A child cries inside my mind,

In his world of unnatural design,

The Twelve, the masterminds,

Would that I could leave it all behind...

62.

More Than Familiar

Cedric awoke the next morning after a long, restful slumber. He groggily rolled over in his bed, rubbed his eyes, sighed out exhaustedly as he tried to will his body and mind both to wake up.

He half expected to hear sounds of fighting and clattering swords through the door. But it was quiet. It felt like a tomb, and he lay there in that tomb, stared up for a long time at that familiar wooden ceiling like a corpse waiting for eternity.

Then his door began to open with a quiet crackle, a glistening of light. Cedric’s senses sharpened. He reached for the ley to summon his black blade… but he chose instead for a red one.

“Cedric…?” whispered Faunia as she entered the dark room. “Are you awake?”

He dispelled the blade. “Yes. Yeah, I am.”

“There's breakfast.”

“That's new…” he mumbled as he rolled over again.

“You've been here before, I take it.”

He finally sat up barechested and covered in faded black ink, let the tavern’s glowing chandeliers cast a slit of gleaming light across his perfectly-shaved face through the door. He saw Faunia smiling in the doorway, that same light casting a glow upon her like an angel reaching out to him.

“You coming?”

Cedric put his plate down at the end of a ravenous meal. He looked down at the bill the waitress had left at their table: two-hundred and forty Calims. I've never even heard of that currency. I certainly hope it holds less value than cromers or tongues.

Faunia clasped shut her silvery coinpurse with a sigh. “They don't take any money I've got. Maybe we should have seen a currency exchange first.”

“It's a bit late for that. We'll use Serkukan—”

“That's stealing…!” she hissed in a low whisper.

“...I didn't say I'd use him to make our meal free. Don't you still trust me?”

She was taken aback by the question. Then Cedric stood, approached the clean, chic bar just a few feet behind their table.

The place was not at all how he remembered. It'd gone from a dingy, run-down hole like Kilren’s Cove to a hip and trendy inn, one that apparently travelers from all over would stop at before making the second half of their voyages to Aeon or Calamon or… well, wherever they were headed. It was a place cloaked in shallow, faux secrecy, which in actuality was incredibly popular via word of mouth; every table around them was littered with boisterous adventuring types and calm, collected nobles, but comprised by only about a quarter of the diversity they'd seen in Calamon. Most of them were human. Only a few alisars at all existed here—but Cedric was at least relieved to see that they were no longer slaves to the men, as Cromer had once been the slaving capital of the Hunter world, before the fall of the empires.

Cedric leaned his forearm down on the counter beneath a series of glowing candles dangling from mini golden plates. Big windows behind the counter rose up and arched high, stained with brilliant colors which illuminated him spectacularly.

The woman at the counter turned to him—beautiful, young, pale-skinned like Faunia but more elven in appearance perhaps. She smiled a big, warm, welcoming smile. “Hi! Ready to pay out?”

“Only if you'll accept cromers.”

“Sorry, we don't. You don't have any calims?”

“Only tongues, cromers, and—”

“Oh, yeah, we do accept tongues!”

Cedric's eyes widened. He leaned down more upon the counter. “So, can you tell me the deal with this place?”

“What do you want to know?”

“When did Cromer become so… different? I heard about the man who came to the gate…”

She nodded enthusiastically. “All of the people who live here are just normal workers, farmers and fishers especially. The men who came to our gates said they wanted true peace, perfect peace.”

“...Without adventurers?”

“I'm just quoting what they said,” she lifted her arms in joking surrender, "they said adventurers are the cause for Calamon's instability, the slavery and famine in Alisa, and the slums in Aeon. They don't want any at all."

“Huh… I see.” Cedric scratched his chin, unsure of what to feel. It sounds like a cult in the making...

“Adventurers know about this place, of course. We're a bit secretive about that, but the government allows us some leniency in that we bring in hefty sums of taxes for them.”

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

“…And what government are you beneath, what nation even is this?”

“This is the Third Country.” She smiled again. “We hope you enjoy your stay.”

“...So Rykaedi—Arobella succeeded.” said Cedric as they walked the streets, having deposited their letter to Calamon at a courier's office. There was an oppressive sense of brown from the crowds and buildings, a dull, boring drabbery that could only be explained by the severe lack of adventuring men and women they would have expected in almost any other city in the world. It felt like it'd lost even the magic that Kylinstrom had once imbued it with. No more silver tapestries and Hunter-soldiers milling the streets. No more blue lanterns of the men with golden eyes, fit for seeing the Etherian ley with.

Cedric sighed as they walked, let the cool spring air soothe his nerves.

Faunia didn't speak, just walked beside him in contemplative silence. Her hand rested uncomfortably on her rapier’s hilt. Sometimes she wondered why she even carried the thing, especially now as she looked down at it with a heavy heart, and a subtle pout on her lower lip.

“Is something on your mind?” Cedric asked.

Faunia tensed up, stopped walking. Cedric stopped and faced off with her on the quiet street they walked, beneath a stone bridge which connected the second floors of two homes.

“Everything is just different,” she said. “The world moves forward… Are we moving forward with it?”

Cedric blinked in confusion.

“Nevermind. It's stupid…”

“No,” he grabbed her arm, stopped her from walking away. “It's not stupid. You're my friend, Faunia. Your thoughts are important to me.”

“It's just… Seeing how Kylinstrom used to be, I'm hardly sure we have a vision for the future which is much unlike it. Will Calamon not just become a second step in the Azar’kara Project?”

“The Azar’kara Project…?”

“That's what they call it, Cedric. The Twelve. They orchestrated the whole thing…”

“I know. I know that much…” Cedric stepped forward, took her by the hand and the shoulder. “Sit down, here.”

They sat on a ledge in that shaded spot. He did not remove his grasp from her, did not take his warm hand from her cold one. She did not resist his touch, but nor did she meet his gaze.

“Tell me what we know about the project. Please.”

After a deep inhale, she began. “It was Kasian’s own project. He wanted to know more about Etherians… The project itself was what caused the end of the Etherian Era. He had already started by enslaving them to people to begin the era, creating the Etherian Knights which we ourselves tried to replicate. But he noticed in retrieving them that so many seemed to sprout from Kylinstrom. Kylinstrom, at the time, was considered the outsider to the Three Empires of Aeon, Alisa, and Llueves. It was no great loss for him to send it to the sea…”

“...And they brainwashed us all.”

She nodded. “That was the first time Dyosius was ever used, to move an entire mass of land, to remove the memories from all the inhabitants. Akvum tried to stop it—he and Ivalié headed into Siln toward Azar’kara in an attempt to assassinate Rykaedi and stop the procession. But they failed. And his notes repeatedly mention his loss of a dear friend during the conflict.”

Cedric thought of Faunia's reaction to his own recent run-in with Kogar.

“And then they orchestrated the conflict between us and ogres, us and the Sylvet… the Hunters and our people were tricked into believing we were in a constant stalemate with psychopathic barbarians!”

Cedric thought of Greslock. His heart panged with guilt.

“That's why they transferred me to Azar’kara. When the frost dragon crisis returned, it was yet another lie—Kasian’s prediction for the emergence of another Etherian had come true. There was a prophetic mural hidden in Calamon apparently, enumerating the exact date when he expected the gate would reopen. He was right. Akvum and Ivalié prepared for the fight… And that's why he was tracking you. He hoped Ivalié would capture you before you met up with the Tirolith and Llestren'vatis. He just didn't have any idea of the scope we were facing.”

A few pedestrians milled past in a rush. Faunia and Cedric watched them go, leaned slightly further out to see where they were headed. When two more pedestrians went by in even more of a rush, Faunia finally stood. Cedric followed her.

“Anyway,” she said, “those are only the footnotes. Kasian’s research on Etherians would be irreplaceable if we could get our hands on it. He knew the deepest secrets of the race, and of our reality. I guess since reading Akvum’s notes on the project, I've felt… insignificant. And worried that we're bringing about the same issues our own culture had.”

Cedric walked in step with her, toward a crowd of beige that had formed in the town center nearby them. “I understand. We look at how Cromer has moved on and it feels like we're stuck in a rut.”

Faunia nodded. She smiled slightly to know she wasn't alone in the feeling.

“It's okay—” A searingly-loud bugle interrupted Cedric. He saw a steel-helmed knight on the steps up toward Cromer’s magnificent stone palace blowing into the brass instrument. Another slender figure was beginning up the steps behind him.

Once the sound ended, Faunia's voice shook as she said, “There was only one threat to his project when it began; Cylenia was dangerously close to where he'd placed Kylinstrom. So…” She looked at him, pain barely hidden beneath her expression. “They destroyed it.”

His heart sank. And then...

“Cedric Castelbre!” came a feminine shout from where the bugle had called from.

He looked over and his heart sank even further. There was Princess Arobella atop the steps, her body thrown loosely and sensually around the steel-plated guard. She waved a white handkerchief toward him.

“I thank you again for the wonderful night we shared in my bedchamber! I'll never forget it so long as I live!” She chortled as a pig might.

Faunia's mouth dropped open in alarm. “Cedric… what does she mean?”

“Faunia, I…” I wish I could say I was seduced. I wish I could say she used her magic to charm me, to force me into it… that demon is more than capable of brainwashing. But I cannot lie to her.

Viltar and Ekzire appeared suddenly from the crowd ahead, waved warmly toward the duo. They stopped when they heard Faunia shouting.

"Are you out of your mind!? You fucked her!? You didn't think at all, did you? You didn't think about what would happen!?"

"Faunia—" He reached out but stopped short. Her eyes were fierce like ice. It was the same way she'd looked at him when he was her prisoner in Azar'kara. Nothing had changed.

"I don't even know what to say to you." she said.

And she simply stormed away.

X

“...That'll serve to light the fuse.” said Arobella, stepping away from the guard she'd embraced. His eyes gleamed out from beneath his helmet, toward the shimmering morning sun. “If all goes well, that'll sow enough discord to lend the final piece of Dyosius Stabilis to my hand—finally.” Her face twitched with ire. “Faunia Vleren has grown too powerful for her own good. Isn't that right, Talek?”

The guard turned his gaze to her. His helm hid all except those shining golden eyes, those Hunter-bulbs implanted within his head. He said, “May Solus’ light shine evermore upon Kylinstrom’s future. And may Lunus guide our path without relent.”