's sake, don't drop it! Put it back! Now!"
He huffed in frustration. "Fucking fraud."
"Put it back! Let's get out of here."
Felix sheathed the sword resentfully and placed it back in its spot on the rack. "I wish there was a way to expose him for the lying bastard he is."
"This is not a good enough reason to play at being vigilantes again," I said.
"And yet it pisses me off more than the time we got Sir Elland arrested for stealing coin from the church."
"The difference is that's illegal. This isn't. The police won't give a damn."
"I know," he grumbled. "Come on, Sylvie, let's go."
"Say that one more time and I swear to god-"
"You'll what? Fight me? Good luck."
"I'll tell all the girls at Garreg Mach that you are looking for a wife."
He looked at me in horror. "That's just cruel."
"Don't call me Sylvie then."
"Fine," he said.
We headed back to the door and I extinguished the candle flame in my hand. Right as we stepped into the hall and locked the door behind us, we heard the heavy footsteps of a man coming from the stairs.
I looked at Felix in panic and he stared back wide-eyed for a second then grabbed my arm and took off at a run down the hall. It led to another descending staircase and I stopped, whispering, "We're going to get lost if we just keep running! There won't be a way out if we go further down."
"We can hide until he goes away! If we go back, we get caught. Come on!" he hissed.
I gave in and followed him down the stairs, praying to the goddess that we didn't get caught. I told her I would clean up my act, I would give up casual sex and I wouldn't curse anymore if only she just got us out of this fiasco alive.
But who was I kidding? The goddess, if she even existed, had no reason to listen to me.
I had better start planning our lives as travelling mercenaries. We weren't getting out of this without being arrested, expelled and disowned.
At the bottom of the stairs was another hall, but it didn't have any rooms or other passageways branching off from it. It went on another thirty or forty feet until it dead-ended in a locked room.
"Hurry!" Felix whispered.
I started picking the lock, but my hands were shaking and I slipped right as I almost had it. Swallowing back my panic, I steadied my hands and focused harder. As we heard the footsteps drawing close to the stairs, I got it open and we slipped into the room.
I saw a closet of some kind in the back and ran towards it but as I reached it, I realized Felix was still frozen in place. I looked around and realized what I had missed in my dash to the closet.
There was a teenage girl in a scanty nightgown lying on the stone floor on the far side of the room, her ankles chained to a bolt in the floor. Felix ran over to her and tried to shake her awake but I knew from the look of shock on his face that she wasn't asleep. She was dead.
The footsteps echoed outside the door and I grabbed Felix, hauling him over to the closet and closing the door to it as soon as we were huddled inside.
"She's dead," he whispered.
"Ssh! We'll figure out what's going on once we make it out of here alive," I said.
Felix swore under his breath as the door opened and someone walked in. We couldn't see him, but I could tell from the sound of his footsteps and breathing that it was a man. Then someone else followed him into the room.
"Why is she still here? Get her out of here!" Francis Morcliff demanded.
"I'm sorry, my lord," a deep voice replied.
"Where is the new one? I thought she was to be delivered today."
"She is being bathed and dressed at the moment, my lord. I will have her sent here shortly."
"Hurry up. I don't want to be kept waiting all night," Morcliff said.
I heard the clink of chains and sounds of movement, then the servant man left the room, presumably carrying the body of the dead girl.
Morcliff lingered in the room and I heard shuffles of movement and the sound of items being moved as he puttered around.
Felix leaned in and whispered in my ear, "Kill him."
"We can't," I whispered back.
"He's going to rape someone."
"We're unarmed."
"He's outnumbered."
I hesitated, wondering if Felix was right and we could take him in a fight. We absolutely had to do something. But we couldn't leave to go get help without being seen. And if we waited here helplessly it would be too late.
Maybe a fight was our only option. But what were we supposed to do? Kill him like Felix said? With our bare hands? That was insane.
We would have to try to knock him out and tie him up or something. Then we could go to the police. And if they didn't believe us, we could go to Dimitri. He would know what to do.
I felt Felix tense beside me and I knew he was about to attack. I steeled my nerves in preparation, heart pounding.
With a growl, Felix kicked down the door of the closet and ran at Morcliff like a bat out of hell. But before we could reach him, he whipped out a sword and said, "Come any closer and you die!"
I stepped to the side so I was standing between Morcliff and the door, desperately looking around the room for anything to use as a weapon.
"Who are you? What are you doing here?" Morcliff demanded.
I saw the chain in the corner of the room, now loose from its restraint. It was closer to Felix than me, so if I could distract Morcliff, maybe he could grab it. I was pretty certain he noticed it too. Nothing escaped Felix.
Sweating in fear underneath my hood and mask, I raised my hand and brought the fire to my palm again. This little candle flame was the only spell I could cast, but Morcliff didn't know that.
"Lower your sword or I burn you to the ground," I said in my best dark, commanding Dimitri impression.
Morcliff gave me a wary, examining look and I stepped closer, staring back at him furiously, trying to keep eye contact with him. If I could get him to step to the left, Felix would have his opening.
"How did you get in here?" Morcliff asked.
"I'm asking the questions right now," I said, raising my hand slightly. "And right now my question is, do you want to lower that sword or do you want to die?"
"Your little fire spell can't hurt me."
"I wouldn't gamble on that bet if I were you. Losing means you choke to death on the smoke from your own burning body. Now drop the sword!"
I stepped to the side, starting to circle him like swordsmen do when preparing for a fight. Morcliff put at least some stock in my bluff, because he followed suit.
"You'll kill me anyways," he said.
"Why would I kill my most valuable friend?" I said. "No, I intend to walk out of here a richer man. For a small sum of money, I will leave without touching a hair on your head and will live the rest of my days completely silent on what I have found here. I know you are not adverse to paying such sums of money to be able to live your life without judgment. However, if you prefer to use your sword instead of your wits, you will die right here and now. I'd prefer money, but I'll settle for your corpse if I have to."
Two more steps. One more.
Finally!
Felix sprang into action, diving past Morcliff and grabbing the chain. Morcliff reacted quicker than I expected and swung at him, but Felix was quicker still. He dodged out of the way and struck at Morcliff with the chain, causing him to step backwards out of its reach.
I seized the moment and tackled Morcliff from behind, wrapping my arm around his throat to choke him and clawing at his eyes with my other hand. He screamed and swung blindly at Felix, who evaded the strike and slammed the heavy chain against Morcliff's wrists, knocking the sword from him.
Together, we tackled him to the ground and bound his hands and feet.
"I'll pay you what you want!" Morcliff said. "How much are you asking for? You can name any price you want."
Felix kicked him onto his back and I saw the blood streaming across his face from where I had scratched his eyes. I hadn't gouged them out but the sight still sickened me and I looked down at my hands to see his blood smeared on my fingers.
"Shut up," Felix growled, ripping a strip of cloth from Morcliff's shirt and gagging him. "Your soul burning in hell is the only payment I want."
He glanced up at me and the look of righteous victory in his eyes was captivating. I hoped someday I would be as brave and good as Felix. He would have taken this fight on even if I hadn't been here to back him up.
I walked to the door and after picking up Morcliff's sword, Felix followed me. Once we were in the hallway and had closed the door to the chamber behind us, he asked, "What do we do now? Go to the police?"
"How do we explain how we found out what we know?" I asked. "No, we need to find the girl who is still alive. She can testify against Morcliff. She must have been kidnapped or something."
Felix nodded and we ran up the stairs and down the halls until we came to the broom closet where Sona was waiting.
She noticed the sword in Felix's hands and said, "What happened?"
I told her everything and said, "Are there guest chambers somewhere? We need to find her."
"We were told to clean up an empty room earlier, but not told why," she said, a stunned look on her face. "I'll take you there. Come."
Her courage impressed me as she led us unhesitatingly through the manor house. But before we even got to the guest room, we ran into a tall, broad-shouldered man carrying a tied-up girl in his arms.
I pushed Sona behind me and said, "Go! Run!"
As she took off, Felix raised his sword and told the man, "Set her down."
"Who are you?" the man asked.
"Put her down," Felix repeated.
The man slowly lowered the girl to the floor. But the second he let go of her, he snapped his hand up and fired a spell at us. We both tried to dodge out of the way, but the fire blast singed the edge of my coat, eating through it to my skin. As I staggered back, Felix lunged forward to strike at the man.
He took a fire spell full force to the chest and yelled in pain, but didn't stop. The tip of his sword caught the man's arm, slicing deeply into his skin. The strike knocked him off balance and I leapt over the girl and tackled the man to the floor. Felix was on top of him also in seconds.
The man struggled and managed to wrench his hand up, grabbing my arm and sending a fire spell straight into my skin. I screamed, hearing the hiss of my burning flesh and feeling a wave of agony course from it.
Felix slammed the hilt of the sword into the man's head, knocking him unconscious, and the fire spell mercifully broke.
Once he was sure the man was out, Felix sagged back against the wall, gasping for breath. Through the tattered gaps in his shirt, I could see the vicious burns on his skin.
Desperately trying to ignore the pain searing through my arm, I crawled over to the girl and untied her wrists and ankles. She sat up and looked at us with wide, terrified eyes.
"Are you hurt?" I asked and she shook her head.
"Did you come here to rescue me?" she asked.
"Yes. Were you kidnapped by Morcliff?"
"I don't know what happened," she said. "I just… I was out running an errand and then suddenly I woke up here. I think he drugged me. I had the most horrible nightmares while I was unconscious."
The girl moved over to Felix and looked at his wound. "I'm so sorry," she murmured.
"I'm fine." He hauled himself to his feet and held out his hand to help her up. "What's your name?" he asked her.
"Gwyn."
"I'm Felix and this is Sylvain," he answered. "We're going to get you out of here but we need your help. You need to come with us to the police. If you come with us to back up our claims about him, they will listen to us."
"What claims?"
Felix glanced at me and I told Gwyn all that we found out, for even though I knew it would disturb her to know what might have happened to her, I also felt that she deserved the truth. She took the news calmly, a look of determination growing in her eyes.
"We have to take him down," she said. "But what if our testimonies aren't enough? He's rich and powerful. He could get out of this. We should kill Morcliff and be done with it. We can't risk him escaping justice. Who knows how many girls he has already raped and killed? We know at least one and that I was about to be a second."
I looked at Gwyn in surprise, for although obviously very brave, she couldn't be older than fifteen or sixteen. "Kill him?"
"Easy for you to object," she said coldly. "You're not a woman. You were never going to end up one of his victims."
As we had been talking, Felix had been busy binding the man's wrists and ankles so he could not come after us once he regained consciousness. As he finished up, he looked at me and said, "She's right."
I knew that, as the oldest, they were both looking to me to help make the decision. But I was paralyzed by all the possible consequences of either action.
"I'm not above bloodying my blade to stop someone like Morcliff. But I also know that we have powerful people who will listen to us and who can help bring him to justice." I met Gwyn's fierce gaze and said, "I offer you a deal: if the police don't act on our information and arrest Morcliff, we will return and kill him. You have my word. I won't let him get away with this."
"My word as well," Felix said.
Gwyn nodded and didn't argue any further. She was shaky on her feet but Felix kept hold of her arm to steady her and we made our way as quickly as possible out of the manor house. When we were safely outside its gates, I looked at Felix and said, "Go with her to the police precinct. You need to report this as soon as possible so that they will find the dead girl's body when they search Morcliff's house. I'm going to go get Dimitri."
Felix hesitated then said, "Don't tell Rodrigue."
"I have to."
"Don't!"
"Fine. Just Dimitri."
I took off my jacket and handed it to Gwyn. "I'm sorry the sleeve is burnt but it will serve you better in the cold than that nightgown."
She thanked me and slipped into it, then set out down the street with Felix.
By the time I made it to the palace, I was dizzy from the pain of my burnt arm, my whole body soaked in a cold sweat. I stumbled in and the servants cried out in alarm.
"I'm fine! Leave me be," I said, racing past them towards the stairs. I ran through the halls of the palace until I came to Dimitri's room and pounded frantically on the door.
"It is past midnight, Sylvain. What is-" he began then saw my arm.
"Let me call a healer!" he said urgently. "What happened to you?"
"There's no time! Listen to me. I need your help. Get dressed."
I shoved past him into his room and threw clothes at him while telling him all that happened. My faith in Dimitri had not been misplaced. Within minutes the two of us were running to the palace stables, leaping into the saddles of horses and galloping to the police precinct.
Dimitri in a fit of noble and virtuous rage was a glorious thing to behold and as soon as we walked into the building, I knew I was right to bring him here. The officers jumped up from their desks to greet us with looks of astonishment and consternation.
"Where is the young girl who just came in? I must speak with the inspector in charge of her case," Dimitri said.
"No inspector has spoken with them yet," a man replied nervously.
"Then get me your chief inspector," Dimitri ordered. "Immediately!"
"Yes, my prince. At once."
Another officer led us down the hall and as we grew near to a questioning room, I heard Felix's raised voice coming from within.
"Why am I wasting time with you? Get me a fucking inspector! Now! We don't have time to sit on our hands and let him dispose of all the evidence! Get your useless ass up and-"
He stopped yelling when we opened the door and walked in.
"The chief inspector is on his way," Dimitri told him, then turned to the policeman. "Go fetch a healer immediately. My friends are wounded."
The officer bowed and rushed away, leaving the four of us alone. I hoped for the chief inspector's sake that he made it here within a few minutes because Dimitri looked like he would burn the place to the ground if they made him wait.
Gwyn stared up at him with big, startled eyes. "Prince Dimitri?"
He offered her a short bow of respect and said in that ridiculously earnest voice of his, "I am truly sorry for all you have suffered today. I will not rest until I have ensured that this monster is brought to justice. You have my word."
"Thank you," she said. But she glanced at Felix quickly after with a questioning look to which he nodded.
If for some reason Dimitri was not able to keep his promise and Morcliff did not end up in prison, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that Felix would keep ours and Morcliff would end up dead. One way or another, he would not get away with this.
I hung back and watched as Felix spoke with Dimitri and Gwyn, a warm, proud feeling in my heart despite the pain and horror of the night. Gwyn was leaning against Felix and even though I knew it made him uncomfortable, he had his arm around her shoulders to comfort her. The furious determination in his grim expression was a striking contrast to the gentleness of his attempt to reassure Gwyn that it made me love him all the more.
So many times over the years, I have caught people talking behind Felix's back about him, calling him heartless or mean or cold. Every time I defended him or told them to fuck off. It was infuriating that they either didn't know or were blind to this side of him, that they focused only on his words and not his actions.
If they could see him now in this heroic moment they would understand why I admired him so much. It wasn't just that he was the best person I knew. It was that he made me a better version of myself too, so much stronger and braver than I would be on my own.
