Beautiful Destroyer
Chapter Nine
"Hey, you're from Old Farthing, right? Have you been getting any post? 'Cause I ain't heard from my missus in months. Months!"
"Me old mam sent me a letter some three weeks back, me thinks. But I have heard talk of bandits along the roads. Mayhaps you've just got a case of bad luck?"
"Bandits? Stealing my letters? What would bandits care for paper 'n ink?"
"I dunno what to say, Geoffrey. Maybe they just liked the messenger's horse? When was the last time you wrote 'er?"
Vin listened from behind a pile of rubble that used to be a house. The entire city was rubble except for the fortress in the middle. Had the fighting really left so much devastation? She could believe it. She'd seen what Wardes could do, and he was just one man. An army of mages could reduce any battlefield to ruins. But the destruction was too neat, too precise. Every house had been torn down deliberately. Had the invaders wanted to clear the area? Or had the defenders wanted to prevent their enemies from having any shelter?
Questions for later. She had managed to walk through the war camp pretending to be a washerwoman, but on the front lines there hadn't been a crowd she could hide in.
The Reconquista was camped outside the city walls, humans on one side and demihumans on the other. Vin had never seen a demihuman up close before, and she still hadn't. From a distance they looked like people who had been deformed, stretched out, inflated, and repainted in different ways. They were creatures that the people of this world took for granted so much they never talked about them.
That was why Vin didn't know enough about them to gamble a plan on them, and she would stand out too much in their camp to study them. That left the humans, and out of the humans in the sky, circling the fortress of Newcastle in their airships and the humans on the ground, the latter were easier to reach.
"Alright boys! Load'er up, the cannon's ready."
Cautiously, Vin peered out from her hiding place, ready to extinguish her tin at a moment's notice. She was to the west of them so if they looked her way they'd be blinded by the setting sun. If they saw her anyway, well, she had an alibi that wouldn't hold up under scrutiny and enough zinc and brass to make up the difference. She hoped.
But no steel. She was all out, and Guiche couldn't make more. Vin had managed to get some iron from a nail she had filed down to dust, but she wouldn't be able to Steelpush until she reached a line-class earth mage willing to work as an alchemist.
She watched the men, four commoners overseen by one mage, load a ball about the size of her head into a long, cast iron tube. She had assumed the balls to be stone at first, but when she burned iron they formed a blue line straight to her chest, and if she wanted she could Pull on them.
A small flash of flame burst from the mage's wand, igniting a thick cord at the base of the tube. The men covered their ears, Vin extinguished her tin, and the cannon boomed like thunder. She couldn't just hear that explosion. This close, it shook her bones.
The metal ball sailed through the air faster than anything launched by a Coinshot and crashed into the stone walls of the fortress. The walls stood, but in a few minutes the men would fire another cannon ball and another until their cart was empty. A short distance to either side of them another group of men with another cannon were doing the same thing, all the way around the fortress.
Afterwards, one of the men picked up a large brush and started shoving it down the tube to clean it, and the others began talking to each other again.
This is a terrible idea, she thought. This will splatter me against the walls, and if it doesn't it will leave me broken on the ground between two armies, and both will assume I'm with the other side.
Still, it was a way over the walls, the only one she had. She just wished it came with a landing strategy, but there was bound to be some metal for her to grab onto, right?
Lord Ruler, this is insane.
"And load!" the mage called out. The men loaded another ball into the tube, and once more the mage ignited the wick.
That's when she made her move. Burning pewter, she dashed out of hiding toward the cannon and burned brass as well to Soothe the men's emotions, dulling any panicked responses that might get in the way. She jumped over the head of the mage, landed on the cast iron tube as gracefully as a cat—
And her runes ignited into light.
Samuel Besh style bombard cannon, fires iron shot via gunpowder explosion, detonated by posterior lit fuse.
Information poured into her mind, so much she could barely think. Without pewter she would have lost her balance, and she flared tin for a moment to bring the present back into focus. The blinding light from the setting sun, the rumble of distant cannon fire, the smell of the burning fuse, they all came into sharp focus. Part of her wanted to run away and hide to figure out what had just happened, but she would only get one shot at this.
Right before the fuse finished burning, she dipped down, kicked out a lock to let the cannon swing on its wheels, and stepped on the back end of the tube, pointing the front end upward.
"Hey," one of the men said, emerging from his confusion. "You're not supposed to—"
BOOM!
Even without tin, the explosion was deafening and the heated metal scorched her feet. But she flared iron for all she was worth, grabbing onto the cannon ball, lurching herself into the air after it. She left the men and the cannon behind her, and for a terrifying moment, she flew.
This was not the graceful coinjumps that she had been used to. There was no control, no back up plan, just desperation and so much wind in her face she could barely keep her eyes open. And above all, there was the surety that if the ball ever got too far away from her, she'd lose the only thing pulling her forward.
When she coinjumped she burned steel in a short burst, but now she Pulled and she kept Pulling ... until she caught up to it.
Twisting in midair Vin managed to avoid crashing into the iron ball, leaving it behind and sailing over the fortress walls. Flaring tin despite the glare of the setting sun, she scanned the ramptops desperate for something metal she could Pull.
The soldiers below in their armor were worse than useless to her. Pulling herself to the ground would only kill her faster. She needed metal above her, and found ...
A flagpole. Atop the tallest tower a flag waved in the wind as Vin flew past, and she burned iron to Pull herself toward it. The Ironpull curved her trajectory making her orbit the tower for half a turn, until the flagpole ripped free of the tower and flew toward her like a hurled spear.
In a panic she extinguished her iron and was only able to catch it with reflexes enhanced by pewter to keep it from impaling her. Her charcoal grey mistcloak and the red and gold fabric of the flag fluttered behind her as she fell, closer and closer to the ground. She Pulled on half a dozen blue lines, praying that one of them would slow her down, but it was like grasping at cobwebs for all the good it did. With nothing else to do, she braced the flag pole beneath her—
And hit the ground.
Her hand burned as it slid down the pole, and the bottom half broke off when she hit the ground, shattering on impact. The rest of her didn't fare much better, and she felt the force of the landing vibrate in her knees and up her hips, and all her innards seemed to want to keep dropping when she stopped. She rolled like she had learned when training with Kelsier, and somehow ... she was ... still ...
She flared tin, forcing her back into lucidity to keep herself from blacking out. Get up! She moved and, finding nothing broken, she got her legs underneath her.
"Founder, what was that?"
"We're being attacked!"
"Don't just stand there! Shoot her!"
"Don't shoot!" Vin yelled. She burned brass, dulling the panic of the crowd of soldiers surrounding her. "Don't shoot. I'm a messenger from Tristain."
One of the closer soldiers looked uncertain. Vin didn't recognize the instrument in his hands, but he held it like a weapon. He glanced back at a nobleman. "So are we still ..."
"No!" the nobleman shouted. He had a white beard and a bald, leathery head. "Don't shoot." He turned to Vin. "You're from Tristain? A messenger? What does Tristain want with us now, of all times?"
"They're going to save us!" someone blurted out.
The nobleman gave Vin a hard look. "Is that it? Has Tristain finally remembered her old ally?"
Vin hesitated. Tristain had remembered Albion, but only to tie up some loose ends before Albion fell. Not that she could say that, of course, though she couldn't tell these people what they wanted to hear either.
She looked over the crowd. They seemed like a lot of people, but the only ones that were left were inside this fortress. The force besieging them was made up of thousands, tens of thousands. She had planned on appearing as Valette, a noble vassal in the service of Princess Henrietta, but seeing herself surrounded by the desperate and the defeated, she just couldn't.
Desperate people are the easiest to fool, Reen whispered. She pushed his voice aside.
"My message is for Prince Wales," she said. "I'm sorry."
WWW
"You're dressed oddly for an ambassador."
Prince Wales was young, maybe a few years older than Vin herself was. The suit he wore was a mix between noble finery and a military uniform, which she suspected was the intention.
Always be aware of how people present themselves, but never forget that the presentation is for show.
Another bit of Reen's advice. How much of Wales' appearance was deliberate and how much wasn't? Clean clothes, clean face, well kept hair, and, as she burned tin, pine scented perfume? The boy was running a war with as much pomp as some noblemen carried with them when they went to a ball.
"I wished to avoid notice while passing through the rebel war camp, Your Highness."
She sat nervously in front of him. He hadn't searched her for weapons or retained a guard while inviting her into his study. Was he trying to appear trusting? Or confident that he could defend himself if she proved to be an enemy?
He had asked for the ring. He rolled the Water Ruby around in his hand, glancing up at her only occasionally.
"Well you certainly failed that, from what my men told me," he said. "They said you fell from the sky like a meteorite, holding the flag of Albion in your hand." He gave her a smooth smile. "My compliments on your dramatic entrance."
Vin hadn't recognized the flag, but it didn't seem like a good idea to admit it. "Thank you."
He studied her. "You're not going to tell me how you managed to smuggle that through the traitors' war camp, are you? No, don't, I prefer to figure it out myself."
Vin deliberately did not sigh in relief. There would be trouble if he thought she was an enemy agent who had been given his kingdom's flag to appear to be an ally, but she also didn't want to admit that she had vandalized the symbol of his kingdom on her arrival.
"Though I must correct you, Your Highness." Even though she was dressed as a commoner—besides the Mistcloak which no one recognized—she made sure to speak as a noblewoman. Proud, articulate, refined. It might have felt wrong to lie to his men, but lying to the prince himself was just being diplomatic. And after all, she was pretending to be a noblewoman pretending to be a commoner. What she was underneath all that, not even she knew most days. "I am not not an ambassador, I am a messenger of the ambassador. We did not deem it safe for her to cross the warzone as I have."
"The ambassador's ambassador?" He smiled at the wordplay. "Well then, what is your message? Or am I to meet the ambassador in some secure location?"
Could he do that? The whole point of the siege was to keep them pinned down, wasn't it? "Lady Vallière awaits in her ship along the coastline a small distance south of here." Wales' eyes widened slightly at the name. Had he met Louise? She and the princess had some history, so it was possible. Or maybe he only knew her family. "In our group we have a trained mole, capable of detecting valuable gemstones even at a distance. With your permission, I will bury the ring and the ambassador will arrive through the tunnel."
Tunneling from the start had been a possibility, but emerging outside the castle walls could have gotten them killed by the Reconquista, and surfacing within the castle walls and being mistaken for the Reconquista could have gotten them killed by the royalists.
Wales gave Vin a shocked look. "You wish to bury the Water Ruby?"
She hesitated. "Is that a problem?"
He leaned back in his chair. "Six thousand years ago, Founder Brimir had four sons, and he gave each of them a ring. To his eldest, Romulus, he gave a garnet. To Gallus he gave a topaz. Tristan received a sapphire, and Albus was given an amethyst. But all four gems are called rubies, because at the heart of each of them is a drop of the Founder's own blood." He gave her a level, somber look. "Put it on your finger, Vin."
She complied, and when the prince made a fist, presenting his own ring, she mimicked the gesture. Light burst forth between the rings, beautiful and vibrant, like a stained glass window come to life. She pulled away as if burned, and the light faded.
"Each of those sons founded their own kingdoms and passed their rings down their royal lines," Wales continued, his voice a whisper. "But these are more than just royal signets. These are relics of divinity, and I will not permit you to bury it in the dirt." He stood up and flashed her an easy smile. "We are in Albion, ambassador's ambassador. Here, we fly."
WWW
The kingdom of Albion was built atop a floating island. Vin knew that as soon as she had first seen it, seeming to be sitting on clouds only a few days before, but the concept was so outrageous that she forced it from her mind. And as long as she was on solid ground, it didn't matter so much that underneath the ground was nothing but air.
That was why she wouldn't have expected to find an airship dock underneath the fortress and a tunnel that cut straight through the bottom of the island.
After being trapped in Newcastle, Wales explained, he had set all the earth mages he had on building an escape route. The armies of the Reconquista surrounded them and pelted their fortress with cannons day and night, but the royalists could resupply and leave whenever they wished. And until then, the whole of the Reconquista's military might was stalled on their doorstep, cutting off all the supply lines except for the one they needed.
It bothered her that he trusted her with that information. He must have known how dangerous it was, right? But perhaps being the prince of a dying country drove him to take risks, like leading the crew that flew a quarter mile straight down a dark tunnel to the underside of the island to meet the ambassador.
The ship wasn't too hard to find when Vin knew what to look for. It was covered in a cloud, but Vin remembered where they had anchored and Wardes' conjured cloud didn't look completely natural.
"Ahoy!" Wales called out to the cloud. "Ambassador of Tristain! Unveil your ship and I shall offer you the hospitality worthy of your station. You have my word as the crowned prince of Albion!"
The cloud thinned until it revealed Louise standing at the prow of the ship, looking out at them. "Vin? Vin, you're back! And ... you brought back .. is that the prince? Your Highness!"
Laughing, the prince flew into the air and landed on their ship. Vin would have followed him, but she had no steel and she couldn't fly, no matter how well she could fake it. Instead she waited on a ship full of strangers, watching Louise and the others talk to the prince, burning tin to listen in on their conversations, until they all sailed to Newcastle.
WWW
"Ladies and gentlemen," Prince Wales announced at the head of the feast hall. "Brothers in arms. My friends. It is my honor to introduce Tristain's royal ambassador, Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière and her compatriots."
Around the feast hall, necks craned and heads turned to face the four of them. Louise straightened up proudly—it wasn't every day she got to be introduced by a prince. Wardes and Vin scanned the room, both completely unaware of how similar they were acting. This was a feast hall, not a warzone. Well, technically it was both, but everyone else had left the war outside.
"I expect you to give them the same respect you would offer the crown that sent them," Wales continued. "Now eat! Drink! Be merry! For tomorrow ..." He grinned, and some members of the crowd laughed, others cheered, and the feast began.
Louise began to eat primly. No one in their group could cook, and the fare here was far finer than what they had been reduced to during their brief voyage, but she was representing Princess Henrietta, and she had to look the part.
Beside her, Vin watched the prince as though she were trying to memorize the man and everyone he spoke to. "Vin," she said. "You're doing it again."
"Doing what?"
"Being paranoid. Being on edge. Being you. Stop it before you offend our host."
Louise expected an argument. Instead, Vin took a breath, closed her eyes, and when she opened them she looked content, relaxed, and she took a bite of her salad, smiling politely as she chewed.
"He's stalling," Vin said under her breath. She didn't even change her expression.
"What?"
"If the letter's here, it would have taken him ten minutes at most to hand it off to us and we could be on our way back. Instead he invited us to dinner, and then he's going to offer to have us spend the night."
Louise's eyes widened. "Don't, don't say things like that!" she hissed. "He's just being a good host." She hesitated. "What would he even be stalling for?"
"I don't know," she admitted. "But his people are desperate, and he might do a good job of hiding it, but I'm betting he is too. And when I first got here, the first thing they asked me was if Tristain was coming to aid them."
Louise frowned, trying to see where Vin was going with that line of reasoning. "So?"
"So, the princess said the letter was embarrassing."
Louise gave her a hard look. "No. That's ridiculous. He wouldn't." She turned to Wardes. "Right?"
Wardes paused thoughtfully, and Louise felt a sense of panic rising in her chest. "Would Prince Wales attempt to use the letter to blackmail Princess Henrietta into sending military aid? No. It could take us a week to return to Tristain, and it might take another month after that for the princess to raise enough support for a military intervention. Newcastle will not last that long, and he knows it."
Louise sighed in relief, though it bothered her that his argument was more focused on the impracticality of that course of action rather than the dishonor of it.
"He may attempt to extract a promise of asylum, however," Wardes said. "And as an ambassador, you can make promises in the princess' name."
She blinked. "I can?" No, Louise, don't go mad with power. You're on a mission. "I mean, I'm sure she wouldn't mind. She and Prince Wales have history."
Guiche let out a wistful sigh. "A princess betrothed to a barbarian king while her true love is doomed to fight a hopeless war. History, Louise? It is a tragic love story we are witnessing."
Both Wardes and Vin turned to give Guiche the same flat stare—and how could they not see how similar they were?—before Wardes continued. "Speak carefully when you speak in her name, Louise, lest you lose her favor. Tristain chose to leave Albion to deal with Albion's problems, and protecting the defeated faction now could draw us unto their war."
Louise fell silent. Their mission up until now had been an adventure, one that she, for the most part, had witnessed more than participated in. But now? Now her role as ambassador had come to the forefront, and she could feel the pressure welling. "But ... but it probably won't come to that, right?"
"It might not," Vin conceded.
"No, of course," Wardes added.
"But just in case," Vin said, "if we were to have to steal the letter ourselves ..."
Louise glared at her. "Really?"
"It would be in his private study, under lock and key," Wardes said. "A locked drawer? No, a strongbox at least."
Louise turned to him. "You too?"
"So we'd either need the key or risk smashing it open." Vin shook her head. "No, we're doing this wrong. We should start with our escape plan and work backwards from there."
Louise pushed her plate out of the way and dropped her head down to the table. "You two are going to be the death of me."
WWW
"And here is the letter."
Louise hesitated a bit too long before taking it from the Prince's hand. "Th-thank you, Your Highness."
Prince Wales cocked his head. "You seem surprised, Ambassador."
"No, not at all." Louise avoided looking at either her familiar or her fiancé. "It's just, after coming all this way, it seems too easy. I was expecting some sort of disaster."
The prince laughed. "Then may you ever be disappointed. You and your friends are welcome to spend the night. I expect these old stone walls will last at least one more day."
"Thank you, Prince Wales. You honor us with your hospitality." Louise hesitated. The smart thing to do was to leave and prepare for the return trip. But ... "What happens after? When your enemies breach these walls, where will you go?"
He smiled. "When these walls fall, it will not be the time to run, but the time to stand. And the time to die."
"But why? You're not trapped here. You have that secret tunnel, you can leave whenever you want."
His smile didn't leave his lips. "And go where? To Tristain?"
Louise hesitated, feeling Wardes' gaze on her back. She knew what he would say, and she knew what Vin would say, but Henrietta had sent her. No one knew the princess' mind like she did. "Yes. Princess Henrietta would take you in, I know she would."
His gaze softened. "Yes, so do I. But I would prove to be a most ungracious guest, with the host of problems I would draw to her doorstep. Besides, my place is here, with my dying kingdom and my enemies to stand against till my last drop of blood."
Louise bit her lip. Though Princess Henrietta was betrothed to the Emperor of Germania, this was the man she loved, Louise would bet her heart on that. Part of her wondered if the princess' real wish was for Wales to make his heroic last stand, not in Newcastle, but in Tristain. Surely it would be easier to keep the Reconquista off their land than to drive them out of Albion, and between the armies of Tristain and the last royalists of Albion, Henrietta wouldn't need an alliance with Germania to keep their enemies out.
But ... that was just a dream, and Louise spent too much of her life dreaming for a better one. She didn't beg him to reconsider, instead she nodded and said, "I understand," even though she didn't. "So, I suppose that is our business concluded?"
"Yes. You are welcome to stay the night, of course, and depart in the morning with anything you need that I can provide you. I ... I may have a second letter to entrust you with by the time you go."
Louise nodded, offered her thanks, accepted his courtesies, and she took her leave. Wardes stayed behind, having some business with the prince, and then there were three.
Louise stood in the hallway with Vin and Guiche, feeling not tired, but drained. "I think I'm going to go to bed," she said, not because she wanted to go to sleep, but because she wanted to lie awake, staring up at the ceiling until the moons passed by her window. Assuming the room she was staying in had a window.
Vin didn't follow her. "You go on ahead," she said. "I'll catch up later."
Guiche perked up at that. "Going on a late night stroll? I'll come with you."
Louise noted the sudden hunted look in her familiar's eyes, but Guich didn't. "It's not a stroll. There's just a few things I need to pick up before we leave in the morning."
"Oh, a shopping trip. Even better. I too would like a souvenir to commemorate our travels."
Louise gave her a look. Either say yes to him or no. Admittedly it would help if Guiche did something more than leer and flirt. He was usually far more forward.
"It's not ..." Vin began. "I ... okay, if you want, I guess."
"Splendid!"
The two of them walked off, and then there was one. Alone, Louise went to the room provided to her, plopped down on the bed, and stared up at the ceiling.
Everyone here is going to die, she thought. Everyone ... is going ... to die.
WWW
There were no open shops in the fortress of Newcastle. They weren't closed, they just didn't exist. A few of the commoners were willing to trade the contents of their pockets, but if Vin wanted anything more than that she would have to make a requisition from the Quartermaster. And to do that, Vin would need to be able to justify her request to either the Quartermaster or someone above him on the chain of command.
That meant going to the prince and explaining Allomancy.
She hoped to bypass that by finding a line class earth mage to make her a small amount of the right alloy of steel, but the willpower of Albion's few remaining earth mages was at a premium. Albion boasted the strongest wind mages in Halkeginia, but it was their earth mages who kept the castle walls reinforced against cannon fire, guarded against underminers, and maintained the tunnel leading from the underground docks. When they weren't on active duty, they considered it their secondary duty to sleep as much as possible.
"Your father was a general," Vin said, peering out a window. The window was too narrow for a cannonball to fit through, but an arrow could. An arrow slit? "Do you know much about war?"
Guiche smiled weakly. "I could regale you with some of his war stories, but if you wish to talk of tactics and strategy, I'm afraid I can't help you."
"Is there a strategy?" Vin asked. A cannonball bounced off the wall not too far away from her window, and she felt the stonework quiver in response. "Unless he has something amazing up his sleeve, he should have pulled out by now." Any crew leader with half a wit would have pulled out of a job this surely doomed, so either Wales was a complete idiot or he had a plan she didn't know about.
"Strategy?" Guiche repeated. "He told you his strategy. Wales is the Valiant Prince of Albion, and intends to live up to his name."
"That's it?" There's always another secret.
He cocked his head. "That's it? Why Vin my dear, that is enough for anyone. If there's one thing I have learned from my father's war stories, it's that war isn't about winning or losing, it's about honor and courage. All a veteran has are stories. Certainly there is land and plunder, but those are material trifles compared to the real prize. Great men fight wars to show the world who they really are."
Vin stared out the window. She could smell the smoke from the cannon, a more acrid scent than what came from wood or lantern oil, and she could make out torches and fires from the Reconquista's war camp. They outnumbered Wale's few hundred men by so much, they could build a ramp with their own corpses to scale the walls and still have enough left over to slaughter the remaining royalists.
"My brother used to say that war is about dying in a pool of your own blood with loose bowels, crying for your mother."
Guiche opened his mouth and closed it again. "Well, my father always says that a coward dies a thousand deaths, the hero only once."
Vin cocked her head. "What does that mean?"
"I ... don't know. But it sounds nice."
"Hm."
For a long moment neither of them said anything as they listened to the cannons, beating like drums against the walls. Vin found the sound dreadful, but also ... hopeful. They didn't have war in the Final Empire, not like this. They had skaa resistance cells being slaughtered by skaa garrisons. Skaa killing skaa, when all either side wanted was to live, and that was when the koloss weren't involved.
"Guiche?" she said. "Thank you. For coming."
He turned to face her. "Oh no, my lady. Thank you for recommending that I come. It has been an honor."
She raised an eyebrow. "You know I'm not a lady."
He shrugged. "A mere technicality. You're a mage as powerful as the Viscount, and you're as well connected as could be. You'll be a noblewoman within a year if Her Highness doesn't grant you a title of nobility the moment we return."
That ... that sounded like a nightmare. There was an incredible amount of beauty in the nobles' world, but Vin couldn't imagine herself being a part of it.
"I try not to think about the future too much," she said.
"Why not? The future is full of dreams, and dreams are full of wonder."
Vin rolled those words around in her mind before deciding them to be nonsense. "What is the future anyway? I'll probably stick around with Louise one way or another. She's likely to get married to Wardes and, I don't know, drop out of the academy to be his wife? Or something. You'll, what? Patch things up with Montmorency and continue your studies? I guess it depends on how the princess rewards us." Which Louise hadn't bothered to settle beforehand. Accepting a job with barely a vague hint of payment was ...
"That's one possibility," he admitted. "Here's another." He faced her straight on and looked her head in the eye. "Go out with me."
She blinked. "What?"
"On a date. You'll wear something nice, I'll take you somewhere nice, and we'll have a nice time together. You must say that sounds nice, right?"
"... What?"
He took a deep breath. "Lady Vin, when I first laid eyes upon your person, I would have more easily taken you for a princess than a peasant. In battle you are poetry, in flight you are an angel, and in breath you are grace veiled in shadow."
"What." Was he insane? He had to be. He definitely talked like a crazy person. Her eyes darted around the hallway, hoping for a distraction or, failing that, a window wide enough to jump through.
Distant footsteps drew closer, and a young man in uniform approached them. "There you are," he said. "You're the person who arrived with the ambassador. And ... the other person who arrived with the ambassador. I was told to ask you to come to the chapel because the ambassador and the ... other, other person in your group are getting married."
"Oh, thank god." Then the messenger's words caught up to her. "What?"
WWW
Oh Founder, what was I thinking? What was I thinking?
Louise paced the small dressing room, stopping to examine herself in the mirror. She looked ... as good as could be expected. Being married by a prince of a dying kingdom in a castle besieged by rebels and traitors sounded romantic, but the reality was a bit ... scant.
But she couldn't be picky. Sure, she was getting married in her school uniform (she had packed light and there wasn't a wedding gown her size). Sure, the only people she knew who would be in attendance were the people who had joined her on this mission. Sure, Wardes hadn't even offered her a wedding ring when he had proposed to her, but there was one thing that she had to keep in mind.
He was Viscount Jean-Jacques de Wardes, Captain of the Griffin Knights of Tristain, and she was Louise the Zero. She would never do better than him.
Yes, she would like to have a big wedding party sometime after she had graduated and had proven herself to be a mage worthy of her family name, but that might never happen. She had to be honest, at least with herself. She might never be a great mage. After doing everything she could for sixteen years, the only spell she had managed to cast was to summon her familiar, and Vin was a better mage than she was. Wardes seemed to think that she would one day prove to be legendary, but ...
But that was just another reason to marry him quickly. Every day she extended their engagement, that was one more chance for Wardes to come to his senses. How many engagements had her sister Eleanor managed to ruin just before their wedding? Louise wasn't going to make the same mistake. When Wardes had cornered her in the hallway and told her that Prince Wales had agreed to marry them, she had, well, she had been a little bit angry that he would surprise her with something that should have included her from the start, but she was not going to ruin this. No matter what.
Besides, the sheer suddenness gave a certain elopey feel to the wedding, like they were running away together or something. That definitely made it more romantic, right?
Then the door swung open and her familiar burst into the room, ready to ...
Louise stared at her, and Vin stared back. "Hello?"
"Hey."
Louise waited for something more. "Yes?"
"You're getting married." It wasn't a question or even an accusation, just a statement.
"Y-yes."
"Ah."
Louise took a deep breath. "If you're coming in, come in. Either way, close the door."
Vin closed the door so gently Louise couldn't even hear it click. "Are you sure about this?"
No. Louise had never been less sure about anything in her life. She had never been more terrified of anything in her life. But ... "Have you ever loved anyone, Vin?"
Vin stared at her for a moment, then nodded.
She took off her wedding veil and draped it over the mirror. "Then you know that you're never sure. You never know. It's ... it's a leap of faith."
She liked the way that sounded. Some of the stories she had read had explained love that way. They left out the part where half of you wanted to hide and the other half wanted to throw up, but, well, Rule of Steel and all that. She would not back down, she would not run away. She would get through this.
But ... but starting a new life with someone was the easy part. The hard part was severing ties with her old one.
When Vin didn't respond, Louise kept talking to fill the silence. "We should figure out what to do about ..." She gestured toward the both of them, not really having the right words to explain it. "After we get back, I may end up moving in with my ... with Wardes. I know there's been some friction between you two. Right now I'm in charge of this mission and he was sent to assist me, but when we get back he'll be the, well, the master of the house, so ..."
"You want me to leave."
Louise winced. Jumped right to it. "I just think you should have a way out if things don't ..." They had been at odds the entire mission. Whenever they had an external threat to focus on they could nearly finish each other's sentences, and Louise might have grown jealous of the two of them if Vin hadn't been glaring at him the rest of the time. After it was all over, Loiuse wanted to believe that they would be able to find a way to get along, but ... but either way, Louise had a duty to her familiar. "When we get back, I'll tell Princess Henrietta how helpful you've been. She's always generous to those loyal to her."
Did she want Vin to leave? No, of course not. But if it came down to her familiar or her future husband, well, Wardes was one of the only people who treated her like an adult, and she intended to act the part. That meant putting the things of the past—including people—aside.
"I'll be alright." Was she hurt? Sad? Angry? "Guiche ... asked me out. I'll be alright."
Louise blinked. Guiche? Well, the boy had been eyeing her the entire trip, and Vin could do worse than a general's son. Technically. But still, Guiche? She forced a smile. "Well, good. Glad that's settled. Glad you have everything worked out!"
She hadn't meant to snarl the last few words. They just came out that way.
Vin stared at her, her stance cautious. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing! Nothing's wrong! I'm getting married, Vin! Everything is wonderful!" Louise grabbed a stool and hurled it at the wall. It bounced off instead of shattering into a million wooden splinters like it was supposed to, stupid thing.
"Do you want to cancel the wedding?" Vin asked.
Louise took a deep breath. "No, I'm just nervous." She turned to her. "Why? Do you think I should?"
Vin seemed to study her for a moment. "Are you asking, or are you asking?"
Louise rolled her eyes. "Of course I'm asking, Vin, this is important."
Again, more scrutiny. "Can I trust you to keep this between us?"
"Of course."
"Do you promise?"
Louise sighed and gave her a patient look. "I never let you down before, have I? Now say your piece."
Vin's face ... twisted, but only for a moment, seeming to express ... something ... and then it passed. She shook her head. "I don't know him well enough to say anything. Congratulations on your wedding."
WWW
"Jean-Jacques Francis de Wardes and Louise Françoise le Blanc de la Vallière, have you come here freely and without reservation to give yourselves to each other in marriage?"
It was a small ceremony. Besides Guiche, the only other person in attendance was an old man who may have wandered in on accident and didn't want to disrupt the wedding in order to leave.
"Will you honor each other as man and wife for the rest of your lives?"
Vin thought back to what Louise had said. Have you ever loved anyone? Yes, her brother, Reen. Not romantically, but ever since they ran away from home he was all she had. He berated her, beat her, and threatened to sell her to the whorehouses until the day he abandoned her. As she watched Louise take her leap of faith into Wardes' life, Vin wondered if she should have abandoned him first.
"Will you accept children lovingly from God and bring them up in accordance with the law of Founder Brimir and his church?"
When Vin had asked her to keep their discussion private, she had said, "Of course." Of course. As though she expected Vin to take it for granted that she would keep her secrets when she had never done so before.
Anyone will betray you. And she had, not through malice, but through indifference. That wasn't any better. Reen, at least, had paid attention to her when he hurt her. Louise couldn't even acknowledge her betrayal.
It's your own fault. You shouldn't have given her the chance.
"Do you promise to be true to each other in the good times and the bad? Do you promise to love and honor each other in all the days of your life?"
But Vin did give her the chance, and Louise had used her up and was ready to abandon her, just like everybody else. Vin wondered if she had ever been more than just a thing to Louise, then pushed that thought aside. Stupid question. Of course she was, and she was an idiot for thinking otherwise, an idiot for not taking the money and the metals and making a run for it long ago, an idiot for thinking that she could have made a life for herself here.
Wardes is using her just like she was using me.
She pushed that thought out of her head too. She had tried to talk Louise away from the man before and she hadn't listened. Vin needed to worry about herself for once. She needed ... what was it Louise had said? She needed a way out.
"Then by the power invested in me, I now pronounce you man and wife."
WWW
A/n I normally like weddings, but a marriage is only as good as the wedding cake. That's why you should never get married under siege, no matter how romantic it seems.
After doing so much plotting and brainstorming with Exiled Immortal, we decided to keep the momentum going and pump out another chapter. I'd like to thank him for editing it, as usual, as well as Exiled Immortal, Prime 2.0, Sphinxes, Kelsey Bull, Hubris Prime, Apofatix, Janember, Yotam Bonneh, and Svistka for supporting me on . And I'd like to thank all my readers for leaving reviews and comments for me. Thanks again!