After the invasion, reconstruction began.
It was a pattern that had been repeated since the beginning of time. The devastation of war and then rebuilding. But it was very easy to rebuild stones and bricks, human souls were another story.
When you had lost everything, it was easy to become an animal.
Desmond found a few of those animals on a woman in an alley. No need to say what they intended. Nor share the details, it was an embarrassing memory for him. Suffice it to say he saved her. But not without help.
He couldn't even handle a few civilians who had lost their minds. If Christina hadn't arrived to lend him a hand, he'd be dead now.
Of course, he was glad the woman had been saved, no matter what.
That he had arrived before they could... No one had been there for him when he needed it most, not even Abigail, but he had managed to save someone and that was enough. It really felt like it.
Still, it was embarrassing that in his current state he couldn't even take care of four or five civilians.
If he could have a normal life, he would accept it. He didn't hate his own weakness. He hated the idea of his loved ones risking their lives while he could do nothing but stand by. He hadn't been able to fight civilians who didn't even know how to fight. In a real fight against these demons, he'd be dead before he could blink.
When they got home, Desmond stood in the doorway. He put a hand on the door. He needed that support. And he needed to breathe, even if it was just a little.
"Is something wrong?" Christina's worried voice. Desmond looked back at her. Surely his eyes were clouded with fear, for the girl seemed to be able to see right through him. Seeing that what really had him like this was more mental than physical. Still, he didn't look away. He couldn't look away no matter how much he wanted to.
Desmond suddenly longed to tell her the truth, no matter how scared he was. Maybe he just wanted someone to understand him. But he knew he couldn't tell her. As soon as he told her, the way she looked at him would change forever.
For better or worse, it would change. And he couldn't live with that. It was the last thing he needed when he felt like the world was crashing down on him, like he was in a room whose walls were slowly closing in on him. He couldn't live with that, period.
"I'm fine." One more lie. Christina and Amy had opened their hearts to him. He knew the power that threatened to devour Christina's own identity. He knew about the man whose shadow had forever clouded Amy's life. Meanwhile, what had he done?
He had told them about the war. About the disaster of that day ten years ago. But so what, wasn't he keeping too much locked away in his chest?
Did he have the right to call himself their friend when he hadn't even gotten to the starting line?
Christina accepted his lie. They entered the house. It wasn't whole, but they'd been luckier than most. A few holes in the ceiling weren't that big a deal.
——
"Hey... You're safe now. You have nothing to fear," he whispered gently.
After that, he dared to put his hands on her shoulders. That didn't make her look at him. She was as if in her own world. Taking refuge inside herself.
"Sorry you had to go through this. I want you to know... "The words came out awkwardly, hurriedly, but they came out. They were not the words this woman needed. And he hadn't even said it right, in a tone that would put anyone's mind at ease. "That none of this was your fault and they weren't entitled to anything. And..."
So what? He faltered.
He was bad at talking, he'd readily admit that, but he thought there were no words for it because that's the way it was.
At least he got a reaction. The woman looked back at him.
A look... less glazed over than the last. A little more outside than inside herself, if only a little.
"Thank you," she said.
Thank you?
Thank you for trying.
Maybe that was all anyone needed. Someone by their side, willing to give it a try.
The city lay in ruins. The hearts of its people too.
But...
People could always rebuild, right? And walk towards a better future. Maybe there was hope.
Maybe they would be okay. Brick by brick.
——
He had done well, hadn't he? He had done well. But for some reason he just felt like throwing up.
Maybe because those words had been directed more at himself than at the woman. An act of indulgence, not compassion. Maybe.
Then, he remembered something he had said at the first stop. They hadn't left the woman alone, of course. They had walked her home.
"It feels good... to be useful. To part with someone and be able to think they're going to be okay.
That was true, but he liked to think it wasn't just that.
Even though the conversation that followed was rather unpleasant. On the way back, Christina had opened his eyes. He had believed that they arrived before the worst would happen. But even that was enough to be the worst day in someone's life. Especially after the invasion, after losing so much. The sense of security was perhaps the most important.
Security. Most people trusted the world. It wasn't something they needed to do to move forward, but something innate in human beings at best.
Even if intellectually they understood that anything could happen, that any day could be the end of them, they didn't really understand it until they went through a traumatic experience.
Then they went from carefree to the opposite extreme. Jumping for every shadow. Maybe the woman, Eva, had known she should be careful around men. But only now did she understand what it meant.
Christina had called it the dangers of being a woman. Desmond couldn't deny that he had been a little offended by that.
He found Abigail in the living room. She was asleep on the couch, or at least her eyes were closed. Amy would perhaps be asleep in her own room. Or she would have gone out. She liked to help. She felt guilty if she just sat there, like everyone else.
Frankly he would feel guiltier for walking among them. He could have stopped this and hadn't. It didn't matter that it wasn't his fault.
What was it Christina had said, on the way back? Ah, yes.
"The gods are cruel. It seems humanity was designed to fail. It only takes a moment of evil to cause a deep wound. Good people, on the other hand, can spend years striving to clean up messes without seeing any fruit for their efforts."
Destroying was easier than building. Like a plant. For it to grow, it needed to be watered regularly. But for it to wither, it was enough to leave it forgotten.
How right she was.
Desmond approached the most important woman in his life. She wasn't asleep, after all. She opened her eyes straight away, and he doubted he had woken her with such light footsteps. As soon as she saw him, her face lit up, as it always did.
His too. It was hard not to be happy when you were greeted like that. Who didn't like it? To know that you were loved, that you made someone else happy with your mere presence?
"Good morning. Again. Where's the crutch?"
"I lost it."
In someone's eye, to be exact. Christina had saved him, but before that he had killed one by sticking the crutch in his eye. He couldn't be proud of that, though he knew it was beating the odds in his current state.
"Anything I need to worry about?"
"No. It's already taken care of." He didn't like lying to her, and there was no reason to. "I found a woman who was going to be raped. I tried to help, but Christina saved us both."
"I see," Abigail replied simply.
"Are you going to tell me I shouldn't play the hero?"
Like everyone else, he added to himself.
Like Charlotte even, if she knew. She would soon find out, if she hadn't already, but not from his mouth. They hadn't spoken for quite some time. Since the invasion ended, in fact.
Weeks, that is. Weeks already. How quickly time passed. Even important things went by in the blink of an eye. It wasn't hard for him to feel a knot in the pit of his stomach, thinking those things as he looked at Abigail.
"You don't have to play the hero. You are a hero."
Desmond blinked.
His cheeks flared.
Abigail's next words put his feet back on the ground.
"But I'm not going to lie and tell you I like what you've done. You could have died."
He could only say:
"I'm sorry."
"I know you're really sorry. Since I know you're not the kind of person who can look the other way, anyway."
Still lying on the couch, she stretched her hands upward. Towards his face. She stroked his cheeks lovingly. Still, Desmond shuddered. Perhaps, because he had somehow sensed her words.
"We can fix this any time you want. Kill me and you'll be strong again. Stronger than ever."
Desmond was only silent, sinking slowly into the red wells that were his eyes.
Red wells like a bloody moon.
Ever since those eyes had seen him, his fate was doomed to be written in blood. But in whose blood? That was still up in the air.
The blood of his enemies? Of his dear friends?
Her own blood?
Or Abigail's?
These weren't the only questions floating in the air. Desmond realized vaguely that he expected an answer, here and now. The question had hit him like a hammer, leaving his whole body numb.
He had worried that it was already impossible. Not to save himself that way, but to save her. But if she was proposing that, then it would work, no need to ask. He supposed once it was done, the transformation preparing him for immortality, there was no turning back.
He grabbed Abigail's hands, making her stop stroking his cheeks. He didn't shake them. He lowered them. Without looking away, looking more determined than he felt.
"No. It's too soon."
Abigail's expression didn't change one iota. She couldn't help but wonder if she was disappointed.
Or worse, scared. His life was full of danger and now he didn't have a body that could take it. It wouldn't be strange if he was killed one of these days. That wouldn't just take away a loved one, it would take away her chance to die.
Two thousand years. Two thousand long years. She had all the hopes accumulated over an unthinkable length of time pinned on him. To call it pressure was an understatement. For both of them, and yet she accepted his decision quietly.
Maybe he was right about her, after all, and it wasn't just what he wanted to believe.
Maybe what Abigail really wanted wasn't death, but life.
——
A few days later, they received a letter from Charlotte. Not written by her, surely, but at least in her own words. Anyway. The content of the letter was a couple of sentences, and it didn't say anything concrete. Apparently it felt too risky for her. That's why she wanted to talk in private, inside the palace.
The only information the letter contained was that it had something to do with him.
It was not difficult to imagine what it was about. But he was under no illusions. Charlotte believed it was worth calling them to the palace, but that didn't mean she had anything substantial. Not even that she herself believed it. Naturally she would be desperate for any solution, any way out.
Inside the palace, they were directed not to the throne room, but to her chambers. He supposed he should have seen it coming. Abigail went in first. She pushed open the door, nothing more. It was unlocked, yes. Odd.
Inside... Charlotte was waiting for them, sitting on the edge of the bed. Not only was she in her pajamas, she hadn't even bothered to comb her hair. There was another detail that bothered him, but he couldn't tell which one.
"I'm glad you're early."
"What have you got for us? I hope it's good," Abigail said.
Charlotte got out of bed.
Desmond understood at last. What had bothered him the moment he walked in, even more than her unkempt appearance, so uncharacteristic of her. The paintings were gone. Even the one painting she had of her parents that she treasured so much.
Bad. Something bad was going on here. He regretted it, and was ashamed of the time he had spent without going to see her.
He could imagine how it had happened. Imagining Charlotte losing her mind within these suffocating walls and destroying all the paintings with her own hands. As she let out screams that no one could hear. Alone. Drowning.
She went to the bookshelf and from there pulled out a long piece of paper which she unwrapped on the table where they had talked so many times, while she drank tea and he whatever.
He felt nostalgic, all of a sudden.
It wasn't as if those moments couldn't happen again, though, could they?
In any case, the paper turned out to be a map.
"You see..." she began, and couldn't finish. She rubbed her eyes with one hand.
No wonder she had barely been able to sleep these past few weeks. With all the weight of the kingdom on her shoulders. Of her losses, and the responsibility she had, the enormous responsibility of building for the entire kingdom a path to the future. It was enough to end someone twice her age.
"A map of the Lapis region. What does this have to do with anything?"
He hadn't paid much attention because he never got his hopes up in the first place. But now that Amy was saying it, it was a little weird. Why bring out a map like this?
He wasn't hopeful, but curious.
"You guys have gotten into the habit of constantly interrupting me," Charlotte pointed out. The truth was, they didn't treat her with the respect a princess deserved half the time. They were very casual with her, though it had never bothered her. In fact, she had told Amy just the opposite, not long ago. "Let me finish."
Amy, embarrassed, ducked her head. Her cheeks flared. She had nothing to be ashamed of though. It was no big deal. For a girl with an upbringing like the one she'd had, she supposed it was different. She didn't want anything to do with "that man" or her past, but things like that left a mark. Maybe forever.
Or maybe they just didn't live long enough to leave it behind, like Abigail.
Maybe it was terrible in more ways than one that human beings lived such short lives.
"Oh, yes. I'm sorry, princess. I just..."
"It doesn't matter. The plague a few decades back... The official story is different, but it was stopped by one man. Five years ago, that man disappeared into this region. We lost sight of him. If there is someone who can cure Desmond, then...."
"It will be him," Abigail said, finishing the sentence for her.
Interrupting, well, just for the sake of interrupting.
Desmond wished Abigail wouldn't show so clearly that she didn't like Charlotte, for whatever reason. But he had never dared to say anything.
And this time was no different.
Charlotte grimaced, but didn't take the bait.
"That."
"It's true that it's not much. A lead that was lost five years ago. Colder than a corpse," Abigail continued.
The healer who had put an end to the worst plague in history.
It was certainly a great feat, but that didn't necessarily mean he was capable of healing him.
The poison that had coursed through his veins, raping, ravaging, shattering, was something new after all. Something brought into the world by the golden masks.
No one knew how to treat it. Not even those who had created it in the first place.
Maybe he would be able to figure out how. But for that man to find a way, they had to find him first. It was a lot to assume, after so many years.
For all they knew he might be dead by now.
"If you have a better idea?" Charlotte said.
Abigail shook her head. He had to admit he was the same way. He didn't like this plan, but it was better than the alternative Abigail had offered him not so long ago.
"It's worth a try, at least. Thank you," Abigail said.
"It's my duty. You don't have to thank me. Speaking of which, I'll make arrangements for you to get underway as soon as possible."
Her duty. Protecting the kingdom, recovering their greatest weapon, when they were losing the war. Cold and to the point. All business. But Desmond didn't want things to be like that between them.
"Can we talk alone?" Desmond asked.
Charlotte looked up from the table, from the map, for the first time since she'd pulled it out.
"Okay. But make it quick."
The three of them left them alone. Even Abigail went without a word.
"What do you want?" asked Charlotte.
"You know," he began, hesitantly, half worried that they were listening behind the door. "Catching up. We haven't seen each other for half a month, Charlotte."
"Catching up?" She sounded confused, of all things. He supposed it was better than anger.
"Yes. I'm... worried about you. I want to know how you're doing. I mean, you can't be okay, no one's okay, after.... all this... But..."
How clumsy.
How stupid he sounded.
One step forward, two steps back.
"I'm sorry. I don't know how to say it, but I want to be there for you, now. I care about you. I consider you my friend."
"Oh, yeah? Is that why we haven't seen each other for half a month?"
Straight to the point again. Merely stating the facts. No anger, no bitterness. Maybe it would be easier if she were angry, after all.
"I felt... overwhelmed. I was afraid to come here. I know that's not an excuse. I understand now that I was very unfair. I, at least, have Abigail and my team. I left you alone, when you're up against so much more than me."
"Look, you don't need to complicate things."
"Excuse me?"
"If I hadn't been useful to you, you would have cut my head off at our first meeting."
It was very sudden. He didn't know what to say as usual, but now it was worse. It felt like an eternity ago. Desmond didn't even feel like the same person.
"That's not true. I only did it to buy time, I wasn't serious."
He had been prepared to fight, but he wasn't a traitor. He would never have killed the princess of Albion. Even then, and now she mattered to him personally.
"In any case, I use you and you use me. No need to complicate it any further."
Such harsh words. That had been the beginning, but he didn't want things to end like that. Not when they could have been so much more. Not when they had been so much more.
So say it. Open that big mouth and say it.
"Charlotte, please...." Those were the only words he managed to get out of his throat, though. Even if he'd had more, she wouldn't have let him speak. The anger he had been waiting for was already there, burning in her eyes. An anger that reminded him of the day she had strangled Richard to death.
"Get out of here or I won't be able to take responsibility for my actions."
"If you need someone to talk to..." He couldn't finish the sentence.
"Get out," she spat at him again, baring her teeth.
With one last sad look at her, Desmond turned and left the office at last. If he couldn't help her, he could at least stop bothering her.
——
Charlotte watched as Desmond turned his back on her
(again)
and left.
The door closing sounded like a gunshot. Charlotte gasped, shrinking in on herself.
Had he slammed the door?
Had it been the wind, or maybe it had just sounded so loud to her own ears?
"That wasn't what I meant. Damn it. That wasn't what I meant."
She still had time to open the door and run out after him and be honest.
But...
She remembered Richard, strangled to death by her own hands. She remembered the dozens of those faceless golden masks she had seen hanging. Who had hung by her order.
And as she looked around, she saw ruins as far as the eye could see.
It was too late now.
Too late.
Charlotte watched them walk away from the palace from the balcony, until they disappeared from her sight.
——
"I'm wondering something," Amy said suddenly.
It was being, at least for the moment, a quiet and relaxing trip.
No wonder, they had a good escort. Ten royal soldiers. They took turns driving the wagon, so they didn't have to do anything on top of it.
"Why did this man, Theo, disappear in the first place? I mean, he saved the kingdom from that plague. He became a hero. I'm sure he could have had anything he asked for. And he goes and disappears? Leaving all that behind?"
Extra strange that someone like her, who had left behind a life of wealth and privilege for a life so dangerous and lacking in so many things like this, would ask such a question.
The man could have had many reasons, despite everything.
Or precisely for that reason.
Perhaps he had wanted to escape from what he saw as a gilded cage.
"Well, he wasn't even officially credited," Christina replied. "I wouldn't be so sure. Maybe that was enough. Or he wanted to escape."
"Escape?"
"From people who wanted to use him, of course," Abigail interjected, ending the conversation.
Others came up instead, but Desmond stayed away most of the time. Instead he took to watching the scenery as they drove by. Trying not to think about anything in particular. Because when he let his thoughts wander, everything got worse.
Night fell and with it the pace of the wagon as weel.
He slept a little. Not too much, but the rest of the time he lay on the wooden floor of the wagon, pressed against Abigail, eyes closed.
Resting, even if he couldn't sleep. Even if? It's not like he'd be able to do anything to help no matter how many hours he slept. His battle was over. Maybe that man who had disappeared five long years ago was his last hope.
They were all inside, so they didn't see what happened.
But the consequences were immediately apparent. Everything was spinning. The wagon, it was the wagon, spinning around. He tried to grab onto something instinctively and couldn't, so he fell and spun with the wagon. The shrill screeches of the horses echoed in his ears like the trumpets of hell.
In the midst of that mess, his head hit a corner.
By the time the wagon stopped turning, Desmond had already lost consciousness.