Despite the tenseness of the encounter with King Odin, Kain felt victorious. Albert had warned him of the King's influence, and yet, Kain remained on the path to becoming a dragoon, as he – not Odin – had wanted.
Kain also felt victorious because of his brief time with Rosa, although he had been embarrassed when Albert caught them. He found himself wondering when he and Rosa would be alone again, and what that might mean. It was a curious change from the previous days of avoiding her; it seemed odd to Kain that one brief encounter could change so much.
Invigorated by his first airship flight, Cecil seemed more like himself. He spent the evening meal excitedly chatting with Kain, describing every detail, including how the pilot had let Cecil take the wheel. For one moment, Cecil had truly been flying through the sky.
"I know why you love it so much," Cecil remarked. "But I think I'll leave the falling part to you." All concerns of Rosa and her strange behavior seemed far away now, and Cecil had regained his usual cheer. This new infatuation with flying might be enough to keep Cecil distracted from whatever thing was happening between Kain and Rosa.
Maybe, Kain dared himself to hope, just maybe he could have everything he wanted.
Kain nursed this hope for nearly two weeks before it all fell apart.
Cecil seemed distracted – he did not linger over their shared meals, and he went quickly on to his day's lessons. Kain assumed it was due to a new preoccupation with the airships and excitement about learning more with Cid. Later, he'd regret that assumption.
At the time, Kain was distracted by his new place in the dragoon ranks. He was technically still a cadet, but he had already been accepted by the ranking dragoons. Thus, instead of training alongside the cadets, he trained with the new recruits, despite their age difference.
Rosa also served as a new source of distraction. She always seemed to be at the edges of everything, ever present, making Kain turn his head whenever he saw the flash of her golden hair in the crowd, or heard her voice drifting in from a distant conversation. Once, he swore that he smelled her before he saw her, but he thought that it might just be his imagination playing games with him. She haunted him like a ghost, through both his waking and dreaming hours.
They'd orbit around each other all day, until an opportunity presented itself, when both could steal away to hide together in a closet or sneak around a barely used hallway. There, they'd hold each other and kiss with the enthusiasm and focus only teenagers seem to have, each encounter escalating in intensity. Eventually, they'd part, giggling and breathless, with a promise to return soon.
Kain felt everything in a way he never had before – food seemed to taste better, air smelled fresher, and even the sun seemed to shine more brightly. His early morning enthusiasm and boundless energy visibly irritated Albert and the other dragoons.
Because of these distractions, Kain did not realize – or care – if Cecil noticed a change in either of his friends.
It was actually Rosa who first noticed something wrong, one morning as they broke their fast together in the Baron mess hall. She'd been watching Cecil with an unusual intensity through the meal, then suddenly asked, "How did you hurt yourself, Cecil?"
Kain looked and saw what she meant – Cecil's forearm was wrapped in a linen bandage. When Cecil didn't answer, his expression blank and unreadable, Rosa reached and pulled Cecil's arm toward her and turned it over to access the underside. She tugged the bandage loose, peered into the covered area, and frowned. "What happened to you?" she asked, blue eyes brimming with concern.
"An accident while sparring," Cecil said, his voice wooden. He tugged his arm back from Rosa, clutching it possessively to his chest. "You needn't worry."
Perhaps if Kain had seen the wound, the angle of the cut and how familiar it was, he might have realized sooner what was happening. But instead, Kain chuckled and said, "Hope you gave it right back to them."
Cecil smiled, but the smile was thin and did not reach his eyes. "Yeah," he said, sounding vague and distant. "Listen, I have to go."
"But you didn't eat anything," Rosa protested, nodding to his still-full plate.
"Not hungry," Cecil replied. He stood from the table and abruptly left, without waiting for a response from either Rosa or Kain.
"I wonder what that's about," Rosa remarked as Cecil retreated, her eyes on his back until he entirely disappeared.
"No idea," Kain said, his attention squarely on Rosa, rather than Cecil. "I'll be busy all day in the training yard. Can I see you this evening?"
Rosa thought about his proposal for a moment, then offered a grin full of mischief. "Can I come to your room?"
Kain hesitated. So far, their interactions had been fairly mild, not progressing beyond long, intense kissing. Somehow, the idea of true privacy with her in his bedroom seemed like a monumental step toward something that Kain couldn't quite define but was terrified of. "I guess so," he said, uncertainly.
Sensing Kain's trepidation, Rosa frowned. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," Kain said quickly, trying to recover the moment. He smiled, though it felt a bit forced. "Meet me there, later?" When she did not answer right away and continued to look unsure, Kain added, "Please?"
Like the sun parting rain clouds, Rosa smiled, and Kain's worry immediately evaporated. "Yes," Rosa said; Kain's heart nearly burst with joy.
Kain paced around his room, simultaneously anxious and excited about the prospect of Rosa's visit; the warring emotions made his stomach feel heavy with uncertainty. When he heard her light footsteps outside, he bolted for the door and opened it before she even knocked.
Initially surprised and then amused, Rosa laughed as she stepped in. "A bit eager?"
Kain closed the door behind her, then turned to watch as she strode through the room. "I did not want to keep a lady waiting," he replied, trying to sound charming instead of embarrassed.
"Lady?" Rosa scoffed. "Since when?"
"You're the one wearing skirts," Kain pointed out.
"You're the one noticing," Rosa retorted. She found a seat at the edge of his bed, kicking her legs through the aforementioned skirts. "When did you start noticing, Kain?"
"I don't know," Kain said, unsure of what response she wanted from him. "When did you? Start noticing…" he hesitated, suddenly shy. "Me?"
"It was the strangest thing," Rosa said, looking distant as she remembered. "One of the girls, Marion Oakes, was asking me all sorts of questions about you and I realized, she likes you—"
"The Weapon Shop owner's daughter?" Kain interrupted, surprised. He vaguely knew Marion, but she was in the same space outside of Kain's attention where all girls who weren't Rosa existed.
"It doesn't matter," Rosa said, sounding slightly annoyed. But then she shrugged, as if she did not care, and continued in a casual tone. "But the more I thought about you together, the bigger this feeling got. Then I recognized it, because I had seen it in you."
Rosa looked back at him; there was nothing accusatory in her words or gaze, only a calm explanation. "Jealousy." She finally named it, that dark, twisting thing that lived in his guts, seizing him up whenever he thought he was getting less than he should – which, coincidentally, was always just a little more than whatever Cecil had.
"You've always been moody if I'm doing something alone with Cecil, or if I am giving him too much attention," Rosa continued, the words tumbling out of her. "At first, I thought you felt left out. But now I know you've been jealous." She let that settle for a long moment, before asking quietly, "How long have you felt this way about me, Kain?"
"Always," Kain blurted out before he could stop himself.
"So, what does that mean?" Rosa asked as she stood from the bed. "About what we're feeling and how that changes everything?" She took a few hesitant steps toward him, before pausing to ask, "And what will we do about it?"
"I don't know…" Kain trailed off, distracted as she came closer, now standing in front of him, peering up at him. He put his hands on both of her shoulders, to hold her there in place and keep her at arm's length. She was too close for Kain to hold onto a coherent thought.
But Rosa thwarted him easily, ducking under his arm. She leaned in, not to embrace or kiss him, as Kain expected, but instead put her mouth by his ear and murmured, "Are you still scared of me, Kain?"
"Rosa, I…" Kain started, and suddenly wasn't sure how this night would end.
A loud knock sounded on the door behind Kain. Startled and trying not to breathe hard, Kain whirled around and opened the door. He was surprised to find Cecil on the other side. Cecil looked worn and tired, Kain realized, and he had new dark smudges under his eyes.
Still, Cecil lit up with a smile as the door opened. "Kain, I'm glad I finally found you…" Cecil started, but then spotted Rosa inside, over Kain's shoulder. Cecil looked back and forth between them, initially confused; then, his eyes darkened with anger as he had a new revelation. "Do you two even want me around anymore?" He sounded hurt now, his voice small and accusatory.
"Cecil…" Rosa said from behind Kain, walking up to meet Cecil. "Of course we do."
"Then why have you been avoiding me?" Cecil shot back. "We used to do everything together, but lately, you never invite me along and it's just the two of you." Cecil shook his head, looking torn between feeling hurt and angry, unsure which would prevail. "What's going on?"
"Nothing!" Kain said, a little too defensively.
"I know," Cecil said with a rare sarcastic grin, shaking his head. "I knew this would happen, eventually."
Kain was paralyzed, unable to refute what he feared Cecil was about to say.
"Cecil, nothing's going on-" Rosa started, trying to do what she always did: smoothing out hurt feelings, acting as a gentle buffer between them.
"No," Cecil interrupted, ignoring Rosa and her calm tone. "I get it. You two have finally decided I'm too weird or too privileged or too something,and you'd rather be friends without me." Shockingly, tears had formed in Cecil's eyes. "You can just admit it."
Instead of feeling relief that Cecil had not guessed the truth, Kain found himself mortified, unable to grasp how he could allow Cecil to feel so rejected and unwanted. "Cecil," Kain said, trying to sound gentle. "That's not true."
"It is!" Cecil shot back. Angry tears spilled from his lashes, and he dragged his sleeve across his face to wipe them away. "Just leave me alone!" Cecil cried, before taking off down the hall to the tower's inner staircase.
"Cecil!" Kain called out after him, but Rosa's hand on his shoulder stopped him.
"We should tell him," Rosa said to Kain, as he turned to face her. "It will be an adjustment for him, but at least it's the truth."
"I don't think it will help," Kain said, inwardly wincing at the possibility of Cecil looking so hurt again, of Cecil feeling excluded from this thing that Kain and Rosa now shared. And what exactly was that thing, Kain wondered, filled with a dangerous curiosity about what might have happened if Cecil had not interrupted. How could he explain that to Cecil?
"Perhaps not at first," Rosa insisted. "But it is better than sneaking around."
"Let's go check on him," Kain said, instead of answering her or her complicated proposal.
Together, they climbed the staircase to the highest floor. Cecil tended to leave his door unlocked, as Kain still occasionally came to Cecil's room in the middle of the night, when Kain awoke and was too lonely to return sleep. Kain wondered if his need for comfort would now transfer to Rosa, instead of Cecil, who uniquely understood Kain's loneliness in a way that Rosa never could. The idea made Kain inexplicably sad.
Now, however, the door was locked. Kain knocked loudly, and when Cecil did not immediately answer, Kain called out, "C'mon, Cecil, let us in."
The silence stretched on without an answer from Cecil.
Rosa knocked next. "Cecil, please! Can we please talk?"
A strangled cry sounded, muffled through the door, and then a low, moaning wail.
"Cecil!" Kain shouted, tugging on the locked door again. He pressed his ear to the door and could faintly hear Cecil's sobbing on the other side. He stepped back from the door, and motioned Rosa to move as well. Once she backed away, Kain ran into the door, shoulder first. The door shook but did not break.
Then, miraculously, Kain heard the lock rattle, and the door swung outward. Cecil stood there, looking pale and shaken, something dark streaked in his hair.
"Help," Cecil croaked, holding his arm out. "I… slipped. The knife—"
Then Kain saw the blood; there was so much of it, and its coppery smell overwhelmed him. Blood streaked up Cecil's arm, pooling at his wrist – no, Kain realized, it was coming from his wrist. A smeared red handprint marked the door, where Cecil had leaned as he worked the lock.
"Cecil!" Kain called out in alarm, starting forward.
Cecil bent over, cradling his sliced wrist to his chest. Kain caught Cecil before he fell and eased him carefully to the floor. Cecil tried to hold on to Kain's shoulder for stability, but instead only smeared blood across Kain's shirt and neck; Cecil's trembling hands were too slick with blood to maintain a grip. Across the room, Kain spotted a knife on the floor, in its own puddle of sticky red. The sight of it made Kain dizzy – how much blood had Cecil lost?
"You're okay," Rosa said, her tone soft and soothing. "Cecil, you're okay. Look at me." She got into his line of sight, making eye contact with him.
Cecil blinked and tried to maintain focus on her, but moaned in pain instead, as his eyes rolled back in his head.
"No, no, no," Rosa insisted. She took his chin in hand and forced his gaze back down to her. "I'm right here, stay with me Cecil, okay?" She looked over to Kain as she rolled up her sleeves. "Hold him still," she instructed, with the practiced ease of someone in charge of the moment. She knelt on the ground beside Cecil, drew her hands into her lap, and began to pray.
No, not pray, Kain realized, as golden light began to build around Rosa. She was casting a spell instead, the arcane words sounding strange and foreign on her tongue. Under the new light, Kain could see the broken skin of Cecil's wrist twitch and pulse, then began to knit itself back together.
Kain had seen Rosa use magic before – a simple Cure spell for a bruised knee, Esuna once when she discovered Cecil had eaten poison berries. She had sworn Kain and Cecil to secrecy so that they would not tell Joanna about her abilities, as Rosa had been feigning incompetence with white magic to avoid ongoing lessons. But this healing, the way it lit her from within, how easily she mended Cecil back together… this was something Kain had never witnessed, not even when he occasionally was healed by more experienced white mages at the infirmary.
"Rosa?" Kain asked, full of unexpected awe. "Did you know you could do this?" He ran his thumb over Cecil's wrist and found the still-bloody gash sealed over with new skin. Cecil groaned once, then went limp in Kain's arms.
"Get him to the bed," Rosa commanded instead of answering, though now she sounded suddenly weary. She got to her feet, then swayed uncertainly.
"Rosa!" Kain called out, alarmed but trapped underneath Cecil, unable to get to her side.
"I'm all right," Rosa said, though her voice was thin. She went to Cecil's desk and sat on the chair, heaving a relieved sigh as she did so. "His wound was…" Rosa's voice dropped to a whisper, "…intense," she finished, her eyes wincing closed. "What was he doing?" she asked, but Kain knew the question was not directed at him.
With some effort, Kain was able to lift and carry Cecil across the room; he attempted to be careful while easing Cecil onto the bed. Cecil looked ghastly, his skin pale; the smears of blood on his skin appeared black in the receding daylight.
"I need to go," Rosa said, sounding regretful. "I'm dead on my feet, and if I fall asleep here, my mother will actually kill me this time." She walked to Kain's side, touching his shoulder, drawing his attention to her. "He just needs to rest and recover from the healing. Will you stay with him tonight?"
Kain looked back to Cecil, who lay still and unmoving; his sleep appeared painful, rather than peaceful, and it seemed that every movement caused additional pain. "I will," Kain said.
Rosa squeezed his shoulder, and again, Kain looked back at her. "Can we talk, tomorrow?" she asked, sounding unsure.
"Yes," Kain answered, but he was already looking back to Cecil, unable to ponder anything else.
Rosa withdrew, and Kain heard the door closing behind her as she left. Kain waited a long while, just watching Cecil breathe, reassuring himself that Cecil would be all right. Finally, when Kain could wait no longer, he went to Cecil's desk.
It didn't take Kain long to find on Cecil's desk, which was always neat and orderly. The large tome sat alone in the desk's top drawer. Kain pulled it free and found that Cecil had bookmarked it with a piece of parchment, which was already covered in Cecil's neat, meticulous notes. Kain opened the book to the bookmarked location and found what he expected: diagrams and illustrations showing new dark knights how to injure themselves in pursuit of blood magic.
"Damn it!" Kain roared, slamming the book closed. Guilt swam over him, as he realized that Odin had chosen Cecil only after Kain had rejected the dark knight path. If Kain had taken it on himself, could he have spared Cecil this suffering? Was this Odin's way of punishing Kain for his refusal? Kain remembered the pain in Cecil's eyes, and he knew it was not caused by the knife alone.
Pray you made the right choice, Odin's warning echoed in Kain's memory.