Chapter 116: Silence

Sometimes silence is the worst answer.

In this instant, Sooreman embodied this quote better than anyone else could possibly have. His mask of genuine worry and kindness had crumbled to reveal his true nature. Anger once more painted his face after my rejection, twisting his otherwise elegant traits on the right side of his face.

I waited with bated breath as he struggled to keep his calm— ready to defend myself. I waited for his last resistance to yield, but it did not.

Contrary to my expectations, Sooreman didn’t immediately attack me.

If eyes could kill, I would certainly be dead ten times over, but his acts didn’t follow his thoughts, and strangely this made me even more worried than a plain frontal confrontation because I knew that Sooreman wasn’t the kind of man to take no for an answer.

“I see,” he finally muttered after long seconds of relative silence considering the surrounding explosions and screams of battle. “That’s… unfortunate.”

I didn’t have time to answer anything as he abruptly turned around.

He didn’t try to punish me for rejecting his offer, he didn’t even try to take the ring he desired by force. The whole place was still deserted. Nothing prevented him from attacking me, so why?

I should probably feel fortunate and prayed for our paths to never cross again, but I couldn’t stay silent.

“Does our deal still stand?” I tentatively asked, not forgetting the greed he had shown when my ring had entered his eyes.

“This city will fall, you fool!” he stated with absolute certainty without even turning around or slowing his steps. “When the wall will fall, no one will have any deal anymore,” he declared with a heavy voice, answering my question at the same time.

Slightly panicked after having my fears confirmed, I screamed the first thing that crossed my mind to make him stop.

“You’re right!”

His steps indeed halted after hearing me. He turned to look above his shoulder, a questioning gaze on his face.

“You’re right about me… I’m,”

“—It doesn’t matter,” he interrupted, making anything I had to say die in my throat. “It doesn’t matter anymore,” he continued in a more leveled voice while completely turning around. “I thought you could see the fate of this city and understood what it meant for you… I was wrong. You’re just a kid, blinded to reality by his own hopes.”

“I know the situation is grim, but with these elemental stones, we could change the tide of the battle. The wall could hold,” I screamed, trying to convince him.

“Maybe,” he consented. “Or maybe you’re simply delusional and refuse to accept the situation. Maybe you just threw away your last chance of survival for you and your girlfriend because of your absurd promise to free these children from slavery, but either way, you’re not listening— you refuse to listen; you don’t realize,” he enumerated with a strangely defeated look. “Whether this city truly falls this time or not, it doesn’t matter. I know how your story will end.”

Once more I was put on the wrong foot by his cryptic words and the look on his face.

Was it sadness I saw for an instant?

I shook away this strange thought and searched for any way to convince him to change his mind.

However, I couldn’t find anything.

I thought I had him figure out.

I thought I understood everything there was to know about him.

However, his acts proved me wrong.

“If you’re so sure I will die, then why don’t you try to snatch my ring before it happens,” I finally asked, not able to hold back this question that made me doubt everything I thought I knew about him.

For a few seconds, I thought Sooreman would simply ignore me, but he straightened his long strand of hair hiding the left part of his face, and gave me a strange self-mocking smile as incomprehensible to me as his reaction to my rejection.

“Because even if you refused to join me, I’m still curious to see if you will surmount the coming storm or be devoured by it. Horde or not, I can leave whenever I want. Getting your artifact from your mangled corpse will be slightly troublesome but manageable. Who knows? Maybe you will survive. Maybe when you confront true despair, you will finally embrace your nature as a survivor and regret rejecting my offer. If you do, I will offer you my hand once more, and this time I have no doubt that you will take it. So do try to survive my little boy-wonder. Struggle and remember what you truly are, before it’s too late.”

With these last words as a parting gift, he turned around. I watched him walk away for long seconds without being able to say anything. He had given me my answer and for an instant, I didn’t know what to do anymore. Until I finally understood what I had missed in our first encounter.

Everything he had said to me came back and it all became clear.

For an instant, I finally truly glimpsed behind the mask.

If I was right, I still had a chance.

“If you’re so sure, then why not bet on it?” I finally screamed to stop his steps once more.

“What?” he immediately asked in an awkward voice, unable to understand what I meant.

I quickly walked the distance separating us to stand just in front of him, with my eyes staring directly at his own. He was double my height, but for an instant, I could have sworn I saw him shrink under my gaze. Not because he was afraid, not because he was intimidated, but because he had understood the moment our eyes met. He had said too much, given too many hints, and now the mask he had crafted years ago had started to slip from his face to reveal his true self.

“If the wall falls, I will accept to join you, but if it holds then our deal still stands. We will meet to exchange my ring for Seth and Himara’s freedom,” I declared brazenly.

“You’re still thinking about the animal brats? They’re nothing to you, you didn’t even know them a few months ago. So why would you go to such lengths to save them?”

He knew the answer or certainly expected it.

Like me with him, he had seen behind my lies and excuses. He had understood why I couldn’t take his hand but still needed to hear it.

“Because that’s not the kind of person I am and certainly not the kind of person I want to be. I know that I won’t be able to look at myself in the mirror if I just abandon them. This is who I am, who I became. It’s that simple.”

A long silence followed my words. For an instant, his eyes became distant as if he was lost in thought, then in a whisper, he asked the question I had been struggling with.

“Is it worth dying for?”

“I don’t know,” I simply answered.

Sooreman's slightly surprised face was all I needed to know that he hadn’t expected this answer.

“You’re right about me, I am a survivor,” I continued. “Another less flattering way to say it would be to say that I’m afraid of dying. I have stared at death directly and felt its breath down my neck more closely than many people will ever do in their life so I understand just how fearsome it is. I don’t want to die, and certainly don’t want to put my life on the line for things like honor or glory. However, this doesn’t mean that I have to live this life in fear.”

My last sentence apparently struck a bit too close for comfort if his rounded eyes were any indication.

“—And I certainly don’t want to live it with regrets. That’s why I will keep my promise. I will free Seth and Himara and together with my other companions, we will survive. That’s the promise I made and the only end to my story that I will accept!”

Sometimes silence is the best answer.

For long minutes, Sooreman didn’t have anything to answer to my declaration — to my promise — but his face told me everything I needed to know.

When finally a smile cracked his lips and deformed his appearance into the most pleasant face I had seen him do until now, I saw for an instant the cruel and greedy slave dealer disappears, replaced by a young elf smiling at the absurd words of a strange youngster.

Soon after, a long raspy but genuine laughter broke this silence between us.

How many years had it been for him to laugh like that? I had no way to know, but when I heard it I immediately realized his answer.

“You want me to save you if you fail despite refusing my initial offer? You want the best of both worlds… You’re a greedy one, aren’t you Sillath?” he asked while putting his laughter under control, but without letting the wide smile splitting his face in two leave his lips. “I like it, but your determination and pretty words won’t change the cost of this decision. As surely as the sun rises each day, sooner or later your path will end in blood and despair as it did for me. Your determination to protect them and constantly put your life on the line for their sake will be your downfall. If the wall falls, you will join me and accept your failure to save your companions on your own. Seth and Himara will remain slaves, you will have regrets, you will be bitter, but you will be alive! And that’s all that matters in the end. There is no greater winner than a survivor!”

He and I were the same, or more precisely, he had trended this pathway before me and declared the lessons he had learned from this with the same conviction as I previously did with mine.

“I suppose we will see which one of us is right…” I concluded.

“We will, boy-wonder. This is a certainty. Show me your way, show me your determination and when you fall, when you realize the price of this folly, I will be here. If despite all this you survive, I will hold my hand to you one last time— you better take it then.”

We didn’t shake hands or exchange another word after that.

Long minutes after I had started to run across the deserted street of the city, even after I had encountered a dwarven soldier to entrust the three elemental stones, our conversation still replayed in my mind.

Was he right?

Will I really become like him if I stubbornly continue to put my life at risk for others?

Were sacrificing myself for my companions or giving them up for myself my only choices?

I didn’t regret my decision, for I knew the weight of regrets and guilt only too well, but even when I flew into the sky to fight against the horde of silver birds constantly attacking the reddish dome of light protecting the city, I still had these questions in a corner of my mind.

Bird after bird fell under my magic and blows.

I used my wind magic to move with an agility that no wings could give and offered a much-needed respite to the Lost magic constantly under assault by these otherwise unchallenged enemies.

I didn’t know if someone could see me fighting in the sky, I didn’t know if my efforts would be rewarded, or if the city would fall despite everything I did, but it didn’t matter.

I may be a fraud who had gotten this second life by chance, I may never be worthy of my brother’s sacrifice no matter how much I struggled and risked this new life, but this was the path I had chosen.

The path that I believed would give me the least regrets.

And for now, that was enough.