Chapter 15 - It matters to me.
Aren opened his eyes and saw nothing in front of him but thick fog, which filled a boundless dark expanse where the only light came from a single unfamiliar source far above his head. A sound of water stirring beneath him brought his face down at once, to where it lay across the floor and rose to his ankles.
Then the tattoos across his skin began to glow, the light strengthening to an even blue that spread over his whole body. He turned his palms up and studied the shining runes for a long time, trying to understand what was happening and where he was.
Suddenly the ground under him shuddered with a heavy footfall out of the darkness, and from that same place the water ran outward in wide rings that reached his legs from the far side. He turned and narrowed his eyes, peering into the thick fog and trying to make out anything at all, until three eyes opened above its upper rim, and Aren flinched from them and fell into the water, catching himself on his hands behind him, water splashing out around him.
A moment later another pair opened on either side of those three, then another, and another, until six colossal silhouettes had formed in front of Aren, every one of them turning its gaze on him. Aren's heart was hammering hard enough to burst out of his chest at any moment, while the shapes stood motionless, until one after another they began to lower their heads.
He sat there watching, his face more lost than before, until a familiar voice came from above.
"He's going to be all right, isn't he?" Elara's voice came down to him with an echo, out of the source of light, and Aren raised his head towards it.
"There are many wounds, and he has lost a fair amount of blood, though he managed to stop the bleeding by means of restorative magic. I fear his body is too depleted," an unfamiliar man's voice answered.
"Fortunately, his gift took my energy willingly, and the body has already begun the work of recovery. He needs time to come round."
The instant he lowered his eyes every one of the beings was gone, and at once he was casting about, turning on his hands in every direction and finding the same thing everywhere, water and fog and silence, while the glow of the tattoos slowly went out.
Meanwhile Bernard stood in the doorway, his shoulder against the stone jamb, breathing out hard through his nose. The room was small, with a low ceiling and a single window that looked out onto the castle's outer courtyard.
Aren lay unconscious on a wooden bed against the far wall, while the Archiater stood over him, putting his instruments away in a leather case. Bernard looked at Elara, standing at the head of the bed, the skin under her eyes still red where she had rubbed away tears that had dried some time ago. Then he moved his eyes to Leo, sitting on the other side of the bed with his hands hanging between his knees and his stare fixed on the stone floor.
The Archiater closed the case, gave a short nod and made for the door, while Bernard stepped aside, held the door for him and followed him with his eyes. Looking at Elara again, at her motionless back and her lowered shoulders, the smith pressed his lips together, drew a deep breath, let it out and turned towards the corridor.
"I'll go and find something to eat."
"All right," Elara answered without turning her head, still looking at Aren.
Bernard waited a moment longer, then went out into the stone corridor, where other knights were passing at an unhurried pace, and set off towards the gates of the outer courtyard. He walked without haste and paid no attention to the doorways, though one of them made him take a step back and glance inside, where Sir Alistair Sterling stood in the middle of the room with his hands clasped behind his back, watching Hart in silence where he lay unconscious on the bed.
Bernard lingered a few seconds, breathed out through his nose and was about to move on when a question came from behind him.
"What, not even a hello?"
Bernard stopped a step past the doorway and shut his eyes, his jaw tightening for a moment, clicked his tongue quietly, then turned back and went into the room.
"I didn't want to pull you out of your own thoughts."
"There's nothing to think about. The idiot asked for it and he paid for it," Sterling answered without turning.
"And even so, your face is grimmer than usual, Alistair," Bernard said, coming closer and turning his eyes to Hart.
"This whole business will do nothing but stir up unease among the people, and in the Order most of all. And on top of that it gives Aisengard one more reason to think poorly of us," Sterling answered.
He shifted his gaze to Bernard and studied his face for a few seconds.
"Well now. You've grown old."
Bernard frowned around a nervous grin.
"I'm only thirty-four. And if anyone here has grown old, it's you. Especially since you took over the Order."
For the first time in a long while Sterling smiled a little and dropped his eyes.
"It has been ages since anyone spoke to me that way."
The smile went a moment later, when he looked at Hart again.
"I have a bad feeling, Bernard. Like before the Battle of Augenstadt."
"Well, we won that one," Bernard answered, scratching the back of his head.
"We won, and at what cost. We lost our king, the previous head of the Knights' Order and thousands of good men."
Bernard said nothing, his eyes not leaving Hart where he lay unconscious, and the silence in the room held for a few seconds before Sterling spoke again.
"Who is that young man?"
Bernard moved his eyes to Sterling, then back to Hart.
"He's... family."
"And how long have you had black-haired men with runic tattoos and unknown magic in your family?"
Bernard was quiet, choosing his words before he answered.
"He turned up about half a year ago. Elara found him on the bank of the Golden Flow, unconscious, with no memory and no knowledge of this world at all."
Sterling did not answer at once, and for a few seconds Bernard watched his motionless profile.
"Has he remembered anything?"
"Nothing... nothing yet..."
Bernard looked away, at the grey stone of the wall, going back over the duel, the sure way Aren had slipped the blows, the measured stances and the blue dome of magic.
"I see," came Sterling's answer, bringing Bernard back out of his thoughts.
"I hope he recovers."
"The Archiater said his body has already started to mend. He'll come round soon," Bernard answered.
Sterling turned, put his hands behind his back and walked past Bernard to the door.
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"Glad to hear it. I'll give him my thanks in person later."
Once Sterling had gone, Bernard kept looking at the empty doorway for some time, then turned his eyes to Hart on the bed, and finally dropped them to the stone floor. He stood like that for a few moments before he went after him, off down the corridor towards the gates of the outer courtyard.
Aren meanwhile went on walking through the fog, trying to find a way out, until a small clear space opened in front of him with a body lying in the middle of it. He came closer and stopped dead, looking at his own lifeless body.
Aren came closer still and sank down, resting an elbow on his bent knee, and studied the motionless face of his double for a long time. He looked around, brought his eyes back to the body, breathed out slowly through his nose and lifted his head to the source of light hanging high above him.
What the hell is going on?,,,
He lowered his eyes and reached slowly towards the chest of the lifeless body, to the place where the lines of the runic tattoos ran together into a single point. Every moment between his palm and that chest stretched out, until his fingers finally came to rest on it, and in the same instant the tattoos on both bodies flared blue.
He raised his head and saw the light above begin to spread, filling the whole space and swallowing the darkness, until white was the only thing left in front of his eyes.
The next moment he opened his eyes to a wooden ceiling in a room he did not know, where the walls were laid up in grey stone, and to the right of the bed Leo was asleep with his cheek against Elara's knees, while she stroked his head and watched the window without looking away. The moment Aren stirred she turned round, then came up out of the chair too fast to catch Leo, who jerked and lifted his head in fright.
"Aren!"
She rushed to the bed and stopped right at its edge, pressing her hands into the blanket and taking care not to touch him more than she had to, so as not to hurt the wounds that had not closed.
"Where... am I?" he rasped.
Elara did not answer, though her eyes had already filled, and she lowered her head onto the blanket and pressed her face into the cloth. The quiet held for a few seconds, then she lifted her head, sniffed and let out a breath.
"You're... you're in the knights' barracks. The Queen gave orders to bring you here and see that you were looked after... Aren, I..."
She broke off, pressing her lips together and lowering her face.
"I thought you were..."
Leo sat beside her, moving his hand quietly over her back, barely holding back his own tears. Aren tried to raise himself, but a sharp pain put him straight back down, and Elara's head came up.
"You need rest... please. Try not to make any sudden movements."
She wiped her cheek with the back of her hand and breathed out, while Leo stepped closer to the bed.
"You jumped off the stands. Straight down into the arena, to that knight who challenged the Aisengard woman...You started fighting and…you were holding your own against her… as if you had always known how to fight like a soldier…but then she aimed that magic weapon of hers at you and…"
Leo broke off for a second, rubbed his forehead and went on.
"You shielded yourself…with magic…Your tattoos were burning, and a round wall of blue energy came up in front of your hand and snuffed out her shot completely…When she saw that, she surrendered on the spot, and you…you passed out."
Aren gave no answer, looking into the boy's eyes, then down at his own hands wrapped in cloth.
"And that knight…" Aren said, fragments starting to come back to him.
"He'll live," came Bernard's voice as he walked into the room with a sack over his shoulder. He set the sack on the table, put his hands on his belt and looked at Aren, then at Elara and Leo, satisfied that they felt better now.
"Mm. Elara, leave us. Not for long."
Elara nodded after a beat, then took Leo by the hand and left. Bernard stayed where he was with his hands on his belt and stared at the stone floor, while a heavy silence filled the room.
"Bernard, I—" Aren began.
"WHAT kind of an IDIOT do you have to be to pull something like that?!" Bernard cut in, his eyes coming up to Aren by slow degrees.
"Do you have any idea WHAT YOU RISKED?! We asked you! You said you understood! So ANSWER ME — WHY DID YOU DO THE EXACT OPPOSITE?!"
Aren was silent and could find no words.
"You could have died, Aren," Bernard added quietly.
"She was a trained fighter and a damned strong one, and even a skilled knight of the fourth threshold would have been no match for her. Tell me, did you really decide to risk everything for a man you don't know, without finding out who you are, without reaching your goal?! To die like that?!"
Aren let the pause run, turning Bernard's words over, then raised his eyes.
"Yes. And I have finally moved a step forward," he answered, and the smith went still.
"I risked it because I felt… that I wanted to step in. That I didn't want to let her do what she was about to do. Something inside made me jump down."
Bernard listened, and his face began to change little by little.
"When I took the first blow… when I felt myself in danger… I had that strange feeling again. That pain inside. The same as when I first spoke. And during the fight every action of hers, every movement, was to me like every word that surfaced in my head when I woke…" Aren went on, more of it coming back to him with each second.
"Bernard… when the shot hit me… I felt something I had not felt since the moment I woke. And I understood that for the last few months I had been living in a fog, that I had completely forgotten what I am here for... I've been living as though your family were mine. But that isn't true. I'm not one of you. I don't know who I am. I don't know how I got here or why. I don't know whether I even have a family."
Aren fell quiet for a moment, his eyes dropping to the blanket over his legs.
"And when I got up… that pain… that feeling of being lost… all of it reminded me again how alone and lost I am in this world."
"You are not alone!" Bernard answered, stepping forward.
"Yes, you weren't born in our village. Yes, you weren't one of us, but you became one! And it doesn't matter that you—"
"IT MATTERS TO ME," Aren cut him off, his voice rising.
"I can't just live quietly knowing I have no past. I can feel it tearing at me. How badly I want to know — WHY IS THIS HAPPENING TO ME! WHAT ARE THESE RUNES?! WHY DO I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT THIS WORLD?! WHAT IS THIS MAGIC AND WHO AM I?!" Aren burst out, his eyes beginning to fill, though those small, sharp movements answered at once with a burning pain through his whole body that made him clench his teeth and drop his head.
Bernard did not answer, his brows drawn together, watching with a pulling ache in his chest while Aren wiped the tears away slowly and carefully.
The door opened suddenly and Queen Edith came in, and behind her Sir Aurey Dane, who took up the nearest corner of the room. Bernard began to bow his head, but the Queen raised a hand at once.
"Don't."
He straightened, and Edith turned her eyes on Aren, who swallowed in that same moment.
"So your name is Aren."
Aren nodded, while the Queen took a chair, dragged it to the bed with a short scrape of stone and sat down directly in front of him.
"So, Aren. Sir Alistair has already told me that you are an unknown young man who turned up on the bank of the Golden Flow half a year ago. With no memory. With no knowledge. With runic tattoos," she began, running her eyes over the runes at his neck.
"Y… yes," Aren answered.
She held the pause without looking away, then set her elbows on her knees and leaned a little closer.
"Then tell me, where did you learn to fight like that?"
His heart stumbled, and Aren looked round at Bernard, standing behind her and looking back at him with no less confusion.
"I… I learned it during the fight."
Aurey narrowed his eyes, while the Queen sat without moving, her gaze not leaving Aren.
"During the fight itself… And the magic, did you learn to use that during the fight as well?"
He nodded, trying not to look away.
"And how did you learn it, when the person you were fighting had a different kind of magic?"
Aren faltered and looked at Bernard again, then brought his eyes back to the Queen.
"Bernard… he explained to me how magic works for the knights of the Order. I tried to use the same thing… only it came out differently."
Aurey turned his eyes on Bernard, who for his part was working not to react.
"And how did you know you had magic at all… that it behaved in a similar way… and that any of it would work?"
"I felt it… I felt that it might work."
The Queen's silence stretched out, and the weight of her stare on the boy with it, until she breathed out through her nose and drew back against the chair.
"I see," Edith answered, rising slowly and going to the door.
"Thank you for your honesty," she added, and the door closed behind them.
Aren let out a breath, his heart still in his boots, and then looked at Bernard, who had nothing to say.
Beyond the closed door Edith walked down the corridor, looking ahead of her, putting a question to Aurey as she went.
"What do you think?"
"I imagine you saw for yourself how badly he was on edge. And Bernard with him," Aurey answered, half a step behind her.
"Bernard… Ever since Alistair's report I haven't been able to place that name," Edith said, turning her head slightly towards him.
"Bernard, son of Onluf. A smith out of Golden Flow now, and before that a skilled warrior of the Mountain Wolves company, who came through the Battle of the Divine Ridge. He fought alongside us during the awakening of the Cursed Forest."
Edith looked at the floor without slowing her step.
"Now I remember… He's the one who talked about some terrifying warrior who cut down his whole company single-handed, along with both armies, ally and enemy, in that battle?"
"Yes. After that he left soldiering and became a smith. By Alistair's account the memory of that day tormented Bernard for a long while, until he finally put his axe aside. He was never able to produce any proof that this warrior existed, though. Hardly surprising that after what he had seen he began imagining such things."
"I see," Edith answered thoughtfully.
"And what about the young man with the tattoos?" Aurey asked.
Edith walked on in silence for a few seconds more, and only then answered.
"A great deal in his story and his answers doesn't add up… But…"
She stopped and looked out of a window that gave onto the castle's inner courtyard.
"What troubles me is that I saw not a drop of deceit in his eyes. He was telling the truth."
Something shifted in Aurey's face, and he looked out of the window too, standing beside her.
"And unfortunately, the Aisengarders saw it too," Edith added.
"You believe the Aisengarders have an interest in Aren as well?"
"I don't believe it, I know it. Vector Fray was plainly trying not to let it show, but reason it through and it isn't hard to see why Lieutenant Schtance surrendered the moment she saw Aren's magic, when she had every chance of finishing that fight in her favour… Back when I was still a wandering warrior I learned that the Aisengarders have long been obsessed with finding a source of energy that could improve their technology and bring them closer to world domination… and I would wager that after seeing what Aren did…his death would be an extreme waste to them, or as they like to put it, ‘an inefficient solution.’"
The corners of Aurey's mouth lifted a little.
"You seem to have got a good grasp of the Aisengard vocabulary already."
"My late husband would have said exactly the same…what a shame," Edith said with a smirk, walking on.