CHAPTER 36
POV - Azra'il
Rudeus stared at the ceiling for exactly forty-three seconds. I know because I counted.
〈Eos, is he going to speak, or is he going to keep making peace with the carriage's architecture?〉
[Active processing. He's arranging the available facts into chronological order. Should take another fifteen seconds or so.]
He was right. At second forty-eight, he looked away from the ceiling and at me.
It wasn't the look of a brother relieved to see his familiar sister in an unfamiliar place. It was the look of someone who'd arranged the available facts, arrived at a conclusion about who held relevant information they hadn't shared, and decided that person deserved a specific expression.
"You knew," he said.
"Knew what?"
"That Paul was going to send us away."
"I knew there was a possibility."
"And you said nothing."
"It wasn't certain."
Rudeus looked at me with that seven-year-old expression that had learned to communicate volumes without needing much vocabulary. It was the expression of someone arriving at a verdict.
"Betrayal!" he said.
"A strategic assessment of incomplete information."
"Betrayal," he repeated, with the conviction of someone who'd decided semantics wasn't going to change the verdict.
Ghislaine, who'd been watching this exchange with the neutral expression of someone observing a phenomenon of unknown nature, twitched an ear slightly.
I let Rudeus stay upset for exactly as long as he deserved. Which was, by my calculation, enough for the emotional impact to register without tipping over into actual resentment.
I grabbed his bag from the compartment beside me and dropped it in his lap without warning.
He caught it by reflex, with that automatic reaction of someone whose body responds before indignation gets the chance to speak up.
"I packed your things before we left," I said. "Your clothes are folded at the bottom. The reference books are wrapped separately."
Rudeus opened the bag with the still-sulking expression of someone who'd decided receiving the bag wasn't reason enough to change his mood. He rifled through the contents without particular enthusiasm. Then his fingers found the right-hand side pocket and stopped.
"Roxy's wand is in here," he said. "Wrapped in the cloth you use to clean it."
He pulled out the bundle with a care that had appeared out of nowhere, replacing his previous sulking at the exact speed of someone who'd found something that genuinely mattered.
"And in the inner compartment with the double clasp," I continued, in the tone of someone finishing an inventory, "your 'sacred relics' are protected."
Rudeus went completely still.
He opened the compartment.
Looked at the contents.
Looked at me.
Looked at the contents again.
Then he knelt on the floor of the moving carriage with a solemnity the vehicle's physics made slightly comic, and said, with the most brazen face he'd produced in seven years of existence in this cycle:
"I was never upset with my dear sister. It never once crossed my mind."
[He knelt approximately three seconds after seeing the parcel. The processing time was notably short.]
〈Devotion simplifies decision-making.〉
[It's one of the few advantages.]
"Get up," I said.
He got up with the particular dignity of someone who'd done what he'd done and concluded there was nothing left to explain.
"The wand," he said, holding the bundle with the care of someone handling something irreplaceable. "You remembered my wand."
"It's a gift from Roxy. Would it have made sense for you to leave without it?"
He squeezed the bundle lightly. He said nothing for a moment.
"Thank you," he said, finally, in the tone of someone who'd decided that word was enough and that anything more would be too much for the carriage to bear.
I nodded.
〈Ah, I've just remembered I left my own wand with Sylphy.〉
[I'd already noticed. You don't seem particularly concerned about it.]
〈I'm not. The wand's more useful in her hands than mine. I can cast perfectly well without it.〉
Rudeus, who'd stowed the wand in his bag with the precision of someone filing something away in a vault, looked at me.
"What happened after I passed out?"
Ghislaine opened her mouth.
"I argued with Paul," I said, before she could speak. I looked at Ghislaine with the specific look of someone communicating that this was the official version of events and deviations wouldn't be welcome.
Ghislaine closed her mouth.
Her ears moved slightly. She'd understood.
"I gave him a talking-to for treating you that way," I continued, turning back to Rudeus. "He felt guilty enough to let me pack your things before we left."
Rudeus was looking at me with the expression that communicated there was more to this story than I'd handed over, but that he didn't have enough data to challenge the official version.
〈He's probably suspicious.〉
[Obviously. But without evidence, suspicion is just suspicion.]
〈Precisely.〉
"A talking-to?" Rudeus asked, in the tone of someone testing the weight of the word.
"A talking-to," I confirmed.
He looked at Ghislaine.
Ghislaine looked at the window with that neutrality of an experienced combatant who'd concluded the scenery was of considerable interest at that particular moment.
Rudeus decided to accept it.
It was a few minutes later that Ghislaine produced the letter.
There was no ceremony to it, a folded envelope pulled from inside her jacket with the same pragmatism she'd used to deposit Rudeus in the carriage hours earlier. She set it in front of us with that economy of gesture I'd learned to recognise as her version of a formal delivery.
"From Paul," she said. "For the two of you."
Rudeus took the envelope. Turned it over in his hands. There was something specific in his face at recognising the handwriting on the outside, not exactly hurt, not exactly relief, but the look of someone receiving something from a source he was still working out how to feel about.
"Read it aloud," said Ghislaine.
Rudeus looked at her with the expression of someone who'd just received an instruction and was assembling the context around it.
"I can't read," she explained, with the same economy she'd used for everything else that day.
Rudeus nodded, without comment, with that particular quality of someone who'd decided that didn't warrant any reaction beyond acknowledgement.
Then he opened the envelope.
Paul's handwriting was exactly what you'd expect from a swordsman who'd learned to write as a second priority after learning to kill things, functional, direct, with the particular elegance of someone who'd stopped worrying about form the moment the content came out clear.
Rudeus began to read.
(Rudeus. Azra'il.
If you're reading this, Rudeus, it's because you woke up in the carriage without understanding what's going on, which means the plan worked. If you're reading this, Azra'il, it's because you decided to read along out of curiosity, or because Rudeus asked for help with some difficult word. I'm betting on both.)
Rudeus stopped.
"He's needling me right in the opening!" he said, indignant.
"Keep reading."
(I'll get straight to the point, because I know Rudeus is going to reread this three times looking for hidden meanings, and Azra'il will get impatient if I stall.)
(The two of you are heading to Roa, to the Boreas Greyrat citadel. Distant relatives, my uncle Sauros and my cousin Philip. Good people, with the caveat that Philip's daughter, Eris, has a reputation for being difficult to handle. You'll both be her tutors, Rudeus can take care of the magic, Azra'il handles whatever she judges necessary. About Eris's temperament: I've been warned. I've heard stories. But there are two of you, and if there's any pairing in this world capable of managing her, I'd bet it's exactly the two of you. Rudeus has patience when it counts. Azra'il has the ability to look at any situation and land on the most efficient conclusion. Together, you'll survive. Separately, one of you would have given up in the first week. I won't say which.)
Rudeus stopped reading for a second.
"He didn't say which," he said.
"He didn't."
"But he's implying it."
"Clearly."
He exhaled through his nose and continued.
〈Eos, Paul knows me better than I'd like him to.〉
[That's what happens when you spend seven years being transparent without realising it.]
(Ghislaine will continue your swordsmanship training. In exchange, the two of you will teach her to read, write, and do basic arithmetic.)
(On that specific point: Rudeus, I want you to know your sister will probably do better than you at that part of the job. Azra'il has more patience with people than you'd expect, and Ghislaine responds better to someone who doesn't look surprised every time she gets a letter wrong. Don't take it personally. Just a father's observation.)
"That's a reasonable assessment," I said.
Rudeus looked at me.
"You're not going to disagree?"
"Why would I disagree with something that's probably true?"
He kept looking at me for a second with the expression of someone who'd expected a different answer and was recalibrating. Then he looked back at the page with the air of someone who'd concluded nobody in that carriage was on his side, and that the only productive thing left to do was finish the wretched letter.
(The wages will go into an account I've set up with Philip. In five years, you'll both have enough for Ranoa Magic Academy, the two of you, plus Sylphiette, if she wants to go. The terms of the job, the details of the contract, and exactly what Philip expects of you, he'll explain in person.)
(One important thing: don't make contact with Vila Buena for those five years. No letters. No visits. I know this sounds cruel, especially for you, Rudeus, where Sylphiette's concerned, but the separation is necessary for her to grow on her own. You already know this. You just need to accept it.)
Rudeus had gone quiet with that particular quality of silence of someone who'd received a truth he already knew, one that didn't get any lighter for being said aloud.
I didn't comment.
I took the letter and kept reading myself.
(Ghislaine,
I know you're hearing this because you can't read, which means I'm trusting my children to read this part properly without skipping anything. Rudeus, Azra'il, if you skip this paragraph, I'll know.)
(Ghislaine, you're the finest swordsman I know. That hasn't changed. What's changed is that you're about to have two pupils who'll give you trouble in completely different ways. One of them will ask too many questions. The other will ask too few and simply turn up already knowing the answer, which is more irritating.)
(Look after them. Not because I asked you to. Because that's who you are.)
(Oh, and about that night at the campsite three days from Millishion, two years before I married Zenith: if you happen to remember what happened, know that I most certainly don't remember a thing. Selective memory is a blessing!)
Ghislaine had gone completely still.
Her fingers, which had been resting with professional neutrality on her knees, pressed lightly into the fabric of her trousers with the restraint of someone who'd received something unexpected and was working out whether she was angry before deciding.
"He wrote something about her," Rudeus remarked, in the tone of someone observing a natural phenomenon.
"He did," I confirmed.
"What do you think he's referring to?"
"A jab about some night at a campsite he claims not to remember."
Rudeus looked at Ghislaine.
Ghislaine looked at the window with that particular intensity of someone who'd found the scenery extraordinarily fascinating for the past thirty seconds.
[Her right ear sits slightly lower than the left. A sign of contained irritation, based on the pattern established over the past few hours.]
〈That's Paul being Paul even on paper.〉
[Apparently distance doesn't reduce the effect.]
There was one last part. Smaller. The handwriting slightly different from the previous lines, no less steady, but with that particular stroke of someone who'd written the rest with ease and had reached this part needing to think before starting.
I read it quietly, more to myself than to Rudeus.
(Azra'il.)
(You said what needed saying. In the way it needed saying, a rather painful way, mind you.)
(I won't defend myself. I'm not in any position to.)
(What I will say is that I know the account isn't settled. And that the work still to be done is mine, not yours.)
(Look after your brother. You've already been doing that for years. I only thought it was time someone acknowledged it instead of treating it as a given.)
(- Paul)
I folded the paper.
I put it in the inner pocket of my bag with the movements of someone who'd decided it would stay there and that there was nothing more to do with it for now.
Rudeus was looking at me.
"What was in that last part?"
"A message from Paul."
"Just for you?"
"Just for me."
He stayed quiet for a moment, weighing whether there was any ground for asking more. He'd learned, across seven years of living together, that certain angles of my silence had no opening.
This was one of them.
"You all right?" he asked, with that simple version of the question that doesn't demand an elaborate answer.
"I'm fine, Rudeus," I replied, giving no further room for pressing.
The carriage carried on.
Outside, the road had changed character, less open field, more building rising against the horizon, the specific signs that the distance between us and Roa had stopped being abstract and become measurable in minutes.
"There," said Ghislaine, with that economy of syllables, tilting her head towards the window.
Roa appeared on the horizon with that quality cities have once they've existed long enough to hold convictions about themselves, walls, towers, the particular bustle of a place where a great many people had decided this was where they'd stay.
Rudeus stared with the expression of someone seeing, for the first time, something he'd only ever imagined.
I stared with the expression of someone who'd arrived at the beginning of something else.
〈Eos, log the arrival.〉
[Logged. Current life cycle, year seven. Location: Roa Citadel. Status: in transit towards a new chapter, in the literal sense and the other one.]
〈You're being poetic.〉
[Occasionally I allow myself.]
The carriage descended towards the gates.