Book 2 | Chapter 11 | Let the Rain Wash Away

“Lillia, show me the sword,” Gerand repeated. She still hadn’t turned to face him since he’d asked the question the first time.
Everyone knew the feeling as soon as they were old enough to understand their parents’ tone. That feeling that the truth would get them in trouble. For everything parents said about lying, there were a lot of situations that encouraged it.
Lillia summoned Hooke to her hand and held it out to Gerand. “Here. This one?”
He barely glanced down at the weapon. The pouring rain kept his overgrown bangs plastered to his forehead. “It wasn’t the Makreaver that I saw earlier, I know that much.”
“Wasn’t the point to get to that fire?” Caelum asked as he walked close enough to feel the tension in the air. He looked back between Gerand, who was stiff, and Lillia, who was trying very hard not to be. “Why aren’t we going there?”
Lillia dismissed Hooke and ‘dusted’ off her palms, which really just splashed rainwater around. “We are. Gerand just—”
Gerand had his sword out again, pulling the Captain’s Sabre out of his belt and pointing it toward Lillia. It wasn’t a threat yet, just a reminder that it could become one. Threatening to threaten.
“Gerand.”
“I just want to see the sword again,” he said.
There was pressure on Lillia’s throat, lingering on the same spot where the Usurper Lord’s Cloak used to rest. Where it used to burn after she’d narrowly avoided death. She didn’t know which way that pressure was pushing her, but she didn’t like it.
In the end, she hadn’t been making friends in the dungeon with lies. What had Cathria called it back then? Sympathy and doe eyes?
She always had the doe eyes, and she wasn’t sure how to garner sympathy here outside of being a princess that was obviously miserably wet.
Whatever the strategy should have been, she summoned Vianaffir to her palm and held it out for Gerand to see. The blade almost sang as it flashed into existence, ringing steel cutting through the din of the storm, but even it couldn’t win against the crashing sea.
The crab shifted under them. Raindrops splashed on the broad side of the blade. The leather wrapped grip soaked through and began to drip.
Gerand, for his part, just stared at the sword. It was a blank stare. The kind Havoc had when Lillia made him speak about something in his past he’d been trying to hide. He reached out for the blade for a moment, but Lillia wasn’t quite in reach and neither of them closed the distance.
“What’s going on here?” Caelum asked. As he spoke, the crab shifted again under them, almost enough to test their footing. “Shouldn’t we be going?”
“There you are,” Lillia said once she’d shown the blade for long enough. With Gerand silent, she pulled the sword away from her little game of show-and-tell, flicking the rainwater off and holding it properly at her side.
Before she could dismiss it, Gerand spoke.
“Where did you get it?”
“Left to me by an old friend,” she said. Openly lying was hard. Half-truths? That was what Lillia had always been trained for. “First weapon I had in the Dungeon.”
“You keep talking about a dungeon,” Caelum said.
“Kid,” Gerand began. He hung his head now, the rain washing off his eyelashes. “We’re part of a Dungeon challenge. Neither of us are real people.”
“If I were part of a dungeon challenge, you’d think I’d know that,” Caelum said. “And how would you know that if I don’t? We were both on the ship together, weren’t we?”
“Seen that blade before. It’s from the outside,” Gerand said. “Don’t know when I saw it, but—” His gaze flicked down to Vianaffir once again. “You said a friend gave that to you?”
There was hurt buried deep in his eyes. Lillia couldn’t tell whether looking at the sword was hurting him, or if it was the idea of it being put away.
“A knight,” Lillia said. “A nameless knight.”
The crab shifted again. This time it was almost violent.
“Knights give pretty ladies swords all the time,” Caelum said. “Now enough with this dungeon nonsense. I don’t know what happened to the rest of the crew but if all of this was for the fire then I want us to at least get to the fire!” He reached over for Gerand first, but tugging on that man’s sleeve wasn’t enough to move him. “Once we get to that damned fire I can forget any of this ever happened and find another ship to earn some coin on.”
“Forget what happened?” Gerand asked.
“Aye. I’d like to. This storm was bad enough, and then that damned lady showed up—”
“Come on,” Lillia cut in, “you’d just called me pretty.”
“And now my ship is scuttled. I am on a crab, and neither of you are making any sense considering, somehow, we’re all alive!”
“You go on ahead, kid,” Gerand said.
“Oh! No, no. I don’t need the fire. I don’t know what the fire is about. She was the one who needed the fire. She was asking all about it!” Caelum pushed into the space between Lillia and Gerand. “So we’re all going to go walk over to the fire together, and you two can talk about whatever’s up with that shiny sword once she’s done what she needs to do.”
The rain beat down harder than it had been before as Gerand stared over Caelum’s shoulder to Lillia. His hand drifted to his right hip, his thumb barely touching the pommel of the Captain’s Sabre.
If only Lillia hadn’t given out so many charity blades.
Gerand pressed his chewed thumbnail into the metal. Lillia focused on the idea of a [Tantrum] directly over Caelum’s shoulder if he tried to make a move.
This time, when the crab shifted, Lillia almost lost her footing. Just as she was about to fall, she shoved Vianaffir back into her inventory. Caelum stumbled as well; Gerand stood tall.
Lightning flashed across the sky, and the booming thunder that followed crashed between all of them as Gerand lunged forward, aiming to pin Lillia to the floor.
“Gerand!”
“Don’t take it away! Show me the sword!”
“She already did.” Caelum was in between Gerand and Lillia before he could pin her. The small boy shoved him to the side, and he slid along the water-slick deck of the crab, falling end over end as the beast continued to lean to the side.
“Go to the fire, Lillia!” Caelum said. He reached out to help her up, offering a hand that she ignored as she leapt to her feet. It hadn’t been much of a rest, but it had been enough. She could run.
Lillia took off toward the Hearth and the flame swelled as she approached. Sparks rose from the fire and fought against the rain as they ascended. The smokeless fire called her.
Behind, the deck cracked and splintered as Gerand stopped his fall by stabbing the Captain’s Sabre into the wood. Steel rubbed against metal as Caelum drew his blade, keeping a careful eye on Gerand, before stealing a single glance over at Lillia.
She was almost there. Then she would have the Hearth and she could find her way back to the third floor. She could use the Hearth of Memory or the Castle Hearth to get back here. She could see Havoc again. She could—
Steel clashed on steel. Lillia turned just as Gerand was tossing Caelum to the side.
“Lillia! Don’t take it away! I need it!”
She kept running.
“Please!”
The desperate plea was almost enough to stop her.
Caelum rose up behind with a wild swing, which the skilled fighter easily blocked and countered.
Lillia froze.
Gerand stopped with his blade an inch from Caelum’s throat, holding onto the boy by the collar of his jacket. He kept his eyes trained on Lillia as she slowed.
Then he let go of both his sword and Caelum, falling to his knees before Caelum could even stumble backward. That was enough to stop her.
“I’m sorry,” Gerand said, barely loud enough to be heard over the wailing winds. “I’m sorry, just please don’t—It’s the only thing—I don’t know why—” he kept starting a new sentence of lament only to lose it in another.
Behind him, Caelum waved for Lillia to keep running. His eyes kept flicking over to the fire, reminding her of their goal. While Gerand was saying it, he simply mouthed the word. “Please.”
Lillia was close enough to the Hearth now that she could feel its heat. She could step back toward it whenever she wanted to activate it and take advantage of the rest…or whatever else this one would allow her to do. She had time to make a bad decision—or a kind one. Possibly both.
She summoned Vianaffir again. For the second time, the blade rang out clear and true when she called it to bear, something it hadn’t done since her battle with Eisel in his realm of stained glass.
Gerand looked up. The dark circles in his eyes deepened as he looked at his reflection in the blade. Then, a small cut opened on his cheek and began to spread. Blood mixed with the rainwater as he stared at the weapon, slowly becoming a torrent down his jaw and across his neck.
If he noticed it, he didn’t care.
Caelum stared at Lillia, but then grabbed Gerand when he noticed the spreading wound. He tried to turn the man away from the blade, but he wasn’t strong enough.
She wanted to shove the sword away, but she knew it would just begin their fight anew. Instead, she reached into her inventory and pulled out something else.
[Key Item: The Note from Sir Nobody]
Lillia threw the note and bottle together across the deck of the ship. It rolled to a stop at Gerand’s feet.
This man had recognized the name Havoc, but he hadn’t known from where. He had seen Vianaffir and wanted it more than anything.
People lost their memories in the dungeon.
As the bottle rolled to a stop, Gerand pulled his gaze away from Vianaffir for a moment to stare at it. He mouthed a word Lillia couldn’t read and reached out for the bottle. The moment his fingers brushed against the glass—
There was no other way to describe it. He split down the middle.
Blood poured from Gerand’s centre as he flopped down in two, neat, perfect halves. Caelum screamed. Lillia screamed.
The crab didn’t scream. It was mostly wondering what the hell was happening on its back.
Lillia almost stumbled backward into the fire. The moment she was close, the message popped up in her vision.
[Scenario Survived!]
[Returning to the Dais Hearth!]
[Dais Hearth Unlocked!]
[Yay!]
Lillia’s next stumbling step backward was into the void, and she tumbled out into the black, leaving the storm, the rainwater, Sir Nobody and his note behind.