CHAPTER SEVEN
The Knight
Awake, Gwen.
I'm trying, Gil.
Awake.
But the dark is heavy and deep.
By the time the sun sets, he knows.
The girl stirs restlessly in his arms. She's quiet now. Before, when even the morning chill couldn't dampen the fever, she had tossed and turned feverishly, caught in the grip of the waking dreams.
He's seen enough men sob and whimper in the torment of fever-dreams to know to hold her tight as she struggles and screams, begging them to stop, please, she'll learn, she'll be good, please, please don't hurt me anymore—
He sings to her. It's an old, old lullaby, the kind mothers sing to their crying children.
Seothín, Seothín, cailin…
He holds her even when the fever-dreams finally quiet, and she buries her face in his chest and cries out for Gil, for Nain.
He holds her when she whimpers from the pain, her broken arm cradled between them, her skin hot against his. The lacy nightgown is soaked with sweat. He's long since abandoned his armor.
The girl whimpers. She's quiet now. She barely has the strength to move her head.
And he knows. He can feel her heartbeat fading against his. Her head is nestled against his chest, her dark hair spilling over his arm. Her eyes flicker feverishly beneath their heavy lashes, her chest rising and falling in quick shallow breaths.
She's getting weaker. The fever has taken root. She's still shivering, despite all the warmth he can give her. The cold is starting to seep through the cracked plaster walls again.
He knows she will not make it through the night.
It had been a cold night like this one, that final night. The chill had given Grainne fever. She had tossed and turned restlessly in his arms like this, her dark hair soft against his skin, her flushed cheek warm on his chest. She had smiled in her sleep when he sang.
The distant baying of the hounds had woken him. He had kissed her hot forehead and left her there on the straw with a whispered promise.
He never saw her again.
The wound in his chest aches.
The girl stirs in his arms. Her lashes flutter. Clouded grey-green eyes focus on him for an instant, only an instant. Her lips part. She tries to speak.
"You will live," he says, and tries to make the lie a promise. He prays this is a promise he can finally keep.
Her lashes droop. The life seems to drain out of her as she sighs and sags against him.
He catches his breath. Her chest rises in beat with his through her nightgown. Slowly, painstakingly, her breathing evens out. She makes a tiny noise.
He clears his throat and goes back to singing.
Seothín, Seothín…
Purgatory is better than hell. In purgatory, there is still hope.
The first time Gwen tries to open her eyes, she's in the blizzard, ten years old and dying. The cold shakes her bones and thrusts her deep, deep back into the dark.
She flails.
Gil.
Warm arms wrap around her. She shivers against his chest and buries her face in the heat of his throat.
"You came back for me," she whispers, but her voice trembles to pieces between her chattering lips. Gil's arms tighten around her.
"Codladh. Ta tu fos gortaithe," he murmurs in a voice that isn't his. She opens her eyes, but now her arm is on fire and the pain is lancing up through her spine and digging white-hot claws into her skull, and in a daze she sinks back into the dark.
Time passes.
Dreams.
Playing in the dirt outside the cottage. How blue the sky is. The earth is warm and alive between her toes.
In the blood and the rock and the heath and the bones.
Blue fire blooms through her fingers. Her first taste of magic. Her first memory. She's four years old, giggling as the fire dances over her skin. It leaves scorch marks on the kitchen table. Nain's grey-green eyes are bright in her wrinkled face.
Magic has always been in the Brenin blood, Gwen.
Sneaking through the dark halls of the Einzbern castle. The flagstones are white-hot ice beneath the pad of her bare feet, but she can't wear her slippers. The stones echo even the tiniest noise, and homunculi have sharp ears.
Light, bright and blazing off the gold that shimmers everywhere in the tower room, chasing the nightmares away. Firelight flashes on the massive carved bed, the silken drapes, the sheen of skin.
The bed is warm, the bearskins thick and cozy as she burrows under them. Gil pretends not to notice her as he sips his wine and stares into the roaring fireplace, and she pretends to be asleep when he nudges another bearskin over her.
Well, Gwenhwyfar? Will you awake from this dream?
She tries to sit up, but Gil pushes her back down, thrusting her back underneath the covers, and now the cold is gone. She's burning, burning up in the heat from the fireplace, and Gil's arms are tight and hot around her as she struggles.
"Awake, Gwen," he says sharply. His voice blurs and changes into words she doesn't understand. She tries to open her eyes again, but her arm is throbbing with pain and oh , breathing hurts , a line of agony just beneath her heart.
The dark wraps gentle fingers around her and pulls her back into its shallows, away from the raging pain.
Time passes.
A voice is singing softly in words that vibrate gently against her cheek.
" A leanbh mo chléibh go n-eirí do chodhladh leat…"
Cold. The pain bites through the dark. The memories return.
The chains are cold. The manacles around her wrists ache. Her broken leg dangles uselessly.
Pain is your greatest ally, Elder Ulrich rasps. And your greatest enemy. You must learn to defeat him.
Her toes brush the icy flagstones. Agony sears up her leg. She screams.
A bearskin covers her. Fingers thread idly through her hair.
Only a nightmare, Gwenhwyfar. Go back to sleep.
This is only a nightmare.
Only a nightmare.
Awake, Gwen.
I don't want to wake up, Gil. I'm tired. So tired.
Awake .
I'm cold, Gil. I just want to sleep. Let me sleep in the dark.
Awake, Gwen.
Go away, Gil.
Get up, child.
I'm sorry, Nain.
You cannot die , a woman whispers.
Ma?
You must live, a man says.
Da?
There's no answer. The only voice in her head is hers. She's alone.
The darkness gently beckons. The voice sings to her, a strange lullaby that weaves in and out of the dark:
Séan is sonas gach oíche do chóir, a-ah
Seothín a leanbh is codail go foill, a-ah
Seothín, Seothín, cailin.
Not alone, the voice whispers.
She tries to open her eyes again. There's the voice, and arms warm around her, and words like a promise.
She tries to speak, but the dark is heavy and deep.
Not alone.
She pushes the dark away, pushes the thick bearskins away, pushes Gil away and reaches for the blue fire inside of herself. The embers bloom to life. Heat sparks inside her frozen bones.
Time passes.
The dark is fading. The burning heat and blazing cold are fading.
The voice sings, soft and yearning. She follows it out of the greying dark.
Seothín, Seothín…
Time passes.
She opens her eyes.
She's cold.
It's not the bone-chilling cold from before, just the kind that makes her wish she had a thicker blanket. She stares up at the fraying plaster ceiling. A flake of plaster drifts down and lands on the tip of her nose.
She guesses she isn't at the castle, after all. She closes her eyes again.
She should get up. Scout and secure her position. Find some food. Her stomach has that deep-seated ache that means she hasn't eaten in days.
Or she could just lie here and wallow in self-pity.
She waits for Gil to snap at her, before remembering that Gil isn't inside her head any more. She knows what he'd say, anyway. Are you waiting for food and drink to appear? The gods help those who help themselves. Don't look at me — did the elders fling you to the winter storms to teach you to be lazy?
She smiles bitterly, and winces. The skull-cracking migraine is gone, but her ribs still hurt. She wriggles her toes experimentally under the blanket. Some of the deeper cuts on the soles of her feet still sting, but her legs seem to work. Her right arm works, too, though her shoulder aches from some of the burns, but her left arm…
She tries gingerly to extend it, and grits her teeth to stifle an gasp. The pain subsides as she eases her arm back into its angle across her chest. The pain in her ribs fades a moment later. She makes a mental note not to move or breath for the next two weeks, and goes back to staring at the ceiling.
Broken arm. Must have been a clean break, since the pain is bearable as long as she stays still. It's distracting, but easy to heal, once she eats and recovers some mana. Her broken –she draws an experimental breath and grimaces– no, cracked rib will be a bit trickier. At least the cuts and burns can heal on their own, as long as she keeps them clean, makes sure they don't get infected…
Her thoughts trail off. She goes back to staring at the flaking ceiling. The bit of plaster is still balanced on the tip of her nose, swaying gently with each shallow breath. She squints at it until she goes cross-eyed, then gets bored and turns her head to look at the rest of the room.
A corner of the blanket almost pokes her in the eye. She turns her face up automatically, and gags at the smell. The scratchy linen reeks of mouse scat, mothballs, and mold.
She shoves the blanket away, pushing herself up with her good arm, ignoring the pain. Her stomach contracts sharply. Bile floods her mouth, and she's just glad she has nothing to throw up as her body tries frantically to reject the scat and mold she just inhaled.
"Blecchhh, " she spits, when she can breathe again. She kicks the crumpled blanket off her legs, cursing. It slides to the floor, leaving a moldy patch of mattress in its wake. A spring pokes through the rotting material by her ankle.
She almost lunges off the bed, cracked rib or no. "Verdammt bleghhhhhh." She twists gingerly to the side and swings her legs over the side of the mattress. Broken plaster litters the dirty cement floor. It looks as though there was carpet at one point, but it got ripped out and now there's just fragments of it scattered between broken beer bottles and bits of glass glinting in the weak light from the dirty window.
Gwen looks down at the bottle beneath her dangling feet and gags all over again. "I hate mold ," she finishes fervently, and swallows the rest of the curses with a mouthful of bile. "Blech."
She eases one foot to the floor, careful of the broken glass, and cringes at the feeling of the cold filthy cement. Pain clamps around her chest as she slides cautiously to her feet, her broken arm cradled close. Plaster and –she doesn't want to know what else– crunches beneath her bare feet as she stumbles over to the doorway and sags against its chipped wood.
"Gil," she croaks. Her good hand is shaking as it clutches her left wrist to her collarbone. She takes a shuddering deep breath and almost passes out from the pain. White flecks dance and fade before her eyes. She goes back to breathing shallowly, fighting the growing panic.
Calm down. Calm down. You're not seven anymore. It's just some dirt. And mold. And mouse scat and rat scat and –oh Gott , please let there not be rats.
Her legs are trembling now, shaking under her weight. That scares her. She shouldn't be this scared. It's just mold and scat and stupid traumatic childhood memories from all the times Fraulein Sesseman locked her in the cellar with the rats. She shouldn't be scared. She shouldn't be shaking so badly she feels like she's about to fall.
She pushes herself upright again, fumbling for the doorknob —and then, suddenly, the door isn't there anymore.
She's still registering the wall of green that fills her vision by the time the world stops tilting. She gingerly opens her eyes as the melodic voice from her dreams says, "ó daor," ruefully somewhere above her.
She looks up into gold-bronze eyes.
A part of her registers, vaguely, the faint sheen of mana in the irises, dancing between the flecks of green and gold, the same way she notices the small black mole beneath the corner of his right eye and how he's holding her carefully to avoid her broken arm and cracked rib.
It takes her a second longer to notice that she's suspended a foot above the floor with her back arched uncomfortably over his arm, staring dazedly while he asks something in his strange lilting language. " An bhfuil tú ceart go leor? Tá brón orm, ní raibh sé i gceist chun tú a bhogadh."
"Ja," she says automatically. The man eases her back on her feet. "An labhraíonn tú Gaeilge?" He tries again at her uncomprehending expression. " Seapánach ? Béarla?" A pause. "Japanese? English?"
" Ja . Oh." It takes her scattered brain a minute to process her limited grasp of Japanese. " Hai."
The man still looks worried. She follows his concerned gaze down to her arm, or possibly her ribs. Understanding dawns. "Oh! Yes. I'm okay," she stammers. "Thank you." She shakes her head to clear it. The world spins. She doesn't realize she's swaying until the man catches her by the shoulder to steady her. "Are you certain?" he asks in fluent but accented Japanese. "You are still weak and flushed with fever." He gestures at the bed. "Perhaps you should lie back down."
Gwen represses a shudder at the sight of the moldy mattress. "No, no. I'm fine, really. Just a little dizzy. Um…" She's still staring, she knows, but now she sees the gaping, bloody hole in his green armor and the words get tangled up in her mouth and instead of asking who are you it comes out as, "Um...you're bleeding."
The man's amber eyes widen in surprise. He glances down at himself, realization dawning. "Ah. Yes," he says, as if being gutted is a fairly normal experience. "I am sorry if I startled you." He covers the wound with his free hand self-consciously. "Perhaps you should sit down before you faint."
Gwen nods absently. "Um," she says, a little flustered by his grip on her shoulder, "If you're going to kill me, can you do it quick?"
"What?"
Gwen gestures vaguely. "You're a Servant," she says. "And everyone wants me dead. At least, I think so. And I can't really fight right now." She waves her good arm at herself. The room is definitely swaying now. "So if you could kill me quick, I'd much appreciate it."
The man takes a step back, dropping his hand. "You are a Master," he says guardedly.
Gwen laughs. She has the giddy urge to keep laughing, but it hurts too much. "No. Not anymore," she says, and hesitates, stumbling over the unfamiliar words. "I am not a Master. I'm just...I'm just trying to find the church. If you aren't going to kill me, could you tell me where it is?"
The man looks at her for a long moment. "I will not harm you," he says at last, his tone softening slightly. "You are very ill. You should sit down."
"I'm fine," Gwen says absently, still swaying. "Please, I need to go to the church. I told him I'd live, so if you're not going to kill me...if you're going to kill me, though, I'm just a pawn so it doesn't really matter, but I promised him I would live, so I need to go to the church." She turns to the doorway and almost bumps into him again. "Sorry. I'm fine, I just need to...to eat something, maybe…"
"I am sorry. I do not have food," he says gravely. Gwen's gaze wobbles up to him again. He really does have pretty eyes. "I know. Servants don't eat. Unless they do. Gil could eat a lot . But usually they don't. I do, though." She reaches past him for the doorknob and trips over her own feet.
The man catches her by the shoulders before she can fall and sweeps her up as though he's used to catching fainting girls. Gwen opens her mouth to explain that she's not the fainting kind of girl, her legs just aren't working properly, which is silly, because they're the only part of her that should work, but the Japanese is getting all tangled up in her mouth and the only thing that comes out as her eyes drift shut is, "Not the blanket."
She doesn't know how long she sleeps. It's deep and dreamless, unlike her feverish sleep before. When she finally lapses out of the dark, it's like waking up after a long day of training. Her body hurts, but her mind is clear again.
She struggles to sit up. Her rib flares with pain and she falters, sagging against the wall. Someone's bound her arm in a makeshift cast while she was asleep. It's just a piece of wood knotted to her arm and slung around her neck with strips of fabric, but the pain in her arm has faded to a throbbing ache.
It's the pain that's distracting her. If she wasn't in so much pain, she would have seen the tall shadow in the doorway sooner.
Claws grip her skull as she reaches automatically for her mana. A strangled sound escapes her. She goes limp against the wall, fighting to breathe shallowly.
The figure emerges from the shadow of the doorway and stops there. The musky sunlight filtering through the dirty window glints on his green armor, sparking in his brilliant golden eyes beneath their angled black brows. A stray black curl wisps into his eyes, and as he brushes it away the light throws his lacerated stomach into sharp relief.
Now she sees clearly the fist-sized puncture wound, the glimpse of pale guts beneath the layers of coagulated blood and ragged flesh and armor. Her stomach twists, and she's grateful once again she has nothing to throw up.
Her shock and revulsion must show, because the stranger covers his stomach again, a flush rising in his pale face. "My apologies," he says in Japanese. "I did not mean to distress you."
"I've seen worse," Gwen lies. She takes a shaky breath and eases back against the wall. The stranger stays where he is, hands locked behind his back, boots wide in rigid military stance as he waits patiently for her to gather her muddled thoughts. Her impression of him from before, of inhumanly bright eyes and unruly black curls and a lilting voice, lingers, but now it's contrasted with small details: his stance, the green armor, the thick leather pauldron on his right shoulder and the leather bracers wrapped from wrist to elbow. She files them automatically. Warrior-class, definitely. His armor is lightweight, made for speed and agility. There's no scabbard on his hip, so he's likely not a Saber. His shoulders are broad, heavily muscled, his bare arms corded. Lancer, she thinks, or a duel-wielding Saber, unless he was a Rider. Lancer, I bet. He's got the shoulders for it. But what happened to his Master? Why is he here? How did he find me? Why is he taking care of me? Who is he? What's a warrior — he's got to be a Servant, he just has to be — doing without a Master a year before the Grail War?
She realizes she's staring and turns her head away hastily. "Where am I?" she asks, too flustered to think of anything better.
"Fuyuki, Japan. I do not know where, exactly. This apartment complex has been abandoned for many years."
Gwen tries to map out Fuyuki in her head, and gives up before she can even think of an image. The ache in her stomach is muddling her thoughts. "How long have I been asleep?" she croaks.
"Two days. You were unconscious for most of it. Your fever broke early this morning, but you fainted after waking and have slept until now."
Two days. She curls her fingers in the dirty fabric of her nightgown. "Did you cast my arm?"
"Yes. The break did not seem serious, and I was afraid it would begin to heal badly if left unattended." He shifts slightly in her peripheral. "I would have bound your ribs also, and tended to your burns, but there was little I could use for bandages, and it seemed unchivalrous to invade your privacy so grievously whilst you were ill."
She stares at him. He shifts again, avoiding her gaze. The stray curl flops over his nose.
"Um," Gwen says, now completely flummoxed, "Thank you."
"You will come to no harm here, lady," he says gravely.
"Your Master," she starts, but he shakes his head. "I have no Master. I am no Servant."
Gwen stares at him, at his eyes, his armor, and tries not to let her disbelief show. "You're not a homunculus," she says. "Or a human familiar, or a shade. If you aren't human, what are you?"
"I am not human," he agrees. "What I am…" he trails off and looks down at his hands, uncurling his fingers. His palms are criss-crossed with tiny white scars. "I am afraid I do not know."
She really needs to stop staring at him. "Well," she says, and crosses quietly into Welsh so he won't understand, "That makes two of us."
The stranger starts. " Cymraeg ?" he asks abruptly.
Gwen drags her eyes away from the small black mole beneath his right eye. "You speak Welsh?" she says, startled.
"A little," he says haltingly. "I understand it. Gaeilge? " he adds, a trace of eagerness in his voice. Gwen shakes her head. "No. No Gaelic. I barely speak Welsh properly."
"Still, it is a Celtic language. A good language," he says in Japanese, and smiles. The smile melts the wariness from his eyes and makes him suddenly younger, softer. Gwen's stomach twists again. She winces.
"You are still in pain." He sobers. "I can find more wood for a split, perhaps some more fabric for bandages, but I'm afraid there is little to work with here."
Gwen fingers the cast on her arm absently. "That's alright. Once my mana replenishes I can heal myself. I just need some food and water, some time to figure things out."
The church , she thinks, I need to go to the church, but if it's been two days and I've been out for most of it there's no way I'll be able to make it there on my own. It's a miracle I can still think straight. It's a miracle he found me.
She glances up at him again. Miracle somehow seems to fit him well. He's definitely not human...but if he's not a Servant, she doesn't know what he is, either. If she was at full strength, she could just sense it in his aura, but as she is…
Let her run to the church, Leilani says mockingly in her mind.
She is weak. Wounded, Gil adds.
Shut up, she hisses. Aloud, she says, "So what happened?"
The stranger leans back against the doorframe. "I found you lying in the courtyard at dawn, two days hence. You must have fainted there a few minutes before." He pauses. "At first I believed you to be dead, so still and pale were you when I found you. Then you stirred, so I carried you here to shelter. For a full day you were unconscious, or awake and mad with fever. Late last night you came to your senses for a short while, but grew overwhelmed and fainted," he says, as though growing overwhelmed and fainting is a normal thing to do. "You have slept since."
Gwen stares down at her cradled hands. "Thank you."
He inclines his head. "You are still pale, and weak. I would give you sustenance, but there is none. So what will you do now?"
Gwen eases her legs off the bed and stands. "Go find some food, I guess. No point dying here and wasting all your hard work."
"Where will you go?"
She shrugs her good shoulder. "I don't have money. I don't know where I am. I don't even know where the church is. I can't go back to the manor. There will almost definitely be a familiar guarding it. So I don't know." She shrugs again. "If I can make it back to a main street, someone'll probably call a hospital. Though if the Einzberns find out where I am, they'll probably kill me."
"The Einzberns wish you dead?" the stranger interrupts, his tone odd.
"Most likely." Gwen balances on one bare foot, testing her weight. "Probably more than the other Masters. They've got bigger problems to worry about." Like Leilani having two Servants.
"I do not mean to offend," he says cautiously, "but I was under the assumption that you lost the battle."
Gwen teeters mid-step and catches herself. "I did."
"Then why would the Einzberns wish you dead, if they have already let you live?"
She stops. "The Einzberns didn't attack me. Another mage did." The corners of her mouth twist. "They took my Servant. That's probably the only reason I'm still alive." She takes another step. "For now, anyways."
If Gil were here, he would hear the self-pity in her voice and yank on her hair. The stranger only sounds puzzled. "Yet the Einzberns wish you dead?"
Gwen takes another step and wobbles. The stranger catches her arm. She makes the mistake of looking up at him. His golden eyes are full of concern. The stray black curl still dangles over his forehead. Her stomach flutters.
She pulls away. "The Einzberns are the ones who sent me here. I was supposed to win the Grail for them," she says bitterly. "I lost. My Servant's gone. I know too many of the Einzberns' secrets for them to let me live, assuming another Master doesn't kill me first. Fuyuki is a war zone and I have a freaking target on my head." She touches her chest, where the Command Seals are blazoned into her skin, and feels them turn warm.
Her heartbeat falters. For a split second she thinks, Gil —
But that's impossible.
"Sorry," she says quietly. "Thank you for saving me. I'll try not to let it go to waste."
"The church will grant you sanctuary."
Gwen hugs her tattered nightgown around herself and reaches for the door. "I know."
"Will you not try there?"
"No," she says, and knows, suddenly, that that's the right answer.
He catches the door as she opens it. "The church will protect you from the Einzberns."
"I know."
He follows her out into the dilapidated hallway. The sunlight blazing off the cracked cement almost blinds her. She leans against a column, catching her breath. The courtyard gapes below, light glinting on metal at its center. She squints, trying to make it out.
"Why will you not take shelter there?"
The column is cool against her temple. She closes her eyes, takes a breath, forces them open again. "I'm not an Einzbern," she says simply. "I'm just a girl from Wales. I have —had— a grandmother. She's probably dead by now. The Einzberns took me when I was six. They want me dead, now. There was someone, someone who cared, or at least I thought he did. Maybe he did, in his own way. I don't know. But he's gone now, too. If I go to the church, I'll be running away. I guess that's alright. Sometimes you have to run. But I don't have anywhere to run to." She closes her eyes and tilts her face up to the sunlight. "So, wherever I go...it doesn't really matter. Might as well be some place in the sun."
A shadow falls over her. The stranger leans on the wall beside her, the sunlight reflecting in a million shards of green and bronze and gold in his eyes. "I, too, know what it is like to lose your companions and your home," he says quietly. "I understand your grief. But to die alone and in despair, when there is so much yet to live...that seems to me the greatest regret of all."
"Are you sure you're not a Servant?" she asks, resting her head against the column again. The bright sunlight is making her sleepy.
He glances at her sharply. "What makes you say that?"
Because Gil used to look like that , she thinks. Like the world is far away, and all the happiness with it . "Just a feeling."
He goes back to looking out over the courtyard. "You are right," he says, quietly. "I was a Servant, once. Many years ago."
"What happened?" she asks.
He turns his head away. "I died."
Gwen opens her eyes wide. "That's impossible. The Throne recalls Heroic Spirits once they die."
"Yes," he says simply. "I have been summoned before, and returned to the Throne. I do not know how I am here now, nor why. Death was a dark sleep, and when I awoke, I was still here." A shadow falls across his face. "My master was dead. I alone remained."
"But the last war was fifty years ago," she says, aghast. "Can't you leave?"
He shakes his head. "I cannot step foot outside the complex. Nor could I touch any living thing, or speak to it."
Gwen clutches a hand to her chest. The stranger smiles wryly. "Have no fear. You are still very much alive, praise God."
"But you can touch me ." She blushes. "I can hear and see you."
"Yes. I do not understand why, but I can materialize around you. At first I could only stay material through skin contact, but now I can substantiate simply by being near to you." He reaches out and brushes his fingertips along her arm. "Like so."
Gwen reddens again. "Maybe it's human contact," she says, but he shakes his head. "Others have passed through here before, from time to time. They have neither seen nor heard me."
Gwen leans back against the column, frowning. "You're certain you died? You weren't just badly injured?" Even as she says it, she knows it doesn't make sense. Servants can't exist without an outside mana source. Even Archers, a rogue class that has their own mana reservoir, can only last a few days on their own.
"Yes," he says wryly. Gwen bites her lip. "That's impossible," she says again. "A Servant could become a shade, if their contract with the Throne was severed somehow, but shades live in the shadow dimension. They can't interact with humans." Her mind is spinning, a thousand puzzle pieces swirling together. "It sounds like you are a shade, but then I shouldn't be able to see or hear or touch you, and I can. It's impossible, unless—" She catches her breath.
He tilts his head. "Unless?"
Her mind is racing. "Unless there was a glitch in the contract," she says. "Did multiple people have a contract with you? Were there any problems with your Command Seals? Do you remember?"
He hesitates. "My Master transferred my Command Seals," he says slowly. "But only partly, I believe. The contract with the other Master was incomplete."
Gwen starts to pace the balcony, ignoring the pain in her arm at each step. "A glitch in the contract," she says, thinking aloud. "An incomplete contract. Servants can't exist on their own, not without mana, but if you die and you can't return to the Throne, then...then what? Then you're stuck. Like a shade, except you're not really one, you just can't substantiate without mana and you shouldn't exist without mana at all, so you're basically a shade, except you're stuck, but once you have mana and Servants automatically drain mana when there's a master contract but there is no contract, you're just a black hole sucking it in—"
"I do not understand," he says, his forehead crinkling. "I am a shade?"
"No," Gwen says, getting excited now. "No, you're not. You're essentially one, which isn't the same thing. You're a Servant existing without mana." She's never been so grateful for Gil's random philosophy lessons. It makes sense to her. If she's right...if she's right, and he is what she thinks he is, then maybe —just maybe— this could work.
It's a crazy plan. Even in her muddled, starvation-dazed brain, she recognizes that fact. But if it works—
He still looks puzzled. "Explain this to me," he says. "I'm afraid I still do not understand. I was unsubstantial until now. What has changed?"
"Me," Gwen says. She stops pacing and turns to face him. She can't tell if the jittery hum in her bones is adrenaline or hunger, but it's making her mind fizz. She's trembling with it. "I'm the change. You're still a Servant. You're a glitch, a ghost in the system, but fundamentally you're still a Servant, which means you can drain mana. And I'm a Master without a contract, which means my mana isn't attached to someone else. That's why my circuits are still empty, and I can't heal myself. You've been draining them. That's why you're substantial around me. I've been subconsciously feeding you mana. I don't know if it's because I've had a Servant so long, and I'm just so used to sharing mana that I subconsciously connected with you, or if part of the glitch is that you can drain mages without their permission, or if it's just because I was unconscious and didn't have control over my mana and it just funneled straight into you, but that's the only explanation. You're still a Servant. You just need mana!" She beams. "That's why I was so sick. You're draining me faster than I can refill my reservoirs. You're effectively killing me?"
"And this is a bad thing?" he says tentatively.
"Oh, very," Gwen says cheerfully. "I'll probably be dead in another day if things keep up like this. But that's the thing. If I'm right, all you need is a contract. My mana would stabalize if I have control over how much I can give you. The glitch would be fixed."
"What if you are wrong?" he asks.
Gwen shrugs. "Then I'll almost definitely die."
"And your odds of surviving will be better with a proper contract?" he says cautiously.
Gwen grins broadly. "Oh no," she says. "My odds of surviving are almost nil. It all depends on whether a dream I had was real or not."
Her mind is still whirling. A Servant...A Servant without a Master, a glitch in the contract. The idea forms, slowly at first, then all the pieces crashing together.
I did not leave you utterly helpless. Gil had said that, in her dream. He had said she was stronger than she'd ever realized.
Her command seals are warm against her skin.
Would Gil scold her, for betting everything on a dream? Would he say Diocletius of Alexandria was right?
But it had felt real. In her bones, she had felt it.
In the blood and the rock and the heath and the bones.
She leans against a column. She could be wrong. She probably is. Everything is fuzzy around the edges. She's studied the effects of starvation and fever well enough to recognize them. But this could be her chance.
Fate can be interesting, Gil had said. And if she's not going to run to the church, what other chance will she have? Even if she's wrong...
"It might as well be some place in the sun," she says softly.
The man runs a hand over his ragged armor. "I still cannot claim to understand fully," he says. "But if what I gather is correct, you are offering to make a contract with me. And you will die if it fails."
Gwen starts to answer, and wobbles as her legs decide to give way underneath her. She slides down the column and stares blankly at the far wall.
Food, she thinks, food and water, before anything else. And mana. Do I have enough? Even if I do, even if I just barely manage it, the mana drain would knock me unconscious. He would have to find it all on his own, and there must be a familiar at the manor, but there's nowhere else to go…
"Lass?" He crouches down beside her. "You're losing your color again," he says worriedly. "You should rest. We can discuss this later. Here, let me carry you back to bed."
Gwen shakes her head. The world blurs around the edges and stays that way, even when she goes still. "There's no time." She winces, her broken arm pressed to her throbbing rib. The words ring in her ears. No time, no time –
Gil would be snapping at her, demanding she act now, telling her what to do—
But the only voice inside her head is hers.
It's such a lonely feeling, being all alone.
She looks up into his gold-green eyes. They really are pretty. And so kind. So worried, even though he barely knows her. He must have lost someone before, to look like that.
"What's your name?" she asks.
He hesitates, then straightens up and bows formally. "Diarmuid ua Duibne, at your service," he says. "Once a knight of the Fianna, now a traitor to his king and his brothers."
Gwen swallows past her dry throat. "Well," she says, "I owe you my life, traitor knight, and I might owe you it again if this works. Will you form a contract with me? I can't promise it will work. You might be worse off than you are now. But if it does...if it does, I will never forget what you did for me." She holds his gaze as solemnly as she can with the world blurring around the edges.
He sits down across from her and takes her hand in his callused ones. "What's your name, m'lady?"
"Gwen—" she hesitates. "Gwenhwyfar," she says. "Gwenhwyfar Brenin, of Wales. And I have a plan to win this war, if you help me, and if I manage to live through this."
"Gwenhwyfar of Wales," he says gravely, "I would be honored to form a contract with you."
She folds her fingers over his and squeezes weakly. "Then let me tell you my plan," she says, and takes a deep breath.
Gil, she thinks, if I live, like you said...I'm going to find you. And you'll have a choice to make.
And then I'll make Leilani and the Einzberns regret ever thinking of me as a third-rate mage.
She exhales. "First," she says, "we'll need a way to fight."