Midnight in Montgomery
Chapter Two
A/N: Well, I decided that since I thought of a new idea for this fic, and since it was my favorite I've ever written, that I would add another chapter. I'd like to thank spygirly for being the only one to review the first chapter, as well as giving me some encouragement to write this next part (and for suggesting that Lucia and Soren's motive should have been stated). Well, here's the second chapter, told from Soren's point-of-view.
--
It had been nearly five years since Kieran's corpse had been discovered outside of his desert home. While Oscar had been convicted of the murder, I knew he was innocent all along. The real killers were my wife and I. It sounds cruel to say that so matter-of-factly, I know, but I we did have our reasons, I'll assure you. She's not a heartless killer, I can say for sure, and even I'm not as malicious as some would like to believe. Still, we murdered Kieran, and we blamed someone else for it.
I glanced over at my wife, who was cradling our four-year-old daughter in hers arms. The little girl's violet eyes were shut, and it was clear that she had already drifted off into sleep. Lucia, too, looked like she would doze off any minute.
I walked over to where they sat and placed my hand on my wife's shoulder. "Sweetheart, it's getting late; you should get some rest. I'll put Tabatha to bed, all right?" She nodded and I picked the tiny blonde girl up in my arms. Lucia then pecked my cheek and uttered a "goodnight" before we both departed down different paths of the castle.
--
By the time I had finally made it back from putting my daughter to bed, Lucia was already sleeping peacefully on her side of the bed. I removed my shoes and carefully laid down next to her, in hopes of having a restful slumber. Instead, however, as soon as I shut my eyes, my mind was flooded with the memory of the night of the murder.
--
I had still been listed as a mercenary before that night, as Lucia and I had only been married for a few months. Owners of a couple of the local pubs in the town had all pitched in to hire me to take care of a problem for them--which was Kieran. Apparently, he had enormous tabs at each business, and hadn't paid a coin on any of them. I was only instructed to get the money out of him--how that happened, they didn't quite care, as long as they were paid.
A few nights before the big show in Melior, I had pulled on my boots and draped my cloak around my shoulders, ready to set out for Kieran's home. My wind tome was in my hands, and a knife in my pocket. As I prepared to leave, Lucia stopped me at the door, sword strapped to her side. She insisted on going with me. Originally I had said that it was too dangerous--after all, she was carrying my child at the time. But she was persistent, saying how she may be able to talk some sense into Kieran and settle things without an argument, so I eventually gave in.
We mounted my horse, which I had previously saddled and had left waiting outside, and rode off in the direction of the outskirts of Melior. We were completely ready to face Kieran--after all, though he was a bit insane, he was a pretty sensible man. We would do whatever it took to complete the job--we had no intention of killing the former knight, only threatening him a bit if need be.
--
When we arrived, night had already fallen and the only light was that which was provided to us by the stars in the sky. Out in this deserted little community, the stars shone brightly and clearly. The houses weren't as close together as they were in the city, and wild horses roamed the grounds. Lucia clung onto my arm, shivering, as I knocked on the door.
The door had slowly swung open, revealing Kieran standing there in a cowboy hat and boots. His appearance suggested that he'd been drinking heavily, and his eyes were piercing my skin. Lucia's nails were now actually digging into my skin, which may have been why I had that feeling, so I rubbed her arm, in hopes of relaxing her, while turning to the man. "Kieran, would you mind if we had a word with you?"
He gave no oral reply, only motioning with his hand for us to come into his home. After he had stepped back in himself, I turned to my wife. I took her hands in mine, attempting to ignore the pain in my arm. "If you'd like, you can wait out here for me," I whispered.
She shook her head and replied, "No, I'll be fine. It's just Kieran, after all."
I nodded and lead her inside into what became a difficult trap with only one way out, as I saw it...
--
As we stepped into the house, our eyes were met with a terrible sight. Tables were overturned, bottles lie broken all along the floor boards, mice ran amuck, and the wind crept in from the various holes in the siding. Lucia moved closer to me as we walked, her hands now trembling terribly.
Kieran was, by now, seated in a chair in the farthest corner of the house. I left my wife where she currently stood and took a few more steps, coming within a few feet of the man.
"Kieran, we're here to talk with you about the debts you have at some of the town's establishments," I explained as the man fumbled around looking for something, causing a loud racket.
"Ya are, eh? I'll give ya yer money!" he yelled, getting up and walking past Lucia. We both turned our heads slightly to watch him as he slammed a bedroom door shut. Placing his hand in his pocket, I suspected--at the time--to grab some money, he waltzed back over to where my wife stood.
He grabbed her wrists, slammed her against a nearby wall, and produced a knife from his pocket, which he held to her neck. "Listen 'ere, lil missy," he screamed through clenched teeth. "I ain't payin' ya nothin'!"
"K-Kieran, let her go," I demanded, reaching for my Wind tome. I couldn't allow anything to happen to my wife or child.
"Make me," he spat, knocking the tome from my hands with his free hand, and turning back to my wife. "Lucia, I don't see how ya could end up with such a lowlife like him. Ya coulda done so much better," he laughed, as she struggled to free herself. "But now...now ya have nothin'!"
Gritting my teeth, I reached for the knife I had placed in one of the inside pockets of my robe. If he meant to harm Lucia, then I couldn't just stand here. You had your chance, Kieran, I thought.
In one clean motion, the former knight fell to the ground. I pulled my dagger from his chest, inspecting his wound. The blade hadn't gone in too deep, but in such a critical location, he didn't have a chance of survival. That's what we sages of the wars had learned from Volke: bring down any unarmored foe in a matter of seconds by striking him or her in just the right spot.
I cleaned the blade of my weapon on the carpet next to the man and placed it back in its sheath. Standing up, I rushed to my visibly-shaken wife and held her in my arms. "S-Soren," she sobbed.
I stroked her hair as she cried into my robes, and I whispered, "Shh, Lucia, it's all okay now. You don't have to worry."
As we stood there, I considered grabbing the amount of money he owed the pub owners, but decided it would be too risky. They would get their money after the royal knights found Kieran dead, and I couldn't risk giving it to them, no matter the reward, lest I wanted to take the chance of never seeing my child raised.
After Lucia had calmed down, we remounted our horse and left Kieran's body to be found in the middle of the floor.
--
I glanced at my wife sound asleep next to me, and actually envied her slightly. Here I was, a good few hours before the sun came up, and still awake. This happened many a night when I pondered on the subject of Kieran's death too long. The more I thought about it, the more the guilt built, the more the need to keep this a secret showed itself, and the less sleep I was rewarded with.
Still, there is another tale after his death: the tale of how we framed Oscar as the killer.
--
One late night after those events, I slept soundly as the rain poured down outside my bedroom window. Nightmares from the previous war resurfaced, causing me to toss and turn. As one of my comrades was set on fire, I felt Lucia shaking me.
"Soren," she whispered as she tried to wake me. "Soren, please, get up."
"What is it?" I mumbled, my eyes still closed.
"I...I've been thinking about the other night," she admitted.
My eyes snapped open after she said this, and I groaned. "You shouldn't do that. It'll only make you feel--"
"Soren! I can't help it! No one's found his body yet, and Geoffrey keeps giving me looks as if he knows I've done something wrong!" she whined.
"Lucia, first of all, you're imagining it all. Geoffrey doesn't know a thing. Second of all, you didn't do anything wrong. I murdered him, not you," I explained.
"I know about the murder, don't I? They could just as easily say that I was involved in it."
I shut my eyes once again and muttered, "We'll go back there tomorrow and see what we can do. Now please, just go to sleep."
"Of course," she whispered as she kissed me lightly on the cheek. "Goodnight, my love."
--
The next day was the day the big show in Melior was to be held. Maids and servants scurried all around the castle the whole morning and afternoon, preparing for the guests that would come to watch a performance of a play written by Count Bastian himself. Multiple royal guests would be in attendance, from the Empress of Begnion, to the wolf queen of Hatari.
The actors ranged from some lower members of the royal knights to the royal family of Serenes. All three of the heron siblings would play the role of an angel that would help two wayward lovers, played by Fiona and Leonardo, realize their "burning passion for one another." The other cast included Mist as a priestess, Lyre as a housecat, Shinon as a loudmouthed young rogue trying to capture Fiona, Mia as the nymph of love, and King Caineghis as a lion god, controller of destiny.
Preparations had been made for months, and the cast had all practiced their parts, to make the count's early birthday gift to the queen play out perfectly. Despite Bastian's pleas for her to play the nymph of love, my wife had refused, and what a good thing--a nymph of love with morning sickness? That wouldn't have turned out well at all.
Personally, I wanted very little to do with Bastian's plan, and volunteered only to help with the lighting because Lucia begged me. My wife herself was helping with last-minute preparations on costumes. As I stood there pulling on a rope that lowered and lifted a lantern into the air, I couldn't help but envy her job. Sewing designs on some fabric had to be more pleasant that working with the "director" himself.
"Ah, too high for the first act that is, Soren," Bastian mused as I pulled the rope down a bit. "Now that, that too low must be," he scolded as I allowed some of the cord to slip from my hands, thus lowering the light. "Higher, Soren, the whole room must be able to see the actors!" he exclaimed, following it by similar orders and complaints.
After at least twenty minutes had gone by, Bastian began clapping his hands. "'Twill do, my friend, 'twill do!" he exclaimed.
I resisted the urge to slap my forehead and the man himself as I tied the rope to a nearby hook, knowing that the light was at the same exact level it had started at.
"Anything else you need, Bastian?" I asked, hoping that there wouldn't be.
"To check on the seamstresses' work, I'm off. Accompany me you shall?" he inquired.
"Uh...sure," I mumbled, knowing that I'd at least be able to see my wife for a minute or two while Bastian praised her work and told the other seamstresses that they could learn something from her.
--
"Well done, ladies!" the count exclaimed as he bounded into the room. "Milady, your work outshines all the others; do well you all would to learn a thing or two from the Lady Lucia!" the man praised, just as I had predicted.
As he droned on about what still needed to be done, I walked up behind Lucia and leaned over her chair, placing my hands on her shoulders. "How're you holding up?" I asked after she had pecked me lightly on the cheek.
"Fine, I suppose," she answered, and then later added, "Though I am glad that I don't have to do anything more than sit here and add details to these costumes."
"Consider yourself lucky," I mumbled, resting my head on her back.
"Aw, sweetie, Bastian hasn't been that hard on you, has he?" She chuckled as she said this.
"He's only jealous because I have you and he doesn't," I exaggerated as I kissed the back of her neck, probably causing Bastian to glare at me.
"Soren, quit tormenting Bastian like that," my wife scolded.
I shrugged. "He deserves it for all that I went through to put up his stupid lights. Besides," I paused, "it's like I said. I have you, and he doesn't," I repeated, finding favor in rubbing that in, whether the count actually heard it or not.
--
Night fell on the Crimean countryside once again, a blanket of violet skies and starry lights draping over the world, as we crept outside of Kieran's home. No one was around, as far as we could tell, and it would be safe to move his body out into the open. Then we could head back to Melior in time for the show.
"Soren, I think someone's coming," Lucia whispered, coming up behind me.
I jumped slightly from the shock of her voice, but shortly after grabbed her hand and dragged her into the bushes where we wouldn't be seen. I parted a section of the hedges, allowing me to see the doorstep of the house.
In a short few seconds, the sound of horse's hooves beat right next to the shrubbery, and the wind suddenly picked up dramatically, blowing sand and dust in every direction. A while later I heard someone dismount. As the man came into my view, I identified him as Oscar. Perfect, now we'll have someone to blame this on, I laughed to myself.
The green-haired man knocked twice on the door and received no reply. He's dead, you fool. The wind slowly died down and another figure appeared. It can't be... But it was. Standing there, a faint glow reflecting off of his body, cowboy hat atop his head, lasso at the ready, whiskey bottle in the other hand, and eyes glowing, was Kieran, or rather, his spirit.
He whispered a mere few words to Oscar before the wind suddenly picked up and he disappeared as if he hadn't even been there in the first place. The other knight quickly remounted and rushed off towards Melior, probably out of fear.
I grabbed my wife's arm and pulled her out of the greenery. We both lifted the man out of the house and laid him by the front door, and I smashed an alcohol bottle I had found inside and placed the pieces of glass next to him. "Get the horse ready," I instructed my wife as I pulled a Tornado tome from my pocket.
With one spell I was able to stir up the sand and dust enough to allow the earth to resettle into its place, and thereby covering our tracks. As we disappeared off into the dust, I heard a faint chuckle behind us. As I turned around, I could see the ghost waving steadily to our retreating figures.
The events of that night, as well as all that happened afterward, were held in those starry, violet skies, trapped in time and space, and hopefully never to be released.
--
We had never been caught, but with that came our sacrificed sanity. My wife became paranoid and untrusting of even me. The night that Oscar had been convicted of murder was the night that I snapped. As I tapped my glass of wine against the glass of water in my wife's hand, I felt a new sense of insanity come over me.
Once our daughter was born, a sense of peacefulness once again enveloped our household. Lucia's happy demeanor returned, as well as my sense of being, and we were able to live normally, with only occasional reminders of our actions on that night. Now, years later, things were beginning to fall into place.
I closed my eyes and wrapped my arms around my wife, to drift off into what was supposed to be the most restful sleep I had had in a long while.
--
Somewhere in the middle of the night, I heard the door to our bedroom creak open and allow a ray of light onto the floor. In the doorway stood my daughter, her favorite toy clutched in her arms.
"Daddy, can I sleep in here tonight?" she asked, already climbing into the bed.
"Of course," I answered, pulling her into my arms.
As she closed her eyes, she mumbled, "Good. The glowing man outside my window was starting to scare me."
Then and there, I felt my heart skip a beat and a part of my insanity return. Kieran...