Crusader

Chapter 120

The Council broke in silence, some to their duties, some to their beds. Cyrus waited, though, head down at the table, hearing them file out one by one. There was a taste of bitterness in his mouth, an acid in the back of his throat that caused him to realize he had not eaten a substantive meal in a day or perhaps two. Yet I do not hunger. His mouth was parched, he realized, but he didn’t care.

“Cyrus,” Longwell said, and he blinked at the dragoon. “The first groups of survivors have begun to come through the portal. I wanted you to know.” He hesitated then looked across the table as though guilty of some crime, and Cyrus’s gaze followed his to where Vara sat, in her seat, still reclined, watching them both.

“Out with it,” Cyrus said, but Longwell hesitated, casting a look at Vara, uncertain. “Go on.”

“Cattrine is with them,” Longwell said. “I have … allocated her quarters here in Sanctuary for the night. I did not wish to overstep my bounds, but as she was of the royal family of Actaluere, it seemed … appropriate, somehow-”

“That’s fine,” Cyrus said, with a dismissive hand.

Longwell nodded slowly then stepped aside, walking out the door. Behind him, J’anda remained, as did Curatio. Vara was still in her seat, Cyrus noted, still looking quite weathered-and beautiful. Always beautiful, even when she’s been through hell. Her cheeks looked thinner, but when she looked at him in response to his stare, he did not look away afterward.

J’anda coughed. “I don’t mean to interrupt your long, meaningful look at each other, but I did want to …” he paused. “Well, I had to show someone.”

“Show someone what?” Vara said slowly, as though she were so tired that she were pushing the words out one syllable at a time.

“I stayed behind with the Luukessians on the beach when the cavalry teleported back here,” J’anda said. “Myself and one of the druids went back with a couple rangers, back to the site of the bridge destruction, to go underwater, to see if we could find anything.” He looked down, chagrined. “We used Nessalima’s light, as brightly as we could, and spells that allowed us to breathe underwater. We searched for two hours, shifted some of the rubble-”

“Did you find anything?” Cyrus cut him off, leaning forward. “Did you see-” He stopped, and felt the pressure build in the back of his throat.

“We found the bodies of more scourge than you would care to count,” J’anda said quietly. “And this.” He reached into his robes and pulled something out, something rounded, and set it upon the table with a thunk, right where it usually sat on the table next to its owner-

Alaric’s helm.

Cyrus sagged back into his seat, felt the weight of the thing, the true loss it represented. He stared at it, the empty eye slits staring back at him, accusing him- If only you had believed sooner. If only you had listened to me in Death’s Realm-

“Thank you,” Cyrus said in a choked voice, and J’anda nodded mournfully and shuffled toward the door. It shut quietly behind him, and Cyrus was left staring at the helm with Curatio, whose face was an iron mask of reserve mixed with regret, and Vara, whose lip actually quivered as she stared at it.

“Thus ends an era,” Curatio said softly, almost too low to be heard. He placed his hand on the top of the helm and ran his palm across it, closing his eyes and bowing his head for a moment as though he were praying. “So long, old friend,” he whispered, and then his long, weighted, shuffling steps were audible as he made his way across the floor of the Council Chambers and out the door. It shut just as quietly behind him.

“He is truly gone, then,” Vara said, drawing his eyes toward her. Hers were rooted on the helm, and she stared at it with a little horror before she squinted her eyes shut and lowered her head onto her hand.

“I think so,” Cyrus said. “He knew he wasn’t going to get away from it. He talked about making sacrifices for what you believe in, and he gave me this,” he realized with a start, reaching under his armor and pulling out the pendant. He looked at it in the light. The smooth edges felt strange to his naked palms, and he removed it and set it beside his gauntlet on the table.

“He was a Crusader to the last, then,” she said quietly. “Dying for the cause he believed in.”

“Yes,” Cyrus said. “Yes, he did.” But he did not look at her.

“Can we talk?” she asked, almost choking on her words as they came out. He looked at her in surprise. She watched him with greatest hesitation, even fear.

“I think … we are, right now.”

“I meant about us,” she said, voice no more than a mere whisper. He strained to hear her, watching her as she spoke.

He blinked twice, stole a sidelong look at the hearth, and then turned his eyes back to the table in front of him, where the medallion rested, perfectly centered in front of him. No. “Yes.”

She rose, but he tried not to look at her for more than a few seconds at a stretch, always looking back to the medallion in front of him. “It has been over a year since I watched you march out the front gates of Sanctuary …”

He looked up. “I didn’t know you were watching.” Calm. Cool. Uncaring.

“I was,” she said, placing her hand upon the arm of her chair as she stood, looking for support of some kind. “I watched you go, watched you ride off at the head of the army, and I wished-oh, how I wished-that I had said and done something far, far different when last we spoke. With every report of dismal news from your expedition, my fear worsened. I was certain that I would never see you again, that you would die in some far off place with the memory of our last conversation being what you remembered of me.” She took a tentative step toward him, crossing behind the next chair-Nyad’s, one of two between them-and putting her hands delicately upon its back. “I did not wish to leave such a dark air between us-”

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Cyrus said, clearing his throat abruptly. He shook his head but still kept his eyes upon the surface of the table. “You said what you needed to say. I can hardly fault you for feeling as you did, especially in the wake of … all that happened in Termina-”

“I was afraid,” she said, and eased another step closer, behind Vaste’s chair, using her hands to almost pull herself nearer to him. “I let fear guide my actions toward you, let my mother’s fears-my fears-carry me along a path I don’t wish to go down-”

“It’s only natural,” Cyrus said, shaking his head, keeping his eyes away from hers, looking at the lines of the medallion, “only natural to listen to reasonable instincts warning you away. I won’t live as long as you, after all-”

“You very nearly outlived me today,” she said, interrupting him. “If it hadn’t been for you, for this army you brought with you, these eastern cavalrymen, I would have been dead. We live in dangerous times, and a dangerous sort of life-”

“Right,” he said, “all the more reason to be cautious in our personal lives-”

“Listen to me,” she snapped at him then eased closer behind Longwell’s seat, the last between them. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to … I just … please, let me say this.” Cyrus nodded, but did not interrupt her. “I let fear rule me. The fear of losing something very precious to me, more precious than … anything else. Anyone else.” She took a breath, composed herself. “I lost my parents within days of each other. Lost my home. You already know my past, the things that happened to make me untrusting. None of these are excuses, but … after all that … I couldn’t bear the thought of losing someone else, someone who has perhaps grown more important to me than any of the others-”

“We all feel the loss of Alaric,” Cyrus said, templing his fingers in front of him and bowing his head. “And it is particularly acute now-”

“I’m not talking about Alaric-” She ground the words out, practically in his ear, and he was forced to look up at her at last. She stared down at him, disbelieving. “I am talking about you.” Her face changed, softening. “You have come to mean more to me than anyone else in my life.” Her hand came down upon his shoulder awkwardly and eased up to his cheek. He looked at her in surprise, not quite openmouthed but wide-eyed. “I pushed you away once before because I was afraid. Afraid after so many losses that I would lose … a good man. That I would lose you, perhaps not now but in the future, and feel that pain for the rest of my days, so sharply.” Her hand shook as it came to rest on his cheek, brushing against the stubble there. “I could not bear the thought of that loss. So I pushed you away. And I am …” her face crumpled, “so … sorry. So sorry I drove you away.”

“It’s all right,” Cyrus said and rose slowly. She eased toward him, wrapping her arms around him as he stood, pressing her face against his shoulder, against the blackened armor there. He felt the weight and press of her, smelled the aroma of battle that clung to her after days of fighting. It was a soothing feeling, having her close, and only a year earlier he would have welcomed it happily, exclaimed it inside with such fervent joy-

But now he felt only emptiness as he held her, the fire crackling in the hearth behind her. “It’s okay,” he said. “I would have gone anyway, out of a sense of loyalty to Longwell, to help him. And I still would have stayed, because everything that happened afterward was my fault. I had to be there. It was my duty.”

She looked up at him, lifting her head off his shoulder. “But I could have-should have-been at your side. Been with you.”

He shook his head slowly. “No. You did well, you held Sanctuary together while I was gone. That was the task appointed you, and you did it marvelously, better than anyone else could have in your stead.”

“But …” she whispered, “… after all that’s happened … after all we’ve been through … do you think that there’s a chance … that you still feel for me the way you did on that bridge in Termina?”

He took a deep breath, pondering his answer. “I don’t know. There was a time when I believed in the idea of us-you and me-with everything in me. I believed that you and I could be together, could be something more, something greater than anything else I’d ever experienced in my life. I went to war for you, I killed for you, and I even tried to die in your stead, because I … loved you.” He said it slowly, and bits of it came out as though he were awakening to them. “I felt it so deeply in my bones, in my heart, that I would have done anything for you.” He lowered his head. “I don’t believe that anymore.”

She nodded sharply, almost in denial. “And … do you believe … you could ever feel that way about me … again?”

He breathed out, slowly, felt the emptiness and the fatigue deep inside. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything right now, really … except my duty. Except the promises I made.” He blinked, as though he were coming out of a trance. “I haven’t slept in days, or eaten. I’m so tired … I just don’t know. I’m sorry.”

“Yes, well,” she started to withdraw from him, from his arms. Her hand remained rested on his breastplate, just above his heart, as though she could somehow touch it through the layers of armor and clothing. “I understand,” she said, her face firming up, settling into a mask of sorts into straight lines, the emotion sapping out of it, replaced with the face of the Vara he had come to know-back when I knew her. I haven’t seen her in over a year. “I understand completely. It has been … some time, after all. And there have been … others … in the interim.” She said “others” with a pang of regret so loud to his ears that it cried out to him.

“Yes,” he admitted. “But I don’t know where I stand with them, either.” He placed his fingers over his face, massaging his temples. “I’m sorry I have no answer for you.”

“It’s quite all right,” she said, and the regret now belonged to him as she slipped back to her old self. “I shouldn’t have expected any less from our conquering General, weary from the battles he’s fought to preserve us all from harm.” She gave him a quick nod. “Perhaps we’ll speak again later-once you’re … recovered.” She snapped to a more precise stance and walked toward the door, her back ramrod straight.

As he watched her go, it was her walk that gave her away. She had always been precise in her stride, evenly measured, crisp, almost marching. As she made her way to the door she kept the same stride but he could see the struggle in each step, as though she were having to drag her feet along away from him. It was a difference measured in time that would have been unnoticeable by most … and meant more to him than anything else she had said.