Rare had been the times since the 1st and 4th Apostle had taken walks together alone, with no entourage following them, ready to jump in the middle at their beck and call. And even less had been the times when Rosalynde hadn't felt watched with a thousand of judging eyes picking on every contained gesture, on every concealed detail.
But that mattered not when she had the pleasure of keeping company to the man directly reporting under the Crown.
There always had been a silent agreement between them. A compound reminder of mutual interests. She would have done nothing against him, and he would have aided her both outside and inside the Imperial Citadel until adulthood; that had been their first deal.
Deal which had naturally shifted as she'd reached the subtle age of twenty, when Lord Regulus had finally ended the one-sided patronage between her and Brek Haywire, leaving her under Pharah as only reporting guardian.
"I wonder if you know where Her Highness is?" Rosalynde held back a bitter laugh at his question, shrugging in reply.
A low resigned sigh escaped his lips, chapped thanks to the cold of the outside winds. He passed a hand in between his short, well-combed silvery hair, frustration mixed with what Rosalynde could guess as lack of rest seeping out of every single pore.
"Has her Majesty summoned you again at the brink of dawn?" Rosalynde asked cautiously after they turned into another corridor, the main staircase coming into view.
"Indeed, it seems like the constructions of the railway isn't going as planned," he replied without missing a beat.
"That's the reason behind the foul mood of her majesty," she replied without doubt. Earning a subtle nod from the 1st Apostle and trusted minister to the Empress herself.
He'd always been honest with her, even on the journey towards the Imperial Citadel after the massacre of her parents – or at least of her mother, so it seemed.
That was the reason behind her use of the loving and docile white lies with him, the same kind that children loved inventing and twisting lightly to their parents and friends to stay out of trouble. And deep down, she knew he knew it, too.
"Is there a problem with the payments?" She couldn't curb her need for knowledge, her desire for both idiotic and overpowering truths.
"No, Grey's been playing his part egregiously actually," he then lowered his voice, leaning close to her hear as he gifted words for only her ears.
"Anything new to report about our fairly old common accident?" He was talking about the Opera, and taking into consideration she still hadn't informed him about Verity yet – by that reasoning, which had to be the only reason behind his question.
"I've been following closely what seems like a pretty promising lead," she assured him.
They halted in front of the staircase, his slightly curved backed, fully in few against the light of the chandeliers hanging over their heads. He turned around, squaring her from head to toe before subtly nodding.
Extreme gratification was what Rosalynde felt as he did calmly nod his head, the flame of recognition making its way inside her body, burning her bones and blood as a drop of holy water. They'd always had this sort of respect, this undying mutual respect they both seemed to hold dear to each other, ever since their first meeting, during their journey towards Lowen – and in particular, the Imperial Citadel.
They hadn't spoken for the first few days while riding back, with Rosalynde's minute and malnourished body standing at crosswords, a junction between the land of living and the one of eternal rest. She remembered him stopping quite a few times, paying all innkeepers an extra gold to have them forget about their stay. It was funny at first, even if funny probably wasn't even the right word to use in that context.
To be honest, Rosalynde didn't even know what to feel as they crossed rivers made of cobble – so similar yet so different from the wooden ones she had back home. She didn't let her eyes wonder as they swiftly passed the Iverian Cascades, three twin waterfalls which side by side merged their waters into one, creating a symphony of falling white water the same colour of the full moon.
They both remembered those serene days after the passing of her storm, when Lord Regulus tried to make her talk over a warm meal at the various inns, but never Rosalynde had Rosalynde opened her mouth – nor had that those freezing lips tugged slightly upwards in a meek attempt of giving he saviour a smile.
The laughter and gentle smiles of her parents now nothing more but a distant memory buried under the snow, but the view of their unmoving bodies resting agonal beside her had not done the same.
She dreamed of that at night, of her small hand shaking her mother awake to start the new day, quiet enough to make sure to not wake her growing brother inside the womb. Except that there was no brother of hers growing there, not anymore at least. Not since witnessing the Detrian Soldier slaying her mother, the tip of his sword ragingly peeling off the soft skin as he brutally stabbed her mother's womb and unborn brother in two.
Her eyes had seen it all, her eyes would have never forgotten.
She would have never forgotten.
Not then, not now, not until she would have lost her life in honour of the crown she'd sworn her life on.
"You've been thinking of something grim by the way you're smiling. Care to share the memory?" He asked at the end of the staircase, inviting her to talk as they took their time while going out into the interior gardens of the Imperial Citadel.
Her smiled didn't falter as she recalled the events of that month lost in an endless past, nor did their walking as they found an iron bench to sit down on. Her eyes resting on the fine low heels her uniform provided her while in service.
"You've come a long way since those days," he told without a single trace of hesitation.
Her breath hitched at his words. The power pending between his lips involuntarily made her head turn to the side, trying to take a glimpse at him. He'd shaved the light line of beard she'd seen on him the time before, his violet eyes calmly assessing her looks as he tilted his head aside.
"I never thanked you." She couldn't resist uttering those words. Months ago, she would have not even dared think about uttering such a confabulating sentence, a sentence meant to appease someone who she'd never completely understood.
"I believe you have no reason to thank me," he replied with his usual calming gestures, crossing his legs together, taking out from an inside pocket a cigar before lightening it up with a match from another hidden pocket of his.
"We both know that's a blatant lie" She'd thrown the stone, and now all that was left was for him to catch it and keep it close.
He smoked a little, the greyish smoke becoming one with the frigid air as he exhaled slowly, closing his violet eyes. He didn't offer her a smoke, knowing she despised that kind of pastime if not ordered.
But that gesture of his had made her realise something. That he'd caught the stone she'd thrown with his bare hands. On that, she had no doubts.
"You know how I've always viewed you, Rosalynde."
He killed the burning ashes of the cigar against the side of the iron bench, making the iron gently sizzle at the contact, a black circle appearing the more he pushed to kill the flame. Turning the now growing-cold cigar in his hands, his periwinkle eyes growing tired and gentle with each passing second.
She knew what he'd been talking about. She always had, and maybe because deep down that's what she always wanted to.
She was like a daughter to him. She was the daughter he never had a chance to hold in his embrace right after birth. The same daughter that had died with her mother at childbirth many years ago. Lord Regulus was a widow and would have died as one thanks to the love he still harboured towards his deceased wife.
"I do," she spoke those words without fear, her smile in check as he let out a solitaire chuckle.
"Of course you do, I never expected less from you. A vixen roaming around these large corridors at the tender age of five. When was it you broke that vase sent as a present from the Atrean Kingdom?" She sneered at the memory of her flying down the staircase railway and straight into the unpriceable ceramic vase.
Most of all, she remembered the hours that followed that minor controversial mishap, as the servants and court magisters trotted around the halls to localise and punish the culprit who'd committed such blasphemy.
Little did they know that the white vixen had already left the scene hours prior with the perfect walking alibi backing her unexciting innocent one could ever find – Lord Sternstorn himself.
"They never found me out," she stated proudly, her shoulders freeing themselves from the earlier tense moments as her smile morphed into a loose grin, the corner of her bright eyes straightening.
"Of course not. Not when I claimed you to be holed-up in my office learning how to write properly your name without making a mess of the paper for an upcoming banquet meant to celebrate the founding dynasty," she felt the King of Cards subtly throwing her a reminder to moderate her words.
She did not reply at that, not even with a light amused chuckle or any form of mocking sneer. A new branch of memories made their way inside her mind.
She barely heard him stand up from the bench while the memories hit her without mercy, the sole of his shoes digging heavy holes in the ground, her eyes slowly closing thanks to a gentle breeze who'd seem to sweep her many worries away.
"What is the lead you've set your eyes on?" Every gentle word ended there with his words. He'd shown her the rare side he had with very few predestined – his caring side, but that compassionate moment too, had ended in the void of the mind. Like a cord of a violin bent from the violinist till it'd snapped in two.
The cry of a faraway raven shook her to the core, grabbing the sleeves of her uniform with her gloves hands as the blessing of the wind graced the interior garden.
Lord Regulus still hadn't replied to her when a second raven's cry tore through the cloudy sky in two.
From the corner of her eyes she saw him grip the cigar of before with fury, easily snapping it in two as he tossed it on the ground as he crushed it with his shoe, rubbing it what looked like disgust, just to make sure it would have never been used again.
"I believe it's the work of a radical group which was just recently re-established," she tried to keep it simple as possible, calculating all the possible retorts he could have given her from that moment onwards.
"A radical group, you say?" He turned around once more, his short silver hair seemed to bask in the light, a splendid colour dangerously similar to her own.
She nodded her head in reply, casually falling into the stance she used with him when the Apostle's meeting came around. She knew he wanted to know more, and she would have told him everything if he would have ordered her.
It was the same as when with Pharah, she felt this need, the urge to obey to every single order he gave her without doubting it once.
Yet the order never came. A heavy hand falling on her left shoulder shook her back into reality. He squeezed her shoulder gently, patting it affectionately as he gave her an undetectable smile.
"Rosalynde," he spoke her name with such unsettling tender care, the patting on her shoulder stopping as they both stood still in the middle of the pebbles path rattled her bones to the core, their eyes clashing in a phantom dance.
"Yes? Lord Regulus?" She replied like a mechanical doll who'd just been charged with a key, the gears installed on her back rotating, the spoken words a greasing oil to facilitate her thoughts.
Rosalynde tilted her head aside, right before Lord Regulus took a calculated step forward, his heavy arm sleeves barely touching her skin as he preceded to pat her cheeks.
It was a stern touch. The authority seeping out like an overflowing river with each single contact his hand made with her rubicund cheeks, which'd grown red because of the frigid cold.
He paused to look at her, his long fingers gently caressing her cheek, like a father consoling his daughter after a bad day. "I consider you as my own daughter, Rosalynde." She knew that, she knew that so damn well that her once young heart had hoped to find a second chance at playing family with him.
It'd been a rumour at first, a banal tittle-tattle that had been circulating even since he'd taken her into the high walls and under the golden roof of the Imperial Citadel.
She knew he'd tried to bring her home with him during the first months, that each time he'd request a meeting with her Majesty, the answer would have been the same one, unchanging, unrelenting until he'd given up two years later; on the day marking her two-year stay at the palace as one of the many servants offered to the Crown.
"I know you do," she felt her voice tremble for the first time in what had been years, a feeble, broken sound unknown to herself trying to climb it is way up her throat with force, leaving a sore after back that no bandage soaked with Honeysuckle would have quenched.
She debated whenever to step away or if to reciprocate the affectionate gesture, but before she could settle on the answer, he pulled her closer than ever. The patting on her cheeks stopped, his large hand sneaking on the side of her head, gripping it tightly and pulling her closer to him before whispering words that made her blood run cold.
"Attention to the flower that once was unfairly burned by the flames fuelled with greedy. For they will stop at nothing to achieve their goal." She pulled away, her usual smile turning wry as she squared him from top to bottom.
How stupid of her, how absolutely idiotic of her to believe for all these months that the King of Cards knew nothing about Verity.
Of course he had. Lord Regulus had been walking on their land for twice her years. He'd been under the service of the Crown for more than twenty-five years, and yet the chances of him stumbling upon Verity had never crossed her mind once.
He'd encountered the what surely had been original Verity, the original members, the original Veritas before it been annihilated.
"So you knew," she said without containing her newfound growing anger.
"It seems you've underestimated me, Rosalynde. No record was kept on Verity after it was disbanded. The Apostles too were made exactly to counter their ideals, but those who encountered them just as myself still harbour the memories of those who tried to expose the secrets of the Crown."
The Crown, the glorious Crown, forged on the blood of innocent perpetrators and dust and sand standing as supporting pillars.
He said nothing for a while. He just watch her nerves rattle with anticipation, eyeing her appearance with trepid expectations.
"I had a hunch after a windflower was delivered on my desk a little more than two months ago," she choked on his words, side-eyeing him, smile thin and eyes wide. He continued after briefly smiling at her for-once-honest reaction.
"That's why I've been keeping my correspondence open with the Black Judge, who I believe you met a little more than a week ago. I asked him to grant you and Grey an audience, and by the looks of it, it seems that you have both more answers and question than before." She felt the urge to throttle him, to plant a bullet in his skull for keeping her in the dark.
"Anything else before I suppress you with my bare hands?" She threatened, her voice terribly similar to a wounded beast.
"Only that you need to keep your eyes wide awake for what's going to come next. And that you'll have to be quick in figuring out what their next move is going to be," he made it sound so simply, something even a child could do while playing tag or kickball in their yard surrounded by friends.
"Where do you suggest I start looking then? Under the piles of bones the Crown left behind for me to nibble at like a goddamn dog?" She prayed her lucky star that Lord Regulus was still in the mood of help her.
He thought for a while, the little cloud forming each time he exhale. From the corner of her eyes, she saw him turn his golden band adorning his left ring finger.
Rare were the times where he did that, she always thought it as a way to as help from someone who long ago had departed from their world, and even rarer the times where he'd done the action in public and not in the warm provided him from of his personal chambers.
"If you wish to retrace the steps of the Verity dating back to twenty years ago, you'll need to poke that little nose of yours in matters long buried under a pile of talks." His premise made a bucket of goosebumps tackle her skin, freezing it in an endless time cave.
"What do you mean by that?" She asked, burying her gloved hands inside the pockets of her immaculate uniform.
"Go where no woman has ever set foot before. Your search for the truth starts now," but he apparently wasn't done. Wetting his lips, he made his eyes wander astray of her face for a millesimal amount of seconds before ending their conversation.
"A word of advice, my dear. Pay attention to those who've been able to clay their way to your side, for not aways their words speak advice,"
"Who is it? Why are you trying to protect me?" She saw his stare turn kind, the end of his eyes dropping in a pathway, as if something had just brutally awakened inside of him. A memory, perhaps? A reminiscing part of a past he long had buried inside his heart?
Before she could ask anything related to that, he was gone, the sound of his shoes grinding against the stone pebbles as he forcefully pushed them away. Leaving her alone in the middle of the path surrounded by hundreds of blooms ready to awake from the upcoming spring.
Except she wasn't alone, for an amused voice then came from afar, surrounded by the smell of blooming winter flowers, gracefully accompanied by the same gentle breeze.
"Silver! I never thought of you as a nature lover. May I invite you to join me the next time?" She heard his footsteps closing the gap between them, and regaining her composure, she turned around.
"I believe we have places to be, Lord Grey," she felt the ends of her mouth tug higher at the mere mention of his name.
He too seemed to notice it as he slyly got hold of her arm, softly forcing the hand free of the warm of the pockets it'd been resting in and giving her glove a quick yet well placed kiss he invited her to spare him some of her time.
"We do indeed."