Chapter 103

Invisible Storms

“He lay her gently, caressing her sunlit hair and her smooth, porcelain-white cheeks. She… she was like a doll, fashioned anew, a sleeping beauty made to topple the Empires. But she was cold, unmoving, tranquil… Her Majesty… was dead.”

Historic Diaries

Noah's eyes peered past the curtained window of the carriage, deep into the day's vanishing horizon. His eyes were calm, awfully calm, his expression placid and indifferent. There was strange, eerie air about him, causing the rest of the people in the carriage to hold their breaths keenly, daring not to disturb him. He looked ready to explode at any moment, as though the simplest of touches would send him into the spiraling whirlwind of madness.

Inside, however, was no trace of such fire; Noah truly was calm, calmer than he had felt ever since arriving here. He’d shuttered the distracting thoughts, the melody of voices that would always swirl when he was thinking. In his mind, there was only one voice – his own – and the sparse thoughts that he was trying to make the sense of.

He had to be calm, as the game was changing. Everything… was changing. He felt like a cornered animal, his head within the scope of an invisible foe. Jovyer was dead, and with him died the calculated calm that Noah could rely on. Right now, Lumina… was on fire. Perhaps not the sort of blaze visible to the naked eye, not the likes which swallow up the world and leave it charred and in embers. It was the sort of fire that simmers, one that stays hidden under the bridges, behind the looming backs of those who stoke it.

For over a year now, he played the silent game, the one he saw the fittest as he didn't know much about his circumstances. He stayed silent, unnoticed, slithering about like a snake, fearful of every dark corner. Now, he knew, he wouldn’t be able to afford such living. Elucido that he will return to will be a silent beast ready to swallow everyone who is unprepared – and he was not prepared.

Jovyer’s death blindsided him, so much so that he was shellshocked when he heard the news. No, perhaps it was not the death itself – but the murder that had him spiraling into the dreaded calm. A King dying isn’t anything unnatural; everyone, after all, dies. But a King being murdered… paints a different canvas, with different colors and different brushes. The game… has changed.

The carriage suddenly came to a halt, as dozens of voices sprung out, waking him up. He glanced around the carriage and saw the fearful gazes of everyone present; even Asandra looked at him with certain pensiveness and fear, to say nothing of those much younger than her.

Noah said nothing, merely leaving the carriage and walking up the river's bank, looking over the turbulent waters. The Lumina Kingdom was not unlike Sumnner’s River, with there being two sides to it – the calm one, and the ghastly one. The issue was that the calm one, now, had died alongside the King, leaving behind only the tempest ready to explode and flood the whole world.

The sounds of the approaching footsteps caused him to look to the side where he saw a young woman wearing a faint smile approaching him. Lymena’s silver hair appeared harrowing underneath the sunburnt horizon, her twilight-colored eyes meeting his squarely. Unlike others inside the carriage, she lacked the pensive air about her when looking at him; if anything, there was a sense of anticipation billowing beneath the surface.

She stopped next to him without saying a word, turning to watch the river as well, her arms clasped behind her back. Despite the seemingly nonchalant posture, she was ready to strike at any given moment. She was a soldier first, he realized, and a Lady second.

“… you seem shocked.” She said after the lengthy silence, glancing at him.

“… aren’t you?” Noah asked back.

“Surprised, perhaps, but not shocked,” she said. “The tensions have been evident for decades now. Late King, for all the good he had done… had driven away many of his friends.”

“Idiotic friends…” Noah sighed.

“Perhaps. However, his death is not without reason.”

“… forgo the plans you have, Lady,” Noah said, glancing at her. “There will be no winners off of this.”

“Oh? And why is that?” she asked, seeming curious.

“…” he merely glanced at her emptily, causing her to shudder as he spun around and walked away, leaving her standing stunned for a long while before she recovered.

Noah found a silent and empty corner to sit down, leaning against the wooden wheel of the carriage. He felt tired and exhausted, nearing sickened. He pondered why it was so difficult; all he wanted… was just to understand what happened to him, what happened to others… and why didn’t they land here, with him. Yet, amidst that search, he’d found himself thrown into a whirlwind well beyond his control, into a world where he felt tiny, insignificant.

Magic or no magic, wit or no wit, he was still small. He had nothing to fall back on, no solid ground to stand upon, no contingencies to help him weather the storms.

He raised his arm and opened up his palm. Just a moment later, a gust of black smoke rifted through his fingers, turning into a spiraling, cloud-like structure. A moment later it was a knife, then an arrow, then a gun, and then a faceless mask… from one shape to another, entirely correspondent to his thoughts. Day by day, he found it less and less strange, his ability to do this. Even all technologies back on Earth pooled together would, at best, construct a hollow illusion of what he was doing. Smoke and mirrors.

The thought scared him, the realization that he was beginning to feel indifferent to these notions. He felt that he was drifting further and further from who he was, from a man that he’d been for decades. He was being pulled into this reality, grabbed by the invisible hands, chained by the invisible ropes, forgetting.

Even if he was careful back on Earth, he was never afraid, never so passive. His game was never to react, to wait for others to make their moves, and to salvage whatever situation he found himself in. He was never as reserved as he felt since coming here; if someone stood in his way, he wouldn't try and find a way to circumvent them – he would kill them, no matter who they were. That was how he forged his way, made his name a terror to those who heard it. That was how he survived, even when all cards were stacked against him. Just like now.

He gazed up, noticing that the moon had swung over, the dark night falling. There was still a strange crutch in his throat, something ethereal holding him back. Despite knowing that the best course of events was most definitely to simply disappear and lay low, abandon his post as Olivia’s Dacent and cut all the cords that were tying him to everyone… he couldn't do it. Laying low in the shadows, hiding in the corners, listening in, observing, manipulating others… he could do all that, but he would never be able to get the answers he was looking for this way.

Especially now, he knew. Olivia was too… volatile. In concert with the failure at the Brightfort, her Father’s death has a chance of pushing her over the fence. She has withdrawn from him, from everyone, spending days lost in thoughts and destitute. At the moment, she wasn’t fit for anything, let alone a grand plan that would have her swing the current status into her favor. She had been exposed to too much too quickly, and Noah himself had gravely miscalculated when it came to her.

Her dream, the thing he believed she was attached to more so than anything else in the world, was fleeting. She had turned her eye away from the world and inwardly, and had developed a high sense of morality toward the commoners. Though he had pushed her into the role, he had never expected her to mantle it to such a degree. She had taken the tens of thousands of deaths all on her shoulders, and she was not ready to bear them. That sort of weight was not something a young girl in her mid-twenties with virtually zero exposure to the dark side of reality could withstand without breaking.

She was on the cusps, yet Noah was unable to do anything about it. He was even certain that, a part of her, desired the missed martyrdom; had she fallen with them, she would have been written into histories, her name forever honored. Those are dangerous ideas, Noah knew. People with such complexes… cannot be stabilized, at least not in a short amount of time. They see the desired escape in that sacrifice, the means of symbolically achieving their short-strawed dreams.

It was dangerous, he mused, sighing aloud. His current position was… unstable, to say the least. He had no real grip on power, save for the enigma of his alter egos that people had lifted up well beyond his capacity to live up to them. If the worst comes to pass, he’ll have to don the singular identity that still held some sway, but it would be beyond suboptimal. He needed another clutch, another link to the grandiose hierarchy of the Kingdom. Someone far more stable and rooted than Olivia, and someone far less idealistic.

Though he knew someone like that would be almost impossible to manipulate to do his bidding, Noah knew just as well it would make it much easier to stabilize his position. Fyrosts were a good start, but they were not good enough; they had no love for him, just as he had no love for them. Right now, they were tossing eggs at his basket with the precursor being his connection to the enigmatic ‘Skyler’. That sort of a relationship, one built on lies and tricks, was too unstable to put his trust into.

"… hey." A soft, somewhat difficult voice jolted him once again as he looked up. Olivia stood right above him, her amber-colored eyes staring down at his with a strange sense of melancholy in them. She had changed her garb into an ordinary one, fashioned a hood to hide her face; it was Noah’s idea, just in case there were more attempts at her life on their way back.

“Hey.” He replied, smiling faintly. “Have you eaten?”

“I have,” she said, sitting next to him. “I’ve been thinking,” she added before Noah could say anything. “Thinking a lot, actually.”

“…”

“… I’m scared, Noah,” she said, pulling her knees up against her breast. “Not just of the knives that tried to take my life… not just of the truth behind my Father’s death… but more so because of my ignorance.”

“…”

“I’ve spent my whole life inside the walled paradise without ever even realizing it,” she chuckled bitterly, lowering her head. “Year after year, I spent decorating my room, dreaming dreams I had no means of achieving, entirely certain that the entire Kingdom was just like the stories described it: united, strong, just. Yet… in just this past year, I’ve come to realize that all of it… every single thing that I’ve learned was a lie. And I don’t know who or what to trust anymore.”

“… you can trust me.” Noah said.

"Can I?" she glanced at him. "I've gone to see the Wheel, you know?" she added somberly. "And, against all logic, it had spoken to me. And I'd seen myself, Noah – I'd seen myself sitting on that throne, wearing that crown."

“…”

“Right then, I decided to trust you – no matter what you ask of me, I’d do it, no questions asked. But… look, now.” Tears welled up in her eyes, her smile turning strained and pained. “I’ve listened to you, and I’ve done all you’ve asked. But… suddenly… neither the crown nor the throne… seem worth it.”

"… they never are, Olivia," Noah sighed after a short silence. "Besides, when did the throne and the crown become your goals?"

“…”

“The girl I met back then, the one who gave me a lifeline, wanted to know the truth behind the world. She wanted to set sail beyond the borders, to lay her eyes upon the world on the outside. The crown and the throne… they were just means to an end, just a stepping stone to realizing her dreams. Have you forgotten?”

“… no. I haven’t forgotten,” she said, wiping her tears away. “I just… I just didn’t think it would be this hard. This painful. I just can’t understand… why is everyone fighting all the time? Why is everyone dead-set on gilding their names over doing what is right? Why is everyone so greedy for more when they already have everything they could possibly ever want?”

“… it’s human nature to want, Olivia,” Noah said. “Nothing is ever enough. If you set your goal to earn a hundred Crowns, once you have that hundred, you’ll want a thousand. And then ten thousand. And then you’ll want a better house, a bigger house, a more beautiful wife, best clothes, the ones tailor-made for you, horses, guards, mansions… people spend their whole lives chasing after more than what they have.”

“… but why do they do it at the expense of others?” she asked. “The Kindled… could have been handled without those tens of thousands of people dying. They could have easily reached the Brightfort earlier than us and fought, saving countless people in the process. Why did they wait for so, so many to die?”

“… I don’t know,” Noah replied honestly. “Not any more than you do. Whatever the reason… we’ll find out. Eventually.”

“… aren’t you angry?” she looked at him again, her voice turning colder. “Frustrated?! Pissed off? At all?!”

“…”

“Do you even feel anything?!” she moved closer to him, her forehead inches away from his, her spit splashing onto his face. “Or is all of this just nothing to you? What if I was one of the dead? Would you have cared at all?”

"…" Noah remained silent, merely staring into her eyes. Just as he suspected, she had become too volatile.

“… so far, I gave you my trust,” she said as she got up. “But from now on… you will have to earn it.”