This is dedicated to @sparrowed for being an awesome waffle and following me since the beginning! Stay awesome, Mia!
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Chapter One Hundred and Fifteen: Premature Blessing
The bomb had been dropped.
Have you ever seen a cat notice a mouse and go utterly, utterly still, like even the rise-and-fall motion of its breathing might send the mouse running for the hills? Gus did that, as unbending and cold as a statue despite the sudden inferno swirling in his eyes.
Xaphile pressed his lips together and tried not to squirm under the man's gaze, unseeing and unbreakable, but then his composure did break and his lips moved.
"You what?" he slowly demanded. "What did you just say?"
Xaphile sighed. Gus stared at him with enormous jade green eyes and a bone white face.
"You what?" he repeated, not blinking even once. "What did you just say?"
Xaphile's stomach tightened and he finally lowered his gaze to make eye-contact.
"I said," he softly murmured, "I think I'm beginning to fall in love with Ellameira Rochard."
Gus put a hand to his forehead and clenched his jaw.
"That cannot be," he growled. "Your behavior towards her... you cannot be honest."
"I'm being more honest with you right now than I've been in weeks," Xaphile countered, then turned away and looked at the trees with a tight mouth. "I'm not ready to face these feelings, or even Ella's feelings... that much is true, but I do know what falling in love feels like."
Gus pinned him with an unamused expression. "How long have you felt this way?"
Xaphile opened his mouth to reply. He realized that he didn't know the answer. He closed his mouth again.
"A few weeks," he said at last. "I don't know how to explain it. It just happened somehow."
"Your relationship cannot be consecrated," Gus hissed. "It is illegal for interracial relationships to take place! That includes you and Ella, Xaphile, regardless of your position! If you go through with this and remain close to her, you will be putting her at risk! She could lose everything!"
"I wouldn't let that happen," he sharply shot back. "Everyone has said countless times that I'm apparently some sort of royal with more political power than the king. Doesn't that mean, technically, that Ella is safer with me than she would have been otherwise?"
Gus stepped forward and placed frantic hands on his shoulder.
"You're forgetting that there are other crimes at play here, too," he protested. "Vrael Daael, for example! If it is discovered that he is a halfling, all of us will be implicated in a very nasty situation! Ella is already being put in harm's way just by being near him!"
Xaphile hit his limit in that moment.
He was sick of everyone bringing up Vrael's heritage, as if him existing were actually a crime. His irritation rose and he growled, but the stillness did not shatter since he kept the noise inside his chest, where it rumbled up against his throat like a miniature earthquake.
Gus instantly jerked away from him with an alarmed expression.
"He's not a criminal, nor are his parents," he said, speaking very carefully. "I understand why you're so worried, but we do have ways to get around the laws your king put in place."
"And how do you plan to do that?!"
"Why do you think Sinmir's taken him under his wing?" Xaphile hissed, making Gus stare with blank green eyes. "He's decided to make him a legal citizen of Adanac, Gus! And as long as Sinmir is around, nobody can touch him because he's now legally under the service of another country's prince. That puts him, and us, completely out of harm's way in that regard."
Gus's face sagged slightly.
"You've found some shocking loopholes for the Daael boy to work with," he muttered, shaking his head with a faint expression of relief; then his face hardened, "but even if Sinmir is the one protecting Vrael and, at a stretch, those of us without political power, the king is still a tyrant."
"I've been getting that for a while now."
"Take it seriously," Gus countered. "He is a dangerous man, Xaphile. If you really want to remain by Ella's side, you'll have to dedicate a portion of your life to helping her change this country's laws, which basically means you'll have to challenge the king of this country as a fellow ruler."
Xaphile drew back and stared at him, eyes wide as he pondered that.
Could he really do something so bold? Challenge a king, and a tyrant at that?
"Do I really have the power to do something like that?" he questioned, feeling a little disheartened when the man furrowed his brows. "Am I really capable of changing things in this country like everyone says I am?"
"You are, Phil," Gus confirmed, nodding once. "That's why you're so important. You and your younger brother, as far as we're aware, are the last two primordial sprites tied to the South, and you are also the son of Olagrell. That's what makes your political position so valuable."
"What does my father have to do with this?" Xaphile asked, frowning. "I thought he gave up everything when he went to live with my mother in the south."
"Quite the contrary, based on what I know of his interactions with Count Rochard," Gus murmured softly, green eyes glinting, "back when he was alive... if I'm not mistaken, your father was the King of the Nimikan Forest. He ruled your people, which makes you a prince."
It was like a brick had been dropped on his head.
That moment of clarity, which had eluded him for so long, smashed into him heavily.
He suddenly felt awake, as if he'd been asleep for a long time.
I'm a prince on Atlas, he silently muttered, feeling totally boggled. I'm actually... a prince.
It shouldn't have come as a shock to him, considering his aunt was the queen of the east, but one hell of a shock it was. He was inadequate as one, that much was for damn sure, but he was in fact someone who could change the world he'd woken up in for the better.
Or even for the worse, if he wanted.
He actually had power.
A lot of it.
It was only then that he realized the full depth of the danger he was in.
He would need to be really careful in the future.
"What will you do now that you've recognized your own feelings?" Gus inquired, making his tail fluff out in alarm. "Will things change between the two of you?"
Xaphile shook his head, wary of the man's motive for asking.
Gus nodded, then muttered, "So... so it's not like the two of you will, you know, be doing anything... binding, in the days to come."
Xaphile's face soured. "No. I'm not even ready to accept my own feelings yet. I only told you because you're the one person who needs to know right now."
The man's blonde brows rose into his hair. "Why do you say that?"
"Because you're the only one who's been actively against Ella's advances on me," he muttered, looking away with a snort. "I haven't told anyone else, because I'm not ready to face what I know is happening. I'm still confused, and I don't fully know what I want yet."
"Do you see yourself having a future with her, someday?"
Xaphile couldn't look at him after he heard that, because it had already taken most of his courage to admit how he was feeling, and it had already reduced him back into a blushing mess. It was too soon to ask something like that. It was too much for someone like Ella to—
"Do you?" Gus demanded, leaning forward and gripping his arms. "Tell me!"
The hands on his arms tightened imperceptibly, pulsing for a second. Xaphile thought heavily, backtracking over the changes taking place in his relationship with Ella Rochard, and all of the ways she was working her way into his life. The way she was overtaking his misery, day by day.
The answer to that question was simple, but it still hurt him a little.
"I don't know, since I can't see the future," he said quietly, closing his eyes in defeat, "but... if she still loves me by the time I'm ready to face things... I think I we might, Gus."
He couldn't help but tense after he admitted it because oh my god, had he just said that out loud? The slackening of the blonde man's hands confirmed that he had.
"So you do," the hunter muttered. "I am extremely surprised by this, though."
"Don't get me wrong, I need time to figure myself out, and it's still way too soon to talk about things like relationships," he frantically added, tone laced with frustration. "I'm not going to sit here and promise you anything about the future since Ella and I aren't even adults yet."
That caught the man off guard, but he recovered quickly enough.
"Smart move," Gus agreed. "I'd almost forgotten about how young you are, and it's quite easy to forget that the Countess herself is only fifteen. We'll have this conversation again when things aren't so tense... perhaps when you're both a little older. We'll put it aside, for now."
Confusion made Xaphile frown. "You mean you're not angry?"
"At what?"
"That I'm not willing to promise you anything about Ella."
"I don't approve of you being together with her yet," Gus admitted. "You've only known each other for three months, and... well, you're still struggling with your own personal demons. I agree with you: you aren't ready to face these feelings you have, and I won't allow you to face them until you know what you really want. Only then will I entrust her hand to you."
"Wait, so... you're not going to tell me to stay away from her again?"
"No," he muttered, shaking his head in resignation, "I will not."
"Why?"
The question slipped out of him before his brain caught up, but Gus wasn't offended.
"She is a very young ruler, Xaphile," he sighed, running a hand through his hair. "She took her father's throne long before she was ready to handle the responsibility, and even now, she has no real power to defy the king's wishes alone: she can only do that if you back her views."
Xaphile's already irritable mood soured more than a little.
"Because of my position, right?" he muttered. "Things are making a little more sense thanks to some of the things that I've learned over time, you know."
Gus's face twisted slightly for a moment, then closed his eyes. "It's not just because of your political position."
"What other reason could there possibly be?"
Instead of answering right away, the man turned and looked off at the trees, green eyes hazy.
"You're the only one who's ever managed to reach her heart and even come close to starting the process of allowing her to heal," he said thickly, rapidly blinking back a wet sheen that suddenly appeared across his eyes. "That is why."
Xaphile stared at him. "What do you mean?"
But he already knew.
He knew what Gus was referring to, even before he opened his mouth to speak.
"Ten years ago, in the days after the attack on Chisago," the hunter quietly warbled, "Amelia revealed that Ella had been talking with a demon. Everyone turned on her like a pack of wolves. It was not her fault, but the people of the city needed something, anything, to blame."
His heart went bone cold. "Oh, my God... are you saying that they---"
"They did," Gus interrupted. "She was subjected to their hatred for years. It tore her heart to pieces in the beginning, and she suffered, hard, but that suffering led to ways of trying to make recompense for what she believed was her fault. It wasn't the attack that made her like this."
It was the villagers, Xaphile silently finished, stunned. Oh, my god... they were the ones who... damn. That would definitely explain the strange relationship she and Amelia have with each other, too.
"I'll never forget the day she took her place as the countess," Gus said softly. "On the morning of her tenth birthday, she ascended her father's throne amidst the booing of Chisago's people, and afterwards, during the party held in her honor, she slipped off and went missing for the rest of the afternoon."
Xaphile recognized this as an opportunity to learn more about her.
"Where exactly did she go?" he asked. "Did you ever find out"
"Aye, I found her on the ruins of the old clock tower in the marketplace. The words she said to me back then... and the look on her face while she'd said them... that moment still haunts me to this day. I'll never forget it as long as I live."
"What did she say?"
When Gus turned and gave him a very pained expression, Xaphile's ears flicked in reluctant curiosity.
"'I can't forgive this world. It keeps turning like nothing's changed, even though all I loved is gone. Next time, it will probably swallow me up and destroy me,'" he quoted, then shivered and added, "'but if destiny wishes to kill me, then I will control it, starting with this town.'"
Xaphile could only stare after hearing that.
"So that's how this all started?"
Gus gave him a grim look when he muttered, "aye. The next day, she had all the people who'd booed whipped and thrown into the stocks to set an example. She became merciless to any who opposed her and refused to listen to anyone. It was then that she began training with a sword."
"God. Why would she protect people like that? She devoted her life to protecting them!"
"As I said, she wanted to set an example. On the same day that she punished them, she announced that she would take up arms and protect the South lands on her own power, but she also said that if anyone opposed her, she would execute them herself."
"Seriously?!"
"Aye. And I'll never forget that day, because it was then that I realized we were the ones responsible for turning her into what she is. People were so blinded with their anger that they actually forgot that Ella had been suffering just like them, but by they time they'd realized their mistake, it was five years too late. Too late to apologize, too late to change her coldness."
The two of them were quiet for a while; only the sound of the breeze filled the air.
"Ever since that evening, I've been thinking, 'what's the best way to protect her?'" Gus muttered, running a hand through his hair. "The most reliable way I could think of was to let her do as she wished with her new political power. Anyone she considered an enemy, she banished from the Southlands, indiscriminately, and even when there were no enemies close by, she didn't stop."
"She didn't?"
"No. She began leading attacks on the demons in the area outside of Chisago. She destroyed miles upon miles of forests, burned them clean to the ground without mercy and without care to the animals or even the people who might be traveling in them."
"Are you serious?" Xaphile asked, heart sinking into his stomach. "She actually did that?"
"She did indeed. At some point, she had become a broken child who could not even see the harm she was doing to the world around her. I thought that as long as she wanted to live, I didn't mind her feeding on hatred to do it. That's the way I meant to protect her, but I was wrong."
Obviously, Xaphile silently ranted, the way he handled that was completely unhealthy.
"Then you came along," Gus muttered. "You were the first to get through to her. To make her realize what she was turning into."
Xaphile started, drooping ears flicking up in shock.
"What?" he asked. "Wait, what do you---"
"I will press no further on this subject, seeing as how you've decided to protect her," Gus interrupted, giving him a softer look. "I am still very much against this, but the truth of the matter is that you can protect her better than she can protect herself. Don't disappoint me."
He felt shocked since the man seemed sincere, not blinking or looking away or anything of that sort.
Xaphile processed his words and expression, and yet, he still found himself at a mild loss for words.
The thought of everything that Ella must have gone through made him feel... well, sad.
Really sad, in fact.
"I'll try not to," he eventually mumbled, backing off a step. "I'm... gonna go bathe now."
"One more thing," Gus said, giving him a slightly more hesitant glance. "I've something to give you tonight. I've been working on it for the duration of our stay here, and I believe it will serve you well once I'm able to make the proper adjustments to the sizing."
Xaphile's curiosity was piqued, but he decided not to ask what it was since he didn't really have much motivation to speak after what he'd just been told.
"See you when I get inside," he murmured, turning and heading off with a flick of his tail. He really didn't know what else to say. He felt oddly depressed after being given such a clear dose of reality, and it had really brought down his mood.
He didn't spend too much time in the hot springs, sensitive as his body was.
He washed himself, slicked his hair back, and toweled himself off with his own trousers since he'd forgotten to grab a towel before getting in. He was in the middle of pulling them on when Ella appeared from around the cover of the rocks, went red in the face, and retreated.
Sorry, she silently told him, making him jump. I didn't realize you were still changing.
Uh, I didn't even hear you arrive, he told her, peeking over his shoulder and quickly pulling his pants on. You can come back now. I'm fully dressed.
She poked her head out from around the stone, then scowled slightly and came into view, black cloak fluttering around her slender form. She glided across the grass towards him on feet that made no sound, white hair drifting around her cheeks in the breeze.
She was a beautiful individual... almost unrealistically so. It was hard to believe she could have gone through such horror.
Guilt for the secret he was keeping locked away from her ate at him a little bit when she lifted her head and looked up at him intently, fuchsia eyes meeting his own.
It was like something clicked.
His toes curled as a sudden, almost unbearable fragrance hit his nose and he swallowed hard, jaw clenching as a hot flush seared through his body. The scent consisted of soap, faint steel, and something slightly floral, all mixed with sweetness of the best kind.
He swallowed a second time.
There was a strange intensity in Ella's face as she gazed up at him.
"Are you sure you're all right?" she asked, tucking her hair behind her left ear. "I've been feeling strange sensations coming from you all morning."
Her voice seemed to have a color and radiance all its own.
"I'm fine," he said in a low, hoarse tone that sounded nothing like him. "Really. My body's just acting funny today, that's all."
She nodded, then gave him another intense stare and stepped forward, hair billowing behind her as she wrapped her arms around his middle.
He tensed since the smell in the air intensified, but the moment she embraced him, the strange tension within him calmed down in a wave of soothing coolness.
It spread from her body to his like water and he relaxed.
"Ella?" he questioned, tentatively brushing her back. "What are you doing?"
"Hugging you," she snorted, giving him a momentary dead fish stare; then her expression fell and she set her cheek against his bare chest. "I felt a strange amount of sadness from you a little while ago. I don't know what made you feel like that, but it bothered me."
He let loose a deep exhale of dismay, and against his better judgement, he tentatively returned the hug.
"It's easy to forget that my feelings aren't just mine anymore," he muttered. "Thank you, though."
She was warm, but that warmth vanished when she pulled back and shook herself off.
"You may sleep the day away, if you wish," she said curtly. "We're all going to be lazing about to save energy for traveling through the forest."
Xaphile closed his eyes.
He had a serious question that needed to be answered.
"How are we going to find my little brother?" he asked. "If what I've heard and learned is the truth, we can't just go asking around, can we?"
"No, Xaphile," Ella confirmed, giving him a nod. "We can't, since that would draw attention to us as a group, and that wouldn't be safe for any of us. We'll have to be smart about it. I have a few ideas up my sleeve, and I'm fairly certain that everyone else does, too. We'll find him, I promise."
"Then what?" he questioned, not liking the way she paused. "Where do we go from there?"
"We'll cross that road once we reach it," she said, frowning at him. "We have two goals right now: finding out what happened to Amelia's father and rescuing your little brother."
It was his turn to pause.
"I thought our goal was to find a dream walker."
"I've decided to forego looking for another mage who can use the magic," Ella told him, shaking her head. "Dimitri Von Dolan has a wide range of knowledge on many forgotten magics, and among those is Dream Walking. Plus, reuniting the two of them... it would be good for her."
He could understand that.
Ella suddenly snatched his wrist.
"Come. Let us go inside."
"Eh?" he scoffed, blinking as he was dragged across the grass towards the lodge. "Slow down!"
"Not a chance!" she shot back, throwing a fiery grin over her shoulder. "Speed up, you turtle!"
He scowled, but his reaction only made her laugh.
Suddenly, he wasn't even irritated.
God, he silently mourned, she really does do whatever she wants.
Not that he really minded as much as he used to.
After all, somehow, some way... things were slowly, but surely, changing.
For all of them.