Chapter Two
He didn't look at her when she slid into the seat across from him, keeping his eyes and his mind fixed out the window. The tram was silent save for the steady clacking of the thick cable drawing the car along its tracks through the mountains.
"I think we're almost there," she said, quiet.
The words came out of his mouth before he could stop them. "So, you already knew about the attack on Burmecia." Marcus wasn't sure if he wanted it to be more of a question, a confirmation, or an accusation. He didn't know what good any of those things could do, but the boiling in his heart needed him to say something.
"I heard about it, yes, of course," she replied; he could hear the softening around her words, and it both cracked his heart more and lent more heat to his anger. "I'm not like Steiner."
It started as almost inaudible hitches in his breath until it built and eventually coalesced into quiet, bitter chuckling. No, she wasn't much like Steiner, and yet somehow she still was.
The confused, slightly worried look slanted across her face was one he expected when he dragged his eyes to her from the window.
"You're changed," was all he said.
She was taken aback by his statement and looked down at her lap and hands as if something were amiss, before looking back up at him, her brow knit. "Me? You mean the way I look?" He couldn't tell if she were complimented or offended.
"Not just that," he replied after a moment, and she relaxed.
A small, sad smile slowly curved her mouth and her lashes lowered. "Well... a lot has happened."
Enough memories from the past month and a half to write a five-act play from ran through his mind, and he imagined Dagger felt similarly from their mirrored silences. She was the one to break it again.
"Oh, speaking of which...?" She lifted her eyes to his.
"Yeah?"
"I've been through my fair share of battles."
She left the end hang off her statement, and he knew he followed where she meant to lead him, but wasn't certain he cared for the direction. "Yeah, I saw that myself. What's your point?"
"We still need to find the supersoft and save Blank, right?"
Marcus didn't answer right away—she knew he had to do this, and was going to insert herself into his business regardless of anything else. He honestly didn't want her to get more tangled up than she already was in this mess, but the set of her jaw and the light in her eyes told him clear as any words that it didn't matter what he wanted.
"You're going to come along even if I refuse, right?" Only years of acting kept the resignation from his tone.
For a split instant, he could have sworn his breath stopped when her face brightened and she smiled. Marcus wouldn't ever say it was like the sun coming from behind the clouds or anything remotely poetic, but there was a noticeable weight that lifted off her as she realized he wouldn't turn her away. She felt responsible for what happened to Blank, he already knew, but the vein of guilt must have run much deeper than Marcus had thought for her reaction to be so significant.
"Of course I am," she told him, and he couldn't muster it in him to be upset at the fact that a good portion of her reason for helping was to alleviate her own guilt.
It really wasn't your fault, he found himself wanting to say. He could almost taste the words on his tongue, and scraped his wolfteeth against their scars to quell the urge. She had come willingly, he reminded himself, even slid effortlessly into their play with none the wiser, and was as much at fault as the rest of them when their ruse was found out.
Marcus leaned forward, resting one elbow on his thigh. "Will your knight captain insist on helping as well?"
Dagger slid a look over to Steiner, who seemed less vehement about keeping an eye on Marcus than before their battle with the black mage and had cast his attention out the window nearest instead. Her answer was just above a hushed breath.
"He will want to go where I do. It... he has made it his duty to protect me, despite my reassurances that I don't need it." A shallow crease drew along her brow before she looked back at Marcus. "That I don't want him to put himself into unnecessary danger because of me."
A wry smile twisted his mouth and he shook his head. "Have you ever read any old plays? I mean the ones with speech so archaic they aren't performed anymore?"
Confused, Dagger studied him. "Yes," she answered slowly. "I've read a few."
"Then you should already know the princess always has some guard, someone laying down their life for her if need be. He's a knight," Marcus went on as the root of her nose scrunched just slightly in curious appreciation as he spoke. "He will always want to protect something."
Her amber gaze held him as she considered his words. "And what about you?"
"I'm not a knight."
"You don't have anything you want to protect?" He watched her face, the way just one eyebrow shifted, the smallest tilt of her head to the opposite side. Marcus sat back upright in his seat, the memories of Burmecia and all those he'd watched over in Tantalus through the years filling his mind. Of Blank knowing full well that running after Zidane and helping her might have ended in his death. Out of all of Tantalus, Blank could have been a knight if he had wanted.
Her soft voice reminded him of the present moment she was now in with him. "I don't think a person has to be a knight to want to protect someone or something."
"No," he agreed, and the hush of his tone surprised him. "You don't."
Silence settled between them for a while after that, and he was content to leave her to her thoughts, his own drifting to his task at hand and Blank. He felt they'd taken too long—too long for him and Baku to find out about the supersoft, too long to pinpoint possible locations of the potion, too long to get to where he needed to be. Blank had been petrified for well over two months, and nobody had any idea what the long-term effects of that were. Marcus frowned out the window. And it'd be even longer until he got back to the forest to find his fellow after he acquired the supersoft. If it really was in Treno at all.
A small breath escaped him quietly, and he closed his eyes for that space. Hang on, brother. I'm coming as fast as I can.
When he opened his eyes again, out of his peripheral he saw Dagger watching him soundlessly, and she did not break the air with any words even after their eyes met. Maybe it would be good to have her along after all, he suddenly realized, remembering the cool green touch of her hands when she had healed him. She already wanted to accompany him to assuage her conscience; he should take advantage of that opportunity to make sure Blank was okay.
Once she crept back into his thoughts, his attention alternated from out the window to her, questions taking form and rooting in his mind, though he held his tongue for now. When Baku had announced they were going to kidnap the princess of Alexandria with no other explanation, Marcus knew something large was brewing behind the stage. The markers that he could see didn't make sense for them to have been hired by some plotting noble, and kidnapping was never Tantalus' style. In the midst of trying to translate the parts of the set Baku wasn't telling them about, he couldn't say he was even surprised to learn later that the princess had wanted to go with them all along—not after the way she had slipped into his arms as Cornelia in front of a host of nobles that included her mother.
She glanced back his way from the window opposite their seats and caught him looking at her. Steeling himself for accusations or questions, her sudden bright smile surprised him.
"In a way, I'm glad for this detour," she said, then added at the confused tilt of his head, "I've always wanted to see the marvelous architecture of Treno."
The corner of his mouth twitched up for a half-moment and he snorted softly. "Yeah," he said because he had to say something in response. "It's certainly that."
The rest of the cable car trip was quiet; his answer seemed to content her enough not to warrant any other conversation, and he was fine with that. It was only another hour or so to the Aerbs Alexandria Station, and he spent it with his eyes out the window again. After a little while, he stopped tracking the time and simply watched the scrolling mountainside. South Gate loomed behind the car, and if he twisted just so he could see the damages done to the giant structure by the airship crash he'd heard about. Now that they were well past the Gate, the countryside splayed out in either direction below them during the slight descent from the top of the peak South Gate was built over. It was the lowest summit on the southern ridge of the range, and even so it had been a hefty undertaking to build both the Berkmea cable cars, their tracks and mechanisms, and later, South Gate itself towering over the cable car tracks like a colossus. He leaned closer to the window to watch as the rocky slope at the feet of the Aerbs gave way to a small expanse of grass before dropping off into lowlands so far below them. It wasn't long before the station came into view, the thick cable clicking louder and heralding the car's return to its massive winch.
Absently, he ran a rough thumb under his baldric, the underside of it smoothed from years of use and worrying. It was comforting, the warm, worn feel of his leather. He hoped the supersoft was in Treno and he could stop chasing fruitless leads and finally do something to help Blank.
The cable car slowed and came to a halt, mist fulminating from vents in the large winch housed in the half-exposed mechanism room as the conductor eased the tram into place at the station. Marcus stood, alongside Dagger, and they made their way after Steiner out of the car.
"Take care," the conductor said as they passed him. " The road splits up ahead; go right to reach Treno, and left to reach Dali."
Dagger thanked him as she stepped down with care onto the platform, followed closely by Marcus.
"Do you know the way to Treno?" he asked her as they caught up with Steiner down the stairs leading out of the station.
She gave him a somewhat sheepish glance from over her shoulder. "Right at the split," she echoed. He shook his head.
"It is good you're tagging along with me," he groused, "if that's your sense of direction."
A soft laugh left her, getting Steiner's attention enough for him to give Marcus a wary look as if he'd done something wrong. Marcus briefly flashed a grin that showed his wolfteeth.
"Time enough to get moving," he said, shouldering past the knight toward the exit archway.
Dagger and Steiner lingered a moment inside the station and shared a few low words he didn't quite catch—and didn't try to—before following him. A short walk down another set of stairs, roughly hewn compared to the clean cut ones inside, led them down to an open courtyard where the midday sun gave a warmth to even the old cobblestone path before them.
"It looks so disused," Dagger noted with a touch of dismay hidden beneath the words, her strides bringing her in tandem for a moment with Marcus' longer ones. He nodded.
"The footpaths and cable cars aren't used much anymore, since airship travel is easier to come by. But it looked like some damage was done to South Gate as we passed it," he noted, acting as if his attention was on a moss-covered statue up ahead to hide his oblique observance of their reactions. "Perhaps the footpaths will see more traffic until it's repaired."
Dagger exchanged a quick glance with Steiner that confirmed his niggling suspicious that they'd somehow been involved with the South Gate incident. Before he parted ways, he'd overheard Baku and one of his various informants discussing some very curious topics regarding the princess, and South Gate had been one of them. The silent looks that passed between her and her knight seemed to fit the bill as proof enough to Marcus.
Walking ahead, Dagger reached the statue first, her hand trailing over the moss as she rounded it to read the plaque on the front.
" 'To Dali'," she read as he and Steiner stopped on either side of her. " 'Do not vandalize the farm'. I guess they have trouble with that."
"It seemed too small a farm to do much vandalizing," Steiner remarked blandly.
"You've been to Dali?" A quick tilt brought his head angled sharply toward her, eyes following Dagger's hands on the statue, absently roaming.
"After we escaped the Evil Forest," she answered, reserved, "we ended up in Dali. It seemed such a small, quiet town..."
A small wrinkle of pain creased across her brow, an ember of anger catching in the amber light of her eyes, both fading almost as quickly as they had formed though they did not escape his notice.
"Princess," Steiner said, a note away from reproach, stepping between his ward and Marcus. Beneath his bandana, his brow knit. What had happened there? He let yet another question take root with the others in the back of his throat; patience had always been one of his virtues, and he was content to let the story of that missing act play out as it would in its own time.
To break the heaviness settled on them, he meandered over, past the opposite plaque so old now it was devoid of a statue to hold it, to a large bronzed placard next to a bubbling well with a broken wood rail that once boxed it in.
" 'No amount of hardship can tear our two countries apart'." As soon as he spoke, the rumble of his voice seemed too loud for this quiet moment held in the sunlight. But that was what he wanted, this time.
"Cid VIII." Dagger's voice came from close behind him, and he looked to find her at his side. "He's the one that built the Berkmea cable cars."
"And developed the first mist engine." Hearing the ease back in her voice, a spool slowly unwound in him, one he hadn't known was so tight after seeing the hurt on her face a few minutes before.
Behind them, Steiner cleared his throat. "As nice a repose as this is, shouldn't we be moving on?" Marcus took note of the veiled glare in his direction.
"Right," Dagger agreed. "On to Treno." She led them past the broken statue designating the path toward the city, casting only a shadow of a glance back to the opposite road where Dali lay.
The cobblestone path gave way to a dirt one, heavily grooved and tamped by years of traveler's boots. Around a sharp corner the path was cleft by a relatively short but deep crevice, connected to itself on the other side only by an old, decrepit bridge.
"I am not sure I trust that," Steiner complained as they all stood at one end. "Are there no other ways across?"
"Not unless you've recently acquired the ability to fly," Marcus replied, and was unmoved by the scathing look he received in return.
"I think it'll support our weight," Dagger interjected, inspecting the bridge. "From here at least, it looks like just the top planks are broken, but the supports are all still intact."
"We hope," Marcus couldn't help but add with just enough of a touch of dark undertone to be ominous, coupled with a sidelong look as flat as a stone wall to Steiner over his shoulder. It was worth it to see the Pluto captain's face pale a shade.
"Marcus," Dagger said abruptly, a scold sharpening her tone, though with a thread of amusement. "Don't tease him."
The red that crawled up Steiner's neck immediately was probably both anger and embarrassment, Marcus decided with a wicked smile. "Why, you scoundrel—" The knight started toward him.
"Gentlemen." Dagger put herself between them, hands level with their chests. "Let's fight after we get on the way past the gate, okay?"
"... As you would, Princess. But he is swiftly becoming insufferable." Steiner backed down, but Marcus could only grin.
"Too bad I'm also incredibly useful," he drawled, arms folding loose over his chest.
The knight grunted. "We shall see." Turning his back to the Tantalus performer, Steiner gave the bridge his undivided attention. "First, crossing to the other side." Steeling himself with a loud breath drawn in his nose, Steiner nodded to his ward and let out a short cry as he sprinted across the old wood, leaping over the crumbling gap in the walkway planks to land heavily on the other side, sending a frightening shudder through the rest of the structure. Dagger winced and even Marcus clenched his teeth.
"Well, it would probably support our weight unless somebody jumped on it wearing plate," amended Marcus dryly, but as they watched, Steiner kept his balance on the groaning bridge—which held despite all abuses—and made it across to the other side.
He faced them, triumphant, relief etched plainly over his face. "Best to just get it done and over with," he advised them, the bright quip in his voice one of someone who'd just danced a hair's breadth out of reach of death's blade.
"First sensible thing you've said yet," Marcus agreed and without any other preamble, quickly made his way over the bridge in a narrow, straight line until he reached the gap. Not slowing to think too much about how he should clear it, his leap took him clear of danger, but landed him much closer to the broken edge, however more nimbly than Steiner. The bridge shuddered again under the heavy impact of his boots.
Without moving off the bridge, he edged away from the gap, spinning slowly to preserve his footing and face Dagger. "Need help?"
She made her way out to the break on light feet, craning her neck to peer at it from a shorter distance. Eyebrows arched up, she considered. "I can make it."
He nodded and slid his stance backward to give her room, though he remained on the bridge itself.
Backing up a few paces, Dagger broke into a jog to provide momentum enough to breach the gap. As she landed, the old wood decided that was the final strain it wanted to take on its still-intact joists and the top plank beneath her boots cracked along the grain with a quick-reaching sliver and a sharp gasp whisking away the breath from her lungs.
Marcus moved instantly almost as soon as her hands flew up to try and catch herself, Steiner calling out in dismay somewhere behind him. Strong hands flashed out to grab her before she pitched off the side, his fingers enclosing around her shoulders even as her hands found purchase around his forearms and he pulled her up with brute strength, mid-fall. Her direction altered so suddenly, she collided into him solidly, forcing both a grunt and a step back to steady them both.
Steiner shouted again, but Marcus wasn't paying attention to what it was. His heart thudded against his ribs and Dagger looked up at him.
"You okay?" he asked, and received a wordless nod in return before she found her voice again.
"Thank you," she said and straightened without a tremor running its course through her.
There was the echo of a quiet roar somewhere in the back of his hearing, and he hesitated a breath before saying anything more.
"Princess!" Steiner repeated loudly, and Marcus swallowed down whatever words might have escaped. "Unhand her this instant and get off that damned forsaken excuse of a bridge!"
All at once acutely aware of his hands still on her, her fingers still resting on his arms, he backed away. Marcus turned and strode off the rest of the bridge, Dagger at his heels. As soon as her feet touched solid ground again, Steiner shoved past Marcus to get to her.
"Are you all right?" His face was a knot of worry, his hands raised as if he anticipated he'd need to carry her after such an ordeal.
She nodded her head. "I'm fine, thank you. Just a little slip is all." Frowning and ignoring Steiner trying to protest her offhandedness of what had happened, she cast a look back to the bridge. "I feel bad just leaving without fixing the gap. Other people need to come this way, as well."
"There's not much we can do," Marcus began.
"She's right," Steiner interrupted. "It is a treacherous path, and it must be mended." Tapping a fist into his opposite palm, the knight sent Marcus a disparaging look. "If our brigand companion can find the time to spare."
Corners of his mouth turning down, Marcus felt the smoke of anger rise in his throat before he could push it away. "Do you have time to find a suitable tree to make a new plank from and the tools to secure it to the others that wouldn't give a false sense of security only to slip anyway under the wrong angle of a step? Because I don't have any of those things." He hadn't meant to allow that much venom lash out in his words, but something about the knight's tone and look—no, it wasn't Steiner's fault, Marcus grudgingly admitted. It was the frustration of agreement to every word and sentiment, of wanting to do more but not being able to, of watching it nearly happen to Dagger.
Tacitly, Dagger asked, "Well, what can we do, if not that? There must be something."
Marcus shook his head, more to clear it than anything else. "Tell the Gate guards once we get there. The station should have repair crews, or maybe the gatehouse does. It's their job to maintain the footpaths, after all."
She fell silent for a few breaths, eyes on the ground, considering his words. Finally, she nodded. "That's what we'll do, then. Come on."
The path they followed wound gently along a shallow dirt groove that was rimmed with stones, though many of them seemed to missing by the alignment of those that remained. Scraggly trees and bushes clung to the rocks and hard clay earth, but it was by no means an unpleasant walk. They'd arrived at the cable car station just after midday, and the sun had taken the time to warm the thinner air here at least somewhat. After a little while, they descended down a mild slope, and the Gate came into view. It lay at the foot of the small decline, a green sea of plains stretched out behind it into the distance, with the mountains rising up to the south.
"There's the Gate," Dagger said, he supposed more for something to break the silence than that there was a chance any of them might have missed it. She trotted ahead of the two flanking her, her step lighter now that a destination was in sight.
"Eager to help," Marcus remarked.
"The princess has always been so," came Steiner's unanticipated, brusque reply. "If she is to be loved by her people one day, it is a good thing to be."
Marcus ignored the chilly tone behind his words. "Or a dangerous one, if she stays as trusting."
"If you plan anything devious—"
"Take it easy. I don't have anything up my sleeve. I was just making conversation." Marcus picked up his pace a touch to break stride with the knight, following more closely the dark swinging hair of the girl in front of them.
It did not take long to reach the bottom where the cobblestones met them again. When Steiner and Marcus closed the gap between them and Dagger, she went up to the guard standing by the raised gate.
"Good afternoon," she called out politely, receiving a nod from the guard in return. "We're headed to Treno, but you need to know the bridge up this hill has a rather large hole in it. It needs immediate repair or somebody might fall through."
The guard exchanged a look back to his fellow in the house. "We'll notify the station crew, thank you. There haven't been many people who come this way to let us know about things like that." He eyed Marcus and Steiner. "You said you were headed to Treno? That's only a short distance from here. Sightseeing?"
Steiner was about to open his mouth—for his foot, most likely, thought Marcus—when Dagger chimed in brightly. "Oh, yes! I've always wanted to see its architecture, you know. You hear so many wonderful things about it."
He words were so sincere, her voice smooth as an uninterrupted stream, that Marcus had to stop himself from giving her an appreciative smile. It was certainly more than good enough for the guard to take at face value.
"Well, you should be careful on the way. We haven't had much help in patrolling the area lately, so there might be dangerous creatures about. But," he went on, "you seem like you should be fine. Now all I need to see is your Gate Pass." The guard waited as Dagger fished into one of her pouches for the slip of paper to hand him. Once procured, he scanned it. "Everything looks to be in order." After returning it to her, he pivoted to look back at his fellow inside the gatehouse. "Hey, will you lower the gate for these folks?"
The other guard said something that was muffled through the narrow window, but soon the heavy dragging of thick chains and metal winches grinding into motion heralded the slow, steady sinking of the Gate into its worn grooves in the ground.
"Be careful out there," the guard warned them again after the Gate was lowered.
"Thanks—we will." Dagger lifted a hand in farewell to him as they exited through the opening.
Once they were clear of the Gate, the guards raised it back up, ending with an echoing clang as the portcullis locked back into place. Dagger glanced back at it as Marcus squinted up at the sky.
"Maybe three more hours of light before we should make camp for the night," he estimated, lowering his gaze to Steiner. "Tell me you've got supplies for a while?"
The Pluto knight captain chewed on the inside of his cheek in thought. "A few days is what we accounted for. Not," he added hastily, "including you."
Marcus waved a dismissive hand. "I've got my own. I meant for the two of you. If you've got a few days, it should be fine." If they could make it to the halfway point, he wouldn't need to worry about foraging for food for them, or stretching his modest rations.
They all fell into a rhythm behind Dagger, who headed along a path through the plains grasses, though this one was much less worn and more lightly tamped than the footpath from the station to the Gate. The wind kept a steady breeze rifling through their clothing and hair, and brought the smell of the sea from beyond the Aerbs to Marcus. He allowed himself a brief moment to close his eyes and breathe deep, the hint of crisp tang of salt on the air comforting. The wind passed and he opened his eyes again to watch Dagger for a while.
"That was some good improvising back there," he said.
"Is that a compliment I hear?" Her tone was teasing and drew a short laugh from his chest.
"You could take it as one, yes. Bit of an improvement from the last time, too."
Mocking mortification, Dagger spun around and walked backwards to watch him. "Considering that was my first public performance, I should think I did rather well last time."
He couldn't resist grinning—a rakish thing that split his face just so. "Keep practicing and maybe one day you really could act alongside me."
Laughing in earnest, she whirled forward again and left Marcus to wonder if everyone who heard her felt a warmth spreading through them at the sound.
The next few hours spent walking under the sun, with the clean air of the mountains filling his lungs, he was almost able to forget for a time the sobering quest that lay before him once they arrived to Treno. Even Steiner was not as dour toward him, and spoke amicably of swordplay and the history of the mountains with Dagger. Marking the sun's path toward the edge of the horizon, Marcus scouted around ahead of the two of them for a likely camping spot. There was no real cover, though the grasses grew taller the further along they went. He knew at some point the path vanished entirely out of disuse and a lack of patrols to maintain its presence between the Gate all the way to Treno, but figured they had another day or so before they lost its guidance.
Halting on a small rise out of the mostly flat plateau top, Marcus fingered into an old leather map canister for a rough, hand-drawn one of the southern Aerbs. Holding it more or less open against the wind, he traced their path from the Gate along the curve of the plateau to where he was fairly certain they were, alternating deciphering the little marks on the map and scanning to find them around him.
"What's that?" Dagger asked from his elbow, peering up at the rough parchment in his hands.
"Hopefully something that will help us find the best place to—ah, there. Camp." Rolling it back up deftly, he slipped the map back into its canister and screwed the top back on, eyes fixed on a dark spot a little ways ahead of them. "See that?" He pointed to it and she followed the length of his arm with her gaze. "That should be a little stone ridge we can shelter from the wind for a night. It's got a nice corner to it that makes it decently defensible in a bind, too."
He strode down off the rise and she waved Steiner over as Marcus led them toward the ridge. It faced northeast, and so the late afternoon sun had already cast it in shadow. By the time they reached it, the sun was sunk well below the tops of the Aerbs, though not yet beneath the curve of the world enough for true night to settle in.
"Most of the wind comes off the ocean to the south," Marcus explained as Steiner eyed the shadowy ridge. "So we can have a fire without worrying that it'll get picked up and set the whole plains aflame."
He busied himself with digging a shallow pit within the hollow nook the jutting rocks of the ridge formed, Steiner worked on assembling his and Dagger's tents for the evening on one side of the ridge, and Dagger set about gathering the largest grass stems she could find in the dying light. She'd collected more than a few handfuls that he estimated would give them a decent enough fire by the time Marcus' pit was ready, and he struck flint over a pile of dried stems until they caught the spark. He left Steiner to tend the fire while he pitched his own simple tent, opposite theirs. Once that was secured and the fire stoked and managed, they enjoyed a welcome supper to the quiet crackling of the flames and the evening song of the winds. He couldn't think of much to say that evening, and neither Steiner nor Dagger were forthcoming with conversation while they ate. She sat for a while, pensive, resting back on her arms and watching the stars come out of the darkening sky, but it wasn't too long before Dagger excused herself to ready for sleep, and vanished into her tent for the night. Steiner stood by the edge of their small encampment for a while, watching the moon rise, before turning back to Marcus, who was spending the time sharpening his blackened falcata.
"Perhaps you do have some redeeming qualities, rogue," the knight said to him, with a curt nod. Marcus ran his whetstone along the blade's edge and nodded in return.
"You might, too."