Chapter 42: Inside the Bath

Ferdinand: During Rescue

I watched Rozemyne interact so causally with the wild woman. It was truly a surreal moment as if Dregarnuhr had twisted our threads, taking Rozemyne to our academy days. She fit. Somehow, she didn't seem out of place. It was as if she had always been here. This gremlin had even managed to charm the dragon princess of Dunkelfelger. In just a few moments of being in her presences, Rozemyne had managed to expose more about Minerva than I had gleaned in years at the academy. Rozemyne didn't understand that she opened people up. Then the book gremlin looked my way as if she sensed my gaze on her. Those moon-like eyes gazed at me with a guilty tint. I resisted the urge to sigh. She had forgotten why we were here. But she was also looking for an answer. I could see she would trust whatever choice I made. And it was this that finally decided my choice. I needed to be back to full strength or stronger to keep her safe. This too trusting shumil.

"Fine," I told Minerva before I drank the potion. The taste was instantly familiar. It was the potion made of Schlaftraum's Gift. A citrusy sweet taste like juice from a fruit filled my mouth. Almost immediately I felt weightless, as if floating in water. The room swam in and out of focus. I was only slightly aware of far away voices, one of which was that vexing woman. Then I was sinking into darkness.

I wasn't certain how long I was in darkness, but after some time had passed there was a faint light in the distance. With nothing else to do, I went towards, constantly looking around checking for any danger. I walked on for an unknown length of time, but I counted six hundred sixty-six steps before I was suddenly standing before a tall magic circle. The mana was warm and while it also itched at my skin. It was also nostalgic. As if it were an old friend that I hadn't seen in a long time. Then it clicked why the mana felt familiar, Heisshitze's cloak, meaning this was Minerva's mana.

I got the distinct feeling that this circle was preventing me from moving forward. So, I studied the circle. It was a complex thing. But I eventually worked out that it was a block on my memory. Something I would have had to submitted to willing, because Minerva's mana was weaker than mine. It also meant if I wanted my memories back, I would need to break this thing. I gathered my mana in my fist. It was sluggish; too sluggish, but it did as I willed it. I slammed my fist against the circle. A foreign thread of purple mana coiled like a striking snake and met my attack with one of its own.

'Stop!'

The voice was too late. My fist met the purple mana with a mighty crash. My body was thrown back two steps. Pain burned my hand. I did my best to hide it.

"Who's there?" I demanded scanning the nothingness about me.

A contemplative voice answered, 'My name has long since been abandoned and buried. Now I am just an old fool.' The voice was neither male nor female, yet somehow it was also both. And there was something I couldn't quite place. A power that was familiar yet otherworldly.

"What is it you want?"

Laughter came from the voice this time. 'It is you who are seeking my help. I see the touch of my wife on you. Her favor is troublesome, but better than her ire.' Warmth wrapped around me that reminded me of what a little shrine maiden had called a 'big squeeze'. Power flowed through my veins warming the chill that had made my body stiff.

'Try again.'

Hesitantly, I struck the circle again with less force than my first attack. This time the purple thread didn't react. It was almost as if it couldn't see me anymore. The circle itself flashed at the impact and cracks spider-webbed from where I struck. My mana was still sluggish making it hard to control the extra power that flowed through me. Again, I struck. This time the magic completely shattered like glass. The shards hung in the air.

'Beware, beloved child. Chaoscipher moves. She has her fingers spread wide, and her madness may yet come to fall on this world.'

Before I could demand what, the voice meant, images flashed in the hanging mana shards. Then I was falling. Falling. Only to stop. My eyes opened to see the Royal Academy Forest. All the usual suspects were gathered around me, Eckhart, Justus, Lasfam, Heidemarie, Heisshitze's, and Lady Minerva was leading the way with several other Dunkelfelger apprentice knights. I vaguely recognized this day. The day Minerva and Peter died. But why was she here? Had she always been here? Was Peter here? I made an attempt to look for the scholar, but my head wouldn't move. Then… This was a memory.

We walked on. Minerva had a glaive over her shoulder the picture of nonchalant, but her grip on the dark wood was tight. She expected trouble to find us. My younger self looked around. The first thing I noticed was Peter's absences. Secondly, I noticed that the Dunkelfelger knights kept me and my attendants at the center. It was subtle enough that my younger self hadn't noticed. But he had noticed Heisshitze's abnormal silence, though my younger self assumed it was leftover from the supposed Ternisbefallen. Though I had no memory of it. Only what Hirschur told me.

Would those memories return too, my present-self wondered.

"Where's that fiancée of yours?" I called to Minerva.

She glanced around and shrugged. "I'm not sure where that troublesome gremlin scurried off to." The she murmured seemingly to herself, "I'm sure I'll regret that later." Her usual smile twisted into something thoughtful and worried. I was certain she hadn't meant for me to hear that last bit. My younger self felt great amusement at her expense, but I felt a dread. I would regret those thoughts.

"What exactly are you looking for again, Little Flower?" There was a strange dissonance between my current and younger self. Anger and frustration warred against nostalgia. Looking at the moment from my older self's perspective, Minerva reminded me of the way Sylvester used to tease me.

"Widow's breath." Was my curt reply. "They are a small flower that blooms only in the shade where mana blood has been shed." The blooms I recalled were a bright blue, not dissimilar to my hair color. They were especially strong in fire element. But as a result, they only bloomed for a certain number of days before their potency waned. I took notes on where blood was spilled during our ditters. The biggest spot was an area between Dunkelfelger and Werkestock gathering spot.

It didn't take long to get to spot I had mentally marked. When we arrived, there was a carpet of bright blue and white flowers hidden in the shade of the forest. It was a beautiful sight. The blooms had a heady smell wafting off them. Lady Minerva walked the edge of the flowers. Heisshitze walked along the opposite side. Then the others and myself began to gather. Only Minerva continued to scan the area around. The others were chatting carefree behind me. Even I felt a curious lightness. I caught myself humming. The shadowed clearing was warm and it made my younger self feel sleepy. It made me uneasy. I drifted forward gathering the best blooms. Behind me the voice seemed to be fading. Which struck my younger self as odd, but he couldn't figure out why. Meanwhile I wanted to shout, 'You fool! You are leaving your guards!' But my younger self continued to move on heedless of what I thought or said. Because this was just a memory. Still, I moved, turning some flowers into feystones right away.

Something sparkled at the corner of my vision. What was that? It was partially hidden by a thick cluster of flowers. A small voice in the back of my younger self's mind urged for caution. Something I was very much in agreement with, but that voice was drowned by a sleepy curiosity. Poison, I knew, but my younger self was already held in its sway. The only comfort I could take is that whatever had happened, I had survived. My younger self picked through the flowers and crouched next to the shiny thing. Oddly enough it was another flower. A seven-pointed star. It's centered a light purple that faded to a pearl white. The seven tips had golden patterns that gleamed. It looked like drops of thinly spun gold, made an intricate design. My younger self was struck by this pretty piece of mage craft, even if he didn't recognize it as such.

'Run! Don't touch it!' I tried to warn myself. But bloom of Schlaftraum's Gift had already taken ahold of my mind. Even then I would not have heard. These events had already happened. My younger self reached out.

"Ferdinand!" A female voice shouted; but it was distant. I took a final shuffling step forward and heard a faint click. Dregarnuhr's mischief played out, slowing time down to an unbearably slow crawl. I looked up to see Lady Minerva. Raw panic had morphed her normally amused expression. She was running for me; both my selves knew she would never make it. She would only be caught in the trap with me. Then a dark blur dropped from above. Its form was hard to focus on it until the hood slid back. Bright orange eyes locked with my own. Hard resolve set into them.

The next thing I knew, Peter's right arm pushing me back. My protections flared to life. Pain rippled across Peter's his expression even as he used his left hand to simultaneously throw something behind him. His cloak flared outward to provide us both with protection.

My vision was filled with a harsh white light. The very air burned in my lungs. All of my charms and amulets against magic flared to life. They popped one by one. The backlash from them would help push back the attack, but I could only pray it left Peter unscathed. I hit the ground with enough force to knock the wind out me, then a weight crushed my chest.

Peter?

I wasn't sure how long it was before my senses started returned. My ears continued to ring even as my vision came into focus. But there were now people standing around me. I recognized the woman at the head of the group. Werkestock's archduke candidate looked down on me with smug satisfaction. She wore her riding leathers and had her schtappe in her hand in the form of a needle thin sword. The younger me couldn't hear her, but I could easily read her lips.

"Even better than I expected. We caught the lion and her crow." She bent closer to me. Her smile reminding me of Lady Veronica. "It's nothing personal, but I think if I break you both she'll not be able to smile again." She pulled her sword arm back, clearly intending to skewer peter and me. My breath hitched as the blade came forward towards Peter's back. She intended for my heart and Peter's lung. A black cord wrapped snapped around the girl's slender neck. She was suddenly yanked back.

"Dunkelfelger! Protect my family!" An angry bellow came to my ears. The other people who had come with Isabella moved to try and free her from whatever was choking her. Several Dunkelfelger knights came to surround me and Peter. They formed a human shield between us and the enemy. Heisshitze sank down beside me, panic etched in his features as he pulled Peter off of me.

"Lord Ferdinand, how are you?"

"Fine." My muscles ached and my head throbbed. My skin was also red like I had spent long bells out in the Goddess of Light's fierce gaze. I looked to Peter and both my younger and present-self felt our throats catch.

The other boy's long green hair was blackened and burned down to his scalp. The molted cloak he had worn over his Dunkelfelger blue one was gone. It had been completely consumed by the flames. His blue cloak was in burnt tatters. Then my gaze moved to his left side. I tasted bile as the smell of burnt pork filled my nose. I now knew where that smell came from. His left hand was gone. Only a mangled bone was left just above where his elbow should have been. The flesh above was blackened, leaking fluids, and shredded. Some of the cloth from his clothing was melted to his skin. My gaze traveled down the ruined flesh of his side and leg. Bits of jagged sooty metal protruded from his body, like thorns of a vicious plant. His clothing barely made remained intact. Like his arm, his leg ended short of what it should have. His leg ended just below his knee. Again, bone stuck out from where hot metal shards had peeled back his flesh.

Heisshitze gaged once before he put his noble mask in place. "We have to stabilize him."

What about Minerva, my younger self wondered. Heisshitze was her guard, shouldn't he prioritize her safety. Come to think of it. All the guards had moved to make this shield around us. Something felt off to my younger self. But I wasn't able to dwell on it as the other knight apprentice pulled a couple cords from his side pouch. With surprising deftness, Heisshitze wrapped one around Peter's wounded arm just under the shoulder. He then began twisting the excess with a small metal rod, no longer than his hand. Once he was satisfied it was tight enough, he pinned the excess so it wouldn't loosen, removed the rod, then repeated the process with Peter's leg. The bleeding had slowed but Peter still leaked his life blood. His skin was growing paler.

I summoned my schtappe and cast a waschen over Peter. When the water cleared, he coughed pitifully, but at least we were able to see what we were working with. It wasn't good. He needed a jureve, now. But that was far off. Even with one, limbs wouldn't regrow. Magic had its limits, and it seemed that Ewigeliebe was upon him.

"Peter, you need to give it to me." Heisshitze pitched his voice low so no one could hear him.

The scholar turned his raw face towards the knight. His orange eyes had glassy look to them. But his voice was firm.

"No."

"Peter, you won't make it."

"No."

Heisshitze clenched his fist. His face twisted with rage and grief. "Don't make me take it from you! You know you won't be able to keep it from me. And we can't lose both of you." My younger self had a feeling of what they were speaking of. While I knew what they were referring to. Namestone. The young couple had given them to each other long ago, my present-self suspected. They always seemed to know what the other was thinking.

Peter coughed and wheezed out, "You can try, but she is mine."

"Stubborn fool." Heisshitze hissed. He began searching through the scholar's pockets. Eventually he found a small cage hanging from his belt. Three stones were in it. Two were highbeasts, but the other was a white cocoon that both versions of me recognized it. A namestone.

Minerva's name, both Minerva and three symbols in a foreign tongue. Symbols that I recognized from Peter's notes and embroidered on his hair tie. Heisshitze took the cage and attempted to open it. The cage would not open, instead it sparked and hissed, shocking Heisshitze each time he attempted to open it.

I cast a healing spell over Peter and my younger self prayed to the Gods for a miracle. Screams echoed through the clearing. Their pitch reaching jagged heights that nearly destroyed my concentration. The spell I cast took hold, easing some of the burns and closing smaller lacerations. Bits of metal oozed out of his damaged skin like parasites being forced out of a festering wound. Still, it was just too much damage. Neither my younger nor my present-self needed magic circles to tell us that Peter's life was slipping away. His eyes watched me steadily. He knew he was dying too. But there was a softness in those orange eyes as if he was trying to comfort me. No, my younger-self wanted to scream, I won't let someone else die! My hand slipped to my own recovery potions. The most effective one was in my hand, corked popped before I knew what I was doing. I asked if he would take the potion. Those orange eyes never left my own.

"I trust you." He wheezed out.

I nodded and poured the potion down his throat without any warning. Peter coughed and seemed to wither for a moment. His face twisted in disgust.

"Gods, that tastes terrible. I am sorry Lord Ferdinand." Younger me assumed he meant that he was sorry for taking up my stock. But looking at his grim expression I now knew he meant he was sorry that such a thing had been necessary for me. Even while he was dying, he was concerned for me. Why? What had I done to deserve this?

"Gods take you Peter!" Heisshitze growled as he slammed the cage down on the ground. Tears were in the young apprentice knight's eyes. "She is our archduke candidate!"

"She was mine long before any such title was thrust onto her shoulders." That statement made no sense my younger self. Now I knew. Yes, I suppose Minerva had been his first. "I will not give her up again without her leave." I had chalked those words up to the pain making him delirious despite his eyes having a distinctly sharp edge to them.

There was a snapping and tearing sound from beyond the human shield. The sound was accompanied by petrified pained screams. Not unlike the dying screams of prey caught by a predator. For the first time I went to look beyond the shield wall. I caught a glimpse of a blood slicked hand.

"Don't!" Peter's voice dragged my vision back down. "Don't watch. You need not see her such. It is not how she should be remembered." What nonsense, I had thought then. My younger self could only think it strange that it was to have a stranger shield me in such a way. It was clear that was what Peter was doing, but I couldn't think of a reason. His status wasn't that much lower than mine, with his marriage it would be higher, did he wish to earn my trust and get my talents to his lady's side? But that felt wrong. Peter was skilled himself. I remembered his offer of a name. Surely, it had been a jest. But now, my present-self guessed the reason. I resembled someone dear to him. What a cruel choke the Gods had played on Peter and Minerva.

There was a high-pitched scream cut off by a squelching sound with such finality. Then silence followed. This was the silence that only came from death. For a long moment there was no more sounds other than Peter's panting gasps. I finally gave in to the urge to look. Minerva was standing a few paces away. There were no enemies around, and no bodies; only splash of red, scorch marks, and pools of black sludge. Then she turned to face me. The magic tool over her eyes was cracked. Silver had taken over her vision. She used her glaive as a cane and limped towards us. No one went to help her, something about her eyes held them back. I got the feeling none of them had seen this before.

"Peter?" Her voice quivered in a way I had never heard from her before. Tears, I; present and past, realized with a jolt. She was crying tears of water and blood.

"Here." Peter rasped.

Her head shifted honing in on the sound of his voice. Minerva stumbled and limped towards us. The Dunkelfelger apprentice knights made for her, their faces aghast at the sight of her. Only Heisshitze seemed to be able to hold his ground, even my people recoiled from her. She sank to her knees just a little ahead of Peter. Her glaive was discarded and she began blindly searching for Peter. Her hands were gentle when they found Peter's burnt scalp. She made a noise in the back of her throat more animal than human. She shuffled forward on her knees and moved Peter so his head lay in lap. A sight that would have been uncouth if it weren't for the grief etched in her.

"I am sorry love; I broke your glasses again."

He gave a pained chuckle. "I expected as much."

Minerva tentatively stroked his cheek. Comfort to her as much as it was to him. "I made my vows to you, and I mean to keep them. So, I will follow you. Where do you wish to go?"

There was silence. Peter coughed staring up at the bright sky above us. Then finally he sighed, "I am tired. I think we need to rest."

My young-self had to fight the urge to shout no! Peter was dying. We all knew it. That he would simply give up. It was unfair! But I swallowed the words

"Okay." Minerva agreed easily.

"My lady!" Heisshitze protested as Minerva reached into her pouch.

"Hush cousin." Minerva hummed to herself and placed a familiar circlet on Peter's brow. "Listen my countrymen, I will give you my last order. Though you may not remember it. Little Flower I ask for your trust me this once and your permission to work magic on you all."

"Why?"

"You are not a fool. Surely, you know what will happen if this gets out. Ehrenfest will be dragged into war. Any chance of peace denied to you. Therefore, forget and rest in safety." Minerva's highbeast moved beside her. Peter was using it to gather up his body and his wife's weapon.

"Fine." I grunted.

Minerva smiled; her eyes slowly cleared. With her clean hand she reached out and ruffled my hair. "Don't pout, Little Flower." She stood slowly and summoned her schtappe. "Stylo." Wand changed to pen. To the Dunkelfelger apprentices she said, "I expect you all will look after the Little Flower and his people while I am gone. Is this understood?"

All of the Dunkelfelger knights intoned their acknowledgment of her command. While I and my people could only stare at her in disbelief. Why was she protecting me while Peter was clinging to life; she clearly held a raffle for her fiancée. She began to sketched in the air. It didn't take her long to sketch the circle in the air. Minerva climbed onto her highbeast holding Peter's body in front of her. His highbeast cage hung from her belt.

"Wait, my love." Her high beast turned to look at her. "There is something I wish to say."

Minerva shrugged.

"Lord Ferdinand. We keep our promises. All of them. So, in the future, when you have found your Geduldh; if you have the courage to enough to ask her to stay with you, invite us to your star binding ceremony. We will come. No matter what."

My eyes burned and my throat was choked with words that wouldn't come out. The light from the spell scattered among us. I could barely make out Minerva holding up a star shape with several large feystones. Mana roiled and there was a great rending sound

Panic raced across Minerva's face. "SHIELD LITTLE FLOWER!"

A bright light blinded me but there was a chorus of shields. The force of the magic the Minerva had wrought burst towards us like a raging river. We were picked up and thrown back. It should have been disastrous blow if it weren't for a shower of green and yellow light. Had Minerva blessed us with the last of her strength? Why would she waste what little mana she had left when Peter would be in need of. Perhaps that was why Peter had not been able to use the bath.

Silence returned. White appeared in front of me. I felt like I was choking. I sat up coughing.

"Ferdinand!" Rozemyne called.

Ah, I was back.