Chapter 40:
Broken Heart and a Contrite Spirit
(NOTE - Contrite: feeling or showing sorrow and remorse for a sin or shortcoming. I really love this word for Silas :D The past chapter title, this title, and the next chapter's title are all linked)
With the autumn sun still high in the sky, Holland Joey and Vaan led Meredith and Silas quickly in the direction of the Ivory Inn. The distance between the inn and the hotel Beau had taken Silas to was some distance away. Walking through the empty streets of the normally bustling city, Silas felt somewhat awkward, feeling that the few stragglers in the roads were staring at the strange group of men walking in the middle of the road.
As they began to near the front of the Ivory Inn, Silas looked up at the large in with an interested gaze, looking over the large, intricately decorated white building. The large doorway in front of the inn was wide enough to accommodate a large group at once, and Silas thought to himself it was a beautiful building, if not a little wasteful.
Meredith stood to Silas's right, still in his regal human disguise. Standing between the armored Holland and Vaan, the pair looked as if they had hired guards to travel with them as they returned to their accommodations, appearing like high-class nobles from the capital. Though their travel clothes were simple, the air around them was chilly and distant, making some of the wandering townspeople take a second glance at the group.
"Lady Eva will be here any moment to greet us." Vaan said flatly, nearing the side of the building with a stern expression. "We can wait here for her." Behind them was the marble fountain, spouting out clear water from the small spouts on the statues. The cherubs stood with their chubby arms in front of them, holding pots of ivory in their small, delicate hands. Water poured out from the inside, making it look more regal.
As they had time to spare, still walking to the elves' side, Holland turned towards Silas to strike up a small conversation with the two now that there was time. "So, you're the famous nephew, right?" Holland joked, pointing his thumb towards Silas teasingly.
"That's me." Silas smiled shallowly, not feeling in the mood to chat. His body was still sore from the fight with the captain earlier, particularly his swollen cheek. Fortunately, using his mana, he was able to dull the forming bruise, but he was unable to dull the panging pain as it healed itself.
"It's nice to finally meet you! Mary here told us all about you." Holland bantered, chatting away with a relaxed atmosphere around him that made Silas, who was somewhat tense, calm a little. "I'm Holland, by the way. The scary one there is Vaan. He's really dependable." Vaan did not look over, his face still frozen with indifference, making no attempt to introduce himself to the troublesome young elf.
Silas rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly as he responded low. "Silas." He answered shortly, "It's nice to meet you." Silas nodded his head towards Holland in greeting. Holland smiled at him, attempting to clear the tense air a little.
Seeing he was still anxious, Meredith patted Silas shoulder with his palm reassuringly. Silas looked up to Meredith, who had a small smile on his face. "Don't worry about the captain. Just focus on getting back safely, alright? Nothing will go wrong."
Silas felt relieved with Meredith's reassurance. They were already so close to regrouping with Eva. Once they were able to gather, they would follow the plan and travel to the outskirts of town, just outside the city walls to the abandoned flour mill where their supplies and horses had been carefully kept with an informant of Eva's. The mill was overrun and dilapidated, no one would suspect a group of rebels would meet there, let alone so close to Cailith.
While Silas was lost in his thoughts, Meredith kept walking forward as he reached into his pocket to retrieve the conversation stone. Holding the stone in his open left palm, Meredith glanced at it while running his fingers over the stone with a gentle brush of the tips of his fingers, infusing his mana to prepare to message Eva, relaying to her that they had arrived and were waiting at the established location for her. In his hands, the stone lit up with a light blue haze, making it look like a simple glow stone or other shiny item.
As the group began to approach the side of the building, they caught the eye of the group of young women, still holding their flower baskets in their hands, attempting to sell the last of their flowers to the passersby wandering in front of the inn. Without a second's waste, the most vocal young woman was the first to call out to them like a young man catcalling to a group of young women.
"Excuse me, young men!" A skinny young woman with messily braided hair ran towards the men with an excited gaze as she waved her hand, holding a wicker basket of wildflowers. Her dress fluttered in the wind, and her worn shoes tapped on the ground as she ran towards the group excitedly. Followed behind her were two other young women, one tall and one short, standing off only a few feet behind her with her equally happy expressions. "Would you like to buy some wildflowers?" The girl with the braided hair stopped in front of the men, her gaze fixed on Meredith and Silas in between the two men, looking as if they had some coin on them.
"No," Vaan was the first to respond, not even batting an eyelash as he shooed the girls away with his cold voice alone.
The two girls stood back some distance away, still within ten feet of Holland and Vaan, their expressions somewhat stiff at the expressions of the armored men. With the expressions of the guards, they felt as if they would be forced back if they were to run and approach the two nobles like they had the other passersby and guests from before. Standing back, they felt the chill of the guards' stares lighten.
"That man in the middle, the brown haired one… do you think he looks a little familiar?" The short girl asked, holding the detailed sketch in her hand as she rested the wicker flower basket in the crook of her arm. Holding the drawing up, she gazed down at the elf in the photo, and then back at the man, her expression quizzical.
Leaning over the short girl's shoulder, the tall girl moved her hair behind her ear to get a closer look, her eyes looking down at the elf in the photo before looking up at the man. "I don't see it. One's a human, the other's an elf. They kind of have the same eyes, don't they? Maybe they're related?" The girl thought aloud, asking her companion with a raised brow.
The young woman standing in front of the group was persistent. Her eyes moved over from the guards to the two young, handsome men in the middle. Her eyes sparkled over as she acted cuter than before lifting her arms and placing her hands under her chin in a cute pose as she begged them in a sweet voice, "Please, don't you want to buy at least one flower?" She blinked, brightening up the surroundings with a sweet, twinkling light, "It's such a good gift for a special someone."
With the young woman there, their mission was delayed, and Meredith's previously polite expression fell slightly as he held the stone in his closed fist. He moved his eyes over to Vaan, as if asking him aloud to get rid of her. Anything that could harm the mission would be eliminated.
Vaan stepped forward, looking down at the girl with an icy stare. The young woman quickly took a step back, edging closer to her friends standing slightly away. They immediately became alert, watching closely over their friend. The young woman refused to give up though.
While the girl with the curly hair stood, distracting the men with some interest, the other girls were watching not far away. As they stared on, the short woman raised her brow as she stared at the group.
"The more I look at them, the more I think they're definitely suspicious." She glanced at the ball in the basket, covered with a small blanket, before she glanced up to her friend and whispered, "Maybe we should use the signal?"
The taller woman thought for a moment before she discreetly nodded in agreement, "That nobleman told us he would buy our baskets if we found someone similar to this drawing. What do we have to lose?" The short girl nodded her head before holding up the drawing in her hand one more time. She then reached into the basket and retrieved the object given to her by Clarence. "Might as well use it."
While the two young women were talking quietly amongst themselves as they stood off to the side, Holland's eyes were on the two as he listened from a distance, catching only half of their words as they chatted. As he watched their lips closely, it was not hard for him to piece their conversation together. Holland could only hurry to look at Vaan and send him a heavy glance before he turned hurriedly, scaring the young flower seller in front of him as his expression quickly changed as he turned back to face her.
"We don't want your flowers. Leave." Holland's tone suddenly hardened as he moved back towards Meredith and Silas with an expression Silas had not expected on the man. Holland's eyes were narrowed into slits, and he roughly began to move Silas and Meredith with a push on the back, trying to move them forward to get them out of the young women's views. As he glanced up, his eyes immediately focused on the short girl's hand, stuck in her flower basket. Vaan was quick to move as well, smelling the strange scent effusing from the basket.
"Careful!" Though there was some distance between the group and the girl with her hand in her basket, Vaan and Holland moved as if it were a weapon in front of them. They grabbed Silas and Meredith by the arms and moved them behind them as they ran backwards, closer to the south end of the building. The girls, seeing their reactions, were somewhat scared, even the girl, who yanked out the strange, round object from her basket.
The flower seller held the object tightly in her palm, and, in one swift motion, moved her wrist upwards, launching the circular object into the air. The group of people watched as the object flew high into the air, before there was a loud popping noise, and a large, colorful, flag-like cloth shot out in all directions, covering a small part of the sky above with fabric and color confetti sprinkles that rained down nearby.
With the combination of the popping sound and the colorful confetti raining down, it quickly caught the attention of nearby passersby, who began to walk over to see what happened. As a small group began to form around them, Holland swore under his breath and the flower sellers glanced nervously at each other. Shaking his head with some irritation, Vaan began to direct the two elves forward, towards the empty shopping street.
The flower seller standing near the group tried to stop them as they moved away from her, but Vaan roughly pushed her out of the way. She fell to the ground with a cry, and the other flower sellers hurried over to her.
"You brute!" One of the young women yelled as the two helped their friend to her feet. None of the group answered as they hurried away, trying to make their way through the forming crowd. Vaan and Holland began to roughly push people out of the way, but their progress was slow in the small area with a growing crowd.
As Holland and Vaan tried to hurry through the crowd that had surrounded them, the sound of frantic footsteps quickly caught Silas's attention as he attempted to move through the crowd with Meredith, who kept a tight grip on him. Finally, the small group broke through the crowd to the front of the Ivory Inn.
The area in front of the Ivory Inn was still empty, as many of the viewers from Eva's show were watching a small after-performance by the hotel staff as the performance room was being cleared. The stones underneath Silas's feet felt as if they were weighing him down with them, making his body feel as if it were no longer his own. Clenching his fist in his hand, Silas was pushed behind Vaan and Holland Joey with a heavy push from the pair, who had already lifted their swords and pointed to the strange young noble in front of them, preparing to cross swords, with his sword already high in the air, prepared to attack.
"I saw him!" The familiar young man yelled, his sword shining in the light. His blue hair was gleaming brilliantly in the sun, and his demur outfit was unable to hide his noble blood, "Send him out now! Or I'll kill you too!"
Meredith looked towards Silas, who's complexion had turned pale and clammy even under the heat of the sun. His eyes moved over his nephew's poor complexion and trembling hands as Meredith gazed at Silas, waiting for the question he already knew the answer to.
Silas's voice was weak as he muttered, "That noble… that's the prince." It had been ten years, but Silas could not forget the face of the child he had almost murdered, from the dark, navy blue hair to his bright blue eyes, full of fright that day as Silas held the sword over him. The boy's cheeks were stained with fresh tears, still soft with baby fat, and his eyes were wet and wide, full of disbelief, with a fragile air that made Silas unable to kill him.
Having seen the adult prince at Theresa's as he and Meredith attempted to escape, these feelings had resurfaced, becoming more real for Silas. Now that there was time to stare at each other, face to face, rather than a passing meeting with only a short gaze. There the prince was, a tangible being, no longer haunting his dreams like a festering flesh wound that had healed over.
Now, it was a freshly reopened wound.
Standing in front of him now was that same boy, his hair still a shade of navy, and his face still somewhat soft with youth, but the eyes that Silas peered into from the short distance between them was not full of fear or frailty. Rather, it was full of rage, a seething hate so palpable Silas could feel the young man's eyes burn his skin, just as the dagger had burned his palm as he attempted to strike down and slaughter the child prince.
No matter how long it had been, Clarence had promised to himself he would never forget the elf's name, the elf that had betrayed him, the elf that he had thought was his so-called martyr.
"I finally found you, Silas." Clarence's voice was low and gentle, still tinged with the softness of a young man. Standing tall in front of the group, staring through them as if he and Silas were the only ones standing there, he held his sword out, pointing the tip in Silas's direction. He then smiled a smile quite unlike the gentle grin displayed by the prince. His eyes were dark, and his face was oddly contorted, "Come out, and let's finish what we should have finished ten years ago."
…
Thank you for your patience! I apologize for the delay. One of our cats has been impeding my work a little by sitting on my lap and wanting to cuddle (haha). Also a huge thanks to Hunny for editing this for me ♥ This chapter was almost delayed due to some things, but thankfully we were able to finish last minute so you all can see Clare and Silas together again =u=; If you want some good reading vibes, check out our YMtK list on spotify here~!!
Also, some seriousness! I wanted to say that now that the seasons are changing, and my work is ending, I may have more time for a while as I am between jobs until May! >u<♥ While that's good, I suffer from seasonal depression during the summer, and it makes it incredibly difficult for me to really function and get work done. Though it has made me able to write many compelling things, it also has taken a toll on my mental state in return. Just writing this is giving me anxiety.... I will be asking for your guys' support even more now, as your encouragement does greatly help keep me going!
That being said, Hunny and I will going on a trip next month, as well as possibly moving, so there may be some future delays, but we will try our hardest to make those as minimal as possible! Please check us out on discord to keep up with our latest information, and hit that ko-fi button if you want to provide us with more incentive! Liking the chapter is another way you can help us!
Thank you all again for reading and enjoying YMtK. It means more to us than we can express ♥
Much love ♥♥ Cat