Chapter 14: Light
The lake harbour was uncannily quiet after the hustle and bustle of the city. Haru watched as Baron paid the fisherman and pulled the boat close to the pier's edge, the light rapidly falling and the sunset mirroring off the water's surface. She raised an eyebrow as he offered a hand down from the boat's belly.
"Are you coming?" he asked.
"In there?"
"I didn't hire it out just to admire it," he replied with a smile. "Come on, I promise I won't capsize us."
"I've never been on a boat before."
"Then this will be an experience." He grinned, and then hesitated. "Do you get sea sick?"
"I don't know. I've never been on a boat before," she repeated. But she took the hand and allowed him to guide her down. She knew her grip was tight, her knuckles white as the boat rocked around her, but she couldn't help it. "Are… are you sure this is quite safe?"
Baron laughed. "You attacked Tsuge, outran the city guards, and used a decrepit dam as a playground, and yet this is what you deem unsafe?" He pulled her further into the boat, his hold attentively gentle compared to her iron grip. "I won't let you fall," he promised.
Haru met those emerald-green eyes, and she didn't know what she was going to say, for suddenly her brain had yielded control of her mouth to her heart, and she was very sure she was about to say something heartfelt and foolish–
The boat rocked violently and she was jolted forward as Baron was jolted back and suddenly she had landed on top of him.
Their faces were even closer than they had been during the dance.
"Hello," Haru murmured.
"Hello," he murmured back.
"What happened to not letting me fall?" she whispered.
"A gentleman always falls before the lady. It provides a soft landing."
"My bad!" Muta called. "Geez, maybe yer should spring for a sturdier boat; this one's not cat-proof."
Haru and Baron simultaneously realised the position they were in and scrambled away from one another in a tangle of limbs and feet. Baron gave a self-conscious cough as Haru turned to focus on the cause of their near mishap. "Heya, Muta…"
"Don't you 'heya Muta' me. What is it, Chicky?"
"Do you think you could possibly stay here with Toto? You know… make sure nothing happens?"
"Yer mean make sure he doesn't go squealing to the guards until after you're back in the tower?"
Haru hesitated. "Sure. That."
Muta gave her a look that implied he wasn't nearly as oblivious as Haru was hoping. Then he shrugged. "Fine. Why not? Boats and water ain't my thing anyway."
"Thanks, Muta."
"Jus' don't go doing anything stupid."
"Oh, you know me," Haru chirruped as she dumped Muta back on the pier. "Sensible is my middle name."
"Don't push it."
Haru grinned and settled herself down.
Baron carefully stepped around her to give them a push away from the shoreline, pausing at the expressions of the two land-bound animals. "Hey, Toto, crows eat fish too, right?" he called. He threw a bag over onto the pier, where a couple of freshly-packed fillets spilled out.
Muta pounced on the contents, but Toto tilted his face suspiciously.
"What?" Baron demanded. "I bought them." He turned away and set to rowing. And then, beneath his breath, added, "Most of them." He smirked at the indignant spluttering and didn't look back.
Haru shuffled round in her seat so she was facing Baron, a conspiring gleam in her eyes. "Tell me the truth; did you organise this just so you'd be far, far away from the city guard? Because last I checked, everyone else was going in the opposite direction."
"Ah," Baron said with a wink, "but that's because they don't know the best seat in the house. City. Lake." He frowned. "You get the picture."
"Very smooth. And does the best seat in the house require opera glasses?" Haru asked. "Because I did not bring any along."
"No, the best seat in the house does not require opera glasses," Baron returned. "Oh ye of little faith, be patient. I promise everything will be clear soon."
"Just like you promised I wouldn't fall?" Haru teased. She found herself leaning in, her head cocked to one side and a smile tugging at her lips. "Maybe you just brought us here so you could scope out private islands." She nodded to a tiny islet verging on the far shore that was barely more than a tuft of grass. "I reckon that one's probably going for half price."
He glanced back, and grinned. "I don't know – it looks a little small."
"Oh, I'm not sure about that. Clear the weeds, flatten the grass, and you might have enough room for a deck chair."
"A deck chair?"
"Maybe a little table to put your drinks on too," Haru added. Her eyes widened. "Oh, perhaps you could buy a chair that comes with a folding umbrella above it. Do those exist?"
"Haru, I plan to be obscenely wealthy," Baron said. "I could commission a whole army of deck chairs with their own built-in umbrella, if I wanted to."
"So that island's a maybe?"
He laughed. "I imagine I'll be able to afford an island that's slightly more… more than that. I'm thinking sunshine, beaches, and being far, far away from the kingdom that I just stole their crown from. It's going to be perfect."
Haru was silent for a moment. Then she straightened, the playful expression fading. "Then you must be pretty excited that we're nearly all done here." The words fell flat, no longer the teasing question it might have been five minutes before. "Then you can be on your merry way, and I'll be on… mine…"
She trailed off as Baron set the oars to a halt, resting his arms across his knees and leaning towards her. "I've been thinking… if I am to retire for good on a private island, then it'll have to be perfect," he said, his voice deceptively idle, but the corner of a smile twitching on his lips. "It can't be just any old island, so I'll have to do a bit of searching first. Scope out the options, as it is. And if I really want to get it right, I really should have a second opinion, don't you think?"
Haru felt the beginning of a returning smile ghost her lips. "You think so?"
"I'm thinking Muta, maybe Toto… Do you think the royal guards will be willing to give some constructive criticism? I bet the captain of the guard has a discerning taste in private islands."
A laugh caught in the back of Haru's throat and she felt the smile break through. "Sure. It'll serve as a good distraction while they're arresting you."
"Ah. Well, no plan's perfect. What about Hiromi and Tsuge? Now there's a couple with good taste–"
"Assuming they don't sell you out for taking their share of the crown."
"I'll give them a third of the island."
"A third?"
"Maybe a quarter." Baron wrinkled his nose. "An eighth."
"Each?"
"Oh, goodness no. Between them both." He watched her laugh, a content fondness seeping through his veins and settling into his heart with dangerous surety. He glanced away before he could say something stupid, like inform her that he could listen to her laugh all day or that her smile was brighter than a hundred stars or– "You know, there is one person I'm forgetting. A certain brave, funny, outgoing blonde who would be the perfect island-shopping companion."
"A certain brave, funny, outgoing blonde who knows you promised to give the crown back to the guard in return for not getting arrested," Haru replied, but she closed the distance between them. "And who intends to make sure you keep that promise."
"How about window shopping, then?" Baron asked. "We can make a list." He leant back and gestured grandly to an imaginary title. "Humbert and Haru's Top Ten Islands to Buy When We're Insanely Rich."
"Around the World in 80 Islands," Haru offered.
"Now you're getting it. Treasure Island: Maybe the Real Treasure was the Islands We Found Along The Way."
"Wait, treasure islands aren't real."
He winked. "That's just what they want you to think."
"No," Haru gasped, scandalised.
"Yes."
"There's no way you've actually been to a treasure island."
"Been, plundered, got the t-shirt."
"And where is all this wondrous treasure?"
Baron faltered. "Somewhere at the bottom of the sea, I think? Look, it's complicated – there were sirens and storms and I think a kraken somewhere in the mix…" He trailed off. "I promise to bring you to at least one treasure island on our island-hopping tour, okay?"
"Really?"
He grinned. "Really. Oh, just you wait – treasure islands aren't even the best of it. There's whole cities that are built up on islands – Irontown, for one – and I know there's another town that's built on a marsh and the entire place runs on canals."
"Is that technically an island?"
"Are you saying you don't want to visit it?"
Haru reconsidered. "Suddenly I no longer care about technical definitions."
"That's what I like to hear. Oh, and I haven't even got to the floating islands of Laputa."
"Floating?"
"In the sky."
Haru wrinkled her nose. "Now I know you're making that up."
"My word is my bond, it's 100% true."
"Not a chance. How would you– how would you get it up into the air?" Haru demanded, laughter teasing at her words with her incredulity. "How would you make it stay? Do they– do they sit on the backs of giant eagles? Do you rig them up to clouds and tow them along?"
"No one knows – it's a mystery," Baron replied. "But wouldn't you love to find out?"
"If it's a mystery, it could take us a while to solve it," Haru said.
"I've got time. How about you?"
She leant forward, and in the twinkling light of the city behind him, her eyes reflected back golden. "Are you asking me to run away with you for a life of adventure and mystery?" she whispered.
"I might," he whispered back. "Depends on your answer. If you say yes, then of course that what I'm asking."
"And if I say no?"
"Then it was a simple misunderstanding and we never speak of this again."
"Ah, sneaky. That way you never get rejected."
"No one would ever reject me. Have you seen my smoulder? It's infallible."
She laughed, her eyes glittering and golden and her smile lighter yet. The distance between them drew shorter still and Baron's mind scattered just as her gaze shifted, her focus moving onto something in the far distance.
She straightened, the moment before forgotten. "What's that?"
ooOoo
Up in the palace, a lonely queen stood atop a balcony. A lit lantern rested on the balcony's edge, and with a bittersweet smile she released it from the ribbons keeping it moored. For a moment, it lingered in her hands, warm and bright and safe, before the heat swept it up and it rose out of her reach and into the empty sky.
ooOoo
With some reluctance, Baron turned. At the high point of the city, centred by the palace, a golden light shimmered. It rose hesitantly, a single star among the suddenly darkened city, before bobbing up into the sky and across the heavens.
Another light joined it, just as beautiful and bright, and now a sea of gold was cascading through the streets and rising up to replace the stars. Baron heard a breath hitch, and he turned back to his companion. The expression across Haru's face was enough to make him forgive the lanterns for their untimely interruption.
"It's even more beautiful than I imagined," she breathed.
She rose to her feet, tentatively at first, but then gaining surety even as the boat rocked beneath her. She grabbed Baron's shoulder for support; serving as a momentary anchor before she propelled herself to the boat's bow and leant out as close as she could get to the luminous dance above, like a ship's figurehead yearning to join the stars.
A blossom of lanterns unfurled from the royal ships moored just offshore and silhouetted Haru in a halo of gold.
She tilted her head back and laughed and Baron suddenly knew he had never seen anything so beautiful.
ooOoo
The world was blazing and beautiful, and staring up into the current of handcrafted starlight, Haru felt something shift. She felt something end – a single dream that had been built into her bones since the first time she looked out her tower window and saw the lanterns she had no name for –curl in on itself, content and concluded. A chapter of her life finished.
She looked back to Baron.
Maybe just in time for a new chapter to start.
Her eyes focused on him first – to the hands that had guided and helped her, to the unscarred arm that she had revealed her magic for, to the eyes that looked at her like she was starlight – and the lantern second.
It was a plain affair, simpler than the others that surrounded them. The kind of thing a down-on-his-luck gentleman thief might buy, not steal, and he cradled it in his hands. The glow was barely more than a candlelight glimmer, nothing compared to the brilliant blaze of her hair, but in that moment it was more beautiful than any magic.
And Baron…
And Baron carried that self-same look for her alone.
Midway in reaching for the lantern, Haru hesitated. Her heart beat out a funny little rhythm and butterflies occupied her stomach, and still she hesitated.
A corner of her mind – a small, but insistent corner – whispered her mother's warning. It whispered of brothers and traps and bargains built of bribery and blackmail and what will be left when the deal is done?
Then test it, her heart returned. If you love something, let it go. If it comes back…
She couldn't remember how the phrase finished.
She reached down into the shadows of her seat. "I have something for you too," she said, and pulled the satchel onto her lap. Her heartbeat had shifted into a whirlwind and the butterflies into a storm. "I know I said I would return it once I was back home, but that was before I knew you and I had to be sure you'd keep your word…"
Rambling. She was rambling.
"…and naturally I was afraid you were going to abandon me at the first chance you got – I mean, we were complete strangers, and you were a thief, and I do have to be careful and all…"
She looked up from the satchel to him, and fumbled.
"…but I guess… what I'm trying to say is… I'm not afraid anymore, you know?" she finished, and she was surprised to feel the truth of the words settle into her heart.
Baron reached out for the satchel, hand curling around the flap, and then–
Lowered it.
Again, something shifted. Somehow she knew she wasn't the only one starting a new chapter.
"I'm starting to," he said, and placed the lantern into her hands. Their hands brushed and then, emboldened by something shared between them, resumed the contact that stayed even after the lantern rose from their united hold.
The butterflies had returned, but they had slowed. Gone was the heady, intoxicating instinct that she had found something worth hanging onto that would slip as easily from her grasp as the lantern if she let it. Instead settled a surety that she had something that would stay. Something she need only ask.
Baron brushed a stray golden curl back from her face, and then his hand lingered. Hesitantly, gently, he cupped her cheek with a hold that a breath could break, and drew her closer.
She leant in to the embrace, filling her view with those emerald-green eyes, so near and so intimate that she saw the exact moment his gaze flickered away and faltered.
ooOoo
Baron's breath caught and the spell that the festival had woven broke.
For on the far shoreline, far from the golden lantern-light, stood his brother.