The two men sat by the half-elf woman's bedside, each in their own thoughts. Their course of action was set. Of course, it wasn't like they had much of a choice. If Kratos and Martel were in danger now, they would be killed on sight when Meltokio got news of what Martel had done.
Of course, it would take them some time to make that discovery. Martel's... "magic trick" as Kratos called it, had wiped out the entire troop sent to retrieve him. It would be a few days before King Meltokio realized something was amiss, and at least one more before the next troop arrived.
Yuan and Kratos waited in silence. Everything that needed to be said had already been said, which had primarily been adrenaline-driven argument. The two friends exchanged angry words, Kratos proclaiming that Yuan's actions had been stupid, very stupid, and Yuan returning that Kratos martyring himself wouldn't help Martel at all. The argument continued until Yuan's father intervened. "What's done is done," the older elf chided them. "Placing blame and getting angry at each other isn't going to change that."
Short apologies were issued; subdued preparations to leave ensued. "We have to leave as soon as Martel awakens," Yuan told his father. "It will probably be hard on her- she expelled an enormous amount of mana in that blast. But we have no choice. The farther away from the border we are once we get to Sylvarant, the safer all three of us will be."
Kratos busied himself with packing and organizing and planning while Yuan and his father spoke. He wasn't a part of this conversation; ordinarily he would leave, but he didn't want to leave Martel's side. "Won't you tell me what's going on?" Yuan's father asked softly.
"No. I'm sorry, Father. The less you know, the better. You will probably be questioned. They have ways of knowing if you're telling the truth. You and Mother are already in poor graces with his Majesty because of me." The half-elf shook his head. "It's better that you don't know. I'm sorry."
"Very well. You will, at least, say goodbye to your mother before you depart?"
"I had no intentions on leaving without doing so." Yuan smiled sadly. "I will wait until Martel wakes, though. It will give her a few more moments to gather herself."
And that was that. Kratos knew, from experience, that Yuan wouldn't speak with his father again. There was a deep bond between the two, indeed, but it was paradoxically cold. Yuan didn't see it. Whenever Kratos expressed concern for it, the half-elf shrugged him off, saying that elves appeared naturally cold. "He's not," Yuan said. "He just seems that way to humans because elves express their affection differently."
Being human, this of course made little sense to Kratos, but he took Yuan's word for it.
Yuan's father bustled in and out of the room as they waited for Martel to gain consciousness. He had insisted on taking over preparation for their departure, and seemed much more efficient; they almost had the supplies they needed, and had to carry much less than they would have had Kratos continued to prepare himself. It couldn't be due to experience: Kratos was a knight and a high-ranked one at that. He knew how to travel light. It was more likely that Yuan's parents were furnishing them with elven equipment. He refrained from pointing out that this would imply that they knew something was amiss. If the elf didn't already have a story, he would by the time the next unit of knights arrived. Either that, or he'd be able to make something up on the spot.
Martel stirred, murmured something incoherent. Kratos leaned close to her and spoke her name quietly, but firmly. The half-elf maiden's eyes fluttered open, reflecting confusion and fear. "It's all right. We're safe for now," Kratos told her. "We don't know how long we will be safe here. We must get to Sylvarant as quickly as possible. Can you travel?"
Martel sat up with a groan. "I can if I have to," she said thickly, putting a hand to her forehead. "What happened?"
Yuan stood before Kratos could begin his explanation. "You get her up to speed. I'm going to go say goodbye to Mother." He left quietly, his strides quick but not quite hurried.
The pair watched him go before the knight spoke again. "What do you remember?" he asked her.
Martel frowned hard in thought. "I remember... I remember some knights coming to get you," she said slowly, unsure. "I remember Yuan and me coming down with you, trying to talk you out of leaving with them, and a fight broke out. That's all."
Kratos was quiet. He knew that Martel would not take what she had done well. He didn't want to tell her, and yet he felt obligated to. What right did he possibly have to withhold information from her, any information? His internal debate was interrupted by Martel's soft, apprehensive voice. "Kratos? What... what happened?"
He hesitated a moment later, and then spoke haltingly. "That gem, on your choker. I don't know what caused it, but it..." he bit his lip, still looking for a way of telling her what happened without placing any blame on her. "It caused you to release a tremendous amount of mana. It killed them."
"It killed them...all of them?"
As Kratos had predicted, the young woman was aghast. He nodded wordlessly, and she put a hand to her face. "I... killed... all those people..."
"Do you remember?" he asked, unaccusing.
She shook her head violently. "I- no, but I know-"
"How do you know?"
She dropped her hand, staring at it bleakly. "It wouldn't have done anything if I hadn't told it to." There was a moment of silence, and then- "Name of the Great Kharlan Tree, I killed fifteen people!" The last was spoken as a pained, horrified sob, and she began crying quietly.
The human was at a loss. He was never good at comforting blatant pain like this, and he wasn't sure how one could make a woman like Martel feel any better about taking over a dozen lives in one strike. "At that point, Martel, I believe they would not have hesitated in killing us," he tried awkwardly. "We would have had to kill them anyway, and there were no survivors. Meltokio will not know something is amiss for at least another day. It has bought us time."
"Time," she repeated. "Time... at the cost of lives..."
"It bought us our own as well," Kratos pointed out gently. "Martel..." The soldier was at a loss. For the first time since that fateful trip to Igaguri village, Kratos didn't know how to talk to the half-elf. He decided to take a risk. "Martel, I have killed hundreds. I defeated my first enemy in combat at sixteen. I feel remorse for what I had to do, but I do not feel guilty. In that situation, people had to die."
She stared at him, unreadable for a few long moments. Then: "I suppose what I did was self-defense."
"Yes. You were defending yourself, and us."
"I guess I have to at least try to forgive myself, then," she said wistfully, sadly.
Kratos grinned slightly. "You do not 'have' to do anything," he told her, "but considering the increased danger we will be in, I highly advise it. Guilt makes it much harder to defend oneself. Remember that."
She swung her legs over the edge of the bed gingerly. "I will try, then," she said, grimacing as she placed her feet on the cold stone floor and stood. At first, she felt as though her legs were going to give out beneath her. Kratos reached out and steadied her, supporting her until she had her balance. Martel thanked him as he pulled away, and asked, "When will we leave?"
"As soon as Yuan has finished speaking with his mother," Kratos answered. "He shouldn't be long. He rarely has much to say to his parents."
The room was dark. Yuan knew that, having inherited a love of light from his father, it was his own fault he could not appreciate or even understand his mother's need for darkness. She had explained it to him, many times, and he always "understood", and yet never did.
She heard him enter before he announced himself. "Yuan?"
"Yes, Mama."
As he strode forward, he heard her speak again in the darkness. "Your father tells me Kratos has gotten you in trouble again, young man," she said in joking severity.
Yuan snorted as he approached her, his eyes adjusting to the darkness. He could see that she had her eyes open; a rarity for her. "Kratos doesn't 'get me in trouble,'" Yuan rebuffed. "He gets himself into trouble and I jump into it myself."
"Absolutely true," the woman replied with a smile, staring at a fixed point somewhere behind the young half-elf. "Let me see you, son."
Yuan knelt before the woman, touching her hands gently with his own. In response, the human woman raised her hands to the half-elf's face, caressing it lovingly as her fingers traced his features. "You're scared," she said softly.
He smiled, for her sake. She felt it, and smiled in return. "I am," he said. "This is the first time I will truly be without yours and Papa's protection."
"You will have our protection, Yuan," his mother chided gently. "No matter where you go, your father and I will be with you. We can't leave our beloved son alone in this horrid world."
"Thank you, Mama."The trio left the keep shortly after nightfall. The group traveled through the night, their moods surprisingly light. The endless bickering between the men kept Martel, and themselves, amused, and Martel was going to see her brother again very soon. Kratos had been very kind to her, of course, and she hadn't been miserable under his command. But now she was free once again. He'd said a few times that he no longer regarded her as a servant; he was simply her friend.
And she had a new friend as well. Once she got over her general fear of new people, she found the young half-elf to be quite likable. She quickly discovered that she had to be careful, otherwise Kratos was left completely out of most conversations between her and Yuan. This was the reason she, for the most part, simply allowed Kratos and Yuan their playful arguing.
They stopped just before dawn to rest. All of them were exhausted, but Kratos insisted on continuing after daybreak. "The Triet governor's mansion is just a short distance from the desert's edge," he said. "Rather than sleep in the open and risk being attacked by monsters, it would probably be prudent to just continue on. We'll be over the border and have a roof over our heads. We'll be much safer just dealing with the exhaustion for another hour or so."
"At the governor's mansion?" Martel asked, astounded. "Two of us are half-elves and you're a Knight of Tethe'alla, in case you've forgotten."
Kratos suddenly became very reserved, focusing on preparing the three of them something to eat from the supplies Yuan's parents provided them. The young woman looked to her companion half-elf for an answer; he held eye contact with her for only a moment, and then looked away abruptly, focusing on his own task of digging the fire pit.
Martel looked from one man to the other, pondering this odd withholding of information. She eventually just let herself speculate as she gathered sticks and kindling, a task that would take her some time. There wasn't much plant life this close to the desert. Her speculations started out very reasonable and pretty safe assumptions, such as the possibility that Kratos had become friends with the governor while the two kings were trying to negotiate peace. When she concocted some fantastic tale of Kratos intending to show off his tactical prowess by single-handedly taking over the mansion, Martel merely started counting the sticks she was picking up.
By the time their meal was prepared, the mood had relaxed again. Kratos and Yuan recounted humorous stories from their youth for her, the young half-elf woman content to just eat her food and listen. As they finished their meal, the three of them turned to the west as the sun began peeking above the horizon, sharing observations about the beauty of the sunset.
As Kratos stood and began observing that the three of them had best get going before they all get too lazy to move anymore, an explosion rocked the ground beneath them. Kratos and Yuan immediately drew their weapons, reflexively, as Martel cringed and tried very hard not to cry out. "What was that?" she cried.
A pillar of smoke rose in the desert, a distance but pretty close. The blackness of the smoke outlined the shape of a group of buildings. Martel realized in horror what that oasis at the edge of the Triet Desert was. "The governor's mansion," Yuan breathed in consternation. "What in the world-"
Kratos stared, wide-eyed at the wreckage in the distance, his breath catching in his throat. Yuan put a hand on the Knight's shoulder. "Don't jump to conclusions," he said in a low voice. "We don't know what caused that. It might not be as bad as it looks."
Martel wasn't sure the Knight heard him; he seemed singularly focused on that pillar of smoke. After a moment he opened his mouth to speak, tried again, then shrugged Yuan's hand off his shoulder and started towards the mansion at a quick jog. "What's going on?" Martel demanded, suddenly tired of the cryptic attitude the two had about this.
Yuan swallowed hard. "His father is the governor of Triet," he answered her finally, simply. "Come on. We've got to keep up, make sure he doesn't hurt himself looking for survivors."
That piece of information stunned Martel. A Knight of Tethe'alla was the son of a governor of Sylvarant? Curiosity as to how that happened burned in the young half-elf, but now wasn't the time to pry. She followed the two men, a little slower than them but as fast as she could.
By the time Yuan and Martel had caught up, Kratos was already at the smoldering, ruined estate, yelling frantically for anyone who was alive to answer him. Yuan shook his head sadly as Martel came up beside him. "No one's alive in that mess," he said softly. "The blast will have attracted the attention of thieves. We should leave. We have to get to Triet as soon as possible."
Martel started to agree, and ask which one of them should attempt to get Kratos to leave the place, when a small, thin response echoed after one of Kratos' cries. As Kratos stopped and hollered for them to yell again, Yuan said in bewildered concern, "That sounded like a child!"
The call repeated, and Martel shouted, "That's Mithos! Mithos!"
Before Yuan could hold the woman back, Martel bolted into the ruins, towards the child's muffled voice. She quickly joined Kratos in his game of needle in the haystack, searching desperately for the origin of Mithos's cries. Yuan hesitated a moment before joining in the search efforts; they didn't know what caused that explosion, and that survivor may have caused it, using magic to mask his or her true voice. Martel's surety that this survivor was her little brother, however, swayed him to join the search rather than try to dissuade them from it.
It seemed that Kratos located the child, and was clearing rubble away from him as quickly as possible. "Keep talking," Kratos said in elvish. "We'll get you out!"
The boy hesitated. Yuan knew from experience that the man has spoken in elvish to attempt to comfort the child, assuming that he, like Martel, was a half-elf. However, it was clear from the child's hesitation that Kratos's language wasn't comforting at all; Martel, once she got past the shock of hearing a human speak elvish, said in elvish, "It's all right, Mithos. I'm here."
Martel took over conversing with Mithos while Yuan and Kratos dug the boy out. It took them only a few minutes together to free Mithos; Kratos held the last boulder up while Yuan and Martel pulled Mithos to safety. Martel examined the boy quickly, searching for significant injuries, and then hugged the boy tightly to her, sobbing softly. Mithos himself seemed relieved beyond belief to be reunited with his sister. Indeed, Yuan heard him murmur, "I though they'd killed you. I'm so glad you're safe!"
"I'm fine," Martel replied soothingly. "This human protected me while I was in Tethe'alla."
Mithos was puzzled by this prospect. "A human protected you?" he said in disbelief, pulling away from his sister. "Why would-" As Mithos's gaze fell on Kratos again, this time looking at him rather than just trying to get out of the pit he was trapped in, his eyes widened in shock. "Lord Aurion!"
Only Kratos was nonplussed by this reaction. "No," he replied. "I am his son." Seeing that he had the child's attention, he asked, "What happened here?"
The child seemed to cower slightly against his sister. "We were trying to make a pact with Efreet," Mithos replied in a small, traumatized voice. "We weren't told that the person making the pact would have to fight him. Lord Aurion requested that he be allowed to do the fighting for me, and attempt to make the pact that way. Efreet tried, but he… he went berserk."
Kratos took a deep breath, bracing himself. "What became of my father?"
Mithos shook his head, clearly afraid of Kratos' reaction. "He… defended me while I ran. He told me to just leave him. I'm… I'm sorry."
The Knight closed his eyes, trying to keep a hold of his emotions. After a moment, he was comfortable enough that he had mastery of his grief enough to answer him. "You did nothing wrong," he said, softening his voice as much as he could; his grief caused his voice to be rougher than usual. "I'm glad you got out alive as he wished. But why would he try to make a pact with a Summon Spirit?" Kratos asked, confused. "My father was no summoner. It's unfathomable that he'd attempt something he knew he could not do."
It was Martel who answered him. "You two know of the Great Kharlan Tree, right?" she asked, suddenly animated.
Both of the men nodded. "It's the source of all Mana on the world," Yuan answered. "If there's anyone on the planet who doesn't know of the Great Tree, I'd pity their educational system. Even Kratos knows what it is."
Kratos glared at his friend as Mithos took up the explanation. "It's dying," he said flatly. "This dumb war is killing it. The more Magitechnology you guys use, the more it drains the Tree."
Yuan and Kratos exchanged looks in silent communication. After a moment, Yuan asked, "How do you know this?"
"We saw it," Martel said with a shudder. "Most of the branches are dead, and the leaves are all dying."
Mithos nodded. "Even the ground around it was dead," he said in awe. "And it looked like the tree was bleeding, too."
"Well, that's a problem," Yuan replied, his concerned tone belying his cavalier words. "But what does that have to do with Lord Aurion attempting to form a pact with Efreet for you?"
"Lord Aurion knew someone who has a pact with a very powerful Summon Spirit," Mithos said. "He's second only to Origin. He somehow became aware of this and he asked Lord Aurion and his friend to help him find a way to stop the Tree's decay. The solution they came up with was to have one person form pacts with all of the Spirits, and then use their collective power to fortify the Tree."
"It's not a definitive answer," Martel added. "In order to save the Tree, we have to stop the war. But stopping the war will do no good if the Tree dies anyway."
Mithos turned to face Martel again. "We have to go tell Maxwell what happened," he said quickly. "With Efreet berserk like that, and we lost Lord Aurion, I don't know what we'll do now!"
"Can you take us to meet Maxwell?" Kratos asked abruptly. "I'd like to help, if I can."
"We'll take you to meet him," Martel said softly. Ignoring Mithos' protests, she added, "But I think you should talk to him about this before agreeing to help us. You may not want to."
"Martel!" Mithos exclaimed. "Are you sure that's okay? Maxwell's place is hidden! I think he would have told us if it was okay to bring other people!"
"I'd think he'd have told us if it wasn't," Martel replied curtly. "What about you, Yuan? What are you going to do?"
Yuan shrugged. "I'll go with you, I suppose. I have nowhere else to go."
"All right. Let's go."
"Hold on!" Mithos burst. He looked around at the adults, fuming, then focused on Kratos. "I don't know what you're going on about, but we don't need a human's help. I'm grateful you kept my sister safe and helped save me, but I'm not sure I believe you actually want to help." His eyes narrowed at the man. "I didn't trust Lord Aurion and I don't trust you."
"Mithos!" Martel snapped. She looked up at Kratos. "I'm so sorry about this. I-"
"Don't worry about it," Kratos cut her off softly. Then he looked down at Mithos. "I promised your sister I'd get her to safety. I have no intention of leaving her until that has happened. Your belief or disbelief in that does not matter."
Mithos, clearly unhappy with this, stalked away. "I'm sorry," Martel repeated. "He's just as racist as everyone else. He's usually better at suppressing it, though."
"He has little reason not to be," was Kratos's stiff reply. "Let's go. He shouldn't be alone."
Kratos set off, following Mithos under the assumption that he was going in the correct direction. As the man pulled out of earshot, Yuan said, "Kratos looks exactly like his father."
"Yes, he does," Martel replied, trudging after them.
Yuan walked side by side with her. "Why were you surprised he was Lord Aurion's son, then?"
Martel sighed heavily. "I didn't make the connection," she said wearily. "I was terrified, and I... I just never thought about it after the raid on Triet when I was taken prisoner. I wish I had... We he might have brought me back to Sylvarant sooner, and all those people would still be alive." Martel has turned away from him now, but Yuan's heart broke for the young woman. The lives of those soldiers were tearing at her conscience. "We better catch up to them. I don't want Mithos trying to pick a fight with Kratos," Martel added, picking up her pace. After a moment of thought, Yuan followed as well.
