The sun was halfway in the sky when the search party came back. At the helm of the group, he expected to see Ghislain striding along the tall grass with a sour expression on his face. Once they made eye contact with each other, the sour expression on his face would disappear and be replaced with his usual wry smile.

“Don’t tell me you waited all night for me,” Ghislain would say once he was within earshot.

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Joseph would respond with his own wry smile.

But to his surprise, it was Jehan, the officer who had volunteered to form the search party, who was the first to make it back. The other soldiers trailed behind him languidly. It was hard to read their expressions from afar.

“Marquis Joseph, I have returned,” Jehan said as he approached. The young noble’s face was a mixture of nervousness and fear for some reason.

“You took your time,” he said with a chuckle. He wanted to put Jehan at ease, but it seemed to have the opposite effect because he saw the officer’s legs trembling. “What’s wrong? Did you manage to find the prisoners, too?”

“No, it’s…the prince…”

Apprehension filled his chest. Perhaps subconsciously, he had avoided asking about the prince’s condition as his first question. “Well, what is it? Did he get injured?”

“No, it’s not that.”

Relief, cold but refreshing. “So, what is it?”

“I mean…he…Prince Ghislain is dead.”

“What?” His relief was gone as quickly as it came, and for some reason, he heard something quietly crackling in the background. “What do you mean?”

Jehan didn’t meet his gaze. “Well, we think it’s him.”

“What do you mean ‘you think?’” His voice was rising, trying to drown out the sound of the crackling which only got louder and louder. The rest of the soldiers had returned and were gathered around him, their shoulders slumped. The expression on their faces was – and he tried to stop looking at them because it would confirm his fears – grim and mournful.

That’s when the paladin arrived, his head bowed but not because of social etiquette. Cradled against his blindingly white armor was a charred corpse. It was hard to make out anything about the person, but its eyelids were sealed shut and its mouth was open as if it were desperately pleading for breath. Its flesh was a hardened black, its lower body missing. For a moment, Joseph just stared at it without understanding what he was looking at.

“We found his horse nearby,” the paladin said quietly, his gaze averted to the ground. “Several knife wounds on the horse’s body and,” he pointed at something on the corpse’s body, “there are matching wounds on the corpse.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you mean,” Joseph lied.

“Perhaps they wanted some information from him, but they couldn’t get it.”

“You want me to believe that this is...” He couldn’t finish the sentence.

“I promise you, Joseph, I will protect you.” Sir Roel lifted his head, revealing the bitter, angry expression on his face. “We will find those heretics, and we will make them regret what they’ve done.”

“I don’t understand what you’re saying. This can’t be…this can’t be Ghislain!” He waited for the paladin to respond, but he remained silent. “It can’t be. Why would they burn his body?”

“I’m not sure myself. I can only assume they were trying to threaten him somehow. There was also the matter of the tents. There could be a pyromaniac among the group. I know this is hard to hear, but –”

“No, I refuse to believe this is Ghislain! He wouldn’t die such a cheap death. He and I…we still have to…”

“We found this on the ground near some of the ashes.” The paladin opened his palm, revealing something golden. It was a cross. One that matched what he wore around his neck. The gift that he and Ghislain had exchanged with each other when they made the plan to escape Calorin.

And that’s when he became incapable of hearing anything else but the sound of crackling. Crackling fire: it was all around him, burning everything to ashes. The charred corpse was both Ghislain and his foolish mother, who had gone back into the castle to grab her prized tapestry only to burn with it.

For a moment of his grief, he was Ghislain. He wanted to blame someone, anyone, everyone. He blamed the heretics for not only killing him but also for killing him in such an inhumane way. He blamed the soldiers for not finding Ghislain sooner. He blamed Sir Roel for letting himself be attacked and for not detecting the heretics until it was too late. But most of all, he blamed himself for not running after Ghislain.

The first time he had met Ghislain was when he had been assigned to manage Magerra. Or, rather, what remained of Magerra.

Magerra, a duchy located in the northern part of Calorin, had been a hotspot for fur trading. As a result of its popularity, it also became a place where secrets and unlawful deals were exchanged. King Maxime had sent soldiers over to monitor the populace, but that only led to the civilians’ outrage. Joseph wasn’t quite sure about the exact details, but tensions escalated, and the peasants were violently suppressed.

His father was sent to help the prince manage the territory, but Joseph came along because of his father’s failing health. His father didn’t seem to be aware of it, but Joseph knew that their assignment to Magerra was most likely an attempt to ridicule them; Calorin nobility hated foreigners, even those who had sworn their loyalty and had paid a high price to the king in order to be accepted. Most likely, the Royal Council had laughed at the idea of sending a marquis whose territory had fallen to a peasant revolt to administrate an area that had just faced its own peasant revolt.

In his prime, his father had been a vain, greedy man who quick to anger and merciless in his anger. However, old age itself was a disease, and his once intimidating father had become a bumbling, senseless parody of himself. He was the kind of senile old noble that you’d see at comedic plays, the one that would mistakenly grab a bag of coins instead of breadcrumbs when feeding the birds. Joseph couldn’t laugh, though, because the man throwing silver coins at startled birds used to be the same man who used to order him to be flogged whenever he proved to be inferior to the other nobles’ sons.

So, it was with a mixed heart that he took care of his infirm father, giving him baths and wiping his mouth when soup dribbled down it. His first few days in Magerra were spent in the castle on the hill, taking care of his father, practicing his swordplay, and sifting through documents (though, of course, he was not allowed to sign any).

It was on the fifth day that the prince, twenty years of age, finally showed up on the doorstep with an entourage of advisors. Joseph was surprised to meet someone who was taller than he was, but he was also surprised at how rake-thin the prince was. If he didn’t know any better, he would’ve taken him for a peasant with his moppy hair and unshaven face.

“Greetings, Prince Ghislain,” he said with a low bow. The prince just gazed at him with his beady dark eyes and a surly grimace. “My father is currently ill right now, so I’m here to greet you in his place.”

“Is that so?” the prince said with disinterest. “Where is my room?”

“Ah, of course,” and he led him to his room. That was the only contact they had that day. The prince ignored his request to hold a banquet and instead ate supper in his room.

Over the course of the next few months, he grew to understand the prince’s thinking and routine. Never one to initiate, the prince would hole up in his room until Joseph came to ask him to sign documents. It wasn’t that the prince was stupid; he understood the various documents that Joseph showed him, and he would refuse to sign anything that involved raising the troops or the local army. He’d listen carefully to his advisors, but he wouldn’t hesitate to cut them off mid-sentence and bark new orders.

“What these people don’t need right now is someone to scrutinize their every move,” Prince Ghislain had ill-temperedly said when his advisors handed him a sheaf of paper authorizing martial law. Joseph just looked at him in awe; he had never expected a noble and especially not a prince to say something like that.

He held both respect and fear for the young man, and perhaps that’s where it would’ve ended if it hadn’t been for that one morning. He usually had sword practice in the field downhill from the morning to the afternoon, but he decided to head back up to the castle early.

As he walked by the courtyard, he glanced through the pillars and spotted his father sitting on the ground. Immediately, he was alarmed – his father sometimes stumbled and fell for seemingly no reason, and he bruised easily so such a fall could be fatal. But as he moved to help him up, he saw that sitting across from his father was Prince Ghislain. They were talking, the two of them, and Joseph stopped and listened.

“My son, he’s the best at swordplay in all of Arthain. He’s like a – err, what do you call them here? Paladins, was it? Well, he’s better than all of them stinking paladins.”

“Is that so?” As usual, the prince’s tone was detached, but he seemed to be paying attention to his father.

“Yup, yup. It’s the old blood in his veins. We’ve royal blood. He takes after his old man,” he said proudly, although the royal blood came from his mother’s side. His father looked around and spotted him. “There he is now, the pride of my county.”

“Father, Prince Ghislain,” Joseph stepped forward and gave a low bow.

“Ah, Joseph.” Prince Ghislain cleared his throat. He seemed to be just as embarrassed as Joseph was. “I thought it’d be prudent to seek the marquis’ advice on something.”

“Of course, Your Majesty. I apologize, though. I’m sure my father was not very helpful.”

“No, not at all,” the prince said with a strange fierceness. “Marquis Josse, you have given me a lot to think about.”

“That’s good, that’s good,” his father said. “But if you must excuse me, it is nearly time for dinner. Soup, there must be good tomato soup on the table! Do come, Joseph, you love tomato soup.”

“I will join you shortly,” he said, not bothering to correct his father about his preference in soup.

And with that, his father walked off not to the dining room but in the wrong direction towards the privy chamber. He and the prince both watched him leave in silence.

“I’m sorry you had to deal with his nonsense,” Joseph said. “He speaks nothing but gibberish now.”

“No, I think it’s…” The prince paused as if the word was stuck in his throat. “Never mind.”

Joseph looked curiously at him. “How often do you talk with my father?”

“Rarely,” the prince said quickly. “I happened upon him by chance one morning. I was taking a walk to clear my head, and he wakes up every morning to watch the sunrise.”

He was surprised to hear about his father’s morning habit. Whenever he came back to the castle after his morning practice, he would find his father lying in bed. “Thank you for keeping him company.”

“But you know, I don’t understand your contempt,” the prince said suddenly.

“Contempt? What do you mean?”

“Isn’t that what it is? Contempt towards your father, like he’s just some invalid? I’ve been observing you, too, you know. If I had a father like -- well, anyway, I think you treat him quite rudely.”

“Hm, perhaps I am too harsh to him sometimes. It’s just that my father used to be nothing like this. Growing up, he was always strict, uncompromising, and violent,” he said with a sigh. “The type of man to dunk his son’s head into a bucket of ice-cold water when said son failed to beat someone else’s son in a casual match of archery. So, I’m actually finding it harder to interact with him now that he’s…”

The prince looked taken aback for a moment before quickly averting his gaze to the birds flocking to the gaudy fountain in the middle of the courtyard. “I see. I’ve assumed too much.”

“No, it’s fine. I am glad you think so highly of my father. He is the only family member I have left, and without him, I suppose I’d have nothing.”

“Is that so?” And Joseph thought the conversation would end there, but the prince continued. “Then what do you plan to do?”

“Hmm? Plan to do about what?”

“What will you do when he dies?” the prince asked bluntly.

“Dies?” He was bemused by the sudden morbid turn in the conversation. “Well, I hadn’t thought that far, to be honest.”

“Death is cruel, violent, and merciless.” There was something strange about the way the prince said it. There were no emotions to his words, but it was clear that something was troubling him. Joseph wondered if what he had interpreted as the prince’s indifference was actually some kind of detached grief. He had seen his father in a similar state when they had first arrived in Calorin. “Do you not worry that you’ll be left with nothing after your father dies?”

“I’ve never worried about that,” he said honestly.

“What?” Now it was the prince who was bemused. “Is it because his death wouldn’t bother you? Because of how he treated you when you were younger?”

“No, of course it would bother me. And my childhood was hell because of him, but there’s not much I can do about it now. I’m not perfect and I will always resent him a little for it but isn’t it a son’s duty to resent his father?” he said with a small smile, hoping to lighten the mood.

“I’ve no time for jokes,” the prince, scowling.

“Well, I haven’t thought very far into the future,” he admitted, “But I know Father doesn’t have long. But even then, that’s fine, right? Nothing I can do about it. When he does pass, I’ll have to do what I can.”

“But doesn’t that bother you? That you can’t do anything about it?”

“I don’t know, should it?”

“Are you carefree or just a fool who can’t hold a single thought in his head?” There was anger in the prince’s voice, but for some reason, he knew it wasn’t directed at him.

“I’ll accept the title of a carefree fool,” he said with a chuckle. “Besides, there are still things I want to do afterward. What about you, Prince? Isn’t there anything you want to do?”

“Me? Don’t try to rattle me with your nonsense.”

“I don’t mean to offend,” he said, but somewhere during the conversation, his fear of the prince had abated. At the very least, he felt that the prince was the type to end a conversation if he really wanted to. “I don’t have any concrete goals, but at the very least, I want to accomplish something for the kingdom or my bloodline that would make my father proud.”

“The same father who abused you as a child?”

“Isn’t it also a son’s duty to impress his father?”

“How contradictory,” the prince mused. “Your thoughts are much too different from mine.”

“Is that so?” he said, unintentionally imitating the prince’s manner of speech. “I think we want similar things.”

“You like to joke.”

“You intend to rule Magerra peacefully and with little intervention, right? I think that’s a wise choice.”

The prince grunted. “More violence would only throw the duchy into further chaos. Besides, I’ll be here for a few more months, and it’d be troublesome if there were another revolt.”

“Yes, I agree with your approach. See? We want similar things.”

“What a stupid way to reason,” the prince said, but there was a wry smile on his face. It was strange to see the prince with anything but a scowl or a grimace, and perhaps emboldened by the sight, Joseph decided to press forward.

“So, what do you want, Prince Ghislain?”

“Are you still on that?”

“You must want something for yourself, right?”

“Ridiculous,” the prince said, and then he started walking away.

It would take four years of pestering until Ghislain would finally tell Joseph his dreams of sailing far away from the kingdom and starting a new, quiet life as a farmer. (“Is there a problem with a prince who wants to be a farmer,” the prince would snap at him, but Joseph would laugh and assure him that it was a beautiful dream.) In that same conversation, Ghislain would convince Joseph to call him by his name.

However, at this exact moment, they were still acquaintances at best, and a man who closely guarded his secrets like Ghislain would never reveal his thoughts so freely. Perhaps that was the second point of difference between him and Ghislain.

So, his past self, worried that he’d upset Prince Ghislain by chasing after him, just stood still as the prince disappeared from view. And his past self overlapped with the Joseph Chastain of yesternight who did nothing but stand still and watch as the fire blazed, crackling as it consumed the rest of his world.